Soldiers

Chapter 53

Petition to Kulikov

It was late afternoon. General Pak was reading staff reports when his Intelligence chief rang. "General, the buoys have something you need to see. Corporal Chen has it framed for you."

Frowning, Pak looked at his screen and touched a key. He recognized at once what he was looking at: a column of tanks, or perhaps artillery, moving out of a forested, hilly area. Limestone hills. Magnification was set low, allowing him to see the column's full length. He zoomed in to examine a single vehicle-an armored, self-propelled howitzer-then backed off a bit. A whole unit of howitzers. Judging by Wyzhnyny standing in open hatches, they were heavy stuff-perhaps eight-inchers.

Zooming back, he counted. A battalion of three batteries, each battery with sixteen howitzers, three squad APCs, an armored battery command wagon, a heavy salvage vehicle, and two ugly-looking flakwagons. He whistled silently. Forty-eight heavy howitzers in all! There was also a battalion command and support company with, among other vehicles, six flakwagons, and four of what could only be large, heavily armored caissons to replenish the ammunition carried by the howitzers themselves.

All of it loaded with bad intentions.

A total of twelve flakwagons! To send attack squadrons… He shook his head, thinking of the floaters lost against the flak towers.

He also thought of the Dragon parked 300 miles overhead, unavailable to him.

"Thank you, Captain," Pak said, and disconnected.

Request the Dragon, he told himself. The worst they can do is say no. He touched another switch, and in a second had Commodore Kereenyaga's yeoman on the radio, some hundred thousand miles out. "This is General Pak. I need to speak with the commodore at once."

In twenty seconds the commodore was on.

"Commodore, I'm afraid you have all the heavy ground bombardment capacity in the system. Except for the heavy artillery the Wyzhnyny commander down here is moving against us. I need a visit from a friendly Dragon."

He listened to the commodore's reply, then answered, "I'm aware of that. I was on the planning group. But our assumption was that forces like I face now would be destroyed before we landed…

"I understand. But the planning group didn't allow for the caves. If we had, your rules of engagement would read differently…

"Thank you. Tell them to call me if they have questions. And keep in mind that the clock is running on us down here."

He disconnected, glowering. War House wasn't going to like this, and they'd probably say no. But damned if he'd let the possibility pass without trying.

The artillery that had shelled his line in the Battle of the First Days had been organic to the Wyzhnyny infantry units. This appeared to be additional. It was hard to imagine the Wyzhnyny leaving so much artillery on a world whose land surface was 99.9 percent wilderness and had no military at all, or any weapons beyond single-shot hunting arms.

He called the column's speed onto the screen. If it kept on that road, it could deploy for firing in under three hours. And surely they'd have tanks and infantry on hand to protect it, more than his forces could deal with in the open.

He touched a key that would boom his voice into every headquarters and orderly room in the base. "Urgent! Urgent! All units," he said. "This is your general. Evacuate base on Plan C. Evacuate base on Plan C. Beginning now!" Then he keyed Air Ops. "You're aware of the Wyzhnyny artillery on the road?… Good. I don't want any enemy in our airspace for the rest of the day. None! We're going to have a lot of people and equipment moving outside the concealment field soon, with only the trees to hide them. Questions?… Good."

He disconnected and allowed himself a gusty, "Whew!" The order was given. If this was a false alarm, he'd look like a complete and utter ass. He grunted. Better that than destruction, heavy casualties and regret. At best his force couldn't all be moved out in time. But Plan C's priorities were set partly in order of replaceability, and partly for movement to a backup area that had only first-order infrastructure in place-little more than wells and unactivated biosumps.

Only then did he call in his general staff, and begin to sort things out. How would Wyzhnyny command determine targets? Presumably they couldn't see through the concealment screen, and even that much artillery, firing blind into an area of twenty square miles… Ah. The Wyzhnyny scouting parties. They'd been reported from a number of locations inside the perimeter. Their radioed reports would have allowed a decent map of the circumference, and Wyzhnyny command would target the center.

Plan C allowed for that too. Headquarters Battalion would be moved first. All but his command center-a modified, platoon-sized APF that held his office and briefing room, along with emergency quarters for himself, his aide, his savant team, the corps sergeant major and two clerks.

The staff meeting was interrupted by the savant's attendant. "General," she said, "Genevieve has a call for you, from Marshal Kulikov at War House."

"Excuse me, gentlemen," Pak said, and walked to a room near the aft of the floater. Genevieve, who like Charley Gordon was bottled, was already in trance. When Pak had seated himself, the attendant nodded, and he began dictating. "This is Pak," he said.

The reply was immediate and to the point. "Explain to me, General Pak, why I should change the rules of engagement," the savant said. Very nearly in Kulikov's voice.

"General Pak" instead of Pyong. Not promising. Pak repeated the brief argument he'd made to Commodore Kereenyaga. He was operating more on intuition than analysis, and it seemed best to avoid specifics, except when answering questions that required them.

"So," Kulikov said, "you are not currently threatened with destruction."

Pak was not intimidated. "Not at present. If I was, the commodore would have acted without referring my request to you. But the farther my base is from open country, the less I'll be able to react to Wyzhnyny encroachment. They'll establish bases within the forest, where my fields of fire will be much more restricted, and my new base will be subject to attacks from any point the Wyzhnyny choose. I'll have to move my Operations Command and air units deep in-country, disperse my combat units to fight a guerrilla war, then try to supply them by air. And direct and coordinate them based almost entirely on data from the buoys. If that's what you want, we'll do our best, and keep you informed."

There was a pause of some seconds. "That's a remarkably pessimistic view," said Kulikov. Even via Genevieve, the words carried a sense less of accusation than contemplation.

"Not pessimistic. Realistic. It all comes down to your purpose for sending us here. We were to provide the missing database on Wyzhnyny onworld tactics, potentials, and psychology. And we've already provided major data on all three.

"Whatever decision you make on this, we'll learn more for you. But data on fighting the Wyzhnyny from something like an equal footing should be more useful than fighting a guerrilla war. And guerrilla wars are seldom successful without the covert support of a civilian population. Here there is none, and if you don't destroy this artillery threat, you'll have to bail us out later."

Another thought struck him. "Or maybe we've gotten all the information you need from here. Maybe it's time to stomp the Wyzhnyny and let us mop up the remains. With all the-what? Terabits? Petabits?-of data from buoys, windscreens, helmet visors, the electronic communications of men and aircraft, all beamed live to Kereenyaga's shipsmind for sorting, selecting, sequencing- whatever it does with it… " His shrug was lost on Kulikov. "Eventually you'll get it by pod, though maybe not in time to be useful."

I wonder, Kulikov thought, what he'd say if I told him Ari Geltman's been on Kereenyaga's flagship all along, sending us summaries via savant. Best let him learn about that later. "No chance, General," he said. "We've invested a lot in your Jerrie force. You're there for the long haul."

"It was a thought," Pak said, and got back on track. "As guerrillas we can give the Wyzhnyny a bloody game. But if you send down a Dragon, we stand a very good chance of winning down here, and the data should be more useful."

Kulikov was seldom slow to decide; this was no exception. "I'll do this much," he said. "I'll have Kereenyaga send the marine wolfpacks. They won't exterminate the howitzer battalion, but they'll club the hell out of it: destroy a lot of equipment, and probably prevent the barrage.

"But I will not authorize a Dragon. Not now. A visit by a Dragon is like an act of the old Hebrew deity, Yahweh: a force beyond human will-or Wyzhnyny will-to resist. Early on, the Wyzhnyny probably wondered what had happened to the Dragons that hit them initially, but by now they've more or less convinced themselves they'll never see them again.

"If I send it now, and it leaves after simply destroying an artillery battalion, it will seem to the Wyzhnyny we're toying with them. It would break their will, and what we learned after that wouldn't be worth much.

"The wolf packs are a much lower order of deity. The flakwagons will bring down some of them, and some of the artillery will escape. A trade-off that will favor us, but still a trade-off. And they'll assume we don't use them more than we do because we don't like the losses. Which we don't.

"Any questions or comments?"

"One comment, sir. The sun is low here now: about thirty degrees above the horizon. If the wolf packs get here soon enough, and attack from the northwest, the flak gunners will have the sun in their eyes."

"I'll tell them. And, Pyong, this request hasn't hurt your reputation here. You've been doing a fine job, and we respect your opinions." Kulikov paused. "Just don't overdraw your account. Now I've got to end this session and get those squadrons on their way. Kulikov out."

Pak stared at the box on a cart. "Thank you, Marshal. Pak out."

He looked at the clock readout on the screen. The marines, it seemed to him, would make it in time.

Pak put the evacuation on hold as soon as the wolf packs entered the atmosphere. Then he watched the attack. It was he who'd brought the marine crews into harm's way; the least he could do was watch and root for them.

The Wyzhnyny hadn't anticipated them, and the marines took full advantage of the sun, and surprise. Their first sweep focused on the flakwagons, and they destroyed about half of them. But given the volume of fire, a number of howitzers were also hit, some with hatches open. There were some splendid explosions. The second sweep followed closely, benefiting from the confusion. They killed three of the remaining flakwagons.

Before the third sweep hit, the remaining howitzers were fleeing for the refuge of the forest a mile away, drawing the Dire Wolves like magnets draw ball bearings. The howitzers' AA slammers were too light to mean much. Only ten howitzers made it to the trees. Not one was undamaged, and there were no operational flakwagons left at all. Three of the armored AG caissons were disabled. The fourth, despite the very heavy armor, had blown sky high, taking the battalion command wagon with it.

The field looked like an armor cemetery.

Briefly the marines hung around, dumping HE on the howitzers their sensors found beneath the forest roof. By then Wyzhnyny fighters were arriving, and per mission orders, the marines left. Six of the large-bore behemoths never left the forest. The remaining four limped for home.

A traumatized Jilchuk took heart from two facts. The first was hard to understand: He'd had a complete heavy infantry division only a few miles away, ready to move into the forest during the shelling, and attack the human base soon afterward. The human attack craft had ignored it, as if they'd failed to see it.

And five of the attack craft had been destroyed. Five of the twenty-four; he'd made the humans pay. Perhaps the remaining nineteen were all there were. He wasn't about to take it for granted, but he could hope.

Pak, on the other hand, knew. He also knew that three other Dire Wolves had been damaged, though they remained spaceworthy. Everything considered, that was a bargain, but it wasn't one he rejoiced over.

Briefly he considered sending a squadron of his own fighters to harass the withdrawing infantry, but thought better of it. After the marine heavyweights, his craft would be a weak anticlimax. Not the right note to close on.

The evacuated units en route to the backup base location were ordered to return. News of the marine raid and the destruction of the howitzer battalion more than made up for the rush and hard work of packing and unpacking gear.