Side Show (34 page)

If nothing else, he would use the men with him to lean against the tripod and steady it. He had five men, close to four hundred kilos of extra weight.

Roo intended to man the trigger himself. The electrical firing device had a two-meter cable running to it. That would let him stay out of the way of the men holding the gun in place. A hand on the side of the housing, near the rear of the module, would let him direct the fire. If he had his design right, there would be no significant travel of the gun while it was firing.

"There, that's the last canister," he said. "Get in place."

For the first time in several minutes, Roo actually looked toward the front lines, not more than eighty meters from where he had set up the gun. He could see the Heggies clearly now, moving up behind the growing mounds of their own dead. Getting far too close.

At least I don't have to worry about hitting anything five hundred meters away,
he thought. This would be simple point and shoot... and hope that the gun didn't upend itself with the first burst.

The Wasp cannons made a noise unlike any infantry weapon used by either Accord or Hegemony. The shells were powder-fired, and the sound was deeper than any of the wire or rocket-assisted weapons, and it was continuous, as long as the trigger was held.

Roo held his first burst to less than two seconds, the briefest touch he could manage on the unfamiliar setup. The gun did not turn itself over backward, and the barrels remained pointed where he had aimed.

"Any trouble with that?" he asked the men who were leaning against the legs of the tripod. None of them answered.

"Okay, let's see what we can do," Roo said, a whisper that was almost missed by even the sensitive microphone in his helmet.

—|—

The men of Echo's 2nd platoon were aiming more up than out. The Heggies were starting their final push, within the last twenty meters. Already they were closer than any of the early attempts had managed. There were so many that they couldn't help but take heavy casualties. It was almost impossible to miss hitting Heggies once they stood up to make that last charge. But they kept coming. There were too many for the zippers of one platoon, or company, to stop them all.

Even after the aircraft cannon opened up, the Heggie line continued to advance. For just a few seconds.

Heggies started falling by the dozen, from right to left as Joe looked at them. They tumbled like dominoes as the 25mm fire raked across them. Many of them were shredded before they hit the ground.

Those who were still standing stopped—for an instant. Some were frozen in place by what was happening. Those were felled either by the murderous cannon fire or by wire from the infantrymen in the foxholes just in front of them. A few, a
very
few, had the presence of mind to fall flat, to try to get below the new assault. A couple even dove toward Accord foxholes. The rest of those who weren't killed on their feet tried to turn and run.

The metal slivers chased them down.

Ezra Frain got a live Heggie in on top of him. The man had dove two meters or more, taking wire as he hurled himself away from the other fire. In the foxhole, he was still able to try to defend himself. The Heggie had abandoned his gun when he jumped. Ezra's rifle was knocked to the side, not out of his grip, but with the muzzle away from the Heggie. The two men wrestled for a minute. Ezra responded blindly, even while he was stunned from the impact of the man colliding with his chest. He was underneath the Heggie. They fought for control of Ezra's rifle. Neither could wrest it from the other.

Finally, Ezra heaved upward, trying to get all of his weight into the other man's middle. "Help!" he called over the radio. There was a burst of wire, close, and the Heggie went limp. The men in the foxholes on either side of Ezra had both pumped wire into the man.

By that time, the horizontal hail from the aircraft cannon had moved away from 2nd platoon's area. Joe lifted his head again to look. There were no Heggies left on their feet within a hundred meters of him. The makeshift cannon rig was now moving Heggies down off toward the center of the attack, where Echo and Fox joined.

And the assault was failing.

When the one gun fell silent for a time—for reloading, Joe assumed—he could hear similar sounds coming from farther off. Ten minutes later, all of the guns of the 13th fell silent. They no longer had any targets in sight.

Dawn was still an hour away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

It was difficult to tell where the smoke ended and the fog began. Dawn was little more than a gray luminescence in the forest.

The daybreak was not silent, though, even in the fog. Noises that had been lost in the din of war could be heard now that the guns were silent. The cries of the wounded were faint, and growing fewer as medics got to everyone and administered analgesics or anesthetics, and tended to wounds. The more seriously wounded, both Accord and Hegemony, were being treated by company medtechs and by the 13th's surgeons.

In their haste to withdraw, the Schlinal forces had merely left behind their wounded—anyone hurt too badly to keep up with their unit.

Around the Accord lines, the stacks of Schlinal dead lay uncounted. The earliest estimates, made from a distance, were that there had to be at least twenty-five hundred dead, perhaps more than twice that number. Until the bodies were moved to graves—large, common graves—there could be nothing but estimates.

In the center of the 13th's area, men walked about as if in a daze. Most of them were aware that the battle was over—for the moment at least—and that was enough. More than a few men had simply gone to sleep in their foxholes, or next to them, too exhausted to do more.

In the exact center of the area, the top hatch had been opened on the buried Heyer APC. The people who had been confined inside for more than a dozen hours came out, as dazed as the men who had been out and fighting. Gene Abru and his SI team remained with the civilian researchers—close, alert. The colonel hadn't countermanded his orders. The civilians were still Abru's responsibility.

The Heggies might return.

Van Stossen had more immediate concerns than the civilians and their minders. Casualty reports were still coming in, still being totaled. The count of dead and wounded was too high to give Stossen much time to think of anything else. Nothing less than a renewed enemy attack would penetrate his awareness now. He sat alone in his command bunker. Alone. He acknowledged reported. He stared at his mapboard.

Mostly he thought... or, rather, tried not to. The numbness that accompanied the end of a major engagement helped. His mind was somewhat dulled by that, and by the long lack of sleep. During the night, he had kept alert by popping stimtabs in his mouth every fifteen minutes or so—far too often. Once he stopped, the physical reaction was inescapable.

Three different times—when he happened to think of it—he had called General Dacik, trying to find out what was happening back in what was, after all, the
main
engagement between Accord and Hegemony on Jordan. This affair, bloody as it had been, was no more than a side show. The first two times Stossen called, Dacik hadn't even answered. There had been no response at all on either of the channels that were supposed to connect Stossen with the local commander in chief—the channel shared by all of the regimental commanders and the private channel between Stossen and Dacik. The first, at least, should have been monitored by someone on the general's staff if he was sleeping or otherwise occupied.

On the third call, Dacik had answered, but the conversation had been even shorter than Stossen had envisioned.

"I can't talk now, Stossen. I'll get back to you. Your
guests
secure?"

"Yes, sir."

And then the general was gone.

Wait,
Stossen told himself. The general said that he would call.

There was really nothing else to do in any case, nothing for him, personally. The necessary chores were being attended to by others.

Stossen let out a deep sigh and leaned back against the wall of the bunker. His eyes closed, mostly of their own accord, and he didn't fight it. Sleep did not follow, though. There was too much banging around in his mind for that, even with exhaustion. But rest...

—|—

"Up and on 'em," Joe said over the platoon frequency. He hoisted himself out of his foxhole with some difficulty. His joints were all stiff, and his mind was logy. "Up and on 'em. Patrol."

The groans were weak but undeniably sincere. No one was awake enough for volume or passion. Half an hour, forty-five minutes—Joe was uncertain just how long they had had to rest. To sleep or just to stare blindly ahead with eyes that would no longer even blink. There had been
some
time, though. It was nearly dawn before Lieutenant Keye came on the radio and said that they had to mount a patrol to make absolutely certain that there were no Heggies lurking in the neighborhood. Nearly a quarter of the 13th was being sent out to scout. Every other line company was around the perimeter.

Joe hadn't bothered to ask, "Why us?" He didn't have the energy, and in any case, he didn't care to hear the answer. No reason would have served to make him feel good about another trek in the woods.

The next call from Lieutenant Keye didn't help as much as it should have, either. "Be ready to take prisoners. I just got the word from Colonel Stossen. The Heggie warlord here has surrendered all his forces to General Dacik. He's ordered all of his troops to lay down their weapons. The fight's over on Jordan. We won."

That didn't cheer Joe in the least. Even if the news was true, there would still be another fight somewhere ahead. This battle might be over. The war continued.