The Company of the Dead

by David Kowalski

  Lightholler let his gun slide down to his side. He hadn’t loosed a single round.

  Probing fire from the western boundary of the trail, light at first, heralded enemy reinforcements. Encountering one end of the ambush, the fresh soldiers began to dig in. Lightholler turned to alert Tecumseh but the medicine man was already calling for extraction.

  The assault team dispersed, working their way back from the trail and siphoning towards the various escape routes that led out of this place. Heavy machine-gunners dismantled their weapons and withdrew in good order, pulling back in teams of two and three. Security teams provided covering fire.

  Within moments, only Lightholler and Tecumseh crouched by the kill zone. Tecumseh gave the ground a last contemptuous look before leading Lightholler up to the first checkpoint.

  The Japanese reinforcements, perhaps emboldened by the sudden stillness, began infiltrating the lines of broken armour. Hitting the checkpoint, Tecumseh gave the final command and all along the perimeter of the kill zone and further back up along the trail the last of the mines detonated. From Lightholler’s vantage the ravine was a river of flames. The pungent odour of unspeakable death flayed at his senses.

  Tecumseh said, “This will give them food for thought.”

  “Let’s get back to the Rock,” Lightholler said.

  XIX

  April 29, 2012

  Red Rock, Nevada

  Malcolm barely got as far as the communications centre before she was intercepted. The sentry began herding her towards the carapace’s enclosure.

  “But I have to see Captain Lightholler,” she pleaded before the shack’s entrance.

  He didn’t reply, but his eyes flicked to the south. She followed the movement and saw another trail of smoky haze rising there, seeking to join the murky helix that now almost encircled the base.

  “There’s no seeing him now,” the sentry replied.

  The sky flamed—a brief, bright flare. She sought the sentry’s eyes for an explanation and found herself reaching out to him as the ground pitched beneath her. He caught her clumsy movement and swung her around, propelling her back towards the shack. Hayes, the large engineer, filled the doorway.

  She shot the sentry a last glowering look. “If the captain doesn’t get my message, we’re all dead.”

  “Doesn’t matter. The dance has begun, ma’am.” He nodded in the direction of the latest inferno.

  Somehow, between the horror of Joseph’s letter and the aftershock of distant explosions, there was time for new dismay. “Where in all your teachings did you learn to welcome death?”

  “It’s not death I welcome—it’s rebirth. If I come across the captain, what should I tell him?”

  She didn’t have an answer.

  Joseph seemed content enough to forfeit his own life. Content enough to bargain with the devil himself, if it might bring his dream a little closer. She understood now that she loved him more—and less—than she’d ever realised in the past. His letter had been meant for her alone. It was rationale, apology and, most definitively, goodbye.

  “Are there any underground shelters here, apart from this one?” she asked.

  The sentry shook his head.

  “Then tell Captain Lightholler that everything the major and Commander Hardas saw here will come to pass. He can deal with it accordingly.”

  The sentry made ready to go.

  She heard Tecumseh’s healing song again, a whisper in her ear, and called out softly, “May your dance bring good cloud, soldier.”

  “Thank you ma’am. Pilamaya. Wankantanka nici un.”

  Hayes was smiling as she turned to enter the building.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “He thanked you for your words, and asked the Great Spirit to watch over your journey.”

  “Journey?”

  Hayes drew her into the antechamber.

  XX

  Doc was testing the virtual model of the machine against the latest algorithms. Shine divided his time between entering the occasional data sequence and monitoring the carapace’s restoration.

  It hummed. It glittered. In the sporadic flicker of generator light, he could swear it was moving. The cables twisted around its struts seemed to stir. Stare long enough and there was the sense of falling inwards, as the carriage shifted silver to black and back again: mercurial. He could almost convince himself that he was observing a physical manifestation of the machine’s peculiar influence, as if time itself might be fraying at the carapace’s edges.

  He wondered how Doc dealt with protracted exposure to the machine; how he managed to skate along the perception-shifts while trying to remain rational and restore its function.

  “You’ll give yourself a headache.”

  Shine broke free of the enchantment and looked over to see Morgan’s dour expression.

  “Seems like you’re almost done here,” the historian added.

  Shine nodded slowly. “It’s almost charged. Doc’s finalising the equations. Where’s Captain Lightholler?”

  “Working his way back from the ambush.” Morgan gazed at the pile of grey canisters stationed by the carapace. “Please tell me that those are extra supplies.”

  “I think they’re Joseph’s insurance policy.” Malcolm stood between the parted folds of the star-adorned blanket. She entered the room unsteadily, her eyes carefully directed away from the machine.

  “Any luck with your investigation?” Morgan asked.

  She shook her head. “I have no idea where the prisoners went.” Her face wore a vexed expression. She turned her attention to Doc. “May I interrupt your work for a moment?”

  He swivelled in his chair and offered her an ambiguous smile.

  “How long would it take you to restart the machine if you disabled the generator?”

  The smile faded. “At full charge, ten to fifteen minutes. What’s on your mind?”

  “I was wondering what precautions have been taken to avoid a repeat of last night’s performance,” she said. “If there’s another pulse, then that’s it. We’re finished.”

  “That EMP was the result of an accidental detonation.”

  “Who’s to say there won’t be more accidents?”

  “We all know what’s coming.” Doc spun away from her, and returned to his computations.

  After a few moments he stirred in his seat, the chair making little movements as he fumbled for a pen. He swung back to her and said, “Guarantee me a fifteen-minute window and I can have the carapace operational. But you best be damned sure that those minutes don’t coincide with another ‘accident’. Can you guarantee that?”

  “No.”

  “And if I disable the generator, right this moment, can you give me a safe time to reactivate it?”

  “Of course I can’t.”

  “No...” Doc drew a deep breath. “You can’t. No one can, but at least someone has the presence of mind to recognise our predicament.”

  “We’re in a room full of explosives, surrounded by the Japanese army, and the clock is ticking,” Morgan said. “I think we all see our predicament.”

  “When the carapace has a decent charge, I plan on shutting the generator down,” Doc said, more gently now. “Once we have our crew assembled, I’ll re-engage the power. But if anything happens during those fifteen minutes, if there’s another pulse...” He made a hopeless gesture with his hands. He returned to his work.

  For long moments there was just the low whine of the generator.

  “So,” Morgan said, turning to Malcolm, “does that mean you’re coming with us?”

  She stole a glance at the carapace. “I’m not sure. I don’t know what purpose it will serve, but I think I owe it to Joseph to accept his invitation. If you all agree.” Her voice had lowered to a raw whisper.

  “Well, we can’t leave you here,” Doc said. “Besides, Tecumseh told me you were coming. I’ve already arranged for your essentials to be sent across.”

  “Tecumseh said so?” She walke
d in a daze to the bunk bed and sat heavily on the mattress.

  The printer recommenced its loud stutter. Doc turned swiftly back to snatch the results. Morgan joined him at his station.

  She was staring at the carapace now. The intensity of her gaze suggested that this was no easy task. Shine, unsure of what drove him, approached her.

  “I remember you now,” Malcolm said. “You must have been fifteen at the time.”

  “Sixteen.”

  “You were working for the major back then?”

  “A little. I was helping my father.”

  “We didn’t think to look for you when we were hunting Joseph.”

  “You wouldn’t have found me.”

  “You became a ghost dancer,” she said.

  “Ghost dancer trained, but I’m something else.” For no reason he could comprehend, he added, “I’m supposed to kill Wells.”

  She mustered an odd smile. “I remember you as a schoolboy, Martin.”

  “I’m not supposed to be like this.” A lump shaped itself in his throat. He looked away from the carapace. “That damn machine is muddling my thoughts.”

  “It’s clearing them, Martin. That’s part of what it does.”

  “My father’s somewhere out there. He’s marching up from Indian Springs.” He composed himself. “This used to feel like the most important thing in the world. Now it just feels like running away. But how can we stay?” He felt caught up in the immensity of the idea but pressed on. “This place. I can’t know for sure, but I don’t think it lasts.”

  “I don’t think it’s meant to.” Her eyes glittered a brilliant ebony lustre. “I don’t think it’s meant to at all. It’s just that I can’t imagine the alternative.”

  Distant sounds—ones that could only be the muffled import of explosions travelling down the service shaft —murmured ruin. They grew louder.

  The carapace had almost slaked its thirst. Its energy reservoir hovered at ninety-five per cent, but it remained without direction and therefore was without use. Shine watched as Doc pushed back his seat and walked over to the generator. He pulled the plug and said, “We pick up the last five per cent when we reactivate.”

  “The data sets are almost complete. Once they’re through, I’ll have to run them all simultaneously against the model. If they’re a match-up, we’re good to go. I’m thinking another four hours.”

  Seeing the incredulous look on Malcolm’s face, he added, “It took me six months to develop the calculations for our first prospective insertion. Another three to develop this one. I’ve been reworking the damn thing for eleven hours straight now, so please, cut me some slack.”

  The carapace dozed in fresh shadows. Shine had to look twice. The cavern’s smooth walls, the machine’s hushed purr. He felt as though he was seeing the machine as Wells might have seen it for the first time, through fearful, haunted eyes.

  The ubiquitous whine of the generator dwindled to silence.

  XXI

  Lightholler rapidly crossed the broken ground, heading towards the shack. His security team fanned out to either side.

  The rest of the base, partly dismantled on Echo’s behalf, approximated Wells’ Waste Land more with each passing moment. Ahead, eclipsing the shack in afternoon shadow, the rude stump of Red Rock cleaved the sky.

  The escort closed up. One checked his headset and triggered a swift reply on his Morse key.

  “Captain, the japs are trying to dig in at the foot of the west watch. We can expect an artillery barrage at any time.”

  “How long can we hold them, Davies?”

  The security man fired off another message. They waited for a reply, crouched by the shack’s low entrance. Moments later, the receiver let loose a furious staccato.

  “Hard to say, sir. They’re being more cautious. Sounds like they’re bringing a tank battalion around the western ridge. And a battery of eighty-eights, Union guns, are being set up northwest of the tower.”

  “What do we have out there?”

  “Two squads of tank busters, four machine-gun teams and a batch of snipers. Sixty men all up.”

  “Where’s Tecumseh?”

  “Holed up behind enemy lines. He got pinned down behind their first rush of berserkers.”

  In his mind’s eye, Lightholler saw them again. Line upon line of crazed infantry, charging across the field of mushrooming flame and glazed, boiling sand. He shuddered inwardly and said, “I need to go back out there.”

  “Captain, you need to be right here.” Davies’ face contorted darkly. “Besides, we have more squads concealed around the base.”

  Lightholler didn’t bother scanning the landscape. He had about as much chance of identifying their hidden positions as the Japanese.

  “We’re more likely to run out of ammunition than we are to run out of soldiers,” Davies added.

  An ear-piercing shriek tore the sky. A spout of sand and earth erupted not twenty yards from the shack. As soon as the debris had settled, Davies sprang into action.

  “We’re taking you inside, Captain.”

  They guided him into the small building. Hayes was waiting inside.

  The air was cooler within the antechamber. Dazzling light glowed from a strip of fluoros along the wall. A monitor screen, split four ways, displayed mottled images of the desert beyond. The elevator doors were slightly parted and a tangle of free wiring suggested that the device remained out of commission.

  The team arranged themselves around the circular entrance that led to the service shaft.

  Hayes pointed to a small black box that hadn’t been there during Lightholler’s inspection. Two thin wires connected it to a length of lead piping that spanned the building’s height and penetrated the floor.

  “That’s the detonator.”

  Lightholler recalled Kennedy’s words: You’ll find it easiest to do what’s necessary. He would have spat if he’d had any saliva in his mouth.

  The look in Hayes’ eyes, so resolute in beliefs he could never comprehend, filled him with a sense of self-loathing. He hadn’t earned this role. He’d fought Kennedy tooth and nail the entire time. He glanced down at his shirt. Sweat-stained and dirty, it still bore patches of the brightest blue. He didn’t deserve to wear it.

  He looked at Hayes and said, “I’ll go on down. You don’t have to wait here.”

  “We wait till the major returns or you depart. You’ll need me to start you on your journey.” Hayes lifted the heavy entrance to the shaft.

  Another explosion, further out, rattled the shack walls.

  Lightholler began his descent.

  XXII

  Standing at the cavern’s entrance, Lightholler made a quick survey, taking in the explosives, the quiescent generator. “How much longer?”

  “Three hours, to get it right,” Doc replied irritably.

  An exceptionally thunderous blast rocked the cavern. They all looked up to see a fine seam open in the high smooth vault of the ceiling. A sprinkle of dirt cascaded down to form a small mound on Doc’s desk.

  “Less, at a pinch,” he added hastily.

  Unruffled, Lightholler said, “I’ve seen what the ghost dancers are capable of. We’ll get those hours, with time to spare.”

  “And if we don’t,” Morgan said, “you’ll make sure there’s nothing left here but dust and ash.”

  Lightholler eyed the canisters unrepentantly. “If it comes to that.”

  They watched Doc work in silence.

  It was some time before Morgan realised that the shelling had ceased. He turned to Lightholler and said, “They’ve stopped.”

  Lightholler nodded.

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “Not likely.”

  There was a clatter of footsteps on the ladder. Davies brushed the blanket aside carefully and entered with downcast eyes. “The enemy is in the camp.” He seemed more subdued by his proximity to the carapace than by the statement he’d just uttered.

  “How many?”

  “At least a
battalion. They’re advancing with flamethrowers. They’re razing the site, inch by inch.”

  Lightholler shot Doc a look and then searched the others for their expressions.

  Morgan said, “Go up, Captain. Man your station.”

  Malcolm rose from the bed purposefully and walked over to where the others were standing by Doc’s desk.

  Doc hadn’t shifted, nor had he slowed down. He kept running his equations. “I’ll enable the generator.”

  “Wait for my signal,” Lightholler said.

  “I’ll need fifteen minutes and the first insertion stage is still labile. I’ll have to wing it.”

  “Just find us a dry spot to land, Doc. We’ll give you your fifteen minutes.” He turned to Shine. “Martin, you’re with me.”

  Morgan gave Lightholler a look. He nodded back. Davies took point and they ascended the rungs in darkness, a red glow shining beneath them, a halo of bright light above. Davies pushed the door aside and they broke into the brightly lit antechamber of the shack.

  There were four ghost dancers there, packed tightly with Hayes in the small domed room. They had two radios barking a cacophony of foreign speech. Morgan watched as Lightholler crouched low by the black casing of the detonator. He turned his eyes away to scan the monitor.

  The first shaky image, shifting black and white, was taken up by the bulk of the Red Rock formation. Scanning the other three windows on the screen, he saw images north, south and east of their position. It was an alien landscape of pits and craters. The prefabs were aflame. Grey on grey, the pictures seemed unreal. They had the feel of old documentary footage. The shape of a body, writhing half-seen among the dunes, brought it home to him. He didn’t need a colour image to know that the soldier’s shirt, torn and muddied, had once been a vivid blue.

  A platoon of Japanese soldiers were working their way forwards on the north screen, shrouded in a grainy haze. Behind them, the remains of Doc’s oasis blazed fitfully. Grey liquid fire spewed from their weapons. They were almost on the camera when the earth beneath them broke open. Charred ghost dancers danced among them. A brief sparkle of filtered sunlight flashed on an exposed blade. It buried itself in astonished flesh. A soldier’s face, mouth and eyes wide black holes, pitched and flopped in front of the screen. The burnt shadows vanished, leaving a pile of corpses. The image died as a flamethrower’s flask ignited.