Tactics of Delay, Pt. 15. Online Serial. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

“Report from Force H, Colonel.”

“Yes?”

“Grain trucks rolling through their position.”

“Very well.”

Another voice came from the next row of battle-stations.

“Their concealment seems pretty good, Colonel. The video from the trucks isn’t always the best.” This was due to the low acuity required for a vehicle to navigate roads equipped with transponders, radar reflectors, and strong ferromagnetic lines painted on the road surface. 

“We’ve stopped using the Proctor call-sign. No sense in telling the bad guys exactly what we’ve got.”

“Very well.”

The cameras aboard the robo-trucks picked out moving objects for safety, although other forms of motion-detection were the primary element. Otherwise, they were more of a back-up option for remote human operators when things went wrong.

This particular trooper was monitoring the convoy, along with a short list of other lower-priority objectives. With plenty going on all around her and the big boards up front for all to see, there was no question of boredom.

“Okay, check the view from each one as they go through. Force H, are you getting this?”

“Roger that, Command. Over.”

It would be helpful if all or most of the trucks got through their ambush position before the enemy caught up with them.

The trooper beside her spoke again, in a musing tone.

“Honey—or vinegar.” That is but the question—

“Pardon me, Trooper?”

The kid blushed.

“Well. It’s just that I read your book, Colonel. That was a while back, but.”

Dona nodded thoughtfully—and the girl had given her a powerful reminder.

Recognition dawned.

This was one of her students—Alyssa, an average student, one who had passed with some bare margin. She was in a class two or three years ago. Confederation troops were among the best-educated in the galaxy, and that was the private soldier—officers had nothing but constant learning curve.

She was beginning to understand just what that meant—it was a kind of revelation, in fact. 

Even though she had been teaching it for years.

The last name would come to her in a minute.

You learn or you die.

It was as simple as that.

A grain truck, capable of autonomous operations.

***

The Unfriendlies were on the move.

The largest force, including what appeared to be a couple of companies of Guards, had some big flatbed trucks, with three medium tanks so far identified. There were utility vehicles big and small, and batteries of artillery, towed along with their ammunition trailers. There were air-defense and surface-to-surface rocket batteries. The column had been reinforced with detachments of engineers, mobile air defense weapons, and more than a dozen big truckloads of regular, conscript infantry. Packed in like sardines, there had to be four or five hundred of them. They were inbound on Highway 17, having broken off of Highway 3 at the crossroads, a hamlet marked on the map as Gossua. They were under careful observation from Teams Three and Four during the initial stages. The satellite had them the whole way, but that might not last forever.

No one had any idea of what language that was or what it might signify. Gossua, being too far forward and too exposed, in the midst of a wide valley, had been left undefended, with only a camera or two for road-junction surveillance. Coming and going, the cams were pointed both ways.

In order to suck the enemy forward, it hadn’t even been mined or booby-trapped. There were certain assets in place. The time to activate them was later.

There was a joke going around.

Twenty credits a day combat bonus sure sounds like a lot of money.

Until you realize it’s only ten days a year.

The enemy had divided their forces. First, when leaving Deneb City, which had to be defended in its own right, including the spaceport and all stores, supplies and installations.

They had just divided their forces again—going for two objectives at once. Possibly even three objectives, for they were also patrolling south and north of town…there was nothing to the west except a vast, undeveloped wilderness, and they apparently knew that too.

An Unfriendly Guards regiment was generally four or five companies of troops, one of which was a headquarters company. Since this did not require the same manpower as a rifle company, the headquarters company would have attached platoons of specialists such as transport and quartermaster. One such rifle company, reinforced with other units, was now headed for Walzbruch. That force had a proportionate share of additional formations except for tanks—those were still headed for Roussef. In terms of sheer numbers, considering that her forces were divided as well, she was outmanned two or three to one in the Walzbruch operation, and a little less than two to one in the Roussef operation. The enemy still had five thousand troops in Deneb.

This allowed quite a reserve, and as the situation developed, some of it would be deployed. For this reason, a number of force multipliers were going to be vital. Everyone knew the defense had certain advantages. One of the less obvious of those advantages was surprise, not always so easily attained by troops dug into prepared positions, and under constant enemy surveillance. She had deployed them as far forwards as possible, in order to maximize the opportunities for surprise. It was a gamble, but then war always was. It was believed that small units of professional troops could withdraw faster than their more unwieldy and arguably less-professional enemy, where essentially, it was only the higher ranks that had any formal training in the art and science of modern warfare. That’s not to say that the staff work wouldn’t be good.

But those orders and that plan had to be carried out by what were not the best troops and in fairly large numbers.

Troops that might very quickly become disillusioned by defeat, casualties, the sights, sounds and the cost of war. The enemy is always a sentient being—one of her better lines.

The second column, perhaps a reinforced company, all mobile including some lighter armoured vehicles, continued on to the east-north-east, clearly heading in the direction of Walzbruch. The first column was about twenty-five kilometres out of Deneb as the crow flew, and the other party, perhaps forty kilometres. Although the road had its deviations, Highway 3 was relatively straight, following the valleys as opposed to climbing constantly in heavy terrain, such as what had been dubbed the enemy’s Main Force faced on the battle map. 

Highway Two, running from Walzbruch to Roussef, was a combination of the two types of terrain, although it crossed fewer valleys than Highway 17. Within this triangle, all action would take place—anything else was a dead end road, with the possibility of entrapping one’s forces if someone blew a bridge behind you. To some extent, Ryanville was the same, which was why she was re-supplying there as much as she dared strip resources from other places.

Climbing hills, seeking the easiest pass, meant a lot of turns and switch-backs. Highway 3 was different. There were many small hamlets and scattered farmsteads all over the place. 

The ochre band of population density on the maps stretched twenty and thirty kilometres to each side of the highway.

The secondary force, Walzbruch Force, was in nowhere-land, with little but the occasional farmstead, and clusters of small buildings at the rare crossroads and intersections. To the south, were the desert wastes of the low-lands. This meant that most of the roads to the right faded out to nothing or died at the edge of the escarpment, whichever came first. One or two faint tracks descended through shallower gullies, petering out into dotted lines that basically went nowhere. At one time, people might have gathered salt out there. The longer things went on with that force, without meeting any enemy, the closer they got to Walzbruch, the less alert they would be.

There would be complacency at first, followed by a gradually-rising tension as they got closer.

They would hate every minute of it, and they would still be surprised when it happened. They knew Walzbruch had been occupied, and according to the Confederation satellite surveillance, a drone had scouted out as far ahead as possible, and yet still being able return to base on available fuel. This tended to confirm their earlier range estimates for the drone-craft.

With all of the Confederation forces in Walzbruch under concealment, keeping their heads down and signals traffic to a minimum, even by fibrenet, one had to wonder what, if anything, the Unfriendlies might have learned.

To their left, roughly north-north-east, the side-roads went further, and here and there along the way there were more concession roads at right angles; roughly parallel with the main highway.

By no means continuous, the short stretches of back road and the rectangular surveys meant that, combined with the usual tracks and trails, there were a few ways to outflank an enemy going in either direction. So far, the enemy had ignored the possibility. Rather than investigate, sending out patrols along the better side-roads, they appeared to be making time and speed as their first priority. They were keeping their force together. This would be a one-task type of force and it would ignore anything but the most provocative target if they were going by the book.

It was true—she’d read a few of their books too.

The enemy’s Walzbruch Force appeared to be making sixty or so kilometres an hour. They slowed down and approached the major intersections more cautiously before racing on. They also stopped for breaks, meals and reconnaissance of major crossroads, using small patrol vehicles to scout ahead. They never went more than a kilometre or two on the side-roads. 

They would pause at the first major intersection, perhaps fearing being cut off by light forces or even the locals...a quick report, and they would turn around and go back. Not very impressive, but it was a small force to begin with.

All by the numbers, and predictable in some ways. There was very little civilian traffic. The Unfriendlies, upon coming upon civilian vehicles, invariably stopped and questioned them. So far, no one had been detained as far as could be determined. However, after such encounters, the civilians appeared to be going straight to their home or farm or business—and not so eager to talk about it on the phone, although mentions were made of it. Hopefully, at some point, someone would activate a burner phone, walk up into the hills and talk to the Confederation directly. After that, it would be wise not to come home for a few days, as the Unfriendlies would be listening in—just as the Confederation was. As it was, data was fed into the system, building up a picture of what was going on down there, one that meshed with what was known from satellite and other sources.

It was unfortunate, but there were no cameras along this stretch and so it was all second-hand in a way.

Main Force, confronted by that washboard terrain, was also making pretty good time. They were fifteen kilometres out from the first of several villages. Crossroads where the highway intersected with semi-surfaced and improved gravel highways were common along the main, paved road, which linked the two biggest towns on Deneb, with 17 cutting through the most populated area of the planet. This wasn’t saying much.

The village, with a rocky little river meandering through it, weaving its S-bends on each side of the main street as it drained off to the southwest, gave the place a quaint charm in the street-views. She studied the situation.

The force under Captain Herzon were on the heights behind, overlooking the village of Kirk’s Falls, population about thirteen hundred according to the sign.

Again, there were side roads and trails leading off the secondary roads. These were mostly running northwest and southeast, following some original survey that, one day, might be properly filled in. The population was scattered along the side-roads, not quite as dense as along the main highway. There were farmsteads and ranches and small trading-posts—they could hardly be called stores in many cases, at crossroads and intersections where the structures and even a few side-streets seemed denser, according to the satellite map.

The best road on the planet, Highway 17, was the most winding, as the road-builders had sought to find the easiest gradient, not necessarily always in a straight line in such hilly country.

There was a third threat on the battle-board, one that seemed much more subtle. Several large parties, equipped with light vehicles and weapons, had departed from Deneb City using the better gravel roads leading northwest and northeast into the bush. As near as anyone could determine, that original survey must have used the escarpment above the Great Sandy Desert as a baseline.

The public roads really didn’t extend that far, at which point the parties had broken up, exploring their own individual tracks.

There was, unfortunately, a maze of logging and prospecting trails. The trees were tall and thick, and still partly in leaf, providing some cover from surveillance. There were clumps of Terran conifers which were evergreen. They might be fighting patrols, hoping to make contact with the enemy. The odds were, the enemy would push them out as far as possible, in order to detect and spoil an attack from the flank, or perhaps to provide a counterforce in the event of surprise. Her own people were engaged on exactly the same task, and if they lost sight of the enemy from above, there was a very good chance they would run into each other—hopefully not without sufficient warning to the Confederation troops.

For that reason, satellite and drone surveillance were absolutely vital. Enemy troops on the ground, on foot and hearing or spotting a drone before it spotted them, would immediately know something was up—this worked both ways, of course.

Are we expected? Or is there somebody else out here? These were only two of the most obvious questions. So Dona was holding back on drone flights south of Roussef, unless the track was dead straight and obviously heading for Deneb.

They could fake it, making a quick pass over the enemy, but only so often—otherwise, it would be a dead giveaway that the drones were out looking for something specific. They were limited to four or five passes a day, no more. It was better not to use the same machine twice if they could help it. If the Unfriendlies had cracked the Confederation’s IFF, it would look more random, and it might tend to exaggerate in the minds of the enemy, the number of drones actually available.

As far as the situation in Deneb City went, enemy patrols were scouring the countryside in all directions, paying particular attention to a series of small outliers, hills two or three kilometres to the southeast and southwest of town. The ridges flanked the flats where the actual city and the spaceport were located. If the series of small ridges were outliers of the highlands, the wide, arid valley of Deneb City was an outlier of the desert…the Deneb River coming down out of the hills, right through the centre of town. Then it petered out into a vast salt marsh with no outlet. Only south of that was the spaceport located, on hard ground in the desert proper, the access road skirting the east side of the marsh just below the biggest of their hills and the one where Team Two was hidden.

The satellite had watched the Unfriendly patrols depart, tiny dots flaring with the infrared, and in the time elapsed they couldn’t have gotten too far—three to five kilometres, tops.

They had figured out where the Barkers had been firing from, at least in the general sense. 

They knew the direction, and might have had a pretty good idea of the range—multiple hits imparted a certain kind of information.

Sensors aboard ship would have noted the impacts, and combined with all the navigational and landing-positioning data, they must have had some kind of handle on it. The latest in micro-band radar might have picked up the slugs in flight. They had zero information as to whether the Boer-class ships had such a system.

The fire-teams in Deneb, holed up in the tops of half-empty office blocks, were sitting tight and awaiting developments. At this point, the enemy was still some distance away from the other teams—the satellite was still catching glimpses of the enemy patrols from time to time, but the higher the elevations, the thicker the brush in that ecosystem. Vehicles could only take them so far, after that it was all on foot.

In that terrain, there was map distance, and then there was vertical distance. The actual distance was a combination of the two.

Reading the enemy’s mind, they would try to make contact with the two known fire-teams, and then call in the big guns or missiles. They were well within range of the space-port, where there were batteries positioned and presumably ready. Some of the enemy’s long guns were capable of a range of up to thirty or forty thousand metres, and even smart-shells were relatively cheap.

Where the enemy had a few tanks, a couple of drones and helicopters, a handful of missile batteries, their artillery would be well-supplied with rounds of all types. Both of their mobile columns were well-equipped with towed artillery.

(End of part fifteen.)

Previous Episodes.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six.
Part Seven.
Part Eight.
Part Nine.
Part Ten.
Part Eleven.
Part Twelve.
Part Thirteen.
Part Fourteen.

Images.

Image One. Private collection.

Image Two. Confederation Public Communications Office.

Image Three. CPCO.

Image Four. Dav13.

Image Five. Denebola-Seven Chamber of Commerce.

Image Six. CPCO.

Image Seven.

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Tactics of Delay, Pt. 14. Online Serial. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

The planet was interesting in the political sense.

There was no single planetary government, just local governments in the larger, more organized towns. Outside of that, there were company properties, where their own rules and regs held sway, and then there was private property. This was where the adage that a man’s home was his castle held sway in every practical sense. Everything else was wide open, public land and first-come, first-served, assuming some covenant with the natives. They always had to be taken into account. The original treaties, for there were many tribes, dated back hundreds of years to the era of first contact and initial exploration. One might have expected problems, but there was plenty of room for everyone. The really bad eggs didn’t last very long when virtually every adult, human or Denebi, was armed and prepared to use it…more than one real asshole, grossly over-estimating his importance in the world, had ended up in a shallow grave in the hills. Assuming enough backstory, your neighbours just accepted that so-and-so was no longer around.

Not too many questions would be asked once the best man, or woman, had clearly won.

As for the Denebians, they seemed to accept new plants and animals almost as a matter of course. The ethics of all of that sort of thing was so far out of her field as to be almost incomprehensible. With invasive species and attempts to develop products for export, there was always going to be a cost, some real hard trade-offs between the old and the new.

It was one hell of a planet, but she liked it just fine so far.

Having tapped into the closed-circuit camera system in public areas and in the larger municipal buildings in Deneb City, her command team was watching as the Unfriendlies took control of the place.

These were augmented by the views from the Confederation’s own cameras and the pickups on individual fire-team members. The satellite was always watching, but these were close-ups, street-scenes, and interior shots.

Their lightly armoured patrol vehicles were similar to Confederation vehicles, corresponding to a similar purpose. The soldiers seemed disciplined, with small deployments at major intersections.

It was a display as much as anything, as they checked papers and stickers, plates and vehicle registrations…we have the power now was the obvious message.

They were in the main public square, and they were out in front of city hall and the police station. Their actions seemed calm and unhurried, the facial expressions unreadable from long distance. They were just blobs in vaguely humanoid form, moving about in a dry and dusty urban landscape. On the edge of the desert, there were even fifteen or twenty-metre palm trees up and down the main boulevards. That must have taken some real money.

A small detachment entered each building, and there were cameras watching inside. They were able to watch the transition from one government to the next. If it could be stated in those terms.

So far, it seemed a bloodless transition. So far, no one had been crazy enough to resist.

Other detachments proceeded by vehicle to the outlying parts of Deneb City. They were setting up roadblocks on all major streets and roads, some of which petered out into tracks leading into the hills. They were blocking the two major highways and the short road leading south out of the city towards the spaceport. Highway 17 proceeded northeast about twenty kilometres before turning north, and Highway 3 originated and continued on from there. It was an obvious roadblock, a classic choke-point in anyone’s military handbook. There was an Unfriendly platoon there, with their vehicles and some heavy machine guns. The airwaves were heavy with coded traffic.

The rioting, more of a demonstration, had faded as quickly as it had broken out. A few minor injuries were being reported. Again, the reporting was surprisingly objective. A dozen people had gotten themselves arrested, and these were being held in civilian police headquarters. The Unfriendlies were being nice, for the moment. Most of the grain trucks had made it out of the city, and the first of them had already made it to the junction, all of it on paved roads, twenty-five kilometres north on Highway 17. There they were turning left and heading north, ultimate destination Ryanville, and all according to plan.

The vehicles, fully automatic, had been loaded by robotic machinery. They had the usual cameras and sensors linked by civilian satellite to an autonomous but supervised control program. They were a couple of kilometres out from Force H’s position, under Captain Herzon.

Sooner or later, the Unfriendlies must realize what had happened—they were already patrolling the industrial sectors, which included milling and storage facilities for grain, as well as meat-packers, food processing operations and a couple of small breweries. The planet had its own favourite soft drink, the sticky black fluid a clone of some old and familiar cola standby. The city had all the usual industrial plants necessary to support the planetary population. (Milo was a separate case, largely self-sufficient in that it had direct imports and its own industrial base.) The last few grain trucks had been held back at the facility, once the enemy got moving properly.

They’d shut down the control system, but all her trucks had been pre-programmed. The enemy had used bulldozers to stop the last two or three machines, which, upon hitting or being hit by such an obstruction, had promptly shut down. The Unfriendlies must shut the civilian satellite and the phone system down…sooner or later. This alone would cause great disruption, which was one reason not to do it except as a last resort.

The enemy would have their own basic plan.

They would stick to it as long as it seemed to be working for them. They must have something in mind, no matter how crude or how cynical, to win the hearts and minds of at least some of the people…they needed cooperation above all else, and you couldn’t just massacre everyone. Even the Unfriendlies knew that.

The Unfriendlies were just as prone, or prey, to guesswork as she was—something to bear in mind.

Other cameras, deployed by their fire-teams on rooftops and heights surrounding the city showed a pair of helicopters, military, circuiting the city, equipped with missiles, guns and other light weapons. It was a show of force for the local population. The helos hadn’t gone much more than a couple of kilometres out from the city perimeter. They hadn’t landed anywhere except the port and the city centre, where, presumably, senior officers would be quartered. The enemy would have a headquarters, just as she did. A juicy target—at the risk of sacrificing Team Three. The Unfriendlies might be putting out some bait, but then so had the Confederation.

It was important to shoot first and shoot accurately—bearing in mind the enemy would shoot back, perhaps just as accurately. 

With luck and a bit of help, they might get a good, solid location on the enemy HQ. So far, one big corporate building in particular had been reported, and it certainly seemed the most likely, but such juicy targets needed lots of confirmation. The heavy stone-faced walls, surrounded by other buildings, all full of civilians, office buildings and tall apartment buildings, would feel so much more secure than the thin walls of a ship out on the vast expanse of the spaceport.

Wherever the enemy was, they would employ similar trains of thought, and most likely such a building would be extremely attractive from that point of view. Dona only had so many missiles. Every single one had to count. The worst possible outcome would be for a Confederation missile to hit a civilian building full of people and no Unfriendlies in residence. It was a matter of importance not to do that.

Unfortunately, all of their sources so far were civilians, enthusiastic and almost ecstatic at the thought of a missile strike…but civilians nevertheless.

This was always going to be problematical.

Not heavily-armoured gunships, the helos could nevertheless be mounted with quite a variety of battlefield weapons systems according to their intel books.

A study of the literature on that particular model, small and easily disassembled for transport, indicated the craft would be able to reach Roussef, with a short loiter period of about forty statute minutes. With a pilot and co-pilot, they could carry six to eight troops, still with a small weapons-load of its own. Heavily-laden the range was much less. That’s not to say they wouldn’t or couldn’t be used for hit-and-run raids…that was for sure. Only two had been seen. How many they might have still crated or under assembly, was another unknown. In addition to the spaceport, there were civilian and commercial operations across the field at the airport. All sorts of big loads had been taken out of the belly of the big transports. They were crated and tarped and there was no real way to know what was actually in there. There were a couple of dozen civilian craft available to the enemy, perhaps more if they got desperate enough to grab pure sporting and recreational models. These were being guarded, staked out in the open air, but otherwise left alone.

Anything could be going on inside of those hangars.

So far, they hadn’t scouted very far to the north of the city, in the direction of their eventual attack. They were aware of, or must suspect that teams equipped with Barkers or other anti-aircraft capability were out there. It was even possible that the helos were simply trying to draw fire. Her people in the city were under strict orders not to take such bait, no matter how tempting. There would be time enough for that when the enemy actually began to move, which one would assume they must at some point. Individual units were aware of their own particular time-lines.

Still, there would always be temptation.

The whole point of the exercise was to take control of the planet—and until all Confederation forces had been eliminated or they had formally surrendered, that would always be in question.

There were already signs that an attack was being prepared.

As the day wore on, reports came in from civilians, and much shorter messages from observers with the fire-teams. These confirmed what the civvies were saying.

Having spent two and a half days in unloading and prepping their weapons and vehicles, the Unfriendlies were forming up in columns of armoured vehicles, weapons-vehicles, transports and scout vehicles.

The most impressive were the medium tanks of the Joshua type.

She had a funny feeling that those were pointed right at her.

Dawn was breaking, and there seemed to be an awful lot of activity down there.

Troops milled around, sergeants and corporals mustered their sections and officers stood in small clumps, waiting for last-minute instructions and briefing on their respective missions.

The trooper beside her spoke.

“Hmn. It won’t be long now, Colonel Graham.” She gave the Colonel a look. “Why haven’t they cut off the phone system? That’s kind of interesting.”

“Ah. But they want us to know they’re coming—what with all that overwhelming force and all.”

The enemy could monitor all kinds of conversations, listen to what the civilians were saying, what they were telling the Confederation, thereby knowing what the Confederation knew, (or might think they knew), and even have their own agents plant information that might not be strictly accurate. They would let it run and begin building a list of civilian names—names that would no doubt receive a nasty-gram from the Unfriendlies at some point, possibly even a home visit, and in some cases, an arrest and detainment. The enemy would be recording everything.

There was no such thing as the right to privacy, or civil and human rights under the Unfriendlies.

They had tried to tell more than one civilian source exactly that, unfortunately it was like they just didn’t get it.

Maybe they just didn’t care. Didn’t think it would ever apply to them—it was cold, it was hard, it was analytical.

It was also true—too true.

Now was the time—

“People are risking a lot to help us, and I want you all to understand that.”

“Yes, Colonel Graham.”

The trooper bit her lip and nodded. It made a lot of sense, and it was like a murmur going through the room.

The room was very quiet, as all eyes on shift studied the situation.

(End of part fourteen.)

Previous Episodes.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six.
Part Seven.
Part Eight.
Part Nine.
Part Ten.
Part Eleven.
Part Twelve.

Part Thirteen.

Images.

Image One. Denebola-Seven Chamber of Commerce.

Image Two. Confederation Public Communications Office.

Image Three. CPCO.

Image Four. Collection of Louis Shalako.

Image Five. CPCO.

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