The detachment, with Lieutenant Roberts at its head, crested the ridge five minutes after Vat first saw the smoke. Everyone spread out to look at the village below. Some of the settlement was at the bottom of a shallow valley obscured by another low hill. A few huts were visible, and one was burning.
“The village!” Salsaliin cried out, pointing into the valley. “It must be the J’Stull.”
“Why?” one of Roberts’ men wondered. “They don’t attack villages, only tribal camps.”
Roberts looked at Vat who returned the gaze. The same thought ran between them. We have a mole in our camp. The satrap’s forces hadn’t messed with the Sarmatchani who lived in permanent villages because they likely didn’t know or didn’t suspect that stationary tribes might risk retribution for helping the unknown off-worlders. Maybe their cover story was blown.
There was no sound except the rumble of the distant thunderstorm. Vat looked toward the clouds and saw the storm was getting closer. Maybe it would be a problem in a few hours after all.
Sam had his Garand up and was surveying the village through its scope. “I can’t see any movement. That little hill is blocking the view.”
“I’m taking my detachment down to assess the situation,” Roberts announced. “Take your team to the north,” he said to Vat, pointing. “The road leads toward the J’Stull’s area of operations. Scout it and report.”
“Lieutenant, is it wise to split up our forces?” Vat asked. A first lieutenant, Roberts was in operational command. On the other hand, while Vat wasn’t a combat officer, his training had included small-unit tactics for use against the insurgent-style adversaries of the 90s.
The younger man considered for a second, then looked at Vat’s “team.” Unfortunately, he was clearly making a decision based on appearance, not ability. Vat would put his hardened crew up against any of Roberts’ men in any situation except the parade ground.
“Your people aren’t as used to the whinnies,” Roberts decided. “Riding and shooting is the trick. Please take your people to scout and cover the enemy’s possible line of attack. If the opportunity presents itself, set up an ambush.”
Vat considered again for a second before nodding. It didn’t seem like the best tactical decision, but he deferred to Roberts’ rank and experience. “Okay. Sir.”
“Please take the local women with you,” Roberts added, looking toward the village. “It’s more likely we’ll see combat than you.”
After taking a moment to check weapons, Roberts and his detachment whisked off down the slope on their whinnies. Their mounts yipped and hissed with the excitement of just running.
“Okay, let’s get a move on,” Vat said. “We need to get to the road ASAP in case they need help.”
“In the rear with the gear,” Sam said.
“Dis is saying with Americans, too?” Artyom wondered.
“I think it is with any military,” Vat said as they turned their whinnies toward the distant road.
Getting to the road wasn’t as easy as Vat thought it would have been. Despite being able to see where it was, the ridgeline separating them from it was far too steep to ride along, so they had to go around it. It would have been easier to approach from the side that faced back toward the valley and the village, but anyone watching the slope would have spotted them.
The far side of the hill was rocky and treacherous, partly made up of several scree fields in which even the surefooted whinnies struggled to maintain their footing. Miizhaam and Salsaliin took the lead, being experienced on the reptilian mounts, and the rest fell in behind them. With everyone busy controlling their whinnies, Vat didn’t have to worry about them noticing him hanging on for dear life.
Gunshots echoed over the hills, the rifle reports bouncing around the crags above them.
Vat glanced up unconsciously and ground his teeth. The whole purpose of riding days out into the plains was to talk to village elders, gain intel, and maybe get clues to locations of Kulsian caches watched and now tapped by raider-directed satraps. His side mission was to learn more about the non-conforming language elements which might lead to the mysterious Daaj. He resisted urging the whinnie on faster, knowing it wasn’t a good idea. Halfway across a particularly bad section of crumbling scree, Vat’s whinnie cast an eye back at him.
“What?” Vat asked. He swore the lizard almost sighed as it found its own way through the debris field. After a couple more echoing shots, the shooting stopped.
“Guess the fight is over,” Artyom yelled back at him. “Good. I had enough of people shooting at me at Stalingrad.”
They reached the other side of the valley without losing anyone or any of their equipment. The seven whinnies stood breathing hard for a short time on the road, which was just dirt, hard packed from routine use. It ran in from the north and over the hill to the village south of them.
“What now?” Artyom asked. Thunder rolled through the air, surprisingly closer.
“We need to set up a position for an ambush,” Vat said and examined the rock outcroppings near the road where it cut through the hill.
“Better get set up before the storm gets here,” Lech pointed out as the rumbling got louder.
“Isn’t the storm to the west?” Sam asked.
Vat looked south in confusion as the rumble crested the ridge, and a pair of big trucks rolled into view. Then the shooting started.
* * * * *
Chapter Sixty-Two
R’Bak
At his first glimpse of the trucks, Vat’s thought was of their utility. Just like the ones in camp, they all had a boxy look, a little like the transports used by Russia in his era. Maybe to load them into spaceships? The backs even had fabric or leather tarping to cover them. Maybe form follows function on any world? It’s amazing the stupid shit your brain comes up with when you’re about to die.
Vat felt like he had an hour to notice details. The windshield was clear glass, no tint, and also had no angle to it, unlike terrestrial trucks. There were two occupants in the front. The driver caught his eye. He was blond with blue eyes that were wide with surprise. A second later, a bullet shattered the windshield and punched through the unknown man’s forehead.
Vat wasn’t a combat vet. He’d been shot at, but not as a soldier. Disgruntled customers had tried to kill him, but his solution had always been escape, evasion, or just avoid the situation entirely. However, with the exception of Taiki, his guys were combat vets. They’d learned that most important lesson of battles: the ones who shot first were often the winners.
Though Artyom may have been unfamiliar with the specifics of the lesson, he clearly understood the practicality. The single shot from his AK-47 had been perfectly on-target, as proven by the fate of the first truck’s driver. Lech was a half a step behind his friend and put a long, ragged burst of 9mm from his MP-40 through the windshield from left to right. Both the passenger and the already-dead driver were hit several times.
Sam fired a single, booming 30-06 round from his Garand past the truck. Vat assumed the paratrooper was firing at the second one, which he couldn’t see.
That brief flurry of gunfire was followed by a chorus of shouts and screams, both from the trucks and his own people. It broke Vat out of his momentary shock, bringing back his small-unit tactical training. “Get off the road!” he yelled. Taiki and the two local women immediately spun their whinnies, which leaped up and over the rocks lining the road. Lech and Sam followed suit. Artyom laughed, switched to full-auto, and dumped a mag into the lead truck.
Vat’s whinnie was confused by his rider’s mixed signals. Vat had learned from Moorefield that the lizards were incredibly intuitive, even intelligent to a degree, and took implied directions from their riders. Vat was trying to unlimber his Thompson while simultaneously pulling the reins to the left in order to lead the animal off the road, thereby screwing up everything.
As Vat got his weapon clear and raised it to provide cover for Artyom, the whinnie wheeled left, jerking toward the side o
f the road. Vat was catapulted from the saddle. “Shit!” He grunted as he hit the ground and rolled. He had just enough presence of mind to keep the gun away from his face. The weapon’s magazine jammed him hard in the ribs and a sharp rock cut his left arm, even through the heavy fatigue jacket.
People began pouring out of the lead truck as Vat sprawled to a stop. A few wild shots zipped through the air around him. Artyom’s magazine ran dry and he rocked a new one into place.
“Damn it, Artyom! We’re supposed to be capturing assets, not filling them full of holes!”
The second truck tried to pull off the roadway. Its front wheel mounted one of the large rocks lining the packed dirt, but the bottom of the chassis didn’t have enough clearance; metal barked as the stone shrugged it off and sent it bouncing back into the roadway toward the rear of the stationary and now smoking first truck.
Bullets flew. Vat crawled painfully toward a rock only half his size as his whinnie pranced away, sending a reproachful look over its shoulder. Artyom finished dumping his second magazine into the first truck, running dry just as the second one rear-ended it.
The truck’s dead driver had never set the brake, so the bump pushed the vehicle over the crest of the hill and it started rolling down…toward Vat’s team. Bullets whizzed past as the big Russian, eyes still on the truck, casually stepped to the side, reloading as he moved. The smoking truck slowly rolled through the space he had occupied seconds before.
As it passed him, survivors began jumping out the back. Some of them were armed and shooting at anything they saw; others were empty-handed and ran for their lives. Vat was surprised any were still alive after 60 rounds of 7.62x39mm Commbloc. Then he saw that the sides were made of steel, which showed dozens of bright impact points, but few penetrations.
Artyom, who had finished reloading, kneeled and sprayed bullets at both groups of survivors. One of them managed to jump clear, get his bearings, and raised his gun toward the Russian.
Vat didn’t stop to think; he brought up his Thompson, flipped off the safety, and fired. The selector was on full-auto. The man targeting Artyom took four rounds in the abdomen and chest; he was dead before he hit the ground. Vat swallowed around a dry mouth. Vat had fired Thompsons before—a friend had owned several—so he knew what to expect, but this wasn’t like shooting paper targets. Not at all.
The rolling truck slammed to a stop against a boulder. More men poured out of the back. Vat’s people were fully engaged now, firing singly or in pairs at anyone they saw. It was easy to distinguish Artyom’s and Lech’s weapons from Sam’s Garand, with the roar of Taiki’s Mosin Nagant adding an occasional, sharp exclamation point to the gunbattle. He was unable to discern the reports of the women’s breech-loading rifles from those of the enemy. Vat fired several more times: detect a target, fire, acquire a new target, fire. He lost count and soon his magazine was empty. He reloaded.
There were bodies everywhere. At least ten men were running down the road, their weapons abandoned along the road. Vat was about to call for anyone left in the truck to surrender when Artyom, leaned over and threw a grenade into rear.
Where the hell did he get that? Vat wondered, his mouth hanging open in surprise. The grenade was not as loud as Vat expected, but it blew the fabric cover off the cargo compartment. No more men came out; there were only the screams of the wounded and dying.
“Stop shooting!” someone yelled.
Vat, still kneeling, turned. Up the hill was a pair of men. One had his arm around Miizhaam’s neck and a pistol pointed at her head. The other was holding Salsaliin by her long, braided hair, her head pulled back, a knife at her throat. The arm holding the knife was bleeding freely from a long gash. Salsaliin’s eye was swelling and turning black. It didn’t take a detective to understand what had happened.
“Stop or we kill these bitches.”
Only Artyom and Taiki were within view. One of Artyom’s AK-47s was missing, but he started to raise the other.
“No, wait,” Vat said. He lowered his own gun slightly. “This fight is over,” he called to the man who had spoken. “Surrender.”
“You are some of the thrice-slaves who’ve been attacking us! You use women? What kind of fools are you? All of you off-worlders will die.”
“I really doubt that,” Vat said.
The gunfire had stopped entirely, and he had no idea where Lech and Sam were, if they were even still alive. They must have finished off those in the second truck or the satrap troops would be rushing in. Taiki was on the far side of the ruined truck. Vat could see him feeding a new stripper clip into his ancient gun. They had the two upslope J’Stull in a crossfire…except there were hostages.
“Shoot the fool,” Artyom said in Russian, so the satrap man couldn’t understand.
“Nyet,” Vat replied. “We could hit the women.”
A hushed mutter in English announced, “I have a clean shot on the one with the knife.”
Vat didn’t turn his head. The voice was Sam’s, nearby. Vat didn’t know where he was hiding or how good he was with his rifle. Sam had been impressed with the new scope and practiced on the firing range with it, but 30-06 ammo was in short supply. How many rounds could he have expended in practice? And bull’s-eyes at the range was no guarantee of pinpoint accuracy in a hostage situation.
He looked between the girls and hesitated, but Miizhaam caught his attention. She caught his eyes, then cast hers down. He followed their gaze; she had a knife in her hand, held low and out of the man’s view. Once she knew he understood, she closed her eyes and nodded.
“Do it!” Vat barked in English.
The M1 Garand’s 30-06 spoke from just behind him, near the other truck. The man holding Salsaliin jerked as his head exploded into a red mist; he fell limply. At the same time, Miizhaam doubled over, slamming her knife into her captor’s thigh as her head cleared his pistol’s muzzle.
The man screamed as she spun away. He started to track her, then reversed, raising the gun toward Vat and Artyom. They fired simultaneously; the man went backward and did not move.
Salsaliin was on her knees, her face in her hands, crying. Miizhaam took a couple wobbly steps then collapsed to her knees.
“Are you okay?” Vat asked Salsaliin. He was shaking so hard it took three tries to swap out the magazine in his Thompson. She nodded but didn’t look up.
Artyom calmly walked over to the man they’d just killed, his body still twitching as blood pumped out. The Russian reloaded his AK-47, looked down at the body, then spat on it. “Ublyudok.”
“Where did you get the damn grenade?” Vat asked.
Artyom took out a cigarette and lit it, then shrugged. “I won in card game.” He shrugged again. “Thought it might…eh, come in handy.” Vat was impressed, if also chagrined that one of the assets they had orders to secure was now a burning wreck.
Sam walked past the ruined truck, gun held low against his shoulder, looking for more targets, but there was no more screaming from the back. Vat shuddered as he realized it smelled a little like bacon.
Sam glanced at the wreck and shook his head. “Who had the grenade?”
“Who do you think?” Vat asked. Sam looked at Artyom, who grinned. Sam shook his head, bemused. “Taiki, you okay?” The man didn’t reply. Vat walked around the burning truck and saw why; a bullet had found the Japanese man. He lay on his back staring into the strange alien sky, eyes wide. The bullet had torn out his jugular. He had probably died in seconds. “Fuck.”
“We heard the shooting,” Roberts called out as his patrol rode up the hill behind the surviving truck. Rather than soldiers, its cargo bed was filled with prisoners: ten young women from the village. “I guessed you’d run into them. Everyone okay?”
“No,” Vat said. “Private Komatsu is dead. No other serious injuries.” Sam was quietly applying a bandage to a cut on Miizhaam’s arm while Artyom tended to the gouge in Vat’s bicep.
“My whinnie bought it, too,” Sam said, pointing to the motionless liza
rd a hundred meters off the road.
Considering how much gunfire there was, Vat was surprised more hadn’t been hit. The pseudo-reptiles hadn’t run off when the battle began, like horses might have. In fact, he noticed his own mount was eating something: one of the dead satrap troopers. Oh fucking hell.
Roberts dismounted and surveyed the slaughter. “What happened to that other truck?”
“I think it must have had some explosives in it,” Vat lied. “It just blew up.”
“Good ambush,” Roberts complimented. “They had you at least five to one.”
“Wasn’t an ambush,” Vat admitted. “We just rode into them. I guess we managed to act quicker.”
One of Roberts’ men was examining the burning truck for salvage. He came back with a bottle from the cab. It smelled of alcohol. Vat nodded; now it made more sense. The satrap forces had probably been drunk, or at least some of them.
“We got four prisoners from another truck,” Roberts said. “Three of my men will take them back to basecamp in the vehicle.”
“Ten more guys ran off that way,” Vat said. “We going to get them?”
“No, it’s not worth the risk. This terrain is perfect for ambushes. They’re a long way from home, on foot. You said they’re mostly unarmed?”
Vat nodded.
Roberts considered. “I’ll only have seven men once I send those three back. I wouldn’t normally want to be out here with so few.” He looked over Vat and his three survivors with a new look in his eye. “Now I’m not so worried.”
“Don’t sell the women short,” Vat said, and told Roberts what Miizhaam had done. “They’re tough characters.”
“I believe it. Even better, then. Let’s get the women and salvage back to their settlement, and get my men sent off. It’ll be night in a few hours; we might as well spend it at the village.”
* * *
Murphy's Lawless: A Terran Republic Novel Page 59