The train of troop transports flowed by. It was followed closely by a bulk conveyor the size of two train cars. This had few observation windows, so presumably was battery powered with a small crew. The Terran convoy was carried by the main central current. The vehicles used just enough power to maintain steerage, so that the chasm itself did most of the work. It would be a nightmare trying to move such a low-power convoy cross country through the Continuum, and it brought home to Allenson the enormous advantage the Terrans enjoyed by the controlling these major chasms. Another conveyor followed, and then a troop train.
Allenson decided that they had seen enough. He signalled to his flight to close up and punched his way out of the chasm. His flight pedalled hard on the way back, making the fastest possible transport time. Allenson barely noticed his exertions. He was too busy thinking.
* * *
Levit sighed, “So the model was entirely accurate. I feared that was the case. Logistical realities make operational maneuvers in modern warfare entirely predictable. That’s why there are so few battles.”
“Shall we deconstruct the trackway as we retreat?” the chief of staff asked. “It seems foolhardy to leave something that could be used as an invasion route into our colonies, and I doubt that we will have any further use for it.”
“Wait a minute,” Allenson said, before Levit could reply. “Who said anything about retreating? There are other options.”
“No there aren’t,” Levit said, firmly. “We have been through all this.”
“I have a new suggestion,” Allenson said.
The chief of staff raised his eyes to the roof of the tent, not hiding his exasperation at having to deal with ignorant colonials. Levit, however, looked at Allenson with quick bird-like eyes. “Which is?”
“Turn loose the Militia” Allenson replied. “And we will do to the Terran Relief Force what the Riders did to Chernokovsky.”
The chief of staff laughed, condescendingly. “Oh get real, Allenson, you can’t destroy a military column with a handful of light cavalry. This won’t be like the bandit skirmishes that your militia is used to fighting. These are regular army. You can’t just shoot at one and expect the rest to run away.”
Allenson kept his temper, albeit with difficulty. His purpose was to destroy Fort Revenge. To do that he had to win the Brasilians over to his point of view, not antagonize then.
“I see you have never fought Riders,” he said, mildly. “But you mistake my meaning. I have no intention of trying to destroy the Terran column. I just have to delay it.”
Levit’s eyes defocussed as she thought through the implications, probably the political implications.
“What have you got to lose, General Levit,” Allenson said. “If the Militia fail then it’s hardly your fault, but if we succeed . . .”
He left the rest of the sentence hanging, tempting Levit to imagine a victorious homecoming with cheering crowds, medals and promotion.
“And if the Militia are destroyed in the attempt?” Levit asked.
“Would anyone on Brasilia notice, or care?” Allenson asked lightly, answering a question with a question.
Levit gave him a thin smile. “I see you have a shrewd grasp of politics, Colonel Allenson.”
People kept saying that to Allenson. He was not sure if it was a compliment. He liked to think of himself as a straightforward gentleman of integrity. Political skills did not fit that self image.
“Very well, Colonel, I doubt your mission will succeed and I advise you not to attempt it. Nevertheless, we will continue marching on Fort Revenge, until such time that the matter is resolved, one way or the other.”
Allenson noted Levit had used the weasel word advise rather than order. Levit had not reached the rank of general without grasping the difference in meaning. Politically, he was on his own. Failure would be laid at the door of enthusiastic but not overbright colonials. Success would erase the advice and it would be an army sanctioned raid.
He remembered something from a book of quotes that Todd had given him as a gift. An Old Earth politician had remarked that “Victory has a hundred fathers, and no one acknowledges a failure”. Ciano’s government was losing a war at the time. Allenson had considered the saying overly cynical at the time.
“I will let you know when we have stopped them,” Allenson said. He might as well sound confident, even brash, as he was likely to be dead if wrong, and past caring.
Mansingh was waiting for him in the outer office, and fell in behind as he left the command tent.
“Well?” Mansingh asked, quietly
“It’s on,” Allenson replied.
“Ye-es,” Mansingh punched the air, attracting curious glances. He hastily composed himself. “In that case, sir, there is someone I think you should meet.”
“Why?” Allenson asked. “I don’t have time to spare.”
“I have been talking to the Major of Engineers, a chap called Josk,” Mansingh said. “This way, sir.”
He pointed, stumbling on the uneven ground.
“I went to see Josk about my leg. It’s due for recalibration. I hoped that he had the right equipment.”
“And did he?” Allenson asked.
“No such luck, but it is not bad enough to stop me going with you, sir,” Mansingh said, quickly, in case Allenson got the wrong impression. “I looked up those Old Earth combat vehicles that Major Destry described, the fighters. I mentioned them to Josk and he has come up with an idea.”
“Go on,” Allenson said, intrigued.
“Do you know how they mounted their guns on those antique fighters, sir?” Mansingh asked.
“Never thought about it, I suppose they hand held the light ones and mounted the heaver weapons on some sort of gimble and pivot mechanism, so they could swing it around,” Allenson replied.
“Yes, sir, they did initially, but they needed heavier and heavier batteries of weapons and the vehicles were just single seaters.”
“So they used automatics,” Allenson said.
“They did not have automatics,” Mansingh said.
“Really, I thought the Third Civilization had automatics,” Allenson said, casually.
“No, sir,” Mansingh said, in the sort of neutral tone you use when your superior has lost the plot.
“Not that it matters, so how did they aim their guns?” Allenson asked, following his script.
“They bolted them to their fighters pointing straight ahead and aimed the whole vehicle, sir,” Mansingh said excitedly. “Their fighters were fast and manoeuvrable so they simply lined up on the target. The vehicle was the weapon.”
“And that worked?” Allenson asked.
“Oh, yes,” Mansingh replied. “It meant that small vehicles could deploy firepower sufficient to destroy much larger targets. It also reduced parallax errors. Here we are, sir.”
Josk was short stout man with a jutting chin that gave him a pugnacious air. His uniform lacked the gleam Allenson associated with regular army officers. Josk was fiddling with Mansingh’s frame, with the help of a fitter. He casually wiped his hands on his uniform, before holding one out for Allenson to shake.
“Colonel Allenson, Major Josk,” Mansingh did the formalities.
“What do you think?” Josk asked, gesturing at the frame.
A heavy spring gun was tied to each side of the frame’s battery pack. They were mounted upside down so the pilot could reach down and pull the triggers. A simple cross hair sight was bonded to the controls.
“It’s a bit of a bodge, I’m afraid,” Josk said. “Mansingh tells me it has to be a quick job or I would do it properly. ’Fraid the ties will work loose after half a dozen shots and you will lose accuracy, and they can only be reloaded after you land, and I can only mount two on each frame without causing too much extra drag.”
Josk stopped for breath. Allenson reflected that to a proper engineer, all jobs were thrown together bodges.
“It’s a brilliant idea,” Allenson said, “utterly brilliant.”
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He walked around the frame.
“How many can you do in 48 hours?” Allenson asked.
“Well, if I train some of your people then they can train the rest and they can all do their own frames. It’s only a spot of cement and friction ties, after all. I reckon a day should do it,” Mansingh replied.
“All of them? And you have enough spare equipment?” Allenson asked.
“Good Lord, yes,” Josk replied. “This is the regular army. We have enough spares to equip a division.”
“I can’t pay you,” Allenson said.
“How would you pay me?” Josk asked rhetorically, spreading his arms. “The army has no mechanism for accepting payment, but campaigns are wonderful for losing stuff. I fully expect to have a vehicle crash in a day or so that will right off whole case loads of spare guns—amongst other things.”
He grinned, cheerfully.
“And no one will query that?” Allenson asked.
“The paperwork will be fully in order,” Josk replied.
* * *
Allenson halted all outgoing patrols until he had the entire Militia on base. He summoned the whole regiment and placed a supply box in the center of the parade, signaling the troopers to surround him. He used as little artificial amplification as practical as he wanted each soldier to fell that he was being personally addressed.
“Fellow ’Streamers, I’m not a politician so I’ll keep this short,” Allenson said.
A self-examining portion of his mind whispered something about a typical politician’s lie. He told it to shut up.
“A Terran convoy, a relief force, is approaching Fort Revenge, drifting down the Hinterland chasms. They think that they own the Hinterland. I intend to teach them different.”
He slid up the amplification. “Is anyone here frightened of Terrans?”
“No, sir, no colonel,” came back as a series of replies.
“I can’t hear you,” Allenson said.
“No, sir,” this time the reply was in unison, orchestrated by the NCOs.
“And Riders will be there. Anyone here have issues with killing Riders?” Allenson said.
“No, sir,” the men replied.
“I intend to lead a force of ’Stream Militia to smash the Terran convoy. There won’t be room for the faint hearted. Anyone who hasn’t got the balls can stay here with the regulars. So who’s coming with me?” Allenson asked.
The troopers gave a huge cheer and clustered around Allenson, lifting him shoulder high. They were chanting something, something about Chernokovsky. The veterans wanted revenge for Chernokovsky’s expedition and were carrying the newcomers along.
* * *
While the Militia’s combat frames were converted, Allenson chaired a planning meeting with his company commanders and Destry.
“Our tactics will be to hit the Terran convoy in a stream of pinprick attacks. A stream can cut a groove in granite. We don’t have to be able to destroy the Terran convoy; we simply have to delay it, or even better, turn it back. The best way to do that is to act as a constant irritant. Accordingly, we will attack in company strength on the conveyor belt principle. As one company is in combat, a second will be returning to base, a third taking off and a fourth on standby. The other six companies will be sleeping, eating, carrying out maintenance or hunting to eke out our rations.”
“Half the regiment on active service at any one time sounds reasonable, but it will prove exhausting in the long run,” Rutchett said.
“I know,” Allenson replied. “But I don’t think that there will be a long term. Someone will break after a few days. Our job is to make sure that it is them.”
Allenson looked around the faces of his officers, wishing that he had had more time to assess and train the newbies. He would just have to trust them.
“Tactically, each squadron will operate individually. I want every Terran on that convoy to feel that he is personally under threat—that an attack on him could come at any time. I propose to set up a temporary base alongside the chasm being used by the Terrans. The question is where?” Allenson asked.
“Classical military strategy would be to set up a blocking position downstream of the convoy, so our logistic lines shorten with each skirmish,” Rutchett said, doubtfully, “but I doubt we have the force to stop the Terrans bursting through our defenses.”
Allenson shook his head. “I have no intention of placing the Militia in front of the Terrans and provoking a set piece encounter battle. That would be playing to their strengths and our weaknesses.”
“Upstream,” Mansingh said, firmly, “the base should be upstream. Our strength is mobility. From upstream, we have the initiative, able to engage and break off combat at will.”
“Yes, but . . .” said one of the newer captains, hesitantly. He broke off when all eyes turned on him.
“Carry on, Captain . . . Frong,” Allenson said, nodding encouragingly. He blanked for a moment on the newby’s name. “The point of a council is for me to hear your opinions.”
“ Well, sir, frames returning from combat, possibly damaged or with a wounded pilot aboard, will have to travel through the Continuum, or in the turbulent back-eddy zones at the chasm walls. We could end up losing people to exhaustion or equipment failure.”
“That’s true,” Allenson said, “but it can’t be helped. So upstream then—anyone have any candidates?”
Hawthorn passed a file around the meeting. “I have,” he said. “My company discovered this world. I believe it is suitable.”
Allenson looked at the file on his datapad and winced. “I am awfully afraid that you are right. I see your people christened it Slimeball.”
CHAPTER 26
Dancing In Flames
Slimeball by bloody name, Slimeball by bloody nature, Allenson thought. The planet was a water world, like Paragon, but the resemblance ended there. Evolutionary development had reached an even lower level than Paragon. Life had got to the photosynthetic algal slime level. The world ocean was clogged with the stuff. If anything fed on the slime, it was too small to see with the naked eye.
Slimeball was geologically inactive, so there were no mountains, just mud banks of various sizes rising out of the shallow seas. There was no rock, no stones, no terrestrial animals or plants. Apart from its strategic location, Slimeball was tactically suitable as a base. The single seater combat frames could not carry much in the way of non-essential supplies and weapon reloads, so heavy equipment for building and defending forts was out. The mud bank was too small for an enemy to land and encircle them. Allenson was not going to repeat the mistake he had made at the first battle of Larissa. His only air defense were detectors and the frames themselves, but Allenson was satisfied that they could take on anything capable of deploying onto the mudbank. But, oh God, it bloody stank.
He walked around the base with Destry, neither of them having direct responsibilities in its erection.
“Why does this bloody place smell so badly?” Allenson asked. “Is it the algae?”
“Oddly enough, no, at least not directly” Destry replied. “I wondered about that myself and did a little investigating.”
“I thought you might,” Allenson said, drily.
Destry scraped his boot along the mud, revealing black organic matter just below the red-brown surface. A foul stench burst out.
“The reduced layer, just below the surface of the mud, is thick with methagenic and sulphur reducing archaeons,” Destry said.
“Indeed, Allenson said, none the wiser.
“Primitive single cells, too simple to be classed as bacteria. They have no organelles at all, just a cell wall. The feed by reducing organics to methane and hydrogen sulphide, you know, rotten-egg gas. They would have been driven down into the reduced layer of the mud after photosynthetic cells evolved. Oxygen is toxic to them.”
Destry slipped easily into didactic mode.
“The source of the organic material that they feed on puzzled me,” Destry said. “After all there is
no terrestrial life but I worked it out. Algae must be washed up onto the mud and die.”
“How?” Allenson asked. “The tidal range is minuscule and the planet is geologically inert, so no tsunamis. I checked before I chose the base.”
Destry shrugged. “Who knows? I suspect that the world is subject to meteorite bombardment at regular intervals. That would cause tsunamis. It would also explain why higher life never evolved and how the mud banks are formed.” He beamed at Allenson, like a man who had just explained the three card trick.
“So we could face a tidal wave at any time?” Allenson asked, keeping his voice level with a certain amount of effort.
“I suppose so, but we are only going to be here a few days. We would have to be unlucky to get hit by something in that time.”
Allenson filed the information under “things that nothing can be done about, so concentrate on what is tractable”.
A trooper sprayed stabilizer onto the mud to create a dry platform for a tent.
“At least the stabilizer will cut down the smell,” Allenson said.
“Mmmm, probably not,” Destry replied. “The archaeons will love it under the stabilized layer. They will bubble along happily, protected from the air. The smell could even get worse.”
“Terrific,” Allenson replied.
He changed the subject. “I wanted to talk to you about something. I need a base commander to stay here and take control. You are the obvious choice with your administrative and evaluation skills, and you have the rank to enforce your orders on company commanders, if necessary.”
Actually, Destry was the same military rank as some of the commanders but they both knew that Allenson meant his social rank.
“Stay here, and not fight with the rest of the regiment?” Destry asked.
“I discussed this, in confidence, with Hawthorn. He said you would not be happy,” Allenson replied.
“Hawthorn was right. What about my honor?” Destry asked.
“No one would ever doubt your courage,” Allenson said. He meant no one who mattered. Who cares what the proles thought? “Hawthorn told me that he considers you one of the soundest fellows who ever lived. He could think of no one he would rather have alongside him in a fight.”
Into the Hinterlands-ARC Page 38
