“We’ll sweep downhill like a swinging door,” Bo said. “Stewart, your side stays pinned close to the bottom of the wall as we go across. This end will sweep out, all the way toward the enemy vehicles. Move as quickly as you can. The whinnies will bound down these rocks faster than anything you’ve ever seen. Just hold on for dear life until you reach the floor of the draw. Once you’re there, commence firing and stay in your lane. Once we hit the enemy flank, all hell will break loose. Push them south toward our vehicles. They will eventually regroup. When they do and start to return fire, find cover. Until then, watch out for each other and good hunting.”
The soldiers all nodded, and their faces were more serious than he’d ever seen. Gone were any expressions of bored indifference or guarded resentment. Some of their friends lay wounded below them. A few were dead. They all knew the cost and there was nothing in their present demeanor to suggest they would shy away from it. Still, he sensed trepidation.
Bo smiled, made sure his nod was one of casual, and therefore absolute, confidence. “It’ll work, guys. The 20th Maine did the same thing at Gettysburg. Won the field and likely the whole damned war that day. Just stay in line and keep firing.”
Stewart waved a hand. “Sir?”
“What is it, Stewart?”
The sergeant slowly smiled. “Was just wishing we had a bugler. You know? To sound the fucking charge?”
The soldiers laughed together and their tension broke.
Bo waved one last time to Aliza. “Hell,” he said loudly, “who needs a damned bugle?” He nudged Scout forward and shouted, “Charge!”
Around him, the soldiers and the whinnies raised their faces in a matching cry and raced down the hill together, straight toward the flank of the J’Stull infantry.
“Go, Scout! I’m with you.” Bo wrapped the reins around his hands and squeezed the whinnie tightly with his legs. Scout bounced between two rocks and then shot downhill in a series of bounds that took Bo’s breath away. The last leap took them to mostly level ground. Through the brush on both sides, he saw the line was intact and starting to swing. From his position near the far end, he saw the unmounted whinnies charging forward of the line.
Beneath him, Scout roared. It was a sound he’d never heard from any of the whinnies. The ones charging forward slowed to stay in formation, to keep with the line as it pivoted. They charged over a slight rise and descended to the flatland of the draw and toward the loosely arrayed enemy infantry.
The surprise was complete. Intent on finding a way up to silence the stiff fire from Aliza’s defenders and to reach the tableland higher up, the enemy hadn’t seen or heard the whinnies coming. Turning to discover a charging line of cavalrymen and ferocious animals bearing down upon them, the enemy infantry panicked and ran. They scattered, some falling back toward their vehicles but most simply fleeing away from the charging whinnies. If any of them realized that the direction of the charge was actually herding them south of the attacking vehicle column, there was no sign of it.
In seconds, Bo and the others were among them. Pistol in hand, Bo kept hold of the reins with his left and fired with his right. Some of the enemy stood their ground only to be cut down by weapons, or in more terrifying ways by the whinnies. A man Bo hadn’t seen appeared on his left side. Before he could pivot with his weapon, Scout darted that direction without breaking stride. He snapped his jaws, and the man fell to the ground, both hands amputated in a spray of blood.
Holy shit!
“Go, Scout! Get ‘em, big guy!” Bo yelled. It felt good enough that he screamed from his diaphragm. The others joined him, and the whinnies roared. The enemy infantry’s panic became absolute. Those who had fled without any initial direction now raced for the imagined protection of their vehicles.
The gun platforms on the enemy carriers opened fire. Bo and the riders leaned forward to lower their profiles as they charged. A whinnie on his right went down with a howl. He heard a smack as a bullet missed his left leg and tore a gash in Scout’s hide. The big whinnie roared again, and Bo expected him to bolt further forward when he dashed hard left instead. The entire line moved that way without a command and ran east toward the sheer, soaring sides of the tableland.
“Scout! What are you doing?” Bo tugged the reins hard to the right, but Scout wouldn’t change course. “Scout! You’re going the wrong—”
WHUMP! WHUMP!
Bo whipped his head to the right and saw a series of explosions around the enemy vehicles as mortar rounds fell among them.
Contingency Charlie was on time and on target. And was very close—or would have been, had Scout and the other whinnies not heard and understood the significance of the incoming mortar rounds.
Between the withering barrage, the captured vehicles roaring out of the south, and the line of whinnies that had slowed and stopped just beyond the mortars’ beaten zone, the enemy infantry threw down their weapons and fled west. Still in a line abreast formation, they faced as one into the rising dust cloud of explosions and watched the steel rain fall.
The barrage hammered down for several minutes, completely obscuring any view to the west. A trooper from third section appeared out of the thin smoke from the direction of the wall, the unit’s radio on his shoulder. “Sir! Sir! We’ve got comms again!”
Bo reached for the handset. “OP Two, Saber Six. Relay to the mortars cease fire. I say again, cease fire. Over.”
“OP Two, roger, out.”
A few more rounds moaned through the sky above them, chasing after the dim shapes of the J’Stull vehicles, and exploded on impact among them. Silence fell across the valley. Bo pressed the handset again.
“Saber Nine, Saber Six. SITREP, over.”
Aliza’s voice came back a little shaken, but steady. “Saber Six, we took more casualties, Bo, but we’re okay.”
“Roger, we’ll be back there soon.” He glanced at Stewart. “Post an OP and observe them. See if there are survivors and such. Let them collect their dead and wounded. If they mass forces or start any movement east of their line, I want to know about it.”
“Yes, sir,” Stewart replied. “On it.”
“Make it happen,” Bo said. He watched with pride as the young sergeant raced back toward the mouth of the valley with a section of four riders.
“Saber Six, OP Two with a relay from Starkpatch, over.”
“Send it, OP Two.”
“Starkpatch relays Glass Palace. All enemy elements withdrawing at speed. Evacuation of Camp Stark delayed pending further observation of OpFor movement. Major Murphy sends outstanding work. Orders are for you to maintain reconnaissance and prepare for next phase. How copy? Over.”
Bo grinned and wiped his chin with a sleeve. “Good copy. We’ll start extraction immediately. I’m positioning OP One forward again to observe the enemy here. I want you to move to the mortar platoon to augment their security. Over.”
“Roger, Saber Six. Displacing now. Will report from mortar position. OP Two, out.”
He passed the handset back to the trooper and put his hands on his hips for a moment and then thought better of it. There wasn’t time to relax.
“Back to the wall. Good job, troopers. Move out!”
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
R’Bak
The scene at the top of the wall was not what Bo expected. Aliza and the others had the wounded ready for evacuation. Those who could walk moved up the slope toward the top of the tableland where a truck-become-ambulance was standing by. Those who could not walk were carried atop the whinnies. The remaining soldiers silently collected the dead and secured their weapons and equipment.
Aliza saw Bo approach and walked in his direction. “Six dead. Fourteen wounded. Only two seriously. We’re moving them up to the rim as quickly as we can. Lieutenant Meehan has vehicles standing by to recover us.”
Bo nodded. “Anything else?”
“There’s a potable spring just up the draw. The way it flows back underground suggests th
ere might be a cave system here. Maybe an aquifer, too. That could be useful during the Sear.” Aliza said. She tucked an errant lock of hair behind one ear and kept talking. “There are some medicinals at the spring. We’ve identified several species including londau’d and ogh-ul. They are perennials, but extremely rare. Rare enough that when the actual Harvesters arrive, they are almost certain to know to come here in search of them. And I think there are more nearby.”
“Get what you can, Aliza,” Bo replied. “But you have to hurry. If the J’Stull don’t keep running, they’ll soon realize that we’ve blocked the fastest ways up to the tableland. If they can, they’ll come after us again. We’ll be ready for that, but if they do, they’ve seen our positions and know the kind of force and tactics they’ll need. So, we’ve got to be gone if and when they get here.”
Aliza sighed and a faint smile crossed her lips. “I’ve been wishing to not be here since I woke.”
He squinted at her. “But you feel differently now?”
She nodded. “It’s not something I can explain.”
For a moment, Bo wanted to push the subject, but something held him back. “Would you take me to the spring and show me the medicinals? You’re better versed on them than I am. I wouldn’t know what to look for if it was sprouting right in front of me.”
She grinned. “It’s right over there.”
Bo slid off Scout and absently brushed the dust and dirt from his pants before falling into step alongside the young brunette. They walked in silence. With a fresh breeze rustling the vegetation and the wind pushing the smells of battle away from them, the early afternoon was almost pleasant.
The tiny pool of water looked cool and inviting. They stopped and Bo knelt by the water’s edge and studied the clear liquid and the various multicolored and very alien-looking plants there. “And we’re sure it’s safe to drink?”
“Athena drank from it with no ill effects,” Aliza replied. “The whinnies have always shied away from the water sources we determined to be bad. It bodes well for this one.”
“That’s still taking an awful risk, Aliza.”
She knelt beside him, stuck both hands into the water and made a reservoir with her palms. Before he could stop her, she brought her hands to her face and said, “L’Chaim!”
“What did you just do?”
Aliza made a satisfied sound and laughed. “I took your risks for you, Bo. Sometimes the greatest risk is to take none.”
He reached out and took her hand. When she didn’t flinch away, he smiled at her. “That’s not something I want you to do for me, Aliza. What does that mean? L’Chaim?”
“‘To life.’” Her smile slipped away. “Every moment you have it is a moment worth celebrating.”
“I suppose so,” Bo said. He wanted to stare into her eyes, but he glanced away.
When she spoke again, her voice was faint, tentative. “Sergeant Whittaker said you needed to find your heart, Bo. What did he mean?”
Bo chuckled and shook his head as he brought his eyes back to hers. “None of us started this new future with a blank slate. Some of us have carried more pain than any human should carry.”
“Maybe there’s a way past that pain?” She squeezed his hand, and he returned the gesture.
He looked at her for a long moment. “I can’t even imagine what you went through, Aliza.”
“You won’t have to.” She smiled. “This life will differ from our old ones.”
Bo chuckled. “I haven’t looked at it that way.”
“Whittaker said—” a tremor of grief passed across her features “—he said that dying twice was worth it because he lived twice. I think I know what he meant. Living again makes all of this new pain worth it. Particularly because we can use our past to show us how to live better now, rather than allow it to define us all over again.” She frowned slightly but was also smiling. “Does that make sense to you?”
“It does.”
“I know we’re here for a reason and on this mission for a reason.” Aliza took a breath. “But I think we’re supposed to do much more than hold this ground. We might not be obligated to complete the work, but we cannot abandon it. At least that’s what the Talmud says.”
“That ain’t exactly my department.” Bo smiled at her. “I agree that we’re part of something much bigger than just us. But I think you’re right. To achieve anything, we have to be here for each other.”
She smiled, and it captivated him. Aliza Turan was as beautiful as she was genuine and resilient. He’d been very wrong about her.
His heart hammered in his chest when she asked, “So assuming we do not have to flee and keep fleeing—something with which my ancestors were quite familiar—what do we do next?”
Bo tried to force himself to focus on the larger mission. “Two things. One, we really need to understand the whinnies and just how smart they are. Allies out here are scarce, and we haven’t even scratched the surface of what they are capable of. Two? One of my lieutenants used to say the simple things were always hard and the hard things were always simple. I think in this case he’s right.” About more things than one.
“What do you mean, Bo?” Aliza squinted at him.
He looked at her but heard Sharron saying the words that, had she been here, he might now have said to her: I’ve found someone else who is everything you are not. I can’t help but wonder if I’d met them first would I ever have married you? I settled for you, and I was wrong. I’ve found someone who’ll be here for me. You never were. They’ll love me in a way you never could.
Bo looked down and opened the slanted pocket on his uniform blouse. He removed the yellowed paper from its plastic bag and, without unfolding it, slowly tore it into thin strips and then into tiny squares. He scattered them into the freshening wind.
I can’t carry the past anymore. The future is too important. Goodbye, Sharron. Bo took a long breath and exhaled slowly.
Aliza put a hand on his arm. “What was that?”
“The letter my ex-wife sent to tell me it was over. I opened it the morning the Ktor snagged me. They kept it and made sure I had it.”
Her face twisted in a question. “Why would they do such a thing? Surely they read and understood it.”
“Maybe.” Bo shrugged. “Maybe they thought it would anchor me to who I was or to whatever they had planned for all of us. Or to focus my resentment and anger at her, even more than at them. Either way, I’m done with that.”
She smiled again and rolled her left elbow outward, revealing the blue numbers on her smooth inner forearm. “I can’t get rid of this so easily.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He looked down at her. One hand traced the line of her jaw and she did not flinch away. Her eyes were dark brown, almost black, yet very bright. So bright that, like mirrors, he saw himself in them, and something far greater, besides. “Like you said, our past doesn’t define us, Aliza. We don’t have the time to even give it another moment’s thought.”
She nodded. “Because this isn’t over.” Aliza stared into his eyes. “It hasn’t really started, has it?”
“Not at all. They’re coming for us, Aliza. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but they’re coming. So, if we want this second chance at life, we have to be ready for them. For anything, really. Even the things we never thought would happen again. There’s too much at stake now. Like you said, we might not be obligated to this unexpected future, but we damned sure can’t abandon it.”
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Spin One
“Report, sir.” Makarov’s voice a little more clipped than usual.
Murphy kept reading the reports on the final trials of the first replicated Huey: damned impressive. “Just send it to my slate, Makarov.”
The Russian captain cleared his throat. “It is the after-action report from Captain Moorefield, sir.”
Already? Damn, Bo didn’t waste any time. He looked up and reached out a hand. “Thanks…” He almost said “Mak,” but he
’d had to retire that nickname. Not only was the Russian persistent in his dislike of it, but it sounded too much like “Max,” which confused Murphy’s bodyguard no end. But Messina had helped out by coming up with a replacement nickname for the Muscovite, which Murphy remembered to use: “Okay, Pistol, hand it here.” Makarov actually smiled as he handed over the file.
Murphy was slightly annoyed that he hadn’t thought of the moniker “Pistol” himself, but Max had enjoyed the advantage of having been born in the time when the underlying phrase had come into use. “Pistol Pete” had apparently been a TV character or sports figure. Maybe both. Whatever the origin, it was definitely more suitable. With a family name of “Makarov” and a first name of “Pyotr” it was difficult to think of a more apt name for the Russian.
Murphy pulled Bo’s AAR out of the sheaf of hardcopy documents and skipped all the introductory copy to get to the nitty-gritty:
“Commandeered vehicles and supplies transferred to Cpt. Moorefield, CO Camp Stark, at rendezvous point Lima. J’Stull pursuit/attack repulsed, suffering heavy losses. Abandoned and reclaimable enemy equipment includes APCs, light ACVs, company-level personal gear, including Kulsian small arms. Note: otherwise unbreakable draught creatures (designated as whinaalani in prior comms) allowed themselves to be ridden into combat by our personnel. Unit casualties: 11 WIA, 1 WIA/ND (“non-deployable”), 4 KIA.”
Makarov gave Murphy a full minute to peruse it and the intel addenda before almost chirping, “Only 4 KIA and one WIA permanently disabled. That may be the most efficient, one-sided battle I have ever heard of. It is quite the triumph, sir.”
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