On My Way to Paradise (22 page)

Master Kaigo’s expression was strange—angry, hopeful,
concerned? Perhaps none of these. I often found his body language
incomprehensible. When thinking, he’d wrinkle his face and frown as
if mad. He never looked us in the eye. I knew he liked us, for when
he laughed at our mistakes he politely covered his mouth with his
hand—something other samurai neglected. Yet when we spoke he
pretended we weren’t there and looked off in another direction,
then answered our questions without looking at us, as if he were
some religious fanatic responding to queries from God. When he
spoke about himself he’d unconsciously touch his nose with his
forefinger, and when he told us we’d done poorly he’d emphasize it
by putting his hand by his face and making little karate chop
movements in the air. Observing him was like observing a strange
beast for the first time. I couldn’t understand the motives behind
his actions. I felt no kinship with him as a human being.

When I was a child my friends and I pretended sticks
were guns, and we fought aliens on other planets. But if Kaigo
accurately represented the people of Baker, then in a way I’d never
quite expected I’d grown up to find that I would be fighting aliens
on another planet.

The men left and we fought two inconsequential
battles in rapid succession and were slaughtered in both. Zavala
performed well in the second battle and was last man to die. When
Kaigo saw that Zavala had jacked out, he immediately thrust us into
a third scenario. The illusion settled over us like a cool but
heavy fog.

Scenario 59: Mid Patrol

And the hovercraft roared up a mountain through a
deep bed of snow in a great pine forest by the light of double
moons. Abriara steered with little flicks of the wrist, dodging
wind-fallen trees and standing pine, swerving with such violence I
could barely hold on. Abriara had traded Zavala position as driver,
since he was taking too much psychic damage in battle. Drivers
tended receive the brunt of the plasma-fire. It relieved the eyes
to be in a scenario where the land was completely terraformed.
Usually the alien landscape jarred me, but this felt much like a
joyride through a frozen pine forest on Earth. The chill, blustery
wind brought bits of ice and frozen raindrops to drift from the sky
into the hovercraft. As we roared along, plumes of snow raised and
hung in the air behind us. Ahead loomed a great white glacier. Two
other hovercrafts intersected us from either direction, but no
warning buzzer went off.

We’d decided that only sergeants should speak over
the helmet mikes when more than one combat team was present.

"This is Hector Vasquez commanding team one," said
the man to our right. "Who do we have here?"

"Abriara Sifuentes in team two."

"Paco García in team three," said the man to our
left. I glanced left. Many men had praised García over the past few
days, affirming that if anyone from our module could beat the
samurai, he could. García’s team looked like any other. Judging by
size, two humans and three chimeras, all dressed in bug suits that
looked black in the darkness.

Abriara said, "Right. You’re in charge."

García said, "Form a V, two hundred meters to the
side. First team to hear a buzzer, call out and swerve toward your
compadres on the other side of the V. Then we’ll all veer directly
away from the incoming craft. I want them on our tails. Abriara, I
want you in the lead. Just circle this mountain. I want plenty of
snow on the ground when they find us."

"Sí," Abriara and Hector said in unison. We took the
lead. Abriara kept driving at full speed, and the other
drivers—both humans—had difficulty keeping up.

We circled the base of the mountain for half an hour.
The two moons overhead were smaller than Earth’s moon and shed
little light. We had no headlights—just the colored lights of the
instrument panels. Kaigo had once told us that the headlights were
removed for our own safety—a vehicle traveling with headlights on
was too easily spotted by the Yabajin. Only the moonlight
reflecting on snow let us guide the hovercrafts in the dark. We’d
never fought a scenario at night before, nor had we fought in
snow.

Zavala spoke through his helmet mike, panting between
words. "I dreamed of this place last night. I dreamed we fought the
samurai here. We tricked them, but I can’t remember how."

His words gave me an eerie sensation. I couldn’t
think what would make Zavala dream such a thing.

"Try to remember," Mavro said. "It could be
important. It could save us all." His cheery voice was encouraging
on the surface, but held an undertone of contempt. Zavala had begun
recording a journal of dreams, believing them important. He spent
his days trying to recall his dreams of the night before.

"I’ll try," Zavala said. And after several moments he
continued, "It had something to do with our armor. We put something
on our armor, making it impenetrable. The Japanese shot, but
couldn’t hurt us."

"Ah, if only you could remember, I’m sure it would be
a boon!" Mavro said. "As for myself, my dreams are useless. I only
dreamed I made love to a giant woman. She cooed from the pleasure I
gave. She was ecstatic. She looked just like Abriara, only
bigger."

"Shut up," García said over the head mike, and Mavro
quieted.

The daytime sights on our guns would do us no good,
so García had us flip on our targeting lasers and practice
shooting. Each targeting laser shone in a different color of the
spectrum so that we wouldn’t confuse our targeting light with that
of someone else. When I pointed my rifle, a pale blue dot showed
where my shot would hit.

I fried a few fallen pines, sometimes turning them
into torches.

We circled the mountain and climbed the great glacier
that covered one face. Our bug suits didn’t protect us from the
cold. I shivered violently and my hands soon stiffened inside the
armor. I wished I’d spent time in the mountains of Peru with
Perfecto.

We were at the bottom of the glacier hurtling toward
a dark line of pines when García yelled, "Here they come! Veer
right!" The Yabajin were shooting down from the mountaintop at tree
line, hoping to intersect us in the open.

We veered right, dropping toward the bottom of the
glacier, keeping out of range of their turrets. Beyond the
snowfield was a forest on a slope so steep it almost formed a
cliff. Just below our line of sight, feathery clouds glowed silver
in the moonlight.

The change in direction restructured our formation so
that our team was no longer at point. García’s team formed the
point of the triangle slightly behind us, closest to the Yabajin,
while Hector’s team floated beside us.

"Look for a small valley, no wider than fifty meters.
One with steep sides. I want them to funnel in after us," García
ordered. "And when you find it, lay down plasma fire in the snow
behind you. I want a smoke screen."

Mavro experimentally shot a burst of plasma into the
snow beside us. The plasma became a searing white light in the
darkness. Sure enough, a small puff of steam rose. We dropped off
the edge of the glacier into the sparse forest, and all we did was
fall.

Abriara hit the thrusters in full reverse to slow our
descent and dodged the black trees while I hooked my feet under my
seat and held the rail. One man in Hector’s team started praying,
"Madre de Dios ..." and I closed my eyes.

The trip down seemed to last forever.

"Lay down grazing fire!" García ordered. "Maybe one
of them will crash into a tree!" Mavro and Perfecto opened up with
the plasma turrets, and the guns made their little
whuft,
whuft
sounds. In the darkness the flash from the plasma turrets
was bright enough so I could see pinpoints of white even through my
closed eyes.

Abriara jerked the hovercraft controls, pitching it
violently as she dodged trees. I opened my eyes just in time to see
the ground come up. The hovercraft thudded nose-first into a pile
of snow, hurling me to the floor. Then Abriara gunned the engine
and the craft broke free. We were in a valley with incredibly steep
sides—too steep for the hovercraft to climb out. Hector took the
lead, and his hovercraft threw up a rooster tail of snow, blinding
us. The valley was full of fallen trees and great black igneous
boulders, so every time Hector dodged a tree or boulder he’d shout,
"Tree, right!" or "Rock, left!" so Abriara would know where to
turn.

"Slow down and continue grazing fire! I want them to
follow us!" García called.

He was right. This was a perfect place to set up an
ambush, and the Yabajin had no choice but to follow us down the
funnel. Perfecto and Mavro fired their turrets ahead and to the
sides. With each burst, the path ahead brightened as if struck by
lightning, and the black stones and trees threw eerie shadows; then
the plasma would hit the snow and mist would rise up and drift down
to silently fill the valley behind us. García’s hovercraft pulled
up on our tail till he could nearly touch us.

Hector called out, "Rock, right!" At the same time,
we passed under a leaning pine. One of García’s chimera turret
gunners leapt from atop the turret mount. He grabbed a pine limb
and pulled himself up, then was lost in the plume of snow our
hovercrafts had raised. We saw the rock ahead in the glow of the
plasma arc—the black volcanic stone of a cliff face.

When we rounded the cliff, García’s laser gunners
dove from their hovercraft, and I leapt with them and plowed
through the knee-deep snow. They scurried up the steep side of the
valley, making their way to the cliff top, about ten meters. I
tried following but the teflex armor on my boots slipped like
plastic. Not only couldn’t I make it to the cliff top, I couldn’t
walk up the gentler slope of the valley. Both García’s chimera
gunners climbed as if they were half mountain goat. I unbuckled my
armored gloves and tried pulling myself up by grabbing the roots of
a small pine, but I slid back down as soon as I let go.

Through my helmet mike I could hear Hector’s clear
voice calling directions to Abriara and García as they continued
down the mountain.

The distant whine of hovercrafts and flashing lights
announced the Yabajin as they floated down the valley. There was no
place to take cover by the cliff, so I began to run downhill to
hide. I risked a glance behind and saw that my tactic wouldn’t
work: I’d left a trail through the snow a blind man could follow. I
retraced my steps back to where we’d jumped from the hovercraft.
The snow was beaten there, and our tracks were mixed. It looked
like a safe place to hide. I lay in the snow and covered myself as
best I could, leaving a peephole. I turned off the targeting laser
on my rifle so no blue spot on the snow would betray my presence.
The slopes of the mountain filled with soft white light as the
Yabajin blasted beams of plasma ahead to show the way.

"Stop," García said over his helmet mike. He sounded
distant—not the typical "voice of God" one heard at close range.
"Abriara, go over there. Hector, stay where you are."

Lying still, waiting, tiny crystals of ice drifted
through the cracks in my armor; when one touched my skin it felt as
if I’d been pinched, then it turned wet and warm as it rose to body
temperature. My helmet mike carried the sound of heavy breathing as
the chimeras on the cliff panted from exertion. One said, "You down
there, Human: Remember to report your kills before the Yabajin
shoot you."

"Okay," I said.

García spoke over his mike, "We’re held up about two
kilometers from you. We’re setting up cross-fire now. Do you have a
report?"

A chimera above me said, "They’re coming cautiously,
at no more than 30 kph, a hundred meters apart, frying rocks and
trees—any place where a person could hide. I count fourteen men. It
looks as if they’ve left a sniper up at the head of the
valley."

García said, "What’s your position?"

"Noel and I are on top of the cliff. The human—"

"Angelo," I offered.

"Angelo is at the base of the cliff, your side,
covered with snow."

"Okay, Angelo—" García said, "Caesar, Miguel, and
Noel will ambush the Yabajin. They might be able to take out as
many as seven or eight men. But I want you to hold tight—don’t move
for four minutes after the Yabajin pass. We should engage the main
party at about that time. They’ll dump a couple of snipers off to
take care of Caesar and Noel, and I want you to surprise them.
Their best sniper is a short man who swings his arms when he
walks—we call him the Chimp. Fry him quick. When you’re done, wait
for their last sniper to come down. If we get killed, you’ll be
last man out."

"Yes, Sergeant," I said, happy to have a plan to
follow.

I flipped on the helmet’s external microphone so I
could better hear sounds outside the suit. The noise from the
external mike was often distracting in a heated battle, so I
normally left it off. As soon as I flipped the switch the sounds
from outside the suit multiplied in volume. I’d have staked my life
the Yabajin were half a kilometer off, but with the mike on it
sounded as if they were in my lap.

I lay still while the whine of the hovercrafts
increased. The white plasma fire reflecting on the hillside
brightened as they drew near. The sky above me suddenly lit up as a
jet of plasma streaked into a tree. A chimera shouted and a Yabajin
craft crashed into the other side of the cliff, shaking the ground,
and exploded in a flash that bathed the mountains orange.

The white streaks of plasma fire ceased abruptly.
Only the flames on the other side of the cliff lit the valley. Two
hovercrafts shot by in the shadow of the rock, sending up rooster
tails of snow that drifted down to bury me. I kept perfectly
still.

"Noel reporting. They just passed us, Sergeant.
Miguel took out one craft. I know he took the driver with him, but
several others jumped clear before the crash. Three, possibly four,
are on foot. The other two craft are coming down in the dark, minus
two turret gunners. They didn’t slow long enough to take on
stragglers."