"But if we punch into them head-on, we solve their problem for them," Tannis countered. "They want us to engage them, Sarge. That's why they're here."
"Granted." Alicia studied the tactical data in silence for a few more seconds, but she knew Tannis had a point.
The enemy's commander obviously knew that taking the Cadre on, even when they had heavy weapons and the Cadre didn't, was a good way to get hurt. But it was equally obvious that the enemy had an enormous numerical advantage, although Alicia still couldn't imagine how they'd managed to get all of these people down here. And their commander equally clearly wanted nothing more than to force Alicia's people to engage them on the FALA's terms. The terrorists weren't interested in fighting on Alicia's terms; they wanted to force her to come to them when they had both the numerical advantage and the advantage of prepared positions.
"You know," she continued to Tannis after a moment, "looking at their positions here, it strikes me that they've obviously got a better feel for strategy than for tactics."
"I know that tone, Sarge," Tannis said. She was standing with her back to Alicia, keeping wary watch around their position, but Alicia could see the single raised eyebrow as clearly as if they'd been standing face-to-face. She'd seen it literally scores of time over the past eighteen months, and her mouth quirked as she smiled fondly at her friend's back.
"Their problem," she explained, "is that whoever picked out their positions had the strategic sense to find a choke point from her maps and send somebody out to block it. But the way they went about blocking it after they got here has a few tiny drawbacks. Look here."
She manipulated the terrain overlay on Tannis' HUD, and Tannis gave a sudden, tuneless whistle.
"My, that was careless of them, wasn't it?" she said.
"That's one way to put it," Alicia agreed, gazing at the HUD's contour lines herself. Then she switched channels.
"Mauser-One, Winchester-One. Move your people to this point -" she dropped a location icon into Celestine Hillman's HUD "-and meet me there. Lion-Alpha-Three," she continued, "move your people up to this point."
She dropped yet another icon into the HUD, and waited until acknowledgments came back from Hillman and Hennessey. Then she slapped Andersson on his armored shoulder.
"Good work, Erik," she told him. "Now stay here and keep an eye on them until we're ready."
"You got it, Sarge," he replied, and she went bounding back along the column towards Hillman.
***
"Winchester-One, Mauser-One," the voice in Alicia's mastoid said ten minutes later. "We're in position, Alley."
"Mauser-One, Winchester-One copies," Alicia replied. Celestine sounded confident, she thought-or, at least, like someone trying to project confidence. She smiled humorlessly at the thought, and drew a deep breath.
"All right, people," she said over the all-units net. "It's time to dance."
***
Group Leader Burkhart, the man in command of the action group holding the center of the three Freedom Alliance Liberation Army blocking positions, stood gazing out into the darkness. His command post was exactly where The Book said it should be, on the reverse slope of the shallow ridge line running across the mountain saddle at an angle. But Cornelius Burkhart felt cramped, confined, sitting in its protection. So he'd left his second-in-command there and come here, where he could stand in one of his forward plasma cannon positions and glare out across the moonless night.
Burkhart did a lot of glaring, because he was an angry man, one who used his anger to fuel his purpose and fire his passion. He'd been that way for a long time, and if he'd never been completely satisfied with the plan for this operation, that was all right. He understood the plan's objectives and approved them fiercely, and so far, at least, it seemed to be working. His faith in its ultimate success-and his own survival-might be qualified, but that didn't mean he wasn't determined to drive it through to success if it could be driven, because he hated the Terran Empire with a pure and burning passion.
His family had been prominent in its opposition to the Incorporation of his homeworld, and they'd paid the price. Perhaps the Empire hadn't been directly implicated in the attack which had killed his father, mother, and older brother, but someone had tossed the homemade bomb during the anti-Incorporation rally.
The planetary government had insisted it had come from among the protesters, thrown-or possibly dropped-by one of the violent fringe elements in the protest movement. The rally's organizers had blamed government provocateurs and fiercely rejected the so-called "investigation" the government had conducted. Even the "investigation" hadn't been able to (or had been ordered not to) identify the hand which actually threw the bomb, of course. And in the absence of any other clearly identifiable guilty party, Burkhart and his two surviving brothers had assigned the blood guilt where it ultimately belonged, the hands of Empress Maire, Seamus II's mother, and set out to do something about it.
They'd taken their vengeance where they could find it, and Cornelius Burkhart had lost track long ago of how many Empies and Empie collaborators they'd killed over the past twenty-three standard years. All three of them had joined the Freedom Alliance's Liberation Army six years ago, and they'd been able to kill even more of their enemies with the FALA's support structure behind them. But however many they'd killed, it hadn't been enough. It would never be enough, and it had come with its own price tag. He was the only surviving member of his family, now, thanks to the Cadre raid on Chengchou, and the knowledge that the company which had killed his brothers would almost inevitably be assigned to this operation explained why he'd volunteered so promptly for it.
He smiled thinly, staring out into the night, wondering where the Cadre survivors were. There couldn't be more than fifty of them left-less than twenty percent-and that was sweet, sweet on his tongue. He'd made a study of the Cadre and its operations over the past quarter-decade, and because of that, he knew just how great the Alliance's accomplishment here on Fuller was.
The Cadre was more than simply another branch of the imperial military. It was the Empire, the personification of the House of Murphy. For the subjects of Seamus II, its members were the standardbearers, the guardians-the Emperor's paladins and the shining heroes who stood against the enemies of all they held dear. But Cornelius Burkhart was one of those enemies. For him, too, the Cadre was the personification of the House of Murphy... and he hated the Cadre even more than he hated the Emperor. But it wasn't a blind hate, and that was why he'd lavished such attention upon his enemies, studying their strengths as well as their weaknesses. And it was also why he knew that in its entire history, the Cadre had never suffered losses like the ones it had already suffered here. An eighty-plus percent casualty rate was horrendous for any unit, under any circumstances, but it would be far worse for the Cadre, those arrogant pricks with their aura of invincibility, their pride in their reputation and their unbroken record of successes.
Well, their record's broken now, he thought viciously. And if he continued to cherish doubts about the extraction plan, that was all right, too. There was no one waiting for him, no one worrying about him. Not anymore. The Empire and the Cadre had seen to that. His enemies themselves had freed him, and in the final analysis, whether or not this operation ultimately led where the Freedom Alliance command council imagined that it would was unimportant. It was only a matter of time until -
Cornelius Burkhart's thought were interrupted with sudden finality as the sub-caliber penetrator from Corporal Thomas Kiely's battle rifle struck a quarter centimeter below the exact center of his battle armor's visor. It punched through the incredibly tough, transparent composite on an upward trajectory, like an incandescent spike. It made only a tiny hole as it drilled through, but when it struck Burkhart, just under the arch of his left eye socket, the top of the group leader's skull exploded into his helmet liner.
***
"Go!" Alicia snapped, and her people moved forward.
It was obvious that the first volley had
taken the enemy completely by surprise. Battle armor had defeated at least a few of the Cadre penetrators, but her HUD showed eleven hard kills and three probables.
They should've stayed further down in those nice deep holes, after they went to all the trouble of digging them, she thought grimly as twenty-six of Charlie Company's surviving forty-six troopers moved forward with her and Tannis.
Plasma roared over their heads as Doorn and Osayaba laced the infantry support cannon opposite them with fire. The terrible blinding flashes walked along the crest of the enemy's position, ripping and tearing. But those positions really were well dug in, and answering fire began hammering back at the cadremen as their own fire proclaimed their locations to their enemies.
Another Cadre icon turned crimson, and deep at the core of her, Alicia felt a fresh stab of pain as Corporal Allen Shidahari died. An instant later, Corporal Manfred Branigan, the Third Platoon trooper she'd paired with Erik Andersson after Vartkes Kalachian was killed, went down, as well. Benjamin Dubois, Lawrence Abernathy's wing, who'd been paired with Michael Doorn after they both lost their own wingmen, killed three more of the defenders. He fired steadily, carefully, as if he were on a target range somewhere, and scored three helmet hits in a row-then went flying backwards, his breastplate and torso vaporized by the plasma bolt which took him almost exactly center of mass.
Alicia was firing herself, picking her targets, and still more of the defenders went down. But not enough. The ones they'd killed in the initial volley had been the careless ones, the ones taken unawares. The ones who were still left were the cautious ones, the careful ones who returned fire without exposing themselves any more than they had to, and their weapons were heavier than the Cadre troopers'.
"Hold what you've got!" she said over the tactical net as the advancing green icons on her HUD reached the points she'd selected ahead of time. Not all the positions she'd chosen were as good as she'd hoped they would be, but all of them offered at least some cover, and her people went to ground, continuing to fire but obviously pinned down by the fire coming back at them.
Alicia bared her teeth in a fierce grimace as the enemy's fire redoubled.
That's right, she thought viciously at them. You go right ahead and pin us down. You've got us, don't you?
***
"We've got them-we've got them!" Cornelius Burkhart's executive officer screamed into his com.
"Then finish them off!" the operation's overall commander shouted back from his Green Haven communications center. "Finish them this time, damn it!"
"We will!" the XO promised, and turned his attention to doing just that.
He wasn't as comfortable or well trained as Burkhart had been when it came to interpreting his battle armor sensors' reports, but it didn't take a genius to know the Cadre bastards were screwed. He'd never really believed they'd be stupid enough to hit the action group's positions head-on this way, but they had. Oh, they'd hurt the FALA fighters with that initial deadly volley, and whoever those bastards behind the plasma guns on the other side were, they were a hell of a lot better than his cannoneers. He admitted that, but they weren't enough better. The sheer weight of his own cannons' suppressive fire had driven them to ground-they weren't even shooting back at all, now, assuming they were still alive-and the entire crazy assault had bogged down almost instantly.
He squatted in the cramped CP and glared at the holographic HUD projected before his eyes. He couldn't sort out the details any longer, and he switched to a direct visual. The schematic's confusing iconology disappeared, and he smiled viciously as he watched the muzzle flashes and lightning bolt-streaks of plasma flay the darkness with an ugly, lethal beauty. The sheer volume of death and destruction his people were pouring out filled him with almost erotic pleasure, and he didn't need any frigging HUD details to know the cadremen were being hammered into dog meat.
***
Alicia crouched a little lower as a plasma bolt streaked past the boulder she was using for cover. The plasma impacted on one of the local conifers, and a five-meter chunk of the thirty-centimeter tree trunk vaporized. The upper two thirds of the tree plummeted downward, already flaming, and crashed half across Alicia's position. The main trunk missed her, and her armor protected her against the branches which did slam down across her, but it still felt as if a giant hand had just slapped her against the earth like a pesky bug.
"Sarge!"
"I'm okay, Tannis!" she replied quickly, and she was-for the moment. But the flames roaring around her as the rest of the tree caught fire would be a problem if she stayed where she was very long. If nothing else, the ammo for the CHK she'd appropriated from a Second Platoon trooper who no longer needed it would start cooking off. But for now, her armor was handling it easily, and she drew her vibro blade one-handed. The force field lopped through the thirty-centimeter trunk effortlessly, and she cut her way clear of the tangle, then deactivated the blade, hit her jump gear, and vaulted over to join Tannis.
A heavy-caliber penetrator from one of the terrorist calliopes spanged off her left pauldron just before she hit the ground again. It hit too obliquely to penetrate, but the impact slammed her down, and despite the armor's anti-kinetic systems, she grunted as she landed.
She hardly even noticed. Her attention was on her HUD, where eighteen fresh green icons, led by Celestine Hillman's, had suddenly erupted into the blocking position's rear.
***
The new FALA commander never realized just how badly he'd misread the situation. His CP was, indeed, exactly where The Book said it should be. Which, unfortunately, meant Celestine Hillman knew exactly where to look for it when she emerged from the fold in the ground Cornelius Burkhart had overlooked.
Perhaps it would have been unfair to expect Burkhart to have noticed it. It wasn't much of a terrain feature, after all-only the meandering ravine of a dry, seasonal streambed, nowhere more than a couple of meters deep. Besides, it hadn't really been inside Burkhart's perimeter. It was between his position and the action group which formed the easternmost anchor of the blocking line, and it was supposed to be covered by fire from both sides.
Except for the minor fact that neither position had actually had a line of fire into the streambed... or realized that it needed one.
The first plasma bolt from Hillman's scratch-built squad impacted directly on the CP, obliterating Burkhart's successor and simultaneously destroying the position's primary sensor array. The defenders were thrown back on their armor's individual sensors, and-like their obliterated XO-they simply weren't as good as the Cadre at interpreting them.
They were still trying to figure out what was happening when Hillman's people swarmed over them from behind, shooting and grenading as they came. Some of the FALA infantry turned in their positions just in time to meet deadly bursts of battle rifle fire. Others never got even that far.
***
"Go, go, go!" Alicia barked as the enemy's fire faltered suddenly. It stuttered uncertainly for another moment, and then died almost entirely as the people behind it suddenly realized they'd been flanked.
Panic set in, exactly as Alicia had hoped, and as the terrorists wavered, she and the rest of the company came charging up the slope directly into them behind the deadly muzzle flashes of their rifles.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Sir Arthur Keita watched the repeater plot as HMS Ctesiphon decelerated towards Fuller orbit. The battlecruiser still wore her freighter's electronic mask, although he had no way of knowing whether or not the terrorists aboard Star Roamer were still buying the deception.
Of course, I don't know whether or not they ever really bought it in the first place, either, he thought, and looked back at the holograph of the Shallingsport Peninsula on the main display in Marguerite Johnsen's intelligence center.
That holograph was nowhere near as detailed as he wished it were. The icon which was supposed to indicate the position of Charlie Company-or its survivors, he thought grimly-strobed to indicate that it was only an estimate. They still
had communications with DeVries, but they'd become increasingly sporadic, and they'd lost virtually all tactical telemetry channels even during the windows when the transport's orbit took her directly over Shallingsport.
Keita felt his belly muscles tightening once again. God, how he wished he knew what was happening down there! Not that knowing would have done him any good at the moment. He realized that only too well, however little he wanted to admit it. Never before in his entire Cadre career had he felt as helpless as he felt at this instant, and guilt hammered in the back of his brain. It was irrational, he knew, but that made it no less real. He was the one who'd ordered Madison Alwyn's men and women into this holocaust, and now he sat safe and sound aboard Marguerite Johnsen while they died beyond his reach. While he couldn't even be down there with them. While -
He cut that thought off and made himself push it down once again. He couldn't do anything about that, and he made himself reconsider what he did know.