Intrepid

27

Kris finally got a chance to talk to Jack around sunset. He risked rigging a tight-beam to the Wasp, which immediately passed it along to Kris.

''How'd Short Stop One go?'' was Kris's first question.

''Surprisingly close to plan,'' Jack answered happily. ''In one wild minute my fifty Marines pretty much took down every truck they had. They're all afoot now.''

''They get anyone?''

''Winged a private who didn't get his butt down low enough when Cortez rewarded us with one of the noisiest mad minutes I ever hope to encounter. I thought these broom trees were tough, but they shot several of them up so badly they kind of came sliding down into the mud low and slow. 'Twas sad to see such giants laid low.''

''Just so long as none of us got laid low.''

''As I said, one bun shot. How's your recruiting job gone?'' Jack asked back.

''I've got quite a procession spread out around me, say eight hundred locals along. My Marines are busy training them.''

''They any good?''

''We won't know that until the shooting starts. Speaking of good, what's your call of the invaders? They up to Marine standards?''

''Don't let Gunny hear you even thinking that question. From what I saw of them, there's about a company of heavily armed and armored. I figure them to be nearly as good as ours. Then there are three companies of guys running around in uniforms but no armor. And just a rifle and bayonet. They haven't impressed me. One walked into the tangle web and let it make them into a bunch of fools. Those that missed the fun with tangle net didn't duck all that fast when we shot up the trucks. Give Gunny two or three months with your local recruits, and I bet he'd have them in better shape than these white coats.''

''We don't have two or three months. Gunny and his NCOs are doing everything they can with the locals, but a day or two isn't two or three months.''

''You getting cold feet?''

''I'm worrying about Short Stop Two.''

The pause wasn't all that long before Jack came back. ''It's bothering me, too. Looks kind of obvious on the map, and I don't trust this Colonel Cortez with obvious. Not after what we did to him in the last obvious ambush ground.''

Short Stop Two was a neck on the road north where the ridgeline to the west reached almost down to the swamp on the east. Because of the high water table, the gophers and their droppings had been forced to the surface. Someone had dug up the area, leaving behind what looked like shallow trenches. Now overgrown with bushes and young trees, it had looked, from orbit, like a perfect place to set up a second ambush.

Now maybe it didn't.

Kris gave Jack her present assessment. ''He's going to be looking for us there. If we take up positions in the dug-out area and he deploys to flank us, we'll be stuck in place. They haven't shown us any artillery, but even a couple of small mortars could pound that area, and we'd be stuck taking it. These green locals would break and be mowed down as they ran.''

Kris could almost hear Jack nodding along with her as she finished. ''So, if we skip that, where do we hit him next?'' he asked, as soon as she fell silent.

''Don't laugh until I get this all out, okay?'' Kris said, maybe a bit defensively. ''I've been collecting goats. Goats and pigs, Jack. I'm thinking of staking them out in the diggings, covering them enough so that Thorpe can't get a clear visual on them from orbit but can get a heat signature. I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that our Colonel Thorpe and his stalwart hands will look pretty silly after launching a full-scale flanking attack on our barnyard leavings.''

Jack chuckled. ''Oh, that would be embarrassing. And if we did a little battlefield preparation here and there, he might have a casualty or two to show for his effort.''

''I'd rather not use explosives,'' Kris said. She wasn't ready for the affair to get deadly. Not yet.

''Don't worry, I've got another tangle web. Oh, and some of the farmers I've recruited are out digging holes here and there in the sod. Not too wide and not too deep, but if someone isn't looking and steps in one, they are going to have a sprained ankle or busted leg.

''When Cortez heads north in the morning, I expect he'll end up with a couple of those to slow him down.

''I'm looking for Short Stop Three,'' Kris said. ''There are a couple of options. We can talk more when we join up tomorrow.''

''Sleep tight. See you tomorrow. Hard to believe that this time we're following a plan that's actually working.''

Kris signed off as well, with Jack's words still fresh in her ears. A plan that works. Amazing! But further back in her head was an old commander's warning from OCS. ''No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.''

This time hers had. So far.

Was that good? Or did it just mean that when everything fell apart, it would be all the bigger mess?

Now Kris had so many volunteers and Marines that she had to spread them out among three homesteads. For most of the day it had taken two or more farms to hide them in whenever Captain Thorpe came over.

Tonight, this dispersion meant that she couldn't talk to most of her recruits. Their morale and skill set would be a great unknown for her tomorrow. She did not like that.

The good news was that tomorrow morning, Jack and Lieutenant Troy would rejoin her. She'd have her command together for the first time since they dropped.

The bad news was that she'd have them all together, and that would make hiding them all the harder. Well, at least she'd get a good look at them. Thorpe had been very quiet since he first fired his big lasers at the Fronour farmhouse. Now that she was concentrating her troops, would he risk another shot?

New battle, but the same old worries. Kris rolled over, tightened her bedroll around her, and went to sleep. There would be plenty of time for worrying in the morning.