Old Soldiers

"Uran will take First Armored down Axis Three."

"If we remain concentrated, we'll have more firepower to deal with the Bolo," Na-Salth pointed out respectfully.

"Ka-Somal's infantry won't be much use against a Bolo in a frontal engagement," Ka-Frahkan replied, "and in this terrain, it's going to be a head-on meeting for Uran's mechs, whenever it comes. But between both of his remaining battalions, the recon mechs, and Na-Pahrthal's air cav, Ka-Somal ought to have an effective superiority against the militia in that dammed blocking position."

"But even if he does, sir," Na-Salth said, even more respectfully, "our long-range drones have confirmed that the Humans have at least two additional militia battalions digging in closer to their settlement. Ka-Somal doesn't begin to have the firepower to break through that sort of opposition without Uran's support. And he'll take losses against the blocking position, probably serious ones, even if he manages to take it in the end."

"I'm aware of that," Ka-Frahkan said grimly. He turned to face Na-Salth fully. "Ka-Somal is a diversion—a bluff."

"A diversion, sir?" Na-Salth repeated.

"By splitting up now, we force the Bolo to choose which of our two columns to pursue. It can catch either one of them short of the militia's position; it can't possibly catch both of them. Our armored units obviously pose the greater threat, and that makes them the logical column for the Bolo to pursue. But Axis Three is the longer approach route by a considerable margin, and Uran's mechs will be slower than Ka-Somal's column. It's possible the Bolo will choose to pursue Ka-Somal instead of following Uran because it would probably be able to overtake and destroy him and still have time—barely—to return down Axis Three and catch First Armored from behind before Uran can get his Fenrises' missile batteries into range of the blocking position."

"What if it opts to retreat back down Axis Two, sir? In that case, it could reach the blocking position ahead of either of us."

"True, but it won't," Ka-Frahkan said with bleak confidence. "It could beat us back, but if it did, our mechs would be able to bring their missile batteries into range of the militia position before it could engage us. The intervening terrain would cover our approach too well for it to prevent us from firing, and none of its infantry supports would survive that sort of fire." He flattened his ears in negation. "No. It will come after at least one of our columns, Jesmahr."

Na-Salth considered for a moment, then flipped his ears in agreement, and the general continued.

"If it decides to go after Uran first, it won't be able to turn around afterward and catch Ka-Somal the same way, though. Even if it took no mobility damage at all against First Armored—and it most certainly would— the delay would make it impossible for it to move back and intercept Ka-Somal before his units get past the landslide it induced, and it couldn't possibly get through that obstruction itself to follow him down Axis One. So if it doesn't go after Ka-Somal now, it won't be able to prevent him from getting to grips with the infantry in its blocking position whatever it does to First Armored.

"If it does decide to pursue and overtake Ka-Somal, it will undoubtedly destroy his infantry,"

Ka-Frahkan went on unflinchingly. "In the process, however, it may take damage of its own. It will certainly expend ammunition, and if Ka-Somal makes skillful use of his nuclear demolition charges, he may well succeed in inflicting significant damage, which might give Uran a decisive advantage when he finally engages it. Given the limited utility of our infantry in an armored engagement, we won't lose that much effective capability whatever happens to Ka-Somal. If he can wear it down a little, give Uran the edge he needs, the sacrifice will be well worth it. In either case, whether Ka-Somal can damage it or not, simply pursuing his infantry will delay it, possibly long enough—depending on how long it takes it to destroy Ka-Somal—for Uran to reach the blocking position and destroy its infantry before it can intervene. And if Uran can punch out the militia quickly, his Fenrises, at least, would probably have the speed to reach the colony before the Bolo could prevent them from doing so.

Na-Salth said nothing for a moment. Ka-Frahkan hadn't asked his approval for the plan, after all. But that wasn't what kept him silent. What the general had said about the survivability of infantry in a battle between heavy armored units was self-evidently true, yet expending Ka-Somal's infantry in an engagement which offered at least the possibility of decreasing the Bolo's combat capability before the decisive engagement against Na-Lythan made sense in the cold-blooded calculus of war. And the one way to insure that the infantry had the opportunity to damage the Bolo was to keep the entire force together, compel the Bolo to confront the infantry before it could reach the armored units.

But Ka-Somal's two intact battalions represented over eighty-five percent of their total surviving perso

Na-Salth looked into his commander's eyes for another moment, then raised his ears in acceptance.

"Yes, sir," he said, and began issuing orders.

Maneka/Lazarus watched the Enemy force split up.

"I didn't expect that," her/their Maneka half said as she/they continued to advance rapidly towards the point at which the Enemy had fallen into two columns.

"Nor did I. Analysis of standard Enemy tactics and the decisions to date of this Enemy commander suggested a probability of 87.031 percent that he would maintain concentration of his forces," her/their Lazarus half replied.

"Makes sense, though, I suppose," Maneka said. "Their infantry won't be much help in a standup fight with their armor."

"Probability of Enemy infantry inflicting significant damage upon this unit under those circumstances does not exceed 15.02 percent," Lazarus agreed. "However, probability of an Enemy infantry screen in hasty defensive positions in this terrain inflicting significant, though not incapacitating, damage before its destruction prior to the armored engagement approaches 62.47 percent."

"Then why didn't he stay concentrated? He could easily have deployed an infantry screen at any number of points along the route of advance he's following. At the least, that would have forced us to fight our way through it just to get to his mechs. At the best, it might have delayed us long enough for the mechs to overrun the Fourth before we could intervene."

"Indeed. Which was the reason I assigned a probability of only 14.969 percent that he would fail to do so. I have no explanation for his actual decision, aside from the obvious fact that it compels us to decide which force to pursue."

Times and distances, movement rates, and weapons capabilities flickered through her/their shared awareness at psychotronic speed. The decision was self-evident. The Enemy's remaining armored battalion represented the only true threat to the colony, regardless of what happened to Mary Lou Atwater's command. The destruction of the Surturs and their supporting Fenrises took absolute priority, and if she/they went after the infantry first, there was a chance, however minor, that it might degrade her/their combat capability before the decisive engagement.

"So we're going after the armor," Maneka Trevor's image said from the small com display window opened in the corner of Major Atwater's visor HUD. "We may've taken out their Betas' missiles, but we've got to keep the missile batteries on their remaining Fenrises at least eighty kilometers from your position, and that means killing them well short of that point. Which, I'm afraid, also means their infantry is going to reach your perimeter before we can get back to you. But with a little luck, at least you won't have their armored units shooting at you at the same time."