The Tejano Conflict

by Steve Perry

  Wink did another system check, but that was unnecessary. He was antsy.

  He was also bored.

  Yes, the medics would probably be transporting wounded his way soon enough. Plus field medicine had continued to advance. Trauma that would have killed people even ten years ago could now often be stabilized for transport, and once he got them here, Wink and the dins could save most of them. Every conflict was different, of course, but his numbers were good: Assuming they didn’t bleed out or have irreparable CNS damage when they arrived, Wink could cut-and-paste ’em back together well enough to achieve a 93.7 percent survival rate for those not too far gone. There might be combat doctors who were better, but they would be few and far between.

  The action had just begun, and so far, nobody had been hurt bad enough to get sent here; the medics had patched what had been minor injuries and sent soldiers back to work. That probably wouldn’t last, but in a shooting war that only ran a week, and with his responsibility limited mostly to a short company of CFI troops? It might not ever heat up.

  Of course, he was overflow for the other units; if their stations got filled, he’d deal with that, but sometimes, there were a lot of shots fired but not so many people hit. Didn’t speak well for training, but it did make for a snooze at work.

  His com chirped: “Doc?”

  The sig said it was Dolan, one of the medics.

  “Go ahead.”

  “I got a man tripped a flying fryer. He’s stable, vitals are good, but his left side is cooked pretty good—arm, torso, upper thigh, and hip, 15 percent second-degree; maybe 3 percent full-thickness third; got a 5cm-diameter fourth char on the iliac crest. Medical hopper just picked him up, ETA nine minutes.”

  “Stet that, Dolan. Why so long?”

  “Weather is getting nasty out here. Nancy says slow and steady is better than plowing up dirt.”

  “Copy that.”

  “Meds are 0.4 Keph IM, multicillin 500, and antishock single dose, IV push. I’m uploading the file now.”

  Wink had moved to look at the medcomp, and the flow of information from the field popped up onto the holoproj. Respiration, heart rate, blood pressure. All pretty good for a patient who just got flamed by an antipersonnel mine. “Got it. Good work.”

  “Yeah, and best I get back to it. Discom.”

  Wink didn’t much like burns. When he’d been doing his burn-unit rotation back in the day, he’d had a patient who’d been really bad, and it was not a pleasant memory.

  He looked at the chart. The trooper, whose name was Marco Novo, was twenty-eight, in good health, and had a good fitness report. He could recover from less than 20 percent with most of his function and shiny new skin in a few weeks, assuming no complications, infections, like that. The D&T could handle it.

  He needed to find a way to get into the action.

  The building vibrated, and it took a second for him to realize why: The weather Dolan mentioned, the storm, was arriving, and the wind gusts were rising.

  Now that he noticed, he could hear it blowing out there. He wasn’t worried; the BMTS, when pegged down, could, in theory, shrug off an EF-5 tornado. Wasn’t anything a hurricane could throw at them this far inland worse than that.

  It would make patient delivery problematical, though. Past a certain point, nobody would be allowed to put any kind of craft into the air, so transport was going to be in a crawler, and there were locations where those would have trouble.

  The storm might also make hot conflict a little soggy. If you were worried about being picked up and blown half a klick up the road, you might hunker down instead of waging a firefight.

  Then again, that might also be just the time to do it, when the other side was hunkering down.

  The building vibrated again. Wind moaned over a hollow somewhere, like blowing across the mouth of a bottle.

  Well. At least the weather would be dramatic even if business here was slow.

  THIRTEEN

  “Rain is coming down pretty good now,” Gunny observed.

  A gust of wind measuring 90 kph, according to the crawler’s sensors, sheeted rain almost horizontally over the vehicle.

  “Like bein’ in a truck wash,” she said.

  Jo nodded. The storm had begun to arrive a little earlier than forecast, and as the afternoon headed toward dusk, the rain and wind increased. Even though sunset was still an hour away, it was as dark as midnight under the roiling overcast.

  No place to go, nothing to do; the rain was here.

  No major problems though Jo was concerned with the sensor array on the southwest side of the hill. A couple of times, the IR images had blinked off, then back on. Even as she looked at the tactical comp’s screen, the IR for that section winked off.

  And stayed off.

  “Shit.”

  “What?”

  “IR on the SW quadrant just went down.”

  “Maybe the manufacturer will send a tech out to fix it. Probably no more than six or eight weeks for them to get here. We got spares, right?”

  “Yes.”

  Kay said, “I will go and replace the sensors.”

  “You aren’t a tech,” Jo said.

  “How difficult is it to set up the array?”

  “Well, it’s pretty complex: You have to remove the malfunctioning units, mount the replacements onto the ground spikes, and make sure they are pointed in the right direction.”

  “That is all?”

  “Yeah. We can turn it on from here.”

  “I think I can manage. I will go.”

  “You gonna get wet,” Gunny said.

  “I have been wet before. It will be invigorating. And it is preferable to sitting here doing nothing.”

  Jo shrugged. “Suit yourself. The spares are in the locker by the aft door. Gray everplast box about so big.” She formed an imaginary rectangle with her hands the size of a brick. “It says ‘Aimed IR Sensory Array M-3A’ on the box.”

  “I will endeavor to locate it.”

  Kay left, and Jo smiled to herself. Vastalimi didn’t much like to sit still for long. She understood the feeling though she had learned how to be patient when the need arose. Part of being a commander in the field was knowing when to sit and when to run, and doing them in the wrong order could be a problem.

  Nobody down the hill seemed interested in coming to visit, and they weren’t getting any more troops by air for a while, unless the pilot was less than sane. The igloos and crawlers should be fine in the bad weather, but running around outside, while doable now, would get more difficult as the winds increased. Every day that went by was a big chunk of time in a limited-to-seven war.

  – – – – – –

  Kay enjoyed the blasts of rain and wind that tousled her fur as she moved toward the dysfunctional sensors. The swirling water and wind made it hard to catch any kind of discrete scent, and she had to slit her eyes against the weather in the stormy darkness. She could have printed and worn sheeting goggles that streamed the rain into relatively clear viewing, but she didn’t like the feel of them on her face, and it would take half an hour for the printer to make a pair that would fit a Vastalimi.

  She picked her way toward her goal. Detritus blew past, leaves, small branches, items missed during the tie-down preparation, or peeled away from the ancient houses. Nothing large yet. She had storm-walked in fiercer conditions.

  As she approached the malfunctioning sensors, there was nothing to trip alarms. The wind and rain masked sights and sounds and odors, but nothing seemed out of place.

  She circled, as to approach the sensors from downhill.

  Fifty meters short of her goal, she stopped and crouched low, motionless.

  Most likely, the sensors had been damaged by wind or rain, maybe hit by something bouncing along the ground; but, there was a chance that the failure was due to intent.
r />   On Vast, hunters were familiar with traps. Prey were sometimes canny creatures and able to successfully hide or outrun pursuit. Good hunters had other tricks, and beguiling prey into a place where they could be more easily taken was a useful skill.

  Part of that came from an ability to understand how prey saw the world, how they thought. If you had an idea of what would draw, or frighten your quarry, you could use that to your own end.

  She crouched, statue-still, watched and listened and sniffed.

  Nothing amiss. Hard rain, moderately hard wind.

  She remained motionless.

  Enemy soldiers could be considered prey. And being able to put herself into their minds was not so hard.

  Were she on the other side, how might she use this situation to her advantage?

  If she were able to approach and deactivate the sensors without being detected, then shutting them down would draw the attention of those monitoring them. They would deem them necessary and likely send somebody to examine and repair them. Were it her? She would find a place to watch for such an approach, and when the opposition’s tech arrived, she would take her down. But to what end? Killing a single technician would make little difference in this kind of engagement.

  So, the trap, if there was one, was to effect a larger goal.

  Knock out the IR sensors, then kill the tech, and what did that buy you?

  Time.

  Those monitoring would wait some amount of it before becoming worried about their tech and the resulting situation.

  The longer the sensors were inoperable, the longer an opponent would have to sneak a team undetected up the hill. IR could see through rain and darkness, but unaugmented human eyes were less able. A few minutes might be enough.

  And then? How best to continue?

  Sappers?

  The size of the explosives allowed in this war was constrained, but soldiers of any worth knew how to get around that because the numbers of smaller explosives were not so limited. A score of small charges carefully placed could be made to equal one large one.

  Apparently, those in charge of limiting the wars had not considered such a thing. Must have been humans . . .

  A three- or four-person team could deploy multiple small charges in a short amount of time. In the confusion following a major detonation, along with the inclement weather, a successful attack could be mounted. It would be risky, but the element of surprise might be enough to give one an edge. It could be done if done right.

  With a competent team, Kay could do it.

  She should call Jo Captain. But it was no more than a hypothesis. It needed to be tested . . .

  She waited. She was a rock in the dark deluge.

  There . . .

  A small movement, no more than a man might make twitching against a hard slash of rain.

  The hunter in her wanted to bare her claws, to charge and leap. The training she had as a soldier made her reach instead for her pistol. Personal satisfaction came from many things, and a job done properly was one.

  Fifty meters was a long shot, in the rain and dark and wind. She would need to creep closer.

  She would also need to let Jo Captain know the situation. As soon as she ascertained what it was.

  She was about to move when another thought arose.

  What if the saboteur was not alone? What if there was someone guarding the rear?

  Vastalimi preferred to hunt solo, but humans were much more likely to do it in groups.

  So. Even though it might delay her com, best she check it out.

  She dropped to her belly in the mud and slowly crawled up the hill, angling back and forth. She stopped, froze, then started again.

  Five minutes later, she was sure there was one person there. Large, probably male, but too dark to tell, and the wind swept his scent away from her. No sign of a second enemy. And yet, some sense tingled, warning her of unseen danger.

  From the set of the soldier ahead of her, he was prone and facing up the hill, a dozen meters away from the sensors. Of course, anyone coming to inspect the sensors would reasonably come from that direction.

  Kay’s pistol had a flash- and sound-suppressor, and in the stormy evening, such a device would likely hide her unless somebody was looking directly at her when she fired.

  The suppressor was in her pack, back in the crawler. She had not foreseen the need.

  An error.

  She angled to her left, set up for a side shot on the prone man. Maybe he would be wearing armor, but since stealth was more important in such a situation, maybe not.

  She slowed her breathing, aimed at the center of mass, and fired five shots, as fast as she could pull the trigger. By the time the fifth shot left the barrel, she was rolling in the mud to her right, fully prone.

  Good that she had done so.

  The second soldier came out of the ground itself ten meters behind the one Kay had shot. With a carbine on full auto, he raked the spot where she had just been, slaying the mud. Before he realized his error, she indexed her pistol and shot him, two to the torso and one to the head. He fell, and if he wore armor, it wasn’t enough. She waited.

  No movement not driven by the wind.

  She moved forward to check the downed pair.

  The one who had come out of the ground was dead, hit three times. He had a trauma plate over his heart that stopped the first two bullets, but the third had entered his skull just above his right eye.

  He was also wearing a thermosuit, an outfit that circulated coolant through a mesh and reduced the temperature to match ambient conditions. That’s why the IR hadn’t picked him up.

  Kay would bet that the sapper team likely crawling up the hill also wore such suits.

  Kay looked at the ground. It was dug out long and wide enough to encompass a prone human. It was partially filled with water, and there was a deflection tarp under the dead man. A simple hiding place, showing nothing but a slight rise in the earth when the tarp was laid but effective enough in such conditions.

  She moved up to the second enemy soldier.

  The prone man was thermosuited, too, hit twice on the left side, then three times on the ventral torso as he rolled away from the first impacts. His simple trauma plate hadn’t stopped any of her bullets.

  As she watched, he shuddered and blew out his dying breath.

  “Kay? Is somebody shooting out there?”

  “Yes. The sensors were disrupted by two enemy soldiers in thermosuits. Both are dead. I expect there is a team of sappers crawling up the hillside below this position. It might be wise to add bite to the rain in that direction.”

  “Stet that. Gunny, get some shooters there, and let’s light it up. Flares coming, Kay, watch your vision.”

  “Understood.”

  A moment later, photonics went off above her. They were less effective in the wind and rain, battered this way and that, but shed enough light as they were blown away to see that there were indeed human forms eighty or so meters down the hill from where Kay crouched. She counted five before the light faded.

  Gunny arrived with two grenadiers as the last flare blew away.

  “Eighty meters,” Kay said. “That way, and if they are smart, probably scrambling back down.”

  “You heard the fem. Eighty and walk ’em.”

  The grenadiers adjusted their sights and began launching the grenades. They shot, moved to avoid being stationary targets, fired again.

  The weather was growing worse, and several of the missiles went wide, but the shooters corrected their aim and walked the pattern downward.

  Below them, somebody opened up with a carbine, to return fire, but that just gave the grenadiers a target, and the first grenade to land close to the muzzle flash silenced the carbine.

  Out in the open, no cover? Bad for the sappers. Those who would survive would have to
retreat in a hurry or be blasted.

  “Put a few more farther out and down,” Gunny said. “Just in case there’s an assault team staged there.”

  FOURTEEN

  It was near midnight, and the storm had come to play, hard.

  Gunny said “Oh, man!”

  A section of roof torn from one of the houses blew past, a ragged chunk maybe a meter by two, including wooden supports as big as her arm. It had a ghostly look under the IR camp lights, dim even with Jo’s enhanced vision in the heavy rain and night.

  As they watched, it banged into one of the igloos, bounced off, and whirled away into the thick gray rain. The igloo mostly held, but the top was definitely dented.

  “Somebody is about to get wet,” Gunny said.

  “They can patch it from inside,” Jo said.

  “Check out Kay.”

  Jo looked: Five meters away, Kay stood facing into the wind, leaning forward, her arms outstretched. She was using her hands as spoilers, tiny wind foils, to help keep herself anchored to the ground. She was soaked, but her wet fur streamed in the storm winds. Jo could see the vortex eddy behind Kay as the rain swirled past the obstacle, creating a complex pattern in the air.

  Vastalimi in the rain. A song or a story, maybe a poem there . . .

  Even over the constant roar of the storm, Jo’s otics picked up the sound of Kay growling. Low, sustained, and fierce.

  The Vastalimi fem ducked as something blew past her. She came back up, teetered for a moment, then regained her stance into the wind.

  “Why’s she doin’ that?”

  “Defying the elements. Goes to an old ritual on Vast, where they get some big storms during their monsoon season.”

  Gunny shook her head. “Like the night hasn’t already been interesting enough. Probably no other sappers going to try us again in this.”

  Their vehicle faced into the wind and was designed to resist that, along with rain, sand, pretty much anything short of a volcano spewing lava. Bits of this and that spanged off the armored denscris windshield and windows, sounding like small-arms rounds ricocheting. Even the raindrops made a hammering racket.