Starfist: Wings of Hell (17 page)

For a long time after that evening at Jack’s Shop, Gooden Ashcake, Linney Liggons, and Adner Shackelford lived high at Verne Driscoll’s tavern. Late at night, surrounded by empty beer bottles, they’d sit with their heads together and chuckle about how they’d gotten one over so completely on the city slickers at Jack’s Shop. They spent so much time at Verne’s that their wives actually began to enjoy life a little.

But they made themselves scarce whenever Treemonisha Giddings visited town, although she never said a word about what had happened at her place. All she knew, and that made her feel good, was that Moses had escaped. It was enough for her that her baby had gotten away.

Men from faraway Fargo had come and interviewed everyone in Wellfordsville, but in the manner of country folk since the beginning of time, the locals told them nothing. For weeks the men from Justice combed the surrounding woods and drained ponds but in the end they’d gone away empty-handed.

Moses ran until his pursuers were left screaming and cursing far behind in the dust of the road. When darkness fell that first night he slept in the bushes by the roadside. In the morning he headed toward the rising sun and soon found himself in a marshy area that quickly turned into a swamp. He pulled off his remaining clothing and soaked in the warm, muddy waters. It felt inexpressibly good. He began to relax, to feel completely free.

Moses had always been good in the water. The Brattle boys had marveled at how long he could hold his breath. He’d never told anyone he didn’t have to hold his breath under the water. His gill slits weren’t vestigial; they actually worked and he could breathe in the water. He slipped beneath the scummy mass that morning and propelled himself along effortlessly. For the first time in his short life he
was
free!

Small, wiggling creatures—and some not so small—proved very edible and Moses happily gorged on them as he swam through the murky waters. He reflected on humankind. He was not quite sure what kind of creature he was himself, but he knew he was not human, or at least not completely. There had been times, though, when he’d felt kinship with the people around him. But who could possibly understand humans? The Brattles, Treemonisha, they were wonderful. Treemonisha especially. In fact he’d begun to feel real affection for the huge brown woman, stronger even than what he’d felt toward the Brattles. He supposed that was how people felt about their mothers.

But there were those
others.
How could anyone know if a human was kind and decent or cruel and evil?

Well, for now he would swim and eat and doze in the sun and enjoy life in the swamp. The swamp, that’s where he belonged! But, maybe, in time, he’d go back for a visit with Treemonisha, eat some of her pancakes, sleep in a bed, play with the chickens. Now
that
had been real fun!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“You don’t want to send an advance party, Pat?” Vice Admiral Geoffrey Chandler raised an eyebrow in surprise. As fleet commander he was responsible for getting the army planetside.

“Naw, Jeff. I’ll be the advance party.” Lieutenant General Patrice Carano grinned. He knew what he’d just suggested violated military protocol. Commanders always sent advance parties to secure landing zones, liaise with the natives, do whatever was necessary to prepare for the follow-on forces in a deployment, but the commanding general himself was never the first on the ground. But General Carano was the kind of commander who liked to defy protocols. “The Marines have secured the landing zone, Jeff, so no need to send an army battalion down first.” He drew on the Uvezian and gently expelled the smoke through his mouth. “Damned fine cigar, this.”

“Well, Pat, if you think nine Force Recon Marines have secured the whole planet”—Admiral Chandler gestured with his own cigar—“be my guest. I’ll have you on your way planetside in ten minutes.”

“Thank you, Admiral.” Carano winked at his chief of staff, Major General Donnie (“Doc”) McKillan. “I’m takin’ Doc here and Ted Sturgeon with me. I’d like an Essay and one Dragon, one of Ted Sturgeon’s Dragons. That ought to be enough security.” Since he’d arrived on Arsenault and on the flight to Haulover, General Carano had gotten to know Brigadier Sturgeon rather well and he respected the Marine’s judgment and experience fighting Skinks.

“Pat, there could be a hundred thousand Skinks down there—”

“Probably are.” Carano drew happily on his cigar. “Andy Aguinaldo and I discussed this operation at length with Ted—his Marines have seen more of the Skinks than anyone else—and we agree they’ve picked Haulover for a set-piece battle. They want us to land in force, secure a beachhead, and engage, so I’m starting the war out with one pinkie in the water, and this Ensign Daly is the man who knows the temperature and depth. Once I’ve talked to him, send the corps in per the landing schedule we developed on the way here: military police and engineers first with one battalion of infantry for perimeter security. I’ll give the signal when I’m ready.”

“We could bring Daly up here, Pat—”

Carano shook his head. “No. I go down there. Daly’s a working man. He’s got his command to look after. Best Mohammed goes to the mountain.”

“The civilians down there are hopping mad, Pat. They resented our sending only a Force Recon detachment to begin with, and think we’ve taken too long to respond to the threat Daly identified.”

“I know. I’ve read the messages they’ve been sending to God and everyone. I’ll deal with them. I’m declaring martial law in Sky City and every other part of Haulover we control. That’s why I want the MP battalion to go in first. Aguinaldo approved all of this before we left Arsenault, Jeff. You know that. You were at the conferences.”

“I know, I know.” Admiral Chandler waved his cigar in the air. “I’m just playing devil’s advocate here, Pat. No sense ruffling the taxpayer’s feathers if we can avoid it.”

“I understand, but I want to meet this young Ensign Daly first, before I talk to them. I’d appreciate it if you’d let them know I’ll be at Sky City to talk to them in a couple of hours. But first order of business, I want to personally thank Ensign Daly for a job well done.”

Landing any military force from orbit is a demanding undertaking made more complicated and difficult by great size of the force, poor conditions on the ground where it is to be landed, or both. Such operations are rarely explained in novels or vids because it would be a crashing bore to anyone but a professional logistician. Instead, the onscreen admiral simply says, “Mr. Hawkins, land the landing force,” and the action moves on.

Planning for landing the XVIII Corps on Haulover had begun weeks before the force left Arsenault. Task Force Aguinaldo’s logisticians had spent many sleepless nights devising and revising the disembarkation plan. That is how they earned their pay. The task force’s generals and admirals earned theirs by making the operation work according to the plan.

To make their work even more difficult, what the planners had to do for the XVIII Corps also had to accommodate the landing of the XXX Corps, which was to follow the XVIII into orbit around Haulover. That required the efficient and timely movement of tens of thousands of men and millions of metric tons of equipment and materiel.

Bottlenecks had to be anticipated and eliminated, landing schedules had to be coordinated to the second, ground accommodations had to be prepared in advance, and everyone involved had to remain alert and flexible because every plan develops glitches and when they happen they must be fixed immediately or backups begin, troops and materiel are not delivered on time, and, if the landing is opposed by an enemy, disaster can result. A task force commander cannot afford to have his troops languishing in orbit, waiting for ground clearance because things have stacked up on the surface and there is nowhere for them to deploy—or nothing to deploy with. Likewise, when they do land, they need to have
everything
required to live and fight in a hostile environment. It spells disaster to have sixty thousand men on the ground without their vehicles, fuel, spare parts, weapons, ammunition, rations, and the wherewithal they need to sustain themselves in a battle.

For instance, how much water would fully loaded combat infantrymen need to sustain themselves in heavy fighting in the kind of terrain and climate that prevailed on Haulover? All that water would have to come down with them and sustain them until engineers could discover natural sources and establish purification plants to sanitize the supply. All units carry with them a basic load of everything they would need to sustain themselves in battle, but how long would those loads hold out? What would the anticipated casualty rates be among the fighting units and how much medical support would they need to handle those casualties? What about replacements and reinforcements? They would have to be available and ready to fight when needed.

Military logisticians have ways to calculate all these apparently imponderable requirements with amazing accuracy.

But the initial landing is only the beginning of the military logistician’s nightmare. Once on the ground, the force has to be kept supplied and the longer the fighting lasts, the more supplies the troops will need and
they
have to be unloaded quickly and efficiently and then distributed to the fighting units to be in their hands
before
they’re needed. Often those units are hundreds of kilometers from the depots, so safe and efficient means have to be available to move them to the forward battle area where other depots are established, a very important and difficult task on a fluid battlefield. So, even if an initial landing is accomplished perfectly, keeping the force adequately supplied requires a tremendous effort. And bear in mind, resupply of the force must take place over a distance of
light-years.

Military victories owe as much to the unsung rear-echelon logisticians and staff officers who plan them as to the heroes who fight them. But when something goes wrong with those plans, it’s the common infantryman who has to make things work.

And the landing on Haulover was unopposed by the enemy who, with great patience and cunning, lurked silently in prepared positions for the right moment to strike.

“Whew, dusty out there!” General Carano exclaimed as he stepped into the prefabricated hut that was headquarters for the Fourteenth Air Wing at Naval Air Station George Gay. Captain Ronald Hahley was in command of the wing. A grizzled, no-nonsense officer, Hahley knew his business and he did not like to be interfered with in the transaction of that business. But out of respect for Brigadier Ted Sturgeon of Thirty-fourth FIST and Brigadier Jack Sparen of Twenty-sixth FIST, he had asked the corps commander to resolve a disagreement he had with the Marines.

Carano slapped dust off his tunic. “Never seen a landing go as smoothly as this one, gentlemen!” In two days the entire XVIII Corps had been landed on Haulover, bases and depots established, probes against the enemy initiated. “Hey, sit down, sit down.” He laughed and waved the three officers back into their chairs. They had snapped to attention when he entered the hut. “No need for that here! What’s up?”

The three were silent for a moment. Captain Hahley glanced at the two Marines, who nodded that he should proceed. “Well, sir, we disagree on the dispersal of our aircraft.”

“So? You can’t resolve that among yourselves?”

“No, we cannot, sir. Now I have ninety-six Raptors in my wing. As I understand the situation, the greatest threat we have here is from enemy ground attacks. I’ve seen all the vids and attended the briefings, just as all of us have, and I see the greatest threat to my aircraft coming from enemy infiltrators.” He shrugged and glanced again at the two Marines. “So, I want to keep all my machines on the aprons where they can be guarded at all times against sabotage.”

“Ted? Jack?”

“Sir—” Brigadier Sparen began.

“It’s Pat, Jack. But please continue.”

“Sir, as you know, each FIST has its organic air complement consisting of ten Raptors and ten hoppers. We Marines, well, we like to keep our toys close and under our control and we like to plan for everything to go wrong. We think Captain Hahley has a good point, but we prefer to protect our aircraft from
all
eventualities and therefore we want revetments constructed to accommodate our Raptors.”

Sturgeon leaned forward. “Pat, we understand Captain Hahley’s points, no disrespect intended toward him. He has almost one hundred aircraft to protect, and putting them all in revetments would require a tremendous engineering effort that might be used more effectively elsewhere. We understand that. Also, putting all his machines in one place makes security a lot easier to handle. But as Jack has pointed out, we Marines like to take all precautions. We only have forty aircraft in our respective inventories and if we can get the revetments built, we can guarantee their security without downgrading our own mission capability.”

“Ron?” Carano turned to Captain Hahley.

The wing commander sighed and shrugged his shoulders. “If that’s what they want…”

Carano turned to the Marines and said, “Then do it. I’ll have the chief of engineers get with you two immediately. He can build your revetments by the end of the day.” Carano slapped both knees, sending small clouds of dust into the air. “Okay, gentlemen, good work. I need to know right away when there are problems like this. You did good by not sitting on this one. I’ll see you all at the 1700 briefing. I’m off now, fellas, to, to”—he laughed—“breathe another hundred grams of this goddamned dust!” He stood and stretched. “Or, as Grandma Carano used to say, ‘We’ve all gotta eat a peck o’ dirt before we die.’”

After making the introductions in his hastily established headquarters, General Carano asked Ensign Daly to walk with his party for a while, during which Daly gave the three flag officers a precise briefing on everything that had transpired on Haulover up to that time. “And, sir, let me say, are we
ever
glad to see you here now!”