No. His men weren't goofing off, they were patrolling. But someone was pulling a joke on him. The FP was wearing a Marine-issue helmet with the infra visor down. Under the lower lip of the visor, MacIlargie could see the man's grinning mouth.
MacIlargie continued into the middle of the shift. He stood tall and looked all around. Even here he couldn't see all of them without his infras. Every one he could see was wearing a Marine-issue helmet with its infra visor down.
"Very good, people," he said loudly. "This exercise is concluded. Fall in on me." Pride returned. His shift had done well. They had learned well. He'd taught well. He wasn't over his anger, he was still going to have someone's hide. But it wasn't going to be his men's. It was going to be the hide of whoever had given them the Marine-issue helmets without telling him. He only hoped it wasn't Staff Sergeant Bass. Or Sergeant Hyakowa. Or Corporal Dornhofer, or... He started getting frustrated again. Damn! Unless it was Godenov who gave his men the helmets, he wasn't going to have anybody's hide.
Acting Shift Sergeant Godenov was doing a lot of grumbling since first squad killed the guerrilla ambush. Whenever the Marines weren't actively training their FPs, they engaged in discussion, sometimes heated, about whether or not the FPs were good enough. Godenov flinched every time he heard a Marine say the FPs weren't "good enough" yet—or worse, that they might never be good enough. He particularly hated it whenever someone said his shift wasn't good enough yet. Even though intellectually he knew nobody was saying he wasn't good enough, emotionally he reacted as though they were. He couldn't help it, he'd been hearing "good enough" and "not good enough" directed at him all his life. Why hadn't his ancestors changed the family name when they began speaking English? The name could be a terrible burden to bear.
Truthfully, the FPs weren't good enough yet. Not by Marine standards they weren't. Of course, by Marine standards nobody who didn't wear the Eagle, Globe, and Starstream was good enough.
Well, PFC Isidore Godenov was tired of hearing "good enough" and "not good enough." His shift was going to be good enough. More than that. He was going to do his best to make his shift the best in the entire 257th Feldpolizei Battalion. He'd show them all he was "good enough"—and then some.
To that end, he had his shift out in the first range of hills west of the GSB headquarters practicing immediate action drills. The Wanderjahrian guerrillas, the self-styled "Peoples Liberation Army," favored the same tactic used by most guerrilla forces for thousands of years—the hit-and-run ambush.
There are three things an infantry unit can do when it walks into an ambush. One is for everyone to run away—in which event many of them will get shot in the back. This isn't considered a viable option, though it's the option of choice of untrained or demoralized troops. The second is for everyone to remain in place, get organized, and fight back. But as the ambush in the Bavaran Hills had demonstrated, that can also lead to disaster. The third choice is an "immediate action drill"; that is, everybody immediately reacts aggressively to the ambush nobody runs away, nobody waits for orders.
Ambushers always start with the upper hand. They know where you are and have fire superiority before you even know they're there. You're exposed to their sight and fire while they're hidden from yours. Immediate action drills teach troops to get out of an ambusher's lines of sight and fire, quickly build up return fire to match or better that of the ambushers, and to locate them. Not necessarily in that order.
Of course, the best way to react to an ambush is to discover it before you walk into it—as when Corporal Leach spotted the ambush a few days earlier. But that's usually not possible. So good commanders in counterguerrilla conflicts spend a lot of time and energy training their men in immediate reaction drills. The FPs were in their camouflauge field uniforms; Godenov wore his chameleons. He wasn't leading the patrol; he'd placed the men back under the command of their regular shift sergeant, Lahrmann. Instead he walked along watching them. Sometimes he was on one side, sometimes the other. He also followed, or went ahead to observe from the front. All in all, he was pretty satisfied with their movement. They weren't silent, but they were far from noisy. They weren't taking advantage of all the concealment they could, but neither were they walking upright and out in the open. It was a tremendous improvement in a relatively short time.
After giving basic instruction in how to react to an ambush, Godenov began looking for good ambush sites. Whenever he found one before his men passed it, he'd take a position in it and shout "BANG-BANG!" when his men were in the killing zone, and watch how they reacted. After each drill he debriefed the men.
The first time Godenov shouted "BANG-BANG!" his men must have been suffering from opening-night jitters. They jumped, startled, at the sound of his voice, and most of them stood around for several seconds before they did anything. The second time, they dropped in place and started firing in all directions. The only ones who took advantage of any cover were those who happened to have some kind of cover right where they dropped. And they weren't shooting live, of course, they shouted "BANG-BANG!" and felt silly doing it. They did have live batteries for their blasters, as they had to because of the possibility that guerrillas were in the area, but Godenov made sure their weapons were unloaded he didn't want to risk getting accidentally fried by one of his own men.
The third time he indicated an ambush by shouting "BANG-BANG!" most of them dove for the nearest cover and BANG-BANGed in his direction. No question, they were improving with practice. Some of them even put some enthusiasm into their BANG BANGs the third time.
He also showed them how to assault through an ambush if one was spotted in time.
After another three mock ambushes, and a couple where his ambush was spotted before it was tripped, Godenov decided his men were good enough that they needed a force-on-force drill to improve further. Force-on-force was provided; unwittingly, but it came when it was needed.
The woodland Godenov was patrolling his shift through was little different from the woods that bordered the precinct. parade ground. It had the near-ubiquitous family groupings of grospalms, but the rolling land wasn't level enough to support as high a concentration of hochbaums, so there were fewer of them. Instead spikers, which seemed to prefer climbing ground, were fairly common. The scattered undergrowth was woodier than the fuzzy and formless fernlike growth on the flatland. This was a grazing area for the huge herbivores the Wanderjahrians called cows and sheep, so the ground was fairly bare.
Godenov was a hundred meters ahead of his shift and a little to the right of their line of march, wondering whether there was any point in putting them through another drill today, when he thought he heard someone say something somewhere in front of him. So far as he knew, he and his shift were the only Marines or FPs in this area. He froze in place and slowly raised a hand to lower his infras. He peered toward the grospalms where he thought the voice had come from, but didn't see any telltale red. Slowly, silently, fully alert, Godenov drifted toward his right front. He listened carefully as he moved, but didn't hear the voice. After he'd gone more than twenty meters, he stopped and listened again. Still nothing. Slowly, he went straight ahead, listening and looking. And then he saw a well-concealed man sitting in a shallow depression from which he could easily watch the animal trail the FPs were paralleling. Quickly, Godenov looked deeper into the grospalm clump. He saw three more men. He wanted to continue checking to see if there were more than four, but they suddenly changed their attitudes and focused sharply in the direction from which he'd come. Godenov looked back. His men were coming into view from behind a row of man-high bushes. This was an ambush for real.
Still careful not to make any noise, Godenov moved as fast as he could back to his men, easily dodging the few bushes in his way. He was pleased that none of the FPs flinched when his invisible-man's voice said, "Look alive! Lock and load. This is no drill. There's real guerrillas just ahead of us to the right."
The FPs were shifting from left to right as they walked, watching both sides of the
ir path. Godenov was pleased that they all tried to conceal the motions of loading their weapons from the people watching from their right front.
"I know where they're at," he told his men. "I'll give the signal right before we enter their killing zone. When I do, attack to your right front."
By the time he finished giving his instructions, the front of the patrol had already passed the first guerrilla position.
"NOW!" Godenov shouted. Before the word was completely out of his mouth, he pointed his blaster at where he knew the first guerrilla was and pressed the firing lever. The acrid stink of charred, bubbling flesh almost immediately assailed his nose—he got his kill.
His men were doing exactly what he'd taught them. They were rushing in the direction he told them to, yelling fiercely and burning everything in their paths. Two of the guerrillas were able to get off one wild shot each before they were killed. The third was like the one Godenov shot—fried before he had a chance to fire. There were no others. It hadn't been an ambush, it was an observation post.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Godenov shouted as soon as he realized they weren't getting any return fire.
"Secure the perimeter," Acting Assistant Shift Sergeant Lahrmann immediately called out. He bustled about, making sure the men were in defensive positions around the observation post, then joined Godenov, who, stomach churning at the grisly task, was inspecting the corpses.
"Not enough of them left to tell us anything," Lahrmann said, shaking his head. Despite his words, he couldn't help grinning. This was the first shift-size action he'd ever been on that was such a clear-cut victory for his side. His eyes shined as he looked at Godenov. "Your tactics really work, Acting Shift Sergeant. You teach us good. We will kill many guerrillas with what you teach us."
Churning stomach or no, Godenov beamed.
"Commander..." Fighter Juarez burst into the chamber Hing was using as his field HQ. "A runner just brought an eyes-only message."
Hing made sure the confidential papers he was packing for the move back to the Che Loi Brigade's base were covered before he turned to face Juarez and held out a hand to accept the message. But Juarez had nothing to give him.
"Where is it?"
Juarez looked apologetic and almost stammered as he said, "Commander, the runner refuses to hand it to anybody but you."
That was strange. What could be going on? Hing's voice didn't betray his thoughts when he said, "Bring the runner to me."
"Yessir. Immediately, Commander." Juarez spun about and ran off. Juarez was back in less than a minute. The runner he brought with him wasn't someone Hing knew. As if in confirmation that the man wasn't a member of the Che Loi Brigade, he wore the green and blue tab on his collar that identified him as being from PLA Staat Command. Hing raised an eyebrow. For a runner from PLA Staat Command to hand-deliver a message to a brigade commander personally was most unusual. And the runner looked surprisingly fresh for having come all the way from wherever Staat HQ was currently located.
The headquarters runner looked at Hing, then glanced at a 2-D image he held in his hand. Satisfied that he was indeed facing the man to whom he was to deliver the message, he snapped to attention and announced, "Commander Hing, I have a message from PLA Staat Command. It is for your eyes only." From somewhere in his uniform he produced a sealed envelope and ceremoniously held it out.
Hing's expression showed nothing of what he was feeling as he accepted the envelope and casually examined it. It was closed, with a self-destruct seal that would open only to the thumbprint of the addressee. Hing remained facing the man as he pressed his thumb against the seal and the envelope popped open. He extracted the single sheet of paper it contained. The paper was printed on one side only, and he continued to face Juarez and the HQ runner as he read it, leaving only the blank side for them to see. Juarez understood the protocol of confidentiality and looked at the floor. The runner boldly kept his eyes on the commander though he didn't look at the paper.
It took only a few seconds for Hing to read the two sentences. It explained why the runner looked so fresh. Hing looked up at the man and asked, "What more can you tell me?"
"Nothing, Commander. I was told simply to deliver the message to your hands only and await your instructions." His words were plain, but his manner of speech told Hing he probably knew more. But Hing had no time to try to get more information out of him, not if he was to obey the instructions he'd just received. He looked at Juarez.
"Assemble the staff. Instantly."
"Yes, Commander. Instantly." Juarez ran off and began calling out names.
They were assembled in moments. All looked curiously at the runner, but no one commented or questioned.
"I have been summoned to Staat headquarters," Hing said without preamble as soon as everyone was present. He held up the message the runner had brought and read it. " 'You will accompany the bearer of this message to Staat headquarters without delay. He has transportation.' " Looking back at his staff, he said, "Lieutenant Harbottle is in command of the movement back to brigade headquarters. Subcommander Sukamohon will be in command until I return." He looked at Cildair, the senior medic. "Lieutenant Pincote is to remain sufficiently sedated that she can't pull another stunt like she did today until the synthskin grafts. Is everything understood?" Startled by the news, some members of the staff simply stared at Hing, others nodding understanding. "Then carry on," Hing said. He picked up his backpack, which was already packed. "Take me to our transportation," he told the headquarters runner.
Not long after, as impatience about late-returning observation posts began to grow, a runner raced in with a report of a four-man OP that couldn't be found. But there were clear signs of fighting at the OP site.
Chapter Fourteen
A dozen heavily armed men dressed in black burst suddenly through the doors of the small chapel. The crash of their entry stopped Reverend Walther Handschu right in the middle of his sermon, which was from Chapter 5 of Paul's Epistle to the Romans: "Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."
"Who are you?" Gretel Siebensberg asked, standing and facing the intruders. The bright morning sunlight shining through the broken doors outlined the men as huge black hulks crowding into the aisle. Motes of dust swirled about their heads in the golden sunlight streaming from behind them, but their faces were in total darkness.
One man detached himself from the group and strode heavily down the aisle, weapons swinging and clattering, to stand directly over the diminutive woman. As he passed by the other worshipers, they gasped when they saw the leering grin on his face—his teeth had been filed to sharp points. Reverend Handschu stood transfixed in his pulpit, his mouth gaping open, the worn copy of the New Testament from which he was taking the morning's sermon held open in one hand, the other raised as if in benediction. Mother Siebensberg, as she was known among her people, the oligarch of Friedland, the leader and protector of her six million citizens, and the chief religious figure for the Christian congregations in her domains, faced the apparition indignant but without fear.
"Bitch," the man growled, "I am your judgment."
* * *
Gretel Siebensberg was a devout Christian who practiced the simple religious rites of her forebears. She did not demand that her people accept that faith, but all were encouraged to, and church attendance among the people of Friedland was the highest of the Staats on Wanderjahr.
In her household, everyone attended chapel twice a day, at dawn and at dusk. Services were conducted by Reverend Walther Handschu, Siebensberg's personal chaplain, and she attended them whenever she was in her capital city of Kreuzstadt. For Sunday services she attended the United Brotherhood church in the city or the smaller church in the nearby village of Siebensdorf, where the people who maintained her local estates and farms lived.
The religious tradition of the United Brotherhood was one of utter simplicity. A pacifist sect from its earliest days, the Brotherhood rejected the violence and implicit
Jewish nationalism of the Old Testament for the peace and salvation of the New. Each copy of the New Testament used in Friedland was printed in Old High German and English. Old High German was taught in the schools, and services were often conducted in that language. The United Brotherhood rejected a church calendar, and traditional holy days such as Christmas and Easter were not observed by the congregations in Friedland. The only music permitted in their churches were the hymns the congregations sang from a common hymnal. And each congregation was independent of any church hierarchy because there wasn't one in Friedland. Pastors were "called" from the congregations themselves. A body of scriptural exegesis was available, compiled over the centuries by various scholars, and learning those texts was the only education any minister of the United Brotherhood was ever required to have.
Life was good for the people of Friedland. Austere in her personal habits and incorruptible in her public life, Mother Siebensberg nevertheless believed in hard work and enjoying the fruits of honest labor. With the recent rise in income from the production of thule on her farms, she had invested heavily in benefits for her people. There was no need for Feldpolizei garrisons in Friedland, and the Stadtpolizei organization in Kreuzstadt was a law enforcement agency in name only. There was little banditry or crime in Friedland. Now, on this beautiful early-spring morning, all this was about to change.
"Leave at once!" Mother Siebensberg ordered the grinning hulk standing before her. Imperiously, she pointed toward the chapel door. The other men had taken up positions along the walls and now stood with their weapons leveled at the two dozen worshipers.
The man hit her, so hard that blood spurted from the side of her head. Mother Siebensberg fell heavily between the pews and lay there insensate. A collective gasp of horror went up from the other worshipers, who were kept in their seats only by the muzzles of the guns being pointed at them. The man who had hit Mother, apparently the leader, drew a machete from a scabbard at his side. With one long step he crossed the space between the front row of pews and the pulpit and, swinging the machete, severed Reverend Handschu's head cleanly from his neck. Eyes wide, mouth open, the head flew a bloody trajectory to the wall, then bounced to the floor, rolling under the pew where twelve-year-old Michelle Nguyen sat with her mother, Gretel Siebensberg's chief housekeeper. Michelle, staring in wide-eyed horror at the minister's head, instinctively raised her feet to keep the blood off her shoes. The reverend's body stood erect for a moment, blood pumping out of the carotids in bright red streams, before it crumpled with a thud to the floor. In the total silence that followed the sound of the body hitting the boards, his Bible fluttered noisily down after him.
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