The Reaches

Besides Stephen and his immediate staff, the Gallant Sallie had landed fifty sailors and a 10-cm plasma cannon on a ground carriage. The gun was in the care of Stampfer, who'd followed Piet as master gunner through a series of commands. Dole was in charge of the men who dragged the weapon and its attendant paraphernalia along the rugged trail. Most of Dole's party was from his close-combat team. There was no risk of a Fed sortie overrunning the gun.

'That's right, boys, put your backs in it,' the bosun called from just ahead in the darkness. 'If they don't get out in front better, we'll roll some of these soldiers into the ground, seeing they like dirt so well.'

Dole was bantering, not snarling at his men. He knew as Stephen did that pride would take the sailors farther and faster than threats ever could.

The plasma cannon was a dense mass filling the track. Stephen heard cutting bars whine up ahead. Sailors were widening the gap opened by the infantry pioneers now leading the column. The cut brush went to corduroy the muddy surface for the gun's balloon tires.

Stephen touched his aide on the shoulder and said, 'I'll lead for a moment, Vanderdrekkan.' He broke trail through resisting brush to avoid getting in the way of the crew pushing and pulling the massive cannon.

Dole stepped aside to wait for him. 'Going up to sort out these landsmen, sir?' he asked.

'Going to make sure we're pointed in the right direction, at least,' Stephen said. 'Everything under control here?'

The bosun was a stocky man whose bald spot gleamed on a head of coarse black hair. He carried a carbine and wore back-and-breast armor, though the sailors with the gun had been specifically exempted from the orders requiring half armor for the landing force. At least a third of the sailors sweated in ceramic cuirasses as they dragged their tonnes of ordnance forward.

The armor was bravado. There's nobody on this planet as tough as we are. And when veteran troops felt that way, they were very generally correct.

'I sent Lightbody and Tiempro forward to set pulleys for the block and tackle at the top of the rise,' Dole said. 'We'll have the gun sited and ready before you're halfway to town.'

Stampfer came back to join them. He and the six men of his crew each wore a canvas vest holding four dense 10-cm shells. The gunner had decided that was a better way to carry munitions on this trail than a wheeled cart.

'Remember, don't get overanxious,' Stephen said. He raised his voice enough to be heard by sailors shuffling past on the drag ropes. There was no chance of Stampfer-or Dole-disclosing the gun position before time, but the common sailors might mutter and complain unless they knew the orders came directly from Mister Gregg. 'We won't need you unless they come at us with ships. Then we'll need you bad, and I want your first shot to count.'

'Don't bloody fear, sir,' Stampfer said in a low rumble. He was a squat troll of a man. Instead of a firearm or a cutting bar, the gunner carried a meter-long trunnion adjustment wrench. He was quite capable of using it on anyone jostling him as he laid a plasma cannon.

'Wish I was going with you, Mister Gregg,' Dole said. 'But I suppose there'll be another time, won't there?'

Stephen nodded. 'There always is,' he said. If you live; but Stephen didn't have to warn the bosun about danger. It was amazing that Dole had survived after following Captain Ricimer and Mister Gregg so long.

The gun had staggered past as the officers talked. 'Well, carry on and don't be greedy,' Stephen said to Dole and Stampfer. 'These soldiers aren't any more use on a ship than I am, so don't grudge them and me a chance to pretend we're good for something.'

He pushed into the brush again. 'Let's see what Major Seibel's about, Vanderdrekkan. We're certainly not needed here.'

ABOVE BERRYHILL

January 18, Year 27

1629 hours, Venus time

Sarah Blythe's new hard suit fitted so well that in weightless conditions she sometimes forgot she had it on. The extra thirty kilos of mass were still there. She strained her shoulder when she caught a stanchion to halt behind Piet Ricimer's console.

The Wrath was under combat regulations: all personnel in armor, and internal pressure low to limit air loss during gunnery. A gunner's mate shrieked in a voice made pale by the thin air, 'Mister Stampfer's going to cry when he comes back if you fucking whoresons don't train your guns better on the next firing pass! I could piss out a port and hurt the Feds worse!'

Piet wore all but the gauntlets of a gilded hard suit. He was talking into a handset against his left cheek while his right hand manipulated a display filled with numbers. After a decent interval, Sal said, 'Captain Blythe reporting as ordered, General Commander!'

'At the very least, Captain Holmberg,' Piet said, 'your ship may draw a bolt that would otherwise have damaged a useful element of the squadron. Take your place in the rotation, or expect to answer for your cowardice as soon as we're on the ground. Out!'

Piet turned to Sal. The Wrath had five navigational consoles-the pair to starboard separated from the other three by a splinterproof bulkhead of clear glass. Guillermo was in the seat beside Piet, and a Betaport navigator Sal recognized but couldn't name was at the remaining console of the main triad.

'Holmberg thinks that because the Zephyr's popguns won't do any damage from orbit, he ought to keep her out of the bombardment chain,' Piet said. 'He doesn't appreciate that the sheer number of ships involved affects Fed morale.'

'Holmberg owns the Zephyr,' Sal said. She hoped she was offering the statement as information rather than seeming to take the part of an Ishtar City man she knew well enough to detest.

'His heirs will own the Zephyr if he plays the coward with me,' Piet said in a voice as emotionless as the one Stephen used when he discussed similar things.

Piet wiped his face with a bandanna, said, 'Sorry,' and then went on. 'First, how did the landing go?'

He manipulated the keyboard with his right index finger without bothering to look at it. The numbers vanished like a coin spinning and were replaced by an image of Berryhill. Sal wasn't sure whether the vast turquoise globe was a realtime view or summoned from memory.

'No problems, sir,' Sal said. The Queen of Sheba had come down too close to the river's edge and flooded her boarding holds when the hatches opened, but Captain Gruen had redeemed himself by rocking the transport free with his attitude jets before lighting his thrusters. Nothing Piet had to learn about officially. 'The ground forces were proceeding ahead of schedule when I lifted for orbit.'

Piet grinned tightly. 'Stephen and I discussed the possibility that the river delta would be defended,' he said. 'I'm glad it wasn't.'

The Wrath had just completed a firing pass when Sal came aboard in obedience to the general commander's summons. All the squadron's armed vessels-the four transports had been stripped of guns for the landing-were in a gigantic rotation that took them dipping one at a time into the atmosphere above St. Mary's Port. The Venerian bombardment wasn't likely to damage the defenses, but it was all the ships could safely do to support the ground force.

Under Piet's control, the display focused down in a series of x10 steps. After the last jump, an image of St. Mary's Port filled the holographic screen.

There were six gun positions sited around the large rhomboidal field. The tower holding the four heaviest guns was ten meters high, commanding much of the surrounding countryside.

The city south of the port area had originally been protected against marauding Rabbits by a ditch and berm. As the Federation colony grew, danger from the savage remnants of pre-Collapse society receded. Buildings now spilled beyond the berm to the south and west. The holographic image was sharp enough that Sal could see that alleys and the highway south, crossing the St. Mary's River, were barricaded against the expected Venerian assault.

Piet rolled the ball switch controlling the display's scale and focus and clicked up the scale. As the center of the image area slid upward, the port reservation expanded to fill the screen.

'This is what concerns me,' Piet said, 'and why I called you here.'