Schultz leaned back from where he squatted to look beyond the building. He saw the next building, and how to get from here to there. "Got it," he said.
McNeal also looked, and nodded.
"They have us outnumbered two or three to one," Kerr continued without expression. "They have projectile weapons. We do not have body armor. No prisoners; we fry them. They are dead. Do you understand?" He looked directly at McNeal as he spoke.
McNeal wanted to answer yes, but his throat was too dry. He tried to swallow so he could speak, but his mouth was even drier than his throat. He simply nodded. His hands gripped his blaster so tightly his knuckles turned white.
"Let's go." Kerr stood bent at the hips and sprinted toward the far end of the next building. Schultz gave McNeal a push to get him going and brought up the rear.
The Bos Kashi gunfire was much louder and clearer here. Kerr had Schultz and McNeal stay in place while he slithered farther to precisely locate their target. He was back in a minute.
"They're right over there," Kerr said, pointing. "There's eight of them. We can get behind that wall," he indicated a low, masonry wall with breaks in it, "and have a clear view of their flank. Hammer, you see the break in the middle of the wall?" Schultz nodded. "That's where I want you. McNeal, you see the break five meters to the right of that break?" McNeal looked at the wall and nodded also. "That's your position. I've got the next break. When we get in position, the closest one of them will be less than twenty-five meters away. They're bunched up in a short line. Hammer, you start with the near one and work your way to the middle. McNeal, you start in the middle and hit anything that moves. I'll start at the far end of their line. When we open up on them, it'll be like a bomb hitting in their middle. They should all go down in a hurry. Nobody shoots until I do. Any questions?"
"What are we waiting for?" Schultz asked.
McNeal merely shook his head.
"Me first, Hammer, and McNeal. Let's go." Kerr lowered himself to the ground and scrambled on elbows and knees. He reached the break in the middle of the wall in seconds and paused to make sure Schultz knew this was his position. Then he went five meters farther and placed McNeal, then moved on to his own position. He looked through the break in the wall and saw the Bos Kashi were still where they had been, then back to make sure his men were ready. Schultz was watching him for a signal to open fire. McNeal was sighting along his blaster toward the Bos Kashi. Kerr motioned to Schultz to take aim, then sighted in on his own first target.
McNeal had seen violence and death growing up on the streets of New Rochester. He'd seen death going through Boot Camp on Arsenault. But he'd never witnessed a killing, and had largely avoided the violence around him while he was growing up. The deaths on Arsenault were a suicide and an accident. This was the first time he'd ever set out to deliberately kill anyone, and the prospect made him tremble in horror. A weakness pervaded his body. His breath became rapid and shallow. His vision tunneled down until he could see nothing beyond the sights of his blaster and the hairy, fierce face of the man he stared at through them. It appeared to McNeal that the face was that of a man who had no fear, who had no respect for anyone but himself and his companions. A man who didn't know what mercy was and gave no thought to those weaker than himself.
Abruptly, McNeal's horror of killing was replaced by fear—fear of the man he was about to kill. What if he missed? What if his first shot didn't kill that man? Surely, the Bos Kashi would turn on him and kill him, and his companions would slaughter Kerr and Schultz. He had to do this right, he had to, had to had to. And when this first man was dead, he had to kill the next man and the next man and the man after that. If he didn't, he would be dead himself, and Kerr and Schultz would be dead and it would be all his fault
McNeal was so tightly engrossed in these thoughts that he almost missed Kerr's command through his helmet comm unit, "Fire!" It seemed to him that a long time passed between the order to open up and the time he could order his own fingers to press the firing lever and send a bolt of deadly plasma toward his target, but actually, he fired before the bolts from Kerr and Schultz reached their targets.
Instantly, he shifted his aim to the next man and blasted him, and then the next one and the next one and the one after that, and he kept firing and looking for more targets until suddenly his blaster was yanked out of his hands. He twisted his body, rolled away from his firing position, and reached for his knife as he leaped to his feet. He expected to see a bearded face, a skirted man attacking, and was instantly ready to defend himself.
"They're all fried, McNeal, you can stop now, there's no one left to shoot at."
It took a moment for McNeal's eyes to focus on the source of the voice, but its familiarity made him hesitate long enough to see it was Kerr. Then he collapsed against the wall and slid down it, to sag into a sitting position, wide-eyed and panting, feeling too weak to move. Did they do it? Did they actually do it? He was still alive—he thought he was, he was pretty sure he was. Did he do well enough that the Bos Kashi weren't able to kill any of the Marines? Kerr was standing there and didn't seem to be bleeding, so he was all right. But what about Schultz? Had his slowness in responding to the command to fire given the Bos Kashi enough time to kill Schultz? McNeal jerked and twisted to his right, terrified that he would see Schultz's broken, bleeding body.
"We're so good." Schultz stood casually, looking over the carnage. "They were fried before they knew we were here." He blew on the fingernails of his left hand and buffed them on his shirt. His eyes narrowed to slits and he said harshly, "Nobody messes with Marines. Nobody." He spun and started walking back toward the rest of the squad.
Kerr held a hand out to help McNeal to his feet. "You did good, Marine."
McNeal accepted the hand. Standing, he took several slow, deep breaths to calm himself in the quiet sunlight. Suddenly, he cocked his head, listening. He didn't hear any gunfire, no blasters going off.
"It's over," Kerr told him. "A whole platoon of Bos Kashi is either dead or captured."
While McNeal was getting his baptism of fire in the flanking maneuver against the Bos Kashi attacking the rest of second squad, Dean and Claypoole got theirs against the Bos pinned down by OP Golf. They too were outnumbered by the Bos Kashi, but not by nearly three to one, and there were many more Marines surrounding them. They hadn't felt the weight of the fight as heavily as McNeal had, and they stopped firing on their own when their part of the small battle was over. Still, they'd all fought in their first action, acquitted themselves well, and survived.
Then the shooting was over and Doc Hough, the medical corpsman assigned to the platoon, was doing his best to save the one wounded Bos Kashi who survived the onesided fight.
Chan stood and looked over the carnage. "Claypoole, Dean," he said, seeing their pale faces. "It was a good fight and you did good." He looked back at the slaughtered Bos Kashi and softly added, "Anytime you survive a firefight and the bad guys don't, it's a good fight and you did good."
Staff Sergeant Bass, supervising collection of the bodies and weapons a few feet away, was close enough to overhear. He knew better. He'd been in fights where he survived and the bad guys didn't that he couldn't call good fights and say he'd done good. His feeling was that a leader does good only when he brings all of his own men back, alive and uninjured. Casually, he took in Chan and the others. Dean and Claypoole were looking intently at Chan, absorbing his words. What the lance corporal had to say seemed to hearten them. Bass nodded to himself and said nothing as he turned back to the killing zone and returned his attention to policing the bodies and weapons. Chan wasn't quite right in what he'd said, but Bass knew that anything that helped a man make it through the aftermath of killing was right and good.
Elsewhere, at the same time third platoon went to the aid of OP Golf, a section from the assault platoon leveled two buildings in support of OP Delta. So far as anyone could tell, all the Bos Kashi in them were killed. Flett and MacLeash located the mortar team that had opened the
fighting, and a navy Raptor attached to Admiral Willis's provisional FIST struck from the sky, killing it and its crew.
On the outskirts of the city a platoon from the provisional FIST that consisted of technicians and clerks was attacked by a company-size group of Bos Kashi. The "cooks and bakers" platoon handled them easily and suffered only three casualties of their own—one dead—in breaking the attack. The fleeing Bos Kashi were caught in the open by a flight of Raptors and wiped out. Less than a half hour after its main body landed on Elneal, elements of Company L had maneuvered, faced, and killed more than thirty enemy soldiers while suffering no casualties of their own. They also took one prisoner, whose wounds might even let him live long to tell the Marines why the Bos Kashi had made the suicidal attack.
Meanwhile, Bos Kashi attacks in other settlements and villages wrought greater damage, since the Confederation Marines weren't there. But when Company L and the provisional FIST beat off the attack on New Obbia, these attackers melted into the countryside. Soon after, word came to President Merka from Shabeli the Magnificent, who said the attacks had been made by renegades—renegades who were being dealt with by tribal authorities. It was time for peace, Shabeli said. Time to heal wounds and distribute food to all who needed it.
A few days later the rest of the 34th FIST made planet-fall. Company L headed into the wilderness as soon as Captain Conorado was able to make his report to Commander Van Winkle.
Chapter Twenty
The village of Tulak Yar lay in the Bekhar River valley 140 kilometers east of New Obbia. The river was now as high as it got, except during floodtime. When Tulak Yar had been founded 300 years before, the settlers built their homes on the bluffs high above the river so they wouldn't be swept away in the spring floods. The silt from the floodwaters was what made the Bekhar River valley one of the richest farming lands on Elneal.
At first nobody noticed the distant low droning that slowly grew louder and closer. Eventually a disconsolate group of starving villagers gathered along the narrow roadway that wound its way up the steep slope from the floodplain. They glanced up briefly with disinterest as a flight of Raptors drifted high overhead. A frail old man, a gnarled walking stick grasped tightly in one bony fist, pushed his way to the front of the small crowd that gathered by the roadside. Shielding his eyes from the glaring sunlight with one hand, he peered intensely at the approaching vehicles. A huge pillar of dust floated in the silent, stifling air at their passing, stirring dimly remembered legends and folk tales brought to this world by his ancestors, a pious people who had always lived in desert places, where they felt very close to their gods. Something else stirred in the old man too, memories of long ago, when he was young and did great deeds.
"Achmed, your eyes are keen," the old man said to a skinny adolescent standing by his side, "tell me what you see down there."
"Many vehicles, Father," the young man answered. Everyone in the village referred to the old man as Father. As the eldest, best-educated, and most experienced man among the five hundred or so souls who populated Tulak Yar, he was looked upon as both a spiritual and temporal guide.
"I know that, you young fool," the old man snapped. "But what kind of vehicles, lad, what kind?"
Achmed was silent for a moment as he strained to make out details. "Some are trucks, the kind the city people use to carry goods. There are others of a kind I have never seen." He paused, peering closer at the approaching vehicles, trying to decipher the fluttering he could see above the lead vehicle. "One is flying their flag, Father," he said shortly. "Their" flag was the green and gold banner of the Democratic Republic of Elneal, but the people of Tulak Yar owed their loyalty to whatever force was in command of their area at the moment, which just then was the Siad. The flag told the old man that in a few moments that would change again, if only for a while. Until recently, the Siad had left them in relative peace, tolerating the people of Tulak Yar because they provided goods and services needed by the clansmen—mostly crops, meat, and women.
"Stand easy, boy," the old man said, "I think it is help." At the mention of help, a murmur ran through the small crowd, and now everyone peered intensely at the approaching vehicles.
When the convoy reached the fork where a roadway split off from the highway along the bottom and climbed to Tulak Yar, several of the vehicles turned and began climbing while the others waited below.
The lead Dragon's front skirts lifted high over the roadbed where it flattened out at the top of the bluff, the armored vehicle blowing a storm of dirt and pebbles about. The driver saw there was no one in his path and hit the accelerator to speed to the far side of the village. A moment later four ground-effect trucks trundled over the final hump and roared into the village square, where they re-formed from in line to on line. A second Dragon brought up the rear. Instead of proceeding into the village, it spun around to face the way it had come, and dropped its ramp. A squad of Marines ran down the ramp and sprinted to the sides, alternating left and right, to take defensive positions overlooking the bluff and to the sides of the village, where they linked up with the twenty Marines who had done the same at the plateau side.
Another group of Marines and civilians dismounted the vehicle less rapidly and strode to the square. One, the obvious commander, watched the people as they slowly, painfully assembled. His face showed no expression when he saw how pitifully thin and bent they were, how the children stood about dull-eyed and unresponsive, swollen bellies protruding through their ragged clothing, making them look like tiny old men. After a moment he spoke, clear and loudly enough to be heard by everyone who was watching.
"Who is the headman here?"
"English!" the old man croaked, the long-unspoken tongue rusty in his mouth. "I am," he said, then had to clear his throat and say it again when the unfamiliar words stumbled on his tongue. He approached the Marines, and as he walked, a transformation began: His stride lengthened, his back stiffened, and the years seemed to melt away. Coming to attention before the small knot of Marines, he rendered a smart hand salute and announced in impeccable English, "Corporal Mas Fardeed, 5th Mechanized Infantry Battalion, McKenzie's Brigade, Second Division, Fifth Composite Corps, reporting, Captain!"
The Marines stared at the old man for a few moments and then Conorado returned his salute. "I'm Captain Conorado, commanding officer Company L, 34th FIST, Confederation Marines. We have brought food and medical supplies for this village. You are the headman?"
Mas Fardeed bowed. "I am indeed the headman of this poor village, Captain."
"Were you at the relief of Manning on Saint Brendan's in the First Silvasian War?" Bass, who was in the command group, asked, his voice touched with respect.
"Yes, Sergeant!"
"Jesu!" Top Myer whispered. To have been present at the relief of Manning was an honor for men of the twenty-fifth century comparable to having been at Agincourt or Seward's Ride around Fresno to warriors of earlier eras. The Marines stared at the old man in disbelief. They had all studied the details of that almost legendary campaign, and although it had been an army show, Brigadier Ran McKenzie was one of their heroes. He had fought his brigade through a thousand kilometers of enemy territory to relieve the garrison at Manning and break the siege. According to many historians, it had been the turning point in the First Silvasian War.
"Headman Mas Fardeed," Conorado said formally, "may I present Mr. France Savik of the Confederation Blue Crescent Relief Agency. He is here with food and medical aid for you."
One of the civilians stepped forward and bowed to the old man. "With your leave, headman," Savik said in a language that sounded to the Marines like someone gargling with gravel, but which was very close to the local dialect, "I will have my assistants construct a kitchen in the center of this square and begin feeding your people in less than half an hour."
Mas Fardeed returned the bow and answered, "You have my leave."
"If you have sick among you," Savik continued, "my medical personnel can have a clinic started even sooner."
While the kitchen was still being set up and the clinic was seeing its first patients, Conorado and Myer paid their final respects to Mas Fardeed and left. "We have other villages to bring aid to," Conorado explained to the headman. "But I am leaving a platoon of my men behind to protect you."
McNeal and Schultz were in a defensive position, lounging behind some rocks outside the northeast corner of Tulak Yar.
"Nothing's here," Schultz grumbled, his hands caressing his blaster. "Nobody out there." He scanned the barren landscape with practiced eyes. "We're wasting our time. We should be out chasing bandits instead of baby-sitting a bunch of farmers."
McNeal lay on his back with a forearm shading his closed eyes. He didn't need to keep watch; he knew Schultz was doing enough watching for both of them. "We don't 'baby-sit,' the bandits'll come in and steal the food and kill the relief workers. We ain't wasting our time."
Schultz snorted and turned his head to spit. "Company," he said.
McNeal spun into a prone position and put his blaster into his shoulder. His eyes darted from spot to spot around the barrens. It looked the same as it had the last time he looked. "Where?" he asked as he flipped down his infras.
Schultz snorted again. "Behind us. Kids."
McNeal looked back over his shoulder and flipped up his infras. Three small children, so dirty, hollow-eyed, and emaciated he couldn't tell whether they were boys or girls except for one who wasn't wearing pants, stood a few meters away looking dully at the two Marines.
"Look at these kids!" he exclaimed. "Sweet Jesu, look at them. They look like they haven't eaten anything in a month."
Schultz made a noise. "They'd be dead if they hadn't eaten in that long."
McNeal sat up and groped in his pack.
"What are you doing?" Schultz asked.
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