Tactics of Duty

by William H. Keith

  "You still think this scheme will help the Legion pay off its debts?" Grayson asked as she steered them down a corridor and toward an enormous set of sliding doors at the far end.

  "And then some," she said, flashing her confident smile. "You two might not realize it, but you gentlemen are currently the hottest thing on Glengarry three-vee right now, and it looks like we're going to have a chance to sell the rights to Interstar Entertainment, too."

  "We should have thought of this years ago, Grayson," Jaime added. "It's cheaper than fighting and not nearly as wasteful as the Solaris games!"

  Carlyle laughed. The gladiator-style combats on Solaris had long been a sore point with him. Senseless, set-piece engagements where Mech Warriors—usually the desperate ones hard-up for C-bills or recognition—and BattleMechs were ground up for the amusement of the populace and the enrichment of gamblers. Computer sims offered just as much realism and just as much a testing of skill, experience, and guts, but no one was actually hurt or killed.

  Lori released their arms when they reached the door. "Well, you two, here's your public debut as stars of three-vee! Good luck, both of you!"

  "Aren't you coming in?" Grayson asked.

  "This is your moment. I'll be watching, though!"

  The tall doors slid open, giving entrance to the heart of Dunkeld's Civic Arena, a vast, domed-over amphitheater ringed by circle upon rising circle of seats. As the two men entered, resplendent in full military dress, the crowd packed into the bleachers rose as one, venting a thunderous roar that filled the dome and echoed from every side. Side by side, Grayson Carlyle and Jaime Wolf faced the crowd, arms raised, turning slightly from side to side. After a moment, they shook hands with one another and, as the crowd continued to cheer, each walked to his assigned station at opposite ends of an enormous holographic projection table.

  That table, measuring some fifty meters by thirty meters, was currently displaying in accurate 1/200 scale a rolling green landscape dominated by patches of dark woods, open, cultivated fields, and a web of dusty-looking dirt roads radiating out from a cluster of archaic-looking buildings near the table's center. Two long, parallel ridges extended south from that town, separated by a broad, open valley almost a meter wide on the projection; hills, some thickly wooded, some bald-topped and strewn with boulders. Much of the ground, especially in the east and in the south, was broken and difficult, with such thickly wooded areas that even BattleMechs would have trouble passing through them.

  Grayson slipped down into the open, egg-shaped cockpit of his station positioned on the west edge of the map. Several display monitors above and to his left and right lit up as he took his seat. Numbers winked into view on his primary screen, detailing lists of units, conditions, and coordinates of BattleMechs.

  "Gentlemen! Are you ready to begin?" a disembodied voice asked from somewhere overhead. "Ready," Grayson replied.

  "All set," Wolf's voice echoed, sounding as close as if the leader of Wolf's Dragoons had been seated at Grayson's side, instead of thirty meters away at the opposite side of the table.

  "Very well, Colonel, Commander," the voice continued. "We're ready here. Stand by. Five ... four ... three ... two ..."

  Somewhere, music crashed, martial and insistent.

  "Ladies and gentlemen," another voice said, addressing the entire vast audience. "Welcome back to Glengarry Broadcasting's Sports Extravaganza: The Wolf and the Death's Head, the holographic battle of the year!"

  As the music continued, Grayson adjusted a throat mike, then opened a private channel to Wolf. "I swear to God," he said, "I had no idea they were going to hype this thing this much!"

  "No problem, Grayson," Jaime Wolf replied, voice just audible beneath the opening music. "If I were you, I'd be worrying more about what might happen if you lose here today! Sounds like you have some fans out there who might get a bit upset with me!"

  Grayson could hear the chanting, a deep, rhythmic repetition of "Gray Death! Gray Death! Gray Death!" accompanied by the stamp of hundreds of feet.

  "If you win," Grayson replied lightly, giving the first word all the stress he could, "I'm sure we'll be able to slip you out the back!"

  "Sure. And next time, we do this back on Outreach, where I can pack the audience with my fans!"

  "Deal."

  The music was winding down, the announcer's voice giving a summary of the strategic situation chosen for the day's contest. With a brief, buzzing whine, the holographic images of Grayson's 'Mechs materialized along the northwest edge of the terrain, tiny, perfect representations of BattleMechs, each just five centimeters tall.

  The Battle of Gettysburg, July 1, 2, and 3, 1863, refought with 'Mechs.

  The game of BattleTech, in its myriad incarnations, had been an intensely popular entertainment for centuries, appearing in countless forms on every inhabited world throughout the Inner Sphere. Most common and popular were the two- to eight-player cockpit versions that pitted half-meter holographic images of 'Mechs against one another at close range, with computers to tally and record damage. They were, in fact, smaller civilian versions of the big simulators military units used for training.

  Less common and more difficult to play were the strategic setups, whole, sprawling campaigns fought with hundreds or even thousands of separate holographic pieces projected by the computer onto an accurately scaled and detailed image of a given historical battlefield. Where the smaller sims tested a MechWarrior's tactical skill at handling one or a very few BattleMechs, the strategic battlefield simulators tested a would-be general's ability to command an entire army, struggling against not only the enemy, but such complications as terrain, breakdowns, and logistics.

  For this highly publicized engagement between two well-known mercenary commanders, Jaime Wolf would play the part of General George Gordon Meade leading the Union forces, while Grayson took the persona of Robert E. Lee commanding the Confederates.

  The mix of BattleMechs at each man's command had been balanced by the computer to roughly parallel the sorts of troops that had been engaged in the actual battle. Grayson could look up at any of the display monitors above him and actually see the battlefield as though he were observing it from the cockpit of one of the 'Mechs, right down to the ponderous, side-to-side lurch as the machine ambled along the road; the moderating computer could calculate all possible angles of view from any point on that enormous terrain map and create the appropriate image on the screen. From what he could see, the battle was now underway in earnest.

  The first of Grayson's troops, representing the shoe-hunting infantry of a general named Heth, consisted of one company of light and medium 'Mechs. They began the contest by deploying in open formation along a dirt road leading southeast into the village. Waiting for them at the top of a low ridge, however, was Wolf's cavalry ... in this case, a dozen light armored hovercraft, his high-speed scouts, supported by the long-range muscle of a single Archer.

  An Archer. That was Wolf's usual 'Mech in the field, Grayson knew. In this simulation, it was possible at any time for the player to "enter" any one 'Mech and control it directly; the other player could never know for sure which 'Mech was the personal 'Mech of his opponent, but there was a point penalty if a player lost a 'Mech while he was running it. It was tempting to assume that the Archer up there on McPherson's Ridge was piloted personally by Jaime Wolf; destroying it would win Grayson some points.

  On the other hand, that could well be precisely what Wolf was counting on. That Archer outmassed Grayson's heaviest 'Mech, a Centurion, by twenty tons. It would take time to hammer the Archer down with a concerted attack, and that might well be time enough for Wolf's reinforcements to come up.

  A volley of simulated rockets streaked from the Archer, tiny pinpoints of flame descending on the advancing 'Mechs like hail. Grayson tapped out a command ... then another. His four heavier 'Mechs pressed forward, taking hits but pinning the enemy's attention with a stinging, lashing barrage, while the eight lighter 'Mechs fell back, shifted to the righ
t, and began circling around through McPherson's Woods.

  The Second Battle of Gettysburg had begun.

  * * *

  Two men watched the contest with considerable interest from a media gallery high above the rows of bleachers and the crowd. The gallery was one of a number of enclosed balconies ringing the stadium, designed to provide comfortable surroundings for media commentators and members of the electronic press. The bodies of its previous occupants, a man and a woman, lay on the floor near one wall in twin puddles of slowly pooling blood.

  From this elevated vantage point, the two men were positioned nearly eighty meters from Grayson Carlyle's station.

  It was difficult to see the mercenary from here directly, though large vid monitors on the room's console gave close-ups of either Wolf or Carlyle on command, as well as any part of the battlefield. Both of the contestants appeared deeply engrossed as they manipulated their armies, which, for the convenience of the spectators thronging that hall, were displayed in blue or gray.

  The two watchers, however, were less interested in the simulated troop deployments than they were in Carlyle.

  "I could take him now," the first man said, his voice a low growl. "Easy."

  "Not yet, Pardo," the other, a leaner, darker man said. He still held the snub-nosed needler pistol that he'd used on the two reporters. "We have to take down both targets at once. If we pop Carlyle now, we might not get a shot at the other one."

  "Damn, boss, I hate this waiting."

  "It won't be long now. There'll be a break soon. Maybe then."

  * * *

  An hour passed ... and then another. The first day's fight, interestingly enough, actually paralleled the historical fight at Gettysburg on July 1 fairly closely, except, of course, that the simulated 'Mechs under Grayson's and Wolf's respective commands were considerably faster and more maneuverable than closely packed regiments of men or horse-drawn artillery pieces. With few of the forces on either side on the field as yet, the initial meeting engagement northwest of Gettysburg had rapidly evolved into a series of lightning-fast thrusts and slashes among the open, rolling hills and cornfields, with heavy casualties on both sides. The hover tanks and the lone Archer on the ridgetop had held, then slowly pulled back toward the town. Grayson's thrust through McPherson's Woods had run into tougher terrain than he'd been expecting, and by the time his Locusts and Stingers broke through into the open, the heavier Union 'Mechs of Jaime Wolf's I Corps had arrived from the south, forcing Grayson to make a hasty retreat to avoid being cut off and surrounded or pinned against the woods and smashed in detail.

  But Confederate reinforcements were arriving on the field too, timed to parallel the troop arrivals of the original battle, but in swifter succession. Soon, Wolf's Union forces were finding themselves trapped between swiftly growing numbers of Confederates streaming piecemeal onto the battlefield from both the west and the north. His XI Corps, still brittle after their rout at Chancellorsville two months earlier, broke suddenly as a handful of Grayson's 'Mechs flanked them to the east; soon, the entire Union force was in full retreat through the town.

  Unfortunately, Grayson wasn't able to follow through on his initial tactical advantage before darkness ended the contest. His orders to one of his divisions to seize Culp's Hill southeast of the town—a position that would have placed him squarely behind the enemy's northern flank—had been ignored, presumably on the electronic whim of the moderating computer that periodically threw such glitches into the game in order to simulate the fog of war.

  And then the battlefield faded -into darkness, as a voice overhead announced, "Gentlemen. Time for recess. The first day's battle is concluded."

  Blinking, Grayson leaned back in his seat, suddenly aware of the ache in his shoulders as the overhead lights came up once more. He caught Wolf's eye across that broad, hill-rippled table top and grinned; Wolf replied with a wry, two-fingered salute.

  "The first day goes to you on points and position both, I'd say," his voice said in Grayson's earpiece. "The second day, though, will be different."

  "The first day was a virtual repeat of the real battle," Grayson replied. "Right down to the troop positions at nightfall." Standing, he studied the darkened terrain, where simulated campfires winked and flickered, marking huge camps of armed men. "I would have expected some tactical digression!"

  "We were simply feeling each other out" was Wolf's response. "Wait until the second day!"

  "You know," Grayson said conversationally, "I find it interesting that terrain is playing as big a part in our version of Gettysburg as it did in the original. From the look of those campfires you have on Cemetery Hill and Cemetery Ridge, we're going to be fighting over the same ground on Day Two."

  "It's been my experience," Jaime replied, "that terrain is always the deciding tactical factor, whether you're fighting on foot or in BattleMechs."

  "You've certainly got the good ground on this go-round," Grayson said.

  "Are you going to come take it away from me?" Wolf's tone was bantering, a joking dare.

  Grayson was about to reply, but he stopped himself, frowning in concentration. He felt an odd, prickling sensation at me back of his neck ... the same prickling he often felt in battle.

  Danger ...

  Few combat veterans doubt that sixth sense that warns a man of danger. Grayson had felt this warning often before; he felt it strongly now, the sensation of being watched by hostile eyes. Turning sharply, he scanned the banks of seated spectators behind and around him. Their numbers had thinned somewhat with the intermission, but there were still hundreds of faces looking back at him, some intently, some with disinterest.

  He saw nothing alarming, nothing suspicious.

  "Is there a problem, Grayson?" Wolf's voice asked.

  "Sorry," Grayson replied. "I was distracted for a moment there. Stage fright, I guess."

  "It is quite a crowd."

  Dismissing the nagging sense that he was being watched by hostiles, he turned back to his controls and brought up a small, well-lighted version of the terrain map on his main screen.

  As had happened in history, the second day's battle would be fought on the hills, ridges, and farmland south of the town of Gettysburg.

  Good ground ...

  Grayson had long before identified the key terrain features in that area. Historically, the arrangement of hills and ridges south of the town had been known as "the fishhook." Wooded Culp's Hill occupied the hook's point, joined to Cemetery Hill by a low, curving saddle. The fishhook's shaft was the eastern of the two long ridges, Cemetery Ridge running due south from Cemetery Hill for a distance of over two kilometers. South of that was Little Round Top, heavily wooded on its eastern and southern flanks, nakedly exposed to the west and capped by a tangle of immense boulders. South from there, rising even higher above the surrounding fields and woods and completely covered by trees, was the fishhook's eye—Big Round Top.

  During the actual battle, Union forces under Meade had occupied the fishhook in a two-day defensive action, after retreating from the first day's field in defeat. Their opponents had occupied a larger, outer fishhook, from the woods east of Culp's Hill, up and around through the town itself, then down the length of the western, wooded height known as Seminary Ridge, after the Lutheran seminary at its northern end. The second day, Grayson knew, had been largely inconclusive, a series of sharp, hard fights precipitated by a staggered Confederate advance against the Union left. Mistakes on both sides, with a generous mix for both of good luck and bad, had resulted in some of the fiercest fighting of the American Civil War, and place names forever engraved in the memories of fighting men: Peach Orchard, Wheatfield, Devil's Den, Little Round Top. Most military historians counted the second day at Gettysburg as a draw.

  Grayson was determined not to repeat the historical unfolding of the battle a second time. By the third and last day, his opponent would have all of his reserves up and would outnumber Grayson's army by a substantial margin. There was a way for the Confe
derates to win this fight ... and Grayson set out to find it.

  The light on the big map was coming up again, revealing rank upon rank of silently waiting BattleMechs, tanks, and tiny images of men, each less than half a centimeter tall. Music came up, and an unseen voice made the expected announcement. "Commander, Colonel, if you're both ready, please. Five ... four ... three ... two ... Ladies and gentlemen, the Battle of Gettysburg, the second day. Brought to you live, here on Glengarry Broadcasting!"

  Rapidly, Grayson typed in commands. Historically, Lee had failed on the second day partly because one of his subordinates had delayed in launching the attack. Aware that he was fighting now against time, against the slowly moving sun in the artificial sky above, Grayson urged his holographic army into motion.

  "The two sides are still fairly evenly matched," the announcer's voice was saying over his headset. Grayson had elected to open the channel and hear what they were saying; the computer monitoring that channel would blank out any information they let slip on the positioning of Wolf's forces. "Wolf's Union 'Mechs may have a slight advantage in numbers and firepower, and they certainly hold the higher, stronger ground ... that fishhook of hills and ridges extending south from the town. It will be interesting to see whether Wolf repeats the historical Union strategy of sitting tight and letting Colonel Carlyle come to him across open ground, or whether he'll come down off that hill and launch a spoiling attack, maybe in hopes of upsetting the Colonel's timing."

  "That's right, Rob," a woman's voice added. "And I might add, by the way, that we've just had word that both the Nagelring on Tharkad and the Sanglamore on Skye have signed onto the HPG net this afternoon in order to watch this epic contest between two master tacticians...."

  Grayson suppressed a snort at that. The Nagelring was arguably the best war college within Steiner space, with the Sanglamore a close second. Live HPG transmission time was frightfully expensive. Surely those institutions must have better things to do with their time and money than to watch two old soldiers play war games?