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For the first time, Wefer frowned. "Six feet? A full fathom? You'll flood the
town itself. That flat spot between the rivers that the town's built on can't
be more than six or eight feet above water level on both sides. You'll have
another four to six feet of running water in the streets. Do you want that?"
"That's exactly what I want," said Cletus.
"Well & of course there's plenty of solid buildings there in the warehouse
district for people to climb into," said Wefer. "I just don't want to get the
Navy billed for flood damage "
"It won't be," said Cletus. "I'm still under General Traynor's direct orders
as commander here. I'll take the responsibility."
Wefer peered at Cletus in the growing light, shook his head and whistled
admiringly. "We'll get right at it then," he said. You ought to have your
fathom of water up above the city there in about four hours."
"Good," said Cletus. He stepped into the elevator sling and waved to the
transport ship to pull him back in. "Good luck."
"Good luck to you and your Dorsais!" Wefer replied. "You'll need it more than
we do. We're just going to be doing our daily jobs."
Once back inside the transport, Cletus ordered it to swing back up to within
line of sight of Two
Rivers itself. The sky was lightening rapidly now, and the individual
buildings in Two Rivers were easily picked out. Cletus had a coherent light
beam trained on the curved reception mirror on the roof of the warehouse
building that the Dorsais had taken over as their Two River HQ during the week
of jump practice. He sent a call down the light beam and got an immediate
answer from Eachan.
"Colonel?" Eachan's voice was distant, clipped and unruffled. "Been expecting
to hear from you. I
haven't had any reports from my scouts out in the jungle for better than three
hours now. They're all either captured or lying low. But I gather the
Neulanders are clustered in both river valleys above town. I've got all strong
points here manned and ready."
"Fine, Colonel," said Cletus. "I just wanted to tell you to expect to get your
feet wet. You might also warn the civilians in town to gather in the higher
buildings of the warehouse district above the second
floor."
"Oh? Thunderstorm coming?"
"We're not that lucky, I'm afraid," said Cletus. A good heavy rainstorm would
have been all to the advantage of the well-trained Dorsai, both the jump
troops and those in fixed positions in the city. "The weather forecast is for
hot and clear. But the river's going to rise. I'm told you'll have four to six
feet of water in the streets there."
"I see. I'll take care of it with the troops and civilians too " Eachan broke
off. "Are we getting reinforcements here in the town?"
"I'm afraid I can't spare you any," Cletus said. "But with luck, it'll be over
one way or the other before the Neulanders are really on top of you. Do the
best you can with the men you have."
"Understood," said Eachan. "That's all from this end then, Colonel."
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"That's all from my end for the moment, too, Colonel," replied Cletus. "Good
luck."
He broke the light-beam contact and ordered the transport ship back to
Bakhalla for a new load of jump troops. Now that it was open daylight over Two
Rivers and there was no more secrecy to be gained by operating at low
altitudes in the shadows below the peaks above the town, Cletus accompanied
the next wave of jump troops riding in a courier craft, which he set to
circling above the reach of hand-weapon fire from the ground.
The second wave of Dorsai troops to go down on their jump belts were harassed,
but ineffectively so, by angled fire from the Neulander troops downriver.
"Good enough," commented Marc Dodds, who had accompanied Cletus in the courier
ship, leaving
Major David Ap Morgan to take charge of getting off the last two remaining
waves and accompanying the last as its commanding officer. "They'll have
aircraft hitting our next wave, though. I don't know why they haven't had
Neulander ships in the air over here before now."
"Another instance of the too imaginative mind," said Cletus. Marc glanced at
him inquiringly, and
Cletus went on to explain. "I was telling Eachan last night that too much
subtlety could lead to mistakes.
The Neulanders know that the Alliance has supplied the Exotics with many more
and better air-combat craft than the Coalition supplied them. So automatically
they've drawn the wrong conclusion. They think our lack of air cover is only
apparent bait to trap them into putting their own ships up so our superior air
power can knock them down. Also, they know that only the Dorsais were
jump-training, and they'll be suspecting that the Dorsais are the only ones
who're being sent against them for that reason. They know they outnumber us
two or three to one on the ground, which would tend to make them complacent."
The third wave came in and jumped to the jungle below. True to Cletus'
assessment of the situation, there was no appearance of Neuland aircraft to
oppose the jump. Nor was there with the fourth and final wave. With all four
waves of Dorsai jump troops now down on the ground, the pattern of Cletus'
battle plan began to make itself felt. He had set his Dorsais down in the
jungle on the top of the bluffs on either side of both rivers upstream from
the concentration of Neulander troops. Now, spread out in skirmish lines, the
Dorsais began to open up on the rear of the Neulander troops. The Neulanders
fought back, but withdrew steadily, as their force began to move down into the
river valleys toward the town. They showed no tendency to turn and fight and
no panic at being caught by small-arms fire from their rear. Up in their
circling aircraft, Cletus and Marc kept in touch with their units on the
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