CHAPTER 19
Corre and Boyle marched on either side of a road leading out of Tabuk City. The city had gone from prefab one- and two-story buildings to dusty fields within a few miles of their last position. Inside the city had been eerily quiet as they left. The insurgents kept to their commander’s word to cease attacks until sundown. They’d heard sporadic gun fire behind Hegemony lines, former Hegemony, at any rate.
Corre didn’t know what to label things that weren’t Bretton or insurgent anymore.
None of the Hegemony soldiers they’d come across had tried to stop them or attacked. Having what remained of the battalion in a coherent marching formation with overhead drone cover and plenty of armed and dangerous Cataphract armor in a cordon around the Flankers and wounded gave off enough of a “don’t fuck around” vibe that no one tried to find out what the Brettons were willing to do to protect themselves.
Felix trotted away from Major Perrin and fiddled with a brand-new earbud. He moved with a more natural gait than anyone else in the column as he lacked a Flanker’s exo-skeleton.
“Hey, Sergeant Corre.” Felix popped his helmet on, the visor raised to the top. “Your major said I can pick a squad. It cool if I’m with you?”
“Fine, you’re in Tallec’s fire team. Mason Tallec. Noah Tallec’s his little brother. You’ve met them. What all did you say to the major?”
“I showed him a better route to the void port. Not a shorter one. One with a lot less Flags between us and there,” Felix said.
“How sure of that are you? Things have been pretty fluid lately. Last time I went to bed there was a Hegemony keeping the peace across the stars. Now, I don’t know what’s happening,” Corre said.
“Well,” Felix scratched his face, “we seeded Dagger nests south of the route we were going to take. All of them were pinging green and active when my convoy crossed the line of departure yesterday. Flags know better than to go near them unless they’re making a serious push. But if I was the Flag commander in that area and the Hegemony just went tits up . . . I wouldn’t assume the Dagger’s magically turned themselves off.”
“What would that Flag commander be doing right now?” Corre asked.
“Getting shitfaced and fuckin’ a pig in celebration? Definitely not being brave when we’re supposed to be surrendering,” Felix said. “I’ve been here awhile, sergeant. I gave up on the idea of winning pretty quick. But I didn’t think we’d out-and-out lose. All Father, hear my prayer.”
“Lots in doubt right now,” Corre said. “Where you from? I don’t think I’ve ever served with anyone like you.”
“Syddan. At least, that’s where I was drafted out of. Born there but void-raised on a longship-class freighter with my clan. We pulled into the skyhook over Syddan and I ran into the one Hegemony draft officer that couldn’t be bribed.” Felix took a deep breath and forced it out quickly. “Some luck, eh.”
“Where the hell is Syddan? It anywhere near the Gallia sector?” Corre asked.
“No, Tirana sector. Yggdrasil system,” Felix said.
“That’s not on the way back to Bretton. Nowhere even close,” Corre said. “You understand that’s where we’re going. Our home. You come with us, that’s where you’ll end up.”
“Eh, like I said, I’m void-raised. My clan runs trade routes through the Hegemony . . . or we did. They’ll probably set sail for home once they get the word everything’s gone to bilge. I can book passage home or find one of our ships out there. They won’t ever come to Dahrien, that’s for sure. Nothing here worth the trade or the risk.”
“What did Major Perrin say about getting you home?” Corre asked.
“Gave me his word as a man of Bretton that he’d help me. That’s better than taking my chances here. Not that I don’t believe him,” Felix said. “But . . . would you stay here?”
“Nope,” Corre said. “What Flanker certifications do you have?”
“Basic ranks one through six. Tested out of the Hegemony tech assessments. I couldn’t pass the land navigation quals for sergeant.” Felix chuckled at Corre’s look. “What? I’m a spacer. I can plot a ship route anywhere in settled space just off pulsars, but you ask me to do anything more than read a map and I get confused.”
“You’re value-added already,” Corre said. “Bretton’s a voluntary analog world. We work with our hands for everything we can, rely upon ourselves for our needs. All of us can use modern tech, but we may not know how it works.”
“You’re from one of those planets that doesn’t use robo-labor?” Felix asked.
“We’ll use them for more dangerous work and only after the church approves. ‘To work is to know the Lord,’ as Saint Robin taught. But we’ve all learned how to be soldiers from the same manual. Though it sounds like you’ve got more combat time here than the rest of us combined. Don’t be afraid to speak up if we’re about to do something out of ignorance that’ll get us killed or injured, understand?”
“Roger, sergeant.” Felix nodded. “Sorry for calling you all ‘dick lovers.’”
“Did you . . . really shoot a man in the crotch?” Corre asked.
“Yes, but not on purpose. It was an unintentional dick shooting.”
“Fair enough. Tell me more about the Flag’s use of mines. Can a Dagger with a sensor suite pick them up?”
Noah hiked his carbine higher on his chest, clutching it almost at the ready against his chest plate. He scanned the roadside off to the right, noting trash and dirt mounds next to dried-out patches of fields and a canal running parallel to the road. The pack full of power rods on his back hadn’t been secured properly and swung like a heavy pendulum.
Boyle walked slowly in his Cataphract armor a few steps away from him, his rotary cannon spinning back and forth every couple of steps.
Mason lengthened his stride from behind Noah and caught up to him.
“You good?” Mason asked.
“Are you good?” Noah smirked. “I haven’t seen you barf like that since grandpa died.”
“Not my finest moment. All of this is a bit much to take in all at once. Don’t tell me you’re already the perfect Stoic the way everyone’s supposed to be back home,” Mason said.
“Mason . . . I’ve barely slept in days. I’ve been shot at, lost friends, killed men and we’ve taken way more casualties than I want to think about. Now the Hegemony’s gone and we’re supposed to believe Major Perrin and that civilian colonel that’s always fussing about gear are going to get us home. Maybe a pixie will fall from the sky with a note saying my pox is back and I’m contagious again.” Noah put a hitch in his step to shift his gear higher up on his shoulders.
“It didn’t kill you the first time you had it. Won’t kill you the second.” Mason looked away.
“Ah . . . I’m sorry, Mason. Shouldn’t have said that. When Natalie and your girls—”
“You gonna keep humping your gear or do I need to carry it for you for a bit?” Mason snapped.
“Can you tie it down? My noise and light discipline is horrible right now,” Noah said.
“I lash it down and what happens if we’re in contact? You want that nice big target on your ass? We’re on an open road flanked by Cataphracts. Bet the Flags could see us from orbit if they had the satellites . . . You worried about Mom? I’m worried about Mom,” Mason said.
“Yeah.” Noah choked down a sob. “Why did she have to cry like that when we marched out under the Hero’s Boughs? She didn’t do that when you left the first time.”
“She still had Dad and you with her. Now she’s got our paychecks and the church-approved maid bot for the house. Except she’s not going to have our paychecks anymore, is she? The Hegemony made the deposits.” Mason rolled a shoulder and adjusted the strap holding a sack with an ammo can in it. “Governor Engelier promised to take care of our families while we’re gone. I believe him. He’d better or he’ll end up like Governor Witt after the battalions came home from the Alliance War . . .”
“It’s amazing what burning a politician at the stake does for the public good,” Noah finished the Bretton joke. “What’s going to happen back home? To the whole Gallia sector?”
“Maybe we worry about the fifty-meter target before the one out at three hundred,” Mason said.
“We’re on a road march, Mason, this is the most boring thing Flankers do and I’d rather not think about how we’re up to our necks in shit before it gets up to our noses, okay?”
“Just think about baseball. That always works . . . I don’t know, but the other systems settled by Saint Robin’s pilgrimage won’t be in any hurry to bow down to Marshal Telemachus. Armorica, Devon, Nantes . . . we’re all one people. Not like those heretics in the Hudson cluster. Even then, nobody liked the Gallia sector governor. Bet he’ll skip town for Union space with all the money he’s been embezzling, if he’s smart.”
“But Bretton will be okay on its own? Should be . . .” Noah said.
“Good thing Saint Robin demands we be self-sufficient in everything we can. We grow enough food and have the foundries to keep everything running without imports. The miners out in the Cornwall system are going to be in trouble if the trade lanes collapse. Which they probably will,” Mason said. “Or not. Nothing like this has ever happened since the Diaspora. We had the Hegemony to keep all the sectors in line and cooperating with each other. Not no more.”
“Hudson would just love to get their hands on the Saint’s bones, wouldn’t they? There would’ve been a war for them if the Hegemony hadn’t stepped in,” Noah said.
“Hudson’s full of blustering idiots. It’s the Maghreb and Deseret sectors I’m worried about. They hate each other. Can’t even have their levy units on the same planet most of the time. They’ll go out of their way to arrange ‘friendly fire’ incidents. Nazare’s had disputes with Maghreb as well. The Tirana sector never wanted to be part of the Hegemony to begin with. They had to have their arm twisted to join up for protection against the Alliance.” Mason sighed.
“I’m not making things better, am I?” Noah looked off in the distance as a small truck appeared on a side road.
“No, you’re not. Shut up already. At least we’re going home. Bit sooner than expected but this planet’s a shithole as it is.” Mason popped his visor and spat on the road. “But we’ve got to stay together, Noah. Not just you and me ’cause we’re brothers, but the whole battalion. Whoever tries to survive onesey-twosey will get eaten by the next bigger mob they come across.”
“Wasn’t that the reason for the Hegemony? That ain’t working out, is it?” Noah asked.
“I failed civics. But the Most High are all dead and I’m still kicking, so maybe I’ve got a better grasp of the fundamentals than they did.” Mason looked over his shoulder as Felix jogged up the road to them.
“Hi,” Felix said. He stood barely to the brothers’ shoulders and seemed almost juvenile without his Flanker’s exo-skeleton across his shoulders and down to his feet. “Sarge is done talking to me, what’s my sector?”
“You’ve got even less protection than us and we’re hiding behind the Cataphract’s skirts,” Mason said. “What happened to your rig, anyway?”
“Tossed it off a cliff after it lost power. Made sense at the time,” Felix said. “So you guys are from an analog planet, right?”
“Wow, he didn’t accuse us of being in a cult.” Noah chuckled. “This is better than going on a mission, let me tell you.”
“Our way of life isn’t a tourist attraction,” Mason said. “Sometimes off-worlders will show up on a market street ogling us as we work the looms or bakeries. There was some celebrity that tried to live like us for a few weeks for a Net show and she didn’t last a single shift on the ovens.”
“Bakeries?” Felix tensed up. “What kind of bread?”
“You that hungry?” Mason asked. “Go talk to Boyle, his family runs a place. They do good kouign-amann and their gâteau is okay if you like it way too salty.”
“I heard that, you heathen.” Boyle shook an armor shod fist at him. “We make it with proper butter and sea salt caramel the way God intended.”
“I only like the churri ones your sister makes.” Mason waved a dismissive hand at him.
“She almost got kicked out of the guild for those. Don’t ask for any when we get home,” Boyle said.
“That’s all . . . bread?” Felix asked.
“Of course, what do you think bread is?” Noah and Mason traded confused looks.
Felix held his hands about two feet apart.
“I was on shore leave once. Had a bread that was about this big. Crunchy outside, slight sour smell to it. Think it was called a baggy-eat,” Felix said.
“Baguette,” Boyle said. “Whole other discussion. Well, not really, as there’s only one right way to make them.”
“Agreed.” Mason nodded emphatically.
“Tallec,” Corre’s voice said through their earbuds. “Does our scout speak the local dialect?”
“I really need a new helmet with a working mic,” Felix said. “Tell him I speak a little. Basic stuff. ‘How much is that? Go away or I’ll shoot you.’ The usual.”
“I monitored. Escort him up, Major needs some language support,” Corre said. “Double time it.”
“Shit, I should’ve said ‘no.’ I’ve just volunteered for a bunch of bullshit, didn’t I?” Felix’s shoulders drooped.
“Yeah . . . well, at least you’re smarter than Noah.” Mason jerked a thumb at his brother. “He voluntarily enlisted.”
“On purpose?” Felix narrowed his eyes at Noah.
“Isn’t that what ‘volunteered’ means? They were gonna draft me anyway,” Noah said.
“You’ve moving like pond water. Step it out,” Corre ordered.
Felix trotted to a group massed in the middle of the road. Flankers and a pair of Cataphracts formed a semi-circle around Major Perrin and Sergeant Malo. The two spoke with a Dahrien woman who was on her knees, an infant wrapped against her chest and a toddler at her side, clutching her arm.
The woman wailed and tried to grab Perrin by the hand, but he kept pulling away. A small shack with an open door stood amongst thin crops near the shoulder. The major had his helm off and tucked beneath one arm.
“Finally,” Perrin said as Felix approached. “Felix, is it? Ask her if she knows anything about insurgent activity ahead of us.”
“Kapayap, kapayap,” Felix said, and the woman’s gaze snapped to him. She looked him over and wiped tears from her eyes. The toddler was of mixed race, his skin and eyes lighter than the Dahrien he’d seen.
Felix’s eyes went up to the left and he stammered out a question.
The woman shook her head then reached for Perrin again, pleading with him.
“Well?” Perrin asked.
“Ugh, she said she stays here and doesn’t go to the mountains,” Felix said. “That’s pretty standard here, sir. None of them know anything unless it was one of us that damaged their property or killed one of their pigs. Then they have all the details because that’ll get them paid.”
“If she’s not going to be helpful, then tell her she can go back to her house,”
“Umlasa. Kama, kama.” Felix tried to shoo her away.
The toddler pointed at Felix and said something to his mother. The woman looked at him and put one hand against the baby swaddled against her chest. She spoke slowly.
“Sir, she . . . says the Flags will kill her because she has Hegemony children. She wants to come with us. Says she’ll cook, clean . . . other stuff just for you.” Felix grew uncomfortable.
The Bretton marched on around them.
“No, we can’t. Impossible,” Perrin said. “Tell her to get off the road for her own safety.”
“Sir.” Malo raised a hand slightly. “What if she’s telling the truth? We can’t just leave her here. The Flags are animals.”
Perrin pointed two fingers at Felix.
“This true? The insurgents target women and children?” the major asked.
“Well, there’s rumors some families will go after a girl if she has relations with one of us. Outside of . . . approved facilities. Working girls work for the clans. They’re not as concerned about their honor when there’s money flowing up the chain,” Felix said. “But them going after kids? No. At least, I’ve never heard about it.”
“Does she know about the current state of the Hegemony?” Perrin asked.
Felix gave Perrin a hard look, then stammered out a question.
The mother mimed an explosion.
“Then she’s just scared. She doesn’t have an active threat against her.” Perrin lifted his helmet.
The woman broke out in sobs and bent forward, her forehead against Perrin’s boots.
“Sir . . . please,” Malo said. “Most of us have wives and children back home.”
“Sergeant,” Perrin inched away from the woman who’d gone nearly prostrate, only keeping the infant off the road, “what if we bring her along? Do you know how much fighting is ahead of us?”
“I do not, sir.” Malo straightened up.
“Not only would we put her at risk, but there are likely more civilians between us and the void port. What if we take in all that want off this world? How many will be there when we embark? Because if we take her and her children, we take all we come across. There will likely be more than the ship can carry and then what am I to do? What are any of us to do?” Perrin asked.
Malo’s jaw tightened.
“I would appreciate an answer, sergeant,” Perrin said.
“Then we could only take as many as the ship’s life support will allow,” Malo said.
“And then? How much food is aboard the Izmir? Will that last until we’re home? And how do I choose who comes aboard and who doesn’t?” Perrin took a step towards Malo. “I must make an awful decision now so I don’t have to make a worse one later. It isn’t fair. It isn’t right . . . but it is what it is and I can’t change that.”
He put his helm on and locked it to the ring around his neck.
The mother reared back on her ankles and clutched her children against her, wailing and pleading.
“Here.” Perrin reached into a pouch on the back of his belt and held out a plastic-wrapped pack of caramels and folded bills held together in a clip. Felix recognized Central script, issued to the Hegemony military as currency.
She looked at the offering like it had come out of a toilet.
“Not everyone’s heard the news,” Perrin said. “Perhaps she can trade it for something of value before the governance . . . shifts. I have nothing else to give her. Get her off the road now or I’ll have to make an even more difficult decision.”
“Gimoh, kama kama.” Felix took the script and candies from Perrin and pressed it against the woman’s shoulder. She snatched it away and stuffed it into her blouse. She turned her head away and put an arm over her son’s shoulders and shuffled off the road.
“You disagree, sergeant?” Perrin asked Malo.
“Negative, sir. I don’t think we’ll know what the right decisions are for a long time. Just have to do the best we can with what we know now,” the platoon sergeant said.
“And the consequences of those decisions are mine alone. God guide me. God forgive me.” Perrin checked the optics on his carbine and slapped the bottom of the loaded magazine. “Thank you, Corporal Felix, fall back in.”
Perrin reached into a pocket and handed Felix a rank tab; one corner was stained red.
Felix accepted the promotion and almost saluted. Any sniper watching would likely have figured out Perrin was important just by how he was surrounded, but removing all doubt as to Perrin’s rank would’ve been amateurish and likely not have ingratiated him into his new unit.
“Roger, sir.” Felix nodded quickly.
He, Mason and Noah jogged back to the rest of the squad.
No one spoke of what happened.
Boyle zoomed in on a bend in the road. The terrain had elevated slightly several kilometers back, becoming rocky and forested. His squad had cycled to the fore of the entire battalion, putting him and Corre at the tip of the spear.
Also the first ones into danger, which he was well aware of.
“Scope’s clear,” Corre said as he swept his Gatling cannon along the left side of the road.
“Which doesn’t mean much.” Boyle switched to infrared and spotted a hot plume of air in the distance. “I’m launching a Pigeon. Haven’t had a blip on the EM detector for hours. Let’s see what’s over there.”
“Go,” Corre said.
Boyle focused his vision on a drop-down menu and his helm opened it for him. He entered in a reconnaissance mission code and traced out a search area on his visor’s map. The Flankers had the privilege of using their fingers on their forearm screens; Cataphracts had to make do with facial tics and eye movement to give orders to their subsystems.
The heavy armor plate on his back jostled as a drone spat out of its housing into a high arc. Repulsor rings snapped out and it shot over the treetops. Video beamed back to Boyle and Corre as it closed in on the heat source.
“Do I patch this back to Malo or who?” Boyle asked. “LT’s dead. So’s the captain. You think we’ll get field promotions?”
“How about you worry about what’s over the next hill and not if we’ve got to sew on new rank,” Corre said. “You want my job that bad?”
“No, Sarge, but maybe there’ll be back pay when all’s said and—ah, shit.” Boyle’s mouth went dry.
A destroyed Wolverine tank was half-on, half-off the road. The hatches were open and spewing smoke, a broken tread traced behind the vehicle like a steel ribbon.
“I don’t see any obvious damage . . . there, blast seat.” Corre pinged a temperature gradient in the center of the road close to a smattering of broken tread links.
“It hit a mine or the Flags pressed a button to set the bomb off?” Boyle asked. “Neither option’s good for us. Got a long way to the void port.”
“Malo wants us to get closer,” Corre said. “Have the Pigeon spiral out. Better we spot any assholes out there before they spot us.”
“Roger, she’s on auto.” Boyle blinked in the new instructions and the drone flew an ever-widening circle around the destroyed tank. The Cataphracts continued up a steep incline in the road, rushing over the crest.
The tank’s armor pinged as heat from melting battery packs spread through the wreck. Rust had spread like a rash over the right side of the tank where the paint had melted away. Boyle rushed up to the front of the vehicle, ignoring the heat pulsing through his suit. He searched the surrounding forest, finger twitching against the trigger of his rotary cannon.
“Squasher got it.” Corre kicked at a crater almost a foot deep behind the tank. A half-sphere flipped out and skidded across the dirt road. “Warhead mashes against the battery packs and blows spall into the crew compartment. No point in looking inside. Nobody survives that.”
“See a detonator? Wire?” Boyle asked.
“Nothing. Probably seismic trigger or magnetic. Good news is we’re not big enough to set one of those— Hold up.” Corre pointed at the shoulder. “More tank tracks going around the wreck. There’s another one out here.”
“This one’s still burning. How long you think since it was hit?” Boyle asked.
“They’ll normally cook off for a couple of hours. No real hot spot in the crater so we’re probably at the longer end of that estimate,” Corre said. “Sure could use a Wolverine with us.”
“The major wouldn’t take a mother and kids but a Wolverine’s welcome? I didn’t go on a mission, but I remember something from church about greater goods not excusing lesser evils,” Boyle said.
“I did my mission . . . and this isn’t my first time in the thick of it either. Maybe that lady and her kids will be in danger. One of our tanks and crews? No chance. But there’s another tank out here.” Corre shared a zoomed-in pic of the map with Boyle. There was a fork in the road a few kilometers ahead. The void port wasn’t far from the junction.
“If I was a fuckwit of a terrorist, I’d have more mines at that intersection,” Boyle said.
“Which would make you not a fuckwit. And if the other tank commander’s got an IQ higher than room temperature he’ll think the same thing and look for another way to the void port.”
“Assuming that’s where they were going.” Boyle zoomed out on the map. “Has to be. Wolverines don’t have a hell of a lot of range. There’s nothing else out here.”
“Likely.” Corre’s head cocked slightly. “Malo says to keep moving. We’ve got two more klicks before another platoon cycles forward.”
“It’s going to be a fun march, I can tell,” Boyle said.
“I’m calling the Flankers up. They’re good in this terrain.” Corre pointed down the road and swung it forward.