The Buchanan Campaign

by Rick Shelley

  “Why not retire to my cabin? We could play a game of chess.”

  “Looking for an easy mark, are you?” Ian asked. “Sure. I may not be able to concentrate, but your cabin may be the one place where I can get away from all these questions.”

  The prince already had a chess board set up in his cabin, an actual set, marble and onyx pieces and board, rather than just a holographic projection. When Ian sat down at the board, he picked up the black king and inspected it closely. And whistled.

  “This is quite some set.” Ian set the king down and picked up the queen. “I can’t even recall the last time I played with solid pieces.”

  “It’s always seemed incongruous to me to play such a venerable game any other way, though I do often enough,” William said. The two men had played several games already on this voyage, always on a complink holo. “This particular set was a gift to one of the men I was named for, the Prince Albert who was consort to Queen Victoria. That was about eleven hundred and fifty years ago.”

  Ian set the queen down very gingerly and edged his chair away from the table. “You actually dare to play with it?”

  William chuckled. “Regularly. It’s always been my favorite.”

  “It should be in a museum someplace.”

  “Nonsense,” William said. “The craftsman who carved this set intended it to be used by players who enjoyed the game, not to sit behind glass in a museum cabinet. The black king is supposed to be Napoleon Bonaparte, and the white the Duke of Wellington, the man who defeated him. The other major pieces are also supposed to represent actual historical figures from England and France. I can’t answer for the faithfulness of the images, and there are some I’ve never been able to identify. The original letters of provenance disappeared before my ancestors left Earth.”

  William sat down across from Ian. “If you’d rather, we could play on the link.”

  Hesitantly, Ian shook his head. “I may never get another chance to play with a set like this. I just hope I don’t break anything.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  Both men stuck to simple opening patterns. None of their games had been marked by startlingly daring tactics. As this game got under way, William kept an eye on his opponent, and noticed that he seemed to be relaxing as he got into the game. But after the eighth move, Ian suddenly pushed his chair back from the table.

  “You know what really gets me?” he asked, rather loudly.

  William looked up and waited.

  “I really don’t have the foggiest idea what’s gotten into the admiral. There’s been no news to put him in a funk. Everything is progressing smoothly on the surface, and nothing’s come in from outsystem since we got the MR saying that Lancer was about to make the final transit to Union.”

  “Perhaps that’s it,” William said. “Is he that impatient for the return of Lancer, or for some reply from Buckingham?”

  ” Lancer’s not due until tomorrow, and there hasn’t been time for word from Buckingham, certainly not time for significant reinforcements to arrive.”

  “What else could it be? I can’t think of anything, unless he’s having health problems.”

  Ian hesitated, then shook his head. “No, he’s never hesitated about yelling for the chief surgeon the second he notices anything that might be even vaguely uncomfortable.”

  “He’s never done anything like this before?”

  “Not since I’ve been on his staff.” Ian stood and turned away from the prince. “Unless he gave secret instructions to either Khyber or Lancer that I don’t know about.”

  “That’s possible, isn’t it?”

  “Certainly, it’s possible. He doesn’t tell me everything. But what kind of instructions? Why would they have him hiding in his cabin? This just isn’t like him.”

  “We can’t simply barge in and demand an answer,” William said. ‘ ‘I doubt that Marine sentry would step aside even for me—and he would likely be guilty of a courtmartial offense if he did.”

  “I should let the duty officer know where I am so he can find me when the admiral decides he’s ready to come out of his hole,” Ian said.

  Oblivious to the questions his selfimposed isolation had raised, Truscott had long since lost track of time.

  He was too busy to give much thought to anything but the work at hand. Since chasing Ian out, Truscott had, in effect, completely rewritten The Book on space navy operations. That hadn’t been his original intent, but his thinking was too acutely focused for him to miss the evolution occurring on his notepad.

  Page after page was saved to file, keyed to figures constructed on the flatscreen.

  He had started by simply making notes on various contingency plans for the defense of his ships and the Marines on the ground. The operations staff had run hundreds of simulations of possible encounters between the fleet and the expected Federation reinforcements. Truscott had gone through them all, gradually eliminating many from consideration. For the situations that remained, he drastically changed the tactics proposed by his operations chief.

  In Truscott’s first revisions, he assumed that he had only the ships he had brought to the Buchanan system, or the ones remaining after sending Khyber and Lancer on their missions. He tried to devise noyel methods for meeting a Federation response of varying strength, from a single threeship battle group to a grand fleet of as many as a dozen capital ships with a full complement of escorts and ancillary vessels. Fundamental to every potential response was a drastic curtailing of previous limits on Qspace travel. Cutting the interval between transits from days to minutes changed virtually everything about warfare in space.

  Once he had covered the immediate possibilities, Truscott expanded his thinking to cover other contingencies— such as receiving reinforcements from Buckingham in different strengths.

  After going through the scenarios his staff had prepared, Truscott needed little more than two hours to outline another thirty possibilities. He had spent the rest of his time devising new responses to each of those scenarios, starting with outlines and gradually fleshing them out, the way he drafted and polished orders. During the hours of work, he had emptied his tea cart of both tea and coffee, and had finally switched to fruit ades, just keeping something— anything—at hand to drink.

  And then it was finished.

  At first, Truscott simply stared at the last page of writing in his notepad window. What have I forgotten? What’s left to do? There must be something more. He blinked several times. Nothing came to mind, and the ideas had been coming so quickly all day that, at times, he had struggled to keep up with them.

  “Nothing. I can’t think of a thing.” There was amazement in his voice, but he didn’t start to celebrate.

  Instead, he jumped back to the first pages of his notes and plans, and went through everything he had done, scanning each chart and animated sequence, reading each page of descriptions and the glosses he had added—copious notes, sometimes longer than the sections they were meant to explicate.

  Noticing the time was accidental. Truscott looked up from his review and his gaze came to rest on a clock. At first, he merely blinked and thought that the clock had to be wrong. It showed 1650 hours.

  “It can’t be ten hours since I started.” Even as the words came out, he realized that it could.

  He saved a copy of his work to his private files, sent another to his flag operations officer, a third to Admiral Greene on Victoria, and a final copy to Ian’s document file. There were no covering letters. If and when Truscott’s new “Operations Bible” was read by the addressees, the questions would come.

  He smiled. There would be some lively moments ahead.

  Truscott stood and stretched. He was tired, but the exhaustion felt uncommonly good. I’ve earned my pay today, he decided. He went to the door and opened it, half expecting to see a line of people waiting. But only the Marine sentry was there. He snapped to attention.

  “Would you go to the wardroom and have them fix a tray for me, Sergea
nt?” the admiral asked. “And ask Commander Shrikes to come in.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The Marine sergeant hurried down the passageway. Truscott watched him for a moment, then stepped back into his cabin.

  “Ian’s slipping. I’d have thought he would have busted in here four hours ago.” He chuckled and made a quick trip to the head. He had been drinking a lot of fluids.

  “Come in. Have a seat.” Truscott was making deep inroads on the tray of food that bad been delivered minutes ago, and had already ordered seconds. The tea cart had been taken off by the mess steward to be refilled.

  Ian sat and leaned back, holding his questions. The admiral was eating with more appetite than Ian had ever seen him display. Whatever Truscott had been doing locked away for the entire day, he hadn’t been hiding in a funk. The admiral slowed down for a moment as he neared the end of the food on his tray.

  “There’s a new file in your chronology of documents,” Truscott said. Ian’s duties included compiling an official bibliography of the admiral’s papers. “You might have a look. By the way, have you eaten?”

  “I ate with the prince,” Ian said. “A new file? I take it that means you’ve been working all day?”

  “Naturally. What did you think?”

  “You wouldn’t want to hear some of the rumors that have been circulating, Admiral,” Ian said. “When the commanding officer locks himself away incommunicado while the fleet’s in a combat zone, people get nervous.”

  Truscott looked astonished. “I simply had to work without interruption.”

  “We don’t have any mind readers aboard,” Ian said drily.

  The admiral shook his head. The mess steward came in with the recharged tea cart and another food tray. After he was gone, the admiral shook his head again.

  “Is morale really that uncertain?” he asked.

  “It appears so,” Ian said.

  “Have a look at that file. I haven’t given it very wide circulation yet, just to Paul Greene and our ops people.” He refused to comment any farther. “Just read the file,” he repeated, focusing on his second supper tray.

  Ian did as he was told. He sat at the chart table and called up a directory of the admiral’s official documents. The new entry was obvious, and imposing in its length.

  “All that in one day?” Ian asked, but the admiral didn’t respond.

  Ian made himself comfortable and started to read. He didn’t try to commit it to memory but merely scanned, stopping for a close reading only occasionally, and he zoomed through the animations at high speed. Ian was a fast reader, but the admiral finished eating long before Ian finished the file.

  Truscott watched the changing expressions on his aide’s face. He felt comfortably sated, and he allowed himself to feel amused at the play of emotions Ian displayed. It’s a good day ‘& work, Truscott assured himself.

  “All that in one day?” Ian asked again when he finished the file.

  “It’s amazing the work one person can do if he shuts out all interruptions.”

  “Are you going to send this to Sir John?”

  “I thought it would be best to get some local reaction first. That’s why I copied it to Greene and our ops.”

  He shrugged. “Of course, I didn’t bother to emphasize that to anyone.”

  “Should I?” Ian asked.

  “What’s your reaction to it, Ian?” Truscott asked softly.

  Ian took a deep breath. He knew the admiral expected nothing less than a completely honest opinion.

  Truscott had made it clear from the start that he had no use for yesmen.

  “A month ago, I might have suggested that you schedule a medical evaluation,” Ian said carefully. “And I would have had a few words with the surgeon in advance. But that was before we received that MR from Buchanan, before all the other, ah, experiments.” Ian watched the admiral’s reaction, but Truscott showed nothing but a bemused smile.

  “And now?” Truscott asked, as softly as before.

  “Now it appears to be a reasonable set of contingency plans. If we have the opportunity, and the need, to use any of these here, we may obtain the objective evidence that the Admiralty would doubtless require before accepting them for general implementation.”

  ” Lancer should provide proof of the basics, Ian,” Truscott reminded him. “Barring disaster, we should know by morning how workable this is. Once you get past the practicality of making Qspace transits ninety seconds apart, there’s little that can be considered particularly revolutionary about the rest. Once I have Lancer’s log for its current mission, I will undoubtedly add a postscript to the file. Certainly before I forward it to Long John.”

  “You might put these ideas out for the captains to comment on, sir,” Ian suggested. “If nothing else, that will insure that they’re familiar with the concepts before a situation arises where they might have to implement them.”

  Truscott nodded. “Would you do that for me, Ian?”

  “Of course, sir.” Ian did it immediately. “I would imagine that you’ll have reaction by morning, if not long before.”

  “I think I’ll retire early tonight,” Truscott said. He stood and stretched. “I’ve had an uncommonly full day.”

  “So it seems, sir,” Ian allowed with a chuckle. “If you were to put out this volume every day, we’d soon have to add memory to the ship’s datanet.” He got up. “Will you need me any more tonight?”

  “I don’t think so. You might lay some of those rumors to rest if you get the chance. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Yes, sir.” Ian was on the way to the door when the message came from the flag bridge.

  ” Lancer is back, sir. She’s about three hours out, decelerating at full thrust.”

  Truscott laughed out loud. “Stick around, Ian. It looks like the day isn’t over for us yet. Get Captain Rivero on a holo hookup and we’ll see what he has to say.”

  34

  It was almost possible for Doug to forget that there was a war going on, that Federation invaders remained on Buchanan, perhaps within a few miles of where he sat. This sort of wilderness trek wasn’t completely new to him. He had occasionally taken hiking trips with friends. It was enjoyable, a way to get away from the workaday routines of farming and the commission. Usually.

  This time, the fourhundred armed Marines of the Second Commonwealth with him spoiled any illusion of normalcy. They were bivouacked for the night now, in three separate camps. There were sentries posted and, in a circle farther out, microphones and remotecontrolled mines. Delta Company was to the left, south. Alpha Company was on the right. And the I&R platoon was between and west of the others.

  “I’m still not certain I see the logic of this,” Doug said while he and David were sitting over their field rations. “You kept saying that you couldn’t possibly clear Buchanan by walking it foot by foot, but here we are, walking through the woods hoping to stumble on Federation soldiers.”

  “Logic? In the Royal Marines?” David shrugged. “I guess it’s a matter of combining tactics. The object, as I understand it, is to get the job done as quickly as possible. The close air searches have been only partially effective.

  “So we choose the most likely escape routes for soldiers who don’t want to be seen and put men across them as well.”

  “How do you choose likely routes, and what’s to stop the enemy from ducking out of the way and moving back after we pass?”

  ‘ ‘We have very detailed maps for this part of your world. We can pinpoint anything as small as four inches in diameter that’s visible from the sky and not damn well camouflaged. We assume the Feddies are aware of the air search and don’t want to be found, so they’ll stay low, in heavily forested areas or in caves, places where they have some chance of hiding as long as they keep their electronics off. Whether they’re going to ground or trying to put more distance between themselves and your settlements, there are only a limited number of prime routes. Intelligence picked out the places for us to sea
rch. As for ducking aside and coming back later, well, we’ll make that a little more difficult.” He looked around, then called to Sean Seidman.

  “Bring me a doughnut cutter and a snoop.”

  Sean quickly dug into his pack, pulled out two objects, and brought them across.

  “We’ll plant a lot of snoopers across the terrain.” David showed Doug the circular cutter. There were two concentric metal cylinders, held together at the top, with separate plungers and a solid handle.

  “We find a likely spot and stick one of these in the ground. Give it a twist and it pulls out a plug of earth.

  Hit the center plunger to empty the smaller cylinder, switch on a snoop, stick it into the cutter, then plug the cutter back into the hole and hit both plungers. That leaves the snoop in place, concealed and ready to operate, without leaving much evidence of our, ah, gardening.”

  Doug took the cutter and looked at it. He hit the plungers, then handed it back. “What about these snoops?”

  David held it up. “Eight inches long, three wide at its widest. In place, only this oneinch knob shows. It has a listening device that can pick up the heartbeat of an insect sitting on it, and a camera that takes a full panoramic view, 360 degrees around and 160 degrees over the top, one frame a second. When the microphone picks up a sound, the camera starts snapping until it determines that the sound isn’t something we need to know about.”

  “It makes its own decisions?” Doug asked.

  “Within limits,” David said. “There’s considerable expertise built into its control circuits. In a questionable case, the data is relayed to CIC for further examination. These snoops each send their data up in bursts, and the big computers process everything double quick.”

  “Telltales,” Doug said.

  David nodded. “And there’s no way the Feddies can disarm them without giving themselves away. By the time they spot anything so small, they’ve got to be close enough to be heard and photographed. After that, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got a lock on the position.”