Without help, and soon, it would be a losing game.
Cruz charged. One of the Sumeris broke and ran back from whence he had come. Still others, from different parts of the battlefield, were fleeing as well. One of the two still facing Sanchez turned instead to face Cruz.
The two Sumeris saw the rapidly approaching rest of the century. First one, then the other, dropped their weapons and raised their hands. Sanchez was about to kill his man, even so, when Cruz ordered, "No."
"Three dead, sir," Cruz told Carrera the next morning on the same spot as the previous night's action. Bodies still littered the ground. "No wounded, ours or theirs. It was… you know… too close for that. Too close to take chances."
"I understand. Who was killed here?" Carrera asked.
"Sergeant del Valle, he was my section leader," Cruz answered, "plus my own light machine gunner, Rivera, and Private Aguinaldo from Second Fire Team."
The signifer added, "One of the other sections lost a man as well, Legate."
"Prisoners?" Carrera asked.
"Cruz and Sanchez took two, Legate," answered the century signifer. "I've already had them escorted to the command post. There weren't any others. Not that we've found so far, anyway."
As if to give the lie to the signifer, one of the medics forward of the trench and examining the bodies felled by the directional mines and the machine gun fire shouted, "Hey, we need a field ambulance. I've got two live ones here."
The signifer shrugged. It had been a long night and the morning was young. No surprise they found some men wounded who hadn't been in the close fight.
Carrera looked around again, counting the Sumeri bodies in and around the trench. He noted the clackers lying inside it and the swath of bodies stretched out in two triangles in front of it. He nodded at the signifer who, by prearrangement ordered, "Corporal Cruz, PFC Sanchez, Attention." The signifer, the centurion, and the few legionaries standing nearby also went to attention.
"Orders will come along later," Carrera explained, as he reached into the chest pocket of his battle dress. "We'll make it formal then, too. For now, though, I see no reason to wait. Gentlemen, I am awarding you the Cruz de Coraje en Acero. This is the first step in the six steps of honor the legion has instituted to recognize and reward bravery. You two are only the fourth and fifth such awards we have made since coming here though I rather doubt you will be the last." Carrera hung a medal, a simple cross on a ribbon, around the neck of Cruz. He then did the same to Sanchez.
"This medal is, as I said, only the first step. You will wear it today, as this is the day I awarded it to you. You will also wear it on the day we make it formal, read official orders over you-bless you, so to speak-and present them in front of the legion. On other days you will not wear it, until you earn the next step, the Cross of Valor in Bronze." Carrera smiled slightly. "If you like how they feel on this day and that future day, you will just have to be mindlessly brave one more time."
Clapping both men on the shoulders and shaking their hands, Carrera turned and walked away.
Cruz didn't think too much of the award. Still, he thought, I'm a corporal? Really? Damn.
Sada's Command Bunker, 33/2/461 AC
"What was the butcher's bill, Qabaash?"
" Amid, we sent out ninety-seven men, nearly a full company. Only forty-three returned."
"A bitter price," Sada said. "Bitter but necessary." Sada looked at Qabaash. "You don't understand why it was necessary, do you?"
Qabaash raised his chin and shook his head. Being mostly out of the action was hard on him and very depressing. "No, Amid, I don't. I wish I did."
Patiently, Sada explained, "What's it worth paying to make sure the enemy doesn't sleep well at night, Qabaash? What price should we pay to make sure that he spends more of his effort watching out for a surprise attack than preparing to attack us here? You're a fine fighter, Major. You have to learn to be a thinker as well."
Command Post, Legio del Cid, 35/2/461 AC
"Well, it's not like I didn't try to accommodate them," Carrera said, watching the mass of aircraft overhead and on the other side of the river. The aircraft, a mix of C-31 and C-41 medium and heavy lift, were disgorging the better part of the 731st Airborne Brigade, Federated States Army. The air was thick with parachutes.
"You robbed t'em, t'ey t'ink," answered McNamara. "T'ree times t'ey planned a drop, t'ree times we overran and passed by t'e drop zone before t'ey could execute. An', Boss, you know as well as I do t'at planning a drop takes time and effort. So, yeah, t'ey're pissed at you. T'at's why t'ey stopped letting their forward support battalion help us, to slow us down so t'ey could make a jump… a 'combat' jump."
"Interesting application of decision cycle theory, anyway, Sergeant Major. First time I've heard or read of an occasion where a military organization is outmaneuvered by its friends because its friends just decide faster and move faster than the organization is capable of."
McNamara shrugged. Fancy theories were fine, to him, provided they didn't interfere with the actual fighting.
"Anyway, we've got a problem or, rather, several. I've got a tacit agreement with the Sumeris on the rules for this fight. The 731 ^ st is not a part of that agreement. I know their commander, and he's a dickhead. Jeff Lamprey, ever heard of him?"
McNamara scratched a cheek, idly. "Name only," he answered.
"Stuffed-shirt, stick up his ass, prig," Carrera said, disdainfully. "Tall, handsome, manly… who happens to be a stuffed-shirt, stick up his ass prig. Not too manly, though, some say. I've been told, by people in a position to know, that when he was a captain commanding a company his wife-beautiful girl, too, they say-used to fuck his lieutenants. I don't think he ever quite recovered from that. That's one of the reasons I'm inclined to believe the story. He's the kind of guy who insists on saluting in the field and that troops should shave daily even when drinking water is short.
"Now, technically," Carrera continued, "by the contract Campos signed with us, I outrank him. I know him though and he won't listen to that. Frankly, Sergeant Major, we loathe each other at a really deep, sincere and personal level. So we are faced with the prospect of two forces trying to take the same town at the same time, with essentially no chance that the two forces will or even can cooperate. Hmmm… what to do, what to do?"
Carrera paused, obviously thinking hard. McNamara stayed quiet for the moment, worrying about what his boss was thinking. Then Carrera nodded to himself, turned around, and entered the CP.
"Fire support, have we got an armed Dodo overhead?"
"Yes, sir. Two of them, actually."
"Good. Drop the bridge on the other side of town. Immediately."
McNamara, listening, thought, Got to hand it to him. He cuts right to the heart of the problem and finds a solution. It might not be an elegant solution. It might even piss off everyone in the entire world. But he does come up with a solution, every time. Jesus, I see no fucking end of trouble out of this one.
Lamprey and a picked group of paratroopers hit, rolled and recovered. In an instant they had doffed their chutes, prepared their weapons, and were racing on foot to seize the one bridge over the river that led into the town.
The commander of the 731st Airborne saw a dark streak above the bridge. Even without knowing he was still pretty sure what it meant.
"Everybody, DOWN!" he shouted, while still seven or eight hundred meters away from his objective.
KABOOM!
Lamprey looked up to see several concrete sections of the bridge flying up in what looked like an attempt to achieve low orbit.
"Come on, follow me," Lamprey shouted, getting to his feet and resuming his race. He had gained perhaps another hundred meters when the bridge erupted again. Again Lamprey threw himself to the ground.