It was wood. Not synthetic building materials that were manufactured to look like wood, but real, organic wood.
“Fuck!” JJ shouted to the skies.
He threw the flaps closed and strode around the back of the truck. Jasper was folding Sergeant Go’s hands across his chest, but JJ barely noticed.
“Chairs, beds, and wood, that’s the vital war materials we hit!” he screamed.
“You thought we had war materials,” the merc asked, sounding surprised.
“You shut the fuck up!”
“JJ, Sergeant Go? What do you want, you know . . . ?” Jasper asked.
JJ looked up and was surprised to see tears forming in the older man’s eyes. That brought him around to reality. He was angry, angry that the sergeant, his sergeant was dead, angry that it was all for nothing. It wouldn’t even be worth using up his explosives to destroy the trucks. Focused anger could be useful, but more often than not, it could get someone killed. He had to control himself.
“Lieutenant, I’d like to bury him, if I can,” he said, fighting to keep his voice calm.
“Of course. I’ll help. Jasper, if you can cover our prisoner.”
“All out of ammo, Mountie. Fired it all.”
“I had you covering the first truck with no ammo?” JJ asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Didn’t look like you were going to listen. And I figured that if someone came out, I could bluff him.”
JJ looked at the militiaman incredulously for a moment when his emotions collapsed and he broke out laughing. He brayed like a donkey before they turned more into sobs than anything else for a moment, then back to laughs.
“You’re OK, Jasper, you’re fucking OK,” he said as he regained his composure. “Here, take my Prokov, and if the bastard so much as flinches, blast him. If that’s OK, Lieutenant.”
JJ stripped Sergeant Go of his gear, handing his M90 to Jasper and taking back his Prokov. He flipped the safety on and off in demonstration, but that was it. At this range, the M90 was pretty foolproof. JJ consolidated the sergeant’s engineer kit with his and contemplated taking his armor to replace his own mess of armor. But the sergeant had 30 kilos on him, and there was no way it would fit.
Attached to the side of the truck was a shovel, so he took that and quickly dug a shallow hole. The lieutenant offered to help, but he wanted to do it himself. When it was a meter deep, he and Lieutenant Klocek pulled the sergeant’s body into it, and JJ covered him with the loose dirt. It was not intended to be a permanent resting place for him, but rather a temporary shelter until the fight on the planet was over or a truce called and he could be recovered.
“Hey, merc! You got coordinates on this spot?”
“Yes. On the dash console,” he said, his voice tense.
JJ climbed into the cab, located the nav console, and recorded the coordinates. He could have flashed his combat PA to get them, but he didn’t know if that would be enough for the mercs doing surveillance to get a bead on them.
Suddenly, exhaustion hit him, and hit him hard. Along with the others, he’d been pushing himself, but he knew this was more emotional than anything else. Regardless, he needed to sit down. He collapsed against the left front wheel of the truck and took a long swig of water. He knew he should eat, too, but he doubted he could keep anything down.
Neither the lieutenant nor Jasper had camelbacks—the lieutenant had a thigh pouch, and Jasper had an old canteen and a Cleanstraw. Jasper had pulled down a can of water from the trucks side to replenish their limited carrying capacity. JJ wondered if he should have pulled Sergeant Go’s camelback, but it was intertwined in the armor, and trying to extract it would probably create more problems than it fixed. It might be worth a try, though. He looked over to the shallow grave where the sergeant rested, wondering if he should attempt to recover it.
What a waste, he thought as his anger rekindled. He was twice the Marine of anyone else. Killed to line some corporate CEO’s pocket.
The more he thought about it, the angrier JJ became. It was one thing to fight for your home or to protect others. Fighting for financial gain seemed perverted to him. He couldn’t understand how anyone could do that, yet right there, just five meters away, was someone who had made that very choice.
JJ sat staring at the merc for a few moments before he stood up, strode over to the man, and kicked his feet.
“How the hell can you live with yourself?” he shouted, scorn dripping from his words.
The merc tried to scramble back, but with his hands secured behind him, he wasn’t making much headway. He looked up at JJ, eyes wide-open in fear.
“Hey, it’s war. I was just doing my job!” he protested.
“That’s just it. ‘Job.’ You’re fighting to get paid, pure and simple!”
The merc stopped trying to scoot away, his brows furrowed as he took JJ’s words in.
“I . . . I don’t understand,” he said, looking to Mountie as if seeking help.
“It’s simple. You’re a fucking merc, a mercenary. You take money to fight.”
“I what? I take money? But you get paid, too,” he said.
“I’m fighting for the Marines. For the Federation. I get paid, but I’m fighting for the right.”
The merc shook his head, then said, “And I’m not?”
“Of course, you’re not. You’re taking money from the corporations to fight the Federation.”
“I . . . I don’t know where to start, Lance Corporal . . .”
“Lance Corporal Portillo, United Federation Marines. And that was Sergeant Gary Go you killed.”
“And you killed how many of my team?” the merc answered with a flash of disdain. “That’s what happens in war. It’s shitty, but that’s what it is.
“But to your point, Lance Corporal Portillo, I don’t know if you really believe the hogwash that the Federation vomits up, but it’s you Feddies that are in the wrong here.”
“Bullshit! Lieutenant, are you hearing this?” JJ asked, turning to Mountie.
Mountie shrugged.
“How the hell can you say we’re in the wrong?”
“Because you levy taxes on the new worlds without giving anything back? How about that?”
“Taxes, we all pay taxes. And if you’re talking about the Far Reaches, well, the Navy found those worlds, and how else do we pay to terraform them?”
The merc sat up straighter, then leaned forward.
“The Federation doesn’t pay for that. It’s the corporations who foot the bill, them and pioneer groups.”
That didn’t seem right to JJ. He looked to Mountie, but the lieutenant wasn’t objecting to the merc’s statement.
“Your precious Federation graciously accepts a trillion-credit charter fee for each planet—yes, I said trillion—then levies a 22% administration fee, based on GPP, for 20 years in exchange for the privilege of simply existing.”
“It costs a lot to run the Federation. You think all of that is free?” JJ asked, unwilling to concede the point.
“No, your Navy is not free. But what does the Navy do for us?”
“It protects you!”
“From what?”
“How about pirates?”
The merc huffed and said, “Pirates? Do they really cost us that much?”
“Pretty close,” Mountie said, finally breaking his silence.
The merc rolled his eyes.
“OK, pirates can be a problem for some of the corporations, but not everyone. Not for Fastblend.”
“Where?”
“Fastblend. My home. We’ve been chartered for 11 years now, and you Feddies bleed us dry.”
“Isn’t that a PEG planet?” Mountie asked.
“PEG is on the planet, but we don’t belong to them. We’re pioneers from Avery’s World.”
“And did Avery’s World pay for the terraforming?” Mountie asked.
“Well, no. We asked PEG to help out.”
“And they did this out of the goodness of their hear
ts?”
“No, of course not,” the merc conceded.
“How much?” Mountie asked.
“35% of GPP for 45 years,” the merc said, much subdued.
“Ha! More than the Federation! And for longer!” JJ crowed.
“But that was our choice, and they did the terraforming. You Feddies just stepped in to demand your cut after doing nothing.”
“And that justifies you invading a Federation planet?” JJ asked.
“You’re freezing accounts, you’ve landed Marines and FCDC troops on our planets, so we had to open up another front to relieve the pressure,” the merc said, sounding to JJ like he was spouting an existing party line.
“Fuck your sanctimonious bullshit. You have to destroy villages to ‘relieve pressure?’
“Jasper, what’s the name of your village again?”
“Donkerboek.”
“Yeah, Donkerbroek,” JJ said, stumbling a little over the name. “Gone, destroyed. All the women and children disappeared.”
“I didn’t destroy any village,” the merc said, fear appearing back in his eyes. “I didn’t kill any women and children.”
“So, who did? The Star Fairies?”
“I don’t know. But the Willamette Brigade, we don’t do anything like that. We follow the Harbin Accords—just like you’re supposed to.”
“How can you follow something you haven’t even signed? You’re rebels!”
“Doesn’t matter, we follow it. We don’t kill non-combatants.”
JJ had seen what was left of Jasper’s village. Someone sure had flattened it, and it sure as hell wasn’t the Marines. That left only one other force.
“Uh, Mountie. I may not be a professional soldier, but I’m thinking that we might want to move on. Maybe this merc’s friends are going to come around to see what just happened,” Jasper said.
“Hoowah! You’re right,” Mountie said. “We need to move out.”
“What about him, sir?” JJ asked, pointing at the merc who went completely still.
JJ knew the rules of the Harbin Accords, and he knew you couldn’t execute a uniformed prisoner. But he was angry, angrier than he thought possible, and if the lieutenant ordered him to do so, he’d put a .30 cal slug from his Prokov right through the traitor’s forehead.
Mountie hesitated as he thought it over, then stood up and walked to where Jasper had placed the merc’s gear. He rifled through the pouches, took out the magazines, and pocketed them. He picked up the merc’s Gescard and held it out to the other two. JJ shook his head, but Jasper reached out and took it, slinging it on his back, but keeping Sergeant Go’s M90 at the ready.
“We leave him. Ziptie his legs and put his canteen beside him with the nipple extended. Someone will find him, even if it takes a few days.”
The merc seemed about to say something; then discretion probably took over and he remained silent.
JJ didn’t know how he felt about the lieutenant’s decision. This was the man who had killed his sergeant. Killing him wouldn’t bring the sergeant back, but it would fill at least part of the human need for revenge. On the other hand, he wasn’t sure if he could kill a man in cold blood like that. And with the lieutenant’s decision, JJ was not going to be a war criminal.
JJ got out another ziptie and bound the merc’s feet. He pulled out the nipple of the man’s canteen, then placed it next to him, but just out of reach. Call it petty, but he’d make the man squirm a little if he wanted to drink.
The lieutenant scribbled something on a piece of contact plastisheet with his fingertip, then dropped in on the merc’s lap.
“What’s that, sir?” JJ asked, puzzled.
“A receipt. I’ve got one energy bar left, so I’ve just sent Jasper to take some of the rations from the second truck.”
JJ looked at the lieutenant in amazement.
He’s leaving a freaking receipt?
“Food and water are Cat 1 supplies,” the lieutenant said when he saw JJ’s expression.
The Harbin Accords didn’t just cover treatment of prisoners. It was intended to be as extensive a set of “rules of war” as possible. JJ had forgotten from bootcamp training that Cat 1 supplies couldn’t be confiscated from prisoners. As a peacetime Marine, there had never been a need to remember that. It still seemed stupid, rules or not. The truck looked full of food rats, and there was only one prisoner, someone who they would be abandoning.
Still, regs were regs, and JJ thought officers could be rather anal about them sometimes.
“Roger, that, sir. Got it.”
JJ checked the merc one more time, pulling on the zipties. He avoided looking at the mound that marked Sergeant Go’s grave.
“OK, let’s move out,” the lieutenant said when Jasper returned, arms loaded with half-a-dozen ration packs.
He pointed to the west. They’d been heading north when they’d spotted the trucks, but if the merc was going to be left alive, a bit of misdirection was in order.
“I didn’t kill any women or children,” the merc said in a low voice as JJ moved to take point. “I swear I didn’t.”
JJ didn’t know whether to believe the man or not. In the long run, it probably mattered, but in the short term, the three of them had to get to friendly forces. With his thumb on his M90’s safety, he stepped off into the woods.
Chapter 18
Jasper
The smell reached out to the three as they wended their way through the trees. JJ was still on point, and his body was tense as he carefully pushed forward. Jasper followed, the smell of smoke and explosives tearing him back to Koltan’s Hill four days ago. He was almost overwhelmed as the sounds, heat, and smells of that fight washed over him. He faltered and had to put a hand up on a tree trunk to keep from falling.
“You OK, Jasper?” Mountie whispered from behind him.
Get it together, old man, he told himself.
“Aye-yah, I’m fine,” he said, taking a deep breath and trying to clear his mind.
JJ suddenly stopped, holding up a fist, the signal to freeze. Jasper put his thumb on the safety of Sergeant Go’s M90, outwardly ready for anything, but his thoughts darting around his skull like a songbird in a cage. He didn’t know what was ahead of them, but his imagination was running wild. Surely it couldn’t be that bad.
In a way, he was right. It wasn’t that bad—it was worse.
JJ turned to look past Jasper and whispered to Mountie, “We’ve got a house up there, or what used to be a house.”
“Anyone alive?” Mountie asked.
“I see a body, but nothing else. Local, not merc.”
“We’ve got to check for survivors,” Mountie said. “Move forward, but high alert.”
JJ nodded, and step after slow step, advanced. Jasper followed, and as he passed a copse of laurel, got his first view of the small settlement. There had been four buildings in the farm, three of which were now piles of debris, tendrils of smoke rising from hotspots. The layout made it clear—this was a typical independent farm, straight from the Wal-Lotte catalog. Not all agriculture on Nieuwe Utrecht was tubes and hydroponic shelves. There were more than a few dirt farmers growing a wide variety of crops for both local consumption and export. The “farm-in-a-box,” between its price and the attractive financing options, was one of the cheapest ways for a free citizen to start a farm. With the local government giving 20-hectare freehold claims to anyone who would establish a farm, thousands of immigrants to the planet had done just that.
And the man who’d done that was lying face-first between the barn and chemical shed—which was the only one of the four buildings left undamaged. His attempt at making a place for himself on the planet had been cut short. As Jasper followed JJ out of the embracing cover of the trees and into the compound, he couldn’t help staring at the man. He knew he should be watching for mercs, but his eyes were locked on the body. JJ knelt, touched the man’s neck, and shook his head.
The man looked young, maybe 25 years old or so. He had on work boots
and tan yodzhis, another Wall-Lotte staple. His shirt was a simply black denim, but with white and red embroidered flowers covering the back.
Jasper almost threw up when he realized they were not white and red flowers; the red was from the young man’s blood. Several rents showed where rounds had passed completely through his chest and out his back.
Still grasped in his right hand was a long-handled shovel. Jasper could picture the man, shovel raised, trying to protect his farm, and being cut down for his impertinence.
“You should have just let them go,” Jasper whispered. “Your buildings, your crops, they weren’t worth your life.”
Out past the small farmhouse, the bulk of the farmers 20 hectares was planted with what looked to be various vegetables, only now breaking through the soil. The farmer would never see those come to full growth and yield their bounty.
“Lieutenant, come here!” JJ shouted from where he’d walked around the demolished farmhouse.
Jasper hurried over, and when he saw what JJ was standing over, recoiled back.
Because of his young age, Jasper had assumed that the farmer was single. Most young immigrants were, and they only married when they had enough credit to support a family. This young man was an exception.
Four bodies were laid out in a row beside the house, all face down. One was an adult woman, her checked dress torn and bloody. One arm was over the back of an infant. The top of the baby’s head was a bloody mess. Next to the baby were the small figures of two children. The first was a boy, possibly five years old. He had on a miniature version of his dad’s yodzhis, the tan color stained with soot and blood. His black denim shirt might have had embroidery as well, but Jasper couldn’t see for sure. The last body was a burnt corpse, withered, blackened arms reaching up as if beseeching for a savior. Jasper couldn’t tell if it was male or female.
Jasper immediately fell to his knees and vomited up the Tenner rations he’d eaten two hours ago. His throat burned with gastric juices as he heaved, his body spasming. Images of his granddaughter, Amee, reaching out to him for help while a merc shot her in the head invaded his thoughts.
Behind Enemy Lines: A United Federation Marine Corps Novel Page 13
