Chapter 19

The assault shuttles were flying so low and so fast that their shock waves were kicking up spray from the ocean only a dozen meters below them. Anny could feel the shuttle shaking as it punched its way through the thick air and the clouds of water thrown up by the shuttles in front of them.

She swallowed nervously and resisted the urge to pull her arms out of her armor's sleeves and wipe the sweat off her palms. She was about to do something she'd never done before. No one in the whole company had done something quite like this before, either. They'd simulated it a few times over the last few days, but that was all. Someone higher up had come up with this cockamamie scheme at the last minute and there had been no time to practice it for real.

The Regiment—the whole Regiment for the first time in this campaign—was about to storm an island called Tamborete. Her translator said the word meant 'stool' in the local dialect. She had no idea why. But the 61st Regiment of Imperial Infantry was going to take the place, and unlike their usual smash-grab-and turn over missions, this time they were going to smash-grab-and hold. According to the mission briefing they were here to stay.

"Two minutes to drop," came Captain Vorstang's voice over the com. "Stand by."

Anny unstrapped herself and stood up. The shuttle was still shuddering, but the stabilizers in her armor kept her steady on her feet. "Get ready," she said to her platoon. She watched the seconds tick down to about the one minute mark. "Stand up!" Forty armored men got to their feet. Ensign Vorstuban was right next to her. "You're the first one out, Ensign; you ready for this?" she asked him.

"Too late to back out now, Lieutenant," replied Vorstuban, grinning. "Don't worry, sir."

The shuttle banked sharply and Anny put a hand out to brace herself despite her stabilizers. A moment later the pilot said: "Hatch opening, drop in thirty seconds!" The rear hatch of the shuttle yawned open, revealing blackness. It was still three hours before dawn. Anny's suit automatically adjusted her vision and she could see the surface of the ocean rushing past not far below.

"Just like we practiced, people! See you down there!"

Ten seconds to drop and she could feel the shuttle decelerating to a lower speed. Five seconds. "Get ready!"

"Go!"

Vorstuban flung himself out the hatch. A line of men followed him at two second intervals.

"Go! Go! Go!"

Anny slapped the back of each man as he passed. It annoyed her not to be the first one out, but for this deployment she needed to be in the center of the formation. Vorstuban, out first, would anchor the left flank of the platoon and Sergeant Kay would be last out to anchor the right. The last man in the first half of the platoon moved past her and out. She stepped into the hatchway, waited a heartbeat, and then jumped.

The next few seconds were all pre-programmed into her armor. The anti-grav unit came on at full nullification and her suit thrusters went to maximum power. In the moments before she hit the water her speed dropped from two hundred kph to a much more comfortable eighty. Even so, when she torpedoed below the surface the jolt was considerable. The water slowed her speed to nothing in a few seconds more. The AG unit adjusted her buoyancy and she found herself floating in dark water ten meters beneath the surface. That wasn't so bad…

She immediately checked her tactical display. Third Platoon was a necklace of glowing blue beads strung out to her left and still being strung to her right. As she watched, the differently marked icon for Sergeant Kay appeared on the right. More beads appeared beyond Kay, but that was Second Platoon and not her immediate concern. They were down and everyone seemed to be…

"Hey! Hey! Help!" the voice over her com was a shout and Anny flinched.

"Who's that? Who called for help?" She was already scanning her status readouts and had the answer the same moment that the voice called again.

"Me! Griesmeyer! I'm sinkin' like a rock! AG's out! My thrusters, too! Whadda I do?"

Indeed, her status display showed that Private Griesmeyer was already a hundred meters down and sinking rapidly. Their armor could handle depths to nearly a thousand meters and the bottom wasn't that far down, so there was probably no immediate danger… unless his suit's got other damage.

"All right, calm down," she ordered. "Private Griesmeyer, I want you to activate the flotation device we've all had installed. Can you do that?"

"I… I think so. Yeah! Yeah, I got it!"

"Okay, good. Now hold on a minute until I check the diagnostics on your armor…" She tied into Griesmeyer's suit and quickly found that his suit would need a maintenance shop to fix. There was nothing they could do here. "Sorry, Private, but I think you are going to have to sit this one out. Adjust the buoyancy in the flotation device to take you up to the surface. I'll order a shuttle to pick you up."

"But…"

"Shut up, Griesmeyer!" snapped Sergeant Kay. "The Lieutenant's got more important things to do than nursemaid you! Now do as you're told."

"Yes, Sergeant," said Griesmeyer grumpily. Anny immediately turned her attention back to the tactical display. The last men of C Company were just landing now. They'd be moving shortly. But she had a hole in her formation with the loss of Griesmeyer. The drop had left her men in a long line about a hundred meters apart but she now had one gap that was two hundred meters. She issued orders to close it up by drawing in the left flank once they started to move.

"He's on the surface, Lieutenant," reported Kay. "They'll get him."

"Good."

"Naturally it was Griesmeyer," said Kay in an exasperated tone.

Anny snorted. Yeah, naturally it was Griesmeyer. It seemed as though every outfit had one. The hard luck, two left feet, fumble-fingered git that everything seemed to happen to. "Well, better now than later."

"C Company, attention." Captain Vorstang's voice came over the com. "Switch over to the laser com system. Shut down your primary coms." Anny quickly did so and then checked the links to all her platoon. Everyone was linked although the signal to the people beyond the gap left by Griesmeyer was weak. The com lasers could only travel a few hundred meters underwater, depending on the conditions. Hopefully once they'd closed the gap things would improve.

A minute or two went by while there was some reshuffling among the other platoons to get their own links secure and then Vorstang ordered the company to move out. Anny activated her suit's thrusters and soon she was cruising along at about forty kph like a miniature submarine. All her troopers were doing likewise. The simulator time they'd spent on the voyage here was paying off; there were no foul-ups.

Their speed through the water was forty kph, but they were only doing about half that speed when measured against actual distance travelled. They were moving against a very strong current because the tide was still going out. They had been dropped with the island of Tamborete well beyond the horizon and—hopefully—with them beyond the reach of any enemy sensors placed on the island. The Regiment would be hitting Tamborete about four hours from now, but C Company was going to be there early and, if everything went right, secretly.

They cruised along without incident for about half an hour and then Vorstang ordered a halt. "All right, people," he said. "Here's where things get interesting. We're just about at low tide. You may have noticed that the current against us is dropping fast. Our target is just beyond the horizon and when the tide comes back in again, it will bring us with it. We are going to shut down our main power and all other systems except the few we'll need. It's all programmed into your suits. Our AG and thrusters will be off-line. The flotation bags they attached will keep our buoyancy at neutral and we'll just float in with the tide. Our only worry will to be on the lookout for rocks and such as we get close to shore. We've all been briefed on this now let's do it!"

"You heard him," said Anny to her platoon. "It'll be just like that lake by the waterfall back at Fort Vorolson. Now call up your special commands options and execute Program 'Spindrift'." She did so for her own armor and verified that every man in the platoon had done likewise. The immediate effects were negligible. Unlike the memorable training exercise she'd mentioned, they were not shutting down everything. She could still move her arms and legs and she still had communications via the com lasers. All the high-power systems were off-line, though, which would hopefully render them very hard to spot on enemy sensors.

Assuming they don't know we're here.

And that was a big assumption. If any enemy who might be on Tamborete was depending strictly on line-of-sight sensors then they were okay. The shuttles had never gotten above the horizon in relation to the island. There was no way they could have been spotted that way. But if the enemy still had any sensor probes in orbit around the planet, they could have been spotted easily. When the armada had arrived, there had been hundreds of the things floating around. Most of them had been heavily stealthed and many were turned off to make them even harder to spot, only powering up later when needed. The navy types had claimed that they had gotten all of them and since they hadn't had much else to do but look for them Anny was confident that they had gotten most of them, but there was no way to tell if they had gotten all of them.

I guess we'll find out.

They floated there in the blackness for a quarter hour as the tide reached its low point and then began to move back in again. Minute by minute their speed increased as the water rushed back toward the island, carrying them along. But the flow wasn't uniform across the whole length of C Company so their communications started to get spotty as links in the chain moved beyond the range of the com lasers. They'd been warned that this would happen, but Anny wasn't happy that within 20 minutes she'd lost contact with most of her men, but there wasn't a thing she could do about it. All she could hope was that the NCOs in the squads would be able to keep things under control where she couldn't. Delegate girl, delegate. You can trust them. You have to.

They floated along for more than two hours. Their speed was over 20 kph so they were well over the horizon and in sight of the shore by now. Anny hoped no one was watching them. The sun came up and the utter blackness gave way to a murky gray light with an occasional brighter burst as some ray penetrated deeper. Only about an hour until the main assault began; they were getting close.

After a while Anny became aware of a faint rumble. It was more of a vibration transmitted through her armor than an actual sound. What was it? A few more minutes passed and the rumble was getting stronger. More light was penetrating the water now and she could catch glimpses of the surface about ten meters above her. It looked like it was surging up and down rather wildly…

A faint movement below her caught her attention. She looked down but couldn't see anything at first, but then a smooth gray shape slid past her and she realized with a shock that it was a boulder. More of them went by, large and small and the water seemed to be getting filled with floating debris and clouds of silt and bubbles.

Anny, growing up in the Dendarii Mountains, had had relatively little contact with oceans in her life, but she suddenly realized what the rumbling was. It was the surf. We're in the shallows! Omigod! They just said we would drift in with the tide! They never said anything about this!

Her vision was almost completely obstructed now by the swirling silt. She couldn't use her sensors and she had no idea what might be ahead of her. "Heads up, people! This could get rough!" she commanded. She only had a com link with about five other people by now and that was getting more and more erratic in the turbulent waters. But they hardly needed the warning.

The dark mass of rock loomed up in front of her and she was thrust against it by the rushing water. She managed to fend it off with her servo-powered arms and only bumped it gently, but more rocks were ahead and she collided with the next one much harder. Then she was suddenly above the surface. For an instant she caught a glimpse of churning water and perhaps land in the distance. Then she was under again and being dragged along the bottom for a dozen meters before glancing off another boulder.

What idiot thought this mission up?

The pounding continued and some of the impacts were hard enough to do real damage if the wrong part of her armor was at the contact point. This is crazy! We're gonna be pounded to bits! There were only two things she could think to do. The first was to power her suit back up and use her anti-grav and thrusters to get the hell out of the water. But it was still 30 minutes until the main attack began and she would be giving away the whole show if she did that. The only other thing was to jettison her flotation device and then get onto the lee side of some big rock and try to hang on.

The second option seemed best so she waited until she was near the bottom again and cut the flotation device loose. She sank to the bottom immediately, but the current was still strong enough to drag her along, her armored hands finding no purchase in the soft sea bed. After a few moments she bumped up against a rock. She tried to get around behind it, but the thing was polished smooth by the endlessly scouring tide and she couldn't get a hold of it and was swept on again. Periodic messages were coming in on her com, but it was mostly just curses and entirely incoherent and she didn't bother trying to answer anyone. She knew exactly what the condition of her platoon was and there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

She slammed to a halt against a bigger rock and decided to just stay there and let the water pressure hold her in place. The brief glimpse she'd gotten above the surface told her that the island wasn't that far off, so this spot would do as well as any other. While she waited, a myriad of objects swept by her, visible for an instant amid the silt and sand. Seaweed, small fish-like creatures, chunks of wood, and at one point she saw something she thought might have been another suit of armor, but they were all gone again so fast she couldn't see any details. The tide was actually rolling small rocks along with it and some bumped into her. She fended others off with her feet.

About ten minutes before H-Hour the current began to weaken. The tide was nearly at its high point and would soon be heading back out again. But C Company would not be going with it! No way! No way in hell will I ever do this again!

After a few more minutes the current had dropped to the point that she could stand up safely. Without the floatation device she was too heavy to float or swim, but she climbed to the top of the rock and that put her only a dozen meters or so below the surface. The silt was settling down and she could see the sun filtering down through the water. It was nearly time…

On the mark, her armor restarted main power. Her communications came to life and the tactical displays updated with information beaming down from orbit. She immediately called up her platoon status display and cursed when she saw that no less than six of her men were tagged as out of action—not including Griesmeyer whom she'd already lost. All of them were still alive and most only had minor injuries, but the buffeting had damaged their armor to the point that they were unable to carry on. Damn!

Acutely aware that she only had moments before the company would be moving out, she quickly contacted Sergeant Kay and all the squad leaders: "We cannot just leave those men behind! The outgoing tide could carry them out to sea again and damage their suits even worse. Some might not survive that! Assign men to each man down and make sure they get to shore! Move!"

The responses were hearteningly confident, but she was now looking at fully a third of her platoon out of action before the first shot was fired. She'd get some of those men back once they'd rescued their comrades, but still… She looked back at the tactical display. Swarms of blue icons were now being shown all over the island. The Regiment was in action. She waited for the order to get C Company into the fray.

And waited.

Seconds ticked by and she suddenly realized that the icon for Captain Vorstang was missing. Oh crap… She switched to the officers' circuit. "Captain Vorstang, are you all right, sir? Captain Vorstang, please respond!"

She got a response, but it wasn't Vorstang, it was company First Sergeant Nikolaidis. "Lieutenant, the Captain's down. I'm with him."

"Is he hurt?"

"Yeah, but not badly. But his suit's a wreck."

"Well then Lieutenant Dahlberg's going to have to take command, isn't he?"

"I would if I could!" snarled another voice. It was Dahlberg. "My sensors and my tactical display are junk. I'm blind, God damn it!" There was a pause and then he said: "Payne, you've got the company. Carry out our orders."

A chill went down Anny's spine despite the sweat on her brow. A part of her brain was gibbering, but she heard her mouth say: "Yes sir." She swallowed and then switched to the general circuit.

"C Company, this is Lieutenant Payne. I'm taking charge temporarily. All platoons, make sure you get your injured and crippled to shore. Everyone else, we still have a job to do. You know the plan, let's move out and get it done!" She switched to the 3rd platoon command circuit. "Vorstuban, you okay?"

"A little dented, but still operational, Lieutenant. Do… do I have the platoon?"

"Yes," she said. "Try not to get it dented, okay?"

"Right, sir… and thanks."

"Get them moving, ensign."

[Scene Break]

Lieutenant Alby Vorsworth trotted down the ramp of the shuttle with a pile of equipment cradled in his servo-assisted arms. Rad Benin was right behind him. There were enlisted men who were supposed to do this sort of work, but time was critical and the Colonel had little patience with officers who felt that they were above getting their hands dirty. They needed to get the HQ set up as quickly as possible to coordinate the operation. The 61st was hitting the island of Tamborete and the faster they could strike the easier the job ought to be.

At least that was the credo of the assault troops: hit hard, hit fast, don't give the enemy a chance to find his balance and strike back. From what he'd seen so far it was working well today. The Regiment was down in strength and resistance appeared to be pretty light. At least I managed to get down on the ground in one piece this time! Ever since the 'incident' on Dounby where his shuttle had been shot down, Alby had been leery of assault landings, but this time there had been no problem.

The Adjutant directed them to a small grove of trees where the HQ was being set up and he put down his load. Techs immediately grabbed the gear and started connecting it. A big display was already in operation and Fetherbay was studying it. More were being set up. Alby had been through this routine before both for real and in simulations. He'd wondered from time to time if all this junk was really necessary. With the armor's neural interface couldn't all the display screens just be created artificially in everyone's head? It was already done that way at the platoon and company level, why not at battalion and regiment? Maybe the sight of a batch of senior officers just standing and staring at nothing was too weird.

"The operation seems to be going well," said Rad.

"Yup, so far. Other Alliance troops have been here before—briefly—so it doesn't seem likely that there could be any major forces here."

"The enemy has shown the ability to move his forces around, despite all of our orbital observation," pointed out Rad.

"True. But the Old Man seems satisfied," replied Alby, pointing to where Colonel Fetherbay and his senior staff were clustered. Alby and Rad edged a bit closer.

"Looking good, sir," said Captain Templeton, the Operations Officer. "No ground fire at all against the shuttles. They're all getting down okay." Fetherbay grunted an acknowledgement. "Not much resistance at all, actually."

"What about 1st Battalion?" asked Fetherbay, pointing to the display. "They've got the toughest job, taking Milagres." That was the largest town on the island and the place where resistance was likely to be heaviest. Most of the Regiment had been split up into company or even platoon sized groups to seize the smaller villages, but the whole 1st Battalion had been assigned Milagres. Two of the companies plus the weapons company were coming in from the landward side while C Company was making a daring assault from the sea.

"We're just getting the first information now, sir," said Templeton. "Major Vorglanov is reporting significant resistance on the edges of the town. Could be a serious fight."

"What about C Company? Did they get ashore?"

Templeton frowned and shook his head. "Reports are sketchy, sir. It looks like they lost a lot of men with damage to their armor coming in. Captain Vorstang is out of action."

"Damn," said Fetherbay. "I never liked this whole scheme, but the plan came from brigade. We should have just brought them in on shuttles. Is Lieutenant Dahlberg in command now?"

"I think so, sir. The enemy seems to have some jammers in operation in the town so we're not getting a good data feed. But it looks as though at least some of C Company is fighting along the waterfront."

"All right, tell Vorglanov to try and break through to them as soon as he can."

"Yes sir."

"Vorsworth! Stop rubbernecking and get over here." Alby turned and saw his boss, Captain Hopkins beckoning to him. The job of the S2 personnel was to manage the flow of information to make sure that Fetherbay and his operations staff got the stuff they needed and didn't get swamped with information they didn't. It was important work and Alby was well-suited for it. He nodded at Rad and then took one last look at the main display and decided the first thing he would do was to sort out the intel coming from 1st Battalion—and C Company

[Scene Break]

"Is there anything you need us for, sir?" Jer Naddel asked Captain Andronov.

The H Company commander shook his head. "Not right now, Lieutenant. Nothing around here that's going to require your kind of firepower."

"Yes sir," replied Jer, trying not to let his disappointment show. The Regiment was securing the island of Tamborete and so far all the fighting had been a job for infantry. There had been no need for the heavy guns of his anti-tank platoon. The mortars of 1st Platoon had fired off a few salvos in support of the battalion, but that was the extent of H Company's activities so far. Unless the EnBees had some surprises in store, that wasn't likely to change.

"Just stay close to the shuttles in case we do need to redeploy you," said Andronov, who then bounced away to attend to other matters.

Jer went back to his men and had them form a defensive perimeter around the grounded shuttles, more to keep the men busy than because of any actual concerns for security. The area they had landed in appeared to just be farmers' fields. There was a village of stucco-clad houses in the distance which had already been secured. Forests stretched beyond the village and climbed partway up the slopes of a dormant volcano. All in all it seemed a peaceful tropical paradise—except that the only people in sight were the armored behemoths of the 61st. He hadn't seen a single civilian and that was hardly surprising. If they had any sense they'd stay in their homes and keep their heads down.

But as the morning wore on and the sounds of fighting petered out, a few of the locals dared to come out of hiding. At first it was just a few kids, watching from the concealment of the tall grass on the edge of the fields. They probably thought they were watching in secret, but they showed up clearly on sensors. It was probably harmless curiosity, but Jer wondered if they could be spying for real for the EnBees. They'd certainly encountered that sort of thing before. He told his men to stay alert.

After a while an elderly couple came down the road from the village and began to point and gesticulate in obvious dismay at what the assault shuttles, troopers, and equipment had done to their crops. A few thousand square meters had been pretty thoroughly squashed. Gathering their courage, the pair eventually approached the perimeter guard and after being scanned were sent through to talk to Jer. He met them between two of the shuttles so that he could open his helmet visor without having to worry about snipers. Shusterman, his platoon sergeant, stayed a few meters away.

The man didn't say much of anything, looking rather intimidated, but the woman made up for him by spouting out a stream of complaints that came so fast his translating software had trouble keeping up. The gist of it was a complaint about the damage to the crops and who was going to pay for it. Jer's explanation that payments would be made at a later date once things had settled down did not impress the woman in the slightest. She seemed capable of going on all day and he was getting a crick in his back from having to bend over to face her since she only came up to his waist.

"Pretty hot action, eh, Naddel?" Jer looked up to see Lieutenant Vorkerkas stroll by with a couple of men. He pointed at the locals. "Hold the line, man! Hold the line!" he laughed and went on. Jer scowled. Since they'd reached Novo Paveo, Vorkerkas had not been quite as much of a jerk as before, but he was still a jerk.

The woman continued her rant and Jer looked toward Shusterman with a get-me-out-of-this expression on his face. Shusterman's expression seemed to say sorry-sir-you're-on-your-own. But just then Andronov was calling him on the com. "Naddel, respond."

"Sir?" said Jer holding up his hand to forestall the woman.

"Get you platoon loaded up right away. You're being redeployed."

"Yes sir. Where to?" Shusterman had been listening in and was already relaying the order to the platoon.

"To that big town, Milagres. 1st battalion's having a hard time of it. C Company is in a fix."

A chill went down Jer's spine. Anny!

'We're on our way sir!"

[Scene Break]

Anny Payne flinched back as a plasma blast tore through the lip of the concrete seawall she was moving behind, showering her with masonry fragments.

"Stay down, you damn fool! Oh! Sorry, sir, didn't know it was you!" Anny looked and saw that the man who'd shouted at her was a corporal in 1st Platoon. Most of the men pinned down behind this section of wall were from 1st Platoon although there were some from the other platoons mixed in as well.

"No, you're absolutely right, Corporal," she replied. "I should keep my fool head down. How's your squad?"

"Not so good, sir. Only a couple casualties from the fire, so far. We lost more from those freaking rocks coming in. But the PMs on most of the lads are nearly out. We try to rush that bunker and we're toast."

Anny nodded grimly. Things were not going well. The battle plan for the company had been all planned out in detail beforehand, but as the old saying went: no battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy. In this particular case the battle plan hadn't survived contact with the big rocks out in the harbor. They'd lost too many men, too much of their heavier equipment even before they came ashore.

And the enemy wasn't cooperating, either.

The level of resistance they had met was far higher than any of the briefings had indicated. Perhaps the fact that one thing had gone right with the plan—that they had taken the enemy by surprise—was the reason for that. They'd barely gotten out of the water before they encountered large numbers of enemy troops, many of them EnBee regulars, retreating right towards them. Clearly they were falling back in the face of the rest of the battalion's attack on the other side of town and had not counted on meeting C Company rising out of the ocean directly in their path.

Initially, the Barrayarans had been able to take advantage of that surprise and had inflicted a lot of casualties. Smoldering bodies littered the docks and sodden corpses floated out to sea on the receding tide. But the survivors—and there were quite a lot of those—fell back to the buildings along the edge of town and rallied. If Anny had had a full, intact company, she might have been able to keep up enough pressure to turn the retreat into a rout. But she didn't. Over a third of the men had been out of action one way or another and they were all badly scattered. She'd tried, Ensigns Vorgard and Vorstuban and all the remaining NCOs had tried, to get the company back into order and moving, but that had taken time. Time the enemy had put to good use.

They took cover in the buildings and laid down a heavy fire all along the waterfront. None of them were in power armor, but many had half-armor and all carried deadly weapons. Even so, despite all the problems, C Company might still have been able to break through and link up with the rest of the battalion.

But no one had counted on the bunkers.

They discovered that there was a string of heavily constructed—and shielded—bunkers guarding the harbor area. They were cunningly hidden among the buildings of the town, many disguised as ordinary businesses or dwellings. But each mounted heavy weapons and were protected by a meter of concrete and powerful force fields and plasma mirrors. How they'd remained undetected all this time Anny had no clue, but they were here and they were chewing up the company.

Her company.

The shock that she was in command had paralyzed her for a moment, but then her training had come to the rescue and she pushed her doubts and worries into the background and forced herself to deal with the problems at hand. The men and NCOs knew what they were supposed to do, she'd just had to get them moving and make sure they did it. And they had done what they could; they had hit the enemy as hard as they could with what they'd had. But now the plan was in the trash bin and Anny had to improvise.

Vorstuban and a few of the squads from 3rd Platoon had managed to penetrate into the first blocks of buildings, but they'd lost impetus and couldn't advance any farther without support. The rest of her troops had knocked out a few of the bunkers, but the enemy had set them up with interlocking fields of fire. Even if one was destroyed, there would be another that could cover the gap. And her troops had expended so much of their ordnance and so many of the charges in their plasma mirrors in taking out the ones they had that they didn't have much left now. The weapons platoon, the men with just the gear for this sort of job, had suffered the heaviest on the trip in. Only a single mass-driver was in action now. The bulk of the company was pinned down along the waterfront.

She'd called for support but she hadn't gotten anything. The fleet was overhead and there were ships up there that could vaporize those bunkers in an eyeblink. But they would also probably take out everything for half a city block around them. They were here to pacify the place, not level it. Her requests for fire support had been overruled.

She'd gotten through to Major Vorglanov a while ago and he'd told her to just hold where she was and the rest of the battalion would break through to her. It had seemed like a good idea. But in the last few minutes the enemy fire had gotten heavier if anything. Her tactical display—when it could get a clear uplink—showed the battalion pushing toward her along several of the main streets, but it also showed more of the enemy massing against her front. Were they trying to break through her? Through to where? The sea? All the boats in the harbor, the ones that weren't burning, were grounded with the ebbing tide. Maybe they were just thinking to smash C Company, hurt the enemy, before they were forced to surrender. Whatever their plan, Anny had to be ready to counter it. Unfortunately, at the moment, there wasn't a whole lot she could see to do that they weren't already doing.

That bunker. That one right there. If we could take that one out…

There was a bunker about 200 meters away. It was still blasting plasma at anything that moved, but the two bunkers on either side had been knocked out earlier. If they could take out the remaining one there would be a 400 meter gap in the enemy line that none of the other bunkers could fire at. Anny could move what was left of her company through that gap, get in among the buildings, and be in a whole lot better position to hold out until relieved. But taking out the bunker was not going to be easy.

The bunker was not only equipped with a standard force screen which would stop energy fire or any physical object from passing through, but it had a full plasma mirror which could reflect plasma fire back at the person who had shot it. Anny and her troopers had partial plasma mirrors with their armor. Their mirrors could deflect a plasma bolt, splash it away harmlessly, but they could not direct it back at the firer. But every time a plasma mirror—full or partial—was hit, it was drained to some degree and could only recharge slowly. But the bunker had a bigger reserve and a faster recharge rate. Somehow they had to deplete the bunker's PM and then weaken the force field enough to allow them to destroy it—all without getting killed themselves.

Standard doctrine called for massed plasma fire from as many different directions as possible. This would drain the PM of the target while limiting the number of back-blasts the individual attackers would suffer. Once the PM was drained then more fire could bring down the force field enough for something, a mass–driver, say, to get a lethal shot through. That was, in fact, how they'd knocked out the other bunkers. But in doing so, most of the men's plasma mirrors were nearly drained. If they tried it again, some of them were going to get hurt. She called up the status display for the troopers nearby and grimaced when she saw that nearly all of them had plasma mirrors which were at less than 25%. Some were at zero. The armor of their suits was tough, it could provide protection from a heavy plasma bolt for a few seconds, but only a few. Maybe it would be better to just wait here…

"Lieutenant Payne! Anny! Are you there?" It was Ensign Vorgard, 2nd Platoon.

"I'm here, Eric, what's the situation?"

"Not good! I've got about fifty hostiles moving around my right flank. I've only got a half-squad holding them back. But if they overrun them and make it to that breakwater they'll have the whole company in enfilade. They'll be able to rake the sea wall from end to end. But I haven't got anyone to spare to reinforce. What do you want me to do?"

Damn. She'd been afraid something like this would happen. She called the Major to see how long until the relief arrived, but he couldn't give her anything other than some encouraging words. "Do as you think the situation demands, Lieutenant. You're in command."

Great.

"Sergeant Nikolaidis." She had the company first sergeant running 1st platoon and she called him up on her com.

"Sir?"

"We're going to have to take out that bunker."

"Gonna be costly, sir."

"I know, but not as costly as staying here might get. The flank's giving way and we need to get our men into the town."

"Right. I'll get the lads ready, sir." Nikolaidis didn't sound happy and she couldn't blame him.

"Wait. Here's what I want to do. If we can get everyone firing at once, we ought to be able to take down the bunker's PM without getting hurt too bad."

"Yes sir, but doing that's gonna use up just about all we've got left on our mirrors. We'll have to stay exposed to return fire to take down the force field and there's a hell of a lot of fire still coming our way."

"I know, I know. But I've got a demo charge here and if we can just weaken the field a bit, someone can force their way through to plant it."

Long pause. "Who's gonna do that… sir?"

"My shields are still at 75%, Sergeant."

"Sir! I don't think that's…"

"No choice, and I've got a better chance than anyone else. Get the men ready to open up, on my mark."

"Yes, sir. Give me a minute."

Anny swallowed hard and tried to stop shaking. This was crazy! A company commander had no business assaulting a bunker! But it was the best chance. There was a trick that assault troopers could do with the shielding in their armor. Against a sufficiently weakened force field you could have your own shields neutralize a section of the enemy field and you could actually push your way through. But to do it, you needed as close to a full charge on your shields as possible. No one else nearby had enough left to try this. And if it worked, it would shave priceless seconds off the time needed to take out the bunker. It could save half her men—if it worked. She used her interface to adjust her shield settings for a penetration. Then she called Ensign Vorgard. "Eric, we're going to punch a hole through the center here. Get ready to pull your men back and then follow us through. Bring your wounded if you can."

"Right, Anny. The sooner the better."

"Ready, sir," said Nikolaidis.

She picked up the demolition charge she'd gotten off a wounded man from the weapons platoon and took a deep breath. "C Company, covering fire… now!"

The men behind the sea wall popped up and began blasting away. Incandescent beams of energy speared out, flashed brightly against the bunker's mirror, and then bounced back to hit the men who had fired them. Anny had once seen a vid of plasma fire between two objects with full plasma mirrors. It had looked like some insane game of cross-ball with the bolts flashing back and forth until they were spent. This wasn't quite so crazy with each bolt only bouncing once, but with over twenty men firing it was crazy enough.

She remained crouched down, not daring to weaken her own shields by firing. But her men were firing and their mirrors were being depleted—fast. Some men could only fire a shot or two before their PMs were too low to risk another shot. Others hung on and kept blasting. A few hung on too long. For it wasn't just their own bounce-backs that were hitting them. The bunker was firing and there were still other EnBees in the shattered buildings around the bunker. Nikolaidis had assigned a few of the men with little or nothing left in their mirrors to suppress them as best they could, but there was still a lot of fire coming from them.

And some of it was hitting home. Men who hoped to get off just one more shot before taking cover were being hit not only by their own bounce-backs but simultaneously by other fire. Their shield failed and they went down. The number of casualties on Anny's status display rose alarmingly.

But then, suddenly the bunker wasn't bouncing the fire back anymore. We've taken down the mirror! Good!

More of her men, the ones with PM's too low to risk bounce-back, began popping up to fire and then ducking down again. Their shots splashed off the bunker's force field but they were weakening it. Anny focused her sensors on the bunker and could see the power level dropping. Eighty, seventy, sixty percent. If they could get it down around forty she ought to be able to force her way through.

But the company's fire was slackening. Too many men were going down. Anny took the risk of popping up and taking a shot herself and managed to duck down again safely. Fifty percent, forty-five… She got ready to move.

As she did so a half dozen troopers, crouching low, scuttled up around her. "What are you doing?" she demanded. None of them had working plasma mirrors.

"Gonna go with you, sir," said one.

"No you're not…"

"First Sergeant's orders, sir. Gotta take some fire offa you. Only way you'll have a hope of making it."

Anny might have argued, but there was no time. The moment was now. She leapt forward, over the sea wall.

"All right! Let's go!"

She bounded forward, zig-zagging, and covering ten meters with each stride. She carried the demolition charge in one hand and she blazed away with her own plasma arc with the other. A plasma bolt hit her and then another. She cursed to see her shield level drop below sixty percent. It was going to be close.

She seemed to be running down a tunnel of flame as shots, both friendly and enemy seared the air all around her. She slowed as she reached the bunker's shield. She couldn't do this too fast. He shield touched the bunker's and a coruscating aura of lighting surrounded her. She took one step and then another. The field was resisting and it was like walking through thick mud. One more step ought to…

The field seized her and flung her backwards. She slammed into the ground and skidded to a halt ten meters from the bunker.

Damn!

She scrambled to her feet, but her shields were at zero. She couldn't try again. All she could think to do was put the demo charge up against the bunker's shield and hope it would bring it down. Maybe the company could take it out with their fire then. The snout of the heavy plasma gun in the bunker was swinging her way.

"Anny! Get down!"

A voice rang in her ears and she froze. She knew that voice…

"Jer?"

"Get down!"

She threw herself flat and an instant later there was a thunderbolt crack that she could feel through her armor. The bunker exploded in flames and chunks of concrete came raining down on and around her. The battle armor spared her the worst of it, but she still felt stunned. A cacophony of messages swirled over the com. Something was happening, but it was hard to make out what. Gotta get up.

"You okay, Lieutenant?" An armored hand pushed a block of masonry off her and then helped pull her to her feet.

"Yeah, yeah, thanks. What's happening?" She looked around and the firing seemed to have mostly stopped. Armored assault troopers were moving past her.

"Got some help," said the trooper. He pointed past the remains of the bunker and Anny saw a heavy mass driver on an anti-grav platform at the end of the block. "Seems like that broke their back, sir."

EnBees were coming out of the buildings with their hands up. New troops, not C Company, were taking charge of them. Anny tried to call up her tactical display, but it wasn't working. Half her displays seemed to be out, but she still had communications. "Sergeant Nikolaidis?"

"Here, sir."

"I've lost my TAC. What's the situation?"

"Looks like it's over, sir. Except for mopping up and cleaning up. Lot of that to do."

"Yeah. Well let's get to it."

She started rounding up her men. Medical shuttles were already coming in to land. Sure hope they brought some cryo-pods. We're gonna need them! She dreaded to see what the butcher's bill was going to be for this mess.

Then she saw someone approaching her. Despite the situation, she smiled when she saw who it was.

But Jer wasn't smiling. "Just what the hell did you think you were doing?" he demanded, pointing at the bunker.

She shrugged. "Just passing the time until you slow pokes got here. Had to stay busy, you know."

"Anny…" She held up a hand to silence him and then gently punched him on the shoulder.

"But now that you are here… thanks."