Exasperated, Hatch replied, “Maybe, for once, it’s supposed to be easy. Maybe, for once, we don’t have to barely make it, barely survive. Maybe luck was on our side.”
She winced and shook her head as if to clear it, and he knew why instantly. Hatch could see others doing the same thing, their hands going to their ears as they mentally switched off their links.
The jamming was back. And that meant so was Transport.
A crate crashed onto a ramp as two TRACE soldiers succumbed to the vertigo caused by the jamming. Granulated okcillium spilled onto the ground like crystallized black gold.
“Move it, people!” Neville was saying. “Get those cargo ships out of here!”
A final broadcast to all TRACE soldiers indicated multiple gunships and dropships inbound from the City. Then the warning fritzed out to static.
The captain looked at her former lover. “You were saying?”
“Crap. Alpha Squad!” Hatch bellowed, adjusting once again to coordinating his command with his voice. “Prepare to defend those ships!”
Stug spit out his stub of cigar. “Knew it,” he said to no one.
They could hear Echo’s chain guns spinning hot bullets into the sky from their position at the guard post. The first of the converted airbuses fired up its engines as explosions thundered outside. Transport was here. In force.
To cover the landing zone, the QB moved Alpha, Charlie, and what was left of Delta squad to the second-story windows of the warehouse. They barely had time to set up their 18-millimeter guns before Transport drones were plinking them with laser fire. Delta, having lost its gunner, stood in support of the other two squads, helping to direct fire and occasionally pot-shotting at drones with their rifles. Fortunately, the late afternoon sun was behind them and not in their eyes.
Two TRACE cargo ships were in the air. To Hatch they seemed heavy, like lumbering elephants, standing still and swaying on a lazy morning. In contrast, Transport’s advance drones were quick and nimble, swarming like hornets, stinging the tough skins of the cargo ships with laser fire. The drones seemed uncoordinated at first, but as the first gunships bore down on the warehouses, Transport’s drone attack became more effective. What had been useless laser fire against reinforced hulls was now aimed at vulnerable engines.
The TRACE cargo ship farthest from the battle was the primary target. The magnetic servos of its anti-gravity engines squealed and sputtered, the nose of the craft pointed toward escape. But now enemy lasers were finding their marks. The cargo ship, bloated with okcillium, began a slow arc downward.
The QB stood and stared as the ship plummeted with its precious cargo. It hit the ground with more force than a bomb exploding, shaking them all through the building’s superstructure. A great plume of earth and okcillium dust burst upward as the ship broke apart. The captain’s mouth opened in simple disbelief. Not only had they lost the okcillium, but four TRACE soldiers had also just perished in the crash.
Despite her earlier sarcasm, she’d almost allowed herself to believe they could get away with it. That TRACE could pull this off, steal a vital resource right out from under the noses of Transport in the City. A deed worthy of the kind of David and Goliath tale historians loved using to capture a child’s imagination. But now those hopes were going up in smoke. Transport had shifted its attention away from the warehouses and was now concentrating fire on the four remaining cargo ships.
Hatch was shouting at her, but she couldn’t hear him. Her ears seemed closed off, filled up with some kind of resin that stopped all sound save for the thud of her racing heart.
He slapped her hard across the face.
“We have to get out of here! Now, while their focus is elsewhere!”
She swung her head around sharply, saying half-dreamily, “But the okcy—”
“That battle’s done!” replied Hatch. “Either those ships make it or they don’t. We can’t help them anymore.” Seeing the look in her eyes—a look as close to hopelessness as he’d ever seen there—made him stop and take a breath. More softly, he said, “We have to preserve as much of TRACE as we can. For the next battle. B-Company needs its captain now, Mary.” He directed her attention below, where Neville and his staff were fleeing the warehouse on foot. If they followed the plan, they’d be regrouping deep in the woods southeast of town. “You have to get us out of here,” he said.
She stared at him in shock a moment longer. Then the iron-willed focus that made her the QB filled her eyes, as if the spirit of a warrior long dead had repossessed her body to do what needed doing.
“All squads, retire in good order!” she shouted. “Get to the rendezvous point in the woods as best you can! Go!”
The remaining members of Delta Squad helped pack up the others’ deployed machine guns in record time. In less than a minute, they were preparing to dash across the open space to the first warehouse. Charlie and Delta squads hoofed it first, covered by Alpha. They met little resistance, since Transport was targeting the remaining cargo vessels.
The captain, however, turned away from her retreating squads, heading west along the wall of the long warehouse.
“Where the hell…” But then Hatch knew. She still had two squads deployed to the west, assuming they still survived at all. He hadn’t heard the chain guns in a while now. With their BICEs jammed, the only way to get them out was to tell them to leave—in person. Maybe they would’ve recognized the chaos for the defeat it was and bugged out already, but maybe they’d stand and fight and cover the retreat for everyone else. Knowing Smoker and Trick like he did, Hatch bet on the latter.
“Come on, boys, we’re not done yet,” he growled. “Hawkeye, take point. Stug and I will follow. Bracer, try and keep up.”
The sounds of battle were mostly behind them now, beyond the warehouses and pursuing the bulk of the retreating TRACE fighters. Intermittent heat sig reports from Hawkeye suggested Transport soldiers were occupying the town in force but were going door to door, slowly checking the homes for rebels.
Making their way to the guard post was remarkably uneventful. Transport appeared to simply ignore the mosquitoes nipping at them from the west, instead concentrating all their energy on spoiling TRACE’s plans for stealing the okcillium.
Remarkably strategic thinking for Transport, thought Hatch.
When Alpha Squad arrived at the guard post, they discovered why the chain guns had gone silent. One was destroyed, the other out of ammunition. The two squads had each lost half their number. Everyone left was injured but mobile.
“Leave them,” Hatch heard the QB order as he approached.
“But, ma’am, we can’t afford to abandon these guns,” Smoker said, wiping her brow, but only smearing the grease and dirt covering her face.
“I appreciate your being so conscientious, Lieutenant Gray, but preserving our human resources is my priority now,” answered the captain. All hint of her earlier hesitation was gone, along with the sting in her cheek from Hatch’s insubordinate slap. She was settled into herself again. She was the QB.
“Yes, ma’am,” answered Smoker. “You heard her,” she said, addressing both squads. Trick, nursing a left arm dangling loosely at his side, didn’t object. “Grab what you can, we’re falling back.”
Hatch deployed Alpha Squad to watch the town as they prepared to bug out, but Transport wasn’t pursuing. No doubt the Authority was feeling flush with victory. Dusk was falling like a shroud around the mountains to the east. He could still see smoke and hear occasional weapons discharge beyond the warehouses, but nothing alive moved.
His captain moved up next to him and followed his gaze to the smoking horizon. She was tempted to slip her fingers into his, to squeeze his hand once just to feel the reassurance of human contact in the wake of what had happened here today. How many TRACE soldiers had died? And for what? Had even a single cargo ship escaped Transport’s grasp? Or was their sole achievement the okcillium dust that now fertilized the fields around Gettysburg? But Mary resisted the urge to t
ouch him. Her soldiers couldn’t see her need for solace. As their commander, she should stand beyond the touch of despair.
The QB surveyed them as they slung packs and loaded the last of their ammunition. In the waning light of a day made hazy by tons of spilled okcillium, the members of Bestimmung Company appeared tired, dirty, and defeated. But their captain knew better. A shower and rest would remove the grime and fatigue. And they had never been defeated as a unit. She rejected the notion that they’d been defeated here today. B-Company was hers. In fact, it was her. Struck down to their knees, they would rise again. Regroup. As long as she stayed strong, they too would survive.
“Time to move out, ma’am?” asked Smoker.
She simply nodded, her energy spent. Then in a determined voice she added, “Time to move forward.”
To reduce the odds of running across Transport patrols, the remnants of B-Company marched a line directly away from Gettysburg and at a forty-five-degree angle to their ultimate objective in the woods. It was possible that Neville’s remaining troops had evaded their Transport pursuers and would rendezvous after midnight as planned at the designated rally point, but the QB wasn’t taking any chances. They’d approach from the southwest after walking two klicks in the opposite direction.
At the point of the turn, Smoker’s sergeant, nicknamed Brick, fell first to his knees, then onto his face. Exhaustion and blood loss. Stug offered to carry him, but the captain refused. They’d stop here, camp off-trail thirty meters into the woods, and rejoin the others at the rally point at dawn. Everyone needed the rest.
The captain personally tended to Brick’s wounds while the others set up camp. Unlike Stug, Echo Squad’s second was a modestly built man, more agile than thick. His nickname was an ironic ode to his ability to hold anyone at arm’s length, no matter how strong his opponent, through some inner-strength discipline he called Zenkwondo. He’d even bested Stug that way.
“Prop up his legs,” suggested Hatch.
She nodded, glancing at the jagged hole in the ashen sergeant’s right leg. A tourniquet wrapped just below the knee and a makeshift bandage stanched the flow. Still, the bandage was pregnant with blood. Wiping Brick’s sweating brow, the captain said, “We should’ve stopped sooner.”
Hatch almost bit her head off. He was tired too, and he didn’t have the patience for being needed right now. But he stopped, reminding himself that this was her command. One of her sergeants was dying, and there was little she could do about it but comfort him. And the others—they’d been bright-faced and eager, if the slightest bit frightened, when they’d gathered at dawn. Now, a third of their original number was dead. And whether Charlie and Delta squads had escaped was anyone’s guess.
Thinking it best to ignore her, Hatch said, “Hey, I just noticed something.” He shook his head. Battle still banged his eardrums, but his mind had lost that low-grade buzzing sound from earlier in the day. “We must’ve cleared the range of their jammers.”
The QB nodded. “A while back. They’re all off chasing the rabbits in the woods.”
“Should we try to establish contact with Neville? Find out the final score?”
The captain shook her head. “LAN only. Stay off the Internet. We’re in no shape to receive a Transport hunting party. We’re off grid for the night.”
“Brick needs aid. If we don’t—”
“Brick’s dead,” she said, palming over his open, lifeless eyes. “Have Stug strip him and distribute his equipment.” Her voice had taken on that tinny, monotone, autopilot quality. She was stony, immovable. “Detail a burial in the woods, but don’t bother digging too deep. Everyone needs their rest tonight,” she said, rising and walking into the woods away from camp.
Hatch watched her go. Sometimes he hated her coldness more than the war itself.
His tone stiff with boot camp formality, he said, “Yes, ma’am.”
The Third Day
Stug had earned his physicality by being raised on an Amish farm. He was moving hay bales with his father before he could read. His name had been Joseph Miller then, and his affinity for the animals they raised and ultimately slaughtered remained one of the cruel ironies of his love-hate relationship with his childhood. Like so many others of his generation, the sergeant had abandoned his upbringing to fight Transport. His shunning by his parents for that choice made his obsession with punching the enemy into unconsciousness all the more personally satisfying.
On the farm, they had never had fewer than two dogs at a time. He decided, one Sunday afternoon when he was a boy, that the reason he loved the dogs so fiercely was because he was never required to kill them. All the affection for animals he couldn’t afford to feel for the family’s livestock, he invested in their dogs. And to this day, dogs held a special place in the big man’s heart.
So when his sleeping self heard barking in the distance, his family dogs returned from memory and entered his dreams. Sloppy and drooling, Jonah’s goofy pant-grin made him smile as he lay on the hard ground of the woods outside Gettysburg. Young Joseph and his dog were chasing away a raccoon from Momma’s apple pie in the window. The overlapping, train-like echo of Jonah’s braying spoiled his momentary joy with a longing homesickness. Until his dream-self remembered he wasn’t twelve anymore. And he wasn’t just dreaming about his old hound.
Stug’s eyes snapped open. He rolled to his side, cocking his ear in the air. Blinking sleep and sore muscles away, he felt the sticks and leaves drop off his body into the dirt. Two soldiers from Smoker’s squad had stood up from their picket duty and were staring northeast.
Baaaaarooooooorrr. Baaaaarooooooorrr.
“Alert the camp!” Stug whispered. “Up, up, up!”
The others stirred, stiff from battle, but urgent and alert nonetheless. Hatch sat up, wincing at his still-smarting injury from the first day’s skirmish. He’d rested on his left leg again, and it tingled with lingering sleep.
“Dogs,” said Stug, not waiting for the question.
Hatch massaged his leg briefly as the others began moving. “Hawkeye, crack the sleep out of your eyes and give us a range,” he mumbled groggily.
Smoker and Trick were already gathering essentials, leaving behind what few luxury items they’d had.
Baaaaarooooooorrr.
The captain snapped a clip into her automatic rifle, leaving a captured Transport laser still slung across her back.
“Two hundred meters,” said Hawkeye calmly.
“Why the hell dogs?” asked Smoker.
“Brush party,” said the QB. “All the high-tech gear is chasing down Neville. Hell, they probably didn’t even expect to find anything in this direction.”
“Can we analyze the enemy’s application of low-tech resources later?” Hatch and his tingling, aching legs were in no mood. “By now they’ll have our heat sigs. It’s only a matter of time before they overrun us with drones or dropships.”
Grabbing her rifle as the others gathered around, Smoker said, “We’ll never outrun either one. We should set up a defensive perimeter and—”
“—die,” finished Stug. “We’re in a clearing with trees and poison ivy for defense.”
Hatch nodded severely. “It always comes down to the math.”
Baaaaarooooooorrr.
“One hundred fifty meters,” said Hawkeye, less calmly this time.
“We don’t have time to debate,” insisted Bracer. “Dig in or run?”
The captain turned and looked southwest, seeming to sniff the wind as if she were a bloodhound herself. Then, with the same frostiness she’d had the night before, she said, “We run. Follow me.”
The eight members of B-Company tramped through the undergrowth. No one bothered trying to hide their trail.
The fauna seemed to be on Transport’s side. Vines and nettles grabbed at the commandos’ legs, slowing them down. The injured fighters struggled the most, yanking and pulling through the undergrowth. One, then another stumbled, and their comrades bent to help them up.
&nbs
p; “BICEs still up,” noted Hatch.
“Keep the LAN online,” said the captain. “Everyone tie in to Hawkeye’s omni-lens.” The hunting party following them was indeed likely an afterthought by Transport command. No advanced transportation, no BICE jammer. A party sent to flush out any birds that might be hiding in the bushes. The QB switched on her Internet feed.
“Warning,” Marlene said in their heads. “Internet accessed. This is a tactical situation. Recommend you—”
“Shut up, Marlene,” said the captain, using the official shorthand that deactivated the warning system.
Baaaaarooooooorrr.
“One hundred twenty-five meters,” said Hawkeye.
Everyone quickened their pace.
Only half watching the terrain, the captain misstepped, twisting her ankle. Hatch reached down without stopping and dragged her back to her feet, and she stumbled forward. She was in pain but kept moving, step-dragging until she could put some weight on her ankle again. She’d been distracted momentarily by scanning the local map she’d projected in her head. Pulling up the map was why she’d needed the Internet. She knew they were close, but how close was the question.
Ah, there it is, said her inner voice. Dragging Hatch with her, the QB jagged suddenly left. The others followed.
“I take it you have an objective?” Hatch asked.
She ignored him. They were close.
The dogs barked savagely. They could smell the sweat and fear of their quarry on the wind.
“One hundred ten meters,” Alpha’s spotter dutifully reported.
The captain angled right and pushed her way through a last wall of wild vines to find what she was looking for.
“What is this, a deer trail?” wondered Stug.
Baaaaarooooooorrr.
Much closer now.
“This way!”
Unobstructed, she led them in a loping run away from the town along the wide, rutted road. Hard from lack of rain, the cuts in the dried mud seemed determined to trip them up.
Tales of B-Company: The Complete Collection Page 8