Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  And there was nothing else on the site but trees. And only hours later, Intelligence had their attention on something else: a Wyzhnyny tank battalion, with its attendant ground transport, had appeared beside a limestone ridge deep within Wyz Country. Almost certainly it had been concealed in a cave. And they were promptly joined by a floater escort, which along with the antiaircraft armament of the tanks demanded caution.

  So Operations decided to let be for the moment. They'd wait and see where the tanks were going. In less than two hours they knew. As for why… for one thing they were a lot closer to prospective battle sites.

  General Pak wondered if they were simply bait, because by then he suspected what those towers were. Though he'd never heard of flak towers.

  Then he learned how good the Wyzhnyny ordnance was. He sent two flights of armored attack floaters to rip up the tank park-and lost six of the eight aircraft! Next he sent a flight of rocket-armed standoff floaters, and discovered the potency of Wyzhnyny electronic countermeasures.

  So he turned to infantry and inflatable boats.

  ***

  B Company reached Mickle's River by twilight, in the forest three miles outside Wyz Country. The Mickle's was not very large there: forty to fifty feet wide and four to eight feet deep in the main channel. What made the mission feasible was, even in Wyz Country the Mickel's floodplain was wooded. That was one similarity between Jerrie and Wyzhnyny land-use practices: neither culture farmed floodplains, even along rivers that didn't often flood during the growing season. Here and there the buoys showed a break in the woods, where convergence between some meander and the bordering terrace pinched out the floodplain on one side or the other. But except for those infrequent breaks, the buoys showed woods along both banks for all twenty meandering miles through Wyz Country.

  The troops unloaded their boats, demolitions, etc. on the river bank, then Captain Mulvaney ordered the grav sleds back to Division with their Burger crews. He watched the squads inflate their boats and put them in the water. Then troopers held them by the handlines while their gear was loaded. The current would carry them along, and the eight paddles with each boat would speed them. They'd had two training sessions with rubber boats back at Camp Stenders. Not much. But the three wilderness miles before they reached Wyz Country would give them the feel of boats, paddles and river.

  The number one boat was smaller, the scout, with only five paddlers and a bow lookout. Mulvaney strode to the number two boat, where seven staff noncoms, including the medics, sat waiting with paddles. Corporal Jensen stood in water over his knees, steadying the boat. Crouching, Mulvaney boarded, settled on his seat in the bow, and looked back while his troopers boarded the other boats. Lieutenant Bremer had settled in the stern, holding the steering oar. Mulvaney raised an arm and gestured. "Let's go, men!" he called. With that, Jensen clambered aboard, took the eighth paddle, and they were on their way.

  They suspected what this night might hold for them, but they didn't dwell on it. It wasn't real to them yet.

  ***

  Isaiah Vernon's camo field was not only black at night, it also obscured his electronic image. Nonetheless, he waited quietly behind a tree trunk. They'd been told to use cover when they could.

  He didn't wait alone. The entire regimental bot platoon was there: 22 bots against a Wyzhnyny incursion thought to be of company strength. The Wyzhnyny were getting close. On Isaiah's HUD, their linear icon had almost reached his platoon icon. Even from his east-end position he couldn't see them yet, but he could hear them. He'd maxed his sonic sensitivity. They're trotting, he thought. "Lieutenant," he whispered, "this is Sergeant Vernon. I hear them now."

  Koshi answered from the other end of the ambush line. "On my command," he murmured. "Not before. Unless they see us and open fire first."

  The Wyzhnyny were skirting a tangled patch of old tornado blowdown, thick with fallen trees, brush and saplings. The platoon waited along its edge, Koshi at the west end. By the time the Wyzhnyny reached him, they should all be exposed, or almost all. There was no cleared field of fire, but by opening fire together, they should be able to take out much of the enemy force in the first seconds. Then they'd rush the rest; take them out while they were shocked and confused. Those that fled, they'd let go; even bots couldn't catch them. Let them tell what had happened to them as best they knew. See what that did for morale back in Wyz Country.

  The first Wyzhnyny who trotted into view was the point man, followed by two other scouts. The nearest passed perhaps six feet in front of Isaiah, who'd have held his breath if he'd had lungs. The rest of the Wyzhnyny followed in single file, Isaiah counting them.

  He'd gotten to 143 when Koshi said, "NOW!" Then the entire platoon opened fire with both arms-blaster and slammer. There were screams and roars as Wyzhnyny fell, kicking, thrashing, or simply dying. The first return fire was almost immediate, homing on muzzle pulses. Isaiah took a hit; his camouflage field flashing from the energy received. They'd all been shot with hard pulses before, deliberately in training, to prepare them. So he ignored it, looking for more targets. Knocked down another, and another… The Wyzhnyny didn't go prone to fire, but stayed on their feet. After a few seconds, those still standing paused to reload. Isaiah had exhausted the power slugs in his clamp-ons, and jacked in replacements.

  "TAKE THEM!" Koshi ordered, and the bots charged, juiced by an electronic analog of adrenaline. The Wyzhnyny hadn't expected this. Those who'd reloaded fired. The others ran. Two slammer pulses jarred Isaiah, his camouflage field flaring strongly, reflecting from the visor of the Wyzhnyny who'd fired. Isaiah grabbed him by the head, jerked, twisted, and threw the Wyzhnyny violently to the side, off his feet, before shooting him.

  He paused, and saw no Wyzhnyny standing. The order was to kill the conscious wounded; a safety measure that was also a merciful act, with no Wyzhnyny medics on hand. Unconscious enemy wounded were to be taken prisoner, but no one had told them how to distinguish the unconscious wounded from one playing possum. And at any rate, slammer and blaster wounds were typically fatal.

  A few minutes later, when the platoon gathered around Lieutenant Koshi, there were no prisoners. Only a Wyzhnyny body tally: 119. There'd probably be more scattered along the path to Wyz Country, dead of wounds. Courtesy of a buoy, Isaiah's HUD showed icons moving rapidly east-southeastward.

  The platoon started back to camp at an easy lope, Isaiah feeling embarrassment along with exhilaration. It had been almost too easy, killing so many with so little injury to themselves. Then he wondered if the Wyzhnyny had felt that way when they'd wiped out the local humans who'd declined evacuation. The thought didn't entirely erase his discomfort, but it allowed him to dismiss it.

  ***

  It had been Esau who'd suggested it, when Ensign Berg gave the platoon its first briefing on the mission. "We ought to paddle along close to the edge," he'd said. "Trees hang over the water there. Cover, in case some Wyz scout flies over. And generally, the outside of a meander is better than the inside. The current cuts deeper, so we can stay close to the bank, under the trees, and be harder to see. The inside of a meander is likely to be shallow, so we'd have to keep farther to the middle."

  Afterward, Ensign Berg ran it past Captain Mulvaney, who mentioned it to General Pak at a planning review. "What's the young man's name again?" the general asked.

  "Esau Wesley, sir."

  Pak remembered the name now; that was the young sergeant who'd unearthed the renegade fugitives. "Keep an eye on that young man, Captain. He sounds like promotion material: smart, and takes responsibility."

  Mulvaney had grinned. "We've made a project out of him, General, since early on. Especially his platoon sergeant."

  Back at B Company, Berg told Hawkins what Pak had said, but the sergeant didn't tell Esau. It seemed to him it might make the Jerrie self-conscious; make him try too hard. What he did tell him was that Mulvaney had told the general, giving him, Esau, the credit.

  From the time they started downstream, noise discipline wa
s absolute. The buoys had been ordered to give special attention to the Mickle's and its vicinity, but you couldn't know for sure. There was Wyzhnyny livestock here and there, and probably Wyzhnyny herdsmen, indistinguishable by buoy imagery.

  Esau's advice was heeded: They stayed mostly near the riverbank, and on the curves, favored the outside. Once Captain Mulvaney's HUD showed a Wyzhnyny floater pass over, more or less in line with the river where they were, but it didn't react.

  They moved rather briskly, without seeing or hearing anything threatening. The major moon-"Elder Hofer's Lamp"-rose at about 2330 hours, so during the last hour of their river trip, the visibility was better than earlier. That increased the tension level, but not drastically except during one interval when there was no woods along the east bank, and direct moonlight reached the water.

  For several minutes, Captain Mulvaney had been paying more attention to his HUD than to the river. The icon of his sole scout was nearing the tank park. "Almost there, men," he murmured. "Easy now. Quietly. Quietly." He rounded a bend. Ahead lay a straightaway about a hundred and fifty yards long. "It's just before the next bend," he whispered. Then added, "Kill your HUDs." The lines on the HUDs were hair-thin, but even so, they were a needless risk now.

  This was far the most dangerous stage of the operation yet. Mulvaney felt a focus and acuity of senses greater than anything he'd experienced before in his thirty-three years.

  ***

  As squad leader, Esau rode in the bow of his boat, watching the riverbanks, the woods, and the boats ahead, his senses as focused and acute as his captain's. The inside of the last bend had been on their left, the side they wanted, and they could have run right up on the mudbank there. It would have made for easier unloading. But then they'd have had to approach through the woods, and riding the current was quieter.

  He'd glimpsed one of the flak towers, its platform and cab-turret actually-not much above the treetops. He ignored it; he had more immediate things to pay attention to. On the straightaway he saw no good place to land. The east bank was a natural levee about five feet high, about the highest he'd seen. And abrupt; almost impossible to pull the boats up. This hadn't been apparent in the images from the buoys. They'd either have to leave men behind to hold the boats, or struggle them up onto the levee, making a certain amount of noise. Or let them float on unoccupied, which would leave the company stranded.

  But it didn't come to that. Just before the next curve, the high bank had been dozed-sloped and smoothed for easy access to the water. As boat by boat they reached the bend, the bow man slipped into the water close to shore, water waist to chest deep, and guided his boat to the sloped-down bank. Their gear on their backs, shoulders, and harness, the rest also slipped over the side, and transferred demolitions and other gear to shore. Then quickly but quietly they raised the boats from the water, carried them ashore, and very quietly stacked them four high. As soon as a squad had landed their boat, they moved up the bank, weapons in hand, and formed a defense line at the brow while others landed behind them.

  Captain Mulvaney had been the first. Wet to the hips, he crawled to the top of the bank, and with night vision examined the Wyzhnyny encampment. From time to time he raised his visor and used his night binoculars to pick up details. Trees obscured the view, but he saw enough to put the scene together.

  The buoys had given him the basic layout, subject to uncertainties. There were definitely no tanks on the side toward the river. They were lined up along the other three sides, well spaced, forming a box several acres in size. Inside the box lay almost everything else-mainly shedlike prefab buildings that no doubt served as battalion and company headquarters, mess halls, machine shops, and probably officers' quarters. And mounds that had to be bunkers; probably concrete, covered with earth. They couldn't be deep, Mulvaney thought, the water table couldn't be more than six feet below the surface. By each tank was a tent large enough for its crew to live in. Outside the "tank box," at least on the far side, were more tents. Probably squad tents for the battalion's infantry company or companies. Except for them and the flak towers, everything seemed to be inside the box.

  The only activity Mulvaney saw was one Wyzhnyny soldier walking to what had to be a latrine. When the Wyzhnyny opened the door, subdued light shone out until it closed again. He saw no sentry, not one, though there had to be some. Even here, miles and miles from known human forces, and no indigenous population that might snoop or steal. Inwardly Mulvaney shook his head. It was hard to conceive of a military installation with no sentries out, especially at night.

  Only after several minutes of careful scanning and listening did he give up on spotting the sentries. Keying one of his command switches, he whispered to his platoon leaders, confirming sectors and objectives, and giving orders.

  ***

  Ensign Berg had led 2nd Platoon through the woods as quietly he could, keeping well outside the three-sided tank box. He'd sent scouts ahead and off his right flank, and they'd reported two sentries. They'd reached the edge of the woods on the east side, the side farthest from the river. Now they lay in pasture grass, facing the woods, waiting for Captain Mulvaney's command.

  Not far inside the woods, but outside the tank box, two flak towers rose above the trees, marking the southeast and northeast corners. If the towers opened fire on them, the platoon's orders were to run for the woods as hard as they could, firing as they went, regardless of what awaited them there. Though hopefully the flak gunners couldn't depress their guns enough to target them. Nearby, livestock grazed, mostly "calves." Remarkably placid, they hardly reacted to the strange bipeds. The long row of squad tents-almost surely the battalion's infantry bivouac-lay just within the edge of the trees.

  The platoon lay in a line, ten or fifteen feet apart. Behind it, Elder Hofer's Lamp rode the sky. Hopefully, Esau thought, if some Wyzhnyny infantryman left his tent to take a leak, and looked to the east, his eyes would lift skyward, rather than studying the pasture.

  2nd Platoon had had the farthest to move, and it seemed to Esau that everyone else should already have been in position. But Berg had radioed their readiness three minutes earlier, and nothing had happened yet. When the captain was ready, he'd let them know. Then 2nd Platoon was to pour heavy fire into the tents, drawing Wyzhnyny attention for a critical half minute or so, hopefully starting an eastward reaction.

  Apparently things were hung up somewhere.

  Esau didn't fidget, physically or mentally. Back on Luneburger's World, he'd become good at waiting, despite his sometimes impatient disposition. Especially during the maneuvers at Camp Nafziger, he'd developed an absolute focus in ambush situations, like a tiger waiting to rush a heifer. For him, time became little more than sequence, its durations known but muted. Now his implacable gaze was on his personal sector of fire. Irrelevant thoughts did not visit his mind.

  Finally Berg whispered in their helmets. "Fire on my command. Five. Four… " From somewhere in the woods came a premature burst of blaster fire. "Fire!" Berg snapped.

  Each 2nd Platoon trooper began spraying long bursts through the tents in his sector of fire. The Wyzhnyny response was prompt, survivors spilling out, blasters in hand, running for the nearest sizeable tree. No foxholes or breastworks, Esau realized, offended by the lack. Danged Wyz took too much for granted.

  2nd Platoon's muzzle pulses and visible trajectories guided the Wyzhnyny return fire. But they weren't used to the low target profile of prone humans, and the platoon's lack of cover wasn't as costly as it might have been. The firefight settled to a more measured exchange, the Jerries firing short bursts now, rolling sideways for target disruption, seating fresh slugs as needed.

  Their job was not to suppress the Wyzhnyny infantry-they lacked the necessary firepower-but to inflict maximum casualties, while distracting it from the defense of the tanks and flak towers. Meanwhile the whole base was in uproar. Firing seemed everywhere. Magnesium charges flashed brilliantly, and armor petards roared, as 3rd Platoon's Jerries worked and fought, destr
oying and dying along the rows of tanks.

  It was Sergeant Hawkins' voice that spoke next in 2nd Platoon's helmets. "1st and 4th Squads, move into the woods and support 3rd Platoon. 2nd and 3rd Squads spread out and continue firing."

  "Let's go, 4th Squad!" Esau said, and springing to his feet, darted to his left in a series of sprints and dives, his people following. They'd already been at the south end of 2nd Platoon's skirmish line, and despite Wyzhnyny night vision, they quickly ceased drawing fire. Wyzhnyny attention seemed focused on those humans still shooting at them.

  So Esau shifted from sprint-and-dive to a crouching run, swerving more and more westward, guiding on firefights in the woods. At the same time he clicked his helmet comm to the command channel. 4th Squad was to suppress Wyzhnyny tankers protecting their vehicles from 3rd Platoon demolitionists.

  As he ran, he glanced back at his squad. Their spacing discipline was good, and remarkably, most of them seemed to be there. "Work with your fire team," he warned. "Teamwork!" Then they were in the woods. In the eruptive, roaring flashing chaos, teamwork tended to dissolve, troopers responding to the moment, firing, taking cover, throwing grenades, even bayoneting. The blaster racket was punctuated by the sharper sounds of gunfire. The Wyzhnyny tankers carried only projectile weapons-pistols and carbines. Tankers who climbed into still intact tanks, initiated their AG engines. Demolitionists darted up to tanks and clambered onto them: slammed petards against access panels, or magnesium charges into shaper muzzles or air intakes, triggered charges and time fuses, then moved on if they could.

  Esau and Jael kept aware of one another, less by conscious intent than by something deeper. Captain Mulvaney's voice spoke on the command channel. "4th Squad, 2nd Platoon, are you near the southeast tower?"