Death Match, page 38
part #3 of Sten Omnibus Series
Sarsfield was a true Guardsman, Sten thought. He didn’t appear worried that at least 150,000 enemy were now on Jochi, reinforcing whatever Tork militia were deployed — probably around a hundred thousand beings, and then the half a million more serving in the Jochi army. Three-quarters of a million, versus eighteen thousand.
“I’m grateful they don’t appear, at least so far,” Sarsfield added, “to have landed any heavy armor or artillery.”
They wouldn’t need it, Sten knew. Douw and the Jochians had more than enough to go around.
Now, he wondered, how long would it take for them to reform and attack the city? He knew that answer, too. No more than three E-days.
Imperial losses were slight — only five tacships had been shot down. But those five were irreplaceable.
Sten, Sarsfield, and Mason were on a three-way sealed beam, trying to plan what next.
What should have happened was that the Imperial personnel should have been onboard their ships and scooting for deep space and home.
But there were two small problems: the Suzdal/Bogazi fleet off Jochi, and the oncoming allied army.
Almost a dozen Frick & Fracks had been infiltrated and blown out of the sky before Kilgour had a firm report that the Altaic Confederation was on the march.
Sten had two advantages: First, Mason’s ships off Jochi — which were enough of a threat to worry the Suzdal and Bogazi fleet admirals. Second, he had in-atmosphere aerial superiority, or at least enough units to make the air overhead contested territory.
The Suzdal and Bogazi heavies would be unlikely to hang in space and lob heavy missiles down on the Imperial Forces inside Rurik. None of the allied forces, including the two ET races, would define noble victory as having destroyed the longtime capital of the Cluster. That was a shade too Pyrrhic even for these beings.
Nor would the fleet, except as a last resort, sacrifice maneuverability and come down to smash these sprats that were tac-ships — sprats that very likely could kill more than one-for-one as they died, and no one would trade a battleship or cruiser for a fifteen-being spitkit.
On the other hand, Douw’s advancing army would slowly provide an AA umbrella that would deny the air to the Imperial ships, so this was only a temporary standoff.
He suddenly found two more shafts of sunlight in his mental sky. First was he had a trained, disciplined force — the First Guards — who were fresh and not brought to battle. Second was the realization that, if he was able to get his Imperial bodies off Rurik, there would be only limited pursuit.
Just bashing the Empire out of the Altaics would be defined as enough of a victory. At least that’s what the Altaics would think.
He listened in silence as Sarsfield and Mason ran various options through and shot them down, trying to figure a way to get out of this Altaic sandwich the Imperial Forces were trapped in.
Something glimmered. He rolled it back and forth. It seemed worth exploring. It probably wouldn’t work. Even if it didn’t, the situation couldn’t worsen. Could it?
“Mr. Kilgour,” he asked formally to Alex, who sat somewhat off-screen. It slightly jolted Mason and Sarsfield — they had been unaware of Kilgour’s presence. “Do we have a code that’s sort of compromised? Not a complete joke, but something they’ll be able to break, at least partially, without too much strain?”
Alex shrugged and called up the embassy code chief. Mason started to say something, but Sarsfield waved him to silence. Five minutes later, Kilgour presented a choice of three codes that the code chief was morally certain were splintered, if not completely busted.
“Very good. Why don’t we . . .” and Sten outlined the first stage of his plan.
Sarsfield, since the first stage did not involve him or his command, didn’t say anything. Sten could see Mason trying to be fair — but wanting to say that anything that clotting Sten could come up with was worthless.
“My biggest objection,” Mason said after a while, “is that we already tried it.”
“Not quite, Admiral,” Sten said. “We tried the simple version of the con. Did you ever play which hand’s got the marble?”
“Of course. I was a child once.”
Sten doubted that, but continued. “First time you tried it, you just lied. Then you told the truth. Then you lied again. Escalating dishonesty.
“That’s what we’re going to attempt, unless someone’s got something better — or can point out where I’m completely full of it.”
And so the Bluff, Stage Two, was begun.
First a destroyer was detached from Mason’s fleet and sent in the general direction of Imperial worlds and Prime itself.
Once beyond the range of any of the Suzdal/Bogazi units, it broadcast a coded message, both to Mason’s fleet and to the besieged Imperial post on Rurik.
Sten waited for six hours, watching Alex’s Frick & Fracks, as the Altaic army ground closer toward Rurik. Thank somebody, what the clot, give it to Otho’s gods Sarla and Laraz, they were moving slowly. Sten attributed it both to caution, none of them ever having fought Imperial Forces before, and the inevitable incoherence of trying to coordinate an alliance, particularly one where everyone hated everyone else.
He had ordered his tacships up as aerial artillery, lobbing air-to-ground missiles at predetermined targets — crossroads, major roadways, and the like.
Then both his com officer, Freston, and Mason’s equivalent officer reported: there had been a sudden flurry of intership transmissions in the Suzdal/Bogazi fleets, transmissions that had been sent in a rarely used — which suggested high-level — code. Blurt transmissions were also beamed out in directions suggesting they were intended for the capital worlds of the Suzdal and Bogazi.
“Mr. Mason?”
“Yes, sir. We’re on the way.”
The fish were nibbling, it would appear.
Sten had, indeed, just come up with a second version of that bluff he and Mason had run, pretending to send messages back to an oncoming Imperial fleet.
The destroyer he had ordered sent out had transmitted a message, in that breakable code, that appeared to come from the vanguard of a heavy Imperial strike force. This mythical strike force ordered Mason to abandon his position off Jochi — the besieged forces on the planet would have to fend for themselves for a while — and serve as a forward screen for this strike force.
The transmission continued, saying that Mason would be fully briefed at a later date, but that this strike force had been specially detached to punish the dissident Suzdal and Bogazi — cleverly making no mention of any human dissidents — by attacking the ET capital worlds, returning tit for tat.
Sten was too elaborate in his deception — he forgot to allow for the fact that this was exactly what any of the races or cultures in the Altaics would have done if they were in the same situation as the Empire.
Three E-hours later, the Suzdal and Bogazi heavies broke orbit and struck, at full speed, for their own systems.
Sten, trying to keep the elaborate geometry of astrogation in his mind, thought they would probably set a course in x direction for their home worlds. A course that would be more direct than the one Mason was supposedly on, and certainly one that was predicted never to coincide with the y direction or directions the huge Imperial strike force would most logically track.
Uh-huh. All this exotica from someone who had needed coaching in basic one-ship astrogation back in Flight School. It would not work — at least not for very long. Sten hoped it worked long enough for the next step, and for Mason to duck around the Suzdal/Bogazi fleet and get back to where he would be needed.
Regardless, at least one layer of the sandwich had been stripped away.
Four hours later, scout elements of the Altaic Confederation’s army entered the outskirts of Rurik.
Sten had told Sarsfield his hopes, not his orders. He did not want the First Guards to feel they were being commanded to pull some kind of impossible Bastogne or Thermopylae. Stop them. Try to get them to dig in. Make them think we’re counterattacking.
Sarsfield, like Sten, had counted noses. Neither of them thought this third ruse would work. It’s very hard, after all, to bluff someone who’s got three aces and the joker showing and both elbows keeping his hole card from being turned over, when you’ve got four different suits and one slice of bologna.
The enemy scouts proceeded unmolested.
However, their nerves were tested. Here they found an abandoned barricade. There vehicles were overturned. Up there, some kind of antenna spun. Cryptic codes had been sprayed on the pavement.
The scouts proceeded, more and more cautiously. They saw no signs of Imperial soldiers.
It was unlikely they would — the Guards’ forward recon elements were specialists in not being seen.
The Confederation’s progress was reported.
Frick & Fracks were behind the lines, waiting for the first heavy armor and gravsleds to creep into the city. No one likes to risk his expensive track or even more expensive gravlighter in the rat trap of city fighting. But the Altaic soldiers had no choice.
They were in the trap.
Sarsfield ordered the artillery to open up. His own cannon and surface-to-surface launchers opened up on predetermined targets, targets that were now obscured by enemy vehicles.
The tacships were launched from the mother ships, which were grounded near the huge park back of the embassy, where Sten had ordered the transports grounded.
Drakh-hot pilot Hannelore La Ciotat popped her tacship up, saw the track platoon’s cannon begin to swivel, blasted a volley of rockets from the rack jury-rigged on her ship’s belly, ran two cases through her forward chain gun, and disappeared.
La Ciotat was swearing almost continuously. Clot. She might as well have joined the clotting infantry. She gunned her tacship down a street, well below the building roofs, looking for another target.
The platoon was destroyed — and the momentum of the attack temporarily broken. But they kept coming.
The Jochi armor-infantry Combat Command moved swiftly and efficiently toward the city center. It was a highly trained force on familiar ground. The tracks would hit anything the infantry couldn’t, and the grunts kept antitank gunners from killing their big friends.
“Battery A . . . fire!” and the four Imperial gravsleds appeared to explode. Each explosion was, in fact, forty-eight rockets salvoed from the racks mounted on the gravsleds’ rear. The unarmored sleds lifted at full speed and headed for another location.
The rockets were just that — propellant, guidance vanes, and warhead. Their accuracy was plus-minus fifty meters at four hundred meters. Appallingly bad. But when 192 rockets, each with fifty kilos of explosive in its warhead, simultaneously impact on an area one hundred meters on a side, and that area is occupied by a crack armor-infantry unit, the results can be impressive.
The Jochi infantry died to a man.
A few of the tracks had been hit and crippled. But most of them were still combat-capable.
Then the two-man antitrack teams rose out of their hiding places in the rubble, fire-and-forget missiles streaking fire.
But the Confederation kept coming.
The skies were black, and there were high, building storm clouds in the distance.
Kilgour wiped sweat from his forehead. “Th’ weather’ll break, noo, an’ we’ll lose th’ wee tacships.”
Cind grimaced. The ships had all-weather capability. But no one had ever meant that to mean a spacecraft could fly in the heart of a city, fight an enemy on the ground, which meant with mostly visual target acquisitions, and not spend a lot of time revamping the local architecture.
Or, if the architecture was as solid as on Rurik, crashing.
Seconds later the storm broke, huge raindrops shattering down. Kilgour swore, ducking for shelter that wasn’t there, and then his language went doubly purple as hailstones spattered him.
Clottin’ wonderful, he thought. Tis nae enow we hae th’ hands ae all men agin us here, nae t’ mention a few ETs, but th’ weathergods hae us on the list ae well.
Warrant Officer La Ciotat stood beside her tacship, oblivious to the rain spattering in through the Victory’s open hangar doors. The ship was grounded just behind the embassy, and the other tacship carrier, the Bennington, nearby.
“Sir. I’m willing to try it,” she argued. “We’ll just use the Kali sensors out the front of the launch tube, and I’ll go on instruments and get targets from the missile.”
“Negative,” her flight commander ordered. “We’re grounded. We’ll be pulling drive offworld next.
“Or if not, we’re really going to be making kamikaze runs, instead of just getting close like you want. That’s an order.”
“I have reports,” Sarsfield said, tonelessly, “that my artillerymen are firing sabot charges over open sights. They’re getting close, Sten.”
“Tell them to blow their guns and move to the transports.”
“Yessir.”
“What’s the loading status?”
Sarsfield consulted with an aide.
“I have all battalions loaded, except the one boarding now, and the First Battalion in its defensive position back of the square. Plus the arty batteries that are hauling for the ships right now.
“I guess,” Sarsfield said, “the First will have to fight the rear guard action. Clot. At least,” he said sadly, “they volunteered for it.” As had every other battalion of the First Guards, Sten knew.
“All embassy personnel are loaded,” Sten said. “As ordered, you are to lift all Imperial ships when First Battalion has the attacking units engaged and counterattacks. The Victory will hold on the ground until the last possible moment for pickup for any Guards elements that can disengage after you lift. I’m shutting down this station now.”
“Roger you’re last. You’re transferring now to the Victory I”
“Negative,” Sten said. “I’ll be with First Battalion. Sten. Out.”
Sarsfield had not even time to register his protest. Sten stood, stiff muscles stretching, and reached for his combat harness.
Alex, similarly outfitted for battle, held it ready. They went for the stairs. Kilgour turned and pulled a wire, then they went on up toward the ground floor.
Ten seconds later explosives shattered the coms and conference room. “Y hae a plan,” Kilgour wondered.
“Sure,” Sten said. “Many, many plans. To pray for peace. To not get killed. To make it to the Victory before she hauls. To break contact at nightfall, and exfiltrate into the country and go to ground.”
“An’ how long d’ye think,” Kilgour wondered, “thae clottin’ Emperor 11 take t’ send a rescue party f’r a man who disobeyed orders?”
“Have faith, Alex,” Sten said. “Sooner or later, we’ll just learn to levitate home.” In the courtyard Sten saw Cind, the Gurkkhas, and the Bhor drawn up. Waiting. He wasn’t surprised. But he almost started crying.
Cind saluted him, rain dripping from her nose.
He returned the salute, and his pissant little formation doubled off — up the wide boulevard toward the Square of the Khaqans to join the last stand.
Fleet Admiral Mason glowered at the screen, which showed the Jochi system rushing toward him. This whole assignment has been full of drakh, he thought.
First I am chauffeur to that popinjay Sten on that clotting yacht he was given. Then I spend time dancing around playing peep-bo and now you see it, now you don’t with a bunch of geeks and ETs.
Hither, yon, hither yon, and it is all shadows, just like I told Sten, back on Prime, a world where everything is gray and there is no truth.
He deserved better from the Eternal Emperor, he thought furiously. And wondered how, once this disaster wound to a close, he could remind his Emperor of that.
At least there will be no relief and court-martial, as happened to Mahoney for some reason, he thought. I have followed my orders exactly.
And a soldier cannot go wrong when he does that.
“Jochi planetfall . . . two E-hours,” his watch officer said.
The Altaic soldiers moved confidently into the Square of the Khaqans. Opposition had lightened, and then disappeared. Now they would take the palace, and move on to destroy unutterably the hated Imperials.
A cheer rose. This was the center, was the throne. From this place, all power came. Now — and each soldier’s thoughts differed, depending on his race — the rulers of the Altaic Cluster would be different.
The counterattack struck.
The multiple rocket racks had been dismounted from the grav-lighters and concealed behind balustrades, terraces, and even statues. Firing studs were touched, and the rockets crashed out, ripping horizontally across the square.
Explosions shattered and echoed, and then the First Battalion counterattacked, rolling up the Altaic soldiers and sending them reeling back.
Bare seconds later, more thunder crashed. But this was not from the storm or from the Guards’ rocketry.
Fire blazoned into the darkness that was technically day as the Imperial transports lifted clear of the park and drove at full power for space.
Sten watched them disappear into the storm clouds. Very good. Very good, he thought. Better than Cavite. Now let’s see if there’s any way to save my own young ass.
The rain was slamming in now, wind-driven, and thunder was crashing as the wind roared across the great square in front of Cind.
She was stretched prone, using a projectile-chipped staircase for cover, and paid no mind to the puddle she was lying in, the puddle that was scarlet from the blood draining from the Guardsman next to her.
Her own rifle lay beside her, disregarded.
A precision sniper weapon was no use here. Far across the square, which was littered with crashed gravlighters and destroyed tracks, fire flickering from their hatches in spite of the storm, the Confederation Forces were getting ready for another assault.
Time had passed. How much time, she didn’t know. The enemy had reformed and attacked.
