The Fleet Book 2: Counter Attack

by David Drake (ed)

  I enlisted in our planetary levy and was given the rank of captain and put in command of a ten-man assault squad. We took basic training together at Camp Sabra. After a few weeks we had worked out our basic disagreements and my squad had voted to take my orders unconditionally, at least for the present. Some peoples of the Alliance have found it strange that we Perdidans—to use a neutral term for us—ask each other things rather than give each other orders, and that so entrenched is this custom among us that we stick to it even in our armed forces. Why do we do it that way? I can only say that through trial and error, we have discovered it’s a lot easier to talk matters over with us than to try to tell us what to do. Asking may take a little longer, but it ensures that the job gets done cheerfully and well. And if you’re told no, you just shrug your shoulders, perhaps mutter, “Oy Vey,” and go ask someone else. That’s the way we handle these matters. It seems so logical. Not everyone sees it that way, obviously.

  II.

  Colonel Bar Kochba called me and the other squad leaders to his quarters soon after the ship was in FTL drive and we were able to move around again. Kochba was a short, bull-necked man with a neatly trimmed white-flecked black beard and the upright bearing of the professional soldier. He was one of the few trained soldiers of field rank on Perdido, having graduated with honors from the Fleet College at Academia on Hellas II. We try to keep a few trained officers ready at all times, even though our planet has never had a real war in the sense of large professional armies and navies fighting it out with their counterparts. Perdido is too isolated and too poor to tempt anyone except the Khalian raiders. We had had more than enough of those, however, and were looking forward to this opportunity of striking back with what we expected would be a crushing blow.

  Bar Kochba proceeded in logical fashion. There was going to be a great space battle centered on the planet Target. This battle would be preceded by a commando-style raid on the planet itself. Bar Kochba explained that we would be taken to the surface of the planet in destroyers specially equipped for the mission. By taking out their main armament, the destroyers could mount multiple screens and probably avoid detection long enough to put us on the ground. He outlined the order of battle, issued maps of bur region which were little more than blank spaces with coordinates, since we had not been able to map Target yet. Our attack was to he made in just sixteen hours; now that the assault had been announced, it was imperative to get it moving before the Khalia had time to learn about it through their various allies.

  After dismissing us, Bar Kochba asked me to stay behind.

  Lighting his large and malodorous pipe, he told me that after reviewing the qualifications of his ten officers, he had decided to ask me to take on the job of Intelligence Officer. I was a little puzzled. “I wasn’t aware that I had any particular qualifications.”

  Bat Kochba smiled in his affable way. “I have chosen you,” he said, “because the records show that you are an inquisitive fellow, always poking your nose into matters that do not concern you. That is exactly the sort of fellow we need to do our intelligence work.”

  “Just what did you have in mind, Colonel?” I asked. “You’re not expecting me to spy on my fellow soldiers, are you?”

  The Colonel was surprised. “What gave you that idea? That’s Counterintelligence and it’s not at all what I’m interested in. I need an intelligence officer to help me find out what to expect on this planet we’re going to, this place called Target.”

  I shrugged. “You’ve seen the briefing reports, same as I have. What more is there to say?”

  “Nothing, yet. But in sixteen hours—closer to fifteen, now—our battle group spearheads the assault, on Target itself. Once on the ground, I suspect, we’re going to be staying a while. There will be important things to be learned, things that can affect the whole course of the war. I need a man to collect and coordinate all the discoveries made by our battle group.”

  I thought it over. It sounded like an important job. “I’ll do it,” I told him.

  “That’s fine,” Bar Kochba said. “But let’s get one thing straight. I don’t mean that you, personally, should do it. I’m not sending you out on a spying mission. I’m asking you to collect and coordinate information, and that’s all. Is that understood?”

  “Of course, sir,” I said. I saluted and left, and went back to prepare my squad for action. I thought about my new job. And I realized that I had not, in fact, promised. not to do any spying myself. I had merely agreed that I understood that Bar Kochba had asked me not to. I mention that because there was some talk of a court-martial after what actually happened later, after Wyk-Wyk Kingfisher came to our camp.

  III.

  The Land Combat Forces of the Fleet, drawn as they are from hundreds of planets with differing levels of military technology, to say nothing of local preference and personal taste, always equip themselves, carrying with them a small ordnance department to keep the weapons working and to handle ammunition and repairs. Our group was no different. We had adopted the standard Gushi Plasma Piece, the GPP, as our standard artillery arm. These weapons look like lengths of pipe four feet long by six inches wide. They can fire three five-pound cartridges without reloading, but are limited to line of sight operation. They produce a fireball upon impact with their target, and the energy release is on the order of half a ton of TNT. My squad had four such weapons, more than is usual for ten men, but we were the spearhead.

  Aside from that we carried our own weapons as developed on Eretz Perdido. We had several varieties of dart gun, a simple laser pistol, and various types of grenade. And it is with these we were armed when the time came to board the Fleet Destroyer Reliant and go down to the surface of Target below us.

  Our descent to the surface of Target was swift, and yet it seemed long indeed, because we didn’t know what awaited us below. It seemed entirely possible that this attack had been betrayed, for it was known that there were spies even among the professionals of the Fleet, men with a taste for money, whose easy consciences allowed them to sell out their own people in the comfortable expectation that the Alliance would win anyhow, so what difference would it make? The Khalia could set a trap for this destroyer as it dropped noiselessly through Target’s atmosphere. Their best strategy would be to let it land without opposition; then destroy it and everyone aboard it in a single overwhelming assault, mounted and carried out before any support could be brought in. Indeed, we couldn’t even ask for help; for the entire operation was to be performed in radio silence.

  Treachery, indeed, is the theme of this story of mine, but this is not where it occurred. Our destroyer put down without incident, kissing the dark ground of Target without a sound as we officers urged our men out of the hatches, fast, fast. The black night sky was pocked with distant silent explosions of light and color as the Fleet, high above us in battle formation, opened up a bombardment on the advance scout ships of the Khalia coordinating this action to mask our landing.

  The last of our battle group tumbled but, and the destroyer went into lift mode even before the hatches were dogged shut, pushing away from the planet like a gale-driven schooner clawing off a lee shore, hoping to find maneuvering room in space before it was detected and brought down by the Khalian defense batteries.

  As for us, once on land, I and the other Captains took command of our squads and by prearrangement led them in different directions. Our first necessity was to disperse, get under cover, make an assessment of the situation, find out what troops were opposing us and in what numbers, and then hit the enemy and hit him hard.

  We were hampered at the beginning by a lack of decent maps, because very little mapping of Target had been completed before the assault. We had bought plenty of maps of course—seamen from the merchant fleets often came into contact with aliens who were themselves in contact with the Khalians. They sold their maps to the Fleet, and the Fleet paid them and hoped for the best. As I had feared, what I had in
my hand didn’t correspond to what lay around me. So different was the reality from the fanciful documents which the Fleet had given us that I told my men to put the useless things away, since they would only serve to confuse us, and sketch out new maps as they went along.

  We had come down to the south of a small city or camp, artificially lit, with streets running for many miles along a bay that opened into the ocean. We had named it Enemy City and assumed it was of some importance. Above us the skies were turning lurid and bright with plasma explosions as more and more ships joined the space battle. It was time we did something for the war effort. I checked out my men, then led them toward Enemy City, hoping that the other commanders shared my view that it was the obvious target.

  We set up the four plasma cannons on two ridges commanding the city, sited to pour down enfilading fire. The remaining men were dug in facing the rear, to defend the gunners if our position should be attacked. I took time to make sure that the gunners had the necessary windage corrections. Dawn was just glimmering when I stood up, lifted a white handkerchief, easily visible in the lightening gloom, and brought it down sharply.

  Golden tracks arced across the sky in a flat trajectory. By the erupting fireballs which rose upon contact we saw that we were hitting the target. For a moment we could see a dust-colored, earth-hugging city of one- and two-storied adobe buildings with a scattering of larger structures. I was reminded of photographs I had seen of Timbuktu and Omdurman on Earth. Was Enemy City a place like those? I wish I had had time to photograph it, but we blew a lot of it to bits before it fully registered on our consciousness, and then I assembled the men and marched them away at the double. I hated to give up the high ground, but I had to assume that someone would begin firing back.

  We stumbled down the hillside, charging toward Enemy City. We ran through narrow ravines that snaked toward the city gates. A hundred yards from the low, mud wall that surrounded the city we encountered our first resistance: a small rectangular guardhouse with slit windows, like some old Crusader fortress. We blew it apart with two hits from the laser cannon, and the first Khalia we saw were dead, slender chestnut-furred creatures with gun belts around their waists, from which depended a variety of pistols and swords.

  We had barely regrouped when a mob of Khalia came running toward us from the burning city. Backlit by the flames, unable to see us crouching in the ravine, they ran toward us and died, and we killed them with the plasma cannons until we ran out of cartridges, and then we killed them with stingers and cluster pistols, and at last with our bent-bladed knives, until there were no more around to kill. Not long after that we took possession of Enemy City.

  IV.

  Full daylight found me and my squad occupying a small tower in the center of the city. We had chosen a building made of heavy granite blocks, miraculously not destroyed by our bombardment. This structure, which we later learned was called Guildhall, sat by itself in the middle of a plaza, giving us an open field of fire on all sides. This was important, because we expected a counterattack to be mounted against us at any moment. So far, we had had it all our way, but we knew that couldn’t last forever. After all, we were sitting somewhere on the Khalian home planet. I just hoped that Colonel Bar Kochba had arranged for a second wave to be sent in. I expected all hell to break loose any minute.

  The light on our field radio started flashing soon after noon, signaling the end of radio silence. It was Colonel Bar Kochba, and he asked me to report my squad’s situation.

  “We’ve taken over a city,” I told him. “Not much resistance. No casualties. But I don’t know what happens next. We’re sitting right in the middle of this place and expecting to get attacked any time.”

  “You can relax a little,” Bar Kochba said. “We have visual and radar surveillance over your entire sector. There are no Khalian troop concentrations in sight.”

  “What about the other squads?” I asked him.

  “They’ve all reached their objectives. We had some losses when Teams 4 and 7 hit the spaceport. Only four men. So far we’re coming out of this miraculously well.”

  “What about the spaceport?”

  “We destroyed it.”

  “And the battle in space?”

  “A very big victory for the Fleet. The Khalia seemed to have no general battle plan. Just a mass of ships attacking on an individual basis. The Fleet knocked down a lot of them. The rest went into FTL drive and got away.”

  I needed a moment to digest all this. “Then we’ve won!” I cried.

  “Yes, obviously,” Bar Kochba said. He didn’t sound too excited about it. “I guess we could call it winning.”

  “I don’t understand your reservations over this,” I told him. “We’ve mauled their fleet and captured their home planet. Doesn’t that mean that the war is over?”

  “My dear ben Judah,” Bar Kochba said, “I guess I must bring you up to date on the latest findings. Preliminary reports show that the planet Target is or was an important staging area for the Khalian raider ships. We have won an important victory. But this planet Target seems not to be the Khalian home planet.”

  One of the members of my squad had come into the room I was using for radio transmission. He was making gestures and pointing outside. I made a gesture at him that was meant to mean, wait a minute, can’t you see I’m talking on the radio?

  “If this isn’t the Khalian home planet,” I said, “then who does it belong to?”

  “How the hell should I know?” Bar Kochba said. “You’re the Intelligence Officer. Find out.”

  “All right,” I said, “What about the Khalia?”

  “You’ll have to be on your guard at all times. Preliminary reports indicate there are at least a few thousand of them left on the planet.”

  “Right, sir. We’ll be careful. How much longer will we be down here?”

  “Quite a while,” Bar Kochba said, with what might have been a dry chuckle. “Our Battle Group has done so well that the Fleet Command has assigned us to garrison duty here.”

  Bar Kochba signed off. At last I was able to give my attention to my gesticulating squadman.

  “What is it, Gideon?”

  “Some people outside are demanding to see you at once.”

  “People? Do you mean human people, or Khalian people?”

  “Neither, Judah. These are what, I guess are the indigenous people who live on this planet.”

  “Good,” I said. “About time we found out who this planet belongs to. I’ll see them at once.”

  Gideon nodded. Our armed forces are very casual. “I’ll show them in.” He had a curious expression on his face. Almost like he was laughing about something. I couldn’t figure it out until a few minutes later, when he led the delegation in to the room.

  I suppose that “people” can refer to anything that can carry on an intelligent conversation. We sometimes call the Khalians “people,” and they resemble four-foot weasels. So perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised when Gideon ushered in four bipeds of approximately six feet in height, dressed in long robes which concealed the greater part of their bodies. What I could see of their bodies, however, were scaled and feathered. Their feet were claw-like, and their small heads, at the end of skinny scrawny necks were the small heads of birds.

  V.

  Thus I met my first Nedge, as they called themselves, the nomadic bird-people of Target. And while other humans turned to the major question of the day, the question of where the Khalian home planet was, since it wasn’t here, I turned to rounding up the remaining Khalia on Target, gathering intelligence, and arbitrating the I differences that come up between our troops and the Nedge.

  My first meeting did not have too auspicious a beginning. I welcomed the four Nedge, had chairs brought for them, offered them refreshments. I was trying to begin on the right note, because I knew we would need their cooperation to help us find, capture, or kill th
e remaining Khalia.

  But my words, intended to put them at ease, seemed to, give them problems. They conferred hastily among themselves, gabbling and clucking and shaking their wattles. Finally they reached some sort of decision, and the eldest among them, whom I later came to know as Kingfisher, since his Nedgean name was unpronounceable, stepped forward, flapped his rudimentary wings twice, cleared his throat, and spoke in quite passable English, though marked, inevitably, with a broad avian accent.

  “You do us much honor,” Kingfisher said, “but that’s your problem. If you wish us to sit, we’ll sit. Just remember, we didn’t propose anything of the sort ourselves.”

  I had Gideon fetch some of the folding canvas chairs that had been sent down with our supplies from the Fleet. The Nedge tried to imitate the way I sat, but it soon became obvious that their bones weren’t jointed like ours. Still, they managed finally, at cost of putting their feathers into considerable disarray, and Kingfisher said, “Am I correct in assuming that this is a form of abasement or does the posture have some other meaning?”

  “It has nothing to do with abasement,” I told him. “I am honoring you as my friends and guests.”

  “This is how you treat a friend?” Kingfisher said. “I’d hate to see what you make an enemy do.”

  “Where I come from,” I told him, “sitting signifies a meeting of equals. But suit yourself, stand up if you want.”

  “No, no,” Kingfisher said. “We are honored that you consider us your equals. Sitting is grotesque and uncomfortable, but what does that matter when you consider the honor it conveys?” He translated. this for the others, who gobbled their appreciation.