Unfortunately for them, the attack had also thrown a fragment of the Shard’s ship directly into the heart of the mote, which had lashed back with an explosion even fiercer than the one that had disabled Destroyer for the Faith. The resulting shock wave had disabled the station—leaving the field free for the Pharon to swoop in and claim the mote for his own.
Assuming his ship was capable of swooping. The Slayer’s report had been hopeful. The damage the Pharon spaceship had sustained was repairable—if enough slaves had survived. The priest was not sure they had. All the control-room slaves had been killed; the result of long months of battle, conquest, and enslavement wiped out in seconds. The Slayer had reported that the engines were intact, but radiation leakage had fried the slaves and soldiers in the aft section before baffles could be pulled into place. Most of the ship’s energy cannon were fused and melted as a result of the back blast from the Vorack-stuff.
The priest cared about none of that. All he wanted was a functional guidance system and at least one working engine—and he had that. The result would have none of Destroyer’s usual grace, but it would be sufficient to recapture the mote and limp slowly back to the Pharon homeworld.
Unfortunately, when the Shard ship collided with the speck of the Vorack, the explosion had altered the mote’s path—sending it directly toward the surface of the insignificant little planet that hung in the priest’s viewscreens. That would make retrieval of the mote more difficult, but not impossible—and if the planet was as infested with the crawling little primitives as their orbiting station was, the priest might even find a way to replenish his decimated workforce.
For the moment, he and the Slayer would have to suffice. “Track the course of the Vorack-stuff,” the priest ordered the Slayer, who obediently turned to the control console. “When you have a precise fix on it, go find the surviving slaves elsewhere in the ship. We need them to man the control room.”
The priest himself began gingerly coaxing his battered ship back to life. As he worked to plot a course that would take him into an undetected orbit around the planet and eventually follow the mote down to its surface, his mind turned inexorably to thoughts of the raw power contained in that microscopic speck. What did it matter if his possession of it was delayed for a short time? Soon it would be back within his grasp, and then all enemies of the Pharon would be destroyed by the fist of the God-king.
Slowly, haltingly, Destroyer for the Faith began to cruise toward the little blue world.
4
* * *
Sir, here are the latest intel reports.” The stolid lieutenant dropped the folder onto the desk of Colonel Diego Villalobos, head of the Chiapas command center at San Cristóbal, and glared at him as if accusing him of some treachery.
“And?” Diego asked, looking up from the book on tactics he was studying. His thin face was drawn with fatigue, his forehead creased with intense concentration. Lieutenant Betty June Travis, otherwise known as BJ in the too-small officer corps, never failed to make her displeasure with him known. She hailed from Houston and, like most Texans, considered duty at any post south of the Rio Grande a hardship assignment. Chiapas, Mexico, had proved especially onerous for her; she considered her fellow soldiers inept and often dangerously incompetent. More than once he had pointedly instructed her to keep her feelings about the Mexican Contribution Force to herself. More than once Diego had had to keep his opinions of Texans to himself.
Still, for all the attitude, she was a decent field officer who always pulled her own weight. BJ was built like a bulldog—short, squat, and physically powerful. In a way, she even resembled one, with her undershot jaw and fierce expression. And he needed a bulldog to keep his post running. She was a good XO and an even better field commander.
“And, your brother’s at it again,” she said in an accusatory tone. “We got good intelligence he’s going to hit Puerto Madero at dawn. We have three hours. We can use antigrav transports and get a rifle company there and catch the son of a bitch red-handed.” She cleared her throat and glowered at him, her deep-set black eyes hard as marbles. “If you’re up for it. Sir.”
“Enough!” Diego snapped. He shot to his feet and glared down at her, using the power of his rank and his thirty centimeters of additional height over her. All his life he had lived in the shadow of his older brother. They had both graduated from the Union Academy, José first in his class while Diego barely scraped by in the lower quintile two years later. Then they had held neighboring MCF commands for years: José brilliant and decorated and always the talk of their superiors, Diego doggedly doing his duty but never reaching the heights José scaled. Always it was so.
Until three years ago.
That was when José had refused a command to attack a guerrilla camp because he thought it would endanger a village in the Lacandon jungle. Diego, however, had judged that a strike would not put civilians in jeopardy. He executed the mission and captured four guerrilla captains without damaging the village. It had been the fifth—and unknown—guerrilla leader who had blown up the village to cover his escape.
Ninety-seven campesinos had died, and José blamed the Union—and Diego—for the unfortunate deaths. Nothing Diego said could convince his older brother—lovingly called Viejo until that moment—that the Zapatista guerrilla chief had been responsible. All José saw was the death, the destruction, and the remnants of the Union blockbuster bomb that had wrought them. It had taken Diego weeks to locate the arsenal from which the powerful explosive device had been stolen, but by then José had been branded an outlaw, a traitor, a guerrilla who had turned against the Union.
In a way, Diego thought it was inevitable that his older brother had followed the path of earlier Chiapas rebels. Their mother had been deeply involved in the EZLN, the Zapatista National Liberation Army, and a ranking member of the ruling Zapatista Consulta for years. Women had always been politically active in Chiapas, and José had been very close to their mother, especially after government troops had murdered their father during a search-and-smash raid. The rise of the Union and the absorption of the old Mexican government into a true North American alliance had seemed a godsend, with promise of much-needed reforms in government policies.
But José, for all his success in the Union military, had always felt his true roots in the countryside, among the campesinos. Perhaps it had been inevitable that José would become the leader of the Zapatistas, even though it meant consorting with the Neo-Sovs.
Whatever the reason, José’s turning against the Union had been doubly hard on Diego, who now had to deal with the loss of the only family he had left as well as the suspicion and distrust of the High Command in Mexico City. Where one brother could betray them, Diego’s superiors reasoned, why wouldn’t the other?
So for the past three years, Mexico City HQ had been seeking an excuse to get rid of him. But Diego had given them no opening; he might not be as brilliant as José, but he was methodical and diligent about fulfilling his duty.
His main regret was that some of his soldiers, including some officers like Lieutenant Travis, shared HQ’s dislike of him. They saw his caution, his reluctant responses to raids, his unwillingness to commit troops as signs that he was soft.
But Diego Villalobos was not soft. His superiors and his men simply failed to understand that traditional Union tactics were useless against an enemy that raided and killed and then faded back into the jungle—a jungle riddled with traps and snares for the unwary. He would have to use a different strategy if he were to have any hope of defeating his brother.
He just didn’t know what that strategy was yet.
“What’s at Puerto Madero?” he asked, picking up the report BJ had dropped in front of him and leafing through it quickly. He had seen everything in it before, except the IR aerial recon photos showing movement a few kilometers to the east that might indicate a staging area for Zapatista guerrillas.
“A hundred soldiers, a supply depot for the region a hundred klicks up and down the coast, a�
�”
“Supplies,” Diego said forcefully. “We cannot spare the troops to protect a few kilos of rations and a handful of weapons. Let them have the food. At least it will go to the campesinos.”
“You sound like a Zapatista yourself,” BJ said bitterly. “Sir,” she added belatedly.
“My loyalty is not in question, Lieutenant,” he said coldly. “It is your grasp of tactics that is lacking.” Diego shoved his book toward her. His eyes were bloodshot from reading all night, and his strong, blunt-fingered hands shook slightly because he had forgotten to eat again. He had opposed the guerrillas for years and had never fought a satisfying battle. Always the firefights were on their terms. A man killed here, another ambushed there. A powerful bomb that destroyed equipment in the dead of night. Vehicles sabotaged. Nothing and no one to fight against. It was like grasping a handful of the ocean and squeezing. All that remained was a faint salty dampness, the real cause of the moisture draining away unnoticed.
BJ looked at the book. “General Giap, sir? I don’t—”
“No, you don’t know him. He fought a guerrilla war and won it. Just as José is winning this one.”
“That’s because—” BJ clamped her mouth shut as his fierce gaze pinned her in place.
“How do we fight an enemy that fires a single sniper round and fades away? Blow up entire villages in retaliation? If so, we lose. We either win over the campesinos or José wins. At times, it is as if even our own side works against us. If we train a company well, HQ transfers it to more active combat fronts. I hardly dare to admit we have any veterans out here.” They would just get transferred away like all the others. If HQ would only let him keep his good men, Diego thought he might actually succeed.
“We have equipment, but it is the wrong equipment for our fight,” he added.
“Sir, are you referring to the three Ares heavy-assault suits we just received?”
“Just what we need to go crashing through thick jungles. These are the tactics we should be using to fight my brother and his guerrillas,” Diego said, slamming his hand onto Giap’s book.
“We aren’t authorized to become guerrillas ourselves,” BJ said. “We don’t fight that way. We don’t have to.”
Diego wasn’t going to waste any more time arguing with her. José might indeed be planning a raid on Puerto Madero, but there were other intel reports that worried him more. Shuffling through the disks and hardcopy on his desk, he pulled out the single EYES ONLY sheet he had received from the Union Command at Cheyenne Mountain and passed it to BJ.
“Sir, I’m not cleared for this.”
“Read it,” he said wearily. She picked up the sheet and scanned it. She frowned, then reread the warning.
“I don’t understand. Are we going to face Rad troopers?”
“No. The Neo-Soviets have sent mutant soldiers—Cyclops—for my brother to use as he sees fit. Why they did that is a mystery. Union Command did not share its suppositions with me.”
Diego leaned back in his chair, infinitely tired. Although only thirty, he was getting too old to fight all day and work all night. The ideas in Giap’s book were important, though. Something there could tell him how to fight José, if only he could piece it all together.
“The guerrillas might use the mutants as shock troops against an outpost,” BJ said, her words becoming a slow drawl as she began to consider what had worried him all night long. “That’s a waste, though. José does a good job without them big-footed mutants clomping through the jungle.”
“This is not the best terrain for using Cyclops Fs,” Diego agreed. “I think these are new mutations, ones better suited for jungle warfare. The Neo-Soviets might be trying them out before launching a new assault on our position. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve tried to attack here.”
He didn’t mention what worried him the most: the vulnerability of the fiber-optic lines running through his command post at San Cristóbal. Shortwave radio communication had been chancy ever since the Change—the day when all hell broke loose and the Earth got sucked into the Maelstrom. The Heaviside layer was in constant turmoil, scrambling and scattering even the strongest signals. Reaching any of the remaining battle stations with laser comm often proved difficult. Worse, many of the comsats that had carried most of the world’s electronic commerce had been blasted out of orbit during the Change, leaving only landlines intact. If communications between the two segments of the Union should get cut off, the Neo-Soviets would gain an immense advantage.
Diego didn’t intend to go down in history as the commander responsible for allowing the Neo-Soviets to gain a foothold—or even a secure position—between North and South America.
“There are other considerations,” he said. “God only knows what hideous bioweapons the Neo-Sovs may have cooked up and sent over. And the fact that they’re now supplying my brother with mutant soldiers worries me—it might mean they’re shifting from simply supplying the guerrillas with weapons to outright war.”
“We don’t have much in the way of experienced soldiers,” BJ said. Her lower jaw thrust out even more, and she looked more like a bulldog than ever. “For every squad of veterans, we’ve got two that get scared when they see their reflections in their own boots.”
Diego said nothing. His XO was right. HQ had raided his best companies only last month, once again making it necessary to train new recruits. His troops were well armed but with so little practice time on the range that they couldn’t hit a target even using laser sights. Worse, he had no idea how they would fare in combat. Too many of them were villagers from the surrounding pueblos, drawn by the promise of regular meals. They had no real desire to fight José’s guerrillas—who might well be their own relatives.
There was also the chance that some of the newest recruits were Zapatista agents sending stolen supplies to the very guerrillas they were supposed to be fighting.
“Who do you want to send against José?” he asked.
“Sergeant Suarez did well in the firefight last week,” BJ said, warming to her recommendation. “And Sergeant Baca deserves a brevet commission. She held together the troops during the 16th of September attack, when they wanted to turn tail and run. If it wasn’t for her, we’d’ve lost a passel of good soldiers.”
“Two squads out of seven?” Diego saw the danger in risking his veteran soldiers in a mere skirmish when Cyclops mutants were roaming the countryside. His comm officer had just reported that a Cyclops had been sighted south of the central command post there in San Cristóbal. If it attacked, he would have only his greenest recruits to counter it.
“We stop Viejo, we stop the rebels,” insisted BJ.
“There’d be someone else. There always is. No one thought Subcomandante Marcos could be replaced, but he was. We cannot win a guerrilla war by chopping off the head. We must go to the guts of the rebellion and pull them out whole.”
“You going to sit and do nothing, then? Sir.” BJ’s lower lip thrust out truculently.
“Not at all. You like the way Sergeant Baca fought? Muy bien. She’s in charge of her own squad and two of the recruit squads. She’s to go after the Cyclops working its way south of San Cristóbal and destroy it. Have her deploy in such a way that the new soldiers gain confidence while the Cyclops is neutralized by the veterans.” Diego sounded sure of himself, as a commander should, but his thoughts continued to turn in agonizing circles. What did José really have up his sleeve? Why would the Neo-Sovs send him Cyclops? And how could Diego hope to fight them both?
With a mental shake, he turned his attention back to BJ. “You’ll be in charge here, Lieutenant Travis, since I’m going along on this mission,” he said. “Keep Suarez to be sure our backsides are well protected if Puerto Madero turns out to be merely a feint and the Cyclops attack nothing but a diversion. I’ve got a feeling José is planning a more substantial attack elsewhere.”
The intercom buzzed. Diego flipped it on, and said wearily, “What is it, Private?” His orderly usually fielded most p
roblems before they reached him. Private Murdo ought to have sensed his mood and put off annoying details until later.
“Sir, Captain Allen is here to see you.”
For a moment, Diego’s exhausted mind refused to summon all the information he needed. Then he remembered the memo that had crossed his desk a week earlier while he had been preoccupied with more important matters—like two firefights, a guerrilla attack on a supply truck delivering medical supplies to San Cristóbal from the major Union seaport at El Manguito, and worrying over what his brother might come up with next.
Yes, Captain Alex Allen. Sent as a liaison by Union Command at Cheyenne Mountain to observe and report back on military readiness in the Chiapas region, so that the Union military could better allot supplies and troops where most needed.
Translation: Someone in Mexico City—probably General Ramirez—had complained loudly enough and often enough about Diego Villalobos that Union HQ had sent someone down to spy on him, preparatory to removing him from command.
Diego knew the ice under his feet was thinner than it had ever been. One little misstep, one failure, one bungled engagement while Allen was looking over his shoulder, and his career was over. Just what he needed right now.
“Send him in,” he said resignedly.
BJ stepped to one side as Captain Allen came in and snapped a smart salute.
“Welcome to Chiapas,” Diego said without sincerity.
“My apologies for my late arrival,” the captain said. “My flight from Mexico City was delayed. Here are my orders.”
Hell Heart Page 3