The enemy had mortars too, I realised, and attempted to pour fire onto the tanks. It wasn’t a bad tactic either — it would destroy a tank if a shell landed directly on it — but my mortar teams had counter-battery radars and were better shots. Every time an enemy shell was fired, they threw a shell of their own back, trying to hit the enemy before the enemy moved their weapon to another firing position. The sound of explosions grew to a crescendo, blurring with fire as the tanks used flamethrowers against their opponents. The final explosion was large enough to shake the city.
“Tank Seven is down,” the tanker reported. “They used some kind of heavy mind and lured Tank Seven over it and detonated.”
I winced, bitterly. One way to take out the tanks was high explosive. If they couldn’t get to the tanks, they’d made the tanks come to them. We had, in theory, sensors that were supposed to detect that trick, but they never worked right outside a research lab. The air was thick with the remains of explosives, enough to set the sensors bleeping away like mad. It would be impossible to distinguish between a real threat and a false alarm.
Another series of explosions crackled out, and then stopped. “Sir, we have some trying to surrender,” the tanker said. “Permission to take prisoners, sir?”
“Have the infantry deal with them,” I ordered. I wanted to kill them all after what they’d done, but I wouldn’t sanction a massacre. “Use the heavy protocols and keep them separated from the other prisoners. Don’t use locals to guard them, not after this; we’ll have to hold them ourselves.”
The fighting was slowly dying away as the infantry advanced, carefully, into a nightmarish maze. We’d broken through in three places and convinced most of them that it was time to surrender, even though the tanks weren’t good at accepting surrenders. Shots still rang out as isolated holdouts attempted to make a stand, only to be crushed by overwhelming firepower. I wasn’t going to risk more lives to capture people intent on dying and taking some of us with them. I watched the stream of naked prisoners, watched by heavily armed soldiers, as they filed out of the complex, their eyes grim and worried. They had cause to worry. I doubted that the planet’s population would suffer them to live.
“We’ve got the remainder barricaded into the centre building, but they’re refusing to surrender,” Ed said, sharply. “What do you want to do with them?”
“Pull back and let the mortars take care of them,” I ordered, grimly. I wanted to get my hands on the leadership, but if they were unprepared to surrender… well, the butcher’s bill was too high already. We were the most formidable military force on the surface of the planet and we’d lost at least fifty men in the fighting, probably more. It would have to wait until we’d totalled them all up, but every loss meant an irreplaceable soldier gone. “Contact the spaceport and tell them to rush extra supplies out here. We’re going to need them.”
A final set of explosions saw the centre building crashing down into a pile of rubble. The infantrymen probed it carefully, dispatched two mortally-wounded enemies, and then declared it safe. Peter refused to allow me to go forward into the remains of the complex, so I remained outside while Ed led the infantry and the local soldiers in a careful sweep of the entire area. A handful of IEDs were found and detonated from a distance. We could have disarmed them, but there was little point. I watched as the reinforcements arrive, having seen the damage the Communists had inflicted on the city, and warned them to treat the prisoners firmly, but gently. I’d have to deal with those who had treated them badly later, after I’d had a rest.
“Send them all to the guardhouse,” I ordered, when Ed raised the issue. He pointed out that it might be wise to deal with it now. “Tell the ones who beat prisoners that they have a choice between a month in the nick” — the guardhouse prison — “or running the gauntlet. The one who molested… I’ll deal with him later. There’ll have to be a court convened on that one.”
“Yes, sir,” Ed said, without argument. We couldn’t just hang our own people out of hand, regardless of what I wanted. We had to hold a formal court-martial. “Will you be observing the gauntlet?”
“Maybe,” I said, signalling for Peter and the driver. “I’m going to report back to the government headquarters and then get some sleep. Once C Company takes over the security here, get some sleep yourself. If the crisis in Pitea gets out of hand, we’re going to have to move down there and deal with it.”
“That’s not going to be easy,” Ed warned. “Most of our transport is already overstretched.”
“I know,” I said. Pitea was seventy miles from New Copenhagen. It might as well be on the moon. We could march there in a couple of days, but we’d still have to fight at the far end. We’d just have to round up whatever transport we could. “We’ll deal with that tomorrow.”
Frida, I discovered when we arrived back at the stadium, had moved operations to one of the massive houses belonging to the elite. It wasn’t a bad choice. The President’s family owned a large house which they’d agreed could be used by the government, or what was left of it. Frida took one look at my tired face — I doubt I looked worse than her — and ordered me to bed. For once, I was quite happy to comply and the servant showed me to a room fit for a king. I showered, shaved, and came out to discover Suki sitting on my bed.
I stared. She was wearing a nightdress that left nothing to the imagination. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Why…?”
She interrupted me with a deep kiss. I felt myself responding automatically. “I want to feel alive,” she whispered. “I want… I want you, now.”
Perhaps I should have refused, but I felt horny too. A second later, we were in bed together, barely pausing for foreplay. It had been too long for me and the pressure of combat — and the joy of being alive — pushed me on. The night sped by very quickly.
Chapter Thirteen
The purpose of war, as a wise man once remarked, is not to die for your country, but to make the other person die for his. The role of laws of war, therefore, is to avoid endangering your forces; force protection is the first priority, always. The safety of your men — insofar as war can ever be termed safe — is more important than the safety or the dignity of the enemy.
When I awoke, I wondered for a moment where I was. It wasn’t my bunk in the spaceport, or my tiny cabin on the Julius Caesar, but somewhere far more comfortable. A slight movement told me that there was a person — a woman — in my bed and memory came flooding back. Last night… we’d slept together; no, that was too mild a term. We’d fucked so violently that I was surprised I hadn’t drawn blood.
“Welcome back to the world,” I muttered, and pulled myself out of bed. The room in the President’s house was larger than any house I’d had myself, although I’d spent most of my adult life on military bases of one kind or another. Apart from the massive four-poster bed, there was a smaller washroom complete with a shower and a window that looked out into the city. The plumes of smoke seemed to have faded away.
Suki stirred under the covers and sat up, exposing her breasts. I felt a sudden surge of arousal I tried to push down, but failed. “Hi,” she said, rather nervously. “I just… I just wanted to… you know.”
“I understand,” I said, gravely. “It always happens after a combat mission; men and women get horny. It’ll have happened all over the city and there’ll probably be a population boom in the next nine months.”
“Oh,” Suki said. One hand rubbed a bite mark on her left breast. “I’ve taken my pills for the month. There won’t be any children for me.”