by Tom Kratman
Marta shorted with derision, directed at herself. No, they’re not just friends. They’re family really, the only family I’ve ever known that cared for me and that I loved and that had some permanence. But how permanent can we be when we’re being butchered like cattle?
She reached into a pouch on her combat harness and pulled out a small can of shoug, a mix of peppers—mostly Joan of Arc and Holy Shit, with a very small admixture of Satan Triumphant—that had entered the legion’s combat feeding system from its time in Sumer. The can was already opened and resealed with one of the plastic tops that came in the rations. She pulled the plastic top off and set it aside. From the same pouch she pulled out a foil-sealed packet of chorley bread and ripped it open. She tore off a piece of the bread and dipped it in the shoug.
One advantage of this shit, Marta thought, wincing as she popped the assemblage into her mouth, is that it hurts so much to eat it takes away other pains.
They say that somewhere out in the jungle, no one in the platoon knows where, though I think Zamora does, Gorgidas is training some women as replacements. Some of those we recruited ourselves, thanks in good part to the enemy’s lavish and, often enough, indiscriminate use of firepower. We’ve have been able to send off a few score of women recruits to be trained. We call them, “women,” but I know the girls we sent off were, some of them, only fourteen or fifteen years old.
Again, Marta tore off a piece of the yellow bread and dipped it. She waited a moment before consuming the stuff. With a shudder, she took a bite from the bread, leaving the remainder clutched in her fingers. She waited for the burn to subside before eating that.
Doesn’t matter, anyway. They’ll never in the short term match the quality of the carefully trained Amazonas we’ve lost. And where new officers and centurions are going to come from no one has the slightest idea. I’m not up to the job. I learned that at Cazador School. Kill in anger? I could do that, here and back when I was in the classis. Kill in cold blood, or even plan to? Shit; I couldn’t kill a rabbit. And we’re going to need replacement officers and centurions. But Camp Spurius Ligustinus and Camp O’Higgins were bombed off of the map on general principle, early on.
I hope they didn’t erase all the traces of Maria’s brother’s grave. I know it hurt her when we got the word.
Carefully, Marta replaced the plastic top on the can of shoug and returned it to her pouch. Enough was enough. She kept the bread out, and continued munching on that.
Ah, Maria, she mentally sighed. Pity you’re straight as a tanker’s bar. I wouldn’t push myself on you, not that and then wreck everything. But if you weren’t so very straight, I could see us being a lot more than friends. Oh, well.
And maybe that’s why I’m such a bitch. On the other hand, given my life story to date, if we were more than friends today, you would be dead the day after. I suppose I’ll take what I can get and keep.
* * *
Perhaps the best measure of the Amazons’ success was a back-handed compliment. Not so long after the women had taken out the tank with the David, Tauran helicopters began winging into the area carrying several companies of Gallic Gendarmerie to reinforce the Zhong. The Gendarmerie were mixed soldiers and police, possibly only half as good at either job as specialists were, but amazingly good at rooting out insurgents and partisans. With every incident, bullet, bomb, or protest, it wouldn’t be more than a few hours before they’d have found where the shot or shell came from, or who was carrying the protest signs, and have people collecting up evidence and collecting up people.
And there was evidence to be gathered. No training program is perfect. The Amazons had never been trained to consider that the fingerprints on the brass cartridge case of a fired bullet could give them away. But the Gendarmerie began fingerprinting and photographing everyone in the area, with all the names, faces, and prints fed into a data base. They started issuing ID cards as well. The Amazons didn’t have access to a computer that could duplicate the cards. Nor did they have any warning of what was going on. Pretty soon the enemy had pictures of many of the troops.
Fortunately, the Gendarmerie didn’t often know which pictures were Amazonas and which were legitimate refugees…yet. Even so, they had their successes. A couple of Maria’s girls were grabbed off the street and locked up. The Gendarmerie didn’t announce the captures, as one might have expected. This made Maria worry for her chicas more than she would have otherwise.
Then the enemy started moving the refugees.
“It’s only so we can feed you better,” they said. “It’s only to protect you from the wicked, bad, evil, naughty terrorists who’ve been plaguing you.” That this would also leave great tracts of depopulated land where they could shoot up anything that moved without any bad press? That part they didn’t talk about.
When they first started clearing out the civilians the Amazons didn’t know it right away. Communications and intelligence are always big problems for guerrillas. Maria and Zamora did know that some of their girls in the outlying camps had dropped out of sight.
* * *
Maria found out what was going on when a couple of the girls carried Zuli into her bunker one night. Zuli was shot up middling bad, though conscious still. One of the others was hurt as well, but not badly.
“There was no place to hide, Maria,” Zuli gasped out. “We’d planned to take a couple of potshots at them, then duck back to the refugee camp by the bridge. We took the shots—I got two of them…I think I got two of them—but when we went back to the camp even the tents were gone. They must have moved them while we were sneaking into position.”
One of the other girls, the one who hadn’t been hit, spat out, “It was a fucking nightmare. Just a fucking nightmare. Like she said, Zuli got off maybe two shots before the damned helicopters were on us like flies on crap. They fired us up, then came around and fired again. We ran. Didn’t matter. We couldn’t shake them off. We tried to hide under water. No go, they shot up the stream with rockets. I thought we’d lost them for a while, when we started getting near the encampment. Lost them? Hmmph. They were waiting for us. They shot the whole area to shit. That’s where Zuli got it. Marisa took one while we were trying to carry Zuli off. They must have run out of ammunition after a while. Otherwise they’d have toasted all three of us.”
Maria sent the unhurt girl to get some rest, then let the medics take off Zuli and Marisa. Then she sent for Marta to take over for a while. With Marta in position, she began the trek cross country to see Zamora and Nguyen. The three talked about it, hiding underground in one of Zamora’s bunkers that was nearest to Maria’s sector. They talked about the problem—argued about it, really—at great length. The only solution they came up with…nobody liked.
* * *
The Gendarmerie had managed to move six more encampments before Maria returned. With her came Zamora, two more squads, and Colonel Nguyen.
In that time a thousand people that they could otherwise have hidden among weren’t there anymore, or not anywhere useful, anyway. There was a strip two miles wide and six miles long which no Amazon could enter, not and expect to come back again. Anything that moved in that strip of land was shot to pieces.
The pattern? First would come a few artillery shells near, but not on, the encampment. The next day collaborators would be escorted in to talk to the people, to tell them how it was the fault of the guerrillas that the camp was nearly shelled. Then there would be more shells—or maybe an air strike; close enough to terrify, sometimes close enough to kill a few.
After that a Zhong patrol would walk through. If they took fire, reinforcements would fly in, then the encampment would be plastered and the survivors would be evacuated by helicopter. If there was no fire, the camp would be secured and the people put under close guard. Then the interviews would begin…the private interviews. It didn’t really matter what was said in those interviews. The Amazons could never trust anyone that had spoken to the Gendarmerie in private. Then troops would pass out food and candy to sho
w what great guys they were!
Within a few days would come a half dozen or more trucks, escorted by Gendarmerie in armed vehicles. The people would be told that a big operation was going to move through the area and that they’d better get on the trucks with what they could carry or they might all be killed.
Then they’d find themselves in a camp behind wire and under guard.
* * *
Ponce’s finger traced on the map. She said, “The scouts reported all the signs as having taken place here. They’re going to move the civilians sometime soon.
“It’s a trap,” Marta said.
Zamora disagreed. “We don’t know that,” she said. “It makes perfectly logical sense that those people are just next on the list to be moved.”
Maria peered closely at the map. “I agree. We’ve been giving the Zhong unholy hell near that place ever since they showed up here.”
“Can we stop them from moving those people?” Ponce asked.
Zamora and Nguyen both shook their heads. “No,” Zamora said. “If the Gendarmerie follow their usual pattern those people will be gone by tomorrow morning. Not a chance we can do anything about it.”
Nguyen pointed to the map. “There,” he said, “that next.”
Zamora looked and pondered. Finally, she said, “I concur. That one.” She breathed a reluctant sigh, then added, “We have to prevent it. We have to show the refugees that there is no safety but only blood, terror, and death in dealing with our enemies.”
Nguyen nodded. Even he didn’t like what was to come. “You must cruel be. Is…sometimes…only kindness.”
Marta shook her head. “You can stand me against a wall and shoot me,” she said, “but I’m not going to do this. This is cruelty beyond the pale.”
“Cruelty?” Zamora snapped. “You want to know what cruelty is? It’s when you have to hurt innocent people, people who have been given no choice in what they do, because if you don’t hurt them, and hurt them far worse than the enemy can or will, you’ll lose, and all your friends’ sacrifices, all the innocent blood spilled so far, will be for nothing.”
“Yes? Well I still won’t do it.”
“That’s why I brought two squads from outside the area,” Zamora said. Her chin and eyes dropped slightly as she said, “I wouldn’t have you ambush people you know.” Instead I’ll ambush people I don’t know for you. As if that’s a lot better. Shit.
* * *
The first order of business was to distract the enemy. That became Maria’s job. Accordingly, she ordered one of her squads to let themselves be seen near the cleared strip. She knew that meant she might lose some of them. But the enemy’s attention had to be attracted away from what they’d really be doing.
Next Zamora dispatched half a squad to get an ambush site ready, one roughly between the camp in question and where the refugees were being collected.
What was left of the rest of the group with her, Zamora called in to one of the deeply hidden base camps that had been dug long before as a safe haven, a place to rest, train, plan and prepare. The mortar team was sent to get ready for another, related, mission.
When Zamora judged her fragment of a command to be ready she led them to the ambush site the advance party had picked. Nguyen accompanied.
They moved through another pouring rain that lasted all night. Zamora was not overly concerned about being spotted from the air. Even so, they kept off of the trails and away from view. Halfway to the ambush position the mortar team split off, sans mortar, heading towards the big refugee camp the enemy was building. They risked a radio call to Zamora some hours later to say they were on site and would have their gun up in an hour or so, as soon as they dug up it and its ammunition.
The occupation of the ambush position went without incident. The two squads occupied the holes that had been dug and reinforced with overhead cover. This was only half for protection from artillery. Mostly they didn’t want the Zhong, the Taurans, or the Earthpigs to pick up their heat signature if the rainy weather cleared. It must have worked, since later on the rain and clouds did clear and there was no subsequent attack.
In the rain, the ambush party put out their own directional mines, Volgan jobs that were considerably larger and nastier than the more usual variety.
The sun arose after some hours of waiting, and the girls’ level of tension went up with it. None of them were looking forward to what they had to do.
Least of all was Zamora. God, I could use a cigarette, to say nothing of a drink. Both are out of the question, of course. And I can’t even bitch about it because I volunteered for this crap. Damn. I so don’t want to do this.
Two hours after sunrise, a convoy of trucks and machine-gun-armed light vehicles passed the ambush. The Amazons didn’t fire a shot. They hardly breathed.
Zamora watched the convoy with disgust. It seemed about half and half female and male Gendarmerie. They were joking, flirting with each other, too, some of them. They were doing everything, in fact but watching out for danger. Don’t they know there’s a fucking war on? Ort am I upset because it’s obvious now that they’re not going to stop me from what I’m going to do. What the hell is the good of even having an enemy if they can’t stop you from sending your own soul to Hell.
The column was led by a small truck with what looked to be an automatic grenade launcher on it. No problem with that, thought Zamora. She was right. The grenade launchers weren’t very dangerous provided one were close enough to them to keep the grenades from arming before they hit.
Next were three empty cargo trucks, covered with tarps. Then came another gun vehicle, three more trucks, and a final gun vehicle bringing up the tail.
Zamora’s hand reached for the “clackers,” the firing devices for the directional mines. If I open fire now, before those people get on the trucks…
Squatting in the bunker next to her, Nguyen saw and understood the look on her face; understood too what the movement of her hands meant.
“Convoy not target,” he whispered fiercely, grabbing her hands in his. “People is target. People and what think.”
Zamora looked away. She and the others continued to wait, hoping the enemy would show some sense and take a different route back than they had used going in.
They didn’t. The Gendarmerie had turned refugee evacuation into a drill, by then. They certainly didn’t take long getting the civilians into the trucks. Zamora was almost surprised by how quickly the convoy came back up the road.
Back in Cazadora School and CCS many women had developed a sort of trick to enable them to face the daily miseries, dangers, and mutually administered beatings. They would step outside of themselves, so to speak, thinking, rather feeling: It was not me beating my best friend’s face to pulp. No, me—the me that was me—stood off to one side watching without interest or involvement while a body that looked like mine beat or was beaten. It was not my friend being beaten, but someone I had never seen before, didn’t know or care about. It was always someone else, never me, that broke a friend’s arm or smashed her nose to pulp.
The convoy neared. Zamora stepped outside of herself. Her hands grasped the firing devices for the mines, almost of their own volition, as if it were a drill. No emotion showing in them, her eyes followed the convoy. Those eyes saw two young kids, perhaps they were brother and sister, sitting up in the back of one of the trucks themselves watching the scenery go by behind them. Zamora’s mind could not, at the time, see children on a lark. She had orders. She saw targets. The children were still sitting, pointing fingers at the sights, when Zamora stepped even further outside of herself and—one in each hand—squeezed the firing devices.
The directional mines weren’t convex like most of those used in the world. Instead, they were concave to focus their thousands of little steel cylinders onto a particular target before scattering them.
Zamora had fired just as the lead vehicle was precisely in the kill zone. It flipped over, a mass of metal and fiberglass scrap, along with some disass
ociated scraps of meat, immediately. The other one was pointed at a truck. The truck careened off the road, spilling refugees and fragments of refugees from its sides. It hit a tree and burst into flames.
Even before the truck hit, however, the rifles and machine guns of the two ambushing squads opened up. The two siblings Zamora had seen yet not really seen were bowled over in an instant, along with what were probably most of their adult relatives. One machine gun, in particular, played over the occupants of the trailing gun jeep. Zamora saw clearly—yet, again, didn’t really see at all—as one targeted Gendarmerie was wrapped around the pintle on which her grenade launcher was affixed, her body jumping and fragmenting with each impact.
The ambush party fired like that for perhaps two minutes, then Zamora blew her whistle to signal “cease fire.” Part of the platoon assaulted out into the kill zone, shooting all the enemy troops again to make sure, but only killing some of the adults among the refugees.
“Spare children,” Nguyen called. “They carry word out!”
Meanwhile, Zamora called on the radio for the mortar team to begin to fire on the big refugee camp. They sent sixty rounds toward it in just over three minutes, twisting the traversing and elevating cranks to get a spread of fire on the targeted camp. Then, per orders, they bugged out. She’d told them not to waste time trying to salvage the mortar.
About the time the first distant “crump” of outgoing mortar shells could be heard, Nguyen was back.
Zamora looked at him, recognition of reality coming back to her face, a look of nausea growing.
“I won’t do that again,” she announced. “Never again. I don’t care what you say. I don’t care if you outrank me. I don’t care. Never again, hear me?”
Nguyen told her she wouldn’t have to, not with any luck. Then the women split up, to doff their uniforms and weapons, put on civvies, and make their way back to their respective camps. Zamora didn’t begin to cry until she got home…and in private. A part of her thought it was cruelty to be left alive after having to do something like that.
