Invasion of Kzarch (9 page)

“Really? I had assumed that Marine forces operated near autonomously in the field.”

“Well, we
do
, sir.
Near
autonomously. We make the tactical decisions and the like; but we still have to do the paperwork to feed the desks at Base.” He gave a chuckle.

The general gave a slight snort, a thoughtful frown on his face.

“I
see
… this may change things. I had been assuming reinforcements would wait until we could contact them, or until you hadn’t been heard from for a long time…”

“Well, it
has
been nearly a month.”

“I suppose…” The general was still frowning. “Will that be all, lieutenant?”

“I… Yes, sir.”

“Good. You are dismissed.” General Juan vaguely waved a hand at him.

With a mental shrug, Lieutenant Harsmith turned and left.

Chapter Nine

“So you managed to convince the general?”

“Yeah, he allowed me to go along. I think he figures that since he’s in charge, I won’t be able to make
too
many stupid mistakes.” Frank’s tone was slightly acidic. Colonel Fil’dwis laughed.

Then he said, a bit wistfully, “I wish
I
was going.”

Giving a laugh, Frank said, “Don’t see why. A desperate mission; high chance of getting yourself killed… Why in the world would you want to come along?” The colonel chuckled with him, then shrugged.

“Maybe so, but this is going to be a major strike. I want to be in on it.”

“Guess the general felt you had done enough the last time.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Tom allowed. “On the other hand, he’s also having McKain go along, and
he
was on my last mission.”

Frank shrugged.

“Search me. The ways of high command are deep, mysterious and inscrutable, and all that.”

“Probably because McKain’s got a battlesuit. Where
is
he, anyway?”

“Fair point. Out on a scout mission, last I heard.”

For a minute, they simply sat there drinking, the conversation dying away.

“So, how did your date go?” Frank finally asked, mind casting back.

“What?”

“You know, when you said you had a date?”

“I didn’t say I had a date,
you
did.”

“…Right. Anyway, so how did it go?”

“I- That’s- None of your business!” he finally snapped.

Eyebrows rising, Frank asked, “What’s the big secret?”

“It’s not- I’m not hiding anything, it’s just
private
.”

“Why? The lady someone I know?” Tom gave a glare, then tried to change the subject.

“So anyway, what’s been with the general lately? Ever since he decided on the mission, he’s been acting very… thoughtful.”

“He’s a general. They
have
to be thoughtful,” pointed out Frank. After a second, he added, “Still… You’re right. He’s often been… preoccupied recently.”

“I wonder why. Perhaps he’s more worried about the mission than he lets on.”

“Maybe…” Frank thought for several seconds, then said slowly, “Actually… Maybe it has to do with the reinforcements.”

“What? What reinforcements? Are more people join-”

“No, no, I meant
Marine
reinforcements. We talked about when Marine Command would send them, and I think it was around then that he started acting thoughtful.”

“Really? Huh.”

“Yeah, I’m guessing he’s trying to decide whether to wait for them or not. Doesn’t help that he has to balance the fact that the pirates keep killing civilians.”

“No, it wouldn’t…” Colonel Fil’dwis nodded soberly, suddenly hoping
he
never had to be in the command seat.

“You never know, though,” Frank said optimistically. “If things go right for the mission, we may be almost ready to wrap things up. Maybe we’ll even finish them off before the reinforcements arrive.”

“May the day come soon.”

“Amen.” They solemnly clinked their glasses.

***

“Mad, Hamil,” Bloody Jack said, not terribly patiently. “I asked you why we’re losing the war for this planet, not how many guerrillas you’ve killed.”

“But captain, we’ve-”

“
Mad
.” Bloody Jack leaned forward. “I do
not
want to have to remind you again. It
doesn’t matter
how many of them we kill! They can always recruit more!”

“Any greenies they draft will be even more useless than our pirates! Besides,” she added militantly, “Why would somebody join up with a group that’s likely going to get them killed for nothing? It makes no sense!”

“That’s because you’re a pirate to the bone,” Bloody Jack grunted. Mad stared at him without understanding. Hamil, on the other hand, rolled his eyes. Their captain shook his head, and gave up for the moment.

“All right. Forget it. Look, I want you to start preparing a new plan.,” he said to Mad.

“What type?”

“One that involves a full-out attack on their main camp.”

“Shouldn’t
I
-” Hamil began to object. Planning things was usually
his
task.

“This is more in her line then yours,” Bloody Jack told him. “Well, Mad? You up to it?”

“I’ll get right on it, Bloody Jack!” Her face showed an unhealthy enthusiasm, as she rose and almost ran out of the room to start her new task, Hamil trailing along after her, looking slightly glum.

Shaking his head, Bloody Jack smirked once they were gone. In her desire for blood and destruction, Mad was likely to come up with and
insist
on carrying out a head-on attack on the guerrilla camp; which would almost certainly result in the complete destruction of her forces.

Which meant his plan was nearly complete. Swinging his leg slightly, Bloody Jack considered his plan, how far it had come, and what he had left to do to finish it.

His plan, in its basic concept, was simple.

After several years of being a pirate, heading a group of raiders, and looting ships all over know space, Bloody Jack had gotten too infamous. And too bored. He was tired of being a pirate; now he wanted to retire… for at least a few years.

And to ensure a good, peaceful retirement, he needed to make sure his tracks were covered. Which meant he needed to kill off his entire crew.

That had led to his next idea. After all, although he had plenty of money, he could always use more. And if he was going to kill his crew
anyway
…

So, he had come up with this madcap plan of conquering Kzarch.

He had painted to his crews a wonderful picture, of them looting and then ruling the planet, living like kings; with little trouble from anyone, as the planet would provide little opposition, and no-one else would care enough to interfere. Despite some resistance from his more cautious captains, Bloody Jack had carried the day.

Of course, while his crew thought he was serious about it (The dumber ones at least. The smarter ones simply thought they were going to flee as soon as the military showed up.), he had no real intention of trying to hold onto the planet. Rather, his original idea had been to hold the planet until the Marines arrived, ensure that his crew got into a fight with them, and leave while they got massacred. And after that, set in motion special programs to clean out his crews’ accounts, which would pass unnoticed, with all the original owners having been killed. Sure, maybe one or two would survive and find they’d lost their savings, but with only a few, probably scattered individuals realizing that they had been burgled, it would be assumed to be just a random act of thievery.

To be sure, it was a difficult, highly complicated plan, with plenty of room for things to go wrong. But dealing with this sort of thing was what Bloody Jack excelled at.

Which was why he kept adjusting the plan. When the guerrillas showed up, he had figured it would be a good way to start wearing out his crew. And so, he made sure to set things up so that the guerrillas could finds ways and places to strike at the pirates.

Not that it had been particularly difficult. Most of the pirates had no idea how to properly plan defenses and such, and if he told them to do something that was utterly stupid, but
sounded
right, they’d do it.

Things had been moving right along…

And then the Marines had finally showed up… in
platoon
strength. Which made
no
sense
. He had deliberately let the Kzarchians get their message ship out, when he had launched his initial conquest of the planet, to ensure that the Marines sent the proper size force to ensure his pirates’ destruction.

He
still
didn’t know what had gone wrong there. In any case, there hadn’t been much he could do, without tipping his hand. So instead, he decided to wait until the Marines would be reinforced, which he knew they inevitably would be. In the meantime, he figured the Marines would either hide themselves or attack his crew, both of which would work fine for him.

But then the Marines had joined up with the guerrillas. And had helped them start inflicting
major
damage on the pirates. Now things had started to get
really
complicated.

With his losses of men and gunboats, the Marine reinforcements weren’t likely to consider the pirates a large enough a threat to go all out on. While he could still manage things, chances were way too many of his crew would survive, instead of getting blown away.

On the other hand, the guerrillas and the Marine platoon weren’t strong enough to take on his crew either. Which meant he had to adjust things
again
…

The only way he could make sure the guerrillas would take out his crew, was to put them in such a bad position that the vast majority could be wiped out. The remaining remnants would then be easily annihilated, by the Kzarchians or whoever, and he could slip away quietly without anyone the wiser.

So, he had come up with the idea of getting Mad to attack the guerrilla’s main compound. Of course it was, he chuckled to himself, a
bloody
stupid idea. But the simple truth was that almost none of the pirates realized that. Most of them had thought he was insane for simply letting the guerrilla camp exist. They honestly had
no idea
how bad an attack on entrenched, well-prepared defenses was going to be.

Considering how the guerrillas had been wounding them, he saw little difficulty in getting his pirates to go along with the plan. Which meant they would all happily go marching off to the slaughter.

And Mad’s plan would almost certainly include using the pirate’s three ships. Which was
idiotic
. Spaceships in planetary combat were simply big, slow,
badly
designed targets. But with their utter lack of understanding of ground combat, his crew weren’t likely to realize that.

And with the plan inevitably requiring all of the pirates, Bloody Jack would obviously have to go along. He’d simply wait until his ship began taking hits, and sneak out in the stealth pod he had next the bridge… after setting the ship’s auto-destruct. And with all the pirates’ sensors programmed to ignore it, even if they somehow detected it by accident, and the guerrillas’ busy, he’d be almost certain to get away undiscovered.

Once he was safely out of it, he’d hide himself until the battle had been decided one way or the other. Most likely the pirates would simply be wiped out, but if they somehow won, or survived with enough forces left that the guerrillas wouldn’t be able to wipe them out on their own, why, he’d simply take command again.

And then kill them one way or the other.

Of course, there was always the chance the Marine reinforcements would show up early. He didn’t think so; he should still have over two weeks, but time was starting to get tight.

All in all, his plan had required, and no doubt
would
require, constant changes… which just meant he was relishing things all the more. He was going to end his pirate career with quite the
bang
.

A beep came from his com, interrupting his thoughts. Reaching over, he hit the on button. The screen flickered, then showed a pirate sitting at a console.

“Yes?”

“Captain, we’ve spotted another guerrilla team. We think it’s a scouting party.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It’s small, and it looks like its heading back to their base.”

“And? Did you send out a gunboat?”

The pirate looked uncomfortable.

“Captain, it really isn’t necessary… They’re likely going to make it back before we could get them… And we might lose another gunboat… And they probably didn’t learn anything important
anyway
…” Bloody Jack nearly laughed. So, some of the pirates had finally learned caution? Hilarious. But, although the pirate may well be making the intelligent decision, Bloody Jack couldn’t let him get away with avoiding combat.

Besides, it had been a while since he had accompanied a patrol anyway. Wouldn’t do to let his crew think he was getting soft. And since, by the sound of it, the guerrilla patrol wasn’t large, and would probably make it back to their base before the gunboat could find them, there wasn’t much danger either. In which case…

“Slitter, are you losing your nerve?”

“No! It’s- it’s just that it doesn’t seem-”

“Seem necessary?” Bloody Jack smiled like a shark. “
I’ll
decide what’s necessary. And for now, what I think is
necessary
, is for you to
get your butt in a gunboat, and get on those guerrillas!
” he roared.