by George R. R.
His lips wrinkled back from his canines in a hunter’s grin.
* * * *
Stephen Buchevsky swore with silent, bitter venom.
The sun was barely above the eastern horizon, shining into his eyes as he studied the Shongari through the binoculars and wondered what the hell they were after. After staying clear of the mountains for so long, what could have inspired them to come straight at the villages this way?
And why the hell do they have to be doing it when Mircea is away?a corner of his mind demanded.
It was at least fortunate the listening posts had detected the approaching drones so early, given how close behind them the aliens had been this time. There’d been time—barely—to crank up the old-fashioned, hand-powered warning sirens. And at least the terrain was too heavily forested for any sort of airborne ops. If the Shongari wanted them, they’d have to come in on the ground.
Which was exactly what they seemed to have in mind. A large number of APCs and a handful of tanks were assembling on the low ground at the southern end of the lake, about a kilometer below the Gheorghiu-Dej Dam, while a smaller force of tanks came in across the lake itself, followed by a dozen big orbital shuttles, and he didn’t like that one bit.
The villages were scattered along the rugged flanks of a mountain spine running east-to-west on the lake’s southeastern shore. The ridgeline towered to over 3,200 feet in places, with the villages tucked away in dense tree cover above the 1,800-foot level. He’d thought they were well concealed, but the Shongari clearly knew where they were and obviously intended to squeeze them between the force coming in over the lake and the second force, moving along the deep valley between their ridge and the one to its south.
That much was clear enough. Among the many things that weren’t clear was how well the aliens’ sensors could track humans moving through rough terrain under heavy tree cover. He hoped the answer to that question was “not very,” but he couldn’t rely on that.
“Start them moving,” he told Elizabeth Cantacuzène. “These people are headed straight for the villages. I think we’d better be somewhere else when they get here.”
“Yes, Stephen.” The teacher sounded far calmer than Buchevsky felt as she nodded, then disappeared to pass his instructions to the waiting runners. Within moments, he knew, the orders would have gone out and their people would be falling back to the position he’d allowed Ramirez to christen “Bastogne.”
It was an Army dance the first time around., he thought, and it came out pretty well that time. I guess it’s time to see how well the Green Machine makes out.
* * * *
Regiment Commander Harah swore as the icons on his plot shifted.
It appears we weren’t close enough behind the drones after all,he thought grumpily.
HQ had been forced to factor the humans’ bizarre ability to sense drones from beyond visual range into its thinking, and the operations plan had made what ought to have been ample allowance for it. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been, and he was already losing sensor resolution as they went scurrying through those accursed trees.
“They’re moving along the ridge,” he said over the regimental net. “They’re headed west—toward those higher peaks. Second Battalion, swing farther up the lake, try to come in on their flank. First Battalion, get moving up that valley now.”
* * * *
Buchevsky muttered another curse as the drones’ unpleasant vibration kept pace with him. Clearly, the damn things could track through tree cover better than he’d hoped. On the other hand, they seemed to be coming in close, low above the treetops, and if they were—
* * * *
“Dainthar seize them!”
A quartet of dirty fireballs trickled down the sky, and four of Harah’s drones went off the air simultaneously.
Damn it! What in the name of Dainthar’s Third Hell are villagers up in these damned mountains doing with SAMs?
* * * *
Buchevsky bared his teeth in a panting, running grin as Macomb’s air-defense teams took out the nearest drones. He still felt vibrations from other drones, farther away, but if the bastards kept them high enough to avoid the Gremlins, it might make their sensor resolution crappier, too.
* * * *
Harah tried to master his anger, but he was sick unto death of how these damned humans insisted on screwing up even the simplest operation. There weren’t supposed to be any SAMs or heavy weapons up here. That was the entire reason they’d come looking for Base Commander Shairez’s specimens here. Only the humans still refused to cooperate!
He considered reporting to headquarters. Equipment losses on this accursed invasion were already astronomical, and he doubted HQ would thank him if he lost still more of it chasing after what were supposed to be unarmed villagers cowering in their mountain hideouts. But they had to secure specimens somewhere, and he had these humans more or less in his sights.
“We’re not going to be able to bring the drones in as close as planned,” he told his battalion commanders. “It’s up to our scouts. Tell them to keep their damn eyes open.”
Fresh acknowledgments came in, and he watched his own forces’ icons closing in on the abruptly amorphous shaded area representing the drones’ best guess of the humans’ location.
We may not be able to see them clearly, he thought angrily, but even if we can’t, there aren’t that many places they can go, now, are there?
* * * *
Buchevsky was profoundly grateful for the way hard work had toughened the lowland refugees. They were managing to keep up with the villagers, which they never would have been able to do without it. Several smaller children were beginning to flag, anyway, of course, and his heart ached at the ruthless demands being placed on them. But the bigger kids were managing to keep up with the adults, and there were enough grown-ups to take turns carrying the littlest ones.
The unhealed wound where Shania and Yvonne had been cried out for him to scoop up one of those tiny human beings, carry someone’s child to the safety he’d been unable to offer his own children.
But that wasn’t his job, and he turned his attention to what was.
He slid to a halt on the narrow trail, breathing heavily, watching the last few villagers stream past. The perimeter guards came next, and then the scouts who’d been on listening watch. One of them was Robert Szu.
“It’s...it’s pretty much like...you and Mircea figured it...Top,” the private panted. He paused for a moment, gathering his breath, then nodded sharply. “They’re coming up the firebreak roads on both sides of the ridgeline. I figure their points are halfway up by now.”
“Good.” Buchevsky said.
* * * *
“Farkalash!”
Regiment Commander Harah’s driver looked back over his shoulder at the horrendous oath until Harah’s bared-canines snarl turned him hastily back around to his controls. The regiment commander only wished he could dispose of the Dainthar-damned humans as easily!
I shouldn’t have sent the vehicles in that close, he told himself through a boil of bloodred fury. I should’ve dismounted the infantry farther out. Of course it was as obvious to the humans as it was to me that there were only a handful of routes vehicles could use!
He growled at himself, but he knew why he’d made the error. The humans were moving faster than he’d estimated they could, and he’d wanted to use his vehicles’ speed advantage. Which was why the humans had destroyed six more GEVs and eleven wheeled APCs...not to mention over a hundred troopers who’d been aboard the troop carriers.
And there’s no telling how many more little surprises they may’ve planted along any openings wide enough for vehicles.
“Dismount the infantry,” he said flatly over the command net. “Scout formation. The vehicles are not to advance until the engineers have checked the trails for more explosives.”
* * * *
Buchevsky grimaced sourly. From the smoke billowing up through the treetops, he’d gotten at least several of their v
ehicles. Unfortunately, he couldn’t know how many.
However many, they’re going to take the hint and come in on foot from here...unless they’re complete and utter idiots. And somehow, I don’t think they are. Damn it.
Well, at least he’d slowed them up. That was going to buy the civilians a little breathing space. Now it was time to buy them a little more.
* * * *
Harah’s ears flattened, but at least it wasn’t a surprise this time. The small arms fire rattling out of the trees had become inevitable the moment he ordered his own infantry to go in on foot.
* * * *
Automatic weapons fire barked and snarled, and Buchevsky wished they hadn’t been forced to deep-six their radios. His people knew the terrain intimately, knew the best defensive positions, but the Shongari had heavier support weapons and their communications were vastly better than his. And, adding insult to injury, some of their infantry were using captured human rocket and grenade launchers to thicken their firepower.
The situation’s bitter irony wasn’t lost upon him. This time, his forces were on the short end of the “asymmetrical warfare” stick, and it sucked. On the other hand, he’d had painful personal experience of just how effective guerrillas could be in this sort of terrain.
* * * *
There was more satisfaction to accompany the frustration in Harah’s growl as he looked at the plot’s latest update.
The advance had been slower than he’d ever contemplated, and morning had become afternoon, but the humans appeared to be running out of SAMs at last. That meant he could get his drones in close enough to we see what the hell was happening, and his momentum was building.
Which was a damned good thing, since he’d already lost over 20 percent of his troops.
Well, maybe I have, but I’ve cost them, too, he thought harshly. Real-time estimates of enemy losses were notoriously unreliable, but even by his most pessimistic estimates, the humans had lost over forty fighters so far.
That was the good news. The bad news was that they appeared to be remarkably well equipped with infantry weapons, and their commander was fighting as smart as any human Harah had ever heard of. His forces were hugely outnumbered and outgunned, but he was hitting back hard—in fact, Harah’s casualties, despite his GEVs and his mortars, were at least six or seven times the humans’. The other side was intimately familiar with the terrain and taking ruthless advantage of it, and his infantry had run into enough more concealed explosives to make anyone cautious.
Whatever we’ve run our snouts into, he reflected, those aren’t just a bunch of villagers. Somebody’s spent a lot of time reconnoitering these damn mountains. They’re fighting from positions that were preselected for their fields of fire. And those explosives...Someone picked the spots for them pretty damned carefully, too. Whoever it was knew what he was doing, and he must’ve spent months preparing his positions.
Despite himself, he felt a flicker of respect for his human opponent. Not that it was going to make any difference in the end. The take from his drones was still far less detailed than he could wish, but it was clear the fleeing villagers were running into what amounted to a cul-de-sac.
* * * *
Buchevsky felt the beginnings of despair.
He’d started the morning with 100 “regulars” and another 150 “militia” from the villages. He knew everyone tended to overestimate his own losses in a fight like this, especially in this sort of terrain, but he’d be surprised if he hadn’t lost at least a quarter of his people by now.
That was bad enough, but there was worse coming.
The Bastogne position had never been intended to stand off a full-bore Shongari assault. It had really been designed as a place of retreat in the face of attack by human adversaries after the villages’ winter supplies. That meant Bastogne, despite its name, was more of a fortified warehouse than some sort of final redoubt. He’d made its defenses as tough as he could, yet he’d never contemplated trying to hold it against hundreds of Shongari infantry, supported by tanks and mortars.
Stop kicking yourself an inner voice growled. There was never any point trying to build a position you could’ve held against that kind of assault. So what if you’d held them off for a while? They’d only call in one of their damned kinetic strikes in the end, anyway.
He knew that was true, but what was also true was that the only paths of retreat were so steep as to be almost impassable. Bastogne was supposed to hold against any likely human attack, and without its stockpiled supplies, the chance that their civilians could have survived the approaching winter had been minimal, at best. So he and Mircea had staked everything on making the position tough enough to stand...and now it was a trap too many of their people couldn’t get out of.
He looked out through the smoky forest, watching the westering sun paint the smoke the color of blood, and knew his people were out of places to run. They were on the final perimeter, now, and it took every ounce of discipline he’d learned in his life to fight down his despair.
I’m sorry, Mircea, he thought grimly. I fucked up. Now we’re all screwed. I’m just as glad you didn’t make it back in time, after all.
His jaw muscles tightened, and he reached out and grabbed Maria Averescu, one of his runners.
“I need you to find Gunny Meyers,” he said in the Romanian he’d finally begun to master.
“He’s dead, Top,” she replied harshly, and his belly clenched. “Sergeant Ramirez?”
“Him, too, I think. I know he took a hit here.” Averescu thumped the center of her own chest.
“Then find Sergeant Jonescu. Tell him—” Buchevsky drew a deep breath. “Tell him I want him and his people to get as many kids out as they can. Tell him the rest of us will buy him as much time as we can. Got that?”
“Yes, Top!” Averescu’s grimy face was pale, but she nodded hard.
“Good. Now go!”
He released her shoulder. She shot off through the smoke, and he headed for the perimeter command post.
* * * *
The Shongari scouts realized the humans’ retreat had slowed still further. Painful experience made them wary of changes, and they felt their way cautiously forward.
They were right to be cautious.
* * * *
Bastogne had been built around a deep cavern that offered protected, easily camouflaged storage for winter foodstuffs and fodder for the villages’ animals. Concealment was not its only defense, however.
* * * *
Buchevsky bared his teeth savagely as he heard the explosions. He still wished he’d had better mines to work with—he’d have given his left arm for a couple of crates of claymores—but the Romanian anti-personnel mines Basarab had managed to scrounge up were one hell of a lot better than nothing. The mine belt wasn’t so deep as he would have liked, but the Shongari obviously hadn’t realized what they were walking into, and he listened with bloodthirsty satisfaction to their shrieks.
I may not stop them, but I can damned well make them pay cash. And maybe—just maybe—Jonescu will get some of the kids out, after all.
He didn’t let himself think about the struggle to survive those kids would face over the coming winter with no roof, no food. He couldn’t.
“Runner!”
“Yes, Top!”
“Find Corporal Gutierrez,” Buchevsky told the young man. “Tell him it’s time to dance.”
* * * *
The Shongari halted along the edge of the minefield cowered close against the ground as the pair of 120 mm mortars Basarab had scrounged up along with the mines started dropping their lethal fire on them. Even now, few of them had actually encountered human artillery, and the 35-pound HE bombs were a devastating experience.
* * * *
Regiment Commander Harah winced as the communications net was flooded by sudden reports of heavy fire. Even after the unpleasant surprise of the infantry-portable SAMs, he hadn’t anticipated this.
His lead infantry companies’ already he
avy loss rates soared, and he snarled over the net at his own support weapons commander.
“Find those damned mortars and get fire on them—now”
* * * *
Harah’s infantry recoiled as rifle fire added to the carnage of mortar bombs and minefields. But they were survivors who’d learned their lessons in a hard school, and their junior officers started probing forward, looking for openings.
Three heavy mortars, mounted on unarmored transports, had managed to struggle up the narrow trail behind them and tried to locate human mortars. But the dense tree cover and rugged terrain made it impossible to get a solid radar track on the incoming fire. Finally, unable to actually find the mortar pits, they began blind suppressive fire.
