The War for Profit Series Omnibus (52 page)

Galen’s drop ship left Mandarin last and observed the attachment of the ninety four drop boats to the three troop transport ships needed to move the entire brigade. His command drop ship went ahead to the jump point and observed the transport ships as they docked to a singe jump ship, then Galen watched them pass through the jump point, then knocked himself out with a sedative. The first jump took them to Tuha space. Then the transport ships undocked from the first jump ship and traveled to a different jump point. There they linked up with the four destroyers and two heavy battle cruisers Galen had hired from fleet to support the Grinder contract. The entire armada attached to a larger jump ship and went through the second jump point. Galen’s small drop ship went through last, on its own, after the larger ship had passed.

Galen came out of his drug-induce nap on the other side. “How long, pilot?”

“About twenty minutes. It’s a tight window.”

“Yes, the insertion point.”

The pilot looked forward as he spoke, “Timing is everything. Our fleet draws fire, we slip into the atmosphere right in below the firing arc of the Mosh space guns, and then fleet draws back to where the planet shields them form the Mosh guns.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

The planet Grinder filled the lower half of the forward viewport. Downward and ahead was a long string of drop boats loaded with Panzer Brigade units and supplies. Forward and above, the fleet. A destroyer fired a plasma canon shot that landed at the very edge of Grinder’s horizon. A moment later a plasma shot came from near the impact point and hit the destroyer, which withdrew behind a heavy cruiser. Individual destroyers rotated forward to fire a shot and then take a hit and then withdraw, each in turn. Their shields could take one hit, but needed time to regenerate after that.

The drop boats were well on their way to the space port. The command drop ship nosed down sharply toward the planet, eager to get below the firing arc of Mosh guns before the fleet withdrew, and leveled off at an altitude of five hundred meters. Then it dropped to fifty meters and passed below the edge of the space port’s shield. Sure, the shield only stopped energy and subatomic particles, and the ship could have passed through with only a nominal loss of kinetic energy, but the pilot wanted to show disdain and distrust of the Tuha shield operator’s abilities. The command ship circled just inside the shield’s perimeter until it got clearance to land. It came down smooth and trundled past the terminal and taxied into a hardened hangar nose first. The pilot dropped the ramp, Galen and his crew boarded the command tank, the loadmaster removed the tie down chains, and Galen’s tank rolled down the assault ramp, out of the hangar, turned right and drove alongside the tarmac to the marshalling yard and got in the front of the left column of Jasmine Panzer Brigade vehicles.

Galen checked his auxiliary status screen. Green, green, green all the way from top to bottom. He popped his hatch and looked back. Spike stood tall in the tank behind him and gave a thumb up. To his right, companies were aligned in columns facing forward. Galen looked forward and pressed the comms switch on his left earpiece and said, “This is Jasmine Six. Welcome to Grinder. File from the left, forward march.”

The route of march started out on a wide Military Supply Route paved with concrete, with four checkpoints spaced about every ten kilometers along the road, military police blowing whistles and raising barricade arms, red and white candy-cane striped poles, and saluting and waving at the vehicles of the convoy. The Tuha military police wore chromed metal helmets, decorative cords on the left shoulder, military ribbons and decorations, broad white belts around their waists over their dark blue uniforms, and chromed side arms with white pistol grips. Farther along, after driving past the Tuha corps headquarters compound, the checkpoints were sandbagged guard shacks with little windows left for the guards to peer out. The soldiers wore field uniforms but lacked body armor, and their steel helmets had cloth covers to match the dark gray of their uniforms. The barricades were strands of concertina barbed wire drug across the road, and they stopped the convoy and asked Galen for his convoy clearance number before dragging the wire out of the way. Galen noticed concrete bunkers off to the side of the checkpoints, about a hundred meters off the side of the road, with laser and machine gun muzzles sticking out.

Once past the headquarters compound for the Tuha First Infantry Division, the MSR became a gravel road. The four checkpoints were little more than an Armored Personnel Carrier parked along side the road, a soldier standing behind the machine gun in a ring mount of its TC hatch, wearing gray Combat Vehicle Crewmember coveralls and a commo helmet to match. When the convoy passed, the soldier on duty did little more than give a grim acknowledgement, a slow nod of the head or a half-hearted thumb up gesture. Finally the long convoy was over. Twelve kilometers short of the front line, they turned left off the MSR and drove around behind a hill tall enough to shield them from possible Mosh indirect fire. The spot would become the area for the Brigade Tactical Operations Center. The mechanized infantry battalion established a perimeter. The rest of the brigade laagered inside and went into a crew rest cycle.

Galen was tired but he had a job to do. “All Majors and above, come to my location. I’m near the center front of this laager, meeting starts in thirty minutes.”

Galen removed his commo helmet and stuck it in the storage box behind his seat. His driver was already stretched out behind the turret, curled up in his sleeping bag. Galen looked down and saw his gunner and tapped him on the shoulder. The gunner nodded and gave a thumb up, so Galen climbed out of his cupola and stood on top of his tank’s turret and stretched, then climbed down over the front and stood leaning back on the glacis to stretch his stomach. He looked down and saw gravel. The same gray gravel that was everywhere, bits chipped off the surrounding bare gray mountains by erosion. On the drive in he’d spotted a few weeds, pioneer plants strewn about, but the planet had only been made habitable, by the Mosh, a few decades before. Great mats of algae cultivated in the seas by the Mosh, and the Mosh air factory, made the air breathable. Some sulfur dioxide remained in the air, enough to stink. He’d get used to it soon enough.

Field grade officers made their way over to the command tank, Spike among the first to show up and Sevin among the last. Galen checked his wrist chronometer.

“All right, the time has come. Gather around and listen up.” The group shuffled in closer. Galen cleared his throat, the sulfur irritating it. “I’m sure you were all impressed with what you saw of the host nation soldiers today.” Laughs all around. “And you wonder why we get paid the big bucks. Were there any problems with the new map grid conversions?”

Galen waited, looked around. “Good. Cav, you go hot tomorrow. You have the most important job of all for the next two days, delivering the Tiger Teams to the indig infantry on the line. You need help, just ask, and you’ll get it. Major Sevin?”

Sevin said, “Right here.”

“You ready?”

“Roger. Got it, sir.”

“Everybody, our contract is to keep the Mosh more than fifty kilometers away from the Tuha spaceport. I took it upon my self to attach tiger teams to each indig infantry company on the line, increasing their combat power over time to make our job easier. If the Mosh just dance across the indig lines like they have in the past, we’d lose about a company’s worth of armored vehicles chasing them back onto their side of the line. So it’s a lot cheaper to provide the indig front line troops with training, leadership, food, ammo, some anti-armor weapons and some clean uniforms. Might boost their morale a little, too. Then maybe they can stop the Mosh them selves, we’ll see.”

Galen looked around. The crowd was getting bored. “All right, dismissed.”

After the others left, Major Koa approached Galen. “Sir, are we still on for tomorrow morning?”

Galen said, “Sure. We’ll leave at first light. Plenty of time.”

“Their First Division commander is a little flaky.”

Galen shrugged. “He invited me for breakfast; it would be rude to turn him down. Besides, we’re in his sector and I’ve got nothing planned until day after tomorrow.”

“Okay. Take the skimmer?”

“Sure, why not. See you in the morning, Major Koa.”

“I’ll come wake you up, Colonel.”

Galen said, “It’s a long night here, twenty eight hour days, and it’s just now getting dark. I doubt I’ll be able to sleep all the way through. I’ll meet you at your skimmer.”

“Roger.”

Galen turned away and climbed up on his tank. Koa left.

***

Galen and Koa rode in the back of the S-2 section skimmer, the driver and vehicle commander sat in the front and the gunner stood behind the swivel-mounted light laser. The gravel surface of the MSR had been pulverized to a fine powder by the passage of the Brigade’s heavy tracked vehicles. The blowers of the skimmer kicked up quite a bit of white dust, like a smoke screen. The driver found the speed that seemed to kick up the least amount of dust, and kept off the road when possible. The checkpoint guards didn’t seem to care, as long as the skimmer kept moving past them.

The sun was up when the skimmer arrived at the main gate of the division headquarters compound. Guards with chrome helmets and weapons stopped them and issued the challenge and asked for the password before raising the red and white striped pole that was the barricade. Once inside, on the immediate left was the guard barracks, large enough to hold a platoon. Next to that was a recreational center, an enlisted bar built onto the end. On the right were a movie theater and a low-end civilian restaurant. And a sign, stating that the speed limit was 10 kph. A group of soldiers waited in civilian clothes at a bus stop; a shuttle bus passed on the left, made a U-turn at the main gate and rolled up behind the skimmer and stopped at the bus stop. Some soldiers got off, the waiting soldiers got on.

The skimmer driver maintained the prescribed 10 kph speed, but the bus kept getting up close from behind so the skimmer driver pulled to the right and let the bus pass. They reached the division headquarters building and pulled into the paved circular drive. The driver set the skimmer down at the base of the steps of the main entrance and Koa and Galen dismounted.

Galen told the vehicle commander, “Park where you can see this door and then come scoop us up when we come out.”

The vehicle commander pointed directly across the street at the parking lot for a gymnasium. “We’ll be right there, sir.”

“Good. This should take half an hour at least.”

Galen and Koa walked up the steps. They felt out of place, wearing their ground troop helmets and combat vests and combat coveralls. The headquarters building’s front door was opened for them by a guard in dress uniform. The foyer led right into a lobby with a polished stone floor, plush carpets underneath couches set up around coffee tables on the left and the right, and an alert soldier in dress uniform standing behind a chest-high counter directly to the front. Koa said, “You sure we’re in the right place, Boss?”

“Looks like a grand hotel,” said Galen. They approached the attendant, or desk clerk, or officially the duty NCO and said, “We’re here to see General Mills, he invited us to have breakfast with him.”

“Yes, yes of course. I’ll ring him. Are your weapons cleared?” He indicated their side arms.

“What ever do you mean?” Galen said.

“Sir, did you remove the magazines and ensure there was no round in the chambers of your side arms. All weapons must be cleared before entering this building and every other building on this compound, except in the performance of official duty.”

“Oh, they’re cleared.” Galen lied.

“Then have a seat in the dining room, at the reserved table. The General will join you shortly.”

Galen sat. “Nice place.”

Koa took the seat across the table from him. “Makes me sick.”

“Why’s that?”

“When I did my survey for this contract,” Koa leaned forward, “They tried to trot me through places like this but I broke away and went right up on the lines. Those guys have nothing. Forget chow, they’re short on ammunition, basic medical supplies like bandages. It’s rough up there and there is no reason for it. It’s as though they’re sent to the front to die on purpose.”

Galen said, “Then it’s probably a bad idea to tell these guys I plan to provide some basic logistical support.”

Koa said, “I know exactly how that would go. This general will offer to distribute it for you, and then forbid you to put your tiger teams with his troops, and then he’ll take all our supplies for himself.”

Galen leaned forward. “Probably right. So what can we do?”

“These clowns have no idea what’s happening more than a few klicks down the road, and really don’t care. We could support the line troops and they wouldn’t even know.”

“Then that’s just what we’ll do. And our contract covers it, so we won’t be in trouble. I added a little phrase at the end. We can ‘take any and all actions and assume any responsibilities as determined by the Jasmine Panzer Brigade Commander or his designated representative as necessary to accomplish the mission.’ Some of my best contract writing work.” Galen patted himself on the back.

“I just hope the tiger teams don’t freak out.”

Galen said, “They know their business. A Sergeant, a Corporal and two Troops link up with an indig company, act real friendly, start with offering them chow, some basic medical care, swap war stories, and then demonstrate some combat skills, you know, and before you know it the indigs are eating out of their hands and our tiger teams essentially become the Company Commanders and Platoon Leaders of all the indig troops on the line. Easy money.”