Dirigent Mercenary Corp
Book #06
Colonel

by Rick Shelley



The year is A.D. 2830. The interstellar diaspora from Earth has been in progress
for seven centuries. The numbers are uncertain, but at least five hundred worlds
have been settled, and perhaps well over a thousand. The total human  population
of the galaxy could be in excess  of a trillion. On Earth, the Confederation  of
Human Worlds still theoretically controls all of those colonies, but the reality
is that it can count on its orders being obeyed only as far as the most  distant
permanent outpost within Earth's system, on Titan. Beyond Saturn, there are  two
primary  interstellar political  groupings, the  Confederation of  Human  Worlds
(broken away from the organization on Earth with the same name, with its capital
on  the  world  known  as  Union)  and  the  Second  Commonwealth,  centered  on
Buckingham. Neither of those political unions is as large or as powerful as they
will be in another seventeen decades, when their diametrically opposed interests
finally  bring them  to the  point of  war. In  the meantime,  humans who   need
military assistance, and do not  want the domination of either  Confederation or
Commonwealth, have only a  handful of options. Those  who can afford it  turn to
mercenaries. And the largest source of those is on the world of Dirigent....



1

Although Christmas was a week past, a decorated tree still sat in one corner  of
the Nolan living  room. Each of  the three strings  of lights was  guaranteed to
include bulbs of 120 distinct  colors. They twinkled in unpredictable  sequences
and combinations-"Like snowflakes, no two patterns will ever be exactly  alike,"
the advertisement had promised. The only  other light in the room came  from the
screen of the entertainment console.  For the past three weeks,  Dirigent City's
special-events channel  had been  offering holiday  music of  the last  thousand
years. Although there was video  to go with most of  the selections-performance,
dramatic, or simply mood-Lon had muted  the monitor to leave only the  dark blue
background of a vacant screen.

Lon Nolan and his wife, Sara, were sitting on the sofa, snuggled close. For  the
moment, their  attention had  been diverted  from hypnotic  staring at  the tree
lights to watching the timeline on the entertainment console as it counted  down
the seconds of  the final minute  of the year  2829. Lon, Junior,  stood leaning
against the mantel of the room's  decorative fireplace, a bottle of beer  in his
left hand. Junior had been nursing the same bottle for nearly an hour. When  the
countdown reached twenty seconds, he set the beer on the mantel and straightened
up. Although he  was not in  uniform. Junior stood  almost at attention.  He was
nearly two inches taller than his  father now, and perhaps five pounds  heavier.
As a boy. Junior had  appeared to be the image  of his father; now he  seemed to
favor his mother  more, at least  through the face.  His complexion was  lighter
than his father's,  even though his  face was tanned  and beginning to  show the
weathering of a life spent largely outdoors.

The screen of the entertainment console came to life then, programmed earlier by
Lon, Senior. The several hundred couples who were seeing the new year come in at
the grand ballroom of Corps Headquarters had stopped dancing. They were counting
down the last seconds. The band on the stage at the east end of the ballroom was
ready to jump straight into the traditional music for welcoming the new year.

"Happy New Year!"  the master of  ceremonies shouted at  the appropriate second.
Balloons, streamers, and confetti filled the air at the grand ballroom. The band
launched 2830 with  "Auld Lang Syne,"  a song whose  origins had been  partially
lost in the mythology that had grown up around it when the song had been  chosen
as the accompaniment to the start of the journeys of early colony ships  leaving
Earth.

Lon and Sara welcomed the new year with a long kiss. Sara twisted around on  the
sofa until she was almost sitting in her husband's lap. Junior turned half away,
as if distancing himself from the demonstration of parental emotion. He occupied
himself by finishing the beer on  the mantel. It was almost room  temperature by
now.

The new  year was  a full  minute old  when Junior  cleared his throat and said,
"I've got a taxi on order for quarter past."

That interrupted his parents. Sara got up  from the sofa and took a step  toward
her son. "Your sister won't be home yet," she said.

Junior shrugged. "I promised some friends I'd meet them in Camo Town. They'll be
more than half plotched by now, but  they'll remember enough if I don't show  up
at  all. Besides,  they'll need  someone around  who's going  to stay  at  least
halfway sober to get back to barracks by dawn."

His father was slower to get up from the sofa, but put his hands on Sara's  arms
as if to keep her from going to  their son. "I appreciate you seeing in the  new
year with us," Lon said.

Junior shrugged again. "There  haven't been all that  many years when we've  all
been together for  the holidays." He  grinned. "And this  time it's Angie  who's
missing, after all the times she moaned when you were away on contract, and  she
sure let me know how she felt when I was off on contract last year."

"Oh, it's not the same," Sara said.  "Angle's just out for a few hours.  We were
all together for Christmas, and all your grandparents as well."

"I know. Mama," Junior said, crossing  and giving her a serious hug-picking  her
off the ground with ease. "But you can  bet I'm going to use it just the  same."
He grinned as he let her go.

"Stay out of trouble. Junior," Lon said.

Junior's grin threatened to become a laugh. "Don't worry. Dad. I'm not about  to
do anything you'll have to convene a court-martial for. They don't call me  'Old
Sober-sides' for nothing." The  two had quit hugging  the day Junior had  put on
the  uniform of  the Dirigent  Mercenary Corps.  He had  enlisted as  a  private
shortly after his eighteenth birthday, seen combat, then been chosen for officer
training.  Eleven months  earlier, he  had earned  his lieutenant's  pips  after
seeing combat as an officer cadet. Now he was a platoon leader in Delta Company,
1st Battalion,  7th Regiment.  His father  was the  regimental commander, a full
colonel and member  of the Council  of Regiments that  governed the DMC  and the
world of Dirigent. The Corps was full  of cases where more than one member  of a
family served in  the same regiment.  Over many generations  a set of  rules and
commonsense traditions had grown to make sure that nepotistic favoritism did not
weaken the fabric of  the Corps. Every man  wearing the uniform had  to earn his
own way, and being related to a senior officer had at least as many drawbacks as
advantages.

"Will you be here for dinner tomorrow ... today?" Sara asked.

"One o'clock?" Junior replied. When his  mother nodded, he said, "Sure, I'll  be
here. Now I'd  better get my  coat. On busy  nights, the cabdrivers  start their
meters when they honk to announce they've arrived."


"There  are times  when I  think it's  all a  conspiracy against  the women   of
Dirigent," Sara said when  the taxi's tail-lights blinked  out as it turned  the
comer.

"What are you talking about?" Lon asked.

"You finally get to the point where I don't have to worry about you going out so
often and I've got to start  worrying about Junior off on contract."  Regimental
commanders  only went  off-world on  single-battalion contracts  under the  most
extraordinary conditions. If two battalions-half  the regiment's line  companies
were  involved,  the commander  might  go ;/  it  were an  especially  important
contract,  or  one  including  considerable  ancillary  forces;  otherwise,  his
executive  officer  was  more  likely to  draw  the  assignment.  Only if  three
battalions or the entire regiment went off-world on a contract was the commander
certain to go, and contracts that large were relatively infrequent.

"I  tried everything  I could  to convince  him not  to enter  the Corps,"   Lon
whispered. There were still moments when he found his mind trying to decide what
more he might have done to prevent Junior's enlistment.

Sara turned away from  the picture window at  the front of the  house and walked
toward the Christmas tree. "I know," she said, so softly that Lon hardly  heard.
"It was a losing fight from the start. This is Dirigent. The Corps is what we're
all about. We send our  men off to war, and  sometimes all that comes home  is a
box and the official regrets of the General."

Lon went to Sara, stood behind her,  and put his hands on her arms,  resting his
cheek against her hair.  "I know it can't  stop the worrying-it doesn't  keep me
from worrying about him-but he is good. He's one of the coolest junior  officers
in the regiment. He keeps his head in combat and he's careful, with himself  and
his men. He's got good people around him and they take care of him, the way Phip
and the others took care of me when I was in the same position."

"He could have gone  into the technical end,  become an engineer, and  worked in
the munitions side of things," Sara said.  "He's got the brain for it. He's  got
the brain to  tackle any job  he could dream  of. No one  on Dirigent would have
thought the worse  for him. The  Corps can't take  every boy, and  he could have
done a lot more good for the world developing better equipment."

Lon swallowed the sigh that wanted to come out. Nothing about this  conversation
was new. Alone or  together, Lon and Sara  had gone through every  phrase, every
word, uncounted times, spoken or thought.

The romantic holiday mood was gone, and Lon saw little chance of recapturing  it
that night. When Sara got fixated on this, there was seldom any cure for it  but
sleep and-sometimes-crying. It was holidays  more than anything else that  could
bring this mood out in her. It  didn't happen often, and it had rarely  happened
before Junior neared the age when he could enlist. The Corps was so integral  to
the existence of Dirigent that the need for young men to become soldiers had  to
be the highest priority, and schooling and social pressure had always been  used
to impress everyone  with that need.  Dirigent is the  Corps. Without the  Corps
there  would  be  no Dirigent.  The  truth  of that  was  unfortunately  easy to
demonstrate. Without the  Corps and its  ancillary munitions industry,  Dirigent
did not have the  resources to support 10  percent of its current  population at
anything beyond the subsistence, everyone-a-farmer, level. It certainly wouldn't
be one of the dozen most prosperous colony worlds.

"You know his argument," Lon said  after a long silence. "He figures  he'll have
time to do both, learn firsthand what soldiers face on the ground, then continue
his education and find ways to make  things better for them. Look on the  bright
side. He doesn't  plan on spending  his entire working  career in the  Corps. He
talks about five or ten years, and if he gets some idea that really catches  his
imagination,  he might  cut even  that short,  anxious to  get involved  in  the
research and development end of the business."

"If he lives  long enough," Sara  said. Then she  expelled a sigh  and turned to
face  her  husband. "I  know,  I'm making  a  botch out  of  the holiday  and  I
shouldn't."

"You worry because  you care," Lon  said. He knew  it was a  cliche, but he  had
learned years before that cliches were the safest way to handle a situation like
this. "You wouldn't be much of a  wife and mother if you didn't worry  about us.
We might get to thinking that you didn't love us."

Sara buried her face  against his shirt. To  avoid a show of  tears, Lon changed
the subject. "What time is Angie supposed to be home from that dance?"

"By  one-thirty," Sara  said, pulling  away from  Lon. "The  dance ends  at  one
o'clock." It was a well-supervised affair, chaperoned by teachers from the  high
school on base  that Angie attended  and teachers from  the three civilian  high
schools in Dirigent City that also were taking part. "The bus will have the kids
back on base by one-twenty, and it  shouldn't take her more than ten minutes  to
walk home from the bus stop. And, no, I don't think you should walk over to meet
her there. She'll have friends with her."

Lon chuckled. "I wasn't going to suggest that. The only thing I was thinking was
that I might stand on the porch and watch."

"Not even that," Sara  said. "Angie is sixteen  years old now, and  you know how
touchy she is when she thinks we're still treating her like a little kid."

"I can't help it. Where I  grew up on Earth it wasn't  safe for a cop to be  out
alone after dark, let alone a teenager. My hometown had more crime in any  given
week than the entire  world of Dirigent has  had in the past  quarter century. I
still think about that at some level."

"The kids think you're making that up,  you know, even after they looked up  the
statistics on the net. Besides, Angie  probably won't be alone. She's got  a new
boyfriend, and I imagine he'll walk her home."

"New boyfriend? Not that Bobby anymore?"

Sara laughed. "You're way behind times. There have been two others since  Bobby.
Three with this latest boy."

"Who's she seeing now?  Someone from her school?"  Lon did not even  notice that
Sara had come out of her funk.

"His name  is Gordon  Aruba. His  father is  a battalion  lead sergeant  in 10th
Regiment."

Lon closed his eyes for  a moment, trying to make  a connection to the name.  He
shook his head. "I don't think I know him."

"No, you probably don't, but Gordon knows who you are, so you can bet he'll be a
perfect gentleman. Now, let's get back to the music. We don't want Angie to come
home and  spot us  standing around  looking like  we're just  waiting for her to
check in."



2

Dirigent City  and the  DMC's primary  base woke  on New  Year's Day  to a fresh
coating of snow, slightly more than two inches in most places, which made it the
heaviest snowfall of the winter. So far. The snow had started falling,  lightly,
just after one o'clock  that morning, before Angie  Nolan got home from  her New
Year's  Eve dance.  By the  time Angie  and her  parents got  to bed,  near  two
o'clock, there was already a dusting on the lawns and streets. The snow  showers
peaked at about four, and started to  taper off less than a half hour  later. By
dawn the skies were clearing. The temperature was in the mid-twenties, and there
was just the hint of a breeze coming from the northwest.

Despite, his late  night, Lon was  out of bed  by seven o'clock.  He had already
been awake for  an hour. More  than a quarter  century as a  soldier had made it
virtually impossible for him to sleep past dawn in garrison. Lon avoided  moving
or getting out of bed as long as he could, not wanting to wake Sara. Eventually,
though, he  could take  immobility no  more. He  got up,  showered, shaved,  and
dressed in comfortable civilian clothes, then went to the kitchen to fix his own
breakfast. When  he heard  Sara moving  about, he  doubled everything. There was
little  chance  that Angie  would  rise before  nine,  and even  then  she would
probably eat no more than a single slice of toast... if that. Angie had given up
on breakfast about the time she reached puberty.

"One of these days I'm going to leam," Sara said when she came into the  kitchen
wearing robe and slippers.

"Leam what?" Lon asked.

"Leam to stick  a sleep patch  on you when  you don't have  to be up  before the
chickens," Sara said. She sat at the table in her usual place-nearest the  stove
and food replicator.

"I  tried  not to  wake  you," Lon  replied.  "Breakfast will  be  ready in  two
minutes." He set a cup of coffee in front of her. Sara closed her eyes while she
took her first sip. Lon always made the coffee too strong, but-this mom-ing-that
was just what she wanted. Sara had  only had three drinks the night before,  but
that was more alcohol than she usually drank in a week. There was no headache-no
hangover. She had applied a patch, what men in the Corps called a killjoy patch,
to avoid that before going to bed, but she still felt a little sluggish.

"You called the officer  of the day yet  to make sure the  whole regiment didn't
move without leaving a forwarding address?" Sara asked as she set the coffee cup
back down.

"No, I haven't called the OD yet,"  Lon said. "All I did was check  the complink
to make certain there were no important messages. And I'm not planning on  going
in to headquarters at all today."

"I noticed you weren't in uniform," Sara said.

"Come on," Lon said, starting to dish up the eggs and sausages he had cooked. "I
have learned to relax a little."

Sara smiled. "A little," she conceded.

"We've got snow on the ground," Lon said. He put one plate in front of Sara  and
took his around to the other side of the table and sat across from her.

"I know. I looked out. Enough snow  to look pretty, not enough to be  a nuisance
if we want to go anywhere. A few hours and the streets will all be clear." There
were few wheeled vehicles on Dirigent.  Most automobiles and trucks were  ground
effect vehicles-floaters. The passage of one floater's fans normally left  clear
pavement behind,  except when  there was  wet, heavy  snow. Then  it might  take
considerable traffic. It had been twelve years since the Corps had needed to put
snowplows on  tracked vehicles  to clear  streets in  the city  or on base. This
time, the snow was not excessively wet and the temperature would probably  climb
above freezing before  noon. By sunset  there might be  almost no evidence  left
that it had snowed at all.

Lon and  Sara ate  silently for  several minutes.  The years  had made them both
comfortable with long silences. Neither one  felt the need to fill every  moment
with sound. When they had finished eating, Sara got up and put the dirty  dishes
and pans in the dishwasher, then went back to the bedroom to get dressed.

Lon went to the living room and  turned the entertainment console on to get  the
news summaries. The night's snow was the major story, which was a relief,  since
that meant that nothing more ... traumatic had happened on Dirigent and no  dire
news had  come in  from elsewhere.  After a  few minutes  he keyed  in a  filter
command  for news  about the  Corps. New  Year's Eve  had passed  without  major
incident.  There  were notes  of  a couple  of  minor fights,  but  nothing more
serious. The fights had both been between soldiers, and none of the participants
had been injured. Had civilians been involved, it might have been different.

"Anything world-shattering on  the news?" Sara  asked when she  came out dressed
for the day.

"Maybe thirty thousand soldiers  went out to drink  in the new year  last night,
and all that  happened was two  minor fistfights," Lon  said. "You'd think  they
were monks instead of soldiers. Sometimes I think we're the most peaceable bunch
of humans in the  galaxy." Even after more  than twenty-five years on  Dirigent,
Lon  found  himself  occasionally  astounded by  how  little  crime,  how little
violence, there was. It had been five years since the last killing on the world,
and the killer had been a recent immigrant, not a member of the Corps. The  stem
discipline within the Corps was reflected to a large degree within  families-the
tradition of obedience and duty. Also, there was little economic distress due to
the almost constant influx of revenue from off-world. The police force, with the
best preventive and investigative equipment made, was also a deterrent to crime;
the odds of escaping detection-and punishment-were slim.

Lon got up from the sofa and stretched. "I think I'll take a walk. I need to get
a little exercise. It's been three days since I went to the gym."

"Just don't  get carried  away. It's  cold out.  And your  parents might be here
before noon."

"Just a quick turn around the neighborhood," Lon promised.


The houses for married personnel had been laid out with military precision.  The
sizes of  houses and  lawns varied  in strict  proportion with  the rank  of the
soldier each was designed for. The most senior officers, colonels and lieutenant
colonels, were along one street, nearer Corps headquarters than the rest. Majors
and  captains were  quartered in  the next  blocks. Farthest  off were  the  few
lieutenants and senior enlisted personnel  who were married. At all  ranks below
major, married men  were the  minority in  the Corps.  Marriage was-unofficially
discouraged until the soldier had at least ten years in uniform and had  reached
the rank  of captain  or lead  sergeant... for  officers and  enlisted personnel
respectively.

Lon had  set himself  no route  before leaving  the house.  He turned  right and
started walking. The sidewalks had not been cleared, so he left a clear trail in
the snow, the ridged soles of his boots crunching snow underfoot, giving a muted
sound track to his walk.  The air was crisp, bringing  a tingle to his face  and
ears before he had gone a single block. He kept his hands in the pockets of  his
overcoat, out of the cold. He had gloves with him but did not bother to put them
on.

He  walked, at  something less  than a  normal marching  gait. Even  five  years
earlier he might have felt compelled to jog. He still ran, perhaps three days  a
week in garrison, but not  as far or as intently  as he had when he  was younger
and considered himself a distance runner.  He was not constantly trying to  meet
his best recent times for the mile ... or any other distance. It was enough  for
him to maintain a significant edge over  the time he would have to meet  when he
took his annual physical  fitness test. No one  in the Dirigent Mercenary  Corps
could let himself get flabby or  out of condition. Even the General,  commanding
officer of  the Corps  and head  of state  for the  world, had  to meet the same
physical conditioning standards as any private just completing recruit  training
to remain in the DMC.

When Lon eventually  increased his pace,  it was strictly  as a response  to the
cold. It wasn't enough  to turn him back  toward home immediately, but  a little
more speed did help offset the nip in the air. A brisk walk helped to keep stray
thoughts from intruding as  well. He was as  off-duty as a regimental  commander
ever could be. Unless the communications link in his pocket beeped, he was free.
He looked  around, enjoying  the snow-covered  scenery, the  antiseptic look  of
fresh white covering  everything. The residential  area was set  far enough from
the  rest  of  the  base  that there  was  nothing  overtly  military  about his
surroundings. He saw children playing in  a few yards, some attempting to  build
snowmen ...  without marked  success. The  snow wasn't  wet enough  for that. At
least no one tried to use him as a target for snowballs.

Lon walked three blocks, then turned to his left and walked a block over to  the
next street of houses, then turned left again and, unconsciously, increased  his
pace a little  more. It was  cold enough that  he felt no  desire to prolong the
morning  walk.  He  found  himself  whistling,  some  unidentifiable  melange of
partially remembered  songs strung  together in  a way  guaranteed to offend the
ears of anyone who appreciated good music, but Lon had the sidewalks to himself.
There was no one to scream in agony at his efforts.

He went two blocks beyond the comer he would have turned at to go directly  back
home, then finally crossed back to his own street. His exertion had him  feeling
a little  warm, except  for the  persistent chill  against his  exposed face. He
intentionally turned the wrong way on  his street, away from home, and  went two
more blocks before he crossed the lane and reversed his course.

Sweating and freezing at  the same time, he  thought as he kicked  snow from his
boots on the front porch of the house the family had moved into when he won  his
promotion to  colonel. This  one had  more room  than they  could possibly need.
That's about standard/or an infantryman. He took his hands from his pockets  and
rubbed vigorously at his cheeks. They were more than a little numb after a  half
hour in the below-freezing air. Before  going inside, he turned and scanned  the
street in both directions. There was no one else in sight.

"You look like a lobster just pulled from the pot," Sara said when she saw Lon's
face.

"I'd almost trade places with one," Lon said, rubbing at his cheeks again.  They
had started to tingle. "Very nippy  out. You catch the forecast, by  any chance?
Our 4th Battalion is due to  go out on overnight maneuvers tomorrow.  The colder
it is, the more hitching  there'll be." He stomped his  boots on the rug in  the
entryway a couple of times  to get rid of any  vestiges of snow and to  warm his
feet.

"No, I haven't checked the forecast yet,  but I've heard some of the things  you
said when you had  to go out in  the cold, or in  the rain," Sara said,  turning
away to hide her grin. "Serve you right to be on the other end of it."

Lon took off his coat and hung it in the closet. "I never get to hear any of  it
since  I made  colonel. Everyone's  too careful  for that.  But the  looks."  He
laughed.  "Especially  since  I won't  be  out  with them.  It's  not  the whole
regiment."

"Well, you could always go  out with them just to  show the men your heart's  in
the right place," Sara suggested, more in jest than earnest. "Suffer with  them,
be the stalwart campaigner you always claim to be."

"And listen  to you  complain about  me being  away when  I don't  have to?" Lon
asked, falling into the same bantering  tone. "I don't have three layers  of men
keeping me from hearing the awful truth at home." Both of them were  comfortable
with it after the twenty-three years they had been married. It had helped  carry
them through some of the more difficult days in those years. "You'd remind me of
it  for months.  Besides, I've  been in  the army  long enough  to know  not  to
volunteer for anything I don't have to."

"Me, complain?"

"You know why  Napoleon always had  his hand inside  his tunic, don't  you?" Lon
asked  as they  moved from  the foyer  into the  living room.  "It was   because
Josephine's nagging gave him ulcers."

"Are you two at it again?"

Angle's parents  hadn't seen  or heard  her come  into the  room. Her unexpected
question startled both of them.

"We're just talking,"  Sara said. "We  do that now  and then. It  helps pass the
time between meals."

Angie wrinkled her nose at her mother. At sixteen, An-gie Nolan was a  beautiful
young woman with  a trim figure.  Even just a  few minutes from  sleep, her face
looked fresh and clear. There were no  dark circles around her eyes, no hint  of
sleepiness in her face. Her shoulder-length blond hair had not been combed  yet,
but there were few visible snarls to it.

"You want breakfast?" Sara asked.

Angie shook her head, which dislodged most of the tangles in her hair. "We'll be
having dinner in a couple of hours. I'll just have some juice and maybe a  piece
of toast."

"Too many cookies and chips at the dance last night?" Lon asked.

"No," Angie said, drawing the word out like stretching a rubber band. "I'm  just
not hungry. I don't like to eat right after I get up. Makes me feel bloated.  Is
Junior going to be here for dinner?"

"He said he would be," Lon said, nodding. "But I wouldn't count on it until  you
see him. He  was going out  to meet friends  when he left  here last night. They
might not have found their way back from Camo Town yet."

"Lon!" Sara said, a world of admonishment in the word.

"What did I say?" Lon asked.

"Mother, I'm not six years old. I do  have some idea what goes on in the  world.
Nothing Daddy says is going to shock me senseless."

Sara took a deep breath. "It had nothing to do with you, dear."

Angie looked from  her mother to  her father, then  back. That response  was not
what she  had been  expecting. "I've  got to  shower and  get dressed," she said
then. She didn't wait for a reply. Sara watched Angie until she turned into  the
hallway and the stairs leading up  to her bedroom. Lon started chuckling  as his
daughter went out of sight.

"I never know what's going to come out of your mouth," Sara said when she turned
back to Lon. "Honestly! Barracks talk."

Lon's chuckle threatened to  get completely out of  control. "If you think  that
was barracks talk, then you've never heard the real thing ... and I know better.
You grew  up in  a pub.  You probably  heard worse  before you were half Angie's
age."

"That's beside the point. Anyway, my  father never let the soldiers who  came to
the pub get too  far out of line.  He could tone them  down in a hurry,  and you
know that."

Lon moved to Sara, put his arm around her, and led her toward the kitchen.  When
she started to resist a little, he tickled her side.

"Stop that," Sara said, but there was  no protest in her tone. "I've got  to get
this place ready for dinner. Your parents could be here in an hour." They kissed
quickly, and Sara pushed Lon away. "Go watch cartoons or something."


Lawrence and Maddie Nolan both looked  younger after living on Dirigent for  six
years than  they had  when they  arrived. It  was something  Lon and Sara talked
about occasionally,  and even  their children  had noticed  the change  in their
grandparents. The  stress lines  had disappeared  from their  faces, making them
look softer, younger. The  voices and movements were  more relaxed. It was  rare
for  either  of them  to  even mention  Earth  any longer,  though  Lon's father
admitted that they kept track of news from there. Filtered by distance and  time
the "latest" news from Earth was always  at least a month old before it  reached
Dirigent-the information was rarely more ... emotional than lines from a history
text.

Despite  the quarter-century  difference in  their ages,  Lawrence and  Lon  now
looked more like brothers than father and son. Lawrence was a little heavier,  a
little softer in appearance, but with the help of his implanted nanotech  health
maintenance system he was maintaining his apparent age at about fifty, close  to
Lon's real age. Lon's hair was beginning to show a little gray, since he did not
have his HMS programmed  for cosmetic effects. Few  active members of the  Corps
did. A  semblance of  age lent  authority. Most  waited until  they resigned  or
retired before  having their  systems reprogrammed  in that  fashion. Then  they
might shed  apparent years  in weeks.  Molecular repair  units could  even carry
melanin out into hair to remove gray.

"You figure this will be the year  you make General?" Lawrence asked his son  as
soon as they were alone in the living room. Maddie had gone to help Sara in  the
kitchen. Angie had come downstairs  just long enough to greet  her grandparents,
then had disappeared upstairs again  to resume a complink conversation  with one
of her friends from school.

"We've been through this before. Dad," Lon said. "I don't ever expect to  become
General." There was only  one General at  a time in  the DMC, elected  for a one
year term by the fourteen regimental commanders from among their own number. "It
would break too many traditions, and  the Corps is almost as tradition  bound as
any army on Earth. No first-generation Dirigenter has ever held the post, no one
whose father wasn't an officer in the Corps has ever held it. And on and on."

Lawrence snorted. "I've done a little  research. Only one man who wasn't  bom on
Dirigent has ever commanded  a regiment. You. Only  one man who didn't  have any
ancestors  in the  Corps has  ever commanded  a regiment.  You. And  on and  on.
There's no reason to think you won't be elected General before you retire."

"I'm not  so sure.  Maybe if  I hang  around another  twenty or thirty years and
everyone else on the  Council of Regiments has  had a turn or  two already, they
might decide the only way to get rid of me will be to let me play General for  a
year, but I don't expect  to stay on that long.  Staying fit enough to pass  the
annual physical fitness test gets harder  every year. Even if I don't  decide to
pack it in and take over Sara's  parents' pub sooner, I can't see me  staying in
the Corps  more than  another decade.  If that.  Once Angie  graduates from high
school, I might decide enough is enough just about anytime."

"The kid who kept saying, 'All I ever want to be is a soldier'?" Lawrence asked.

Lon frowned. "You don't know how  many years I've spent having nightmares  about
that sentence.  Ever since  Junior started  saying the  same thing. Anyway, I've
been a soldier more than half my  life. I've seen more than enough of  what that
can mean."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to raise ghosts. Let me ask you something else, then.  Who
do you figure will be the next General?"

Lon smiled. "/ don't have a clue, but Sara's back-fence gossip circle says it'll
be Bob Hay ley of 15th unless he's off-world when election time comes around  in
March. And 15th Regiment is at the top of the rota for regiment-size  contracts,
so that's possible. And if Bob is off on contract, mere's no favorite for second
choice among the wives."

"Not  electing someone  who's off-world...  is that  another of  your  hidebound
traditions?"

"Pretty much. It's not a written rule,  but it's never been done. I don't  know.
It might just  be superstition, afraid  to jinx a  man who might  be in a combat
situation, or fear that he might  be killed or captured. But, once  elected, the
General doesn't leave Dirigent during  his term. Ever. Any diplomatic  travel is
generally  done  by  civilians, usually  career  bureaucrats  or retired  senior
officers."

"So if Colonel  Hayley is off  on contract when  election time comes  around and
there's no clear second choice, then your chances are as good as anyone  else's,
right?" Lawrence asked.

Lon laughed. "You got a bet on  with someone?" He didn't wait for his  father to
respond. "No, if Hayley isn't here, it'll probably end up with Murtaugh,  Mills,
or Dum-brovski. They've all been on the Council longer than me and haven't had a
shot at the top job yet."

"None of them  has a record  to match yours,  and the word  I've been hearing is
that Murtaugh  hasn't got  a shot  at ever  becoming General.  Something about a
contract on Aurora."

"That was  a long  time ago,  his first  time out  as a  company commander. He's
completed  a  lot of  good  contracts since  then."  Lon knew  about  the Aurora
contract. He had heard  it mentioned several times  by senior officers, and  had
eventually looked  up the  record. Murtaugh,  then a  captain, had commanded one
company on  a battalion-size  contract. Exactly  what had  happened was  still a
matter of dispute despite the video and audio recordings from the battle helmets
of the officers  and noncommissioned officers  involved, but Murtaugh's  company
had suffered 20 percent casualties and  had failed to fulfill their part  of the
operation, which had  led to serious  casualties in the  rest of the  battalion.
Another battalion had to be sent to Aurora to fulfill the contract.

"Maybe you're  right about  Murtaugh," Lon  said after  thinking about  it for a
moment. "Memories can be long for  something like that. The Corps lost  money as
well as too  many men on  that contract. It  still leaves Mills  and Dumbrovski.
Mills's father  and Dumbrovski's  grandfather each  served as  General at  least
once."

"Don't you want to be General?" Lawrence asked.

"I've never let myself give it much thought," Lon said. "Getting my own regiment
always seemed to be right at the very edge of possibility. I never had the  time
or the  inclination to  look much  beyond that.  Do I  want to  be General?" Lon
paused, then shook his  head. "Not especially, not  now. Oh, I wouldn't  turn it
down if by some miracle the job was offered to me, but I don't need the title to
validate my life. I don't have any  driving urge to have it. Does that  surprise
you?"

Lawrence was slow to reply. "In a way. I'd think that going as far as you  could
in your chosen career would be more important to you."

Lon closed his  eyes for an  instant before he  spoke again. "Dad,  I've got too
many ghosts haunting my  dreams now. I've seen  too much death, buried  too many
friends. The way conditions are  in the galaxy, we do  a lot of good. I  can see
the need  for the  Corps, despite  the cost  in lives.  As long  as I'm  a field
commander, I can make a difference. I  have to believe that fewer of our  people
die with me in  command than might under  someone else. But the  General isn't a
field commander. He never goes on contract. He just has the final word on  which
contracts we  accept and  sends men  out where  he can't  personally affect what
happens."

"I don't think it's quite that simple."

Lon shrugged.  "Maybe not,  but the  point remains.  It's bad  enough for me now
sending  a battalion  off, or  a company,  and not  going along  to oversee  the
contract personally."

"You  oversee training.  You have  some say  in who  gets promoted.  You  affect
things, just at  one remove. You're  not God, Lon.  You're human, just  like the
rest of us. AU we can do is the best we can."

"I'm a soldier. When the best I  can isn't good enough, men die. There  are rows
and  rows of  men who  have died  on contract  under my  command, so  many  that
sometimes I can't remember all of their names. That's part of the nightmare."



3

Although Dirigent used the  same names for its  months that Earth did,  they had
been  synchronized with  the seasons  on Dirigent's  primary continent,  putting
Christmas and New Year's Day in the two weeks past the winter solstice, and bore
no intrinsic relationship to the calendars of Earth. When Dirigent was  settled,
directly from Earth, its calendar was "out of phase" with Earth's by ten  weeks.
Over the centuries, slight differences in the length of the year between the two
worlds had  taken it  nearly one  more week  out of  alignment. It  was a common
problem, and the lengths of day and year on Dirigent were closer to Earth's than
many  other colony  worlds' were.  Every complink  had automatic  functions  for
converting the local calendars  of hundreds of worlds  to the month and  year of
any  of  the  three  "standards"-those  of  Earth,  Union  (for  the   breakaway
Confederation of  Human Worlds),  and Buckingham  (for the  worlds of the Second
Commonwealth).

On January 2, 2830, Lon's staff car pulled to the curb in front of the house  at
two minutes  before seven  o'clock in  the morning-0658  hours in military time.
Sunrise  had  occurred just  six  minutes earlier.  Night  was retreating  west.
Shadows were long. The temperature  was slightly below freezing, and  there were
patches of ice  where the snow  of the day  before had melted  and frozen again.
Sergeant Jeremy Howell got out of the gray floater and held the passenger's door
open for Lon when he came out of the house.

"How'd you draw the duty this morning. Jerry?" Lon asked when they were both  in
the warmth of  the floater. "Where's  Dorcetti?" Frank Dorcetti  was Lon's usual
driver.

"Not due back from leave until tomorrow, sir," Howell said. "And I was the  only
sergeant around HQ this mom-ing." One of  the "honors" a colonel in the DMC  was
"due" was to have  a sergeant as his  assigned driver. Jer-emy Howell  was Lon's
aide, one of the people Lon had brought along from 2nd Battalion to 7th Regiment
headquarters when he was promoted.

"That's right. I guess I forgot," Lon said, nodding to himself. "How about  you?
You have a good New Year's Eve?"

"Holidays are always good when we're home, sir." Jer-emy, his two brothers,  and
their father were  all on active  duty in the  Corps. "We've got  enough stripes
among us to shame a zebra," he had joked once. His brothers were both  corporals
in  the regiment's  1st Battalion,  and their  father was  4th Battalion's  lead
sergeant. "I could count the number of Christmases and New Years we've all  been
home on one hand ... and still have a finger left for an obscene gesture."

Lon laughed, and Jeremy started the floater down the street.

"Never yet been a year when the four of us and my uncle and all my cousins  were
all home for the  holidays," Jeremy continued. He  had six first cousins  in the
Corps. Another uncle had  been killed on duty  ten years earlier, in  a training
accident on Dirigent. The rest of  those relatives were in 5th Regiment.  It was
currently out on contract, not due back  for at least another six weeks. And  he
had more distant kin in two other regiments-a not unusual situation in the  DMC.
"Just as well. Get too  many of us together at  one time and there's sure  to be
trouble."

"Your whole clan  gets together at  one time here  and it pretty  much means the
Corps is out of work, doesn't it?" Lon asked.

"Oh,  it  works out  sometimes,  sir," Jeremy  said.  "Some of  us  on planetary
defense, some on training routine,  everybody either just back from  contract or
due to go out soon. Sometimes. Not often. We were all on-planet about four years
back for a couple of  weeks in the summer ...  no, five years come August.  That
was the last time."

The drive to 7th Regiment did not take long. When Lon's car came around the side
of the headquarters building he could  see each of its battalion HQs  lining the
regimental parade ground. No one was standing out there at this time, and  there
were only a couple of  men crossing it. Reveille was  past, and most of the  men
would be at breakfast or getting ready for their work formations at 0800 hours.

"You figure you'll need the  car before quitting time this  afternoon. Colonel?"
Jeremy asked as he held the door for Lon to get out.

"Not that I know of. Jerry, but that's always subject to change without  notice.
We've got a Council meeting at ten, but I'll walk over to Corps headquarters for
that. I need  the exercise. Check  with me after  lunch. If I  can get away  I'm
going to spend a couple of hours in the gym this afternoon."

"Yes,  sir."  Jeremy  saluted.  Lon returned  the  salute,  then  went into  the
building.

All fourteen regimental headquarters buildings had been built to the same  plan,
inside and  out. They  were three-story  stone and  plascrete buildings with the
sizes  of individual  offices tailored  for those  who would  use them.   Unlike
company or battalion headquarters, which might be left empty if the unit was  on
contract or simply at one of  the Corps' secondary training bases, a  regimental
headquarters  was always  manned, even  if the  regiment and  all its  ancillary
units-armor/artillery,  transportation, and  maintenance-were away,  and it  was
extremely rare for all  of the secondary services  to accompany the regiment  on
contract.

At the front of the first floor, the orderly room, domain of the regimental lead
sergeant and his clerks, was on the  left, and operations was on the right.  The
executive  officer  had his  office  behind, and  connecting  to, operations.  A
conference room was across  the hall from that.  Lon's office was on  the second
floor, above the orderly  room and connected to  it by a private  lift tube. The
intelligence officer and his staff were across the hall. There was a coffee room
for officers at the rear of the second floor. The third floor was given over  to
other administrative offices.

Lon glanced into operations, then went  into the orderly room on the  other side
of the corridor. Only the duty sergeant from the night shift, Brian Kespean from
3rd Battalion, was in the orderly room, waiting for the regimental lead sergeant
to arrive and relieve him.

"Morning, Colonel,"  Kespean said,  standing to  attention and  saluting. "Quiet
night, sir. Not a bit of trouble on the log."

"That's always good to hear," Lon said  as he returned the salute. "Good way  to
start the new year."

"Yes,  it is,  sir," Kespean  agreed. "Nothing  much on  the log  for the  whole
weekend." New Year's Day had fallen on Monday, which meant that there had been a
long holiday weekend. Only those units  serving a tour as part of  the planetary
defense system had kept more than a skeleton staff on duty.

"Tell Phip I'll be in my office when he gets here," Lon said, continuing  across
to the door leading to the private  lift tube. Phip Steesen had been another  of
the men Lon had brought along  from 2nd Battalion. Phip was the  regimental lead
sergeant now. "He can wait until his people get in before he comes up. Tell  him
there's nothing pressing on the docket."

"Yes, sir. I  expect him in  the next couple  of minutes. He's  in the area.  He
stopped by and  said he was  going to have  a look around  at the mess  halls. I
think he wanted to see how many hangovers he could spot."

Lon smiled. "He seem to have one himself?"

"Not that he was showing. Probably not. His wife wouldn't let him have one  even
if he did get drunk and forgot to put on a killjoy patch soon enough."

"I think Phip lost the taste," Lon said. The way I did, he thought. Drinking was
more fun when 1 was young and single.


Lon had  never gone  in for  excessively decorating  the various  offices he had
occupied during his  years in the  Corps. There were  holographic photographs of
family members on  the desk, a  small lump of  rock gathered in  the Great Smoky
Mountains of Earth, near his childhood home, on top of the single filing cabinet
in the room. The wall directly across from his desk held a manning chart for the
regiment,  showing each  officer under  his command.  He could  call up  a  more
complete manning chart on his desk  complink, showing each man in the  regiment,
with links to  complete service records  and photographs. Even  after two years,
Lon spent at least a few minutes every day with that when possible, still trying
to get to know all of the  men under his command. At the regimental  level, that
was an almost impossible task. With four line battalions and the auxiliary units
assigned  to 7th  Regiment, he  had five  thousand men  under him.  There was  a
constant, if slow, turnover in personnel,  as well as promotions and changes  of
assignment for those who remained.

There was a fresh pot of hot coffee  on the cart next to Lon's desk when  he got
there, almost certainly prepared by Jeremy Howell before he left to pick Lon up.
Lon poured himself a cup, then carried it to the window and looked out over  the
parade ground while he sipped at the liquid. He hardly noticed the taste, strong
and unadulterated by cream or sugar.  Lon slipped into a blank stare,  something
near the mental numbness of a soldier too long in combat with too little  sleep.
He was scarcely aware of what he was seeing outside; the movements of his coffee
cup were automatic, unnoticed. There  were no pressing problems waiting  for his
attention, no special worries carried over from the past year. Lon could  afford
the luxury of  a few minutes  in something approaching  a trancelike state,  his
mind idling. There were too few opportunities for this sort of passive  escapism
in Lon's  life. When  they did  come, he  abandoned himself  to them completely,
knowing the respite never lasted.

What brought Lon out of his reverie was an empty coffee cup. He had continued to
drink automatically until he brought the  cup to his lips and there  was nothing
left in it. Lon blinked several times, then looked into the cup as if he thought
he might  be mistaken,  that there  still might  be coffee  lurking in  a hidden
comer, reluctant to  be drunk. Walking  to the cart  to get more  coffee was too
much bother. Lon simply set  the cup on the windowsill  in front of him and  put
his hands behind his back.

The blank did not  return. Lon was too  aware of people moving  outside, and the
slight sounds filtering through to his office from other parts of the  building.
His office was supposedly soundproof, but that insulation was not as thorough as
it might be ...  or might have been  when the building was  new a century and  a
half before. Renovation of all fourteen regimental headquarters buildings was  a
perennial topic  in the  budget planning  of the  Council of  Regiments, but  it
carried a  low priority  even though  the fourteen  colonels who  decided on the
budget  would each  get refurbished  offices from  the renovation.  It might  be
another dozen  years before  the project  would be  started ...  after the  last
barracks and battalion headquarters had gone through renovation and remodeling.

The knock on  the door was  welcome. Lon turned  away from the  window and said,
"Come in." Phip Steesen opened the door and entered, carefully closing the  door
behind him.

"Happy New Year, Lon,"  Phip said. In private,  they could still indulge  in the
informality of longtime friends, even when  they were both on duty. It  was only
when others were present that they had to observe all the protocols of  military
life. Phip was ten years older than  Lon and had spent more than that  number of
years in the Corps-not rising above the rank of private-before Lon arrived as an
officer-cadet. Since then, Phip's rise in rank had paralleled Lon's, going  from
private to  regimental lead  sergeant in  the same  time that  Lon had gone from
lieutenant to colonel.

"Happy New Year, Phip," Lon responded automatically. "You manage to stay sober?"

"Unfortunately," Phip said, grinning. "Jenny and  I shared a bottle of wine  and
were both asleep  before midnight New  Year's Eve. The  kids were probably  both
awake later than we  were." Jenny was his  wife. Phip shook his  head. "Makes me
feel like an old man."

"Hell, you're not sixty yet. Still in your prime," Lon said.

"For  some things,  maybe," Phip  said. "But  there are  only three  men in  the
regiment older than me, two lieutenant colonels and one major. I've been in  the
Corps longer than half the officers have  been alive. If I had half a  brain I'd
get out. That'd save me the aches of all the exercising I do to stay fit  enough
to pass the annual test. And maybe I'd have time to do a little serious drinking
now and then."

Lon went behind his desk and sat, gesturing for Phip to sit on the chair at  the
side of the desk. "I know how you feel," he conceded. "When I was a kid I was  a
fanatic about physical training. Used to  think that if I invested enough  sweat
I'd get  that little  bit faster  and get  my name  in the  record books for the
fastest mile. I won a few races when I was in high school, and even while I  was
a cadet  at The  Springs"-the military  academy of  the North  American Union on
Earth-"but I never even tied the existing  record for the mile, let alone set  a
new record. And as the record times got faster after I came here, my times  were
already getting slower. Now it's been a dozen years since I came within a minute
of the  record, and  four years  since the  last time  I broke  four and  a half
minutes."

"Hell, I couldn't break four and a half minutes for the mile when I was twenty,"
Phip said. "And making  the six minutes I  need to stay qualified  for duty gets
harder every year.  There's only one  reason I don't  hang up the  uniform right
now."

"What's that?" Lon asked when Phip didn't go on to explain.

"I'd kind of like to be here  when you make General," Phip said after  a snorted
chuckle. "Be nice  to retire as  Lead Sergeant of  the Corps. You've  dragged me
along every time they changed the pips on your uniform."

"Another optimist. You've been  in the Corps long  enough to know they're  never
going to elect me General."

"Back when you got your commission, I might have agreed with you, but now I  can
get even odds  on you being  elected General within  the next five  years at any
betting parlor in Camo Town."

"I thought you gave up gambling when you got married."

"I did, pretty much, but I still check the sheets every day. Make mental bets if
nothing else, just to keep my hand  in. Oh, by the way, there's nothing  special
on the program for today, not that's come to my attention, anyway."

"Normal routine, no changes to the  training or work schedules that I  know of,"
Lon said, nodding. "No disciplinary problems over the long weekend. I've got the
weekly  council meeting  at ten  o'clock." He  glanced at  the timeline  on  his
complink. "And it looks as if it's about time we got to work."


The building that  housed the headquarters  of the Dirigent  Mercenary Corps and
served as Government House  for the world was  H-shaped, with the crossbar  on a
north-to-south axis looking across a  parade field large enough to  hold seventy
thousand soldiers without looking particularly crowded, toward the main gate  of
the base.  The wings  of the  building were  two-thirds on  the west side of the
crossbar. The  facade was  of polished  white marble  covered with a transparent
preservative that added a sparkle to the stone. In front of the north and  south
wings, on the side facing the  parade field, were rows of artillery  pieces-many
brought from Earth-showing the development of artillery from the earliest extant
bronze cannons to the most modem self-propelled howitzers and rocket launchers.

The meeting chamber of  the Council of Regiments  was in the central  portion of
the building, on the second floor, with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the
parade ground. A circular table in  the chamber had built-in comp-links at  each
of the fourteen places. Seating was in regimental order, clockwise beginning  at
the north. The General, whoever he  was during a particular year, presided  from
the same seat he had held as regimental commander. The only visible  distinction
his place showed  was a small  gold gavel and  a red bokka  wood pad to  bang it
against. Several small curved tables sat  behind the main table, with seats  for
aides or guests.

The colonels who made up the  Council started gathering in an antechamber  about
fifteen minutes before the scheduled beginning of their regular weekly  session.
All wore the dark blue "working dress" uniforms that had a minimum of decoration
and lacked the high, stiff collars of "formal dress" uniforms. They drank coffee
and chatted among themselves. With nothing pressing on the agenda, the talk  was
mostly  about the  holiday weekend  or family  gossip. Two  minutes before   ten
o'clock, the General's senior aide opened the doors to the meeting chamber,  and
the  colonels  started filing  in.  All were  present  by that  time  except the
General. He came in thirty seconds after the last of the others had taken  their
seats.

Jules  Lecroix of  1st Regiment  was serving  his second  term as  General,  not
consecutively. He had already announced that he would be retiring from the Corps
after completing  this term.  His sixty-eighth  birthday would  fall three  days
before  his successor  was elected,  and on  the day  of the   change-of-command
ceremony,  he would  mark fifty  years in  uniform-a rarely  achieved length  of
service; few men stayed in the Corps more than forty years.

"Good morning, gentlemen," Lecroix said before taking his seat. "I trust you all
had a pleasant holiday weekend."  The General was slightly below  average height
for Diri-gent, built stocky.  He had been a  champion boxer in his  younger days
but showed none of the injuries he had received during his "career" in the ring.
"Coming just after the  first of the year,  I had intended to  keep this session
perfunctory. What  little old  business we  had on  the calendar  was all pushed
forward until next week. We do have  one new item to consider, but I  don't have
details for you yet. There is a delegation from Elysium inbound. Their ship came
out of Q-space less than ten hours ago, so it will be Friday morning before they
land. Since the delegation is  headed by their chancellor-the number-two  man in
their government, as I understand  it-we'll have a formal welcoming  ceremony at
the spaceport.  I'll get  details to  all of  you as  early as  I can. The short
message I had  from the head  of the Elysian  delegation suggested that  a large
contract might be in the offing."  The General shrugged. "As I said,  no details
yet. Colonel Ruiz,  you will chair  the contract committee.  Colonel Hayley, you
and Colonel Nolan will  complete it. I'll make  sure that everyone receives  any
pertinent  information  as  quickly  as  possible,  but  the  Elysians expressed
reluctance to say much before they can do it face to face."

"Elysium, the university world?" Lon said, making it a question.

"More than a university world," the General said, smiling, "though that was  the
first thought that  came to my  mind when I  received the initial  call from the
ship. Their  university is  still important,  drawing students  from more than a
hundred colony worlds according to the data we have, but they've gone far beyond
teaching and abstract academic research. They are also heavily into medical  and
industrial research and development, marketing their discoveries as freely as we
market  our  services-perhaps  more  so.  The  last  major  advances  in Nilssen
Generator technology came from Elysium, which makes them important to us and  to
every other  world that  builds ships  or depends  on interstellar  shipping ...
which means almost every settled world in the galaxy. And they are heavily  into
R&D in  military ordnance.  Anything that  threatens Elysium  threatens us."  He
turned to look directly at Jorge Ruiz. "Which means that we aren't  necessarily,
out to obtain every last coin in  their treasury. I know how hard a  bargain you
can drive, but while we don't expect to give our services away or lose money  on
the project- whatever it is-we will have to be prepared to cut the  philosophers
a little slack if necessary."

"I understand. General," Ruiz said. He  had served for several years as  head of
the Corps' Contracts Division. "We don't demand a Nolan from the eggheads." That
brought a laugh from most of the men at the table. Lon managed a slight blush at
the allusion. More than fifteen years earlier he had negotiated an addendum to a
contract that  brought the  Corps a  "piece of  the action"-a  percentage of the
looted precious metals  and minerals his  company recovered for  the contracting
government. It had been an unprecedented coup, rarely repeated since.



4

"No one ever wants to talk about a contract by link," Jorge Ruiz said. The three
members of  the contract  committee appointed  to deal  with the representatives
from Elysium had decided to eat  lunch together in the Officers' Club.  They had
ordered their food and were waiting for it with drinks. "It's as if they're  all
afraid they'll lose some bargaining chip  if they let us know what  they're here
about before we're physically eyeball  to eyeball with them." He  chuckled while
he shook his head, then took a sip of his martini and set it back on the table.

"It sure would  be nice to  have some idea  what this is  all about," Lon  said.
"What drives a world like Elysium to  look for mercenary help? They have a  pack
of renegade intellectuals or something?"

"I can imagine a lot of possible  scenarios," Bob Hayley said. "A lot of  worlds
might like to control the practical knowledge coming out of Elysium's R&D  labs.
Better Nilssen  Generators than  anyone else,  more powerful  beamers, new  ship
designs. I'm more curious what they consider a 'large' contract."

"Well, if  they want  a full  regiment, yours  is number  one on the list," Ruiz
said. "Lon, I think 7th is second on the rota, isn't it?"

Lon nodded. "If Elysium is so important to everyone, I'd think that there  would
be a sort of balance.  If one major power tried  to take it over, the  other two
would be in a hurry  to get involved to make  sure it didn't happen. Earth.  The
Confederation. The Second Commonwealth.  And it would almost  have to be one  of
those three trying to make a grab...  if that's what this is all about.  None of
the independent colony worlds would dare. That would leave some sort of internal
problem, but..." Lon stopped and shook his head. "I sure can't think that  there
could  be  anything  as  big as  a  regimental-size  contract  coming, not  from
Elysium."

Ruiz spotted the waiter  coming with their food.  "Maybe not, but it  doesn't do
any good  to speculate.  We don't  want to  build any  preconceived notions that
might get in the way later."


After lunch, Lon returned to his office for an hour to work his way through  the
inevitable  routine reports-incoming  and outgoing.  Then he  informed Phip  and
Lieutenant Colonel Tefford Ives-Lon's executive officer-that he was going to the
gym.

Lon put himself through a full routine on several of the exercise machines, then
ran two miles, forcing the pace on his last half dozen laps of the indoor  track
so much that he felt almost ready to drop  by the time he finished. After a  ten
minute rest, he got into the swimming  pool and swam laps for forty minutes.  By
the time he climbed out  of the pool, his arms  and legs felt as if  the muscles
had turned to jelly. He sat in  the locker room for five minutes before  he felt
recovered enough to shower and dress.

Three  times  a week,  in  garrison, Lon  put  himself through  such  a rigorous
workout, and on  the other days  he tried to  get in at  least a little  "light"
work, even if no more than a  mile's jog and a half hour of  hand-to-hand combat
drill  with other  officers. And,  at least  one day  a week,  he took   morning
calisthenics with one of  the battalions in 7th  Regiment, rotating from one  to
the next.  "A soldier  is his  own first  weapon," an  instructor in DMC recruit
training had told his  charges the first day.  "You have to keep  that weapon in
first-rate condition, just as  you'll be expected to  keep your rifle and  every
other weapon the Corps entrusts you with ready for action at all times."

It's a lot easier to keep a rifle serviceable than it is a body, Lon thought  as
he left the gym-limping a little because of a strained muscle in his left  calf.
His body's health maintenance  nanobots would need a  little time to repair  the
damage,  but Lon  did not  consider calling  for his  car to  take him  back  to
regimental headquarters. Walking's better therapy than riding, he told  himself,
but  he walked  slowly, favoring  the sore  leg as  much as  he could,  and  the
discomfort had faded to insignificance before he reached the orderly room.

"Phip, is  4th Battalion  ready to  go out  for its  night training?" Lon asked,
stopping just inside the lead sergeant's office on the first floor.

"Yes, sir. They'll form  up in about fifteen  minutes, due to leave  the area at
sixteen hundred  hours." Phip's  clerks were  in the  room, so  the niceties  of
protocol had  to be  observed. "I  spoke with  Colonel Watson  about a half hour
ago." Lieutenant Colonel Parker Watson was 4th Battalion's commander. "He called
to make certain there had been no schedule changes."

Lon chuckled. "You mean he was hoping  for a reprieve so he wouldn't have  to be
out in the cold."

"He never actually said that, sir," Phip said, carefully suppressing a laugh  of
his own.

"I'll stick around to see them off,"  Lon said. "Just to keep you informed,  I'm
going to be serving on a  contract committee. We have a potential  client coming
in to offer what might be a large  contract, so my schedule is apt to get  a bit
busy the next week or two."

"Yes, sir. I'll make a note. When does the client ground?"

"Not until Friday morning. Details will  be coming from the General's office  as
available. And make sure I see any messages from Colonels Ruiz and Hayley."

Phip nodded and keyed in notes on his complink.

                                    *  *  *

Lon stood off to the side as the men of 4th Battalion came out of their barracks
and fell in for their night training  session. There was no skin visible in  the
formation. Cold would not  be any real problem,  and should pose no  more than a
minor inconvenience  to the  men. Insulated  battle-dress uniforms  over thermal
underwear with  well-insulated boots  and gloves  were all  that would really be
necessary for  their protection,  since the  predicted low  temperature for  the
night would be no more than ten degrees below freezing. Battle helmet faceplates
would protect faces  from most wind-chill  effects. Still, the  men of 4th  wore
field jackets as  well; the fleece  collars of those  would keep the  chill from
necks and help close off the gaps at the edges of their helmets.

Soldiers had to be ready to  fight in any weather. No winter  training exercises
would be canceled  for less  than subzero  temperatures and  blizzard conditions
circumstances that  might be  severe enough  to halt  real combat. The battalion
formed up by platoon and company. Sergeants made their "all present or accounted
for" reports to platoon leaders,  who echoed the reports to  company commanders,
who repeated them  once more for  the battalion commander-all  with exchanges of
salutes. Lieutenant Colonel Watson gave the orders, and the battalion started to
march off toward their assigned training area some six miles away.

As he passed Lon, Watson gave him a casual salute. Lon returned it with a smile,
but waited  until the  entire battalion  had passed  before he  returned to  the
office.

"Unless something's  come up  in the  last twenty  minutes that  needs immediate
attention, I'm going home," Lon informed Phip.

"Nobody's said anything  to me. Colonel,"  Phip replied. "No  important messages
have come in. Sergeant Howell just went to get your car. It should be outside in
two minutes."

                                    *  *  *

Sara  Nolan opened  the front  door of  their home  before Lon  reached it.  Lon
started to ask if something was wrong  but stopped when he saw the smile  on her
face. In the doorway she put her arms around his neck and gave him a long  kiss.
Lon half-carried her inside and closed the door with his foot.

"Okay, what did  you see that  you think I'm  going to say  we can't afford?" he
asked when she finally let him break the kiss.

"Come in and sit down," Sara said,  dragging him toward the living room and  the
sofa. "Relax. I'll fix you a drink."

Lon started to speak but shut his mouth again, realizing that the fastest way to
leam what  had his  wife so  happy was  to go  along with  the scenario  she had
obviously planned. He sat on the sofa and loosened the collar of his shirt.  She
skipped off toward the  kitchen, her red hair  bouncing lightly. Lon just  shook
his head, having difficulty keeping a smile from his face. She must have a  real
beaut cooked up this time, he thought.

Sara was gone less than a minute, and came  back with a scotch and water on  ice
Lon's usual home-from-the-office drink. She handed it to him, waited for him  to
take a sip, then sat at his side-pressed right against him. He set the drink  on
the end table.

"Okay, what's got you smirking  like the proverbial bird-eating cat?"  he asked,
turning toward her.

Sara hesitated for a moment, fidgeting against Lon, then it all came out in  one
long breath. "I saw the doctor this morning. I'm pregnant."

Lon was not aware  of the seconds of  shocked silence before his  mind processed
the information thoroughly enough for  a reply. To his credit-and  almost making
up for the delay-his first words were, "That's great" ... even though his  voice
did not show the proper level of enthusiasm to underline the words. Luckily  for
him, Sara was too excited to notice.

"It is great," Lon said  after he had a few  more seconds to recover. He  hugged
her tightly while his mind fought to catch up. That's the last thing I expected,
he thought.  Sara did  not see  the frown  that accompanied  her husband's  next
thought: If it's a boy I'm going to get out of the Corps before he's old  enough
to start thinking about being a soldier.



5

Alberto Esteban Berlino was an  imposing figure. Seven feet, three  inches tall,
he had to duck to get through the passenger door of the shuttle. But it was  not
his height so much as his hair styling that caught the attention of the  members
of the official  welcoming delegation-which included  the General and  the three
colonels who had been tapped  as contract committee for the  Elysians. Berlino's
hair, dyed  an impossibly  bright yellow,  came down  to his  shoulders in three
distinct sections-over each  shoulder and several  inches below the  base of his
neck in back. Those tresses were stiff with some sort of styling spray. On  top,
the hair  was curled  up into  an outlandish  pompadour that  added another  two
inches to his already considerable height.  His hair had been stiffened so  much
that there  was not  the slightest  hint of  movement, even  though there  was a
fifteen-mile-per-hour breeze blowing.  His clothing was  almost as startling  to
Dirigenters, a one-piece, form-fitting jumpsuit-mostly a reddish plum color with
luminous blue accents, vertical  stripes of almost  random width and  separation
that extended from his neck to his toes. The outfit seemed a bit... thin for the
season. The temperature was below forty degrees Fahrenheit, and the wind made it
seem far chillier.

Berlino paused near the top  of the ramp and scanned  as much of the port  as he
could see. A man and a woman waited  behind him, the woman unable to get out  of
the shuttle until the  other two started moving  down the ramp. The  General and
the rest of the welcoming contingent moved  closer to the bottom of the ramp  as
soon as the Elysian  chancellor resumed his descent.  Berlino was a foot  taller
than the tallest of the Dirigenters present.

Berlino timed  his descent  carefully. The  band playing  music for the ceremony
ended a  song when  he was  a single  step from  the ground.  Jules Lecroix, the
General, made the welcoming remarks, as  he had a number of times  before. There
was no real "set" speech, but there was little variation between one arrival and
another. Those standing with him listened more for the end than for content. The
chancellor replied with equal platitudes, somewhat more flowery.

Introductions  came  next. The  man  with Berlino  was  Thomas Beoch,  Elysium's
minister  for  external  affairs.  The  woman  was  Flora  Chiou,  treasurer. In
appearance both seemed subdued, even plain, compared to the flamboyant coif  and
bright dress of the delegation's leader, as if they wanted to be careful not  to
upstage  him.  Neither  said  anything  other  than  polite  responses  to   the
introductions.

No one  seemed upset  at the  brevity of  the welcoming  ceremony. The  official
parties moved to  limousines that took  them across Dirigent  City to the  DMC's
main base and Corps headquarters. The visitors would stay in guest suites in the
north wing. Berlino rode with the General. Berlino's companions followed in  the
second floater, with  Colonel Ruiz. Lon  and Colonel Hay  ley were in  the third
vehicle.

"Quite a dandy, the Elysian chancellor,"  Hayley said as the convoy cleared  the
aerospace port. "I  was afraid I  was going to  bust out laughing  there when he
first came out of the shuttle, and that would have been ... embarrassing. And  I
know I heard a few sniggers from the spectators."

Lon chuckled. "If  someone stuck a  big round ball  on the end  of his nose he'd
make a fine clown. He's no  buffoon, though. The man is a  physicist, apparently
one of the best on Elysium. And we're going to be facing him a lot over the next
few days."

"If he represents high fashion on Elysium, I'm damned glad I don't live  there,"
Hayley said, shaking his head. "What  a nightmare! The clothes were bad  enough,
but that  hairdo. He  must have  three pounds  of glue  holding that  concoction
together. I may have to suck lemons to keep a straight face."

"No one ever promised us that soldiering  would be easy. Bob. Maybe he won't  be
so ... extreme  when we get  down to business,"  Lon said. "Especially  now that
he's had a chance to see that fashion is a lot different here."

"Once he realizes that we're just poor country bumpkins with hay in our ears and
pig shit on our boots?" Bob Hayley asked.

"Whatever. Just hope that it's not  the normal regalia of his office,  something
Elysium's laws force him to wear."

"We've  had  people attend  their  university," Hayley  said.  "And we  maintain
diplomatic  and industrial  contacts with  Elysium; have  to, with  the kind  of
research they do. I don't recall seeing anything that bizarre in our files. I've
been back through the lot in the last three days."

"So have I," Lon said.


There was a short meeting at DMC headquarters shortly after the convoy  arrived.
The General and the three members of the contract committee met with  Chancellor
Ber-lino and his two senior companions. There were several other Elysians in the
delegation, but they were aides and technical support people-staff members whose
contributions to the mission would come later.

"Basically, this  is our  situation," Chancellor  Berlino said  once the meeting
started.  He  had not  changed  out of  the  bright jumpsuit  or  ... eased  his
hairstyle, but he had put a  somewhat more subdued mauve tabard over  the bright
clothing. "For some years now, a series of representatives from Union have  been
pressuring us to 'acknowledge the  sovereignty' of their Confederation of  Human
Worlds. That  would entail  paying taxes  to Union,  and it  would also-and more
significantly-mean giving them unacceptable levels of control over the direction
and products of  our research programs.  I don't just  mean first option  on new
technology. They  insist on  the right  to totally  control distribution, who we
could sell to and when.

"We have refused,  repeatedly and with  a certain, ah,  intensity, especially in
the last year.  Union's diplomats urge  us to accept  their 'protection' against
any threats, internal or external, and  warn that we might be opening  ourselves
to conquest or raiding from other powers.

"Nine  months ago  we did  experience two  rather minor  raids, causing  minimal
destruction and resulting in the loss  of some defensive assets. We were  unable
to determine  the identity  of the  raiders, but  we have  little doubt that the
raids were commissioned  if not conducted  by Union. They,  of course, deny  any
connection to those events and tell us 'I told you so' and renew their arguments
that we  should concede  their sovereignty  and save  ourselves from any further
armed depredations.

"We have continued to refuse. Then, four  weeks ago, we were invaded by a  large
contingent of mercenaries from  New Sparta, and more  of them landed just  hours
before my ship left the system. Had they known I was aboard and my  destination,
I don't doubt that  they would have attempted  to intercept the ship  to prevent
my, ah, escape. We have confirmed their identity but not who hired them,  though
we assume  their orders  and pay  come from  CHW headquarters  on Union,  though
perhaps with one  extra... step between  them. By this  time, I assume  that our
government has  received Union's  latest protestations  of innocence  along with
another, ah, sales pitch for joining their empire so that they could come to our
assistance.

"We prefer to  retain our independence.  It is important,  and not merely  as an
abstraction. I assume Dirigent's independence  is similarly important to it.  We
both  need  to be  seen  as operating  freely,  without hands  tied  by external
allegiances. Were we to submit to the Confederation or- on the other  hand-apply
for  membership  in the  Second  Commonwealth, we  would  give up  much  of what
independence means for us. We would lose our undisputed neutrality, which  would
impact on our university and our research and development industry. Joining  the
Commonwealth  would be  less onerous  than accepting  the over-lordship  of  the
Confederation, but would not satisfy  anyone on Elysium. And joining  the Second
Commonwealth would  be the  only way  we could  obtain military  assistance from
them. We would accept that, as the lesser of two evils, only if it were the only
way  to  avoid  falling  under  the  dominion  of  Union  and  its  idea  of the
Confederation. So I came here."

"Can you give  us a rough  idea of the  assets that New  Sparta has sent against
Elysium-men and ships?" the General asked.

"The last assessment I had before our ship made its first jump into Q-space, New
Sparta had  landed about  thirty-five hundred  soldiers. There  were five  troop
transport ships overhead, two smaller transports, and one heavily armed  weapons
platform that  also carried  at least  a dozen  aerospace fighters. Obviously, I
cannot  report on  anything that  happened after  we entered  Q-space the  first
time."

"What defensive assets does Elysium have?"

This time Berlino hesitated. "You must  understand, we have never felt the  need
to maintain  a massive  defensive capability.  We have  relied primarily  on our
diplomatic corps. Our neutral status has always been observed, if not officially
recognized, by  Earth, Union,  Buckingham, and  the few  other worlds prosperous
enough and populous  enough to  pose a  serious threat.  We have  dealt with  Di
rigent. New Sparta, and most of the other worlds that are the primary sources of
mercenaries. Our  position has  allowed us  considerable freedom  because of the
counterbalancing interests  of our  various clients.  Our independence  has been
important to a lot of different Worlds." He paused for a few seconds, but it was
clear that he had not finished.

"Elysium has maintained a planetary militia for more than two centuries, a small
active force and a much larger reserve, but we have never had universal training
or a  requirement for  every young  Elysian to,  ah, participate.  In part,  the
militia served as an  adjunct to the university,  allowing us to offer  military
training  to  students from  other  colony worlds  who  could then  go  home and
establish home defensive systems.  Over most of the  last hundred years we  have
maintained additional defense assets, heavy weapons systems, but more as,  shall
we  say,  marketing displays  for  our munitions  and  research and  development
industries-evidence of the variety and capabilities of our products. That  means
more breadth than depth. We don't have a lot of any particular system. Defensive
missile systems, artillery, aerospace fighters,  and two ships that are  capable
of operating as weapons platforms in  space. Most of these advanced systems  are
capable of being operated with minimal human staff."

How  did they  stand up  against real-life  enemies? Lon  wondered when  Berlino
paused again.

"When  faced  with  a  massive attack,  the  results  were  mixed," the  Elysian
chancellor  said, as  if he  had heard  Lon's thought.  "The systems  themselves
appear to have performed admirably, but none of the defenses were fully  staffed
at  the  time,  and  delays  and  confusion  in  human  control  limited   their
effectiveness.  Our  ground  installations  destroyed  three  shuttles  carrying
invading troops, and two of their aerospace fighters. But neither our ground- or
space-based systems  were able  to destroy  or seriously  damage any  of the New
Spartan ships, and we lost one of our two ships in the initial assault, and  the
other was  damaged so  severely that  it had  to, ah,  leave the  area to effect
repairs and had not returned as of the time my vessel jumped to Q-space."

"How many ground troops did Elysium have under arms at the time of the  attack?"
the General asked.

"Approximately four  thousand men  were on  active duty,  of whom perhaps eighty
percent could be  called battle-ready. The  rest would be  support personnel and
the cadre needed  to train the  militia's standing reserve.  Those reserves were
being called to duty but were not yet organized and had not been put through the
two weeks'  refresher training  called for  in our  strategic planning," Berlino
said. "Our training system can handle fifteen hundred at a time, which means  it
would take two months to fully mobilize our reserves and have them ready to face
an enemy."

"So, assuming that has continued  on schedule since your departure,  there would
be about fifteen hundred of those reserves processed and trained by this  time?"
the General said.

"Approximately that," Berlino conceded. "We obviously never foresaw a  situation
in which we might need the entire reserve so ... quickly. And with enemy  troops
on the  ground, the  speed with  which we  can mobilize  might be, ah, seriously
compromised."

And men pulled out of civilian jobs and put up against a professional army  with
only two weeks of training can't be counted on to be worth a hell of a lot,  Lon
thought. Confusion,  heavy casualties,  and rapidly  deteriorating morale.  They
might be more of a liability than an asset.

"The  situation is  most distressing,"  Berlino continued,  "and our  government
decided that  the fastest  and most  efficient method  of dealing  with it is to
bring in professional soldiers in sufficient number to deal with the threat  and
minimize the damage to our infrastructure and people. I do, of course, have full
authority to negotiate a contract."

"We'll  have our  technical people  go over  your requirements  in detail,"  the
General said,  "but-in a  preliminary way-just  what assets  do you estimate you
will require from us?"

"Since I have  no way  of knowing  if New  Sparta has  put additional  forces in
system, we feel it necessary to bring  in a force sufficient to deal with  those
we know about and those who might well have been sent in as  reinforcements-say,
eight thousand men plus  the space assets to  deal with their capital  ships and
aerospace fighters. I believe that would work out to two of your regiments.  You
do have that many men available for a contract at present, do you not?"


"Two full regiments of  infantry, support troops-including armor  and artillery,
transports, and probably two weapons-platform ships. This looks as if it will be
the largest contract the Corps has had  in a decade or more," Lon said  while he
and Sara were dressing  for the state dinner  that evening. "If it  goes through
the way it looks." He shrugged. "This early, that's not completely certain, but,
altogether, it  could mean  more than  ten thousand  men for  a minimum of three
months, with possible extensions."

Sara stopped what she was doing and turned toward Lon. "This could be a bad one,
couldn't it?" she asked. "You'll  be facing mercenaries from New  Sparta, troops
every bit as professional and well  trained as our men are." Two  regiments: She
knew that  meant that  Lon's regiment  would be  included, and  since it was the
entire unit, he would be going along.

"It could be," Lon conceded with a  reluctant nod. "On the other hand, it  might
not be.  The  one  thing  we  know  we  won't  face  is  irrational   fanaticism
Professionals aren't going to go into action  with a 'do or die, fight till  the
last man drops' mentality. If we go in with clearly superior numbers,  establish
a solid perimeter on the ground, and stymie their forces in orbit, it could  all
be over  in a  relatively short  period of  time. Once  the commander of the New
Spartan force sees that he's  in a no-win situation, he  will look for a way  to
end the conflict as quickly as possible, just as we would."

Sara sat on the edge  of the bed. "What I  really dislike about this is  that it
will be the first time that you and Junior are both off on the same contract."

Lon sat next to her and took both of her hands in his.

"I know," he said very softly. "But  you have to figure that it's unlikely  that
the situation will ever come up again. By the time 7th Regiment gets back to the
top of the  rota for regimental  contracts, I'll probably  be in Bas-combe  East
tending  bar at  the Winking  Eye, and  Junior may  well have  had his  fill  of
military life and  be working a  civilian job, or  continuing his education.  He
might even want to take an advanced degree on Elysium." He continued to hold her
hands. When she didn't  reply, he added, "I  suppose there's even a  fairly good
chance this will be my last off-world contract, even if I spend another five  or
six years in the Corps. Jobs large  enough to require a full colonel in  command
just don't come along that often."

They sat together  in silence for  another minute before  Sara pulled her  hands
free and stood. "We'd better get busy or we'll be late to the General's dinner,"
she said.

"I know this is  going to be bad  timing for you," Lon  said a moment later.  "I
wish I wasn't going to miss any  of the next months, while you're pregnant,  but
at least I'll be here when the baby is born, and through the holidays."

"I hope so," Sara said, too softly for Lon to hear.


The state dinner at  Corps headquarters was purely  social, with no talk  of the
pending  contract  or Elysium's  difficulties.  The commanders  of  all fourteen
regiments were present with their wives,  along with a few senior officers  from
the headquarters staff and ancillary branches  of the DMC, as well as  the mayor
of Dirigent  City and  his wife  and a  few other  civilian notables. There were
toasts and short  speeches. There was  music. The food  was the finest  that the
chefs at  Corps headquarters  could provide,  almost everything  grown or raised
naturally, not fabricated by a nanotech replicator.

Chancellor Berlino  dressed less  flamboyantly, in  light blue,  but his  hairdo
remained exaggerated. He and his  companions received as much attention  as they
could  handle  during the  cocktail  hour before  dinner  and in  the  in formal
mingling that continued after the meal and speeches had been concluded.

Lon and Sara got home shortly after eleven o'clock that night. "I hope that hair
doesn't start a new fashion among the women here," Sara said. "It looks as if it
would be uncomfortable, at least to sleep in."

"It won't be a fashion in the  Corps," Lon said. He ran his fingers  through his
own hair. He didn't keep his as short  as many in the Corps did, but he  knew he
would need two years to let his hair get long enough for the sort of arrangement
the Elysian chancellor wore... and that would never happen.

"I think the mayor's wife might try it," Sara said. "The way she stared at it."

"Bessie Macklin?" Lon laughed. "She's a hundred years old if she's a day."

"Don't tell her that. She'd slap  your face." They both laughed. "Bessie's  kind
of nice, in a  way," Sara said. "A  little pompous sometimes, but  usually quite
friendly."

"She has a great-grandson in the Corps," Lon said. "And a daughter who's younger
than Junior."

"Not  younger,  six   months  older,"  Sara   corrected.  "Six  children,   nine
grandchildren, and twenty-six greatgrandchildren. I think she talked about every
one of them this evening." Sara put her hands over her face to hold in a  laugh.
"I think Chancellor Berlino was about  ready to pull that plastered hair  out by
the roots before he was able to get away from her."

"That would have been a  sight to remember," Lon said.  "I think if he bent  his
hair hard it would break off in huge chunks."


There was  no weekend  off for  Lon. The  contract committee  met with the three
Elysian politicians twice Saturday and once Sunday. Support staff on both  sides
were in almost continuous session through the weekend. Chancellor Berlino was in
a hurry. Between open negotiating sessions, Lon spent most of his time either in
conference with Colonels Ruiz and Hayley or reading the voluminous documentation
and  evaluations  being assembled  by  the Corps'  Contracts  Division. Saturday
evening, it was nearly midnight before Lon got home.

Sara was waiting up for him.

"How soon?" she asked after a quick hug and kiss.

"Very,"  he  said, knowing  what  the question  referred  to. "We  could  have a
contract ready for signatures as early  as Monday morning and ship out  Thursday
or Friday. Ber-lino is extremely worried about the situation on Elysium, and  he
is conceding virtually every bargaining clause in short order."

They went to the kitchen. Lon sat at  the table. Sara fixed him a drink and  set
it in front of him before she sat. Lon closed his eyes as he drank down half the
scotch and water.

"I talked with  Junior this evening,"  Lon said as  he set the  glass back down.
"He's got OD duty at 1st Battalion tonight. I told him not to make any plans for
the next few months but to keep it quiet until he heard the official word."

"What did he say?" Sara asked.

" 'Does Mom know yet?'"  Lon said, not meeting her  look. "I told him you  had a
pretty  good idea  something was  coming up  but that  we didn't  have  anything
plascrete yet."

"There's no chance this will fall through?"

Lon shook his head.  "I don't think so.  The Elysians came prepared  with enough
gold,  platinum, and  transfer credits  to hire  twice the  force we're  talking
about. The transfer credits are drawn on Buckingham banks with the guarantee  of
the  Second  Commonwealth.  They've  also  brought  diversion  orders  for other
materials we don't produce on Dirigent-shipments that will come here instead  of
to Elysium."

"It sounds as if  they're desperate," Sara said.  Lon nodded. "Could it  be that
Berlino knows the situation is much worse than he's admitted to?"

A weak smile nickered across Lon's face. "That's the sort of thing we expect  on
any contract, but my own guess is  that his evaluation was closer than most,  as
of the time he left Elysian space. And he hasn't tried to hide the fact that  he
expects to leam that the situation has gotten worse since he left."

"What happens if you get there and  find that the war is over, that  Elysium has
been conquered and occupied?"

"We evaluate  the situation.  If it  appears that  we have  an edge  on the  New
Spartans in men and materiel, we go in and start the work of liberating Elysium.
If it  appears that  we are  outnumbered, we  wait for  additional manpower from
Dirigent-a third regiment and one or two additional battle cruisers." He paused.
"It's been something like  sixty years since the  last time the Corps  mounted a
three-regiment contract, and there's never been one larger than that."


At 1023 hours, Monday,  January 8, A.D. 2830,  the contract between Elysium  and
Dirigent was signed  in the chamber  of the Council  of Regiments, five  minutes
after  that body  voted to  accept the  terms that  the contract  committee  had
negotiated. The  largest deployment  of Corps  personnel in  twelve years  would
begin seventy-five hours later.



6

Lon briefed his battalion commanders  and executive officers as well  as company
commanders and  his senior  staff officers  Monday afternoon,  immediately after
lunch.  The  conference room  across  the hall  from  his office  in  regimental
headquarters was crowded. The order to release men from duty for the next  three
days had already gone  out, so everyone knew  that the subject of  this briefing
was the contract.

"Thursday afternoon  we leave  for Elysium,"  Lon said  without preamble once he
came into the room. While others were eating, he had been making notes for  this
briefing. "This is probably the largest contract any of us here have been on ...
or  will be  on in  our careers.  The initial  deployment will  be two  complete
regiments,  ours  and 15th,  along  with the  heavy-weapons  battalions of  both
regiments, battle cruisers carrying two squadrons of the new Shrike II fighters,
and several  freighters to  carry munitions  and other  supplies. Colonel Hayley
will be  in overall  command of  the contract,  and I  will serve  as  second-in
command. Depending on what  we find when we  arrive, there are circumstances  in
which a third regiment might be added to the force. There will be an operational
briefing for senior officers at  Corps headquarters Thursday morning. That  will
be battalion COs and XOs and senior  staff. By that time you should be  familiar
with  all  of the  background  data available."  He  gave them  the  file codes.
.

"Naturally, we will  have to wait  to see what  we find when  we emerge from our
final  Q-space transit  in Elysium's  system before  we can  settle on  a  final
deployment plan. The information we have will  be more than a month out of  date
by then and the  situation on the ground  could be ... just  about anything. One
thing we know is that we are going to be facing professionals, mercenaries  from
New Sparta, and twenty days ago they had a regiment or more on the ground,  with
all  of  the  backup  from  aerospace fighters  that  we  would  use  in similar
circumstances.  We need  to keep  that in  mind. We're  not going  to be  facing
amateurs, but well-equipped, well-trained career soldiers.

"The contract is open-ended, but if it lasts more than six months, 7th and  15th
can expect  to be  relieved by  other units."  Except in  the most extraordinary
circumstances, the Corps tried to limit a unit's continuous contract time to six
months-seven months, including the transit  time in each direction. "Because  of
the opposition, I think we had better  all hope that the contract does not  last
that long.

"You will find detailed information and  maps of Elysium in the briefing  files,
but I'll  give you  a few  basics." This  was the  point where  Lon had to start
referring to his notes. "The planet is slightly smaller than either Dirigent  or
Earth, surface gravity .956 Earth  Standard, not enough less to  be significant.
The  total population  is about  fifteen million,  of whom  approximately  three
hundred thousand are students drawn from perhaps a hundred different worlds. The
largest concentration of people is in  and around University City, which is  the
planetary  capital in  addition to  being the  location of  the main  campus  of
Elysium University.  The population  of the  metropolitan area  is roughly three
million. There are two other metro areas with populations topping one million, a
half dozen with at least half a million. The rest of the populace is spread  out
in smaller cities, towns, and rural areas.

"There are three primary continents.  Eighty percent of the inhabitants  live on
Athens. Most of the remainder live  on Rome, with just a few  scattered research
outposts on the continent the Elysians call Carthage.

"Athens, and more particularly University City, is the focus of the New  Spartan
attack,  or-to  be  more accurate-was  the  focus  as of  the  time  the Elysian
delegation left  on its  way here.  University City  has to  be the focus of any
attack. Essentially, whoever controls it  controls the world. The government  is
there, the  university, the  center of  its communications  nets, and  more than
thirty percent  of the  planet's industrial  capacity, including  several of its
primary research and development laboratories.

"University City is  located near the  west coast of  Athens, about sixty  miles
from the ocean, primarily on the north shore of the river the initial  colonists
called the Styx, an allusion to  classical mythology for those of you  who might
not have encountered it before. There  are two bridges across the river  serving
University City and the few sections  and suburbs on the south shore,  which may
or may  not still  be intact.  The Elysians  were debating  whether to  blow the
bridges when the chancellor and his  party left. The New Spartans landed  forces
on both sides of the river, outside the metropolitan area."

Lon talked for  another ten minutes,  then dismissed his  officers. The briefing
would move down the ranks, with company commanders telling their platoon leaders
and senior noncoms. Except  for those men who  might have already left  base for
their three free days before deployment, everyone in the regiment would know the
basics of the contract  within an hour. A  few officers stayed to  ask questions
afterward, but  those were  related to  preparing for  departure, not  about the
mission itself. Lon passed the questions to his executive officer, Tefford Ives,
and retreated to his office across the hall.

Alone,  finally, Lon  noticed that  his hands  were trembling.  He had   started
sweating halfway  through the  briefing, and  the temperature  in the conference
room could not have  been the cause. He  stood just inside his  office, lean ing
back against the door, taking deep breaths, trying to relax.

It's too  soon to  get tied  in knots  over this  contract, he told himself. The
nightmares had started coming after him Friday night, as soon as it was apparent
that this would be a two-regiment contract, that he-and his son-would be  going.
Finally, he had resorted to sleep patches to keep the dreams from surfacing  and
disturbing his nights ... but nothing  could keep the thoughts away when  he was
awake.

I've been away from action too long. The  last time 1 came under fire was .  . .
the second Bancroft contract, before I  made colonel. He took a deep  breath and
moved to his desk. He sat, but not for long. After less than a minute he got  up
and went to look out the window.  There's no reason to think you 'II  come under
enemy fire this time. Not yet. But Junior would be a lot closer to action. As  a
platoon leader, he would likely be on the front line of any combat. That was the
real source of Lon's nightmares now.

How could I come home  and tell Sara and Angle  that Junior had been killed?  In
all  the  nightmares-asleep and  awake-he  had never  found  an answer  to  that
question.


The general  Corps policy  that everyone  should have  seventy-two hours'  leave
prior to shipping out on a  contract could not apply to a  regimental commander.
When a battalion shipped out, the necessary preparatory work could be  conducted
by regiment. When the entire regiment was going, only so much of the preparation
could be handled by the civilian staff,  the people who would not be going,  and
by Corps headquarters. Lon and his senior staff officers had to be available  to
make decisions, to see that necessary steps were taken, to make sure there  were
no snags  that could  delay the  departure. The  ships and  supplies. Additional
information about the contract. One afternoon was not long enough for all of the
conferences.  Lon did  not leave  his office  until after  five o'clock   Monday
afternoon, and planned to be back at eight the next morning.

"A contract this  big is a  logistics nightmare," Lon  told Sara at  supper that
evening. He winced a little over the final word. "Dirigent is going to be  short
on ships and soldiers until units get back from some of the current contracts. A
couple of battalions of men who should still be on training routine are going to
have to move to planetary defense assignments early to cover the gaps." He  gave
a laughing snort. "This is  one of those rare times  when we've got as many  men
off on contract as we  like to have. Even a  little more once our two  regiments
leave. For the next couple of weeks, at least, we won't be able to send out more
than a single battalion on contract, and even that would strain our resources."

"Anything else in the offing right now?" Sara asked.

"Not that I know of."

"Then it doesn't  make much difference,  does it? You  all must have  taken that
into account when the Council accepted the contract."

"Yes. But if the situation  is bad on Elysium when  we get there and we  have to
call in a third regiment,  it could be damned hard  to find ships to move  them.
We're going  to have  to be  awfully picky  about accepting  any other contracts
until we know what the situation is on Elysium and get the word back here."

"Don't borrow trouble," Sara said, knowing that her words would have no  effect.
"It'll be a month before  you get there and have  time to send a message  rocket
back. There must be enough contracts over or nearly over to get the situation in
hand."

"Theoretically." Lon  shrugged and  pushed his  plate away,  even though  he had
eaten almost nothing. He had started with little appetite and had lost that. "If
everyone gets back on schedule.  If none of the units  got torn up too bad.  If,
if."

"The Corps isn't going to leave anyone hanging, Lon. You know that."

He sighed.  "I've got  five thousand  men I'm  responsible for,  Sara, lives and
well-being as well as  how they perform. I've  got to think about  anything that
might possibly go wrong, look for ways to deal with ... whatever happens."


A million details to keep track of. Ten million things that could go wrong.  Lon
sat in front of the complink in his home study-the study was one of the perks of
the house he rated as a full  colonel. It was past eleven o'clock Monday  night,
and Lon was tired. He had been smothering yawns for an hour. Sara had just  gone
to bed. Angie had gone to bed hours earlier.

Bed. That's where I should be, Lon told himself, but he did not move. It  wasn't
just that he still had a lot of data he needed-or at least wanted-to review. Nor
was it the inertia of a tired  man. Bed. Sleep. Nightmares. Lon did not  like to
rely on sleep patches all the time, but he knew a patch would be the only way to
keep  the nightmares  away, the  only way  to get  restful sleep  with a  combat
contract coming up.

More than once this night he had thought, / don't have to go to Elysium. I could
retire now and that would be that.  There would be talk, but my record  is good.
But that  would not  end the  nightmares. Junior  would still  be going  on this
contract. There was no way to talk him out of staying in the Corps. For now. Two
combat contracts had taken the fantasy out of soldiering for Junior but had  not
robbed him of his desire to be a soldier... to continue being a soldier, and  he
seemed excited by the size of the Elysium contract.

He's good, probably better than I was at his age, Lon conceded, but he had  seen
too many  good soldiers  die to  take any  comfort from  that. Circumstances and
conditions. One brief lapse of judgment. Bad luck.

I have to believe Junior has a better chance with me in command than with anyone
else running the regiment. In the end, it came down to that. No matter who might
get the  regiment next,  Tefford Ives  or one  of the  battalion commanders, Lon
still thought he could do a better job.

Lon squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, then blinked several times and tried to
focus on the complink  screen. He clicked the  NEXT tab and stared  at the first
screen of the next file on his  queue: "Flora and Fauna of the Western  District
of Athens, Elysium," a thesis on  the ecology of the area, including  the impact
of imported  Terran species.  The Corps  had unusually  detailed and  up-to-date
information on  the world  of Elysium,  most of  it highly  reliable. There were
fairly frequent contacts between the two worlds-as a result of students going to
study at  the most  renowned university  off-Earth, as  well as industrial deals
with  Elysium's  R&D  corporations. And  Chancellor  Berlino  had brought  along
extensive database  updates that  had been  integrated into  the data  the Corps
already had.

He only scanned this file, looking  for key words such as "toxic,"  "dangerous,"
and "predator"-plants and  animals that might  pose a hazard  to people-glancing
quickly at photographs. Key entries could be studied in more depth later, on the
journey to  Elysium. There  were no  snakes-one of  his routine checks-but there
were several carnivorous lizards, two poisonous species and one that was  larger
than the extinct Komodo  dragons of Earth. The  Olympic Dragon, the name  of the
Elysian variety, was warm-blooded and known to reach as many as eighteen feet in
length and more than two tons in weight. The entry said that they were "rare" in
the vicinity of University City but did not quantify their numbers. Lon  flagged
the entry so  his officers and  noncoms would be  sure to see  it. He shook  his
head. That's all we need, lizards big enough to eat a man in one gulp.

Trees whose bark could  produce a nasty rash;  a flowering plant that  triggered
allergic reactions in 3 percent of humans exposed to it, and anaphylactic  shock
in 1 1/2  percent of those who were sensitive to it. Lon keyed that entry to the
regiment's senior medical officer. In transit, the health maintenance systems of
every man would have to be upgraded to deal with the threat.

Lon continued to scroll through the  file until he started to doze,  nodding off
as the lines  of print climbed  the complink screen.  He jerked his  head up and
blinked rapidly several times, then yawned-his eyes watering.

"I  can't do  much more  tonight," he  said softly,  then yawned  again. But  he
stretched and turned his attention to  the screen once more. He rubbed  his eyes
and tried to focus, scrolling back a hundred lines to make certain he had missed
nothing important. Twenty minutes  later he dozed off  a second time and  didn't
awake until his chin hit his chest.  He stared at the screen then, hardly  aware
that there were words on it.

After several minutes he pushed his chair back and stood, not even bothering  to
put the complink console in standby mode. The room lights went out when he left.
There was no help for it: He had to go to bed, and sleep.


The last thing Lon did before he  lay down was to stick a four-hour  sleep patch
on his  neck. It  was well  past one  o'clock, so  he could  not afford to use a
longer-duration patch. The medication worked quickly, and knocked him out before
he had time  to start a  new round of  futile worrying. For  four hours he slept
deep and dreamless,  but as soon  as the patch  wore off, the  dreams started to
intrude.  At first,  his sleeping  mind was  troubled only  by vague  images,  a
growing sense of foreboding. Soon, however, the nightmare that had been dominant
the past couple of nights forced itself forward. He saw himself kneeling on some
unidentifiable battlefield,  holding the  broken and  dead body  of his son, the
boy's blood  covering both  of them.  Dream sobs  seemed to  bring real physical
discomfort, but the  nightmare progressed. Lon  felt himself being  riddled with
bullets, feeling each impact, seeing each wound and the blood spurting from  it.
But Lon did not die in his nightmares. He was denied that escape. He saw himself
looking out of a trauma tube still-somehow-holding his dead son. He would not be
able to escape his final excruciating duty, that of going home to tell his  wife
and daughter  that he  had failed  to keep  Junior alive.  It's your fault! Your
fault! his mind screamed at him, over and over, louder and louder.

No! NO! "NO!" The screamed denials in his nightmare finally escaped his lips ...
at their loudest. Lon woke almost as quickly as Sara did.

"It's just  a dream,"  she said,  leaning over  him, one  hand on  his shoulder,
gripping firmly. She could feel the way Lon was shaking, almost out of  control,
the  way he  might have  with an  extremely high  fever. He  was also   sweating
profusely. "Just a  dream." Sara was  used to Lon's  troubled nights, though  he
almost  never  shared his  nightmares  with her.  They  came-most often  when  a
contract was near, or expected, or in the first nights after he returned from  a
combat contract-and then they  went away ... until  the next time. She  kept her
hand on  his arm  until the  trembling faded  and some  semblance of recognition
appeared in Lon's eyes. He  was gulping in air, his  eyes open in a wide  stare,
only slowly able to focus on Sara.

"A bad one?" Sara asked, her voice barely a whisper next to his ear. Lon  closed
his eyes, then opened them again.  His heart started to slow toward  normal, but
he continued to breathe deeply, greedily, for another minute before he was  able
to reply.

"A bad one." He took in one  controlled deep breath, then rolled onto his  back,
looking up at Sara. "What time is it?"

She glanced at the clock. "A few minutes to six."

Once more,  he closed  his eyes  briefly, working  to control  his body. When he
opened his eyes, he said, "Time for me  to get up, anyway. I need to get  to the
office as early as I can today. There's still a lot to do before we leave."

"The work will get  done even if you're  a little late. You're  pushing yourself
too hard. You've  got a good  staff. Ease up  a little before  ..." She couldn't
find a way to finish the sentence.  She didn't have to. Lon could put  a variety
of endings to it.

"I'm responsible for my regiment. I can't delegate that. It goes with the pips."
Lon sat up, then stood. That was easier than continuing the conversation.


A driver from 8th Regiment  picked Lon up and took  him to his office. To  allow
all of 7th's  enlisted personnel and  junior officers their  allotted three days
off before the contract, a dozen people  had been borrowed from 8th. That was  a
routine courtesy in the Corps.

Regimental headquarters was busy, but not  nearly as busy as it would  have been
without the pending contract. Most of Lon's senior staff officers were in before
he arrived Tuesday morning. They had the civilian staff and temporary help  from
8th hard at work well before the usual start of the workday at 0800 hours.

Lon went straight to his office. With Jeremy Howell off, Lon had to brew his own
coffee. While that  was in the  works, Lon turned  his complink on  and scrolled
through the list of messages that had  been logged in since he had last  checked
from home the night before. There were half a dozen he would have to read  right
away, so he sat down and started  ... tried to start. Halfway through the  first
message, though, he pushed away from his desk, stood, and walked to the window.

He stared out at the regimental parade ground-virtually deserted. There would be
no formations  until it  was time  to muster  the regiment  for the  ride across
Dirigent City to the spaceport Thursday afternoon. Elysium. Contract.  Fighting.
Professionals. The words clicked in Lon's head, but there was no continuity,  no
expansion. His mind felt numb, rejecting work. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying
to force concentration. It didn't  help. Minutes passed before he  realized that
his coffee had finished brewing. He poured himself a cup and drank it black,  so
hot it nearly scalded his tongue.

After he emptied the cup, Lon set it down and went back to his complink. Instead
of continuing to work at the overnight messages, he made a call.

"Doc, you have a few minutes for me this morning?" he asked when a face appeared
on the screen.

There was only a brief  hesitation before the man on  the other end of the  call
nodded. "I'll be right there. Colonel."


Major Dan  Norman had  been 7th  Regiment's SMO,  senior medical  officer, for a
dozen years. Despite the sophistication of nanotech health maintenance  implants
and the efficiency  of trauma tubes,  the long-standing predictions  that highly
trained physicians would "soon" be redundant had not come true. The computerized
equipment that  dealt with  physical problems  had to  be updated  periodically,
especially since new worlds were being opened up every year with new toxins  and
diseases. There  were rare  cases, mostly  neurological, where  HMSes and trauma
tubes were not entirely sufficient without guidance from a human specialist. And
every  physician  was now,  by  definition, an  expert  in treating  psychiatric
disorders, particularly those that were not caused by chemical imbalances.

In  civilian practice,  where the  physician's primary  function was  delivering
babies, one doctor per one  hundred thousand people was considered  adequate ...
except on newer colony worlds,  where birthrates were generally extremely  high.
In the Dirigent Mercenary  Corps there was one  physician for each regiment  and
one for each ship in the fleet. A regimental SMO did not function alone, though.
Each  battalion  had  seven medical  technicians  assigned  to its  headquarters
detachment, and  there were  also two  medtechs attached  to every line company.
They were  qualified to  perform basic  medical tasks  to stabilize  casualties'
conditions, operate trauma tubes, and administer updates to individual HMSes. In
addition,  every man  in the  Corps received  training in  combat first  aid-the
techniques needed to  keep a wounded  soldier alive until  he could be  put in a
trauma tube or  treated by a  medtech. Among colony  worlds not affiliated  with
either Common wealth or Confederation, perhaps only Elysium had a better medical
school than Dirigent.

Major Norman reached Lon's office in less  than two minutes. The SMO was in  his
early forties, black hair  and eyes, trim and  athletic. He was one  of the best
tennis players in the Corps.

"I've been expecting a call from you,  Lon," the major said after he closed  the
office door behind him.

"Have a seat." Lon gestured  at the empty chair at  the side of his desk.  "Am I
that predictable?"

Norman shrugged. "I've been treating you for most of the last decade, Lon, and I
know your medical  history back to  the day you  joined the Corps.  If there was
ever a situation  designed to aggravate  your anxieties, this  would be it.  The
whole regiment is going out on a  major contract. Your son will be going  along.
And  your wife  is pregnant."  In garrison,  the senior  medical officers   also
staffed the base hospital and dealt with dependents as well as soldiers. "By the
way, congratulations."

Lon squinted, and shook his head mildly.  "To tell the truth. Doc, I've been  so
upset over  the nightmares  and all,  that the  pregnancy really  hasn't sunk in
yet."

"You're  exhausted because  you're afraid  to go  to sleep  at night.  The  only
halfway  decent sleep  you do  get is  with a  patch, which  affects the  body's
chemical balance, especially when you use them frequently. The nightmares  drain
you and wake  you soon after  a patch wears  off. In addition,  you have all the
normal stresses of any commander readying his unit for a combat contract. You're
probably not eating decently either. Have I missed anything?"

"I'm not getting my work done. My  mind just mutinies, like this morning when  I
came in. I couldn't even  deal with my mail. I  just had to get up  and go stare
out the window. I'm not thinking straight. I can't concentrate. I can't get  the
worries out of my head. The way I'm  going, I'm afraid I'll be a basket case  by
the time we get to Elysium, and  I can't afford that, even though I'm  not going
to be in overall  command on the contract.  There's too much to  do between here
and there."              <-

"Okay, Lon, we've been through this before, so you know the routine. "I'll start
by running a chemical  assay to see how  badly you've managed to  get your brain
chemicals out of whack and make sure there are no anomalies that might  indicate
an organic problem your HMS hasn't  been able to diagnose and treat.  Then we'll
talk. Mostly, you'll talk  and I'll listen. I'll  ask a few questions  and maybe
spout a few platitudes you've heard before. Then we'll see where we are and what
we need to do next."

Lon nodded. Norman pulled a small black case from his trouser pocket and  opened
it. He extracted a medpatch about a  quarter inch in diameter from the case  and
peeled the backing from  the adhesive side. The  patch went high on  Lon's neck,
over the spine, just below his hairline. Norman smoothed it in place, then  took
out a portable complink and spent half a minute keying instructions. By the time
he had finished, the nanoagents in the patch had established communications with
the molecular computers that regulated Lon's HMS and were beginning to feed  out
strings of numbers and chemical formulas.

"Okay, Lon.  Tell me  about the  latest dreams,"  Dr. Norman  said, setting  his
complink on the edge of the desk, where he could continue to monitor it.


There were no outside interruptions. Lon  had set his complink to take  messages
but not to signal any calls, and  he had told the duty sergeant downstairs  that
he was not to be interrupted  for anyone less than the General.  Lon talked-with
assorted prompts and comments from Dan Norman-for nearly two hours. Norman  took
a final reading of  the numbers on his  complink screen, then removed  the patch
from Lon's neck and tossed the patch in the trash can.

"Well?" Lon asked. Although it was January and the temperature in the office was
kept at seventy-two degrees, he had been sweating through most of the ordeal.

"Your brain chemistry  is the worst  I've ever seen  it, Lon," the  doctor said.
"And your blood is almost outside  normal parameters. Much more and I'd  suspect
multiple malfunctions in  your HMS controllers  . . .  and that doesn't  happen.
You're not going to like what I have to say, but it isn't a suggestion. You  and
I are going to leave here together. Tell your sergeant that you'll be back after
lunch and can't be reached. We're going  to the hospital and I'm going to  stick
you in a trauma tube-"

"What?" Lon shouted.

"You heard me. In a trauma tube. I suspect that it will only be for two hours or
a little more, but that's up to  the tube. If you're going to lead  7th Regiment
on this contract, we've got to  get your body-and your head-back in  ... balance
as quickly  as possible.  While you're  in the  tube, I'll  have the lab prepare
special medpatches for  you to use  until just before  we make our  last Q-space
transit en  route to  Elysium-sleep patches  that will  guarantee you eight full
hours of  undisturbed sleep  every night,  with added  agents calculated to make
certain your chemistry stays as close to proper balance as we can manage.  We'll
also spend an  hour or two  together like this  each day, and-depending  on your
progress-there might be another tube session before that final Q-space transit."

"Doc, with all  the work that  has to be  done between now  and Elysium, I don't
have that much time to waste. I'll get by, the way I always have."

"Lon, I told you it wasn't a suggestion," Norman said, his voice getting softer,
almost a  whisper. "You'll  have to  make time.  Either we  do this  my way or I
report you medically unfit for deployment and you stay behind."

Lon moved his  gaze from the  doctor to the  top of his  desk. He didn't  speak,
though he wanted  to shout protests.  He knew that  the doctor's threat  was not
idle, and he also knew the potential consequences. It could mean the end of  his
career. Maybe that would be the easy way out, he thought.

"You're not the  first commander to  suffer this sort  of problem, Lon,"  Norman
said. "You might be surprised to leam  just how common it is. It's something  we
can handle,  but I've  got to  have your  full cooperation  or I  can't let  you
command on a combat contract. It's that simple."

Slowly, Lon nodded.  "We'll do it  your way. Doc."  If I do  leave the Corps, it
can't be this way, he told himself.



7

When 7th Regiment fell in at 1300 hours Thursday, only one man was missing  from
the formation. His bus had been damaged by a landslide between Rainbow Falls and
the airport,  and he  had missed  his flight  back to  base. He  would, however,
arrive in time to leave with his battalion. Rainbow Falls was a popular  resort,
and it had frequent shuttle service. The later flight he had caught would arrive
at Dirigent  City's public  aerospaceport twenty  minutes before  the convoy  of
buses carrying the regiment was due to leave base. He would join his unit at the
port.

Lon took the manning reports  from his battalion commanders, then  dismissed the
troops-sending  them  back  to  barracks  to  complete  their  preparations  for
deployment. When they fell  out again, in ninety  minutes, it would be  to board
the buses. The  regiment's heavy equipment,  mostly the self-propelled  guns and
rocket launchers of the Heavy Weapons Battalion, had already been ferried up  to
the ships. The  personal baggage of  the troops would  be going up  to the ships
shortly.

"They look good. Colonel," Lieutenant Colonel Ives said. "Raring to go." He knew
that Lon had been seeing the SMO, and-like most of the people who came in  close
contact with the  commander-he had been  able to tell  that Lon was  having some
kind of difficulties. Seeing improvement in his boss was a major relief to Ives.

Lon grunted. "Contract pay and the chance for a big bonus at the end, Tefford. I
think that's how  we developed the  tradition of giving  the men three  days off
before a contract, so they could go out and blow all their money and be  looking
forward to earning extra."

Ives laughed. "Wouldn't surprise me a bit. Of course, it could be that they just
want to bathe in the intelligence of all the eggheads on Elysium."

Lon grinned  and shook  his head.  "I only  wish smarts  rubbed off that easily,
Teff. We could rotate  everyone in the Corps  through Elysium, a battalion  at a
time, starting  from the  top. Make  life a  lot simpler  for all  of us."  That
morning, Lon had conceded to Doc Norman that he felt better-"almost one  hundred
percent," was how he  put it, followed by  a suggestion that perhaps  they could
forget about the rest of the course of treatment the SMO had prescribed.  Norman
had  laughed and  suggested that  the rest  of the  treatment would  remove  the
"almost." Lon still had his worries-about Junior  and about not failing his  men
but he was managing them with less stress than before.

The night before, an MR-message  rocket-had arrived in-system from Elysium.  The
news  the  MR  carried was  mixed,  but  more good  than  bad.  The New  Spartan
mercenaries had  destroyed all  of Elysium's  orbiting communications satellites
and its fighters had interdicted all air travel between cities, but fighting  on
the  ground  had slackened  off  considerably in  the  four days  following  the
departure of Chancellor Beriino from the system. In the twenty-four hours before
the launch of  the MR. there  had been only  a few small  skirmishes between the
Elysian defense force and the invaders. The mercenaries on the ground had  moved
to cut off  all major routes  into University City,  stopping the flow  of fresh
produce and  meat from  the outlying  farming districts,  but that  could not be
called a real siege because the residents were, of course, able to fall back  on
replicators.  Even if  the siege  could be  total, it  would take  years  before
inefficiencies in  the replicator  system could  cause serious  shortages of raw
materials for the nanotech assemblers.

"It could  mean that  they were  waiting for  reinforcements," Lon  had told his
staff and battalion  commanders during a  working lunch. "That  makes more sense
than to think that they're just padding their contract, adding unnecessary  days
to the job.  They certainly weren't  hired just for  minor harassment operations
unless it's just another  scheme to get the  Elysians to submit to  the CHW. Put
the threat on the ground, then give them time to get frightened enough to accept
whatever terms Union wants to grant."

"If it's that," Tefford Ives had said, "it could be a break for us. According to
Chancellor Beriino, the CHW didn't have a representative on Elysium at the  time
of the attack. That would mean  that the mercenaries would have instructions  to
wait long enough  for an exchange  of MRs, and  we might almost  be there by the
time they quit waiting."

"What if the government of Elysium gives up before we get there?" Vel  Osterman,
now a  lieutenant colonel  and commanding  the regiment's  2nd Battalion, asked.
"Beriino is only  the number two  man. The president  might have decided  not to
wait."

"I don't think that's  likely," Lon said. He  shrugged. "If something like  that
does happen, then we've got ourselves a month's cruise, paid for in advance . ..
and then some. I don't think anyone will complain too loudly." Certainly not me,
he had thought.


The Dirigent  Mercenary Corps  had developed  a ritual-  almost a  spectacle-for
sending  troops  off  on  contract. Although  there  was  a  more than  adequate
aerospaceport on  base, used  to transport  equipment and  baggage to the ships,
departing troops were  bused through Dirigent  City to the  civilian port across
town. When  they returned  from contract,  they would  come back  the same  way,
paraded through the city ... unless they failed to fulfill their contract.  Then
they would come in through the port on base.

The dead always came home that way.

With two regiments going out, the bus drivers had a hectic afternoon, taking one
load to the port  and then hurrying back  for the next. Civilian  traffic in the
city remained snarled throughout. Two regiments also meant more noise than usual
in the city because of the number  of shuttles taking troops up to their  ships.
The civilian port  was well away  from the most  heavily populated districts  of
Dirigent  City,  and  the  traffic  patterns  had  been  designed  to   minimize
overflights, but there was still the noise of jets and rockets, especially  when
the shuttles went supersonic.  It was no secret  how many men were  leaving, and
the  more soldiers  who worked  off-world contracts,  the more  money would   be
filtering back through the local economy.

Colonel Hay ley and his headquarters  staff were in the first shuttle  that took
off. Lon and his staff would be in the last. The troops of 15th Regiment started
moving  from  base ninety  minutes  before 7th  Regiment  was mustered  for  the
deployment. By the time Lon received the final manning reports in the regimental
area, the buses had arrived to take 1st Battalion to the port, and the buses  to
handle the rest of the regiment arrived at less than ten-minute intervals.

"It amazes me that we can get this many people deployed all at once," Lieutenant
Colonel Ives told Lon while they were waiting for the staff car that would  take
them to the port. "Two regiments strain the system almost to the breaking point.
Three would be a logistical nightmare. They'd almost have to hold one back a few
hours to get anything accomplished."

"This is all for show, Teff," Lon said. "It would have made a lot more sense  to
send one regiment up this morning  and the other now, or afternoon  and evening,
space  things out  one way  or the  other. But  this is  all to  make sure   the
civilians really feel the size of  the deployment. Rub their faces in  it. 'Look
what we're doing  for you.' Hell,  if we had  four regiments going  out together
they'd still try to do  it all at once. Besides,  two regiments going out on  an
open-ended contract is  a big deal.  You know how  rare a job  this size is. The
Elysium contract damned near ensures a  budget surplus for the year, even  if we
get the mission accomplished in only three months."

"As long as we come out on top," Ives said. "We've never gone head-to-head  with
New Sparta on a large contract."


The parade through Dirigent  City had been going  on so long that  few people on
the streets paid any attention to the final buses or the staff car that  carried
Lon and his executive officer. It might take a little time before the  civilians
realized that the show was over. The empty buses would return to base by a  more
circuitous route, avoiding the main boulevard connecting base and port.

Lon didn't give the passersby much attention either. He was thinking about  Sara
and Angie, and the baby who wouldn't be born for seven months. If this  contract
was extended, if  7th and 15th  Regiments put in  a full six  months on Elysium,
there was a  chance that the  baby would be  born before Lon  got home. A  small
chance, assuming I get home at all, Lon thought.

For the moment. Junior did not occupy much of his father's thoughts. Junior  had
come to the house the evening before, spent the night before deployment with the
family.  Junior  had  been  somewhat  more  subdued  than  before  his  previous
contracts, but not overtly nervous or apprehensive about the mission.

Sara had been  quiet and supportive,  as always-watching Lon  to see how  he was
handling the  situation-but restrained,  both with  her husband  and their  son.
Angie had been visibly upset, though  she had tried to hide her  emotions. Lon's
departures had long bothered her, and now she had to say good-bye to her brother
as well, with no guarantee that either of them would return. Angie did not  know
that her father had heard her tell Sara, "I'll never marry a soldier. I couldn't
stand it year after year, not knowing if he'd come home." That's the smart  way,
Lon had thought at the time, suspecting that she would change her mind,  perhaps
many times, before she married.

Lon's  command shuttle  was waiting  near the  military terminal  building.  The
shuttles of his 4th  Battalion were just taking  off. The shuttles of  the Heavy
Weapons Battalion would follow in three minutes. That would leave only the three
craft  that would  carry Lon,  his staff,  and the  regimental headquarters  and
service  company.  There had  been  no traffic  tie-up  in the  air.  The port's
controllers were efficient.

"We'd better  get aboard,"  Lon told  Ives. They  were the  only two  who hadn't
boarded; their shuttle was the only one  that had not yet "buttoned up" for  the
ascent. The command  shuttle's crew chief  was standing in  the one open  hatch,
waiting to seal  it as soon  as the last  two officers got  aboard. The two  men
walked toward the  hatch, not obviously  hurrying. "I'm going  to ride up  front
with the pilots,"  Lon said as  they moved up  the ramp and  past the crew chief
into the shuttle.


The armada that had been gathered to take the two regiments to Elysium waited in
a circular formation roughly two  hundred miles above Dirigent, several  hundred
miles south and more  than a thousand miles  east of Dirigent City.  Most of the
ships would have been  visible from the ground  in daylight, but they  were over
deserted ocean and the desert that occupied much of the southeastern district of
the world's primary continent.

There were ten of  the new Raptor-class troop  transports, each more than  seven
miles long and half a mile in diameter at the point of their greatest thickness.
Each could carry a battalion of soldiers along with their equipment and supplies
for more than  four months, in  more comfort than  the older Dragon-class  ships
could manage. Three converted Dragons accompanied the fleet to carry  additional
supplies and  munitions, including  Long Snake,  which had  carried Lon  on many
contracts over the years. The heavy weapons of the two regiments were on  Patton
and Rommel, along  with their mechanics  and crews. Agamemnon  and Odysseus each
carried a squadron of Shrike II aerospace fighters. Sidon, the smallest ship  in
the armada, would be used primarily  as a courier vessel, alternating duty  with
Tyre,  which  would  not  be accompanying  this  task  force,  traveling between
Dirigent and Elysium on a monthly  schedule ... or more frequently, as  dictated
by conditions on Elysium. The two smaller ships would carry messages,  supplies,
and-if  needed-bring  home  casualties  who  needed  extended  regeneration  and
rehabilitation treatment, and take replacements to Elysium.

Lon sat in the cockpit of his shuttle, behind and slightly above the two pilots,
and watched as they moved toward rendezvous with Golden Eagle, the ship he would
be riding. The entire  fleet was visible, even  though night had arrived  on the
surface  of  Dirigent below  it.  Lights were  visible  on the  ships-navigation
markers  and open  shuttle hangars.  Over Dirigent  there was  no need  for  the
darkness of  stealth conditions.  In any  case, the  Raptor-class ships  were so
large that  stealth was  a relative  concept. Within  normal operating distances
from a  planet they  could be  seen from  the ground  during daylight  hours and
occulted a significant arc of space after dark.

"Quite a show, ain't it. Colonel?" Captain Art Felconi, Lon's pilot, said as  he
started to move  the command shuttle  into line for  its rendezvous with  Golden
Eagle. "I know  I've never seen  anything like this  in the ten  years I've been
flying these bugs for the Corps."

"Quite a show indeed. Nobody's seen a  show like this in a long time.  Art," Lon
said.  Felconi  had  been "his"  pilot  since  Lon had  assumed  command  of 2nd
Battalion, and  had moved  along with  him to  regiment. There  were still a few
shuttles  visible  ahead of  them,  rendezvousing with  their  ships. Most  were
already  secure  in  their  hangars, their  passengers  moved  out  to shipboard
quarters. "Been a dozen years since there was anything close to this. It may  be
another dozen years, or more, before it happens again." Long after I hang up  my
pips, Lon thought.

"I'm handing control  over to Golden  Eagle now, sir,"  Felconi said. "I  show a
lock on remote. The launchmaster has the con. All we have to do is sit back  and
let her drag us in."

"Just don't take  a nap," Lon  said, leaning forward  against the straps  of his
safety harness to  tap the pilot  on the shoulder.  "I feel a  lot better with a
good pair of hands at the controls here, just in case."

"You and me both.  Colonel," Felconi said with  a laugh. "I always  stay ready."
The pilot did not take his eyes from the monitors in front of him, and his hands
always remained near the controls, ready to override Golden Eagle's launchmaster
if  he thought  it necessary.  The odds  were against  that happening,  but  Art
Pelconi was an almost obsessively cautious man.

Lon leaned back. Almost unconsciously, he gripped the armrests of his seat  more
firmly, though it was not the death grip he had achieved the first few times  he
had ridden  in a  shuttle cockpit.  This was  a routine  maneuver. Mishaps  were
vanishingly rare,  fewer than  one per  hundred thousand  dockings, and  most of
those produced no  casualties. The shuttle  decelerated, quickly at  first, then
more slowly, finally coming to a stop-relative to Golden Eagle-thirty feet  from
the hangar door. A boom telescoped out  from the top of the hangar and  grappled
the command  shuttle, then  drew the  craft inside,  turning it  so it  would be
facing out. Captain Felconi did not  take his hands from the controls  until the
shuttle had come to rest and its passengers felt gravity from the ship's Nilssen
generators. Felconi  switched off  the shuttle's  engines and  seemed to  slowly
slump back into his seat, finally relaxing.

The  hangar  bay's  huge  clamshell doors  closed  in  silence.  The hangar  was
pressurized, a process that took nearly  three minutes. When it was complete,  a
series of green lights appeared on the hangar wall and on one of the monitors in
front of  Felconi. That  was followed  by an  announcement from the launchmaster
that it was safe to open the hatches of the shuttle.

Only then did Lon  and the crew of  the shuttle unbuckle their  safety harnesses
and stand.  "Another uneventful  hop," Felconi  announced. "Just  the way I like
'em."

By the time that  Lon got back to  the passenger compartment of  the shuttle his
staff was already moving onto the hangar floor, where a man from the ship's crew
was standing  to direct  them. Although  7th Regiment's  headquarters staff  had
never deployed together  on contract since  Golden Eagle had  been commissioned,
they had rehearsed this a half  dozen times to make certain that  everyone would
be able  to find  their way  around the  ship. The  Corps did  not like to leave
anything to chance.

Lon was met at the hangar exit by the launchmaster, a lieutenant commander  from
the ship's complement. "Sir, the captain's compliments," the launchmaster  said,
saluting.  "He asked  me to  extend an  invitation for  you and  your  executive
officer to dine in the wardroom  with him and his department heads  this evening
at nineteen hundred hours."

"Thank you. Commander," Lon said, returning the salute. "Tell Captain Ewell that
we will be delighted to dine with him." There was no surprise to the invitation.
It was a tradition in the Corps.

By 1900 hours the armada was under way, heading out-system toward their first  Q
space jump, five days away.



8

Accommodations aboard  Golden Eagle  were not  as luxurious  as those aboard the
best passenger  liners, but  they were  a marked  step up  from the Dragon-class
ships, and worlds better than the  extremely cramped quarters available on  Port
class ships such as Tyre and Sidon,  each of which could carry a single  company
of  soldiers  or  function  as a  small  freighter.  The  improvement that  most
passengers appreciated most, however, had  nothing to do with living  space. The
Raptors escaped what  had been the  major inconvenience of  interstellar travel.
Older classes  of ships  required passengers  to be  strapped in  during Q-space
transits because  that maneuver  demanded the  full power  of all  three Nilssen
generators-which provided artificial gravity as well as propulsive energy.  That
meant that all activity had to be suspended three times during each interstellar
journey. Raptor-class  ships had  a fourth  Nilssen, allowing  them to  maintain
artificial gravity even during Q-space transits.

A combination of factors  had led to the  inclusion of what had  previously been
decried  as "useless  luxury." The  size and  cost of  the latest  Nilssens  had
declined, making the addition of a  fourth to each new ship more  practical. But
the rationale had little to do with the momentary comfort of soldiers. A  fourth
Nilssen gave a ship an element of redundancy, a "spare" in case one was  damaged
during  a  combat contract,  allowing  the ship  to  perhaps escape  destruction
without being forced to wait in hostile space until repairs could be effected.

Lon arranged to view Golden Eagle's first Q-space transit of the voyage from the
launchmaster's station, one of the few locations that offered the illusion of  a
direct  window on  space. The  dome-shaped protrusion  boasted  floor-to-ceiling
monitors giving a  real-time view outside,  allowing the launchmaster  to handle
incoming and outgoing shuttles as if he could actually see them. The  resolution
was so high that the illusion was nearly perfect. When he first stepped into the
chamber, Lon  felt an  instant of  vertigo, as  if he  had stepped out into open
space.

"Whew! That's  something," Lon  said. There  were only  two other  people in the
room, an  ensign and  a petty  officer. The  only interior  lighting was  muted,
coming from the complink monitors and various status lights on different  pieces
of equipment, all of which were arranged in the center of the room.

"Yes, sir," the ensign agreed. "It gets everyone the first time, and some people
always have that kind of reaction. I've even seen people gasp for breath, as  if
they thought they stepped into a vacuum." The ensign chuckled. "By the way, sir,
we've got about five minutes before Q-space insertion."

Lon glanced at his  watch and nodded. He  had started making his  way toward the
dome as  soon as  the thirty-minute  warning sounded.  That hadn't changed, even
though the reason for it did  not exist about Raptor-class ships. Tell  everyone
what's coming so it doesn't catch anyone by surprise.

"Don't expect  to see  much during  the jump.  Colonel," the  ensign said. "It's
really not much of a show."

"I've seen it on monitors-small monitors-before, Ensign," Lon said. "I just want
to get the, ah, full effect."

"You will get that here, sir," the  ensign said. "Best view on the ship,  better
than what the skipper has on the bridge."

Lon walked around the center island, looking outward, picking out stars he could
identify, and the rockets of some of the other ships in the fleet, hot points of
light. One minute before Q-space  insertion there was another warning  broadcast
throughout Golden  Eagle. The  entire armada  would jump  simultaneously and, if
every ship's calculations were correct, emerge in the same formation at the  far
end of the transit in one of the major shipping lanes, forty light-years away.

Thirty seconds: another  warning. At ten  seconds, a countdown  was broadcast on
the  loudspeakers:  .  . .  Three  ...  two ...  one.  "Q-space  insertion," the
loudspeaker announced.

Under the last numbers of the  count, Lon had felt the ship's  normal vibrations
increase markedly as the Nilssens cycled up to full power. There was no  audible
sound to accompany the vibration. The Nilssens were in separate pods outside the
main hull of the ship, with the connections well insulated. The vacuum of  space
carried no sound. As the voice on the loudspeaker said "Q-space insertion,"  the
view around Lon  changed instantaneously. The  familiar rich star  field visible
from Dirigent's system was replaced by a featureless, uniform light gray.  There
were no visual clues to tell the observer how far away the "horizon" was.

"A void without form," the ensign said, "like it says in the Bible. I know  what
the manuals say,  sir, and I  had to sweat  my way through  the transformational
math in training-the basic, practical levels, not the deep theoretical stuff-but
I can't really  say I understand  it. The Nilssens  generate an ovoid  bubble of
quantum-space, a  pocket universe,  that is  just barely  larger than  the ship.
Theoretically, we are tangent to every  point in the 'real' universe, but  we're
all  alone, out  of touch  with that  universe or  the similar  Q-space  bubbles
holding each of the  other ships in the  convoy. The Nilssens stress  the bubble
just so for just so long and  then reverse polarity, dropping us back in  normal
space however  many light-years  we may  have jumped.  Our bubble  universe will
disappear, cease to exist,  its Big Bang and  Big Crunch happening just  minutes
apart-if time has any real meaning in it-the only evidence that the bubble  ever
existed a series of gentle gravity  ripples that damp themselves out until  they
can't be detected. That's why we wait three days between transits, to make  sure
the, ah, residue from one jump doesn't affect the next."

I know the theory, Lon thought, but he just nodded, not paying much attention to
the ensign's school text recitation. Lon was too busy staring at the blank  gray
surround, illuminated only by the few exterior lights Golden Eagle showed.

The  transit did  not last  long; they  rarely did.  Two minutes  after  Q-space
insertion  there  was an  announcement  that extraction  would  occur in  thirty
seconds. Lon waited. Again  there was a countdown  through the last ten  seconds
and then normal space blinked back  into view, abruptly. The star field  visible
through  the  dome's  monitors  was  considerably  different.  Other  ships were
visible, right where they were supposed to be-as far as Lon could tell.

"Thanks for the briefing. Ensign," Lon said. "An interesting show."

"Glad you're so easy to please. Colonel. Always nice to have company here. Don't
get many repeat customers."


Lon kept busy during the voyage.  He spent hours each day studying  the database
on Elysium,  committing  as  much  of  the  material  to  memory  as  he   could
concentrating on the most likely  area of operation, the region  surrounding the
capital. University City. He sketched out possible plans of attack, based on the
information that  Chancellor Berlino  had brought  to Diligent,  and the updates
contained in the  MR that had  arrived just before  the fleet left.  Lon scanned
large-scale maps,  looking for  whatever advantages  of terrain  might be found.
What would I do in this circumstance,  or this? Try to determine what the  enemy
might have  done in  the four  weeks between  the dispatch  of that  MR and  the
arrival  of the  Dirigenters. The  final plan,  based on  what the   Dirigenters
learned when their ships emerged from the final Q-space transit of the  journey,
would be made  by Bob Hayley,  but he would  seek the advice  of Lon, the senior
staff officers of the  two regiments, and the  battalion commanders, as well  as
the planners in the combat information centers of the fleet ships.

In addition to the routines of administration and his planning efforts, Lon  had
to reserve an hour each day for physical exercise in one of Golden Eagle's  four
gymnasiums. An hour was spent with  the SMO, Dan Norman. Eight hours  for sleep,
guaranteed by the  patches that Major  Norman had prescribed,  another two hours
for eating and other personal necessities.

"You're doing well," Norman told Lon  the day after the second Q-space  transit.
"And the regiment is holding together nicely as well."

"I'm staying too busy to ... brood," Lon said.

"That's part  of the  therapy. By  the way,  unless something  goes terrifically
haywire with your blood chemistry in  the next twenty-four hours, I think  we'll
be able to forget that second session in the trauma tube."

"Best news I've had  since we left home,"  Lon said. "We might  have had trouble
fitting it  in, since  Colonel Hayley  wants a  full staff  meeting on Peregrine
before we make the final transit. Senior regimental staff and all the  battalion
commanders and  executive officers.  That could  take most  of a  day, with  the
commute there  and back."  Peregrine was  the ship  carrying Colonel  Hayley and
would serve as flagship for  operations during the Elysium contract.  Its combat
information center would coordinate all activities of the ships and would handle
communications between the fleet and the force on the ground.


The  three senior  Elysians-Chancellor Berlino,  Minister for  External  Affairs
Beoch, and  Treasurer Chiou-were  also present  for the  planning session aboard
Peregrine, more as observers than as participants; primarily, they were there to
answer questions. The conference was held in a room next to CIC, in the area  of
the ship between crew territory and the passenger section. There weren't  enough
complink stations around the U-shaped table for everyone to have a place.  Staff
officers and seconds-in-command had seats behind their principals.

In the center of the U a three-dimensional projection of Elysium and its  system
spun, mimicking  in scale  the motions  of the  real system.  Elysium's sun  was
slightly hotter than Earth's sun. Elysium was slightly farther away, giving  the
planet conditions very similar to those on Earth, Dirigent, or hundreds of other
worlds that humans had  settled. So many hospitable  worlds had been found  that
colonists rarely had to accept anything that was not "just right."

"Tomorrow morning, we transit Q-space into the Ely-sian system," Colonel  Hayley
said once everyone was seated and the initial small talk had ended. He  gestured
at the holographic  chart. "The plans  we make today  must be seen  as extremely
preliminary and subject to almost certain change once we are in-system and  leam
what developments  there have  been since  the Elysians  sent that  last MR. The
information that  contained will  be twenty-nine  days out  of date  when we hit
Elysian  space,  so  it  is  possible  that  the  situation  may  have   changed
drastically."  The Elysium  contract was  no different  from any  other in  that
regard, and the situation was often much worse. The available information  might
be two months or more old by the time the mercenaries reached their destination.
Most commanders made a point of emphasizing the age of their data.

"As a precaution, the fleet will emerge from Q-space in three separate elements,
widely spaced, too far apart for the enemy to easily intercept all of us even if
they're sitting there just waiting for us to arrive." He cleared his throat  and
made a hand gesture. A chief  petty officer from Peregrine's crew, sitting  at a
console at the rear of the room, inserted red arrows in the holographic map, all
well away from the system's ecliptic, two coming from "above" and the other from
"below." Colonel Hayley detailed which ships  would come in at each point.  "The
commanders of each ship already have their navigational data," Hayley said.  "We
will-subject to change once we see what the New Spartans have waiting for  us-be
able to rendezvous  in attack  orbit seventy-one  hours after  we emerge  from Q
space." That  elicited a  few soft  murmurs around  the table. Standard doctrine
called for ships to emerge seventy-two hours, or more, out from any  significant
planetary mass.

"An hour is the most  we can afford to risk,  even though the commanders of  all
the ships agreed that it leaves a considerable safety margin," Hayley said. "The
problem is  that we  don't know  how considerable.  But being  able to  get into
position even that much sooner might give us a slender advantage, even though we
can expect that the New Spartans  will calculate our course and speed  in fairly
short order once we emerge from  Q-space." He smiled. "We should, at  a minimum,
throw a  hint of  uncertainty into  their planning.  If we're  willing to chance
doing one thing that  the 'book' says we  shouldn't, what else might  we attempt
that they won't be expecting? That is, at least, our hope.

"The basics of our  attack plan are fairly  simple, again, depending on  what we
find."  Hayley  gestured  again,  and  the  CPO  at  the  controls  adjusted the
holographic view again, moving Elysium to the center, enlarging it, and  showing
only the  surface of  the planet  and space  directly around  it. The  amount of
surface  detail  increased,  and  the  district  centered  on  the  capital  was
highlighted in a bright yellow.

"Agamemnon and Odysseus will move to engage the enemy's capital ships with their
own weapons and  the Shrikes they  carry, striving to  keep them fully  occupied
while we  put troops  ashore. If  the enemy's  strength and  disposition on  the
ground have not changed significantly, the initial landing assault will  include
seven  line battalions,  leaving 7th  Regiment's 4th  Battalion aboard  ship  as
reserve. The heavy-weapons battalions of both regiments will also remain  aboard
ship until our people on the ground  establish safe LZs to bring in their  tanks
and guns  and we  can use  Shrikes to  cover the  landing of their equipment. If
initial operations go well, the delay might  be no more than an hour or  two. If
necessary, we can use a landing by 4th  of the 7th as a diversion for the  heavy
weapons." Another gesture,  and the projection  of Elysium stopped  rotating and
the image of the highlighted area trebled in size.

"Once on the ground,  our initial objective will  be to engage the  enemy around
University City and break the siege.  Once we break the cordon the  New Spartans
have thrown around the capital, we can start  working to roll up their line  and
hopefully-convince them that their contract is one they cannot fulfill."

"Do you  plan to  use all  the Shrikes  against the  enemy ships?"  Tefford Ives
asked. "Or will you reserve some to cover the initial landing?"

"That depends on how the New  Spartans use their fighters. If they  withdraw all
of them  to defend  their ships  or to  attack our  vessels, we'll  use all  the
Shrikes in  space. If  they leave  some fighters  low to  oppose the landing and
continue interdicting local air travel, then  we may divert some of our  Shrikes
to keep them occupied." Hayley cleared  his throat again and let his  gaze drift
all the way around the table.

"Just remember, gentlemen, this is still extremely speculative. The New Spartans
have had four weeks to redeploy, reinforce, or even withdraw their forces. Until
we see what assets they have in  place and how they are deployed, we  can't make
firm plans, and even those will be subject to change depending on how they react
to our  arrival. But  this briefing  will allow  you to  tell your  men what our
thinking  is at  present. Make  sure everyone  knows where  we stand."   Keeping
everyone as informed as possible was standard procedure in the Corps. Bob Hayley
went perhaps a little farther than some commanders.

"Right now," he continued, "I just want you to recall one important provision of
our  contract.  If we  arrive  in-system and  find  that the  New  Spartans have
massively reinforced their presence beyond what we can expect to handle readily,
our instructions are to report that  fact to Dirigent immediately and await  our
own reinforcements,  even withdrawing  from the  system, if  necessary, to avoid
useless losses  before those  reinforcements reach  us. We  don't spend  our men
carelessly."



9

Lon spent fifteen minutes with his battalion commanders before they all returned
to their  respective ships.  He asked  how things  were going, repeated Hayley's
admonition to make certain the men were told everything, then wished them  luck.
"The next time  we meet, we  should be on  the ground on  Elysium." Lon and  his
senior staff officers waited until all of the battalion commanders and executive
officers had left before they boarded their shuttle to return to Golden Eagle.

"I don't  know if  it's progress  or not,"  Lon said  after his shuttle had been
launched from  one of  Peregrine's hangars,  "but we've  come a  long way in how
quickly a major operation can be planned and executed. Back on Earth, as late as
the end of the twentieth century  and into the early twenty-first, an  operation
this size  would have  taken weeks-more  likely months-to  plan and  launch, and
there would have been  none of the improvisation  we'll have to do  in less than
three days to actually decide how to use our assets. The planners would have had
virtually constant  surveillance information  available to  them throughout  the
planning period. Half a  century earlier, a major  operation might have taken  a
year or more to plan and mount."

"I seem to  recall that there  were exceptions," Ives  said, "operations on  the
scale of what the Corps gets involved in that were planned and executed in short
order. And operations where one of the major powers of the time couldn't  defeat
an enemy whose  total population was  less than the  size of the  military force
that could have been brought to bear against them."

Lon nodded. Torrey Berger, now a major and regimental operations officer, spoke.
"There was a  lot more to  consider in the  last half of  the twentieth century.
That was the era of massive nuclear weapons establishments. The two major powers
had enough nuclear warheads  to totally waste a  hundred planets, and no  way to
get those warheads anywhere but their own world."

"That's one concern we don't have today, thankfully," Lon said. "It's been  more
than seven hundred years since a  nuclear weapon was used, almost as  long since
the last stocks on Earth were destroyed."

"Assuming,  of course,  that no  one has  started making  them again.  Union  or
Buckingham,  for  example-or  even  Earth,"  Ives  said.  "The  information   is
available. The  technology hasn't  disappeared. Constructing  one would  be much
simpler today than it was then. You'd just have to program molecular  assemblers
and make certain they had the necessary raw materials."

"I can't see anyone  risking that," Lon said.  "The repercussions if the  secret
got out would be too overwhelming."


Twelve hours  remained until  the fleet  would make  its final  Q-space transit,
emerging in Elysium's solar system. Lon had talked with nearly every man in  his
headquarters and service complement. It gave him a chance to judge the morale of
his people firsthand, though surveying the H&S ranks was certainly not the  same
as talking with the frontline troops. One more remove from the heart, he thought
as he  ate supper  with his  staff, one  more stage  of isolation. There was the
expected level of tension, but nothing so great as to give him cause for  alarm.
Some tension was needed; it  wouldn't do to have the  men as relaxed as if  they
were going to a picnic in one of the parks around Dirigent City. The talk  among
his senior officers  at supper was  generally casual. There  was curiosity about
what they would find when the fleet emerged in Elysian space, speculation  about
what the New Spartans might have been doing the past month.

Lon did more listening than talking, observing the faces of his officers. And he
attempted to  take stock  of his  own mental  condition. I'm  doing pretty well,
maybe better  than I've  felt just  before hitting  hostile country  since ..  .
before Junior  was born.  Lon's worries  had not  evaporated, but  they were  no
longer paralyzing him. Junior.  Angie. The unborn baby  not due until after  Lon
was scheduled to get  back home, even if  he spent six months  on Elysium. Sara.
Sometimes I wonder how she's put up with me all these years, Lon thought with  a
smile. Between  the brooding  before a  contract and  the long  absences, it's a
miracle.

After supper, Lon spent a couple  of minutes chatting with Tefford Ives,  mostly
about minor  administrative details,  then retired  to his  stateroom-actually a
two-room suite-leaving instructions that he was not to be disturbed until  three
hours before the scheduled Q-space transit except in case of emergency.

Lon sat on the edge  of his bunk and took  off his boots and socks.  Only one of
Doc Norman's special eight-hour sleep  patches remained, one more certain  night
of undisturbed sleep. Once we ground, sleep takes a backseat again, Lon thought.
He glanced at his watch.  He still had a half  hour before he needed to  put the
patch on his neck and go to bed-to  give him his eight hours of sleep and  allow
him to wake three hours before the fleet made its final Q-space transit.

He  spent five  minutes recording  a letter  to Sara  and Angie,  adding on   to
portions he had recorded  almost every day since  leaving Dirigent. When he  was
away from home, his letters were almost a diary, added to when he had a  chance,
sent when a message rocket was being dispatched. Return mail from Sara and Angie
was similar.  They'll see  that I'm  calm, not  agitated or  overly worried,  he
thought when he switched off the  complink's recorder. Give them less reason  to
worry.

Then Lon finished undressing and did the things he needed to do before going  to
bed. After he turned out the cabin  lights, he lay down and put the  sleep patch
on his neck. In less than two minutes, he was asleep.


There was  no foggy  area of  transition. Lon  went from  the oblivion  of  drug
enhanced sleep to total alertness in a heartbeat. The special patches Dan Norman
had  provided always  brought Lon  out of  sleep quickly  at the  end of   their
allotted time,  but this  time it  was abrupt,  almost disconcerting. He blinked
several times and sucked in a  deep, convulsive breath. Briefly, his heart  rate
increased dramatically, then settled to  a normal resting rhythm. He  turned his
head to look at the timeline on the complink near his bed.

Right on schedule, he thought. This is  the day we find out what we're  going to
face. Any landing was three days away  at a minimum, but that did not  mean that
there could be no  danger for those three  days. How fast will  the New Spartans
react? Lon wondered.  If they responded  promptly to the  arrival of the  fleet,
combat might come in little more than thirty-six hours-combat in space,  between
ships and aerospace fighters, combat  that the soldiers in the  transports could
not affect. If they come after us, Lon  thought as he sat up and swung his  legs
off the berth. There was even a slight chance that combat could come sooner,  if
the. New Spartans  had ships posted  farther out from  Elysium, waiting for  the
arrival of the Dirigen-ters.

It would take one hell  of a stroke of bad  luck for them to be  someplace where
they could get to us quickly, Lon  told himself as he stood and stretched.  That
was one situation he had never experienced in all his years in the  Corps-having
his  ship come  under attack.  The odds  must be  longer than  having two  royal
flushes honestly dealt in the same hand of poker. The enemy would have to be  in
the right place, at the right distance, on alert, ready to strike.

"Not too damned likely," Lon mumbled. He crossed to the complink and checked for
messages,  scrolling through  the only  two entries  in his  communications  log
before going to the bathroom to get ready for the day. After showering, he stood
and looked at himself in  the mirror. There were no  scars to remind him of  the
many wounds he had suffered in the  Corps. The body's HMS was far too  efficient
to leave  visible scar  tissue. But  Lon could  recall each  injury. He  touched
several of the spots, as if trying to evoke some memory of the pain he had felt.
Nothing.

"Like the dreams," he  whispered, focusing on his  eyes in the mirror.  "Nothing
visible."

When he emerged from the bathroom, he looked at the complink again. It was three
in the morning. Ship's time had  been adjusted to match local time  in Elysium's
University  City. The  fleet would  emerge while  it was  still night  over  the
capital, and they  would reach attack  orbit in the  night... in three  days, if
nothing happened to disrupt their schedule. If.

Reveille sounded  for the  troops aboard  Golden Eagle.  "There shouldn't be any
sluggards today," Lon said, almost  managing a chuckle. Everyone knew  the fleet
would be jumping into Elysium's system within hours and that shortly after  that
they should know the size of their opposition. Unless the government of  Elysium
had  fallen,  there  would be  direct  updates  as quickly  as  the  ships could
establish contact. The  ships' own sensing  gear would quickly  seek the enemy's
ships and start trying to determine the situation on the ground-though this gear
would be only minimally helpful until the final day of the approach. Later, once
the planners knew  more, the troops  would be put  on a relaxed  schedule, their
main  instructions  to get  as  much rest  and  eating in  as  possible for  the
landings. Once they were on the ground, sleep and meals might be scarce.

Lon took his time dressing, even taking a moment to buff his boots before  going
to  the galley  to eat  breakfast. Look  smart, project  confidence: Those  were
important for an  officer. Don't give  the rank and  file any reason  to suspect
that their commander might be less than supremely confident about the outcome of
the pending operation. Put on an act if you have to, but sell it. Matt Orlis had
told him many years before. Recalling Matt took the smile from Lon's face.  Matt
had retired from the Corps after his only son had been killed in action. It  was
a reminder Lon would rather have missed.


Lon and Tefford Ives  waited for the final  Q-space transit in the  small office
attached to Lon's cabin, drinking coffee and doing a poor job of trying to  make
small talk. This was a time for  minor jitters, which made it an excellent  time
to be away from the rest of the men aboard the ship.

"I wonder if the New Spartans even suspect that the Elysians might have help  on
the way," Ives said when the waiting got to be too much for him.

"If they notified Union by MR immediately when Ber-lino's ship left, they  could
have word  back that  he didn't  get there,"  Lon said.  "They might  have had a
couple of days' notice.  That wouldn't give them  time to get additional  forces
here, unless they were already on the  way. I think what we face will  depend on
just one thing. Were the New Spartans sent to conquer Elysium, or just to  scare
them into accepting the Confederation?"

"A toss of  the coin," Ives  said, "and I've  been tossing it  mentally since we
first learned of the contract." He glanced at the time. "We should have a pretty
good idea soon."

He had scarcely  finished saying that  when the announcement  was broadcast that
one minute remained until Q-space insertion. Both men looked at the timeline  on
the complink then.

"Don't hold your breath," Lon said, grinning.

"I quit doing that years ago. I think." Ives shook his head. "At least we're not
strapped down in our  bunks for transits anymore.  I always hated that.  Made me
feel like I  was a prisoner  and someone was  going to do  unspeakable things to
me."

The final seconds  of the countdown  dragged past, concluding  with the standard
announcement "Q-space insertion." Lon closed his eyes, feeling the vibration  of
the ship as the Nilssen generators ran at their maximums, stretching the  bubble
universe around Golden Eagle, stressing it according to some arcane mathematical
formula containing more variables than a six-month weather forecast. Lon  opened
his eyes and stared at the elapsed-time indicator on the complink. This would be
the longest transit of  the journey, almost three  minutes. It felt like  a long
three minutes, and the final ten  seconds of the countdown to extraction  seemed
to occupy ten minutes. When the speaker announced "Q-space extraction," Lon  let
his breath out, slightly embarrassed to realize that he had been holding it in.

"I figure it will be an hour, minimum, before we get anything from Elysium," Lon
said, hoping that Ives had not  noticed the breath-holding. "But we should  have
our first view of the New Spartans' ships in minutes." Out of date by the number
of light-minutes away the planet was:

If a ship were ten light-minutes away, the view would be of where that ship  had
been ten minutes earlier,  not where it was  now. Every ship would  be scanning,
and the information would be collated  in CIC aboard Peregrine, then relayed  to
each ship in the Dirigenter flotilla.

"What will it be, about twelve  minutes before the New Spartans get  their first
view of us?" Ives asked.

Lon shrugged. "Something like that. If they're looking in the right direction."

"They will be," Ives replied. "We  would. Scanning the entire system even  if we
had no reason  to suspect that  trouble might be  coming. They're professionals,
too." He paused. "I have to keep  reminding myself of that. This time we're  not
going up against amateurs."

I know, Lon thought but did not say. He just nodded.

The complink started to show an image  of Elysium, still little more than a  dot
moving against the star field until the computers magnified and enhanced the raw
feed. The system needed another five minutes before it could highlight the  even
smaller points that indicated ships in orbit around the world-seven blips, seven
ships.

"Enough to account for  a single regiment," Lon  said. "They haven't brought  in
reinforcements."

"Yet," Tefford Ives said, but that was not enough to stem the relief Lon felt.


The news that started to arrive from  Elysium was not nearly as bad as  it might
have  been. There  had been  no large-scale  fighting in  the past  month,  just
skirmishes between small  units of the  defense force and  the invaders. In  the
farming districts  surrounding University  City, the  invaders had  dispossessed
people, sent them in toward the capital with no more than they could carry,  but
the  New Spartans  had been  careful not  to harm  anyone who  did not  actively
resist. Buildings and farm equipment  had been destroyed methodically. Crops  in
the  fields  had been  burned  if they  could  not be  easily  harvested by  the
invaders. Livestock had been commandeered to feed the New Spartans.

There was no orbital video of the deployment of the New Spartans on the  ground.
They had  destroyed every  Elysian satellite  on the  first day  following their
arrival, and  had thwarted  the few  attempts the  Elysians had  made to replace
those losses. That also meant that there was virtually no communications between
population centers. Travel between  cities was impossible. New  Spartan aircraft
kept local  shuttles out  of the  air, and  there were  occasional raids against
ground vehicles attempting to move from one city or town to another.

Within four hours following the  arrival in-system of the Dirigenter  fleet, the
New Spartans had  recalled all of  their aerospace fighters,  bringing them back
aboard their carriers.  Shortly after that,  the two fighting  ships of the  New
Spartan task  force started  moving to  a higher  orbit, a  thousand miles above
their transports.  But they  did not  attempt to  intercept the Dirigenter fleet
away from Elysium.

The three separate elements of the Dirigenter force continued toward Elysium and
rendezvous. Agamemnon and Odysseus slowly  pulled ahead of the other  ships. The
plan was still  for them to  engage the New  Spartan battlecruis-ers, the  ships
that carried their fighters and heavy armaments.

"The idea is to tie up their firepower, especially their fighters, so they can't
oppose our landing," Lon said on a linkup that included all of his battalion and
company commanders. "If that  works, it will make  our landing much easier.  All
we'll have to worry about is the enemy on the ground."

"Colonel, do  you know  yet if  we're going  to have  any Shrikes  to cover  our
landing?" Captain  Hariey Stossberg,  now commanding  A Company,  2nd  Battalion
Lon's old company-asked.

"No, and we probably won't  know until we're in the  boats ready to go in,"  Lon
said. "That depends on what the New Spartans do. If they hold all their fighters
to defend  their ships  or to  attack Agamemnon  and Odysseus,  then we'll  most
likely have to use all  our Shrikes in space. We're  going to try to ground  far
enough  from  any  New Spartans  to  stay  out of  reach  of  any surface-to-air
missiles.  We  haven't  decided  on  the  details  of  deployment  yet,  but the
preliminary  plan calls  for 15th  Regiment to  land outside  the cordon  around
University City and for  our first three battalions  to land inside. We  move at
the New Spartans from both sides then, put them in a pincer, break the line, and
do our best to roll them up in a hurry. Our initial operations will probably all
be on the north bank of the  Styx River, where the majority of the  enemy troops
are."

"There isn't a lot  of current data on  the New Spartan mercenaries  in our data
banks, not  specific data,"  Parker Watson  of 4th  Battalion said.  "Do we have
anything at all on how they're armed?"

"We don't have much," Lon conceded. "They're as tight about security as we  are.
I couldn't  find any  reliable information  on the  armament and capabilities of
their aer-ospace fighters. As  for the men on  the ground, we assume  they'll be
equipped about as  we are, with  one possible exception.  One of the  reports we
have from the  people on Elysium  says that some  of the New  Spartans are armed
with needle rifles, capable of firing huge quantities of tiny slivers of  metal,
possibly depleted uranium,  at extremely high  muzzle velocities. We  don't have
reliable confirmation, but it is possible. Our R&D people are working on similar
weapons, though it will be a year or more before they're ready for issue, if the
Council of Regiments decides to go into full production."


More  raw  data  flowed  into  CIC.  Thousands  of  scenarios  were  created and
critiqued, tweaked, and  run through every  conceivable variation. As  the fleet
continued  to  move  toward  Elysium,  obsolete  scenarios  were  discarded, the
remainder graded, the  rankings changed with  each new influx  of data. Lon  and
Colonel Hayley spent  hours linked together  with the staff  of Peregrine's CIC.
Thirty-six hours after the final Q-space transit, they had narrowed the possible
assault scenarios to a manageable dozen, depending on what the New Spartans  did
in the last hours before the DMC soldiers entered their attack shuttles.  Beyond
the  moment of  landing, battle  plans had  to remain  generalized, limited   to
primary objectives and very elastic timetables. The number of variables  quickly
became too extreme for precision.

Aboard the  troop transports,  men recorded  letters home.  Those were merged on
large message chips, ready to be dispatched via MR before the attack began.  For
some, it might be the last word their families ever would have from them.



10

The  day before  the landings,  Lon spoke  to his  men. Company  by company,  he
addressed the officers and sergeants through ship-to-ship links, and he recorded
messages to the rank and  file, individualized for each battalion.  The sessions
with officers  and sergeants  were two-way,  allowing them  to ask questions and
receive answers. It also  gave Lon a few  seconds to speak with  his son, though
they could do little more than  wish each other good luck. The  conversation was
not private. Aboard Golden Eagle, Lon spoke to officers and men face-to-face  in
small groups. Those sessions ran longer than the comp-link hookups.  Altogether,
Lon spent more  than six hours  giving his pep  talks and laying  out the latest
version of the plan of attack.

"This may be  the hardest day's  work I've ever  put in," Lon  told Phip Steesen
after the last session. "I'd hate to be a politician and have to talk this  much
every  day.  Par-ker Watson  is  still upset  at  having his  battalion  held in
reserve. Wouldn't matter who drew that, the commander would still bitch."

Phip laughed.  "Goes with  the territory,  I'd say."  The two  men were alone in
Lon's office.

"This contract is going to be different from any we've been on," Lon said  after
a short silence.

Phip snorted. "Sure is.  I bet the brass  in the Contracts Division  are already
licking their chops. If we best the New Spartans head-to-head, it gives us a big
boost in marketing. Proof we're the best. More contracts, higher

rates."

For a moment, Lon stared at his lead sergeant and best friend, almost stunned by
the comment. Then  he burst out  laughing. "I knew  you were cynical,"  he said,
"but I never realized just how cynical."

"Cynical, hell, just looking  at it honestly. Tell  the truth, Lon, didn't  that
get mentioned when you were talking about the contract?"

Lon hesitated  before he  said, "Not  in so  many words,  but, yes,  I guess the
implication was there ... and the concern that if we were to lose it might  cost
us  future business,  send some  potential customers  to New  Sparta. But  every
contract has that element of risk. Anytime we fail to fulfill a contract we risk
losing business to competitors. Anytime we succeed, it gives us a better  record
to show customers."

"This is orders of magnitude beyond that, Lon. Diri-gent and New Sparta are  the
two major  mercenary worlds,  and we're  going head-to-head,  in strength.  What
happens here could  affect the economies  of both worlds  for decades. We  can't
afford to let them win;  they can't afford to let  us win. Can you imagine  what
conditions would  be like  at home  if the  Corps had  to lay  off three or four
regiments because there wasn't enough work?  What that would do to the  economy?
Take jobs from fifteen  or twenty thousand soldiers  and it would mean  a lot of
lost civilian jobs as well, in Camo Town, in factories, everywhere. More  people
would be forced to live on  basic maintenance in neighborhoods like the  Drafts.
More crime. On and on."

"I guess I never thought it  that far through," Lon said after  considering what
Phip had said. "I've just thought about it in terms of a hard job that has to be
done... mostly because it is our job,  and if we're not the best, then  too many
men don't make it home."

"I might not have thought of it either," Phip admitted. "Jenny pointed it out to
me, at some length, the night before  we left." Jenny was his wife. She  and her
brother Kaiko had  grown up in  the Drafts, the  closest Dirigent City  had to a
slum district. "A discussion of the economic necessity of victory wasn't exactly
what I was expecting the night before I shipped out on contract."

"'Come home with your shield or on it'?" Lon quoted softly.

"What's that?"

Lon shook his head. "Ancient history. What the women of the original Sparta,  on
Earth, supposedly told  their men before  they went into  battle. War was  their
business, too, in a way."

"Sparta, a city-state in classical Greece, noted for its military prowess," Phip
recited, showing that he  had learned something along  the way. "I looked  it up
once, wondering where the 'New' in New Sparta came from."

"You get to where three hundred Spartans held off an army of a hundred  thousand
until they were outflanked and slaughtered?"

"Thermo-something?"

Lon laughed. "Thermopylae."

"All in all, I've never been fond of last stands," Phip said. "No curtain calls,
no rematches."


A short while later, Lon was getting ready to head to the galley for supper when
he received a call from Colonel Hayley on Peregrine. "Are you alone there?"  was
the first thing Hayley said when he saw Lon's face on his comp-link screen.

"I'm alone. Bob. Something wrong?" Lon asked. He sat at his desk to get his face
on the same level as Hay-ley's.

"Not wrong,  just something  I can't  remember if  I mentioned  to you  before."
Hayley hesitated.  Lon thought  that he  looked troubled.  "From right now until
this contract is concluded, one  way or the other, you  and I stay as far  apart
physically as we can. No face-to-face meetings, nothing that might let the enemy
get lucky and take us both out at once. I know we've both got capable execs  who
can take over, but.  .. just the same.  Keeping the top commanders  separated is
sound practice."

"Sure, Bob. I've got no argument with that," Lon said, thinking. No, you  didn't
mention it before, and why do you think it has to be brought up now? Keeping top
commanders, or a commander and his second-in-command apart whenever possible  on
a  combat contract  was a  standard precaution,  something that  shouldn't  have
needed this sort of special mention.

"We stay in contact by complink or radio. My staff and CIC will route everything
to your staff. That way,  if something happens to me,  you can take over at  the
double, not waste time getting up to speed." Hayley glanced away, then back.

"No  need  to  borrow  trouble.   Bob,"  Lon  said.  "Sure,  we're   up  against
professionals, but we've got the numbers on them-two to one or (hereabouts,  not
counting the Elysian Defense Force, and if the Elysians have been able to  stand
up against New Spartans for a month, they've got something on the ball. even  if
the Spartans weren't given orders to conquer Elysium outright."

"Just covering all the possibilities,  Lon," Hayley said, attempting to  pass it
off lightly. But his face didn't  agree with the words. "If our  intelligence is
right, a New Spartan regiment is  about twenty percent larger than one  of ours,
but you're probably right. No reason not to think that the landings and  initial
deployment will go  smoothly. I just  don't want to  forget anything that  might
prove important later."    �

"Yeah, I know how  it goes. We worry  about it every contract,"  Lon said, going
along with Hayley's rationalization. "Worry  so much we don't get  enough sleep.
My SMO nags me about it all the time." / do understand, Lon thought. It could be
me. It has been me, many times.  He blinked. Have I ever looked that  nervous to
the people around me? He was afraid that the answer was yes, many times.

"So does mine. One  other thing. You get  any brilliant ideas, don't  wait to be
asked. Hit me with them right away."

"The only brilliant idea I've had lately  is for us to keep our heads  and butts
down so they don't get shot off," Lon said.

Bob Hayley managed a weak laugh. It was a good note to end the talk on.


Supper the last night aboard ship was shared with Lon's staff officers. Although
Lon kept trying to direct the conversation elsewhere, the talk kept coming  back
to the contract, and  the combat landings scheduled  to take place before  dawn.
There were traces of jitters, but no more than usual, Lon thought, and  everyone
was  trying to  cover their  nervousness-with more  or less  success. That   was
normal, something Lon saw every time he was leading men into a combat contract.

Men ate past what they were comfortable with, until they couldn't force  another
bite. That, too, was standard. Eat when  you can; you never know where the  next
meal  is coming  from once  you 're  in combat.  Each time,  each contract,  Lon
recalled the way everyone had seemed preoccupied with making him stuff  himself,
as if he might have been in  danger of starvation, even in garrison. Even  those
who finished eating early  did not leave the  table. They waited. Lon  knew what
was expected.

"As long as everyone keeps on their toes and does their job, we should make  out
all right on  Elysium," he said  when it was  clear that the  few who were still
eating were just waiting  for him to speak.  "We've got the manpower  advantage,
even if the New Spartans are as good  as we are, man for man, and we  don't know
that they are." That elicited a few nervous laughs.

"They've been on the ground more than a month, doing pretty much what they want,
terrorizing civilians and swatting at the Elysian Defense Force. Until we popped
out of Q-space  they probably had  no idea they  might have to  face the hardest
opposition they've ever seen. Now they've had two and a half days to worry about
that, to wonder just what they've  gotten themselves into." Two and a  half days
to plan what they 're  going to hit us with  when we get in reach,  Lon thought.
"Their commander is  probably looking hard  at his contract,  trying to find  an
honorable loophole to let him get his people out relatively intact."

"They want to run for home, we let them?" Torrey Ber-ger asked, drawing a bigger
laugh than Lon had received.

"In a  second," Lon  said. "But  don't count  on that.  They might not have been
cautious enough getting escape clauses in their contract."

"Man's gotta have a few dreams. Colonel," Berger said.

"You give up dreaming about women, Torrey?" someone asked from farther down  the
table.

"Even asleep they slap his face," someone else contributed. "He can't stand  the
rejection anymore."

Lon smiled  and nodded.  He couldn't  answer for  the line  battalions, but  his
headquarters people were as ready as they were ever going to get.


Lon sat  on the  edge of  his bed.  The only  light in  the cabin  came from his
complink screen, and that was blank, a dark blue, except for the red numerals of
the timeline. Eight hours remained until the scheduled call to board the  attack
shuttles. Reveille would be in five  hours, to give everyone time for  one final
meal  aboard ship.  Lon knew  he should  already be  asleep-long since.  He  had
undressed two hours ago. He had a four-hour sleep patch handy. He suspected that
he would be forced to use it if he were to get any sleep. Soon ... but not quite
yet.

They-the New Spartans-could have run as soon as they could make out how many  of
us there are, he thought. They  could have been on their way  out-system quickly
enough that we couldn 't have caught them. They chose to stay, even though  they
must realize that they're outnumbered. Why? That question, rather than  personal
worries or obsessions, was  the one that had  kept him awake. This  time. He had
made his preparations for sleep in plenty  of time to allow him eight hours.  He
had laid out his gear for  the morning, recorded additions to his  latest letter
to Sara and Angie. He had gone back through the main points of the assault  plan
a couple  of times.  It was  that process  that had  brought the question to the
fore, forcefully.  It had  come up,  in passing,  a couple  of times  during the
planning conferences. Staff members had  proffered a dozen possible reasons  for
the  New Spartans  to remain  in place,  ready to  face a  superior force.   The
simplest  and least  satisfactory was,  "They're too  damned cocky.  They  think
they're twice as  good as we  are." The more  likely, and more  disturbing, were
variations  on two  related themes.  "They know  they have  heavy  reinforcement
coming in, soon, and  figure they can hold  out long enough." "They  have a hole
card, some weapon or system we're not allowing for, something they figure either
evens the odds or tilts them in their favor."

They must hope to be  able to knock out a  lot of our shuttles before  we get on
the ground,  Lon thought.  He did  not rule  out other  possibilities, but  that
seemed to be the most likely. Knock off as many of us as possible before we  can
get out of  the box. That  was the way  Lon and his  men thought about  a combat
landing in a shuttle.  While they were in  the box, the shuttle,  they could not
defend themselves. A rocket or heavy  cannon fire could knock out a  shuttle ...
and everyone inside.

We plan to land far enough from  their men on the ground to eliminate-as  far as
we can-the danger  from shoulder-fired SAMs,  Lon reminded himself.  The plan of
attack called for  the shuttles to  follow routes that  kept them away  from the
lines New Sparta had established around the Elysian capital, coming in well away
from the ships  in orbit, getting  low and following  the terrain in,  grounding
miles from known enemy positions.  That would also, theoretically, minimize  the
danger from enemy aerospace fighters, if they were sent after the landing  craft
instead of being held to defend the New Spartan ships.

What else  is there?  What are  we missing?  Lon asked  himself. // anything. He
blinked as the timeline on his complink ticked over from one minute to the next.
We know how many ships they have,  how many men they could possibly have  on the
ground, how many fighters  their weapons platforms can  carry. All of the  enemy
ships would have some armament-missiles  and heavy-duty energy weapons,  beamers
but those were more defensive than offensive, especially on the transports.

"At least the way  we use them," Lon  whispered. The New Spartans  had not moved
their transports out of harm's way.  They were still in orbit over  Elysium, not
quite  directly above  University City.  "That may  be it."  Lon turned  to  the
complink and typed in  a short message to  CIC aboard Peregrine, with  a copy to
Bob Hay ley.

"Suggest watching  enemy transports  closely in  case they  use their energy and
projectile weapons to target our shuttles."

"It might be a long shot," Lon whispered as the message was acknowledged by CIC,
"but it might be the answer, at least part of it." This landing could be hairier
than any of us wants, he thought as he blanked the complink screen again. We may
have to use Shrikes to cover the  shuttles regardless of how the enemy uses  his
fighters.

Lon lay down, finally, but he stared at the overhead for several minutes, hardly
blinking, trying to think of any additional steps they might be able to take  to
protect the troops  on their way  in. Eventually he  shook his head.  It was too
late, and reveille would come too early. He applied the sleep patch to his  neck
and barely had time for a prayer before he fell asleep.

Please don't let me fail my men.

Reveille sounded before the  nightmares had time to  build after the patch  wore
off. Lon had just started to sweat in his sleep.



11

There was no  indication of chaos  in the morning-  actually, the middle  of the
night-as  ten thousand  men woke  and prepared  for the  landing. Breakfast  was
served. The men who were to take part in the initial landing ate as heartily  as
they could,  then returned  to the  troop bays  aboard their  transports to give
helmets  and  field  gear  one  final  check  before  putting  them  on.  Helmet
electronics were put through  diagnostic routines; radio channels  were checked.
By squad, platoon,  and company, the  men went to  armories to draw  weapons and
ammunition. Squad leaders inspected their men. Platoon sergeants inspected squad
leaders. Company lead sergeants  inspected platoon sergeants and  officers. Lead
sergeants were checked by their commanders.  No one would board a shuttle  until
he had  thoroughly inspected  his own  gear and  weapons, and  had his  judgment
confirmed by someone else.

On nine ships, men were ordered to their shuttles. Roll was taken at the  hangar
door and again once  everyone was in their  shuttles. The men found  their seats
and fastened their  safety harnesses, each  man's rifle clipped  securely to the
front of the seat between his legs.

Lon  found the  routine comforting.  The normal  demands of  launching a  combat
assault kept him too busy for mental roving. He thought about his family only in
passing, instants marked by a quick stab of longing. There was no time for more.
Of his men  on Golden Eagle,  only a few  would not be  going down in  the first
wave.  Tefford  Ives and  one  platoon from  headquarters  company would  remain
behind, with half  a dozen technicians  who would not  be needed at  once, to be
deployed  with  the Heavy-Weapons  Battalion  or 4th  Battalion,  whichever came
first.

He also kept a radio channel open to  CIC once he had his battle helmet on.  The
battlecruisers Agamemnon and Odysseus had each launched half of their Shrike  II
fighters to engage the enemy's capital ships and aerospace fighters, holding the
rest until the enemy's  reaction could be gauged.  They also had started  direct
fire on the enemy ships with  missiles and heavy beamers. The New  Spartans were
returning fire.  They launched  two dozen  fighters to  intercept the Shrike Us.
Both sides had their antimissile defenses ready.

Lon was the last man to board his command shuttle, the last man in 7th  Regiment
of those going down in the first  wave-to board a shuttle. He did not  choose to
ride in the cockpit this time.  That was not exclusively because he  didn't want
to have the most vertiginous view possible as the shuttle accelerated toward the
surface of Elysium, then skimmed the ground reaching for its landing zone.  When
the shuttle landed, Lon and his men  would need to exit the craft as  quickly as
possible-get out of "the box" before it came under enemy fire. And a speedy exit
was far more difficult from the cockpit.

Two shuttles were required for each full line company. That meant eight  landers
for a  battalion, plus  a command  shuttle. There  were seven  battalions in the
first wave- sixty-three shuttles-plus four  shuttles from Golden Eagle and  four
from  Peregrine. The  shuttles from  each ship  were launched  and  rendezvoused
several  miles from  the ship.  The various  groups moved  toward their  landing
vectors,  courses  spread  to  make it  extremely  difficult  for  the enemy  to
intercept  all  of them,  or  to target  them  effectively at  long  range. Each
battalion's shuttles started their  descent to time the  landing so that all  of
the troops would hit the ground at the same time.

The landing zones had been chosen and assigned. Each pilot knew exactly where he
was supposed to touch down. Especially near  the end of the flight, many of  the
shuttles would  be in  close proximity,  landing only  a few  dozen yards apart,
close enough to let the troops emerge and set up an initial defensive  perimeter
the  way they  practiced every  month in  training on  Dirigent. Throughout  the
flight, each battalion's shuttles would  remain as close together as  practical,
allowing them to mass  their fire-power-rockets and multibarrel  cannons-if they
were attacked by aerospace fighters.

Please don't let me fail  my men. Lon repeated his  prayer as he felt the  first
acceleration of his command shuttle as it dove toward the atmosphere of Elysium.
Shuttles had no  artificial gravity, but  the acceleration pushed  Lon back into
his seat with more than the equivalent of one g, and the push grew stronger. The
shuttle appeared to be diving directly  toward the center of the planet,  intent
on self-destruction.  Monitors spaced  around the  passenger compartment ensured
that everyone could see where they were going. Many of the men around Lon closed
their eyes, or did  everything they could to  avoid seeing the images.  This was
the point where those  who were subject to  motion sickness were most  likely to
vomit.

"We're being tracked by hostile radar," the shuttle pilot told Lon. "Looks as if
they're trying to target all the boats, from their transports as well as the big
ships."

"What about their fighters?" Lon asked on the same channel.

"They don't  seem to  be moving  to pursuit  vectors," Felconi  reported. "Still
worried about our  Shrikes, I guess,  defending their ships.  But the roundabout
way we're going in, they'll  be able to come after  us even if they don't  start
for another nine minutes.  It'll be almost as  long before we can  be sure we're
out of reach of rockets launched from their transports."

"Keep your eyes  open for anything.  Art. I've got  a hunch they  have something
extra to hit us with, and I don't know what."

Most of the shuttles were still more than forty miles high when the New Spartans
started to hit. A few enemy fighters had been diverted to the chase, but most of
the  counterstrike came  from the  transports-rockets and  guns. Shuttle  pilots
maneuvered  and  used  electronic counter-measures  against  the  missiles. Crew
chiefs  rotated  the  high-speed  cannons as  a  last  line  of defense  against
missiles.

Lon had started to sweat almost as soon as he heard that the enemy had  targeted
the landing force. He listened to the conversations among the shuttle pilots and
the Di-rigenter ships, heard  the first reports of  hits. At times the  talk was
hard to follow because there were so many men talking at once, but it was  clear
that the Dirigenters were taking casualties ... losing men by the hundreds. Each
attack shuttle carried about one hundred men, soldiers and crew.

The surviving  shuttles hit  atmosphere at  more than  three times  the speed of
sound, braking at the last possible minute-reversing thrust, at full throttle-as
the pilots adjusted their angle of approach. By that time, Lon was certain  that
at least three shuttles had been lost, the chance of anyone aboard those landers
surviving infinitesimal. The  stress on the  men aboard the  shuttle was greater
than it  was on  the craft.  Lon and  the rest  were thrown against their safety
harnesses. Lon felt blood rushing to  his face, as if looking for  any available
exit.  If  there  were  no  explosion  aboard,  a  Dirigenter  shuttle  might be
salvageable  after  plunging headfirst  into  ground at  a  thousand miles.  per
hour... after the remains of its unlucky passengers were hosed out.

When the shuttles leveled out, three hundred feet above ground level, they  were
traveling a thousand miles per hour, braking more gradually now, relying more on
air brakes deployed from the fuselages than on reverse thrust from the  engines,
reducing the pressures on passengers and crew. Breathing became simpler. The few
men who had  suffered nosebleeds were  able to tend  to them. Up  and down had a
more normal feel.

"Lock and load," Lon  ordered. He slipped a  full magazine into his  rifle, then
ran the bolt to insert the first cartridge into the firing chamber. He took  the
rifle from its clips on the front of his seat and moved the safety to the  "off"
position, the selector switch to "automatic."

Art Felconi warned  his passengers that  thirty seconds remained  until landing.
They  passed  quickly.  The shuttle's  engines  reached  maximum again,  reverse
thrust, as it braked and slid into the final glide toward the LZ.

The shuttles of 7th  Regiment had the safer  landing zones, outside the  ring of
New  Spartan mercenaries  around Elysium's  capital-a change  in assignment  Bob
Hayley had ordered, to  put his full regiment  between the New Spartans  and the
Elysian capital. Only one  of 7th's shuttles had  been hit coming in.  Fifteenth
Regiment had lost  two shuttles, and  it lost three  more as they  crossed enemy
lines to land inside  the ring. The rockets  the New Spartans launched  were not
the shoulder-fired  variety, but  longer and  heavier, fired  from at  least six
different locations on the ground-mobile rocket artillery.

Lon did not have time to realize that those rocket launchers were one item  that
the planning had not allowed for. By the time he heard a pilot comment on  them,
Lon's shuttle was  skidding to a  stop in an  open field, in  the middle of  the
shuttles of his 2nd Battalion. As soon  as it came to rest, Lon shouted  "Up and
out!" on the radio channel that connected  him to all his people in the  command
shuttle. At the same  time, he slapped the  quick release on his  safety harness
and lurched to his feet. By that time the two exits were swinging open. It  took
less than thirty seconds to get everyone out of the shuttle.

In less than another minute, all but  two of the shuttles were back in  the air,
burning for orbit. Lon had intended  to keep his command shuttle on  the ground,
but the crew remained aboard, ready to use its weapons or try to escape if enemy
fighters  targeted  it.  One  shuttle from  1st  Battalion's  Delta  Company had
experienced trouble landing, being nipped on its side when it skidded and hit  a
rock. No one aboard was seriously injured, but they were slow getting out of the
box. By  that time,  2nd Battalion  and regimental  headquarters had  moved into
their initial defensive  posture, ready for  any enemy attack  on the ground  or
from the air. Lon was receiving reports from his three battalion commanders. All
had hit  their designated  LZs north  of University  City. The  lost shuttle had
carried half of 3rd Battalion's  Bravo Company, including the company  commander
and one of its two lieutenants.

Reports from  CIC indicated  that the  enemy fighters  that had  come after  the
Dirigenter shuttles had broken off the pursuit. Instead of going after the empty
landers heading back toward their ships, the New Spartan fighters were racing to
protect their own  ships. One of  the New Spartan  transports had been  severely
damaged by rockets fired from Shrike II fighters. The attacking pilots  reported
that one of the transport's Nilssen generator pods had been blown off the  ship,
meaning that it would be unable to jump to Q-space.

Three  minutes after  he had  left his  shuttle, Lon  contacted Colonel  Hayley.
"We're on the  ground, in position  exactly where we're  supposed to be.  Bob. I
lost one shuttle and the men it  was carrying, one other shuttle damaged on  the
ground, no one  lost from it.  We've set up  our initial perimeter  and are not,
repeat not, under attack. My 3rd Battalion reports that they can hear gunfire at
a distance, closer to University City, but they're not part of it."

"I  expect they're  hearing the  Elysian Defense  Force. The  EDF was  to  mount
diversionary attacks  to cover  our landing,"  Hayley replied.  "You were lucky,
losing only one shuttle. Five of mine didn't make it in. That's more than half a
battalion. Between us we've lost three companies before the fight even  started.
I've  lost  two company  commanders  and Tony  Falworth."  Falworth, the  newest
lieutenant colonel in 15th Regiment, had commanded its 2nd Battalion. "But we're
on the ground, also in position. and not under attack. I'm going to need fifteen
or twenty minutes to get the holes in our deployment covered, then we'll proceed
as  planned, start  moving against  them while  we bring  in the   heavy-weapons
people." Hayley hesitated. "And  your 4th Battalion to  make up for some  of the
losses."

The  plan was  for the  two regiments  to move  in concert,  toward each  other,
attempting to  pincer the  New Spartans,  fragment their  line, cutting  as many
holes as possible through the center.  Seven battalions were to move toward  the
line of New Spartans, meshing like the teeth of a zipper.

"If this goes as planned," Lon  told Phip Steesen, "the New Spartans  won't have
many options, and  none of them  good. If they  try to withdraw  one way or  the
other, we've still got them  cut in two and can  take our time rolling up  their
lines. If they bring  men in from the  sections we're not attacking,  they still
don't have the  people to even  the odds, and  they leave themselves  open to an
easy flanking movement."

"I don't think they're going to fall in with our script," Phip replied. "They've
made it clear they're not going to just roll over for us. That rocket artillery,
they might start aiming it at us anytime if it's dual-purpose stuff, and I'd bet
a month's pay it is."

"They can't keep  it hidden while  it's firing," Lon  said. CIC had  located the
batteries that had fired at the incoming shuttles, but those batteries had  gone
silent,  cutting  all  electronic  emissions,  as  soon  as  they  had launched.
Undoubtedly  they had  started moving  as well.  Fire and  move, or  fire  while
moving, then cut emissions  to make tracking more  difficult-standard maneuvers.
"And once we get our heavy weapons on the ground, we'll negate their advantage."

"If we get our guns and rockets in soon enough," Phip said.

They  didn't. Two  minutes later,  CIC broadcast  a warning  that enemy   rocket
launchers were  active. Lon  warned his  people to  stay down,  but none  of the
rocket fire came toward 7th Regiment. A heavy bombardment was directed  entirely
at 15th, located between the New Spartans and University City.

"At least six launchers involved,"  Lon told his battalion commanders,  relaying
word from CIC on Peregrine. "Looks like four-rack self-propelled carriages,  and
they're popping missiles out  as fast as they  can. So far 15th  is catching all
the hell, but don't let anyone get careless. The enemy might switch targets  any
minute. Be ready for anything. We might have to go looking for them."

Heavy artillery fire, either rockets or shells, was something that Lon had never
been on the wrong end of. The closest  he had come was mortar fire, so long  ago
that he  had nearly  forgotten that  the incident  had ever  happened. Was it on
Calypso or Aldrin? he asked himself.  It was inconsequential at the moment,  but
he could not avoid thinking about  it. Aldrin, 1 think. In between  two colonies
fighting to dominate the world.

Men were scraping  out shallow trenches  and piling the  dirt around the  edges.
They worked quickly, knowing that every  inch down they could go improved  their
chances  of survival  if their  turn did  come at  the receiving  end of   enemy
artillery fire.

Lon kept glancing at  the timeline on his  helmet's head-up display, waiting  to
hear  that the  order had  been given  to launch  the shuttles  carrying the  HW
battalions and 4th Battalion of 7th  Regiment. / thought Bob was going  to order
them in right away, he thought,  but he waited, not wanting to  interrupt Hayley
while his people  were under bombardment.  He won't forget.  But as the  minutes
ticked past, Lon grew more concerned. The faster we get our guns on the  ground,
the faster we can go after those rocket launchers.

"Colonel Nolan?" The voice was a  shout in Lon's ears, someone almost  screaming
into his radio transmitter. "Colonel Nolan, are you there?"

"I'm here. Who is this?"

"Pal Jensen, XO of 15th. Our regimental headquarters took a direct hit from  one
of  those rockets,  maybe two.  We're still  trying to  get to  the  casualties.
Colonel Hayley is  down. I'm not  getting any signal  from his helmet,  not even
vital signs. I  don't know if  he's dead or  alive, but it  looks like you're in
command now, at  least until .  . . whenever."  Jensen's report came  out in one
long burst, ending when he had to gasp for air.

"Okay, Pal.  Take it  easy," Lon  said. "I'll  link to  CIC and get things going
again. You take care  of 15th. Let your  battalion commanders know what's  going
on. Find out what shape Bob Hayley and his people are in and get back to me when
you know something  definite. I'll keep  you in the  loop, fast as  I get things
sorted out."

Lon heard  the sound  of someone  gulping air  before Lieutenant  Colonel Jensen
replied. "Yes,  sir. I've  got my  sergeant talking  to the battalion commanders
now. The regimental lead  sergeant is down, too,  with Bob Hayley. I  don't know
how  many others.  I think  two rockets  must have  hit pretty  close  together.
Knocked out a lot of helmet electronics.  That's why I can't be sure who's  dead
and who's alive. We've been hit hard. Colonel."

"Listen, Fal, I'm going  to postpone the start  of our offensive, give  you more
time to get set, but we can't wait too long. Twenty minutes from now, we move as
planned. Give the enemy  something to think about  besides plinking us where  we
sit."

"Yes, sir,  twenty minutes,"  Jensen said.  Lon squeezed  his eyes  shut. Jensen
still did not sound as if he were totally in control of himself. That could be a
major problem.



12

A deep breath, let  out slowly. Lon opened  his eyes and looked  around, a quick
scan. I wasn't ready for this could not be an excuse, only a confession. He  had
to deal with the  situation he had inherited,  whether he was ready  or not. Lon
passed along the new timetable to his battalion commanders, then linked  through
to CIC aboard Pere-grine. Four Shrike  II fighters had already been vectored  in
to try to  knock out the  enemy's rocket artillery.  Lon gave the  order for the
rest of  the troops-and  the weapons  of the  two heavy-weapons battalions-to be
launched as quickly as escorts could be assembled. The tanks and  self-propelled
artillery were already loaded aboard their shuttles on Patton and Rommel.  Their
crews, and the men of 7th Regiment's remaining battalion, were moving toward the
shuttles. It would be fifty minutes before they were all on the ground, and  the
heavy-weapons people would need  five minutes to get  their vehicles out of  the
shuttles and ready for action.

Call it  an hour  before everyone's  on the  ground and  ready, Lon thought. The
heavy-weapons battalions would be landed  west of University City, thirty  miles
from the nearest  enemy units. At  that distance, only  the rocket batteries-ten
vehicles  in  each  battalion-would  be  able  to  take  the  enemy  under  fire
immediately. The self-propelled howitzers needed to get within twenty miles, and
the tanks' 125mm cannons had a  maximum range of nine miles. Each  heavy-weapons
battalion had six 225mm howitzers and eight tanks mounting 125mm cannons.

Fourth Battalion ofLon's regiment would be put on the ground to link up with the
regiment's right flank,  not quite directly  in front of  the heavy weapons  but
close enough to be able to move  south to keep the New Spartans from  attempting
to intercept the big guns on the ground.

By the  time we  get the  rest of  our people  down, the  fight should  be fully
involved, he thought. The New Spartans should  be too damned busy to be able  to
do anything about  our heavy weapons.  That was the  hope, anyway. The  shuttles
carrying the big guns were slower and less maneuverable-more vulnerable than the
attack shuttles that brought in the infantry.

For ten minutes  Lon was continuously  on the radio,  going from one  channel to
another,  receiving  reports and  giving  orders, occasionally  involved  in two
conversations simultaneously. Then Lieutenant Colonel Jensen came back on line.

"Colonel Hayley  is alive,"  Jensen reported,  sounding only  marginally more in
control than  he had  ten minutes  earlier. "But  the medtechs  aren't sure he's
going to make it, even though they're putting him in a trauma tube right now. If
he does  survive, he'll  be out  of action  for weeks,  maybe months.  On top of
everything else, he has massive head trauma that's going to need extensive  time
for regeneration of brain tissue."

"Get him and the rest of your most seriously wounded men ready for evacuation to
Peregrine," Lon said. "Use whatever shuttle you can get them aboard, fast. We've
got Shrikes coming in to target the enemy rocket artillery, and our best bet  is
to get the shuttle off while you've got that cover. Understand?"

"Yes," Jensen  said. "We'll  move the  colonel as  soon as  he's in the portable
trauma tube. As many of  the others as we can  manage, too. How long do  we have
until the Shrikes get here?"

"Three minutes."

"We can't be ready that fast."

"I know, Fal, but the  Shrikes will stay on station  as long as they can,  until
they run short on  munitions. Get that shuttle  loaded and ready for  takeoff as
quickly as you  can. Try to  have them ready  before we launch  our attack." Lon
glanced at his timeline. "That leaves just over eight minutes."

"We'll manage somehow," Fal said.

"I know you will, Fal. Keep this channel open for me. Once we start hitting  the
enemy, we'll  need  to stay  in  touch. One  more  thing. Who's  your  second-in
command?"

Jensen  hesitated several  seconds before  he replied.  "I guess  that would  be
Cooper McBride of our 1st Battalion. He's the senior battalion commander."

"Make sure he knows he's your backup, and have him contact Tefford Ives directly
to make  sure we've  got two  liaison channels  operating. You'll  have to patch
together a staff as best you can, once you know who you have left."

After ending the conversation with Jensen,  Lon had a few seconds of  silence on
his radio, a chance to take  another look around to double-check the  deployment
of  his headquarters  detachment. Men  who were  clerks or  drivers in  garrison
manned  their rifles  with every  bit of  competence that  the men  in the  line
companies possessed. In  the Corps, everyone  was a rifleman  first. A secondary
perimeter had been established around Lon. Seventh Regiment had moved out of the
open field where they had landed,  under the cover of trees and  wild shrubbery,
improving their positions as the terrain permitted.

What an unholy mess, Lon thought. More than six percent casualties before we get
our first licks in.  Six shuttles meant three  companies, six hundred men,  plus
the  casualties on  the ground  from the  enemy bombardment.  There'll be   hard
questions to answer when we get home, even if we don't lose another man in  tire
campaign. And that was an unlikely possibility.

"It's not  working out  the way  we thought  it would,"  Phip Steesen  said on a
private channel to  Lon. They were  forty yards apart,  in a standard  dispersal
pattern. There wasn't anyone above the rank of corporal within ten yards of  Lon
except for his aide and driver. Sergeants Howell and Dorcetti.

"You've been  reading my  mind again,"  Lon replied,  no trace  of humor  in his
voice. "We thought we'd come in,  show them we had them outnumbered,  outgunned,
and outclassed, and they'd be ready to cut their losses and run. I haven't heard
an offer to surrender and leave coming from the New Spartans yet."

"I think we're in for the fight of our lives," Phip said. "All that stuff  Jenny
told me about the economics of this, why neither side can afford to lose."

"Yeah, I remember. We ready to move out?"

"I've talked with all the  battalion lead sergeants. We're ready.  The consensus
is that it's time to start getting  a little payback. Can't say that I  have any
argument with that."

"Don't let it get anyone careless. Times like this are when it's most  necessary
to remember that we're professionals. Four  minutes, Phip. Get back to the  lead
sergeants. Make sure they keep a lid on their people."

"I warned 'em  all before, Lon.  I'll do it  again, too," Phip  added before Lon
could tell him to.


There were  last-minute reports  from CIC,  Lieutenant Colonel  Jensen, and  the
battalion commanders in  7th Regiment. Lon  set up a  command conference channel
with  the  battalion  commanders  in both  regiments.  The  order  to begin  the
offensive  would  go  directly  to  each  unit.  Seven  battalions  would attack
simultaneously. There would be little air cover. The Shrikes that had come in to
hunt the rocket artillery might be  able to make quick strafing passes  on enemy
infantry positions, but they  would have to burn  for orbit again very  soon, to
replace the Shrike Us  that would be escorting  the remainder of the  Dirigenler
force in. The ships could not  be left without protection, not even  briefly, as
long as  the New  Spartans still  had capital  ships and  aerospace fighters  to
threaten them.

Two  minutes.  Lon  glanced  to  his  left,  in  the  general  direction  of 1st
Battalion's positions, though it was too  far away for him to see  anyone there.
That was where Junior was, with the two platoons he led-on the left flank,  with
no friendly troops  to guard it.  The units of  the EDF weren't  all that close.
Their job  was to  harass the  sections of  the New  Spartan line  that were not
directly confronted  by Dirigenters,  to keep  them from  reinforcing the  units
caught in the middle. Any serious coordination with the local forces would  have
to wait until  after this first  battle was fought.  Chancellor Berlino and  his
companions were still aboard Peregrine. They weren't scheduled to land until the
Dirigenters could make that safe.

Will we both make it through the day? Lon wondered, still thinking about Junior.
Hidden deeper  in his  mind, Lon  was almost  unaware of  What would  I tell his
mother? nagging at his subconscious defenses. He squeezed his eyes shut,  trying
to force his thoughts away from  that unpleasant prospect. / can't allow  myself
to be distracted, not now.

One minute. Time for a last hurried  call to CIC for the latest updates.  One of
the enemy artillery units had-apparently-been hit  by the Shrike Us and put  out
of  commission. The  shuttles carrying  the three  remaining battalions  of  the
strike force were on their way in and would soon be out of reach of the  weapons
aboard the New Spartan transports.

Time....

Lon watched the last seconds tick  off, then gave the command. "Move  out." Only
right in front of his own position was he able to see any movement directly. The
men of 2nd Battalion got up and started moving forward. For the first half  mile
barring any surprises-they would move forward in three staggered skirmish lines,
closing in as quickly as they could. Then, once they were in range of rifle fire
from the New  Spartans, the troops  would switch to  fire and maneuver  tactics.
That  would be  slower. How  much slower  would depend  on the  level of   enemy
resistance. With seasoned mercenaries on the  other side, it might be very  slow
indeed. The corridors of advance for  the battalions of the regiments on  either
side had  been carefully  calculated to  minimize the  chances for friendly-fire
casualties.

Watch out for mines and booby traps, Lon thought, as if he were instructing  his
men. Watch  for enemy  electronics, not  just helmets  but also snoops. Remember
that they're good, damned good. We've got no room for mistakes.

"Phip, we'll let the advance move three hundred yards, then move my command post
to  just  this  side  of  that creek  out  there,  behind  that  patch of  heavy
undergrowth. We'll set up there, close enough  to see some of what goes on,  far
enough back that we shouldn't have to scramble to get out of the way."

"Right,"  Phip  replied.  "I  had  already  marked  that  spot.  There's  a rock
outcropping to give us a little protection from stray shots, too well  concealed
by the  trees for  there to  be much  chance the  enemy registered  it for their
artillery."

Both  of  them could  hear  gunfire, just  starting.  At first  there  were just
scattered shots from three or four points, quickly answered by Dirigenters,  but
within thirty seconds  the firing became  general. "They didn't  wait for us  to
come to them,"  Lon noted, still  with a channel  open to Phip.  "We sure didn't
move a half mile before the action started."

"Suits me," Phip said. "The sooner we start, the sooner we can make a finish  of
it."

That's easy to say when we're this far away from it, Lon thought. He knew he was
where he belonged,  out of immediate  danger, in position  to direct the  entire
fight, but he  couldn't banish a  nagging guilt at  being relatively safe  while
sending thousands of men  into imminent peril, knowing  that some of them  would
not live through the engagement. It wasn't just that his only son was one of the
men in danger. He had felt this way before, long before Junior joined the Corps.

Lon  scanned  the various  command  frequencies, eavesdropping  on  reports from
company commanders to their battalion  commanders, even from platoon leaders  to
their captains. The New Spartans had used the time well, forming lines facing in
both  directions,  closing the  gap  on either  side,  preparing what  defensive
protection they could. The shuttle  carrying Colonel Hayley and two  dozen other
wounded men from 15th Regiment got off the ground, trailed by the Shrike Us that
had attacked the New Spartan rocket artillery.

"Been a long time since we  fought a pitched battle this soon  after grounding,"
Phip commented  in one  of the  rare silences  on the  radio. "Offhand,  I can't
remember ever fighting this soon."

Once or twice, Lon thought, but he remained silent, switching channels again and
again, stopping just long  enough to catch what  he could. Offhand, he  couldn't
remember where or when  those instances might have  been either. There had  been
too many fights on too many worlds ... and far too many deaths.

"I make  it three  hundred yards  2nd Battalion  has moved,"  Phip said a moment
later. "A long way short of the half mile we hoped. They've dropped, using  fire
and maneuver now." The advance slowed dramatically, one platoon of each  company
moving forward  a few  yards while  the rest  laid down  covering fire. The next
platoon would leapfrog them, and the next, and....

"Right, Phip. Let's get our people moving," Lon said. He waited until the  order
had been passed, then got up and starting moving toward the location he and Phip
had chosen  for their  next sanctum.  The distance  was only  about two  hundred
yards, but before Lon  had run half that  distance, he felt as  if he had run  a
mile. Lon paused for  no more than twenty  seconds, sucking in a  couple of deep
breaths. His chest  was heaving  as he  gasped for  air. He  was a  little light
headed. For an instant his vision blurred, then cleared after he blinked several
times, quickly, and shook his head.

This is ridiculous, he thought. / know damn well I'm not this far out of  shape.
He shook his head again and trotted the rest of the distance, moving more slowly
now. At least there was no incoming fire to worry about. Yet.

The rock outcropping that he had spotted was nowhere more than eight feet higher
than the ground just north of it, rising abruptly on the left and dwindling away
gradually on the right. On the far  side, the south, the rock fell sharply  into
the  edge of  a shallow,  narrow creek-five  feet wide  and two  feet  deep-that
meandered across the entire 2nd Battalion  front. Much of the stone was  covered
with a mosslike growth. Vines climbed up over the top from the creek on the  far
side. A number of bushes hemmed the rock in on either side.

Lon did not simply collapse against the rock and slide to the ground, though the
notion tempted him until his breathing got back to something approaching normal.
He remained on his feet, protected by  the rock, looking around to see that  all
of  the men  who were  with his  headquarters detachment  made it  to their  new
positions.  Without instruction,  they formed  their new  perimeter and  started
scooping out slit trenches, working  quickly in moist soil, taking  advantage of
the terrain to give themselves what protection was available.

Before Lon had a chance to  say anything, he heard two explosions,  separated by
five seconds or less, well separated, almost blanketing other explosions farther
away.

"They've got that  rocket artillery working  again," Phip said  on their private
channel. "Most of it's still going against 15th, but that's two aimed toward our
people, near both ends of the line, in 1 st and 3rd Battalions."

Junior? screamed in Lon's head like the  stab of a severe headache, but what  he
said was,  "Get reports  on casualties  when you  can, Phip."  His voice sounded
almost calm.

What do we do  next? Lon asked himself.  He wasn't too disconcerted  by the fact
that  the preliminary  plan of  attack had  proven inadequate,  obsolete  almost
before it could be begun. Once we get on the ground, we start with a blank page.
It was all too frequently like  that. Few enemies were considerate enough  to do
exactly what the Dirigenters hoped they would do.

Lon's musings  were interrupted  by a  call from  Fal Jen-sen.  "We've got to do
something about those  rockets," Jensen said.  "They've got us  zeroed in. We're
taking casualties from those and from the  enemy on the ground in front of  us."
There was no hint of panic in Jensen's voice now, but there was tension.

"Keep pushing  forward, Fal.  Get close  to the  New Spartans  on the ground and
they'll have to  quit firing rockets  at you. It's  going to be  at least twenty
minutes before the next flight of Shrikes can get in, longer than that before we
get our heavy weapons on the ground and out of the box. We've still got to  deal
with the enemy on the ground between us."

"Are we getting any help from the Elysians?" Jensen asked.

"Very little so far, but they weren't supposed to be doing much more than harass
the enemy away from our positions."

"If we've got any liaison, the more they can do right now, the better off  we're
going to be, Lon."

You know what liaison  we 've got, Lon  thought. Jensen should know  better than
anyone. He  had been  aboard Per-egrine,  privy to  the discussions  between Bob
Hayley and Chancellor Berlino.

"Just as soon as I get a chance, I'll put a call through to Berlino," Lon  said.
"But don't expect much, not soon. Even if they have forces available, it's going
to take time to get them in position to act. We've got to sort out this mess  on
our own."

"I was afraid you were going to say that," Jensen said before signing off.

If he  doesn't pull  himself together,  he's going  to be  no help  at all,  Lon
thought, frowning in the privacy of his helmet. Maybe he's spent too many  years
in staff  jobs, not  enough on  the line.  Lon had  known Jensen,  casually, for
years, as he knew all the senior officers in the Corps. But he did not know  him
well, and what he had heard so far did not give him great confidence. I'm  going
to have to find out who else is left over there, just in case, he thought.  But,
like so much else, that would have to wait until the immediate situation was  in
hand.

"Lon." Phip waited for  Lon to acknowledge the  call before he continued.  "I've
been checking with the non-corns up front. I think we underestimated the  number
of New Spartans here, maybe by fifty percent. They must not have left all  their
transports in orbit. Maybe  some of them had  to make two trips  to get everyone
here. There could be as many as eight thousand of them on the ground between  us
and 15th Regiment. We sure as hell don't have them outnumbered two to one.  Even
when we get the rest of our  people down here, the numbers won't be  much better
than even."

"The way they've hit us so far,  I can't say that surprises me," Lon  said. "How
good are the estimates you're getting?"

"I wouldn't bet against them no matter what odds you offered," Phip said.  "I've
sorted  through the  usual exaggeration,  cross-checked, everything.  One  other
thing. One of  Junior's platoon sergeants  says the New  Spartans do have  those
needle guns we heard about, at least a  few. Says they can turn a tree to  mulch
in ten seconds, but the effective range  doesn't seem to be much past a  hundred
yards."

"We get the chance, I'd like a look at one of them, and a little  ammo-something
to take home  and let the  R&D people play  with," Lon said.  "But I don't  want
anyone taking foolish chances to get it."

"I already passed the word, Lon," Phip said.

                                    *  *  *

Lon sat with his back against the rock outcropping and took out his mapboard,  a
specialized complink that unfolded for use in  the field. He put as much of  the
area around University  City on the  screen as he  could to get  a feel for  the
battle that  was developing.  The New  Spartans were  not being  shy about using
active electronics.  There were  so many  blips that  they blended  into smudged
lines-red for the enemy, blue for the Dirigenters, yellow for the few members of
the Elysian Defense Force who were involved in the fight.

I  hope someone  on Peregrine  is going  through this,  trying to  get a   solid
estimate of  enemy numbers,  Lon thought.  By increasing  the magnification  and
going through the  area one small  grid at a  time it would  be possible to tell
exactly how many enemy soldiers were using helmet electronics at any given time.
Something we can report back to  Dirigent on with reasonable assurance. As  soon
as possible, he was going  to have to send an  MR out, report to the  Council of
Regiments on what they had found  and what had happened-including the fact  that
Bob Hayley  was out  of action  for at  least the  next several  weeks ... if he
survived. /  might not  even know  that for  another hour  or more, Lon thought,
glancing at the time-line on his visor  display. / guess 1 need to wait  until I
get something from the medtechs about Bob, if he's going to survive.

He looked up from the mapboard. And  I'm going to have to make a  recommendation
on  whether or  not we  need another  regiment to  reinforce us.  His  immediate
impulse was to say. Yes,  we need help. but it  was too soon to make  that call,
and-in any case-it would be at least a month before help could arrive.

By then it might be far too late.



13

"We're at a  stalemate here, Lon,"  Lieutenant Colonel Vel  Osterman, CO of  2nd
Battalion of the  7th, reported. "The  New Spartans are  dug in. We  can't break
through their lines  without taking unacceptable  levels of casualties,  and I'm
not sure we could do it even if we weren't worried about losses."

"Have your men dig in  as best they can until  we get the situation sorted  out,
Vel," Lon said. Less  than an hour and  a half had passed  since the Dirigenters
had landed.  So much  had happened  so quickly  that it  seemed impossible. "I'm
getting the  same kind  of reports  from other  units. For  the moment, I'm more
concerned with  holding what  we've got  and keeping  the New Spartans contained
until we can bring our full force to bear.

"Our 4th Battalion and all the heavy weapons will be down in a few minutes. I'll
put the rocket  batteries to work  as soon as  they're out of  the box, the long
guns should join in  about fifteen minutes later,  and the tanks will  head full
tilt toward the enemy, along  with our 4th Battalion. I  just got off a link  to
Chancellor Berlino. He's going to see  if more of the Elysian Defense  Force can
move against the New Spartans, but  that's going to take rime, probably  several
hours."

"I hope we can shake something loose sooner than that," Osterman said.  "Anyway,
so far the New  Spartans haven't shown any  inclination to try to  push us back.
They're in improved positions, dug in well. They've had three days to get  ready
for us. That's part of the problem."

"We get all our people down, it'll  be more their problem than ours," Lon  said.
"They're geared toward mobile operations,  the same as we are.  Static defensive
positions rob them  of a good  part of their  strength. As long  as we're on the
outside with freedom of movement, the advantage is still ours."

"We'll hold on," Osterman said.

Well, I've got him convinced, Lon  thought. Now, if I can just  convince myself.
The trouble is,  we can't use  our mobility yet,  not without unpinning  the New
Spartans in the process.

The heavy-weapons battalions  would come in  first. Lon's final  battalion would
land a few minutes later. There would be four Shrike Us in for those few minutes
as well,  to protect  the shuttles  and make  a few  passes at  the New  Spartan
defenses. With a little luck they might knock out one or two more of the enemy's
rocket artillery launchers.

We've had one break. The New  Spartans haven't been able to bring any  fighters
down  to hassle  us, Lon  thought, glancing  skyward. He  had received   several
updates  on the  continuing struggle  in orbit.  Both sides  were moving  ships,
trying to stay out of each other's  way, taking stabs at the other as  best they
could. The one New  Spartan transport that had  been damaged was moving  farther
from Elysium, under only partial  power. Since it would  be unable to jump  to Q
space, it could only hope to escape further damage-or destruction-by putting  as
much normal space between it and danger as possible.

Don't let this settle into a  long-term static front, Lon reminded himself.  The
first side to get truly mobile should have the advantage. He had already decided
how  he  wanted  to use  his  4th  Battalion and  the  heavy-weapons  units. The
artillery-howitzer and  rocket-would take  the enemy  under fire  as quickly  as
possible. Lon would aim the tanks and his 4th Battalion at the enemy line,  just
south of where the units already in place faced each other.

Punch a  hole in  the line  and turn  up the  middle, like  closing a zipper. It
sounded good.


The last three Dirigenter battalions made  it safely to the ground. No  shuttles
or men were lost. The New Spartans  launched rockets toward the LZs, but by  the
time those rockets arrived, the men and vehicles were out and the shuttles  were
back in the air, burning for  orbit. Separately, one shuttle was coming  in with
equipment to get the lander that  had tipped over upright. Those shuttles  could
then both be used to evacuate wounded.

That was the good news. The bad news was that the opposing fleets had moved  far
enough apart that the New Spartans had aerospace fighters heading in to  provide
close air support for  their troops. And they  would arrive a couple  of minutes
ahead of the Shrike II fighters that Agamemnon and Odysseus were dispatching  to
counter them.  Lon's rocket  artillery and  the shoulder-launched surface-to-air
missiles would have to hold the enemy fighters off until help arrived.

"Well,  Colonel, we've  got holes  to flop  in at  least," Jeremy  Howell  said,
lifting his helmet visor  partway so he wouldn't  need to use his  radio to talk
with Lon. Howell and two privates from Lon's security squad had been "fixing up"
the area behind the rock outcropping for Lon's command post-mostly digging  slit
trenches, piling the dirt up around them.

"Thanks, Jerry," Lon said, looking around and nodding. "Let's hope we don't need
it for long." Everyone  was on the ground.  The Dirigenter rocket artillery  had
joined the  fray. In  another three  or four  minutes the  howitzers would be in
range. It would take  nearly an hour before  the tanks could join  in, and after
that it  would only  be a  few minutes  before the  tanks and 7th Regiment's 4th
Battalion would hit the enemy line.

"I don't know about you. Colonel, but I'd feel better if we could get under this
rock," Howell said. "Those rockets are more'n I bargained for. This is beginning
to look like one of those old wars from Earth, whole armies on both sides."

"It's not that big. Jerry, but I know what you mean. This is the biggest  fracas
I've seen." Too  big, he thought.  A battle this  size isn 't  always decided by
which  side has  the better  leader. It's  the men  up front,  junior  officers,
noncoms, and  men in  the ranks  who can  make the  difference. But  it was  the
commander who would take the blame for any defeat, or for losing too many men in
a victory. Too many  ways to lose, not  nearly enough ways to  win, Lon thought,
shaking his head.

"We lost  too many  men coming  in. Jerry,"  Lon said.  "Nothing can make up for
that." There had been years in which  the entire Corps had not suffered as  many
contract deaths as 7th and 15th Regiments had taken during the initial landings.
Even  a  resounding victory  would  not balance  the  books. Almost  as  bad-the
addition  of insult  to injury-it  would probably  be impossible  to return  the
bodies of most of those dead to Dirigent. The shuttles that were blown apart  in
space would leave few remains to recover.

"This is Jensen." Lon held  a hand up to keep  Howell from replying so he  could
concentrate on the radio call.

"Go ahead, Fal," Lon said.

"The New Spartans are attempting to  break through my lines on the  left, toward
University City. I guess they've been told about our new landings. I'm not  sure
we're going to be able to hold them. If I move more men in front of this thrust,
it'll just open the way for a breakthrough somewhere else."

"Do what you can, Fal," Lon  said, relieved that Jen-sen's voice sounded  firmer
now, more  under control.  Lon scrolled  the view  on his  mapboard to  show the
center  of this  newest fighting.  "We don't  want to  let them  into the  city.
That'll make it a lot harder to take care of them, and we risk friendly civilian
casualties. Don't forget,  they're going to  have fighter cover.  Those aircraft
will be on station in less than two minutes now."

"We're doing what we can, Lon.  Can you redirect some of our  heavy-weapons fire
into the van of this thrust?"

"You've got  it. I'll  switch over  and give  the order  now. The self-propelled
howitzers should  be just  coming in  range. We'll  give you  as much help as we
can."

Even at  a distance,  the rumble  of the  artillery shells  as they exploded was
unmistakable, the sound  of thunder but  far too regular  for nature. For  a few
minutes Lon  kept his  mapboard open,  watching the  pattern of  explosions on a
visual overlay. The targeting,  using data fed from  CIC and directly from  15th
Regiment, was  deadly accurate,  hitting the  point of  the wedge  that the  New
Spartans were  trying to  push through  15th Regiment's  line. At  first the New
Spartans kept pushing forward, but  soon the advance stalled and,  finally, they
pulled back into the positions they had held before.

"We'll keep an eye on them, Fal," Lon said when he called Jensen back. "For now,
I'm going to redirect our fire to support our attempt to roll them up. Our heavy
weapons have to do some fancy moving, staying out of the way of the enemy's  air
cover."

The New Spartans had sent in  six aerospace fighters, Javelins. One was  brought
down by 15th Regiment's rocket artillery on its initial approach, before it  had
a chance to fire any of its own munitions. A second Javelin was blown out of the
sky by a shoulder-fired rocket launched from 7th Regiment's 4th Battalion. After
that, the enemy fighters tried to stay  above ten thousand feet, to give them  a
chance to  outrun anything  else fired  at them  from the  ground, which limited
their effectiveness. And then the Shrike  Us were on them, and the  aerial fight
moved away from the ground forces, drifting quickly to the east.

I  feel  so  damned useless,  Lon  thought  as the  last  aircraft  moved beyond
University City.  I'm not  contributing anything.  He had  spent too  many years
fighting on the  front lines, in  direct contact with  the enemy of  the moment.
This  doesn't feel  as real  as the  arcade games  Junior used  to spend   hours
playing.

Reports  and  requests kept  coming  in. Questions  and  replies went  out.  Lon
switched among more than a dozen radio channels, talking with others and  trying
to plot  what he  learned against  what his  mapboard showed  him. CIC  tried to
coordinate as  much of  the raw  data as  it could  for him.  His own  staff put
together individual pieces of it.

He tried  to monitor  his 4th  Battalion's attack  on the  New Spartan line most
closely. As soon as they managed  a breakthrough, i/they did, things would  heat
up all along the lines. Lon had everyone alerted to put as much pressure on  the
enemy  as possible.  "Don't let  them reinforce  their people  in front  of  4th
Battalion," Lon told all of the other line battalion commanders. "As soon as the
tanks and 4th  turn the corner,  we're going to  hit them with  everything we've
got, all along the line, try to end this quickly."

Even while planning for that, Lon kept asking himself, What will the enemy do to
stop us? They must have some plan,  some ace still up their sleeve. It  can't be
this easy, not against pros.

The answer came just as Lieutenant Colonel Parker Watson was reporting that  4th
Battalion had cracked the enemy line and  was starting to feed men to the  left,
while leaving one company in place  to keep the New Spartans from  hitting their
flank from the south. Lon's mapboard showed the sudden appearance of more  enemy
electronics,  well to  the north  of 7th  Regiment-behind them.  Twenty  seconds
later, CIC reported that a considerable number of rockets had been launched from
the newly revealed enemy position.

"Everyone down!" Lon said on the channel that connected him to all his battalion
and  company  commanders.  "Incoming!"  He took  what  cover  he  could himself,
scanning the headquarters  area on his  way down to  make certain that  everyone
else also was taking cover.

The distance was  not extreme. The  first enemy rockets  started to fall  within
seconds  after  the  warning.  The New  Spartans  had  obviously  pinpointed the
location of virtually all the  Dirigenter infantry units. Rockets were  fired as
quickly as launchers could be reloaded. The New Spartan batteries that had  been
identified earlier also joined  in. As many as  a dozen enemy rockets  at a time
might be in the air.

For three  minutes, the  rocket fire  was primarily  New Spartan. The Dirigenter
units  had to  move before  they could  start firing  back-counterbattery  fire,
targeting the enemy launchers while  trying to avoid being targeted  themselves.
As the artillery units dueled, the  New Spartan infantry gained a breather,  and
Parker Watson's battalion had to dig  in where they were instead of  starting to
roll up the enemy line.

At the same time, the New Spartans did move. Those trapped between 7th and  15th
Regiments slid clockwise  around the semicircle,  running the gauntlet.  The New
Spartans in  the southwestern  portion of  the line  surrounding University City
moved  toward the  Elysian capital,  pushing aside  two companies  of the  local
defense force that were rushing to block them.

As soon as Lon received those  reports, he called Watson. "Parker, you're  going
to have to  turn your battalion  the other way.  I want you  to overtake the New
Spartans before they get into the city,  if you can; at least don't give  them a
chance to set  up solid defensive  positions. Forget about  trying to close  the
zipper. The New Spartans there are moving away from you. As soon as I can get  a
few Shrikes in,  I'll set them  against the enemy  van in front  of you, to slow
them  down.  Keep  7th Regiment's  tanks  with  you. I'm  going  to  direct 15th
Regiment's tanks across the arc to try to hit the New Spartans' main force."

Watson's acknowledgment was lost in the  blast of an enemy rocket that  impacted
eighty yards  from Lon.  Lon felt  the ground  shake violently.  Rock, dirt, and
other debris rained  down on him  for nearly a  minute following the  blast. The
ringing in his ears was even slower to  fade. When he was able to lift his  head
past the ridge  of dirt surrounding  his trench, he  saw that many  of the trees
that had sheltered regimental headquarters had been broken or knocked over.

It looks  like a  war zone  at last,  seemed to  echo through  Lon's head.  Then
casualty reports started to come in.


From both ends of the semicircle the New Spartans moved toward University  City.
Parker Watson's men weren't able to stop the units moving from the western flank
of their initial line, and those on the eastern flank had no opposition at  all.
But the New Spartans who  had been on the northern  arc of the perimeter had  to
move east, away from the city; that meant about 60 percent of their strength ...
their known strength, Lon  reminded  himself-known strength north of  the  River
Styx. CIC was no longer certain how  many men the New Spartans might have  south
of the river. The  bridges across it had  been blown, cutting them  off from the
main fight. CIC was also no longer certain what the total number of New Spartans
on the world might  be. The exposure of  more rocket artillery units  had been a
complete surprise. There might be significantly more infantrymen as well.

"There's a  good chance  they're going  to be  short on  rockets," Lon said on a
conference call that included Colonel Jensen and battalion commanders from  both
regiments.  "They've  used  one hell  of  a  lot, and  their  supplies  can't be
infinite. If we can keep them from resupplying the rocket batteries, we'll  save
ourselves a lot of grief later on. Agamemnon and Odysseus are on alert for that,
to intercept  any enemy  shuttles. I  don't know  if the  New Spartans  have any
resupply setup  like ours,  but even  if they  do, I  doubt that  it's set up to
handle anything as large as  rockets for those launchers." The  resupply rockets
the Dirigenters used were not identical  to those Lon's company had tested  more
than twenty years before, but they were direct descendants. These rockets  could
be launched by shuttle, Shrike, or directly from a ship in orbit, with the final
stage of their descent guided by a  man on the ground. A trained operator  could
soft-land a  rocket within  ten feet  of a  mark, close  enough to  retrieve its
cargo-up to five  thousand rounds  of rifle  ammunition or  two cases  of rocket
propelled grenades-controlling  the landing  through his  helmet radio. Everyone
received some  training in  the operation,  and at  least two  men in every line
squad drilled enough to be considered experts.

"We  don't know  how many  they stockpiled  before we  got here,"  Tefford  Ives
pointed out. "They might  have more rockets for  their artillery than we  do, on
the ground."

"Possible, but unless they knew we were coming it wouldn't have made much sense,
and they  didn't put  a lot  of shuttles  on the  ground after  we appeared   in
system," Vel Osterman said.

"We  can't  underestimate  the  possibility," Fal  Jensen  said.  "They  had the
launchers on the  ground. They had  to plan for  enough firepower to  handle the
armor and artillery the Elysians have. If the New Spartans are anywhere near  as
thorough as we are, they would have included enough and to spare for that."

"Whatever," Lon said. "CIC says they've used a hundred rockets this morning, and
the two launchers we're  sure we've destroyed might  each have had eight  to ten
left onboard. The estimate is that each of their launchers can carry two  dozen,
plus whatever their attendant supply trucks carry."

"Either  way, it  could be  difficult for  either of  us to  resupply our  heavy
weapons," Ives said. "They're sure to go after our shuttles, and I assume  we'll
go after any they launch."

"Both of  us have  to use  our fighters  to defend  our ships, ahead of anything
else," Lon said. "That gives both sides  room to maneuver, to get things in  and
out. Maybe we have a slight  advantage, since our shuttles are armed  and theirs
aren't. Whatever the situation, we'll deal with it.

"Right now, there's one other thing. I'm going to send an MR to Dirigent  within
the next hour  or so. Link  your reports through  to CIC on  Peregrine, anything
that needs to go out, casualties  and operational status, and any personal  mail
that might  have collected."  Lon shrugged.  "There shouldn't  be much  of that,
since we sent mail back just ahead of the landing.

"Fal,  I'll give  them the  news on  Colonel Hayley,  that he's  going to   need
extensive time for regeneration and rehabilitation, that I've taken over command
of the contract, and that you have assumed command of 15th Regiment. As soon  as
I finish  my report,  the MR  will be  launched, so  don't dally.  Get your  men
reorganized-fed if there's time. Figure we'll  be moving in an hour or  so. I'll
give you detailed deployments shortly, but we're going to have to operate in two
main sections again  now that the  New Spartans have  split up. We  have to deal
with the  units moving  into University  City and  those we  forced out into the
wild."

An hour, Lon thought after he had acknowledgments from all the others. / have to
finish my report on what's happened so far. And I have to decide whether or  not
to ask for another  regiment. The easy decision  would be to opt  for requesting
help. But reinforcement will require a  month. We'd still have to hold  out that
long. Lon shook his head. He worried  over the question until that was the  only
item left to add to his report, taking every minute he could before he  dictated
the last sentences. Asking for  reinforcement if it wasn't absolutely  necessary
would be almost as bad as not asking for it if it was. Almost.

"It is a close call. We have really not been able to fully assess the  situation
yet, or  to determine  exactly how  many men  the New  Spartans have deployed on
Elysium. Reinforcement might be necessary, it is perhaps even extremely  likely,
but I think I should take more time before making that decision. I would suggest
alerting the troops for possible deployment,  subject to my next report. I  will
try to get that out within the next forty-eight to seventy-two hours."

Not very satisfactory,  Lon thought,  putting off  the decision  that way. Wishy
washy.  But he  didn't change  it. Peregrine  launched the  message rocket   two
minutes later.



14

The senior medical officer of 15th  Regiment had been killed by the  rocket that
had wounded Colonel Hayley. Six other men had been killed by the same explosion.
The only thing that  had saved Hayley was  that a portable trauma  tube had been
close and had-somehow-avoided  serious damage. The  medtech who had  treated the
colonel told Lon that it had been  a miracle that Hayley had survived. "I  don't
think I'm exaggerating when I say that if we'd been five seconds slower  getting
him into the tube he wouldn't have made it. I didn't think he was going to  make
it as it was." Listening to  the detailed listing of Hayley's injuries  had been
almost enough to make Lon physically ill.

The  back of  Bob Hayley's  head had  been literally  blown off,  along with   a
significant percentage  of his  brain. That  was the  injury that  mattered. The
fractures  and  shrapnel penetrations  were  minor by  comparison.  Hayley would
require three weeks for the physical  regeneration of lost brain tissue and  the
missing section of his skull, most of  that time sealed in a trauma tube.  After
that there would be months of rehabilitation. The SMO on the flagship said  that
Hayley would have to leam how to  walk and talk again, and the odds  were strong
that he would never regain much memory  of his life before the injury. "I  don't
think there's one chance in a million  he'll be able to continue in the  Corps,"
the ship's SMO said. "But he will survive."

It was some hours later before Lon thought. There goes the odds-on favorite  for
election to General. .. not that we were likely to make it home in time for  him
to get it this year. He shook his head. Even if we were going to make it home in
time, the Council wouldn 't give it to him this year, not after we lost so  many
men making our landing here. There'd have  to be a board of inquiry first.  Even
if a board cleared  him of misjudgment, losing  so many men would  remain a mark
against Hayley and might keep him from ever becoming General.

By  noon,  the  fighting  had  decreased  to  almost  nothing.  Parker  Watson's
battalion, 4th of the  7th, was skirmishing with  the enemy on the  outskirts of
University City. Vel Osterman's battalion, 2nd of the 7th, was moving toward the
enemy rocket artillery north  of the city. Fal  Jensen was moving 15th  Regiment
east to stay between the bulk of the New Spartan forces and the Elysian capital.
His 4th Battalion was angling toward the southeast, looking to engage the  enemy
troops who had moved toward the capital on that end of the perimeter.

Lon was moving with his remaining two line battalions-closer to University City,
staying on the north,  ready to move whichever  way necessary, depending on  how
the situation developed through the next hours ... or days. He wanted to be able
to move into the  capital to prevent the  two elements of the  New Spartan force
from linking up inside the metropolitan area. The rocket and howitzer  batteries
of  both  heavy-weapons battalions  were  moving closer  to  Lon's 1st  and  3rd
Battalions. The tanks were moving to reinforce both regiments' 4th Battalions on
the edges of University City.

Chancellor Berlino and  his companions had  just landed, without  incident, near
Lon's position. Overhead, the two fleets were moving farther apart, and  higher,
away from Elysium. But not too much higher. Both wanted to stay close enough  to
use their fighters to support operations on the ground.

Berlino  and the  two other  Elysian cabinet  ministers were  escorted to  Lon's
command post by two platoons  from 7th's 3rd Battalion. The  chancellor appeared
quite shaken, his eyes wide, constantly  moving, looking around as if he  feared
attack at every step. Thomas Beoch, the minister for external affairs, and Flora
Chiou, the treasurer, simply looked exhausted.

"I can't offer you much hospitality,"  Lon said. "Sorry. We thought it  safer to
bring you in well outside the city. Too much chance that the New Spartans  would
shoot the shuttle down. They have at least a battalion of troops near your  main
spaceport. They might control it.  They're certainly close enough to  shoot down
any shuttle trying  to land there.  Make yourselves as  comfortable as you  can.
Sitting on the ground might not look dignified, but that's all we have."

"I'm not too proud to sit on the grass," Chiou said. Beoch simply dropped to the
ground next  to her.  Berlino was  slower to  sit, but  that seemed  to be  just
because of his nervousness.

"I've been following the  reports from your CIC,"  Berlino said when he  finally
did sit. "Up until we got off the shuttle. Any significant change. Colonel?"

Lon shook his  head. "I wish  I could say  that there is,  Chancellor, but there
isn't. As soon as we can do so safely, we'll get you into the city, back to your
colleagues and families. It appears that, so far, the New Spartans aren't trying
to fully occupy the capital. There aren't enough of them on that side to manage,
not with most of your defense force still active and nearby. Right now we're not
sure if they're just trying to get as far from us as they can or if they hope to
fortify sections of the city to try to hold against us."

Berlino nodded slowly.  "I was able  to follow that  much. How do  you intend to
proceed?"

"We have three immediate goals on the ground," Lon said. "We want to  neutralize
destroy-their  artillery.  We  need  to  isolate  the  troops  they  have inside
University City.  And we  want to  keep those  troops and  their main force from
reuniting, mostly by keeping the main force away from the capital. The artillery
and the enemy force  inside the city will  be our priorities. After  that we can
worry about  their main  force. As  long as  they're away  from the urban areas,
they're the minor threat, unable to cause major difficulties for your people. We
can take our time with them."

"I agree," Berlino  said. "Our first  concern has to  be the enemy  force inside
University City. Is it possible that they will try to use our civilian  populace
as ... hostages?"

"Possible but not probable," Lon said.  "I doubt that the New Spartans  are much
more likely to do  that than we would  be, and Dirigenters would  absolutely not
use unarmed civilians as  hostages or shields. But  you can assume that  the New
Spartans will deal  harshly, and summarily,  with anyone they  catch or strongly
suspect  of actively  operating against  them. Combatant  civilians forfeit  any
special consideration."

"Our people will resist, strongly," Chiou  said, lifting her head for the  first
time. She  had been  staring at  the ground  in front  of her.  "We cherish  our
independence, and there was intense anger over the invasion from the start. Many
of our people will seize any opportunity to strike at the invaders."

"I agree,"  Berlino said.  "There will  certainly be  acts of  resistance, which
means that the sooner we can . .. evict the invaders from the city, the fewer of
our people are likely to pay the ... ultimate price."

"We're doing our best to keep the enemy too busy to worry much about  civilians.
Chancellor," Lon said.  "But we're limited,  too, if we  want to avoid  civilian
casualties and excessive  damage to buildings  and so forth.  And we do  want to
avoid those."

"We can repair or replace buildings. Colonel," Berlino said.

"People aren't so  easy to  replace," Lon  said. "We  hate to  see lives  wasted
civilians, our  own, even  those of  our enemies.  We'll do  what we have to do.
Chancellor, but as economically as possible."

"Speaking of economics. Colonel," Berlino said, "I will authorize bringing in  a
third regiment  if you  think it's  needed. And  another fighting  ship with its
aircraft."

"I haven't decided  yet, Chancellor," Lon  said. "I warned  Dirigent that it  is
possible, but..." He shook his head.

"But what. Colonel?"

"You know the limits of interstellar travel. Chancellor. It will take a month to
get reinforcements in.  And if we  don't have enough  people here now  to do the
job, there might not be enough of us left in a month to be an effective fighting
force. One regiment might not be enough  to do more than cover an evacuation  of
survivors, and that wouldn't do your people any good. I know we made  provisions
in the contract for reinforcement, but  the scenario involved was if we  arrived
and knew right away that the New Spartans had brought in more men, we would have
waited in space for our reinforcements, not landed the way we did. The only  way
I could be... fairly certain of maintaining an effective force for a month would
be  to  simply pull  out  into the  wilds,  away from  the  enemy, to  wait  for
reinforcements. That would give the New Spartans a month to do ... whatever they
want  to your  cities and  people. We  don't even  have a  realistic option   of
returning to our ships  to wait. A withdrawal  like that might cost  another six
hundred men, the way the landing did, or more."

"Besides, if you pulled away from  the enemy, disengaged," Chiou said, "I  doubt
that the  New Spartans  would simply  sit around  and wait  for the next act. We
can't count  on their  continued willingness  to simply  lay siege to University
City."

"There is that," Lon conceded. "We've  joined the fight. There's no way  to back
off." No honorable way, he thought. No way that does not concede victory to  the
New Spartans and relegate us to second-best status.

                                    *  *  *

In the next hour, Lon moved his command post again, this time to the ruins of  a
farmhouse. Only the plascrete shell  of the house remained intact.  The interior
had been burned out; the roof had collapsed. Lon's men cleared out enough of the
rubble to  let him  set up  an "office"  inside, for  what minimal protection it
would provide. They checked for mines, booby traps, and electronic snoops,  then
set up their sentry posts outside.

"We're not going to stay here  long," Lon told Phip. "Twenty minutes,  tops. Too
much  chance the  New Spartans  will have  this location  registered for   their
artillery."

"I was afraid you might have overlooked that possibility," Phip said. "They drop
a high-angle  shot inside  these walls,  the medtechs  would have  to scrape our
remains off the plascrete." He gestured around. Some of the stains on the  walls
might have been from the previous occupants.

"We'll set up outposts just inside the ring the New Spartans set up, past  where
they burned everything, but I don't want to move all our people into the city if
we can avoid  it. That might  tempt the other  side to start  lobbing rockets in
among civilians.  We'll wait  for dark  to move  against the  first batch of the
enemy in the  city, get the  ones around the  spaceport. While that's  going on,
we'll send the chancellor and his people in under heavy escort. I'll feel better
once they're off our hands."

"You really think we're going to be able to pull this one off, Lon?" Phip asked,
moving closer  to Lon,  simply whispering  with the  faceplate of  his helmet up
halfway.

Lon glanced around the ruins of the farmhouse. The only other person inside  was
Jeremy Howell, and he was over near what had been the front door. "We don't have
any choice. We  have to pull  it off. Somehow.  Probably with just  what we have
here now.  Even if  I call  in another  regiment, we're  going to  have to do it
ourselves." He shook his head. "Now let me be for a few minutes. I've got to see
where everyone's at."

Pieces of a  puzzle. I don't  have all the  pieces, and there's  no cozy holo to
tell me what  the finished puzzle  is supposed to  look like, Lon  thought as he
scrolled across his mapboard, seeing where each of his battalions were and where
the enemy  units were  located. The  enemy's main  force was  still moving east,
doing  what  they could  to  stall the  pursuit-leaving  booby traps  and  small
rearguard units to harass the Dirigenters-apparently looking for sound defensive
positions, rather than simply looking for a little space to regroup, or actively
trying to consolidate their forces, bring the smaller units back to them.

That  doesn 't  make a  hell of  a lot  of sense  unless they  know they've  got
reinforcements coming, Lon thought, shaking his head idly. The farther they  go,
the more likely it is that they 've  got more assets coming in. .. and soon.  He
stared at the  chart for a  moment, then touched  the screen softly.  If they go
past this point, they must know they  have help on the way. It was  an arbitrary
decision, with no guarantee that it would have any relationship to reality,  but
he needed some  reference mark to  help focus his  thinking. Then he  turned his
attention to the smaller New Spartan elements.

The  New Spartan  rocket artillery  was still  trying to  get lost  in the  wild
country to the north, staying under cover of the forests, maintaining electronic
silence as far as  possible. For the most  part they were successful  at evading
detection. They were  moving too fast,  and too erratically,  for the Dirigenter
artillery to knock them  out on the rare  occasions when they were  located. And
the infantry of Lon's  2nd Battalion had not  been able to close  with the enemy
yet.

The enemy troops  who had manned  the southwestern arc  of the New  Spartan line
around University City were in the industrial district neighboring the capital's
primary aerospaceport. Parker Watson had his battalion close, moving to keep the
New Spartans in place. Vel Osterman was with Watson, taking tactical command  of
4th of the 7th and the  heavy-weapons units supporting it. Several companies  of
the EDF were moving into position behind those New Spartans. They were in direct
contact with Os-terman.

Fifteenth Regiment had not yet  closed with the New  Soartans they were  chasing
the units that had been on  the southeastern end of the perimeter-or  scare them
into static  defensive positions.  Fal Jensen  had one  battalion moving  to get
between  those  New  Spartans  and  the  most  heavily  inhabited  districts  of
University City. He was leading the rest of his regiment out on the other flank,
hoping to keep the enemy units he was after from turning northeast to rendezvous
with their main force.

And here I  sit with two  battalions, as far  from the fighting  as 1 could  get
without actually running from it, Lon thought, making a face of disgust. Half  a
regiment that can't contribute to any  of the battles for at least  three hours.
That did not feel  proper, though he kept  telling himself it was.  He had three
members of the Elysian cabinet with him, and a dozen of their staff people.  All
had to be turned over safely  to their own people, moved inside  University City
and the defensive lines of the Elysian Defense Force.

Lon glanced skyward. The dance going on involving the ships and fighters of both
sides was  another element  of the  puzzle, one  he felt  far from  qualified to
judge, let alone direct. The  skipper of Peregrine remained in  tactical command
of that part of the Dirigenter force.  Even when it came to using the  Shrike Us
for ground  support or  attacks on  enemy ground  forces. Captain  Kurt  Thorsen
Peregrine's captain-had  to be  consulted, not  commanded. That  was part of the
interservice diplomacy between the Corps' line officers and the officers of  its
ancillary services. The defense of  the ships was Thorsen's responsibility,  and
the Shrike II fighters were his first line of defense.

Lon got to his feet, folded his mapboard, and stuck it in the specially designed
pocket on the right leg of his battledress trousers. / can't see anything better
than keeping on the way we've been going, he thought, gesturing to Phip Steesen,
who had drifted off  to the other side  of the room. "Let's  get the men up  and
moving, Phip," Lon said  over their radio link.  "We're not doing any  good here
chewing our tongues." Lon alerted the two battalion commanders, then went out of
the shell of a house to where the Elysians were sitting together.

"We've got to get  moving again. Sorry the  rest couldn't have been  longer," he
told them. "With a  little luck, we'll get  you back to your  people tonight. If
nothing else goes wrong."

"Don't worry about us,"  Berlino said, the first  of the Elysians to  get to his
feet. "We'll  manage." He  seemed less  nervous than  before, as  if all  he had
needed to collect his wits were a few minutes to rest. He gestured to hurry  his
compatriots to their feet. "We can all do with the exercise, in any case."


Moving half a regiment was  not as simple as moving  a platoon or a company.  It
was not just scale,  but growing complexity as  the number of levels  increased,
communications and making sure that  each subordinate commander knew his  unit's
responsibilities and which other  units were responsible for  other necessities.
The two battalions with Lon were spread  out over more than half a square  mile.
Even  for a  short break  they had  moved into  a defensive  perimeter, no   one
completely relaxing, no one  forgetting that there  were hostile soldiers  about
and the  possibility of  rocket attack  with very  little warning. Now, flankers
were put out on both sides. Platoons were put out in front to scout the line  of
march and  warn of  any ambush.  One company  waited to  follow the rest as rear
guard. This time the rotation of duties put Junior's company from 1st  Battalion
behind the rest, split in two elements, covering both lines of march.

Lon was very near the geographical center of the strung-out formation, with  his
headquarters detachment, the men forming a loose shield around him. Phip Steesen
was near the front of this inner formation. Torrey Berger was near the rear.  In
the middle, only Jeremy Howell was especially close to the regimental commander.
He always stayed close to Lon.  Two squads of troops flanked them.  The Elysians
were not far behind, with their own squads of bodyguards.

Several times in  the next hour,  the entire formation  came to a  halt when the
point squads spotted possible mines or booby traps. Those had to be checked  out
carefully and  the real  explosives detonated  or inactivated  before the  march
could start again. Electronic snoops-left to report on troop movements-were also
deactivated, destroyed, when they were found.

On the march,  Lon moved just  like any private  under his command-rifle  at the
ready, finger resting  over the trigger  guard, his eyes  sweeping from side  to
side, looking for any possible threat. That there was little chance of any enemy
getting close to him mattered little. He felt no lessening of the tension he had
always felt in  a potential combat  situation, though he  handled it far  better
than he had  as a young  man. There was  always a chance  of trouble-a sniper, a
booby trap that had somehow been missed by everyone else, anything.

At the same time, he was kept busy with the demands of command, keeping track of
his  far-flung  units,  receiving  updates from  Jensen  and  his  own battalion
commanders  and  from  CIC.  The  one  good  thing  about  the  sheer  volume of
communications was  that it  gave him  no time  to worry  about his own physical
well-being ... or that  of his only son,  now about five hundred  yards north of
him, in the rear guard.

That was where the trouble came.



15

Lon heard a crackling sound like wood burning in a fireplace, distant and faint,
but he recognized the sound for what it was: automatic gunfire. He had heard  it
often enough  over the  years. Seconds  later, he  took a  call from Captain Jaz
Taiters, commander of D Company,  1st Battalion, 7th Regiment-D-l-7 in  military
shorthand.  Taiters  was a  nephew  of Arlan  Taiters,  the lieutenant  who  had
mentored Lon through his stint as an officer cadet... and who had been killed on
Lon's first combat contract. Jaz also was Junior's company commander.

"We're being hit on the left.  Colonel," Taiters reported, his voice well  under
control. "Sounds like maybe two  platoons. They were already firing  before they
switched on electronics, so we didn't have any warning. I guess they infiltrated
after everyone else went by. Doesn't seem possible they could have been  sitting
there for long and not been spotted."

"Can  you handle  them alone,  or do  you need  help?" Lon  asked, fumbling  his
mapboard out of its pocket.

"If we've got  anyone close, I  wouldn't turn down  help," Taiters said,  "but I
think we can handle them alone if we  have to. I do have four men down  already,
and they're gonna need medical help in pretty short order."

Lon bit off  the question he  wanted to ask,  about Junior. "Have  your men keep
their heads down. I'll order an  artillery strike. I have the positions  of your
opposition on the mapboard. Can you tell if any of your wounded are in  critical
condition?"

"Two of them are going to need trauma tubes as fast as we can get them. Hang  on
while I tell everyone to get down. Your son is leading a platoon to try to flank
the ambushers."

Lon used the  delay to order  one battery of  self-propelled 225mm howitzers  to
drop a load on the New  Spartan positions. "Take care with the  coordinates," he
told the battery commander. "We've got men within fifty yards of them." Junior's
okay. So far,  he thought with  relief-almost with too  much relief, considering
how many other men were also in harm's way.

"Fire mission on its way," Lon told Taiters when the captain came back on  line.
"I'll get the medtechs  and trauma tubes started  your way while you  finish off
any of the enemy the artillery misses."

"Will do. Colonel, and thanks."

It was only marginally appropriate, but after he had sent the medtechs on  their
way, Lon dialed up his son's platoon channel to listen in. He could hear gunfire
more clearly  over this  channel-Junior apparently  was much  closer to  the New
Spartans than Captain Taiters-but there was no unnecessary chatter. The order to
take cover had already  been given. He heard  the whistle of incoming  artillery
rounds and  then the  explosions. The  first blast  was isolated,  but the  rest
overlapped each other  so thoroughly that  it was impossible  to guess how  many
rounds had been fired.

When the barrage ended,  there was only an  instant of silence before  the rifle
fire resumed. Lon heard Junior say, "Come on. Let's finish this before they pull
their heads outta their asses." Stifling a laugh was almost painful for Lon.  He
shook his head. Colorful, he thought, but at least he communicates  effectively.
For many young officers, that was the hardest skill to acquire.

Lon blinked several times and looked around. The march had not stopped, but  Lon
had allowed his vigilance to flag ever so slightly while he concentrated on  the
problems of his son's company. He continued to listen as Junior's platoon closed
with the remnants of the New Spartan  ambush, but he forced himself to pay  more
attention to his own surroundings. Briefly, he switched channels to tell all  of
his commanders about the ambush on the rear guard, and to urge greater vigilance
in case there were other attacks along the flanks or against the point. Then  he
returned to monitoring his son's channel.

"We've got  them all.  Captain," Junior  reported to  Jaz Taiters.  "Two of them
still alive, but in extremely bad shape.  I don't know if either will last  long
enough to reach a tube."

A few seconds  later, Taiters called  Lon to give  the same report.  "One of the
company's medtechs is already with  them," Taiters said. "He said  there doesn't
seem to be  much purpose in  hurrying trauma tubes,  that they're not  likely to
make it."

"I'm  sending  them  anyway,  Jaz,"  Lon  said.  "We  make  the  effort whenever
possible."

"Yes, sir, that's what I told the medtech."

"We're setting up a temporary hospital near where I am now," Lon said. The  SMO,
Major Norman, was handling the details, and positioning the two platoons of line
soldiers who would  provide security for  the medical personnel  and wounded-and
move the temporary facility to new locations as that became necessary. It  would
not be left too far from the  bulk of 7th Regiment. "Bring the casualties  here.
We'll treat those we can and make arrangements to evacuate anyone hurt too badly
to return to duty after a few hours in a tube. When we can."

When we can might not be  anytime soon. After Taiters acknowledged the  message,
Lon dropped out of the line of march and went to where Major Norman was  setting
up the field hospital.

"You've got four men coming  in from Delta of the  1st, two in tubes," Lon  told
him. "Maybe one or two New Spartans  in tubes as well, if they survive  until we
get tubes to them."

"I know about them," Norman said, nodding. "You have any idea when we'll be able
to evacuate casualties?"

"Not a clue. The situation up top is ... uncertain just now. The two fleets  are
dancing  around trying  to stay  out of  each other's  way. That  keeps the  New
Spartans out of our way, but it limits what we can do. My hope right now is that
we won't have anyone hurt badly  enough to need evacuation in a  hurry, until...
well, until things are a little clearer."

"From the reports I've had from  the medtechs on the scene. Delta's  wounded are
all going to be able to return to  duty after they do a few hours in  the tubes.
If the two New Spartans make  it, they might both need additional  treatment. If
we get that far,  stable and out of  danger, perhaps we can  arrange to transfer
them back to their  own people." Norman hesitated  just a beat before  he added,
"Since we're dealing with professionals."

"One step  at a  time," Lon  said. "The  situation might  not arise, from what I
heard. The medtech on the scene  doesn't think they'll last until we  get trauma
tubes to them."

Norman shrugged. "If the  fighting picks up, there  might be others. I'd  rather
stabilize enemy casualties and get them off my hands than tie down resources  we
need for our own people."

"Transfer any who are hurt  too badly to be able  to pick up a rifle  and rejoin
the fight after four hours in a  trauma tube," Lon said. "We don't want  to have
to put the  same people down  twice." He turned  and walked away  before the SMO
could reply to that.


Sunset. It had  been nearly fifteen  hours since the  initial landings. Lon  had
stopped the two battalions  with him an hour  before, after making contact  with
two companies of the Elysian defense force on the outskirts of University  City.
The nearest residential district started half a mile from the point of  contact,
past a thickly wooded  strip of ground that  sloped gently toward the  Styx. The
men had dug in, defending an oval area  a mile long and about a third of  a mile
wide at the broadest section. On the  south and southeast, there was a creek  in
front of the Dirigenter line. Electronic  snoops and mines had been planted  out
beyond the perimeter, around the entire oval. Patrols, generally single-squad in
strength, would start scouting around farther out once dusk gave way to dark.

Inside the  perimeter, everyone  had eaten.  Once the  defensive positions  were
prepared, Lon  gave the  word for  each unit  to go  on half-and-half watches-50
percent on watch, the other 50  percent sleeping, or trying to. Lon  was sitting
in a trench that was covered by a camouflage tarp that also served as a  thermal
insulator-another  layer of  camouflage in  the dark  to defeat  enemy  infrared
night-vision systems.  He had  loosened the  closures on  his boots  but had not
taken them  off. He  had eaten,  mechanically, more  because of  training to eat
whenever possible in the field than because he had been hungry.

The afternoon had ended up relatively calm. Neither side had been able to  bring
in fighters  for effective  missions against  the enemy,  because when  one side
launched fighters, so  did the other,  and they either  fought plane-to-plane or
had to take up defensive positions around their ships.

On the ground, most of the  New Spartan forces continued trying to  put distance
between themselves and the Dirigenters. The rocket artillery that had been north
of the  landings, now  estimated at  half a  battalion in  strength, was  moving
farther north. They were very nearly out of range of any Dirigenters except  the
ones  who  were  pursuing them  on  the  ground. The  other  New  Spartan rocket
artillery, what  remained of  the batteries  that had  first taken 15th Regiment
under fire-perhaps  only a  single battery  of four  or five launchers-had moved
east with the New  Spartan main force, which  was now nearly fifteen  miles away
from Lon's headquarters, still pursued by 15th Regiment.

The New  Spartan infantry  units that  had been  on the  southeastern section of
their initial encirclement of University City had moved almost to the River Styx
before turning east, also withdrawing as  rapidly as they could. The only  enemy
force that  had not  been able  to pull  away from  the Elysian  capital was now
trapped in and around  the aerospaceport. That was  where Lon expected the  only
heavy  fighting  in  the  next few  hours.  Parker  Watson's  battalion and  two
companies of  Elysians, supported  by 7th  Regiment's tanks  and artillery, were
going to attack at  2200 hours-ten o'clock that  night-little more than an  hour
away.

Lon took his helmet off for the first time since before boarding his shuttle  on
Golden Eagle more than sixteen hours earlier. His scalp itched; he scratched it,
vigorously, with both hands. He rubbed at his face and eyes. I've got to find  a
little time for sleep myself, he thought. He was tired, physically and mentally,
which seemed to  aggravate the minor  aches that being  on the move  all day had
brought. Sleep before my mind gets too fogged up to function. Stim patches would
help, but there was a limit, and sometimes there were side effects.

I'll wait  until I  know that  we've got  Berlino and  the others  back to their
people,  Lon  decided,  nodding  to  himself.  As  soon  as  the  attack  on the
aerospaceport  started,  two  companies  from  1st  Battalion  would  escort the
Elysians who  had traveled  to Dirigent  into the  capital to  hand them over to
their own military for escort home. By  that time we might even have a  decision
at the port.  He did not  doubt that the  New Spartans there  would be defeated,
forced to surrender. The  main question in his  mind was how expensive  it would
be. How many  of his own  people would be  killed? Combat economics  was how the
Corps referred to  the subject, and  it came complete  with budgets and  balance
sheets-a macabre  species of  bookkeeping that  disturbed many  field commanders
when they could put names and faces to the numbers on the spreadsheets.

Lon yawned, almost out of control.  His eyes started to water. Maybe  I'd better
not wait, he told himself. He took a  deep breath and let it out slowly. /  need
sleep.

"Teff," Lon said,  putting on his  helmet to talk  to his second-in-command.  He
waited for Ives  to acknowledge, then  said, "I'm going  to try to  get a nap in
before you hit  the port. I'll  have everything fed  through to you  until then.
Give me a call when Parker is ready to move."

A nap.  Sleep. Get  it while  you can.  That was  one of  the first  tricks most
soldiers learned about combat contracts. Lon lay back in his slit trench,  using
the webbing of his helmet as a pillow. Fifty minutes, even forty, and I can  get
through the  night, he  thought as  he shifted  around to  get as comfortable as
possible. The temperature  was acceptable, and  it wasn't raining.  There wasn't
much more an  infantryman could ask  for in the  field. Lon closed  his eyes and
concentrated on  his breathing-long,  slow breaths-while  he tried  to shut  out
everything else.

This time  it even  worked. He  drifted into  sleep-light and  easily  disturbed
within two minutes  and didn't come  all the way  out of it  until forty minutes
later when  Tefford Ives  called to  tell him  that 4th  Battalion was staged to
begin its  assault on  the aerospaceport  and the  New Spartans  around it. "Two
minutes," Ives concluded.

Lon had come completely awake at the mention of his name on the radio. "Keep  me
posted, Teff. As  soon as you  get things going  there, I'll start  our Elysians
home. We'll get them in before the New Spartans can even think about getting  in
the way."

Next, Lon called  Jaz Taiters, who  was leading the  two-company element of  1st
Battalion that would escort the New  Spartans on the last part of  their journey
home.

"We're ready to move whenever you give the word, Colonel," Taiters said. "We got
everyone up forty-five  minutes ago. Our  guests seem anxious  to get this  over
with."

"Just make sure  your point men  keep their eyes  open for mines  or other booby
traps, and snipers," Lon  said. "Other than that,  you should have fairly  clear
sailing. Get our VIPs home safe, then check in with me. I don't know yet if  I'm
going to bring you  back here or not.  We may want to  use you to help  seal the
enemy in near the port."

The first distant sounds of cannon fire rumbled in then. The tanks and howitzers
had opened up on the New Spartan  positions. In less than a minute the  infantry
would start moving forward as well, if the schedule held.

"Five minutes, Jaz," Lon said. "I'll get back to you."

Lon spent those minutes listening to reports from Ives, Parker Watson, and  CIC.
Watchers on Peregrine had the best view of the barrage launched against the  New
Spartan  positions. A  number of  buildings were  either destroyed  or  severely
damaged,  including the  port's main  terminal. It  was suspected  that the  New
Spartans had  been using  those buildings.  Better to  waste buildings  than our
people, Lon thought, shaking his head. Even if they are our hosts' buildings.

"We're on  the move,"  Parker Watson  reported, right  on schedule.  "Only light
enemy small-arms fire so far, except in  one location on my left. The tanks  are
going to help  there." There was  a pause, during  which Lon heard  what sounded
like several rounds of tank fire  hitting almost as one. "There, that  should do
it," Watson said. "I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

Lon watched  the timeline  on his  helmet display,  then called Captain Taiters.
"Get moving, Jaz. The fight is joined at the port. Good luck."



16

The sun can be your enemy. It lets unfriendly eyes see you, target you. Night is
your friend. Embrace it  as a vampire might.  Revel in the darkness;  use it. No
matter how good the night-vision system your opponent uses, it won't give him as
good vision as daylight. That gives you an edge, a slight extra margin of safety
in almost any operation on almost any world. The memory came from Lon's days  in
recruit training just after he had arrived on Dirigent, before he had  qualified
as an officer cadet and been assigned to A-2-7. One of the drill instructors had
shouted that message  at his troops,  virtually every day.  Even now, Lon  could
almost hear the man's  voice, even though that  DI had died twenty  years before
and a hundred light years away.

I never seem to think about the ones who retired or resigned, just the ones  who
died in battle,  Lon thought. He  tilted his helmet's  visor up to  look around,
sticking his head out beyond the cover of the camouflage tarp. The darkness  was
not quite complete.  It was never  total... aboveground. Here,  heavy tree cover
and a low cloud deck had combined to minimize unaided visibility, but the clouds
were just moving in. To the east, just above the horizon, the sky was  partially
clear. A few stars and Elysium's moon-which was almost as large as Earth's- gave
texture to the  darkness, a backdrop  against which trees  moved in the  breeze.
Silhouettes danced against the blackness.

It's going to rain before long, Lon  told himself. He fancied he could feel  the
approach of precipitation on the breeze, confirming the forecast he had received
from CIC earlier. A  front was moving in  from the northwest, with  rain showers
and occasional thunderstorms.  CIC thought that  the heaviest storms  would most
likely stay  farther north,  away from  the main  zone of  operations. Only  2nd
Battalion might experience any of those and, according to CIC, even that was not
especially likely.

Lon pulled his visor back into  place. Vision improved to about 80  percent what
it would have been in broad  daylight, the faintly greenish tint of  objects too
familiar to  even be  noticed; his  brain trained  to integrate  .the view  from
infrared sensors  and available-light  multipliers in  the duplexed night-vision
system. The fighting around University City's main port had been going on for  a
bit  more than  an hour.  The New  Spartans were  being forced  into a   smaller
perimeter, compressed and  pressed. They're running  out of places  to hide, Lon
thought,  trying to  reassure himself.  They'll have  to surrender  before  much
longer. None of their other  forces are close enough to  come to their aid. .  .
not in time.

Chancellor Berlino  and his  compatriots were  only minutes  from being reunited
with their people. Then the two companies from 1st Battalion would be available.
/'// have to decide if I'm going  to use them to reinforce 4th Battalion  pretty
soon. Turn them west to force the issue there or... Lon had several options.  He
could send  those two  companies east  to help  block the  fragment of the enemy
force that had  gone south to  the river before  turning, try to  keep them from
rejoining the main New Spartan force.  He could bring them back to  rejoin their
battalion. Or he could send them northeast, set up another line between the main
New Spartan force and the Elysian capital.

The fewer pieces  we split into,  the better off  we are, Lon  reminded himself.
Make sure we have tactical numerical superiority over any enemy force we engage.
There's no  need to  fragment ourselves.  So I  bring those  companies to one or
another of the segments we've got out now. Back under the cover of his tarp, Lon
pulled out his mapboard and opened it.

I need to start moving 7th east, east-northeast, he thought, adjusting the  view
until it included all known enemy  positions as well as those of  the Dirigenter
troops. As soon as we know we've got this one batch of the enemy taken care  of.
Work at enveloping their main force with  15th on the right and us on  the left,
keep them from turning off in either direction. Maybe reinforce 2nd Battalion to
put down the enemy rocket artillery running around north of here. There were two
segments  of 15th  Regiment operating  apart from  each other.  One  shorthanded
battalion was keeping pressure on the  New Spartans moving east along the  Styx.
The rest  of the  regiment was  following the  main enemy  force east,  drifting
gradually more to the north.

He looked up from the mapboard, trying to picture the movements in his head.  If
we can get rid of  those rocket launchers, the rest  should be just a matter  of
running the enemy down and forcing  them to fight or surrender. He  squeezed his
eyes shut. The planning always seemed so simple-crisp, clean, uncomplicated. But
no enemy could be counted on to fall in with those plans, no matter how  elegant
they seemed.

How far can they run? How far will they run? Lon shook his head, then opened his
eyes to stare at the map-board. He still had no hard count on the number of  New
Spartans on  Elysium, but  CIC's best  estimate was  that Lon  had them slightly
outnumbered, maybe six-to-five, overall. Which will improve if we neutralize the
one batch around the port, he reminded himself.

He didn't  think that  the firefight  around the  port would  continue very much
longer. Soon, very soon, the New  Spartans would have to realize that  they were
hemmed in, outnumbered too heavily-locally-to win that engagement. Then . . .

"Twenty enemy rockets vectoring toward our troops near the port!" There were  no
preliminaries to the report  from CIC. The speaker  followed by saying that  the
warning also had been broadcast directly to the Dirigenter units around the port
and  that  coordinates  for  counterbattery fire  had  been  fed  to the  rocket
launchers and howitzers of 7th and 15th Regiments.

Seventh Regiment's 4th Battalion had less than a minute's warning before the New
Spartan missiles  started exploding  among them.  The Elysian  troops behind the
port  had virtually  no warning  at all.  There were  no direct   communications
channels  between  Peregrine and  the  EDF units.  More  than half  the  rockets
targeted that section of the encirclement.

"Lon, they're making a breakout!" Tefford Ives shouted over the noise of a  pair
of secondary explosions-somewhere  near him. "Right  through whatever's left  of
the Elysians on  the far side,  moving a little  south of east.  There's not one
chance in hell that we can head them off on the ground."

"Easy, Teff," Lon  said. "Get me  a report on  our casualties as  quickly as you
can.  Leave enough  people to  take care  of the  wounded, then  pursue the  New
Spartans. I'll move the two companies from 1st Battalion to intercept." While he
talked, Lon scrolled the view on his mapboard and increased the magnification to
give him a better view of the  area between Captain Taiters and the fleeing  New
Spartans. It looked as if it might be a tight race. Lon switched radio  channels
and gave Jaz Taiters his new orders, then switched back to talk with Ives again.

"It's going to take an hour to  get those two companies moved, and I'm  not sure
that'll be fast  enough. I'll have  the rest of  the regiment moving  in fifteen
minutes, sliding in on the side. If  the enemy looks as if they're going  to try
to move deeper into University City, you'll  have to try to get around on  their
south, force them to keep going east, or even northeast."

"Should we just start  angling that way now?  Keep them from even  trying?" Ives
asked.

"No." Lon  shook his  head, even  though there  was no  way Ives  could see  the
gesture. "You do that and they're liable to double back to the west and get  out
of range of interception. We'll have to  wait until I get the troops here  close
enough to make it impossible for  those New Spartans to move in  that direction.
Get  on  with  Parker and  get  his  battalion moving  as  quickly  as you  can.
Coordinate with  the Elysian  units you've  been working  with. I've  got to get
things started here."

Lon spent five  minutes giving orders  to company and  battalion commanders, and
setting up  missions for  his artillery-as  much to  slow down  the escaping New
Spartans as to  cause casualties. There  might be as  much as a  battalion and a
half of New Spartans trying to get  out of the pocket, twelve hundred men.  Half
of Lon's  1st Battalion  and all  of 3rd  were ready  to move  in less  than ten
minutes. The advance scouts  had already started along  the routes that the  six
companies would follow. Lon's headquarters detachment formed and moved onto  the
line of march.

"They sure don't seem to know how to give up," Phip Steesen said on his  private
link to Lon.

"Maybe they've decided that they don't  have to defeat us completely to  fulfill
their  contract,"  Lon  said.  "Maybe the  commander  of  the  New Spartans  has
convinced himself  that all  he has  to do  is demonstrate  to the Elysians that
they're vulnerable even with outside help-unless it's the Confederation's  help.
Make the Elysians too frightened to say no, which must have been their  original
mission in any case."

"You mean, even if we beat the New Spartans it might not be enough?" Phip asked.

"That  might be  what the  New Spartans  think. I  don't think  that's the  case
myself. I think our employers are too set on maintaining their independence,  no
matter the  price." /  hope, Lon  thought. Otherwise  this whole  exercise is  a
waste.

The lights went out  in University City. There  had been no blackout  during the
weeks that the Elysians had waited for the Dirigenters to appear out of Q-space.
The locals had tried to keep everything as normal as possible. Now, though,  the
lights went out-not all  at once, as if  all power had been  cut, but gradually,
over ten or fifteen minutes, as the message circulated from one neighborhood  to
the next. Lon saw the lights go out a floor at a time, top to bottom, on one  of
the three tallest buildings in the  Elysian capital. He wasn't certain what  the
structure was, but thought  it was the main  building on the university  campus.
The urban glow faded quickly.

The point squads on the two columns set a fast pace, and Lon did nothing to slow
them. Use the night. It doesn't  last forever. He felt a prickling  sensation at
the  back of  his neck,  the anticipation  of action,  the almost   subconscious
thought that  he himself  might get  close to  the front  in the next firefight.
Anticipation, almost a perverse eagerness  for battle-something he had not  felt
since he  was an  officer cadet  out to  prove himself  and win his lieutenant's
pips. When he realized that, his pace faltered for a second. He almost stumbled.

That's crazy, he told himself. This is just another job that has to be done, not
the spring dance back at The Springs. The Springs was the unofficial name of the
military academy of the North American Union, back on Earth, where he had almost
become an officer. He would have, too, and perhaps never left the planet of  his
birth, except for a  political decision to commandeer  the top graduates of  his
class for duty in  the federal police, suppressing  the dissident poor in  their
urban circuses-ghettos-putting down riots with maximum violence and hunting  out
those who might foment future difficulties. Might. As an idealistic young cadet,
Lon had considered that career revolting-as had others, including the commandant
of The Springs, who had helped Lon and a few others escape the onerous duty.

Maybe some of those  others are in the  New Spartan force, Lon  thought, and the
notion was startling.  None of the  other cadets who  had used the  commandant's
disciplinary  scam  to escape  duty  in the  NAU's  federal police  had  come to
Dirigent with him, though at the time Lon had understood that Dirigent was to be
the destination for all of them.

Not too likely, I guess, not after  all these years, he told himself. He  took a
deep breath and looked around. If's been  too long. Even if some of them  did go
to New Sparta, the odds are against any of them still being on active duty, more
so against even one of them being here, across the lines from me. That would  be
too much of a coincidence.

His momentary distraction was ended by a call from CIC. The latest estimate  was
that  two-thirds of  the New  Spartan rocket  launchers had  been destroyed   by
counter-battery fire following the barrage that had let the enemy that had  been
hemmed in around the port break out. Two-thirds of the launchers that had  taken
part in that attack, CIC qualified. More hopeful than certain, the duty  officer
in CIC added,  "They can't have  many more rockets  available for the  launchers
they still have, not with all they've expended since we've been here."

"Don't let that hope  blind you to what  they might have," Lon  cautioned. "They
haven't started waving white flags yet." He didn't hesitate long enough to get a
reply. "Sorry, that was uncalled for. I know you won't quit watching."


Lon kept  his men  on the  march for  an hour  and a  half- covering nearly five
miles-before he permitted  a five-minute rest.  He sat with  his back against  a
tree trunk and pulled out his  mapboard. He had been receiving frequent  updates
from his subordinate commanders  as well as from  CIC. Now he needed  to look at
the chart to help him fix all of the changes in his head.

The  main enemy  force had  stopped moving  and appeared  to be  setting up  and
reinforcing defensive positions-even if they only intended to remain in them for
a few hours,  long enough to  give their men  a chance for  a little sleep.  The
smaller force to the southeast was  still moving, trying to angle north,  hoping
to rendezvous with  the main force  ... but unable  to because of  the battalion
from 15th  Regiment between  them. The  force that  had broken  out of  the trap
around the port was also moving east, but leaving skirmishers and booby traps to
slow pursuit. That was  where the only real  fighting had been going  on. To the
north, Lon's 2nd Battalion had come across the remains of four rocket  launchers
and several dozen dead soldiers. There  was evidence that some of the  enemy had
survived and were continuing to move away, north and east, but not obviously  on
a route designed to rendezvous with the main New Spartan force.

Phip Steesen sat next to Lon. Phip laid his rifle across his legs after checking
to make certain that the safety was on, then lifted the faceplate of his  visor.
"They get off into the wilds, we  might chase them for months and never  be able
to force the issue," he said when Lon also raised his faceplate. "Time for  them
to get reinforcements in  or force the issue  up top. Whatever." Phip  shook his
head.

"That's okay," Lon said. "If  we can get them all  away from the city, past  the
main farming belt, and far  enough in the wild to  let the Elysians get back  to
business as usual, we've got the time. Three months, six, even longer. Keep  the
New Spartans occupied until the General can send another regiment and a fighting
ship or two. If it comes down to it, Dirigent has more resources to call on than
New Sparta does-men, ships, and everything else."

"Yeah, but  even Elysium  doesn't have  bottomless pockets,"  Phip said.  "And I
doubt their patience will be endless either. You think we're going to be able to
bottle up  that one  batch of  the enemy  yet? The  ones who  broke out from the
port."

Lon tilted his mapboard so Phip would be able to see it clearly. "I'm not  sure.
Right now I'll be happy if we can make them keep moving on their current  route.
If they  take a  right turn  and head  into the  city, then  we could  have more
serious problems. They're only two miles from the main campus of the university.
If they get in there, the Elysians will really get their tail feathers ruffled."

"Can we stop them?"

"It's close, too damned close. The EDF  is on that side, about six hundred  men,
doing what they can.  Parker can get maybe  two companies in the  way, and we're
still using  our artillery  to harass  the New  Spartans, but they're zigzagging
enough that we can't be too  ... profligate with the artillery. Too  much chance
of destroying Elysian buildings now that they're right on the edge of the  urban
district, and I'm not sure that all of the civilians are out of that area."

"The way we're  moving here, we  might force the  New Spartans farther  into the
city," Phip said. His finger moved across Lon's mapboard, tracing the route. "If
I were commanding that unit of New Spartans, I'd sure as hell want to get out of
our way."

"That boxes them  in, sooner or  later," Lon said.  "They've already shown  they
don't  like  boxes. They're  like  us, Phip.  They  want to  be  where they  can
maneuver, where they have freedom of  movement." Lon tilted his visor down  just
enough to view the timeline on its display. "Speaking of movement, it's time for
us to get on our feet again."

"Yeah, I'd better get back where I belong." Phip got to his feet and pulled  his
faceplate into place, then jogged toward his position fifty yards away.

Lon was slower  to get to  his feet, using  his rifle to  help him. We  can't go
forever without taking more  time for rest, he  thought, shaking his head.  That
forty-minute nap he had taken seemed weeks ago, and he doubted that many of  his
men had managed much more sleep than he had. Some of them had probably had  much
less,  and  a  few-especially  among his  junior  officers  and  noncoms- likely
wouldn't have had any. Not yet, he told himself after giving the order to  start
moving again. We can't afford the time  until we either catch this batch of  the
enemy or drive them away from the city.

                                    *  *  *

It was 0300 hours.  The left-hand column was  stopped again. The platoon  on the
point had run into an ambush set by a squad or two of New Spartans. Jaz  Taiters
was moving  the rest  of his  company up  to finish  the firefight as quickly as
possible. It gave the other companies in the two columns a couple of minutes  to
rest-though everyone remained alert in case there were more of the enemy  nearby
hiding, ready to pounce.

Lon did not sit this time, but rested on one knee, using his rifle to help  keep
his balance while he waited for Taiters' company to finish the firefight. Rotate
them off the point  when it's done, he  told himself. Give them  a break. Rotate
the point on the other side, too. He tried to focus on the few reports he  could
hear on the radio, eavesdropping on  the platoon frequency to get some  sense of
what was going on. Hear the sounds of fighting, the rifle fire that occasionally
sounded like strings of small firecrackers going off in quick succession. Mostly
he tried  not to  think about  Junior. It  had been  one of  his two platoons on
point, though he had been farther back with the other platoon- which had quickly
moved to support the first-when the ambush was sprung.

"Captain! The lieutenant's been hit. He's down!"

The words hit Lon like a hard  blow to the gut. The first coherent  thought that
came after that was. Not Junior: the other lieutenant, but it -was a vain  hope.
At the moment, Lon couldn't recall the name of the other lieutenant in  Junior's
company. He held his breath, waiting for something else ... and dreading what it
might be.

"How badly is he hurt?" Lon recognized Jaz Taiters' voice.

"I don't know. The  medtech just got to  him." That was one  of Junior's platoon
sergeants. There seemed to  be an impossibly loud  rushing noise in Lon's  ears.
"I've got two other men down, too; one of them dead."

"Hang on, we're in position."

Over  the radio,  Lon could  hear a  sudden massive  increase in  the amount  of
gunfire. That  lasted for  nearly a  minute, and  when it  ended, there  was ...
something approaching total silence.

What's going on?!  Lon's mind screamed  at him. It  took total concentration  to
keep from yelling over the radio for  news about his son. He didn't even  notice
that he had gotten to his feet and  taken a couple of steps in the direction  of
the firefight-half a mile away. It must have been another two minutes before Lon
received a call from Jaz Taiters.

"Junior's been hurt. Colonel," the captain reported. "The medtech says he should
be okay. They're moving him to a trauma tube now."

Lon did not acknowledge  the message. His knees  buckled under him and  he fell,
the weight of his combat pack pulling him over backward. He hit the ground hard,
butt first, stunned, but did not quite lose consciousness.



17

The flush of embarrassment  was worse than anything  else. His fall had  knocked
the air  out of  him, but  as soon  as he  recovered from that-twenty seconds or
less-he started to get back  to his feet. It was  not quickly enough for him  to
escape notice. Frank Dorcetti and Jeremy How-ell were both at his side before he
could stand, and Lon saw Phip hurrying toward them as well.

"I'm okay," Lon said as Dorcetti and  Howell moved to support him. "I just  lost
my balance and fell. Nothing's hurt." Nothing but pride.

"Maybe you'd better let a medtech check you out anyway," Howell said. "I knew  a
guy got a concussion falling that way."

Lon took a deep  breath and closed his  eyes for an instant.  "The medtechs have
enough to do with real casualties. I'm okay."

By that time  Phip had arrived,  and Lon had  to tell him  the same thing.  "I'm
okay. Come on. We've got work  to do. First Battalion has squashed  that ambush.
Get the companies moving again. Everyone back in place."

Howell and Dorcetti moved away from the colonel, but Phip didn't. "I heard about
Junior," Phip said softly, with his  visor up so his words weren't  transmitted.
One of Junior's platoon sergeants had called Phip directly. He had also received
an update from the medtech. "His wounds aren't life-threatening. They've got him
stabilized and on his way to a trauma tube."

Lon nodded abruptly. "I know, Phip. He'll  be okay, and so will I. We  can't let
this interfere with  what we've got  to do." His  voice sounded harsh,  but Phip
just nodded and headed back toward his own position in the line of march.

We can't let this interfere, Lon told  himself as he watched Phip move away.  He
felt anger, but it was directly  entirely at himself. It had been  difficult not
to snap at his aide and driver-even at Phip, his best friend-but that would have
just been to cover how foolish Lon felt, and he would have felt even worse if he
had. He was certain his face had flushed bright red, but that was something  the
others couldn't have seen through the tinted faceplate of his helmet. Get a grip
on yourself. The anger  had not faded. If  anything, it had grown  stronger, and
the more rational  part of Lon's  mind noted that  as well. Take  a deep breath.
It's  done  and over.  Concentrate  on what  you  've got  to  do now.  You  're
responsible for more than eight thousand  men. You can't let worry about  one of
them paralyze you.

One deep breath, let out slowly. A second. Lon started walking, his head  moving
from side to  side, his eyes  scanning. Get back  in the rhythm.  Junior will be
okay. Make sure  you don't do  something stupid and  get yourself hurt,  or show
everyone that  you're falling  apart. Years  of worry  about Junior  joining the
Corps and then about his safety once he did had all hit him at once, knocked him
for the  proverbial loop.  I'm still  not thoroughly  Dirigen-ter, he thought. /
can't take something like this in stride.

Jaz Taiters called to say that  the enemy ambush had been wiped  out--twenty New
Spartans dead, or wounded and captured;  no more than two or three  had escaped.
If Taiters  hadn't added  his assurance  that Junior  would recover, the routine
message would have helped  Lon bring his mind  fully back to the  necessities of
the moment. As it was, the comment made it that more difficult, reminded him how
vulnerable he had become through worrying about his son.

Lon forced himself  through another series  of breathing exercises,  designed to
help  him  relax. He  called  each battalion  commander  in turn,  to  ask about
position  and  progress, and  added  an unnecessary  reminder  to be  especially
watchful for  ambushes. Then  he called  Fal Jensen  to check  on 15th Regiment.
Finally, he made a routine check with the duty officer in CIC aboard  Peregrine.
Concentrating-fiercely-on the  minutiae of  routine helped.  Lon could  feel his
body adjusting, coming back  down to the "normal"  level of tension for  a field
situation with combat possible but not probable at any minute.

He glanced at the timeline on his head-up display. Less than thirty minutes  had
passed since  he heard  that Junior  had been  wounded. We've  only been  on the
surface twenty-four hours. That realization  was startling. It seemed as  if the
Elysian campaign had lasted half an eternity. Lon squeezed his eyes shut for  an
instant.  His head  throbbed dully  with the  tension. He  forced another   deep
breath, opening his eyes so he wouldn't stumble and have everyone on top of  him
asking after his health again. Though he tried to ignore it, the thought  You'll
be reminded about falling on your butt as long as you're in the Corps would  not
be denied. Lon growled, almost under his breath.

The terrain the  Dirigenters were crossing  was tame, farm  fields and orchards,
country lanes, with  occasional stands of  "wild" trees. What  fencing there had
been had all  been knocked down  by the New  Spartans during the  weeks in which
they had surrounded University City  and raised havoc in the  farming districts.
There were no civilians around, and no intact houses or barns. No livestock, and
not even much wildlife, Lon thought  as his headquarters group crossed what  had
been a farmyard. The  ruins of house and  barn had already been  checked to make
certain they harbored neither enemy nor booby traps.

The last of the night's stars  had been occulted by the encroaching  clouds. Lon
heard talk over the radio that the men in the rear guard had already started  to
see rain, moving faster than the column, so he was not surprised when the  first
drops spattered against his faceplate. At first the drops were large but few. It
was another ten minutes before the tempo increased significantly. Lon  tightened
the collar of his battledress blouse to  ensure that no water would run off  his
helmet and  down his  back. The  camouflage battledress  was water-resistant. It
would take a lot of heavy rain to soak through the fabric. Helmet and  faceplate
shed water so efficiently that there was scarcely any beading to obscure vision,
rarely  a  need  to  wipe  water  away.  And  Corps  boots  were  almost totally
waterproof, so the rain should not prove too much of an inconvenience.

Another distraction,  Lon thought,  but at  the moment  minor distractions  were
welcome. Lon stopped, stepping out of the line of march to watch men move  past.
Each glanced his way in passing, but no one said anything. Jeremy Howell dropped
out of  line as  well, to  stay near  his boss.  There was nothing unusual about
that. Lon sometimes  thought of Howell  as "my sizadow."  Nothing was said  just
then, and after a few minutes Lon  moved back into the line of march  and Jeremy
followed him.

"Almost wouldn't know we were on  contract if it didn't rain," Howell  said once
they were walking again. He had  a private channel connecting him with  Lon, one
that was shared  only by members  of the headquarters  staff. "The eternal  foot
soldier, rain above and mud below. I think there's something in the manual  says
that's the way it's supposed to be."

Lon smiled. "Don't  give up your  day job just  yet. Jerry. You're  not ready to
take the stage as a comic. But get  used to the rain. The forecast says it  will
probably continue through most  of the morning. When  we stop for a  long break,
we'll be sleeping under the faucet."

"That won't bother me. Colonel," Howell  replied, "but one of these times  Frank
Dorcetti is liable to drown in his sleep. He sleeps with his mouth open, and his
snoring through  a mouthful  of water  is purely  god-awful, if  you know what I
mean."

This time Lon did chuckle. "I know what you mean. Lead Sergeant Steesen used  to
be the same way." He  took in a deep breath  and let it out slowly.  He did feel
better. It would be easier now to  resist the urge to call the med-techs  to ask
about Junior. They'll let me know when there's something to say.

It was just past  0430 hours when both  Jaz Taiters and Parker  Watson called to
report  hearing  a series  of  explosions. In  each  case the  blasts  were some
distance away and not directed at their men. By comparing the direction given by
the two men, Lon was able to  pinpoint an area on his mapboard. A  minute later,
CIC confirmed the location of the explosions.

"They're using surface-to-air missiles  against civilian targets," Lon  reported
to his battalion  commanders and Fal  Jensen. "Buildings not  being used by  the
Elysian Defense Force.  I don't know  if it's random  or not. Yet.  I don't even
know if there were any civilians in any of those buildings."

"You think  they're trying  to divert  our attention?"  Jen-sen asked.  "Make us
siphon off resources to firefighting and rescue work?"

"If that's their intent,  it won't work," Lon  said. "The Elysians will  have to
attend to that. We'll have a better idea what the New Spartans are up to once we
find out if they're hitting random targets to cover their withdrawal or specific
factories,  maybe  munitions  facilities  or  something  similar."  He  scarcely
hesitated before  he said,  "I know  we all  need a  chance to  get a few hours'
sleep, but that has to wait. We have to keep pushing to get that one  detachment
of enemy soldiers away from other civilian targets first. That doesn't apply  to
the men you've got near  the enemy main force, Fal.  Let your men get what  rest
they can. You're going to have to be ready if those New Spartans try something."

"I've already got  those men on  half-and-half watches," Jensen  said. "When the
main force  settled in,  I figured  we'd have  to be  able to  match them in the
morning, what ever they decide to do next. Any good estimates on what that might
be?"

"I'm beginning to think they must expect massive reinforcement from New Sparta,"
Lon said. "How soon that  might be, I can't even  guess, but the longer they  go
without trying to go on the offensive,  the more likely it is. What I'm  looking
for now is, mainly, what the enemy  main force does this morning. If they  start
moving farther  away from  University City  and not  directly toward  one of the
other urban centers, we should have a pretty good indication."

"If  that's  what  they   do,  will  you  advise   Dirigent  to  send  out   our
reinforcements?" Jensen asked, almost hesitantly.

"I'm not going to make a decision on that yet, Fal," Lon said. "I'm leaning that
way, but I want more information before I blow the panic horn. Assuming, for the
sake of argument, that the New Spartans do have reinforcements on the way, we'll
be a lot better off if we can force the issue on the ground before more  players
join the cast. By  the way, Peregrine says  Colonel Hayley is definitely  out of
danger now. He will recover."

"That's good to know," Jensen said. "He's a good man."

A good man who 'II never be the  same, Lon thought. A man who 'II never  be able
to remember  just how  good he  was. There  are still  some things a trauma tube
can't fix.

"We'll talk again later, Fal. You'd better  try to get some sleep. I'll let  you
know if anything  comes up, and  we'll talk before  I decide whether  to ask for
another regiment."


Elements of 1st  Battalion managed to  close with the  New Spartans moving  east
across the northern edge of  University City just before sunrise.  The firefight
lasted twenty  minutes before  the New  Spartans were  able to  disengage, still
moving  east. This  time they  had no  assistance from  their rocket  artillery.
Either we got all of  them, or they just don't  have the missiles to spare,  Lon
thought. He would gladly accept either option.

Second Battalion had settled in for a few hours' sleep earlier. Lon had  decided
to stop the pursuit of the small New Spartan force to the north, leaving just  a
few patrols to  make certain he  would not lose  contact with them.  Ten minutes
after the end of the latest clash  on the outskirts of the Elysian capital,  Lon
gave the order for the rest of 7th Regiment to find good defensive positions and
settle in. "I hope to  make it for at least  four hours," he told the  battalion
commanders, "but no guarantees."

Set  up a  perimeter. Dig  minimal slit  trenches. Put  out patrols,  electronic
snoops, and a few land mines-just to keep the enemy on his toes. In each  squad,
one fire  team would  try to  sleep while  the other  remained on  watch against
possible enemy activity. Make routine communications checks. Lon spoke with each
battalion commander and with CIC.  There was nothing urgent. Finally  Lon yawned
and lay back in the slit trench Howell and Dor-cetti had fixed for him, with the
camouflage tarp propped over  it, arranged to catch  the slight breeze from  the
northwest while keeping most of the continuing rain off.

The rain had been almost constant  since it had started, never heavy,  sometimes
little more than a mist. For the most part, Lon had been able to ignore it.  The
ground he had been walking over drained well. There had been few patches of mud,
even after several hundred  men had crossed. It  was only when he  lay down that
Lon really thought about the rain, watching it. He was careful where he lay  his
rifle, keeping it close to his body, the muzzle propped up close to the tarp.

Sleep, Lon told himself. He was exhausted enough that sleep would come without a
patch. He had allowed  himself thirty seconds to  call the medtechs to  check on
his son. Junior was out  of the trauma tube and  back with his unit, so  Lon had
given himself  another thirty  seconds to  talk directly  to him.  He sounded  a
little unsteady, Lon thought, but that's  to be expected. It was his  first time
hurt. "Don't dwell on  it," Lon had advised.  "I know that's not  easy, but it's
the best way."

Sleep came, the deep  void that permitted no  dreams, no nightmares. Sleep  that
consuming  was rare  on a  combat contract,  almost unprecedented,  a  dangerous
luxury. The only problem was that it did not-could not-last long enough. Lon had
left instructions. After three hours, Jer-emy Howell woke him.

"I  really  hated  to  do  it.  Colonel,"  Howell  said.  "Seems  like nothing's
happening. Another  couple of  hours would  do you  a world  of good,  sir. Lead
Sergeant Steesen has reports from  every battalion and company in  the regiment,
and he talked with 15th's lead sergeant, too. Things are quiet everywhere."

"Another couple of hours would be nice," Lon agreed after a long and  satisfying
yawn, "but it will have to wait."  He tilted his faceplate up and rubbed  at his
face and eyes  with both hands  for a moment.  "I need to  talk to CIC,  Colonel
Jensen, and our battalion  commanders first. We have  any coffee packs handy  by
any chance? I could use a good caffeine jolt."

"Ten seconds. Colonel," Howell said. "I  got the water poured. Just need  to put
the coffee crystals in." He started  doing that while he talked. He  ripped open
the plastic packet and dumped the coffee in, then shook the field cup gently  to
help mix it up. The ten seconds were what the heating catalyst in the pack would
need to bring the water up to drinking temperature.

As soon  as the  coffee was  hot, Lon  started to  drink, taking  down half  the
beverage before he took  the cup away from  his lips the first  time. He watched
Howell pull the heating  strip on a meal  pack-which also opened the  container.
Lon took one more sip  of coffee, then set the  cup down carefully and took  the
meal that his aide offered him. "You eaten yet. Jerry?" Lon asked before he took
his first bite of the ham, eggs, and hard biscuit.

Howell nodded. "Two packs. I was hungry. You gonna want a second pack, sir?"

Lon smiled. "Probably,  but not right  away. I'll get  this down, then  make the
calls I need to make." He concentrated on his eating, taking no more than  three
minutes  to  finish  the  battle  rations-two  thousand  calories  enriched with
vitamins, minerals, high in  protein and carbohydrates. One  meal pack-breakfast
or lunch/supper-was supposed to include all the necessary nutrition to get a man
through twenty-four  hours. "They  put in  everything but  good taste,"  was the
usual reaction of men forced to live on them for any length of time.

As soon as he finished his  breakfast and coffee, Lon started making  his calls.
CIC informed  him that  the remaining  New Spartan  transports had  continued to
withdraw. They were now  eight hours out from  Elysium, moving in an  elliptical
orbit with a  period of slightly  more than three  days. The capital  ships were
much closer, staying near enough to  use their fighters to support their  troops
on the ground in a crisis.

On the ground, the New Spartans were  continuing a general move toward the  east
northeast, away from University City, and apparently not toward any of the other
major concentrations of inhabitants. "It looks as if you were right," Fal Jensen
said when Lon talked  with him. "They're going  to stooge around in  the wild so
they must expect help, but probably not too soon or they wouldn't go far."

"Unless we're overlooking something we shouldn't," Lon said. "I need your honest
opinion on something, Fal. Do you think I should ask for another regiment now or
hold off until we know something more definite?"

Jensen did not hesitate. "I  think we should ask for  it while we can. We  don't
know if  we'll be  able to  finish operations  against the  enemy we have on the
ground now, how long  we'll have before the  New Spartans bring in  more people,
how long we might have to hold out against their reinforcements before ours  can
arrive. The  time lag  could be  a killer,  since we  have to figure thirty days
before our people can get here."

"I agree,"  Lon said.  "If it  comes down  to a  chance of  us looking foolishly
overcautious or unnecessarily risking our men, we have to opt for the former. In
our first MR  I said  that I'd  try to  get my  recommendations off within forty
eight hours, but I  don't see any point  in waiting that long.  Get your reports
ready for transmission as quickly as you can and we'll get the MR off within the
hour. Will that give you enough time?"

"I'll get  everything transmitted  to CIC  in thirty  minutes," Jensen promised.
"The sooner we  get that MR  off, the better  I'm going to  feel. This thing  is
giving me an itch I can't scratch."


Lon decided to move his 1st and 3rd Battalions another mile and a half east,  to
cut down  on the  distance to  the main  New Spartan  force and  to have  better
defensive positions  in case  the enemy  doubled back  to attack.  The move  and
getting settled into the new perimeter  took nearly two hours, and Lon  told his
commanders  that-if  possible-they  would stay  put  at  least until  nightfall,
perhaps longer. The last  New Spartans were away  from University City by  then,
with all of them moving east  and northeast, apparently intent on a  rendezvous.
Lon held back the  units chasing the enemy.  "Let them rendezvous," he  told the
concerned battalion commanders. "If they're all in one place it'll be easier for
us to keep track of them."

Lon took forty minutes to tour  the new perimeter himself, at least  the eastern
half of it,  where trouble was  most likely to  come. The line  on that side was
established at  the top  of the  slope leading  down to  a creek and its now-dry
floodplain. The creek  was no more  than four feet  deep now, in  midsummer, but
from the extent of the floodplain on the eastern side, in the spring it might be
extensive. There was another creek near the far  side of the plain- a mile  away
but it  hadn't slowed  the New  Spartans at  all, so  it couldn't  be very  deep
either.

Before noon,  Peregrine reported  that the  MR was  far enough  out that the New
Spartans could not intercept  it. A New Spartan  MR had been launched  by one of
their transports  forty minutes  before Peregrine  launched its  message rocket.
Because of  the position  of the  transport, there  had been  no chance  for the
Dirigenter ships to intercept or destroy that courier packet.

At least we  know we're going  to have help  coming, Lon thought.  Or someone to
pick up the pieces if we 've got the short end of the stick.



18

Melvin Rogers had been president of  Elysium for six years. Throughout his  term
of  office, he  had continued  to teach  at the  university, primarily  graduate
physics courses in Quantum-Space Dynamics.  Nearly eighty years of age,  he wore
his  curly strawberry  blond hair  shoulder-length, and  tended to  wear  simple
jumpsuits  in primary  colors. He  came to  Lon's headquarters  by floater  just
before sunset, accompanied  by Chancellor Berlino  and four bodyguards  from the
Elysian Defense Force.

"Sorry  I  can't  offer  anything  appropriate  in  the  way  of  amenities, Mr.
President," Lon said  after the introductions  were completed, "but,  as you can
see, our resources are  rather meager at present."  Lon's command post was  in a
grove of pear trees. The little fruit that had been left by the New Spartans was
on the  ground, rotting.  Several of  the trees  had been  banded, the  bark cut
completely around the trunk to kill them.

"That's of no concern, I assure you. Colonel," President Rogers said. "I tend to
teach my seminar course out on the  lawn when the weather is amenable. I  wanted
to  speak with  you, face-to-face,  at the  earliest possible  moment, and  this
seemed appropriate." He sat on a tarp that several of Lon's men had spread after
kicking away a few of the rotten pears. Rogers gestured, and Lon sat across from
him,  not  too  far away.  Berlino  also  sat, forming  the  third  point of  an
equilateral triangle with the other two men.

"It is a tremendous relief to have you and your men here. Colonel," Rogers said.
"I understand that you lost quite a few men making your landings. I give you  my
personal regrets and condolences, as well as those of the government and  people
of Elysium. I wish there had been some way that we could have made your  arrival
less painful, less  costly in human  terms, but, unfortunately,  that was beyond
our power."

"Thank you,  Mr. President,"  Lon said,  nodding. "Thankfully,  your arrival has
already had some salutary effect on the situation. The siege of University  City
has  ended.  The  New Spartans  have  suffered  heavy losses  as  well  and have
withdrawn most of their forces into the hinterland."

"I doubt that  your troubles with  them are over,  Mr. President," Lon  said. "I
don't know what your  analysts have forecast, but  my senior advisers and  I are
convinced that  the New  Spartans expect  significant reinforcements,  that they
have  withdrawn  to  preserve   their  current  forces  on-planet   until  those
reinforcements arrive. Although that might  happen at any time, we  suspect that
we have  at least  several days,  perhaps a  week or  even two,  before they are
likely to arrive in-system. But we have no hard intelligence, so all we can  say
for certain is that those reinforcements  have not arrived in-system yet, so  we
know we'll have  at least three  days to try  to degrade the  New Spartan assets
already here before help arrives for them."

"My military advisers have  suggested that we have  to prepare for possible  New
Spartan reinforcements,"  Rogers said.  "They have  given it  a seventy  percent
probability rating. The invaders did  not fully exercise their potential  in the
weeks they  had on  Elysium before  you and  your men  arrived. They  could have
overrun our defense  forces with little  difficulty, though it  pains me to  say
that. Instead, they toyed with us, put their siege around our capital, destroyed
homes and crops, and  the rest. In some  ways that was more...  humiliating than
had  they  defeated  our  full  army in  battle.  But  they  never  gave us  the
opportunity for that, and merely flicked off such raids as we were able to mount
the way a man might wave at a fly buzzing his head." Rogers' face clearly showed
the humiliation he felt. "They toyed with us. Colonel Nolan, as if we were of no
account at all."

"Had their contract called for them to conquer Elysium, no doubt they would have
acted differently," Lon said. "If their  contract was, as we suspect, merely  to
force you to submit  to the overlordship of  the Confederation of Human  Worlds,
then their actions are perfectly understandable. Their job was to frighten  you,
or embarrass you into accepting the  CHW, and the Confederation would have  less
use for an Elysium devastated by extreme rules of engagement."

"We will never accept the Confederation," Rogers said. "We were not so  inclined
before and,  after what  we have  been through  in the  last weeks, we would not
submit as long as one Elysian remained alive to contest the issue. We  sincerely
hope that your  people will be  enough to convince  the Confederation to  forget
about Elysium. If not,  though, we will still  not accept them. Should  all else
fail, we will seek membership in the Second Commonwealth, though we would prefer
not to."

"There is  one matter  that we  need to  bring to  your attention now. Colonel,"
Chancellor Berlino said  after a glance  at the president  indicated that Rogers
was done speaking. "It's something that  may have slipped the attention of  your
staff. The New Spartans do still have approximately six hundred men south of the
Styx. Since both bridges across the  river were destroyed early, those men  have
been of less concern,  but we have reports  that they are moving  upstream, most
likely looking for a place they can cross to the north shore."

"We haven't forgotten  them," Lon said.  "Our ships have  been keeping track  as
best they can.  Those companies have  been minimizing electronic  emissions, but
every time they use  active electronics, we update  our fix on their  positions,
and we occasionally get a visual sighting as well. As I understand it, there are
no other bridges across the Styx, and  they will have to go forty miles  east of
University City  before they  can find  a place  where the  river can be forded,
correct?"

"Correct," Berlino said, and Rogers nodded. "Just slightly less than forty miles
right now,  because of  the season.  That is  about twenty-six  miles from their
current position ... as of fifty minutes ago."

"Are there boats on the south  shore they could commandeer to make  the crossing
before that point? Or a place where they could use ground effect vehicles?"  Lon
asked.

"Not in sufficient numbers," Berlino said.  "They might find half a dozen  small
rowboats and possibly  twice that number  of floaters. There  are several places
where the banks slope gently enough on both sides for floaters to get in and out
of the water, but even if they used all of the floaters and rowboats they  might
find, they could hardly move sixty men at a time. But there are plenty of trees.
I would think that they could assemble enough rafts to cross in short order.  Or
simply fell trees and let their men paddle across using them."

Lon's smile was minimal  and quickly gone. "It's  always good to see  all of the
possibilities, but I suspect that paddling rafts or logs across rates rather low
on the scale. The crossing would take too long, and there would be far too great
a chance that their  preparations would be observed  and we would be  waiting to
pounce as soon as they got in  the water. An infantry commander would prefer  to
keep  his  men dry  as  long as  possible,  then make  the  most rapid  crossing
possible. If  there aren't  enough boats  or floaters,  they'll almost certainly
wait until they get far enough upstream to ford the river." Lon shrugged. "If it
were a matter of getting a patrol  across to strike a specific target, it  might
be different."

"You do  think they  will attempt  to cross  at some  point, though,  don't you.
Colonel?" Berlino asked.

"It seems likely. They appear to be drawing all their forces together. We'll  be
watching, though, and once those six hundred men get in the water, we'll use our
rocket artillery to make  the crossing expensive for  them. In the meantime,  we
leave them strictly alone. If they think we've forgotten about them, so much the
better. It might make them careless when they do make their crossing."

"And their main  force?" President Rogers  asked. "You do  plan to move  against
them soon?"

Lon smiled. "Very soon, Mr. President."


The Elysians left, under strong escort. Lon's command post was relocated, half a
mile farther east, and  much of 7th Regiment  shifted position as well,  more to
the north  and east.  Shortly after  dark, elements  of 15th  Regiment started a
series of harassing attacks against the perimeter of the New Spartan main force,
never  in  more  than  company strength-with  the  men  in  each raiding  patrol
maintaining  electronic silence  as long  as possible-in  what Lon  hoped  would
appear  to  be  a  totally  random  fashion.  Similarly,  the  Dirigenter rocket
artillery launched an occasional missile at the New Spartan positions. Lon  knew
he had to be sparing with his use of the artillery. There might not be a  chance
to land more rockets or  howitzer shells, and Lon did  not want to run out  at a
critical point. Keep them off guard and guessing. Make it impossible for them to
get any sleep. Frazzle their nerves.

There was nothing radical  to the plan Lon  had laid out, but  harassing tactics
could  never  settle  the  main  issue.  All  he  wanted  was  to  degrade enemy
capabilities-psychologically  and  physically-while  he  moved  his  forces into
position for what he hoped would be the final engagement of the contract. At the
earliest, that would not begin for another twenty-four hours ... unless the  New
Spartans forced the issue sooner. And that seemed particularly unlikely.

"They may  turn and  fight at  some point,"  Lon had  told Phip Steesen a little
earlier, "but  only when  their commander  decides it's  the only  viable option
left. I expect the  first thing he'll try,  once he decides they  can't just sit
and absorb the  punishment, is a  further withdrawal, maybe  more to the  north,
where the  land gets  rougher, try  to find  ground to  his liking  for the next
fight, or just try to postpone the battle until he gets reinforcements."

"And we  don't want  to give  him that  much time  because that will reverse our
relative positions and put us on the short end of the stick," Phip had noted.

"Exactly."

The New Spartans  had brought together  all of their  forces north of  the River
Styx  ...  save,  perhaps,  for  patrols  that  might  have  been  left  out for
reconnaissance purposes, or to stage ambushes as the Dirigenters moved after the
main force. South of the Styx, the approximately six hundred New Spartans  there
the equivalent of three companies, a short battalion-were still moving east.  It
appeared as though they might reach the  first ford slightly before first  light
if they  pressed-but it  seemed more  likely that  they would  not try  to cross
before dark the next night.

Lon spent twenty minutes conferring with Fal Jensen and the battalion commanders
from both regiments. "It's too soon  to start claiming victory," Lon told  them,
"but the situation looks fairly favorable. They can't have much rocket artillery
left, maybe four or five launchers, but probably few or no rockets left for them
to  fire.  Our  own supply  of  artillery  munitions is  limited,  but  not near
exhaustion. If we can't get new supplies  of those in, we can at least  keep the
enemy  from getting  resupply. We  definitely have  at least  a slight   numeric
advantage in troops, six-to-five,  maybe even seven-to-five, even  including the
short battalion they have on the other side of the river."

"We are set up to get resupply of small-arms ammunition, aren't we?" Fal  Jensen
asked.

"We are,"  Lon confirmed.  "I hope  to bring  in fresh  supplies during daylight
tomorrow, before  we force  battle with  the New  Spartans, at  least for  those
companies that have had the greatest expenditure of ammunition so far."

The distribution had been uneven; some  units had scarcely fired a single  shot,
while others had been through several intense firefights. "Assume that will mean
using resupply rockets to  bring it in, since  it's not likely we'll  be able to
use shuttles safely."

At  ten-thirty-2230 hours-7th  Regiment started  moving east,  angling a  little
north. As  they got  close to  the enemy,  15th Regiment  would slide around the
perimeter to  the south,  so that  the Dirigenters  would have  the New Spartans
pincered. The heavy-weapons battalions were also moving, on both sides,  staying
far enough away to be out of the reach of the New Spartans, but close enough  to
take part in the fight. .. when it came.

The day's rest had been welcome and  needed, but Lon felt relieved to be  on the
move again. He walked with his  headquarters detachment, near the middle of  the
two battalions  with him.  Second Battalion  was to  the north,  moving toward a
rendezvous with 1st and 3rd  Battalions before dawn. Fourth Battalion  was still
to the  south, and  farther east  than the  rest of  7th Regiment. Closer to the
enemy, 15th Regiment continued harassing the New Spartan perimeter, giving  them
no  rest.  The two  heavy-weapons  battalions were  also  on the  move-almost  a
constant for them in  the field; standing still  was an invitation to  disaster.
The  rocket launchers  could cover  the main  New Spartan  force and  the  short
battalion on the south side of the river.

Lon felt as relaxed as he ever  had during a combat contract when battle  was in
the offing,  even though  it did  not seem  imminent. It  was almost  a peaceful
feeling, ironic though that might be. Junior had come by for a short talk during
the afternoon. Father and son  had spent thirty minutes together.  Junior showed
no obvious aftereffects of his wounds. In fact. Junior had seemed more concerned
with his father's reaction than with what had happened to him. They had  parted,
their final words to each other  the same: "Be careful." Junior had  grinned and
flipped his  father a  casual salute.  Lon had  returned it,  his face  serious,
almost somber. Be careful.

Ten minutes past eleven was when the first report came in from Fal Jensen.  "The
New  Spartans  are heading  northeast,  as we  expected.  Their rear  guard  and
flankers are keeping us occupied at the moment, resistance in strength. The time
they've had,  I think  we can  count on  a few  nasty surprises  if we try to go
through where  they were  camped, so  I'm going  to start  angling my men around
their flank, on the south."

"You have any people in front of them to slow them down?" Lon asked.

"Not enough, just a one-platoon patrol, and they're not directly in front."

"Have them do what they can. I don't want to call in an artillery strike yet. We
may need  the rockets  and shells  later. I'll  turn my  people to  the north  a
little, and push the pace as much as  I can. We're a bit farther from them  than
you are."

It's a good thing we had a day to rest, Lon thought after he gave the orders  to
his  battalion  and company  commanders.  We're going  to  have to  race  to get
anywhere near  the enemy.  And if  the New  Spartans pressed  their own move, it
might be impossible  to close with  them before they  reached ground they  might
choose to defend ... or before their reinforcements reached Elysium.

It was impossible to just wheel the entire formation around to march on the  new
heading the way it could be done  on a parade field in garrison. Advance  scouts
had to move onto the new route first to look for any surprises left by the enemy
and to mark a trail. Flankers had to be moved as well. Then, company by company,
the rest made the thirty-degree turn. After fifteen minutes everyone was  moving
in the right direction, and Lon gave the order to the point platoons to pick  up
the pace.  Lon passed  orders to  keep active  electronics use  to a minimum, as
close to electronic silence as possible, to make it that much more difficult for
the  New Spartans  to track  their progress.  Not total  electronic silence:  An
occasional blip on their tracking systems would not tell the New Spartans if the
target  was  a  squad or  a  battalion,  and it  might  lull  them, while  total
electronic silence would simply make them more wary.

How hard can we push  the inarch ? Lon asked  himself. If they went too  slowly,
the New Spartans would keep their distance, even increase it, postponing  battle
until... whenever. If  they went too  quickly, the men  would get exhausted,  be
unready for the fight when it came.  There was also the danger of losing  men to
land mines or booby traps  if the pace was too  rapid to allow the men  on point
enough time to spot concealed devices.

Take a  little more  time between  breaks, and  keep the  rest stops as short as
practical. Don't push the pace too much to be dangerous. Lon shook his head.  He
really had little choice, at least  during the hours of darkness. At  night, the
trip wire for  a mine or  a booby trap  would be nearly  invisible. Once morning
came, there would be a chance to reassess, depending on how far the New Spartans
had traveled, how fast they were moving.

If we have to, I can order a  few rockets fired at their van then, Lon  decided.
In the morning.  Slow them down  at least a  little, or goad  them into changing
direction  to  something more  favorable  for us.  He  hoped that  would  not be
necessary. He still wanted to  husband the finite supply or  artillery munitions
as long as possible, save them for  the battle he hoped to force before  the New
Spartans could be reinforced from out-system.

It was not until  just before one o'clock  in the morning that  Lon signaled for
the first  rest stop,  and he  held that  to only  five minutes.  He sat down in
place, stretching  his legs  out in  front of  him. After  taking a quick sip of
water, he massaged  his calf and  thigh muscles through  the rest of  the break,
easing the aches that had started,  and hoping to prevent cramps later.  Lon was
ready to get back to his feet when  Phip came over and squatted next to him  and
raised the faceplate of his helmet.

"You know, we can't go on forever  like this, two and a half hours  hiking, five
minutes  resting,"  Phip  whispered.  "We'll end  up  going  slower  rather than
faster."

Lon lifted his faceplate. "I know, Phip," he said just as softly. "There  aren't
many legs  here older  than mine,  and they're  talking loud  and clear.  I just
wanted the fast start. If  we can travel just a  little bit faster than the  New
Spartans think we can, it gives us  a little extra edge, maybe. We've got  a lot
of distance to cover and  we can't expect them to  sit still and wait for  us to
catch up. We'll  go for maybe  an hour and  a quarter this  time, then take  ten
minutes. After that... well, after that depends on what the situation is later."

Phip grunted. "Give it our all now, then fifteen percent more later. I know  how
that works." He got back to his feet. "Just remember, it won't do us any good to
catch those buzzards if we're too tired to fight when we do."

"How could I  forget when I've  got you for  a conscience and  memory bank?" Lon
laughed as he stood  and adjusted the straps  of his backpack. "Between  you, my
legs,  and my  feet, I'm  not likely  to forget.  Come on.  It's time  to  start
hobbling forward again."


The next break came twenty minutes sooner than Lon had planned. The point men on
the left came across  a series of explosive  devices that had to  be deactivated
before the march could resume.

"They  weren't  concealed  very  well," the  sergeant  leading  the  point squad
reported. "It's almost as if they wanted us to find these. Makes me think  maybe
they've got a  second set hidden  better, to get  us when we  think we're in the
clear."

"Take whatever time you need to make sure," Lon said. "If you can do it  safely,
just deactivate everything  instead of detonating  it. That way  we avoid giving
the enemy an easy marker for our progress."

"No problem. Colonel. That's what we had already started doing."

The delay gave most of  the men time to eat  a meal pack and get  off their feet
for a  little longer.  Once the  mines had  been cleared,  Lon ordered  a slight
change in the direction of the  advance, hoping to avoid any further  traps that
the New Spartans might have left.

On through the night the Dirigenters hiked, nearly silent, advancing toward  the
retreating New  Spartans, moving  to flank  them on  both sides.  Men from  15th
Regiment  ran  into  two   enemy  patrols,  occasioning  brief   and  indecisive
firefights; the  New Spartans  broke contact  as quickly  as they  could. Second
Battalion of the 7th encountered  slightly heavier resistance, an ambush  manned
by  perhaps half  a company  of New  Spartans. That  fight lasted  nearly  forty
minutes and ended with most of the ambushers withdrawing safely. An hour  before
dawn, the point squad  for 4th Battalion of  the 7th tripped an  enemy mine. Two
men were killed. Another man was seriously wounded and had to be transferred  to
a trauma tube.

Overall, 7th Regiment averaged  nearly 2 1/2 miles  per hour through the  night.
Not bad, Lon thought, though he would have been happier had they managed better.
By  dawn they  were near  where the  New Spartans  had been  camped before  this
pursuit had  started. The  enemy was  nine miles  east-northeast of  most of 7th
Regiment, and continuing to move away  from them. Fal Jensen's regiment was  two
miles closer. A battalion of Elysians was  also on the move, on the right  flank
of 15th Regiment,  almost even with  them, pushing themselves  to try to  get in
front of the New Spartans.

As the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, Lon called a halt for his  regiment.
"Thirty minutes," he said on the channel that connected him to his battalion and
company commanders. "Make sure everyone eats."

Lon was halfway through his own breakfast when he received a call from Peregrine
that completely killed his appetite.  "Five New Spartan ships have  just emerged
from Q-space, four transports and one fighting ship, one of their heavy cruisers
with room for maybe  another twenty fighters.  We estimate that  they're seventy
four hours out from assault orbit."



19

"Okay, gentlemen, we've got  our deadline," Lon told  Fal Jensen and all  of the
battalion commanders. He had just passed  the news from Peregrine about the  New
Spartan ships that had arrived in-system.  "We need to get the issue  settled on
the ground before this new fleet can land  its troops, and we'll be a hell of  a
lot better off if we finish with  the enemy we're chasing soon enough to  let us
get some  rest and  get any  wounded back  to duty  before we  have to  face the
reinforcements. Four transports means a full regiment, or close to it. We  don't
dare let them land before we take care of what we're already facing." That  much
was obvious. No one on the channel questioned it.

"Fal, you've got troops  closest to the New  Spartans. That means you'll  be the
first to face them unless the Elysians set some kind of record moving around  in
front of them. I'm going to use thirty percent of our remaining rocket artillery
rounds and half the  howitzer munitions to try  to slow them down  enough to let
you catch up with  them by dark tonight  and launch your attack.  We'll pull the
tanks  from  both  heavy-weapons  battalions  forward  to  coordinate  with your
assault. My 4th Battalion  shouldn't be more than  half an hour behind  you, and
they'll join the  fight as soon  as they arrive.  The rest of  7th will close as
quickly as it  can, but we're  probably looking at  two hours or  more after you
begin the action before we're all committed."

"Are you going to hold any troops as reserve?" Jensen asked.

"No line  units," Lon  said. "The  rocket and  gun artillery  will stand  by for
possible fire missions.  If things get  too rough, we  might end up  using their
crews as infantry." In the DMC, every man was a rifleman first. "The only  other
reserve will be the headquarters detachments, and they might get into the  fight
as well. We have to put everything we can into this."

"No argument on that,"  Jensen said. "Since this  is an all-out offensive,  will
you try to bring in Shrikes to help?"

Lon hesitated. "Probably not. Realistically, the most we might manage is four to
six, with  the rest  trying to  keep the  New Spartans  occupied defending their
ships. Captain Thorsen will undoubtedly  argue against using even four  fighters
for close air support, especially with more enemy ships approaching. On balance,
the good that four Shrikes might do isn't worth the risk, except in extremis."

"So we're on our own."  Jensen did not bother to  give that the inflection of  a
question.

"We're on  our own,"  Lon agreed.  "The next  order of  business is  resupply of
small-arms ammunition. We'll  set that up  for our next  rest periods, have  the
ships gang-launch the  resupply rockets while  our Shrikes are  out to keep  the
enemy from trying to intercept them. That way, maybe most of the ammunition will
make it down  intact. We'll want  to have the  men who are  going to guide  each
rocket in  out in  the open  to give  them the  best view  for the work. Get the
rockets in  and get  the ammunition  distributed as  quickly as  possible. We'll
bring in as much as we can. Any surplus will be used quickly, I think." Besides,
no soldier ever complained about carrying  too much ammunition when a fight  was
expected.

"No one's ever tried to resupply two whole regiments at one time," someone  said
on the circuit. Lon did not recognize the voice. It was one of 15th's  battalion
commanders.

"We're spread out enough that it shouldn't be a major problem," Lon said. "There
are  more than  enough control  frequencies to  avoid having  the wrong   rocket
respond to commands. The men running the controls will have an acquisition  blip
on their head-up displays. After that, it's pretty much the same whether there's
one  rocket coming  in or  a thousand,  as long  as the  controllers are  paying
attention. And bringing  them all in  at once buys  us a measure  of safety from
enemy interception. There'll be too many rockets in the air for them to have any
hope of targeting even ten percent of them."

It sounded good, and Lon had not been  able to find any reason why it might  not
work, but the anonymous  voice had been right.  It was something that  had never
been tried before. Operations  this large are so  rare, the need has  never come
up, Lon  consoled himself.  It was,  of course,  still one  more thing  to worry
about.

His primary worry, at the moment, was forcing the enemy on the ground to  fight.
There was no guarantee  it would be possible.  Both regiments pushed as  hard as
they could through the day. The rocket artillery and, later, the  self-propelled
howitzers forced  the New  Spartans to  stop three  different times,  and slowed
their pace for nearly three hours before the artillery exhausted the  percentage
of munitions that Lon had allotted to the task.

There had been no answering fire from  the New Spartans. If they had any  mobile
rocket launchers left,  they must certainly  be out of  ammunition-at least that
was what Lon tried  to convince himself of.  But there was a  nagging worry that
the enemy  might be  reserving a  few rounds  for a  more desperate situation. /
would if I could, he thought.

Through the day, the only long stops the New Spartans made were those occasioned
by the artillery  fire, when it  became simply too  dangerous to advance.  Other
than that, they took no more than  five minutes every hour and a quarter  or so.
"We'll take  two breaks  for every  three they  take," Lon  told 7th's battalion
commanders. Fal Jensen pushed 15th even harder. It was a questionable trade-off,
speed in catching  the enemy against  how tired the  Diri-genters would be  when
they did.

"We  have to  take the  risk," Fal  Jensen told  Lon. "We  can't let  these  New
Spartans evade us until their reinforcements land."

Lon had not tried to argue the point.


Still, an  hour before  sunset, both  regimental commanders  did allow  a longer
rest-time for a meal, time to let everyone  get off their feet for an hour ..  .
and maybe get thirty minutes of sleep.  "I think we're close enough to risk  it,
not that we have much choice," Jensen  said when he and Lon conferred about  the
necessity. "The New Spartans  are moving a lot  slower as well. They'll  have to
take more time or have too many stragglers to be effective. We've already picked
up a couple of them."

"The Elysians  are almost  on top  of the  New Spartans,"  Lon said, closing his
eyes. He  did not  expect to  get any  sleep himself  during the  short stop. He
doubted he would get a chance to try. A meal and coffee would have to be enough.
"As soon as it's dark, they'll hit. That'll slow the enemy some more. The  tanks
will be in position to cover the fight by then as well."

"I've just had a report from one of my patrols," Jensen said, almost  overriding
Lon's final words. "The New Spartans have  stopped and seem to be moving into  a
defensive perimeter. Maybe the chase is over. They're no more than two  thousand
yards out from my leading elements."

"The other batch of them, south of the river, are nearly to the ford," Lon said,
after switching the view  on his mapboard just  long enough to check  the latest
position.  Though  none  of  those  New  Spartans  were  currently  using active
electronics, CIC had  pinpointed the most  recent sightings. That  left room for
error, or deception, but it was more reliable than guesswork.

"That still leaves them at least five or six hours away, no matter how hard they
push," Jensen noted. "If we can handle the main force quickly, the troops  south
of the river will be pretty much irrelevant."

"Don't  count  on  this  being   over  that  quickly,"  Lon  said.   "These  are
professionals, like us. They  might still have a  few surprises for us.  I'll be
surprised if they  don't. We can't  even be certain  they don't have  any rocket
artillery left."

"Maybe," Jensen conceded, "but I think  they'd have used that before now,  while
we were pounding them so hard before."

"Like they say, 'Don't bet the farm.' "

Lon made the rest of  the calls he had to  make, trying to keep each  brief. The
longest conversations were  those with Jensen  and Ives. Lon  wanted each to  be
absolutely clear on what  he planned. In case  something happened to him  before
the night ended, there would be no lapse in command. Lon ate during the process,
a mouthful here and there, spaced around the talk. Phip, Torrey Berger,  Howell,
and Dorcetti ran errands and brought messages as well.

Sunset came. In  the next half  hour Lon moved  some of his  companies nearer to
their attack positions, closing possible avenues of escape for the New  Spartans
... who showed no  sign of trying to  escape. The artillery was  alerted against
the possibility-probability-that the enemy troops south of the Styx might try to
cross within the next hour.

Finally, Lon had an all-too-rare moment to himself. He leaned back, rotating his
head to help  ease a strain  in his neck,  then closed his  eyes-just for a  few
seconds. He rested his head against the tree trunk behind him. There was an ache
over  his right  eye, and  he felt  the beginnings  of a  tic-pure  nervousness,
tension.  It couldn't  be anything  physical; his  nano HMS  would correct   any
physical problem quickly, automatically.

What am I  missing? What do  the New Spartans  have up their  sleeves? He had no
idea how many times he had asked himself the same questions before. There had to
be something,  something perhaps  vitally important.  The New  Spartans wouldn't
just calmly  put their  collective head  in the  noose without  some plan,  some
realistic hope of turning the tables.

"They're not acting desperate," Lon whispered. He opened his eyes again. "What's
their hole card?" What could it be? He shook his head. More ammunition for their
rocket  artillery than  he thought  possible? More  launchers that  hadn't  been
spotted yet? Both? Or did  they maybe have more men  on the ground than he  knew
about,  men  who  had  been  observing  strict  electronic  silence  since   the
Dirigenters arrived? Maybe we  're supposed to worry  about the six hundred  men
south of the Styx, to keep us from looking elsewhere, Lon thought.

He called CIC on Peregrine  again, to ask about  movements of New Spartan  ships
especially the cruiser  that was close  enough to interfere.  It was maintaining
position;

the transports were still well out on their highly eccentric orbits,  apparently
doing everything they could to stay out of reach. Peregrine and the rest of  the
Dirigenter fleet were continuing a  close scan of everything within  forty miles
of the DMC troops. There were  no anomalies, no hint of additional  enemy units,
but most of the  ground was tree-covered. Forest  canopy could hide hundreds  of
troops as long as they did  not use active electronics. Even thermal  signatures
could  be  concealed,  or  disguised, with  the  right  kind  of insulation  and
discipline.

We could do it without much difficulty, Lon thought. We have to assume that  the
New Spartans can. But  there was little, if  anything, he could order  done that
wasn't  already being  done to  discover any  surprises the  enemy might   have.
Patrols were being run. Electronic snoops had been set out in almost spendthrift
fashion. The  ships had  the terrain  under constant  surveillance, from several
angles, scanning from  infrared through ultraviolet,  and throughout the  usable
spectrum of radio frequencies.  // they do have  anything, we'll get at  least a
few seconds' warning  before anything hits,  Lon told himself.  It was not  much
consolation.

I could bring Junior here and keep him close tonight, out of the way of trouble.
That thought, unbidden and unexpected, was something of a shock. Junior had  not
been in Lon's conscious  thoughts for some time.  He shook his head.  / can't do
that, for many reasons. Junior would resent it, and too many people would see it
for what it would be, an effort  to keep the younger man away from  the greatest
danger.

Doc Norman would shake his head and cluck his tongue just at the suggestion, Lon
thought. He shook his own head. I guess I haven't completely put all my  worries
to sleep. I guess I never will, not  as long as he's in the Corps and  in harm's
way. I'm still not completely a  Dirigenter in my head. Lon sighed,  softly, and
shook his head again. But I wouldn't be a proper father if I didn't worry  about
my only son.


Fal Jensen launched his attack, supported by 15th Regiment's tanks. At first the
attack made some progress, but it  was stopped three hundred yards short  of the
New Spartan  line by  concentrated-and extremely  accurate-small-arms fire.  Too
much fire for the manpower they have? Lon wondered. Farther east and south,  the
companies of Ely-sian soldiers raced to join the fray. They had hardly begun  to
contribute when CIC relayed the news  that the other contingent of New  Spartans
had started to cross the Styx. As planned, Lon committed most of the rockets his
artillery  still  had to  making  the crossing  as  expensive for  the  enemy as
possible.

Lon's 4th Battalion was  the next unit to  join the fire-fight. The  rest of 7th
Regiment remained too far away to participate. Lon had those three battalions on
the move, though, heading for the northern flank of the New Spartans. The  enemy
had high ground behind him,  and secondary positions, allowing them  to withdraw
into even better defensive posture, higher.

"We're about  forty minutes  from engagement,"  Lon told  Fal Jensen. "Keep them
occupied."

Lon did not hear Jensen's reply. That was when the New Spartans chose to  spring
their surprises.



20

That the Mew Spartans still had self-propelled rocket launchers and missiles for
them to  fire was  not the  most startling  surprise possible.  What Lon was not
prepared for was the sheer volume of fire and the area where it originated-south
of the river, and farther east than  the area near the ford that had  been under
closest scrutiny. In less than a  minute after the first crew-served rocket  was
fired, it appeared certain that the New Spartans had at least eight and  perhaps
a dozen or more launchers across the  Styx, platforms that had not been  spotted
or even suspected- before they  started firing at the Dirigenter  positions. The
missiles  came with  profligate abandon,  the launchers  moving as  they  fired,
following courses designed to be  too random in appearance to  permit successful
counterbattery fire. Some of the rockets targeted the Dirigenter artillery,  but
most were directed at  the infantry units pressing  the attack against the  main
New Spartan force.

At  the same  time, obviously  coordinated, the  New Spartan  cruiser in   orbit
launched  all of  its aerospace  fighters on  an attack  against Agamemnon   and
Odysseus, ensuring  that the  Shrike II  fighters could  not be  used for ground
support.

"We've got to do  something about that artillery!"  Fal Jensen shouted into  his
radio connection with Lon. "They're right on target, tearing us to pieces."

"There's not much we can do, Fal,"  Lon said. "We don't have enough rockets  yet
to  saturate  the  areas they're  firing  from,  they're too  far  away  for the
howitzers, and  it's going  to take  forty minutes  or more  to get the big guns
close enough.  The best  we can  do is  close with  the enemy infantry fast, get
right in with  them so their  artillery can't hit  us without hitting  their own
people."

"Can't we use what rockets we do have?" Fal asked.

"We've used almost every rocket to hit that short battalion of infantry crossing
the river," Lon replied. "We'll put one or two rockets in the area where they're
shooting from, but we don't have anything more. Keep your men down and dispersed
until you can  close with the  enemy. As much  as possible, passive  electronics
only. Don't give them anything they can home in on."

"They don't need electronics to home in  on us. The New Spartans in front  of us
know exactly where we are."

"So don't help them. And we're not all in sight of the enemy. I'm going to  make
the order  general. No  radio or  any other  active electronics emissions unless
absolutely  essential,"  Lon said.  "Pass  that to  your  battalion and  company
commanders while I do the same for mine."

Lon had not  finished passing that  order along when  the New Spartans  unveiled
their next surprise, an attack against the rearmost units of 7th Regiment. Since
Lon's headquarters  was, at  the moment,  very near  the rear,  he did  not need
reports to know about this attack. It seemed to be aimed directly at him.

Jeremy Howell almost bowled Lon over, trying to get him flat on the ground.  The
headquarters detachment had been on the  move with the rest of the  regiment, so
they did not have slit trenches or  any other cover available. The two men  were
scarcely down, and  turned to face  this latest threat,  when a rocket-propelled
grenade exploded  eighty yards  from them,  quickly followed  by several  others
along an arc, all at about the same distance.

"Maybe they're wasting  rounds," Howell shouted  near the side  of Lon's helmet,
"but there's  no need  to take  chances. Give  the rear  guard time to deal with
them, sir."

"I know. Jerry. Now will you kindly get off me?" Lon said, shrugging his  entire
body to move Howell's weight off his back and side. "I'm not so old I can't fall
down on my own." Howell slid sideways.

"Sorry, sir," Howell  mumbled, but both  knew he would  do the same  thing again
without thinking past the  need to keep the  Old Man safe. "Things  sure went to
hell in a hurry. Where'd they all come from?"

Lon didn't even try to answer.  He adjusted his position, bringing his  rifle to
the ready, jacking a cartridge into the chamber and switching the safety to off.
At least I still know how to use this, he thought. There was no need for him  to
start issuing commands to  deal with the attack.  The trailing companies of  1st
and  3rd Battalions  were already  moving to  isolate and  eliminate the  attack
against the rear  of the formation.  Within three minutes  he had a  preliminary
estimate of the number of New  Spartans involved-no more than a single  company,
two hundred men, and more likely only half that number.

Those men did only minimal damage  directly, but they were close enough  to call
in  accurate  ranging information  to  their supporting  artillery,  and rockets
started falling by the time  Lon knew how many of  the enemy there were west  of
him. "That means we've got to move, and now," he told Howell before broadcasting
the order to the affected commanders.

The two companies on rearguard duty would  do what they could to hold the  enemy
in  place  while  the  rest  moved  north  and  east,  hoping  to  escape direct
observation. Lon's security detachment formed up around him-not a human  shield,
except  for  Howell and  Dorcetti,  but a  properly  dispersed infantry  platoon
adopting  fire-and-maneuver  tactics, using  their  rifles and  rocket-propelled
grenades to suppress enemy fire. The security troops were more heavily  equipped
with RPGs than line companies were, two per squad rather than one.

It was an orderly withdrawal and, since they were moving in the direction of  an
even stronger enemy force, it could  not be properly called a retreat-an  ironic
thought that flittered through Lon's mind as he moved from one tree to the next,
running bent low, zigzagging  as erratically as he  could. Leaving others to  do
the dirty work. There was no time  to pursue that thought. He would be  derelict
in his duty if he did get involved  in a minor skirmish at the edge of  the main
battle, distracted from his primary responsibilities.

After he had covered forty yards, Lon did stop momentarily, mostly to catch  his
breath. He sank to one knee, the trunk of a massive tree covering him from  much
of the enemy fire. Before he got up to start moving again, he did loose  several
short bursts of rifle fire toward the enemy, more for his own satisfaction  than
because he hoped to seriously contribute to the effort. He looked around, noting
the positions of Jeremy Howell and Frank Dorcetti-never too far from him.

"I'll take care of this end of things, Lon," Phip Steesen said on their  private
channel. Lon noted  Phip's position, by  a blip on  his head display,  as thirty
yards away, somewhat  closer to the  New Spartans. "You  get out of  the line of
fire and worry about the other end."

"Just don't stick around too long.  There are two companies back to  handle this
attack, so let them do it. Give me three minutes, then bring your people  along.
Let the rear guard do its job," Lon  repeated. / don't want to lose you the  way
we lost  Dean on  Bancroft. There  was no  time for  the pain  of that memory to
assert itself. There had been four  of them originally, best friends as  well as
teammates, inseparable. Dean Bricks, Janno Belzer, and Phip Steesen had been the
three musketeers of their platoon when Lon was assigned to their fire team.  Lon
had come under  their collective wing,  their D'Artagnan, a  young officer cadet
out to win his  commission. Janno had quit  the Corps and married.  Lon and Phip
saw him only infrequently  these days, usually with  his wife. Dean had  died on
contract.

Lon started moving again,  his escort keeping pace  even though they kept  their
attention  more on  what was  behind than  on where  they were  moving. Use  the
terrain for  cover and  concealment. Don't  follow a  predictable pattern. Be as
erratic  as possible.  Up and  down. Side  to side.  The New  Spartans were  too
occupied  with  the counterattack  by  the Dirigenter  rear  guard to  pay  much
attention to a few dozen men at extreme range and moving farther away. Still, an
occasional round did come close enough to hear-or to see it hit. Wood splintered
from the trunk of a  tree just before Lon passed  it, a little above head  high.
Some of the  splinters bounced off  the faceplate and  side of Lon's  helmet. He
ducked instinctively, though it would have been too late had the wood been  able
to penetrate.

It was nearly ten minutes after the  start of the attack on the rear  before Lon
was able to sink to the ground for more than a few seconds. The fight behind was
dying away. He finally had time to turn his attention to the main battle  again.
There had been a  few scattered reports before,  but Lon needed to  catch up ...
and quickly.

"At least we seem to have  lost the enemy rocket artillery here,  sir," Sergeant
Howell said. "Moved too much for them to keep track of us, I reckon."

Lon took a moment to just  listen. There was noise, including the  explosions of
heavy artillery, but none of it was nearby. "Maybe you're right. Jerry, but keep
your butt down, just the same. Humor me. Now give me a minute to find out what's
going on."

At first Lon did no transmitting. He simply shifted from one command channel  to
the  next,  listening  for  reports from  those  closer  to  the fighting,  more
concerned with  getting a  "feel" for  the action  than with  specifics. The New
Spartan infantry south of the river  was still moving across the Styx-more  than
two-thirds of the men were already on the north bank and moving toward the  rest
of the fight. The rocket artillery had not managed to stop the crossing  or-from
what Lon could gather-make it as costly for the enemy as he had hoped.

"Brief me," Lon  said on his  link to CIC.  While he moved,  anxious to get away
from the  position he  had-briefly-revealed through  transmitting, he  listened,
gaining confirmation  of what  he had  gathered from  his eavesdropping.  Ninety
percent or more of the New Spartan infantry might make it across the  river-more
than five hundred men. The  Dirigenter heavy-weapons battalions had had  too few
rockets left  to seriously  impact the  crossing and  the enemy artillery firing
from south  of the  Styx. As  a result,  neither attempt  had been  particularly
successful.

"Our best estimate right  now. Colonel," the duty  officer in CIC reported,  "is
that you might not have much more than parity with the enemy on the ground,  and
that does not  take into account  casualties within the  last quarter hour."  He
went on to  give numbers-estimates-for both  sides, along with  updated position
reports. The picture was not overly optimistic, but neither was it as bad as Lon
had feared it might be.

"I'm going to move the tanks in as close as we can," Lon said. "Run them and the
other heavy weapons  until they don't  have any ammunition  left, then pull  the
crews to fight  on foot." He  closed out that  conversation, then linked  to Pal
Jensen and the commanders of the heavy-weapons battalions and gave them the same
orders. It's a good thing we got  the re supply finished, he thought. There  had
been no incidents, and  only one supply rocket  had been lost-due to  a fault in
its guidance system.  Then it was  time for Lon  and the men  around him to move
again ... before the New Spartans could target their new location.

This time, the  move was not  as frantic. Lon  and the people  with him were not
under direct small-arms fire, nor under direct enemy observation. The  rearguard
action had ended, with the few  surviving New Spartans retreating, pursued by  a
single company  from 7th's  1st Battalion.  Not Junior's  company, Lon noted. He
wasn't certain whether  he should feel  relieved by that.  No one was  likely to
escape danger for long this night.

It used to  be so much  easier, Lon thought,  his eyes searching  a wide arc  of
ground in front of him, hack when 1  only had to worry about two platoons, or  a
single company. I knew everyone better, what they could do, what to expect.  The
price of that  intimacy had been  that he had  been closer to  the men under his
command. Every loss was a personal one. This operation was too big, spread  over
too much ground,  for one man  to stay on  top of everything  that was happening
every minute. By the time he  could get a complete picture from  his subordinate
commanders, the situation had  changed. And there were  too many men for  Lon to
know them as well, to feel as close to them.

Lon stopped moving and went down to one knee. There had been a hint of  movement
ahead, and a  squad was investigating.  Before they had  gone far, the  movement
came again. This  time Lon saw  that it was  a large bird  that looked something
like an owl, getting  away from the advancing  humans. At least it's  not one of
those big  lizards, he  thought. Then:  How can  anyone keep  track of this many
people and what's happening to them?

This was no time  for philosophical pursuits. Inwardly,  Lon shook his head.  He
blinked several times.  He did not  want to use  his radio and  give the enemy a
chance  to pinpoint  his location.  He listened,  scanning the  frequencies  his
officers would use. Those who were already in direct contact with the enemy  had
little reason to maintain electronic silence. And CIC was maintaining a constant
update on a channel that the regimental and battalion commanders and staff could
audit.

Before long, 15th Regiment would have  to divide its attention between the  main
enemy force and the  group coming north from  the Styx. Fal Jensen  was aware of
that.  He  had  started  to  space his  troops  accordingly.  One  of  his short
battalions  was  moving  to  establish  a line,  and  to  space  land  mines and
electronic snoops farther out to give warning of the enemy's approach. The tanks
of 15th's heavy-weapons battalion also were moving in that direction, hoping  to
get close  enough to  strike at  the New  Spartan rocket  artillery south of the
river. Seventh Regiment's  tanks also were  moving that way,  farther back. They
would be able to take the enemy infantry under fire before they could touch  the
artillery. It probably won't do  much good, Lon thought. Those  rocket launchers
can pull back until they're out of range  of the tanks and still be able to  hit
us up here. But he did not countermand the order. The effort had to be made.

At present, the main New Spartan force  was being faced on three sides. If  they
wanted to, they could  still retreat east, over  the crest of the  line of hills
they were on now. If they 're going to try moving, they 're going to have to  do
it within the next half  hour or so, Lon thought,  taking a moment to glance  at
the display on his mapboard. They wait much longer than that and we'll have them
effectively surrounded,  able to  cover the  remaining gap  with small-arms fire
from either side.

Lon shook  his head.  If they  were going  to retreat  any farther,  they'd have
started before now, not waited until we were close enough to make it too costly.
They've  got  to  be  counting on  that  extra-short  battalion  and the  rocket
artillery south of the river. And  any other surprises they might have  left, he
added. There was still that possibility, that the New Spartans had not yet shown
all their cards. Still  more than two full  days before those new  ships can get
close enough  to contribute  anything. How  do they  expect to  hold out  on the
ground that long? Do they even have enough rifle ammunition to hold us off if we
keep pressing the attack?

"That might be the key," Lon whispered. Unless they cached ammunition and  chose
that spot for  their stand because  of its location,  they'll run short  on ammo
before the new force can land. He  tried to focus on that, looking for  flaws in
his  reasoning. What  were the  chances they  had cached  ammunition along  that
ridge? After a moment, Lon conceded they were pretty good. The New Spartans  had
not been driven  to the site.  They had picked  it. In addition  to the tactical
advantages of  the location,  know ing  they were  sitting on  a stock  of extra
ammunition might be a major bonus.

Just means we 'II have to press that much harder, Lon thought. We started action
tonight  with all  the ammunition  we could  carry for  our rifles  and  grenade
launchers, and if we have to, we can get another resupply drop in before the new
enemy fleet gets close enough to interfere.  He was glad that there had been  no
indication that the New Spartans had the capacity to resupply men on the  ground
by rocket. We might find out soon  enough if the intelligence on that is  right,
he decided.

"Lon, this  is Fal  Jensen. I've  got an  idea you're  going to think is totally
insane, but hear me out."

"Go ahead, Fal," Lon said, getting up and signaling his detachment to get  ready
to move.

"The enemy rocket artillery isn't going to  let our tanks sit north of the  Styx
and shell them. They  can pull south, out  of our reach, and  keep on clobbering
us. Why not send our tanks-from both regiments-across the river? The info I have
is that the ford is shallow enough and  has a firm enough bed to let them  cross
safely. Even if we can't destroy the rocket launchers, we can drive them out  of
range of our people up here."

"What about the time it takes them  to cross the river?" Lon asked. "They'll  be
sitting ducks if the New Spartans are watching, and they probably will be."

"Three minutes, maybe four for the crossing," Jensen said. "They blow across  at
best speed and get out of the  open before the New Spartans have time  to target
them and get rockets to the river."

Lon hesitated, for  perhaps as long  as thirty seconds.  He closed his  eyes. It
would be a terrible gamble, but... "Set  it up, Fal. We'll give it a  try. Maybe
it's just crazy  enough to work.  But keep me  informed. If it  goes bad, we may
have to pull them back in a hurry." I/there's time, he thought.



21

It was 0100 hours. The battle for  what Lon had started to think of  as "Spartan
Ridge" had been going on for three hours. The New Spartans had been in  position
long enough to dig in. The Dirigenters had to scoop out what defensive positions
they  could  under  fire. At  least  the  ground was  wet  enough  to make  that
relatively easy, but not so muddy as to make the resulting trenches swampy.  The
earlier showers had, mostly,  stopped. A few minutes  of drizzle, now and  then,
were all that was left from the cold front that had crossed the area.

The shooting had  progressed by fits  and starts as  the Dirigenters probed  for
weak spots in the enemy line. The  battle had never been general, all along  the
New Spartan perimeter simultaneously. There were also occasional skirmishes away
from that perimeter, patrol meeting patrol. And the New Spartans coming up  from
the river were met,  ambushed, and stopped short  of rendezvous with their  main
force on the ridge.  Part of 15th Regiment  was involved with that,  and the EDF
troops had been diverted to help. The radio reports Lon heard suggested that the
Elysians were doing their best to exact revenge for the New Spartan invasion.

The  New  Spartan  rocket artillery  was  no  longer firing  so  heavily  at the
Dirigenters. They had  used so many  missiles in the  early stages of  the fight
that they had to be running  short of ammunition again. Just before  0100 hours,
the Dirigenter tanks had crossed the Styx.  Two of those tanks, near the end  of
the lines,  had been  hit by  rockets. The  wreckage stood  in the  river, still
smoking. No one from the crews had made it out-six men dead. But the rest of the
tanks were now  on the south  shore of the  Styx, racing toward  the New Spartan
rocket artillery  ... which  was moving  farther away  from the engagement, just
what  Lon and  Fal Jensen  had hoped.  Soon, if  everything went  well, the  New
Spartan rocket launchers would be  too far away to continue  striking Dirigenter
infantry at all. Lon tried not to think of the cost to the tank companies.

Half of Lon's 2nd Battalion had moved across the ridgeline and were sliding into
position  behind the  New Spartans,  forcing them  to worry  about their  entire
perimeter and not just the western  and southwestern sections of it. Fal  Jensen
was attempting  to edge  a company  and a  half of  his 3rd Battalion around the
southern flank.

"If we can box them in, we've about got the issue settled," Jensen said when  he
and Lon  conferred-just before  the tanks  crossed the  Styx. "Pop  'em from all
sides until their lines start leaking, then close in and finish 'em off."

"I hope it's that  simple," Lon said. But  I still can't make  myself believe it
will be.

It was now 0125 hours. The fighting heated up on the reverse slope of the ridge,
east, as the New Spartans moved to keep from being surrounded. A full  battalion
of them came out  and turned north, to  face the stronger of  the two Dirigenter
elements trying  to close  the noose  around them.  Ten minutes  later, a second
battalion wheeled toward the south, engaging six platoons from 15th Regiment  on
that end. The rest of the New  Spartans started moving uphill, to the ridge,  to
secondary positions that apparently also had been prepared in advance.

"Are they just taking new positions, or ready to try a breakout?" Lon asked.  "I
need information,  fast." He  was on  a channel  that connected  him to CIC, Fal
Jensen, and  each of  the battalion  commanders. He  left that  channel open for
replies, but switched to another channel to connect to Phip Steesen.

"We're moving in  closer," Lon said.  "Saddle 'em up  and let's go."  As soon as
Phip acknowledged, Lon went back to the other channel. "I'm moving my CP  closer
to the  ridge, between  7th's 1st  and 3rd  Battalions. If  the New Spartans are
trying to get away, I've got to be  near enough to react." This time he did  not
wait for  acknowledgments. His  security detachment  was up  and ready  to move,
spread around their commander. Lon used hand signals to indicate the direction.

There was already a  noticeable slope to the  ground, climbing toward the  east.
The land  rose at  a gentle  angle, no  more than  ten degrees.  The tree  cover
started to get sparser, and within a  few minutes Lon started to see the  damage
that the  fighting had  caused-trees felled  or shattered  by artillery;  trunks
scarred by bullets; a few small,  smoldering fires and the ashes of  others. The
trees and grass were too wet to bum easily.

He also saw bodies on the  ground, Dirigenters who had fought their  last fight.
Lon counted eight, within not too great a space. All were lying on their  backs,
with indications that each had been checked by one of the med-techs. Lon gritted
his teeth and tried not to think how many more dead there already were, how many
more might fall before the fight came to an end.

Ten minutes on the  move: Lon and his  security detachment stopped, taking  what
cover they could. The sounds of fighting were noticeably closer in the east, but
the battle still was a thousand  yards away. Lon asked for news,  any indication
that the New Spartans had tipped their hand:

Were they taking new positions or trying to escape? There still was no answer.

What's it going to take to get them to quit? Lon asked himself as he got up  and
started moving east again.  How can we convince  them they can't hold  out until
their reinforcements  land? The  New Spartans  were mercenaries,  professionals.
Surely they  wouldn't make  a futile  "last stand."  That was  bad for business,
worse  than  accepting an  inevitable  defeat and  rebuilding,  living to  fight
another day, on some other world.

We would never push it that far,  Lon thought, though units of the Corps  had in
the past-at least on one regrettable contract. An entire regiment had been wiped
out on a world known as Wellman,  and the second regiment sent in also  had been
defeated. He squeezed his eyes shut for  an instant as he knelt next to  a tree.
If we can't  finish this batch  off, at least  seriously degrade their  strength
before  the  new fleet  reaches  attack orbit,  we  may have  to  concede defeat
ourselves. That thought hurt, but Lon would not let his command be totally wiped
out if  there was  no chance  of success-or  hope of  holding out  until another
regiment and more ships could arrive from Diri-gent. And that would take another
four weeks, absolute minimum.

Lon took a deep  breath. Come up with  something brilliant so you  don't have to
worry about that,  he told himself.  Find a way  to end this  in the next  forty
hours. That  would give  him half  a day  to get  ready for  the incoming fleet.
Convince the New Spartans to surrender.  Lon snorted softly and shook his  head.
Brilliant ideas seem to be in short supply. And the New Spartans aren 't  making
any major mistakes.

A call from Vel Osterman took him out of his thoughts. "I'm on the north flank,"
Osterman said. "Near  the ridge, with  a clear view  down into the  area the New
Spartans  were originally  defending. I  think they're  pulling out  completely,
probably aiming  to withdraw  to the  next ridgeline,  five miles  farther east.
They're showing  good discipline,  an orderly  move, covering  their asses. Once
they get clear of this ridge-in maybe ten minutes-the entire western slope  will
be wide open."

"Except for whatever  mines and booby  traps they're leaving  behind," Lon said.
"And maybe the occasional patrol or sniper."

"That's why I called, Lon," Osterman  said. "I haven't seen any preparations  of
that sort, and I'm in good position  to. It might be nothing more than  creeping
paranoia on my part, but  I think they want us  to chase them straight over  the
hill,  that maybe  they've got  more than  the usual  presents waiting  for  us,
something they set up before we got here."

"You mean some kind of trap," Lon said.

"That's what I'm  thinking. I could  be all wrong,  but this gives  me an itch I
can't scratch.  If they  wanted to,  they could  probably hold  this ridge  long
enough for their reinforcements to land, and moving exposes them to dangers they
can't be sure of accurately gauging. Unless...." He let that hang.

Lon hesitated a moment before he replied.  "I wouldn't put it past them, but  if
we detour completely  around we're going  to lose a  couple of hours,  give them
that  much more  chance to  put distance  between us  and settle  themselves  in
somewhere new." Another hesitation. "I think  we have to take our chances,  Vel,
but I'll put several squads out to  cover the ground before the rest of  us move
through. Thanks for the warning."

Lon switched channels to call the commanders of his 1st and 3rd Battalions,  Ted
Syscy and Benjamin Dark. "Get your best scouts out to look for traps in the area
the New Spartans have just vacated.  Tell them to be especially careful.  I know
they always  are, but  even more  than usual.  There's a  damned good chance the
enemy has left something extra behind to catch us with our pants down."

Both of the  battalion commanders acknowledged  the order. "It  might be nothing
more than that they've  had time to register  every rock and tree  on that slope
for their rocket artillery, with spotters to pass the word where we are,"  Syscy
added. Early in his career, before transferring to 1st Battalion, he had spent a
year in the regiment's heavy-weapons battalion. He considered himself an  expert
on artillery. "No way to  tell how many of the  big rockets they've got left  to
dump on us."

"I hope there's nothing  more to it than  that, Ted," Lon said,  "but we've just
about got their rocket launchers out  of range, unless they have even  more they
haven't used, and that's  unlikely. They've already shown  a lot more than  they
should have had. I'm  guessing that it's something  more like a thick  screen of
command-detonated mines,  concealed well  enough that  a casual  patrol might go
past without spotting them. Something  on that order. Hard telling  what they've
dreamed up. Just tell your patrols to be alert for anything."

"How much time do we have to get the scouts through?" Syscy asked.

"Not enough,  I'm afraid.  We can't  give the  New Spartans  a minute  more than
absolutely necessary. I can't funnel enough men around the flanks fast enough to
catch and hold them until the rest  of us tiptoe across the ridge. I'm  going to
move everyone  as close  as we  can, then  ... well,  we'll give  your men a few
minutes. Not many."

"We'll do what we can," Syscy said. Dark clicked his transmitter to agree.

Lon had kept moving during this conference. As soon as it was over, he  signaled
Phip to change  direction, angling southeast  instead of north  of east-to throw
off any enemy response if they had been tracking the detachment. There were more
orders to pass, and Lon had to apprise Fal Jensen of what 7th Regiment was going
to do. Keep the pressure  up on both sides. Make  sure the New Spartans have  to
withdraw slowly, under  fire. Don't give  them time for  anything else. The  New
Spartans had come out  to north and south  to hold off the  Dirigenters, letting
the rest of their force withdraw through the gap. Then the flanks had closed  in
behind, withdrawing in orderly fashion.

They're doing it awfully well, Lon thought with grudging admiration. An  orderly
withdrawal  under heavy  enemy pressure  was one  of the  hardest maneuvers   to
accomplish, and it could be extremely costly in lost men, even if the withdrawal
did not  turn into  a mindless  rout. And  Lon saw  no indication  that this was
likely to  degenerate into  a mad  retreat. That  would be  a major surprise, he
thought.

He finally called  a halt for  his headquarters detachment,  no more than  three
hundred yards from the van of 1st and 3rd Battalions, which was near the foot of
the hill the New Spartans had evacuated less than an hour before. There had been
considerably more destruction to the forest here. Few trees were still  standing
and unmarked by the fighting. There was a smell of smoke and gunpowder heavy  on
the air, clinging.

Lon sat in the  crook between two trees  that had fallen, one  across the other.
Snapped  and bent  branches, charred  and wilted  leaves formed  something of  a
canopy over his head.  He lifted the faceplate  of his helmet, then  took one of
his canteens from his  belt. He splashed a  little water on his  face and rubbed
the water around. That helped more than the sip of water he actually drank. That
had a slightly bitter  metallic taste to it,  the taste of gunpowder  and burned
wood that was already on his lips and in his mouth. The smell of fire was  heavy
on the air. Lon considered opening a meal pack for a couple of mouthfuls of food
but decided against it. Food could wait a little longer.

The scouting patrols from 1st and 3rd Battalions were halfway to the ridge, near
the second line of slit trenches that  had been dug by the New Spartans.  So far
the patrols had not  found anything unexpected. In  fact, there was a  dearth of
land mines, booby  traps, and  electronic snoops-  the very  items that  a  well
equipped enemy  would be  most likely  to leave  behind to  slow pursuit. Either
they've run  out of  everything or  they are  very anxious  to have us follow as
quickly as possible, Lon thought, recalling Vel Osterman's warning. And we can't
assume that they're out of anything.

He stared up the slope, squinting, as if that might help him spot an answer from
a distance when the men walking the ground had not found anything. Something. He
shook his head, which was becoming all too frequent a gesture for comfort. If we
can't find  whatever they  have in  mind, maybe  we can  trick them into tipping
their hand a little too soon.

Maybe. Lon signaled for  Phip to come to  him. "Listen closely," Lon  said after
both  men  had  raised their  faceplates.  "I  want to  try  something  a little
unusual." He  spent two  minutes explaining  exactly what  he wanted done, going
back over everything a  second time; then he  made Phip repeat the  instructions
back to him, to make certain there was no confusion. "I don't know that this  is
going to do us any good, but I think we need to do something."

"Okay, I see  your point," Phip  said. "I think  it's probably a  crazy waste of
time, but we're better off with  that than maybe walking into something  that'll
kill any chance  we have of  finishing this job  the way we  want to. I'll  grab
Dorcetti and get started." Then he hurried off to implement Lon's  instructions,
hardly hearing the softly sardonic "Glad you approve" Lon sent after him.

Lon pulled his faceplate  down and checked the  time. We 've been  on this world
less than seventy-two  hours, he thought  with amazement. It  seemed far longer.
All he  could do  now was  wait to  see if  his ruse  would work... if there was
anything up there. Ten minutes. Phip  would need that much time to  get started,
and the scouts high on  the slope would need that  much time to reach the  ridge
and take cover. Lon settled himself more comfortably behind the two tree trunks.
Maybe it is  crazy, he conceded,  but if it  isn 't, maybe  this will save  some
lives as well as time.

He took  another drink  of water,  a little  more than  before. The taste hadn't
improved. His mouth and throat remained dry. If this doesn 't turn anything,  we
're going to have to just go ahead  and move forward. We can't take the time  to
move most of a regiment around on either side. And there's no guarantee the  New
Spartans didn 't leave deadly surprises for us there.

He glanced at the timeline on his visor display again. The seconds seemed to  be
marching  in place  instead of  moving forward  the way  they should.  Time:  In
perhaps  as little  as fifty-five  hours, the  New Spartans  would have  another
regiment on the ground, or landing. There's no way we can face what they have on
the ground now and what's coming at the same time. They'll run all over us.  Lon
closed his eyes and took  a long, slow breath, as  deep as he could, holding  it
before expelling it just as slowly, tried to ignore the bitter odor on the  air.
Even that spent  less than a  minute of the  waiting time. Phip  hadn't even had
time yet to tell everyone what they were going to do.

I should have saved some of the work for myself, split it with Phip. That  would
have kept my mind busy and made the waiting shorter, Lon thought, but it was too
late to change  that. All he  could do was  suffer through the  waiting. Another
seven minutes to go, at least. Phip would give the signal to the chosen men once
everyone had been told what to do. I'll give the order for everyone else to  get
down  and stay  put once  I see  the blips  light up  for the  guinea pigs.   Or
sacrificial goats.

Lon looked  around, pulling  his faceplate  down to  take advantage  of its dual
night-vision systems.  Phip was  barely visible  eighty yards  away, off  to the
right, zigging   i his  way through the trees-both  standing and felled. On  the
other  side.  Sergeant Dorcetti  was  moving in  similar    ' fashion,  carrying
instructions to others. Dorcetti had been the first man Phip had talked to. They
were splitting the notification. Altogether, Lon hoped to have fifty men  taking
part in the deception. Limit the risk, but use enough men to make it believable.
\

He switched  channels to  listen to  the feed  from CIC,  the running commentary
provided from what the ships could see through its own cameras and other sensors
and through the cameras mounted in the helmets of officers   i and noncoms,  and
hear  on  the many  radio  channels avail-    (  able to  the  troops about  the
engagements on  the ground.    ( The  fight on  the other  side of  the hill had
slackened off.  ''  The New Spartans  were on the  slope leading up  to the next
ridgeline, across an almost dry  creekbed. The Diri-genters on both  flanks were
moving east  as well,  staying  off  to the  sides, trying  to pick  up a little
distance to give  them a chance  to eventually get  behind the enemy.  The fight
against the  smaller group  of New  Spartans, the  men who  had crossed the Styx
earlier, also was  continuing, moving gradually  to the east  as well, but  15th
Regiment was making certain that those companies could not move north, closer to
rendezvous with their main force.

One more sip of water. Lon quickly pulled his faceplate back down and glanced at
his  timeline.  Two  minutes  were  left  of  the  ten  he  had  estimated   for
preparations. He  adjusted his  position, getting  farther down  into the  cover
offered by the two fallen tree  trunks. / wonder where Junior is?  Lon wondered,
glancing toward the north. Junior would be with 1st Battalion. Or is he with one
of the patrols up near  the ridge? Lon had not  asked who was leading those.  It
would have been ... not quite proper. /  hope he knows to get his head and  butt
down at the right time. Lon swallowed hard.

I could sure use a pint ofGeoff's best lager right now, Lon thought, startled by
the intrusion of memories of his  father-in-law and the pub he ran  on Dirigent.
He could almost taste the  beer, feel the muggy warmth  of the pub. Maybe it  is
time to retire  and move to  Bascombe East. Spend  the next few  decades tending
bar. Be around to see at least one child grow up, not miss almost every birthday
and Christmas the way 1 have with Junior and Angie.

He blinked furiously for  several seconds and looked  at his timeline. This  was
not the time to think of home and the baby whom Sara was carrying. Any time now,
he told himself.  Phip and Frank  have had time  enough to get  the word out. He
stared  at the  head-up display  on his  visor, looking  for the  appearance  of
friendly blips along the line that the two noncoms had followed. Phip's would be
the first to show. The rest should appear almost instantly after that.

Now! Lon saw  the blips appear.  In a ragged  line they started  moving forward.
Some went out, then reappeared a few yards farther on in staggered  sequence-the
sort of display that  might result from officers  and noncoms giving orders  and
taking reports as their battalions started  a broad advance. Lon switched to  an
all-hands channel that would connect him to every man in 7th Regiment. He  spoke
one word: "Down!" The men Phip and  Frank had enlisted knew the command did  not
apply to them.

Lon got under one of  the trees, squirming to get  as much of his body  touching
the ground as possible.  Now we wait, he  told himself. Again. And  find out how
foolish I'm going to look.

The wait  was not  as long  as he  had feared.  Little more  than ninety seconds
passed before the entire western slope of the hill seemed to explode at once.



22

First, there were two thin strips of dirty orange-red light, roughly parallel to
each other on the slope, approximately following the lines of slit trenches  and
foxholes that the New Spartans had  dug earlier. The orange-red glow drew  Lon's
eyes. He lifted his head-just a  couple of inches-to see what was  happening, an
instinctive motion  that might  better have  been suppressed.  The sound  of the
explosions and the concussion wave swept down the slope and across his  position
as the line  of light stretched  into the sky-bulging,  blossoming as it  raised
smoke, dirt, and  heavier debris. It  cast rock and  soil up and  out, broke off
heavier chunks, and started them  rolling down the slope, beginning  a prolonged
rockslide. Lon  could feel  the ground  shaking beneath  him, even  after it had
stopped. The initial  concussion had knocked  the air out  of him, and  recovery
seemed infinitely prolonged. He could  hear nothing but echoes of  the explosion
for most of a minute, and his ears continued to ring after that.

Lon, like most of the troops of the two waiting battalions, was far enough  back
that the heaviest debris fell far short of where he lay trying to cover  himself
as the sky fell, but  dirt and small stones pelted  him and the others, some  of
the objects with enough force to be painful. A shower of very small bits of rock
and dirt rained on Lon's helmet, a staccato rattle that temporarily obscured the
ringing in his ears.

The  assault from  above seemed  eternal, but  lasted less  than a  minute.  The
rockslide lasted longer, only  gradually coming to a  halt. The smoke above  the
slope dissipated,  lifting, thinning,  dispersing. The  dust settled.  Lon found
that he was holding his breath and released it quickly, then inhaled deeply. The
smells  of explosives  and din  were almost  overpowering, choking.  He  coughed
several  times, then  shook his  head to  dislodge the  grit and  dust that  had
collected on his helmet. Finally, he cautiously lifted himself to his elbows  to
look out through a gap in the trees he had sheltered behind and below.

He looked up at the  slope of the hill. There  were a few small fires-grass  and
low shrubbery burning along the lines of the explosions-and the infrared display
of his nightvision system showed alternating bands of hot and cool spots on  the
hillside-hot where the blasts had  originated, cool where deeper layers  of rock
and soil were now exposed on the surface.

Only slowly did Lon become aware of  talk on the radio, faint, almost unable  to
compete with the volume of the tinnitus that remained from the concussive  force
of the explosions. He adjusted the volume on his receiver until the voices  were
louder than his inner-ear  static. There was still  a jumble of sound,  too many
voices trying to talk at  once, electronic silence forgotten. Still,  Lon needed
nearly a minute before he was able to respond, to say, "Can the chatter" on  his
all-hands channel.

It  spoke well  for the  training of  his men  that silence  came to  the  troop
channels immediately. Lon switched frequencies. "Phip, are you there?" he  asked
on the channel that connected them  directly. "Phip?" Lon held his breath  while
he waited for a reply, switching his head-up display to show vital signs.  There
was no indication of any signs  for Phip. Lon looked for Frank  Dorcetti's vital
signs then. Something nickered across his display then, and vanished. It  hadn't
been a proper readout, simply static.

Damage to the  electronics, Lon thought,  fighting down the  fear that he  might
have lost another friend-the closest he had ever had. We'll probably have a  lot
of that,  after a  blast that  strong. That  did not  totally erase the agitated
thumping of his heart,  the edge of fear.  He switched channels again.  "We need
medtechs and  several squads  to help  them find  the men  we had out front," he
said,  speaking  to  the  battalion  and  company  commanders  in  1st  and  3rd
Battalions.  "Lead Sergeant  Steesen and  Sergeant Dorcetti  were leading  them.
We'll have to find them to find out just how many people they had with them."

Lon got to his feet, leaning against one of the fallen trees that had  sheltered
him. He  rested his  gun across  the trunk,  the muzzle  pointed vaguely  up the
slope. It was, perhaps, reckless to expose himself, but that never even  crossed
his  mind. In  the wake  of such  massive explosions,  any other  danger  seemed
unreal. His eyes  scanned the terrain,  which certainly looked  like a war  zone
now, as  stark as  some of  the old  battlefield photographs  he had seen at The
Springs on Earth, images from the two global conflicts of the twentieth century.
Several  bands  of  low-lying  smoke  or  dust  clung  to  the  hillside, slowly
descending, only slowly being torn apart by the light breeze.

His men were out there, and two  of them counted as friends. Resisting the  urge
to look for them personally was the most Lon could manage. He stood and  watched
as  squads of  searchers moved  forward, weapons  at the  ready, eyes   glancing
nervously up the hillside, as if  in anticipation of more explosions. A  medtech
moved with each squad, his medical bag over his shoulder, a folded stretcher  on
his  backpack. But  each medtech  also carried  a rifle  and held  it ready  for
instant use.

Lon called  the commanders  of 1st  and 3rd  Battalions. "Get  a check from your
companies. Make sure we don't have any other casualties from the blast. Then get
ready to  move out  before the  New Spartans  have time  to figure out that they
didn't decimate us. We're going  to the top of the  hill. And beyond. I want  us
ready to  start in  five minutes."  Five long  minutes. Lon  had been tempted to
order an immediate advance. That was  what he wanted to do, almost  desperately.
Cover  the  ground. Close  with  the enemy.  Force  the fight...  and  take some
payback. But he could not order some  mad charge. This had to be done  properly,
in military order.

Lieutenant Colonels Syscy and  Dark acknowledged the order-indicating  that they
had already started checking for casualties among their men. Their voices seemed
distant,  hollow,  to  Lon,  though  the  ringing  in  his  ears  had   declined
considerably. He shook his head, gently, trying to rid himself of the  remnants,
but it was not that simple. It would  take time for the effect to end. This  was
something Lon had experienced before.

"I think our deception worked," he said, still on a link with the two  battalion
commanders. "Those blasts were meant to catch  us all on the slope, in the  kill
zone. We got lucky."

"It would have done a number on us if we had all been moving, that's for  sure,"
Dark said. "But I wouldn't call it all luck. That was fancy thinking, setting up
decoys that way."

A little bit of occupational paranoia,  maybe, Lon thought as the word  "decoys"
tied his stomach in  new knots. Decoys were  meant to be sacrificed  to draw out
the enemy. How  many men did  I send to  their deaths this  time? Lon closed his
eyes for an instant. It's time I start getting reports on that. The first report
came  within seconds.  Six men  were dead.  Twenty were  wounded, half  of  them
seriously enough  to need  time in  trauma tubes.  Frank Dorcetti  was among the
dead. Phip Steesen ...

"His left shoulder is  in pretty bad shape,  Colonel," the medtech who  examined
Phip said, "but I don't think he'll lose the arm." Hesitation. "It's going to be
close, though. The shoulder  and upper arm were  crushed, the joint pretty  well
shattered. I can't  tell how much  nerve damage there  is-some, certainly. We've
minimized the bleeding and got him on  a stretcher. He'll be in a tube  in three
minutes. He's not completely conscious."

Lon called Lieutenant Colonel Dark to arrange for a security detail to stay with
the medtechs and their charges when  the battalions moved on. Then Lon  gave the
order to advance. He climbed over the fallen tree in front of him as the men  of
his security detail started forward in  a ragged line. As always, Jeremy  Howell
was too close, a couple of steps to Lon's left.

Dorcetti's dead,  Lon told  himself as  he put  one foot  in front of the other.
Frank had been his driver since Lon  had taken command of 7th Regiment. Lon  had
never felt  quite as  close to  Dorcetti as  he felt  toward Jeremy  Howell, but
still, Frank had been there every day, always with a joke and a grin to help Lon
along. Not always good jokes, Lon thought, but he tried. He always tried.

Lon tried  to fight  through the  empty moment,  the void  of loss. The time for
grief would come  later, after the  fighting was over  and they were  on the way
home.  For now,  Frank was  simply one   man among  many who  had died  on  this
contract.  It was  always the  same, difficult  to be  that abstract  about  the
inevitable cost  of battle.  The hundreds  of men  who had  been killed in their
shuttles trying to land on  Elysium were less important-at this  minute-than one
man who had died a few hundred yards from Lon.

But  even thinking  about Frank  served mostly  as a  shield to  help Lon  avoid
worrying about Phip's condition.  A full session in  a trauma tube, maybe  more,
even if the  medtech had not  underestimated the extent  of Phip's injuries.  If
there was serious nerve  damage in the injured  shoulder and arm, Phip  might be
out of action for weeks. Left shoulder crushed, Lon thought. A few inches to the
right and it would have been his  head, and he might have been beyond  help. Lon
stumbled as he closed his eyes against that thought.

The advance slowed as  the lead companies started  to cross the debris  field at
the base of the slope. Men had  to pick their way over or around  obstacles, and
often a footstep started the man-made  scree sliding again. Turn big rocks  into
little rocks swept through  Lon's mind when he  reached the raw gravel  and dirt
himself.  There were  sizable boulders  among the  debris, but  most of  it  was
smaller, loose. The footing could scarcely have been more treacherous if the men
had been climbing an icy slope against a strong headwind. More than once Lon had
a foot slide  out from under  him, forcing him  to catch his  balance awkwardly.
Each time,  Jeremy Howell  moved closer,  ready to  help, moving  back when  Lon
gestured at him.

It took twenty-five minutes before Lon reached the line of the first New Spartan
defense perimeter, the site of the lower series of explosions. The fronts of the
slit trenches had been blown forward,  leaving raw gashes in the dirt  and rock,
reaching down to the heartstone of the hill in places. Behind, sharp rises of up
to three or four feet that had to be clambered over.

Lon started paying attention to reports from Fal Jensen and CIC as well as  from
his battalion commanders. The smaller group of New Spartans was still being kept
from moving north  to rendezvous with  their main force,  which was establishing
defensive positions on the next ridge. They were being harassed by Lon's 2nd and
4th Battalions and by most of what remained of 15th Regiment.

The  New  Spartans  were  still  fighting  as  smart  as  they  could  under the
circumstances-keeping good order, not allowing  the Dirigenters to roll over  or
around them,  and husbanding  their ammunition,  relying on  accuracy more  than
volume. They still think they can hold  out until those ships get in with  their
reinforcements, Lon thought. It was a discouraging notion. They might have  good
reason for their optimism. What more can they do? Lon wondered, but his mind was
too numb to explore the possibilities.  Just hope they've run out of  surprises,
he thought. They have to, sooner  or later. That might be more  wishful thinking
than logical deduction, though, and Lon knew it.


The slope steepened  above the line  of the first  explosions-more than Lon  had
realized from looking at the hillside from a distance. The blasts and landslides
had taken the slope  down to rock, stripping  the thin covering of  soil, and in
many places the rock  itself bore the scars  of new fractures, areas  where rock
had broken loose and  fallen. Much of the  loose stone that had  gathered in the
few relatively level areas was sharp-edged.

The muscles in Lon's  calves and thighs started  to tighten. The advance  slowed
more. Lon stopped moving forward  for nearly two minutes, rationalizing  that he
was getting too close to the van, closer than he should be. Jeremy Howell looked
toward him, an unasked question about Lon's well-being clear in the tilt of  his
head. The  rest of  the squad  charged with  protecting the regimental commander
took their  positions around  him, looking  up and  outward, vigilant.  . .  and
nervous.

We're almost five miles from the  enemy, Lon thought, noting the disposition  of
the men around him.  After those explosions, there  can't very well be  anything
left to go off close. But he did not say anything. His men were doing their job,
and would continue to do so despite any protests he might make. All the more now
that the regimental lead sergeant was out of action.

As he started moving  up the hill again,  Lon got on the  channel that connected
him to everyone in  his security detail. "We'll  take five just before  we reach
the ridge,  give the  rest time  to get  farther ahead  of us." The squad leader
voiced  his  acknowledgment.  Lon  saw   a  couple  of  heads  nod,   in  either
acknowledgment or relief. They  'd all feel a  lot better if I  never got within
twenty miles of  any fighting, he  thought, and not  because it would  keep them
that far from danger. He shook his head in amazement.

By the  time he  got near  the ridgeline,  Lon was  glad he  had decided to halt
there. The climb had him breathing  hard, and he had slipped once,  bruising his
right knee badly,  with a two-inch  gash at the  center of the  bruise. The knee
hurt, and  had already  started to  swell. Once  he settled  to the  ground, Lon
pulled up the trouser leg and put a medpatch over the cut and bruise; that would
help his body's health implants speed through the work of repairing the  damage,
and kill the pain.

The two battalions with Lon kept moving, scouts checking the eastern slopes  for
mines and booby traps. There were only a few, and even fewer electronic  snoops.
Apparently the New Spartans had  concentrated their available explosives on  the
western slope, in what they had hoped would be a coup de main. I hope they  used
everything they had, Lon  thought after hearing a  report from one of  the point
patrols.

He glanced at the  timeline on his visor  display, then tilted his  faceplate up
and looked into the  sky. There were still  a couple of hours  of darkness left,
and the sky remained heavily overcast even though the rain had ended. There were
no stars visible,  nor any light  from Elysium's moon.  Lon couldn't even  see a
glow from lights in University City, off to the southwest. /( would be great  if
we were up against  an enemy without nightvision  systems, Lon thought, but  the
New Spartans had gear as advanced as that of the Dirigenters.

"Colonel, why don't you have a meal pack as long as we're going to be here a few
minutes," Jeremy Howell  said. He knelt  next to Lon  and lifted his  faceplate.
"Got to give the body fuel to work, sir." When Lon chuckled, it startled Howell.
He drew back a little.

"Sorry,  Jerry, I  wasn't laughing  at you,"  Lon said.  "You just  triggered  a
flashback.  Back in  prehistoric times,  when I  was a  cadet, everyone  in  the
company seemed infernally preoccupied with making sure I shoved calories down my
throat every time I opened my mouth. They weren't happy unless I was as  stuffed
as a Thanksgiving  turkey." He hesitated.  "Yes, I'd better  have a little  food
while we're stopped. A nap for an  old man would be nice, too, but  that'll have
to wait."  Maybe a  long time,  he thought  as he  accepted the meal pack Howell
handed him.


The New  Spartan main  force did  not stay  long in  their positions on the next
ridge, hardly long enough to  dig minimal slit trenches, eat,  and-perhaps-get a
little  rest.  Once  they  saw  the  Dirigenters  advancing  again-obviously not
destroyed  or  seriously weakened  by  the explosions  left  to catch  them-they
abandoned  their new  holes and  started east  again. According  to the  nearest
Dirigenters, the New Spartans appeared to be moving slowly. They had been  under
constant observation this  time, and  it seemed  clear that  they had  not booby
trapped those positions as thoroughly as they had the earlier lines.

North  of the  New Spartans,  the Dirigenter  2nd Battalion,  7th Regiment   was
pushing east as rapidly as the  men could-faster, perhaps, than was prudent.  On
the south,  4th of  the 7th  and half  of 15th  Regiment also  were pushing east
quickly, though not quite at the same pace as Vel Osterman's battalion. Osterman
had his lead company as  far east as the van  of New Spartans, with the  advance
patrols starting to curve south, attempting to slow the enemy until the rest  of
the battalion could  get in place  to hold them.  The rest of  15th Regiment was
still engaging the  smaller New Spartan  force near the  Styx. The New  Spartans
were  finding  it  increasingly  difficult to  keep  moving  toward  a hoped-for
rendezvous with their main force.

"We've still got  two days to  bring this to  resolution," Lon said,  conferring
with Fal Jensen and the battalion commanders from both regiments, "but we  don't
want to use every minute until those new ships get close enough to launch troops
and fighters against us. We get that close to the end and there's little  chance
the New Spartan commander on the  ground will surrender. They'll try to  keep us
occupied right up until the new force can get into the act. And if that happens,
we're in big trouble."

"They can't have  any rocket artillery  left, not close  enough to hit  us," Fal
Jensen noted.  "Our tanks  have driven  the few  launchers they  had left out of
range. If  they had  anything closer,  they would  have hit  us by  now. And our
Shrikes are keeping them from using their fighters for close air support."

"And vice versa," Lon said. "We can't get Shrikes in to help us either. That end
of it is a stalemate, at least until the new force gets close enough to use  its
fighters. Then our fleet is in  trouble, too. Maybe the New Spartans  don't have
any  rockets left  for their  self-propelled launchers,  but we're  also out  of
ammunition for our rocket launchers and  artillery, and getting close to out  of
ammunition for the tanks as well."

"Is getting the  New Spartan commander  on the ground  to surrender going  to be
enough?" Tefford Ives asked.  "That new fleet might  still attack our ships.  We
might end up being stranded without a way off. If that happens, the New Spartans
can land whatever troops they're bringing and give us as much trouble as we  can
handle."

"One step at  a time, Teff,"  Lon said. "The  troops on the  ground are the only
ones we  can do  anything about.  If we  force them  to surrender, strip them of
weapons, ammo, and communications gear, we'll have a chance, no matter what  the
newcomers do. If the enemy can't provide replacement equipment, the men won't be
much use. We'll  get in another  ammunition resupply before  the new fleet  gets
close, maybe risk shuttles to bring in food and ammunition for the heavy-weapons
battalions."  He  paused.  "We'll  have  to risk  that,  as  long  as  there's a
possibility we'll have to keep fighting. After that... we'll do whatever we have
to do."



23

Lon took  time to  visit the  treatment center  the med-techs  had set up on the
western slope of the ridge the New Spartans had blown. Twenty trauma tubes  were
in use. Another  forty men were  lying on blankets  spread on the  ground. Those
were men whose injuries were not serious enough to need time in a trauma tube...
or who had to wait their turn because their injuries were not as critical as the
men already in the tubes. Lon stopped to say a few words to each of the  wounded
who were  not in  tubes but  were conscious-words  of encouragement, comfort. He
asked the medtechs about each man in  a tube, and stopped hardly longer next  to
the tube holding Phip Steesen than any of the others.

Get better fast, Phip,  Lon thought, resting his  hand on Steesen's tube  before
moving to the next casualty.

"We're  okay for  the moment.  Colonel," Major  Norman said  during their   tour
together, "but I can't answer for how much longer. One more major firefight  and
we could run low  on medical supplies, even  critical components for the  trauma
tubes-assemblers and controllers. I talked  with 15th's acting SMO an  hour ago,
and they're much closer to  that point than we are.  They lost a third of  their
medical stores  in the  shuttles that  were destroyed.  And, of  course, the one
thing there never seems to be enough of is trauma tubes."

"We can't do  much about the  tubes," Lon said.  "Set things up  to use resupply
rockets to bring in consumables-whatever can  survive a landing in one of  those
rockets. We'll do double drops in case some of the rockets don't make it."

"Even if  all the  rockets are  brought in  on target,  we'll probably lose some
cargo, possibly thirty  percent of the  most delicate items,"  Norman said. "The
molecular controller units are particularly fragile. They can't take a hell of a
lot of  hard treatment.  That's why  we've never  really considered the resupply
rockets as a routine means of bringing in medical stores."

"I know, but since we don't have  any viable options, we have to use  what we've
got," Lon said. "I'll give CIC authorization. You get on with Peregrine's SMO on
what you  want and  any tips  you can  give him  on how  to pack  it to minimize
losses."

Norman  nodded. "Lon,  there's one  other thing  I have  to bring  up as  senior
medical officer. How long do you plan  to push the men without sleep? We're  not
to the critical point yet,  since a lot of our  people had a chance to  get some
sleep yesterday afternoon,  but we're on  the move, heavily  loaded, and looking
for a major engagement at the end. If the chase goes on until dark tonight, with
a fight after that, we'll be getting critical. Tired men make more mistakes, and
mistakes in combat get men killed and wounded."

Lon hesitated  before he  replied. "I  know the  situation, Dan,"  he said, very
softly, "but... we just don't have many realistic options. I hope we'll be  able
to get  enough men  behind the  New Spartans  that they  won't be  able to  keep
running, or that they'll get tired enough that they have to make a long stop  to
let their men sleep. But with that new enemy fleet coming in, we don't have time
for luxuries like  sleep. We can't  stop until the  New Spartans already  on the
ground stop. Once we get the enemy main force locked into position, I'll try  to
give us enough time to let everyone  get a few hours' sleep. If possible.  A lot
depends on how long it takes us to  force them to stop- and whether they try  to
force a breakout when we do."

"My concerns about  sleep extend to  you as well,  Lon," Norman said.  "You need
enough to be able to function at your best as well. Maybe more for you than  for
the younger men in the line companies. You've been at this business since before
a lot of them were bom. If you're a glutton for punishment, I can get the  exact
percentage for you in about five seconds."

"I know how old I am. Doc," Lon said, his voice showing a harsh edge. "And  I've
already got a pretty good  idea about the other. No  need to rub my face  in the
obvious." He shook his head. "I do that myself every time I look in the mirror."

"Tell me, did you ever get a chance to meet Warren Greavy?" Norman asked.

Lon  laughed. "Old  Prune Face  himself? Yeah.  I was  introduced to  him at   a
Founders' Day ball, back when I was a fairly new lieutenant. Matt Orlis told  me
that Greavy was a hundred and thirty years old, and he looked twice that."

"He was fifteen  years older when  I met him,  not long before  he died." Norman
shrugged. "I was surprised when I heard about that. Old as he was, he had looked
fit enough to last another ten or fifteen years, and you couldn't get a bet that
he wouldn't reach a hundred and fifty.  My point is, he remained on active  duty
until he was well past ninety, set all kinds of records, commanded 4th  Regiment
twenty-three years, served  three terms as  General-and flatly refused  a fourth
term. He  took his  annual physical  qualification test  just before  he finally
retired, and passed it with numbers to spare, not a hell of a lot worse than you
did on your last qualification. He was eighty-nine the last time he led a combat
contract, and from  the reports I  read, it was  no beer run.  He managed to get
himself shot on that one, but kept fighting for twenty minutes before a  medtech
got to him."

"So he was an omery old goat. So?"

"So don't get  yourself hooked on  thinking about how  old you are,  or how long
you've been in the Corps," Norman said. "Don't rub your own face in it, or  beat
yourself over the  head with the  calendar, any of  that nonsense. With  all the
nanotech floating  in our  systems, age  is more  a state  of mind than anything
else." Lon smiled. "Point taken. Doc."


When  he returned  to the  ridge, Lon  moved his  command post  into the  valley
between  it and  the next  line of  hills- which  the New  Spartans had  already
abandoned. His 1st  and 3rd Battalions  had already pushed  past the creek  that
marked the  lowest line  through the  valley and  were climbing  toward the next
ridge. The point companies  were within two miles  of the enemy rear  guard. The
situation on the flanks was better. Dirigenters were level with the New  Spartan
point, closing in from north and south. Lon concentrated on getting updates from
CIC, Fal Jensen, and the commanders of each battalion. They were making definite
progress, as much because the New Spartans had slowed down as for the  increased
speed the Dirigenters were attempting.

"Unless they pull another rabbit out of the hat, we should have them pretty well
encircled by sunset," Jensen  said. "And the smaller  force is just about  taken
care of. The reports  I'm getting from my  company commanders is that  those New
Spartans seem to be running critically short on ammunition."

"Critically short, or just saving it for when the situation gets critical?"  Lon
asked,  noting the  change in  Jensen's tone.  He sounded  optimistic now,   not
worried that disaster was only moments away. He was growing into his command.

"That's the point, of course," Jensen said. "No way to be certain. I've got  two
eager young officers-one who's been a captain less than a year, and a lieutenant
commanding half  his company  because the  shuttle carrying  the rest  was blown
apart before landing, with their  captain and the other lieutenant-who  think we
can  overrun the  five hundred  New Spartans  they're facing  without too   much
trouble. I've told them to continue as they have been, keeping our exposure to a
minimum."

"And they want to charge right in and finish it off?"

"Isn't that  the way  it always  is?" Fal  said, almost  a hint  of humor in his
voice. "If I could be anywhere near certain that their estimate of the situation
is right, it might work. Both men are good officers, but-"

"Are you asking me to make the call?" Lon asked.

"You're the boss," Jensen said. "I've told them, for now, to keep pressuring the
enemy without doing anything, ah, foolish. No empty heroics. Personally, I think
it's a little soon to try to finish that batch. They haven't taken all that many
casualties since  they crossed  the river  and we  diverted the  tanks to handle
their rocket launchers. There could be five hundred New Spartans left there, and
I've hardly got that many men around them.  It is, as I said, your call, if  you
want to overrule me."

"Who's your battalion commander on the scene?"

"Captain Jim Binnes  is acting CO.  Marty Turin and  his entire staff  were lost
coming in."

"Binnes the captain urging a full-scale assault?" Lon asked.

"No. Binnes just passed the request  to me without comment. Jim is  adequate for
the job for now,  but...." Jensen snorted. "If  I had someone else  I could move
into the job...." He didn't need to finish that statement.

"I think you've made the right call,  Fal. We'll play it your way, at  least for
the next couple of hours. Put as much pressure on them as we can without forcing
a last-stand  brawl. We  go in  before those  New Spartans  are ready to call it
quits, and it could come down to bayonets. Keep a watch on the situation and let
me know if you see enough to want to go ahead."

"Right. My estimate  right now is  that another two  or three hours  of constant
pressure might be enough, but I'll keep an eye on things there, as best I can."

Two or three hours. The phrase kept running through Lon's head as he hiked east.
If we could spring a couple of  Shrikes loose, we could turn the situation  over
faster,  he thought.  But if  we could  spring Shrikes  for close  air  support,
everything would go a lot easier. We could finish the business on the ground  in
no time at all. But bringing Shrikes  in would draw the New Spartan Javelins  as
well, or put the ships at hazard.

If it comes down to it, we 'II  have to take the risk, Lon decided. Soon  enough
to give us time to recuperate before the new fleet gets in range. Can we do it a
little sooner, take  out the smaller  enemy force, then  go right into  the main
force? He  kept walking  east as  he turned  the question  over in  his head.  A
captain  temporarily thrust  into command  of a  battalion in  combat might   be
excused  for  indecision, after  a  time. A  colonel  commanding a  regiment-two
regiments-would not. I'm the contract officer.  I'm the one who has to  make the
final call, Lon  reminded himself. I've  got to make  a decision.. .  and it had
better be the right decision.

Another fifty paces  forward, with his  security squad ranging  in front and  to
either side, weapons  at the ready.  Lon continued to  listen to the  continuous
updates from CIC, interrupted only when he received a report from someone on the
ground.  There were  no surprises  in any  of the  messages. The  situation  was
moving-slowly, but in the right direction.

Just not  fast enough,  Lon thought.  This all  gets down  to timing. Hit at the
right time, providing we can hold the New Spartans in place long enough. Timing.
Lon kept walking. I'd like to  have the situation on the ground  resolved within
twenty-four hours, soon enough to give us plenty of time to rest up for the  new
people coming in.

Time to rest. We need to rest our people before the big fight, if we can. And we
'd better find a  way. Tired soldiers became  casualties more easily. They  made
stupid mistakes.  They quit  caring enough  to be  careful. When  things got bad
enough, a bullet  seemed a small  enough price for  the luxury of  four hours of
rest-even in a trauma tube. If we  can lock the enemy's main force in  place, by
sunset or so, then move everyone into place and take a few hours for sleep.  Hit
the New Spartans maybe an hour or an hour and a half before dawn. And bring in a
few Shrikes to help, despite the risk.

Lon felt as if he had shed half the gear he was carrying. Tentatively, at least,
he had made his decision, even if he was not ready to start issuing the  orders.
Now, if we can just force the New Spartans to halt so we can implement it, we'll
be all set, he thought.



24

Morning. Daylight.  Unlike the  day before,  this one  looked to  be only partly
cloudy. The weather front had pushed through, leaving only scattered high clouds
behind. There was  a moderate breeze  coming out of  the northwest, holding  the
temperature down somewhat. The local forecast  out of University City was for  a
high in the mid-eighties, Fahrenheit. The temperature that night might dip  into
the fifties, away from the city.

At dawn, the New Spartan fleet bearing in on Elysium was still fifty-three hours
out from a standard attack orbit;

A sword of  Damocles, Lon thought  after receiving the  latest update from  CIC,
except we know when this sword is going to fall.

By the middle of the morning, Lon  was beginning to feel confident that his  men
would be able to  force the New Spartans  already on Elysium into  battle before
dawn the next morning.  If we can do  that on our terms,  I think the odds  will
favor  us,  at  least  a  little,  and  we  can  force  the  issue  before their
reinforcements get in, he told himself. Even if we only have parity in manpower,
we should have  the edge in  ammunition. After that,  we trust that  our men are
better trained and that our officers are better leaders. Including me. He felt a
tiny shiver  of doubt.  In the  end, it  might come  down to  which side had the
better commander.

Lon started slowing the pace of  1st and 3rd Battalions just a  little, allowing
ten minutes for the men  to rest after each hour  on the move, instead of  five.
"Half an hour  for lunch about  noon," he informed  the battalion commanders  at
eleven o'clock.  "We don't  need to  push so  hard here.  It's the  units on the
flanks that need to hurry to surround the enemy."

Fifteen minutes before  noon, the smaller  band of New  Spartans tried to  break
through the ring  of Dirigenters, aiming  to cut the  siege on a  direct line to
their main force. The units of 15th  Regiment that had boxed the enemy had  been
watching for the maneuver-some  of the men had  been hoping for it-and  they met
the enemy  spearhead with  a volley  of rocket-propelled  grenades and automatic
rifle fire. The New Spartans kept  coming, and the fighting in the  northeastern
quadrant of the sector quickly  became hand-to-hand. The engagement lasted  more
than an hour, and casualties were high on both sides.

Lon extended  the lunch  break for  the two  battalions with  him, listening  to
reports from the battle to his south, wondering whether he might have to send  a
company from 3rd Battalion to  reinforce Lieutenant Colonel Jen-sen's men.  Then
that fight ended, suddenly,  not ten minutes after  Lon had given the  order for
1st and 3rd to resume their movement east.

"They surrendered," Fal Jensen reported, sounding almost ecstatic. "I don't have
a firm count yet, but it looks  as if we've got nearly three hundred  prisoners.
It's going to take a time to get things sorted out, but we can put everything to
taking on the main enemy force when we catch them up."

"Good job, Fal, and  pass that on to  the officers and men  involved," Lon said.
"Get the  wounded cared  for, ours  and the  New Spartans'."  He did not have to
specify that Dirigenters came first, and had first call on trauma tubes.  "Strip
the New  Spartans of  weapons, ammunition,  helmets, and  any other electronics.
Destroy the helmets and  other electronics and do  the best you can  to make the
weapons inoperable. Dig a pit and burn  the ammunition. Just in case we have  to
face the reinforcements they've  got coming in and  lose our prisoners, I  don't
want to leave anything for them to use against us."

The electronics were incompatible with DMC systems. In other circumstances,  Lon
might have ordered the weapons and ammunition held as a reserve for his own  men
he had done that  before-but here, he decided  that the greater danger  was that
the enemy might recapture the munitions, not that his people might run short  of
ammunition. Having workable resupply rockets erased any worry Lon might have had
about running short.

"I'll take care of it," Pal said. "It's  going to take most of the men I've  got
down there  to treat  the wounded,  get rid  of the  enemy's gear, and guard the
prisoners, unless we  can turn the  prisoners over to  the Elysians. You  want I
should do that?"

"Not yet," Lon said after a very brief hesitation. "Maybe we don't have to worry
about the Elysians mistreating  prisoners, but they want  to be in on  the final
fight, and all the  soldiers they have available  are moving around in  front of
the New Spartan main  force." He had never  quite forgotten about the  companies
from the Elysian Defense Force moving in on the southern flank, but they had not
been at the front of his mind until Jensen mentioned them.

"I'd feel less nervous  with us pushing the  final attack and the  Elysians away
from the action," Jensen said. "We don't know how good they are, and we can't be
sure what they'll do."

"I know the arguments, Fal, but this is their world, and they're our  paymasters
on this contract. They are good. We'll  just have to keep an eye open.  For now,
just keep me informed on the progress your people make." Lon got to his feet and
started following the two line battalions again, and his security squad moved as
if they were physically linked to him.

"Hey, what's the big hurry?"

Lon stopped and turned at the  sound of Phip Steesen's voice. Phip  was hurrying
toward him. Lon's eyes were immediately  drawn to the sling Phip's left  arm was
in, the  arm strapped  tightly to  his body.  Phip also  seemed to  be limping a
little, favoring his left leg. He carried his rifle in his right hand.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lon asked when Phip finally reached him.  "I
know damned well Doc Norman didn't  release you for duty with that  arm strapped
up like that. Why aren't you back at the field hospital, where you belong?"

"They got enough work without me hanging around. Never mind my arm. I can do  my
job, much as anyone ever lets me do it anymore. Nothing wrong with my mouth,  or
my brain," Phip said. "I'm not about to sit on my ass and let you do everything.
And if it comes to  it, I can shoot better  one-handed than half these kids  can
with  both. Any  way you  slice it,  I can  do you  more good  here than  there.
Besides, I've had my rest, more than I need."

Lon stared at Phip, clenching his teeth against the impulse to order his  friend
back to  the field  hospital. "Just  what did  the medtechs  tell you?" he asked
finally. "How much recovery time do that shoulder and arm need? Straight out."

"Only minor nerve damage-pinched, not severed. I've got a little tingling in the
fingers. The bone is pretty well repaired-eighty percent, anyway. Another  eight
to ten hours and I'll be fully  functional. And the big fight won't come  before
then, will it? I've been listening in on as much as I could the last hour or so,
since they pulled me out of the tube."

"The big fight won't come  before then if things go  the way I hope they  will,"
Lon said. He did not question how Phip had managed to replace his damaged helmet
electronics. There had undoubtedly  been casualties whose helmets  had survived.
"There's a chance  the New Spartans  will force the  issue before then,  though.
They might be better off if they do."

"That smaller  force waited  until it  was too  late to  try to break out," Phip
said. "Any reason to think that the main force will play it any smarter?"

"They can see what  happened playing it that  way," Lon replied. "That  might be
enough to make their commander decide to try something different. I would if the
tables were turned."

Phip snorted. "If the tables had been turned, you'd have attacked soon as it got
dark last  night, anything  to keep  the enemy  from playing  it his  way. Maybe
charged in right after blowing that stupid hill down on top of them."

Lon shook his head. "I don't know what I'd have done if I had the other hand  in
this. I don't even  want to guess. Whatever  seemed to offer the  best chance of
holding out until help arrived, I expect. Right now, running looks to offer more
hope for the New Spartans than sitting still, or turning and attacking us."

"How seriously you figure they take their name?" Phip asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I got to thinking  about that fight the  old Spartans had, back  on Earth, that
one we talked about."

Thermopylae?"

"Yeah, three hundred men standing off an army of umpteen thousands, fighting  to
the last man."

"I don't think  we have to  worry about that,"  Lon said. "The  New Spartans are
mercenaries, not  maniacs. No  professional is  going to  accept a contract that
requires a last stand."  Lon shook his head.  "There's no future in  it." Phip's
groan at the pun made Lon feel better-about both of them.


Lon kept Phip close through the  afternoon, and made certain that Jeremy  Howell
and the members of his security detachment knew to look after the lead sergeant,
no matter how  much he tried  to discourage the  attention. As much  as he could
without being obvious  about it, Lon  kept a close  eye on Phip  as well, noting
that the limp disappeared within a half hour even though they were hiking across
rough ground. Not long after that,  Lon noticed Phip flexing the fingers  of his
left hand, repeatedly  making a fist,  testing the arm  as far as  the sling and
straps would allow. Phip kept the faceplate of his helmet down, so Lon could not
see if he was in any discomfort.

It was  after 1430  hours when  Lon finally  got a  count on  the number  of New
Spartans who had been captured by  15th Regiment. Three hundred twenty had  been
taken, seventy-three of them wounded. Jensen's men also had counted eighty-three
enemy bodies at  the site of  their last firefight  and the attempted  breakout.
Twenty-four Diri-genters  had died  in the  fight, and  there were forty wounded
men, about a third needing time in trauma tubes.

A few minutes later the two companies  from the EDF opened fire on the  main New
Spartan force, tying them down  for twenty minutes before withdrawing  to better
positions-now right in front of the enemy, due east of their lead companies. The
New Spartans made a few attempts to find a way out to the northeast, but 2nd  of
the 7th was in the way there.

"I think we've finally got them cornered," Lon told Phip when a report from  Vel
Osterman said that the  New Spartans were setting  up a defensive perimeter  and
digging in. "They don't have anywhere to go but through us now."

"If  they realize  that, they're  liable to  try it  before we  get everyone  in
place," Phip replied. "Right after sunset at the latest, I'd guess."

"If they wait until sunset, it'll be  too late," Lon said, glancing at the  sky.
"Four hours from  now we'll have  all our people  in place, a  tight ring around
them."

"But that gives them four hours to rest, while we're still humping around," Phip
said. "I'm okay. I had  all that rest in the  tube, but most of our  men haven't
had the luxury. They've started to drag their butts along the ground."

I know, Lon  thought. "We'll keep  the New Spartans'  minds occupied, enough  to
keep them from getting much rest, at least. I'm going to try to give our  people
most of the night to try for  some sleep, plan on going in about  ninety minutes
before  sunrise if  the New  Spartans don't  do something  sooner." Go  in  with
everything we can muster. Maybe it's not smart to put everything on one roll  of
the dice, but we don't have many choices if we want to hope to avoid facing them
and all the reinforcements coming toward us.


The New Spartans had  no real advantage in  the terrain they had  been forced to
defend. They  were on  a gradual  slope, the  ground rising  to the east, not to
another ridge but just into rolling prairie with waist-high grass and  scattered
stands of trees and brush, and  the Dirigenters and Elysians were above  them as
well as below-but never  by much. There was  more soil and less  stone away from
the hills, though, which meant that the New Spartans were able to dig in easily.

"It's going to be a bloody mess on both sides," Phip said as he and Lon surveyed
the enemy  positions before  sunset, passing  powered binoculars  back and forth
between them. Lon had set up his command post a little more than two miles  from
the nearest point  on the enemy  line, on the  slope leading down  from the last
line of hills, near the edge of a thick copse of trees that draped like  weeping
willows on Earth. The CP was a  little higher than the New Spartans, dug  in and
camouflaged  as well  as the  men of  the regimental  headquarters staff   could
manage. A few trees  had been felled. Slit  trenches and foxholes had  been dug,
with the dirt piled in front of  them. Nearly all of the Dirigenter and  Elysian
troops were  in position,  surrounding the  enemy, and  Lon had  already put his
people on half-and-half watches, to allow everyone to get some sleep before  the
battle. Hopefully.

"I'm afraid you're right," Lon said, sighing softly. "Dark will make it a little
easier, but not  enough to suit  me." He glanced  at the sky.  "Too bad we don't
have the low cloud cover and rain any longer. That would have gotten rid of  the
starlight and moonlight."

"I hope we can do most of the  job before we have to get close enough  for those
needle guns of theirs to be  effective," Phip said. "Someone brought a  captured
needle gun and its ammo by the  hospital, before I left. Those slivers of  metal
are heavier than you'd believe possible. Must be depleted uranium." He shook his
head. "It'd be better yet if we could hang way back and just use our beamers  to
thin 'em out. We've got more energy weapons than they do, I think. Or more power
packs for the beamer  rifles we do have.  I've been checking around.  We haven't
lost anyone to a beamer in almost twenty-four hours."

New medical supplies  had been received,  along with ammunition  and meal packs.
There had been no  losses, except for some  of the delicate medical  stores that
had been jarred by  too-rough landings. The New  Spartans in orbit had  not even
tried to intercept the small rockets.  Nor had they attempted to resupply  their
own troops.

"They have to be  getting short on ammunition  for all their weapons,"  Lon said
after a lengthy silence. "Probably short  of food as well. They haven't  had any
fresh supplies in since  we hit the ground,  and I doubt that  they carried more
than a couple of days' worth before we showed up."

Phip shrugged. "They had almost three  days to build up their stockpiles  on the
ground between the time we came out of Q-space and when we reached attack orbit.
Maybe they are  short of food,  but they won't  starve before their  compatriots
arrive, even if their stomachs growl a  lot. But if they haven't got bullets  to
feed their rifles, why the hell don't  they surrender now and get it over  with?
Save a lot of lives."

"Maybe their commander  still believes in  miracles," Lon said.  "And maybe he's
waiting to  see if  we've got  the balls  to try  to finish  them off. There's a
chance that once we start to press the attack they might show the white flag  in
a hurry."

"So who still  believes in miracles?"  Phip asked. "I  thought you got  cured of
wishful thinking a couple of decades ago."

Lon laughed as he turned his head to  look at Phip. "I did give up believing  in
miracles, but then you went and got married and I had to reconsider."

Phip shook his head, but he  was grinning. "Hard to argue with  that reasoning,"
he said. "Why don't you have a meal, then get some sleep? I'll keep my eyes open
and let you know if anything important happens,"

Lon  hesitated. "I'm  not really  hungry, but  I'd better  try to  get a  little
sleep," he conceded. Just  the mention of sleep  forced a yawn from  his throat.
"At least a couple of hours."

"Try, hell," Phip said. "If you can't  get to sleep without it, put a  four-hour
patch on. We're neither of us kids. We need our sleep. I had mine in a tube, and
that's better than sleep, but you've been on the go forever. You've got to  have
your head clear  when the fight  starts. Go on,  use a patch.  Anything happens,
I'll pull it and put a stim-patch on to jerk you awake."



25

When LOR Make and  opened his eyes, the  timeline on his visor  display informed
him that it was  0225 hours- almost two-thirty  in the morning. He  took several
slow breaths to help get rid of  the slight tension headache that a sleep  patch
almost always left him  with. Almost two-thirty; I  got the full four  hours, he
thought. That means nothing has gone wrong. That was a relief, dampened when  he
next  realized that  it also  meant that  nothing had  gone exceptionally   well
either-the New Spartans had not surrendered to spare themselves the bloodletting
of  battle. I  guess that  was too  much to  hope for.  If they  were going   to
surrender that easily, they would have done it earlier.

Lon could hear no  gunfire, which also spoke  loudly to the peacefulness  of the
moment. He stretched cautiously, almost as if he were afraid that someone  would
notice. He clicked his radio receiver on and turned to the channel that gave him
the running commentary from CIC on  Per-egrine. With no activity on the  ground,
the talk  was no  longer constant.  There was  a pause  of nearly twenty seconds
before someone in CIC started repeating  the latest summary. Nothing new on  the
ground. No fighting at  the moment between us  and the New Spartan  cruiser. The
new fleet continues on  course toward us; no  change in their estimated  time of
arrival;  they're still  at least  thirty-one hours  away. We  'II repeat   this
message  in  five minutes.  The  dull tones  of  the sailor  reading  the report
reinforced the bland nature of the message. There seemed to be a "ho-hum" behind
each phrase, as if he had difficulty staying awake through it.

Several blinks. A more expansive stretch. Lon looked around him,  subconsciously
ignoring the slight greenish tinge that the infrared portion of his night-vision
system gave to everything. That was  so old-hat that it was extremely  rare when
he actually noticed. He saw Phip's figure  about ten feet away, and knew it  was
Phip  mostly by  the way  he sat,  his head  forward just  a little,  the  sight
movements of body and limbs. The sling was gone from his left arm. Lon needed  a
few seconds before he noticed its absence.

"Did Doc Norman approve that, or did you do it on your own?" Lon asked,  lifting
his faceplate when Phip turned to look at him. The night turned dark without the
night-vision gear.

"I gave it all the time he told me to," Phip said. He only lifted his  faceplate
far enough to expose  his mouth. Lon pulled  his back down, to  the same extent.
"Feels okay,  really, just  about one  hundred percent."  Phip made  a series of
movements with the arm, flexing  and stretching all the muscles,  exercising the
joints.  "See?  No  pain,  just  the  least  little  stiffness  from  having  it
immobilized so long."

"Any news I should know about?" Lon asked. He opened his canteen and took a long
sip of  water. That  and several  deep breaths  banished the  last traces of his
headache.

"Nothing but routine, far  as I know. Everyone's  where they're supposed to  be,
getting what rest they can, ready to go when the time comes, or whenever the New
Spartans decide to  do something." He  paused. "Whichever comes  first, I guess.
The skipper  of Peregrine  wants you  to call  him. I  suspect he wants to gripe
about how many Shrikes you want to pull down to support this operation."

"I suspect you're right.  He'd prefer keeping all  of them to defend  our ships,
even though he's got numerical  superiority over the New Spartan  fighters. Now,
if there's nothing  else I need  to know about,  it's time for  you to shut your
eyes and get a little rest before the attack."

"To tell  the truth,  I've already  dozed a  couple of  times. Jerry and me been
taking turns, making sure one of us  is always awake and close by, listening  to
the radio and  watching. Things are  getting too close.  Even if I  could get to
sleep, it'd be time to wake back up so soon it's not worth the trouble."

"Worth it or not, take the trouble," Lon said. "Humor me. You've already  caused
me enough worry for one contract. Besides, your medical nanobugs will work  that
much better  while you're  asleep, and  I can  see that  arm and shoulder aren't
quite all the way back  yet. I'm awake and alert.  Soon as I get a  bite to eat,
I'm going to be busy on the radio."


Lon  spent  nearly  ten  minutes  talking  with  Kurt  Thorsen,  the  captain of
Peregrine.  Thorsen  made  only pro  forma  objections-though  he repeated  them
several  times-to  the use  of  four Shrike  II  fighters to  provide  close air
support. They would rotate in and out,  two at a time, minimizing the time  when
the troops on the  ground would be without  air cover. As each  pair of fighters
returned to the ships, they would be rearmed while another pair went out ...  at
least as  long as  the Dirigenter  ships did  not come  under heavy attack. Four
shuttles would come in under the cover of the first Shrikes, carrying ammunition
for the heavy-weapons battalions. Lon decided to do that at the same time as the
ground attack, rather than  wait and try to  slip shuttles in after  the battle,
before the next New Spartan fleet  got close enough to interfere. If  this fight
gets close, maybe they 'II make  the difference, he reasoned. One fight  instead
of two.

Most  of the  conversation concerned  various contingency  plans, including  the
possibility of sending Agamemnon and Odysseus out to intercept the incoming  New
Spartan ships  as far  away from  Elysium as  possible-too far  out for  them to
launch shuttles and reinforcing troops.

"We can only  risk that if  we win the  fight down here,"  Lon concluded ...  to
Thorsen's  obvious relief.  Any further  debate on  the topic  could wait  until
later.

"Everything depends on how  you people do this  mom-ing," Thorsen said. "I  wish
there was more we could do to help,  but we've got our own problems up here,  as
you know."

"Be ready to launch an MR back to Dirigent once we know how the fight goes  down
here," Lon said near the end of the conversation. "If it goes badly for us,  you
may have to make the reports." / may  not be here to make them. He tried  not to
think about that, but the thought kept sneaking past his defenses.


One  by  one,  Lon spoke  with  Fal  Jensen, Tefford  Ives,  and  each battalion
commander in both  regiments. He asked  each about unit  strength and readiness,
and gave the  commanders personal briefings  for the upcoming  operation, asking
each  man  if  he  had  any  suggestions-and  giving  each  suggestion  his full
consideration. Still, the process did not  take all that long-no more than  half
an hour altogether. There was, now, time for that. By the time Lon had finished,
the last sleeping  men were being  wakened to give  them time for  breakfast and
whatever reflections might come in the last hour before battle.

Lon thought about calling Junior, to have  at least a few words with him  before
the shooting started, maybe the last words they would ever be able to  exchange.
The temptation to indulge himself was strong, but-in the end-he did not. / can't
fuss over him like a  mother hen, Lon thought. Let  him keep his mind clear  for
what's coming. Don't complicate things for him. He doesn 't think about this the
way you do. He's a Dirigenter by birth, not a transplanted Earther. But it could
not stop  Lon from  thinking about  Junior, and  the rest  of his family, almost
until  it was  time to  give the  order to  start the  assault against  the  New
Spartans. Images drifted through Lon's mind, words and pictures, mostly of times
when Junior was  very small. And  Angie, more when  she was a  toddler than now,
almost a grown woman. Only briefly did Lon think about the baby who was  coming,
the third child ... and the chance that he might not get home to ever see him or
her.

Don't think about that,  Lon told himself as  sternly as he could.  Even if this
turns into  a disaster,  there's no  reason why  you won't  get home.  Sooner or
later.  That was  one ...  courtesy one  mercenary could  expect from   another.
Prisoners would  be repatriated  eventually, though  perhaps at  a price. If the
Corps lost the fight on Elysium- this one or a later battle with the New Spartan
reinforcements-Lon might  go home  in disgrace,  but there  was every  reason to
believe that he would go home.

Sara. Lon mouthed the name silently,  closing his eyes. He pictured his  wife in
his mind, imagining that  she appeared farther along  in her pregnancy than  she
was, seeing her as she had been just before she had delivered Angie, or  Junior.
She still looked  almost that young,  but Lon could  see the differences  in his
mental image, vague overlays as through  a lens whose focus was subtly  changing
... a few pounds, a few tiny wrinkles. / hope she's not worrying too much  about
us, Lon thought. She doesn't need that kind of stress while she's pregnant.  But
she would worry,  though she always  tried to hide  it; that was  the Dirigenter
way. Two of us to  worry about now, and out  on the same mission. Lon  shook his
head and opened his eyes. I've been  a Dirigenter for almost thirty years and  I
still don't have the instinct to treat this as just a job, with risks that  have
to be accepted. Another  day at the office.  Sara did not see  those risks quite
the same way Lon did, and Junior was even more... cavalier about them. How  much
is real and how  much is pretense? Lon  asked himself-as he had  countless times
over the years. Do they  really see this so much  differently, or is it only  an
act they're conditioned to from infancy?

Lon took his canteen out again,  seeking the distraction of routine activity  to
try to rein in his thoughts. He took a mouthful of water, sloshed it around  his
mouth, then spit it out, over the front of his slit trench, too noisily. Then he
took a  slow drink  and swallowed  before he  put the  canteen back on his belt,
focusing on each action.  A few feet away,  Phip shifted position, as  if he had
been disturbed by the activity.

Is he  trying to  sleep or  just faking  it to  keep me satisfied? Lon wondered.
Again: reality or pretense? There's so  much of that, masks over masks.  Even if
Phip were asleep, it would not take much to rouse him, not in a combat zone-even
though the enemy was a couple of miles away. Either way, I can give him  another
five minutes, Lon thought. He glanced at the timeline on his helmet display.  He
had told the commanders that the order  to begin the assault would come at  0455
hours, and that was only fifteen  minutes away. Already, the Shrike II  fighters
and the shuttles would be well away from their ships, more than halfway  through
their run in toward the ground.

Fifteen minutes. Lon closed his eyes for a few seconds, then opened them  again.
It would take a few  minutes for the battle to  be fully joined after that;  the
inertia of  waiting would  have to  be overcome.  Around the  New Spartans,  the
Dirigenters  with  beamers-energy  rifles-would  be  the  first  to  open  fire,
invisible and silent death  if there were any  targets visible... if any  of the
New Spartans were the  least bit careless about  staying down. The time  for the
slug-throwing rifles and  grenade launchers would  come next, perhaps  not until
the New Spartans realized  that they were under  attack. When the first  pair of
Shrike Us started strafing and firing rockets into their positions, there  would
be no doubt left.

There won't be many RPGs at the beginning, Lon thought. We don't have that  many
units close enough  for grenades to  be effective. The  Book listed the  maximum
effective range for the grenade launchers at two hundred yards, and  recommended
that they be used  at targets within one  hundred sixty yards. From  experience,
Lon knew that a good grenadier could hit a target with a ten-foot diameter  four
times out of five  from two hundred thirty  yards, slightly more if  the terrain
and wind were to his advantage-and  with a kill radius of twenty-five  yards for
fragmentation grenades,  that was  more target  than a  grenadier needed.  But a
sharpshooter could put a  rifle bullet into a  man-size target at near  a mile's
distance under  optimal conditions,  and a  beamer could-theoretically-  hit the
same target at  up to  five miles  before atmospheric  dispersal of  the  twelve
millimeter beam rendered it ineffective.

"Okay, Phip, time to rise and shine," Lon said, the visor of his helmet up  just
a little. He did not speak  loudly, but Phip rolled over immediately  and raised
up on his right elbow.

Phip groaned softly. "We're  both getting too old  for this crap, Lon.  I wish I
hadn't tried to sleep. I felt pretty good before. Now I ache in every joint."

"It's all in your head," Lon said. "If you're going to grab a bite to eat, you'd
better get right to it. Another eight minutes or so and I give the word to start
the assault. The first flight of Shrikes will hit about two minutes after that."

"I'm not hungry,"  Phip said, a  rare statement for  him. "I don't  even want to
think about food. You know something?" he added after a short pause. "War  makes
a lousy spectator sport. I hate  sitting back and watching what's going  on more
than I hate being up  close and having buzzards shooting  at me." He got to  his
knees and looked  over the dirt  parapet in front  of him, then  reached for the
binoculars and put them to his face. "Sometimes it feels like there's  something
vaguely obscene about this longdistance  watching, a damned peep show.  Makes me
feel dirty."

"Well, your griping  is back up  to speed, so  you must be  just about recovered
from your injuries," Lon said, fighting to hold back a chuckle. Phip had  always
been a masterful complainer. "I guess I can stop worrying about you."

"Now if I could stop worrying about you," Phip said.


"You've never stopped worrying about anything  in your life, once you get  a bee
in  your bonnet,"  Lon's mother  had told  him-a year  or two  before, during  a
discussion  about  Junior's  decision  to  join  the  Corps,  a  talk  that  had
inescapably turned to Lon's  childhood. "You were like  that even when you  were
five or six years old,  and I swear it got  worse every year after that.  If you
didn't  have  something real  to  worry about,  you  manufactured something  and
fretted at that until something better came along."

The memory was obtrusive  and the timing bad.  Only four minutes remained  until
the time Lon had scheduled for the beginning of what he hoped would be the final
battle of the Elysian contract. Maybe I have worried too much about some things,
he conceded to himself.  But worrying about a  problem is the first  step toward
solving it. You don't worry about a problem, you don't go looking for solutions.
Even if they don't exist.

The Shrike II fighters  were on their way  in, -on schedule, already  inside the
atmosphere. Lon had an open radio channel to Fal Jensen and all of the battalion
commanders in both regiments on the ground. Everyone was ready, waiting for  the
word. Lon watched the seconds tick off on his head-up display's timeline. Unless
the New Spartans preempted him, he would give the order exactly on schedule  ...
then watch what happened.

I know what  Phip was talking  about-war as a  spectator sport. It's  worse when
you're the one who has to give the orders, knowing that people are going to  die
because of those orders. Lon swallowed hard, feeling a knot grow in his stomach.
There was a different fear associated  with giving the orders than there  was in
receiving them and going  head-to-head with an enemy.  Fear of dying versus  the
fear of making a mistake and causing too many of his men to die. And the  latter
was worse, in many ways. Dying was all too easy.

Two minutes. Lon took another drink from his canteen, more from nervousness than
thirst. The waiting made  his mouth dry, but  he didn't want his  voice to crack
when  he gave  the order.  That might  show his  fear to  others, and  that  was
something a commander needed to avoid  at almost any cost. One drink.  A second.
The canteen was more than half empty now, and Lon had only one more on his belt.

Lord, don't let me fail my men. The  prayer was old. Lon had used it every  time
he had led-or ordered-his men into combat.

Time! Lon clicked his transmitter open. He gave the order. "Go!"


The order  was repeated,  from battalion  to company  to platoon  and squad. Men
brought  their weapons  to their  shoulders. Those  with energy  rifles  started
looking for targets, if they hadn't already been watching through the gunsights.
In a few carefully  chosen locations-determined by the  lay of the land  and the
course the  Shrikes would  follow coming  in for  their first attack runs-squads
started inching closer to  the enemy lines, their  goal to get their  grenadiers
within range.

Defenders  had serious  advantages in  a tactical  situation like  this, and   a
thousand years of  history to reassure  themselves with. They  were dug in.  The
attackers had  to move,  expose themselves,  cross open  ground, and  those were
invitations to casualties on an unacceptable scale. Lon hoped that the  aircraft
coming in would help negate the defenders' advantages. Men would move closer  to
the enemy while  the Shrike II  fighters forced the  New Spartans to  keep their
heads down. If  the fight went  on long enough,  the Dirigenter artillery  would
have a chance to get the ammunition being brought in by the shuttles, move close
enough to get into  range, and pound the  New Spartan positions until  they were
untenable-if their commander let the fight continue that long.

The  sound  of gunfire  reached  Lon and  Phip  then. "They  know  they're under
attack," Phip  said. "That  was coming  out of  the New  Spartan positions.  Our
beamer boys must have hit something."

"Someone,"  Lon corrected,  almost a  whisper, a  correction more  for his   own
benefit than Phip's. The targets were human beings, not silhouettes on a  firing
range.

The first few  scattered shots soon  escalated into complete  engagement all the
way around the  New Spartan perimeter,  coming and going.  Muzzle flashes winked
like chains of Christmas  lights. The noise built  on itself, audible even  over
the  two miles  that separated  Lon and  Phip from  the fighting,  but at   this
distance it sounded more  like a holiday fireworks  display than what it  really
was. Lon saw  the flashes of  the first grenades  that exploded before  he heard
their  distinctive  report. He  glanced  skyward, though  he  could see  nothing
through the leaves of the trees that sheltered his command post. It was time for
the first pair of Shrikes to hit. One of the pilots had reported that they  were
within fifteen seconds of their initial points for the run.

Rockets  first. Leaning  forward, Lon  saw the  fiery trails  of four  missiles,
though he could not-and would not- be able to see the fuselages and wings of the
black aer-ospace fighters, or the rockets themselves. After the  missiles-tipped
with  explosives  and  tightly  wound   coils  of  depleted  uranium  wire   for
fragmentation-were away,  the pilots  would start  to pull  out of  their dives,
braking to allow  themselves perhaps a  second and a  half to strafe  with their
Gatling-style cannons. Once they were  across the target area, they  would climb
and go to full power, to get out of danger-away from any shoulder-fired  surface
to-air missiles the New Spartans might have.

The first run would be the easy one-comparatively speaking. The enemy might  not
have SAM launchers ready, or they  might not be looking in the  right direction;
they would have little time for corrections once the aircraft started  shooting.
The second time through, they would be waiting. The Shrikes would come in from a
different direction the  second time, and  they would not  come as low,  or slow
down quite  as  much, and  they  would be  ready  to deploy  electronic  counter
measures the instant their instruments reported that they were being targeted by
SAM launchers. The pilots would be nervous but focused-as long as possible. They
knew that they  had less than  two minutes before  New Spartan Javelin  fighters
would catch up with them.  CIC had been tracking the  progress of a pair of  the
enemy aerospacecraft.

Four explosions,  spaced along  the New  Spartan perimeter.  The chatter  of the
Shrikes' cannon, a much deeper sound than that made by rifles. Lon could not see
Diri-genters on the ground rushing forward  in the seconds of maximum impact  on
the enemy  positions, but  he knew  that hundreds  of men  would have  taken the
chance to  get a  little closer  to the  enemy. The  men of  the Corps were well
trained, and obeyed orders as long as it was humanly possible.

The dying has started, Lon thought.  He looked away from the battle-just  for an
instant-and shook  his head,  trying to  force destructive  thoughts out  of his
mind, and trying to settle his stomach, which was threatening to rebel. Don't go
morbid, idiot! he told himself, feeling anger at the distraction. You know  what
this business is all about, and you know what will happen if this attack doesn't
succeed. He forced himself to look back at the scene, scanning the front through
his binoculars. Even with them, there was not a lot of detail he could see.

"It could hardly look less real if it was an old action vid on the entertainment
nets," Phip  said, talking  over their  private radio  channel now.  "Not even a
whiff of gunpowder." He  sounded angry, as if  the lack of odor  were somehow an
insult.

Lon did not bother to reply. The  first pair of Shrike Us made their  second run
and burned for orbit. The second pair was about three minutes away. Lon  scanned
radio channels, stopping to listen whenever  he heard anything from the men  who
were up close. The runs of the Shrikes had decreased the amount of fire the  New
Spartans could put out, but only briefly. Once the fighters were climbing  away,
the  volume picked  up again-increased,  even, according  to the  report of  one
lieutenant to his company commander.

There were calls for  medtechs, and reports of  men killed. A little  ground had
been gained. In three different  areas the grenadiers were finally  close enough
to go to work, dropping their loads  of shrapnel in and around the foxholes  and
slit trenches of the enemy. If the New Spartans were short of ammunition,  there
was no sign of it in the early fighting. They were not stinting.

The  New  Spartan  aerospace  fighters  came  in,  making  one  pass  across the
Dirigenter  lines west  of the  perimeter, then  climbing, rushing  to meet  the
second pair  of Shrike  II fighters  as they  came in.  Lon switched channels to
monitor the Shrike pilots,  to make certain they  knew that trouble was  heading
for them. The talk  between the two pilots  assured Lon that they  knew what was
coming and  were ready  to meet  it. They  were receiving  constant updates from
their control room aboard Odysseus. The four fighters passed each other  without
anyone hitting anyone else with rockets or cannon fire. The time it took for the
various craft to maneuver at high speed meant that the Shrikes were able to make
their first  pass at  the New  Spartans on  the ground  before they had to worry
about the enemy fighters coming after them again.

When the competing pairs of fighters approached each other the second time,  the
situation was different.  They were not  moving head-on toward  each other until
the last  couple of  seconds. The  planes launched  missiles at  each other  and
followed up with cannon fire. In an explosion that lit up the predawn sky like a
premature sunrise,  two of  the fighters  collided. There  was clearly no chance
that either pilot survived. The other fighters veered away, but both were caught
by debris from the explosion. Lon listened as the pilot of the second Shrike  II
informed  his controller  that he  was going  to have  to eject.  The  remaining
Javelin was corkscrewing away, out of control.

"Get someone moving to  make pickup on that  pilot," Lon told Pal  Jensen. "Your
people are closest."

Lon lost most of Pal's reply because Lieutenant Colonel Ted Syscy broke in  with
an  urgent report.  "Colonel, we've  got men  to the  enemy line,  right on  the
northeast section. My Delta Company  has closed in and  the fighting is  hand-to
hand."

That's Junior's company!  boomed in Lon's  head, almost overriding  his reply to
Syscy. "Push everyone  you've got in  after them, Ted.  Try to widen  the break.
I'll get help to you as quickly as possible."

Lon  immediately  called  Vel  Osterman  and Ben  Dark  to  inform  them  of the
breakthrough  and to  order them  to push  as hard  as they  could, sliding  the
companies  they had  flanking 1st  Battalion in  to follow  the units  that  had
reached  the  enemy perimeter.  Then  he keyed  in  the radio  channel  that the
officers of 1st Battalion would use among themselves-simply to listen, hoping to
hear his son's voice.

Then all he could do was wait, dreading every interminable second.



26

Ten minutes. Twenty. Lon found  it almost impossible to concentrate  on anything
but listening for his  son's voice, or some  indication that he was  still alive
and well. Hand-to-hand fighting. Anything can happen once it gets that close, he
worried. Ability isn  't always enough.  Blind chaos, and  no one can  guarantee
your luck, your survival. Lon had been in that kind of situation more than  once
in his career, but the incident that came to mind was the first combat  contract
he had been on, still an officer  cadet, on a colony world called Norbank.  That
was where  his mentor,  Arlan Taiters,  had died,  in hand-to-hand  combat on  a
wilderness hilltop.

The fear of uncertainty was almost paralyzing. Lon scarcely noticed the  flashes
of gunfire or the first attack by  the next pair of Shrikes that came  down-this
pair from Agamemnon. Watch yourself. Junior! Lon urged silently, projecting  his
thoughts to  where his  body could  not go,  as if  willpower could perform some
extrasensory miracle.  His mind  drew images  from memory,  populating a  grassy
slope  with  men in  slightly  different patterns  of  camouflage fighting  with
bayonets  and fists,  bullets and  knees, in  an impossible  confusion-a  waking
dream... or nightmare that refused to release Lon from its grasp.

Reports  came  through. Lon  managed  to acknowledge  most  of them,  though  he
continued to find it difficult to spare attention for anything but the fear that
was gripping him, so real it became a physical pain in his gut, so severe it was
all he could do to keep from doubling  over in agony. / can't let this stop  me,
he told himself. He sucked in a deep breath and straightened up, forcing himself
to confront the pain and ...  slowly, ignore it. He consciously straightened  up
without  exposing  too much  of  himself. Another  deep  breath. He  lifted  his
faceplate long enough to wipe the sweat from his face. A quick sip of water.  Do
your job!

Two companies of Elysian troops, starting with three hundred eighty men,  forced
a second breach of the  New Spartan lines, but at  the cost of seventy men  dead
and another hundred wounded.  Lon warned away the  next flight of Shrikes.  They
could no longer be  certain of a clear  field of fire, and  Lon did not want  to
risk friendly-fire casualties.

Dawn-a rising line of  light in the eastern  sky- brought a reddish  glow to the
horizon as precursor  to the appearance  of Elysium's sun.  A dirty yellow  haze
hung over and around the oval  territory-less than a mile long and  three-tenths
of a mile deep-that  the New Spartans were  defending, dirty air from  gunpowder
and the blasts of grenades and rockets.

Lon heard a voice-no  more than two words-and  strained at the memory.  Was that
Junior? He wasn't certain, and nearly called back on the channel to ask. Nearly.
He did not, though the effort caused  him to bite his lower lip, drawing  blood.
He leaned against  the dirt piled  up in front  of his foxhole  and searched the
battlefield through his binoculars, as if  he might somehow be able to  pick out
his  son from  the hundreds  of other  soldiers wearing  identical helmets   and
battledress ... at a distance of two miles.

"Colonel?"

How long can the fighting go on now? Lon asked himself. We 've been inside their
lines for more than half an hour,  pouring more men in every minute. Don't  they
know they've lost? Why don't they give it up?

"Colonel Nolan?"

Lon blinked rapidly  and shook his  head a little.  "What is it?"  he asked, not
even certain who had called him.  There was something.... Lon blinked again  and
raised up a little more. He couldn't hear gunfire any longer.

"Colonel, this is Ted Syscy."

Oh, no! Lon  thought; his heart  started to pound  almost out of  control at the
fear that  Syscy was  calling to  say that  Junior had  been killed.  His vision
dimmed, almost as if he were ready to black out.

"It's over. Colonel. The New Spartans have surrendered. Their commander is being
escorted to my CP to make it formal. We've won. Colonel."

Lon's mind  needed a  few seconds  to grasp  what Syscy  had said, an instant of
vertigo that left him hanging onto the ground in front of him.

"Your son is partly responsible  for this. Colonel," Syscy continued,  oblivious
to Lon's  momentary difficulty.  "While the  rest of  his company  opened a way.
Junior led his two  platoons through until they  were within a hundred  yards of
the New Spartan headquarters. That's  when their colonel surrendered. Junior  is
leading the escort bringing him to me now."

"Thank  you, Ted,"  Lon said,  finally finding  his voice.  "I'll get   everyone
notified. Get help to the wounded. Start collecting the weapons and  electronics
of the  New Spartans.  You know  the routine.  Destroy or  disable anything they
might be able  to use against  us later. I'll  be there to  meet the New Spartan
commander as quickly as I can. I suspect I'll need at least forty minutes, maybe
fifty to reach your position." Lon had signaled for Phip. Jeremy Howell also had
moved closer.

"We won?" Howell asked after Lon lifted his faceplate.

"This part of it, at least," Lon  said, wiping his face with his sleeve.  He was
drenched in sweat.  "The enemy on  the ground has  surrendered. I haven't  heard
anything about  their ships,  especially about  the new  fleet coming  in. Phip,
we've got to get our skates on.  The New Spartan commander is being escorted  to
Ted Syscy's CP. We're going there to accept the formal surrender."

Phip nodded. "Junior?" he asked.

"He's okay." Lon let out a long breath. "Better than okay, I guess. Ted says  it
was Junior who got through to the enemy headquarters and forced the surrender."

"Jerry, go get everyone ready to move out," Phip said, gesturing to Lon's  aide.
"We've got  a two-mile  hike ahead  of us,  and the  sooner we  get started, the
sooner we get done." He waited  until Howell moved away, then stepped  closer to
Lon. "How about you?" he asked. "You okay?"

A smile tried to climb  onto Lon's face but failed.  "I will be," Lon said  very
softly. "I've  never been  so damned  scared in  my life."  He turned and leaned
against the edge of the foxhole, his back to the east, toward the enemy and  the
bulk of his own troops. "I'm not sure I could have taken much more of it, Phip,"
he whispered, so softly that he was not sure he could hear his own voice.

"You'd have managed, Lon. You always have."

"I don't  think I  can risk  putting myself  through something  like this again,
Phip. Not..."

"Look, I know what you mean. But, well, once we get home, you'll get over it."

"Maybe," Lon allowed, mostly to avoid continuing the discussion. "Come on, let's
get moving. I  want to know  if it's all  over or if  we're going to  have to go
through it again when that new fleet gets here."


The meeting was  civil and very  reserved. The New  Spartan commander introduced
himself as Colonel Armond  Kaye. Lon guessed that  he might be sixty  years old.
Kaye was about six feet, three inches tall, thin, with washed-out blue eyes  and
a deeply tanned complexion. He had a field dressing around his left biceps, with
a little blood that had seeped through showing. "Nothing, a scratch," Kaye  said
when Lon inquired  about the wound  and whether Kaye  needed the attention  of a
medtech.

"It is a  difficult thing to  do, this," Kaye  said. "I thought  we could do the
job, either alone or  by holding out until  our reinforcements could arrive."  A
shrug. "Events  proved otherwise.  Colonel Nolan.  I compliment  you." They were
sitting on  folding chairs,  and Lon  wasn't quite  certain where  they had come
from. Jeremy Howell had found them somewhere, and made sure they made it to  the
site of the meeting.

"About those reinforcements. Colonel Kaye,"  Lon said. "That is something  we do
need to discuss."

"As  mission  commander, my  surrender  is binding  on  all New  Spartan  forces
participating in the mission, including those  now on their way. As soon  as you
permit, I  will transmit  orders to  the incoming  fleet to  avoid engaging,  or
whatever you require."

Lon looked over  Kaye's head. Junior  was standing about  twenty feet away,  his
rifle at his side, looking as if  he expected the enemy commander to stage  some
sort of nasty surprise, even though Colonel Kaye had been relieved of his weapon
and electronic devices. His words could carry no farther than he could shout.

"We would want all fighting ships to bear away from Elysium, Colonel," Lon said,
bringing  his  attention back  to  his opposite  number.  "And we  will  discuss
arrangements  for bringing  your transports  in to  pick up  your  soldiers-with
suitable precautions, you understand."

"Of course. Colonel," Kaye said, nodding.

"Now, if you require assistance with your wounded... ?"


The rest  was details.  And waiting  to make  certain that  the commander of the
incoming New Spartan reinforcements would abide by Colonel Kaye's pledge.



Epilogue

After discussion with the president and chancellor, Lon approved an amendment to
the contract. Seventh  and 15th Regiments  would be relieved,  go home, and  the
regiment on its  way to  reinforce them  would complete  the six-month  contract
surety against a  New Spartan decision  to come back,  or another effort  by the
Confederation of Human Worlds to force Elysium into its fold.

It was the twelfth  of April when 7th  and 15th Regiments returned  to Dirigent.
The dead, those whose bodies had  been recovered, were the first to  land, their
shuttles carrying them directly  to the port within  the confines of the  Corps'
main base.  The living  landed at  the civilian  spaceport and  made their usual
parade through Dirigent City. Casualties had been high, primarily because of the
shuttles that had been  shot down before they  could land their troops,  but the
contract had been successfully fulfilled. Of the 974 Dirigenters who had died on
the Elysian contract, 605 had died in the shuttles.

Colonel  Robert  Hayley   retired  from  the   Corps  for  medical   reasons-the
unbridgeable gaps in his  memory. Fal Jensen was  promoted and given command  of
15th Regiment.

New recruits were brought into the two regiments from the training battalion.  A
few score men, mostly commissioned or noncommissioned officers, were transferred
from other units. It would take nine months to bring 7th and 15th Regiments back
to full strength.

The Corps went on. It always went on.

                                    *  *  *

On the last day of July 2830, Sara Nolan gave birth to identical twin daughters,
Amanda and Ariel, without difficulty. All four grandparents were on hand to help
Lon through the birth and the first days at home of his new children.

Elysium proved  to be  the last  combat contract  that Lon  Nolan, Senior, would
participate  in.  Twenty-three months  after  his return,  he  was-to his  great
surprise-elected General. The vote  was thirteen to one.  His had been the  only
dissenting vote. Three  days after the  end of his  year in office,  Lon retired
from the Corps-to the surprise of his peers on the Council of Regiments and many
of his own officers and men. Phip Steesen retired the same day.

Lon, Junior, waited six weeks before resigning his commission. He had served  on
only one  combat contract  after Elysium.  Two months  after he  left the Corps,
Junior left Dirigent to attend the university on Elysium-a week after his sister
Angie married ... a civilian with no intention of ever becoming a soldier.

That was not, however, the end of the Nolan family's connection to the  Dirigent
Mercenary Corps. Even after Lon and  Sara moved to Bascombe East with  the twins
and gradually took  over running the  Winking Eye, Lon  went off on  a couple of
diplomatic missions,  including one  to Buckingham,  the capital  of the  Second
Commonwealth, that lasted nearly  six months. He also  continued to serve as  an
adviser to the Council of Regiments.

In the  next six  generations, twenty-seven  descendants of  Lon and  Sara Nolan
served in the Corps, and three of them became General-one great-grandson serving
three terms. And, more than  three thousand years later-long after  the Dirigent
Mercenary Corps, the Second Commonwealth, and the Confederation of Human  Worlds
had all passed into  ancient history-a direct descendant  of Lon and Sara  Nolan
commanded  the security  detachment aboard  the Exoprise,  a converted  asteroid
fitted out to be the first ship  to try to reach the great galaxy  in Andromeda,
hoping to find, finally, another sentient species in the universe.







Turn the page for an exciting excerpt from

HOLDING THE LINE

The first book of Rick Shelley's thrilling new military series

Coining in paperback from Ace Books August 2001



I needed twenty-three minutes to reach the battalion orderly room on main  base.
Fritz looked apprehensive as he got up  from his desk and moved toward the  door
to Major Wellman's office.

"He's waiting for you. I'm to usher you right in."

"Level with me, Fritz. What's up?"

Fritz shook his head.  "Honest, I don't have  any idea." Then he  knocked on the
old man's door, opened it far enough  to stick his head in, and said,  "Sergeant
Drak is here, Major."

Wellman's "Send him  in" was muffled,  but didn't sound  happy. Fritz swung  the
door open all the way and gestured me through. He closed the door behind me.

"Sergeant Drak reporting as ordered." I braced to attention and saluted. Since I
didn't know what was up, and figured  I was in trouble for something, I  made it
all  as crisp  and proper  as I   could, acting  like I  loved all  the  routine
bullshit.

Major Wellman looked up slowly and returned  my salute as if he were trapped  in
gelatin. Then he  stared with his  watery blue eyes.  Staring was one  thing the
major was excellent at. He had made it nearly an art form. Wellman looked me  up
and down, then back up again. There was  no steam coming out of his ears, but  I
didn't need  much imagination  to picture  it. I  remained stiffly at attention.
Maybe I  don't look  much like  a recruiting  poster soldier-  I'm too short and
stocky for that-but I do know my job;

I'm damned good at  it, if I do  say so myself. I  can handle any weapon  in the
inventory and I  can take .care  of myself without  any weapons but  those I had
when I entered the world.

"At ease. Sergeant," he said after  what felt like two or three  minutes-but was
probably less than thirty seconds. I moved my feet apart and put my hands behind
my back.

"I have good news for you, Sergeant,"  Wellman said. He leaned back so he  could
stare with less discomfort. "You have volunteered to be part of a new unit,  the
1st Combined Regiment."

"Sir?"

Wellman scowled. That  was the other  thing he was  good at. If  there were more
than those two, I hadn't seen them.

"The Combined General  Staff of the  Grand Alliance has  decided-in its infinite
wisdom-to  attempt to  integrate the  armed forces  of all  the species  in  the
alliance down to the battalion level. And our Chief of Staff has decided that we
need to contribute the, ah,  most capable soldiers available, especially  combat
veterans, and most especially decorated heroes." At this point, his scowl got so
deep and convoluted I thought he was about to puke. "Personally, I don't see how
a soldier deserves  a medal for  somehow surviving when  damned near his  entire
platoon was killed around him."

"Sir, maybe you'll  see how if  you ever manage  to get in  combat yourself. And
survive. Sir." Okay, I was  way out of line, even  though his jibe was a  dig at
me, but I couldn't stop myself. It  wasn't the first time I had sounded  off out
of turn, and I wouldn't make book on it being the last.

Wellman got to his  feet slowly, leaning on  his desk with his  long, pickpocket
fingers until he was nearly all the way up. He didn't have to get all the way up
to be taller than  me, but he  stretched out to  his full six  feet four  inches
eight inches taller than me. I could see his face go from its usual pasty  white
to a brilliant crimson.  "You've got three hours  to report to the  flitter port
for transportation  to West  Memphis. You  are not  to discuss  your orders with
anyone while in transit. Have fun playing with the lizards and monkeys. Now, get
out of here before I have your orders rewritten to send you out as a corporal."