Jerry Pournelle - Go Tell the Spartans

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.

"We're through, everyone move, this is it, do it, lads, go, go, go."

Ahead was the knoll where the weakest of the Brotherhood forces waited; the Eighteenth, the one that had been dropping off men for the firebases. Men and weapons . .

"Go, go, go!" The sky screamed as the follow-on bombardment launched. He had lost a third of his frames to the Royalist counterbattery fire, but there were enough for these two targets.

The knoll lit with a surf-wall of flame.

"They're past us, Colonel," McLaren said. "I thank you for the warning. I've lost aye more o' my laddies than I like, but 'tis no what would hae happened if we hadna known."

"Can you see the enemy?"

"Aye, they're past and running up toward the Eighteenth's encampment."

"Excellent. Regroup and get ready to go kill them." Owensford switched channels. "Stand by to Flash Blue Peter Four," he said quietly.

"Standing by."

"Let me know when they go to ground, McLaren," Owensford said.

"Aye, that I will, Colonel. That I will, the murtherin' bastards."

"Warning."

"Go ahead, Guns."

"Colonel, incoming, our position and the Eighteenth's, all their batteries on those targets. Thirty seconds to impact." A second's pause. "Second launch. I should have better counterbattery after this, but we're going to be buttoned up in our holes until they run out of rockets." The mortar crews had no overhead protection, and the submunitions would slaughter them if they stood to their weapons.

"Right. Button up and stay buttoned. Andy, get me the Eighteenth."

"Eighteenth Brotherhood, Wilson."

"Wilson, they'll be battering hell out of your old position. Get down and stay down. When the bombardment's over, continue your withdrawal."

"Sir, we'd like to go after them."

"Negative. Your mission is to stay intact and stay alive. Just by existing you keep the bastards in the sack they put themselves in. They thought they'd fight through you. They don't know you're still organized and on their flank."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Good man. Hang in there."

WhumpWhumpWhumpWhump-the bursting charges of the rockets went on longer this time, much longer. The aching moment of comparative silence, and then the long roar of white noise. The sound of the wire shrapnel hitting the sides of the command car was like being inside a steel bucket that was being sandblasted. The seven tons of armor rocked back and forward as the bomblets cascaded off its hull.

A much louder explosion, and for a moment he thought the command van would turn over.

"Sastri here. We lost one of the one-sixty-mm's, something hit the ready ammunition in the pit with the tube," he said. A hint of real pain this time; like most gunners, the officer from Krishna loved his artillery pieces. "Priorities?"

"Stand by to flash the Eighteenth's former area. They'll learn in a minute that they aren't the only ones who can be clever."

"Sir, I have the Third Brotherhood on the push. Secure."

"Owensford here."

"Colonel, they-there was at least a company of them, we ran right into them while the gas attack was on, what shall I do?"

"Stop them," Owensford said. "You know where they are, you still outnumber them, just stop them. Don't let them through, and it won't be long. Henderson, I gather you went to their support. Report."

"Sir. Fifteen percent casualties."

"Gas situation?"

"We're all right. The Third Brotherhood took some heavy losses. Lot of them down, still alive."

"Leave 'em for the medics. If you don't hold that position, they'll all be dead anyway. Running away just gets you killed, you and everyone you left behind as well."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Consolidate your present position, mop up those hostiles who are giving the Third trouble, then push directly south down the valley towards me, keeping the armored cars on your western flank as close to the forest as possible. Hit the force that's blocking McLaren, and roll in on the rear of the people attacking the Eighteenth Brotherhood's old encampment from the valley."