by Leo Champion
Thoughts kept circling back. I murdered them.
* * *
Mandvi dug. He worked at digging, because the other alternative would be to try to console Janja; he’d given that a shot without success and didn’t feel like doing it again. The aristocratic former-officer was buried in his own mind and fuck that.
Ranjit Mandvi had been an untouchable in Delhi, digging sewers and shoveling shit. He knew his way around a pick and a shovel, Mandvi did.
So he worked. He picked at the clay that lay not far below the easy dirt of the hard land, picked at it until he could shovel it away and pick some more.
The massive Dashratha was doing more, Hill occasionally switching with Mandvi to keep guard of the situation. From the dead Swede’s packs they’d found pens and notepaper, on which they’d marked: POISONED – AVOID for the benefit of anyone still remaining east of them who might show up.
They’d stuck it in the trough, because there’d been no adhesives.
“Mandvi. The half-hour. Your turn to watch, I’ll dig,” said Hill.
Mandvi put the pick down; it would be nice to take a break. The big Dashratha didn’t seem to need any of that – he’d been working consistently like a jackhammer for the last few hours, picking and shoveling, picking and shoveling, sipping water from time to time but never taking a real break.
Strong man. Mandvi respected that, to an extent. Physical qualities were what you were born with; Mandvi respected the qualities you gained for yourself more.
Anyway, Mandvi put down the shovel and picked up his M-25. Gave it a once-over to make sure no grit or dirt had gotten into the mechanism; if he was going to need that thing he was going to need it fast, most likely.
He accepted the eyeglass from Hill. It was a short telescope on a leather sling, that the former sergeant had taken from the wounded body of a secessionist officer on New Virginia. The secessionist had probably survived that war; that had been a civilized war.
Eaties versus humans was probably not going to be that civilized. Nor against Euros, not if every European was the diehard fanatic Svetson had been.
But Mandvi put the eyeglass on its sling around his neck, slung his rifle over his shoulder and got ready to look around. He raised the eyeglass, started to scan around a three-sixty degree perimiter – and nothing.
Chom chom chom came the sound of Hill’s pick.
Scrape scrape scrape went Dashratha’s shovel as they excavated a six-foot grave for the dead Black Gangers.
Mandvi lowered the eyeglass and kept watch.
Presently, movement to the east drew his attention. He raised the eyeglass to check it out. Someone coming down the hill about a mile away.
“Someone’s coming!”
“Tell us about them, Mandvi,” ordered Hill. “Numbers, activity…”
“Place,” Mandvi continued. A reporting exercise from Chauncy. “Time is right now and Gear is unknown. Numbers, about thirty of them. Activity, they’re coming toward us, and Place is the hill to our east-southeast.”
“Got it. Give me that scope, Mandvi.”
Mandvi handed it over then went over to the lance-corporal.
“Janja! Snap the fuck out of it, we’ve got company coming!”
Janja grabbed his gun and raised it to his shoulder, pointed it northeast.
“Where? I’ll take them! I’ll mess them up.”
“Not that kind of a company, Janja. Calm down. You didn’t kill those people.”
“I murdered them,” said Janja. “I thought I was protecting them. I murdered their asses.”
“Snap the fuck out of it, Janja!” Mandvi snarled.
For a moment the untouchable considered slapping the kshatriya across the face, but he second-guessed that quickly. Overcoming cultural boundaries only went so far, so fast.
“Is there someone for me to kill?” Janja asked. He seemed to perk up. “Because I’ll fight! Damn it, I’ll fight!”
“Stand down, damn you. Stand down and get ready to greet what look like friends.”
* * *
It was Janja, Mullins saw. Janja, Mandvi, Dashratha, Hill and a whole pile of corpses.
“The hell happened here?” Newbauer demanded.
“Sir, they were poisoned.” Hill gestured at the dead nomads and their zaks. “There was a Frog bastard – a Swede bastard, he claimed – who said the well was fine.”
“The well’s bad?” WO1 Kennedy complained.
“The well was so fine he killed himself trying to get the rest of us,” Hill growled. “There were ten more Black Ganger corpses before we buried their asses. Give us a little help and we’ll bury the rest.”
“The well’s bad,” Newbauer repeated.
“Sir, yes sir.”
Newbauer went to the red-shirted corpse of the MP who’d been guarding the men.
“So how do we drink? Doctor, you know how to purify this shit?”
“Not without further information, Lieutenant-colonel.”
“Hydrogen cyanide in DMSO,” Mandvi reported. He held up a yellow packet with a skull-and-crossbones on it.
“Forget it,” Cramer said. “Don’t even wash your hands in that stuff, it’s touch sensitive. Don’t drink it, don’t touch it, you’ll absorb it through your skin. This well is off limits.”
“No showers?” Mondragon asked caustically.
“Not funny, Mondragon,” Lennon growled.
“No showers,” said Cramer, not getting the joke if there had been any. “No washing your hands. Do not touch that water, if there’s what this man says is in it.”
Cramer inspected the packet Mandvi handed her. She slowly exhaled.
“And it got all of these men?”
“Plus ten more already buried, Doctor,” said Hill.
“I killed them,” said Janja.
“They’re dead. We have water,” said Newbauer. “Onward march to Diamond North, soldiers!”
“We’re due for a break, Lieutenant-Colonel. It may as well be here,” said Cramer.
“Very well. Sit down and don’t touch that god damned water!” Newbauer barked.
The Black Gangers sank down. Mullins went over to Janja, who was clearly shaken.
“Dude, what the hell happened here?”
Janja told him. At the end of it, Mullins pulled out a cigarette – his fifth-last – and offered it to the lance-corporal.
“Don’t smoke. Thank you.”
“Smoke with me. Please.” He’d heard the stuff could calm you down.
He took a drag then handed it to Janja. Almost reflexively, the former lieutenant took it and smoked from it.
“Not your fault, dude.” Mullins briefly considered putting an arm around his friend and then decided fuck it and did so.
“Not your fault at all. You were being honorable. You didn’t know it was that bastard trying to get you all.”
“He was only doing what he saw as his duty for his country,” said Janja.
“He was a shitkicking asshole,” said Dashratha. “Fuck his ass, Lieutenant. Sorry, Lance-Corporal. Sir. Sujit.”
“Bury the Qings, but leave that one for the vultures,” said Hill.
“Don’t think there are many vultures out here, Hill,” said Lennon, coming up with Reuter. “Sujit, you good?”
“Killed a bunch of people. Fuck me.”
“Killed them by accident,” Mullins said.
“Just who killed who here?” Cramer asked.
“Janja here seems to think he murdered his Black Gang by letting them drink first,” said Mullins. “When the well was poisoned.”
“Very well. Private – Lance-Corporal – Janja, I’m more than just a doctor. I have my degree in psychiatry,” said Cramer.
“You’re a head doctor, ma’am?” Hill asked.
“I’m a neuropsychiatrist with a secondary MD, Corporal. Yes. And I’d like to talk with your friend for a bit, if you guys don’t mind. If you don’t mind, Lance-Corporal.”
“You’re the closest thing we have to a ch
aplain, aren’t you, ma’am?” Hill asked.
Cramer nodded. “Probably.”
Janja nodded dumbly. Mullins got up, as did the rest, to back off and let the doctor talk to him.
“Think he’s alright?” Mullins asked Hill.
“Fuckin’ hope so. Poor bastard’s been curled around himself nodding his head all morning. He needs to snap the fuck out of it or we’re all dead.”
“You do not walk away from my sworn leader,” Dashratha growled.
“We weren’t going to, although I’d have started beating him if his ass wasn’t in gear by sundown,” said Hill.
“Sundown. That’s your plan?” Lennon asked.
“Yeah, walk when it’s cool and sleep when it’s not. Back to the fortress.”
“Has it crossed anyone’s mind that the enemy could have taken an interest in Hubris?” asked Reuter.
“It’s a long walk away. By the time we make it, either it’ll have been overrun or it’s safe,” said Hill.
“It’s what the colonel says to aim at,” Theron said with a glance at Newbauer.
Newbauer cracked the whip he’d taken from the corpse of Sergeant Greene.
“All right, you bastards!” He snapped the whip in the air. “We don’t have all day – to move! To bury those bodies and get moving! Gangers, get to your jobs digging! We want a trench, people! A trench! A trench six feet deep and a grave for the MP sergeant here!”
“Better them than us,” Reuter muttered to Mullins as the Black Gangers went to work digging the mass grave.
Mullins glanced over at Janja, who was talking with the doctor. The chopper pilots were standing sentinel.
Another cigarette? he thought.
Maybe when they reached the next waypoint. Wasn’t Corporal Ciampa meant to be around there, although he doubted Ciampa would have stayed put. The next well, anyway. Hopefully the good doctor Cramer would know how to tell if the well was poisoned, anyway.
Another alternative – one Newbauer would be fine with, but that Mullins as an individual of good conscience wasn’t – suggested itself. Have a Black Ganger drink and wait ten minutes.
No and no. He doubted he’d even allow the lieutenant-colonel to do that, if it came down.
They were low on water, and running lower. If every well was poisoned, how would they ever make their way back to Hubris?
The nomads aren’t the only things that can kill you out here, Mullins realized.
Shit.
Chapter Fourteen
Guarded by fire-teams of Legion troops, the combat engineers stuck posts and strung razor wire outside the fort. They carried M-31s and heavier weapons and were armed well enough to protect themselves from an incursion by the circling nomads, who seemed to be waiting for something.
But they stayed a mile or more, out of reach of most of the fort’s weapons and not concentrating into big-enough clusters to be worth hitting with the 81mm mortars. Ortega had said ammo for those things was limited anyway, and should be saved for an emergency.
Croft stood on the gate parapet watching Dunwell’s engineers do their work.
“Sir,” said Williams, coming up.
“What’s up, jefe?”
Williams offered a grey plastic megaphone.
“Found this in the boxes. In case they want to talk to us again.”
“I hope not. How are we on food?”
“Three thousand MREs, sir. Half a container full of them. And you know we’re good on water.”
Because the fort had literally been built on top of a well. Except for the lack of solars. Those had been scheduled to be installed, but Bravo Company’s arrival and the oncoming wells had forestalled them. You could pump the water out with manpower, and the Black Gangers meant they had that.
“Sir, Lieutenant,” said MacGallagher.
“MacGallagher,” said Croft. “Please tell me you’ve tried and we’ve gotten through to Vazhao or somewhere.”
“Fifty percent, Lieutenant. I’ve tried, we’ve tried every angle we have. The jamming is too strong. The Euros know what they’re doing.”
“Is there anything we can do?”
“Exfiltrate a party to blow their nearest jammers?” MacGallagher suggested.
Croft looked at Williams, who shook his head.
“Anything realistic?”
“Hope, sir. Hope to God and remember our ancestors.”
Croft remembered his father, who had fought at the legendary siege of Godfrey’s Landing on New Virginia during the Insurrection. But Godfrey’s Landing had been a city and Hubris was a firebase without artillery, a meaningless stockade in the middle of desert nowhere. Godfrey’s Landing had meant something, might have decided the Insurrection. This wouldn’t mean a damn thing.
He wondered if his father had thought that of Godfrey’s Landing. Had it seemed insignificant at the time, the siege that might have decided the Insurrection?
His father had done his best.
He, James Croft IV, would betray his ancestors if he did anything less than his best.
To defend Fort Kandin-dak, Hubris, for as long as he could with everything he had.
“We hold,” Croft said. “Until we die.”
* * *
Through the night, Mullins marched. It had been decided to walk at night and sleep during the day; low on water, every drop of perspiration begrudged, the men marched through the desert toward Diamond North.
With four trailers’ worth of food and water, the Black Gangers were straining. Doctor Cramer was keeping a close eye on them, but with Newbauer’s relentless push forward there seemed only so much she could do.
Mullins had trained for this, he and the other nine men of the Legion proper with the party. Route marches were no big deal; they carried heavier loads on the practice marches, although admittedly on training marches you never had to keep an eye out for nomad snipers like the ones who’d put a hole into Hill and Janja’s water cart.
Dinqing’s three moons shone down on them as they marched, east toward Diamond North.
And Hubris, and safety.
* * *
Dmitri Bogdanov had been slacking off on his walking, with his friend Jimmy Bellis. While Kaggs and his lieutenant the crazy Longneck Simon led the way, Bellis and Bogdanov had been lulling back toward the rear, waiting for their chance to drop out of the march and escape.
So far it hadn’t looked particularly good. A couple of the diehards – crazy motherfuckers with nothing to lose and everything to gain by going bandit renegade – had, armed, tagged along at the rear.
One of the armed men, the ones who had taken M-25s off the guards, was tailing the group, the gun slung from his shoulder. Was it just Bogdanov’s imagination, when he turned around to check on that guy, or was the man eyeing him?
But now someone from the front called, and the guy at the rear with the M-25 answered. As the column shuffled along, that guy hustled toward the front.
Bogdanov looked at Bellis, who nodded. Now!
They turned and ran in the opposite direction, sandy ground crunching under their boots. Behind them was a cry:
“Stop!”
“Where the hell are you going?”
Bogdanov considered shouting something back, but no. That would take breath away from him. They had to make distance, and fast. Not much of a head start.
“Kimmy, Jack!” came Longneck Simon’s voice. “Stop them!”
Two men, one of them holding a pistol high, pursued.
Bogdanov’s fists clenched around the haft of his pick. He’d fight if he had to. He wanted no part of that maniac Kaggs’ schemes. Lost in the desert alone would be better, and in a best-case he and Bellis could link up with someone. For now the priority was to simply get away.
A shot rang out, a bullet kicking up dirt not far from Bogdanov’s pounding boots. Adrenaline kept him going, up a low hill. A glance back showed the two pursuers within a hundred yards and gaining. Only one of them seemed to have a gun, the other had a pick. A sharpened one,
no doubt, like Bogdanov’s was.
Up the crest of the hill, moonlight showing the way. Bellis was running alongside him as they ran, down the hill. The ground around them was rocky and low hills.
Why do they care if a couple of guys desert?, Bogdanov thought frustratedly. It was a desperate move anyway; two men, functionally unarmed, alone amidst hostile wilderness. The only real plan he had was to bolt west, run west, haul ass and hope to find some kind of water or food. Maybe there was another, legitimate group out that way they could link up with; as likely they’d have to hike several hundred miles west to one of the passes, scavenging for food along the way if it was even possible. They were probably dead anyway.
Better dead than murdering bandits. Bogdanov had heard some of Kaggs and his cronies’ talk about torture. Killing was bad enough, torture was worse, and even if Kaggs’ insane scheme didn’t get everyone involved killed by the nomads, there’d be a pursuit eventually.
There was a pursuit now, Bogdanov thought as he ran, down the slope with Bellis. The two men chasing them appeared over the crest, running. It was a matter of who had more stamina, and you could say one thing for being in the Black Gangs; it made you fit. The rations tasted like shit but they were nutritious enough, and Bogdanov was fairly sure he had more stamina than he’d had as a proper soldier of the Legion, simply due to being worked harder on a more regular basis.
“This way,” Bellis gestured toward a rock pile to their left.
Bogdanov gave a cursory nod. Well aware that their pursuers were gaining. If it came down to a fight… maybe they’d have to jump the guys.
He leapt up onto a small boulder, rock spires around them. A glance back showed that after almost a mile of running, the pursuers were gaining, within a hundred yards now.
“Jump them?” Bellis suggested.
There was room to hide amidst the boulders. They weren’t going to win a chase. In enclosed ground they’d at least have a fighting chance; closed ground would reduce the effectiveness of that guy’s pistol.
Bogdanov, breathing hard, threw himself against a boulder and waited.
“Come out, you fuckers!” one of the pursuers shouted. “Come out and we’ll make it nice and quick!”