The T'swa colonels, three of them now, arrived together at Lamons's weekly command meeting, each with his aide. The nineteen-year-old Colonel Jil-Zat seemed as poised, as relaxed and sure of himself, as Biltong and Koda.
Lamons had his staff with him, and a personal aide to the Crown—Lord Kristal. Introducing Kristal was the first order of business; when that was over, the work of the meeting began.
Currently, problems of logistics, coordination, and authority were minor, and could be handled at lower levels. These were reviewed briefly. Finally, there was nothing left but the major situation review and discussion.
"And now," said Lamons, "we come back to our purpose in being on Orlantha. We need to reestablish the reliable mining and refining of technite on a scale adequate for the continuance of Confederation industry. We have a time frame to work within, dictated by the need for steel. Lord Kristal has something to say to us about that." He turned to the dapper aristocrat in his precise and correct civilian garb. "Your Lordship?" said Lamons, and sat down.
Kristal stood. "I will be brief, and what I say here must not be repeated—in whole, in part, or in substance—by any of you to anyone not currently present. It would be regarded as treasonous, and no extenuating circumstance would be considered. Is that understood?"
Sober nods around the table assured him that it was.
"Good. I said that not from any concern that one of you might be loose-tongued. I simply wanted to stress the importance of silence on this subject." He scanned the table with its seated officers. "Now. Technetium shipments to trade planets have been embargoed for more than seven deks. This has had a very severe impact on the manufacturing and economy of those worlds, and as a result, on their ability to purchase goods from Confederation worlds. A side effect has been a growing depression in substantial sectors of the Confederation economy. Furthermore, the shipment of steel outside the Confederation, already tightened, was discontinued entirely almost three deks ago, and that is exacerbating matters seriously.
"And here are the most sensitive data: At the present reduced levels of use, existing stocks of technetium will last less than eleven deks. However, use restrictions will be put into effect at the end of this dek which, at the cost of increasing economic problems, will stretch the supply by approximately five deks to, say, fifteen deks. The capacity to ration supplies more severely than that is closely limited by what the economy can stand."
His hard grey eyes scanned the assembled military. "That establishes your time frame, gentlemen. And we can't wait the full fifteen deks; a certain lag time is involved in the economy. His Majesty wants significant new technite shipments underway from Orlantha no later than a year from now. Therefore, you have ten deks."
He nodded at Lamons then and took his seat. The general stood up. "Thank you, Your Lordship. For the purpose of establishing the operational situation, let me say first that the Orlanthan insurgency clearly has considerably greater resources of men and ordnance than we had thought as recently as two deks ago. And they are very effective fighting men." He turned to an aide. "Major Emeril, give us the current data on insurgent attacks and on our progress toward renewed technite production."
Emeril stood. "Thank you, general. Gentlemen, my lord, in the week ending last midnight, lobber rockets landing within our defensive perimeter numbered 387, up from 209 the week before and 117 the week before that. Apparently the insurgents are not only continuing to get reinforcements through; they are now bringing up munitions in greater bulk, on pack animals.
"We have stepped up our combat patrols outside the perimeter, and our ground contacts with the insurgents increased from 17 to 42; that's 247 percent. Again, this was for the week ending last midnight. Also, the intensity of those contacts has increased: Our patrol casualties rose from 61 to 239, with 81 killed. Yesterday alone we had 20 killed on patrols.
"Enemy were increasingly sighted by reconnaissance flights and platform surveillance, indicating either enemy carelessness or, more probably, increased activity. Gunship attacks on seen enemy troops increased from sixteen to twenty-seven. On the other hand, gunship losses to enemy fire increased from three to eleven. Apparently the enemy has now brought M-4 rockets into use, and may in fact be baiting our gunships into what we might call ambushes."
At that point, Lamons interrupted. "Let me add here that the Romblit engineering teams have completed renovation of the technite mines with heavy concrete mineheads. Given our existing defense perimeter, both the refinery sites and mineheads continue susceptible to enemy lobber fire. We hit such lobber positions quickly and hard as soon as they show themselves, but rebuilding the refinery goes slowly for now. We have to construct it like a fortress. But if it was ready now, bulk carriers landing for ore would be subject to rocket attacks, and they're not built to stand that sort of thing. Arrival of the four new divisions will permit us to man a larger defense perimeter, but establishing and building it will cost us." He turned to Emeril. "Major, please continue."
Nodding, Emeril went on, his eyes on Lord Kristal. "Equipment recently received has enabled us to begin expanding the Beregesh secured site. Our attempts the past week to establish six key strongpoints outside the defense perimeter were successful. Casualties in so doing were high but not quite exorbitant: 103 killed and 307 wounded, not including patrol casualties but including men killed and injured by ground-to-air attack on floaters being used to land them, again evincing enemy use of M-4 rockets. Casualties also include operator losses from rocket attacks on armored dozers clearing fields of fire around the strongpoints.
"Our success in strong-point construction has been encouraging, but of course they remain six isolated strongpoints—only a beginning in a defensive perimeter that will be"—he paused meaningfully—"over twenty-five miles long.
"Today we have begun the establishment of six new strongpoints." He turned to General Lamons. "Sir, that's the end of my presentation."
Emeril sat down and Lamons stood up. "Thank you, major." He looked around the table. "You will have noticed a second new face among us: Colonel Jil-Zat of the Ice Tiger Regiment. This is a virgin regiment with a full complement of men, and the contracting authority assures us that they are fully combat competent, albeit without combat experience. The latter will be remedied shortly. Colonel, will you stand, please."
The T'swi stood, tall and with shoulders big even for a T'swi, but almost shockingly young-looking. Jil-Zat nodded without speaking and sat down. The Confederation officers around the long table could not entirely conceal their misgivings.
Lamons continued. "I should add that the contracting authority tells me it is the only additional T'swa regiment likely to be available to us in the near future. Colonel Biltong, please brief us on T'swa combat activities during the last week."
Biltong stood, impassive as always at these meetings. "General, Lord Kristal, gentlemen. To our specific knowledge, T'swa raiders made 474 attacks last week on insurgents and their pack animals. Casualties inflicted are not known, but presumably are fewer per action than in previous weeks because of the increased insurgent tendency to move in small groups—now commonly in twos and threes—and to disperse their travel over a broader zone.
"This tells us something of the dedication and discipline of insurgent troops, and their ability to find their way in wilderness not personally familiar to them.
"Our own casualties have also been lower, partly because such small groups of insurgents have less opportunity and ability to return fire, partly because there are fewer of us for the insurgent hunter-killer patrols to find, and partly because of adjustments we have made in our tactics.
"And to echo General Lamons's comment, it seems abundantly clear that insurgent numbers are far greater than originally thought, while our two regiments have been shrinking. The two engaged regiments, as of yesterday, numbered only 396 men active behind enemy lines. Actually, some of those may be casualties not yet reported. We also have 80 men on rest rotation, 92 more in rehabilitation training following hospitalization, and 77 in the hospital with wounds that should not prevent their reassignment within a reasonably short time. That is a total of 645 men."
Biltong sat down then, and Lamons stood again. "We are aware," Lamons said quietly, "that the T'swa have been operating under sustained, very hazardous conditions, and at heavy cost in blood. We also realize the extreme importance of what they've accomplished. Colonel Voker, you have a proposal to make with regard to the T'swa."
"Yes, sir." Voker got to his feet. "Not all the T'swa in insurgent territory have been raiding insurgent lines of reinforcement and supply. I've had several three-man teams on long-range reconnaissance, tracing insurgent trails farther south. The trails come from a particular region of jungle within which I strongly suspect the insurgent military command and supply centers can be found, and probably the insurgent government.
"A few weeks ago I also put down several small T'swa exploration teams in the equatorial jungle, to report on operating conditions there."
Voker looked around the table. "At the same time, we have analyzed aerial reconnaissance holos of the landforms in regions we thought might contain those centers. Considering that roofed supply depots are necessary in such a rainy climate, and that suitable buildings should be detectable from recon platforms but weren't, I assumed that caves are probably being used. These would have to be extensive, and because of drainage requirements would almost surely be found in hills with certain characteristics. I've made certain other assumptions as well, and come up with a limited number of candidate areas.
"What I propose doing next is to withdraw the existing T'swa hunter-killer squads to Aromanis for rest and refitting, replacing them with two battalions of the new regiment. I recommend that the other new battalion be used at Beregesh to disrupt and inhibit insurgent activities in the vicinity of our strongpoint construction.
"Meanwhile, veteran T'swa scout teams will be flown south to find, if possible, the central insurgent command area. Assuming they find it, the veteran T'swa regiments would be used to strike the area by surprise, with the sole purpose of capturing and bringing out insurgent headquarters officers who might be able to tell us who trained and supplied them, and how, as well as giving us locations of other strategic sites we can hit from the air."
Voker scanned the intent faces around the table, then continued. "For interrogation, incidentally, we have several psychiatric specialists being flown here from Iryala with their equipment.
"After withdrawing the T'swa and their prisoners, we can strike key coordinates from the air, and hopefully seriously impair the insurgent ability to continue, while turning over to the Crown any information on off-world supporters of the insurgency."
Again Voker looked the silent group over. "That is the outline of my proposal. It has the apparent potential to weaken seriously the insurgents' supply capacity and to end any future outside aid to them."
He sat down, and for a moment no one spoke. Lamons started to rise then, but before he said anything, Lord Kristal spoke. "General, I recommend that you recess this meeting, its members to remain available on short notice. I'd like to speak with Colonel Voker and yourself with regard to the colonel's proposal."
That evening, with the decisions made and detailed planning underway, and a coded message cube off to His Majesty, Lord Kristal let his thoughts wander. The standard military mind! Even Voker, easily the most imaginative of them all, wore a mental strait-jacket. With the proper innovative use of resources at hand or available in short order, ore could be shipped within a dek—two at most. But of course, if they were up to that, he said to himself, this project wouldn't be necessary in the first place.