Chapter 6

The roundup of the recalcitrant kings was nearly finished. There were only a couple more left to do, and the jobs had already been assigned, so there wasn't much left for the humans to do on Ixler. King Umlaut had decided that he couldn't trust the kings who had originally refused to cooperate, but he didn't want to kill them—he thought that would set a bad precedent. So he did what all statesmen do in such circumstances: he compromised. These kings and their cohorts were exiled to an island large enough to support them if they were willing to work, but he didn't supply them with any laborers. That way, if they wanted to eat, they had to "slave" in the fields, themselves.

King Umlaut was supplying the exiles with food and shelter until they could get their first crop in, but the exiles didn't seem to be taking the situation very seriously. In fact, they were lazing through the day and partying at night, as if they expected King Umlaut to change his mind at any time. They were already behind schedule, and they were going to get damned hungry within a few months if they didn't get to work. The exiles ignored all the good advice they were given and continued to party to exhaustion. What was going on? Were they all crazy?

The question was answered when a monster invasion force from Wenra landed and started to roll up the native Ixern defenders. The Wenrarians were from a neighboring solar system and had been trading with Ixler for some time, so the two peoples knew each other very well. The two peoples had descended from a common ancestor who had been busy populating that portion of the galaxy for around a 100,000 years; the only difference between the two groups was skin color. The Wenrarians were green and the Ixlerns were red, more or less. The difference was a reaction to the specific radiation of the local sun.

King Umlaut screamed for help from the humans, who did what they could. The humans were sorely outnumbered by the invaders and didn't have enough heavy equipment to do more than slow down the invasion. A panicked call for help was sent to Sauna, but Sauna's forces were so scattered over the galaxy that the beleaguered humans on Ixler could not expect much help for some time. All the humans could do was drop back into a small unit, guerrilla-type war. Now the Wenrarians were in a lot of trouble, because this was the kind of warfare the humans excelled in!

The reason for the invasion was that the exiles had promised the Wenrarians up to 2 million slaves if they would come to Ixler and drive the humans out. This would let the exiles take over the governing of Ixler and provide the opportunity for the enslavement of that many people. Unfortunately, the exiles had not thought their solution through to its logical conclusion: once the Wenrarians had chased the humans out, the Wenrarians would own Ixler and could tell the exiles to get lost. Ixler would have new rulers, and they would be Wenrarians! At this time, the entire planet of Ixler would be enslaved.

The humans, who were getting bored, were almost willing to write a thank you note to the exiles for making life exciting, again. However, the humans were not going to be nice to traitors, no matter what their species, so they had started to fight in earnest. Dick Jones' platoon was one of those that had a little warning of the impending disaster, so they had time to make some preparations. They gathered their weapons and supplies and headed for the nearest swamp. Just like the Ixlerns, the Wenrarians were not able to tolerate swamp water, so the humans had a ready sanctuary. The Wenrarians had no concept of the proper use of air power, so they were unable to find the escaped humans.

Before the Wenrarians had fully grasped the trouble they were in, the humans had started attacking them at every opportunity. The favorite form was the night attack, since the humans had night-vision systems far better than their enemies. From the second night of the invasion, no Wenrarian could get a decent night's sleep for fear of immanent attack.

Human strategy changed with the invasion. Now, the humans were ordered to us their regular ammunition, instead of the stun setting, against the Wenrarians. A point had to be made that a sneak attack against humans was a no-win situation. The human grunts were not real happy about this, but they could bow to the logic of the command. Sauna was able to resupply ammunition, so they could expect to have enough for even a protracted war. If they ran out of ammunition, they could use the stun ray, since that would never run out; otherwise, the orders were to kill and wound green skins whenever possible.

Dicks first target was a moderate size camp of invaders on the nearest dry land, actually the land formerly occupied by the humans. This should be a relatively easy mark, since the humans were more familiar with the terrain than were the Wenrarians. The main camp was on a little flat-topped hill safely isolated from the surrounding marshy wetlands. The humans had not bothered to put up a fence around the camp, since they had figured that no native was going to take the chance of getting wet by coming through the marsh. The Wenrarians mistakenly took the same attitude, totally unaware of the human disdain for getting wet while on a mission.

There was a road leading into the camp, and the Wenrarians had set up impressive defenses along it and ignored other ways in. The humans put on their rubber suits and walked, unobserved, through the marsh to attack about midnight. The humans were using live ammunition which might penetrate their body armor, so Dick had them concentrate their attention on a relatively narrow section of the camp's perimeter so that they would not be hit by friendly fire. By keeping to about 90 degrees of the circumference, they would not be shooting directly at their friends.

The humans moved in with just their rifles and light mortars. The mortars were to concentrate on the strong points near the road while the infantry took care of the rest of the camp. The Wenrarians were no slouches as fighters, but they were the victims of stupid leadership. There were only token guards on the wet side of the camp, so the humans were able to get close enough to take out the guards without arousing the rest of the camp. This was the only time that night that they used the stun ray; it was used to prevent the noise of a gunshot.

The rifles were set to fire in 3-shot bursts of automatic fire. The humans simply marched abreast across the campground, holding the rifles at their waist and firing as they walked. The few shots of return fire were deflected by the body armor, and there were no injuries to the humans during the whole operation.

Meanwhile, the mortars took out the machine guns set up to guard the road. The mortar rounds were laser designated, so, in most cases, it was one round per machine gun. The one exception came about when the trooper holding the laser designator belched during the mortar round's flight and the laser drifted off target at the critical moment. The poor guy thought that he was never going to live down that goof.

The few Wenrarian survivors were allowed to escape down the road. A few drowned in the 4-foot deep water as they made the mistake of trying to escape in that direction. They tried to scratch too many itches at one time and fell full length into the water. Once that happened, they completely lost control of their bodies and were not able to keep their heads above water. The humans couldn't help shuddering at this death.

Anything useful was salvaged from the Wenrarian camp, and the rest was burned. All raids should go this well. Now that the Wenrarians were warned, the humans didn't expect to have such an easy time of the next raid, so it should be even more fun and exciting.

Back at camp the next day, Dick called in his squad leaders, and they carefully went over the raid. They wanted to determine what went wrong as well as what went right. As the leader of the platoon, Dick was more concerned than most about possible casualties. If he lost too many effective troopers, his platoon would be out of the fight, and everybody would be unhappy about that. The squad leaders promised to warn their people not to take too many silly chances while in search of a cheap thrill.

The Wenrarians did not have effective air transport of supplies; in fact, they were just learning about that subject from their human enemies. The result was that they used wheeled vehicles to transport all of their supplies from the depots to the troops. One such major supply line ran near enough to Dick's area of interest for him to attack it. The temptation was too great to resist, so Dick set up an attack as soon as he could get enough intel to make an informed decision.

Dick sent 3-man teams to position themselves along the road to get a feel for the amount of traffic and how it was spaced. He was particularly interested in knowing whether the supplies moved in convoys or in individual units; he was hoping for convoys. Dick got his wish: the supplies moved in convoys. The vehicles were, essentially, 3-ton trucks. The protection appeared to be a rifleman riding beside the driver, with no other armed personnel on the trucks. The Wenrarians appeared to be worried more about casual theft than about serious armed attack. Dick figured to wake them up with a bang.