by Grant, Peter
They ate a hurried meal from ration packs, building small smokeless fires to boil water for coffee and fill vacuum flasks for later use; then they moved on several kilometers to make a dark, fireless camp in a grove of spindly trees. The vehicles were dispersed beneath camouflage netting while Tamsin took both airvans to a nearby hill and parked them in the shadows cast by several large boulders, also camouflaging them against observation.
Dave joined Tredegar inside his vehicle, a battered six-wheeled transport. “I’m surprised this thing’s made it so far through the bush,” he observed as he climbed into the rear compartment.
“I am too. We have one captured armored car that we’re using to break trail, to ease the load on the other transports. That helps.”
“Uh-huh. The General’s arranging airvan transport once you reach the Renosa River. He’ll have you leave these vehicles there, where the Bactrians aren’t likely to stumble across them. That way they won’t break a trail all the way to his headquarters. He doesn’t want any clues that might lead the enemy there.”
“Can’t say I blame him. Show me on the map.” Dave pointed out the rendezvous, and Tredegar nodded. “We’re no more than two days from there. I’ll be glad to get back to a decent bed and rest these ribs properly!”
“What can you tell me about the Matopo base? I’ve never been there.”
“It was a deep complex of natural caves in a hillside. Miners found it soon after Laredo was settled. They carved tunnels between the caves and further into the hillside looking for worthwhile minerals, but didn’t find much. We expanded it using laser cutters and made it our regional headquarters when we switched to guerrilla warfare. Trouble is, I don’t know how you’re going to get in. While we were waiting to escape we heard lots of explosions and felt the rock trembling. I think the Bactrians blew up everything.”
“Where were you? How did you get away?”
“We used a big cave with a small, well-hidden entrance as our transport pool. It was connected to the main base by a half-kilometer tunnel. We’d rigged the head of that tunnel with explosives to stop any enemy assault coming in from the transport cave. After the Bactrians came in through the front entrance, I took command of the survivors and evacuated them down to the transport pool as a back way out. I waited until the enemy was closing in, then blew the tunnel. I don’t think they knew about the transport cave – we never saw a sign of them anywhere near it. We waited there in silence for three days while they did whatever they were doing in the base, then headed out after they’d left.”
“That was a damn fine piece of work,” Dave congratulated him. “What about rations and medical supplies? You said you had a lot of wounded.”
“We made do with what we had. It wasn’t enough. We’ve buried nine people on the way here.” A shadow seemed to pass across the Captain’s weary face. “We were pretty hungry, too, except for what food we were able to hunt. Your cargo’s a Godsend to us! At least we can eat properly now, and regain our strength.” He reached for a vacuum flask. “Let me pour us some coffee, then I’ll show you on the map the location of the transport cave and the best approach to it. It’s well-hidden enough to keep your airvans out of sight while you try to find a way back into the base.”
“Sounds good to me.”
~ ~ ~
RESISTANCE HEADQUARTERS
Jake rapped on the wood frame around the entrance to the alcove. “You ready to eat?”
Marvin looked up from the camp cot on which he was sitting. “Now that you mention it, I’m pretty hungry. What’s for supper?” He rose to his feet, stretching.
“Whatever ration pack you choose, courtesy of the Bactrian Army. We’ve been feeding ourselves at their expense for a long time now.”
“Battlefield captures?” They set off down the connecting tunnel.
“Yes, and convoys we ambush, and corrupt quartermasters who’ll take a bribe to look the other way while we ransack their warehouses. All our equipment comes from the invaders now. We used up our own stocks during the initial battles.”
They arrived at the mess hall at the same time as General Allred. “This is my wife Gloria,” he introduced the woman at his side to Marvin. “She’s the only surviving Minister from Laredo’s pre-war Cabinet, and as such she’s the de facto President of the Council of the Resistance. Gloria, this is Marvin Ellis, the Vice-President’s emissary.”
“I was only a Deputy Minister, darling,” Gloria corrected, “and Vice-President Johns was also a Cabinet member.” She was short; Marvin thought she had probably been plump at one time, before the privations of three years of clandestine warfare had taken their toll. Her gray hair and tired, lined face bore witness to the strain. She held out her hand to him, and he took it respectfully.
“Yes,” her husband objected, “but she’s off-planet as head of our Government-in-Exile, so she can’t be a member of the Council.”
“Oh, well, if you want to be picky…” They all laughed. “Did Jake tell you the news from Caristo?” she asked Marvin.
“No – what news?”
“Let’s get some food before we talk. I’m starving!” She led the way towards a counter where boxes of ration packs were laid out, ready for diners to make their choice. Each of them selected a pack, heated its contents, and filled a cup with water or coffee; then they headed for an empty table. There were few others eating, all looking tired and subdued.
Once they’d settled down on the benches, Jake took up the narrative. “Last night the Bactrians flew in a new Captain to take over the garrison at Caristo. Sergeant-Major Garnati had a drink with Weems – one of my people – over lunch today. He says the new Captain doesn’t know his ass from his elbow. He reckons he must have upset someone senior, who sent him to Caristo to punish him; but he thinks he’ll be more of a punishment to the garrison, to add to their sorrows at being stuck out there at the ass-end of the planet. Also, there’s apparently a big parade scheduled in Banka at the end of the month. It hasn’t been officially announced yet and Garnati doesn’t know what it’s all about, but the new Captain says he does. According to him every garrison will have to send some of its troops to take part. Caristo will send one of its two platoons.”
“I’d pay good money to watch that,” the General said with a grin. “Like most of their remote garrisons in backwaters like Caristo, its soldiers are among the worst troops the Bactrians have got. It’s a punishment posting. If they’re going to be in the parade, they’re going to drag down everyone else. It’s going to be a disaster!”
“You know it,” Jake agreed. “What’s more, their equipment hasn’t been properly maintained in months. They’ve got to send two of their four assault shuttles to the parade; but two are hangar queens, one’s overdue for a major overhaul, and the only one in flying order can’t move because all their pilots are overdue for their annual check rides!”
The others laughed. “So I guess they won’t be going,” Marvin said.
Jake shook his head. “According to Garnati, if they don’t show up heads will roll. His new boss is terrified one of them might be his. Garnati says he’s got a buddy in the Military Governor’s office in Banka. He’s begged her to organize a maintenance team for him on the quiet, without anyone knowing. They’ll overhaul the shuttles, re-certify his pilots and bring supplies for his birds – they’re almost out of fuel cartridges, reaction mass, munitions and other supplies. She’s promised to get them there ASAP, along with a couple of drill instructors to pick the best-performing members of his garrison and smarten them up for the parade.”
“I wonder if we could steal some of those shuttle supplies?” the General mused.
“Why would you want shuttle supplies?” Marvin asked, puzzled.
“For our shuttles, of course – what else?”
“I didn’t know you had any.” He tasted his food, and grimaced. “What is this stuff? ‘Sausage, beans and rice’ sounded OK on the label, but it tastes weird!”
Gloria informed him, chuckling, �
�We call those sausages ‘Frankenweiners’. The best I can say about them is that they’re not actually poisonous, even though they sometimes taste like it. The Bactrians seem to like them, though, judging by the number we’ve captured from them.”
“They must have cast-iron stomachs. Oh, well, if it doesn’t kill them I daresay it won’t kill me. About those shuttles?”
Jake nodded. “We got them from the Bactrians too.” He took a mouthful of his chili stew, chewed it, and swallowed before continuing. “The day before they invaded, they sent an advance party on a commercial freighter that arrived in orbit claiming it was delivering cargo. The containers they sent to our Orbital Patrol and Customs space station were filled with Bactrian Marines instead of freight. They broke out and took it over as soon as the main landing force appeared, to prevent us using the station’s missiles to defend the planet. They were helped by four assault shuttles that launched from the freighter during the attack.”
He picked up his cup of water and drank. “Some of the station’s crew managed to hide in a cargo compartment near the docking bay. After the fighting died down and the Bactrians had relaxed, they sneaked into the bay and attacked the four Marines guarding the shuttles. When the smoke cleared, a few of our pilots were still alive. Two of them put our survivors aboard two assault shuttles and brought them planetside. Two others took the remaining shuttles at full throttle into head-on collisions with two of the eight Bactrian transports. Each was a tramp merchant freighter carrying a full regiment of troops with all their equipment and supplies.”
“Brave people,” Marvin observed, even as he mentally winced at the thought of the carnage that must have ensued. Most assault shuttles weighed fifty to eighty tons and could reach one-twentieth to one-tenth of light speed in space. Even lowly tramp merchant ships weighed one-quarter to three-quarters of a million tons and cruised at similar speeds. A head-on collision between two such masses at those velocities would have unleashed kinetic energy far greater than the power of a nuclear warhead. Survival would have been out of the question for anyone aboard.
“Very brave. The Bactrians sent in eight regiments in the first wave, but lost a quarter of their force before it even entered orbit. We bled the rest over the next six weeks until they brought in reinforcements and swamped us by sheer weight of numbers – even fully mobilized, we only had four regiments. We used what we learned from the captured shuttles to eavesdrop on their communications networks and jam their fire control systems and weapons. We also figured out how to disrupt their blind-flying systems, which cost them several dozen shuttles in collisions or crashes on their way to landing sites at night or in bad weather. That disrupted their assaults until they could regroup and bring in reinforcements. While they were disorganized we’d hit them and inflict a lot of casualties before they could fight back effectively. We also captured a lot of their heavy weaponry and turned it against them, as well as enough spares and supplies to keep our two captured shuttles flying until last year. If we could get our hands on more fuel, reaction mass and ammo for them, we might be able to use them for another operation.”
“I’ve never understood why Bactria invaded you in the first place,” Marvin confessed.
Gloria snorted. “The last three Satraps of Bactria ran their economy into the ground with grandiose public works projects. Taxes had trebled in half a century, and business and commerce were hurting. To jump-start an economic recovery the new Satrap decided to found a colony, quote, ‘for the greater glory of the Bactrian people’, unquote – and to get his people’s minds off their troubles at home and focused on something outside. It’s one of the oldest tricks in the political playbook.”
Jake added, “Sergeant-Major Garnati told me once that they wanted a colony planet arable enough to be self-supporting, with good mineral resources. They planned to use convicts as a labor force – they’ve got a lot, everyone who’s classified as a political dissident plus the usual criminals. They couldn’t afford the startup costs to colonize a virgin planet, so they decided it’d be cheaper to invade us and take over all the facilities we’d already installed, then use our population as slave labor to supplement their convicts. They figured we were too small and weak to resist.”
Marvin grimaced. “You sure proved them wrong! It’s terribly sad how many you lost, though. I saw the ruins of your former capital. I never understood how the crew of your dispatch ship could maneuver so recklessly as to cause that.”
“They didn’t.” General Allred’s voice was grim. “We destroyed over half their initial landing force during the first few weeks of fighting. They hadn’t expected that sort of resistance, especially from a small reservist army like ours, and they got mad. Their Commanding General gave me an ultimatum: ‘Surrender at once, or see your capital and everyone in it destroyed’ – that’s an exact quote from his message. By then we’d seen what they were doing to those they captured, civilian as well as military, so of course I refused. They’d captured our only dispatch ship the week after the invasion when it came back here, not knowing what was going on. It was a very old, slow ship, and quite small, but it was all they needed. They took it out, turned it around and brought it back on a collision course with the planet, then abandoned ship, leaving its original crew locked in one of its compartments. It entered atmosphere at one-tenth of light speed directly above Banka.”
Marvin’s eyes were wide with horror. “They claimed the ship’s crew accidentally dived into the planet while trying to escape!”
“Yes, they did, and the rest of the settled galaxy bought their story, but we know better. We have their General’s hand-signed message, and recorded their signals about it, and interrogated some of their officers we took prisoner. All that’s among the evidence we want to get off-planet. They destroyed Banka deliberately.”
Jake spoke very quietly, voice dark with remembered pain. “The ship was mostly hollow, of course, not solid like an asteroid, but it still massed fifty thousand tons. It exploded above the city. The blast and energy release flattened Banka and everything around it. A quarter of a million people died, half our planetary population. My wife was among them, along with Timmy and Janet, our two younger children – Dave’s brother and sister.”
Gloria looked as if she wanted to spit. “After Banka they stopped referring to us as ‘the enemy’ or ‘Laredan forces’. Instead we became ‘rebels’, because they claimed the Laredo government no longer existed and their Military Governor was therefore the only legitimate authority here. Lately they’ve taken to calling us ‘terrorists’ as well. Needless to say, we reject both labels, but there are those in the interplanetary community who’ll always buy the ‘official’ version of events. That’s yet another reason why we want so badly to get our evidence to the United Planets, to prove our case that we’re still a legitimate national armed force resisting an illegal invasion.”
The General added bitterly, “The Bactrians also stopped accepting individual and unit surrenders after Banka. Instead they handed over captured officers and senior NCO’s to their Security Service for interrogation under torture, and shot everyone else. The SS did the same to its prisoners when they’d wrung them dry. That’s why we no longer allow ourselves to be taken alive if we can help it. We also don’t accept Bactrian surrenders any more, although we don’t take prisoners for interrogation under torture. We’ve kept at least some standards of decency.”
There was a long silence. Marvin tried to eat more of his meal, but his mouth had gone dry and refused to co-operate. At last he laid down his fork and drank some water.
“I noticed when I landed that a large part of Banka’s ruins have been cleared,” he observed. “There are prefabricated buildings going up.”
Jake nodded. “They’re building their new capital on the ruins of our old one. They’ve rounded up over a hundred thousand of our citizens so far and interned them in labor camps to clear the site. An awful lot of our people have died in the process – they’re brutally treated and not fed enough. A
s each section is cleared the Bactrians lay in new services and put up prefabs to accommodate their own people and administrative functions. They’ve put up a few permanent structures too. They’ve just completed a Royal Palace for their Satrap if he ever decides to visit.”
“Are the destruction of Banka and the ‘no surrender’ order what motivated you to go on fighting?”
“That’s just the start. The Bactrians have made it clear they regard everyone on Laredo as sub-human. We have no value or dignity in their eyes except as cheap, disposable labor. We refuse to live like that. Emiliano Zapata said before the Space Age, ‘Better to die on your feet than live on your knees’. When you know death’s inevitable, and your only choice is between being slowly worked and starved to death as a slave or dying quickly and cleanly in battle, it makes resistance the only logical option.”
“That’s about the size of it,” the General agreed. “There’s another aspect. More than three out of five of our soldiers became casualties during the period between the invasion and the destruction of Banka. After that, when we knew we couldn’t win using conventional tactics and they proved we couldn’t surrender by shooting those who did, we went underground to continue the fight as guerrillas. Over the past three years more than half the survivors of our armed forces have been killed. Most of us have lost our families. Less than one in ten of my troops are left now. We’ve killed for each other; we’ve killed alongside each other. Far too often we’ve had to give our comrades the final gift of a quick, pain-free death when there was no other way out. That makes us closer than brothers and sisters, closer even than lovers in some ways. We know that sooner or later we’re all going to die too; but we’ll kill as many Bactrians as we can before then, and take more with us when we go.”
Gloria added, “My father was a retired professor of history. Shortly after the invasion he quoted Winston Churchill: ‘You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves’. He was killed in Banka a few days after reminding us of that.”
