The tactics of mistake

13

As Cletus' command car tilted on its air cushion and slid around the corner into the short street leading toward the BOQ, Cletus saw the parking lot before the BOQ half-filled with parked cars, clustered before the main entrance of the building in two rows with a narrow aisle in between.

Both ends of the parking lot were empty; the building itself, with those other buildings of the officers' compound beyond it, seemed to slumber emptily under the afternoon sun. The BOQ's occupants for the most part would now be either at work, having a late lunch, or asleep within. As the staff car slid on its air cushion toward the entrance to the parking lot, Cletus raised his eyes and caught the glint of sunlight on something metallic just below the ridge of the roof over the BOQ's main entrance.

Cletus looked at the empty-windowed double row of cars sitting flat on the cement of the parking lot, with their air cushions turned off. His lips thinned. At that moment, as they turned into the aisle between the two rows of cars, there were sizzling sounds like the noise of enormous slices of bacon frying above them, followed by several licking dragons' breaths of superheated air, as energy weapons sliced into the metal sides and roof of his command car like the flames of acetylene torches into thin tinfoil. Arvid fell heavily against Cletus, his uniform jacket black and smoking on the upper right side, and the staff car careened out of control, to its right, into two empty parking spaces between cars, where it wedged itself, still on its air cushion between the grounded vehicles.

A bleak fury exploded inside Cletus. He turned, jerked the side-arm from its holster at Arvid's side, ducked down and punched open the door on his side of the staff car. He dove through it into the space between his car and the grounded one on the right. He rolled back under his own floating car and crawled rapidly to the back end of the grounded car on his left. Lying flat, he peered around its end. There was a man on his feet, energy rifle in hand, coming toward him between the two rows of parked vehicles at a run. Cletus snapped a shot from the sidearm and the man went tumbling, head over heels. Cletus ducked around the car to his right and into the next space between it and the car farther on.

The charge weapons now were silent. From memory of the sound and damage to the command car, Cletus guessed no more than three gunmen were involved. That left two to deal with. Glancing out, Cletus could see the man he had shot sprawled, lying still on the pavement, his energy weapon rolled out of his grasp, its transparent, rifle-like barrel reflecting the sunlight. Cletus backed up, opened the near door of the car on his right and crawled in. Lying flat on its floorboards, he raised it on its air cushion and set it backing out in reverse.

As it reached the center space between the two rows of parked cars, he dived out the opposite door, just as two beams cut into the other side and the roof of the car behind him. He snatched up the fallen charge weapon and, carrying it, scuttled behind the screen of the still-moving car until it slammed into the opposite row of cars. Then he ducked into the closest available space there, turned about and looked back around the nearest car end.

The other two gunmen were visible, standing out in the open now, back to back, by the car Cletus had last sent smashing into the ones opposite. One was facing Cletus' direction, the other in the opposite direction, both with their charge weapons up and scanning the spaces between the vehicles for any sign of movement.

Cletus pulled back, cradled the charge weapon in his left elbow and lobbed his sidearm in a high arc over the heads of the two standing men to fall with a clatter by Cletus' own cut-up command car.

Both of the gunmen spun about to face in the direction of the noise. Cletus, standing up and stepping out from between his two parked cars, cut them down with the energy weapon he still held in his hands.

Breathing heavily, Cletus leaned for a second against the back of the car by which he had emerged. Then, throwing aside the energy weapon, he limped hastily back toward the staff car in which Arvid still lay.

The lieutenant was conscious when Cletus arrived. He had taken a bad burn through the upper part of his chest and shoulder on the right side, but energy-weapon wounds were self-cauterizing; the wound was ugly, but there was no bleeding. Cletus eased him down onto the grass and went into the BOQ to call for medical aid from an astounded military hospital unit.

"Guerrillas!" Cletus said briefly, in answer to their questions. "There're three of them - all dead. But my aide's wounded. Get over here as soon as you can." He cut the connection and went back out to see how Arvid was doing.

"How... " whispered Arvid, when Cletus bent over him.

"I told you deCastries would like insurance," said Cletus. "Lie still now, and don't talk."

The ambulance unit from the military hospital swooped down then, its shadow falling across them like the shadow of some hawk from the skies just before it landed softly on the grass beside them. White-uniformed medics personnel tumbled out, and Cletus got to his feet.

"This is Lieutenant Johnson, my aide," said Cletus. "Take good care of him. The three guerrillas out in the parking lot are all dead. I'll write up a full report on this later - but right now I've got to get going. You can handle things?"

"Yes, sir," said the medic in charge. He was a senior, with the gold and black bars of a warrant officer on his collar. "We'll take care of him."

"Good," said Cletus.

Without stopping to say anything further to Arvid, he turned and went up into the BOQ and down the hall to his own quarters. Swiftly, he changed into combat overalls and the straps for battle gear. When he came out, Arvid had already been taken away to the hospital and the three dead gunmen had been brought up and laid on the grass. Their clothes were the ordinary sort of civilian outfits normally seen on the streets of Bakhalla, but the lower part of the faces of each was pale in contrast to the tan of their foreheads, showing where heavy Neulander beards had been shaved off recently.

Cletus tried his command car, found it operable, and slid off in the direction of the Dorsai area.

When he arrived there, he found most of the returned Dorsai troops already marshaled by units on the exercise ground - armed, equipped and ready to be enshipped back to Two Rivers. Cletus went directly to the temporary Headquarters unit set up at one side of the field and found Lieutenant-Colonel Marcus Dodds there.

"You haven't sent any shiploads back up yet, have you?" Cletus demanded the moment Dodds saw him.

"No, Colonel," answered the tall, lean man. "But we should probably be thinking about moving men back up soon. If we try to have troops jump into Two Rivers after dark, three out of four of them are going to land in the rivers. And by daylight tomorrow, those Neulander troops will probably be in position in both river valleys above the town. They'd have a field day picking off our jump troops if we send men in then."

"Don't worry about it," Cletus said brusquely. "We aren't going to jump into the town in any case."

Marc Dodds' eyebrows raised La his narrow, brown face. "You're not going to support - "

"We'll support. But not that way," said Cletus. "How many of the men that were sent back and turned loose on pass are still out?"

"Not more than half a company, probably, all told. They've been hearing about this and coming back on their own," said Marc. "No Dorsai's going to let other Dorsais be surrounded and cut up when he can help - "

He was interrupted by the phone ringing on the field desk before him. He picked it up and listened for a moment without comment.

"Just a minute," he said, and lowered the phone, pushing in on the muffle button. "It's for you. Colonel Ivor Dupleine - General Traynor's chief of staff."

Cletus reached out his hand and Marc passed the phone into it.

"This is Colonel Grahame," Cletus said into the mouthpiece. Dupleine's choleric face, tiny in the phone screen by Cletus' thumb, glared up at him.

"Grahame!" Dupleine's voice barked in his ear. "This is Colonel Dupleine. The Neulanders've moved troops over the border at Etter's Pass and seem to be setting up around Two Rivers. Have you still got any Dorsai troops up there?"

"A couple of companies in the town itself," said Cletus.

"Only a couple? That's not so bad then!" said Dupleine. "All right, listen now. Apparently those Dorsais over there with you are getting all stirred up. You're not to make any attempt against those Neulander troops without direct orders. That's a direct order - from General Traynor himself. You understand? You just sit tight there until you hear from me or the general."

"No," said Cletus.

For a moment there was a dead silence at the other end of the circuit. Dupleine's face stared out at Cletus from the phone screen. "What? What did you say?" snapped Dupleine, at last.

"I ought to remind you, Colonel," said Cletus, quietly, "that the general put me in complete command of these Dorsais with responsibility only to him."

"You... but I'm giving you the general's orders, Grahame! Didn't you hear me?" Dupleine's voice choked on the last word.

"I've got no proof of that, Colonel," said Cletus, in the same unvarying tone of voice. "I'll take my orders from the general, himself. If you'll have the general tell me what you've just told me, I'll be happy to obey."

"You're insane!" For a long moment, he once more stared at Cletus. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, more controlled, and dangerous. "I think you know what refusing to obey an order like that means, Colonel. I'm going to sign off here and give you five minutes to think it over. If I haven't heard from you within five minutes, I'll have to go to the general with your answer just the way you gave it. Think about it."

The little screen in the phone went dark, and the click of the disconnected circuit sounded in the earphone. Cletus put the phone back on the desk.

"Where's your map projector?" he asked Marc. "Right over here," he answered, leading the way across the room to a horizontal table-screen, with the black shape of a projector bolted beneath it. A map of the Erter's Pass area showed on the screen. As they both reached the edge of the table-screen, Cletus put his finger on the marked position of Two Rivers town where the streams of the Whey and the Blue came together.

"By dawn tomorrow," he said to Marc, "whoever's commanding those Neulanders will want to be in a position to start his attack on our troops in the town. That means" - Cletus' finger traced horseshoe-shaped curves, their open ends facing downstream, about the valleys of both the Whey and the Blue rivers just above the town - "our men from here should be able to go in as jump troops - since they're fresh from training for it - just upriver of both those positions with comparative safety - since the Neulander forces should all be looking downriver. Now, I understand that the Neulanders don't have any real artillery, any more than we do. Is that right?"

"That's right, sir," Marc said. "Kultis is one of the worlds where we've had an unspoken agreement with the Coalition not to supply our allies, or our troops stationed with those allies, with anything more then portable weapons. So far as we know, they've kept to their part of the bargain as far as Neuland's concerned. Actually, they haven't needed anything more than hand weapons, just as we haven't, since up till now all their fighting's been done with native guerrillas. We can expect their troops to have light body armor, energy weapons, rocket and fire bomb launchers... "

Together they plotted the probable future positions of the Neulander troops, particularly those carrying the launchers and other special weapons. While they worked, a ceaseless stream of orders came in and out of the field HQ, frequently interrupting their talk.

The sun had set several hours before one of the junior officers tapped Cletus deferentially on the elbow and offered him the phone.

"Colonel Dupleine again, sir," the officer said.

Cletus took the phone and looked at the image of Dupleine. The face of the Alliance colonel looked haggard.

"Well, Colonel?" asked Cletus.

"Grahame - " began Dupleine, hoarsely, and then broke off. "Is anyone there with you?"

"Colonel Dodds of the Dorsais," answered Cletus.

"Could I... talk to you privately?" said Dupleine, his eyes searching around the periphery of the screen as though to discover Marc, who was standing back to one side out of line of sight from the phone. Marc raised his eyebrows and started to turn away. Cletus reached out a hand to stop him.

"Just a minute," he said. He turned and spoke directly into the phone. "I've asked Colonel Dodds to stay. I'm afraid I'd prefer having a witness to whatever you say to me, Colonel."

Dupleine's lips sagged. "All right," he said. "The word's probably spreading already. Grahame... General Traynor can't be located."

Cletus waited a second before answering. "Yes?" he said.

"Don't you understand?" Dupleine's voice started to rise. He stopped, visibly fought with himself and got his tones down to a reasonable level again. "Here the Neulanders have moved not just guerrillas, but regular troops, into the country. They're attacking Two Rivers - and now the general's dis... not available. This is an emergency, Grahame! You have to see the point in canceling any orders to move the Dorsai troops you have there, and coming over to talk with me, here."

"I'm afraid I don't," answered Cletus. "It's Friday evening. General Traynor may simply have gone somewhere for the weekend and forgotten to mention he'd be gone. My responsibility's to his original orders, and those leave me no alternative but to go ahead with the Dorsais in any way I think best."

"You can't believe he'd do a thing like that - " Dupleine interrupted himself, fury breaking through the self-control he had struggled to maintain up until this point. "You nearly got gunned down by guerrillas yourself, today, according to the reports on my desk! Didn't it mean anything to you that they were carrying energy weapons instead of sport rifles? You know the Neulander guerrillas always carry civilian-level weapons and tools so they can't be shot as saboteurs if they're captured! Doesn't the fact that three men with energy weapons tried to cut you down mean anything to you?"

"Only that whoever's giving the orders on the Neuland side," said Cletus, "would like to have me removed as commander of the Dorsai troops. Clearly, if they don't want me commanding, the best thing I can do for our side is to command."

Dupleine glared at him wearily from the phone screen. "I warn you, Grahame!" he said. "If anything's happened to Traynor, or if we don't find him in the next few hours, I'll take emergency command of the Alliance Forces here myself. And the first thing I'm going to do is to revoke Bat's order to you and put you under arrest!"

The tiny screen in the phone went dark, the voice connection went dead. A little wearily, Cletus put the phone down on the table-screen and rubbed his eyes. He turned to Marcus Dodds.

"All right, Marc," he said. "We won't delay any longer. Let's start moving our men back up to Two Rivers."