“It’s more than high priority, Colonel,” Gavin Norris said from the back of the room. “It’s our only hope for communicating with Earth. We need to reestablish FTL communications with the folks back home.”
“That would be desirable, of course, Mr. Norris, but that’s not a good reason for risking additional casualties. The International Relief Force is six months behind us. There’s nothing Earth can do to speed them up…or even to warn them if something goes wrong here.”
“The FTL link is vital to our work here, Colonel.”
Who the hell had the bright idea of inviting a freaking civilian on this joyride? Warhurst thought, angry. He’d had his fill of micromanagement and ROEs—the ubiquitous Rules of Engagement—in Egypt. He’d expected eight light-years to be more than enough breathing room, at least when it came to interpreting orders. Evidently, he’d been wrong.
He was tired. His body ached inside the unrelenting embrace of his armor. The Mark VII’s microtubule filtration system was supposed to suck up the sweat he’d been dumping into the suit, but he still was sticky, hot, and miserably filthy, and he felt damned close to being ready to negotiate a deal involving his soul and a hot shower. During the attack earlier on the north wall, he’d been in the Lander One CP, trying to coordinate communications…and perhaps drag the makeshift net online, without success.
And, damn it, he was jealous of Ramsey. The colonel had seen some of the fighting, and he’d been stuck in the damned LM.
He wasn’t Wayning this thing, he didn’t think. It was the principle involved. Half of his assault force had been killed taking that mountain. He was a company commander, not a REMFing general. And he thought he saw a way that would let him set things straight.
Listening to King’s petty bitching and Norris’s corporate kibitzing, Warhurst wished he could scratch beneath his armor or, better, peel it all off and take a long hot soak.
“Another thing, Colonel,” Norris was saying. “Your men reported firing on the pyramid. If a stray round hits the Eye, that could wreck the facility’s usefulness. I’d like you to pass the word to your troops not to fire into the Chamber of the Eye.”
“Again, Mr. Norris,” Ramsey said quietly, “we’ll do our best…but no promises. So far as I’m concerned, your precious FTL communicator is not worth the life of a single Marine. But it is my intention to take that pyramid in order to deny its use to the enemy.”
“I can’t say I’m impressed with your spirit of cooperation, Colonel. General? You know what I’m talking about.”
“Yes, Mr. Norris. I do. And I remind you, sir, that Colonel Ramsey is in operational control of this MIEU, while I have responsibility for the overall mission. At this point, until we can induce the Ahannu leaders to begin negotiations with us, or unless we regain a significant orbital capability or an operational Net, I’m just along for the ride. I can offer criticism, I can offer advice, but he is in charge of the routine operations on this beachhead. Is that clear, sir?”
Warhurst opened his eyes at that. This was new. Maybe old King wasn’t such a flaming son of a bitch after all.
“Thank you, General,” Ramsey said. “Captain Warhurst? You have an operational plan sketched out, I gather?”
“Yes, sir. I think we have the means for a vertical envelopment.”
He began laying out the plan he’d worked out during the past few hours. It was risky in some ways but held a fair promise of success.
City fighting—close-quarter combat in built-up urban areas—was the dirtiest, nastiest kind of fighting there was, with every building a potential bunker, every wall a stronghold, every window a possible sniper’s nest. Multistory buildings were the worst, with attackers having to fight their way up each stairwell against a well-covered enemy who had gravity on his side. Modern combat doctrine stressed attacking strongly defended buildings from the top down, when possible—vertical envelopment, it was called—using VTOL/hover landers like the Dragonflies.
“We employ two Dragons,” Warhurst explained, moving four wooden chips, stacked two and two. He placed one on the pyramid, the other nearby. “One for the assault, one in reserve. I have some of my people working now on rigging a bunch of twelve-pack sling harnesses with quick-release catches. Secure a couple to the tail boom of each TAV, and we can have twenty-four Marines on top of that pyramid—forty-eight if we need them—in a couple of minutes. We place our snipers inside the compound—here…here…here…maybe on the rooftops of some of the Legation buildings—and have them cap anything that moves on the pyramid during the Dragon’s approach.”