Caines mutiny, p.58
Caine's Mutiny, page 58
part #4 of Caine Riordan Series
Jrekhalkar turned to address the rest of his staff, who had already given their opinions on where to invest their last, sizable reserves. “It is decided. The halbardiche of the Voice shall cross at the southern ford. Move our reserves into position.” Two runners left at a trot, heading back to the command APC, two hundred meters further back at the Flag’s command post. He gestured to most of the others. “You shall await the outcome at my command vehicle, and shall coordinate and manage communications among us as best as you may. Ezzraamar, Z’gluurhek, G’Ken, and Odokhaas: you and my bodyguard shall make for the southern ford immediately. We shall show our Warriors the way across the river, the way to victory!”
Jrekhalkar had no doubt meant his words to be stirring, and it had some of the desired effect upon the other Warriors he had summoned to work as his immediate retinue in this, their finest hour. But Ezzraamar turned his eyes back into the forest behind them, where a human killing machine was still wandering unchecked.
* * *
Bannor Rulaine used his thermal goggles to scan for hidden Hkh’Rkh. Resolution was lousy at this time of the day—early afternoon, when the sun had imparted considerable heat to most objects—but biosigns still stood out a bit.
Happily, in the copses and scrub-thickets surrounding the small stand of clustertrees in which his team had come ashore, there were no such signatures. There were hot spots aplenty, mostly exposed rock faces, but almost no active thermal emanators, and those few that he saw were consistent with animals. Cowering animals, judging from their stillness and the incessant thunder of gunfire and explosions.
Tygg Robin crawled past him, surprisingly stealthy for so large a man, two small quadrotors following him like obedient, airborne puppies. Currently slaved to home in on his transponder, it reduced the need to furnish them with active control. Behind him, the rest of the team was still shrugging their way out of the light pressure helmets and life support packs that they had swiped from the duty suit EVA shells to effect their underwater crossing of the River Kakaagsukh. The Lost Soldiers who had been recruited for this mission—four Americans, two Soviets—had demonstrated reasonable competence for the apparatus and staying on the ROV-deployed guide-line. But even so, one of the Soviets had gone missing during the crossing. Whether he had mistakenly detached from the line, had a technical failure, or would show up later, far downstream, was anyone’s guess.
The Soviet—a crack shot named Grisov—had not been the only casualty before the mission began. One of the Cold Guards and one of the American GIs—a sniper who’d managed to live through the Battle of the Bulge—had both been killed when the Cayuse’s rotor had spun away from the stricken helicopter, slicing through the brush and their torsos.
Now the question was whether the team was large enough to complete the mission—or rather, any of several missions with which Riordan might task it. It was equally uncertain how they’d be signalled: by lascom (if they had the line of sight when needed), radio squelch (if it could get through the solar activity) or signal flare from the far shore (if the were looking in the right direction when it went off). The operational status of the remaining team—Bannor, Tygg, O’Garran, Rich Hailey, Alexander Shvartsman, five Cold Guards, one Soviet, and three Americans—had now been downgraded to “marginally sufficient,” according to Know-It-All’s review of the various missions with which they might be tasked.
The senior Cold Guard, de los Reyes, scuttled over to Rulaine. “What now, Major?” Others heard the muted question, turned in their direction; several hunched closer.
“As soon as Captain Robin has finished slaving the quadrotors to our group lascom net, we’ll move inland and then south. With any luck, they won’t have seen us slip into the water when we started crossing.”
“Is that why the Proxie took out the two weapon sites just across the river from us?”
“Yes. That had to happen anyhow—to take out the only enemy units likely to see us—but after they shot down the Cayuse, the Proxie’s attack will seem like a countervalue strike, not random destruction.” He couldn’t see the Cayuse’s crash as a lucky break—lucky breaks didn’t kill three sibs-in-arms—but Duncan’s attack was now explainable in terms of a logical combat response, which made the Hkh’Rkh unlikely to question why the marauding anthrobot had diverted northward to knock out the two weapons and their crews.
“Why are all these flying egg-beaters with us?” asked Owen, staring dubiously at one of the quadrotors that was hovering within arm’s reach.
“To maintain comms and security,” Rulaine answered. “The commodore gave us almost a third of the remaining small-scale assets. Some of them are lascom equipped, and with our own local version of Know-It-All to coordinate them, they’re going to keep us in communication with each other. That, and the underwater crossing, were the reasons we had to have all of you in duty suits; we need their embedded transponders. The quadrotors will keep track of them and furnish Know-It-All with overlapping surveillance of our collective footprint. That way, even though we’ll all be separated by a hundred meters or more, Know-It-All will be aware of our relative positions and the approach of any Hkh’Rkh.”
Owen frowned. “It can do all that?”
O’Garran smiled broadly. “If it wasn’t for this damn solar flare and all the drones we lost, it could do a hell of a lot more.”
Rulaine nodded. “This way, we won’t get too close to each other, and won’t wear ourselves out having to watch for bad guys. I’m not suggesting you try to take a quick nap when you stop moving, but Know-It-All has your back. From two or three points of view, usually.” Tygg signalled that all the quadrotors were ready to move autonomously.
Owen shrugged. “Okay, so what’s the op, Major?”
Bannor rose into a crouch. “To get to where we’ll be needed.”
“And where’s that?”
“I’m not sure yet—but I’ll tell you when we get there. Now, on me: we’re moving out.”
* * *
Duncan Solsohn forgot for a moment that it wasn’t he himself leaping through copses of clustertrees; he put up a hand to deflect a stray branch that he was flying past, three meters off the ground.
It happened sometimes, that Proxie operators got so comfortable “driving” the anthrobot that they got lost in the experience. Understandable, but not the right frame of mind during combat operations. And definitely not now.
He was closing on the enemy transmission coordinates, which had remained steady for the past twenty minutes, reconfirmed by the remaining battlefield sensors that were still linked by lascom.
Solsohn’s next bound brought him to the edge of a copse of trees that the view from EXHALTED indicated as the closest cover to his target. He crouched down, and reached out with the anthrobot’s sensors.
Standard visual spectrum revealed what he’d expected: a loose laager of Hkh’Rkh APCs. Thermal showed that they were starting to shed heat, mostly accumulated from the sun, some from modest engine activity a few hours earlier. Enhanced by motion cueing, guidons pointed out those hot spots that were walking about: fewer than he and Riordan had expected. Wasn’t this the enemy command post? Had they taken the precaution of separating their leadership from their comms nexus? According to Riordan, the Hkh’Rkh hadn’t even taken that step during the war on Java, where they had had far more reason to suspect that their C4I assets would be detected and selectively targeted by both insurgents and main-line units.
His broadcast sensors imposed radiant, out-flowing rings upon one of the two centrally located APCs: new transmissions. And now that he zoomed in to 300x magnification, Duncan saw telltale signs of a hull-embedded dispersed aerial: a dedicated communications vehicle. Probably not the best they had: more likely a standard model that had been factory upgraded with an auxiliary comms package.
The out-spreading rings faded: the radio signal had terminated. A moment later, four Hkh’Rkh exited the vehicle, collected under a small tarp that had been pitched like an awning, rigged to the side of one of the other vehicles. Most of the Hkh’Rkh were older, judging from the color and shape of their manes, and they were gathering around what looked like a map table. So: the command staff—or some of it. But where’s the guy in charge?
Duncan scanned that group closely for any sign of the large, archaically equipped Warriors who would be the commander’s ceremonial and actual bodyguards: the halbardichers. There was no sign of them.
Well, no time to wait or to waste. Solsohn painted each one of the APCs, starting with those protected at the center of the laager and working outward. He brought up the automatic grenade launcher controls, detailed two DP rounds for the comms vehicle, and one for every other. Sufficient, but it meant he would run dry of DPs. He activated the autoattack mode, turned his attention to the targeting screen for the CoBro mounted on his right arm.
Without his controlling it, the Proxie’s left arm came up and starting firing RAPs at the vehicles clustered just over one hundred and fifty meters away. The very first grenade sailed right through the open rear hatch of the comms APC. Flame and smoke jetted out of every hatch and firing port.
By the time the fifth grenade hit its target, the Hkh’Rkh had not only spotted its source, but were laying down withering fire. One long stream of heavy projectiles shredded the clustertree next to which Solsohn had parked the Proxie; audio track-back indicated a source outside the laager, up on a small, bush-crowned knoll. He swung his visual sensors over to it: a dismounted autocannon. Hell, even at range, that could actually hurt me.
He switched to the CoBro’s scope, zoomed in to 40x resolution for a good sight picture, and, after selecting exploding rounds, he activated the Proxie’s auto engagement system. The rifle on his arm started spitting out rounds fitfully; the Hkh’Rkh manning the weapon started thrashing and falling, small flashes marking where the rounds were hitting and detonating.
But before the last one slumped over the autocannon, a long row of angry divots stitched their way along the ground leading to Solsohn, walked right up into him. The view from the Proxie shuddered; an orange light came on. The left knee joint, again. And the light was pulsing now. Damnit: imminent failure.
Duncan glanced back at the laager of vehicles. Except for one that was lumbering away with one tire flattened and its wheel askew, they were all motionless, sending up black curlicues of smoke. Scattered among them, Hkh’Rkh were firing at him, helping wounded comrades, trying to work around his flank.
Which, if he didn’t move now, would be what he would die defending.
The experts told you never to leap when you have a damaged leg: the force of landing was too great, was likely to break the appendage before it failed on its own. But Solsohn had learned in the field that actually, if you jump and make sure to land with your weight on your good leg, that actually extended the remaining time you had in the bad one. Assuming you were good enough to manage to stick an imbalanced landing.
Duncan smiled, jumped.
And, yes, I am that good, damn it.
* * *
In Wedge One, Caine watched the overhead map update—sluggishly in some places, not at all in others. The full impact of the flare’s communication disruption was being felt, although there were indications that the peak had been reached. Perhaps, in another ten or twenty minutes, the helicopters could resume operations, but for now, they were still grounded. Which meant that his attack choppers could not defend the fords, that the chopper carrying Newton Baruch and Ike Franklin from Dante had grounded five klicks shy of the ridgeline, and that Yaargraukh and his team were stranded where the Chinook had put down, still ten kilometers away.
“Commodore, report coming in from Colonel Rodermund—er, Umpire Two,” Gaudet said over her shoulder.
Steve Rodermund had taken over gathering battlefield updates. Without reliable radio, and with the drones grounded because they were just old enough to be vulnerable to the flare, the colonel and two of the other fixed-wing pilots from his era had stationed themselves on the ridgeline with scopes and binoculars, gathering what information they could through direct observation.
Caine nodded for Gaudet to link him. “What’s the sitrep, Steve?”
“Damned uncertain. There’s still a lot of dust in the air from the railgun strike, so we’re getting temporary glimpses at this point, not steady visuals. We did get some radio reports from Sergeant Ippolito, who took over the north ford from Captain Robin. The wrecked APCs on the shore have become the local equivalent of the battle for the barricades. It’s close-quarters combat, up there. Five meters and less at times.”
Riordan rubbed his eyes. When combat shrank to those ranges, casualties were always high, no matter how much cover or technological superiority you might have. And it was no surprise that there was now a pitched firefight under way to control the wrecks. Being armored, they were the best and only cover near the ford. For the humans, that cover meant having a reasonable position from which they could mount effective fires out upon the ford itself, a secure spot from which they could mow down the wading Warriors. Conversely, for the Hkh’Rkh, the wrecked APCs signified a means of getting a toehold on the shore, which also provided a slim but crucial shield for the forces struggling to get across. “Steve, do you know if Dugout One had enough time to finish rigging the APCs with demo charges?”
“They did, but they can’t blow them.”
“What? Why? Didn’t they run the hardwire detonators?”
“They did, but they tested negative just a few minutes ago. Best guess is that the wires were severed, probably by fire.”
“Then they’ve got to send out a team to find the break and repair it.”
Rodermund was silent for a long second. “That will be—expensive, sir. The wire crosses exposed ground and the Hkh’Rkh have managed to get small flanking toeholds to either side of the ford.”
Caine forced himself not to close his eyes as his stomach lurched against the words he had to say. “Understood. But you are to relay those orders, nonetheless. And they must carry them out ASAP. That is mission-imperative.” He wondered how many men he had just killed with that order. They’d be submariners, mostly. Men who had been snatched from the jaws of death in the Sea of Japan, carried off in cold sleep to a world twenty-one light-years away, awaking one hundred and seventy-eight years later—just to die checking exposed demolition wires on a minor colony world during a firefight spawned by stupidity and chance. Riordan flinched away from any further reflection on that grim fate—and that he had condemned them to it. “Word on the other fords?”
“No words, but like I said, a few glimpses. Your remote-control robot broke the momentum of the attack on the middle ford. It seems to be building again. I can’t see midstream, but my guess is that the enemy recovery is pretty wobbly: they don’t seem to be getting ahead of their casualty rate. What does EXHALTED show?”
Riordan glanced at the bird’s-eye view, saw no change. “EXHALTEDs are blind on the middle ford. The new burning APCs, in addition to the old ones set on fire by the MULTI strikes, have completely blocked the overhead view. But I’ve got another way to direct the fire, if you think another salvo from our tubes would drive them back.”
“I do think that. But the real problem is the south ford. That’s where the snorks have committed their remaining forces. They’ve almost overrun Dugout Seven two times, now. And I think they’re about to try it again. If it wasn’t for the FASCAMs, they’d have gone through us already.”
“And the support from MULTI Five isn’t enough?”
“Not so far. Every time MULTI Five has to stop and reload tubes, the snorks get another platoon into the beachhead. But one of the Hinds could turn that situation around pretty quickly, I think.”
Riordan glanced at the readouts on the flare: still too dangerous to fly. “Can’t send one yet. Recommendations, Colonel?”
“If you believe in the power of prayer, you might try that.”
“Steve, I’m serious.”
“So am I. Every other asset we have is tied up. Dugout Six tried a flank attack to relieve Dugout Seven, got mauled. We can’t retarget MULTI Four to help out; it’s essential to holding the middle ford. The only hammer left unswung is Puller.”
Riordan heard the hanging tone. “Steve, if I put Puller in the air, I jeopardize everything. If the Hkh’Rkh have any missiles left, that’s probably the target they’re waiting for. And I’ve got no way of knowing if the ship that launched the railgun attack has closed in enough to try to hit us from orbit. Either way, damage to Puller could compromise whatever central comms we have left, including the links to Bannor’s team and the Proxie.”
“Then I guess it’s a race between how long Wu can hold on at the south ford and how soon the flare fades to the point where you can risk putting our choppers back in the air.”
And if we can keep our strung out comm links patched together, and keep both the netcentric and local versions of Know-It-All running long enough. But what he said was, “Tell me, Steve: do you believe in the power of prayer?”
Rodermund was silent for three whole seconds. “Haven’t for years. But I might give it a try today.”
And although he didn’t intend it as an invocation to a deity, Riordan thought: Amen to that.
Chapter Fifty-Three
KAKAAGSUKH RIVER VALLEY, BD+56 2966 TWO (“TURKH’SAAR”)
Matthew Fanny popped his head and arms out of his fighting hole, sighted on two Hkh’Rkh running toward Dugout Four. They were using the apelike, four-legged run they occasionally adopted when they weren’t carrying long arms. Which meant that they were going to try to get into grenade range. Again.
His CoBro set for four-round bursts, Fanny tapped the first, who went down. That prompted the second to stop, rear back, grabbing one of their soft-ball sized grenades off its equivalent of web gear. The Warrior’s torso filled the sight picture in the rifle’s scope; Fanny squeezed the trigger.
