Go Tell the Spartans (38 page)

"Who's this?" he asked, playing out the scenarios in his mind.

"Senior Group Leader Graham, Spartan People's Liberation Army," the rebel said. "Who might you be?"

"It hardly matters." Lysander made hand signals. Continue the attack.

"It's their funeral. Your Brothers."

"No deal," Lysander said. "Harm my men and you'll hang, if you live that long." Switch to command channel. "Let's go kill that smug son of a bitch! Go, go—" He thumbed the command set again. "Get me the Colonel."

"All units, WIPERS, I say again, WIPERS," Owensford broadcast. "WIPERS, TRILOGY, WESTWOOD." Don protective equipment and prepare for chemical attack. All troops without protective gear withdraw from present positions. Fall back and regroup for counter attack.

"Andy, who's mobile with chemical protection?"

"Prince Royal's Own, sir."

"Where are they dug in?"

"On— They're not dug in. They're moving, in support of one of the Brotherhood units."

"Son of a bitch."

"You aren't surprised?"

"Should I be? Andy, make sure Collins acknowledges WIPERS, TRILOGY, WESTWOOD."

"Aye aye."

"Sparks, get me Morrentes."

"Morrentes." That line, at least, was secure.

"Sir."

"They're coming right at you, and it's clear they believe they'll win. We can't figure how unless they use gas, and so far as we can tell, every one of theirs has chemical protection gear."

"Holy shit, Colonel, most of my lads—"

"Right. So bug out, and now."

"Where to?"

"High ground. Group toward Barton's force. And don't get lost. We'll need you again."

"Well—Colonel are you sure about this?"

"No. If I'm wrong, I'll have let them sucker you out of a good position. That's not fatal. They may be able to raid your camp, but looting the baggage has got more than one army killed. You'll still outnumber them, and you'll be ready to counter attack. And if they are using gas, Major, if they are—"

"Yes, sir. OK, here I go."

"Barton."

"Right here, Boss."

"You been following this?"

"Better than that," Ace said. "I sent out a couple of my own drones. Jesus is right, they all got gas gear. A few have already put their masks on."

"Scared," Peter said. "Can't blame them. All right. They'll send in their gas, then what? Jump Morrentes's position, I'd guess."

"Me too. Devious mind, Colonel. Devious mind."

"It isn't going to work."

"Didn't say smart, said devious. Amateur's plan. Terrorists rehearse everything fifty times and think being prepared for friction and bad luck means you don't expect
everything
to go right. In the real world—"

"In the real world, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy," Peter said. Falkenberg's favorite military aphorism.

"Eggszactly. So I'm sending my chemical protected troops up to take good positions. When the rebels overrun Morrentes's camp, we pound hell out of them, then while they're figuring that out, we'll be in position to counterattack."

"That sounds right. I'll leave you to it, then. Hurt the bastards, Ace."

"I'll do that little thing. Out."

"Andy, get me Captain Mace."

"Mace here."

"How are your SAS units?"

"As you requested, I have four operational and standing by."

"Good. Jamey, they're about to bite off more than they can chew. When that happens they'll figure to fade off into the hills."

"Yes, sir—"

"So I want your SAS teams standing by to vector Thoth in on them when they run. Use what air transport we've got to inject those lads into good positions to cover retreat areas."

"Roger. Can do. Colonel, I have a problem. Miscowsky wants to go after Lieutenant Lefkowitz."

"Yeah, he's served with Jerry, that figures. What is that situation? Can Miscowsky's team do any good?"

"Colonel, I don't know, and that's a fact. We've got the crash site pinpointed, but there doesn't look to be anyone there. It's just damned hard to know."

"Assume she's alive. Which way will they take her if they break and run?"

"You really expect them to break, Skipper?"

"Good chance of it. They're gambling a lot on this gas attack. Or whatever they're aiming down my throat." Peter watched as his screens showed updates on the enemy positions. "And they're still at it, trying to run right down our throats like there's no tomorrow. Jamey, what the hell else could it be that would make them act like this?"

"Yeah. I expect you've hit on it. Suppose they stop and pull back now?"

"Let 'em. They've still got to run a gauntlet to get out of there. Jamey, use your own judgment on trying to rescue Lefkowitz."
Which means he'll send a team, of course.
"But have teams ready to pound on 'em when they run.

"Next. I want as many of your scouts as you can organize set up and ready to run in amongst them when they break. This battle is by God going to end with pursuit."

"Right on. I'll see what I can get ready."

"Andy, what communications are secure?"

"Everything local. If it's not on a fiber line, you'll hear the warning wail."

"Right. Thanks."

"And D Company reports contact."

Owensford nodded. That was the blocking force down in the ravine to the west, and now he would learn for sure why the enemy seemed bent on committing suicide.

"Put McLaren on." Another secure channel. The signals people all deserved medals.

"Captain McLaren here," a thickly accented voice said; from New Newfoundland, the island settlement in the Oinos Gulf. "There's a force of at least three companies comin' doon the valley at me, Colonel. They're carrying heavy weapons, but they'll nae get past if we get fire support."

"On its way, Captain," Owensford said. "Are you ready for chemical attack?"

"As ready as I'll ever be. The lads that hae the gear ha' put it oon, the rest hae moved back to hasty shelters."

"That
ought
to do it. We don't know what they have, or how much, but with luck it can't be
that much.
"

"Luck goes both ways, Colonel. We're warned noo, the lads know which side of the turf goes up."

"Right. Captain, I don't mind if they get past you."

"Sir?"

"I want them to think they fought past you, but I don't want you taking casualties. When they move in, probably under cover of that gas attack, punish them as they go past, but mostly fall back on your reserves, regroup, and wait for the signal to counter attack. They're putting themselves into the bag, Captain, and I wouldn't want to stop them."

"I see. We'll be ready, then."

"Incoming," Sastri's voice said on the Heavy Weapons line. "New pattern. Incoming on
all
positions, single batteries to each of our battalions. Impact in thirty seconds."

"Looks like this is it, Captain. Godspeed."

"Sir, Morrentes calling, urgent."

"Owensford here." There was a faint but unmistakable background sound, a rising and falling wail: the line was radio line of sight, possibly secure, possibly not.

"Colonel, FAIROAK." Owensford whistled silently;
radars inoperative due to enemy antiradiation missiles.
"Ditto Firebase One, we've got movement all around. I'm lofting some of the Thoths, but there isn't enough target data to—"

"Gas!" An automatic alarm squeal, and then Sastri's voice screaming on the override push: "
GAS! ALL UNITS ARE UNDER GAS ATTACK, PROTECTIVE MEASURES IMMEDIATELY GAS GAS GAS!
"

"Morrentes here, the camp's under gas attack."

"Loft your birds high, then drop them onto your old camp, sector fiver," Owensford said. "That's where they'll be coming in."

"GAS, GAS, GAS . . ."

A long chilling scream from someone, that ended in retching coughs. Owensford's hands were moving in drilled reflex, as a ring of plastic popped loose around the base of his Legion-issue helmet.
Open
the armor at the neck
strip
it back
pull
the tab; a sudden hiss as the seal inflated tight to his skin and the lower rim of his faceplate. Strip the hypnospray out of its pocket in the fabric of his sleeve and press it to the neck below the seal; antidote, if it was a nerve agent.

But the Brotherhood troops and the RSI don't have Legion equipment. Except the Prince Royal's Own. And everyone has masks. It was still in the training. One reason gas wasn't used much. They have the masks, if they didn't ditch them as useless weight. Think of that as a way to weed out stupid troops. We had warning, not enough, but why am I surprised that terrorists use terror weapons? One thing for sure, they haven't any more experience with war gasses than we do.

"Command override," he said. That put him on the universal push. There was no emotion now; everything felt ice-clear. "All units, gas counter-measures." He turned to Captain Lahr. "OK, that's their big move. Stop them now, and we've won. Andy, make sure we preserve records of this. Make damned sure of that. I want evidence that will stand up in every hearing room from here to the Grand Senate."

"Now," Skilly said, looking at her watch. 0420. Her hand stabbed down, one finger extended.

The Meijian touched a control. The antiradiation missiles lept skyward and looped over down toward the Royalist river-base.

"Now," Skilly repeated. A second finger.

The sky lit with violet as the bombardment rockets drew their streaks across the sky. Two hundred meters above the earth they burst, and a colorless, odorless liquid volatized into gas and floated downward.

"Now." A third time. Nothing visible here, but hundreds of kilometers to the north another of Murasaki's technoninjas touched the controls before him. Two solid-fuel rockets leaped aloft and arched west as they rose; they were not capable of reaching orbital velocity, but they had more than enough power to spew their loads of ballbearings into the path of the observation satellite. The steel would meet the orbiter at a combined velocity of better than sixteen thousand meters per second.

"Now." Fourth and last. From all around the Royalist base, men rose and rushed forward, even as the alarm klaxons wailed.

 
War among the interstellar colonies is a relatively new phenomenon, although civil disturbance is not. Only since the emergence of strongly independent planetary states in the 2060s has a new balance of power begun to manifest itself, with the traditional accompanying features: armaments races, offensive and defensive alliances, puppet governments and spheres of influence. This process is still incomplete, as the significant powers—Dayan, our own Friedland, Meiji, Xanadu—are still somewhat deterred by the enormous although declining and semi-paralytic power of Earth's CoDominium Fleet. Space combat remains an almost exclusively theoretical exercise. Ground warfare has been limited, with intervention in the disputes of worlds without unified planetary governments, or undergoing civil war, the characteristic form. The independent planets seek to defray the costs of raising armies and to gain combat experience by following the example of the autonomous mercenary formations and hiring out their elite troops; political influence often follows automatically, as in, for example, the close links now existing between the Republic of Friedland and the restored Carlist monarchy of Santiago on Thurstone.
As one consequence of this pattern, the significant armies have continued to be small and usually based on voluntary recruitment, intended for deployment outside their native systems. The strong, industrialized and unified worlds have no use for mass armies, and the planets which need such have not the resources to maintain them. Thus reserves of trained manpower, and still more the organizational and social structures needed to support universal mobilization, have become virtually nonexistent. Some planets, of which Sparta is an excellent example, have attempted to raise well-trained and widely based militia systems. The primary weakness of this approach is the lack of standing forces, and hence of the infrastructure of higher command and administration; also, the lack of fighting experience, the only true method of testing the efficiency of a military system. . . .