Intrepid

26

Cortez wanted to get the first word in when Thorpe came over the horizon, but ''What are you doing parked on that causeway?'' came before the colonel could get to his slumping command van. He took the call in the open with his staff around him.

Cortez went through several choice retorts, enjoying the view being his first unconsidered answer. But the colonel swallowed them all down and said, ''Waiting for the tangle net to dry on the half of Second Company that you might notice is down and blocking my advance.''

''Don't you have any untangle spray?''

''Not in the budget.'' That drew a snarl of responses from Major Zhukov and Captain Afonin of the Guard Fusiliers. ''You might want to take that up with that Whitebred fellow. I know I would if he was within my reach.''

Thorpe took that under consideration for a moment, or maybe he was distracted by other matters. His next comment was, ''I'm getting strange readouts from your transportation.''

''Yeah, I know. We've been attacked.''

''Casualties?''

Cortez failed to suppress a snort this time. ''You don't see any hostage bodies lying around do you? Not a single casualty.''

''I also don't see any dead attackers' bodies.''

''I suspect you're right, though I don't have the fine sensors you have. As I recall, I don't have any sensors.''

''But you must have seen something. You were attacked.''

''Yep, sniper rounds whizzing by for all of two minutes.''

''So, they didn't kill any of you, and you didn't get any of them?'' Thorpe sounded incredulous.

''Well, it wasn't as if nothing got hit. Those strange readings you're getting are from my transport.''

''Yeah.''

''Every truck, every combat rig is dead.''

''Dead?''

''Not a radiator in one of them isn't shot out. Most tires are flat. There are two reasons we're sitting here. Half a company is listening to their tangle net dry. The rest of us have nothing but our boots to take us anywhere.''

''And you're throwing in the towel because of that!''

Colonel Cortez so wished he'd gotten out of general view before Thorpe started talking. Surrounded as he was by Zhukov and Afonin and a few others from Torun Guard Fusiliers, his options for throwing a fit were limited. It had been a rough forty minutes since the firefight. Now the great Navy father in the sky was accusing him and his command of cowardice. Oh, how Cortez wanted to scream at someone.

Cortez held on to his temper with his fingernails, and asked through gritted teeth, ''What makes you think I'd do that?''

Captain Thorpe must have sensed he was only millimeters away from crossing a line that should never be crossed among warriors. He had the good sense to say nothing more explicit than ''Ah …'' Then added, ''You haven't suggested anything.''

''Then let me suggest that we hold a council of war between my officers, you, and the representative of our financiers. Is Mr. Whitebred within hearing?''

''I'll get him. Wait one.''

There was a long silence. Maybe the mess they were in was sinking in on Thorpe. Maybe it wasn't.

Then Whitebred squeaked, ''Yes, you wanted to talk to me?''

Cortez quickly outlined what had happened to his command since they checked in last orbit. The space side of the conversation did not interrupt, even for clarification.

''That sounds bad,'' Mr. Whitebred said at the end.

Was the man so dumb that he lacked any idea just what an understatement that was? ''Our situation is not hopeless, but it could be a lot better,'' Cortez answered.

''What would you suggest?'' Whitebred asked.

Not for the first time Cortez wished this conversation was taking place on visual. It would be interesting to see how Thorpe looked as he swallowed his silence.

''My options are rather clear, Mr. Whitebred. I can continue to advance. To seek out and engage the forces under this Longknife girl. So far, they have gone out of their way to avoid serious contact and any casualties.''

''They didn't take out a single one of your troopers while they were shooting up your trucks?'' Thorpe still couldn't seem to address that fact without his words drowning in incredulity.

''No one was even nicked. I have fifty hostages and was prepared to shoot ten for every one killed. With not even one trooper wounded, I seemed as much bound to do nothing as our published order bound me to do something if she did hit someone.''

''Should we change that order, Captain Thorpe?'' Whitebred asked.

''It doesn't seem like we'd gain anything by doing that just now. All our mobile assets are down. By the way, Colonel Cortez, I checked back with the troops you left guarding your landers. They do not appear to be under any threat. In fact, no civilians are in view of either of the landing beaches. The locals seem to be making a big thing of ignoring them.''

''Could any of them get their hands on a few trucks. Maybe bring us up a load of radiators?''

''Radiators? Ha!'' someone spat. Cortez turned to see a sunburned old fellow sitting in a ring of ten hostages. ''We don't keep no supply of radiators like that waiting around.'' He spat again. ''You done put all of us on foot, man.''

''Did you hear that?'' Cortez asked his orbital listeners.

''Yeah. You've been down there awhile. You see anything that looks like a big supply of spare parts?''

''Not in any town we passed through. Farms seem to keep their old stuff around. For spare parts I'd guess, but if we sent a couple of rigs around to collect stuff, I suspect we'd end up with more holed radiators than spares.''

The hostage just grinned at Cortez and nodded.

''I'm wide open to suggestions,'' Cortez finally bit out.

''If you try to fall back, you'll have to do it on foot.'' Captain Thorpe stated the obvious.

''If I try to advance,'' Cortez pointed out, ''I'll also be doing that on foot.''

''But you have to be close to contact,'' Whitebred put in from his deep well of military ignorance.

''That is true,'' Thorpe agreed. ''You've come so far, Colonel, to walk away from your attackers.''

''And could he?'' Whitebred put in. ''Walk away, I mean. What are the chances this Longknife girl has gotten her hands on some transport? Couldn't they use any borrowed trucks to whip around your—what do you call them?—flanks, and be in front of you no matter which direction you go in?''

''It does seem like Colonel Cortez will be attacking, whatever direction he chooses to head,'' Thorpe pointed out.

''But in one I'll be getting closer to my base. In the other direction, I'll be going farther.'' Cortez wanted to say, You idiots, pull me back to our bases. There's a chance we just might hold in the major cities if I have enough troops to garrison. Wandering around out here, I'm just the latest in a long line of generals looking to have my command wiped out.

And if he said that, he'd be immediately labeled a defeatist, coward, and loser. That was what Thorpe wanted to do. Label him. Relieve him and turn his command over to Major Zhukov. Cortez threw the man from Torun a hard glance.

Major Zhukov shook his head and took a step back. He waved both his hands and mouthed, Not me. I don't want this mess.

Cortez would have preferred a stronger vote of confidence, but a look around the causeway showed no reason for confidence.

''I think he should keep going,'' Whitebred said. ''There's not much more inhabited space north of where he is. He does outnumber the Wardhaven interlopers three or four to one. Maybe five to one. It seems to me that you've got all of them right there. Why shouldn't he just keep on attacking them?''

''That sounds like a good call to me,'' Captain Thorpe said.

It would, you damn swabby. You're up there, not down here, Cortez thought. But Whitebred had a point. It might work.

And on the way up here, Cortez had driven his troops through plenty of places for a good ambush. If Longknife and her Marines had trucks, they'd be there waiting for them.

Sooner or later, Longknife would strip him of his hostages, and the gloves would come off. Cortez projected a map on the ground in front of him. The distance to the northernmost settlement was barely a quarter of that back to City Two.

If he could just find this Longknife and fix her in place, his four companies should be able to kick the living stuffings out of her. ''We will continue to advance, sir, in pursuance of your orders,'' Cortez said.

''Very good, Colonel,'' Thorpe replied. ''We will talk to you again on the next orbit.''

Cortez made sure his commlink was thoroughly off before he said a word. ''So we toss the dice. Who knows, we might win.''

''Yes, sir,'' Zhukov said, ''but what do we do about all our spare ammo and food, sir? Our men can't carry it. My Fusiliers are maxed out with just our weapons load and armor.''

That question hung unanswered by Cortez's staff.

''Ain't you guys ever used hand trucks or wagons?'' the hostage that had put in his own thoughts asked.

''And you are?'' Cortez asked.

''Abe, sir,'' the old-timer said, getting to his feet. ''Abe Lincoln Corminski if you want all my folks saddled me with. Abe does fine for most.''

Another of the hostages, a woman about his age, kicked him. ''Abe dearest, you always did talk too much. You quit doing the thinking for these no-good layabouts.''

''But, honey, I figure if I get these folks up north quicker, they'll run into whoever is hunting them and this thing will get settled one way or the other, and I can get you back home.''

The woman kicked him again, and grumbled something under her breath that sounded like ''thickheaded old fool.''

Cortez motioned the man to him … and out of kicking range of the woman he would bet money was his wife.

''And just what kind of hand wagons or trucks are you talking about?'' he asked, as the man came to him. He had yellow teeth and bad breath. On further consideration, Cortez took a step back.

''Well, if you take one of the axles off of these trucks—the ones that go straight through, not two-piece ones—and you put a flat bed on it and a shank out with handles or something and you pull it, a man can haul a lot if it's rolling along on a couple of wheels,'' the guy said, folding his arms and preening himself on his expertise on hauling things.

Cortez glanced at his lieutenant commanding the Fusiliers' engineering platoon. He'd stooped down to eye the undercarriage of the combat rigs the Guard had been riding in.

He stood and shook his head. ''Can't use any axles from those rigs. Each wheel has its own suspension.'' He didn't point out that practically all of the six- and eight-wheeled rigs had flat tires as well.

''Not those fancy, duded-up things. You need a simple rig that will do a hard day's work. Like those.'' Abe pointed up the causeway to where the First and Third Companies' transport lay gathering dust and heat from the day.

The last truck in line looked to have two axles that went all the way through, from one flat tire to the other equally flat one. Cortez turned and led his staff up the kilometer or so to where the truck line started. Yep, most of the local trucks had one straight-through axle holding up the rear.

They also had a lot of flat tires.

''Just how do you propose getting the axles off?'' the engineering officer asked. ''And then how are we going to put together wagon beds to carry our gear?''

''You got some tools don't you?'' Abe said dryly, giving the young officer a sidewise look. ''They said you were an engineering officer, I seem to remember.''

The lieutenant turned beet red and looked ready to say something that would not go over well.

Cortez stepped in. ''Let's say that knocking together a handcart was not one of the requirements for him to graduate from his college, shall we?''

The local made a sour face and shook his head. ''Not much of a school,'' he muttered.

That didn't put oil on the rapidly troubling waters. Cortez cleared his throat to stop the rumblings among his staff. ''Lieutenant, go get your team and tools. Abe, why don't you go see if any of the hostages are willing to join you in showing us how to knock together these handcarts.''

Abe didn't move. ''Just out of the kindness of their hearts, you say. Knock together what some folks risked their lives to knock silly.'' The farmer folded his arms and didn't move.

Captain Afonin flipped the cover off his automatic's holster. Colonel Cortez gave his head a quick shake and leaned over to put an arm around Abe. His breath did stink. ''Let's say that you and your local friends are able to help us with our wheel problem. I say that you can tell them that I'll let them start walking back the way you came. That sound good?''

''Very good, sir. Now, if the man of the house helps you, what you say to the poor woman of the house also walking south?''

Cortez's eyebrows rose. The guy was wheedling him!

''You really want that harpy turned loose. I should think you'd want us to shoot her.''

''She's a mite bit noisy at times, but a guy can get used to that. Kind of come to expect it.''

Cortez held his breath and leaned closer. ''What say you start getting your farmer friends together now, and I don't shoot your shrew of a wife right now?'' Done, Cortez shoved the man at the nearest knot of hostages.

Abe went without a backward glance. That was good, ‘cause Cortez might otherwise have shot him. Here and there, a hostage stood. Most stayed seated and gave the standing ones a lot of lip. One woman sat back down.

''Captain Afonin,'' Cortez said.

The company commander whipped out his automatic and fired a round in the air. Talk stopped. Captain Afonin got the standing ones headed for a truck, then followed Abe as he headed for other clumps of hostages for his little talk.

It went quicker after that.

Most of the trucks had lumber on their beds, either as the bed itself or to protect the metal below. Between the locals and the engineers, they got several long chunks of board into a tripod-and-pulley arrangement good enough to lift some trucks off their axles. Getting the axles out was not an easy task; most tires were determinedly not round.

The process was not without its mishaps. One engineer had his leg crushed when a tripod collapsed and a truck came down early. Several arms were broken. Grim thoughts that Cortez was starting to have about sabotage hung like a deadly cloud over the process as the casualty count grew higher. But that count stayed about even between those in green and the locals. In the end it was dead even at five each, and he resnapped the cover to his sidearm.

Tires proved to be the limiting factor. None of the axles they recovered could take a tire from a Guard rig. Most of the local rigs had been shot up pretty well, even the spare tires. The final tally came in at eight single-axle carts.

The sun was edging below the horizon about the time both the tangle net started to crack and fall off its victims and the wagons were loaded with as much food, ammunition, and water as they would carry. A squad was delegated to protecting the rest.

Cortez got his command to the north end of the causeway and then set his troops to digging fighting holes to sleep in. Ten freed hostages started their way south. The remaining forty were cuffed sitting up to the wagons they would pull in the morning.

The night guards got a serious talking-to. ''If anything moves in your line of fire, kill it.'' Grim faced, they took in their orders.

The night was broken regularly by gunfire. Winged and four-legged critters that caught a guard's attention died without firing a shot in retaliation. Sleep was not all that plentiful, but as dawn came up the next morning, the camp was secure.