Obligations

by Kevin Ikenberry

  “You’re certain?”

  Whittaker grinned. “It’s what I’d do.”

  * * *

  Whittaker’s report was exactly what Bo wanted to hear and his own plan of action crystallized. The immobile gun platform sitting utterly broken in the middle of the trail’s tightest section had become a solution, rather than a problem. The craggy rock formations pinning it from either side restricted movement in the immediate area. Leaving the trail to cut a new path up the pass would take a significant investment in time and blood. While their enemy might have the resolve to do so, the trail’s blockage could be used to channelize them to wherever Bo wanted them to go.

  Until they get the vehicle out of there, that is. Which they might very well be able to accomplish, given the larger vehicles they’d seen in reconnaissance. Yanking the broken vehicle out with something more powerful than a handful of whinnies wouldn’t be that hard. Bo studied the rocks on either side and smiled.

  Unless it is so jammed that even vehicles can’t get it out of the way.

  He grabbed the handset from Sublete and thumb-stabbed the transmit button. “OP Two, relay to Seeker Six. Need their sappers or demo team at the block point to detonate this vehicle and the surrounding rock formations. I want them to collapse the pass completely at this location. Over.”

  “Saber Six, OP Two. Roger all. TRP set on location and we’ll get the sappers moving that direction immediately. Over.”

  “OP Two, roger that. I’m moving to Saber Nine now,” Bo said. He took a quick breath. “Contact Saber Nine for grid coordinates in front of their positions and standby for contingency Charlie at my command. Saber Six, out.”

  He handed the handset back to Sublete and nodded at the young man. The young soldier projected confidence. “Ready to move, sir.”

  Bo pointed at Sublete’s mount. “You’ve ridden him at a full gallop before?”

  “A couple of times. A few minutes, tops.”

  “Then hang on for dear life, son.” Bo wheeled Scout to the east and waved at Cook. “When we get to the bottom, dismount and find a vehicle. Leave your whinnie; it’ll be fine. We’ll mount up and attack to the north, into their flank. Once we blow up the pass, they’ll take the bait and commit fully toward our screen. That’s when we’ll hit them. You’ll be the lead vehicle in the attack.”

  “Yes, sir!” Cook nudged his mount, and the whinnie launched into a trot that quickly became a full gallop across the desert.

  “Go, Sublete. I’m right behind you.” The RTO and his mount sped after Cook with a good interval between them. Anything they could do to confuse, confound, and slow down the enemy would be the priority. From the upslope side of the collapsed vehicle, Bo heard a group of whinnies approaching.

  He didn’t wait for them to dismount and prepare the explosives. “C’mon, Scout!” He tapped the whinnie’s side gently. “Time to put steel on target.”

  * * *

  Once out of the pass, Bo rode straight for the ragged line of vehicles concealed in the rocks and scrub. Cook was near the center and gestured toward a six-wheeled vehicle with a fat, wide turret on top of its hull. Its two large cannons pointed out over the front windows. They moved slightly from left to right and Bo knew they were already seeing, and tracking, the enemy.

  He was already working his feet out of the stirrups and Scout’s harness as they slid to a stop. He dismounted the whinnie and saw Scout’s triangular head turn his way. The animal’s eyes were calm and focused, and despite their frantic pace down the mesa, he appeared to be breathing normally.

  “Go home, Scout.” Bo turned around and made for the vehicles. The whinnie didn’t move. He pointed up the steep skirts of the tableland toward their compound and paddock. “Scout! Go home.”

  Scout trumpeted softly. The tone was deep and mournful, but the whinnie turned and trotted toward the bottom of the slope and made its way to the north. The other dismounted whinnies followed.

  Bo watched them for a second until Specialist Sublete appeared at his shoulder. “Sir, Saber Nine.”

  “Saber Nine, Six, go,” Bo said into the handset.

  “Confirm that OpFor regiment is advancing in three echelons. Forward elements are two, I say again, two mechanized infantry battalions. More or less. They’re moving toward our position now in a line abreast formation. Third echelon is behind them a couple of klicks or so. They appear to be heavy indirect fire weapons. Not artillery pieces, but with elevated tubes and smaller bores. Probably mortar carriers. How copy?”

  Bo clenched and relaxed his jaw. “Good copy. Anything else?”

  “We’re in a solid defensive position, sir. What are your intentions? Over.”

  “Counterattack. We’ll hit the southernmost echelon first. Either kill them or turn them toward the others. Based on the cloud, I don’t think we’ll intercept the further echelon until they’re on top of your position.”

  “Looks like that to me, too, sir. We’ll hold the second echelon provided their artillery isn’t accurate.” Whittaker paused. “If it is, we’ve got some secondary positions identified.”

  It will have to do.

  Cook pointed at the big vehicle. “Sir, you’re in this one. Sublete is on the next vehicle over.”

  Bo nodded and turned to Sublete. “Flag me down if the shit hits the fan.”

  “Yes, sir,” Sublete replied and went to his vehicle.

  “You’ve got Private Jackson and Private Cleric onboard this one, sir. It’s rough around the edges but can hammer armor from what the indigs tell us.” Cook moved toward the vehicle and kept talking. “There’s a hatch up top. You’ll probably want to use it: old school everything in this bucket.”

  “Thanks, Cook. Good hunting,” Bo said and scrambled up onto the quiet vehicle using rungs on the right rear of the vehicle’s hull. He crossed over the engine deck and stepped easily onto the turret. An oval hatch in the center of the turret beckoned. He stooped and swung his legs down, putting his body halfway into the turret. He felt around with his soles and found a small shelf where he could stand. Some things are the same wherever you go. The amount of bodily exposure while standing in the hatch reminded him of the M1 Abrams.

  There was a rudimentary headset hanging on the lip of the hatch. He slipped it over his head and heard the two soldiers talking over the crew intercom.

  “Crew report,” Bo said.

  “Driver ready, sir,” Jackson replied.

  “Gunner ready, sir,” Cleric said. “I’m below you and to your left. Jackson is in the hull. We have eighty rounds aboard and we’re ready to go.”

  Bo smiled. Not bad for making it up as we go.

  “Standby for ignition short count,” Bo called. “We have no radios with the others, correct?”

  “Not really, sir. Some data sharing at my console, but direct comms are inoperable,” Cleric said. “Gotta do it the old-fashioned way.”

  “Roger that,” Bo replied. Let’s hope everyone remembers hand and arm signals.

  He stood in the hatch and looked in both directions. Every vehicle had at least one crew member looking his way. He waved the signal for “attention” and followed it with the sign for “prepare to move.” As he made the circular motion, he called to Jackson. “Start in three, two, one.”

  The vehicle growled to life under him. The other vehicles seemed to answer with their own roars and turbine-screams. Bo held both arms out to his sides indicating a line formation and ensured that all the crews saw him. He gave them the signal to move forward, and the line rumbled into the scrub and picked up speed.

  “What can you see, Cleric?”

  “It’s got a decent thermal type sight, sir. I can see the first battalion now. We’re coming in on their flank.”

  Bo kept his eyes on the formation. He pumped his fist into the sky several times. “Floor it, Jackson! As soon as we’re in range, Cleric, pick your targets and start firing.”

  “Yes, sir!” both men answered in unison.

  The vehicle picked up speed
and bounced across the rocky terrain. Bo grabbed at the edge of the hatch for safety and wished there was any type of machine gun mount there to hold on to. His time aboard the Abrams, with its .50 caliber machine gun mount on the commander’s hatch, had spoiled him.

  Cleric fired, the twin cannons discharging a half second apart. What rounds they fired Bo could not track as there was no tracer element. However, when they impacted the side of a similar vehicle in the attacking column, the results were spectacular. Along the line, Bo watched his vehicles fire and adjust into the marching battalion. The attackers never had a chance.

  “Hell, yeah!” Cleric yelled into the intercom. The turret swiveled to the right and fired again. Another vehicle, this one a dune buggy-thing full of infantry, detonated in a bright orange fireball. “They’ve gotta be seven hundred meters away!”

  Bo agreed based on what he could see. As the surprise effect waned, the enemy formation did not veer off to flee, but instead turned into the approaching Lost Soldier formation for a counterattack. From his position at the center of the line, Bo saw the edges starting to slow and push his formation into a vee shape. He flagged down the vehicles on the extreme left as Cleric kept up a steady rate of fire, locating, ranging, and engaging one target after another. The line sped up and closed with the surprised enemy.

  As the distance between the formations closed, the firefight began in earnest. One of Bo’s vehicles on the right side of the line exploded as they charged into the enemy flank. They hit another on his left, which heeled to a stop, smoking sullenly. But his attack kept moving forward and putting rounds downrange. Accurate rounds, whereas a great deal of the J’Stull shots went wild. Because it must be just like the locals told us, Bo thought with a nod at the absent indigs: almost none of the OpFor have any significant training. In fact, if the intel was as correct as it seemed to be, most were just strong-arm enforcers.

  Cleric fired again and again. Dust and smoke obscured more and more of the enemy formation. Bo frantically signaled his line to slow down, but they kept charging forward into the cloud. One second, Bo could see the battlefield and the next, the white and brown cloud encircled them. A flash of movement caught his eye, and he spun to see an enemy vehicle with a wide-bored gun tube pointed in his direction.

  “Contact left!” he called.

  Cleric swung the turret hard left as Jackson yanked the vehicle in the opposite direction. Bo lost his grip on the hatch ring. One moment he was standing the hatch, the next the vehicle’s lurch sent him skittering across the top of the vehicle. He slid off its side toward the rocky ground two meters below.

  Shit!

  He hit the ground and instinctively rolled away from his vehicle’s wheels. Pain swam in from every limb and almost every part of his torso. Eyes closed and face pressed into the desert floor, Bo quickly evaluated his body by feel. Nothing was broken, but he’d have a damned hard time moving as he recovered from the impact.

  He rolled over and sat up. The dust and smoke continued to swirl around him, and the sound of the battle seemed more distant to his left and right than in his immediate position.

  We cut right through them.

  Bo stood and patted his holster; his pistol was missing. He searched the ground nearby but didn’t see the weapon. A round of some type whistled through the air above his head. Scared into action, he dashed forward to a rock outcropping only a meter high and flung himself behind it. He pushed up close to the rock and peered over its jagged edges.

  There was nothing worth seeing in the nearby dust and smoke. Vehicles were burning. The sound of weapons firing and vehicles moving had almost faded to nothing. As elated as he was that the first stage of the attack had gone so well, Bo realized that he was alone and unarmed amid an enemy formation’s route of march. He slumped against the rock, pressing his face against the warm, rough stone. His thoughts were a sudden whirl of recollected survival skills, escape and evasion techniques, and how to find his way back to the tableland. The intense heat of R’Bak’s stars hammered through the dust, but he didn’t move. Instead, he took a deep breath, and with his head throbbing, sighed dejectedly.

  Well, shit.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eight

  No sooner had the captured vehicles attacked when the first rounds of indirect fire fell across Saber Nine’s position on the high ground at the back of the draw. Aliza, with Sergeant Whittaker behind a rock outcropping, had a good view of their entire defensive front. The first rounds fell in the vicinity of the upper positions from which riflemen were laying down fire over and across the rest of the patrol. Shrapnel from the enemy shells ricocheted off the rock walls and caused little damage. Others missed their position entirely. A few made it to the more exposed positions at the top of the wall and tore them to bits.

  As soon as the first barrage ended, Whittaker leapt off the front of their position to gather the wounded. His eyes looked back and caught hers as he dragged one soldier away from the forward positions; his glance was both a question and a summons. She jumped into action and helped the sergeant.

  Working at different points along their line, they dragged three of the injured to more protected positions, finishing just as the second barrage fell. The enemy had improved their targeting, and the shells dropped with greater accuracy but still had little effect.

  As the interval between explosions slowed, Aliza saw Sergeant Whittaker jump up from cover. As he began sprinting in her direction, a mortar round exploded ten meters behind him along the top of the escarpment.

  Time seemed to slow. She saw, in terrible detail, shrapnel tear through his right leg as he ran. His next step with the left leg was fine, but as his right leg went forward to meet the ground again, it buckled and he crumpled to the ground, his shocked and anguished face just ten meters from hers. He panted, blinked—and another round detonated almost on top of him, flinging him in her direction.

  Before he’d even stopped tumbling, Aliza dropped her pistol atop the rock and bounded toward him. Adrenaline flowing, she grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him backward, to her position. More rounds rushed down, sent shrapnel sleeting. It was as if she could feel every fragment passing through the surrounding sky. One passed close enough that she felt it tug on her hair. Another missed penetrating her left boot by a fraction.

  Halfway to the outcrop, she looked down at Whittaker as she strained backward, her rush of adrenaline almost expended. His eyes were closed, and his mouth was a tight, white line. Then his eyes opened, locked onto hers for a moment, and then squeezed shut again. Blood seeped from innumerable wounds and turned his olive drab fatigues a slick, wet black.

  She screamed before she had even registered the frustration and rage which sent the violent sound out of her. Tears blurred her vision as she pulled Whittaker into cover and collapsed by his side. Lungs burning with the effort, she blinked away her tears and reached for Whittaker’s first aid compress. His right hand touched hers, and she stopped.

  “It’s okay, Aliza,” he wheezed. His eyes were bright and clear. Where there had been pain across his wrinkled face there was now acceptance, almost peace. “It’s okay. I lived…twice. Don’t mind dying twice. Not for—”

  She took his hand, squeezed it. “Don’t…don’t leave me. Please!”

  Whittaker smiled and there was a beauty to it she’d never imagined. She took his hand in both of hers. His grip weakened, failed, and his gaze became a sightless stare over her shoulder into the cloudless sky.

  She lowered her face to her hands and cried. As she did, Aliza realized her tears were not just for Sergeant Whittaker, but for her family, her friends, and Ben Mazza. They were tears she’d never shed. They came with a force that surprised her, and in her grief, there was something new. In the months since Dachau—months a century and a half in the past—she’d experienced rage and frustration tinged with tiny glimpses of hope and love. Instead of clinging to those glimpses, she’d embraced the anger, tried to let it fuel her.

  But tears?
They were new. She could feel what they meant, what they were telling her: it was time to let them go. As she cradled Whittaker’s lifeless hand in hers, a warm trickle of blood ran down across her wrist and into the crease of where her slender hand clutched the hard, broad palm of the dead sergeant. Almost calmly, she realized her right arm was bleeding from the muscles in her forearm. The pain was considerable and getting worse by the second. She also realized the barrage was over.

  Aliza stood, started unevenly toward the most heavily shelled positions, determined to do exactly what she and Whittaker had done before. There was risk of course, and they might all be trapped in a future none of them wanted, but they were here and the only way they’d ever see Earth again was to take care of each other.

  And that, she decided as she scrambled forward, was better than rage and frustration.

  * * *

  Bo took off his uniform blouse and draped it over his head and shoulders. The sounds of the attack intensified in the north. Every report sent a bolt of pain through his head. As much as he wanted to follow it, he was alone and there were still enemy vehicles and personnel surrounding his position. Either they would retreat or move to re-consolidate with their surviving forces. It was a matter of time. Without a weapon, transportation, or water, Bo knew his best choice was to stay put even as the clouds of failure swirled through his mind. It hadn’t been a perfect plan, but he’d been confident in its success.

  It could be succeeding. You’re just stuck out here because you fell off your fucking mount, Bo.

  On cue, Sharron’s words came to mind. You always think things rely on you. You’re so self-centered sometimes I can’t even believe it. All I wanted was for you to care about me. About us. You cared more about things you thought had gone wrong or that slighted you somehow. My life isn’t about you, Bo. Not anymore.

  He shook his head and strained to peer over the top of his rock-strewn position. Movement caught his eye in both directions. There was no way he could move. Not for a while at least. He settled back against the rock and hung his head to his chest in resignation. The breeze freshened slightly in his face and he raised his eyes enough that he saw his missing boonie hat caught in a cactus-like plant a few meters away. He crawled forward and reached for the hat—