“I imagine they’ll think twice before pulling another stunt like that,” Lieutenant Taiters said, speaking with his noncoms and Lon by radio. Third and fourth platoons were together again, part of the defensive perimeter that the battalion had established after putting to flight the last few dozen of the rebels who had attacked. After digging two-man foxholes and piling the dirt up in front of them, the men were on half-and-half watch, spelling each other so that everyone could eat and take at least a few minutes to rest. “The shuttle must have been more than they bargained on.”
Twelve mercenaries had died in the attack. The bodies of eighty rebels had been found. A dozen wounded and four unwounded men had been captured. Two platoons of D Company were escorting the Corps’ own wounded and killed to a clearing where two shuttles could put down to evacuate them. The wounded Norbanker rebels would have to take their chances with the care the Corps’ medics could provide—without trauma tubes. There were not enough of those for the wounded of the Second Battalion. They would not be “wasted” on the enemy.
“What’s next for us, sir?” Sergeant Dendrow asked. “We keep on the way we planned?”
“The colonel hasn’t decided, I think,” Taiters said. “We’re still picking up the pieces and regrouping. We do need to get into the capital, make contact with the government, one way or another. But we need intelligence as well. With the assets the rebels have put against us already, there must be a hell of a lot more than a thousand of them under arms. And they’ve got more than hunting rifles. They’ve managed to get some fairly good equipment from somewhere.”
“Think they’ve got anything more than equipment from outside?” one of the squad leaders in fourth platoon asked.
“We weren’t up against professionals tonight,” Taiters said, knowing what the corporal was hinting at. Dirigent was not the only source of mercenaries—merely the largest and best organized. At least three other worlds specialized in providing hired armies, and several others dabbled in the service.
“Any chance the old man will decide to sit tight and call for reinforcements from home?” Platoon Sergeant Weil Jorgen of fourth asked.
Taiters hesitated before he answered. “I don’t think we’re in that bad of shape yet, Weil. Besides, I’d hate to laager up for a month while we waited for help.” It would take twelve days for a message rocket to reach Dirigent, and another two weeks or more for the reinforcements to arrive—even if they were dispatched immediately. “Even if the Norbank government were willing to amend the contract for additional manpower.”
“You think the Norbankers knew the opposition was so much stronger than they told us?” Lon asked. “Or is their intelligence that poor?”
“I don’t know, Nolan,” Taiters said. “Even if they did know, we’d play hell proving that they gave us phony data.”
“Hell, Lieutenant,” Dendrow said, “if we told them to pony up for sufficient manpower to do the job, and threatened to pull out if they didn’t, they wouldn’t have much choice, would they? They gave us bad dope, whether they knew it or not. That gives us an out. I know how the escape clauses in our contracts read.”
“And you know what the Council would think if we pulled out without being able to prove that we were intentionally suckered,” Taiters said. “Anyway, it’s bad for business.”
Business? We lost men tonight, Lon thought. Don’t they enter into the equation?
“Enough of this,” Taiters said. “I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something. Get yourselves a few minutes off, just in case the rebels don’t know enough to stay away yet.”
The shuttles that took the dead and wounded back to Long Snake had also brought in ammunition for the men on the ground. Lieutenant Colonel Flowers and his company commanders spent a considerable time in conference—talking face to face in the center of the defensive position that the battalion had formed instead of simply using their helmet radios—trying to decide what to do next. There were, however, no additional rebel attacks on the battalion during that time. The conference broke up a few minutes before midnight.
When Captain Orlis returned to his command post, he called Lieutenant Taiters, then switched them to a radio channel that included the noncoms of third platoon—and Lon Nolan.
“The battalion is going to stay put for now,” Orlis said. “We’re going to improve our positions and give ourselves clear fire zones around. We’ve got shuttles flying recon, and that will increase after dawn. We’ll also send patrols out to plant bugs and mines, try to buy a little time. The colonel wants one platoon to try to infiltrate, get through the rebel lines into the capital, and make contact with the government.”
Lon guessed what was coming before Orlis told them. Everybody gets sucked in because of me.
“Third platoon gets the draw,” the captain said. “Taiters, you’ll lead. Leave fourth platoon to Sergeant Jorgen, have them spread out to cover your section of the perimeter. I’ll have more instructions for you, Arlan. For the rest of you, be ready to move out in ten minutes. You’ll have to find a way into Norbank City before first light.”
No one said anything to Lon about it being his “fault” that they were chosen. He waited during the few minutes while they were getting ready to leave. They all have to know, Lon thought. But no one even gave him a sidewise glance. The men used the time to eat and make certain that their rifles had full magazines attached. They had drawn new ammunition from the stores brought in by the shuttle that took off the wounded.
With just three minutes left of the ten, Lieutenant Taiters called a conference with the platoon’s noncoms. Lon was with Tebba—who had just been released for duty by the medics, his wounds had not been serious enough to require a full session in a trauma tube—looking at Girana’s map-board while the lieutenant discussed the route they would take.
“We’ll leave here and head north,” Taiters said. A yellow dot on all of the mapboards showed what Taiters was pointing at. “Once we get across this creek, we’ll turn due west. That should put us far enough out that anyone watching the battalion won’t spot us, providing we’re not seen on the way out. When we get here”—he indicated a spot not quite a mile from the city, just outside the reported position of the rebel perimeter—”we’ll loop around to the north again and try to enter Norbank City somewhere along here, depending on the deployment of the rebels.” He moved his cursor back and forth along a small section of the city “wall”—part stockade-type construction surviving from the early years of the colony, part barricades thrown up between buildings as the rebels approached. “The rebels are more concerned with us right now. They can’t have every point around the city guarded equally well. We’ll just have to find a gap.”
He did not sound overly troubled by that. Lon wondered if the lieutenant was truly so confident or if it was just some of the acting he had been told about.
“Okay, let’s get moving,” the lieutenant said. “First squad has the point. And, all of you, think sound discipline. If the rebels don’t hear us, there’s no reason why they should see us.”
The platoon took its time leaving, moving with exaggerated care, going through the lines one squad at a time. The men moved on their stomachs, crawling out to a shallow gully that ran at an angle across the front, following that for fifty yards before getting out and moving into the heavy undergrowth near the first small creek. Once the entire platoon had transited that stretch—where they were most likely to be observed—first squad got up and started moving again.
First squad set the pace, moving single file, five to eight yards between men. At the beginning, there were frequent pauses. If the rebels had the battalion under observation—as was likely—it was in the first few hundred yards that the platoon was in the greatest danger of being seen. And attacked.
Lon had the external microphones in his helmet set to maximum gain, listening for any sounds in the forest. He scanned off to either side as well, alternating that with watching Corporal Girana in front of him and watching where he stepped, each movement slow and deliberate, anxious not to make a leaf crackle or a twig snap underfoot. His focus on the fundamentals kept him too occupied to listen to the voice of fear at the back of his mind.
For the most part, there was no talk on the radio. The communications system the DMC used would transmit even subvocal “whispers,” and the helmets were insulated well enough that they would not carry, but other than an occasional word from the point or a terse command from one of the noncoms, there was silence.
Lead Sergeant Dendrow was behind first squad, near the front of second squad. Lieutenant Taiters was farther back, between third and fourth squads. In the event of a rebel ambush, it was unlikely that both of the platoon’s top men would be taken out. Within second squad, Janno and Dean were in front of Corporal Girana. Phip was right behind Lon, with the rest of the squad behind him. Lance Corporal Dav Grott was at the rear, making sure that the squad did not get spread out too far or bunch up.
Time lost its normal cohesion. Each step felt as if it were a frozen frame of time, bounded by indefinable gaps. Even a breath seemed to be a distinct entity, existing in separation from all of the other breaths and steps, a series of independent bubbles rising through a viscous liquid. After a time, Lon felt as if he were wading through some glutinous morass that grabbed at his feet and legs. The strain started to become apparent in his knees and calves, a dull ache that he could not shake.
Lieutenant Taiters did not call for a break until they reached the near bank of the creek that was to mark where the platoon would change direction. “Five minutes,” Taiters told the platoon before switching to the noncoms’ channel and saying, “I want you all watching the other bank for any hint of trouble, upstream and down.” The creek was not much, ten feet wide where the platoon would cross, and—according to the aerial survey—no more than two feet deep over a rocky bed. Both banks were lined with dense underbrush, vines and bushes taking advantage of the water and a narrow avenue of sunlight.
Third platoon settled down for its rest in a loose box formation, ready to meet trouble if it should come. But there was no interruption, other than the call of some night-flying bird that passed by overhead.
Lon was startled by the sound. Then he realized that it was the first bird, or animal, he had heard since landing on Norbank. Well, the sound of the landers would have scared any off then, he reasoned. And the gunfights. I guess a thousand men moving together must have done it the rest of the time. Then he started to think that he really knew little about the native wildlife of Norbank, not even the predators that might be dangerous to humans. But before he could pursue that thought, the break was over. It was time to start moving again.
Fourth squad took the point, with the other squads in the same order they had been before, third squad now bringing up the rear. Taiters and Dendrow shifted to remain in the same relative positions they had held before.
The farther we get from the battalion, the less likely it is that we’ll come across rebel patrols looking for us, Lon thought. That deduction did not make him any less nervous. This was enemy territory, and the rebels might have men moving anywhere in it, for any purpose. If third platoon was spotted, it would not matter if the men who found them were looking for them or not. We get caught out in the middle of nowhere, we might never get back. That thought was enough to keep the edge sharp.
I could have run from the battalion to the center of Norbank City in fifteen minutes in full battle kit, Lon told himself after the patrol had been out for more than an hour—and had covered less than half of the distance their route would require.
The platoon changed direction again, starting the counterclockwise loop that would bring them near the north side of Norbank City. When they reached the apex of that semicircle, the platoon stopped for another short rest, and third squad took the point for the final stretch.
The one time my being here doesn’t stick the squad, Lon thought. They don’t want me out on point to make noise and bring disaster down on all of us. It was a relief not to have the strain of being on point, but at the same time Lon felt a little miffed at the thought of being considered too much of a risk.
“This is where it gets hairy,” Lieutenant Taiters whispered on a conference call with his noncoms before the platoon started moving again. “We don’t want to trip over any sleeping rebels. That would be almost as bad as running into troops they’ve got on watch. There’s a chance that they won’t have more than a few sentries posted, but we can’t stake everything on that hope. So far, they’ve shown themselves to be better than we might have expected.” The noncoms and the lieutenant had mapboards out again, holding them close so that the faint green glow from the screens would not give them away.
“We’ll stop when we get here,” Taiters said, noting a position on his mapboard. “Then first squad will go on alone to find an avenue for us. Once they spot a gap, the rest of us will follow through.”
Again, he’s passing us by, Lon thought.
Just after starting out again, the platoon came across one of the few roads leading to Norbank City. It was just a wide dirt track through the forest, but trees had been cleared, leaving an open space twenty feet wide. The platoon hit the road at an angle. Crossing occupied nearly fifteen minutes as the platoon crossed one or two men at a time, watching and listening for any sign that they might be seen.
The platoon reached the spot that Taiters had chosen. Just in front of them, no more than a hundred yards away, was a rebel camp. From what they could see at that distance, it appeared that there might be more than a hundred men bedded down with no more than six or seven sentries—and those were concentrated on the far side, facing Norbank City. The three squads of the platoon who were to wait went prone, facing the rebel position. Lon was almost afraid to breathe, even though that could not give him away at such a distance unless the rebels had advanced sound-detection equipment and knew how to use it properly.
We’ve got one more problem the lieutenant hasn’t mentioned, Lon thought during the interminable wait for fourth squad to find a way through the rebel lines. The people inside Norbank City don’t know we’re coming. There were no absolutely secure communications links between the battalion and the local government, no codes they shared. Anything on the radio, even on a tight beam, might be intercepted by the rebels. If we tell the people inside that we’re coming through the lines, we might be telling the rebels at the same time.
Getting shot by the people the battalion had come to help would be no less painful than getting shot by the rebels. Dead is dead. We’ve got to infiltrate two sets of lines, and the second might be the hardest. The people inside are apt to be a bit paranoid by now. They’re on the defensive, and getting the short end of the stick.
Thirty minutes passed— slowly. The first signs of morning twilight would be showing in the east in less than two hours. If the platoon could not get into Norbank City before then, they would have to pull back into the forest, hide through the day, and try again that night. And the colonel wants us in the city before first light, Lon reminded himself. We don’t get in, we’ve failed. And that would mean, at least to him, that he had somehow failed, even though—logically—there was nothing that he could hope to do to make sure that the platoon succeeded.
“Okay, we’ve got our path,” Taiters’ voice whispered over the noncoms’ circuit that Lon was monitoring. “It’s not much, but first squad is between the rebel lines and the city, and they think they see a way in there as well. Once we get that far, we’ll try communicating with the folks inside.”
“I don’t want to even hear water sloshing,” Girana told his squad after the lieutenant had finished. “Use part canteens to fill others, then dump any water that’s left over.”
That only took a minute, and that was all the time there was. Second squad was put in the middle of the three. They moved to the right, going past the encamped rebels, then turned toward Norbank City again. During part of the passage, while they were closest to the enemy camp, the men moved on hands and knees. Then they were back on their feet, at a crouch, staying as low as possible, and even more attentive to sound discipline.
Their pace now made the earlier slow walk seem like a sprint. It was rare for any of the men to take more than three or four steps before squatting for a moment, waiting. Then the squad in front would start forward again. There were no oral messages now, not even subvocal commands. Everything was done with cautious hand signs. When they got close to the rebel line, it was down on hands and knees again, and then flat on their stomachs for thirty yards of slithering across the most exposed stretch of their route.
Lieutenant Taiters had moved to the front of the three squads, and when they finally reached the squad that had been sent ahead to find a route, he went up to join the squad leader just behind the point. There was a long pause, with the rest of the platoon lying motionless, heads down.
In a brief glance ahead, Lon had seen the outlying buildings and part of the old wall that had once completely surrounded Norbank City. Trees had been felled and arranged across one gap, almost directly in front of him, not fifty yards away.
We’ll be sitting ducks if we have to go over that, he thought. He closed his eyes briefly. Even at night they might be visible to rebel sentries, and taken under fire. We could lose half of the platoon in seconds. He turned his head and lifted up just a couple of inches. Things looked more promising to the left. There appeared to be a gap—or a barricade too low for him to see it from his snail’s-eye perspective.
He lowered his face to the ground again, wishing he could burrow into it. They were between the warring factions now, and if the lieutenant could not clear the way in front of them, they might be taken under fire by either side—or both.
Is he going to get on the radio and try to raise someone inside? Lon wondered. It would have to be on an open frequency, one that the rebels might be monitoring as well. In that case, there was no telling who would get the word first to the nearest armed men. Maybe he’s going to send one man in ahead, Lon thought then. Hope one man can get to the barricade and get the message to the defenders. And be believed.
Twenty minutes. Twenty-five. Lon felt as if he were about to drown in his own sweat. He noted when thirty minutes had passed—half an hour of waiting, not knowing what was going on. If they did not get going soon, and get into the city, they would be out in the open between the lines when daylight finally came.
Let’s do something, he thought. Anything. The waiting was nearly unbearable. Lon felt an urge to get up and run for the city, knowing that he could not—would not. But the desire grew and demanded more and more of his attention.
Thirty-five minutes. Thirty-six.
“Okay,” Taiters’ voice whispered in Lon’s earphone. “We’re going in. Take it very slow. We’re going under a barricade at the end. The defenders have opened a spot. Close up. I want everyone head to foot. And stay down.”
Another three minutes passed before it was time for Lon to move. He followed Girana, keeping his head within a few inches of the corporal’s feet, moving exactly with him, shifting one arm and leg forward and then the other, scooting his body along the ground, dragging through the dirt like a snake, even lifting his head as little as he could get by with.
Fifty yards was a long distance to crawl that way, with a rifle over one arm and equipment on a web belt dragging every inch of the way. Before he had covered half the distance, Lon’s arms and legs ached. He felt as if he had skinned both knees and elbows, and his upper arms seemed ready to cramp. He had gone another ten yards before he could see where the barricade had been opened. Girana started moving a little faster. Nolan picked up his own pace, though it also increased his aches. Twelve yards to safety. Ten. Lon wanted to close his eyes and scurry as fast as he could over the remaining yards, or get up and run for it. But he did neither. He continued to follow Girana, holding his position, getting dirt kicked up against his faceplate more than once.
Some of the grass had been worn away under the column of crawling soldiers. It would leave a clear path, once daylight came, to show the rebels where the platoon had passed—an insulting finger pointing straight at the rebels.
As soon as Lon was under the barricade, there were hands on his shoulders, pulling him up and pushing him to the left. A few feet away, Corporal Girana was gathering his squad, counting men as they came through the barricade. Lieutenant Taiters came over and directed them to places along the wall, while the rest of the platoon continued to snake through the opening. It took another five minutes before the last one was through and two locals moved the logs back into place, closing the gap.
We made it, Lon thought. His hands started to tremble again. He worked to hide that until he could force them to be still.