Both the field marshal and the air marshal were officers of long service and high distinction who had the ear of the Emperor himself. Soon the word went around that His Imperial Majesty was in favor of launching a direct attack on the breeding base in Russland.
After that, R and Blade had no shortage of supporters.
Their target was vulnerable for several reasons. First, it lay in the far south of Russland, where there were few enemy air bases and no real radar network. It was, however, less than an hour's flight from the sea. Within a hundred miles off the coast were a number of islands with plenty of room for the assault transports to land. Imperial submarines towing flexible fuel tanks could temporarily establish a secret base on one of those islands. From the islands a fully loaded assault transport could easily reach the breeding base, land its men, and bring them out again.
Second, the base itself was weakly garrisoned. The Red Flames preferred to rely on its isolation to protect it. The garrison consisted of picked Security troops, but only about four hundred of them. They were also dispersed all over a facility that covered several square miles. A heavily armed mobile force landing from the air should have no trouble crushing the garrison.
Third, the dragon pens were uniquely vulnerable. All the thousands of dragons lived in caves on either side of a deep canyon near the laboratories. They could move about freely on the bottom of the canyon, but they could reach the surface only through a few narrow tunnels.
At the head of the canyon stood a high dam. It lowered the river until the entrances to the caves in the canyon walls were above water. It also provided electric power for the whole base.
Behind the dam lay a deep lake, several miles long and hundreds of feet deep. If the dam were blown, the waters of the lake would go roaring down the canyon, submerging the lower entrances to the dragons' caves. If at the same time the upper entrances were blown in, all the dragons penned in the caves would be trapped. Long before the river went down or the tunnels were dug free, they would suffocate, to the last dragon.
The demolition would need a large quantity of high explosives, and it would have to be precisely placed by skilled men. But both were available, both could be carried to the breeding base, and the job could be done. If it was done, the dragons of the Red Flames would not trouble Englor again.
So planning for the raid began, and the arguments began soon afterward. For example, the assault transports were highly secret. It was imperative that they be fully rigged for demolition, so that if one of them crashed or couldn't take off, it would not fall into Red Flame hands. But the assault transports were also large. Enough demolition charges to thoroughly destroy one would weigh a good deal. The weight would cut into its payload for the raid. Where was the balance point between payload and precautions, if there was one?
The planners argued over large questions, small questions, and questions that Richard Blade found it hard to believe grown men could take seriously. At times it seemed that the arguments would go on until the assault transports were all obsolete and all the dragons were dead of old age.
Eventually a plan emerged. Nine assault transports would carry deep into Russland a force of six hundred men, divided into three Groups.
The Battle Group would land at the laboratories and the breeding pens. Most of the men would be riding lightweight motorcycles, so that they could move faster and carry more ammunition. They would be supported by a number of light armored vehicles with guns and rockets. Their mission was to wipe out the garrison, capture or kill the whole staff of the base, carry off everything that could be carried off, and destroy everything else.
The Demolition Group would land at the entrance to the tunnels and around the dam. The tunnel entrances would be blown in first. Then explosives would be lowered down the inner face of the dam and detonated. The pressure of the water would do the rest.
Finally, a small Blocking Group would hold the road and railroad that led out of the base to the nearest enemy garrison. They would be able to do most of the job by blowing up two bridges across small canyons.
Two of the assault transports converted into flying tankers would accompany the nine troop carriers. They would refuel in the air a strike of twelve attack planes launched from an Imperial carrier well out to sea. The attack planes would attack the nearest enemy airbase, making it unusable. Then they would fly air cover over the dragon base while the ground troops did their work.
The attack planes would not have the range to return to their carrier after that. So their pilots would bail out at low altitude, to land among the Battle Group and be picked up by its mobile troops. They would fly out in the assault transports along with the rest of the surviving raiders.
As many as half the raiders might become casualties. All the vehicles would also be left behind, carefully booby-trapped, to lighten the transports for the flight out. But in return for three hundred men and two hundred vehicles, the ability of the Red Flames of Russland to wage genetic warfare would be destroyed for many years.
No one seemed to doubt that this was a fair trade.
No one seemed to doubt either that Lieutenant Colonel Richard Blade should be in command of the raiding force. By Imperial Special Order he was given the acting rank of full colonel. After that he settled down to the grueling routine of training his handpicked six hundred for their great day.
He hardly had a moment to spare for Rilla during that time. He did observe that she seemed both happy and sad at the same time. Happy, because the dragon base to her meant the corruption and perversion of the great discoveries she'd made in genetics. Now it was about to be destroyed. Sad, because in that destruction would die many who had been her friends and colleagues for years, and she could not be totally indifferent to their fate. Blade thought it was perhaps just as well that he and Rilla were not seeing much of each other now. It was certainly good that she was not going on the raid herself.
Blade did have time to consider one amusing fact about his position. He'd been quite certain that Englor would offer him no opportunity to rise swiftly in rank and status. Yet here he was, risen from recruit to full colonel in only a few months, given one of the choicest assignments possible for an officer of his rank.
Perhaps this was not quite so great a rise as one from slave to prince. But no man could say that Blade had not risen, and many in Englor were saying he would rise farther still if he lived long enough.
Chapter 23
Six hundred soldiers have to learn only so much in order to carry out even the most complicated operation. Even training for fifteen hours a day, six days a week, comes to an end sooner or later. Then there's nothing left to do but load the men aboard whatever is taking them to battle.
The night before Strike Force Blade took off, R took Blade out to dinner. It was a hasty dinner-too hasty, for the food and the wine both deserved a leisurely appreciation that neither man could afford to give them. Like the rest of the Strike Force, Blade had forty-eight hours' leave, and from the restaurant he would be joining Rilla. R obviously knew this, but was so much a gentleman about Blade's personal affairs that it was impossible to tell if he approved or disapproved. That was one more quality that R shared with J.