Glory Main (11 page)

“There.” Cranther put a hand on his shoulder, pointing again. For the space of a few seconds, a dull green line appeared across the plain as if hanging in the night sky. “We couldn't see it in daylight. That's a Sim retransmission antenna. The settlement's on the other side of that ridge.

“They put those antennae up when a colony's new, before they get everything wired.” Cranther stepped away, becoming a disembodied voice. “Did you know some of our generals call the enemy the Simples? Because their tech isn't as good as ours? Talk about simple. Sure, they're behind us in a lot of ways, still haven't figured out the Step, but they've got one very big advantage. Everything they have actually works. All the time.

“One mission we were orbiting a Hab planet, or what was supposed to be a Hab. They'd gotten as much information from the scanners as they were ever going to get, so it was time for some scouts to hit the dirt and check it out up close. First humans ever to set foot on the place. This was before they developed the cofferdams, so they loaded the first team of Spartacans into these one-­man tubes, they're like big darts that they used to fire straight down at a planet's surface . . . half the time the chutes didn't deploy.”

He stopped for a moment, and Mortas heard him wetting his lips.

“So the first team gets blasted down through the clouds, these giant wispy things that hid every inch of that planet, and there's no radio check from them. Any of them. Well, Command's got a lot of Spartacans so they loaded up the second team and shot them down there too. And the same thing happened. Nothing.

“Somebody got smart and suggested that the darts were the problem, maybe some fatal malfunction, so they put the next team onto a shuttle and sent them flying down through the atmosphere. Hab planet's gotta have atmosphere, ya know?

“I was in the ready room with the next team—­you never saw such frightened faces—­and we're listening over this speaker as they entered the clouds. And they're reporting like mad, calling out all the readings—­there was some kind of interference with the data uplink—­and then this one guy just starts
screaming
out this atmospheric pressure number that is skyrocketing and then . . . nothing.”

Mortas felt his empty stomach lurch. Grisly tales of mistakes like that one were common enough, but to hear the story from someone who'd actually been there was something different.

“The funny thing was that, of all the data they'd collected from a distance, the pressure readings were actually right. The raw data was, at any rate. Turned out it wasn't a Hab at all. Its atmosphere crushed all the darts, and the shuttle too. A glitch in the analysis program kept correcting the pressure readings because they were so high. The machine didn't believe the number, so it defaulted to a livable measurement. Ho-­ly shit.

“And the brass hats have the nerve to call the Sims simple.”

It was dark enough to move out, but Mortas wanted to settle the issue of what had happened at the bridge. He suspected that the scout had told him his most recent war story to keep him from doing just that.

“Corporal.”

“Yes?”

“Did you set me up at the bridge?”

“How do you mean?” The voice was flat and calm.

“I mean, did you give me the hard job and keep the easy one for yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Any special reason for that?”

“Of course.” The dirt shifted under the scout's feet, and he'd clearly turned to face him. “I been out here five years, Lieutenant, and you've been here less than five days. I've been kidnapped, tortured, abandoned, lied to, starved, written off, threatened with the death sentence, and almost sent down to a planet wearing nothing but my uniform in an atmosphere that could crush an armored suit.

“You're a new guy, Lieutenant. Your being an officer doesn't change that. If we get out of this, and you do get that platoon you want so badly, it's gonna be loaded with veterans. They're not gonna want to take chances on your say-­so until they see that you actually know what taking a chance really means.”

“How do you know I want that platoon? How do you know I'm not just some guy who got scooped up into this insanity just like you?”

“It's written all over you. I'll bet you've been sucking up the lies from the Bounce all your life. The glorious cause. Humanity against the aliens. I bet you signed up just based on one of those hero profiles they're constantly running. The returning veteran, home from the zone, covered in medals and saying that it's your turn now.”

Mortas could feel his face reddening and was thankful for the dark. The Bounce feed back home had influenced him greatly, particularly the tales of bravery and sacrifice of the heroes who had not come back. Even with his family background and the classified information it provided, he'd still bought into a lot of the propaganda. The other boys at the prep school and university, his privileged peers, had scoffed at the idea of serving and so he'd learned early on to hide his true feelings of excitement and belief.

It's Your Turn. He could still see the eyes of the medal-­bedecked combat vet on the Bounce, repeating the slogan of the ongoing war. It's Your Turn. In the light of recent events, he now realized that the vet's face had been just a bit too perfect. An actor's face, but an actor who'd been chosen with great care. The face had been good-­looking but not handsome, mature but not hardened, and he now wondered if the man had been a veteran at all.

“They don't call it the Bounce for nothing.” It was the best he could manage, but he sensed Cranther was waiting for a response.

“Yeah. That was its original name way back when, because the feed ricocheted off of satellites to reach the other planets. Marketers probably thought they'd dreamed up a really cool name for a really cool technology. But look at how ­people talk about it now. Follow the Bouncing Story. Bounce Your Brain.”

It's even slang at high levels now. When Father and his buddies put out their own version of a story, it's called bounce.

“Did you know that Spartacans are kept separate whenever we're not on an actual mission? On the planets we're kept in virtual prisons. In space we're restricted to certain decks, or just plain locked up. You know why that is? Because the truth doesn't bounce.”

“Wait a minute. What happens when your hitch is up?”

A short laugh. “No such thing for us. Yeah, I know you've seen a Spartacan hero on those profiles every now and then, but that's a lie too. I knew a guy who knew one of those guys. He'd been snatched up like the rest of us, beat on like the rest of us, but never sent on a mission. He was connected to somebody big, and they finally found him. The Spartacans walking around out there as returned vets are almost complete phonies. And you can bet they got threatened with all sorts of trouble if they ever speak up.

“Follow that bouncing ball . . . but you just wait until the real story gets out. How we've been used out here. That the Sims are human. That the war can never end.”

How the Emergency Senate can be an “emergency” body for over ten years.

“You sound almost like a radical there, Corporal.”

“I am a radical. I'm radically in favor of my own ass. And nothing else.”

 

CHAPTER 6

W
alking. Walking. Starving.

Tiring.

Doubting.

The stars that had been providing such fine illumination had dimmed behind a veil of clouds, making it almost impossible to see where they were going. The shroud enfolded Mortas, cutting him off from the others even more than he already was. It seemed that the very ground conspired against them, as they were forced to walk along the side of the ridge for fear of encountering the enemy on its crest. The slope made walking uneven and chancy, and Gorman clearly suffered anew as the different angle of his footfalls reopened his blisters. Trent walked either directly behind him, or beside him on the downward slope, and Cranther took the lead the entire way.

We're splitting up into two groups. At least two.

Fracturing. Coming apart. Not supposed to allow that.

The scout seemed able to see in the dark, never stumbling, but still he didn't push the pace very hard. Every time loose rocks went tumbling down the slope because of the others he would simply freeze, and so would they. The frail forms would stand there on the angle, one tired leg bent and the other stretched to the limit, until Cranther was sure no enemy was nearby. Fingers of rock stretched across their path from time to time, running downward from the crest and forming excellent block positions. Every time they approached one of these the Spartacan would stop the group and go forward alone, silent, to see if anything waited on the likely ambush spot.

Each time he disappeared, Mortas feared he wouldn't come back.

The movement was simply endless. His own toughened feet began to heat up in unusual places because of the awkward positioning of his boots, and he feared he'd end up in even worse shape than Gorman. The mapmaker was moving along without complaint, and Mortas had to question whether or not he'd be able to bear up as well if injured in a similar fashion. The backs of his knees protested every step now, and he'd scraped the palm of his uphill hand more than once when the scree gave way beneath him.

The hours wore on and they continued the nonstop movement with no encouragement from the blackness that surrounded them. In the daylight they'd been able to gauge their progress, modest as it had seemed, but now there was no way to know if they were getting anywhere at all. The ridge that held the Sim retransmission antenna curved toward their own somewhere in the distance, and Cranther had recommended that they move to the spot where the two escarpments were closest. The idea was to cross the flat at that point and then gain the heights that presumably looked down on the settlement, but Mortas began to doubt the plan the longer they walked. He couldn't make out his hand in front of his face, and doubted how Cranther would know when they'd reached the right spot for the crossing. What if they'd already passed it?

Mortas had been surprised to lose sight of the antenna's intermittent glow early in the walk, and without that as a reference he couldn't tell how far they'd come. As the pain of his straining muscles and blistering feet slowly increased, he began to wistfully count off all the tools he would have had available for this march if he'd been with a regular Force platoon. He and his men would have been wearing goggles allowing them to see in the dark, and the enemy antenna would have been a bright line in the green field of vision. They would have been communicating through subdued microphones, passing everything from orders to information to encouragement. As a platoon leader he would have carried the additional aid of a navigational tablet that would not only tell him where he was, but also how to get where he was going. The wondrous thing would even tell him if he'd taken a wrong turn.

And that was only counting what his platoon would have been carrying. Even operating alone, they would be accompanied by silent drones cruising above and around them, searching for the enemy. Command frowned on the use of flares because they interfered with the operation of the goggles and also because the Sims relied on them heavily, but under emergency conditions he could have requested enough parachute illumination to light up the ground for miles. In big operations, where his platoon would be a small cog in a massive, searching machine of destruction, spacecraft in orbit would be monitoring their movement, ready to deliver a cataclysmic bombardment if necessary.

It was almost comical; here he was, an officer in the most technologically advanced species known to man, someone who'd grown up with every kind of device and machine imaginable, and his world had devolved into mere rock and dirt. He could feel the gravel shifting every time he put a boot down, straining the outside of one ankle and the inside of the other. His concentration on not falling took up almost all of the consciousness that his exhaustion and hunger weren't consuming, and yet he could still shake his head in amusement that his life aspirations at that moment could be summed up in the burning desire to simply sit down.

M
uch later, after his legs were so sore that he couldn't identify a muscle that wasn't shouting, they abruptly turned and started walking downhill. Incredibly, this reprieve turned out to be even worse than the relentless inclined walk. Each step reached out into inky nothingness and then dropped until it found dirt, gravel, or rocks large enough to trip over. Mortas found his hands reaching out in front of him, grabbing air, and he slung the Mauler behind him to free up both his palms for the pointless effort. The stars had disappeared, and his only indication that the others were present was the sound of their own struggles. From those noises, he assumed they were doing a similar blind man's walk.

He finally gave up and turned sideways again, as if they were still hugging the ridgeline, and found it an enormous relief. They'd been headed in one direction for so long on the same incline that there had been no way to alternate the foot that was lowermost, but now he was able to face the opposite direction as he slide-­stepped down the slope. The new blisters were finally protected from the harsh abrasion of his boots, and he almost groaned in release.

Cranther must have been angling them toward the plain for some time, because it didn't take long to reach level ground. Mortas knew this only when he bumped into the others gathered at the bottom in various postures of exhaustion. He mumbled a soft apology that was returned with a muffled chorus of surprising mildness. A variety of phosphorescent pebble was scattered across the flat expanse in front of them, reflecting what dim light was available, and he was finally able to make out the features of the other three. Cranther was leaning forward, his hands on his knees while Trent and Gorman stood resting against each other. As much as those postures of fatigue might be expected, their sunny expressions were not. All three were smiling, and it took Mortas a few seconds to realize that he was doing the same thing, overcome with joy at leaving the brutal incline behind.

Without knowing why, Mortas stepped up between Trent and Gorman. He laid a hand on each of their shoulders, leaned in, and whispered, “Good job. Good job.”

Sweaty hands came up to squeeze his arms, and they stood there grinning at each other until Cranther joined them. The short man stepped in across from Mortas, his hands on the others' shoulders as well, trying to catch his breath but doing it without making a sound. Mortas saw the other two placing their free hands on the scout, and couldn't have been more amazed until Gorman lowered his head to rest his temple against Cranther's. His dulled brain tried to sort through what he was seeing and feeling, and Mortas fought to understand. The pain and the soreness was still there, but it had now receded into a muted throb and he decided that the others must have been experiencing the same thing.

It was only much later, walking along in the darkness, that he realized he'd just gained a valuable piece of life wisdom. He spent much of the rest of the march turning the idea over in his mind, repeating it mentally as if polishing a rare gem.

Some of the things that beat the absolute shit out of you—­like that slope back there—­can beat the bullshit out of you too.

T
hey encountered the dead body in the ravines just as the sun was coming up. They were getting close to the next ridge, and Mortas had directed Cranther to pick a spot for them to hole up through the daylight hours when they turned a corner and saw the corpse.

He turned out to be human, marginally taller than Cranther, dressed in an olive drab coverall and boots. His brown hair was matted with dirt and dried sweat, and he wore no headgear. Insulting rents had been blasted through his uniform front and back, but it had taken him a long time to die; a rust-­colored stain ran all the way down one of his legs and into that boot.

Cranther scrambled forward as soon as the corpse came into view, rolling it over and grabbing at a small shoulder bag it had been carrying. The others, mad with hunger and mindless of the danger, clustered around him as he upended the sack. Mortas recognized a plastic medical kit when it hit the dirt, and then his entire being seemed to lurch toward a handful of energy bars that tumbled out as well.

They counted the wrappers later, and discovered that there had been eight of the chocolate-­covered life-­givers. The food was consumed with such joyous abandon that it was gone in moments. Chocolate, nuts, a gooey substance that tasted like pure sugar, all stuffed into their mouths and swallowed in such a rush that only the aftertaste and the wrapping material proved they'd existed at all. Mortas could feel his stomach coming alive again, saliva and bitter juice rushing out of his throat as he consumed the first bar in less than two bites. The water at the first river had been ecstasy, but the sensation of the nutrients entering his body was simply miraculous.

Collapsed on the dirt, utterly mindless of the dead man, he looked at the faces of the others and wasn't surprised to see that Gorman and Trent were fighting back tears. He only remembered the corpse when Cranther began searching it methodically. He found nothing on the body, and further examination of the bag's contents revealed only the aid kit.

The small box gave off a slight pop when he opened it, and Cranther looked at Gorman with a broad grin. The chartist didn't understand at first, so the scout tipped the container to show stick-­on bandaging and a pair of tiny scissors.

“Our lucky day. Lucky lucky lucky us.” Cranther muttered. He glanced over at the dead man's feet. “And we might just be able to throw away those for-­shit boots you been wearing, too. Look like they'd fit you, and believe me, he doesn't need them anymore.”

Mortas was expecting Gorman to object, but Trent spoke before he got the chance. She wore a frown, and was regarding the corpse in confusion. “What's he doing here? Is he even human?”

“A Sim wouldn't be carrying our rations.” Cranther gestured toward the body. “From the uniform and the boots, I'd say this was a crewman on one of our assault vehicles. No weapon, no headgear . . . probably had to bail out fast. Only time to grab the bag, and from the look of him, maybe not even time for that.”

“What do you think got him?” Mortas began to look around, becoming aware that they'd posted no security at all.

“Could be slugs from a Sim rifle, but from those tears I'd say it was fragments of something else. Maybe spall from the inside of his own vehicle.”

“Spall?”

“Yeah, a round hits the outer hull hard enough, it fragments the inner lining and blows it through the personnel compartment. The Sims have gotten real creative with munitions like that.”

Mortas was already climbing up the ravine wall when Trent spoke, her voice trembling. “So where's this vehicle? Why is he here? And why's he alone?”

The plain stretched out in front of him when he peeked up over the edge of the gully, and he saw nothing unexpected. The brush was thin here, and he could see a great distance even though the sun had not yet risen. The next ridge loomed in front of them, but the high ground spread away on both sides and he was certain he could see thicker vegetation where the river they'd crossed was located. He heard Cranther's voice behind him.

“Who knows what went on while we were in the transit tubes? No one's supposed to be here, but there's a brand-­new Sim colony and at least one of our guys in a tanker suit. Probably explains that ration bag we saw.”

“You mean there was an attack?” Trent, growing even more upset.

“Had to be. What else would explain him being here? Bailed out when his vehicle got hit, ran off, probably covered a lot of ground from the looks of that bloodstain.”

Movement caught Mortas's eye, and he hissed down to the others. “Hey! Birds!”

Cranther was beside him almost immediately, looking at the brightening horizon. Three or four birds of indeterminate size were slowly circling in the distance, perhaps all the way back at the bridge. Their behavior reminded Mortas of vultures on Earth, and he shuddered at the thought that they were closing in on the remains of the guards they had killed.

“Don't seem to be 'bots,” Cranther mused. “Hey El-­tee. You think maybe we didn't see any of these things for the first ­couple of days because there was a battle here? Scared them off?”

“I thought fights attracted birds.” Remembering a history lesson about how medieval armies marching toward each other were sometimes accompanied by huge hungry flocks, eager for the coming feast. “You know, scavengers.”

“Sure, when they're used to it. But on a new planet the life forms usually run off for a while, just from the settlers. Add in the bang and the boom of an actual battle, something they've never seen before, and they clear out for a long time.”

“Makes as much sense as anything else.” Mortas looked over his shoulder and saw Trent pulling off one of Gorman's boots, the aid kit open at her feet. He leaned closer to the scout. “That body couldn't have been there for long. And chewed up like he is, he couldn't have walked all that far from wherever he got hit.”