Intrepid полностью

''My options are rather clear, Mr. Whitebred. I can continue to advance. To seek out and engage the forces under this Longknife girl. So far, they have gone out of their way to avoid serious contact and any casualties.''

''They didn't take out a single one of your troopers while they were shooting up your trucks?'' Thorpe still couldn't seem to address that fact without his words drowning in incredulity.

''No one was even nicked. I have fifty hostages and was prepared to shoot ten for every one killed. With not even one trooper wounded, I seemed as much bound to do nothing as our published order bound me to do something if she did hit someone.''

''Should we change that order, Captain Thorpe?'' Whitebred asked.

''It doesn't seem like we'd gain anything by doing that just now. All our mobile assets are down. By the way, Colonel Cortez, I checked back with the troops you left guarding your landers. They do not appear to be under any threat. In fact, no civilians are in view of either of the landing beaches. The locals seem to be making a big thing of ignoring them.''

''Could any of them get their hands on a few trucks. Maybe bring us up a load of radiators?''

''Radiators? Ha!'' someone spat. Cortez turned to see a sunburned old fellow sitting in a ring of ten hostages. ''We don't keep no supply of radiators like that waiting around.'' He spat again. ''You done put all of us on foot, man.''

''Did you hear that?'' Cortez asked his orbital listeners.

''Yeah. You've been down there awhile. You see anything that looks like a big supply of spare parts?''

''Not in any town we passed through. Farms seem to keep their old stuff around. For spare parts I'd guess, but if we sent a couple of rigs around to collect stuff, I suspect we'd end up with more holed radiators than spares.''

The hostage just grinned at Cortez and nodded.

''I'm wide open to suggestions,'' Cortez finally bit out.

''If you try to fall back, you'll have to do it on foot.'' Captain Thorpe stated the obvious.

''If I try to advance,'' Cortez pointed out, ''I'll also be doing that on foot.''

''But you have to be close to contact,'' Whitebred put in from his deep well of military ignorance.

''That is true,'' Thorpe agreed. ''You've come so far, Colonel, to walk away from your attackers.''

''And could he?'' Whitebred put in. ''Walk away, I mean. What are the chances this Longknife girl has gotten her hands on some transport? Couldn't they use any borrowed trucks to whip around your—what do you call them?—flanks, and be in front of you no matter which direction you go in?''

''It does seem like Colonel Cortez will be attacking, whatever direction he chooses to head,'' Thorpe pointed out.

''But in one I'll be getting closer to my base. In the other direction, I'll be going farther.'' Cortez wanted to say, You idiots, pull me back to our bases. There's a chance we just might hold in the major cities if I have enough troops to garrison. Wandering around out here, I'm just the latest in a long line of generals looking to have my command wiped out.

And if he said that, he'd be immediately labeled a defeatist, coward, and loser. That was what Thorpe wanted to do. Label him. Relieve him and turn his command over to Major Zhukov. Cortez threw the man from Torun a hard glance.

Major Zhukov shook his head and took a step back. He waved both his hands and mouthed, Not me. I don't want this mess.

Cortez would have preferred a stronger vote of confidence, but a look around the causeway showed no reason for confidence.

''I think he should keep going,'' Whitebred said. ''There's not much more inhabited space north of where he is. He does outnumber the Wardhaven interlopers three or four to one. Maybe five to one. It seems to me that you've got all of them right there. Why shouldn't he just keep on attacking them?''

''That sounds like a good call to me,'' Captain Thorpe said.

It would, you damn swabby. You're up there, not down here, Cortez thought. But Whitebred had a point. It might work.

And on the way up here, Cortez had driven his troops through plenty of places for a good ambush. If Longknife and her Marines had trucks, they'd be there waiting for them.

Sooner or later, Longknife would strip him of his hostages, and the gloves would come off. Cortez projected a map on the ground in front of him. The distance to the northernmost settlement was barely a quarter of that back to City Two.

If he could just find this Longknife and fix her in place, his four companies should be able to kick the living stuffings out of her. ''We will continue to advance, sir, in pursuance of your orders,'' Cortez said.