The first line that I drew ripped through four sheets of paper. It had been some time since I’d done any delicate work in a suit. I remembered how in training, they’d made us practice controlling the strength-amplification circuits by passing eggs from person to person, messy business. I wondered if they still had eggs on Earth.
The diagram completed, I couldn’t see any way to add to it. All those reams of theory crammed in my brain; there was plenty of tactical advice about envelopment and encirclement, but from the wrong point of view. If you were the one who was being encircled, you didn’t have many options. Sit tight and fight. Respond quickly to enemy concentrations of force, but stay flexible so the enemy can’t employ a diversionary force to divert strength from some predictable section of your perimeter. Make full use of air and space support, always good advice. Keep your head down and your chin up and pray for the cavalry. Hold your position and don’t contemplate Dienbienphu, the Alamo, the Battle of Hastings.
“Eight more carriers out,” Charlie said. “Five minutes. Until the first eight get here.”
So they were going to attack in two waves. At least two. What would I do, in the Tauran commander’s position? That wasn’t too far-fetched; the Taurans lacked imagination in tactics and tended to copy human patterns.
The first wave could be a throwaway, a kamikaze attack to soften us up and evaluate our defenses. Then the second would come in more methodically, and finish the job. Or vice versa: the first group would have twenty minutes to get entrenched; then the second could skip over their heads and hit us hard at one spot-breach the perimeter and overrun the base.
Or maybe they sent out two forces simply because two was a magic number. Or they could launch only eight troop carriers at a time (that would be bad, implying that the carriers were large; in different situations they had used carriers holding as few as 4 troops or as many as 128).
“Three minutes.” I stared at the cluster of monitors that showed various sectors of the mine field. If we were lucky, they’d land out there, Out of caution. Or maybe pass over it low enough to detonate mines.
I was feeling vaguely guilty. I was safe in my hole, doodling, ready to start calling out orders. How did those seventy sacrificial lambs feel about their absentee commander?
Then I remembered how I had felt about Captain Stott that first mission, when he’d elected to stay safely in orbit while we fought on the ground. The rush of remembered hate was so strong I had to bite back nausea.
“Hilleboe, can you handle the lasers by yourself?”
“I don’t see why not, sir.”
I tossed down the pen and stood up. “Charlie, you take over the unit coordination; you can do it as well as I could.
I’m going topside.”
“I wouldn’t advise that, sir.”
“Hell no, William. Don’t be an idiot.”
“I’m nçt taking orders, I’m giv-”
“You wouldn’t last ten seconds up there,” Charlie said.
“I’ll take the same chance as everybody else.”
“Don’t you hear what I’m saying. They’ll kill you!”
“The troops? Nonsense. I know they don’t like me especially, but-”
“You haven’t listened in on the squad frequencies?” No, they didn’t speak my brand of English when they talked among themselves. “They think you put them out on the line for punishment, for cowardice. After you’d told them anyone was free to go into the dome.”
“Didn’t you, sir?” Hilleboe said.
“To punish them? No, of course not.” Not consciously. “They were just up there when I needed. . . Hasn’t Lieutenant Brill said anything to them?”
“Not that I’ve heard,” Charlie said. “Maybe she’s been too busy to tune in.”
Or she agreed with them. “I’d better get-”
“There!” Hilleboe shouted. The first enemy ship was visible in one of the mine field monitors; the others appeared in the next second. They came in from random directions and weren’t evenly distributed around the base.
Five in the northeast quadrant and only one in the southwest. I relayed the information to Brill.