Scout shuffled in the loose soil and rock of the path, and the vehicle’s forward progress hitched. The other whinnies at their side and the two in front strained and kept the vehicle moving. Bo felt rather than saw Scout get his feet under him. The big whinnie leaned against the broken vehicle with an audible grunt that sounded distinctly angry. Bo couldn’t help but smile.
“C’mon, Scout.” He leaned down over the whinnie’s neck. “You got this, buddy.”
The second switchback up the trail—at roughly the halfway point of the two-kilometer journey—was the narrowest part. The two towing whinnies rode shoulder-to-shoulder as they made the turn. Bo and Sergeant Cook struggled to fit their mounts in the space. Large rock formations shielded both sides of the trail, pinching its width down to three meters. To make matters worse, the pitch of the trail increased to a good seven percent incline. Back on Earth, powerful tractor-trailers with full loads struggled to make it up that kind of hill. The wobbling axle ground against both wheels and the vehicle lurched in multiple directions at once.
“Yah!” To his right, Bo saw Cook kick his whinnie hard in the side. Nothing changed. His mount was working as hard as it could to shove the vehicle with its left foreleg while digging its rear legs into the dirt for any kind of purchase. “Yah!”
The mount trumpeted again, and Bo heard Scout snort loudly and flinch his neck to look over his shoulder. The flash of anger caught Bo off guard, but he understood. They were doing all they could and didn’t need outside encouragement.
“Cook!” Bo leaned over. “Don’t kick her again.”
Cook’s entire face was a question. “Sir?”
“They’re giving it all they can already. They’re not like horses or mules.” Bo pointed at his reins. “When’s the last time you really had to guide her?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Have you done a damned thing to get her to put a shoulder into that vehicle? To push with three legs like that? Did you even think that was possible?”
Cook’s face regained composure and realization at the same instant. “Oh, shit! Er…Sir. You’re right.”
Scout trumpeted softly. Bo wondered if he meant to say something like “Finally.” Or maybe Scout had recognized that the entire unit at Camp Stark seemed to use “Oh, Shit” as their motto.
“Let them do their thing. All we gotta do is—”
Metal squealed as the axle bent sharply near the left rear wheel. The gun platform crashed into the dirt just as Bo and Scout, driving forward and right behind the wheel, saw it shear away. The sound was similar to an explosion, so loud that the whinnies flinched. Scout, leaning heavily into the vehicle, only had enough time to flinch backward.
Bo couldn’t seize the reins fast enough. There was the brief sensation of flying backward, untethered through the air until he hit the ground. And then—
Nothing.
* * *
Do you remember that night at the enology lab? Out in the vineyard? I do. I remember the clouds were indigo in the reflected city lights. The rains were long gone, and we sat out there on a blanket and watched soundless lightning race along the underside of the thunderheads up toward Tupelo. You tried so hard to be romantic. Roses and wine. It was sweet, but for a second date it wasn’t much. You asked me about it later. Why hadn’t I been ready to kiss you? Do you remember where we went after that? That I needed to drop off an assignment at Justin’s apartment? And he wasn’t there, so we went back to my apartment and watched a movie?
I think about that night a lot. If Justin had been there, I wouldn’t have come back to your car. I wouldn’t have gone out with you anymore. I shouldn’t have kept going because I knew. I thought—I told myself—you were good enough.
But I knew better.
* * *
Bo came awake with a start, wiping at his warm, wet face frantically and checking his palm for blood. Instead, he saw thick globs of clear liquids filled with the tiny bubbles of spittle. Above him, Scout was staring down at him with an expectant, if not concerned, look on his angular face. The whinnie made a deep-throated sound oddly like a cat’s purr and stepped back as Bo sat up, rubbing the back of his head.
“Easy, sir.” Sergeant Cook was at his side with a compress. “You’ve got a nasty knot back there, but no blood. You okay?”
As he sat up, the world swam from left to right and back again violently. He blinked several times in succession to clear his vision. The pain began as a small buzz and grew until it filled his head and threatened to block out everything.
“How long was I out?”
Cook shrugged. “Less than a minute. Gave us a good scare, though. Never seen a whinnie get so scared, either. He was all over you, licking your face and scratching the ground. I think you’re right about them, sir. I think they really care for us.”
Bo nodded and instantly regretted the slight movement of his head. He blinked again, and his dizziness abated. “Help me up,” he asked Cook. The sergeant stood and extended a hand, which Bo took. As he stood, Bo felt better but still wobbly. He’d hit his head plenty on armored vehicles and knew the feeling and how to operate with it. He rubbed the back of his head and gingerly probed the swollen spot. It wasn’t an open wound, but he’d still need it checked.
“Bird went with the first vehicle, didn’t he?” Bo asked. The diminutive medic was nowhere in sight.
“Yes, sir.”
Bo laughed. “Dammit. You don’t have any aspirin, do you?”
Cook shook his head. “You want me to send for Bird? He can get back down here and throw it over to us from the other side of the wreck.”
“No time,” Bo grunted.
He studied the collapsed tactical that was wedged solidly in the middle of the tight trail. There was no way it would move in any direction without divine intervention or serious explosives.
“Mission failure,” he said and spat in the R’Baku dirt.
“That ain’t your fault, sir.” Cook replied.
“The hell it’s not.” Bo fought the urge to kick at the dirt he’d spat in.
“We did the best we could,” Cook offered.
Bo slapped at the dirt on his legs with both hands. “We should have gotten down the pass faster.”
Cook said nothing in response. He didn’t have to. The commander was always the one to blame. No matter if his intentions were honorable and good. The mission had been to recover the entire raiding party and the vehicles they’d secured. Of paramount interest were the gun platforms, and while twenty-three out of twenty-four wasn’t bad, they were not going to get the final vehicle up the pass. For Bo, that was tantamount to failure.
“Saber Six, this is OP Two, over.”
Bo gestured for Sublete and the radio handset, reached up for it with a grunt, and got a fresh bolt of dull, throbbing pain down his spine. “Saber Six, go.”
“Saber Six, we’ve got visual contact with lead enemy elements. Estimate they’re fifteen klicks out and have slowed their advance. The lead formation has sighted on the screen and has diverted almost fully in that direction. How copy?”
Bo took a breath and held it for a moment before releasing it. The plan was working so far. “Good copy, OP Two. What else?”
“Sir, confirming the lead element is a regimental-sized force. Two battalions are line abreast in the front of the formation.”
Bo blinked. “Say again your last?”
The RTO repeated the report and Bo almost wobbled back to the ground. A regiment? Heading straight toward sections three and four? He exhaled slowly. He’d been right; this was not a cat he’d be able to skin. This was a cat he had to kill. He nodded, depressed the key on the handset. “Copy, OP Two. Relay that SITREP to Starkpatch, coded for immediate relay to Glass Palace. Relay to Saber Nine, I am in route with reinforcements. Time now. Saber Six, out.”
He ran his fingers through his sweaty hair and realized his hat was missing. In the intense radiation of R’Bak’s two stars, skin cancers and melanoma were all too real a p
ossibility. He turned a slow circle and found his boonie hat. With the care and patience of a much older man, he bent forward and grabbed it from the ground. As he stood up to his full height, the pain and the wobbling sensation weren’t anywhere near what they had been before. His adrenaline had kicked in at the most opportune time. If they didn’t get a move on, his idea to counterattack the J’Stull as they chased the screen wouldn’t materialize.
Bo took a quick breath and exhaled it just as quickly to clear his mind and felt one of his ears pop involuntarily. He shook his head, albeit gently, and looked up at Cook who was the only senior leader on the downhill side of the vehicle.
“Get everyone on the other side of the wreck up the pass, right now. Send a mount to the vehicles. Tell them to stand by and not start any engines until I tell them to. We’re gonna ride for the screen and hope like hell they’ve found a pass.”
Cook nodded and bounced his whinnie up to the vehicle and called over the platform for the others to fall back to the vehicles. As he looked around, Bo counted: Cook, Sublete and their whinnies were with him on the downslope from the wreck. Four soldiers from the raiding party and two indig guides were with them as well. He gestured at them and then back down the trail. “Double up on the whinnies and get to the bottom ASAP. Mount up on a vehicle and get ready to attack. We’re not playing defense anymore.”
Seeing the dismounted troops scramble aboard the available mounts took some of the weight of command off his shoulders. He raised the handset again. “OP Two, the pass is blocked. Personnel upslope of the block are recovering in your direction. Report when they rendezvous with recovery forces. Break.”
He released the transmit button and then pressed it again two seconds later. Old habits died hard. “Relay to Saber Nine, we’re en route. Need their location and route. Over.”
“Saber Six, OP Two. Good copy. Will relay to Saber Nine when we can see them again. Over.”
“You don’t have eyes on them now?” Bo asked, incredulous.
“Negative, sir. We haven’t seen them for over ten minutes. They’re too close to the bluffs down there. Lost radio contact at the same time. Over.”
Bo ran a hand over his face and placed his tongue between his teeth as though intending to bite his words back. He had failed.
“Sonuvabitch!”
* * * * *
Chapter Seven
As Athena bolted up the narrow gap and bounced from outcrop to outcrop, Aliza clenched the reins with every ounce of strength in her hands. She clamped her legs in the saddle to hold her in position atop the whinnie. Hands and legs burning from the effort, and she realized she’d been holding her breath. Forcing herself to breathe, Aliza bounced in the makeshift saddle again as Athena scrambled toward, and then up, a vertical face only a few meters high. Aliza gasped at the speed and audacity at the move. The speed of the climb shocked her. On the mostly flat, rocky ground of the tableland and surrounding desert, the animals were graceful and fast. But she’d seen no evidence of the almost gravity-defying climbing ability that Athena had demonstrated. Slipping over the top of the wall in less than three seconds, the whinnie moved uphill and deeper into the brush, the other whinnies trailing behind her.
Aliza pulled back gently on the reins. “Slow down, girl. Let’s wait for the others.”
Athena grunted and continued moving forward at a very slow walk. The whinnie didn’t want to slow down but understood Aliza’s intent. As they climbed up the hill through the scrub brush, the narrow passage around the craggy bluff opened onto a wider area. While the brush seemed thicker and more pervasive, Aliza realized that Athena’s meandering path was purposeful. The whinnie chose her path to avoid thickets and anything that would distract her rider.
To their left, the draw climbed up the mountain into a thicker forest that appeared to level out into a tight, but extended, valley that curved toward the northern rim of the tableland. There was no sign of how far it stretched. On their right, toward the summit location of OP Two, large, recent rock falls covered most of the area. Boulders the size of automobiles littered the landscape that would have given them the fastest way up to the high shelf of land. Aliza saw Athena stare up that slope for a moment before angling back to the left.
“What have you got, girl?”
Athena pressed ahead, faster now. Aliza looked over her shoulder and saw the rest of the patrol scrambling up the hill toward the vertical face they’d climbed. None of the whinnies appeared to have any trouble duplicating her feat. Aliza relaxed and let Athena pick up her pace.
As they climbed into the forested area, the intense heat relented and Aliza could feel a cool—well, less hot—breeze on her skin. She wiped a sleeve across her forehead and reached for a canteen on her load-bearing equipment harness—olive drab canvas “H” straps attached to a pistol belt with a metal clasp. It wasn’t the most comfortable apparatus she’d ever worn, but it carried canteens, ammunition, her M1911 pistol, and a couple of other pouches with ease.
The water was cool and good, and Aliza drank greedily. As she slipped the canteen back into its container, the rustling of the taller tree-like plants filled the little valley with a peaceful sound. But there was something else on the wind.
“Whoa, girl.” Aliza tugged the reins and Athena stopped. Closing her eyes, Aliza put her entire focus on the sensory input from her ears. In the breeze, there was a barely audible trickling sound.
Water.
She smiled. I knew it! All we had to do was search up along this side of the tableland.
Turning her head slowly, Aliza tried to locate the sound. She tugged Athena in that direction and the big whinnie trotted up the slope and between several copses of trees. In the center of a group of five trees was a small pool only a few feet across. On the uphill side of the pool there was a rock overhang. The water in the pool emerged from underground.
A spring.
She followed the flow from the overhang, through the pool, to a narrow stream that flowed for about five meters before it darted back underground. There was no sign that the spring returned to the surface anywhere in their vicinity. A lucky find.
Aliza laughed to herself and shook her head in disbelief. She studied the pool and her eyes grew wide in recognition. Several very familiar and very rare plants blossomed at the edge of the water. She wanted to dismount and see them up close, but she remained in the saddle. There was no way of telling if the water was safe enough for them to—
Athena stepped forward and lapped at the pool for several seconds. Satisfied, the whinnie raised her head and turned back to look at Aliza. Her dark eyes almost glittered. If it could have laughed, she imagined the whinnie would have.
Aliza’s mouth fell open. “You knew.”
Athena made a purring sound and stepped to the left of the pool and the tiny stream and continued up the valley. Dumbstruck in the saddle, Aliza didn’t react until they’d gone twenty meters beyond the spring. She looked back toward the pool and couldn’t see it.
“What the hell?” She listened for a moment and could still hear it. The perfectly camouflaged pool wasn’t something casually seen or located. A very lucky find.
No. A deliberate one. They led us here.
The sound of an approaching whinnie at a fast trot caught her attention, and she turned to see Whittaker riding toward her.
He pointed over at the hidden pool. “Aliza? Did you see that?”
She smiled. “I did. Athena drank from it. They knew it was here.”
He shook his head. “I’ll be damned.”
Aliza brushed her dusty clothes. “Seems that way. What do you want to do?”
Whittaker pointed up the valley. “Follow this around the bend as far as it goes. There has to be another way up to the tableland. If Athena wants us to go that way, we probably should.”
Aliza pointed at the radio handset on Whittaker’s harness. Unlike Captain Moorefield, he’d chosen to carry the heavy radio himself. “We should report this.”
Whittake
r grunted and reached for the handset. “I’ll try. Line of sight to OP Two has been terrible.”
Aliza swept back a lock of her hair the freshening breeze was fluttering across her face. She turned toward the west and saw a low cloud on the—
Not a low cloud. An enormous dust cloud. They’re coming after us.
“Sergeant Whittaker?”
He paused and looked where she stared. “OP Two, Saber Nine. Over.”
A static-filled voice replied. “Saber Nine, OP Two. Be advised enemy attacking in your direction. Saber Six is en route to your position now. Advise you find a way up to the tableland fast. Over.”
Whittaker turned back to the curving, narrowing valley. “Negative, OP Two. Relay to Saber Six, we’re preparing a hasty defense. Tell him to bust his ass and join us. I’ll hang a lantern for him. Out.”
“A lantern? It’s full daylight?” Aliza asked.
“An expression. I’ll post a guide down below to get them up here in a hurry. We’ve got other things to do right now.
“As in preparing a defense instead of climbing up and over?” Aliza asked. “Isn’t that Captain Moorefield’s decision?”
“He knows the stakes, Aliza.” Whittaker frowned. “They’re moving too fast and we have the advantage of the high ground here. If they get up on the tableland, they won’t stop until they roll up everything we have. Our job was to deceive and delay the enemy, and that’s exactly what we have to do. We hold them here at least until he can slam those stolen vehicles into their flank.”
Obligations Page 8
