The Long Road Home (A Learning Experience Book 4)

by Christopher Nuttall

  He gave the money to Gonzalez.

  “Sergeant, I assume you know where a good shoe-shine boy can be found, and the procedures for hiring them. Colonel, with your permission?”

  He gestured with his head towards the train. Then saluted.

  “Of course, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”

  Croft got into the first passenger car, and was joined a moment later by Gonzalez. There was the hiss as air-brakes were released, and the train slowly began to move forwards.

  Jesus, thought Croft, collapsing into the nearest seat. Gonzalez sat down next to him.

  “Where the hell is Alonzo, anyway?” Croft demanded.

  Gonzalez shrugged.

  “Probably expediting something, sir. Don’t worry – he’ll get back to Roanoke on time.”

  “I can’t believe what that man did, sergeant. Is that normal around here?”

  “Yessir. With the CGs, yeah. I’m just surprised he didn’t ask you for more. Given that he’s a colonel.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, sir, he probably didn’t think you had five hundred cash on you. He wanted that watch of yours,” said Gonzalez. “By the way, sir, so you know for the future, you could have bargained him down to half that.”

  “No, I mean – why is it – oh, God. Never mind.”

  * * *

  “Mr. Calhoun,” said the boy. He wore the navy-and-white livery of a railroad messenger, and he didn’t even look at Skorzy.

  “Yes?”

  “Got a message from” – the boy eyed Skorzy this time – “an officer at the railway depot. You know, the one with de-lu-sions at being a poker champ. Says this time you owe him big.”

  “Go on,” said Calhoun.

  “Know how everyone thinks it was jarheads stole that shit from the Army base last night?”

  Skorzy raised an eyebrow.

  “Yeah?” Calhoun said.

  “Wasn’t `em. Those Legion fucks that landed last night? Some of them did it, I guess.”

  “How’s he know that?” asked Calhoun.

  “Guy says he talked with some of the stevodores. Legion sergeant comes along, lines up an extra boxcar and has the night shift load it with crates. Sonsabitch crates had military marks on `em, officer says they told him. And pretty damn heavy, a few.”

  A broad grin spread across Skorzy’s face.

  That train was scheduled to have left twenty minutes ago. Even with the incompetent way the Earthie oppressors managed railroads, it’d be hard for them to screw up the timing of a mostly-passenger train by more than an hour.

  “What sort of protection does that train have?” he asked.

  The boy looked at Calhoun. Calhoun nodded.

  Fucking urban assholes with their goddamned internal politics, Skorzy thought. It would be good to get back to the south, where people worked together and didn’t play stupid counterproductive power games. Where Cee-Free-En-Vee had forced people to work together at gunpoint, if necessary.

  Hell, this kid can’t be older than fifteen and he’s getting into those games.

  “Don’t think it has shit,” the boy said – to Calhoun. “It’s an express run to Roanoke, limited passenger stops in between. About three-fifty miles. Due to arrive there at six p.m.”

  “Guards,” said Calhoun. “Not timetables.”

  “Ah, yeah. Don’t think Colonel Buxford bothered to put shit on it. Two hundred Legion men aboard, after all.”

  Two hundred green Legion fish, thought Skorzy.

  “When’s it leave?” Calhoun asked.

  “Six thirty,” the boy said. “Delayed a bit. Actually got moving at quarter to.”

  Calhoun glanced at his watch. Skorzy didn’t need to – he knew it was ten to seven.

  “We can’t do shit,” Calhoun growled. “Why didn’t you get this to us earlier?”

  “Had work to do.”

  “For the oppressors?”

  The boy seemed to shrink for a moment under Calhoun’s furious glare.

  “Hey, Mr. Calhoun, I gotta earn a living,” he replied. Towards the end his voice became a defensive mutter.

  Skorzy smiled again.

  “Get me to a safe telephone,” he said. “I can do something.”

  * * *

  I can’t believe we got away with it last night, Mullins thought.

  He’d managed four hours of sleep, too – about when his body said he should be sleeping, given the ship’s time that after ten days he’d become semi-accustomed to. Four hours in the terminal, then – well, the ETA for this train was six o’clock local. Eleven hours from now.

  Eleven hours to go three hundred and fifty miles on a damn railway, he thought.

  That’s – about thirty miles per hour, thirty-two or so.

  I suppose that’s what you get with a steam train.

  They used steam locomotives on New Virginia, according to a book in the Yetzl library, primarily for economic as opposed to technological reasons. The planet did have oil, and lots of it, but refined hydrochemicals were worth the costs of shipping back to Earth. Coal wasn’t.

  Also, the local secessionists had a bad habit of interfering with oil production, mainly by shelling the planet’s refineries. Orbital ones had been considered, but dismissed as cost-impractical. It was cheaper to live with the secessionist shelling than invest a ten-figure sum in building something that the secessionists would probably find some way to catastrophically sabotage anyway.

  He glanced out the window, in the hope that the view might have changed. It hadn’t. Sloping ground off the immediate right of way, a forest of stubby trees, kudzu everywhere.

  I’m going to get some sleep, he thought. Rifle across his lap, he lay back on his duffel bag and closed his eyes. Four hours isn’t much.

  * * *

  Johnny Caldwell smiled and kicked the dead Legion corporal again. His thirty-four men were pilfering the corpses for whatever they had.

  We should have bopped them anyway, Caldwell thought. In fact, he’d been strongly tempted to – some of his men had been itching to, and he’d never been all that good at keeping guys like Rogers, Mitchum and Johnson under control.

  One easy hit-and-run, and the occupation government was down two Goldnecks, eight Legion regulars and fifty Black Gangers. The only effective fighters, the eight regulars, had been taken down with multiple bullets each in the first volley. The Goldneck gang-chiefs hadn’t had a damn chance either. Killing the cowering, unarmed, surrendering Black Gangers had been simple target practice.

  “Get those bodies gone,” Caldwell said. He gave the dead corporal another kick for good measure. “We’ve got about an hour.”

  “Yeah?” asked Rogers. “We could rig this in fifteen minutes.”

  “Think this train’s the only one on the line? Another one could come at any time.”

  “We should fuck with `em all,” Rogers insisted. “Shut this line down.”

  “Up to me,” said Caldwell, “we would. You know how the bossmen’ve been lately. Bitching at us to pussy out and keep our heads down.”

  “Why this exception, anyhow?” asked Mitchum.

  “Because,” Caldwell said. Now they were in the field, there was no harm talking. “We got word from Godfrey. One of the bossmen said a company of Legion fish came in yesterday. So’d a big Army shipment. Legion boys figured they’d lift the best goodies from the Army and make it so jarheads got the blame. We’re talking something like four million in goodies.”

  There were a few impressed wolf-whistles. Also a couple of growls.

  My boys know that that shit’s a lot more dangerous to everyone if the Legion has it, than if the Army’d kept it.

  “So those Legion boys,” Caldwell went on, “grab it. And we’re gonna rob them. Y’all clear on why we want this par-tic-u-lar train? And why they let us fuckin’ do something for the first time in nearly a year?”

  There was a chorus of ‘yeah’s, ‘ayup’s, and ‘uh-huh’s.

  “Not to mention,” Caldwell said, “if we play thi
s one right, we get to wipe out two hundred of those USFL fucks while they’re still green fish.”

  * * *

  The train’s stopped, filtered through Mullins’ sleep. For more than a few seconds.

  Slowly his brain began the slow process of returning to consciousness.

  Bang. Bang. Crash.

  This was not one of the Juarez shooting ranges.

  He opened his eyes, already reaching for the M-16 on his lap.

  A man from First Platoon was lying in the aisle, screaming. Blood everywhere. The others in the carriage were looking around, ducking. Someone from First had a medical kit in hand and was crouch-walking over to the wounded guy.

  “Load your magazines! God damn it! Load your magazines!” somebody shouted.

  “What the hell?” someone else shouted.

  Sergeant Gonzalez appeared in the doorway.

  “Single shots only! If I hear a man firing burst or full-auto, I’ll have him flogged!” he yelled over the confusion.

  Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. Oh, shit.

  Mechanically he opened the pouch that held his one magazine. Shoved it into the receiver, drew back the bolt. Thumbed the fire-select off safety and onto single-shot.

  A bullet smashed through the reinforced-glass window less than a foot away, driving itself into his seat.

  He looked through what was left of the window, which wasn’t broken – just spiderwebbed hard with thick white lines around the bullet-hole. On the other side of that, they seemed to be in a narrow cut. Where Mullins crouched, the hill was at about eye-level; further ahead, it got higher. On the other side were rocks, kudzu and stubby little brown trees.

  More gunfire came in. A window smashed, disintegrating into glass fragments. Someone else screamed.

  “Shoot back, god damn you!” Janja yelled. He lay on his chest on a seat, looking through the sights of his rifle.

  Good idea, thought Mullins. Janja had been in at least one war that he knew of, and as an officer. He imitated the Rajput’s position, looking down his rifle.

  If it moves out there, I’m going to blow it away.

  A long burst of automatic fire came along the length of the carriage.

  A dull whump of an explosion from somewhere, maybe towards the back of the train.

  Movement – a running man. Mullins blazed three shots at him. Missed.

  “Shoot back! Take cover and return fire!” Janja yelled.

  Reuter took up the shout.

  “Return fire! Don’t fuck around – return fire, guys!”

  Mullins’ window disintegrated; shards of glass flew everywhere. He buried his face onto the padded brown seat to protect his eyes. Sharp pricking on his back, one piece big and heavy enough to cause a pretty damn painful cut.

  Gunfire and screaming. Lots of screaming. A fair amount of panicked shouting, too.

  With his left hand, Mullins reached around to his back and carefully brushed the glass off. He felt warm, wet blood around the particularly painful cut.

  No time to worry about that now. If that’s all that happens to you today you’ll be damned lucky.

  With the muzzle of his M-16, he pushed the remaining fragments of glass out of the window frame. With the dull, scratched glass gone, his view was a lot better. Sharper. He resisted the temptation to lean out.

  * * *

  Bent double with his pistol raised, Croft ran down the aisle of the third civilian passenger car. They were taking less fire, presumably because nobody was firing from them.

  What do I do if I meet a bad guy?

  I shoot him, of course.

  Can I do that?

  Bullets scored through the glass near him, shattering windows.

  He wanted to hide like the passengers were doing – get under the nearest seat. That wasn’t a possibility.

  When he reached the far door – the next bit would be the engine – he braced himself.

  They managed to stop the train. They might well be on board the engine.

  If they’re on board the engine, I have to shoot them.

  That had to be firm. He’d read about too many guys hesitating on the trigger the first time they came face-to-face with an enemy. Too many of those accounts had been second-hand, because the guys who’d hesitated hadn’t lived.

  What if I hesitate anyway?

  You’re not going to hesitate, James. You’re hesitating right now, and that’s fine. You’re not going to hesitate when you get out there. Any figure who isn’t the engineer or the fireman, you shoot.

  What if the engineer or the fireman were secessionists themselves?

  If you see either one of them pointing a gun at you, you assume they are and you shoot them.

  Clear? Is that clear, James?

  Yes, said the other part of his mind. It was clear.

  He wrenched the door open – and saw the coal tender between him and the engine. It might have been twelve or fifteen feet long, and from where he crouched he couldn’t see anybody.

  The shooting was louder, though.

  A narrow, two-foot-wide gantry ran alongside the left side of the tender. A single railing was on the outside of it.

  I am going to be completely exposed the moment I get out there.

  There was no other option.

  Pistol raised high in his right hand, he bolted out, scurried along the catwalk.

  “There’s one!”

  Bullets clanged into the side of the tender around him. He bolted forwards – six feet, four feet, two feet, and something nicked his shoulder, and then he threw himself forwards into the covered safety of the cab. There was a loud hissing, but it didn’t seem to be coming from inside the cab.

  The driver lay sprawled on his back near his controls. The fireman was desperately holding a cloth around the man’s neck. Blood everywhere.

  “Radio,” Croft snapped. “Now.”

  The fireman didn’t look up. He shook his head.

  Croft looked around the cab. Most of the equipment was indecipherable to him. There was a single digital screen – Yes! A GPS! – and a headset with a dial. Set into the control panel next to dials that presumably monitored boiler pressure and the like.

  Head low, he pulled the handset out and turned the dial to one of the frequencies he’d memorized.

  “Mayday! Mayday!” he yelled into the radio. “This is – F Company – between Godfrey’s Landing and Roanoke. We are under attack by a sizeable secessionist force! Mayday! Request urgent air support! Repeat! Mayday! Over!”

  “F Company,” came a calm voice on the other end, “I hear you. Where are you boys, and we’ll get help out to you right away. Over.”

  Croft read off the co-ordinates from the GPS.

  “Roger that, F Company. You CGs, Army, what?”

  “Legion! We’re en route to Fourth Brigade, First Division in Roanoke. Repeat, Mayday!”

  “We’ll get to you boys,” the calm voice said. “Air support is on the way. Hold tight, you understand? Just hold on. You got flares or smoke to mark Buddy’s positions? Over.”

  “Not that I know of, over.”

  “You’re on a railway line. Keep your boys on the line. Preferably hold tight. Understand? Over.”

  “Yessir,” said Croft.

  “Hold tight, soldier. Over and out.”

  Time to get back to my men.

  For the first time, the fireman looked up.

  “Help Mike,” he said.

  The engineer’s booted left foot was thrumming faintly. The man was bleeding to death.

  If I had my first aid kit – if I were ready for combat…

  I’m not.

  “Sorry,” Croft said.

  “You bastard,” the fireman said without real malice. “Kill those fuckers, then. Kill all of them.”

  Pistol in hand, Croft ran back along the tender. The door to the passenger car was still open.

  Inside, a man with an assault rifle – it had a short barrel and a banana clip, and something in Croft’s mind placed it as an AK varian
t – was walking slowly down the aisle, covering the seats.

  “Throw yer goodies down in the aisle,” he said. “Toss `em down on the floor and nobody gets hurt, y’all hear?”