Hell Heart

by Robert E. Vardeman

  José sometimes worried that Gunther would get his wish.

  “Gunther, we go in together, your squad to the left of mine. We wait for Flaco’s opening fire, then I go in. You follow and support me. Do not stray to the south, or Mary’s squad will cut you down. She is to fire at anything and anyone there.”

  “Why must my men follow you in?” Gunther complained.

  “Because those are my orders,” José said flatly, holding the other man’s gaze with his own until Gunther looked away. These incidents had become more frequent in recent weeks. Gunther chafed at the restrictions José placed on him; he wished only to kill, while José wished only to win. The man’s defiance had not yet become overt, but it was only a matter of time before Gunther directly challenged his authority. If the man were not such an effective soldier on the battlefield, José would have already dismissed him. As it was, he needed his experienced soldiers; he would deal with Gunther’s lust for power after the greater enemy had been defeated.

  “We will drive them into Mary’s guns, or toward the ocean,” he emphasized. “If they flee, let them go. We aren’t looking for a high body count. We only need supplies.”

  José gripped his Kalashnikov a little tighter. Unlike him, many of his guerrillas carried Union-issue weapons, stolen from armories and dead Union patrols that had ventured out too far into the jungle. If his plan was to succeed, they needed more ammunition for those stolen weapons.

  José’s only concession to the superior Union weaponry was the Pug pistol he wore in a cross-draw holster at his left hip. His standard-issue Neo-Soviet Viper had been irreparably damaged by a fragmentation grenade. José had used the ruined weapon as bait in a trap to blow up a Union private more interested in collecting trophies than in his own safety.

  One useless gun for one Union soldier. It had been a good trade.

  “To victory!” cried Gunther, holding up his Pitbull and brandishing it as if he were posing for a propaganda poster.

  “To victory,” José said more softly. His fingers traced the outline of the crucifix under his cotton shirt. Already he was sweating like a beast of burden. The cloth outlined the cross as he pressed it and said a quick prayer. José was at a loss to know which saint to pray to for victory in battle; the last priest in the area had been killed by MCF recruiters three months ago.

  He checked his radio commlink with his three lieutenants. For the moment, the radio worked. In combat that would change. It always did. Then he had to rely on their quick wit and hand signals. Today even those might be out of the question after Flaco laid down the line of smoke grenades to cover their attack.

  He motioned the guerrillas off the footpath and into the heavy undergrowth of the jungle. It made for slow going, but the Union had booby-trapped many of its trails; it had taken them two years of lost patrols and damaged vehicles before they had learned from José’s example.

  José couldn’t afford to lose any of them. He needed every one of his forty soldiers to arrive at Puerto Madero if his daring dawn raid was to succeed.

  * * *

  The three Union Hydras slowed and then sank silently to the ground. Diego Villalobos checked his chronometer. Less than an hour before dawn, and they had penetrated fifty klicks into guerrilla territory. If Union intelligence was correct, the Cyclops had only recently arrived on these shores. This was the best time to take them out, before they learned the harsh lessons the jungle had already taught him.

  “By squads, off-load!” came Sergeant Baca’s sharp command over the common frequency shared by all the soldiers. “Squad One, left flank. Squad Two, take the right. Squad Three, on my orders, advance!”

  Diego hung back as Baca and the twenty-four soldiers worked their way into the jungle. Allen’s Ares was also making its way more slowly through the undergrowth, and Diego frowned, unsure if the captain was being delayed by the terrain or was for some reason reluctant to face battle. He shrugged and turned his attention back to his sensors. Unless Allen did something incredibly foolish, like fall on a squad, Diego believed his people would be able to eliminate the Cyclops on their own.

  According to his remote sensors, the seismic disturbances were increasing. The Cyclops was rapidly approaching their position. He found a secure spot, unlimbered his Bulldog rifle, and peered down the length of its barrel at a likely area in the overgrown jungle. Diego turned on his scope and went up and down the spectrum, hunting from IR into UV for the human/robotic horror concocted by Neo-Soviet scientists.

  The three squads had gone to earth on either side of the crude trail and had fallen so silent that the usual jungle sounds were quick in returning. Baca had deployed them well. Diego glanced back over his shoulder toward the Ares, but Allen had somehow managed to hide the massive assault suit in the undergrowth, so he turned back to the hardest part of any jungle combat: waiting.

  Diego wasn’t one of those soldiers who got fired up on the adrenaline rush and fear and heightened senses of combat. Just the opposite. His pulse barely accelerated, and he remained as cool as if he sat behind his desk in San Cristóbal. Only after the fight did he finally react—usually thrilled that it was over and that he was still alive. But now, nothing. His breathing even, his eyes clear, he waited and watched and waited some more.

  He checked his remotes again and blinked at the readings. “Baca,” he said over the commlink, “be ready. The Cyclops is almost on us.”

  Then the Neo-Soviet abomination burst from the sheltering jungle, barely visible in the pale light of dawn. It towered above them, easily two and a half meters of steel and mean. Diego tried to make out what weapons it carried but could not. It was coming at them too fast—and it spotted them even faster. This was a man-machine combination designed for speed—and killing.

  The Cyclops’s arms rose from its sides, a faint blue discharge around the tube in its left hand betraying a charging energy weapon. Diego gave it no chance to power up. His Bulldog assault rifle spoke, hitting the thing’s left wrist. Firing steadily, he began to blast away at spots along the armored side, trying to break through the steel and reach the flesh beneath. Then a half dozen Pitbulls from Baca’s squad of veterans fired, the high-pitched whines echoing as the rounds bounced off the Cyclops’s armor.

  The plasma gun in the left hand of the Cyclops exploded as a grenade caught it. The blast finally shook the other two squads out of their shock, and they opened fire. Bullets spanged off the heavy armor, staggering the mutant. It recovered, spun around, and, using the weapon in its right hand, sprayed full-automatic explosive slugs into the jungle. The vegetation blew apart in miniature detonations all around the Union troopers. Several of the recruits, their nerve broken, fled their hiding places. The Cyclops cut them down within meters.

  “Enough of this,” Baca snapped over the commlink. “Everything you’ve got. Take that thing out.”

  Diego’s bullets were having no effect. He switched to the grenade launcher and fired one frag grenade after another at the Cyclops’s left leg, trying to bring it down. For one heart-stopping moment, he thought he had succeeded as the Cyclops dropped to one knee, but the thing was merely assuming a better position to fire more exploding rounds at the squad on its left flank. The Cyclops’s offensive flushed out two more troopers to their deaths. Diego missed with his next two grenades.

  Baca’s voice crackled into his ear from his helmet speaker. “Private Valdez, use the Rottweiler,” she ordered. “Take out that monster!”

  “The Rott jammed, ma’am,” came the panicky voice of one of Baca’s soldiers. “And Private Limón is wounded—it looks like she lost an arm.”

  Diego raised his Bulldog once again. He had one grenade left, and with the high-powered Rott out of commission, he had to make it count. He wasn’t certain, but he thought he saw the malevolent glare of too-human eyes through the Cyclops’s face mask. Motor-driven limbs gave the creature incredible strength, but the real menace came from its human brain.

  He focused his sights on the Cyclops’s bent knee, wh
ere it met the jungle floor, and fired. The grenade exploded on contact, knocking the mutant onto its side and—Diego hoped—shattering its knee. If he had managed to render it immobile, his soldiers could easily take it out.

  As if the Cyclops sensed the danger it faced, it struggled back upright, lowered its right hand, and fired a burst of exploding rounds into the soft earth at its feet, effectively digging itself a protective trench. If they wanted it now, Diego’s force would have to advance and dig it out.

  Diego was between a rock and a hard place. If they attacked, the Cyclops would cut them to bloody ribbons before they could take it out. If they retreated, the mutant was free to fire on them at will. Of course, if the Cyclops tried to flee, its damaged leg would give them the chance to hit it with enough lead to bring down a herd of elephants.

  But the Cyclops was burrowed in, damaged, wary, and willing to outwait them.

  * * *

  Quieter than a Union patrol but still noisy enough to worry José, the guerrillas approached the seacoast garrison of Puerto Madero. The lazy Union soldiers were sleeping late, as they always did, feeling secure behind their electrified fences and surveillance devices. Only now was the far horizon tinged with dawn.

  José dropped belly down in the brush and slowly wriggled forward, infiltrating the outer defenses with ease. He knew from his time in the Union military that Union radar detectors were usually set slightly above ground level to keep small animals from setting them off. If a snake could wriggle in without triggering the alarms, so could his guerrillas.

  And they did.

  The next ring of defense electronics presented a more difficult barrier. Cameras monitored the perimeter just beyond where he lay, checking heat signatures as well as the visual spectrum and radiation levels. As if he could smuggle a nuke this close—or even a Neo-Sov rad grenade. José had wondered at this gratuitous waste of matériel until he realized the Union did not customize its equipment. Their production lines turned out vast quantities of military gear, all interchangeable, whether sent to the Siberian front, Chicago, Cheyenne Mountain, or some insignificant supply port in Chiapas.

  Ignoring the radiation detectors, he fixed his Kalashnikov’s sights on the ceaselessly rotating cameras. José tipped his head to one side to activate his helmet radio and whispered, “Report.”

  “In position,” came Mary’s terse response. She had undoubtedly been ready for long minutes. She was efficient and deadly in battle.

  “Twenty meters to your left,” came Gunther’s husky voice. He sounded as if he was breathing heavily in anticipation of the fight.

  “Just tell me when,” Flaco said.

  “Let’s celebrate,” José responded, and gently squeezed the trigger on his Kalashnikov. Knowing where the camera’s protection was weakest, he fired at the armored casing directly under the lens. From all around the perimeter of the post came more fire, as the best shots in each squad aimed at the weak spot José had told them to look for. Most if not all of the cameras would be out of commission now, preventing the confused Union soldiers from learning exactly how many enemies they faced.

  Gunfire erupted from Flaco’s position, and José flinched at the sound, though it was not unexpected. A few seconds later came dense clouds of white smoke. It would take the Union sentries precious seconds to analyze it. Was it a poison gas? A mutagen? Something worse? Those seconds must be well used.

  “Attack!” he ordered.

  “Degüello!” cried Gunther so loudly that José did not need his radio to hear it. No quarter!

  José scrambled to his feet, kept low and ran for the garrison, the radiation detectors basically useless now that it was obvious the post was under attack. To his right screamed a grenade launched directly at the gate. He lowered his head and took the force of the explosion on the top of his helmet and along his back without stopping. By the time he reached the gate, it hung on one hinge. He kicked at it, climbed over, and rolled into the compound, his Kalashnikov firing full-auto.

  Several soldiers emerged from the barracks building directly in front of him, half-dressed and calling out in confusion, their weapons held loosely at their sides. José killed them, not without a measure of regret. Most of the soldiers at Puerto Madero were fresh recruits, inexperienced and ill trained—certainly not equipped to deal with his military expertise. They were not much different from the guerrillas now pouring in through the shattered gate.

  He ejected the spent clip and slammed in a fresh one as he glanced left and right to be sure the rest of his force was not running headlong into a trap. His lips twitched in a smile as he realized they had hit at the precise moment most of the Union garrison was rising to greet another day of tedious duty. Many were in the shower, wasting hot water. Others were at breakfast, their weapons back in the barracks. Most of them, as he had expected, hid rather than risk death. Those few who tried to resist died.

  It was a slaughter, and he took no pride in it. This was war, and he did his job well. Nothing more.

  Just past the barracks, he could see the squat shape of the supply warehouse that was their goal.

  “There,” he radioed, only to realize he spoke into dead air. The radios had failed once again. José lifted his Kalashnikov and fired a quick double burst to get his people’s attention. He pointed to the supply warehouses, and his squad immediately set off for them. But Gunther’s men continued to fire, seeking out and slaughtering the unarmed, cowering Union soldiers.

  “Get your squad in there. Get us ammo!” José shouted at Gunther. Reluctantly, his lieutenant obeyed.

  José ducked into the warehouse and surveyed the scene as Mary’s squad took position to guard the cache of supplies. Most of his guerrillas were, as he had instructed, loading up on ammunition for their Pitbull rifles, grenades, and other armaments. José pulled a few men aside and had them begin collecting food and medical supplies instead. They needed weapons to carry out his plan, yes, but they also needed to feed the people if he was to enjoy their continued support.

  Or the support of his guerrillas, for that matter. Too often of late, they had been forced to live off the unforgiving land. They were tired of snake meat and boiled weeds—and they would fight better on full stomachs.

  Setting his rifle aside, José grabbed a nearby pack and began stuffing grenades into it. When it was as heavy as he could safely carry, he slung it over his shoulder and picked up his Kalashnikov. Many of his people had already loaded up and retreated from the warehouse.

  He looked out the warehouse door and saw the Union soldiers finally beginning to shake off the shock of the surprise attack. The few experienced soldiers stationed at the garrison were harassing and chivvying the others into small, effective fire squads. But it was too late for most of them—Gunther’s and Flaco’s squads, even burdened as they were, had already made it to the safety of the surrounding jungle. José’s squad was retreating steadily under the covering fire laid down by Mary’s team. That left only Mary and her soldiers—and José himself.

  José reached into the bag over his shoulder and pulled out a grenade. Popping the pin, he threw the grenade in one easy motion. It arced high, a bright orange against the morning sky. José wanted this “pineapple” to be seen—and feared. It landed with a couple of bounces and then exploded, making the Union soldiers near it turn and flee, as he had hoped. This mission was meant to sow terror in the hearts of his enemy, not to slaughter them. Any Union soldier who survived today’s raid would fear the guerrillas. That was more effective than slaughtering them all, no matter what Gunther thought.

  He pulled another grenade from his bag and tossed it at a small squad of Union soldiers, knocking them about like bowling pins; perhaps killing some. José finished off two others with well-aimed rounds.

  “Retreat,” he signaled with his hand, and the few remaining guerrillas headed for the gates. Mary methodically destroyed Union vehicles as she went, to slow any pursuit. Flaco’s and Gunther’s squads were now laying down protective fire from the cove
r of the jungle, further pinning down the Union troops.

  José fixed a grenade in his Kalashnikov as he backed toward the gate, counting his guerrillas as they left. Two hobbled along, wounded in the hip or leg. Another was a bloody mess after taking a round in the chest, but he was still walking—and dragging a case of field rations behind him.

  The rest were none the worse for the fight. José made sure the last of them had started across the field outside the garrison walls. Then he fired the grenade into the Union magazine, turned and ran as if the devil himself nipped at his heels.

  José was halfway to the jungle when the grenade exploded. The munitions cut loose with a secondary, bigger explosion that knocked him to the ground. He kept scrambling, his feet pistoning in the soft dirt, the sanctuary of the jungle fifty meters in front of him.

  From all sides came rifle fire, and he was not sure if it was aimed at him or poured into the compound by his forces. Speed was his only ally now. He dug in and sprinted to the edge of the jungle. Once shielded by the thick vegetation, he turned and brought up his field glasses to assess the damage they had done to the garrison.

  Mary appeared silently at his side, her face even dirtier than before but her expression serene. “How’s it look?” she asked.

  “We have been very successful this day,” José said. “I think we can say Consuela’s plan worked perfectly. My brother could have had no idea . . .” And then, overhead, he heard a shrill whine, and he realized that the Union must have lured him into a trap.

  “Incoming!” he cried to no avail.

  In the dawn light, ripping apart the heavens, raced a thin silver streak that screamed deafeningly and then struck with devastating effect. The earth shook, and the overpressure from the monumental blast swept José Villalobos off his feet and flung him mightily through the air. He landed on his back, stunned by the impact, unable to breathe or move, staring for long seconds at the morning sky until it—and everything else—faded to black.