"The problem is," Oprescu went on, "that the seventy-three casualties aren't limited to the bunion-heads in the lower ranks, not when a Molt can pop out of the air in the middle of an officers' barracks that chances to be too close to a lump of granite."
Radescu's heart stopped for an instant and his eyes, unbidden, flicked sideways to Sergeant Bourne. The mercenary noncom grinned back at him, as relaxed as the trigger spring of his submachine gun. It struck the young Oltenian that there was a flaw in his plan of engaging gunmen to do what he could not have accomplished with guns alone: you have control over a gun as you do not over a man . . . not over men like those, the soft-featured lieutenant who was willing to kill for a matter of principle, and the scarred sergeant who needed far less reason than that. In Radescu's mind echoed the sergeant's gibe in the jeep: "What's he going to do? Sentence me to death?"
But Bourne smiled now and the moment passed with General Forsch saying, as he gripped his biceps with bony fingers, "Of course the Molts have a—feeling for the casualty ratio, too; and while they're not as formally—organized as we—" he blinked around the conference table, finally fixing Radescu with a look like that of a small animal caught at night in the headlights. "Ahem. Not as structured as we are. Nonetheless, when they feel that the fighting is to their disadvantage, they stop fighting—save for random attacks far behind the 'lines,' attacks in which they almost never suffer losses."
"Then," said Alexander Radescu, wishing that his voice were deep and powerful—though surely it could not be as tinny as it sounded in his own hypercritical ears—" we have to shift our strategy. Instead of advancing slowly—" "ponderously" was the word his mind suppressed a moment before his tongue spoke it; the lavish interior of the conference room had taken on a somewhat different aspect for Radescu since the mercenary lieutenant sneered at it "—into areas which the Molts infest, we shall make quick thrusts to capture the areas which make them vulnerable: the nursery caves."
"We cannot advance quickly," said General Vuco, who was more able than the others to treat Radescu as a young interloper rather than as the man with demonstrated control over the career of everyone else in the room,"so long as everyone in the assault must expect attack from behind at every instant. To—" he made a gesture with his left hand as if flinging chaff to the wind "—charge forward regardless, well, that was attempted in the early days of the conflict. Panache did not protect the units involved from total destruction, from massacre.
"Of course," Vuco added, directing his eyes toward a corner of the ceiling, "I'm perfectly willing to die for the State, even by what amounts to an order of suicide."
He dropped his gaze, intending to focus on the play of water in the alcove across the table from him. Instead, the Oltenian's eyes met those of Lieutenant Hawker. Vuco snapped upright, out of his pose of bored indolence. His mouth opened to speak, but no words came out.
"The mercenaries we hire, Hammer's troops," said Radescu, suppressing an urge to nod toward Hawker in appreciation,"manage well enough—or did,"he added, glaring at his elders and new subordinates, "until our failure to support them led to what I and the Tribunate agreed were needless and excessive casualties, casualties not covered by the normal war risks of their hiring contract."
Now for the first time, most of the senior officers looked up as though Hawker and Bourne were specimens on display. Vuco instead rubbed his eyes fiercely as if he were trying to wipe an image from their surface. Hawker accepted the attention stolidly, but the sergeant reacted with an insouciance Radescu decided was typical, making a surprisingly graceful genuflection—a form of courtesy unfamiliar on Oltenia and shockingly inappropriate from a man as ruggedly lethal as Profile Bourne.
"All very well," said General Forsch in the direction of the Slammers but answering Radescu's implied question, "if we had the detection capability that the mercenaries do. They have time, a minute or more, to prepare for an attack, even when they're moving."
Radescu's eyes traversed the arc of the divisional officers and General Forsch. His mind was too busy with his present words and the action which would develop from those words in the immediate future, however, for him really to be seeing the men around him. "Nonetheless," he heard his voice say, "General Forsch will determine a target suitable for sudden assault by Oltenian forces."
It was the intention he had formed before he accepted his uncle's charge, an intention vocalized here in the conference room for the first time.
"Troops for the exercise will come from Second Division. Generals Iorga, Vuco, your staff will coordinate with mine to determine the precise number and composition of the units to be involved in the exercise."
Radescu blinked. It was almost as if he had just opened his eyes because the staring officers sprang suddenly back into his awareness. "Are there any questions, gentlemen?"
General Forsch leaned forward, almost close enough for his long neck to snake out to Radescu's hand like a weasel snapping. "Youth will be served, I suppose," he said. "But, my leader, you have no idea of what it is like to battle the Molts on their own ground."
"I will before long, though," said Alexander Radescu as he rose in dismissal. "I'll be accompanying the force in person."
The sound of his subordinates sucking in breath in surprise was lost in the roar of blood through the young general's ears.
* * *
The most brilliant strategy, the most courageous intent, come alike to naught if the troops are marshalled at one point and their transport at another. The command group had scuttled out of the conference room with orders to plan an assault which none of them believed could be carried through successfully.
Radescu waited until he heard the door bang shut behind the last of his generals, Forsch; then, elbows on the table, he cradled his chin in his palms while his fingers covered his eyes. He did not like failure and, as he came nearer to the problem, he did not see any other likely result to his attempts.
It occurred to the young general that his subconscious might have planned the whole operation as a means of achieving not victory but solely an honorable excuse for him not to explain defeat to his uncle. The chances were very slim indeed that Alexander Radescu would survive a total disaster.
His pants legs were not only filthy, they stank. How his generals must be laughing at him!
"Sir . . .?" intruded a voice whose owner he had forgotten.
"Ah, Lieutenant Hawker,"said the Oltenian general, his personality donning its public mien as he looked up at the big mercenary."Forgive me for not dismissing you sooner. I'll contact your colonel with thanks and—"
"General," Sergeant Bourne interrupted as he strode to the nearest chair and reversed it so that its back was toward the conference table,"those birds're right so far: if you just bull straight in like you're talking, your ass is grass and the Molts'll well and truly mow it. You need support—and that's what you hired us Slammers for, isn't it?"
Bourne sat down, the weight of his gear suddenly evident from the crash it made when it bumped the chair. The sergeant's legs splayed to either side of the seat back which rose like an outer, ornately carven breastplate in front of his porcelain armor. The mercenary's method of seating himself was not an affectation, Radescu realized: the man's belt gear and the bulges of electronics built into the shoulders of his backplate would prevent him from sitting in a chair in the normal fashion.
"I thank you for your concern, Sergeant," Radescu said—had he ever before known the name of an enlisted man? He really couldn't be sure. "Colonel Hammer is no longer willing to divide his own forces and trust the Oltenian army to carry out its own portion of the operation. When I have proved my troops are capable of—active endeavor—on their own, then I believe we can come to an accommodation, he and I."