“Pretty big for a boat house,” Mace said.
“Not likely a boat house, not on Tanith, sir,” Miscowsky said. “Colonel, I never noticed until we got here and took a good look, but they’ve got solar screens all over that place, more than a farm that size would have. Lots of juice. I think they’re making hydrogen and LOX, and where else would they store it but near the docks?”
“Hmm. As far as we can tell, Norton Star carries Talin class landers,” Falkenberg said. “Just barely have the legs to make orbit from a sea launch. They’ll need all the fuel they can get—all right, Miscowsky, I’ll buy that, you’ve located the fuel facility.” Falkenberg studied the hologram again. “And these will be barns?”
“Yes, sir. These two are cattle barns. This one’s for horses. The ones set up above are farm worker barracks.”
“The horses have better facilities. All right.” Falkenberg studied the holographic display another few moments, then looked up. “Mr. Prince, you and Mace look as if you’re melting. Come to that, I find it pretty warm myself. All right, everyone take ten minutes to cool off. Get outside and loosen up your equipment. Ventilate properly. Then I’ll want you again. Under here, I’m afraid. We’ve gone to this much trouble to keep Barton’s troops from knowing about us, no point in taking chances now. Ten minutes, gentlemen. Meanwhile, Sergeant, I have a task for your SAS team.”
* * *
The sky was dull grey. There still wasn’t enough light to see objects, but when he knelt Lysander could just tell where the lumpy tarp was, and he thought he could see someone approaching from the other side. He winced at the thought of the stifling heat, then crawled under. Mace and Janowitz were already there. A moment later Falkenberg joined them.
“Gentlemen. No doubt you’re wondering what I’m doing here when I could be back at headquarters.” He waited a moment, and when there was no answer, Falkenberg chuckled. “Only you’re too polite to say so. To begin, Lieutenant Mace, I did not come here because of any lack of confidence in your ability to control the situation.”
“Thank you, sir.” Mace’s voice was flat.
“In fact, there’s not a lot for you to control,” Falkenberg said. “We’ve laid our plans. The headquarters staff can carry out their end. You and Janowitz are more than competent to bring off your part. It’s a good plan, and we have sufficient forces. With no more than ordinary luck we’ll accomplish the objective. Cripple the landing ship and take Rochemont.”
“Yes, sir.” Mace said.
Falkenberg touched his helmet and the holographic image of the Rochemont area sprang up between them. “Unfortunately, given the enemy’s position here, doing that is likely to be expensive, in lives and money. Anyone disagree?”
Lysander frowned at the projected map. “No, sir. And there’s a chance it won’t work at all. Or that they’ll destroy the borloi.”
“Exactly. So,” Falkenberg said. “We have the best plan we can think of, but it’s hardly an elegant solution to our problem. I’ve come to see if we can pass a miracle.”
“Sir?”
“No battle plan survives contact with the enemy,” Falkenberg said. “That’s the elder Moltke, but the principle had been known for a long time when he said it.”
“Wasn’t Cannae according to plan?” Lysander asked.
“Yes, Mr. Prince. Of course Cannae required the Romans’ cooperation. Commanders have been trying to duplicate Hannibal’s success ever since. Most haven’t done so, because the enemy generally won’t be as obliging as Gaius Terentius Varro was. Certainly Major Barton won’t be. On the other hand, Hannibal was in Italy in the first place because the Romans believed it impossible to cross the Alps with an army. Surprise can do a very great deal.”
“Yes sir?”
“Let’s look at the situation. First, the objective. What is our objective, Mr. Mace?”
“Sir? Ah. To capture the borloi.”
“Correct,” Falkenberg said. “Not to capture Rochemont, but to get possession of several tons of borshite juice. What’s the first requirement for that, Mr. Janowitz?”
“Well, to keep them from moving it somewhere else while we get enough troops in place to take Rochemont,” Lieutenant Janowitz said. “Which is where we come in.”
“Right. That’s the plan. Of course, it’s the expensive way. Is there another?”
The officers peered at the maps and photographs. “I sure don’t see how we can get the stuff without taking Rochemont,” Lieutenant Mace said.
“Yet we think they are going to pack it into a landing boat,” Falkenberg said. “If we could take that boat after they’ve loaded it—”
“Yes, sir, we’ve all been thinking of that all the way here, but there’s no way,” Lieutenant Mace said. “Colonel, the minute that landing boat comes in, they won’t try to hide anything. They’ll have those radars sweeping every inch of ground around Rochemont. They probably already have trip wires. Mine fields too.”
“Besides,” Lieutenant Janowitz said. “Even if we could take the landing boat, what would we do with it?”
“One thing at a time,” Falkenberg said. “If you had that boat, Mr. Prince, what would you do with it?”
“Fly it to the capital,” Lysander said.
“Fly? And who’d do that?” Mace demanded.
“I could.”
“Precisely,” Falkenberg said. “As it happens, Mr. Prince has had quite extensive training. He is one of the three qualified landing boat pilots in the Regiment.”
“Sir? I’m hardly qualified. I’ve done the training, yes, sir—”
“Three flights, I believe? Takeoff, atmosphere flying, and landing from orbit. You’re the best qualified pilot we have, actually.”
“Well, if you say so, sir. Uh—Colonel, who are the other two?”
“Captain Svoboda. And me.”
“Colonel—” Lieutenant Mace drew in his breath. “Colonel, just what do you have in mind?”
“About what you think, Mr. Mace. A miracle. A small change in Major Barton’s plans.”
Lysander looked at the projected charts of Rochemont’s defenses. “With respect, Colonel, it would take a miracle. Granted I—we could fly that boat out of here, how do we capture it? We can’t even get to it.”
“That’s certainly what Barton thinks,” Falkenberg said. “Just as the Romans believed Hannibal couldn’t get to them from North Africa.”
“Colonel, the Alps is one thing, that field’s another. They’re bound to have radars sweeping that whole area right now.”
“They do,” Miscowsky said. “Random intervals, but often enough to keep anyone from getting across those fields. Even my squad couldn’t make it.”
“Precisely,” Falkenberg said. “They’re watching the fields. Makes them feel safe. But I doubt they have sonars—”
“Sonar?” Miscowsky said. “Colonel, you ain’t thinking of swimming over there? Colonel, everybody knows you don’t swim on Tanith! You’d be breakfast for a nessie before you got halfway!”
“Everyone agrees? You can’t get past the nessies?” Falkenberg asked. “Good. I’m sure Barton believes it as well.”
“Believes it because it’s true, Colonel,” Miscowsky said. “I don’t know much about this crazy planet, but I know that! Sir, it ain’t a matter of guts, or firepower. It wouldn’t be easy to fight off a nessie, but maybe you could do that, only Barton’s people would sure as hell know you did it! And the damn nessie might win the fight anyway.”
“My analysis precisely, Sergeant,” Falkenberg said. “I came to that conclusion before we left headquarters.” He reached into his battle armor and produced a tape cassette. “We can’t fight nessies, but perhaps we can avoid them. I had an advantage over you, Sergeant. Being at headquarters I could do some research. More precisely, find out who has already done the research. I called in Mrs. Chang and asked who knew the most about nessies. It turns out there is one team that does nothing but study them.”
Falkenberg slapped the tape against his palm. “I got the reports and read them, then I had Mrs. Chang download this from the governor’s data banks. It’s a tape of nessie calls.”
Lysander frowned. “Sir?”
“Feeding calls, mostly. As it happens, there were two deep diving sea sleds in the regimental quartermaster stores. When we loaded the choppers I brought them, and two scuba outfits,” Falkenberg said. “Now suppose that we put this tape into an amplifier on a sea sled. I also have tapes of the sounds of crippled prey. Calls and swimming sounds. Put those in the sled, too. Now suppose we send that sea sled on autopilot out into the bay. Make part of that sled’s load a dead porker. A bleeding dead porker. When it gets out a way, turn on the tapes.”
Lysander nodded to himself. “And while the nessies are following that, we take the other sled over to the dock area. It might work, but won’t the landing boat cause problems? How do nessies react to something like that? Will they even hear the tapes?”
“I don’t know, Mr. Prince,” Falkenberg said. “I don’t propose to wait that long. My notion was to get over there while it’s still dark. There seem to be ample places to hide.”