March Upcountry

"Yes, Sir," Lieutenant Jasco said into the silence after a moment. The tall, broad CO of First Platoon was in charge of logistics, and he shook his leonine head. "I don't see it, Sir. We don't have the food or the power. We carry combat rations for two weeks, and power for one week's use of the armor, but we're looking at three to six months to cross the planet. We may be able to forage, and our nanites will help with digestion problems, but if we're going to be dealing with hostiles, foraging will be limited. And given the intensity of the threat, we need the powered armor to survive, but it won't begin to last that long. With all due respect, and not wanting to be a quitter, I don't see a way to do this mission, Sir."

"All right." Pahner nodded. "That's your input. Does anyone see a way to accomplish the mission?"

"Well, we can strip the ship of spare power systems," Lieutenant Gulyas suggested. "There are powerpacks all over the place."

"How do we get them where we're going?" Jasco shook his head. "It's a situation of diminishing returns when you overload suits carrying stuff—"

"We can preposition caches!" Gulyas gestured enthusiastically with his hands. "We send out a team that puts down a cache. Some of the team stays behind to guard it, while the rest come back to get supplies. They take them to the cache and use some of the cache to take them a little further. They leave a team with that cache and go back for supplies... ."

"We'd be defeated in detail if we strung ourselves out that way," Sawato said severely.

"And that would take six times as many supplies!" Jasco snapped.

"We could carry the armor," Roger suggested diffidently, and looked around at the lieutenants. Jasco rolled his eyes and leaned back and crossed his arms, while Gulyas and Sawato simply refused to meet his gaze. "It would save power..."

"Ahem," Jasco said. "Your Royal Highness, with all due respect..."

"I think," Roger said, "that it would be better in these sorts of meetings to use my proper military rank."

Jasco cast a quick glance at Pahner, but the captain returned it blandly, and the lieutenant was suddenly reminded of one of those Academy tests where there was no right answer.

"Yes, um, Colonel. As I was saying, the suits weigh nearly four hundred kilos apiece," he continued with a not particularly friendly chuckle.

"Oh," Roger said with a chagrined expression. "I... oh."

"Actually," Pahner said quietly, "that was exactly what I had in mind." He looked around at the stu

The lieutenants smiled at the Academy drinking song. Even though most officers in the IMC, like Pahner himself (although usually with less... spectacular career summaries) were former enlisted, it was well known in the officers corps.

"Well, we will indeed hit these 'scummies' hard and low when we have to. But we don't have the power to smash our way across the planet, so we're going to have to make treaties when possible, trade when necessary, and only kick ass as a last resort. When we kick ass, we'd better kick ass with a vengeance, but we parley first.

"One platoon each day, on a rotating basis," he continued, "will be detailed as bearers. We will carry one squad's armor. We'll take Second Squad of Third Platoon's; they have the most veterans and the highest combat scores, currently." He looked at Roger, obviously weighing pros and cons, then nodded. "And we'll take the Prince's. He doesn't have much background in it, but it goes along with ensuring his survival.

"But we have to remember that crossing the planet only gets us halfway to our objective. The real mission is to take the port and get our hands on a ship home, and we'll need the armor to take the port even more than we should need it on the way there. Initially, until we get the lay of the land, we'll keep one team in armor at all times. Once we become comfortable with our ability to survive, we'll make our way in normal uniforms to conserve power until we reach the port.

"Initially, we'll maintain our security with bead rifles and plasma weapons. But we can assume that they, too, will become exhausted. So from our first encounter with the Mardukans, we will ensure that all Mardukan weaponry is gathered, and we'll begin training with it."

He looked at the lieutenants again. Jasco, at least, appeared to think he'd lost his mind. The other two were trying, unsuccessfully, to keep their thoughts off their faces, but the prince, to give him credit, just seemed confused. It amused Pahner to turn the lieutenants' worldview on its ear; making them think was good for them, whatever the junior officers might believe. In the case of the prince... Pahner found himself moving from a

Pahner had always considered the prince his charge, but never one of "his" officers. Or, for that matter, whatever the Table of Organization might say, his superior. But now the captain realized that what he actually had on his hands was a terribly confused, brand-new lieutenant. And since "Captain" Pahner had spent a good part of his life as "Gu

"Train with scummy weapons, Sir?" Lieutenant Jasco asked, looking at the other officers. "What are we going to do with them? Sir?"

"We'll use them to hold off attacking Mardukans or hostile fauna until heavier weapons come online. And when we get to the point that our power supplies are at the minimum necessary, in my opinion, to take the port, we'll use them exclusively."

"Sir?" Lieutenant Sawato said diffidently. "Are you sure about this? Those—" She gestured at where the hologram had been. "Those... weapons aren't very good."

"No, Lieutenant, they aren't. But we'll just have to learn to get by. Our chameleon suits have limited ballistic protection, so we'll be highly resistant to fire from their arquebuses. As for lower-velocity weapons like spears and lances and swords and everything else... we'll deal with that as it comes.

"Now," the captain continued. "What, other than charges for the weapons and armor support, are our largest issues?"

"Communication," Lieutenant Gulyas said. "If we're going to trade and negotiate, we have to be able to communicate. We have a 'kernel' of the Mardukan language, but that's for one dialect on the subcontinent surrounding the base. We don't have any kernels for other areas. Without kernels, our toots can't translate for us."

"I can work on that," O'Casey said. "I've got a good heuristic language program I use for anthropological digging. I may have some trouble communicating with the first few groups we run across, but once I pick up a regional language base, even vast dialect changes won't affect things. And I can create kernels for other toots."

"Well, that's that one solved," Pahner said with a smile. "But you'll need to get that program to other toots. We can't have you as a point failure source."

"That might be a problem," she admitted. "It's big. It will take a very capable toot to handle it. I've got one custom designed for me, but without a huge amount of processor capability and storage, this program runs like a slug."

"I'll load it," Roger said quietly. "Mine's... pretty good." There was a slight, general chuckle at the understatement, for the Imperial Family's implants' abilities were almost legendary. "We might have some trouble loading it, but I'll guarantee I can run it."