by David Drake
“Yeah,” Ruthven lied. “Look, Lisa . . .can you come back later? I want to, ah, stand up and walk around a bit, if that’s all right. By myself.”
“Of course, Hank,” Mahone said, smiling sympathetically. “I’ll leave these here and come by this evening. If you like you can just sign them and I’ll pick them up without bothering you if you’re asleep.”
Mahone set the folder upright on the table, between the pitcher and waterglass. Straightening she glanced, apparently by coincidence, at the electronic window.
“Thank the Lord you don’t have to go back to that, right?” she said. She smiled and swept gracefully out of the room.
Ruthven continued to lie on the bed for nearly a minute after the latch clicked. Then he got up slowly and walked to the window. He’d been thinking of Sergeant Rennie. That, not his leg, had made him wince.
They’d met on Atchafalaya. It’d been Ruthven’s first day in the field, and it was Trooper Rennie then. . . .
“Here you go, Chief,” said the driver of the jeep that’d brought Ruthven from E Company headquarters. “Last stop this run.”
It was raining and well after local midnight. This sector was under blackout conditions; water running down the inside of Ruthven’s faceshield blurred his light-enhanced vision and dripped on the tip of his nose. It was cold, colder than he’d dreamed it got on Atchafalaya, and he was more alone than he’d ever before felt in his life.
“Sir, you gotta get out,” the driver said more forcefully. “I need t’ get back to Captain Dolgosh.”
Besides the jeep’s idling fans, the only sound in the forest was rain dripping into the puddles beneath the trees. Air-plants hung in sheets from high branches, twisting and shimmering in the downpour. Ruthven couldn’t see anything human in the landscape.
“Where do I . . .?” he said.
Two figures came out of the blurred darkness. “Hold here, Adkins,” one of them said. “I’ll be going back with you. It won’t be long.”
“If you say so, El-Tee,” the driver said. In bright contrast to his resigned agreement he added, “Hey, it’s captain now, right? That was sure good news, sir. Nobody deserved it more!”
“Lieutenant Ruthven?” the newcomer continued brusquely, ignoring the congratulations. He was built like a fireplug and his voice rasped. “I’m Lyauty, you’re taking E/1 over from me. I thought I’d stick around long enough to introduce you to your squad leaders.”
“Ah, thank you very much, Captain,” Ruthven said. He’d heard the man he was replacing’d been promoted to the command of Company K. That’d worried him because it meant Lyauty must be a good officer. How am I going to measure up?
The trooper who’d accompanied Lyauty was looking in the direction they’d come from, watching their backtrail. He had his right hand on the grip of his 2-cm weapon; the stubby iridium barrel was cradled in the crook of his left elbow. He hadn’t spoken.
“This your gear?” Lyauty said, reaching into the back of the jeep before Ruthven could forestall him. I thought the trooper would carry the duffle bag. “Via, Lieutenant! Is this all yours? We’re in forward positions here!”
“I, ah,” Ruthven said. “Well, clean uniforms, mostly. And, ah, some food items. And the assigned equipment, of course.”
The driver snickered. “He’s got his own auger, sir,” he said.
“Right,” said Lyauty in sudden harshness. “And you let him bring it. Well, Adkins, for that you can haul his bag over to the car. I’ve got Sellars on commo watch. The two of you sort it out. Leave him a proper field kit and I’ll take the rest back to Regiment with me to store.”
“Sorry, sir,” the driver muttered. “I shoulda said something.”
“Come along, Ruthven,” Lyauty said. “Sorry about the trail, but you’ll get used to it. Say, this is Trooper Rennie. I’ve got him assigned as my runner. You can make your own choice, of course, but I’d recommend you spend a few days getting the feel of the platoon before you start making changes.”
The trooper leading them into the forest turned his head; in greeting, Ruthven supposed, but the fellow didn’t raise his faceshield. He was as featureless as a billiard ball.
Ruthven turned his head toward Lyauty behind him. “A power auger is assigned equipment, sir,” he said in an undertone.
“Right,” said the captain. “We’ve got three of them in the platoon. A bloody useful piece of kit, but not as useful as extra rations and ammo if things go wrong. The brass at Regiment can afford to count on resupply because it’s not their ass swinging in the breeze if the truck doesn’t make it forward. Here in the field we pretty much go by our own priorities.”
The trail zigzagged steeply upward; Rennie in the lead was using his left hand to pull himself over the worst spots, holding his 2-cm weapon like a huge pistol. Ruthven’s sub-machine gun was strapped firmly across his chest, leaving both hands free. Even so he stumbled repeatedly and once clanged flat on the wet rock.
“It’s not much farther, Lieutenant,” Lyauty said. “Another hundred meters up is all.”
“I thought . . .” Ruthven said. He slipped and caught himself on all fours. As he started to get up, the toe of his left boot skidded back and slammed him down again. The sub-machine gun pounded against his body armor.
“I thought your headquarters would be the command vehicle,” he said in a rush, trying to ignore the pain of his bruised ribs.
“We couldn’t get the car to the top of this cone,” Lyauty said. “I’ve been leaving it below with three troopers, rotating them every night when the rations come up.”
“The jeeps couldn’t climb above that last switchback,” said Trooper Rennie. “We had to hump the tribarrels from there, and that’s hell’s own job.”
There was a tearing hiss above. Ruthven jerked his head up. The foliage was sparse on this steep slope, so he was able to catch a glimpse of a green ball streaking across the sky from the west.
“Is that a rocket?” said Ruthven. Then, “That was a rocket!”
“It wasn’t aimed at us, Lieutenant,” Lyauty said wearily. “Anyway, our bunkers’re on the reverse slope, though we’ve got fighting positions forward too if we need them.”
“I just thought . . .” Ruthven said. “I thought we, ah . . . I thought that incoming artillery was destroyed in the air.”
“They can’t hit anything with bombardment rockets,” Lyauty said. “Anyway, they can’t hit us. To use the tribarrel in the command car for air defense, we’d have to shift it into a clearing. That’d make it a target.”
“We’re infantry, Lieutenant,” Rennie said over his shoulder. “If you want to call attention to yourself, you ought to’ve put in for tanks.”
Ruthven opened his mouth to dress the trooper down for insolence. He closed it again, having decided it was Lyauty’s job properly since he hadn’t formally handed over command of the platoon.
“We can hit hard when we need to, Lieutenant,” Lyauty said. “But until then, yeah . . .keeping a low profile is a good plan.”
“Who you got with you, Rennie?” a voice called from the darkness above them.
Ruthven looked up. He couldn’t see anybody, just an outcrop over which a gnarled tree managed to grow. His torso beneath the clamshell body armor was sweating profusely, but his hands were numb from gripping wet rocks and branches.
“Six’s come up, Hassel,” Rennie said. “And we got the new El-Tee along.”
“Sir?” said a man kneeling beside the outcrop. “Come on up but keep low. If you stand here, the Wops get your head in silhouette. I’m Hassel, First Squad.”
“It’s Hassel’s bunker, properly,” Lyauty said. “I asked the other squad leaders to come here tonight so I can introduce you.”
Another man stepped into the night; this time Ruthven saw his arm sweep back the curtain of light-diffusing fabric hanging over a hole in the side of the hillside. “This the new El-Tee?” he said.
“Right, Wegs,” said Lyauty. “His name’s Ruthven. Lieutenant, Ser
geant Wegelin’s your Heavy Weapons squad leader. Come on, let’s get under cover.”
“Yessir, two tribarrels and two mortars instead of three of each,” said Wegelin as he held the curtain for Hassel, then Ruthven after a directive jab from Lyauty’s knuckles. “And if you think that’s bad, then we only got three working jeeps. It don’t matter here since we offloaded the guns, but we’ll be screwed good if they expect us to displace on our own.”
Ruthven hit his head—his helmet, but it still staggered him— on the transom, then missed the two steps down. He’d have fallen on his face if the tall man waiting—he had to hunch to clear the ceiling—hadn’t caught him.
“Have you heard something about us displacing, Wegs?” the man said, stepping back when he was sure Ruthven had his feet. “Because I haven’t. Talk about getting the shaft! E/1 sure has this time.”
“Troops, this is Lieutenant Ruthven who’s taking over from me,” Lyauty said. “Lieutenant, that’s van Ronk, your platoon sergeant, Axbird who’s got Second Squad . . .”
“How-do, Lieutenant,” said a short woman who at first seemed plump. When she lifted her rain cape to pour a cup of cacao from the pot bubbling on a ledge cut into the side of the bunker, Ruthven realized she was wearing at least three bandoliers laden with equipment and ammunition.
“And that’s Purchas there on watch,” Lyauty said, nodding to the man in the southeast corner. “He’s Third Squad.”
Purchas was on an ammo box, using a holographic display which rested on a similar box against the bunker wall. He didn’t turn around.
“We pipe the sensors through optical fibers,” Lyauty explained, gesturing to the skein of filaments entering the bunker by a hole in the roof. Rain dripped through also, pooling on the floor of gritty mud. “Below the ridgeline there’s a microwave cone aimed back at the command car. We need the car for the link to Central, but other than that we’re on our own here.”
Everybody’d raised their faceshields; Ruthven raised his too, though the bunker’s only illumination was that scatter from the sensor display. My eyes’ll adapt. Won’t they?
“If you’re wondering, there isn’t a separate command bunker,” Lyauty said. “You can change that if you want, but I feel like moving to a different squad each night keeps me in the loop better.”
Everybody was looking at Ruthven. Well, everybody but Purchas. They expected him to say something.
Ruthven’s lips were sticking together. “I . . .” he said. “Ah, I see.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it, then,” Lyauty said. “This is as good a platoon as there is in the Slammers, Ruthven. You’re a lucky man.”
He turned toward the curtained entrance. “Ah, excuse me, sir,” Ruthven said. How do I address the man? Oh Lord, oh Lord! “Ah, my sleeping bag is with my other gear. Ah, in the jeep.”
“No sweat, Lieutenant,” said Trooper Rennie, pointing to the bag roughly folded on a wall niche. The outside was of resistant fabric; beneath were layers of microinsulation and a soft lining. This cover was torn, and from what Ruthven could see, the lining was as muddy as the floor. “There’s an extra in each of the squad bunkers. You and me won’t both be sleeping at the same time.”
Lyauty cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “keep your heads down, troopers. I’ll be thinking about you, believe me.”
He muttered something else as he stepped back into the rain. Ruthven thought he heard, “I’ve got half a mind . . .” but it might not have been that.
The bunker was cold and it stank. Sweat and rain water were cooling between Ruthven’s skin and his body armor, and he was sure he’d chafed blisters over his hipbones. Another rocket screamed through the sky; this time it hit close enough to shake dirt from the bunker ceiling.
Ruthven looked at his new subordinates. Their expressions were watchful, hostile, and in the case of Purchas completely dismissive.
He wished he were back on Nieuw Friesland. He wished he were anyplace else but here.
Lieutenant Henry Ruthven wished he were dead.
There was a knock on a door down the corridor. “El-Tee, is that you?” somebody called. Ruthven, his face blanking, stepped quickly around the bed to get to the door.
Muffled words answered unintelligibly. “Sorry,” said the familiar voice. “I’m looking for Lieutenant Ruthven and . . .”
“Axbird, is that you?” Ruthven said, stepping into the corridor. “Via, Sergeant, I thought you’d already shipped out! Come on in . . . I’ve got a bottle of something you’ll like.”
“Don’t mind if I do, El-Tee,” Axbird said. “Tell the truth, there isn’t a hell of a lot I don’t like, so long as it comes out of a bottle. Or a can . . .I’m democratic that way.”
E/1’s former platoon sergeant had gained weight . . . a lot of weight . . .since her injury, though that hadn’t been but . . . well, it’d been four months. Longer than Ruthven would’ve guessed without thinking about it. But still, a lot of weight.
The skin of her face was as smooth as burnished metal. Her eyes had the milky look of a molting snake’s, and she had an egg-shaped device clipped above each ear.
Ruthven backed into his room and rotated the chair for Axbird, primarily to call it to her attention. A buzzbomb had hit the side of the command car while she was inside with her faceshield raised. The jet from the warhead’s shaped charge had missed her . . . had missed everything, in fact; patched, the car was still in service with E/1 . . . but it’d vaporized iridium from the opposite bulkhead. That glowing cloud had bathed her face.
Axbird entered with the careful deliberation of a robot. She wasn’t using a cane, but she held her hands out at waist height as though preparing to catch herself. When she reached the chair, she put one hand on the back and tapped the device above her right ear. “How do you like them, El-Tee?” she said with a plastic smile. “I always wanted to have black eyes. Didn’t say they shouldn’t be lidar transceivers, though. That’s what you get for not specifying, hey?”
“You’re getting around very well, Axbird,” Ruthven lied. He squatted to rummage in the cabinet under his side table. There was only one glass, and the brandy was too good to pour into the plastic tumbler by the water pitcher.
“I’m still getting used to them,” Axbird said. “Dialing ‘em in, you know? They say I’ll get so I can tell the numbers, but right now I’m counting doorways.”
“There’s a linen closet in the middle of the corridor,” Ruthven said apologetically. He offered her the glass, wondering if she could see his expression. Probably not; probably never again.
Axbird drank the brandy without lowering the glass from her lips. “Via, I needed that,” she muttered, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She forced another grin and said, “How are you doing, sir? I heard you guys really got it in the neck.”
“It was bad enough,” Ruthven agreed carefully. He’d hesitated a moment, but he took the glass and refilled it for her. “Thank the Lord for Fire Central.”
“You can’t trust wogs,” Axbird said. Her voice rose. “We might as well kill’em all. Every fucking one of ’em!”
“There’s better local forces and worse ones, Sergeant,” Ruthven said with deliberate formality. “I’d say the Royalists here were pretty middling. They’d do well enough if they got any support from their own government.”
“Yeah, I suppose,” Axbird said. She was trembling; she held the glass in both hands to keep from spilling. “You trust your buddies and screw the rest, every one of ’em.”
A rebel sapper had gotten close enough to nail the command car with a buzzbomb because the Royalists holding that section of the perimeter had all been asleep. The car’s Automatic Defense System hadn’t been live within the compound; it wouldn’t have been safe with so many friendlies running around.
“Sorry, El-Tee,” Axbird said. She seemed to have gotten control of herself again. “Yeah, remember on Diderot where our so-called allies were trying to earn the bounties the Chartists were offering on a Slammer�
�s head?”
“Umm, that was before my time, Axbird,” Ruthven said, sitting on his bed. He held the brandy bottle but he didn’t think a drink would help him right now. “I joined on Atchafalaya, remember.”
“Oh, right,” said Axbird. She drank, guiding the glass to her lips with both hands. “Right, Diderot was back when I was a trooper.”
For a moment she was silent, her cloudy eyes staring into space. Ruthven wondered if he should say something . . . and wondered what he could say . . .but Axbird resumed: “They got a great spot lined up for me, El-Tee. The Colonel did, I mean: a condo right on the beach on San Carlos. It’s on Mainland because, well . . . until I get these dialed in better, you know.”
Her right hand gestured toward the lidar earpiece, then quickly closed again on her empty glass.
“And for maintenance at first, I don’t want to be out on my own island,” she continued in a tone of birdlike perkiness. “But I can be. I can buy my own bloody island, El-Tee, I’m on full pay for the rest of my life! That’ll run to a lotta brandy, don’t you know?”
“Here, I’ll fill that,” Ruthven said, leaning forward with the bottle. He took the glass in his own hand before he started to pour. “Are you from San Carlos originally, then?”
“Naw,” Axbird said. “I’m from Camside, sir. Haven’t been back since I enlisted, though, twelve years.”
She stared off into space. Her eyes moved normally; Ruthven wondered how much sight remained to them. Probably no more than being able to tell light from dark, though that’d be some help when she was on her own.
“I thought of going back, you know?” she said. “My pension’d make me a big deal on Camside, leastways unless things’ve changed a bloody great lot since I shipped out. But I thought, who do I know there? There’s nobody, nobody ever who’d understand what it means to be a Slammer. What do I care about them?”
Axbird drank convulsively, dribbling brandy from the corners of her mouth. She started to lower the glass and instead dropped it. It bounced once, then shattered.
“Oh Lord, sir!” she said, her voice rising into a wail. She lurched to her feet. Tears were streaming from beneath the lids of her ruined eyes. “What do I care about wogs, on Camside or any bloody place?”
