Louis Shalako
In the Walzbruch operation, speed was of the essence.
Due to the small force involved, and the distances from Roussef and Ryanville,
the retreat was conducted somewhat differently.
Also the civilian population,
far from the capital and dependent on roads for their subsistence, had to be
taken into account.
Around Walzbruch, it was all rock, with no farming
except for small, private gardens. There were no big cattle ranches, although
there might be poultry and some other stuff—she’d have to check, actually.
People found a hollow up in the hills somewhere, a bog maybe; all muck and
mire, yet full of actual dirt, and so
they took a shovel up there and they brought it home in wheelbarrows or even
bucket by bucket. Year by year, over the past fifty or a hundred years, the
gardens had gotten bigger, a real investment in sweat that paid off in fresh
produce for those lucky enough to inherit them over the course of generations.
That was the story from the early days of colonization at Walzbruch. It was
like everyone that ever moved to the place wanted a garden and began building
one shortly after arrival. Even so. It was a big enough population that
subsistence by hunting and fishing, produce from the gardens, would be
difficult, winter or summer. Any small food processors and warehouses had been
left in place for this reason, and it still wouldn’t be enough…winter was eight
or ten months long in what was quite the little mountain range.
For the most part, they were being asked to shelter in
place. The only exceptions to this order were civilian technicians and skilled
engineers. Where they were agreeable, they were sent by truck and van, with
their families, pets and a few personal belongings, up the road to where they
would be needed. For the most part, they were agreeable. The Unfriendlies
wouldn’t be politely asking people, would they?
They’d be taking hostages and barking out orders under
threat of death, torture, prison and confiscation.
Their civilian friends knew the stakes, and they had
chosen accordingly. The fact was that her troops had turned people away. They
already had enough mouths to feed up here.
For this phase of the operation, large bridges, major
feats of engineering in this sort of country, were to remain in place. A few
smaller bridges and culverts were to be blown. Power generation, to be left in
place. Local communications nodes, some of the more strategic transmission
towers and heavy industrial infrastructure, destroyed. Charging and fuel
stations were to be left in place, large fuel bowsers, mobile electrical
recharging vehicles, or other technical, work or delivery trucks destroyed or
removed.
There were compromises all over the place, mostly for
the benefit of the civilian population. It was a fine balance. As for personal
vehicles, it seemed likely that the Unfriendlies would grab what they could
use. This would leave a substantial number of vehicles for the use of the civil
population.
What the enemy probably would do, as a measure of
positive control, would be to ration fuel and energy for those civilian
vehicles to that which was absolutely necessary to sustain the life of the
community, and no more. There were only so many fuel trucks to go around, and
the Unfriendlies were at war. All of that had to come up from Deneb City.
That much made sense. There was much that would remain
unclear.
Her forces were racing up the highway, deploying
various ambush and booby-positions along the way. With so few people at her
disposal, Dona was relying on three teams and dozens of cameras. These teams were
equipped with a disproportionate share of weapons, some of which were being
cached at tactical locations, as well as boxes of ammunition, food and medical
supplies. Starting off with a dozen or so of the smaller, Puma-type vehicles,
two out of every three were being stashed at positions deemed useful for the
future. There would be stay-behind parties, small ones capable of breaking up
into two-person teams and carrying out independent operations. There was no
real good reason for the enemy to have too much traffic between Walzbruch and
Roussef, but one never knew—there was always a chance.
If nothing else, they could follow the enemy column
and wait for opportunity to knock.
The weapons and vehicles at their disposal were as
carefully hidden and dispersed as the little units themselves. Anyone not
needed was to proceed directly to Ryanville, in the hopes of just keeping it
simple. There was plenty of work to be done up there and along the highways and
byways above Roussef.
Once the Confederation troops had abandoned Walzbruch,
there wasn’t much they could do to stop civilians from making a break for
Roussef, Ryanville and one or two other small points north and west.
Certain information had been disseminated—carefully,
in all the bars, restaurants and public places in what was a pretty small town.
Simple message, there are mines and booby-traps all over the place. There are
undischarged weapons, and automatic, robotic systems of defense.
The
instructions were simple too: if you must use the roads, drive during daylight
hours, with all of your lights on, transponders on, and have your fucking phone
turned on. Be prepared to be challenged, or fired upon, by either friend or
foe, at any time. This is a war zone, and the road to Roussef and points
further on was going to be very hazardous indeed…travel was not advised, except
for the most urgent of purposes.
Even with all the dire warnings, a small cavalcade of
the local population, some of them clearly carrying weapons in the camera
views, had loaded up in a motley collection of trucks and utility vehicles.
They had departed, heading her way, shortly after dawn this morning.
With few women and no children, and by all appearances
traveling light, one had to wonder just exactly what the plan was…what would
they do when they came to a blown-out bridge?
Abandon their trucks, swim the creek, and borrow some
more at the next farmhouse? It was ludicrous on some level, and yet, one had to
admit, it could also be done. They would get all kinds of cooperation—and
probably more volunteers. Shit. She
had no time to train a bunch of amateurs and would prefer not to have to
witness a massacre. One of the more junior command centre staff was working the
phones, trying to get more information, and hopefully they would make contact.
Whatever they did, whatever they were going to do, it
was going to have to be at their own risk.
In a pinch, she could offer medical support for
serious casualties, nothing more.
This wasn’t much comfort when she considered the
possibilities. Some of those possibilities had been taken into account in her
original plan, which was very quickly going out the window…she would stick to
it as long as possible. This made it a lot easier on the subordinates, who had
been studying it intently as far as she could make out from the access logs.
The unexpected was always going to happen and she
would have to live with it. Or die with it—
If only she could get a decent sleep.
***
Her eyes felt like they had been sandpapered.
The horizon, viewed from just five kilometres
west-north-west from Walzbruch, was studded with columns of black, greasy smoke
from fires in the town and further out in mining country.
Trooper Freddie J had signed up anonymously, and
according to his brief service record of two and a half years, was known by no
other appellation. He had no planetary or national social insurance number. No
next of kin. Any death bounty, or any savings, any arrears of pay, would go to
an orphanage in New Delhi. He probably was
from Old Earth. An interesting insight into the minds of her own troops, at
least some of them. The young man, listed as twenty-eight years of age, had
posted a camera on top of a rock shelf with a clear view down the road. The man
himself had his back to the shelf twenty metres away, breathing calmly.
According to the readouts, his heart-rate was only slightly elevated. There
were three civvy pickup trucks in the picture, with people inside and in the
back.
“Yes, Colonel. We saw quite a number of civvies going
through here about a half an hour ago. Unfortunately, these guys must be
stragglers.”
It was going to complicate matters if they didn’t
clear the hill and the ambush point in the next five minutes.
Ignoring Walzbruch, whose fate was tied to that of
Deneb and to a lesser extent Roussef, the Unfriendlies had driven through the
town and headed out towards Roussef as soon as it became apparent that the
Confederation troops had abandoned their positions. As things presently stood,
another small column of trucks and vehicles had left Deneb City. At the turnoff
they had steered straight for Walzbruch. This had been dubbed Occupation Force W on their battle maps.
They could always change the name later. With the original force driving
straight through the town after about a twenty-minute stop, all of the
Confederation’s concealed assets were still in place.
The enemy troops were just over the next hill. The
little valley in between was only so wide, taking only so much time to cross,
and these damned civilians were dawdling along at a bare fifty kilometres an
hour.
“Shit, Colonel.”
“What, Trooper.”
The pictures spoke for themselves, as the vehicles
crested the hill, and then came to a complete stop. People got out, talking and
shouting and it was all one big jumble in the poor audio. To be fair, their best
camera shot was from a good seventy metres away, and the synthetic parabolic
microphones were subject to a lot of wind pop.
“Shit.”
Freddie J was on the ground, and his opinion counted
for something.
“Talk to me, soldier.”
“Yes, Colonel—ah.”
He was flipping back and forth between a half a dozen
cameras, his sergeant right there and two other pairs of soldiers in good
position to fire and recover their heavy weapons. They were in no position to
do anything about the civvies. Freddy J was the least skilled or qualified of
the six and so they had put him on the com unit.
“Fuck. They’ve got guns—they’re mostly in camouflage
hunting clothes. Boots. Side-arms on some of them. One of the trucks is white if you can believe it.”
“All right.” In a similar kind of logic, Dona had a
very young trooper working her board for her as she had taken to wandering the
room.
He looked surprisingly comfortable in the hot-seat and
it probably was good experience.
On
the job training.
Join
the Organization and see the Galaxy.
The fire-team’s vehicle was five hundred metres away,
on a short stretch of logging road that petered out into a hundred other
temporary little working-loops in the hills overlooking the highway.
“Sit tight. If the civvies fire on the Unfriendlies,
they’re basically doing our job for us. If that is the case, do not, I repeat,
do not detonate your charges. Hold your fire for as long as possible. If you
can snag a big vehicle, because they will and must advance, do it then. Over.”
Sergeant Worzakowski came on the circuit.
“Roger that, Colonel.”
He was the one that would be giving the orders, not
Freddie J and so it was up to him to acknowledge.
Things were in good hands.
They sat, crouched, huddled in a pit, or lay on the
ground, watching the scene below intently as the vehicles and their drivers
moved on…pulling into the brush halfway down the other side as far as they
could determine.
The two soldiers were shoulder to shoulder, screened
well enough from enemy fire. Voices spoke in their ears and icons moved about
on their visor displays.
“Where are they?”
“Hidden in the woods now, sergeant.” Freddy J’s heart
had sped up a bit, but he still seemed pretty cool.
It wasn’t just physical fitness with this one. This
was a kind of psychological fitness. He must have some kind of backstory. That
anonymous sign-up said a lot. It forgave, or at least set aside, a lot of sins.
Mustering out some years later, he’d have a whole new identity.
“Ah…” The Unfriendly column was just on the other side
of yonder hill.
The sound of heavy vehicles was barely discernable,
but it was there and now it seemed that the forest had gone silent, the birds
and insects and other creatures, unfamiliar to most of them, perhaps sensing
that there was trouble in the air.
The faint hum of an enemy drone, somehow penetrating
even now, came from somewhere behind their heads. The machine was no doubt very
interested in the heat and electromagnetic signatures of the civilian vehicles…
“Sergeant.”
“Yes, Freddie, I see it.” In the satellite view, and
in one of the cameras, the enemy column had clearly come to a halt.
Hmn. If nothing else, it was another delay.
Sooner or later, they had to move.
In the meantime, it was a fine autumn day and there
was nothing to worry about except this, in
all of its naked simplicity.
***
(End of part twenty-three.)
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