by Chris Bunch
“You’re the one who toppled that young fool into the lily pond?”
“I was, sir. But there was provocation.”
“With Kouro there generally is, just as there generally is with his father. They’re both idiots. I assume he was running his mouth about the natural inferiority of the ’Raum, and how anyone around him was an obvious Superior Being?”
“He was, sir. With a ’Raum standing beside him. I thought that was in fairly poor taste.”
“That,” Mellusin said, “is the reason people get waylaid in dark alleys. I’ve warned him to keep his opinions to himself, or at least voice them in front of the right people or save them for the ed-pin section of Matin. But he won’t. One hopes he learns discretion before someone teaches it to him, in a more painful manner than you did.
“As I was saying, there is a class system here on D-Cumbre, and has been since shortly after the first colonists arrived, opened the mines, and the ’Raum showed up a bit later and began working them for us. Most people, from top to bottom, like things the way they are — comfortably ordered. The human race becomes unsettled when it’s unsure of its future, and it’s the task of a natural leader to guide it carefully. Is something the matter, Garvin?”
Jaansma was sweating gently — Jasith’s toes were moving in his crotch, and she was barely suppressing her glee. “Nothing, sir. A bit warm in here.”
Mellusin nodded for a waiter, told the man to increase the overhead fan’s speed. While his attention was turned away, Garvin pinched Jasith’s big toe. She hid a yelp, pulled her foot down.
“Now,” Mellusin said. “Where were we?”
“You were explaining why the Rentiers were the rightful masters of the Cumbre system,” Garvin said.
Mellusin looked sharply at Garvin, was met with an open, interested expression.
• • •
“Come on, Garvin,” Jasith said. “They’ve called your shuttle.”
“Coming,” he said, stepping carefully out of the lim, aware he was just a little drunk. “Thank you for dinner, and an … interesting conversation, sir.”
“Thank you,” Mellusin said. “I enjoyed meeting you, and, like my daughter, am a bit impressed. Come back and see us again, Garvin Jaansma.”
“Thank you, sir. And I shall see you again.”
“Come on,” Jasith shouted, and Garvin trotted toward her. He eyed the schedule flashing on the board.
“I thought you said the shuttle was leaving. I’ve still got fifteen minutes.”
“And I wanted to kiss you, dummy. That ought to take at least fifteen minutes, unless you want to go back and gibber some more with my daddy.”
“Nope. Let’s find a nice secluded corner. But you know what I really want to do?” He leaned close, whispered.
“Garvin Jaansma! Such language!”
“Just wanted to make sure there wasn’t any confusion about what we might think about doing next time around.”
“Talk like that certainly prevents confusion,” Jasith said, trying to pretend shock. “Here’s what I’d like to do.” In turn, she whispered.
“Great gods,” Garvin said. “I didn’t know rich girls talked like that!”
“We do,” she said throatily. “And you should see what we do with our mouths when we’re not talking. That’s even more shocking.”
CHAPTER
24
Alt Jav Hofzeiger felt a little like crying. No one … not his revered retired-Haut father back on Mauren VI, not his instructors at Centrum’s Military Institute, not even his fellow junior officers, had told him combat would be like this.
Combat … for their blasters were fully loaded, the orbiting Zhukovs and Griersons high overhead carried live missiles and rounds, and his orders were to kill any armed man or woman who refused a single shout to surrender.
Combat … but he hadn’t seen anyone to shoot at, let alone anyone worth shooting at. Just ignorant hill-dwellers, completely perplexed at his questions, who didn’t even seem to know where on the map their lousy little villages were.
Three corns shouted questions and orders at him and each other, carried by three sweating troops who’d been riflemen or -women before this patrol.
One com: “Assegai Delta Deuce, this is Assegai Delta … give your present map locations please …” Assegai Delta was Fourth Infantry Regiment’s Commanding Officer, a bluff man he’d respected until this nightmare began, Mil Fran Whitley.
Hofzeiger was Assegai Delta Deuce — Fourth Infantry, Delta Company, Second Platoon, commanding seventeen other infantrymen.
Another com: “Assegai Delta Deuce, this is Delta Six … come on, Hofzeiger. I’ve got your Bravo element on visual, and they’re separated from your line of march. Suggest you take up a defensive perimeter until they join the main force, over.” Delta Six was Delta Company Commander, Cent Theresa Rivers, and at least all she sounded was harried. Hofzeiger thought she was a damned good officer, if a little too eager. He realized his men would say the same about him, at least the eager part.
“Assegai Delta Deuce, this is Lance Six. Why are you moving so slow? Imperative you complete ordered day’s sweep on sked … you are at least four kilometers behind projected march … blip your present location, over.” Lance Six was God — Caud Jochim Williams, orbiting just overhead in his Cooke. Rivers was in a Grierson, and the Regimental Commander in another Cooke.
Three levels of command were riding close herd on this patrol, ordered to sweep the reaches from the coastal lowlands of Dharma Island into the ominous, unpopulated, and fog-hung Highlands. II Section — Strike Force Intelligence — said the ’Raum hid out on these slopes, oppressing the rural farmers and requiring them to provide food, shelter, and fresh recruits at gunpoint. But there’d been no bandits so far, nothing but the endless yammer of Hofzeiger’s officers since he’d off-loaded from his Grierson before dawn, far downslope.
He wanted to grab all three mikes and scream shut up, give him a moment to think, a moment to try to find where he was on the completely inaccurate map which he wasn’t even sure was of Dharma Island, regardless of the legend, a moment to get his platoon rested and re-formed. Dammit, he wasn’t a bad officer … maybe not the best in the regiment but always with SUPERIOR ratings, and they weren’t giving him a chance to prove himself.
One com-carrier eyed Hofzeiger with sympathy — the alt wasn’t a bad guy, and these dickheads up in the sky had no idea of what it was like to be down here in the slime on a forty-five-degree slope of sticky, wet clay trying to keep from sliding all the way back down to the ocean, glimpsed longingly in the distance now and again, rain-soaked, pack straps digging into shoulders, waist, back, blaster weighing half a kilo more each step you took, goddamned vines pulling, whipping, thornbushes clawing, and strange noises in the brush just out of sight.
No idea at all.
“Level ground,” the man ahead of a com operator whispered, as per orders, although why quiet was important with the drive roar of the aircraft overhead and the chatter on the corns was beyond anyone. “Level ground,” the operator obediently told Hofzeiger, who nodded dumbly, then remembered his own orders, and passed word back down the column, wiped sweat, and reached for the com to Williams, figuring he was the most important.
“Lance Six, this is Assegai Delta Deuce, blipping … map not accurate … terrain nearly impassable … cutting our way as we go … over.”
“Delta Deuce, this is Lance. I did not ask for excuses, soldier! Follow my orders, or I’ll have someone down there who will!”
Hofzeiger wanted to swear, but just clicked his mike twice — message received. Another whisper came down: “Village ahead. Occupied. Six up.”
“Son of a bitch,” Hofzeiger muttered. “Another one that isn’t on the map.”
He keyed the mike. “Lance, this is Delta Deuce. Stand by. We have a village to clear.” He repeated the message into the other two corns. “Six coming up,” he whispered back, and pushed his way up the track they’d been slashing through t
he undergrowth. His com operators started after him, then Hofzeiger had a wonderful idea. “You three maintain position. I’m doing a personal recon.”
The first com man grinned — not bad. If Hofzeiger wasn’t there to be shouted at, he couldn’t be shouted at, now could he?
Hofzeiger’s platoon sergeant, Tweg Adeon, was waiting on the edge of a scrubby cornfield. Ahead was the village — a scatter of huts around a central square, a single large public com sheltered by a round wooden canopy, a half-domed prefab building with peeling paint that was the STORE; and a long open-sided shed that would serve as the village social center, pub, and meeting place.
“See any hostiles?” Hofzeiger asked.
Adeon shook his head. “Two kids, one scrawny woman who looked about thirty-six months pregnant, two giptels. No goblins. Goddamned village doesn’t look like it’d support more’n one bandit, and he’d have to take his loot in corncobs.”
The giptel was a mostly domesticated native of D-Cumbre, and served the hillside peasants as pet, watch animal, and dinner, its white porklike flesh frequently the only meat, other than game, these poor people would see. Chickens had been imported with the original settlers, but became an instant favorite for the planet’s small two-legged snake-bodied predators known as stobor.
Hofzeiger saw a man peer out of a hut, duck back inside. “They know we’re out here,” he said. “Bring the patrol up, skirmish line, and we’ll sweep the village. Adeon, you and I’ll see if that peekaboo sort knows anything.”
“And,” Adeon muttered, “if he’s willing to tell it to us.”
Fifteen minutes later, the platoon had gone through the village, found nothing except twenty-six scared peasants: children, women, and old men. That should have triggered an alarm from experienced soldiers, but Hofzeiger was thinking of other matters. All three coms were alive with questions from the overhead brass, trying to find out what was going on, if the patrol had found anything, what disposition was being made of this, that, and the other. Hofzeiger ignored their yammering, and asked the villager he’d prodded out at gunpoint his name.
“Eichere,” the man said reluctantly.
“And what’s the name of this village?”
“It doesn’t have one,” Eichere said. “We just call it the village.”
“Cosmopolitan sort here,” one of the com operators said.
“Quiet,” Hofzeiger ordered. “Are there any bandits in this area?”
“Bandits? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Men with guns. Men who refuse to obey the government’s laws,” Adeon said impatiently.
“The only men with guns I’ve seen are you,” Eichere said. “I don’t know if you obey the laws or not.”
“Kick the bastard a few dozen times,” a finf said. “Bein’ funny’s not one of his available options.”
Hofzeiger glared at the noncom, went back to Eichere. Half a dozen villagers came up, cautiously, watching, listening.
“Are you sure there aren’t any bandits?”
Eichere compressed his lips, looked away, nodded.
“He’s lying,” a woman said. The woman was in her early thirties, looked a little less work-hammered than the others, and her rags were a bit cleaner and mended.
“Who’re you?”
“Balcha is my name.”
“You’ve seen bandits?”
“Of course,” she said. “We all have. But he … and the others … are too scared to say anything.”
“Why? We’ll protect you from them.”
“At night?” Eichere said cynically. “You’ll come back from your city to make sure they don’t burn my hut … with me inside it?”
“You’re a coward, Eichere,” Balcha said scornfully. “We must trust the government.”
Eichere snorted.
“Where do the bandits go?” Hofzeiger demanded.
“They use the trail that goes from there” — she pointed to the farside of the village — “up toward the Highlands, or so I was told. They have a camp not far from here.”
“A camp?”
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Could you take us there?”
Balcha hesitated.
“I will pay you,” Hofzeiger said eagerly.
“No,” she said. “I will take no money. But if I take you to them, will you kill them all? Then we can be safe.”
“I will only kill those who resist me,” Hofzeiger said. “The others will be arrested and taken to the city for trial, and punishment.”
“But they will never come back to our village?”
“No,” Hofzeiger said firmly.
“Then follow me. It is about … two, perhaps three hours from here.” She started toward the path.
“Wait, Balcha,” Hofzeiger said. “I must report this to my leaders.”
• • •
Twenty minutes later, Balcha, who was walking just behind the point man, hesitated at a split in the trail. “This way,” she said, not sounding sure of herself.
“Great,” a striker whispered. “Another far-traveler. Gets lost half a klick from home.”
A few minutes later, she stopped beside a two-meter-tall mound of mud built by the industrious insects the Cumbrians called ants. She puzzled a moment, then turned to Alt Hofzeiger, who was just behind her with Tweg Adeon and the three com operators. “I think I am leading us in the wrong direction. Let me go back to that turning and look at it again. Can I have one man to keep me safe?”
Hofzeiger growled under his breath, caught the eye of one striker who hadn’t looked away fast enough. “Habr. Go back with her.” He held out his hand, and a com operator slapped a mike into it. “The boss is gonna love this,” he muttered. “Delta Six, this is Assegai Delta Deuce …”
• • •
Balcha waited until she and Habr were just around a bend in the trail, stumbled, went to her knees. Habr knelt to help her, grunted, and stared in shock at the knife handle sticking out of his solar plexus, just below his ballistic combat vest. His face wizened in agony, then went blank, and he collapsed. The woman who’d called herself Balcha put two fingers in her mouth, whistled.
• • •
Up ahead, concealed in the brush about five meters from the trail, Comstock Brien heard the whistle, nodded to the man with the small plas box with a single button. The man unlocked the box, pressed the button.
• • •
The abandoned anthill had been hurriedly dug out from the rear when the Fourth’s patrol was seen dismounting from its Grierson. Broken bottles, rusty nails, and other debris from the village dump were packed against the hill’s inside wall, then two hundred kilos of mining explosive added. Some of the explosive came from the raid on C-Cumbre, months earlier. Two radio-controlled detonators were inserted in the explosives, and wet clay tamped to seal the hole.
The blast vaporized Alt Hofzeiger, his com operators, the rest of the command group, and six of the other twelve men and women. Half of the survivors were down, screaming, moaning in pain, and others were in stunned shock, staring at red-rain-drenched bodies.
Brien shouted, and thirty men and women burst out of their hiding places, and a ragged volley from sporting rifles and shotguns blasted. There were only two still making sounds, mewling like wounded kittens as they squirmed. Brien shot one with his pistol, and a woman shotgunned the other two. “Quickly,” he ordered. “Take weapons, boots, everything.”
A woman rolled a young soldier over, saw her chest move, lifted her archaic rifle. “No,” the soldier whispered. “Please.” The rifle fired once.
One com unit had, freakishly, survived the blast.
“Delta Deuce, Delta Deuce, this is Delta Six. What the hell’s going on down there? Delta Deuce, respond at once.”
“Take that, too,” Brien ordered. “Our Task is easier when we can listen to them.”
Balcha trotted around the bend. “Good,” Brien complimented her. She nodded thanks, knelt over a body, and unfastened its combat harness.
“No,” she said. “They are well trained. We need punish no one.”
Four minutes later, there was nothing on the trail but twelve naked bodies.
• • •
Caud Williams stepped out of his Cooke, walked slowly from the clearing that’d been hastily carved out of the jungle to the ambush site. The last of the corpses were being slid into body bags. Cent Rivers, Delta’s Commanding Officer, sat on an uprooted tree, head in her hands. Cent Angara met him, saluted.
“Don’t do that,” Williams said. “We’re in a combat zone!”
“Sorry, sir,” Angara said. “I was thinking about … other things.”
Williams nodded, stared down the trail. “Do you have any idea how many casualties these brave soldiers were able to inflict before they were overrun?”
“None, sir. No blood trails, no blood patches at all.”
“They must’ve cleaned up before they fled, the bastards,” Williams said. “Very well, then, we’ll have to make an educated estimate.”
“Sir?”
“How many bandits do you think they were able to take with them?”
“Sir, there was no sign of any enemy casualties,” Angara said.
“It’s impossible for me to believe women and men that I trained weren’t able to fight back,” Williams said firmly. “And do you have any idea what would happen to morale if we were to tell the men of the Force their fellows were helplessly butchered where they stood?” Angara said nothing. “Very well,” Williams said. “Eighteen of our people killed … probably they were able to take at least one with them. The unit diary will give the casualties as twenty-one probable kills, fifteen wounded.”
Angara still was silent.
“I assume you heard me, Cent!”
“Yessir,” Angara said. “Twenty-one probable kills, fifteen wounded. Sir.”
Williams stared, and Angara looked away.
“What about the village?”
“I’ve sent two interrogation teams in. So far, nobody knows anything. The woman who said she wanted to help came to the village just as they heard the sounds of our landing, and said they’d treat her as one of them, or be very, very sorry, and anything she said, they must agree with. Most of their young men have already joined the bandits. The villagers said they were forced to go. I’m not sure that’s the truth. They’ve got no idea where the bandits came from, no idea where they went, how many there are, or anything else.”
