The Windup Girl

43

A tank round explodes. Dirt and woody debris showers Kanya’s head. They’ve abandoned the Ministry buildings-giving ground is what Kanya has called it, but in truth it’s a rout-running as fast as they can from the oncoming tanks and megodonts.

The only thing that has saved them so far is that the army seems intent on securing the main campus of the Ministry, and so its strength remains gathered there. Still, she and her men have encountered three commando units coming over the south walls of the compound and they have cut Kanya’s platoon in half. And now another tank, just as they were about to slip out a secondary exit. The tank smashed through the gate and blocked their escape.

She has ordered her men into the forest groves near Phra Seub’s temple. It is in shambles. The carefully tended garden has been trampled by war megodonts. Its main columns have been burnt by a fire bomb attack that swept through the dry teak of the forest like a raging demon, shrieking and roaring, so now they shelter in ash and stumps and smolder.

Another tank shell drops into their hillside position. More commandos slip around the tank, break into teams and dash across the compound. It looks as though they’re heading for the biological laboratories. Kanya wonders if Ratana is working there, if she even knows of the warfare above ground. A tree shatters beside her as another tank round explodes.

“They know we’re up here, even if they can’t see us,” Pai says. As if to emphasize his words, a hail of disks whines overhead, embedding themselves in the burnt forest trunks, gleaming silver in the black wood. Kanya motions to her men that they should pull back. The other white shirts, all their uniforms carefully smeared now with soot and ash, scamper deeper into the guttering forest.

Another shell drops below them. Burning teak splinters whine through the air.

“This is too close.” She gets up and runs, Pai dogging her. Hiroko streaks past, takes cover behind a black fallen log and waits for them to catch up.

“Can you imagine fighting that?” Pai gasps.

Kanya shakes her head. Already the windup has saved them twice. Once by spying out the shadow movement of commandos coming toward them, the second time pushing Kanya down a moment before a rain of spring disks shredded the air above her head. The windup’s eyes are sharp where Kanya’s are not, and she is blisteringly fast. Already, though, she is flushed, her skin dry and scalding to the touch. Hiroko is not built for this tropic warfare, and even though they pour water on her and try to keep her cool, she is fading.

When Kanya catches up, Hiroko looks up at her with fever-bright eyes. “I will have to drink something soon. Ice.”

“We don’t have any.”

“The river then. Anything. I must return to Yashimoto-sama.”

“There’s fighting all along the river.” Kanya has heard from others that General Pracha is at the levees, trying to repel the landing Navy boats. Fighting his old ally, Admiral Noi.

Hiroko reaches out with a scalding hand. “I cannot last.”

Kanya searches around her, seeking an answer. Bodies are everywhere. It’s worse than a plague, the men and women ripped by high explosives. The carnage is immense. Arms and legs, a foot separated and flung into a tree branch. Bodies piled and burning. Napalm hissing. The clank of tanks rumbling through the compounds, the burn of coal exhaust. “I need the radio,” she says.

“Pichai had it last.”

But Pichai is dead and they aren’t sure where the radio has gone.

We aren’t trained for this sort of thing. We were supposed to stop blister rust and influenza, not tanks and megodonts.

When she finally finds a radio, it is from a dead hand that she takes it. She cranks the handset. Tests the codes that the Ministry uses for discussing plagues, not warfare. Nothing. Finally she speaks in the clear. “This is Captain Kanya. Is there anyone else out there? Over?”

A long pause. The crackle and static. She repeats herself. Again she repeats. Nothing.

And then, “Captain? This is Lieutenant Apichart.”

She recognizes the assistant’s voice. “Yes? Where is General Pracha?”

More silence. “We don’t know.”

“You aren’t with him?”

Another pause. “We think he’s dead.” He coughs. “They used a gas.”

“Who is our ranking officer?”

Another long pause. “I believe it is you, ma’am.”

She pauses, shocked. “It can’t be. What about the fifth?”

“We haven’t heard.”

“General Som?”

“He was found in his home, assassinated. Also Karmatha, and Phailin.”

“It’s not possible.”

“It is rumor. But they have not been seen, and General Pracha believed it when we received word.”

“No other captains?”

“Bhirombhakdi was at the anchor pads, but all we see is fire from there.”

“Where are you?”

“An Expansion tower, near Phraram Road.

“How many do you have with you?”

“Maybe thirty.”

She surveys her people with dismay. Wounded men and women. Hiroko lying against a dead shorn banana tree, face flushed like a Chinese paper lantern, eyes closed. Perhaps dead already. Fleetingly she wonders if she cares about the creature or… Her men are all around her, watching. Kanya takes in their pathetic ammunition. Their wounds. So few of them.

The radio crackles. “What should we do, Captain?” Lieutenant Apichart asks. “Our guns don’t do anything against tanks. There’s no way for us—” The channel crackles with static.

From the direction of the river, a deep explosion rumbles.

Private Sarawut climbs down from a tree. “They stopped shelling the docks.”

“We’re alone,” Pai murmurs.