[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

four of their seven men. The other ridge had a line of heavy artillery right
on top, with a circle of dug-in emplacements a kilometer down surrounding and
protecting the artillery. This was no easy task, either.
Weiz looked at them. "Suggestions?"
"I'd take the artillery post, sir," one of the lieutenants said. "It'll give
us the high ground. From there we can set up the ray and use it against the
rocket positions in support of our assault.
Command two of the three and the town will be in a vise."
The colonel sighed. It was everything he had feared. "All right draw up your
plans and we'll go over them. If we can, I'd like to get us as much in
position tonight as possible, so we can attack at first light. However, I want
to send a man back for reinforcements just in case."
Getting into position in unfamiliar terrain and in the dark was difficult, and
thanks to the earlier firefight the enemy was expecting them. It was a fierce
and bloody assault, mostly uphill. The first two attempts left twenty dead and
another fourteen wounded a third of his force, more or less, out of action.
They had cleared three key machine gun emplacements and still outnumbered the
defenders, but this simply freed the commander on top to fire his cannon down
at point-blank range.
Still, they finally succeeded, on the fifth assault, when they at last got to
the top of the hill and in hand-to-hand combat took the position. Weiz had not
had to personally take part, but now.
sitting atop the hill and counting his men, he was clearly worried. He'd lost
one of his lieutenants, two of his best noncoms, and half his force killed or
wounded badly enough that they were now useless. The surviving lieutenant, a
veteran of Bakha who'd risen from the ranks and whose name was Taglia, was not
as easily worried.
"We've taken the hill, sir, and command one of the three positions. Our ray
will reach the other positions, making a downward assault much easier. I think
we should go as soon as the men are rested enough to do it."
Weiz looked at those men and saw weary, bloodied soldiers in no real shape to
proceed. "Look at them, Lieutenant. Do you think they could do this all over
again? And how many would we be then? Twenty? We need everybody we have just
to take that position, and that'll allow the ones below to take this one. No,
let's do what damage we can with the ray and lick our wounds."
"Sir if we don't take that second hill we can't hold this one any more than
they could."
"I'll not argue. Lieutenant! We're staying put!"
They brought up the projector, a complex device that looked like a large fixed
machine gun with shades and mirrors, and assembled it quickly. "We can't hope
to kill 'em at this distance." the gunner warned. "All it'll do is knock 'em
cold for a while."
Page 65
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Still, he ordered it powered up and they began spraying the opposite hill with
a wide beam.
After a few minutes they had to stop to allow the central element in the
projector to cool. Ten
minutes into the pause, they were raked by rocket fire from the hill they'd
just sprayed. Several men were killed outright, and everyone else could only
duck for cover.
The lieutenant crawled up to the cowering Weiz. "See? They just duck back in
the cave and when we have to pause they come out and pound us! If we don't
attack now they'll push us right out of here!"
The colonel felt frustrated, confused, and frightened. He was a clinical
psychologist, a specialist in drug and conditioning research, who'd been
recruited long ago by Coydt van Haas. As such, he had turned Anchor Logh into
the kind of vision the early New Eden leaders had desired, and he'd been
rewarded handsomely for it. He had been high enough, in fact, to protect his
own daughters from his handiwork, then disguise that fact through Suzl's
hypnotic conditioning powers. In fact, he'd had everything New Eden could
offer except the top social ranking that could only come with a combat
command. Now he'd gotten into it, but he had no way of getting out clean.
Perhaps he hadn't deliberately been given the toughest job in the operation,
but he had it all the same.
Toughest, hell impossible!
"We can't take this much longer!" he shouted over the rockets' roar. "I'm
going to order a withdrawal! We simply need more men!"
"No, sir!" Taglia shouted back. "We can do it! All of us together! Take that
position and the town's ours!"
"I gave you an order, Lieutenant! We are withdrawing now!"
A number of the other men crept closer and listened intently to the exchange.
"Sir, I will not insult the men who've died by withdrawing when I know we can
succeed! We're going to take that hill, with or without your permission!"
"I gave you a direct order, Lieutenant! This is mutiny!"
"No, sir, this is cowardice in the face of the enemy! I am assuming command!
Huddle here, come with us, or go anywhere you want. You are relieved!" He
looked over at the techs. "Get that damned thing turned back on and give that
hill all you've got for as long as you can! We're going to work our way
around. I'm leaving five men here to fire off some random artillery shots.
When we're in position I'll fire a flare and you give 'em everything you've
got, even if you burn that bastard up! You hear?"
The techs grinned and reached up and turned on the ray. In a few moments, the
firing, except for some random small arms fire from below, stopped. They got
up and picked up their weapons.
Taglia looked down at Weiz. "Are you coming, or not?"
"You're all committing suicide!" he screamed.
They left him there on the mountain, still screaming orders that no one would
obey.
Taglia lost twenty-two more men, but he took the hill in under four hours.
The last of Mervyn's spies had reported in, and he knew what he had to know.
Now he rode a tired horse almost to death, racing along the road to the
capital. It was early afternoon on the ninth day, and time was running out. By
nightfall, a victorious army would march through both gates, and secure the
walls of Anchor.
He knew he had stayed too long, and he'd had more than one gunfight to get out
of tight situations. He had been a victim of overconfide.nce, the bane of all
powerful wizards and the death of many great ones. He had thought from the
first that, in a pinch, he could simply get over the wall and return to Flux
that way, but now he'd found that impossible. A Flux wall had been created in
Page 66
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
a devilishly clever way, to maximize efficiency. The consistency of Flux
around
Anchor had been changed, so that he had no power in it and moved through it
like a swimmer in a mass of mud. He had no idea how far the barrier extended,
but there were constant patrols and
Flux monitoring would be easy with those machines. He couldn't afford to find
out.
Black-uniformed patrols had chased him, and he was exhausted by the effort of
the last few days and the chase itself. Although he took on the appearance of
a very old man, he was in truth
biologically strong and as healthy as many of the twenty-year-olds who chased
him, but he was not used to this sort of thing. He knew, though, that his
worst fears had been realized. Now he was out of ammunition and on a very
tired animal, but he was closing in on the outskirts of the capital itself. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]