Until Relieved (22 page)

Joe was impressed. It
was
an excellent defensive position—almost a textbook example. If they had searched an entire world for a place to stand off infantry attacks by a much larger force than their own, they could hardly hope to find a location better suited. Joe saw that as soon as the platoon was in position, near the right flank, close to the "bottom" of the U. There was solid rock in front of them and behind them. There were notches and irregularities in the rock along the ridge, excellent touches for an infantryman worried about cover. The hollow behind the ridge consisted of bare rock along the top of the outer ridge, with pockets of soil and a few thin patches of grass in the lower reaches, flanking the thin stream at the bottom of the notch. The only real danger in the position would be from mortar rounds dropped into the hollow, funneling shrapnel up on either side.

But,
Joe thought,
it would be difficult for Schlinal forces to get close enough for that.
He looked over the edge of the rock at the long valley, and nodded to himself.

"It
is
a good spot, Lieutenant," he told Keye. "Long as they really can't get in behind us, above us."

"That would be hairy," Keye agreed. "But there aren't any handy access routes, except for this one, and we're sitting across that. From the map shots I looked at, there's no way they can get tanks within two kilometers of us except straight up the valley. They'd have to land shuttles to get men behind us easily, or quickly, and the captain is sending two thirds of the Vrerchs we have left up to the top of the hill to make that difficult."

"There's something else we need to talk about, Lieutenant," Joe said after looking around him. "Goff." Kam was twenty meters away, and they were talking over their private radio channel. Still, Joe led the lieutenant farther away.

"A problem?" Keye asked.

"A serious one, I'm afraid. Goff tries, none harder, and he's got all the skills, but..." Joe shook his head. "He sees a little blood and he spends the next half hour puking, past when he's got nothing left to come up. He's just not cutting it, Lieutenant, and he knows it. Combat is eating the hell out of him."

"We can't do much about that now," Keye pointed out.

"I know that, sir, but as soon as possible, we need to get him away from combat, 'fore he eats his carbine, or does something else really stupid. He can't take much more. Like I said, he tries, but the way he gets, I'm surprised he's lasted this long. He wants to do the job, but I've had to keep him damn near in my armpit just to make sure he didn't fall apart."

"You think the skull jockeys can straighten him out for us?"

Joe hesitated, then shook his head again. "No, sir, I don't think he'll ever make it in a combat unit. Maybe they can fix his head so it doesn't eat at him that he failed. But for this, he could be the best I've got."

"But the way he is, he's a danger to himself and the men around him—that what you're trying to tell me?"

"Yes, sir. That's what I'm saying. I've done everything I know how to, but it doesn't get any better. In fact, he seems to be getting worse every time. I don't think he can handle much more." Joe repeated that final thought consciously, knowing that the lieutenant would realize just how desperate he thought Goff's condition was.

"Keep somebody with him at all times. As far as possible. I'll talk to the captain when I get a chance. I don't know about evacuating him with the wounded though. That might make it even harder for him."

"Yes, sir, it might."
Or he might fall apart on us completely the next time there's a little gunfire,
Joe thought. He kept that notion to himself. He would watch over Goff personally, as he had been.

"What's the watch schedule, sir?" Joe asked then. "Alternate fire teams?"

Keye nodded. "Until something happens. You'd better bed down with the first shift. You're looking a little ragged."

Joe didn't bother to argue.

—|—

Eight Schlinal Boem fighters came out of the north, an hour before dawn. Moving at low speed and medium altitude, they were not spotted until their target acquisition systems locked on to the first Wasps and Havocs.

A depleted Blue flight was flying air cap over the Accord foothold on the plateau when the attack came. Only four Wasps were left of the six that Blue flight had brought down into Porter's atmosphere. Two planes and one pilot had been lost in a week of fighting. After being in the air an average of sixteen hours out of every twenty-four, all of the remaining Wasps of the 13th's squadron needed extended periods of maintenance. There had been no catastrophic failures yet, but nearly every pilot had reported that warning lights were coming on during some maneuvers. But until the campaign ended, the ground crews could do nothing but make patchwork repairs, just enough to keep the Wasps flying for another day... or another hour.

Zel Paitcher and Slee Reston were flying a loose figure-eight pattern along the northern half of the Accord's hold on Porter when the attack came. Moving in opposite directions, the two Wasps were able to keep watch over more area at one time. Zel and Slee, like all of the remaining pilots in the air wing, were also in need of extended periods of time on the ground, to catch up on sleep and get their minds fresh again, but like their Wasps, the flyers would have to wait until the campaign ended for that.

All eight enemy fighters came directly at Slee and Zel, at full acceleration, and the first enemy missiles were launched almost instantly once the Boem target acquisition systems locked on. Only two Boems fired at the pair of Wasps. The Schlinal pilots might be aggressive this time out, but they were not wasteful of rockets. Both Blue three and four were targeted, Zel from ahead, Slee from behind. At the angle of approach, Zel was able to get his own lock on the missile headed for Slee, blowing it apart with his cannons. That blast radiated enough heat to draw the other missile off course. While Slee turned toward the oncoming Boem fighters, Zel went through the full menu of countermeasures to keep the other weapon from regaining its lock.

Then he too moved toward the enemy flight.

The remaining two Wasps of Blue flight were forty kilometers away—more than a minute and a half at their best speed. In air combat, ninety seconds is an eternity.

"Get in the middle of the Boems," Slee told Zel. "That way, they can't get too fancy without endangering their own planes."

"Right behind you," Zel said. He had already switched his weapons selector to rockets, ready to loose a spread at the first targets his system locked on to. Then he would switch back to cannons. Designed primarily for ground cover missions, the 25mm guns were not particularly well suited for air-to-air combat, but in these close circumstances, there was little choice. The guns did have the virtue of putting concentrated amounts of firepower into a very limited area. Even reinforced plane armor could be damaged by that sort of assault, especially at extremely close range.

The eight Schlinal fighters broke into separate pairs, giving way before the counterattack of the two Wasps. Antigrav aircraft—and like the Wasp, the Boem was an antigravity drive fighter—were the ultimate in mobility. A skilled pilot could move his fighter around in three dimensions with an ease that would astound anyone who had not done it for himself. By reversing the directional push of the antigrav drive, the Wasp pilot could also reverse his direction quickly, or change altitude with equal acceleration, even flip the fighter end for end or turn it upside down much faster than any plane that depended on traditional notions of aerodynamics for lift. The limiting factor was the gee-load that the pilot could stand. Slamming a Wasp into a full reversal of its gravity field could press a pilot against his restraining straps with enough force to dislocate bones. Or worse.

The challenge was to learn to outwit the opposing pilot, to guess which way he would go before he knew himself.

As this uneven battle was joined, Zel lost sight of Slee for seconds at a time. The heads-up display on his canopy provided a constant reference, but there was too much going on for Zel to always have actual eyeball contact with Slee's Wasp. In the middle of the flight of Boems, each of them worked to reduce the odds. Zel and Slee did have one very slight advantage to partially offset the numbers. They had more targets, and only one friendly craft to avoid. But their ammunition was limited.

"Going to have to break this off soon," Slee managed to say about forty-five seconds after the fight had been fully joined. "I just shot off my last rockets, and I don't have more than another twenty seconds on my guns."

"Ditto that," Zel said, just as he fired his last pair of rockets. Between them, they had managed to bring down three of the eight enemy fighters, but it was getting more difficult to maneuver. The Schlinal pilots were learning to cope with their tactics.

"Let's lead them toward the others," Slee said, turning his Wasp even before he finished speaking.

Lead them without getting far enough ahead to make a missile shot tempting,
Zel thought. That would be a monumental task, edging south, drawing the Boems along without giving them a clear shot.

"Our best bet, I guess," Zel conceded. His target acquisition system locked on to another Boem. The Schlinal pilot jerked sideways, flipping his Boem upside down and dropping five-hundred meters to evade a rocket that Zel no longer had to fire. And he was far beyond the effective range of the cannons in his Wasp.

Neither Zel nor Slee was expecting help before the other two Wasps of Blue flight could arrive. They were nearly as startled as the Schlinal pilots when three planes of Red flight appeared on the scene, still climbing, attacking the Boems from below. With the numbers momentarily even (even though Zel and Slee were virtually out of ammunition), the Schlinal attack grew more disjointed. Two of the Heggie pilots decided to grab as much altitude as they could, retreating straight up, then turning back toward the north.

"Red leader, this is Blue three. We're about dry. Think you can handle them until our other two boys get here?"

"Blue three, that's affirmative. Hurry back or you'll miss all the fun."

Fun?
Zel thought. But he headed for the LZ just the same.

—|—

The attack on the ground started almost as the attack in the air was breaking up. This was no probing raid, as the first Schlinal attack on the perimeter had been. This assault was in force, hitting at three different points along the perimeter, a total of perhaps three short battalions of infantry supported by Nova tanks as well as the Boem fighters. As many as sixteen Schlinal aircraft eventually joined in the fray. Though their losses quickly ran over fifty percent, the surviving Boems did not abandon the attack until they were out of ammunition or running short of power for their antigrav drives.

The 13th had been anticipating the attack. Recon patrols had come close to contact with two of the attacking battalions. The fronts in the sectors facing those units had been quietly strengthened during the night. The most imminent danger was on the front that the third Schlinal battalion assaulted. Bravo Company held that sector, and they had only a few minutes warning before the enemy was on them.

Van Stossen and Dezo Parks hurried toward that sector with the headquarters security detachment. That only added sixteen rifles, but there were few other reinforcements to offer. Maneuvering back through the central portion of the land the 13th controlled, the remaining Havocs were firing as quickly as they could reload and acquire new targets, but there simply were not enough howitzers to stop an attack by themselves.

"Be nice if we could get Echo and George back in a hurry," Dezo commented as they approached Lieutenant Jacobi's command post.

"It would be, but I don't think we can manage. They're having their own troubles. We're going to try to get one shuttle in to evac their wounded, but I think that more than that is out of the question just now. I can't even spare them Wasp cover until this settles down," Stossen said.

"I know," Dezo replied. "I was just making up my wish list. I'm afraid to even hope that our relief will show up in the nick of time."

"You've been watching too many commando vids," Stossen charged. There was still no word about the relief fleet. It certainly was not in-system. If it was, they would have been in contact. And once they did jump in-system, they would need eight hours to get into position to launch the air cover the 13th would need to withdraw safely. And the new fighters would need thirty minutes to get low enough to be able to take part in the battle once they were launched. Infantry reinforcements would take even longer.

"I kinda like the happy endings."
Ones where you don't run out of ammunition before you run out of enemies,
Dezo added to himself. That did not seem likely this time.

Stossen pulled out his mapboard and started comparing what he saw on that with the reports he was getting from the various company commanders. Half the Wasps—half the
remaining
Wasps—were on the ground getting fresh batteries or replenishing their munitions. Dealing with the air attack had kept most of the Wasps out of ground cover missions. Even after they took off again, there was still enough air activity to keep them occupied. Only in the most desperate of circumstances could Stossen pull one or two of them away to make a quick strafing run on the attacking Heggies, or a rocket attack on Nova tanks—on their way to meet the Boem fighters.

"Jacobi, I hope you haven't forgotten how to fire a zipper," Stossen said when he had a break from his radio conversations.

"I hope so too, sir," Jacobi replied with an earnestness that might have elicited a laugh in other circumstances.

"I think it's all time we got a piece of this." Three more rifles? Stossen's shrug was microscopic. He knew that he had no business going to the barricades and working like a mudder himself. He had broader responsibilities... but those would scarcely matter if the line broke now.