Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  She did not rise up to see, simply looked anxious. Captain Mulvaney's voice spoke in their ears again. "B Company, on your firing steps!" Esau stepped onto the firing step again, hardly able to restrain himself, wishing he still carried a slammer instead of just a blaster. The line of tanks, much thinned, was about a hundred yards short of the forest. An angled file of killer craft swept across the field, armored belly turrets laying trasher fire on the tanks. Which kept coming, those that could. Another file of aircraft followed. Not many tanks were left, and a number of APCs sat smoking.

  "B Company, fire!" Mulvaney almost shouted it, excitement in his voice. "Give 'em hell! Wipe 'em out!"

  Esau rested his blaster on the berm and sought targets. The artillery had stopped, but Wyzhnyny tanks continued to pump heavy trasher bolts into the forest. Wood still flew; branches and treetops still crashed down. The APCs had also thinned, and as if on signal, stopped sixty to eighty yards away. Wyzhnyny poured from them-real Wyzhnyny! Others, from crippled APCs, were already coming on foot, running at speeds a human couldn't hope to match, firing their blasters with a sweeping motion from what might be thought of as their waists. Esau had set his for semiautomatic. He fired aimed fire, almost every shot a mortal hit. When he paused to insert a fresh power slug, he saw Jael firing aimed fire too. She'd become skilled with the blaster-not as good as he was, but good.

  All along the line, Wyzhnyny kept coming. A running Wyzhnyny launched himself to clear the Wesleys' foxhole, his blaster muzzle swinging toward them. It had no bayonet. Esau squeezed off a bolt that tore the Wyzhnyny open, spraying them with fluids and tissue. The alien landed behind them in a heap. Another lay on its belly-blood flowed from its neck, red blood!-its torso upright, swinging its blaster toward them. Too high; Esau fired back as pulses passed barely overhead.

  They kept coming, coming. Another flight of friendly aircraft swept the field, and another, and another, killing, but the attackers did not pause. Esau half heard fighting behind him. Those who'd broken through had been engaged by reserves.

  "Trasher crews! Trasher crews!" This in a voice new to Esau. "Our own armor is moving in from the north, with camouflage fields and red pennants. Don't shoot the good guys! More Wyzhnyny armor is coming, all of it tan."

  That was nothing Esau needed to worry about. He kept firing, glad he'd started with a full bandoleer of power slugs. This wasn't likely to stop for a while.

  ***

  The bot APF had settled through a hole in the canopy about three hundred yards back from the forest edge, and unloaded its five-bot squad. They were somewhat back from where the shells were landing, except for the occasional long round. Their built-in radios told them the first wave of Wyzhnyny was halfway across the field. The bots didn't immediately run to engage them. No foxholes waited to shelter them-bot tactics centered on high mobility-and they were too few to waste.

  Instead they waited till the barrage stopped, then started toward the fighting at a lope. Their camouflage fields hid them better than any fabric could. Again they paused, near the end of 1st Battalion's battle line, but still back within the woods. The line was anchored by a battery of antiarmor trashers, themselves well armored. They'd waited to fire till the barrage lifted, to avoid the special attention they'd otherwise have drawn. Now they were firing trasher pulses at Wyzhnyny tanks and APCs.

  The bots stayed where they were. Sergeant Ali Al-Daiyeen was in touch with the battery CO, and with Division's G-2B, which monitored constantly the input from the surveillance buoys. The order to move would come from them.

  And come it did. The battery had been flanked, with Wyzhnyny in the woods behind it. Now the bots moved, running smoothly. A dozen or more Wyzhnyny had sheltered behind standing and fallen trees, and were shooting at the battery, suppressing protective fire from its dug-in blastermen. Another twenty or more had begun moving along behind the Jerrie defense line, attacking foxholes with blasters and grenades.

  "We'll handle them," Al-Daiyeen radioed back. "Tell your people to keep firing. We'll be fine." Then, to his squad, "Podelsky, you and I'll take the skirmish line. Vernon, you three take out the Wyz moving west. Go!"

  Isaiah and his two loped off, eyes seeking. Seconds later they saw the other Wyzhnyny, kneeling behind trees, firing at the foxholes, forcing their occupants to keep their heads down while grenadiers moved in, crawling on their bellies like dogs.

  "Get 'em!" Isaiah said. They moved in, firing both clamp-ons: the right-arm blaster, and the left-arm, short-barreled slammer. The Wyzhnyny who survived that first burst of fire responded sharply and violently. Isaiah felt pulses strike his armored body, and ignored them, striding along the line, pumping short bursts, unaimed but accurate. Shortly the Wyzhnyny were all dead or dying.

  "Anyone damaged?" he called. None were. "Ali," he said, "we're done here. Where next?"

  "Back where we were before. I'll let G-3 know we're available."

  Running to rendezvous, Isaiah felt a sense of accomplishment. He'd killed half a dozen at least, and it felt right.

  ***

  General Pak's HQC-1 had lifted to thirty miles. He'd asked Tech how high he'd need to be to keep from being spotted by Wyzhnyny on the ground. Assuming their fixed flak installations had been taken out by the Dragons. Fifteen miles ought to do it, Tech had answered, depending on how good Wyzhnyny field equipment was, and how much they had on their minds. It turned out that fifteen miles wasn't enough, but given the power of his viewing equipment, Pak could see well enough from thirty.

  Watching had taught him a lot. The Wyzhnyny had impressed him with their relentlessness in the teeth of heavy fire, heavy casualties. The amount of armor they'd used also surprised him. He hadn't thought so much of it would escape the Dragons and wolf packs.

  In the ground fighting, his own air squadrons, armor, and antiarmor batteries, had reduced it seriously, though at greater cost than he liked to see. But War House had established the opening strategy: draw the Wyzhnyny into battle-the Wyzhnyny had taken care of that for them-and destroy their capacity to make an air and armor war of it. Turn the campaign into an infantry war, and keep War House informed in detail.

  The Wyzhnyny had been onworld long enough to make major inroads in the supplies they'd brought with them. Reports from Tagus had indicated they'd begun growing crops there almost at once. That fitted his observations here. They were concentrating on self-sufficiency.

  One of the Dragons had destroyed two Wyzhnyny cargo ships parked above a range of forested hills, lightering down cargo. Thick smoke had risen from the wreckage, as if they'd held something like grain and it was burning. Where were their cargos being stashed? He'd seen no buildings. Caves, perhaps? He'd look into that. And surely there'd been more than two cargo ships. Perhaps the others were hiding in warpspace.

  How many supplies had been stored in the buildings the Dragons had destroyed? Hopefully the Wyzhnyny were in poor shape to fight a long ground war. At any rate they were a lot of parsecs away from their supply source, the Armada, presumably with no way to communicate with it. As for his own supply ships-hopefully they were safe.

  If not… He'd handle his assignments, and hope that others handled theirs. But there were no promises.

  ***

  It seemed to Esau he was a different person than he'd been when he and Jael had finished their foxhole that morning. Since then they'd fought off four attacks, each one lasting what seemed like hours. The last had come at dusk, and it was different from the earlier attacks. This time the Wyzhnyny hadn't used tanks and APCs. It was as if they'd run out. But they obviously had plenty of howitzers. Shells had come raining down on the forest's mangled edge, tons and tons of them, and everyone stayed hunkered down. Captain Mulvaney would tell them what was happening.

  Mulvaney got updates from his platoon officers, and from Battalion. Battalion was in constant touch with HQC-1's all-seeing, automated command surveillance system. Which had separate channels to all regimental, battalion, and wing commands on the ground.

&
nbsp; Esau knew none of that. He knew only what Captain Mulvaney said in his ear. Wyzhnyny infantry were coming, lots of them, on foot. No tanks, no APCs, just troops at a trot. "Six hundred yards… " Mulvaney had said. "Five hundred… Four hundred… Their artillery's quit firing! Be ready!" The roar of shells arriving cut off just after Mulvaney said two hundred. Then Esau and Jael stepped onto the firing step, spare power slugs held in their teeth for quick reloading. He barely had time to think, My God! The Wyzhnyny were coming at a hard run, a solid rank of them, unthinned by aerial attack. Neither Wesley used aimed fire now, just shifted their shoulders from side to side, pouring out deadly streams of pulsed energy in the dusk.

  The Wyzhnyny had fallen like wheat before a scythe. But behind that first wave was another, and even with spare power slugs in their teeth, it took a moment to seat one.

  The Wyzhnyny broke through, really broke through, because even having had replacements, quite a few foxholes were down to one man, or none at all. There were enemies on all sides, and 1st Battalion clambered out of their holes to fight. When a power slug burned out, they fought with bayonets. But not that many Wyzhnyny got through, and reserves had come up. Then some of the oncoming Wyzhnyny turned and ran, and in minutes only humans were left.

  Then the reserve battalion took over the foxholes. 1st Battalion pulled back and mustered, then marched an hour northward through the forest, to where their sleeping bags and shelter tents had been stacked. The company cooks had a hot meal ready. The survivors ate, set up their shelter tents, crawled exhausted into their sacks and went to sleep.

  Esau stayed awake long enough to wonder how many in B Company had died and how many were wounded. 2nd Platoon hadn't come off too badly, and he'd lost only three of ten in his squad.

  Only! Give us another couple days like this, he told himself, and there won't be any 1st Battalion.

  He looked at Jael, curled up already asleep. She always looked so pretty, sleeping-pretty face, sweet lips-but in the dark he could only remember them.

  For the first time since childhood Esau Wesley prayed outside of church. "Oh, blessed Lord," he murmured, "don't let her get killed. If it's got to be one of us, take me. She's twice as good a person as I am, and if I lose her, I'm afraid I won't be worth shit."

  Then he slept.

  Chapter 50

  Aftershocks and

  Second Thoughts

  The tribe of Jilan was one of the more traditional. Among them, when some momentous event turned out poorly, the gosthodar would consult with his ranking advisors or officers, then take a strong sedative and sleep on what he'd learned. When he awoke, he'd eat a light breakfast, including a mild stimulant, then go alone to a place beneath the sky, to ponder. Preferably some high place, and always by day rather than by night. At night, Wyzhnyny were susceptible to dark moods. And at any rate it was necessary to sleep on the debrief, allowing the mind and spirit to sort things out, often in dreams.

  Gosthodar Jilchuk left his new field headquarters in the limestone caves, and climbed to the ridgetop. The ridge was not particularly high-some two hundred feet local elevation-nor especially steep, but he arrived sweating, breathing hard, his haunches severely fatigued. His original home was not a heavyworld, and he was middle-aged, and disinclined to keep himself fit. At the top, he walked along the crest till he came to a promontory overlooking the countryside. A place where he could sit beneath the sky while the forest behind him kept the sun off his back. There his orderly inflated the gosthodar's field mattress-high-ranking persons were not expected to sit or lie on the hard ground-and arranged it in the shade. Then watched dutifully while his ruler adjusted it slightly.

  "Can I be of further service, your lordship?" he asked.

  "No, Ethkars. Depart. I'll call if I need you."

  ***

  Ethkars left, picking his joyless way down through the forest, paying no heed to the esthetics around him. He had an infant in the nursery, and while parents were less given to worry than the nanny gender, it was his firstborn. And given the gravity on this world, the pregnancy had been difficult. He was glad his mate would carry the next one. Meanwhile the tribe was isolated on this world, and yesterday's slaughter had depressed morale.

  ***

  On his promontory, Jilchuk gazed across a landscape of broad fields-croplands and domesticated pastures. Still surrounded by forest, but his people were making progress. Or had been before the enemy bombards visited.

  Until his people had applied their civilizing touch, the settled districts had consisted of small fields and primitive dwellings, mingled with woodlands. What kind of history, what kind of culture must these humans have had to prefer such an arrangement? Clearly they were socially fragmented. Until the day before, he would not have expected such unity of action from them in battle, nor such hard-bitten dedication. Apparently this was a warrior gender he faced. His previous evaluation had been in error.

  It was not a painful conclusion. Jilchuk's stoic, practical personality was well-suited to military command. And mistakes were easily made when dealing with unfamiliar life-forms. The point was not to repeat them. It had been an error-natural but an error-to depend so heavily on his warrior brigade. The first attack should have told him that. But it had so nearly succeeded! Surely the next charge…

  Until he'd lost more than half his warriors: killed, missing, and disabled.

  I should have used my reserves in the first attacks-let the humans expend their air and armor on them-and then sent my warriors. The humans could never have withstood them then. We'd have chewed them up. Like most two-leggers, the humans had mobility problems. Break them-make them run-and they were doomed. They simply couldn't run fast enough.

  Fortunately, they too had lost more of their aircraft and armor than they could afford. They'd fought off that last attack with infantry. Best not to take too much for granted though, he told himself. They had plenty of air strength earlier. It's a good thing you moved most of your armor into caves before their bombards arrived.

  In the second phase, the humans' heavy ground-support fighters had almost surely been aerospace craft. While those used later appeared to have been simply aircraft. Had the human space force pulled out already, leaving their ground forces on their own? It seemed unlikely, but… He thumbed the mike on his harness. Intelligence would know if the space force was still in the system.

  ***

  Vice Admiral Carmen Apraxin-DaCosta didn't have a hilltop, nor at the moment the luxury of solitude. She sat on a chair beside her bottled savant, Melody Boo'tsa, who lay in trance. According to the records, Melody was fifteen years old, with a mental age of four. Just now she was in receiving mode, channeling the deputy chief of space operations, Admiral Kaidu Ghazan. Her vocator provided an excellent copy of Ghazan's strong baritone, his delivery, and the modest accent Apraxin had always supposed came from a childhood in a traditional community.

  "Carmen," he was saying, "I appreciate your concern. But you need to leave the Jerrie system no later than Terran 31.08.15, at 2400 hours. That gives you approximately twenty-nine hours. You need to rendezvous with Soong in the fringe of Dinebikeyah at system coordinates 2700/1700/00, no later than Terran 31.11.28. He'll need you."

  Apraxin considered. "The Wyzhnyny planetary defense flotilla here still hasn't poked its head out of warpspace to show us what it has in the way of firepower. And it may include remnants of the system defense force. I'd like to leave Ver Hoeven's battle group, just in case."

  "What evidence do you have that it's actually needed there? That it would be more than just a source of comfort?" Before she could respond, he went on. "Judging from your brief observations of their original planetary guard force, it looks as if Kereenyaga can handle it without Ver Hoeven's help. So. How many functional remnants of their system defense force do you think might show up?"

  She hesitated. "The maximum and the minimum," he added.

  "The maximum would be all five of them: two cruisers and three corvettes. The minimum would be none
, zero."

  It took him four seconds to respond. "You may leave three cruisers and four corvettes of Admiral Ver Hoeven's group."

  "Thank you, sir." She pushed on quickly. "What about the marine mother ship? In case the Jerries on the ground need the squadrons. They're short squadrons now, and anyway they'd be of no use to Soong."

  This time there was a long pause. When finally Ghazan spoke again, he sounded like someone who'd about reached his limit. "Admiral," he said, "I have checked with Marshal Kulikov. He says you can leave the mother ship on one condition: her squadrons are to be used only if the troops on the ground are faced with extermination. The Jerries' primary purpose is to find out for us how the Wyzhnyny fight on the ground: weapons, tactics, psychology… all of it. And the force size Pak was given is the baseline in the study. It's not to be fooled with. If he scrubs the Wyzhnyny, great. The government may even name a Day for him. But… "

  "But his people are expendable," Apraxin said matter-of-factly. "I understand."

  Ghazan didn't reply immediately. You needn't have put it so bluntly, she chided herself. Finally he spoke. "That's right, Carmen. That's how it is. That's how it will be at Shakti, too. And at Terra, if it comes to that. Resources can't be wasted. Invested but not wasted."

  Old Hard Head Kaidu. But he called you Carmen to soften the message. "Right, Admiral," she said. "I understand."

  "Fine. Anything else, Admiral?"

  "No, sir. I'll be at Dinebikeyah on time and ready."

  "Very well. And I repeat-everyone here is pleased with your results. Yours and Pak's both. Ghazan out."

  "Apraxin out."

  She nodded at the savant's attendant, then watched while the young woman spoke the brief formula that brought the savant out of her trance. A matted photo, presumably of Melody Boo'tsa, had been neatly taped to her module. The eyes were pink, the broad white face faintly so. An albino, Apraxin thought. Albinism had become avoidable, and extremely rare. Now Melody Boo'tsa no longer had a face of any color. Just a bottled CNS, a soul, and a unique sort of mind. With the unknown energies, and access to strange dimensions, that enabled two human beings to communicate across scores of parsecs, instantaneously.