Obviously, he either didnt see us, or thought we were part of the herd of teddy-bears. He never looked back at us, but just continued in the same direction we were headed, .05 rad east of north.
Might as well go back to sleep now, if you can sleep after looking at that thing. We move out at 0435. Forty minutes.
Because of the planets opaque cloud cover, there had been no way to tell, from space, what the enemy base looked like or how big it was. We only knew its position, the same way we knew the position the scoutships were supposed to land on. So it could easily have been underwater too, or underground.
But some of the drones were reconnaissance ships as well as decoys; and in their mock attacks on the base, one managed to get close enough to take a picture. Captain Stott beamed down a diagram of the place to Cortezthe only one with a visor in his suitwhen we were five clicks from the bases radio position. We stopped and he called all of the platoon leaders in with the Seventh Platoon to confer. Two teddy-bears loped in, too. We tried to ignore them.
O.K., the captain sent down some pictures of our objective. Im going to draw a map; you platoon leaders copy. They took pads and styli out of their leg pockets, while Cortez unrolled a large plastic mat. He gave it a shake to randomize any residual charge, and turned on his stylus.
Now, were coming from this direction. He put an arrow at the bottom of the sheet. First thing well hit is this row of huts, probably billets, or bunkers, but who the hell knowsour initial objective is to destroy these buildingsthe whole base is on a flat plain; theres no way we could really sneak by them.
Potter here. Why cant we jump over them?
Yeah, we could do that, and wind up completely surrounded, cut to ribbons. We take the buildings.
After we do thatall I can say is that well have to think on our feet. From the aerial reconnaissance, we can figure out the function of only a couple of buildingsand that stinks. We might wind up wasting a lot of time demolishing the equivalent of an enlisted mans bar, ignoring a huge logistic computer because it looks likea garbage dump or something.
Mandella here, I said. Isnt there a spaceport of some kindseems to me we ought to.
Ill get to that, damn it. Theres a ring of these huts all around the camp, so weve got to break through somewhere. This placell be closest, less chance of giving away our position before we attack.
Theres nothing in the whole place that actually looks like a weapon. That doesnt mean anything, though; you could hide a bevawatt laser in each of those huts.
Now, about five hundred meters from the huts, in the middle of the base, well come to this big flower-shaped structure. Cortez drew a large symmetrical shape that looked like the outline of a flower with seven petals. What the hell this is, your guess is as good as mine. Theres only one of them, though, so we dont damage it any more than we have to. Which meanswe blast it to splinters if I think its dangerous.
Now, as far as your spaceport, Mandella, is concernedthere just isnt one. Nothing.
That cruiser the Hope caulked had probably been left in orbit, like ours has to be. If they have any equivalent of a scoutship, or drone missiles, theyre either not kept here or theyre well hidden.
Bohrs here. Then what did they attack with, while we were coming down from orbit?
I wish we knew, Private.
Obviously, we dont have any way of estimating their numbers, not directly. Recon pictures failed to show a single Tauran on the grounds of the base. Meaning nothing, because it is an alien environment. Indirectly, thoughwe can count the number of broomsticks.
There are fifty-one huts, and each has at most one broomstick. Four dont have one parked outside, but we located three at various other parts of the base. Maybe this indicates that there are fifty-one Taurans, one of whom was outside the base when the picture was taken.
Keating here. Or fifty-one officers.
Thats rightmaybe fifty thousand infantrymen stacked in one of these buildings. No way to tell. Maybe ten Taurans, each with five broomsticks, to use according to his mood.
Weve got one thing in our favor, and thats communications. They evidently use a frequency modulation of megahertz electromagnetic radiation.
Radio!
Thats right, whoever you are. Identify yourself when you speak. So, its quite possible that they cant detect our phased-neutrino communications. Also, just prior to the attack, the Hope is going to deliver a nice dirty fission bomb; detonate it in the upper atmosphere right over the base. Thatll restrict them to line-of-sight communication for some time; even those will be full of static.
Why dontTate herewhy dont they just drop the bomb right in their laps? Would save us a lot of.
That doesnt even deserve an answer, Private. But the answer is, they might. And you better hope they dont. If they caulk the base, itll be for the safety of the Hope. After weve attacked, and probably before were far enough away for it to make much difference.
We keep that from happening by doing a good job. We have to reduce the base to where it can no longer function; at the same time, leave as much intact as possible. And take one prisoner.
Potter here. You mean, at least one prisoner.
I mean what I say. One only. Potteryoure relieved of your platoon. Send Chavez up.
All right, Sergeant. The relief in her voice was unmistakable.
CORTEZ CONTINUED WITH his map and instructions. There was one other building whose function was pretty obvious; it had a large steerable dish antenna on top. We were to destroy it as soon as the grenadiers got in range.
The attack plan was very loose. Our signal to begin would be the flash of the fission bomb. At the same time, several drones would converge on the base, so we could see what their antispacecraft defenses were. We would try to reduce the effectiveness of those defenses without destroying them completely.
Immediately after the bomb and the drones, the grenadiers would vaporize a line of seven huts. Everybody would break through the hole into the baseand what would happen after that was anybodys guess.
Ideally, wed sweep from that end of the base to the other, destroying certain targets, caulking all but one Tauran. But that was unlikely to happen, as it depended on the Taurans offering very little resistance.
On the other hand, if the Taurans showed obvious superiority from the beginning, Cortez would give the order to scatter: everybody had a different compass bearing for retreatwed blossom out in all directions, the survivors to rendezvous in a valley some forty clicks east of the base. Then wed see about a return engagement, after the Hope softened the base up a bit.
One last thing, Cortez rasped. Maybe some of you feel the way Potter evidently does, maybe some of your men feel that waythat we ought to go easy, not make this so much of a bloodbath. Mercy is a luxury, a weakness we cant afford to indulge in at this stage of the war. All we know about the enemy is that they have killed seven hundred and ninety-eight humans. They havent shown any restraint in attacking our cruisers, and itd be foolish to expect any this time, this first ground action.
They are responsible for the lives of all of your comrades who died in training, and for Ho, and for all the others who are surely going to die today. I cant understand anybody who wants to spare them. But that doesnt make any difference. You have your orders, and what the hell, you might as well know, all of you have a posthypnotic suggestion that I will trigger by a phrase, just before the battle. It will make your job easier.
Sergeant.
Shut up. Were short on time; get back to your platoons and brief them. We move out in five minutes.
The platoon leaders returned to their men, leaving Cortez and the ten of us, plus three teddy-bears, milling around, getting in the way.
15
We took the last five clicks very carefully, sticking to the highest grass, running across occasional clearings. When we were five hundred meters from where the base was supposed to be, Cortez took the Third Platoon forward to scout, while the rest of us laid low.
Cortezs voice came over the general freak: Looks pretty much like we expected. Advance in a file, crawling. When you get to the Third Platoon, follow your squad leader to the left, or right.
We did that and wound up with a string of eighty-three people in a line roughly perpendicular to the direction of attack. We were pretty well hidden, except for the dozen or so teddy-bears that mooched along the line munching grass.
There was no sign of life inside the base. All of the buildings were windowless, and a uniform shiny white. The huts that were our first objective were large featureless half-buried eggs, some sixty meters apart. Cortez assigned one to each grenadier.
We were broken into three fire teams: Team A consisted of platoons Two, Four, and Six; Team B was One, Three, and Five; the command platoon was Team C.
Less than a minute nowfilters down!when I say fire, grenadiers take out your targets. God help you if you miss.
There was a sound like a giants belch and a stream of five or six iridescent bubbles floated up from the flower-shaped building. They rose with increasing speed to where they were almost out of sight, then shot off to the south, over our heads. The ground was suddenly bright and for the first time in a long time, I saw my shadow, a long one pointed north. The bomb had gone off prematurely. I just had time to think that it didnt make too much difference; itd still make alphabet soup out of their communications.
Drones! A ship came screaming in just above tree level, and a bubble was in the air to meet it. When they contacted, the bubble popped and the drone exploded into a million tiny fragments. Another one came from the opposite side and suffered the same fate.
FIRE! Seven bright glares of 500-microton grenades and a sustained concussion that Im sure would have killed an unprotected man.
Filters up. Gray haze of smoke and dust. Clods of dirt falling with a sound like heavy raindrops.
Listen up:
Scots, wha hae wi Wallace bled;
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led,
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to victory!
I hardly heard him, for trying to keep track of what was going on in my skull. I knew it was just posthypnotic suggestion, even remembered the session in Missouri when theyd implanted it, but that didnt make it any less compelling. My mind reeled under the strong pseudo-memories; shaggy hulks that were Tauransnot at all what we now knew they looked likeboarding a colonists vessel, eating babies while mothers watched in screaming terrorthe colonists never took babies; they wouldnt stand the accelerationthen raping the women to death with huge veined purple membersridiculous that they would feel desire for humansholding the men down while they plucked flesh from their living bodies and gobbled ita hundred grisly details as sharply remembered as the events of a minute ago, ridiculously overdone and logically absurd; but while my conscious mind was reflecting the silliness, somewhere much deeper, down in that sleeping giant where we keep our real motives and morals, something was thirsting for alien blood, secure in the conviction that the noblest thing a man could do would be to die killing one of those horrible monsters.
I knew it was all purest soya, and I hated the men who had taken such obscene liberties with my mind, but still I could hear my teeth grinding, feel cheeks frozen in a spastic grin, bloodlusta teddy-bear walked in front of me, looking dazed. I started to raise my laserfinger, but somebody beat me to it and the creatures head exploded in a cloud of gray splinters and blood.
Lucky groaned, half-whining, Dirtyfilthy bastards. Lasers flared and crisscrossed and all of the teddy-bears fell dead.
Watch it, damn it, Cortez screamed. Aim those things; they arent toys!
Team A, move outinto the craters to cover B.
Somebody was laughing and sobbing. What the crap is wrong with you, Petrov? First time I could remember Cortez cussing.
I twisted around and saw Petrov, behind and to my left, lying in a shallow hole, digging frantically with both hands, crying and gurgling.
Crap, Cortez said. Team B! past the craters ten meters, get down in a line. Team Cinto the craters with A.
* * *
I SCRAMBLED UP and covered the hundred meters in twelve amplified strides. The craters were practically large enough to hide a scoutship, some ten meters in diameter. I jumped to the opposite side of the hole and landed next to a fellow named Chin. He didnt even look around when I landed, just kept scanning the base for signs of life.
Team Apast Team B ten meters, down in line. Just as he finished, the building in front of us burped and a salvo of the bubbles fanned out toward our lines. Most people saw it coming and got down, but Chin was just getting up to make his rush and stepped right into one.
It grazed the top of his helmet, and disappeared with a faint pop. He took one step backwards and toppled over the edge of the crater, trailing an arc of blood and brains. Lifeless, spreadeagled, he slid halfway to the bottom, shoveling dirt into the perfectly symmetrical hole where the bubble had chewed through plastic, hair, skin, bone and brain indiscriminately.
Everybody hold it. Platoon leaders, casualty reportcheckcheck, checkcheck, check, checkcheck. We have three deaders. Wouldnt be any if youd have kept low. So everybody grab dirt when you hear that thing go off. Team A, complete the rush.
They completed the maneuver without incident. O.K. Team C, rush to where Bhold it! Down!
Everybody was already hugging the ground. The bubbles slid by in a smooth arc about two meters off the ground. They went serenely over our heads and, except for one that made toothpicks out of a tree, disappeared in the distance.
B, rush past A ten meters. C, take over Bs place. You B grenadiers see if you can reach the Flower.