Glory Main (16 page)

Most important, he noticed how tired they all seemed. The man in the lead appeared half asleep, trudging along a well-­worn path with his eyes on the ground and his weapon hanging from his shoulder. Even the two from the walking infantry, who could be expected to be more proficient at dismounted patrolling, struck him as disturbingly careless.

“But don't be too worried about meeting Major Shalley.” The sergeant spoke up suddenly, returning to the earlier topic with an abruptness that Mortas sensed was caused by a true fear of their commander-­by-­default. He glanced over his shoulder at Cranther, and the scout gave him a look of concern. “He knows his stuff, he knows the enemy, and he's gonna get us off this rock.”

The last man in the file, walking behind Cranther, snorted briefly before covering it with a loud clearing of his voice. After so many days of whispering to avoid detection, Mortas cringed at the sound. The stars had finally reappeared, allowing him to make out the man-­sized rocks and low grass around him, but it was still dark out and noise travels farther in the dark.

“So what happened with the assault?” he whispered, hoping the sergeant would pick up on the lower volume. The man replied as if they were standing together in a crowded room.

“Damndest thing I ever saw. Our battalion and one company of walkers went in as the first wave, we were cruising straight for their settlement, and then they fired these rockets . . . sensors said it was standard stuff, nothing to worry about, we were buttoned up anyway . . . but then they burst into all these smaller rockets, like thousands of arrows, and they came down on us.”

He cleared his throat. “Made a racket on the armor but no real effect . . . and then . . . we started . . . slowing down. That dirt just turned into mud. Thick, deep . . . the vehicles started to get stuck.”

The sergeant's breathing became more audible, and Mortas wondered if he was the first person the man had been able to tell this story to because the others had all been there.

“The heavier ones sank fast, but the lighter ones were slewing around so badly that they were running into each other. We were taking some anti-­personnel rounds too, like the stuff they were firing tonight, but we were safe inside the vehicles . . . until somebody asked if we were actually going to sink all the way.

“I swear somebody asked that over the radio, and the next thing you knew, somebody else in another carrier was screaming that we
were
sinking all the way, and then it started.” He tripped over a small rock, and took a second to kick it even though it was half buried and didn't move. “Fuckin' thing. Anyway, that's when ­people began bailing out. Hatches flying open, ramps dropping, guys jumping . . . of course the first ones either disappeared into the soup or got stuck up to their armpits, so the rest of us were just up there, sitting on top of our own armor while it got lower and lower . . .

“It was like we were on the deck of a sinking ship. The anti-­personnel rounds started coming again—­they must have had spotters somewhere—­and so then there wasn't a choice. Most of the carriers had stopped sinking by then—­we didn't know it but the stuff turns back into dry dirt pretty fast—­but now we had to get off of them.” His voice got even louder, and the words tumbled one after the other. “Some guys went back inside and you couldn't convince 'em to come out, other guys climbed down and tippy-­toed off toward the rocks, ­people throwing away anything that made them heavier—­”

“Musta been hell.” Mortas cut him off, seeing that the man was becoming disturbed. The sergeant's head snapped up at him, as if he'd been insulted, but he stopped talking. They kept moving, and his hurt expression slowly eased away. Hitching the Flayer's sling where it rested across his armor, he tried to assume a more normal tone.

“Yeah, yeah, it was rough. But we'd never seen anything like that before, that's all. And neither had Command, because they cancelled the follow-­on waves. We'd regrouped up in the hills by then, and the Sims hadn't come looking for us yet, so we figured they'd drop another cofferdam and pull us out.”

“That's when they stopped answering our calls.” The soldier behind Cranther spoke, his words sounding like a shout. “It took us a while to figure out they ran off.”

“I
told
you, they probably saw enemy ships coming!” The sergeant turned and glared at the last man. “And they'll be back for us.”

He looked down at Cranther, who had stopped walking to avoid bumping into Mortas. The scout regarded the big man with a face that was completely devoid of expression, but perhaps that was why it demanded a response. “Believe it, Spartacan. Back on Primus they left us for the same reason, but they came back later. You ever heard of Primus? We were outnumbered three to one, but by the time the fleet got back we were the only living things on that planet. We killed 'em all.”

“Good story, Sarge. Except the last part.” Cranther pointed past him, up the trail. Mortas turned to see that the rest of the patrol had continued walking and had almost disappeared in the night. The sergeant stepped up and poked Cranther with a finger of his own.

“What about the last part, little man?”

Mortas gently moved the scout past him, and the sergeant took a step back in recognition of Mortas's authority. Cranther spoke over his shoulder as he went to catch up with the others.

“Nobody ever kills everybody anywhere, big man. Somebody always gets away.”

I
t didn't take long to reach the base the survivors had established in a large ravine. They passed through a thin defensive perimeter on the surface consisting of tired-­looking sentries, most of them soldiers from the riding infantry with little or no body armor. It was disturbing to see how dull and unfocused they acted; Mortas had spotted them from a good distance out and decided up close that they were walking around to avoid falling asleep.

They entered the ravine by an earthen ramp that had been packed down by many boot soles, suggesting to Mortas that the survivors had been in this spot for some time. They'd followed a well-­trodden trail most of the way, yet another indication that this outfit wasn't obeying the simplest rules for staying hidden. The maxims rolled through his mind: Don't stay in one place for long. Don't come back by the same route you used going out. Try to keep the natural camouflage in place as much as possible.

The ravine was deep, well over head high, and although some of the soldiers there were pulling guard on rough-­hewn parapets, there seemed to be little rhyme or reason to how they were posted. Though new to the war zone, Mortas could still see gaping holes in the base security ring. Probably two dozen soldiers, a mix of riding and walking infantry, were laid out asleep in the wide ravine, and he and the others stepped over them as they followed the sergeant.

The rest of the patrol melted away, and the sergeant led the four new faces around a tight bend in the gully to meet the unit commander. The stars were fully out now, and small fluorescent stones in the walls in this part of the ravine reflected the light as if intentionally placed there. A lone man sat on a bench-­like rock just a few yards away where the gully came to an end, his eyes on the dirt in front of him.

Mortas walked straight toward him, trying to remain hopeful that this senior officer knew what he was doing, but the sergeant grabbed his arm. The big man pointed at the center of the gully floor and asked, aghast, “Don't you
see
that?”

Mortas looked at his feet, and the glowing illumination revealed an odd arrangement of stones, sticks, and narrow mounds that twisted this way and that. It reminded him of a horror movie he'd once seen on the Bounce, one involving a primitive tribe that had fashioned diabolical worship markers from natural elements. Mortas stared at it, dumbfounded, until Cranther whispered, “Sand table.”

That was it. He remembered creating similar terrain models in Officer Basic, although he and the other lieutenants had carried special kits for that purpose. Sand tables were a three-­dimensional representation of an area where the unit operated or planned to operate, with ridges and hills created by mounding and shaping the dirt while roads and rivers were put in place using tools such as colored string or chalk shavings. Some of the sand tables he'd seen had been quite ambitious, but in a pinch natural items such as the rocks and twigs used here would suffice.

The man on the bench hadn't moved or indicated that he was aware of their presence. He only slightly raised his head when the sergeant walked over and whispered in his ear.

Amazing. The noisy prick finally decides to be quiet. I wonder why.

Mortas stepped around the ground model and approached the two, as much to break up their secret conclave as to introduce himself. The man on the bench was nodding wordlessly, and the sergeant straightened up just as the lieutenant got within earshot. He flashed a fake smile at Mortas and then headed back down the gully with a purpose. Cranther, Gorman, and Trent had followed right behind Mortas, and as they got closer the reflected light from the stars showed that the commander was somewhere in his thirties, with tight-­sheared hair over a round head. He wore the one-­piece coverall of the mechanized troops, and a black shoulder holster containing a small pistol.

His eyes left the sand table when Mortas got close enough to touch him, but they were active and intelligent when he looked up. He gave a bloodless smile before speaking in a serene voice. “I'm Major Shalley. Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Jander Mortas, sir. I was being transported to—­”

“Mortas? Now there's a name. I'd ask if you were related to the senator, but there aren't any senator's sons out here.”

There's one.

“I was being transported to a replacement center, sir. Our ship must have—­”

“Where's your
platoon
, Lieutenant?” The voice was still low, but an accusatorial edge had crept into it. The mouth hung slightly open, waiting.

Didn't he hear me? Has he gone mad? My
platoon
?

A thought came to him then, a warm thought, and he turned and indicated the others with his hand. “This is my platoon, sir. We were marooned here a few days ago and just reached friendly lines.”

A brief snort. “
Lines
, he says . . . okay, Lieutenant, introduce me to your platoon.”

“This is Captain Amelia Trent, military psychoanalyst.”

The man's face brightened somewhat. “Well we've got a few patients for you, Trent.”

She didn't respond, so Mortas continued. “Corporal Cranther, Spartacan Scout.”

“A Spartacan, huh? We could have used you before they put us down here.”

“And this is Chartist Gorman.”

“He seems to like my sand table.”

Mortas turned to see Gorman squatting at the edge of the model, an index finger moving in the air as if tracing the course of something in the diagram.

“He should, sir. We had no idea where we'd been put down, but he built an astrochart a lot like your sand table during our first night. Tracked the stars and figured out our location.”

“Well then.” The man stood up, his eyes back on the model. “Maybe he can tell me how we can gain access to the enemy's spacedrome.”

“Is this it?” Gorman pointed at a ring of sticks laid out on the far side of the sand table. Now able to study the depiction, Mortas quickly made out the open ground where the unit's abandoned vehicles were imprisoned. The wrecks were represented by a large number of small rocks or twigs stuffed into the sand. He imagined his little group emerging from that field after their scavenging expedition, hustling up the elongated pile of dirt that stood for the ridge they'd so recently fled. The model was extensive, showing several pieces of terrain they hadn't yet encountered, but it didn't include the bridge they'd used to get across the river. A minor depression lay between the wrecks and the enemy base, but the outlines of two landing strips suggested that was the spacedrome's location.

Mortas glanced back at Major Shalley and then tried not to stare. The man was just standing there, his eyes fixed on the model but apparently seeing and hearing little.

“Excuse me, but we've been trying to determine where the settlement was located ourselves. Is that it?” Trent asked, pointing at the circle of sticks.

“Oh yes.” The major answered as if in a dream. “You can see we had a nice straight shot at it from where they dropped us. And we were rolling along nicely when they hit us with that new ordnance. Turned the ground into mud and, well, we've been on foot ever since. Done a fair bit of scouting, though.”

He smiled at Cranther, who returned it blandly.

“It's only cost us twenty men, too. That's not a bad casualty rate considering how much intelligence we've gained, and how long we've been stranded here. A lot better than our first day, getting out of that death trap. Lost roughly half the battalion.”

Shalley stopped talking without looking up, and so the others simply waited for him to continue.

“Of course we didn't get
everyone
back together again, but that's been its own kind of help. Some of the other groups have been chased down by what's left of the enemy's infantry, and that's given us the opportunity to scout out that base.”

“Excuse me, sir. The enemy's settlement defense units took casualties?”

The major's head snapped in Mortas's direction, an angry look jumping into place before he erased it. When Shalley answered, his voice was back under control. “Yes, Lieutenant, we actually did manage to hurt them before we got stopped. The initial bombardment from the support ships took out their air, and I estimate it killed half their defense battalion and even more of the colonists. That's why they couldn't mount up a meaningful force to come get us. They're out here, of course, but not in sufficient strength to cover all this ground. The rest of the Sims in that compound have been doing repair work on the drome and filling in the gullies closest to the settlement during the day, but they mostly pull back into their perimeter at night.