“Not doing so bad on that front, lass,” Milne said. He sucked on a big clay pipe for emphasis, every inch the solid reliable NCO. “I’ve been training up a few lads, teaching them tricks of trade, like. We can’t use electrical circuits, of course, not our type. So we’ve gone back to basics. I’ve come up with a nice little mix of chemicals for an explosive; we’re shoving it into booby traps as fast as we can make ’em.”
“What kind of booby traps?” Delvan asked.
“Anti-personnel mines, ground vehicle snares, primed buildings, spiked pits; that kind of thing. Soi’s been showing us what he used to rig up when he was fighting. Right tricky stuff, it is, too. All with mechanical triggers, so their sensors won’t pick them up, even if they can get them working under the red cloud. I’d say we’re due to give Hiltch’s boys a load of grief once they cross the firebreak. We’ve also rigged bridges to blow, as well as the major junction flyovers along the M6. That ought to slow the buggers down.”
“All very good,” Delvan said. “But with respect, I don’t think a few scraps of rubble will make much difference to their transport. I remember the tanks we used to have, great big brutes, they were. But by heaven they could crunch across almost every surface; and the engineers have had seven centuries to improve on that.”
“Ruining the road junctions might not make a huge impact, but it will certainly have some effect,” Soi Hon said impassively. “We know how large this Liberation army is, even in these times that makes it unwieldy. They will use the M6, if not for front line troops, then certainly for their supplies and auxiliaries. If we delay them even by an hour a day, we add to the cost. Slowing them down will also give us time to respond and retaliate. It is a good tactic.”
“Okay, I’m not arguing with you. But these booby traps and blown bridges are a passive response. Come on man, what’ve you got that’ll allow us to attack them?”
“My lads have found quite a few light engineering factories and the like in Chainbridge,” Milne said. “The machine tools still work if you switch ’em to manual. Right now, I’ve got ’em churning out parts for a high velocity hunting rifle. I don’t know what the hell that sparky machine gun is that the souls have seen Hiltch’s boys practising with. But I reckon my rifle’s got an easy twice the range of ’em.”
“They’ll be wearing armour,” Delvan warned.
“Aye, I know that. But Soi’s told me about kinetic enhanced impact bullets. Our armourers are doing their best to produce them, you’ll have a decent stock in another few days. We’ll be able to inflict a lot of damage with them, you see if we don’t.”
“Thanks, Milne,” Annette said. “You’ve done a great job, considering what you’ve had to work with, and what we’re facing.”
Milne cocked his pipe at her. “We’ll put up a good account of ourselves, lass, no worries.”
“I’m sure.” She gazed round at the rest of her commanders. There was a good range of emotions distributed among them, from clear nerves to stupid over-confidence. “Now we know roughly what our own capabilities are, we need to start working out how we’re going to deploy. Delvan, you’re probably the best strategist we have . . .”
“Butt-headed traditionalist,” Soi Hon muttered sotto voce.
Annette raised a warning eyebrow and the old guerrilla made a conciliatory shrug. “What is Hiltch likely to do?” she asked.
“Two things,” Delvan said, ignoring Soi. “Firstly, their initial assault is going to be a lulu. He’ll throw everything he’s got at us, on as many fronts as he can afford to open. We’ll be facing massive troop incursions, this wretched space warship bombardment, aircraft carpet bombing, artillery. The aim is to demoralise us right from the start, make it quite clear from the scale of the Liberation that we’ll lose, drumming it home in a fashion we can’t possibly ignore. I’d recommend that we actually pull back a little way from the borders of the peninsula; don’t give him an easy target. Leave it to Milne’s booby traps to snarl up his timetable, and stall any immediate visible success he wants to lay on for the reporters.”
“Okay, I can cope with that. What’s his second likely objective?”
“His target missions. If he’s got any sense, he’ll go for our population centres first. Our power declines with our numbers, which will make his mopping up operation a damn sight easier.”
“Population centres,” Annette exclaimed in annoyance. “What population centres? People are deserting the towns in droves. The councils are reporting we’re now down to less than half the numbers we had in urban areas when we took over Mortonridge. They’re like our deserters, heading for the hills. Right now we’re spread over this land thinner than a pigeon’s fart.”
“It’s not the hills they’re after,” Soi said, his soft tone a rebuke. “It’s the farms. Which was only to be expected. You are well aware of the food situation across the peninsula. Had your efforts been directed at developing our civil infrastructure instead of our military base, it would be a different story.”
“Is that a criticism?”
His gentle laugh was infuriating, mockingly superior. “A plea for industrialisation, from me? Please! I regard the land and the people as integral. Nature provides us with our true state. It is our towns and cities with their machines and hunger, which have birthed the corruption that has contaminated human society for millennia. The defence of people who chose to live with the land is paramount.”
“Okay, thanks for the party manifesto. But it doesn’t alter what I said. We haven’t got that many population centres to lure Hiltch’s forces into ambush.”
“We will have. I suspect Delvan is correct when he says Hiltch will want to open with a grand gesture. That should work in our favour. As always when a land is invaded, its people pull together. They’ll see that as individuals they can offer no resistance to the Liberation forces, and they’ll flee their isolation in search of group sanctuary. We will gather ourselves together as a people again. Then the battle will be joined in full.”
Annette’s growing smile was a physical demonstration of the satisfaction spreading through her thoughts. “Remember Stephanie Ash, what I told her about having to decide whose side she was on? That self-righteous cow just stood there smiling politely the whole time, knowing her world view was the real thing and that I’d come round to her way of thinking in the end. Looks like I’ll have the last laugh after all—even if it is only a short one. Damn, I’m going to enjoy that almost as much as I am bollixing up my dear old friend Ralph’s campaign.”
“You really think we’ll be able to start recruiting into the regiments again?” Delvan asked Soi Hon.
“Can you think of nothing but your own position and power? It is not the regiments which will inflict the worst casualties, but the united people. Group ten of us together, and the destructive potential of our energistic power is an order of magnitude greater than any artillery the Liberation forces can bring to bear.”
“Which is less than one per cent of the lowest powered maser on a Strategic Defence platform, and that’s before we get into the heavy duty systems like their X-ray lasers,” Annette said, tired of their bickering. “It’s not our numbers which matter, but our ability to communicate and organise. That’s what we have to safeguard until the last of us is shoved into zero-tau.”
“I agree,” Delvan said. “The whole war is going to be an extremely fluid situation from the start. Lightning strikes, hit the bastards and run, are what we should be planning for.”
“Exactly, that’s where I expect you two to combine for me. Your overall strategy, Delvan, combined with Soi’s tactics. It’s a lethal alliance, the equivalent of the Kingdom and the Edenists.”
“An inspired comparison,” Soi chuckled.
“My pleasure. All right, let’s start looking at the map, and see who we’re going to send where.”