Their arrival on Dragon's Field was a relief. Here was a busy port where the Davion DropShips would await the final sortie taking their attack force to attempt the reconquest of Stein's Folly.
Disembarking from the DropShip, Ardan was relieved to leave behind the disorientation he experienced from jump. He envied his fellows, few of whom seemed to suffer a similar distress. He steered his way around Techs arguing over the disposition of their own particular charges, Lance members disputing who had lost at the last game of chance, and officers quarreling over who was in charge of what.
It was a staging area like so many others he had seen. As a prelude to battle, he found them almost comical. A detached observer would, he thought, have written music and depicted such a scene as a comic opera. The revival of the old art would suit perfectly this conglomeration of the ridiculous and the serious.
Ardan went into the first mess hall he came to. "I don't jump well," he told the harried cook. "Do you have some soup? Or anything else that might settle my stomach?"
The man sighed, wiped sweat onto his forearm. "I've fed eight thousand men since sun-up, Colonel," he said wearily. "You just cannot believe what it's like. Not one... not...one...single...one...liked the food I gave him. And it's the best the Duke can provide. I've never cooked better. Ungrateful..." his voice trailed off. Ardan noticed that the man's eyes were a bit glazed.
"I guarantee that if you have anything at all that is rather bland and smooth and won't upset a queasy stomach, I will appreciate it heartily and thank you from my soul," he said.
The cook sighed and turned to a huge boiler. "This should do it. Soup's always good for such problems. Here ..." He dolloped a ladleful into a thick bowl. Turning to set it on the counter beside Ardan, he scooped up a handful of crisp strips of bread. "There. Hope it helps."
Ardan smiled his thanks and took the bowl to a table in the corner, where he sat with his back to the wall. Somehow, before a battle, that was most comfortable for him. As he ate, slowly and with care, he felt his knotted insides relax.
He knew very soon why the newcomers had disliked their food. Both the soup and the bread were flavored with a rather strong, unfamilar spice. It took some getting used to, but he found himself liking the taste. Probably a condiment rare and wonderful to the people of Dragon's Field, which they hoped would help make the planetfall pleasant for the warriors about to go into battle.
"Very fine soup!" he called to the cook. The man smiled, looking surprised.
"What is the seasoning? I find it interesting."
"Shad-seed. Our best I'm happy you like it." He turned to serve three more men who had arrived as they spoke.
Ardan soaked his bread strips in the last of the soup and spooned them into his mouth slowly. He would make it now. When they took off for Stein's Folly, he would be too charged-up to worry about his stomach. When he was in battle-mode, nothing physical, other than something life-threatening, could make itself felt
"Mind if we join you?" He looked up to see Felsner and Hamman standing with laden trays beside his table.
"Please do. Here, let me move over." Ardan scooted himself and his empty bowl around a bit farther, letting the other two also sit with their backs to the walls. He knew they would want to.
"It looks fairly good at this point," Hamman said, setting an electronic notepad on the table and swinging one leg after the other across the narrow bench. "What do you think?"
Ardan frowned. "I can't see anything wrong. But something keeps bothering me about it all."
Ran Felsner grinned. "Your stomach always bothers you after a jump."
"True enough, but now that I have that under control" —he gestured at the bowl—"something still worries me."
Hamman and Felsner exchanged glances. "Well... what?" Hamman asked.
Ardan studied the backs of his hands for a long moment before speaking. "Look...just how flexible is our battle plan?" His eyes locked with Felsner's. "I mean, how easily could we change the plan, even now?"
"Just what did you have in mind?" Hamman asked. "I mean, it's a bit late in the day for..."
Ardan reached across the table and took Hamman's E-pad. He touched keys, clearing a berthing manifest from the screen and bringing up the sketch function. Hamman plucked a stylus from a sleeve pocket and handed it to Ardan without a word. Ardan sketched rapidly across the surface of the pad's screen, leaving a tracery of green lines on black.
"Here...this is part of North continent on Stein's Folly. Steindown is here, on the Highland Peninsula...right?" The other men nodded. "Now, Steindown was the first settlement on Stein's Folly—probably because it was the only dryland the poor guy found first time he touched down." The others chuckled as Ardan kept sketching. "The peninsula is rugged and mountainous on its east coast and comes down to a narrow little isthmus just...here. This strip is—oh, maybe—fifty klicks at its widest. Folly's Neck, it's called. North of the peninsula is this big basin. The Ordolo River meanders south from the Yaeger Mountains, and this whole, vast bowl between these mountains here, and these over here, all the way north to the equator is one enormous, God-forsaken swamp—jungle, bogs, marsh, and a chain of minor seas they call "Lost Lakes"—probably because the mapmakers can never decide where to put 'em. During the wet season, most of the lakes run together, and it's hard to keep track of shorelines.
"Along here are other settlements. As the colony grew, way back when, you can see how settlements must have sprung up along the coast...here, at Lollan, Travis, Grebuchin, and over here at Harbor. There are other spaceports on the Folly, of course, but the one just south of Steindown is the main one. That's where the freighter DropShips call, mostly, and where most offworld trading takes place."
"You seem to know a hell of a lot about this swamp, Ardan," Hamman said.
"Like I said, I've been worrying, and that made me find out what I could." He shrugged. increases the efficiency of my worrying. O.K....like I said, Steindown is the trading center, offworld center, planet capital, call it what you want. The city has a population of, maybe, five hundred thousand."
"So? We'll be fighting Liao troops, not local troops."
"The point is, where do half a million people get their food from?"
"Eh?" Both men looked again at the sketch, as though searching for the answer.
"Steindown has a fair-sized fishing industry of its own, but the peninsula, except for Steindown and the plains to the east, is steep and rocky. Very poor for farming. Up here is the Ordolo Basin and the swamps. No...these communities out along the coastline, Lollan and Travis especially, are farming centers. See? The land is open here—rolling prairie and grassland, with rich, black soil washed down from the mountains. The Coast Road runs along here, from Harbor to Grebuchin, Grebuchin to Lollan, Lollan to Travis. Then it cuts through a pass in the mountains—right here, called Jordan's Pass—then south across Folly's Neck and down the peninsula's west coast, to Steindown. Nearly all of the capital's food comes to them by the road net, from the farms and plantations along the mainland coast off to the east"
Ran Felsner nodded slowly. "I think I follow you."
"I hope so, because things get fuzzy now. So...fleet orders call for the usual approach: secure the jump points, engage the enemy space defenses, gain space superiority. They'll send up their fighters, and we'll knock them down."
"That'll take some knocking," Hamman said, rubbing his chin. "From what ComInt says, our fighters took a pounding when the Liao strike force first moved in."
"Agreed. But if we don't win the space approaches, the whole campaign is lost anyway, right?" The other two gave assent with chorused grunts. "Next come the landings. Tactical doctrine would call for heavy air-space strikes against major ground installations, especially the spaceports, followed by 'Mech landings in force." He changed colors on the pad and circled the coast cities in red. "Here—here—here—'Mech landings right along the coast But the main landings"—his stylus swooped a triple circle around Steindown—"have to be made her
e. Smack dab in and around the city and the port"
"Well, yes," Felsner said slowly. "That'll be where Liao has most of his forces, at the capital. We'll have to engage them."
"Why?"
"Eh?"
"Why...when we control their food supply? Look... Travis and Lollan both have spaceports. We secure those for our supply pipelines. We grab these other cities and garrison them...and put our main force down here." The stylus circled the isthmus called Folly's Neck. "I'm willing to bet that this pass could be held by a company or two, and a battalion could hold the isthmus clear down the spine of the east coastal mountains here and hem Steindown in. We pour in lots of air cover to keep their air-space fighters grounded, and to make sure they don't use boats or hovercraft to supply themselves by sea." He dropped the stylus with a small clatter on the table. "No city holds enough food reserves to last more than three...maybe four days. After that, things get grim."
"It’ll be hard on the civilians," Hamman said. Ardan nodded. "War always is, Lees. So would having us drop right on top of them to fight it out with the Capellan 'Mechs in the streets. As it is"—he shrugged, sadly—"maybe they'll pitch in and help when the food runs out. Throw open the gates, so to speak. The Liao garrison will have to know that it won't be able to hold out long when half a million of their new subjects suddenly get hungry—and mean."
The three men studied the electronic pad's screen a moment. Felsner nodded. "Y’know, there's another thing about all this. I've been worried, too, ever since the first planning session for this show. That peninsula gives me the willies, y'know? Like it's got T-R-A-P written all over it."
"You mean the Liao forces could be planning to do the same thing to us that we've been talking about doing to them?" Ardan asked. "Let us take Steindown, while they hold the isthmus and mountains?" The same thought had been grumbling at Ardan since he'd started rethinking the Davion strategy.
"Uh huh. I couldn't put it into words until you sketched out your plan there...but Maximilian Liao has to know Hanse Davion's going to try to take back the Folly! What's the point in his taking it away from us in the first place... unless he's got something special in mind for us when we return? Something that would tie down a huge chunk of the Federated Suns' ships and 'Mechs and men? Maybe something that would trap them on that peninsula where Liao's 'Mechs could slowly close in and crush them..."
Ardan studied his map a moment more. He picked up the stylus again, cleared the red circle from the Folly's Neck, and began marking the isthmus with neat, precise points of light. "We'll need to go over this again on a real map, but look here. If the Capellan forces are already here, they'd hold this ridge from here...to here, right?"
The others nodded. "They'd have to," Felsner said. "High ground, good cover. And if we land anywhere on the plains around Steindown, they have us ringed in."
"So they would. Watch. First we put a diversionary force down here..." He tapped the rugged plain between Steindown and the mountains. "If it's not a trap, they move into position in the mountains and watch Steindown. If it is a trap..."
"And it is," Felsner interrupted. His face was showing excitement now. "It is, for all the stars in space!"
"If it is a trap, the enemy will be along these heights, and they'll be watching the show on the plains below them," Ardan went on, excited, too. "Now, look here." The stylus tapped the southeastern edge of the Ordolo Basin. "Our main force sets down here...and here. The bad guys hold Jordan's Pass, but we hold the road on both sides and we can come south along both flanks of this ridge, one on this side, one on that side. If we move fast, we control the pass, this section of the ridge, and the road. A push down the road, and we link up with our diversionary force. The Liao forces in the mountains will be stuck here, with the sea at their backs, and us closing in from the front and their flank! If it turns out that they have heavy forces in the mountains and in Steindown, we withdraw north through the pass and seal off the whole damned peninsula. Our air patrols crack down, and we wait 'em out. If we're lucky, they'll get desperate and storm our position along the pass."
Ardan looked up from his notations on the pad. "That would settle things quite nicely, I think."
"The trappers are trapped!" Hamman said. "By God, Ardan, we'd have them cold!"
Ardan nodded. A vast weight had lifted as he'd discussed his doubts with these men, and now a definite plan was forming in his mind. "I think so. I really do think so. Now the question is, can we change the strike force operational orders now, at the last minute?"
Ran Felsner was still studying the map. "It'll be no trouble to change the drop pattern. We can brief the battalion commanders, and post new objectives and rendezvous points easily enough. Admiral Bertholi won't like reassigning the DZs, but I can handle him. Victor DeVries, my Operations Chief, will give me a hard time. My biggest concern is dropping at the edge of that jungle, though. That ground could be mighty soft."
"It is," Ardan said, "in the wet season. But it's well into the dry season now. Based on the tapes I scanned, I'd say the area is more savannah and grassland than jungle. It gets lots of rain during the local winter, but in summer it's bone dry."
"I've known planetological tapes to be wrong," Hamman said
"So? You want to drop in first and check it out yourself?"
"Ha! Not likely. Just so long as it's not an actual swamp, we'll be O.K. Even DropShips could set down along the road. We'll leave that to the section tactical leaders."
Felsner nodded. "It'll be worth it for another reason, too."
"What's that?" Hamman asked.
"Well, there's bound to be one hell of a tangle, with units not getting their DZs confirmed. Hell, just finding a specific drop zone will be next to impossible because they won't have something easy to orient on from the air, like the city. And maybe some of them land in a swamp and don't come out, or hit a ridgetop hard and smear their 'Mechs across the face of a mountain. But it'll be worth it."
"I don't follow you," Hamman said.
"You're thinking of a leak," Ardan said.
Felsner nodded again. "Such things have been known to happen. Even with slow intersystem communications, even with everything secured and guarded and security-cleared half to death, leaks happen."
"Liao wasn't born yesterday," Hamman said. "Like you said, this has all the earmarks of a trap. He could have planned it all this way, or.
"Or," Felsner continued, "he's set things up this way because of information he's been picking up from...from within our own camp."
Ardan shook his head. He didn't like thinking about these possible wheels within wheels within wheels. "He could have set this up without help from his spies," he said. "I've studied Maximilian Liao for so long, it feels like I know the guy personally. I only met him once, one time when Hanse took me with the Guard to a big conference in the Lyran Commonwealth."
He paused, looking from Ran to Lees, and back again. "You know, Liao would execute any officer who changed a battle plan he'd approved—have him shot on the spot—even if the new plan worked better than the original. I don't think the man could even imagine a group of officers rewriting an entire battle plan without first getting permission from the top."
Felsner took a thoughtful bite of his neglected food, chewed slowly, swallowed. "That's what appeals to me about this. We have to do the unexpected. If we don't, we're going to find ourselves up to our chins in Capellan BattleMechs. They know we're coming. We have to come, and they'll be ready and waiting. But if we set down where they don't expect us, well...it just might give us the edge we need."
"Well, you gentlemen had better eat up," Ardan said. He tapped the E-pad's sceen. "We have to do some talking with the battalion strike commanders, don't we?"
Hamman looked thoughtful. "We've got to get a message back to the Prince, too. At this point, even if the message were intercepted, the news wouldn't get to Stein's Folly ahead of us. And then there's also Michael.
"Michael?"
"Michael Hasek-Davion," Ham
man said. "Hanse's brother-in-law."
"Oh...right" Ardan knew the Duke of New Syrtis, of course. He was ruler of the sector, and so military operations had to be cleared through him even when he had no direct jurisdiction over them. As a matter of courtesy, they would have to inform him of the changes in the operation. The man had always struck Ardan as being pretentious and officious, but formal court etiquette and proper military discipline both required that they advise the Duke of the new plan.
It took them the better part of the afternoon to discuss the proposed changes in the drop zones with their own commands. Fleet Admiral Bertholi, charged with delivering the strike force to Stein's Folly, voiced the most stubborn protests, because he would have to pass on the extensive changes and recalculations in the approach vectors and navigational sightings to every DropShip in his command. Strangely, the one man they had to convince, Ran Felsner's Chief of Operations, General Victor DeVries, accepted the proposed change the moment they presented it
"You're right," the grizzled Davion veteran said. "I was beginning to have the same doubts myself. When four pros all trip over the same instinct, maybe it's time to pay attention, eh?"
Through DeVries' official channels, then, they assembled and transmitted the plan revisions throughout the strike force. Bertholi protested until Felsner threatened to have him replaced on the spot, then pitched in and began going over the necessary navigational changes with his approach team himself.
The new plan took shape in the bowels of the HQ combat computers and in the far more important computers in the minds of the command staff. To Lees Hamman and the Capellan March Militia would fall the task of diverting the enemy's forces into believing a major landing was developing on the plains above Steindown. Ran Felsner and his 5th Crucis Lancers would come down along the road north and east of the critical gap called Jordan's Pass, while Ardan's 17th Avalon Hussars would land further west, along the fringe of the Ordolo Basin and west of the ridge. Detached battalions from the 5th Lancers and 17th Hussars would secure the coastal towns and spaceports as far east as Harbor, while the ground armor and heavy vehicles would be offloaded at the spaceport north of Travis as soon as it was secured, to operate as a mobile reserve.
The sword and the dagger Page 7
