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Deck Load Strike

Roland J. Green

ONE

If maps could sneer, Major Shuna Ryder would have expected the one facing her to do so. Or maybe something even less polite, such as spitting in her eye.

It certainly displayed as fine a collection of discouraging data as she had ever seen, at least since the efficiency report filed on her when she got crosswise with the detachment commander aboard Warspite. Her career had survived that report, however. So her mission on Silvestria ought to survive the map.

The map was a flat-board digital display, several generations behind even the most primitive holo, but the best that the Canmore Republic could make available to its Manticoran "advisers." But then, the Republic was only a few generations removed from paper maps, and she'd even seen one in the Guard Museum that was supposed to be inked on a fish bladder.

All five million people of Silvestria's two nations were perversely proud of the length and depth of their neo-barbarian period. However, Ryder doubted that on a planet with so many trees, they had ever lost the art of papermaking. Although since fish were as thick in the sea as trees were on land, maybe somebody actually had used fish organs.

Certainly both fish and trees were well on their way to restoring a technological civilization on Silvestria. In another generation, the Canmore Republic and the Kingdom of Chuiban would have been able to decide on their own whether to roll out the red carpet for off-world allies, or toss them unceremoniously into the nearest body of water (which was seldom far away, in either nation).

Unfortunately, Silvestria was close enough to the Erewhon Wormhole Junction to be of interest to anyone concerned about the status of Erewhon. This naturally included the Erewhonese, the more so in that they imported vast quantities of aquacultural and forestry products from Silvestria in a fleet of massive bulk carriers that made a highly visible component of the Erewhon Merchant Marine.

(Not so highly visible, but not escaping the Manticorans, was that some of the bulk carriers were rather over-built for their work, with features that smelled ever so slightly of Solarian League naval dockyards. A bribe to the Erewhonese, a reserve in case the Sollies ever needed troop lift in this area, or something else entirely?)

Still more unfortunately, Silvestria wasn't going to get that generation. A T-year and a half ago, the long expansion of the People's Republic of Haven had run so hard into the obstinate independence of the Star Kingdom of Manticore that long-simmering tension had flared into open war.

Erewhon's allies and patrons, the Solarian League, had also coveted the Manticore Junction. Although the Sollies were a little less crude about it than the Peeps, there was little love lost between the Assembly on Old Earth and the Star Kingdom, and they were definitely neutral in a way that let them transfer technology to the Peeps. Perhaps even worse, from Manticore's viewpoint, the League's security concerns made it extremely nervous about anyone intervening anywhere close to any of the Junctions that it already claimed or—as in the case of Erewhon—controlled indirectly through military and economic treaties.

So even when it became obvious that the Peeps were putting down a mission in the Kingdom of Chuiban, the Star Kingdom could not intervene as openly. Fortunately, it didn't have to. One of the Admiralty's secret assets, carefully saved up for just such a situation as this, was covert advisers like Major Ryder and her team.

"Break ranks and gather round," the major said. It took a moment for the other Royal Marines and the Royal Navy contingent to stop looking around for the vast multitude that Ryder seemed to be addressing. Thirty men and women sitting in chairs could hardly form ranks in the first place!

"We were all there for Exercise Juno," she said, when the team had formed a semi-circle around the map. "Those of us who weren't with the shore party made the inland run. What do the Republic's prospects look like to you? Anyone?"

Master Chief Sick Berth Attendant Loren Bexo replied first, which did not surprise Major Ryder. He knew more about healing casualties than any other two SBA's she'd ever known. He also knew more than he would usually admit about inflicting the casualties in the first place. Why he was no longer an Assault Marine was his personal business, but that background made him even more invaluable to the Silvestria mission than he would have been otherwise.

"If the next mobile force to get ashore anywhere within two hundred klicks north or south of Port Malcolm is real, instead of simulated, the Republic is hip-deep in hexapuma shit," Bexo said. "Anything brigade-sized stands a good chance of encircling the city and cutting off all three passes to the Highlands."

"What about the guns at the passes?" a Navy lieutenant (j.g.) said. "Couldn't they keep the passes open?"

"Not against targets in the forest, unless they had very good aerial observation," Ryder said. Probably not even then, she added mentally. Silvestria was short of heavier metals like iron; steel was expensive. The Guard's best artillery was assigned to the coastal defenses of Port Malcolm; what was left to hold the passes would not have raised eyebrows on an Old Earth battlefield centuries before the Diaspora.

"The Guard can block the roads to the Highlands by cutting down trees across them," a Marine sergeant pointed out. "As a matter of fact, I understand that's part of the plan anyway."

Ryder had a visceral reaction to both wagging tongues and dressing down subordinates in public. The two reactions fought to a standstill, giving an ache to her stomach and an edge to her voice.

"A thoroughly secret part, unless I've forgotten our briefing from the Director of the Guard. Which he was courteous enough to give us personally."

"Ah, well—I got a personal—briefing—from somebody who's on the tree-chopping crew. And she pointed out the problem, too. There's not enough airlift to get the Malcomers upland, let alone the rest of the Lowlands. They'd have to go by road, and fallen trees would block any ground vehicles, not just a mobile enemy."

And the one railroad could be broken by blowing any one of five bridges from the air or even from orbit. Ryder sighed. It looked as if the sergeant had fraternized but given no more than he gained—which was not a bad way for such an affair to go, and besides, she was not really in a position to throw stones.

"I have to agree," Ryder said. "No harm done this time, Sergeant, but everybody remember about mistimed curiosity. If we didn't have the goodwill of the Guard, we wouldn't be even close to having six hundred combat-ready Sea Fencibles. The Republic is giving us everything they can afford and maybe a little more. We all have some sort of body armor, but half their artillery crews are still wearing fatigues and helmets!

"So don't let's us embarrass them unnecessarily, all right?"

Everyone agreed enthusiastically, maybe even sincerely, but she saw the reservations on every face. It would take more than cooperation, it would take miracles, to give the Canmore Republic some sort of offensive capability before Carl Euvinophan's private army was ready to cross the Central Sea and become that non-simulated mobile brigade.

Then the red on the map would be a trail of equally non-simulated bodies. It almost helped that the oldest tradition of the Marine advisers (nearly ten years old) was to be among the corpses when the smoke cleared. That meant fewer hard decisions to make during the fighting, and none at all afterward.

The Kingdom of Chuiban's main western port was not blacked out. That would have made no sense, even if the Canmore Republic had possessed a halfway-decent satellite network or even a reliably friendly eye aboard the orbital freight station. A satellite net or the station would have been over Buwayjon several times before the tanks were safely under cover, and tanks gave off impressive heat signatures even from orbit.

Fortunately, the freight station was under the control of the foolish, decadent, elitist, and obstinately neutral Erewhonese. They kept it as neutral as they were. Also, they had not sold either contender on Silvestria more than a few basic weather satellites.

When somebody on Silvestria suddenly flourished a satellite network, it would be the Kingdom of Chuiban. And the satellites would work—Citizen People's Commissioner Jean Testaniere had handpicked the models himself, then personally run the diagnostic and maintenance tests on them. It might be considered dangerously elitist for a People's Commissioner to exhibit so much technical competence, but it was simply dangerous to trust one's life to electronics left in the hands of people who did not know one piece of diagnostic nanoware from another.

The first tanks were now turning off the pier and rolling up Mongkut Avenue, from which all civilian traffic had been barred by white-gloved Field Police. There were too many of them to all be from the city's modest Royal Army garrison; some of warlord Euvinophan's own Field Police company had to have arrived with the vehicle convoy.

A challenge floated through the thin mist, and a response came back. The challenger was the Commissioner's bodyguard, Citizen Sergeant Pescu of the State Security; the response came from Citizen Captain Paul Weldon, of the People's Navy.

Testaniere wondered how long Weldon had been in town. The commissioner hadn't heard the pinnace land, and both Weldon and his two pilots were fond of making a noisy entrance.

"Greetings, Citizen Captain," Testaniere said. They shook hands, the greeting of equals, although privately Testaniere wondered if the Citizen Captain would ever have risen above Lieutenant Commander under the Legislaturalist regime.

Testaniere was sure that he himself would have risen at least to foreman if he had stayed at the shop long enough. He had always had the self-confidence which comes with mastering a particular body of knowledge—which he was elitist enough to know was hardly universal among the ranks of the People's Commissioners, State Security, or even the armed forces of the People's Republic!

"Fraternal greetings to you, Citizen Commissioner," Weldon replied. He sniffed the air. "A fine night for our work, eh?"

"I could wish it were not quite so fine," Testaniere said. "A good thick fog would hide us from eyes closer than the Republic's."

"You doubt the loyalty and discretion of the people looking forward to the day of liberation from a monarchy?" Weldon's incredulity was not entirely an act.

Testaniere sighed. They had been over this ground often enough that he had lost his sense of humor about it. He would have to be careful, however, or he might become one of the first People's Commissioners to be informed on by his military counterpart! Ninety-nine times out of a hundred it went the other way, but they were many light-years from Nouveau Paris and Silvestria was an even bigger political joke than Testaniere's briefings had led him to expect.

In careful detail, he reminded Weldon that the monarchy was highly revered, and that much of Carl Euvinophan's support came from his blood connection with the royal house. Furthermore, it was possible to have legitimate doubts about how much liberating of anything Euvinophan was likely to do without a decisive victory over the Canmores to wave in the face of his enemies.

"Remember that on his mother's side he's descended from a king and on his father's from an Andermani soldier of fortune. That's not what I would have picked as a heritage for the perfect revolutionary."

That was stronger than Testaniere would have put it without the rumble and squeal of the tanks to cover his voice. He only hoped that Citizen Captain Weldon would not quote him anywhere it might be overheard. A vital part of using somebody like Carl Euvinophan as a puppet was to make sure that he never saw the strings until you had replaced them with unbreakable monofilament and preferably shoved a pulse rifle into his belly to make sure he didn't try to untie the monofilament.

The citizen commissioner wondered what his superiors had been thinking of when they decided that the People's Republic should work with Euvinophan. Among other things, he had a good many Andermani comrades, some his own and some left over from his father, and the Andermani were no friends to the People's Republic unless they could see a profitable war in it. In Testaniere's opinion, Gustav Anderman had used hyper to fly back to the Dark Ages, and most of his people were still living there!

The last tank of the first company had passed, and Testaniere saw the tail lights of the earlier ones, turning off to the assembly area and dumps in the industrial park at the south end of the city. Each of the six tank companies had eighteen tanks, old San Martin models marginally survivable on a really modern battlefield, but still generations ahead of anything Silvestria could have produced locally. The full force of these track-borne antiques mounted a hundred and eight 10-cm plasma guns, two hundred and sixteen flex-mounted pulsers, and several hundred launchers for grenades, flares, smoke bombs, and chaff.

They could carry all of this on a battlefield at up to seventy klicks an hour, with turbines burning anything from diluted tar or wood alcohol up to the hydrogen-enriched synthetics already in the dump. They even had silent low-speed electric drives for stealth operations, running off power packs rechargeable from any commercial electric grid.

They and the similarly-powered armored personnel carriers were two legs of the tripod on which the fall of the Canmore Republic would be mounted. The third was an air arm, consisting of six converted refrigerated-cargo freighters and Captain Weldon's pinnace. They were intended more for scouting and airlift than for close support, but the freighters all had racks for ten tons of homemade iron bombs or an equivalent load of troops and supplies. The pinnace mounted two heavy bow-mounted tribarrel pulsers, a single three-centimeter laser (primarily for space use), and ventral hard points for up to forty assorted short-range missiles.

The People's Republic had given Carl Euvinophan the firepower to break up any concentrated resistance the Canmore Republic could offer, and as much freedom from fuel shortages, that ancient curse of armored troops, as the People's forces could spare for a backwater like Silvestria.

Another tank company was rolling up Mongkut Avenue. Testaniere wondered if when the three infantry battalions came in they would make a show riding on the tanks (as long as they didn't fall off), staying snugly out of the night mist in the carriers, or marching on foot. As might have been expected from anyone with even a trace of Andermani blood, Carl Euvinophan had polished the close-order drill and parade marching of his private army.

One could only hope that this had not been at too much cost to their tactical proficiency.

Citizen Captain Weldon watched another tank company roll past, then signaled to his Navy escort. "We'd better get back and relieve the guard on the pinnace," he said.

"Euvinophan hasn't detailed any of his Field Police to help you?" People's Commissioners weren't supposed to sound confused, but Testaniere couldn't help it. The security arrangements had been made more than one of Silvestria's thirty-five-day months ago.

"The ground troops aren't coming in until just a few days before the strike force moves out," Weldon said. "Tank crews and maintenance techs are coming in by rail in a few days, to have the vehicles on line, but the ground pounders are still back in the Royal City."

Now Testaniere knew that he was not merely confused but hallucinating. "I assume there is some logic behind this," he said quietly. This should really not be discussed in the open, although if the three infantry battalions weren't leaving Royal City until who knew when, it would not be a secret long.

"I don't know if Euvinophan has any plans he isn't telling us about," Weldon said. "But his message to me said that he wanted to avoid conflicts or leaks connected with the local population. A lot of the fishermen have been friendly to their opposites across the Central for centuries."

This was sufficiently true that if there'd been another port besides Buwayjon on the west coast of the Kingdom suitable for loading the strike force Testaniere would have proposed using it. Also, the main training camp for Euvinophan's troops was near Royal City.

Still, having all the heavy weapons out on a limb like this . . .

"I'll see what I can do about helping with security for the pinnace. Maybe I can spare a few State Security people to keep your people's noses out of the dirt."

"I'd be grateful," Weldon said. He almost saluted before he turned away.

Weldon was not likely to have much of a chance to be grateful. Testaniere had a "protective mission" of thirty State Security people nominally under his orders, although several of them were probably the local links in a chain of spies that ran all the way back to gloomy little offices in Nouveau Paris. Still, most of them knew enough about soldiering to give friendly advice to the Field Police—not the royal ones, who were fairly reliable, but Euvinophan's, who were one step up from street brawlers.

He'd been spared any SS people of that low caliber, which made him wonder if perhaps somebody higher up really hoped the mission to Silvestria would succeed. SS people who knew the basics of field soldiering were not unknown, but neither did they grow on bushes.

First step, a talk with Citizen Sergeant Pescu. Everybody listened to him (he could break bones if they didn't) and he knew most of his counterparts in Euvinophan's local Field Police. Advice would go over better, coming from him.

Then get an up to date map of what was parked where. The Canmores had no offensive capability that could handle even the Field Police, but sabotage by fishermen or royalist sympathizers was another matter.

Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate our heavy weapons. The fewer places we have to guard, the better.

The tourist guide hadn't listed the Hadrian's Wall as having private baths, but Shuna Ryder heard a shower running when she let herself into the room.

She was tempted to join Fernando under the spray, but half the fun of that vanished if it wasn't a surprise, and her lover had ears like a cat. He'd probably heard her come in even over the running water.

Ryder put down her overnight bag, sat down on the bed, and pulled off her boots. They were civilian, like the rest of her clothing, and a good deal more comfortable than anything the Admiralty had issued in her time in the Royal Marines. The Republic got a surprising amount of leather off its scruffy little cattle and big fluffy sheep, not to mention some domesticated local ungulates, and they had either remembered or rediscovered the art of making really sybaritic boots.

The bed was so comfortable that Ryder lay back and closed her eyes. What saved her from falling asleep was a few drops of water hitting her in the face. She opened her eyes and contemplated the well-muscled form of Fernando Chung.

Chung was also in civilian clothes—if a towel around his waist could be called clothing—but if he'd been in uniform he would have been recognized as a Lieutenant Colonel in the Erewhon Army. A sophisticated observer would have recognized Assault, Intelligence, and Ordnance qualification badges as well.

It would have taken someone with inside information to realize that he was Ryder's Erewhonese counterpart, the head of a somewhat smaller group of "advisers" sent to the same place on the same mission as Ryder's Manticorans. The exact genesis of Chung's assignment remained a bit hazy, given his government's official support for the Solarian League's "neutral" position, but his presence was a clear indication that the Erewhonese were rather more concerned over Peep ambitions in their direction than their Solarian allies. Or, as Ryder had quipped when they discovered one another's missions, "Great minds wobble and weave down the same gutter."

Fernando Chung had thrown that quip back at her on another occasion, the evening that they realized they were attracted to each other and were neither far apart in rank nor in the same chain of command. This didn't entirely kill the thrill of thumbing noses (and other parts) at distant superiors, but with proper security precautions they thought the companionship and the cooperation going literally hand in hand would harm no one.

An observer able to bug the room would have seen Shuna Ryder's normally sober look change to a broad grin at Chung's appearance. She put her right hand up to grip one of Chung's while her left hand reached for the towel.

He took the first hand, but backed hastily out of reach of the left.

"What's this, Sir? Do you need me to rinse your back?"

Chung did not smile. Ryder 's own grin faded. Her first thought was that someone at the Hadrian's Wall had recognized one or both of them. Port Malcolm had a good many small hotels and inns whose owners had civilized attitudes toward unmarried lovers, unlike too many of the Republicans, and so far she and Fernando had been lucky, but had their luck finally run out?

"I hate to break the rule about no business," Chung said. "But we have a situation." The tone made it clear that "we" meant the two advisory missions to the Canmore Republic, not Fernando and Shuna, the unlikely but ardent lovers.

"The Peeps?" Ryder looked around the room, batting her eyes in what she hoped would be taken as a seductive manner if anybody had a video bug hooked up.

"In a way," Chung said. He poked a foot under the bed and moved something back and forth. It sounded plastic-covered and heavy, and Ryder realized that Chung had probably brought a scrambler to counter any bugs. It would be a good one, too; the Erewhon mission had access to state-of-the-art Solarian League technology.

Unfortunately, so did the Peeps.

Ryder groaned. Nobody would mistake the sound for ecstasy. Indigestion or arthritis, possibly, but not any kind of serious pleasure.

"It's an opportunity as well as a problem," Chung said, knotting the towel in place and sitting down on the bed. He had not quite dried himself, and Ryder had visions of a soggy bed even if they finished the business quickly.

"I've heard that ancestral quotation at least fifty times," Ryder said.

"Not from me."

"No, it was a favorite of my senior tactical officer at the Staff College."

"Ah, he recognizes the wisdom of the ancient Chinese, then."

"If you don't either explain yourself or take off that towel, nobody will recognize a certain young Chinese-Latino Erewhonese. Not even your own mother."

"You would lose face with her by violence," Chung said. "Otherwise, I am sure she would approve of you, if only because I am finally not living like a eunuch—"

"That can be arranged," Ryder said. She sat up, with a look on her face that made Chung jump up and back hastily away from the bed.

"Your pardon, honored lady," Chung said. "I will be brief. The private army of the Peep's pet warlord is on the move. The heavy equipment is coming into Buwayjon, a shipload at least every night. It is being secured by Euvinophan's Field Police."

"Not his infantry?"

Chung looked like a treecat contemplating a new litter of healthy kittens. "No. The ground troops are still in the Capitol."

Ryder took a moment to assimilate this fact. "Guarding the White Elephant?"

"I don't think His Majesty would let Euvinophan's brawlers within ten klicks of the Elephant Temple," Chung said. "I have an alternative theory."

"He wants to pull a quick shuffle, keeping the components of his assault force separated so we won't recognize what they are until it's too late."

"Bravo!" He bent down and kissed her. She was tempted to grab for the towel, but refrained. She smelled more coming.

"That tactical officer could teach more than ancient Chinese sayings," Ryder said tartly. Then, slowly, she added, "I see what you mean by an opportunity. Without their ground component—"

"The heavy equipment is vulnerable to the kind of offensive your Sea Fencibles could launch."

"They're not my Sea Fencibles. If they're anybody's other than the Republic's they're as much yours as mine. Or was it another man of the same name who developed those conversion kits to make their assault rifles up to date, at least for cartridge weapons?"

"Guilty," Chung said. "Now, if you don't mind tactical planning as pillow talk . . . ?"

Usually, Ryder did. But somewhere in the last minute, it had struck her that this might be the last time together for her and Chung. Neither of them was the kind to stay in the rear when the people they had trained went into battle, for all the secrecy surrounding both their missions. Besides, if the Crown's forces helped Erewhon pull this particular basket of nuts out of the Peep fire, the Erewhonese would probably do their best to repair any minor leaks.

So she and Fernando need not hold back, either now or when the raid set out.

She stood up, flexing her knees so that she could kiss his lips instead of his nose.

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