The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

“It will be doubly bad in this case,” Falkenberg said. “No regimental pride. No accomplishments to brag about. No battles. I’d like to avoid that.”

“How, sir?” Bonneyman asked.

Falkenberg seemed to ignore him. He adjusted the map until the section between the city and Fort Beersheba filled the screen. “We march up the Jordan,” he said. “I suppose it was inevitable that the Federation of Churches would call the planet’s most important river ‘Jordan,’ wasn’t it? We march northwest, and what happens, Mr. Slater?”

I thought about it. “They run, I suppose. I can’t think they’ll want to fight. We’ve much better equipment than they have.”

“Equipment and men,” Falkenberg said. “And a damned frightening reputation. They already know we’ve landed, and they’ve asked for negotiations. They’ve got sources inside the palace. You heard me arrange for a social invitation for five days from now.”

We all laughed. Falkenberg nodded. “Which means that if we march tonight, we’ll achieve real surprise. We can catch a number of them unaware and disarm them. What I’d like to do, though, is disarm the lot of them.”

I was studying the map, and I thought I saw what he meant. “They’ll just about have to retreat right past Fort Beersheba,” I said. “Everything narrows down there.”

“Precisely,” Falkenberg said. “If we held the fort, we could disarm everyone coming through. Furthermore, it is our fort, and we’ve orders to occupy it quickly. I remind you also that we’re technically at war with the River Pack.”

“Yes, but how do we get there?” I asked. “Also, Captain, if we’re holding the bottleneck, the rest of them will fight. They can’t retreat.”

“Not without losing their weapons,” Falkenberg said. “I don’t think the Colonel would be unhappy if we really pacified that area. Nor do I think the militia would have all that much trouble holding it if we defeated the River Pack and disarmed their survivors.”

“But as Hal asked, how do we get there?” Louis demanded.

Falkenberg said, “I mentioned helicopters. Sergeant Major has found enough fuel to keep them flying for a while.”

“Sir, I believe there was something in the briefing kit about losses from the militia arsenal,” Deane said. “Specifically including Skyhawk missiles. Choppers wouldn’t stand a chance against those.”

“Not if anyone with a Skyhawk knew they were coming,” Falkenberg agreed. “But why should they expect us? The gear’s at the landing dock. Nothing suspicious about a work party going down there tonight. Nothing suspicious about getting the choppers set up and working. I can’t believe they expect us to take Beersheba tonight, not when they’ve every reason to believe we’ll be attending a grand ball in five days.”

“Yes, sir,” Deane agreed. “But we can’t put enough equipment into three choppers! The men who take Beersheba will be doomed. Nobody can march up that road fast enough to relieve them.”

Falkenberg’s voice was conversational. He looked up at the ceiling. “I did mention Skyhooks, didn’t I? Two of them. Lifting capacity in this gravity and atmosphere, six metric tons each. That’s forty-five men with full rations and ammunition. Gentlemen, by dawn we could have ninety combat Marines in position at Fort Beersheba, with the rest of the 501st marching to their relief. Are you game?”

VIII

It was cold down by the docks. A chill wind had blown in just after sundown, and despite the previous heat of the day I was shivering. Maybe, I thought, it isn’t the cold.

The night sky was clear, with what seemed like millions of stars. I could recognize most of the constellations, and that seemed strange. It reminded me that although we were so far from Earth that a man who began walking in the time of the dinosaurs wouldn’t have gotten here yet, it was still an insignificant distance to the universe. That made me feel small, and I didn’t like it.

The troops were turned out in work fatigues. Our combat clothing and armor were still tucked away in the packs we were loading onto the Skyhook platforms. We worked under bright lights, and anyone watching would never have known we were anything but a work party. Falkenberg was sure that at least one pair of night glasses was trained on us from the bluff above.

The Skyhook platforms were light aluminum affairs, just a flat plate eight meters on a side with a meter-high railing around the perimeter. We stowed packs onto them. We also piled on other objects: light machine guns, recoilless cannon, mortars, and boxes of shells and grenades. Some of the boxes had false labels on them, stenciled on by troops working inside the warehouse, so that watchers would see what looked like office supplies and spare clothing going aboard.

A truck came down from the fort and went into the warehouse. It seemed to be empty, but it carried rifles for ninety men. The rifles went into bags and were stowed on the Skyhooks.

Arrarat has only one moon, smaller than Earth’s and closer. It was a bloody crescent sinking into the highlands to the west, and it didn’t give much light. It would be gone in an hour. I wandered over to where Deane was supervising the work on the helicopters.

“Sure you have those things put together right?” I asked him.

“Nothing to it.”

“Yeah. I hope not. It’s going to be hard to find those landing areas.”

“You’ll be all right.” He wasn’t really listening to me. He had two communications specialists working on the navigation computers, and he kept glaring at the squiggles on their scopes. “That’s good,” he said. “Now feed in the test problem.”

When I left to go find Falkenberg, Deane didn’t notice I’d gone. Captain Falkenberg was inside the warehouse. “We’ve about got the gear loaded, sir,” I told him.

“Good. Come have some coffee.” One of the mess sergeants had set up the makings for coffee in one corner of the big high-bay building. There was also a map table, and Sergeant Major Ogilvie had a communications center set up there. Falkenberg poured two cups of coffee and handed one to me. “Nervous?” he asked me.

“Some.”

“You can still call it off. No discredit. I’ll tell the others there were technical problems. We’ll still march in the morning.”

“It’ll be all right, sir.”

He looked at me over the lip of his coffee cup. “I expect you will be. I don’t like sending you into this, but there’s no other way we can do it.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

“You’ll be all right. You’ve got steady troopers.”

“Yes, sir.” I didn’t know any of the men, of course. They were only names and service records, not even that, just a statistical summary of service records, a tape spewed out by the personnel computer. Thirty had been let out of the brig for voluntary service in Arrarat. Another twenty were recruits. The rest were Line Marines, long service volunteers.

Falkenberg used the controls to project a map of the area around Beersheba onto the map table. “Expect you’ve got this memorized,” he said.

“Pretty well, sir.”

He leaned over the table and looked at the fort, then at the line of hills north of it. “You’ve some margin for error, I think. I’ll have to leave to you the final decision on using the chopper in the actual assault. You can risk one helicopter. Not both. I must have one helicopter back, even if that costs you the mission. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir.” I could feel a sharp ball in my guts, and I didn’t like it. I hoped it wouldn’t show.

“Getting on for time,” Falkenberg said. “You’ll need all the time you can get. We could wait a day to get better prepared, but I think surprise is your best edge.”

I nodded. We’d been through all this before. Was he talking because he was nervous, too? Or to keep me talking so I wouldn’t brood?

“You may get a commendation out of this.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather have a guarantee that you’ll show up on time.” I grinned when I said it, to show I didn’t mean it, but I did. Why the hell wasn’t he leading this assault? The whole damned idea was his, and so was the battle plan. It was his show, and he wasn’t going. I didn’t want to think about the reasons. I had to depend on him to bail me out, and I couldn’t even let myself think the word “coward.”

“Time to load up,” Falkenberg said.

I nodded and drained the coffee cup. It tasted good. I wondered if that would be the last coffee I’d ever drink. It was certain that some of us wouldn’t be coming back.

Falkenberg clapped his hand on my shoulder. “You’ll give them a hell of a shock, Hal. Let’s get on with it.”

“Right.” But I sure wish you were coming with me.