Return To Kaldak

Chapter 10

If it had been up to the company commander, Blade probably wouldn't have received credit for his heroism. Grudi had been unconscious for most of the fight, and Ezarn had a bad reputation as a brawler and a drunk. They were the only Kaldakan witnesses.

Unfortunately for the commander, Ezarn had a much better reputation among his fellow soldiers than he did among the officers. They knew that when he called a new recruit «One-Man Army Voros,» he should be listened to. So they listened, and in a day Blade's story was all over the company.

The Intelligence officers also heaped praise on Blade. Thanks to his quick work, they had several Doimari prisoners and a good description of the antennae. They were grateful and said so where higher-ranking officers than the company commander heard it.

Blade privately wished both Ezarn and the Intelligence officers would drop dead. He realized now that he'd reacted to stumbling on the Doimari as he usually did. He'd attacked, and so successfully that he'd made himself conspicuous again-the last thing he wanted to do in this Dimension!

Being an efficient and deadly fighting machine, it seemed, was a hard habit to break.

With the immediate area cleared of both Doimari and Tribesmen, a balloon train could land safely. It brought another company of the Fourth Battalion, with mortars and fresh ammunition. It took out the casualties, the Doimari prisoners, and the Intelligence officers. None of the prisoners would voluntarily answer a single question, so they were on their way to Kaldak and a session with the truth-seers.

The two companies moved toward their assigned position, leaving the mysterious crater behind before Blade could visit it in daylight. From conversations he overheard, there were other craters, but how many, how big, and where he couldn't tell. He didn't dare ask, either-that kind of curiosity was something sure to be noticed. He roundly cursed the fates again, for putting him in a situation where he had to spend so much time protecting his own secrets that he couldn't learn any of the secrets of this Dimension!

At least this was a Dimension he'd visited before, so it didn't have that many secrets. Also, the Kaldakans seemed able to take care of their enemies without needing his help. He wouldn't be hurting anything important by lurking as Private Voros until the time came for him to return Home.

As the two companies marched, scouts reported that the Tribesmen were abandoning their villages and scattering into the hills and forests. Sometimes the scouts or a sky-tug would burn a few houses in one of the abandoned villages, to keep the Tribesmen moving. Otherwise the two sides were leaving each other pretty much alone.

Blade wondered if both sides were saving their strength for a big fight? Or were the Tribesmen expecting that the Doimari would come to their rescue, or at least avenge them with the secret weapon-if there was one?

At last the two companies made contact with the main Kaldakan force. More Tribesmen had escaped than anyone liked, but some five hundred warriors were now trapped between the two Kaldakan forces. They had most of the livestock of several villages with them, so they could be a good prize. The Kaldakans got ready to round up the herds and their herdsmen.

Blade's luck was going to hold in at least one thing. The enemy were all warriors. He still wouldn't have to shoot women and children.

«Open fire!»

Six stubby-barreled mortars went off in one long rolling crash. Six ten-pound shells went soaring over the top of the ridge to the west. A minute later the distant sound of explosions echoed from the valley. A signal lamp winked from a tree on the ridge line.

«Over and to the right,» shouted the mortar commander. The mortar crews bent to make the adjustments, while the loaders stood ready with the next rounds.

Blade watched the activity with the eye of a professionally trained spectator. His platoon was assigned as security for the mortars. The nearest Tribesman was a good mile away, on the far side of the ridge and likely to stay there alive or dead. As the Fighting Machines advanced up the valley, they were supposed to drive the Tribesmen into the mortar fire.

It wasn't a bad plan, Blade knew. If it worked half as well as it was supposed to, the Tribesmen were finished, and no battle plan ever worked better than that. Now if the Tribesmen just did what they were supposed to. .

The mortars crashed again; the echoes rolled up from beyond the ridge again. So did a growing cloud of smoke. The Kaldakan mortar shells weren't the best Blade had ever seen, but any weapon is good enough if it hits you.

Then a crash of a very different kind sounded, from behind Blade. Forty soldiers whirled around like puppets jerked by their strings. Something trailing bluish smoke hissed overhead. The smoke trail ended at the base of the observer's tree. Black smoke and flying branches rose in an ugly mushroom.

Another rocket went over, bursting close beside the first. Blade saw a glimmer of green laser-light just below the rocket. So the Doimari had developed laser guidance systems for their rockets? And infiltrated a launcher team into the rear of the Kaldakans? They deserved credit for both their technology and their tactics.

Then Blade had to abandon his professional detachment. The platoon commander shouted, «Forward! Get those bastards!» then died with her mouth open as a third rocket hit the piled mortar ammunition. Fragments and whole shells flew in all directions, and one of them tore into the commander's chest. Another soldier had his head ripped off. His blood sprayed over Blade as he started to move out.

The attack got only a few steps before several lasers opened up, along with something like a grenade launcher. At least grenades which couldn't have been launched by hand were suddenly bursting among the Kaldakans.

That stopped the attack almost before it began. The platoon went to cover in the long dry grass of the meadow, moving only when grenade or laser-set fires burned too close. Some of the wounded couldn't move in time. Blade heard their desperate pleas for help, then their screams as they burned alive.

Blade ruthlessly closed his ears to the screams and watched the smoke from the fires thicken. Before long it would be thick enough to hide a moving man. Off to the left was a little ravine, running toward the enemy-held hill. Under cover of that ravine, a squad might get to within killing distance of the rocket launcher.

Blade looked at the men nearest him. Some were too stunned to move, others too badly wounded. He gritted his teeth. It looked as if he might have to do the work of a whole squad himself. He collected some extra grenades from two corpses and started crawling toward the ravine. At least this time he wouldn't have any witnesses to his work.

Halfway to the ravine the smoke started thinning.

Blade knew he'd be visible and vulnerable in another minute and gambled on speed. He leaped up and dashed for the bank of the ravine. As he reached it, the earth crumbled under his feet and dropped him ten feet to the shallow bed of a rocky stream.

Blade knew how to fall, so he wasn't hurt. Neither were his grenades. His laser rifle, however, was bent like a banana. Trying to fire it only produced a pathetic fizzing noise. Blade was annoyed with himself for being in such a hurry that he hadn't grabbed a spare rifle. Now he'd have to attack with grenades only, then pick up a rifle off a Doimari corpse. This would turn an already dangerous job into a real suicide party. However, the other choices were even worse. He could sit here until the Kaldakans won, when he would probably be court-martialed as a coward and possibly go under the truth-seer, or until the Doimari won, when they would kill or capture him.

At least he could be an anonymous hero this time. He rose to his feet, then jumped back as a large body hurtled down the side of the ravine. It trailed a cloud of dust and gravel, so Blade didn't recognize the man at once. Then the new arrival held out a laser rifle.

«Here, Voros. I brought two.»

It was Ezarn. «What are you doing here?» snapped Blade.

«Coming with you,» said Ezarn.

«You're crazy!»

«Not crazy like I'd be to lie there, let 'em chew me up. Or crazy like you going up there without no rifle.» He dropped a fresh power cell into his own rifle. «Besides, you're lucky. Some of it'll rub off on me.»

Blade wasn't so sure about that, but there was no time to argue. «All right. Follow me.»

So Blade wound up being a public hero for the third time since his return to Kaldak.

He and Ezarn went up the ravine, then crawled to within grenade-throwing distance of the Doimari without being detected. The Doimari were concentrating on doing as much damage to the apparently helpless Kaldakans below, and forgot about their flanks and rear. It was an old mistake, and just as fatal as usual when the grenades started bursting about their ears.

One of the grenades set off a rocket warhead, and it touched off several more rockets. When the smoke cleared away the rocket launcher was scrap metal and its crew mincemeat. Blade and Ezarn jumped up and waded into the survivors with their rifles, fists, and boots. Blade worked off a lot of anger and frustration on the surviving Doimari and Tribesmen.

When other Kaldakans finally joined them, twenty bodies were lying around. Another twenty Doimari and Tribesmen were running off in all directions, chased by the survivors of Blade's platoon. Blade himself was kneeling beside a badly wounded Doimari woman, apparently a technician, trying to give her first aid. She was too badly hurt to save, though, so he held her hand and pretended to be her father while she died.

Then he looked up to find the commander of the Fourth Battalion staring down at him. Blade realized he must be a fairly gruesome sight, his face black with smoke and dirt and most of his clothing soaked in blood.

«It's not my blood, sir,» he said hastily.

The commander laughed. «Good. Then you'll live to get what you deserve. A promotion to Squad Leader at least, and whatever else High Commander Sidas thinks right.»

«Sidas?» said Blade.

«That's right, you're the fellow who lost his memory.» He explained who Sidas was and how Blade was going to be sent to Kaldak to be honored by the High Commander himself. When the battalion commander finished, he looked at Blade again.

«Meeting the High Commander doesn't make you nervous, does it?»

Not usually, would have been Blade's honest answer. But when he's someone who might recognize me and expose the Dimension X secret, it's another matter.

Aloud, he said, «No sir. Or at least not more than fighting the Doimari.»