Colonel (UC) Page 5

  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 Bascombe 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 Diligent 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 informal 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 commit
tee 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. Berlino 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 Diligent—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?"

  C8L0NEL

  A weak smile flickered 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 learn 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 Diligent—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 Diligent 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.

  CHAPTER SIX

  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, leaning 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 I 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'll 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