This
particular valley was wider than most.
Down
out of the hills, the ground was flatter. This section, being nice and easy to
reach from the road, this close to town, had been logged over early in the
initial colonization period. This was regrowth, a different kind of forest with
smaller trees. The boles, less than a foot across at the base, were tall
enough, but also a lot closer together. When the ground got low enough, the
real muck began. There were cameras watching, and sure enough, the enemy held up,
the people up front at least, realizing what they were getting into.
“Okay.
Open up with the mortars.”
The
tubes, scattered all over in ones and twos, barked and then the rounds were
sailing in with their characteristic whine. Enemy counter-battery fire was
still inaccurate…
There
was a small cavalcade of Unfriendly vehicles, light armour and scout machines,
going up the road. The futility of the thing stung her in some way—but what in
the hell else were the poor bastards
supposed to do? What the fuck else am I
supposed to do? For Christ sakes. There was only one road, only one bridge,
only one creek. Only a thousand more such rivers, hills and valleys in between
here and there.
“Drone
Three, inbound. We are coming in hot and we have targets on the board.”
“Roger
that, Drone Three.” The young girl was intent on her screen as Dona came up
behind her, touching her lightly on the shoulder. “Colonel?”
“Put
me on.”
The
girl nodded and hit a button for the mic.
“Hi,
Trooper.”
“Hey,
Colonel.”
“Are
we having fun yet?”
“Oh,
you betcha.” The grin was there in his tone, although Trooper Noya’s face
wasn’t onscreen, that bit of data being not particularly important to the
action.
He
might be able to see her, though. Then again, he might not—
The
bombs, rockets and missiles hanging on Drone Three were of far more importance.
At
such short range, he could carry a maximum load and still have time to hang
around for a while.
“Activate
Mongoose Two.” The person in charge fired three rockets and then put it on
standby while awaiting results.
That
little column of enemy vehicles was just coming up to the paint marks put there
on the road for the very purpose.
The
cameras didn’t lie. The flight time had been carefully calculated.
It
must have been close. The view from that camera or that set of cameras was
shaken, then obscured by dust and smoke and yes,
now the tell-tale orangey-black flames and smoke.
“Some
kind of hit or hits there, Colonel.”
“Very
well. Let the smoke clear. We’re not in a hurry. The enemy is. Watch the board,
there are any number of other possibilities—” That was the problem, wasn’t it.
No
one could watch everything at once and she had to let them go—she had to trust
the people under her command to do the jobs assigned to them, to do them well,
and not fuck it up right when they needed something the most.
Her
voice rose.
“Don’t
be afraid to look at the big board, ladies and gentlemen, but pay attention to
your own stations.”
“What
about the tanks, Colonel?”
“Yeah.
Try a shot at the tanks. Pick one, and use one rocket. Take your time and do
the math. Don’t just blanket the area. We only have so many of those things to
go around. The odds are, they’ll either pull them back, or start them moving.”
Those
tanks were sitting up there for a reason.
“What
about the bridge?” Arthur Li, nineteen years old, hailing from Arcturus Five,
was in touch with the artillery.
“Give
it a few minutes. Let a few more of them get across.” For the moment, they were
shelling the woods and the road further back.
***
With
a momentary lull in the action as the Unfriendlies consolidated their hard-won
gains, a couple of empty hilltops and a bridge, (there were a few boobies up
there, but not too many), she’d taken a quiet moment in her office, just down
the promenade from the Command Centre. All one could really say was that her
key had fit the lock. Which was oddly reassuring. She’d barely been in there
since day one at Ryanville, (was that yesterday, or was it the day before?) and
it was an interesting feeling. This one must have belonged to someone pretty
high up in the company. The mall manager maybe. The silence was impressive.
As
expected, there came a knock at the door. Punctual, a good trait.
“Mr.
Higgins.”
“Colonel
Graham. What an honour to meet you.” The words were clipped, the pronunciation
precise.
She
shut the door.
“Please.
Have a seat. It’s been a long day—” She took the big one behind the desk. “You
were successful.”
“Ah,
yes, Colonel. Our boy is safe in the arms of the medical officer.”
“What
sort of shape was he in?”
“Cold,
wet, tired, and hungry. And, I would say, scared shitless for about the last
three days. The emotional release of his rescue was considerable.” He’d cried
much of the way home, according to Mister Higgins.
Dona
held up a buff envelope, unsealed, bulging with cash, all of it in small bills
as no one around there would, or possibly even could, cash a hundred.
“Thank
you. You’re very kind.”
“Trust
me. This kid is worth his weight in gold.” Truth was, they’d get his parole and
then sell him back at a markup, and, depending on who he was, maybe even at a
very good price. “Anyways, you saved his life, uh, maybe, and your conscience
is clear.”
The
Denebi hadn’t eaten him, tortured him or roasted him to death over a slow fire.
That was always something. It sounded like they had been fascinated by him, as
much as anything else.
They’d
never seen an Unfriendly before.
He
tipped his head, speaking carefully, listening carefully, and savouring the
cognac so thoughtfully provided by an ever-helpful Lieutenant Wheeler.
Her
own people had been reporting that the average storekeeper made change multiple
times a day in this insulated little economy, and rarely did they find it
necessary to give out a hundred-credit bill in exchange. They absolutely hated
breaking them. This required a trip to the bank, the good, old-fashioned kind
with people and wickets and proper ID required.
Money
wasn’t so much tight as scarce as hen’s
teeth.
This
was especially true of the real homesteaders, scattered all over Hell’s
half-acre.
As the saying went.
Identification
was one thing a lot of people really didn’t have on Deneb. Social problems were
few and the need for control small—all of those wide-open spaces, all of that
work to be done, and all of that money, or at least a living, to be made. People
were at a premium. If you were here,
you were a citizen. A birth certificate cost thirty-five Denebian dollars, and
that held its own kind of logic.
It
was good to talk to someone who wasn’t a soldier once in a while—
Another personal
revelation.
This
economy was very much a cash and carry economy—personal credit of the handshake
and a firm nod kind, and with regular people figuring out their accounts on the
back of an envelope.
He
was eyeing something on the desk.
“Oh.
Sorry.” Dona lifted the lacquered lid, the box beautifully-made, and pulled out
a cigar for the man.
“Thank
you. Wonderful—” He held it up horizontally between the upper lip and the
bottom of the nose, whiskers rasping slightly with the contact. “Yes—very
nice.”
His
eyes met hers. He smiled, revealing even, white teeth.
“Haven’t
seen one of them in years.”
Reaching
in, she gave him a handful. All of this would be going on the Confederation’s
tab anyways. No real concern of hers.
Selecting
one for herself, she snipped the end off and handed over the cutter to Mister
Higgins. A pipe smoker going by the initial impression, (everyone had a
personal smell, and he’d been out in the bush for a day or two), he fished in a
pocket for a box of wooden matches.
Acrid
smoke arose.
“I
will be speaking to him myself, of course, but I was wondering if there was
anything in particular that he might have told you? I would also like to know
more about the natives. Where did they grab him? And what were their
intentions, bearing in mind they have attacked the Unfriendlies, at least the
ones that we know of. Their war party, possibly parties, we think they’re still
in the vicinity.” With that, she puffed a bit of blue smoke.
“Oh,
yes. Yes, they are.” He smiled, eyes alight with inner thoughts. “Ha. He
wandered off, looking to relieve himself in the woods. They grabbed him at a
vulnerable moment. It was dark, it was night-time. He barely made a squawk or
so they said—too terrified, I suppose.”
A
smiled flashed across his features.
“…can’t
say as I blame him.” There was a short pause— “Still had a bit of poop in his
pants, when I got to him.”
“Ha.”
Deadpan delivery, and she couldn’t help but laugh.
Mister
Higgins smiled.
This
was more than enough to get started on, and the gentleman’s mouth opened to
speak.
“You’ll
like this. Silikoth was in town. I
was lucky enough to see him going down the street. Having contacted one of the
few Denebi that I know personally, word quickly reached the elders. The runners
can easily do eighty or a hundred kilometres a day, you know, taking it in
shifts, in a system not unlike the old Roman posts. The village, more of an encampment really, is only about
fifty kilometres by road from Roussef. It’s only a few kilometres off the road.
They probably knew within forty or forty-five minutes. They didn’t answer the
radio, probably because of the switch from transmit
to receive. They don’t even know what
a switch is. Ah. I’ve been studying them ever since I came here. I’d been to
the village many times before. They were happy to speak to me, and readily gave
him up for the small crate of coins provided. They don’t usually spend them.
They do everything but spend them.
They spend bills, which they consider a great joke on us because they are so,
ah, essentially useless to the culture. They like gold because it’s easy to
work and it doesn’t corrode. Other than that, they don’t really understand its monetary value. The higher-status girls
have some very pretty necklaces made of coins, part of their dowry, and the men
make arrowheads and other tools out of our more mundane coinage. Because of the
metal, you understand. Some of the work is extraordinary. I support myself in
part here by curating and in some ways even mentoring young native artists. We
sell the artifacts off-world and return over seventy-five percent of the
revenue to the community. It’s quite a fitting end to a long and distinguished
career as a soldier myself. It’s quite good to give something back. I feel very
good about it. Anyhow. Back to our story—what do you want to know.”
“Background
is good.”
“Hmn.
I was only a lad when I first came here. I was with the predecessor to the
Confederation, ah, the Dominium.” Higgins had been a sallow-cheeked lad, to
hear him tell it.
He’d
put on a little weight since then. He was wearing curious green khakis, with a
sort of cummerbund-like beltline, with no obvious fastenings or means of
support around thick hips and visible but manageable tummy. He had a pension,
lived alone, and had a couple of hands to run the eland ranch for him. It was
more of a hobby, really.
He’d
been enjoying a very quiet life.
He
sighed, taking another puff.
“Wonderful.
Anyways, back to your questions.”
It
would appear that the gentleman was just warming up. Starved for conversation,
maybe.
Just
another sad old man, the clock ticking down on the story of his life.
Not
too many people around there to listen, sometimes.
***
Her
private office had its uses.
“Ladies
and gentlemen.” They were having a senior staff meeting, away from the eyes and
the ears of the Command Centre.
There
were, however, one or two promising juniors present.
Dona
wondered what Noya might have thought of all of this or what he might have
contributed, but he was too valuable on Drone Three. The more so as he’d just
taken out one of the Joshuas with an anti-tank missile. It was another one of
his attacks out of the sun, nose down by eleven degrees and the ‘do-not-exceed’ speed-limit of the
aircraft just an ironic note inscribed on a virtual metal tag on the dashboard.
“Our
big question. Does the enemy have a satellite up there or do they not? It sure
doesn’t seem like it, and yet they do get the odd hit. When they located the
Denebi war party. It is only an assumption that it was their drone that spotted
them. When they drive straight into an ambush—what would they do differently, if they knew all about it
in advance? Drive straight into it—seriously? Yet it’s awfully difficult to
spot anything in this terrain, or to do anything different, even with a
satellite, one perhaps not quite as good as ours. There is, after all, only the
one road. Maybe it’s the ground end that’s the problem. The individual trooper
has nowhere near the tech that our people do. Maybe they do know all about it—they did stop, reverse and pull back behind a
hill crest in that first Walzbruch ambush.”
There.
It was out there—and she found herself exhaling heavily, almost in a kind of
relief. But this was the sort of thing that really preyed on the mind. She was
also very tired.
“Yeah,
it’s a tough question.” Harvey. “Even if they do have a satellite, it simply
might not be capable of picking up the really small targets in the really fine
detail. In the infrared, how would we tell the difference between a Puma, for
example, and any one of a hundred different makes and models of civilian vehicle.
We know it’s a Puma because we put it there, we have the IFF to prove it.
There’s not much to choose between them, datawise,
sometimes.”
Paul was shaking his head.
“But
if they have one up there, and if it’s any good, why not use it?”
Dona
was nodding.
“That’s
exactly my point. Even if they know everything there is to know, they still
have that imperative of time. There’s no question of waiting us out. Not with
winter coming and the strategic situation elsewhere. There’s no real chance of
a long siege. We simply don’t have the numbers. A battle of attrition is
precisely what we are trying to avoid. They don’t need sophisticated strategy.
All they have to do is to keep coming on and inevitably, they will swamp us.
Another thing. We could take out their ships, all of them, with a few
well-placed rounds from Mongoose One.”
“Right.”
Vicky Chan followed up. “But—that means upping the ante, which we’re not ready
to do quite yet. It simply isn’t necessary,
right now, and therefore it isn’t the proper time.”
The
enemy, counting missiles fired, would spend a lot of time wondering where and
when the next ones would arrive. Or even if there were any more missiles at
all. It was a poker game, one played with human lives. The key to the game was
to keep them guessing. If one must lose, try not to lose by too much—
A
young woman named Rafferty held up a hand.
“Are
you saying that McMurdo isn’t quite ready to up the ante?”
“Not
before he has to. Right, ah, Colonel?”
“Yes.
If he has it, he will use it. But just to drive up a highway with a markedly
superior force. The point is, he can take a few casualties for the sole purpose
of keeping us in the dark. He’s not afraid to spend money, to shed blood, and
to lose people. Not if it achieves his purpose. He’s told us more than once
that he has ten times our number. We’ve seen nothing to contradict that. And
yes, we do look for such verification. Why in the hell would he ever tell us
the truth? We’re not that dumb, and neither is he. My point is, I don’t want us
to become too complacent regarding that satellite. Our people are using cover
as best they can, as they were trained to do. Our vehicles, with their
radar-absorbent materials and stealthy design, all of that only goes so far.
This is no time to get sloppy. Don’t let them do it, okay? In today’s morning
bulletin, I will put something in there about the satellite and, ah, the old
‘eyes in the sky’ sort of thing. Hopefully, that will be sufficient.”
Harvey
and Rafferty nodded, looking at each other. Confederation troops certainly had
the training. They were getting plenty of experience out there as well. The
vehicles were good, but they couldn’t be that
good.
“So,
we must still assume that they’re up there.” Harvey looked thoughtful. “In
which case, how big is it, and where, roughly should that be, if it was more or
less similar in size, power and capability as our own?” It would have to be a
limited volume of space to begin with.
“That’s
a very good question, Harvey. You have some thoughts on the subject. Would you
like a crack at it? I mean, if it’s up there?” Even if they could just confirm
it.
That
would be extremely helpful.
He
grinned from ear to ear.
“Sure.”
His eyes strayed to the girl. “Can I have some, ah, help with that? And I’ll
need a bit of bandwidth on our bird….some box time.” He was referring to the
Mark Seventeen and the ground hardware, crunching a lot of big numbers real
fast.
Dona
looked at Lieutenant Wheeler.
“I
think that can be arranged. It’s a relatively small battle here, and we have
all kinds of reserve system capacity.” A couple of work-stations and a chair
and a table or two would be enough.
“Very
well. Meeting adjourned. Those on duty, off you go. The rest of you, get some
rest. We’re going to need it in the next day or two.”
(End of part thirty-five.)
Previous
Episodes.
Images.
Image One. Confederation Public Communications Office.
Image Two. CPCO.
Image Three. Submitted Photo.
Image Four. Mk. 17 satellite pic.
Image Five. CPCO.
Image Six. Ittiz. Denebola-Seven Chamber of Commerce.
Image Seven. The cover of the book, soon to be released.
Louis Shalako has many fine books and
stories available from Smashwords. Please take a minute and have a look.
His latest novel, Tactics
of Delay, is complete. As the reader can see, it’s now formatted
differently from regular web format. He’s read the damned thing from end-to-end
five times so far and will probably do it again while completing the serialization.
He sure hopes the readers enjoy it, but that book will be available in ebook, 4
x 7” and 5 x 8” paperback well in time for Christmas.
Thank you for reading.
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