Side Show (15 page)

Or not. There were too few of them left to be able to carry many seriously wounded. That would just make them all easy pickings for the enemy. To be able to continue the fight, they had to be able to keep moving, and moving fast. If they escaped this fight.

Dem saw one of his men go down but couldn't be certain who it was. He didn't even know who was left.
Eleven of us now,
he thought, but he kept shooting and running.

Once they reached the trees, it was a little easier. The temptation was simply to stop, to lean against the first tree of sufficient size, to rest for a second and do a little more-accurate shooting, but Dem resisted, and without orders to the contrary, the rest of the reccers kept running as well. They stopped shooting. By this time, they were far enough from the Heggies that there was little incoming wire, and little chance that it would do serious damage.

The Heggies didn't get up and start in immediate pursuit either. For a second, that surprised Dem, then he realized that, by now, they must suspect that even this mad dash was no more than a ruse to pull them into yet another trap. The reccers had done that before... when there were enough of them.

"Grab cover," Dem said over the radio, barely able to find the wind for even two words. He flopped to the ground, careful to have a tree between him and where—he thought—the Heggies were now.

For nearly two minutes, Dem could do nothing but suck in air convulsively. There was a muscle spasm in his neck, trying to jerk his head around to one side a little. He fought that, and fought to control his breathing. Finally, he was able to scuttle around on his belly so that he was looking back toward where they had left the Heggies—and far too many of their own comrades. He saw no sign of pursuit yet. There was no shooting going on either.

"Dem?" Just the name over the radio.

"Yeah. Who's that?"

"Fredo."

"What?"

There was a noticeable pause before Fredo said, "That was my question. What now?"

And Dem hesitated before he answered. "Two more minutes, then we'll put more distance between us and them. We'll worry about later later."

At least there was going to be a later, even if it proved to be very short-lived.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Dr. Corey had merely flopped on her back in the nearest patch of shade when Colonel Stossen finally gave the word for a break. For the first several minutes, she managed to keep her mind almost a blank. Her aching legs gave her plenty to think about.

"A little water, Doctor?" Stossen asked. She opened her eyes.

"Thank you." She sat up and took the canteen he offered. After a long pull at the tepid water, she said, "I knew I was out of shape after two years cooped up inside that mountain, but I didn't realize just how much out of shape. You people set a wicked pace."

"Unfortunately, it's necessary," Stossen said, sitting on his haunches. "Things haven't gone very well for the Accord on Jordan."

Corey looked down. "We had guessed that when so long passed without people coming to get us. Just how bad is it?"

"We may have to evacuate what troops we can. If that happens, it will be very bad. Withdrawing from a planet under fire..." He shook his head. A rear guard, probably all of the Wasps left, maybe a few companies—even a complete regiment—of infantry to provide some cover. "Very bad," he repeated.

"Will it be possible to get a secure data-link to one of your ships?"

"Yes. That much we can arrange, once we rendezvous with our vehicles. All we have here is voice and the telemetry signals for mapboards and helmet displays."

"A cube reader?" Corey asked.

Stossen hesitated. "That I'm not sure of. Probably not."

"We have six gigabyte cubes of data that needs to get back to the Accord even if we don't," Corey said. "The results of a lot of work. If we had anything secure enough to use at the lab, we would have done it from there, but we simply weren't set up for that contingency."

"Don't even hint at what your work is all about, not even to me," Stossen said.

"I won't, but I must say that getting our work out so that others can finish it is absolutely vital. Just as vital as making sure that Schline doesn't get it or us."

"I'll have my people find out if we have cube readers on any of the vehicles. If not, then—maybe—we can have one of our Wasps fly the cubes back to General Dacik's headquarters. I know for certain that they have the equipment there."

Dr. Corey nodded slowly. "I'd prefer something less... chancy, if possible. A Havoc can be shot down, and I'd hate to lose all that data that way. Besides, if Schlinal people got to the wreckage, they might be able to salvage the data from the cubes, and
that
is unthinkable."

"There might not be any other way. I'll find out."

"Of course, the most preferred way would be for us to get out with the data. The time that would be lost if a new team had to get up to speed on what we've already done, before they could push it forward..." She let that hang in the air. It really didn't need to be finished.

—|—

The three Wasps flew scant meters off of the ground. The formation was very loose. There was simply no room for maneuver otherwise, not even with the sophisticated anti-collision and terrain-hugging navigation systems the Wasps boasted. Zel was at the apex of the triangle. Irv was on his left, and Jase on the right, each keeping at least fifty meters to the side and thirty behind the new Blue one. The planes had found their support vans and had even stayed on the ground for some twenty minutes before receiving new mission orders.

They were going back to harass the same Heggie force they had attacked the day before. That force had been weakened by its clashes with the 13th's reccers and Afghan Battery, but they had also exacted a murderous price. The lone Havoc left from Afghan had finally rejoined the rest of the 13th's artillery, but there was no trace of the two recon platoons that had also been sent out to slow down the Heggie regiment.

Stay low to avoid premature discovery. In daylight, the matte black coloring of the Wasps could be seen visually if not by radar or laser tracking devices. And there was no rain, no low, heavy clouds to provide cover today either. Stay down so that the Heggies won't see the Wasps coming until they are right on top of the formation, making their first rocket and cannon runs. Take on whatever targets of opportunity appear in front of you. Tanks were choice, but they weren't to go out of their way—or spend excessive time over the enemy—just to get tanks. Strafing enemy infantry was almost as valuable, and knocking out trucks was even better. Take whatever presents itself first. Make one quick run through the enemy and then get out. Keep moving. Time a return for at least twenty minutes later, from a different direction, and then make just one more quick pass, the same way, before returning to base for new batteries and ammunition.

Most importantly, do everything possible to avoid air battles. If enemy Boems are detected, run, even if that means aborting the ground attack mission.

Zel had mixed feeling about the orders. Part of his mind was glad to see the low-risk plan, but another part rebelled. It didn't seem right to cut and run. A Wasp could inflict a lot of damage on an enemy. To do anything less seemed almost indecent.

He watched all of his displays, wishing that he had an extra set of eyes so that he could keep a constant watch over everything. It was downright dangerous flying a Wasp at nearly the speed of sound this close to the ground, following every contour, cutting through forest clearings below treetop level, hopping up only to clear obstacles before dropping back. Quite often the digital readout on the altimeter flashed red with the collision warning—Zel had switched off the audible alert siren—when the numbers dropped below five meters. That was the farthest down the alert system could be set for. The default was thirty meters.

"Less than thirty seconds," Zel warned his wingmen. "If the tracking data is right," he added. The Heggies couldn't be
too
far from where the spyeyes had last located them, even though that data had to be at least five minutes old—and probably twice that. Most of the Heggie force was on foot now, and their armored support had been marking time to stay relatively close to the mudders.

Zel took a last look at his readouts, then adjusted his grip on the control yoke so that his left thumb was a little closer to the weapon selector switch. He wouldn't know whether he needed rockets or cannon until the last instant, until he saw whatever was in front of him when the enemy appeared.

Once he saw the Heggie force, Zel had no time to really notice the full disposition of their men—the three columns of infantry marching some scores of meters apart, the few trucks that were still with them, the flanking lines of tanks and scouts. There simply was not enough time over the target for observation of that sort, not for a human brain and senses. The cameras and other observation gear that the Wasps carried did record everything and transmit it to CIC, but Zel was not aware of most of it.

What he did see was a Schlinal Nova tank right in front of him—less than one degree off his initial heading. He made that adjustment, armed two rockets, and showed them the target. As soon as they had been launched, he switched to the forward cannons and started his strafing run, cutting across all three infantry columns. At the end, he switched back to rockets and launched another two at a Nova on the far side of the formation.

Then he was gone, before the Heggies could get even a single surface-to-air missile up after him.

A restrained whoop from Irv showed that he too had made it clear of the enemy. That was followed almost immediately by a quick call from Jase.

"They didn't know what hit 'em."

"Don't get carried away," Zel warned. "They may have Boems on call. Keep your eyes open. We'll do a large clockwise loop to come back at them. Twenty minutes, they'll still be nervous. We'll see SAMs next time."

It
was
a good skirmish, though. The three of them had accounted for at least four Novas, several of their remaining trucks, plus uncountable infantry—without even taking enemy fire. The number crunchers in analysis liked numbers like those.

—|—

The 13th's remaining Havocs had gone to ground. They were no more than eight kilometers from the rendezvous point, close enough to get there—or send in covering fire—in a hurry, but far enough away that they wouldn't tip the location to the enemy if they were discovered. In any case, they had better cover where they were than they would have had closer to the rendezvous point. They were in tall timber, engines off, thermal tarps spread over the gun carriages. The crews were out of their Havocs, away from them, trying to get a little rest.

The crew of Afghan four, the one gun that survived from that battery, was sitting with the crew of Basset two. The Afghan men had already told their horror story. Empty meal packs were scattered around the gunners, not yet collected and buried.

"Apt to happen to all of us," Simon Kilgore said. "That's what 'expendable' means. They don't figure any of us are likely to make it back from this one."

"Don't get off on that again," Eustace Ponks snapped. "Afghan just got the bad break. Rest of us haven't even had a taste yet. Just been a long ride."

"Won't be a free ride, though," Simon said, looking at his boss. "Those Heggies that hit Afghan and the reccers are still coming. With a gaggle of Novas."

"Novas, bah." Eustace hawked noisily and spat to the side. "We kin knock Novas out ten klicks before they get close enough to even shoot at us."

"If we know where they are," Simon reminded him. "This mess, that ain't likely."

"Colonel will find some way to give us targets," Eustace said. "Wasps or reccers if we can't count on spyeyes and CIC."
Just as long as he doesn't block us in deep in these mountains,
Eustace thought, looking up at the range that was already right on their flank. The rendezvous point was
in
there, past that first thousand-meter ridge. But Eustace was trying to sound positive, to counter Simon's pessimism. It wouldn't do to mention his own considerable worries.

"Hell, we've got almost a full load of ammo yet," Karl Mennem, the gunner, said. "We'll give a good showing. Ain't we always?"

"Course we have," Eustace said. Then he met the gaze of Afghan four's commander, and he had to look away. There was terror in those eyes.

—|—

Dem Nimz couldn't remember just when he had started limping. There had been too much else happening for him to think about that. The limp had started and grown gradually worse before he was even aware of it. His right knee was sore and slightly swollen. The muscles in the back of the leg had tightened up, cramping. At first, Dem had simply tried to favor that leg—as much as he could—but that effort had just brought stiffness to the other leg as well, and to his hips and back.

"We'd better take a break and give you time to put on a couple of soakers," Fredo said.

"Not yet."

"Yes," Fredo said, his voice getting firmer. "You might be in charge here, but unless you do something fast, you're not going to be able to walk at all before long, and we've got enough problems without carrying you."

Dem looked at him for a moment—still walking—then he nodded and stopped. Fredo passed the order to the others. Altogether, there were only ten of them left, out of the hundred who had begun the mission.

When Dem fell trying to ease himself to the ground, he had to concede (to himself at least) that Fredo had been right.

"Let me take a look," Fredo said.

Dem didn't protest. When Fredo asked, he described just what hurt. Fredo took nearly ten minutes making his examination and wrapping soakers.

"We're going to have to take a little more time," he said when he had the last in place. "You won't be able to navigate decently for at least thirty minutes. An hour's rest would be a lot better."

"Thirty minutes," Dem said. "That gives us all time to eat and get a little rest."