“We took a couple of prisoners,” Ed reported, once we were a safe distance from the village and could pause to lick our wounds. I could see smoke rising up from where we’d been and winced inwardly. “One of them is injured, but the other is unharmed, if not talkative. It was clearly a planned ambush, sir; there wasn't a single child and only a couple of women in the village.”
“That’s a relief,” I said, and meant it. I had no problem with killing insurgents and people who were trying to kill me, but I hated seeing children caught up in the gears of war and mashed to bloody paste. I allowed him to lead me to the prisoners and examined them carefully, but neither of them was feeling talkative, even with the medic binding the wounds of the injured one. They both looked like typical farmers and the uninjured one managed to glare at me, even with his hands firmly secured behind his back with a plastic tie. I wasn't sure if that were bravery, stupidity or a determination to make us kill him before we could make him talk. “Put them in one of the trucks. As long as they behave themselves, we won’t hurt them, but if they cause trouble, feel free to put them out of the truck with a cut throat.”
I walked back to the armoured car and took the chewy bar I was offered to replenish my strength. I think they make them taste awful on purpose; I’ve heard stories about UN units starving to death rather than eat them. Once everyone had had a snack and paused to answer nature’s call, we mounted up again and drove off towards the Fort. I settled down in the back of the armoured car and returned to studying the take from the UAV. There were three more small villages and one larger town we’d have to pass through before we reached the Fort…and that assumed that the Fort remained unoccupied. If it didn’t, we were going to have to assault it without causing too much damage, although I doubted that the farmers would seek a conventional battle. How many losses could they absorb before they lost the ability to farm their fields?
The next hour passed slowly, even though we picked up an escort in the form of a couple of attack helicopters. I’d kept a handful of them running patrols around the area, but I was persistently worried that one or both of them would get shot down by the enemy. The farmers seemed to dislike the helicopters, but it was still a mystery how many SAMs they had, or even if they had any. They would probably have picked them up from a UN deport, but would they still be in working order?
“Another village,” Ed’s voice said, in my ear. “Here we go again.”
This village was completely deserted. The infantry dismounted and searched the area carefully, but found nothing, apart from signs of a quick evacuation. We checked out the houses that were nearer the roads, but they were definitely empty. I even brought up the bomb-sniffing vehicle and checked the area, but it was clean of IEDs and mines. It actually felt eerie and I was glad to be away when we left. I’d had the feeling that someone was drawing a bead on us from a distance. Still, if they chose not to fight, it was something of a relief. I just wondered where the villagers had gone! Had they been ordered to leave, or had they heard about our approach and decided to hide?
“There’s no way to know,” Ed said, when I commented on it. He sounded as if it had been bugging him too. “They could be anywhere in the fields.”
I looked around at the vast empty fields, the cattle and sheep waiting plaintively for their masters to return, and took his point. There was no time for a search and so we drove on, passing through another empty village and a town that completely ignored us. The inhabitants saw us coming and cleared the main road, rather than attempting to talk or fight. It was better than fighting, I decided, but it would have been nice to talk to someone and try to set up diplomatic links to the militia. We might have been able to talk them out of continuing the fight…
No, I thought, with a touch of bitterness. They have no reason to stop fighting.
Three hours later, after a long drive filled with moments of screaming terror as snipers fired at us and vanished into the distance, we finally reached the fort. There was little pleasant about the massive blocky building – the UN had come up with a design it liked for a fort and kept it on all of the colony worlds – but it was clear, even from a distance, that the fort was occupied. We would have to assault it just to take it off the enemy.
“Get the men rested and bring up additional helicopters,” I ordered, tightly. The advantage of surprise was already lost. “We’ll assault the fort in an hour.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The insurgent will rarely seek a conventional battle with the government forces, as the government forces will generally be much better trained and armed than the insurgent. If they can be lured into such a battle, it is vitally important that as many insurgents as possible are killed or captured. An insurgency may be broken by one massive battle – IF the political conditions are right.
-Army Manual, Heinlein
I could hear the sound of snipers in the distance as I examined the fortress through the eyes of the UAV, which was circling high overhead. The enemy forces had to have remained in the barracks until we’d approached, before taking up their positions, trying to keep us in the dark as much as possible. I silently saluted their commanding officer in my mind. He’d done a good job, but I was ahead of him in one respect; I had always assumed that I would have to fight my way into the fort.
Fort Galloway was tiny compared to the spaceport, but it still dominated the landscape and seemed to keep us all under observation. It was surrounded by a network of bunkers and traps designed to funnel enemy forces into areas where they could be mown down by emplaced machine guns and probably minefields as well. Inside, there were a handful of barracks intended for the men, an underground hospital for the injured and a set of command buildings and helipads, all encircled by watchtowers and barbed-wire fences. The tiny fence surrounding the outside of the complex was a joke by comparison; its only purpose was to deter civilians from walking into the firing zone. The warning notices, writing in Standard and all of Svergie’s official languages, warned of dire penalties, up to and including death, for anyone stupid enough to slip under the fence and enter the complex.
“They’ll have stripped her of anything useful,” Peter observed. I tried very hard not to jump. He’d come up right behind me perfectly silently. “They took down most of the fence for marking out the fields, or something.”
I nodded. The reason we’d never bothered with Fort Galloway before was that the local government had removing everything the farmers or miners had left behind, before abandoning the fort to the ravages of nature. The UN Construction Corps generally did good work – several of them had been shot by outraged commanding officers to make the point – and the fort would remain standing for years yet, but anything mobile had probably been taken years ago. It wouldn’t be that much of a problem – we’d brought supplies and could move in more once we’d occupied the fort, either though helicopter or on the roads – and in some ways it worked in our favour. The enemy holding the fort were unlikely to be very well-equipped either.
“1st and 3rd Svergie lead the assault,” I said, finally. I hated to be cold-blooded about it, but the Svergie soldiers were more expendable than A Company and the remainder of my men. “A Company and the support will remain in reserve.”
Ed nodded and headed off to organise the assault as the firing intensified. I’d deployed my snipers to force the enemy to keep their heads down – nothing damages morale like a shot killing someone at an impossible distance – but the enemy snipers were firing back, trying to force us to change our minds. They hadn’t hit anyone yet – we were using our vehicles as cover – but it was only a matter of time. It was a shame we couldn’t use the helicopters to their best advantage, but if we’d rocketed the fort we’d have had to abandon it quickly or waste resources trying to rebuild it. The mortars would suffice for what we had in mind, loaded with anti-personnel rounds; they’d kill the enemy soldiers, without seriously damaging the fort. The UN built them tough.
“I think I’ve located the enemy command centre,” the
voice of the pilot said, through my earpiece. A building flashed up on my terminal. “They seem to be communicating from here with runners and shit.”
I watched for a long moment and decided that the pilot was right. “Target the building with a missile and engage as soon as we begin the main assault,” I ordered. The enemy might not have realised the UAV was present – the memory of a particularly embarrassing training session floated up into my mind and I smiled in bitter memory – but they’d probably prepared for mortars and even artillery. How would they cope with a penetration missile? “Ed?”
“We’re ready, boss,” Ed said. He paused. “You’re not leading the assault in person, by the way.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yes, mom,” I said, tiredly. “I’ll coordinate from here. Go in five; I repeat, five.”
“Five,” Ed confirmed. “We’re ready and waiting.”
The original designers of the fort had cut down all the trees and everything else that could provide cover surrounding the fort, allowing them to see and engage everything that approached the fort. Depending on how paranoid they’d been feeling, they might have sensors designed to watch for anyone trying to dig a tunnel into the base – it had happened on several occasions on other worlds – but over the years some foliage had grown up to provide limited cover. The snipers intensified their duel at my orders, trying to force the enemy to hide behind their walls, although they probably had sensors in the watchtowers. They’d have to be handled through brute force…
I smiled. We’d brought plenty of that along.
“Group One, go,” I ordered. “Pilot, drop the bomb.”
Three of the armoured cars could fire small antitank rockets, designed to give them a ghost of a chance against a real tank – as opposed to absolutely no chance at all – and they could be configured to target other obstacles as well. Four of the armoured cars fired a single rocket at once, targeted on each of the watchtowers, blowing them down in violent explosions. The enemy might have scattered other sensors around, but if they’d stuck with the standard UN system, they were blind now. They’d have to get people up on the battlements to look at us and the snipers would pick them off with ease, even though the haze of the smoke.
An explosion shook the ground as a new pillar of fire billowed up from the centre of the fort. The penetration missile dug into its target and exploded inside, rather than simply exploding on the outside, and anyone caught in the blast was definitely dead. If that had been the enemy command post, it wasn't any longer.
“Hit them,” I ordered. “Group Two, go!”
The mortars opened fire and threw a hail of antipersonnel rounds into the fort, targeted on areas we were sure had large enemy presences. Anyone who sought cover after the first explosion would be fairly safe, but anyone out in the open would be in serious danger. I clenched my fist as the explosions flared up in the distance and keyed my earpiece.
“Ed, go,” I ordered. “Good luck.”
The defenders of the fort were struggling to get their own mortars into action to return fire, but they hadn’t counted on the UAV and its precise instructions from high overhead. Our mortars threw their shells into their positions and wiped them out before they could get off more than a handful of shells, scattering the defenders and forcing them to seek cover. It proved that they hadn’t kept all of the fort’s original defences; the UN used point defence lasers, just to provide cover from any such assault. If they’d done that, they might even have prevented the UAV from picking off their command post.
I watched as the soldiers swarmed towards the first bunkers. The enemy seemed totally unprepared to see them and, even as they started to fire back, the armoured cars started to launch their rockets into the occupied bunkers. Their firing slacked off as our forces and the defenders became intermingled, but the snipers kept firing, picking off every enemy soldier who showed his face. Whatever else the enemy were, they hadn’t prepared for a conventional fight at the fort…or had they thought we’d just line up and advance towards the fort in the open? Even the UN wasn't that stupid. The defenders tried to fall back as the first bunkers fell, only to find that a retreat was the hardest thing to do under any circumstances. A handful threw their arms up in surrender, others were shot in the back or tried to keep fighting until they were beaten. The inner defences struggled to hold out, but my men were already within the walls and pushing them back hard.
“They’re falling back to the underground bunkers,” Ed said, in my earpiece. “We may have to go after them unless they surrender.”
I nodded tightly. “Offer to accept surrender if they’re willing to surrender,” I said, seriously. I wasn't going to risk men trying to capture people who didn’t want to surrender, but the chaos gripping the fortress would make it hard for my men to tell who was trying to surrender and who was preparing to throw a grenade at their positions as they advanced. It was quite possible that we’d kill surrendering men quite by accident, but there was little choice. They should have surrendered before we’d assaulted their fortress. “If they refuse, don’t be gentle.”
The firing started to taper off as the defenders either surrendered or were wiped out. A handful dug into the bunkers and tried to make a stand, but Ed’s men rolled grenades down the steps and blew them out, one by one. Others tried to flee into the surrounding countryside, only to discover that our snipers were watching for anyone trying that and were gunned down. A massive explosion rocked one quarter of the fort as their stored ammunition detonated – they’d blown it to prevent us from capturing it – and the last of the firing stopped. Fifteen minutes after the assault had begun, the fort was safely in my hands.
“You three, escort us,” Peter ordered, as I walked towards the fort. My three bodyguards from A Company fell into formation around me, leading me through the defences and into what had once been a functional fort. I was relieved to see that the defences weren't too badly damaged, but many of them would have to be replaced quickly. Leave it to the UN to be efficient when it would best irritate us. On the other hand, at least they’d taken out the minefields. If they’d been left there, taking the fortress would have been much harder.
The interior of the fortress was full of scorched and blackened buildings, but I was relieved to see that most of them were still intact. The former command building had been reduced to a pile of rubble and the other buildings surrounding it were damaged, but the remainder were useable. We’d be able to set up home here without many problems. The prisoners lay on the ground in the central yard, which would have once been used to hold parades and inspections, their hands bound behind their backs. Some watched us nervously, others angrily and bitterly, even though we were treating the wounded. They didn’t look like farmers to me and it took me a moment to realise that they were actually miners. I looked over towards the mountains rising in the distance and scowled. The miners had come to aid the farmers, or had it just been a coincidence?
“Damn you, Frida,” I muttered under my breath. “What the hell have you gotten us into now?”
“We lost seventeen men,” Captain Jörgen Hellqvist reported. His accent, clearly local, earned him attention from the prisoners. Their faces promised him a horrible death if he fell into their hands. “Five more are seriously injured and need to be flown back to the spaceport before they die.”
“Call for a transport helicopter and ensure that it is heavily-escorted,” I ordered, finally. I wasn't going to allow wounded to be driven back to the spaceport if it could be avoided. They might not survive the experience. I looked at him, wondering if he could be trusted with prisoners, and decided that I’d have to start trusting him sooner or later. “Round up a platoon and have the prisoners moved to somewhere more secure – one of the former storage rooms, perhaps. Don’t let them talk to one another, but try not to hurt them further if it can be avoided.”
Peter shrugged as we walked into what had once been a command post for the fortress. It had been stripped of everything that might be useful, leaving only bare
patches of wall where computers and display systems had once stood, apart from the ever-present dust. The miners had evidently decided not to bother refitting the room for their use, although I couldn’t blame them for that. It was evidently nearly useless for them. We could probably use it if we moved in some of the stuff we’d recovered from the UN base at the spaceport, but that would have to wait until we moved up some of the more vital defence systems. We’d shown the enemy just how to assault the fort!
“The prisoners might be talkative,” he said, as soon as we were alone – apart from the bodyguards. “We could inject them with something designed to make them talkative if necessary.”
Picking Up The Pieces (Martial Law) Page 28
