“At least one of ’em got away,” breathed Stug. They had all stopped to stare at the ship sitting on the ground, looking like nothing so much as a beaten-down prizefighter. The same question was in all their minds, and they hardly needed their BICEs to share it.
“Was it worth it?” asked Smoker.
“I guess we’ll find out,” replied their captain.
She went straight to Colonel Neville’s tent to make her report. He and half his command had managed to rendezvous in the woods and evade Transport, but he’d lost the other half, along with four cargo ships, six drones, and the personal arms and equipment of every soldier who’d died. In return, he’d gained one shipload of precious okcillium, a score of laser rifles, and further disdain for the costly tactics of Mary Brenneman. The debriefing wasn’t pleasant.
While their captain was being upbraided, the remaining members of B-Company reunited. Charlie and Delta squads were like inverse images of one another. Charlie had helped cover TRACE’s retreat from Gettysburg but had hardly seen any real action. As a result, the squad had lost no one. Delta Squad was a different story. Charger and her troops had held the tree line against Transport’s flanking drones, then continued the fight when the Authority had taken the field in force. In the end, they’d lost all but one: their sergeant. Everyone called her Pusher. She held her head up but talked to no one in the camp, silent tears tracking randomly down her cheeks. Still in shock, she seemed like a mother who’d just been told that her children had died in a senseless accident.
Hatch sat across the table from the QB in what passed for a lounge in the rebel camp. The waitress had left them each a bourbon, neat, and walked away.
“Bad?”
She shrugged. “Some would say not bad enough. Pusher might say that.”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. She’s grieving. Let her do it. Try not to take it personally.”
Her eyes met his with a look that assured him there was no other way to take it. She was in command. These were her troops. Her orders had led them to their deaths.
“What’d Neville say?” he asked.
Again a shrug. “The usual. I bit off more than I could chew. I should’ve waited for his backup to get there. By moving early, I tipped off Transport. The usual.”
“Or … had we not moved when we did, the Authority might’ve had the entire town reinforced by the time he got there and we’d have come up with bupkis. It wasn’t your fault the intel was wrong and we bumped into Transport on the first day. Command should’ve known a warehouse full of unguarded okcy was too good to be true. The only question after we made contact was how quickly to move. I think you made the right call.”
She slugged the bourbon back. “Command seems to agree with you. I’m still here.”
Hatch smiled. “Good. You should be. And Neville?”
She reached over, took his glass, and slugged it back too. “So’s he.”
Less happy now, Hatch nodded to the waitress. “The next time you want a double, just order one.”
She twisted her mouth at him.
“So, in the AZ, I gotta ask. How did you know that hole was in the wall?”
Mary shrugged. “I played around there when I was little. All the kids did. There are holes all along the wall, though Transport tries to keep them plugged up. I figured if we looked hard enough, we’d find one.”
“And Yoder? What was he going on about?”
Her face went flat. She’d known it was coming, and that it would come from Hatch. As close as they’d once been, she’d never shared her history with him, the circumstances of her life that had led her to join the resistance. Her shunning by the Plain People. And she didn’t feel inclined to share it now.
“It’s not something I talk about. I’ve tried to forget it ever happened.”
A laugh if there ever was one, her inner voice said.
The waitress set down their drinks and walked away.
“Oh, come on, Mary,” he urged. “It’s just you and me here now.”
“I was young and stupid, Lieutenant,” she said. She used his rank to let him know their personal connection wasn’t going to work here.
He took his glass in hand and sipped it. “Have it your way, Captain.”
She immediately regretted the distance she heard in his voice. The distance she’d put there. But she didn’t want to talk about her life in the AZ.
Ever, her inner voice confirmed.
“It’s just not something I want to relive, Sean,” she said. “But I appreciate your concern.”
Hatch finished off the bourbon. “I care about you, Mary. You know that. Whatever our ranks.”
She nodded. She knew.
“Hey, you know what tomorrow is?” he asked.
“It’s not today,” she replied. “That’s a start.”
“It’s the Fourth of July.”
She stared at him, uncomprehending.
“It’s an old holiday back on Earth. Independence Day.”
“Ah. How ironic.” Her voice bled sarcasm.
“Don’t say that!” Hatch said. Sometimes her defeatism, though it was rare, really got to him. Maybe its rarity was why it hit him so hard. She was a rock. Most of the time.
“I’m sorry, Sean. I guess I just don’t feel much like celebrating.”
Hatch nodded. He got that.
Pusher walked through the door. She looked around, spotted them, and headed straight for their table. Mary braced herself. She’d seen this before. The release of grief by assigning blame. Blame that Mary thought might even be justified. Every tactical situation was different, a complex web of opportunities and decisions. All a soldier had was her training and her gut instincts and a dubious relationship with the Almighty. A small quiver of arrows, really, when it came down to it. “I did the best with what I had” often fell flat with those asked to pay the price for her decisions, good or bad.
The sergeant stopped at their table but didn’t sit down. Everyone in the lounge went quiet and watched.
“I lost my squad yesterday, ma’am,” Pusher said. There were no tears. Just a clenched jaw holding them back. “I lost Charger. I lost them all.”
“Yes, you did,” said Mary. She wanted to harden up, to be the QB. But something about the pools of anguish staring from Pusher’s stony face wouldn’t let her. She had to take this as a person, not a soldier. Death was never impersonal.
“I just wanted to say, I’m proud to serve under you, Captain Brenneman. I’m proud of what we did. I’m proud of my soldiers. I’m proud of my lieutenant. I’m proud that they died for something worth dying for.”
Mary stood up. Standing was required to honor the woman in front of her, who was stock-still and looking her captain straight in the eye. Standing was necessary to pay proper respect to the dead.
“I’m proud to have you in my command,” she replied solemnly.
Pusher reached out her hand and Mary took it. The sergeant saluted and walked away.
When Mary sat back down, she did all she could to hide her emotions. To reestablish the mask of the QB. The old trick. The muscle memory of command.
Hatch pushed her bourbon toward her, but she let it sit.
“And that’s the difference between you and Neville,” he said simply. “That’s the difference between being a leader and being in command.”
Mary was unable to catch it, so a single tear bled down the curve of her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.
“And now what?” she asked, her voice hitched.
“It’s like I told you when the heat was on. Now, we have to get ready for the next battle. Bestimmung Company still needs its captain, Mary.”
She picked up the bourbon, rolled its weight around in her hand. She took the shot in one slug, its smoky tingle burning the back of her throat.
“Well,” she said, “I’m still here.”
Historical Note: Gettysburg
The American Civil War has always seemed like a Shakespearean tragedy to me. Its five acts
spanned 1861 to 1865, and its two sides were matched as inverse images of one another, seemingly fated to fight an extended, bitter conflict. The Confederacy had better leaders, more élan early in the war, and—whatever our modern perception of its rationale for secession (the catch-all concept is “states’ rights superseding federal authority”; the most obvious expression of those rights involved the continuation of slavery as a cheap labor force, something the South considered vital to its economy)—an absolute belief bordering on religious fervor in the rightness of the Southern cause. In other words, the Confederacy was more motivated to fight and—thanks to the quality of its military leadership—more capable of doing so effectively, despite obvious but willfully ignored strategic disadvantages.
The Union, on the other hand, had everything else. A larger population from which to draw soldiery, a mature industrial base, a more thoroughly developed transportation system, a better-equipped navy—which it put to good use in strangling Southern trade from abroad—and President Abraham Lincoln, whose force of will is often credited for our having a cohesive United States today. What the Union lacked early on was effective military leadership, and that simple fact extended the pain of the conflict—the crucible of the American character—much longer than it should have lasted. In an ironic twist worthy of the Bard, a week after the start of the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, then-U.S. Army Col. Robert E. Lee was offered command of the Union army. But this was a day after Lee’s beloved Virginia seceded and he demurred, saying he could never march against his home state. In Lee, the Confederacy found a brilliant, daring leader for its own army, and some consider him the greatest military commander in American history. His greatest blunder was the Battle of Gettysburg.
The battle is called the “high-water mark” of the Confederacy because it represented the culmination of a rare offensive campaign by a Confederate army and the South’s last real threat to Northern soil. Losing the battle began the long descent of Southern fortunes that ended at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, almost four years to the day since hostilities began. Until July 1863, the Confederate army had won (or, in some cases, fought to a draw) every major engagement of the war. In the North, the political will to continue the fight was waning, as evidenced by draft riots and Copperheads (Northerners favoring an immediate peace with the Confederacy). Had the Confederacy won at Gettysburg, many historians have suggested we might well have two American nations today.
When Michael Bunker created the world of Pennsylvania, he brought forward to his land of New Pennsylvania many of the artifacts and familiar places of old Earth. I decided to have fun with that notion. It wasn’t so hard to imagine that folks who immigrated to this new land—named for a state in the old world—would also bring their town names with them, perhaps even naming a town Gettysburg. And what if fate and history conspired to create circumstances that resonated with events more than 250 years in that world’s past? Instead of Confederates looking for shoes and bumping into Union cavalry, let’s have TRACE looking for okcillium and bumping into a platoon of Transport soldiers. Yeah, that’s the ticket!
I had a lot of fun reimagining aspects of the battle as elements of my story. I just gave one Easter egg away with the shoes/okcillium example, so I won’t give away any more. But if you know the battle, maybe you’ll find and crack open some more of those eggs. I hope you enjoy their discovery. And if you’re not a history buff like me, it’s cool; I hope you enjoy the story for what I primarily intended it to be: a tale of adventure, bravery, and catastrophe—much like the Civil War itself.
Chris Pourteau
September 2014
All Our Food Belong to Whom?
“Swing and a miss!”
One of the bar patrons thought she was a comedienne.
Stug’s momentum carried him through, and he caught himself against the bar. It shuddered under his bulk but it held. He could feel Garza, the loudmouth sergeant from A Company, moving behind him. So Stug played possum, stayed prone.
“What’s wrong, Miller?” Garza said in that annoyingly smooth Spanish accent of his. “Too much to drink? Or are you just getting old?”
Stug actually considered the question as he prepared to push himself up. Then he shrugged internally. He didn’t think he understood the concept too much to drink. And as for getting old? So what if he was in his early thirties? So maybe he woke with a few more pops and aches in the morning. They had yet to slow him down.
“Just stay right there, Garza,” he slurred without turning around. “And I’ll show you the difference a little experience makes.”
Stug flexed. The bar groaned. Garza centered himself.
In one smooth motion, Stug thrust himself up and back, right into Garza’s center mass, forcing air and surprise from the younger man. They both flew backward, their audience of soldiers parting around them like the Red Sea before Moses. Garza landed on his back on a wooden table, and their combined weight was too much for its shoddy workmanship. They appeared to hover in the air for a moment, then rode the splintered tabletop to the floor, crashing hard. Beneath Stug’s bulk, Garza took the worst of it. He wheezed, lungs aching.
“Man, you even moan with an accent,” Stug said.
Someone laughed.
“What the hell is going on here?”
The laughter tapered off quickly. Bodies moved aside as others pushed through. Someone—sounded like the comedienne—groaned her disappointment.
Captain Martin Seamus of A Company and Lieutenant Sean Hatch of B Company’s Alpha Squad pushed their way through the ring of soldiers surrounding the two men. Stug and Garza lay on the floor, one looking slightly confused, the other still remembering how to breathe again.
“Sergeants, I asked a question,” said Seamus.
“Nothing, sir,” wheezed Garza, rolling the bigger man off him. “Just a little fun.”
“Fun?” Seamus cast his eyes around. Not one, but two tables were flattened. Three chairs broken. He’d obviously arrived at this particular party a little late. And the bartender, a young corporal with freckles on her cheeks, looked justifiably annoyed and terrified at the same time. In his peripheral vision, Seamus noticed someone reluctantly tapping a uni bracelet against someone else’s—no doubt settling a bet. “You two thick apes destroy half the Rock Slide, and you call that fun?”
By now, both of the combatants were attempting to get to their feet.
“Sergeant Miller, explain yourself,” grumbled Hatch.
Failing to answer, Stug merely stood in a Zen-like state, swaying softly to a breeze only he could feel.
“Sergeant Miller!”
The big man blinked in surprise, as if he’d just been reminded that he was, in fact, alive. “What?” he answered, annoyed. Then, thinking better of his attitude, he added, “Nothing.”
“What?”
“It’s what Garza said. Nothing.” He burped. “Beg pardon. Sir.”
“Lieutenant…” began Seamus, at his wit’s end.
“Sir, if I may.” Hatch used the voice he preferred when trying to demonstrate to a superior officer his clear understanding of the military code of conduct. To his unsteady sergeant, he said, “Consider yourself on report, Miller.”
“Report? Just for having a little fun?”
“Now we’re back to fun,” said Seamus. “I thought it was nothing.”
Stug glanced at the bartender, then leered at the captain and winked. “Even a little nothing can be fun with the right person.” Sneering at his opponent, he said, “I wasn’t talking about you, Garza.”
“Report it is,” said Hatch, grabbing Stug by the arm and attempting to drag him out of the Slide. It’s like moving a cargo container full of okcy one-handed, he thought. “Captain Seamus, might I assume the same for your lunkheaded Spaniard?”
The captain frowned, debating internally, then nodded.
“Thank you, sir. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll get my man to his bunk.”
“What about my bar?” ca
lled the freckle-faced bartender after them.
Hatch ignored her. The crowd parted, joking and laughing, as he lugged his burly friend out. Stug was muttering incoherently under his breath, difficult to hear over all the noise.
“What’d you say, meathead?”
“I said, why’d you have to be such an ass? Report? Whassup with that?”
“Because if I hadn’t taken control of the situation, you idiot, Seamus might’ve given you worse,” explained Hatch. “As it is, you get a mark on a piece of paper. Assuming I remember to file it.”
A soldier held the door for them as they made their way outside and into the cool October air.
“Ah,” said Stug. “Well, in that case, thanks for being such an ass.”
“Oh, it was my pleasure.”
Pound. Pound. Pound.
The inside of Stug’s head felt like the timing drum on an ancient Roman warship, its skin stretched to the limit by the constant beat of the pausarius, the officer who kept the men on the benches hard at their oars. And only one thin membrane for a drumhead to receive the drummer’s abuse.
On top of that, some demented bastard was shining a light in his eyes. He didn’t remember getting captured. So why was he being tortured?
Pound. Pound. Pound.
Now he understood Garza’s concept. In a hazy, half-remembered, not-sure-you-didn’t-dream-it-up kind of way. Maybe it was possible to drink too much.
I am getting old, Stug thought.
“If you don’t turn off that light, I’m going to snuff it out,” he growled at the tormentor standing over him. “And you won’t like how.”
Instead, the man holding the flashlight said, “Get up, vampire.”
Stug snarled and came up off his cot, lunging at the glare and the shadowy figure holding it. The man slid left easily, jerking the light ahead of the sergeant, who pursued it like a kitten with a new toy. Finally realizing he’d been tricked, Stug stopped in his tracks.
Tales of B-Company: The Complete Collection Page 10
