Dogs of War

by David Drake

  Dom thumbed the jets on the gropener, and it pulled him aside before he followed the combatman.

  “Bomb squad, disperse,” he ordered. “Troops coming through.” He switched to the combat frequency and looked up at the ragged column of men dropping down toward him.

  “The deck below had been retaken. I am at the last occupied deck.”

  He waved his hand to indicate who was talking, and the stream of men began to jet their weapons and move on by him. “They're below me. The bullets came from this side.” The combatmen pushed on without a word.

  The metal flooring shook as another opening was blasted somewhere behind him. The continuous string of men moved by. A few seconds later a helmeted figure—with a horned helmet—appeared below and waved the all-clear. The drop continued.

  On the bottom deck, the men were all jammed almost shoulder to shoulder, and more were arriving all the time.

  “Bomb squad here, give me a report,” Dom radioed. A combatman with a napboard slung at his waist pushed back out of the crowd.

  “We reached the cargo hold”—it's immense—but we're being pushed back. Just by weight of numbers. The Edinburgers are desperate. They are putting men through the MT screen in light pressure suits. Unarmored, almost unarmed. We kill them easily enough but they have pushed us out bodily. They're coming right from the invasion planet. Even when we kill them, the bodies block the way …”

  “You the engineer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Whereabouts in the hold is the MT screen?”

  “It runs the length of the hold and is back against the far wall.”

  “Controls?”

  “On the left side.”

  “Can you lead us over or around the hold so we can break in near the screen?”

  The engineer took a single look at charts.

  “Yes, around. Through the engine room. We can blast through close to the controls.”

  “Let's go then.” Dom switched to combat frequency and waved his arm over his head. “All combatmen who can see me—this way. We're going to make a flank attack.”

  They moved down the long corridor as fast as they could, with the combatmen ranging out ahead of the bomb squad. There were sealed pressure doors at regular intervals, but these were bypassed by blasting through the bulkheads at the side. There was resistance and there were more dead as they advanced—dead from both sides. Then a group of men gathered ahead, and Dom floated up to the greatly depleted force of combatmen who had forced their way this far. A corporal touched his helmet to Dom's, pointing to a great sealed door at the corridor's end.

  “The engine room is behind there. These walls are thick. Everyone off to one side, because we must use an octupled charge.”

  They dispersed, and the bulkheads heaved and buckled when the charge exploded. Dom, looking toward the corridor, saw a sheet of flame sear by, followed by a column of air that turned instantly to sparkling granules of ice. The engine room had still been pressurized.

  There had been no warning, and most of the crewmen had not had their helmets sealed. They were violently and suddenly dead. The few survivors were killed quickly when they offered resistance with improvised weapons. Dom scarcely noticed this as he led his bomb squad after the engineer.

  “That doorway is not on my charts,” the engineer said, angrily, as though the spy who had stolen the information was at fault. “It must have been added after construction.”

  “Where does it go to?” Dom asked.

  “The MT hold, no other place is possible.”

  Dom thought quickly. “I'm going to try and get to the MT controls without fighting. I need a volunteer to go with me. If we remove identification and wear Edinburger equipment we should be able to do it.”

  “I'll join you,” the engineer said.

  “No, you have a different job. I want a good combatman.”

  “Me,” a man said, pushing through the others. “Pimenov, best in my squad. Ask anybody.”

  “Let's make this fast.”

  The disguise was simple. With the identifying spike knocked off their helmets and enemy equipment slung about them, they would pass any casual examination. A handful of grease obscured the names on their chests.

  “Stay close behind and come fast when I knock the screen out,” Dom told the others, then led the combatman through the door.

  There was a narrow passageway between large tanks and another door at the far end. It was made of light metal but was blocked by a press of human bodies, spacesuited men who stirred and struggled but scarcely moved. The two combatmen pushed harder, and a sudden movement of the mob released the pressure; Dom fell forward, his helmet banging into that of the nearest man.

  “What the devil you about?” the man said, twisting his head to look at Dom.

  “More of them down there,” Dom said, trying to roll his r' s the way the Edinburgers did.

  “You're not one of us!” the man said and struggled to bring his weapon up.

  Dom could not risk a fight here—yet the man had to be silenced. He was wearing a thin spacesuit. Dom could just reach the lightning prod, and he jerked it from its clip and jammed it against the Edinburger's side. The pair of needle-sharp spikes pierced suit and clothes and bit into his flesh, and when the hilt slammed against his body the circuit was closed. The handle of the lightning prod was filled with powerful capacitors that released their stored electricity in a single immense charge through the needles. The Edinburger writhed and died instantly.

  They used his body to push a way into the crowd.

  Dom had just enough sensation left in his injured leg to be aware when the clamped-on nipoff was twisted in his flesh by the men about them; he kept his thoughts from what it was doing to his leg.

  V

  Once the Edinburger soldiers were aware of the open door, they pulled it wide and fought their way through it. The combatmen would be waiting for them in the engine room. The sudden exodus relieved the pressure of the bodies for a moment, and Dom, with Pimenov struggling after him, pushed and worked his way toward the MT controls.

  It was like trying to move in a dream. The dark hulk of the MT screen was no more than ten yards away, yet they couldn't seem to reach it. Soldiers sprang from the screen, pushing and crowding in, more and more, preventing any motion in that direction. The technicians stood at the controls, their helmet phones plugged into the board before them. Without gravity to push against, jammed into the crowd that floated at all levels in a fierce tangle of arms and legs, movement was almost impossible. Pimenov touched his helmet to Dom's.

  “I'm going ahead to cut a path. Stay close behind me.”

  He broke contact before Dom could answer him, and let his power ax pull him forward into the press. Then he began to chop it back and forth in a short arc, almost hacking his way through the packed bodies. Men turned on him, but he did not stop, lashing out with his gropener as they tried to fight. Dom followed.

  They were close to the MT controls before the combatman was buried under a crowd of stabbing, cursing Edinburgers. Pimenov had done his job, and he died doing it. Dom jetted his gropener and let it drag him forward until he slammed into the thick steel frame of the MT screen above the operators’ heads. He slid the weapon along the frame, dragging himself headfirst through the press of suited bodies. There was a relatively clear space near the controls. He drifted down into it and let his drillger slide into the operator's back. The man writhed and died quickly. The other operator turned and took the weapon in his stomach. His face was just before Dom as his eyes widened and he screamed soundlessly with pain and fear. Dom could not escape the dead, horrified features as he struggled to drop the atomic bomb from his carrier. The murdered man stayed, pressed close against him all the time.

  Now!

  He cradled the bomb against his chest and, in a single swift motion, pulled out the arming pin, twisted the fuse to five seconds, and slammed down hard on the actuator. Then he reached up and switched the MT from receive to send.
<
br />   The last soldiers erupted from the screen, and there was a growing gap behind them. Into this space and through the screen Dom threw the bomb.

  After that, he kept the switch down and tried not to think about what was happening among the men of the invasion army who were waiting before the MT screen on that distant planet.

  Then he had to hold this position until the combatmen arrived. He sheltered behind the operator's corpse and used his drillger against the few Edinburgers who were close enough to realize that something had gone wrong. This was easy enough to do because, although they were soldiers, they were men from the invasion regular army and knew nothing about null-G combat. Very soon after this, there was a great stir, and the closest ones were thrust aside. An angry combatman blasted through, sweeping his power ax toward Dom's neck. Dom dodged the blow and switched his radio to combat frequency.

  “Hold that! I'm Corporal Priego, bomb squad. Get in front of me and keep anyone else from making the same mistake.”

  The man was one of those who had taken the engine room. He recognized Dom now and nodded, turning his back to him and pressing against him. More combatmen stormed up to form an iron shield around the controls. The engineer pushed through between them, and Dom helped him reset the frequency on the MT screen.

  After this, the battle became a slaughter and soon ended.

  “Sendout!” Dom radioed as soon as the setting was made, then instructed the screen to transmit. He heard the words repeated over and over as the combatmen repeated the withdrawal signal so that everyone could hear it. Safety lay on the other side of the screen, now that it was tuned to Tycho Barracks on the Moon.

  It was the Edinburgers, living, dead and wounded, who were sent through first. They were pushed back against the screen to make room for the combatmen who were streaming into the hold. The ones at the ends of the screen simply bounced against the hard surface and recoiled; the receiving screen at Tycho was far smaller man this great invasion screen. They were pushed along until they fell through, and combatmen took up positions to mark the limits of operating screen.

  Dom was aware of someone in front of him, and he had to blink away the red film that was trying to cover his eyes.

  “Wing,” he said, finally recognizing the man. “How many others of the bomb squad made it?”.

  “None I know of, Dom. Just me.”

  No, don't think about the dead! Only the living counted now.

  “All right Leave your bomb here and get on through. One is all we really need.” He tripped the release and pulled the bomb from Wing's rack before giving him a push toward the screen.

  Dom had the bomb clamped to the controls when Sergeant Toth slammed up beside him and touched helmets.

  “Almost done.”

  “Done now,” Dom said, setting the fuse and pulling out the arming pin.

  “Then get moving. I'll take it from here.”

  “No you don't. My job.” He had to shake his head to make the haze go away but it still remained at the comers of his vision.

  Toth didn't argue. “What's the setting?” he asked.

  “Five and six. Five seconds after actuation the chemical bomb blows and knocks out the controls. One second later the atom bomb goes off.”

  “I'll stay around I think to watch the fun.”

  Time was acting strangely for Dom, speeding up and slowing down. Men were hurrying by, into the screen, first in a rush, men fewer and fewer. Toth was talking on the combat frequency, but Dom had switched the radio off because it hurt his head. The great chamber was empty now of all but the dead, with the automatic machine guns left firing at the entrances. One of them blew up as Toth touched helmets.

  “They're all through. Let's go.”

  Dom had difficulty talking, so he nodded instead and hammered his fist down onto the actuator.

  Men were coming toward them, but Toth had his arms around him, and full jets on his power ax were sliding them along the surface of the screen. And through.

  When the brilliant lights of Tycho Barracks hit his eyes, Dom closed them, and this time the red haze came up, over him, all the way.

  “How's the new leg?” Sergeant Toth asked. He slumped lazily in the chair beside the hospital bed.

  “I can't feel a thing. Nerve channels blocked until it grows tight to the stump.” Dom put aside the book he had been reading and wondered what Toth was doing here.

  “I come around to see the wounded,” the Sergeant said, answering the unasked question. “Two more besides you. Captain told me to.”

  “The Captain is as big a sadist as you are. Aren't we sick enough already?.”

  “Good joke.” His expression did not change. “I'll tell the Captain. He'll like it You going to buy out now?.”

  “Why not?” Dom wondered why the question made him angry. “I've had a combat mission, the medals, a good wound. More than enough points to get my discharge.”

  “Stay in. You're a good combatman when you stop thinking about it. There's not many of them. Make it a career.”

  “Like you, Sergeant? Make killing my life's work? Thank you, no. I intend to do something different, a little more constructive. Unlike you, I don't relish this whole dirty business, the killing, the outright plain murder. You like it” This sudden thought sent him sitting upright in the bed. “Maybe that's it Wars, fighting, everything. It has nothing to do any more with territory rights or aggression or masculinity. I think that you people make wars because of the excitement of it, the thrill that nothing else can equal. You really like war.”

  Toth rose, stretched easily and turned to leave. He stopped at the door, frowning in thought.

  “Maybe you're right Corporal. I don't think about it much. Maybe I do like it.” His face lifted in a cold tight smile. “But don't forget—you like it too.”

  Dom went back to his book, resentful of the intrusion. His literature professor had sent it along with a flattering note. He had heard about Dom on the broadcasts, and the entire school was proud, and so on. A book of poems by Milton, really good stuff.

  No war, or battle's sound

  Was heard the world around.

  Yes, great stuff. But it hadn't been true in Milton's day and it still wasn't true. Did mankind really like war? They must like it or it wouldn't have lasted so long. This was an awful, criminal thought.

  He too? Nonsense. He fought well, but he had trained himself. It would not be true that he actually liked all of that.

  Dom tried to read again, but the page kept blurring before his eyes.

  There are stories with serious messages, and there are stories which are just stories. Very occasionally there's a story that's just a story until the last few lines, whereupon the writer whangs you between the eyes with the message he's been preparing behind the scenes the whole time. Harry Harrison does that very difficult third thing more often than most writers.

  Being a natural warrior—as I believe some people are—says nothing about the warrior's intelligence, education, or interests. It's an aptitude, pure and simple, and the men who never learn they have the aptitude are probably luckier than the ones who know they do. I'm afraid that Mr. Harrison may be very well aware of that.

  —DAD

  Liberty Port

  David Drake

  Commandant Horace Jolober had just lowered the saddle of his mobile chair, putting himself at the height of the Facilities Inspection Committee seated across the table, when the alarm hooted and Vicki cried from the window in the next room, “Tanks! In the street!”

  The three Placidan bureaucrats flashed Jolober looks of anger and fear, but he had no time for them now even though they were his superiors. The stump of his left leg keyed the throttle of his chair. As the fans spun up, Jolober leaned and guided his miniature air-cushion vehicle out of the room faster than another man could have walked.

  Faster than a man with legs could walk.

  Vicki opened the door from the bedroom as Jolober swept past her toward the inside stairs. Her face was as ca
lm as that of the statue which it resembled in its perfection, but Jolober knew that only the strongest emotion would have made her disobey his orders to stay in his private apartments while the inspection team was here. She was afraid that he was about to be killed.

  A burst of gunfire in the street suggested she just might be correct.

  “Chief.” called Jolober's mastoid implant in what he thought was the voice of Karnes, his executive officer. “I'm at the gate and the new arrivals, they're Hammer's, just came right through the wire! There's half a dozen tanks and they're shooting in the air!.”

  Could've been worse. Might yet be.

  He slid onto the staircase, his stump boosting fan speed with reflexive skill. The stair treads were too narrow for Jolober's mobile chair to form an air cushion between the surface and the lip of its plenum chamber. Instead he balanced on thrust alone while the fans beneath him squealed, ramming the air hard enough to let him slope down above the staircase with the grace of a stooping hawk.

  The hardware was built to handle the stress, but only flawless control kept the port commandant from up-ending and crashing down the treads in a fashion as dangerous as it would be humiliating.

  Jobber was a powerful man who'd been tall besides until a tribarrel blew off both his legs above the knee. In his uniform of white cloth and lavish gold, he was dazzlingly obvious in any light. As he gunned his vehicle out into the street, the most intense light source was the rope of cyan bolts ripping skyward from the cupola of the leading tank.

  The buildings on either side of the street enticed customers with displays to rival the sun, but the operators— each of them a gambler, brothel keeper, and saloon owner all in one—had their own warning systems. The lights were going out, leaving the plastic facades cold.