War To The Knife (13 page)

“So it wouldn’t help us to steal some tools and spares from the maintenance people?”

“Not really. We’ll just take fuel cartridges and reaction mass. It would be great if we could steal some missiles and plasma cannon magazines, too. We have no missiles left at all, and only five magazines.”

“Those missiles are big heavy things. There’s no way we could carry them out by hand and get them through the perimeter fence.”

“You’re right. It’s a pity we can’t just fly in with our shuttles and load them right here,” she said wistfully.

Dave laughed aloud, but then suddenly fell silent. After a moment he said, “D’you mean that?”

“No, of course not! I was only joking.”

“I’m not. What if we
could
do that?”

She rolled over to look at him, eyes wide. “You can’t be serious!”

“Think about it. The platoon from Caristo will take two shuttles to the Satrap’s parade, right?”

“I presume so – one platoon’s normally divided between two birds.”

“OK. Their best soldiers – not that that’s saying much! – are being drilled until they drop to get them ready for the parade, while the others do the donkey work of cleaning equipment and getting it into a state fit for inspection. When the good ones head for Banka, what will be left here are the dregs. They’ll be exhausted and probably rebellious as hell after all this hard work. As soon as their Captain leaves for the parade most of them are going to get blind stinking drunk. What if we hit them that night and steal everything we can use, including their two newly-serviced shuttles?”

Her jaw dropped as she stared at him. “I… it would… you really
are
serious!”

“I sure am. We know this place backwards. I could walk through that garrison blindfolded and point out everything important. Besides, their new boss will be leading the parade contingent, leaving Sergeant-Major Garnati in command in his absence. We know him, and we know his weaknesses. I think we could take care of the remaining platoon without too much trouble.”

“But – but if you could do that now, why haven’t you done it long ago?”

“We’ve been under orders not to make waves out here. This is a secure base area for us. We don’t bother them, they don’t bother us – it’s an unwritten understanding. However, if it helps us nail the Satrap I guess that won’t apply any longer.”

“Uh-huh.” Her mind raced. “One of our shuttles is completely out of fuel for its reactor. The other still has one cartridge. If we steal a fuel cartridge from here before we leave, plus a few hundred liters of reaction mass, that’ll be enough to bring our two shuttles here to fill their tanks and load them with weapons. If we steal two newly-overhauled shuttles as well, we’ll have four of them – five, with the SS shuttle. That’ll make General Allred
very
happy!”

“Do we have enough pilots to handle that many?”

“Oh, sure. There are half a dozen of us who’ve flown our captured shuttles in combat. We’ll have more trouble finding Weapons System Operators. We cross-trained heavy weapons operators for that job, but there are only a few left out of those with shuttle training. All the rest have been killed on operations.”

“OK.” Dave thought for a moment. “Let’s finish our observations, then go talk to Dad and plan an attack on the garrison, in case the General gives us the go-ahead.”

~ ~ ~

They didn’t get back to the ranch outside town where they were staying until after midnight. They found Jake waiting for them in the kitchen with a late supper ready for them.

“Rissa slow-roasted two sassaby haunches all day, and we had one for supper,” he informed them, rubbing his belly while rolling his eyes ecstatically. “I managed to save two plates for you, although it took some mighty strong threats and a glimpse of my knife to keep off the ravening hordes. I hope you’re duly grateful.”

Tamsin hugged him. “Thanks, Almost-Dad-in-law!”

He blinked at her. “Say that again?”

“Well, you were going to be my father-in-law until the Bactrians interfered, weren’t you?”

He sighed. “I guess so. You two are as good as married anyway – since you met each other, neither of you has looked twice at anyone else – so I may as well make the most of my unofficial status! Anyway, eat up, then tell me what you found.”

Pausing occasionally to consult Dave’s notes or examine an image taken through Tamsin’s electronic binoculars, they provided exhaustive details of the activity around the garrison’s shuttles and the cornucopia of spares, supplies and weapons that the visiting maintenance team had brought with them. Dave confirmed that they’d learned enough to be able to mount a quick in-and-out theft mission the following night, then went on to outline his idea about raiding the garrison as soon as one platoon had departed for the Satrap’s parade.

Jake rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “That’s an almost indecently good idea,” he said slowly. “We’ve always kept a low profile out here, but if we’re going to mount a major operation against the Satrap our cover will be blown anyway, so why not make a virtue out of necessity? In fact…”

He fell silent, eyes were far away in thought. When Dave tried to ask him what was on his mind he held up his hand, palm outward. At last he looked at them. “How’s this for a plan? There are half a dozen outlying garrisons like Caristo, each with four shuttles. We’ve used several of them as base areas for our people to lay low between operations. I daresay each garrison will do the same as Caristo – send half their people and half their shuttles to this parade. What if we hit all of them that same night, kill everyone still there, and steal their remaining shuttles and all the weapons we can hang on them?”

Dave and Tamsin looked at him in open-mouthed amazement. “That would be a hell of an achievement, but do we have forces near enough to all of them?” his son asked.

“We have people close to four of them, including Caristo. We might be able to move other troops to deal with the remaining two.”

“Do we know them all as well as you know this garrison?” Tamsin asked. “If not, it’ll take a lot of hard work in a hurry to gather enough intelligence to be ready in time.”

“Good point. We might have to restrict ourselves to those we know well. Even so, if we hit three or four of them that’ll get us six to eight more shuttles plus their heavy weapons. If we use them to attack the Satrap’s parade, they’ll give us a much better chance to kill him and the Crown Prince. It’ll still be a one-way mission, but success will be much more likely.”

“What about pilots and Weapons Systems Operators?” Dave asked. “Do we have enough to handle that many shuttles?”

Tamsin nodded confidently. “Apart from those already trained, we have a few people who used to fly cargo shuttles and cutters for the old Orbital Authority. An assault shuttle’s not that different. They’re all flown by computer, of course; we just tell the computer what to do. I reckon we could bring the cutter and cargo shuttle pilots up to speed in a week of intensive classroom work plus a dozen hours of stick time in our new assault shuttle. As for more WSO’s, any qualified heavy weapons specialist can learn to operate the shuttles’ systems in about the same length of time.”

Jake rose to his feet. “I’m glad to hear it. You get some sleep. I’m going to think about this some more, and call the General first thing in the morning. If he likes the idea as much as I do, there’ll be a lot more work for us before the big attack.”

March 8th 2850 GSC

TAPURIA: MILITARY GOVERNOR’S COMPOUND

“What the
hell
are they playing at?” Major-General Huvishka’s voice was simultaneously angry, incredulous and frustrated as he looked down from the glassed-in viewing gallery at the continental map displayed on the Operations Table. It still showed unit symbols and their directions of movement during that morning’s operations. “Not a soul at any of the three bases, and not a single booby-trap set! They’ve just vanished as if they never existed!”

“This clearly demonstrates that our intelligence evaluations were correct, Sir,” Captain Zargham said stiffly. Her black Security Service uniform stood out among the other officers wearing Army brown. “We’ve been saying for some time that the terrorists’ numbers have dwindled to such an extent that they’re no longer capable of posing a major threat to us. This proves it. It also shows the Satrap’s wisdom in deciding that now is the time to replace the Military Governorship by a civilian administration, since the threat of armed conflict is almost at an end.”

The General glared at her. “And what do you suggest killed your late superior, Colonel Kujula, and his SS guards and interrogators, and a reinforced platoon of my combat engineers? Rabid mice, perhaps?”

“No, Sir,” she replied resentfully. “That was probably done by survivors of the destruction of the terrorists’ Matopo Hills base. It must have taken at least a platoon-sized unit of the enemy to defeat a reinforced platoon of our combat engineers. There’s no way a unit of that size could have made its way to the Matopo Hills from another sector without being detected. Our intelligence is too good and our sensor network too tightly woven.”

“I seem to recall Major Moshira making a similar claim prior to our assault on the Matopo Hills,” Captain Dehgahn pointed out. “However, according to the intelligence he himself certified as correct, we expected to find over three hundred rebels there. When we counted the bodies, there were less than two hundred and fifty. What happened to the others?”

“That’s precisely my point,
Captain,”
she said icily. She clearly didn’t feel that she had to show respect to Army officers of equal rank to hers. “Those fifty-odd ‘missing’ rebels are obviously the ones who attacked our combat engineers and Colonel Kujula. We don’t know where they may have been hiding. I suggest they probably used another cave in the same area, one that the Army assault force failed to find. If they never left the area, of course our sensor network couldn’t have detected their passage, because there
was
no passage. They came out after the raiding force had departed, and were busy salvaging what they could after its inadequate attempts to demolish the base. They may even have been trying to find the same evidence Colonel Kujula went there to collect. As it happens, they were sufficiently strong to overwhelm the engineer unit he sent. His mistake was not in sending them, nor in going there himself, but in trusting the raiding force’s demonstrably false claim that all enemy units in the area had been eliminated.”

“And where did the rebels go after that?” General Huvishka demanded. “Your sensor network still hasn’t shown any indication of fifty-odd people moving out of the area.”

“No, Sir; but I doubt that they all survived. Combat engineers are also soldiers. I presume at least half the rebels, if not more, were killed in the fighting. Their bodies must be beneath the heap of rock and soil where the base used to be. The terrorist survivors buried all the evidence of their presence under a landslide, including their own dead, then made their escape in small groups on foot or in single vehicles, both of which are much harder to detect than large groups.”

“I suppose that’s feasible,” he admitted reluctantly. “Unfortunately, it’s also speculation – and it doesn’t clarify why we’ve found no rebels in the other three bases you identified.”

“No, Sir. We’ll have to capture more rebels and interrogate them to find out what happened there.”

“And since they show a distinct aversion to being taken prisoner, I daresay that will take some time, eh?”

“Ah… yes, Sir.”

“Very well, Captain Zargham. Thank you for giving us the benefit of your insight. You may go.”

“Thank you, Sir.” She hesitated. “May I ask whether the inquiry into the allegations against Major Moshira has vindicated him yet?”

“They aren’t allegations, Captain – they’re formal charges. That’s why he’s still confined to his quarters. I believe there’s more than enough evidence to convict him of insubordination, blatant disrespect for the office of the Military Governor, breach of trust, corruption, misuse of official funds and black-marketeering.” He held up a hand to forestall her protest. “I’m well aware that an Army court-martial can’t try the case of an SS officer. However, I’ve sent details of the matter to Bactria and requested the empanelment of a fully-fledged inquiry into the conduct and operations of the entire SS operation here on Laredo. We’ll see what the Satrap has to say about that. It’ll be his decision as to when and where Major Moshira’s case is heard, and by whom. Meanwhile, until another senior SS officer can be sent from Bactria to take over the local office, you’ll continue as its caretaker Commanding Officer.”

“Yes, Sir.” She snapped to attention, half-bowed formally, turned and left the gallery.

The General paced back and forth across the viewing gallery, occasionally glancing down at the Operations Table and the staff who bustled around it. At last he turned to his aides. “Three battalions, over a hundred assault shuttles, and an entire morning for us to watch it here – all wasted! We accomplished nothing!”

Captain Dehgahn shrugged. “Sir, we acted on the information available to us, and this time we came up empty-handed. All we know for sure is that the rebels are no longer in the bases we’ve just seized. They may have left as soon as they learned we’d captured one of their senior officers at their Matopo Hills base. They’ve done that sort of thing before, after all. However, since we don’t know when – or even if – they found out he’d been taken alive, we can’t pin down their decision process.”

“You don’t think they learned anything from Colonel Kujula, or something they might have captured aboard his shuttle?”

Dehgahn frowned. “Sir, he’d have been a complete and utter imbecile if he took classified materials about unrelated operations into the field! I can’t believe that an officer of his seniority would have made so elementary a mistake.”

“Might they have tortured the information out of him? He was SS, after all, and you know how the rebels hate them.”

“Yes, Sir, but they’ve never used torture. Frankly, I’ve often wondered why not, since the SS uses it against them. They’ve limited themselves to killing everyone who fell into their hands, and even that was in response to us doing the same to them first.”