He snorted. “I must be mellowing in my old age,” he added. “Time was when I would have shot those bastards for daring to show cowardliness in the face of the enemy.”
“You’ll outlast us all,” I snapped. It was probably true; Heinlein had sold the regeneration treatments to almost all of its citizens. It was just something else that the UN propaganda machine had turned into a great injustice perpetrated against the UN. “And the other departments?”
Russell frowned. “The tankers and gunners need a hell of a lot more training,” he said, firmly. “In fact, as you know, I was opposed to sending them into battle at all, but there was no choice. Even so, I would recommend that we attempt not to commit them again until they have had much more training and experience. As for the gunners… they need more training as well. If we had used them without supervision in the recent battle, there would have been far more friendly deaths, caused by our own shooting.”
There was a long pause. “We lost nine helicopters and had two more badly damaged,” Captain Erica Yuppie said. The Airborne commander scowled as she looked at me. “Seven attack helicopters were blown out of the sky by their SAM missiles and two transports were picked off while they were vulnerable. We do have replacements for the vehicles here, sir — the locals have allowed us to replace our losses — but training an attack helicopter pilot is not an easy task. We’re desperately short of reinforcements and we don’t have locals who can stand in.”
She looked down at the table. “We barely started work on developing a training program for local pilots,” she admitted. “We need to push that forward as hard as we can and get replacements in the air before the shit hits the fan again. At the moment, we barely have seven attack helicopters and nine transports capable of being deployed. If we are called upon to serve in our normal role, that of assisting an advance against dug-in enemy forces, we will have serious problems meeting our obligations.”
“I know,” I said. She was right, too. We didn’t have the numbers to absorb such losses without feeling the pain. “Get a list of what you need and expand the training program as fast as you can. I’ll authorise the expense.”
“Excuse my ignorance,” Muna said, “but couldn’t you borrow some of the shuttle pilots from the transport?”
“They have a different set of skills,” Erica said, grimly. “If they could fly attack helicopters, I’d have borrowed them in a split second.”
I looked over at Robert, who smiled dryly. “The spaceport defences were barely tested during the insurrection,” he said. “I think the Communists preferred to have a go at people who might not fight back. There were a handful of mortar rounds that were fired into our defences, but the point defence took them all out before they could crash down and actually damage something. I don’t expect that we’ll be as lucky the next time, but for the moment, we’re safe enough here.
“On the other hand, we need to expand the patrols around the base perimeter and watch out for mortar teams or SAM teams trying to slip into range,” he added. “We might well lose a shuttle to a SAM and if that happens, the cost of replacing it will be considerable.”
“See to it,” I ordered. Shuttles couldn’t be produced on Svergie; they lacked the technical base to even begin to construct the ships. We’d have to ship in a replacement from a more advanced world and the shipping costs would push up the overall price astronomically. Most shuttles come with the starships; a new one, built to our specifications, would be costly, even if we could find an old UN-surplus craft. “Apart from that…?”
“Nothing that needs to be discussed in council,” Robert said, a way of saying that he had everything under control. The UN would have insisted that I kept an eye on him — and everyone else — permanently, but that would have just driven me mad. I trusted them to handle their sections and wouldn’t think any less of them if they had to ask for help. “There are a number of semi-permanent relationships forming between the men and the local help, but so far there haven’t been any incidents because of it. It seems that merely wearing a military uniform can get you laid in New Copenhagen at the moment…”
“So naturally you went and tried it out,” Ed said, quickly. I smiled and some of the others laughed openly. “Did it work?”
“I only got my cock sucked seven times and had sex three times, so clearly it was a failure,” Robert said, dramatically. There were more chuckles. “Seriously, though, I don’t think we have to worry too much about the issue, but I’ll keep a close eye on it, just in case.”
“Good,” I said. Soldiers have something of a mixed relationship with the hired help. Some would be white knights in shining armour, others would just see the girls as a convenient outlet for their lusts… and the Sergeants would have to separate the two. Svergie, at least, allowed prostitutes to operate — although I have never seen a world that managed to suppress prostitution — and so there were other outlets. “Muna, you’re up last.”
“Thank you,” Muna said. I’d been worried about having her out of bed so quickly, but she’d insisted and the medics hadn’t been able to keep her down. She looked tired and wan, but most of the bruises had faded back into her pitch-black skin. It bothered me that her captors had been killed in the fighting; I wanted to cut their throats myself and hear their screams. Indecent it might be, unhealthy it was not. “Our logistics position is not good.”
Everyone sat up straighter as she continued to speak. “We expended considerable amounts of ammunition and supplies in the recent… ah, unpleasantness,” she explained. “The basic assault rifle ammunition, grenades and even mortar shells can be replaced here. The problem is two-fold; we lack the ability to replenish our supplies at such a rate of expenditure. We have enough stored ammunition for several weeks of fighting, but after that we will suffer considerable shortages. We need time to rebuild our supply deports.
“Furthermore, we’re unable to replace certain items completely,” she continued. “It will take months, maybe as much as a year, to rebuild some of the more vital factories from Pitea. Specifically, we are unable to replace tanks, helicopters and various other heavy equipment until those factories are rebuilt… and we are unable to replace artillery shells completely. The UN always shipped them in from Earth and never gave consent to a local arms industry. What they have was built after the occupation ended and… well, it’s not that good.”
“True,” I agreed. There had been so much abandoned on the planet that it seemed unthinkable that we would ever run out, but I’d never seen a military operation that used less ammunition than predicted. We’d expended ammunition like it was water, but there had been no choice. Lives were much harder to replace when we didn’t have access to Earth’s bottomless supply of flesh. “How much can we replenish before the next set of elections are held?”
“Not much,” Muna admitted. “Let me put it this way; we’d be well advised not to fight another such war for a year.”
“A shame most wars can’t be timed,” I commented, dryly. Back in the dim past, human tribes had engaged in ritual warfare rather than real warfare, all according to a script. We didn’t have that luxury, if luxury it was. I looked over at TechnoMage. “Is there anyone else considering trouble?”
“We have most of the Communist ringleaders and their upper levels in custody,” TechnoMage said. “As far as I can tell, those who were on the fringes of the Communist movement have disowned their fellows and are currently sucking up as much as they can to the legitimate government. The smaller small fry, the ones we missed, seem to have vanished underground completely; I don’t think we can expect much more from them than the occasional terrorist attack, if they don’t disband completely.