The tactics of mistake

14

Cletus went in with the first wave of six transport craft, which circled eight miles upstream from Two Rivers and dropped their jump troops on both sides of the two river valleys. A reconnaissance aircraft, swinging low over the jungle in the darkness following moon-set, two hours before, had picked up the heat images of two large bodies of Neulander troops waiting for dawn in both the river valleys, five miles above the town. Another, smaller, reserve force was camped just below the mouth of Etter's Pass - but its numbers were slight enough so that the Dorsais could disregard any counterattack from that direction. Cletus watched the flares of the jets from the jump belts of the descending men, and then ordered the pilot of his transport ship to fly low above the river, heading downstream from the town.

A quarter mile below the town, the river curved to the right, and it was just around this curve that the response came from the M5's. The transport ship came down and hovered above the water, and the turret of one of the huge submarine dozers rose blackly from the dark waters.

Cletus went down an elevator sling to the turret, and the hatch in it opened. Wefer stepped out. Together they stood on the slight slope of the wet metal casing below the tower.

"Here we are, then," Wefer said. "Three of us, just like the doctor ordered." Under his black hair, his friendly, pugnacious face was excited in the dim light. "What do you want us to do?"

"The Neulander troops - and their regular troops," said Cletus, "are concentrated in the two river valleys a few miles above the town. They'll be pushing down those valleys and into the town along the flatland below the river bluffs. But I don't think they'll be trying to come at the town from this downriver side. So you ought to be able to work without being seen."

"Sure, sure," said Wefer, sniffing the chilly dawn air like a hunting dog. "But what do you want us to do?"

"Can you plow up the bottom of the river just below the town, to raise the water level in and above the town?"

"In this little trickle of a river?" answered Wefer. "No trouble at all. We'll simply raise an underwater ridge at some point where the river bluffs on either side come straight down to the water's edge. The water has to rise to get over it. How high a dam? How much do you want to raise the water level?"

"I want the water six feet deep, a mile above the town," Cletus said.

For the first time, Wefer frowned. "Six feet? A full fathom? You'll flood the town itself. That flat spot between the rivers that the town's built on can't be more than six or eight feet above water level on both sides. You'll have another four to six feet of running water in the streets. Do you want that?" "That's exactly what I want," said Cletus.

"Well... of course there's plenty of solid buildings there in the warehouse district for people to climb into," said Wefer. "I just don't want to get the Navy billed for flood damage - "

"It won't be," said Cletus. "I'm still under General Traynor's direct orders as commander here. I'll take the responsibility."

Wefer peered at Cletus in the growing light, shook his head and whistled admiringly. "We'll get right at it then," he said. You ought to have your fathom of water up above the city there in about four hours."

"Good," said Cletus. He stepped into the elevator sling and waved to the transport ship to pull him back in. "Good luck."

"Good luck to you and your Dorsais!" Wefer replied. "You'll need it more than we do. We're just going to be doing our daily jobs."

Once back inside the transport, Cletus ordered it to swing back up to within line of sight of Two Rivers itself. The sky was lightening rapidly now, and the individual buildings in Two Rivers were easily picked out. Cletus had a coherent light beam trained on the curved reception mirror on the roof of the warehouse building that the Dorsais had taken over as their Two River HQ during the week of jump practice. He sent a call down the light beam and got an immediate answer from Eachan.

"Colonel?" Eachan's voice was distant, clipped and unruffled. "Been expecting to hear from you. I haven't had any reports from my scouts out in the jungle for better than three hours now. They're all either captured or lying low. But I gather the Neulanders are clustered in both river valleys above town. I've got all strong points here manned and ready."

"Fine, Colonel," said Cletus. "I just wanted to tell you to expect to get your feet wet. You might also warn the civilians in town to gather in the higher buildings of the warehouse district above the second floor."

"Oh? Thunderstorm coming?"

"We're not that lucky, I'm afraid," said Cletus. A good heavy rainstorm would have been all to the advantage of the well-trained Dorsai, both the jump troops and those in fixed positions in the city. "The weather forecast is for hot and clear. But the river's going to rise. I'm told you'll have four to six feet of water in the streets there."

"I see. I'll take care of it - with the troops and civilians too - " Eachan broke off. "Are we getting reinforcements here in the town?"

"I'm afraid I can't spare you any," Cletus said. "But with luck, it'll be over one way or the other before the Neulanders are really on top of you. Do the best you can with the men you have."

"Understood," said Eachan. "That's all from this end then, Colonel."

"That's all from my end for the moment, too, Colonel," replied Cletus. "Good luck."

He broke the light-beam contact and ordered the transport ship back to Bakhalla for a new load of jump troops. Now that it was open daylight over Two Rivers and there was no more secrecy to be gained by operating at low altitudes in the shadows below the peaks above the town, Cletus accompanied the next wave of jump troops riding in a courier craft, which he set to circling above the reach of hand-weapon fire from the ground.

The second wave of Dorsai troops to go down on their jump belts were harassed, but ineffectively so, by angled fire from the Neulander troops downriver.

"Good enough," commented Marc Dodds, who had accompanied Cletus in the courier ship, leaving Major David Ap Morgan to take charge of getting off the last two remaining waves and accompanying the last as its commanding officer. "They'll have aircraft hitting our next wave, though. I don't know why they haven't had Neulander ships in the air over here before now."

"Another instance of the too imaginative mind," said Cletus. Marc glanced at him inquiringly, and Cletus went on to explain. "I was telling Eachan last night that too much subtlety could lead to mistakes. The Neulanders know that the Alliance has supplied the Exotics with many more and better air-combat craft than the Coalition supplied them. So automatically they've drawn the wrong conclusion. They think our lack of air cover is only apparent - bait to trap them into putting their own ships up so our superior air power can knock them down. Also, they know that only the Dorsais were jump-training, and they'll be suspecting that the Dorsais are the only ones who're being sent against them for that reason. They know they outnumber us two or three to one on the ground, which would tend to make them complacent."

The third wave came in and jumped to the jungle below. True to Cletus' assessment of the situation, there was no appearance of Neuland aircraft to oppose the jump. Nor was there with the fourth and final wave. With all four waves of Dorsai jump troops now down on the ground, the pattern of Cletus' battle plan began to make itself felt. He had set his Dorsais down in the jungle on the top of the bluffs on either side of both rivers upstream from the concentration of Neulander troops. Now, spread out in skirmish lines, the Dorsais began to open up on the rear of the Neulander troops. The Neulanders fought back, but withdrew steadily, as their force began to move down into the river valleys toward the town. They showed no tendency to turn and fight and no panic at being caught by small-arms fire from their rear. Up in their circling aircraft, Cletus and Marc kept in touch with their units on the ground by line-of-sight light-beam voice transmission.

"We aren't even slowing them down," said Marc, his mouth a straight line as he observed the scene below in the multiple reconnaissance screens set up before them.

"They'll be slowed up later," replied Cletus.

He was very busy plotting the movements of the running battle below on the reconnaissance screen, even as he issued a steady stream of orders to individual small units of the Dorsai troops.

Marc fell silent and turned back to examining the situation on the reconnaissance screens as it was developing under the impetus of Cletus' orders. Before him the two main elements of the Neulander forces were like large fat caterpillars crawling down the inner edge of the valley troughs of the two rivers, converging as the rivers converged toward the single point that was the town of Two Rivers. Behind, and inland from the rivers, the Dorsai troops, like thin lines of tiny ants, assailed these two caterpillars from the rear and the inland sides. Not that all this was visible to the naked eye below the thick screen of jungle cover. But the instruments and Cletus' plotting on the chart revealed it clearly. Under attack the caterpillars humped their rearward ends closer toward their front, bunching up under the attacks of the ants, but otherwise were undisturbed in their progress.

Meanwhile, Cletus was extending his pursuing Dorsai troops forward along the inland side of each enemy force until the farthest extended units were almost level with the foremost troops of the enemy units they harassed. Occasionally they dented the Neulander lines they faced. But in case of trouble the Neulanders merely withdrew over the edge of the steeply sloping bluff and fought the Dorsai back over, what was in effect, a natural parapet. Not merely that, but more and more their forward-moving units were dropping below the edge of the bluff with a skirmish line along its edge to protect their march - so that fully 80 per cent of the enemy force was beyond the reach of the Dorsai weapons in any case.

Cletus broke off abruptly from his work on the screens and turned to Marc.

"They're less than two miles from the upper edge of the town," he said. "I want you to take over here and keep those Neulander forces contained all along their lines. Make them get down below the bluff and stay there, but don't expose men any more than you have to. Contain them, but hold your troops back until you get word from me."

"Where're you going, sir?" Marc asked, frowning.

"Down," said Cletus, tersely. He reached for one of the extra jump belts with which the aircraft was supplied and began strapping it on. "Put half a company of men on each river over on their jump belts and send them down the opposite side. They're to fire back across the river into any exposed elements of the enemy as they go, but they are not to stop to do it. They're to keep traveling fast until they rendezvous with me down here."

He turned and tapped with his fingernail on the bend in the river below the town beyond which Wefer and his three Mark V's were at work. "How soon do you estimate they can meet me down there?" he asked.

"With luck, an hour," answered Marc. "What're you planning to do, sir - if you don't mind my asking?"

"I'm going to try to make it look as though we've got reinforcements into that town," Cletus said. He turned and called up to the pilot in the front of the reconnaissance ship. "Cease circling. Take me down to just beyond the bend in the main river there - point H29 and R7 on the grid."

The aircraft wheeled away from its post above the battle and began to circle down toward the river bend. Cletus moved over to the emergency escape hatch and put his hand on the eject button. Marc followed him.

"Sir," he said, "if you haven't used a jump belt in a long time - "

"I know," Cletus interrupted him cheerfully, "it's a trick to keep your feet down and your head up, particularly when you're coming in for a landing. Don't worry - " He turned his head to shout to the pilot up front. "That patch of jungle just inside the bend of the river. Call 'Jump' for me."

"Yes, sir," the pilot called back. There was a moment's pause and then he shouted, "Jump." "Jump," echoed Cletus.

He punched the eject button. The emergency door flipped open before him and the section of decking beneath his feet flipped him abruptly clear of the aircraft. He found himself falling toward the tops of the jungle treetops, six hundred feet below.

He clutched the hand control in the center of the belt at his waist, and the twin jets angling out from his shoulder tank flared thunderously, checking him in midair with a wrench that left him feeling as though his back had been broken. For a moment, before he could catch his breath, he actually began to rise. Then he throttled back to a slow fall and began the struggle to keep himself in vertical position with his feet under him.

He was not so much falling as sliding down at a steep angle into the jungle below. He made an effort to slow the rate of his fall, but the sensitive, tricky reactions of the jump belt sent him immediately into a climb again. Hastily, he returned the throttle to its first, instinctive fall-setting.

He was very near the tops of the taller trees now, and it would be necessary to pick his way between them so as not to be brained by a branch in passing or land in one of the deadly, dagger-like thorn bushes. Careful not to twist the throttle grip in the process, he shifted the control handle slightly this way and that to determine the safe limits of a change of direction. His first attempt very nearly sent his feet swinging into the air, but he checked the swing and after a moment got himself back into a line of upright descent. There was a patch of relatively clear jungle down to his right. Gingerly he inched the control handle over and was relieved as his airy slide altered toward the patch. Then, abruptly, he was among and below the treetops.

The ground was rushing at Mm. The tall, jagged stump of a lightning-blasted tree, which he had not seen earlier because it was partly covered with creepers blending in with the green of the ground cover, seemed to leap upward at him like a spear.

Desperately he jammed the handle over. The jets bucked. He went into a spin, slammed at an angle into the tree stump and smashed against the ground. A wave of blackness took him under.