OLVIAT’S SUN WAS SLIGHTLY HOTTER THAN Earth’s, and a bit farther from the planet. The tonatin had colonized the world several hundred years earlier, bringing in plants and animals from other worlds, cultivating them for their own use and to help control the forms that had arisen on the world before they arrived. Around the planetary capital, we expected to find imported varieties almost exclusively.
The day on Olviat was a bit over twenty-seven hours. We landed two hours after local sunset in the capital, giving us most of the night to operate in the conditions we prefer—darkness. We moved away from the airsleds as quickly as feet could carry us. The sleds glowed brightly in infrared after the heat of their flight and landing, as did the trails where they had skidded along the ground. Those trails were clear arrows for anyone searching for us, so we had to move away quickly.
First platoon’s rendezvous was a hundred yards north of our airsled tracks—a row of hot scratches in the ground, nearly a half mile long—just about four hundred yards from where my team’s sled had come to a halt. By the time I had covered half that distance—at a fast jog—I knew that all of first platoon’s sleds had come in safely, on target, and that we had no one injured too badly to continue. That isn’talways the case. I’ve seen soldiers killed or injured by rough sled landings.
As each squad reached the rendezvous its members moved into a makeshift perimeter, guns pointing out. My squad was the last in. Lieutenant Taivana had already dispatched the two biraunta from third squad as scouts in the direction of the power distribution complex we were to attack. The platoon went to electronic silence, to avoid giving the enemy an easy way to track our progress and estimate our numbers. Operating together, not using radios was no impediment. Hand signals worked well in line of sight, and when better communications were necessary, we could go face-to-face, lift helmet faceplates, and whisper.
Second squad went on point. The lieutenant put my squad slightly behind and on the left. Third squad was to our right, and fourth brought up the rear. Lieutenant Taivana and Tonio were in the middle of the diamond formation. We started moving as soon as my people reached the rendezvous.
It was winter locally, but we were in a borderline temperate-subtropical zone. Supposedly, temperatures rarely got as low as freezing, and we could expect daytime highs in the low to mid-seventies. Comfortable temperatures, for the most part, since our uniforms were thermal insulators—more to help camouflage us from enemy eyes than to keep us comfortable.
The sensors in my helmet told me that the temperature where we landed was thirty-nine degrees, but I hardly noticed the chill on my hands, the only part of my body not covered. There was a moderate breeze, maybe ten miles per hour, from the northwest. The sky was heavily overcast. We could see the glow of lights from the city. The locals had not gone to blackout conditions yet. Turning out the lights wouldn’t hide any targets, though it might make civilians feel safer to hide in the dark.
We had three miles of flat to gently rolling terrain to cover to get to the power distribution center, since we did not take a direct heading toward it—too easy for an enemy to anticipate and counter. Much of the ground was lightly forested, landscaped, with spaced formal gardens. The trees tended to be well-spaced in clear rows, evidence that the arrangement wasn’t natural. There were occasional paved or graveled walks. Before we had covered half the distance to our target, we started to hear the sounds of fighting to either side of our route, but we hadn’t seen anyone at all, military or civilian. No one relaxed. We knew that the enemy had soldiers not too far away. It was just a matter of how quickly they had been mobilized and how long it would take to deploy them.
The platoon was still a mile from the power center when we finally came under fire.
THREE OR FOUR RIFLES OPENED UP FROM THE left, on my squad’s side of the formation. Iyi and Oyo, my biraunta, were farther out than the rest of the squad, covering the flank. There weren’t enough trees for them to be high, brachiating, where they operate at their best, so they were on the ground. Still, the biraunta are the stealthiest scouts we’ve got, and the smallest, so I didn’t immediately conclude that Iyi and Oyo had been spotted.
“Dragon, take your squad and see what we’ve got over there,” Tonio said on a radio link. While we were under fire, it wasn’t necessary to maintain complete electronic silence. “We’ll keep moving. If it’s just a small patrol, take care of them. If there are too many for you, give me a call and we’ll come around from their left.”
I acknowledged the order, then switched to my squad frequency. “Souvana, take your fire team and curve around on the left. I’ll take the rest of my team and curve in on the right and we’ll pincer them between us. Iyi, are you listening?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Iyi said. “We have the enemy in sight. We count six soldiers. Three of them are in what appears to be an artificial mound of rocks, 120 yards due north of your position. The others are on the west side of that formation, under a low-branched tree of considerable size.”
“How far are you from them?”
“A hundred yards from the nearest, those in the rocks. They do not seem to be aware of our presence. They have not taken us under fire. They are shooting in your direction.”
“Then stop transmitting. Don’t reply. Wait for my signal, then open fire on them.”
Souvana had already started moving his team. I signaled to Robbie, and he and Nuyi moved closer, then followed me along the track I had picked for us—Robbie on my left, Nuyi on my right. We stayed low, ducking from one tree to the next. The enemy gunfire was sporadic and not too smartly aimed; most of it went well over our heads. It was as if the enemy wasn’t sure where we were, even though they were so close. Maybe they were nervous and hadn’t actually had firm targets before they started shooting.
It wasn’t difficult to move from cover to cover, though few of the tree trunks were thick enough to be complete protection. Souvana’s team moved more quickly than my group did, and they had started thirty seconds earlier. It took them less than two minutes to get into position to take the enemy patrol under fire. As soon as they did, I told Iyi and Oyo to open up from their positions on the other side. Then I got up with Nuyi and Robbie and we charged forward another twenty yards before going to ground again, ready to contribute our part of the action.
We didn’t have to. The firefight was over. All six of the enemy soldiers were down—dead or too badly wounded to continue. Souvana’s team got to them first, to get the weapons and helmets of the two who were still alive. I switched radio channels to report.
“Tonio, Drak. Six-man patrol. All down. Two of them are wounded. I don’t know how badly.”
Before Tonio could respond, Souvana came on the channel and said, “The last two are also dead. Their wounds were too severe to give them a chance. I made certain they did not suffer.”
You slit their throats, you mean, I thought, forcing down a surge of anger. “You shouldn’t have done that without orders, Souvana,” I said, keeping my voice low, under control. “We don’t kill wounded men who are no threat to us.”
“Worry about that later,” Tonio said. “Dragon, get your squad back on our flank. If there’s one patrol, there are likely to be others. We have to get on with our job. The rest of the invasion force is waiting to come in.”
“On the way.” The destruction of the power complex was supposed to be the signal for the shuttles carrying the rest of the invasion force to start in, on the calculation that we might knock out enough of their command and control structure to make defense more difficult for the tonatin.
I took twenty seconds to give my people instructions, then we were on the way again. I wasn’t certain why I felt so angry about what Souvana had done. Souvana had rubbed me the wrong way since he first joined the squad, back on Dancer. Assuming his diagnosis was correct, that they were wounded too badly to survive until proper medical help could reach them, perhaps he had done the humane thing, but I doubted that he had done it for humane reasons, and I would have wagered money that he had done something direct like slit their throats rather than administer painkillers to make certain they did not suffer.
I made a note of the location. If the opportunity came up later, I would check—for my own satisfaction, if nothing else. There was little chance that any disciplinary action would be taken over an incident of that nature. It’s hard to generate sympathy for armed hostile combatants.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER WE HAD OUR TARGET IN sight—the main power distribution center for the capital. There were no lights on in or around it. There was a chance that there were enemy soldiers between us and the two buildings that housed the transformers and relays we were supposed to knock out. Some enemy soldiers had managed to cross the river before our teams could blow the two bridges. We had no way of knowing how many enemy soldiers had been south of the river when we landed; the patrol we had run into and the other sounds of fighting we had heard were evidence enough that there had been some. With ninety minutes’ warning of our coming, they might have moved most of the garrison closer to the city, even right inside.
Assume the worst. I scanned as much of the perimeter of the complex as I could, using the maximum magnification through my helmet’s faceplate. The grounds of the power center were clear of trees and bushes. There was some fencing around the edge, but it was not complete and appeared more decorative than functional. Our night-vision systems are as advanced as any, but there is still some deterioration from what we could see in full daylight, both in range and in clarity. I couldn’t see any obvious targets—hot spots or movement—but if the enemy’s thermal camouflaging was as efficient as ours, they might still be there.
In any case, the decision what to do next wasn’t up to me. Taivana and Tonio would issue the orders. We had come equipped for this operation. One man in each fire team had a rocket launcher with three rockets. Each of the other men in each team carried two rockets in addition to their normal combat loads. Normally we had one man with a rocket launcher in each squad, rather than two. Generally, those rockets were intended for antiaircraft or antitank use, but they were versatile. They should serve to open large holes in the buildings and destroy the machinery inside. Some of the warheads were incendiary.
We were three hundred yards from the two main buildings, well within effective range of the launchers—they could bring down an aircraft at more than a mile—and my squad had a clear line of sight to both buildings. Some of the other squads weren’t so well situated. We were waiting for them to get in position.
Five minutes. “Get your men ready with the launchers,”
Tonio said, a barely audible whisper over the radio. “On my order.” I gestured—Kiervauna and Nuyi, the men with the launchers, were watching me for signals. They put the weapons to their shoulders and sighted. Each had extra rockets at his side and someone to load them in the proper order for him: armor-penetrating first, then incendiary. The rest of the squad was ready for whatever response the enemy might have—if any.
“Ready … fire.” As soon as I heard Tonio’s order, I brought my right arm down. Four squads, eight rocket launchers—within five seconds of the order, the first eight missiles were on their way. Six seconds later, a second volley was in the air, not as uniform as the first. The third rounds were being loaded before the first hit.
I would not have wanted to be any closer to the two buildings than I was. Three hundred yards was a little close for comfort. Explosion after explosion erupted. First there were the rockets. Then we started to hear secondary explosions from inside one of the buildings. The taller of the two structures—sixty feet high—came apart at the seams, debris hurling nearly as far out as where we were. A fireball climbed into the sky, briefly overloading my night-vision system, making the night almost as bright as a sunny noon.
Altogether, Kiervauna and Nuyi each fired four rockets into the complex, switching their aim a little for each round. I assumed that the other squads contributed as much to the destruction. Both main buildings were reduced to flaming rubble. Several smaller structures—office space, maintenance facilities, and so forth—were also targeted, hit, and either destroyed or seriously damaged before Lieutenant Taivana came on the all-hands channel to tell us to pull out, to move to the rendezvous point that had been designated earlier.
“You heard the lieutenant,” I said on my squad channel. “Let’s get the hell out of here before the locals drop the ceiling in on us.” No one would repair that center in ahurry. The entire facility would have to be rebuilt from scratch.
I got up and started moving, my fire team forming around me, with Oyo and Iyi in front. Souvana moved his team around to follow us. We were going to skirt the edge of the power complex, as close as we could safely with the fires and secondary explosions that were continuing, so I could get a good view of the damage—a view that would be recorded by the video camera in my helmet so that the higher-ups could review it later for an official damage assessment. We had not come under fire since arriving near the complex, so it looked as if there were no enemy troops between us and the still burning buildings.
The lights had finally gone out in the capital.