by John Bowers
This time the men snickered louder.
“Hey, Sarge—” It was Rudy Aquino. “—maybe we should check up Avila’s nose. I bet you could hide two or three Freaks in each nostril.”
Avila’s face flamed as the squad roared with laughter. His eyes blazed as he turned on Rudy, but DuBose stepped in.
“Okay, knock that crap off! We don’t have time to shit on each other. Get ready to move as soon as the sleds get here.”
DuBose walked away, pulling Nick with him. Out of the squad’s earshot, he stopped.
“Walker, you’re not acting much like a fire team leader. I know you don’t like Avila, but he’s your man and I expect you to keep the peace. Tell the other two to lay off him, and that includes you.”
Nick sighed in exasperation.
“Sorry, Sergeant, but the guy’s a certified dick. I can barely stand to look at him. Isn’t there any way to get him transferred out?”
“In a normal war, maybe, but we aren’t getting replacements, so we have to fight with what we’ve got. We’re stuck with him until that policy changes, or until he gets killed.” DuBose clutched the front of his shirt. “And if I hear you even joke again about shooting him, you will regret it. Am I clear?”
Reluctantly, Nick nodded. He decided not to point out DuBose’s own earlier comment about using a captured weapon against Avila.
“Clear.”
“All right. We lost two more men last night, so…”
“We’re down to nine.”
“And that number will only get smaller, so get your shit together and do your job.”
“Good MOR-ning!”
Nick and DuBose turned in surprise. Ten or twelve ladies, stepping around shell craters, were plodding across the field toward the Star Marines. The same two from the night before—Allison Harper and Joan Shilling—were headed straight for Nick. Nick had forgotten all about them, but the sight of them lifted his heart.
“What the hell is this?” DuBose muttered.
“Chow time.”
Nick waved, and with rifle slung, hurried to meet the ladies. He grabbed two picnic baskets and carried them back to the foxholes.
“Thank you, young man. Nick, isn’t it? They aren’t really heavy, but the ground is a little…”
“I understand. I’m glad to see you both survived the night. Was anyone hurt?”
“No, thanks to you. My house is full of holes and Joan’s house burned down. If you hadn’t warned us, we might have been killed.”
“I’m just glad you’re both safe.”
“How about you boys? It sounded like a horrible battle. Did everyone—”
She stopped in her tracks, staring in horror at the killing field a few yards in front of her.
“Oh, my! I had—we had—”
“No idea,” Joan Shilling said.
Both women turned pale as they scanned the hundreds of bodies spread out before them. Nick stopped and waited, watching their expressions. He was afraid they might get sick. After a moment, they seemed to catch their breath. Still looking a little pale, they continued toward the foxholes.
“It’s a horrible thing to see,” Allison Harper said, “but I can’t say I’m sorry. I just hope they didn’t kill any of your people.”
“We lost a few,” Nick admitted, “but we fared a lot better than they did.”
“I’m so glad. You have no idea how horrible those people are! The things they did in this town!”
“We saw the pillories in the town square. That was a bit of a surprise.”
“Pillories! Is that what they’re called? I never heard of them before, and when they put them up, nobody knew what they were for. But we found out soon enough.”
Joan Shilling set down a two-gallon container of coffee and began unpacking the picnic baskets. Nick produced his canteen cup and filled it with hot, steaming brew.
“What happened?” he asked.
“The first thing they did was call the mayor out in front of the whole town. They ordered him to make us to convert to their religion. I think they knew he wouldn’t do it, and when he refused, they locked him into one of those things—they could punish five people at once, you know—and then they turned to our sheriff and ordered him to do the same thing. He also refused, so he joined the mayor.
“Then they went down the line. We have our own church, and they locked our pastor next to the mayor and sheriff, and then other town leaders one by one. They didn’t have enough contraptions for everyone, so they put some people in the jail until it was their turn. They left each person there for a full day and night, then released them and put other people in. It went on for days.”
“Jesus!” Nick almost said, but caught himself in time. “That’s horrible!” he said instead.
“Yes, it was horrible. Because he was our religious leader, they left the pastor in there for a week, only he didn’t last that long. He wasn’t a young man, and his health wasn’t very good. He died after three days.”
Rudy, Kopshevar, and Avila smelled the coffee and hurried forward to get their share.
“Hey, nice of you to call us, Walker. That smells good.”
“Come and get it,” Nick said belatedly.
He produced his own mess kit and let the ladies scoop food into it. As promised, they had brought scrambled eggs and hot, buttered cornbread, along with fried potatoes and two kinds of sausage. The men clustered around like ragged street waifs, their mouths watering. Both women seemed to take great pleasure in feeding them.
“So you see,” said Allison Harper, “as far as we’re concerned, you boys from Terra are a godsend…quite literally. We will be praying for all of you every day, and when this is all over, you will always be welcome in our town.”
Nick, stuffing his mouth, felt a sudden surge of emotion. He had to stop eating for a moment as his eyes misted up. He nodded.
“Thank you, Mrs. Harper. Hearing you say that makes it all worthwhile.”
Three Rivers
Chapter 19
Checking the rebel bodies was a grim task. Third Platoon worked by fire teams; one man in each team guarded the others as they gingerly checked each body for booby traps or suiciders. No rigged bodies nor suicide soldiers were found, but sixteen wounded rebels were still alive. They found evidence that quite a few more, who might have been saved with prompt medical attention, had died during the night.
While 2nd and 3rd Platoons had borne the brunt of the most determined assault, Cutler Crossing had been hit on three sides, and dozens of dead rebels were also found north and south of town. The final count of Coalition dead came to seven hundred thirty-three…and sixteen wounded. The rebels had thrown almost an entire battalion at them, and lost heavily.
What Nick didn’t understand was why. To his thinking, it would have made more sense to occupy the town, dig in, and force the Star Marines to assault it. He asked Sgt. DuBose about it.
“I was thinking the same thing,” DuBose told him. “The only thing I can come up with is that they were trying to outfox us. They left those fixed positions for us, thinking we would occupy them, and then blasted them with artillery. They probably figured that would kill most of us, then their infantry charge would mop up the survivors. If it had worked, they could have taken us out with hardly any losses of their own.”
Nick nodded. That made sense. It was the only thing that did.
Not that it mattered. They had won the battle and, in a few hours, would move out again. With the body-check complete, he checked his gear, cleaned his rifle, and got ready for whatever came next.
Thirty minutes later, a platoon of HVMs arrived to collect the rebel wounded. With them was a hoversled loaded with ammunition, which was distributed to the platoons. Third Platoon loaded up all they could carry, filling belt pouches, bandoleers, and their field packs with extra magazines. Then they had a surprise.
“Mail call!”
Nick was astonished to see 1st Lt. Oehlschlaeger striding toward them with a bag of mail packets.
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“Lieutenant! What the hell are you doing here? We thought you had a million-terro wound.”
Oehlschlaeger grinned.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Private, but it was only a hundred-terro wound. I could have got back a month ago, but the Pink Ladies wouldn’t let me leave.”
Everyone laughed. Oehlschlaeger opened the bag and began calling out names. Men stepped forward to receive their mail.
“Walker! You win the prize…you’ve got two.”
Nick’s eyebrows lifted as he stepped forward and claimed his packets. He turned away and examined them—one was from his sister, Gloria. No surprise. The other one stopped him in his tracks. It wasn’t a vid chip, but an actual letter, the hand-written kind. It was from a member of his father’s church, a matronly woman named Ruth Jonas.
He felt his gut twist.
Five Years Earlier
Tuesday, 26 March, 0430 (CC)
The Walker Home – Chowchilla, CentCal – North America - Terra
“You need to talk to her, Dad. I don’t understand why you can’t see how destructive she is.”
The Rev. Joseph Walker frowned at his son.
“Who are you talking about?”
“That old busybody! Ruth Jonas.”
“Oh, come on, Nick. That’s a little harsh, isn’t it?”
“No! She’s the biggest gossip in church, and everybody knows it. She not only carries tales, but most of them are untrue. She—”
“Wait a minute, hold it. Son, she’s an old lady. She hasn’t had it easy.”
Nick stared at his dad in consternation.
“So what? Everybody has problems, but she creates problems for other people. You remember what she said about Maria Santiago a few months back? When Maria got beaten up by that gang, Ruth Jonas called her a whore! Said it was her own fault.”
Joe Walker grimaced.
“That was unfortunate,” he agreed, “but—”
“What is it the Bible says about the ‘hoary head’? Old people are supposed to have gained wisdom. They’re supposed to share it with the younger ones, and support them. She does just the opposite.”
“I understand why you’re upset. Mrs. Jonas can be difficult, but we aren’t supposed to judge one another. Sometimes we can’t understand someone until we’ve walked a mile in their shoes. Everyone who walks with Christ is at a different stage of the journey.”
“Ruth Jonas is going the other way.”
“Nick, that is really out of line.”
“I don’t think so. I’m just calling it what it is. You’re too soft on her.”
“She’s sixty-six years old and she’s lost three husbands.”
“I’m not surprised. They probably died to get away from her.”
“That’s really unkind. As I said, she’s had a difficult life. First Corinthians 1:27 tells us that God calls the weak of the world—”
“The weak and the weird is more like it. If I were in your shoes, I would tell her to find another church.”
“Well…I’m not going to do that. And I think this conversation is over.”
Cutler Crossing – Alpha Centauri 2
Jaw clenched, Nick shoved the letter from Ruth Jonas into a pocket. He was in no mood to hear from her. A handful of parishioners had sent him vids during his two years in the Star Marines, and most had been friendly, if a little distant. This one, the first he had received since deployment, he wasn’t so sure about.
It could definitely wait.
Instead, he opened the one from his sister. The order to move hadn’t come yet, so he sat down on the edge of his foxhole and pulled a miniature vid player out of his field pack. He inserted Gloria’s chip and plugged the audio jack into his helmet. Shading the screen with his hand, he played the chip, which ran a little over three minutes.
Gloria was doing well. His mother was coping. An associate pastor had taken over the church, and the congregation, though they mourned Rev. Walker’s passing, were moving forward. Everyone in both churches—his dad’s Protestant and his mother’s Catholic—was praying for Nick’s safety and that he would come home alive.
That was about it.
Nick put the chip and player in his pack and closed it up. He would send her a reply when he was able, but his player didn’t record and he couldn’t do it in the field.
***
The suns were still low in the morning sky as Echo Company resumed its trek to the west. The air was cool and a breeze had sprung up to taunt them. Everyone knew it would vanish as the suns rose higher.
A little over three miles from Cutler Crossing, they passed a small wooded area where the rebels had staged their main attack the night before. They saw two wrecked artillery pieces, dozens of splintered trees, and a moonscape of P-gun craters. Whatever was left of the rebels had pulled out, leaving behind numerous blood pools and at least three bodies. Nick wondered how many had survived.
The men walked on both sides of the road, strung out ten yards apart. As the suns rose, the breeze gradually died. By midmorning it was gone, and the sweat began to ooze. Six miles on, they crossed a small stream, and just beyond that, a major highway. Nick tensed as they approached—the overpass would make a good ambush point if the rebels chose to use it, but gunsleds swarmed over it and reported back that it was clear.
They passed under the highway, which looked deserted, and a few hundred yards farther on came to a monorail crossing, which was also elevated above the dirt road.
“What the hell is a monorail doing out here?” Rudy Aquino wondered out loud.
“It’s going somewhere else,” Kopshevar replied. “That’s what monorails do—they go from one place to the next.”
Rudy laughed. “Fuck you, Kopycat.”
“Well, you asked.”
“Looks like a train came through here a couple of hours ago,” Nick said.
“How can you tell?”
“Are you blind? I can see its track.”
Rudy laughed again. Kopshevar and Avila groaned.
“That’s lame, Walker, even for you.”
“Hey, come on! That was funny.”
They walked on another minute. Suddenly Kopshevar laughed.
“Yeah, it was. That actually was funny.”
Nick grinned and kept on walking.
*
The Trimmer Plain seemed endless. Alpha Centauri 2 was a wide-open planet and most of it remained unsettled. Farming communities were scattered across the continent, often fifty or more miles apart; each one was surrounded by miles of crops, but beyond those was rolling, virgin ground. It might take another century to fully populate it.
Echo Company walked another ten miles. They reached the end of agriculture and kept walking. Now the ground ahead of them, broken only by the dirt road, seemed to undulate. Small knolls rose and fell all the way to the horizon. Here and there they saw clusters of trees and foliage, usually along some form of watercourse. As Nick gazed across the plain, it seemed clear that the rebels could have—and probably had—set up defensive positions in the most unexpected places. Any one of those knolls or gullies could hide a deadly threat.
Nick shifted his rifle from one shoulder to the other and kept walking. Both suns were high and he sweated steadily. He gazed off to his right, eyes narrowed, searching for any hint of the enemy. Movement, maybe, or the glint of metal in the sunlight. He saw nothing.
And that worried him. Gunsleds ranged ahead and to the sides, but not even they could spot everything. S2 had some satellite images of the terrain, and they sometimes revealed enemy positions, but the satellites were for civilian use and could only be tasked to cover terrain they were already crossing. A vast part of the continent was invisible to them.
Nick yawned.
His helmet comm crackled to life.
“Echo Company, chow time! Take twenty.”
A collective sigh swept down the column. Men stepped off the road and settled onto a grassy bank that paralleled it, taking pressure off their feet. Nick unshou
ldered his pack and dug into it for a ration. Rudy and Kopshevar sat down next to him and did the same. The squad was down to two fire teams—four men had been killed and Singh had rotated home after being wounded. Kit Carlson had joined Wiebe’s team to replace Wayne Juhl as Clark’s assistant SAW gunner, and DuBose had assigned Nick to replace Mateo.
Wiebe’s fire team settled on the opposite side of the road, facing Nick’s team. Each man broke out a ration pack and began to eat. Several complained about the heat, their aching feet, and the officers.
Kopshevar was the most vocal.
“Can somebody please tell me why we have to walk halfway across the goddamn planet? Where are those fucking hoversleds?”
“They’re busy.” DuBose peeled open a ration pack.
“Busy doing what? Jerking off? If I wanted to be an infantryman, I’d have joined the goddamn Infantry.”
“By definition, you are an infantryman. The sleds only carry you when you need to be carried.”
“Who decides when I need to be carried? I think I need to be carried right now. My feet are killing me.”
“And your scratchy voice is killing me. Why don’t you just eat and shut the fuck up?”
“Aw, come on, Sarge! Jesus Christ! Where are the fucking sleds?”
DuBose took a bite and began to chew. He talked around the food.
“You may have noticed that the sleds always bring ammunition when you need it, food when you need it, remove the wounded when you need it. They bring water and other supplies when you need it, and when you need to be carried—I mean, really need it—then they carry you.”
“We don’t have enough sleds,” Carlson said.
DuBose nodded. “That’s right. And every time the sleds carry you into action, they risk getting destroyed. We’ve lost a total of nine HVIs since we landed, and we don’t have any replacements coming. Now eat your spinach.”
Kit Carlson laughed. Nick remained silent.
Carlson noticed.
“Hey, Walker! How come you’re not bitching like the rest of us? You know something the rest of us don’t?”
