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young wife who no longer cared for him) and his faults (he was a gambler in a military as well as a monetary sense) but there was nothing wrong with either the intelligence that had its home in his skull, or the Intelligence that made its headquarters in his Command Base, on Mara. Consequently, he was aware that the Friendly Worlds were preparing for a landing on Zombri within three weeks of the time when the decision to do so had become an accomplished fact. His spies adequately informed him of the Target Date that had been established for that landing; and he himself set about certain plans of his own for welcoming the invaders when they came. The primary of these was the excavation of strong points on Zombri, itself. The assault troops would find they had jumped into a hornet s nest. The ships of the Exotic fleet would meanwhile be on alert not too far off. As soon as action had joined on the surface of Zombri, they would move in and drive the space forces of the invasion inward. The attackers would be caught between two fires; their assault troops lacking the chance to dig in and their ships lacking the support from below that entrenched ground forces could supply with moon-based heavy weapons. The work on the strong points was well under way one day as, at the Command Base, back on Mara, Colmain was laying out a final development of strategy with his General Staff. An interruption occurred in the shape of an aide who came hurrying into the conference room without even the formality of asking permission first. What s this? growled Colmain, looking up from the submitted plans before him with a scowl on his swarthy face, which at sixty was still handsome enough to provide him compensation in the way of other female companionship for his wife s lack of interest. Sir, said the aide, Zombri s attacked What? Colmain was suddenly on his feet; and the rest of the heads of the General Staff with him. Over two hundred ships, sir. We just got the signal. The aide s voice cracked a little he was still in his early twenties. Our men on Zombri are fighting with what they have Fighting? Colmain took a sudden step toward the aide almost as if he would hold the man personally responsible. They ve started to land assault troops? They ve landed, sir How many? Page 85 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html We don t know sir Knucklehead! How many ships went in to drop men? None, sir, gasped the aide. They didn t drop any men. They all landed. Landed? For the fraction of a second, there was no sound at all in the long conference room. Do you mean to tell me shouted Colmain. They landed two hundred ships of the first class on Zombri? Yes, sir, the aide s voice had thinned almost to a squeak. They re cleaning out our forces there anddiggingin He had no chance to finish. Colmain swung about on his Battle Ops and Patrol Chiefs. Hell and damnation! he roared. Intelligence! Sir? answered a Freilander officer halfway down the length of the table. What s the meaning of this? Sir stammered the officer. I don t know how it happened. The latest reports I had from Harmony, three days ago Damn the latest reports. I want every ship and every man we can get into space in five hours! I want every patrol ship of any class to rendezvous with everything we can muster here, off Zombri in ten hours. Move! The General Staff of the Exotics moved. It was a tribute to the kind of fighting force that Colmain commanded that they were able to respond at all in so short a time as ten hours to such orders. The fact that they accomplished the rendezvous with nearly four hundred craft of all classes, all carrying near their full complement of crews and assault troops, was on the order of a minor miracle. Colmain and his chief officers, aboard the flagship, regarded the moon, swimming below them in the Control Eye of the ship. There had been reports of fighting down there up until three hours ago. Now there was a silence that spoke eloquently of captured troops. In addition, Observation reported in addition to the works instigated by the Exotic forces another hundred and fifty newly mined entrances in the crust of the moon. They re in there, said Colmain, ships and all. Now that the first shock of discovery had passed, he was once more a cool and capable commander of forces. He had even found time to make a mental note to get together with this Dorsai, Graeme. Supreme command was always sweet bait to a brilliant youngster; but he would find the Council of United Churches a difficult employer in time and the drawback of a subordinate position under Colmain himself could be compensated for by the kind of salary the Exotics were always willing to pay. Concerning the outcome of the actual situation before him, Colmain saw no real need for fear, only for haste. It was fairly obvious now that Graeme had risked everything on one bold swoop. He had counted on surprise to get him onto the moon and so firmly entrenched there Page 86 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html that the cost of rooting him out would be prohibitive before reinforcements could arrive. He had erred only and Colmain gave him full credit for all but that single error in underestimating the time it would take for Colmain to gather his strength to retaliate. And even that error was forgiveable. There was no other force on the known worlds that could have been gotten battle-ready in under three times the time. We ll go in, said Colmain. All of us and fight it out on the moon. He looked around his officers. Any comment? Sir, said his Blue Patrol chief, maybe we could wait them out up here? Don t you think it, said Colmain, good-humoredly. They would not come and dig in, in our own system, without being fully supplied for long enough to establish an outpost we can t take back. He shook his head. The time to operate is now, gentlemen, before the infection has a chance to get its hold. All ships down even the ones without assault troops. We ll fight them as if they were ground emplacements. His staff saluted and went off to execute his orders. The Exotic fleet descended on the moon of Zombri like locusts upon an orchard. Colmain, pacing the floor of the control room in the flagship which had gone in with the rest grinned as the reports began to flood in of strong points quickly cleaned of the Friendly troops that had occupied them or dug in ships quickly surrendering and beginning to dig themselves out of the deep shafts their mining equipment had provided for them. The invading troops were collapsing like cardboard soldiers; and Colmain s opinion of their commander which had risen sharply with the first news of the attack began to slip decidedly. It was one thing to gamble boldly; it was quite another to gamble foolishly. It appeared from the morale and quality of the Friendly troops that there had, after all, been little chance of the surprise attack succeeding. This Graeme should have devoted a little more time to training his [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |