War World: Cyborg Revolt Page 18

  “Good. What would three Sauron squads have?”

  Hamilton rose to the test. “At full strength, each squad has eight soldiers, and one Under-Assault Leader. That’s the equivalent of eight privates and a sergeant.”

  “Right as far as it goes. But remember that a typical Sauron Soldier—not including any enhancements—has as much training and tactical knowledge as one of our sergeants. Their Under-Assault Leaders are the equivalent of our Sergeant Major. Man for man, they’re the roughest sons of bitches that ever slogged their way across a battlefield. And I speak from personal experience.”

  Hamilton frowned. “You sound almost as if you admire them.”

  “I respect their military skill. I only hate their cause and culture. And what they’ve done to good people, whose only crime is that they wanted to live their lives in peace. The ones I hate personally are the Cyborgs, or Super Soldiers. Those bastards are half devil, half homicidal psychopath. They scare the hell out of me and anyone else who’s been lucky enough to fight one and survive.

  “Lesson’s over.” Cummings turned back to the map and checked unit pins in the wall map. “Fox Company and Easy Company should join Morales. Able Company should move out of Hatfield and work their way north. They won’t join up for a day or two, but they can act as Morales’ reserve. Meanwhile, general signal to everyone to be ready to move out at an hour’s notice. Those bastards have stuck their necks out far enough that maybe this time we can really chop them good and hard! I want to teach them not to go stamping all over our turf!”

  Maybe it will work. They can’t afford to lose a platoon every time they go outside their controlled area. They can’t afford to waste any nukes they have left on dispersed targets, which is all we’ll give them.

  Maybe we can finally come up with a tactical problem for which that wily old boss tamerlane Diettinger can’t come up with a solution!

  II

  Again Cyborg Rank Zold was attacking cattle from the rear, while the other Soldiers pinned them down them in front. This time he was not alone. The force of cattle that had emerged from the rough ground between Bismuth Town and the caravan was too strong for even a Cyborg to meet by himself.

  This was the third ambush since the cattle drive had left Firebase Three with more than fifteen hundred breeders. Since then they had culled another four thousand breeders from every town and village in their path. Most places had fought hard, giving Zold more enjoyment than any time since the pacification of New Washington.

  This time Zold had only taken two squads, one a heavy weapons squad, with him, leaving the rest of the company to guard the caravan. The time had arrived to teach the Haven cattle the price of resistance. They would kill every man and boy child in the Bismuth, take all the young breeders, kill the rest of the women, then burn the town down to its foundations.

  The heavy weapons squad was following Zold, while the other squad was making a flanking move, to the west of the rough ground. If they could not outflank the attacking cattle, they could join the guards at the female collection caravan.

  Cat’s Eye was beginning to rise and truenight was waning. To Zold’s Cyborg enhanced eyes, the giant moon washed the shadowy landscape with a silvery sheen. With this additional light his enhanced vision showed him that the attacking force which had appeared to be only a few hundred was instead several times that number! His blood began to heat. Now I will become legend.

  Using his throat-mike, Zold subvocalized orders to second and fifth squads to attack from the south. He started to lope across the scrub-covered rock as if it were an open field. It was Zold’s intention to advance alone and be all over the cattle before they realized that they were being attacked. Second and fifth squads would provide a diversion, while his own squads mopped up the kills he missed.

  He took out a sentry, crushing his windpipe with a single chop. The man never knew what hit him; the only audible sound was a slight thud as his body struck the ground. Zold’s night vision picked out motion from around a shepherd’s hut about eight hundred meters away. There was movement that hinted of a crew-served weapon. He subvocalized the coordinates and times to the caravan mortar crew.

  Another squad peeled off from the caravan, in a counter flanking movement to second and fifth squads. Against night-blinded cattle, they could safely close another several hundred meters without being seen. Then they would rush in swiftly, on the heels of the mortar shells. He gave orders for second and fifth squads to prepare to fire.

  The first four mortar rounds were a bracket and two were direct hits on the hut. A figure staggered out, to meet bursts from half a dozen assault rifles and energy guns. The cattle’s return fire lit up the whole ground between the hut and the advancing Soldiers.

  The moment second and fifth squads opened fire, Zold hefted his heavy assault rifle and opened up. The heavy assault rifle used .50 caliber rounds and chewed up cattle like a wood chipper. Caught in a terrible crossfire, they died by the scores. A few turned and began to fire at Zold’s position. He felt hot gravel sting one hand and arm, even through his battle armor.

  “Gauss gun!” he subvocalized. “Mortar crew, fire at will.”

  The presence of even just one of those powerful weapons here was disquieting. Had they encountered Cummings’ Brigade? Or—a more disquieting thought—was Brigadier Cummings distributing heavy weapons he could no longer maintain to local resistance forces?

  The Gauss gun fired again, but this time the wounded cattle could no longer aim the heavy weapon properly. It gouged a molten streak in the rock, then four Soldiers shot him and he went down for good.

  Rockets leaped from the hill to the north. Zold hoped his flankers would reach the launchers quickly. Immobilized by needing to fight off the attackers and prevent the women from escaping, the Soldiers at the caravan would be a vulnerable target.

  Suddenly Zold grunted, or what in a more emotional breed would have been a shout of triumph. The rockets flamed over the caravan, over the guards and into the attackers’ positions. Reinforcements, it had to be.

  Some of the rockets had illuminating or incendiary heads; Zold subvocalized ordering the mortar crew to open fire again. They were already taking ranges on the flares and incendiary bursts. Their rounds walked inexorably from the shepherd’s hut to the rear of the attackers.

  Mortars from the front, rockets from the north and an unbeaten force of Soldiers engaging them in a firefight; it was too much for the cattle. Whatever determination to rescue their women that had brought them out here had vanished. So did most of the cattle, some disappearing into the night, most into death.

  Zold remembered adding two hundred and forty-three more kills to his personal record, now well approaching a thousand. He’d finished counting the bodies and was walking toward the shepherd’s hut when a familiar voice hailed him.

  “Cyborg Rank Zold! Well met. I do not believe we’ll see these cattle again.”

  It was former Groundmaster Helm, second in command at the Citadel and not someone Zold was usually glad to see. This night had gone too well for anything to spoil it.

  “Indeed, Over-Assault Leader Helm, although we did not expect to meet your force this far west.”

  “We heard rumors, and the cattle already in the Citadel were restive. Deathmaster Quilland thought a good fight would improve our morale, lower the cattle’s and perhaps discourage any more rescue efforts.”

  “If we won.”

  “Ah, Cyborg Rank Zold. Did you really have any doubts about the outcome? Even without our help, your Soldiers were more than holding their own.”

  Helm’s flattery was transparent, but it was not unwelcome, either. Although, it left Zold with the sense there was more being unsaid than said. Casually, he hefted a hundred kilo chunk of stone from the shepherd’s hut, settled it into place and sat down.

  “Anything else?”

  “Bad news, I fear.”

  “What? The breeders escaped or had to be killed?”

  “Only a few,” Helm replie
d. “Too few to anger even that old hen, Caius. Something more serious. A Cyborg is dead.”

  It seemed that Cyborg Roxon, the senior Cyborg with the flanking force, had been at point as usual. Recognition signals failed or weren’t heard in the noise of the rocket barrage, and Over-Assault Leader Helm’s men thought Zold’s flankers were hostile reinforcements.

  “We have our medics tending four wounded, who will all fight again,” the Over-Assault Leader said. “But Cyborg Roxon was struck in the head. I have no doubt that he was trying to rally or cover his men, in the finest traditions of the Race.”

  “No doubt at all,” Zold replied. On other matters, however, he had a good many doubts. Was it just a matter of chance that in this battle of mistaken identity, a nearly invulnerable Cyborg died while four Soldiers lived?

  Who had mistaken whose identity? the Cyborg wondered. Was I the intended target, instead of Roxon?

  And how long can I afford to wait for an answer? He needed to talk to Senior Rank Köln, and quickly.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I

  At first, Fourth Rank Boyle thought the cattle had a machine gun. Bullets snapped and whizzed around the Soldiers, spanngged off rocks and wheeted off into the dawn, half a dozen every second. Others ended their flight with the solid chunk that Roger had learned too well meant striking flesh or bone.

  Even Sargun leaped and shouted a war cry, as a bullet creased his calf just above the top of his scuffed boot.

  As abruptly as it began, the ambush ended. Is there no end to these cattle? Sometimes he felt as if their small command was fighting all the cattle of Cummings’ Brigade. Was it because of a week of continuous attacks? Or was it because ninety percent of the time they were out of communication with Firebase One? It didn’t help that Cat’s Eye’s magnetic interference made radio difficult even when the primary was waning or on the other side of the moon.

  As abruptly as it began, the ambush ended. A couple of stray shots echoed around the hillside, but the bullets went nowhere.

  Neither, for the moment, did the Soldiers. They’d all found or made hiding places for themselves within the first few seconds. From either side Boyle heard the scrunch and rattle of Soldiers digging themselves in deeper, mostly with bare hands. In this high country, the ground was so hard that an entrenching tool was useless weight, and the Soldiers were not in the habit of burdening themselves with what might be useful.

  Certainly not this high on the eastern lip of the Shangri-La Valley. Three thousand meters above what Haven laughingly called “sea level,” a Soldier found less oxygen than he did at two thousand meters on Homeworld. The superior physical endowment of the Soldiers largely balanced the superior acclimatization of the Haveners, but balancing was all it did.

  On Haven, the strategic advantage went to he who held the low ground. Sometimes in the short run, always in the long run—and the Saurons had to keep the long run continually before their hypersensitive eyes. They had to not only look into the dark, but the future as well.

  Right now Boyle was looking uphill, without expecting to see anything in the tangle of boulders and crevices. They’d been marching too close to the crest for his comfort, but the Cyborg had insisted on this route.

  “Body-heat pulses,” the IR detector tech said. “Looks like less than ten men, still within range but moving back over the crest.”

  “Good work,” Boyle said. It was indeed—to keep your eyes on your instruments while trying to keep both your head and your rear end down as well. Fortunately the Saurons’ enhanced senses let them get by with comparatively few detection devices, at least in the field.

  The next moment, Boyle wished he’d kept his tongue between his teeth.

  Sargun nodded. “Excellent work. You will come with me and two squads. Fourth Rank, you and the other squad and the wounded will maintain a base of fire here. If we are able to pin down the cattle, you can join us for the kill.”

  “Whose kill?” Boyle asked. This time he did not wish he had remained silent, in spite of Sargun’s frown.

  “What do you mean, Tech Fourth Rank?”

  Roger refused to rise to the bait. “I mean that the cattle may be using those ten men to set a trap.”

  “Perhaps. But if we let that fear move us—”

  “Who said anything about fear?”

  “You interrupt, Communications Tech.”

  “I need not endure insult, Cyborg Sargun. Nor do we need to endure the risk of being drawn into yet another ambush. Let me take one squad straight up to the crest. If the far side of the hill is open, one squad will be sufficient to detect and pin down the enemy. If it’s more rugged ground like the crest, half the Soldiers on Haven could still lose the enemy’s trail.”

  “And if the cattle wait on the crest?” Sargun asked.

  “Then a squad is all we’ll lose.”

  “My speaking of your fear was inappropriate, Fourth Rank. But we will carry out my plan. This discussion is at an end.”

  Boyle supposed it had been inevitable from the start, but loyalty to his Soldiers had forced him to put up as much of a fight as he could. At least Sargun hadn’t actually apologized. From a Cyborg, that would have been such an unnatural conduct that it would have worried Roger more than the prospect of another Havener ambush.

  II

  First Citizen Diettinger sat in the Citadel War Room going over the recent cattle raids and counterattacks. Pointing to Bismuth Town on the wall map, he turned to Deathmaster Quilland and asked, “What do you think the cattle are up to? The attack on Cyborg Rank Zold’s caravan was the sixth attack this week against one of our collection parties.”

  “First Citizen, the obvious point would be that the cattle are distressed by our policy of taking their women and young girls and are seeking ways to stop us. But the quality and ferocity of these attacks indicate that it may be part of a larger plan to remove us from the lower Shangri-La Valley. If we find these attacks too expensive—and by that I mean costing us too many dead Soldiers—then the cattle may believe that their attacks would behoove us to keep our forces localized at the Citadel, Firebase One and the upper Valley and Northern Highlands.

  “However, I find it hard to believe Haven command is this naïve. From our Intel sources we know that Brigadier Cummings, then a Lieutenant Colonel with the Fifty-fifth Imperial Marine Division, was stationed at Tabletop during the invasion of 2618. He knows Sauron battle and pacification procedures from experience. I do not see the Brigadier acting this foolishly and emotionally.”

  Diettinger nodded. He had gained a lot of respect for the Brigadier, starting with the Volunteers’ attack on the Fomoria. What he’d seen of the militia since then had gained both his respect and begrudging admiration. They were worthy opponents. Who could have guessed that Imperial high command would ground one of their best generals on a backwater world like Haven?

  Maybe it’s for the best, Diettinger decided. If we didn’t have a credible opponent, we might have let our guard down, grown fat and lazy over the years. The old axiom: That which does not kill us makes us stronger, was one of the directives of the Sauron way of life.

  “I do not believe that Cummings is behind these attacks, either. It is quite credible that his command has become fractured due to the losses the militia took at the siege of Fornova.”

  The Deathmaster said, “Yes, we found positive identification that one of the dead was Colonel Nelson Harrigan, commander of the Falkenberg Irregulars. While the Brigadier has been in these parts, certainly during the Cossacks debacle, it appears most of his time has been spent with the Fighting First at Fort Kursk, and later in the Central Valley where he has been harassing collection teams. It is not unlikely, due to loss of communication capability that the Brigadier is no longer directly in command of the Irregulars.”

  Diettinger agreed. Even with their satellite relay stations, the amount of radio static and interference from Cat’s Eye was playing the devil’s own game with their own commlines and radio relays.


  “Your suggested response?” he asked.

  The Deathmaster replied, “I believe that we should continue as planned. Soon the cattle will grow weary of attacks that fail, costing them both lives and weaponry. Soon they will become acclimated to the collection process.”

  I wonder if it’s going to be that easy? Diettinger pondered. It might be decades before the Haveners learned to live with the idea that their best and brightest women were going to be harvested by the Saurons. In time they would have no choice, as the Haveners’ weapons were captured, wore out and ammunition supplies were depleted. We now own the industrial base of Haven and we will keep a tight rein on weapon and ammunition manufacture.

  III

  The messenger practically tumbled down the last fifty meters of slope, went on his hands and knees, and crawled into the thicket of wood ferns. Brigadier Cummings went to meet him personally.

  The messenger couldn’t be more than fifteen standard years old, with a strong trace of Andean Indian in his ancestry. His run and being greeted by a real general left him speechless.

  “Catch your breath, son,” Cummings said mildly. He uncorked his canteen. “Drink some water, too.”

  Water and the realization that the Brigadier wasn’t going to bite his head off got the boy’s tongue going. He reported that the ambush had been successful, and the survivors were withdrawing, taking one wounded with them. They’d hidden their one casualty and left two men at the observation post with the flare pistol.

  Cummings nodded approvingly. “Well done—what’s your name?”

  “Eric Vrusalko.”

  Some Finn along with the Andean, it seemed. “All right, Eric. You and your people can go home now. In case the Saurons win the next fight, we don’t want you caught with our forces.”

  “Ah, Brigadier, sir—”

  “Yes?”

  “My father—he says we stay with you in the fight. Make sure we get our share of Sauron weapons and ammunition you capture.”