Firemask

by Chris Bunch

  "He taught that this was not merely rooting about in the shame of the past, but giving us lessons, guidance for the future. He frequently wondered if our willingness to do instant battle, which gave us dominion over the other beasts when we were evolving, might not be a hindrance, or even a fatal flaw now that we are civilized.

  "Although what we saw today was certainly not an example of civilization."

  Dill nodded, forcing away his smoldering anger.

  "My father, of course, believed that Senza and those who thought like him were betrayers of our race. When he discovered I had been interested in Senza's teachings, he required me to leave the course of studies and the planet I was living on to find some other pursuit.

  "I knew he would want me to be a warrior, and indeed I have always loved flying. So I thought I would please him. It is not easy having a parent who is a war leader," Alikhan said. "What of your parentage?"

  "Not much to tell," Dill said. "My mother was a rancher, someone who raised meat animals on a pioneer world. My father was a musician, who charmed her right out of her socks, and I was the product. When I was three or four, he left her. Damned if 1 know where he went. Never felt much like looking.

  "I didn't know much, growing up, except that I sure as hell didn't want to be a rancher. You never stopped working, and you could never go anywhere for longer'n a day. The animals were always needing feed, water, dragging out of a ditch, whatever. But there didn't seem to be much of an alternative.

  "When I was fifteen or so, my mother was out with a lifter, chasing some beasts toward a stock pen. I guess she wasn't watching the ground around her, because she went in hard against a pinnace, got thrown out, and the xebecs stampeded over her bodv.

  "I put the place up for thought he was taking advantage 01 mo, unenng ntteen points on the credit. I was just damned glad to get out.

  "Made my way to the planet's main port, tried to figure out what to do next, walked past a recruiting post, and, like they say, the rest is all ro-mance and ratshit."

  Dill shrugged. "So really I don't know nothing about no fathers, one way or't'other."

  "Pardon," Alikhan said. "I still have trouble with many words in Basic, but I think I understand well what you said. My apologies. There are always worse situations than the one you're in.

  "But let me return to the point I was trying to make, and please realize I am thinking as I speak, trying to cut through the thicket of what I was told to believe was right by my father and my clan members.

  "I do not like what I've seen since I've been in this system. I do not like it at all. I see no reason why we Musth should want more of Cumbre than what we already have. I see this war, this fighting, as nothing more than what cubs do, when they first realize their claws are growing, except there are bodies instead of little pride cuts. I just wish there was something I could do about it."

  "You could always change sides," Dill said.

  "And fly against my own people? Kill for you humans?"

  "Sorry," Dill said. "I was being a shithead. That was a crappy thing to say."

  "It shall be as if you never spoke," Alikhan said. "But there should be something that could be done."

  "If you happen to figure it out," Dill said, "be sure and let me know."

  A storm slammed in the next day, the trees of the jungle whipping and tearing, spindrift obscuring water from air, the world gray, wind whipping the sand against their faces so they sheltered under a tree they thought might stand against the winds, and talked, or tried to talk above the booming of the nearby waves.

  They reached no conclusions save neither of them much gave a damn about killing, that they would have been happy playing combat games without missiles, without rockets.

  But war seemed the nature of the universe.

  "At least so long," Alikhan said, "as the old ones begin the wars they don't have to fight in."

  "Maybe," Ben Dill said, chewing on a bit of jungle fruit, "we should recruit soldiers oldest first."

  Alikhan made sounds of amusement, then held his paws out in negation.

  "No. Somehow, even if we could do that, the old ones would find a way for the fighting to be done at home, and they would sit in front-line meat-parlors with their friends, talking about how terrible war is back at home."

  "How long," Alikhan said, "will it be before we reach a place such as you have been so mysterious about, where we can attempt to reach civilization? I find these jungles wearisome, and I am tired of being hungry all the time."

  "Don't worry," Dill said. "Only five more miles, Ranger."

  Alikhan wondered what the word "Ranger" meant, what a "mile" was, and why Dill exploded in laughter, though he maybe understood when, at the end of the long day's walk, they were still on that interminable beach surrounded by water and wilderness, and Dill had used the ancient lie favored by march leaders four more times, laughing uncontrollably each time.

  A long finger of rock stuck out into the ocean, and they surveyed it dourly.

  "Looks like we go back into the bush and try to get around it," Dill said.

  "Is that the best way?" Alikhan asked. "It appears to me the formation goes on and on toward the interior."

  "So it does. But I don't exactly like the look of those waves bustin' over the point. You got any other options?"

  "Perhaps we could work ourselves out onto the rock, using that formation there. Then scramble to the top, and then find some way down on the other side."

  Dill sighed.

  "As good as anything else. Let's go. We've got nothing to lose but our fingernails… and your claws."

  He slung the dropper harness on, turned it to full power, walked over to the rocks, found a foothold, a finger-jam, started up. Alikhan was behind him. They scrabbled up the formation, finding the going not that bad—the rock was old, cracked, and there were cracks for foot- and handholds.

  The Musth was a lot better at climbing than Ben Dill.

  "This is too much like I&R training," Dill managed. "I'm a rocket jock, not a crunchie. And how in hell am I supposed to get over this… hang on… I wish to hell we had a rope…"

  He stretched far out for a dubious handhold, just about the time the dropper's charge ran out. Dill screeched once, overbalanced, and dropped ten meters into an ocean pool created by a tiny jetty. Dill surfaced, floundering, splashing.

  "I am coming," Alikhan said, and made his way down toward the water's edge, where waves slapped against the rocks.

  "I'd… appreciate it…" Dill managed, splashed his way to the jetty, clung to it. "Safe now. God damn , but I wish I'd learned to swim better."

  Alikhan was not far above him, on a level rock.

  "Here," he said, extending far. Dill reached for his arm and his foot slipped, and he belly flopped, went under for an instant, then surfaced, his arm flailing.

  "I have you," Alikhan said, and did, pulling.

  Then there was something else in the pool, something hissing like waves as they slide back from a beach, something that was gray, beaked, with a single vertically slit eye. Dill scrabbled with one hand for his flight-suit pocket and pistol, Alikhan pulled, and the beast, whatever it was, had a clawed mantislike arm on his leg.

  "Put your head down!" Alikhan snarled, and Dill obeyed reflexively, face underwater.

  There was a sharp thud behind him, and Dill felt an instant's hard pressure on his eardrums, eyes, nose, body, anus. Then there was nothing, the claws were gone, and Alikhan was pulling him hard.

  "Come! I do not know if I killed it!"

  Gasping for air, the two dragged each other back up the finger, climbing frantically, not sure what holds they were using, then were on top of the finger, looking back at that pool as something thrashed it white, terrible tearing arms, beak, ruptured eye appearing for a moment and then gone.

  "Jesus Schmidlap with a foreskin," Dill managed. "What the goddamned hells was thaf !"

  "I do not know," Alikhan said. "Our briefing manuals said there were unknown beings in the
sea, in the jungle, and we were to be cautious."

  Dill was eyeing Alikhan very skeptically.

  "Better question. What did you kill it—or anyway give it a rough way to go, since it's still thrashing around— with?"

  "There were actually three wasp-grenades in my aksai ," Alikhan said. "You did not notice one."

  "So you could've waited until I fell asleep anytime, killed me, and kept on going?"

  "I could have," Alikhan said. "But I had given my honor."

  "Son of a bitch," Dill said, sticking out his huge arm.

  "What am I supposed to do with that?"

  "You didn't study enough local customs. Take its end and shake it up and down."

  "Like this?"

  "Like that. And here's your goddamned pistol back."

  Late that day, they heard machine noises and scanned the skies.

  "No," Alikhan said. "On the water. Look."

  "A boat," Dill said.

  "Perhaps you might try your mirror once again," Alikhan suggested.

  This time, it worked. The fishing boat altered course and headed toward them, drifting to a halt when it was about twenty meters offshore.

  A public address system clicked on.

  "I see you two. You look like you're pretty beat up. Who's in charge?"

  "I am," Dill shouted. "And yeh, we need rescuing. We're both pilots. Crashed a few days ago."

  "You mind if I blow the shit out of that furball? I had some friends downcoast at Bocage Bay."

  Dill saw a woman come out of the cabin, brace herself on a bridge railing with a rifle.

  "No!" he shouted. "He's one of us! We're both with the Force, over at Camp Mahan, Chance Island ."

  The woman kept staring through her sights, then went back into the cabin, back to the PA set.

  "You better not be lying, friend. Or under some kind of alien drug spell."

  "I'm not. Look. I've got the gun! He's perfectly safe."

  "Awright. I see. Can you swim?"

  "He can. I'm not so good at it."

  "I'm as far inshore as I can get," the woman said. "You better be able to get out to me."

  "We'll try."

  Dill dived in, and Alikhan swam easily after him. Ben saw a man come out of the boat's cabin, go to the railing, and hold out a gaff.

  "Take hold of this," he ordered, and Dill managed to grab it, and pull himself over the rail.

  Alikhan was at the railing, claws pulling himself up, and Dill saw the woman's teeth grit, and the rifle come up again.

  Somehow Ben had the gaff from the crewman, and flailed upward. The gaff caught the rifle barrel, knocked it up as the gun went off. Then Dill had his tiny pistol out, leveled on the boat's captain.

  "I'm sorry, lady," he said as Alikhan pulled himself aboard. "But revenge isn't on the ticket these days.

  "Thanks for the rescue, anyway."

  Chapter 16

  Wlencing ordered yet another assault on Camp Mahan, but this time something a bit more subtle than the previous frontal attacks.

  Mahan was sledgehammered by the rocket artillery and the aerial-strike units, but no ground troops were initially committed.

  He held back a flight of aksai , and three velv . These were flown by his best pilots and gunners, and he had to force back a pang for his lost cub, who should have been among them. They had very specific orders to refrain from firing until they had a definite target.

  Mahan's underground firing positions were hazed with dust, the air almost as gray as the faces of the men and women manning the missile and gun sites, the walls, the ground itself shuddering.

  Wlencing next sent in a flight of wynt . But this was a feint—the ships held no warriors, just gunners and pilots. They came in straight and level, and the missile sites popped up to launch.

  The wynt dived away, only losing three ships, regrouped over the bay, and attacked again.

  Once more the launchers rose, and this was exactly what Wlencing wanted. The aksai and velv had not made counterstrikes as before, but concentrated on precise targeting of the human sites.

  Now the aksai and velv fired instantly, as the launchers came up. Three were hit while still extruded, and the fireballs racked the underground tunnels.

  Wlencing ordered the rocket artillery on Dharma Is-land to shift targets and put their entire fire in and around those three blown-open sites.

  The velv , and other attack ships, strafed the area, and two other missile sites were destroyed. Wlencing committed his entire strike reserves to the attack, and by early afternoon had fire superiority over the Force.

  Then he ordered the wynt in, to land troops. This time, in spite of the infantrymen and -women fighting from their spider holes, the Musth gained and held an inland strong point on Mahan Island.

  Wlencing sent more wynt in, both reinforcing the recent landing and expanding the fingerhold the Musth had already gained on the beachhead.

  By nightfall, a tenth of the island was in Musth hands, and the Force was powerless to stop other Musth combat elements from landing downisland, where the ranges and outbuildings had been.

  The issue was no longer in doubt.

  "You're aware of what happened?" Caud Rao asked.

  "Yessir," Garvin answered. He and Njangu kept from looking at each other—their CO looked twenty, maybe thirty years older than he had when the siege began. Mil Angara, Haut Hedley and Alt Erik Penwyth didn't look much better.

  "I'll keep this brief," Rao said. "It'll be a matter of a few days, perhaps less, before the Musth take the island."

  Garvin had to blink hard, fighting for control, refusing to let his exhausted emotions take over.

  "Yessir."

  "You remember, some time ago, when you two suggested we should immediately institute guerrilla tactics, rather than fighting a more conventional war, as we have." Rao rubbed his hand over tired eyes. "Perhaps you were right."

  Neither Garvin nor Njangu said anything.

  "Let me ask an impossible question," Rao went on. "Is it too late to do that now?"

  Garvin looked at Njangu.

  "Damned hard, sir," Yoshitaro admitted. "We're down to ninety-three fighting men in I&R. I don't know how many other women, men, would volunteer now to go with us. The troops are pretty worn-down. The war we'd be talking about fighting is pretty goddamned nasty, sir. And I don't think the Musth will be taking prisoners.

  "How many effectives are there here on the island, if I can ask?"

  "About twenty-two hundred," Angara said. "That's as of today's morning report."

  "The biggest question I'd have," Garvin said, "is how to get as many volunteers as we can off the island. We'd try to get them across into Leggett, then hide out there."

  "I've got a plan for that one," Hedley said. "I think it might even work."

  " 'Kay, sir," Njangu said. "What about the other regiments?"

  "They're pretty well decimated," Rao said.

  "But at least they're on land," Garvin said.

  "If you want to play the cards our way, sir," Njangu went on, "you'd better give orders for them to break into small fighting elements and exfiltrate if they can.

  "Get beyond the Musth lines, and go to ground anywhere they can. If any of them know safe villages, go there. Go to friends, relatives, whatever. Take any weapons they can, particularly pistols, grenades, and so forth. Have them convert as many blasters to carbine configuration as they've got kits for. If they think they can get away with heavier stuff, give them our blessings. Tell them they're probably safer in the cities, but if they've got relatives, contacts in the country, go to them.

  "We'll call them when the time is right."

  "How'll you do that?"

  Garvin looked at his partner. They hadn't discussed that idea.

  "We've talked about that, sir," Njangu said. "Tell them to keep monitoring Matin —Loy Kouro's holos."

  "You've got a way of subverting him, or some of his people?" Hedley asked, incredulously.

  "Sir, we'd rather no
t say anything right now," Garvin managed, trying to keep from laughing at his friend's brazen lie. "When the time is right, we'll tell you how to do it."

  Hedley hesitated, then nodded. "But I want to see just how before you put anything into flipping motion."

  Rao actually let a moment of hope show on his face.

  "If we break up the regiments," he said, "that'll cause a little chaos, make them pay a little less attention to Camp Mahan, which'll give us a few extra hours or even days.

  "All right. Here's the chain of command: Mil Angara takes over the Force. Mullion Island will be Force headquarters for as long as you can keep it a secret. Hedley, remain in charge of II Section, but I want you to be a bit more of a free agent than before. Oh, by the way, you're now a mil , effective immediately.

  "Both of you are given complete freedom of action. You are to carry the war to the enemy as long as you can, as best you can. If you decide there's come a time to surrender… that'll be your decision. Erik, you're now under Angara. Please serve him as well as you did me."

  "But what about you, sir?" Erik asked.

  "I'll remain in command of Camp Mahan."

  "But—"

  "Those are my orders, gentlemen. Carry them out."

  Angara , Hedley, and Penwyth came to stiff attention.

  "Just a moment, sir." It was Njangu, denying the knee-deep emotion of the moment.

  "Yes." Rao's voice was brusque.

  "Do we still have com with the other regiments? Secure com?"

  "Of course. I'll be addressing them before we begin our final action."

  "Request permission to make a broadcast, I hope within the hour."

  "You have it," Rao said irritatedly. "Is there anything else?"

  No one said anything.

  "Dismissed," Rao said. "Make your preparations at once, and notify me when you're ready. "And the gods help us all."

  " 'Kay, sir," Garvin said to Hedley, outside Rao's office. "What's your addition to the scheme?"

  Hedley told him.

  "Putting all the yolks in one egg, isn't it?"

  "We have a slight shortage of flipping ships at the moment," Hedley said, "in case you haven't noticed."

  "Strong point," Njangu said, bracing against a wall as a salvo of rockets crashed in above them. Hedley turned to Angara. "Opinion, sir?"