by Rick Shelley
Zel pulled his knees up toward his chest, then wrapped his arms around them. He was awake now, barely, but far from alert. He was a flyer. His instincts did not jerk his mind to the ready instantly, the way a veteran infantryman’s would.
“Let me die in peace,” Zel mumbled.
“Come on. Get a stimtab in you. We’re supposed to be in the air in five minutes.”
Never make it, Zel thought, but his mind was beginning to function. Slee knelt at his side and forced a stimtab between Zel’s lips. Zel resisted, but only for a moment. He sucked on the lozenge and slid out from under his fighter, pulling himself up to a sitting position.
Their crew chief was running a final check of the two Wasps. The planes had been replenished with ammunition and fresh batteries immediately upon landing, six hours earlier, in case they were needed in a hurry, sooner than planned. Now, the chief was simply double-checking everything. Roo Vernon, crew chief for these two Wasps, was a very cautious man.
“Any special orders for this trip?” Zel asked as the stimtab started its work.
“Mostly quiet work. Scouting. The colonel’s trying to keep track of every warm body on the planet.”
Zel stood and went through a series of stretches. That, and the stimtab, soon had him alert.
“She’s all ready, sir,” Roo told Zel.
“Thanks, Chief.” Zel suppressed a yawn. “Two minutes, and I’ll be ready.” He wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of getting back into the air, but as ready as he was likely to feel. There were times now when Zel could hardly recall that it had not been all that long before that he would have gladly forsworn sleep altogether to stay in the air a little longer.
* * *
Cruising in a Wasp at night was very like being a ghost, or even the shadow of a ghost, almost completely invisible. The light-absorbing skin of the fighter made it almost impossible for eyes to see the craft in the dark, save as it might occult some light source, and the plane was always invisible to radar. Cruising at minimal speed, it was also nearly silent, the whisper of its passage easy to miss, or to pass off as nothing more than a gentle zephyr. Most of the time, the loudest sound in the cockpit was the pilot’s own breathing–and the cockpit was insulated well enough to prevent that sound from escaping.
Once Zel was in the cockpit of Blue four and going through his preflight checklist, all thought of exhaustion and aches vanished. As always, Zel felt himself becoming part of the Wasp rather than merely a rider in it. At night, the metamorphosis was even more convincing. Outside, there was the darkness, a cloak. Inside, there were only the soft green and red indicator lights and the muted colors of the video displays, contrast and brightness kept as low as possible. Every surface inside and out was designed not to reflect even those minimal levels of light; numbers and graphics seemed to float in the blackness.
Zel tightened his safety harness. The comforting pressure of the straps quickly faded from his awareness. He could reach everything he needed to within the cockpit. There was so little room for the pilot in a Wasp that Zel could almost have reached all of the controls with his elbows.
“Clear on the ground,” Roo Vernon reported over his radio link.
“Roger,” Zel replied automatically. “Slee?”
“Let’s do it,” Slee said.
Not fifteen meters from Slee’s Wasp, Zel could scarcely mark the outline of the other fighter’s canopy. At night, the flyers would depend on instruments to maintain station on each other. Encrypted electronic beacons let them fly in close formation–wingtips as little as fifty centimeters apart–even when they could not see each other. The encryption kept the system safe from enemy interference, or even detection. The Wasps also had anticollision systems that would automatically veer them away from each other if they came closer than fifty centimeters.
Blue three and four lifted silently out of the LZ. As soon as they were clear of the surrounding treetops, Slee turned north. Their first assignment was to check on the progress of the Schlinal troop moving in from the town of Maison. Paradoxically, flying at night, the pilots had a much clearer view of what lay below them than they did in full daylight. Radar painted all the picture they needed of natural terrain. Large animals, or humans, could be seen easily in infrared, even beneath the canopy of leaves. Good insulating battle dress should have muted the infrared signature, but that appeared to be one point where Hegemony technology fell short of the Accord’s.
Night was also great for removing distractions. Zel kept his attention inside the cockpit of Blue four. A navigation screen kept him located over a real-time photographic map of Porter. The heads-up display on his canopy provided everything else.
“There’s the Heggie column,” Slee announced no more than four minutes after takeoff.
Zel increased the magnification on his display. The heat of trucks provided beacons in the night on infrared, and the soldiers were a speckling of pale green dots on the screen. Given a little time and a pair of passes along the length of the column, the sensors built into the Wasp could have provided a virtually precise headcount. But that was not on the agenda.
“Do we give them something to remember us by?” Zel asked after they had flown thelength of the Heggie formation. The enemy certainly was not marching down a road, but even the pattern of dispersal had an almost regular look to it. Zel had a fleeting thought that these were garrison soldiers, not experienced front line troops.
“One pass,” Slee replied after checking with CIC–which sought Colonel Stossen’s input. “We don’t want to scare them off. The colonel wants them out in the open, not heading back to Maison.” Away from the civilians. A major battle inside Maison would tie the hands of the Accord troops.
“How do you want to handle it?” Zel asked.
“Concentrate on the trucks. We’ll come at them from the front, get right in their faces. Then we peel off. You go right. I’ll go left. Rendezvous at ten-K meters twenty klicks east.” That would be well out of the range of any shoulder-operated SAM missiles the Schlinal force might be carrying.
They circled around to approach the enemy troops from in front again. Zel set his weapons selector and waited for Slee to make his move. First rockets, then cannon: go for the trucks first, then strafe the least-dispersed groups of men on foot. Slee targeted the first two trucks. As soon as his missiles were away, he switched to cannon, weaving no more than a few centimeters from side to side to scatter the needlelike projectiles over as wide an area as possible. Zel fired rockets at the next two trucks before the first two erupted. Then he too started to strafe, side-slipping to the right. There was no time for more than two seconds of gunfire before the last elements in the enemy force flashed by beneath his Wasp. The four trucks were all afire now. Zel pulled hard to the right and shoved his boost control to maximum, soaring up to ten-thousand meters in little more than twenty seconds.
One Schlinal missile did climb into the sky, but it was a blind shot, and the missile’s target acquisition circuits never achieved a lock on either of the invisible Wasps. Zel smiled as he turned toward the rendezvous.
* * *
It was a silent night until the Wasp raid on the Schlinal troops. Even the nervous soldiers on the Accord perimeter had rarely found any reason to let off a burst of wire. The soldiers of Echo Company, a dozen kilometers from the nearest enemy, heard the explosions as missiles hit their targets. The subsequent sound of strafing was almost inaudible at that distance.
Who’s gettin’ hit, us or them? Joe wondered. Several minutes elapsed before Max Maycroft relayed that information, during another of the company’s brief halts. This one was somewhat longer than most had been, but Joe knew that they had made good time on the night march. There had been no interruptions, save for the encounter with the Jeomin family. Most particularly, there had been no firefights to slow them down and disclose their presence. Echo Company could afford to take ten or fifteen minutes
this time.
“Max, how ’bout getting the captain to let us cycle out to the perimeter for a bit,” Joe asked. “We need a change to keep these guys from falling asleep.”
* * *
Joe felt his own alertness pick up once they started marching again. Second platoon was on the right flank now, and Joe’s squad had the point–an inevitable assignment after Joe asked to get out on the edge. Every breath sounded loud in his ears now. His surroundings seemed to take on a new intensity, more than he could account for simply because he had turned on his exterior microphones to give him that extra hearing edge. Out on the flank, that was where any action was most likely to start.
Starting out, Joe had his fire team in front. Mort Jaiffer walked point, thirty meters ahead of anyone else. Kam Goff was behind Mort, and Joe was in the third position, the usual spot for the squad leader. AI Bergon was close behind Joe–too close. Joe had to caution him several times to hold his interval. Ezra’s fire team was another thirty meters back. If the point walked into an ambush, it would be up to Ezra’s team to come to their rescue, or provide covering fire until the rest of the platoon, or company, could get into the act.
Like many men who manage to survive–even thrive–in combat, Joe Baerclau had developed the ability to focus completely on his surroundings. On patrol, he sometimes fancied that he could even hear an insect breathing ten meters away. At other times, in garrison, where there was no danger–and mostly after he had drunk a cup or two–he might recall that when he was a child his mother had read him Bible stories, and used to tell him that not even a sparrow could fall in the forest without God knowing it. When he was stuck for an explanation of the way he tried to pay attention to every detail around him in the field, he sometimes fell back on that story for an analogy.
“I ain’t sayin’ I’m God,” he would always hasten to add. He was not particularly religious, but he did not disbelieve. If there was a God, Joe did not want to offend Him . . . not as Iong as he was a soldier who might need divine help to get through the next campaign, or the next minute. “But I don’t know no other way to put it. You got to hear the slightest sound, see the least little movement. That is, if you want the best chance to come out of it alive and in one piece.” You do what you can, knowing that the time might come when even that won’t be enough.
Second platoon had been on the flank for an hour and a half–past one break and halfway through the next leg of the march–when Mort called for a stop. “I heard something, Sarge,” he reported over the radio, his voice little more than a whisper.
“What kind of something?” Joe asked. He started forward again, very slowly, watching the ground to make certain that he did not step on anything that might prove noisy.
“I’m not sure. It didn’t sound like an animal though. I don’t see anything on IR or visual, but I know I heard something.”
“Hang easy, Prof. I’m on my way.”
It was unlike Mort to get so excited. “The Professor,” as nearly everyone in the company called him, was usually the calmest man around. Heggies? More civilians? Or just an overactive imagination? Joe wondered as he moved through the trees. He hardly paid attention to those thoughts though. It was more important to assume that Mort had heard a Heggie, and to concentrate on anything that the night might tell him.
The trees were no longer the bulky shapes with cones of dirt around their bases that had predominated around the LZs. Most of these trees were thinner and taller, angular rather than full. The leaves were much smaller as well, also long and thin. These trees would provide less cover in a firefight. That was the important consideration.
Mort was prone on the ground, taking what little cover one of those thin trees might offer–any cover was better than none. His rifle barrel extended out on the right, the muzzle no more than twenty centimeters off of the ground. Mort had his finger over the trigger guard though, not on the trigger itself.
“Hear any more?” Joe asked as he got down on the ground at Mort’s left. To preserve the silence, they whispered over the radio even though their shoulders were almost touching. Joe settled in behind his rifle as well, just in case there was something, to shoot at in front of them.
“Not a thing,” Mort admitted. “But I know there’s something, or someone, out there, Sarge. I’ve been through this before. I’m not dreaming. You know me better than that.”
“Can you pinpoint the location any?”
“As close as I can tell, the direction is right down the barrel of my zipper. I can’t tell about distance. Not too far, maybe.” His rifle was pointed at an angle of 45 degrees to the line of match.
Joe did hesitate for a moment, but they dared not just lie there all night. They could ill afford even a short delay.
“We’ll have to go out and take a look,” he said. “You and I might as well get on with it.” That was far from doctrine. The squad leader had no business going out on this sort of prowl. By the book, Joe should have stayed put and sent privates out. Privates were, by definition, more expendable than noncommissioned officers, but . . .
“You go right. I’ll go left,” Joe said. “Slow and easy.”
Joe held his breath as he got to his feet, listening as much for any noises that he or Mort might make as for a repetition of whatever Mort had heard before. The night was almost too silent. Joe realized with some surprise, that he had not heard any insect sounds even. Porter did have insects. He had seen plenty of them during the day. But they did not chatter or chirp, or make any of the other sounds that he expected from bugs.
“Go,” Joe whispered when he saw that Mort was in position.
Joe took his first step with exaggerated caution, angling just a little to the left. It would not do for him to get too far from Mort. The object was for them to be able to pincer anyone between them, and to be close enough to do something about it in concert, quickly. Mutual support. If there was someone lurking, they would try to take care of him, or them, silently. If possible.
Although they moved steadily, each step felt as if it took minutes. Joe would look at the ground where he intended to put his foot, then slide it forward, only slowly transferring his weight, ready to pull back if he felt anything brittle under his boot. Then he would wait, straining for any hint of noise or movement in the area that Mort had indicated. Then it was time for another wary step forward. It seemed more protracted than it actually was. There was some urgency about this. A few meters away, Mort was moving just as cautiously. He might have moved a little faster on his own–not impatiently, but with somewhat less patience than Joe. He held back though, knowing that he had to stay even with his sergeant.
Ten steps. Then Joe’s foot came down on something that was too smooth to be natural. Though he realized that something was wrong almost instantly, he felt as if considerable time passed before he was able to react–before he was forced to react.
He stopped and brought the muzzle of his rifle down quickly, just as his foot was jerked out from under him. Joe’s movements were instinctive, but that instinct came from years of training. Subconsciously, he realized that he had stepped on a blanket or tarpaulin, and that there was someone under it, someone who had jerked on the fabric, coming out from underneath, coming to his feet.
Joe fell but managed to land on his ass without tumbling. The figure who emerged from under the tarp had a long knife in his hand. Joe had no time to get his rifle pointed at his attacker. He could do nothing more than swing the barrel toward the knife, using his zipper as a club while he got back to his feet.
The Heggie jerked his knife to the side, out of the way, and dove at Joe’s middle. Joe dropped his rifle as the two men went to the ground together. Joe had to have both hands free, had to get to the Heggie’ s knife. Net armor might stop a bullet or wire, but it would do little to stop a knife thrust.
Neither man spoke, or did more than grunt from effort or impact. But the disturbance was an outr
ageous din compared to the total silence that had preceded it. Joe did manage to say “Mort’’ into his microphone.
Joe’s assailant was considerably larger than him, perhaps by as much as ten centimeters in height and fifteen kilos in weight. Joe let the Heggie’s momentum carry them backward and over, and he put his knees into the man, sending him over his head. But the Heggie kept his grip. Together, the two men rolled in the dirt, with the Schlinal trooper’s weight and size beginning to tell.
Joe did not see the end of the fight coming. He heard a dull thud and then a sharp crack as his foe’s neck snapped, and then he felt the Heggie shudder in his grasp and go limp.
“You okay, Sarge?” Mort asked.
Joe took a moment to consider that while he hauled in deep breaths. “Yeah. I’m okay.”
“He had something like a splat gun hidden under that tarp with him,” Mort explained. “I tripped over it trying to get to you.”
Joe got to his feet slowly, helped up by Mort, and then he bent over again to retrieve his rifle. As well as he could in the dark, he checked to make sure that nothing had fouled the barrel.
“That tarp,” Joe said, after signaling the rest of the platoon to start moving again. Ezra’s team would take over the point now–with even greater caution than before, in case this man was just part of a larger force. What would one man be doing out here alone with a splat gun? Joe asked himself. “Check it out, will you?”
“Must be some sort of thermal shield,” Mort said after a quick look. “That’s why we couldn’t see any IR signature.”
“Bring it along. Intelligence might like a look at it,” Joe said.
