The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

“First cut analysis: your upper limit’s blown away. The satellite hasn’t been reporting properly, and we must ignore all its data. The conclusion is that we do not know what we’re facing.”

“How truly good,” Owensford said. “What else?”

“They’re trying for a giant Cannae.”

“Hell, we knew that.”

“Yes, sir, but they have more in place than you thought. We have been thoroughly deceived from the beginning. The satellite data were not merely incomplete, they were corrupted.”

“How?”

“Someone is spending money like water,” Alana said. “They have imported gear that we cannot afford, and people who can use it.”

“People who didn’t come off a BuReloc transport, that’s for sure. OK, we have rich enemies off-planet. What do I do this morning? What’s vulnerable?”

“The force to the south is not well organized,” Alana said. “And they cannot be reliably in communication with their headquarters.”

“Not in communication. But they’re moving. So they’re following a plan.”

“Probably.”

“OK. A giant Cannae, and they think it’s working. I want to think about that. You flog hell out of the data and report when you have something. Out.”

After the battle he’d have to send a report to Falkenberg. And a letter to Jerry Lefkowitz. But just now there were other things to worry about.

“Andy.”

“Sir?”

“They want us to move into the jaws. We want them to think we’re doing it. Have all the units out there keep up coded chatter, lots of message traffic.” He typed furiously. “OPERATION RATFINK, VARIATION THREE. GET YOUR STAFF PEOPLE WORKING ON THAT.”

* * *

“Senior Group Leader, we have confirmation, they’re talking a lot,” the headquarters comm sergeant said.

“Acknowledged.” Niles grinned, and turned to the company commander. “Right on schedule. The Brotherhood troopers will be coming down there,” Niles said quietly, pointing west and to his right as his left hand traced the line on the map. “Get as far upslope as you can, dig in, and hold them. You’re going to be heavily outnumbered. Hold while you can, then pull out; but every minute counts.”

“They’ll have to come to us,” the Company Leader said. “Can do, sir.”

“Good man. Go to it.”

That’s G Company gone, the Englishman thought, as they headed into the trees.

A stiff price, but worth it. They had gambled heavily on Skilly’s plan. Niles had argued that it was too complicated, and was ordered to stop being negative.

But it’s working. It really is.

He had to trot to catch up with his headquarters squad; nobody was stopping now. The three remaining companies of Icepick were moving at better than a fast walk, through the thick snow-laded brush of the swale between the two Royalist forces; you could do that, with a little advance preparation of the ground and a great deal of training. Already past the skirmish at the minefield; he could hear the crackle of small-arms fire half a kilometer away to his left.

God, I hope the rocket batteries are still up. Enough of them, at least; the Royalist counterbattery fire had been better than expected. At least they seemed to have run out of whatever they’d used to support the SAS teams, those horribly accurate rockets. . . .

Violet spheres of light floated across the sky. Six lines of three on the main First RSI position. Another six on the Brotherhood battalion to his right, that ought to give them something to think about. Six more on the unit off on the enemy’s western flank. They’ll be out in the open. Should be taking heavy casualties, that will help George company. Then the crump of mortars and the rattle of small arms; the better part of four companies of Helots putting in their attack on the flanking unit right on the heels of the bombardment One hour thirty minutes to the satellite, he thought.

Group Icepick was nearly silent as it moved, only the crunch of feet through the snow and the hiss of the sleds. There were ten of those, each pulled by half a platoon, bending into their rope harnesses. The loads were covered by white sheeting that bid the lumpiness of mortars and heavy machine guns, recoilless rifles, boxes and crates. The men trotting silently through the forest undergrowth in platoon columns were heavily burdened as well, with loads of ammunition and rifle grenades, spare barrels and extra belts for the machine guns, light one-shot rockets in their fiberglass tubes, loops of det cord. They showed little strain and no confusion, only a hard intent concentration.

Well, Skilly was right, he thought; training to the point just short of foundering them was the only way.

There was a sudden burst of small-arms fire and shouting from just ahead and to the left.

“Report!” he snapped.

“Sir, First platoon, E Company, Cit’s comin’ down off the ridge. ‘Bout a platoon of ’em, we’re engaging.”

Rotten luck, he thought. Still, you couldn’t expect the enemy to cooperate with the plan. Act quickly.

“Kolnikov,” he said, keying his circuit to the E Company leader. “Detach First and Third to me, you’re in charge, get Icepick where it’s going and fast, then set up. Headquarters platoon,” he continued to the men around him, “Signalers and techs, accompany Company Leader Kolnikov until I rejoin you. The rest of you, follow me. Move!”

He angled to the left and increased his pace to a pounding lope, all he could manage in this gravity with what he was carrying. The men followed, and all down the column the pace picked up as the orders were relayed. There were no cleared lanes through the brush upslope, but his men wormed through it quickly enough; visibility dropped to five meters or less, and stray rounds began clipping through the branches unpleasantly close. Grenades were going off, and he could hear the hiss of the light rockets the guerillas carried. A glance at his wrist.

0300. One hour twenty minutes.

“Sutchukil here,” a voice said in his ear as he went to one knee and waved the others past him. “The enemy aircraft is down.”

“Good,” Niles said. Intelligence would be interested, and the “consultants” were as eager as their stoneface training allowed to get their hands on Falkenberg’s electronics. A prisoner would be a bonus too, although Legion people were said to be very stubborn. God, it’s getting comfortable to think of fifteen things at once, I must getting used to this business. “Advise the nearest officer to send a patrol. Out.”

* * *

“Wake her up.”

A cold tingling over the surface of her skin, and Lieutenant Lefkowitz blinked her eyes open. She was lying against a packing crate, in a gully that was not quite a cave. There was a strip of faint light thirty meters up, where moonlight leaked through interlacing branches across the narrow slit in the stone, a little more from shaded blue-glow lanterns. Below the walls widened out, vanishing into darkness beyond. To her right the gully narrowed and made a dog-leg; that must be to the outside. Men were moving in and out; out with boxes and crates from the stacks along the walls—skis and sleds I knew it, that thing with the propellor must be a powered snowsled—and on the other side of the cave she could see the cots and medical equipment of a forward aid-station. Nobody in it yet, the medics standing around watching or helping with the work.

The air was cold enough to make her painfully conscious of the thinness of her khaki garrison uniform, and smelled of blood and medicines and gunoil and the mules stamping and snorting somewhere back in the darkness.

“She’s awake.” The voice was kneeling at her elbow; a woman in camouflage jacket and leather pants like all the rest she could see moving around, with corporal’s stripes and a white capital M on the cuff. The shoulder flashes held nothing she recognized except a red = sign on a black circle.

“Fit to stand rigorous interrogation?” An officer, from his stance and sidearm; Asian, short and stocky-muscular. In the same uniform as the others, but without insignia, and he wore something that was either a long knife or a short sword in a curved laquered sheath at his side. She felt a slight chill as his eyes met hers. Complete disinterest, the way a tired man looked at flies.

The medic nodded. “Bruises, wrenched ankle, cut on the arm, slight chill, no concussion,” she said, as she packed her equipment and headed back to the tent with the wounded.

“Stand her up.”

Hands gripped her and wrenched her to her feet; she bit the inside of her mouth to keep from crying out at the pain in her head. The enemy officer turned to a bank of communications equipment, an odd mixture of modern-looking modules and primitive locally manufactured boxes. Very odd. None of the advanced equipment are models I could place. Functions, yes, but not these plain black boxes without maker’s marks or even the slightly bulky squared-off look of milspec. His hands skipped across a console, and a printer spat hardcopy. He held it up, looked at her, nodded and raised a microphone.