The transports would be halfway to Ahantar by now, the captain thought as he swung out of the light utility vehicle. And when the general said 0130, he didn't mean 0125 or 0135, he meant 0130 sharp. Just now it was 0102. The 11th Gunship Support Wing was on ready standby—a drill, they assumed, a ground exercise. But its aircraft would be fueled and armed, their crews sleeping on board. They could lift within fifteen minutes of the time the order was given.
He strode into the air command building. The place felt asleep, despite the standby. The few personnel on night duty there were saying nothing, as if in the grip of some slow dream. He went directly to the duty officer, the dispatcher, who this night was a subcolonel, and saluted. The man looked up as if irritated at the interruption of the novel he was reading.
"Colonel!" said the captain, and identified himself. "Acting for General Songhidalarsa, I've come to order the dispatch of the 11th Gunship Support Wing."
The subcolonel looked at him as if he thought this was some kind of crude joke.
"To order what?"
A premonition of trouble started in the captain's chest, and spread. "The dispatch of the 11th Gunship Support Wing," he enunciated. "General Songhidalarsa has ordered it in support of the 31st Brigade. To Ahantar."
"Huh! Interesting that I wasn't briefed that something like this might happen." The subcolonel reached out a hand. "Let me see the orders."
The captain counted mentally to eight, calming the panic that was beginning to tug at his mind. Obviously someone had screwed up. The dispatch officer was to have been notified in advance, given written orders in mid-evening, with a cover story of some kind.
"General Songhidalarsa indicated to me that they'd been given to you. I was simply to let you know the time. He wants the gunship support wing in the air at 0130."
"Well I'm sorry, Captain, but no one's given me anything in writing on this. And that's how I need it: in writing."
And it was not to be known that the general had accompanied the brigade in his own command floater. That had been stressed. Otherwise it would be obvious that the expedition was intended to do more than overawe and suppress the strikers and demonstrators at Ahantar.
"My orders came from General Songhidalarsa verbally," the captain said. "That's how I'm passing them on to you. I'm sure you don't want to reject them."
He realized, even as he was saying it, that the last sentence was a mistake. The subcolonel's brows drew down sharply; he'd taken it as an implied threat. "Captain, we operate according to regulations here. If it's not in writing, it's not an order. In writing and signed by someone authorized to give it to me: General Songhidalarsa or his deputy. Or General Mavaraloku, of course; the orders would need his initials at any rate."
The captain couldn't go to Major General Khobajaleera, the general's deputy in charge. Khobajaleera knew only the cover story; he wasn't considered politically safe either. He'd never acccept that the general wanted a whole damned gunship support wing dispatched just to help stare down a mob of strikers and demonstrators. He'd ask questions that the captain dare not answer.
And turning to General Mavaraloku was out of the question. Mavaraloku was the commanding general of the air services division. His initials were to have been forged on Songhidalarsa's orders. Mavaraloku too was politically unreliable, and under other than combat conditions, he was free to query orders he considered dubious, even from the corps commander. If he suspected that something covert was going on, he might well call the Imperial General Staff in Ananporu, to check. The fat would really be in the fire then. Thus the forged initials.
"Can I have the use of a commset?" asked the captain stiffly.
The subcolonel looked at him as if questioning his sobriety. Or his sanity. "There's a whole row of them in the common room."
"I need ... never mind." If he said he needed one with scramble functions, the frigging subcolonel might call a query of his own. He hurried out, glancing at the large wall clock as he did so: 0107. He'd use a commset at Corps. And even that might not work; he wasn't sure that Abrikalaavi was still in range. If not... He imagined himself coming back with a gun. Shove it in the subcolonel's gut, and then see if he'd honor a verbal order.
The only practical thing he could think of was to draft the order himself and forge the general's signature. And Mavaraloku's initials. The thought of it made his hair bristle with fear. It would have to look just right—wording and forgeries. He'd have to look up the relevant regulations, use the proper form, drill Old Iron Jaw's signature ... 0130 was out of the question.
It was a damned good thing the brigade had its own gunship squadron. But a mere squadron wouldn't discourage the Capital Division.
The subcolonel watched the captain leave. He remembered the written reprimand Old Iron Jaw had issued on him the spring before, during maneuvers, for releasing a mere flight of gunships on the verbal order of an unauthorized colonel. He'd been brand new here at Fashtar, and hadn't known the general's reputation for entrapment. Regulations, he'd learned then, were not to be slighted.