In the Valley

by Jason Lambright

  When the ground-cars laagered up in the rocky clearing in Qalat, Birthday was not so secretly relieved that he was not going forward with the assault force; he thought that would have been too much. He thought he would have broken like a glass dropped on Plascrete if he had to go up on foot with the infantry.

  Birthday wasn’t a coward. He was just an ordinary man reacting to extraordinary circumstances that his career so far had done a poor job of training him for. He started to drift off in thought when Crest’s gun fired—the sharp noise surprised him half out of his skin.

  He jerked so hard when he heard the bum bum bum of the automatic grenade launcher that he thought for a second he had dislocated his shoulders. His heart rate shot through the roof; his skin was clammy and cold.

  “What the hell was that, Al-Asad?” He almost screamed out the words. Al-Asad, on the gun, told him that Crest had fired at some bad guys on the western ridge. Now that Birthday knew what was going on, it was small consolation. If bad guys were on the ridge, then bad guys were in sight of him.

  He hung his head in misery and recited psalms with even more fervor.

  When Third Battalion dismounted and men began to disappear into the grove on the road to Kanaghat, Birthday felt abandoned. When, fifteen minutes later, the first gunshots rang out from the valley ahead, Birthday felt fear’s greasy hand upon him again. An hour and a half later, when the garbled halo messages came crackling from his headset, he prayed that his vehicle would not be called forward into battle.

  His hopes were dashed when Crusty said, “Right on, brother! Let’s move!” He felt betrayed. He had no choice but to throttle up and follow the assholes, lest they leave him and his vehicle crew behind to fend for themselves.

  The road from Qalat to Kanaghat was twice as bad as the road from Hesar. Birthday wouldn’t have believed it was possible, but it was so. His lack of confidence caused him to lose control of his vehicle. The ground-car rested at a precarious angle half on the river’s bank and half in the river itself.

  He felt terrible that he had wrecked and caused everyone to have to delay and help fish him out of the creek. When Crusty forced him out of the driver’s position and took over his ground-car, he was humiliated.

  Birthday thought it was the worst day he had ever had. He knew it was his worst day when the three ground-cars rode up onto the hot battlefield, with lots of lead going back and forth between the combatants. This was exactly the scenario he had feared. When the antiarmor rocket landed in the field next to his vehicle, he felt like peeing his pants. Whether he wanted to or not, Birthday was engaged in battle.

  Later, when their part in the shooting was over and they had parked the ground-cars, he had gotten out of the accursed metal-and-Plastlar thing with shaking knees. There was still some sporadic firing going on, but it was up on the hill, away from where the vehicles had made a parking lot.

  Just parking the ground-cars had been a bad experience; they created a laager via the field-expedient method of driving through a couple of rock walls. Their parking job was accompanied by the sound of tumbling boulders and grinding metal.

  He took a deep breath and tried to relax. Crusty was nearby, his arms on the twisted fender of a ground-car. He was smoking a near-cig.

  Birthday had never in his life even considered smoking, not even the genetically engineered, noncarcinogenic variety of tobacco that made up near-cigs (let alone the practically illegal “straight” cigs that were bound to kill the user). But damn, for some reason he wanted one now, in the worst of ways.

  “Hey, Crusty,” Birthday called out to the leather-faced sergeant.

  Crusty looked over. “Whatdya want, Birthday?” Crusty looked back toward the hill, where the cheery pops were still sounding off and on.

  “Hey, Crusty, let me bum one of those off of you.”

  Crusty looked back over at him like he was a two-headed calf. “You want a smoke? Get the fuck outta here.” He reached into his sleeve pocket, pulled out a smoke, and passed it to Birthday. “I suppose you want a light, too, asshole.”

  Birthday looked at him and squinted. “As a matter of fact, you prick, I do.”

  Crusty laughed and held out his lighter to Birthday. Birthday leaned over, drew in, and coughed something fierce.

  He knew it was a cliché, guys having their first real smoke on the battlefield. Birthday was a well-read fellow, and he had read lots of war fiction. Lots of those cheesy books talked about just such a scene as he was in. He thought, with sudden insight, that just because something was a cliché, that didn’t mean it wasn’t true.

  That held especially true for Birthday. He had stumbled through a series of clichés that day. He had been the sensitive, novice warrior riding to battle, praying for his life. And now this—he was having his first smoke on the field of battle. All true and all clichés.

  Finally the battle, like all battles, ran its course. The team members who had taken place in the assault trudged back to the trucks, looking weary as hell. Everyone mounted up and got ready to leave. Birthday was glad as hell to be leaving that place. So was everyone else.

  Birthday had lived through the battle. Many of his fears were realized, but not the ultimate one, the loss of his life. He had survived.

  The Baradna Valley was never the same for him again. The next night, as the sun sneaked behind the mountains, the place took on a menace it hadn’t had before. That night, he dreamed terrible, restless dreams. Because of the cold, he had pulled out a sleeping bag and had zipped himself up in it.

  Birthday liked to sleep on his belly. That night, the night Lyek died, was no different.

  Birthday awoke to the sound of gunfire. He jumped up immediately, but he was tangled in his sleeping bag! He dug for bag’s the zipper; he couldn’t find it. It was a nightmare he had woken from, and it was a nightmare he was still in. Everything seemed to go in slow motion.

  There was the chatter of rifle and machine-gun fire, the double boom of an antiarmor rocket. All the while, he struggled with his sleeping bag, looking for a way out. He crashed over something, heard a man curse. Still he couldn’t locate his zipper.

  He cried out, “Help me out of here, guys!” Instead of a helping hand, however, he heard laughter. Lots of it. He was furious. He had finally found the zipper. He tore it downward violently and searched for his battle rifle. All the while, guys were cracking up.

  “You motherfuckers are assholes!” he screamed. He was in a towering rage. “I could’a fuckin’ got killed, and all you assholes can do is laugh!” Red, the mechanic, was laughing so hard he looked like he was going to die. Birthday stormed out of the tent, lest he do someone violence.

  Fuck all those smartasses, he thought. He thought about looking for his fighting position when he saw the colonel and Thompson talking and having a smoke. He listened to the gunfire and willed himself to calm. What a hell of a way to wake up, he thought.

  He looked up and cursed the stars above, cursed the day he had come to Juneau 3.

  Paul cursed as he went over his wounded ground-car, 3-4. A strange calm had descended upon Firebase Atarab, and Paul had used the opportunity to pull maintenance upon his suit and vehicle.

  His suit had some new gashes and dents on it from the beating it had taken when Paul had had to manually gun, coming out of the fight at Kanaghat. Running the diagnostics on the suit, however, had revealed there were no serious flaws in the machine.

  The same, however, could not be said of 3-4. The vehicle had taken a serious beating. There was lots of cosmetic damage. Both front fenders were smashed. A headlight was shattered. The running boards were bent beyond any usefulness, and two of the door handles had been sheared off. The list seemed endless.

  Most seriously, however, was the fact that the weapons turret on top was completely inoperative. If a vehicle couldn’t defend its riders from attacks, it was worthless. Despite his best efforts, this truck was broke.

  Paul wiped his hands on his uniform and went to tell the colonel the bad news. Th
e colonel was sitting on the ground and drinking coffee by the mechanics’ tent. He looked to be basking in the morning sun, trying to recharge his energy much as a suit would.

  Paul walked up to him. “Hey, sir, three-four can’t be fixed out here.” Paul reached for a smoke and lit up.

  The colonel, who had been looking at New Sol with his eyes closed, turned his head back to ground level, opened his eyes, and looked at Paul. “Yeah, I thought as much. Can’t be helped.”

  Paul puffed out a lazy cloud of smoke, which the breeze quickly carried away. “What do ya want to do?”

  “I haloed with Colonel Fasi about your broke truck this morning. He says the only thing the battalion is doing today is that First Company is out hunting for Shithead.” Shithead was the guy who killed Lyek, of course.

  The colonel continued, “I think we can get the truck up to Kill-a-Guy and swap it out for another. As it stands right now, 3-4 is useless, and it’s hard to tell how much longer we’re going to stay here. Colonel Fasi says we stay and fight until the dissidents ain’t a threat anymore.”

  Paul nodded. “When do ya want to leave?”

  “Oh, around 1300 local or so. We can drive from here to Kill-a-Guy in a couple of hours. We’ll drop off your ground-car in the motor pool and grab a quick shower and some hot chow. Then we’ll come back here tomorrow.”

  It sounded like a plan to Paul. The thought of a hot shower and a fresh uniform set him all a shiver. Everyone out here at the firebase was just plain filthy; they had been there for weeks, with few creature comforts.

  The two men worked out what vehicles would be going back and who would be on what ground-car. Usually, Mighty Mike worked out the logistics of the trips, but he was off with First Company looking for Shithead. Of course, everyone on the team and the attached mechanics wanted to go back in for obvious reasons, so there were some long faces when some of the guys had to stay.

  But the list was made, and the vehicles were staged. At 1300 promptly, the three-vehicle convoy rolled out. Paul, riding with the colonel in his wounded ground-car, had to stand suited up in the hatch again with his M-74. It was an improvised defense, but it was better than nothing, Paul supposed.

  As the vast marijuana fields of the Baradna Valley disappeared behind him, Paul could feel some of the tension drain away from his body. The feeling was entirely subconscious, but it was real. As the convoy turned right, or north, onto the provincial highway, Paul felt positively happy. The feeling was tempered, however, with the thought that they would be returning the next day. Still, Paul figured he’d take what he could get, standing with his shoulders projecting above the top of the ground-car.

  Riding like that, sticking out of the top of the ground-car in his suit, gave him a feeling like what he imagined the Old Earth panzer drivers must have felt, riding astride a hulking war machine. He had a heck of a view as he scanned his sector for threats.

  The colonel didn’t even pop a micro. The ride “home” was uneventful.

  When they rolled into Kill-a-Guy and dismounted, Green and Dirty, who had stayed back to render rear-area logistics support, greeted them. Paul hopped out of the top of 3-4 in his whole suit, got down, and popped out of the thing right in the gravel of the motor pool.

  Green came up to him after he had finished. Paul had the suit completely opened and was washing it out with a hose. Dirt and stink streamed out onto the ground.

  “Hey, Paul, how’d it go?”

  Paul didn’t look up as he played the water across the interior of the suit. “It was fucked up. You see my ground-car?”

  “Yeah, looks like it went through a blender.”

  Paul turned off the hose and watched water stream out of the suit. He reached for a smoke and lit up. “It did—a blender called buildings, walls, a river, and a couple of trees.”

  Green was taken aback. Paul looked him in the eye. Green must not have liked what he saw; he looked away and said, “Well, when you get straightened around, you’ll have to come over to the intel shop and debrief.”

  Paul dragged on his smoke. “Will do, Green. Give me a couple of hours to get squared away.”

  Green looked back at him, made a hands-toward-him gesture, and said, “Hey, man, take your time.”

  Paul nodded and took his rifle out of the suit’s arm stowage compartment. Cleaning the M-74 was next on Paul’s list. It was filthy from the dust.

  Finally, toward sunset, Paul had all his shit straightened out, and he had dismounted the grenade launcher from the ground-car with a little help from the Z-man, who was also busy cleaning his stuff and replenishing his medic’s supplies.

  The grenade launcher turned out to have a nasty kink in the barrel. It was shot. Another victim of the Baradna, thought Paul.

  He walked into the barracks building, his immediate chores done. He turned left in the doorway and walked down the tiled hallway. About halfway down, he turned right and unlocked his door. Paul felt like he was unlocking a museum vault; it had been so long since he had been in here, his cozy little home away from home. He haloed the light on and was greeted by the sight of his Spartan accommodations, covered lightly with dust.

  The room was just as he had left it, weeks earlier. He dropped his battle harness in the corner and placed his M-74 on the table with his helmet and mil-grade halo. Next, he stripped off his filthy clothes, nose wrinkling from the stink released when he took them off. He had been wearing the same uniform the entire time in the valley, his usual practice when in the field.

  The uniform reeked. He sat down on his bed and stripped off his socks. He threw them into the miasmic pile with his uniform. There were no underwear; he would have thrown them away if there were. He scooped up the pile of filth and stuffed it into a laundry bag.

  He grabbed the necessary supplies from his wall locker and a towel and headed, wearing flip-flops and not much else, to the shower. He walked into the shower room and was greeted by the clean smell of running water and chlorine; he drank the wonderful odor in. He put his stuff down on a little bench and turned the water on hot. He got it.

  Oh what a wonderful feeling, he thought. It seemed the water was sluicing away ten layers of crud and filth. He knew from experience that to feel really clean he would have to repeat the process at least three times before the field funk was banished for good. He shaved in the shower, watching his budding beard wash away in the circling water of the drain.

  With regret, he turned the water off and toweled himself dry. Feeling light and fresh, he went back to his room. He selected a clean uniform from his wall locker and stepped into it. What an amazing feeling he thought—he felt like a new man. Even the clean socks felt wonderful.

  He put on his pistol and hat and walked to the modest little chow hall. They were serving braised beef. It smelled heavenly to him. Even though he had washed himself and put on a fresh uniform, people were looking at him funny; maybe it was his imagination. He had no idea why. His mind turned entirely to his food. Paul gorged himself. Z and Birthday came in. They got their chow and sat down beside him. The little group feasted; it seemed the bland force food was chock-full of fresh delights. Paul couldn’t get enough.

  There was a cake on a table against the wall. Paul fell on it and vacuumed it up. He thought he had eaten half of the cake. It was an amazing experience, as far as he could tell.

  Finally sated, Paul and company rolled out of the chow hall. It was full dark. He lit up a Fortunate and didn’t let it get him down that he still had an appointment with Green in debrief. Also, he had to prepare Birthday’s inadequate ground-car to replace his beloved and heavily damaged 3-4.

  For just a moment, all was well with Paul. And then he remembered he had to return to the Baradna the following day; his mood turned sour at the thought. With a sigh, he walked up the slight hill to the TOC. He would debrief with the waiting Green.

  When he went into the intel room, he was in for a surprise. The colonel was there, speaking with Green. Paul turned and went to leave, but the colonel
called him back.

  He had been talking with Mighty Mike via halo, and Mike would be coming up to Kill-a-Guy to bring in a casualty. Green would be returning with Paul to the Baradna to take Mike’s place with First Company.

  So Paul debriefed with Green. He described the assault into Kanaghat and told Green what fun it had all been. Green duly noted Paul’s impressions and pumped him for all kinds of information, seeing as how it was his turn to land in the frying pan.

  Finally, they finished. Paul still had to get Birthday’s vehicle ready before they turned in to sleep. With an inward groan, he walked into the motor pool. Birthday and Z were nowhere to be found. Paul was not happy, not happy at all. They should have been working on the ground-car while he debriefed.

  He pounded on their doors and addressed them both in a similar manner. Z had been playing halo entertainment games, and Birthday had been sleeping. The conversation he had with them both went something like this:

  “Hey, asshole, why aren’t you out in the motor pool getting that sad sack of shit of a ground-car ready?”

  “Uh, I didn’t know we had to do that tonight.”

  “We’re leaving in the morning. Did you think the work was going to get done by itself?”

  “Uh, no. But I’m—!” Sleeping or playing games, depending on the one.

  Both Z and Birthday looked hurt at this point. Paul didn’t care about their feelings; there was a mission to perform.

  “So fucking what. You have five minutes to be out in the motor pool, with your shit squared away, or I will have your ass.”

  Neither Z-man nor Birthday would have rated Paul very high on their popularity list right then. But to their credit, they showed up in the motor pool, and the work began.

  It isn’t possible to describe the next couple of hours work from the three men’s perspective. They took all the mission equipment from 3-4 and put it on Birthday’s truck. They cleaned a new grenade launcher and loaded all of its ammunition. They checked the ground-car’s systems and repaired them where necessary. In short, they generated a mission-ready truck for the convoy back to the Baradna the next day.