Gettysburg: A Tale of the Second War for Pennsylvanian Independence (3 page)

Stug was flattered. He was used to being given an objective
and told to take it with a handful of grunts. His opinion of strategy was not
often asked.

“Our objectives are the warehouses, here and here,” he said,
pointing to the south side of town. “The big warehouse, of course, where the okcy
shipment is. But it’s insulated, protected by the squat, longer building to the
south.”

She nodded. Their original plan had been to simply walk in
and take the okcillium from the large, multi-story warehouse, load up as much
as they could, and steal away again. Like bank robbers racing a countdown
before the cops arrived. Only in this case, the money was a precious mineral.

“We go in from the south and take the shorter warehouse,”
Stug said. “Stage the move on the taller one from there.”

The QB glanced at the dimming shaft of light coming through
the tent flap.

“We’re almost out of daylight.”

“A night raid might be better,” the sergeant suggested.

She shook her head. “How would we see? They’ve proven they
have jammers. We’d be fighting blind.”

Stug shrugged.

In truth, he’d just confirmed a strategy she might’ve come
up with on her own after studying the map closer. Bold, risky, with the promise
of great reward. But it would be more of an even fight by daylight.

“One other thing, Captain,” he said hesitantly.

“Yes?”

“We should send those drones out. Course them around the
town’s perimeter. Map the interior. Bring us back the picture, load it up in
the BICEs, set them to LAN access only. Keep them off the Internet. That way,
at least, every soldier out there will have a tactically accurate situation to
start with.”

She grunted. “To start with. What’s the old axiom from von
Moltke? ‘No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.’”

Stug shrugged a second time. “Better than nothing.”

The captain smiled. “Ever practical, eh Stug?”

“Practical is my job.” He stood up a little straighter
still. “I’m a sergeant, ma’am.”

The best I’ve got
, she thought. “How’s your
lieutenant?”

“Hatch? Oh, he’ll be fine,” scoffed Stug. “Just got a little
sunburned.”

“Uh-huh. Can he walk?”

“As straight as he ever could,” the big man said playfully.
He was being familiar now, a bold move with his lieutenant’s superior officer.
She took it as a good sign of Hatch’s health, so she let it pass. “The laser
singed his panties—um, trousers, ma’am—but the leg burn is superficial. I’m not
even sure why he passed out, really.” He said this last in a teasing tone, one
that promised Hatch wouldn’t live down having fainted anytime soon.

“Good to hear.” Nodding at the tent flap, she said, “You’re
dismissed, Sergeant.”

Stug saluted and turned to go.

“Oh, and Sergeant?”

“Ma’am?”

“Send Trick back in.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He opened the tent flap, then halted, asking
no one in particular, “When did it start to get dark?”

As he exited, the QB returned to the map. The short
warehouse first. That would be the conduit to the second, larger storehouse it
was connected to. They needed that okcillium. Badly. And if they could hold
both buildings and the surrounding area long enough to load up the converted
airships they were using to move the cargo, they’d have it.

She glanced over at her projectile-firing weapon. It had
served TRACE well when no other option was available, but it was a relic to be
sure. To compete with Transport, they needed better. They needed laser
weaponry, and lots of it.

Or more to the point, they needed
power
.
Manufacturing the laser weapons was easy—all you needed was a couple of 3-D printers.
But you could print weapons all day and it would get you nowhere if you didn’t
have the okcillium to power them. And that’s why these warehouses were so
important.

There is an opportunity here
, she thought.

Of course, even a warehouse full of okcillium wouldn’t completely
level the playing field. She knew that. Transport had always had more
resources, more dropships, more drones, more everything—and it always would. Only
in the area of BICE technology—thanks to the SOMA and his technological prowess—had
TRACE been able to keep pace.

No, they couldn’t match Transport’s resources. But with that
much okcillium, and the weapons it could power . . . they could come close.

Yes.

Lieutenant Mason entered the tent. Before he even announced
himself, she motioned at the map.

“Stug thinks we should go in. The sooner the better.”

The young lieutenant was silent for a moment.

“A bit blind, ma’am.”

She nodded. “That’s why I want you to send our drones out.
Circumnavigate the town, stay to the woods and mountains as much as possible. I
want a complete survey by morning.”

Trick opened his mouth, then thought better of it.

“Speak, Lieutenant. No time for egos here.”

He stared at the map. “We have half a dozen drones pieced
together and programmed from how many skirmishes with Transport? A lot of TRACE
soldiers died so we could patch those things together.”

She waited. She knew where he was going, but the argument
needed to be made.

“We’re taking an awful risk sending them out without ground
support,” Trick said. “If we lose them . . .”

The decision hung in the air for a moment.

“Our soldiers didn’t die to create six museum pieces,” the
QB said patiently. “We have an asset. We need to use it.”

Trick stood up straight. “And if we lose them?”

The QB took her eyes off the map and brought them directly
to his. “Then we’ll secure six more. We’re not fighting a war for the vid
cameras, Lieutenant. We’re not saving dessert till after dinner. We’re using
every asset we have to bring Transport down and secure freedom for all of us.
Caution is one thing. I’m not advocating recklessness. We’ve been lucky in
victory of late, but time is not on our side. Eventually Transport will wear us
down. With manpower, with resources, with the power curve to put more of both
in the field than we can. We’ve been at war for a generation. Both sides are
weary. But we’re
older
, if you know what I mean.”

This was the most she’d ever explained herself to a
subordinate. It was uncomfortable but necessary, she thought. The whole war
could turn on this one battle.

Trick stood up straighter. “Yes, ma’am.”

She acknowledged his acceptance with a curt nod.

“Ma’am, one more thing.”

“Yes?”

“Have you run this past Colonel Neville?”

She looked at him sharply.

His brows rose in defense. “I don’t mean that the way it
sounded. I mean—”

“You mean have I covered my ass?”

A bit sheepishly, he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

She considered it, then, “No. Best to ask forgiveness on
this one, not permission.”

Trick exhaled. “Fortune favors the foolish, ma’am?”

“We’d best pray that’s the case,” she said. “Tonight,
Lieutenant, by the book. Set pickets, two-man squads. Keep them inside the
Umbrella. Send out the drones in pairs to recon the town’s perimeter, two
minutes apart. Close enough to reinforce should they encounter the enemy, but
far enough from the other pairs so they can’t all be taken out at once.”

The lieutenant saluted. “Umbrella perimeter?”

“Keep it tight,” she said. “Focused.”

Powered by stored solar energy, the undetectable energy
barrier that TRACE called “the Umbrella” would degrade quickly if too widely
cast, but if focused in a tight dome, it would prevent any heat scans thrown
their way from returning a signal. If the Umbrella did its job, a passing drone
would only see one more area devoid of heat sigs. As long as the drone didn’t
come into visual range, it would never know they were there.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Briefing at dawn,” the QB said. “And get some sleep.
Tomorrow’s likely to be a sunny day.”

Trick paused. “Understood, ma’am.”

As he left her tent, she looked down at the map. Such a
small town. Such a huge risk. And everything riding on her orders and the
bravery of Bestimmung Company.

She prepared for bed and said a prayer she hadn’t thought of
in twenty-five years. Then she slept like a baby.

Hatch woke at oh-five-hundred, his left leg numb from resting
on it all night. The laser burn still smarted on his right calf, so his choice
of sleeping position hadn’t really been an option.

“The ladies will love the scar,” yawned Stug, sitting up on
an elbow. “And you need all the help you can get.”

“Says the upright-walking bulldog,” Hatch replied, wincing
as he sat up. “I hate getting shot.”

“Grazed,” corrected Stug. “Let’s not be melodramatic.”

“Hey, can you lovebirds keep it down when you go at it? Or
get a room?” Bracer grumbled. “There’s men trying to sleep here.”

“Where?” Stug shot back.

“Okay, okay, we’re all awake now,” said Hatch. “The sun’ll
be up in half an hour. The QB wants us and the other squads at attention at
oh-five-thirty. Eat hearty. Double-check your equipment. No FUBARs today,
boys.”

Stug lightly kicked at a snoring Hawkeye, who snorted and
implied the sergeant’s mother was less than virtuous. But he woke up.

After morning routine, the men of Alpha Squad were standing
with their comrades from Bravo, Charlie, and Delta. As the QB exited her tent, Echo
Squad, the heavy-weapons support unit, stepped into line. The twenty men and
women of Bestimmung Company stood, wide-eyed and stock-still, in front of the
QB and her aide.

“Good morning,” she said, and was answered by a chorus of
“Morning, ma’am.”

“You’ve all been briefed by your squad leaders on the
situation. Our knowns are these: Gettysburg holds a huge supply of okcy. We
need it. There’s at least a dozen enemy soldiers guarding the town. We’re
making that assumption based on the one dropship Bravo Squad engaged yesterday.
The enemy has drones. How many, we’re not sure yet. The town is full of
civilians.

“Our unknowns are everything else. There might be fewer
Authority troops there than we think. There are likely a lot more. We have no
idea where the sympathies of the civilians lie. They’re employees of Transport,
by and large. Will they obstruct us or open the city gates, metaphorically speaking?
How much okcy is actually in the larger warehouse on the south side of town? To
access it, we need to secure the smaller, cylindrical warehouse at the southern
city limits. What’s in that one? All unknowns. Questions?”

Trick raised his hand.

“Lieutenant Mason.”

“What have our drones told us, ma’am? Have they mapped the
town’s interior?”

A slight grimace across the captain’s face was all the
frustration she showed her troops.

“Our drones have not returned.”

Mumbling among the TRACE fighters. She raised her hand to
quell it.

“Before you assume anything, here are the facts: at
oh-three-hundred this morning, the first pair of drones surveying the town sent
an alert signal to C&C. Apparently they contacted the enemy at some point
because they evaded, which is standard operating procedure. Before they went
off the grid, we sent them behind the mountains to the northeast. Each of the other
pairs followed. They should have reemerged by oh-five-hundred. They have not.”

Lieutenant “Charger” Freeman of Delta Squad raised a hand.

“Yes?”

“How does this affect our timetable, ma’am?”

The captain took a measured breath. “It doesn’t.”

More murmuring. Stug looked sideways at his lieutenant.

Hatch responded with an almost-imperceptible shrug.
Oops.

“But ma’am,” said Charger, “we’ll be blind without those
maps. And you just said we’ll likely be outnumbered. We already know we’re
outgunned.”

She nodded, granting the point. “We won’t know the town’s
interior beyond the public GIS maps we already have. But we already know our
target: the warehouses. And the fact that we’re outgunned is precisely why
we’re going in. Without that okcy, we’ll always be outgunned.”

“Ma’am—” began Charger.

“More to the point,” the QB continued, “the longer we delay,
the more they reinforce. This isn’t Medieval Europe on old Earth. We can’t
simply besiege the town until they raise their collective hands. Every moment
we delay gives Transport an opportunity to reinforce. They already know we’re
here, and only a moron wouldn’t know
why
we’re here.”

“So, then, we’re not sure they know why we’re here, ma’am?”

Stug was nothing if not sardonic. He received half-hearted
giggles, even a grin from the QB, in response. It helped break the tension
stoked by Charger’s fears.

“Lieutenant Freeman, you’re right to be concerned,” the
captain said, her quiet voice helping to snuff out the tittering. “But we have
an opportunity here. This war has been going on as long as most of you have
been in the world. It’s true, TRACE has done well for a long time, since the SOMA
broke the BICE codes. But we still lag behind the power curve. If we don’t
break out of this hit-and-run cycle, eventually Transport will bleed us dry. At
the end of the day, it comes down to the mathematics of resources. We have to
change that equation.” She pointed at the ground beneath them. “
Here
.”

Charger looked straight at her, ruminating a moment, then nodded.
“Yes, ma’am!” Emphatic. Committed.

“Reboot your BICEs, set them to LAN only. Until we hit
Authority troops with jammers, we can at least coordinate squads. Stay
off
the Internet. No sense handing Transport our exact location, though I’m pretty
sure they’ll know where we are soon enough.” Someone mouthed approval at that
bit of black humor. “Any other questions?”

Silence. Then Stug raised his hand.

“Sergeant?”

“Do I get to hit someone today?”

More giggles in the ranks, though they were tentative, as if
testing the waters that it was all right to find humor in such a serious moment.

This was a time to be a comrade as much as a leader, the captain
decided. “It’s been more than a day, hasn’t it?” she said, putting grimness in
her voice.

“Yes, ma’am,” he gruffed. “That’s a whole week in dog
years.”

Open laughter now. Even Charger giggled quietly to herself.

“For better or worse,” the QB said, “I imagine the answer to
your question is yes.” She sent a silent prompt to her aide, who snapped,
“Ten-chun!”

The score of men and women immediately stood up straight,
all joking silenced.

“Squad leaders to me. The rest of you, double-check weapons
and sling extra ammo. You’ll need it.”

“Dismissed!” the aide said.

Lieutenants Hatch, Mason, Freeman, Lutz, and Gray joined the
QB while the rest of Bestimmung Company prepared themselves for a fight. She
kneeled on the ground, arranging rocks as landmarks and drawing a rough
perimeter of the town with a stick. On the right side of the crude map, she stuck
one small and one large rock. The warehouses. In the middle she placed an
upright stick representing the guard post Alpha Squad had nullified yesterday.
Behind the town she scattered sticks for mountains. While she could’ve drawn a
3-D image of the same plan using their BICE connection and shared it on their
squad leader channel, the QB preferred battle plans she could touch. She was old-fashioned
that way.

“Mason, you’ll take Bravo Squad, supported by Gray’s Echos,
and secure the guard post by oh-nine-hundred. No doubt it’ll be remanned, maybe
even reinforced. Alpha Squad, once they’ve done that, we’ll move up from the
woods to the south, with support from Charger and Delta Squad, and probe the
warehouses.”

“
We
, ma’am?” Hatch already knew the answer, but he
wanted it confirmed.

“I’ll be attaching myself to your squad for the duration.”

Well, there it was. Not a surprise and certainly not
unprecedented, given the company’s history. Still . . .

“Captain, if I may speak freely—”

“I’m going,” she said. “Now speak freely, but make it fast.
We’re burning daylight.”

Hatch took a breath. Dangerous territory. He admired her
bravery. She set the standard for the unit. She was also too important to it to
become an oo-rah poster model collecting laser holes.

“Strategically, we’d be better served with you coordinating
from here, ma’am,” Hatch said quietly. There was no ego here, no “nobody leads
my squad but me.” He was simply stating a fact.

“Coordinating how, Lieutenant?” she asked. “BICEs will be
useless once the forward squads are in range of Transport jamming. And I’ve
forgotten my smoke signal alphabet.”

Hatch acknowledged the point with a nod. There was more to
his concern than a simple consideration for military strategy, if he was honest
with himself about it. There was the history between them. But best leave that
unopened in the folder marked
Past and Done
. No time for it here.

“We’re short on bodies as usual,” she continued. Ever the
tactician, she was aware his silence gave her the advantage to press forward.
“We need everyone we can get on the front line today.”

“Then the entire company is going in?” asked Gray, called
Smoker.

“Not quite,” she answered. “Lieutenant Lutz and Charlie
Squad will remain in reserve in the woods south of the town, behind Delta’s
tree line position, to preserve our flexibility. Once we probe the warehouses,
we’ll have a better sense of their numbers. Then we’ll decide if and where to
commit your squad.”

The lithe lieutenant said, “Yes, ma’am. But I have a
question. Why send Smoker with Trick to take the post? Wouldn’t Echo’s big guns
be more useful supporting the attack on the warehouses?”

The question was reasonable. Echo’s two chain guns fired four
hundred rounds per minute, sustained. Each took two men to operate, one to aim
and fire the weapon, the other to feed them ammunition.

“I want them to think we’re coming up the same slot we
cleared yesterday,” the captain answered. “Transport thinks we’re a bunch of
untrained rabble, even though it should know better by now. The stupid maneuver
of a frontal assault across open ground should play right into their
preconceptions about us. If we unroll the chains on their front door—”

“Diversion,” said Hatch, “while we infiltrate the warehouses
from the south.”

The QB clicked her teeth, telling them all he’d gotten the
correct answer. “Besides, we need to stay light. We have to take the first
building and secure the second while Delta moves up and makes a landing zone
for our converted airbuses to land and load.” Itching to move, the QB slung her
rifle to rest on her shoulder. “Any other questions?” Her tone made it clear
they’d better be necessary.

There were none.

“All right, then. Trick, you and Smoker take that post by
oh-nine-hundred. Let’s go.”

As the others moved out, Hatch lingered.

“Mary, you sure about this? You said it yourself: we have no
idea what’s really there. Want to call Neville for backup?”

She looked directly at him. Just for a moment, he saw the
woman he’d known so intimately, if briefly. A woman who could melt your heart
in the right light. Someone who had no business being called captain on soft
evenings.

“I intend to, Sean. Right after Trick and Smoker take that guard
post. By the time Neville arrives with reinforcements, we’ll have secured that
okcy. The good colonel can cover our retreat.”

“And if there’s a company or more of porters in that town?”
he asked softly.

Her eyes flattened, taking on that computer-like, steely
gaze she got when staring down the problem at hand. “Then it’s going to be one
long, hot day,” she said.

“You did what?”

The colonel’s voice grated in her head over the secure
Internet channel.

“We’ve established a position on the left and are preparing
to assault the facility,” the QB sent back. “Sending you a packet now with the
tactical situation.”

The good news for her was, their Internet link could only be
secured confidently for another thirty seconds. TRACE had built an algorithm
into its Internet protocol to auto-countdown conversations carried on the
Internet during a tactical situation. Every ten seconds, the detached feminine voice,
known as Marlene for some unknown reason, helpfully reminded the parties their
time was limited.

“
Twenty
,” Marlene said. Which meant the colonel could
only dress down the QB for another twenty seconds.

“Goddamn it, Captain, you should’ve informed me before
moving on the town.”

“Security protocol, sir, essential messages only. Transport
might’ve hacked this line already.”

“
Ten
.”

“You should’ve—”

“We need your other two companies and the converted cargo ships
here as noted in Figure One’s timeline.”

“Captain, if this goes sideways—”

“
Communication terminated. Reestablish?
”

“Oh, hell no,” the captain answered.

Trying not to eavesdrop and failing miserably, Hatch stood
in the tree line gazing at the smaller of the two objectives: a two-story, cylindrical
building. He was standing exactly where Bravo Squad had set up its machine gun
yesterday to cover his own squad’s retreat. Hatch felt an 18-millimeter caseless
shell in the dirt beneath his boot. He bent over and picked it up. Rolling it
between his fingers, he looked at it absently, considering their position. To
his left, Bravo and Echo squads had just secured the guard post and turned it
into a defensible anvil. Again, they’d found only one Transport soldier defending
the guard post. Again, that Transport soldier had died. Echo’s two chain guns
were now deployed behind a makeshift berm facing east from the guard post,
covering the town. Now, it was time to swing the hammer at the warehouses.