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“You’re up late,” Rachel said. “Or are you up too early?”
Roland shrugged. He hadn’t been able to sleep, even though he knew he wouldn’t be going into combat in a few hours. Not really, not in the sense bullets would be cracking through the air and past his ears ... he felt a twinge of guilt as he peered into the darkness, hearing water lapping against the ship’s hull. The rebels probably knew they were coming. He would be astonished if they didn’t know. The fleet had altered course two days ago, picking up speed as it headed straight for Winchester. They’d spotted enough fishing boats to be fairly sure they’d been spotted in return.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, looking up at her. He wouldn’t have confessed as much to anyone else. “If this goes wrong ...”
Rachel met his eyes. “Do you have any reason to think things will go wrong?”
“No.” Roland shook his head, then turned back to stare into the darkness. “We’ve done everything we can to ensure success, but ...”
He felt his heart twist in pain. He’d staked everything on the operation. If it failed ... it seemed unfair, somehow, that the worst that could happen, if he came back to the mainland when so many others didn’t come home at all, was that he’d be told to wait for the next interstellar freighter to arrive before he was sent straight back to Boot Camp in disgrace. Assuming, of course, he survived his own failure. The rebels would do everything in their power to sink the fleet and, despite everything, there was a very real chance they’d get lucky. Ships would be sunk, Roland knew, and one of them could be his ship. And then ... he’d practiced evacuating the ship in an emergency, but the emergency drills had always left out the emergency. He might die in the next few hours, even though he wouldn’t be going ashore until it was secure. Rachel had threatened to cuff him to his chair if he even thought about it.
Rachel patted his shoulder. “You’ve done everything you could,” she said. “Now, all you can do is wait.”
“I know,” Roland said. “It doesn’t help.”
“Think about something else,” Rachel advised. “Anything else.”
Roland snorted. “Do you have any better advice?”
“No.” Rachel grinned. “You could always spend the next few hours thinking about Sandra.”
“You’re not helping,” Roland told her, stiffly. “Are you ready for your part of the operation?”
“Yeah.” Rachel met his eyes, again. “You take care of yourself, sir, and don’t put yourself in danger.”
Roland nodded, then checked his terminal. It was 0630. They should be in position to attack Winchester - and land the first troops - by 0900, assuming everything went according to plan. They’d worked hard to gather all the intelligence they could, but he was uneasily aware there were too many question marks hanging over the enemy defences. They were leaping in blind and, although he’d devised plans to withdraw if the enemy proved too strong, the risks were higher than he wanted to admit. The plan looked good on paper, but so too had many of the truly disastrous blunders of the last thousand years. There were no shortage of examples of detailed plans failing because of something - anything - the planners failed to take into account. Roland had been forced to study them all.
War is a democracy, he reminded himself. The very first Terran Marine had said as much, when he’d compiled his book of hard-earned military wisdom. The enemy, that dirty dog, gets a vote.
Rachel straightened and walked away. Roland lifted his head to watch her go, marvelling at how she walked. There was nothing feminine about her movements, nothing to draw the eye, and yet ... he clamped down hard on that train of thought before it led to utter disaster. He was both her superior officer and her junior and even if they’d been equals, she would hardly give him the time of day. And ... he snorted, remembering something his tutors had drilled into him. His body knew he might be about to die, that he might not have any further chances to sow his seed ... of course it was trying to tell him to copulate one final time. He rolled his eyes as he turned away, silently reviewing the plan one final time. It wasn’t as if he’d have acknowledged heirs, not when they’d technically be heirs to a throne and an empire that no longer existed. It would only complicate his life ... as if it wasn’t already complicated beyond belief.
He spotted a faint glimmer in the distance and nodded. The sun was slowly, very slowly, starting to rise. The darkness was lifting, revealing distant islands wreathed in early-morning mist. Roland shivered, despite the heat. Anything could be out there, anything at all. He turned, heading to the CIC as the deck quivered under his feet. The bridge crew was already sounding the alert, bringing the crew to action stations. It was only a matter of time before the rebels came for them. And then ...
Admiral Forest saluted as Roland entered the compartment. “Sir,” he said. “Long-range sensors picked up radio chatter only a few short miles from here.”
Roland nodded, curtly. “About us?”
“We’re unsure,” Admiral Forest said. “The messages were very short. But that is suspicious in and of itself.”
“Yes.” Roland frowned as he glanced at the map. The commonplace radio transmitters had no encryption systems, but it wasn’t hard to establish a selection of codewords for anticipated events. A spotter could transmit a short message, nothing more than a word or two, alerting the rebels to the fleet’s presence. “Are we ready to repel attack?”
“We’re as ready as we’ll ever be,” Admiral Forest said. “If we’d had more time ...”
“There’s a lot of that going about,” Roland told him. “Luckily for us, the rebels have the same problem.”
***
Kathy was naked.
She felt oddly exposed as she peered into the distance, although it was hardly the first time she’d been naked while sailing the friendly seas. She normally wore little more than a belt and bra, or bikini if she felt there was a better than even chance of slipping and falling into the water. It had never bothered her, not when everyone else was just as naked. It had seemed normal and yet ... this time, she wasn’t naked for any practical reason, but to distract watching eyes.
The message had been short, but clear. The government fleet was on the way and she could expect to see it in a few minutes or so. It could have altered course, if it had picked up the message and divined the meaning behind it, but there were so many ships in the fleet - if the reports were to be believed - that changing course wasn’t something they could do in a hurry. Kathy had been a sailor since birth and she knew how hard it could be to sail in formation, even with tiny fishing boats. The giant freighters the government had converted into warships and military transports had to wallow like pigs in the mud, unable to change course or even slow down in time to avoid her. And that meant she’d get one free shot ...
Her heart started to race as she spotted the fleet, advancing from the north. She lifted her binoculars and peered towards the ships, silently counting them as she planned her attack. The warships - crude designs, from what she’d heard - weren’t the real targets, although she felt they needed to be taken out first. It was the transports that needed to be killed, sending hundreds - perhaps thousands - of young men to watery graves. Kathy hesitated, struck by the sheer enormity of what she was about to do, then took the steering rod in her hand and gunned the engine. The speedboat jumped to life, the engine roaring as she guided the craft onto the waters. It felt a little rough, as if the designers hadn’t gotten the weight just right, but Kathy was experienced enough to compensate. She reached up and undid her hair, allowing it to fan out behind her. Normally, she kept it tied up, but this time ... she smiled, despite the situation. The enemy wouldn’t be distracted for long, yet if it bought her a few more seconds it would be worth it. It would let her take her revenge.
The range closed rapidly, the enemy vessels moving rapidly from distant shapes on the water to looming monsters, towering over the sea. Kathy heard shouts, then shots, as she swung the speedboat from side to side, trying to get as close as possible before bailing out. The escort vessels were moving rapidly to block her way, trying to keep her away from the bigger and slower transports. A bullet zinged past her head, passing so close she was sure it grazed her skin. Her lips twisted. Clearly, they weren’t distracted by her bare breasts any longer, if indeed it had worked at all. A speedboat charging straight at the transports was about as subtle as a punch to the head.
She palmed her breather and locked the steering rod into place, then hurled herself backwards in a practiced move that threw her straight into the water. She twisted the moment she hit the waves, diving deeper and deeper as she pressed her breather to her mouth. The compressed air wouldn’t last long, but she should have enough to remain underwater until she managed to get well away from the enemy fleet. If she survived the next few moments ... the water vibrated, a shockwave passing through the waves as the speedboat exploded. She hoped it had struck its target, although there was no way to be sure without surfacing. The enemy might have sprayed the boat with machine gun fire, setting off the explosives. She didn’t know.
Not that it matters, she told herself, as she kept swimming. There are more speedboats on the way.
***
Roland had to bite his tongue to keep from demanding a report, as more and more enemy speedboats appeared out of the islands and launched themselves towards his fleet. The first had exploded just short of its target, but it had still managed to do considerable damage; the others, engaged the moment they’d come into view, had kept his men on alert without getting close enough to strike his ships. He had to admire the tactic, he noted, as another speedboat sprayed his escort ships with machine gun fire, before ramming the nearest warship and blowing both ships out of the water. There were literally millions of such craft on the planet and if even a small percentage were aimed at his forces ...
Another explosion shook the hull. Roland lifted his eyes, looking at the live feed from the cameras outside. A ship was burning, the flames rapidly spreading out of control. He saw men jumping from the deck, trying to swim away before the fires reached the ammunition or fuel tanks or ... Roland looked away as the ship exploded into a giant fireball, the bow and stern breaking into two pieces before crashing back into the water. How many men had just died? He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
Admiral Forest turned to face him. “Sir,” he said. “The lead patrollers report encountering mines.”
Roland sucked in his breath. Mines. He’d never thought of mines ... clearly, the enemy, less used to thinking about interstellar warfare, had been bright enough to realise mines were actually useful in wet-navy combat. He cursed mentally, wondering how the enemy had worked out where to lay mines. Had the secret been out all along? Or had they had enough mines to turn all the approaches into death traps? Or ... he shook his head in annoyance as he put the pieces together. The rebels hadn’t done anything of the sort. They’d seen the fleet coming, then laid the mines while the speedboats distracted his fleet. He should have seen it coming.
“Launch the aircraft,” he ordered. He’d hoped to hold the aircraft in reserve, particularly the ones designed to fly off ships, but they had to be deployed ahead of time. “Get them sweeping the space between us and the landing zone for minelayers.”
“Yes, sir,” Admiral Forest said.
Roland nodded, trying to project an air of calm. The invasion was barely underway and he’d already taken losses. He checked the timetable, assessing when the missile bombardment was due to begin. The enemy would be ready for them, after the missiles had proven their worth on Mountebank, but there were limits to how much they could do to prepare. The first missiles had been little more than crude projectiles. The second generation were much more accurate.
“If you pick up more enemy transmissions, direct a missile at them,” he ordered. It would be costly, and probably wasteful, but anything that kept the enemy from making more transmissions to coordinate their attacks would be worthwhile. “Don’t give them time to recover.”
“Aye, sir.”
Roland braced himself as the timer ticked down. Once they were in position, they could sweep most of the southern side of the island with missiles. The enemy would have real problems ... if nothing else, they’d have to duck and cover, giving his troops a chance to land without interference. How many other speedboats and minelayers were waiting for him? Roland didn’t know ...
“Incoming fire,” an officer snapped. A rustle of alarm, near-panic, ran through the compartment. “Missiles incoming! I say again, missiles incoming!”
Shit, Roland thought. The enemy had set up missile batteries on the outlying islands, giving them a chance to drench his ships in fire. He doubted their missiles were any more accurate than his own, but there were a hell of a lot of them. The close-in weapons systems started to chatter, hurling lead at the missiles in hopes of downing them before they got too close, yet ... Roland braced himself. This could get nasty.
***
“How many did we hit?”
Bryce wished, not for the first time, that General Windsor had seen fit to give him more time. He’d done well, given what he’d had on hand, but it probably wasn’t enough to do more than slow the invasion force for a few short hours. It was still impossible to determine where it intended to land, ensuring he couldn’t move his reserves forward until their target became unmistakable. The coastline was just too long for his peace of mind.
Be glad of it, he told himself. If the island was a little smaller, we’d lose the moment they got a solid foothold.
He scowled, crossly. The bunker was completely off the books, the dark and dingy complex put together hastily after it had become clear just how much the government knew about the island. He doubted it would survive, if the enemy bombed it, although the landlines made it hard - if not impossible - for someone to find the bunker except through sheer luck. The enemy could waste their time bombing the remote transmitters, if they wished. There were plenty more, just waiting to be put into service. He’d planned on the assumption the enemy knew everything and gone on from there.
“It’s hard to be sure, sir,” the reporter said. “The messages say seven ships were sunk, and nine more heavily damaged, but we lost contact shortly afterwards. We just don’t know.”
“And some of the kill-claims may have been exaggerated,” Bryce agreed. It was probably harder to be mistaken about how many ships had been sunk, but it was quite possible several kills had been counted twice. He’d given up hope of being able to maintain any control over the battlefield as soon as he realised just how chaotic the speedboat offensive was likely to be. The fishermen were skilled sailors, no one could dispute it, but they weren’t exactly military officers. “We’ll just have to hope for the best ...”
“Missiles!” Another operator jumped to her feet. “They’re firing missiles!”
“Sit down,” Bryce said, calmly. There was no point in panic. If a missile was going to kill them, it would have done so by now. “Don’t send any radio transmissions. Use the landlines to determine what got hit.”
Which might be complicated, because their missiles aren’t any more accurate than ours, his thoughts added. They may not have hit their actual targets.
He frowned as the reports started to come in. The government had spread their targeting pattern wide, denying him any insight into their thinking ... he felt his frown deepen as he mentally placed the targets on a map. He might be wrong about the latter. The missiles had hammered lots of targets, but a handful of bridges and roads seemed to have come in for special attention. On the map, it suggested the enemy was trying to isolate a particular beach from the rest of the island.
“Contact Group Four,” Bryce ordered. It looked as though the enemy was isolating their landing zone. “They are to prepare to repel attack.”
“Yes, sir,” the operator said.
“And then inform Groups Nine and Ten that they are to be ready to move up in support,” Bryce added. The landing zone was a good one, on paper, but the harbour facilities were very limited. They’d have to take the city’s ports if they wanted to bring in more supplies and that would be difficult, if not impossible. “Group Five is to remain in place, but prepare to repel attack too, either from the sea or from the west.”
“Yes, sir.”
Bryce smiled, despite the incoming army. “And then send a message to the relay station,” he added. “The invasion has begun.”