by Jake Elwood
“We’re a lot better looking,” Yamato declared.
“But that’s the official government line,” Cranshaw went on. “It doesn’t allow for human nature. When you’re face to face with a prisoner, and he looks just like you, it’s not so easy to just kill him out of hand. So they put us to work. It lets them be merciful without violating this idea that we’re sub-human scum who don’t deserve consideration.”
Tom shrugged. Cranshaw’s idea made as much sense as any of the other theories floating around. “We’ll angle away from the river. Tag that tree.” He indicated a forest giant with a fat, conical trunk. The squad headed off to put digital markers all around the trunk at ankle height.
Felling large trees was one of the few activities the Dawn Alliance did with modern equipment. The squad stood back at a safe distance while a Dawn Alliance engineer and a couple of soldiers guided a tree-cutting robot up to the trunk. The robot, essentially a huge gleaming spider that hovered just above the ground, moved around the trunk firing a high-intensity laser into the bark between the markers.
Tom had seen large trees come down, back on Earth. On Gamor it was much different. The high gravity meant that trees were quite thick at the base, tapering quickly as they rose. The robot attacked a tree no more than thirty or forty meters high, but the trunk was as thick as a California redwood.
Even when the trunk was cut through, the tree refused to topple. The shape of it kept it upright. The robot made another cut, almost vertical, slicing a thick triangle of wood from the base of the trunk. A wedge-shaped chunk of wood, big as a ground car, toppled sideways out of the cut. And then, with ponderous majesty, the tree fell.
Wood crackled, branches snapped, and leaves and twigs rained down from above as the forest canopy shook. Tom was already out of range of the falling tree, but he edged back in spite of himself. Habit made him look around at the rest of the squad, checking that all his men were safe.
His gaze fell on Martins, who was pretending to watch the tree but was in fact looking into the jungle. The man’s lips were pressed tight as he tried to hide a triumphant grin.
Oh, hell. Tom did a quick count of noses. Three men were missing. Cranshaw, Yamato, and a prisoner named Schofield had used the distraction of the falling tree to slip away into the jungle.
“Squad. With me. Right now. Let’s go!” Tom headed back up the future road at a quick march. They skirted the remains of two more fallen trees and finally reached the rest of the platoon, who were stripping branches from another tree. Tom led the remains of his squad to where O’Reilly and half a dozen men were heaping cut branches.
“We’ve got a leak in the bucket,” Tom said, using the informal code that allowed prisoners to discuss escape attempts under the noses of the guards. “Three idiots.” He turned and jabbed a finger into Martins’s chest. “That’s nine men dead when the goons do a head count.”
Martins scowled and opened his mouth. Tom turned away before he could speak. “O’Reilly. You’re with me.” He looked over the rest of the group, choosing three more men he knew would be reliable. He wanted to take more, but this had to be handled discreetly. “The rest of you, keep an eye on this fool.” He pointed at Martins. “Don’t let him get anyone else killed.”
That was hardly fair, he reflected as he led his hunting team back to the newly-fallen tree. What had Martins done that Tom himself hadn’t done on his first work detail? Still, he had to get the message across.
Escape attempts were stupid. They achieved nothing, and they got people killed.
Tom marched up to the last fallen tree, planted his hands on his hips, and pretended to inspect the trunk. He waited, fuming with impatience, while the engineer fiddled with the robot, then moved away. One soldier went with him. Another soldier lingered, then at last wandered off.
“Finally.” Tom looked at his team. “This is the last place I saw them.”
“We’ll look for tracks,” O’Reilly said.
“I’m pretty sure they went this way.” Tom headed into the jungle, paused to listen for the distant susurration of running water, and moved deeper into the trees. “They’re heading for the river. No chatter. I don’t want them hearing us.”
They hiked for ten minutes, spotting the occasional boot print in the wet soil between the trees. The trees ended at a stony beach, where they found the missing men dragging logs of driftwood into a row beside the banks of a narrow, fast-moving river.
Three men spun to face the new arrivals as they walked out of the trees. Yamato stepped forward and planted his hands on his hips, a mix of relief and belligerence on his face. “We’re escaping, Lieutenant. We’re making a raft and floating away. You can’t stop us. But you can come along if you want.”
Tom walked toward him. Schofield and Cranshaw watched from just behind Yamato. They had the guilty look of children caught stealing cookies. Yamato was the obvious leader. Handle him, and the other two will come along meekly enough.
“We’re going back,” Tom said. “Right now.”
Yamato narrowed his eyes and stuck out his jaw, stubbornness in every line of his body.
Well, if he’s going to give me a target like that … Tom closed the remaining distance between them in one quick stride and lashed out with his fist, aiming for the man’s jaw. Yamato saw the blow coming and crouched, so that Tom’s fist caught him just under the eye. His head snapped back, and Tom stepped closer, slamming a fist into the pit of his stomach. Yamato doubled over.
Schofield took a step back and raised his fists. Cranshaw looked at him, then at Tom. Then Cranshaw edged back as well, his fists coming up.
“I can’t drag you all back,” Tom said. “I didn’t bring enough men.” He hooked a heel behind Yamato’s feet, put his hands on the man’s shoulders, and shoved. Yamato landed on his back beside the river. “There’s only one way this will work.” He stooped, grabbed a double handful of Yamato’s shirt, and dragged him closer to the water. “We’re going to bring back your bodies.”
Cranshaw said, “What?”
“There’s no reprisals if we kill you.” Tom dragged Yamato forward until the back of his head was in the water. Yamato belatedly began to struggle. “You three are dead anyway.” Tom put his left foot into the river, grunted, and heaved Yamato across the riverbank. Yamato clutched at his arms, then swung a fist, thumping ineffectively against the top of Tom’s head.
“I can’t save you.” Another heave, and Yamato’s shoulder blades were in the river. He had his head tucked forward to keep it out of the water. He stared up at Tom, wild-eyed, and tried to twist free. He could get no leverage, and Tom held him in place without much effort.
“I can save nine other people, though.” Tom shoved down on Yamato’s shoulders. Cold water hit the back of Tom’s hand and flowed across Yamato’s chest. His head was half submerged, his mouth barely above the water. The current pushed his head sideways, and he made hoarse gasping noises as he struggled. His heels drummed against the riverbank, looking for purchase.
“You can’t.” Cranshaw took a step toward Tom, then froze. Tom couldn’t see what the others were doing behind him, but he heard the scuff of footsteps as they advanced. Cranshaw looked from Tom to the rest of the team, then back again. “You can’t just kill him.”
“Watch me.” Tom planted a hand in the middle of Yamato’s face and shoved his head under water.
“No!” Cranshaw’s feet didn’t move, but he stretched his arms out toward Yamato as if he could lift the man out of the river with sheer force of will. Schofield stood behind him, body rigid, eyes wide and horrified. Yamato thrashed, his legs kicking wildly. He hammered at Tom’s arms, then clawed the riverbank, digging furrows in the wet dirt.
“You’re next,” Tom said to Cranshaw. “It’s best if you don’t struggle.”
“All right!” Tendons stood out in Cranshaw’s neck as he screamed the words. “All right! You win. We’ll cooperate. Just let him up.”
Tom glanced at Schofield, who looked ready to th
row up. He wouldn’t cause any trouble. “All right.” He slid his hand down, cupped the back of Yamato’s head, and hauled him up out of the water.
When they reached the closest felled tree there was no one in sight, and no sounds of men working. Tom swore under his breath. If the guards had taken the prisoners to another work site, they might have noticed the absence of an officer and six men. He imagined almost two dozen prisoners being shot in retaliation and broke into a run. “Let’s go! Move like you mean it!”
When he heard voices ahead Tom stopped, panting for breath. He turned to the others, lifted a finger to his lips, then gestured them forward. They could still get away with this if they could slip in among the other prisoners without being noticed.
The ground rose ahead of Tom. He trudged forward, placing his feet carefully to make as little noise as possible. His head cleared the top of the ridge and he stopped, his shoulders sagging in defeat.
Two platoons stood shoulder to shoulder in a triple rank in front of a fallen tree, with a cluster of guards in front of them. All the guards were staring toward Tom.
“There you are,” said Tom. “Thank God. I got lost.” He headed toward the other prisoners, gesturing to the men behind him. “Come on, men. We found them.”
A couple of rifles swung up, centering on Tom’s chest. He ignored them and plastered a shit-eating grin on his face. “Am I glad to see you! I thought I’d never find my way back.”
There were six guards with the work party, plus an engineer and an officer. The officer was almost comically short, a wiry little man in his fifties with the face of an angry schoolteacher. He glared at Tom and said, “Halt!”
Tom stopped. The rustle of footsteps behind him faded as the others stopped as well.
“You tried to escape.”
Tom forced a laugh. “Escape? Where would we go?”
The officer’s hand went to his belt. He drew a small black pistol and lifted it until the barrel pointed at Tom’s chest. “The punishment for escape attempts is death.”
The world seemed to shrink until nothing existed except the muzzle of the gun. It loomed in front of Tom like the mouth of a tunnel. He opened his mouth, tried to speak, and found that he couldn’t make a sound.
A flicker of motion drew his attention downward. The officer’s finger was moving, tightening on the trigger. The knuckle of his index finger whitened.
“Tom, you idiot!”
Fabric rustled as someone pushed his way through the front rank of prisoners. The officer turned, and his gun hand turned with him. The rest of the world snapped back into focus and Tom took an overdue breath.
Hoskins, grinning from ear to ear, left the line of prisoners and walked toward Tom. Four rifles and a pistol swung around to cover him. Hoskins didn’t seem to notice. “This guy is a moron.” Hoskins gave a chuckle that somehow managed to sound relaxed and amused. “No sense of direction at all.” He stopped with the barrel of the pistol almost touching his chest. “We’ve been here for two weeks, and do you know what happened last night? He left the hut in the middle of the night to use the latrine, and he didn’t come back. I gave him ten minutes, and then I went looking for him.” Hoskins laughed. “I found him going from hut to hut, staring at the front doors, trying to figure out which was which. Can you believe it?”
Not a muscle moved in the officer’s face.
Hoskins leaned toward him as if he was sharing a joke with a good friend. “You know why I was still awake? Because half the time, when he goes to the latrine, he can’t even find his own bunk when he comes back. Sometimes he sits on me. So I stay awake, so I can warn him off. This guy’s hopeless.” He laughed, then reached out and put an arm around Tom’s shoulders. “Come on buddy. Get in line. You’re holding everybody up.” And, just like that, he pulled Tom away from the officer and hustled him into the line of prisoners. “The rest of you, fall in,” Hoskins called over his shoulder.
Tom, fully expecting a bullet in the back, didn’t dare turn his head as Hoskins shoved him through a gap in the front rank of prisoners. The two of them stood side by side in the second row, men shuffling over to make room.
The rest of the prisoners, frightened and uncertain, inched their way past the officer and the guards, then hustled over to join the ends of the three lines. The officer stared after them, looking like he wasn’t quite sure what had happened. There was a long frozen moment when Tom feared he would try to reassert himself. But he holstered his pistol and said, “Prisoners will follow me!”
“Thrush, you bloody idiot!”
Captain Washington, it turned out, was a screamer. Tom had heard of such creatures, but Washington was the first one he’d encountered in person. He stared at a spot just above the captain’s head and waited for the tirade to end, promising himself that whatever rank he eventually rose to, he’d never become a screamer himself.
“I don’t know where you think you are, but all of us are surviving by the skins of our teeth and the whims of our captors. We’re hanging by our fingernails, and you’re walking past and stomping your bloody feet!”
That, reflected Tom, was an impressive collection of metaphors for a single sentence. He kept the thought to himself.
Washington turned to focus his attention on Hoskins. “I just got a personal dressing-down from that son of a bitch Amar. Which means I threw away the dignity of my rank and any moral authority I might have had as the ranking prisoner, and I groveled until he agreed not to kill anyone.”
He looked from Hoskins to Tom and back again, his face so suffused with blood his skin was nearly black. “I’ve been negotiating with the man. I’ve been asking for Red Fever medication. I’ve been trying to save lives!” His hand slashed through the air in a chopping motion. “Now, any progress I might have made is gone. Gone! Thanks to you two imbeciles and your complete inability to control the men under your command.”
That, Tom knew, was a load of crap. Amar wasn’t going to waste good medicine on prisoners. If he changed his mind, it certainly wouldn’t be because of anything Washington said. However, there was no point in arguing.
The captain ranted and swore for several more minutes. Finally he told the two lieutenants they were on latrine duty until further notice. “Now get out of my sight!”
Ten minutes later, as they stood near the latrine pits with shovels in their hands, Tom said, “You saved my life today.”
Hoskins chuckled. “Yes, and I nearly had a heart attack doing it. Sweet Jesus, don’t ever make me do that again.”
“I’m sorry.”
Hoskins made a rude noise. “Those bozos were trouble. You couldn’t have stopped them. Nobody could have. But you spotted it early, and you brought them back.” He laid a forearm over the top of his shovel handle and rested his chin. “Thank God you were there, Tom. You saved a dozen men from death today.”
“Washington …”
“Is a pompous windbag,” said Hoskins, then glanced around to make sure no one was in earshot. “Seriously, Tom, you did good today.”
“So did you.”
Hoskins grinned. “And as a reward, we get to shovel out a wet latrine.”
“Well, I’m bloody glad to be alive to swing a shovel,” Tom said.
“Me too. Come on, let’s get this over with.”
Chapter 10
Unit Leader Battor Ganbold lifted his hand to knock, then hesitated. He checked his uniform, smoothed a tiny wrinkle in one sleeve, took a deep breath, and finally rapped his knuckles on the door.
The door swung open. "Come in," barked Amar. He waved Ganbold in, then shut the door. His office, small, cluttered, and windowless, smelled of tea and dust. A samovar bubbled on a low table beside the man's desk, adding to the already unpleasant humidity in the room.
That, however, was not the reason for Ganbold's discomfort.
“Are you ready for your first day of duty on Gamor?”
Ganbold, his back already laser-straight, did his best to stand even straighter. “Of course, Commander
.”
"I don't expect you really want to be here," Amar said, peering at him shrewdly. The camp commander was a short man, and he tilted his head back as he stared at his subordinate.
"I go where my duty sends me," Ganbold said stiffly.
"Of course. But perhaps you wish your duty had sent you somewhere else?"
Ganbold hesitated. "The Alliance went to considerable trouble and expense to train me in the command of corvettes and cruisers," he said at last, choosing his words with care. "I don't like to see all that training go to waste."
Amar laughed, a startlingly human sound from a man who seemed constantly prickly and aloof. "A most diplomatic answer." He grinned, briefly exposing his teeth. Then all levity vanished and the usual coldness returned to his eyes. "You seem to be a skilled and dedicated soldier. But the Alliance has no shortage of soldiers. No lack of skill and dedication." He folded his arms and stared past Ganbold's shoulder. "No, it's not people we lack. It's hardware."
Suddenly those cold brown eyes focused on Ganbold, who stiffened involuntarily. "If the operation at Novograd goes as planned, we'll increase our ship-building by thirty percent. You'll have your command soon enough."
Ganbold nodded. The Dawn Alliance lacked the manufacturing infrastructure needed to keep up with the United Worlds. Factories and shipyards were expensive and time-consuming to build. They could, however, be captured and repurposed. The Dawn Alliance was in a desperate race to seize the resources of the Green Zone before the United Worlds, still reeling from the surprise invasion, could recover and retaliate. The outcome of the war hung in the balance. The future of the Alliance was at stake, and Ganbold burned to be part of that struggle.
Instead he was on Gamor, guarding prisoners of war.
"Your duties here are not trivial," Amar said, as if reading his mind. "Even if they are not what you would choose."
"Of course, Commander."