“Sir,” Ed said. He looked tired and sweaty and I saw him almost salute before remembering himself. If he’d saluted me, he would have marked me out as a commanding officer for any watching sniper. “We have the area sealed off and we’re ready to reduce it at your command. We have taken seven hundred prisoners and searched them all as they came out; seventy-two of them attempted to smuggle out weapons and were stripped, according to protocol. None of them attempted to blow themselves up and take some of us with them, but it was getting pretty tense before the flow stopped. There are still hundreds of people in there.”
“Shit,” I said. It was possible that Frida had made a mistake. If she’d told them that they had nothing left to lose, they’d dig in and fight to the death. “Anything else to report?”
“Some of the local soldiers beat the detainees,” Ed reported, grimly. I scowled angrily. I couldn’t blame them for being angry, but discipline had to be maintained, always. “I had them disarmed and held for you or Russell to handle.”
“Russell would take their balls off,” Peter commented. I nodded. Russell’s ideas on discipline were stricter than mine, which was saying something. Everyone had thought that Heinlein was a planet of anarchists until the UN tried to invade. The training system on Heinlein was tough. “Do you want me to escort them back to the spaceport?”
“There’s another issue,” Ed added. “One of our men molested a female prisoner. He’s under arrest as well.”
“We’ll convene a court as soon as possible,” I said, turning my attention back to the map. “We have authority to engage them with all necessary force, but we’ll try sweep reason first. Get B Company ready for operations, but I want to speak to the enemy first.”
The street looked weird as I peered down it towards the barricade. The Communists had piled up vehicles and backed them up with concrete-filled barrels and probably IEDs and other surprises. It was a strange mixture of the normal, the mundane, and the military; I couldn’t see the enemy, but I knew they were there. The factory walls hadn’t been intended to form walls surrounding the complex, but they’d succeeded, somehow. It didn’t matter. I didn’t intend to go through the positions they’d so carefully prepared.
I keyed my radio. “Get the Landsharks up into position,” I ordered, tightly. The sound of shooting only picked up as the snipers took what shots they could. I hoped that no one was hit before it was time. “Mortar teams, prepare to take your shots.”
“Ready, sir,” the tankers said. “We’re in position.”
I keyed a different switch. “ATTENTION,” I said. My supercharged voice echoed out over the complex. Everyone in the city would hear it. “YOU ARE SURROUNDED AND COMPLETELY TRAPPED. YOU ARE IN A HOPELESS POSITION. SURRENDER NOW OR WE’LL COME IN AND GET YOU.”
Silence fell. Even the snipers seemed to have stopped shooting, although I hoped that that was because they had actually stopped, rather than just me having deafened myself. I had the same implanted ear protectors as my men, but even so, it had been deafeningly loud. I hoped that they’d hear the truth in my words and give up, or an awesome amount of death and destruction was about to take place.
I keyed the switch again. “THIS IS YOUR LAST WARNING,” I thundered, like the voice of God from on high. “COME OUT NOW OR WE’LL TAKE YOU OUT IN BODY BAGS!”
If I’d heard that noise, if I’d known how bad the position was, I’d have considered surrender, but the Communists obviously had other ideas. A moment later, a shot ricocheted far too close to me and bounced off into the distance. The sound of snipers started to rise again.
I scowled. “Very well,” I said, keying the earpiece. “Mortar squads, you’re up. Fire!”
The CRUMP-CRUMP-CRUMP of the mortars echoed over the city as the team launched their first shells into the enemy position. Mortars aren’t my favourite weapons, but a trained and experience team can use them to bombard almost any target that takes their fancy, within seconds. A mortar can be set up, fired, and taken down again before the enemy force can react. We weren’t shooting high explosive shells, however, but knockout gas. The UN’s secret weapon that wasn’t a secret; it should put most of the enemy fighters down, unless they were already immunised. I suspected they would be — the vaccine was easy to produce — but we had to try. Besides, the gas was only a diversion.
“Landsharks,” I added. “Go.”
The Landshark Tanks are one of the few UN-designed vehicles to find favour with the Colonies, or even the mercenary units. It looked as if it dated from the early days of tanker units, but instead of a heavy shell-firing gun it carried a dozen heavy machine guns, configured to fire in any direction, or all directions. It was also heavily armoured and extremely difficult to knock out without heavy antitank weapons. The UN had built it for operations against insurgents and it generally proved its worth. The insurgents would be mown down by the machine guns or crushed under the treads. It hardly mattered, in the end, what killed them, as long as they died.
“Moving now, sir,” the lead tanker said. “Detonate.”
The explosion shattered the factory wall and sent rubble crashing everywhere, but the tank was undeterred. The other interesting point about the Landsharks is that there are very few terrains capable of stopping them for long. Dump one in a ditch and it will probably be able to crawl out, as long as there is a little room to work. I’d seen one go right up on its rear and somehow make it out of a ditch. The piles of rubble that marked the death of a factory wouldn’t slow it for more than a few seconds.
“We’re in, sir,” the tanker said. “Enemy forces are engaging us now.”
“So much for the gas,” I muttered, as the tank’s guns began to fire. Infantrymen moved up behind them to protect them from the few remaining enemy fighters, but they were barely necessary. The tanks could hold their own against almost all threats. They’d still have to watch out for antitank weapons, though, or mines. “Tanker, do you have a read on the gas?”
“It’s in the air,” the tanker said. “The enemy doesn’t seem to have noticed.”
I keyed my radio. “All other units, start hitting the barricades with long shots,” I ordered. “Keep them pinned down as long as possible.”
It was easy to visualise it in my head. The enemy commander would be looking at what looked like an all-out assault coming from every point of the compass. He’d probably guess that most of them were diversions, but would be realise in time which one was the real threat? I knew just how rapidly the situation could swing out of control — it had happened to me when the stadium was attacked; it felt like years ago now — so how quickly could he react? It didn’t matter so much now, but if he reacted quickly enough, he could stall the offensive.
“Mortar teams, hit the centre of their position,” I ordered. The planet would have to rebuild the industrial complex afterwards, but there was little other choice. If we could kill their commanding officer, we might be able to convince the others to see reason and surrender. “Standard HE rounds, this time.”
“Understood, sir,” the mortar commander said. “Firing now.”