The display sparked with new icons as the first wave of shuttles launched from the troop transports, heading down towards the surface. Heinlein, at least, hadn’t named its capital Landing City or some variant on the theme; the capital city, Lazarus, was actually smaller than most capital cities. If the data could be believed, Heinlein’s population was spread out all over the planet, rather than being concentrated in a handful of cities. I was no expert in ground combat tactics, but it struck me that occupying the entire planet would take years, and far more infantrymen than we had.
“Move us into position to cover them,” the Captain ordered, as the shuttles flew down towards the ground. “Anna, target and destroy anything that attempts to impede them. We must have that spaceport intact.”
“Aye, sir,” Anna said. Now that local space was clear, there was less for me to do, but I watched my console carefully anyway. They might have hidden other stealthed weapons on their moons, or somewhere in orbit among the debris we’d missed. The satellite system the Admiral had been so keen to seize had been destroyed in the crossfire. He wasn’t going to be pleased about that. “They’re barely five minutes from parachuting down to the surface.”
I nodded, watching carefully. Earth had its orbital towers, but few other planets had them, not when a space cable or elevator would be sufficient. Heinlein, however, had neither, which meant that the only way to move troops down to the surface rapidly was to use spaceplanes and heavy shuttles, which in turn meant that we had to seize and secure all the spaceports. Heinlein didn’t even seem to have many spaceports, or airports, and losing one of them could be disastrous. The fleet was settling into low orbit now, using lasers to pick off any aircraft in flight to prevent them from engaging the shuttles, but if the spaceport were to be lost…
“They’re going to know that too,” I muttered. The Captain turned to look and me and I flushed, feeling an idiot for speaking out loud. I had no choice, but to explain myself. “They have to know that we need the spaceports as well, sir.”
“Quite right,” the Captain said, gravely. I had the faint impression that he was humouring me, for whatever reason made sense to him. “The garrison may even have lost the spaceport after a battle that would render it nearly useless.”
I frowned. “Then why…?”
“Because it’s not actually that easy to render a spaceport completely non-functional,” the Captain explained, calmly. “The landing pads and runways will still function — its not even easy to mine them without being obvious — and the infantrymen can take them without serious problems, particularly if we provide covering fire from orbit. Once they have the spaceports, we can begin landing the main force and advancing out to seize the cities.”
Unwisely, I pushed it further. “But doctrine says to seize the cities at once,” I protested. “How can we do it at once?”
The Captain grinned. “We can’t,” he said, dryly. “Doctrine says a lot of things that I just impractical, Lieutenant. The task of the people on the ground is to try and keep to doctrine as much as possible, while knowing when to ignore its demands that we do the impossible just to please the beauecrats back home. Our task is to support them and prevent the enemy on the ground from counterattacking before the troops have landed in sufficient strength to defeat any attack. Watch your screens and wait.”
I turned back to my console, relieved. Somehow, talking to the Captain sometimes left me with the sense that I had barely escaped a horrifying death by the skin of my teeth. On impulse, I set the console to inform me if there was anything I needed to deal with and brought up the images from the overhead sensors. The spaceport was a good twenty miles away from the city — no one in their right mind would build a spaceport right on top of a city — but it still looked built-up to me. It was surrounded by hangers for spaceplanes, barracks for crew and servicemen and even a handful of gardens, for reasons that escaped me. It was a massive installation…and, as I looked closer, I could see figures scurrying over the tarmac.
“They have what looks like an infantry unit dug in at the main building,” Anna said, flatly. “I am engaging…”
A moment later, the main building vanished in a massive explosion, just as the first infantrymen began to fall down towards the ground. They hit the ground and formed up, taking fire from two different buildings, which Anna promptly destroyed as well. As the shuttles swooped around and unloaded the second set of paratroopers, the first set started to advance, driving the enemy forces out of the buildings. I watched, fascinated, as the battle raged over the spaceport, with the defenders taking heavy casualties. In lives alone, the Devastator had just paid for herself. Without her, the attackers would have been wiped out before they could secure the landing zone.
“The heavy shuttles are launching now,” Kitty said, from her console. I flicked back to the main display and saw the heavier shuttles racing down towards the ground. Some of them drew fire from handheld weapons, but only one was hit, spiralling down towards the ground and exploding in a massive fireball. I stared in horror — there had been a thousand soldiers crammed into that massive craft — before turning my attention back to the spaceport. Now that the ground had been secured, the infantrymen were spreading out, calling in supporting fire as they needed it. As the heavy shuttles began to disgorge tanks, I realised that we’d actually secured the beachhead.
“Good,” the Captain said, tightly. “Anna, continue to watch the ground carefully and be prepared to offer support the minute they require it. Kitty, does the Admiral have any special orders for us?”
“We’re just to remain in orbit for the moment until they deploy additional orbital bombardment systems,” Kitty said, accessing the fleet database. The Captain didn’t look surprised. Unlike the cruisers, or even the battleship, Devastator was hardly a multi-role starship. The only other thing we were good for was transporting reporters and perhaps specialist troops. The thought reminded me about the reporters and I wondered how they were coping. I hoped that it wasn’t well. “The Admiral sends his compliments to your gunnery officers and requests that you stand by to dispatch ground-controllers if necessary.”
“It probably will be necessary,” the Captain said, annoyed. “The infantry on the ground have a habit of calling in fire on targets they barely need to destroy. John, after you have tended to your charges” — it took me a moment to realise that he meant the reporters — “take yourself off the watch list and brush up on how to call in fire from the ground. If someone has to go down, it will probably be you.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, despite myself. I wanted to set foot on a new world, but I doubted that Heinlein would be any safer than Terra Nova for a long time to come. “I’ll get right on it.”
“No hurry,” the Captain said. “The reporters can wait for another hour or two.”
The next hour seemed to pass very slowly. I hadn’t realised how tense I was until I tried to move, or how tired. Combat seemed to sap the energy from me, even if I wasn’t in any danger any longer, unlike the men and women on the ground. The rapidly-growing infantry force on the ground was moving out now towards the capital city, trying to seal it off before more of the population escaped into the countryside. The orbital imagery suggested that they would lose that particular race. The entire population seemed to be on the move.