Extremis (40 page)

Heide still avoided looking either right or left. “There must have been a communications oversight. It was my intent that he be informed promptly.”

I’ll bet
, McGee almost said—but a cooling look from Harry Li helped him hold his tongue.

Cap Peters pressed on. “With all due respect, Brevet Captain, I must point out that the accumulated record of this command’s treatment of Sergeant McGee is beginning to look suspiciously prejudicial. When one considers the severity of the charges you were proposing against the paucity of relevant evidence, the flat denial of any privileges while he has been confined to quarters, and now this unusual failure to communicate the dismissal of the treason inquest, it could be construed that this command has failed to deal equably with Sergeant McGee.”

Chong chimed in from the other flank. “And in the midst of this, I have witnessed that Sergeant McGee has been extremely active and effective in helping other NCOs and junior officers plan mineshaft and industrial sabotage. In addition, he personally reviewed and supervised the improvisation of construction explosives into military-grade demolitions charges. In the process of providing this kind of leadership, and through the meticulous analysis and research he conducted to craft his attack plan, he has demonstrated extraordinary growth as a mentor, a tactician, and—if we were to consider his former rank—as an officer.”

And all while putting in two hours of calisthenics a day, not including kata,
thought McGee, who waited to see what affect these arguments would have upon Heide.

Still Heide looked neither right nor left. His moustache—which he had groomed into an almost invisible line just above his upper lip—seemed carved in stone for a moment. Then, without looking at McGee, he ordered: “Show me the plan.”

McGee nodded and unrolled three maps upon the table. At first, Heide seemed unsure of what he was looking at but then appeared to recognize the shoreline of Melantho’s Salamisene Bay on each map. But only one of the maps showed building outlines. The rest depicted—

Heide leaned back. “These are…are engineers’ and contractors’ maps of the subterranean structures of Melantho.”

McGee nodded. “Specifically, moving from east to west, the Heliobarbus District at the foot of the bay, the Empty Zone, and then the West Shore District.”

“Why? Why these?”

“Captain Heide”—McGee longed to put the deflating
Brevet
prefix on like everyone else, but he needed Heide’s good opinion now more than ever—“I propose to lead an assault team directly into Baldy Central.”

“What? Their deorbited city?”

“No, no, not that part. The part of Melantho they’ve taken over from us—West Shore.”

Heide’s smile was one of incredulity, perhaps ridicule. “And what are you planning to do? Assassinate their leadership?”

“No, sir. I plan to exfiltrate at least half of the artists they are holding. And in the process, we’ll teach the Baldies that there is no safe place for them on Bellerophon. Even if they’re sitting right in the center of their stronghold.”

Heide had risen. “And in the bargain, you’ll rescue your girlfriend and your infant son. Yes, I see where this is going. And I am not going to commit battalions of our troops to your personal—”

“Sir, I estimate I’ll need a strike force of one section, possibly reinforced by a two-man anchor-watch. Plus about ten individual operators who will have no direct role in combat operations. They will be responsible for attack preparations and moving automated assault packages into place. They will either be outside of, or exit, the area of operations beforehand.”

Heide did not sit, but nor did he start toward the door. “Thirty-two personnel, total?”

“I could be off by two or three, but no more.”

“It would have to be an all-volunteer force.”

Cap cleared his throat. “As of today, we have over a hundred volunteers, Brevet Captain.”

“And did you solicit them yourself, Lieutenant Peters? I have warned you that your personal attachment to McGee is—”

“Brevet Captain,” murmured Chong, “in consideration of how Lieutenant Peters’s involvement might appear to you, it was decided that
I
should be the one to selectively share a nonclassified outline of the plan and solicit the volunteers.”

Heide started to chew at his upper lip, then stopped himself testily. “I see.” He sat. “And so in exactly what fashion have these men volunteered to commit suicide? A frontal charge?”

McGee pointed to the maps. “No, sir. An underground infiltration.”

“Sergeant, unless my knowledge of cartography is quite flawed, there seems to be no contiguous subterranean route connecting what is currently the westernmost human area of Melantho—the Heliobarbus District—with the parts occupied by the invaders in the West Shore District.”

“Exactly, sir. After they demoed the transport tubes during the first week of occupation, there were no direct subterranean connections across the Empty Zone.”

“So, then how do you plan to reach their compound underground?”

“By making some very new openings in a few very old walls. See, Captain Heide, look at these maps in overlay. Basements, access shafts, run-off sluices, sewer systems—in fact, two different sewers put in at different times—and lastly, these big supply lines that used to bring coolant water straight from the Bay and into the mothballed fusion reactors. Now follow this line with me…” McGee drew a semi-tortuous path through the various chambers and tunnels and conduits that riddled the ground beneath the streets of the Empty Zone. “That’s only four demolition points, Captain, for which we’ve got safety surveys less than three years old. And since we’re not taking in any dedicated heavy weapons, we’ll be able to move very quickly.”

“No heavy weapons?”

“No, sir. None are needed. We’re going to surface right inside their perimeter. These maps indicate that we’ll come up in a building immediately adjacent to the one which is our target.”

“Oh? And how have you determined where Ms. Peitchkov and the infant are located?”

Chong placed a report in front of Heide. “The doctor’s report, sir—the one who tended to the infant several weeks ago. He fixes the location with certainty, and identifies the complex as one that was used by the university’s psychology and cognitive studies annex. Ms. Peitchkov was specifically being housed in the lab accommodations used for sleep-pattern studies. The arrangement—observed living quarters with all the necessary space for long-duration observers, recording gear, et cetera—is optimal for their purposes of either extended debriefing or an attempt to study humans in close proximity. The likelihood that they would move Ms. Peitchkov from this site is deemed negligible. And besides, our current intelligence sources would probably indicate a shift of their operations if it involved relocation to another building.”

“Exactly what do you mean by ‘current intelligence sources’?”

McGee kept himself from smiling. “Lieutenant Chong is referring to our aerial photo reconnaissance missions.” And McGee spread out an assortment of old-style aerial photos on the table: digital 2-Ds, every one. The framing and angle of some of them seemed either inspired or insane.

Heide pored over them. “Where did you get these? How did you do it?”

“Birds, Captain.”

“Birds? What do you mean?”

Cap Peters was smiling. “This one really takes the cake, Heide. McGee starts asking about the folks who used to work in the behavioral labs in the University’s West Shore annex—the ones the Baldies have commandeered for their own use. It turns out there had been a long-standing project to determine how Terran transplant species—like gulls and sparrows and geese—still manage to orient themselves and travel despite the fact that they’re no longer inside the magnetic fields where they evolved. When I heard that Tank was asking questions about it, I figured he’d cracked under the strain of—well, I figured it was just nonsense. But no, he wanted to know how they were trained to fly from point A to point B and so forth. Three weeks later, I’m sitting with two underemployed professors who’ve been reduced to adjuncting at the main campus of Philomena University, arranging for undercover ‘student volunteers’ to help them train gulls and crows to fly from the hills beyond West Shore to one of three visible landmarks across the bay in downtown Melantho. These experiments were integrated into their ongoing research program, which was rubber-stamped by the Baldies as part of their hands-off policy. And so, by releasing these birds on flight paths that took them right over the objective, and rigged with continuous feed micro cameras…” Cap Peters waved a hand at the photos on the table. “Voila.”

Heide frowned. “You were very lucky to get such good images, and of the places you wanted.”

McGee kept his voice level. “Captain, with respect, luck had nothing to do with it. For every one of the pictures on the table in front of you, we had twenty thousand that were utterly useless. This was just a lot of repetitious work. But then again, I had a lot of time on my hands.”

“And do these photographs fix the location of your objectives?”

My “objectives”? Huh. When your girlfriend and child are your “objectives,” it certainly gives new meaning to the word.
“Sir, our objectives’ locations are fixed by solid operational inference. The traffic in and out of this building shows it to be, beyond doubt, the site where all the hostages are being held. This is the same building the pediatrician visited. In addition, we’ve detected live-crewed defense emplacements here, here, and here, and charted the eight weapon blisters that can bear on our area of operations.”

“They will send more.”

“Unquestionably. But their stand-off heavy weapons will probably not be as effective here. The Baldies are not really rigged for dedicated military operations, and their laser designators do not seem to be multi-spectral.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning when we go in, we should carry a good supply of prismatic anti-laser aerosol grenades, which will also give us a smokescreen. The reflective and refractive qualities of the aerosol should play holy hell with their laser designators.”

Heide nodded: a breakthrough in his demeanor. “Which will deeply compromise, or even eliminate, their ability to call in pinpoint fire support from the blisters.”

“That’s our thinking.”

“Those anti-laser aerosols are milspec gear, you know—special use only.”

McGee met Heide’s gaze squarely, but without allowing any confrontation or defiance to creep in. “Yes, sir. I am aware of that.”

Heide seemed to study him closely. “Good. Just so you’re aware. We can’t spend them like party favors.”

Significant looks passed between Chong and Peters: against all odds, Heide seemed to be buying into the plan. Light Horse grinned widely for one second—and then reacquired his perfect poker face.

“Now, Sergeant,” Heide continued, “let’s walk through this by the numbers, presuming you make it into the compound. Let’s assume limited defensive contribution from the weapons blisters, but what about their on-site troops?”

“Captain, we’re going to take casualties, but I suspect that most of them will be from chance encounters as we’re following along to the lab/observation areas where Jennifer and my son are being held. Since we’re minimizing milspec use, we’re only going to have light armor—nothing more than Kevleuron Two torso protection. So if we get hit, it’s a roll of the dice.”

“What kinds of personal weapons has your reconnaissance observed on site?”

“Pretty much the usual Baldy mix. The ubiquitous machine-pistol, which has that weird donut magazine—they wear the contraption like a bracelet. Their standard long-arm is only seen in full military detachments, but we’re sure to run into it, since it seems to also be the standard equipage for crew in the emplacements and on any fast-response teams. For those of you who haven’t seen it, it resembles a high-tech multipurpose rifle. Old-style brass cartridges.”

“Brass?” said Juan Kapinski, who had remained inside the room after bringing in the chairs—and whose monosyllabic query now earned a stare from Heide.

“Yeah, Juan, I know. Brass was old before we hit the stars. But it has advantages—and for folks who expect to be pioneering rather than conquering, it’s a natural. Easy reload, easy to handle, stable in most conditions—which means that the weapon which fires it can be kept simple also. All of which reduces the logistical drain on a start-up colony. It’s about as good a model of this kind of rifle as has been made: rugged, light, reliable. Wide diversity of ammunition types: in addition to basic ball, we’ve seen discarding sabot, dum-dum, and SLAP. It’s selective fire, but in the autofire mode it’s pretty anemic—about 220 rounds per minute. Not great for close assault or high-volume suppressive fire, but easy to control and, with its recessed bullpup drum magazine, they won’t have to reload often. The most sophisticated part of the weapon is its gyroscopic barrel stabilization and rather extensive scope/sensor suite with an integral laser designator. We have seen a few—a very few—fitted with variable wavelength lasers, but most are pretty much one flavor.

“Hand-carried heavy weapons are pretty rare in their formations, and we’ve never observed them being deployed inside their compound, only on the perimeters.”

“So the invaders do not have heavy weapons in those three emplacements?”

“I’m not sure about that, sir. They’ve got overhead cover, and we never have managed to get a peek under their roofs. I suspect they have point-defense weapons for engaging incoming missiles. But they can’t have a lot of heavy weapons, either way, and we can hit all three of them from this point right here.” McGee pointed to a broad marble pavestone with an inset
X
pattern that fronted the building which contained their ingress point. “Using pre-prepared munitions from that exact point, I believe we can suppress or kill all three of the crewed emplacements that bear upon our area of operations within ten seconds.”

“Ten seconds is a long time in combat—or so I’m told,” admitted Heide. Who, by dropping any pretense of being an experienced wartime officer, was actually seeming a little less like a complete prick with every passing second.