The Forlorn Hope (9 page)

Blood was beginning to stain the left leg of his trousers, but he did not appear to notice it.

“Janko, come over here,” the Lieutenant said. He gripped the sling of Ondru's rifle and jerked the weapon away. The Sergeant had not been able to drop the rifle as ordered because the sling was held by his shoulder strap until Waldstejn tore it.

Waldstejn stepped away from the non-com. “I'm going to lock you all in the liquor cabinet,” he said with no awareness that the statement might sound like a joke. He had not been sure his pistol was loaded; he had no recollection of taking off the safety; and he
certainly
had not intended to shoot Doubek, thank God it did not appear to be serious. Albrecht Waldstejn was more afraid of himself than he was of any other facet of the situation. He had made his plans, though, and he would carry them out now even without real awareness of what was going on in his head.

The door to the stores area banged open. “What the hell's happening?” demanded Private Quade. His eyes glanced angrily around the room until they lighted on the Supply Officer. “My God!” the Private gasped. He lowered the section of pipe he held in his right hand.

“Go on,
quick!
” Waldstejn ordered. To the others, his voice held a snap of command. “Into the back.” He pumped the assault rifle vertically. He was afraid to gesture with the pistol lest it fire again.

Ondru and his two subordinates shuffled tensely into the stores area. Quade remained in the doorway. He frowned as the others moved past him. The Lieutenant tried to wink at the black-haired man when none of the others was looking. ‘You too, Quade,” he said harshly. “Into the back.” The Private obeyed slowly, still frowning.

The lights in the stores area threw crisp shadows down the aisles of racked supplies. The liquor cabinet was actually a cubical shipping container three meters on an edge. The sides were sheet steel. Access was through a pair of fully-overlapping hinged leaves in the front. The outer leaf was closed by a hasp and lock. The cabinet was in no sense a safe, but it was completely proof against undetected pilfering.

It would also serve as a prison until someone opened it from the outside.

Waldstejn set down his rifle, then thumbed the padlock. He kept his pistol advanced toward the men of his escort, but he pointed the muzzle high—just in case. All three of them seemed to be in shock. Doubek was clutching at his wound with both hands and whimpering.

“In there, the three of you,” the Lieutenant said as he wrenched open the inner leaf. More than half the container's volume was filled by cartons of spirits, but there was adequate room for the prisoners.

All three of them shuffled forward. Doubek was sniffling. “We won't be able to breathe,” he said. “We'll die.” His eyes were screwed shut.

Waldstejn stooped quickly to retrieve the rifle. “It isn't airtight,” he said. “Besides, you'll only be inside for as long as it takes Private Quade here to cut the lock off.”

When the three prisoners were inside the liquor cabinet, Waldstejn waved the rifle in Quade's direction. For the Private's sake in the aftermath, Waldstejn had to make it clear that his subordinate had nothing to do with what was happening. “Private Quade,” the young lieutenant said loudly. “I'm deserting.” He paused while he closed up the cabinet. The hinges squealed like the damned in torment. Winking again—he had to be sure Quade did not think that the threat was serious—the officer continued, “You can get bolt cutters and free them as soon as I'm gone, but if you move a muscle while I'm here I'll shoot you down like a dog.”

Waldstejn's belt still hung on the chair out front, so he thrust the pistol into his side pocket. He stepped quickly to the arms locker—another shipping container—and opened it.

Private Hodicky slipped out from behind the ration boxes which had hidden him until the prisoners were locked in. “What can we do, Lieutenant?” he whispered.

“Go back to bed and pretend you were asleep,” Waldstejn whispered back. He had to tug harder to open the arms' locker than he had the more frequently used liquor store. “On second thought,” he said, glancing at the dark-haired Quade, “make sure he knows what's going on and doesn't get himself into trouble. I only need a couple minutes.”

The arms locker held a variety of unassigned pieces and munitions, from anti-tank rockets on down. All Lieutenant Waldstejn needed was a canister of ammunition for the rifle he had appropriated. They were not going to be able to carry much, he and the mercenaries. The Company would probably have a spare weapon for Waldstejn, in fact. But the Cecach officer knew that he would be useless against the bruising recoil of one of the mercs' cone-bore guns. Better to carry an assault rifle and at least be able to spray the countryside with it if the need arose.

He turned back to his subordinates, clutching a ten-kilo can of ammunition by the handle. There was no time to worry about bandoliers and other gear, though he would pick up his belt as he went out. Hodicky was whispering with his mouth close to his friend's ear. Quade was no longer frowning. His face was quiet and as unexpectedly shocking as a razor blade in an apple. Waldstejn swallowed. “I told you not to move!” he shouted to prove to the prisoners that he had not left yet. He strode toward the door, weighted by the rifle and ammunition filling his hands.

Hodicky touched the tall officer's sleeve. “Good luck, sir,” he whispered.

Lieutenant Albrecht Waldstejn, late Supply Officer of the 522nd Garrison Battalion, nodded back.

He did not trust himself to speak.

*   *   *

“Off and on, children!” cried Roland Jensen as he dropped into the gun section's double shelter. He slapped the sole of Herzenberg's right boot for emphasis.

The four troopers in the shelter jerked alert. The males had been playing a desultory game of Casino. They were using an infra-red signal lamp for light and reading the pips through their night visors. “Your weapons,
two
basic loads of ammo, and three days rations. Now,
now!
”

Jensen's own field pack was already strapped to the back of the gun seat. He swung back outside again.

Guiterez stuck his head and shoulders out through the end curtain. He was rolling the Casino cloth. “Where we shifting, Sarge?” he asked. “Is this a patrol?”

“For the moment, we're shifting to the OC on my own authority,” the section leader said harshly. He locked a second can of ammunition into the one that was always loaded in the cannon. “Now shut up, get your ass in gear, and do
exactly
what I goddam tell you.”

The Sergeant-Gunner loaded a third drum. That should be enough, a balance between functioning and the chance there would be no one alive to feed the gun after the first blasts of a firefight. He waited, breathing hard as he surveyed the compound through his visor. Bright needles of amplified light marked each of the locally-manned bunkers. They were constructed of earth over steel planking. That looked far sturdier than the Company's beryllium felt, but when the bombs had hit that morning, two of the heavy roofs had been shaken down and suffocated the troops beneath.

The necklace of Cecach dug-outs ended in a dark gap a kilometer south of the automatic cannon. Fasolini's shelters had no crowns of light, even on maximum enhancement by the visors. If Jensen had wanted to, he could have located even those by switching to infra-red. The plumes of body heat from the personnel would give away the positions even if no one inside were using an IR light source.

The gun crew tumbled out. Pavlovich held Herzenberg's pack as well as his own. The recruit was good, though; she would shake down. Another month of campaigning with the Colonel and she would be ready to shift at the drop of a hat.

Jensen twisted his seat forward into driving position. “Everybody aboard,” he said. “This time you ride. And for God's sake, keep your eyes open.”

The gun began to judder forward on its tracks even as the crew obeyed the unexpected order. Jensen never permitted anyone to ride the cannon as if it were transport and not a weapon. The extra load drained the batteries and strained the running gear.

Somebody looked out of the nearest bunker as they passed with the inevitable chatter of loose tracks. Jensen divided his attention between his course and the bulk of the local headquarters in the center of the Complex. Colonel Fasolini would handle things, he always did.

But if worst came to worst, nobody was going to take Gunner Jensen's crew without paying the price.

*   *   *

“Where's a pair of bolt cutters?” demanded Jirik Quade as the front door closed behind Lieutenant Waldstejn. Quade himself ducked into the open arms locker.

Private Hodicky looked in surprise at his black-haired friend. He and the Supply Officer had assumed that Quade would simply refuse to open the makeshift prison at all. Such a dereliction would implicate Quade in the incident needlessly, because a few minutes' start was all that Waldstejn required. “Ah, Q,” Hodicky said, “let's don't be in
too
much of a rush, huh?” He pitched his voice low so that the prisoners could not hear his hesitation.

Sergeant Ondru's resonant threats from within the liquor store would have covered the words anyway. “Quade, you crap-head,” the non-com was bellowing, “if we're not out of here in thirty seconds it'll be Morale Section for you, not just the glasshouse. God be my witness, I'll have you
shot!
I know you planned this with him, and you'll by God regret it.”

Quade lunged back out of the arms locker as abruptly as he had entered it. He carried a loaded rifle by the handle at its balance. “Pavel,” he shouted angrily, “the cutters—I told you to get the—hell, never mind. I'll use this!”

“Hodicky, you little turd!” Ondru boomed. “It's your neck too, I swear on my mother's grave!”

The black-haired private snatched up the tubing he had carried when he burst in on Waldstejn and his escort. The tube was about half his own height, a thick-walled section from a hydraulic suspension. It had made an excellent weapon; now it served as a crowbar as well.

Quade set down the assault rifle. While Ondru continued to shout threats from inside, the Private slipped his tube through the lock strap. He caught the end of the tube under the edge of the hasp riveted to the door. Using the hasp as a fulcrum, Quade tugged at the tube. Nothing gave. Quade braced his toes under the edge of the door.

“Q,” said Private Hodicky, “wait, I'll get the bolt—”

“God
damn
it!” Quade shouted. Tendons sprang into high relief on his throat and wrists. The length of tubing flexed. Seams started at both shoulders of the little man's uniform. Hasp and lock bounced across the room as the rivets gave way. “Mother of God,” Quade muttered as he slumped against the door. His lever, noticeably bowed, clanged on the floor.

“Get this
open,
you bastards,” called the Sergeant.

Quade stepped away from the container. “Well,
do
it, Pavel,” he ordered huskily. “Open the goddam doors.”

Hodicky obeyed with a feeling of trapped fear. He spent his life skating over the thin ice of others' angers, others' needs, but this was an open abyss beyond his control or understanding. He pulled open the outer leaf. The inner one sprang back under the weight of Sergeant Ondru. On the floor behind him sat Doubek. The wounded man moaned and held the thigh which none of the three prisoners had thought to bandage. Janko waited hesitantly as well. He was more than willing to let Ondru carry the burden of informing their superiors of what had occurred.

Ondru's rage was bomb-fierce. It drove him out into the warehouse with a roar. “
Now
you little s—” he began. There was a pause. In a wholly different voice, the non-com continued, “Quade, what do you think you're doing with that rif—”

Quade shot the Sergeant through the center of the chest.

The assault rifle had a burst control which disconnected the sear after five shots, even if the trigger were still depressed. Quade squeezed the trigger eight times to empty the forty-round magazine. Hodicky screamed and stared at his friend to avoid seeing what was happening to the Sergeant.

The weapon fired light, glass-cored bullets which had little accuracy or striking power beyond three hundred meters. Point blank, as here, the bullets burned holes in thin steel and pulped flesh like a sausage mill. Liquor containers burst as the bottles within them exploded. The air stank of alcohol and blood as Ondru fell backward. Quade's rifle continued to spit round after round into the cratered chest. The limbs spasmed and the mouth gaped until a bullet shattered the chin. With horror, Hodicky noticed the gunman's fingers continued to pump the trigger even after the magazine had dropped automatically from the loading well to make room for a fresh one.

Hodicky nerved himself to touch his friend's shoulder. “Q,” he said, “it's okay now. Loosen up.” His head ached with terror and the muzzle blasts.

Sergeant Ondru's head and shoulders had been sawn away from his lower body. Liquor was gurgling from the ravaged cartons and was beginning to pool around the corpse. Neither Janko nor Doubek had been touched by bullets, though a shard of bottle had torn the seated man's face unnoticed. Both of them stared at the gunman. Their faces and clothing gleamed with their Sergeant's blood.

“Think I'm a faggot, do you, Ondru?” Quade muttered under his breath. He shuddered and turned from the carnage. “Pavel,” he said in a normal voice, “I'm going with the Lieutenant. You and him are the only people who ever treated me decent, and I wasn't going to last here without him. You know that.” Quade locked a fresh magazine into his rifle, then lifted a canister of ammunition. “See you around,” the black-haired man said, using his full hands as an excuse to prevent an embrace.