Ideal War

by Christopher Kubasik

  Of course, technology had put a major crimp in that philosophy of war. High-tech weapons permitted wars to be conducted from too great a distance. With a mere press of a button someone could launch a missile, all the while remaining far from the threat of destruction. Without fear, there was no test. Any idiot could press a button.

  It was quiet now in the village, quiet and still. And hot. It was only ten hundred hours, but the air already shimmered with heat. Flies buzzed around the corpses, the pieces of bodies, the women torn in half, the children shattered against the walls of huts. He imagined the slow pan of a camera over the corpse-filled scene. "There! See! Death! War is bad and shouldn't be fought!" What the filmmakers always forgot was that the person waging a war believes that such atrocities are necessary, and thus acceptable. Illogical? Yes, but by the time negotiations collapsed, the time of logic had passed.

  Here on Gibson, the same problem. The True Believers needed a home after splitting off from ComStar, but the people of Gibson refused them. Should Word of Blake simply wander the stars until they all died in the cold of space? No. They had been invited here by Thomas Marik, Captain-General of the Free Worlds League, and promised a haven. And if they had to fight for that haven . . .

  The people of Gibson saw the writing on the wall. The True Believers quickly became part of Hsiang's inner circle, with contracts and tax money going directly to them. Would the True Believers some day ask more of Hsiang? Would they someday impose their religion on the people of Gibson? The people had no wish to sit still and wait for the zealots to rule their souls. They wanted to force the True Believers off their world now.

  And so mutilated bodies lay strewn about the splintered homes. It was the way of it. War killed people.

  But did it have to kill so many civilians? No, but this one had by now become a guerrilla war, with civilians on the front line.

  How did one win a guerrilla war? History showed one didn't.

  Around him the squads gathered the wounded who had a chance to survive. They carried them to Chick's hovercraft, where the medics had set up a quick and dirty first aid facility. None of the farmers would be whole, and many would die within a few weeks.

  Masters saw that the soldiers seemed to be working slowly, and often gave him dark looks when they thought he wasn't looking.

  He spotted four men from Fifth Squad standing around a pile of bodies, smoking cigarettes. "Move it!" he shouted. They turned their eyes languidly toward him, shook their heads, and tossed their cigarettes aside. One of the men leaned down and dragged a weeping woman out of the pile of bodies. Blood covered her flesh, and Masters couldn't tell if it was from other bodies or if her skin had been ripped off by shrapnel.

  Valentine walked by, her casual gait incongruous with the carnage. She avoided looking at him as she passed, but he asked, "Where's Spinard?"

  The moment she turned, a fury began to bubble out. "Where do you—?" But she caught herself, cleared her throat, and said, "He's in his 'Mech. Sir."

  "I told him to come down."

  "Yes, sir. You did. But I'd give you really long odds on him showing his face outside of that Hatchetman." She walked on, scanning the area and punching some numbers into her comp pad. Masters looked around. He wasn't certain how he would tell a villager apart from a Goffel, and he told her as much.

  "Well, for the purposes of this count, I'm counting them all."

  He stood stunned for a moment. "What?"

  "I'm counting them all. We found a crate of arms under one of the huts. Anti-tank. Don't know where they're getting them, but they got them. This village was hiding them."

  "Someone in the village was hiding them."

  "And the rest of the villagers said nothing. They all count." She looked down at the calculator and nodded.

  "I take it the tabulations on this body count will make you and Spinard look quite good. Arian will be able to walk into Blane's office and prove the war is going well."

  "It is very good for the war's progress. We attacked a GFL village and rendered it inoperable. The survivors will think twice before they work against us."

  "Survivors ?" He gestured at the carnage and laughed in spite of himself. "This village is ruined. All you found was a crate of six rocket launchers. Don't you think our time would be better spent tracking down the source of the GFL supplies than mutilating some old farmer who probably had the weapons shoved into his home at gunpoint."

  She ignored him. "The village is ruined," she said, as if repeating a religious catechism. "Now they'll move to a city. Probably Portent. All the better. We can keep a better eye on them there. The guerrillas are still crawling all over the countryside. Can't do spunk about them. In the city, they're ours."

  Masters raised his hands in front of his chest and touched his fingertips together. He remembered the shanty town at the edge of Portent and the conversation with Precentor Blane in the limousine on the way from the starport to the Old City. "This is the pacification program?"

  "You've heard of it."

  "Yes. Though it's not what I expected."

  "Well, whatever."

  She wandered away, her fingers flying over the buttons on the keypad. "Valentine," he called after her, "has it occurred to anyone in this army that the reason the ranks of the GFL keep growing despite your attrition programs is because of stunts like this? You're driving neutrals away from the government and into the hands of the guerrillas!" Her fingers flashing over the keypad, she paid him no heed.

  Masters heard the voices of children. Looking to his right he saw two little boys, about eight or ten years old, tugging at the sleeves of two soldiers. The boys wore kimonos splattered with dirt and blood. Deep cuts ran along their faces, and one boy kept wiping blood from his right eye. Both kept gesturing toward the edge of the village as if trying to persuade the soldiers to go there.

  The troopers were merely waving the boys off, and when the children persisted, one of the soldiers drew his gun and pointed it at the younger one.

  "Private!" Masters shouted.

  The boys pulled back in fear. Seeing it was Masters, the private lowered the gun reluctantly.

  "Find out what they want," Masters ordered.

  "Sir, they say their parents are trapped under a building," the soldier called back.

  "Well, go get them out!"

  "It's a trap," the trooper shouted with exasperation. Then he looked down at the ground, embarrassed. "It might be a trap. Sir."

  The words echoed in Masters' ears. Certainly it might be a trap. Such things happened. Chick had told him. Was that it then? No more help for children. It might be a trap.

  "You two," Masters called as he walked toward him. "We're all going." When he reached the group, he said, "Your parents are over there?"

  "Yes, sir. Please," said the older boy. "They need help. They're dying!"

  "Take us to them," Masters said. The two soldiers, one a sandy blond, the other dark-haired, looked at him as if they'd like to assign him a death sentence.

  The group made its way across the ruined village and soon reached its edge. A thin trail of dirt led on for another fifteen meters to a collapsed hut. "They're in there," said the older boy. "Dying." He almost whispered the word as he looked up into Masters' face.

  The boys continued to lead the way, followed by the blond soldier, Masters, and then the second soldier. As they walked, Masters and the two troopers scanned the surrounding area for snipers and mines, but spotted nothing.

  Then, just a few meters from the house, Masters noticed the boys beginning to take odd steps. Not exceptionally odd, just odd enough, a slight extra kick as they stepped forward, as if avoiding a wire across the path.

  A wire across the path.

  Masters grabbed the blond soldier just as he was about to run his ankle against the trigger. He pulled the soldier down and away from the wire, the two of them sprawling onto their backs. The older boy turned, saw what was happening, and rushed back to the tripwire. As Masters was twisting around to
get up, the boy jumped toward the trigger, hoping to catch Masters and the soldiers while they were still near it.

  Masters grabbed the blond man's shoulders and dragged him further back, the two of them rolling over each other several times.

  When the mine exploded it was like a blur of dirt, but the dull pop followed by a shrill scream were unmistakable. The soft sound of needle shots followed immediately. Looking toward the noise, Masters saw the dark-haired soldier standing farther back down the trail from where they'd come, his face splattered with the older boy's blood. The soldier was holding his needle rifle and squeezing the trigger again and again.

  The weapon fired fine metal shards that caught the sunlight for an instant as they exited the barrel of the gun.

  Masters saw the younger boy running as fast as his small, thin legs could carry him. On the third shot the soldier's needles cut the boy across the back. A scarlet ribbon spread out along the small of his back and he doubled over, his spine severed. Without a sound his small form tumbled to the ground.

  A terrifying quiet fell over the area. As Masters and the first soldier waited a moment on the ground, their breathing slowing, he stared at the remains of the first boy. It was a powerful mine; he'd almost got them.

  The second soldier stepped up to the first and extended his hand to help the man up. Then, without a backward glance at Masters, the two walked back up the path toward the village.

  A child, no more than ten, had just tried to kill them. Was the entire village GFL after all? Once more, but more clearly than ever, Masters realized he'd arrived on Gibson with no idea of what was going on. He looked after the two soldiers walking away from him. Past them stood the Hatchetman, standing tall and threatening amid the carnage. What he had first seen as indiscriminate slaughter now might be considered payment in kind. Slaughter for slaughter. An eye for an eye, in the older parlance. Could he fault Word of Blake for their war?

  Damned straight. And he would. The more vicious the enemy, the more crucial that a soldier never stoop to his enemy's tactics.

  As he reached the edge of the town Chick came up to him. His face showed intense concern, but his body betrayed no tension or fear. He walked up alongside Masters as if all he had in mind were a few mundane details to discuss.

  "Sir," he said softly, "I think you should know that while you were gone orders for your arrest came in from Precentor Marshal Arian." Masters turned in surprise toward Chick, who said, "Ah, don't do that. They don't know I know, so they don't know you know."

  Masters returned his gaze to the ground, and nodded casually. He noticed a fly trapped in a pool of blood on a corpse's chest.

  "I've talked about it with some of the men in my squad," Chick went on. "Those I trust. If you want to make a break for it, we'll get you into the H-craft, and then take off for the forest."

  "You do have a full grasp of what you're suggesting."

  "Sir, I can't keep doing this anymore. The men and women I've spoken to can't keep doing this anymore. If we help you, and live, we'll expect a pardon from the Captain-General. Just as you live outside the bounds of mindless authority as a Knight of the Inner Sphere, so will we."

  As they walked into the center of town, Masters thought it over. If they arrested him, he'd have little chance of contacting Thomas directly or of getting his full report out. And he found the idea of imprisonment by these bastards completely repugnant. Surrender to them? No. Never.

  "All right."

  "Very well, then. Here's what I can give you. My troops are at the H-craft ready to go. All we have to do is wander over there before Valentine spots you. She's got the orders. We get in—"

  "No. Thanks, but I need my 'Mech."

  Chick paused. "Sir, you're outnumbered three to one. The hovercraft is fast enough to get us out of here."

  "No, give me enough fire so I can get to my 'Mech and then take off. I'm a Mech Warrior. I fight with my 'Mech. I escape with my 'Mech."

  "Very well." Chick pulled a smoke grenade out of his belt. "Here. This might help. You're going to be exposed for a while."

  "Thanks."

  "Captain Masters," called Valentine. He looked up and saw her standing beside a pile of corpses. The sun was high overhead now, and the beams of shattered buildings pointed up from the ground like spikes ready for sacrifice.

  "Good luck, sir."

  "To you too. No firing unless they shoot at me first. If we can, let's meet up at the north end of the valley."

  "Yes, sir."

  Valentine walked toward them, and Chick split off and headed toward the far end of the town and his hovercraft. Increasing his pace Masters walked directly toward Valentine, who stood between him and his Phoenix Hawk.

  "Captain Masters," she said when he came closer, a smile playing at the right side of her mouth.

  "Yes, Lieutenant," he said, walking right past her without breaking pace.

  This startled her for a moment, and she took some big steps to catch up with him. "I've just received a message from Precentor Martial Arian."

  "Well, that is exciting. What a delightful bit of news. A message. Good, good, good. Can't expect anything better than that." The Phoenix Hawk stood fifty meters away.

  "He told me . . ."

  "Yes, what did he say? What has the Precentor Martial to say for himself? Excited about the body count? What did we bag today, five hundred, six hundred desperate, ruthless guerrillas? Oh, there's a nasty one," he said, pointing to the shattered corpse of an old woman holding a small, dead child in her arms. "Good work."

  Forty meters.

  "He said—"

  "No, don't tell me, for I'm so proud to have been part of today's operation. We've all been given three-day passes ..."

  "Actually Spinard and I did—"

  "Really. The absurdity is rather easy to predict around here when one allows oneself to wallow in the logic."

  "Sir!" she said, and stopped. Thirty meters. He kept walking.

  Over his shoulder, he said, "Ice cream for the troops this weekend? Children getting gold stars? Little bonuses toting up for all our big, grown-up murderers?"

  "Sir, the Precentor Marshal has placed your arrogant ass under arrest!"

  "Well, there's a problem with that, Lieutenant. I am a Knight of the Inner Sphere. As such, I live by the rules of my heart, not those of you bloody bean-counters!"

  Twenty meters.

  "Harris and O'Donnally, disarm and subdue Captain Masters!"

  With that, Masters stopped walking and began to run toward the Phoenix Hawk as fast as his legs would take him.

  16

  Padang, Gibson

  Principality of Gibson, Free Worlds League

  6 February 3055

  He heard one of the soldiers—Harris, he thought-shout, "Captain Masters! Stop!" Then came the thin sound of gun bolts pulled back and the explosion of machine-gun fire from his right. He ran on toward the Phoenix Hawk, his Imperator slapping against his back. Suddenly the sound of heavy machine gun fire cut loose to the left and behind him. He heard screams from his attackers as Chick's squad fired the Dryfus support machine gun mounted on the hovercraft, sending everyone behind him running for cover. For a moment he felt a splinter of relief. Then the roar of more weapons cut through the air and bullets passed him, ricocheting off the thick legs of his 'Mech. He whirled around and pulled up his Imperator, letting loose a broad spray of fire. He saw a half-dozen soldiers, including Valentine, dive for cover behind the piles of corpses.

  Chick's hovercraft hummed to life and rushed toward the center of the fray, firing the laser mounted on the top of the vehicle in random arcs. Masters took the opportunity to begin climbing up to his cockpit.

  In his rush to get up, he took the first few rungs too quickly and his right foot slipped. His hands held tight to the rungs above, but his right shin slammed into a rung and a red pain shot through his leg. He cursed his age and continued up.

  The sound of gunfire continued, as well as a great deal of shouting. The s
oldiers below, many of whom had no idea that Arian had authorized his arrest, tried to figure out what was going on and drew up quick alliances.

  As he worked his way up the rungs, a bullet slammed into his left side and tore through meat just above his hip. He did not fall, for his muscles all tightened at the moment of impact and his hands clung tightly to the rungs. His teeth clenched, and he said reflexively, "Come on, come on."

  He glanced up, and the cockpit seemed tremendously far away. Bullets were ricocheting all over the surface of the 'Mech. Another bullet caught him in the shoulder and he found himself dangling from a rung by one hand. As he swung around, like a weather vane in a changing wind, he saw the forces scattered about below, with Chick's hovercraft coming in for another pass. Now, however, the mercenaries seemed to have broken up into several groups, shooting at each other, Chick's hovercraft, and Masters. Some men were shouting for the fighting to stop, and Masters spotted a makeshift white flag made from a dress once worn by a citizen of Padang.

  As some soldiers continued to shoot at Masters, he remembered the smoke grenade Chick had given him. With his wounded arm he pulled the grenade from his belt and brought it up to his mouth. The action cost him, for the bullet wound in his shoulder stung deep. He gripped the ring in his mouth, the taste of the metal cold and flat against his tongue as he pulled the grenade forward. He swung around, still clinging by one hand to a rung, and shoved the grenade into the 'Mech's knee joint.

  The grenade billowed out a thick white cloud. The sulfur and smoke, thickest near Masters, fogged around him and made his eyes tear. Between the tears and the smoke he could see nothing, but he positioned himself to continue up the ladder. With his right arm and left hip both wounded, every movement up the rungs sent pain through his body. But the smoke screen worked, and though bullets slammed into his 'Mech, he was no longer a prime target.

  As he topped the smoke that floated up from the grenade, he saw the Hatchetman lumbering toward him, its huge feet make the ground shake with every step. As it approached, the right arm raised and lifted the huge axe.