

Tactics of Delay

Louis Shalako

Copyright 2017 Louis Shalako and Long Cool One Books

Design: J. Thornton

ISBN 978-1-988621-10-4

The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author's imagination.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

About Louis Shalako

Tactics of Delay

Louis Shalako

Chapter One

Captain Dona Graham sat, sweating it out in the anteroom with two dozen other relatively junior officers.

She had received written orders to attend. That was all the information she had. It was also three days of travel, covering a fair swath of the galaxy. She'd been given vouchers for transport, food and accommodation. These were thorough if not lavish.

Her job was being covered by an assistant, who would do well enough. There were some pangs of regret for her students, most of whom she would never see again.

There could only be one reason for all of this.

Something was up, and it could only be one thing. There was a war on, or there shortly would be.

Somewhere.

Secretaries ushered people in and out of a row of offices along the back wall. Phones and communicators buzzed at the reception desk.

The voices were low, calm and unhurried.

The rest of them sat and waited.

The air of tension was unmistakeable.

She would be reassigned, and so would the others. Some of them were distinctly pale. Some of them seemed terribly young. The young man sitting directly across from Dona chewed his lip, checking out the room from the corner of one eye.

The eyes came up, met hers, and a faint grin passed over the narrow but intelligent features.

He gave a quick shrug and looked away, assessing the competition. They exchanged another look and now it was Graham's turn to shrug, raise her eyebrows and settle a little further into her seat.

The door in the middle of the long back wall opened. A Brigadier-General came out, looking pleased.

"As you were, ladies and gentlemen." Anywhere else, they would have been leaping to their feet to salute.

There was a sign on the door that said otherwise.

In this environment, top-heavy with brass, and numerous enlisted troopers busy rushing about, efficiency demanded some slackening of military decorum. Otherwise nothing would ever get done.

People's arms would wear out from the sheer saluting.

The pale blue eyes, not without their humour, focused on Dona.

"Ah, Graham."

Now was the time to get up.

The Brigadier's big paw extended, Captain Graham took a quick stride and they shook hands.

"Good morning, sir. Good to see you again."

Brigadier-General Brant had taught for a few years at the Staff College, where Dona had held a teaching position in the History department, at least until a few days ago.

He ran his eyes up and down her frame of a hundred and eighty-eight centimetres.

Apparently, the Brigadier approved.

"So, how's your father?" Brant and Colonel Dudley Graham had served together thirty years previously, in a particularly vicious little war that had long since been forgotten by everyone but them.

Such bonds, once made, were not easily broken. They got together when they could.

"Oh, you know him. Just as stubborn as ever, sir."

The Brigadier reached up and gave her bicep a squeeze as every eye and ear in the room followed along. It was better than him ruffling Dona's hair, but not by much.

"That's always a good trait. Mostly. Jesus, H. Christ. What are they feeding you people down there? Anyways, good luck to you."

There were muted chuckles and looks exchanged. They were keeping out of it, but it was a public place and these two were obviously old friends.

"Ah, sir?"

Good luck?

That sounded ominous.

"Don't worry. They'll tell you all about it." Brant smiled, nodded around the room, and with one last quick wave, headed for the door in his usual bulldog posture, head down a bit but the shoulders wide and well back.

The door of the inner office opened again and a captain in full dress uniform poked his head out.

"Graham."

"Sir."

Those beady black eyes swept the room.

"Aaron."

"Sir." It was the intelligent one, the cool one from the other side, the opposing row of generic upholstered office chairs lined up in what could have been any civilian business interior.

Those dark eyes flicked back, assessing her as he unfolded himself.

They were both standing now. If anything, Lieutenant Aaron was somewhat taller than Dona, which was really saying something.

"Follow me, please. We're running a bit late."

So.

This was it, then.

Chapter Two

They came in, stopped at the regulation two metres from the desk and saluted. The captain moved around the side of the desk to take a chair behind the stolid figures encamped there.

"Sit down, please."

Heart beating strongly in her chest, Graham took a seat in front of the desk with Lieutenant Aaron on her left.

They were looking at a genuine three-star general, the rugged old face with its pocked skin, jutting chin and broken nose recognizable anywhere. Two colonels, a brigadier and a couple of civilians flanked him on each side.

General Curtis Renaldo spoke.

"First of all, congratulations. Captain Graham, you're now brevetted to Lieutenant-Colonel. Temporarily, for the duration. Aaron, congratulations as well. You'll be pleased to know that you are now a Captain. That's a proper promotion, with no going back." If that didn't shove a ramrod up your ass, nothing would. "Assuming you don't screw up. Your assignment is a tough one. Read and review everything provided. Your transport leaves in about fourteen hours. We're fairly well-stocked here. Let us know in good time if there's anything special you need. Space is limited. We're sending along a company of experienced troops. That takes up about half of the available space."

"Sir."

"Yes, Graham?"

"What is our mission?"

She and Aaron were already scanning the headings at least, on the files that had just been input into their com units.

Looking up from his own display, the general was nodding.

"Yes. Your mission is to maintain a political, military and economic presence on the planet Denebola-Seven. You'll have limited forces at your disposal. The worst part is that the Unfriendlies are reinforcing. That's straight from Intelligence."

Aaron nudged Graham with his elbow, holding his screen down low but in front where Dona could get a quick look.

"Their obvious goal is to secure the planet for their clients. Assuming the clients can actually pay the bill. Otherwise they own it by default, relying on the fact that possession is nine-tenths of the law in any eventual peace settlement. We'd like to prevent that. Without a clear victory, such claims are always disputed. The fact that resistance was made carries a great deal of weight in negotiations. The native Denebis, as well as the colonists, have signed agreements in place for their defense and we must honour those commitments or our reputation suffers."

It would also be helpful if they won.

Graham was listening and skimming data.

Holy. They had been given some of the highest security clearances she'd ever seen, including one or two she'd never heard of.

"Sir?"

"As a student of history, Colonel Graham, you will perhaps understand the significance when I tell you that we have intelligence of an ultra nature."

Graham's mouth opened and closed as Captain Aaron, still marveling, listened intently although perhaps not catching the allusion.

"That's right. We've cracked their codes. At least some of it." The general leaned back, folding his hands across an ample but probably rock-hard belly. "It might very well be a trick. And even if it isn't, logic dictates that we must be rather selective in how we use that sort of information."

She stared into those hard, tired eyes.

"Unfortunately, you will be on the ground. There will be minimal guidance, or even contact with Fleet or Command. We're just too far away. Our forces—especially ships, are limited. Ultimately, the decisions must be yours. Read those notes very carefully, please."

"Yes, sir." It was right out of the book, but it was also true.

If true, intel from coded enemy transmissions might be priceless.

"There are certain resources on Deneb. The Unfriendlies have dispatched a brigade group, upwards of five thousand troops. Straight from Shiloh. All fucking farm-kids, green as grass. With the political and economic situation on the home world, they're probably glad for the foreign exchange. Judging by the order of battle, these are mostly garrison troops. There is a regiment of Guards. Considering your own forces, they're the ones most likely to present you with problems."

Guards units were very much shock troops, better trained, better equipped and heavily indoctrinated with Unfriendly ideology. Run-of-the-mill troops were expected to hold the ground others had taken for them. Discipline was harsh and unimaginative, the penalties severe.

With such raw material, perhaps that was inevitable. On Shiloh, leadership was hereditary, scions of old families supplying the military schools with an endless stream of those seeking fame, fortune and glory for their houses.

It also made it very difficult for a more natural talent to rise. That wasn't exactly her problem here today, was it—

"Yes, sir."

"All right. If you have any questions, contact Captain Bannister here."

The captain raised his hand and piped up.

"My number is on the top of your brief. If there's anything, anything you need to know, any particular piece of equipment that you want, any person that you want, I will do what it takes to get it to you if humanly possible."

"Are there any questions?"

As senior officer, Graham glanced at Aaron. She wasn't in shock, exactly. She'd already sort of known.

But she really couldn't think of anything.

"No, sir—not yet, anyways. We'll need a few minutes on that one." Captain Aaron.

The general laughed and the others nodded along. She couldn't help but smile herself. Captain Aaron wasn't intimidated by all the senior officers, and that was usually a pretty good sign. The enemy would be just as tough—and a lot more dangerous.

"Very well. Fair enough. Good luck to you—and look after yourselves."

"General?"

"Yes, Colonel Graham."

"Why me? Why us?" Surely there were others better qualified.

At least in her case—she knew nothing about Aaron.

"The Organization has its mysterious ways, as we all know. Having contracted for aid in the defence of the Confederation and its constituent members, we are bringing all of our unique expertise to bear on the current problem in an agile, and cost-effective way. We will honour our obligations. That will be all, and thank you for coming here today."

They were dismissed.

***

They'd been allocated a barren office cubicle for the few short hours before departure.

There were desks and notepads, databank units and secure phones, half-decent chairs, even a coffee-maker.

"Wow." The newly-minted Captain Paul Aaron was a bit overwhelmed.

There was the question of time, a bad case of information overload, plus the fact that they had some tough choices to make.

"Yes. Let's be smart here. All of those other candidates—they were in there for something. And plenty more are lining up at fifteen-minute intervals. There's a pretty small pool of available personnel here on base. We'd better start grabbing some names."

"Shit. Yes, Colonel."

"Okay. We have a reconnaissance company. Captain Herzon commanding. We'll get in touch with him first. Get him down here. Tell him that's an order, and I want to speak to his adjutant as well." Lieutenant What's His Name.

Aaron found the proper file.

"Yes, sir, ah, ma'am." Aaron might have been in shock too. "They have combat experience, and they are relatively up to strength. The file says they're still waiting for replacements, some specialists. Also including a couple of sergeants. Maybe we can help them with that. Take a look at this guy here, Colonel."

Her display blipped and a name and a face came up.

Graham skimmed the extensive file quickly, then grinned ruefully.

"Okay. Let's see if he wants to go—if he will have us." This was no joke. "The other thing is that we'll be breaking up into smaller formations. The more experience, the better. The more training, the better."

Gunnery sergeants often had a long resume and this one was no exception. They could pick and choose where others might be a bit more desperate for employment. Uninterested or even unfit for command, for whatever reason, these guys led from the front and by example.

In a mercenary organization, any kind of service was strictly voluntary. People weren't drafted so much as asked, and one could always refuse. Very few questions would be asked. However, once signed onto a mission, they were committed and it was best for all concerned to remember that.

It all came down to blood and treasure. You had signed a contract, and you lived or died by it.

My blood, your treasure...

There was always the next of kin, or in the odd case, some unknowing charity somewhere.

She'd thought about that one herself.

"Okay. So what about materiel?"

"Make the call. Calls. Talk to the people. I'm just looking at that now."

***

With only limited space on the transport, their shopping list would have to be short. The recon company had their own weapons and vehicles, but there was room for a few more. Without knowing the exact composition of the enemy force or how they might be equipped, it was purely a guessing game. They decided on a simple mix of light and heavy weapons, all mobile. Light vehicles, as many as possible. There would be a limited number of reloads for the big stuff, but plenty of ammunition for personal weapons.

Comparing it to the list of materiel on Deneb, it looked like a rational set-up. The troops would have no problems in operating the equipment. The troops on the ground had some urgent needs and they'd squeeze in whatever additional materiel they could. Considering the small numbers, two or three tonnes of real luxury goods might do a lot for morale—

Unfriendly Guards units could be either infantry or armoured, air or space-borne assault, alpine, marine troops and the like. This one was armoured, but nothing could be confirmed until they saw the whites of their eyes—the usual story with military intel.

There were friendly troops on the ground. With full information on their status, they could fill in some gaps and enhance their capabilities with some carefully-chosen weapons systems. The planet basically fed itself, although it was as dependent as any other on imported luxuries. The troops were essentially no different. The cooks would use local suppliers for mess. The troops would have hard rations when away from base. Some of the standard-issue rations were better appreciated than others—the spaghetti was one thing, the so-called beef stew quite another.

Anything claiming to be fish was usually an abomination and everyone knew it. One taste was usually enough.

There were only so many options, and there were other vital stores that had to go aboard ship.

The ship had an emergency overload capacity of plus ten percent, and they were using up some of that but not all. The load included about a half a tonne of freshly-printed money. Paper and plastic, coins and a long string of pre-deposit codes. This was a big enough headache in itself.

Wars ran on money, and that was just the truth.

In the end, they had run out of time. They still barely knew each other.

Chapter Three

With Unfriendly forces inbound or in the area, their arrival on-planet was more of an insertion than a landing.

Escorted by a pair of destroyers of the Confederation, their transport, the Eliza, had arrived in-system with no major enemy vessels detectable. The destroyers had peeled off, waiting to rendezvous with Eliza after one very quick turnaround.

It was a high-energy approach, with tight radii and rapid decelerations.

Eliza, approaching in a fast spiral from the far side of the planet, had hopefully been undetected by ground-based sensors but that wouldn't last for long.

"Hang on." There were over a hundred and fifty of them in there, scattered all up and down along the freight deck.

The load was exquisitely balanced on the centres of thrust, maneuver and braking. The warm-blooded part of the cargo was almost an afterthought. People were easier to stow, whether strapped in thin aluminum and plastic-web seats or hanging in a sling-net from the rafters.

The ship vibrated and moaned in the upper atmosphere, the jostling intense as people bounced around in their straps.

"All secure."

Her officer's voices rang in the background, cheerful and confident. They were keeping an eye on things and joshing with the troops. Up front, just above her shoulder, on the other side of the hatch, the pilots were engaged in their own little world, plotting to the second when they should be able to get off the ground again—just more pressure and nothing to be done about that.

If she cared to look, there would be men and women, young and scared, watching her for any kind of a sign.

Then there was Gunnery Sergeant Kelly. Ten metres away on the port side of the ship, the man hung in the gap between cargo nets and the walls of the ship with perfect aplomb. Some would have found it claustrophobic. Dona wasn't so sure she would have liked it much herself. The cargo, even the vehicles, strapped down as they were, heaved up and down on their tires, left and right with the momentum of every turn. He couldn't even let himself down, relying on others to do that for him. It was a sign of confidence, she supposed. Anyone who screwed up that operation was going to get one big blast.

She almost laughed.

Every strap and line hummed and twanged with the tension.

Kelly had been there before, of course, where so many of them hadn't. Four major campaigns, wounded twice, refused promotion more than once. Decorations, which he didn't wear. The savings out of pay were impressive. Bonuses, which he sent back to his elderly parents on Old Earth. His needs were simple, apparently, and he'd signed on without hesitation. That was all she knew.

That and the fact that he looked the part—not real tall, but grizzled, compact and positively bristling with energy.

As for Dona Graham, she was head down, reading as much as she could jam in before touchdown. She needed to know everything there was to know about the place, its people and its terrain. Her own people were also on that reading list.

As far as leaving that part a bit late, her first study had been of the enemy, the local economy and the road network.

That wasn't saying much. There was hardly anything down there.

The co-pilot spoke in her ears. Major Chan, Captain Aaron in the rear of the compartment would hear it too.

This was the command circuit.

"Ground's coming up, thirty seconds. We're coming in a bit hot, so make sure everything is secure."

"Thank you. I think we're okay."

There wasn't much to see out of the tiny portholes stretching the length of the cargo bay. The big display screen on the rear wall of the crew compartment lit up. There was a view straight ahead and down, very much down as the crew tried to kill energy and neither overshoot nor undershoot.

The nose came up, bleeding off speed. They all gained a lot of weight in a hurry, and she sank into her seat insofar as that was actually possible in the thin aluminium bucket.

The ship, creaking audibly from frame members and bulkhead joints, went into another hard turn. From her position, watching it was hard on the neck under the gee-load and she decided to ignore the view and trust to their pilots. It was hard enough just keeping the breath in her body.

"Ten seconds. Brace yourselves."

The good ship Eliza, CT-119, a combat transport, had the latest threat-detection systems. If there was anything out there, no one up front was saying anything. Unarmed, their only hope lay in flight and the active defense systems designed to defeat missiles, jam radars and fool optical tracking systems.

Borderline obsolete, the ship was expendable, pulled out of mothballs and recommissioned. She was under short-term lease from the Kant system, an independent entity under the umbrella of the Confederation. She'd always thought of them as the psychological planets.

There was no colourful nose art on the front end. That sort of shit was pointless these days...Eliza probably wouldn't be around long enough to justify that kind of effort.

The crew were all volunteers. Highly-paid, but volunteers nevertheless. It's not like they loved the thing—

"Okay, people, here we are."

The sky was gone, it was all dirt and hills and scenery.

They must have hit pretty hard. The first bounce was a big one and there were shouts and curses all up and down the line. That second one came right up through the tailbone, echoing around the teeth and up into the top of the skull.

Confederation troops were trained in military Anglic, but there were one or two unfamiliar words in there. These could hardly be complimentary.

There was another big bash from the bottom and then they were skidding along a grass strip of about two kilometres in length. The actual runway was on their right. The noise was overwhelming. With the ship relatively level, only a small patch of ground was visible in the view-screen. The rest of the picture was deep blue sky and fluffy white clouds and a big flare where the sun should be.

The retros fired, one more big noise.

"Hang on...hang on...wait for it."

The ship finally slowed and then stopped, hooking a bit left at the last second. The ship had heeled to the right discernably, not enough to interfere with unloading. It was unbelievably quiet, but only for a moment.

There were some muted cheers and a few nervous laughs. There were electric motor and gearbox noises from the ground-maneuvering system and the ship was already leveling itself.

Someone was still puking. Somewhere off in the background noise.

"Doors opening. Stay clear. I repeat. Stay clear." Daylight flooded in from the after end and the smaller side hatches as people struggled up and out of the straps and the seats.

"All right, people. Everybody out. Remember your assignments."

The nearest exit was five metres away and Dona headed for it. Captain Aaron and several other officers followed, a small squad of enlisted rank carried communications equipment and weapons slung in case of trouble.

So far, it seemed pretty quiet out there.

When she got to the hatch, she was pretty much blinded for a moment, but the stairs were deployed and there were handrails. People were jostling from behind and she scuttled down.

Dark forms flurried forward and someone took her right hand in a strong grip.

"Welcome to the planet Denebola-Seven, Colonel. We are sure as hell glad to see you, ladies and gentlemen."

"Thank you. We'll need as many people as you can spare. Let's get this thing unloaded. The pilots are engines-hot and anxious to get going."

Her eyes adjusting, Graham saw that the need had been anticipated. There were already growing piles of equipment and supplies outside of each hatch and there were voices yelling back and forth in the interior of the ship. People milled around, getting their bearings as Kelly and the security squad sprinted off towards the nearest tree-line. The airfield was north-northeast of the town of Roussef, in one of the longitudinal, flat-bottomed valleys where most of the planet's agriculture was carried on.

They were surrounded by steep hills of five hundred to a thousand metres at about the same distance. The vegetation above was spotty, all rock in some places and a lot of brush in others.

The darkest clumps would be plantations of imported Terran species, a valuable resource locally and for export. It had its beauty.

First impressions are lasting ones—

"All taken care of, Colonel. Please, if you would like to step this way, we have transportation back to the command centre—"

"If you don't mind, I'd like to hold up for just a minute."

"Of course, Colonel."

Graham turned to a slight figure at her side.

"Major, I want you to take charge here." When in command, command—the voice of her father speaking.

Shut up now.

"Right." Major Victoria Chan snapped a quick salute and turned away towards the rear loading doors where the bulk of the cargo and the vehicles would have to be unloaded.

Graham took a more leisurely walk down there, the rest following along. She gave a firm nod to one or two troopers, but said nothing as she turned back to the line of vehicles.

Everyone seemed to be busy.

Vicky would have no problems with this crew.

"Right. Let's go."

The lieutenant beckoned at the open side door of a good-sized all-terrain utility truck.

There was room for six or seven, there were leather seats and a rather pretty young trooper sat at the wheel, eyes a bit wide and taking it all in.

CT-119 was probably the biggest ship that had ever landed there, not since the initial colonization ships decades previously, which might have accounted for it. The actual paved surface was for light aircraft and would never have supported Eliza's weight and a kinetic landing designed to get her off again with max fuel capacity. The ship had a long run ahead of her.

Other troops and officers piled into a second and third vehicle, all rather civilian-looking in dull black, charcoal grey and even a dark blue one. Their original planetary contingent had debarked at Deneb City, a much larger facility.

Doors thudded closed.

Graham turned to the nearest one and stuck out a hand.

"Graham."

"Tanguy. Jerri."

The girl at the wheel let out the clutch and they were moving.

"Okay. Get on the horn and let people know. Briefing as soon as the ship is unloaded. We can leave the troops and as many rolling units as possible moving all of that to secure storage—the hangars on the field are a bit too obvious, although that will be a good place to start."

"Yes, Colonel."

"My people know all of this and they have their instructions. I've given them one hour to clear a few hundred tonnes and I've got a funny feeling they can do it." Everything was crated and palletted and the ship had its own material handling system. "However, I need to be briefed and then I might have a few things to share as well. What is the status of the enemy?"

"Haven't seen hide nor hair of them, Colonel. They have their main detachment in the big city, and that's why our troops had to withdraw. We were originally contracted as police for the colony, and sometimes a bit of honest persuasion as far as the natives are concerned. We were never intended for any serious planetary defense. The natives actually like us, incidentally. We put down a couple of disturbances, which probably saved them from massacring each other—the elders know that even if some of the younger hotheads don't. This was a couple of years ago. As for the Unfriendlies, they put down a thousand troops where we had maybe two hundred and thirty." The other thing was that the Confederation's hired mercenaries were relatively impartial in administering justice to colonists and natives alike.

It was in the Contract and they were being paid for their time.

It might not have been that way before. She wound up this aside before Dona had to cut her off.

Best to let them talk sometimes—when one had a minute. The road slid past, at roughly sixty-five kilometres an hour.

"What have they been doing."

"About what you'd expect. Still unloading the ships. Haven't even refueled them yet. Building checkpoints, some small field fortifications around the port, and most likely, waiting for reinforcements and considering themselves lucky. They're being remarkably smart. If the main body is down yet, there's no sign of them so far. Deneb City is about a hundred and ninety kilometres southwest. If they brought ships of any size down there, we really ought to have seen something. Let alone detected it." The other thing was, none of their civilian contacts in Deneb had seen or heard anything of the sort. "It's only a matter of time before they send a patrol up the road."

They had so many contacts among the local colonists, the information almost had to be genuine.

"Right."

Looking out the window, Colonel Dona Graham, on her first major combat command, took a good, long look at the terrain.

Chapter Four

When the initial Unfriendly landing began, all the small contingent in Deneb City could do was to withdraw. Their other options were to fight and be overwhelmed, or simply surrender. No one had been able to think of a fourth option...

With only a few hundred Confederation troops on the whole planet, their number one priority was to preserve their force and to maintain a presence.

Their command post in the small town of Roussef had been selected in some haste. Dona was pleased to see that they hadn't taken the biggest hotel in the middle of town. That would have been a little too easy. Not just for them but for the enemy. City Hall, the police station, any substantial building, were pretty obvious targets and the Unfriendlies would have all the usual strike weapons.

Sooner or later, those would be attempted—

Before then, all of the most obvious targets would have to be cleared of military and civil populations.

The small cavalcade arrived in front of a large, industrial warehouse on the outskirts of town.

The big truck doors along one side were open and the vehicles drove straight in. All the machines, grinders, cutters, jigs and other industrial equipment had been uprooted and jammed together in the far end of the building. It looked to have been a pretty big welding and fabrication shop, an impression reinforced by racks of angle-iron, channel-section steel and the low stacks of steel plate laying on squared baulks of timber on the ground outside. Their business was the manufacture of steel trusses and pre-fabricated buildings by the look of some unfinished work hastily cleared into the outdoors.

Pulling up in front of the heavily sandbagged office section of the facility, everyone got out and headed up a half-flight of steps into a large, well-lit room full of computer screens, people wearing headsets, and the backup display units of defensive systems. All the exterior windows had been blacked out for night-time operations. Interior windows looked out onto the shop floor, dimly lit by the yellow orbs of the overhead fixtures. There were curtains for those windows as well, as people and vehicles would be coming and going by night. The sandbagging was internal, so as not to give anything away to air or space-borne observation.

She would have speak to people about blackout operations. Just one more thing, or rather, one of many things, as there were going to be problems with radio traffic as well. Even laser wasn't one-hundred percent secure. Not with the antenna sitting right outside the door.

When the enemy got closer, sonic detection might play a role. The thing there was that the enemy had to attack, while the Confederation would sit tight, keep quiet and prepare a defense. It was a case of reading the enemy's mind, a tough thing in operations of any size at all.

"Come this way please."

On the other side of the room was a series of smaller offices and conference rooms, where presumably, the Major would be found. The lieutenant had the com unit up to her ear and led the way to a door near the end of the row.

There were three or four officers and troopers in the room. The one behind the desk stood up.

The lieutenant made the introductions.

"Major Taylin, This is Lieutenant-Colonel Graham and Captain Aaron. Unless you need me for something else—"

"No, that's fine, Lieutenant. Welcome ladies, and gentlemen, and congratulations."

"Thank you, Major. Or Colonel, as soon as you're on your way. Congratulations on your own reassignment. Our condolences regarding Colonel Pace, incidentally." The former commander had died of a sudden heart attack.

Her brief said that his people had liked him and she sort of had to accept that at face value.

For the sake of military propriety, Taylin's promotion would take effect as soon as he cleared ground.

This simplified the present relationship.

"What's the situation? I understand the pilots want to take off within the hour—"

"Thank you. A lot of our people are new, but I've made a few friends here. I will miss them." The major paused, standing in front of a genuine paper map, several sheets pieced together on the otherwise featureless rear wall of the room. "There's a fair bit of information, so let's get started."

In his early forties, making colonel might have been a bit of a relief in a career that hadn't been going too far too fast. Not until his commanding officer died, and then the Unfriendlies came down. At which point he'd handled the situation with few losses and keeping the force's capabilities sharp and relevant. All of a sudden he had a lot more seniority than people like Graham, and he had been needed elsewhere. This might have explained his rapid departure from a mission he presumably knew well enough.

"As for the situation. Nothing much has changed since our last report. We've concentrated our force here, with small detachments in surrounding villages. We're keeping an eye on the sky and the road network. The most important detachment is about a hundred and seventy kilometres southeast of here, in Walzbruch." Founded by Poles, the town was a support centre for the mining of heavy metals, with the several active mines in the area a strategic resource in this sector of the galaxy.

Right out of the book, in other words, and sometimes that was a good thing.

"We've got two platoons down there, providing security and making sure our civilian friends carry out the demolitions properly, which they have agreed to do." There weren't a whole lot of qualified people available, civil or military, and there was plenty of work to be done.

The door opened and a lance-corporal stuck her head in. On seeing the new faces, she entered fully and saluted.

"Sir? Your bags are all packed. We're pretty sure we haven't missed anything." She eyed a small stack of boxes just inside the doorway. "We'll start loading that now, sir, if that's all right."

"Carry on, thank you." The Major would be taking the Colonel's body and personal effects along, as well as a few troopers whose contracts had expired.

Some people had chosen not to re-up and that was their option, especially so as transport was available to get off-planet. The cut in pay from combat status to available status might have been worth it to them, for any number of reasons. Some people specialized in security and police duties. They tended to live longer and even have families—sometimes. Some had never envisaged anything other than a short term contract—the old five years and then out sort of thing. A five-year hitch and then an honourable discharge qualified a person for the minimum of pensions—little better than subsistence, but people had signed on for less. They might have contributed the max out of their pay and thought it was time to go—

With the Confederation's mandatory savings program and the honourable discharge bonus, it represented a small grub-stake for their new civilian life. Money to spend while awaiting their next plum assignment—

They didn't always have to have a reason.

The corporal spoke into her unit. More troopers appeared to do the actual lifting. They each grabbed a box and headed out again. Presumably, the Colonel was all boxed-up and around there somewhere—probably down at the food-processing plant.

That would be the biggest meat-locker in town. Either that or the morgue.

Her own com-unit buzzed. The others would wait.

"Yes?"

"Chan here. We're just clearing the last of the crates. The vehicles are all out, no problems in start-up. They're green for go. The pilots are inquiring after our passengers."

"Roger that. They're on their way."

She looked at the others in the room.

"Well. Goodbye and good luck, Major. As for the rest of you, briefing in fifteen minutes. All senior officers down to sergeants. Carry on."

With a slight air of sadness, the Major indicated a seat behind the desk, which was now hers and hers alone.

That's why they called it the hot-seat.

"We've got a bit of time here, Colonel, so let's go over a few more things."

"Yes. Thank you. Major. Take all the time you need. The ship's not going anywhere without you."

***

With such a small force, those officers on scene all fit into a moderately-sized conference room.

The commanders of remote detachments were watching and listening from their own positions via tight-beam laser, bounced back and forth from a satellite above.

With their bright and eager faces on the screens bolted high up on the walls all around the perimeter, it was a chance to get to know each other as much as anything else.

Colonel Graham had begun the briefing by letting the officers on the ground explain the situation.

Lieutenant Wheeler was up first. Her specialty was administration and logistics according to Dona's notes.

The biggest screen displayed a map, a rectangular section snipped from a radius of about three hundred kilometres.

"Okay. We've sent detachments here, here and here. In order to provide adequate security here in Roussef, we've already committed a sizable proportion of our force. We have no choice but to keep Deneb City and the spaceport under observation. That's a very small force. Before his unfortunate passing, the colonel decided to make sure the some of the major mine equipment is destroyed. He lived just long enough to see the Unfriendlies come down. We believe he had been ailing for some time. That's Highway Three that I am referring to, and don't ask us about the numbering system. That's actually a bit further up the road from Walzbruch. There are a couple of big operations and a handful of smaller operators. However, even though it's the long way around, a strong detachment at the road junction prevents surprise attack. It's a base for farther patrols. It provides security for the locals and might even be the basis of our own counterattack. The enemy has to take any mobile force with access to almost any good road, fairly seriously. At least until they determine its strength and composition. They will have little choice but to provide a blocking force. The mines are a strategic target. Essentially, if they can beat us, it's winner take-all. Surveys indicate the system is resource-rich by comparative standards. Arable land has always been precious. Moving on. With only one direct main road between here and Deneb City, it implies the threat of an outflanking maneuver." This was true for combatants on either side...

There were exactly three paved roads on Deneb, not counting those within city or town limits.

Everything else was improved dirt and gravel, clay roads or simple tracks through the bush.

Some of those tracks, still visible from space or airborne observation, had been used exactly once. Some tracks dated from the early days of colonization, and some had probably been made yesterday. Satellite maps were updated continuously.

Graham nodded.

"I don't have a problem with any of that. What's with this place here—" She highlighted it with a touch of her stylus.

The village was about forty-five kilometres north of Roussef. The first part of the road, still numbered one-seven, was paved, then it turned to 'improved gravel', whatever that meant. The creeks and ravines were bridged. Two really good-sized bridges at the north end. A thin straggle of settlement followed much of its length, leading out of Roussef and closer to Ryanville with a barren, unpopulated stretch roughly halfway between them.

"Ryanville was one of the early settlements. There's good hydro-power there and the original lumber-mill is still in existence, although it's small. Half the buildings of any size on Deneb use Ryanville wood products, studs, plywood, sub-flooring and the like." They had a fleet of trucks.

Some products went by air to outlying settlements, and didn't come cheap.

"Go on."

"It's a hunting and fishing community. There's some tourism. People make a living from it. It's the centre of its own little network of roads, petering out into what is essentially a temperate rain forest up there. The median elevation is a good thousand metres higher and that makes a big difference in terms of both rain and snowfall." According to Lieutenant Wheeler, the Terran population was about thirty-six hundred, with another few thousand dispersed over a few hundred square kilometres.

Nothing uncommon for a pioneering world. The whole planet had a population of less than a million, possibly a billion natives on top of that. No one had ever done a real census.

"It's late summer now and probably the nicest weather we see all year. Spring is wet and windy, summer is insufferably hot even at this elevation. Winter is as cold as hell. Late summer and early autumn can be glorious. It isn't always, or so we have been told. The orbit is slightly eccentric, with multi-year cycles in terms of apogee and perihelion. None of us have been on-planet for more than a year, a year and a half in some cases. But when fall really rolls around, there is absolutely no doubt that winter is coming."

The skies would grow grey and dark and the rains would come. After that, the rain, the mud, and then the big freeze-up.

This was hard on morale. Soldiers were nothing if not people.

Dona Graham understood that the bulk of them were on three and five-year contracts and that it had been a relatively happy command. On garrison duty, people could literally rent an apartment, or even get together and buy a house, selling their share to the next person when their hitch was done.

"Right."

"The thing is, they also have an airport. Several light aircraft, a handful of helicopters. Some small robotic cargo craft. We felt that it was best to secure these assets and provide security up there as well. It's also close to the biggest village of one of the major tribes. There are three or four actual towns up there. Nations, really. The native peoples are pretty settled, and although it's very much a subsistence economy, they're fairly prosperous as such things go. They don't have to work too hard. Producing a surplus of sorts allows them the luxury of warfare and religion. In relative terms, a highly-advanced culture. They use iron and copper and basic chemistry, without really understanding it. They've got some interesting toys, without actually having invented gunpowder or the steam engine. When the first colonists arrived, there wasn't a single stone building on the planet. They say that has changed due to imitation. It's like they'd never even thought of it before. Some sort of accident of cultural evolution, but there are one or two odd gaps that aren't accounted for by religious beliefs, for example. They like us for some reason which no one can explain. They also appreciate firmness and directness as opposed to double-talk and subterfuge. Before we got here, they were dealing with strictly commercial enterprises...no comment on that one. I just don't have any real facts. The natives feel hard done by in certain cases, big dams, open-pit mines and the like, which they may not have properly understood at the time of the original treaty negotiations. They may have understood the concepts, it was the scale that shocked them. They saw that and then maybe counted the money again. We can't assume anything about the natives, except that they are presently tolerating us as the political and economic situation currently stands."

"Very well. What about some of these other units."

"Ah, yes, Colonel. We have observation posts set up along any passable road. The locals can't help but be aware of them—a vehicle that is clearly military pulls up and starts cutting brush for camouflage, well. We're going to leave tracks going off the road, and depending how wet it is, and how deep the ruts are, it's not that easy to conceal. It sticks out like a sore thumb. They know their own backyard and their own neighbourhood. The roads are traveled pretty frequently. The distances are too far and no one really walks anywhere on this planet. Not Terrans, anyways. The teams do a bit of public relations and pick up whatever intelligence they can. We've been pushing those forward incrementally, and even in the real bush, up in the hills between here and Deneb City, we have a perimeter, a light one, out as far as forty kilometres in the southwest. That's a hundred and fifty kilometres northwest of Deneb City." The thinking there was that the troops could be pulled back fairly quickly, and that the enemy was unlikely to try an overland penetration.

Not on foot, anyways.

Dona studied the map. There were all kinds of marked tracks, the records of the planetary positioning systems going back forty or fifty years.

Ninety percent of the planet's population lived on small, scattered farmsteads. With very little in the way of social services, they were a pretty self-reliant bunch. This accounted for the spider-web of bad roads and the ubiquitous all-terrain vehicles. When people got hungry, they loaded up the gun, climbed into the vehicle, and went off looking for meat.

"They've been living by their wits for a very long time." With help so far away in any emergency, it didn't pay to be too stupid on Deneb, not for those outside of established settlements.

They saw everything that moved, and heard, or heard about, every damned little thing that happened.

Graham studied the main map, zooming in to examine villages, hamlets, crossroads, dead-end roads and tracks, swamps. Hills, rivers and terrain in general. Tiny black squares indicated houses, shacks, cabins, barns. Dotted lines for tracks through bush and swamp. A thin black line for a serviced road, two black lines and a bit of grey for pavement. Bridges, cuttings, lakes, rivers and dams, it was all there. The terrain reminded her of somewhere...Appalachia, she decided.

Lots of long, narrow ridges interspersed with even narrower valleys, due to the soft limestone bedrock and numberless torrential streams running through them. To the south lay the Great Desert, and to the north, some real lake and glacier country.

"How...how were all these little farmsteads, ah...initiated.'

"The people were literally dropped off by air, with a pile of supplies, tools and equipment."

"Oh, my, God."

"Yes. It's surprising that they survived at all. Some of them were in organized groups, and some of them, a lot of them, were one family or even just one person."

Wow.

"Very well. Tell me about your weapons and equipment."

The young Lieutenant looked around.

"Perhaps Lieutenant Tanguy would address this question."

"Right." A burly young woman in forest-pattern fatigues, Jerri Tanguy stepped forward as Lieutenant Wheeler moved aside.

She took a breath and a certain stance, then began.

"Okay. We have three teams in Deneb City. Two teams with Barker anti-materiel weapons are southeast and southwest of the spaceport, which is ten kilometres south of town. It's open, flat country although there is some light terrain-change." Those were teams of six. "We have another team on high ground watching the highway."

With the latest scopes, plus remote sensors left in place, they could see everything that moved.

Team Three in the city itself were presently scattered, in tall buildings with a view over the main drag and the city centre complex of buildings. Teams of two. They slept in rotation, with someone always on duty. They would shortly move to a more secure location.

Graham studied the map.

"They have four Panthers, which are four-wheel drive utility vehicles. They're hidden in good cover, within the security screen of each post. They're good for about three-quarters of a metric tonne and have seating for five or six. They're lightly-armed with automatic weapons. All teams have one chemical mortar, one shoulder-fired anti-aircraft tube and an assortment of personal weapons. Upon their own suggestion, they took a handful of mines, grenades, and remote sensor pickups. They have deployed enough of those to cover their own lines of retreat. Hopefully." If the shortest line of retreat was blocked, they could simply go to ground in broken country, or abandon the vehicles and evade on foot. "They can give any pursuer a rough time, that's for sure."

If necessary, they would seize civilian vehicles, leaving an official receipt.

Graham nodded. Pumas and Panthers were pretty common. In addition to having used them once or twice, she'd taken the time to look them up. Powered by fuel cells and electric motors, they could climb a seventy-degree slope if the ground was right. They were fast, reliable, easy to fix and anyone with legs and arms could drive them. Park them in the sun, and they would recharge in about three statute hours under local planetary conditions.

She had about a million questions.

"Do we have autumn camouflage?"

"Uh, yes, Colonel. That's a lot of pinks and greys and browns. We have good winter stuff too—proper snow-suits, insulated boots, helmet-covers, you name it. Lubricants, self-heating rations, everything we need."

"Okay. Now, what about Walzbruch."

"We sent two platoons of B Company. There were a few civilian police and a squad there already. They have a small militia detachment—weekend soldiers, some of them have some training. A few came up from Deneb City as well, and they're quartered in the gymnasium of a local high school. For the most part, it's a bit of a beer-drinking club. They have boots and uniforms and some light weapons. They drill on Thursday nights, do basic maneuvers on weekends. They have their summer maneuvers, and they also have a big role in the Denebola Day parades. A couple of antique armored cars—those are the guys from Deneb City. They buggered off about the same time we did. Ah. Back to our own troops. They're all equipped in similar fashion, Confederation-standard infantry rig. We also have trailered anti-air and anti-missile defense systems with the attendant radar and infrared detection systems." They had to be able to defend themselves, and at the same time, the equipment was not expendable. "Some of that is hidden in the hills overlooking Deneb City. With luck, we can get some people back there. They might be able to withdraw on back roads."

They had the bare minimum and not much more. A few extra clips per trooper was the best they could do.

"What about the civilian police?"

"They're on our side. As far as we know. They're private, corporate police, mostly responsible for site security, anti-pilfering, things like that." They had agreed to the necessity of destroying some of the plant equipment and were cooperating. "Every company has their own force, with the biggest company, TiCor, sort of taking leadership." Tanguy took a breath. "It's a civil government. When my little group landed a few months ago, about forty of us, the civilian police, private and public, met us at the spaceport and welcomed us with every appearance of sincerity."

"Hmn."

Walzbruch was very much a company town, Deneb City not much better. Roussef had a good mix of light industry, with no really big player to dominate the market or politically.

Ryanville wasn't incorporated, but it had a village or town council, volunteer fire and police.

Hmn.

"And their vehicles?" Dona meant the Confederation troops.

"Half a dozen Panthers, a dozen six-by-six trucks and the heavy transporters of the Mongoose missile systems." All vehicles had self-driving capability, with autonomous defense systems...food for thought there. "We've got some Pumas, which are basically good for half a ton and three, four people. Then there's the Hellions, our heaviest units."

There were nine of them.

The Mongoose could be used for air defence, but it was more suitable for surface-to-surface work. The warhead was big, far more than that required for air defence. It was also high-explosive, not so much the specialized, ball-bearings or chains of metal mesh thrown by air-to-air missiles.

"What else."

"Light arms, Barkers, machine guns and three light anti-tank tubes. Those are mounted on Panthers." The small arms were equipped with grenade launchers and a good number had night-scopes. "The tubes have been dismounted, and set up in good ambush positions."

A guard rotated through the missile positions, all of them qualified to lay and fire the system, and it would be set on auto in the event of a withdrawal. Heaven help anyone that came along after that...innocent or guilty.

Two platoons and a few already stationed there. That would be about fifty people, armed with the latest in VR combat technology. The local cops and maybe a few more militia.

The VR sets had all the latest anti-detection, anti-glint technology. The great thing about Panthers was the ability to bolt-on any light weapon system in a matter of minutes.

The thing to do was to leave them in place until the enemy made a move...

Wheeler was talking about the anti-tank capability of the Barker.

"It's a nice scope, the eye-piece is soft rubber and it keeps the light out—and in, when you really need it at night."

"I see. Who's in command down there and what are they reporting?"

"That's Lieutenant Sallet. Sergeant Kawaii is in charge of the second platoon. The original squad has been re-absorbed. First Platoon. Basically, we're just talking to the people. Travelers and anyone coming up from the big city are saying that the Unfriendlies have taken over in Deneb City, using main government buildings, the police station, et cetera. The enemy is digging in, mostly in defence of the spaceport, although they've sited some missile and artillery pieces to command the approaches." All they could do was to check civilian ID and backstories insofar as that was available on a pioneering planet without much social-media infrastructure. The civilians were not happy with the presence of the Unfriendlies, but in no real position to resist.

So far, no one really suspicious had come up the road.

The situation could be described as fluid.

Dona studied the icons on the main map screen. A battery here, a command post there. The main road between the port and the city.

"Colonel."

"Yes?"

A trooper stood up from his desk, holding onto something as he was blind to the real world in his headset.

"They're coming, Colonel."

Chapter Five

Three big assault ships, each sufficient to carry two or three thousand troops along with weapons, vehicles and all the paraphernalia of war. They were inbound, still out on the edge of the system, motors flaring with the thrust of deceleration. They had a respectable escort of frigates, sloops and a light cruiser of the Revelation class. Unless they were carrying troops or cargo, these would either break off or orbit...

The Confederation had nothing to oppose them. All they could do was to watch, and to some extent, marvel at history being written.

"Estimated time of arrival?"

"Six hours until orbit, a couple or three orbits to stabilize and plot their insertion. Anything up to an hour or an hour and a half after that, they'll be on the ground, hatches open. Based on their present numbers, Deneb City looks to be the most likely landing point. At the present time, all targets are still possible."

"What about Eliza?"

"They must have seen her, Colonel. No signs of pursuit though."

Tiny in size compared to most of the enemy ships, the Eliza had gotten clear. Accelerating at full throttle, the Unfriendlies, at full deceleration, had been caught flat-footed.

There was always a place in war for luck—as good an explanation as any.

Dona stood on the edge of a black precipice, the virtual reality headsets giving her a full view of the system, coloured tracks appearing among the background stars and the coloured dots of light indicating planets and other bodies in the system. If Erebus and Terror were out there, she couldn't see them.

Background star fields were completely new to her, although the major stars were labeled.

"How long until they go blind?" Hot plasma from their own braking engines would ensure this, at least until they had bled off most of their energy.

"Another hour or two, Colonel." The trooper's fingers flew over a keyboard only he could see.

A boxed pane appeared and then Colonel Graham could watch him do the math.

A figure appeared out of thin air.

One hour, thirty-six minutes and nineteen seconds, with some margin for error, plus or minus point-oh-three in pitch, yaw, roll and power axes. The window would last a little over four hours.

The more they slowed, the longer the window. Mass versus gravitation dictated their escape velocity, and therefore their orbital speed of a little under 38,900 k.p.h. The planet had a ten percent greater circumference than Earth but was slightly less dense. The math was simple, the ramifications more profound.

The clock was also ticking.

"Very well, and thank you."

Dona removed the standby headset and set it down on the desk by her right side.

She took a breath and a second to think.

"All right, ladies and gentlemen. We have some time. Let's use it. One, talk to me about drones and air cover."

"We have one Mark Seventeen surveillance satellite in geosynchronous orbit. It's in a position to monitor the battle area and also, with a bit of luck and a strong signal, any communications coming out of Milo." This was the only other major inhabited area of the planet, about four thousand kilometres southeast of the battle area. "We have three drones in crates. No one really has the ability to set them up and so we haven't done that. They can carry missiles, and we have a crate or two of those. Other than that, not much, really. Whatever we can improvise."

"Huh." Having foreseen the possibility, Dona had made sure to grab a couple of technical types.

Then there were civilian contractors—engineers and skilled people in the local population.

They had a budget for just such contingencies. With the local economy disrupted, they might be glad of the work.

"How vulnerable is the satellite?"

"They must have surmised we have something up there. Their capabilities are relatively well-known, and their ships will probably try and take it out if they can locate it with a fair degree of probability." Small and very stealthy, the Confederation satellite might be a hard target to find.

Milo had mines, water, and geothermal power generation. Its population, not including the surrounding area, was about forty-eight thousand people, and its small spaceport was geared mostly to automated cargo launchers and a landing field of three kilometres square. In all, there were about two hundred thousand people scattered within a radius of fifteen hundred kilometres of Milo. The road network looked like a spider-web, petering out into nothing.

It was another mining area, but there were other industries, including aromatic woods, exotic pets, and packaged, frozen meat for export among other things. A few hundred kilometres further south than Deneb City, there was grain farming and truck gardening, again mostly for export.

Electromagnetic linear-acceleration-type launchers would put packages up to low planetary orbit.

There they were scooped up by robotic tugs and then carried afar by interstellar ships, running mostly on automatic, although they were always manned by some nominal crew due to security concerns and age-old salvage law. The next big transport was from a neutral entity and a week or so out on the inbound track. Odds were, the ship would be diverted, or possibly parked in a holding orbit by the owners. Also under heavy deceleration, they were out of radio and laser contact. There was an airport, but the distances were such that it was strictly local stuff, moving people and stores to the various outlying installations. Communication between Milo and Deneb City was by robotic cargo-carrier, and small, jet-powered passenger service. The military and police detachments there were monitoring the situation and all communications. Other than that, there wasn't much they could do except to run and go to ground if Unfriendlies showed up.

Rather than take heavy casualties, it had been decided that Milo would be a sacrificial backwater in any extreme circumstances...

Dona felt the inexorable weight of gravity dragging her down. After the last few busy days, plus the inevitable lag of space travel and its well-known effect on the pineal system, all of a sudden she was one tired cookie.

Giving the officers of her new command the code to unlock a slew of files took but a moment. A tap of a button and everyone had the data. The people she had brought with her were well briefed and they already knew what they had to do.

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen. As soon as our window opens, we're going to push our lead units out as far as we can get in the time allotted. Until then, we sit tight and under cover. Make sure everyone knows that. Also, now that the Unfriendlies can see their friends coming down, they may very well begin patrolling aggressively in the hopes of finding out what we're up to. There is the possibility of a spoiling attack. So let's keep on our toes out there and don't take anything for granted. Their combat philosophy may be different than ours, and yes, the common soldier is a poorly-trained conscript. That doesn't mean they're stupid, incompetent, cowardly, or any less of a threat."

She heaved a bit of a sigh.

"Okay, so get to know each other. We've got a lot of new people and some old hands. Talk to each other. We already have a basic plan. It's all laid out for us. With local knowledge, maybe we can refine that plan. While we still have time to do it. Remember, our number one tenet in a situation where we are outnumbered, is a very simple one: violence of action."

Also, promptness of decision. As far as she was concerned, they were all in the hot-seat.

There was a short silence as they digested this. Going by their faces, there were questions but Dona had had enough after being up for thirty-plus hours continuously, ironing out the plan and a million other details. Throw in a high-energy landing, and it was like she'd been beaten with a stick.

"Captain Aaron. You have the hot-seat." That was the thing about being second-in-command, but Paul could stand another four hours.

He was as familiar with the plan as she was.

"Yes, Colonel."

"Now, if someone would just point me in the right direction, I need quarters. I could use a hot meal, a shower and a few hours of sleep before all of this breaks loose."

Lieutenant Wheeler spoke.

"Corporal, would you show the Colonel to her quarters, please?"

"Yes, Lieutenant. Colonel Graham. Would you please follow me. Someone will be bringing your bag along as soon as possible." The corporal turned and looked at the nearest trooper.

"Corporal." The fellow nodded and turned for the door.

"Thank you. Thank you very much."

***

Her bag was quickly located.

Dona was driven a short distance down the road to a cheerful, fieldstone-faced motor lodge on the south-eastern edge of town. The place had the look of an alpine chalet, with a big A-frame façade and plenty of exposed wooden beams visible through the all-glass front. She'd be trying the food soon enough. It was nothing if not convenient.

Leaving the vehicle running, the corporal nipped into the office and came out with the room key.

Colonel Graham would be staying in Nine, taking over from her predecessor in what was purported to be the largest and most luxurious unit.

"We've got an observation post about five kilometres out. I'll have some people patrol the woods up above, if you like. We can't spare too many, but we have some other folks staying here too." According to him, they had a few cameras out and someone would be monitoring them.

"Sounds good."

She would be staying in the Honeymoon Suite, or so he said in a subdued tone, glancing quickly over.

He drove another thirty metres and then parked.

The corporal leapt out with an energy that was frankly hard to watch, opening Dona's door and dragging her big duffel bag out of the bed of the vehicle, a four-wheel drive pickup with a plastic topper, all in a dull matte black.

"That's okay, Corporal. I'll take it." With the thirty kilos or so of the bag slung over her shoulder, Dona waited patiently while the corporal fiddled with the lock, which seemed recalcitrant.

"There we go, Colonel." Handing over the key, the fellow sketched a vague salute. "Push zero on the house phone if you want room service."

"What's your name, anyways?"

"Mike. Uh—sorry. Corporal Michael Haliwell."

"Thanks, Mike. I'm going to sleep for about three hours and then I want to go back to the command post."

"Consider it done. Colonel. Wake-up calls are a specialty."

"Thank you." This was it.

She was home for the duration.

***

There were lights on in the room and there was music going, soft and low. Something jazzy and romantic.

Maybe even a little bit sad.

With a grimace, Dona dropped the bag on the second of two good-sized beds.

There was the faint aroma of soap or perfume in the air, and something else—something pungent, reminiscent of a dead skunk on the road back home in sunny Indiana. A poignant memory. They'd left Earth when she was about nine years old.

In contrast to the outdoors, the humidity in the room was really something.

Sighing, wondering if there was a problem with the room's heating and cooling system, Dona began pulling off her boots. The socks were distinctly damp, the feet pale and impressed with the pattern of the knitted fabric.

"Ah, at last."

The jacket went on the rack by the door and the rest of her clothes over the back of a chair near enough the bed.

Dona was just getting up after pulling off the underwear and flinging it across in the general direction of the rest of the pile.

The bathroom door opened, a cloud of steam came out and then Dona was standing there naked as someone in a white robe stopped dead in their tracks.

***

She realized she was cowering before him, covering breasts and bush awkwardly. Dona straightened up, letting her arms drop to her sides. It was a relaxed but unmistakeable fighting stance...

"Wow."

"Who in the hell are you?"

There was amusement in those dark eyes.

"I'm sorry. I was a friend of the Colonel's."

"A friend."

"Yes. A very good friend. I'm sorry, I kind of knew you'd be along, but." The man sighed. "The truth is, I don't quite know where to go."

His eyes traveled over the duffel bag, the briefcase, and then the boots. Her socks on the floor where she had flung them, the clothes on the back of the chair.

"I'm terribly sorry, Colonel Graham." He looked down, taking in his own attire, the bare feet and hairy legs sticking out the bottom.

"Where are your clothes? And what the hell's your name, anyway?"

"I have shorts hanging on a hook in the bathroom. My name is Noya."

"That's it? Just Noya?"

"Ah, yes, Colonel."

Taking off the damp robe, still warm, he handed it off to a bemused Dona and then nipped back into the bathroom to get his shorts. He had firm, hairy buttocks, strong-looking legs and some pretty good shoulders. She couldn't help but notice.

Chapter Six

There was a knock at the door and Dona's alarm clock was going off.

She groaned, and then, remembering, sat up in bed.

"Just a minute."

Noya's still form stirred on the other bed, curled up with a blanket clenched tight up under his chin.

"Don't worry, I'll get it."

One eye popped open and a rather resigned sound came out of the fellow's mouth. He'd probably been dreading this moment. Wrapping herself in the late Colonel's bathrobe, she went to the door.

"Ah, Colonel. I hope you slept well." Corporal Haliwell trailed off as the figure on the bed, muttering something to himself, sat up.

Noya turned and caught the corporal's eye. Turning away, head hanging, he seemed terribly forlorn.

"So. You're still here then."

"Yes, Corporal. I'm still here."

"Close the damned door, please."

"Ah, sorry, Colonel."

"Corporal. I wonder if you could find some sort of uniform for Mister Noya."

"A—a what? A uniform? Of course." There was some sardonic evil in that grin.

"Mister Noya will sign the articles of war. He will be issued with full equipment, just as any other trooper."

Haliwell stood there with his mouth open.

"Corporal?"

"Er—yes, Colonel."

She turned to the man on the couch.

"Don't worry. Without the proper training, we'll keep you out of the action. But it makes it a bit easier to feed and house you. Otherwise it's the homeless shelter."

Noya stood up, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders like a heavy, patterned toga.

"Yes, Colonel. Thank you. I think that will do very nicely—"

"If you gentlemen don't mind, I need to brush my teeth and get dressed."

"Yes, Colonel. I'll be back in ten minutes."

"Thank you, Corporal."

"Come on, Bud. Grab your things. We haven't got all day."

Face beet red and with unreadable thoughts racing across that handsome face, Noya began to move.

"Yes, Corporal. Abso-fucking-lutely. One minute please."

Haliwell's eyes glittered.

"Do yourself a favour. Don't talk to me like that after you sign the form, okay?"

"I'm sorry, Corporal. I really am..." Noya had the closet door open and was pulling out a leather suitcase.

He straightened up, giving the corporal another look.

"Won't happen again, Corporal."

Haliwell stood patiently, watching.

"Good. Then it's forgotten, okay?"

"Ah, yes, Corporal."

Mister Noya was almost as good as his word.

It actually took two minutes, but then he had a few things of his own, two bags, good shoes and a pretty nice looking coat. He did a quick sweep of the suite and didn't come up with anything else. He seemed to be traveling fairly light. The odds were he wasn't coming back.

Not to this room, anyways.

Not that he wasn't good-looking.

***

True to his word, the corporal was back with the vehicle by the time she was dressed for action.

She'd chosen the skin-tight blacksuit, known for its heat-masking properties and light anti-weapons capability. It would take up to ten kilowatts of laser-power, of the typical laser-rifle, and anything up to the average .223 calibre at three hundred metres or greater. Not that it wouldn't hurt, but a person could survive most hits. Other than a head-shot. Over-warm in summer, they were a bit chilly in winter. Perfect for present circumstances. The material was so thin, the hood and facial cover rolled up into a collar that was thin and comfortable and yet it could be buttoned up tight for full stealth without chafing or being overly-restrictive.

"So."

"Ah, yes, Colonel. Trooper Noya has signed the form and has received a small advance on pay. He's being fitted out and, hopefully, learning how to use that com-unit. I'm almost impressed. The gentleman actually has a few skills."

She grinned wryly at the tone. Haliwell was a good driver, not too fast and not too slow. It inspired a certain confidence.

Dona was studying the town, the streets, and the houses, small, low frame bungalows not without their working-class charm. There was a lot of pride evident in the rose bushes, neatly-trimmed borders and the pastel colours favoured by the locals. There was no sameness here.

Every house looked like it had been built by a different hand to a different plan—or a dream.

"Ah."

"He'll be helping out with unloading and unpacking. Claims that he's fired a weapon before. We won't let him do that without proper training—I told him to keep the gun unloaded until someone smarter than him says otherwise. Apparently he's studied engineering although he never completed the course."

He looked across.

"They could use some help with the drones. It's like people are out of their depth and they know it, so everyone is afraid to be the first one to start. Noya's got nothing to lose, right. I thought I'd send him over there and see how he does—"

"Very well." She knew about his education, although they hadn't had much time to talk. "Yes, that might be the best place for him.'

"Do you trust him?" It was as much warning as legitimate question.

She turned her head.

"That, corporal, is a very good question."

Haliwell nodded.

"We'll monitor everything, of course." That was the beauty of the com unit.

They rapidly became indispensable, almost a part of the person in some cases. A simple duty-slash-off-duty switch meant troopers didn't need personal units, which were banned for obvious reasons. In an emergency, it was better than phoning, potentially, thousands of numbers. The command-override switch took care of that.

"I took his regular phone off of him. Nothing much on it, although he called what might be his mother a few weeks ago." He'd turn that over to the techs as soon as they hit the command post. "Mrs. Noya's little boy."

"Hmn."

Using an unauthorized personal com unit under combat conditions was grounds for instant arrest, dismissal, and subject to the terms of military justice. Depending on what was on there, people had been summarily shot.

There didn't seem to be anything else, and the colonel had a lot on her mind.

Minutes later, Dona and Haliwell entered the command centre, where the catering crew were just picking up after a group breakfast.

"Hey—you. Get Colonel Graham a plate of that. And coffee—a shitload of coffee, get it?"

"Yes, Corporal."

Haliwell's eyes gleamed at her.

"Thanks, Mike."

"I'll just go check on those drones."

***

Dona took the centre of the big room as the more senior officers exited their small offices.

"Progress reports please, one at a time."

Senior officer on deck, Captain Aaron was the first to respond.

"One. The Unfriendlies hit the window, or the end of it, right on time. That's when we moved. We have combat commands moving down our three major roads. We have a half a dozen mobile patrols on secondary roads, as well as a couple of trails to the southwest." All available forces were engaged in one quick dash as the enemy escort had already buggered off, in his words.

They hadn't deployed any space-based systems insofar as could be determined. Ground-based radar was mostly for low-level coverage, although it could pick up a big enough target at longer ranges.

Otherwise, they would find out very soon.

"Major Chan."

"Yes. We've ordered all available private aircraft to move to Ryanville. They'll be dispersed around the perimeter of the field, leaving the hangars as empty targets in the event of enemy air or missile attack." That went for Roussef as well.

They would keep the bare minimum of aircraft in town. A few unflyable old junkers had been left on the tarmac in front of the terminal, which would look well enough from space.

"Go on."

"We have a work party, mostly civilians, digging trenches and faking up a few armoured vehicles for the downtown area." The thing there was to create convincing shapes and shadows, with very real activity happening on an hourly basis.

Civilians were involved, and they had been asked to wear dark clothing, outdoor gear and hunting outfits for the enemy satellite. All it took to create a fake tank was lumber and paint, a few nails and a piece of plastic drain pipe for a gun.

After nightfall, it could be dragged to a new location on the end of a tow chain.

A bit of weather might be helpful.

"Good."

"We're talking to the local militia. They would like a bigger role than we can safely give them. Also, it's not clear if they would take orders they don't agree with."

"What are they doing now?"

"Sitting around the local hotels, drinking beer and discussing our proposed plan of action."

"And what's that?"

"Basically, to use them as a screen, close in to Roussef, giving us additional warning in the event of an attack."

"Right. Let's hope they go for it." Otherwise, they would just be in the way of professional troops, who had orders and operations to carry out in the face of, potentially, an equally-professional enemy force who would show little mercy to anyone caught engaging with them.

"Each combat team is composed of at least one reconnaissance squad. We have one reconnaissance platoon and two of infantry in reserve, ah, essentially for your disposal. All forces are mobile. One Hellion per combat team." Hellions were armoured scout vehicles, with six-wheel drive, good ground clearance and with the ability to swim bodies of water up to ten metres in depth. "The Hellions are equipped with rifled barrels, 85-mm boosted-projectiles, wire-guided missiles, and light automatic weapons. They have good electronic capabilities, including jamming and surveillance. The troops are mostly in Panthers, but we have a couple of all-terrain six-bys with each unit. The plan is to set up here, here and here."

Her stylus traced the arcs of defensive positions just southwest of Walzbruch, south of Roussef on a series of heights overlooking Highway 17, and smaller units to the southwest and in Ryanville.

"Thanks to your foresight, all units are laying fibre-optic cables. We will shortly be able to go off short and long-range radio, at least to some extent." The only exceptions were the units in the Deneb City area and foot patrols to the southwest.

The spools had been brought in on the Eliza. Each spool carried five hundred kilometres of fibre-optic cable. It was deployed from a vehicle, and theoretically could even be rewound and re-used.

"What's their progress so far?"

"No contact, no opposition. No sign of enemy air. Whether the enemy is observing us from orbit is unknown. Civil population is generally positive when contacted. They definitely know the Unfriendlies are here, and they are unappreciative."

Unappreciative.

That was understandable.

With enemy ideology entirely based upon their own apocalyptic revelation, calling themselves God's Elect was only going to get them so far. This mostly applied to the tame minds and enslaved bodies of their own people. Everyone else feared them, and with good reason.

The people of Deneb would not want to be governed, rather oppressed, by such an ideology.

The other problem was the battle of the bedroom. With a sea of rather fecund pioneer-farmers flooding onto Deneb, the local population would quickly lose power and even their identity, as the strangers imposed their own belief system. The fact that the Unfriendlies were against any sort of population control would ensure that, sooner or later, they would win out, in terms of sheer numbers.

A belief system that placed them firmly at the top of the heap, economically, socially and ultimately historically, could only be bad news. Not just for the colonists, but even more so for the native population, who would have no idea of how to adapt to or deal with such a situation.

It had happened to them only once before.

Chapter Seven

With modern battlefield communications, sent via tight-beam laser and relayed by satellite to great distances, it was possible to look over the shoulders of troops at all times or focus on one aspect of a battle at any given time.

There was always that editorial detachment, calm, patient, close in their ear, giving them instruction, listening, reassuring.

Just being there for them was something. And when a person died, there was someone there for them too—

What would be extremely unwelcome during off-duty hours was tolerated and even welcomed in the heat of battle and the fog of war. It meant that the greenest soldier was never truly alone.

There were others, of course.

Sergeant Kelly was in the passenger seat of a Hellion. Those in the command centre were monitoring as the armoured patrol vehicle cruised along a winding, two-lane blacktop road that appeared to have well-tended gravel verges, deep ditches and any number of small bridges and culverts.

The road wound through a notch in the hills ahead, the low, tree-clad peaks all around, shrouded in mist. The nose of the vehicle dropped and the only view was downwards. The view was spectacular, if one had a minute to see.

There was no real need to talk. Senior officers had all the numbers. This included the speed, direction, battery-state and global position of each vehicle, and all the troops aboard had their individual dots on the battle-board. In two and a half hours of driving, with stops to talk to the local population, not incidentally conveying some information as well, they had gotten a bare fifty kilometres from Roussef.

The complexity of the data-flow meant that several battle screens were needed for each detachment. With a touch of the appropriate icon, Colonel Graham was in communication with Kelly. His detachment was on the road to Deneb City, or as close as they could get in the time allowed. Their commander, Captain Herzon, was catching some much-needed sleep in the back of the vehicle.

"Sergeant. How's it going?"

"It's going very well, Colonel."

"This looks like beautiful ambush country."

"Yes, I know, Colonel. But so far, we haven't seen anything. The civilians are sure glad to see us."

"What are they saying?"

"Pretty much all saying the same thing. They haven't seen any Unfriendlies. Lot of rumours going around. Not too happy about being in a war zone. They've got a bit of a beef with the Unfriendlies. I've been told more than once to kick their asses—sorry, Colonel."

"That's okay, Sergeant. You can always speak your mind in this command."

She smiled as best she could, and he grinned right back at her.

"Ah, thank you, Colonel. But seriously, they are, shall we say, not too happy about being invaded by religious wingnuts. They understand very well what the Conglomerate means for them. Some of them are asking exactly what we think we're going to do about it. It's a difficult question."

"And what are you telling them?"

"I tell them we're going to kick their asses. But basically, we're asking them to remain in place. If the Unfriendlies come up the road, and surely they must, we're advising no resistance. We're also asking them not to evacuate, sure as hell not in the direction of Roussef. There are plenty of upland farmsteads, hunting and fishing camps. If they can just get out of the actual battle zone for a few days, they'll probably be all right no matter which way it goes. It's either that or live in the basement for a while, and it seems not too many buildings around here have such a thing, although some do."

No, they wouldn't like living in the root-cellar for any length of time. Civilian morale was an important consideration.

Everything is politics.

And all politics is local politics.

"Very well. Let us know if you need anything—or see anything."

"Colonel." There was a hand on her shoulder.

It was Major Chan.

"Good luck, Sergeant."

"Thank you, Colonel. With all due respect, we prefer to rely on skill."

With a faint grin, Dona slipped of the headset, letting it dangle around her neck.

"Yes."

"The window of opportunity is closing. We've got like five minutes, no more. They'll be able to see us now, for the next twenty minutes, roughly the same amount of time, open and closed, for however many orbits required to make planet-fall."

"Okay. All units are to take cover. Make sure they have full information. Make sure they know why."

"Roger that." Chan activated the circuit as Dona cut herself out of that loop.

Dona moved to the next screen, preferring to move around a bit rather than just sit at her station like a bump on a log. Wheeler was in the same mode, roaming up and down the rows of work-stations, looking over people's shoulders, asking and answering questions in a low, calm tone.

It was a fascinating picture.

"Sergeant Danik." This detachment was on the road to Walzbruch.

They were looking over his shoulder.

"Yes, Colonel."

"Status, please."

"Yeah, well. We're moving right along. There is virtually nothing out here. We haven't seen a house or a barn in half an hour, maybe longer. Vehicles are so few that when we see one, we stop them and talk to them. They seem glad enough to get a bit of news and gossip. It's all very friendly. The big trucks are mostly robotic. They're dumb as sticks, although you might want to check camera-logs. It's the smaller utility vehicles that have any people in them. I was stationed in Deneb City for most of my hitch, and I've actually run into one or two familiar faces. People you see in the grocery store or the barber shop, you know? That helps a lot. Quite a few are farmers or ranchers. Out here, in summer, they go into town and buy their groceries and other supplies by the month. In winter they tend to really lay it in. What with the harvest, they're busy, they're making money and they're spending it too. This at a time when local food prices tend to fall. People take advantage of it. Other than that, we're under cover right now and in no real hurry to go walking face-first into a wall of gunfire..."

"Very well. Carry on, Sergeant."

"Roger that."

On one screen in particular, the Unfriendly ships were just going over the horizon, braking into the first of several orbits.

"Let us know if there's anything you need."

"Oh, I don't know, Colonel. I think we'll be okay." The patient humour was unmistakable.

"Very well."

Sergeant Danik had the exact same data as hers displayed on his major screen, and so Dona left it at that.

She turned to the nearest available trooper, with Wheeler hovering there at her side.

"I want a list of every food processor or supplier in Ryanville, Roussef, and Deneb City."

Who, me?

She engaged the trooper's eye, one not too busy at that particular moment.

"Yes, Colonel." The sardonic grin was a bit of a bonus, not entirely unwelcome—

They had a crate of money—and the Unfriendlies would probably want to eat.

They might be able to do a little something about that.

Buy low and sell high, for example.

***

"Captain Herzon."

"Ah. Yes, Colonel. Sorry, I've just woken up." Onscreen, the captain sipped at a coffee, discoloured bags under the eyes and deep lines around the mouth.

He grinned under her look and she nodded thoughtfully.

Lamar Herzon was about forty-five, and in charge of a tough crew. They had at least gotten to know each other aboard Eliza.

"What are we hearing out there?"

Through the view-screen, all she could see was that it was very dark out there in the boonies, the only thing visible in the windows were the dim reflections from instruments inside the cabin.

"Yeah. The locals say they haven't seen any Unfriendlies. Truck traffic in both directions has been severely curtailed. Owners are waiting to see what happens, I guess, and the shelves on the local grocery stores are thinning out in spots. With such a small population, processed foods such as milk and bread all come from Deneb City." Raw materials, for the most part, went the other way.

There was a small cannery in Roussef, and her troops were already moving as much food as seemed advisable to Ryanville.

Imported goods were a different story, although the traffic volume was much lower in terms of high-value freight.

"Ah."

"Other than that, we're in a secure position. We're on high ground and we can see a few kilometres down the road. As soon as the window closes again, we'll move on. I plan on entering Walzbruch just before dawn. Lights off and very slow."

"Very well. Stay on the alert, take command of all local operations. You know all of this, so good luck." The troops there would be expecting them and communications were still good.

Dawn was not far off.

"Thank you, Colonel."

"Colonel Graham." There was a gentle tap on the shoulder, made necessary by the headset.

A name flashed in the corner of the display and she took off the set.

"Yes?"

"We have a liftoff. A helo from the local airport. The pilot's talking to us. He says it's a regularly scheduled flight. Also that he has a wife and kid in Deneb City."

"Shit. Get him down—get him back here. Tell him we'll fire on him if he doesn't comply."

"Absolutely, Colonel Graham."

Dona stood looking and listening.

"Victor, Charlie, Tango, four-oh-three, come in please."

"Victor Charlie Tango four-oh-three. Go ahead."

The voice was male, with some overtones of nervousness and possibly resentment.

"Please return to base. This is the Command Centre, Lieutenant-Colonel Dona Graham, commanding. That is an order. Failure to comply is not an option. We will fire upon you. Over."

The waiting was painful.

"Say again, please. Over."

"I have given orders to bring you down if you do not return immediately to base. Over."

"This is a scheduled flight. I have urgent cargo and a contract. My flight plan has been filed. Am pre-cleared for landing at Deneb City. Over."

"Not today, please. Return to base or we will shoot you down. Over."

Dona stepped in close. Her voice was crisp.

"Arm the missiles, please."

"Wait! Wait."

"Sorry, Victor Charlie Tango, four-oh-three. You have thirty seconds. Use it wisely. Over."

The tiny red triangle on the big tactical screen slowly tracked onwards.

"Prepare to fire."

"No, look."

Dona exhaled. The red spot was coming around. In a few seconds, it had reversed course.

"Thank you, Victor, Charlie, Tango, four-oh-three. You're doing the right thing. Return to base."

The response was unprintable and the trooper winced.

"I'm heading to the airport. I want to talk to that man."

"Yes, colonel."

"In the meantime, one of you guys is in charge."

"What—what are you going to do?'

"I want to find out if that ship can run on automatic."

She suspected that it could—but only a first-hand look could give any real answers to certain other questions.

A quick glance confirmed that the Unfriendlies were still out of the observation window. That didn't prove that they hadn't deployed a satellite for battlefield observation. It was an obvious move and she would have been surprised if they hadn't.

It would take x-amount of time for a satellite to boost into position and stabilize.

That would be hours rather than days. The next two or three hours would have to be used very wisely.

***

"Word from Deneb City. Activity on the ground." Getting ready for the landing, no doubt.

"Roger that. Keep on it." Having stepped out into the corridor to take the message, she came back into the room.

Dona had the pilot under arrest. Her bodyguard, a driver and another trooper riding shotgun, weapon at the ready, were more than enough for any indignant civilian.

He was smart enough not to offer resistance, not that he wasn't upset.

Luckily for him, the gentleman was unarmed. He had all the proper documents and appeared to be exactly what he claimed, a claim borne out by other civilian employees at the air and space-port.

"Look, Mister Nield. We know you have a schedule, and no one's told you any differently."

He'd arrived the evening before from Ryanville. In all the excitement, no one had really noticed.

There were some big lakes up there and a thriving little seafood industry.

Ancient history at this point, although surely he must have known about the invasion.

"Okay. So you have a wife and children in the city. But there's just no way that we can let you risk your own life and the lives of others at the present time."

"Sure. Whatever. I was alone, you know. I guess there probably was a risk. I just wasn't thinking."

A trooper spoke.

"If that chopper came down in a residential area—"

Dona silenced him with a glance and a wink.

"My cargo will spoil quickly. No one in Deneb City is saying anything about flights being grounded."

"I'm sorry, I really am. I can't speculate as to the reasons for that, but I have no doubt the Unfriendlies would be happy to make use of your machine. If it fell into their hands. They are unlikely to leave it alone, and quite frankly, they have all sorts of bolt-on weapons." So did her own people, but there was no need to fixate his mind on that. "However, the telephone service still works and you can always call home. I'll take the keys, incidentally."

The troopers gave the man a dark look, and Nield reluctantly pulled them out of a hip pocket, face reddening further. He pulled two old-fashioned mechanical keys, a big one and small one from the ring.

"Your property will be returned to you, sir." The trooper, a massive man named Broser, pulled out a paper pad and wrote a quick receipt.

Name, date, description of property, name of receiving officer. Half soldier and half cop around here, and that was about the size of it. Broser had clearly written a few tickets on this tour...

He'd interacted with the citizens, not always in a nice way as the saying went.

"There you go, sir."

The man was silent, slumped in defeat on a hard plastic chair in the threadbare little airport office, paper stub clenched in a reluctant hand.

Dona carried on.

"The only thing we ask there, is not to talk about local security arrangements. Also this little incident. Tell your wife that the machine had some kind of minor malfunction and that you had to turn back. It's a safety issue. That's what you tell her, okay? You'll get home as soon as possible. Right, sir?"

"Ah. Shit. Yes, Colonel."

"The other thing is your cargo. We have a lot of people to feed here. I was thinking of buying it from you. Either that or seize it." Compensation would appear to be in order—an old joke but still relevant. "So. How much is your cargo worth, under your present contract?"

He mentioned a figure, fifteen hundred credits or so.

"Very well. Sounds good to us. Tell you what. Since this is all sort of out of your control, we'll tack on an additional thirty percent. Okay?"

Broser made a quick note of it.

Nield sighed and nodded. That was it.

"The easiest two grand you ever made, eh, sir." Trooper Valla.

Nield ignored it.

Taking her eyes from the prisoner, she nodded to the troopers.

"Okay. Take the gentleman and his personal luggage to a hotel, please. Get his phone number and relay that to the Command Centre." All telephone calls were being monitored, something he might have guessed.

Assuming he had any brains at all.

"We'll send that around in cash, okay, sir?"

No response, but he probably heard her.

With the phone number programmed into the database, he would be red-flagged and closely monitored by the system. He hadn't done anything really criminal—except to ignore the order that grounded all aircraft until further notice. The notion that he hadn't heard about it wasn't very credible. She was certain it would be logged into the helo's computer, and yet alienating the local population wasn't part of her plan.

There were a handful of rather bashful civilian employees at the airport. Her impression was that they were keeping their heads down and not volunteering too much of anything, and surely pilots and ground staff talked amongst themselves.

"Yes, Colonel."

"Come along, sir. I'll get your bag. We have a car right outside—"

"Oh. That reminds me—I left my briefcase in the back. Could you bring that in for me, Trooper Valla? I'm going to see if I can find the keys to one of the pickup trucks here. You guys will be gone a while and I have to get back. If anyone asks, I'll be along in a few minutes." She engaged Nield with her eyes. "Basically, sir, it's just that we need every vehicle we can get."

He nodded, swallowing.

"Yes, Colonel." Trooper Valla gave a slight inclination of the head, staying back a bit and watching as Broser removed Nield's field restraints.

"I don't like them bastards any more than you do."

"That's very wise, Mister Nield."

What in the hell could anyone say to that?

The restraints were little more than electrical tie wraps, quickly cut with a very small set of side-cutters pulled from one of several belt pouches. Nield stood, rubbing his wrists with a rueful look. He was keeping his mouth shut with some force of effort, outflanked by the towering Broser and the more compact but equally-impressive Valla.

If all of her new command were that slick, she would be amazed.

In that briefcase was one Mark 46A satchel charge, with enough explosive power to seriously damage any structure, vehicle, air or spacecraft within a fifty to one hundred-metre radius.

Mister Nield's helicopter, fully programmable for autonomous flight, was just one more asset, perhaps more disposable than most.

The best thing of all was that he would be expected—especially after he called the wife.

Hopefully he would stick to the suggested script, if not, it might reveal something.

If the Unfriendlies weren't listening to every word of it, she would be very much surprised. And if not, they had their radar systems up and hot.

Chapter Eight

It was full morning and the birds and possibly some other creatures were going full blast.

The others had disappeared down the road.

The machine was a twin-turbine, civilian model especially developed for resource exploration and utility work on pioneer planets and other harsh environments back on the Home Worlds.

One reason for Nield's attitude might have been the six big, old-fashioned wooden crates of frozen seafood, if that was the proper word for a freshwater product, lashed down in the rear of the cabin. Company names and products were stenciled in paint—a stark contrast with the more usual plastic and metal radio-tag systems used all over the civilized galaxy. The faint aroma was unmistakable, if the labels weren't enough to convince. Putting her hand on one, they were definitely cold. She grinned faintly, thinking of all those Ryanville wood products, with genuine people literally cutting the trees, cutting the lumber and brad-nailing them all together with hand-held air-powered nail guns. It really was a pioneering world, where the robots held very little sway and might never, unless the population, and the economy, really took off.

This proved nothing, and dry ice would emit a lot of CO2. There were air vents open, which implied a low-altitude flight. Nield had done this before, obviously, and it was merely a passing thought. There was suspicion, or maybe caution, and then there was true paranoia—although it was a bit early for that. Nield was just another highly-skilled idiot, following his natural inclinations.

Powering up, all the lights came on and the machine seemed functional.

Her first task was to figure out the navigation system. The onboards were relatively simple and she even recognized the name of the manufacturer, complete with a stylish black logo on a silvery plastic ellipse, a dramatic arrow swooping up through it.

Deneb City's air and spaceport complex was clearly marked, and prior flight-logs made things definitely easier. There were only so many places to go on Deneb, and Nield had been to all the local ones many times, with very few deviations. He'd done this exact same trip a week before. That pattern, a few other little jobs thrown in, went back about two and a half years. She set the bomb to go off after descending from flight at two thousand metres to a bare one hundred metres of altitude. Correctly adjusted for elevations. Right over the airport. An airburst in the right place might do a lot of damage. The odds of it getting through were not even fifty-fifty in her estimation. She pulled a peel-and-stick camera from her side pouch and stuck it onto the dashboard where it could get a good view. All she had to do then was to activate it, scan the serial number from the tag into her com unit and hit the select switch.

With no clear line-of-sight to the satellite, this one would be radio. It was a chance that had to be taken.

She had a picture upon checking her com-unit.

The thing then, was to set a few seconds of delay on the engine start-up and takeoff sequence.

The key was in, the red start-button just above it.

Click.

Shutting the door carefully, she stepped back and then, turning, sprinted off towards her chosen pickup truck, a red one with the plastic decal of the airport fire detail stuck on the doors.

With luck, the Unfriendlies would see the machine in the air when the helo came over the horizon, preparatory to what sure looked like a landing approach.

She'd been gone long enough, although no emergency messages had come.

As she started the truck's engine, reaching for her com unit, she hadn't left anything behind.

There was the squeal of a starter motor and the helo blades slowly began to turn. A bit of dark smoke came out the back and then it was running.

"Right. I am out of here."

***

The airport was about six kilometres from the centre of town on a relatively straight gravel road. The flat, valley-bottom terrain was composed of brush and large patches of barrens, local terminology for bare, white, gravelly ground, moss and low shrubs of about ten centimetres. This particular soil was resistant to Terran vegetation, for reasons she had skipped over in the briefing notes.

There were ponds and meandering water-courses. There were a few small farm houses, and, closer to the road, non-descript buildings that might have been some form of light industry judging by the types of vehicles, tractors and repair trucks.

These were all in yards that were fenced and lit by tall light standards. She saw one or two people in coveralls, working in the doorway of one such building, not even looking up at her passing.

She slowed, mouth open.

The small group of individuals walking towards her along the side of the road could only be the native Denebi.

She'd seen the pictures, but this was the real thing.

If anything, they were even more ethereal in person. At the extremities, it was like the light shone right through them. The bodies were dumpy, cone-shaped or even pyramidal, although that was clearly the wrong word for something that was not four-sided. The limbs were quite long compared to the trunk. There was a certain grace as well, for they were easily two or more metres in height for the adults.

Slowing, she took a good look even as they raised...arms or tentacles or limbs to wave in what looked like a cheerful manner. Interestingly, the heads could still turn in a limited fashion, in spite of the radial symmetry and partial exoskeleton. Their single mouths looked almost humanoid. There were teeth in there and a tongue, bright purple lips and multiple red eyes really standing out on the pale, bluish bodies.

She wasn't entirely certain of which might be the male and which the female, but it looked like a family grouping of seven individuals. According to her briefing there was little difference in height between adults of either gender. All of them were completely naked, with baskets on their heads and small packs and pouches slung over various shoulder-joints. The biggest one had a staff for defense or possibly just an aid in walking. The anatomy was unique in her knowledge, with three legs and nine arms and a head with both simple and compound eyes ringing them. The internal body temperature was a cool 25.4 C. With the ability to control their internal temperatures, they were classed as warm-blooded creatures.

They had multiple ears and multiple stomachs. It was said they were descended from bony, jellyfish-type creatures from the sea and had a matriarchal society. In which case, shouldn't the female be carrying the stick?

Corner of her mouth curling, she shrugged off the question.

The ability to look in all directions at once must have led to some interesting adaptations in the brains and the minds of the Denebi, and that was for sure. Their counting system was said to be a source of endless fascination to exologists, all ones, threes, nines, and no way to express zero except to leave a blank. Two blanks represented the decimal point. Fascinating in its own way.

She waved as she went by, marveling at the children bobbing along, each carrying their tiny share of the load.

Every single one of them waved right back.

Shaking her head, she gave it a little throttle, aware that it raised a dust cloud and she was probably under observation anyway.

So.

This is who we're fighting for.

We're the best of a bad bargain.

In the mirror, there was the shape of the helo lifting off, its nose went down and then it headed south, gaining altitude and picking up speed.

She had high hopes for that one.

***

"Ah, here she is."

Dona strode into the command centre. Having ditched the truck a few blocks away, she had kept the keys for future reference.

"What's up?"

"Colonel Graham, this is Mayor Tor Byron of Roussef."

While they shook hands, she had a moment to assess him.

He was a half a head shorter than her, a florid man with thinning hair, roughly mid-thirties.

"One minute, okay."

Dona went to the trooper at the overall battle map console. Quickly, in a low voice she gave the girl the code number for the dash-cam in the helo and other data.

"Don't bring that picture up just yet, please."

With a nod, the trooper kept that small, just a tiny little box down in the right-hand corner of her desktop screen. The important thing was that the data had been received...

Tor Byron was watching when she turned and came back.

"What can I do for you, Mister Byron?"

"What is the meaning of this evacuation order?" He held up his high-end phone, with the text and headline visible.

One of the troopers at a workstation was beckoning at her, and the red dot that was the helo was probably the cause. Their own defense system had picked it up again, just as it had the first time.

Byron didn't need to know about that. She probably should have said something before they left.

She waved.

"I'll be right there, okay?"

"Yes, Colonel Graham."

"Sorry. It means that you and all residents will be evacuating a three-hundred metre radius, based on the town centre. There are a couple of other spots as well. We're advising a two hundred-metre radius for those." These were industrial plants, shipping and receiving facilities, fuel storage and a small power generation facility. "We're asking citizens not to abandon the town. There simply aren't the facilities in Ryanville, and obviously you don't want to go south..."

In such neighbourhoods, habitation was much more dispersed. Still, there were people there and they had to go. The initial colonization had been a hodgepodge of such developments, before the town was incorporated and some semblance of civic planning took hold.

"But—but—you can't do that."

"No. You're going to do it. Look, Mister Byron. I don't have a whole lot of time, and I would prefer not to reiterate what my staff have already told you."

There were terse nods in the background, notably Lieutenant Wheeler and Major Chan, studying the moving red dot to the west.

"But—but."

"The Unfriendlies are coming down. The very first thing they're going to do, Mister Byron, is to set up missile batteries and launch an attack. I'm rather surprised they haven't used any space-based systems as of yet. That sort of implies they'll be landing at Deneb, which they already control. It's a good thing, too, because you're not ready, are you?" Another trooper was waving madly from a console on the far side of the command centre. "They're probably hoping to preserve as much of the local infrastructure as they can, in order to use it for themselves. Their own colonists are going to need it. Look, sir. We have no time, no time at all. If you do not comply, you will be placed under arrest and subject to military justice—battlefield justice, to be precise. Do you have any idea of that that means?" And then they would start on the deputy mayor...

Judging by the pallor, shifting eyes and a bit of a tremor in the hand when he looked at his phone again, he got it.

"Look. I promise we're not going to shoot you. We will lock you up, and there will be a trial, with a jury of your peers. One has to wonder how they would react to all of this, especially after some major loss of life. You're going to lose some buildings here, sir. Buildings can be rebuilt, but your people cannot be replaced. Your people need you out there, providing leadership above all else. Sir."

He was getting it now, and clearly appalled by the reality. His lips were quivering.

"Do you understand, sir?"

He swallowed convulsively, then managed to say it.

"Yes. Yes, of course."

"I can't say for sure that they will, either, but one way or another. They'll be coming up that road, within about the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours, and if you will forgive us, we are very, very busy preparing to meet that threat."

"Major Chan."

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Can we spare the mayor a few troopers to help with the elderly, the disabled, and the people at the hospital."

"Yes—fifteen or twenty, if we're lucky."

"Let's be lucky then."

"Absolutely, Colonel. Then there's the militia. Unless they get busy doing something, they're just a bunch of useless mouths, good for nothing and hard on food." With a hint of pink high on Chan's cheekbones, Dona sensed more to that story. "Perhaps if the Mayor shows up there and takes charge, they will be more inclined to get on it."

"Okay, Major. Take ten troopers. And the militia. Tell them it's an order. From me. Make it stick."

"Right, Colonel." Chan headed for her desk and the civil phone set-up.

"Right. Look, sir. We can let you have a few vehicles. The town has a few buses, and trucks, and then there's the cab company. Tell you what. You and I are declaring martial law, right now. You and I are now duly authorized to seize and requisition any thing, any property or building, any vehicle. Right? You know more about what's out there than we do. The safest place is probably well out in the residential areas. Anything that looks like it might house a substantial number of troops or provide a defensive position will likely become a target. That includes schools and hospitals. They're all brick, right. Any substantial building, any useful position. Trust me, the Unfriendlies are no respecters of property and persons. Not in war, sir."

Not much in peace either, but she didn't say it.

He was not happy, but that wasn't her problem, and he knew enough about the Unfriendlies to know that it was all true.

"I understand. And thank you—" His face abruptly fell and the poor man was crying.

Dona caught Lieutenant Wheeler's eye and she bustled forward.

"Come on, sir. Let's get this show on the road."

All of a sudden the rage broke loose. He was falling, sagging at the knees and at the same time lashing out with his hands. The phone dropped to the floor. Byron was pounding on his own head, crying and moaning. A pair of troopers rushed forward to grab him as he babbled and mouthed incoherently.

"Damn them. Damn them—we just built our city hall less than three years ago. Oh, Jesus, Christ. Oh, fuck. God, oh, God, damn them all to hell."

With a solicitous air, Wheeler and the soldiers gently ushered Byron in the direction of the door, supporting him under the armpits as his legs didn't seem to be working properly...

With one backward glance from Wheeler, the door swished closed and they heard her bellowing for the troops, lounging around and waiting for whatever word came down the pipes.

Dona heaved a sigh.

"Tell it to the Unfriendlies, Mister Byron. Tell it to the Unfriendlies."

She looked around, having wasted enough time on him.

The trooper who was waving pointed at the big screen at the end of the room, the centre of a cluster of similar displays. Three ships, coming over the horizon, very low and about as slow as one could go without falling out of the sky.

The Unfriendlies were on their final approach.

***

"That third ship is a bit late." The trooper stared, crunching numbers on his virtual board. "How much you want to bet? They launched a surveillance satellite."

"Yes. Where in the hell is it?" Their light, ground-based radar sets were simply not powerful enough, and a prolonged search only gave their position away. The usual problem.

He shrugged.

Probably not too far from their own, and the question wasn't even worth answering.

"Depending on what they're using, and how much they were willing to spend, it might be just as stealthy as ours."

Dona studied the bird's-eye view of battle zone from above.

"It would be nice to knock that down."

"If we could even find it. We don't have the weapons for that."

"Hmn. True." All of this was expected, of course.

Hopefully their initial plan would hold good, although they seldom did for long.

"Where are our people?"

"Under cover at the present time. Our nearest force is still eighty kilometres from Deneb City."

"Sniper teams?"

He punched a virtual button.

"There. Our people have the spaceport under observation."

Pulling out her com unit, Dona input the codes for their three teams in the city. Team Four was in a blocking position north and east of the town. A good idea for them to listen in. She touched the symbol.

"Teams One and Two. Fire at will. Team Three. Stay put. I repeat, stay put. Team Three, keep your heads down. Team Four. Observe and report. Heads down. Over."

"Roger that."

The laconic responses from all teams were only so much reassurance.

"Colonel?"

"Ah, yes. The helo. It's rigged, and I've programmed it to fly and land at Deneb City. It will be interesting to see if they fire on it."

Someone brought the feed up and then they were momentarily riding along with her before the pane got smaller and it was tucked down low in the right corner of the screen.

"Ah, yes, Colonel." The half-dozen troops manning the consoles grinned and exchanged glances.

The first thing the initial Unfriendly troops had done was to set up high and low-level defense batteries around the spaceport, providing some level of protection for further landings.

The battle had commenced. A pawn had been placed on the board, and moved forward two squares in some symbolic terms.

Chapter Nine

Fire Team Two was southeast of the spaceport on high ground.

"Sergeant." It was their security number one, his sidekicks out somewhere in the boonies, ready to observe and, if called for, to fire at anything that moved in the vicinity.

"What."

"Word from above. Fire at will."

The trooper slunk off into the bushes again, silent as a ghost.

He nodded, studying the layout through the optical scope. His own device had the audio turned way down to avoid distraction at a critical moment.

The enemy was coming down, just before dusk, but there was light yet and the only real problem was when.

"Can you hit them while they're coming in?" Even one would be fine.

Psychologically it would be rife, although a single round probably wouldn't be much to talk about.

Troop transports were big, relatively simple ships, with only the minimal hardening. They were all air and big compartments in a central cylinder, surrounded by systems and shielding. This was mostly against stellar flares and cosmic background radiation. A hit in the right spot might cause a lot of concern. Such things took time to properly repair.

"There are three separate crosswinds between here and there, Sergeant. Under braking and maneuver, that close to the ground, there's going to be one shit-load of turbulence down here."

Chewing his lip, the sergeant nodded.

"Okay. Why don't we try that then. Who knows, we might get a bit of data. Try it on the first one—they'll space themselves out and we might get lucky." He thought. "Two, three rounds per ship, max. Let's do armour-piercing."

"Roger." The kid grinned and gave him a sidelong look. "And my name's not Max."

"Take your time, it's not that critical." He just wanted to see what happened. "Max."

Every little thing that they observed went into the notebook. Wesley was green, but he was also one hell of a shot—not so much intuitive as thorough, in doping the scope, using his brains where another might rely on courage. Or worse, ego. Even worse than that, luck.

This was something they were encouraged not to do.

Wes had a certain calm that some of the other kids lacked.

Dead heroes were essentially useless, to themselves or anyone else. They were bodies lost to the cause. Wounded heroes took up a lot of time, manpower and psychological resources.

As for the Barker, even in the pure vertical, admittedly a hard shot for people trained in conventional sniper operations, it would reach out and touch someone at a good five thousand metres. From their present location, the actual firing angle would be more like forty-five degrees.

He noted that Wes had already input the additional parameters. The youngster was struggling with the mount, much like a heavy photographic tripod for anti-air shooting. With hydraulic damping for the recoil, it weighed a good twenty kilos. The lad had been right to bring it along. That was the benefit of discipline and training. They had a bit of time, and finally the weapon was ready. Their position was on a hill, under the treeline, but with a clear view of the land and sky to the northwest. The spaceport was dead centre. They could see part of the town north of that and the connecting roads and tracks all over the valley floor, more earth tones than actual greenery.

As far as anyone knew, the enemy was not in the vicinity.

"Here we go."

The sergeant, eye protection darkening immediately upon looking up, watched as the hot-spots of the engines lit up the surrounding area.

That was them, all right.

Boer-class transports, and right on schedule. Data from Jane's Fighting Ships streamed across the bottom of his VR set.

On impulse, the sergeant tapped the code for HQ into his com unit.

Graham came right on.

"Sergeant?"

"Colonel. I've got ten credits that says Wesley can hit that first ship before she touches ground."

"Make it twenty and you've got yourself a bet."

He could hear the laughter and imagine their faces back there.

"Twenty credits. Hmn, That's a lot of money, but I don't mind taking it from you. If you don't mind losing it."

"In that case, I'll give you five to one."

Five to one odds.

"Roger that. Hang on—and watch the action."

Nothing but silence, but they were there all right.

"Sergeant."

"Yes. Wesley. You and I will be drinking whiskey, next time we're in town."

There was a snort from the shooting position.

"Absolutely, Max. When has it ever been any different."

"Smart-ass, eh. Hmn. I'll try and remember that. Range, sixteen hundred...fifteen hundred. Fire at will, Wes. I mean, ah, Roger."

The first enemy ship had decelerated significantly, slowly coming to a stop at low altitude as the ship read the field and verified its in-close bearings. From this distance, the size of the vessel was not overwhelming, but it was a hell of a lot bigger than a tank or a truck. It was a lot bigger than a person's head and this kid could hit that a kilometre away under most conditions. It moved slowly forwards on belly-thrusters, picking its landing spot with some care...

"Yes, Sergeant."

Then came the crack of the Barker, its round leaving a visible trail of condensation. It punched through the air, its initial velocity over six thousand metres a minute.

There was a pause.

The ship slowly descended, kicking up all kinds of dust and crud the closer it got to the surface.

"What do you think, Wesley."

"It's hard to say...wait. Ah."

The sergeant's own display lit up.

According to the round's data, target impact had occurred at two thousand, two hundred and thirty-one metres. That was when the tracking signal ended, upon the round's distortion or even shattering. Plus or minus a few centimetres. It had hit roughly amidships, about three metres to the left and maybe a couple down from the aiming point, but a big target excused a lot of sins.

"Congratulations, Wesley. You just earned your pay for a whole month."

The crack of the weapon came again, as Wesley had a small budget of rounds and there was no time like the present.

"Fire at will. Two more ships on approach. Let's puncture every damned one of them fuckers."

***

In the command centre, the red blip that was the Nield helo moved with painful slowness, although the distance was relatively short. At cruising speed, saving fuel and following established routine, the helicopter was doing a bare hundred-forty kilometres per hour. It was only now coming up on the airport approach.

Fire Team Two, southeast of the port, was in visual contact, having acquired it on their scopes as it came in low over the last big hill and began its descent.

The three Unfriendly ships were down. The ports and hatches were open, the ramps were down, and people and machinery were swarming all over the place. They'd be in a hurry to unload, aware that they had been fired upon and not knowing exactly who was out there. How much actual damage had been done was a good question. Sometimes damage was a secondary consideration.

Seven confirmed hits was at least something.

"Whoa. Missiles in the air. Repeat, missiles in the air." A second later, there was impact and a confirmed one missile had gotten a direct hit.

The scope swung around and the blast of the launch revealed the battery's position.

"Mark that, please."

"Right." A fresh symbol appeared on the battle map.

One surface-to-air rocket battery, arguably right on the edge of the flying field. They might nail it down a bit further as things went along.

A trooper brought up the feed from the helo. The camera was still good, the ground and sky spinning wildly in the view-screen. They winced when the satchel charge, still intact, went off at the designated altitude.

Still they had a picture.

The flaming debris, trailing a cloud of black and grey smoke, dropped like a stone on fire. If nothing else, the Unfriendlies would send out a patrol to find it. They would want to know more. They would want to recover, or more importantly, identify a body. Someone might get a crack at them, Team Three or even angry civilians. It depended what street they went down. Falling behind low hills in a big open spiral, the helo was on the ground now.

"We've still got a picture, Colonel." A trooper called from across the room.

There was nothing there but branches, leaves, grass, bits of red and alloy-coloured torn metal, an indistinct but larger component, and then the horizon on a sharp angle.

Smoke drifted across the frame, blocking it out again.

"Hmn. Nice. Have the system keep an eye on that."

"Right."

Half the planet hunted for pleasure or food according to the briefing notes.

She watched and listened to Fire Two for a moment. They were on high ground, in desert rather than forest. This meant night-time evasion if problems arose. Daylight would be out of the question.

"So, what do you think?"

"I can hit anything you want, Corporal."

"Ah...how about that big, black limo pulling out from the terminal area."

"Yeah, why not."

"Range?"

"Thirty-three hundred metres."

There were the usual crosswinds, dust and even bugs in the air. The light was fine with the enhancement from night vision, hardly needed until this point.

"Wait until it gets a little closer."

"Why don't we wait until someone gets in it."

"Ah—right. Why don't we do that, then. Fire when ready."

The corporal stared through the scope, waiting.

So did Dona Graham.

***

"So. They took the bait."

"Roger that, Colonel. Team Three reports two missiles confirmed. One hit, the other one went into the boonies a few kilometres northeast of the city. The profile reads Red-Tail, according to their best estimates." They were definitely fired from the space and airport complex. "The second missile was a self-destruct."

"Excellent." Red-Tails were one of the more effective, and therefore more expensive, Unfriendly systems.

They'd just spent a quarter-million credits. They hadn't hesitated. And rightly so—that helo might easily have taken a lot of them out. The timing of the helo's arrival had been lucky, very lucky.

With the usual three launchers per battery, and a limited number of reloads, it was food for thought. They now had a fresh radar profile for the Red-Tails in their database. That was the great thing about the Mark Seventeen satellite. It saw everything.

"And hits all over the place from the Barkers." Their two authorized fire teams had popped off anywhere from four to six rounds each, no more.

They'd been focusing on the new arrivals. The trio of smaller landing ships from the initial assault were behind and just on the verge of being out of range. These targets were being held in reserve—a real psychological point, one hopefully the Unfriendlies would spend some time in considering. In some ways, it hinted where the fire teams must be—for what that was worth.

"Yes. They will figure it out sooner or later. Thank you, Trooper."

The young man nodded, eyes on the screen.

"More action, Colonel."

Touching a virtual button, his board hovering in mid-air, he brought up the view from Team Two's gun-scope. The crosshairs and mil-dots were lined up on a line of three vehicles, one big and long and black and a pair of the more familiar civilian utility vehicles following at short intervals behind. Numbers changed as the shooter or their assistant doped the scope with all available information. Firing point elevation, target elevation, range, air temperature, wind speeds, humidity, barometric pressure, local gravity. Known projectile drop from the tables, type of round, et cetera. Pure applied science. Team One was on it as well, a different perspective, with two sets of data triangulating back and forth.

So far, the Unfriendlies weren't jamming much of anything. That must soon change.

The vehicles pulled up in front of the loading ramp of ship two. A small cluster of field-grey figures hovering at the main hatch, put their heads down and scuttled for the vehicles.

"Jesus, Christ, Corporal."

"What?"

"Some of them are still wearing wooden shoes."

The corporal snickered softly...

There was a momentary flash, minimal smoke.

He had fired a smart-round, data streaming back and forth, its micro-jets correcting it in flight across the intervening space.

High explosive.

"Wow."

The impact of a round from a Barker was substantial, and the vehicle rocked on its springs. Cars and trucks were steel, plastics, composites, as opposed to paper-thin alloy, like a spaceship.

Much more of the kinetic energy had been imparted.

Even so.

Judging by the puff of dust from below and behind, and now smoke was rising, the round must have gone right through such a light vehicle, being capable of punching through seventy-five millimetres of properly-sloped tungsten-ceramic, admittedly, at much closer ranges. It would have hit the ground and come back up through again...

The people on the ramp were headed back up the other way.

The front window appeared to have gone opaque, with a tiny black dot for the hole and the rest was crazed and shattered as only automotive glass could without completely falling out.

The doors all flew open at once. At least four bodies flung themselves out, a couple cowering behind the machine and two making an honest break for it.

It was hard to tell if there was anybody still in there. Thin smoke lifted from the open doors, whipped away by the light breeze.

There was a moment of suspense.

The runners had made the apparent safety of the shadows under the ship. They weren't much of a priority, and the scope was swinging towards the next target anyways.

Let the radiation kill them. They were already casualties, and they knew it, too, turning and bolting again, using the bulk of the ship for cover.

Those in the command centre watched.

The sound was turned down, the crack of the next shot strictly imaginary.

Second vehicle, popped through the engine. The far back door opened and it looked like people desperately squirming out, which implied some training. Her best guess was that only two made it out. One would almost have to be a VIP. The vehicle began to burn.

"Nice. Give that guy a cookie."

The trooper laughed. Zooming in on the icon, names came up along with service records.

It was a team of six. One vehicle, buried under a pile of underbrush a kilometre and a half away.

"I'll just log that, Colonel."

She laughed in spite of the tension.

One Barker, some other light weapons.

Trooper David Ovango. Five-year contract, made the class top ten in basic. All the qualifications.

He'd never fired a shot in anger. The young face came around, giving her an unreadable look.

He spoke into the microphone. Trooper Giffens.

"Nice work, keep the data flowing." Giffens was one of Captain Aaron's picks and good for him.

"Same to you, Trooper."

"Thank you, Colonel Graham."

With a pat on the back, she removed the headset and took a breath.

So much to be done, and so little time.

Even now, selected units were racing towards Deneb City and the Unfriendlies undoubtedly knew that, or they would very, very soon now.

Chapter Ten

"Ah. Captain Aaron."

He'd had a solid three and a half hours in the rack and looked to be much refreshed.

Paul had shaved, showered, and kitted himself out in rational fashion.

There was a pistol at the waist, and he'd put his long gun in the rack by the door under his name, labeled there by some anonymous trooper. Troopers did these odd little jobs. People came and went on various errands one must assume had been assigned by somebody somewhere. Unlike her, he'd opted for the forest camouflage pattern, with all the regulation patches and insignia. A careful suppression of individual personality, there was no mistaking who he was—a senior officer, one accustomed to being obeyed, and not taking too many noes for answers.

Her command appeared to be coming together.

"Good evening, Colonel. Can someone bring me up to speed?"

"Colonel?"

"Hang on, Paul. Yes?"

"Report from Corporal Haliwell over at the warehouse."

"Warehouse? What warehouse?"

"The one where they're assembling the drones. Colonel."

A map of the town came up and a location was marked. It was in the northeast, far from the airport to the west and the city centre.

"Very well. Put him on."

Vicky Chan was there, making hand motions.

Dona nodded.

"You're relieved, Major. Get some sleep."

Vicky slumped in relief, and turned away without further talk. She headed for the door.

The picture changed and there was Mike.

"Stick tight, Captain. We'll fill you in as we go along." There was a half-hour overlap on shift changes for just this reason.

Lieutenant Tanguy was just coming in the door and Dona waved her over.

***

"Report, Corporal Haliwell."

"Okay, Colonel. We've got one drone assembled and the other two are well underway. Not bad for three or four untrained people, but the manuals were in the crates and we found all the tools we needed. They have a small fleet of trucks and forklifts, and so there's a repair shop here as well."

"Excellent."

"Trooper Noya is just charging the batteries and testing the systems. He says the electronic speed control is a pain in the ass to set up. He's been reading the manual. Apparently, he needs to turn on the radio and would like permission to do so."

"Ah."

Thoughts raced. The drone radio system would have much longer range than their personal, battlefield units.

It was also encrypted and on a secure military frequency. The Unfriendlies might take a while to intercept and identify its very tight signal bursts...

"Very well. Tell him to keep it short—no chatter-bugs, okay. Where the hell are you guys, anyways?"

"It's a little industrial park. The beauty of it is, it's not all that developed. We're on the outskirts of town. It's ten or fifteen hectares and about three buildings. They've taken out all the trees and it's a lot of grass and weeds. There's a straight road, ten metres wide, five hundred metres long and with low trees at both ends. There are streetlights, but the cables are all underground. Noya says we should have no trouble taking off from here if we want." If asked, they could shoot out most of the lights for night-time operations.

For the time being, it was better to keep it looking like no one was home and presenting no big changes in the overhead view to any enemy surveillance.

"Okay, we will have to think about that."

Inwardly, she thanked her predecessor, and that was some real foresight. Sooner or later, she'd have to write some kind of report. It would be best not to leave the colonel out. The corporal waited patiently, leaving the ball in her court.

"That's a good idea though, to use it as a miniature airfield. What's your impression?"

"We have weapons available. Missiles, smoke, flares. Riot-gas. Anti-personnel and anti-armour bombs. Even a pair of heavy machine guns. They're very adaptable. Noya says the thing is big enough to carry a couple of hundred kilos, maybe more. There are some mini drop-tanks for it too, we were wondering if the enemy has that—they probably do, right? For the time being, battlefield reconnaissance seems to be a higher priority." It was best to preserve the drones for as long as possible.

"I agree. What about the other ones?"

"They're ninety percent assembled. At least now people can see what goes where, and when it comes in the sequence. Noya's plane had two washers, about three screws and a couple of nuts and bolts left over. He says they miscounted at the factory when they were putting the hardware packages together. It's as good an answer as any. We should have them up and running in a couple more hours. The thing is, we need to test the first one to make sure we got it right."

"Can you launch by dawn?"

The odds of the Unfriendlies getting moving any sooner than that seemed unlikely. With a force of that size, it might even be days.

"I think so. Probably, assuming the thing flies and that we can fly it." There were control consoles for each machine, presumably in factory condition.

The ground stations and the aircraft each had a transmitter and a receiver. H-scramble on all freaks. All of that would have to be assembled, tested and fine-tuned. The consoles were also used for training, simulating through VR what a real machine might do, and giving the soldiers a bit of experience.

That was Noya's problem, and Haliwell's.

"Roger that. Keep us posted—and crack open those missiles."

The Proctor drones were capable of light missile attack, as well as surveillance, jamming and laser-designation for heavier weapons launched from other systems. They could be controlled by radio, laser, and they also had good autonomous functionality.

"How big is that warehouse? Could we hide something fairly large in there? I'm thinking of vehicles, or maybe even civilian helicopters."

"Ah—probably. We could move some stuff around, make some room. What did you have in mind, Colonel?"

"Nothing yet. It's just a thought."

"Yes, Colonel. Oh—oh, wait. We could use a bit of relief, or maybe even just a good meal and some rest."

"Do what you can, Corporal. We don't have too many people to spare."

"All right. We'll figure something out."

"Send someone into town and get what you want. Use a civilian van or pickup truck. Get beds, blankets and pillows if you want. The bill will be paid, and that's all anyone needs to know. If you need cash, we'll send someone around. Okay? Over."

"Thank you, Colonel. Over."

***

Dona was nearing the end of her short shift, officers working four on and four off until the situation became clearer. Rear echelon troops were working twelves, and forward elements were essentially on duty until relieved, catching food and rest when they could. They would only be able to keep that up for so long, and in an emergency, both main shifts would man the defenses behind the front-line if that term held any real meaning in modern warfare.

"Ah, Captain Herzon."

"Good morning. Colonel." It was the middle of the night, the Unfriendlies were still unloading, and their fire-teams were still observing.

Dressed in forest camouflage, he seemed calm and cool as they studied the screens. Inside the vehicle, the helmet was off but he still had the headset. It was all night-vision, ambient light at his end, with its eerie green and black tones, glittering highlights and not much else.

"Our people are about ready to begin the advance again."

All they were waiting for was the word. They'd laid up for a few hours of darkness, assessing the situation and wondering about that enemy satellite.

"Hmn. The southwest isn't a problem. My people can use the cover to best advantage, although vehicles are always going to be a challenge."

The roads, on the other hand, were both an advantage and a liability, depending on how they were used.

"Move out as soon as you're ready. Use the dispersed formation."

This would eliminate the possibility of them all being taken out at once.

Other than that, it was always going to be a gamble.

And being seen, selectively, was part of the plan.

***

"Takeoff in one minute."

With the dawn of Deneb imminent and both moons still up, the sky was brightening quickly. Low clouds hung over the hills and there was the promise of rain.

Dona and Captain Aaron studied the proposed track. There was nothing to suggest. Noya had laid out a beeline course for the patrol station just north of Deneb City, planning to cruise all the way in fuel-saving mode. They had enough credible intelligence, they could ignore the highway for the moment.

"Data feed is good. Cameras and sensors are good. Motor's good. Batteries are good. Control is good. Throttle up. Rolling."

Unheard in the Command Centre, the motor revs climbed. Noya released the brakes and she was moving, at first imperceptibly, and then with more authority.

A few seconds passed, virtual needles on the instrument display climbing their circular course. There was a lurch. Things got smoother in the nose camera as the wings took some of the weight.

Noya fiddled with a knob on the control board.

Listening intently, Dona heard the faint buzz of a faux-motor sound, useful as a kind of subconscious feedback to the pilot. At least that way he knew the motor was running and he didn't have to keep looking at the tachometer.

Noya was taking off into a bit of a crosswind. He seemed to be doing okay on the foot-pedals and with some gentle right rudder...

The nose lifted, the view slewed slightly to the right, and she was airborne.

"Estimated time of arrival on-station, about forty minutes. We could get there faster, but I want to feel her out a bit."

"Roger that. Carry on, Trooper."

"Thank you, Colonel."

"Corporal Haliwell?" Onscreen, he was standing behind Noya's chair, hand on the man's shoulder.

"Yes, Colonel."

"How are those other two machines coming along?"

"Might be another hour or so, Colonel. That's mostly because we're going to be hanging missile-racks and some other hard-points on them. First we have to test the systems. Over."

"Trooper Noya."

"Colonel."

"How does that thing handle?"

"Ah. Well. It's not the most maneuverable thing in the world. It's built for stability as much as anything else." His face was intent, the interruption unwelcome but unavoidable.

"Roger that." He was on radar now.

The track appeared on the big board in the command centre, curving around and heading to the southwest as the machine climbed out. Noya was ignoring her, concentrating on learning the machine.

"Basically, it almost flies itself. Ah, assuming we have the balance and the trim correct."

She watched him fiddle with the knobs, and then take his hands off the controls completely.

The machine held its course, speed and altitude pretty well, at least in the first fifteen or so seconds. Throttle set, it was gently climbing. He reached down and put in one more click of down-trim on the elevators. Noya reduced power, she started coming down, and he adjusted the elevator trim back up again. He was staying low, the radar-sensors all reading negative.

"All right. There you go, Colonel." He looked up, into the camera lens.

There was a quick grin.

"I have to admit, I'm kind of impressed."

Nice.

"Very well. Carry on, and good work." It was as good a time as any to shut up.

***

With Captain Aaron in the hot-seat, Dona took a walk, down the stairs and out through the fabrication shop, now mostly empty. There were a few vehicles, people and weapons. One or two of the armoured vehicles were being serviced, an oil change and a tune-up by the looks of it going by.

Tools clanked and men and women, backs to her and heads down in the engine bay, muttered to each other, oblivious to her passage.

They were well in from the doors, several of which were still open. The bright glare of the day was blinding, exacerbating a slight headache that had been developing since awakening. In a few short hours, she'd completely forgotten what fresh air was.

An unmistakable smell assailed her nostrils and her stomach resonated in sympathy.

The place was fairly large, tall walls of blank, beige metal siding with dark brown trim, and a puff of blue came from around the far, southeastern corner.

This was worth investigating.

Turning the corner, she stopped dead.

"Wow."

"Hey, it's Colonel Graham. Hey, Colonel, want a cheeseburger?"

Her mouth closed then opened again. The young man had three big barbecues all lined up in a row, all of them going. There was a row of coolers, small picnic tents in case of rain. There was another trooper, looking sheepish in a genuine chef's apron and tall white hat. Not quite so outgoing, that one.

The troops had taken the precaution of donning grubby civilian coveralls, The boots blended in fairly well, and there were no weapons visible. The possibility, or probability, of an enemy satellite coloured every thought.

The thing just had to be up there.

"Sure. Why not." The truth was, she was ravenous. "Well. It looks like you people are doing all right."

"Ah, yes, Colonel." The young man, not the least bit intimidated, was opening up the buns and putting them on the rear upper rack for toasting. "We sure are."

There were a dozen and a half meat patties on the grille, looking close to being done. There were a few picnic tables and shade trees, now mostly bare in the branches, where company employees gathered during better times.

The troops had paper plates, plastic cutlery, condiments, cheese slices and a big bowl of chopped onions. Tomatoes and lettuce! Holy. A company pickup came up from the far side and halted.

Doors slammed, more people were arriving, bearing gifts and booty in the ubiquitous paper sacks favoured by Denebians.

"Well. Not exactly messing about, eh?"

"No, Ma'am." There was a quick ripple of laughter from those who caught it.

Someone proffered a colourful paper plate and the young man took it.

"Here, Colonel, take two, they're not very big." It was a lie, but the grin made up for it—

"Ah, thank you. This looks good."

"Yeah, I'm looking forward to it myself, ma'am. Come on people, don't be shy. Grab your plates and get in line. What's the matter, you ain't never seen a colonel before?"

With a quiet snicker, Dona moved over and grabbed a seat on the end of a picnic table, framed in two-by-fours since time immemorial and stained a deep, rusty red.

A young trooper, freckle-faced and tow-headed, came along, balancing a plate and pressed-paper bowl of chips and a cold can of grape soda. There weren't too many empty spaces.

She nodded, indicating a seat.

With a blush and a quick glance around, he sat across from her, head down. There was a jerk and he began to rise.

"Would you like a drink, Colonel?" The pale blues eyes could barely meet hers, and that face was growing redder by the second.

"Why, yes, thank you."

"Ah—what kind you want?" He was from Kessel, going by the accent, a bit of a cross between Dutch and something else.

If he was a day over eighteen, she would have been very much surprised.

"A grape soda would be lovely, trooper."

"Yes, Ma'am."

He was gone again.

The poor guy was so young, she was old enough to be his mother. Assuming one had started young—popping out them babies at seventeen or eighteen like a proper woman should.

The burger was a bit pink in the middle, but it wouldn't kill her and this was a good opportunity for them get a look at her. A little salt might have helped.

Watching as he plunged into the small crowd, he elbowed his way to the cooler. She liked that calm, cool bit of aggression, which might have been what led him to enlist in the first place.

The Colonel wants a pop, and you guys had better get out of my way...

It struck Dona that this must be part of her mobile reserve force.

Maybe even all of it.

Chapter Eleven

"Ah, Colonel. We were just wondering."

"I have my com unit, Captain."

"Yeah, well, we would have called in an emergency. But our drone is approaching the patrol area."

"And?"

"Small units are racing down Highway 17, no resistance. Same for all units. Nothing really new in the way of intelligence, although people are talking about the landing. I guess they think we're the last ones to hear up here." Quite frankly, the phones were ringing and everyone was talking about it.

"In normal times, we probably would be."

Paul nodded.

That was probably true, although there was public radio and a small television station, community news-rags and the like. So far, these were carrying on in as neutral fashion as possible, sticking to regular programming. They were wondering what the future held, and waiting to see what happened. The news had been reported, without too many editorialists leaping onto bandwagons. They were covering their asses and not taking too many risks. From their perspective, there was nowhere to run. Nowhere to really evacuate. If the locals were sending in letters to the editor, they were being suppressed or deleted. Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil...

Perhaps this was only to be expected. The newswriting bots would be programmed to be as cautious and as fact-based as possible. It saved on manpower and avoided accusations of partisanship if nothing else.

Even Shiloh had its news services. Those were skewed in predictable ways as a matter of public policy.

Reading between the lines, the newsies could see her situation just as well as she could—and they weren't privy to the plan, either, which might have bolstered a bit of confidence in the few humans involved in the process.

A change of masters might very well be in the cards from their perspective, and so why take unnecessary risks?

Just the facts, ma'am.

Short, sweet, and to the point.

"Command Centre. Command Centre. Come in, please."

"Who's that?"

"Ah. That's Corporal Haliwell."

One of the technical people brought Haliwell up on Captain Aaron's battle-board.

Captain Aaron had the board, with Dona hovering behind his seat.

"What's going on, Corporal."

"Trooper Noya says he has the spaceport in sight. The town is just below the hills, he says another five or ten minutes before we get a look."

"Roger that. What are we seeing?"

"They're still unloading. No big concentration of forces. Trucks and buses going back and forth. They're probably billeting in the city, Colonel." Small forces at the spaceport could be accommodated in existing buildings there, one or two of which had been positively identified. "There has to be six or seven thousand of them, and that's a lot of beds to find in a hurry."

"What's that?"

The voice wasn't Haliwell, and Paul and Dona looked at each other.

"What's what, trooper?"

A red circle appeared on their screen. At such a long distance, whatever was out there was nothing but an indistinct grey smudge in the sky.

"Am turning to starboard to investigate. Over."

Starboard.

Fascinated, they stared at the board. Shit. The enemy had a drone of their own, and it was headed right this way.

That was quick.

It appeared that Noya was climbing.

"What in the hell."

"Hmn. He's trying to get above their cameras. The bugger's right in the sun, as far as I can make out." Paul's eyes strayed between the big board, and the clock.

"Well. Now I am impressed."

Haliwell was also talking, but not to them.

"All right, boyo...let's see what they've got."

***

Being a bit jealous of her story and her cheeseburgers. Captain Aaron had departed the command centre to see if it was true—and if so, to maybe get a burger of his own.

He was just coming back in, balancing a rather floppy paper plate, heavily-laden, when Trooper Green spoke up.

Dona's eyebrows were just raising at the sight of potato salad and coleslaw—how come she hadn't seen that?

"Sirs. We got action—sort of." This was from a couple of stations to her left.

Relinquishing the hot-seat, Dona stood up and went to his board as Paul settled into her place.

"Right. What have we got."

"It's—it's unbelievable. But someone claiming to be a General McMurdo wishes to speak with Lieutenant-Colonel Graham."

"Ah. Hmn."

"What do we do, Colonel."

There was a bit of a gagging sound from Paul's direction, caught on the fly with a mouthful of meat, half-chewed and not wanting to spit it out.

"That, is a very good question." There was no question of taking the call in the command centre.

There were too many people, too many displays, too many maps, too much detail in the background that might be of use to enemy intelligence analysis.

"I know." It was Captain Aaron. "We'll drag in a couple of whiteboards from the conference room down the hall. You can sit right here, and we'll block everything else out."

White-boards? That really was low-tech.

"Do it."

With a couple of spare troops in tow, Paul bolted from the room and down the hall as Dona took the hot-seat again.

There were thumps and voices and then they were back, dragging in the first of the free-standing boards, with arcane sales data, production schedules and other marks scrawled on them in washable marker. This would be from the most recent staff meeting, presumably.

"Get a couple more."

"Yes, Colonel."

Trooper Green was stalling magnificently, his voice rising with a note of contempt.

"She's very busy, and we don't take kindly to smart-asses and their pranks, sonny-boy."

He listened, the signal audio-only and coming in over the civil phone system.

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say, Bud. You'd better not be wasting our time." Green winced, getting an earful no doubt. "You guys are a bunch of fucking idiots, incidentally."

Brain-dead, mouth-breeding bottom-feeders.

Green had quite the mouth on him.

Her face twisted in involuntary humour.

It wasn't entirely unheard-of in war. Enemies talk to one another. It was an old and time-honoured tradition in some respects. It was why they were there.

"Sure, sure, asshole—bring the God-damned picture up or you can all go fuck yourselves."

The fact was, they had to have some kind of public phone number for the locals, for everyone from the Mayor on down to communicate. They weren't in the phone book, not exactly, but someone had obviously given it away.

An insane thought, but before the invasion, the local force probably had been in the book—they had to be. It was the sort of innocent detail that you totally forgot to ask about and always came back to bite you.

"All right, Trooper. We'll take it now."

"Yes, Colonel."

Another trooper had set a small camera pickup on top of a nearby filing cabinet, zooming in and making sure there was nothing in the background. He had a small monitor set up so she could watch herself.

Behind her, a trooper was just wiping down the last board with a damp cloth, erasing any clues that might have given away their present location. Someone threw a chunk of tape across the company logo. Somerset Fabrications on the top of a board would have been a dead giveaway.

They were definitely in the book, and a company website would have their address, maybe even a little map, and a few contact numbers for sure.

"Paul. Prepare to evacuate and move to Command Centre Two." For that, a building further out on the outskirts had already been designated, although it was her impression little had been done to further that part of the plan.

There just weren't enough people for every little job.

"Roger that, Colonel." He bolted from the room at a run, needing to find as many warm bodies as possible in as short a time as possible.

Much of their equipment would have to be moved, set up again and checked for bugs. There was just time to freshen up the lipstick and pull the tunic zipper down about as far as she dared.

Checking the monitor, she gave the zipper another tug.

"Are we ready?"

"Yes, Colonel." He tore his eyes from her cleavage.

She gave him a wink as his face flushed beet-red.

"Put the gentleman on."

She sat calmly, hands folded in her lap and her posture good. She had the helmet and the flash-goggles on. Someone had propped a weapon against the back of her chair. Her heart was beating a bit faster.

A smile lit up her face as the screen changed.

He had decided to show himself.

"Well, hello, General."

"Ah, hello, Lieutenant-Colonel Graham. I'm so glad you could find the time to speak to me."

It was a head-and-shoulders shot. The Unfriendlies weren't tipping much of a hand either, with blank wood paneling behind the General and no one else in the picture. The telephone-location was blocked, an elementary precaution. So was hers.

"What can I do for you, General?"

"I would ask for your surrender, but I have this funny feeling I would be wasting my time."

She smiled.

"Anything else, General?"

"This planet means nothing to you. And I would so like to avoid unnecessary bloodshed."

"We're under contract to the people of Denebola-Seven, and we tend to take that sort of thing very seriously."

"Your contract is illegal. Our legal counsel is, or will be shortly, taking that up with the Interstellar Court." The Unfriendlies were under contract to the Mining Worlds, members of the Conglomerate, further out on the rim of the galaxy, and acting on their behalf.

No more than she knew from the web.

"Hmn. Very well. You're certainly within your rights to do that. Naturally, our own counsel will be drawing attention to the fact that your invasion violates the rights of every person, every commercial entity, and every native of this planet. This in times of clear peace. You have broken the treaty, more than one, without due notice. And for no good reason, I might add."

"This planet was first colonized by our client's ancestors."

"Sure it was, and they abandoned it for the Rim Worlds just a few years later. They removed themselves, leaving not one person or living creature behind."

"They have never relinquished their claims to this planet."

"Simple abandonment, even after making some small improvements, is enough to violate any claim, to any planet, celestial body, or works of man in space. The only thing that can't be claimed is space itself, outside of established economic zones. The law, and many, many treaties, seem clear enough on that."

She had the sneaking suspicion that this conversation was mostly for the record.

"The Confederation is our enemy, and the Organization is an illegal, Godless entity."

"I do not agree, General. We're not all atheists, which you know very well. We're certainly not nihilists, General. Our citizens have perfect religious freedom. Some of them are even members of your own Church. That is their right. It goes along with the right of any free citizen, which so many of your people are not. And just for the record, no one has ever doubted your right to exist. Sir."

A wan smile crossed that pudgy face, pallid and with two chins hanging over the field-grey uniform collar. The left breast was covered in stars, swords, clusters of oak leaves, Jesus-crosses and red ribbons. This guy was a real somebody.

Possibly even a winner.

"Repent now, or hellfire shall be yours, Colonel. Please be advised. This is purely a courtesy call. And my troops outnumber yours by better than ten to one."

"Thank you for the information. I shall take note of that." There was nothing but cool amusement in her voice.

The general flushed, glittering blue eyes staring deeply into hers.

"I'm aware of your service record, of course. You've never really been in combat, have you, Colonel Graham? You've never commanded troops in the field, not in any great numbers, nor in any field of real danger. As for your teaching ability—I am deeply respectful. I'm sure you do the very, very best you can for your students, some of whom have gone on to relatively noteworthy status. The more especially so, as I, along with others, have read some of your course materials. I refer specifically to 'Tactics of Delay', one of your better thought-out theses. Then there's The Economic Basis of Modern Interstellar Warfare, another good one. There was nothing in there that I didn't agree with, sometimes with a few reservations. Maybe it was the fact that it was written for students, and perhaps it just didn't go far enough in some respects. But Fabian tactics are nothing new, Colonel. It's basically just a rehash. And on this little planet, there really aren't that many places to run, are there? Are you going to burn all the villages? Destroy all their crops? Kill all the livestock? I will leave you with that thought."

"Well. I am impressed. You've really been doing your homework, General McMurdo. I'm flattered, I really am. Not too many people read that thing. Not if they don't have to. You, sir, get an A for effort."

He chuckled in spite of himself.

"So, you're not going to make my job any easier. That will play against you, in the inevitable defeat. Think of your troops, Colonel—and all the innocent civilians of this planet. The natives too, with whom we have no quarrel. We're offering full parole. All we ask is that you turn over all weapons, and give us your written assurance of all Confederation forces vacating this planet ASAP. We will provide immediate transportation, ah, on one of our vessels, under a flag of truce. All hostile activities will cease at once. You have my word on it."

"I'll take that under advisement, General."

"As for your present tactical disposition, considering the small size of the forces involved, I compliment you—it's pretty much what I would have done under any similar circumstances." The general winked. "You're such a good girl."

Off-camera at his end, there was laughter.

The signal was cut on a hand motion from McMurdo.

The glowing light on her own camera pick-up went from red to green just as Captain Aaron stepped around the end of their impromptu little cubicle.

"Well. What do you think of that?" He gave his head a little shake, humour in his eyes.

"Hmn. The nerve of some people's kids—" Her voice might have been a little louder than necessary.

The ripple of laughter that echoed around the command centre was gratifying. Quite frankly, it had been pretty darned quiet out there, up until now

With luck, they would tell this story, and the word would soon get around.

No surrender.

We're going to kick their asses.

Oh, yeah—and the Colonel's all right.

"What do we have on this McMurdo character?" She'd never heard the name, and yet she was usually well up on Unfriendly military affairs.

"Right on it, Colonel."

"Right. Let's get this crap out of here." She was referring to their temporary backdrop.

"And if he calls again, Colonel?"

"To hell with him. Let him sweat."

"Ah—do you want us to move to Command Two?"

She thought for a second.

"No. But let's make sure it's all set up and ready to go." They had triple or better redundancy in terms of most of their present set-up.

Setting up a series of command centres had been in the original plan—

"McMurdo was just fishing." The trooper, waiting to take down the equipment, blushed furiously red. "Sorry."

She gave him a long look of assessment. He was right, which was interesting.

"Roger that, Trooper."

Chapter Twelve

Having lost the enemy machine, camouflaged and flying low over the terrain, Trooper Noya had reacquired it. He held it centred up for a moment, the system automatically recording everything that could be seen. His own radar was still turned off—he didn't need it and the enemy machine would have detectors plastered all over it.

"Trooper Noya. Please break off and proceed to the patrol area."

"Right. Anyhow, our trajectories are similar. I mean, coming and going. He must have launched at dawn, some time, maybe twenty minutes or half an hour after we did. I'm about a thousand metres behind and five hundred above in altitude. I don't think they can see me. Logging all data-points. Coming about, Colonel. Sorry about that." He tore his eyes away from the display to engage the camera pickup. "What's interesting is that they went straight across country. They really should have followed the road, shouldn't they?"

It might have implied haste, it might have implied some sense of insecurity. The Unfriendlies would like to know more about her own force, and that was for sure. They also knew exactly where to look, which was interesting in that their intel was accurate enough—insofar as it went, which could also be said of her own intelligence set-up.

They would have a lot of gaps in the data. They knew about the recent Confederation landing, or would very quickly. It had been reported on all the news sites, just as had the original small Unfriendly landing.

They knew all about her, and that was interesting.

"Hmn. Interesting observation. We are assuming they have a satellite, but. It is an assumption. Anyways, that was good thinking, Trooper. Welcome to the team."

"Roger. Two minutes out at full throttle. All cameras and sensors on." His active radar was still switched off.

His reasoning seemed good.

There was no need to respond, and there were people monitoring the cameras besides Noya.

"Colonel."

"Yes, Captain?"

"Force Two has arrived in Walzbruch and rendezvoused with our forces there. They're setting up a few boobies and then they want to establish a blocking position." His stylus indicated a point on Highway Three leading from Walzbruch to Deneb City. "When we get a minute, we'll set up a few ambush points on Highway Two."

Highway Two led from Walzbruch to Roussef.

In the immediate area of Walzbruch, there was the typical web of secondary roads, unimproved in most cases. The weather had been dry. They had local knowledge, and they would be able to withdraw under some cover and by a number of different tracks. Sooner or later, they had to pop out onto the highway in order to make any time.

Boobies were just that, booby-traps of varying complexity and lethality.

"Very well. Ask them to set up a couple of fallback positions on the way into Walzbruch, and one or two on the way out again."

"Right."

Captain Aaron stood there looking at the terrain, with the highways cut by numerous streams falling down from the highlands and a couple of vital bridges. Blow the right bridge, and the enemy would be held up for hours. If they went the wrong way around and took the wrong trail, or especially if the muddy season hit at just the right time...

They could be stuck in the hills for days.

"Yes. I think that will be best—"

Looking around, it seemed the Colonel was busy elsewhere.

***

The Combat Command had come to the end of their window.

Holing up on high ground, on both sides of Highway 17, the heavier vehicles were five hundred metres or so further back, under the cover of trees and terrain. The fallback position was just over the brow of the hill using the reverse slope to keep plenty of dirt and rock between them and any enemy.

The Colonel was on the line, but she cut off abruptly.

They had their instructions. She was confident enough in them, and the plan. The only question was the cost.

With modern battlefield communications, now secure in their private fibre network, distributed by low-power radio at point of use, any unit or individual trooper could see everything that the people in the command centre saw. With nothing much going on where they were, it was an interesting insight into the battle.

"Proctor One. Proctor One. Missile launch—" This from Fire-Team Three to Trooper Noya on the drone.

"Thank you. Maneuvering."

The horizon tipped over and then the machine was apparently spinning.

"What?"

"Sorry, Colonel. I saw the flash—wasn't too sure what it was."

With the feed from the Mark Seventeen Satellite overhead, plus the report from Fire Team Three in the city, the missile tracked across the map, a small red bogey arrowing towards the green caret that was now Proctor One. Noya had been fine-tuning his display and controls and seemed fairly confident. Rapid confirmations came in from the other fire-teams, removing all doubts.

She'd have to ask Noya about all that ability—but he clearly had some.

"Trooper Noya." In the camera view, the horizon spun wildly.

"Hopefully we don't pull the wings off this thing."

"Proctor One. Proctor One."

"Go ahead, over."

"Missile impact in three, two, one."

"Nope."

"What? Say again. Say again, Proctor One."

"Not if I can help it. I'm right on the treetops. I just saw something, a quick flash in the corner of the view-field."

"Proctor One. Proctor One, come in please."

"Proctor One here. Go ahead."

"Status of Proctor One."

"We're still flying. That was nowhere near us."

"Proctor One. Report."

"I did a snap-roll and then threw her into a flat spin. Otherwise you get going too fast, and we're only a thousand metres up. We got lucky. Over."

She could look up flat spin later—

"Roger that, Proctor One. They'll have a few more of those, over."

"Absolutely. Colonel. I've got an idea. I'd like to get closer, over."

"What's your plan, Proctor One?"

"We go semi-autonomous, nap-of-the-dirt, down low where they can't see us. We get close. Pop up, take a look, and then drop down before they can hit us. Over."

"Can you program that, Proctor One?" Or fly it.

"Yes. If I can get one of the girls to fly this thing for a couple of minutes, I should be able to figure it out. Manual flight with stability-control and terrain collision warning and avoidance. It's all high-G stuff. If we weren't in so much of a hurry this morning—"

"Roger. Permission to proceed. Do you need a break? Can you set the thing to circle for a couple of minutes?"

"Marissa's here, she thinks she can handle it. Some of them have been taking turns on the game, uh, I mean the simulator."

"Very well. Carry on, and good work."

"Thank you Colonel. Likewise, I'm sure."

Gunnery Sergeant Kelly was in the front seat of a Hellion, with the board down low in front of him, watching and listening in fascination.

"Wait! Colonel."

"Go ahead, Proctor One."

"How many of those things do they got?"

"At least three launchers in a typical battery, three missiles per launcher. They have pretty good range for their size. Thirty to fifty kilometres, depending on altitude, distance and angle." Straight up, it was all boost, on lower angles the small, pop-out winglets helped support it and extended the range. "We can assume quite a number of reloads, copy?"

"Right. Uh—"

"Yes, Proctor One?" There was a patient note in the Colonel's voice.

She must be having a hell of a long day, thought Kelly.

"If you don't mind—I'm going to pull a few more teeth."

The sergeant grinned a feral grin.

I don't know who the hell that guy is, but I like him—

"Very well. And thank you, Trooper."

"Yes, ma'am. My pleasure."

Kelly sat there grinning.

Yeah, she'd been having that effect on a lot of them—the males, anyways.

In the back of the Hellion, Captain Herzon groaned softly in his sleep.

Apparently, back home, his youngest girl was sick and the marriage wasn't doing too well either.

Captain Herzon had all kinds of worries.

Kelly only had the one.

Get in, get the job done. Get paid, and go home.

It was as simple as that.

He'd also read the Colonel's book and she really knew her business.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered to come along.

***

"Okay. Here we go. Brigadier-General McMurdo was a full Colonel. Only recently promoted, he was a colonel for fourteen years. This looks like a big opportunity for him. Was second in command of a battalion at the siege of Roget Four. Implicated in war crimes, but never indicted. His family owns a few hundred-million hectares on Shiloh, as well as being involved in big agri-business there." Many of his troops, raised on his own manor by the regiment, would also be tenants and clients, many of them personally known to him.

Like the manor itself, the regiments raised this way would be passed down within the family tree.

The troops might be traditional military retainers. At least some undoubtedly would be.

They would be the sons of his nearest or higher-status neighbours—more food for thought. The other thing was that Guards units were of very high calibre. The regiment had been constituted by his great-grandfather, with a patent from the government of Shiloh. Guards' status had been earned in a vicious little war fifty years ago. The McMurdo name was all over the place, not just historically, but presently, as a captain and a lieutenant of that name were also serving. A real family affair.

Hmn. Very interesting—

"Sirs."

Holding up a hand, Dona answered the trooper, his face tense as he pulled off his VR set.

"Yes?"

"We've got trucks coming out of Deneb City. They're not on the main road..."

"Ah." With a nod to Lieutenant Wheeler, interrupted in her briefing on McMurdo, Dona got up from the hot-seat in the command centre.

Going over to the trooper's station, the two of them put on the goggs and had a look.

In the background, phones were buzzing and there was a dull hum of activity as data came in and orders, instructions, clarifications, went out.

"Ah." License numbers flashed across the screen, captured and analyzed by the drone aircraft as it popped up once again from behind the hilltops. "Nothing to worry about. Those trucks belong to us. They're full of grain. Flour, cereals, all kinds of staple and prepared foods."

The trucks had transponders, all of them pinging away in routine fashion. They matched up with a list of numbers provided by a civilian, known only as Dav13. Dav13 was risking a lot if they got caught—man, woman, child, whatever.

The trooper zoomed out to a larger picture of the battle zone.

"The Unfriendlies have a roadblock on Highway Seventeen. Fifteen kilometres out. Nothing on the secondary roads north of town." He bit his lip. "They'll figure it out soon enough. But they've been unloading and billeting their troops. They have a command post, they've commandeered truck garages and repair shops. They've put out a couple of proclamations—"

She nodded.

They'd been busy.

"They know where we are, all right. Mostly. They've got a lot to think about. With numerical superiority, they may be a bit lax. Keep an eye on those trucks..."

"Colonel."

Taking off the goggles, another trooper was signalling from a nearby station.

"Thank you. Keep on it—and watch them. Our people have been in communication. Dav13 seems legit, but there is always the possibility of a trick." She patted him on the shoulder and went to the next trooper.

"What's up, Trooper Kubili?"

"Ah. Seems to be some rioting in the town square."

Absently nibbling her lip, she nodded.

Paul had been busy while she was asleep, and that was what money was for, after all.

Right on schedule. All her junior officers had to do was to follow their various time-lines, much like a big engineering or construction project. Some of those time-lines started or stopped at different times, some were of different lengths. Various units had been assigned to various tasks, although they had scrambled to revise the plan somewhat once on the actual ground.

Whether long or short, the timelines for each task were set in different colours—she and Paul had only had so many coloured markers when they laid it all out, but they were all on parallel tracks, clearly labeled, units and commanders penned in there, hopefully leading to some kind of a decisive conclusion. That original paper schedule had been professionally rendered onscreen and all commanders and NCOs had it. Troops could look at it if they wanted to—and reassuringly, quite a number had already done so going by the auto-count.

Hopefully the enemy would play along—and they probably would, if presented with exactly the right case at any given moment.

"Very well." The camera, set up earlier by Fire Team Three, was on a tall building a couple of blocks from Deneb City Hall and the built-up downtown area.

They had a half a dozen cameras in the downtown core. Slaved to the Confederation satellite, this one was running on pure laser.

"Right on time. This is a diversion—and it proves something. The people are on our side, or at least enough of them..."

"Won't the Unfriendlies just fire into the crowd, Colonel?"

She sighed.

"Yes, probably. But not right away. They'll try bellowing through a megaphone first. Water-cannons and tear-gas. They'll form a line of shields and try and push them out. Right? Hopefully, our friends will follow advice."

"Advice? Which was what, exactly, Colonel. If you don't mind me asking?"

"Not to push their luck too far. Draw as many enemy troops into the city centre in as short a time as possible, and then disperse as quickly as possible..." She watched, fascinated, as protesters rolled a police vehicle onto its side.

One had to wonder if they'd done it before.

People were milling around, shouting, waving fists and signs, showing signs of some organization as they confronted the Unfriendly position on the edge of a large square.

The Unfriendlies were assembling at the ends of a couple of side-streets.

There was no sound, not at that range. Whether this was a blessing or a curse was a question for another day. The usual leadership types would be right in the Unfriendly faces, hollering abuse and baiting them to fight. There was a semi-circle, a gaggle of the uncommitted, all along the periphery. One big mob in the middle, ebbing and flowing.

Within a minute, black smoke began billowing from the vehicle, and yet there were clearly visible, men and women in police uniforms, standing off to one side and watching the protest without attempting to interfere—thus far. At the far end of the block, a mass of field-grey uniforms were forming up, officers scurrying to and fro, lining them up for what might be an unusual situation. There were anti-riot weapons, batons, helmets and plastic shields, shotguns with non-lethal rounds...at first, at least. That would only hold true for so long. They were trained in conventional infantry tactics, and dealing with an unarmed mob was going to be something of a challenge. Assuming they didn't want a bloodbath—

Small, tactical drones, their operators using shoulder-slung consoles and radio control, lifted off and cruised out over the crowd.

The first puffs of white gas exploded over the heads of the mob. There were a few civilians down there with gas-masks of a sort used in industry. People began to scatter. Pretty much all of them had some sort of masks or bandannas across their faces. Someone had been using their heads. That also went for the enemy, clearly somewhat prepared for civil unrest. The possibility of civil disturbance would commit a sizable force just to hold Deneb City and to keep order. She wanted the mob to underline that point. A city of that size would nail down at least a thousand troops and possibly more, just to keep positive control.

"More trucks coming out." A voice from nearby. "They match our list."

She lifted the goggles, giving the trooper a wave.

"Thank you."

He nodded, as people's eyes were glued wordlessly to their screens, while others typed messages and listened intently to calls and signals coming in from all over the zone.

"You're welcome, Colonel Graham."

Chapter Thirteen

It was only four hours, but that was a long shift when the situation was changing so rapidly. And yet—and yet it was also so hard to let go, to trust her officers. Her people. She had a feeling that sleep would be hard to come by under such circumstances. Her stomach was in a fine knot, and yet one still had to eat once in a while.

A couple of quick drinks only helped so much.

"Ah, Vicky."

"Colonel."

"Hmn. How did you do? Sleep-wise, I mean."

"Oh, Gawd."

Dona nodded. The fact was, the Major looked like hell—something no one should ever say thoughtlessly to another person, man or woman. Dona probably wasn't in much better shape herself.

She grinned.

"Don't worry. It gets worse before it gets better—"

"Ha. Thanks, Colonel. But, ah, anyways—if you want to go off, now is probably as good a time as any."

"True. But I was thinking of a little tour of the defenses. Show myself to the troops, and not incidentally, to the local people. They have obviously heard all about it by now. Our new commander is a woman, and there are still people—not all of them Unfriendlies or other fundamentalist types, who are probably wondering just exactly what that means."

Vicky nodded, settling into the hot-seat, which was well-named—still warm and no time for a cool-down, was there?

***

"Good morning."

"Good morning." The couple, dressed in casual clothes, passed her on the sidewalk.

Their eyes were on her back...

With keys in hand, Dona went looking for her pet pickup truck, so pretty in red, washed and waxed to perfection, the windows squeaky-clean, as only a handful of bored firefighters could ever do.

The slip of pale pink paper tucked under the windshield wiper could be only one thing...

Damn.

A bloody parking ticket.

That settled one question.

First stop, the police station.

Firing up the motor, she spoke with with the navigation system, which duly informed her that the police station was just across the street from City Hall and right beside the courthouse, just on the other side of a good-sized parking lot.

It was a five-minute drive from her current location. She was headed that way anyway, to check on decoys and trenches and missile emplacements.

Argh.

For the most part, the streets were empty, with few civilians about. At this time of day, many of them would be at work. In spite of war and invasion, people still had to make a living. School, on the other hand, had been canceled. It appeared people were keeping the kids indoors and off the street although she did see a few civilian vehicles moving about.

It was surreal in its normalcy.

Peace was about to be disturbed.

***

The officer on the desk took one look at the ticket, one look at Dona and then tore it up without hesitation.

"Don't worry, Colonel. It's just that our night shift is pretty uneventful around here, at least most nights. I'll have a word with the constable. Darla's a good sport."

"Thank you."

"About the truck." The place was so small, and she'd parked right in front of the glass doors.

"Yes. It has been commandeered under martial law." There were other vehicles at the airport and those would have to suffice in an emergency.

"I understand, Colonel. I will inform our people."

"How is the evacuation going?"

"Once people understand the reality of what's coming, they're cooperative. One or two holdouts, but that's only to be expected. We do have our genuine nutcases. Not all of them mentally ill, either. Some people seem more worried about their pets than themselves. Some are more involved with their gardens, rather than the possibility of their homes being destroyed. Please understand, Colonel, a good vegetable garden is worth its weight in gold around here. Then there are the flower gardens. People love them things, and with good reason I suppose. We've never had a real war before. There were a few conflicts with the natives during the initial colonization phase, but those were nothing much. Once it's passed from living memory—and there aren't too many old-timers around these days, it's basically just legend, and only half believable." A few centuries would have to pass before anyone would have ever time to care about history.

There was too much work to be done—productive work, that kind that put food in people's bellies and money in the bank.

Especially local history. People paid far more attention to happenings on the more populated, more glamorous planets closer to Old Home, a bit of an expression on Deneb. There was so much more going on there—video stars, music stars, celebrities and what appeared to be, at such long range, a much more colourful existence. There just wasn't that much culture on Deneb, although the people tried pretty hard and Tennessee Williams had been put on recently by Roussef's amateur theatre company not too long ago.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

The reviews had been fairly good, or so he said, and she wondered if he'd been in it.

"Okay."

She thought for a moment.

"And what about you guys?"

"Some of the staff are setting up a temporary headquarters, out on the old north road. A former hardware store. It's been closed for a couple of years and they owe a fair amount in back taxes. That's the one leading to Ryanville. We still have prisoners here in the cells. They're mostly awaiting trial. Assuming a conviction, they get shipped off to Deneb City to serve their sentence. We have a contract with them, as we don't have the facilities for long-term incarceration. That's out of the question now. Some of them we could simply release on their own recognizance. One or two, I would prefer not to. If you've got a real bad drunk driver, ah, you know damned well he's going to do it again—after a few days of drying out in here, especially. Ah. One or two civilian employees, basically looking after the prisoners. We plan on moving them and ourselves last, to avoid any disruption of the communications system." The local cops had their own dedicated radio frequency.

Regular police work in Roussef would continue as best it could, which was kind of reassuring.

Town limits were the limit of the Roussef police force's jurisdiction, as that was the tax jurisdiction paying the costs. There were no rural cops, hence the presence of Confederation troops. Ninety-nine-point-something percent of the planet was unpoliced.

"Roger that."

"Let us know if you need anything else, Colonel Graham."

"Thank you. I will do that. And if you have serious problems, please let us know."

"Will do, Colonel. If there's nothing more—"

"I don't think so. Let your people know we've been talking, incidentally. We certainly appreciate all the help you can give us. Ah...is the Mayor around? Any idea where he is?"

"Probably across the street. Other than that, he hasn't checked in for a couple of hours."

"Thank you."

She turned to go, halfway to the doors in fact.

"Colonel."

She turned.

"Yes?"

"Kick their asses, Colonel. Please."

The officer's head was down and he was tapping on his console, and yet another phone was buzzing in the background.

"You can count on it, Constable, and thank you."

His eyes came up and there was a faint grin on his face as he lifted the phone to his ear.

"Ha. I believe we can—I believe we can. Hello. Roussef Police Services. How may I help you?"

Yeah, she thought. It's his planet too. This is his home too.

Of course he's angry—

Of course he cares.

***

She found the Mayor in the deserted City Hall. He was in his office with a rather distraught-looking young woman wringing her hands and desperately trying to get him to leave. She was just in time to see him knock over a cold coffee with his elbow and the young lady with him scramble to sop it up with paper towels before it ruined everything on the desk.

"Mister Byron."

The woman looked up.

The Mayor, eyes wet, was mumbling, slumped in his chair and staring off into space.

"Mayor Byron. We can't let you stay here."

"But—but—but."

He trailed off, shaking his head. He wouldn't look at her. His hands were all over the place.

Scared shitless. Wanted to go down with his ship. Didn't know what to do—couldn't accept it.

Borderline suicidal. It wasn't too hard to read and she wondered what other issues he might have had.

Dona nodded at the young woman, presumably an assistant manager or some other employee of the town. His secretary, most likely. Dona didn't care and so she didn't ask.

Pulling out her com unit, she spoke.

"I'll get you some help with him."

"Thank you—thank you."

Uttering a deep sigh, Dona put in the number for police headquarters. If he would listen to anyone, it would be his own cops.

They'd strap him into a gurney and carry him out, if that's what it took.

Chapter Fourteen

The planet was interesting in the political sense. One of their few collective acts had been to become a founding member of the Confederation, and to contract with the Organization, an intra-stellar mercenary organization with offices on fifty planets for their defense. As such, the Organization was a member and signatory in its own right.

Only citizens in the organized towns paid any property or income taxes at all, a very small part of which went into the general planetary fund. Anyone who did business in such municipalities paid a small sales tax on every purchase. That took care of the surrounding market areas, and that was about it.

There was no single planetary government, just local governments in the larger, more organized towns. Outside of that, there were company properties, where their own rules and regs were in effect, also contributing to the general fund. Then there was private property. This was where the adage that a man's home was his castle held sway in every practical sense. Everything else was wide open, public land and first-come, first-served, assuming some covenant with the natives. They always had to be taken into account. The original treaties, for there were many tribes, dated back hundreds of years to the era of first contact and initial exploration. One might have expected problems, but there was plenty of room for everyone. The really bad eggs didn't last very long when virtually every adult, human or Denebi, was armed and prepared to use it. More than one real asshole, grossly over-estimating his importance in the world, had ended up in a shallow grave somewhere in the hills. Assuming enough backstory, your neighbours just accepted that so-and-so was no longer around.

Not too many questions would be asked once the best man, or woman, or person, had clearly won.

Interestingly, crippling someone was still very much frowned upon—probably because someone else would have to look after them, when life was hard enough already. Some innocent person, suddenly burdened up with a disabled friend or relative and not part of the original problem.

What an interesting moral question that was, and then there was the question of some real fugitives going off into the hills and maybe even making whole new lives for themselves.

Assuming they could stay out of trouble long enough. With no cops outside of the major cities, that seemed to be sort of accepted as well. Self-imposed exile, or innocence by absence, which had some very ancient precedents in terms of common law. You couldn't be tried and convicted if you weren't there to defend yourself, in essence.

As for the Denebians, they seemed to accept new plants and animals almost as a matter of course. The ethics of all of that sort of thing were so far out of her field as to be almost incomprehensible. With invasive species and attempts to develop products for export, there was always going to be a cost, some real hard trade-offs between the old and the new.

It was one hell of a planet, but she liked it just fine so far.

Having tapped into the closed-circuit camera system in public areas and in the larger municipal buildings in Deneb City, her command team was watching as the Unfriendlies took control of the place.

These were augmented by the views from the Confederation's own cameras and the pickups on individual fire-team members. The satellite was always watching, but these were close-ups, street-scenes, and interior shots.

Their lightly armoured patrol vehicles were similar to Confederation vehicles, corresponding to a similar purpose. The soldiers seemed disciplined, with small deployments at major intersections.

It was a display as much as anything, as they checked papers and stickers, plates and vehicle registrations. We have the power now was the obvious message. Every person and vehicle stopped was being thoroughly photographed, which would be very intimidating to the civvies.

Dash-cams, lapel-cams, drone cams cruising overhead.

They were in the main public square, and they were out in front of city hall and the police station. Their actions seemed calm and unhurried, the facial expressions unreadable from long distance. They were just blobs in vaguely humanoid form, moving about in a dry and dusty urban landscape. On the edge of the desert, there were even fifteen or twenty-metre palm trees up and down the main boulevards. That must have taken some real money.

Time and patience as well.

A small detachment entered each building, and there were cameras watching inside. They were able to watch the transition from one government to the next. If it could be stated in those terms.

So far, it seemed a bloodless transition. So far, no one had been crazy enough to resist.

Other detachments proceeded by vehicle to the outlying parts of Deneb City. They were setting up roadblocks on all major streets and roads, some of which petered out into tracks leading into the hills. They were blocking the two major highways and the short road leading south out of the city towards the spaceport. Highway 17 proceeded northeast about twenty kilometres before turning north, and Highway 3 originated and continued on from there. It was an obvious roadblock, a classic choke-point in anyone's military handbook. There was an Unfriendly platoon there, with their vehicles and some heavy machine guns. The airwaves were heavy with coded traffic.

The rioting, more of a demonstration, had faded as quickly as it had broken out. A few minor injuries were being reported. Again, the reporting was surprisingly objective. A dozen people had gotten themselves arrested, and these were being held in civilian police headquarters. The Unfriendlies were being nice, for the moment. Most of the grain trucks had made it out of the city, and the first of them had already made it to the junction, all of it on paved roads, twenty-five kilometres north on Highway 17. There they were turning left and heading north, ultimate destination Ryanville, and all according to plan.

The vehicles, fully automatic, had been loaded by robotic machinery. They had the usual cameras and sensors linked by what was luckily a rather simple civilian satellite to an autonomous but supervised control program. They were a couple of kilometres out from Force H's position, under Captain Herzon.

Sooner or later, the Unfriendlies must realize what had happened—they were already patrolling the industrial sectors, which included milling and storage facilities for grain, meat-packers, food processing operations and a couple of small breweries. The planet had its own favourite soft drink, the sticky black fluid a clone of some old and familiar cola standby. The city had all the usual industrial plants necessary to support the planetary population. (Milo was a separate case, largely self-sufficient in that it had direct imports and its own industrial base.) The last few grain trucks had been held back at the facility, once the enemy got moving properly.

They'd shut down the control system, but all her trucks had been pre-programmed. The enemy had used bulldozers to stop the last two or three machines, which, upon hitting or being hit by such an obstruction, had promptly shut down. The Unfriendlies must shut the civilian satellite and the phone system down...sooner or later. This alone would cause great disruption, which was one reason not to do it except as a last resort.

The enemy would have their own basic plan.

They would stick to it as long as it seemed to be working for them. They must have something in mind, no matter how crude or how cynical, to win the hearts and minds of at least some of the people. They needed cooperation above all else, and you couldn't just massacre everyone. Even the Unfriendlies knew that.

The Unfriendlies were just as prone, or prey, to guesswork as she was—something to bear in mind.

Other cameras, deployed by their fire-teams on rooftops and heights surrounding the city showed a pair of helicopters, military, circuiting the city, equipped with missiles, guns and other light weapons. It was a show of force for the local population. The helos hadn't gone much more than a couple of kilometres out from the city perimeter. They hadn't landed anywhere except the port and the city centre, where, presumably, senior officers would be quartered. The enemy would have a headquarters, just as she did. A juicy target—at the risk of sacrificing Team Three. The Unfriendlies might be putting out some bait, but then so had the Confederation.

It was important to shoot first and to shoot accurately—bearing mind the enemy would shoot back, perhaps just as accurately.

With luck and a bit of help, they might get a good, solid location on the enemy HQ. So far, one big corporate building in particular had been reported, and it certainly seemed the most likely.

Such juicy targets needed lots of confirmation. The heavy stone-faced walls, surrounded by other buildings, all full of civilians, office buildings and tall apartment buildings, would feel so much more secure than the thin walls of a ship out on the vast expanse of the spaceport.

Wherever the enemy was, they would employ similar trains of thought, and most likely such a building would be extremely attractive from that point of view. Dona only had so many missiles.

Every single one had to count. The worst possible outcome would be for a Confederation missile to hit a civilian building full of people and no Unfriendlies in residence. It was a matter of importance not to do that.

Unfortunately, all of their sources so far were civilians, enthusiastic and almost ecstatic at the thought of a missile strike. But civilians nevertheless.

This was always going to be problematical. And that particular building wasn't covered by any of the cameras. Bad luck, and shit happens.

Not the biggest, most heavily-armoured gunships, the helos could nevertheless be mounted with quite a variety of battlefield weapons systems according to their intel books.

A study of the literature on that particular model, small and easily disassembled for transport, indicated the craft would be able to reach Roussef, with a short loiter period of about forty statute minutes. With a pilot and co-pilot, they could carry six to eight troops, still with a small weapons-load of its own. Heavily-laden, the range was much less. That's not to say they wouldn't or couldn't be used for hit-and-run raids. That was for sure. Only two had been seen.

How many they might have still crated or under assembly, was another unknown. In addition to the spaceport, there were civilian and commercial operations across the field at the airport. All sorts of big loads had been taken out of the belly of the big transports. They were crated and tarped and there was no real way of knowing what was actually in there. There were a couple of dozen civilian craft available to the enemy, perhaps more if they got desperate enough to grab pure sporting and recreational models. These were being guarded, staked out in the open air, but otherwise left alone.

Anything could be going on inside of those hangars.

So far, they hadn't scouted very far to the north of the city, in the direction of their eventual attack. They were aware of, or must suspect that teams equipped with Barkers or other anti-aircraft capability were out there. It was even possible that the helos were simply trying to draw fire. Her people in the city were under strict orders not to take such bait, no matter how tempting.

There would be time enough for that when the enemy actually began to move, which one would assume they must at some point. Individual units were aware of their own particular time-lines.

There would always be temptation.

The whole point of the exercise was to take control of the planet—and until all Confederation forces had been eliminated or they had formally surrendered, that would always be in question.

There were already signs that an attack was being prepared.

As the day wore on, reports came in from civilians, and much shorter messages from observers with the fire-teams. These confirmed in detail what the civvies were saying.

Having spent two and a half days in unloading and prepping their weapons and vehicles, the Unfriendlies were forming up in columns of armoured vehicles, weapons-vehicles, transports and scout vehicles.

The most impressive were the medium tanks of the Joshua type.

She had a funny feeling that those were pointed right at her.

Dawn was breaking, and there seemed to be an awful lot of activity down there.

Troops milled around, sergeants and corporals mustered their sections and officers stood in small clumps, waiting for last-minute instructions and briefing on their respective missions.

The trooper beside her spoke.

"Hmn. It won't be long now, Colonel Graham." She gave the Colonel a look. "Why haven't they cut off the phone system? That's kind of interesting."

"Ah. But they want us to know they're coming—what with all that overwhelming force and all."

The enemy could monitor all kinds of conversations, listen to what the civilians were saying, what they were telling the Confederation, thereby knowing what the Confederation knew, (or might think they knew), and even have their own agents plant information that might not be strictly accurate. They would let it run and begin building a list of civilian names—names that would no doubt receive a nasty-gram from the Unfriendlies at some point, possibly even a home visit, and in some cases, an arrest and detainment. The enemy would be recording everything.

There was no such thing as the right to privacy, or civil and human rights under the Unfriendlies.

They had tried to tell more than one civilian source exactly that, unfortunately it was like they just didn't get it.

Maybe they just didn't care. Didn't think it could ever apply to them—it was cold, it was hard, it was analytical.

It was also true—too true.

Now was the time—

"People are risking a lot to help us, and I want you all to understand that."

"Yes, Colonel Graham."

The trooper bit her lip and nodded. It made a lot of sense, and it was like a murmur going through the room.

The room was very quiet, as all eyes on shift studied the situation.

Chapter Fifteen

"Report from Force H, Colonel."

"Yes?"

"Grain trucks rolling through their position."

"Very well."

Another voice came from the next row of battle-stations.

"Their concealment seems pretty good, Colonel. The video from the trucks isn't always the best." This was due to the low acuity required for a vehicle to navigate roads equipped with transponders, radar reflectors, and strong ferromagnetic lines painted on the road surface. "Also. We've stopped using the Proctor call-sign. No sense in telling the bad guys exactly what we've got."

"Very well."

The cameras aboard the robo-trucks picked out moving objects for safety, although other forms of motion-detection were the primary element. Otherwise, they were more of a back-up option for remote human operators when things went wrong.

This particular trooper was monitoring the convoy, along with a short list of other lower-priority objectives. With plenty going on all around her and the big boards up front for all to see, there was no question of boredom.

"Okay, check the view from each one as they go through. Force H, are you getting this?"

"Roger that, Command. Over."

It would be helpful if all or most of the trucks got through their ambush position before the enemy caught up with them.

The trooper beside her spoke again, in a musing tone.

"Honey—or vinegar." That is but the question—

"Pardon me, Trooper?"

The girl blushed.

"Well. It's just that I read your book, Colonel. That was a while back, but."

Dona nodded thoughtfully—and the girl had given her a powerful reminder.

Recognition dawned.

This was one of her students—Alyssa, an average student, one who had passed with some bare margin. She was in a class two or three years ago. Confederation troops were among the best-educated in the galaxy, and that was the private soldier—officers had nothing but constant learning curve.

She was beginning to understand just what that meant—it was a kind of revelation, in fact. Even though she had been teaching it for years.

The last name would come to her in a minute.

You learn or you die.

It was as simple as that.

***

The Unfriendlies were on the move.

The largest force, including what appeared to be a couple of companies of Guards, had some big flatbed trucks, with three medium tanks so far identified. There were utility vehicles big and small, and batteries of artillery, towed along with their ammunition trailers. There were air-defense and surface-to-surface rocket batteries. The column had been reinforced with detachments of engineers, mobile air defense weapons, and more than a dozen big truckloads of regular infantry. Packed in like sardines, there had to be four or five hundred of them. They were inbound on Highway 17, having broken off of Highway 3 at the crossroads, a hamlet marked on the map as Gossua. They were under careful observation from Teams Three and Four during the initial stages. The satellite had them the whole way, but that might not last forever.

No one had any idea of what language that was or what it might signify. Gossua, being too far forward and too exposed, in the midst of a wide valley, had been left undefended, with only a camera or two for road-junction surveillance. Coming and going, the cams were pointed both ways.

In order to suck the enemy forward, it hadn't even been mined or booby-trapped. There were certain assets in place. The time to activate them was later.

There was a joke going around.

Twenty credits a day sure sounds like a lot of money.

Until you realize it's only ten days a year.

The enemy had divided their forces. First, when leaving Deneb City, which had to be defended in its own right, including the spaceport and all stores, supplies and installations.

They had just divided their forces again—going for two objectives at once. Possibly even three objectives, for they were also patrolling south and north of town. There was nothing to the west but a vast, undeveloped wilderness, and they apparently knew that too.

An Unfriendly Guards regiment was generally four or five companies of troops, one of which was a headquarters company. Not requiring the same manpower as a rifle company, the headquarters company would have attached platoons of specialists such as transport and quartermaster. One such rifle company, reinforced with other units, was now headed for Walzbruch. That force had a proportionate share of additional formations except for tanks—those were still headed for Roussef. In terms of sheer numbers, considering that her forces were divided as well, she was outmanned two or three to one in the Walzbruch operation, and a little less than two to one in the Roussef operation. The enemy still had five thousand troops in Deneb.

This allowed quite a reserve, and as the situation developed, some of it would be deployed. For this reason, a number of force multipliers were going to be vital. Everyone knew the defense had certain advantages. One of the less obvious of those advantages was surprise. Not always so easily attained by troops dug into prepared positions, and under constant enemy surveillance. She had deployed them as far forwards as possible, in order to maximize the opportunities for surprise. It was a gamble, but then war always was. It was believed that small units of professional troops could withdraw faster than their more unwieldy and arguably less-professional enemy, where essentially, it was only the higher ranks that had any formal training in the art and science of modern warfare. That's not to say that the staff work wouldn't be good.

But those orders and that plan had to be carried out by what were not the best troops and in fairly large numbers.

Troops that might very quickly become disillusioned by defeat, casualties, the sights, sounds and the cost of war. The enemy is always a sentient being—one of her better lines.

The second column, perhaps a reinforced company, all mobile including some lighter armoured vehicles, continued on to the east-north-east, clearly heading in the direction of Walzbruch. The first column was about twenty-five kilometres out of Deneb as the crow flew, and the other party, perhaps forty kilometres. Although the road had its deviations, Highway 3 was relatively straight, following the valleys as opposed to climbing constantly in heavy terrain, such as what had been dubbed the enemy's Main Force faced on the battle map. Highway 2, running from Walzbruch to Roussef, was a combination of the two types of terrain, although it crossed fewer valleys than Highway 17. Within this triangle, all action would take place—anything else was a dead end road, with the possibility of entrapping one's forces if someone blew a bridge behind them. To some extent, Ryanville was the same, which was why she was re-supplying there as much as she dared strip resources from other places.

Climbing hills, seeking the easiest pass, meant a lot of turns and switch-backs. Highway 3 was different. There were many small hamlets and scattered farmsteads all over the place. The band of population density stretched twenty and thirty kilometres to each side of the highway.

The secondary force, Walzbruch Force, was in nowhere-land, with little but the occasional farmstead, and clusters of small buildings at the rare crossroads and intersections. To the south, were the desert wastes of the low-lands. This meant that most of the roads to the right faded out to nothing or died at the edge of the escarpment, whichever came first. One or two faint tracks descended through shallower gullies, petering out into dotted lines that basically went nowhere.

At one time, people might have gathered salt out there. The longer things went on with that force, without meeting any enemy, the closer they got to Walzbruch, the less alert they would be.

There would be complacency at first, followed by a gradually-rising tension as they got closer.

They would hate every minute of it, and they would still be surprised when it happened. They knew Walzbruch had been occupied, and according to the Confederation satellite surveillance, a drone had scouted out as far ahead as possible, and yet still being able return to base on available fuel. This tended to confirm their earlier range estimates for the drone-craft.

With all of the Confederation forces in Walzbruch under concealment, keeping their heads down and signals traffic to a minimum, even by fibrenet, one had to wonder what, if anything, the Unfriendlies might have learned.

To their left, roughly north-north-west, the side-roads went further, and here and there along the way there were more concession roads at right angles; roughly parallel with the main highway.

By no means continuous, the short stretches of back road and the rectangular surveys meant that, combined with the usual tracks and trails, there were a few ways to outflank an enemy going in either direction. So far, the enemy had ignored the possibility. Rather than investigate, sending out patrols along the better side-roads, they appeared to be making time and speed as their first priority. They were keeping their force together. This would be a one-task type of force and it would ignore anything but the most provocative target if they were going by the book.

It was true—she'd read a few of their books too.

The enemy's Walzbruch Force appeared to be making sixty or so kilometres an hour. They slowed down and approached the major intersections more cautiously before racing on. They also stopped for breaks, meals and reconnaissance of major crossroads, using small patrol vehicles to scout ahead. They never went more than a kilometre or two on the side-roads. They would pause at the first major intersection, perhaps fearing being cut off by light forces or even the locals. A quick report, and they would turn around and go back. Not very impressive, but it was a small force to begin with.

All by the numbers, and predictable in some ways. There was very little civilian traffic. The Unfriendlies, upon coming upon civilian vehicles, invariably stopped and questioned people. So far, no one had been detained as far as could be determined. However, after such encounters, the civilians appeared to be going straight to their home or farm or business—and not so eager to talk about it on the phone, although mentions were made of it. Hopefully, at some point, someone would activate a burner phone, walk up into the hills and talk to the Confederation directly. After that, it would be wise not to come home for a few days, as the Unfriendlies would be listening in—just as the Confederation was. As it was, data was fed into the system, building up a picture of what was going on down there, one that meshed with what was known from satellite and other sources.

It was unfortunate, but there were no cameras along this stretch and so it was all second-hand in a way.

Main Force, confronted by that washboard terrain, was also making pretty good time. They were fifteen kilometres out from the first of several villages. Crossroads where the highway intersected with semi-surfaced and improved gravel highways were common along the main, paved road, which linked the two biggest towns on Deneb, with 17 cutting through the most populated area of the planet. This wasn't saying much.

The village, with a rocky little river meandering through it, weaving its S-bends on each side of the main street as it drained off to the southwest, gave the place a quaint charm in the street-views. She studied the situation.

The force under Captain Herzon were on the heights behind, overlooking the village of Kirk's Falls, population about seventeen hundred according to the sign.

Again, there were side roads and trails leading off the secondary roads. These were mostly running northwest and southeast, following some original survey that, one day, might be properly filled in. The population was scattered along the side-roads, not quite as dense as along the main highway. There were farmsteads and ranches and small trading-posts—they could hardly be called stores in many cases, small hamlets at crossroads and intersections where the structures and even a few side-streets seemed denser, according to the satellite map.

The best road on the planet, Highway 17, was the most winding, as the road-builders had sought to find the easiest gradient, not always a straight line in such hilly country.

There was a third threat on the battle-board, one that seemed much more subtle. Several large parties, equipped with light vehicles and weapons, had departed from Deneb City using the better gravel roads leading northwest and northeast into the bush. As near as anyone could determine, that original survey must have used the escarpment above the Great Desert as a baseline.

The public roads really didn't extend that far, at which point the parties had broken up, exploring their own individual tracks.

There was, unfortunately, a maze of logging and prospecting trails. The trees were tall and thick, and still partly in leaf, providing some cover from surveillance. There were vast clumps of Terran conifers which were evergreen. They might be fighting patrols, hoping to make contact with the enemy. The odds were, the enemy would push them out as far as possible, in order to detect and spoil an attack from the flank, or perhaps to provide a counterforce in the event of surprise. Her own people were engaged on exactly the same task, and if they lost sight of the enemy from above, there was a very good chance they would run into each other—hopefully not without sufficient warning to the Confederation troops.

For that reason, satellite and drone surveillance were absolutely vital. Enemy troops on the ground, on foot and hearing or spotting a drone before it spotted them, would immediately know something was up—this worked both ways, of course.

Are we expected? Or is there somebody else out here? These were only two of the most obvious questions. Dona was holding back on drone flights south of Roussef, unless the track was dead straight and obviously heading for Deneb.

They could fake it, making a quick pass over the enemy, but only so often—otherwise, it would be a dead giveaway that the drones were looking for something specific. They were limited to four or five passes a day, no more. It was better not to use the same machine twice if they could help it. If the Unfriendlies had cracked the Confederation's IFF, it would look more random, and it might tend to exaggerate in the minds of the enemy, the number of drones actually available.

As far as the situation in Deneb City went, enemy patrols were scouring the countryside in all directions, paying particular attention to a series of small outliers, hills two or three kilometres to the southeast and southwest of town. The ridges flanked the flats where the actual city and the spaceport were located. If the series of small ridges were outliers of the highlands, the wide, arid valley of Deneb City was an outlier of the desert. The Deneb River coming down out of the northwestern hills, right through the centre of town. Then petering out into a vast salt marsh with no outlet, only a shallow lake surrounded by crusty white salt pans. Only south of that was the spaceport located, on hard ground in the desert proper, the access road skirting the east side of the marsh just below the biggest of their hills and the one where Team Two was hidden.

The satellite had watched the Unfriendly patrols depart, tiny dots flaring with the infrared, and in the time elapsed they couldn't have gotten too far—three to five kilometres, tops.

They had figured out where the Barkers had been firing from, at least in the general sense. They knew the direction, and might have had a pretty good idea of the range—multiple hits imparted a certain kind of information.

Collision-sensors aboard ship would have noted the impacts, and combined with all the navigational and landing-positioning data, they must have had some kind of handle on it. The latest in nano-band radar might have picked up the slugs in flight. They had zero information as to whether the Boer-class ships had such a system.

The fire-team in Deneb, back together and now holed up in the top of a half-empty office block, were sitting tight and awaiting developments. At this point in time, the enemy was still some distance away from the other teams—the satellite was still catching glimpses of the enemy patrols from time to time, but the higher the elevations, the thicker the brush in that ecosystem. Vehicles could only take them so far, after that it was all on foot.

In that terrain, there was map distance, and then there was vertical distance. The actual distance was a combination of the two.

Reading the enemy's mind, they would try to make contact with the two known fire-teams, and then call in the big guns or missiles. They were well within range of the space-port, where there were batteries positioned and presumably ready. Some of the enemy's long guns were capable of ranges of up to twenty or thirty thousand metres, and even smart-shells were relatively cheap.

Where the enemy had a few tanks, a couple of drones and helicopters, a handful of missile batteries, their artillery would be well-supplied with rounds of all types. Both of their mobile columns were well-equipped with towed artillery.

Chapter Sixteen

"Enemy drone overhead."

"Roger that."

They were using the short-range setting and their pocket devices as little as possible.

Communication with their combat teams, Force H and Force Two, were relatively secure, at least until the Unfriendlies stumbled across one of the fibre-lines and tried to tap into it. While this would be easily detected, it would also render them much less useful.

Their upland patrols were using tight-beam communications bounced from the satellite. Unless a properly-equipped drone flew right through such a burst, there was little chance there, of being popped as it was called. Since it was laser and not radio, jamming was problematical without drowning out all signals—including the enemy's own transmissions. The enemy drone was controlled by radio, and the Confederation were letting that run, unjammed, until the opportune moment. Their own drones were capable of operating on a bounce-back circuit. Laser signals from the ground went up to the satellite, then relayed to the drone's receiver, and then back again.

They had to let the enemy drones operate long enough to get close enough for a shot, essentially.

Presumably, the enemy also had this capability. The fact that they were not using it—not yet, might very well be a bit of misdirection.

This stage of the battle was one hell of a cat-and-mouse game.

Enemy radio transmissions were encrypted, and they were sophisticated enough not to use the same prefixes over and over again, relying on a one-time system for each transmission. Yet much could be learned from the locations of the signals, frequencies used, (i.e. not civilian, industrial, or local government frequencies), the bandwidth, the amount of traffic and other factors. Simple triangulation pin-pointed locations with pretty good accuracy. The thing was to find out just exactly what was there, missile battery, artillery, or barracks? Is that location in the downtown area a command post? Or is it just someone talking from a coffee house? She had people working on that, and the battle computers might even crack some of the signals. They had a lot of confidence in the battle-map, but only insofar as it went.

What they didn't know was more worrisome. As for the Ultra-type intel from Central Command, neither the cracked messages, nor the details of that code had been shared with the other members of her mission.

There were dangers in monitoring enemy communications. It was common practice to use such signals to introduce a bug or virus, electronic spybots and the like, into an enemy's information-gathering, communication and control systems. The enemy, of course, would have the correct protection for their own devices.

So far, their anti-viral programs had warned of attempts but successfully blocked them. The enemy was successfully blocking the Confederation's hacking and cracking attempts. Insofar as they knew. It was just one more aspect of the game. Ultimately, they were all using the latest software, for attack and defence.

She was fairly certain the Confederation held technical superiority in this field, but one could never know for sure. Technical superiority seldom lasted for long, and there were independent, off-world contractors selling systems to all sides in any war—or in any peace.

It was all part of the fog of electronic battle.

Considering the odds, with Command probably holding a few things back from her, well. That might be wise. As things stood, only she and Captain Aaron knew a thing about the ultra intel. In the event of capture, they didn't know much. It was all in their heads and not recorded anywhere.

What they didn't know couldn't be beaten out of them. That was standard operating procedure.

The key thing there was that she had listening posts in Deneb City.

The enemy would also be listening, following similar processes, and trying to crack Confederation communications. The real question, was whether or not the Unfriendlies had agents on the ground, in which case they'd be monitoring the situations in Roussef and Walzbruch, Milo, and Deneb City. It was a difficult problem to ignore. So far, people were using their phones, but no anomalous signals were being detected on other, more military frequencies.

Civil telephone traffic would be bounced from tower to tower, long-distance signals up to the satellite and down again. The military stuff would use much more esoteric freaks, more power, and arguably, have much longer range. It would probably rely on a satellite. If so, they were being smart about it. Yet McMurdo and his staff officers would be screaming for information. If they had that capability, sooner or later, they must dust if off and use it. It would also be interesting to see what code-type they used. So far, the enemy traffic was ten times her own. This alone said something.

She had done the best she could. She was doing the best she could.

Team Three was under total silence, and the same went for Team Four, neither of them on the fibre network, and watching the action along Highway 17. It appeared that small follow-up forces were being dispatched, now that the Unfriendlies had secured the highway. At least, in their own estimation. All the Roussef Command Centre wanted was cameras on target, in terms of Team Four for example. Their fire-power was being held in reserve for maximum psychological impact.

Local hard-wired phone systems could be eavesdropped using ancient techniques. Luckily, these were mostly in-house systems at various industrial establishments. The planetary cellular phone systems, operated by a partnership of public-utility and private contractors, would be easy meat for the Unfriendlies.

So far, she had decided to leave it in play—and let the civilians talk. It was a question of which side blinked first. Much of it would be unreliable anyways, in the minds of the Unfriendlies.

Their paranoia could read much into the most innocuous talk, and at the same time they might discount reports of Confederation troops as planted information. There was a real psychological double-game going on. This was probably true for both sides. One's head ached with the permutations sometimes.

Was she being paranoid too?

Probably—and why not.

It was unknown how long the enemy might have been planning for this operation, and therefore it was probably better to assume that they already had agents in place. This included Roussef, Ryanville, Walzbruch, Milo and naturally Deneb City. The latter was a for-sure. The smaller centres, farms, villages and crossroads, would be tough to infiltrate as there were just so few people there. It could be done, but it would have had to have been a long-term operation, one where the agent had a very good cover story. Depending on how long the operation had been planned beforehand, enemy agents could have literally bought themselves a small farm. They might have been working it for years.

Identifying them might be another matter, as there was plenty of traffic and an automated system could only do so much with keyword identification and social-profiling. In terms of social profiling, it was interesting to know that the enemy would be on the exact same network. They were stalking each other on a system, watching and listening to each other, without either side having taken any actions that would shut the whole thing down. Modern electronic warfare was a bit schizoid in that sense.

All one had to do was to sign up for some social platform, stick up some bogus profile photo, and start making connections—which were useful in so many ways, including information warfare. In a medium where there were already plenty of fake names and spam accounts, there was always room for more. This led to a huge crush of information to be analyzed.

A simple spoken code, and some short messages embedded in innocent-sounding conversations might have told them much. That worked both ways too—

Briefly, she thought of Trooper Noya and the phone call to a possible mother.

Haliwell had cleared him. That was good enough for her—she hadn't exactly listened to that conversation.

With no other evidence to go on, there was nothing much in it. However, there were thousands of similar local calls—and family members, the young people, just as in any society, grew up, got jobs, started families and moved to other towns. It would be difficult to screen all of this with the limited number of live operators and code-breakers on hand, which was virtually no one. The Unfriendlies had more manpower. They would have a small coterie of the usual specialists.

For that sort of thing, she would have to rely on the program and let it run...here was Kelly in her headgear, audio and pictures relayed by fibre.

"Sine"

"Cosine."

A simple password/response to avoid dupes—fake transmissions, although the Unfriendlies really hadn't had the time, not yet. She'd only put limited thought into that herself, but troops were trained to destroy their com units, where the one-time day-codes were stored, rather than let them be captured and potentially hacked. The units had their own internal booby-systems, but. So far, this looked more like a guns-and-butter type of conflict. The Unfriendly troops had nothing so sophisticated, although they had person-to-person battlefield communication. It was better than hand-held walky-talkies and hard-wired field telephones, but not by much.

Outnumbered, out of communication with her superiors, she needed an edge—any edge she could get.

In that sense, she probably shouldn't have taken McMurdo's call. They had Dona's picture now, and a recent one. The only real comfort was that she had been wearing the flash-goggles, and there was no way for them to get a retinal scan. It was still a mistake on her part—the codes for electronic money transfers, were sometimes unlocked by retinal scans. That was just one example. And she was allegedly a professional.

It was wise to remember that civilians were nowhere near as well trained as her troops, or even the enemy troops, in spotting and ignoring false signals and misinformation. The enemy troops had their dogma, a lifetime of indoctrination, and if anything contradicted that, would be so much harder to convince than the civvies.

The problem with civilians was that they were reasonable men.

On a pioneering world with limited government, they were beholden to no one but themselves and their family, their friends and their neighbours. The whole planet had two small universities, three or four community colleges, even smaller, and the average person had the benefit of at least a high-school education. That wasn't to say they would be stupid—

"Go ahead, sergeant." She watched intently.

They had cameras deployed forward of their position. Nailed onto trees and fence-posts, glued under the eaves of buildings, the little plastic units were scattered on hillsides, laying in the ditches and stuck with goop inside of carefully chosen culverts. Made of a chameleon-type plastic material, they would take on the colour of the dominant background hue, effectively becoming invisible. The small, articulated lenses had only limited tilt, pan and zoom capabilities. Half of them or more would never acquire a target, but they were cheap and plentiful. Half a dozen in a location would be its own small network, all of them linked and all of them in touch with home base via satellite and their seeker-type, self-locking antennas. Once one had found the satellite, they all had. Having found it, they would not let it go without being reset by Confederation troops or reprogramming by enemy hackers. It appeared in the overhead satellite view that the Unfriendly column was grinding up the far side of the steep hill across a small valley of about five hundred metres.

The lead vehicle was a small armoured scout, with six big, low-pressure tires and a long, low, wide turret. There would be a 27-mm cannon in there, a coaxial machine gun of 12.7 mm, and another lighter machine gun in the hull. There were laser range-finders, ground-level radar for hard targets, motion and heat detectors. Target-recognition systems. Everything but the kitchen sink. Buttoned up, the enemy could survive in there in the worst of chemical, nuclear and biological environments. For about a week. Ten days at most.

That was sitting at idle, presumably in a defensive or holding position. As long as the fuel and batteries held good and they could stand the smell. As far as CBW capability, the Unfriendlies, with their half-trained and unprotected troops, it was presumed that they had it, but were reluctant to be the first to use it. Deneb was a friendly planet, and the Organization had always preferred precision over sheer blanketing effect. To deny the land or a road or a village to the enemy also denied it to the local population.

They definitely had nuclear capability, as a last-resort sort of deterrent. The Universe was a dangerous place, and they had to be able to defend themselves. There were all the usual justifications. Deploying even one in the present conflict didn't seem very likely. Not with Dona's small number of troops, what would be seen as the likelihood of victory, and with some neutral political entities in the galaxy, important ones, whose public opinion would be wavering back and forth.

Such a move could only escalate, and quickly.

There were smoke and grenade launchers angled up and out, front and back of the turret. These were traversable as well, that way the main gun could hold onto a major target and the vehicle could be defended against infantry attack. The vehicle, a Samson, had a crew of four as well as being capable of independent action. This was believed to be of the pre-programmed type, with machine learning of a sort dealing with the unexpected. One big drawback as she knew, was the diesel engine, although it had its adherents. It could run on low-quality fuel and the engine was relatively powerful. Recruits more familiar with farm tractors and simple fossil-fuel vehicles would have no trouble maintaining such a machine. Built on Shiloh, it used the same engine as a big farm combine common in the Unfriendly hegemony.

With hatches open, the commander was sitting confidently in the 'up' position. Other heads, all clad in the familiar black berets, stuck up through open hatches. The visibility through screens or even goggs was never quite the same. It seemed that they were pretty confident so far.

All of that was about to change.

"We'll wait until they come over the crest. When they get close to the bottom of the valley, they will disappear from sight—I noticed that when our own patrols came back." The hillsides were rounded, rather than being all straight lines and sharp angles like a proper, storybook mountainside. "But I'd like to get a shot at some of the tanks, if they're close enough to the head of the column."

Kelly had deployed a single squad. There were two on one side and four on the other side of the road, with the heavier vehicles and more people back a good kilometre. More troops were already setting up for the next reverse-slope ambush. This was three kilometres up the road, at a particularly narrow defile. At a good hundred kilometres an hour, that was two minutes up the road. A bit more with acceleration and braking, getting on and off of the road again.

The armour was thinner on top, compared to the turret, the gun-mantlet, or the front hull armour.

"Very well."

"We've got mines laid right there, which should stop or slow the column. If they're smart, which they're not, they'd be a lot more spread out than they appear to be." The mines, buried in soft dirt beside the road and easily camouflaged, were big enough to do a lot of damage, and in their present, ambush mode, fired by magnetic proximity rather than ground-pressure or remote signals. "Considering they've already been fired upon, and the fact that we've withdrawn, they must anticipate some resistance."

If there was nothing else, there were always mines and booby-traps.

The Confederation had clearly concentrated their forces, in the eyes of the enemy. The intention to resist, to hold out as long as possible, was written all over that...

It was just a question of when.

In the forward camera-views, following vehicles were hard to identify in the jumble, although one could see the familiar outline of tank turrets with their long guns, as well as the whip antennas and their black and white triangular pennants. It was difficult to judge just exactly where they were in the column from this angle.

Interestingly, the tanks were still on the flatbeds—their own drone had confirmed this more than once. The trouble with tanks was the fuel consumption, and most of the vehicles were not electric, rechargeable machines.

At the actual ambush position, the troops had the Pumas, the lightest of their vehicles, hidden in the brush on their side of the hill. Their firing positions were fanned out on each side of the road, looking down from crags and from rifle pits dug into patches of good, black humus, sheltered beneath the dark forest.

With the views from every vehicle, every weapon and every soldier to contend with, the machine sorted them instantly and the most relevant were displayed on three main screens. There was one dead centre and a couple of smaller, flanking screens. There were other displays, including a couple of smaller duplicates, but the main battle map was built up from a hundred sources of information, satellite, airborne, original survey maps, dash-cams and a cam on every trooper, and everything else that might be of help.

There was one in particular—a set of cross-hairs centred up on some anonymous patch of tarmac on the downslope opposite the forward elements of Force H.

The concealment must have been good. The enemy drone kept sweeping, zigzagging up the road, and the enemy column was just below the brow of the far hill.

She listened, almost afraid to speak at this point. She had to trust her troops. They were risking their lives out there. Some of that was pure professionalism. Some of it was simple ignorance, never having seen action before. A sense of adventure. An unwillingness to let one's fellow soldiers down. Some of that was for her, and she was sophisticated enough to know it.

What a horrible thought that was—

"Stand by. Stand by. Hold fire." Kelly's calm voice was right in their ears.

People who should have been doing other things, stood, watched, listened—and waited. One could hardly blame them. It was a major psychological moment.

A faint noise came through the speakers. All of those vehicles made a certain racket...

Kelly and crew had put out vibration detectors half a kilometre out, and the indicators were soaring.

"Sergeant." Trooper Makin, as labeled onscreen, was nervously clutching an assault weapon, the left hand clearly visible in his helmet pickup, fingers clenching and stretching, as the scope bobbed around with sheer nervousness.

She didn't bother to look up the kid's record...no time. First tour, never seen combat by the looks of it. The quaver in the voice said it all.

Eighteen degrees Celsius out there. They were all in light body armour or had the blacksuits under the uniform. A hot day for late autumn. He'd be sweating like a pig, but then so was everyone else. She sure as hell was—

The Command Centre was kept purposely cool for the sake of people's alertness.

"I see it." The roof of the turret and the upright, open hatch of the first armoured car was just coming over the top of the hill, the road surface shimmering in heat haze and there was the commander, wearing the big Unfriendly VR goggles attached to his headset—he was probably watching the view from their drone as much as anything else, either that or talking to someone further back.

For some reason, possibly the inexperience of the troops, or maybe the distances involved, but the enemy were traveling in daylight when they really didn't have to. Their vehicles and the drones were all-weather, night or day systems. The notion that they thought they were just going to drive up to Roussef in ten or twelve hours, twenty hours maybe, didn't hold much water. They were, however, known to be pretty arrogant at times. Again, she thought of McMurdo.

He really didn't have to do that, did he.

"Hold fire...hold fire."

The column, bunched up by foreshortening and optical effect, seemingly dropped their noses, one at a time, and headed down into the valley, stretching out into distinct targets now, with spaces between them of perhaps thirty to fifty metres.

In hostile territory, this was the absolute minimum.

Chapter Seventeen

The column was about as stretched out as it was going to get, for surely the lead vehicle must be getting close—

The bang of an anti-tank mine was considerable. Even at two or three hundred metres. Unlike the orange and black fireballs of popular entertainment, the concussion, the pale expanding orb of the shock wave, and the air full of impenetrable dust all happened instantaneously. It was there, fully realized, before the actual report was heard.

With the prevailing winds blowing lightly from west to east, that would take a moment to clear.

In the meantime, the troops of Force H-for-Herzon, fired upon the column where it crested the hill, hoping to disable another vehicle and bottle up anyone in between. Light machine guns tracked up and down the ditches and the brush on each side of the road. Someone launched a small anti-tank rocket and the fireball at the tail bobbed and wove across the small valley...foom.

That one might have been a bit, it was impossible to tell.

More dust and smoke.

Enemy troops spilled out of their trucks and fighting vehicles, which were only now beginning to return fire from their heavy machine guns and light cannon.

Her troops were behind a million tonnes of dirt and rock, only their weapons exposed. More dangerous would be the mortars, but her people had their light and heavy tubes already in position hundreds of metres away, zeroed in on coordinates thoroughly computed using planetary positioning data and good old footwork. The enemy was seeing the ground for the very first time, they'd only been on the planet for about three days. The first bombs were already dropping in among them as something heavier opened up from down below. Red balls of enemy tracer arced up and over the primary camera pickup.

The pop and crackle of guns and mortar fire rose to a crescendo, and then tapered off as targets became obscured, possibly even scarce. The bulk of the Unfriendly troops were now into the woods and down in the ditches and culverts returning fire at a furious rate. There were shapeless bodies on the ground, some still moving, twitching, convulsing...burning.

The rest were keeping their heads down.

In a minute or two, their officers would have them under control, as of yet panic and confusion reigned below. The audio was chaotic, and whoever had brought that stream up shut it down just as quickly.

"Cease fire."

The noise diminished, with the enemy still firing erratically, and going by the display, at invisible targets all along the ridgeline for a half a kilometre or more in each direction.

"Sergeant Kelly."

"Yes, Colonel."

"Suggest withdrawal. Your work here is done."

"Roger that, Colonel. We're just recovering the forward weapons now. No casualties to report. Fire is heavy, but inaccurate, and we had trenches, big rocks and cover for approach and set-up."

She already knew that, but Kelly was no more immune than anyone else to the excitement of battle.

The difference was that he liked it, whereas so many dreaded it, and rightly so.

The fortunes of war are always uncertain.

Mortar-fired smoke charges began to go off from the ambush site, obscuring much of the action below.

She switched to another camera, one much further back as the first of two Pumas cautiously stuck its nose out of a patch of brush and then, having successfully crossed a fairly shallow ditch, (an oblique angle was always best), accelerated rapidly on the downhill stretch, disappearing at the bottom just as the Unfriendlies had one hill further back. Their timing was good, as the drone was racing back to the scene of the action, but on the wrong side of a low, mist-shrouded peak to the west. Down among the trees, this time of day, the road was all shadows and dim light.

A bit of real rain would be lovely—smoke from their own cover-charges drifted across her screen and then it was all gone.

By the time the Unfriendlies got organized, there would be nothing there to attack. There would, inevitably, be some delay in getting them going again. The beauty of it all was that the cameras, for the most part, were still in place.

So far, all according to plan.

***

Time for analysis.

The Unfriendlies on Highway 17 had taken the bait. It wasn't like they had much of a choice.

People get shot at, they're going to fire back. They would take cover, they would shout back and forth on radios. Sometimes barely two feet from a camera equipped with a microphone. More data for the signal-cracker program to work with.

After bringing down fire from at least a half a dozen big mortars, they had formed skirmish lines, laboriously picking their way uphill, and then, using cover fire and shoulder-fired smoke grenades, rushed the high ground and the clumps of boulders where they thought the enemy must be. At least two had been killed by a simple grenade booby trap...

Several had been unfortunate enough to activate glue-mines, which were exactly that, exploding on contact to fire a spray of adhesive and a chemical accelerant. Soldiers would be coated in the quick-drying adhesive, which might not be lethal but sure put a crimp in a soldier's ability to perform. A clump of soldiers glued together felt very vulnerable, no matter what the circumstances or how it all turned out—it was interesting, just how many junior officers fell into the psychological trap of giving the survivors shit for something. Relieved as they must be that their people hadn't been killed, they felt they had to say something—and as often as not, fell into the habits of amateurs in command of amateurs, bullying and shouting for lack of something to say. It was, oddly enough, a kind of humiliation weapon. It would take hours to clean the weapons, the uniforms would be scrap, and if the stuff got in the hair, the eyes, the mouth or the ears, the individual trooper would be a low-level medical casualty. A time-consuming, not very serious casualty who was nevertheless out of action. Troops would think twice before rushing in a second time. That was the great thing about survivors. People who knew that they might very well have been killed, if only it hadn't been a glue-mine. They were a lot more cautious than the totally inexperienced. As far as genuine enemy losses due to more deadly weapons, two vehicles had been destroyed, several must have been damaged, and an estimated five Unfriendlies killed, with possibly a dozen or more light casualties. Some of those would be burn victims, the worst of all under any circumstances. There were no signs that the enemy were looking for cameras.

Far from it. They seemed hesitant in the bush, once the initial objective had been secured.

Perhaps it was the knowledge that there was nothing there—nothing there but trees, hills and rocks. That and a shit-load of river, lake and swamp. Or maybe it was the thought of what might be there, if only they looked hard enough.

Sergeant Kelly and a fire-team, along with one of the light scout vehicles, had escaped and evaded in the opposite direction. Rather than run west, to the roadside first and then to bugger off to the northwest in the Pumas and Panthers, they'd gone east on foot. Higher into the hills, following the ridgeline. The Unfriendlies, pressed for time and ultimately, patience, would hopefully interpret any signs of their going as either panic or troops in some outlying fire-position setting up for the initial ambush. In that terrain, hard as the ground was, the lack of marks returning to the road would be inconclusive.

They were waiting, and so far, there were no signs of enemy pursuit. Up an almost invisible track in the hills, there was no indication that the vehicle, a good seven hundred metres back from the ambush point, had been discovered. They had cameras watching it the whole time and no one had come anywhere near it. Other psychological factors having been well thought-out, there were no enemy patrols much past the ambush point. Not in the woods. All the enemy was seeing would be empty cartridge cases, scuffed foot-marks and tire tracks in the muddy patches.

They had sent out road patrols, patrols which seemed shy and reluctant. Finding nothing obvious, they'd returned to the column. The enemy, intent on their attack on Roussef, was already out of sight down the road, and soon to be out of sound in this tight, closed-in hill country.

"After a while, we'll go down there and have a look at those enemy vehicles."

"Right, sergeant."

There were two of them, pushed aside and bypassed in the enemy's haste to move on. An armoured car and a light 4x4. They still smouldered although the tires had long since gone.

There might be some useful intelligence to be gathered from the debris of battle. As for bodies, the enemy appeared to be recovering them and taking them along.

They always were pretty good about giving their troops a decent, Christian burial.

Nice.

***

Their fibre cable had been cut by Confederation troops upstream. The short section leading from the first ambush site to the next was essentially just lying in the ditch. Sergeant Kelly and the others went about systematically retrieving some of their cameras, copying all files and switching them to standby, a case of waste not, want not. Motion-sensors would turn them back on again in the event of sufficiently large target coming along. There were weapons, including a light machine gun and an air-defence tube to recover. It hadn't been fired, and it would be good to have along. If the Unfriendlies had patrolled the area, and surely they had left their footprints and what was essentially garbage everywhere, they'd been remarkably lax. It was like they climbed to the top of the hill, sat down and had a picnic lunch in the grass. Perhaps they'd assumed a full-blown retreat, or maybe they just didn't think a few unfamiliar weapons, extra weapons, would be useful. A lot of enemy troops couldn't even read their own Bibles, or so he'd heard. There was no way they would ever figure some of this out without a manual.

More likely, they'd feared booby-traps after the previous boobies and glue-mines, and had been ordered to ignore them. He might have done the same thing himself under similar circumstances.

It depended on the people under your command.

So far, his people had been doing very well. They were also burying their garbage.

"Sergeant?"

He nodded. Their orders were to wait, for there was a good possibility of other traffic—military or civilian, coming up the road. Theoretically, there shouldn't be anything coming down the road, but you never knew. Civilians had minds of their own and didn't always listen very well. A traveling salesman on the road and with a home in Deneb would want to go home at some point, and there were a hundred similar reasons—selling a big crop of soybeans for example. Ran out of baby formula, for another.

The sound of a tractor off in the distance, working someone's field, trying to get the crop off before the snow fell, was a pretty good reminder. Idly, he wondered what it was—corn, maybe.

Corn on the cob, with real butter, salt and pepper—

That would be great.

The enemy had three fuel trucks tagging along at the end of their little column. The cameras in Gossua had confirmed it. Their own fuel tanks were already partially depleted, and sooner or later there would be more.

There would have to be more.

Their drone was following the enemy column, and so far, the enemy drone was providing aerial eyes and cover for the Unfriendlies. It tended to stay out in front rather than coming back for another look. Even though some poorly thought-out ambush might be a lot more visible from behind than in front. The drone operators appeared to be either just as inexperienced, or just as overconfident as the rest. The Confederation drone was staying three thousand metres higher, hanging in the sun, and hopefully not being spotted—unless there really was an enemy satellite, in which case what were the enemy's options? Or their own, for that matter. Sooner or later, that satellite had to reveal itself. If it was up there, it would be used—and something, somewhere, would be sacrificed in the revelation.

So far, the enemy's portable air-defence radars hadn't even been turned on. Like the launchers, they were just riding along on their trailers...

When the time came, with Force H withdrawing and the enemy's Main Force in full chase, it would be time to attack from the rear. Enemy fuel and supply columns would be a high priority, but hopefully, he'd have plenty of warning from the satellite and other units closer to Deneb.

He sat in the passenger side of the vehicle, studying the battle-map and the tactical data gathered so far.

He looked over.

"What's the worst thing about war? Brushing your teeth." There was just never enough time in the day.

There was nothing like fresh, clean water running out of a tap.

She grunted. The trooper sat behind the wheel. A tall girl with biceps bigger than his, she was poised to fire up and go anywhere the sergeant wanted.

"Sit tight. They missed the vehicle the first time around. There's no reason to expose ourselves before we have to."

The trooper sighed, deeply. There were snores from the back seat, and there was someone wandering around on perimeter security. This was a bit of a euphemism for taking a dump, sometimes, in the typically irreverent humour of soldiers everywhere. In such circumstances, it was as good a method as any—to squat there and to shit very quietly, and to just listen.

"Yes, Sergeant Kelly." He was right about that tooth-brushing part, not to mention a few other things. "Now, the food, well—the food is okay."

He grinned, rubbing his upper lip where the stubble was beginning to tickle his nose, and checking reports from further up the road, where battle was about to be rejoined. No, he'd never minded the food either. The messes were excellent. In his experience they were as professional and as well-run as anything he'd seen, and out in the field, you were just so damned grateful for a bellyful of hot grub. The thing with the Organization, as well as their typical clients, was that they made damned sure the food was there, on time and plenty of it.

It was up to the individual what they did with it.

The Command Centre was just one of many channels, but a burst of sound and activity caught his attention.

"Incoming. Missiles, incoming." On the battle-zone display map, the red tracks of the missiles, launched from just south of Deneb City, were headed straight towards Roussef and the bulk of the Confederation force.

He watched as Dona Graham sat up in her seat and began speaking in clipped tones.

People leapt up, heading for the doors and the trenches outside.

She looked at the clock on the wall and for his part, Kelly nodded thoughtfully.

So, that was how long it took for the enemy HQ to get the bad news, and to respond.

They weren't very happy about that ambush, were they.

The colonel was gone and he was looking at an empty Command Centre, all the displays still up and running so that everything could be monitored from below ground.

That's what backup boards, hard networks and emergency bunkers were for.

Chapter Eighteen

"Who have we got in charge of the southwestern patrols?"

Dona had just come back on duty after a bit of a nap, a meal and a shower. It was hard to stay away, and that was just the truth. It was mid-shift, with Vicky Chan in the hot-seat, but things were happening and the pace was quickening. They had half a dozen patrols and sniper teams out there.

"Well, there's Trooper First Class Broser—"

"I think I've met him. That guy's huge."

"Yes. But. He's like a big cat in the jungle. That, is one of the quietest ones I have ever met. And I've met a few. I was with him and a few others on Arcturus Four. He's got all kinds of experience and he's not stupid, either. He knows when to keep his head down and he knows when to strike."

Arcturus Four had been a pretty good little war, by all accounts. It paid the bills, as the saying went. The Organization and their clients had won, and without too many casualties on either side. It had all the appearance of justice, insofar as that could ever be had.

"Very well."

"Then there's Virge. She's a sergeant, all the qualifications. Also did a year or so on Arcturus. Her specialty is reconnaissance and special ops. Ah, there's Corporal Twon, and a couple of others. They're picking their way forward, snooper-dogs out and being very, very quiet themselves." No noobs, everyone with them had proper training and the combat experience.

"Okay."

"Nothing yet. Estimating time of travel, in a beeline, for the Unfriendly patrols. They're still a good few hours away. Some of those tracks are still passable, but you'd be lucky to get much more than walking speed a lot of the time." When vehicles bogged down, it took a lot of time to unstick them, from the enemy's point of view.

Their own people were reporting the same problem. The plan was to hide the vehicles as far up as safely seemed possible and to continue on foot. An interception course.

Make contact with the enemy and disrupt them.

"Right."

Dona sat looking at the battle map. Earlier in the day, as had more or less been expected, a trio of enemy surface-to-surface missiles had struck at the town centre of Roussef.

They had a good minute and a few seconds or so of warning, and then the subsonic, cruise-type missiles were landing in the centre of Roussef.

She had learned much from that.

It took a while to digest, sometimes.

***

Back in the Command Centre, everyone was all talking at once.

"Reports please, one at a time."

There was a pause, and then they all started up again.

Finally, as people realized, they dropped off until it was Captain Aaron, looking at the big board where the satellite and sensor data was collected and displayed.

"Colonel. Fox-Tail Mark Two, three of them. One hit, roughly where City Hall used to be—" There was a camera view, someone having the brains to dispose of a dozen or so in the downtown area. "They still don't know about our command post, or so it would seem."

There was a corner missing on City Hall, and smoke billowing, but no fire.

"One hit on the police station." The picture showed a red-glowing hulk although the frame and some of the walls were still standing. "One hit, or so it looks, out at the airport."

He looked up and around.

"I'll get you some casualty reports as soon as they come available."

As far as anyone knew, everyone had gotten out hours ago. The attack was pure retaliation, in the sense that the airport, the most important target in the area, hadn't been blanketed. This was sending a message as much as anything. They'd hit the control tower, one must assume this was what they were aiming at...

There were a number of usable buildings, vehicles, even a few aircraft, all unscathed. Was the enemy simply being economical?

How good was their intel?

Or are they just firing at map coordinates and GPS-plotted LEO photos.

"Thank you."

Her attention was caught by Sergeant Kelly, onscreen and on camera in the front seat of the Puma.

She nodded.

"Sergeant Kelly?"

"We've got a face for you, Colonel. This is an Unfriendly Major. He's giving orders and rallying the troops. He seems brave and competent enough, and we got a pretty good picture. Walked within five feet of a camera, and the light was good. Those things just eat light, as we all know. I'm sending that through to you now."

"Thank you, Sergeant. Look after yourselves. And good work, incidentally."

***

While Force H conducted its fighting retreat up Highway 17, all the members of Force Two in Walzbruch could do was to wait, clean up the remaining demolitions, and check the sighting of their defensive systems for about the fifteenth time.

Off in the background, there was the occasional rumble of the demolitions work as mine equipment and certain bridges were blown. Then came the regrettable work of destroying or disabling heavy machines that might be used by the Unfriendlies in re-opening the mines, including road-building equipment, cranes, dump trucks, bulldozers, backhoes and the like.

Snowplows and road-graders.

Anything that looked like it might be useful, in other words—

Seven kilometres southwest of the town, there was a ridge. There was a long, straight, rising approach along Highway 3. The vehicles were hidden behind the next ridge, and all personnel had been well-briefed on the exit strategy. This involved a compass bearing through some pretty rugged hills. Not exactly a jungle, it was all young growth, a thicket and a swamp. It was a good kilometre and a half, and it would take some time. They were relying on defence in depth, which meant retreating under the cover of a second line of guns, rockets, and mortars. There was a third line further back, but that would mean hours in the brush. It would be so much better to get to the vehicles before the Unfriendlies came over the top of that second hill...

Retreating along the road itself wasn't a very good idea as the Unfriendlies might just bombard their own path of advance if they got desperate enough. The whole point of ambush after ambush was to make them angry—angry enough to lose their objectivity. To make them act rashly—to lose people, to burn money, to expend ammunition to no effect, and to suck up more time.

They had a few mines by the roadside, before and after the initial ambush point. These were designed to slow the Unfriendlies down long enough to get aboard their own vehicles and go.

This far from Deneb City, the drone could only make a couple of radar and photographic runs, signal-gathering, et cetera, before heading back to base. Hopefully, they had timed it to the point where the drone was low on fuel. The pace had definitely picked up in terms of surveillance.

The drone had been over, more than once that morning, and the satellite map showed that the enemy's Walzbruch Force had slowed considerably upon coming into the really big hills around Walzbruch. This was all red-stained granite, high in iron oxide, and some of their sensors must have been affected...hopefully.

The sun was just going down, at this time of year a good ten degrees south of the equator, and right in the eyes, lenses and sensors of the Confederation troops. They were otherwise pretty secure in their trenches and behind their hilltop.

***

"Sergeant."

"Yes?"

"How come we don't shoot down that drone?"

It was a good question, and, bright to begin with, the young man was learning.

"Well. It's not very effective at that range. They really don't have the loiter time, do they? We have good cover. And we are being used as bait in a way—"

"Bait?"

They exchanged a glance.

"Yes, Robert. Bait. We want them to know we're here. They have no choice but to do something about it." Which sort of accounted for the enemy column headed towards them, he explained in his gentle, humorous tone.

"And then?"

"Well, we fire off our rockets and then we run like hell."

The kid grinned.

They'd have cover from smoke and the automatic weapons systems left behind. The enemy would be thinking about boobies.

The sergeant studied the map, with every Confederation trap, weapon, mine, vehicle, trooper or other asset marked. The enemy was in there too.

"Let's hope they're in a hurry, but it looks like they've stopped again. Sergeant." His stomach was growling, and they still had a while to wait for their relief.

The odds were, they wouldn't be seeing lunch anytime soon—

If the Unfriendlies were too slow, they'd be relieved and Robert was itching to get a crack at something—almost anything would do. He wasn't prejudiced. Almost anyone would do.

The pair were monitoring a trio of heavy rocket launchers, Badgers, with a dozen shots per launcher. On trailers light enough to be towed by Pumas, in the end they'd been dragged and manhandled the last thirty metres into position by grunting, sweating, cursing soldiers of both sexes. It was a process as old as time itself, or at least artillery. Catapults and ballistae and whatever. Whip out the chainsaws, knock down a half a dozen trees in front of them, same thing a hundred metres away for the command hole. Set up some remote sensors, run a couple of cables, and hey, presto—another rocket battery up and running. The Romans would have had axes and shovels, rough sandals or those strange boots with the toes sticking out, but it was all the same thing in the end.

With their twenty-kilo warheads of high explosive, the rockets would make a real mess of the Unfriendly infantry, riding along in their soft-skinned trucks and pissy little scout cars.

"Shit. Nope. Here they come—" A low warning tone in the headset was confirmation enough, set to detect rapid changes in velocity in terms of the lead enemy elements.

That particular unit was not unlike a civilian police radar gun, and they had two or three out there sitting on their tripods, half a kilometre out, and closer to the actual road.

"Arm all weapons. We're going live, Robert." The sergeant thought for a moment. "I'll tell you what. If we get a chance, we'll try a shot at the drone, okay?"

For that, they had the Vixen, anti-air or anti-tank, shoulder-launched units. Worth their weight in gold and that was no exaggeration.

"Yes, sergeant." The thing was, the drones put out so little heat and radar signature—they'd have to let it get in real close.

To do that, they would have to expose themselves. Which was going to happen anyways, like when they launched their rockets.

It had better be one shot, one kill.

Chapter Nineteen

The second engagement on Highway 17 was reaching a crescendo. The Unfriendlies were adapting quickly, having kept a light scouting force a half a kilometre ahead of the column. The main body was still mostly screened by the intervening hillside. The first of their larger armoured cars was only now cresting the ridge, quickly firing off smoke and backing up hastily. The enemy seemed to be leaving a bigger gap between vehicles, and this time the surprise wasn't nearly so complete.

"All right, break it off." The corporal in charge of this team received an acknowledgment from all personnel and then activated their smoke screen, hard-wired and fired from a panel with its own power supply and solar charger. "All right. Go, go, go."

Rounds began exploding between the two forces, and a thick white fog descended over the valley...

Again, a small party, their vehicle heavily camouflaged and a full kilometre out of the battle zone, would be staying behind. They could only do that so often before running out of people and Pumas. For the time being, it seemed the enemy had no clue and probably thought all Confederation forces were withdrawing. That was the big Hail Mary play—

And it seemed to be working. The enemy were dismounting on the other side of that little mountain.

The ones down in the valley were out of sight below the brow of the hill, also there was still smoke and dust hanging in the air. Fire opened up from the other side, and there were impacts and explosions over there, as hot targets were acquired by the Confederation's light weapons.

There were bangs and booms all over the place as the enemy responded, and a light scatter of blasted tree branches, stones and clods of earth fell among them. With nothing much to aim at, the anti-armour unit stayed quiet, and now the first mortar bombs were landing on the Unfriendly column.

It was as good a time to go as any—and the next ambush would be purely automated, with no Confederation warm bodies anywhere in the vicinity.

His people could use a rest—however short.

***

Force multiplication was the key to any success against superior forces.

Dona Graham was not the first to write a book on the subject, but so much of what had been written was ancient history. It didn't take modern technology and the spread of humankind among the stars into account. Hopefully, higher command understood that part—although there were times when she wasn't sure she did herself. Not really—not with complete confidence, but then she'd never had the opportunity to test it. There was room for instinct in that equation, or set of equations.

The tactics of delay used force multiplication as a basic tenet. If defense was favoured over the offense by three or four to one, by classic definition, then anything that could be added to that equation, in terms of the terrain, superior intelligence, superior weapons and tactics, only unbalanced that enemy force even further. This was not likely to be a rehash of World War One, but with their ten-to-one advantage, the Unfriendlies were clearly hoping for a battle of attrition.

For a couple of thousand dead, they or their alleged clients would gain an entire planet, one that had been well-modified, one where human life was relatively easy compared to some airless asteroid, no matter how rich in one element or another. Cracking rocks just to get at the oxygen, or the water—

The agricultural potential would be especially attractive, certainly in the eyes of the Unfriendlies.

They had their hordes of the Faithful to feed, clothe and house, and ultimately, to govern. To go forth and to multiply—something they were actually good at.

She would have to use all of her advantages, in order to exploit enemy weaknesses to the full, and to not allow them to use too many of their strengths.

This was very much true for the fighting retreat. The terrain was perfect for it, with the land a quilt of forest, hills, rivers and lakes. Less than one percent of the battle-zone as predicted was open ground, farms, fields and pasture. Plenty of swamps thrown in for good measure. Forward elements, in very small numbers, were sufficient to set up an ambush and slow down an enemy.

Falling back, they faded through the next ambush or line of defense. If under observation by drone or satellite, yes; they could be followed. The next line was still concealed. When the next ambush began, the retreating elements would quickly go to ground as the drones had no choice but to go back to where the action was. There were just too many hills, big, small and indifferent.

There were too many cuts, gullies and gorges. Each line was set up at some random distance, staffed by fresh troops, eager for action and champing at the bit after learning about the previous success. Hell—they were watching it in real-time, something the average enemy trooper was not technically capable of. If they did, the point of view was reversed. All bad news from their own perspective. The enemy soldier knew what he was told, or what he saw with his own eyes. Much of it would be rah-rah, patriotic bullshit.

God is on our side.

But then, He always is, isn't He—

Larger forces could be held back. In this case, they were simply unavailable. They were also unnecessary—which was probably why she'd been assigned to Deneb in the first place.

What better way, what better time and place, to demonstrate her theory and to prove that it worked in practice.

As for the enemy, forced onto the offensive, due to circumstances or inclination, on a single avenue of attack such as Highway 17, their numbers almost didn't matter.

A plan depends on information, a good plan demands good information. A great plan takes into account every single scrap of available information. There was no such thing as the perfect plan.

But then, there was no such thing as perfect information.

Especially once things got going, and things got going pretty fast, sometimes.

It was all about situational awareness.

While much about the enemy remained unknown, they had good information about their own forces and about the local terrain. They were more familiar with the local conditions, even the local weather information that the enemy might not have or might not be totally familiar with. It wasn't so much the information as the significance that it held, which might be denied to the enemy. Such things often came from hard, practical experience. As for the enemy, all she had to know was where they were. And the answer was almost too simple. The enemy was on the road.

There was nowhere else for them to be. In fact, this might account for McMurdo and his planners using multiple columns. They knew they outnumbered the Confederation troops. It was an attempt to divide attention, to spread the Confederation as thinly as possible, trying to meet all possible threats. Some food for thought there regarding the action, or imminent action, in the hill country south of Roussef. On balance, her forces there were very small and one would have little choice but to patrol such a sector anyways. Her initial plan had a few optional variations, for her forces in the boonies south of the town.

However that might turn out, it was not a big factor.

Six or eight people with relatively simple weapons could stop an enemy column in its tracks for x-amount of time. It was not a question of defeating that enemy, merely one of slowing them down.

The key was to make them think.

In this terrain, hilly, forested and cut with long, narrow valleys going across the line of the enemy's attack, this was doubly true—another force multiplier. Six, really good people, could escape and evade across country where a hundred more mediocre soldiers could not. At least not without some losses. Some leadership, some direction.

Some kind of a plan.

One light vehicle was easier to hide than a dozen heavy ones. Their loss would not cripple the Confederation, although the same held true for the enemy.

The enemy could afford to trade busted vehicles at a rate of nine or ten to one. For all she knew, they could outspend her at the same or an even greater rate. They had their budget too.

The question was, what was the ratio in terms of time?

With the Confederation troops already in residence, duly-signed contracts in place, and a presence of forty or more years already, the onus of action lay with the enemy.

Winter was coming, but it was the enemy setting the time-table, as best they could. They knew enough not to waste time. They'd attacked at the earliest possible moment after landing the main force. The fact that resistance was made would play into the enemy thinking. Was the Confederation planning to reinforce or relieve the forces in place? In which case, the Unfriendlies had better get there first and mop up any last resistance. They needed victory and for that they needed Roussef and Ryanville. With some level ground and open fields up there, a landing from space was definitely possible. The Confederation had already proven that.

That went for Milo too, but clearly the enemy was leaving them for last. It's what she would have done with such an obvious backwater, unconnected by road with any other populated place, and with such a vast, uninhabited hinterland between here and there. That was the trouble with Milo, any Confederation force that was foolish enough to land there, would be stranded with no avenue of attack and no possibility of withdrawal in the event of a superior force coming down on their heads.

Yet in the political sense, it might become a necessity. This would effectively divide the planet, leading to two competing governments. It would at least prevent total victory for the Unfriendlies. That also had been written into the plan.

With Unfriendly forces in close proximity to all the local landing ports, the Confederation would be foolish to attempt any further action. The Unfriendly experience at the hands of the fire-teams with their Barkers would be utterly convincing. They had their own, similar weapons-systems.

Unfortunately, Dona knew enough not to count on such relief, but McMurdo had no real way of knowing that, or so she was hoping.

A few dead bodies and a couple of vehicles destroyed would not deter them for long. They would keep coming on. This was exactly what her plan depended on, and she was confident enough in that aspect of theory.

The thing was, it didn't matter if the enemy had sixty, or six hundred, or six thousand troops—there was only one road. At its best, it was ten metres wide, sometimes less. Blowing even the smallest culvert would cost the enemy time. As they got closer to Roussef, more and more of the smaller bridges would be blown. The enemy didn't know that part, not yet. Side-roads, serving perhaps a half a dozen householders, might seem initially inviting, but if not connected, they quickly deteriorated into muddy tracks going nowhere. The enemy seemed to understand that, for it hadn't even really been attempted, not yet, anyways. A battle or firefight took only so long, and then her troops broke it off. If they kept it short, the enemy had no time to flank them on the side-roads.

The enemy wouldn't waste a missile where a few troops would suffice. Not when they didn't know what they were looking at. The ambush points were carefully chosen due to a lack of nearby side-roads, at least on the enemy's side of the line. The surrounding terrain was rough indeed. It took twenty minutes to climb the average hill, and people weren't much good by the time they got to the top. Not carrying a pack, a weapon, and some water. Not under fire, hearts pounding and blinded from sweat running in the eyes.

The enemy would always be thirsty. Although there was plenty of fresh water around, the stuff in the ditches wasn't very appealing. Going into the hills looking for water would be time-consuming and dangerous with unknown forces in the vicinity. They would only do that when they had to.

Outflanking maneuvers would take more time than the enemy was willing to commit. It took the enemy time to scout, clear and remove any obstacle. The enemy would have some kind of a time-table. Her impression was that they were figuring on wrapping this one up in about a week or ten days. Sooner if they could do it. After that, they could use a couple of small ships, embark a couple of companies of troops and occupy Milo, the only other major centre on Deneb-Seven.

Her reading of the strategic situation in this sector of the galaxy was such, that their troops were urgently needed elsewhere. The same could be said of the Confederation, but the numbers were so small, her contingent would hardly be missed in the larger conflict...

This had its psychological imperatives, alone and of itself. And the more troops there were, the more the confusion, the longer it took to get them going again in any semblance of order. This was an odd double-whammy of force multiplication that would become clearer as the battle went on. It was almost the reverse of force-multiplication. Her forces would always be more agile, more elusive, more dispersed, than theirs. Sooner or later, McMurdo must figure it out. A few things, anyways—in fact she was counting on it. In a sense, she was hoping that he would reinforce—the more troops he had up here, the more supply they required. The more opportunities for surprise and ambush along the way. For the enemy, two-way road traffic was required to sustain any operation. By withdrawing, she had foregone that luxury as it was too expensive to maintain anyways.

There was also the war of information—good or bad, information or disinformation. This was why, in war, we talk to our enemy.

There were many forms of communication, not all of them quite so formal as picking up a phone and calling a number.

This was non-verbal communication in its extreme. This was kinetic activity, a fine euphemism for killing each other.

***

The Unfriendlies had stopped, backed up and taken cover on the other side of a small ridge on the approach to Walzbruch.

This had been anticipated, and the distances had been carefully measured and ranges taken. All the mortar teams had to do was to fire on the coordinates. Since they were planning on recovering the tubes, there were a few people involved. This was still true in modern war.

Not all weapons were disposable, although it was a trend.

Smoke and fire erupted from over there as Robert and the sergeant searched the sky. The noise was enough that they were never going to hear the drone overhead. The rocket batteries screamed and the explosions merged into one dull roar. The tops of trees moved back and forth in the wind and the blast, adding their own soughing sound to the mix.

Off in the distance, thunder rumbled and lightning flared in the blue-black masses of cloud on the horizon. Their half of the sky was still relatively clear, but the storm was moving fast.

They were looking for a very small dot in a sea of moving branches and quivering dead leaves against a sky that was bright and milky with haze.

They got lucky. The Unfriendlies, desperate to locate and engage with an enemy, even a fully-automated one, had brought the drone down to five hundred metres.

"Can you get a lock?"

"I can't even see it yet." The faint hum overhead was muffled by trees, the leaves now rapidly turning, and the breeze in the treetops. "Damn. Damn..."

They had to wait for the sun-dazzle to clear.

Foom, foom, foom, as more mortar-bombs went off amidst the background roar. Snap, crackle and pop as things began to burn and men over there began to fire back. The sergeant had one ear open for the spang of a bullet through tree branches, but nothing yet—

Nothing yet—

Robert peered through the Vixen's detached eyepiece, keeping his left eye open to search for the target.

The sergeant's head bobbed around, trying to keep as much cover as possible and still trying to see it the second it popped out from behind the treetops.

Smack-smack-smack.

"Ah, that's better."

"What's that, sergeant?"

"They're shooting at us, lad."

"Oh." The kid laughed—

The kid laughed.

The Vixen missile could be shoulder-launched, but in its present mode it was mounted on a heavy tripod with electric motors driving it around and changing its elevation and depression.

The growl coming from his earpiece indicated that the enemy drone was using active radar and suppression, however if it got close enough the Vixen's own system would burn right through that. This particular model of drone was powered by turbines and ducted fans, shrouded and set up high so there wasn't much chance of getting heat-lock in the infrared. For this, the battery radar set, plugged in as it was, fifty metres further on, would be key. When the trigger was pulled, it would come on, and not a second sooner. For the present operation, the actual bombardment rockets didn't need it.

"There!"

The thing was headed downrange, having come over from behind their position, looking for a heat-trace, a physical object its systems could identify, possibly even with human eyes monitoring the cameras and sensors. Mere colour, something shiny, an unusual shape, or just a bit of exposed flesh might give them away. The still-smoking rocket battery, a hundred metres to their right, would be a dead giveaway.

There were always going to be risks.

The sergeant put the pipper of his laser-designator onto the rear belly of the aircraft. The drone had been barely three hundred metres out to the left, a hundred and fifty metres up. It was crossing now to the right, although the distance was rapidly growing and he could barely see what he was doing. The sun was setting into thick clouds, which was helpful.

It was a pretty small target. He was pretty sure he had locked it.

It was noisy as hell out there.

Beep-beep-beep...bingo.

"...good lock, here we go..."

The Vixen could use both target-acquisition methods simultaneously, comparing the data from each of them for better accuracy, and just then Robert must have pressed the trigger. There was a blast of heat felt even from there, and noise and smoke, and having turned off the power switch, Robert tossed the sighting-tube inside its padded case, diving back into their own special little hole and reaching for his personal weapon.

"All, right, hit the boots, Robert. Escape and evade."

The enemy was already laying fire down on their position, given away by the ropy smoke-trail and the whoosh of the missile launch. At this range, return fire wasn't so much aimed as sprayed across the hillside, and the odds of being hit were pretty low.

Smack.

Smack-smack.

The trouble was, they had no choice but to leave their friendly little hole in the ground. The nice thing about trees was that there were a hell of a lot of them.

He'd read once somewhere, that three metres of corn would stop a rifle-calibre machine gun bullet at a hundred metres.

Hell, it might even be true.

Chapter Twenty

The second ambush on Highway 17 had gone very well, with an estimated four Unfriendlies killed and another eight or ten wounded. They had lost at least one vehicle going by the column of rising black smoke. The Unfriendlies, perhaps unsure of the road behind, were still bringing the dead and wounded along with them. A smaller, follow-up column was still thirty kilometres behind. This appeared to be a company of service troops, fuel and cargo trucks, along with some small fighting vehicles. This would be dealt with shortly by a stay-behind party.

It had taken the enemy a good hour to get going again, and they were definitely cruising along at a much slower pace.

Nine kilometres after that, just before darkness fell, came the pièce de resistance. This was an unmanned, fully automatic ambush carried out by a single 100-MW laser cannon. This was a cheap, black-market unit and disposable under the circumstances. In the darkness, the fire from it looked pretty spectacular. It would be so much worse to experience that in person. It would fire until its batteries were depleted. It could recharge under solar power, but likely wouldn't get the chance. Two trucks were burning, the victims of direct hits. Trees and brush in the way of the shot still smouldered. The enemy column had been halted, this time on the flats between towering ridgelines, and with pure muskeg on both sides of the causeway. A dozen or so Unfriendly infantrymen had jumped in there to the left and right, in the initial moment of fear and panic.

Now, mired to the waist, they lay forward on their stomachs, chins right in the muck. Sheltered by nothing but hummocks of wet grass, they were firing intermittently at targets they could not possibly see in the gathering gloom. The Confederation mortars began firing, a pair of light machine guns began traversing, and there was nowhere for the enemy to go except backwards and forwards, desperately trying to escape, and to locate the source of fire and to engage it.

Not unexpectedly, they tried to do both, with forward elements going into the attack. In the middle of the column, large numbers of troops were simply sheltering beside and under their vehicles. Those with heavier weapons were noisily laying down a curtain of fire along the distant hillsides. It was dark and misty in the evening light, but clearly where their enemy was located. A good number of vehicles at the rear of the column were desperately trying to back up. The results were predictable considering their hurry. A flurry of radio activity had been logged and retransmitted, and it was being analyzed.

Enough data, enough chatter, and they might even crack some of it. After a few last shots, the laser cannon fell silent, and the enemy was still blazing away.

The enemy was desperate to come to grips with an opponent.

If only—if only there had been anyone there. If only they weren't flash-blinded. Half-trained and scared shitless. Covered in muck and filth and wondering about those mines. Right on cue, a big one went up, unfortunately between a couple of trucks, nevertheless, they would have some damage at least. More dead people—

Anyone unlucky enough to be laying right on top of that would have been vaporized in a cloud of pink mist.

It was another time-sucking interval, nothing more. And now it was fully dark. They'd been hit by surprise three times so far. They would know all about the Walzbruch operations. It was best to stop and most likely, to consult. Patrolling in the dark took roughly twice or even three times the time of patrolling in daylight. It wasn't too hard to read their minds on such a simple, technical operation.

Things grew quieter, although some of the enemy troops were still popping off rounds.

Time went by as they watched.

The Confederation had sacrificed a few weapons, for now the Unfriendlies were taking the time to regroup, patrol, find the weapons' locations, and to destroy them in place using sappers and satchel-charges, shaped charges, plastiques and the like. What was interesting, was that they didn't seem to have located the laser cannon. To deliberately overlook it seemed a little too devious, and to what purpose? The Confederation troops knew where it was, and they had the codes to control it as well. The machine was fully autonomous. It had a good-sized dataset attuned to this particular mission environment, and in general, this model of laser-cannon had a good reputation as far as not firing on non-combatants. No, they'd just plain missed it, the heat signatures of enemy troops coming within ten or twelve metres of it on their satellite views.

No audio, no video—just heat signatures.

It almost smelled of cowardice, something she hadn't thought them capable of. Both of the planet's two bright but tiny moons were down low, obscured by hills and trees, and visibility must have been pretty poor...but.

But.

That laser-cannon must have still been warm—a fact quickly confirmed in the satellite view, and she wondered just how bad the Unfriendly troops would have to be to have missed it.

The drone shot, coming from five thousand metres up, showed the amorphous, hot-green forms tromping all over the area. Vehicles lined up along both sides of the road. This all took time, of course. With cameras scattered all over the place, shitty little cams but with capability in the infrared, Dona and the troops in the Command Centre watched it all happen in real time. It was still fragmentary.

They'd been presented with some good shots, some good opportunities to fire upon the unsuspecting troops. The Confederation could afford to lose a couple of machine guns and mortar tubes. But. The enemy would remain unsuspecting a little longer—anything that looked like an ace in the hole was being carefully conserved. If the enemy didn't find it, let it lay for a while—

Her troops had held fire just as ordered and that was reassuring.

The enemy drone still patrolled, scouring the vicinity from one thousand metres above the hills.

Finding no warm bodies or vehicles and weapons, other than the small selection laid out for them, it eventually turned away to return to base. Onscreen, its relief machine was just arriving on-scene. Without auxiliary tanks, they were only good for about four and a half hours or so it appeared.

Their own drones were out there too, of course.

If there was an enemy satellite up there, they must have a pretty good handle on the drone base by now—but so far, nothing. They should have a good handle on pretty much everything, but apparently they didn't.

Just nothing.

And by tomorrow morning, the Confederation drone centre would be somewhere else.

It was all a question of timing.

And luck—a bit of luck would be helpful.

***

"Is that thing ready to go yet?"

"Just a minute, Corporal."

The trooper, a slight young woman named Wilson, tapped away on the small mechanical keyboard, plugged into a jack on the dog's neck. This avoided the light show of the virtual keyboards, and the need for other mechanical display systems was obviated by the goggs. It was a forest, at night, and the strong blue light of the typical touch-monitor was a dead giveaway.

There was no time to dig holes or bunkers—it wasn't going to be that kind of engagement.

It wasn't really a dog, it was an autonomous weapons system. Its job was to range far ahead of their force, now on foot with the vehicles abandoned high in the hills behind, roughly at the end of any manageable road or track. The vehicles had been backed in under tight, dark conifers, camo-netted and covered with a few stray leaves and branches. Big ruts and tracks had been obscured for some distance, not that it would fool anyone for long—not once any sort of track was discovered. It was the very nature of the country, in that there were mysterious vehicle, game and native foot-tracks all over the place. The footprints of the Denebi were distinctive, that was for sure, strange, wedge-shaped marks vaguely reminiscent of cuneiform text as he remembered it from magazines and documentaries. The upland soil was thin and infertile, and once disturbed, the marks of a vehicle passage stayed for a long time.

They'd investigated a few themselves, before giving it up as a bad job. They were leaving good trails ahead of them in the case of retreat, and by the time the enemy got there on foot, theoretically the Confederation troops could be long gone—

Maybe.

If they had sufficient notice.

With luck and good information on that enemy force, small units dispersed and moving stealthily as they undoubtedly were, they could at least run for it. They would know exactly where to go to get to their vehicles. For most of the way, the tracks and trails were under the trees, and therefore difficult to detect or interdict. They would make their way individually in a worst-case scenario, each of them following an individual plan.

The enemy would have to use raw tracking techniques. Some of it would be by drone or other portable systems. Some would be good old foot-slogging, all of it through unknown country.

The likelihood of ambush, mines and booby-traps would be foremost in their minds. So far, no one was really sure about that enemy satellite. This was troubling.

There were enemy patrols out there, fairly strong, and according to satellite data, within ten kilometres of their own position. That was six miles back home, the quick and habitual mental calculation instinctive and instantaneous. The corporal had grown up in another time and place.

Under the proper conditions, a cold winter's night maybe, you could hear an axe ringing at great distances, or even dogs barking or people singing. A curving bay at the end of a lake could focus and amplify sound to an amazing degree, and he'd once heard someone playing a folk guitar and people singing a good three kilometres away.

"Okay. There we go."

The corporal nodded.

"What do you do next?" Anna was the thing's handler and programmer, and he'd specialized in other areas.

"So. Who's a good doggie?"

The head swiveled around on silent gimbals and the dark orbs that were its visual sensors regarded her, reserving one quick and baleful look for the corporal. What was really sneaky was that there was an eyeball-camera on the back end as well. The thing stuck its nose in her hand, to all appearances giving her a good sniff. The so-called head came up. Its sensitive artificial tongue, half biology and half fucking algorithms, pink and wet, darted out and slapped her right in the eyes.

Aw.

Artificial intelligence, and scary as hell to look at—it was unfortunate, but the Unfriendlies probably wouldn't even see it coming.

She smiled, patted the thing on the head and then it put its head down, nose close to the dirt, and with a curious gait, enough to make one's hair stand on end, it faded quickly into the underbrush.

It was a big, heavy machine, and the dainty way it had with its rubber-padded paws was downright unnerving. It was a machine, all joints and rivets and screws, cables and such, and yet it was somehow alive.

The big dog was on the loose and there were more like that standing guard duty in a thin picket line a good thousand metres out in front. This one was programmed for a longer patrol. If necessary, or if a really good target presented itself, it would be sacrificed in an attack. How the girl felt about that was none of his business. She would do it, and that was all he cared.

Hopefully, his people would be able to sleep now, as tomorrow, it looked like being a big day.

He keyed his microphone.

"Okay, boys and girls. We sleep in two shifts." Seven hours each, this time of year the night being sixteen or so hours long.

It was only just getting fully dark now—

"Also, we stand to at dawn—as a precaution."

***

Confederation Force Z was composed of small patrols, sniper teams and reconnaissance teams.

While it was important to keep track of each other and their progress, they were spread necessarily thin. This made an accidental engagement with friendly troops less likely. With everyone carrying a minimum of thirty kilos, a week's rations plus weapons and heavy clothing, they could only go so fast. The big dogs had helped with the load initially, but when the machines were up forward patrolling, someone else had to carry it. The only consolation was that food was being consumed (at an alarming rate in some opinions). The loads were getting two to three kilograms lighter every day as rations were consumed, mines and boobies laid, cameras and vibration sensors deployed to watch their back trail.

The terrain was pretty rough, but simply following tracks and trails was too easy—too easy to be ambushed and so they were following the best cover. They were following terrain lines on hillsides, skirting anything that looked like a lake, a swamp, a pond, or any open ground of which there was definitely some. Valley bottoms were, by definition, overlooked by high ground. It couldn't always be done in such country and so it was best to cross such ground at the narrowest possible point. If it was choked with vegetation, so much the better. Better than prairie, no matter how long the grass. Open ground, acidic soil and very wet, it was, as often as not, a kind of muskeg. It was best to avoid it in any case, whether in peace or in war. This made progress slow.

The temperature was above zero at night, still going up to five, or even ten or fifteen degrees in the heat of the day. With the surprising heat of the previous few days, it was downright mild.

Feet were always wet and there was always moisture in the usual places inside the battle clothing. It was a hell of a lot of walking. People tired quickly under such conditions. After a couple of days, people forgot what home and civilization looked like to some extent. Everyone remembered what a bed was, or so the joke went. They all spent at least some time in talking about it, when they could talk at all. A couple of more days and they'd be snapping at each other over what was essentially nothing.

Corporal Twon's challenge was to get them into contact with the enemy, with enough poop left in them to do the job and to get away. Any withdrawal would be a scramble. This was true no matter how well prepared they were—presumably, the enemy would be as equally well prepared to advance at all speed once they saw any kind of an opportunity. In the last resort, they could execute a fishhook maneuver and just go to ground—they might get a bit hungry, but the enemy would simply blunder onwards, looking for a trail that was no longer there.

The real challenge was to locate the enemy, to see them before they saw you, and to hit them right in the mouth if possible. In the face of a superior force, it might be better to withdraw or go to ground undetected if called for. There was the unexpected to contend with. When they were walking along, and a big game animal started up from sleeping under a bush and crashed off into the wilderness, it took real discipline not to shoot and some little time for the pulse to slow down again. Civilians thrashing about in the brush on a hunting or fishing trip, a bunch of old women gathering roots and berries, or the natives, might cause some real trigger itch and it was best to avoid such incidents...

Someone said it was a bear, with a quick burst of resulting chatter which he quickly stifled.

The big-dog weapons system was really something, hopefully it would give them enough of an edge. Equipped with IFF, slaved by laser to the satellite, it was also equipped with both long and short range radio. It was capable of laying fibre-cable when called for. No such signals had been detected from over there—just on the other side of that one really big hill.

There were all kinds of animal noises, bug-like creatures and the noisy, warbling little flyers.

Small animals, startled by its appearance, scuttled away through the underbrush. They watched in amusement, as one abruptly squeaked and pelted up the nearest tree, pausing on a branch to scold the machine with a staccato chatter. A six-legged squirrel, essentially, living on nuts and berries, bugs or whatever and filling a similar ecological niche. With an extensive planetary database to work with, the system isolated, filtered and identified as many sounds as possible.

This left the working memory part of the system free to focus on what might be alien noises—alien signals, people and their technology. Their chemistry, their plastics and their metals, and all of the infernal machinations that humankind was capable of. Among other things, (including humans), it was sniffing for the typical outgassing, that new-car smell of just-out-of-the-box manufactured goods. Every little thing would have its own plastic bag, every bit of steel or other metal in terms of weapons, might be greased for long term storage, before leaving the factory. Every little bomb had its chemical primer, a battery, a wiring system with plastic coating on the wires. In a perfect world, those would all be fresh from the makers or some distributions-warehouse where it would have been stewed in a thousand other smells.

Low to the ground, the robot dog trotted confidently along, fairly quietly as its paws were composed of soft rubber and the articulated legs had good shock-absorbing capability. With its relatively good vision, necessary for rapid travel in all kinds of terrain including indoors, stairs, even ladders, it could avoid snapping too many twigs or breaking off branches in passage.

Like its biological counterpart, the stock models weren't much good at climbing trees, although there were special versions capable of just that feat.

Human operators saw what it saw, heard what it heard and in some analogous fashion, smelled what it smelled. With the ability to deploy sensors and cameras of its own, it covered a big swath of territory.

The big dog had traversed two big hills and the intervening valley, and now it was climbing down the far side of the second hill. Sea level didn't mean much when the planet only had a couple of small saltwater oceans, completely landlocked. Those were thousands of kilometres away. There were a few smaller seas, and all kinds of lakes in the highlands, pretty much all at different elevations. In some nominal terms, this hill was a good six hundred metres tall, based on its adjacent valleys. It also had an official, civil elevation which was roughly thirteen hundred and fifty metres 'above sea level'. Thick, old-growth trees blocked out the light and a dense understory made forward and downward vision difficult. The thing had gotten a good seven kilometres out in front, even as they eased forward another half a kilometre to get a good view from just over the brow of the ridge. Here the trees were thinner and they had crawled the last forty metres in long, and very wet grass or its Denebolan equivalent.

"Good dog. Sit." The trooper peered through the VR goggles, almost becoming a part of the animal in what was a pretty old joke, but there was nothing out there.

The machine had detected anomalous sounds, coming from straight ahead at an unknown range. It had moved laterally fifty metres, without catching another whiff, which would have allowed triangulation and given them the range with a degree of accuracy. It would just sit there for a while, or as long as necessary.

With the sound of its own progress gone, the dog, its camouflage blending into the shadows, would sit and wait for something more definite in terms of sound. So far, its olfactory system hadn't detected anything over threshold levels of plastics, aromatics, in the typical stink of manufactured, high-tech goods against a background that was still pretty pristine in terms of the planet's physical environment. The wind was strong from the unpopulated northwest and the sounds had been from the southwest. Denebola-Seven had only been inhabited for about two hundred and fifty years, it was all modern technology. There weren't many people to begin with, which meant the air was very clean indeed.

The low-frequency vibration detectors in the thing's belly and forepaws were getting nothing.

"What do you think?" The corporal was right there in her ear.

"I don't know. That thing is smart—that's for sure. It even understands French, and German too. Sorry. But. We've got to be getting close by now."

According to the thin satellite and drone data, the enemy was still moving forwards. If the team could get to the right place at the right time, they might be able to get themselves into a flanking ambush position.

The corporal nodded. What they needed was a definite sighting, a positive identification. Lost to sight by the satellite, his own instincts told him they had to be out there, and coming this way if the terrain and the enemy's only possible target said anything. They weren't exactly making a beeline for Roussef, but they weren't going to make the walk any longer than they had to, either.

To go fifty or a hundred kilometres into the bush and then just squat there didn't make much sense.

There was a notch in amongst the tall surrounding hills, and the gorge created by some un-named tributary stream was passable going by historical information. This was exactly the sort of information the enemy would be relying on—going by the previous satellite data, they were heading this way. That was all he knew.

His people were on the southeast rim of aforesaid gorge, the trees down below interspersed with boulder-gardens, sandy patches and noisy, noisy white-water. They'd been lucky to beat the enemy by about twenty minutes, which was more than enough time. More than enough—

Chewing a loose piece of skin from his right lower lip as he thought it out, Corporal Twon was prepared to take it from there. He'd put his girls up against their boys any day of the week.

Any time, any place. The six of them, fifteen of the enemy.

And this was a good place—a very good place.

Sonsabitches.

Chapter Twenty-One

An automated ambush is basically one big booby trap. A modern ambush was a smart ambush.

The culvert under the road, at the bottom of a very steep hill, had been filled with explosives, quickly improvised with the help of local civilian engineers. They'd been happy enough to take their money. Used in open-pit mining in preference to more expensive, imported explosives, it was a simple mixture made from diesel fuel and fertilizer, rich in nitrates and then trucked to their destination in plastic drums of different sizes. Normally used as a slurry, poured into holes drilled vertically into solid rock, this ensured that a package would fit its horizontal hole, one real big one or two or three smaller ones as the situation called for. The blasting caps or det-cord to set it off was the big thing, but they had plenty of that on hand. All of those mining operations being rather helpful in the present situation.

At its most basic, a good car battery and some heavy speaker-wire would set it off.

It was a simple situation. The shareholders wouldn't like to lose their entire investment and the companies were cooperating. They were also keeping track of every little thing. Their bills would no doubt be rendered—ninety days, same as cash, as the saying went. They understood that the Confederation and the Denebians would pay up a little more gladly than the Unfriendlies, having faced some opposition, would ever be likely to do. As good corporate citizens, most of the firms had already committed to paying or absorbing a share of their own losses. There had been some very good public relations there, on both sides of the equation, and her people had worked it out on the spot with little direction from her. All of their employees were Denebians, at least at the lower levels of management and virtually all of the production workers.

There were even a few natives on the payroll or so it said in the file—

There were remote machine-gun posts on one side of the hill, their human monitors under cover on the other. All they had to do was to sit and watch their scopes. The weapons, mounted on electric turntable mounts, were set to rake the road and the opposite hillside and ditches as soon as the big bomb went off. Low-set and heavy, staked down to the dirt, they were stable enough on their gimbals and gyro set-up.

There were glue-mines, anti-personnel mines, anti-tank mines at points where the far hillside was open, which would be fairly inviting to people under fire and looking for quick cover.

The Confederation firing positions were also covered by cameras. The positions were mined and booby-trapped, switches presently off. There were other weapons, including a couple of small automatic mortars firing smoke bombs. Any troops attempting to scale the hill to get at them would face quite the gauntlet of active and passive weapons.

Dona and anyone who had a minute watched in fascination as the enemy column, after a few kilometres of not finding resistance, came rolling over the top of the far hill in pretty good order.

They were well spaced, but it was a big hill and with people throttling back and touching the brakes instinctively, they were already bunching up. It wasn't so much lack of discipline as lack of experience. Some of them would have literally ten or twelve hours of training time in a vehicle, rather than the hundreds of hours of training of the typical Confederation soldier. By now, their dedicated crews would be getting tired, and there was no one qualified to relieve them.

This time some care had been taken in positioning a couple of disposable cameras right at the bottom of the valley.

Trooper Marley with Force H was charged with monitoring the view and firing the mine. He waited until a solitary scout machine, a hundred metres out in front, had safely passed over, and then the first big armoured car.

The second armoured car was fifty metres back and coming on strong.

It was like the valley floor exploded right underneath the vehicle, another of the Samsons.

The sound was turned down, but it must have been thunderous. People watched with open mouths as the armoured car spun, end over end, spilling wheels and tires. The low turret came off and what looked like dark grey rag dolls were flung in all directions. Perhaps it was nothing more than the imagination.

The huge pall of smoke hung there, and from somewhere off in the background, came the stutter of light machine guns and the pop of the first mortars going off. Self-loading, they each had a clip of three rounds, programmed to fire at short and erratic intervals. This was to give the impression there were live troops up there on the hilltop, trying to hit as many targets as possible before beating another hasty retreat.

The Unfriendlies halted all along the line. Those in a position to do so backed up, reversing on the far hill or scurried to make three-point turns on the narrow road. They were quickly lost to sight due to tall trees and the twisting road. They had their own smoke-screen going now. Sure enough, another big bang up in there under the trees.

Someone was having a bad day. Black smoke began to rise. Another vehicle destroyed, although some would often be salvageable by a good repair unit.

The anonymous grey uniforms abandoned the big six-by trucks, running up the slopes, left and right. They were going into the trees or simply diving into the ditch, which, at this time of year, would be cold, wet, muddy and uncomfortable at best. There would be the native leeches, active down to three or four degrees Celsius in there, and other pests. If they had looked at the map, they would have seen no good side-roads for quite some distance. It was all hills, rock, swamp and trees.

She had another live ambush, a small one involving two snipers and another big mine, on the very next hill. That was barely a half a kilometre away. After that, the road was mined intermittently. Culverts had been taken out for the next five kilometres and then another live ambush. Her people were knocking tall trees down all over the place, felling them across the road. She was desperately trying to be unpredictable.

The next three culverts would be blown, small, meandering streams through the valleys, with plenty of black spruce and water, water, water, boggy meadows, small ponds and long, meandering strips of muskeg all over the place.

There were limits to how close Dona could let the Unfriendlies get, with Confederation troops fighting a rearguard action all the way up from Walzbruch. She still had the bulk of her force in Roussef, and she could only hold them there for so long before heading to Ryanville.

If the enemy had divided their forces, so had she. She had some concerns about bringing them all back together again, but this was the plan. At this stage of the game, she had no options except to proceed. In some ways, McMurdo was being smart by not committing any more force than he had to.

Dona tore her eyes from that scene, quickly punching up a good view from the first Highway 3 ambush.

There was more to the reverse-slope ambush of course—there were two sides to every hill, and she would have to stop them for some considerable time in order to get her people safely out of the Walzbruch operation.

***

They were just a few kilometres out of Walzbruch.

A careful examination of the ground was crucial when laying any trap. A deadfall trap for big game would be laid on the widest, most heavily-used trail. Wire-noose traps were a lot easier to make, and would be scattered all along small game trails, rabbit and guinea-pigs and the like.

The goal was the same, only the size of the prey was different.

The Unfriendlies, under fire, not unexpectedly, had little choice but to get off the road or be destroyed.

Just coming over the top of a hill when the first mortar round and the first anti-tank rocket struck, the troops in the trucks behind the hill had dismounted, scurrying like ants up the reverse slope, under cover as much as possible. Their small four-bys roared up the hill, looking for cover and firing positions for the machine guns. At that point, they had run smack into a line of anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. Cameras too. The mortars had switched targets as well as loads. For vehicles, it was armour-piercing.

With smart-rounds coming down from a high angle, the thin or non-existent armour on top was not much protection and a hit would be fatal for the vehicle and all concerned. For unprotected troops, it was high explosive with shrapnel, mixed with a few incendiaries for sheer terror. There was plenty of forest, and a big fire would be good, although conditions had been a bit damp.

With their high angle of flight, rounds were dropping in just on the other side of the crest where the enemy would be concentrated—or concentrating. Things happened very quickly under such circumstances and it took time for people to react properly. At some point, the enemy might decide it was just better to sit in the trucks! Better yet, to get underneath them, but there was only so much room, and not much protection anyways. The thought of a couple of big tanks of diesel right over one's head would be a deterrent.

The enemy drone, damaged to an unknown extent by a proximity burst of their 20-mm anti-air defense, had lumbered off to the southwest, trailing vapour if not actual smoke and fire.

Hopefully, that weapon would be recovered. Dona was prepared to sacrifice one or two for Highway 17 and maybe one each for Highways 2 and 3. She only had a dozen to begin with.

The thing with the 20-mm was that two or three troops could carry it through some pretty rough country, as compared to some of the larger, ostensibly more effective weapons.

Small parties of Confederation troops were evading on foot, plunging down through the bush on the back of their hill. Wading through swamp, climbing over deadfall trees, thrashing about in the brush, the pictures were nerve-wracking enough. They were blind down in there, and their backs would feel very exposed climbing up the far side. Compared to the air temperature, the muck might actually be a little warmer.

For this and a million other reasons, trust in one's fellow soldiers, trust in the plan, was paramount.

In that country, there was just no way for troops on foot to ever traverse a kilometre and a half in anything less than half an hour, with luck a bit less. Not quietly, anyways—during which time they would feel very vulnerable. With such precipitous crags, going downhill in a hurry was dangerous, and climbing the far side would slow them down considerably.

The other thing was to avoid unnecessary casualties from injuries caused by slips and falls, broken and twisted ankles and the like. Accidental shootings were not exactly unheard-of. They had their personal arms, small day-packs and other equipment on their backs, and for that reason, it was difficult to hurry in such terrain.

To run, to thrash and splash about in brush and swamp was to draw unwelcome attention.

Sooner or later, another enemy drone had to appear—knocking one down was a real feat and those guys would be seeing a pretty nice bonus.

The sound of fire breaking out above and ahead, in response to fire from behind—the Unfriendlies having taken the ambush point by now, must have been pretty terrifying for those who had never been under fire before. The point was that they really were under it, as troops and weapons on opposing hilltops engaged each other at extreme small-arms range. The sounds of their mines and booby-traps going off would have been small consolation. If nothing else, it indicated the enemy's progress.

She could sympathize, to some extent.

Who couldn't.

The road between the two hills was mined, the culvert was out, and they had an automatic machine gun, two mortars and other light anti-tank weapons to cover the next stage of their retreat. Dona was being very sparing of the resources, reluctant to give up anything that she might need later. Just one example, the machine gun had one box of ammo—after that it would go silent, probably lost to the Confederation for good.

If the Unfriendlies caught up to the Confederation troops, they were going to be very angry indeed.

In the meantime, the enemy had been held up for a good hour, an hour and a half so far. It appeared the junior enemy officers, the NCOs, were playing it strictly by the book. No one could blame them for that. She could almost see them, standing about the command vehicles, studying their maps and thrashing it out. The commander, on the radio to Deneb City for confirmation.

The firefight with Ambush Two, Highway Two, was just warming up.

Dona had to break away and see what was up down south.

Blind to the external world, she almost jumped out of her skin at the touch on her shoulder.

She flipped up the goggs.

It was Captain Aaron.

"Colonel? You're relieved..." Paul was looking tired, but he'd just had a nap and she had to give up the hot-seat, whether she liked it or not. "I can skim the logs if you want to go off."

At some point, she needed a minute to herself—to eat, to sleep, to shut down all the thoughts for a while. There was this burning sensation just where the gut met the gullet.

"Okay, okay—just give me another minute."

***

There hadn't been any more missile attacks. After a quick inspection of Command Centre Two, where pretty much all the equipment was set up and ready to go, she took her pet red truck home, if that was the proper word.

Her head swam a little, the blood pulsing in her ears, upon getting out of the truck in front of Number Nine. She'd phoned ahead, and with a bit of luck, her lunch or dinner or whatever would be along. Too tired to care, on some whim she'd ordered the veal parmigiana, which was said to be very good. With their well-known potted cheese, bread sticks and a salad, it would be more than enough the way her guts had been lately. If she got half of it down, she'd consider herself lucky.

A few units down, a door opened and a male figure came out, wearing autumn woodland camouflage and with a small utility bag and an assault rifle slung over his shoulder.

Looking up, his eyes met hers. With a start of recognition, she saw that it was Trooper Noya.

There was a magazine in there, and hopefully the weapon was on safety.

He was unshaven, there were discoloured bags under his eyes and hard lines around the mouth, but he was upright and clearly heading back on shift.

He grinned from ear to ear, gave her a quick left-handed wave and then mounted a bicycle that was way too small for him. No telling where he got that, probably stolen from the workshop they were using. The other thing was that the local people had been very helpful in so many ways, contributing everything from flowers and fruit baskets, frozen meat, fresh vegetables, winter hats, hand-knitted socks and mitts from local service clubs. They had thrown the doors open and invited her troops into the front room, in some cases. There would be some broken hearts and maybe a few unexpected babies, before all of this was over. She bit back a sour grin, shaking her head.

With the front wheel momentarily wobbling, and the rifle an unfamiliar load, he set off across the parking lot without a backward glance. She was amused to see him stop, not quite falling off, and shift the strap to go over his head. This kept the weapon higher up and the butt didn't hit one in the calf when pedaling. Only then did he look back, looking a bit sheepish, and she gave him a smile and a nod before turning away.

If there really was an enemy satellite up there, sooner or later, local traffic patterns would be revealed. This particular motor hotel, the Knotty Pine, would be an especially juicy target if they had any idea of where she was.

Dona was too tired to care at this point, but. It very much felt like it was time to move on. It was an old and familiar feeling, a kind of hollow in the pit of the stomach. It was funny how quickly even the most anonymous room became a person's home. Back home—back home she must have become very set in her ways. It would all still be there when she got back. The plants would be watered and her cats looked after. The cats, at least, would miss her.

She sighed with the guilt of leaving them, but she sure as hell couldn't bring them along. That would be the worst kind of stupidity. Stupidity, now, stupidity was one of the few things she truly despised.

There was this delusion that nothing could get at you, when you were at home—dangerous thinking.

But first, a bath and some sleep. Standing there, she looked around. She could clear her personal belongings in three minutes. Hell, maybe a minute or less, if it came right down to it. Trooper Noya seemed to be doing well.

He'd taken to it like a duck takes to water.

She wondered about that one, from time to time. It was true that people signed on with the Organization for all sorts of reasons and in all kinds of circumstances. Sometimes it was pure idealism.

A rare thing these days.

There was a knock at the door.

"Yes?"

"Room service!"

Thank Christ for that—maybe she'd have a cold beer too.

The thing was to tip them very well.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Brigadier-General McMurdo, looking calm and unperturbed so far, had called again. As for herself, she felt tired and grubby. Two beers, one pill. A half an hour of television, three hours of sleep and a difficult brush of the teeth sort of grubby. She'd taken to gagging and dry-heaving lately, her throat sticky with something un-nameable.

Taking off her helmet, she'd brushed up her hair. She'd remembered to pull that zipper down...

Let him see a bit of cleavage.

The wiles of a woman...use everything you've got, when outnumbered.

Jezebel.

"Ah, hello, Colonel Graham."

"Well. Hello, General." She smiled sweetly, lifting the sternum a bit...

Like a weather girl with big boobs, she really ought to have been standing sideways.

Once again, they'd blocked the view of everything in the background. "To what do we owe this fine pleasure?"

Over the course of time and familiarity, there was the possibility of a slip—against which they all had to remain vigilant.

"I must say, Colonel. May I call you Dona? But simply ravishing, ravishing, my dear—I really don't know how you do it."

"Well, thank you. Thank you very much. What can I do for you, General?"

"Well, Dona. It's just that I do so admire strong, powerful, intelligent, independent women. All of those brains and all of that beauty. Colonel Graham. It really is quite the combination—"

She snorted, shaking her head. Dona couldn't help but smile, in a way—

What a fool.

Those eyes bored into hers. Not a shred of real humour there.

"I was hoping you might reconsider our surrender offer?"

"I wasn't aware that you were quite that desperate, General."

Not yet, anyways.

He smiled.

He chuckled.

He slapped his thigh and laughed out loud...

It was a very human reaction. It was as bogus as all hell, but his acting wasn't bad. He had his own audience to consider. That much was clear.

She sat there, waiting.

"Still being stubborn, I see."

A trooper was beckoning from over the walls of their hasty cubicle.

The low voice in her ear was Sergeant Kelly, calm, unperturbable, and yet there, at this exact moment.

She reached up and touched her ear.

"I'm sorry, General. It's just that my hairdresser has a cancellation—" Hopefully the laughs that this elicited from her own crew carried over through the small microphone on their camera. "But if there was a point to all of this. Stories are so much more interesting when they have an actual point, don't you agree?"

His head bobbed in agreement. Those clear blue eyes blazed into hers. The eyes of the true fanatic.

"I quite agree, in fact I will get right down to it. You can delay us, Colonel Graham. I have no doubt of that. You've already proven that. There is nowhere to run, Colonel—and I would spare all parties, civil and military, further bloodshed and, ultimately, humiliation. Let us negotiate an honourable settlement, a ceasefire—let us turn this over to the politicians, the negotiators. The bloody lawyers, if you will." He cleared his throat. "Look, Colonel. I will go first. In the event, I hereby promise you, my dear, that all Confederation troops, male or female, regardless of race, creed or colour, et cetera, or howsoever they choose to define their gender-identity, (faint laughs from his end) will enjoy full rights under the Treaty. Their lives and their personal effects will be sacrosanct. Civilian contractors will be unmolested, assuming they are under contract and from off-world..." That didn't promise too much for colonists or anyone else caught on the wrong side. "Honestly, Colonel Graham. I find you quite fetching. You shall be the first among my concubines."

Ha.

Ha.

Ha.

"Oh—and I am also aware than an army marches on its stomach."

"What a nice man—and such a very handsome offer. Very well, General McMurdo. Thank you for bringing this up. I shall certainly take all of this under due consideration, and I'm sure my superiors will want to be consulted as well. Still, I'm the one on the spot. Hmn. I do have some influence around here. Tell you what. I think I can safely promise that you and all of your troops can expect the same or better treatment, in the event of your capitulation, and, ah, that would include private retainers, family members, or any civilian contractors that you may have along on this little adventure. Concubines, and the like, ah, male or female. You know, slaves, and indentured servants. Minor children. People like that. As for unauthorized personnel, that is to say any un-owned person, masters being responsible for the actions of their slaves as you know. Any person, not under official contract, whether from on or off-world, all I can really promise there is to turn them over to the police, and to the laws and the courts of this planet." Which didn't promise too much for them, either, did it? "I'll tell you what, and I know we will be speaking again on this subject. As a sign of good faith, I hereby suggest that both sides respect civilian emergency vehicles. Say, fire, police and ambulance? If they're going down the road with sirens and lights going, neither side is to fire upon them. Agreed?"

She gave a sharp nod.

It was better than nothing as she watched his eyes slide around in an attempt to outflank her somehow in terms of pure, unmitigated bullshit.

She had no time for this.

His mouth opened and he began to talk.

She cut him off without hesitation. So far, she hadn't lost a trooper—

He was just fishing again, assessing her state of mind, and Kelly had something new.

***

"Colonel Graham?"

"Yes, Sergeant." There was a strange intimacy in the voice, and after such a very short time.

It was like they were best friends or something. All of a sudden.

One view was bigger than the rest and she zoomed in for a closer look.

"It's a party of Denebi, Colonel. They're headed north, up the road."

"Go on, Sergeant Kelly."

"They're all adults—no children. They all seem to be armed, at least as far as we can tell."

Dona zoomed in closer.

Oh, shit.

Those weren't walking sticks.

They were shouldering the peculiar Denebi longbow, a straight staff of about two and a half metres. Only the ends, made of horn or something equally resilient, were bent over to keep the string from smacking the thumb or the back of the hand or whatever upon firing. Exologists believed this to be a recent innovation, perhaps only in the past five hundred to a thousand years or so. There had been so few digs on the planet, it was impossible to be sure. It was, however, a part of the native legend or so it said in the literature. Apparently, they could lay on one of their backs (or was that the fronts on a creature exhibiting radial symmetry?) and hold the big bow with their feet, which would give it one hell of a draw—the arrows were anything up to a metre and a half in length and as big around as a man's little finger. Originally of stone or bone, those points were now the big, triangular, slotted cutting blades designed to bleed out a big animal as quickly as possible after being hit...

She saw wooden swords, stone-tipped spears, shiny steel knives, and metal axes, which were thanks to the exotica traders. Such folks inevitably followed colonization in quest of captive and unsophisticated markets and the unique products that they could provide in exchange. It was a kind of commercial prospecting. Denebi handicrafts were beautifully made and some of their carvings, especially the masks and votive statuettes, were much sought-after among collectors.

Certain herbs and spices, what one of her friends, a real gastronome, called flavourings, commanded their weight in Interstellar Gold Coin.

"Do they know you're there?"

"I'm thinking they must know something, Colonel. It could be quite a lot—they do interact with the colonists. There are people that know the language. The Unfriendlies must have brought an interpreter or two. They expect to win and take control. That plan involves talking to the natives. It must. Right? We've been up and down this road, more than once, without seeing any sign of them. If they were camped in the woods, especially a war party, and not using a fire—we could have driven right past them without a clue, Colonel." The thing with the Denebi natives, was that the road was just so convenient, there was no point in sticking to the woods and their own thin and wandering tracks through the bush.

Going off the trail, even the natives could get lost. They were never going to get lost and lose time on the highway. These guys were clearly in a hurry.

Also, their bodies were cool enough to blend into the background clutter in terms of infrared satellite surveillance. All those rocks, all that stone, heating up in the light of the day. The woods were full of game, big and small. The satellite and the system was pretty good about filtering, but not exactly infallible. The woods were full of light and shadow, cool spots and hot-spots, tight little valleys where the line of sight was gone and the satellite would never pick them up.

Zooming in on a known native village, sure they could be seen—the structures and the occasional little dots moving around. This was more due to the acuity of the optics, and the bright colours worn by the people, rather than by any real heat signatures. It probably wasn't a complete picture.

Yeah, Kelly was smart all right—

"And they're headed north—" She was busy marking that for the system.

"Yes, Colonel. That's how it looks..." In hot pursuit of something, someone, hopefully not the Confederation, but you could never be too sure with such alien minds.

"Let us know when they're safely clear." There had to be a good two dozen of them, and there could be thousands just on the other side of that riotous wall of brush...

These ones were striding along at a pretty good clip. Eighty-five kilometres from the Roussef turnoff. They could be here in two days, three at the most if they really wanted to push it.

They'd be stiff and sore, but it could be done.

So far the Denebi, an unknown quantity, had been more conspicuous by their absence. Yet they must have some idea of what was going on. They would have seen all those ships coming down, day or night. They would have remarked upon the dearth of road traffic since then, and possibly even seen missiles going by overhead. They could hardly not know about it...

Quite frankly, Confederation authorities had been lax, and that meant her. She really should have tried to contact them, but there had been so little time. No one aboard that was really competent to do that, and so it had fallen to the wayside.

Fuck.

Strung out in a line, with bunches and clumps here and there, the last group was just coming fully into view. Trees had obscured the view, up until this moment.

"Shit."

"What, sergeant?"

"They've got a prisoner—"

"Who is it? One of ours?" No, that couldn't be—

He stared, zooming in on that ashen face, clearly exhausted and as terrified as all hell. The young man stumbled along, arms bound at the wrists to a stick across the shoulders. There was a loop of cord around the throat just to make sure. He was without a jacket, but the trousers were field grey. The shirt was a crisp white, the tie charcoal. No hat or helmet.

The Unfriendlies still wore uniforms that included ties, hard leather shoes and little black backpacks, and every man-jack among them would have some kind of crucifix around their neck.

The obligatory Bibles in the side-pocket of the knapsack. So far, there was no sign of his weapon. Surely one of the Denebi must have it.

"No. One of theirs—an Unfriendly."

Sergeant Kelly didn't know too much about Denebi culture. He was already clicking away on his virtual buttons. He was quick with the keywords, the pictures and the text.

She read along with him, mouth open—

...they were said to ritually torture prisoners, roasting them over a slow fire and then eating what were considered delicacies—the brains, the liver and the heart for example.

As to whether they'd ever had a human prisoner before, he just didn't know.

Probably not, or he would have heard about it, or read about it in the briefing notes.

On the bright side, it wasn't one of their own.

Inwardly, he marveled.

But this—the adventure part of the gig, was what he had originally signed up for, all of those long years ago. By the time this was over, he might just get himself a real bellyful—if he wasn't careful.

All he had ever really wanted to do was to live—and to feel alive.

"Colonel."

"Go ahead, sergeant."

"The thing to do here is to tell our troops to stay the hell out of their way—and maybe, ah, we should inquire a little more deeply."

"Roger that, sergeant. We're working on it. Over." She was already typing out the bulletin which would have to be carefully worded and thorough. "Let's hope they keep walking through our camera positions."

"Thanks, Colonel."

"I'll see if we can find us some interpreters."

He nodded and clicked off.

Chapter Twenty-Three

In the Walzbruch operation, speed was of the essence. Due to the small force involved, and the distances from Roussef and Ryanville, the retreat was conducted somewhat differently. Also the civilian population, far from the big city and dependent on roads for their subsistence, had to be taken into account.

Around Walzbruch, it was all rock, with no farming except for small, private gardens. There were no big cattle ranches, although there might be poultry and some other stuff—she'd have to check, actually. People found a hollow up in the hills somewhere, a bog maybe; all muck and mire, yet full of actual dirt, and so they took a shovel up there and they brought it home in wheelbarrows or even bucket by bucket. Year by year, over the past fifty or a hundred years, the gardens had gotten bigger, a real investment in sweat that paid off in fresh produce for those lucky enough to inherit them over the course of generations. That was the story from the early days of colonization at Walzbruch. It was like everyone that ever moved to the place wanted a garden and began building one shortly after arrival. Even so. It was a big enough population that subsistence by hunting and fishing, produce from the gardens, would be difficult, winter or summer. Any small food processors and warehouses had been left in place for this reason, and it still wouldn't be enough. Winter was eight or ten months long in what was quite the little mountain range.

For the most part, they were being asked to shelter in place. The only exceptions to this order were civilian technicians and skilled engineers. Where they were agreeable, they were sent by truck and van, with their families, pets and a few personal belongings, up the road to where they would be needed. For the most part, they were agreeable. The Unfriendlies wouldn't be politely asking people, would they?

They'd be taking hostages and barking out orders under threat of death, torture, prison and confiscation.

Their civilian friends knew the stakes, and they had chosen accordingly. The fact was that her troops had turned people away. They already had enough mouths to feed up here.

For this phase of the operation, large bridges, major feats of engineering in this sort of country, were to remain in place. A few smaller bridges and culverts were to be blown. Power generation, to be left in place. Local communications nodes, some of the more strategic transmission towers and heavy industrial infrastructure, destroyed. Charging and fuel stations were to be left in place, large fuel bowsers, mobile electrical recharging vehicles, or other technical, work or delivery trucks destroyed, hidden, or removed.

There were compromises all over the place, mostly for the benefit of the civilian population. It was a fine balance. As for personal vehicles, the Unfriendlies would grab what they could use. This would leave a substantial number of vehicles for the use of the civil population.

What the enemy probably would do, as a measure of positive control, would be to ration fuel and energy for civilian vehicles to that which was absolutely necessary to sustain the life of the community, and no more. There were only so many fuel trucks to go around. The Unfriendlies were at war. All of that had to come up from Deneb City.

That much made sense. There was much that would remain unclear.

Her forces were racing up the highway, deploying various ambush and booby-positions along the way. With so few people at her disposal, Dona was relying on three teams and dozens of cameras. These teams were equipped with a disproportionate share of weapons, some of which were being cached at tactical locations, along with boxes of ammunition, food and medical supplies. Starting off with a dozen or so of the smaller, Puma-type vehicles, two out of every three were being stashed at positions deemed useful for the future. There would be stay-behind parties, small ones capable of breaking up into two-person teams and carrying out independent operations. There was no real good reason for the enemy to have too much traffic between Walzbruch and Roussef, but one never knew—there was always a chance. The only real reason for the enemy to be there was to prevent her troops from being there. More schizo-paranoia, but at least it was them and not her...

If nothing else, they could follow the enemy column and wait for opportunity to knock.

The weapons and vehicles at their disposal were as carefully hidden and dispersed as the little units themselves. Anyone not needed was to proceed directly to Ryanville, in the hopes of just keeping it simple. There was plenty of work to be done up there and along the highways and byways above Roussef.

Once the Confederation troops had abandoned Walzbruch, there wasn't much they could do to stop civilians from making a break for Roussef, Ryanville and one or two other small points north and west.

Certain information had been disseminated—carefully, in all the bars, restaurants and public places in what was a pretty small town. Simple message, there are mines and booby-traps all over the place. There are undischarged weapons, and automatic, robotic systems of defense. The instructions were simple too: if you must use the roads, drive during daylight hours, with all of your lights on, transponders on, and have your fucking phone turned on. Be prepared to be challenged, or fired upon, by either friend or foe, at any time. This is a war zone, and the road to Roussef and points further on was going to be very hazardous indeed. Travel was not advised, except for the most urgent of purposes.

Even with all the dire warnings, a small cavalcade of the local population, some of them clearly carrying weapons in the camera views, had loaded up in a motley collection of trucks and utility vehicles. They had departed, heading her way, shortly after dawn this morning.

With few women and no children, and by all appearances traveling light, one had to wonder just exactly what the plan was...

What would they do when they came to a blown-out bridge?

Abandon their trucks, swim the creek, and borrow more vehicles at the next farmhouse? It was ludicrous on some level, and yet, one had to admit, it could also be done. They would get all kinds of cooperation—and probably more volunteers. Shit. She had no time to train a bunch of amateurs and would prefer not to have to witness a massacre. One of the more junior command centre staff was working the phones, trying to get more information, and hopefully they would make contact.

Whatever they did, whatever they were going to do, it was going to have to be at their own risk.

In a pinch, she could offer medical support for serious casualties, nothing more.

This wasn't much comfort when she considered the possibilities. Some of those possibilities had been taken into account in her original plan, which was very quickly going out the window. She would stick to it as long as possible. This made it a lot easier on the subordinates, who had been studying it intently as far as she could make out from the access logs.

The unexpected was always going to happen and she would have to live with it. Or die with it—

If only she could get a decent sleep.

***

Her eyes felt like they had been freshly sandpapered.

The horizon, viewed from just five kilometres west-north-west from Walzbruch, was studded with columns of black, greasy smoke from fires in the town and further out in mining country.

Trooper Freddie J had signed up anonymously, and according to his brief service record of two and a half years, was known by no other appellation. He had no planetary or national social insurance number. No next of kin. Any death bounty, any savings, any arrears of pay, would go to an orphanage in New Delhi. He probably was from Old Earth. An interesting insight into the minds of her own troops, at least some of them. The young man, listed as twenty-eight years of age, had posted a camera on top of a rock shelf with a clear view down the road. The man himself had his back to the shelf twenty metres away, breathing calmly. According to the readouts, his heart-rate was only slightly elevated. There were three civvy pickup trucks in the picture, with people inside and in the back.

"Yes, Colonel. We saw quite a number of civvies going through here about a half an hour ago. Unfortunately, these guys must be stragglers."

It was going to complicate matters if they didn't clear the hill and the ambush point in the next five minutes.

Ignoring Walzbruch, whose fate was tied to that of Deneb and to a lesser extent Roussef, the Unfriendlies had driven through the town and headed out towards Roussef as soon as it became apparent that the Confederation troops had abandoned their positions. As things presently stood, another small column of trucks and vehicles had left Deneb City. At the turnoff they had steered straight for Walzbruch. This had been dubbed Occupation Force W on their battle maps. They could always change the name later. With the original force driving straight through the town after about a twenty-minute stop, all of the Confederation's concealed assets were still in place.

The enemy troops were just over the next hill. The little valley in between was only so wide, taking only so much time to cross, and these damned civilians were dawdling along at a bare fifty kilometres an hour.

"Shit, Colonel."

"What, Trooper."

The pictures spoke for themselves, as the vehicles crested the hill, and then came to a complete stop. People got out, talking and shouting and it was all one big jumble in the poor audio. To be fair, their best camera shot was from a good seventy metres away, and the synthetic parabolic microphones were subject to a lot of wind pop.

"Shit."

Freddie J was on the ground, and his opinion counted for something.

"Talk to me, soldier."

"Yes, Colonel—ah."

He was flipping back and forth between a half a dozen cameras, his sergeant right there and two other pairs of soldiers in good position to fire and recover their heavier weapons. They were in no position to do anything about the civvies. Freddy J was the least skilled or qualified of the six and so they had put him on the com unit.

"Fuck. They've got guns—they're mostly in camouflage hunting clothes. Boots. Side-arms on some of them. One of the trucks is white if you can believe it."

"All right." In a similar kind of logic, Dona had a very young trooper working her board for her as she had taken to wandering the room.

He looked surprisingly comfortable in the hot-seat and it probably was good experience.

On the job training.

Join the Organization and see the Galaxy.

The fire-team's vehicle was five hundred metres away, on a short stretch of logging road that petered out into a hundred other temporary little working-loops in the hills overlooking the highway.

"Sit tight. If the civvies fire on the Unfriendlies, they're basically doing our job for us. If that is the case, do not, I repeat, do not detonate your charges. Hold your fire for as long as possible. If you can snag a big vehicle, because they will and must advance, do it then. Over."

Sergeant Worzakowski came on the circuit.

"Roger that, Colonel."

He was the one that would be giving the orders, not Freddie J and so it was up to him to acknowledge.

Things were in good hands.

They sat, crouched, huddled in a pit, or lay on the ground, watching the scene below intently as the vehicles and their drivers moved on, pulling into the brush halfway down the other side as far as they could determine.

The two soldiers were shoulder to shoulder, screened well enough from enemy fire. Voices spoke in their ears and icons moved about on their visor displays.

"Where are they?"

"Hidden in the woods now, sergeant." Freddy J's heart had sped up a bit, but he still seemed pretty cool.

It wasn't just physical fitness with this one. This was a kind of psychological fitness. He must have some kind of backstory. That anonymous sign-up said a lot. It forgave, or at least set aside, a lot of sins. Mustering out some years later, he'd have a whole new identity. He would be a whole new person in every way that counted.

"Ah..." The Unfriendly column was just on the other side of yonder hill.

The sound of heavy vehicles was barely discernable, but it was there and now it seemed that the forest had gone silent, the birds and insects and other creatures, unfamiliar to most of them, perhaps sensing that there was trouble in the air.

The faint hum of an enemy drone, somehow penetrating even now, came from somewhere behind their heads. The machine was no doubt very interested in the heat and electromagnetic signatures of the civilian vehicles...

"Sergeant."

"Yes, Freddie, I see it." In the satellite view, and in one of the cameras, the enemy column had clearly come to a halt.

Hmn. If nothing else, it was another delay.

Sooner or later, they had to move.

In the meantime, it was a fine autumn day and there was nothing to worry about except this, in all of its naked simplicity.

Chapter Twenty-Four

"Colonel. Report from Team Three. Deneb City."

Team Three—she had allowed them to slip to the back of her mind.

"What's up?"

"Looks like another column forming up."

"Ah."

Pictures came up on a large screen in front of the hot-seat. With a casual hand motion, she let Trooper Harvey sit a little longer.

Sure enough, one of their scattered cameras had zoomed in to a scene in the industrial part of town. The largest of several industrial areas, it was located on the east road leading out of Deneb City. There were plenty of wide-open spaces, lots of parking lots and undeveloped land. The area was strewn with warehouses, vehicle loading-docks, industrial plants and production facilities, as well as the smaller, spin-off operations necessary to all such environments.

They must have been using the larger buildings for storage and keeping the vehicles out of sight.

As they knew from civilian reports as well as their own observation, the troops were dispersed, having been billeted in hotels all over town. The Unfriendlies had grabbed up a fair amount of unlet commercial space. There were also some more temporary quarters, which included rows of cots, bunkbeds, and portable office partitions for a modicum of privacy.

City buses had been commandeered, with only the minimum to carry on with the more normal, civilian operations. The local bus schedule had been severely curtailed.

There were hundreds, maybe a couple of thousand Unfriendlies housed inside of hangars out at the spaceport. Certain units of these troops and some smaller contingents had been trucked and bussed to the present location. That made sense—they wouldn't be staying, so why assign them to an expensive hotel room in the centre of town? It was true—the Unfriendlies were apparently paying their way in Shiloan paper dollers, according to eavesdropping and reports from all over the place.

This particular industrial area was located in the northeastern quadrant of the city, a few blocks from the highway and attendant access ramps. There were still kit-bags on the ground. Weapons were slung in reverse, no magazine, upside down and with bright orange plastic caps still on the muzzles. Troops milled around, looking a lot like children on a class trip in some cases. She watched, they all watched, as some dumbkoft kid almost skipped, going from one little gaggle to another. It was all just a big adventure to that one...one big party all the way, maybe.

Boobies were invented for people like that...

From the plumes of smoke, the engines had just been started up as people at the back end slung bags and boxes into the big six-by-six trucks.

"Activate Mongoose One, please."

"With pleasure, Colonel." Harvey had quickly become her boy.

They were on the same shift, and he had actual combat experience in spite of his age. Face-to-face, bullet to bullet, and not just in a control room. Unlike a lot of them.

There was some humorous tone in the voice that pretty much said it all.

Mongoose One, a rocket battery in the hills above Deneb City, would be auto-loaded with high-explosive and anti-personnel rockets.

"Mongoose One, she is hot. She's ready, all she needs are the coordinates..." Harvey tapped his keys and possibly being a bit short-sighted, pulled up the goggs and leaned in to his hard-screen to make sure there had been no errors. "Looks good, Colonel."

"Fire at will, Trooper."

"Launching now, Colonel." There was the distinctive 'boink' noise as he keyed it.

Mongoose One fired three heavy rockets, and then the tubes were immediately re-loaded and awaiting further orders.

"Buh-bye, motherfuckers."

Three little orange carets appeared onscreen...tracking onwards.

There were one or two grins in the background. A head in the front row turned to look.

She gave him a sharp glance and he reddened, not meeting her eyes but.

The kid had definitely caught it.

If she didn't shut them down once in a while, they'd all be doing it. It was easy to be the cool, comic type when you were winning. They needed to keep the channels clear, and there were all kinds of justification if she needed it—which she didn't. You could not defeat the enemy if you could not control your own people, in the simplest possible of terms.

Fire teams in the city were in on the loop, as was anyone else who cared to watch. Gawkers had strict orders to keep their mouths shut on the circuits. If they weren't directly involved in a situation. Yet it was also good if people paid attention, and if everyone was fully up-to-date when they did get an order. It helped them to understand the nature of their present employments. For some that would inevitably mean digging latrines and setting up OPs and roadblocks, and moving around piles of boxes and crates in warehouses.

There were orders to keep out unless one had actual business in the Command Centre.

"Ten seconds to impact." He glanced over, with that funny little smirk back in place.

There was no keeping this one down—

The missiles were bang-on, as far as anyone could tell.

The shock waves made instantaneous, expanding bubbles visible for the briefest of moments.

There were silent flashes. It took some time for the smoke to clear. Such detonations lifted every bit of dust, every pebble, every piece of crap on the ground. Small flocks of birds inevitably rose in a panic, taking some time to settle down again...

Good old pigeons, wings beating away, in their white and grey liveries, quite surreal in terms of its visual effect against the dull, smoky background.

It was a bit anti-climactic, in that the vehicles, were all still lined up in three or four rows. There were wisps of smoke and steam all over. For the most part, the soldiers were still just lying there, although some were getting up. The fastest-moving ones were probably lightly wounded. They'd be in a hurry to get help and were at least still able to do so. Someone was dragging a buddy up off the ground. That one was hit bad. You could just tell, from the impression of dead weight and that hanging head. Her guts clenched and her heart sped up. There was always going to be that emotional wrench. You have just killed someone on the telly, as a colleague had once told her.

The thing was, to remember to breathe properly and to try to sit or stand up straight. To maintain that mental calmness. A kind of editorial detachment. You had to accept responsibility.

There was no denial and that somehow made it better...somehow easier to live with.

Or so the theory went.

I just killed that guy...

There was one big fire where a fuel truck had been located, still identifiable by its shape and bulk.

So far, no one was fighting the fire, although there were desperate figures running, pissy little fire-extinguishers in their hands. Fire-engine red. Sirens would be going off in the background by now. Someone was dragging out a hose and struggling with the hydrant. No wrench—no wrench.

Some of them went to ground, crawling under the vehicles, knowing there could be more missiles. One or two just kept running towards the open warehouse doors. Two large trucks smouldered, and there was some other smoke or steam coming from a pair of small scout cars far enough across the open space that it must have been from a different rocket impact, armour-piercing projectiles coming down from above. There were bodies, difficult to identify with any certainty with all the other junk, equipment and yes, plenty of debris scattered about down there as Harvey zoomed in closer.

"Colonel?"

"Hold fire, Trooper."

With the enemy drones way out at the end of their tethers, scouring the roads ahead of the Unfriendly columns, it would take some time for the Unfriendlies to figure out what had just happened. With the barest of information, hopefully longer to locate the source. With good camera and satellite surveillance of the launch site, the Confederation could put their short-range, battlefield missiles down anywhere within a hundred-kilometre radius. Long before anyone got close enough to attempt neutralizing the battery by road or by foot. With counter-battery fire, it might be destroyed—but it would still get off a few shots of its own, and not a single Confederation soldier was at risk. It was just money, in some odd sense.

Money well spent.

Harvey nodded.

"Estimated casualties, twenty-five, ten killed and fifteen wounded. Fifty percent of those injured will be seriously. We clearly have three to five vehicles damaged or destroyed, and probably another dozen holed. Whether that holds them up for very long, is unknown." He looked over. "We'll see in a minute though."

"What would you do, Trooper Harvey?"

"If they're going to do this, then they really ought to get those people out of there."

He thought for a second.

"Of course, that was before they knew about the Mongoose. Still, I'd like to know what the hell else they could do."

"True. Very true." The enemy, canceling the plan, could disperse in town, and the Confederation could still hit their billets.

The gears would be turning over in their heads, and that was a certainty. They'd be counting missiles just as she was.

Three for you, and three for me—

How many more have you got?

When they got out on the road, they could keep a lot of distance between vehicles, which opened them up to attack by lighter forces, ambush parties and the like, even as it made missile strikes more difficult. A tough compromise, with a tendency to drive as quickly as possible. Therefore, making surprise by ground-level ambush even easier.

People were trying to get damaged and undamaged vehicles away from the biggest fires. There were clearly NCOs, grabbing people, taking charge, and organizing things down there.

His instincts were pretty good. This was confirmed within ten minutes as the first of the enemy column, the scene still blazing in the background, zoomed out of the gates and got out on the highway heading for the road connection where Highway 17 headed off towards Walzbruch and Roussef. That was the thing about superior numbers, there were always more where that came from. The Unfriendlies would be much more open to taking a few casualties.

"Choppers in the air." They watched as the pair of helos headed north over the city. "They'll be looking for that launch site."

It was difficult to see what else it might be, but they didn't launch without some kind of a purpose.

Harvey looked over.

"I wonder if anyone's aboard."

"Let's hope so, trooper." Especially with a pair of defensive Sky-Cats at the Mongoose One site, set on full auto, just waiting on their trailers for a target to appear.

The odds were the helos were being piloted from the ground, but one never knew—one just never knew. On the ground, they couldn't watch everything at once. From space, there was a huge amount of information to digest, although points of interest had been marked. Deneb City was just too big a target. The space-borne cameras saw everything, but she only had so many people to look at the pictures. Software could only accurately analyze so much, so fast.

Fuck. There was only so much time in the day—only so much bandwidth in any system. That included the human brain.

So far, it had been one hell of a busy day and it wasn't even noon yet. If only her stomach would loosen up. If only she could get a proper sleep.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a proper bowel movement. It was all black, grape-sized marbles lately. She just hadn't been eating enough.

If only someone would say something funny.

"Good work, Harvey."

"We aim too, please, Ma'am." An old bathroom joke—adapted.

"As long as you remember to put the seat down." That's all I care.

This time she let them have their little snickers.

***

The Unfriendlies on Highway 17 had been doing some thinking. When dawn broke, their feverish activity of the night before was fully revealed to satellite and drone reconnaissance. The nearest camera was two kilometres up the road, with intervening hills in the way.

They'd set up a battery of their big guns. There were nine guns in total. With a few small patrol vehicles and at least a platoon of infantry, one or two light machine-gun nests for defense, they were clearly intended to support the Unfriendly advance up the road. With their range, they could soak any hillside, any cut or gap, any location that looked likely to provide an ambush position to the Confederation troops. With this terrain, they'd be firing at a high angle, which reduced the potential range somewhat, in order to drop things down on people's heads most effectively. Call it twenty thousand metres, maybe even twenty-five-k, and that was just a guess. This implied rapid movement of the battery at fairly short intervals. This meant another target to track, and another set of opportunities for surprise. If nothing else, the forward column would pause when they ran out of range and they had to move the guns forward. Beautiful. Another whole set of delays. McMurdo and his staff would be attempting to surprise the Confederation. This was merely one more example of their thinking. In that sense, it was fairly conventional.

The thing with firebases was their vulnerability—

Their isolation.

It was another small division of forces.

The column, minus a few trucks and trailers, moved out about eight a.m., giving a fresh drone time to come up from Deneb City. Dona and others had wondered when they would think to set up an advanced base for drones—there were long stretches of relatively straight road, with one or two small buildings and sheds handy, more than sufficient to handle a drone or two and a flight crew, some small security detail. Hanging weapons and bombs on a drone sapped the range, and the Unfriendly drones already appeared to be working at their maximum range in the case of the Walzbruch operation. Walzbruch was a good two hundred and fifty kilometres from Deneb City.

As for the Confederation, they'd noted a few good places along the way, and if the opportunity arose, Dona intended to do just that. The difference was that the Confederation had the support of the locals, whereas the Unfriendlies clearly knew they did not. The very small team required for the Unfriendlies to operate a drone or two would be expensive in that it would take at least a platoon, better yet, a couple of platoons, to protect them.

The Confederation already had a drone base set up thirty kilometres up the road to Ryanville. It had its own air defense battery, and about a dozen troops involved in the whole operation. With the days getting shorter, transit times would be reduced to a minimum. With the days getting shorter, the Unfriendlies would be trying to jam as much into a day as they could, assuming a preference for day-time operations. Even so, sooner or later they might try a night assault. With little going on at night, the enemy night-time drone operations had been relatively routine, basically just keeping the thing up there and watching over their formations as they slept. Since the Confederation wasn't attacking, there wasn't much to see.

Guards were capable of night-time operations, even if the conscripts weren't.

This was just outside the range of heavy artillery in Roussef or more likely the road junction where Highway 2 from Walzbruch met Highway 17 coming up from Deneb City. This position seemed the more logical. The junction was a few kilometres out of town to the east, connected by what was called the Walzbruch Line.

"Colonel Graham."

Dona became aware of the voice with a bit of a start. Had she been asleep? Oh, shit.

"What's up, Trooper?"

The young woman, one dedicated to watching the drone and satellite feeds, was looking at her, goggs up on her forehead.

"They're loading the guns at Point B." This was their name for the overnight bivouac area used by the Unfriendlies on the road to Roussef.

As long as they were setting up a firebase, why not land a drone there? But there was more to it. The artillery position would undoubtedly be moving on, always trying to be in a position to support the Unfriendly column. As forces converged on the way up from Walzbruch, at some point they would be in position to support either force or both at once. This might have been in the enemy's original plan, it probably was in fact.

"Someone's in for it."

She ignored the comment and the murmur that went through the room, with an undertone of calm humour evident. They were still confident—and confidence was everything.

The column ground its way up the first hill, and down the other side. The Confederation, not anticipating their sudden halt, had been unable to return. To get too close was to risk sonic or even detection by the good old human ear, assuming the enemy had thrown out patrols in a simple security measure.

The red dots on the satellite view didn't lie. They had gone at least three kilometres up the road and up to a half or three-quarters of a kilometre into the bush before apparently deciding there were no threats in the vicinity. The truth was, there wasn't. They'd kept a line of pickets out three hundred metres, all night long, in a thin perimeter. The ground was good there, fairly level and open fields, with no impassable swamps for an enemy to hide in. Enemy troops had apparently searched several nearby farmhouses.

Finding nothing, they had left the civvies unmolested. Still playing nice with the locals for the most part.

The next hill was right there, and the enemy column, with Roussef still a good hundred kilometres up the road, seemed to be speeding along pretty well. At the top of the next hill, they halted. Ahead, a small bridge had been taken out over another small creek. They could probably see that from there, if the drone hadn't already. Time to bring up the engineers again.

There was a brief pause, and then the guns fired, instantly detectable from high in space and visibly through the camera of Drone One, operating from its new base up the road.

The third hilltop exploded in fire and smoke. There were a total of maybe twenty rounds fired.

They would be firing by coordinates, at this short range, at a high angle. One bag of flour in the back end in the current military slang. In other words, not much of a charge, just enough to pop it up and over. With no targets on site, and consequently no real feedback, the smart-rounds would fall more or less as predicted. No good pictures would be coming back. Reconnaissance-by-fire.

Getting no results and no response, the Unfriendly column, commanded by a person identified as a Colonel Joseph Smith and with supporting elements under Major Noah Hubbard, dashed across the valley.

Pulling off the road, they waited with guns elevated. Truckloads of men and equipment. They watched in fascination, assessing the enemy's ability. Literally, timing it, just how long it took for them to build a bridge. They had a small bulldozer, driven down off a hauler, and the bridgework was sectional, unfolding itself on generators and hydraulics. More brawn than brains to set that one up. A few had plunged into the waters, swimming across to work the other bank.

Cables and ropes...inflatable bags strapped underneath to keep it afloat.

There must have been a hundred men swarming all over it, for a creek that was barely ten metres wide at water level, although the gully itself was substantial.

After forty minutes or so, with people still working on the bridge, the first of the enemy column was climbing up the other side and pausing again. The next valley was about two kilometres wide, choked with brush, cut by winding streams, with a few small meadows along the roadside. There was a house and a barn, presumably one small homesteader and his family. A couple of scruffy-looking vehicles out front. And nothing.

Just nothing.

Zooming in, there was the impression of moving objects in the front yard. Was it possible that those would be chickens? Geese, or goats, or something like that? But the distance was too much for the camera, the lens having been rained on, subsequently picking up dust from the air.

The big guns spat smoke and fire, the heavy rounds momentarily visible from behind, with the Confederation drone hovering there in the sun and in behind the enemy battery.

The fourth hilltop erupted, trees, dirt and rock shattering and flying all over the place in the sudden onslaught. Still, the farmhouse slept, or so it seemed, although the animals seemed to have scattered.

"Okay, here they go—"

But there was more happening elsewhere, and they still had a few tricks up their sleeves. Every shell the enemy fired at barren hilltops depleted their ammunition, both on hand and ultimately, down the road in Deneb City. There were no local supplies. Everything was imported in the sense of military materiel. This might help to account for the new column, which appeared to be almost as large as the initial one. Then there was the small convoy of fuel trucks and some other technical vehicles—a couple of mobile bridge-building teams were coming along by the looks of it. The enemy would have to send a follow-up to the Walzbruch occupation force as well—

Right now her focus must be on Highway 17. This was the big threat. Everything else was just a sideshow.

Sergeant Kelly was just a couple of kilometres up the road, and he had a surprise or two waiting for the next little contingent.

Chapter Twenty-Five

With the first enemy column just fifteen kilometres away, the second column, composed mainly of small scout vehicles, fuel tankers and cargo-laden trucks, the Unfriendlies were about to receive a nasty shock.

Perhaps they had made an assumption, which was always risky. Now, the presence of more stay-behind parties would be revealed. It was a psychological moment, and irrevocable in terms of information for the enemy. They would understand the significance.

Sergeant Kelly and his team watched, as the first two scout-cars swept past, with the heavy machine guns in the back manned, the gunners alert enough, fingers on the trigger, and no doubt with full sensors deployed.

Next in line were three big six-by trucks, the backs covered under camouflaged tarpaulins. This would be the infantry. It would be close and uncomfortable in there, smelling of wet canvas and mildew, with nothing to see except out the back end. Then three big fuel bowsers, all strung out in a row. After that, the engineering vehicles, with what were clearly prefabricated bridge sections chained down on their big flatbeds.

This had its manpower component as well. More big trucks. The Unfriendlies were anticipating the Confederation plan as best they could. Although there wasn't enough equipment on the whole planet to bridge some of the really big spans, this lot would do for anything less, and the Confederation troops, mindful of the civil population, were reluctant to blow those particular spans. Blowing bridges slowed the enemy, it also limited your own options.

If nothing else, they could hold this bunch up for a while.

"Fire the mine."

The results were spectacular. Again, they were rewarded with the sight of a vehicle, up in the air, spiraling end over end. There was fire and burning fuel everywhere, the mine having exploded right under the rear wheels. The vehicle behind was at a dead stop, the front end of it torn open and peeled back, and then all that diesel and maybe even good, old-fashioned gasoline went up.

"Two bowsers. Nice shot."

"Estimated: three dead, minimum." Probably more than that, if the big trucks each had a couple of people aboard.

The column was so small, there were barely a couple of platoons of proper infantry, and they were on the ground, popping off at the verdant green hillside confronting them. Since Kelly and his people were actually on the hill behind them, it was all the same to them. His people didn't even need to be told to hold fire. All personal weapons were presently on safety, a fact confirmed in the bottom left corner of his goggs.

They had one light machine gun ahead of the Unfriendlies, sweeping the ground and the leading scout cars, hatches down and visibility much-reduced, were engaging with what was essentially a mindless robot.

"All right, people. Over the hills and through the woods." This time they had only a hundred and fifty metres to run.

"To grandmother's house we go—"

"Shut up, Giovanni."

They were carrying enough, it really cracked a sweat, and the older ones, the smokers in particular, were distinctly out of breath. He grinned, standing tall as they tossed their bags in the back. To his eternal gratitude, the hatch was closed quietly rather than slammed. Now that guy had brains.

"Where's the drone?"

"Searching the wrong hill, Sarge. Still out in front of the main column."

"Good." With all the noise back there, there was no way anyone would be able to hear their departure.

That was the great thing about electric vehicles.

With drones in short supply, and no word of any enemy satellite observation, they hopped into their Puma, got her down onto the road, and headed south at a high rate of speed. With plenty of rock between themselves and the enemy column, all threat sensors were on. No satellite-based radar, which proved nothing...

As far as threats on the ground, was nothing there to detect, which was always good—all of their own mines and boobies were carefully marked on the local zone map. The next enemy column was a good forty kilometres off.

That didn't mean the enemy couldn't lay a few boobies of their own.

So far, there was no sign of that, but it was almost sure to happen.

"Relax, trooper. Slow it down just a bit—" The thing to do was to get her off the road, as quickly as possible, and get the Puma under wraps again.

It was kind of fun to cross a bridge only recently built by the enemy. It wobbled a bit due to all the joints and the weight of their crossing, but it seemed sturdy enough—

A little more altitude on that drone, and they'd be popped for sure.

With their present tactical area zoomed-in on the display screen, it looked like it was still a long ways off. It could also hit a top speed of about two hundred and fifty kilometres per hour. That didn't leave the Confederation troops much of a margin for error.

Surely the enemy would send a drone, or even one of their helos, which hadn't been used for very much so far. They were definitely being held in reserve for something. The pair sweeping the hills above Deneb were still airborne. A quick glance at the main battle-map confirmed it, and they were kilometres off of their target. At that rate, they'd never find the Mongoose.

"Roger that, Sergeant." The kid backed off, eyes searching for the scrap of orange crepe paper hung on a tree branch marking their turnoff into the woods.

Never use the same colour twice in a row—

He watched himself go by, arm out the passenger window, in another camera view. It was always a bit off, seeing yourself from another perspective.

There were so many bits of crap, bottles and cans in the ditch, with plenty of garbage blowing in the wind, the Unfriendlies had driven right past it without realizing the significance. The next column, much larger and clearly meant for action, was of much more concern. Now those guys, those guys would definitely be looking for them—loaded for bear and praying to see some Confederation blood.

"All right, people. Let's get out there and see if we can make those tracks go away." With the ground pretty hard in spite of the recent rain, all it would take was a rake and some dead leaves, falling more and more steadily with every passing day. "Get that orange thing off of there, okay?"

A trooper turned and ran back down the track, weapon slung and pack on. Giovanni—that guy just loved running. He didn't mind being on his own, either. He'd probably take the roadside position as his own. The only real drawback to Giovanni was that real strong need to express himself.

He checked the monitor. The helos were still well off, arguably low on fuel, and the drones were still circling ahead of their two main columns. So far, the enemy had only revealed three or four drones. One had been damaged, and one destroyed. If they had more, they really should have been using them.

If necessary, they could sacrifice the Puma, booby-trap it three ways from Sunday, escape and evade a few kilometres through the brush and then simply wait for pickup. Designed with such eventualities in mind, the battle-gear, fully closed up, would keep out most of the water.

There would be plenty of rivers and streams to cross. They would be out of the game for a few hours, a couple of days, maybe, but they would still be alive, and that was always something.

It sure beats being dead.

By all accounts, being dead is no fun at all.

***

Further up the road, the main enemy column had advanced by fits and starts. Using their artillery, they were attempting to clear the way forward. For the most part, they were bombarding empty hilltops and non-existent targets. It might have still been helpful, in that their troops were no longer being surprised, or at least not in quite the same way. It was difficult to be surprised when the hill a kilometre and a half in front of you was exploding in shellfire and the sergeant was screaming in your ear. It might be more of a surprise to discover that your efforts had been in vain, if so, the enemy was prepared to accept it.

It was revealing of McMurdo's mindset. With such insights, he was definitely a dangerous opponent. Dona must assume that he understood his own troops very well. He probably understood her tactics. He claimed to have read her book. The real question was how well?

He might have taken it to heart—he might also have dismissed it.

The timing was fortuitous, as it would take some time for them to digest the information.

The enemy force advancing up the Walzbruch road was about to make the same mistake, after having been hit from the front several times.

These two timelines were nicely converging. Her troops could drive faster—the enemy had no choice but to go fairly slowly. They had broken bridges and blown-out culverts to contend with.

There was the occasional big tree, laying across the road. A few small charges went a long way in such terrain. Axes and chainsaws were plentiful, and it didn't take a whole lot of brains. It was just grunt work and yet terribly effective. Killing time was just as important as killing enemy soldiers.

Winning wars wasn't just about getting there firstest with the mostest. It was also about being the last man standing on the battlefield.

The lastest with the mostest.

This time, the enemy artillery bombarded the hillside in question on Highway 17. This hill had been dubbed Hill 98. Getting nothing in the way of results, the enemy had concluded that there was nothing there and advanced again. It was only having gone down the other side of Hill 98, when the Confederation weapons opened up, from positions deep in ravines and grottos. A reverse-slope ambush, in reverse. One or two small machine guns were in actual caves, more like horizontal crevices in a layer of softer rock. With the infantry vehicles at the rear of the column totally exposed, it was a bit of a massacre.

Her troops were all under deep cover, as deep as they could get it...

Mortar-bombs fell among troops hastily dismounting, the pitiful rag dolls flew through the air. The machine guns stuttered and stammered out their one-note death song. There was smoke, fire and carnage below. People were obliterated by direct hits, cut in half in some cases, and much of it was caught by the cameras. With a bit of experience, her people were getting better at anticipating what was going to happen. Where the people and vehicles were likely to take cover, and they were placing the cams accordingly. The same might be said for their shooting—it was getting better, no doubt about it.

The lead vehicles, stoutly armoured, could do nothing. Fearing further ambush up ahead, and with the road too narrow to turn around quickly, due to the steep slopes on both sides of a winding, dog-leg switchback roadway up the hill, it was all over before they could get back to the rear of the column. One or two of the smaller fighting vehicles did so, and quickly paid the price as the mortars fired their reserve rounds at such delicious offerings. They were getting kills all over the place.

Finally, the distant Unfriendly artillery began dropping their big rounds onto a firing position that was mostly automated as well as sheltered by trees, hills and downright cliffs. As for directed fire from below, there was so much smoke, fire, noise, brush and rock that finding a target that was no longer shooting was going to be problematical.

The message was a pretty simple one. We are behind you as well as in front of you...

The enemy would make changes. They would be forced to adapt, to rethink, to waste more time, precious time, due to the new tactics and the new circumstances.

There was another culvert, a small rivulet going under the road. With a nod from Chan, the trooper in charge of that aspect of the battle spoke into his microphone. The people at the other end blew that, and now the enemy column would be cut in two. Someone would have to take charge at both ends, with units separated to some extent. Their command was now divided.

They would feed in more troops, more weapons, more vehicles, and more resources. They would use up more time.

Those watching the action via remote could only nod, wonder, and wait to see what happened next, for the same thing was about to happen on Highway Two coming up from Walzbruch. If nothing else, the enemy might finally get the tanks down off the flatbeds and try and use them in some way—it was difficult to see what other purpose they might serve. In terms of Roussef and Ryanville, the Confederation had nothing to oppose them. If they were meant to be purely psychological weapons, the Unfriendlies were going to be disappointed.

The typical Confederation trooper had more than one weapon with anti-tank capability at their disposal.

The bounty for taking out a tank at first hand was considerable, a thousand credits or so, and her people were nothing if not resourceful. If six people took part in digging a hole, sticking in a big bomb, and ultimately blowing up a valuable resource, then the prize was split six ways with another share going into the unit's bonus fund. This would be split by all concerned in any particular command.

This was also good for the morale of rear-echelon troops, of which there were always going to be some. Ultimately, everyone in-theatre got some kind of combat bonus, as well as the campaign badge. Fifty credits here, and a hundred credits there. Ten credits somewhere else. It was still worth doing. There was the aspect of seniority as well, with everyone on up taking a small but proportionately larger cut out of every prize taken by the people under their command.

It was a strange thought. Getting rich was about the farthest thing from Dona's mind. At the rate they were going, that might still yet happen.

The other interesting thing was that the Unfriendlies had finally taken down the civilian phone system.

***

In Dona's theory, as it was presently being applied, defense in depth worked both ways. By sucking them forwards, she was forcing them to provide themselves with a defense in depth as well. There was no way in hell she could really attack, but then, she didn't have to. It all took resources, at a rate of ten to one, according to intel and even McMurdo himself. During the Second World War, commandos, partisans, encircled troops fighting on the wrong side of the front line, the siege of Tobruk even, had revealed some important lessons on the psychological impact of even the smallest parties operating behind enemy lines.

She'd studied commandos and rangers, the Chindits, the British Long Range Desert Group, and David Stirling's Special Air Service, those particularly of World War Two, and a hundred similar formations active since then. The 20th Century war in Vietnam was a case in point. A very small group of people could disrupt an enemy out of all proportion to their relative numbers. Even a technical disparity in armaments to some degree. It forced the enemy to commit more and more front-echelon troops to the rear areas of the battle. This weakened their fighting potential where it really mattered, up at the front line.

This was true for both sides, the highly trained LURPS and the Phoenix operations being balanced on the other side by the grab-them-by-the-belt-buckle, don't-let-go small-unit tactics of General Giap and the communist guerillas.

The difference was, that Dona Graham had known that this was what was going to happen—she had accepted it, and then she had made that the whole basis of her plan. Had McMurdo been smart enough to do that?

Were ten-to-one odds the best he could do?

A dozen heavy-lift helicopters, three or four gunships, and a decent plan of air-envelopment might have been a smarter choice.

In her present situation, even if the enemy was smart enough to withdraw, her troops would still exact a toll upon them. A successful retreat would only take them back to Deneb City. They'd be bottled up and impotent, and their ships would still be vulnerable coming and going. They'd be shot at coming and going, with double the chances of surprise and ambush.

The fact that were was only one road, whether it be the Roussef operation or the Walzbruch operation, (and ultimately, the Ryanville operation), made it all too easy to sacrifice a few weapons, a vehicle or two, and get her people out. They could simply melt away into the bush, with whatever they could carry on their backs, and reappear in a day or three or five. They could follow the advancing enemy force, or double back the other way, knowing that there was another enemy column coming up that road. As time went on, it was inevitable that enemy vehicles would be going back the other way. Her plan, if it made any sense at all, called for instant improvisation at that sharp end. There would always be another enemy column, or patrols, or small installations like their new artillery position. That artillery position would almost certainly be moved as the enemy made forward progress. There was, in fact, a stay-behind team in between the artillery position and the lead column. They'd put out a couple of mines and faded off again, waiting for the next crummy little target to come along. It was a shitty way to live and yet they could keep it up for quite a while.

Such small parties had been planned, due in no small part to the difficulty of resupply, over a road that the enemy ostensibly controlled for some distance. There were depots, caches of fresh weapons, fuel and ammunition, food and liquid refreshments for the troops—and there were a few tracks and side-roads. There were spare vehicles stashed here and there. That was the beauty of being there first—getting there firstest, with the mostest. That was the beauty of having a minute to think—and the cooperation of the civilian population, who had been asked not to look too closely at odd caches of stuff popping up here and there.

So far, the locals, the real hillbillies huddled around their phones and radios and wondering what the hell was going on, had been more concerned with their own business.

"Sergeant Kawaii."

"Yes, Colonel."

"How are things?"

"I've got the bulk of my force under cover. We made fifty kilometres last night, with no real sign of the enemy being any the wiser."

He sat there on his water-proof poncho, cross-legged in the forest, to all appearances enjoying a leisurely picnic lunch. If it hadn't been for the infantry rig and the assault weapon.

"I've been thinking, and I suddenly realized why they're not attacking at night."

"And why is that, Sergeant?"

"It's because of the tracers, Colonel Graham. It's the lasers, and the terrain, where it's kind of hard to run in the dark. Especially if you're half-blinded. And what else I'm thinking, is this. These must be very green troops indeed, if you have to forego the advantages of night-fighting, ah. Because of the sheer fright value of facing a stream of tracer. Like from a mini-gun for example."

Six thousand rounds per minute, every third or fourth one a tracer. Knowing there were solid projectiles in there was almost worse than laser fire. For whatever psychological reason. But flash-goggles and the thin, protective clothing or the emergency mylar laser-blankets couldn't protect a soldier against a metal slug that could penetrate thick trees or several walls of concrete-block. Instantaneously, rather than taking even the shortest while to burn through—

She nodded thoughtfully. That would explain one or two things. Any satellite the enemy had up there, actually had an advantage at night—in terms of the infrared, the temperature differential between a human body and the background landscape was greater than in the daytime, when the sun heated the land and the human body was actually cooler than certain surfaces. That would include the sun-baked surface of a road. The top of a house, or any open area of sufficient light-absorbing tendency. It also included similar sensors aboard the drones.

Vehicles were a lot hotter due to engines and exhaust, or electric motors and batteries, but that was only amplified at night. Then there was all that metal, inevitably some of it ferrous and therefore detectable by magnetics or glint from their hard-surfaced radar returns in the case of alloys.

"Okay. Let's keep that in mind. It's only a matter of time before they change tactics again."

She breathed for a moment.

"They have no choice but to attack. The overall strategy will remain the same."

They were also a part of the bigger picture—

The enemy was only going to take so many needless casualties before a major rethink. While they were advancing, they were also wasting a lot of time. The weather forecast was not good from Dona's perspective. More mild weather on the way for the next few days at least. Winter wasn't exactly late, it was just a season of transition and day-to-day conditions could never be counted upon. The only comfort was that a warm spell must be followed by a cold snap. She was looking at the weather long-term. The trouble was, they were only getting closer. There were storms and a high-pressure front to the northwest. It was, unfortunately, still a few days out assuming the prevailing winds held good. With the planet's eccentric, egg-shaped orbit, with Deneb-Seven currently on the small end of that orbit, the days were getting shorter very quickly, hopefully another psychological edge. It would get colder, darker and wetter. Interestingly, winter occurred when Deneb was closest to the star, for it was this hemisphere that was tipped away during closest transit. It was the angle of the sunlight, and the shortness of the day, that were the deciding factors.

The leaves were falling. Not too many left now, especially in the highlands. It was only a matter of time before some real bad weather came up to unbalance those forces even further.

We own the night.

We own the forest.

We are everywhere.

The enemy would do their best to take full advantage of their window of opportunity. As well they should—that imperative of time that she was counting on, was exactly what was driving them.

"Report on the force coming up from Walzbruch." It was another trooper, waving from the far end of the command centre.

"Very well. Shoot."

Chapter Twenty-Six

"Okay, Force H is about sixty kilometres down Highway 17. And the troops involved in the retreat from Walzbruch, our Force Two are roughly the same distance down Highway 3. We've gotten most of them out, including the heavier weapons. We're proposing to pull them back, to within five or ten kilometres out from the junction of 17 and 2." The next big retreat looked a bit hairy...

"Anyone not out has their orders."

"Yes." That was in their original plan, and she saw no reason to change that with the information in hand. "So what's the problem?"

"We've left weapons behind. We've lost a few to hits that almost seem accidental—until we consider the possibility of an enemy satellite. In which case, why not take them all out? What would be the capability of that satellite. Why did they stop just before the civilian ambush? Their drone work hasn't been all that effective to date. There's one question. But if we look at the terrain, Colonel, here and here. We can see good defensive positions. Our troops, or our robotic weapons, would obviously make use of such positions in order to hold up the enemy for as long as possible. While we try to get our people out of Roussef." In other words, no big surprise that it would be defended in any case.

One more big, beautiful ambush point.

Also, the Confederation troops had been busy preparing a program of demolitions in Roussef. She had no intention of carrying it out—

The enemy might know all about it, in which case they would know there were still a good number of Confederation troops in the town. This would tend to suck them forwards.

Hill 163 dominated Highway 2, and Hill 114-A, overlooked Highway 17 from a commanding height. The hills were protected in front by a short series of lower but steep ridges, heavily forested and with cascades coming down, the creeks flowing east to west, some of them visible from the roadside cams. There was a series of bridges and culverts, some of them quite large.

There was one interesting little river just off of 17. It was a local tourist spot, with multiple waterfalls and short stretches of white-water. Picnic tables, a graveled parking lot, and a chip-truck, now closed for the season. It was easily accessible to the casual hiker, and there were some folks, on almost any planet with sufficient water, who enjoyed kayaks and rubber boats or just drifting down on an inner tube. This small bridge would stay intact. The photo-ops and selfie-points would have their scattered glue-mines and the smaller anti-personnel devices, human nature being what it was.

"Hmn."

Captain Aaron, walking up and down the rows with his hands behind his back, was listening in.

"So what are you saying, Trooper Wyles?"

"It's another psychological moment, Colonel—ah, Captain." Time to get the hell out of Roussef, in other words, although he didn't say it.

Her troops had their psychology as well. It probably felt a lot like running away, this when they'd had nothing but success against the Unfriendlies, and so far, not a man or woman lost. Her written plan was almost too reassuring. But the fact was, they were withdrawing, retreating.

It might be better to go a little early—rather than a little too late.

"Colonel!"

The urgent call came from the girl on the main battle board.

"Helos in the air. They're headed our way—direct line, not the highway, and they are, according to Teams Three and Four, Deneb City, loaded for bear."

Their eyes locked and then she and the young male at her side exchanged some kind of a look.

Everyone else was intent on their displays.

"Very well. There should be—"

They were nodding. They all knew the score.

Missile launch, shortly before the helos arrived on their raid.

"Ha. The other two helos appear to be returning to base. No known results from their search."

"Thank you."

Things were definitely coming to a head.

"How many people do we still have in Roussef?"

Wheeler had it all on her board.

There were air-defence batteries, the Hellions, a few Panthers. Big trucks, although most of the Pumas, the smallest of their units, were out on the roads, carrying on the action and being quite useful in spite of their small size.

"Very well. Prepare to evacuate. All non-essential personnel to depart immediately. Notify all people that an air attack is imminent. At the very most, they have about, ah, half an hour. Take the bigger vehicles first—the Hellions, the six-bys."

"Roger that, Colonel."

She and several others were studying the main battle-board.

"How many people do we actually have, anyways?" She meant in Roussef.

It couldn't be very many. Not the way she had plastered them all over the place. All of this had been foreseen, but there was no question of defending the town even if they had wanted to. This valuable prize was to be given up, as bait.

"Ah, maybe a hundred and forty, Colonel."

More than enough.

More bait, always more bait—

Let the enemy think they were winning. For as long as humanly possible.

No matter how you felt about it, but she'd come to like Roussef.

The few people she'd met had all been very kind to her.

Wheeler was still checking.

"Ah, a hundred and fifty. Two hundred, tops. And then there's like seventy, eighty of the militia. Can we get them out of here too, Colonel?"

"Yes. Make the call. Either they get out now, or they're stuck here with the consequences."

So far, they'd been manning guard posts, roadblocks and preparing defenses. In the end, not entirely useless as it freed up her own people. What they lacked in training and experience, they had sort of made up for in enthusiasm, and a kind of national or planetary pride. This was their planet and they weren't going to let the Unfriendlies screw it up for them...they were Denebians, and all volunteers.

Lieutenant Wheeler was already punching up the number. She was of equal rank with their commander, during daylight hours, operator of a hardware store in Deneb City and a person who had some actual combat experience.

At least to hear him tell it. A big, bluff sort of a fellow, he seemed popular, perhaps a little too popular, with his people. No one had bothered to check his story as there were presently no secure communications at stellar distances.

No communication at all, just as Brigadier Renaldo had said.

Perhaps that was just as well—

What she didn't know about the larger picture, well, it just didn't matter.

Let's keep this nice and simple.

I've got my own worries.

***

"Command Centre." It was Trooper Marissa, flying Drone Two from their new base up the road to Ryanville.

"Go ahead, Drone Two."

"Helicopters, inbound."

Pictures flashed up on the screen. There were two helos, now equipped with fuselage pylons. As they watched, the system analyzed the pictures. Multiple folding-fin rocket launchers and what sure looked like good old-fashioned, wire-guided anti-tank missiles.

Hmn. Nothing really unexpected there. There would be a door gunner with a 12.7 and possibly a small rotary gun under the nose, anywhere from 20 to 37-mm. Their jammers were going full blast. The actual position was only accurate to within a few hundred metres, not enough to get them any kind of a shot. The helicopters were all sharp angles, sloping sides, radar-absorbing materials and stealthy design. It would be the Sky-Cats that had the most chance of a hit. The thing was to knock them down and then get the missile batteries out of Roussef and harm's way. They still had a limited number of reloads which would be worth their weight in kryptonium later on...

Her own 20-mm units, and her three remaining laser-cannons, 500-MW units, were mostly in Ryanville or its approaches. The two 20-mm guns still in town might get a good shot though. The thing there was, she was hoping to recover them for the move. If they opened up, the enemy helos would probably try and engage with them.

"Roger that, and thank you. Keep on that."

"Roger. Will do."

She turned to the young trooper on the Sky-Cat board. The individual units of the battery were scattered, for reasons that would soon become obvious.

"Next time that enemy drone comes around, I want you to take a shot at it—one load, try and use Unit C, that's all. Understood?" Unit C was slated for first removal.

Fire it, let them see it, and then it would be gone. This was also in the original plan, and the other units were sited accordingly. With luck, they might get a shot. If they enemy saw it, they would probably engage...

"Yes, Ma'am. Absolutely." He seemed to approve.

Better yet, he seemed to understand the simple three-unit, triangular dispersal strategy for overlapping AA missile defense.

***

Drone Two had temporarily broken off from the action and turned to an intercept course.

"Helos turning away, Colonel Graham."

"What? Where the hell are they going?"

They had broken to their right, headed east. They watched in fascination, as Drone Two, at maximum throttle, three thousand metres above, tried to keep them in sight. Putting the nose down, the pilot gained some speed, but it was no good. The overhead satellite view showed them pulling ahead, just two black dots now in the view from Drone Two.

They were flying low, using hills as low-level radar cover. As if they didn't know about the Confederation satellite—but the satellite didn't have weapons directly dependent upon it. That was all ground-based weapons and decision-making

Then they slowed, made a cautious approach, and landed on the highway, down in the middle of a valley just a kilometre from the front of the second enemy column—the one that had started off with all the fuel trucks. There was at least one still intact. Some of that must be JP. The column was two minutes up the road.

A side door opened and a half a dozen troops scattered into the ditches and underbrush on security detail. The rotor blades still spun—ready to dust off at the first sign of trouble.

"Ah. Now they're getting smart—"

The remark was cut off by Lieutenant Wheeler's hand on the young trooper's shoulder as Drone Two's cameras held the scene steady. Drone Two itself was turning back onto its original course.

"What are they up to?"

It wasn't that hard to guess. Refueling a bare fifty or sixty kilometres from Roussef would greatly extend their time over the town.

"Enemy drone, inbound. They must have gotten that one fixed. Either that, or they have more in the crates, Colonel."

"Ah, noted."

"Team Three reports more choppers. Two choppers, up on deck, Deneb City, fueling up and loading. Choppers are armed. Please advise."

"Hold fire. I repeat, Team Three is to hold fire. Team Four may fire if they get a shot—"

Team Three, holed up in the middle of Deneb City, in broad daylight, had no hope of escape.

One and Two were out of range, or were being held in reserve.

"Mongoose One's Sky-Cats are active."

"Thank you. Let's hope they get a shot."

Team Four, up in the hills, was in a far better position to get away, or to evade detection completely and were saying so in a brief text message.

"Team Four. Acknowledged."

A trooper to her left began typing.

"Yes, Colonel."

"Team One reports missile launch imminent." He turned and smiled. "That's always the way, isn't it?"

"Roger that." Somewhere, an enemy technician's hand hovered over the button, listening for word from the helo force...

"As soon as they fire, hit the sirens." Until then, keep working the boards.

"Yes, Colonel."

More data...

As long as you've got a minute.

Team One had successfully evaded the enemy patrols looking for them. While some small enemy patrols were still out there, as near as three kilometres in one case, they had worked their way back into a good position to observe the space and airport facility.

Team Two was still in place. Buttoned up in their holes, with good concealment and a certain calmness of mind, the Unfriendlies had walked right through their position without so much as a clue as to their existence. One trooper had a bruise on the calf from being stepped on. That one deserved some kind of a bonus. As far as she could recall, there was nothing in the book regarding that particular situation.

Put him down for a hundred credits, even if she had to pay it herself. It would be money well spent. That one would be talked about—all over the place.

Those southeastern patrols, finding nothing, had all returned to Deneb City. It must be assumed that more would be coming out soon enough. Surely the enemy must patrol.

"What about them other choppers?" A trooper down the line of workstations had a good, deep voice, one that tended to carry over the general hum in the Command Centre.

Harvey, noting her look, brought the stream up in time to hear the response.

"Gunships. On the pad. Rotors spinning. They'll be along in a minute, I'm sure."

"Thank you very much."

The Command Centre was running smoothly, everyone seemingly very professional. It was interesting, just how quickly the newcomers and the original contingent had shaken down from any previous ways and formed themselves into something new and congruent.

The helos on the ground on Highway 17 would take some minimal time to top up their tanks. It only took so long to travel the distance. If their two new machines followed a similar track, they were well off from Mongoose One—and its attendant Sky-Cats. This was perhaps a good thing, as she had some ideas for later. Mongoose One had a handful of missiles left. That was it.

Without a target, the Sky-Cat defense was entirely useless. The real problem with Mongoose One was that it was too close to Highway 17, but that particular track had been a short one and they had been running out of time. It was just one more gamble.

The thing had already paid for itself.

The trooper did a quick time-and-distance calculation. Not aware that she was already with him, he touched her call-icon and spoke.

"They'll probably sit there a few more minutes, Colonel Graham. The only real question, will they be taking it in shifts, or will they concentrate for maximum impact, when they finally do, ah, get here."

"What would you do, Trooper Dax?" It struck her that she was still teaching, still encouraging, still asking a lot of her people—

Stretching everyone to the limit.

He shrugged and shook his head.

"Damned if I know, Colonel."

The tone was perfect and the young man seemed surprised by the quick ripple of laughter that went through the control room.

With a nervous little nod, he continued.

"I mean, it's just one of many decisions. They have all kinds of options. But, all they got to do is roll on a bit further with the fuel trucks, make another rendezvous, and then they can have four helos, all fueled up and ready for an attack." The road, with the fuel trucks rolling along it, was a land-based aircraft carrier on the move.

Not a bad analogy, she thought.

"That's as good an answer as any, ladies and gentlemen."

He sat there, neck visibly reddening from six metres away.

"Missiles, inbound!"

Sitting on the far right of the front row, the trooper in question stabbed a quick button and then the sirens began going off all over town.

"All right, people. Into the bunkers—you got thirty seconds to haul ass. No exceptions, no going back for something you forgot—"

Their low-level air defense was live and on full auto—

No one was listening, so she took her own advice and got the hell out of there.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The sun was still shining, the sirens had finally gone quiet. Plumes of black smoke rose from the south and southwest. The enemy helos had shot up the town and taken out a few more buildings.

They had their own plume of smoke—

With plenty of loiter time, they'd gotten all of the Confederation decoys. They'd missed everything that mattered, and that was good as the reports flowed in. After a good half-hour, forty minutes of action, the enemy had finally departed, all weapons presumably expended. One of the 20-mm cannons had registered hits on two of the four gunships, and that might have been the convincing factor: time to go.

With all the trees and hills around, in their little clearings and down in the valley, the Sky-Cats in Roussef had never even gotten a lock—she'd have to think about that one, especially as the enemy had flown right through the zone covered by their sensors. The trouble was all those trees—with the enemy flying at low altitude and keeping the speed up. One quick flash of data and the thing was gone before lock-up.

It was a shock to see the Command Centre destroyed, and yet they'd been expecting it all along.

Unfortunately, there was no evidence as to how the enemy's intelligence service had obtained the information. Ultimately, it was just a big room with a bunch of electronic equipment in it, and pretty disposable compared to the price of the long-range missiles it had taken to destroy it.

It was a moot point, but half the town of Roussef probably knew about the place by now, (which meant, on some level, that everybody on the planet might have known), and that included their first centre. According to the initial reports, it was still intact, albeit abandoned and stripped of all useful equipment. That might have been good intel on the enemy's part. Not worth wasting a pair of rockets on that one. The second location was a write-off, and while a few people were looking at Dona for guidance or inspiration, the more experienced ones were already sprinting for the vehicles.

Wheeler, Chan and Captain Aaron were giving some calm and unhurried orders.

"People. Get a-hold of all off-duty personnel. Tell them to head straight for Ryanville."

"We're on it, Colonel."

"Thanks, Lieutenant."

As a precaution, the vehicles were parked a minimum of fifty to one hundred metres from the building, a hastily-emptied family grocery store in the northeast corner of the town. Their trenches and undergrounds were a minimal fifty to seventy-five metres in the opposite direction—an elementary precaution, but one that appeared to have worked. People could run that far in the time allotted. It was heavily-treed, it was down in a tight little valley, with all sorts of non-descript buildings around. Still, the enemy had found it, and found it pretty good. Spies or a satellite, that was but the question.

"All right. Ladies and gentlemen. Command Centre Three is now active. We need to get our asses up there, pronto." There was no longer anything left to do in Roussef.

Nothing for the command team, anyways. There would be stay-behind parties. As usual.

"There's not much worth salvaging here."

"It's okay, Colonel. Someone will have a quick look."

The skeleton crew that had set up in Ryanville would man the boards until relieved.

Chan was on the fibre-line and to a limited extent, the radio to their scattered field units—

Captain Aaron was very much on it, letting the rest of them know in a calm voice, as their eyes met momentarily—he gave her a wink and a wry grin and she nodded firmly.

There were cars, trucks and busses zooming down the Walzbruch Line, clearly with a view to bugging out, and she had some concerns about traffic—and more missiles.

"Colonel?"

"Yes, Paul."

"I would suggest a road-block up the line, uh, maybe a kilometre or so."

"Do it." A trooper at his side turned and sprinted for a Puma, grabbing another one by the elbow in passing.

Two would be enough, in her mind, and so that was it.

Case closed.

Anything that kept the civvies off the road was a good thing, and the few troops needed could fade off into the bush in the event of a real emergency. The thing to do was to get her people out and then let the civvies clog the roads. However cold-hearted that might be.

It wasn't like she could actually control them—they were getting some garbled reports of a resistance movement south of the battle area, and there had been one or two light ambushes by the civilian force along Highway 2. There were too many reports coming in, and of course no boards—no boards.

There was some feeling of shock—it all still seemed so unreal.

"Thank you." Putting the com unit up to his mouth, he moved away and began speaking, grabbing people, naming names and giving orders. "You. Don't forget to cut that line."

He was referring to the fibre. The soldier nodded, still moving.

"Yup, Right on it, Captain."

"And make sure the boobies are live." This included the bunkers as well.

A Panther slewed to a stop beside her and a few other Command Centre staff.

"Colonel Graham. We would suggest that you go now."

"Ah, Roger that. And thank you—"

Vicky was right there at her elbow and she reluctantly tore herself away. Stowing her weapon on top of a half a dozen duffel-bags in the back, an anonymous trooper slammed the hatchback and Dona climbed into the front passenger seat.

Someone tossed her small personal bag and a bottle of water into her lap...

Senior officers would all be traveling separately, more or less in order of their relative importance.

The door was almost closed when she had an urgent afterthought.

"Any casualties?"

Major Chan shook her head.

"Don't know, Colonel. But we'll let you know. Civil or military." She'd seen all of this before, whereas Dona hadn't.

"All right. Thank you. In which case, I am out of here."

Vicky slammed the door the rest of the way and the wheels spat gravel as the driver gunned it.

There was no time to wave goodbye. The side and rear windows were all heavily tinted anyway.

***

"Colonel?"

The main battle map was before her on the dashboard, with smaller pix from various situations strung out in a long line, down low along the bottom of the hard-screen.

It was her Command Centre, now safely ensconced in the village of Ryanville.

"Yes. What."

"Your eyes only." The young female face looking at her was grim.

Trooper Giffel. Nice kid, from Rigel Nine or so Dona recalled. An A-plus student. Dona recalled a dark young man in attendance upon her. A little young for her, but that one had definitely been cute. She'd seen them coming and going from class once or twice—a tall young man with good shoulders and flowing mustache, and she had even wondered, once or twice since then, whatever happened to that one, anyways.

"Very well." She nodded. "Thank you."

There was a package, the bogus little buff envelope icon down low on the screen of her com-unit.

A quick thumbprint and it opened to a scene that was frankly shocking. Pictures and sound, all of the sickening details.

Her heart pounded, and then she shook her head in disgust.

"All right. Hmn. Ah—" Her mind raced.

This would be all over the civilian television and radio networks, naughty bits blurred and pixelated maybe, and even with the phone net down—surely this could only be temporary, but there was just no way of holding this garbage back.

The Unfriendlies would make sure of that.

McMurdo.

"Okay. Open access. I repeat, open access. Put it up on the board." She sighed. "Label it enemy propaganda."

The kid looked shocked—

The mental image of her commanding officer, her former teacher, the most dominant figure in their lives for these past few days, very intense days, dancing around in a drunken stupor, eyes glazed over with whatever was the dope of the day, stripping out of the blacksuit, flinging it aside, and then engaging in the kinkiest of sexual activities. It would be compelling. Yet she'd been there all along. Right in their ears and in their heads.

They all knew that—and so would most rational civvies. Hell, even the natives would quickly see through it.

And what the hell else could she do.

Snapping off the unit, she settled back into her seat.

Don't sweat the small stuff—her father's voice, right there inside.

As always—

Seething.

But the sight of what was a pretty good simulacra, a virtual Dona Graham, somehow having kept her silvery stiletto shoes on what were some pretty microscopic feet, wearing nothing but big, trashy jewelry, naked, gasping, moaning and begging, was nothing if not disturbing.

Boinked up the ass, as it were. Breasts unnaturally large. Surrounded by a ring of very black men, she was apparently sucking every cock she could find, eyes glazed and with jizz—sperm, running down her face in the unnatural white of what was probably just good old mayonnaise. Or its film-shop equivalent.

Miscegnation!

Whore of Babylon!

The narration was nothing if not predictable.

The people of Deneb would probably laugh when they saw it—it was totally inappropriate for the culture, although it would have gone over big on Shiloh.

A wry look stole over her face.

She shook her head. Sure, she was angry, but she'd been almost eager to take that call.

I knew I shouldn't have answered that—that bastard.

The old goat.

There was one hell of a knot in her stomach.

The vehicle was very quiet, her security detail carefully avoiding her eyes. But they had all the information too, by now. They had to—it went with the job. Hers and theirs.

She lifted her chin and looked around. She nodded at Jonesy. She let out a breath.

"...it's all right, people. No big deal—I suppose I really ought to be flattered. The general has clearly been obsessing over me."

"I'm going to kill that bastard, Colonel."

"Shut up, asshole—" Sergeant Jones growled, deep and low.

The trooper on the left side of the back seat looked away, face beet red.

Not if he got there first—the message was all too clear.

"No, people. It's all right. This is war, okay? It's just shit. And now we know a little bit more about our man, and, ah, how he thinks. Our plan always was to win, and that sort of thing must always come at a price. Huh. Anyways. We've got a bit of a drive ahead of us, and quite frankly, I could use a nap." There were seat controls down on the side, and she fiddled around until the thing was just right.

The electric heat was really something.

No one said a word, and her driver, a Trooper Williams as displayed in her goggs, reached over and turned up the music.

Music.

Just slightly, but it was enough. Junior rank, surrounded by brass and sergeants and senior troopers, he had a nice way of dropping a hint—

The Colonel doesn't want to be disturbed right about now.

The scenery was still just as rugged, just as beautiful as it had been in her initial impression.

Well, they were pretty quiet back there, although they were still working and watching their own devices. Williams was competent enough behind the wheel, going a hundred and forty-five kph on winding, twisty roads, albeit still paved this far south of Ryanville. The Panther was a big, heavy vehicle, but it certainly seemed drivable enough.

They appeared to have calmed down pretty quickly, as mad as they were.

Mad as hell, in fact.

Sometime after that, in a kind of secular miracle, she really did fall asleep.

God, what a fucking day.

She might have even snored.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

In Ryanville, the Command Centre was located in the town's one large strip mall. The reasoning behind this was the fact that there was substantial civilian traffic and it was hoped that the Confederation troops would blend in to the scene. This was very much a double-edged sword.

Coming and going from their shifts, they could use requisitioned civilian vehicles, they could take the bus or a taxi. They could ride a bike or walk. There were only a dozen or so people in the Command Centre at any one time. Interestingly, they were digging bunkers right indoors, using mini-dozers, after first punching through the concrete floors with robotic jack-hammers.

There was the problem of uniforms, which would be identifiable from space or drone-based observation.

Every bunker had one or more escape tunnels, essential when the roof stood a good chance of coming down...sooner or later. For this reason, they had a back-up location in a light industrial building a few hundred metres away, with some primary equipment already set up.

She couldn't really ask her people to wear civilian togs. This would leave them in a bad position if they were caught by the Unfriendlies, who would be sticklers for protocol. A soldier's pay wasn't worth being shot over details of personal attire. The uniforms also provided that group identity and did a little something for discipline and morale as well. This included local civilians, watching their every movement with eagle eyes.

If the enemy had a satellite up there, they would be seeing a lot of long overcoats and odd-ball hats.

No one wanted to be shot for a spy, which they must assuredly weren't. With the local economy in a bit of a slump in recent years, the Organization had taken an empty grocery store sort of a space on the end of the mall. They had grabbed another vacant space, and set up a public relations bureau with two soldiers. They had been in training as corporals, junior NCOs, when the original contingent of Unfriendlies came down. Not suitable to command anything other than themselves in the field, this was a pretty good duty in terms of the compromise use of personnel.

This was located in a small, glass-faced retail space down at the other end. All it took was a desk or two, a few chairs, one computer terminal and a few recruiting posters on the walls. There was a threadbare rack of brochures, including You and the Confederation, as well as How to Join the Organization, typical of the Organization's recruiting materials. They had their schedule, and they were taking turns on breaks and lunch—Team Management, TM101, a first-year, one-semester course at the Staff College.

A quick sign out front and some terse orders. They'd been asked to shave properly and to get their hair trimmed. They were impressive enough in their full dress uniforms, forage caps and bandoliers. They had the minimal number of campaign and competency badges, and a single stripe each.

They were talking to anyone who would listen, explaining about the trenches and the bunkers, and what to do when the sirens went off. Apparently, they were getting quite a few inquiries.

It was the best she could do on short notice. As for the recruiting, they might even get a few, although actual intake would be deferred until the end of the present conflict.

Hopefully, in the event of missile attack, they wouldn't lose too many civilians. The locals had to eat, they had to shop, and they still had to do their jobs. The thing was to put trenches and bunkers all over the place and hope for sufficient warning. People knew the truth. Half the town was out there digging—it was like fucking Leningrad out there, according to Harvey. There were other stores in the town centre and when the enemy got closer the mall would be off-limits to civvies.

That was still a day or two away. In the meantime, the shelves were emptying as folks stocked up for a siege, however long or short that might be.

She took her stance in the middle of the room, sweeping through every eye and every face. This was no time to be shy.

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen. As you all probably know by now, the Brigadier has been having some fun with the propaganda war. Naturally, I understand the strong need to respond. But what are we going to do, waste precious time and manpower in faking up a few images of our own? Good old McMurdo, seen on-camera, fucking a bunch of little kids up the ass or whatever? Sucking some little black boy's cock? That's not my style and I know it's not yours."

Anyone that saw it would know it was fake.

In her view, the enemy was already doing a pretty good job of making themselves unpopular.

"What are we going to do, show babies boiling in a big pot and him eating soup?" No one would believe it anyways.

That was her opinion.

There was dead silence. Twenty pairs of eyes glittered at her. They shone in the dim light of the control centre.

"I've got a better idea. Who's good with media? Pictures and sound."

A hand was tentatively raised.

"Okay. You've got the job. A one-minute video. Make a thirty-second version too. Voice-over, Samsons spinning through the air. Fire and flames. Lots of smoke. A bit of music. Rockets taking off, a short segment from that helo going down. The civilians don't know who that belonged to, right. Hits on targets. People running, stuff blowing up, okay? Unfriendlies bolting into the woods—guys stuck in a swamp. We got a couple of good shots of them guys stuck together by the glue mines—" Show that one kid with his legs blown off and crying for his mother—full volume.

The trooper was nodding. He had all kinds of material to work with, and he seemed pretty quick on the uptake.

"So. What's your name, young man?"

"Ah, Thornton. Jay Thornton, Colonel."

"Lieutenant Wheeler. Get this soldier anything he needs. How quick can you put something like that together?"

"Oh, God. Half an hour—an hour, maybe." He was thinking of the music, and what to say—

He'd studied mass media in college, some years before.

Of course he could do this—

"Take all the time you need. This isn't a rush job. It's going out to the news services, and we do have some broadcasting capability of our own."

As professional as he could make it, that would be good. The newsies might also cut it to their own purposes, or the enemy's purposes, so every single picture should be unequivocal. Good, clean shots of the uniforms and the badges. Somewhere, back home on Shiloh, if this was ever shown there, their kin would be scanning the video for familiar faces—and some people would find them, too.

"If we have identified someone, stick a name-tag onscreen. Put a shot of that Unfriendly Major in there, shouting and screaming his damn-fool head off."

The kid was nodding.

"I can do all of that too, Colonel."

She turned to the Lieutenant.

"Find him a quiet room to work in."

"Absolutely, Colonel. And welcome to Ryanville. It's a nice, sleepy little place, with some really good seafood restaurants." There was a pause. "Oh. And some of the finest bluegrass music you're ever going to hear."

It came out of nowhere, but that was the best laugh Dona had had in days.

***

They were examining their options. If the Confederation was going to defend Hill 163 and 114-A, they were going to need anti-tank, anti-air and anti-artillery capability. Those resources didn't necessarily need to be located on the hills in question, but there had to be something there for the Unfriendlies to gnaw on, as someone said. Also, with the drones working at such short range, it was time to hang a few bombs on Number Three.

"The time has come, as the Walrus said, to sacrifice a Hellion. Methinks."

"Ah, Harvey." If the trooper wasn't careful, he was going to find himself put forward for officer training—

His three-year stint was up for renewal and it was good encouragement, even if he didn't actually go for it. If nothing else, he seemed literate.

"Sorry, Colonel. But they're not all that useful when confronted by heavy armour." The Unfriendly Joshua-type tanks were technically a medium tank, fifty tonnes or so, whereas the main battle tanks were over seventy-five tonnes.

The Hellions weighed maybe ten or twelve tonnes at a quick guess.

The armour on the Joshua was a hundred, or even a hundred and fifty millimetres thick, with active defense systems designed to defeat armour-piercing and shaped-charge projectiles with their lethal Explosively-Shaped-Penetrators, ESPs. As far as laser blasts, it could stand anything up to 1500 MW for two hours straight at the narrowest possible aperture. That made it pretty much invulnerable to anything less than a light space-cruiser's weapons. Certainly the Confederation had nothing to oppose it on the ground. The Hellion had maybe fifty millimetres of frontal armour and not much more than half of that on the sides, top and rear. The bottom was about twenty millimetres. This was not enough to defeat the typical anti-tank mine. It sure as hell wasn't going to stand up to the big 130-mm smoothbore, boosted-projectile gun on the Joshua firing depleted uranium or tungsten-carbide projectiles. The enemy had the ESP warheads as well. They wouldn't even need them for a Hellion. Fired from such a weapon, even a simple lead slug might have done the job, due to the sheer kinetic energy of impact, cracking it open at the seams. Shortly thereafter, it would fall apart of its own weight.

The Hellions would be at a distinct disadvantage against anything but a comparable vehicle—the Samsons, for example, which were a vehicle of similar design although not quite as up-to-date.

That was especially true for electronics and software.

The Hellion had an 85-mm rifled gun capable of firing sabot rounds, very accurate, and wire-guided anti-tank rockets. It had smoke and grenade launchers and a heavy machine gun.

The trouble with really big hills like that was that they were pretty obvious defense points and the enemy would no doubt be expecting something. The initial approaches were mined and booby-trapped heavily. This went on for five or six kilometres, quite the stretch considering the battle so far. There were bridges out and trees down all over the place. Fences had been few and far between. A few fences and abandoned power lines (that particular settlement not having worked out), had been pulled down, and the wire stretched across the road in multiple strands that would slow if not defeat smaller vehicles. Those would take time, and combat exposure, warm bodies exposed to the guns, to cut and remove. As far as putting out some bait, that decision had already been made.

All of this had been discussed in the original plan. Now that it was time to put it into practice, people were having doubts. The window of time was shrinking, the road was getting shorter—and this was the end of the line. They only had so many more cards to play.

"Okay, people, listen up. The enemy knows all about the reverse-slope ambush now. They know all about being taken from behind and they will prepare their plan accordingly." And yet there were still variations on a theme. "So. The Hellion can take out a Samson, or even a Joshua if it gets close enough—say three hundred metres or less, just to be on the safe side." She engaged each and every eye. "I want to hit them from front, rear and sides. When they take their objective, then I want the next hill to be the exact same. More double-reverse ambushes. Right?"

Then there were the boobies—and they had some big ones in store.

There were trees everywhere. Before and after every hill there was another hill, as often as not separated by bog, swamp, rivers and streams. Then there were the chasms, spoken with a dry emphasis. Anything dry enough and level enough to be cultivated meant open ground, crops, hay and pasture. There was some forest pannage for pigs, dark and forbidding, although open at ground level. There were quite a few outright farm fields, along the road or up some minor track into the hills. The fields, were mostly bare, the hay, the grains and the soybeans having been taken off by now, and deeply turned by the plough in order to let the frost work on it for next year.

Such ground was notoriously difficult for infantry to cross, with next to no cover and the mud, when the weather was wet, clinging to their feet and quickly adding weight to bodies and boots that would already be heavy enough. Under the trees, the hogs would have made a real mess of any little pond or puddle of standing water. Half-feral after a while, they were dangerous in their own right. This was why the pigs she'd seen all had a name, a number or some other symbol painted on the flank or the shoulder—on the commons, land held by all or land held by no one, one had to be able to identify one's own property. This was especially true if they got into someone else's property, a truck garden for example, and did a lot of damage. The owners would be identified and politely asked to pay up. The hog, of course, would be a hostage or surety for same. Under such conditions, people's herds built up over time and some of the hogs got pretty old before being slaughtered. The longer they were out there, the more independent-minded they became.

That one brought a few tired grins.

"...pray for rain, ladies and gentlemen."

They laughed—they laughed.

It was a slightly-nervous laughter, but laughter nevertheless.

There were a series of ridges leading up to the defense points in question. A few automatic weapons might still be spared, and might still bear fruit in terms of troop and vehicle kills.

"What's going to happen is that we're going to stash a Hellion here—in front of Hill 163, up this little side-road, which just happens to lead right up into the mouth of this gorge here." There was an old quarry up there, abandoned when the hole had flooded out, due to the abundant artesian springs. Water from above, constantly weaseling its way down through cracks and crevices, only to bubble up from below under fairly high pressure when opportunity arose.

With so much native rock available, the owners had dropped tools and simply moved a half a k up the road according to the historical notes. That one was also abandoned and had been for years.

The Joshua's side armour was nowhere near as thick as the front, or especially the turret and gun mantlet.

"The same thing for the other position, Hill One-One-Four-A." There were more than enough side-tracks going into the hills, or even just naked, fairly gentle slopes in some cases, of bare rock leading up from the road.

In such country, cover was abundant.

There were variations, shoulder-launched, dismounted weapons, or even a coordinated suicide attack by big dog units. The big dogs could easily carry three or four anti-tank mines. All of them going off at once, right under the belly, would take out a Joshua. They had all kinds of weapons.

She pointed at the map.

"On the far side of the hill, I want Panthers with wire-guided missiles, all lined up and ready to shoot them in the backside."

Good concealment. One per hill. They listened quietly.

"The crews will dismount. They will monitor the systems and especially weapons from a minimum of a hundred metres. They'll have all personal belongings, and their personal weapons, out of the vehicle. They will be prepared to spend a couple of days out there. Take your sunscreen and lip balm, okay? Bring your woolly socks and long underwear. Lots of water. Food for three days in every pack. Before deployment, excess ammunition will be taken out and sent to the depots. The thing is only going to need two or three rounds, a box or two of belt ammunition. Two missiles, maybe three. No more. Right? But the odds are, once the Hellion is destroyed, or the Panther, there will be plenty of time to pick their way up that hill. If they can't get out, retreat along just below the top of the hill, well away from the road. Set up another ambush, throw out a forward flanker upslope, to keep watch. Sit there and wait. We need good concealment here, especially in the infrared. We need to get that fucker into position, and keep it cool—quite frankly, you could tow it up there and I couldn't be happier." If they weren't running the engine, there wasn't any heat to speak of—although solar heating would definitely warm up the upper surfaces.

On the plus side, it was a cool six degrees and there was a low, scudding cloud base blocking out the sun much of the time. Local conditions were nearly perfect.

It was interesting, just how quickly the local star became the sun.

"We could cover it with dirt, Colonel. Chunks of plywood on the front end. Ah, painted dark green, right? Cut a few branches. As long as we don't obstruct the weapons or the sensors—"

"Excellent suggestion." Right out of the manual in fact, but such stuff was in there for a reason. "Now, for the other ambush, we want to do something different. How about halfway down the valley, another Hellion, in a side-ambush position." Knock them off before they really get going—

Sort of thing.

People started to talk, coming up with ideas of their own. Shoulder-launched missiles, mines, Barkers, the whole schlemiel—Drone Three might get a shot at a tank.

She nodded, shutting it down again.

"I want it all, ladies and gentlemen. Use your imaginations." She really didn't have time to explain everything.

All of this could be dealt with.

The real challenge was to get them to give up something they loved, and she had little doubt it would be a wrench for the crews.

The people in the Command Centre were looking at each other, some of them were looking at the floor, or their boards, or almost anything other than her. An older trooper named Ann even glanced up at the clock on the wall, but then this group were nearing the end of their shift.

They still had to brief their individual reliefs. She had to let them go.

"What's interesting here, is that our Hellion is not on the back of the hill, neither it is on the back of the preceding hill, which has worked for us pretty well a couple of times. This is ambush from the flank, and it stands a very good chance of working." Mortars could also be deployed to the side of the road, and not on a hill or back-slope at all. It didn't matter where they were fired from.

You could plop them fuckers down in the middle of the road, throw a few fibre-linked cams out forward, just over the next hill, and let them talk to each other. Hop in the vehicle and drive away.

They just needed targets within range.

"What matters is getting our troops out."

A robotic machine-gun took no cover at all and could be best used far out into the open ground.

All of that enemy infantry would be exposed. If firing from the right place, it would hit them from the side and just mow them down.

The thing was to use them in minimal numbers. They were relatively expendable although Ryanville itself still needed a defense. This was pretty basic stuff and they should be able to handle it.

With an armour-piercing round, firing at that range—and it was a bare two hundred metres, the Hellion would have a real chance of penetrating the side armour of a Joshua, even if the enemy still had them on the trailers. But her instinct was that they would be eager to engage with the Joshuas, upon being presented with an important target, an important position. If only for the newsreels, an old-fashioned word but still holding its meaning well enough after five hundred years.

"If the enemy is dumb enough to leave them on the trailers, then it's a nice easy shot or two and no harm done."

Otherwise, one had to wonder why they had bothered to bring them along. The infantry, in their sheer numbers, were far more dangerous.

"Colonel"

"Yes."

"Four helos, one thousand metres altitude, and they are headed towards Roussef." Forty kilometres out and closing.

"Keep an eye on them."

They'd refueled on the highway. The enemy artillery position had been dismantled and was in the process of being brought forward. One more move on the board and they'd be in a position to bombard Hills 163 and 114-A, and if they were willing to risk counter-battery fire, possibly even Roussef.

Did the enemy know that Roussef had been abandoned?

They were about to find out.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Colonel!"

"Yes."

"The phone system is back up."

"Send our little media package out. Now. Do it."

"Yes, Colonel."

Their media wunderkind and his pets, purely electronic spider-bots and yet with some kind of minds of their own, had put together a list, containing every known active telephone number and email address on the planet. They had the bandwidth capacity to snag thousands of devices at a time with a simple text message and a pair of video attachments. Labeled News Releases, Confederation Public Communications Office, people would open it, enough of them anyways.

They would tell two friends, and then they would tell two more friends. He'd done a pretty good job of it, although the music, some kind of Centaurian speed-metal, might leave a bit to be desired.

With a decent voice, he'd done the narration himself, and in some mad impulse, had done his best to imitate the rich, brown voice of a major news anchor. The short one was probably the best.

"Out-numbered ten to one, Confederation forces continue to successfully defend the planet Denebola-Seven from a dastardly and unprovoked invasion, composed of Unfriendly Forces...who are acting on behalf of the Mining Worlds and the Conglomerate." There was a bit more, ending in a promise of more news as it developed.

Nice.

Twenty-five words or less.

Upon review, it was quite funny, really—

"Sending." His eyes engaged the camera pickup, sensing that she was involved.

Very much involved—

"Nice work."

"It's an honour, Colonel Graham." He blushed, unable to help himself and of course she thought of McMurdo's sick little video.

Oh, well—

Enjoy your thoughts, young man.

There were an estimated half a million active devices on the planet. Not everyone had one of course. Young children, (a huge swath of population compared to some older, more established worlds), old people, poor people, of which there were always going to be some. People in outlying districts didn't have the cellular service and relied on other forms of communication.

This included word of mouth, 12-volt hard-wired systems, (even some farm and ranch networks of old-fashioned barbed wire fences, which she had never even heard of before), short-wave and citizen's band radio. Antique technology, but soon enough, they would hear the news, although they might not have the benefit of video.

"Colonel Graham."

Her mouth opened.

He must be terribly confident, to just pop the picture up like that.

It was McMurdo, on the line again, and looking just as self-satisfied and arrogant as ever.

Backed into a corner, with nothing but blank walls behind her, she wavered.

Why am I sweating.

Damn him—why in the hell should I?

"Colonel Graham. The side that sits in its fortifications is beaten. Napoleon." His mouth was still moving when she shut it off.

"Colonel Graham. Do you want to answer the call?"

"No. Tell him to go to hell. Tell him we will accept nothing less than their total and unconditional surrender, under the terms previously offered and then hang up on him." Another mad impulse—

But, no, I can't say it.

You shall be first among my pet slugs.

"Right—" Trooper David, a tow-headed young man from Rigel Five, grinned from ear to ear. "Yeah, we can do that."

***

After a double shift, eight hours in the hot-seat, Dona had found her new quarters. Another hotel room on the edge of another town. She'd called the doctor, wondering if he could do something for her persistent headache. She'd woken up in the middle of the so-called night, with the inkling that she would have a headache, and she'd been right. A few hours of fitful sleep later, it was still there, still there with a vengeance. Mild enough to begin with, it seemed to get worse as the day wore on, and three or four aspirins, with three more two hours later, didn't even touch it.

"These will help." A junior lieutenant, the doc was offering n-codeine and dimenhydrinate. "It's for nausea and motion sickness. You've trained with the goggs, obviously, yet in your previous work, you had little use for them except in the working-labs. You put them on, point out a few facts, let a few arrows roll across the scene of some dioramic battle somewhere, show the students what's going on in a particular engagement. Then you take them off again. That's nothing like wearing them for four or more hours at a time, multiple times a day."

"Right." Having washed down the proffered pills, a tiny white one and a larger light blue one with a glass of water, Dona just wished he'd stop talking long enough to go away. "What about...the troops."

"Hmn. I've handled a few cases, but they've got the training. That weeds out most of the people who can't handle it. After a while, the goggs become second nature. It's a bit like sea-sickness in that regard. Most people do in fact get their sea-legs. When they get back to land, it takes a while, but they quickly get used to the transition. For the career sailor, the transition from sea to land only takes a few minutes and then they're walking with their normal balance again. In only a few cases, the subject never gets used to it and then they have to find some other form of employment. It's a good analogy. In a few cases, people have died on a long sea voyage—dehydration, sleep deprivation and even starvation if it goes on for long enough. That's because they can't get away from it." The thing about VR was that the person could simply take them off, ride out the nausea and headaches, and they'd be right as rain in two or three days.

Goggs weren't strictly necessary, not with all the boards in the typical Command Centre.

Dona let out one hell of a breath.

"Thank you, doctor."

The young man put the pill bottles down on her bedside table.

"Other than that, for a woman of your age, you're in excellent health. Honestly, Colonel. Don't use the goggs any more than you have to. This four-hour shift thing is hard on people as well, although I understand you just did eight hours. My suggestion there—"

She waved him off, but doctors being what they were, he just grinned and nodded.

A woman of my age—I'm only thirty-eight.

What the fuck are you getting at?

She didn't quite know what to think of that one, and her head was still splitting—

Her right eyeball hurt.

"...the thing there is to take eight off...more if you can do it. Also, there are the others to consider." His thinking there was that it showed a lot of confidence in her people.

"Of course."

Her tone was a bit cool.

"I mean, if they're all worried about you, they're not going to be too focused on their jobs. Bad for morale. So it's doctor's orders. For the record. You're driving yourself pretty hard. Very hard. I want you to take the next eight hours and have a sleep. A real good sleep, okay, Colonel? And on that note, I had best be going."

As good as his word, his bag was repacked and he was at the door.

"That's good advice, Colonel. If you can take it."

"Thank you, Doctor."

Eight hours—eight hours, on my own and nothing to do but to sleep. And to think—

"If you would like, Dona, I could let them know in the command centre that you're off for eight hours. I'll tell them it's a CO's prerogative and that it's a good idea for you to rest before things really get going."

"Ah...very well." Shit.

"I won't say anything about you being sick, okay? Ah, why don't I suggest that we'll start rotating our people through the odd eight-hours off, starting at the top. Right?"

"Yes. Please be very careful in what you say." But if she was going to be gone for eight hours, the crew had to be told something.

Doctor's orders—sheer bliss, if she could only make herself do it.

The pill seemed to be working...her eyelids were very heavy all of a sudden.

Bastard.

What was in that other thing.

She really should have asked about that second pill. There was more to that one than just n-codeine.

***

On Paul's suggestion, Vicky Chan, technically outranking him, had taken two Panthers, a half a dozen troopers and headed down to supervise the next big ambush. She was a Major, and the troops needed to see their senior officers up front once in a while. In some odd way, Vicky had sort of accepted that Paul was second in command, although in her case, nothing was ever phrased as an order. There was total respect, and that was for sure. Paul was a real gentleman.

Perhaps the fact that his name was on the plan along with Dona's had something to do with it.

She was up on the big screen, broken off in mid-sentence.

She was reporting in, Paul was in the hot-seat and Dona just coming in from her enforced rest.

"Ah, Colonel. How are you feeling?"

"Better, thanks. The pills helped, they really did." She was still a bit stiff in the joints, having gone into what amounted to a slight coma—it was like her hips just ached from all that sitting around.

This particular detachment was part of the original Confederation contingent, and a bit of a reunion for Vicky in some ways, as she'd served with them a few years before as company commander.

Paul nodded a greeting, waving at the designated coffee-getter, a young trooper on a low-priority board. He was already rising. Perhaps it was a kind of relief—better than just sitting there sometimes. These were, for the most part, young people, suffering through long periods of boredom punctuated by brief moments of real interest...

"So. What's the situation?"

Vicky was there onscreen, under the scrim nets, with sandbags and a mass of dense brush in the background. Over her left shoulder, there was someone at another terminal, lips moving but unheard.

"Good morning, Colonel. We've been inspecting the defenses. We have a hole for every trooper, with good visibility and good protection. Everyone has at least one fall-back position and some have more than that. We have zigzag trenches running up and down. That all depends on how far up front they are. The automatic weapons are well off to the sides, a minimum of thirty metres from any manned position."

"Good."

"They'll have to make it out through the woods. Their vehicles are hidden a minimum of five hundred metres from the base of the hill. We're lucky. This close to Roussef, there are side-roads, connected ones, not just petering out into the bush. They're rough but passable, and we have, ah, three civilian tow-trucks standing by just in case. Our own people are manning them. They're sitting at likely trouble-spots. All of our own heavies have tow-chains. With all the trees, they'll have a good chance of driving out. Of more concern is the road to Ryanville." Essentially, Roussef was an hour or two—on foot.

There were any number of walking trails.

In an emergency.

"Roger that." Dona looked at the board.

The enemy was about fifteen kilometres away, having paused while their artillery caught up.

As usual, there were drones in the air, and there was a trooper lining up a quick video for her to watch. This would be Sergeant Kelly and his ambush. Having blown a bridge and a culvert before and behind the second enemy assault column, they'd pretty much had their way with them. More hits, more dead people, more burning vehicles. By the time they got to Roussef, there'd be not too much left and McMurdo would have to send another.

"Very well. It's up to you if you want to stay there, or withdraw to Benchville." Still talking to Vicky, this was a small village on the road to Ryanville.

Twenty-six k from the main junction. Out of projected artillery range, but not enemy missile range, rather costly missiles which they appeared to be saving for their final offensive, arguably, this would be at Ryanville.

"If it's all the same to you, Colonel, I'll stick with the troops for the moment."

"Roger that—and good hunting."

Vicky grinned.

"Don't worry, Colonel. We're going to kick some nasty butt down here, and that is about all I have to say on that subject."

The young trooper leaned towards her.

"Colonel."

"Yes."

"Sergeant Kelly says one Samson, two scout cars, one big six-by and an estimated twenty-five casualties, fatal, light and heavy. He reckons he's clear but would like a rest for about ten hours."

"Okay, Roger that. Tell him yes, and please thank him and the rest of the team for the good work." Oh. "Send it out that all team commanders have full discretion as to rest and reorg. They're on the scene and we are not. Right?"

"Right, Colonel."

Still teaching, always teaching—

Chapter Thirty

The convergence of Highway 2 and Highway 17 meant a real bottleneck for the Unfriendly columns. First, they had to get past the biggest hills they'd encountered thus far, hills on each side of the notch where the road went up...

The Unfriendly column on Highway 17 was clearly coordinating with the column on Highway 2.

They had made an effort to properly time it, both columns setting off shortly before dawn, with their battery of heavy artillery now in position. They were still towing some lighter weapons.

Unopposed, they would arrive at the junction more or less at the same time, even with the clearing of certain obstacles. A two-pronged attack, converging on a point.

Drone Two, currently piloted by a trooper named Jimmy Dakota, was reporting that the Joshuas, still on their flatbeds, were now right up to the front of the column. A pair of Samsons were deployed at the rear. They were, in fact, a good kilometre behind the main column. They were traveling with one six-by truck, clearly meant for infantry support in the rearguard actions which they were anticipating going by this development. They had a proper scout car and a half a dozen of the ubiquitous olive drab pickup trucks, each capable of carrying a handful of troops and some light weapons.

The Unfriendlies were getting smarter.

The people in the Command Centre were watching in fascination, everything from the satellite feeds and all other sources, which included a map as well as real-time video in pretty good colour and detail. The only thing missing here was quality sound, but they had cameras with their cheap little microphones, vibration-sensors, and roadside radar and other detector units out all over the place.

"Unfriendly Battery A is firing, Colonel."

"Roger that, thank you." Having been off for eight hours, the staff were all strangers to her, and yet they sure as hell knew all about her.

She took a good look. Battery A, one more red icon on the battle-board.

Again, she thought of McMurdo's sick little video. A sour grimace crossed her face. The truth was, they all knew a little too much about one another by this time in a deployment. She had, after all, read many if not all of their files—as situations came up, as names and assignments came up.

The military life didn't promise a whole lot of personal privacy to begin with.

They watched as the top of Hill 114-A lit up, smoke and fire billowed, and at ground level, the explosions were right there. One or two cameras were either out of action or had simply been blown into positions where they could do no good—face down in the dirt, perhaps. Sooner or later, the enemy must stumble across a camera, or, say a motion-detector, and in a very short time, they'd figure out what it was.

After that, they would try to hack it—and the first one, would explode, taking out at least one enemy tech. That would be one real steep learning curve, a painful one. She had no doubt the units could eventually be hacked or cracked. As long as you were real careful—

They waited as the enemy deployed.

On the map, less than two kilometres down the road, it appeared the Joshua tanks were finally down off the trucks.

They'd been fueled and stores had been put aboard. It all seemed to take one hell of a lot of time, the tension rising with every minute that passed. Beginning to move, it looked like they'd be leading the column. Dona wasn't too sure of what her expectations had been, but the enemy was using the classic wedge, with one company forward, and two flanking companies back. They had this on both sides of the road, where there were open fields and the pastures, some of which were still green with good old Terran grass. At the company level, it was one platoon out front, and two more flanking, right out of one very old book. With four or five platoons to the company, the same at battalion or regiment level, they were keeping an estimated twenty-five to forty percent in reserve.

Interestingly, the Guards were behind the regular, short-term recruits—a classic case of putting the cannon fodder out front where it belonged, soaking up bullets meant for more valuable troops. They were there for discipline as well, the unspoken threat being that retreat was not an option, or they might even be fired upon by their own troops. It had happened before and it could happen again.

There was one low split-rail fence, some wire fences, and some brush along a creek, and other than that, no cover at all. The infantry had been deployed as far forward as possible, just inside their own treeline. It was a classic start-line. Just out of range of Confederation small-arms fire and clearly intended to swamp any defenses.

At the base of the hill, the trees and rock faces began, and this would be an entirely different kettle of fish. They seemed to be waiting for the Joshuas to come up, although there were a couple of Samsons with them and the small four-bys with their heavy machine guns. A pair of them sat out in the open, at the base of the hill.

Bait, attempting to draw fire. Her people were smarter than that. No searching fire for her people.

Even the snipers had their orders to keep it quiet. Nothing less than a sergeant was worth that one precious shot. It had to be assumed that the enemy had a few snipers out there of their own, on overwatch, and her people knew enough to keep their beaks down until the action actually began.

It was a bare five degrees C and fairly dark under the overcast...

With a light rain coming down, just crossing seven or eight hundred metres of ploughed field would be difficult enough for people on foot. Every inch of it swept by her people and the sensors and the machine guns. At that point, they would be in tangled bush and the boulder-gardens at the base of the slopes. The cover would be better, but it would still be slow going.

This was where the small, anti-personnel mines began.

The problem with fields and pasture, was that this meant settlement, farmsteads and cabins and barns and livestock. They'd done their best to get everyone out—

Fire erupted from the ground. There was a short pause and then the targets became apparent.

The Unfriendlies were firing on those positions and there wouldn't be much left for people to return to. Houses and barns were blown to matchwood in pretty short order. One could only wonder at the logic.

They were upping the ante, alienating the locals in a game where the stakes were already high enough. In classic land warfare, such positions were often used for observation, for firing points and hidden larger weapons. The fact was, the Confederation troops had cameras everywhere, some a lot closer to the road than the house or the barns. Actual troops were pretty thin on the ground. She had been smart to keep her people out of there.

Her standing orders insisted on it, and for the most part, people agreed with her.

Sleep in a vehicle, sleep on the ground. Sleep in a hollow log. Stay the fuck out of people's houses. It was succinct.

Hopefully, it was better for everybody. What was interesting was that the Unfriendlies would absolutely go in there, no question, risking exposure to boobies and potentially, unexploded ordnance including their own, UXBs, when there was nothing there to find. It would also take a few warm bodies off of more important matters. They'd be looking to assess results and hopefully to recover a few Confederation corpses for their own propaganda pictures.

And they would be disappointed again—more psychology.

"Okay, here they come." Three Joshuas, coming over the top of yonder hill.

Hill 114-A was next, and at this point, the Unfriendly infantry in the fields got up from their prone positions on the far side of the valley and started walking. They had their bayonets fixed.

Smoke rounds from the enemy firebase erupted in front of them and the haze began to drift...

The Joshuas seemed to speed up on the downslope...

There were grey forms flitting through the trees on either side, guarding against ambush, or intrepid enemies with any sort of limpet mines or shoulder-launched weapons shooting from the forested areas, up close and personal. A squad of men followed each tank doggedly, as close to the tail as they could get, out on the actual road surface.

This was going to be bad—

"Hold fire. Hold fire."

Vicky's voice was there in their ears, and views from individual troopers were there for the asking.

The Joshuas were halfway down the hill, guns trained on their target hill, and clearly expecting trouble.

What in the hell they expected to fire at was a good question. But it was clear they were meant for infantry support. Psychological support. Not so much armour-to-armour—there was nothing really there for them to engage.

Not in the classic sense. In her opinion, the things were almost entirely useless, but the Unfriendlies were still using them. That was the trouble with having no option but to attack. You used what you had. You used what was available. This included the Unfriendly doctrine, all according to intel, which she had reviewed when she had a minute. Insofar as that was known—

Or suspected. Maybe she was over-analyzing. Maybe the Unfriendlies had no way of knowing for sure just what the Confederation had to oppose them. If true, the enemy's intel didn't seem all that impressive, not considering that they had been planning an invasion. They hadn't just come up with the idea ten days ago and then rushed into it without any thought. Perhaps it was a case of just in case.

Her Barker teams were engaging the enemy four-bys and the Samsons, other vehicles. Hits all over the place—a light vehicle turned and plummeted over the edge of the road, disappearing into the scrub below. There were flames and black smoke down there.

That one was dead enough.

With the two enemy columns only a few kilometres apart as the crow flew, they had a pair of drones zigzagging along, one for each column. There was another drone hanging back. The third one was apparently trying to do the work of two, as it was up a good five thousand metres where it could at least get a look at both situations at once. It could only hold its cameras on multiple targets for so long, cruising along on its basic course, before it had to break off, maneuver, and come back around again.

Those gaps in coverage would be taken advantage of.

It was a lot to keep track of—

The other pair of drones were intent on what lay below, circling around down low, and with all of their sensors going, active and passive.

***

Hill 163 was, if anything, even higher and more rugged than 114-A.

This ambush, confronting the Unfriendly forces coming up from Walzbruch was a real doozie.

Since 114-A was nearest to the junction of Highway 17 and Highway 2, Hill 163 would be given up first. They needed a half-hour or forty-five minutes head start. Warm-bodied troops would have to time it carefully, in order to get past the junction before the Unfriendlies took 114-A, and got their artillery and other weapons set up for the next phase of their attack. The Confederation had x-amount of time to set up their next ambush although some assets were already emplaced.

All of this was under the eyes of the drones and with enemy artillery in the vicinity.

The command team watched, listened, and gave orders or advice, but it was up to the troops on the ground. Just as Command had their information, full information hopefully, the troops knew what was expected of them. They had been rehearsing their moves right up until the moment the enemy showed up. Some of them would be using a couple of available side-roads, which was a blessing.

For the common trooper, orders were kept to twenty-five words or less—

If possible. But it kept it simple and everyone knew exactly what they were supposed to do.

Individual troopers were expected to be able to make a few moves of their own and to recognize when it was necessary to do so. The most inexperienced had a senior partner and were under orders to stick to them like crazy-glue.

This enemy column had no tanks, so it was a pair of Samsons leading the way, with another pair at the back to guard the rear of the column in what was a new wrinkle for this bunch. The leading Samsons came out from behind a cloud of black smoke billowing from a less fortunate crew and machine that had already been destroyed and began to advance.

At this point the automatic and robotic weapons came into play. With the Confederation artillery limited to relatively short-range pack howitzers, it was important in fighting a rear-guard action, to leave robotic systems to cover their tail on the way out. It bought them some time.

They watched as one of the laser-cannons engaged. The enemy Samson, trying to save itself, began firing off smoke and turning, bolted up into a gap in the brush along that section of roadway...

They were hoping to get those guns out, and only two were anywhere near the hill itself. Even so, it took time to hook them up, and the road to Ryanville was very vulnerable—this was the downside of the bottleneck ambush.

Your own forces also had to get out of the bottleneck.

On almost any other planet, anything really populated, there would have been more side-roads, alternate ways of getting from one place to another.

Not here.

Two hills leading up to 163 had a double-reverse ambush, automated. Those weapons were still firing, taking the enemy column from both ends as they raced up and down the road, ignoring hits, ignoring casualties. Perhaps they were hoping to kill or capture some live troops, which would be good news for them at this point. Both of the hilltops in question were being blanketed in heavy Unfriendly artillery fire, and the drones hung in the sky, directing fire toward targets identified by flash and flame.

A direct hit on a big six-by truck, and it looked like being another bloodbath. The rest of the enemy troops dismounted, forming up alongside the road, which was lined with black spruce, interspersed with tangled thickets of deciduous and native species. Split-rail fences lined the road on the northeast side, a cheap way of keeping the hogs and livestock in the woods and off of the road. Wood was plentiful enough.

There was no way to use the dispersed formations of the school-books. Not in thick brush cut with precipitous gorges, sometimes also fenced at the lip. It was all they could do to keep low, spaced out five or ten metres apart, and use the vehicles, and more importantly, smoke and return fire to keep them alive. Belly down, on hands and knees, down in the ditch, it would appear that they were advancing. Where else were they going to go. They were soldiers, their officers were with them, and they were there to fight. When one of the automatic machine guns had a good firing solution, it could hit what it saw, or what the forward cameras saw if the trajectory was clear. Arching fire. It was a series of rapid calculations, all automatic. At that point, anyone not hit went to ground and returned fire, desperately trying to take out the Confederation weapon so they could make forward progress. Like infantry everywhere, more than anything, they relied on armour and artillery support. After that it was support from the air. In a really big, set-piece battle, they'd be relying on support from space.

Space-based support was Dona's biggest nightmare.

They had the Samsons and other vehicles, they had the artillery, but it was armed aerial support that was lacking. The Confederation guns and mortars were firing from the best cover they could find.

In the interest of surprise, they'd waited until the last possible moment. They sure as hell weren't going to be there for very long.

They were firing from prepared positions, on high ground, using interlocking fields of fire, at an enemy that must expose themselves if they were to accomplish their mission.

Confederation troops, on hand for a frontal defence for the first time since the conflict began, would make individualistic choices, and this alone made it a different ball-game from the one the Unfriendlies had been playing up until now. They were in good holes, beautiful holes.

Dona had only to check individual troopers, one or two of whom were blazing noisily away at nothing visible—robotic guns, with their laser ranger-finders, micro-millimetric radar, remote cams, optical and infrared sensors, didn't do that nearly so much. These were people with eyes and brains, and they knew that some Unfriendlies had just gone into those bushes, that culvert, or hidden behind that little rise where a rocket-propelled grenade might just do the most good. They had minds and imagination where the machines only had recognition systems.

Two clips, properly aimed, the first one semi-automatic fire, (please), and then get the hell out—

That was the most basic order.

Also. That way, there was no talk of rationing ammunition.

And once again, the Unfriendlies were using up time, precious time, while they shouted back and forth on the communications net.

"Looking good, Colonel. At the rate they're going, they won't take that before dark."

"Roger that, Ted. Bring up Corporal Twon for me, will you?"

With Major Chan in charge of the hill defense, it was time for Dona to move on to the next picture.

Chapter Thirty-One

The three Joshuas ground their way across the valley. Unfriendly troops jogged as best they could across the ploughed fields. They were already falling behind...

The first of the tanks was a bare hundred metres from the base of Hill 114-A when the Confederation howitzers opened up. Tall grey plumes of dirt spurted up all around the advancing tanks.

In some reactive twitch, the first Joshua fired, the round going into the trees and the hillside to no real effect. With no visible smoke or flame at the point of impact, that one had to have been armour-piercing.

More and more mortar bombs and 75-mm shells began to fall, tearing up the earth and bursting in the air over the infantry. The foot-sloggers promptly went to ground, calling for smoke and support fire. This much was obvious. In time, with enough enemy radio talk, the Confederation cracking and analysis systems might get more codes and call-signs. They already had a few of the most basic signals and were in the process of identifying various units in the enemy's order-of-battle. That was the thing with any battlefield communications. Units had to identify themselves or they would simply be ignored. Once units had been identified, whether infantry or an artillery battery, the enemy's one-time prefixes didn't mean too much anymore.

Her mouth opened, watching the picture—a set of crosshairs in a circular optical frame as something rolled into it.

The Hellion fired.

With all of the distractions, the first of the Joshuas was hit. Still moving forwards, one or two figures spilled out and then it went up in a sheet of flame, shooting like a blowtorch up out of the open hatches.

There was a major explosion and the spinning turret went fifty metres straight up, coming down upside down and with smoke pouring out of the hole.

With all of the mortar and howitzer fire coming down, the others had no clue—no clue that it had been taken out by the Hellion, screened as it was by trees and the sides of a gully.

Fifty metres apart, the next two Joshuas halted, their big guns spitting flame as they fired high-explosive at something, (no sabots being visible in an instant, slow-motion replay of their one good close-up), something that was still straight ahead of them.

Probably the laser cannon, or one of the 20-mm cannons or a machine-gun on auto-fire.

They seemed oblivious to the fact that there was a side-track right there, just to the left of their blazing companion. Too many trees in the way.

In the camera views, the Unfriendly infantry were now filtering through the woods.

The Hellion was almost sure to be discovered.

"Command Centre. Hellion One-Three."

"Go ahead."

"Permission to advance with Hellion-One-Three."

"Roger that. Get out there and take the shot—"

No response, but the machine was already moving, a reel on the back deploying a cable and the onboard cameras and sensors slaved to four or five people up in the woods. There were the crew and a rather junior infantry lieutenant on their local battle-board. This was for moral support on the one hand and a bit of first-hand combat experience on the other.

They would be heads down, behind as much rock and as many trees as possible, staring at their individual screens and holding their breaths.

"Colonel Graham?" Yet another trooper at a board, beckoning for attention.

"Yes, go ahead—" There was a lot going on and it was getting hard to keep up with it all.

"The civilian forces on Highway 2 are closing up on the rear of Walzbruch Force."

"Roger that." More complications—but she'd already decided they were on their own.

"...and the Denebi on Highway 17 appear to be laying an ambush for somebody, probably the Unfriendlies. The second big assault column is about fourteen kilometres farther down the road..."

Paul laughed.

She looked at him, mouth open.

Those eyes were alight—

"Well, damn it all. This just keeps getting better and better—"

It sure as hell was.

And the second part of the reverse-slope ambush was just opening up from behind both enemy columns. They still had to get all of the Confederation troops out, and as many heavy weapons as possible—then hit them going down the far side and at the base of the very next hill.

The Hellion, with no one aboard, came to the brightness at the end of a tunnel of trees, its nose slewed hard right, and then there was a blast of fire, the onboards having acquired a target.

They were not known for their hesitation.

That one, appeared to be a hit, and from under fifty, maybe seventy-five metres.

Another Joshua started to burn. There were men baling out. The Hellion was already reloaded, but with all the smoke and fire, there wasn't much to see.

Whang!

It was like a big fist, as if someone or something had punched the camera, hard. Everything went black, and then white.

That was all, just white. One or two signals were still up, but all the other sensors were out.

Hellion One-Three was gone. That left one Joshua on the field.

Whoever that was, they could at least shoot and they were very quick with the reaction-time.

Still.

Two dead Joshuas.

One dead Hellion.

Money well spent.

"Okay, people, haul ass—" The Unfriendly infantry was maybe fifty metres away from the ridge-line on the south side of the gully.

They were still downslope, but climbing inexorably onwards.

Judging by the bright blue dots on the board, the Hellion crew was already moving.

***

It was infuriating. The Denebi civilians had set up another ambush on Highway 2, and there were no cameras in the vicinity. If they were lucky, an Unfriendly patrol would come along. That was about it, as there were no major Unfriendly forces on that road. A half a dozen Confederation troops were sixteen kilometres further to the northwest, in no position to help in any way. Her own artillery was concentrated in the defense of the two major hills. While dispersed, most of the pack howitzers could hit targets on either hill.

"Shit."

So far, there had been no contact, although a trooper had spoken to someone. That someone had promised to talk to someone else, and so far, they hadn't gotten back. What she might have told them was a good question, probably just to stop. Ditch the weapons, cook up some kind of a cover story and go home.

As it was, the Confederation troops could only proceed with their own plan, and wish the civvies the best of luck.

Not that they would have listened anyways.

***

The natives were another story. They seemed oblivious to the significance of the enemy drone aircraft, which must have spotted them. The Unfriendly column was now running with a heavy forward reconnaissance force, and this unit had stopped, hiding their vehicles and setting up an ambush of their own.

The natives must have had scouts trailing them or observing them from the woods, for shortly after this development, someone had popped out onto the road a couple of kilometres away.

There had been a quick confab. The war party had abandoned the road. In the imperfect satellite view, for there was scattered low cloud over the scene, they had separated into two major parties, one on each side of Highway 17, two or three hundred metres from the road. If anything, they were trotting along at an even quicker pace than before. Within the next half hour or so, these sets of opposing forces must collide. She was thinking double envelopment in a classic attack maneuver. Native tactics could be surprisingly sophisticated, as in the case of the Zulu impi for example. In an impi attack, the horns of a bull flanked the enemy while the big head engaged the enemy's front. There was more to it, the young braves taking the frontal attack and the older, more experienced males taking the two sides of the flanking maneuver. It could be hideously effective, even against the British and their rifles. But also with the British in such very small numbers. Cut off and surrounded. A rather unpleasant thought considering her own current circumstances.

Simply put, the enemy, whether facing forwards or backwards in their ambush position, could still be taken from the rear. It could still be an impi attack.

A party under Sergeant Kawaii was literally sitting on the hillside above the Unfriendly ambush, with mortars hastily set up and zeroed in as best as could be done in such circumstances—it really was better to walk the ground, with GPS in hand, marking your spots but sometimes it just wasn't possible. If he could time it right, he might be able to hit the Unfriendlies with a few rounds and then just stop—let the natives come rushing in, if that's what they decided.

A few bombs in there might also persuade them to go home, but he had a funny feeling they weren't about to do that anytime soon.

At least they were on the right side, out here fighting the good fight, and that was always good to know.

***

"Oh, my God." The tone was one of awe.

The trooper, eyebrows visibly rising behind the headset, stared at the board.

"What?"

"Colonel. I've never seen such a strong signal—or anything quite as tight as that before." Ten thousand watts, no bigger than a spider web. Silent for days now, the receiver, like the transmitter, was directional to the nth degree.

The planet was speeding along, rotating, tipping back and forth with the seasons in its eccentric orbit, the whole system moving and rotating, in relation to some other arbitrary point in the Universe, the centre of their galaxy in this case. Point Zero-Zero-Zero-Etc., also moving through time and space, which was the only way you could ever map such a complex system. It could only have come from a ship, a planet or some other body.

Coming in from a point far outside the system, whoever had sent that package must have had some pretty damned good information.

"It's marked, 'your eyes only', Colonel." Lifting the goggs, he gave her a speculative look.

"Send it over please. I'll scan that before opening..." Her heart had just skipped a beat there.

So had his, come to think of it.

It took but a second to validate the prefix, suffix and helix codes. No bugs. Her hand shook a little, and then there was Brigadier-General Renaldo, still looking tired and with the usual dark bags under the eyes.

"Good morning." He smiled. "Colonel Graham. I am authorized to tell you that Operation Bluecoat has been a success. Thank you for your efforts and good luck with the rest of the plan—Renaldo, out."

It was that quick, and nothing much there for an enemy to read even if they had cracked it.

She sat there with mouth open. When writing the plan, she almost hadn't dared to suggest it—but the Confederation destroyers escorting CT-119, Eliza, D-17, Erebus, and D-24, Terror, had successfully evaded interception by the incoming enemy fleet, with their big cruisers and a pack of smaller warships. Rather than fleeing to a safe port, after escorting Eliza initially, the destroyers had broken off and gone hunting. The deep penetration into enemy space, sort of hunting...

They had intercepted the enemy at some point not known to her, and then inflicted some level of damage, also not known to her. Ultra—probably. It would have been a big help.

The very fact that Renaldo had gone to the extraordinary lengths required to let her know about it said something. It said a lot. It was risking one very expensive ship (an assumption, but probably true judging by the point of origin and backtracking of the trajectory), to send one very terse message.

It also seemed rather well-timed on his part, coming along just when they were getting down to the nitty-gritty, planet-side.

She had full discretion as to what she told her troops, whose focus should necessarily be trained on those ground-level operations for which they were best-suited.

Still, this was big news—the sort of news that McMurdo would do his best to stifle, and this was an important consideration for her own policy.

Whatever you do, I do the opposite—

What's bad for you is good for me, and vice versa.

The question was, what exactly could she tell them.

Report-writing was among the most basic of skills, one learned very early in the Organization, and this was a kind of report—in a way.

When in doubt, bullshit—

Hmn.

Okay.

She cleared her throat, and then set her com unit to record a clip. She took a good breath and let it out.

One more—

Open the mic for full broadcast.

Go.

"Ladies and gentlemen. Your attention please. We have just received word by secure communications. Confederation ships have won an important victory over the Unfriendly invasion-fleet escort." A whole bunch of faces had just turned her way, mouths open and dead silent now after the hubbub of ongoing operations. "Those vessels were returning to Shiloh and other ports in preparation for reassignment or engagements elsewhere. Details of the battle are necessarily thin, due to counter-intelligence considerations. But I think it's safe to say that the enemy lost a few ships there, destroyed or damaged. This will materially affect the strategic balance in this sector for quite some time. It's also important to note that the enemy fleet was here because we were here. You were here, and they knew you were going to fight. They don't know it, but you're also going to win. General Renaldo sends his thanks and his congratulations. Keep up the good work."

She nodded at the trooper, a young woman named Rafferty, on the communications board.

"We have achieved a strategic victory already. We don't know what casualties might have occurred. That goes for our own people as well. However, here on the ground, we haven't lost a one. Let's try and remember that, ladies and gentlemen—win, lose or draw."

A low hum of chatter went through the room.

Authorization for use of the file was quick and slick. Another tap and she sent it over.

"Okay, put it up on the board. Open access. Thank you."

"Roger that, Colonel Graham. Open access. I'll send that over to the media centre too, uh, if you don't mind." She was right, the civilians must be told of this. "I'm thinking a thirty-second spot. Stock videos of Confederation and Unfriendly ships, some old archival video of a battle in space..."

"Yes, absolutely. Thank you for the excellent suggestion. I'm sure Trooper Thornton can handle it." A thought struck her. "Send that package, when he's done with it, to the Unfriendlies as well, please."

Rafferty grinned.

"Outstanding, Colonel."

Dona would take that as a yes.

Chapter Thirty-Two

"Oh, Jesus, what now." Paul was sagging a bit at the knees by this point, but the Confederation troops were withdrawing in good order on the road to Ryanville.

They were looking at a battle, as the natives swarmed over the unfortunate Unfriendly advance guard. Her own people had held fire, and probably rightly.

Some of the orange dots, in this case, that were the enemy soldiers, especially the forward pickets, were already cooling...

There were strange sounds coming from the enemy radio-monitoring station, the trooper there with a blank look on her face and a quick shrug at Dona's inquiring look. She shook her head.

No idea—

"Where's Mister Higgins?"

"Ma'am?"

"The interpreter. Get him. Now."

"Yes, Colonel." The girl began tapping buttons.

The fellow's number was taped to the top of the trooper's hard-screen and hopefully he would be standing by. It was broad daylight, on a weekday—what an insane thought that was.

From what they were hearing, it sounded like the natives were yelling into several com-units taken from Unfriendly soldiers.

If nothing else, now they knew whose side they were on. If the natives were on the radio, then Higgins could talk to them.

They'd made a real nice mess of that roadblock, too—

They were grabbing the weapons and burning the vehicles, which was exactly what she would have done.

This time, they didn't seem to be taking too many prisoners.

***

Corporal Twon's heart thudded in his chest, the sense of danger ever-present.

Their ambush successful, and with no casualties to worry about, they had taken what was hopefully the most unexpected tack. This involved evading to the south—away from home base, gone now anyways, safety, their own vehicles. They weren't even headed for Deneb City, not directly. They were pretty sure they had gotten three Unfriendly scouts, which were some of their best troops. Those guys were career soldiers, and there had definitely been a couple of enemy wounded.

With that kind of casualty load, in a party of fourteen or fifteen, there were only so many options.

One option was for the enemy to simply withdraw, in the direction of their vehicles.

Another option was to try to rendezvous with another patrol. Pooling resources, they might get together a few stretcher parties and try to get the wounded out. The remainder would still be an effective unit. Depending on the numbers, perhaps more than one.

They might bring in helos and try a vertical extraction or lug the wounded to the nearest level clearing.

It would be nice to get a shot at one of the choppers. So, far, there was no sign of it, which implied certain things—some very dead or dying people and possibly a few wounded lightly enough that evacuation wasn't called for. There were only a limited number of enemy helos, in which case why not use a civilian unit?

Civilian aircraft in Deneb City were being withheld so far. The enemy might have assumed they were all booby-trapped, when in fact none of them were...

With no information forthcoming, and with only four helos on the board, all accounted for elsewhere, he wasn't quite sure what to expect next. There were reports of more enemy patrols, a second wave out there, and he wanted to avoid them. In the meantime, night was falling. His people were under good cover, deep in a tangled thicket of Terran hawthorns. It was a species that might not have been in the original plan of terraforming, but down in the lowlands, it had established itself with a vengeance. One original seed, stuck to the butt of one imported Terran animal species, (or more likely, the clothing of one colonist, as the animal population had all been transported as embryos in cryo), had been enough to establish the species. Or maybe it was two seeds. Someone might have smuggled them in against regulations. The point being, that trees were sexual. They had to pollinate, and there was such a thing as genetic drift.

Tomorrow they might do another fifteen or twenty kilometres. At that point, they would be very tired, but also very close to where the enemy had stashed a half a dozen four-by-fours. There were several people guarding them, but they were still vulnerable. Those people would have the keys...weapons, com-units and uniforms.

In the meantime, the Confederation team members were conserving rations, traveling very quietly and watching the back trail.

Stomachs were always tight.

They had the big dogs out there on perimeter, they had laid cameras and vibration sensors, and at that point his eyes grew so tired that he thought he would just lay there and examine the insides of his eyelids for a while. His hips, knees and ankles ached, and he sure as hell wasn't getting any younger—

All them fucking hills.

Jesus.

His neck and shoulders hurt from the constant load, and the asymmetry of carrying a weapon on one side all the time.

Fuck.

And that was about it for a while, until he woke with a silent start at exactly four-eighteen a.m.

The stars were killing in their brilliance, and with the bigger moon up, one could almost read a book—it was nonsense, but it conveyed a certain sense. Someday, that one was going in his memoirs.

It was absolutely windless, something that mostly didn't happen during daytime.

It wasn't exactly quiet, far from it.

He lay there for a couple of minutes, listening to what sure sounded like crickets, or maybe those tiny little frogs. Spring peepers, was what they called them back home. Birds, and even a few of the native bugs still. The lower back and the hips were not good. Some movement would help, although the first couple of kilometres would not be fun. This might be a good day to take a pill, although the shock to the guts wasn't very welcome. The n-codeine pills always did that to him, a fact rarely reported by others. It was his own unique body chemistry, he supposed. He wasn't getting any younger, and the truth was that he had done some pretty hard drinking over the years...

This was autumn, and it was damned cold out there. It wasn't all that warm under the lightweight plastic space-blanket, come to think of it.

The corporal had one of them awful piss-boners to boot.

It was the start of a whole new day.

Fuck.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Following the doctor's advice, she'd been using the goggs more judiciously. The headache hadn't come back, not so far.

"Colonel?"

The retreat was going well. The Unfriendlies were occupying the respective hill-tops. They were moving carefully, with small teams checking for booby-traps before the bulk of them moved in. They were now patrolling ahead of themselves, staying off the road when possible and using foot-soldiers almost exclusively when away from the main road. Side-roads were used by the civvies who lived in the area, and so those hadn't been mined at all. Unfriendly mine-detection teams were out in force, but there was nothing there to find. There were Confederation cameras. The enemy was being judicious in dealing with civilians. Far from the main road, the small farms and ranches were being visited. Just visited. Enemy drones probably weren't seeing much down there, which proved nothing and so it still had to be checked. Therefore, the enemy was checking—and the Confederation was monitoring.

The problem was, there was nothing there to find, and yet it still ate up a lot of time.

Their great victories at Hill 163 and Hill 114-A were probably already being written into the history books and going out on all the news services. Virtually everyone in human space would soon know all about it.

The enemy newsfeed was there if one cared to look at it. The only thing missing in there was dead bodies—in all the old documentaries, no matter who was producing them, the dead were there on display, in spades. The more the merrier, or so it would seem. It would soon be apparent to almost any viewer that the same few smouldering Confederation weapons and vehicles were being shown over and over again.

Yet, they would play it for all it was worth. Always with the thought of the negotiating table in the background. Cynical, but also probably true. She had put some thought into that herself—she had to, it was part of the job and all eventualities had to be covered.

One of those possibilities was defeat.

Public opinion being what it was when people were far, far away. Every society had its fringe elements, every polity had its own local, internal opposition. These could be very contradictory at times. The galaxy was a big place full of divergent cultures, all of them busily polling themselves. That, was the soldier's opinion of civics and society, when the moral questions should have been obvious to anyone.

Public opinion still mattered.

"Yes?"

"Another column forming up. In Deneb City—"

"Activate Mongoose One."

"Activated." The soldier made a funny little grunting noise and hit the firing button.

"Launching."

They watched onscreen as the missiles tracked.

"Colonel?" Another trooper, another problem, yet another question.

"Yes? Go ahead."

"They seem to be settling in for the night." Another picture flashed before her eyes.

He was referring to the forward elements of the enemy, digging in to hold the hills. No real counterattack was possible, probably even not really expected. It was sniper and missile protection, random stonks of artillery and mortar fire, which could be kept at a distance and didn't require a shit-load of manpower. Nothing beats a good hole in the ground and the enemy had plenty of shovels and good, strong, farm-boy backs.

"Well. Colonel Graham—" It was Captain Aaron, looking tired and yet oddly cheerful. "This might be a good time."

Harvey looked at her.

The next big booby trap had been Paul's idea.

"The honour is all yours, Colonel." Harvey gave his head a rueful shake. "Too bad poor old McMurdo can't be here to witness this one personally."

With enough manpower, and more than enough rock-drills and slurry, some volunteer civilian labour, the hills in question were death-traps. This was the sort of explosive power used in the trench and tunnel, underground warfare of WW I. Thousands of kilograms of it. It was all wired, with the cables and the charges well camouflaged under a foot of dirt, leaves and pine needles. Two hills were about to change in elevation.

Luckily, none of the enemy diggers had hit one of their lines. These had purposely been kept to the steeper slopes, the power lines leading in the perpendicular, up to individual charges strung off of a main, horizontal bus.

The charges were properly wired in parallel, like a good string of Christmas lights. If one shot-line was cut, the rest were all still live.

"I guess I have as much right as anybody." It was a way of acknowledging responsibility.

A responsibility which they all shared, but the boss was still the boss.

She leaned in over Harvey's shoulder.

The room was very quiet as she selected the weapon, punched in the code, 1-3-4-2-F, tapped her screen, and two great explosions ripped through the night. Two hilltops had just been torn apart.

More silence, just two flaring blossoms, a few kilometres apart on the satellite feed, the on-scene cameras temporarily blinded or even burned out by the sudden overload. It was the sheer speed of the change in contrast that did it.

Someone spoke.

"...estimated casualties. One hundred." The algorithms were running, always running in the background. "Fifty of them fatal, with a mix of light and seriously wounded. Congratulations, Colonel."

"Thank you. Thank you very much." The room was very quiet.

There must have been a few guns, weapons and vehicles among that tally, that toll, but it would take a while to get a better picture. Still, one could imagine what two hundred holes like that would do, when an entire hillside came down, the land under you erupting in a million flying chunks of torn trees and shattered granite.

The scattered dots on the screen didn't lie.

As usual, it was like a punch in the guts.

Sorry about that.

Just doing my job.

***

Uncharacteristically, the Unfriendlies had paused. They'd set up a veritable tent city, one which could, admittedly, come down just as quickly. This was down off of the heights proper, well back and in under a lot of trees and forest. The previous night had taught them an abject lesson, but also a valuable one. They were holding their hills with the minimum of people, with reinforcement within a short radius. In an emergency, all they had to do was to run up that hill.

Having taken the hills, they had set up what were nothing more than some glorified guard-posts.

Having studied the Confederation tactics, the Unfriendly camp was just out of range of her howitzers and the mortars set to defend the next little stretch.

Predicting their next encampment had just become that much harder. Which wasn't to say that it couldn't be done, and this new wrinkle had been programmed into the system for further study.

This would be by machine-intelligence, as she had no one to spare to sit around poring over maps. Several ideas had popped out within a minute. Next time, set the automatic mortars a bit further forward, a few more cameras. That was one option. Find the next really good camping-spot, maybe more than one, and mine them extensively, purely on spec. That was another option.

With the commanding heights of Hills 163 and 114-A dominating the road junction of Highway 17 and Highway 2, the town of Roussef and the first part of the road to Ryanville, they were digging the long guns into the rubble. The Unfriendlies were building a temporary helicopter and drone facility on the flats, and obviously preparing for a second phase of operations now that their second major column had joined the first.

And there were more where that came from—a lot more.

With Roussef laying right there, undefended, and Ryanville at the end of the line, it was only a matter of time before they moved. The Unfriendlies had sent a large contingent back down the road, establishing a much more formidable roadblock. This was presumably in response to the civilians and the native Denebi attacks on their rearguard and patrols. They had grabbed stone buildings for their command posts. They had a smaller one on Highway 2 coming up from Walzbruch.

They were using forward pickets and what appeared to be anti-personnel mines, motion-sensors, trip-wires, laser and mechanical, as well as vibration sensors in a ring about the main emplacement.

They had also set up larger roadblocks on the approaches to Deneb City, Walzbruch and a few smaller but significant villages and crossroads. Another dispersal of their forces, all of which had to be planned, manned, set up, supplied, fed, relieved, (and in typical Unfriendly fashion, the troops ministered-to by the chaplains). It all had to be supervised and commanded. Two or three shifts a day. It all took people. Always, more people. That tooth-to-tail ratio could become pretty long in certain cases. It tended to grow in complexity over time. They'd only had a week or so.

Just across the valley, on the other side of the road junction, lay another series of high ridges, rising up into the real lake and snowfall country. The dome, as it was dubbed locally, was the highest elevation for a hundred kilometres around. Here the tops of the hills were barren, as much due to the altitude as well as the latitude. With the planet's density less than that of Old Earth, (it was also a younger planet) the atmosphere thinned very quickly with altitude. At so-called sea level, it was only a little over three-quarters Earth pressure, although slightly more oxygen-rich.

The habitable zone was much narrower, about half as compared to Old Earth. The rest was all Arctic and sub-Arctic.

Eons-old, ground down by ancient glaciers, it wasn't exactly Mount Everest up there. It was definitely different, with a lot of fog and mist, grasses and mosses, lichens, a few slightly-mutant marmots, and the more purely Denebian species of flora and fauna which had adapted to that range.

Trees, food crops, didn't grow here. It was so remote, and the season so short, even the sheep and cattle herders ignored it.

After several minor skirmishes, the armed civilian groups appeared to have faded off into the bush, where there were farming hamlets, logging camps and hunting cabins, fishing camps, and small habitations of various kinds.

These were in what the locals called hollers. In the valleys, game was plentiful and there was plenty of wood for the stove. Every little creek and pond was teeming with fish.

These scattered homesteads were so far off the beaten path as to represent nothing of interest to the Unfriendlies. Not at this stage of the game, and it would be difficult and dangerous for the civvies to return to Walzbruch. It was expected that the Unfriendlies, aware of the civvies as well as the natives, would begin patrolling the main roads, at the very least. Small as the forces would be, it was another division, another commitment, another distraction. Another time-suck for the enemy, especially if they started taking an interest in every little track and side-road.

There had been a phone call, purporting to be from the leader of one such group, down at the south end of Highway 17. The individual, a male, calling himself Hawk, had reported two civvies killed and three more seriously wounded.

They claimed to have killed quite a few Unfriendlies, which she was taking with a grain of salt.

Shouting at the phone didn't make it any more true.

He had said there were some minor injuries which they could deal with on their own—

He had asked for helicopter extraction for the wounded, which she had no choice but to refuse. It was just too far away. All she had were civilian helos and she was holding them back for a possible raid. None of his business in any case. He hadn't been very happy about that, and she'd cut him off rather than argue, or worse, to explain.

She had no time for idiots and the untrained.

Her own forces, the bulk of which had successfully withdrawn from Roussef, had either made their way to Ryanville or had been redeployed along the axis of attack. In this country this could only mean Highway 17 and a few connected side-roads.

There were stay-behind parties right in Roussef, staying undercover by various means, and then there were the patrols south of the town.

The next phase of the battle was clearly about to begin, with another major column coming up the road from Deneb City, and with feverish activity being reported by civvies at other Unfriendly installations in the city.

The odds were, this meant even more Unfriendlies on the road.

***

Hungry as hell, she was already sagging in her seat.

Dona was sitting with Lieutenant Tanguy and a very large trooper named Rodriguez in the dining room of a popular family restaurant overlooking Lake Ryan. Right on the docks, there were fishing smacks of a peculiar, enclosed type lined up at the wharf. Apparently the fishermen worked out of big, side doors coming down fairly low to the water. In rough weather, the side doors could be closed and they would ride it out, or one must assume. They could literally watch tomorrow's special being unloaded from the hatches, big wooden boxes of ice and fresh-caught fish. Other, lugger-type boats, with all their booms and spars, would be for shellfish. Shrimp or something. She really didn't know much about it, although it was picturesque.

There was the clink of cutlery in the background, cutting through the low volume of the light, airy, vaguely country-western sort of elevator music that was apparently a requirement in public places on the planet. Some of it wasn't so bad, not compared to the metal that had been popular on campus at the time of her going.

As for herself, she was fond of Old Earth's Iranian bossa-nova resurgence of the late 2300s. You didn't hear too much of that anymore.

She had decided on the scallops, local yams, fresh green peas, tomato juice and a nice tossed salad with the vegetables fresh from a local garden. Cheese and bread-sticks. On this planet, you ordered each and every item from a list of the several major food groups. No pre-planned menus, meat, potato and veg, juice or salad and a bun here. Every meal was a custom job.

Having ordered, and with none of them really in the mood for small talk, listening to the mundane conversation from other tables was a reminder that there was a whole 'nother reality out there, a world of normality. She couldn't help but be a woman, with the odd little twinge when she saw some other woman. A mother, a father and a couple of children sitting about their own table, perhaps laughing and giggling. A few tables away, a similar tableau, where the kids were misbehaving and the parents weren't presently on speaking terms—

And sure enough, that could be me. Either one of them could be me.

That is your reality, and this is mine.

But enough.

Just one more personal observation.

The people had their own unique accent, in spite of entertainment media from other worlds being prevalent. In the original phases of colonization, several contingents brought in by different commercial ventures, (all of which had eventually failed and gone into bankruptcy), had been ethnically-diverse, some from Old Earth and some from newer planets. Over time, all of those influences had gelled into something uniquely its own. There were extremes of skin colour, dress and probably cultures, too, some of which would be preserved or absorbed, and some of which would fall by the wayside...

With no lack of space, the town, really just a big village, Ryanville stretched for quite a few kilometres up and down this end of the lake. There was really only the one road, gravel, improved. It went on for about forty k to the west, and maybe twenty-five to the east, up and around the V-shaped east end of the lake. She'd had a quick drive around town, and she'd gone up there and had a look. The roads were at least usable, this early in the season. How long that might last was another question.

Lake Ryan was two hundred and seventy kilometres long, and more than fifty wide in places.

This end of the lake, an impressive body of water indeed, was about thirty-four kilometres across, measuring due north from Ryanville, with the bulk of the lake laying off to the northwest.

There had to be a thousand islands in the lake, the tops of former hills sticking up from below.

This end, the deepest, was relatively open.

Back from the water, there were a few small hamlets and enclaves, mud huts with corrugated metal and sod roofs in some cases, recent arrivals apparently, and even some classic trailer parks, up in the hills.

So far, no one had seen a flurry—

But winter was coming. It had to be. Where else was it going to go, as the saying went.

This one from a table somewhere behind her left ear.

With all the stay-behind parties out there, and a few more still to be deployed, the Confederation had over four hundred troops in the town. This, was the end of the line.

Still, it was important to try and enjoy the moment.

If only she could.

Chapter Thirty-Four

The suspense was killing. Having dug in on the hilltops and patrolled for several kilometres in front of those positions, with a couple of light patrol actions and some small casualties on both sides, the Unfriendlies were sitting tight. Dona had taken her first casualties. It was a night-time skirmish, about twenty-five of the enemy sneaking up through the hills to one of her positions.

Eight wounded, only one really seriously. The enemy had lost three dead for sure. They had the bodies to prove it. The trooper in question, a young woman named Dani, was expected to fully recover, given time and proper care. She'd taken a round right through the femur and also the femoral artery. Prompt first aid had prevented her from bleeding out. With bone and slug-splinters all over the place, a complicated wound to treat.

Another trooper, a big guy called Hamilton, had carried her out on his back. He'd be getting a medal and bit of a bonus for that one. She wasn't exactly small, either, just a statistically-average woman of twenty-two. One thousand, seven hundred metres going by the map, uphill and down. All in all, a pretty good guy to have around—one or two previous minor disciplinary actions could be forgiven, perhaps forever, under such circumstances. That was one guy she would like to speak to—to really say certain things, good things, right to his face. Look the man in the eye and just say it. Putting the name and her recommendation in the report was sometimes the best one could do. Higher command would do the right thing, she was sure of that.

Surely they knew the value of a hero.

The enemy had done some good work, to evade detection and to surprise her people, who must have also fucked up on some level. But the enemy had their space-blankets, which could be used as ponchos. The plastic was highly reflective of heat, and they must have used some pretty good cover. Sticking to the tighter slots and gorges going up the hill, they could be very quiet if they were prepared to take their time.

There was the next column forming up in Deneb City, and then there was the reinforced forward column, somewhat depleted by casualties and the need to man their own defenses. The artillery took so many people and then there would be the engineers, digging away like beavers or whatever.

The town of Roussef lay just fifteen kilometres from the junction, and could easily be dominated by the artillery. Cheap to buy and even cheaper to feed, this was now emplaced on Hill 114-A overlooking Highway 17.

While the enemy forces were well within range of the Confederation artillery, so far they'd only been subjected to minor harassing fire. Return fire had been vigorous but inaccurate. Surely they must have a satellite up there. Such stonks were timed to the point when the enemy drones were furthest away. Mortars, up close and forwards, fired perhaps three rounds before being moved, (after or during, depending on how accurate the enemy return fire was). The artillery, further back, fired half a dozen at most, all in quick succession and one gun at a time.

With good drone coverage, it seemed the enemy was operating their drones from farther forwards. They had been doing daily passes over Roussef and Ryanville, morning, noon and night. There really wasn't much there to see, with every Confederation trooper, weapon and vehicle under good cover, and perhaps that was confusing enough in itself. All of those other trenches, and some major excavations in the case of tank-traps, would be clearly visible. They'd had time to build a few decoys, bogus tanks and other armoured vehicles. These were scattered about the southeastern fringes, where the main road came in, and the town centre of Ryanville.

As soon as the Unfriendlies took Roussef, they'd know all about it. They wouldn't be so easily fooled next time. Ryanville was presently out of range of the enemy missile batteries in Deneb City, which might well be moved forwards at almost any minute.

Surely McMurdo wasn't expecting her to attack the city in any significant force. If the Confederation was going to reinforce, surely they wouldn't land at Deneb City.

One never knew, of course.

"Colonel."

"Yes?"

"The column in Deneb City appears ready to move. Shall we activate Mongoose One?"

"Yes, but I want you to wait until they get to Gossua, or thereabouts." It would be wise to see if they had drone or helicopter cover, as they must be expecting any number of ambushes or simple sniping, military and civilian, along the way.

The column was too big to be an attempt to draw fire.

With more tanks, armoured and supporting vehicles than they'd yet seen, it was possible this column would be in position at Hill 114-A or thereabouts in twelve hours, twenty-four at most.

That was if they were taking their time. Hopefully things weren't quite that bleak, but all the Confederation stay-behind parties could do was to pick a few of them off and slow them down a little. Try and stay out of their way—make them build another bridge. There were still plenty of them left. The ones built by Unfriendly engineers weren't even being guarded. McMurdo was smart enough to see how pointless that would be. Even now, there was nothing as small a patrol on the road. Now that they knew the civvies were getting involved, and how could they not know?

If the teams could be selective about it and hit the really juicy targets, tanks, helos and drones, or engineering equipment; that would be the best that could be hoped for.

One way or another, another big push was imminent.

With the weather still good but a system on the board to the northwest promising a change for the worse, it couldn't happen soon enough.

More bait, always more bait in this type of operation.

That's what it said in the book, and after all, she was the one that had written it.

***

"Colonel! Call from General McMurdo."

"Put him on. Audio only."

"Er, roger that, Colonel."

"Ah, Colonel Graham. So nice to speak to you again—is there something wrong with the picture?" This sounded like an aside to someone on his end.

She could see him clearly enough, cheeks shining from a recent shave. As usual, the uniform was immaculate. Her own was getting a little crusty in the armpits, and chafing somewhat on the tailbone as the plastic netting of the crotch-liner tended to be abrasive.

"I'm so sorry, General. It's just that you've caught me off duty and I am, ah, rather in a state of undress."

There were choking noises as some of her people caught on. Harvey had coffee or something coming out of his nose and he was busily trying to wipe it up from the hard-board in front of him.

Someone killed the microphone.

"Honestly, Colonel. You might have warned us."

"Sorry. Pure impulse—put me back up. And keep quiet, please."

"Hello? Hello?" McMurdo's tone was almost comical, and her own people were desperately trying not to split their sides open.

"Ah, sorry, General. Honestly. It's just that I really wasn't expecting, er, a proper gentlemen to call at this late hour." Hopefully the sarcasm wasn't lost on him. "So, what can we do you for?"

"Ah. Business as usual. I see. It's just that there is no retreat, no escape, and I am still in a position to offer you the most favourable terms."

"Oh, you're not quite ready to give up yet, General."

There were nods and grins from the command centre staff.

The General gave a self-deprecating little laugh.

"God. What I wouldn't give to have you among my wives. You're quite splendid, really."

"Well, that's very kind, General McMurdo. I'm not completely naked, as I am sure you can imagine."

"Er."

Slightly breathily, she went on to describe the scene.

If only she had the right kind of music.

"I'm just sitting here in my undies, General, not that there's anything really special about that. A bit of cellulite, a bit of a belly these days. A bit thick in the thighs. Rubenesque, more than anything. I've got my feet up in some tacky old bedroom slippers. Just watching a little television and having a glass of wine. Old-lady underwear, as you can well imagine at my age—built for comfort, rather than speed, as the saying goes."

Harvey, some of the others were grinning from ear-to-ear.

Lieutenant-Colonel Dona Graham was giving him the gears, and as long as the idiot was still on the line, why not? She sure as hell wasn't going to tell him anything he didn't already know about the tactical situation. Which he really ought to have figured, on some level.

"Er. Ah—Colonel Graham. If we could be serious for a moment."

"So. How do you like the weather, lately?"

He laughed—he laughed.

And he was right about one thing.

"Colonel Graham. I am of course aware of the British intervention at Norway, however, it was all for naught in the end. Sea-power without air—or space power, is doomed."

Those oh-so-innocent blue eyes stared into the screen. Was that a hint of pink around the cheekbones?

"And with that, I will let you go."

He must have been dying for a chance to hang up on her—

"General McMurdo."

"Yes—"

"It was a very fine idea, but it just didn't work." A line she'd stolen from an old documentary.

Norway.

Obviously.

All it proved was that someone over there really had been reading her book. She didn't quite know whether to be pleased, but this was just one more attempt at intimidation. She motioned to the trooper and the signal was cut.

Sooner or later, McMurdo must get it.

Get over it, Bud.

***

A total of three major enemy columns had congregated on or about Hill 114-A. They'd taken some losses. They were now dropping patrols at some recent ambush points, mostly up and down Highway 17, complete with their own vehicles. These patrols weren't very big, ten to twelve people at most.

The Unfriendlies weren't risking much, neither were they gaining much. The psychological imperatives being what they were. These were troops of a higher calibre than the run-of-the-mill, conscript infantry. They must be—they had to be.

These patrols were scouring the woods and the hills more thoroughly, still not finding much, although one Puma had been discovered. Whether it was luck or what, no one could say. Having observed the action through the machine's own cameras, the stay-behind party had promptly hit their remote destruct button, taking out the vehicle and an estimated three Unfriendlies. Two more troop-kills, one more seriously wounded, according to the system.

One little factor deleted from the boards. The team was evading west and ultimately south, through thicket, swamp and stream. The Unfriendlies were tracking them, or at least trying to—with no choice but to leave their own vehicles and someone to guard them at the roadside or at the end of whatever track they had followed.

The enemy was only prepared to go so far. Abandoning the vehicles, or splitting their numbers and roaming off into the wilderness wasn't much of an option. Not in the face of professional troops. The enemy was at least giving the appearance of pursuit. Dona doubted they'd last an hour, an hour and a half up in there...

Her people had every chance of getting away.

"What in the hell are we watching?" She was tired, they all were, but this was surreal.

Her headache was gone, and that was good.

"The band. I have it on some pretty good authority, uh, Colonel, that the band are beautiful people—"

A ripple of laughter went through the command centre.

It was true—

The Unfriendlies had a marching band, tall black bearskin shakos on their heads and plaid kilts swirling in the breeze. They were forming up on the far side of yonder hill. They had billowing white sleeves, tight black waistcoats, stockings and garters and buckles on their shoes.

The skirling of the pipes commenced.

***

It was enough to make one's hair stand up in sympathy.

No one would send a band without an attack being imminent—and it was.

"You know what's interesting, ColoneL?"

"No, what's interesting, Paul?"

"Those enemy ships are still just sitting there." At the bottom of a pretty big gravity-well.

"Ah." She nodded, sitting in the hot-seat as Harvey was off on other duties. "But that's obvious. They still expect to win. They still, fully expect to be transporting a few hundred prisoners and most of their forces, even the bulk of their equipment, off-planet. Very, very soon now—"

The ships themselves were a most valuable resource, and they were just sitting there, worth their collective weight in kryptonium almost by the day. Those ships would be badly needed elsewhere.

Even without Confederation troops and their Barkers and other weapons in the vicinity, they were very vulnerable. A civilian could take out a ship, assuming they had the nerve and any kind of a time-bomb. All it took was access, and the Unfriendlies needed repairs and maintenance.

Someone would have access—

Someone always did.

All it took was nerve.

Not taking them out was also in the plan, not until later in one of several end-games that had been considered. Gaming things out was an essential part of planning, and there were foreseeable circumstances where those ships could still come into play. They were still bargaining chips of a sort—reverse bargaining chips at this point.

Taking them out would make the Unfriendlies just a little too desperate.

The time for that would be later—

If the enemy began preparing for take-off, for whatever reason, that would be a different story.

They were looking at a couple of battalions at least, as the Unfriendlies rose from their hilltop entrenchments and began filtering down the near side, through the trees, with small groups peeling off left and right, and with other groups, parallel to the road, filing along in squads and platoons.

Further ahead, along the road mostly, smoke rounds began dropping in as they gave themselves some cover, and the Confederation some warning. Always a trade-off.

Everything in war is a trade-off.

There were a total of four Joshuas, the survivor from the previous engagement having been attached to the new bunch. There was a squadron of three still in reserve, up on their transporters.

The tanks were hunkered down in the ditches, on the brow of the hill, a pair of tanks on each side of the notch where the road went through. So far, they hadn't moved or fired a shot. The band was still on the far side, marching in place and playing their martial music. Ludicrous, on so many levels.

The top of the next ridge lit up with exploding shells.

Confederation troops and weapons were holding fire. The enemy was nowhere near close enough or exposed enough yet, and a bare three hundred metres out onto the level, there was another meandering creek, a narrow, gleaming ribbon of open water winding up the middle of a morass a hundred metres wide.

Surely they weren't planning on swimming that, not with swamp on either side of it, and therefore the bridge had been conveniently left in place. It had been scouted by the enemy, and, since there were no charges to find, they had decided it was safe.

And it was—although carefully registered by global positioning with every weapon and by every trooper within firing range. They watched dim silhouettes moving through thick smoke. This camera and this point had been carefully noted. There were paint marks on the road to prove it.

The cameras were nice and close, the blaze-orange paint was phosphorescent and slightly radioactive, and the smoke was only a minor impediment.

"Okay. Battery. A, B, C and D. Open up with the howitzers..." Paul was speaking quietly into his microphone, as Harvey came in with a plastic tray of fresh coffees for all.

Sticking to solid ground, the first enemy troopers had made it to the road where they went to ground again and the numbers built.

They were ready for the rush. Following their orders and their sergeants and corporals and lieutenants, they were soon getting up again...

It was all very heroic, with individual troopers taking their chances. They were bursting out of the brush and sprinting towards the bridge amidst all of those erupting explosions and shell-splinters. Several sprawled headlong, sliding and then stopping...dead.

She waved Harvey over. She was too excited to just sit there and watch.

"Here. I'll take that."

"Uh—ah."

"It's okay, Harvey. Take a load off."

Settling in reluctantly, he tore his eyes from the sight of the colonel going about the room, distributing a double-double here, a black with sugar there, or a green tea, or a snack-sized bottle of orange juice, or whatever the person had ordered.

The colonel and that magnificent ass of hers—but enough.

That was what the blacksuit was invented for, at least in his opinion.

He'd gotten back just in the nick of time. He had a pocket full of change for various people, but they could worry about all of that later.

The Unfriendlies were just coming down off of their hills and heading for the junction, and after that lay Roussef.

Shit.

They had no idea of what they were getting into.

They were in for one hell of a ride—one hell of a ride.

A big bowl of popcorn might go real good right about now—that and some beer, maybe.

His black with one sugar would have to do. That and a sticky-bun.

Someone detonated the first of the big slurry-mines and the cameras shook in sympathy.

Yum, yum.

Chapter Thirty-Five

This particular valley was wider than most.

Down out of the hills, the ground was flatter. This section, being nice and easy to reach from the road, this close to town, had been logged over early in the initial colonization period. This was regrowth, a different kind of forest with smaller trees. The boles, less than a foot across at the base, were tall enough, but also a lot closer together. When the ground got low enough, the real muck began. There were cameras watching, and sure enough, the enemy held up, the people up front at least, realizing what they were getting into.

"Okay. Open up with the mortars."

The tubes, scattered all over in ones and twos, barked and then the rounds were sailing in with their characteristic whine. Enemy counter-battery fire was still inaccurate...

There was a small cavalcade of Unfriendly vehicles, light armour and scout machines, going up the road. The futility of the thing stung her in some way—but what in the hell else were the poor bastards supposed to do? What the fuck else am I supposed to do? For Christ sakes. There was only one road, only one bridge, only one creek. Only a thousand more such rivers, hills and valleys in between here and there.

"Drone Three, inbound. We are coming in hot and we have targets on the board."

"Roger that, Drone Three." The young girl was intent on her screen as Dona came up behind her, touching her lightly on the shoulder. "Colonel?"

"Put me on."

The girl nodded and hit a button for the mic.

"Hi, Trooper."

"Hey, Colonel."

"Are we having fun yet?"

"Oh, you betcha." The grin was there in his tone, although Trooper Noya's face wasn't onscreen, that bit of data being not particularly important to the action.

He might be able to see her, though. Then again, he might not—

The bombs, rockets and missiles hanging on Drone Three were of far more importance.

At such short range, he could carry a maximum load and still have time to hang around for a while.

"Activate Mongoose Two." The person in charge fired three rockets and then put it on standby while awaiting results.

That little column of enemy vehicles was just coming up to the paint marks put there on the road for the very purpose.

The cameras didn't lie. The flight time had been carefully calculated.

It must have been close. The view from that camera or that set of cameras was shaken, then obscured by dust and smoke and yes, now the tell-tale orangey-black flames and smoke.

"Some kind of hit or hits there, Colonel."

"Very well. Let the smoke clear. We're not in a hurry. The enemy is. Watch the board, there are any number of other possibilities—" That was the problem, wasn't it.

No one could watch everything at once and she had to let them go—she had to trust the people under her command to do the jobs assigned to them, to do them well, and not fuck it up right when they needed something the most.

Her voice rose.

"Don't be afraid to look at the big board, ladies and gentlemen, but pay attention to your own stations."

"What about the tanks, Colonel?"

"Yeah. Try a shot at the tanks. Pick one, and use one rocket. Take your time and do the math. Don't just blanket the area. We only have so many of those things to go around. The odds are, they'll either pull them back, or start them moving."

Those tanks were sitting up there for a reason.

"What about the bridge?" Arthur Li, nineteen years old, hailing from Arcturus Five, was in touch with the artillery.

"Give it a few minutes. Let a few more of them get across." For the moment, they were shelling the woods and the road further back.

***

With a momentary lull in the action as the Unfriendlies consolidated their hard-won gains, a couple of empty hilltops and a bridge, (there were a few boobies up there, but not too many), she'd taken a quiet moment in her office. This was just down the promenade from the Command Centre. All one could really say was that her key had fit the lock. Which was oddly reassuring. She'd barely been in there since day one at Ryanville, (was that yesterday, or was it the day before?) and it was an interesting feeling. This one must have belonged to someone pretty high up in the company. The mall manager maybe. The silence was impressive.

As expected, there came a knock at the door. Punctual, a good trait.

"Mr. Higgins."

"Colonel Graham. What an honour to meet you." The words were clipped, the pronunciation precise.

She shut the door.

"Please. Have a seat. It's been a long day—" She took the big one behind the desk. "You were successful."

"Ah, yes, Colonel. Our boy is safe in the arms of the medical officer."

"What sort of shape was he in?"

"Cold, wet, tired, and hungry. And, I would say, scared shitless for about the last three days. The emotional release of his rescue was considerable." He'd cried much of the way home, according to Mister Higgins.

Dona held up a buff envelope, unsealed, bulging with cash, all of it in small bills as no one around there would, or possibly even could, cash a hundred.

"Thank you. You're very kind."

"Trust me. This kid is worth his weight in gold." Truth was, they'd get his parole and then sell him back at a markup, and, depending on who he was, maybe even at a very good price. "Anyways, you saved his life, uh, maybe, and your conscience is clear."

The Denebi hadn't eaten him, tortured him or roasted him to death over a slow fire. That was always something. It sounded like they had been fascinated by him, as much as anything else.

They'd never seen an Unfriendly before.

He tipped his head, speaking carefully, listening carefully, and savouring the cognac so thoughtfully provided by an ever-helpful Lieutenant Wheeler.

Her people had been reporting that the average storekeeper made change multiple times a day in this insulated little economy, and rarely did they find it necessary to give out a hundred-credit bill in exchange. They absolutely hated breaking them. This required a trip to the bank, the good, old-fashioned kind with people and wickets and proper ID required.

Money wasn't so much tight as scarce as hen's teeth.

This was especially true of the real homesteaders, scattered all over Hell's half-acre.

As the saying went.

Identification was one thing a lot of people really didn't have on Deneb. Social problems were few and the need for control small—all of those wide-open spaces, all of that work to be done, and all of that money, or at least a living, to be made. People were at a premium. If you were here, you were a citizen. A birth certificate cost thirty-five Denebian dollars, and that held its own kind of logic.

It was good to talk to someone who wasn't a soldier once in a while—

Another personal revelation.

This economy was very much a cash and carry economy—personal credit of the handshake and a firm nod kind, and with regular people figuring out their accounts on the back of an envelope.

He was eyeing something on the desk.

"Oh. Sorry." Dona lifted the lacquered lid, the box beautifully-made, and pulled out a cigar for the man.

"Thank you. Wonderful—" He held it up horizontally between the upper lip and the bottom of the nose, whiskers rasping slightly with the contact. "Yes—very nice."

His eyes met hers. He smiled, revealing even, white teeth.

"Haven't seen one of them in years."

Reaching in, she gave him a handful. All of this would be going on the Confederation's tab anyways. No real concern of hers.

Selecting one for herself, she snipped the end off and handed over the cutter to Mister Higgins. A pipe smoker going by the initial impression, (everyone had a personal smell, and he'd been out in the bush for a day or two), he fished in a pocket for a box of wooden matches.

Acrid smoke arose.

"I will be speaking to him myself, of course, but I was wondering if there was anything in particular that he might have told you? I would also like to know more about the natives. Where did they grab him? And what were their intentions, bearing in mind they have attacked the Unfriendlies, at least the ones that we know of. Their war party, possibly parties, we think they're still in the vicinity." With that, she puffed a bit of blue smoke.

"Oh, yes. Yes, they are." He smiled, eyes alight with inner thoughts. "Ha. He wandered off, looking to relieve himself in the woods. They grabbed him at a vulnerable moment. It was dark, it was night-time. He barely made a squawk or so they said—too terrified, I suppose."

A smiled flashed across his features.

"...can't say as I blame him." There was a short pause— "Still had a bit of poop in his pants, when I got to him."

"Ha." Deadpan delivery, and she couldn't help but laugh.

Mister Higgins smiled.

This was more than enough to get started on, and the gentleman's mouth opened to speak.

"You'll like this. Silikoth was in town. I was lucky enough to see him going down the street. Having contacted one of the few Denebi that I know personally, word quickly reached the elders. The runners can easily do eighty or a hundred kilometres a day, you know, taking it in shifts, in a system not unlike the old Roman posts. The village, more of an encampment really, is only about twenty kilometres by road from Roussef. It's only a few kilometres off the road. They probably knew within forty or forty-five minutes. They didn't answer the radio, probably because of the switch from transmit to receive. They don't even know what a switch is. Ah. I've been studying them ever since I came here. I'd been to the village many times before. They were happy to speak to me, and readily gave him up for the small crate of coins provided. They don't usually spend them. They do everything but spend them. They spend bills, which they consider a great joke on us because they are so, ah, essentially useless to the culture. They like gold because it's easy to work and it doesn't corrode. Other than that, they don't really understand its monetary value. The higher-status girls have some very pretty necklaces made of coins, part of their dowry, and the men make arrowheads and other tools out of our more mundane coinage. It's the quality of the metal, you understand. Some of the work is extraordinary. I support myself in part here by curating and in some ways even mentoring young native artists. We sell the artifacts off-world and return over seventy-five percent of the revenue to the community. It's quite a fitting end to a long and distinguished career as a soldier myself. It's quite good to give something back. I feel very good about it. Anyhow. Back to our story—what do you want to know."

"Background is good."

"Hmn. I was only a lad when I first came here. I was with the predecessor to the Confederation, ah, the Dominium." Higgins had been a sallow-cheeked lad, to hear him tell it.

He'd put on a little weight since then. He was wearing curious green khakis, with a sort of cummerbund-like beltline, with no obvious fastenings or means of support around thick hips and visible but manageable tummy. He had a pension, lived alone, and had a couple of hands to run the eland ranch for him. It was more of a hobby, really.

He'd been enjoying a very quiet life.

He sighed, taking another puff.

"Wonderful. Anyways, back to your questions."

It would appear that the gentleman was just warming up. Starved for conversation, maybe.

Just another sad old man, the clock ticking down on the story of his life.

Not too many people around there to listen, sometimes.

***

Her private office had its uses.

"Ladies and gentlemen." They were having a senior staff meeting, away from the eyes and the ears of the Command Centre.

There were, however, one or two promising juniors present.

Dona wondered what Noya might have thought of all of this or what he might have contributed, but he was too valuable on Drone Three. The more so as he'd just taken out one of the Joshuas with an anti-tank missile. It was another one of his attacks out of the sun, nose down by eleven degrees and the 'do-not-exceed' speed-limit of the aircraft just an ironic note inscribed on a virtual metal tag on the dashboard.

"Our big question. Does the enemy have a satellite up there or do they not? It sure doesn't seem like it, and yet they do get the odd hit. When they located the Denebi war party. It is only an assumption that it was their drone that spotted them. When they drive straight into an ambush—what would they do differently, if they knew all about it in advance? Drive straight into it—seriously? Yet it's awfully difficult to spot anything in this terrain, or to do anything different, even with a satellite, one perhaps not quite as good as ours. There is, after all, only the one road. Maybe it's the ground end that's the problem. The individual trooper has nowhere near the tech that our people do. Maybe they do know all about it—they did stop, reverse and pull back behind a hill crest in that first Walzbruch ambush."

Then there was the case of Command Centre Two. There was no guarantee that the Confederation had been ratted-off by enemy spies or civilian sympathizers. Command One also fit that bill—once it was empty, why even bother to hit it?

That satellite almost had to be there.

There. It was out there—and she found herself exhaling heavily, almost in a kind of relief.

This was the sort of thing that really preyed on the mind. She was also very tired.

"Yeah, it's a tough question." Harvey. "Even if they do have a satellite, it simply might not be capable of picking up the smallest targets in the really fine detail. In the infrared, how would we tell the difference between a Puma, for example, and any one of a hundred different makes and models of civilian vehicle. We know it's a Puma because we put it there. We have the IFF to prove it. There's not much to choose between them, datawise, sometimes."

Paul was shaking his head.

"But if they have one up there, and if it's any good, why not use it?"

Dona was nodding.

"That's exactly my point. Even if they know everything there is to know, they still have that imperative of time. There's no question of waiting us out. Not with winter coming and the strategic situation elsewhere. There's no real chance of a long siege. We simply don't have the numbers. A battle of attrition is precisely what we are trying to avoid. They don't need sophisticated strategy. All they have to do is to keep coming on and inevitably, they will swamp us. Another thing. We could take out their ships, all of them, with a few well-placed rounds from Mongoose One."

"Right." Vicky Chan followed up. "But—that means upping the ante, which we're not ready to do quite yet. It simply isn't necessary, right now, and therefore it isn't the proper time."

The enemy, counting missiles fired, would spend a lot of time wondering where and when the next ones would arrive. Or even if there were any more missiles at all. It was a poker game, one played with human lives. The key to the game was to keep them guessing. If one must lose, try not to lose by too much—

The young woman, Rafferty held up a hand.

"Are you saying that McMurdo isn't quite ready to up the ante?"

"Not before he has to. Right, ah, Colonel?"

"Yes. If he has it, he will use it. But just to drive up a highway with a markedly superior force. The point is, he can take a few casualties for the sole purpose of keeping us in the dark. He's not afraid to spend money, to shed blood, and to lose people. Not if it achieves his purpose. He was a colonel for fourteen years, most of it in staff work. Admittedly, the Unfriendlies were at peace, but. This is his big chance. They can grab this planet, all for a few thousand casualties. He knows it. He's told us more than once that he has ten times our number. We've seen nothing to contradict that. And yes, we do look for such verification. Why in the hell would he ever tell us the truth? We're not that dumb, and neither is he. My point is, I don't want us to become too complacent regarding that satellite. Our people are using cover as best they can, as they were trained to do. Our vehicles, with their radar-absorbent materials and stealthy design, all of that only goes so far. This is no time to get sloppy. Don't let them do it, okay? In today's morning bulletin, I will put something in there about the satellite and, ah, the old 'eyes in the sky' sort of thing. Hopefully, that will be sufficient."

Harvey and Rafferty nodded, looking at each other. Confederation troops certainly had the training. They were getting plenty of experience out there as well. The vehicles were good, but they couldn't be that good.

"So, we must still assume that they're up there." Harvey looked thoughtful. "In which case, how big is it, and where, roughly should that be, if it was more or less similar in size, power and capability as our own?" It would have to be a limited volume of space to begin with.

"That's a very good question, Harvey. You have some thoughts on the subject. Would you like a crack at it? I mean, if it's up there?" Even if they could just confirm it.

That would be extremely helpful.

He grinned from ear to ear.

"Sure." His eyes strayed to the girl. "Can I have some, ah, help with that? And I'll need a bit of bandwidth on our bird....some box time." He was referring to the Mark Seventeen and the ground hardware, crunching a lot of big numbers real fast.

Dona looked at Lieutenant Wheeler.

"I think that can be arranged. It's a relatively small battle here, and we have all kinds of reserve system capacity." A couple of work-stations and a chair and a table or two would be enough.

"Very well. Meeting adjourned. Those on duty, off you go. The rest of you, get some rest. We're going to need it in the next day or two."

Chapter Thirty-Six

It was an interesting moment. For the first time in the campaign, Dona was calling McMurdo. He was up onscreen in a moment.

"Colonel Graham. Dona. What an unexpected pleasure."

He was positively purring, his forces having finally taken the road junction, and with a small but powerful armoured column presently on the short road to Roussef, This while the main force refreshed and regrouped.

"Hello, General McMurdo. And how are you this fine day?" And she meant it, too.

As long as he stayed healthy, the Unfriendlies wouldn't replace him.

The family had too much klout for that.

"Ah—very well, thank you."

He sat there, wondering. Surely he knew she wasn't about to surrender, in which case curiosity would be building.

She nodded and a trooper put up the image. This was one Private First Class Phillip Dionne Jackson, Unfriendly trooper and only recently ransomed from the native Denebi. According to a published family tree in their databank, he seemed genuine enough.

"I would just like to reassure the General that his grand-nephew is safe and that he is being treated very well."

"Oh, dear. That—that's—" With a swallow and a nod, the General acknowledged the gesture.

"Well, that's wonderful, Colonel Graham. Really rather decent of you."

She smiled, having just disgorged the canary or maybe it was the Cheshire cat she was thinking of.

"I would like to return him to you. Honestly, we don't have the facilities for large numbers of prisoners. I am also deeply saddened by the number of recent Unfriendly casualties. I would like the General to know that we are taking every step to minimize such casualties as much as possible under the present circumstances." She meant it too.

The sooner they wrapped this up, the more Unfriendlies that would be going home. They might live to fight another day. Maybe they would just live.

They might even be a little smarter after this.

She wasn't being paid to hate people.

"Ah—ah. Er."

"At exactly ten-hundred hours this morning, a red civilian pickup truck, a Roussef Volunteer Fire Department truck to be exact, will approach the junction of Highways 17 and 2, just east of Roussef. He'll be coming from the north. Phillip will be alone, in fact he assures us that he can drive it. That saves me from risking one of my troopers, whom, as I'm sure you are aware, are already quite busy enough. We will avoid detonating any mines, or any other ordinance while Phillip is in transit. That's a window of about fifteen or twenty minutes. I will be giving up my own personal transport, General, so I do hope you appreciate it."

"Ah—Colonel Graham."

"Yes?"

"Thank you. Thank you very much." The gentleman's chest heaved with some kind of strong emotion.

Maybe he had finally figured it out, whatever. Maybe he remembered Phillip, opening presents on Christmas morning in front of some big old fireplace, at the family manor, or dandling him on his knee. The baptismal font—

He might really love that kid.

He swallowed, eyes shifting, but he was a brave man and they inevitably came back.

"Ah. I was wondering. If there was something, ah, something reasonable, that I could possibly do for you, my dear, ah...in exchange?" The face was definitely darker now.

"Yes, Ralph. There is. I would suggest that my earlier suggestion was actually a pretty reasonable one. Civilian emergency vehicles, police, fire and ambulance...with all the lights going, sirens going, should be considered as neutral in this present conflict?"

His mouth opened and then closed.

He smiled, the first genuine reaction she'd seen.

A paper transaction, almost meaningless except that honour had been served.

Honour, must always be served.

Some kind of bargain had been struck. This was now a relationship.

He nodded, he shrugged. He sighed.

He smiled again, the face a little colder this time. Perhaps he really was beginning to get it—

"Of course, Colonel Graham. I agree. That seems reasonable enough. And I thank you—on behalf of his mother, his family, and naturally, on my own behalf. Ah, also, on behalf of my own dear sweet mother, as well as my wives, daughters and sisters. Thank you for, for giving us back our Phillip."

It almost looked like he was going to get emotional. That one had hit home. She clenched down hard on an impulse to ask about the concubines—did they like Phillip too?

The life of one man had just been saved.

The old boy must have been pretty worried about Phillip.

"There was just one point that I wanted to mention, General."

"Oh, please, Dona. Call me Ralph." This smile was completely artificial and not very good.

"Sure. Ralph. If your people had come in peace. If they had landed on the other side of Denebola-Seven. There is virtually nothing the people of Denebola-Seven could have done about it. Simply put, it would have been too costly." There weren't the forces or even the transport available. "Some sort of accommodation would have been a lot more likely."

"Ah, Dona. But surely you understand that there is a war on."

So. This was part of their greater strategy.

Thanks, Ralph.

Play dumb.

Play the embattled commander.

"Yeah, but there wasn't—not until you people came along. The problem is, you would have had to start in the middle of nowhere and to build from scratch. It is just so much easier to take what doesn't belong to you. You have all kinds of bogus religious justification. For what it's worth. It's a question of tolerance, and you people simply haven't learned to get along with others."

Not yet, maybe someday—

Hopefully, sooner rather than later.

"In which case, Dona, our people would have been extremely vulnerable."

Scrambling to recover—

That one had hit home pretty good as well.

"How could they be vulnerable if there wasn't a war on? And we weren't likely to start one, either, Ralph. You outnumber us ten to one, after all. No, whatever happens here, it's all on your own head—you and your superiors."

"Dona, Dona—"

She cut him off, being rather sick of that patronizing tone by this point.

You and your sick little videos.

***

The Unfriendlies, having lost more people, more weapons and more vehicles on the short stretch leading to Roussef, were undeterred.

Having reassured themselves that the Confederation forces were mostly withdrawn, the bulk of them had turned around and come back to the road junction, and yet one more day had passed.

Also, another eighty or so casualties—the Confederation defenses having been heavy and well thought-out.

Roussef was essentially neutralized by one strong roadblock, and everybody knew it. No matter what actually happened there.

There were rumblings in the night, as they rested and reorganized for what could only be a dawn start. They had reset their artillery positions so as to dominate the road to Ryanville for the next twenty or more kilometres. By this time they must have had twelve or fifteen hundred troops involved in the operation, the count tallied by observation after observation. Yet another column forming up in Deneb City, there were helos patrolling the hills north of the city, hoping to locate the Mongoose if it was indeed used—and she was definitely considering it but the last reloads were precious.

Dawn was breaking in the southeastern sky. There might even be a little sun today.

"All right. They're moving. Alert all positions."

Harvey began tapping away on his board and the other staff members were riveted to their tasks.

You could have heard a pin drop—if it hadn't been for the carpeting.

The first rounds were already falling on both sides, as the Unfriendly barrage opened up ahead of them and the Confederation troops blew the first of the charges. The charges were wired not along the road and the ditch, but by trunks and busses up in the hills, parallel to the road. As usual, the charges had been buried, camouflaged and obscured as well as possible. Every booby had its own camera, sometimes more than one. They were now wired into their network, which would only be temporarily useful. From now on, every defense point would be hard-linked by fibre so that people could talk to each other. Buried in their holes and bunkers, with the weather worsening, the satellite laser-link wasn't nearly so reliable and they had to have communication.

Upon withdrawal, this part of the network would be cut up into little bits and abandoned, using remotely-triggered explosives.

Downstream fibre cables had been cut. The Unfriendlies had tripped over that a few times by now. They must understand the significance of it, but hadn't tried to use it for anything so far. They were jamming known Confederation radio frequencies, but with simple trailered generators providing the power, the area they could swamp was limited to a bare few kilometres in radius and that would be on level ground—in this hill country, it was even less a lot of the time. At close ranges, the com units carried by individual troopers were burning right through it, what with the short signals, heavily-compressed bursts of data at max power. As for the enemy drones, the very latest in battlefield jamming capability should have been a priority, but apparently no one had thought much about that. As for the enemy radio traffic, the Confederation was glad enough to have it. They were sucking it up and analyzing it. They were recording every bit of it for eventual decryption by bigger machines.

Machines that were much more capable than anything available on Debebola-Seven. The larger strategic picture being what it was. The data might be worth her whole command—if they could just get it off-planet.

The fibre links saved them from yelling back and forth, foxhole to foxhole.

"Here comes the infantry." With a good one-point-two kilometres between one peak and the next, anticipating ambush and stiffening resistance the closer they got to Ryanville, the enemy assault force appeared to consist of light scouting vehicles, sacrificial goats leading the van, then some Samson armoured cars, a string of armoured personnel carriers, and then came the Joshuas, which were back up on the trailers. "They're scattered about pretty good. Trying to avoid obvious ambush or mine-points."

There were two companies on foot, one on each side of the road...

Further infantry was aboard a long line of trucks and other assorted vehicles, including more armour, on the far side of the hill.

"Activate Mongoose Two. Hit that leading column, please."

"Roger that, Colonel." The trooper looked over. "We'll fire them one at a time, Colonel."

Good.

A single triangular icon appeared on the big board.

"Tracking."

"Thank you."

Artillery rounds were landing on the forward assault group, and once again, the scene was becoming obscured by smoke. With a low, overcast sky, the satellite was next to useless. The fact that an enemy satellite would also be similarly affected wasn't a whole lot of comfort.

What if it's a hell of a lot better than ours?

With their two columns united now, and mindful of Noya's recent success with the drone aircraft, the Unfriendlies had two drones in the air today, one of them purely for reconnaissance and the other now armed with an underslung, pod-type machine-gun mount. Considering the size of the aircraft, this might be anything up to a cannon in the 17 to 23-mm class. This drone was shadowing the recon machine, anything from one and a half to two kilometres back, and staying about a thousand metres higher in altitude. It was clearly meant to protect the other machine's tail, and hoping to get a crack at one of the Confederation drones which tended to stay as high as possible where the ground-based systems couldn't get at them. This was simple enough—keep the enemy drone between your own and the enemy column. If they tried to take you out, they stood just as much chance of hitting their own machine.

The Unfriendlies had been doing some thinking and were clearly prepared to slug it out.

"Mongoose hit on the column, Colonel. Assessing results, but we probably got somebody."

"Thank you. Release the drones, please." They'd been on standby, engines ticking over on the ground.

It was time for an air raid, and with the road to Ryanville wired for sound, colour and action in a proper and continuous feedback loop, all three were armed to the teeth. Their cameras would be used for targeting this morning.

"Colonel!" Two pictures came up in the middle of her big battle-board.

One was a POV, a point-of-view shot, moving quickly through brush and trees and then up a short but steep incline.

The other view was a panoramic, now zooming in to reveal the blur of one of their big-dog animals as it raced up to the side of one of the truckloads of infantry at an indicated eighty kilometres per hour. With probably fifteen or twenty people in there not counting the driver and relief up front, the resulting explosion would have been devastating.

Again, all along the line, the column halted while the burning wreck was cleared. A few stretchers were carried away.

Dona sighed.

"Thank you. Good work."

The room was very quiet.

Another fifteen minutes had been used up.

***

Dona was with Harvey and the girl, proud of their work and their accomplishment.

"Okay, Colonel. Here's the visible-spectrum shot from our bird. And down here, in the left corner, is a little black dot." They'd timed the call to the colonel perfectly, and the white cloud-tops made it so much easier to see. "We zoomed out, and panned around, rather than zooming in. Makes a big difference in close-up focus, and therefore the acuity."

This was live, all in real-time.

That's how they'd spotted it in the first place, against cloud cover lit by the morning sun, that and one fortuitous radar-glint reflecting off of it shortly before dawn broke. With stealthy design it was otherwise invisible to their other instruments.

"Hmn. Very nice." That was one way of putting it—

So the bastards had one up there after all.

"Ah. What do you want us to do now, Colonel?"

Having enjoyed the present assignment, they would be understandably concerned about being separated—clearly liking each other's company in their cozy little lab, off and away from everyone else.

"Okay. Harvey. We need an estimate of its size. The Unfriendlies have some systems that are known to intelligence, although this one might be something new. Let's see if we can identify it, first of all. Second. I would like a proper position, as accurate as you can make it..."

Coordinates, altitude, mass, all down to the nth degree. Its velocity was only slightly less than their own. Small as such birds were, it couldn't be that far off, or they'd never have seen it with the lens or the human eye—they had a couple of starting points for the math. Harvey was looking at her oddly, mouth open, but she'd had all of their training, plus plenty more where that came from. Captains knew a lot of stuff that private troopers didn't and might never.

"Our own bird has good maneuvering capability, Colonel. It's in a geosynchronous orbit, the energy state is over ninety percent since initial boost was from LEO." The girl took a breath. "What I was thinking, is what if we can get closer and maybe get a better look."

Burn off some fuel in retro, and consequently some speed. The Mark Seventeen would descend. That part was simple enough. Milo might drop out of the picture, but it was a backwater anyways.

Dona nodded.

"What's interesting is that they're not too far off of our own satellite's position. We're lucky that theirs is in a lower orbit, and that is for sure." Was the enemy satellite heavier by some substantial margin?

Would that necessarily imply that it was older, less sophisticated? Or did it mean it was more modern, and better-equipped than the Confederation's bird. Perhaps it had extensive maneuvering capability of its own. Its fuel state might be closer to one hundred percent.

The Mark Seventeen Satellite, deployed by the Confederation years before as part of their security mandate for Denebola-Seven, was using technology that was thirty or forty years out of date. It was a second-hand unit, adequate enough at the time.

"At least now we have some questions to work with." That was the thing with the girl, Flaherty—that mind struck on things that others seemed to miss.

She turned things around. She looked at things from the other end—which was why Dona was sort of interested in her future with the Organization.

The Mark Seventeen had some very good optics and the sensors were the best that could be provided at that time.

The Unfriendly satellite might be brand-new tech, and at least comparable to the best anyone from more developed sectors of the galaxy could put up. It might be indigenous tech, but it might just as well have been acquired somewhere else. All it took was money and the Unfriendlies had been on a bit of a spending spree lately.

"You guys have something to work on."

"Ah, yes, ma'am." Harvey put his head down and began searching the database for known Unfriendly military reconnaissance satellites...

The girl nodded, tongue-tied now perhaps, when confronted with the CO's approval.

"Good. I will leave you with that. Good luck to you guys and carry on."

She would tell them the part about shooting it down when they had a little more information.

The door closed behind her.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

The enemy were advancing up the road to Ryanville.

The Confederation troops were ambushing them, mining key bridges, and defending ridges, chosen almost at random. One or two of the higher hills had been ignored for example, and then the enemy had been taken from the flank down in the flatlands on the other side. It had cost them one of the Samsons, a couple of infantry vehicles, and the Confederation had sacrificed a Puma.

The crew of four people were now walking north-west, keeping a kilometre or so southwest of the road. Killing two birds with one stone, they would report observations or contact with the enemy. Foot patrols still had their uses, and they had to get out of there anyways. At the rate the Unfriendlies were going, they might even beat them to the next ambush point. If so, they stood a good chance of pickup.

The air raid had gone well enough, the drones dropping dumb little iron bombs (a grand total of twelve bombs for crying out loud), from two hundred metres relative altitude onto the long string of trucks and small four-bys trailing at the back end of the armoured column. This was far from any other ambush point, coming out of nowhere as it were. They'd gotten a few hits and a lot of near-misses, almost as good when using shrapnel against unprotected trucks and other soft-skinned machines.

The impression, was that the enemy column was burning from end to end in the drone and other footage.

The enemy drone operators, not expecting exactly that scenario, had seemed powerless or unwilling to come down and interfere with such an operation. To be fair, it was all over within one and a half minutes of popping up over the horizon. Things might be different next time.

Having dumped its load, Drone One had climbed out to the northeast, coming around again and taking up station above and behind the enemy drones. Drone Two and Three had returned to base on a zigzag, nap-of-the-planet course, Three for refueling and dispersal, and Two for further bombing up.

Two would await further action.

The enemy drones appeared oblivious to the possibilities, but they clearly had their function and their orders.

"Drone One."

"Drone One. Colonel Graham. State your message."

She was unfamiliar with this one, but he clearly had some kind of training or experience.

"Proceed with the second part of the plan."

"Roger that. Initiating."

They watched onscreen as Drone One, a good three kilometres back, reduced throttle. The operator, Trooper Kuri Mackinnen, with a wife and two kids back in good old Helsinki, put the nose down and centred up on the first of the enemy drones. The highest one. The one with the gun. All of his jammers were going at full power in case of enemy missile launch.

"Firing, Colonel."

There might have been a couple of hits.

This guy was good. Still a few hundred or more metres behind the enemy drone, he descended past it at a high rate of speed. Pulling up hard, he popped it right in the belly from what looked like less than a hundred metres. Stuff fell and spun away, and then it was burning and breaking up.

"...awesome."

"Thank you Colonel Graham—and we can wax one bandit." This little piggy would be going right into the bank.

It would be a big help in giving his kids an education.

The land went sideways in the view, and the craft was banking hard left, the nose camera attempting to get a good shot of the enemy drone as it spun into the ground and the trees.

It was gone, gone from the board and that was good.

Kill confirmed.

"Careful there—don't pull the wings off." That sure sounded like Noya, tapping in from the drone base and its own little control room.

"I'm fine. Shut up. Coming back around—" This one would take one hell of a bite out of the home mortgage. "Powering up a bit."

She could almost read the thoughts sometimes. Pilots had a certain personality type. He knew there were people watching. Some of them would be right there at his elbow, getting a little on-the-job training for their own future drone operations.

With a bit of luck, he'd get that other drone and then the enemy would be mostly blind.

***

Movie night on the big screen had been canceled.

Everything that they had brought in, except for some bagged-up garbage, was on their backs.

Team Three was changing locations, in an operation designed to get them closer, to within visual distance of the enemy command centre. They'd had enough reports, but it was best to confirm it themselves before wasting the Mongoose missiles.

Breaking out of their hastily-erected cubicle, all steel studs and drywall and batts of insulation, was a work of a few minutes. They'd had light and heat and fresh air ducts in the ceiling.

The lights and fixtures had been there to begin with. It was easy enough to build, and easy enough to escape. A bit of fresh paint in the air was hardly remarkable in a commercial building.

Score the back of the drywall sheet with a utility knife, V-groove it out, stand back, and give it a push. Shove the blade right through, cut the far side's paper, and shove again. An anonymous workman, complete with work order, would come in a few days later and tear it all out. The place would be back to normal. All according to the plan. No one would miss the place, with its completely blank walls, away from windows. Admittedly they'd had a washroom and about a half a ton of self-heating ready-to-eats. They'd spent the time off-watch reading, playing games, listening to their earbuds and sleeping as much as possible. The joke was that they all seemed to be gaining a bit of weight. Built in, seemingly a part of the central support structure including stairwell and elevator shafts, it was almost undetectable. No one, not even the most optimistic real estate agent herding the most marginal prospect, had been through that floor in days.

The thoughts of a civilian security guard walking their rounds through the upper part of the building were not pleasant, quiet as they were keeping. Having tapped into the internal closed-circuit system, plus the addition of a few hard-wired cameras of their own, they'd been keeping a close eye on them.

There was a desk in the lobby where the unarmed, private security guards (in their horrid burgundy and black uniforms and zip-sided ankle-length boots), could read, or watch TV and the front doors and back doors all at the same time.

The stairwells were clear.

No one talked, concentrating on the feet and walking silently.

The sharp squeak of rubber on concrete was enough to draw dirty looks from all concerned—

Dales held up a hand.

Okay, okay.

It was four-forty-five a.m. and very dark, quite chilly when the trooper unbolted one of the anonymous metal doors on the alley. A power failure, coming at just the right time, ensured that the alarm didn't sound. Slated for ten minutes or so, it would soon end though, and so they had to move quickly and to get to their next station.

There were only the six of them, flitting through the shadows. The Unfriendlies, suspicious enough by nature, would be wondering what the blackout portended. They had people at the local power plant and it would only be possible to stall for so long, to pretend, to obfuscate and to double-talk. The Unfriendlies had engineers of their own. Again, people were taking a huge risk for the Confederation and no one wanted to let them down—or get caught.

Whoever had pulled that particular switch was probably walking north even as the thought came to him.

Trooper Dales paused at the end of the alley. According to their information, sure enough, there were Unfriendly troops stationed at the intersection of two major streets half a block away. They had two vehicles and a half a dozen soldiers slouching around. Bored as hell, most likely. The city had been pretty quiet for the last week or so. They'd be asleep on their feet at this point in the shift. They'd be looking forward to relief, a good breakfast and then their beds.

Luckily, they were south and Team Three was going north.

This time of day, there were very few vehicles parked along the streets. At least they were on rougher concrete, a lot quieter under the soft-soled combat boots, and a hell of a lot better than having crunchy old gravel underfoot.

Two by two, weapons set on safety, keeping low and moving carefully, they crossed the street, made their way to the mouth of another alley and then filtered in.

From there, it was a bare five hundred metres, all quiet little side-streets and even quieter alleys.

As for accommodation, it had been provided for them.

All that would take would be a trip via the stairwells to the twenty-fourth floor, locate their particular unlet office space. They had a copy of the master-key. Once inside, it was the work of a minute, using an electric screwdriver. All it took was the removal of a couple of plastic trim strips, the demounting of one sheet of high-grade, vinyl wallpaper-clad drywall, and one very brave and enthusiastic civilian volunteer to seal it all up again once they were inside. All he needed was the screwdriver and a rubber mallet or the heel of his hand to pop back a couple of plastic trim-strips. This little cubicle had been erected in between a couple of vacant offices, from the outside just looking like a bit of blank hallway going along there. Right down to the baseboards. You could plug a vacuum cleaner into the receptacle, and it would work as the wiring was all live.

But then—they needed power too.

At that point, all they had to do was to plug in with the boards, and this time, they would at least have a window. There was food and water enough for a week or ten days already in there.

That man, an unarmed civilian security guard, probably enough, making a fairly minimal wage, was expecting them. The alarm on his particular building had also been switched off.

As for whether they completely trusted him, he'd been positively identified. He had a house, one owned by his parents before him. He had a job, a vehicle, a wife and three kids. He'd been well paid, half in advance, and the rest of it they would find out soon enough.

They were looking for a rusty brown door, with the overhead light housing a burned-out bulb in case the blackout ended early. This was in an alley a further two blocks up the street.

Turning the last corner, in the dim light of early dawn, Trooper Dales saw a tall, slender figure standing in the alley, a few feet from the door in question. A pin-prick of light flared. The guy was having a smoke, a pasteboard cup of vending-machine coffee, flaring green in the goggs with the heat, sitting on top of a crate and it looked like it was part of his regular routine. No smoking in the building, right?

Dales wondered how anyone could ever drink that shit—

One some instinct, the figure turned.

"Jim? Jim? Is that you?" There was some nervousness evident, but man was there and the door was wide open, propped open with a good-sized rock.

He kept the small flashlight off.

Walking up, straightening to his full height, Dales spoke, not too softly, but in a relatively normal tone. The rifle was slung upside-down, in close alongside his left shoulder, relatively inconspicuously. Or so he hoped. The other people were somewhere behind, covering him. Chances had to be taken. This guy was nervous as all hell, judging by the odd tremor in the right hand. Either that or he had Parkinson's.

"Hey. How's it going? Looks like another lovely day, eh, Mister Marcus?"

Practically hyperventilating, the guy's head bobbed and he indicated the door.

"I—I'll be up in a minute." He must need that cigarette pretty bad—

A real bad coughing spell would draw attention, and Dales hoped the guy would keep it together for a few more minutes. Dales was pretty sure they hadn't been followed, but if the gentlemen wanted to reassure himself, that was okay too.

It was understandable enough.

"Sure. We'll be in the stairwell." At the bottom, just around the corner, but he didn't say it.

Dales gave the signal, keeping the weapon right where it was.

Dark forms flitted past as the team made their way in. It was blacker than Toby's ass out there. Overcast, no stars or moons at all. His ears were straining, hand up to keep Marcus quiet.

There was nothing out there but a garbage truck on the next block and one very small but excited dog, barking somewhere not too far away to the west.

From there, there were two or three possible escape routes, including smashing out second or third-floor windows and getting out by adjacent rooftops, ignoring the more obvious street-level doors. The alleys between were only about two or three metres wide and as far as jumps went, a bit of adrenalin would be all it really took.

That and a sense of commitment.

"Okay. I will be off, sir. Enjoy the rest of your day."

"Thank you—thank you, ah, ah, Jim."

Mister Marcus was scared shitless, and Bales could hardly blame the man for that.

***

The tops of the tallest modern buildings were festooned with aerials and antennas of all types.

Team Three's little unit, placed there days before and with a cable coming in through a hole drilled in the stone cladding just below the parapet, nicely caulked so as not to leak, was slaved to the satellite. In good working order, nothing bad had happened to it, (bird-shit down the antenna-tube, for example), and there were no signs of enemy troops ever having gone up on the roof.

With clear skies now over Deneb City, the signal was good. A strand of hair, glued with a bit of spit across the bottom of the roof-top access door-frame in a gag as old as time itself, was intact and appeared to have been undisturbed.

Not even the cleaners had been through what was, after all, unoccupied space. Such spaces, the top three floors in this case, were costing money and not generating any revenue—so why clean them. According to the security guard, the enemy hadn't been in the building except for a six-man patrol that had come in through the front lobby, and then straight through, out the back doors in what might have been simple curiosity.

Nothing like that had been seen since, and also according to him, the locals hated the Unfriendlies. The other guards, on other shifts, all felt the same way.

Hate, such a useful thing.

Hopefully that was all true. This one was the only one with any information at all regarding Team Three. They had his name, they had his address. All of that was known to the Command Centre.

Betrayal seemed unlikely, but they were taking an awful chance—sooner or later, you always had to take a chance. After a series of thumps and snaps on the other side of their partition, Marcus had gone off to play his role down below. In the remote camera view, their outer wall looked pristine. Three minutes later, Marcus was at his desk, movements jerky, hands visibly shaking as he pretended to read a magazine.

***

Across the street on the west side, and one building north, was the Unfriendly headquarters.

The distance was about seventy-five metres to the nearest corner.

"Team Three."

"Reporting."

"Confirm target please."

The trooper on the scope snorted and turned to his partner, the other four team-members off-watch and trying to sleep on what was a pretty thin commercial carpeting. It had some kind of underlay but it wasn't very comfortable. They'd been sleeping on commercial-grade floors for days now...

It was only slightly better than bare cement.

"Put this shot up for the Command Centre."

It was eight-thirty-two a.m. and a big black limousine stood at the curb in front of the building in question.

The driver was out of the vehicle and a lackey at the top of the steps was holding a door.

"If that ain't good old McMurdo himself, I'll be a monkey's uncle."

They watched as he, and a more junior officer carrying a heavy briefcase in each hand, went up the stairs.

"Roger that. Monitor the situation, please."

"Give them five or ten minutes. Then fire."

"Yes, sergeant."

The time wound down...

That was it.

On their own little battle-board, a red icon began blinking. Mongoose One was live.

Two orange carets appeared, tracking nicely towards town. For some reason, his heart was pounding. This was about as real as it could get. There were dozens, possibly hundreds of Unfriendlies in that tower, and boy, were they going to be mad—mad as all hell. How in the hell Team Three was ever going to get out of there was another damned good question.

Pray those missiles track properly.

"You might want to get your head out of that fucking window."

"Roger that, baby."

He looked over to where one baleful eye gleamed from a sleeping bag in the corner.

"Heads up. We got incoming."

"Argh. Shit. Now?"

The trooper nodded happily. This was their moment in the sun, the moment they had all been waiting for.

"Aw, fuck." People struggled up, batting the next person on the shoulder to wake them too.

Backs to the front wall, knees up and helmets strapped on, with their hands protecting their ears, they sat there waiting for impact.

Trooper Dales, counting down silently in his head, scrunched his eyes closed real hard. Head down, between the knees.

This was going to be big—

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Hundreds of kilometres to the north, the battle for Ryanville was unfolding.

Confronted by a major bridge spanning a switchback of the Ryan River a few kilometres below the town, the enemy had thoroughly scouted it. Finding no charges, it seemed as if they were suspicious in the extreme. They were just sitting there, on the far side.

Waiting for something, but it had been noted, despite a persistent rain and heavy clouds, that the common enemy soldier seemed to be eating up a storm, what with the unexpected luxury of time.

Night had fallen.

There were rows of trestle tables, scores of folding chairs, all under a long lash-up of poles, ropes and tarpaulins. A line-up of cooks and kitchen labour manning dozens of gas barbies and liquid-fuel stoves in the typical Unfriendly battlefield kitchen. A lantern or a chemical light-stick hung on every tree.

They were being issued ammunition, as well. In the camera views, one of them barely three metres up, stuck to the bottom of a branch of a tall jack pine. They had been making some pretty big bonfires to warm themselves. People milled around, talking, sitting, smoking, on their waterproof ponchos laying under trees. After counting the tents and the vehicles, it would appear that a good number were in the tents, oblong heat-signatures tending to confirm that they were going to bed early. All the tents seemed to have heaters, just inside the door, easily identifiable from three hundred kilometres up.

"So. What are we thinking, Colonel?"

Paul was just coming on shift and Dona was more than ready to go off.

"Ah—a night attack, probably" Shortly before dawn, in her estimation.

"Hmn." They wouldn't want to drive across that in daylight, in full view of the Confederation, with their troops and weapons high in the hills overlooking the bridge.

One good missile, even just mortar fire in the right place, and they would lose valuable assets—their forward elements would also be cut off and vulnerable. Infantry might try crossing the river in inflatable boats, and with supporting artillery fire, they would try and clear the overlooking hilltops. This would seem to be a logical move for the biggest bridge so far.

"Very well. We'll put the word out and maybe, Colonel. Maybe you can have a good sleep."

"I wish. Hell, it might even happen."

She looked at the big clock up on the wall.

The thing to do was to go off now.

When things started popping, she would be called and that was the best that could be done.

As for the missile strike on Deneb City, they had gotten two good hits. An unknown number of casualties. With fairly small warheads of high explosive, outward damage was extensive but the building hadn't come down and that might have been a good thing. It was, after all, private property. There would have been at least a few civilians in the building, janitors and maintenance staff. So much simpler for the Unfriendlies to supervise the civilians with a couple of troopers, as opposed to bringing in their own stationary engineers to run the boiler room.

Why bother, when you expected to win? Civilians, with a gun poking in their face, tended to cooperate. Once the situation had stabilized, they would have little choice but to serve a new master—at a slight cut in pay, perhaps.

"Have you seen the weather picture?"

"Yes."

There was a storm brewing, no question about it. The meteorologists were not entirely sure if it would snow or if it would be rain. One, very cold rain. And after that, a whole lot of mud, with every little creek and gully a raging torrent.

It would inevitably warm up again.

Whatever happened, it would arrive in the next twelve to twenty-four hours. If the Unfriendlies knew about it, which they surely must on some level, they must also know that their time was quickly running out.

Someone poked their head in the side door as Dona chatted with Paul and exchanged a few lame jokes with one trooper in particular. This one was busting out with personality. Jesus, they were all like that around here, each one trying to top the last one's joke.

For whatever reason, this guy, the punster was the best one of all—

"...trench warfare is so very often a last-ditch effort..."

Ha, ha, ha.

"Colonel. Your ride is here."

"Okay. Thanks, guys. See you later."

It was definitely cool out there, and Dona was grateful for the blacksuit. Even more so for a long mink coat that some thoughtful citizen had donated to the cause, along with a handwritten note that it was specifically for her—a little token of appreciation as it were. She stopped, taking a look at the stars, noting faint smudges of colour that might have been an aurora. Both moons were still in the sky, a possible hint as to the enemy's timing. She'd use her com unit and tell Paul in a minute.

Every detail was important.

The truth was, she probably did look good in that coat.

Who wouldn't, but the trooper was patiently holding the vehicle door for her and she really was tired.

She sighed. It was the sort of thing she never would have bought for herself. She could always donate it back when she left. Some homeless person, of which there were always going to be a few, might be sleeping in that coat someday—sleeping it off in some alley somewhere.

She wished them all the best.

One way or another, the way things were going, that day might not be too far away.

***

Having slept better than she had any right to expect, Dona was just stepping out of the shower when the com unit on the corner of the vanity buzzed.

Stark naked and dripping wet, she hit the button to kill the camera. The person on the other end was blocking their own ID and image—

"Hello?"

"It's on, Colonel."

"The attack?"

"No, the coffee-pot. Yes, Colonel. It's the attack."

"Who the hell is this?" She had sounded rather sterner than intended, quickly realizing that much.

A big grin split her face.

"You mean you don't know?"

"Ah...er—"

"See ya later, Fatso. Sorry, Colonel. A very old joke. Still a good one though, eh? Your ride is on the way," And then the little bugger hung up.

One had to assume he was just going off shift, and taking a bit of a chance on her temperament.

The place would be roaring with laughter, and that might not be such a bad thing at a time like this. It said a lot—a lot about their mood, and their confidence. Whoever she was relieving, her mind a perfect blank on that score, had probably been out of the room or he would have never tried it.

Morale seems pretty good, she thought. Very good.

Basterds.

***

The enemy artillery barrage opened up, the forward vehicles, all stoutly armoured, started moving, and in the satellite view, the hot-spots that were individual enemy troopers began walking. Fanning out on each side of the road, they quickly resolved themselves into squads and platoons, small groups of various sizes, speeding up and slowing down as the terrain changed, the land climbing up and down before them.

Confederation artillery rounds fell in among them, flaring and blossoming briefly. They were taking whatever toll they could, while they still could. Some of the dots stopped moving. Some of them didn't get going again.

Still out of range of the machine guns, it looked like five or six hundred troops were involved in the initial phase of the attack. There were a dozen scout cars, eight Samsons, and a host of smaller vehicles on the road. The Confederation had about forty people facing them, not so much to lay down small-arms or anti-tank fire as to recover some of the more important equipment when they were done in their planned roles. She was risking a dozen Pumas and three Panthers, but then they were running out of usefulness as the road ran ever shorter...

Studying the ground carefully, the speed of the enemy foot-sloggers had been estimated, and so far the data looked pretty good. Her people still had a good few minutes—twenty minutes, half an hour, maybe.

The hills were rugged, the slopes steep and overgrown with tough little cedars and other plant life growing out of cracks and crevices everywhere.

In the dark, even with night-vision goggs, it was slow going and her people had been all over it.

One or two notches where the going was easier, ones that had been scouted by the Confederation, had also been scouted by the enemy. Some of the larger groups were heading for those gullies, which, considering the ever-present rain, would be gushing torrents at the bottom.

They had also been carefully registered on the artillery boards and in such rocky, confined quarters the Unfriendlies were in for an unpleasant time of it.

On the wrong side of the hill, some light machine-guns had been sited accordingly and would be lost in the engagement. They would also take their toll. The really great thing about them was the odd-ball calibre favoured by their Arcturian makers.

Out of ammo or with only a few rounds left in the belts, the Unfriendlies wouldn't be able to use them for much, and they were of course boobied.

The enemy was about forty kilometres south of Ryanville at this point, which would force them to stop, regroup and to bring their artillery forward at least one more time.

"Hellion One-One-Five has a firing solution, Colonel."

This machine was stashed in a copse of silvery, trembling aspens. On the enemy's right side of the road, it was obscured by a gentle rise behind some open ground. The range was quite long for shooting in this country, eighteen hundred metres. With a few degrees of elevation and a pair of forward cameras triangulating onto the forward elements of the column, they could pop their ESP rounds up and over the rise and still hit their targets. All the enemy would see would be a flash on the other side of yonder ridgeline. They would bring down fire accordingly.

"Roger that. Permission granted."

"Firing."

There was the spark of an impact and it appeared that one target had been hit. However, it kept rolling, and so that was it. You had to go with what you saw—

"Hellion One-One-Five. Results contradictory, Command Centre."

"Yes, we see that. Take the second target, One-One-Five."

"Roger. Firing."

That one was definitely a hit.

In the satellite view, the dot stopped moving, and then all the ones behind slewed to a stop, however it wouldn't take them long to clear that. Sure enough, the forward vehicle had now stopped. Whether it was actually damaged or just being prudent was hard to guess.

"One-One-Five. Try target number one again."

"Roger that. Firing."

One-One-Five only had the three rounds for the 85-mm, one wire-guided missile and a single belt for the machine gun in the hull. The 50-cal on top had been demounted for use elsewhere.

Anticipating the destruction of One-One-Five, the crew were out and in a deep hole in the ground, roofed with heavy timbers and with a foot or so of dirt on top for good measure.

"It's a hit, Colonel."

In the nearest camera view, the leading vehicle started to burn.

With the scene garishly lit by the flames, it looked like no one got out.

"Okay, One-One-Five. Targets of opportunity for you guys now, and you have permission to maneuver."

"Roger that and thank you very much."

That little group had just earned themselves over nine hundred credits each, for less than five minutes work, not counting set-up time.

Hard-linked with fibre-optic line, they weren't anywhere close to the machine.

Their instructions were explicit and short: fire off everything you have as quickly as possible, and then get in the fucking truck and go. Lieutenant Wheeler had written that one.

"Enemy troops have reached the river. Presumably, launching their assault boats."

McMurdo had decided she wasn't going to blow the bridge. Still, the infantry would have been a little too exposed to walk it or ride on the back of a truck. It was a good seven hundred metres in span. The vehicles would speed across with minimal manning. Their assault parties would clear the hills before a major move. It made a certain amount of sense.

"Thank you."

***

The enemy had wasted one more day, and now they were setting up what might be their last artillery position, twenty-three kilometres from Ryanville town centre.

The call was not entirely unexpected.

"Colonel Graham."

"General McMurdo."

"Thank you for speaking to me. I would like to thank you again for returning Phillip to us. Your truck will be returned to its rightful owners, the, er, Roussef fire department."

"Thank you. That was always my intention—"

"Your targeting was very good, Colonel. I was just sitting down at my desk when the missiles struck." He smiled, perhaps a bit ruefully. "I spilled my coffee. A fact which you and your people will no doubt enjoy. It will take a while to fix the roof. I have to admit—it's quite damp in here now, at least on the upper stories. Oh, I'm sure we'll be okay."

He didn't mention it, but the fact was, they were moving to another building with all of the attendant disruption to headquarters staff. This building was lower, surrounded on all sides by taller buildings. It was said the underground parking garages, with their construction of reinforced concrete, were presently the focus of a flurry of activity.

Some lamps, some nice rugs, half-decent curtains on the windows, it might be okay—

Sure they'd be okay. They'd lost a few people judging by the number of ambulances and hospital-admissions. They had plenty more where that came from. In the satellite view, they'd tarped up the top of the building. It would be fragile in the winter winds, but tarps could be replaced if torn or blown off. Repairs would take months, depending on what sort of structural damage had been done. Team Three was being very quiet and waiting for whatever came next...

She nodded thoughtfully.

Waiting.

Patiently waiting...

Something flashed across his face, an unguarded moment. He seemed tired, grim, resigned perhaps.

One couldn't help but to sympathize on some level. These were his people, after all. She always tried to think of them as people. Misguided, misinformed, delusional perhaps. As religious fanatics, they were definitely dangerous. They were still people.

"Sorry about that, General. Uh—Ralph. Nothing personal—just business."

He nodded as well, studying her.

He sighed, deeply.

"This is very difficult. Dona, I want you to know. That, er, video really wasn't my idea."

"Oh, really."

"It's true. It's not in the official, written plan. I have inquired. It seems that it was an on-the-spot inspiration of, ah, one of our younger and more enthusiastic officers. In charge of that particular section. It was well within the scope of his brief, in my estimation. We have used such tactics before. Not me, personally, but, uh, in fact he hasn't even been disciplined. Nor will he be, perhaps unfortunately. What I have done, is to ask him not to do it again. I can assure you that he has agreed. You have my most humble apology."

"Okay."

"Dona."

"Yes?"

"I would plead with you. I would get down on my hands and knees, kiss your feet if necessary. If only I could get you to see reason."

"That won't be necessary, General McMurdo."

"It won't?" That face went grim again.

"No. All I require is the immediate and unconditional surrender of all Unfriendly forces on Denebola-Seven, and an undertaking on your part that you will withdraw, remove all equipment, ships and personnel from this planet and this system within seven days. I've mentioned before, that we don't have the facilities for large numbers of prisoners. Your parole will have to suffice. As for the damages, those will be assessed and invoices will be sent to the government of Shiloh as well as the governing council of the Mining Worlds." Civilian deaths would be compensated, amply, if next of kin could be found.

Otherwise it would go into a more general compensation fund.

The list was comparatively short.

"Dona, Dona, Dona—"

She cut him off in mid-stride.

To hell with it.

The first big storm of the season was a hundred and twelve kilometres away and moving rapidly.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Vicky Chan was just going off duty and briefing Dona on the day's events.

"Yup. Looks like another night attack. It makes sense from their point of view. We knew they were going to take that hill, and they knew they were going to take casualties doing it. Our estimate is that they saved themselves fifteen to twenty percent in terms of casualties just by going in at night." It was an interesting psychological insight.

They had used their best troops instead of their worst. So, lives meant something to them after all. Even after the fetuses had been born. The other thing was, that the regulars would want their fair share of the glory—

Even more so, their senior officers, who had their reputations and perhaps even some fortunes to be made.

"Right."

"It's our impression that they will continue with the night attacks. They might well have time to do four or five hills tonight. On the road, it is unclear whether they will attack by day as well. Even with superior numbers, they still need to rest. It's hard to sleep beside an artillery barrage, even when it's your own. When they get close enough to Ryanville, the attacks will be more or less continuous. By day or by night. There is yet another big column forming up in Deneb City. This one's heavy on the infantry, and they will obviously have the manpower."

"Roger that, and thank you. Off you go and get yourself a good night's sleep—eight hours, all right? I'll find someone to cover, don't worry about that."

Major Chan slumped.

"Thank you, Colonel Graham."

"Don't worry. Vicky. When this is all over, we'll get together and have ourselves one smashing big piss-up."

The tired grin was quick, but it was there and eminently worth it to see.

***

Dona was talking to Paul. Another private conference. They were trying to decide.

Paul had his doubts, but the decision was hers to make.

"Look. It's a question of upping the ante, not so much as when, but by how much." Dona went on. "As long as Mongoose One is sitting there, there is some possibility of discovery. We have exactly two reloads left. There are six Unfriendly ships on the pad..."

The enemy had the Red-Tails, on the concrete apron at the spaceport. Their air-defense could be jammed. There was no lack of targets.

The initial landing of roughly a thousand troops and a few scout and armoured cars had taken three small ships. The larger contingent, with all of their troops and equipment, perhaps even the nucleus of some new system of civilian governance, of which they had been hearing rumours, had been landed by the three big Boer-class ships. Once the field was declared secure.

"It seems to me, that if we take out a couple of the smaller ships. Our missiles are not wasted. In fact, they have been extremely effective. We've spent our money there, I agree. But we've taken out one or two ships, a heavy psychological blow. And the enemy still has enough tonnage to get their people out when the time comes. We have raised the stakes but then raked in a mighty big pot—it's still not enough for them to get really ugly with the civilian population."

The thing was to give them a kick in the ass. The kind of kick in the ass that would, psychologically, force them to accelerate their timetable. This wasn't so much bait, as it was an added incentive. The carrot up front, waving around in front of their eyes, the stick going up their backsides. Hopefully, they'd get a few slivers along the way.

Paul was nodding.

With all of the satellite, visual, on-scene data from the fire teams, plus the ships' own radio traffic, the probability of at least one hit was high. This was firing them on coordinates, in an almost ballistic fashion, although the feedback from onboard target-recognition, the fire-teams' designators, and the cameras in the noses, would steer them the last part of the way down.

Sitting out there in the open, with their distinctive shapes, specifications, three-views and silhouettes downloaded from the databanks into the Mongoose's own system, it would be a pretty hard target to miss.

Paul sighed.

There was more to discuss and this one wasn't worth an argument. What the hell, it was only two missiles.

It was in the plan. He'd signed off on it originally, and Paul couldn't immediately think of any real good reason to go back on it.

Now was as good a time as any.

"Who knows. Maybe the enemy will finally find the thing and then the Sky-Cats can get a shot." One never knew, in war.

"Yes, Colonel. I agree."

***

"Okay. Next on the agenda."

Paul looked up from his com unit to the eyes clustered around the table.

"With the Mongoose's last two shots accounted for, we still have another fairly large column forming up in Deneb City." Team Four might get a shot with the Barkers or anti-tank rockets. "They still have a good three or four thousand troops in reserve."

Teams One and Two were on the other side of the city.

The thinking was that this one, assembling in the late afternoon and early evening hours, was preparing to make a mad, night-time dash up Highway 17. There was little sense in forming up a column and then just letting it sit there all night.

"All right. Make Team Four wait. They are completely unsuspected. Wait until they come within range, and then hit them with the mortars stashed just south of Gossua." The enemy had taken a Mongoose missile at the village earlier in the battle, but the fact that there were mortars in the vicinity would come as a distinct and unpleasant surprise. "After that, anyone that wants to, can have a crack at them." Time to earn some bonus money—

"Roger that, Colonel. They will be notified."

Her troops had strung the mortars out in a line, up in the hills, roughly a kilometre apart. With a range of up to five kilometres, launching the heavy, armour-piercing smart-rounds, they'd be damned hard to find by even the most determined infantry.

Each one had six loads in the rack, enough to make a mess of almost any combination of vehicles or troop-carriers.

There was a Confederation team right in the area. The best thing for them to do was to wait and to keep themselves under cover. They'd get their chance next time.

"Very well. Next."

***

"Ah, yes, the satellite."

"So, Colonel. What do we do."

"Hmn. We wait."

And waiting was hard.

But, as long as they were getting anything from their own satellite at all, and as long as the battle was unfolding more or less as predicted, it was best to keep their bird up there.

The only real way to destroy the enemy satellite was to work their way in as close as possible and then to self-destruct. That charge was very small, and the shrapnel effect would be uneven due to the nature of the Mark Seventeen's components and architecture.

The very definition of a crap-shoot.

If they were going to do it, it had bloody well better work.

As usual, she knew one or two things that they didn't.

***

"How many churches are there in Ryanville?"

It was a question that should have been asked earlier.

Turns out, someone had.

"Four churches, one mosque, a Temple and one or two others. There are certain denominations..." Presumably, the temple was Jewish, or maybe Zoroastrian.

Who cared if they were Rosicrucians, Christadelphians, Amish or Hindus. They were all her responsibility.

"Yes?"

"Well. I don't quite know what to say. But Catholic churches aren't independent."

Some guy didn't just rent a storefront somewhere and start preaching the Gospel. Not Catholics.

Some of those little operations were quite small. It was easy enough to miss the smaller, Protestant denominations.

"All right. See if we can get General McMurdo on the line. Tell him we will undertake not to use those particular buildings for any military purpose. Ask him if he would accept our assurances, and if he would be so good as not to fire on those locations. Also schools, hospitals, and the ambulance centre." The ambulance centre, with three modern ambulances and a small number of civilian employees, was about two blocks from Ryanville General Hospital.

Negotiation theory at work. Get him to give up a few little things—reasonable things. That big old negotiating table was always lurking in the background.

"Me, Colonel?"

"Yes, Harvey. You. A junior, talking to a senior, ah, officer. Make sure you have all the addresses or the map coordinates lined up for him. And if he asks to speak to me, tell him that I am presently unavailable."

"Er...yes, Colonel."

"Okay. Trooper Harvey. The other thing is to be polite—diplomatic. Do you think you can do that?"

Reddening slightly, he nodded.

"...yes, ma'am."

"Thank you."

And now, back to work.

With the enemy preparing for their second night attack, this one on Hill 212-B, it was time to vary up the punches again.

***

It was time.

With over four hundred troops in the Ryanville area and the Unfriendlies a bare twenty-plus kilometres down the road, Dona was committing some of her human resources.

The moons had sunk below the western horizon. With virtually no lights along the roads outside of the cities, and a heavy, damp overcast that yet refused to rain, naked-eye visibility was just about nil.

She had about two dozen troops involved in her own night attack, timed to disrupt the enemy as they assembled and took up their start-lines. Most of them were in covering positions, waiting to lay down fire when the forward elements withdrew.

Satellite data was almost non-existent. The ground and the enemy's emplacements, their troop dispersals, had been pretty well mapped. For that, the big dogs had been very helpful. The battleground was an undulating ridgeline, with a lower notch where the road went through. There were only so many of the enemy. It was heavily-forested, and their lines of attack could be predicted with some degree of accuracy.

Her people had crept in to within a few metres of the forward pickets. Several of the dog units had penetrated the perimeter and were observing the bivouac and assembly areas from the edges of clearings, screened by the underbrush and sheer darkness.

The thing to do was just to watch for a while...

Every forty-five minutes to an hour, a sergeant or corporal would follow a narrow track, checking on the pickets and making sure they weren't asleep. This was the best time to hit the pickets in silent-killing mode. There was a long line of posts and their immediate superiors had a real bad habit of strolling, all alone, along that path as if nothing in the world could ever touch them. These were definitely not the Guards units.

Unbelievable.

***

The enemy, confident of success, well-fed and well-rested, had no clue.

The first of the big dogs rose from its hunker-down position, and darted forwards into the middle of an Unfriendly infantry platoon, this one led by a senior sergeant. People squawked in dismay, people shouted. People stared open-mouthed. One man, with desperately fumbling hands, was trying to unsling his weapon...

The resulting explosion, a ten-kilo charge, all ball bearings and shards of light casing, bits of mechanical dog, would have taken out the bulk of them. This unit had just been written off the order of battle for all intents and purposes. The survivors would be in a hospital or sent to the reinforcement pool.

She waited ten minutes, as surviving Unfriendlies tried to figure out what had just happened, talk flying back and forth and the officers and NCOs trying to reorganize. There was now a big hole in the line and that would have to be filled. They were behind schedule already. It took time to deal with the dead and wounded. Only a fool would not send out some quick patrols and have a look around before proceeding.

The eastern sky was a dull shade of lighter blue in the curious false dawn at these latitudes. That would be moon number one, laying just below the horizon. That was one fast moon, but all planets were different.

"Okay. Send in the next one."

"Roger that, Colonel." This would initiate Phase Two of their plan.

Whoever was supervising the enemy picket line would know something was definitely up, and more than one enemy NCO was about to get their throat cut or a real big knife in the kidneys.

Another big flash lit up the night, this time their animal having gotten to within fifteen metres of the battalion command post.

Little dots on screen sped up, as a couple of sergeants or corporals on perimeter duty, caught between guard-positions, broke into a run. Although one dot in particular appeared to be stationary, and only thirty metres from a guard post.

Another combat kill, another bonus earned.

Her people were already on the rush, personal arms set for full auto, and with the enemy in a state of confusion. All of those pickets, hearing the bombs go off. It would be against human nature not to be looking the wrong way.

Backlit by smoke and flame. Rifle grenades, dropping in at your feet—

All they wanted was enemy casualties, and mostly likely, they'd drag off one or two prisoners as well.

The vehicles were two or three hundred metres away, on a side-road that was passable all the way to Ryanville. And again, if the enemy wanted to follow that road, it would require another division of forces. More mines, more booby-traps, more automatic weapons and trained snipers.

More casualties.

The enemy barrage had opened up, still fixated on the hills out in front of them, although Ryanville town centre was well within range.

Her own gun batteries were on standby.

Chapter Forty

With the Unfriendly artillery in their new position, the Confederation drone base had been pulled back. They were now operating from a paved street in a new subdivision, one that had never really taken off and there were only about a dozen houses on what had to be a hundred hectares.

There were light standards, but none of the old-fashioned overhead wires that were sometimes a feature of less-developed worlds. Most of the trees had been taken out to make way for construction.

The biggest hazard would be for a drone to go off the road in a crosswind, in which case they would hit utility service-boxes, a light pole or even just a big stake sticking up out of the ground.

There were weeds, mounds of earth, even abandoned vehicles.

Further back, there were the occasional foundations, the ground floor topped off with plywood sheathing and yet the house it was meant for had never been completed.

Some kind of story there no doubt, but with the hills sloping steeply down to Lake Ryan, and a fairly busy little town strung out along one main road, there weren't too many other places to put it. All the empty streets meant dispersal was at least possible, and with good separation of elements, including their small operations centre. This had ended up in someone's two-car garage, the home's occupants having been compensated and moved, along with a half a dozen cats, to a basement apartment in the middle of town.

There was a municipal airport, a grass strip no less. But that seemed a little too obvious a target, and in fact it was time to do something with their little rag-bag of helos and private aircraft.

Most of them were capable of automatic flight. They still had a few satchel-charges left. Hang a few cameras on there and they would be effective enough.

There were all kinds of Unfriendlies just up the road.

Then there was the question of the weather. It was getting colder, and the breeze was picking up, which it normally didn't do at night around here. That's what the local meteorologist, more of a serious hobbyist than any real paid position, was telling them. She had no reason to doubt her, it was basically what her own people were saying as well.

Her spoiling attack had done its job, and the Unfriendlies had taken a good hour, an hour and a half to regroup.

While they probably couldn't be stopped with the weapons and forces available, all of her assault troops had withdrawn successfully, with only a couple of minor wounds to show for it. They had a couple of prisoners for interrogation, practically a formality at this point. The enemy would be operating in daylight very soon, as morning was just an hour off.

The storm-front was seventy kilometres away and closing.

The way the thermometer was dropping, there might even be snow.

***

Operation Dynamic had been in full swing for a week.

Having commandeered the entire local fishing fleet, large yachts and all of the available tugs and work barges, a small cruise boat, tonnes of grain, tinned foods, even refrigerated truckloads of frozen meat had been ferried a hundred and thirty kilometres down the lake. Two of the drones had been taken aboard as well, leaving just one for intermittent cover over Ryanville. Lake Ryan had an outlet via the Deneb River to the southwest. Her few engineering troops had found a beach with sloping flat rock shelves going down deep into the water. They were using heavy wooden planks and steel bridging equipment for ramps. They were building a supply dump. This was up fifty metres from the water. They had small tractors, four-bys, some six-bys, rows of portable generators, and prefabricated sheds and barns to erect.

Commandeered might be too strong a word. She'd spread a big bundle of cash around and then, after explaining that bit of the plan to the civilian captains, had phrased it as a request. If they wanted to back out, all they had to do was to return the money and no questions would be asked.

In front of their friends, neighbours and competitors, with their homes about to be invaded, not a one had spoken up.

That was a lot of money around here, another factor. All Interstellar Gold Coin, negotiable anywhere. She was sure they'd bury it in the fucking backyard when they had a minute—

They had a tent city up the lake, Command Centre Four all set up, and the latrines had been dug.

There were some small fuel dumps, ammo-dumps, well-spaced and separated from the shacks and even tents in some cases. Machinery, a generator for example, or weapons-caches didn't need much heat. Rather, it was a case of keeping the weather off of them. They were knocking down trees and building a dock in deeper water. Some of the yachts were being armed with light weapons and sensors, proper communications and the like. Mostly wood and fibreglass, their upper-works were being cut down or stripped of radar-reflecting hardware. Painted matte-black, dazzle-striped in charcoal, they might do all right, at least in terms of patrolling and observation by night.

They'd brought in three of the howitzers in the rather vain hope that the Unfriendlies would attempt a landing, or even an overland attack from around the eastern end of the lake.

This camp would be well out of the present range of enemy rockets, artillery, but unfortunately not the drones...

Too bad about that, but with trenches and bunkers all over the place, a raid or two might have to be endured. On the plus side, the weather was worsening. With Sky-Cats on hilltops and even sitting under the trees right along the shoreline, the enemy would be risking valuable assets as there was a clear view of some miles out over the lake. A helo attack from behind the hills overlooking the camp had also been taken into consideration by placing a couple of low-level radars up there.

On their estimated time-line, with the Unfriendly speed of travel on the map, there simply wasn't enough slack to take the stuff any further. Someone had already named it Donaville.

And this, this was the end-game. Everything was now on the table, her plan finally revealed to the naked eye. Resistance at all costs.

"All right, Colonel. I'm off." Captain Aaron would take charge up there, activate Command Four, and keep people busy.

All personal kit was in the bag, the weapon slung, pistol on the belt and a couple of rocket-grenades bulging in the side pockets. Paul very much looked the part, with a dark blue bandanna around the neck the only personal touch.

He grinned, eyes meeting hers, eyes glittering in some sort of self-appreciation, and she smiled back.

They still barely knew one another.

He had two hundred and fifty people and their personal bags all lined up, waiting to board six of the larger fishing boats. The sooner he left, the sooner he could send the boats back.

"Thank you. Good luck—and we'll be seeing you in a few hours, unless I miss my guess."

"Roger that, Colonel."

Stepping back, he gave her a formal salute.

Turning, he was gone.

The rest of her troops would be sufficient to hold Ryanville for another day, and the stay-behind parties had their own orders. They had their own time-lines, their own supplies, and their own targets.

This was the nitty-gritty.

***

By sucking the enemy forwards, ever forwards, by putting out bait, always more bait, and then by selectively blowing this bridge here, now, and this bridge here, later, and by activating this automated defense there, and that other defense over there, later again, they had strung the enemy out.

The enemy was losing trucks, tanks, Samsons and people at an ever-increasing rate.

Still eight or nine kilometres out from the first commercial strip, composed mainly of motor hotels, truck stops and all-night coffee houses. This in a town of a few thousand people, but it was also one that helped feed the whole planet. One where land was cheap and plentiful. The Unfriendly forces had been broken up, delayed, and stopped in place. They had upwards of twelve hundred troops on that road, where Dona and the Confederation had less than a hundred to oppose them.

All Hellions, all but a few of the Panthers and Pumas, were on automatic mode. Their crews could still monitor and maneuver them, this all by fibre, in some cases hundreds of metres from the actual vehicle. As positions were overrun, Pumas and Panthers, any number of borrowed pickup trucks, loaded with Dona's people, raced down to the docks. They were zigzagging through the narrow and gravelly side-streets, thankfully heavily-treed, dodging the resultant artillery fire as the drones tried to pick them up for the big guns. Driven right onto the barges, the tugs, engines hot, took them off up the lake...

It was all very slick.

They'd lost one Panther and five people by one such hit. So far, they'd been lucky, very, very lucky.

Half a dozen other casualties. One person missing and unaccounted for—that one might be a simple com-unit failure as they weren't getting a return when pinged. This proved nothing either way. Trooper Singh might very well have taken a direct hit from a heavy shell. None of his mates had seen him in a while.

Enemy artillery fire was falling intermittently on the target hills and defiles out on the road. Still nothing on Ryanville town centre itself. Not yet, but it would probably happen.

With their off-kilter, eccentric orbits, both moons had come up, and the enemy was stalled at the one big hill before the last long, sloping plunge down across the face of the escarpment. When they got around to attempting it, her remaining howitzers were going to have a field day. The Barker teams in the town were quite looking forward to it. Fire a shot or two, make it count and then get the hell out. The bounty for a Samson was five hundred credits. A four-by, a hundred and fifty.

When the main column came down, their cameras would see it. Two hundred shot-holes, fired by an independent tactical observation computer, would bring down a significant portion of the cliff. Luckily for the locals, relying on trade and commerce for their livelihoods, there was another way out of town. It was a little tight and a little steep, but it would suffice. The town would still live. Most of the houses and buildings were quite far away from the escarpment.

Bonus time.

It was zero degrees Celsius, and the sky had cleared, cold, hard and clean, the stars unforgiving in their solitude.

The storm was roughly fifty kilometres out and closing fast.

Chapter Forty-One

The battle was in its final phases.

There were three more really big hills to be taken before the town of Ryanville sort of began, although there were a few homes and businesses along that stretch of Highway 17. Those people had all been evacuated.

There were continuous obstacles. There were numerous trees down across the road, and wire barriers made up of fencing, baling wire, spools of cable requisitioned from local building suppliers, and anything else that could be scrounged.

There were anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, all along the road. Every small bridge and culvert had been blown. The largest bridge, spanning another switchback of the Ryan River, had been left intact due to the time and expense of rebuilding it. This was for the sake of the inhabitants, who would be left holding the bag, long after this pissy little war was over.

There was little doubt that it would soon be over.

The bulk of the enemy was just six kilometres from the edge of town although their scouts and reconnaissance units were probing ahead.

Each ridge was defended, a mix of warm-bodied troops and automated systems. Her howitzers had been withdrawn to the extremities of the lakeshore road, with eastern and western detachments now working at their maximum effective range in this terrain. With all the cameras and sensors out there, they were still finding, and hitting, plenty of targets. The enemy had no such luxury.

The hilltop passive defenses relied heavily on glue-mines, anti-personnel explosive mines, light machine guns, all monitored by cameras. Her people had their holes, their weapons and their escape drills. There was the occasional anti-tank mine, buried in the road.

To prevent outflanking maneuvers, these defenses extended along favourable ground, to left and right of the road, a kilometre in the case of the first hill, a kilometre and a half on the second hill, and a good two kilometres running along the top of the third ridge. Any side-roads, connected or not, had been mined and booby-trapped. Bunkers and foxholes, any place a curious Unfriendly soldier might enter looking for plunder, food, booze, souvenirs, had been thoughtfully boobied. It had to be borne in mind that the civilians would eventually be coming home, and so their homes and businesses had been left alone. Every booby had been carefully mapped by the Confederation troops and this would be turned over to civil authorities. What that also meant, was that there was stuff there in private homes and businesses to find, and having had a good meal or a few drinks at some civilian's expense, the enemy troopers would be sure to go looking for more.

Bait, always more bait.

They would find the juiciest bait in positions prepared by her troops, places where the civvies would hopefully avoid, assuming they were capable of listening to a simple instruction.

Stay the fuck out of our abandoned holes...

Stay away from our abandoned vehicles, weapons, or any other thing that strikes you as new or unusual in your environment.

Anything that wasn't there when you left.

The last few kilometres were going to cost the Unfriendlies dearly, and in the end, all to no avail.

***

"Battery A." This was located at extreme range at the eastern end of Lake Ryan.

"Go ahead, Command Centre."

"Your orders are to use up all ammunition stocks, assuming hard targets can be found." As of this moment, the stars were out and the satellite feed was good, but there was a big block of heavy cloud on the horizon.

You could pull back the curtains and see it out the window, by this point.

"Roger that." This was all in the written plan and no argument there.

"If you can hold out until dark, abandon your positions. Use the boats. Rendezvous at the position of Command Four. Make sure you have tow-ropes and plenty of fuel. All troops will wear flotation devices, emergency beacons, and survival suits. Boats go in convoy. Acknowledge."

"Roger that, Colonel. We'll be fine, thank you."

"Thank you, over and out."

Battery B, out at the other end of town, already had their instructions. Their boats were anchored in small coves, heavily camouflaged against drone detection and with the civilian crews standing patiently by.

Now within three kilometres of Ryanville and Command Centre Three, the Unfriendlies would undoubtedly be taking the town within the next few hours and it was time to get her people out.

Every vehicle, every weapon, every weapons-pit and foxhole were to be mined and booby-trapped.

The enemy was bleeding, and they would continue to bleed.

As for Command Centre Three, the mother of all booby-traps, fifty kilos of the finest military-grade explosive that money could buy, wonderfully concealed. Three metres below her feet in other words. It would be timed to go off a few hours after occupation. Much of the more sensitive equipment had already been removed and she was working with a skeleton staff. Still, enemy intelligence officers would be combing through the place, searching for any scrap of information they could get regarding her plans. Her strength in weapons, vehicles and personnel, her state of mind. All of the remaining equipment would just be sitting there...

Irresistible.

For this phase of the battle, heavier vehicles and weapons were expendable, although a number of Pumas, Panthers and Hellions, of which there were still a few left, had been carefully hidden.

It wasn't the most imaginative dispersal, with a Panther under a mound of straw in a horse-barn here, and a Hellion in a three-metre deep hole dug in the ground and with a big steel plate and some dirt overhead there.

Statistically, at least some of them would evade detection.

Then there was the whole question of bugs—miniature, robotic, and autonomous. Programmed to observe, to report, and ultimately, to kill.

A measly two grams of the proper explosive in the right place would kill a man.

Or a general.

This would be something the Unfriendlies hadn't ever seen before.

Chapter Forty-Two

"Colonel."

"Yes, Harvey?"

"It's snowing." He grinned. "Heavily. The locals say there will be half a metre by morning."

"Ah. Thank you."

"Er."

"Get to the boats, Harvey. Please." Her own ride was sitting out front in a Puma, and the sooner they got moving, the less chance of a missile or artillery attack on the Command Centre.

"Yes, Colonel. Roger that."

Shouldering his weapon, he grabbed one big bag by his desk.

The door closed and it was just her.

With Confederation contingents scattered all up and down the hills, her troops had conducted one last series of night attacks on the Unfriendly positions just a bare kilometre from the beginning of the commercial strip on the edge of town. They could only leave it so late, as the Unfriendlies would clearly be expecting it by now. For that reason, the attacks had consisted of sniper fire from commanding heights, big dog attacks and mortar stonks.

The enemy had lost some troops, some weapons and vehicles perhaps, not to mention sleep. Her own people needed time to get down off of the hills and escape through the back alleys and side-streets of Ryanville.

Her last three laser-cannons were spaced out, on commanding heights or right at street level, where a kink on Main Street allowed for some cover, good concealment and a long, straight shot at anything coming down and around the corner from that last little rise...

Every automated weapon available had been deployed using such tactics. The local civilians knew what to look for. By the time the Unfriendlies took the town centre, all of that would be taken out of play. Probably destroyed, one way or another. In the case of a laser-cannon, if a person came in from behind, there was a simple switch to turn it off and an instruction tag in ten common languages.

Even the Barker teams had been withdrawn and were proceeding to the rendezvous.

Command Centre Three was all but deserted, all senior staff now making their way to the docks.

It was four a.m., at this time of year, a good three or four hours before proper sunrise, and in this country, even longer before Deneb broke above the hilltops. With this weather, it promised to be another dull, damp, chilly day. Hopefully, a very snowy day. There was a sound behind her.

Thinking someone must have stayed behind against explicit orders, she turned, hand hovering over the key on their little device. After she hit that, she had no choice but to leave. All businesses and dwellings within a three-hundred metre radius had been evacuated, as the charge was a big one...

Perhaps it was nothing. The place seemed totally quiet, only the distant thud of the enemy weapons and the scream of incoming shells landing all over the town a reminder of the current situation. Then there was the weather, which was whipping up.

Probably just a branch hitting the side of the building, an eaves-trough perhaps.

After one last walk-through the various small offices and cubicles, turning off lights as she went, in an impulse that seemed a bit off, she came into the main room.

She stopped dead.

"Good morning, Lieutenant-Colonel Graham."

Her jaw dropped.

"Brigadier-General Renaldo." She shut her mouth firmly. "Ah—how in the hell—"

"Yes. I'm sorry, Dona. The technology is highly classified. But, suffice it to say that I am here, and that is all you really need to know."

Eyeing the station where the destruct button was, along with the switch to finally begin jamming enemy radio traffic including the drones, she heaved a deep sigh and dropped heavily into the hot-seat. The people at the docks would wait—she had no doubt of that. If they didn't, there were plenty of other boats lined up along the wharf. She could probably canoe a hundred kilometres in four days with calm winds.

She had the typical ration-pack for three days in her pack and a few snacks and candy-bars thrown in. There was plenty of fresh water out there...

"So. General. What's up."

"You've done a remarkable job here. A wonderful job. I am so very sorry to have to do this to you..."

Her face hardened.

"Do what, exactly?"

There was a faint knock at the door.

It was the general who spoke.

"Come in."

There were two of them, Sergeant Kelly and Trooper Noya. Kelly looked pretty grim, but Noya flashed her a bright smile. They had their personal weapons, their bags. They were all set to go—

She watched, open-mouthed, as the General moved to her terminal and hit a button. The chip popped out, and he pocketed it thoughtfully. Every bit of data gleaned so far.

To go.

She stood.

"Colonel Graham. You will please call, ah, Lieutenant Wheeler, or Lieutenant Tanguy, down at the docks. Whichever one is still there. You will tell them that you are unable to presently escape and that you have Kelly and Noya with you. You are surrounded by a considerable force. Use the exact words. Tell her that you will be all right and that there is to be no hare-brained attempt to come back and get you out. That is an order." Reluctantly, face tight and hard, she had little choice but to comply.

She kept it short, a brief text message.

Wheeler responded immediately, 'affirmative', and Dona clicked off.

On some level, one had to trust higher authority, that didn't mean you had to like it. Her foot was tapping.

At this exact moment in time, she rather hated him, and everything else.

"...what in the hell is going on here, Brigadier-General Renaldo."

"Hmn. Yes. Not surprised by your reaction. What is going to happen is that Major Chan will be taking over, with the able help of Captain Aaron. They're on the scene, and you will be unaccounted-for. They're fully competent and up to the job. As for yourself, your talents are badly needed elsewhere."

Walking over to the main battle board, presently beeping in warning mode, it was immediately apparent that the Unfriendlies, noting the distinct lack of manned defenses in front of them, were on the move again...

"We don't have much time."

"We don't need much time. Get your kit, Colonel." Head turning, he spoke. "Don't forget the coat."

It was all there, right beside the door. The mink hanging on a peg above it.

"Naturally, you gentlemen will forget all about this."

"Naturally." Kelly.

Noya just seemed fascinated.

"And where in the hell are we going?"

With a nod, the General pulled out three small objects from the side pocket of his jacket.

"Here. Take these. Put your thumb-prints on the screen, please."

"And why in the hell should I?"

Kelly cleared his throat.

"Honestly, Colonel. It is still possible to lose this conflict. I think we will win, we probably will. I'm pretty sure we will, but. Do you have any idea of what would, ah, happen to you if the Unfriendlies got a-hold of you?"

It wasn't a pretty picture, in his words.

"You don't want to end up as some kind of a comfort girl to his herd of field-niggers, ah, Colonel." It was, apparently, still possible for the sergeant to blush.

She tore her eyes away from him.

Her face was flaming—

Renaldo silently regarded her, giving her a brief nod.

"I concur."

"Shit."

The coat, the fucking coat—

Shit.

Satisfied that they had all been properly identified and located in the space-time continuum, the general spoke briefly into his own device and in one slewing, disorienting snap, they were aboard a ship—what ship she didn't know, but it was a ship.

"Wow. That was fun."

"Please, Sergeant Kelly."

Trooper Noya stood there looking at her and at Renaldo, a faint smile on those handsome features.

"General Renaldo." I'm waiting...

"First. The self-destruction of our Mark Seventeen satellite did indeed result in the destruction of the Unfriendly satellite—and they only have the one. As per plan, our new Mark Twenty-Three-A satellite has been deployed, and the signal is good. Command Four has already locked it up, and the verification codes were satisfactory."

"And?"

"This is going to be a very big storm, perhaps one of the biggest ever recorded." That was the thing with the early stages of terraforming, the weather patterns were also transformed, by everything from increased solar heating, new gases in the atmosphere, an increase or a decrease in water vapour...higher air pressures, the lot.

"So?"

"Well, for one thing, you've won. General McMurdo will be receiving orders to withdraw. Someone in his headquarters was dumb enough to send that little video, all of them actually, off to the home world. Then authorities on Shiloh were stupider enough to release them for general consumption, thinking it would bolster their cause, perhaps. There was a bit of an uproar in Council. They have their standards of decency. That false decorum towards women for example. Up on a pedestal, and yet enslaved. The other thing is that they don't much like being embarrassed, Colonel Graham. As for the media, there are hints of mild disapproval. We all know their aim is expansion. This is only a minor setback to them. Anyhow. The people we have, will be sufficient to harry them all the way back down that road. With an expected half a metre, maybe even more of snowfall overnight, and some considerable drifting, it will take a good week for them to dig out and clear the road well enough to travel." Whereas the lake would take another month or more to freeze.

Her stay-behinds were all in place, fully equipped for winter, including snowshoes, skis, snow-machines, one or two-man four-bys. Insulated coveralls, heated boots and gloves.

Professional troops. People who believed in the plan.

They would carry it out.

Kelly stood there, eyeing her with a quizzical look.

"What ship is this, er, General?"

"It's the Rodney, Sergeant Kelly."

"And what about us?"

"Well, that's entirely up to you. You can always go home, or we can find you another assignment."

"Ah. Thank you—I think."

Noya listened intently, head down.

"As for Trooper Noya. We're very interested in you, young man."

"Ah, yes, sir." A stiff little nod, the eyes and the face were now carefully blank.

So.

That was it—reassignment.

"And Paul?" And Vicky, and Harvey, and a hundred others whom she'd liked, respected, ate, slept and drank with, and might never, ever see again.

"When the time comes, a week or ten days maybe, it will be announced that you have successfully evaded capture, along with your companions. A little bit of legend-building, nothing more. And nothing less, Dona. You somehow made your way off-planet by borrowing a small civilian cargo vessel." There were, in fact, a few of those sitting on the pad at Deneb City, grounded for the duration. "The other thing is that the Unfriendlies still have to get off of this rock."

Erebus and Terror—Bluecoat II, as he called it. Then there were the fire-teams south of Deneb City.

The cargo ships' owners were under orders, not just from the Unfriendlies, not to get involved, or to try and escape. The Confederation, after all, was responsible for their safety. Not that the enemy wouldn't phrase it in similar terms—

"Your people have been well trained. They have enough experience of your tactics to go on. Think of the great burst of confidence, for example, in Major Chan, who, while competent enough as an executive officer, has so far shown no great taste for independent command. As for Lieutenant Wheeler, she is long overdue for promotion—and opportunity."

"I see, sir."

Shit.

"I'm sorry, Colonel. I really am. I know how this must feel. However, I can assure you that your next assignment is a very challenging one, and, that you are going to need all of your skills on this baby..." An opportunity for personal growth, as he put it— "The Organization never does anything for no reason, Lieutenant-Colonel Graham."

"I'm in."

"What was that, Sergeant Kelly?"

"Yes, sir, General, sir. Wild horses couldn't drag me away." His eyes glittered, and he clearly meant it.

As for Trooper Noya, he appeared to be listening very carefully.

One had to admit, the money was good. He hadn't been doing anything particularly important anyways. Not lately, and that was for sure.

And then there was Dona—Lieutenant-Colonel Graham. Well. That was one nice lady.

End

About Louis Shalako

Louis Shalako is the founder of Long Cool One Books and the author of twenty-two novels and numerous short stories. Louis studied Radio, Television and Journalism Arts at Lambton College of Applied Arts and Technology, later going on to study fine art. He began writing for community newspapers and industrial magazines over thirty years ago. His stories appear in publications including Perihelion Science Fiction, Bewildering Stories, Aurora Wolf, Ennea, Wonderwaan, Algernon, Nova Fantasia, and Danse Macabre. He lives in southern Ontario and writes full time. Louis enjoys cycling, swimming and good books.

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