It didn't really matter what they thought they were doing. The consequences were that only two of the three assault shuttles Longbow had managed to launch before her destruction had survived the man-portable antiaircraft missiles which weren't supposed to be fired as they approached the landing zone after Pritzcowitski's formal surrender of the system. Major Wang had been on the shuttle that exploded in midair, and Captain Ju had been severely wounded barely fifteen minutes later when the LZ came under heavy fire. Which was how Stanislaus Skjorning had found himself in command of everything that was left of Longbow's Marine detachment.
Brigadier Lyman, the Republican ground commander, was only marginally less happy about that than Stanislaus himself, but there wasn't much either of them could do about it. Lyman had done what he could, attaching Longbow's orphans to Major Urowski's company from TRNS Snaphaunce to form an improvised, truncated battalion. The brigadier had hoped Stanislaus' people could be pulled back as Urowski's reserve, but the situation was too chaotic, the fighting too vicious. Urowski had had no choice but to throw Longbow's survivors into the cauldron.
"Snaphaunce One, Longbow One," he said. It felt ridiculous-and presumptuous-to identify a mere lieutenant as the commander of a battle cruiser's entire Marine detachment, but he didn't have much time to reflect on that at the moment, either.
"Longbow One, Snaphaunce One," Urowski's voice came back almost instantly. "Go."
"Snaphaunce One, Longbow is taking heavy fire from-" he doublechecked the terrain tags on his HUD "-Building Oscar-William-Three-Eight. Western wall. Can we bypass?"
"Longbow One, negative," Urowski said flatly. "I repeat, negative. Snaphaunce's left flank is also taking fire from the same building. We've tried two assaults, but they've got even more weapons dug in on the south wall, and we've got to cross plazas on both sides of the street before we can even get to the tower. We're taking heavy losses, Lieutenant, and they're using the tower as a roadblock on Central Avenue. We've got to punch them out, and bad as it may be from your side, it looks like the west wall has the least defensive firepower."
Stanislaus closed his eyes. He'd been afraid Urowski was going to say something like that.
"Snaphaunce One, Longbow One. I understand, sir. Do I have any support assets?"
"Negative, Longbow One. Everything we have is already committed. We'll have some shuttles rearmed for support strikes and on call, but not for at least another twenty minutes. We don't have that long to wait; they've got enough heavy weapons on the east wall to massacre anyone moving down Central, and Colonel Trevallion needs to get down Central to the hoverport fast, before they get dug in still deeper there. Besides, I don't think airstrikes are going to help much in this situation."
"Snaphaunce One, Longbow One copies negative support. We'll just have to do the best we can with what we have. It's going to take me a few minutes to get organized, though."
"Longbow One, you can have all the time you want . . . as long as it's not more than ten minutes," Urowski replied.
"Snaphaunce One, Longbow One copies. Ten minutes." He managed not to swear only because he knew Urowski couldn't have liked giving that order much more than Stanislaus had liked hearing it. "Longbow One, out."
He glared at the HUD for another thirty seconds, then grunted as he made up his mind.
"Gold Two, Gold One."
"Gold One, Gold Two," Huang Tse-lao responded instantly.
"Gold Two, you heard?"
"Aye, Skipper," Huang said. At Stanislaus' direct instruction, the noncom had been monitoring all transmissions between Stanislaus and Urowski.
"Then you know it's going to be a stone bitch," Stanislaus said grimly.
"What we've got is what we've got, Skipper." Stanislaus could almost hear Huang's shrug. "How are we going to handle it?"
"There's not much room for finesse." It was Stanislaus' turn to shrug. "We can use this little shopping plaza for cover-" he dropped a command into his CPU, and his zoot's tactical display obediently used a flashing cursor to indicate the three-quarters-demolished row of shops on Huang's display "-until we get within forty meters or so. We do that, then go in with a rush. But we've got to do something about those damned cannon first."
"That's a big affirmative, Skipper," Huang said harshly. He and Tso had been friends for many years.
"I think the best way to handle it," Stanislaus went on, "is for you to take Third around to the left, here." He dropped another cursor into Huang's display. "While you do that, I'll take First Platoon down the center. Amber of the Third can provide covering fire-O'Grady's already in position for that. Then-"
"On the tick," Estelle O'Grady said softly over the section's free-flow tactical net. Anything from higher authority would instantly suppress the local net, but aside from that it gave her all the advantages of face-to-face conversation with the seven Marines she'd just inherited command authority over. "Not until the lieutenant gives the word."
"Can't be soon enough," someone muttered. O'Grady's HUD IDed the speaker as Jo Binyan, the section's second grenadier.
"It'll be when it'll be," she told him.
"I know. I just want payback for Chiang," Jo said, and even though she knew he couldn't see her, O'Grady nodded in agreement. They all wanted payback, she thought coldly. And not just for Chiang.
She glanced around the Selkirk's Landing skyline and grimaced. It had been a fairly nice little city, once, she thought. Not much compared to an Innerworld city, maybe. Or even Hangchow, for that matter. Probably not more than a couple of hundred thousand residents. But now the drifting smoke made it difficult to tell how attractively it had once been laid out and landscaped. Most of the fires were fairly well contained, but one or two of them had clearly gotten out of hand, especially down along the riverfront, and she tried not to think about the civilians who'd lived in the green belt along the river.
"All sections," Lieutenant Skjorning's deep voice rumbled across her com. It was amazing how calm he sounded. "We'll do this on my mark, people. Stand by. . . . Now!"
O'Grady triggered her weapon. Amber Section was Second Squad's heavy weapons team, and O'Grady's "rifle" was actually a belt-fed twenty-five-millimeter cannon. Its caliber was smaller than the ones which had killed Tso, but its muzzle velocity was higher . . . and so was its rate of fire. Her armor vibrated as the belt hissed out of the ammunition tank mounted behind her shoulders, and the ceramacrete façade of the tower across the street from her firing position exploded in dust.
But O'Grady's weapon was actually the lightest one Amber Section was firing at the weapons emplacement which had killed its leader. Jo's grenade launcher coughed rhythmically, and incandescent spikes of brimstone flared savagely as the plasma grenades detonated. Combat zoots could do a lot to protect the person wearing them, but there were limits in all things. And powered armor couldn't protect the basic structure of the building. Amber Section's merciless fire blew a crater into the face of the tower-one that belched smoke, dust, flames, and debris.