“Well, yes—”
“General Barton here. Who is this?”
“Calls herself Field Prime, General,” Major Bitterman said.
“Field Prime, this is General Barton.”
“Good. Surrender, and I don’t smash in that Armory.”
“The Armory is a hospital and shelter for noncombatants,” Barton said.
“I don’t believe you, but I don’ care much either. You surrender or we crack it open.”
“General, she’s bluffing,” Bitterman said. “This place would withstand anything up to nukes.”
“Field Prime don’t bluff, as you going to find out. I give you your chance. You don’t get another.”
“Suppose the hospital did surrender?” Barton demanded. “What does that do for you?”
“Oh, fuck off,” Skilly said. She cut the connection. “Hey, Jeffi, that bunker be one big military target. Skilly not to blame if the Cits put people over the ammo and power supply, hey?”
He nodded. “Yes . . . I suppose that’s true,” he said. His shoulders straightened. It is. A damned sight more of a military target than Dresden was, after all. Not that it mattered, the Royalists already had evidence enough to hang them all six times over for violations of the Laws of War. Unless we win. Winners write the laws.
She touched her helmet again. “Tetsuko. Do it.”
* * *
Barton looked down at the plotting table. The Helot attack reached through the perimeter of Stora Mine like a knobbly treetrunk, with branches reaching out to touch objectives, twisting around obstacles or strongpoints. He was starting to get an accurate picture; also starting to put serious pressure on the attackers. Daring. Bold. But they depended on their electronic edge too much. If we’d been here another week—
If we’d been here another week they would have found out and called off the attack. Attack? Or raid? Did they have an objective other than loot and generally smashing things up?
Information was flowing in now. Disorganized as they’d been, the Brotherhood had put up a good defense, which was what Barton had intended. Defense in place was a lot simpler and easier than a coordinated attack, and these Brotherhood troops all knew each other, had worked with each other, knew what to expect. The enemy had pummeled them in a few places, but by and large the Brotherhood forces had held, and that was all they needed to do.
There was one coherent enemy force around what had been defensive post 12, and many pockets of disorganized Helots, some in minefields, others in old bunkers, but all cut off from the enemy’s main body. Put screening units out to keep those groups disorganized and make sure they didn’t rally, because some were in a position to do some real damage if they broke free, but otherwise leave them alone for the moment. They’d surrender soon enough when they saw they were abandoned.
That left the rest of the Helots, an organized force of fewer troops than he had in total, but larger by far than any integrated force he could put together. The Helot main body was dug in and holding, but rear elements were already withdrawing, and they were sending back a stream of heavily laden vehicles. Concentrate artillery fire on that group, especially on their escape routes. Every possible shelter, and every crossroads, had long ago been added to the target data base, so it was a matter of picking targets for indirect fire and feeding in their coordinates. Drop rounds onto the roads, knock out vehicles that would have to be cleared away before anything else could get past. Make the enemy think he was being cut off. It took steady veterans to go on advancing when they were afraid their line of retreat was cut.
Right. The artillery fire plan could be left to the local militia officers. They could read maps as well as he could, and they’d seen the terrain.
And that would be wearing the enemy down something fierce. Which is about all I can do just now.
Aggressive patrols to make the enemy bunch up, and aggressive artillery to pound them when they did bunch up, and meanwhile gather enough troops to mount a real counter attack. Time’s on our side now. . . .
“Sir,” the technician said. “Launch, from one of the perimeter bunker locations under enemy control.” The sergeant was frowning as he tracked. “Very odd trajectory, sir. Straight up, almost. Several—better than five clicks.”
Some sort of suborbital? he thought. Then: Oh, Christ. The whole purpose of the attack was suddenly plain. Not just to shatter the mine, to demoralize the Citizens of Stora Mine and the northlands around it. Some wounds anger, but there are others that break the spirit. That’s what the enemy intended. Had intended all along. His hand stabbed out toward the communicator, then froze. There was nothing he could do, nothing at all.
“Sir, it’s a two-stage. Computer says antifortress penetrator, heavy job. Apogee. Coming down under thrust. Coming down fast. Jesus, Mach 18! 20! Jesus, it’s—”
The ground shook beneath their feet.
* * *
“Prepare to pull out,” Skilly said, raising herself to her knees and wiping blood from the corner of her mouth. The explosion had been more like an earthquake, this close.
The bunkers around the underground fortress were intact, but there was a gaping hole near the entrance to the main bunker. Smoke rose from it. It looked bad, looked terrible.
Baffles and multiple armored doors had protected the weapons posts. The steady fire continued, then the Spartan defenders realized what had happened behind them, and then every remaining weapon opened up, firing continuously with no thought of maintaining concealment. Wire-guided missiles lashed out in return from the Helot positions, beamriders. The savage exchange of fire continued for a minute, then died away. The Helot troops couldn’t take the losses and dove for cover. Someone screamed near by.
“Fuck this shit, fuck it, fuck this motherfucking shit!”
“Steady,” Skilly shouted. “General comm, Phase—”
RAK. Yip had raised himself to reel in the surveillance camera; the sniper bullet punched through his shoulder, upper lungs and out the other side without slowing much. Everyone dove as it whined around the room, pinging off concrete with that ugly sound that told experienced ears the thumb-sized lump of flattened metal might hit anyone from any direction. The guerrilla NCO’s heels drummed briefly on the floor, as blood flooded out from nose and mouth and the massive exit wound under his left armpit.
“—Phase Five, say again, Phase Five,” Skilly repeated.
Almost on the heels of her words the first of the huge demolition charges the guerrillas had cobbled together from captured blasting explosive went off, with a jarring thump that was loud even a kilometer away. The remaining militia could be expected to press their pursuit with reckless courage, and the Helots intended to make them pay for it. With explosive and steel rather than close-quarter fighting, where possible; with ambushes where it was not.
“Now, Jeffi. Now we run, and they come after us, and we kill them.”
CHAPTER TEN
No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.
—Helmuth von Moltke
* * *
“All day for nine hours we ran. It was the contagion of bewilderment and fear and ignorance. Rumour spread at every halt, no man had his orders. Everyone had some theory and no plan beyond the frantic desire to reach his unit. In ourselves we did not know what to do. Had there been someone in authority to say, ‘Stand here, do this and that’—then half our fear would have vanished. So I began to realize, sitting in my swaying car, how important the thousand dreary things in an army are. The drill, the saluting, the uniform, the very badges on your arm all tend to identify you with a solid machine and build up a feeling of security and order. In the moment of danger the soldier turns to his mechanical habits and draws strength from them.” Alan Moorehead, on the retreat from Gazala, June, 1942
—Quoted in John Keegan and
Richard Holmes, Soldiers
* * *
Crofton’s Encyclopedia of the Inhabited Planets
(2nd Edition):
Olynthos: town at the head of navigation on the Eurotas River (q.v.), Sparta, (q.v.). Established as Fort Tanner during CoDominium administration, 2030. Communication with Lake Alexander and its mining settlements by rail and slurry-pipeline (2060), followed by rapid growth; river-port, fitting out point for outback expeditions, and industrial center. Power supplied by hydro developments on Vulcan Rapids (potential in excess of 1000 MW.). Smelters, refineries, direct-reduction steel mill, mining machinery, building supplies, explosives, general manufacturing. Pop. (2090) 66,227 not including part-time residents.
Description: The town lies on the southwestern bank of the river immediately below the Ninth Cataract of the Vulcan Rapids, in an area known as Hecate’s Pool. Most buildings are constructed of limestone blocks from nearby quarries; notable features include . . .
* * *
Melissa was down, hurt and bleeding, and shells were falling all around them, but Lysander couldn’t get to her. His legs were paralyzed, and when he tried to crawl filthy hands came out of the ground, reached up with slimy fingers to drag him down. Melissa moaned softly, and Lysander shouted to her, shouted that he was coming, but he couldn’t move, and—