Lieutenant Colonel

by Rick Shelley

  The second Shrike made a fast pass across the enemy positions, too high and too fast to use its cannon. It scattered three missiles along the enemy line, then climbed out of harm’s way as quickly as possible, almost straight into the sky. It didn’t level off to circle around until it was above fifteen thousand feet.

  Lon rested in the most solid firing position he could manage. The range and angle made accurate rifle fire difficult, even with his helmet’s optics linked to the rifle’s sights, but he got off several three-shot bursts, waiting until he saw the muzzle flashes of enemy rifles and targeting them. No one in the company was firing on full automatic. Dirigenters were taught not to waste ammunition. For the same reason, Lon’s men were being extremely sparing with their rocket-propelled grenades. The range was near the maximum effective for the weapons.

  Charlie Company hit the ground and got organized. Jumping into a wooded area, there had been some inevitable dispersal as men maneuvered to find clear routes among the trees. Squad leaders and platoon sergeants were busy gathering their men and checking to make certain that there had been no serious injuries on the jump. It took several minutes for Lon to get the report: Three men had minor injuries—sprained ankles or knees; several others had cuts suffered coming through the foliage.

  “Move toward your right, Sefer,” Lon told Captain Kai. “We want to put the raiders at the foot of this ridge between us. Move carefully, though. They might have a lot more men underground anywhere along here.”

  “In other words, while we’re trying to flank them, they might be flanking us farther down the line,” Kai replied.

  “We’ve got more men coming in, Sefer. The sooner we know the size of the opposition here, the better.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, Colonel. We’ll do what we can. Just remember, there’s not enough juice left in the rocket packs to take us back up to the shuttles.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” Lon said, suppressing a chuckle. A year earlier, Sefer Kai had startled a regimental officers’ conference by suggesting that the rocket pack system might be upgraded to permit extraction as well as insertion, glossing over the considerable difficulties of having two hundred men attempt to rendezvous with shuttles traveling a minimum of 180 miles per hour.

  I wish we could close off the trouble at Long Glen so I could bring the rest of the battalion here, Lon thought. Having two major engagements going at once was not the way he wanted to handle the raiders. And if the raiders were able to stage a third raid at the same time, the Dirigenters and their hosts would have trouble responding to that at all.

  Daylight. They probably won’t try any new raids before sunset, Lon thought…hoped. With a little luck we can clean up one or the other of our operations before then. It was too soon to make any serious plans for consolidating forces to concentrate on one site or the other. The people of Long Glen couldn’t be left unprotected until the immediate threat there was over. And this nameless site couldn’t be abandoned until Lon’s men could determine whether there was a major raider base concealed nearby. That might take days, even if the raiders engaging them were all neutralized quickly—killed or captured.

  “Tebba, did you mark where the first firing started below us?” Lon asked,

  “Not precisely. I think we can narrow it down to within twenty or thirty yards, though.”

  “That should be close enough. We get this firefight ended, that’s where we’ll need to start looking for a cave entrance.”

  “I don’t think they’ll be anywhere with only one exit, Lon,” Girana said. “You remember last time. That cave had more ways out than an illegal whorehouse.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that. When those militiamen get here, I’m going to have them covering the ground behind us and around to the south from here, looking for holes as well as raiders.”

  “Going to be midday or later before they can do much good at that,” Tebba said. “I’ve already got men putting snoops out behind us and past the ends of our line here.”

  “We’re getting close monitoring from overhead as well,” Lon said. “But we can’t do any real probing for caves on the ground until this firefight ends.”

  Real guerrilla warfare, Lon thought. It’s hard to keep thinking of this as just simple raiding. It might not be enough to deal with the men Earth has put on the ground here. Unless the Bancrofters can keep more of them from coming in after we leave, they could find themselves faced with the same thing, again and again. He shook his head. It was starting to look more and more as if Earth had more final intentions toward Bancroft, destabilizing the government and then taking over the world directly.

  What’s that unidentified ship doing now? Lon wondered, and he called Vel to have him check with CIC again. I feel as if I’m juggling ten-pound razor blades, he thought while he waited for Osterman to radio back. If I’m not careful I could miss a blade and slice my head off.

  “Action coming from the south!” Tebba shouted over his link to Lon. “One of the snoops picked up movement, two hundred yards out, just on the other side of the ridge. They’re trying to sneak in behind us.”

  “How many?” Lon asked.

  “Can’t be sure, but it looks like just a couple of squads… so far,” Tebba said. “Might be more behind the ones the snoop can see.”

  “I’ll take a squad and have a look,” Lon said. “Okay if I grab the squad closest to me?”

  “You’re the boss.”

  Lon signaled to the leader of the squad that was closest, Dominic Schwartz, a newly promoted corporal, and quickly briefed him on what they were going to do, cutting into the squad’s operational channel so that everyone would hear the plan.

  Schwartz put his point man out, and Lon got into the squad’s line in the middle of the first fire team—and Jeremy Howell followed right along, though Lon had not “invited” him.

  “More volunteering?” Lon asked softly.

  “Hard to break the habit, sir,” Howell said. “My mama always said bad habits would be the death of me.”

  “Not today, okay?”

  “Fine by me, sir.”

  “Stick close to me and keep your head down,” Lon said.

  There was no elegant plan. Lon merely planned to take the squad along the western side of the ridge until they were behind the raiders moving on the eastern side—then cross over and take them from the crest and behind. Tebba would have men watching the crest farther north, to make certain the raiders weren’t able to sneak up on the rest of the company.

  Walking silently across the steeply pitched slope required concentration. There was loose rock in among the roots and a very thin layer of soil that was all the hill offered to anchor the few short, scrawny trees, sparse bushes, and grass that managed to grow so near the summit. The trees would offer little cover. This high up spring was just beginning to sprout new leaves.

  Four minutes. Lon estimated that they should be just opposite the raiders, separated only by the top thirty feet of the ridge, less than fifty yards apart laterally. As long as they don’t peak over the crest too soon, Lon thought, glancing that way himself. Every man in the squad with him was thinking similar thoughts.

  Tebba reported that there had been no additional warnings from the snoop on the other side of the ridge. “It counted twenty-two men moving past,” Tebba reported. “From your blips, you should be twenty yards or so beyond the end of the raider column.”

  “Too bad we can’t see blips for the raiders,” Lon whispered back. “I think we’ll give them a little more space before we turn.”

  “Your call,” Tebba said. “You’re the one on the scene.”

  Two minutes. An extra thirty yards. Then Lon told Corporal Schwartz that it was time to turn left. The squad turned, moving from column to skirmish line, with two to four yards’ separation between men as they started climbing toward the crest of the ridge. The distances between men varied considerably over the next few minutes because the terrain did not always permit straight movement. The ridg
eline was irregular, the last stretch of the climb was steeper, and there were places where men would have needed ropes and climbing gear to hold their relative positions. Schwartz halted his men just below the crest and dressed the line as best he could, making certain the men were not bunched too tightly. Then he had the man at the far end of the line—presumably the man farthest from the raiders—edge up; he would be the first to look across for any sign of the enemy.

  “Be ready for anything,” Schwartz warned the rest of his squad. “We could be within spitting distance of them if we’ve guessed wrong or they quit moving.”

  Lon did not interfere. The corporal would know his men better than Lon could. Every private in this squad was new since Lon had last gone into combat with it. Only Schwartz and the lance corporal commanding the squad’s second fire team had been with it before Lon had transferred to battalion from A Company.

  “Colonel, you ready?” Schwartz asked.

  “Whenever you are, Corporal,” Lon replied. “Just think of Corporal Howell and me as two extra rifles in the squad. I’ll leave the operation to you if possible.”

  “Thank you, sir. Ten seconds.”

  Lon could not avoid a silent countdown. Schwartz gave his point man the order to look over the crest. Lon kept counting seconds in his head until the man reported.

  “Nothing within fifty yards of us, Corp. More like seventy yards. Looks like they haven’t started moving up toward the crest themselves. I can see fifteen men. There might be more farther on, though.”

  “When I give the word,” Schwartz said, “you and Maguire go over and get into what cover you can find.” Maguire was the next man in line, and he carried one of the squad’s two grenade launchers. “We’ll get in position and open up on them together. Wait for the order,” the corporal repeated.

  Lon adjusted his footing and checked to make certain that his rifle’s safety was off. His head was two feet below the crest; he was lying against the rock at nearly a fifty-degree angle. There was another narrow ledge pressing against his thighs, just above his knees. When Corporal Schwartz gave the order to start the action, Lon would move up to that last ledge to give himself an angle of fire along the crest.

  Schwartz gave the first order, and the two men farthest south rolled over the crest and slid into position several yards down the slope on the other side. As soon as they reported that they were ready, the corporal alerted the rest of the squad, then checked with Lon.

  “You give the word,” Lon told him.

  Schwartz switched back to his squad frequency to give it. “Go!”

  Lon stepped up to the firing position he had marked, getting his rifle across the top and tracking for targets. He had just started to squeeze the trigger when he heard the sound of the first grenades being launched. He got off three bursts with his rifle before those grenades exploded. Both grenadiers followed up with three more shots apiece, scattering their grenades along the line of the enemy squads.

  The raiders under the barrage did not get off a single shot in return.

  “We’ll check ’em out, Colonel,” Schwartz said. “I’d feel a lot better if you was to stay put for a couple of minutes, sir. Make it easier on my boys.”

  “We’ll start back on this side of the ridge, Corporal,” Lon said. “Good work. Tell your men I said so. And be careful checking out those raiders.”

  One little bit of this finished nicely, Lon thought. If the rest would just go the same way.

  22

  Harley Stossberg and fourth platoon worked their way back toward the line of hills, angling slightly toward the north, pulling out of contact with the raider force that had been protecting the shuttles and fuel supply. They left several mines to complicate the enemy’s pursuit.

  Charlie Company was moving south of the now smoldering remains of the two raider shuttles and the trees and ground cover that had been ignited by the explosions. Even the fuel in the storage tank had mostly burned out, leaving only a few trickles of flame centered in the ashes of the larger blazes. The morning air was thick with smoke trapped by the trees, and the odors of fire still clung, irritating noses and throats.

  Captain Kai detached one squad to investigate the remains of the shuttles. The patrol was almost to the central blackened area when the point man tripped a mine that had somehow survived the earlier explosions and fire. Attached to the underside of a large branch, near the trunk of the tree, the mine’s blast was focused toward the ground. The squad’s point man was killed. The next man in line suffered major injuries from shrapnel, and the third man caught several large splinters of wood from the tree. The remaining men first went prone—a reflex—then moved to care for their casualties.

  Two hundred yards away, Captain Kai halted the rest of his men, waiting for word on the results of the explosion. His men watched their perimeter more intently than usual, in case the blast was the prelude to an ambush that might also include them. As soon as Kai heard from the leader of the detached squad, he passed the results to Lon.

  “Lozzet needs a trauma tube, but Baukir’s condition is okay; med-patches and bandages will do for him.” Lozzet was the man who had taken the shrapnel.

  “How critical is Lozzet?” Lon asked.

  “The medic says he needs to be in a tube as soon as we can manage, no more than thirty minutes,” Kai said.

  On the ridge, Lon squeezed his eyes shut, just for an instant, while he tried to decide among risky options. Thirty minutes was going to be difficult. Coming in on rocket packs, Charlie Company had not brought a trauma tube along.

  “We can’t bring a shuttle into that clearing without securing the entire area first,” Lon said. “Too easy for the raiders to bring it down. The medics up here have a portable tube, so either your men will have to carry Lozzet here, or the medics will have to carry the tube down to where he is.” Lon’s pause was minimal. “Have his squad carry him toward the ridge. Use the rest of your company to run interference, angle over and try to put a wedge around them. I’ll have Tebba detail two squads to escort a medic and the tube toward the bottom of the slope, to meet you partway.”

  “We’ll get him there,” Kai said.

  “Sefer, don’t get careless. Don’t make a lot more casualties to get one man to treatment. We’ve only got the one trauma tube on the ground.” Lon felt his throat tighten, as if it didn’t want to let those words out. Take care of your casualties. Get them to help as quickly as possible. Never abandon a man while there’s any hope at all for him. But, too often, that led only to the creation of more casualties—often without saving the man whose rescue occasioned them. It wasn’t always easy to act prudently, though. The pull of emotion, the dedication of comrades to each other, made that difficult. The gamble was accepted more often than it was declined.

  Lon switched radio channels and told Tebba what was needed. “We’ve got to give those men all the cover we can.”

  “We’ll do what we can,” Tebba said.

  There were two groups of raiders operating openly—known to Lon and his men. One group was on the valley floor, still harassing the platoon of Alpha Company that had been sent to look for the shuttles and their defenders, but losing ground, finding it difficult to regain contact with Harley and his men. The other group was on the side of the valley and on the lower slopes of the line of hills that bordered the valley on the east. The intensity of the fighting had declined over the last several minutes, and it was slow to build again as Charlie Company moved to get its casualties to help.

  On the slope, Lon and Tebba readjusted the lines, moving the center farther downhill to put Alpha Company in a wedge-shaped deployment, with only a single fire team at the top of the wedge to guard the rear. Attempting to cover the movement of Charlie Company and the men carrying the one seriously wounded man, both platoons were free in their use of rocket-propelled grenades and almost profligate with rifle ammunition—more concerned now with suppressing hostile fire and movement than in causing enemy casualties.

  Lon contrib
uted to the covering fire, interrupting his shooting only for essential radio conversations. The three companies of Bancrofter militia were nearly all on the ground. The first company had already started moving toward the action. Taranto had sent down two more Shrikes, to replace the one that had been shot down and to relieve the other one on station. Four other Shrikes were on alert in case one of the firefights escalated. At Long Glen, Lon’s men were boarding shuttles to join this new fight, leaving the village’s defense to the militia. Aboard Long Snake, a shuttle was being loaded with ammunition and other supplies for the Dirigenters on the ground. That lander would come in at the same time Bravo and Delta Companies did, and those mercenaries would transport the load to the rest of the battalion.

  The rendezvous of wounded soldier and trauma tube took more than twenty minutes. Without time to move them to a more secure location, a perimeter had to be set up around the rendezvous point. Charlie Company set that up initially, only linking up with Alpha Company after the fact—as Harley Stossberg and Alpha’s fourth platoon returned to the rest of the company. That platoon had several men with minor injuries, but nothing requiring a trauma tube.

  “We’re too spread out,” Lon said on a circuit that connected him with both Kai and Girana. “We need to set up a better defensive perimeter here on the slope until our reinforcements arrive.”

  “We can carry the trauma tube,” Captain Kai said, “but we’ll have to move slowly with Lozzet in it. Where do you want us?”

  “Move toward your left, Sefer,” Lon said. “As you get into position on the slope, you’ll take the north half of the perimeter. Alpha will move around the circle and take the south half. We’ll adjust our spacing later. Right now I just want to get everyone pulled in together. It’s going to be at least another ninety minutes before the militia starts to arrive.”