Go Tell the Spartans

"Hey, Top."

Sergio Guiterrez lowered the field glasses; there wasn't anything to see, anyway. "Yeah, Purdy?"

He'd known it was one of the Legionnaires; the Spartans in the First RSI were calling him Sergeant Major, which was his brevet-transfer rank. To a member of Falkenberg's Mercenary Legion, there was exactly one RSM among Legionnaires; and that was Regimental Sergeant Major Calvin, just as Falkenberg was the only colonel. "This river ever end?"

"They say so, Purdy; supposed to be today. I can't see much sign of it."

Not much of anything to see all the weeks upriver, just the Eurotas getting smaller in stages so tiny you couldn't notice them. Riverbanks with trees, riverbanks without trees, views of farm fields, views of grassy prairie and swamp and bare mud and tangled forest. Animals and birds, of course, like something out of the zoo or an old flat Tri-V documentary. Damned few people even the first few days out of Sparta City, so the wildlife was something welcome, something to look at. That and the other troops on the big flat barge, and every now and then some little town where they stopped to take on fuel or run the troops around to keep them from losing their edge. Wet and cool down on the Lower Valley, wetter and colder as they went west along the Middle, which was the same as the Lower except there were fewer people. Wettest and coldest since they'd turned southwest up this tributary, the Rhyndakos. "Top?" "Yeah?"

"Something I can't figure," the Tanith-born Legionnaire said.

"Ask away, kid," Guiterrez said. Purdy liked to figure things out, which was one reason he'd made monitor so quick, that and being able to read and having a way with machinery. "What I can't figure, is why does anyone on this planet want to rebel? It doesn't figure, you know?" The noncom pushed himself into a sitting position against the pile of supplies and looked around. The barge was a wooden box ten meters by twenty, one of a string pulled along by a puffing little stern-wheeler boat. A dozen more boats and barge-strings further back, where the Brotherhood militia battalions they'd picked up in Dodona were following. About half of this one was taken up by supplies, mostly a battery of heavy 160mm mortars, three-meter tubes on wheeled carriages, and boxed Legion electronics, counterbattery radars and suchlike. The rest was filled with a company or so of the First RSI; they'd rigged up tarps over the hold of the barge, so everyone was pretty dry, and lit low-coal fires in steel drums, so you could get warm. Some of them were cooking things, fish they'd caught or chickens from the last stop, or brewing coffee, and the quality of the wine ration was better than he'd had anywhere else.

He grinned. They had kept the troops busy as possible, classes and even small-arms practice at things passing by, but it was still soft duty. A few of the Spartans had had the gall to complain about conditions, until they saw the Legion veterans laughing at them.

Wait until they're up to their balls in mud and eating monkey, he thought. "You can get rebellions in most places," he said. "They don't like the people running the place, I guess. Your folks moved off into the jungle back on Tanith to get away from the planters and the government, didn't they?"

"Yeah, but Top, they'd have given their right foot to have a place like this. Except it's so cold. No jungle, no Purple Rot, no Weems Beasts or Nessies, lots of good eats, you can pick who you want to work for without slaving your sentence term on some plantation, or hell, just get away from the river a ways and start farming."

Guiterrez laughed softly; there was no sting in it, but Purdy looked slightly abashed.

"It's alright, Purdy, keep thinking that hard and someday you'll be giving me orders. See, kid, you're thinking like Tanith. Somebody straight from a Welfare Island on Earth-like I was-it's not so hot.

Sure, you don't have to eat protocarb glop, but they like glop. Taxpayers eat meat, and they're not taxpayers. There's no Tri-V here, and no Welfare either-no borloi, come to that, or free government booze. Say you're a street-gang warrior like I was, you don't get far here either, the people are all ironed and it's mostly a losing proposition to run in a gang. So it's work for a living or starve, and sure, you're used to that-your folks raised you that way, and they learned the hard way-but the convicts aren't.

Aren't used to country living, either. Make's 'em feel hard done-by."

One of the First RSI troopers looked up from loading a magazine. "Nah," he said. "It's the girls."

"Girls?" Purdy said, half-turning.

"Sure. Like, I'm a transportee, right? So there's, say, seven pricks to three gashes on those CoDo transports landing here. Studs lined up waiting for them, the transportee gash gets snapped up damn fast, you bet. And you can't get alongside much Citizen cunt even in Sparta City, and if you're outback in a bunkhouse, nothin'. So unless you like men, you might as well get yourself killed 'cause life ain't worth living, right?"

Purdy looked around. The banks of the Rhyndakos were low and swampy for the most part, covered in dead brown reeds; beyond them were thickets of oak and beech, bare and gray-brown as well; to the south and west, very distant, they could see the white glaciers of the Drakon range catch the afternoon light. A hawk hovered overhead, and apart from the chuffing of the tugboats' engines the only sound was wind in the branches. Thick flakes of damp snow were falling from a sky mostly clouds, melting almost at once when they touched the barge. On the shore above the reeds it lay half a meter deep, and the hills to the north were domes of white. The last farmhouse had been yesterday.

"There sure aren't any girls out here," he said.

"Nah, but you can kill somebody and take out your mad, see?" The soldier grinned, showing yellowed teeth. "Me, I figure on being a hero when I get back, get some fine patriotic Citizen to give it to me, see?"

Another trooper laughed. "You wish, Michaels. Maybe some woman dies, leaves it to you in her will, that's the only way you ever going to see any isn't bought and paid for."

The steamboat rounded a corner, and sounded three sharp hoots on its whistle. Guiterrez pushed himself erect; his battle armor was feeling a little tight around the gut, but a couple of days humping the boonies ought to cure that. "Fall in, get ready to disembark! And Purdy," he said.

"Yes, Top?"

"You're lucky. In the Legion, you don't have to know who the enemy are, or why they're there. All you have to know is how to get them in your sights."

The steamboat let go the towing hitch and turned, the reversed paddlewheel churning the surface of the Rhyndakos into white foam. On shore, the advance party fired a light mortar with a special attachment to carry a line; it trailed coiling through the air and landed across the bows with a wet thwack, scattering troopers.

"Dog that line to the brackets," Guiterrez said.

A dozen hands rove it through metal eyelets along the notional bow of the barge, and on shore a working party ran the other end through a block and tackle to a tree and heaved in unison. The lead barge in the chain grounded on the soft silt with a shuddering crunch, and the others closed up as the troops on board hauled in the connecting cables.

"Form up!" Guiterrez said, and the company NCOs echoed it. A plank landing ramp splashed over the side. Then there was a whining screech from the shore, as the First's pipe-band prepared to play its soldiers ashore and into the bridgehead.

Operation Scrub Brush was under way.

Geoffrey Niles blew gratefully on the surface of the coffee cup and took a sip. The Command Group post-exercise criticism session had broken up, and he was still chilled from the last two days of winter maneuvers. Sighing, he sank back in the chair and looked around the cave, inhaling the scents of wet wool and limestone and coffee.

It's not the cold out there, it's the bloody damp, he thought. Thick snow, and more coming when you least expected it. All made harder by the draining pull of heavy gravity.

The inside of the base was all well back from the entrances, which meant it was not much more dank and chill than it had been in summer. Dimly lit by a few glowtubes stapled to the rock, and if you wanted to get warm you went to your room and moved the heater in under the blankets with you. There were heat sensors all over, and thermal camouflage discipline was enforced with a ferocious disregard for the privileges of rank. The officers were all bundled to the ears… Not a bad lot, he thought.

Friendly enough now that he had proven himself able to keep up and not one to presume on a consort's influence. Hard men, though, he decided, studying their faces. Dangerous men. Which was all right with The Honorable Geoffrey Niles, since he had always aspired to being a hard and dangerous man himself.

Not exactly top-hole, though, these johnnies. Not gentlemen at all. Except for a couple of the ex-CD types like von Reuter and he suspected they had been broken out of the service. It was the first time he had ever associated with members of the lower classes so intimately, except with servants. Strange, in some ways; rather like being in the monkey-house at the zoo. They were intelligent enough, a few of them even well-read, but they simply had very little in common, from backgrounds so alien.

Still, I feel good, he decided. The past month and a half had been the hardest work he had ever done, physically and mentally. He felt hard and fit from the relentless drill; balanced and confident inside. For once nobody gives a damn who my pater or Great-Uncle is, he thought. They don't even know.

Whatever respect he had won here was his and his alone.

Not to mention, he mused happily, looking over at Skilly. She was talking to von Reuter, the artillery specialist, probably about the latest shipment from offworld and the wonderful surprises it had brought.

She felt his gaze and flashed him a smile; he returned it and raised his cup.

"Field Prime," the orderly said. Skilly raised a hand to stay von Reuter. "The consultant"-mercenary was not a word the Spartan People's Liberation Army used for its off-planet helpers-"says there's a priority message for you, ma'am."

Skida's stance did not change, but Niles knew her well enough now to see the sudden tension in her leopard gracefulness. Conversation died as she stalked out of the cave and into the next chamber. A thick waiting descended, until a scream rang out.

Niles blinked. He knew that exultant catamount screech very well, and the usual cause for it, but somehow he doubted Skilly was having an orgasm in the radio shack. The others exchanged glances, grins; Two-knife turned and slammed the heel of one palm into the rock, manic exuberance from him.

When the guerrilla commander stalked back into the room it fairly crackled from her. "The mountain has moved! They took the bait!" She shoved one fist into the air. "Long live the Revolution!"

Niles felt his skin tighten; it was an eerie sensation, as if he was trying to bristle like a mastiff that had caught the scent. Words ran through his mind, ancient words- But word is gane to the land sergeant, In Askerton where that he lay- "The deer that ye hae coursed sae lang Is seen into the Waste this day."

And perhaps it was wrong to think so of hunting men, but at this moment there was no place in the human universe he would rather be.

The officers stood and cried her hail; out of conviction, or for sheer relief that the waiting was ended. When she spoke again it was with crisp decision.

"General alert. Group Leaders, concentration points as per plan Triphammer. Takadi"-directed at the Meijian liaison and technical expert-"get your surprises ready. Two-knife, we start reeling in their little picnic parties as soon as we sure they not modifying their plan. After that, first thing Skilly wants is to hurry them up a little and put them off-balance. Senior Group Leader Niles, you take-"

The militia battalion commanders of Operation Scrub Brush, Task Force Erwin, were gathered around the command caravan with their staffs and the RSI officers; Owensford was using its internal map-projector on the dropped rear ramp of the converted APC.

"And you'll need observation posts here, here and here," he said to Morrentes, the major in charge of the stayback force at the bridgehead, pointing to positions on the map in a semicircle about the landing stage. High ground for calling in fire.

It was nightfall on the Rhyndakos, but there were arc-lights playing on the improvised landing stage, as men surged off the barges and manhandled equipment through roots and mud and onto firm ground; mules were being led down ramps, and their mournful braying echoed along the silent banks of the river. Empty barges were lashed together into makeshift docks covered with planking brought along for the purpose, and in the middle of the hundred-meter width of the river steamboats were maneuvering to bring their strings to the outermost links. Wheels and hooves trundled thunder-hollow as the Brotherhood Citizen-soldiers poured onto the banks. There was an occasional sharp crack as someone felled a tree with a string of detcord around the base, and the snarl of chainsaws. Two militia infantry battalions were digging in around the bridgehead; cleared fire zones, trenches, log-and-dirt bunkers, machine gun nests and revetments for their mortars, minefields and wire. A corduroy road had been laid down from the bluff to the water's edge, and the last of the marching column's equipment was being trundled up and loaded onto the waiting mules.

"I'll run a practice-fire program," the Brotherhood officer said thoughtfully. "We'll do some selective felling and booby-trapping out a klick or so from our perimeter."

Behind him a Legion technician squeezed a small plastic bulb. It inflated into a neutral-colored sphere the size of two beachballs; he slung a piece of plastic machinery beneath it, fastened it to a spool of wire the size of thread and let it unreel as the balloon rose.

"That'll give you real-time overhead surveillance," Owensford continued. A small camera-pickup, with the optical processor relatively safe down at the bottom; hence the balloon units were so cheap you could use them prodigally. "Lace the woods around here with communications thread and cameras, it'll make your perimeter security more redundant. We're going to spike camouflaged laser-relays to the trees, so we'll have a way of talking to you without breaking radio silence. This base is absolutely crucial. Keep the drones ready, but don't use them unless you have to."

Major Morrentes was a rancher, a man of medium height with a weathered tan and the bouncy rounded muscularity that second-and third-generation Spartans seemed to have.

"Still wish I was going with you, Colonel," he said ruefully. His lips lost what appeared to be a habitual smile. "My spread's just down from Dodona; they killed two of my vaqueros, good men and Phraetrie brothers, last spring. Not to mention the stock run off and stolen or equipment destroyed, and the convicts who took my boat and came here, I think."

"You may see some action, Major," Owensford said. It was a little disturbing, the sullen anger the Brotherhood soldiers felt toward their opponents. You've been a mercenary too long, he thought.

Remember what a grudge-fight is like. "Just don't forget that your primary tasking here is to keep the river open behind us."

"Sir."

"Now, the rest of us are advancing by battalion columns."

The lead element would be a battalion of the First RSI, heavily reinforced. Twelve of the von Alderheim armored cars, and two dozen of the APCs. Not carrying infantry, but towing heavy mortars, fuel, counterbattery radar and communications gear from the Legion stocks. A command car on the same model, with his staff and gear. Then the rest of the First Battalion, First RSI; eight hundred men, more or less, with their supplies on pack-mules. Six more battalions of first-line militia, seven to nine hundred men each. Enough distance between to give each other room and cover a reasonable amount of space, close enough for immediate mutual support if-when-they ran into something.

"Every half-day's march"-fifteen kilometers, more or less-"we'll drop off one company and two mortar batteries on these locations." Hilltops with good fields of fire, available water, and favorable placing to act as patrol bases. "With rocket-assist, the heavy mortars will give overlapping fields of fire all along the route. As reinforcements come in upriver, we feed them up the line and relieve the dropoff units to rejoin their battalions. Task Forces Wingate and Till Eulengenspiegel will be doing likewise."

"By the time we reach here"-he placed a spot of light about three hundred and twenty kilometers north -"the enemy'll have to either fight or run; in either case, our satellite observation will spot them as soon as they're forced to move substantial units and we can reconcentrate and either destroy them or chase them west into the Drakon Range foothills. They've evidently got excellent overhead surveillance security, but the fact they haven't been spotted much puts an upper limit on possible numbers."

Unlikely that the Royalist force would be able to catch the guerrillas, if the insurgents abandoned their heavy equipment, although he had brought enough horses to equip a substantial force of mounted infantry in that event. But of course if they captured or destroyed the enemy equipment, the exercise would be a success no matter what else was accomplished.

"That done, we can convert some of our firebases into permanent patrol outposts, rotate the militia garrisons as needed, and move the First and the other Field Force regiments in to clean more territory."

Guerrillas would still be able to infiltrate, but it would be infinitely more difficult and dangerous once they had to start from bases further away from the Eurotas. "Any questions?"

"Sir." Captain Prince Lysander, code name Kicker Six, who would be leading the scout element. "It's unlikely we have tactical or strategic surprise." Impossible, with troops steaming up the river from Sparta City and militia being mobilized all through this part of the Middle Valley. "Why haven't the rebels done anything yet?"

"I don't know, Captain. I expect we will find out presently."

"We are facing a three-pronged attack," von Reuter said, in accented Anglic with the slightly pedantic twist of a CD veteran. "North, center and south, as vas indicated by our preliminary intelligence.

Probably due to our disinformation, the main schwerepunkt is in the south, with the northerly force acting as a mobile anvil and the central pozzibly as a strike reserve."

His pointer moved from opposite Olynthos in the north to the middle Rhyndakos in the south, stopping on the way to tap at the box-figures representing the Royalist forces' central landing on the right bank of the Eurotas. "Mobilized militia units are standing by on t'Eurotas to act as blocking forces and general reserve, with mobile mechanized reserves in Olynthos and Dodona.

"Zis attack vill take the form of a closing concentric ring, attempting to constrict our movements. The elements are widely spaced-distances of several hundred kilometers-and t' enemy is relying on superior communications and reconnaissance to immobilize us and prevent our timely concentration against any of his columns, and superior artillery and command and control to overpower zose units of our forces he does encounter. Current intelligence indicates the spearheads of each enemy column are composed of troops of Falkenberg's Legion and the First RSI, wit' substantial numbers of Brotherhood militia in support. Total enemy attack forces are in the range of fourteen to seventeen battalions."

He clicked heels and handed the pointer to Skilly. Niles felt a tightly controlled excitement as she leaned forward into the light that shone over the map table; beyond her the caves of Base One were a kicked anthill of activity as the Helots prepared to go to war.

"Thank you, Senior Group Leader," she said seriously. "OK. We know more than the Royalists think we know; they haven't changed their battle plan much and we going implement the first contingency for Triphammer."

The pointer skipped south. "This column under Owensford is most important one. They coming through pretty thick country, not too many ways they can go. Group Leader Niles, you take the fast reaction force and stop their lead elements here." She stabbed the pointer into a spot about five days march from the Rhyndakos. "Day before that, they have to commit to one of three alternative pathways, you got twenty hours or so to get ready. That get them good and far from base; when they hot and bothered dealing with you, Skilly will swing in with the forces from the bases along the route, the Base One elements, and the prepositioned equipment.

"Von Reuter, you has the northern wing. They got more mechanized stuff there and the ground more open, but looks like heavy weather. We wants them in good and deep so we can delay them once the southern column is disposed with. You-"

The briefing continued, the officers mostly silent, scribbling an occasional note on their pads; there was a brief question-and-answer session period.

"So," Skida said at last. "Now, you, Tenjiro." The Meijian mercenary bowed slightly. "When we come in contact, they going know we fudging the recon satellite data if they got reports from their troops and the pictures doan show. You gets the Skysweepers ready. Niles," she continued, "Tenjiro's people feeding you the locations of the Royalist SAS teams as they reports. Niles, everyone, Skilly really upset if those teams make any contacts. Be ready to take them out just before we is engaged. Be sure to send enough stuff to do it right."

"Do it right," Niles said. "I can tell you those people are good." They had driven Barton to distraction on Tanith. "We're not going to take them out with any small units."

"So send big ones. Skilly think they like those people, gonna hurt them when they die." Niles nodded assent.

"Field Prime," one of the other officers said. "They're going to know we're in their communications link when we silence the SAS people. And once the satellites are down, we're as blind as they are to further movement."

"Balance of advantage to us," Skilly said. She bent the pointer between strong brown fingers, looking down at the map with a hungry expression. "We gots their basic positions, and our fixed sensors. They going to be off-balance and hitting air." She raised her head, met their eyes; Niles felt a slight shiver at the feline intensity of it.

"One last thing Skilly want clear: we not fighting for territory, that their game. This going to be a long war; unfair one, too. So long as we doan lose, we win; so long as they doan win, they lose. Hit them hard, hurt them-the Brotherhoods particular-but preserving your force is maximum priority." A deep breath. "Let's do it. Let's go."*** "Ready to move out, sir," Lysander said.

"All right, Prince Captain," Owensford said, nodding. "Find them, laddie. We'll be right behind if you run into trouble. Good hunting."

Lysander saluted and turned. The men of his company rose to their feet silently, weapons cradled across their chests. One hundred and twenty, a fifth of them seconded Legionnaires, because this was point duty and crucial. Bulky and anonymous, the gray of their fleece-lined parkas and trousers and body-armor hidden by the mottled-white winter camouflage coveralls. Bulbous helmets framed their faces; the mercenaries and officers were wearing Legion gear, with its complex mapping and communications capacity, the sound and light amplifiers; the ordinary First RSI troopers made do with a built-in radio and nightsight goggles. Everyone had heavy packs, half their own mass or more, because no mules were coming with them.

Marius's mules, he thought. That's what Roman soldiers called themselves. After Gaius Marius reformed the Republic's army around 100 BC, abolishing the cumbersome baggage trains and giving every legionnaire a bone-crushing load. Some things in war never change.

The dying didn't change either.

You'll be in tight-beam communication via the aircraft, and you can't get lost, Lysander told himself.

With aviation assets so sparse the seismic-mapping units were doing double and triple duty, reconnaissance and forward-supply as well. Still, they had satellite communications and navigation, and good photomaps.

I wonder how Falkenberg felt the first time he led troops out. Was he scared? Interesting. It's worse this time than back on Tanith. On Tanith it was just me and Harv I'd kill if I mucked it up.

"Move it out," he called; the platoon commanders and NCOs echoed him. The first platoon filed into the waiting woods, and in less than a minute were totally invisible. "Follow me. With our shields or on them, brothers." Nothing ahead of us but the SAS teams, he thought; it was a lonely feeling, almost as lonely as the weight of command on painfully inexperienced shoulders. If there was anything big, the satellite's IR scanners or the SAS would have caught it. And you've got a whole battalion of the Regiment behind you.

Harv closed up beside him, moving easily under the burden of pack and communications gear. He pulled the screen down before his face and keyed it to light-enhancement; they moved off into the deeper darkness under the trees, white shadows against the night.

Sergeant Taras Hamilton Miscowsky handed out the packets of pemmican, and the other members of his SAS squad huddled together in the lee of the fallen oak; his tarp had been rigged over the roots to cover the hollow made where the big tree had toppled. Doctrine said it was possible to light a well-shielded mini-stove buried in the earth, and God knew some coffee or tea would be welcome with the wet cold, but he was taking no chances right now.

He looked out into the night-black woods. Dark as a tax-farmer's soul, he thought.

The forest around him would have looked half familiar and oddly strange to someone used to the temperate zone of Earth; the trees were of too uniform an age, none more than seventy or eighty years.

Too thickly grown with an undergrowth that included everything from briars to feral rosebushes, and an occasional patch of native pseudomoss with an olive-gray tint fighting its losing battle against the invading grass. Many of the trees had fallen, grown too high and spindly to bear a gravity a fifth again as high as that for which their genes prepared them. Chaotic ecology, was what the briefing veedisks had said.

None of it bothered Sergeant Miscowsky; he had been born on Haven, where it was always cold and almost always very dry and all forests were equally alien to him, problems to be learned and solved.

What was bothering him was the fact that he had discovered nothing in a week's scouting. Nothing, zip, nada, zilch. He looked at his wrist. 0130 hours, coming upon time to report.

"Andy, rig the tightbeam," he said.

Andy Owassee was a Legion veteran, who'd made the SAS just before they left Tanith. The other two were locals. Good men, outbackers who'd done a lot of hunting, but he wished he had more veterans with him, the men who'd gone with the bulk of the Legion to New Washington.

"Isn't that a risk?" one of the RSI newlies asked; in a whisper, mouth pointed down.

"Not much," Miscowsky said. "Line of sight from the blimp." There were several patrolling along the Eurotas northeast of here. "Nothin' sent back or forth except clicks, until they lock in-feedback loop.

And it's all coded anyway." Tightbeam to the blimp, blimp to satellite, then satellite to whoever needed to hear it.

Out in the dark something yowled. Something big and hungry, Miscowsky thought. At that, at least the local predators didn't hide in mudholes to sink their fangs in your ass as you stepped over like the ones on Tanith. Earth stock anyway, and Earth carnivores were all descended from a million years of ancestors with the sense to avoid humans.

"Got it, Sarge," Owassee said, handing the noncom a thread-thin optical fiber link; he plugged it into a socket on the inside rim of his helmet, and then ducked back outside to the watch position. "Close the tarp," Miscowsky ordered. They made sure it was light-tight, and then the sergeant touched the side of his helmet. It projected a low-light map of the terrain on the poncho folded over the uneven dirt floor of the hollow.

"Cap'n Mace? Mic-four-niner, location"-he touched the map his helmet was projecting, automatically sending the coordinates-"over." "Reading you, Mic-four-niner. Signs of life?"

"Nothin', sir, and I'm stone worried. Plenty of animals"-they had blundered almost into a deeryard with a hundred or so whitetails-"and sign, shod hooves and old fires, might be hunters or if it's enemy then they police up real careful." They had found a body at the bottom of a sinkhole, about a year dead and looking as if nothing had gotten to it but the ants; the leg bones were broken in four places, and there were a few empty cans around it.

"This place is like a Swiss cheese for caves and holes, sir," Miscowsky went on. He paused. "Yes, sir, I know it's a big search zone but it's as if we're moving in an empty bubble. I think it's a dance, Skipper. They're playing with us." "What's your situation?"

"Camped high. Dug in. Perimeter gear out. I been running scared all week, and-" "Sarge. Sound."

All three men froze, only Miscowsky's hand going to the tarp. He touched his helmet to cycle the audio pickups to maximum gain and background filter; the officer at the other end had caught the alarm and waited, silent on the circuit. The noncom closed his eyes to focus his senses.

Creaking, wind, somewhere far off the thud of animal hooves. Then a crackle… might be a branch breaking in the wind. Rubbing sounds, and a tear of cloth. A muffled metallic click; some dickhead waiting until too late to take off the safety. "Got something on pickup. Three hundred forty meters bearing two-nine-five. There's another. Four hundred forty-five bearing one-seven-five." "They all around you?" "May be." "Stand by one."

"Hartley here," a voice said. "You're sure?" "Sure enough." "Call it off."

"Fire mission. Offset three hundred forty, bearing two-niner-five, moving. Offset four hundred forty-five, bearing one-seven-five, stationary. More to come." "On the way."

A long pause, then a flare of light somewhere off toward battalion. A big rocket flashed high, arced toward them. "Comin' in, peg 'em." Miscowsky scanned the area below him. "Goddam," he muttered. There were fifty men closing in. "It's a bloody damned race," he said.

"Think they got us located?" Owassee asked.

"Maybe not." Miscowsky began setting in ranges and offset bearings on his sleeve console. "Gonna be close-ah." A timer glowed softly on his sleeve. Fifty-five seconds. Fifty-four. "Impact in fifty seconds.

Estimate where they'll be when the balloon goes up." He grinned wolfishly.

"Kicker Six," the voice said softly in Lysander's ear. "Third Platoon here. We found a mine."

"Halt," Lysander said, on the unit push. "Perimeter, defensive." The first thing but foot and hoofprints they had found in three days' march.

Ahead of him and to either side, men stopped and melted into invisibility. Behind fallen logs, in the shadow of bushes, simply sinking into snow until only their eyes and the white-painted muzzles of their weapons showed. There was very little noise; the odd crunching sound, a few clicks as the team-served weapons set up. He and Harv went to one knee, waiting until the guide from Third Platoon came. The trooper gave a hand-signal from twenty meters; they followed him in silence, from cover to cover. The last three hundred meters they did on their bellies.

"Sir," the junior lieutenant breathed as they crawled into the lee of a big beech; the snow was thin here, high on the other side of the tree where the prevailing east wind piled it. Ice hung from the thick branches in stalactites, legacy of what had probably been the last thaw of the year, up here in the hills.

"Monitor Andriotti spotted it."

Andriotti was a Legionnaire, a man with a dark face and scars that ran down it into the neckline of his parka. Forty years old, perhaps fifty. Alert, but with a phlegmatic resignation that went deeper than words could reach.

"Zur," he said; there was a thick accent to his words, but it was of no particular place. The accent of a man who has spent his adult life speaking Anglic as a lingua franca with others also not born to it. "Tere.

Snow is just off the tripwire between t'ose trees."

Lysander cycled his faceplate to IR; nothing, the booby trap was at ambient, which meant it had been here for a while. He risked a brief burst of ultrasound, then froze the image. A curved plate resting on a low tripod in a clump of leafless thorny bush, impossible to spot with the naked eye. The wire ran at ankle-height, in a triangle secured at the corners to two trees five meters apart by plastic eyebolts screwed into the bark. The gap was the obvious route for anyone who didn't want to crash through brush, and anyone who had would have been shredded by thousands of flechettes.

"All units," he said. "Remain in place and look for mines. I don't have to tell you to be careful. Dig in.

Full perimeter defence." Never a mistake to dig, if you had to stop. The books said minefields and other obstacles were primarily useful to pin a force so that it could be attacked.

"Com, patch me through to Command."

"How many?" Peter Owensford asked as Mace finished. Contact. This is it.

"Sir, Miscowsky and his team are under attack by at least a company. Team Z-2 doesn't report. A-1 and A-2 report all nominal. Something coming in-Deighton's under attack. And Laramie."

"Deighton, Laramie and Miscowsky. And Katz doesn't report. Bingo," Owensford said. "Well, we sent them out to find something."

Find it and kill it. Each of the SAS teams carried directional beaming equipment that could feed the team's coordinates, plus an offset, to incoming Thoth missiles. Thoth was normally launched by aircraft kept just at the team's horizon, but in this case there weren't any airplanes for that, so the birds were lofted by solid rockets. That could be expensive if the birds went out and there were no targets, but Peter didn't think that would be the problem here.

"Jamming. We're getting jammed," Mace said.

"Jamming," Owensford acknowledged. "Well, we expected it after the Spartosky. Loft the anti-radiation missiles. And keep lofting Thoth support." Thoth missiles depended on a direct line of sight communication, and employed an autocorrelation system that was nearly impossible to jam, even with brute force.

"Aye aye."

Owensford studied the map. Miscowsky was Z-1, ranging in ahead of the column of Royal troops heading north from the Rhyndakos, Katz with Z-2 likewise. T-l and T-2 were with the central column, punching in directly west from a convenient bend in the Eurotas. A-1 and A-2 with the northern force, pressing southeast from Olynthos.

"They knew where to look," Peter said aloud. He thought about the implications of that. There was only one way they could have known that well. He turned to his adjutant, Andy Lahr. "Andy, they knew where to look. You agree?"

"Yes, sir."

"Jericho. Get the word out, all units, Jericho."

"Roger."

Peter picked up the microphone. "Mace, broadcast to all of your units. Code Jericho. Repeat, Code Jericho. Got that?"

"Roger. Code Jericho."

"Message, Captain." Communications Sergeant Masterson spoke urgently.

Lysander frowned. "I need to talk to headquarters-"

"They're broadcasting, sir. Jericho. Code Jericho."

"Jericho."

"Yes, sir. I got special orders on that one-"

"I know," Lysander said. "All right. Acknowledge."

"Acknowledge Jericho," the comm sergeant said. "I say again, we acknowledge Jericho. All units Task Force Candle Four, command override, your word is Jericho, Code Jericho. I say again, Code Jericho."

Jericho, Lysander thought. Assume that all transmissions are monitored by enemy. Assume that all ciphers and encryptions are compromised. All communication in future to be by code book, or in clear with enemy presumed listening.

"We're getting another," Masterson said. "This one's just for us. Kicker Six, Code Dove Hill. Code Dove Hill."

"Right. Thank you." Lysander touched his sleeve console and typed rapidly. "DOVE HILL."

"ASSUME ENEMY IN GREATER STRENGTH THAN ANTICIPATED." "Bennington," Masterson said. "Wait a second, that's not for us. Here's ours. Saratoga. Tiger. I say again, saratoga, tiger."

"SARATOGA," Lysander typed.

"DIG IN AND PUNISH THE ENEMY. UNLIMITED FIRE SUPPORT AUTHORIZED."

"TIGER," he typed.

"GOD BLESS US, THERE'S NONE LIKE US."

"All right," Owensford said. "Code books from here on." And thank God for a suspicious mind. Codes were not convenient. You couldn't say anything you hadn't thought of in advance and put in the code book-or personal data base, as the case might be-but they did have the advantage of being unbreakable. You'd have to capture a pocket computer intact, and even that wouldn't help for long, since the code word meanings changed from day to day and unit to unit.

"Code this," Owensford told Andy Lahr. "Teams A-1 and A-2 are to shift position and maintain radio silence unless attacked. Their primary mission is to get home alive. Relay message to Task Force Till Eulengenspiegel-" the central column "-entrench in place, stand by to call in Thoth, and hurt the enemy."

That wouldn't take long, since the central column was a feint, a company-strength unit making enough radio noise for a battalion. Of course a feint backed by enough callable firepower was more trap than feint…

"Task Force Wingate is to shift to fallback communications and maintain nominal transmission.

Maximum alert; reduce movement, prepare for meeting engagement."

"Righto."

The interlock chimed, and the com technical looked up from his board at the rear of the command-car's hull.

"Sir, priority report from Captain Collins."

"Put him through. Kicker Six, you understand Jericho?"

"Roger Jericho, sir. Sir, I've got multiple detection sensor and tripwire-detonated mine sightings all along my line of advance here."

"Merry times." Owensford looked down at his map; wheeled vehicles could advance through this section of the southern Dales, only about four-tenths of the ground was under forest, but if you counted that and very broken terrain it channeled an attack quite nicely. Channeled it down to about four alternative angles of approach within the fifty klicks on either side of the arms sighting that had started this whole affair.

"Check for command-detonated devices within your perimeter, Lynn," he said.

"Shit, I never thought-sorry."

"Quite all right," Owensford said with a bleak smile. "We're only four klicks south. You have your orders, Kicker Six. Stand by one." He turned. "Andy, how do I say 'Use explosives to clear mines.

Conserve troops.'?"

"GLOSSARY. HILDEBRAND."

"Got it. Captain, your codes are Glossary, I say again Glossary. Hildebrand. I say again Hildebrand."

"Roger. Glossary, Hildebrand. And TIGER to you, too. Out."

"Andy, check confirmation all units acknowledge condition Jericho," Peter said. "Then get me Task Force Atlas, Lieutenant-Colonel Barton." They were all wearing their Royal Army hats tonight, that was the central reserve, in Dodona. The line there at least was secure.

A wait of a few minutes. "Barton here. Ready to scramble."

"Ready. Scramble." There was a tell-tale sing-song background in his earpiece. "Scrambled."

"Scrambled," Barton confirmed. "OK. I've been following it."

"You get the same feeling I do, Ace?"

"That joyful, tingling sense of anticipation that comes just before you jam your dick into the garbage grinder? Yeah." "How do you figure it?"

"Could be either an agent in place, a pirate tap in the satellite, or both. They know more than we thought, and they've got more force than we expected."

There was no visual link, but it took no imagination for Peter to see Barton's face, cynical grin, toothpick moving rapidly from one side of his mouth to the other. "Status of the reserves, Ace?" "Nominal. Of course we're using up Thoth at a fearful rate, ditto ARM." "Any effect?"

"Sure. Their jamming's just about stopped, and Miscowsky and Katz are having a field day. Between them, they've taken out the equivalent of a battalion." "Think we got all their antennas?" "Hell, no."

"Yeah, I agree," Peter said.

Owensford looked at the map again. Four Brotherhood battalions with his Task Force Erwin column in the south, and the reinforced battalion of the First RSI. The same with Task Force Wingate in the north. One company with the feint. The mechanized battalion of the First outside Olynthos with two squadrons of armored cars, ready to back up Wingate. Four companies of Legion troops in Dodona, with all the ground-effect transport that the Middle Valley could provide, fast enough to reinforce either Wingate or Erwin. On the map the advancing columns looked like the jaws of a beast, closing around the south-central Dales. On the ground it was fewer than ten thousand men moving through an area of rough terrain larger than many countries back on Earth.

Plenty of troops in reserve, if you counted the militia, Ace had been working miracles with them. Another full brigade of first-line mobilized Brotherhood fighters along the river ready to intervene if it must, and the twenty thousand or so of the second-line were standing to arms on the defensive, giving him a secure base. Five times that number of third-line, women and older men, not field units but ready to fight and doing noncombatant work. None of them very mobile, unfortunately. Sparta's blessing and curse, the Eurotas; it made bulk transport in the settled regions so easy that there was an overwhelming temptation to put off developing a ground-transport infrastructure.

Should I have taken more of the militia in with me? he thought. Then: no, the reasons are still valid. Risky enough to have them standing by as emergency reserves.

Good militia were still part-time troops, unpracticed in large-unit maneuvers. The Brotherhood fighters were first-rate in their own neighborhoods. That was one reason nobody had ever taken a serious crack at Sparta, the Brotherhoods could field better than a third of a million at a pinch. The problem with that Swiss Militia system was that if you called everyone to arms, there was no one left to do the work; and Sparta's economy was in bad enough shape as it was.

Losing too many of them could be absolutely fatal; at a pinch, Sparta could stand heavy casualties to its offensive force, but the Brotherhoods were the iron frame that kept this section of the Valley under government control.

"All right, we probe, but carefully," he said at last. "This operation is primarily a reconnaissance in force, anyway." The best way to learn about an opponent was to fight him. "It all depends on what they've got and how good it is. We've already learned something about that."

"Yeah; they're pretty good, and they've got a secure communications system in there. Which is more than we do." Owensford nodded thoughtfully; it looked unpleasantly like the enemy had been preparing this for years. The whole of the Dales could be linked together with optical thread-cable and permanent line-of-sight stuff.

"The main thing is not to get hurt," Peter said. "Get that out to all units. If the other guys want to play, dig in and pound them. They're better than we thought they were, but they're still just light infantry.

"Meanwhile, let the SAS teams come home, but keep sending them fire support as long as they can spot targets. After all, it's what they're out there for."

"I ain't worried about them," Barton said. "But there's something sour about this whole operation."

"I got that feeling too."

"And we're blind. Pete, I suggest we wait for new satellite pix before we commit."

"Trust them?" Owensford asked innocently.

"Oh. Now that you mention it, no. Guess I don't."

"So we have to try something else. Bring up the birds; one with me, one with Task Force Wingate. Keep them well back." Tiltrotor VTOL aircraft, commandeered from the RSMP for the seismic-mapping project. They could transport a complete platoon of infantry; right now they were crammed with other stuff. It would not do to put them in harm's way, of course. Aircraft over a battlefield had been an impossibility since good light seeker rockets became common. The enemy certainly had those.

"You're the boss," Barton said.

"Bring up, code-" He did a quick search on his data base. "The code is Babylon."

"Babylon." A pause. "Babylon it is. Anything else?"

"That's it."

"Task Force Atlas, out."

"Out," Peter said.

Next. "Andy, let Heavy Weapons company dig in and prepare to fire support missions. Have Scout company pull all forward units inside artillery support range." Not many proper guns, most of it was big mortars, but still enough range once the scouts drew in.

"Roger. SAS teams report enemy activity slacking off."

Peter glanced at the munitions expenditure readouts. "I should bloody hope so. Haven't you got a better report than that?"

"Miscowsky reports 'DYANAMO.' That translates as 'heavily engaged.' "

"Other teams?"

"Much the same. Heard from Katz finally. His report prior to acknowledging Jericho was 'JESUS CHRIST!' Now reports, 'Heavily engaged, am hurting enemy.' "

"Good." The SAS teams are doing their job, but I don't like this. Ace doesn't either. "Bring them home.

Send out escort patrols to assist."

"Suggestion," Captain Lahr said.

"Spill it."

"This is all by the book," Lahr said. "They'll set up ambushes for the escorts, sure as hell."

"Gotcha. Yeah, send an SAS Thoth controller along with each escort team. With luck they'll find some targets going in while the teams kick ass coming out."

"Roger that."

"Now get me Collins again."

"Can't guarantee security."

"Understood."

"Coming up," Andy Lahr said.

There was a pause. "Kicker Six here."

"Jericho."

"Understood."

"Captain, I need an estimate of how far that mine obstacle stretches…"

"About five hundred meters to my left, sir; three hundred to the right, and it's anchored in a ravine.

About fifty to a hundred meters thick. We estimate a minimum of three hours to clear a path suitable for vehicles."

"Stand by one." Owensford studied the map. The western end of the minefield ran down toward a valley; there was a lip to that hill, a traversable slope beyond the mines, and then broken wooded ground down to the low point.

What was it Ace said about garbage grinders? That gap might as well have a sign on it, "Please insert male generative organ here." Well, a trap you know is a trap is no trap.

"Stand by for orders," Peter said.

No point in having Collins waste troops on mines. Use fuel-aid to blast hell out of the area and be done with it. The main thing was to stay out of trouble. Owensford typed orders.

"DIG IN. STAY DUG IN UNTIL MINEFIELDS CLEARED. USE ARTILLERY AND HE TO CLEAR MINE AREA. DONT RISK TROOPS ON MINES. PREPARE TO PUNISH ENEMY ATTACKERS."

"Andy, put this through the data base and give me the codes. Thanks."

"OK. Attention to orders. Code DECEMBER. Repeat December. Code TRILOGY. Repeat Trilogy.

Code ELK HILL. Repeat Elk Hill."

"DECEMBER, TRILOGY, ELK HILL. Roger."

"Code TIGER."

"Tiger it is."

"Okey Doke. Out." Peter Owensford reached up and undogged the hatch, climbing up to stand with head and shoulders in the chill air. Cythera was up, shedding patchy moonlight through scud clouds. He cycled the facemask until the scene had a depthless brightness. The main body of Task Force Erwin was moving at the equivalent of a quick walk, no more. A dozen armored cars were leapfrogging forward, moving in spurts and then waiting in hull-down positions while the flanking infantry companies swept through the wooded areas to either side in skirmish line; behind both the bulk of the expeditionary force marched in company columns, enclosing their mule-born supply trains.

That changed even as he watched. The APCs halted and spilled their eight-man crews to begin setting up the heavy weapons. Shovels and the 'dozer blade of the engineering vehicle began preparing firing positions for the mortars, well spaced out and downslope from the crest. Still further down, the Headquarters troops were digging in as well, spider-holes and pits for their heavy machine guns and perimeter gatlings.

"Sir, Senior Lieutenant Fissop." The commander of the HQ company. "He requests permission to blow standing timber for entrenchment purposes."

"By all means," Owensford said, studying his map again.

Assume there's a blocking force near that minefield, he thought. Can't be too large. Now, what avenues of attack are there… ahh.

"Message to Third Brotherhood. Close up to two klicks west of us and advance using this ridge"-his light-pencil traced it-"having his mortars ready for support"-mule-born l25mms-"and begin a probe here." That ought to put them right behind whoever was waiting for him to swing around the mines. "Twenty-Second is to maintain distance on the Third's left, ready to move in support. Eighteenth is to close up to within five klicks to our rear, and Fifty-first to deploy in place for the moment on the right." A good well-rounded position, ready to attack, retreat or switch front at need, and capable of interdicting the low covered ground on all sides. "Sir, CO Task Force Wingate." "Patch."

"Slater here," a familiar voice said. "Copy, George," Owensford said. "I've run into a spot of trouble." "Details?"

"Mines, snipers and teams of rocket launchers infiltrating between my columns. Lost two armored cars and about fifteen casualties; we've counted about five times that in enemy dead. They're willing to take casualties to hurt us." "Interesting."

"Isn't it? Also, two of my forward support bases along the route back report harassing fire from mortars. One twenty-five millimeter stuff, shoot-and-scoot, they're working counterbombardment." With locally made counterbattery radars; Owensford had no special confidence in them. SingIe-frequency, and the innards were positively neolithic, hand-assembled transistors and chipboards salvaged from imported consumer electronics.

"Stand by for orders." He looked up "Conserve Ammunition" and "Fire if target under observation and located." "Code HAWKWOOD. Repeat Hawkwood. Code ARAGON. Repeat Aragon." "HAWKWOQD. ARAGON. Roger." "Stand by one." "Roger."

"Intelligence. What's on Elint?" Electronic traffic interception. "Nothing, sir."

There were ways to handle movement without any radio traffic at all, but not many. One way was to move everything according to a prearranged plan. Like terrorists. That would be interesting. He switched back to the commander of the northern column. "We'll know more in a bit. Hop to it." "Roger. Wingate, out."

"Come on, birdie," Owensford murmured to himself. "Because here I sit, bloody blind."

"Senior Group Leader," the communications tech said, "Base One reports there was a three-minute lapse in enemy satellite-link commo immediately after the SAS teams were attacked. They are now using alternates, and code book." "Thank you," Geoffrey Niles said. "Results?"

"Heavy casualties, sir. The SAS teams are calling down some sort of smart weapon bombardment, and they're all well dug-in. They've shredded our people, some have already cut and run." He touched the earphone of his headset. "The consultants say the weapons are being lofted by short-range rockets from the main enemy columns. Antiradiation missiles are giving our jamming serious problems." "Damn." He frowned; overrunning the SAS teams would have been a significant blow to the enemy's capacities. Skilly's orders had been quite specific, though. "Break off the attacks. They'll probably try to send someone to pull the scouts out. Have the attack teams set ambushes on the likely approach paths. Otherwise, stay out of visual observation range and harass with mortar fire." "Counterbattery hits our mortar people every time they fire."

"Poor babies." Niles looked at his chronometer; 0200. "Time to surveillance satellite overpass?" "One hour twenty-seven minutes, sir." A pause. "Sir, Base One reports two enemy aircraft are lifting off-schedule from Olynthos and Dodona." They had agents in place in both towns. All you needed was someone with binoculars, and a zeroed-in laser transponder aimed at a spot in the hills to the west and south. A negligible chance of someone having detection gear in the path of a tight beam during the few seconds it was in use.

"Tiltrotors. Looks like they're heading for the rear zones to do Elint and remote-sensor interpretation." The pickups would be forward. "ETA forty minutes."

"Very good," he said with a fierce grin, looking back at the map. The enemy were quick on the uptake, but there were still things they didn't know. "I'm moving forward to take personal command of the blocking force. Sutchukil," he continued to his adjutant, "keep me notified of the status of the aircraft." "Sir," the Thai transportee said; he was a short stocky man with a grin that never reached his eyes, an aristocrat and would-be artist shopped to BuReloc in some local power struggle. Outside the tarp shelter it was growing rapidly colder in the gully under the light of the sinking moon; Niles stopped for a second to pull on his thin insulated gloves and fasten the top of his parka. Breath puffed white as the headquarters section fell in around him; there was little other movement in the rocky draw where they had left the vehicles. Those were simple frameworks of wood on skis, holding little but a light airship engine with rear-mounted propeller and a fuel tank. The troops' skis and the sleds that carried heavy equipment were stacked nearby, several layers thick against the rough limestone of the cliff wall. "La joue commence," he murmured to himself.