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Chapter Forty


Downport, R’Bak


With alarms howling and people either fleeing from or into the city, one more motor ketch entering Downport Bay attracted less attention that it would have normally. It certainly attracted less than the seaplane that had appeared well to the north an hour before. Indeed, most of the panicked, pointing fingers had been quickly swatted aside by the dockhands who recognized the aircraft as a frequent regular in the port. As if to prove just how unwarranted the concern had been, the big-bellied craft—recognizable as Umaren’s Loklis—dropped beneath the rim of the land, apparently landing someplace slightly out to sea.

Consequently, when the small ketch motored up to one of the freighters tied up along R’Bak Downport’s busiest—and now, most frenzied—wharves, no one even noticed the two figures that clambered up the cargo netting hanging over its bayward side.

Bo Moorefield was only halfway up when Max Messina paused him with a raised palm. “Me first, sir.”

Bo didn’t like having a bodyguard, was impatient to get aboard, and disliked remaining aloft on a flimsy grid of ropes, but Moose was no doubt obeying Murphy’s orders. Moorefield nodded.

With surprising alacrity, Messina was up the rest of the netting in a three-count and pulled himself over the gunwale.

Resolved not to obsess on feeling like the last target standing at a carnival huckster’s popgun booth, Moorefield used every interminable second to survey the soon-to-be battlefield.

The big ship immediately behind the freighter had been purpose-built as a roll-on/roll-off cargo hauler. As such, it carried the attack force’s heavy armor; designated “Roro One,” it had the ramps and heavier hull to not only get its vehicles off quickly, but stand up to moderate punishment while it did so.

By contrast, the ship to which Bo was affixed like a flimsy barnacle had been dubbed “Roro Zero.” Mostly, that was because it wasn’t a true roro; it had started out as a conventional freighter. However, at some point, surveyors had converted a relatively small, hull-side cargo door into a full-sized ramp that lowered out of its side like a drawbridge.

Bo had no nautical inclinations, but even he knew that the transformation was either an indication of dubious intelligence or downright desperation. It was wrong in so many ways that brevity was best served by listing what was right about it. All of which reduced to the fact that, although it shouldn’t have, it worked. The violation of its hull integrity had either inspired its masters to be exceedingly cautious, indicated their phenomenal luck, or a bit of both. And on reflection, Bo’s own reason for choosing it to carry his first echelon of AFVs may have been the rationale for its conversion in the first place: unlike a genuine roro, it was much smaller and easier to maneuver. Which meant it also attracted less attention.

However, the latter consideration was proving to have been unnecessary. The docks were filled with panicked workers, mariners, merchants, and surveyors roiling like the population of a freshly kicked ant’s nest: much motion without any apparent coordination. However, several began waving to a seaplane—half the size of Egret Three—as, feathering its props, it began drifting toward a debarkation float. Moorefield smiled, recognizing a fanciful marking on the starboard vertical stabilizer, or “fin,” of its twin tail: one of ours.

“Major!”

Bo looked up; Max’s broad face was smiling down at him. “Everything in place, Moose?”

“I wouldn’t quite put it that way, but they are definitely ready for you, sir.”

Mystified, and with a sinking feeling in his gut, Bo resumed scrambling up the cargo netting.

* * *

“Stop,” Bo said sharply. He resisted the urge to rub his suddenly throbbing temples. “I need you to tell me precisely what was happening when the ATV got hit.”

The captain—young for the role and chosen as much for reliability as skill—also proved confident even when called on the carpet before the very, very frustrated officer in charge of the entire operation. She nodded curtly. “The vehicles were crewed and their engines were on lowest idle. When we reached H-Hour, I followed the protocol for contacting the port authorities.”

Moorefield regretted having to ask the question, but it was necessary. “Captain, were you the one who initiated the contact?”

“No, sir. As per your orders, I put my XO on the line to handle the exchange.” She nodded at a man older than Bo, with a scar that crossed his eye and left it a murky gray orb.

And not the faintest hint of being offended that we had to go with an older male, given the misogyny of this place: she’s a great find. He turned toward the XO. “Was there anything atypical about the exchange?”

The older man grunted out what might have been a dismissive laugh. “Only that they didn’t even ask the most basic questions about us. Just accepted the credentials we presented when we put in yesterday and today they jumped off the wireless like a cat on a hot stove.”

“Did they accept your offer of assistance?”

The man shrugged. “Barely acknowledged it. They were still in a panic about whatever is happening in space.” He gazed upward. “Don’t suppose you can tell us anything about that, sir?”

Can I? Sure, but: “That is need to know.” He shifted his gaze back to the young captain. “So, there was no sign that they suspected this ship was carrying armored attack vehicles or troops?”

“None, sir.”

“What did you do next, Captain?”

“We waited until we got the signal that Umaren’s Loklis—uh, Egret Three—had landed outside the bay. We counted down the ten-minute delay and then began lowering the vehicle ramp. Before doing so, I personally confirmed that the lead vehicle—the only that would be visible when the ramp was lowered—was the civilian ATV with the hidden grenade launchers. Other than the driver, there were only four troops on it and they were lying on the floor of the passenger compartment so they could not be seen.

“Again, as per the operation orders, we did not fully lower the ramp until we had word that your ketch had been spotted. As soon as we did, there was a loud blast—a cannon, we later learned—and the vehicle was hit as it moved out on to the ramp.”

“Was the driver rushing or maneuvering evasively?”

She shook her head sharply. “No, sir. He was edging it out, as instructed. Nothing that would appear suspicious.” She drew in a tense breath. “He reversed, but the cannon shell apparently hit the left-side track; it starting running off the road wheels. He made it back into the hold before he died.”

“Fragments?”

“Concussive shock, sir. Internal injuries.”

So, a pretty big gun. “And there were no further attacks?”

“None, sir. But port authority contacted us.”

“With what instructions?”

“None, sir. It was to inquire if the ship had been hit and if there were casualties.” She paused. “They weren’t speaking to us as if we were enemies. It was more as if they were worried about someone ashore having made a mistake for which they might be liable.”

“And since then?”

She clenched her jaw before answering. “We knew you were near, so I waited, sir. With a vehicle disabled at the head of the ramp and no further fire from the shore . . . well, sir, knowing you’d soon be aboard, I felt it likely that you would wish to revise our next steps, rather than activate the ‘fast exit’ contingency.” She glanced sideways at her XO.

Who rolled his eyes.

“You feel that was a mistake, mister?” Bo asked sharply.

The old mariner started. “I—I do, sir. We were found out. We needed to act quickly. We lost the initiative.”

Or your captain kept them calm during a pivotal moment of uncertainty. Bo looked back at the captain. “You did the right thing, Captain. It seems they were, and have remained, unconvinced that this ship is a hostile. With the events in space causing panic here, I suspect they’ve already got their hands full and don’t have the time to deal with a situation that doesn’t seem threatening.”

“Why do you think they fired on us, sir?”

Bo shrugged. “Confusion is a much greater force on battlefields than most people realize.” He stared out the bridge’s landside windows. “Did anyone see where the shore gun—?”

“Sirs,” the helmsman’s mate interrupted nervously, raising a hand and index finger, “I think—”

The thick thunder of an M2 machine gun rose over the low roar of the crowds. Bo leaned sideways to look past the captain’s shoulder.

The twin-tailed seaplane that had motored up to the float two berths in front of Roro Zero had popped a side hatch and was firing up at surveyor-suited figures crouching behind the bollards. It wasn’t clear who—

—and then Bo found himself pinned low against the bulkhead at the rear of the bridge. Max smiled down apologetically. “We gotta get you away from all these windows, sir.” He shouted a more blunt warning to the others, half of whom had the good sense to crouch down; the other half were gaping at the sudden firefight in the bay.

Bo shook Max off. “I’ve been under fire before, Sergeant.”

“Yes, sir, but with all due respect, you’ve never been the commander-in-theater.” He smiled. “It’s why you got code-named SHAEF, after all.”

Moorefield would have argued—if he could have.

A shore gun thundered; the glass shook. “That’s not a high-velocity tube,” Bo muttered as a water-muffled explosion geysered up someplace out in the bay. “A one-twenty, at least.”

“At least,” Max agreed.

Crouching, the captain waved them toward the stairs that led down to the chart room directly below. Bo wondered if, by the time they looked out its safer portholes, the seaplane would still be there.

* * *

They were peering out a porthole when the third shell took off the seaplane’s portside wing, engine and all. The vehicle listed hard, righted, but the cockpit was a webwork of shattered and missing glass.

“Probably more than one hundred twenty millimeter,” Bo murmured. “How the hell did we miss them?”

“You never see everything, sir.” Messina sighed. “And from the look and sound of it, they must have tucked the guns in empty warehouses just beyond the dock’s landside berm.”

Bo nodded. “No other way to have hidden it.” Beyond all reason, the seaplane’s waist machine gun was still cutting into the security team that had apparently been unfortunate enough to be on hand and to ask for credentials when it pulled up. No other surveyors or their satrap-furnished auxiliaries had shown up yet, but that was just a matter of time.

Bo leaned away from the porthole as a grease-covered grandfather shinnied up the ladder into the chart room. “Report from the hold, Captain!”

She turned, nodded. “Quickly.”

“Aye. That blasted ATV just burst on fire, ma’am.” In response to her surprised frown, he shook his head. “I know, I know; fooled us all. Shrapnel must have cut through the chassis and hit a fuel line. We got it under control, but it’s diesel and it’s still smoking. Choking the crews and troops, Cap’n. We need to get the smoke out. Can we relower the ramp?”

Before she could answer, Bo stepped forward. “Does the hold have evacuating fans?”

The old salt blinked. “Aye. But they won’t get out all the smoke.”

“We don’t need ‘all.’ Just enough.”

“Enough for what, sir?” asked the captain.

“To get this offensive moving.” He gestured back toward the seaplane. “The surveyors are alert now. But they’re also distracted. So we get the vehicles out: now.”

“But sir, the guns—”

“The guns are going to be there until we do something about them. And the best time to do that is while they’re busy. Better yet, for a few crucial moments, we can make it appear that this ship is on fire—and can use that as a brief smokescreen. Chief,” he turned to the grimy engineer.

“Just a mate . . . but aye?”

“Take me to the vehicle bay. Captain, I need your radio operator to start patching through to the command tracks below.”

She swallowed but nodded: a job they’d planned on having thirty minutes to accomplish now had to be done in seconds.

He smiled at her determination and grit. “You’re going to be our comms center, until you can hand that off to Roro One. As soon as you have, get a sitrep from them.”

“Sitrep on—?”

“Spaceside operations.” He waved the engineer’s mate down the ladder.

* * *

The last five rungs down into the cargo-deck-become-vehicle-bay was like descending into a level of hell that Dante had left out of The Inferno. At least it wasn’t on fire, but the smoke was as black and acrid as anything he could have imagined. Sullen, coal-colored clouds hung low around the extinguisher-frosted ATV.

Bo took a moment to assess the obstacle. The left front of the vehicle resembled twisted modern art, and the roadwheel just behind the drive sprocket had been blasted clean off. That quadrant of the chassis was sagging toward the deck and about a tenth of its narrow gauge tread had spooled off. It would have been an easy job for a tank recovery vehicle, but on R’Bak, more basic methods would be required.

The crewmen of the other vehicles and their troop complements were staggering around through the smoke and the noise of their own shouting and coughing, calling to find anyone who knew who was in charge. Or at least someone who had any reasonable idea of what to do next.

Bo ran down the vehicle load in his head, glancing around as he did—and found the vehicle he was looking for: a small armored car with double-quad grenade launchers on either side of its tiny turret. He had a momentary impression that he was approaching Dumbo as he put his hand on the hood: it was electric, making its idle unusually subtle. And with the noise around him, and the vibration of at least a dozen diesel engines running through the deck, he had to look up toward the vehicle commander, who was talking to someone in the vehicle behind his.

“Hey!” Bo called. “Is this thing running?”

The vehicle commander turned abruptly, squinted through a billow of black smoke. “Who wants to know?”

“Your commanding officer, Major Hubert Moorefield.” He jumped up on the glacis plate. “Remember this voice and this face,” he shouted, as much for emphasis as clarity. “They’re the ones you’re going to take orders from.”

“Sir! Yes, sir!” The commander nodded sharply: the local salute. He hasn’t served with one of us before; no Terran salute, but instant respect. For once, Moorefield was glad for his Lost Soldier accent. Initially, reactions to it had been suspicion or even prejudice. But right now it got him the reflexive authority and compliance he needed.

He scrambled up to grab a handhold between the clustered grenade launchers. “Give me your handset.” He nodded at the psyops speakers, which had been the other reason he’d sought this particular vehicle. “Angle the speakers wide to either side.” As the vehicle commander complied, he switched the handset to public address and held down the send button.

“This is SHAEF.” His voice boomed back at him from the corners of the cavernous bay. “Those of you with command priority three or above should be familiar with that word: it’s the codename for the commander of this operation. I am Major Hubert Moorefield. You will be taking orders directly from me until further notice. Combat teams remount immediately. We are moving out.” Baffled faces turned toward him; two senior sergeants pointed to the intermittently guttering ATV blocking the ramp. Bo shook his head, bellowed. “Stand by. Freighter hands to the ramp controls. Vehicle commanders: I will guide you out.”

Bo was able to cover the handset before the armored car’s commander could sputter out a startled “S-sir?”

“Just follow my orders.” He smiled. “I’ve done this before.” He toggled the handset. “Track five, next to the bay door. Wave if you can hear me.” The commander in the very small turret of that very large APC crossed his arms vigorously several times. “Excellent. Ram that wreck out of the way.”

“Sir?”

“You heard me: ram it out of the way. Clutch out, rev your engine, then clutch in and hit the ATV in the side. Keep pushing until it’s clear.”

“But, Captain, that will push it into the recce car just across—”

Bo had already waved the small team in that recon vehicle to abandon it. “Do it, son. Right now. We have two choices: we get out of here or we die in here.”

The big APC seemed ready to shake apart as its engine spun up. Crews and troops alike covered their ears against the roar-and-whine of its turbine.

Which abruptly became an enraged squealing of heavy treads as the vehicle leaped forward. It wasn’t moving very fast when it hit the much lighter ATV, but its engine’s RPMs kept the APC moving forward. As its commander had predicted, it drove the wreck straight into the abandoned recce car.

But access to the ramp was clear. The APC reversed to its prior position—a few road wheels squealing—as the ship’s fire crew charged toward the two mauled vehicles, ready to douse new flames and smother new smoke.

Because Bo had pored over his order of battle so often, he knew all the vehicles in each of the three transports carrying his attack force. He leaned toward the pale, sweaty face of the armored car commander. “Where is track three? No: that’s Kaladar Six, now. Any idea?”

Almost timidly, the fellow pointed at the vehicle just behind them. “Right there, sir.”

Bo glanced at the vehicle to ensure that it was the same as the description from the TOE roster. Similar to the one Moorefield had commanded during the Battle of Imsurmik, this one was slightly more modern. The main gun only had a seven-centimeter bore, but was fitted with a thermal sight and a coaxial hypervelocity autocannon. The meanest beast in the bay.

He extricated himself from the double-quad grenade launchers. Max stood ready to help him down. Bo shook his head, glanced back at the armored car’s commander. “When I give the signal, you’re going to take this vehicle over the ramp straight onto the dock. Not racing; prudent speed.”

“Me, sir? This little vehicle?” He looked at the humble machine gun that was the turret’s main armament. “The first?”

“Correct. And once you’re off the ramp, you are to turn hard left and head down the wharf with the throttle wide open. Warn civilians out of the way, but do not stop. You have only two objectives: don’t get hit, and dispense smoke every twenty meters. I want the shore gun’s crew trying to zero in on you, but after the first two smokes, your vehicle will be screened. And remember: shore guns that big can’t track with you.” And given that no one has ever attacked this port, I’m betting that they don’t know how to lead a target, either.

“Sir,” the commander gulped, saluting. “As fast as we can drive: yes, sir.”

Bo nodded, climbed over the back of the engine deck, Max following him with a hangdog expression.

Bo hopped over to the glacis of Kaladar Six. Senior Lieutenant Hax Uruns smiled at him from where he stood in the commander’s hatch. “It is a pleasure, and an honor, to meet you in person, Major.”

“Likewise, Hax.” Bo glanced at the smoke dischargers on either side of the gun mantlet. “Are you loaded for smoke or antipersonnel?”

“Both, sir.”

“Can you select?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Set for smoke, and prepare to move out.” Moorefield managed to keep the order calm and firm, rather than the whoop that it wanted to be.

Max positioned himself directly in front of Kaladar Six. “Sir, I believe your orders are to remain in the CP. Which, right now, is this ship.”

Bo’s forehead became a rage-hot band of sweat. “The CP is wherever I am, Sergeant Messina.”

“Sir, that’s not the colonel’s understanding. Or intent.”

“Sergeant, are you trying to countermand my orders?”

“No, sir. I am very respectfully reminding you that the colonel issued extremely specific directives on this. Perhaps given all the activity, you’ve forgotten the exact phrasing.”

But I’ll bet you know it by heart. Bo leaned forward, spoke in a broad Southern accent that usually made him impossible for R’Baku to understand. “You’re not here as just my security. You’re here to make sure I don’t violate Murphy’s ‘rules of engagement’ for his command staff.”

“Sorry, sir. Those are my orders.”

“No doubt. But do you see anyone else here with my skill set, Sergeant?”

“No, sir.”

“And what’s Murphy’s first priority: keep me alive—or take Downport?”

For the first time in Bo’s knowledge of Maximiliano Messina, the big man did not have a ready answer. “Not sure that I know the answer to that, sir. But given all that’s at stake . . . ” He sighed and grumbled, “Lead on. You’re going to do what you have to, anyway. But I’m going to stick to you like glue.”

“Glad to hear it. Besides, I’m not long for this world, anyway.” Max raised a puzzled eyebrow. “Murphy will have my head—and my ass—for this.”

“No, sir,” Max said, displaying an easy familiarity with how best to hang on the back of a turret during an armored assault. “It’s not the colonel’s style to punish someone for demonstrating the kind of initiative that gets the job done. But if something happens to you?” Max shook his head. “My ass will be grass and Murphy’s the lawn mower.”

Bo turned back to Hax Uruns, fighting a grin. “Main tube load?”

“I just changed it to smoke, sir.”

“You read my mind, Lieutenant. Signal the ship’s crew to lower the ramp and reverse the evacuators; let’s blow smoke in the Kulsians’ faces. While they’re arranging that, run a quick comms check. Confirm that the formation is to follow your track in the original order. If there’s a snag, AFVs have priority.”

Moorefield dropped down into the observer’s hatch, tilted the feed from the thermal scope so it was level with his eyes. “Stand ready to fire as I direct.” He popped his head over the hatch ring and shouted at the armored car commander. “As soon as the ramp is down, move out!”

He settled lower to get the best view of the thermal imaging screen. It was nowhere near as good as what he’d been used to in an Abrams, but was comparable to second-tier NATO systems.

The armored car rolled toward the ramp. Hax Uruns held his driver in check for a two-count before following toward the bright square that marked the opening in Roro Zero’s hull. As they accelerated through it, the armored car’s tires squealed as it hung a hard left and raced south along the wharf, kicking out one smoke grenade as it did.

Kaladar Six had just begun bumping across the ramp when a shore gun’s report almost deafened Bo and a long jet of light bloomed in his thermal sensor feed: the shot had gone well behind the armored car.

“Twenty degrees right!” Bo yelled. “Fire two rounds smoke!” Then he hastily added, “Cheat short!” Used to the eerily precise weapon stabilization and target tracking system of the Abrams, he wanted to make sure that if the main gun’s two rounds didn’t go true, its smokes landed in front of, rather than behind, the shore gun.

The good news was that the first round was so accurate that it might actually have hit the gun itself. The bad news was that Bo had to fling around for, and find, ear protection just as Kaladar Six thumped down onto the wharf and its gunner sent the second round downrange. Even half deafened, Bo knew that it was old-school ear-pro: no smart filter to kill the audio peaks. No surprise, though, given the Kulsian avoidance of digital anything.

But at least it was patched into comms. “Roro Zero, this is SHAEF, over.”

“SHAEF, this is Roro Zero actual. Go.”

“Report effect. Report other guns.”

“SHAEF, Roro Zero reporting first target smoked in. Other fire indicates at least one more gun, southwest your—”

A blinding hot circle appeared in the thermal sensor.

Bo jerked back—pointlessly—as Kaladar Six shuddered and the thermal sight seemed to fail—but then cleared.

“What—?” began Hax, who’d never yet been in a fight with an enemy equipped with comparable weapons.

Bo interrupted. “Incoming hit the berm.” Which was only six meters away. “Discharge threw dirt at our sensor. Cleared. Acquire and fire! Two smokes!”

In the next ten seconds, Hax Uruns demonstrated why Tapper had recommended him as the best native tank commander. He calmly talked his gunner on target, got one shot away as he directed the driver to follow the berm down the wharf, and sent off the second round as he guided Kaladar Six into a hull-down position.

He glanced over at the Lost Soldier of legend. “Now, what, Major Moorefield?”

Bo smiled, pushed himself up out of the hatch.

“Sir!” Uruns shouted, alarmed as the commander of the entire invasion force started back over the deck.

Bo called back toward him. “Get me a pair of road flares.” As Hax complied, he nodded back toward the freighter’s ramp; it was visible but dim. “The breeze is pushing our own smoke back at us. I’m going to guide the other vehicles off Roro Zero.”

Max opened his mouth.

“Not a word, Sergeant. Just do whatever you can do to keep me safe as I make sure our tracks don’t crash into each other and block the wharf. Hax, hold this position. Keep yourself smoked. Pull an infantry team from an APC to provide local security. You’ve got two jobs; keep those shore guns blind and keep our people moving down the wharf until they reach the freight marshalling area. As they make that run, they are to discharge smokes to landside. If the surveyors put out foot teams with rockets or heavy weapons, they’re going to try to pick our vehicles off as they go past single file. So, never the same interval. Got it?”

“Got it. But if they disable a track?”

“The next track with enough power pushes it over the edge.”

“Sir, the crew—!”

“We could lose a lot more crews if we get jammed up on a one-lane road with no way off. Carry out your orders.”

Flares in hand, Moorefield ran down the center of the deck; the heat of the engine made it feel as if he was running across a just-doused grill. He hopped off between the radiators, popped the first flare, and ran toward the big vehicle that was gingerly feeling its way down the ramp: the now noisy track five. He waved the flare wide and slow.

The silhouette of the commander called for a halt and then dipped down—probably to give the driver a directive kick.

Like a bull seeing a cape, the heavy APC came forward quickly. Bo waved it left as soon as its rear drive sprocket was no longer over the water. It pivoted sharply and roared down along the wharf toward the jagged skyline of the ancient city that poked above the flat buildings of the downport.

Bo smiled, used his flaming wand to summon the next armored demon into daylight with the large gestures and couldn’t help but think:

SHAEF wasn’t the right code name. Because here I am, directing traffic—just like Patton at the Bulge.


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