Ed looked over at me. “A hidey-hole nearby?” He guessed. “Or maybe more of those damned blankets?”
“Perhaps,” I said. The fires were starting to burn themselves out already, much to my relief. Burning down half the surrounding area would not have endeared us to the locals, although we would have to clear fire lanes in the morning anyway. The darkening skies probably presaged an attack on the fort. How many fighters had the enemy managed to slip up under cover? “Pilot, are you picking up any signals from the shuttle remains?”
“No, sir,” the pilot said. “There’s nothing, but the heat flare; the black box must have been destroyed in the explosion.”
“Return to scanning pattern and do a better job of it this time,” I snarled, and cut the connection. As the temperature dropped, it would be harder for them to hide under shielding blankets or any other form of cover. “I don’t think there’s any point in recovering the remains of the shuttle before morning, so push out A Company and set up the defences as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” Ed said. I looked back towards the dying fire and winced inwardly. If the black box had been destroyed, and there was no locator beacon blinking away in the distance, there was no hope at all that the crew had survived. “Do you want to call for extra support from the spaceport?”
I considered it. It would be useful to have more men, but the only way to get them here would be by land and that would take time. They’d also be coming up in the dark, which wasn’t something I would condone if there was any choice in the matter. The best of sensors couldn’t pick out hidden IEDs and mines in the darkness and the experienced soldiers wouldn’t be able to use their eyes. We might have the advantage of night-vision equipment, but I was prepared to bet that the enemy would have countermeasures in place. It was a risk that didn’t seem warranted.
“No,” I said, finally. “I’ll talk to Robert and have him prepare a second convoy at first light, and then we can send back some of the vehicles from here and prepare for a long stay. You get the defences sorted out; I’ll call home and explain what happened to the shuttle.”
At Peter’s insistence, the communications gear had been moved down into one of the bunkers — I think it had originally been intended to store ammunition; it had the right kind of smell — and set up there. I smiled to myself as I checked the equipment quickly and established a link through the Julius Caesar, back down to the spaceport. The enemy might be able to tap into our radio transmissions, even if they couldn’t decrypt them, but they wouldn’t be able to intercept the laser beam we were using from the fort. Peter had set the transmitter up personally and locked it onto the transport starship. It was just a coincidence — of course — that the William Tell couldn’t intercept it either. I didn’t want Fleet listening to everything I had to say.
“I’ll get B Company and two local units prepared and ready,” Robert said, once I’d made contact and updated him about the situation. “The local media is making a right fuss over the reoccupation of the fort; they’re calling it a slap in the face to secessionist opinion.”
“I bet they are,” I said, sourly. The local media seemed to spend half its time vilifying the farmers and miners as the villains of the piece, convincing the urban residents that all their prejudices against the farmers were fully justified. If the farmers were listening to it, they were probably on the verge of declaring independence and forcing the city-dwellers to work or starve. Their own media was much more restrained, but concentrated on how many of them were going to lose their farms and the clothes of their backs under the new regime. The irony was that I had half a plan to deal with the situation, yet I needed to win time… and that meant fighting the farmers.
“I’m afraid so,” Robert confirmed. “On the other hand, the reoccupation of the fort has been good for our morale as well. They’re a little surprised it happened without anyone hearing about it, but now the news is out…”
I shrugged. I’d been on operations that had been announced to the media well before the fighting actually began and, because of the advance warning, had gone horrifically wrong. Sometimes the enemy had just abandoned the positions they had known we were going to attack; at other times, they’d dug in and fought to the death. There hadn’t even been any way to know what we were facing until it was too late, just because the media had ruined the intelligence work. I’d have cheerfully shot half of the reporters I’d met if it had been allowed. I understood that quite a few of them had been killed in the wake of John Walker’s coup.
“Just say operational security if anyone asks,” I said, seriously. I hadn’t even told the local government about the planned mission. I was sure that they could be trusted — as if — but in my experience, politicians couldn’t help, but blab about everything they knew. The political leaders might be officially above suspicion, but their aides weren’t, nor were their wives, mistresses, catamites and relatives. The less they knew in advance, the better. “I don’t want any more leaks if it can be avoided.”
“Understood,” Robert said. “On a different note, one of the anti-farmer demonstrations turned violent. Two hundred people are dead or badly wounded and Main Street was pretty torn up. We ended up having to use tear gas to break up the riot and send most of the rioting scrum right into the detention camp.”
I swore. “What happened?”
“We’re not sure,” Robert admitted. “Apparently, one of the student groups in the university decided that some of the local leaders were linked to the farmers in some way and came out on the streets against them. One of the people they accused was a former trade union leader and some of his supporters launched a counter- demonstration, which led to several other groups becoming involved and a riot breaking out. The soldiers on duty were under orders to keep away from any demonstrations unless they were ordered to intervene specifically and… well, by the time they were ordered to intervene, there were too few of them to do anything, but fire into the crowd.”
He scowled. “I told them to stay back until we could get reinforcements over there,” he added. “Once we got several more companies over there, we used gas to break up the riot and send most of them fleeing for home. The remainder we arrested and dumped in the camps.”
My earpiece buzzed before I could respond. “Sir, we have major incoming enemy forces,” the UAV pilot said. “At least two hundred of them, approaching from the north, armed to the teeth.”
“I’m on my way,” I replied. If Peter had his way, I’d be stuck in the bunker during the entire fight, but I had other ideas. “Robert, I’ll be back at the spaceport tomorrow, depending upon events. Just keep the rioters penned up and then… well, they’re locals, so let the locals sentence them. Did any of us get killed?”
“No, sir,” Robert replied. “A couple of soldiers got pretty banged up and a third had an accident with a tear gas capsule, but none of us were killed.”
“Good,” I said, hiding a smile. Tear gas wouldn’t actually kill a soldier with the proper vaccinations, but no one would ever let him forget it. “I’ll see you tomorrow them. Over and out.”
The sound of shooting — brief isolated shots — could be heard in the distance as I came out of the bunker and into the yard. Ed had deployed his men carefully and put the snipers — complete with night-vision gear — in positions where they could fire, without being hit easily themselves, although the enemy snipers were also just as good. The farmers and miners had to have been training for years, although perhaps it made sense; there were some pretty nasty creatures up in the mountains. Svergie didn’t have anything comparable to the Heinlein Gnasher or the New Washington Neo-Scorpion, but it had bear and tiger analogues. The locals probably learned to shoot very quickly; the beasts had certainly developed a taste for human flesh.