“Where are we going?” Trent’s voice was low and child-like, so close it could have been his own thought.
“The one place that we know is safe. Screw looking for any more friendlies here, or waiting for help. We’re going to steal a ship from the Sims. And then we’re going to Glory Main.”
“So you think you can do it?”
“Yes.” Gorman spoke with a hard certainty that Mortas didn’t recognize. He’d adopted the tone just after being told that the location of Glory Main had come from Cranther, and so Mortas decided that was the reason. “The Sims copied our Wren shuttles so closely that the equipment is almost identical. Punching up a star chart and then selecting a destination will be child’s play—don’t need to be able to read Sim to do any of that. But that doesn’t mean we’ll just be able to fly one away if we do manage to get aboard.”
“I know. But Major Shalley was right about one thing: When the Sim reinforcements arrive, that drome is going to be mass confusion. The trick for us is to be close enough to snag a Wren that’s either just landed or just preparing to lift off. Which means we need to be close enough to observe the drome before they get here.”
“Long way off.” Trent looked back toward the ridges and the assumed location of the enemy settlement. “Shalley thought the reinforcements were going to arrive at any moment, so we’d better get moving soon.”
“I thought of that.” Mortas’s stomach growled, angry now that it had been fed and reminded what it was like. “We’re going to have to wait until dark to have any chance at all. There can’t be too many more survivors of the assault force left, and there’s still a bunch of Sims cruising around out here looking for the rest.
“Which also raises the issue of the route we’re gonna follow. How did you two get across the river?” He hadn’t told them how he’d distracted the serpents to make his own crossing.
“We got lucky and found a cut where the water flows under a partial land bridge. We had to jump across, but I think I can find it again.”
“Good.” Mortas’s eyelids were heavy, and the quiet of their isolated nest was working on his fatigue. Time to work up a rest plan and get some shut-eye until dark . . .
“What’s that?” Trent asked, her head tilting upward and then freezing.
“What?” Mortas forced himself to come back to the moment. His hands reached for the Scorpion, and he turned on his side to face up the ridge.
“Listen.”
He cocked his head to one side, noticing the expressions of silly concern the other two had adopted. It was as if they’d been asked to mime consternation or confusion, and he decided he must have put on the same expression himself. He found it quite funny, and was on the verge of saying something when he heard the sound.
It was like soft snoring, a deep inhalation that somehow never ended. It also got louder, and without being able to identify it they all flattened deeper in the hole. The noise took on a mechanical note, the snoring changing to a low growl, and then the thing streaked by almost directly overhead.
Mortas flipped over onto his back to get a better look once it was past, feeling his empty stomach squeezing even smaller. It was a two-seater Sim scout, twin exhausts trailing a thin white vapor as the triangular craft flew far out over the plain. It slowly banked when it was almost too small to see, and they watched it make a long turn before it came back miles from their position and disappeared over the ridges.
Long before that, the dwindling sound of the scout’s engines had been replaced by a steady rumbling somewhere on the far side of the high ground. The roaring rose and fell, and Mortas quickly identified it. It was the sound of many spacecraft descending from orbit, throttling up or down or switching to a completely different set of thrusters now that they were flying in atmosphere.
The three of them stared at one another blankly, listening to the sound of doom and unwilling to put it into words. Another scout craft, or perhaps the same one assuming a standard patrol route, appeared far to their right and then disappeared over the ridges again.
“It’s the Sim reinforcements. They’re here.”
“No, they’re not here.” Trent spoke glumly, her eyes in the dirt. “We’re here. And they’re there. The place where we needed to be. Before they got there.”
They sat without speaking for a long time, but not in silence. The rumble of activity at the spacedrome continued at a lower level, but the enemy movement in the air increased significantly. The scout craft were more in evidence, passing nearby on what looked like the outside turn of a patrol arc that was bringing them closer and closer to the ground. At one point a much larger Sim gunship breasted the ridge before executing a slow turn, and moments later they heard its mini-cannon roaring at some unfortunates who’d probably been spotted by the scouts.
Or by Sim troops. The scouts and the gunships wouldn’t be out there alone, not with the network of ravines that the besieged Sims had found so terrifying. Part of the relief armada would be ferrying fresh Sim troops out into the wasteland, either as blockers or beaters to help find and kill the remaining humans. Those dismounts would now be scouring the ground between them and the settlement, heavily armed and in radio contact with the aircraft and the other patrols in case they ran into trouble or their prey seemed to be getting away.
“We’re fucked, aren’t we?” Mortas asked in a dry voice when the noise had settled down a bit.
Gorman looked at Trent with a weak smile, the exhaustion and defeat stamped on his withered face. “Fucked up and dying, Captain?”
“FUAD for sure.” Trent nodded solemnly. “But it’s nice to hear you swear.”
They all laughed just a little at that, and then Gorman looked at Mortas with eyes that were nonetheless hopeful. “So what now, Lieutenant?”
What now. The eternal question of leadership. And what to say when there is no answer?
“I suppose we could wait for the next scout to fly over, stand on each other’s shoulders and reach way up—”
Trent’s eyes stopped him when they widened in terror at something over his shoulder. She grabbed Gorman with one hand and pulled him to the bottom of the hole even as Mortas was rolling over onto his stomach and low-crawling backward to get further out of sight. He knew what it was before he saw it, but he was still amazed.
A column of Sim soldiers walked down the draw between the ridges as if asleep. Their combat smocks were dirty and ripped, and dried mud was caked on their trousers and boots. The soldier in the lead wore the flanged helmet of Sim infantry, but many of the others were bareheaded. His rifle was slung across his chest as if forgotten, and one strap of his combat harness was held in place with several wraps of dark twine. His eyes were vacant, and fixed on the spire as he walked out into the open.
The Sims who followed appeared even less aware of their surroundings, as many of them were carrying stretchers laden with their wounded. Others walked with pronounced limps or only with the aid of their buddies, and bandages were a common sight. The column trudged forward slowly until the lead soldier stopped just short of the steeple. He signaled with one hand, an untranslatable command until the first stretcher bearers reached him and gently lowered their burdens to the ground.
Mortas had been too scared to count them, but he now saw that there were roughly fifty soldiers in the group. As drained as they appeared to be, they were still well armed and even carried an assortment of human weapons in addition to their own. He was forced to worm his way further into the hole when one of them, presumably the ranking officer, posted a few guards in a loose circle around the group.
The Sims were still three hundred yards away, and quiet chirps carried across that distance as they saw to the wounded. The commander produced a handheld radio of some kind and began speaking into it while other Sims began sharing various items that appeared to be food. From a distance they could have been any human platoon, thrashed from h
ard service and nearing the end of their strength.
Trent’s lips were on his ear, and Mortas didn’t flinch as she spoke. “Must be part of the settlement’s defense battalion. Out here fighting for days, they may even be the ones who attacked us last night.”
Gorman slid up next to him, moving an inch at a time. The Sim guards had given up on any pretense of security, sitting down with the others, and Mortas found his shoulders aching with the tension when he finally relaxed them.
He cupped a hand between his mouth and Trent’s ear. “Looks like they’re being taken out of the game. Must be some kind of casualty collection point.”
Gorman half-climbed onto his back so that their three heads were touching. “If more of them come here, we’re going to get spotted.”
“I know. But how do we get away without being seen? And wouldn’t we just run into more of them?”
It was maddening. Setting up near such a prominent terrain feature had been a dreadful mistake, and Mortas mentally kicked himself for not moving them earlier. Now they were pinned down, and all it would take would be for the Sim commander to dispatch a couple of men to walk around, standard security patrol, and they’d be finished. His eyes dropped to the Scorpion, the weapon looking pitifully small and only containing five rounds.
“Just a second.” Trent lifted her head a fraction, scanning, judging. “Look at them and look at us. Dirty, beat-up uniforms, a mix of human and Sim gear, and they’re practically out on their feet. We’re interchangeable.”
A surge of adrenaline pulsed through Mortas when he saw what she was saying, but it wasn’t from excitement. It was from fear. Worse than fear, mortal terror at what she was suggesting.
“You want us to walk down and join them?”
“Not right now, of course. But they’re waiting for some kind of transportation, probably a flight back to the settlement with the wounded. When that arrives they’re all gonna get on, and we could go with them. We’d fit right in.”
“That’s crazy. Think they don’t know each other?”
“Right now I think they don’t know their own names. And they’ve been out here a long time, taking casualties, probably got some extra bodies at some point.” She thought a moment. “Look there, at that group over on the left. Got those smaller helmets that the militia troops wear, the ones we saw at the bridge. One-piece uniforms like me and Gorman. They’ve probably mixed in plenty of new faces.”
“Lots of assumptions there.”
“What else are we gonna do?” The words came out in a hiss. “Try and sneak our way through a cordon of fresh troops? Walk miles through the ravines and hope we don’t get nailed? And even if we do that, how do we get inside? This is the only way.”
“Sure. Sure. We climb on board, the ramp comes up, and then there’s some Sim medic speaking canary at us, asking if we’re wounded. What then?”
Trent’s face screwed up in annoyed concentration. Before she could come up with an answer, Gorman grabbed them both and pressed them down. Mortas tasted the grainy dirt of the hole, but he’d been so caught up in the argument that he had no hint of what the chartist might have seen. Whatever it was, it was close. He’d frozen as soon as Gorman had stopped pushing him down, but from that position Mortas could see nothing. For all he knew, enemy troops were walking directly at them. In a moment of fluttering unreality, Mortas was reminded of hiding under his bedspread as a small child, convinced that some horrible monster was coming toward him out of the darkness.
He learned what Gorman had seen a moment later, when a stream of high-pitched chirping rose up from a spot only a few yards away. It was answered by more of the same, just lower and softer. Mortas didn’t have to look to know another column of wounded had passed practically on top of them. Gorman’s hand gave him a quick double pat as an all-clear, but Mortas took his time sliding up to peer through the weeds.
The group had more than doubled now, with almost a dozen stretchers and over one hundred troops. The new arrivals were in even worse condition, dropping to the ground as soon as they reached the others. Where the original complement had set about tending to their wounded comrades, the second bunch seemed too exhausted to care. The commander of the first element could be heard giving quiet orders to some of his troops, and these Sims, presumably medics, began examining the new stretcher cases.
“I guess our people didn’t kill as many of them as Major Shalley thought,” Gorman whispered, and then he looked back toward the high ground to see if more of the Sims were coming up behind them.
They didn’t have to wait long to learn that Trent’s idea wouldn’t work after all. A pair of enemy troop carriers flew overhead and settled on the plain just beyond the steeple in a roaring cloud of dust, and when the ramps came down the stretcher cases were carried out to them. Some of the walking wounded went as well, but the rest of them didn’t so much as look at the machines.
Mortas had settled in for a long wait, hoping that the airships extracting the enemy would take them all at once so he and the others could move. The strain of the last few days, combined with two sleepless nights and the warmth of the sun, now sought to rob him of reason and consciousness. He fought to stay awake, but was losing the battle when he noticed something that demanded his attention.
While most of the remaining Sim troops were stretched out asleep or seated back-to-back in tired pairs, the commander and a few of the others now gathered in the center. They were studying a rectangular device, and from the finger pointing Mortas decided they were choosing a route for their next movement. His battered mind fought back at him as he considered the various possible destinations, but he couldn’t imagine this ragged bunch being fit for anything but a hospital.
The assemblage broke up, and he marveled as two or three of the Sim leaders walked off shaking their heads.
They shake their heads the same way we do. I wonder if it means the same thing.
The senior Sims now approached their troops where they’d gathered in different bunches, and individual soldiers began waking up the ones who were asleep. The chirping got louder as the officers or NCOs conveyed the new information, and there was even more head shaking after that. One soldier, seated on the ground holding a canteen, flung the water bottle away in what could only have been exasperation.
“Amelia.”
Trent started, and Mortas knew he wasn’t the only one who’d been almost asleep. “Yes.”
“Look at ’em. Check out the body language for me.”
“Never diagnosed the enemy before. Saw a few prisoners once, but they hustled ’em right by.” She rubbed her eyes and looked down on the scene. “If I had to guess, I’d say they’re some pretty unhappy folks.”
Emphatic hand gestures from the leaders, accompanied by a sound that was more bark than chirp, soon had the soldiers gathering their equipment and getting on their feet. The leader then moved from group to group, obviously soothing raw feelings, as the back chatter quieted and then died. They began shouldering weapons and other gear, and Mortas saw the unconscious way that most of them began orienting themselves toward the high ground.
Getting ready to move. So chewed up they can’t be headed anywhere but the settlement. Pissed off about something. . .
“They’re not getting a ride back.” Mortas grabbed the sleeves of the others in excitement. “They’re walking. They’re gonna walk all the way to the settlement. Been fighting all this time, dead on their feet, and they got screwed out of their ride.”
“You sure about that?”
“Absolutely. Happened to me once in training. We’d worn this laser-tag gear for days, and at the end of one long march we stopped near a convoy of empty movers. They let us think the vehicles were for us. They had us clean up the laser-tag stuff and turn it in, and then we watched while they loaded it on the movers and they drove away. We reacted then the way the Sims are reacting now.�
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Trent had been studying the slowly forming column, and she began to nod. “I think you might be right.”
“You bet I am.” Exhilaration burned his exhaustion away as it climbed into belief. “They’ve got a long-ass walk in front of them and they know there’s no reason for it. So if we fall in at the end, keep our mouths shut, and peel off once we’re though the wire, we have a good chance of getting to the drome.”
“Lieutenant.” Gorman’s tone was hard to identify, but Mortas feared it meant opposition. As much as his embryonic plan excited him, it also filled him with genuine terror. There were so many ways it could go wrong that Mortas knew his nerve wouldn’t stand up to even the slightest argument.
“Yeah.”
“We gotta cover the Captain’s hair. It’s short, but not short enough.”
Mortas looked over at the matted tangle that was almost stuck to Trent’s scalp. Gorman was right. They needed to cut it or cover it. He rolled over slightly and pulled Cranther’s skull cap from his pocket. Understanding, Trent took the cap and pulled it down, but that actually made things worse: Now the longer strands stuck out, but no matter how he tried they were still too short to tuck up under the fabric. A hand nudged him, and Mortas turned to see Gorman holding out a stubby pair of scissors. Remembering them from the medical kit, he took the shears and began snipping off the excess hair. Mortas glanced over his shoulder in time to see the head of the Sim column coming toward them, and began to caution the others. Too many things to say, too many things to think of, not enough time.
“Remember: Not a word, not even a sound. We walk in the rear, we stay together, and don’t make eye contact. If something unexpected happens, grab hold of each other and we’ll just drift off to the side.”
Snip, snip.
“Once we’re through the wire, pretend you’re so tired that you need to sit down and we’ll all just move off together.”
Snip, snip.
“They’ll think we’re settlement militia, and that we’ve got someplace to go.”
Glory Main Page 18