Soldiers

by John Dalmas

  It was morning when Esau awoke, with a bad headache, and found himself on a folding cot with mattress. A mosquito bar was draped over it. Getting up he went outside, barefoot and in a hospital nightshirt, to find and use the latrine. He'd just settled down when another B Company trooper sat down next to him, a sergeant named Ferris, from 3rd Platoon. He had an arm in a sling.

  "Morning, Esau," Ferris said. "What happened to your head? Jael hit you with a skillet?"

  Esau might have scowled, but didn't. "Jael's in the bot shop," he said. "From the Pecan Orchard Raid. The Wyzhnyny killed her body; she took a blaster pulse in the guts."

  "Oh… Gentle Jesus, Esau, I'm surely sorry. I shouldn't have said that. War's no good place for jokes I guess. I was just wondering about your head being all bandaged up."

  Esau nodded. Carefully. "The doctor says I took a fragment through my helmet, and it cut a groove across my skull. And scalps bleed pretty good; it looked worse than it was. I'll be back with the platoon in a day or two, if there's any of it left. We jumped the Wyzhnyny fire base that was shelling headquarters base. I don't know how it finally worked out."

  Before they left the latrine, Ferris told Esau there wasn't a whole lot left of the rest of B Company. They'd been in the breastworks, fighting all of yesterday and the night before, and even before that. The good part was, most of the casualties were wounded or bot cases. A lot of the fighting had been with grenades and mortars. People got hit with fragments, or lost arms or legs or hands. Or got burned; the Wyzhnyny'd used flamethrowers.

  Then in early evening, the Wyz had pulled back. Division figured that meant a heavy Wyzhnyny barrage, so Colonel Leclerc pulled 2nd Regiment back, too. Then, with dusk thickening, the shells started roaring in. Sounded terrible, even from a ways off, and chewed up the forest pretty badly, but didn't really harm the abatises that much. Even most of the breastworks more or less survived.

  The shelling stopped just when it had started creeping westward. The rumor was a bunch of Indi tanks had hit the artillery base and shot it up pretty bad. Leclerc had sent 2nd Regiment back in, but the Wyz didn't come back. "What happened to me is," Ferris added wryly, "a broken limb fell out of a shot-up tree. Broke my collarbone. Heh heh heh. A tree taking revenge! I guess trees don't distinguish people from Wyzhnyny."

  Esau nodded without smiling. It seemed like in war, there were all sorts of ways to get hurt or killed.

  He wiped his butt and left. He felt hungry, a sign, he guessed, that he was getting back toward normal. When he got back to the tent, a clean uniform lay folded on the cot. He put it on; it didn't fit too badly.

  At noon, the mess line buzzed with stories and rumors. A guy from Dreiser's Platoon, Mellon, was there with a bandaged face. He'd lost an ear to a grenade fragment, and another had gashed his cheek and jaw to the bone. Best he could do was mumble; Esau had to concentrate to understand him. Mellon had gotten out later than he had, when two more medivacs arrived at the fire base. One left loaded. The other left only partly loaded; it had gotten too dangerous to stay. A lot of Wyzhnyny reds had arrived in APCs-a battalion, he'd heard-and attacked what was left of Airborne A and the demolitions company. Then a dozen Indi tanks had arrived and pounded the Wyzhnyny. Right after that, an Indi air squadron had swooped in and shot them up some more, but by then, Airborne A and Demolitions were pretty much used up. When the medivacs went back again for casualties, about all they found were dead.

  But the Artillery Base Raid wasn't the major topic. Mostly Esau heard about the fighting in the forest. That's where most of the casualties came from. It sounded pretty bad.

  After lunch, Esau went back to his tent and lay down, but before he could get to sleep, a doctor came in, looking worn out. He told Esau he'd have to stay a few more days. Esau was glad to hear it. He felt used up.

  Esau told him about Jael. The doctor gave him a note, saying he could go to the "Cyborg Processing Center" to see his wife, if she was allowed to have visitors. So after the doctor left, Esau did too.

  He had no idea what to expect. The bot shop turned out to be somewhat like the hospital but smaller-a long low prefab building with several similar buildings attached along the sides like hover-fly wings. It was as clean as you could hope for; smelled like turpentine. Terrans in white coats moved through the halls, and went in and out of rooms.

  He was directed to a desk, where he showed his note to a woman and said he'd like to visit his wife, Jael Wesley. Another woman, taller than he was, took him down a hall to one of the wings, to a room, and went inside with him.

  On a cart was a sort of cylinder, maybe two and a half feet long, and eight inches across except at one end where it was bigger. There were wires and tubes and dials, with a couple of boxes attached. His heart sank.

  "Jael," the woman said, "Esau is here to see you."

  "Hello, Esau. I knew you'd come see me if you could. What happened to your head?"

  The words came from one of the boxes. Esau's eyes welled up and ran over till they dripped on his clean shirt. It was almost like that night in the woods-the night he'd come back from the Pecan Orchard Raid-except this time he didn't sob, just moaned. Because the voice wasn't Jael's. The plastic cylinder wasn't Jael. Jael was dead, and he hadn't let her finish dying. "I'm sorry," he choked out. "I'm sorry. I just didn't want you to be dead."

  "Oh, Esau, don't be sorry. I'm not." If the voice wasn't hers, the tone was. It reminded him of when she felt fond and loving. "And I'll have my new body pretty soon. Sergeant Boucher took me to see it. You'll be impressed."

  He pulled himself together. "I… will." It began as a question and ended as affirmation. "Yes, I surely will… That is you in there, isn't it. The voice isn't yours, but it's you. I recognize… I recognize the soul."

  Jael laughed quietly. It didn't exactly sound like a laugh, but he knew that's what it was. "That's right," she said, "when they take out the CNS, the soul comes with it. And the voice will come along. It takes practice, and I only just started day before yesterday. I didn't realize how poorly I'd laugh though. I hadn't tried it till just now."

  It was only then he realized: she'd asked about his bandages. She could see as well as hear. The nurse said they had ten minutes, then left them alone. It turned out to be more like fifteen, and they got quite a bit of talking done. The best was Jael told him she'd rather be a bot than an invalid. "As for a bot agreement bringing bad luck," she finished, "I didn't sign one, and look what happened anyway."

  Then the nurse returned and shooed Esau out. He found a place in the woods where he could sit alone and think, and weep some more, and talk to himself. Till after a while he felt pretty good. He even laughed at his own joke: grubbing stumps would be a lot easier, with a wife that was a warbot.

  Not that he expected to farm after all this. Not really. He could, but he didn't expect to, even if they lived through this war. But there'd be something to do.

  ***

  That wasn't the end of Esau's day. He'd gone to the hospital to check on Ensign Hawkins, who turned out to be asleep, sedated, with his broken leg hoisted up. The nurse said he'd been in pretty bad shape from prolonged, untreated shock. But he'd heal all right. It would just take a while.

  "How long?" Esau asked.

  "His bones should heal fast. He should be ready for rehab in six weeks."

  Six weeks! Esau left depressed. He didn't feel up to being platoon leader himself. During raids maybe, but not in the day-to-day activities between times. Or defensive fighting in foxholes, as in the first days, or in the breastworks he'd heard about that morning… He felt sure he didn't know enough to be platoon leader in those circumstances. He hadn't been platoon sergeant long enough. He'd make mistakes.

  After supper, Isaiah Vernon looked him up. Isaiah was a staff sergeant now, too. When the bot cases from the Battle of the First Days finished their familiarization training, he'd been given a whole platoon of them, as their sergeant. He'd just hitched a ride north to see a couple of them, in the bot shop for repairs. An enti
re long company of bots had been in a firefight the evening before-been put down near a Wyzhnyny field headquarters, moved in on it, and pretty much wiped it out. Then they'd made a fighting withdrawal, and been picked up by APFs that came down on a bald ridgetop.

  "And while I was up here," Isaiah said, "I decided to see who was here from 2nd Platoon."

  "Did you see Jael?"

  "Jael? The hospital called up the names of B Company wounded on their records, and hers wasn't one of them."

  "She's in the bot shop," Esau said, wishing a bot face showed expression.

  "The bot shop? So she finally decided to sign."

  "She didn't. She was unconscious, and I lied to the medic, so he shot her up with Stasis One. Afterward I was afraid she'd be really mad at me, but it turned out she's not."

  Isaiah chuckled. He does that pretty well, Esau thought, and his voice sounds like himself. He guessed Jael's would too, with practice. It occurred to him how much Isaiah had changed personally; more than his body had got stronger. He wondered how different Jael would be, besides having a bot body. He'd just have to wait and see. And get used to it, he told himself.

  Then he realized he still hadn't signed his own bot agreement, so when Isaiah left, Esau went to the hospital and signed one. They stamped out new dog tags for him on the spot, to verify it. Now, he thought, if I get hit bad enough, we can be bots together, her and me.

  Chapter 57

  The Battle of Shakti

  Admiral Alvaro Soong's 1st Sol Provisional Battle Force had traveled three nonstop months in hyperspace to rendezvous with newly commissioned battle groups in the Dinebikeyah System. The result was a fleet with more than four times the number of manned ships that had fought at Paraiso. The new ships came not only from the Sol System, but from new shipyards in the Indi and Eridani Systems, with colonial crews. So it was renamed the "1st Commonwealth Fleet."

  The number of maces, whose performance had been so impressive at Paraiso, was also more than quadrupled. They were quicker and easier to build than manned ships, and being drones, their destruction didn't cost trained crews.

  And most of the new ships, manned or drones, had the improved shield generators.

  Spanish Soong remained in command. To War House and the public, he was a hero second only to Charley Gordon. Before there was any fleet at all, he'd been judged the best qualified for command, based on temperament, gaming skills, and overall service record. And so far he'd disappointed no one.

  While en route to the rendezvous, Soong, via Charley, had been updated on the new fleet units by Admiralty Chief Fedor Tischendorf himself. "And Alvaro," Tischendorf finished, "Axel Tisza is delivering the convoy from the Sol System. He's also commanding one of the new battle groups."

  He paused meaningfully. "I've had him in mind as your command backup when he gets there, but I haven't told him yet. I know you two have had-a mixed relationship, so I wanted to run it by you first. What do you think of the idea?"

  Think? Or feel? "Admiral, Ax is as able as anyone you could find for the job. Powerful mind. Quick. Aggressive. And basically we saw eye to eye for the most part, different though we are. As midshipmen we roomed together for four years and never came to blows. Loaned each other money on occasion, drank each other's scotch when one of us could afford it. And on pass in the Springs, we backed each other up in more than one scrap."

  Yes, Tischendorf thought, and you were rivals in almost everything, from the saber team to the classroom. And over Carmen Apraxin, when she came along; that's what spoiled it. "I didn't bring this up idly," he said. "You two were the chief candidates for command of the Provos, and the difference in your grades and gaming scores was thin. But in your favor. And you had the best command temperament: more objective, and I've never known you to be abrasive."

  Soong examined the words and found them true. "Not that gaming scores are so important with Charley Gordon available," he found himself saying.

  "True. And there's another point in your favor. You discovered Charley's talent, and had the balls to stick your neck out and make him battle master. I doubt that Ax would have done either of them. I'm not at all sure I would have."

  ***

  With the specifications in hand on the fleet additions, Charley Gordon plunged into reworking his strategies, tactics, protocols, and fleet organization. At the same time considering possible changes in Wyzhnyny strategy and tactics. Charley claimed to have a good, if imperfect, sense of what those changes would be.

  Soong felt uncomfortable with some of Charley's adjustments; they seemed too daring. Nonetheless he accepted Charley's new system in toto, showing no misgivings.

  He'd always been stoic-his aunts and older cousins had commented on it-and rarely did that stoicism take the form of grim resignation. But now the situation was more urgent than at Paraiso. He'd also be risking much greater resources, and he needed to do even better than before. Because the Wyzhnyny were getting closer, and time-the Commonwealth's most critical resource-was shrinking.

  ***

  At the rendezvous, Charley's new battlecomp package was uploaded to the entire fleet. The battle groups remained the basic tactical units, but in the enlarged fleet, a new hierarchical level was added-the battle wing-to facilitate heavier concentrations of firepower. Instead of five battle groups, there were now four battle wings of five groups each, and part of a fifth. When Vice Admiral Carmen Apraxin-DaCosta's Liberation Task Force arrived, it would complete the fifth wing, with Apraxin in command. She'd bring two savants with her, one to be transferred to Soong on board the Altai, freeing Charley Gordon to function solely as battle master.

  The maces were not organized into wings and groups. They would operate as coordinated triads, grouped into second-order triads-threes of threes. So far as Soong was aware, the concept was entirely new, and the enthusiastic Charley had big plans for them.

  Large and technically upgraded though it was, Soong's fleet was still far smaller than the Wyzhnyny battle fleet, which seemed to constitute about half the armada. But if Charley's assumptions didn't backfire, it seemed realistic to Soong that he could strike, maintain contact long enough to do serious damage, and get away without critical injury.

  And possibly, hopefully, slow the invader; make him wary. Buy time to build enough more ships… and come up with new, hopefully decisive weapons.

  ***

  Three days after Soong's Provos had gathered with the reinforcements from the Core Worlds, Apraxin's New Jerusalem Liberation Force arrived, to begin at once the task of resupply and external maintenance. On the "evening" of the same day, immediately after supper, electronic bosuns' pipes shrilled aboard every manned vessel in the entire fleet, and shipsvoice ordered all hands to mustering stations in ten minutes. This was followed as before by the skirls of "Dilly Doo" and other Scottish martial music.

  As at Paraiso, it was the admiral who spoke first. His real pep talk would come weeks in the future, not long before battle. But meanwhile, before the weeks of simdrills in hyperspace, a few words from the Old Man should help prepare them-provide context and perspective-and a sense of team, of family.

  And the new people needed to meet Charley.

  "… We are now the 1st Commonwealth Fleet," Soong said. "Commos for short. With the arrival of you newcomers, we are a much more powerful fleet than when we bushwhacked the Wyzhnyny at Paraiso. A fleet with a toughness and assurance derived from a core of units with successful battle experience. And a fleet with the best battle master in the galaxy-Charley Gordon.

  "You old hands know Charley's work. You know I don't exaggerate the advantages he gives us. When I've finished my own short spiel, Charley will speak to you himself. And during the next day or two you'll witness his ability personally, on cubes of the Battle of Paraiso.

  "Still, some of you may remain skeptical. Few of you war-gamed till you entered the service, and you may not yet appreciate what Charley does, or what it takes. But we'll all be simdrilling his updated battlecomp programs all the way to Sh
akti. Perhaps even to Ivar Aasen. And if you're not convinced by then, you will be when you've experienced the cauldron."

  He paused. "For those who don't know, a cauldron is a large iron kettle used in ancient times to boil things. You won't be in the cauldron; that's reserved for the Wyzhnyny. Your job will be to help stoke the fire without falling in it."

  Another pause. "Meanwhile, we all have things to do before we generate hyperspace again, so I'll let you hear Charley Gordon now. Welcome to the family."

  Charley gave basically the same introductory talk he'd given in the Paraiso System, though he used a new example. It had much the same effect on the newcomers.

  ***

  Minutes later, on a secure channel, Soong accepted a call from Vice Admiral Carmen Apraxin-DaCosta. "Hello, Admiral," he said. Presumably his wariness didn't show on the screen, but it seemed to him she'd know. "What can I do for you?"

  "Not a thing, Admiral. May I call you Alvaro?"

  "You may call me Al if you'd like." She still looked great. No longer young-forty-two? forty-four?-but great. She made him conscious of his thickened waist. She probably still practiced aikido.

  Her laugh was not as light as it had been, but it seemed genuine. "I'll settle for Alvaro," she told him. "You're my commander now, and two grades above me. Is Charley Gordon as good as he sounds?"

  "Every bit as good."

  "I didn't know savants could be so… intelligent, in the usual sense. Or is articulate the word?"

  "I don't know if `the usual sense' applies to Charley. He's… superman in a box. But easy to work with. Likeable."

  "Hmm. Maybe I'll have a chance to talk with him sometime."