Steel Gauntlet

by David Sherman

  There was sound logic and good reason for the restrictions and minor discomforts inflicted on the Marines. Marines are cargo. Cargo is something ships pick up in one place and drop off at another. When Marines are taken from one place to another by the navy, they’re frequently dropped off at someplace nasty. The navy doesn’t want to make the Marines so comfortable they want to stay on board ship when they get to where they are supposed to be dropped off. Nossir!

  Twenty-fifth-century space flight used the Beam Drive for hyperspace transit between star systems. The Beam Drive used the Beam Constant, which allows travel at a light-years-per-day speed, which is calculated as an irregular number that begins with 6.273804 and continues on from there. What with the irregularity of the Beam Constant, the movement of the celestial spheres, and the space-time curvature, interstellar navigation is something less than an exact science. No starship navigator, no matter how good, knows with any real precision where his ship will pop back into Space-3. This means that interstellar navigators have to plan a margin of error when they plot their courses. The plotted arrival point is always at greater distance from the outbound jump points than the radius of the circle of error, as it’s called. It really wouldn’t do to have an inbound ship suddenly return to Space-3 in the same spot from which an outbound ship is attempting to make a jump. When two or more ships are traveling together, they also have to consider each other’s plotted arrival points, to avoid coming out within each other’s circle of error. Just in case. Since the margin of error increases with distance traveled, ships in convoy go in short jumps and reassemble in formation each time they return to Space-3. Otherwise, after a single long jump, they would be scattered over a horrendously large sphere on arrival. Which won’t do at all for warships boldly sailing into a hostile environment.

  The Tripoli was traveling with an escort of destroyers, so it made the transit in jumps. Top-of-the-line warships have the best navigators, so the Tripoli Amphibious Battlegroup made the entire journey in just four hops, and never had to take more than one standard day to “regroup” at the conclusion of a hop.

  That was exceptionally good for a voyage of about 240 light-years. The final hop took them out of hyperspace nine days out of Drummond’s system.

  The battlegroup reassembled in formation and began its ponderous journey through Space-3 into the system and the planet to which it was to send in the Marines. Three days out it was met by a courier boat from the blockade force that had been gathering over the past month. The courier boat transported the Commander Amphibious Battlegroup and the two FIST commanders to Fleet Admiral Wimbush’s flagship, the CNSS Lance Corporal Samuel Ogie, for the final planning session for the amphibious assault landing. The meeting was almost a waste of time for the commander of the 34th FIST. Even if the overall mission to Diamunde hadn’t been a Confederation Army operation, a Marine brigadier ranked too low to be allowed to speak.

  Chapter 10

  Sitting quietly and virtually unnoticed in a remote corner of the briefing room on board the CNSS Lance Corporal Samuel Ogie, Fleet Admiral Wimbush’s flagship, Professor Jere Benjamin thought, Good luck, fellas, but if you believe this plan’ll work...

  Since he had done such a good job with the Marine trainers in the use of the Straight Arrow and antiarmor tactics, Professor Benjamin had been attached to Admiral Wimbush’s staff as a “civilian adviser,” and as such was permitted to sit in on high-level planning conferences.

  Benjamin had studied enough military history to know that the more complicated a plan was, the less chance it had to work properly. The plan for the invasion of Diamunde, he thought, relied too much on two very unpredictable factors: the army’s ability to reinforce the Marine beachhead on time, and Fleet intelligence estimates of the enemy’s strength at the two proposed landing sites. It was the landing site that was under discussion just then.

  Lieutenant General Hank “Box Kicker” Han, commander of the army forces assigned to the Fleet, was addressing Admiral Wimbush. “Sir,” he said, “Oppalia is the ideal spot for a landing. It has all the facilities we need to establish a base of operations: a spaceport, a seaport, communications facilities, transportation systems, everything. Surveillance has not revealed any significant enemy forces there, and if any show up before we reinforce the Marines, they can fortify themselves until we get in. It’s an ideal target for an operation like this.”

  Admiral Wilber “Wimpy”—but never to his face—Wimbush sat back in his chair and stroked his chin. Wimbush was a cautious, thoughtful commander who never committed himself without considering every possible ramification, especially any that would get him in trouble. “Andy?” He turned to the Marine task force commander, General Anders Aguinaldo.

  “Well, sir, we Marines weren’t made to fight from behind fortifications.” This elicited polite laughter all around. “And I agree with Hank that Oppalia should be our primary objective after we’ve secured a planethead. But I don’t want to get bottled up in a built-up area if we do meet resistance. City fighting is a bitch. We can’t use our heavy stuff in street fighting, so it’s man-to-man, house-to-house, and it’ll take time and it’ll cost us lives. And if we have to fight in the city that’ll only make follow-on landings more difficult.” He punched a button on his console and a detailed map of the coast thirty kilometers north of Oppalia sprang into focus. “I favor the landing here, on the outskirts of the Debeers Drift. We can secure the beachhead in twenty-four hours, the army comes in and we all push overland to Oppalia.

  “Besides, because there’s a significant civilian population in the city, not to mention an important industrial infrastructure, we can’t use preparatory fires to soften up any resistance that might be there before we go down. We’ll be going into a potentially hot landing zone without any prep. If we come in over the beach, we can slag the goddamned dunes and then push south to the town. If there is any significant enemy force there, it’s them who’ll be besieged and not us.”

  “There aren’t any enemy forces there,” Rear Admiral David “Davey Jones” Johannes stated emphatically. Admiral Johannes was in charge of Fleet Intelligence.

  “That you know of,” General Aguinaldo pointed out. “With our reliance exclusively on string-of-pearls satellite and drone surveillance, they could have a division of tanks hidden down there, and how would we know?”

  “Andy, surveillance hasn’t revealed any signatures that would match those of armored vehicles,” General Han interjected.

  “Jesus Christ, Hank, they’ve got mining operations going on down there. The place is covered with clouds and fog most of the year! Has anybody considered there may be no way to distinguish the infra signature of a tank from that of an earth mover? And how the hell do you tell? Nobody’s surveilled tanks in more than 250 years! And besides, we’ve only had surveillance since the Fleet arrived and deployed its string-of-pearls, five days ago.” The cordiality between the senior officers, which had been forced all along anyway, was beginning to weaken.

  Admiral Johannes cleared his throat preparatory to making a pithy remark, but he was interrupted by Admiral Wimbush, who wanted to head off a confrontation. “Andy, if you go in up there in the north, isn’t that favorable terrain for motorized warfare? Won’t we run the risk of being attacked in force by St. Cyr’s First Armored Division? Intel reports them only a hundred kilometers from the drift, at Hefestus’s Tourmaline mining complex.”

  “Sir, that’s only an hour and a half from Oppalia for St. Cyr’s main battle tanks, and besides, Fleet Air, in addition to the FIST’s organic air, will give us the cover we need if they attack us before the army follows on.”

  “That’s right, sir,” Rear Admiral Benton “Benny” Havens, commander of the Fleet air arm, said. “We’ll have St. Cyr’s air assets knocked out by midnight on D minus one. We’ll have effective control of the skies over the entire hemisphere before the Marines land.”

  “Admiral, it’s still exposed territory, and it has none of the logistical facilities we need t
o support the multicorps-size force the army’s going to have to put in there,” General Han interjected. Admiral Wimbush was an experienced logistician, as was General Han, whose last ground combat command had been an infantry platoon many years before. They both lacked experience handling operations of the size they were soon to launch. “Besides, we lose the element of surprise. The drift is an ideal landing zone; St. Cyr is bound to have his eye on it.”

  “ ‘Surprise’ my—” General Aguinaldo paused and looked for another word. “St. Cyr knows we’re coming and he’s smart enough to figure it’ll be one of several likely places, an ideal spot for a landing, so that’s why I say we go in there. He’ll expect us to go in elsewhere, where the landing is more difficult, to maintain the element of surprise, but I bet this guy understands us better than we think, and I bet he’s counting on our landing at Oppalia because it has all the logistical facilities we need to support an invasion. The SOB’s a genius, we’re told. Do the obvious and apparently stupid thing and it may throw him off.” He did not want to add that if St. Cyr knew anything about Admiral Wimbush and his staff, he’d know for sure they were planning on landing at Oppalia. It was too safe an option, with little apparent risk. But he also knew he was losing the argument.

  “One other point, Admiral,” Aguinaldo continued. “I’m very concerned about the rules of engagement.”

  “What about them?” Wimbush asked, surprised. “I thought they were very clear.”

  “They are, Admiral. Especially on one point. They are very clear that there is to be, if at all possible, no damage done to infrastructure. With all due respect, sir, we’re going to be fighting against tanks. It won’t be possible to avoid severe damage to infrastructure.”

  Wimbush smiled condescendingly and shook his head. “General, you shouldn’t be concerned at all on that point. You won’t be fighting anyplace where there is civilian infrastructure to damage.”

  “Oppalia, sir: We’ll be fighting there.”

  “General”—there was an edge of annoyance in Wimbush’s voice—“you heard the intelligence report. There won’t be any fighting in Oppalia. Let’s drop this unproductive line of discussion.”

  Aguinaldo settled back in his seat and gave Wimbush a level look that made the admiral very uncomfortable.

  In the back of the room Benjamin gently nudged Rear Admiral Gary B. Clark, the Fleet surgeon. Clark sat with his feet up and his blouse unbuttoned, the picture of nonchalance. He considered himself a doctor first and a flag officer second, or maybe third, since he also liked rock climbing and shooting white-water rapids in his leisure time. The two had become friends over cigars in the admirals’ mess.

  “Arnhem,” Benjamin whispered into Clark’s ear. Clark raised an eyebrow. “I’ll explain later,” Benjamin said.

  Back at the conference table, the admiral had made his decision: “Gentlemen, I appreciate Andy’s concerns, but all things considered, we go in at Oppalia.” General Han sighed and smiled and the other members of the staff relaxed visibly. General Aguinaldo nodded his assent. The decision was made. He was thinking of how best to carry it out, his personal reservations about the admiral’s decision now past discussion. He wanted to get back to his own staff and start planning for the landing.

  Wimbush shook off his annoyance at Aguinaldo’s impertinence. “One more item, gentlemen, and then you can all go back and start drafting your operations orders. Hank, the army has got to come through on time. How are your boys set?”

  “No problem, sir. We’ll have the Third Corps in there no later than D plus three and the Ninth Corps by D plus five. That’ll be 120,000 men. We have two more Corps in reserve that we can have in by no later than D plus ten if we need ‘em. Gentlemen, that’s the equivalent of two ground armies, nearly 500,000 men, and we’ll have the firepower of the entire Fleet in orbit to boot. Neither this St. Cyr nor anybody else in Human Space can stand up to figures like that. Intel tells us St. Cyr can’t field more than 250,000 men, tops, four divisions of armor, eight thousand tanks of all kinds, maybe only four thousand of those TP1 Main Battle Tanks. The Marines will only have to hold out, er, I mean secure the facilities for two days, max. It’ll be a walkover for Andy’s boys, Admiral, a walkover.” He nodded to General Aguinaldo. “Tell your boys they can bring their golf clubs to this one, Andy.” General Aguinaldo permitted the right side of his face to twitch slightly in response while the rest of the staff laughed politely.

  “Hank, I have precisely 350 Straight Arrow antitank rockets in the hands of my men. We’re going to need a hell of a lot more than those when we break out of Oppalia.”

  “No sweat, Andy, no problem,” General Han answered, making placating motions with his hands. “We have a thousand more en route, and we’ll have ‘em on the ground not later than D plus five. Thousands more are in production and scheduled for delivery to the Fleet by D plus ten at the very latest. The Council has given production of these weapons absolute top priority. Your men will have ‘em when they need ‘em.”

  Admiral Wimbush conferred briefly with an aide and then said, “Okay, Hank, you’ve got the green light. Your readiness reports convince me your boys are combat-loaded and ready for this operation. Pass on to your commanders my personal congratulations for keeping their units in such tip-top shape.”

  “You’d better get ready for some casualties, Gary,” Professor Benjamin said to Admiral Clark as they walked down the companionway outside the briefing room.

  “The Intel boys guess wrong on this one?”

  “I don’t know about that, but military intelligence has always been an iffy game. Anyway, I’ve been talking to some of the army’s battalion staff, you know, over beers, and if the admiral believes those readiness reports General Han’s been filing, he’s on thin ice. Hell, Gary, commanders have flushed out their readiness reports ever since the first Roman legionnaire lied to his Centurion when he told him he had his basic load of spear points. Commanders never report bad news to headquarters! I’m not accusing General Han of falsifying reports, but how often does any four-star general get down to company level and inspect rifle bores and Dragon engines himself?”

  Admiral Clark nodded. He’d experienced a similar problem in the medical field. “What’s this ‘Arnhem’ thing you mentioned?”

  “Ah, place in Holland, back on Old Earth, where the Allies dropped some parachutists during a World War Two operation, September 1944, I think. Would’ve worked perfectly, except there was ‘unexpectedly heavy’ German resistance when the guys jumped in. They wound up in a shooting gallery, thousands killed and captured. If this St. Cyr guy is so smart... Jesus, Gary, am I ever glad I’m not going in with the Marines.”

  They paused outside the Fleet Medical Staff bay. “Well, Jere,” Clark said, “I’m not a proctologist, but if you’re right, looks like we might need one—to get those golf clubs out of old Box Kicker’s rear end after the Marines are through with him.”

  General Aguinaldo sat facing his commanders. “We’re going in at Oppalia,” he announced. Nobody said a word but each man realized this was bad news from an infantryman’s view-point. They fidgeted in their seats. But the decision had been made and now they would carry it out. No sense protesting.

  “I know this is a night operation, but gentlemen, the harder the task, the more we like it, so I know you will carry this off to perfection. Intel says no sign of enemy presence there.”

  “That’s Fishface Johannes’s evaluation, sir?” a stocky major general named Jack Daly asked. He would command the division that would compose the assault element.

  “Yeah, Jack. Don’t take that to the bank, though. Gentlemen, I want you to prepare for stiff resistance, maybe even armor. I’ve never downplayed the risk of a combat operation to my staff. I have a bad feeling about this. I hope I’m wrong, but I want you to prepare as if I’m right.”

  “Sir, I notice the operations plan calls for the army to reinforce us on D plus three. Will they?” the brigadier commanding the 22nd FIST asked. “If
you’ll recall, on the Auberge landing nine years ago, the army failed to reinforce. I’m sure you all recall the disastrous results of that operation very clearly.”

  General Aguinaldo hesitated before replying. “Yes. Hank Han may be a box kicker, but he knows how to get the beans and the bullets to the right place at the right time. That goes for the thousand Straight Arrows as well. Okay, who’s up to snuff on urban warfare?”

  “The 34th FIST,” Daly answered at once. He nodded at Brigadier Sturgeon sitting at the far end of the table.

  “Ted, you lead the way in,” Aguinaldo said. “Gentlemen, D-Day is in seventy-two hours. H-Hour will be three hours local time. This will be a night landing. You have the basic op plan, with the Fleet intelligence estimates and logistical annexes. Have your op orders for the assault to me tomorrow at this time.” He stood up, signaling that the meeting was over.