The Road to Damascus (bolo)

by John Ringo

  The incandescent flash of impact leaps up from the horizon line. Smoke and flame billow up, filling the sky with a satisfactory display of dissociated molecules. I have destroyed another Hellbore. I do not know how many mobile Hellbores the enemy still has, but as of now, they possess five fewer than they did at dawn. I have seen six in the past hour, alone. I do not think it likely that the two guns I destroyed in the second ambush were part of the group of six that attacked me during the first ambush. They could not have maneuvered their way through difficult terrain in that short a span of time. I destroyed three of the original six, leaving another three unaccounted for, which is a disquieting realization. So is the suspicion that the third canyon entrance, north of Menassa, probably had another two guns at a bare minimum lying in wait, had I chosen that route.

  As bad as this is, my next realization is far worse. The rebel commander correctly surmised my likeliest choices each step of the way and placed his strongest concentration of firepower in the canyon I chose to enter. I have been complacent. The time for complacency is over. I cannot operate in a lazy fashion, making decisions based on my physical limitations and repair woes, rather than the exigencies of battle. The enemy is too canny to risk that error again.

  I begin to revise my estimation of Commodore Oroton. He does not think like a Bolo technician. He thinks like a Bolo. I find that unsettling to the point of calling it fear. I know my own limitations, operating without a commander.

  So does my enemy.

  This is not a good state of affairs.

  I send a VSR to Sar Gremian, giving him the location of the wreckage and a terse update on the enemy’s firepower, then enumerate my repair needs. He is not amused by the stunning amount of damage that must be repaired. I am not amused by his comment.

  “This planet paid a hell of a price to keep that treaty in force, so we could hang onto you. It would’ve been nice if the Concordiat had sent us an intelligent machine. Get your sorry, whining ass back to your depot. And try to avoid being seen!”

  He ends transmission. To avoid being seen, I will have to add nearly thirty extra kilometers to the journey home, since I must swing wide around the eastern end of Madison, to approach my depot from the east, rather than proceeding directly from my current position north of the capital. It will take the better part of four hours, at a bare minimum.

  As I set out, I pick up a broad-band message from Madison, on the civil emergency frequency that overrides all civilian broadcasting. The announcement is short, but its impact will be felt for a very long time, indeed.

  “Granger terrorists struck a savage blow to civilians and police authorities in Cimmero Canyon, today, inflicting massive damage and killing an unknown number of innocents. The entire city of Menassa has lost electrical power after the destruction of the Cimmero power-generating plant. Identifying and capturing terrorist ringleaders and their operatives has become POPPA’s top and sole priority. The government will divert every resource at its command to the task of rooting out and destroying all vestiges of rebellion against legitimate authority. Acts of terrorism will be answered with the greatest possible force.

  “To that end and by order of our new president, Vittori Santorini, the right of habeas corpus is hereby suspended to allow arrest and detainment of terrorism suspects. Public gatherings of more than ten individuals must be approved in advance by POPPA Squadron district commanders. All elections are cancelled, to allow the current government to deal with this serious emergency. No visas for off-world travel will be granted without prior, written approval of the POPPA Squadron commander assigned to the applicant’s home district. Civil rights will not be restored until all manifestations of rebellion are completely eliminated.

  “Law-abiding citizens are urged to report any suspicious behavior to the nearest POPPA Squadron command post. Rewards will be given for information leading to the arrest of known or suspected terrorists. A mandatory curfew of eight P.M. will remain in place for all civilians except emergency crews until further notice. The public will be notified of additional restrictions as they become necessary.”

  Night is falling as I set out for home.

  I do not believe that tomorrow’s dawn will be anything but worse.

  IV

  Yalena knew at first glance that he was a soldier. Spacers moved differently and even the toughest, most jaded old dockhand or jump jockey didn’t have eyes like that. Yalena recognized those eyes, even though the face and the man behind it were total strangers. They were her father’s eyes.

  And hers.

  He paused on his way into the bar, gaze snapping around like gun barrels on a swivel mount to stare right at her. Not at her long, lean shape, draped negligently against the bar, sheathed in a dress her father would’ve consigned to the incinerator, if he’d seen her wearing it. He wasn’t staring at the wisp of cloth or the shape under it. He was staring at her face. For a long moment, she actually thought he’d recognized the battle shadows in her own eyes, but that wasn’t it, either, because he frowned, as though trying to place an old acquaintance from memory.

  “Am I supposed to know you?” he asked, moving toward her. It didn’t sound like a pickup line. He looked upset.

  “I don’t think so. I’ve never seen you.”

  The frown deepened. “That’s the wrong comeback, isn’t it?”

  For some reason, heat scalded Yalena’s cheeks. What she’d heard all too often from others, in smarmy phrases and lurid glances that usually rolled off her back with a mere shrug, stung her to the quick, hearing them from this man. “I’m a hostess, mister,” she bit out, “not a whore.”

  His eyes widened. Then he flushed. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he apologized, sounding like he really meant it.

  Yalena held his gaze for a long moment, then relaxed. “No offense taken. It’s an honest mistake, around here.”

  The frown returned. “Then why — ?”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, but that’s my business, not yours.”

  He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me,” he muttered. “I’m not usually so ill-mannered. But there’s something about you, I can’t quite put my finger on it. You look like someone I used to know, a long time ago…”

  His voice trailed off. Yalena drew her own conclusions. “Before battle?” she suggested softly.

  His eyes shot wide again. “Good God. I’m not in uniform. How did you know?”

  “Your eyes,” she said gently. “It always shows.”

  He blinked. “Yes. But how did you — sorry. None of my affair.”

  Perhaps it was only a measure of her own loneliness that she wanted to sit in some private little alcove somewhere and just talk to him. The feeling unsettled her.

  He changed the subject, evidently determined to take them onto less emotionally charged ground. “So you’re a hostess, are you? How does the system work, here?” he asked, glancing at the tables, most of which were occupied by mismatched couples.

  Yalena smiled. “You pick a hostess and a table. I persuade you to buy drinks, maybe food. I punch in the orders for you.”

  “Using a code that gives you part of the outrageous sum charged?”

  Her smile became a grin. “You got it.”

  He surprised her with a chuckle. “All right. Lead on, my lady fair.” He gestured at the wide selection of empty tables.

  She straightened up from the bar and led the way toward a secluded spot well away from the other occupied tables, not to encourage the kind of physical contact that often resulted in bigger tips, as well as higher bar tabs, but to carve out an isolated space where they could actually talk without spoiling the ambience for other, more involved patrons and hostesses. She could feel his gaze on her back. She didn’t need to glance back to confirm that he was watching the sway of her hips. Any movement she made in the ridiculous spike-heeled shoes she’d slipped on for the evening set the dress to swaying and jiggling around her body. Her father would probably have a cor
onary if he ever discovered it hidden in the back of her closet.

  When she paused at the table of her choice, turning to meet his stare with an amused glance, she read more questions in his eyes. He gestured her into the booth, then sat down on the seat opposite the table, rather than beside her. That, alone, differentiated him from ninety-nine percent of the customers in this dockside dive. He glanced briefly at the posted menu.

  “Is it cheaper if I order it, myself?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Substantially?”

  She grinned. “Astronomically.”

  “How badly do you need money?”

  She blinked. Then said gently, “Not that badly.”

  One brow quirked, but he said nothing. He punched in the order, himself, a fiscal decision that suggested a combat veteran on his way to somewhere, with not a whole lot of money in his pension envelope. The little light on the order box flashed when his drink tray was ready. Yalena fetched it smartly from the bar, sliding the drinks across to him as she sat down again. He slid one of them — a light wine, rather than one of the heavier, harder-hitting liquors — across the table to her.

  “Thanks.” She smiled, sipping slowly.

  He sampled his beer, shrugged, and said, “What’s your name?”

  “Yalena.”

  “Pretty name. What’s the rest of it?”

  She hesitated. As a rule, girls did not give their last names. It was safer that way. He hadn’t given her his name, yet, either. So why did she find herself wanting to answer him truthfully?

  “Khrustinova,” she said quietly. “Yalena Khrustinova.”

  He sat up straighter, all trace of indolence falling away. “There was a Bolo commander by that name, out this way.”

  “Oh, hell!” she swore, kicking herself squarely in the metaphorical backside. “You’re from Jefferson, aren’t you?”

  “You bet I am, honey. And pissed all to pieces, because I can’t get home. The embassy,” he said with an ugly edge in his voice, “doesn’t accept appointments except on the fifth Thursday of the month on alternate election cycles.”

  “They are a lot of stinkers,” Yalena agreed.

  “Stinkers?” He snorted, torn between wrath and amusement.

  She raked him with a shrewd glance. “How long did it take for them to figure out you’re a combat vet? I’ll bet your level of service sent your request straight into the toilet, didn’t it? Armed and dangerous combat veterans are the last thing POPPA wants around.”

  “Your father doesn’t like soldiers?” The edge in his voice suggested what must’ve been an incendiary conversation with the embassy’s automated answering tree, which had been programmed deliberately to shunt any undesirable questioners into phone-tree oblivion, until they simply gave up and went away. But the comment, itself, suggested something else entirely.

  She studied him with a sharp stare. “You have been gone a while, haven’t you?”

  The battle shadows in his eyes blazed to hellish life, again. “Honey, you don’t know the half of it.”

  “No,” she said softly. “I don’t. POPPA — P.O.P.P.A. — is the Populist Order for Promoting Public Accord. And my Papa — my father — hates it as much as I do.”

  “Is your father Simon Khrustinov, then?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What are you doing here? Going to college on Vishnu, I suppose?”

  “What else?” she said, arching her brow and forcing her voice to remain casual. She did not want to tread too heavily across this particular patch of dangerous ground, which was too close to her real reason for being in this port-side dive.

  He leaned forward abruptly and reached across to grasp her chin. She jumped with shock as he turned her face toward the admittedly dismal little light recessed above the table. “Yes,” he said softly, to himself. “That’s why, by God…”

  “That’s why what?” she hissed, pulling sharply away and freezing him with a stare full of dangerous, glittering ice.

  “She’s your mother,” he whispered, as though he hadn’t heard a word. “Your nose, your cheeks, even your eyes…”

  “What about my mother?” The vicious edge in her voice got through, this time. He stared at her for a long, disconcerted moment. Then sat back. “Your mother’s Kafari Camar, isn’t she? Kafari Khrustinova, I mean. She’s my cousin.”

  “Your cousin?” Yalena gaped. “Who are you?”

  “Estevao Soteris. I enlisted the day President Lendan died.” He was still staring at her. “I haven’t seen her, since then. How is — ?” He broke off at the look on her face. “Oh, God,” he whispered, voice choked down to an agonized whisper. “What happened?”

  Hot tears came, catching her by surprise. Yalena hadn’t wept for her mother in four years. Had convinced herself that there were no more tears left to shed. “They shot her.”

  “Shot her?” His voice half strangled itself on the word. “My God! Who shot her? A mugger?”

  “No.” The word fell like an axe blow between them. “The POPPA Squads. At the spaceport. Right after she smuggled me out.”

  The muscles in his jaw turned to steel. Flintsteel. Death blazed in his eyes.

  “Where’s your father?” he asked harshly.

  “Here. In our apartment, I mean.”

  “Here? On Vishnu? What the hell is going on, back home?”

  She told him. The whole hideous, wicked little story. He interrupted again and again, asking for clarifications, trying to draw solid information from every nuance of her voice, her body language, her descriptions. She’d never run across anyone who listened that hard or drew that much information from a not-very-coherent conversation. When she’d finished delivering her very first situation report — because that was exactly what it felt like, being cross-examined by this cold-eyed soldier — he sat staring at the empty beer mug in his hand for long, dangerous minutes.

  When he finally looked up again, meeting her gaze, he said, “How many spacers come through this place, bringing news from Jefferson?”

  “A few. There are five, no, six ships still making the run. There aren’t many captains who bother with the route, these days. POPPA,” she said bitterly, “doesn’t have much to export except lies and refugees. They’re shipping out lies by the freighter-load, but the number of people getting out is down to a trickle. And they’ve made such a shambles of Jefferson’s economy, there’s no money to import much of anything, either. Ordinary people can’t afford anything made off-world. Even POPPA’s elite has started cutting back on imported luxuries.”

  She slugged back most of the wine in her glass, an act of desecration against the vintage, but the shock of alcohol against the back of her throat steadied her. “We don’t know everything happening, back home, but what we do know scares us to death. We — other Granger students, I mean — started working the port town bars, trying to get information. We’ve even talked about going home and trying to do something about it.” She shredded a napkin from the holder. “But there aren’t enough of us to do much and what chance does anyone have, against a Bolo?”

  He was frowning at her, trying to come up with an answer, when her wrist-comm beeped. She actually jumped with shock. “That’s the signal I’ve been waiting for,” she said, a trifle breathless as her nerves twitched. “There’s a freighter in dock, from Jefferson. We came down to meet it. To meet the crew, I mean. They’ve been unloading cargo for a couple of hours. As soon as they’ve finished, they’ll hit the bars and restaurants for a night of shore leave. We have an advance spotter in place at the terminal, to let us know when the crew disembarks. That signal was the heads up that they’re about to leave.”

  “How many of you are out here, tonight?”

  “Twenty-three. We’ve staked out the closest port-side bars and gambling joints, the likeliest restaurants. Freighter crews usually don’t travel far, the first night of a shore leave. And this freighter has a big crew, according to the portmaster’s records.”

  “The portmaster?
Don’t tell me you kids are hacking into secure databases?”

  “We are not kids,” Yalena bit out.

  He reached across again, brushed her cheek with a gentle fingertip. “Oh, yes, little cousin, you most assuredly are. A girl your age shouldn’t have that kind of shadows in her eyes. They’ll pay for that. Trust me, for that much, at least. They will pay. And I’m not the only Jeffersonian combat veteran who came home on that tramp freighter. There’s a whole group of us. We’ve ridden military convoys and freighters halfway across the Sector, trying to get here.”

  That startled her. She hadn’t considered such a possibility. “How many of you came in?”

  He dropped his fingertips from her face. “Thirty-four, on my freighter. And not one of us,” he added with a growl, “could persuade the Jeffersonian embassy to honor our travel visas.”

  “Are you armed? she asked softly.

  He studied her for a moment. “Yes,” he said at length. “Not with Concordiat military issue, mind. But traveling armed has become something of a habit, with us.”

  “What branch of the service did you join?”

  “Infantry.” The harsh tone grated along her nerves.

  “That must have been… nightmarish.” She was thinking of the Bolo.

  “Worse.” The shadows in his eyes spread, driving furrows through his face. His fingers tightened on the empty beer mug. “We were a mixed lot, on the freighter,” he added, voice abrupt. “Infantry, Marines, Air-Mobile Cav, Navy. There’s another ship coming in a couple of days from now, with more of us. The ship I came on didn’t have enough berths for everyone. When the second freighter comes in, there’ll be another sixty.”

  “That’s nearly a hundred combat veterans,” Yalena mused, entertaining brief fantasies of a strike force blowing down Vittori Santorini’s palatial gates and turning him into red paste on his front lawn. “When do they arrive?”