Onward, Drake!

by Mark L. Van Name

  Bees could be armed with all sorts of things. These had general-purpose grenades that exploded to generate a focused pulse of plasma designed to burn through body armour. That was a needless sophistication, as The Fighters had none. The effect of the plasma on unprotected human bodies was catastrophic.

  The girls’ heads exploded in bursts of steam generated by super-heated body fluids. Waves of bees attacked bits of ripped off body tissue, chopping the girl’s corpses—or what remained of them—into smaller and smaller gobbets.

  The attack was all over in seconds. Three of The Fighters were also down, the one who’d fallen in the water among them.

  Berry juice was water-soluble.

  The other two dead Fighters must have been careless or just unlucky. Maybe they had been standing too close to the girls and got spattered in human DNA, maybe they hadn’t applied the juice properly, maybe they had scratched their skin, or maybe they had just plain been unfortunate. Perhaps the gate on the DNA sensors of a couple of the bees had been set just that fraction wider, or the ’koids decision circuits had been just a little fuzzier. Maybe it all came down to a quantum probability decision over whether an electron tunnelled this way or that.

  Who knows? Who cared? The dead were dead and the survivors had a job to do.

  Killer bees were convenient in one way. They never left any wounded. The Leader wouldn’t have permitted wounded Fighters to slow the column down but it was better not to have to kill your own people so early on in a run. It tended to affect morale.

  The Technician dry heaved long after he had nothing left to bring up, his stomach contents scattered among the minced gore decorating the leaf litter. Ironic since he had devised the tactic of unprotected decoys.

  Possibly The Technician hadn’t entirely thought things through in his enthusiasm for his new idea. The Leader remembered that the man had referred to the tactic as “ablative armour.” People who used military euphemisms for slaughter often found the reality disconcerting.

  The girls were expendable, sacrificial goats in a conflict that used up people like chickens at a battery farm. People were the one asset that never ran out.

  They made better time without the girls and arrived at their destination after a couple of hours. The Leader paused to give his men a short rest. He had started with twenty Fighters and was now down to twelve. Twenty was barely enough for the task but he had been persuaded that a larger force would have stood out suspiciously from the various deception operations simultaneously undertaken along the border to keep The Enemy’s attention off the real attack.

  Oh well, twelve he had so twelve would have to do.

  Their objective was a yellow effluent pipe that stuck out of a bank in a hollow above a small stream. Waste coated the bank in a sun-dried brown crust. Presumably the monsoon rains would wash away the muck but right now the hollow stank like a cess pit.

  A mesh sealed the end of the pipe against animal intrusion. The Leader levered at it with the tip of his machete. The blade broke with a sharp crack, although the remaining stub proved efficacious. He swapped blades with a first-run who would have to make do. First-runs were also expendable. When it came to it, everyone was expendable. It was all a matter of degree and the expediency of the moment.

  The diameter was just wide enough to allow a man to crawl up. No doubt the pipe had to be reasonably large to drain The Enemy base of storm water. Perhaps when it rained the runoff filled the pipe but for now little more than a foul smelling dribble ran along the bottom.

  Those who had planned the run had assumed that there would be various detectors inside capable of spotting the signatures of energy weapons, guns and other technology. The Enemy was nothing if not thorough, especially concerning the safety of his personnel, but no device yet made could distinguish a carbon blade from carbon effluent or the DNA in a human body from the DNA in human bodily waste.

  The Enemy probably didn’t really take seriously the threat posed to their perimeter security by the pipe. They wouldn’t crawl up a sewage effluent system so they probably assumed no one else would.

  The Leader had done worse things than crawl through shit. Shit didn’t actively try to kill you.

  He was beginning to revise this opinion by the time he reached the drainage grill. Some bastard had flushed and unpleasant solids coated his clothes and hair. He paused under the grille, blinking in the light while he listened.

  After a few minutes of silence, he gently pushed the storm water grille to one side and levered himself out.

  He was inside.

  The base was shaped like a doughnut with a leisure garden in the middle. Paths wound between tall bushes covered in exotic blue-and-white-striped flowers. The Leader had been briefed to expect something of the sort but deep down he hadn’t really believed the planners. The garden seemed so pointlessly self-indulgent.

  The Enemy’s horticultural excesses at least provided useful cover. He signalled for the rest of The Fighters to emerge.

  They moved in single file along a path, boots crunching in ornamental transparent gravel tinted in shades of red and blue. When intermingled, the chips created various shades of purple in patterns that changed with every footstep. The path led to a door secured only by a standard security code lock. The Leader typed out the six-digit code that he’d carefully memorised onto a screen which flipped to amber and sounded a soft chime.

  Nothing else happened.

  That wasn’t according to the script. The door should have opened.

  The Leader gripped his machete and cursed softly. What the hell should he do now? Desperate ideas flicked across his mind: find another door, try the code again on this one, or try to force an entrance. They certainly couldn’t just retreat back down the effluent pipe: not after the enormous effort to get the team this far. His superiors would regard withdrawal as cowardice on a scale tantamount to treason and punish accordingly. Not just The Leader, but his whole family would pay the price.

  He froze in a block of indecision.

  Then there was a click and the door rotated slowly into the wall. A woman spoke in an exasperated voice before it had fully opened.

  “That’s yesterday’s code. Why can’t you people bother to read the bloody . . .”

  The woman gaped when she saw The Fighters. She had a pistol in a holster under her left breast but she made no attempt to draw it. The Leader sliced the machete across her neck, neatly cutting through flawless skin so characteristic of The Enemy. A gush of arterial blood soaked her clean white uniform and added more stains to The Leader’s battle dress.

  He stepped over her body before it stopped twitching.

  Inside, a radial corridor made of some artificial light-grey material curved around the doughnut. Hidden lighting cycled through restful pastel sky-colours: blue, yellow and pink. The Leader ignored the first few doors along the corridor, mentally counting until he came to the one specified by his orders.

  He kicked it open and ran inside. Surprise was total.

  The long control room was open-plan. Enemy operatives manned various rounded grey consoles or lounged about on strangely shaped sofas in primary colours. Holograms hung in the air and screens covered the walls.

  The leader split the skull of the nearest Enemy and cut down a second with a backhanded swipe of his machete.

  A third operative pulled out his pistol and pointed it at The Leader’s chest but momentarily hesitated, apparently reluctant to shoot at close range. Ironic really, considering the power of the weapons controlled from this base and the number of people they’d killed.

  The Leader had no such inhibitions. He chopped the hand that held the gun off at the wrist and pushed the operative aside for someone else to finish off. The Fighters were outnumbered and outgunned. Their only hope lay with speed and aggression, with shock action to panic The Enemy and stop them organising a defence.

  Enemy operatives fired their pistols wildly, bright white plasma blasts ionising the air until it stank of ozone. An Enemy officer i
n a powder blue uniform waved his arms. He shouted incoherently until a misaimed plasma bolt burst between his shoulder blades, hurling his corpse over a console.

  Equipment exploded under the plasma bombardment. Power supplies arced and burst into flames adding to the confusion. The synthetic materials burnt bright yellow, emitting black powdery fumes that stung throats and eyes.

  The Leader stopped to wipe tears away, an act that probably saved his life.

  A man dressed in the green-and-brown-splodged uniform of an Enemy ranger patrol appeared from nowhere.

  He gunned down two Fighters in half a second with quick accurate pistol shots. A third Fighter lunged over a control panel and thrust his dagger into the ranger’s side. The man grunted and fell on one knee. Holding in his intestines with one hand, he pumped plasma bolts into the Fighter that had stabbed him, tearing the man apart in a cloud of superheated red steam.

  The Leader hurled himself at the ranger’s back. He struck hard at the base of the man’s neck and kept hacking until the ranger stopped moving. Then he hit him a few more times, just to make sure. You didn’t take any chances with a wolf like this. They didn’t die easy.

  The Technician appeared at The Leader’s side, eyes very wide.

  “He shouldn’t have been here. Headquarter bases aren’t staffed by rangers.”

  “Yeah,” The Leader replied. “Shit happens.”

  Maybe the man was going on leave, or coming back from leave, or bringing something, or setting up a tryst with his girlfriend or with his boyfriend. Who the hell knew? Who bloody cared? The bastard was dead and he was alive and that was all that mattered.

  The Leader checked around. All the Enemy operatives were down and his surviving Fighters were engaged finishing off the wounded.

  “Smash up everything,” he ordered, thrusting his machete into a screen.

  Enemy tech was sophisticated but very fragile.

  One of the first-run Fighters grabbed a discarded pistol in his enthusiasm for destruction and aimed it at a cabinet displaying flickering green and red lights. He pulled the trigger before anyone could stop him.

  The personalised Enemy weapon exploded, blowing off the silly bastard’s arm. He thrashed around a bit until The Leader cut his throat.

  To be fair, the cabinet caught fire and burned with a fierce blue-white flame that set light to the ceiling so the idiot hadn’t been a total waste of space.

  The Leader gave the order for the Fighters to split up and comb the base for any survivors hiding out in other chambers. His intention was clear so he was astonished when a Fighter dragging an Enemy operative by the arm sought him out.

  “Why is this one still alive?” he asked.

  “You don’t understand,” the operative said, fear making him garble the words. “I helped you. I’m the one who leaked the plans to the base.”

  The Leader cocked his head to one side. He hadn’t given much thought to how the information in his briefing had been obtained.

  “That’s better,” the operative said pompously, gaining confidence and pulling his arm free. “Your superiors said you’d have a suitable reward for me.”

  “Ah,” The Leader replied, now understanding the situation and what his masters had intended.

  He thrust the point of his machete into the operative’s throat. Blood bubbled up and the man fell backwards gurgling.

  “Was he telling the truth?” asked The Fighter.

  The Leader shrugged, “Possibly but it doesn’t matter. However you look at it he had outlived his usefulness. Who can trust a traitor?”

  They left the base by the front exit. It was well ablaze and The Leader wanted to be gone before The Enemy reacted.

  The Technician paused for a last look.

  “It’s a pity we couldn’t carry any equipment back with us. The stuff in that base cost more than our army’s entire annual budget,” he said wistfully. “It gave them one hell of a technical advantage.”

  The Leader didn’t bother to turn around. He was running through the route home in his mind.

  Dr. John Lambshead is a retired senior research scientist in marine biodiversity at the Natural History Museum, London. He was also a Visiting Chair at Southampton University, Oceanography, and Regent’s Lecturer, University of California. He writes military history and designs computer and fantasy games. He is the author of swashbuckling fantasy Lucy’s Blade, contemporary urban fantasy Wolf in Shadow, and coauthor, with nationally best-selling author David Drake, of science fiction adventures, Into the Hinterlands and Into the Maelstrom.

  At my request, he supplied this afterword.

  The great Sam Goldwyn, who knew a thing or two about show business, is quoted as saying: “Pictures are entertainment, messages should be delivered by Western Union,” and in general that is good advice for most authors. The public buy your stories to be entertained, to wind down from the daily grind; if they wanted a political discussion they would read a newspaper or watch a documentary.

  However, some storytellers transcend the normal limitations of the medium to say something profound about life and the human experience. This is the point where entertainment becomes art and the greatest art is classical, that is it has a timeless quality.

  The Iliad is still read by soldiers, not because it explains Dark Age Greek warfare but because it defines all warfare. Whether men ride into battles in chariots or tanks is irrelevant compared to the experiences of men in battle. The weapons change but not the soldiers.

  When David Drake first wrote the Hammer’s Slammers stories they received a mixed response. One British reviewer—now an American I must add, your loss being our gain—is quoted as writing that “if Drake had really seen war he wouldn’t write such queasy voyeurism.”

  But of course Drake had seen war, had seen it right at the sharp end as a conscript who served in the elite 11th Cavalry, the Blackhorse, in Vietnam.

  Damien Walter writing in The Guardian in a much more nuanced look at military science fiction specifically singled out Drake’s Hammer’s Slammers and Haldeman’s Forever War as making a contribution to discussion of the morality of war because of the authors’ individual histories. Haldeman and Drake wrote classics because they had something profound to say based on their own personal experience.

  Both authors’ works sang to me but Drake’s in particular had a personal resonance. To explain why, I have to digress a little.

  My father was called up by The Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry in 1939. A lorry came around to his house to pick him up. He remembered his mother leaning out of the top window to ask how long he would be away.

  “Just for the duration of the emergency,” was the answer.

  My father fought in Tunisia as a platoon sergeant and his battalion was decimated. They formed the Cornish Company in a sibling regiment, the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry who were then slaughtered twice in the hell of Anzio. They gave my father the Military Medal for leading the survivors of his company out of a trap when all the officers had danced the “Spandau Ballet.” If you don’t know what that means then Google “Hitler’s buzz saw.”

  He was blown up in the end during the breakout by a mortar shell that might have been German, American or even British, it hardly mattered, and lay all night on a stretcher outside the hospital tent while it was being shelled.

  He never talked about it, never wore his medals—his generation never did. Nobody talked about post-traumatic stress disorder. He was just demobbed after Japan surrendered, while training for Operation Olympic, married my mum and got on with it. My father had all sorts of problems which I never understood until I read Hammer’s Slammers and a light came on.

  David Drake’s art taught me about my father, and of course I am my father’s son. These things extend across the generations. I cannot begin explain how important that has been to me.

  Which brings me to the present and my story. I write entertainment not art, but in this case I have disregarded Sam Goldwyn’s sage advice and tried to
send a message about warfare. Actually two messages.

  The first is relatively trivial but it gives the story its title—the myth of technical advantage. A meme that won’t go away is that wars are won by better technology. If that were true Vietnam would have been a walkover for the U.S.A. In 1940 and ’41 German panzer divisions hammered British, French and Soviet armies with technically inferior tanks. They lost the war in ’43 and ’44 with superior tanks.

  The second is more subtle and concerns what modern combat does to the survivors, who are released back into society with no more fuss than if they had been on a field trip to a national park.

  The flat emotionless style I employ is the way soldiers learn to think in the combat zone. The stress is too acute and the situation too horrible to allow normal feelings. People become types, Leaders, Fighters and, of course, The Enemy. Right and wrong doesn’t even begin to come into it. It’s simply us or them.

  The combat veteran learns new and unpleasant reactions involving extreme violence to situations that a civilian would not think about twice. You can read of a tank veteran in The Filthy Fifth (the 5th Royal Tank Regiment) who shot up a road sign in Germany simply because it had been unbolted and leaned against its pole—they found the mutilated corpse of a teenaged Hitler Youth behind it.

  Would the British tankers have cared if they had just killed a pregnant woman hiding in terror from the tank? Did they care that they had just killed a boy? At the time probably not, the dead boy still clutched a panzerfaust—literally a tank-fist—a lethal weapon that could burn through Allied armour like a blowtorch on ice cream to incinerate the whole crew.

  But how did they feel about it ten years later?

  Well, I’m not David Drake and I lack his skills. But I write this watching a bugler play the Last Post over the poppies in the grounds of the Bloody Tower. It is the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year twenty-fourteen.