A Private Little War(76)

He’d caught a detachment of distant air cavalry from Applied Outcomes who’d been operating far to the south just as they were preparing to pull out. He’d raised their radio op late in the night and asked him what their situation was.

“Situation? We have no situation, man! We are gone. We’re fragging the lifters and pushing them into the sea. Dust-off is en route. What are you guys doing up there?”

“Holding fast,” Ted had said, mostly because he couldn’t bring himself to speak the truth and couldn’t yet make himself ask for the help he needed—for a ride out, offering anything and everything they had for lift weight and space for fifty-odd troopers stranded far from home.

“Holding fast? Holding fast to what, Chief? Charlie Mike is on the way, and he don’t much care for our sort.”

Charlie Mike: the Colonial Marines.

“Roger that,” Ted had said. “How are you flying out?”

“Ranger hot tails, straight from the home office. We are out, friend. Eighty-fucking-six and good-bye. Do you have exfil waiting?”

“Yeah,” Ted lied. “In orbit, but we’re sticking it out.”

“Crazy, man. I’d hate to think of you stuck here, though. We’ve got orbital flares reading north of us, maybe near you. Supply runners. You heard that Natives R Us is dropping in on this party, right?”

“I’d heard that. We’ve been getting a little action from them.”

“Yeah, that was our sign to bug out. If I’d wanted a fair fight, I would’ve joined the army.”

“Tell me about it.”

“Hey, you know Connelly? That ape from Eastbourne Services? He’s staying, too. You should call him and try to talk him into hitching a ride with you when you go.”

Ted had cut the connection after that. He couldn’t take it anymore. Hour by hour, day by day, the radios were growing more quiet, the planet of Iaxo slowly being returned to those who’d had the misfortune of being born here. He kept the planes flying, kept the patrols going, but he would not commit to any engagement—afraid of what might be waiting for his men, his planes. If he was going to be abandoned here, left all alone, then he needed to conserve them. Husband his resources. Wait for his company to come to their senses, call him, say that all was forgiven and a ride was on the way.

He was afraid. With the Om in his ears and his eyes squeezed shut, he could see everyone leaving him behind—the bright sparks of transport freighters maneuvering in distant, high orbit, and the shuttles, the hot tails, climbing for them atop pillars of fire.

Too late, he had fluttered his fingers at the radio, trying to call back the radio op from Applied Outcomes. He would ask him for a ride, offer him anything, admit that he’d lied—that his company was abandoning him here to death or prison or worse, and that there was no exfil waiting for them in the sky. No ride. Nothing.

He’d beg if he had to. Promise anything. He’d punched in the frequency and waited.

“Hello? Alpha Oscar radio op, this is Ted, do you read? This is Commander Prinzi. Do you copy?”

But there was nothing. The frequency was cold and dead. And slowly, the silence grew.





In the longhouse, planes were rotated in and out for refitting and maintenance. Engines were tuned up for combat, guns were changed out, broken down, cleaned, and tested. Any machine showing stress from two years of inconstant use was put through a thorough overhaul, and that work alone was enough to keep the lights on day and night. Blackout curtains had been hung to keep that light where it belonged—inside, and not spilling out into the darkness where it might give away the airfield’s position to any sneaky indig with a howitzer in his horse cart.

The Akaveen indigs—the ones on whose side the company was currently not fighting—took the opportunity to pour troops across the ford and into what was previously enemy territory. From the sky, the pilots watched long, snaking files of them tramping across the lowland plains and dreamed of strafing them just because there was nothing else to do; they dreamed of attack angles, the hard hammering of machine guns, and the sweet release of weight as undercarriage bombs were let go.

Infantry, archers, gangs of cavalry, and long, shuddering supply trains moved into positions that stretched for miles up and down both banks of the river and ten miles deep into the other side. To the south, the bridge was taken with surprisingly little effort by a mixed force of local indig light infantry—raggedy-ass militia armed with spears, pikes, clubs and farm implements. They’d been the vanguard of a larger sweep downriver and held the position until help arrived in the form of heavy, organized infantry and native engineers who cleared the area and set about lazily building muddy fortifications.