Marten’s stomach grew queasy. Since there wasn’t much to say about that, he shrugged and kept tracking the ruins.
Suddenly, one of the enemy dead behind them stirred. He was minus an arm, and only one eye worked. He looked up and stretched his torn lips in a dreadful smile as he reached for his detonation button. That caused his elbow to scrape against concrete. Stick whirled around, saw him, drew and fired.
Marten nodded his thanks. He’d give the enemy this: they fought to the end—the little good it did them. Stick probably had it right. The enemy generals had to realize their situation couldn’t last forever. The Highborn ruthlessly hunted the nuke-launching submersibles and pared their numbers. Perhaps worse for the enemy in Tokyo, the orbital laser station religiously hunted down and burnt the artillery if it wasn’t quick enough to relocate. But worst of all for the enemy were the Highborn who’d crawled forward and studied their tactics. Just like a few minutes ago, FEC troops fell back at the first sign of attack, so hopefully artillery shells exploded upon empty areas. Often Highborn gun tubes fired then, upon the Japanese assembly areas, uncannily catching them at just the wrong moment. The battle was like a clumsy vid-wrestler fighting a cunning knifeman. The knifeman made deadly little cuts and avoided the wrestler’s grapples. But if the wrestler ever got a good hold or if he knocked the knife away…
Relentless day and night shelling and the first-day softening nukes of the original Highborn attack had turned the buildings, streets and the near-surface tunnels of Tokyo into rubble and ruin, and that made wonderful defensive terrain. In a week of fighting tens of thousand of Japanese soldiers had died hideously; burned, shot, gutted and blown to bloody bits. According to the latest reports, more enemy engineer and flamer troops were being rushed up from deep within Tokyo. Sigmir had told them that in ages past flamethrowers had been used for close combat. The flamer was the modern progeny. It discharged a short-range glob of plasma and could kill even heavily armored Highborn. Marten had seen it happen, and he’d seen the rescue teams rushing to the Highborn to take them back to the hospital submarine to resurrect them if they could.
The Highborn who’d studied the enemy had made their reports and recommendations. Now the Highborn colonels and captains intensively trained the FEC soldiers in even smaller unit tactics. Instead of platoons and companies being the units of maneuver and fighting, it had become the individual sniper and the storm group. Storm groups were built around the three-man tripod flamer crew. To support the flamer the others carried sniper lasers, gyroc rocket carbines, machine pistols, and grenades for close-in work. This was no longer street fighting in the usual sense. To stand in the open was too dangerous. Most of the fighting took place inside the ruined buildings or near them.
As he scanned the rubble, Marten uneasily rolled his shoulders. “They’re not finished here today,” he whispered, feeling the enemy out there.
“Should we fall back?” asked Stick.
Marten considered it, and then shook his head. High Command had at last ordered them to stop retreating. The week of relentless enemy frontal assaults had driven the FEC formations too far out of position for High Command’s ulterior plans, or so Sigmir had told him this morning.
Before Omi’s team replaced his, Marten fought off two more Japanese probes and one more wave attack. He and his assault group of eight men slew forty-three enemies, losing only the throat-shot private in return. By Highborn standards, it was an excellent morning’s work.
Finally he and his team humped back to company HQ, a hundred meters behind the twisted wreck of a Samurai tank. Holes in the ground were the entrances to the various bunkers.
Petor, the single-eyebrowed Muscovite bodyguard, rose from where he squatted and snapped his fingers.
Marten turned and pointed to himself. Petor nodded, his stimstick waggling in his mouth. Then Petor squatted again before the hole-in-the-ground entrance, with his carbine over his knees.
Marten slipped past him and within the cramped command bunker. It was a simple hole with a thick slab of plasteel for a roof. Despite its crudeness, it was impervious to everything but a direct hit from one of the larger shells. A small bulb on a table provided muted light. Sigmir sat in the only chair, while Kang sat impassively on a stool. The Lot Six Highborn poured over a map of Tokyo.
Sigmir noticed Marten, looking up long enough to say, “Lieutenant, good of you to show.” Then he went back to studying the map.
There weren’t any more chairs or stools, so with his head bent Marten shuffled near and examined the map. A red circle had been drawn around the merculite missile battery that was now far away.
Sigmir peered at the map, as he said, “No more retreats.”
“So you told us this morning.”
“Correct. Now we have two more days to prefect our techniques.”
Marten glanced at Kang. The huge Mongol sat with his eyes nearly closed. He never spoke in Sigmir’s presence unless asked a direct question. Only once had Kang spoken about Sigmir to Marten. He’d said, “You’d better watch out. Sigmir will kill you soon.”
“Then help me kill him,” Marten had said.
Since then Kang rarely spoke to him, no doubt distancing himself from a doomed fool.
“Do you understand what the ‘no retreat’ order means?” asked Sigmir, his weird eyes glittering intently.
Marten nodded.
“But you’re merely a preman,” chided Sigmir. “How could you possibly know?”
“Captain, sir, if you’ll tell me how I’ve disobeyed your orders I’ll—”
Sigmir laughed, cutting Marten off.
Marten glanced at Kang again, who now seemed to study the map with deeper interest.
“You misunderstand me,” said Sigmir. “Yes. You follow orders… most of the time. But for the moment that’s not my concern.”
“Sir?”
“No more retreats,” said Sigmir. “Two more days to refine the new tactics. That means only one thing. Can you guess?”
Marten shook his head.
“Why, the order to advance, of course.”
“Advance?” Marten asked in disbelief. “That’s insane.”
Sigmir’s smile vanished. He studied Marten. “How is it that you feel qualified to make negative comments regarding High Command’s strategies?”
“Through logic, I suppose.”
“Logic!” spat Sigmir. “Say rather: a sheep’s bleating.”
“I take it we’re to be reinforced then.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“A second orbital laser platform will be dedicated to us?”
With a thick finger, Sigmir stabbed the location of the merculite missile battery. “I must be the one to storm it.”
Marten lifted an eyebrow. “Just you? I’m impressed.”
Sigmir grinned madly. “The Slumlords and I. They, and you, will join in my glory.”
“I’m sure they’ll be thrilled to hear it.”
“Does glory mean so little to you, Lieutenant? Then fix your thoughts on gaining higher rank.”
“Never mind the glory or the higher rank. I’d just like to survive Japan.”
Sigmir sadly shook his head. “What a pale goal you’ve given yourself, especially when so much is offered you.”
“Offered me?” Marten said, perhaps too impudently.
Kang looked up, and then quickly peered at the map again.
Marten understood it as a warning, but he didn’t care. The endless fighting reminded him too much of the Sun-Works Factory around Mercury, of his mother and father who had died there. That caused the carelessness that had landed him in the slime pits. “I’ve never been offered a real choice.”
“No?” asked Sigmir.
“If I’ve gotten anywhere it’s because I acted in my best interests, never because of the choices offered me.”
“Well said! Once the Slumlord Battalion realizes that its best interest lies with me they will strive to join me in my glory.”