CHAPTER


TWENTY-SEVEN

Headquarters, Fourth Force Reconnaissance Company, on Board the CNSS Kiowa

Commander Walt Obannion had just arrived in his office when Lieutenant Jimy Phipps knocked on his door. “Come!” Obannion said without looking up from the overnight reports on his console.

“Sir,” Lieutenant Jimy Phipps, Fourth Force Recon Company’s S2 intelligence officer, said as he entered. “We just got a very interesting report from fourth squad.” He held up a crystal.

“Show me,” Obannion said, reaching for the crystal. He popped it into his console and quickly read the report, then more quickly scanned the 2-D images that accompanied it. Sergeant Major Maurice Periz slipped past Phipps as Obannion inserted the crystal and read over his shoulder.

“Find out who those people are, Jimy,” Obannion said, starting to remove the crystal to return it to Phipps.

“I made a copy, sir. Sergeant Benalshank’s already on it.”

Obannion nodded, then returned to the top of the report and read it more carefully. Periz started breathing heavily as he read over Obannion’s shoulder.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” the sergeant major asked.

“Quite possibly, Sergeant Major. Quite possibly.” Obannion turned his head to look up at Periz. Unlike the sergeant major, he wasn’t breathing heavily—but his eyes were shining. He turned back to Phipps. “Let me know the minute any one of these people is identified.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” As Phipps turned to leave Obannion’s office, Sergeant Benalshank blocked him.

“Sir, I have preliminary IDs on four of the people in those images.” Phipps grinned as Benalshank said, “Heb Cawman, chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War, leads the list. We’ve also identified J. Bubs Ignaughton, Duey Culvert, and Mort Hedgepath.

Obannion stared at Benalshank for a moment, then popped the crystal and stood. “Sergeant Major, that’s from fourth squad,” he said, striding out of his office. “Fifth squad is also in the area of Gilbert’s Corners. Tell both of them to go to ground and await further orders. Mr. Phipps, ask Captain Qindall to contact Admiral Hoi and tell the admiral I would like to meet with him at his earliest convenience. I’m on my way to the bridge.”

Obannion’s comm buzzed when he was halfway to the bridge. He flipped it open. “Obannion.”

“Sir.” It was Captain Qindall, the company executive officer. “The admiral’s compliments. He is in his CIC and will be pleased to see you at your earliest convenience.”

“Thanks, XO. On my way.”

Combat Information Center, Task Force 79, on Board the CNSS Kiowa

The fleet CIC, in one of the largest compartments on the heavy cruiser Kiowa, was dimly lit, mostly by console monitors, though red lights glowed dimly on the deck, indicating passage between console stations. Each station had an intent sailor sitting in front of it. Chief petty officers each oversaw several stations. Three officers backed up the chiefs. Rear Admiral Hoi Yueng, the commander of Task Force 79, which had broken the space defenses the Coalition had around Ravenette and landed the first wave of reinforcements for the beleaguered Confederation forces on the Bataan Peninsula, and since then had prevented the Coalition from feeding more than a few reinforcements to its own troops, sat at his command station in the center of the CIC.

Commander Obannion didn’t enter the TF 79 CIC as silently as a Force Recon Marine could, nor did he enter it with the sharp footfalls of a Marine on parade—just loud enough for Admiral Hoi to hear him. Hoi didn’t turn his head to see who’d entered his CIC, he merely raised a hand and crooked a finger.

“What do you have for me, Commander?” he asked as soon as Obannion reached him.

“Something that pleased me a great deal, sir,” Obannion answered. “I think you’ll like it too. If I may?” He made to insert the crystal in Hoi’s console, and did so when the admiral nodded.

Hoi read the message, then began scanning the attached images. He stopped a few faces in.

“I know that face,” he said. “Heb Cawman. Chairman of the Committee on the Conduct of the War.” He resumed scanning the images. “Who else have you identified?”

“J. Bubs Ignaughton, Duey Culvert, and Mort Hedgepath so far, sir.”

“So far?”

“Yessir. When we identified those four right off, I thought it was likely that the rest of them are in Gilbert’s Corners as well. Especially considering that one of the four is chairman. My staff was continuing to attempt to identify the rest when I left my office.”

Hoi nodded. “One of General Billie’s infrequent reports said he believed the committee had moved out of Ashburtonville. This is the first intelligence I’ve seen to verify that—or to indicate where the committee had gone to.” He turned on his map and located Gilbert’s Corners, then clicked on it. After studying the short column of data numbers that appeared next to the town for a few seconds, he said to one of the officers, “Tell Surveillance and Radar to get me whatever kind of real-time pictures they can of Gilbert’s Corners.” He gave the coordinates.

“Aye, aye, sir,” the officer replied, then spoke into his comm.

“Not being able to string the pearls does make our job somewhat more difficult than it needs to be,” Hoi commented. He raised his hand when Obannion started to say something and said, “But the way your hunter-killer teams have been performing, I expect that situation to vastly improve shortly.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Then they waited quietly for S and R to report back. Patience is a virtue for both navy commanders and Force Recon Marines, so having to wait for the report didn’t bother either man.

Surveillance and Radar Division, CNSS Kiowa

SRA3 Nitzen looked at the coordinates, made a mental calculation, and snorted. “Why does the bridge want a picture of that patch of farmland?” he asked.

“It ain’t the bridge wants it, Nitzen,” growled Chief Blitzor. “It’s the admiral wants it. When an admiral tells lowly techs like us he wants something, we says, ‘Aye, aye, sir,’ and we gives it to him. Now get to work and make some pictures—the admiral wants them now.

“Aye, aye, Chief,” Nitzen said, shaking his head. “At this range, though, I sure hope he isn’t expecting real pretty pictures with tons of detailed analysis.”

Chief Blitzor turned his head to Lieutenant Dondor, the assistant division commander, who had given him the request from the admiral’s CIC.

“He wants pictures, not analysis,” Dondor told Blitzor.

“You heard that?” Blitzor said to Nitzen.

“Yep.” Nitzen was already bent to his work, trying to focus the S and R cameras and radar on the coordinates of Gilbert’s Corners, barely still visible near the horizon. With the planet rotating in one direction and the Kiowa orbiting it in the opposite, Nitzen didn’t have much time to acquire images, and what he did get wasn’t very detailed. “Now what?” he asked when he had what he could get.

Blitzor turned to Dondor; the officer hadn’t told him what to do with the pictures.

“Transfer them to my console,” Dondor said. When he got the images, he transmitted them to the TF CIC.

Combat Information Center, Task Force 79

“That was fast,” Commander Obannion said, surprised at the shortness of the wait.

“Gilbert’s Corners was nearing the limb when I requested these images,” Rear Admiral Hoi said dryly. “It’s probably all they had time to get before the next orbit, or unless they got the data from another ship. Now let me see what we’ve got here.” He peered closely at the visual, infrared, and radar images that slide-showed on his monitor, then called up the Gilbert’s Corners data again. He nodded sharply, then swiveled the monitor so Obannion could get a better look. “Gilbert’s Corners has a population of little more than a thousand. Tell me, does that look like a village that size?”

Obannion leaned closer to take a good look. The visual images didn’t tell him much. It was just dawn at Gilbert’s Corners; the structures were silhouettes, obscured by long shadows. But the infrared and radar told him quite a bit. “Sir, that looks more like a growing town than a small village.”

“Uh-huh. I do suspect your people on the ground have found what my people above the sky couldn’t have discovered without a good deal of work and luck, even if we had the string-of-pearls in place. Just goes to show the value of Force Recon.”

No matter what that doggie thinks, Obannion thought, though he wouldn’t say that in front of the admiral. Out loud, he said, “Force Recon, sir, we go where no one else can.”

Hoi leaned back in his chair for a moment, thinking, then sat erect. “General Billie is in overall command of this campaign, albeit he has little direct control of what my task force does. The proper thing to do is for me to download this data to him and request direction. I will, of course, recommend a course of action. Two of them, as a matter of fact.

“My primary recommendation will be that he detach elements of sufficient size from the garrison on Bataan to stage a strike against Gilbert’s Corners with the objective of neutralizing, capturing if possible but definitely neutralizing, the Committee on the Conduct of the War.” He again paused to think, and shook his head. “Given who he is and how he thinks, I doubt he will consent to detaching any part of his force for such a strike. Since he won’t, I will alternatively recommend a raid conducted by Force Recon. If nothing else, we can throw a scare into them.” He looked into a distance only he could see for a moment, then looked at Obannion. “In any raid, there will be casualties. If we have to fight in the village, we run the risk of civilian casualties. In the past the Coalition has made considerable political capital from inadvertent civilian casualties. To the greatest extent possible, we have to avoid civilian casualties.”

Obannion nodded.

“However, I think the members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War are legitimate military targets. If any of them gets killed, so be it. Try not to kill them, though; the Confederation can make better political capital out of captured committee members than dead ones.”

“I understand and fully concur, Admiral,” Obannion said.

“Commander, begin drawing plans for such a raid.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Hoi turned back to his console and replaced the images of Gilbert’s Corners with a schematic of the warships in orbit around Ravenette. Obannion took that as a dismissal and left the CIC.

Headquarters, Fourth Recon Company

The entire staff of Fourth Force Recon Company, minus Ensign Barnum and First Sergeant Cottle, who were still at Camp Howard on Halfway, assembled in Commander Obannion’s office. It was a tight fit for the six of them, especially after Sergeant Major Periz closed the hatch to the outer office.

“I suspect it’s possible that one or two of you haven’t yet heard about the latest report from second platoon’s fourth squad, so I’ll let Lieutenant Phipps brief you on it,” Commander Obannion began, with a nod at his S2 officer. “At this point, he should have more information than I do. Mr. Phipps, if you will.”

“Yessir,” Phipps said, and stood a little taller; in Barnum’s absence, he was the company’s most junior officer. “Yesterday, local time, second platoon’s fourth squad was on a hunter-killer mission a hundred and fifty kilometers southwest of Ashburtonville, searching for satellite-killers and their emplacement vehicles, when they discovered the area was heavily patrolled by Coalition infantry. Second platoon’s fifth squad also encountered numerous foot patrols in a nearby patrol area. Sergeant Williams decided to find out why the area was being aggressively patrolled, as the patrols could interfere with his squad’s primary mission. Fourth squad’s hunter-killer area was adjacent to a small farming village called Gilbert’s Corners—as was fifth squad’s. Sergeant Williams made a cursory examination from a distance and noted extensive recent construction, and what appeared to be housing for far more than the thousand or so people known to be resident in the village. So he led one other Marine into the village to investigate. They discovered newly constructed barracks sufficient to house a reinforced battalion, as well as numerous single-family dwellings. Inside the original village, they found a bar-restaurant that was open and busy despite the late hour—by then it was past midnight, a most unusual time for such an establishment in a farming community to be open and busy. Sergeant Williams thought the patrons of the establishment didn’t look like farmers, so he took 2-D images of them and attached the images to his report.”

Phipps paused long enough to grin. “We have identified some of the people in those images—at least eight of the eleven members of the Coalition’s Committee on the Conduct of the War are in Gilbert’s Corners.”

“Thank you, Mr. Phipps,” Obannion said before the S2 could continue. At some point, he realized, he’d have to give his intelligence officer a primer on briefings—that was a bit too stilted. “You did indeed know something I didn’t. Please inform Admiral Hoi and give him the names of every member of the committee you’ve identified. You can give the names to his aide. Return here as soon as you’ve done that.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” Phipps squeezed past Periz, who again closed the door behind him. Everybody breathed a little easier with one fewer body in the commander’s office.

“Now,” Obannion continued, “Admiral Hoi is sending a report on that discovery to General Billie planetside. With recommendations. He wants his primary recommendation to be for the general to detach a sufficient force to attack Gilbert’s Corners with the objective of killing or capturing the committee members present there. He doubts—and, for what it’s worth, I concur—that General Billie will want to detach anybody for that mission. So in addition to the assault by elements of his command with Force Recon in a supporting role, Admiral Hoi is recommending a raid on Gilbert’s Corners conducted by us.” Obannion paused while the sergeant major opened the door to let Lieutenant Phipps back in. “So, I want you to start planning for three missions. One, an unsupported Force Recon raid on Gilbert’s Corners using all company personnel, those planetside who can reach the objective in a timely manner, and those who are available in orbit. Two, a platoon-size Force Recon raid on Gilbert’s Corners. Three, Force Recon operations in support of a regimentsize army assault on Gilbert’s Corners. In each case, the unsupported raids and the operations in support of a larger action, civilian casualties are to be avoided to the greatest extent possible. If the opportunity arises, members of the committee are to be captured, though their capture is not the primary objective of the raids. The primary objective is to sow as much confusion and fear as possible.

“Questions?”

“How much time do we have?” Captain Wainwright, the S3 operations officer, asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine, but I’d say a minimum of two days, maximum one week. Anybody else?”

“Can we kill the members of the committee?” Captain Qindall asked.

Obannion looked at his executive officer and realized that he was giving voice to a question he thought the others were reluctant to ask. “Admiral Hoi assures me that the members of the Committee on the Conduct of the War are legitimate military targets. However, killing them is low priority and to be avoided if reasonably possible. Anybody else?” When nobody else had any questions, he said, “Let’s do this thing.”

Sergeant Major Periz opened the door and stepped out of the way of officers anxious to get to work.