Until Relieved

by Rick Shelley

  "Okay, Kam. I'll be with you in a minute," Bergon said.

  The whole squad knew that Goff was having trouble, though they tried not to let him see that they knew. Al, Mort, and Ezra had been sharing the duty of watching over Kam, and it really did not matter if one of them happened to be occupied for a few minutes; the rest of the squad was also watching. Kam hadn't realized that he was never out of sight of at least one of the others. They never called it a suicide watch, did not even think of it in those terms, but they knew that Goff was in danger, and they were determined to do what they could to help him through it. He was part of the squad.

  Al briefed Doc Eddies on Ezra Frain's condition, then hurried over to Goff.

  "Something I can do for you?" Al asked as casually as he could manage.

  "I don't know." Kam had his visor up, and he whispered so softly that Al had to pay particular attention to be certain that he heard what Kam said. "I'm not sure there's anything anybody can do."

  "Let's take a walk." There was too little room in the patch of woods to get out of sight of everyone, but they could manage a little privacy.

  "Talk to me," Al said when they were finally out of earshot of the men around the dispensary.

  Al sat, and gestured for Kam to get down as well. Goff hesitated, then more or less collapsed onto his rump. His head hung forward for a moment. Al waited without moving.

  "I was wondering if Doc Eddies might have something to help me," Goff managed after a minute.

  "Help you how?" Bergon asked.

  "Deal with all this." Kam made a wild gesture with one hand. "You know what it's been like for me. I see somebody dead, see a little blood, and all of a sudden I'm puking my guts out. But that's not the worst part. I'm scared crazy. I can't sleep. I hardly dare close my eyes for all the terrible things I see. I don't know how much longer I can take it." More softly yet, he added, "I really don't."

  "I can give you a sleep patch," Al said, speaking slowly while he tried to think what else he might be able to do. "That puts you so deep you won't dream." Or won't remember what you dream if you do, he qualified silently. "Just getting some undisturbed sleep should help. The human mind can do a lot for itself, if it gets a chance. A mild tranquilizer to help the other. But it can't be too much, Kam, you know that. We're stuck out here. You've got to be able to march with the rest of us. I know it's rough, but you are making it. You're doing your duty. You're doing the best you can, and that's all anyone can ask."

  Kam shook his head. "I'm just going through the motions. I couldn't—couldn't—actually shoot at someone. Not anymore. I'm just making noises with my zipper. I think Sarge knows."

  Probably, Al thought. "Don't worry about that. If it was ticking the Bear off, he'd let you know fast. Let's get back to the squad. I'll give you a patch so you can get some sleep before we hit the road again."

  —|—

  The next attack started with a dozen Schlinal snipers sneaking close enough to work on the strike force. The Heggie shooters had all managed to get past the thin cordon of sensors that the strike force had planted without setting off any warning. There had been too few of the remote bugs to adequately cover the perimeter, and the men of the strike force had been too tired to do their best work in any event. Sudden gunfire two hours before dawn woke everyone immediately—except for the two men who were struck by the first volley of fire, and those men who had required sleep patches for one reason or another.

  Al Bergon came awake instantly. He rolled onto his stomach in the slit trench and lifted his head just enough to see over the dirt he had piled up around his hole. Though someone else had started it while he was treating the injured, Al had widened the hole and made it deeper, to give himself room for a patient.

  Kam Goff was in a trench three meters away—with a sleep patch on his neck. No shooting in the galaxy was likely to wake him until the patch had run through its six-hour dose, or until it had been removed. Asleep, Goff had no way to defend himself, nor would he be able to respond to orders.

  Al rolled out of his foxhole and crawled to Goff. Keeping himself pressed as close to the ground as possible, Al reached in and ripped the sleep patch from Kam's neck. Goff would still need time to wake, but yanking the patch was the first step. A stimulant patch was the next. Before Al could bring his arm back to his side to reach for the new patch, he was hit in the elbow by a slug.

  The pain was so intense that he was even unable to scream. Then, there was a brief numbness, an instant of relief as Al's nervous system overloaded on pain and he came close to passing out. Then the pain was back, growing, and blood welled out of the shattered arm.

  "Sarge, I'm hit," Al reported. He sounded almost calm. "At Goff's hole." Then he did faint.

  Tod Chorbek and Wiz Mackey spoke at the same time. Wiz finally took over. "We can get him, Sarge. We're not all that far off."

  Joe's instinct was to tell them to stay put, but he didn't. They could not—would not—leave their medic out in the open. He would have gone after any of them, no matter the risk.

  "Be careful," Joe told the volunteers. "Stay flat. Drag him back to his hole."

  Wiz and Tod scuttled across the ground as if they were trying to break speed records. Neither man had his rifle or pack harness, so they weren't slowed by gear. When they reached Bergon, each man grabbed a leg and they dragged him back to his own foxhole. Twice Joe saw dirt kick up within centimeters of one of the men as bullets struck—heavy slugs, not wire.

  "Can't anybody see who's doing that shooting?" Joe demanded, frustration pulling his voice up a half octave. "Give them some covering fire."

  After a few more rounds had hit, Joe thought he had an idea of the direction the shooting was coming from. He fired two short bursts, and told the rest of first squad to use his vector to guide their own. "Put some wire out there!" he shouted into his radio. He was on the platoon channel though and it was the whole platoon that started shooting into the trees.

  They might not have hit the sniper—a slug-thrower had a much greater range than a wire gun—but there were no more incoming rounds while Wiz and Tod were dragging the medic in.

  "His elbow's been shattered, and he's lost a lot of blood," Tod reported. "Our medic needs a medic, like now."

  The medic from third squad, the only other one left in the platoon, got on the radio to say that he was on his way.

  "Stop wasting wire!" Captain Ingels said on his all-hands channel. "Third and 4th platoons. Left and right. We've got maybe a dozen snipers out there. First recon on the south. Let's get them fast."

  —|—

  "Kill the engines," Eustace Ponks ordered. Simon hit the switches. Basset two was at the base of the road that climbed the escarpment.

  "We've got less than an hour till first light," Simon reminded the gun chief after the engines fell silent. "The way we've been going, that's just barely enough."

  "I've got to look at that tread," Eustace said. "That vibration is driving me crazy. I keep thinking we're going to lose the drive wheel any second. That happens at a bad place on this road, we go right off the side. You want to chance that?"

  The climb would be dangerous enough as it was. The people of Porter had never anticipated that heavy artillery pieces would be using their road from rift valley to plateau. The route had been blasted out of the stone. Some of the switchbacks were cut back into the side of the escarpment, and most had little room to spare for a vehicle the size of a Havoc self-propelled howitzer. The weight of the vehicle meant that there was also a danger that it would crack off part of the roadway... and fall to the base of the wall with the rock.

  "You lookin' at it ain't gonna stop the vibration," Simon said. "There sure ain't no time to do any more work on it. We either make it or we don't. We either drive the old gal up this road, or we walk it. Either way, don't make no sense to stop and stare at that damn wheel again."

  Eustace felt a flash of anger, but he bit back any immediate retort. He looked across the gun barrel at Simon for a moment, know
ing that the driver was right—and hating that.

  "Okay, let's go. But slow. Maybe you got your wings polished, but I don't."

  Simon laughed and started the engines again. He adjusted the idle until he was satisfied with the sound, then eased both treads into gear. The Havoc edged forward. Simon rotated the throttles forward, slowly.

  "I'll get us to the top," he said. "Hell, this ole gal survived a direct hit from a rocket. Ain't nothin' gonna stop her now."

  Rosey had already started the support truck up the road. Near the first switchback, he had stopped, waiting to see what Eustace was going to do with the howitzer. Once the gun started moving again, the truck also resumed its progress. The truck went first: that was in case something did go wrong. The gun would not take out the truck on its way down.

  "Some guarantee you give us," Eustace had mumbled, but the trucks had all gone up ahead of their guns—the rest of the battery was already on the plateau—and they had followed the Havocs down the other day.

  The rough road never climbed at more than a 27-degree angle. A Havoc in good condition would scarcely have balked at 45 degrees, up or down, but climbing a steep slope with a jury-rigged drive wheel might be asking for too much trouble. The extra burden on that axle... Eustace shook his head. I wouldn't even think about trying anything more than 30 degrees, he lied to himself.

  Before long, Eustace found himself holding his breath again, as if that might make it easier for Basset two to make it up the narrow road. He kept his eyes on the outside monitors, jerking away from them only long enough to look out directly through one of his periscopes. He had two of those, fore and aft, each capable of turning through 210 degrees, providing overlapping fields of view.

  The first switchback was only twenty meters above the floor of the rift valley, two-hundred meters from the start of the slope. The builders had taken advantage of a natural ledge that angled gently up to the first switchback.

  Simon had to reverse the right tread for the turn. There was not enough room to go around the curve simply shifting the transmission for that tread into neutral. Eustace held his breath again. The turns were the most likely places for the drive wheel or tread to come off, or for the axle to snap.

  Basset two made the turn without difficulty. Eustace detected no change in the vibration coming from the drive wheel. But he didn't relax after the gun was moving straight again. Each subsequent turn would be higher, some at a steeper grade.

  Sweat started to form on Eustace's forehead. By the time Basset two was halfway up the escarpment, the sweat was flowing into his eyes, stinging, but he didn't wipe it away. When he didn't have anything else to do with his hands, he held on to the arms of his seat as if he were afraid of falling out.

  Where the road reached its steepest grade, the pitch of the vibration from the right tread increased in pitch and volume. The shaking became gross, not subtle, as if the drive assembly were tearing itself apart. Yet again, Eustace held his breath, trying to hold the repairs together by willpower.

  "Slow it down, just a mite," he told Simon, softly, his voice strained.

  Simon didn't bother trying to change Ponks's mind. Obediently, he eased off on the throttles, just a hair, slowing the gun by perhaps no more than a half kilometer per hour. The gun was already barely creeping. The slope had eaten most of the power the engines were putting out on the reduced throttle settings he had been using before.

  "Planes on the scope," Eustace announced a moment later, followed almost instantly by, "Wasps. I've got the recognition signal."

  "Hope you're sending our RS too," Simon said under his breath.

  "Loud and clear," Eustace said. Be hell to get shot off this wall by our own birds. There was enough danger in the climb without that.

  The Wasps flew on until their signal was hidden by the lip of the plateau.

  "They didn't seem to be in any particular hurry," Eustace said. "Must not be any Heggies close by."

  For the next twenty minutes, the men rode in silence. Then, "Last switchback coming up, boss," Simon reported. "After that, it's smooth sailing. The road bends back and gets almost level."

  Eustace didn't need the travelogue, but Simon couldn't hold back.

  "Don't relax yet, Simon," Eustace said. "We're near the top, sure, but that just means we've got farther to fall if something goes wrong."

  "You want to get out and walk?" Simon demanded, his temper finally beginning to frazzle. "You can get out and I'll chase you the rest of the way to camp, goose you with the gun every time you slow down."

  "Simmer down, and keep your mind on your driving." Eustace regretted his own show of temper almost instantly, as did Simon. But as was usually the way between them, both men simply went silent. For the rest of this ride, there would be no conversation that was not absolutely required.

  It didn't matter. Five minutes later, Basset two had successfully made the last turn and was moving away from the edge of the escarpment. Even if the drive wheel gave out now, it would only mean a short walk. There would be no fall in their metal cage.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  In a few hours, the 13th Spaceborne Assault Team would have been on Porter for eleven days. The days, and nights, were getting no easier for the strike force west of the capital city or for the bulk of the 13th on the plateau. The Schlinal garrison had not attempted any additional full-scale attacks on either element of the invading force, but there were almost continuous harassing attacks against one or the other.

  The strike force consisting of Echo and George companies and the 1st and 3rd recon platoons was on the march again, moving northwest, away from Porter City—but without getting closer to the territory controlled by the rest of the 13th. A second shuttle had managed to get in just before sunset the previous afternoon. That lander had taken off several more wounded and had brought in two cases of wire—the last ammunition available for the strike force. At that, it had amounted to only two spools per carbine. That would not last long in a serious fight.

  Joe Baerclau put one foot in front of the other. Thinking beyond that was becoming difficult. He scarcely recalled the previous step or imagined a future that held the next one. From time to time, as he happened to think about it, he did look around to see how the platoon was moving, or to tell the squad leaders to keep close track of their men, but the most routine duties had become infinitely complicated for a mind numbed by too many days of little sleep, short rations, and long hikes. Movements were leaden, tortured. Even the occasional moments of attack no longer excited the men. They went through the defensive routines with all the life of zombies. They tried to eliminate the attackers, or stalemate them, and the march would go on.

  And on.

  Kam Goff had taken on the duties of squad medic after Al Bergon was wounded. Al had been evacuated to the hospital ship. Kam was scarcely qualified to act as medic. He had only the same cursory training in first aid that all recruits went through, but he could doctor blisters, and that was the main call on his services. Beyond that, he could bandage a wound, or wrap a knee or ankle in a soaker... and direct the injured man to Doc Eddies.

  The new duties appeared to have helped settle Kam's anxieties. They gave him something to think about besides his fear, and the way that combat paralyzed his mind. When he was going to help a buddy, or working with a wounded man, he did not have the reaction he had had to walking up and seeing the dead or wounded before. There was a little color back in his face, and only the exhaustion he shared with everyone else seemed to dull his reactions.

  "We'll take fifteen here."

  Captain Ingels's voice over the noncoms' circuit startled Joe. He passed the word to the platoon and blinked rapidly several times, as if just waking from a vivid dream. I must have been asleep on my feet, he thought. He stood motionless, his body swaying as if he were about to fall.

  That would be the easiest way to get to the ground. Even that idle thought couldn't bring a smile to his face.

  "Take a little care for your positions," he
told the platoon. "Don't get caught with your butts in the air. We can't tell when we'll get another attack."

  Then, at last, Joe sank to the ground. For a moment he just let his head sag, the chin strap of his helmet on his chest. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, on the verge of falling asleep. But there was no time for sleep. Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes. Not long enough to sleep. Too long to stay awake.

  "Joe?"

  "Yes, Lieutenant?" Joe had to shake his head to get his mind working again.

  "One more hour. That's what the captain says. Then we find a place to stay put for at least four, maybe all day." Lieutenant Keye sounded as tired as Joe felt.

  Joe looked around, trying to spot where Keye was. He had lost track of the platoon leader, and that was a bad sign. Everything seemed to be a bad sign lately.

  "Another hour's going to be rough on everyone, Lieutenant, including you and me."

  "I know, but it's going to take that long to reach a place that'll give us some security. And space for pickup, just in case. No, there's no word yet, either on relief or on a ride back to the plateau." He paused. "At least, no word we've been told about." Keye cursed himself silently for rambling. He might be as tired as his men, but it was still bad form to show it so clearly.

  "Better be soon, Lieutenant. Another day and we'll be out of food as well as everything else."

  "They're getting short on the plateau too, Joe. We're going to organize a couple of hunting parties, if we can, after we bivouac for the night. Maybe after we've all had time to get a little sleep."

  "Hunting parties?"

  "Recon will handle that. Most of those snipes have been hunters since they learned how to walk."

  Fresh meat would be a treat, Joe thought. "Take a lot of meat to feed everybody," he said.

  "Every little bit helps," Keye said. "How's Goff holding up?"

  "Pretty good now, sir. We're still keeping watch on him, but there's been no sign of trouble since he started handling the blister detail."