Go Tell the Spartans c-5

by Jerry Pournelle

  "Incoming!"

  The troops ran to the enemy bunkers.

  "Fuck all, there's nobody here!"

  "Empty! No bodies, nothing!"

  "Incoming!"

  "Take cover!"

  Nlles ran toward the nearest bunker, then stopped. "Stay out of those bunkers!" he screamed. "Stay out, it's a trap, it's a trap!" Too late. His men were diving into the bunkers as the enemy artillery came in.

  He dove to the ground and tried to make himself small, as bomblets and VT fell around him.

  Empty bunkers. Royalist artillery registered on this position, ready to fire as soon as he got here. They'd known he was coming, and that meant that the bunkers-

  A bunker ten yards to his left exploded in fire. Then another. And another.

  Mines. Command detonated mines. The artillery bombardment continued, as one by one the bunkers exploded in fire and white phosphorus, and Niles's command disintegrated.

  Skida Thibodeau dodged behind a lacework of fallen trees and turned her binoculars on the main enemy base down below at the river. Floating curves of fire reached out towards her. While Icepick fought its way through the valley, the headquarters guards units had moved parallel to them. At the last moment she came in from the North in the only helicopter available, flying low to the ground, a terrifying experience but it wasn't likely the distracted enemy would spot the machine before it dropped her off and went back to the base camp.

  The Spartan river base was a semicircle backed on the river, lit like day now by burning timber, smashed wagons, the fires from the barges anchored by the shattered piers. Lights sparkled all around the perimeter of it, bulging inward here and there, bulging in furthest from the west, a wedge cut out of the half-pie. The wedge sent out licks of fire, flame-thrower fire, to the strongpoints holding out in its path. Just beyond the point of the wedge longer flashes sparked, mortars firing to support the Royalists.

  Suddenly fire fell into the wedge. The men dodged into bunkers, into holes-

  The bunkers began to explode one by one, killing her troops.

  Kali eat they eyes, it not working, she thought disgustedly. The Helots had been relying on overrunning the base while the defenders were still reacting to the gas attack. Something had gone wrong. The Brotherhood fighters had recovered too fast and were dying too hard; the Helots did not have the weight of numbers or metal to overcome the stiffening resistance.

  Or worse. How did they know we coming? Traitors! Royals must have spies in the Helots, spies, how else could they know? It was a good plan, can't go wrong, must be spies.

  Suddenly the Royals were on the move. The big unit on the ridge above, the one that Icepick had fought past, it wasn't killed at all, and now it was coming down the hill to close the trap.

  There was gunfire behind her. The Royals were moving in that way, too! One more push. It was a good plan, too good to give up now, just because a few things went wrong. Something always goes wrong.

  She swept her binoculars around the hill. Aha! "They got observation from up there," she muttered. It was the last of the river base's outposts, the last one holding out.

  "Follow me!" she shouted. The reserve company advanced behind her. The fire from the observation base was still heavy, and she found the attack squads grouped in the last cover, huddling against the timber and rock. She rolled into the biggest hollow.

  "Who's in charge here?" she said.

  "F-f-field Prime!" A boy, looking pathetically young, none of the street-tough now. "I am, Field Prime, at least, Group Leader Metakzas is dead. Platoon Leader Swaggart, ma'am."

  "OK. Swaggart. Keep calm, fill me in."

  Tears of frustration glistened in his eyes, but his mouth snarled. "They . . . it was so close, we got the gatling out with the flamethrower and started to pile in, then a mortar round hit right behind Group Leader and they came back at us, pushed us back over the wire. We tried, we really did, Field Prime."

  "Skilly know, boy. Quiet." They certainly had; half the reinforced company sent to take this position looked to be out there, hanging on the wire or scattered in front of the Royalist firing positions. Strong positions, with good overhead log-and-earth cover.

  She looked up the slope; the gatling was still dead, but there were functioning machine guns in the two bunkers flanking it. The covering wire had been blown with bangalore torpedoes, long tubes of explosives pushed in under it, but there might be live directional mines. No help for it, she said, taking a long breath. Starting out, you knew it come to this.

  "Weapons," she said. The Meijian answered.

  "Sanjuki here."

  "You got those mortars silenced yet?"

  As if in answer, a bright light arched through the sky from the east; it seemed to hesitate and then plunged down toward the burning chaos of the river base. Launched from a stubby melted-looking automatic mortar, and guided by a fiber-optic cable. There was a tiny Tri-V camera in the nose, but only fractions of a second to guide it in.

  "One more down. They have excellent overhead protection, Field Prime, and only open their firing slits for a few seconds."

  She gritted her teeth; Skida Thibodeau had always hated excuses. You did it, that was all.

  "Field Two, how it going?"

  "Hard work, Skilly." Two-knife's gravel voice. "We killing them, but the rabiblanco's not giving up much."

  "Keep at it, I get their eyes off you." Back to the Meijian. "Fire mission, ring Base One," she said.

  "Yes, Field Prime-that is very close to your position-"

  "Skilly know! Skilly says do it, and now!"

  "All right," she continued, switching to local push. "Skilly is here, compadres. What you all waiting for, the Cits to send you enough lead you can open a bullet factory? This way up!"

  The rockets crashed down, and the air filled with steel. "Follow me!"

  "Urrgk."

  Private Brother Pyrrhos McKenzie spat, coughed, spat again. The fluid from his lungs seemed to be about half blood and half thick clear something that he didn't want to think about. Everyone else in the bunker was dead, he thought-Ken when the gas came, and Leontes with a bullet through the face in the last attack. He hung over the grips of the gatling, blood and brains from the wound and the inside of his helmet still leaking down on the metal; it sizzled, the breech-ring hot enough to fry the matter that slimed it into a hard crust.

  Glad I can't smell, McKenzie thought. The radio was squawking, but there was no time to listen to that. Breathe. Deep bubbling sounds, like air going through a coffee maker. Cough, and his mouth filled with the heavy salt warmth. Spit. A little better on the next breath. Up. Impossible to stand, haul yourself up handover . . . handoverhand. Gasping, he stumbled two steps to the firing slit and collapsed over the weapon, knocking the other militiaman's body off it.

  "Sorry, Leo," he wheezed; that was a mistake, he went into another coughing fit and something in his chest felt like a hot knitting needle. Only right. Leo and he had been ephebes together, candidates for the Phraetrie. He was going to marry Leo's sister Antigone when they both turned twenty-three. The coughing went on a long time, but he felt a little better afterwards, though, and blinked his eyes clear while his hands fumbled at the grips of the gatling. Took up the slack on the spade grips, and the electric motor whined, spinning the barrels with blurring speed. His thumbs rested on the firing buttons on top of the grips.

  God, there's a lot of them. Crawling towards him, but he was nearly level with the ground here. Lots of dead people out there, dead mules and horses, the gas had gotten them. Burning stuff, crates.

  He depressed the muzzles, stroked the buttons. Brrrrrrrrt. Brrrrrrrt. The recoil surged in his arms, and he coughed again; the liquid spurted out of his mouth and hit the barrels, spraying. Rebels dropped, killed, sawn in half by the fire. The enemy scattered, rolling out of his line of fire; he walked the bursts over crates, bodies, anything that might give cover. Wood and flesh and mud exploded away from the solid streams of heavy 15mm rounds, bullets that woul
d punch right through a mule. One hundred rounds a second, and there was a big bin of ammunition right there beneath the firing step.

  Brrrrrt. They were shouting out there, or screaming or something. Trying to crawl closer. Closer to him and Leo, closer to Antigone and mom. Brrrrrrrt.

  Leonidas. Megistias. Dieneces. The heroes of Thermopylae, he'd been a little bored learning that in school. I suppose they didn't want to die either, he thought with a sudden cold lucidity; his knees felt weaker, and the corners of his mouth were leaking. Alpheus. Maro. Eurytus.

  Another burst. Another, swinging wide to cover the full arc of the bunker's semicircular firing slit, there ought to be a couple of automatic riflemen in support. More rebels down, others trying to crawl backward, some dragging their wounded.

  Demaratus the lesser, Deonates-

  Skida slumped to the ground, panting. The ground under her heaved slightly as the satchel charge they had thrown into the last bunker went off; flame shot out the firing slits all around.

  "OK," she croaked, as much to herself as to the survivors, and used her rifle to push herself up to her knees; the wound in the leg was not too bad, just a gouge out of the muscle really. Bullets were cracking by overhead, so she crawled to the edge of the sandbags, rolled over onto the ground.

  That put her next to Platoon Leader Swaggart; on an impulse she reached out to close his eyes, then surprised herself even more by bending to kiss his brow.

  Shit, she thought. Maybe Skilly should have stayed in hidehunting and hijacking.

  "Intercept one," she said, paused to swill out her mouth from her canteen. "Field Prime here. Report."

  "They got past us."

  "What?"

  "They had a fucking six-tube rocket launcher under tarps on all the hovertruck roofs, Field Prime! As soon as we opened up they all turned and let us have it, my company is dead and we lost both the recoillesses! I got maybe ten effectives left."

  "OK," Skida said. Think, bitch. She looked down at the base. "Shit again," she mumbled.

  The wedge below was a sheet of fire, white phosophorus and blown bunkers. They weren't going to overrun the Brotherhood artillery positions. Some of the other penetrations had made progress, but even as she looked tiny figures surged out of the headquarters bunkers and struck the extending flank.

  Why? Traitors, it had to be. Someone back at headquarters, knowing she was coming in here, someone who wanted her dead, someone who wanted to take over the Movement, that must be it, and now the Royals were moving. Shit, pretty soon they trap us all! It was hard to think.

  "OK, Intercept One, pull back to rendevous." At the firebase they had overrun, the first one north of here.

  "Pull back with what? To what? Dis de Revolution! Fuck the Revolution!"

  Her phones went dead.

  She changed channels. "Field Two."

  "Field Two's down," a voice answered her. "Senior Group Leader Mendoza here. Orders, ma'am?" Mendoza sounded so tired he had almost stopped caring. For a moment Skida did as well.

  "He dead?" she cried, voice almost shrill. Two-knife?

  "No, hit pretty bad. We're carrying him." Desperation. "Orders please."

  No one to talk to. Can't tell this one it's over, time to bug. Skida raised a fist and hammered it into the wound on her leg, using the savage pain to drive her mind back into action.

  "Right," she said coolly. "Consolidate, throw back that counterattack. Dig in, put in supressing fire, get your wounded out. I gives fire-control over to you. Sanjuki, got that? Including you special stuff. And get those mortars hopping. All assault leaders," she continued. "Anyone about to break through?"

  Silence.

  "OK, Plan Beta, prepare. The relief force made it and they going be here soon." About ten minutes. That fast thinking, those rockets. Skilly must see that officer has an accident. "All elements on the east side of the perimeter, Field Prime authorize tactical withdrawal." Bug out.

  Run. Live to fight another day. "Time to talk."

  She touched a preselected sequence on her helmet, one that would blur her voice.

  "Colonel, I have a message," Andy Lahr said. "Claims to be the Helot supreme commander."

  "Hah." His command caravan was hull-down, two klicks from the former position of the Eighteenth. Forty-kilo shells from the heavy mortars were passed overhead and fell into the Helot positions. The armored cars were coming up in support.

  The only thing they have left is their artillery, and they're pretty well out of rockets for that. "Where's the signal coming from?"

  "Up on the ridge, where they overran the Brotherhood outpost."

  "Hah. Get me Mace."

  "Scouts, Captain Mace."

  "Jamey, have a hard look at Ridge 503. Figure out how you'd retreat from there toward the enemy artillery base. Put one of your best SAS teams in a good position, and stand by weapons. I think theyll have targets to designate soon enough. And watch for vehicles, someone claiming to be their top leader is up there and they may send something for him."

  "You got it."

  "Andy, when we put the rebel commander on, I want you to listen. Patch Barton in too. Private comments to me if indicated."

  "Yes, sir. Helot field commander, I have the Colonel. Go ahead."

  A woman's voice answered, astonishingly enough. Blurred by an antivoiceprint device, otherwise a clear contralto with a lilting Caribbean accent.

  "This Spartan Liberation Army Field Prime, proposin' a mutual withdrawal under terms, with temporary armistice," she said.

  Owensford felt his lips turn in a snarl. "Interesting. What are you offering in exchange for letting you get away?"

  A laugh, cool and amused. "You can't stop us, merc. We get out of here when we want. Look, up there, we gots threes north and south of you. You attack one way, we come the other."

  "I see." Peter thumbed the command set. "Get a good fix on that position, and tell Jamey to get his scouts moving."

  "And you come both north and south, and we bugs out," she said reasonably. "One part of the Dales just about like another to us, mon. We got enough firepower left to keep you heads down while we be going, too. And you notice something? All your mules be dead, mon. No transport, nohows; hell, you goan have to hunt for the pot. You got visual from your river base?"

  "Yes," he said, switching on a screen with an overhead view.

  "Watch this. See the second mortar on the right?"

  A few seconds later something like a very quick firefly darted into the spyeye's view, did a double loop and slammed neatly into the steel cover over the mortar's hatch.

  "These things got a range of better than thirty klicks," the voice went on. "So you relief force not going to land here. Gots to land downstream, fight they way through thick woods we holding and have mined, by the time they get here we gone. You want to chase us through the woods, booby traps and ambush for a thousand klicks? All right with me, mon. No satellites for you, now, either."

  "Thank you," Sastri said on the private channel. "We have located the source of that rocket. Out of our range, I fear. I will notify Captain Mace."

  "Another thing," the rebel leader said. "We got, oh, two-fifty prisoners up there, another eighty-so in your Firebase One we overrun, and here at the river. You don't agree, we kill them all."

  "Typical," Jesus Alana said. Hah, Owensford thought. Andy must have the entire staff listening to this. Good.

  "Typical terrorists," Alana continued. "When things go wrong they threaten hostages."

  "I will hold you personally responsible for any violation of the Laws of War," Peter Owensford said.

  Laughter "Responsible? Mon, me head in a noose already if we lose! What you do, hang me twice? This no gentlemon war, dis de Revolution. All or nothing.

  "Too, we figure you got maybe fifteen percent casualties, lots of gas-wounded what die if they doan get regenn soon. We run away, you kill a few more of us, but not much left of pretty-mon army, hey?"

  "I'm listening."

  "You talk se
nsible, we let you fly them out."

  That could be crucial; the time between injury and treatment was the single most important factor in survival rates. Particularly for the ones with lungs burned by the desiccants.

  "Field Prime moves a company or so out into the open, they hostages. Doan expect you to trust we. You wounded, they me hostages."

  Owensford changed channels. "Get me Kicker Six. Fast." He switched back. "I don't have authority to make deals with you. I'll have to get a political leader."

  "Mon you damn well better hurry doin' it."

  "That's as may be," Owensford said. "But until I get political authorization, the answer to your request is no."

  "How long it take?"

  "Depends on my communications," Owensford said.

  "I give you fifteen minutes. Then no deal. I call you back."

  "Headquarters calling, Prince," Harv said. He held out the handset.

  I don't have time, there are a million things happening all at once and I can't keep track of them- He took the instrument. "Kicker Six here."

  "I need to speak to Prince Lysander."

  "Sir?"

  "Political decision time," Owensford said. "The enemy is offering a truce. The bait is about four hundred Brotherhood soldiers, plus letting us fly out the wounded. They'll release their hostages in exchange for a cease-fire. Otherwise they kill them."

  "Will-will they do that?"

  "They're terrorists. Of course they will."

  "What do we lose if we take them up on it?" Lysander asked.

  "Pursuit. I've got the SAS teams moving into place, and a new supply of Thoth. We have an overextended enemy, nearly exhausted, with their elite forces strung out in exposed places. They claim they can always get more troops, but that's exactly what they can't do. It takes time to train lunatics out of the illiterates they start with. We're the ones who can turn Citizens into soldiers in short order."

  "Four hundred Brothers."

  "Or Candidates. About half in half would be my guess. If they have that many. They may be lying."