He thrust a packet at Diego and stood braced at attention. He was a tall man, fit as most Union officers were, but there was a petulant air about him that was anything but reassuring. He wore the expression of a perpetual martyr, and he was clearly resentful about being sent to a backwater like Chiapas.
Diego flipped the top thin plastic sheet onto his reader and dutifully watched the decoded pages unfold in 3-D projection a few centimeters above his desk. “I see you have combat experience,” he said. “Tell me about it, Captain.”
“I was in command of J Company, sir. First Alaskan Arctic Scout Battalion.”
“What fights were you in, sir?” asked BJ. Judging by the flash of fury on the captain’s face, she had broached a touchy subject. As quickly as it appeared, it was replaced by a poker face even more curious than the anger.
“I was in the first wave against the growlers when the Neo-Sovs released them on our position.”
Diego waited for Allen to go on, but decided not to press the matter when the captain didn’t elaborate. He filed the detail away, however, thinking it might come in handy later.
“Welcome to our happy little home down here in San Cristóbal de las Casas,” he said ironically. “It must be quite a change of climate for you.”
“You can say that again, sir.”
“At ease. Experienced officers are scarce in the MCF. With the action you’ve seen, you’re exactly the man I need to go after a Cyclops F.”
“Here? I thought there were only native guerrillas. You mean we might actually get to face a real threat?” Allen’s lips twisted contemptuously on the word native, and Diego briefly closed his eyes in irritation.
“We face everything, Captain,” he said with exaggerated patience. It was probably a mistake to antagonize Allen, but Diego already had enough to do just dealing with BJ’s bigotry and resentment. He didn’t have the time or the energy to coddle another sulky northerner.
He pushed back from the desk. “Let’s both go into the field for a training maneuver. We have a target identified.” Diego made a point of putting aside the intel brief BJ Travis had given him regarding the possible guerrilla attack on Puerto Madero.
“Sir, we can’t do this. We ought to—” began BJ.
“Notify Puerto Madero of your concerns, then muster the troops for a skirmish, Lieutenant. Against the Cyclops south of here.”
BJ obviously wanted to continue her protests, but one look at Diego’s expression warned her off. Instead, she spun on her heel and stomped out of Diego’s office.
“We have three brand-new Ares assault armor units,” Diego said, taking his uniform jacket off the back of his chair and pulling it on over his lean torso. “You familiar with them, Captain?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Power one up and stay in reserve, should we need you. This will give you a chance to observe and get your bearings.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.” Allen saluted. Diego returned the salute, wondering what he was getting himself into. Baca was a good sergeant, but he did not consider her officer material, no matter how desperately he needed more leadership in the field. He wanted to observe her in action, but with Allen peering over his shoulder, Diego was not certain he could give Baca his full attention.
Regardless, he had to stop the mutants and stop them decisively; if they proved successful against his forces, Mexico might soon be overflowing with them. That was a threat greater even than that posed by his older brother.
He smiled ruefully. It was hard enough fighting guerrillas—guerrillas led by his own brother, at that—but now he had to fight inhuman monsters created by the Neo-Soviets. Colonel Diego Villalobos hurried to his quarters to get into jungle camo and secure his weapons. It was not even dawn, and already he was juggling more than he cared to.
5
* * *
Diego Villalobos stared up at Captain Allen, already outfitted in one of the Ares assault suits, with mixed feelings. He just didn’t think the man could be trusted, but with Neo-Soviet mutants and guerrillas roaming the countryside, Diego needed every experienced combat officer he could lay his hands on. If Allen acquitted himself well enough on the battlefield, perhaps Diego could recommend him for a medal. Maybe that would get a decent evaluation for the San Cristóbal garrison and its commander. Diego grumbled at his own cynicism and began inspecting the Ares.
The heavy attack weapons, a Lucifer plasma cannon and a Harbinger rail gun, hung at the ready on either side of the massively armored suit. Diego walked around it, examining the latest the Union had offered him in the way of combat gear. The shiny metal armor had to be camouflaged to prevent detection in the jungle, but there hadn’t been time to paint it. The grinding sounds the suit made as Allen shifted its weight also posed a problem. The noise carried and would alert any guerrilla on patrol; rather than engaging, the enemy would simply vanish into the jungle.
Diego completed his circuit of the Ares and stared up at the brilliantly shining faceplate. Captain Allen had it set to full reflectivity, as if he expected to meet heavy laser fire or brilliant detonation flares—neither of which was likely here.
Diego settled his battle helmet to a more comfortable position and activated his helmet commlink. “How’s comm?” he asked Allen.
“Coming in five-by-five, Colonel.” The captain bent slightly and reached out a massive gloved hand.
Diego was not sure if Allen expected him to shake it, so he stood still. Allen brought the hand around into an awkward salute. Diego returned it.
“You will hang back and give support, should it be needed,” Diego said. “This is both a training mission for two recruit squads and an exploratory engagement of the Cyclops. We need to probe their strengths and find weaknesses to exploit later—and we need an opportunity to test the Ares’s capabilities in a jungle environment.”
“Affirmative,” Allen responded. “I am patched into your command circuit, sir, and I have a full battle map of the area in front of me.”
Diego could picture the ghostly green VR display and the pale orange heads-up controls floating like fireflies in the captain’s field of vision. A look, a blink, a twist of the head, and incredible weaponry would come into play. He had trained in an earlier-model Ares but had not liked it. They might be useful for massive army movements, fighting growlers, Rad Troopers, or death hounds, but in the jungle they seemed . . . excessive.
“I’ll rely on that map, Captain,” Diego said untruthfully. He had long since etched the topography of the region into his mind and rarely used maps in the field.
He switched his helmet radio to the private frequency he shared with the squad commander, and said, “Sergeant Baca, report.”
“Ready, sir, all three squads,” Baca responded. Her voice was slightly tentative, belying her words.
“Keep to the battle plan and don’t improvise, Sergeant,” he told her. “Do that and we’ll bag this Cyclops with no trouble.”
“Sir,” Baca said hesitantly, “am I in command or are you? Or is the captain in the Ares?”
“Captain Allen is our backup,” Diego assured her. “I’ll watch for trouble, but you’re on the hot seat when the shooting starts. If you want, I’ll take command of one of the recruit squads.”
“That’s all right, sir,” she said. “I can handle it. I just wanted to find out how involved you were going to be.”
“Rest easy, Sergeant. If you need help, I’ll give it. Otherwise, ignore me. My mission is to observe so we can plan better campaigns against the Cyclops in the future, if necessary. Yours is to destroy the mutant.”
“Yes, sir,” she answered, still skeptical. Diego knew why she was concerned. Too many commanders or a confused chain of command in combat meant casualties. Baca was taking three squads of untrained soldiers against a mutant man-machine of unknown capabilities. Any hesitation could bring disaster. Diego knew Baca was a good sergeant. If she said jump, none of her people would come back down until she gave them permission. But when the shooting started, e
ven the best training-range trooper could fall apart and endanger them all.
He briefly considered sending Baca alone on the mission to remove any potential command snarl, but he knew he had to see the Cyclops in battle personally. And if Baca got into trouble, he wanted to be there to make the best possible extraction.
Ultimate command responsibility had to rest on him—especially with a Union liaison officer spying on him. He couldn’t afford to show any weakness or make any mistakes.
“Move out, Sergeant,” he ordered. The three squads, two commanded by brevet corporals, piled into the trio of Hydra antigrav transports. Diego had decided to keep his force divided rather than huddled together in one vehicle. Larger troop transports made too-convenient targets for guerrillas.
“Grab hold, Captain,” Diego radioed. Allen reached up, caught an exterior rail, and swung around so his back flattened against the Hydra’s outer hull. There was an audible click as magnetic grapples clasped the Ares firmly in place, turning the armored captain into a temporary captive.
“Ready to roar, sir.”
Diego climbed into the lead Hydra and motioned the pilots to proceed from the heavily protected command post and into the dangerous jungle. It was two hours before dawn, and buried sensors had relayed seismic activity matching a Cyclops in precisely the region he had anticipated. Diego leaned back and turned off his radio for all frequencies but Baca’s, which he switched to receive-only. Let the soldiers chatter about going into combat—many of them for the first time. He wanted to listen to how Baca handled them, psyched them up, got them into fighting prime. He needed to decide whether he should follow BJ’s recommendation and give Baca a commission.
The battle would be time enough to evaluate the sergeant. Diego also needed time to think: to figure out how to handle the Union spy, to speculate about José’s larger strategy—and to wonder if he was going after the Cyclops because, deep down, he was afraid to face his brother at Puerto Madero.
To that question, he had as yet no answer.
* * *
José Villalobos gazed up through the sparse, leafy gray-green canopy of the jungle just outside Puerto Madero. He was stockier and shorter than his younger brother, his face fuller, but they shared the same intense brown eyes and strong-looking hands. He touched the silver crucifix given him by his mother, dangling inside his shirt where it wouldn’t get caught on the thick jungle undergrowth. It was two hours before dawn. The Maw, which had replaced Sol as Earth’s sun, had not yet risen. He must strike now to have any hope of winning this endless war against the Union.
First supplies, then he would hit Revancha. And Consuela Ortega—clever, dependable Consuela—would damage the Union forces enough to ensure the success of this raid. How well José’s strike on Puerto Madero went depended on her deployment of the Cyclops south of San Cristóbal and how many soldiers the Union sent after it. He knew his younger brother. Diego was a competent commander but no match for José. Time and again, José’s tricks, traps, and diversions had cost Diego men, supplies, and weapons. The potential threat of the Cyclops was enough that his brother wouldn’t be able to resist trying to defend against them.
Hunkered down at the edge of the clearing, José held his Neo-Soviet-made Kalashnikov tightly. The weapon was inferior to the sleek Union Pitbulls, but he carried it as a symbolic gesture, to remind his soldiers who they fought against. The sight of it reassured them of his commitment to their cause: to rid Chiapas of Union occupation and return the land to its rightful owners.
It was a grand dream, but he wasn’t sure the men and women gathered around him could pull it off. Many of them were half-starved farmers, campesinos who hated the Union as much as he did. He wished he had a real army, but in Chiapas that was not possible. The Neo-Soviets’ repeated attempts to invade had proved as much, but that made José more glad than otherwise. He might accept weapons and supplies from the Neo-Sovs, who were eager to see the Union’s vast territories split in half by an independent Chiapas, but he had no desire to drive out one oppressor only to replace it with another. From what he had seen in his years with the Union military, the Neo-Soviets were even more ruthless with the unfortunates they ruled than his former allies.
But José needed all the help he could get to rid his land of the parasites who fed off it. Too often the Union bled the people of Chiapas with its oppressive taxes, money that went to fight its political wars to the north. Too often the Mexican Contribution Force swooped down from its safe garrisons in Mexico City looking for “recruits.” To the poor people of this region, it was little more than the MCF hunting for slaves to fight their wars on distant continents. The Mexican Contribution Force had to supply a certain percentage of troops to the Union military, though it could never quite meet its quotas.
Except by enslavement.
Forever it had been so. Before the Change, before the Union, before the old, corrupt Mexican government, before . . . But José Villalobos would end the chain of patrónes and finally give his people the self-government they deserved.
“Is all ready?” he asked, looking around. The expressions he saw were always the same. The new soldiers were uneasy, some hiding their confusion behind a mask of machismo and others looking like frightened rabbits. Those who had raided with José before showed a curious mixture of anticipation and wariness. They knew the danger but had judged it worth risking their lives to win their families’ freedom. They knew that José would not allow a single excess drop of their blood to be spilled. But those José was most concerned about were the ones who were eager to kill. They stroked their AK51s as they would a lover’s cheek, and ecstasy built in them as the attack neared. They fought not because of devotion to family and land or for a cause or even to avenge wrongs, but because they enjoyed killing.
They made him truly afraid.
“This raid will be a quick one: in, steal what supplies we can carry, destroy what we cannot, then fade back into the jungle. Kill only those who try to stop you,” he said.
The frightened novices clutched their guns nervously, doing their best to understand his orders. The kill-crazed were already ignoring him. “We must preserve our ammunition.”
“What of the Neo-Soviet supply ship?” asked one of the veterans, a trusted lieutenant ironically called Flaco. He was not thin; he was too well fed. How he got so many rations was something of a mystery, but José did not suspect him of trafficking with the Union or even of dealing on the sporadic black market. Flaco’s skill at obtaining supplies was so great that José was considering making the man his quartermaster. “Did it not bring us weapons we can use?”
“Nothing that could help us here,” José said in a neutral tone. He had looked over the three-meter-long canisters in the Neo-Soviets’ latest shipment to the guerrillas and found not rifles or ammunition or even the nauseating freeze-dried mierda that passed for Neo-Soviet field rations, but mutant soldiers, all in suspended animation cryotanks and ready to pop out into battle.
He would permit none of his guerrillas to touch the plastic cylinders, outfitted with spray nozzles, that had accompanied the mutants. Those were the true weapons; the giant sleeping monsters were just for show, a distraction from the real menace contained in the shipment.
José had spent a few days considering how best to use this strange shipment. The Cyclops were only a nuisance—a smash-and-grab operation such as he was engaged in now was beyond their capabilities. One day he might use them for a frontal assault, but not now. He needed real arms and provisions, not cannon fodder for the Union lasers.
As for the other weapons—well, after today he would know how useful those would be.
“Consuela has deployed one of the mutants as a diversion,” José said. “She will not fail us. We will find only the hundred soldiers in the Puerto Madero garrison waiting for us.”
He looked around and saw his lieutenants nodding. They were good, all of them, but he wished Consuela could be there.
He sucked in a deep breath and without con
scious thought sorted through the myriad scents reaching him. Such a bewildering avalanche of odors would overwhelm a city dweller. José had been in the jungle long enough to appreciate even the fetid smells—all normal, expected, and reassuring.
He let the ragtag guerrillas settle down for a moment, then motioned his lieutenants to join him for last-minute instructions. He had learned not to amend his plans at this point. If anything changed, he would cancel the attack, but never confuse the guerrillas with a new target. They were humble farmers, not dedicated soldiers, and he would rather see them returned to their villages and families than buried in an unmarked grave.
“Flaco, go to the north of the garrison and lay down all the fire you can deliver. Follow a few seconds later with the smoke grenades.”
Flaco nodded, his double chins bobbing. He grinned, showing a missing tooth in front as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a string of firecrackers.
“These will add to our attack.”
“Muy bien,” José said, matching Flaco’s smile. The man’s brother Estéban was as good at scrounging odds and ends as Flaco. Those firecrackers were left over from El Día de los Muertos, the celebration of the day of the dead. It was appropriate to use them today, though only for the Union soldiers who would die.
“You want my squad to the south?” asked Mary Stephenson, a onetime missionary turned freedom fighter. She was short, petite, almost fragile-looking. Her dark hair had been hacked in a mannish fashion, and the black streaks of camouflage grease on her face looked like a mustache and beard.
José thought that she came from somewhere near Cheyenne Mountain, where she had learned to hate the Union arrogance, but he had never asked. She spoke Spanish like a native and had never given him a moment of doubt concerning her loyalty to the Zapatista cause. She looked delicate, but he had seen her kill a Union soldier twice her size in hand-to-hand combat. It was easy to underestimate Mary, and if you did, you died.
He nodded once in her direction, his mind racing ahead to the plans for Gunther Gonzáles y León. The man’s ancestry in the region went back only fifty years, his grandfather a German immigrant and his mother one of los ricos, the rich ones who usually sided with the Union. That did not worry José as much as Gunther’s fervor for killing. He was one of those who enjoyed the battle for its own sake and undoubtedly hoped that the killing could go on forever.
Hell Heart Page 4