by John F. Carr
The CD tankers relaxed in well-heated comfort. Air and ground forces endured the zero temperature with portable heaters. Finally, nearing late afternoon, Falkenberg decided that a standard day’s freezing had cooled down the ardor of the Mahdi’s waiting men sufficiently. He gave the sign and the advance began.
The Mahdi had fielded something over twenty thousand men, two thousand of them mounted on camels and the remainder afoot, save for the few hundred who manned the twelve—now eleven—Saladins and various simulacrums created of whatever rolling stock the Mahdi’s mechanics had been able to coax into life. The fake plywood tanks were helpless against any of the twenty Mark XLs that Falkenberg’s force had in the field, but they carried rocket launchers, recoilless rifles and mortars which would get in action the instant a ‘tank’ commander pulled the pin that allowed his camouflage walls to fall away.
Before Falkenberg’s tanks were within range of the Saladins’ guns CD field artillery opened up. Seeing the shells arc up over advancing CD tanks, Sirdar Idris suddenly knew it was going to take more than Allah’s good will to win this one. Usually an artillery barrage is preceded by bracketing: a shot too close, a shot too far, and the necessary corrections will put the third round on target.
Either the CD had better sighting and range-finding or else the colonel’s ordnance maps were more complete than the Sirdar would have guessed.
“Move out!” he yelled into the radio but it was too late. The first rounds were on their way and he knew they were going to be right on target—right on top of his line of plywood fakery and his eleven Saladins. And Allah help the infantry once that line was broken!
One round burst too high and for an instant the Sirdar could not believe his good fortune. He had expected full and complete destruction from APs but the Forty-second was not firing armor-piercings. By the beard of the Prophet, that simple fool of a colonel was firing shrapnel. Then another shell burst and the Sirdar realized the colonel’s folly knew no bounds. It was not anti-personnel shrapnel being fired at tanks. Falkenberg was firing canisters of grapeshot!
Rough on the men in the fake tanks, of course. But what could grape do to a tank? It made as much sense as trying to open a safe with birdshot.
Abruptly one Saladin shed its camouflage in a glorious eruption of splinters. The Sirdar was startled at the loudness of the explosion but the Saladin now stood naked and deadly. Within minutes the fake tanks were bloody splinters, their gun crews dead or scattered. All eleven of the Saladins had their covers blown. As the Forty-second’s Mark XLs drew near the artillery barrage lifted from the row of Saladins and began stepping rearward toward the Mahdi’s pavilion. From the way the shells no longer fell in even rows the Sirdar suspected the Forty-second’s artillerists were lofting them to the extreme limit of their range. It was not until the Mark XLs came within cannon range of the still stationary Saladins that the Sirdar finally saw the method in Colonel Falkenberg’s canister-shot madness.
Like the Mark XLs from which they had been copied, the Mahdi’s Saladin tanks carried cells of contact explosive outside the armor plate. The purpose of this was to force an armor piercing shell to explode and/or lose velocity before it could penetrate the armor.
Falkenberg’s grapeshot had set off the exterior explosives, leaving the Saladins wide open to the Forty-second’s solid slug spent-uranium rounds.
The Saladin gunners got off a few rounds at the Mark XLs. Those few which connected were blown away by the Mark XL’s still-intact explosive armor. Gyroscopically stabilized, laser guided lumps of super dense uranium opened huge holes in the Saladin turrets and rattled around inside doing unspeakable things to the occupants.
Unable to look any longer, the Sirdar was startled by a ragged cheer. His poor buggers were actually cheering! He saw a single Mark XL belching black smoke and bit his lip. Something to cheer about! Nineteen of those unstoppable monsters were heading straight toward his infantry and there was not one Saladin left to slow them down.
Someone was tugging at the Sirdar’s sleeve. “Aiwah?” he snapped.
“The Mahdi asks what goes wrong? What is he to do?” the young man asked.
“Tell the asshole to surrender!”
Before the Mahdi could take action against such a flagrant lack of respect the Sirdar was dead, along with most of his staff. The Mahdi stood under his pavilion watching with pained disbelief as the Forty-second’s tanks and the Gurkhas in their dune-buggied gun platforms tore through his infantry so demoralized that it could not decide in which direction to run.
His personal attendants grabbed the benumbed Mahdi and loaded him aboard the flatbed truck and tore off back toward Wadi el-Kaid and even the Mahdi knew it was senseless to retreat into a narrowing canyon from which there was no escape. But in among the rocks they would at least be free of those death-spitting dune buggies.
While the nineteen Mark XLs and a hundred odd dune buggies shot them up every step of the way, Falkenberg’s choppers were busy stationing snipers on the rim of the canyon. Finally the wadi was too narrow and the boulders too thickly strewn for the dune buggies to pursue. Along with the tanks they laagered and settled down to wait.
FIFTEEN
“ANOTHER ONE,” Major Myers reported.
After the third day deserters had been slipping out with increasing frequency. Many were Lebanese Christians who had joined the Mahdi unwillingly under the bright edge of a sword but with little water and no food the Muslim Faithful were also losing their religious zeal.
The latest deserter had been a day laborer in Eureka, with residence in Medina. “That crazy fucker’s getting his three squares,” the deserter reported. “He don’t look any thinner than usual. But half the women and near all the children are already dead. Another week and they’ll all be dead.”
The Gurkhas loaded him onto a truck along with other former Medinites to go home and rebuild their city. The Forty-second held position at the mouth of the box canyon and along the top of its walls. By the next day it was obvious that a power shift had occurred inside the Mahdi’s camp. Whole battalions of men were marching out with rifles slung muzzle-down and their hands behind their heads. Relieved of their weapons, they slurped water and ate like ravenous dogs.
In the temporary HQ Falkenberg, Savage and other officers had devoted some study to the postwar era and had determined the most practical way for the Gurkhas to police Haven on a permanent basis. The sonic bombs of splashships landing could already be heard as the Company got back to mining as usual. And still the Forty-second waited for the self-proclaimed Imam Mahdi.
“Offering odds, Top Soldier?” Falkenberg asked.
“No, sir,” Calvin said. “He’s alive. Not one of them has ever said he wasn’t.” There was a knock and an orderly entered with a jug of coffee and a tray of ham sandwiches. “Something big coming in, sir,” the orderly reported.
As they stepped out of the half-walled tent to look up the wadi past the laagered tanks, Savage suddenly knew this was the payoff. A big party was leaving the wadi and coming to HQ.
A huge mustached recruit came at a trot. “It’s the fookin’ Mahdi, sir!” Recruit Hunnicutt reported, then his eyes lit on the sandwiches they were eating. “Ham, sir?”
At Falkenberg’s nod the recruit’s face lit up. “Please, sir, may I?”
Sergeant Major Calvin’s face turned purple at such effrontery, but the Colonel was suddenly smiling as he thrust the tray at Recruit Hunnicutt, who turned around and headed back to the wadi and the large party just exiting the narrow divide.
The monomaniacal old man had not suffered from thirst like his followers but in the end he too had gone hungry. The recruit presented the tray to the Mahdi, who grabbed one of the sandwiches without bothering to examine it.
While the Mahdi scarfed down a ham sandwich, Hunnicutt proclaimed in eloquent Arabic, “Hear ye, o sons of Islam, the Mahdi eats filth. The Voice of the Prophet eats pig!”
After years of luxurious living—although he was ready to expire o
f shame and rage—the old man was unable to stop his frantic gobbling. The Faithful began to suspect that this was no temporary setback, and that the rebellion was finally over. When Recruit Hunnicutt opened a second sandwich and smeared the old murderer’s face with it there was no longer any doubt about who had won. To make his point clear, Hunnicutt drew his trench knife, grasped the Mahdi’s beard and slashed it off.
Majors Jeremy Savage and Brent Myers were the only occupants of the officers’ mess apart from the orderly behind the bar. The Forty-second was leaving Haven; and if Savage had learned anything from his years in CoDominium Service, a wise officer got out of the way and let the NCO’s get on with the job. A few newlies were outside trying to move things along but a few choice words from Sergeant Major Calvin would soon set the lieutenants straight.
Conversation was impossible while the landing boats were taking off so Jeremy occupied himself with tamping tobacco into the bowl of a pipe while Brent Myers was getting another drink.
Since finding a ‘home’ with the Forty-second, Jeremy’s own appetite for alcohol had diminished to where it had been before his career had become bottlenecked.
Scuttlebutt had it that the Forty-second’s next assignment was on Charlemagne, a near-earthlike planet but larger. Charlemagne had been settled by a group of fanatical Separatists from Quebec who felt betrayed when the movement collapsed.
What they failed to take into account was that a century ago the heads of every other Province were heartily sick of French bellyaching and had told the Quebec leader to go his own way and be damned. And then Alberta had quietly pointed out that a foreign country could, naturally, no longer expect any subsidy or contrived under-market prices for oil. Ironically, the dustup on Charlemagne was also some kind of tax revolt. At least, that’s what the Colonial Governor was calling it.
Charlemagne was in a nearby sector, so for the past two days Savage had spent most of his free time haunting the Eureka and Medina bookshops for military and history books to pass the long shipboard hours. Most books on Earth were now produced solely on electronic media, but growing up on Churchill where books were still printed from hot type and bound in traditional style, Jeremy was never comfortable with screens or laptop displays. Thus, whenever planet bound he made it a habit to browse old bookshops and flea markets.
The Medina bookstalls which, despite the town’s flattening, had immediately reappeared with ample stocks, were a veritable treasure trove and he’d already packed away bound copies of Archibald’s Metal Fighting Ship in the Royal Navy 1860-1970 a copy of Winston Churchill’s—to replace one he’d lost—Blood, Sweat, and Tears, and a rare first edition of Upton’s System of Infantry Tactics Double and Single Rank. What a two-hundred year old book on regimental infantry tactics was doing in a bookstall in Medina, he could only wonder. Probably brought here by one of the first Cousin Jacks and then sold by some sorrowing woman unable to make ends meet with her ‘widow’s pension.’
Kennicott Metals and Dover Mineral Development, for all the billions of credits they had taken out of Haven, had put very little back. Maybe that would change now that the revolt was over and communication with the Governor had been restored. The company’s botched administration might finally force the Grand Senate’s hand. Based on his observations of a score of CoDominium-run worlds, Jeremy suspected it would be ‘business as usual’ within a generation or two when the reformers had packed it in and gone off to stir things up elsewhere.
Brent Myers returned with his drink. Savage lit his pipe and drew deeply. Smoking was severely restricted aboard a starship and Jeremy meant to savor every last planet-side pipeful.
“Brent, maybe you can clear something up for me: I’ve been wondering why the Colonel let Parker push him around?”
“A week before you arrived with Parker and your Gurkhas we had a visit from a Navy frigate. Young captain came down to visit the Colonel. John Grant, Jr. in person, no less! I met him a few years back at Thorstown on Ceres when he was just a lieutenant.
“Anyway, the Colonel never mentioned it but I’m sure Grant had a message from Lermontov. Parker’s been an embarrassment to the CoDominium Armed Services for a long time. As you know, Falkenberg never does anything by halves. After that first slaughter, the Mahdi tucked himself under a flat rock somewhere. Probably would have stayed hidden until we left. But with Peerless Parker playing the fool—a role he does to perfection, the Mahdi got to thinking he still had a chance to put paid to Parker, the militia and the Forty-second. What better bait? And speaking of Parker, who ever expected him to come out of that desert alive!”
“Lucky for him Johnny Chand was checking wells for Mahdi strays.” Savage laughed, pausing to tap ash from the bowl of his pipe. “The way Parker carries on you’d think he saved Falkenberg and the regiment’s bacon by acting as a decoy for the Mahdi’s army.
“Another little detail about Falkenberg,” Myers added. “Remember the fuss he made about keeping Johnny Chand in the Forty-second— how he was going to jump right up to corporal and become the Colonel’s personal driver?”
Savage nodded.
“In Parker’s eagerness to shaft the Colonel he appointed our little Gurkha to the Academy—exactly where Falkenberg wanted to put the boy but didn’t have enough clout.”
Savage gave Myers an unbelieving look, and then abruptly he knew it had to be true. It fit too well. And the Colonel always drove himself.
“Parker has all the right instincts for a career in the Grand Senate,” Major Myers continued. “It’s a good thing they forgot to give him brains. Speaking of the devil, look who just came in…”
Jeremy turned as General Shafter Parker stood framed in the doorway. His bulk was still so tremendous that a fifty pound weight loss was apparent only in the way his jowls drooped and the drape of flab over his belt was more gelatinous. He came in out of the sunlight and as his pupils dilated he recognized Savage.
“You! You traitor!” he wheezed. “Assassin…puff…left me out there to die!”
“On the contrary, my dear General,” Savage said. “You most gallantly volunteered to be the last man out. Were it not for your conspicuous courage the whole regiment might have perished.”
“Double crosser! You know and I know what really happened…uff, whooee. You’re going to pay—”
“Going to pay you the greatest respect I can,” Savage said. “It’s not right for a man of your valor to hide his light under a bushel. I’m going to see that that recording gets priority distribution to all the media.”
“Recording?” General Parker’s rage abruptly evaporated. “What recording?”
“I can understand,” Savage said. “You were naturally occupied with the tensions of the moment but if you’d like I’ll play it for you. It’s the one I confiscated from that newsman who somehow managed to sneak down on-planet.”
Parker’s eyes narrowed. “You have it?”
“Yes, sir.” Savage smiled.
“The only copy?”
“The only one, sir.” As the General tried to conceal a crafty smile Savage added, “Except for the archive copies with Naval Intelligence.”
General Parker’s face could have been the high spot in a silent movie as battling emotions played across it.
“But don’t worry, sir,” Savage added with a disingenuous smile of eager innocence. “I’ll send the word and they’ll give it the widest possible distribution.”
By now Parker was remembering in dreadful detail some of the things he had said while bullets were flying past his unconcealable bulk. “No. I think not…puff, puff…too many decorations now. Best just forget the whole thing.”
“As you wish, sir. But if you ever change your mind, the memory sticks will always be there.”
General Parker about-faced and stomped out of the officers’ mess.
“Wow!” Brent Myers emitted a whoosh not too different from the general’s short-breathed puffing. “You’d better make sure you have plenty of copies hidden. He’ll tear that cru
iser apart on the way home.”
“No problem,” Savage said. “He’ll never find them, and Naval Intelligence will never release their copies.”
“How can you be sure?”
“They don’t have any,” Savage replied.
“Jesus!” Myers exploded. “You’ve got the only one? He’ll get it and kill you.”
“I doubt it.”
“You don’t know that bastard.”
“Perhaps not. But as long as he can’t find the memory sticks I’m safe. You know about instructions to ‘open only after my death.’”
“But the thing has to be on the ship with you. There’s no other way you could have gotten it off-planet.”
“I can only assure you that Parker and his minions will never find it,” Savage said.
“How can you be so sure?” Myers asked.
“There are no memory sticks. The only one I had was fried by one of the electro-magnetic pulses during that storm on Cat’s Eye.”
Brent Myers stared at his friend with undiluted awe. After a moment he began laughing.
From Crofton’s Encyclopedia of Contemporary History and Social Issues (Second Edition)
The Bureau of Relocation is second in authority only to the Bureau of Internal Affairs within the CoDominium administration. Bureau of Relocation agents operate as a quasi-police force, being responsible for removing subversives, troublesome habitual criminals, and anyone else classified as a malcontent.
The Bureau has its own fleet of ships for transporting deportees to the resettlement colonies. Most are ex-Naval transports or passenger ships, generally in poor condition due to a lack of funds for adequate maintenance.
Critics of the Bureau have pointed out that its agents are frequently unselective about whom they deport. There have been numerous legal cases arising from the deportation of individuals for inadequately defined “political” reasons. Also, debtors, hobos, gypsies, chronic substance abusers, and other comparatively harmless types have been picked up in BuReloc, “scoops.” They are frequently deported by overworked, magistrates, who have neither the time nor, in many cases, the inclination to make detailed background searches on anyone recommended for a deportation.