"Command override," he said. That put him on the universal push. There was no emotion now; everything felt ice-clear. "All units, gas counter-measures." He turned to Captain Lahr. "OK, that's their big move. Stop them now, and we've won. Andy, make sure we preserve records of this. Make damned sure of that. I want evidence that will stand up in every hearing room from here to the Grand Senate."
"Now," Skilly said, looking at her watch. 0420. Her hand stabbed down, one finger extended.
The Meijian touched a control. The antiradiation missiles lept skyward and looped over down toward the Royalist river-base.
"Now," Skilly repeated. A second finger.
The sky lit with violet as the bombardment rockets drew their streaks across the sky. Two hundred meters above the earth they burst, and a colorless, odorless liquid volatized into gas and floated downward.
"Now." A third time. Nothing visible here, but hundreds of kilometers to the north another of Murasaki's technoninjas touched the controls before him. Two solid-fuel rockets leaped aloft and arched west as they rose; they were not capable of reaching orbital velocity, but they had more than enough power to spew their loads of ballbearings into the path of the observation satellite. The steel would meet the orbiter at a combined velocity of better than sixteen thousand meters per second. "Now." Fourth and last. From all around the Royalist base, men rose and rushed forward, even as the alarm klaxons wailed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Crofton's Essays and Lectures in Military History (2nd Edition) Herr Doktor Professor Hans Dieter von und zu Holbach:
Delivered at the Kriegsakademie, Konigsberg Planetary Republic of Friedland, October 2nd, 2090.
War among the interstellar colonies is a relatively new phenomenon, although civil disturbance is not. Only since the emergence of strongly independent planetary states in the 2060s has a new balance of power begun to manifest itself, with the traditional accompanying features: armaments races, offensive and defensive alliances, puppet governments and spheres of influence. This process is still incomplete, as the significant powers-Dayan, our own Friedland, Meiji, Xanadu-are still somewhat deterred by the enormous although declining and semi-paralytic power of Earth's CoDominium Fleet. Space combat remains an almost exclusively theoretical exercise. Ground warfare has been limited, with intervention in the disputes of worlds without unified planetary governments, or undergoing civil war, the characteristic form. The independent planets seek to defray the costs of raising armies and to gain combat experience by following the example of the autonomous mercenary formations and hiring out their elite troops; political influence often follows automatically, as in, for example, the close links now existing between the Republic of Friedland and the restored Carlist monarchy of Santiago on Thurstone.
As one consequence of this pattern, the significant armies have continued to be small and usually based on voluntary recruitment, intended for deployment outside their native systems. The strong, industrialized and unified worlds have no use for mass armies, and the planets which need such have not the resources to maintain them. Thus reserves of trained manpower, and still more the organizational and social structures needed to support universal mobilization, have become virtually nonexistent. Some planets, of which Sparta is an excellent example, have attempted to raise well-trained and widely based militia systems. The primary weakness of this approach is the lack of standing forces, and hence of the infrastructure of higher command and administration; also, the lack of fighting experience, the only true method of testing the efficiency of a military system…
We was rotten 'for we started- we was never disciplined;
We made it out a favor if an order was obeyed.
Yes, every little drummer 'ad 'is rights and wrongs to mind, So we had to pay for teachin'-an' we paid!
There was thirty dead and wounded on the ground we wouldn't keep- No, there wasn't more than twenty when the front began to go-
But Christ! Along the line o' flight they cut us up like sheep, An' that was all we gained by doin' so!
"Faster!" Niles hissed at the two guerillas who were supporting him on either side.
"Niles." Skilly's voice.
"Getting into position," he gasped. "Will be there."
"You'd better."
He could move, but there were limits on how fast a man with a hairline rib fracture could run. The hypnospray was beginning to take effect, pain receding and the band around his chest loosening.
They had caught up with the bulk of the Icepick column; men were crouched next to their loads of explosive death, looking forward to the firing ahead at the enemy infantry's blocking position, or up to where the forty-kilo loads of the Royalist heavy mortars would drop on their heads from only three thousand meters away.
We're here. The cost had been high. All of his headquarters and special guards, dead or left behind to block that hard-nosed Spartan bastard who wouldn't parley. Can't blame him, but it was worth a try.
"Drill A, Drill A!" Niles gasped, over the command push. Maximum gain. "DRILL A!" His escort stopped, and he pulled open the throat of his own armor to seal the ring around his neck; the Helot senior commanders had offworld helmets with all the trimmings, for obvious reasons.
Stasis dissolved into action; nobody had explained why Drill A was practiced so often, but the movements were automatic. Helmet off. Pull the plastic bag out of its case on the belt, drag it over the head, yank the tab. Disconcerting how it plastered itself to the face and neck, but the areas that touched mouth and nose turned permeable instantly; permeable to air molecules, and nothing else. Helmet on… even the men probing with fire at the Royalist line ahead stopped the necessary few seconds. Or most did, from the way the sound dropped off for a few seconds, and anybody who didn't…
Rockets burst overhead; there were cries of alarm from the Helot columns, but no rain of bomblets followed. … anybody who didn't, deserved what was about to happen to them.
"Kolnikov!" he snapped, as they came to the head of the column. "Hit them, hit them now."
It was quiet ahead. All quiet. The gas must have acted more quickly than he thought. The Helots were already surging forward through the woods; their screams no less chilling for being muffled through their gas filters. Niles drove forward himself, the pain in his side was distant, he would pay for it later, no time to think of that. Past the enemy line, past gunners sprawled shot or bayonetted around their machine gun, helmets off and gas filters in their hands. Firing, screaming; the company behind him deploying and charging uphill, at right angles to the Royalist blockforce's position, rolling it up from the downslope flank, throwing them back toward the top of the ridge.
Grenades crumped and rifles chattered; he could see figures darting through the woods. Firing, falling; not all the enemy were down, the RSI's training was recent and the response to the gas alert quick… but it was enough. They were getting past the enemy. Losing troops, but they were getting past, moving faster now…
"Keep moving, Kolnikov!" he said, turning from the fight and loping up to one of the sleds. The men pulling it were sprinting now, their breath harsh and rasping through the filters, faces red and contorted into gorgon-shapes. One stumbled and went down as a bullet punched into his side. His comrades ripped him free almost without breaking stride, and Niles snatched up the rope and put it over his shoulder.