by Rick Shelley
Just before Orion's Bats reached the halfway point on their intercept course, Faro happened to look back toward the Accord fleet and see another group of Bats heading off on what appeared to be an intercept course. He mentioned that to Ximba.
"Affirmative," Osa replied. "We hit 'em first. Anything left, that lot can worry about them. About three minutes after we make our pass."
Faro Malmeed was not normally given to levity, particularly on duty, but he could not help himself this time. "Are we supposed to leave a few for them?" he asked.
"The one thing I don't need just now is someone trying on a new pair of shoes," Ximba said on a private link to Malmeed. "You get my meaning?"
"Aye, sir," Faro replied, quickly. "It just slipped out."
"I want my pilots loose, but not so loose that they start losing parts," Ximba continued. To him, death was nothing to joke about, not even enemy deaths.
Forty-five seconds later, the Bats made a very minor correction to their heading.
This fight would not be the confused melee that atmospheric air battles still could be. The planes and shuttles had too much speed behind them for the acrobatic maneuvers of a dogfight. The Bats would have once through the formation of shuttles and Boems. As soon as they were beyond their Schlinal targets, the Bats would flip end for end—only a change in attitude, not in course—to get more time to launch missiles. They would, however, increase their speed as rapidly as they could, to carry them out of range of any Boems that survived their attack.
Indigo Flight started getting target locks for its missiles a full minute before they were near enough to launch and give the missiles good odds of getting through without being intercepted or decoyed away from their targets. Each pilot armed six rockets for the first strike. On the far side, they would try to get six more off. That would leave each Bat with four strike missiles to use for defense—as a backup to the smaller, faster antimissile missiles they also carried—or for targets of opportunity, in the unlikely event that any of those might arise.
"Just like a drill," Osa Ximba told his men as they approached the release point. "Just like a drill." He kept his voice soft, easy, giving every appearance of being totally relaxed with his job.
"Steady... now!"
Indigo's missiles raced forward just a second ahead of the missiles launched from the other Bat flights accompanying them. Their velocity relative to the Bats was deceptive. The missiles were not starting out from zero—or from only a few hundred kilometers per hour as they would have been if they had been launched by Wasps deep in a planet's gravity well and atmosphere. Rather they added their acceleration to the velocity carried by the Bats, more than 20,000 kph. Even without warheads, those missiles would be able to penetrate the hulls of a landing shuttle on both sides. Opening a shuttle to vacuum would be as fatal to the people inside as a thermonuclear device—had such things remained in use.
Explosives merely insured that the hulks would not be salvageable afterward.
The Boem S3s with the shuttles also launched missiles, theirs aimed at the Bats or at the missiles that the Bats had fired. Most of the shuttles activated their electronic countermeasures. At the distances and speeds involved, those would likely be of little use, but pilots took every measure they could.
Missiles hit and exploded. Brief flares of light presaged the spewing of debris. That debris could, and in some cases did, hit other shuttles or fighters, causing terminal damage. Shuttles, Bats, and Boems were lost. And the men inside. The survivors continued on. The Bats flipped their fighters end for end and fired off more missiles at the shuttles and Boems. Racing away from the Schlinal vessels now, away from enemy rockets and fighters, the Bats adjusted course for an eventual rendezvous with Orion and Capricorn—at the end of an eighty-seven-minute orbit of Tamkailo. Their batteries would not have enough power to kill their current speed and allow them to boost directly back to their ships. The Boems and the shuttles they were escorting—and the debris from those that had been destroyed—continued on their way to an earlier rendezvous, a landing on the northern section of Tamkailo's northern continent. There were fewer shuttles and Boems than before. The wrecks would, mostly, burn up in the atmosphere, a man-made meteor shower.
—|—
Kleffer Dacik had moved his command post as close to the front as he could reasonably get—too close, to the minds of his staff and the headquarters security detachment. The general did abandon his APC. That would have been too inviting a target to offer to Heggie gunners. The vehicle was more than a kilometer behind the MLR, the main line of resistance, behind a large rock outcropping that might shield it from enemy attention. Dacik had gone forward on foot from there, to less than three hundred meters from the front. He found a decent vantage and watched the battle with power binoculars. He couldn't see the entire line. Whatever fighting was going on at either end of the line, near the sea, was out of sight. But he could see enough. He scanned constantly, sometimes jumping to look toward a spectacular explosion, or in response to something heard over the radio.
"We're running out of time," he told his staff when he received word from CIC that the Schlinal fleet had launched shuttles. "They've got enough boats coming down to hold four thousand men."
"Intercepts?" Colonel Ruman asked.
"On the way," Major Olsen said. He had been on link to CIC constantly. "But the Bats won't get all of them." They never do, he thought. "The best we can hope for is a fifty-percent kill on the way down. Worst case, maybe ninety percent get through."
"And we'd better be ready to see something a lot closer to ninety than fifty percent land," Dacik said. "It looks as if they're heading directly for this peninsula. Unless they make a big change in course once they're in air. Ru, get the Wasps ready to go. Any that are up now, pull them down for fresh batteries and full racks. Then get them up to intercept as high as they can."
"Already in the works, General," Ruman said. "The first flight should pick up Heggies at twenty thousand meters. We'll keep hitting them as they come in." Those first Wasps to hit the Heggies would have trouble getting back down safely. The intercept point would be two hundred kilometers southwest of the peninsula. They would have to time the interception perfectly, and even then they would have little more than thirty seconds in which to do their damage and start back down for a landing on the peninsula with enough juice left in their batteries to see them softly on the ground.
"Look!" Dacik shouted. The others around him turned to look where he was pointing—at a series of small explosions. "Behind the Heggie lines. That's got to be Stossen's reccers."
Dacik watched the evidence of fighting behind the MLR for a minute. Then, without discussing it with his staff first, he got on the link to the four regimental commanders whose men were pushing north. "Hit them with everything you've got, right now. We've got the 13th's reccers in behind them. Hit them before they figure out what's going on."
It took a couple of minutes before Dacik could see any new activity as a result of his order, but it came. Kane and Foss had been probing the Heggie line for an hour. Each had identified possible weak spots and had moved men into position to exploit them. The 5th and 8th hit those spots now, hard. The tempo of the battle increased all along the line. The Heggies who found themselves trapped between two Accord forces tried to fight their way clear. For most of them, that meant moving toward the nearest coast, either east or west, then heading north again.
The Schlinal commanders needed several minutes to even begin to restrain the exodus. But they did. There was no uncontrolled flight, no rout. Units withdrew in order, still fighting.
Dacik turned to look at his staff. He was grinning beneath his visor. "Let's get moving, gentlemen," he said. "The battle seems to be moving away from us."
—|—
Dem Nimz was finally getting low on ammunition for his test rifle. There had been no chance to get a new supply before this latest assignment. Down to his last three magazines, Dem held back, except for an occasional single sho
t when there was a clear target. The rifle continued to be wickedly effective. He loved it. But for now he made do with grenades as much as possible.
"We're doing something right," Fredo told him on a radio link. Fredo sounded uncharacteristically excited. "They're moving away from us as if they thought we're a full regiment."
"That's what they're supposed to think," Dem reminded him. "Just keep your heads down so they can't get a better count."
Dem grinned in the privacy of his helmet. Fredo was normally dour, even for a reccer, and his wound, a useless arm, had turned him almost mute. Until now. But Dem had noticed the same phenomenon that Fredo had. The Heggies were avoiding the reccers like a plague, even though they had been content to sit and face the remnants of four full regiments. It wasn't logical, but that was not unusual in the fog of battle. Perception was always more important than reality.
"Keep your heads down," Dem told the men with him. "We've stirred the pot enough. All we want to do now is keep them moving." He didn't let his enthusiasm carry him away. They were still just a handful of men in the middle of perhaps a hundred times as many of the enemy. A Schlinal platoon might stumble over one of the reccer patrols and wipe it out in seconds. Keeping down was a very smart choice.
Ten minutes later, Dem spotted the first Accord battle helmets coming up from the south. He needed a moment to get through to them over the radio—patched through Colonel Stossen's headquarters links, through a similar link at the 8th's HQ, and to the men coming up the peninsula. It was safer to accept the delay than risk getting shot by mistake.
"Charley Company, 8th," a corporal said when he and Dem finally came face-to-face. "Fourth platoon, what's left of it." There were eight men with the corporal.
Dem identified himself and his unit. "I know what you mean," he added. "I've lost about eighty percent of my reccers."
"Colonel says we're to escort you lads back to your mates," the corporal said.
There was no humor in Dem's laugh. "Most times, I'd take exception to that. Not tonight. I've got my other patrols moving this way. They'll be here in a couple of minutes."
"Way I hear it, won't be much more than that before the Heggies drop another regiment or two on us from space," the corporal said, after telling his men to be on the watch for more reccers coming in.
"Helluva way to make a living, ain't it?" Dem said.
"This is living?"
—|—
"Where the hell are all the Heggies?" Wiz asked over the squad channel.
"They'll get to us soon enough," Sauv said. "Just stay alert."
But the first troops Echo Company of the 13th saw coming up from the south were Accord soldiers, their own reccers and a company from the 8th SAT.
"What the hell happened out there?" Baerclau asked Nimz when the reccers separated themselves from the 8th.
Dem shook his head. "I'm not sure. I think the Heggies just split and gave us the corridor down the middle of the peninsula. They broke to either side when we spooked 'em from behind. There's still a lot of 'em out there."
—|—
"Where are they? How many of them are left?" Van Stossen shot the questions at his intelligence officer. The 8th and 5th were moving down the center of the peninsula now, meeting only scattered resistance as they drew cordons around the two Schlinal concentrations.
"We don't know anything more now than we did an hour ago about the numbers of enemy forces on the peninsula," Bal Kenneck replied. "There might be a thousand Heggies on the loose, or three times that number. Not including the ones we sealed up under their base. What I'm getting from Olsen isn't helping at all. The Heggies pulled back from their prepared line and moved to either side. They're establishing new perimeters backed up against the sea on both east and west, hard semicircles."
"Trying to hold enough ground for the shuttles to land." Stossen didn't bother making it a question.
"They have to hold at least one LZ to have any chance at all," Teu Ingels said.
"Doesn't matter where on the peninsula they set down, they'll still be in range of the Havocs," Hank Norwich said. "Not just ours, the 8th's and 5th's as well. There's not enough room to get their shuttles out of range of our guns."
"Don't forget, the Heggies still have a few Novas on the ground," Bal said. "They might not have the range of the Havocs, but they can shoot far enough to hit any spot on the peninsula from those two pockets, and the Havocs are all out on the peninsula now."
"I know," Norwich admitted. He didn't like having his "dogs" bottled up so thoroughly. "But they haven't been doing much shooting lately. They have to be getting low on ammo since we're sitting on the only source of resupply they have."
"Getting low or saving what they have for when it'll do the most good," Kenneck said. "They know that help's on the way."
"It's just about here," Dezo Parks said. He had been on the radio for the last several minutes. "The high Wasp cap has just hit the lead shuttles. They've got Boems with them. We've got less than ten minutes before any that get through reach us."
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Battlefield intelligence is never 100 percent correct until after the fact, if then—except, perhaps, by accident. Observations and estimates made under the great stresses of mortal combat are remarkable if they come anywhere near the truth. The "fog of battle" is susceptible more to the laws of nonlinear dynamics—chaos—than to the logical plans laid down ahead of time. Sometimes the smallest incident, the tiniest "monkey wrench in the works" has more importance than position, strength of numbers, equipment, or leadership. A seemingly insignificant incident can snowball into overwhelming victory or crushing defeat. Of course, the "for want of a nail" syndrome has long been understood, if only vaguely.
Three Schlinal shuttles reported as destroyed by Orion's Bats survived, as did the troopers they were carrying. Two of those same shuttles were mistakenly reported destroyed by the Wasps of the 8th SAT. Schlinal shuttles were destroyed, both in space and lower, in Tamkailo's atmosphere, but not the seventeen claimed by Accord pilots. Later analysis would show that only nine shuttles were destroyed before landing. The rest, a total of twenty-one, reached the peninsula at the polar end of Tamkailo's northern continent—twenty-one shuttles carrying three thousand infantrymen and one battalion of armor. The Schlinal infantry shuttles carried considerably more men than their Accord counterparts. They were accompanied by eighteen surviving Boem S3s.
Those Boems went after Accord artillery first and infantry units only as an afterthought. The shuttles separated and came into both of the LZs that had been secured on the peninsula, moving low over the ocean through the last twenty kilometers of their run.
Not one of the shuttles was hit on the ground by Accord artillery or Vrerch rockets—until after they had all discharged their troops and equipment.
Sunrise was ninety minutes away.
—|—
Admiral Kitchener stood in the center of CIC on Capricorn. For a time the battle in space was suspended. The two fleets were moving away from each other now, on different orbital paths. The Bats had been recalled. On the other side, the Boem S3s had either been recalled or sent in with the landing shuttles. There were many Bats and Boems making their own orbits of Tamkailo, waiting for rendezvous on the far side.
Damage reports were still coming into CIC. Only one ship in the Accord fleet seemed to be a total—if temporary—loss, and even in that case most of the crew had managed to evacuate in shuttles and boost to the next ship in line. Even though the ship's drives had been seriously damaged, the vessel could be repaired, in time, if it could be towed back to a friendly shipyard. Three other ships had minor damage—hull punctures, some gastight compartments compromised. Repairs were already under way—and would be complete before the two fleets came within reach of each other again.
On balance, the Accord was the clear winner of the engagement. Two Schlinal ships were apparently damaged beyond repair. No one had escaped from the ship that had broken in two. Only a single shutt
le had made it away from the other seriously damaged Schlinal ship. There was a chance—a good chance, according to CIC estimates—that there were still considerable numbers of survivors on that ship.
"We'll have to face them at least once more," Kitchener said on a link to the captains of his ships. "Unless they pull out before our orbits intersect again." That was possible. The Schlinal navy had never shown much heart for space battles. Put the men ashore and get out. For that matter, the Accord had done the same often enough. And it had always looked to land troops on worlds where the Schlinal warlords did not maintain a fleet overhead. Kitchener shrugged. "We won't know about that for at least another thirty minutes."
—|—
Afghan and Basset batteries of the 13th had pushed hard down the center of the peninsula once the way opened up. They went past the few remaining Havocs of the 5th and past about half of the 8th's contingent. Their immediate assignment was to get back to the rest of the 13th and take up positions within the Schlinal base. Their support vans moved with them. The 13th's other two Havoc batteries were taking part in the action against the eastern Heggie landing zone. As soon as they finished there, Corgi and Dingo batteries were also supposed to head north as fast as their engines could carry them.
It was only a ten-kilometer trip from where the Havocs had been when they received the orders. At full speed, it would have taken them no more than ten minutes. The trip took rather longer in practice.
"We running on one engine?" Eustace demanded, looking at Simon across the barrel of the Fat Turtle's howitzer.
"Up yours" was Kilgore's response. Simon didn't even bother to look at Eustace. "We're doing what we can. There are a half dozen Havocs in front of us. We can't climb over them.
Ponks growled deep in his throat.
"Besides, this way we're not the ones finding out if the Heggies left any mines along the way," Simon continued.
Eustace lost all interest in the conversation. He was busy trying to keep track of the piecemeal data coming in about the Heggie landings and everything else that was going on along the peninsula. In particular, he was trying to ease the nasty itch at the back of his neck that came from knowing that the enemy had Boems overhead again. A Havoc had no defense against air attack except to be somewhere else when it came. That was why the Havocs were racing for the Schlinal base at the end of the peninsula. Along the lanes separating the warehouses and other buildings they might find some cover from air attack, and they would have infantrymen around for support, men with Vrerch missiles to help keep the Boems away—or shoot them down if they did come close.
