by Ilsa J. Bick
“I saw it.” Yamada took a quick puff, shattering the tube of ash to gray dust. Smoke spurted from his nostrils as he swiped away ash with the side of his hand. “That’s what bothers me.”
“Why?” She’d forced herself to watch every terrible second even as the full horror of what Yamada was doing to Shakir, to all of them, blasted through her body like a cold, merciless wind. “I couldn’t have done it, not even if you pointed a gun at my head. I don’t think any of our people would’ve. It’s more like murder.” It was murder.
“That’s what bothers me. He just did it, like a good soldier.”
“What would you have done if he refused?”
“Kill him, and do it myself. Would’ve been fine.”
She said nothing. He wasn’t kidding. Yamada was cold, calculating and ruthless. For him, murder was just the price of doing business.
Another puff and then Yamada scratched at his chin with his thumb. “Here’s the thing. Shak was in the Brotherhood, right? Took orders from the Dracs? So here’s this lieutenant, and he kills her. Just like that.”
“He shot a sergeant.”
“Who was raping a civilian. Totally different. I don’t care how bad you want revenge. Most people, there should be hesitation, or they should refuse. Shak got cold. Just . . . cold. Weighed the odds, made the choice.”
“He was a soldier.”
“He was a grunt.” Yamada paused. “If he’s really a Drac, they could’ve set it up, planted records.”
Dasha thought about that. The thing was she liked Shakir, and it didn’t hurt that he was really quite . . . handsome. That long black hair and ice-blue eyes, coupled with a sensitive mouth and high cheekbones, and a physical presence that sent a charge of sexual attraction sizzling through her veins. Back at the bar, it hadn’t been all bluff. Now that she knew him better, she thought about him when she had to go to work. She enjoyed spending time with him when she was here. He didn’t say much, but when he did, she sensed sadness deep down, the same kind she felt: that emptiness where joy used to be. Whether he knew it or not, Shakir was a lost soul, at home nowhere, untethered just like her.
As if he’d read her mind, Yamada said, “You sure the only reason you want him along tonight is because he’s ready to see some action?”
Caught off guard, she flushed under Yamada’s intense scrutiny. “What’s the matter, Tony? Jealous?”
She didn’t like the way Yamada’s eyes flared, and she was stunned at the thought that maybe she’d hit Yamada in a soft spot. But the moment passed quickly, and Yamada covered his anger with a harsh bark of laughter. “Dream on, babe. I got women coming out my ears.”
“Lucky you. Listen, don’t worry about me. Between this and my job, I’m so tired I can barely stand.”
“Yeah?” Yamada said, and his tone turned a little nasty. “Well, you get to know Shak better . . . maybe you won’t be doing a lot of standing. Maybe doing that old horizontal mambo, you know what I mean?”
“God, you are so unbelievably crude. Look, I’ll sleep with whomever I choose. If it turns out to be Shakir, it’s my business.”
His face was stiff with anger. “It’s my business if it compromises my operation.”
“Our operation, Tony.” She paused. “Look, if Shakir’s a spy, why haven’t the Dracs come swooping down?”
“Maybe the mission is to figure out our capabilities. Maybe his mission is to find out where we’re getting our matériel. Then the Dracs take us out and go hit the March. The thing is, we can’t let them stop us, not now. We know how this has to end.”
She let the silence hang a few beats. “Nothing’s going to change that. You know that, when the time comes, I’ll go through with it.”
Yamada ground out his smoke. “If they let us, babe. If they let us.”
* * *
Fusilli waited outside Yamada’s camouflage-green Quonset. He sat on a flat rock beneath an evergreen, leaning back against the coarse bark. The day was cloudless, and the sun was directly overhead but not hot. Dappled light transformed the woods into a shadowy haven. There had been a lot of rain in the last few days, and the air smelled wet and a little like resin, and was cool this far into the mountains. A peaceful place, really. Not a place where a man strangled a woman with his bare hands.
He rested his head against the tree and closed his eyes. God, how he wished he could purge that from his memory, his nightmares. But maybe he wasn’t supposed to forget something like that.
Not my fault about Compton, they made me do it. I had no choice. . . .
Which way he now tipped should depend on his loyalties to Ramadeep Bhatia, his duties as an agent of the ISF. This assignment couldn’t dovetail better with his original mission to cripple Katana Tormark’s troops and defeat her people from the inside out.
Except now . . . there was Dasha. His lips twitched into an unconscious half-smile. Like Yamada, she seemed to have another life out there about which she was reluctant to talk. But he liked her, a lot, and he thought the attraction was mutual. When was the last time he cared about anyone or anything other than himself?
A voice he associated with self-preservation niggled: She’s just a tool. Watch out for yourself because you’re the only one who can and will.
Yes, but what would it be like to care for someone that much? Oh, but he had a mission, right? He gave the lobe of his left ear an absent stroke as he thought. The stud was gone. He’d removed and carefully slid the gem into a tiny waterproof packet he carried in an inside pocket, over his heart.
Whose side was he on, anyway? Say he facilitated these people in their goal of taking down Katana Tormark’s command. But to what end? Katana was dead. Whatever reason Bhatia had for wanting to oust her was irrelevant. In a very real sense, that part of his mission was done.
Facing that harsh reality also made clear another. He was stuck here, in the Dieron District, for the foreseeable future. Bhatia couldn’t very well recall him, and he could not just disappear. He could never hide for long from Bhatia, or Crawford and the O5P. Crawford would hunt him down if he discovered Fusilli’s treachery: how he’d allowed Liz Magruder and all his comrades to die on Al Na’ir.
So then the choices were between DCMS and Dieron Command, and between Dieron Command—and this woman. Yet would he ever allow her to really know him? How stupid. Of course, he couldn’t reveal who and what he was: the man he was now or the traitor’s name he’d taken.
And of all his damnable perversities, that name . . . why choose that?
“Shakir?”
He opened his eyes. Dasha looked down at him. A little embarrassed, he pushed himself to his feet, brushed pine needles from his pants. “Sorry. Just woolgathering. Was Yamada all right with it?”
“Not really. Yamada was a kuso atama.”
“What did he say?” When she didn’t answer, Fusilli touched her arm. “Hey,” he said gently. “I’m not the prick. Yamada is. What’s the matter?”
She pulled in a deep breath. “He thinks you’re a spy.”
It was the suspicion he’d been expecting. Sooner or later, someone always questioned. So he knew how to reply. His tone was belligerent, challenging, and he didn’t have to feign anger. “Yeah? Well, let him come and talk to me. How many people does that asshole want me to strangle before he figures out that I’m not a spy?”
She put a restraining hand on his chest. “Relax. You’ll get your chance.” She debated, then added, “He also thinks I like you, and that that’s affecting my judgment.”
This he had not expected, and his anger evaporated. He didn’t know why he should care what this woman thought about him, but he was acutely aware of her: of those mysterious eyes, that lush copper hair, the length of her throat. That thin golden chain with its gold locket and key. “And?”
Dasha didn’t reply. Instead, they stared at one another. He saw the turmoil in her face, and he wondered what he looked like to her. They were so close, all Fusilli had to do was lean forward and kiss her if he wanted. Hi
s brain screamed that he was losing his objectivity; there was his mission, and only a fool would fall in love with the enemy. But he didn’t care because he felt something else he hadn’t in a very, very long time: desire. And maybe the promise of something more.
And what mission, what damnable mission? This was his life they were playing with now. His future.
It was Dasha who made the first move. She took a step back, and the moment was gone.
“Just do me a favor,” she said, turning on her heel. “Don’t screw up.”
30
17 September 3136
The night was a forest of shadows. Heavy clouds pressed overhead, and the air smelled like aluminum. Fusilli squatted behind boulders ridging a valley about three hundred meters deep and studded with scrub. A meandering two-lane road was barely visible through night-vision digital binoculars. Squinting at the green-and-gray electronically enhanced image projected upon a phosphor screen, Fusilli frowned. “You’re sure?”
“Uh-huh,” Dasha said. She was no more than a half meter away on his left, crouching so close her arm brushed his. “Bridge washed out by rain along the main road from the spaceport. That checks out. A resupply DropShip’s got perishables. Medical supplies mainly. A Drac’s coordinating with the main hospital to open up clinics.”
That tallied with McCain’s plan. “And the convoy?”
“Three VV1 Rangers, refit for hauling supplies, no air escort.”
And that did not tally. Rangers were light infantry wheeled vehicles with turret-mounted machine guns and four front-mounted lasers. They were designed mainly as antipersonnel weapons. Fusilli couldn’t see the Rangers doing much against a long-range assault, and Dasha’s platoon had the advantage of elevation. Counting him, her platoon was seventeen strong, armed with five Carl G M88 recoilless rifles firing HEDP rounds. The high-explosive dual-purpose shells could punch through armor and gouge craters into the road, cutting off the tanks’ escape route. Each M88 gunner was grouped with a spotter and another fighter for cracking the Venturi aside for reloading. Everyone but he had M12 carbine assault rifles, and they could potentially overwhelm the Rangers within minutes.
“Convoy doesn’t strike you as a bit thin?” he said.
“You mean, do I think this is a trap? Sure.”
“Then why are we doing this?”
“Because,” she said, retrieving her binoculars, “we can.”
* * *
Hunkered behind cover, Sho-sa William “Buck” Bruckner tongued his chaw to the other cheek and worked the tobacco something fierce. Palming his coal-black Stetson, he dug at his scalp in a good, long scratch. Then he screwed on that Stetson and worked his chaw. Would’ve felt better with his lucky whitey, but a bone-white Stetson at night? Like an ad: Shoot me.
He aimed right and squirted tobacco juice into the darkness. “You got ’em?” he growled into a microcomm secured around his wrist.
A whispered voice in his ear from Tactical: “Got ’em on thermal imaging. On the right ridge. I count eight . . . no, make that nine targets.”
Nine pairs of eyes staring into the valley. Buck’s long experience as a tank commander told him that for every bad guy you see, expect an evil twin. If he were doing the ambushing, he’d opt for LAWs or M88s. Well, no way his people were gonna be that easy to squash.
“Okay, people,” Buck said. “Here’s the drill.”
* * *
“Here they come,” Dasha muttered into her microcomm. Her goggles made her look like an extraterrestrial from a bad horror holovid.
Fusilli heard engines rumble as the ghostly green tanks surged, picking up speed. Each hauled a flatbed unit capped with a hard shell.
If it’s Bruckner, he’ll vary their speed. That’s what I would do, only I wouldn’t be here at all, or I’d have air support, something.
“Wait for it.” Dasha on her haunches, peering over a hump of rock. “Don’t target those flatbeds. Remember, we’re here to get supplies, too.”
Later on, Fusilli would remember that little too. At the moment, though, his nerves sang with anxiety. He probably knew some of those people. What if McCain had gone to oversee the off-loading of supplies?
Bruckner, be smart. It’s an ambush; you’ve got to know that.
The lead Ranger was now nearly midway through the valley. The other two followed, spaced like green beads on lengthening string. The lead Ranger gunned its engine with an audible grind of whining gears.
Dasha inhaled, short and sharp. “Now.”
* * *
Tactical: “I read tracer fire!”
“Throttle down!” Buck barked. “Two seconds, then punch it up! Keep it unpredictable, people, watch your distance, watch . . . !”
“Incoming!” Tactical said. “Sir, we’ve got two . . . !”
“Gunners, return fire!” Buck shouted. “Return . . . !”
* * *
Tiny red-orange sparks flared in arcs of subdued tracer fire. The tracers rained down, followed by the dull pomph-pomph-pomph of HEDP rounds rocketing from the maws of M88s, pulling tails of orange-yellow flame. The M88 to his left let go, and Fusilli felt heat from a back-blast of superheated gases, smelled the stink of explosives. Below, muzzle flashes spurted from the Rangers’ machine guns followed a split second later by the unmistakable tatatatatatat of weapons fire.
Something weird about the flashes . . . Fusilli couldn’t put his finger on it. He couldn’t see well even with subdued tracers. He heard the zip and crack of bullets punching rock, and he ducked as something hummed a groove over his head.
He’d seen enough to know that the lead tank had taken the first hit just forward of its machine-gun turret. The armor was still intact, as was the front right wheel, but whoever was inside would be banging around like a pea in a tin can, and the temp ought to be spiking pretty fast.
What can I do, what can I do? Fusilli’s brain raced through his available options. No, there was nothing he could do. He didn’t know if he wanted to. But then he thought: That machine-gun fire, something wrong . . .
He inched up. The air was alive with the fizzle of tracers, the thump of M88s and the pockpockpockpock of bullets scoring rock, chunking out shrapnel. Then he saw the problem. First, no laser fire. Each Ranger had four. Why not lay down a suppressing fire to keep the fighters from swooping down to take control? Or maybe Buck was holding lasers in reserve.
Second, he counted only six machine guns per tank. That was wrong. There were eight on every Ranger. So where were the missing guns?
All three tanks, scored from multiple hits, had nonetheless managed to make it to a spot directly beneath their position—and now did the incredible. They halted. Dead. Stop.
Maybe something wrong with the lead’s drive train. Road’s so narrow, no way the others can get around . . . The road behind was pocked with craters, though the road ahead was still maneuverable. Then he saw the strategy. The elevation worked both ways now. The Rangers couldn’t return fire as efficiently because of the angle, but the M88 gunners were having just as much trouble. The gunners were on their feet, their spotters grabbing each at the waist as the gunners braced against the rock to lob their rounds straight down. They could get off shots but with the higher risk of exposure. Good tactical sense would’ve been to shift right, move some gunners ahead of the tanks. But the gunners were staying put.
He was puzzling over all this when he felt someone touch his right elbow. “Time to go,” Dasha said. She’d parked her NVGs on her forehead.
“Go?” That made no sense. If they were intent on getting the supplies or, at the very least, those tanks . . . On the other hand, wasn’t this precisely what he had hoped for? So the tanks could get away? Who am I? What have I become? “You mean you’re aborting the attack?”
Shaking her head, Dasha shouldered her rifle. “Not on your life. But you’re coming with me.”
“What about your people?”
“No time to explain.” Dasha was already moving off. “Come on, Shakir. My peop
le know the score. Just do what I say.”
Fusilli stared after her retreating form for a long moment. Then he pushed himself to his feet and did what he was told.
* * *
There was a few seconds’ silence broken by splutters of static. Then Tactical: “No tracer fire ahead. Fire’s concentrated directly above us.”
“Okay, so they’re not moving.” Chewing, Buck spat, then drawled through his comm, “Shadow? You in the loop?”
“Roger that.” Shadow’s reply was fringed with only the faintest whisper of the usual throb and thump Buck was accustomed to. “Practically on top of you guys.”
Buck glanced up, saw nothing. Shook his head. Sweet. “Anything?”
“Two targets on thermal, moving on a northeast vector. I’m off.”
“Good hunting. We’ll warm a couple of asses down here, give ’em something interesting to look at. Out.” Buck reeled in a breath. “All right, people . . . Pop those tops and let ’em rip.”
31
They wove uphill through trees, their footfalls dulled by a thick carpet of pine needles. The staccato chatter of machine guns and dull whumps of M88s faded. His flak vest added weight, and Fusilli was sweating. They’d light up on aerial surveillance—if anyone was looking.
A far-off boom balled like thunder. He pulled up a second, waited, heard the boom again and turned back the way they’d come. Through gaps in the trees, the diffuse glare of an explosion smudged the horizon amber. A breeze gusted past, tugging the stink of scorched metal.
“I don’t know that sound,” Dasha said.
“I think one of the tanks went.” He was suddenly sickened, angry that he’d not helped Parks’ men somehow. But what could he do? The fault lay with Parks, and whatever cockeyed plan he’d dreamt up. “Hell should I know? You’ve got a microcomm, call them.”
“We maintain silence until this is over.”
“Until it’s over?” His face was so tight he thought his skin would split. “That explosion sounded like it is over for somebody.”
