by E. E. Knight
The whole 775 Company was reunited at the end of October, and in their first real operation punched a hole down "Highway 1," clearing mines that allowed a column of Bears, most likely an Action Group, to drive into the Kurian Zone. Valentine wished he'd left a mine or two.
Valentine grew to like their captain, a Canadian named Mofrey, whose grandfather had served with a regiment he called "the Princess Pats." Captain Mofrey still clipped his grandfather's little badge on his steel PeaBee helmet. Every time a Pacific Command regular told him to remove it, he did, only to put it back on as soon as the regulars had passed out of eyesight. All Valentine could learn of his reasons for being in the PeaBees was a conviction for "gross insubordination." Could an affection for an old badge land someone in the PeaBees?
He even saw Gide once or twice, usually on picket duty. She'd made it into the Pacific Command regulars, and they'd trained her as a scout/sniper. She still carried his carbine. The PeaBees were watching the Quisling positions from a railroad culvert in the predawn when they heard the password whispered.
They came just as alert as if they'd heard a rifle bolt being worked, but waited, and then next thing Valentine knew there was Gide, crawling through a plant-choked culvert with a scout in front and a scout behind.
She seemed as astonished as Valentine at the meeting, but for the moment pretended not to know him, and Valentine went along with it.
"Made it right to the edge of downtown," Gide said as they warmed themselves in a basement a hundred meters back from the railroad tracks, Valentine's platoon headquarters. All he could offer them was a hot mush trying to be oatmeal, with a couple of pieces of dried fruit broken into it. "Tough to get there. Water's out, because of the Big Mouths. Bridges are too well guarded."
Valentine was tempted to tell her that some of the bridges were watched by the Resistance, but they didn't cooperate with Pacific Command because of the depredations of the Action Groups.
"Were you just there to look?" Valentine asked.
"We can't discuss operations," one of the other scouts said. "Need to know, you know."
"Except to say girlfriend here is deadly with that gun of hers," the other scout said. "One time a Reaper picked up on our smell or whatever. She killed it with one shot. It just fell over and froze up. Never seen the like."
"Robie!" the senior one warned.
The scout shrugged. "Shit, PeaBees are still Pacific Command. Don't tell me you weren't happy to see the uniform comin' out of that ditch."
"Kinda friendly with the Pee-Pants, aren't you?" the senior said to Gide as she sat next to Valentine, back against the cold concrete brick wall.
Gide took off her helmet. She'd cut her hair almost down to the skin. "I knew him in another life. It's been too long, David. You can get in touch through Ranger Group, if they let you write."
Joho churned rather than stirred the mush on the little camp stove. "I'll do a damn sight more than write if you like. I've got six months' lead in my pencil, wantin' to get out," he muttered.
"Hey, Snakes," Robie piped up. "Whaddya call your gun again? 'Big David'? Any relation? This PeaBee packin' 'Little David' maybe?" The other scout chuckled.
Gide warmed her hands on the hot bowl of mush. "Need to know, guys, need to know. And speaking of secrets—" She turned toward Valentine, unzipped her camouflage Windbreaker, and unbuttoned the top of her uniform shirt. Valentine saw a leather thong around her neck, holding a little modified wallet. She opened it and showed the four remaining Quickwood bullets resting between her breasts.
"I think of them as four little guardian angels," she whispered.
* * * *
November came in dark and blustery. Up in the mountains they had snow, but on the rim of Seattle's suburbs the brief days and lengthening nights of the season just saw more drizzle, only now it was a little colder and a lot more uncomfortable.
Like a branch snap that starts an avalanche, the next disaster in Valentine's ill-fated trip began with a sound. In this case it was the muffled roar of tires on wet pavement outside another church.
Valentine, Mofrey, and eleven "trustees" of First Platoon were waiting out the wee hours of the morning in the basement of a church that had been converted to a New Universal Church Community Center, but abandoned thanks to its nearness to the war zone. Valentine rested his head against the orange silhouette of a child. A border of colorful kids holding hands ran around the basement wall.
Mofrey always took Valentine on the trips when they were assigned to 775 Company. To the men, Valentine was just an officer who had a good "nose" for the enemy, pulled them back if he felt there was a Reaper in the neighborhood, and usually could be relied on to find a gap in the Quisling positions.
Eight Seattle residents were readying themselves for a run into Free Territory, two parents and their five kids, and a older aunt, the sister to the patriarch. They were divesting themselves of their bright-colored KZ clothing and flimsy galoshes for heavier outdoor work clothes, boots, hats, and jackets for the run to their safe house. Ordinary civilians in the Kurian Zone got only the thinnest kind of outerwear, perhaps to discourage exactly this kind of attempt.
The parents were obedient, the kids wary and asking questions as soon as they forgot that they'd been told to keep quiet. The Resistance Network member, a pinch-faced woman with nervous eyes, kept flitting back and forth between Mofrey and the family. Once they were properly dressed and fed, they'd cross no-man's-land under the guidance of the short platoon.
"They couldn't tell the kids until they left. Too much chance of letting something slip at what passes for school nowadays," the Network woman explained. "They're confused, naturally."
Valentine watched Joho clown for the kids, but expected he really had eyes for the oldest teen, a well-blossomed young woman with lovely hair who even made the shapeless KZ overalls look good.
Valentine heard the tires outside before the others, found his hand falling to the butt of his wire-stocked assault rifle. The rest of the platoon had to make do with hunting weapons or shotguns, little better than the weapons issued to the militia.
A sound echoed downstairs, an impressive rendition of an alley-cat screech. That was the signal for trouble from Spencer, a PeaBee with a talent for imitative noises, who was keeping watch from the choir balcony.
"I'll go, sir," Valentine said. He signaled two men to their feet and they hurried upstairs. Valentine wondered if his spell in Pacific Command's Punishment Brigade would start and end in a church.
Valentine saw Spencer framed against the balcony window, next to a pane of glass that had been replaced by cardboard and plastic. Valentine went to a different window, saw Pacific Command soldiers— worse, Bears—piling out of a pickup and setting up a clean alley of fire from what had been a bakery.
Valentine hurried down to the basement, waved Mofrey over.
"It's an Action Group," he reported.
"Here? Someone got their wires crossed. LeHavre wouldn't send us into an operation. Better run for it." He lifted off his helmet, ran his fingers through his hair. "Contact One," he said to the Resistance Network woman.
Now the civilians looked alarmed. Picking up on the anxiety, one of the kids began to cry.
She approached. "We've got to get out of here now, and quiet—"
Now wasn't soon enough. The door upstairs crashed, shouts followed.
Mofrey looked around.
"Get them ready," Valentine told the Network woman. He shoved his assault rifle into Joho's hands and hurried back for the stairs.
"Follow me," Mofrey told the First Platoon PeaBees behind him.
"Easy there, Delta Group," Valentine called to two Bears covering the stairs. "There are friendlies down here with Two PeaBee One. Understand?"
He came up and found the Bears lugging in communication equipment. Spencer was under guard, kneeling facing the wall, with his palms on top of his head. Another Bear urinated on an NUC Birth Drive banner. Valentine went to what he guessed to be a
platoon headquarters, a radio being set up on the altar with a knot of Bears around it.
A Bear elbowed a lieutenant—Valentine vaguely knew him, Hanley—no, Handley, Valentine read from his Velcro name tag.
"Lieutenant Handley," Valentine said, coming up and saluting. "Reporting the presence of a squad of PeaBees from Second Punishment Battalion here, carrying out salvage operations, plus prisoners."
"We didn't know any of you were in this area," Handley said.
"You're just as much a surprise to us," Valentine said. "With your permission, we'll get out of your hair and get back east." Hopefully Handley was the type who'd gladly accept the offer to have one less worry on a field operation.
Mofrey brought the rest of First Platoon up.
Valentine silently willed him to stand there. He tried to make a little "stop" gesture with his hand. Mofrey saw Spencer, still under guard in the corner, and hurried up.
Mofrey came up the center aisle. "I'm Captain Mofrey. Why's that man under arrest?"
Delta Group wasn't into saluting, and PeaBee troops didn't rate the honor from regulars anyway. "We thought he might be a deserter. Charlie, let him up."
The Bear lifted Spencer to his feet as easily as he would lift a toppled two-year-old.
Valentine heard gunfire a couple of blocks away. Handley checked his watch.
"Spencer, back with the others," Mofrey said. "Lieutenant, I have some civilians in charge. They're my responsibility, and I've no intention of letting you shoot them."
Valentine sagged, glad of the sentiment but gut-punched at how Mofrey went about it. Now the Delta Group lieutenant's decision was framed as a matter of disobeying orders or not, rather than simply seeing a minor headache disappear into the predawn.
"What makes you think you could stop us, PeaBee?" the Bear who'd lifted Spencer to his feet asked.
"They're a technical crew, hydraulics," Valentine lied, desperate to defuse the situation. "We've got a backhoe and a shovel loader we're trying to rebuild—"
"Voorhees, get me Thunderbird," Lieutenant Handley said.
Valentine moved. He chambered a round in the assault rifle, pointed it, not at anyone, but at the field radio. "Don't transmit. I'll disable the radio."
Bears and PeaBees all went for their weapons. Gun muzzles pointed in every direction but up.
"Chill, brothers," Joho called, sighting on the lieutenant. "Nobody's shot yet."
"Valentine, what the hell are you doing? Put that weapon down!" Mofrey said.
"Lieutenant, this could get crazy really fast," Valentine said, loudly enough so the church acoustics bounced his voice off the back pews. "I've no intention of hurting your valuable piece of equipment, as long as you let the PeaBees and the civilians walk out of here. Bitch to Thunderbird, bitch to Colonel LeHavre, bitch to Adler himself after we're gone. The alternative is killing all of us and maybe one or two of you. Would you rather spend your debriefing bitching or explaining?"
Reports began to squeak in over the communications system.
"I need to answer these," the radioman said.
"Go ahead," Valentine replied.
"Valentine, you're under arrest," Handley said. "The rest of you, get the hell out of here. Take your prisoners, if they mean that much to you. Torgo, make sure they get out of the kill bottle."
"If you're going to place anyone under arrest, Lieutenant, it should be me," Mofrey said. "I'm in charge of this mission."
"Leave well enough alone, sir," Valentine said. Then to Handley: "I'll surrender my weapon as soon as they're out of here, Lieutenant."
Joho grabbed Mofrey, pulled him back. "Listen to the man. We got daylight coming fast."
When they were gone, Valentine put the gun on the desk and submitted to being patted down and restrained with plastic cording. The stress brought with it a hunger that gnawed at him. Being a Bear meant living with one's appetite as a constant companion.
Bears came and went, but the only one Valentine waited for was goat-bearded Torgo, who returned to report that the PeaBees had left the operations area.
He tried not to listen to the comm chatter. Then he saw a familiar pair of boots step up in front of him.
"Valentine, you're like a bad twenty that keeps showing up in my till," Thunderbird said. "Handley said you were here, but I had to see it for myself. You've done yourself in this time."
"Tell me something, Colonel. How did my father get all this started?"
"You've got more important worries."
Valentine found the courage to beg. "Please."
He clucked his tongue. "Oh, it wasn't here, not in Pacific Command. Kubishev told me about it, actually, never gave me any details. Don't know that you'll get the opportunity to look him up."
"Going to shoot me with the rest of the folks you're murdering?"
"God bless 'em, every one," Thunderbird said. "We'll pick this up in a few hours, Valentine. You'll be traveling, a lot farther than a trip to the nearest brick wall."
* * * *
They threw him in a truck with a hood over his head, chained hand and foot and nudged by what felt like a shotgun barrel every time he rolled too far away from the side of the bay. But he could still hear. There were babies crying all around.
They traveled at a good speed for what he guessed was a little over two hours. To occupy his mind, he counted minutes and scored them off into hours. Routine soaked up fear like a sponge.
Then they parked and quiet women's voices talked as the babies were passed out of the truck, soothing and cooing over the "poor little things." He was the last to leave.
They kept him blindfolded as someone, a woman by the smell of her, fed him, stripped him out of his uniform, and gave him a quick sponge bath. They let him use the toilet. Then they sat him in a room with a ticking fan, hands and legs cuffed to brackets in an electric-chair-like frame. Valentine kept waiting for them to wire his genitals or fillings, but the silent workers left him alone.
Finally he heard someone enter. "Major Valentine?" a precisely clipped voice asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know my voice?"
"Can't say that I do."
"I'm Adler."
"Now I see why I'm tied down," Valentine said.
"Why's that?"
"So I don't go for your throat."
Adler chuckled. "Three experienced Bears with me."
"Okay, I can't kill you. Are you going to kill me?" Valentine wanted it out in the open, to know.
"Me? No. Another? Quite likely. Unless."
"Unless?"
"You see reason."
"I can't see much in this mask," Valentine said, trying to work it off with his jaw muscles and his cheeks.
"I don't want you to identify this place to the Kurians. We're turning you over to them."
Valentine felt his pulse quicken. "What does 'seeing reason' involve?"
"Forgetting all this ever happened. Rejoining Delta Group. I'll put you in a position where you can fight the good fight. As you see it. You'll hardly even know the Action Groups exist. You can fight the old-fashioned way, the useless way, wading into the enemy with banner unfurled. I have need of skilled officers who can keep the Kurian forces busy. You might be of use with the Big Mouths. They've been destructive as they've grown in familiarity with the waterways around Seattle."
"Let me see your face."
Valentine sensed a mass shift behind him, heard curtains being drawn. The mask came off, and there was the real heart and soul and mind behind Pacific Command.
Adler wore the patient face of a teacher, calm as a death mask, just old enough to be fatherly, just young enough for a spark. He had sad mortician's eyes, but there was a power behind them. Valentine felt the loom of the Bears behind, though what he could accomplish shackled hand and foot...
Maybe worst of all, Valentine liked him on sight.
"What did Seattle do to you? You're laying waste to everything he owns."
"I served him. On a whim ... on a moment of a
ppetite he destroyed my children."
"So now you're killing other people's children?"
"It's better than the alternative. A bullet ends the matter. Having your soul pulled apart, shred by shred, memory by memory, every awful act laughed at, every joy mocked—no one deserves that."
"I've always thought one's soul belonged to God."
"Maybe. Nevertheless, they partake of the distilled experiences of a life. Sip by sip. Stand with me. Or I fear you'll find out."
"How do you know so much about it?"
"He made me watch. He relished every detail. All because of a careless thought against him."
"I am sorry," Valentine said.
"Then you'll rejoin our war?"
"Your war."
For the first time he looked exasperated. "Word games. Fine. My war."
"I pound on the door while your murderers slip through the window."
"Not how I would put it. May I promise you one more thing? When Seattle is destroyed, my war ends. I will retire, disappear, live quietly somewhere. Pacific Command may fight on or hang itself."
Valentine bowed his head. "You've been polite with me, so I won't tell you where you can stick your offer."
"Now it is my turn to feel sorry for you. As to my 'offer,' I doubt it would fit. My staff calls me all sorts of colorful names having to do with anal retentiveness."
They stared at each other.
Valentine broke first: "So we're both too phlegmatic to get angry. Just out of curiosity, what's with the heroism stuff? I missed the chance at a lecture."
"The Action Groups can't get everywhere. We regularly send propaganda deep into Seattle, along with certain painless, lethal pills, encouraging the populace to do the right thing. I understand you even flew some to a very difficult-to-reach area. With luck, many of them will be used. Their names will be added to the hero lists and read out in our broadcasts. I still have a friend or two west of here. But my time is nearly up. I should have liked to bring you to another new-moon party at the Outlook. I believe you attended one before."
