by Tom Kratman
The boys slept out in the open under the stars.
"Minden missed the hare, just like all the rest of them did," objected Abdul Rahman's senior assistant, Rustam. Where Abdul Rahman was tall and beefy, Rustam was shorter and much more slender. Both had the blue eyes that were typical among the janissaries of the Caliphate.
"Buck fever," Abdul Rahman answered. "He still is proving a better shot than all but a few of the others."
"He was among the very last to accept the faith."
"That's true," Abdul Rahman conceded, "and it speaks well of the boy. He doesn't give up easily." He raised one sardonic eyebrow. "And I seem to recall another ex-Nazrani revert who likewise didn't give up his religion lightly or easily."
"I was just stupid, mule headed," answered Rustam. "It signifies nothing."
Abdul Rahman, who had been a junior drill instructor when Rustam had first been gathered to the janissaries, barely suppressed a snort. "You were the most mule headed, if not the most stupid. As you are among the most faithful now, if not the most clever. I think we'll give this boy the same chance I gave you."
Rocking his head from side to side, making the crescent decoration on his neck swing, Rustam reluctantly and doubtfully agreed. "Oh, all right. Have it your own way. And I suppose it isn't as if we had a better candidate."
"No, and with the American Empire almost done tidying up their perimeter, I have no doubt it will be our turn soon enough, certainly within the lifetime of the boys."
"Is the ordu scheduled to move to the Atlantic Wall when the boys are ready in six years?"
"I don't know," Abdul Rahman answered. "And who really plans anyway? Who even can plan. We'll go wherever the will of the Almighty sends us, east or west or south."
"South? Greeks? Serbs? I hate the Greeks and Serbs," Rustam said with a noticeable shudder. He'd been on the Balkans Front for some years and found too many comrades staked out, castrated and with their eyes gouged out. War was endemic around the borders of the Dar al Islam and the Dar al Harb, the House of Submission and the House of War. But in the Balkans it wasn't just endemic, it was virulent.
"Not a lot of quarter given or received with either of them," Abdul Rahman agreed, a little sadly. "Not a lot of quarter given or received by anybody anymore."
Kitznen, Province of Affrankon, 13 Rajab, 1531 AH
(4 July, 2107)
There was little in the way of fun and games anymore, not with Besma living in terror of the beatings al Khalifa would administer to Petra for the slightest failings of either of them. It was all Besma could do to keep her promise to Hans to teach Petra to read. And she couldn't let her stepmother see that, either, lest she decide that was a sufficient excuse to beat Petra again.
There was something deeply sick, Besma thought, about the look on al Khalifa's face when she took her whip or a switch or a belt to Petra's back and rear. She was enjoying it, yes, that much was clear. But there was something more, too, something Besma didn't understand and perhaps didn't want to. She found the slack lips, the glassy eyes, and the heavy breathing sufficiently frightening in themselves without delving into whatever thoughts and feelings lay behind those external symptoms.
"School will start for me soon," Besma announced, as she and Petra practiced Petra's reading by a flashlight hidden under the covers of Besma's bed. "I'll be gone most of every day. I'm frightened of leaving you alone with al Khalifa."
Petra didn't say anything but began to chew her lip nervously. "Please don't," she begged. "I'll do anything . . . carry your books for you . . . anything. But that woman will hurt me every day; I know she will."
"I know. I'm terrified of it, too. But I don't know what to do about it."
Petra began to rock and softly to cry. "I'm just a poor slave girl," she whimpered. "Why does she hate me?"
Besma shook her head. "I don't even think you exist for her," she said. "It's me the bitch hates. She'd much rather have me stretched over the table with my skirt up, but she doesn't dare."
"Your father's a good man," Petra said, still crying. "Can't he help? He helped me before."
"My father is a good man," Besma agreed, putting one arm around Petra and using the hand on the other to gather the slave girl's head into her shoulder. She rested her own cheek on the top of Petra's head. "But he is also a pious one and the law gives the management of the household to the woman. He would never interfere. Oh, he might beat al Khalifa himself if she ever gave him cause, but she never does. If he calls for her she will come even if she's in the kitchen making bread. And she lets him plow her as he will; I've heard them."
"Plow her?"
"I'll explain when you're older. Now stop crying and get back to your reading."
Mindanao, Philippine Islands, 4 July, 2107
The Philippine Scout, in this case a genuine tracker and not a mere infantryman, read the signs by the charred corpse. The scout—he went by Aguinaldo—was perhaps forty, though the years, the sun and the rain had aged him beyond those years. He had probably been an Imperial retainer since youth. His English was, in any case, quite good though he still had some of his native accent.
Some of what there was to see was obvious: the single bullets in the power packs that had rendered two suits helpless, the scraps of armor chiseled apart . . . the tripod under which one soldier had apparently been roasted with his belly down towards the coals.
Hodge had taken one look and run off, vomit pouring into her helmet and down the flexible neck guard to gather on her breasts.
Well, it had been her man, after all. Originally she had dispatched two soldiers on a patrol. One of them was still missing.
Hamilton refrained from following her, in both senses, but just barely.
"Over there," the Filipino said, pointing towards some vine- shrouded rocks. "They fired from over there." The finger rotated to a cave in the side of the jungle-clad hill to the east. "Some ran in there from the west. Your men followed. They were ambushed. Then the Moros in the cave came out and dismembered their armor. They want you to think they roasted this man alive but he was already dead when they strung him up over the fire. The other they dragged off, I think . . . alive. Initially they went south. I can't tell from here if they kept going that way."
Thompson nodded. He'd had opportunity enough these last few weeks to have learned to trust the scout's eyes and senses. "Can you track them?" he asked.
Aguinaldo said he could but, "Captain . . . they want you to follow. They didn't have to leave the trail so well marked and they usually don't. Then, too—" the scout hesitated.
"Yes, go on," Thompson commanded.
"You're the least suitable type of unit to track them."
"I know," the captain sighed. "But we're here . . . and nobody else is."
Thompson had already radioed for a light infantry unit to insert and track down the Moros. None had been available. He'd had high altitude aerial recon check out the area for twenty miles around. They'd seen nothing.
And yet, Thompson thought, we know they're out there. If they can't be seen that means they're ready, waiting and, just as Aguinaldo said, they want us to follow.
Hodge returned, a little unsteady in her armored feet. "I'm sorry, sir. I—"
"Never mind, Laurie," Thompson cut her off. "No shame."
It's not like I have all that much choice, the captain continued with his musing. If I owe the men nothing else, I owe them that they won't be abandoned while we can still try to help. Is this going to cost me more? Yes, probably. But the soldiers can be replaced. What can't be replaced if it's lost is the faith that we—this company—won't give up on them.
Then, too, assume the worst, that there's a company or two of unusually well armed, well trained, and well led Moros out there. So we follow and they get in the first licks...maybe hurt us, maybe even badly. After they get in their first licks, we get in the last ones. How many lives do I save if that group of Moros can be destroyed?
Man, all my choices suck; not a good one to be had. H
ell, I don't even have a choice. I'm not going to leave one of my boys out there to be skinned or roasted alive.
So the question is, do I have everybody strip down to just Exos and follow or only enough to catch the Moros and pin them in position. The latter, I think. One platoon should do.
Thompson looked directly at Hodge. "Lieutenant, you want to get your own back?"
No hesitation: "Yes, sir!"
"Fine. Have your children strip down to just Exos, helmets, chest plates and small arms. That will give you the speed and the endurance to follow and catch them. The rest of the company will follow you as fast as we can, carrying your extra armor. I'll arrange for aerial recon and fire support . . . that, and an on-call power pack drop. I'll try again to get some light infantry inserted to block their escape but I can't promise it.
"Sergeant Aguinaldo, you go with them."
"Yes, sir," the scout answered.
"Be careful with my boys and girls, Laurie," Thompson cautioned. "Now go!"
Hodge was just as glad that the captain had ordered her platoon out of their suits. She wasn't sure she'd have been able to stand the stench of her own puke fermenting in the jungle heat.
That wasn't all that dumping full armor had done for her. Thus lightened, the suits were quieter, faster, and had a lot greater endurance. Since all the processing power was located in the back and all the sensing was in the helmets, she and her platoon lost nothing in those departments.
Unfortunately, the suits still weren't going through any major trees. These, the platoon had to snake around. Even as they did, though, branches and leaves and long, sharp grasses lashed at them, tearing at uniforms and sometimes slashing the skin beneath. No matter; one of theirs was somewhere ahead, facing a grisly death unless rescued. What was a little blood and pain not to have to face that failure?
Hodge stopped as Aguinaldo stiffened. The scout gestured with one hand, the other holding his rifle, for the platoon to move to the left. They did.
While they were doing so, Aguinaldo took a small remotely piloted vehicle, a miniature helicopter, from his pack and prepared to send it aloft.
"What is it, Sergeant?" Hodge asked, once she and the platoon were off the trail and hidden amongst the jungle's fronds.
Aguinaldo started the small RPV and lofted it before answering, "I can't say, ma'am. Something's not right up ahead. It's—"
The air was suddenly split by half a dozen large explosions, the homicidal shriek of the jagged metal those explosions threw forth, and by heavy fire from more rifles and machine guns than Hodge had devoutly hoped would ever be aimed in her direction.
Al Harv Barracks, Province of Affrankon, 13 Rajab, 1531 AH (4 July, 2107)
"Listen carefully to the sounds, boys," said Rustam. "That's fire going high."
Down in the pit, prepared to bring down a target, mark it, and hoist the target back up, Hans listened. He also watched as new holes appeared in the target. Sometimes he could catch them as they were created and match the distance and direction to the quality of the bullets' crack.
This is what it will sound like when I am under fire. This is what I will hear after I pass training and am accepted as a full janissary.
Once the boys had been trained on the .22s, they'd moved up almost immediately to thirty caliber rifles, about the most they could handle with thirteen-year-old bodies just now beginning to fill out properly (because only recently given enough to eat reliably). It was with the .30s that they were taking turns firing on the known distance range, one half firing while the other half worked the targets. It was a low tech solution, one that would have been sneered at in any of the armed forces of the Empire (excepting only the Imperial Marine Corps, a regressive lot, to be sure). And yet it not only worked, it had the double benefit of accustoming the troops to the variable sounds of fire directed their way.
This was also one of the benefits of using janissary troops. With boys raised in Islam, not only the religion but the culture behind it—or most of the cultures behind it; there were some exceptions—it was almost impossible, and at best, with the best candidates, very difficult to train them to shoot properly. Hits, after all, came through the grace of Allah as did everything else. This, for mainstream Sunni boys (Moros and Afghans being among those exceptions), was so much a given that no amount of lecturing and no amount of punishment could break them of it.
Christian boys, however, raised in the belief that God helps those who help themselves, would retain that attitude—it was too inchoate to call it a philosophy—even after they reverted to Islam. For one generation, they would, anyway; which was one reason why janissaries, after release from service, were never permitted to send their own sons to the corps. Abdul Rahman's, for example, were, in one case, a cobbler, in another a fireman, while a third was still apprenticed to a shopkeeper. But janissaries they would never be.
What the Corps of Janissaries would do after the last Christian in western Europe reverted neither Abdul Rahman, nor Rustam, nor even the caliph, knew.
Mindanao, Philippine Islands, 4 July, 2107
Hodge never knew what hit her. One moment Aguinaldo was telling her something, the next his body had practically disintegrated in a blizzard of hot metal shards while Hodge herself was knocked almost senseless by the blast and spun head over heels by something striking her right thigh.
When she recovered enough to rise to her hands and knees, she saw and smelled the blood, not hers she hoped, dripping from her helmet and Exo. Hodge shook her head to try to clear and felt a wave of nausea wash over her. That she'd emptied her stomach earlier didn't help her as she'd eaten again, hurriedly from a pouch, while on the track of her lost soldier. She re-emptied her stomach, the puke mixing with the scout sergeant's ghastly remains. Then she looked at the bloody, torn meat of her right thigh and wanted to puke again.
When the shock wears off, that's really going to hurt.
Already, Hodge's Exo had analyzed the damage and applied a nondisorienting general pain killer. It wouldn't make the damaged leg any better, but it would help Hodge make full use of what was left.
There was firing all around; that much she could hear even if her vision was blurry with concussion. An indistinct shape appeared over some rocks hard by. It was shouting something unintelligible and waving something that looked shiny. Automatically Hodge pointed her left hand at the shape, formed a fist and dropped it. A burst of fire from her Slag leapt out, ripping the bolo-wielding Moro to shreds. His ruined body tumbled back over the rocks.
"Charlie Niner-Six, Bravo Two-Three," Hodge gasped out. "Ambush. We're fucked."
"Hang on, Two-Three," answered Thompson's calm voice. "I've got a drone inbound, ETA three minutes. Air support is coming."
"No go on the air support," Hodge answered. "I think they're all mixed in among us. Wait, out."
Even as Hodge said that, her left arm was once again pointing at a Moro, this one carrying a rifle rather than a bolo. The stream of fire that lanced out practically sliced the man in two.
"Report," she managed to get out.
"One: Sergeant Caudillo's dead . . . .three others down. Pinned. Returning fire."
"Two: Six left unhurt, two wounded. Holding on. They're between us and first. I think third's out of it. What we gonna to do, El Tee?"
She waited in vain for a report from her third squad leader. "Sergeant Ryan," she ordered, "report. Anybody in third squad, report. Anybody?"
There was no answer from third. She'd had to force herself to keep the sound of desperate pleading out of her voice when she asked that last, "Anybody?"
"Ma'am, Sergeant Pierantoni here. I'm with second . . . close enough, anyway. The rest of the company's better than half an hour behind us. Maybe more; if they hit us here they might have something waiting back there. I don't think we're going to hold on that long."
Hodge had been up near the point, near Aguinaldo. One could argue she'd been too near the point, but that was for the future if, indeed, that argument was ever to be made
. Third squad, which had been nearest to her, was destroyed, insofar as she could tell. Sure, it was possible there was a man out there wounded and alive, or one with broken communications. But the way to bet it was that they were dead or soon would be.
"Recommendations, Sergeant?" The drug in her system was all that allowed her to keep her voice human.
"You pull back to first. We'll cover you and first. Then we can take turns, bounding back."
"No go, Sergeant, I can't move far."
"I'll come for you."
Hodge's voice was both sad and determined. "No. Here's what I want. First squad?"
"Ma'am?"
"I'll cover as best I can from here. Get yourself back to second and the platoon sergeant. Sergeant P, carry out your plan once you and second and first link up. I'll . . . "