When Duty Calls lotd-8

by William C. Dietz

  “shovel hands” that enabled the cyborgs to dig trenches in a fraction of the time that a team of bio bods would require. So while Zolkin, Dietrich, and Six supervised work on company’s defenses, Santana took a moment to climb up onto one of the half-tracks and examine the area through his binos. To call the scene chaotic would have been an understatement. Ships of every possible description were circling the LZ, waiting for an opportunity to land. Then, when one of them fi?nally managed to do so, a navy beach master was sent to fi?nd out how many people that particular vessel could accommodate. An unfortunate necessity caused by the fact that most of the civilians weren’t equipped to communicate with the military. Once the ship’s capacity had been determined, the petty offi?cer would radio the information in, the correct number of stretcher parties were dispatched, and the loading process began.

  According to the orders issued by Kobbi, the wounded were to be evacuated fi?rst. Then, once they were gone, enlisted bio bods would go next, followed by the Legion’s cyborgs, and the offi?cers. Immediately after each vessel lifted off, another yacht, lugger, or freighter would land, at which point the whole process began again. Or that was how everything was supposed to work.

  But as Santana and thousands of others looked on, what had once been a thirty-passenger lifeboat took off, and suddenly lost power. It was three hundred feet off the ground by then and fell like a rock. There was a loud boom as it hit. Followed by a ball of fl?ame—and a towering column of black smoke. Fortunately, the boat crashed well outside of the main landing area, allowing the next vessel to settle in two minutes later. Meanwhile, out along the doughnut’s perimeter, work continued. Some sections were well fortifi?ed as enterprising offi?cers, and in some cases senior noncoms, sought to strengthen their various positions. Other areas were not prepared either because the troops lacked good leadership or they were too exhausted to do more. Countless campfi?res pointed gray fi?ngers up at the overcast sky, where hardworking recon balls zipped back and forth across the LZ, and stoic robots carried stretchers loaded with ammo from one location to another. All this made Santana thankful for the fact that he wasn’t a major, colonel, or, God forbid, a general, and therefore responsible for a larger slice of the insanity taking place around him. Santana was just about to leave his vantage point when a pair of Ramanthian fi?ghters roared overhead. The cavalry offi?cer tracked the aircraft as they circled the allied position, vectored in on the incoming rescue boats, and attacked two of them. One of the allied vessels exploded in midair, and rained fl?aming debris onto the troops below, while the other spiraled into the ground half a mile outside the perimeter. There was a fl?ash of light followed by a muted boom. But victory typically comes at a price, as the bugs learned, when half a dozen quads and twice that number of T-2s hooked up with each other via the Legion’s ITC system to create an umbrella of computer-controlled antiaircraft fi?re. Both fi?ghters were destroyed within a matter of seconds, and the skies remained clear after that. Santana shook his head sadly and went back to work. There was a lot to do, beginning with the creation of an evacuation list, and the need to get a hot meal into the bio bods. That’s what Santana and Zolkin were working on when Kelly appeared. Lupo had been incorporated into the landing zone’s defenses a quarter of a mile away, and the doctor had been forced to walk from there, which was why her com- bat boots were caked with mud. There weren’t any guards with her, nor were any required, given the nature of the situation. The naval offi?cer came to attention and delivered a sloppy salute. Santana returned it. There was a continual roar as the ships came and went, forcing the cavalry offi?cer to raise his voice. “Dr. Kelly. This is a surprise.”

  “I came to tell you that Private Knifeplay and the rest of your wounded soldiers are still alive,” Kelly said. “Or were when we loaded them onto one of the ships.”

  Santana remembered the lifeboat that had crashed immediately after takeoff and wondered if any of his legionnaires had been aboard it. “Thank you, Doctor. That was very thoughtful of you.”

  There was a moment of silence as the redhead looked down and back up again. Her eyes were very blue. “You’re welcome. Having spent time with Alpha Company, and not being assigned elsewhere, I was hoping you would let me stay.”

  Colonel Six and his men had been ordered to prepare a position for one of the heavy machine guns. When Santana looked in that direction, he saw Six looking back at him. It didn’t take a genius to fi?gure out that the clone had seen Kelly arrive and was waiting to see what would happen. Santana’s fi?rst reaction was to say, “No,” but when he turned back, the expression on Kelly’s face was so hopeful he couldn’t bring himself to turn her down. “I’m afraid there will be one more battle to fi?ght,” the legionnaire said soberly.

  “And we’ll need your skills.”

  A look of profound gratitude appeared in Kelly’s eyes as she said, “Thank you, sir,” and immediately made her way out toward the point where Six stood waiting. The two of them made an odd couple, or so it seemed to Santana, who knew the founder would have agreed with him. A sleek-looking yacht rumbled in from the east, and was forced to pause a few hundred feet south of Alpha Company’s position, as another ship rose out of the doughnut hole. The name Play Pretty was painted on the side of the ship’s hull. The boat’s elderly pilots had completed three trips by then—and were back for their fourth. The afternoon wore on. Night was a long black thing, punctuated by the roar of repellers, as the nearly nonstop fl?ow of ships continued. Kobbi stopped by to visit Alpha Company around 0200. He was accompanied by an adjutant, and two bodyguards, all of whom joined Santana, Zolkin, and Dietrich around one of three fi?res. Colonel Six was off somewhere, with Kelly most likely, although Santana didn’t really care anymore. Not so long as they did their jobs.

  “There’s one helluva battle going on up in space,” the little general commented grimly, as a fl?ask of whiskey made the rounds. He’d been talking for hours, and his voice was hoarse. “Our navy is back, and they’re doing everything they can to keep the bugs off our backs. So we owe the swabbies big-time.”

  All of the faces were lit from below as a breeze blew through and caused the fuel-fed fi?re to waver uncertainly.

  “But here’s the rub,” Kobbi continued gloomily. “Every time one of those ships lifts off, we get weaker, and the bugs get stronger! According to my scouts, the chits have us surrounded. I fi?gure they will attack at dawn. So be ready to pull back at 0400. By that time, all the enlisted bio bods will be gone. That means it will be up to the remaining borgs and offi?cers to beat the bugs back. Then, once we get some sort of respite, we’ll pull all of the brain boxes and fall back on the doughnut hole. The last ship will be large enough to accommodate everyone. It isn’t the way I was planning to leave—but I’m looking forward to a shower and a beer.” That got the predictable chuckle, and fi?ve minutes later, the general was gone. There were more people to brief, and the clock was ticking.

  The pullback went fairly smoothly, all things considered. And by the time a seemingly reluctant sun rose in the east, the allies were hunkered down inside a circle only half a mile across, which, though thinly populated, could still be defended thanks to the Legion’s battle-weary cyborgs. The quads were dug in at regular intervals all around the new perimeter, where their war forms would be abandoned when it came time to run. The T-2s, which were sprinkled in between the big behemoths, remained mobile and could shift positions if necessary. Farther out, forming a circle around the ring, were hundreds of crab mines.

  That was the scene as a sickly-looking daylight crept in across the land, and what looked like ectoplasm rose to hover spiritlike over the well-churned mud as Santana heard Dietrich say, “Holy shit. . . . Look at that!”

  The master sergeant wasn’t an offi?cer, but had refused to leave, claiming that real offi?cers wouldn’t know what to do without him. Six was there as well, as was Four-Four, and Dr. Kelly. T-2s, both armed and ready, were crouched to the left and right, with quads beyond. The scene that Dietrich wanted Santana
to look at was hard to miss. During the hours of darkness thousands of Ramanthians had closed in on the LZ and stood ready to attack. They stood shoulder to shoulder, fi?fty deep, in a formation that had lined the far edge of the ditch.

  There was a sudden fl?urry of activity as more enemy soldiers came forward through lanes left for that purpose, pushed crudely made footbridges up until they stood on end, and allowed them to fall across the moat. That was the signal for fl?ares to soar high into the air, for bugles to sound, and for noncoms to blow their whistles. Santana expected the soldiers to pour across the bridges at that point, and was surprised when they didn’t. As the defenders watched in horror, hundreds of clone civilians were forced to cross the ditch instead—men, women, and free-breeder children who had been captured during the early stages of the Ramanthian invasion and held in remote POW camps until now. Some of them tripped, a few fell into the moat, but most made it across. And that was when the mines went off. Boom!

  Boom! Boom! The overlapping explosions circled the LZ, sent columns of bloodied dirt up into the air, and cleared a path for the troops that poured in from behind. But some of the civilians were still on their feet, still stumbling forward, as Colonel Six gave the necessary order. “They’re going to die no matter what you do! Fire!”

  Now it was the enemy’s turn to die, as the entire perimeter erupted in fl?ame, and both the civilians and the bugs went down like wheat before a thresher. The outer edge of the new, smaller LZ looked like a ring of fi?re, as both the quads and the T-2s sent blue death stuttering out to slag the half-frozen ground. The offi?cers were fi?ring as well, machine guns for the most part, which sent red tracers out to probe the places where enemy soldiers might hide. And as each rank of Ramanthians fell, their bodies were added to the steadily growing circle of death that was defi?ned by the ditch. That was the scene that Maylo Chien-Chu saw from the air, as the Xinglong circled the embattled landing zone, and fi?red on the Ramanthians. That support, when combined with the fi?re being put out by those on the ground, created the sort of respite that Kobbi had been counting on. “This is it!” the feisty little general shouted over the command channel. “Pull those brain boxes. . . . T-2s fi?rst. . . . And get them ready to load. The last ship is about to land.”

  That triggered a mad scramble to jerk each T-2’s box, and carry them two at a time to the edge of the so-called doughnut hole, where the Xinglong settled into a vapor cloud of her own making. The belly ramp was already in the process of deploying when the big skids touched down. Santana had Deker’s box in one hand, and Valario’s in the other, as he pounded up the ramp to the point where a very pretty woman stood waiting. The legionnaire was amazed to see that it was General Booly’s wife who was waiting to receive the boxes, but there was no opportunity to do anything more than nod as he turned to make another trip.

  Ten minutes later, all the T-2s were aboard, and it was time to bring the quad boxes in, as some of the offi?cers fi?red heavy machine guns and the Ramanthians fi?red back. Santana ran to where Lupo was dug in, ordered the quad to disengage, and fl?ipped a protective cover out of the way. With that accomplished, all he had to do was grab the T-shaped red handle and give it a full turn to the right. Then, still holding on to the same handle, the offi?cer was able to pull the cyborg’s biological support module out into the open. Lupo tried to say “Thanks,” but no longer had the means to speak, and felt the world fade as sedatives were pumped into his disembodied brain.

  With the box clutched to his chest Santana began the long run back. A bullet plucked at his right sleeve, and others kicked up geysers of mud all around him, as he dodged back and forth. “They know what we’re up to!” Kobbi advised over the push. “Pull back! Pull back! It’s time to haul ass!”

  Santana caught up with Zolkin, who along with Kelly, was supporting Four-Four. The Seebo had taken a bullet in the thigh and was bleeding badly. Other heavily laden offi?cers streamed toward the ship as well even as the Xinglong’s energy cannons sent bolts of iridescent blue energy fanning out over their heads. One of the offi?cers threw up her hands and fell facedown when a burst of bullets hit her from behind. The brain box she had been carrying fell, landed in the mud, and was quickly scooped up as one of the surviving bio bods grabbed it.

  Metal clanged under combat boots, and the stench of ozone permeated the air, as the offi?cers charged up the ramp and into the freighter. Kobbi was there to count them off.

  “Twenty-two, twenty-three, where the hell is Colonel Six?” the general demanded.

  On hearing that, Kelly turned and made a run for the ramp, only to be tackled by Santana. Both of them crashed to the deck as servos began to whine, and Orlo-Ka brought the ramp up. Kelly fought her way clear of Santana and ran over to a bank of screens, where the loadmaster could monitor everything that took place outside his ship. That was when she saw the waves of Ramanthian troopers, and heard the distant chug, chug, chug of a .50-caliber machine gun as Six harvested a few more lives. Then he was gone, swarmed under by an angry mob, as thousands of Ramanthian bullets hammered against the ship’s hull.

  There was a noticeable jerk as the Xinglong lifted off and wobbled into the air. One of the bugs was hanging on to a skid, but Brisco shook him loose, and continued to climb. The bug deployed his wings, and was planning to glide in, when hundreds of bullets fi?red by his comrades ripped his body apart.

  Meanwhile, high above the body-strewn LZ, the freighter continued to gain altitude. Most of the passengers were seated by then, if not very comfortably, in fold-down seats. Kelly continued to sob, even as she knelt in a pool of Four-Four’s blood, and fought to save a man who looked like Six but was actually someone else. Zolkin was there, trying to help the doctor fi?nd the big bleeder, and eventually clamp it off. Santana sat slumped in a web-style seat. His eyes were open but unseeing. A battle had been lost, but the war would continue, and the Legion would be in the thick of it. And, all things considered, that was the only thing he needed to know.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Though not based on the Korean War, or World War II, some of the events in this novel were inspired by both. In particular, the nature of the wintry battles in which Santana and his company take part would be recognizable to any of the marines who fought in the Chosin Reservoir campaign in 1950, except that what they managed to accomplish was far more heroic than anything in this book. Because in Korea, some 12,000 leathernecks were surrounded by 60,000 Chinese soldiers north of the Yalu River, yet still managed to fi?ght their way out of the wintry mountains, taking their dead and wounded with them. For those who would like to read more about that campaign, I recommend Breakout by Martin Russ. By the same token, those familiar with the Battle of Dunkirk in World War II will recognize the evacuation of planet Gamma-014 as being very similar to the effort by roughly 700 privately owned fi?shing boats, yachts, and other vessels to remove some 338,000 Allied soldiers from the beaches of Dunkirk in a period of just nine days. Sadly, more than 30,000 British troops were killed, more than 8,000 went missing, and 1,212,000 Dutch, Belgian, French, and British soldiers were taken prisoner by the Germans, who lost 10,000 soldiers during the battle. These were real battles, involving real men and women, to whom all Americans owe so much. Their courage astounds me.

  FB2 document info

  Document ID: c69f3ad7-a4bb-4336-b975-fdd9572e2ed1

  Document version: 1

  Document creation date: 8.4.2012

  Created using: calibre 0.8.10 software

  Document authors :

  William C. Dietz

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