Under the Yoke

by S. M. Stirling

  Kustaa watched, aware that much of the information was added for his benefit. Arvid continued: "Marsh through here, and this approach is blocked by the lake; hard for us to get in, but it limits the routes out for their patrols. The main base is out of mortar range for us, so we pepper the outposts now and then; they they chase us, and we can usually count on taking out a few at least. They patrol the roads and sweep the woods at random intervals. Not much contact for the last six months."

  "Why?" Kustaa asked, shrugging his shoulder against the prickling itch of the foliage stuck into loops on his borrowed tunic. I feel like a bloody Christmas tree, he thought resentfully; they were all in uniforms sewn with loose strips of cloth colored dull-green and brown to break the outlines of their bodies, stuck all over with bits of grass and branch. Very effective for a stationary ambush.

  They had stopped well short of the gravel-surfaced road and the cleared zone that extended twenty meters on either side of it. The sun was bright enough to set him blinking after the green-gold twilight of the trees, and the tall grass that had grown up around the stumps waved, spicy-smelling as their feet crushed it, starred with flowering weeds and thistles that clung to their trousers. Nothing remarkable, simply a good two-lane country road through tall pine timber, coming from the north and curving sharply east. There was a whiff of tar—the crushed rock must have been lightly sprayed to lay the dust—but not even the Domination's resources extended to putting a hard surface on every back-country lane.

  The squads laying the mines were lifting the rock with swift, careful motions of their trowels and entrenching tools. Hands lowered the heavy round bundles of plastique into the earth as carefully as a mother tucks her child into the cradle. Kustaa watched a woman kneel beside the hole, the hilt of her knife between her teeth as she peeled apart the strands at the end of a reel of wire. Sinewy brown-tanned hands stripped the insulation from the bright copper and twisted the leads to the detonators, pressing the blue-painted rods of fulminate into the soft explosive. Others were unreeling the wire as she worked, trenching the surface of the road and then packing the gravel back in reverse order to keep the darker weathered stones on top; Kustaa could hear the rhythmic tinking of their spade-handles hammering the surface to the proper consistency. The Draka supply convoy was going to get a warm reception.

  Good work, he thought. They weren't putting them all in the roadway, either, more along the sides, and homemade directional mines spiked to stumps and concealed by the brush. No trampling that lovely waist-high cover, even though there must be the equivalent of two companies—they'd been joining the march in dribs and drabs. Nobody who didn't absolutely have to be was in view, and those were getting their business done and getting back past the treeline.

  "And I'm surprised they don't keep the vegetation down more," he said.

  "Not enough manpower," Arvid replied. "Which is the basic reason for the light contact, too. Remember, they're stretched thin, they took thirty million square kilometers in the War. And they're not in any overwhelming hurry; the snakes are like that, long-term thinkers. Cold-blooded."

  "Like real snakes," one of the others said with a grimace.

  "Finland isn't all that important to them," Arvid continued in a dry, detached tone. "There isn't anything here they need badly enough to make an all-out effort to get. They've swept the civilians out. Just us and the snake military; they're not even trying to run the timber-camps any more. Their aircraft make sure there's no farming going on, and they mostly just wait for us to die, helping when they can. I think the only reason they try to occupy us at all is the resistance we've put up; they're like that, too. Aggressive." A sour grin. "Most of our attacks are directed at their supply convoys. Polish hams, Danish butter, French wine… it'll be a while before we starve to death."

  Kustaa nodded, remembering the storerooms he had seen stacked with cans and boxes, the camouflaged garden plots, nightfishing equipment.

  "I think they're afraid, too," the American said. "Right now the Domination's like a lucky gambler, they want to get up from the table with their winnings… Sure they're going to send in their air?"

  "Oh, yes," a guerilla said. "Policy: they always give a cut-off unit full support. Air strikes, and a rescue column."

  Kustaa turned and looked behind him. Two crates of the missiles had come with the guerrillas on this strike. Two units here under camouflage tarpaulins, spidery swivel-mounted tripods with a bicycle-type seat for the gunner, battery clusters, the black-box exotica of the launching system. A pair of rockets for each, one on the rail and a reload, cylinders a little taller than he, a uniform twelve inches through except for the last foot that tapered into a blunt cone. Simple cruciform control fins at the base, and a single nozzle for the rocket; like an illustration for Thrilling Planet Stories, the pulp he had hidden folded inside serious reading in his teens. Except that gaunt female guerrilla in faded overalls was nothing like as photogenic as the brass-bra-ed earth women who had figured on the garish covers, usually menaced by something with tentacles and a lust for mammalian flesh.

  "But I'm up against monsters, sure enough," he whispered to himself.

  There were no markings, no serial numbers or manufacturer's stamps anywhere inside the apparatus. Kustaa sneered mentally at the security worldview run amok; as if transistors were something the Finns could cobble together in their bunker hideouts. As if the Fifth Cav hadn't paraded a dozen of them past President Marshall's reviewing-stand on Fifth Avenue last Inauguration Day, with the Draka embassy's military attache taking notes and snapping pictures. The hastily-trained crews lay beside the missile launchers, going over the manuals again. Well, the mothering things were supposed to be soldier-proof—they were designed for infantry use. Skills built into the machinery, anyone who could walk and breathe at the same time capable of operating them.

  At that, these old-country Finns had picked up the theory quickly enough, better than a lot of the hill-crackers and ladino peons he'd had to train on much simpler equipment in the Corps during the War…

  "Ambush in more senses than one," he said to Arvid. The Finn nodded and settled down behind the jagged granite crenel.

  "Not long," he replied. "Mines all ready. First action this close to the base since snowmelt, they'll react quickly."

  Damn, you never remember how hard the waiting is, Kustaa thought, as silence settled on the stretch of forest. Silence enough for the wind-rustle through branches and occasional birdsong to fill his ears. His mouth was dry; he brought out a stick of chewing gum, stopped himself from tossing the scrap of silvered wrapping paper aside and tucked it neatly in the front pocket of his fatigues. There was no point in giving the Draka an extra clue, it might be important if they made it away clean. And you never remember how stupid the reasons for volunteering sound in your head, either.

  "God damn you, Donovan," he muttered under his breath, sliding the borrowed Finnish rifle through the fissure in the rock before him. Nice sound design, gas-operated semiauto, not much different from the Springfield-7 he'd used in the Pacific except that it had a detachable box clip, and that was an improvement. He'd managed to persuade them to give him a scope-sighted model, too.

  "I've given Uncle my share, I'm too old for this shit," he said, continuing the dialogue with his absent superior. "You and that fucking Mick blarney; you could've made a fortune selling suntan oil to Eskimos." Something tiny burrowed up from the grass beneath him and bit him on the stomach; he crushed the insect and rubbed his palm down a pant-leg before tucking the stock of the rifle back against his cheek. It was cool and smooth against beard-stubble grown long enough to be silky.

  There was a muffled buzz from above, no louder than a dragonfly humming at arm's-length. A brief flash off plastic and metal and a scout-plane went by overhead toward the south, a twinboomed bubble fuselage on long slender wings with a shrouded pusher engine. Then it banked and turned north again, flying a zigzag pattern less than a hundred feet above the treetops. His stomach felt sour, the sam
e feeling as too much coffee; Kustaa could feel his eyes jumping back and forth across the scene before him, looking for movement with a reflex much stronger than conscious thought.

  Hell, I know where they are and can't see them, he told himself. No way a plane's going to spot anything.

  Sounds echoed back and forth between the trees, motor sounds. Turbocompounds, the Domination's internal-combustion engines of choice for automotive applications. Many, but not really heavy stuff; other noises under that, a vague mechanical hum. This was different from ambushes in Sumatra. The jungle of southeast Asia hid sounds better; the Nips could be right on top of you and walking by before you heard anything. He had always hated having to shoot the pack-mules, the way they screamed. At least there wouldn't be any of that, with a mechanized convoy.

  Donovan was wrong, this isn't a job for a veteran, he thought. This is work for a fucking kid who doesn't believe he can die. His mind was running through everything that might happen. Sergeant Hicks, that was the first casualty he'd ever seen. Hicks'd lived for hours after the bullet went widthwise through his face behind the nose; his eyes had popped out like oysters…

  They saw the dust-plume before the vehicles, spreading brown-white above the road. Now things were clear, very clear, like the sight-picture that firmed up as you turned the focusing screw of a pair of binoculars. His stomach settled with a last rumble. Then the first Draka warcar was in view, keeping to the right of the road. Light armored car, six-wheeled, a smooth welded oval with a hexagonal turret mounting a heavy machine-gun and grenade launcher; two more behind it, same class, their weapons traversed to alternate sides of the road.

  The commanders head-and-shoulders out of the turret hatches: that was good practice, you couldn't see shit buttoned up. He eased his eye forward to the telescopic sight and the first man's head sprang into view. There was not much to be seen, just a line of mouth and square strong hands beneath helmet and dust-goggles. Black hands, black face, a Janissary; a camo uniform, with some sort of shoulder rig for an automatic pistol.

  Trucks behind the armored cars, a dozen of them, then three armored personnel carriers; Peltast class, eight-wheeled, not the heavy tracked Hoplites the Citizen Force legions used. More trucks, then something military that was hard to make out through dust and engine-induced heat haze. The trucks nagged at him with familiarity… yes, German make. Wehrmacht Opels, four-ton steamers, but not worn enough to be leftovers from the War. That made sense, it would be easier to keep the production lines going than retool right away, even with the spare-parts problems that would cause. Autosteamers were fairly simple beasts, anyway, low-maintenance. Ten-yard spacing, and they were doing thirty-five miles an hour tops.

  The lead car slowed; Kustaa could see the figure in the turret put one hand to his ear, pressing the headset home to improve hearing. The American stiffened, his finger touching delicately down on the smooth curve of his rifle's trigger, resting, waiting.

  "Wait," Arvid said. "I think…" The whining hum of heavy tires sank into a lower note, punctuated by the popping crunch of gravel spitting sideways under the pressure of ten-ton loads of armor plate.

  The whole convoy was slowing, half a kilometer of it, the warcars and APC's first as the radio message reached them and the cargo vehicles responded jerkily. Trucks halted in the center of the roadway, but the escorts wheeled theirs to face the woods, staggered herringbone fashion in alternate directions. The warcars' engines sank to idle, no louder than the thrumming of the autosteamers' boiler-fans, and there were shouts back and forth along the line of vehicles.

  Arvid swore viciously under his breath in Finnish, then relaxed as the cab-doors of the trucks opened. "Rest stop," he muttered. "All the better." He laid a hand on the Finn waiting with his hand on the plunger of the detonator box. "Wait for it."

  The drivers were climbing down, stretching, walking to the ditch and opening the flies of their gray overalls to piss into the ditch; the strong musky odor of urine and wet earth came clearly across the sixty feet of open space. Kustaa winced, hoping they would be finished before the action started. Shooting a man peeing was like killing him while he picked his nose: the homey human action made the target too much a person. It was more comfortable to keep targets as simply shapes in your mind. You put a shot through the center of mass and went on to the next. Targets did not come back before your eyes while you were sleeping or eating or making love…

  A file of soldiers came jog-trotting up from the APC's, dropping off pairs every ten yards; the troopers fanned out from the road halfway to the trees with their assault-rifles slung across their chests. One soldier with a cardboard carton over his shoulder walked to unpin the back flap of the truck closest to Kustaa. He reached up to help the first of the occupants down, his grin visible even at this distance.

  "Christ, women!" the American blurted in a whisper.

  Arvid turned his head fractionally, studied the two trucks that were shedding passengers. "Whores," he said flatly. "The snakes rotate twenty or so every two weeks. Must be busy, there's a thousand men in that base."

  Kustaa slid his eye to the scope. There were ten from each of the trucks, dressed alike in plain dark skirts and white blouses. All young, mid-teens to mid-twenties (although it was hard to judge through the narrow field of the telescope), wearing handcuffs with two-foot chains.

  Mostly white, but he could see a tall statuesque Negro girl and a couple of Chinese; they were milling and chattering, a few bringing out combs and taking the kerchiefs from their travel-touseled hair. The janissary was talking to a girl with reddish-brown braids done up in Gretchen coils on the sides of her head; she was snubnosed and freckled, a dead ringer for the bobby-soxer daughter of his next-door neighbor back in New York—except for the serf-number tattooed on her neck.

  She took the carton from the soldier and opened it, began handing rolls of toilet paper to the other women. They walked away from the truck toward the granite outcropping, the soldier beside them; he was still talking to the Gretchen-girl, laughing and gesturing with his free hand while the right rested lightly on the pistol-grip of his rifle. Closer, closer, Kustaa could feel Arvid tensing beside him, hear that the Janissary and the girl were speaking German to each other. The soldier was young too; the face leaped into close-up in the crosshairs of his sight, shaven-skulled but adorned with a wispy yellow mustache and plentiful acne, the neck-tattoo standing out bright orange against his tan.

  They halted ten meters from the rocks, and the girl gestured imperiously to the serf trooper. He laughed again, turning his back on the clump of women squatting in the long grass, dropping to a knee. His rifle rested across one thigh as he scanned the edge of the treeline and reached inside his mottled tunic to bring out a package of cigarettes, flicking one half-free of the container and raising it toward his lips. Kustaa saw the pack freeze halfway to the young man's mouth, sink back, then drop from stiffening fingers. Pale blue eyes went wide in alarm, and the face rocketed past his 'scope as the soldier shot to his feet.

  "Now!" Arvid shouted, and the man with the detonator twirled the crank-handle on its side and raised the plunger. For a half-second he paused, an expression of utter pleasure on his face, then slammed it down.

  Kustaa's finger stroked the trigger of his rifle, and he felt the recoil as a surprise the way it always was when the aim was right. The blond Janissary pitched back, the smack of the bullet punching through his stomach close enough to be heard with the crack of the round firing. Clack as the action flicked back, ting went the spent brass of the cartridge as it bounced off the stone by his right ear. Then the earth under the lead warcar erupted, a sound so huge it struck the whole face like a giant's invisible hand. Groundshock picked him up and slammed him down again, with the iron-salt taste of blood in his mouth from a cut tongue. Nothing was left of the lead car but a tattered rag of steel crossed by the heavier lines of axles, centered in a circle of burning scraps and fuel.

  The second armored car was over on its side, wheels spinning
in slow futility. Its crew crawled from their hatches, staggered erect, were caught and shredded in the metallic sleet of fire that raked the column from both sides; another roar and pillar of black smoke came from the rear of the convoy, then half a dozen more along the kilometer length of stalled vehicles, crash-crash-crash, ripple-firing in a daisy-chain of high explosive that sprouted like malignant black mushrooms. Trucks were burning, and a pattering hail of wood and metal and human body-parts came down all about them; the heavy oily smell of distillate burning in the open was all around them, and the throat-rasping fumes of burnt propellant.

  All along the treeline on both sides of the road arcs of tracer swept out to chew at the convoy's edges from concealed machine-guns. The heavier snapsnapsnap of semiauto rifles joined in, and an anvil chorus of ricochets hornet-buzzing from engine-blocks and armor. Kustaa shifted aim, found a Janissary kneeling and firing a light machine-gun from the hip, strobing muzzle-flashes and his mouth gaping pink against the dark-brown skin as he shouted defiance. The crosshairs dropped over his face and crack the rifle hammered at Kustaa's shoulder. The Janissary snapped backward with a small hole between just above his nose and the back of his skull blown away in a spatter of gray-pink brains and white bone; he lay still kneeling, his body arched back like a bridge and the kindly grass closing over the shock-bulged eyes.

  A whipcrack sound went by overhead, close enough for the wind of it to snatch the cap from his head and brush heat across his forehead. Ice crystallized in his stomach as he wrestled the rifle out of the notch in the granite and swung it to the left; the third Draka warcar was coming towards them, the long fluted barrel of its 15mm machine-gun spraying rounds that whined overhead and blasted spalls and fragments from the stones before them. The stubby muzzle of the grenade launcher beside it made a duller sound as it fired, more like ripping canvas. The two-inch bomblets were low-velocity, almost visible as they blurred through the air. Their bursting-charges were much louder, a crang and vicious hum as the coils of notched steel wire inside dissolved into a cloud of miniature buzzsaws; each one cleared a five-meter circle in the long grass, as neat as a lawn-mower.