Chapter 17
"Good-bye, Anny," said Jer Naddel. "I guess we won't see each other again until Novo Paveo."
His lover's beautiful face was all scrunched up and she unsuccessfully tried to blink back the tears. She moved close and pressed herself against his chest, her strong arms wrapping around his back. "Please be careful, Jer," she whispered. "Please."
They were standing in the main spaceport of a planet called Lunda Sul. It was the last day of their last shore leave before they reached their destination—Novo Paveo.
He stroked her hair and tried to laugh. "You're telling me to be careful?"
"Yes, I am."
"I'll be every bit as careful as I know you'll be, girl."
"That's not much comfort."
"No, it's not, is it? But I'll try not to earn any medals if you don't either, okay?"
"Okay."
"Good. But you know that like as not, we'll get there, growl menacingly at the Enbees, they'll knuckle under and in a few months we'll be on our way home without firing or hearing a shot."
"I hope you're right." She snuggled closer. "Half the people with us are itching to see combat, but I'm not. More and more I'm dreading it, Jer."
"Bad dreams about Dounby?" She'd been very restless in bed last night. He knew that she had nightmares about the people she'd lost on her apprentice cruise.
"A few," she admitted. "And it worries me. In combat you can't hold anything back, you have to be totally committed or you could lose more lives—lose the battle. You can't hesitate for fear of taking casualties."
"Yeah. Well, you didn't hesitate on Dounby and you won't hesitate this time, either. You'll do fine."
"I hope. It's just… damn I wish we were in the same battalion!"
"Want to keep an eye on me?" Jer smiled.
"Damn right! The way they deploy assault troops, we could be halfway around the planet from each other!"
"Well, that would still be true even if we were in the same company. They do tend to spread us out."
"I suppose. But I hope we at least get a chance to see each other once we're there."
"Yeah, me, too… Hell, looks like we're getting ready to board." A new batch of shuttles had just touched down and people were moving toward them. This was it. They kissed again and then drew apart. "I love you." he mouthed.
"And I love you," she whispered back.
"See you when we get there. That's a promise."
She nodded and moved away, but kept looking at him. He did the same until he bumped into someone and then had to reluctantly watch where he was going instead of her. He glanced in her direction a few more times, but she had disappeared into the crowd. When will we see each other again? It was a numbing feeling; they might never see each other again. Somehow the thought had never really come to him the other times they'd been separated. Not like this, anyway. He didn't believe in premonitions, but still…
He joined the queue and eventually got onto a shuttle. He spotted Sergeant Shusterman, his platoon sergeant, and edged over next to him. "Hi Sarge. How'd things go? I didn't get any calls to bail the boys out this time. Guess you kept them out of trouble?"
Shusterman shook his head and cursed. "No sir. No trouble for anyone to get into on this bloody planet. Who in hell picked this… this monastery for shore leave?"
"No idea," admitted Jer. "It does seem pretty straight-laced, doesn't it?"
"You could say so! No booze, no women, the boys aren't in too good of a mood, sir."
Jer had noticed the apparent lack of bars and fleshpots in the parts of town he'd frequented with Anny, but the absence of liquor didn't bother him much and he only had eyes for one special woman anyway. But he hadn't realized that the whole city was like that. "Oh dear… wasn't there anything for the men to do?"
"Oh, the Holy Joes who run the place had all sorts of 'activities' lined up for us, sir. Games and concerts and prayer meetings. The boys were… thrilled." The Sergeant shook his head again but then added: "Some of the music was pretty nice."
"But no women, you say?"
"Not a frill to be seen, sir. And the other women all wear veils and long robes and won't associate with 'barbarians'. 'Course there were some women from the other contingents and our medical companies, but they were a tad outnumbered."
"Right. Well, we're going to have to keep our eyes open to keep the men out of Ladies' Country back on the ship," said Jer. His battalion, like Anny's, had a medical company attached. But this one only had five women medtechs and they were a lot less outgoing than Chris Tropio and her girls.
"Damn straight, sir. The boys'll be trying to cut through the bulkheads before we get to Novo Paveo."
"Wonder what sort of 'facilities' are going to be available once we get there? Can't have the men molesting the local women."
"That could be a problem, sir, if somebody didn't think ahead."
Jer frowned as they took their seats on the shuttle. On his apprentice cruise, the shore leaves had been frequent enough to keep the men's urges under control. But once they were in combat… He wasn't sure what was going to happen.
He filed that away with all his other problems as the shuttle boosted toward orbit.
[Scene Break]
"So explain to me again exactly who this woman is?" demanded Tej.
Ivan sighed. "Admiral Ellie Quinn, commander of the Dendarii Free Mercenaries. She's an old… friend of Miles'." He turned his head to look out the shuttle viewport in hopes that his wife would stop acting jealous.
"It sounded like she was an old friend of yours, when she saw you on the Cetagandan flagship," persisted Tej.
"They were lovers, Tej. Her and Miles. I've only met her a few times."
"Really?" said Tej in obvious surprise. "She's very beautiful."
"Miles seems to attract beautiful amazons. Terrifying ones. Believe me, love, she's not my type at all."
"So I'm not a beautiful, terrifying amazon?"
"Beautiful, incredibly, delectably beautiful, but I stopped being terrified of you a couple of years ago. Your family, on the other hand…" Tej finally smiled and punched him in the arm. "And Quinn's looks are all biosculpt, dear. She got her face burned off by a plasma arc during one of Miles' little adventures and he bought her a new one."
"Ick. So she really is a combat officer?"
"Yeah, and a damn good one, too. She was Miles' second in command for years and then took over when he was forced to retire."
"So what are she and her mercenaries doing here? And why are we having dinner with her on her ship?"
Ivan hesitated. His current 'mission' was classified, and he wasn't sure how much he ought to reveal to Tej. Still, Ambassador Vorpinski had been using Tej's language skills so much during the trip that she was virtually part of his staff. And with her Jacksonian upbringing, she was very familiar with the concept of security. He could trust her to keep her mouth shut. "The Dendarii are here because the Polians hired them to flesh out their part of the expedition. I guess they didn't want to get their own forces all dirty and rumpled. There are a couple of other mercenary outfits with the fleet, too, for that matter. But as for why we're meeting with Quinn… For about ten years Miles was their commander, but he was acting under deep cover for ImpSec."
"Ah ha…" said Tej.
"Yeah. The Dendarii pretended to be a free company, but they were really working for ImpSec. It's all too complicated to go into here, but that's how it was. The Dendarii were Simon Illyan's secret army in the Nexus. Most of the stuff they pulled off I still don't know about, but if you do a data search on them you can find out about some of their more notorious… er, famous exploits."
"But your cousin is retired, you said. Do they still work for ImpSec?"
"Apparently so. After Quinn took over, ImpSec used them very sparingly for a while. Miles' cover was already in tatters and a lot of folks were getting suspicious of the Dendarii. I gather that Quinn has managed to convince people that with Miles' departure the Dendarii have no connection with Barrayar anymore. But I'm informed that the connection is still there."
"So why are meeting with her? Won't that just tend to make people suspicious again?"
"You'd think so," said Ivan shrugging. "But in the convoluted and contorted minds of the intelligence people, they are counting on the opposition figuring that this contact is so obvious and so clumsy that it can't actually be what it is. So they'll just assume that it is no more than it seems: a social meeting between old friends."
"Hmmph!" snorted Tej. "I can't imagine this fooling anyone!"
"Probably not," agreed Ivan. "But I can't see that it really matters. This is all pretty routine stuff. No great secrets being passed along. We have dinner, chat, Quinn gives me a data chip and we go back to the flagship. Simple."
"Why not just tight-beam it?"
"Could be intercepted. And even in code, someone could tell by the size of the message that it was more than just a hello."
"But…"
"Look, Tej, this wasn't my idea! We were ordered to go, so we're going, okay?"
"All right, all right. Let's get it over with."
The conversation died and Ivan was not willing to try resuscitation. He couldn't believe that Tej was actually jealous of Quinn! Good God, the woman had shown nothing but contempt for him the few times she ever deigned to show anything at all. He was quite certain that Quinn's friendly banter on the Cetagandan flagship was nothing more than an attempt by her to make Tej jealous and give him a hard time. Well go right ahead and try! I've got the girl of my dreams and look at you: your true love is married to someone else and has four kids! He looked out the viewport and watched as Quinn's flagship, the Peregrine, grew larger and larger. He put aside his irritation and settled a look of smug satisfaction on his face.
Dinner was entirely unremarkable.
The food was okay, although not up to the standards of Ambassador Vorpinski's table. The service was adequate, but militarily utilitarian rather than stylish. And the conversation…
Quinn had included her flag captain and the liaison officer from the Polians as dinner guests, so there were no secrets being talked about! Or not really. Quinn made no attempt to hide her past connection with Miles and even reminisced about some of their missions together. She asked a lot of questions about Miles' job as Imperial Auditor and about his wife and children. Ivan actually found himself pulling out his computer pad and calling up pictures of the kids—something he wouldn't have been caught dead doing not so long ago.
And Quinn didn't ignore Tej, either. She asked endless questions about her life on Jackson's Whole and the incredibly complicated political situation there. To Ivan's amazement Quinn mentioned several of the Dendarii's missions on Jackson's Whole—several of which Miles had never mentioned to Ivan. And to his horror she even talked about the disastrous attempt by Miles' clone brother, Mark, to steal away a batch of fellow clones who were destined to be killed in the notorious brain-transplant industry that existed on the Whole.
"It is a rather ugly business," conceded Tej. "My house has never had anything to do with it."
"Well, I suppose I'm in no position to condemn anyone," said Quinn, with a shrug. "After all, I kill people for money, too. But Mark managed to get Miles killed with his stupid stunt and I can't quite forgive him for that. We might be mercenaries, but we watch out for our own." She paused and looked down at her plate for a moment. "And Miles wasn't the only one killed that day. There were others, and we didn't get them all back."
"That's very interesting, Admiral," said the Polian officer. The man had said very little so far. "Naturally, we have a full dossier on the Dendarii's missions—including those you did working for ImpSec—but I don't recall this one being in it."
"That's because officially it never happened—even from ImpSec's point of view."
"I was only a child when Baron Ryoval was killed," said Tej. "I never heard the full story before."
"I'm not sure anyone even knows the full story. Miles and Mark both kept things back. And I'm sure Elena knew something she never told me, too." She glanced at Ivan. Elena Bothari-Jesek had been a childhood playmate of his.
"I would imagine that Simon Illyan found it all out eventually," said the Polian. "His reputation for thoroughness is formidable. How did you find working for him, Admiral?"
"Stimulating," said Quinn with a twisted smile. Ivan snorted and Quinn's flag captain shook his head. "Some of our most… fascinating missions came from him, but frankly I'm glad to be done with him."
"Of course Illyan doesn't run ImpSec anymore," said the Polian.
"True. But Tej, I'm dying to hear how your father managed to hoodwink the old spook. I've read the news stories, of course, but I imagine there is a lot more to it than that!"
Reluctantly, Tej told the story of the notorious treasure hunt on Barrayar that led to the restoration of her father as a baron on Jackson's Whole, to her staying married to Ivan and, incidentally, to the sinking of the ImpSec headquarters building into twenty meters of mud in the middle of Vorbar Sultana. By the end of it everyone at the table except Ivan and Tej were laughing.
"Oh, that is priceless!" gasped Quinn. "But you know, what I find the most amazing thing about it is that Miles wasn't involved at all! Normally I would have expected to find him buried up to his eyebrows in something like that!"
"I guess it was my turn," muttered Ivan.
"But speaking of turns," said Quinn's flag captain, "I have to get back to the bridge. If you will all excuse me." He started to rise.
"Actually," said Quinn, "I think it's time for us to wrap this up, as pleasant as it's been." She got to her feet and everyone else did as well. She turned to Ivan. "Well, this was fun. Thank you for dropping by. Perhaps we'll meet again at some staff meeting. And do say hello to Miles for me when you see him again." She turned abruptly and walked out with her flag captain. The Polian glanced back for a moment but then followed. Another Dendarii officer appeared as from nowhere and escorted them back to the shuttle bay.
Ivan and Tej stayed silent until they were back on the shuttle and headed for the flagship. "Well that was… odd," said Tej, finally.
"Yeah," agreed Ivan. "And she didn't even give me anything."
"I thought that was the whole reason for this junket!"
"Maybe something went wrong and she couldn't pass me the chip. Vorpinski is going to be pissed."
"Or maybe the data was on a micro-chip put in your wine and you'll have to piss it out when we get back," suggested Tej.
"I wouldn't put it past her," grumbled Ivan.
Bur Ambassador Vorpinski wasn't pissed at all. When Ivan met him in his office he smiled and said: "Well done, Ivan."
"Sir?" replied Ivan in confusion. "I… I didn't get Admiral Quinn's report."
"No, but we did. While the Polian and whatever spies they have on Quinn's flagship were watching you and Tej like hawks, one of Quinn's hanger techs passed the chip off to your pilot."
"Who is ImpSec," said Ivan, nodding.
"Of course."
Ivan shrugged and let out his breath. "Glad it worked out. Hope you got some good stuff from Quinn."
Vorpinski shook his head. "Probably pretty routine, I imagine. We—and everyone else in the fleet—are just keeping an eye on what people are doing. So far as we can tell, everyone seems to be behaving themselves. How long that will go on once we reach Novo Paveo is anyone's guess."
Ivan nodded. He supposed he ought to be angry that he'd been used as a decoy, but he knew that those sorts of things happened and it really was routine. God knew Miles had used him as a cat's-paw often enough!
"And only two more weeks until we get there," continued Vorpinski. "I think that…"
Vorpinski was suddenly interrupted by an awful noise that Ivan recognized as the battle stations alarm. This was confirmed a moment later by a voice on the speakers. The ambassador's eyebrows shot up. "I don't believe that any drills were scheduled for today. This might be the real thing."
It was possible, Ivan supposed. The EnBees could have naval forces pushed out along the jump routes leading to Novo Paveo. The question was how big a force? Just a picket to give warning, or an ambush force… or a battle fleet. "What do we do, sir?"
"Let's stroll up to the flag bridge and see what's happening, why don't we? The worst the admiral can do is ask us to leave."
Not having any other duty in a situation like this, Ivan followed along after Vorpinski. The corridors of the Prince Serg were initially crowded with scrambling, shouting, cursing crewmen trying to get to their battle stations. But as they neared the flag bridge, the crowd vanished and except for a half-armored trooper standing guard at the hatch, the place seemed deserted. A steady series of reports were coming over a speaker: …Engineering spaces, manned and ready… Damage control parties, manned and ready… portside weapons, manned and ready… All stations, manned and ready, the ship is cleared for action.
The sentry hesitated for a moment before letting them through, but he did and the hatch slid open to admit them. Admiral Vorburke was there with members of his staff studying an enormous holo-display. A myriad of small lights waltzed and pirouetted like glowflies on a summer night. The admiral glanced at them as they came abreast of him. "Trouble?" asked Vorpinski.
"No," said Vorburke, shaking his head. "But we've been spotted." He gestured toward the display. "A small task force near the wormhole we're heading for. A few cruisers and frigates; no threat to the fleet, but almost certainly EnBees."
"Admiral, one of the bogies just jumped," said one of the officers.
"And they are spreading the alarm," nodded Vorburke.
"Well!" said Vorpinski. "I guess things are going to get interesting from here on."
[Scene Break]
"Colonel Fetherbay, we will be dropping the 61st west of Araxa, here, here, and… here." Alby Vorsworth watched as the commander of the BEF ground Forces, Colonel-General Vordanov, highlighted three areas on the map of Novo Paveo that took up one wall of the briefing room. "Each of your battalions will secure a beachhead and defend the landing zone for follow-up forces."
The flagship's main briefing room was packed with officers. The general and his staff, the two brigade commanders and their staffs and the regimental commanders and their staffs filled the room. Alby sat behind Fetherbay, making notes on his computer pad.
"Yes, sir," said Fetherbay. "But according to these briefing documents, the follow-up forces in my 1st battalion zone will not be Barrayaran? Is that correct, sir?"
"Yes. As you know, many of the contingents don't have the sort of assault troops that we do to carve out landing zones. So we are helping them out. Your 1st battalion will be followed up by a mixed brigade of Earth troops. Two infantry battalions, a light armor battalion and an artillery battalion. They're good troops and once they are down will be able to support your men strongly. I don't think you have anything to worry about. And you'll have fire support from orbit if you need it."
Alby nodded to himself. The fleet had control of the space around the planet. The naval battle for the Novo Paveo system had been brief and very one-sided. The enemy ships they had encountered two weeks earlier along the jump routes had retreated in front of the fleet without trying to give battle. Clearly, they were just a trip-wire force to give warning to their companions. But the question on everyone's mind had been: what would be waiting at the end of that last jump? Trying to jump through a heavily defended wormhole was one of the most dangerous and most challenging military operations there was. If the defenders had powerful forces and the will to slug it out toe-to-toe with the attacker, they had the potential to inflict devastating losses. The attacker's options were limited. If you sent a small recon force through to see what was waiting for you, you ran the risk of losing the ships before they could jump back through the wormhole to report—you'd lose the ships and get nothing in return. A stronger recon force had a better chance of getting someone back with the information, but only at the risk of losing that many more ships. Or, you could throw caution to the wind and send your whole force into the wormhole as rapidly as possible and just blast your way through. All three methods had been used dozens of times throughout history and with a wide range of success—and failure.
No one in the fleet had expected a flat-out failure. In order to keep their grand plans a secret, the EnBees had not constructed any formidable permanent defenses to guard the wormhole exit. Most of the great powers had enormously powerful space stations and weapons platforms guarding their strategic wormholes, but those would have been a dead giveaway that the EnBees were up to something in this supposedly minor colony. Even so, the information from Novo Paveo was many months old now and there was no knowing what the EnBees might have built or brought in by their back-door route. They had gotten enough warning of the expedition's departure that they could have sent strong reinforcements. All the intelligence officers were confident that whatever was waiting couldn't be too powerful. The expeditionary fleet was larger than the entire Nuevo Brasilian Navy and no one could imagine the EnBees sending everything they had on a five-month voyage away from home—especially since several of the alliance members had been making menacing moves on the EnBee's borders to tie down their forces. Even so, making that last jump had been a ticklish proposition.
The fleet had paused on the near side of that jump for several days. 'Deliberating' the admirals said. Dithering was Alby's description of it. Of course, he'd admitted that making the decision was a whole lot easier when it wasn't his decision to make. He wasn't sure what he'd have done if the lives of thousands of people had been in his hands.
In the end, the council of admirals—and unfortunately, it was a council: no one person was really in charge—had decided on Option Three: full speed ahead and keep your fingers crossed. Alby had kept his fingers crossed and fortunately, it had proved to be the right decision. The EnBees had obviously been dithering, too. They'd kept a squadron powerful enough to gobble up a small scouting force near the wormhole exit, but they hadn't been willing to commit their whole force. And their whole force had been pretty impressive, including several battleships. If they had all been ready and waiting by the exit, the expedition would have been forced to pay a high price. But the problem with such a move was that if the attackers had enough ships—as they did—then the defenders would have had no hope of withdrawing from that close range fight when the odds turned against them. They might have taken twice their strength with them, but in the end they would have been annihilated. The EnBees hadn't been willing to sacrifice themselves in that manner. So the expeditionary fleet had pushed its way through, lost a few small ships, destroyed a few small ships of the enemy, and taken control of the wormhole exit.
The enemy had fallen back, first to Novo Paveo, and then to their back-door wormhole exit. Ultimately, when their pursuers had gotten close, most of them had made the jump to wherever that wormhole led to. A number of their smaller ships had fled into the outer system rather than jump. They were still out there, keeping an eye on things.
The main fleet had moved into orbit around Novo Paveo and caught up with the situation on the ground. Unfortunately, it wasn't good. In the period since the rebel envoys had left to seek help, the EnBees had brought in a lot of ground troops and pushed the rebels back on almost every front. Indeed, the rebellion was now hanging on by its fingernails in just a few strongholds scattered around the planet. The rest were dead or in hiding. The new planetary governor insisted that there was no rebellion, no independence movement, just a few scattered terrorists. No assistance was necessary, thank you very much. Now please go away.
The expedition's commanders weren't buying it, of course. The rebel envoys, returning with the expedition, had been able to make contact with their compatriots on the planet and insisted the rebellion was very much alive—and very much in need of immediate help. Burnt-out towns and unburied bodies, which could be seen from orbit, leant credence to their appeal. Help would be forthcoming.
So, the armies would land. The question was: where? Planets are big places, even planets mostly covered by oceans. And while the expedition was bringing a substantial number of troops, there weren't enough of them to occupy the whole planet. Not even close. So they needed to seize the key locations and then—hopefully!—turn things over to a revitalized rebellion. Alby wasn't quite sure when the expedition's mission had changed from peacekeeping to helping the Novo Pavean independence movement succeed, but it seemed pretty clear that it had. Not surprising, really, he supposed. Thwarting the EnBee's ambitions had always been a major reason for this whole operation, and helping the rebels throw off Nuevo Brasilian rule was the surest way to do that.
The biggest objective was the planetary capital of Araxa. It was a good-sized city of about a million people. Or it had been before the rebellion. It had changed hands at least three times during the fighting and was about to change hands again. Alby doubted that a million people lived there now. From the rumors he had heard, there had been quite a kerfuffle among the high command over who would have the honor of liberating Araxa. The result was that just about everyone would be liberating Araxa. Nearly every member of the alliance would have forces involved in that part of the operation—no matter how little military sense that made. Hence the brigade from Earth following the 61st's 1st battalion down.
The briefing went on. Other officers had questions and since they didn't concern Fetherbay's regiment, Alby relaxed slightly and stopped taking notes. He glanced at Rad Benin, but the Cetagandan was still following the briefing intently. Rad wasn't a bad fellow, Alby supposed, but he was so damn intense. The Cetagandan forces would be landing east of Araxa and Alby imagined that Rad probably wished he was with them.
Alby found himself staring at the painted symbol on Rad's right cheek. Rad had tried to explain the meaning of the red, white and black pattern. Some sort of clan insignia, but the details eluded him. When the Cetagandan had become his roommate Alby had wondered how the devil he managed to paint a design that complex and how long it took every day. But later he found that Rad cheated. He had an amazing little device with tiny spray nozzles. He just held the thing to his face for a few minutes and presto, the design was perfectly painted every time. Rad admitted that traditional ghem held such devices in disdain and insisted that only hand-painted faces were truly proper, but for a serving officer the auto-painter was a godsend.
"Now, as to the expected enemy resistance," said the general jarring Alby out of his musings. "Colonel Nimick will fill you in." The G2 officer stood up and pointed to the display.
"We are not expecting any serious opposition to our landings," said Nimick. "And while that might seem like good news, it really isn't. There is nothing we'd like better than for the EnBees to meet us in an open battle, but the enemy clearly realizes that they cannot win a stand-up fight with us—not with the fleet in orbit and us able to strike wherever we choose. We know from our intelligence sources on the planet that over the last four or five months the EnBees have been pouring in reinforcements and heavy equipment—hence the poor shape of the independence movement—but in the last few weeks, most of those forces have been disappearing. As you know, the EnBees were planning to make Novo Paveo into a major military base for future expansion and as part of that plan they have constructed underground shelters in secret locations that are screened against long-range sensors. We believe that most of their military forces have been retreating to those bases in the face of our arrival." Nimick paused to let that sink in.
"Therefore, we believe that they will not make any serious attempt to oppose our initial landings. Instead, once we have established ourselves in known locations, they will probably initiate a campaign of low-level actions, no doubt in conjunction with loyalists among the civilian population, intended to inflict the maximum number of casualties upon us at the least cost to themselves."
The assembled officers were silent. This wasn't what they'd been hoping for. No glorious victory and a quick return home. A long, drawn-out campaign against an elusive foe…
"What fun," muttered Alby.
[Scene Break]
"Let's go! Come on, move it! Move it!"
It seemed to Anny that every NCO and junior officer in the battalion was shouting that same message. It was completely unnecessary, of course. The invasion had been planned to the split second and the shuttles would not be launching for another fifteen minutes and the de-orbit insertions wouldn't happen for another half hour after that. They had plenty of time to get the men aboard the shuttles.
But the NCO's and junior officers shouted all the same.
Still, she could hardly blame them; after more than four months aboard ship everyone was itching for action—any kind of action. She, herself, though not itching for combat, was eager for anything to break the routine that had been forced upon them for so long. Her troops were bored and restless and she had to admit she was, too. She found herself giving a couple of shouts along with the rest.
"Just like a drill, people! Find your spots, secure your gear and get buckled in. Stubinski! Lulubelle is not coming with us today! Leave her with the quartermaster!"
Her platoon boarded the assault shuttle and strapped themselves into their assigned seats. Anny's place was right next to the rear ramp. She would be the first one out. In the assault regiments the officers led the way. Perhaps not the most tactically astute thing to do, but tradition demanded it, and it was good for morale for the men to see their officer out in front. Sergeant Kay finished up with something and then seated himself opposite her. "All secure, ready to drop, sir," he said, smiling in satisfaction.
Anny ran her eyes over her platoon and then did so again on her status displays. Everything looked green although her men's heart rates and respiration were all elevated. Well, so were hers. After all this time and all the drills this was the real thing. And nearly all her troops were seeing combat for the first time.
If there is any combat.
The latest briefings indicated that the EnBees probably wouldn't try to oppose the landings. They'd lay low for now and try to hit back later. A lot of the men—and more than a few officers—had voiced their disappointment, but Anny wasn't one of them. She knew exactly how harrowing a drop under fire could be. An unopposed landing was perfectly fine with her!
For one thing it meant that she had her whole platoon in one shuttle. When serious opposition was expected they would usually try to split platoon between two shuttles on the 'too many eggs in one basket' theory. But there was a serious shortage of assault shuttles in the fleet and with the predicted lack of opposition, the higher-ups had decided to go with the double-loading. It was a risk, but Anny had never liked the idea of having half her platoon at the mercy of chance or some disoriented shuttle pilot.
A series of thumps and clanks told her that launch was imminent. "All right, third platoon! Here we go! Visors down! Check your seals!" She followed her own order and the armored visor on her helmet swung down and her status display confirmed there was an airtight seal. Assault shuttles had a nasty habit of getting holes poked in them and losing pressure. A few moments later the shuttle pilot announced: "Standby, launching in five… four… three… two… one… now!"
There was a sideways lurch and then a steady acceleration. As an officer, Anny had the enviable privilege of tying into the shuttle's exterior video pickups. And the image wasn't just some tiny window in a heads-up display. The neural interface in the armor allowed her to see as if she actually outside the shuttle, bareheaded.
And the sight was breathtaking.
The vast armada was all around her. Many of the ships were just bright specks, but others were close enough to see clearly. Hundreds of smaller objects were being disgorged from the larger ones—assault shuttles, vehicle landers, small craft of all sorts. They looked like flocks of birds. It was impressive as hell. Barrayar hadn't conducted an operation like this since the Escobar invasion forty years earlier.
She was suddenly struck by the incredible amount of effort that had gone into this. Every ship, every shuttle, every tank and gun and piece of equipment from the smallest to the largest had to be made by someone. Every man and woman aboard the vessels had been painstakingly trained and prepared for this moment. And then it all had to be transported across distances too vast for human minds to really grasp. She found herself tingling.
Novo Paveo turned below her and its enormous moon was just rising beyond the curve of the planet. By this time Anny had seen quite a few different worlds, and while it was true that you couldn't judge one just by its looks any more than you could a person, this one looked pretty good: blue seas, fluffy white clouds and green and brown land masses. Humans could live there without any artificial aids and that was always a good thing.
But the enemy was down there… waiting.
She looked again at the massed power of the fleet. What could possible stop us? The EnBees will be sorry they waited! They'll wish they'd run instead!
The shuttles were sorting themselves out and moving into formation and those formations were setting themselves into the trajectories that would take them down to their targets. The sixteen shuttles carrying the 1st Battalion, 61st Regiment of Imperial Infantry, were closing in around Anny. An endless stream of chatter between pilots and controllers aboard the bigger ships flowed past Anny's ears but finally the message she'd been waiting for came: "Stand by for acceleration. De-orbit burns in thirty seconds."
Reluctantly, she withdrew from her god-like grandstand and checked over her platoon again. They were all just as she had last seen them. At least they were per the status display. She clicked to the 'visors up' mode to see their facial expressions. She winced when she saw that fully half the platoon had managed to disable that feature in their armor. Someone had figured out how to do that a few months earlier and it had been spreading like some disease, despite stern warning not to do it. Another great idea defeated by reality. Those troopers she could see looked excited and a little scared.
A strong jolt of acceleration hit her as the thrusters fired. It lasted for about thirty seconds and then faded. "Okay, we're on our way down," she announced. "Hang on: this might get a little rough."
Nothing happened for several minutes, but then there was a slight vibration that quickly grew as the shuttle encountered the steadily thickening air. Anny switched to the exterior view again, but could see nothing except a white blur. Her tactical display was more informative and the battalion's shuttles seemed to be right in the groove. The landing zone was just beyond the horizon.
An announcement came over the command circuit: "Pathfinders have landed, no resistance reported." A few dozen troopers had been sent in ahead of the main landing, using ablative pods rather than shuttles. Their task was to make sure that no traps or ambushes were waiting for those who followed.
Anny felt a tinge of guilt—not that there had been no resistance, but that she wasn't down there already. As the only one in the regiment who had actually made a combat landing using the pods, she had volunteered to lead the pathfinders. The Colonel had thanked her but turned her down. She had been simultaneously relieved and disappointed.
The vibrations that had been buffeting the shuttle slowly faded. "Going subsonic," announced their pilot. "ETA, two minutes."
"Okay, get ready!" she ordered. "When we touch down, I want an empty shuttle in twenty seconds!" Anny tensed: this was the most critical moment. If the enemy did have any surprises in store, they would unleash them now, when the shuttles were low, slow, and filled with troops. She remembered the near-disaster on Dounby where they'd almost lost Alby and a bunch of other troopers when their shuttles were hit moments before landing.
But the seconds passed and nothing hit them and the ground grew nearer and nearer. Her armored hand went up to her chest and the instant she felt the shuttle touch ground she slapped her harness release and surged to her feet. The rear door was already swinging open. "Let's go!" she shouted and sprang forward.
Her boots thumped down on the soil of Novo Paveo, but her eyes were on her tactical display. C Company was on the eastern edge of the battalion's landing zone, facing the city of Araxa, which was about ten kilometers away. She could just make out a few tall buildings in the distance. Her troopers were out of the shuttle in the required twenty seconds and began fanning out in an arc that would link up with the other companies of 1st Battalion, enclosing a landing zone for the follow-up forces. The weapons company would form a central reserve and there was an attached sapper platoon who would do a thorough scan of the area for hostile booby-traps.
The landing zone was two kilometers in diameter, give or take, and allowing for company and platoon reserves, that meant about 20 meters of perimeter for each man. Anny's platoon was stretched into a thin line almost 800 meters long. Not too bad, really. Prescribed spacing in most situations was about ten meters per man. They'd practiced this deployment a hundred times in the simulators and now her men moved to their positions with hardly a word needed from her or the squad leaders.
"First squad, in position. No contact."
Her other two squads reported the same and she clicked the command circuit to Captain Vorstang: "Third Platoon, on assigned positions. No contact, sir." Switching back to her platoon circuit she commanded: "Okay, Third Platoon, on your toes. Just because they didn't meet us at the door doesn't mean nobody's home. They may just be waiting for the follow-up forces. Stay alert!"
But a quarter hour passed with nothing to report. She bounced up and down her line checking on the men, but they were all in position, making use of what cover was available. They had landed in some sort of park with open fields, patches of woods, and some athletic facilities. The latter appeared to have been looted and the sports fields hadn't been mowed in a long time. They had seen no signs of any civilians.
She wondered how Jer was doing with 3rd Battalion. The few messages that had been passed through from higher up indicated that everyone else was meeting pretty much the same situation as C Company.
One of the pathfinders came through her lines and headed for battalion HQ and a little while later a sapper detachment moved up from the rear with their scanners. They placed a few sensors just beyond her front and then prepared to leave again.
"Finding anything?" she asked the sergeant in charge.
"A couple of scanner relays. Not sure if they were meant for us or were just leftovers from something earlier. We disabled them. No dirty tricks that we could find. Place looks clear, sir."
"Good." The sappers moved off.
"Attention 1st Battalion! Second wave is on approach. ETA ten minutes. Stay alert!" The message came direct from Major Vorglanov. "If the EnBees have any tricks planned, this is probably when they'll use them." Anny made sure that her men were on guard and that the squad leaders were paying attention to both their men and their sensor read-outs. A few moments later a notification came through from the air-defense platoon in the weapons company that they were linking all the troopers into their network. This effectively turned each man into a point-defense turret. In the event of a missile attack, every suit of battle armor would automatically try to fire at the incoming ordnance. It was not the sort of thing you could do during an active battle, but in a purely defensive posture like this, it could expand the air-defense envelope significantly.
Time passed and Anny's tactical display showed the reinforcements approaching. Most of them were not in the speedy assault shuttles, but in larger, clumsier landing boats of one sort or another. They would make very good targets if anything was ready to fire at them…
But nothing did, and a few minutes later she could actually see a swarm of large shapes settling toward the ground to her rear. Messages over the com channels indicated a certain level of confusion, but no alarm. The reinforcements were coming in unmolested. Or at least these were. There were indications of some fighting over in the Cetagandan sector, but apparently nothing too serious.
Nearly an hour went by before the word came that they would be moving out. One of the incoming battalions would take over the landing zone security and the 1st Battalion of the 61st would join the Earth brigade in an advance on Araxa. The plan called for one company of the assault troopers to work with each of the Earth battalions. C Company would be going with the 48th Highlanders—who were moving up behind them even now.
"All right," commanded Captain Vorstang, "on your feet! Platoon commanders make contact with your opposite numbers and get ready to move out."
"Here they come, sir," said Sergeant Kay, who had come up beside her. Suddenly he pointed. "What the hell is that?"
A line of infantry emerged from the trees but Kay was pointing at one particular soldier who was leading the way. He was wearing light combat armor, as were all the others, but he was also wearing a knee-length skirt of outlandish plaid fabric and holding a very… strange… object that was making a terrible racket. As he got closer, Anny could see that it was a sort of sack and the man was blowing into it through a long tube.
He came right up to her and stopped walking and—thankfully-blowing. Another man with officer's insignia approached. "Are you Lieutenant Payne?" he asked.
She flipped up her visor and saluted. "Yes sir. And you are Captain MacAllister?"
"That I am, Lassie. Well, let's be about it, shall we?"
"Yes, sir. Third platoon, move out!"
She turned and led her troopers forward. Behind her he heard MacAllister command: "Millin! Blue Bonnet! The rest of you rascals come on! Dileas Gu Brath!" The Earthers gave a loud cheer and followed. The man with the sack-thing began blowing again and Anny moved away as quickly as she could.
Her troopers formed a skirmish line in front of the Highlanders, perhaps two hundred meters ahead. Her tactical display showed the whole force expanding outward from the landing zone. One of the Earth battalions had some light tanks, but they were holding back for the moment. There was a unit of self propelled artillery as well. And if it really hit the fan they had a unit of forward observers trained to bring down fire from orbit.
So they were ready, but so far they hadn't encountered a single thing worth shooting at. They left the parkland behind and moved through a suburban residential district. The houses looked deserted and looted and several had been burned. Their sensors revealed nothing dangerous—or living. They covered a few kilometers…
"Lieutenant! Lieutenant Payne!" It was Sergeant Rollins, 3rd Squad.
"Payne here, what have you got?"
"Over here, sir! Two hundred meters to your right."
"Trouble?" She checked her sensors, but everything still looked quiet. She headed in that direction without waiting for an answer.
"N-no, sir. Not for us anyway. But you might want to come see this."
"On my way."
She bounced over and saw Rollins and two other troopers on the edge of a ravine. She came up beside them, looked down, and swallowed hard.
The ravine was full of bodies.
A couple of hundred at least. They'd obviously been there a long time and the flesh had mostly fallen or been picked off their bones. Dark stains covered their tattered clothing. Men, women, children. No uniforms. Not soldiers. Some of the skulls showed obvious weapons hits.
She tore her eyes away and clicked her command circuit. "Captain? We've found several hundred bodies. I've marked the location on your display. Do you want to tie into my video, sir?"
"Acknowledged. Negative on the video." Vorstang's voice was utterly expressionless. "Continue your advance. You… you'll probably find more, Lieutenant."
More? But… God, then we aren't the first to find something like this?
While she stood there, Captain MacAllister caught up with her. "What's going on, Lassie…? Bloody Hell!"
She looked back at him.
"Welcome to Novo Paveo."
End of Book 2