The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

“Ms. Schramm’s working on the antenna now, sir. Five minutes.”

“Right.” Stop. Breathe deep. Now go to the window and look out— Secondary explosions in the mine-fields. Someone was taking some real punishment. So are our people, with all that artillery pouring in, but the Helots have to be losing more, they’re in the open.

“Legion Headquarters, Fort Plataia sir.”

“Owensford here.”

“Barton. Uploading situation report.” There was a warble of data. “Feed complete.”

“Received.” A long pause. “Jesus, Ace, what’s going on up there?”

“This one’s it, sir. I’d say they’ve committed damned near everything they have. Not just troops, look at how much ordinance they’re expending.”

“So why are you talking to me?”

“If you’ll look close at the situation report, General Owensford, you will discover that you are God damned near the only person I can talk to.”

“Oh. Lahr! Andy, get Jesus and Catherine in here on the double, then start looking into what direct communications we have with any unit in General Barton’s Command. Move! OK, Ace, what you got from where you sit?”

“One hell of a mess, Boss. I got a bad feeling on this one. No command, no control, no communications, and no bloody intelligence.”

“They any better off?”

“Some,” Ace said. He took another deep breath.

“Actually, things can’t be going so good for them, either. They penetrated the computer system here, good move, everything was tied to it. Used the computer to disable the mines and security systems. Had some inside help, too, saboteurs, God knows what else. But we turned the mine fields on with manual. I don’t know how many of their troops are out there, but a lot of mines are going off and there’s a lot of secondary explosions.”

“Ace, are you telling me you have most of the Helot army trapped inside your perimeter?”

“Skipper, we just may, but it’s not clear just who has who trapped. I doubt their command elements are in here. They don’t much go in for Rommel style. More like Hitler.”

“Well. Clarifies your objective, doesn’t it?”

Barton laughed. “General, just at the frigging moment the objective is to live through all this! But yeah, I see what you mean. We got them in a killing zone. Only problem is, we don’t have a lot handy to kill them with, and they seem to have plenty to do unto us.”

“You have two battalions coming.”

“Up river and up those roads. This’ll be long over by then.”

“Royal Cavalry in Olynthos. Prince Lysander went up there yesterday. I could send that. The Air Cav units could be there in a couple of hours.”

“Maybe not,” Ace said. “They’ve got bugger all equipment up here. They must have known that Air Cav was down there. This is typical Skilly. Devious. Started with a small attack on an outpost to lure out the reaction force, an ambush for the relief column to make Stora Mine commit their mobile force, an ambush for that, then the main attack—sure as God made a mule ornery, they’ve got something that can take out the airborne troops, and it’s already in place.”

“Good thinking, Ace. Still, I will have to report to the Prince.”

“Yes, sir, but make sure he understands. Christ. He’s there with the Air Cav? I didn’t know that, but bugger all, it doesn’t mean they didn’t.”

“It doesn’t mean they did, either, Ace. Thanks to Major Cheung we plugged that Palace leak.”

“They could have another. Dammit, Peter, they get me thinking they’re ten feet tall—”

“The great thing—”

“Is not to lose my nerve. Yes, sir. Wilco.”

“Right. You’re in charge, Ace. I’ll see what I can organize from here.”

“Thanks. It’s heating up, I better get back to it. Don’t let them suck the Prince into anything stupid.”

“Godspeed. Out.”

Something was happening outside. A line of massive explosions slammed their way across the open space outside the control building. One struck a parked ore-hauler, throwing the hundred-tonne machine onto its side; a moment later it pinwheeled across the gravel again, as a fuel dump went up in a soft whomp of orange flame and black smoke. The crump . . . crump sounds echoed off the mountainside, were joined by others throughout the settlement as more explosive fell out of the sky.

Ace Barton took a deep breath. “Sergeant, feed counterbattery data to the perimeter posts and the armory.” The armory at least had light artillery in revetments, and heavy mortars of its own. “Do what you can to get communications so we have a decent situation report. And anybody you can get to, tell them we win if we hold on. They haven’t accomplished dick yet, and their surprise is over. Now all we have to do is live through this.”

* * *

“We got to get out of here!” someone was screaming.

“Keep moving, keep moving,” Niles barked into the speaker.

They were supposed to be destroying the town, planting explosives everywhere, making the Citizens’ homes uninhabitable. If I take time to do that, we won’t get out of here at all, Niles thought. And the mine fields are active again. He shuddered. A few minutes earlier and he’d have been in the middle of that field when it activated. As it was he’d lost a fifth of his command to the mines. Dead or run away and there’ll be more of those. Just vanished. Where do they think they can run? There was no safe place. If the Royals didn’t find you, Skilly would. But Skilly won’t hold this area after tonight, so all they’ll have to worry about is the Royals.

Groups of infantry were moving, but it wasn’t a very orderly maneuver. They were supposed to fan out and make contact with the other Helot formations that would be pouring in through the breached defenses, but not all the defense system was breached, and it wasn’t at all clear just what part was. Somewhere out there he should find reinforcements, but he didn’t know where. This is becoming one monumental cock-up.

His force was divided. He had led some across the greensward while the mines were off, but not all had made it before the field was suddenly activated. Not only had he lost men, he’d lost contact with a third of his force, who were back there in the perimeter, trapped between two mine fields. Paths would have to be cleared before they could advance or retreat, but there was no one to clear them.

“Incoming!”

Niles hit the dirt. There was a nightmare of explosions, some close, some distant. He scrabbled with his radio. “Cease that artillery on north sector, I say again, cease, you’re dropping into areas we hold.”

There was no acknowledgment, but eventually it stopped. Niles got up to look at the situation. Men were cursing. They knew where that barrage had come from and they didn’t like it at all. “Who’s fucking side are they on?” someone shouted. There were answering curses.

Niles put that out of his mind, and tried for a calm assessment of the situation. He was near a residential community. The houses were shuttered, but they weren’t all empty. Fire spat from a house half a kilometer away. Helot fighters dove for cover like reeds rippling in the wind. Some returned the enemy fire, shooting wildly, while others hugged the ground and waited. The black stone blocks of the shuttered house eroded under the return fire as if they were being sandblasted, in a shower of sparks and ricochets, but it didn’t stop the Spartan sniper. Finally two Helot rocketeers came up. They snapped open the collapsible fiberglas tubes, came up to kneeling position and took careful aim; these were the light unguided bunkerbusters. Whooot-crash. A house half a block from the target showed a spurt of flame. There were more rifle blasts and the Helot went down. His partner cursed and got the rocket launcher.

Niles tried to shout to the man to move to a different location, but he wasn’t listening. He got the launcher loaded, raised up, aimed. Another whoosh, and this time the windows of the house blew out in a spectacular shower of fire and shards. A burning figure staggered out the door to lie and twitch for a second. One more obstacle out of the way, but it had cost them time.

Ask me to give you anything but time. Who said that? Doesn’t matter. “Keep moving! Up, up, move, move,” Niles urged. “You can’t stay here!”

“Sir, jamming’s off.”

Niles cursed silently; that meant the Royalists had communications again. Continued Helot jamming would hinder their own side now more than the enemy. And I’m in a pocket, and I don’t know what I have in here. The timetable was shot all to shit. Niles had never believed much in that timetable. Too damned complicated, too many units to get to different places, too many things had to happen at the same time. Skilly kept insisting it was a simple plan, just a simple wedge attack, breach the defenses, seek out and destroy, but it hadn’t looked simple to Niles. It was hard enough just to get one unit to move on a schedule, under fire or not, and this had dozens. Niles had tried to get von Reuter to discuss it, but the German wasn’t about to criticize Skilly’s plan. No one would. Afraid to sound like defeatists. So we went with this, and now—