by Tom Kratman
"No, ma'am, we'll wait."
Hodge wanted to cry, not just from the pain that was ebbing from her ruined thigh, but also from the knowledge that the life she'd hoped to have with Hamilton after she left the army was just not going to happen. She wanted to cry; what she didn't want was to argue.
"No. I've only got a little left in me. I need to use that to cover first squad."
"Ma'am . . . "
"Don't argue with me. First squad?"
"Ma'am?"
"If I can't get the order out; when you hear me fire, go."
Thompson and Hamilton could hear Hodge through the command circuit.
"Laurie, hold on. I'm coming," Hamilton cried into the radio, as he started tearing the jungle apart in an attempt to move farther, faster—
"Lieutenant Hamilton, hold fast," ordered Thompson in the same calm voice as usual. The captain had the good grace not to say, I warned you about this.
"Captain, that's—"
Hamilton couldn't quite bring himself to say it, that Hodge was the woman he loved. It would have been worse than Thompson saying, "I told you so." Instead, after a pause, he said, "That's one of ours. We can't just—"
"I'm aware, Lieutenant, of who she is."
Another voice, the forward observer sergeant's, piped up, "Captain, airship Pershing on station with a heavy load of ordnance. They're carrying whatever we might want to ask for. Well, short of nukes, they are."
The company was still pushing on through the jungle. In his head, and aided by a map painted onto his eye with a low-powered laser,
Thompson calculated the time it would take to get to Hodge against her very short life expectancy. No matter how he tried to calculate it, he kept coming up short. There was no way he and the troops would reach her in time.
"Private circuit, Lieutenant Hodge," he said into the radio. "Laurie, your plan is approved. We won't make it to you in time. I can deal you aces and eights to prevent capture. Your call."
"Give what's left of my platoon a chance to break contact, Captain," she answered. "And . . . "
"Yes?"
"Don't make John call in the dead man's hand . . . It wouldn't be fair."
"I understand. Let me know when."
"Yes, sir . . . .Sir, if you don't hear from me . . . if I'm not able—"
"I'll call it in myself, Laurie."
"Thank you, Captain. Hodge out . . . break, break . . . First squad; prepare to move."
Dragging her ruined right leg behind her, Hodge slithered to the blood-flecked rocks nearby. She extended a monofilament microviewer from her right glove and looked over the area first squad had been in. Already some of the Moros were out, rifles slung across backs and wavy swords in hand, chopping their way through the tough battledress and inner coolsuits of the dead and wounded troopers.
"Bastards," she whispered, before retracting the miniviewer and taking her rifle in hand.
The rifle, a Model-2098, had its own viewer, which was connected by radio to Hodge's helmet. In theory, and especially when augmented by the Exo to absorb recoil, one could fire the thing effectively from behind cover with only the armored hands exposed. Practice was better than theory, though, and practice said that the natural shooting position of rifle against shoulder and eye aligned with barrel was more effective.
Hodge had counted seven of the Moros out in the open, finishing off the wounded and making sure the dead were dead. Her firing position had her to the right side of the base of the rock gathering. Sensibly, she opted to take out the rightmost Moros first, thus keeping the rock between her and those she had not yet engaged. With a whisper, she instructed the rifle, "Activate. Fire on center of thermal signatures as you bear."
With that, she swept the rifle steadily from right to left. When the first thermal image was center of mass, it opened fire with a five round in a sixth-of-a-second burst, then repeated as its operator aligned it with the next target. Hodge was quick and four of the seven went down before the remaining three realized what was happening and dove for cover.
In seconds, Hodge's rock was deluged with fire, driving her back to shelter behind it.
"Go, first squad, GO!"
"Sir, Sergeant Pierantoni here. We're out of immediate danger . . . maybe half a klick from where we were ambushed. The El Tee's stopped firing right as we heard a pretty big blast. I think it's time. We can be seven- or eight hundred meters away before anything can hit."
"Concur, Sergeant P . . . break . . . Lieutenant Hodge? Lieutenant Hodge? . . . negative contact . . . break . . . FO? Does Pershing have an FAE pod ready?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Release on Lieutenant Hodge's position."
Much as one could only rarely train someone raised in Moslem culture to be a decent shot, so too the Moros expected that if Allah did not want them to rape their captives, He would say so or otherwise prevent it. If He allowed it, as He invariably did, it was because He wanted it to happen. If there was a different price to be paid for it, then that, too, was merely in accordance with the will of the Almighty.
Thus, by the time Hodge awakened from the blast that had propelled her into unconsciousness, the Moros had stripped her from her Exo and, apparently noticing she had tits, begun to strip her of her battledress. A line of them were forming up even as eight of them began staking her arms out and her legs spread. A ninth and tenth cut away her clothing, taking some care not to cut her so as not to damage the merchandise any further. A blond infidel with tits? She'd bring a high price from one of the datus, the Moro chieftains. Or maybe she could be presented as a gift to the sultan.
Hodge's vision swam in and out of focus. She raised her head and saw one of the Moros pulling out what she couldn't help thinking was a laughably small penis. In fact, she did laugh and was rewarded with a light kick to the head. That made her see stars and wretch yet again.
"Goodbye, John; I loved you," she whispered. "Anytime now, Captain. Anyti—"
She barely caught the flash as a huge thermobaric bomb detonated a few hundred meters overhead.
They found Hodge's lost soldier in among a group of Moros. That much satisfaction the men and women of her platoon had; at least their comrade hadn't been roasted alive. They found Hodge, herself, apparently raped, with her skin—where it had been exposed—dried and scorched and her body blue where it wasn't scorched black. (In fact, there had not been time for rape but the soldiers couldn't know that.) Her luxurious strawberry blonde hair was gone, except for a blackened, crispy residue next to her scalp. Her eyes . . . well, the less said about those, the better; Fuel Air Explosive did bad things to soft eyes.
The company set up a wide perimeter around the site. Within that perimeter, military police gathered DNA samples of every Moro body found. Those samples would be used in every village they cleared out. Adults who matched as being family of the ambushers would be killed, in every case.
It had long since become that kind of war.
Hamilton, suited but with his helmet off, grieved beside Hodge's body, arms wrapped around shins and rocking erratically. Yes, the lieutenant had responsibilities that he was neglecting but Thompson gave him a pass on those for a while.
Thompson still didn't say, "I told you so."
He did say, however, "I'm sending you back with the body. I'm allowed to send someone back and your platoon sergeant can handle things well enough for a week or ten days." That was being tactful; the platoon sergeant needed no lieutenant and would do better without having one whose nose he had to wipe.
Hamilton stopped his rocking and shook his head, "No. Being gone for a week or ten days would be a week or ten days I wouldn't be killing the people who did this. All in all, I'd rather be killing Moros than drinking in a bar in Iowa. She was from Iowa, you know."
"I knew." Thompson didn't bother to mention that "the people who did this" were already dead. He knew Hamilton knew that and he knew Hamilton meant the People, the entire People, ranged against them in the field. "You're still going. Her parents
deserve to hear what happened from someone who loved their daughter, too."
Sergeant Pierantoni came up, with three other troopers, one of them with a stretcher over one shoulder. "We've got a landing zone hacked out, Captain. All the other bodies have been brought to it. She's the last one."
"Give Lieutenant Hamilton a minute alone with her," Thompson said. "And come on." With that, the captain led the party a few score meters away.
Hamilton, once he'd been left alone, started to reach over to brush the burnt stubble from Hodge's scalp. His hand stopped of its own accord millimeters from her. He couldn't bring himself to touch her, not the obscene ruin she'd become. No more could he stroke her face. Instead, he just spoke to the corpse.
"I'm sorry; I can't touch you because this isn't you. I'll punish them for this, Laurie. I promise I will."
He knew the pain he felt was as nothing to the pain he would feel once he really, deep down, came to understand she was gone and was never coming back. And how will I feel when I realize I wasn't man enough to kiss her goodbye?
Then, however hard it was to do, Hamilton leaned over and kissed Hodge's forehead. As he backed away, tears fell.
"God, what a shitty world."
Camp Stotsenberg, Philippine Islands, 18 July, 2107
"Sit. Drink. That's not a request."
The O' Club for the camp was in a large plastic foam building, set off away from the troop billets lest the soldiers see their officers drunk and silly. Local hires did the maintenance, keeping the grass trimmed and the jungle at bay. The building itself was formed by blowing up a large, Quonset hut shaped balloon and then spraying it with the foam. Once the foam hardened, the balloon was removed and sections were cut away for doors, windows, and air conditioning units, which were installed as kits. Furniture came disassembled in shipping containers, it being the job of the troops to assemble it. The foam came pre-tinted for the natural environment. In some cases, of course, no tint was necessary as white, snow-white, was the dominant color.
The method had many advantages—cheap to heat and cool, more durable than canvas, and bugs loathed the taste of the foam.
"Sit, I said."
Hamilton, just returned from Iowa, looked at the table around which sat Thompson, Miles and Fitzgerald. An amber bottle graced the center, standing out against the starched white tablecloth. Hamilton couldn't see how much was left in the bottle. It didn't matter anyway; the club had plenty more where that came from.
"Yes, sir," Hamilton answered Thompson's command, pulling out a chair and taking a seat.
Miles reached over and took the glass from in front of Hamilton, while Fitzgerald uncorked the bottle. Into the glass Miles plunked several cubes of perforated ice. He then held the glass out for Fitzgerald to fill before setting it down in front of the company's junior lieutenant.
"How was the funeral?" Thompson asked.
"Bad," Hamilton answered, ignoring the glass. "I had to lie to her parents, and her brothers and sisters, her aunts, uncles, cousins, high school friends. 'I'm sure she went quickly, without pain.' 'No, no . . . she wasn't raped.' Do you have any idea how hard it is to explain to parents why the coffin has to stay closed?"
"I do, actually," Thompson said. "And, as it turns out, she wasn't raped. I got the forensic report while you were gone."
"That's something anyway," Hamilton said, wanting to believe but not at all sure his commander wouldn't lie to him to spare his feelings.
Thompson, no dummy, caught the doubting tone in Hamilton's voice. "I'll let you read it, if you think you're up to it."
"Maybe later, sir."
"Drink up, Lieutenant," Thompson said.
"Drink to forget?" he asked.
"No, son. We don't drink to forget. We drink to remember."
Interlude
Erfurt, Federal Republic of Germany,
1 February, 2005
The sounds of the concert still echoed in their ears even as Gabi's and Mahmoud's eyes were etched with the pyrotechnic display.
Rammstein was in town.
"I'm not so sure I liked what you've shown me of the inner soul of modern Germany any more than you liked the sermon at the mosque," Mahmoud said, as they walked to his small car parked not far away.
"Surely you're not one of those who see neo-Nazism in a harmless concert." Gabi gave his hand a half-mocking squeeze.
Mahmoud shook his head. His face looked . . . confused. "No, no . . . not neo-Nazis. This . . . that, goes back much further than the Nazis. I didn't see Triumph of the Will in there; for one thing it wasn't orderly enough. For another it was too . . . primitive."
"Then what did you see, lover?"
Mahmoud hesitated, still thinking and still trying to frame his thoughts in words. "Did you study your own history in school, Gabi?"
"Yes, of course."
"Hermann? The Teutoberger Wald?"
"That, yes," she admitted.
"That's what that music makes me see. I saw Roman legionaries sacrificed over flat rocks. I saw them nailed to trees. In the fires of the concert I saw them being burned alive . . . in the Teutoberger Wald." He chewed his lower lip for a few moments, then said, "Maybe the Nazis, themselves, were just a symptom—sure, an extreme symptom—of something deeper in the soul, something very primitive, very dark, very real . . . and very scary. Also something very envious; Amerika was not, after all, a love song."
They both went silent then, still walking and holding hands. They heard the chant before they recognized it. When they recognized it, the two were almost at Mahmoud's auto. And by then it was too late.
"Kanaken raus! Kanaken raus! Kanaken raus! Kanaken . . . "
There were nine of them, standing around Mahmoud's car, pounding on it with their fists in time with the chant: "Kanaken raus!" They wore leather and chains, or bomber jackets, and high, American-style, jump boots. Some were pierced; still others tattooed, though with only one exception the tattoos could only be seen where the neck met the chest and the shirts and jackets failed to cover them. The one exception had the numbers "88" tattooed on his forehead.
"There are nine of them, Mahmoud," Gabi cautioned.
"Yes," he agreed, sadly, "but I only have the one car."
Gabi screamed as a booted foot came down on Mahmoud's head for the dozenth time. In the near distance, a siren wailed with the peculiar soul-searing screech of the Polizei. It was a sound that conveyed images of burning buildings pouring off bricks as they crumbled, amidst ruined, blasted city blocks, with bombers droning overhead.
After a final flurry of kicks, the thugs turned as one and took off into the darkness. Perhaps they would be caught and perhaps not.
By the time the police car stopped, Gabi was on her knees, bent over Mahmoud's prostrate body, weeping. He was unconscious, his scalp split, blood seeping onto the asphalt of the pavement, and his face covered with it.
While one policeman trotted over to investigate, the other called for an ambulance.
"Animals!" Gabi screeched. "Animals!"
"Yes," the policeman agreed. "But at least the assholes haven't learned how to march in step." He saw that Mahmoud was breathing, then felt at his neck for a pulse. Satisfied with that, the policeman touched lightly around the bloody hair and scalp.
"I think he'll be all right, eventually," the officer said in an attempt to calm the woman. "I don't envy him the headache he'll have, though. Can you tell me what happened?"
Between gasps and bouts of tears, Gabi explained as best she could. As she did, the policeman, still listening, walked around the car, illuminating outside and in with his flashlight. As he did, the other policeman, call to the ambulance service completed, came to see to Mahmoud.
"Nothing on the outside to indicate the driver wasn't German," he observed, "but . . . oh, oh . . . " The light settled on a text laying on the back seat. The cover was in Arabic. "This must have caught their eye."
"That?" Gabi said, incredulously. "That's the Rubiyat of Omar Khayyam. It's a book of poetry.
"
"It's in a foreign, non-Latin or Gothic alphabet," the policeman said. "That's often enough. With easterners especially is that often enough, particularly if they're unemployed."
"You're his wife?" the policeman asked.
"He's ask . . . we live together," Gabi answered.
"I don't envy you either then, the task of cleaning up his vomit when he returns home from the hospital."
Chapter Six
The Europeans were once our slaves; today it is the Muslims. This must change. We must drive the unbelievers into deepest hell. We must stick together and hold our peace until the time comes. You can't see anything yet, but everything is being prepared in secret. You must hold yourself in readiness for the right moment. We must exploit democracy for our cause. We must cover Europe with mosques and schools.