The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

“Prince.”

“I’m coming! I swear it—”

“Prince.”

Lysander sat bolt upright on the cot. “Harv. I’m awake. God, what a horrible dream. Melissa, she was— What is it, Harv?”

“Urgent signals, Prince. You’re needed in the orderly room. Helots attacking the Stora Mine complex.”

“Right. I’ll be there in five minutes.” He suddenly realized where he was. “My compliments to the colonel, and can he alert the regiment.”

“Already being done,” Harv said. “Choppers winding up and they’re rolling the armor out.”

“Right. Thanks.”

Colonel Bennington and his senior officers were in the staff room clustered around a map table. “Attention, please,” Captain Larry Sugarman, the adjutant, said. They fell silent as Lysander came into the room.

“Carry on, please. Jamie, what’s happening?”

“Sir, it’s an all-out assault on the Stora Mine complex,” Bennington said. “We don’t have direct communications, we’re getting everything on relay through the Legion Headquarters in Sparta City. General Owensford is on line and would like to speak with you when you have a moment.”

Lysander leaned over to study the displays on the map table. “There’s a hell of a lot more ‘maybe’ and ‘probable’ and ‘could be’ and plain rumor than real information here.”

“Yes, sir, the Helots seem to have disabled the main computer at Stora. Disabled or worse; there are indications they got control of it.”

The circles, solid, shaded, and dotted, blinked as the table was updated. Some of the dotted circles vanished, others moved to shaded. A few shaded turned solid as sightings and identifications were confirmed, but there was still more rumor than fact reported on that map table. “Better let me speak to General Owensford,” Lysander said. “I’m not learning much here. I presume you’re getting the regiment ready to respond.”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant, see if you can get General Owensford, please.”

“On line and holding, sir,” the sergeant said. He handed a headset to Lysander.

“Lysander here.”

“Owensford, Highness. Urgent request. Do not send out any air cav reaction force. I’ll explain, but that’s an urgent advice, sir.”

Lysander stared at the map. New data flowed in. The impersonal circles moved or changed sizes, with bright flashes indicating battles. Friendly units shrank as he watched. Confirmed casualties. “Our people are taking a licking,” Lysander said. “And they need help. I suppose you have reasons.”

“Sir. This is an all out assault, regimental to brigade strength, carried out with full intelligence. They have to know where your units are. Possibly even that you’re commanding them. Therefore—”

“I see,” Lysander said. “Therefore they’ve already factored in the First Royals and think they can deal with us.”

“Exactly, sir.”

“Isn’t that called taking counsel from our fears, General? Paralyzing ourselves because of what might happen?”

“Yes, sir, but in this case it may be wise. We don’t know nearly enough. What we do know is they were willing to commit in strength to this operation knowing your force was there and ready. The plan was complex: initial attack to draw out the reaction force, ambush that, sabotage the mobile reserve, infiltrate saboteurs—”

“Jesus, and all that worked?” Lysander demanded.

“More than ought to have.”

“Skilly,” Lysander said.

“Yes, sir, I believe so. I have only intermittent contact with General Barton at the mine, but it’s my impression he believes so, too.”

“Devious,” Lysander said. “So it could be a bluff to keep us from sending reinforcements.”

“Sir, she’s devious all right, but I can’t think the Helots would risk this much on the hope that you’d think it through and not send a reaction force.”

“Point taken.” Lysander grinned wryly. “And she probably thinks this was a simple plan, not much to go wrong. Advice?”

“Keep your options open. You’re our reserve, don’t commit yet. You’re closer than I am,” Owensford said. “And you won’t be cut off from direct contact with Barton at the mine forever. You can decide what to do when you have a better idea of what the situation is.”

Lysander considered the map again. “Barton’s in command at the mine?”

“Yes, sir. Local commander asked him to take over.”

“All right. We’ll be his reserve until the situation develops. You’ll keep me up to date, and get me contact with Barton when that’s possible.”

“Anything we know, you’ll know,” Owensford said.

Lysander studied the map table. I’d give a lot for satellite observations. Have to do something about that, there must be a way to convince the CD. And what the hell am I doing, acting like I’m in charge? But it’s my job, and no one else is going to do it, whether I get it right or not. And right now— He turned to Bennington. “Jamie, get your two best pilots. Load up two ships with scouts. Have them duck out this way, down river, then swing wide and angle back, one out to each side of the valley. Straight recon mission, with the option of committing the scouts if that looks worth doing. If they’ve gone to this much trouble to set up an ambush of the air cav, I can’t think they’ll give it away attacking one ship, but the pilots should be careful anyway.”

“Yes, sir. If the Helots can infiltrate a big unit they can have a couple of small ones, too.”

“Good point. And any scouts they do drop will need full rocket support. But you know that.”

“I’ll see to it, sir.”

The First Royal scouts were not as well trained as the Legion’s SAS units, but they’d been trained by the Legion, and had some combat experience. Training’s over. Time to get some use out of them. For that matter it’s about time for Sparta to stand up independent of Falkenberg’s Legion. “Jamie, General Owensford estimated regiment to brigade strength committed at the mine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then they can’t have much left to block the roads.”

“Well—”

“How much could they infiltrate up here?” Lysander demanded. “We’ve had regular air sweeps. Jamie, if they’re good enough to have another regiment beyond what’s committed already, we’re going to lose anyway. Now are they that good?”

“I see your point. No, sir.”

“Get the ground units moving upriver. Usual precautions, recon units lead, watch for mines, but get them moving. Keep the aviation units grounded until we figure out what Miz Skilly has in mind. Next thing, get your Intel and aviation people together and figure out where they’re planning on engaging the air cav.”

“Engage with what?”

“I don’t know. Assume something effective.”

“Missiles,” Bennington said. “Right.” He turned to his adjutant. “Larry, who’ve we got for this?”

“McCulloch and Levy, sir?”

“Good choice. And Captain Flinderman, I think. Give them the assignment and have them report when they’ve thought of something.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And get the ground units moving.”

Captain Sugarman spoke quietly into his headset. Lysander turned back to the map table. After a few moments the displays changed again. Friendly unit reports became more reliable, although there was still a lot of confusion about enemy strength and locations. Lysander studied the situation carefully. The entire Stora garrison, nearly a full regiment of well equipped and trained Brotherhood troops, reinforced by Legion units, and they were reduced to ineffective and disorganized pockets. What could do that to them? Whatever it was couldn’t be small, and he became more certain the enemy had committed all they had. The Helots couldn’t possibly have any large strategic reserve, and not much else either. Anti-aircraft missile units, infiltrated and—

Infiltrated where? “Jamie?”

“Highness?”

“Have your experts consider this: a small anti-aircraft missile unit in hiding somewhere along the route from here to the mine, probably close to this base. Not so close they can’t get away once they launch their birds, but close enough to observe what we’re doing. Preferably with a good escape route through terrain that would halt armor.”

“Put that way, Highness—” Bennington manipulated the map controls.

“Right. I see it.” Lysander increased the gain on the Decelea Forest, a university experimental arboretum and park north of Olynthos Base. It was easily large enough to hide a company of missileers, it overlooked the Valley road north, and the broken terrain and gullies extended down to the river.

“Hit us, bug out to the river. Without air we couldn’t stop them crossing, and that gives them a hell of a head start in getting away,” Bennington said. “It’s sure where I’d put an ambush for air cav.”

“Can’t do any harm to send some scouts up there. We might get lucky,” Lysander said. He pointed to the map table. “It’s about time some luck fell our way, because it looks like we’re getting lunched up there.”

“Right.” Bennington studied the map. “And I think I’ll send some artillery units north along the main road, on up past the Decelea turnoff, but not too far past, say to about here, where they’ll have that park in range—”

Lysander grinned agreement.

Bennington called his adjutant. “Larry, please ask Lieutenant Arnold to alert his men, then report here. We have a job for him.”