School of Fire

by David Sherman

  Inside the cave, Doyle peered over MacIlargie and Godenov's shoulders as the other wolves closed on Chan and Schultz. Then one of the wolves moved between the two Marines and the cave.

  "We've got to help them," Doyle squeaked. He examined the situation. Two of the wolves were eating the dead one. Two others were bobbing and flicking their heads beyond it. One was edging around its far side.

  "We kill this one," MacIlargie said. "Then they can't get past it and come in here."

  Doyle shook his head even though the other two couldn't see the gesture. "No good. The Others'll come to eat it, and then there'll be more of them between Chan and Schultz and here. We have to make this one move." The wolf edging around the far end of the dying wolf was standing where Schultz had lain, but Doyle couldn't see the two Marines.

  "That one," Doyle said. He pulled his sleeve down his arm so the other two could see which wolf he was pointing at. It was ten meters away. "If we shoot him, maybe that'll draw this one away."

  "Okay."

  "Right."

  "Don't shoot until I say so. Maybe if we all hit it at the same time, we'll kill it right away."

  The nearest wolf, the one blocking the way for Chan and Schultz, was sidling toward the cave mouth, trying to locate the source of the sounds coming from it.

  Doyle carefully sighted on the wolf, but the sight picture shook from his trembling. He wondered if it was possible to miss a target that big from this short range. He suspected it was. The near wolf was about to stick its head inside the cave; there was no more time.

  "Now!" Doyle shouted. Three bolts enveloped the wolf in flame. A huge hole in its abdominal cavity, the wolf stood for a few seconds, then collapsed straight down.

  The snout of the nearest wolf was scorched by a bolt as it shot past. The creature reared back and screamed as the one closing on Chan and Schultz from the other side jerked its head toward its newly dead companion and took several tentative steps in its direction. The two wolves nearest the second dead one tore into its carcass.

  But the wolf closest to the cave stuck its head and shoulders inside to locate the source of the unfamiliar sounds and the heat. MacIlargie wound up and hit the wolf squarely on the snout with the muzzle of his blaster. The wolf screamed and hopped backward, then lowered its shoulders and stretched its neck forward in a fighting posture. It cawed.

  "Kill it!" Schultz shouted as he fired at the wolf. The other Marines also fired, and, totally engulfed in flames, it toppled over.

  Chan dashed into the cave, half supporting Schultz. The five Marines scurried five meters deeper inside.

  "Now what?" Godenov asked, his voice shaking.

  "Now we wait," Doyle said. "There are three dead ones. The other four will eat their fill and go away. I hope."

  "How's your leg?" Chan asked Schultz. He pulled a glow-ball out of his pack to give him light to examine the injury.

  "I'm all right," Schultz said. He made motions to push Chan away, but didn't push very hard.

  Chan used his combat knife to cut away a flap of fabric on Schultz's trouser leg so he could examine the bite. He whistled. Blood slowly oozed out of a four-inch slit. Around it the flesh of Schultz's leg had blistered from the heat of the wolf's head. "If we don't get you to a corpsman in a hurry, that's going to infect," Chan said.

  "We aren't going anywhere in a hurry," Schultz said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Out there." Schultz nodded toward the cave entrance.

  Chan looked. Outside, several wolves were dashing about. He realized then that he'd been hearing a lot more chirping than before. "Damn!" He stared at the narrow bit of the outside he could see, then said, "Wait here." He stood and took a couple of steps toward the opening. The area in front of the cave was filled with wolves feeding on the three they had killed. He backed up, careful not to make any noise.

  "Schultz is right," he said.

  Godenov looked at Doyle. "Now what do we do?"

  "What do you mean asking me what we're going to do next?" Doyle squealed.

  "You're a corporal," MacIlargie said. "You're the only NCO here. That means you're in charge."

  Momentarily panic-stricken, Doyle looked at the others. Schultz was clearly disgusted, Chan seemed pained. MacIlargie and Godenov merely looked back at him waiting for his orders—all they knew was that Doyle was the ranking man. He might be a clerk instead of infantry, but he did have a Bronze Star.

  Chan shook his head. If nobody had mentioned that, he, Chan, would have taken command. But now it was out in the open. "You've got the rank," he said. "You're in command, Doyle."

  Doyle swallowed. This situation wasn't like being in charge of another clerk. This was combat, or it could be if somebody—he—made a mistake. People's lives depended on the decisions of the man in charge in a combat situation. "Oh, shit..." They weren't going to let him off, he could see that. He, Corporal Doyle, had to make the decisions.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  "The wolves are out. Commander." Pincote grinned around her pointed teeth. Her eyes glowed manically.

  Hing glanced at her. Satisfied that she had obeyed his orders to return immediately, he almost dismissed her from his mind. "The rest of the brigade has taken its combat positions and laid out its routes of withdrawal," he said. "You will bring your company with me when I retire to the southwest. I think that's where their major effort will come."

  Pincote swelled her chest. It was only right, of course, that Commander Hing use the company of his best officer to take on the enemy's main thrust. She didn't swell her chest from pride; gratitude was unnecessary. No. From the way Hing looked at her from time to time, she knew he enjoyed the sight of her body. So she puffed out her chest to reward him for doing the right thing.

  Hing didn't notice Pincote's chest, as he was focusing his attention on the reports he'd been receiving all morning. The Feldpolizei hadn't launched their attack yet, and the sun was already nearing the zenith. Some of his observation posts reported that the oligarchs' men had withdrawn from their positions outside the cave entrances through which he expected them to assault. He wondered why they hadn't yet destroyed the many cave mouths they were known to have mined. He wished he had communications with the outside. He wished he was able to intercept Feldpolizei communications. Well, wish in one hand and...

  That was an unproductive train of thought. He stood "Assemble your company. Move them out. I will meet you there."

  "Yessir." Pincote swelled her chest again and raced from the command post to get her fighters.

  "There's really a lot of wolves out there?" Doyle asked.

  Chan nodded glumly.

  Doyle looked at the size of the tunnel they were in and remembered the wolf that had started in after them. "They'll come in after us, won't they?"

  Schultz spat to the side.

  "Then we're going to have to find another way out of here."

  Schultz spat again.

  "That means we have to go deeper into this cave." Doyle gave the darkness behind them a worried look.

  Schultz had no more saliva to waste.

  Chan looked apprehensively deeper into the cave. "I hate caves," he muttered.

  "Anybody know anything about spekung—ah, spelunk—uh, going in caves?" Doyle asked.

  "We've all been in caves," Schultz said.

  "Oh," Doyle said brightly. "Then we're going to be okay. Since everybody is experienced, do you want to draw straws or something to decide who leads the way?"

  MacIlargie and Godenov exchanged a look—they were beginning to get the idea that not all corporals are created equal.

  Favoring his injured leg, Schultz stood. "The leader's supposed to tell someone to take the point," he growled. He headed into the tunnel, feeling his way as the darkness increased. He wouldn't get out a glowball to light the way until the tunnel made a turn, or until they squeezed through a spot too narrow for the wolves to get through.

  The others followed.

  Time doesn't move at the
same speed at night as it does during the day—just ask anybody who's ever spent a night on a defensive line, knowing there were enemy forces out there somewhere, waiting for the beginning of an attack he wouldn't be able to see coming. Neither does it move at the same speed in a cave. Dark time is slow-time no matter what way you cut it. So the ten minutes it took the five of them to get from the tunnel just inside the cave mouth, through a man made baffle that allowed people to pass but kept out man-size animals, past an unoccupied checkpoint to a chamber with a rock-littered floor, seemed a lot longer, especially since they were also on the alert for booby traps. That ten minutes was long enough for Chan to start feeling very claustrophobic. Long enough for Godenov and MacIlargie to begin to fear that they would wander underground forever. Long enough for Doyle to get the idea that maybe they should have stayed where they were and hoped the wolves wouldn't try to come in after them. But then, Doyle had never been in a cave before, so time moved a lot more slowly for him than it did for the others.

  They had just entered a small cavern strewn with rocks when Schultz sensed light ahead. He didn't see the light directly—another tunnel curved out of the opposite side of the cavern—he saw light reflected off the wall of that tunnel. He stopped, flicked off his glowball, tucked it into his pack, dropped to one knee behind a boulder, and, readying his blaster in both hands, prepared himself to fight. Close behind him, Doyle stumbled and almost tripped over Schultz when the glowball disappeared. Then he saw the reflected glow ahead of them.

  "We made it!" Doyle gasped. "We're saved! All we have to do is follow the lights. They'll lead us out of here. Let's go." When Schultz didn't move immediately, Doyle patted him on the shoulder and stepped around him.

  Schultz calmly reached out and yanked him back. "We don't know what's there," he whispered.

  "There's light; there's a way out," Doyle replied.

  "Quiet!" Schultz snapped. "We don't know who's there."

  "The fighting's over," Doyle said somewhat less loudly. "It doesn't matter who's there."

  "We don't know they got the word."

  "Sure they did. Everybody got the word."

  Chan joined them during this exchange. He grabbed Doyle's shoulder and pulled him close. "We don't know that," he said softly into the corporal's ear. "Communications are screwed up, remember? Solar flare, remember? Remember how we can only receive line-of-sight or from the string-of-pearls? They can't use the string-of-pearis. Unless they've got hardwire communications, they probably don't know about the cease-fire."

  "You think so?" Doyle's voice betrayed his doubt.

  From up ahead they heard sounds, and the glow from the tunnel dimmed. Someone was approaching. A voice said something. Another voice replied indistinctly.

  Doyle's head snapped toward the voices. Whoever was in command had to make quick decisions, had to be very decisive. A cease-fire was in effect. If those people didn't know about it, someone had to tell them. Even though he didn't want to be, he was in command. So it was up to him to make the tough decisions. Around him, he felt the other Marines getting ready for a fight. It was wrong to fight when there was a cease-fire. But he thought that if his companions knew what he had in mind, they'd stop him. He waited until he saw a moving shadow on the tunnel wall, put his blaster down, and jumped to his feet.

  "You in there," he shouted rapidly as he stumbled across the rocky floor of the cavern. "Hold your fire. This is Corporal Doyle of the Confederation Marines. There's a cease-fire—"

  There was a wild shot—the bolt close enough to blister Doyle's left arm and set the sleeve of his shirt on fire. Doyle stopped talking and started screaming.

  The other Marines returned a quick volley and one guerrilla was immediately set aflame. He jumped up and twirled like a fiery dervish until someone shot him in the chest. Another guerrilla, who was missing a leg, began to whimper. A third had either been killed outright or was doing his best to hide. The last of the guerrillas who'd made it into the cavern was scrabbling across the rocks, trying to reach the safety of the tunnel.

  "Cease fire," Chan shouted when he saw the guerrillas weren't shooting back. With Doyle down, he was taking over. The Marines stopped shooting. "Doyle, how bad are you hit?" Chan shouted. "I'm alive," Doyle called back. "I'm alive!" His voice cracked.

  "Hold your fire," Chan shouted at the guerrillas. "A ceasefire is in effect. Let's not shoot each other."

  "You lie," a female voice replied.

  Chan blinked and swore. He'd been right, the guerrillas did have women in their ranks. "No, I'm not. It's true. Do you have radio communications with anyone?"

  The female voice laughed harshly. "If there's a cease-fire, why are you hunting us in the caves?"

  "We aren't hunting you. Some animals chased us in. We came in to get away from them."

  The woman laughed again.

  "Listen..." Chan thought desperately; the way that woman sounded, she wanted to keep fighting. "We both have wounded out in the open. Let's make a truce to retrieve them."

  "If there's a cease-fire, we don't need a truce. Go ahead, try to retrieve your wounded. Our wounded will willingly suffer for the cause."

  "She wants to fight," Schultz growled. He took aim at the tunnel mouth. "I can take the fight out of her."

  Chan pushed the barrel of Schultz's blaster down, then shook his hand. The barrel was still hot.

  Then a man's voice penetrated the cavern, his words clear. "What's going on here?" The woman answered him excitedly. The man lowered his voice and they talked. Chan had trouble understanding the rest of the exchange, but he caught the words "cease-fire" and "lies" from the woman. Then the man spoke up.

  "How can we believe you?" he asked. "What proof do you have?"

  "Check with your higher headquarters, they'll tell you."

  The man laughed. "You know we can't use our radios now."

  Chan swore. He'd hoped the guerrillas had some kind of hardwire communications. Evidently they didn't.

  "Let's do this, then," Chan said. "There's some animals outside this cave. We came in to get away from them. Tell us how to get out of here. We're all pulling away. Give us a half hour from the time we leave the cave, then come out. I think I can get my commanding officer to leave a string-of-pearls radio someplace where you can find it. You can use it to call your headquarters."

  "How can we trust you? Suppose it looks like you've gone away but you haven't, and when we come out, you ambush us?" There was a pause, then the man continued. "The animals you're hiding from, what do they look like?"

  What did that have to do with a cease-fire? Chan wondered. "They're about two meters tall, striped, and a lot of teeth. They run in a pack."

  "Wolves. Very dangerous. How many of you did they kill?"

  "None. We killed three of them. The rest of them were eating the dead ones. We came deeper into the cave so they couldn't come after us when they were through."

  "I apologize. I knew there were wolves out there. I just wanted to make sure you were telling the truth about them. All right, you asked for a truce to move the wounded. Let's do that and then continue talking. I am Commander Hing, commander of the Che Loi Brigade. I'll come out for my side. Who am I talking to?"

  "Lance Corporal Chan, Confederation Marine Corps. I'm also an acting shift sergeant in the Wanderjahr Feldpolizei." Chan swore at himself. He'd added the FP shift sergeant because he knew lance corporal didn't sound like much. As soon as he said it, he realized FP shift sergeant sounded like even less.

  Hing chuckled softly. "A Marine lance corporal, a Feldpolizei shift sergeant. You don't have a lot of men with you, do you?"

  Chan didn't answer.

  There was a quick, angry exchange in the tunnel that ended with Hing shouting, "That's an order!" Then he said, "All right, I'm putting my weapon down and coming out unarmed." There was a scraping sound, then a handgun slid into view in the tunnel mouth. "I'm unarmed. Don't shoot." A shadow moved on the wall and a man sidled into view. He held his hands open and out to h
is sides. "See, no weapons. I'm going to get one of my wounded. Who's acting for you?"

  "I am." Chan put his blaster down and stood up with his hands open and to the sides, the same as Hing's.

  "Where are you?" Hing asked. "I'm in the open, but you're still hidden."

  "I'm here. Look for my face and hands." Chan held his hands at shoulder level and shook his arms to slide his sleeves down to his elbows.

  Hing saw the movement, then focused on Chan's visible forearms. He looked, and above the hands saw Chan's face. "Mein Gott," he said softly. "It's true, you really can make yourselves invisible. How do you do that?"

  Chan grinned wickedly. "That's a Marine secret."

  Hing chuckled again, with an edge of nervousness this time. "Keep your secrets. But I'd like you to tell me sometime. Let's get our wounded."

  "Yes." Chan lowered his sleeves and slipped his infra screen down so he could see Doyle. But before he could take a step the woman in the tunnel shouted, "No, it's a trap!" and ran into the chamber with her blaster leveled to fire.

  "Don't shoot!" Hing cried as he snatched the weapon from her hands. He threw the blaster back into the tunnel. There was a surprised gasp and a slap as someone caught it. He grabbed the woman by the arm and shook her. "Lieutenant Pincote, I declared a truce to retrieve the wounded." He pushed her back toward the tunnel and looked around for his nearest wounded fighter.

  Lieutenant Pincote staggered when Hing shoved her, but quickly caught her balance. She stood, trembling with anger, and glared briefly at her commander, then quickly scanned the chamber. She saw Doyle's face in the rocks where he lay more than halfway across the cavern from the Marines' position. With a howl of triumph, she dashed toward him, pulling a combat knife from her belt as she ran. She leaped.

  "NO!" Chan and Hing shouted simultaneously. Both of them raced toward the woman and her intended victim.

  Schultz got there first. Throwing a body block into Pincote while she was still in midair, he knocked her sprawling, away from Doyle. He grunted at the pain in his injured leg when he landed. Schultz glanced toward Doyle as Chan reached to pull him to safety, then turned back to face the woman's attack. But Hing's doubled-up free hand connected with her jaw. The crack reverberated loudly in the chamber and the woman went limp.