Go Tell the Spartans (36 page)

The Fifty-first out on his flank had been hit hard, infantry attacks in strength right on the heels of the first bombardment; now they were gradually turning front as parties of the enemy tried to work around their rear. The Third on his left was moving east and north to cover the flank of his probe through the minefield, the Second on the far left was getting hit-and-run skirmishing and snipers and moving slowly to close up with the 3rd.

"Andy, link me up with Barton and Alana. Can we do that securely?"

"Sure can. Got a new fiber thread laid five minutes ago. Stand by one—got it."

"Ace. Jesus. Stand by to trade data sets." Peter slapped the function keys, and lights blinked. His map screens changed subtly.

"All right, Jesus," Peter said. "What are they trying to do?"

"It depends upon whether or not they are fools."

"What do you think?"

"Don't look like fools to me," Ace Barton said.

"They are not fools," Alana said. "Their plan is well executed. The problem is that they have not enough force to accomplish what clearly they believe they can do."

"Say that again."

"Colonel, they look to be trying to cut through to your base camp and destroy it. All their movements point to that. Yet they have not enough force to do it, and the result is that they expose themselves to attrition, and then to counterattack."

"First they build a pocket for you, now they stick their own dicks in the garbage grinder," Ace Barton said.

"Not fools but acting like fools."

"That's close enough," Alana said.

"Secret weapon, Jesus? Nukes?"

"It is a possible explanation."

"Damn high cost, using nukes," Peter said. "If anything would unite the CoDominium from the Grand Senate down to the NCO Clubs, that would do it. Ace, do you get the impression that things are not what they seem?"

"I sure do, Boss."

"OK," Peter said. "Here's what I'm seeing. We have three elements, two real attacks and a feint. The feint is left alone, the two real attacks are under fire within a few minutes of each other. Conclusions, Jesus?"

"Our plan, at least in outline, was known to the enemy."

"Sounds right," Barton said.

"Now they are committing major portions of their strength in what appears to be a hopeless attack. It's not a feint, they're in too far for that already."

"Correct again," Alana said.

"All right. New mission for Task Force Wingate: fall back and regroup as mobile reserve. While they're doing that, Ace, you scramble your four companies in the hovertrucks, and get the Dodona militia moving too. I want reinforcements moving toward the Bridgehead Base
soonest.
That's where they're heading. But hang back, don't get in there and make a big target of yourselves. It's time we started playing this according to our own script."

"Aye aye. I don't like this secret weapon deal."

"Nor I. Jesus, put somebody smart to thinking about the situation: what could they have that would justify what they're doing? Use drones as you need them. This is a priority one mission. Report as soon as you've got an idea."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"One thing," Ace Barton said. "We've learned something about the enemy commander."

"Yes?"

"Devious mind, Pete. Devious. Atlas out."

He paused for a second.
Right.
One damned thing after another, like a picador driving spikes under the hide of the bull. Nothing deadly, but designed to disorient and enrage, while the sword stayed hidden in the cloak . . .
or better still, a cat playing with
a
mouse.
There was an almost feline malice to the whole setup; whoever was in charge on the other side was inflicting damage for its own sake. He looked at the map again.
Particularly on the Brotherhoods.
Who were well-trained troops, but civilians-in-uniform, with families and communities that depended on them.

This is as much a terrorist operation as a battle,
he thought, with a slight prickle at the back of his neck. You had to be a bit case-hardened to be a mercenary anyway, but . . .

"Get me Morrentes." Back at the river base-camp.

"Colonel," the militia officer said. "Hear you're having problems. All quiet here, so far. No sign of the force the 'plane reported."

"Yes. I'm sending Lieutenant-Colonel Barton and the Legion companies up to join you," he said. "Possibly I'm being nervous, but I don't think so."

"I see, sir," the rancher said; his voice was slow and thoughtful.

"You're already dug in good," Owensford said. "Stay that way, but now I want you to be ready to move fast. I don't know what they have, but they're acting like it's going to turn the battle around for them. Like they can wipe you out with one blow."

"Nukes?"

"It sure looks like it, but we don't know," Peter said. "We just don't know."

 
Since the development of the metallic cartridge, smokeless powder and the self-loading firearm, small-arms development has gone through a number of cycles. The original generation of magazine rifles were the result of a search for range and accuracy; they were bolt-action weapons, capable in skilled hands of accurate fire at up to several thousand meters. In the opening battles of the First War of AntiGerman Encirclement (1914-1918), the professional soldiers of the British Army delivered deadly fire at ranges well in excess of 1000 meters, at the rate of twelve aimed rounds per minute—leading the officers of the opposing Imperial German formations to suppose they were the targets of massed machine guns! By the 1930s, these bolt-action rifles were being replaced by self-loading models firing
identical ammunition and of roughly comparable performance.
However, the mass slaughters and hastily trained mass conscript armies of the 20th century rendered the long-range accuracy of such weapons irrelevant. Studies indicated that virtually all infantry combat occurred at ranges of less than 800 meters, and that in any case most casualties were inflicted by crew-served weapons, particularly artillery. Accordingly, beginning with the Wehrmacht in 1942, most armies switched to small-calibre assault rifles capable of fully automatic fire but with effective ranges of as little as 500 meters; in effect, glorified machine pistols. For a few decades, it appeared that laser designators would provide an easy answer to the problem of accuracy, but as usual with technological solutions countermeasures limited their usefulness to specialist applications.
Two developments brought the return of the long-range semiautomatic infantry rifle. The first was the development of first kevlar and then the much more efficient nemourlon body-armor. Nemourlon armor of reasonable weight resists penetration by most fragments and any bullet that is not both reasonably heavy and fairly high-velocity. Since modern body-armor covers head, neck, torso and most of the limbs, experiment has proven that a cartridge of at least 7x55 mm is necessary for adequate penetration; such a round renders an infantry rifle of acceptable weight uncontrollable if used in a fully automatic mode. The second factor was the gradual decay of the mass, short-term conscript army, as small forces of highly trained professionals once more became common. Sufficient training-time for real marksmanship was available in these forces—thus increasing their advantage over less well-trained armies still more.

 
A belligerent with small regard for human life is far less sensitive to taking casualties than one accustomed to cherish life highly—a factor that surely must enter into strategic calculations. The American practice of "body-counting" enemy casualties in the Vietnam War was mindless in innocently assuming that these deaths had a bearing on North Vietnamese capabilities and willpower.
The weight of burdens, up to some unknowable point, is relative, as anyone knows who has ever gazed at the statue in front of Boys' Town, Nebraska: One boy carrying another over the inscription "He ain't heavy, Father. He's my brother." What some consider burdens, for example digging ditches, others consider good sense and the chance to build good morale. Nor will it do to try to calculate the economic costs of each side's losses or efforts. Not only do people put different values on things, but more important, military goods are valuable not for the materials and labor that go into them, but for the strategic gains that can be got out of using them. No one in wartime has ever been struck by a piece of gross national product.

—Paul Seabury and Angelo Codevilla,
WAR: Ends and Means

"Field Prime."

Skida Thibodeau woke as she usually did, reaching for the weapon resting beside her head.

"One hour, Field Prime," the orderly said, handing a cup of coffee in through the flap of her field shelter.

She took the cup and sat up, pushing aside the greatcloak and stamping her feet into her boots; all she had taken off was the footwear and the webbing gear and armor. Her eyes were sandy as she sipped. There had been a dream. . . .
Skilly was walking down a fancy marble staircase with Niles. Maybe Niles.
Whoever it was had been in a fancy uniform, and she had been wearing jewels and a sweeping gown. Trumpets blowing, and men and women in expensive clothes and uniforms bowing. The faces had been an odd mixture. The Spartan kings, and Belezian gang leaders she had known back a decade ago. The CoDo assignment clerk who had taken half her credits to get her to Sparta and tried to make her spread for him besides; the "uncle" who had raped her when she was ten. Those tourists who had made her smile for the camera before they'd give her the one-credit note. That was when she was a runner for Dimples, sixteen, no, seventeen years ago; odd she remembered it.

All the faces had been terrified; except Two-knife's and he was grinning at her in a formal suit with the machetes over his back, next to the
haciendado
woman she had promised, or threatened him with. The triumph had been sweet beyond belief. . . . Then the dream had changed, she was in an office that was somehow a bedroom and dining room too. Sitting at a table eating breakfast, with a huge pile of official-looking papers waiting beside the plate, all stamps and seals, while a nursemaid held up a baby that had her skin and hair and huge blue eyes like Niles, or her mother's.

Skilly's mind is telling her to get her ass in
gear,
she thought, as she buckled the webbing belt and rolled out of the shelter.
Dreams are fine for in-cen-tive.
The air was cold and full of mealy granular snow, flicking down out of a sky like wet concrete; the damp chill cut deeper than the hard cold that had settled over the northern Dales these past few weeks. Wind cuffed at her; it was still a little surprising occasionally, how much
push
the air on this planet had.

There was quiet stirring all through the spread-out guerilla camp, men rolling out of their shelter-halves—many had just lain down under them, exhausted by the trek—water cooking on buried stoves covered in improvised log blinds. Slightly risky, even in this steady light snow, but worth it for the boost; she had specified that everyone got a hot drink and something to eat before the action. High energy stuff, candy and sweets, coffee, caffeine pills for a few of the most groggy. Grins, salutes, an occasional thumbs-up greeted her.

They good bunch,
she caught herself thinking, slightly startled. Then:
this isn't just like running a gang.
That was more like lion-taming, never knowing when they would turn on you. This trust stuff was infectious, like the clap.
Skilly will have to watch herself or she'll go soft.

The command staff were waiting under a tarp stretched out from a fallen tree; these were dense woods, down at the edge of the Rhydankos floodplain, huge cottonwoods and oaks and magnolias. Skida walked toward the officers, chewing on a strip of jerky. The sort that the CoDo Marines called
monkey,
that swelled up in your mouth like rubber bands. She swallowed, followed it with a piece of hard candy, and looked at the situation map.

"Report," she said.

"We recovered a prisoner from the aircraft. She is resisting interrogation, but Yoshida reports the enemy have some warning of our location but no precise data."