In Her Name: The Last War (35 page)

“Have we made contact with them?” he asked his adjutant.

“Yes, sir,” the man replied immediately. “We can only speak in the clear,
mon colonel
. The communications security systems are not compatible. Their commander is waiting to speak with you.”

Nodding, Grishin spoke, his voice picked up by the tiny microphone embedded in his helmet. “Terran ground commander,” he said, “this is
Lieutenant-Colonel
Grishin, commander of the First Cavalry Regiment of the Alliance Foreign Legion. To whom am I speaking, please?”

“
Bonjour
, colonel,” came a gravelly voice that was unmistakably from the American South. While he appreciated the gesture, Grishin winced at the man’s pronunciation of the traditional French greeting, hoping that the Terran officer would prefer to speak English. While his own French carried an unmistakable Russian accent, it was pure Parisian compared to this man’s speech. “This is Colonel James Sparks, commanding the 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Guards Armored Division. We’re going to be operating on your left flank, and I wanted to stop by and coordinate our lines and fire plans with you, if I may.”

“Certainly, colonel,” Grishin told him. “My command post is at-” he read off some coordinates, “-and I will be waiting for you.”

“Thank you, colonel,” Sparks said. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Sparks, out.”

Grishin looked at his adjutant, who shrugged. “At least they will have tanks,” his adjutant said. “That must count for something...”

Exactly ten minutes later, Grishin tried to keep the dismay from showing on his face as the Terran regimental commander dismounted from the wheeled reconnaissance vehicle that had pulled up in front of Grishin’s mobile command post. Sparks looked as if he had walked off the set of an ancient American “western” movie. While he was dressed in the standard combat uniform of the Terran Army, the wiry man wore a cowboy-style black cavalry officer’s hat replete with an insignia of crossed sabers and a gold acorn band, along with a matching bright yellow ascot showing from the vee of the neck of his combat tunic. And under his left arm, carried in a matte black leather shoulder holster, was the biggest handgun Grishin had ever seen. The huge weapon was nickel plated with contoured grips that he would have wagered a month’s pay were made of mother-of-pearl.

But the most ridiculous thing, Grishin thought, aghast, was what the Terran wore on the heels of his boots: riding spurs, which made a
ching-ching-ching
sound as the Terran colonel strode purposefully toward him.

The man was simply outrageous.

“
Mon Dieu
,” Grishin’s adjutant whispered, desperately trying to hold his face rigid and not burst out laughing.

Grishin shared the sentiment right up until the moment that Sparks took off his sunglasses and tucked them in a pocket as he drew to within hand-shaking distance. While Grishin did not believe that the eyes told everything about a man, in some cases they could tell a great deal. And in this case, Sparks’s piercing blue eyes and no-nonsense expression told him what he needed to know. A Hollywood dandy, this man might be. But Grishin suspected, and greatly hoped, that he was a formidable combat commander, as well.

Rendering a sharp salute, Grishin said formally, “On behalf of the men of the
1er Régiment étranger de cavalerie
, I welcome you, sir.”

Sparks snapped a salute that was parade-ground perfect, then said, “Thank you, colonel. I appreciate the hospitality.” As Grishin lowered his salute and shook the Terran colonel’s extended hand, noting how strong the smaller man’s grip was, Sparks went on, “But if it’s all the same to you, I suggest we get down to business over a glass of whiskey.” Like magic, he produced a small silver-plated flask and held it up with a devilish grin on his face.

Grishin could no longer help himself. Laughing, he gestured for Sparks to accompany him into the command post. “Come, colonel,” he told Sparks. “If you have whiskey, there’s no time to lose...”

* * *

Steph stood in the background, recording the coordination session and making verbal notes as she watched the two commanders and their small staffs huddle around the map display in Grishin’s command vehicle. Of the two men, she wasn’t sure which one was more unusual. Sparks was outwardly an extreme stereotype of the romantic cavalryman, but even in the short time she had been with his unit she had discovered that the men and women who served in his regiment would go to hell and back for him without a second thought. He was polite, thoughtful, and unquestionably loved the men and women who served under him as if they were family. But he could also be ruthless and absolutely merciless to those he found lacking in the will to do their best, or who in any way dishonored his regiment. And from hearing him speak, ruthless and merciless would be the lead traits of his personality that he planned to direct at the enemy.

Grishin, on the other hand, appeared to be what one might expect of a competent colonel in any army, with a very significant exception: of the twenty regiments of the
Légion étrangère
, he was the only regimental commander not seconded from one of the Alliance armies. One of those exceedingly rare individuals who had worked his way up the ranks from a lowly legionnaire to commander of a combat regiment, Grishin was a veteran of the St. Petersburg war. In fact, he had joined the Legion right after the armistice, and rumor had it that he was one of the few communists who had managed to escape the final destruction of the Red Army. But in the Legion, no one cared. His past, whatever it truly was, was left behind and gone. And if he was good enough to make it through the political battlefield that controlled Legion officer assignments, then maybe he would be a good match for the Kreelans, as well.

Turning her attention back to the discussion around the map table, she heard Sparks say, “Our biggest problem as I see it is intelligence. We have absolutely no idea what we may be up against, or which direction they’ll be coming from.”

“Surely, sir,” said Grishin’s adjutant, “they’ll have to come from the south, over here.” Foshan was situated in a forested area, with the western side of the city along the shore of one of Keran’s freshwater seas. On the map, the adjutant indicated a large open area in the forest to the south. “That’s the only decent nearby landing zone that’s not in direct sight of our weapons here. There just aren’t many other choices unless they want to drop right into the city, which...” He shrugged. “That would make no sense to me, but I do not know how they think.”

“That is the problem,” Grishin sighed. “We have no idea what they might do, what they could do. And what if they do drop directly into the city? Our tanks are made for fighting in the open. In the city they would be very vulnerable without more infantry support. And half of Foshan’s streets are too narrow for our tanks, let alone yours.” The Alliance-made wheeled light tanks that were used by the
1er REC
were not terribly dissimilar from vehicles used long in the past, for a very simple reason: the combination of mobility, lightness, and firepower was extremely effective for the types of low-tech opponents the Legion typically faced. The Terran heavy armor units, by contrast, were equipped with vehicles that weighed upward of one hundred metric tons and were marvels of every facet of human engineering. They were incredibly powerful, well-protected, and amazingly fast for something so heavy, but were totally out of their element in close-in street fighting.

“Yeah,” Sparks agreed grimly. “We’d have to blow half the goddamn city down just to move through it. On the other hand, we’re cavalry: if we have to dismount, every trooper in my regiment’s got a rifle and he knows how to use it.”

Grishin thought it would be ridiculous to use tank crews as infantry, but as far as he could tell, Sparks wasn’t joking. 

“Mobility has to be the key,” Sparks said, finally. “It’s the only thing we’ve got against so many unknowns. And the first thing I’d recommend,” he went on, “would be to send a company of tanks forward, with some of your men, colonel, as guides, to this nice open patch your adjutant pointed out. That way if our friends do show up there, we can give them a warm welcome.”

Thinking it over, Grishin nodded. It wouldn’t cost them anything, since they had absolutely no idea what the enemy might do. If the Kreelans did try to land there, one of the 7th Cav’s tank companies could give them a difficult time. “I agree, colonel,” he told him. “I will detach one of my reconnaissance teams to you: they have been out to that area several times and know the route and commanding terrain well.”

“Outstanding,” Sparks told him. “My tanks will be outside your door here in thirty minutes. You’ll know they’re here when the ground starts shaking.” He held out his hand. “Colonel, it’s been a pleasure, and I’ll definitely be in touch. But I need to get back to get the rest of my regiment squared away.”

“My pleasure, sir,” Grishin told him, meaning it, as he shook the Terran cavalryman’s hand and they once again exchanged salutes. “We will be standing by.”

On the brief trip back to the reconnaissance vehicle that had brought them over, Steph walked beside Sparks. The two staff officers who’d accompanied him were walking behind, already setting the colonel’s orders into motion over the comm sets built into their uniform harnesses. She saw a look of unusual concern on his face. “Colonel,” she asked quietly, “may I ask what you’re thinking?”

He glanced over at her. “On or off the record?” he asked sharply.

That took her by surprise. One of the whole points of having journalists embedded with the forward units was that everything was “on the record” unless it might compromise the safety of friendly troops.

“Okay, colonel,” she said guardedly as they reached the vehicle and she turned to face him. “Let’s start with off the record.”

Taking a look around them, with the city behind and the dense forest in front that led to the hills protecting the possible landing zone, he told her, “Unless I’m badly mistaken or the enemy really disappoints me, we may be in for the biggest defeat since Custer got his ass handed to him at the Little Big Horn.”

“
What?
” Steph blurted. Sparks’s comment was totally out of place from what she’d understood of his conversation with Grishin. “Why?”

“Listen, Miss Guillaume,” he told her, beckoning her to the front of the vehicle and away from the droning of his staff officers as they continued issuing orders, “this is probably the first battle in modern history where at least one side - that would be us - knows virtually nothing about the enemy.
Nothing
. We don’t know jack about their weapons, tactics, motivations, objectives: zippo. For Christ’s sake, we don’t even know what they look like aside from what that young boy Sato could tell us. And if you don’t understand what your opponent wants, it’s pretty damned hard to keep him, or her, in this case, I suppose, from getting it. And because we don’t understand them, we can’t take the initiative and force the battle on our terms: we can only make assumptions about what they want and try to prepare for it, react to what they do. But all our assumptions could be wrong. For all I know they might just start dropping nukes on the cities here and be done with it. Or what if they use a biological weapon? For the love of God, they attacked the French ships with boarding parties, just like Sato said they did to the
Aurora
. Who the devil would expect such a thing in this day and age? And the French paid the price for it from the reports I saw on the way down: they lost over a dozen ships just to that. And the enemy could do something as unexpected here that will throw us totally off-balance. We just don’t know. And that just bothers the hell out of me.” He dug his heel in the ground in a sign of frustration. “So we’re all just guinea pigs right now, I guess,” he sighed. “We just have to wait for them to show up at the party and take the lead.”

Steph couldn’t say that what Sparks said made her happy, but she understood his point well enough. “Well,” she prompted, “how about what you think
on
the record?”

He looked at her, his blue eyes bright and his mouth set in a hard line. “
On
the record, if those alien witches come down here looking for trouble, the 7th Cav will be damned happy to oblige them.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Having bled the humans in low orbit to her content, Tesh-Dar withdrew the remainder of her ships to the larger formation in orbit near the planet’s moons. In part it was to give some rest to her crews; in part it was to see what the humans would do. Taking into account the losses each side had suffered, plus the recently arrived human ships, the two fleets had rough parity numerically. She was curious to see if the humans would try and take the initiative and attack her formation. Thus far, they had been content to consolidate their hold of lower orbit space and cover the vulnerable troop transports as they finally finished disgorging their cargoes of warriors and war machines. Tesh-Dar made no effort to intercept the huge ships as they broke from orbit for their jump points: killing them would offer no challenge. Her main interest now lay in the troops they had sent down to the surface.

In the meantime, she had sent some of her smaller warships to recover as many warriors as possible from the hulks adrift in the system, both from Imperial ships that had been destroyed and from human ships her warriors had boarded. Only two of the recovery ships had been molested when they probed overly close to the human formation, but they had escaped easily enough. She was happily surprised to see that so many of her warriors, particularly those who had boarded the human ships, had survived. She was especially relieved to see that Li’ara-Zhurah remained alive. A blood daughter of the Empress, she was a fine warrior who had well-proven her honor this day. Tesh-Dar had known Li’ara-Zhurah since she had arrived from the nursery world to enter training at Tesh-Dar’s
kazha
, the school of the Way that focused on the teachings of the Desh-Ka. She had fought well against what was clearly a set of fine opponents on the human ship she had boarded. Tesh-Dar had been most pleased.