Soldiers

Chapter 52

Afterward

Seven large APFs had landed in the Wyzhnyny pasture, only twenty to fifty yards from the cutbank-an APF for each platoon, and two medivac versions for casualties. The unwounded had already pretty much sorted themselves by squads and platoons-their "families and extended families." Crew chiefs called out the names of the platoons they'd come for, and the surviving officers and senior sergeants began loading their people, recording who was there.

Blood had darkened Jael's right sleeve when Sergeant Hawkins stopped her. "You're hurt," he said. "Go get on a medivac."

"Yessir," she answered. As she left, Esau started after her, but Hawkins put a restraining hand on his arm. "The medivacs are just for the wounded," he said. "You'll go back with us."

Jael called back without stopping. "Show him your hands, Esau."

Esau held them out; Hawkins looked. "Go with her," he ordered. "Yessir," Esau said, and left, moving sluggishly, the adrenaline worn off.

Hawkins continued loading what remained of his platoon. Jerries! he thought. They're not used to having medical treatment available. They don't expect it, don't seek it. Add that to the warrior trait of ignoring illness and pain, and you get people like those two.

He'd long ago decided that Jael was as much a warrior as Esau, simply less aggressive.

The platoon APFs were ready, but the two medivac APFs were still being loaded. They'd leave together as a convoy, escorted by fighters waiting protectively overhead.

Jael and Esau were examined briefly, injected with painkiller, directed to seats, and strapped in. Except for painkiller, only Jael received treatment. A medic had cut off her right sleeve at the shoulder seam, exposing a ragged laceration of the right deltoid, apparently by a rocket fragment. She'd felt it when it hit, but they'd been busy launching boats. The medic cleaned her wound, then bandaged it. It was hard to tell how much blood she'd lost. A significant amount, he decided, but not dangerous. The water had been deep at the cutbank, and most of the blood had washed away in the current.

Esau's hands were ignored. They threatened no blood loss, and the medics gave priority to cases that might be serious. Most were. There'd been screams when casualties were manhandled off the boats and up the steep bank, but aboard the medivac, the sounds were muted groans, mutterings, and occasional cries.

A warning sounded, and the medics grabbed stanchions while the medivac first lifted, then accelerated. Then they continued treating wounded. Plasma injections were begun. Stasis 1 was injected where the wounds seemed mortal, and the dog tags had been stamped to indicate a bot agreement. Or where there was no stamp, but death was imminent, or limbs were ruined beyond repair. It wasn't all according to regs, but the surgeons could decide what to follow up on.

Tom Clark, one of 4th Squad's replacements, was aboard with a bullet wound through the belly. He'd been doped for the pain, but not too doped to accost a medic. "How about some of that stuff you give the bot cases?" he said. He fumbled for his dog tags. "I signed the agreement."

"Sorry, soldier," the Terran medic said, "but you're going to live and be good as new in the body you've got."

"Don't matter. With so many worlds to run the Wyzhnyny off, this war's going to last a long time. So I'm bound to get killed sooner or later. I might better get my iron suit now. The more bots we have, the sooner we'll get it over with. And that way, who knows: I just might come through it all alive." His chuckle was a weak, dry sound. "Spend my old age rusting in the sun."

"Take it up with the doc," the medic told him, then patted his shoulder and went on.

Esau had watched, listening. The painkiller had taken hold; things seemed a bit remote and disjointed. But one thing was clear: there was a lot of hurting going on. All of it because some Wyzhnyny decided to take away other folks' worlds. He'd known that much all along. He just hadn't realized everything that went with it.

Speaker Farnham had it right, he thought, or the book did. A lot of the time Esau hadn't been sure when a speaker was speaking his own words, and when they were the Lord's, or some prophet's, or Elder Hofer's. But what it amounted to was, when we have a task, we need to carry it through the best we can, and trust in the Lord. And it seemed to Esau that was the situation the army was in.

Shortly he felt the medivac settling downward. A minute later they were on the ground, and the rear doors opened. More medics came aboard, and within a few minutes, all the wounded had been unloaded. Esau and Jael were among the last-the least wounded-and walked to reception.

Brigadier Consuela Hagopian clicked her video control, and the wall screen went blank. Despite her salt-and-pepper hair and the lines in her face, to Chang Lung-Chi she looked more than smart and confident. She looked combat-trained and fit.

"As you see," she said, "it was an informative night. We are very pleased with the performance of our Jerrie troops, their auxiliaries, corps command… all of them. Less happily, we're also impressed with the toughness of the Wyzhnyny troops. But General Pak suspects our experience has been very largely with the Wyzhnyny main force, their regulars, and he's probably right. I hope so, because they have lots of soldiers. Most of them second string, we think. Call them reserves. We suspect their entire adult population is armed and trained."

What she says matches what Olausson says, Chang thought. And Kulikov had spoken well of her. But what impressed Chang as much as anything was the way she pointed out errors and uncertainties without being slippery.

"After the Battle of the First Days," she went on, "both sides have used their armor and air squadrons cautiously. We seem to have an advantage in the air, so we've been a little bolder with our air units. The Wyzhnyny have been bolder with their tanks, but with the destruction of the battalion in the tank park, that may change.

"Meanwhile they have a large advantage in troop numbers. And a lot of artillery, while we… had to make difficult resource decisions in preparing for the ground war. And decided to rely on airpower as our main bombardment force. We intended our initial softening-up phase to largely destroy the Wyzhnyny armor and air units, but we'd overlooked something. Our principal colonized region on New Jerusalem, now the Wyzhnyny colonized region, has areas of karst terrain. With caves-something we'd overlooked. Wyzhnyny command was foresighted; they modified some of them to shelter armor and air squadrons, and for backup base installations."

She gestured a shrug, a graceful movement. "One might wonder that they felt the need to, but unfortunately they did."

"So," said Foster Peixoto, "what is the upshot of all this?"

"I'm getting to that, sir. But first I want to point out our advantages there. Our surveillance buoys above all-no pun intended. And our concealment screen seems to be quite effective against Wyzhnyny aerial observation. Thus we know a lot about what they're doing, and they know rather less about what we're doing. In fact, in our own domain, our troops have the forest to cover their movements, while Wyzhnyny aerial reconnaissance is harassed, hurried, and costly.

"The Wyzhnyny have penetrated our concealment area with what appear to have been two-man ground recon teams, that in the forest tend to be missed by our buoys. But that hasn't seriously compromised our concealment.

"Another long-term Wyzhnyny disadvantage is supplies. They've been depending on supplies they brought with them, of course, and seemingly had been using the supply ships for storage. Though we don't know how much they may have transferred into cave storage. The two supply ships we caught on or near the ground, we destroyed. Others escaped into warpspace."

"Are you suggesting we can starve them out?"

"I doubt it will come to that. We believe the Wyzhnyny will take desperate measures to avoid it."

"Suicide attacks?"

"In time, perhaps. But we expect the Wyzhnyny force in warpspace to make efforts to supply their people on the ground. Though the odds of their succeeding aren't good. Our offplanet flotilla is alert to possible emergences by Wyzhnyny ships. Also we have Dragons and a marine mother ship standing by in near-space, for critical onworld emergencies."

She stopped expectantly. For long seconds the prime minister gazed thoughtfully at her before speaking. "I take it, then, that we need feel no concern about events on New Jerusalem, at least for the time being."

"I wouldn't go that far. The Wyzhnyny remain a potent force there, but our successes so far are encouraging."

Now the president spoke. "Brigadier, you said nothing about Wyzhnyny prisoners."

"Marshal Kulikov brought that up with General Pak this morning, when they discussed Pak's report. Pak had hoped to capture some live Wyzhnyny prisoners in conjunction with other missions, but Wyzhnyny do not surrender. Threatened with capture, their wounded suicide, preferably with a grenade, taking some of our people with them. Seemingly unconscious Wyzhnyny are apt to be shamming, hoping to entice someone close enough. These things were learned in the first days of fighting. General Pak is now preparing a mission tailored specifically to capture and transport prisoners."

The prime minister sighed audibly. "Tell General Kulikov that both the president and I put a high priority on this."

They ended their meeting then, and the brigadier left. Pak's capture mission! she thought. God, to be young again! She'd have bucked for airborne training and an assignment on New Jerusalem. Ah well, she mused, I'm lucky just to be in the military at a time like this. Interesting that I chose the military in this life, instead of business or music or child rearing. This life, when the military has meaning.

Some personnel didn't like living and working underground, but Gosthodar Jilchuk was comfortable with it. He'd grown up in a cool damp region, and was not claustrophobic. And his quarters were comfortable, luxurious even. His walls, where not occupied with video windows, were hung with expensive tapestries from his old home world, and luxurious furs from the subpolar regions of this new home world.

Just now, though, none of that impinged on him. He was busy digesting and assimilating what had happened the night before. He'd absorbed the available information and opinions, then dismissed his staff. Now he lay at a low writing table, torso upright, jotting and doodling as he thought, using a stylus on a jotting glass. Sometimes he used them to make notes. Tonight he used them mainly to bleed off pressure.

The bottom line was he'd lost an entire tank battalion. Of fifty-four tanks, just six were repairable; ten at most. The day before, he'd been confident that despite the Battle of the First Days, he'd retained clear superiority in armor. Getting so much of my armor underground before the human bombards attacked was the smartest thing I've done. No, the only smart thing I've done. I've been trading armor, aircraft and warriors for knowledge, and I've come out sadly short on the exchange.

(Scribble scribble!)

When the bombards had left, he'd sent out his aircraft to challenge the enemy aerospace attack craft. Which unfortunately had proven more heavily armed and armored, and very well crewed. Now the question was: why haven't the humans used them since? What are they saving them for? Or is there a rivalry between the humans' space commander and their ground commander? Perhaps even between the services themselves?

He shook off the question. There was no way to know. He only knew he was overdue for some good luck.

(Scribble scribble! Jot jot!)

His latest rude surprise was that the humans had battle robots! Robots with responses more intelligent and nuanced than anyone could have imagined. They'd been reported on the Battle of the First Days-radioed reports from the confusion of close combat. But there'd been no verification, and no one had taken it seriously. The assumption had been that some of the humans, perhaps their master gender, wore full body armor. But the descriptions they now had seemed to repudiate that.

(His stylus had nearly stopped moving.)

So. Battle robots. That meant that humans had much more advanced artificial intelligence technology. But they couldn't have many robots. If they did, they'd have used them more extensively. Perhaps these were prototypes, or test models.

Don't talk yourself into any assumptions, he chided. Go about your business. Plan. Execute. Adjust. Exterminate. In the imperial dialect, the initials had long since become an acronym meaning victory.

Meanwhile he'd reduced one area of uncertainty. Seventeen two-man recon teams had penetrated the blind area at various points, and radioed when they'd done it. Eleven radioed additional observations from inside, and five had returned and been debriefed. None of what they'd seen had seemed noteworthy, but even that was worth knowing, and he knew now that the concealment field was not also a force shield. That had been predicted, but having it verified was vitally important.

(His stylus had speeded up. Now it moved furiously, in a sort of automatic writing.)

Especially in conjunction with something even more important: from the penetration points, Intelligence had mapped a decent approximation of the overall perimeter. It was circular! Which suggested a single, centrally located field generator. Laying heavy artillery fire on the center might very well knock it out, depriving the humans of their concealment. It might also cut off the head of their command structure.

But before I do that, I'll plan the ground attack to overrun them. With their concealment broken, I can commit aircraft for effective reconnaissance, and air support for the ground forces.

He looked at his jotting glass, where his stylus had been so busy while he cogitated. In the middle he'd scrawled undisciplined spirals and swirls, with scattered small ritual sunbursts. Taken together they formed a circular mass. And into the heart of it were arrows, as if into the center of a target.

A shiver rucked his fur from scalp to sacrum. It seemed to him this was going to work. He began to decipher the tightly scrawled notes he'd written.

On the second day after the raid, Arjan Hawkins Singh walked into a patients' dayroom-a squad tent, with board floors on timber foundations. Courtesy of the Burger engineering regiment and its small but efficient sawmill. Only Esau and Jael were there; few of the wounded were well enough to use a dayroom. They sat watching a documentary on defense industries of the Core Worlds. It was a year out of date, of course, but interesting. Enlightening. Gave an outworlder a notion of how things were done on the Core Worlds, and how all this stuff-ships, weapons, equipment-came to be.

Jael clicked off the player as Hawkins sat down beside them. "Hello, Sergeant… " she began, then stopped. What caught her attention was the dark place on each sleeve, where chevrons had been removed. Then she saw his collar tabs. "You're wearing an ensign's bar!" she said. "You've gotten promoted! Congratulations!"

There's an interesting change, Hawkins thought. When I first knew them, she wouldn't have spoken first like that. Not with Esau present. She'd have waited for him to talk.

"Does that mean Ensign Berg is dead?" Esau asked.

"I'm afraid so. Killed in the first minutes."

Jael blushed. She'd overlooked how promotions came about in battle. Suddenly congratulations didn't seem proper.

"And you're replacing him," Esau said. "I figured he might be dead when I heard you giving orders he'd usually give." He paused. "Does this mean B Company's not getting shut down? Even after all the casualties?"

"Yep. We're still in business. We've been reorganized, of course. We're down to three platoons of three squads each, with most of the squads down to eight men for now. But we'll get first call on replacements, as the wounded recover and do rehab."

That'll be awhile, Esau thought. From what he'd seen and heard, most wounds were a lot worse than his and Jael's.

"I could fight right now if I had to," Jael said. "I don't hurt much, and I didn't lose that much blood. Esau's hampered a lot worse with his hands than I am with my shoulder."

Esau held up his bandaged hands and looked at them wryly. Only fingertips projected. "At least Jael doesn't have to tell me not to pick my nose now," he said.

Hawkins laughed. He'd never heard Esau say anything remotely humorous before. "There you are!" he answered. "Every cloud has a silver lining."

"Captain Fong tells me I'll be back on duty in a week."

"That's what I heard, too. Good thing. I need you." He held out a pair of sleeve patches. "Ensign Zenawi is Lieutenant Zenawi now, our new company commander. He told me to give you these; you're 2nd Platoon's new sergeant. If you're nice, maybe you can get Corporal Wesley to sew them on for you."

Jael laughed. "Might be she would." She took the patches from the ensign. They were a staff sergeant's stripes: three chevrons and a rocker. There ought to be two rockers, she told herself. The other platoon sergeants have two. Probably, she decided, the army didn't like to jump someone two grades.

"And while you're sewing on chevrons," Hawkins added, "these are yours." He handed her a pair of buck sergeant's chevrons. "You're in charge of 3rd Squad now. There isn't any 4th Squad yet. Maybe later."

She took them without hesitating. "Thank you, Ensign Hawkins," she answered. "I'll do the best I can."

Hawkins went on to tell them that 2nd Platoon's fit-for-action were on R amp;R, with Jonas Timmins as acting platoon sergeant. They'd ridden AG sleds to the upper reaches of their old friend the Mickle's, for a day's fishing. General Pak had foreseen the desirability of such days, and requisitioned abundant fishing equipment before they'd left Terra. Nothing fancy-gear you could use without instruction.

Esau had gone grim. "How's Lieutenant Bremer?" he asked.

"He's under-medical treatment. Had you heard something?"

"On the beach he said he was going to shoot me for a coward if I didn't go back and get my blaster."

Jael took command then, telling what had happened, and how Zenawi had stepped in. The story took Hawkins by surprise. He turned to Esau. "How did you feel when he said those things?"

"I couldn't believe I was hearing them. I felt… betrayed. Killed. Stabbed in the heart. Then Jael… " He described what she'd said, and what Lieutenant Zenawi had said. "And Lieutenant Bremer just sort of… caved in. Then I realized he'd lost his mind, and that he knew it. But I still felt… dirty, from what he'd said."

Hawkins nodded soberly. "Lieutenant Bremer's body wasn't wounded. His soul was, by all the killing. It was more than he could deal with. That's how some people are. He's in convalescence now. Major Ranavati is his doctor-a psychiatrist and Gopal Singh healer. The rumor is, when the lieutenant returns to duty, he'll be assigned to General Pak's staff, as assistant to Major Pelletier. Where he won't have responsibility for men in combat."

He grinned then, taking both Jerries by surprise. "As for you two-you did very well out there. Lieutenant Zenawi said in his debrief that you saved a lot of lives. If that tower had been in operation when our floaters came, it would have cost us dearly."

Esau nodded. "We could see that, Jael and me. No ride home probably."

Hawkins got casually to his feet, as if nothing heavier had been talked about than 2nd Platoon's fishing trip. "Well, I've got more wounded to visit. You two get well quick. Especially you, Esau, because a platoon leader's nothing without a good platoon sergeant to pass all the hard work to."

Then he was gone. Jael got up from her inflatable chair, knelt beside her husband and kissed him. "I'm proud of you, Esau," she said. Then she too grinned. "We've got to get well quick, so's we can slip off together behind a thicket."

He half grinned back at her. "You sure know what to say to a man. That'll about cut my healing time in half."

Before supper, Isaiah Vernon stopped to visit. He was wearing a new servo. The old one's cooling system had needed work, and they'd decided to install his bottle in an improved model.

"Division got hundreds of them before we left Luneburger's," he said. "In case enough people signed agreements and were injured badly enough to qualify. And for replacements like mine.

"From the beginning my old one hadn't worked as well as it should," he went on. "The robotics tech said I should have complained then, but I didn't know. I thought that's just the way they were. Then, when we ambushed the Wyzhnyny patrol, I took some slammer hits, and coming back in, I started to heat up pretty badly. Lieutenant Koshi told me to lie down, and radioed for an AG sled to come get me. Me and two others with damage.

"It made it more real to us-to me, anyway-that bot or not, you can get hurt or killed in those fights. But none of us did. We killed one hundred nineteen Wyzhnyny, by count, but none of us died. These servos are really good."

Briefly then they talked of other things, mainly things that had happened on Luneburger's World. They said nothing at all about their families or where they'd grown up. Maybe later. Meanwhile, those places, those people, didn't exist anymore.

In adjacent cots after lights out, Esau whispered to his wife. "I've been thinking."

"What about?" she murmured sleepily

"About Isaiah, and what Tom Clark said to the medic on the medivac. I think maybe I will sign a bot agreement. If it's all right with you."

She didn't answer at once. Then, "That's up to you, not me," she said.

But she didn't sound as if she really meant it. More as if she thought it was what she should say. And at any rate, in the morning he had other things on his mind.