In the breaks between issuing orders he checked his display for updates, but it was full of gaps now, gaps created by the inability to get signals through the base and enemy jamming. But the gaps were shrinking rapidly, and he could see symbols marking his own units pouring through the base like water into a basin, scarcely pausing as they rolled over scattered resistance.
“General?”
“Yes, Colonel Malin.”
“I’m near the base command center. Those inside are offering to surrender.”
“Tell them they won’t be harmed as long as they turn over the command center intact.”
“Yes, sir.”
Another call, this time a woman speaking with mixed anger and grief. “General Drakon, this is Lieutenant Colonel Safir, acting commander of the Second Brigade. We have taken every enemy position except those already occupied by units of the Third Brigade. I am reinforcing defenses along the base perimeter.”
“Thank you,” Drakon said, trying to accept the fact that he would never speak with Conner Gaiene again. “You are field promoted to colonel and are assigned command of Second Brigade, on the specific recommendation of Colonel Gaiene.”
“I—Thank you, sir. I—Damn that man!”
“I know,” Drakon said. “But he died the way he wanted to. You’ve got a lot to live up to.”
“I will,” Safir vowed. “General, my troops have spotted movement at our old positions.”
The pursuit had taken longer than expected. The Syndicate division commander must have feared that Drakon’s attack was a feint, a trick to lure the outer perimeter of Syndicate soldiers into the open, and thus advanced cautiously.
Colonel Kai sounded a bit out of breath, but otherwise unruffled. “Chaff rounds are being fired opposite sector three,” he said.
Malin, in the base command center, had done his usual wizardry with the Syndicate operating systems. New lights glowed on Drakon’s display as Malin’s work provided all of Drakon’s soldiers access to the base sensors, weapons systems, and plans. The sectors into which the base perimeter was divided were now references for Drakon’s ground forces just as they had formerly been for the enemy.
“Contact at sector five!”
“Medics are receiving fire!”
“Cover them!”
Drakon pulled up the right views to see the areas outside the base where his force’s medical personnel were still in the open, treating wounded from the attack where they lay and hauling inside those ready to move. Syndicate fire had begun reaching out from the buildings which Drakon’s own forces had recently abandoned, threatening the medics who worked with their usual stubborn tenacity at trying to save every injured soldier that they could. “Get some troops out there,” Drakon ordered. “Lay down heavy suppressive fire on the buildings to force the Syndicate soldiers to keep their heads down, and help bring in every casualty who is still outside the base.”
“General, the medics say some of the casualties can’t be moved—”
“Both medics and casualties will be moved!” Drakon said. “Anyone who doesn’t move will die out there. Get it done!”
“Attack under way at sector one! Require reinforcements!”
“Handle that,” Drakon ordered Safir. Despite the losses suffered in the assault, he still had twice as many soldiers as the understrength enemy brigade that had previously held this base. But he still had casualties being brought in, he had medics still working outside the base with total disregard for their own safety, and he had over a thousand prisoners inside the base to worry about, as well as the likelihood that snakes were hiding wherever they could within the base. “Malin, make sure the patrols looking for snakes inside the base check every possible hidy-hole.”
“Yes, sir,” Malin said, his voice rushed, some of the elation of an at least temporary victory uncharacteristically audible in his voice. “General, some of the surrendered soldiers are volunteering to assist in the search for snakes.”
“Negative. Some of those volunteers might be snake agents. Until we can screen the prisoners, everyone is a potential snake. Understood?”
“Yes, sir. Base sensors are spotting heavy enemy forces massing opposite sector three.”
Drakon moved as quickly as he could through the underground passageways of the former enemy base, the soldiers he encountered flattening themselves against the nearest wall to make room for him to pass. “I’ll be at the command center in two minutes. Colonel Kai, what have you got available to reinforce sector three?”
“Nothing,” Kai said. “All of the people I have are on the line, guarding prisoners, or searching the base. The final wounded are being brought in now. I will shift locally as necessary to deal with pressure at each point.”
Hopefully, that would be good enough. “Colonel Safir, if the Syndicate troops follow doctrine, they’ll be preparing to hit sector six on the opposite side of the base within a few minutes of the attack against sector three beginning. Be ready for it.”
“Yes, sir. We’re dragging in the last of the medics and the wounded. They’ll be under cover within a minute, but we’re going to lose some of the wounded.”
Damn. “Getting them inside the base was their only chance,” Drakon said.
“No argument there, General,” Safir said. “Uh-oh. We’ve got incoming.”
“I see it,” Drakon said as his display lit with warnings. “How heavy is this barrage, Colonel Malin?”
“It looks like they’re throwing everything they’ve got at us,” Malin reported. “We’re about to find out how well this base was constructed, General.”
“Let’s hope they did a good job,” Drakon said, eyeing the massive artillery barrage that was seconds from impacting. “The ground attacks will come as soon as the barrage ends. Everyone on the outer fortifications get into the nearest blast bunker now!” If there were any snakes hiding in the base’s surface structures, they were about to discover how big a mistake that had been.
He entered the command center as the barrage landed, and the world around him shook.
Chapter Ten
“We have to do something,” Kommodor Marphissa said. “Is there any way we can hit any of the escorts around Happy Hua’s battleship and still screen the surviving freighters?”
Manticore’s displays showed the expanding balls of wreckage that marked the ends of two of the freighters. As Marphissa had feared, Hua had let some of her escorts swing out far enough from the battleship to destroy the escape pods that the freighters’ crews had used in futile attempts to escape.
And she could still do nothing.
“Kommodor,” a message came in from Defender. “We have received a broken transmission from General Drakon. As best we can determine, he is asking us to immediately open fire on the enemy ground forces positions nearest his own soldiers. We have been holding back from firing our hell lances in order to save them for any further rocket barrages, aerospace craft attacks, or cruise missiles. Request instructions.”
Marphissa checked the distance. Manticore and Gryphon, in their futile attempts to screen the freighters and inflict some damage on Haris’s heavy cruiser, had moved about a light-minute sunward of the inhabited planet. Defender’s message was a minute old. The delay was bad, but not horrible.
She hit the reply command. “Follow General Drakon’s request and open fire on those ground forces positions. Do so as soon as you receive this message. Hit the ground positions as many times as you can before your hell lances overheat.”
Diaz was staring at his display. “Drakon must need that support very badly. But there’s nothing else we can do.”