Ariel looked puzzled. "Why? 'Tis very funny, but not explosive."
Meilin snorted with laughter. "Believe me, this is H.E."
"And her," corrected Ariel, pedantically.
* * *
"You're Lieutenant Conrad Fitzhugh?" The MP at Van Klomp's door asked.
"Yes," said Conrad warily. What had Ariel been up to? Besides running up the beer waitress's dress last night?
"Colonel Brown has ordered your recall, sir," said the MP apologetically. "There's been a major incursion in your sector. We've got transport waiting for you."
Fitz nodded. "Give me five minutes to get into uniform and get my kit together."
Ariel was unbelievably dozy. It was almost as if she hadn't slept.
It was a long drive to the front. She snoozed most of the way, contentedly.
The general bowed his tiara-wearing plump wife into her seat. Ballet wasn't really his favorite entertainment, although he'd known an entertaining ballerina a year or two ago. But Maria was a true aficionado. And when all was said and done, it was her money. The war and cost-plus on artillery ammunition had made the Cartup clan enormously rich.
Having ogled the dancers and ordered some champagne, and salmon-and-watercress sandwiches for the interval, he settled into a comfortable doze.
He was woken by the buzz in the audience.
And no one was saying "hush."
It took a few moments of unbelieving blinking to be sure he wasn't hallucinating.
This was taking avant garde theater to new limits. The last time he'd seen anything like that backdrop had been at the Paradise Pussy Club. And that hadn't been quite so explicit. And while the female in the leather outfit wielding the whip was a stunning platinum blond . . . her partner did absolutely nothing for his lacy polka-dot knickers and black bra. And even fishnet stockings couldn't help legs like that.
The two dancers continued to pirouette with grim artistic determination as the huge screen behind them showed the details of his brother-in-law's face.
Talbot Cartup had always liked to sport a figure in high society. He was frequently seen at the opera and ballet. But never before in quite such detail.
The general missed the part showing the interviews with the two ladies of the night, discussing his transvestite brother-in-law's enjoyment of the rather bizarre perversion of semisuffocation. They did mention their prices for what was a very risky pastime. But General Cartup-Kreutzler was too busy trying to break into the very securely locked projection unit.
As it turned out, the DVD in the unit was amazingly bare of fingerprints.
And while the booking for the ballet trebled, it did rather change the way people regarded the art form.
"Captain?" said Fitz, looking at the bars being handed to him.
"We're out of officers," said the colonel, grumpily. "We lost seven including two captains and a major when we were pushed back to line three. Those troops of yours are heading for court-martial. They're not exactly refusing orders. They want you. We just lost another two officers and your NCOs pulled the men back into the trenches. And what is this story about troops fraternizing with the rats?"
For a moment Fitz thought that Ariel must have put her head out of his pocket. Then he realized what the man was getting at. "Ah. It's a system we've evolved that works. Men have the stamina, rats the speed."
"Well, like your crazy idea about paying them, I'm not having any of it," said the colonel cholerically. "Just see you that get them over the top and that you recapture line two. You've got two new second lieutenants fresh out of OCS. See what you can do, Captain Fitzhugh. Put some discipline into this lot."
"Impossible, Talbot. He's back in combat. And Major Van Klomp is on a forced march with his men." The general looked in disgust at the telephone. Waited for his brother-in-law to stop rabbiting on. "There is nothing you, or even I, can do about it. Anything direct is almost certain to backfire on you now. I would certainly quietly withdraw those charges, because if the matter comes to court, you're going to end up being sued out of existence. You're a laughingstock and the best you can do is to go to that place of yours in the north and stay there. The town won't forget you in polka-dot panties for a long time."
* * *
Candy Foster was sitting looking gloomily at the door. He hadn't been near here since it happened. Hadn't called. It was his fault, not hers. She did it because that was what he wanted. She had no real interest in sex. Never had had. But it was a useful lever. So she'd panicked when he wouldn't come to after the plastic-bag thing. Her fingers had been stupid with fear and she hadn't been able to get it off. But at least she'd managed to tear the plastic, and hide that stupid leather outfit under a gown when the paramedics came. The story about Conrad had been born out of that panic. Talbot had decided to stick to it to save face. Had that ever blown up in his stupid face!
A brown envelope dropped through the letter slot in the door.
Candice opened it with trepidation. Talbot's brother-in-law's influence had stopped her getting call-up papers before. But this letter definitely began with . . .
"Greetings."
With her academic marks she knew she'd wash out of OCS. Let it be catering or nursing services. That was where nice girls were posted. She could change her hair color and use some skin pigment. Maybe change her name too. No one would recognize her. Hopefully.
Infantry school.
8
"They're pounding us, Captain. Going to push forward soon," said the slight, bespectacled lance corporal.
"SmallMac! What the hell are you doing here?"
"Transferred in. You're getting a reputation, Fitz. You keep your men alive. And you don't lose."
It was a heavy weight to bear. "I won't always manage to do either, Corporal McTavish," he said quietly. He knew that in this man's case he was carrying a pregnant wife and two small children as well.
SmallMac shrugged. "Ah, but you try to do both, Captain. That's a rarity in a Shareholder officer."
Fitz found that, with the remnants of the rats (numerous) and the humans (few) from the collapse of the forward trenches, he had double his previous troop complement. There were only three other officers—a major who was keeping himself very busy with the troops who were furiously digging in behind them and two fresh-out-of-OCS lieutenants. He held a hasty staff meeting with them and his NCOs.
"Right, based on previous experience, we know when their artillery stops, the Maggots will come swarming."
"You mean the Magh', Captain," said one of the new lieutenants.
Fitz gave the snotty wet-behind-the-ears brat a look that would curdle milk. "Lieutenant Pahad, you'd better learn to speak the language that your men speak, or you'll be a mortality statistic. While I'm on the subject—Sergeant Major, I want you to detail a veteran NCO to each of these new officers. You two—" he pointed at them in their new, crisp BDUs with their new, shiny pips—"will listen to those men. Take advice from them before you give any orders, if you have time."
Pahad drew himself up. "How are we supposed to establish authority under those conditions, Captain?"
Fitz noticed that the other youngster had said nothing. For his sake, and the sake of the men this young idiot would command, he continued. "Lieutenant Pahad. Does the term 'frag' mean anything to you?"
"No, Captain, it does not," the man said stiffly.
"It's an old combat word. One my father told me about. From a long-ago war on old Earth. Unpopular officers who went into combat usually had a fragmentation grenade dropped into their pockets—a few seconds before it exploded. Our troops are combat veterans. They'll take orders or they wouldn't have survived. What they won't take is crap from wet-behind-the-ears ignoramuses who know nothing about real fighting. The average life of a soldier on the front is about forty days. The average life of a second lieutenant is half that. If you're stupid enough to think that that is coincidental . . . then you're a dead man walking. Now, I don't personally give a shit if you get killed. But if the N
COs in your unit tell me you wasted a single troop's life through your arrogance . . . you'd better be dead. Because I'll kill you before my troops do. Is that clear?"
The lieutenant gaped at him. But Fitz noticed that the other one nodded.
"Ahem." The sergeant major cleared his throat. "What you may not know, sir, is that the captain here has the best Maggot-kill rate we know of. He's also known to be an absolute bastard—pardon my saying so, sir—" he nodded at Fitz—"at weapons and fitness drill. He's also got the best troop survival rate on the front. Most of his men are veterans. And we get volunteers wanting to serve under him. That's a first for the hottest sector on the front. You're privileged to serve here, son." Which, as the sergeant major was perhaps two years older than Pahad, was not unamusing.
Fitz stopped the incipient reply with a finger. "Right. Enough of this. If you have any problems with me, Lieutenant, see me afterward. If we live through this, you can go and complain to the colonel. In the meanwhile, you will spend the next eight weeks on the front lines."
"If you survive that long," muttered SmallMac.
Fitz pretended he hadn't heard him. The white-lipped lieutenant certainly had. "Now, I've told Ariel to get the rats to work as the rats in my old command did. Two rats per human. The rest will be split into three groups, Sergeant Major, two cover groups and a backup. For each cover group I want two strong, fit, experienced soldiers. They'll be carrying heavy loads of rations and sugar for the rats. I want fast packhorses with brains. For the third group I want light, fast troops, twenty of them. They're our backup and, if we get a chance, our spearhead group. I want troops who can run."
"Sah! I'll confer with the platoon sergeants and have them assembled."
"Do that. And tell the troops the first one to cause trouble or bad feeling with the rats is going to answer to me, personally. Now, medics . . ."
At three that afternoon, the Magh' guns fell silent. And the fighting began. They came in waves over the top. They came in columns out of tunnels. And they seemed to be only hitting Fitz's patch of the line. It was obvious that they intended to push the weakened front into a beachhead. The Magh', it appeared, did not know the meaning of "retreat" or "fear."
They learned the meaning of "die."
Fitz nearly learned it himself. Lieutenant Pahad did. As Sergeant Anderson said, the Maggots had merely saved the captain trouble. But toward dusk the attack began to slow down. The last wave was more of a splash than a wave. As the Magh' artillery began to cut loose again, the rats and troops in Fitz's third group, with him at their head, went over the top. Moving as fast as a slowshield would allow, taking advantage of the Magh's weaker eyesight, they pushed into the human-abandoned old second line. The Magh' here were few and far between. Obviously the creatures had thrown everything at the human line. How fast they could move more troops up to fill the gap was an unknown. But the old line two was not under artillery bombardment. Fitz began to move men and rats forward. He rested them in the relative tranquillity of the comparatively easily recaptured line. The Magh' had moved their artillery forward in anticipation of the human line falling. Now, rather like Drake and the Spanish Armada, Fitz realized his men were too close to be fired on. If he had reinforcements now, he could keep pushing, maybe even to the Magh' force field edge. Only one massive human assault had managed that in the past, at vast cost in lives and materiel.
Fitz got on the radio to sector headquarters.
"Colonel Brown."
"Try and hold them a bit longer, Fitzhugh," said the colonel. "We've almost got the earthworks finished for the new trenches. And the attacks usually slack off at dusk."
"Sir. We've held them off. In fact, we've retaken the old line two. I've got my troops working on repairs right now."
"What? Impossible!" huffed the colonel, sounding less than grateful. "It must have been less of an attack than we'd expected."
"We estimate between ten and twenty thousand Magh', sir. But we have a bit of an advantage right now, sir. We appear to be so close that their guns' elevation capability does not allow them to fire on us. We think they've moved their artillery to our old line one. I'd like to press the advantage, sir. We can take those fieldpieces. But we'll need more men. Reinforcements before dawn."
The colonel showed the military dash and flair which had taken him so far in HAR's make-work prewar army, and seemed destined to push him higher as the most incompetent of the mediocre-to-useless chateau-officer class. "Um. Well. Er. Don't you think you should play it safe?"
"We can hold these lines, sir, if that's what you want me to do," said Fitz. "But capturing some of the Magh' artillery would let us onto the technology they're using. It would be quite a kudo for you."
"Hmm. I don't like your newfangled way of doing things, Fitzhugh, but you do get them done," said the colonel. "Yes. Advance, see if you can take a Magh' fieldpiece. I'll see if I can scare up some reinforcements."
"If we push too far, sir, without reinforcements, we could lose even these trenches. So I'm afraid I need a firm commitment, sir."
"What? Damn your eyes, man. You'll have them. Take those guns at all costs," boomed the colonel.
"At least a company of rats, sir. Maybe even a few of these new rats, if possible."
"You're insufferable, Fitzhugh. Get me a gun and you'll get them."
"I'll rely on you for that, Colonel. Out."
"I'faith. What a whoreson Achitophel!"
Fortunately, Fitz did not transmit Ariel's accurate comment to the colonel.
The advance began. It was rapidly obvious that the Magh' had never met such tactics from the HAR armed forces before. The usual slow buildups and massed assault of the meat-grinder war that the HAR chateau generals fought, they dealt very effectively with. They simply outgunned and outnumbered the humans, and it appeared that the Magh' generals also had no objection to vast body counts. The idea that a thrust might be matched with a counterthrust, immediately, without two or three days of troop movements, appeared to have taken them off-balance.
"Get me Major Bartok," snapped Fitz to the radio operator.
The artillery officer was obviously bleary with sleep. Great, thought Fitz. Our artillery is near ineffectual and here we are in a major battle, and their commander has been catching up on his shut-eye. "Major. We're retaking our old front lines. Your men are shelling us." Slowshields at least meant they weren't being killed. But they could be buried, and slowed down.
"Huh?" said Bartok. "But we were pushed back two days ago. There's been no major advance planned."
Fitz ground his teeth. "Major. I'll set off a red flare. Your range finders can pick it up. We're fighting hand to hand in the trenches of our old trench one. It's slow going because we're thinly stretched. We've got the defensive troops from one trench line occupying two and fighting in a third. We've been promised relief before morning."
"First I've heard of it," grumbled the major. "It wasn't mentioned at last week's staff briefing."
Fitz had to stop talking to help Ariel with a pair of arrowscorps, which was probably just as well, as it stopped him biting the fool's head off. Then he let off the flare and went back to trying to keep his temper and get the human gunners to stop firing on their own side.
"Check with Colonel Brown. We've taken advantage of a situation. Look, it would help us if you could range your guns beyond us instead."
"Hmph. I'll put you onto the gunnery officer for tonight. Out."
The gunnery officer at least was simply cooperative. And his gunners, despite the fact that HAR industrial technology was still battling along in the nineteenth and early twentieth century and their fieldpieces were to match, were more than cooperative. Their rate of fire increased, which, as Fitz had heard, took nothing short of a miracle. At least somebody back there wanted them to succeed.
Then he and Ariel were fully engaged again, in the first hard fighting in this trench. They'd reached the gun emplacements. The Magh'der, the kind that tended the fieldpieces, were there in numbers a
nd it was obvious that they felt about their strange weapons the way ants do about their grubs. But they appeared to be genetically designed to tend guns . . . not fight rats and men.
Looking at the pod of captured alien weapons in the infrared torchlight, Fitz allowed himself a brief moment of triumph in front of his cheering troops. Even the rats were caught up in it. "Methinks these should be worth a good few claws, eh, Captain," chittered one, cheerfully, kicking the wheelless platform, with its long stabilizers.
Ariel licked a slash on her shoulder. She pointed at the barrels. "Long muddy congers aren't they? Fair give you envy, Gobbo."
She stuck her long nose into the air. Sniffed. Twitched her ears. Fitz noticed several of the other rats doing the same.
"Methinks, it is the cat," said Pooh-Bah.