The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

I remembered an old comic strip. I quoted a line from it. “Don’t much matter whether you catch a fish or not; once you been used for bait, you ain’t much good for nothing else nohow.”

“Maybe,” Falkenberg said. “Maybe. But I remind you that you’ll be keeping a major column of Association forces off Mr. Bonneyman’s back.”

“We will so long as we survive—”

“Yes. So I’ll expect you to survive as long as possible.”

“Can’t quarrel with those orders, Captain.”

* * *

The fog was thicker when we reached the river. The troops were strung out along almost a full kilometer route, each maniple isolated from the others in the dripping-white blanket that lay across the valley. The troops were enjoying themselves, with monitors reporting as if they were platoon sergeants, and corporals playing centurion. They kept up a steady stream of chatter on the radio, while two men back at Falkenberg’s headquarters sent orders that we paid no attention to. So far it was easy enough, because we hadn’t run into anything at all.

“There’s the city wall.” Roszak pointed leftward. I could barely see a darker shape in the fog. “We’ll take a quick look over. All right, Lieutenant?”

“Yes. Be careful.”

“Always am, sir. Brady, bring your squad. Let’s see what’s over there.” They vanished into the fog.

It seemed like hours, but it was only a few minutes before Brady returned. “Nothing, sir. Nothing and nobody, at least not close to the walls. May be a lot of them farther in. I got a feeling.”

Roszak’s voice came into my command set. “Moved fifty meters in. No change from what Brady reported.”

“Did he have your feeling, Brady?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

I switched the set back on. “Thank you, Roszak. Rejoin your company.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

There were distant sounds of firing from the north. Ardwain’s group was doing a good job of simulating a company. They were still moving into the town house by house. I wondered if he was running into opposition, or if that was all his own doing. He was supposed to go cautiously, and his men might be shooting up everything in sight. They were making a lot of noise. “Get me Falkenberg,” I told Hartz.

“Yes, Mr. Slater?”

“Captain, Monitor O’Grady reports the south end of the town has been abandoned. I can hear the A Company combat team up at the north end, but I don’t know what opposition they’ve encountered.”

“Very light, Mister. You leave a company to assist A Company just in case, and continue south. Exactly as planned, Mr. Slater. No change. Got that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Having any trouble with the guns?”

“A little, sir. Roads are muddy. It’s tough going, but we’re moving.”

“Excellent. Carry on, then. Out.”

And that, I told myself, is that. I told off a monitor to dig in just outside the town and continue making reports. “You’ve just become B Company centurion,” I said.

He grinned. “Yes, sir. Save a few of ’em for me.”

“I’ll do that, Yokura. Good luck.” I waved the rest of my command down the road. We were strung out in a long column. The fog was a little thinner. Now I could see over twenty meters before the world was blotted out in swirling white mist.

What’s the safest way to walk into an ambush? I asked myself. The safest way is not to do it. Bar that solution and you don’t have a lot of choices. I used the helmet projector to show me a map of the route.

The first test was a hill just outside of town: Hill 509, called the Rockpile, a warren of jumbled boulders and flinty ledges. It dominated the road into the southern gate of Allansport. Whoever owned it controlled traffic into and out of the town.

If the Association only wanted to block us from moving south, that’s where they’d have their strong point. If they were out to ambush the whole battalion, they’d leave it bare and set the trap farther on. Either way, they’d never expected me to go past it without having a look.

Four kilometers past the Rockpile there was a string of low hills. The road ran through a valley below them. It was an ideal place for an ambush. That’s where they’ll be, I decided. Only they must know we’ll expect them to be along there somewhere. Bait should wiggle, but it shouldn’t too obviously be bait. How would I act if I really had most of a battalion with me?

Send a strong advance guard, of course. An advance guard about as strong as the whole force I’ve got. Anything less won’t make any sense.

“Roszak, start closing them up. Leave the wagons and half a dozen men with radios strung out along the line of march, and get everyone else up here. We’ll form up as an advance guard and move south.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

When I had the troops assembled, I led them up on the Rockpile. Nothing there, of course. I’d gauged it right. They were waiting for us up ahead.

* * *

Roszak nudged me and turned his head slightly to the right. I nodded, carefully. “Don’t point, Sergeant. I saw something move up there myself.”

We had reached the hills.

“Christ, what are they waiting for?” Roszak muttered.

“For the rest of the battalion. They don’t want us; they want the whole 501st.”

“Yes, sir.”

We moved on ahead. The fog was lifting; visibility was over fifty meters already. It wouldn’t be long before it would be obvious there weren’t any troops following me, despite the loud curses and the squeals of wagon wheels back there. It’s amazing how much noise a couple of wagons can make if the troops work at it.

To hell with it, I thought. We’ve got to find a good position and try to hold it. It’ll do no good to keep walking farther into their trap. There was a rocky area ahead. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best spot I’d seen in half an hour. I nudged Roszak. “When we get up to there, start waving the men off into the rocks. The fog’s thicker there.”

“What if there’s hostiles there already?” Roszak demanded.

“Then we’ll fight for the ground, but I doubt they’ll be there. I expect they’ve been moving out of our way as we advance. They still think there’s a column a whole klick long behind us.” Sound confident, I told myself. “We’ll take up a defensive perimeter in there and wait the war out.”

“Sure.” Roszak moved to his right and spoke to the next man. The orders were passed along the line.

Three more minutes, I told myself. Three minutes and we’ll at least have some cover. The area I’d chosen was a saddle, a low pass between the hills to either side of us. Not good, but better than the road. I could feel rifles aimed at me from the rocks above, but I saw nothing but grotesque shapes, boulders dripping in the fog. We climbed higher, moving steadily toward the place I’d chosen.

Maybe there’s nobody up there watching at all. They may be on the other side of the valley. You only saw one man. Maybe not even a man. Just something moving. A wild animal. A dog. A blowing patch of fog.

Whatever it was, I can’t take this much longer. You don’t have to. Another minute. That boulder up there, the big one. When you reach it, you’ve finished. Don’t run. Keep it slow—

“All right, you can fall out and take a break!” I shouted. “Hartz, tell the column to rest in place. We’ll take ten. Companies should close up and gather in the stragglers. They’ll assemble here after the break.”

“Zur.”

“Better get a perimeter guard out, Sergeant.”

“Sir,” Roszak called.

“Corporal Brady, how about a little coffee? You can set up the stove in the lee of that rock.”

“Right, Lieutenant.”

The men vanished into the fog. There were scrambling noises as they found hiding places. I moved out of the open and hunkered down in the rocks with Corporal Brady. “You didn’t really have to make coffee,” I said.

“Why not, Lieutenant? We have a while to wait, don’t we?”

“I hope so, Corporal. I hope so. But that fog’s lifting fast.”

* * *

Ten minutes later we heard the guns. It was difficult to tell the direction of the sound in the thick fog, but I thought they were ahead of us, far to the south. There was no way to estimate the range.

“O’Grady message from Captain Falkenberg,” Hartz said. “Lieutenant Bonneyman’s group is under heavy attack from the south.”

“Acknowledge.” From the south. That meant the columns coming north out of Denisburg had made contact with Louis’s ranchers. Falkenberg had guessed that much right. Maybe this whole screwy plan would work, after all. “Anything new on Ardwain’s situation?”