Picking Up the Pieces

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I could hear the sound of snipers in the distance as I examined the fortress through the eyes of the UAV, which was circling high overhead. The enemy forces had to have remained in the barracks until we’d approached, before taking up their positions, trying to keep us in the dark as much as possible. I silently saluted their commanding officer in my mind. He’d done a good job, but I was ahead of him in one respect; I had always assumed that I would have to fight my way into the fort.

Fort Galloway was tiny compared to the spaceport, but it still dominated the landscape and seemed to keep us all under observation. It was surrounded by a network of bunkers and traps designed to funnel enemy forces into areas where they could be mown down by emplaced machine guns and probably minefields as well. Inside, there were a handful of barracks intended for the men, an underground hospital for the injured and a set of command buildings and helipads, all encircled by watchtowers and barbed-wire fences. The tiny fence surrounding the outside of the complex was a joke by comparison; its only purpose was to deter civilians from walking into the firing zone. The warning notices, writing in Standard and all of Svergie’s official languages, warned of dire penalties, up to and including death, for anyone stupid enough to slip under the fence and enter the complex.

“They’ll have stripped her of anything useful,” Peter observed. I tried very hard not to jump. He’d come up right behind me perfectly silently. “They took down most of the fence for marking out the fields, or something.”

I nodded. The reason we’d never bothered with Fort Galloway before was that the local government had removing everything the farmers or miners had left behind, before abandoning the fort to the ravages of nature. The UN Construction Corps generally did good work — several of them had been shot by outraged commanding officers to make the point — and the fort would remain standing for years yet, but anything mobile had probably been taken years ago. It wouldn’t be that much of a problem — we’d brought supplies and could move in more once we’d occupied the fort, either though helicopter or on the roads — and in some ways it worked in our favour. The enemy holding the fort were unlikely to be very well-equipped either.

“1^st and 3^rd Svergie lead the assault,” I said, finally. I hated to be cold-blooded about it, but the Svergie soldiers were more expendable than A Company and the remainder of my men. “A Company and the support will remain in reserve.”

Ed nodded and headed off to organise the assault as the firing intensified. I’d deployed my snipers to force the enemy to keep their heads down — nothing damages morale like a shot killing someone at an impossible distance — but the enemy snipers were firing back, trying to force us to change our minds. They hadn’t hit anyone yet — we were using our vehicles as cover — but it was only a matter of time. It was a shame we couldn’t use the helicopters to their best advantage, but if we’d rocketed the fort we’d have had to abandon it quickly or waste resources trying to rebuild it. The mortars would suffice for what we had in mind, loaded with anti-personnel rounds; they’d kill the enemy soldiers, without seriously damaging the fort. The UN built them tough.

“I think I’ve located the enemy command centre,” the voice of the pilot said, through my earpiece. A building flashed up on my terminal. “They seem to be communicating from here with runners and shit.”

I watched for a long moment and decided that the pilot was right. “Target the building with a missile and engage as soon as we begin the main assault,” I ordered. The enemy might not have realised the UAV was present — the memory of a particularly embarrassing training session floated up into my mind and I smiled in bitter memory — but they’d probably prepared for mortars and even artillery. How would they cope with a penetration missile? “Ed?”

“We’re ready, boss,” Ed said. He paused. “You’re not leading the assault in person, by the way.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yes, mom,” I said, tiredly. “I’ll coordinate from here. Go in five; I repeat, five.”

“Five,” Ed confirmed. “We’re ready and waiting.”

The original designers of the fort had cut down all the trees and everything else that could provide cover surrounding the fort, allowing them to see and engage everything that approached the fort. Depending on how paranoid they’d been feeling, they might have sensors designed to watch for anyone trying to dig a tunnel into the base — it had happened on several occasions on other worlds — but over the years some foliage had grown up to provide limited cover. The snipers intensified their duel at my orders, trying to force the enemy to hide behind their walls, although they probably had sensors in the watchtowers. They’d have to be handled through brute force…

I smiled. We’d brought plenty of that along.

“Group One, go,” I ordered. “Pilot, drop the bomb.”

Three of the armoured cars could fire small antitank rockets, designed to give them a ghost of a chance against a real tank — as opposed to absolutely no chance at all — and they could be configured to target other obstacles as well. Four of the armoured cars fired a single rocket at once, targeted on each of the watchtowers, blowing them down in violent explosions. The enemy might have scattered other sensors around, but if they’d stuck with the standard UN system, they were blind now. They’d have to get people up on the battlements to look at us and the snipers would pick them off with ease, even though the haze of the smoke.

An explosion shook the ground as a new pillar of fire billowed up from the centre of the fort. The penetration missile dug into its target and exploded inside, rather than simply exploding on the outside, and anyone caught in the blast was definitely dead. If that had been the enemy command post, it wasn’t any longer.

“Hit them,” I ordered. “Group Two, go!”

The mortars opened fire and threw a hail of antipersonnel rounds into the fort, targeted on areas we were sure had large enemy presences. Anyone who sought cover after the first explosion would be fairly safe, but anyone out in the open would be in serious danger. I clenched my fist as the explosions flared up in the distance and keyed my earpiece.

“Ed, go,” I ordered. “Good luck.”

The defenders of the fort were struggling to get their own mortars into action to return fire, but they hadn’t counted on the UAV and its precise instructions from high overhead. Our mortars threw their shells into their positions and wiped them out before they could get off more than a handful of shells, scattering the defenders and forcing them to seek cover. It proved that they hadn’t kept all of the fort’s original defences; the UN used point defence lasers, just to provide cover from any such assault. If they’d done that, they might even have prevented the UAV from picking off their command post.

I watched as the soldiers swarmed towards the first bunkers. The enemy seemed totally unprepared to see them and, even as they started to fire back, the armoured cars started to launch their rockets into the occupied bunkers. Their firing slacked off as our forces and the defenders became intermingled, but the snipers kept firing, picking off every enemy soldier who showed his face. Whatever else the enemy were, they hadn’t prepared for a conventional fight at the fort… or had they thought we’d just line up and advance towards the fort in the open? Even the UN wasn’t that stupid. The defenders tried to fall back as the first bunkers fell, only to find that a retreat was the hardest thing to do under any circumstances. A handful threw their arms up in surrender, others were shot in the back or tried to keep fighting until they were beaten. The inner defences struggled to hold out, but my men were already within the walls and pushing them back hard.

“They’re falling back to the underground bunkers,” Ed said, in my earpiece. “We may have to go after them unless they surrender.”

I nodded tightly. “Offer to accept surrender if they’re willing to surrender,” I said, seriously. I wasn’t going to risk men trying to capture people who didn’t want to surrender, but the chaos gripping the fortress would make it hard for my men to tell who was trying to surrender and who was preparing to throw a grenade at their positions as they advanced. It was quite possible that we’d kill surrendering men quite by accident, but there was little choice. They should have surrendered before we’d assaulted their fortress. “If they refuse, don’t be gentle.”

The firing started to taper off as the defenders either surrendered or were wiped out. A handful dug into the bunkers and tried to make a stand, but Ed’s men rolled grenades down the steps and blew them out, one by one. Others tried to flee into the surrounding countryside, only to discover that our snipers were watching for anyone trying that and were gunned down. A massive explosion rocked one quarter of the fort as their stored ammunition detonated — they’d blown it to prevent us from capturing it — and the last of the firing stopped. Fifteen minutes after the assault had begun, the fort was safely in my hands.

“You three, escort us,” Peter ordered, as I walked towards the fort. My three bodyguards from A Company fell into formation around me, leading me through the defences and into what had once been a functional fort. I was relieved to see that the defences weren’t too badly damaged, but many of them would have to be replaced quickly. Leave it to the UN to be efficient when it would best irritate us. On the other hand, at least they’d taken out the minefields. If they’d been left there, taking the fortress would have been much harder.

The interior of the fortress was full of scorched and blackened buildings, but I was relieved to see that most of them were still intact. The former command building had been reduced to a pile of rubble and the other buildings surrounding it were damaged, but the remainder were useable. We’d be able to set up home here without many problems. The prisoners lay on the ground in the central yard, which would have once been used to hold parades and inspections, their hands bound behind their backs. Some watched us nervously, others angrily and bitterly, even though we were treating the wounded. They didn’t look like farmers to me and it took me a moment to realise that they were actually miners. I looked over towards the mountains rising in the distance and scowled. The miners had come to aid the farmers, or had it just been a coincidence?

“Damn you, Frida,” I muttered under my breath. “What the hell have you gotten us into now?”

“We lost seventeen men,” Captain Jörgen Hellqvist reported. His accent, clearly local, earned him attention from the prisoners. Their faces promised him a horrible death if he fell into their hands. “Five more are seriously injured and need to be flown back to the spaceport before they die.”

“Call for a transport helicopter and ensure that it is heavily-escorted,” I ordered, finally. I wasn’t going to allow wounded to be driven back to the spaceport if it could be avoided. They might not survive the experience. I looked at him, wondering if he could be trusted with prisoners, and decided that I’d have to start trusting him sooner or later. “Round up a platoon and have the prisoners moved to somewhere more secure — one of the former storage rooms, perhaps. Don’t let them talk to one another, but try not to hurt them further if it can be avoided.”

Peter shrugged as we walked into what had once been a command post for the fortress. It had been stripped of everything that might be useful, leaving only bare patches of wall where computers and display systems had once stood, apart from the ever-present dust. The miners had evidently decided not to bother refitting the room for their use, although I couldn’t blame them for that. It was evidently nearly useless for them. We could probably use it if we moved in some of the stuff we’d recovered from the UN base at the spaceport, but that would have to wait until we moved up some of the more vital defence systems. We’d shown the enemy just how to assault the fort!

“The prisoners might be talkative,” he said, as soon as we were alone — apart from the bodyguards. “We could inject them with something designed to make them talkative if necessary.”

“Leave them for the moment,” I said. “If they’re inclined to talk, we’ll see later what they have to say for themselves, but the last thing we need at the moment is a reputation for abusing prisoners. The odds are that we picked off all of the leaders anyway — or did we? Can you have them checked against the known miner leaders?”

“Yes, sir,” Peter said. I looked over as Ed came into the dust building and then sneezed as the dust blew around him. “It’s dusty, sir.”

“I had noticed,” Ed said, crossly. He looked at me. “I’ve carried out a quick inspection of the fort, sir, and it’s defendable. We just need to bring down the gear we need and then we can start putting the place in order.”

“I think so,” I agreed. “Is the field large enough to take the shuttle?”

“Yes, sir,” Ed said. “The pilot is confident that he can land precisely where we want him?”

“Then tell him to start moving,” I said, pushing my doubts aside. “We need him here as soon as possible.”

The problem with resupply for the fort lay in logistics — one of the military swear words, as far as I was concerned. The fort needed supplies that had to come from the spaceport and that meant either land convoys or transport helicopters, both of which were vulnerable. We couldn’t stop with just one either; we’d need so many that the odds of a successful attack would be high. I’d decided to gamble and use one of the shuttles from the Julius Caesar, bringing all the supplies we needed from low orbit on one drop, but if a SAM unit happened to be in range, we were taking a serious risk.

“Chancy,” Peter commented. He’d expressed his doubts back when we were planning the mission. “You know how many ways this could go wrong?”

“Better than I wanted to know,” I assured him, dryly. We’d gone over the benefits of the plan — many — and the risks — serious — before deciding to chance it. “We need to get Fort Galloway back in working order before the enemy decide to try and throw us out — which won’t be long.”

I pulled out my direct link to the UAV and scanned the live feed. It seemed clear, for the moment, but I was sure that the enemy would be waiting until darkness fell to launch an attack, if they had enough men in the area. It was the downside to the leaderless resistance concept; it made it hard to muster enough men in a given area to launch a significant attack. Or, for that matter, would they just try to lay siege to the fort? It would be just as irritating for us and much less risky for them.

The roar of the shuttle’s engines brought us both out to watch as the craft came in to land, braking heavily. The shuttle had risked a dive down from orbit to the fort, to minimise the time the craft was exposed to enemy fire, and I allowed myself a moment of relief as it landed safely. The risk of losing a surface-to-space shuttle was considerable.

“Excellent flying,” I said, as the pilot came out of the craft. He looked utterly beat by the flight and I didn’t blame him. The slightest mistake could have killed him. There was nothing routine about any shuttle flight, but the high-power drop had been extremely dangerous, even without enemy action. “You did very well.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said, as he stumbled into a version of attention. I silently forgave him the trembling in his limbs. “Might I suggest that you unload the shuttle as fast as possible” — the sound of ticking metal drew my attention back to the shuttle — “so that I can return to orbit? I don’t want the shuttle around here when the enemy start firing into the compound.”

“Of course,” I agreed, seriously. “Ed, supervise the unloading and get everything prepared. I have to call back to base and let them know what happened here.”

It took several hours to unload the shuttle, despite the pilot’s haste, and darkness was falling before the craft returned to the skies. I thought, seriously, about going back to orbit with him, but instead I’d only sent the wounded and the prisoners. I didn’t want to take them away from the fort, but I didn’t want them around either when their fellows began the attack. I was turning away from the darkening skies when it happened.

“Sir,” Peter shouted. “Look!”

I turned back and saw a streak of light rising up to meet the shuttle as it climbed into the air. The two lines connected and, a moment later, an explosion sent the shuttle’s burning remains falling towards the ground. I watched the explosion in numb horror — no one would have survived that — and knew just what it meant.

The enemy were here.