David Weber - Hell's Gate

Klian sat very still for a moment, then drank from his own wine glass, mostly to buy a little more time to marshal his thoughts. Then he cleared his throat.

"Two Thousand," he said, "you're in command. Whether I 'approve' of your contingency planning or not is really beside the point, isn't it? Since you've asked, though, there are aspects of your plans?as I currently understand them, at any rate?that do cause me some concern."

"Specifically?" Harshu invited.

"Well," Klian sat back in his chair, folding his hands neatly on the tablecloth and wishing he didn't feel quite so much like an officer cadet who'd just been handed a trick question in his third-year tactics class, "I can't fault anything I've heard about your defensive planning, Sir. I think you're entirely right that without any equivalent of our dragons?and while I haven't seen Five Hundred Neshok's reports to you, I'm inclined to agree that the evidence clearly suggests they don't have any aerial capability?they'd be at a hopeless disadvantage trying to fight their way out of that swamp. They'd have to have a simply enormous advantage in manpower to slog through that kind of mud and muck?especially without any sort of spell-powered boats of their own?while fighting off continuous air attacks, no matter how good their weapons are.

"And no one could deny your legitimate responsibility to plan for possible offensive operations, either." The five hundred shrugged. "We're both soldiers, Sir. We both know that, ultimately, battles and wars are won by taking it to the enemy, not simply sitting still and letting him bring it to us. I guess what concerns me is the feel I'm picking up from the majority of your officers that they're actually anticipating offensive operations."

He paused, still looking levelly at Harshu, and the two thousand gazed back in silence for perhaps twenty seconds. Then it was Harshu's turn to shrug.

"I don't doubt that they are," he admitted calmly, and showed his teeth in a thin smile. "The bottom line, Five Hundred, is that the most important quality any soldier can have as he goes into battle is the offensive spirit. Even if we wind up standing totally on the defensive, having the troops thinking in terms of 'taking it to the enemy,' as you just said, won't hurt a thing. If we do go on the offense, on the other hand, there won't be time to turn everyone's thinking around if all we've been planning for is digging in and holding our ground."

"I can see that, Sir," Klian said in a neutral tone, and Harshu's smile grew wider.

"But you're still concerned," he observed. Klian started to say something else, but the two thousand waved it away. "No, that's all right, Five Hundred. I asked for your opinion, and I really want it. And I don't think your concerns are limited to the troops' attitude."

"Sir," Klian leaned forward slightly, "I guess I'm worried on two levels.

"First, however good our intelligence on their tactical dispositions right at the swamp portal, or even between there and Fallen Timbers, may be, we know literally nothing about these people's real military power. We don't have any clear indication of what their heavy weapons' capabilities may be, how close to the point of contact their major military bases may be, or how big they are. I know the current intelligence assessments are that they're not anticipating reinforcement within the next several weeks, but what does that actually tell us? We don't know anything about how big the reinforcement they are expecting might be, or what might be in the pipeline behind it. Even if we managed to punch right through everything they've got in the immediate vicinity, what happens when we run into their reserves? How does the fact that we'd presumably have better reconnaissance capabilities, thanks to our dragons and gryphons, play off against the superior communications these Voices of theirs give them? And how do these 'Talents' of theirs?including any we can't evaluate at all, because we've never seen them in action?play off against the capabilities our Gifts give us?

"Second, if Hundred Olderhan is right, and I believe he is, then all of this started out of a misunderstanding. A monumental fuck-up by Olderhan's second-in-command, followed by a bad judgment call on my own part, and what looks like terminal stupidity on the part of Hundred Thalmayr. If that's what it was, if neither side deliberately set out to create the situation, then surely the possibility of negotiating our way out of it really exists. I don't want to see that thrown away. And, if I may speak completely frankly, I'm concerned about how the other side would perceive any further offensive military action on our part. Especially after we initiated the diplomatic contact between us."

"It may surprise you to hear this, Five Hundred, but I think your concerns are well taken," Harshu said. Klian felt his eyebrows inch upwards, despite himself, and the two thousand chuckled harshly.

"I know I'm considered a loose dragon," he said. "And there's probably some truth to that, if I'm going to be honest. But I'm not blind to the risks and the potential costs you're talking about. The problem is that I have my instructions from Two Thousand mul Gurthak, and I can't allow myself to be paralyzed by all of the perfectly good arguments for doing nothing.

"The tactical concerns you've just put your finger on have given me the odd sleepless night since mul Gurthak handed this particular hot potato to me," he continued. "Trust me, I've thought about them a lot.

"At the moment, I'm inclined to think that the combination of our mobility and reconnaissance advantages would more than compensate for their Voices. We don't know how many of these Voices they've actually got, how far down through their formations they'd be available. Do they have them only at the battalion level? Or at the company level? I find it difficult to believe that they have them all the way down to the platoon level, and as I understand it, it takes a Voice at either end for the whole system to work. So in an actual combat situation, I suspect that our ability to see further and more clearly, and the information that makes available to our commanders, would give us what amounted to a shorter command and control loop, even if we did have to send physical messages back and forth. Now, in a strategic sense, that certainly wouldn't be the case, and they'd probably have an edge in orchestrating troop movements at the operational level, as well. But how important would that be if we dominated in the tactical zone? How much use is a communication advantage, if you simply don't know what the other side is doing … and the other side does know that about you?"

He shrugged, as if to acknowledge the fact that neither one of them had the answer to that question.

"On the other hand, from the size of the forces they've got forward-deployed, and from the conversations our recon crystals have recorded, it seems pretty obvious that these people's transportation capabilities are even more inferior to ours than we'd originally thought. They're clearly dependent on unenhanced animal transport, and they're talking in terms of literally months before any substantial reinforcements can arrive. From the things they've said, however, they're also anticipating that those reinforcements will be substantial when they do arrive.

"Obviously, there are still some really big holes in our own ability to translate what they're saying. Even when we get the words, we don't always have the context to make sense out of them. Still, it's clear that they're bringing up a lot of combat power. Quite possibly more than we've been able to assemble. But they won't be able to get it into position for some time, whereas ours is almost completely into position now. And, of course, there's a corollary to that, because the striking power we'll have concentrated here by the end of next week represents everything currently available in this entire chain. We're going to be as strong as we're ever going to get?at least for the foreseeable future?very quickly now, whereas they apparently have substantial additional reinforcements ready to move in behind the ones they're currently expecting, as you yourself have just suggested. In other words, we're probably looking at the most favorable balance of forces we're likely to see, at least until the Commandery finds out what's going on and starts sending in additional forces, and that's going to take months yet.