Freehold (48 page)

They stood him upright, seized his weapon and all ID and documents. While he stood dazed and confused, she pointed her commandeered rifle at his head. "I am a sergeant in the Freehold Military Forces. You are my prisoner."

"General Jacob Huff. UN Peace Force."

"I know," she said. "Strip."

"What?" he queried, confused.

"Take off your clothes," she repeated.

"
Here?
" he croaked.

In reply, she yanked the weapon's charging handle.

"Okay! Okay!" he agreed, taking his clothes off, dropping them. Sudhir gathered them up and left. She lowered the weapon, placed his hat back on his head and said, "You are released." She bounded sideways and disappeared.

Huff stood confused, then started to flush as he realized passersby were laughing at him. It wasn't his nudity they found worthy of hysterics, but his obvious discomfort. He removed his hat, unsure what to do with it but feeling silly wearing nothing else. Finally, he started walking in the direction he'd been brought.

Several hours later, one Binyamin Al-Jabr found himself assigned to guard duty, to replace David Morgern, who had been crippled and disarmed during the attack. He took his position at the gate. Twenty minutes later, someone shot him dead. Ballistics records later showed the bullet to have come from Morgern's weapon.

The war on Grainne had begun to get interesting.

In the Space Traffic Center at Novaja Rossia's Jump Point Two, Karl Borodin had been following the news of the war. He had friends in the Freehold and went about his task in tight-lipped silence. That work had doubled since a suicide squad had destroyed Freehold Jump Point One. Some lunatic physicist had flown a multihyper-capable ship into Earth space in phase drive, then entered the jump point from there, activating phase drive
inside
the point. The intersecting hyper waves had collapsed the point into itself, and incidentally taken a UN task force with it. Until a new point could be constructed, there would be no passage through that route.

So the additional traffic was taking the roundabout way through Novaja Rossia's system and then into the Freehold from there. Borodin arrived to find a huge schedule of tonnage to organize. He glanced over it and decided that being petty couldn't hurt and might help.

He started with a transport convoy and its escort from Earth. They might have military priority in Sol System, but this wasn't Sol System. They could wait. It was far more important that perishable goods, heavy equipment to support the colony effort on Shemya and medical research materials get through. Additionally, the three liners full of wealthy retirees would complain loudly if they were delayed. In fact, they already were. Better do something about that now.

By the time he was done gridding the schedule, the UN task force was in the queue three days back. He figured he could add another day to that through judicious shuffling. It might not help, but it couldn't hurt and it made him feel better. He also noted for the log that the liners' passengers had stopped complaining.

And if the UN didn't like it, they could take the additional ten days to cross the system to jump Point Three . . . or go through Caledonian space and in through Freehold JP3. That added twelve days.

"Our troops advanced today without losing a foot of ground."

—Alleged communique during
the Spanish Civil War

Kendra got a brief personal note in one of her daily loads. It read, "Logistics to beat logistics. Brilliant. N." She assumed that was Naumann. So he at least was alive. That was hopeful. She missed her unit and wished for some way to rejoin them, but slogging on foot across several hundred kilometers of rough, hostile terrain did not appeal. She still had no word of Rob or Marta. Had they cleared the base? Or been vaporized?

She sighed, rubbed her eyes and ran more calculations. Where to hit next? It wouldn't do to create a pattern, so she decided to hit some more traditional targets. That posed risk, but so did everything, and this was a war after all.

The intelligence download and local observations showed another force moving to build a Forward Operating Location within reach of the north villages. The goal was clearly to cut off Delph' and Jefferson from any support and simply take them the old-fashioned way—by siege. She wondered why they simply didn't blockade traffic, then realized the answer: they couldn't. There was no air control, so there was no way to stop flights. Stopping every flight would stop the flow of food the UN itself was stealing. Well, buying with scrap paper that was worthless. Nor were there sufficient personnel to stop every flight. The UN couldn't just shoot them down.

It was really awkward trying to fight a war as a "liberator," when one depended on good press and the goodwill of the populace being liberated. The rebels had no such hindrance. Any good press was a win, bad press wasn't really a loss and they were free to maraud as they saw fit. Her mind buzzed with schemes and calculations. It was an exhilarating experience and she slept very little as she figured her strategy.

Near Jefferson Starport, which had been converted to a UN military launch facility, a reservist of the FMF lay in wait. He was in deep, cold mud, eaten by insects until welts covered his face and hands and very, very bored. None of this bothered him and little of it impinged on his higher thoughts. It was simply the environment he was in. All that mattered were the incoming targets. A flight of four fixed wings had lifted off more than a div earlier. They should be returning soon . . . and there they were.

The best time to hit enemy aircraft was while they returned from a mission, low on fuel and munitions, potentially damaged and with tired, cranky pilots likely to make fatal errors. Since they had no reason to expect trouble, the aircraft in question were following their normal approach vector.

Make that lesson number one, the soldier thought to himself. Never be predictable.

The craft were staggered out, clearly visible in his hooded binoculars, and the lead one was on approach to the abbreviated strip. Fixed wings needed more room than vertols to operate, but could carry heavier loads. It was a fair tradeoff, but in this case posed a risk as yet unconsidered by the invaders.

The soldier raised his weapon—a professional infantry missile launcher—sighted carefully and fired, reloaded and fired again in seconds. Without waiting to see if the missiles found their mark, he rose to a crouch and began wading closer to the flightline at an oblique angle.

The first missile locked on its target, the lead craft, which detected it, jinked and dropped. This placed it closer to the second missile, which had a far cooler exhaust and better ECM. It was the true warrior here, not its decoy cousin that had expended itself to draw attention away. The Sentinel's systems detected it, too, but were hampered by internal preprograms. It wouldn't evade closer to the launch point, couldn't drop lower and couldn't alter speed drastically without aborting the landing it was attempting. The cybernetic thoughts froze for a moment of machine time as it considered, then lit a warning in the pilot's environment.

The pilot saw the flicker at the edge of his vision, moved to take human control, but was slower than the artificial synapses of the machine and too late. The second missile passed overhead at high speed and detonated. Its self-forged warhead slammed down through the lighter armor of the top surface, shredding an engine. There were two engines and the craft would ordinarily have corrected immediately with more thrust to the other one, but it was on manual. The machine moved to retake control, the pilot hesitated in shock and the already stressed craft dropped slightly lower. It impacted the runoff, not hard, but hard enough to shatter the frame and injure the pilot. Warnings squawked and the other pilots aborted their approaches.

The terrain was not conducive to a ground search. ACVs would have trouble with the boulders and deep spots, wheeled vehicles would be mired and infantry was just not a concept the UN was currently embracing. A sensor sweep of the launch area found nothing and the decision was made that the rebel had departed. The craft resumed their approach.

The third missile was launched virtually at touchdown and the target in question couldn't dodge as it tried to land. The missile caught the target near the cockpit and the pilot's ejection seat kicked in automatically. He would survive, but the wreckage of his Sentinel, combined with that already clogging the runoff, made the surface a hazard.

At this point, bureaucracy became the enemy. The runway was technically unserviceable, but the Sentinels did not need its entire length by a wide margin. It would be safe to land beyond the damage, once the shooter was contained, but to do so would officially be a violation of safety procedures. If a craft was damaged due to wreckage, it would be blamed on whoever authorized a landing on the "unserviceable" surface. The officer in charge of flight ops called up the chain of command for a decision, the security officer called the external security unit for them to deal with the shooter, and the pilots waited, fuel diminishing rapidly.

The Freeholder was ready to escape, be captured or killed at this point. He'd had his two shots and was departing the area rapidly. He knew there was a margin of safety in his schedule, but also knew that luck was not a factor one could depend on. He slogged through the mire, getting closer to the river where a small punt waited, and hoped for the best.

It was true that troops in powered armor were the best means of dealing with the shooter. It was true also that not using a resource would cause fingers to be pointed after the fact. It was therefore decided, with all bureaucratic logic, to send a squad out to clear the area. This took about forty-five minutes, from call to suitup to actual deployment across the flightline with proper safety precautions and checklists. The soldier was gone by then, but his legacy lingered slightly longer.

The two remaining Sentinels were low on fuel. A ranking officer had to decide whether to try to divert to another facility, risk landing amid wreckage and response vehicles or attempt to refuel in air and wait. The wing commander made the logical decision to simply make a downwind landing from the runway's other end, with precautions for the wreckage, and gave the order to do so. It was too late.

Both craft ran out of fuel as they orbited around to make the landing and the pilots decided not to ride their crippled aerial steeds into the swamp. They ejected and were soon rescued by the squad of infantry returning from their no-joy search for the missileer. Their craft were destroyed, enmired and unsalvageable.

Several days later, the soldier crept back through the oily slime around the craft and removed their IFFs and a handful of useful circuitry for intelligence analysis. He shook his head in disbelief. If a Freehold craft was deemed unrecoverable, it was slagged to prevent precisely this type of intel gathering.

Kendra's local insurgents roved around in small groups, leaving enough bodies to tend the farms. It took a few weeks for all of the adults to get a taste of combat and Kendra aged ten years inside. She was terrified of the possibility of an informer.

Kyle assured her that was impossible. "Not these people, not here. We're even more independent than the city dwellers. We hate even the suggestion of government meddling. And don't make the mistake of thinking of us as ignorant farmers. We've studied everything from the history of agriculture to business to chemistry. These people are solid," he said.

She believed him, but also knew enough mathematics to be certain there was at least one rat in the area. She hoped she was wrong.

She personally led most of the patrols until Dak convinced her that he, Sandra and Kyle had enough experience in the brush to avoid detection. The strain was wearing on her and was even worse when she
wasn't
leading the operation in question. Nothing she did helped her to relax and she wondered how long it would be before the stress caused her to crack.

The operations were getting harder, also. Every trick they used was, of course, quickly noted and defended against by the UN troops. Whether or not the bureaucracy allowed it, the people in question were not entirely stupid, those who survived a few missions were quite competent and the skills they'd used to bypass "the book" in peacetime were put to use in this new arena. Their motivation was the best available: survival.

Kendra led a harassment mission against the nearest firebase the UN was constructing. The end plan was to have a vertol contingent and a couple of artillery pieces placed in each of several overlapping circles to cover a large radius around every town. The insurgents were desperately working to keep the available support to a minimum for their own survival.

The firebase project was actually north of the farms and was in a broad prairie of tangled weeds and brush. There were no good enfilades or overlooks to use and no thick woods to hide from observation. Modern sensors would handily pick them up in the brush and it was doubtful they'd get close enough to do any real damage. A mortar would be of great use, but they had none. Her grenades lacked the range and were too valuable to waste on difficult targets. Their best option was to set traps along the ground route. Since the ground convoys were large and well protected, the most practical approach was to disable a vehicle and take a few potshots. The chance of inflicting serious casualties was slim, but it would slow things down and that by itself might prove useful.

Dak dug out some of his precious explosives, needed also for clearing boulders and trees on the farm, and Kendra called up diagrams of fuses and triggers. Kyle studied them briefly and assured her he could manufacture them. Once all components were ready came the task of setting the trap. It required stealth and deception, as well as painful labor.

Vikki drove them as close as was deemed safe and the three of them rolled out the back of the truck as it slowed for a bend. The UN was unlikely to observe a vehicle closely, but stopping in the middle of nowhere would attract attention if anyone was watching the area via satellite, aircraft or observation post. They bounced to the ground, Kendra bruising her pelvis painfully in the process, and shimmied into tall brush. Once safely in, they threw up camouflaged and heat-disrupting veils to sleep under and settled in to slap at bugs for the day.