CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

LANZOTTA LOOKED HAPPY.

Sten shuddered and wished he'd hit formation in the rear ranks. This would be a bad one.

Halstead started to call the company to attention. Lanzotta waved him into silence. "Something very interesting just happened, children," he said smoothly.

Pacing back and forth. This would be very bad.

"I just received the notification from, shall we say, a higher authority. It seems that I may not be performing my duty to best suit the needs of the Empire."

Sten wanted to find a very deep, very heavily shielded shelter.

He hoped he didn't know what was going on.

"I may not be giving some of my trainees the proper attention.

Particularly in the area of acting rank. It seems this authority wonders if some very capable leadership might be squelched by this suppression.

"Yes. A very interesting letter."

Lanzotta's smile vanished, replaced with a look of sincerity. "I would hate to err on the Emperor's service, would I not? Gregor!

Post!"

Sten thought right then would be a very good time to die.

Gregor double-timed to the head of the formation, snapped-to and saluted.

"Recruit Gregor? You are now recruit company commander."

Someone in the rear rank said "Clot!" very loudly.

Lanzotta evidently decided to be deaf momentarily.

"Take charge of the company, Recruit Company Commander Gregor. You have one hour to prepare the unit for transshipment and combat training."

It was possible, Sten decided, to think somebody had bad breath just by listening to them wheeze on a radio. He itched between his shoulder blades. It didn't do any good. Some genius had designed vacuum assault suits to itch a soldier everywhere it was impossible to scratch. Sten told himself he didn't itch, and went back to listening to Gregor wheeze on the command circuit.

Come on, he thought. Make up your mind.

"First Pla—I mean one-one."

Sten keyed his mike.

"Go."

"The ship is a Class-C patrolcraft. That means we go in through the drive tubes. I had my first sergeant take a reading.

They're cool."

Sten unclipped from the asteroid he and his platoon were

"hiding" behind and drifted out a little.

The old hulk hanging in blackness two kilometers away had been more or less tarted up to look like a C-Class, right enough.

But…

Sten went on command. "Six? This is one-one. Request seal."

Gregor grunted and shut the rest of the company off the circuit.

"Going in the tubes is a manual attack, sir."

"Of course, Sten. That's why…"

"You don't figure those bad guys maybe read the book? And have a prog?"

"DNC, troop. What do you want? Some weird frontal shot?"

"Clot, Gregor! We go up the pipe, somebody'll be waiting for us, I figure. If you could put out a screen, I'll take my platoon on the flank."

"Continue…one."

Sten shrugged. No harm in trying.

"We'll tin-can it. Peel the skirt and bleed internal pressure off.

That'll throw 'em off, and maybe we can double-prong them."

More wheezing. Sten wondered why Gregor's father couldn't afford to get his son an operation.

"Cancel, one. I gave orders."

Sten deliberately unsealed the circuit.

"Certainly, captain. Whatever the captain desires. Clear."

Carruthers' voice crackled.

"One. Breaking circuit security. Kitchen detail."

Sten heard Gregor bury a laugh in his open mike.

"This is six. By the numbers…leapfrog attack…maneuver element…go."

Sten's platoon jetted into the open. Sten checked the readout and automatically corrected the line.

Diversion fire lasered overhead from the other two platoons.

Sten tucked a random zig program into the platoon's computer.

They continued for the hulk.

By the time they closed on the hulk's stern, half the platoon hung helplessly in space, shut down as casualties by the problem's computer.

Sten rotated the huge projector from his equipment rack and positioned it. He figured to go in just below the venturi and—

And there was a massive flash in his eyes, Sten's filter went up through the ranges to black, and Sten stared at the flashing CASUALTY light on his suit's control panel.

By now he'd gotten used to being "killed." As a matter of fact, this was the first time he'd enjoyed it. He did not think any of the casualties would collect the usual scut details when they got back to the troop area.

Lanzotta had a much bigger fish to barbecue. Or maybe much smaller, now.

* * *

Lanzotta was stone-faced and standing very still.

Sten relaxed, and flickered an eye toward Gregor.

"You went in by the book, recruit company commander?"

"Yes, sergeant."

"Did you bother to check EM range?"

"No, sergeant."

"If you had, you could have seen that your enemy modified those solar screens into projectors. Aimed straight back at their normally undefended stern. Why didn't you check, recruit company commander?"

"No excuse, sergeant."

"Did you consider an alternate assault?"

"No, sergeant."

"Why not?"

"Because—because that's how the fiche said to assault a C-ship, sergeant."

"And if you didn't do it by the manual, you might have gotten yourself in trouble. Correct, Recruit Company Commander Gregor?"

"Uh…"

"ANSWER THE GODDAMNED QUESTION."

Sten and the others jumped about a meter. It was the first time Lanzotta had ever shouted. "I don't know, sergeant."

"I do. Because you were thinking that as long as you stuck by the book, you were safe. You didn't dare risk your rank tabs. And so you killed half a company of guardsmen. Am I correct?"

Gregor didn't say anything.

"Roll your gear, mister," Lanzotta said. And ripped the Guard Trainee patch off Gregor's coveralls. Then he was gone.

Carruthers double-timed to the head of the formation.

"Fall out for chow. Suit inspection at twenty-one hundred hours."

Nobody looked at Gregor as they filed back into the barracks.

He stood outside a very long time by himself.

But by the time Sten and the others got back from chow, Gregor and his gear had disappeared as if they'd never existed.

"First sergeant! Report!"

"Sir! Trainee Companies A, B, and C all present and accounted for. Fifty-three percent and accounted six in hospital, two detached for testing."

The trainee topkick saluted. Sten returned the salute, about-faced to Lanzotta, and saluted again.

"All present and accounted for, sergeant!"

"It is now eighteen hundred hours, recruit captain. You are to take charge of your company and move them via road to Training Area Sixteen. You will disperse your men in standard perimeter defense. You are to have them in position by dusk, which is at nineteen-seventeen hours. Any questions?"

"No, Sergeant Lanzotta!"

"Take charge of your company."

Sten saluted and spun again.

"COMPANY…"

"Platoon…'toon…'toon…" chanted Sten's platoon leaders.

"Right HACE! Arms at the carry! Forward… harch

!…double-time… harch."

The long column snaked off into the gathering twilight. Sten double-timed easily beside them. By now he could walk, march, or run—eyes open, seventy percent alert—and be completely asleep. Lanzotta had been exaggerating when he said the trainees would only get about four hours sleep a night.

Maybe that'd been so at the beginning. But as the training went downhill toward graduation, the pace got harder. There were fewer washouts now, but it was far easier to go under.

Lanzotta had explained to Sten after he'd given him the tabs of a recruit company commander. "First few months, we tried to break you physically. We got rid of the losers, the accident prone, and the dummies. Now we're fine-lining. The mistakes you make in combat training are ones that would get you or other guardsmen cycled for fertilizer.

"Besides, there are still too many people in this cycle."

Too many people. Assuming—which Sten didn't necessarily—the one-in-a-hundred-thousand selection process, three companies of a hundred men each had been cut down to sixty-one.

Great odds.

Not everybody had been washed out. A combat car collision had accounted for four deaths, falls during the mountain training killed two more trainees, and a holed suit had put still another recruit in the awesomely large regimental ceremony.

Lanzotta thought it was impressive that a trainee was made a full member of the regiment before burial. Sten thought it was a very small clotting deal. Dead, he was pretty sure, was a very long time, and worm food isn't much interested in ceremony.

Ah, well.

By now they'd progressed from squad through platoon to full company-size maneuvers.

Sten wondered what joyful surprises Lanzotta had planned for the evening. Then he put the dampers back in his mind. He needed the rest. He let his mouth start a jody, put his feet on autopilot, and went to sleep.

Eyes closed, Sten sonared his ears around the hilltop. Four minutes, twenty-seven seconds. All night animal sounds back to normal. All troops in stand-to positions. Not bad.

Lanzotta crawled up beside Sten and flickered on a map-board light. "Fair. You got them out and down nicely enough. Second Platoon still bunches up too much. And I think you should've put your CP closer to the military crest. But…not bad."

Sten braced. Lanzotta was being very polite. He knew for sure this exercise would be a cruncher.

Lanzotta: "Briefing. Your company has been on an offensive sweep for two local days. You have taken, let's see, fifty-six—about seventy-five percent casualties. Tsk. Tsk.

"You were ordered to assault a strongly held enemy position—there!"

Lanzotta took a simulator minicontrol from its belt pouch and tapped a button. On the hill across from them, a few lights flickered.

"Unfortunately, the position was too strongly garrisoned, and you were forced to withdraw to this hilltop. You are far in advance of artillery support, and, for operational reasons, normal air or satellite support is nonexistent.

"You medvacked your casualties, so you have no wounded to worry about. The problem is quite simple. Very, very soon, the enemy will counterattack in strength. You probably will not be able to hold this position.

"Your regimental commander has given you local option command. Friendly positions are"—He pointed behind him and touched the panel. At the top of the ridge-crest simulators set up a strong, not particularly well blacked-out position—"there.

Between your company and friendly lines are an esimated two-brigade strength of bandits, operating with light armor and in small strike-patrol elements. All the options are yours. Are there any questions?"

Sten whistled silently.

"Recruit captain, take charge of your men. You have two minutes until the problem commences."

Lanzotta slid away into darkness.

Sten motioned to Morghhan, his recruit first sergeant They slithered away from the CP area. Sten dropped a UV filter over his eyes and flicked on a shielded maplight

" Sauve qui peut and all that crud," Morghhan whispered.

"You wanna surrender right now and avoid the morning rush?"

"Us killer guards never surrender."

"You think he's setting you up?"

"Damfino. Prog—no. Retrograde movement's supposed to be a bitch, they told us."

"You figure it, Sten. I'm gonna go practice up speaking fluent Enemy." Morghhan low-crawled back to the CP and waiting runners.

"Four and three and two and one," Lanzotta said, somewhere in the darkness. "Begin."

He must've started the simulator program. High whining…"Incoming!" somebody shouted, and the ground rocked under him. Violet light lasered just overhead. Sten hoped the sweep-track automatic weapons which provided the "enemy fire"

weren't set too low or with random-center fire or with a movement homer.

Sten tapped the channel selector on his chest to ALL

CHANNELS, and briefly outlined the plan to the listening troops.

"Six…this is two-one. We have movement on our front." That was Tomika, acting-jack platoon leader of Second Platoon.

Sten overrode onto the command net

"Estimation, two-one?"

"Probe attack. Possible feint. Approximate strength two platoons. One hundred meters out, on line."

"Two-one…this is six. Hold fire. One-one? Any activity on your front?"

"Not—hang on. That's affirm. Got infiltrators working up the hill—will—aw clot!"

Lanzotta's voice broke in. "Unfortunately the First Platoon leader exposed himself and was hit. Fatal."

Sten ignored Lanzotta. "One-two. Assume command.

Estimation?"

"Affirm. Infiltrators. Company size. Prog—first prong attack.

Shall we open fire?"

Sten thought quickly. "Negative. When they cross fifty-meter line, they'll probably open fire. Prog—artillery support. First and third squads will withdraw twenty-five meters noisily. Second and fourth squads engage when they reach your positions and first and third counterattack. Prog—another feint. Top! Get weapons platoon to blanket their rear and break up the second wave. Take the CP, I'm shifting to Third Platoon."

Clicked the mike off. "Runner! Let's go."

They went off into darkness, Sten navigating by treetop shadows. Fire intensified, and the ground under them quivered.

Sten jumped as what sounded like a thousand sirens went off.

"Psych," he told the runner. "Just noise. Let's move it!"

Sten dropped into the Third Platoon leader's dugout.

"What's out there?"

Sten held his breath and closed his eyes again. Listening.

Sweeping his head from side to side. He swore. "Clot hell!

Armor!"

"I don't hear anything!"

"You will. Sounds like two units. Scrunchies pigback for support."

Tagged the radio, "Weapons…I want illumination. Stand by…"

The air hummed.

"Weapons, this is six. Do you receive?"

A runner materialized out of the night and slid into the hole.

"All units. Stand by. Scramble R-Seven." The communicator selected a simple code and keyed the company's transmitters to it. The code would be broken in a few seconds if the enemy had analyzers. But by then Sten would've finished the plan.

"Two-one. Sequence your troops past the CP, and reinforce one-two. Move! Two. On command, you will begin a frontal assault straight forward."

Sten took a deep breath. This training was just real enough to make even simulated suicide work creepy.

"Three-one. Your men will hold the armor below your position. Your orders are to hold regardless. If we break out, you and your men are to exfiltrate solo.

"All units. The company will make a frontal assault against the feint in Second Platoon's sector. We will break out, and each man is on his own. You have the correct bearing on friendly lines. You will evade capture and join the regiment by dawn.

"That is all. Keep only water, basic weapon, and two tubes.

Dump everything, including radios. Good luck. Move!"

Sten cut the radio. Lanzotta appeared beside him.

"Administrative note, Recruit Captain Sten. With dead radios, maneuver control can't inflict casualties."

Sten found time for a grin, "Sergeant, that never crossed my mind." He was being honest. Sten turned to his CP unit "You heard it. Drop 'em and let's chogie."

"Lanzotta just wiped out weapons platoon. Sez it was counterbattery off your fire mission." Sten groaned. "Lenden."

"Go, Sten."

"Honk down about five meters and gimme a hand-held."

"Then I'm gonna be dead?"

"Then you're gonna be dead."

"Maybe they'll give us corpses a ride back." The runner hunched out of the hole, pulling a launcher from his weapons belt. He touched the fire key, and the flare hissed upward. A scanner caught him, and pulled the plug. Simulator-transponder went red, and Lenden swore and started back for the assembly area.

The flare bloomed, and Sten saw two…five…seven assault tracks grinding up the base of the hill. "Flash "em."

The platoon leader keyed his central weapons board, and high-pressure tanks, emplaced at the hill's base, sprayed into life.

The gas mixed with the atmosphere, and the acting lieutenant fired the mixture.

A fireball roared across the hill's base, and three of the tracks caught and exploded.

"Leapfrog back. About sixty meters and set up an interior perimeter."

Sten rolled out of the hole and skittered back toward the CP.

By the time he flattened beside Morghhan, he had a plan.

Shadows went across his front toward Second Platoon's area.

Firing suddenly redoubled in volume from the Third's last-stand perimeter.

Sten gratefully shed his pack and command net, port-armed his weapon and went after them.

There was dead silence in the office.

Sten stared straight ahead.

"Four survivors, recruit company commander. You were wiped out."

"Yes, Sergeant Lanzotta."

"I would be interested in your prognosis of the effects of such an action in real combat. On the rest of the regiment."

"I…guess very bad."

"I guess very obvious. But you don't know why. Troops will take massive casualties and maintain full combat efficiency under two circumstances only: First, those casualties must be taken in a short period of time. Slow decimation destroys any unit, no matter how elite.

"Secondly, those casualties must be taken with an accomplishment. Do you understand, Sten?"

"Not exactly, sergeant."

"I will be more explicit. Using last night's debacle. If you had held on that hilltop, and died to the last man, the regiment would have been proud. That would have been a battle honor and probably a drinking song. The men would have felt uplifted that there were such heroes among them. Even though they'd be clotting glad they weren't there to be with them."

"I understand."

"Instead, your unit was lost trying to save itself. It's very well and good to talk about living to fight another day. But that is not the spirit that ultimately wins wars. Failing to understand that is your failure as a company commander. Do you understand?"

Sten was silent.

"I did not say you had to agree. But do you understand?"

"Yes, sergeant."

"Very well. But I did not relieve you and confine you to barracks for that reason. Your test scores indicate a high level of intelligence. I broke you because you showed me you are completely unsuited for the Guard or to be a guardsman.

Effective immediately, you are removed from the training rolls."

Sten's mouth hung open.

"I will explain this, too. You have a soldier. He takes a knife, blackens his face, leaves all his weapons behind. He slips through the enemy lines by himself, into the shelter of an enemy general.

Kills him and returns. Is that man a hero? Of one kind. But he is not a guardsman." Lanzotta inhaled.

"The Guard exists as the ultimate arm of the Emperor. A way of putting massive force into a precise spot to accomplish a mission. The Guard will fight and die for the Emperor. As a fighting body, not as individuals." Sten puzzled.

"As a guardsman, you are expected to show bravery. In return, the Guard will provide you with backing. Moral and spiritual in training and garrison, physical in combat. For most of us, the bargain is more than fair. Are you tracking me?"

Most of Sten was wondering what would happen to him next—washed out to a duty battalion? Or would they dump him straight back to Vulcan? Sten tried to pay attention to Lanzotta.

"I will continue. A guardsman is always training to be more.

He should be able to assume the duties of his platoon sergeant and accomplish the mission if his sergeant becomes a casualty. A sergeant must be able to assume the duties of his company commander.

"And that means no matter how tactically brilliant he is, if he does not instinctively understand the nature of the men he commands, he is worse than useless. He is a danger. And I have told you time and again…my job is to not just make guardsmen.

But to help those men stay alive."

"Is that all, sergeant?" Sten said tonelessly.

"Four survivors. Of fifty-six men. Yes, Sten. That's all."

Sten lifted his hand toward the salute.

"No. I don't take salutes—or return them—from washouts.

Dismissed."

Sten ate, turned in his training gear and went to bed in a thick blanket of isolation. Emotionally, he wanted one of his friends to say something. Just good-bye. But it was better like this. Sten had seen too many people wash, and knew it was easier on everyone if the failure simply became invisible.

He wondered why they were waiting so long to get him.

Usually a washout was gone in an hour or two after being dumped. He guessed it was the seriousness of what he'd done.

The cadre wanted him around for a while as an object lesson.

It gave Sten time to make some plans of his own. If they were sending him to a duty battalion…he shrugged. That was one thing. He didn't owe anything more to the Empire, so as soon as he could, he'd desert. Maybe. Or maybe it'd be easier to finish his hitch and take discharge into Pioneer Sector. Supposedly they never could get enough men on the frontiers, and anyone who'd been even partially through Guard training could be an asset.

But Vulcan…Sten's fingers automatically touched the knife haft in his arm. If he went back, the Company would kill him.

He'd as soon go out quick before they got there. Besides, there was always a chance…

Not much of one, he decided, and stared blankly up at the dark ceiling.

Sten half felt a movement—his fingers curled for the sheath—and Carruthers' arm clamped on him.

"Follow me."

Sten, still dressed, stepped out of the bunk. Automatically, he S-rolled the mattress and picked up his small ditty.

Carruthers motioned him toward the door. Sten followed.

Dazed. He had just realized Carruthers had stopped him as if she knew about the knife. He wondered why they'd never confiscated it.

Carruthers stopped beside an automated weapons carrier.

Indicated the single seat, and Sten climbed in.

Carruthers tapped a destination code, and the car hummed.

Carruthers stepped back. And saluted.

Sten stared. Washouts didn't rate, but Carruthers was holding the salute. Sten was lost. He automatically returned it.

Carruthers turned and was double-timing away as the car lifted.

Sten looked ahead. The car angled out of the training area a few feet clear of the ground, then lifted to about twenty meters.

Its screen flashed: DESTINATION RESTRICTED AREA.

REQUEST CODE CLEARANCE. The car's computer chuckled, and printed numbers across the screen. The screen blanked, then: M-SECTION CLEARANCE GRANTED.

NOTIFICATION. ON LANDING AWAIT ESCORT.

Sten was completely lost.