Lieutenant Read online

  The year is A.D. 2804. The interstellar diaspora from Earth has been in progress for nearly 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 two centuries, 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….

  The DMC Series

  OFFICER-CADET

  LIEUTENANT

  CAPTAIN

  MAJOR

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL

  COLONEL

  Other Books by Rick Shelley

  The Spec Ops Squad

  HOLDING THE LINE

  DEEP STRIKE

  SUCKER PUNCH

  The Lucky 13th

  UNTIL RELIEVED

  SIDE SHOW

  JUMP PAY

  The Federation War

  THE BUCHANAN CAMPAIGN

  THE FIRES OF COVENTRY

  RETURN TO CAMEREIN

  The Varayan Memoir

  SON OF THE HERO

  THE HERO OF VARAY

  THE HERO KING

  The Seven Towers

  THE WIZARD AT MECQ

  THE WIZARD AT HOME

  Originally published by Ace Books, a division of Penguin Putnam, in October 1998.

  Published as an ebook by Jabberwocky Literary Agency in June 2011.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1998 by Rick Shelley.

  Cover art by Dirk Berger.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  1

  The temperature had finally fallen below one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, but the humidity remained near one hundred percent. There was not the slightest breath of wind to bring even modest relief. Lieutenant Lon Nolan had been perspiring heavily, but the sweat could not evaporate to cool him. All it did was soak his clothing and add to his discomfort. Just remaining motionless, resting, was tiring. The stagnant jungle air of New Bali was so thick with moisture that breathing was work. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. Company A, 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment of the Dirigent Mercenary Corps was ready for action.

  Lon lifted the faceplate of his helmet to get a little air. He felt as if he were near suffocation with the visor down—and little better with it raised. After a moment he took the helmet off, then wiped sweat from his face with his sleeve. The action did little good. His sleeve was already damp.

  “This is ridiculous, Ivar,” he whispered. “You’d think that after two months of this sauna, a man would get used to it.”

  Platoon Sergeant Ivar Dendrow grunted. “Some things you never get used to, Lieutenant. You just bear it as best you can.” He paused, then added, “I’ll bet there’s not an ounce of body fat left on any of the men.” Not that there had been much fat on any of them before they arrived on New Bali—fitness was a way of life for the mercenaries of Dirigent.

  “At least we’re near the end,” Lon said. “If nothing goes wrong in the next few hours, we should be back aboard ship by this time tomorrow.” He knew that he was talking more than he should, even though the next few hours should be as simple as a training exercise on Dirigent. The only casualties in his two platoons on New Bali had been heat-related, and all three of those had happened in the first week. Now, although everyone was still uncomfortable, they were sufficiently acclimated to avoid further problems of that nature. The only positive thoughts Lon had of New Bali were that there were no stinging or biting creatures with a taste for human blood. The insects left them alone. There were, apparently, no snakes, and the lizards stuck to native prey—even the large lizard that seemed to be a near relation to Earth’s Komodo dragon.

  “If nothing goes wrong in the next few hours,” Dendrow echoed. He lowered his faceplate just long enough to look at the time on its head-up display. “It’s about that time, sir.”

  Lon suppressed the sigh that wanted to force its way out. It would have been inappropriate. He wiped his face again, using the other sleeve this time, then put his helmet back on. When he spoke to third platoon’s sergeant again, it was over the radio channel that connected him with both Dendrow and fourth Platoon Sergeant Weil Jorgen. “Get the men up and ready to go.”

  New Bali was a relatively old colony world, but it had grown very slowly. After four hundred years, the total population was only three million, widely dispersed among two dozen cities and hundreds of smaller settlements. The impetus for early settlement had been the pharmacological promise of the world. The discovery of thousands of medically useful organic compounds in New Bali’s tropical ecosystem had justified the initial colonization. Discovery of accessible lodes of platinum and gold had led to a boom just at the time when medical applications of nanotechnology had reduced, then virtually eliminated, the need for medical drug therapies.

  Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Regiment, Dirigent Mercenary Corps, was about to find out whether two hundred professional soldiers could stage a successful coup and capture the world’s central government and communications facilities.

  Singaraja, New Bali’s capital and largest city, boasted a hundred thousand inhabitants. Originally a small enclave on the northern edge of the Utan delta from which researchers could stage forays into the jungle, the city had grown mostly northward along the seacoast in a thin strip. Proximity to the ocean mitigated climatic conditions. There could be a twenty-degree difference in temperatures between the coast and a mile inland during the day—and sometimes as much as thirty degrees at night, when the breeze generally came from the southwest.

  “Third and fourth platoons ready, Captain,” Lon reported as soon as his platoon sergeants had confirmed that fact.

  “Right. It’ll be a few minutes yet,” Matt Orlis, the company commander, replied. “Just keep cool, Nolan. Everything by the numbers.”

  “Yes, sir.” Lon did not worry about the admonition. He was the junior officer not only in Company A, but in the entire regiment. He was used to having officers spell things out in detail, as if they were afraid that he could scarcely put his trousers on right without specific instruction. The New Bali mission was his first contract since receiving his commission.

  “You’ve got the easy half of the job, Government House and the communic
ations center,” Orlis said.

  “Yes, sir, I remember,” Lon said, interrupting before the captain could go on to explain in more detail. I know the mission, he thought. I know what we should be facing. The targets for the company’s other two platoons were the central police station and the capital’s militia barracks.

  “The revised strike time is oh-four-thirteen,” Orlis said. “We hit all four targets at the same time.”

  “We’ll be on time,” Lon promised, glancing at the timeline on his head-up display. He switched channels on his radio to tell his platoon sergeants and squad leaders that there would be a short delay. It was short. Only three minutes passed before Captain Orlis gave the order to move out.

  “Let’s go,” Lon told his platoon sergeants.

  Every man in the two platoons knew the details of the operation. The DMC believed in sharing information as fully as practical. No matter how badly the chain of command might be fragmented by casualties in battle, the unit would be expected to continue its mission, even if a junior noncom ended up in command of a platoon. Or a company.

  Third and fourth platoons moved along separate tracks a hundred yards apart. Lon hiked with third. He had been assigned to it as a cadet, before earning his commission. He felt more comfortable with that group.

  Moving silently through the jungle was not difficult, or particularly dangerous, even at night. The floor of the tropical rain forest was mostly clear, except along streams and treefall gaps, where sunlight could reach the ground and stimulate the growth of new trees and undergrowth. And the night-vision systems built into the helmets of the mercenaries gave them almost full vision.

  The two columns of soldiers moved in almost perfect silence, watching their flanks, alert for anything. Their course had been mapped and scouted ahead of time, so there were no surprises in the terrain. No alarms to send them diving for cover.

  We‘ll have as near total surprise as we could ever hope to achieve, Lon thought. It won’t be until we leave the jungle and get into the city that there‘ll be any real danger of discovery. He was grateful for activity, for the increased tension of moving toward the target. That let him quit wallowing in the discomfort of the climate. He kept as close a watch on the men of third platoon as their platoon sergeant or squad leaders did. Fourth was too far away for direct observation, but Lon had his radio set to monitor fourth platoon’s noncoms’ channel.

  The staging area had been less than a half mile from the border of the jungle. There was a clear line marking the edge of Singaraja—city on one side and untamed jungle on the other. Looking out from the city, the rain forest appeared as a solid green wall, up to 130 feet high. The border was like a treefall gap, miles long and filled by young trees and the adventitious vines and shrubs that took advantage of any opening to the sun. The human residents had to maintain constant vigilance against the forest to keep it from reclaiming land they had “stolen.” There were always interlopers, seedlings trying to establish themselves in the open.

  “The point has reached the edge of the forest, Lieutenant,” Corporal Tebba Girana of third platoon’s second squad reported after the two platoons had been on the move for twenty minutes. “They’re holding just this side.”

  “Okay, Tebba. We’ll take five here. Put two men through the tangle to observe.” Lon switched to talk to the point squad for fourth platoon, which was just reaching the same line, and gave them the same instructions. Then it was time for a final talk with the platoon sergeants.

  “This is where the fun starts,” Weil Jorgen commented.

  “It shouldn’t be too bad,” Lon replied. “The local militia’s geared to looking for trouble from inside the city, not coming out of the jungle. As long as we don’t make mistakes, there shouldn’t be much danger of them spotting us until we’re within a block or two of our objective, if then.” As long as we don’t set off a thousand dogs barking, he thought. One of the tidbits of information they had about Singaraja was that there were twelve thousand dogs in the city. The original colonists, the ones who had come to find medicinal plants in the jungle, had brought dogs to help sniff out the plants that were most valuable, and the canine population had increased since.

  “I wouldn’t count on any of that, Lieutenant,” Ivar said. “These local lads have had good training, and they know that something is coming.”

  “Let’s just do our job,” Lon said. “We’ll cross into the city the way we planned. One squad from each platoon across the open space first. Then two squads. Then the rear guard. Once we’re all on the city side, we move toward the objectives. And even though the timing is critical, I want the same care we’d take anywhere. If we run into trouble before we reach our objectives, it could throw the timing too far out to recover.”

  “We’re ready,” Ivar said. Weil grunted his agreement.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Lon said.

  The strip of dense growth at the edge of the rain forest was nowhere thicker than thirty yards. Within that narrow belt, conditions could be chaotic, and difficult for anything larger than a rodent to find a way through. But there were a few spots. Alpha Company had scouted the verge carefully. Beyond that thicket was a hundred yards of flat, cleared land. Automated equipment tended the barrier, mowing the grasses that had been planted to serve as the first obstacle to the jungle. Beyond that, a plascrete roadway served as a more solid barricade. And, finally, there were the gardens and yards of private homes, then several commercial buildings before the area where Government House and the communications hub for Singaraja and all of New Bali stood.

  When his platoons were ready to move through the border of the rain forest, Lon went forward to join third platoon’s point squad to have a look for himself. He switched his faceplate to full magnification and slowly scanned the open area from left to right. After two minutes, he was certain that there was nothing moving within visual range. Singaraja was quiet. There was some light. The capital of New Bali boasted streetlights and a scattering of neon signs in the business district. Along the edge of the city, some of the houses showed outside lights.

  “Move it,” Lon said over the radio channel that connected him to all of the squad leaders and both platoon sergeants.

  As two point squads started to cross the open field, two more squads from each platoon moved through the dense border of the jungle to cover them. The last squads remained on the forest side of the dense growth, against the minimal chance of attack from the rear. The point squads spread out into broad skirmish lines, jogging across the open fields, bent low. In the dark, against the backdrop of the rain forest and the green wall of its border, they would be virtually invisible to any watcher without the assistance of night-vision helmets or goggles.

  As soon as the squad leaders reported that they were in position and had seen no indication of defenders, Lon ordered the next squads across, and the rearguard squads moved through the tangle to the city side, ready to follow. Lon and Weil moved with the middle squads. Ivar stayed behind to move with the rear guard.

  Normally, running a hundred yards in full battle kit would have been only moderately taxing for Lon. In training, back on Dirigent, the men of the DMC—including all officers—regularly ran carrying the forty to sixty pounds of equipment they would have in a combat situation. But the temperature and humidity, added to the tension of going into action, made the crossing almost difficult for Lon. He felt himself gasping for breath before he reached the strip of black plascrete that marked the halfway point between jungle and the first houses.

  Lon gave himself one short stop by moving to the side and watching as the rest of his men moved past. Then he started jogging again, staying close. There was no real chance to rest even when he flopped on the ground behind the skirmish line his men formed when they completed the crossing. He had to watch for the rearguard squads to cross, and get point squads moving through the residential strip that stood between them and the commercial and governmental district of Singaraja.

  He conferred with his no
ncoms on the radio. No alarms had been sounded. Not even a single dog had started barking at their proximity. Two minutes, Lon told himself. We all need that much of a break to catch our breath. He glanced at the timeline on his helmet display, knowing that he could not afford more than two minutes. He could not be certain that there would be no delays later. Lon went over the routes that his men were to take to their targets. Although the two buildings were close together, his platoons would remain separated throughout the rest of the journey—a safety measure, to minimize the chance of total disaster if they were discovered. Two routes—one squad in front of each platoon and another trailing behind—would also minimize the few slight sounds that might be unavoidable.

  “Move out,” he told the platoon sergeants when the two minutes were over.

  For a few minutes, they would still have the cover of full darkness, following back lanes, separated from the nearest houses by gardens and back yards, far from porch lights, and farther from the first streetlights. There was no running now. The men moved at a slow walk, five yards between each of them. Everyone kept eyes open and weapons at the ready. An ambush by the New Bali militia was not out of the question. And if first and second platoons ran into trouble, the locals might quickly move to block Lon’s platoons as well.

  Lon had the external audio pickups on his helmet at maximum gain, and he strained to hear any possible threat—as if intense concentration might extend the reach of his hearing. One dog started barking in the distance, too far away for the baying to be the result of Lon’s men moving. Almost at once, several other dogs started to answer the call of the first. Most of the ruckus seemed to be off to the north, away from any of the Dirigenters.

  “Halt!” Lon ordered over his all-hands channel. “Let’s give the mutts a chance to settle down before any of them close by start yowling.” Lon listened to the scattering of dogs barking against the silence of the night. Gradually, over a period of several minutes, they quieted down.

  “Okay, let’s get going again,” Lon said once he thought that the remaining disturbance was far enough away that it was unlikely to be picked up by dogs closer in.