L13TH 02 Side Show

by Rick Shelley

  It was part of a noncom’s duty to nag. Men whose minds were tired, or dulled by the sort of ride they got in a Heyer, were too apt to forget even the simplest things. It took the voice of authority reminding them what had to be done.

  The regular driver was the last man out. He was groggy yet, and had to hold on to his machine to keep his balance. “What happened?” he demanded when he saw Joe. “Who slipped me the Mickey?”

  “Colonel’s orders,” Joe said. “All you heroes. You needed the sleep, and a patch was the only way you were going to get it while we were on the move.”

  “How long?”

  “Close to six hours, I’d say, and the patch was only for four. That should tell you how beat you were.”

  The driver growled. “Somebody could have said something.”

  Joe grinned. “I just did. Don’t worry, we didn’t damage your buggy.”

  “Where the hell are we?”

  “Heading east.” Joe pulled out his mapboard and showed the driver their location. “Way I hear it, we’re heading a lot farther east, then south. Maybe.”

  “Back to our lines?”

  “I imagine that’s what the colonel’s hoping. But we get out there, we might just as easily head the other way.”

  “Run and hide?”

  “I don’t make the orders, I just pass them on. And most of what I just said was a guess anyway.”

  * * *

  It was conference time again for Colonel Stossen. He was sitting under a fruit tree with his staff.

  “This is the layout, the best we know,” Bal said. He punctuated his briefing by pointing to the relevant spots on the mapboard in the center of the group.

  “By now, those Heggies who’ve been trying to get to us all along are riding again. No chance of striking at them since they seem to be running regular air cap over them now. The good news is that as long as we keep moving away from them, there’s little chance that they’ll catch us. No matter how hard they push, I don’t see them narrowing the gap by more than ten or fifteen klicks an hour, and we must be close to three-hundred klicks ahead of them. There are two infantry regiments and a couple of battalions of armor coming our way from the perimeter southeast of here. They’re moving north, more northeast, the last news we had of them. Depending on their speed and whether or not they, and we, stay on course, they could catch us sometime tomorrow morning. There are too many variables to be certain yet. They could put themselves in position to make it impossible for us to head south to rejoin the rest of our people, though.”

  “Where did they pull those troops from?” Stossen asked.

  “From what Colonel Lafferty told me, from the center and south end of the Heggie containment lines.”

  Stossen frowned. “Nothing from the north end?”

  “Not that’ve been spotted.”

  “Doesn’t make sense. Why not take the troops from the near side, cut down on the travel time?”

  “Maybe they’re expecting us to head that way and don’t want to weaken the lines there,” Dezo suggested.

  “That’s the way I’d read it, Colonel,” Kenneck said. “They must figure that we’re going to try to get back to the rest of our people at some point, and that’s where we’d have to aim.”

  “By now, they must have figured out where we’ve been,” Teu said. “They’ll find that we blew up the side of a mountain out in the middle of nowhere. That might give them some puzzling questions, but they might make good guesses. We went there for something or someone, then destroyed the evidence.”

  “Which has got to make them even more curious about us. There’s a factor they can’t ignore,” Kenneck said. “They’re gonna want us badly. Just to erase the question marks.”

  “The farther east we go, the easier it’s going to be for them to bring up even more troops from the near end of their line,” Parks said. “And the better angle they’ll have to intercept us. I think we should head north, Colonel, farther off. Draw the Heggies as far away as we can.”

  “Use our displacement to try to sucker them into displacing even more troops?” Stossen asked.

  “If they fall for it,” Kenneck said. “At some point, all they’d have to do is ignore us until they take care of the rest.”

  Stossen stared at the mapboard for a moment. “Nothing’s changed then, really, has it?” He glanced around at the others. “The only thing is, now we can see what sort of assets they’re sending after us.”

  “Some of them, anyway,” Kenneck mumbled.

  Stossen nodded. “I think we’ll put off any idea of changing plans a bit longer. East as far as we can, looking to head south, but with the option of going north if we have to.”

  “This is still our point of no return,” Kenneck said, stabbing at the mapboard with an index finger. “East of this spot on the river, there are no more crossings we can make, all the way to the sea. Whichever side we’re on, that’s where we’ll have to stay.”

  That spot was only four hundred kilometers from where they sat, perhaps no more than another eight hours of driving time.

  NIGHT. The 13th was stopped again, twenty kilometers west of the last place where they could ford the river to the north bank.

  “We’re here for what’s left of the night,” the Bear told his men. “Set up defensive positions.”

  “Facing which way?” Pit Tymphe asked.

  “We’re supposed to be watching south. Start digging, then eat and get some sleep. One sentry per squad.”

  Joe waited until the men were working, then walked back over to the APC. Lieutenant Keye was sitting in the hatch, feet out in front of him, boots off.

  “Why here, sir?” Joe asked. “And why now? With the drivers rested, we could go on the rest of the night, then dig in for the day.” That, to Joe, would have made more sense. Move at night, in the dark. Hide from the light. For what little advantage it might give.

  “Decision point, Joe.” Keye closed his eyes and leaned back, resting a shoulder against the side of the hatch. “Colonel has to decide if we’re going to stay on this side of the river or cross to the other.”

  Joe took a few seconds to think that over. “Whether we head back to the lines or keep running away?”

  “More or less. Once we pass this ford, there’s no place to get vehicles across, all the way to the ocean.”

  “If it’s the only place, might be better to cross and dig in. Keep the Heggies from using it,” Joe suggested. “We ought to be able to do that.”

  “Not our mission. Those civilians are still our job.”

  “Anybody find out what they’re all about yet?” Joe asked.

  “If they have, nobody’s talking. Better if they don’t. Best if the men don’t even waste time speculating.”

  “Haven’t heard much lately. These mixers don’t make for much small talk.”

  “Colonel’s called for all company commanders to sit in on some sort of briefing. I’ll be leaving soon as I can squeeze my feet back into my boots.”

  “Be nice to know what’s goin’ on for a change, sir.”

  “It would that. If anybody knows to tell.”

  Joe let out a sigh. “I’d better go get myself a hole dug, I guess. See if I can work up the nerve to take my boots off. Been so long I can’t hardly remember the last time.”

  * * *

  It had taken eight hours of work and a lot of luck, but Dem Nimz finally stepped back and grinned. Surrounded by bombed-out and shot-up Schlinal trucks, Dem and his men finally had one truck running. They had been forced to cannibalize a half dozen vehicles to get parts, and even then it had looked as if they might not find a battery with enough juice left in it to start a fuel converter working. But the engine was running now, not perfectly, but good enough.

  “Good thing we followed the same path the Heggies took,” Fredo said. He sounded smug, as if that had
been his idea. “This must have been the last place our Wasps hit ‘em.”

  A dozen trucks, two tanks, and nearly fifty bodies had been scattered around. Two of the Heggie soldiers were still alive when the reccers arrived. Dem’s men didn’t help them—either way. They merely let their wounds take their course. Neither of those men was alive now.

  “No point in standing here until the thing runs out of H2,” Dem said. “Let’s get in and ride. Maybe we can catch up to the action yet.”

  “Long as we don’t get bombed by our own people,” one of the men from 1st recon muttered. But he was one of the first to climb into the back of the truck.

  Dem got into the driver’s seat on the right. He had never driven a Heggie truck before, had never even seen the controls of one, but he wasted no time. While they had been working on the repairs, he had traced out some of the control linkage. Most of it was obvious. And steering was steering. The truck went where he wanted it to go.

  “How far behind you figure we are?” Fredo asked after they started rolling. He was on the seat next to Dem. The rest of the men were in the back.

  “Not sure,” Dem said. “If they sit still, we might be able to catch up in twelve or thirteen hours.”

  “If the Heggies let us drive right through them,” Fredo said.

  * * *

  This was the longest that Zel had been out of his cockpit since Blue Flight had come out to operate from the 13th’s moving position. All five of the Wasps were on the ground, and would be until the 13th got ready to move in the morning. The planes were under thermal tarps. The pilots had set up their ground cloths underneath, where they usually slept. The support vans and the ground crews were close enough to handle the planes.

  Zel had slept, for a time. But after no more than two hours, he had been wakened by some noise in the night and hadn’t been able to get back to sleep. After an hour of rolling from one side to the other, he had crawled out from under his Wasp. He knew that he couldn’t roam too far. The mudders providing close security for the Wasps and their support vans knew that there were pilots “on the loose,” but those farther off might not, and they might be nervous enough to shoot before asking questions.

  Walking had helped take the kinks out, but after an hour of pacing, with occasional breaks, Zel was no nearer being ready to attempt sleep again than he had been before. The muscles in his forearm were taut, hard, as if he had just finished a long session on the weight machines in the gymnasium back at home base on Albion. Three or four times a week, when the air wing wasn’t heavily engaged in training flights, Zel would work out on the machines until his muscles all felt ready to shatter. He felt that way now, without the workout.

  Zel and Slee had usually worked out together, pushing each other to do the most repetitions with the most weight in the least time. Slee. Remembering his friend brought back the pain of losing him. Zel saw the explosion in his mind. Again. Almost anything seemed able to bring that back, except in the air, in action. Then, Zel was too intent on flying and fighting for remembrance and pain.

  Squeezing his eyes shut didn’t help. The image was still there, playing out infinitely slow, imagination now providing details that Zel hadn’t seen at the time, bits of metal and structural composites spinning wildly away, jagged shards and geometrically perfect shapes, light and smoke curling and billowing, growing, then fading, a deadly flower for some giant’s lapel. In Zel’s mind, it was a ballet without music. The real sounds of the explosion were blotted out, with nothing to replace them. Silent pictures. Silent death. Not even an imagined scream.

  Did he scream? Zel wondered. He needed time to recall that there had been an open radio channel. He would have heard anything up until the instant when the rocket tore the Wasp apart. After that, there could have been no scream.

  Suddenly Zel became aware of himself. He was standing rigidly still–had been for some unfathomable time. His fists were clenched at his sides, so tightly that he could feel stubby fingernails digging into his palms. At first, he was unable to release the pressure. He brought his hands up slowly, until the balled fists were close to the face. Even in the dim starlight, he could see what had to be blood running toward his wrists. Finally, by staring at the fists and willing movement, he opened the hands and saw the gouges on each palm.

  His hands started shaking violently. Arms, shoulders. It took–subjectively, at least–an eternity for Zel to realize that he was crying, sobbing loudly.

  Too loudly. He did force himself quiet, but not before a figure got up and ran toward him.

  “You all right, sir?” Roo Vernon asked, anxiety plain in his voice.

  Zel needed another eternity before he managed, “I’m okay, Chief.”

  “What’s wrong with your hands?” Zel still had both hands in front of his face, staring at them.

  “I think I need a couple of small patches, Chief.” Zel’s voice sounded dreamy, distant, to him. Roo came a step closer, grabbed Zel’s hands, and lowered them enough so he could see the cuts.

  “Yes, sir, I think you do,” Roo said. An’ then some, he thought, wondering who he could talk to. Lieutenant Paitcher obviously needed more help than a couple of small soaker patches to stop up the cuts on his hands, and the 13th’s flight surgeon was back with the rest of the Accord troops, more than seventeen hundred kilometers away. “Come over here, sir, to the truck. I’ll see what I can find.” He tried to find a better solution, but in the end, all Roo could think to do was to leave Zel with one of the mechanics while he went to get another pilot to talk to him.

  * * *

  Zel wasn’t the only member of the 13th who spent a mostly sleepless night. Van Stossen found himself unable to sleep for long either. Self-discipline and a lot of years in the military gave the colonel a few extra tricks. He did take several catnaps, but he rarely managed to stay asleep as much as thirty minutes at a time.

  Every time he woke, he unfolded his mapboard and stared. The scene was always the same, or nearly so. The display was zoomed out to show a wide stretch of the continent, from the position of the Heggie unit trailing them to the ocean, and south to the main battle lines. The positions of friendly units were shown, as were the positions of Schlinal units, when known. There was no way to tell, simply by looking at the display, how out of date the data was, particularly for the Heggie units that were on the move, The unit coming up from behind, in trucks again, was gaining. From the various sightings made by the spyeyes, it looked as if that convoy hadn’t stopped. Certainly, they had never been seen stopped. Always moving, closer.

  A couple of times, Van got up and looked out into the night through his helmet visor, staring off in the direction of the river and the last practical crossing for vehicles–broad and shallow with a rocky bottom and decent grades on either side.

  North or south?

  He had quickly dismissed a third option, splitting the 13th, sending part north with the researchers while the rest stayed on the south side of the river to accept–seek–combat with the Heggie forces moving toward them. He had split off part of his command once already in this campaign, with disastrous results. He wasn’t ready to try it again.

  If the 13th moved north, they would–most likely–escape any fighting. In the near term. If the Accord should manage to prevail, the 13th might not have to do any more fighting at all. Only if the Accord lost could the 13th anticipate that the Schlinal garrison would come looking for them, and they would have all of the odds on their side then, an overwhelming advantage in numbers, undisputed control of the air, and leisure.

  I have the authority to make that choice, Stossen thought. No one would fault him. General Dacik had left the decision to him. He would be carrying out his primary orders–to keep the civilian researchers out of the hands of the Heggies.

  It was well past three in the morning before Stossen asked himself the important question, Can I live with that choice?

  When he
had the answer to that, he had the answer to which direction the 13th would take. He called the exec on their private channel, waking Parks.

  “We stay on this side of the river, Dezo. East, then south . . . if we can manage it.”

  He did not sleep better after making his decision. He didn’t even try. He went back to his mapboard, looking for ways to maximize the 13th’s chances.

  * * *

  Reveille came ninety minutes before dawn. The men were given thirty minutes to prepare for the day’s march–ride.

  “We’re staying on this side of the river,” Joe said when Lieutenant Keye gave him the orders.

  “How do you figure that?”

  “That thirty minutes, sir. If we were crossing, we’d wait till a lot closer to dawn, have at least some light while we’re in the water. Colonel wouldn’t try that in the dark unless the enemy was right on our butts. We wouldn’t have thirty minutes then. It’d be up and move right this second.”

  Joe couldn’t see the lieutenant nod. They were thirty meters apart and not even looking at each other.

  “You must be right,” Keye said, though there had been nothing about the direction in his orders. “You keep making deductions like that, somebody’s liable to tap you for Intelligence, maybe bending over a compsole up in CIC.”

  “I would purely hate that, Lieutenant,” Joe said. The shiver was entirely in his mind. “I’d go crazy in a week.”

  Keye chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Joe switched channels to talk to the platoon’s noncoms. Then, once he was certain that there were enough people moving to get the platoon ready, he sat down with a meal pack. Breakfast took less than five minutes. The packaged field rations did not invite lingering.