Major Jeremy Savage regarded his position with satisfaction. He not only had the twenty-six guns taken from the Friedlanders at Astoria, but another dozen captured in scattered outposts along the lower Columbia, and all were securely dug in behind hills overlooking the Gap. Forward of the guns were six companies of infantry, Second Battalion and half of Third, with a thousand ranchers behind in reserve.
“We won’t be outflanked, anyway,” Centurion Bryant observed. “Ought to hold just fine, sir.”
“We’ve a chance,” Major Savage agreed. “Thanks to Miss Horton. You must have driven your men right along.”
Glenda Ruth shrugged. Her irregulars had run low on fuel 180 kilometers west of the Gap, and she’d brought them on foot in one forced march of thirty hours, after sending her ammunition supplies ahead with the last drops of gasoline. “I just came on myself, Major. Wasn’t a question of driving them, the men followed right enough.”
Jeremy Savage looked at her quickly. The slender girl was not very pretty at the moment, with her coveralls streaked with mud and grease, her hair falling in strings from under her cap, but he’d rather have seen her just then than the current Miss Universe. With her troops and ammunition supplies he had a chance to hold this position. “I suppose they did at that.” Centurion Bryant turned away quickly with something caught in his throat.
“Can we hold until Colonel Falkenberg gets here?” Glenda Ruth asked. “I expect them to send everything they’ve got.”
“We sincerely hope they do,” Jeremy Savage answered. “It’s our only chance, you know. If that armor gets onto open ground . . .”
“There’s no other way onto the plains, Major,” she replied. “The Temblors go right on down to the Matson swamplands, and nobody’s fool enough to risk armor there. Great Bend’s Patriot country. Between the swamps and the Patriot irregulars it’d take a week to cross the Matson. If they’re comin’ by land, they’re comin’ through here.”
“And they’ll be coming,” Savage finished for her. “They’ll want to relieve the Doak’s Ferry fortress before we can get it under close siege. At least that was John Christian’s plan, and he’s usually right.”
Glenda Ruth used her binoculars to examine the road. There was nothing out there—yet. “This colonel of yours. What’s in this for him? Nobody gets rich on what we can pay.”
“I should think you’d be glad enough we’re here,” Jeremy said.
“Oh, I’m glad all right. In 240 hours Falkenberg’s isolated every Confederate garrison west of the Temblors. The capital city forces are the only army left to fight—you’ve almost liberated the planet in one campaign.”
“Luck,” Jeremy Savage murmured. “Lots of it, all good.”
“Heh.” Glenda Ruth was contemptuous. “I don’t believe in that, no more do you. Sure, with the Confederates scattered out on occupation duty anybody who could get troops to move fast enough could cut the Feddies up before they got into big enough formations to resist. The fact is, Major, nobody believed that could be done except on maps. Not with real troops—and he did it. That’s not luck, that’s genius.”
Savage shrugged. “I wouldn’t dispute that.”
“No more would I. Now answer this—just what is a real military genius doing commanding mercenaries on a jerkwater agricultural planet? A man like that should be Lieutenant General of the CoDominium.”
“The CD isn’t interested in military genius, Miss Horton. The Grand Senate wants obedience, not brilliance.”
“Maybe. I hadn’t heard Lermontov was a fool, and they made him Grand Admiral. O. K, the CoDominium had no use for Falkenberg. But why Washington, Major? With that regiment you could take anyplace but Sparta and give the Brotherhoods a run for it there.” She swept the horizon with the binoculars, and Savage could not see her eyes.
This girl disturbed him. No other Free State official questioned the good fortune of hiring Falkenberg. “The regimental council voted to come here because we were sick of Tanith, Miss Horton.”
“Sure.” She continued to scan the bleak foothills in front of them. “Look, I’d better get some rest if we’ve got a fight coming—and we do. Look just at the horizon on the left side of the road.” As she turned away Centurion Bryant’s communicator buzzed. The outposts had spotted the scout elements of an armored task force.
* * *
As Glenda Ruth walked back to her bunker, her head felt as if it would begin spinning. She had been born on New Washington and was used to the planet’s forty-hour rotation period, but lack of sleep made her almost intoxicated even so.
Walking on pillows, she told herself. That had been Harley Hastings’ description of how they felt when they didn’t come in until dawn.
Is Harley out there with the armor? she wondered. She hoped not. It would never have worked, but he’s such a good boy. Too much of a boy though, trying to act like a man. While it’s nice to be treated like a lady sometimes, he could never believe I could do anything for myself at all. . . .
Two ranchers stood guard with one of Falkenberg’s corporals at her bunker. The corporal came to a rigid present; the ranchers called a greeting. Glenda Ruth made a gesture, halfway between a wave and a return of the corporal’s salute and went inside. The contrast couldn’t have been greater, she thought. Her ranchers weren’t about to make themselves look silly, with present arms, and salutes, and the rest of it.
She stumbled inside and wrapped herself in a thin blanket without undressing. Somehow the incident outside bothered her. Falkenberg’s men were military professionals. All of them. What were they doing on New Washington?
Howard Bannister asked them here. He even offered them land for a permanent settlement and he had no right to do that. There’s no way to control a military force like that without keeping a big standing army, and the cure is worse than the disease.
But without Falkenberg the revolution’s doomed.
And what happens if we win it? What will Falkenberg do after it’s over? Leave? I’m afraid of him because he’s not the type to just leave.
And, she thought, to be honest Falkenberg’s a very attractive man. I liked just the way he toasted. Howard gave him the perfect out, but he didn’t take it.
She could still remember him with his glass lifted, an enigmatic smile on his lips—and then he went into the packing crates himself, along with Ian and his men.
But courage isn’t anything special. What we need here is loyalty, and that he’s never promised at all . . .
There was no one to advise her. Her father was the only man she’d ever really respected. Before he was killed, he’d tried to tell her that winning the war was only a small part of the problem. There were countries on Earth that had gone through fifty bloody revolutions before they were lucky enough to have a tyrant gain control and stop them. Revolution’s the easy part, as her father used to say. Ruling afterwards—that’s something else entirely.
As she fell asleep she saw Falkenberg in a dream. What if Falkenberg wouldn’t let them keep their revolution? His hard features softened in a swirling mist. He was wearing military uniform and sat at a desk, Sergeant Major Calvin at his side.
“These can live. Kill those. Send these to the mines,” Falkenberg ordered.
The big sergeant moved tiny figures that looked like model soldiers, but they weren’t all troops. One was her father. Another was a group of her ranchers. And they weren’t models at all. They were real people reduced to miniatures whose screams could barely be heard as the stern voice continued to pronounce their dooms. . . .
* * *
Brigadier Wilfred von Mellenthin looked up the hill toward the rebel troop emplacements, then climbed back down into his command caravan to wait for his scouts to report. He had insisted that the Confederacy send his armor west immediately after the news arrived that Astoria had fallen, but the General Staff wouldn’t let him go.
Fools, he thought. The staff said it was too big a risk. Von Mellenthin’s Friedlander armored task force was the Confederacy’s best military unit, and it couldn’t be risked in a trap.
Now the General Staff was convinced that they faced only one regiment of mercenaries. One regiment, and that must have taken heavy casualties in storming Astoria. So the staff said. Von Mellenthin studied the map table and shrugged.
Someone was holding the Gap, and he had plenty of respect for the New Washington ranchers. Given rugged terrain like that in front of him, they could put up a good fight. A good enough fight to blunt his force. But, he decided, it was worth it. Beyond the Gap was open terrain, and the ranchers would have no chance there.
The map changed and flowed as he watched. Scouts reported, and von Mellenthin’s staff officers checked the reports, correlated the data, and fed it onto his displays. The map showed well-dug-in infantry, far more of it than von Mellenthin had expected. That damned Falkenberg. The man had an uncanny ability to move troops.