Herod had just reached the top of another rise. The APC that’d destroyed the shell was behind a knoll seven kilometers away, but Buntz fired, Cabell fired, and two combat cars on the east end of Rennie’s wedge thought they had a target also.
None of them hit the target, but Buntz got a momentary view of a Brotherhood soldier hopping into sight and vanishing again. He’d leaped from his cupola, well aware that it was only a matter of time—a matter of a short time—before the Slammers’ concentrated fire hit the vehicle that’d been spared by such a narrow margin.
Lahti boosted her fans into the overload region to lift Herod another centimeter off the ground without letting their speed drop. The side slopes were harsh going: the topsoil had weathered away, leaving rock exposed. Rain and wind deposited the silt at the bottom of the swales, so the Brotherhood troops waiting on the other side of the hill would expect Herod to come at them low.
Buntz’d angled his main gun to their left front, fully depressed. The cupola tribarrel was aimed up the hill Herod was circling. He saw the infantry on the crest rise with their buzzbombs shouldered. Before his thumb could squeeze the tribarrel’s firing tit, his displays flickered and the hair on the back of his neck rose. The top of the hill erupted, struck squarely by a bolt from Hole Card’s main gun. Cabell’s angle had given him an instant’s advantage.
Twenty-odd kilometers of atmosphere had spread the plasma charge, but it was still effective against the infantry. There’d been at least six Brotherhood soldiers, but when the rainbow dazzle cleared a single figure remained to stumble downhill. Its arms were raised and its hair and uniform were burning. The fireball of organic matter in the huge divot which the bolt blasted from the hilltop did most of the damage, but the troops’ own grenades and buzzbombs had gone off also.
Cabell’d taken a chance when he aimed so close to Herod at long range, but a battle’s a risky place to be. Buntz wasn’t complaining.
Herod rounded the knob, going too fast to hold its line when the outside of the curve was on a downslope. The tank, more massive than big but big as well, skidded and jounced outward on the turn. The four Brotherhood APCs sheltered on the reverse slope fired before Herod came into sight, willing to burn out their tribarrels for the chance of getting off the first shot. The gunners knew that if they didn’t cripple the blower tank instantly they were dead.
They were probably dead even if they did cripple the tank. They were well-trained professionals sacrificing themselves to give their fellows a chance to escape.
Two-cm bolts rang on Herod’s bow slope in a brilliant display that blurred several of the tank’s external pickups with a film of redeposited iridium. The Brotherhood commander hadn’t had time to form a defensive position; his vehicles were bunched to escape the tank snipers far to the west, not to meet one of those tanks at knife range. Three vehicles were at the bottom of the swale in a rough line-ahead; the last was higher on the slope.
Buntz fired his main gun when the pipper swung on—on anything, on any part of the APCs. His bolt hit the middle vehicle of the line; it swelled into a fiery bubble. The shockwave shoved the other vehicles away.
The high APC continued to hose Herod with plasma bolts, hammering the hull and blasting three fat holes in the skirts. That tribarrel was the only one to hit the tank, probably because its gunner was aiming to avoid friendly vehicles.
Herod’s main gun cycled, purging and cooling the bore with a let of liquid nitrogen. Buntz held his foot down on the trip, screaming with frustration because his gun didn’t fire, couldn’t fire. He understood the delay, but it was maddening nonetheless.
The upper half of the APC vanished in a roaring coruscation: the explosion of Herod’s target had pushed it high enough that Hole Card could nail it. Cabell wouldn’t have to pay for his drinks the next night he and Buntz were in a bar together.
Two blocks of Herod’s Automatic Defense Array went off simultaneously, making the hull chime like a gong. Each block blasted out hundreds of tungsten barrels the size of a finger joint. They ripped through long grass and Brotherhood infantry, several of them already firing powerguns.
A soldier stepped around the bow of an APC, his buzzbomb raised to launch. A third block detonated, shredding him from neck to knees. Pellets punched ragged holes through the light armor of the vehicle behind him.
Herod’s main gun fired—finally, Buntz’s imagination told him, but he knew the loading cycle was complete in less than two seconds. The rearmost APC collapsed in on itself like a thin wax model in a bonfire. The bow fragment tilted toward the rainbow inferno where the middle of the vehicle had been, its tribarrel momentarily spurting a cyan track skyward.
Lahti’d been fighting to hold Herod on a curving course. Now she deliberately straightened the rearmost pair of fan nacelles, knowing that without their counteracting side-thrust momentum would swing the stern out. The gunner in the surviving APC slammed three bolts into Herod’s turret at point-blank range; then the mass of the tank’s starboard quarter swatted the light vehicle, crushing it and flinging the remains sideways like a can kicked by an armored boot.
Herod grounded hard, air screaming through the holes in her plenum chamber. “Get us outa here, Lahti!” Buntz ordered. “Go! Go! Go!”
Lahti was already tilting her fan nacelles to compensate for the damage. She poured on the coal again. Because they were still several meters above the floor of the swale, she was able to use gravity briefly to accelerate by sliding Herod toward the smoother terrain.
Buntz spun his cupola at maximum rate, knowing that scores of Brotherhood infantry remained somewhere in the grass behind them. A shower of buzzbombs could easily disable a tank. If Herod’s luck was really bad, well … the only thing good about a fusion bottle rupturing was that the crew wouldn’t know what hit them.
The driver of an APC was climbing out of his cab, about all that remained of the vehicle. Buntz didn’t fire; he didn’t even think of firing.
It couldve been me. It could be me tomorrow.
Lahti maneuvered left, then right, following contours that’d go unremarked on a map but which were the difference between concealed and visible—between life and death—on this rolling terrain. When Herod was clear of the immediate knot of enemy soldiers, she slowed to give herself her time to diagnose the damage to the plenum chamber.
Buntz checked his own readouts. Half the upper bank of sensors on the starboard side were out, not critical now but definitely a matter for replacement before the next operation.
The point-blank burst into the side of the turret was more serious. The bolts hadn’t penetrated, but another hit in any of the cavities just might. Base maintenance would probably patch the damage for now, but Buntz wouldn’t be a bit surprised if the turret was swapped out while the Regiment was in transit to the next contract deployment.
But not critical, not right at the moment … .
As Buntz took stock, a shell screamed up from the south. He hadn’t heard Lieutenant Rennie call for another round, but it wasn’t likely that a tank commander in the middle of a firefight would’ve.
Six or eight Brotherhood APCs remained undamaged, but this time their tribarrels didn’t engage the incoming shell. It burst a hundred meters up, throwing out a flag of blue smoke. It was simply a reminder of the sleet of antipersonnel bomblets that could follow.
A mortar fired, its choonk! a startling sound to a veteran at this point in a battle. Have they gone off their nuts? Buntz thought. He set his tribarrel to air defense mode just in case.
Lahti twitched Herod’s course so that Herod didn’t smash a stand of bushes with brilliant pink blooms. She liked flowers, Buntz recalled. Sparing the bushes didn’t mean much in the long run, of course.
Buntz grinned. His mouth was dry and his lips were so dry they were cracking. In the long run, everybody’s dead. Screw the long run.
The mortar bomb burst high above the tube that’d launched it. It was a white flare cluster.
“All personnel of the Fla
ming Sword Commando, cease fire!” an unfamiliar voice ordered on what was formally the Interunit Channel. Familiarly it was the Surrender Push. When a signal came in over that frequency, a red light pulsed on the receiving set of every mercenary in range. “This is Captain el-Khalid, ranking officer. Slammers personnel, the Flaming Sword Commando of the Holy Brotherhood surrenders on the usual terms. We request exchange and repatriation at the end of the conflict. Over.”
“All Myrtle and Lamplight units!” Lieutenant Rennie called, also using the Interunit Channel. “This is Myrtle Six. Cease fire, I repeat, cease fire. Captain el-Khalid, please direct your troops to proceed to high ground to await registration. Myrtle Six out.”
“Top, can we pull into that firebase while they get things sorted out?” Lahti asked over the intercom. “I’ll bet we got enough time to patch those holes. I don’t want to crawl all the way back leaking air and scraping our skirts.”
“Right, good thinking,” Buntz said. “And if there’s not time, we’ll make time. Nothing’s going to happen that can’t wait another half hour.”
Herod carried a roll of structural plastic sheeting. Cut and glued to the inside of the plenum chamber, it’d seal the holes till base maintenance welded permanent patches in place. Unless the Brotherhood had shot away all the duffle on the back deck, of course, in which case they’d borrow sheeting from another of the vehicles. It wouldn’t be the first time Buntz’d had to replace his personal kit, either.
They were within two klicks of the Government firebase. Even if they’d been farther, a bulldozed surface was a lot better to work on. Out here you were likely to find you’d set down on brambles or a nest of stinging insects when you crawled into the plenum chamber.
As Lahti drove sedately toward the firebase, Buntz opened his hatch and stuck his head out. He felt dizzy for a moment. That was reaction, he supposed, not the change from chemical residues to open air.
Sometimes the breeze drifted a hot reminder of the battle past Buntz’s face. The main gun had cooled to rainbow-patterned gray, but heat waves still shimmered above the barrel.
Lahti was idling up the resupply route into the firebase, an unsurfaced track that meandered along the low ground. It’d have become a morass when it rained, but that didn’t matter any longer.
There was no wire or berm, just the circle of bunkers. Half of them were now collapsed. The Government troops had been playing at war; to the Brotherhood as to the Slammers, killing was a business.
Lahti halted them between two undamaged bunkers at the south entrance. Truck wheels had rutted the soil here. There was flatter ground within the encampment, but she didn’t want to crush the bodies in the way.
Buntz’d probably have ordered his driver to stop even if she’d had different ideas. Sure, they were just bodies; he’d seen his share and more of them since he’d enlisted. But they could patch Herod where they were, so that’s what they’d do.
Lahti was clambering out her hatch. Buntz made sure that the Automatic Defense Array was shut off, then climbed onto the back deck. He was carrying the first aid kit, not that he expected to accomplish much with it.
It bothered him that he and Lahti both were out of Herod in case something happened, but nothing was going to happen. Anyway, the tribarrel was still in air defense mode. He bent to cut the ties holding the roll of sheeting.
“Hey, Top?” Lahti called. Buntz looked at her over his shoulder. She was pointing to the nearest bodies. The Government troops must’ve been running from the bunkers when the first mortar shells scythed them down.
“Yeah, what you got?” Buntz said.
“These guys,” Lahti said. “Remember the recruiting rally? This is them, right?”
Buntz looked more carefully. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said.
That pair must be the DeCastro brothers, one face-up and the other face-down. They’d both lost their legs at mid-thigh. Buntz couldn’t recall the name of the guy just behind them, but he was the henpecked little fellow who’d been dodging his wife. Well, he’d dodged her for good. And the woman with all her clothes blown off; not a mark on her except she was dead. The whole Quinta County draft must’ve been assigned here.
He grimaced. They’d been responsible for a major victory over the rebels, according to one way of thinking.
Buntz shoved the roll of sheeting to the ground. “Can you handle this yourself, Lahti?” he said. He gestured with the first aid kit. “I can’t do a lot, but I’d like to try.”
The driver shrugged. “Sure, Top,” she said. “If you want to.”
Recorded music was playing from one of the bunkers. Buntz’s memory supplied the words: “Arise, children of the fatherland! The day of glory has arrived … .”
Sea Air
BY NINA KIRIKI HOFFMAN
Nina Kiriki Hoffman’s first solo novel, The Thread That Binds the Bones (1993), won the Bram Stoker Award for first novel; her second novel, The Silent Strength of Stones (1995), was a finalist for the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards. A Red Heart of Memories (1999), part of her Matt Black series, nominated for a World Fantasy Award, was followed by sequel Past the Size of Dreaming in 2001. Much of her work to date is short fiction, including the Matt Black novella “Unmasking” (1992), nominated for a World Fantasy Award, and the Matt Black novelette “Home for Christmas” (1995), nominated for the Nebula, World Fantasy, and Sturgeon Awards. In addition to writing, Hoffman teaches a short story class at a community college, works part-time at a B. Dalton bookstore, and does production work on The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. Nina’s next YA novel, Spirits That Walk in Shadow, will be published by Viking in 2006, and her next adult novel, Fall of Light, will be published by Ace in 2007.
Hoffman wrote the first draft of “Sea Air” many years ago. “I visited my friends Kim Antieau and Mario Milosevic,” she said, “who at that time lived in a tiny Oregon coast town called Bandon. We walked to the beach one night, between huge hedges of gorse—an imported plant from Scotland that people said grew so rapidly and oilily it had twice caused the town to burn down; in fact, there used to be a Phoenix Festival in Bandon every year to celebrate the town rising from its ashes. I found the night quite spooky. We had to carry big sticks to fend off roaming Doberman pinschers. The atmosphere started the story working in my brain.”
Hoffman lives in Eugene, Oregon.
“It’s like Michael’s allergic to seawater,” Mom said. She offered Lizzie a plate of chocolate chip cookies, and Lizzie grabbed two.
“Shut up,” Michael muttered.
For the eighth time in thirteen years, he and his adopted parents had moved into a new house in a new town. For the eighth time in thirteen years, Michael had to start life over, find new friends.
Mom didn’t make it easy.
Lizzie lived in the house next door, but right now she was sitting on the couch in the new living room between Mom and Michael. Lizzie looked about sixteen, Michael’s age. She had frizzy brown hair, yellow-brown eyes, and a wide, friendly smile; she wore a baggy brown sweatshirt, tight jeans, and duck shoes. The hem of one of her pantlegs had crept up. Michael saw she wore socks with animal tracks on them.
The moving van had unloaded everything the night before and left. Michael and his parents had been so tired after driving to Random, on the Oregon coast, from central Idaho that they had only unpacked enough things to sleep on last night. This morning they’d walked to the beach, then come home and worked all morning to set up the house the way Mom had planned it back in Idaho with a graph paper layout and little paper cutouts of the furniture.
After Dad and Mom and Michael had unrolled the carpets, set up the furniture, and put things away, Lizzie had appeared on the front stoop, hands buried in her pockets, questions in her mouth. Dad had met Lizzie before he raced off to meet his local boss for a sales lunch.
Lizzie balanced a teacup and saucer on her knee. She smelled like vanilla. She snitched a third chocolate chip cookie from the plate Mom had set on the coffee table.
Lizzie turned her gaze to him. “Why not?”
“I don’t know. It just bothers me.” Michael didn’t mention the way his flesh crept, the strange shuddery feeling of not wanting even the wet breeze on his skin. The rolling rush of waves had terrified him. He had felt as though fingers of sea were seeking him.
“When he was little, he was like that about all water. When we first adopted him, it took both his father and me to get him into the bathtub, and he was only three years old.”
“Shut up,” Michael whispered under his breath. He loved Mom, but why did she have to tell everybody weird stuff about him before he’d had a chance to make his own first impressions?
“Don’t worry,” Mom said. “He bathes regularly now.”
“I can tell,” said Lizzie. She smiled at him.
“Mo-om,” said Michael.
Mom smiled—the tender look that frustrated him because it made him feel like he couldn’t get mad at her. She had done so much for him, how could he even think about being angry with her?
“Right,” she said. “I’m talking too much. Lizzie, what’s your favorite subject in school?”
“Mo-om,” Michael muttered again.
“My favorite subject isn’t at school,” said Lizzie. “My uncle’s a marine biologist, and sometimes I get to go out to sea with him. I want to be a marine biologist when I grow up. Hey, Mike, what do you like?”
Of all the dorky conversations to have with his mother in the room. But if his mother wasn’t in the room, what would they end up talking about? Probably nothing. Michael was a master of the uncomfortable silence, even though he didn’t want to be. “Music,” he said.
“Oh? That’s cool. I’ve been taking flute lessons, but I never practice. Do you listen to music, play it, or both?”
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