I’m bloody dead, Niles had time to think, before two massive impacts sledged him back sprawling against the log. Then the Royalist was twisting sideways against something that shouted and lunged behind a glint of metal. Too late, and the Helot’s bayonet grated into his lower chest; nemourlon was excellent protection from fragments, moderate against blast and no good at all against cold steel. The return stroke with the rifle butt laid him out beside his comrades, and the rifle poised.
“No,” Niles wheezed. “Don’t kill him.”
He looked around, fighting the savage pain when he breathed, feeling at his stomach and chest. The covering of the armor was ripped, and he could feel the heat of the flattened disks of lead alloy embedded in it, digging into his skin where the tough material had dimpled inside as it came close to parting. One of his ribs might be—was—cracked, but the nemourlon had stopped both rounds. It was supposed to be proof against pistol-calibre, but that had been awfully close . . . a good thing the local arms industry doesn’t run to tungsten.
“Sir, you all right?” the guerilla trooper said, flat on the ground and scanning upslope.
“Yes,” Niles lied. “Here, pull the straps on my chest armor tighter. Lieutenant,” he went on, touching the side of his helmet, “you have any prisoners?”
“Yeah, sir. Five anyways, all cut up pretty bad. You want I should slag ’em?”
“Negative!” Niles said sharply. Not gentlemen at all, he reminded himself. But they’re brave lads, and they can learn. “I’m going to buy us a little time with them, Lieutenant. Pass the word to be ready to pull out sharpish.” He looked over at the three wounded Royalists, two were still breathing. At his watch: 0410. “Man that machine gun, soldier,” he said to the trooper who had saved him. It was the same type the Helots used, a Remington M-72 model 2050, and familiar enough.
“More Cits comin’!” from upslope, as the trooper wrestled the bipod-mounted weapon around.
CrashCrashCrashCrash of mortars, the soft coughing thump of a medium recoilless, followed by whirrrrrrr-whomp! as the shell landed and blasted dirt into the air uncomfortably close; a thirty-meter oak toppled back and downslope, rolling and bounding in the heavy pull of Sparta’s gravity. A deep cheer, and firing. Niles touched his helmet in another combination, switching to a frequency the enemy used and broadcasting in clear.
“Royalist commander! White flag, parley!”
* * *
“Push ’em back, Brothers! Kings and Country!” Lysander shouted.
The line of RSI infantry was dodging forward; yelling like madmen and firing from the hip as they ran on the heels of their mortar fire. They were coming in on the south side of the trapped Royalist platoon, flanking the enemy flankers; well-aimed machine gun fire lashed out at the rescuers, but the forest made it impossible to keep much ground under fire. A trumpet sounded from the Royal Army line, high and sweet over the crackling of burning trees and brush.
“By squads,” Lysander said. His automatic weapons were opening up, covering the short dashes of the infantrymen who then covered the forward movement of the machine gun teams. Grenades arched through the woods toward the rebels, the RSI troops taking advantage of their higher position on the hillside, white flashes that faded on nightsight goggles like blinking at the sun and then away. Suddenly it was the guerillas who were under fire from both sides.
“Royalist commander! White flag, parley!”
Lysander started violently, almost breaking stride. He went to cover with practiced skill.
“You want to surrender?” he said, switching to clear on the same band. The firefight grew in intensity as men blasted at each other from point-blank range.
“No, do you?” the voice said coolly; Lysander gritted his teeth in fury. Two of his men were dragging a third back upslope, and the wounded man’s legs glistened black in the amplified light of the prince’s face shield.
Recorder. Turn on the recorder, Lysander thought.
“Actually,” the rebel continued—his voice was incongruously cultivated, a British accent like Melissa’s grandfather— “I’ve got eight or ten of your men down here, badly wounded I’m afraid. Ten minutes truce to pull out our wounded, and you can have them back. This immediate area only, of course. One thousand meters radius from your position.”
“Who’s this?” he asked, playing out the scenarios in his mind.
“Senior Group Leader Graham, Spartan People’s Liberation Army,” the rebel said. “Who might you be?”
“It hardly matters.” Lysander made hand signals. Continue the attack.
“It’s their funeral. Your Brothers.”
“No deal,” Lysander said. “Harm my men and you’ll hang, if you live that long.” Switch to command channel. “Let’s go kill that smug son of a bitch! Go, go—” He thumbed the command set again. “Get me the Colonel.”
* * *
“All units, WIPERS, I say again, WIPERS,” Owensford broadcast. “WIPERS, TRILOGY, WESTWOOD.” Don protective equipment and prepare for chemical attack. All troops without protective gear withdraw from present positions. Fall back and regroup for counter attack.
“Andy, who’s mobile with chemical protection?”
“Prince Royal’s Own, sir.”
“Where are they dug in?”
“On— They’re not dug in. They’re moving, in support of one of the Brotherhood units.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“You aren’t surprised?”
“Should I be? Andy, make sure Collins acknowledges WIPERS, TRILOGY, WESTWOOD.”
“Aye aye.”
“Sparks, get me Morrentes.”
* * *
“Morrentes.” That line, at least, was secure.
“Sir.”
“They’re coming right at you, and it’s clear they believe they’ll win. We can’t figure how unless they use gas, and so far as we can tell, every one of theirs has chemical protection gear.”
“Holy shit, Colonel, most of my lads—”
“Right. So bug out, and now.”
“Where to?”
“High ground. Group toward Barton’s force. And don’t get lost. We’ll need you again.”
“Well—Colonel are you sure about this?”
“No. If I’m wrong, I’ll have let them sucker you out of a good position. That’s not fatal. They may be able to raid your camp, but looting the baggage has got more than one army killed. You’ll still outnumber them, and you’ll be ready to counter attack. And if they are using gas, Major, if they are—”
“Yes, sir. OK, here I go.”
“Barton.”
* * *
“Right here, Boss.”
“You been following this?”
“Better than that,” Ace said. “I sent out a couple of my own drones. Jesus is right, they all got gas gear. A few have already put their masks on.”
“Scared,” Peter said. “Can’t blame them. All right. They’ll send in their gas, then what? Jump Morrentes’s position, I’d guess.”
“Me too. Devious mind, Colonel. Devious mind.”
“It isn’t going to work.”
“Didn’t say smart, said devious. Amateur’s plan. Terrorists rehearse everything fifty times and think being prepared for friction and bad luck means you don’t expect everything to go right. In the real world—”
“In the real world, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy,” Peter said. Falkenberg’s favorite military aphorism.
“Eggszactly. So I’m sending my chemical protected troops up to take good positions. When the rebels overrun Morrentes’s camp, we pound hell out of them, then while they’re figuring that out, we’ll be in position to counterattack.”
“That sounds right. I’ll leave you to it, then. Hurt the bastards, Ace.”
“I’ll do that little thing. Out.”
“Andy, get me Captain Mace.”
“Mace here.”
“How are your SAS units?”
“As you requested, I have four operational and standing by.”
“Good. Jamey, they’re about to bite off more than they can chew. When that happens they’ll figure to fade off into the hills.”
“Yes, sir—”
“So I want your SAS teams standing by to vector Thoth in on them when they run. Use what air transport we’ve got to inject those lads into good positions to cover retreat areas.”
“Roger. Can do. Colonel, I have a problem. Miscowsky wants to go after Lieutenant Lefkowitz.”
“Yeah, he’s served with Jerry, that figures. What is that situation? Can Miscowsky’s team do any good?”
“Colonel, I don’t know, and that’s a fact. We’ve got the crash site pinpointed, but there doesn’t look to be anyone there. It’s just damned hard to know.”
“Assume she’s alive. Which way will they take her if they break and run?”
“You really expect them to break, Skipper?”
“Good chance of it. They’re gambling a lot on this gas attack. Or whatever they’re aiming down my throat.” Peter watched as his screens showed updates on the enemy positions. “And they’re still at it, trying to run right down our throats like there’s no tomorrow. Jamey, what the hell else could it be that would make them act like this?”
“Yeah. I expect you’ve hit on it. Suppose they stop and pull back now?”
“Let ’em. They’ve still got to run a gauntlet to get out of there. Jamey, use your own judgment on trying to rescue Lefkowitz.” Which means he’ll send a team, of course. “But have teams ready to pound on ’em when they run.