"I've really pretty much completed my initial brief," Watts admitted. "I've assembled additional background data-things like climatology for Shallingsport, more detailed terrain maps, information on the local political set up, things like that-for operational planning, but that's basically the bare-bones of what we know. And of what we don't know."
"Captain Watts is right about that," Sir Arthur said, reclaiming control of the briefing with a courteous nod to the Marine. "There are a lot of things we don't know about their ultimate intentions and plans. But what we do know is where they are right now, what their apparent strength is, and what sorts of physical constraints we're up against in getting at them. In that regard, we owe Duke Geoffrey our thanks."
"Agreed, Uncle Arthur," Alwyn said. "I'm surprised he even talked to them, frankly. Getting involved in the middle of something like this must be awfully politically risky for someone in his position."
"Yes and no, Captain," Watts put in. "Yes, there are risks, but the fact that he's not actually negotiating with them at all isolates him from the consequences of the Empire's official no-negotiation policy. And, frankly, although he has shown considerable moral courage, the original idea of offering them a place to land in Shallingsport didn't come from him. The director of his Office of Industrial Development is an imperial subject he brought in to run the Green Haven project for him, and my understanding is that it was Director Jokuri who actually suggested the idea to him. I don't want to appear cynical, or to downplay Geoffrey's own genuine concern with saving lives, but I suspect that Jokuri had to do some fast talking to sell him on the notion that we'd be too grateful for his help to worry about whacking him for talking to terrorists in the first place."
"In that case, we owe Jokuri a vote of thanks," Keita observed. "But whoever suggested what to whom, we also know we can't afford to let this thing be drawn out. Assuming the 'minority opinion,' as Captain Watts describes it, is correct, that would be exactly what the bad guys want. Assuming the minority opinion isn't correct, there's still the fact that the longer this thing stretches out, the more likely we are to begin losing additional hostages.
"I can also inform you that the decision has already been made that we will go in. Any official negotiation isn't going to happen, except as a delaying tactic while we mount the rescue."
Heads nodded grimly around the conference table. Not a one of the men and women sitting at it was surprised by Keita's announcement.
"Obviously, the detailed planning is going to be up to you people, since you're the ones who are going to have to mount the operation. The Fleet is redeploying units towards Fuller, but because of Star Roamer and those sensor arrays Captain Watts has mentioned, none of those units are going to be able to get in close enough to the planet to do much good. It looks to us like this is going to be another job for the Marguerite Johnsen. We've already determined that a freighter of her approximate size is due in Fuller sometime in the next few days, and Fleet has starcommed orders to her immediately previous port of call to hold her there. We have to assume the terrorists have access to Fuller's shipping movements-it's not as if arrival and departure schedules were classified data, anyway-but shortstopping the ship everyone is expecting should create a hole into which we can insert Marguerite Johnsen without sounding any alarms until you're close enough to the planet for a drop.
"There may still be hostages aboard Star Roamer. There aren't supposed to be any, and the terrorists' spokesman swears that all of them were transported down to Shallingsport. Despite that, we have to assume there are still some aboard. Unfortunately, we also have to assume that the suicide charges they've told us about are also aboard and armed. I'll want to see some contingency planning for a seizure of the ship, but, I'll tell you now that in all honesty I don't anticipate your being able to put together an option that I'll sign off on. It may be possible to talk the people aboard that ship into surrendering, if we take out their groundside buddies, but I'm not prepared to throw away the lives of cadremen in a fundamentally hopeless effort to capture an orbiting bomb with a suicide switch.
"As far as the Shallingsport/Green Haven situation is concerned, it looks to me as if the best option is probably going to be a straightforward drop and a high-speed break-in. We're not going to have anything like decent intelligence on what's going on inside that facility. We do know that Duke Geoffrey has ordered the complete evacuation of Green Haven, which presumably means that anyone we encounter there will probably be on the terrorists' side. Unfortunately, at this moment we don't even have anything in place to confirm that the evacuation has been carried out."
"If I may, Sir Arthur?" Watts said diffidently.
"Certainly you may, Captain."
"I agree with everything you've said, Sir. And, like you, I wish we had a lot better intelligence on the situation in and around Green Haven. However, Old Earth has pulled together-and starcommed to us-visual imagery on every known member of Star Roamer's crew, all of the Incorporation delegates, and all of the delegation's support staff. We'll be able to download that to your people's armor's computers. We also know that the opposition force can't have much, if anything, in the way of heavy weapons, and that they can't be very numerous."
He paused, and Keita nodded.
"Your point, Captain?" the Cadre brigadier asked.
"I suppose my point is that your cadremen are actually more capable than you and they sometimes believe they are, Sir. I don't say this is going to be a neat and pretty situation, whatever we do. However, bearing in mind your own statement that we need to wind up this op quickly, I'm afraid that it looks to me as if Captain Alwyn's people are going to have to go in quick and dirty. Given the visual imagery we can provide, and bearing in mind the Cadre's demonstrated capabilities, it ought to be possible to avoid, or at least minimize, friendly-fire casualties among the hostages."
"I'm not particularly enthralled by the notion of any 'friendly-fire casualties,' " Alwyn said a bit frostily.
"I'm not suggesting that you should be, Captain," Watts said unflinchingly. "I'm only suggesting that these people have already demonstrated their own total willingness to murder hostages as a mere bargaining ploy. In the long run, if we don't go in, we'll almost certainly lose more hostages then we would with a bunch as capable as your people mounting the rescue attempt. I'm not trying to buff up your halo, but let's face it. You people are the Cadre. This is what you do, and no one in the galaxy does it better than you do. I realize I'm only an Intelligence puke, a staff weenie from Battalion, but if it were my call, there's no one in the universe I'd rather have covering my bets than you people."
"I'm forced to concur with Captain Watts," Keita said quietly. "We'll see if we can't assemble some backup from the Wasps aboard the Fleet units diverting to the Fuller area. Whether or not you'll be able to use them is another matter, of course, but we'll try to see to it that they're at least available as an option. And we'll try our damnedest to improve your operational intelligence, Madison. You know we will. But I want you to start immediate planning on the basis of the information we have now-what Captain Watts has given you in his briefing, and in the other data he brought with him-and the availability of only your own people and resources. Is that understood?"
He looked very steadily at Charlie Company's commanding officer, and Captain Madison Alwyn looked back, equally steadily.
"Yes, Uncle Arthur," he said, after a moment. "It is."
Chapter Twenty-One
"I'm sorry, Skipper," Lieutenant Pa l said, "but I just don't like it."
"I'm not too crazy about it, either, Agoston," Madison Alwyn replied, "but I don't think we've got a lot of choice. Captain Watts -" he nodded his head courteously at the Marine officer sitting in on the planning session in Marguerite Johnsen's comfortably appointed intelligence center as the disguised transport hurtled through wormhole space "-has already confirmed that the terrorists have orbital arrays deployed from Star Roamer. We can probably use the planet for cover for the insertion, especia
lly if we drop covert. But if they've got orbital arrays, we have to assume they have ground-based tactical arrays deployed to cover the area immediately around the objective, too. That means they're going to see us coming, if we drop inside the radius they've got covered. At which point -"
"At which point, they start killing hostages," Pa l finished for him unhappily. "I know that, Skip. I'm just afraid that wherever we drop, they're still going to pick us up coming in across country, if they've got decent tactical arrays already set up. If they don't-have arrays already in place, I mean-then we might as well drop closer to the objective and minimize the time they have to see us coming."
"If I may, Captain Alwyn?" Watts said diffidently. Charlie Company's CO sat back, waving one hand to invite the Marine to continue, and Watts turned his attention to Pa l.
"On balance, Lieutenant," he said, "I'd be inclined to agree that a drop closer to the Jason Corporation facility would minimize exposure and give you the best chance of getting into the terrorists' positions before they realized you were coming. But I think Captain Alwyn and Lieutenant Masolle have a valid point. If they do have tactical remotes deployed on counter-grav, or even a ground-based sensor net deployed around Green Haven, they'd be bound to pick up your drop. And they've got six hundred hostages."
"We're well aware of that," Tobias Strassmann said, and Alicia, sitting in along with the rest of the platoon's squad leaders, pricked mental ears at his tone. It wasn't an obvious thing. In fact, she suspected that someone who didn't know the lieutenant as well as she'd come to know him wouldn't have noticed it in the first place. But she had come to know him, and she suddenly realized that he didn't particularly care for Watts, either.
"I realize that, Lieutenant Strassmann," the Marine said, and his tone was interesting, too. He sounded like a man who realized Strassmann disliked him for some reason, and who was trying extra hard to be nonconfrontational. "My comments were simply a preface for what I really wanted to say. Which is that -" he used his neural headset to activate the tactical table as he spoke, and zoomed in on an area about forty kilometers from their objective "-even if they have arrays out, this valley here should be outside any radius at which they could pick up a covert drop. And if you'll notice, the valley itself extends along this river...."
He let his voice trail off, and a flashing green cursor trailed a bright dotted line behind it as it traveled the length of the indicated valley. Which, Alicia realized, traced its steep, rugged, rather winding way along a river that flowed right past the terrorists' position. The contour lines were steep along its entire length, but it became almost a gorge, with near vertical sides, at a distance of barely one kilometer from their objective. Its length added a lot of extra distance to the trip, and the relatively narrow valley wasn't at all apparent at first glance-it disappeared into the peninsula's convoluted, tree-covered terrain-but once it was pointed out, the possibilities were obvious.
"I hadn't noticed that," Strassmann said after a moment, his voice rather warmer and more approving than it had been. He gazed at the glowing line and nodded. "You've got a pretty good eye for terrain," he added.
"I've had longer to think about it than your people have," Watts pointed out. "Believe me, I started poring over the maps of Shallingsport as soon as Battalion was alerted to what was going on."
"It's better than I thought we could do," Pa l Augustin admitted after a moment. "A lot better. But we're still looking at an approach march of almost seventy klicks if we stick to the river, and we'll be lucky to make fifty kilometers an hour through this kind of terrain."
"Agreed." Alwyn nodded. "On the other hand, when was the last time we got to dictate the terrain when it came to mission planning?"
"I'll have to get back to you on that one, Skipper," Pa l said with a tight grin. "Right off the top of my head, though, I can't think of one."
That evoked a brief chuckle, and Alwyn leaned forward, studying the tactical table's imagery.
"Did you run an analysis of other possible approach routes, Wadislaw?" he asked.
"As a matter of fact, I did. There are a couple of others which would give you cover that's almost as good, but they all start from even further out than this one does. Your approach march would be longer for any of them, and, frankly, I think they'd have a better chance of spotting you on most of them. Do you want to look at all of them?"
"Yes. Although, if this really is the shortest, fastest way in from a point where they won't be able to see our arrival, it's probably the way to go," Alwyn said.
"Unless they expect us because it is the shortest, fastest way in from someplace where they wouldn't be able to see us drop, Sir," First Sergeant Yussuf pointed out. "And if I were a terrorist worried about a visit from someone like us, Skip, I'd be keeping a real close eye on this gorge here." She flipped her own cursor into the display and indicated the river line's closest approach to their target.
"Maybe," Alwyn conceded. "But I'm a great believer in KISS. We'll scout ahead with our remotes, just in case, and we'll plan alternates, but this really does look like the best approach. Besides, if we let ourselves get too involved in double-think and second guessing, I'm sure we'll be able to find a reasonable objection to any approach route."
"There's also the fact that they just plain can't have the manpower to scatter people all over the countryside watching for us," Strassmann observed. "Even taking Battalion's most pessimistic numbers, they can't have more than a couple of hundred people actually on-planet. And they've got three times that many hostages to ride herd on. They've got to be thinking in terms of economizing their manpower."
"Lieutenant Strassmann has a point," Watts said. "Obviously, as I've already pointed out, our numbers on how many people the FALA actually has down there are all inferential. We could be off by a fairly substantial margin, but that's why Battalion's been working from a worst-case set of assumptions. And there's another point to consider. I pulled detailed terrain maps on Shallingsport before Battalion sent me to Guadalupe to brief you. But when these people arrived in the Fuller System, they demanded sanctuary from King Hayden, not Duke Geoffrey. On that basis, it seems unlikely they ever actually planned on ending up in Shallingsport. So even if they'd been inclined to do a detailed study of the terrain around their eventual 'sanctuary,' could they have known which maps to pull? It's possible they did a radar map on their way down from Star Roamer, but by that point they were into improvisation mode after King Hayden turned them down and Duke Geoffrey accepted. Besides, the shuttles they used to get dirt-side were standard civilian models-Jason Corporation cargo birds provided by Director Jokuri and Duke Geoffrey. There's no way they had the sensor suites to do a detailed mapping job."
"I was thinking along those lines myself," Alwyn agreed. "They may be already in place on the ground, but that isn't the same thing as being intimately familiar with the terrain. And as Tobias says, they can't have manpower to spare. So, if I were them, and if I only had a couple of hundred people, and if I had access to decent tactical arrays, I'd be inclined to fort up at the center of the area I could cover. And this valley of yours gives us our best chance to get inside their perimeter, or at least right up to it, without being spotted on the way in."
He sat for a moment longer, gazing down at the dotted line Watts had drawn. Then he nodded and looked back up again.
"Francesca," he said to Masolle. "I want you to sit down with Wadislaw and look at the other possible LZs and approach routes. Give me your best analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of each of them."
Masolle nodded, and he turned to Strassmann.
"Unless Francesca comes up with some fairly compelling reason for us to go another way, I'm thinking we'll probably follow Wadislaw's recommendation," he said. "On that basis, I want you to rough out a covert drop plan. Go ahead and set up for a 'light' drop. Given how far we've got to go, the fact that the bad guys can't have very many heavy weapons of their own, and that we're going to have to execute a break-in to the hostages, w
e're going to need speed, precision, and flexibility more than brute firepower."
"On it, Skipper," Strassmann agreed, and the Cadre captain turned his attention to Pa l.
"Agoston, while they do that, I want you and Pam," he nodded to First Sergeant Yussuf, "to work up a plan for the approach from Tobias' LZ to the objective. I think Pam may have a point about their picketing the gorge, so plan us a couple of alternatives that avoid that particular stretch, as well. Let's look at all the possibilities and run them through the sims before we decide."
"Yes, Sir."
"Okay, people." Alwyn pushed himself back from the tactical table and stood. "Sic 'em. We'll meet back here in four hours."
***
"Hey, Alley! I've been meaning to ask you how the Lizard Mind-Reading 101 is going. Are you starting to feel like going out and eating your mate yet?" Alan McGwire asked with a grin.
Alicia opened her eyes and looked up from the careful check of her powered armor she'd been carrying out through her synth-link. She and a dozen other troopers were in Marguerite Johnsen's "Morgue"-the storage and service area for Charlie Company's battle armor. Although the company was supported by a team of armor specialists assigned by the Marines to the Cadre on a semi-permanent basis, much as Captain Watts was assigned to provide intelligence support, most cadremen preferred to handle the regular maintenance and combat prep on their armor themselves. Those highly trained armor specialists were responsible for major repairs, upgrades, and modifications, but in Alicia's opinion, anyone who didn't want to stay hands-on with the standard maintenance and, especially, troubleshooting of her own armor just before a drop ought to be confined somewhere in a nice, soft-sided room where she couldn't hurt herself or anyone else.