by David Drake
"Calm down, soldier," said Albrecht Waldstejn hoarsely. "Tell us about the better way."
The gangling veteran was right. Hummel and Mboko had insisted—with a parochial contempt for indig forces—that the Company's escape route would not have been sealed, not in three days. Waldstejn, with the mild agreement of Sergeant Jensen, thought that even Lichtenstein would have mined the corridor before the surrender. That way, the Major would have had something to offer his new masters in place of inertia in the face of failure. The real problem was that there was no way to determine who was correct. The corridor would only be scouted in the dark, when whoever was making the reconnaissance was likely to detonate a mine if there were any.
The casualty was acceptable, under the circumstances. The warning the blast would give to the garrison was not.
"There's an old fuel tank on the slope," Churchie said. He was mumbling again, and the others had to strain to hear him. "It's still there, I checked before I broke in on you guys. There's a cleared path, narrow but they didn't know about it, so I figure it's still there. I can flag it. Other end's the OP."
"That observation post's still manned," said Sergeant Mboko. "They had a light on last night."
"Campbell said he smashed the monitors before he leap-frogged in," Jo Hummel responded. "Unless they switched gear from the south OP, then it's visual only. And I doubt any of the indigs could figure out how to connect Class 3 sensors even if they did try." Hummel was still looking at Dwyer. He would not meet her eyes.
"Well," said Sergeant Jensen, "I like it better than trying to enter along the truck route. And that was the best choice I'd heard."
"Even if the sensors aren't working," said Sergeant Mboko patiently, "there are guards there. If anything happens, we've still got to get down the back slope and through the bunkers after they're alerted. That's just what you were afraid of if they'd mined the Colonel's corridor."
"No, it'll still work," said Waldstejn with sudden animation. His headache had dulled to a background level after they halted. The muscle cramps and bruises were almost a pleasure by comparison. "I'll be the first one through. If anything happens, a shot or somebody hits the alarm, I'll be right there at the radio. Nobody on night duty in Headquarters is going to worry if he's told in Czech it's all right."
"God dammit, you are not going to do that," Sergeant Hummel insisted with real anger. "No goddam body but you has a prayer of making a deal with that spacer. Things are tight enough anyway without a bunch of us trying to introduce ourself while all hell breaks loose." She paused, breathing hard. "Nothing wrong with the plan, though," she muttered. "I'll go first instead."
The Cecach officer sighed and struck both his palms against the ground. A thorn jabbed the heel of his right hand. "Sergeant," he said, "we aren't talking about being understood. If the first thing the duty officer hears after a shot at the OP is somebody muttering pidgin on the radio, he's not even going to wonder what happened. He's going to know, and he's going to hit the general alarm so fast his hand blurs. This isn't hero time, this is business."
"Well, hell, your kid can do it then," said Churchie Dwyer.
They had forgotten him. The command group turned in surprise to an unexpected voice. The muttered statement made sense only to Waldstejn anyway. In the brief pause, the Cecach captain said, "Private Hodicky? Ah, I don't think—"
"Well, why not then, dammit?" Jo Hummel ' interrupted. "He's a native speaker and he's damned well expendable!"
The Captain's mind flashed red, but no retort was called for. In the present circumstances, 'expendable' was a technical term, like 'dead'. A factor to take into account.
In any case, it was impossible to object to Sergeant Hummel's characterization when she had just volunteered to take the lead position herself. Waldstejn said, "I think we've got to class Private Hodicky with the walking wounded. His friend, you know, Quade—that was a bad shock to him."
"It's going to be a worse shock if they're waiting and kill us all!" Hussein ben Mehdi burst out. "The only way we got out alive was they were all looking the other way. And this is the Rubes, not the bone-brains in the 522nd!"
"Hey," said Trooper Dwyer.
The others ignored him. "That's right, Captain," said Sergeant Mboko. "They need that big a garrison if they're going to keep the Complex going with all those civilians."
"Ten to one odds if we crash in," Hummel agreed harshly. "And them in bunkers, likely with heavy weapons this time. Who the hell do you think we are, an armored division?"
"Captain!" said Churchie Dwyer. For the first time, the veteran trooper had lifted his head toward the command group and had spoken distinctly. They looked back at him. "Captain," Dwyer said, reverting to his normal whining tone toward superiors, "the kid'll be OK. He's coming around. And he'll be OK."
Waldstejn sighed. He began picking at the thorn in his palm. "We've got a lot of choice, don't we?" he said to his hands. Then he looked up. "All right, Hodicky will be with the leading element to cover in an emergency," he said crisply. "Thank you, Pri-Trooper."
Churchie Dwyer dipped his head in response. He slid backward, looking for a place more clear of brush so that he could turn around. Albrecht Waldstejn called after him, "Trooper? We'll brief him later, of course, but—would you tell Pavel about this? Give him a little more warning."
Churchie nodded again. As Dwyer crawled away, the Cecach officer was saying, "All right, the observation post is nearer where we want to go; but da we have details of the bunkers along that section of the compound?"
Chapter Eleven
The markers were stakes of brush split lengthwise so that their white cores faced the oncoming troops. Tape would have been better, but they did not have tape, did not have wire—did not even have cloth which would not determinedly blend in with its surroundings. Directly ahead of Pavel Hodicky, Churchie Dwyer grunted as he thrust another stake into the ground. He began to crawl forward, angling to the right this time.
The Cecach private had not thought about the mines at all during the time he was stationed at Smiricky #4. The mines had been strewn around the valley years before in much the same way that the cluster bombs had been dropped during the Republican attack. They were laid on the reverse slopes instead of being targeted on the valley itself, of course; and unli'ke the bombs, they did not arm themselves until they had been exposed to the air for an hour or two. After that, they slowly weathered to the look of rocks the size of a child's fist. They remained lethal until they were detonated, and a kilogram's pressure or less was quite enough to set them off.
"Another stake!" Churchie whispered.
Hodicky passed one to the veteran, taking another in turn from Del Hoybrin behind him. Colonel Fasolini's escape route had been a genuine corridor, cleared to a minimum width of two meters. It had a single dog-leg in it so that a fortunate intruder could not simply follow his nose across the minefield; but the escape route had been intended for fast use under adverse circumstances.
Churchie Dwyer had not needed such a corridor, -nor could he have have cleared one without being caught. Wherever possible, Dwyer had skirted mines which lay in his immediate way. Only when chance had sewn an area too thickly to be avoided had he actually removed mines. There was no safe way to do that except by blowing them in place. Trooper Hoybrin had carefully dropped a hundred-kilo sack of dirt on each mine while his partner prayed that both the blast and the noise would be adequately absorbed.
The path which resulted from the troopers' combined labors was a snake trail. Churchie himself was muttering gloomy appraisals. Pavel Hodicky would have been terrified of what he was doing, except that he was even more terrified of what he might be about to do.
Hodicky had been issued a helmet salvaged from one of the four dead. It had blood on the inner lining, but that was not why he did not wear it now. Bareheaded, with the darker Woodland pattern of his uniform turned out, Hodicky might for a moment pass for a Rube soldier. The off-planet precision of the metal-fiber helmet would mark him
at once to anyone who saw it; and Hodicky had learned very early in life that the top of his head was generally going to be the first part of him people saw.
Dwyer paused again. Hodicky had been following by watching the veteran's boots and pretending there was nothing else around him. Now Churchie was gesturing forward with one crooked finger. The Cecach private forced himself to look.
Slightly above them and less than three meters away was the sand-bagged end of a shelter. Two narrow firing slits had been left in the facing wall. The light from within the shelter made the slits glare at Hodicky like the eyes of a predator.
Cautiously, concerned now with noise alone since they were beyond the mines, the mercenary began to crawl toward the slits. Hodicky also began to edge forward, a little more to the right to bring him to the blank side of the beryllium arch instead of the bags. He could hear whispers of movement behind him but he dared not look around. After swallowing hard, Hodicky unslung his rifle and began to waddle up the final slope. He could not crawl as Churchie did without the weapon scraping on the ground. A noise like that here, and—
The back curtain of the shelter brushed open. Light bloomed about the soldier who had just exited. The man was reaching for his fly, spitting distance from Hodicky, when he stopped and cried, "What—"
The Cecach private stood up. "It's all right, Sergeant Breisach," he called in a loud voice so that no one in the shelter would panic. "We were sent to relieve you." Hodicky walked toward the tall man whom he had expected never to meet again.
The curtain shuffled. Hodicky could not see it yet from his angle, but a voice called, "Hey, they're relieving us?" It was easy enough to visualize the face turned hopefully out toward the darkness.
"What do you—Sergeantl" Breisach said, closing with a snarl and a snatch toward his rifle. That movement stopped. The turncoat did not have enough visual purple to see the hedge of weapons aimed at him, but Del Hoybrin's looming bulk was itself a death threat. Breisach backed toward the curtained entrance again, driven by Hoybrin's gesturing rifle. Dwyer and Trooper Powers had thrust their weapons through the firing slits. When the soldier within turned in sudden confusion, it was to face the muzzles of a pair of guns aimed at his chest and right eye. His hands rose silently and his jaw began to tremble.
Sergeant Hummel stepped past Hodicky and tugged the slung rifle from Breisach's arm. The captive was still in Federal uniform, but his collar wings were ragged. All the non-coms of the 522nd had been publicly stripped of their rank tabs as part of the restructuring process of their new overlords. A few soldiers had been hanged as incorrigible idolators as well, but that had been a ploy to get the attention of the rest. The Council of Deacons knew as well as anyone else did that religious partisans were assigned to shock units, not sumps like the 522nd Garrison Battalion.
"In there," Hummel rasped to their captive. "And don't move except I tell you."
Breisach obeyed with a look of sullen hatred. Hummel opened her mouth to send Trooper Hoy-brin in to watch the prisoners. Pavel Hodicky was already following the ex-sergeant. The section leader blinked, but she had more important things to worry about at the moment. Standing outside the shelter for the sake of radio propagation, she began to report the situation to the rest of the command group in urgent tones.
The shelter was cramped by three men and the tension. Pavel Hodicky did not know the other captive though he also wore a Federal uniform. The little private only glanced at that man, however. He was focused on Wolfgang Breisach, just as the big ex-sergeant glowered at Hodicky alone instead of at the weapons pointed at his back.
"You're gone, you know, you little bastard," Breisach said. "You got nowhere left to run." His torso was angled forward, lowering his head. The shelter was deep enough to clear Breisach's hair along the arch where he stood, but anger was tugging him forward against the chain of fear.
"Didn't think they'd leave you all here," said Private Hodicky. His mind was widely separated from his voice, from the present world. "Lot of things I didn't think."
"You know what they're going to do to you and your little faggot friend?" Breisach continued hoarsely. "The—the Deacons, they don't like queers, no. They'll—"
"Quade's dead, you know," Hodicky said. He was smiling. "It was really because of you and Ondru that he, that he had to go off the way he did."
"Kid!" Churchie Dwyer whispered from the firing slit. Del had pulled aside the curtain, but he was viewing the interior of the shelter with no more than his usual mild interest. The other prisoner was openly terrified. He had backed into a corner. He did not notice the radio until his hip brushed it. Trooper Powers was twisting her own weapon to keep it bearing on the nervous man, unable to intervene through the opening in any other way.
"Hey, that's too bad," Breisach sneered with his voice rising. "Burning in Hell like that, what do you suppose he'd give for a taste of your nice, juicy cock?"
"Why don't you ask him?" said Pavel Hodicky. He fired. The bullet shattered Breisach's breastbone. The other prisoner knocked over the lamp as he flung himself against the wall. There was a cavity the size of a fist at the base of Breisach's throat. Air which had been rammed through his upper windpipe blurted out his mouth with a spray of blood. The involuntary sound was lost in the blasting report of the rifle. The dead man fell forward. His clawing right hand brushed his murderer's boot.
Sergeant Hummel slid past Del in a crouch, her weapon waist-high and ready. "What the hell"?" she snarled as she took in the tableau.
"Victor to Blue Light," demanded the radio.
Private Hodicky walked to the set. The remaining captive scrambled away from him on the dirt floor. Hummel started to move toward the little private, but she caught herself after only a step.
The radio was one from battalion stores, perhaps one Hodicky himself had signed out one day in the past. He keyed the microphone and said, "Blue Light to Victor. We had an accidental discharge but no harm done. Over." Fresh blood and powder smoke stank in the confined shelter.
"Victor to Blue Light," said the radio. "I'll have to log this, you know. Over."
"Do anything you please," said Pavel Hodicky. "Blue Light, over and out." He set down the microphone.
The section leader touched Hodicky gently on the arm. "I'll take over," she said. "Go on out, get a breath of air while I talk to our friend here." She toed the living prisoner. He was beginning to stand up again.
Hodicky nodded and walked to the curtained doorway. Del Hoybrin moved back to let him through. Before he stepped outside, the little private turned again. In a voice of sedated calm he said, "Q isn't queer, you know. Neither of us are."
"To tell the truth," said Jo Hummel, "it hadn't occurred to me that it mattered."
Shaking her head, she began to question the wide-eyed captive.
* * * *
Sergeant Mboko's boots scrunched as he ran toward the gunslit. The noise sounded louder to him than it really was. Every time his toes slammed down, his ears felt the shock of all his weight and equipment in addition to the airborne sound.
It also seemed louder because the black non-com knew exactly what would happen if any of the men in the bunker awakened. It was unlikely that even a garrison soldier could miss with a burst at a point-blank, no-deflection target.
They would rather have bypassed the bunkers. The Company had returned to Smiricky #4 looking for escape, not a battle. Though the bunkers themselves were spaced widely enough that a file could safely thread between them in the darkness, each position also housed an intrusion alarm. The sensor loops of the alarms effectively closed the interstices between the bunkers.
The plan of attack banked on a peculiarity caused by the real mission of the 522nd, which was to prevent the laborers from escaping. Both ends of the sensor loops were attached to the monitors by lead wires. If a bio-electrical field approached the charged portion of the loop, the alarm would sound. The portion of the loop which was lead wire, however, was insulated so that the outpost itself would not set off
the alarms; and around the Smiricky compound, the leads were toward the outside instead of on the inward face of the enclosed area. Unless the Rubes had changed the system—and the prisoner swore they had not—the sensors were arrayed to warn of escape, not attack. Mboko should be able to get very close before the defenders realized he was there.
The edges of Mboko's knife shimmered in the starlight: very close indeed.
* * * *
Hussein ben Mehdi lay on his belly, wishing the herbicide sprayed on the valley every quarter had been more effective. The growth which managed to sprout on the blasted soil was stunted and deformed even by Cecach standards. None of it was over a hand's breadth high, so it was as useful for cover or concealment as the felt on a craps table. The thorns jabbing at his sixth and seventh ribs, however, were as long and as sharp as anything he had felt on this planet— might the Stoned One devour it!
There were four White Section troopers beside the Lieutenant. They were watching dust puff around Mboko's boots as he sprinted the eighty meters to the dug-outs. The troopers were tense, ready to follow their Sergeant if he were successful.
Lieutenant Hussein ben Mehdi was with them because he was their only hope of survival if the shit hit the fan instead.
Sergeant Mboko ran in a crouch, ready for the shock of the bullets which would prove he had failed. Ben Mehdi felt a shiver and looked away from the non-com. His grenade launcher was two centimeters shorter now than issue, the amount which had been tattered by its own blasts in the tank intake. Gunner Jensen had suggested that ben Mehdi switch weapons with another of the grenadiers, but two practice rounds had proved to the Lieutenant's satisfaction that the short tube still had what it took. His hands knew the launcher's grip and fore-end. Objects may not have souls, but familiarity can give them the semblance of one.
