by Rick Shelley
There was a confused pile of twisted wreckage in and just beyond the gateway, the remnants of the doors and, possibly, whatever had been nearest to them. The floor, walls, and ceiling had all been pitted by the bombardment.
Some of the craters were more than a meter deep and two or three in diameter The metal of the smashed doors was hot enough to burn skin. Heat signatures inside nearly overloaded the infrared sensors in Joe’s visor night-vision system. Contrast was terrible. If it hadn’t been for the second system, which worked by concentrating available light, the visors would have been useless.
“About what you’d expect from a confined space where so many explosives went off,” Joe told the captain. “It’s a miracle the ceiling didn’t fall in more than it did, but I don’t see any structural damage from here, nothing obvious other than the smashed doors. We’re looking down what appears to be a tunnel, just a little wider and higher than the doorway. I can see what appear to be gaps on either side, other tunnels, I suppose, or doors leading into chambers. There is no, repeat no, sign of anyone moving in there.”
Keye told Joe to wait. When he returned to the channel, he said, “We go on in, as far as necessary. The general wants to know what is, or was, in there. Map it out. The whole works.”
“That means us,” Dem said. Some of the reccer helmets had one additional system that the standard infantry issue didn’t: tiny video cameras that could link directly to ClC’s computers. The SI men were similarly equipped. In the line companies, only officers’ helmets had the extra system.
“Divide your men among second platoon’s squads, Nimz,” Keye said. “We want a good look at everything. Any heavy work comes up, let my people handle it.”
In most circumstances, Dem would have argued those orders, but there didn’t seem to be enough chance of meeting opposition to make the argument worthwhile.
“Yes, sir,” he said, more meekly than anyone who knew him would have suspected possible.
Joe got to his feet and motioned his men forward. First squad hugged the left side of the tunnel, second squad the right, taking full advantage of the cover available. Fourth squad came up behind, half on either side. Not even the inclusion of the reccers made up for the missing third squad and the other casualties that the platoon had already suffered on Tamkailo.
The entrance tunnel, which went on straight for more than three hundred meters before splitting into two tunnels, which branched off to northeast and southeast, was littered with debris. Parts of the doors had been blown more than a hundred meters down the corridor. Joe wasn’t certain where all of the metal and other debris had come from. Bits of stone had been blasted from roof, walls, and floor, but that hardly seemed to account for all of it that littered the corridor. The men had to go around and, in many cases over, obstructions. It wasn’t until Joe reached the first of the openings along the sides of the main passage that he saw any sign of the men or equipment that had been in the complex. Looking to the right, there was a five-meter-long side tunnel that opened up into a large chamber. Another ramp led down to the floor of this chamber–a room that was easily eighty meters square and ten high.
“How the hell did that happen?” Joe asked, turning to look at Dem Nimz. “None of our shells or missiles could have made a ninety-degree turn to get down there.”
Dem shrugged. He was too busy scanning the garage area–obviously what the large chamber was–to get a complete video record of it.
On the other side of the entrance, Abru spoke. “They must have had flammables stored up here, munitions or fuel. Probably hydrogen tanks. Flash fire. Secondary explosions. Something down there caught and caused the rest of the damage.”
Dem moved away from the wall and stepped out into the middle of the ramp leading down into the parking area. There seemed to be no danger in that move. There was no sign of anyone alive in the chamber below. Dem held his rifle loosely at his side, pointed more at the ground than into the garage. Dem had seen a lot in his life, and not just as a soldier. There was no precedent for this. After a couple of minutes, he started walking slowly down the ramp.
Gene and Joe followed. Behind them, their men tagged along. Engineers came in and set up two small but powerful searchlights at the entrance and got them playing back and forth across the scene below.
As if seeing it through night-vision gear wasn’t bad enough.
Joe did try to estimate the number of vehicles in the room, part of his running commentary to Captain Keye. Forty-eight Nova tanks, a half dozen armored personnel carriers, and four other vehicles, crowded together, with little room between vehicles in each row, and less room between the rows. It would have taken considerable time–and no small amount of skill on the part of the drivers–to get those vehicles out of the garage and up the ramp. All of the vehicles were scorched. At least a dozen of the tanks had had their turrets blown off. Ammunition and fuel in the tanks had apparently gone up as a result of the flash fires caused by the assault above. The walls and ceiling of the chamber were also scorched black.
The three sergeants were nearly to the bottom of the ramp before they saw any human bodies, though: two figures crouched next to the treads of one of the tanks–figures that had been incinerated in that position, unable even to fall flat in death. They remained like charcoal sculptures, perhaps fused to the metal of the tank by the flames.
More bodies were discovered. Some groups, it was impossible to tell exactly how many bodies there were. Men next to their tanks, men in their tanks, or in their APCs.
“Not enough of them here,” Gene Abru said after the Accord group had worked its way from one end of the garage to the other. “They weren’t mounted up ready to roll.”
“There must be barracks rooms somewhere else down here,” Dem said. There were a half dozen doorways leading out of the garage on its level.
“We’re going to have to break up to explore all of these exits,” Joe said, not just to his companions, but also to Captain Keye, who was still up in the main tunnel. Other platoons were exploring the other side passages off of that. Two more large parking areas had already been discovered. Both showed the same sort of damage that Joe and his companions had seen.
“There’s still a chance we’ll find live Heggies down here . . . somewhere,” Dem said. “Even if they didn’t have fireproof doors between here and the living areas.”
Joe listened to Captain Keye for a moment, then reported to the others. “The orders are nothing smaller than a squad. Any hint of opposition, withdraw and wait for orders.” He hesitated, then added, “That comes straight from General Dacik.”
For a second, Joe thought that Gene Abru was still going to argue the order. It was clear that the SI team leader had his own ideas about exploring the installation. But Abru closed his mouth again and said nothing.
* * *
Echo didn’t find any surviving Schlinal soldiers, but one of the platoons from Delta, exploring off of one of the other garages, did. And so did some of the men exploring off of the other two entrances to the complex. Altogether, almost four hundred men had survived the explosions and fires. The rest, more than three thousand, had died. Not all had burned. Many had died from smoke inhalation. Others had merely suffocated when all of the oxygen was sucked out of chambers where they were hiding.
The night was more than half gone when everyone but the engineers and Sl men made their way back out of the underground complex. The engineers were there to finish the work of destroying the physical complex, planting massive charges at strategic locations, to be detonated after everyone was out. The SI men were there to discover whatever they could of what the Heggies might have been up to under so much rock.
Echo Company waited outside the western entrance to the complex.
“We wait for the Sl men and the engineers, then we get back on the shuttles,” Joe told his men.
“How long, any idea?” Sauv Degtree asked.
&nb
sp; “Not more than a half hour,” Joe replied.
A little apart from the rest of the platoon, Mort Jaiffer stood, looking back down the ramp. He just stared, without a conscious thought in his head. Eventually, he lifted his visor. Both of Tamkailo’s moons were up now. He could see well enough, better than he really wanted to, without his night-vision systems.
Eventually, Mort became aware that tears were running down his cheeks. He had a notion to wipe them away, in case anyone might notice, but the effort needed was just more than he could muster. One hand came up, just a little, then fell back to his side. His stomach was knotted up, a tight pain that intruded more and more on his awareness.
After a time he could not measure, one conscious thought finally forced itself on his attention: What the hell are we doing here?
He sat down and continued to stare down the ramp. The tears continued to fall.
GENERAL DACIK ordered nearly all of the troops that had taken part in the southern landing on Tamkailo back to the transports, rather than keep them on the ground through another full day, or move them directly to the Heggie base that the attack plan designated as Site Bravo. Nine hours aboard ship might not be much of a reward, but it was appreciated. Simply being moved off of the sweltering planet was important. The men would remain aboard ship until it was near sunset on the west coast of the southern continent. The only exception was the 17th lAW. Their Wasps boosted back to the fleet in orbit, and then, immediately after receiving fresh batteries, they were dropped to go to the support of the 5th SAT and the 34th LIR at Site Charley on the other continent. Their support group was loaded aboard shuttles and transported directly to the other action from Site Alpha. The 5th and 34th needed help. The 5th’s air wing had already lost half of its Wasps.
“Thirty minutes until chow call,” Joe Baerclau told his platoon as they filed into their compartment aboard ship. “Get yourselves cleaned up. We get back from chow, I want weapons cleaned, gear cleaned and checked. Squad leaders, inspect your men. Find out what’s missing, what’s damaged. We’Il get everything repaired or replaced before we drop again. I want everybody ready to go before I hear the first snore. And while we’re up here, I want everyone to do a lot of drinking–water, juices, coffee.” There was no alcohol aboard ship, except for medical stores. “We’re all short on body fluids. Get them replaced before we jump again.”
Joe moved through the troop bay to the corner that was reserved for the platoon’s sergeants. A head-high partition walled off that section. Joe’s bunk was the lower in the far corner. As ranking noncom, he had had the first choice. By the time he got to his bunk, he had already stripped off his combat gear and was half-out of his fatigues. The fatigues would go into a recycler. Even though the net armor in the battle clothes hadn’t come near its full week of service, no one would go back into combat in the same kit.
Ezra Frain had slept in the bunk above Joe. Stripped to bare skin, Joe stood next to the bunks and looked at the one that would have no one in it going home. There would be a lot of empty bunks, but for the moment, this was the only one that seemed to matter. Joe and Ezra had been close friends. While Joe was first squad’s leader, Ezra had been his assistant. When Joe became Platoon sergeant, Ezra got his third stripe and became squad leader. They had worked together, played together, laughed together.
“Home,” Joe whispered. Home was Bancroft, but Joe hadn’t been there in four years–with no prospect that he might get back any time in the foreseeable future. Bancroft was an abstraction, a place of vague memories. His family still lived there, but even they seemed part more of a dream than of any reality. If Joe did have a place called home now, it was more the 13th Spaceborne Assault Team, or Albion, the world that the 13th called home.
“You just gonna stand there buck naked all day?” Frank Symes, fourth squad leader, asked.
Joe blinked and turned. Symes, Gerrent, and Degtree were all looking at him.
“You just been standing there for five minutes,” Degtree said. The squad leaders had all dropped their gear and started to strip for the trip to the showers. Joe hadn’t even heard them file in behind him. They had seen to their squads first.
“Just thinking,” Joe said softly.
No one asked what he had been thinking about.
* * *
Out in the main section of the troop bay, there were a lot of men thinking. The Accord Defense Force had no place for mindless automatons. No one had been on the ground long enough to settle into the battle numbness that might have muted intelligence–and imagination. It might have been better if they had. The mind’s ability to suppress long, harsh conditions might have made it easier to deal with the denouement of the battle. But most of the men did not let dark thoughts distract them from the prospect of getting clean, and then getting fed. Routine maintenance. Keep as clean as possible. Eat, give your body fuel for the next time. Those were drilled into recruits as forcefully as any other lessons.
Mort Jaiffer just sat on his bunk, though. He had dropped his pack and web belt, tossed his rifle to the mattress, and then plopped down next to it. He didn’t ever bother to start undressing. As a corporal, he had rated a lower bunk. Back–ages ago, it seemed–he had stated loudly and often that the guarantee of a lower berth on the transports was the only thing of real value in his promotion from private to corporal.
Mostly, what Mort felt now was an exhaustion so complete that he couldn’t even wonder at it, a depletion more of mind and soul than body. It was, perhaps, the same sort of numbness he had felt on other, longer campaigns after many days of fighting and walking, of danger and boredom, of too little sleep. But, if he had had the energy to think about it, he would have been the first to doubt that explanation.
Mort sat with his eyes open, staring straight ahead without blinking. What he saw was a play in his mind, a memory, perhaps constructed in the moment rather than real. He was back in the university, teaching the second semester of his freshman course in political science. Words and phrases tripped over each other but scarcely made an impression. Realpolitik: “The continuation of diplomacy by other means.” Back then, in that other life, those words had come trippingly off his tongue, part of the currency of his profession, concepts studied with intellectual rigor, as sterile as words in a dictionary.
The faces in Mort’s memory were anonymous. Perhaps he was recalling actual students. More likely, his mind was projecting stereotypes, amalgams drawn from imperfect memory. There were probably no more than a half dozen of the students he had taught in his years at the university who might stand out enough in his memory to be present as themselves. The students had come to him eager for learning, trusting what he said, young men and women–scarcely more than boys and girls–seventeen or eighteen years old for the most part. But every semester there would be one, or a few, who were older. Some had even come back to the university after a term in the defense forces, back in the days before open warfare between Accord and Hegemony had meant that few enlistees were getting out when their term of service expired. Mort had stood in front of them and lectured. Three-dimensional video cameras had captured every word and nuance, every gesture and facial expression, to be transmitted to satellite classrooms in other towns, and to private homes. At the beginning of each lecture session, Mort had always set aside ten minutes for questions, particularly for the students viewing him by remote.
Hesitant questions, self-assured answers.
Mort had taught political science in the morning, history in the afternoon. There was always some overlap in the student body between courses, even though Mort wasn’t the only professor teaching either course. Aspiring young politicians, academics, and lawyers took the courses. A few came simply to satisfy their own interests. Others took the classes to fulfill humanities requirements while they pursued technical degrees.
Some students left to go into the Accord Defense Force. It had been clear that war with the Schlinal Hegemony, perhaps
also with the Dogel Worlds, was coming. More than once, Mort had had a student drop out to join the military. Toward the end, he had even found it possible to predict when such defections were likely, simply from watching the morning news. By that time, it was no longer an intellectual game, even for him.
Mort had waited until the end of the spring term at the completion of his third year on faculty before he told the department chairman that he was taking an extended sabbatical for government service. A new law guaranteed the jobs of people who left other occupations for government, especially military, service. The Accord and its member worlds were gearing up.
For this?
A hard, stinging slap on his shoulder brought Mort out of his trance. He blinked rapidly, several times. Joe Baerclau was standing in front of him, a wet towel wrapped around his middle.
“You’d better hurry and get cleaned up, Professor,” Joe said, speaking softly. “Chow in fifteen minutes.”
Mort looked around, then sucked in a deep breath. “I guess I’m just about zonked,” he said, unwilling to share what he had been thinking.
“Shower, eat, then sleep,” Joe said, squinting at Mort. “Save the thinking for the ride home to Albion.” The look he saw in the Professor’s face wasn’t sleepiness, but something more troublesome.
* * *
Roo Vernon was not yet comfortable being an officer. If pressed, he would state flatly that he didn’t like it much at all, that he would be much happier going back to the ranks. He had been supremely satisfied as a Wasp crew chief, a technical sergeant with the reputation of being the best mechanic in the 13th. But a good idea, and hard and heroic work at a diffcult point in the 13th’s campaign on Jordan, had brought him to the notice of Colonel Stossen and, through the colonel, General Dacik. After his battlefield improvisation turned the tide of battle, Roo could not escape his reward, the Accord’s two highest medals (one for his idea, the other for managing to put it into successful operation under severe battlefield conditions) and a field commission. Stassen and Dacik had not been content to make Vernon a mere lieutenant. His commission was as a captain, arbitrarily placed two-thirds of the way up the list, for promotion to major. Roo did find himself occupying a major’s slot in the table of organization, senior maintenance officer for the 13th–not just over the Wasp wing, but over all of the vehicles in the regiment. The major who had occupied that slot previously had been transferred to the 7th SAT. What Major General Dacik had not told Colonel Stossen or the new Captain Vernon was that when Roo did make major, the general intended to move him to his own headquarters staff as senior aircraft maintenance officer.
