Tactics of Delay, Part Five. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

Three big assault ships, each sufficient to carry two or three thousand troops along with weapons, vehicles and all the paraphernalia of war. They were inbound, still out on the edge of the system, motors flaring with the thrust of deceleration. They had a respectable escort of frigates, sloops and a light cruiser of the Revelation class. Unless they were carrying troops or cargo, these would either break off or orbit…

The Confederation had nothing to oppose them. All they could do was to watch, and to some extent, wonder.

“Estimated time of arrival?”

“Six hours until orbit, a couple or three orbits to stabilize and plot their insertion. Anything up to an hour or an hour and a half after that, they’ll be on the ground, hatches open. Based on their present numbers, Deneb City looks to be the most likely landing point. At the present time, all targets are still possible.”

“What about Eliza?”

“They must have seen her, Colonel. No signs of pursuit though.”

Tiny in size compared to most of the enemy ships, the Eliza had gotten clear. Dona stood on the edge of a black precipice, the virtual reality headsets giving her a satellite view of the system, coloured tracks appearing among the background stars and the coloured dots of light indicating planets and other bodies in the system.

Background star fields were completely new to her, although the major stars were labeled.

“How long until they go blind?” Hot plasma from their own braking engines would ensure this, at least until they had bled off most of their energy.

“Another hour or two, Colonel.” The trooper’s fingers flew over a keyboard only he could see.

A boxed pane appeared and then Colonel Graham could watch him do the math.

A figure appeared out of thin air.

One hour, thirty-six minutes and nineteen seconds, with some margin for error, plus or minus point-oh-three in pitch, yaw, roll and power axes. The window would last a little over four hours.

The more they slowed, the longer the window. Mass versus gravitation dictated their escape velocity, and therefore their orbital speed of a little under 38,900 k.p.h. The planet had a ten percent greater circumference than Earth but was slightly less dense. The math was simple, the ramifications more profound.

The clock was also ticking.

“Very well, and thank you.”

Dona removed the standby headset and set it down on the desk by her right side.

She took a breath and a second to think.

“All right, ladies and gentlemen. We have some time. Let’s use it. One, talk to me about drones and air cover.”

“We have one Mark Seventeen surveillance satellite in geosynchronous orbit. It’s in a position to monitor the battle area and also, with a bit of luck and a strong signal, anything coming out of Milo.” This was the only other major inhabited area of the planet, about four thousand kilometres southeast of the battle area. “We have three drones in crates. No one really has the ability to set them up and so we haven’t done that. They can carry missiles, and we have a crate or two of those. Other than that, not much, really. Whatever we can improvise.”

“Huh.” Having foreseen the possibility, Dona had made sure to grab a couple of technical types.

Then there were civilian contractors—engineers and skilled people in the local population.

They had a budget for just such contingencies. With the local economy disrupted, they might be glad of the work.

“How vulnerable is the satellite?”

“They must have surmised we have something up there. Their capabilities are relatively well-known, and their ships will probably try and take it out if they can locate it with a fair degree of probability.” Small and very stealthy, the Confederation satellite might be a hard target to find.

Milo had mines, water, and geothermal power generation. Its population, not including the surrounding area, was about forty-eight thousand people, and its small spaceport was geared mostly to automated cargo launchers and a landing field of three kilometres in length. In all, there were about two hundred thousand people scattered within a radius of fifteen hundred kilometres of Milo.

It was another mining area, but there were other industries, including aromatic woods, exotic pets, and packaged, frozen meat for export among other things. A few hundred kilometres further south than Deneb City, there was grain farming and truck gardening, again mostly for export.

Electromagnetic linear-acceleration-type launchers would put packages up to low planetary orbit.

There they were scooped up by robotic tugs and then carried afar by interstellar ships, running mostly on automatic, although they were always manned by some nominal crew due to security concerns and age-old salvage law. The next big transport was from a neutral entity and a week or so out on the inbound track. Also under heavy deceleration, they were out of radio and laser contact. There was an airport, but the distances were such that it was strictly local stuff, moving people and stores to the various outlying installations. The small military and police detachment there were monitoring the situation and all communications. Other than that, there wasn’t much they could do except run and go to ground if Unfriendlies showed up. Rather than take heavy casualties, it had been decided that Milo would be a sacrificial backwater in any extreme circumstances…

Dona felt the inexorable weight of gravity dragging her down. The fact was, after the last few busy days, plus the inevitable lag of space travel and its well-known effect on the pineal system, all of a sudden she was one tired cookie.

Giving the officers of her new command the code to unlock a slew of new files took but a moment. A tap of a button and everyone had the data. The people she had brought with her were well briefed and they already knew what they had to do.

“Okay, ladies and gentlemen. As soon as our window opens, we’re going to push our perimeter out as far as we can get it in the time allotted. Until then, we sit tight and under cover. Make sure everyone knows that. Also, now that the Unfriendlies can see their friends coming down, they may very well begin patrolling aggressively in the hopes of finding out what we’re up to. There is the possibility of a spoiling attack. So let’s keep on our toes out there and don’t take anything for granted. Their combat philosophy may be different than ours, and yes, the common soldier is a poorly-trained conscript. That doesn’t mean they’re stupid, incompetent, cowardly, or any less of a threat.”

She heaved a bit of a sigh.

“Okay, so get to know each other. We’ve got a lot of new people and some old hands. Talk to each other. We already have a basic plan. It’s all laid out for us. With local knowledge, maybe we can refine that plan. While we still have time to do it. Remember, our number one tenet in a situation where we are outnumbered, is a very simple one: violence of action.”

Also, promptness of decision. As far as she was concerned, they were all in the hot-seat.

There was a short silence as they digested this. Going by their faces, there were questions but Dona had had enough after being up for thirty-plus hours continuously, ironing out the plan and a million other details. Throw in a high-energy landing, and it was like she’d been beaten with a stick.

“Captain Aaron. You have the hot-seat.” That was the thing about being second-in-command, but Paul could stand another four hours.

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Now, if someone would just point me in the right direction, I need quarters. I could use a hot meal, a shower and a few hours of sleep before all of this breaks loose.”

Lieutenant Wheeler spoke.

“Corporal, would you show the Colonel to her quarters, please?”

“Yes, Lieutenant. Colonel Graham. Would you please follow me. Someone will be bringing your bag along as soon as possible.” The corporal turned and looked at the nearest trooper.

“Corporal.” The fellow nodded and turned for the door.

“Thank you. Thank you very much.”

***

Her bag was quickly located.

Dona was driven a short distance down Highway 17 to a cheerful, fieldstone-faced motor lodge on the south-eastern edge of town. The place had the look of an alpine chalet, with a big A-frame façade and plenty of exposed wooden beams visible through the all-glass front. 

She’d be trying the food soon enough, it was nothing if not convenient.

Leaving the vehicle running, the corporal nipped into the office and came out with the room key.

Colonel Graham would be staying in Nine, taking over from her predecessor in what was purported to be the largest and most luxurious unit.

“We’ve got an observation post about five kilometres out…I’ll have some people patrol the woods up above, if you like. We can’t spare too many, but we have some other folks staying here too.” According to him, they had a few cameras out and someone monitoring them.

“Sounds good.”

She would be staying in the Honeymoon Suite, or so he said in a subdued tone, glancing quickly over.

He drove another thirty metres and then parked.

The corporal leapt out with an energy that was frankly hard to watch, opening Dona’s door and dragging her big duffel bag out of the bed of the vehicle, a four-wheel drive pickup with a plastic topper, all in a dull matte black.

“That’s okay, Corporal. I’ll take it.” With the thirty kilos or so of the bag slung over her shoulder, Dona waited patiently while the corporal fiddled with the lock, which seemed recalcitrant.

“There we go, Colonel.” Handing over the key, the fellow sketched a vague salute. “Push zero on the house phone if you want room service.”

“What’s your name, anyways?”

“Mike. Uh—sorry. Corporal Michael Haliwell.”

“Thanks, Mike. I’m going to sleep for about three hours and then I want to go back to the command post.”

“Consider it done. Colonel. Wake-up calls are a specialty.”

“Thank you.” This was it.

She was home for the duration.

***

There were lights on in the room and there was music going, soft and low. Something jazzy and romantic.

With a grimace, Dona dropped the bag on the second of two good-sized beds.

There was the faint aroma of soap or perfume in the air, and something else—something pungent, reminiscent of a dead skunk on the road back home in sunny Indiana. A poignant memory. They’d left Earth when she was about nine years old.

In contrast to the dry heat of the outdoors, the humidity in the room was really something.

Sighing, wondering if there was a problem with the room’s heating and cooling system, Dona began pulling off her boots. The socks were distinctly wet, the feet pale and impressed with the pattern of the knitted fabric.

“Ah, at last.”

The jacket went on the rack by the door and the rest of her clothes over the back of a chair near enough the bed.

Dona was just getting up after pulling off the underwear and flinging it across in the general direction of the rest of the pile.

The bathroom door opened, a cloud of steam came out and then Dona was standing there naked as someone in a white robe stopped dead in their tracks.

***

She realized she was cowering before him, covering breasts and bush awkwardly, and Dona straightened up, letting her arms drop to her sides. It was a relaxed but unmistakable fighting stance…

“Wow.”

“Who in the hell are you?”

There was amusement in those dark eyes.

“I’m sorry. I was a friend of the Colonel’s.”

“A friend.”

“Yes. A very good friend. I’m sorry, I kind of knew you’d be along, but.” The man sighed. “The truth is, I don’t quite know where to go.”

His eyes traveled over the duffel bag, the briefcase, then the boots. Her socks on the floor where she had flung them, the clothes on the back of the chair.

“I’m terribly sorry, Colonel Graham.” He looked down, taking in his own attire, the bare feet and hairy legs sticking out the bottom.

“Where are your clothes? And what the hell’s your name, anyway?”

“I have shorts hanging on a hook in the bathroom. My name is Noya.”

“That’s it? Just Noya?”

“Ah, yes, Colonel.”

Taking off the damp robe, still warm, he handed it off to a bemused Dona and then nipped back into the bathroom to get his shorts. He had firm, hairy buttocks, strong-looking legs and some pretty good shoulders. She couldn’t help but notice.

(End of Part Five.)

Images.

Top: Confederation  Public Communications Office.

Second Image: Denebola-Seven Department of Defense. 

Third Image: CPCO. 

Fourth Image: CPCO.

Fifth Image: Private collection of Louis Shalako.

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Tactics of Delay, Part Three. Louis Shalako.

Louis Shalako

With Unfriendly forces inbound or in the area, their arrival on-planet was more of an insertion than a landing.

Escorted by a pair of destroyers of the Confederation, their transport, the Eliza, had arrived in-system with no major vessels of the Conglomerate detectable. The destroyers had peeled away, off on a hunting trip of their own.

It was a high-energy approach, with tight radii and rapid decelerations.

Eliza, approaching in a fast spiral from the far side of the planet, had hopefully been undetected by ground-based sensors but that wouldn’t last for long.

“Hang on.” There were over a hundred and fifty of them in there, scattered all up and down along the freight deck.

The load was exquisitely balanced on the centres of thrust, maneuver and braking. The warm-blooded part of the cargo was almost an afterthought. People were easier to stow, whether strapped in thin aluminum and nylon-web seats or hanging in a sling-net from the rafters.

The ship vibrated and moaned in the upper atmosphere, the jostling intense as people bounced around in their straps.

“All secure.”

Her officer’s voices rang in the background, cheerful and confident. They were keeping an eye on things and joshing with the troops. Up front, just above her shoulder, on the other side of the hatch, their pilots were engaged in their own little world, plotting to the second when they should be able to get off the ground again—just more pressure and nothing to be done about that.

If she cared to look, there would be men and women, young and scared, watching her for any kind of a sign.

Then there was Gunnery Sergeant Kelly. Ten metres away on the port side of the ship, the man hung in the gap between cargo nets and the walls of the ship with perfect aplomb. Some would have found it claustrophobic. Dona wasn’t so sure she would have liked it much herself. The cargo, even the vehicles, strapped down as they were, heaved up and down on their tires, left and right with the momentum of every turn. He couldn’t even let himself down, relying on others to do that for him. It was a sign of confidence, she supposed. Anyone who screwed up that operation was going to get one big blast.

She almost laughed.

Every strap and line hummed and twanged with the tension.

Kelly had been there before, of course, where so many of them hadn’t. Four major campaigns, wounded twice, refused promotion more than once. Decorations, which he didn’t wear. Bonuses, which he sent back to his mother on Old Earth…his needs were simple, apparently, and he’d signed on without hesitation. That was all she knew.

That and the fact that he looked the part—

As for Dona Graham, she was head down, reading as much as she could jam in before touchdown. She needed to know everything there was to know about the place, its people and its terrain. Her own people were also on that reading list.

As far as leaving that part a bit late, her first study had been of the enemy, the local economy and the road network.

That wasn’t saying much. There was hardly anything down there.

The co-pilot spoke in her ears. Captain Aaron in the rear of the compartment would hear it too.

This was the command circuit.

“Ground’s coming up, thirty seconds. We’re coming in a bit hot, so make sure everything is secure.”

“Thank you. I think we’re okay.”

There wasn’t much to see out of the tiny portholes stretching the length of the cargo bay. The big display screen on the rear wall of the crew compartment lit up. There was a view straight ahead and down, very much down as the crew tried to kill energy and neither overshoot or undershoot.

The nose came up, bleeding off speed, they all gained a lot of weight in a hurry, and she sank into her seat insofar as that was actually possible in the thin aluminium bucket.

The ship, creaking audibly from frame members and bulkhead joints, went into another hard turn. From her position, watching it was hard on the neck under the gee-load and she decided to ignore the view and trust to their pilots. It was hard enough just keeping breath in her body.

“Ten seconds. Brace yourselves.”

The good ship Eliza, CT-119, a combat transport, had the latest threat-detection systems. If there was anything out there, no one up front was saying anything. Unarmed, their only hope lay in flight and the active defense systems designed to defeat missiles, jam radars and fool optical tracking systems.

Borderline obsolete, the ship was expendable, pulled out of mothballs and recommissioned. 

She was under short-term lease from the Kant system, an independent entity under the umbrella of the Confederation. She’d always thought of them as the psychological planets.

There was no colourful nose art on the front end. That sort of shit was pointless these days…Eliza probably wouldn’t be around long enough to justify that kind of effort.

The crew were all volunteers. Highly-paid, but volunteers nevertheless.

“Okay, people, here we are.”

The sky was gone, it was all dirt and hills and scenery.

They must have hit pretty hard. The first bounce was a big one and there were shouts and curses all up and down the line. That second one came right up through the tailbone, echoing around the teeth and up into the top of the skull.

Confederation troops were trained in military Anglic, but there were one or two unfamiliar words in there. These could hardly be complimentary.

There was another big bash from the bottom and then they were skidding along a grass strip of about two kilometres in length. The noise was overwhelming. With the ship relatively level, only a small patch of ground was visible in the view-screen. The rest of the picture was deep blue sky and fluffy white clouds and a big flare where the sun should be.

The retros flared, one more big blast.

“Hang on…hang on…wait for it.”

The ship finally slowed and then stopped, hooking a bit left at the last second. The ship had heeled to the right discernably, not enough to interfere with unloading. It was unbelievably quiet, but only for a moment.

There were some muted cheers in the background and a few nervous laughs.

Someone was still puking…off in the background noise.

“Doors opening. Stay clear. I repeat. Stay clear.” Daylight flooded in from the after end and the smaller side hatches as people struggled up and out of the straps and the seats.

“All right, people. Everybody out. Remember your assignments.”

The nearest exit was five metres away and Dona headed for it. Captain Aaron and several other senior officers followed, a small squad of enlisted rank carried communications equipment and weapons slung in case of trouble.

So far, it seemed pretty quiet out there.

When she got to the hatch, she was pretty much blinded for a moment, but the stairs were deployed and there were handrails. People were jostling from behind and she scuttled down.

Dark forms flurried forward and someone took her right hand in a strong grip.

“Welcome to the planet Denebola Seven-A, Colonel. We are sure as hell glad to see you, ladies and gentlemen.”

“Thank you. We’ll need as many people as you can spare. Let’s get this thing unloaded. The pilots are engines-hot and anxious to get going.”

Her eyes adjusting, Graham saw that the need had been anticipated. There were already growing piles of equipment and supplies outside of each hatch and there were voices yelling back and forth in the interior of the ship. People milled around, getting their bearings as Kelly and the security squad sprinted off towards the nearest tree-line. The airfield was north-northeast of the town of Roussef, in one of the longitudinal, flat-bottomed valleys where most of the planet’s agriculture was carried on.

They were surrounded by steep hills of five hundred to a thousand metres at about the same distance. The vegetation above was spotty, all rock in some places and a lot of brush in others.

The darkest clumps would be plantations of imported Terran species, a valuable resource locally and for export. It had its beauty.

First impressions are lasting ones—

“All taken care of, Colonel. Please, if you would like to step this way, we have transportation back to the command centre—”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to hold up for just a minute.”

“Of course, Colonel.”

Graham turned to a slight figure at her side.

“Major, I want you to take charge here.” When in command, command—the voice of her father speaking.

Shut up now.

“Right.” Major Victoria Chan snapped a quick salute and turned away towards the rear loading doors where the bulk of the cargo and the vehicles would have to be unloaded.

Graham took a more leisurely walk down there, the rest following along. She gave a firm nod to one or two troopers, but said nothing as she turned back to the line of vehicles.

Everyone seemed to be busy.

Vicky would have no problems with this crew.

“Right. Let’s go.”

The young lieutenant beckoned at the open side door of a good-sized all-terrain utility truck.

There was room for six or seven, there were leather seats and a rather pretty looking young trooper sat at the wheel, eyes a bit wide and taking it all in.

CT-119 was probably the biggest ship that had ever landed there, not since the initial colonization ships decades previously, which might have accounted for it.

Other troops and officers piled into a second and third vehicle, all rather civilian-looking in dull black, charcoal grey and even a dark blue one. Their original planetary contingent had debarked at Deneb City, a much larger facility.

Doors thudded closed.

Graham turned to the nearest one and stuck out a hand.

“Graham.”

“Tanguy. Jerri.”

The girl at the wheel let out the clutch and they were moving.

“Okay. Get on the horn and let people know. Briefing as soon as the ship is unloaded. We can leave the troops and as many rolling units as possible moving all of that to secure storage—the hangars on the field are a bit too obvious, although that will be a good place to start.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“My people know all of this and they have their instructions. I’ve given them one hour to clear a few hundred tonnes and I’ve got a funny feeling they can do it.” Everything was crated and palletted and the ship had its own material handling system. “However, I need to be briefed and then I might have a few things to share as well. What is the status of the enemy?”

“Haven’t seen hide nor hair of them, Colonel. They have their main detachment in the big city, and that’s why our troops had to withdraw. We were originally contracted as police for the colony, and sometimes a bit of honest persuasion as far as the natives are concerned. We were never intended for planetary defense. The natives actually like us, incidentally. We put down a couple of disturbances, which probably saved them from massacring each other—the elders know that even if some of the young hotheads don’t. This was a couple of years ago. As for the Unfriendlies, they put down a thousand troops where we had maybe two hundred and thirty.” The other thing was that the Confederation’s hired mercenaries were relatively impartial in administering justice to colonists and natives alike.

It was in the Contract and they were being paid for their time.

It might not have been that way before. She wound up this aside before Dona had to cut her off.

Best to let them talk sometimes—when one had a minute. The road slid past, at roughly sixty-five kilometres an hour.

“What have they been doing.”

“About what you’d expect. Still unloading the ships. Haven’t even refueled them yet. Building checkpoints, some small field fortifications around the port, and most likely, waiting for reinforcements and considering themselves lucky. They’re being remarkably smart. If the main body is down yet, there’s no sign of them so far. Deneb City is about a hundred and ninety kilometres southwest. If they brought ships of any size down there, we really ought to have seen something. Let alone detected it.” The other thing was, none of their civilian contacts in Deneb had seen or heard anything of the sort. “It’s only a matter of time before they send a patrol up the road.”

They had so many contacts among the local colonists, the information almost had to be genuine.

“Right.”

Looking out the window, Colonel Dona Graham, on her first major combat command, took a good, long look at the terrain.

End of Part Three.

Image: Wallpaper Cave

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