David Drake - The Forlorn Hope

Cautiously, concerned now with noise alone since they were beyond the mines, the mercenary began to crawl toward the slits. Hodicky also began to edge forward, a little more to the right to bring him to the blank side of the beryllium arch instead of the bags. He could hear whispers of movement behind him but he dared not look around. After swallowing hard, Hodicky unslung his rifle and began to waddle up the final slope. He could not crawl as Churchie did without the weapon scraping on the ground. A noise like that here, and The back curtain of the shelter brushed open. Light bloomed about the soldier who had just exited. The man was reaching for his fly, spitting distance from Hodicky, when he stopped and cried, "What-"

The Cecach private stood up. "It's all right, Sergeant Breisach," he called in a loud voice so that no one in the shelter would panic. "We were sent to relieve you." Hodicky walked toward the tall man whom he had expected never to meet again.

The curtain shuffled. Hodicky could not see it yet from his angle, but a voice called, "Hey, they're relieving us?" It was easy enough to visualize the face turned hopefully out toward the darkness.

"What do you-Sergeantl"Breisach said, closing with a snarl and a snatch toward his rifle. That movement stopped. The turncoat did not have enough visual purple to see the hedge of weapons aimed at him, but Del Hoybrin's looming bulk was itself a death threat. Breisach backed toward the curtained entrance again, driven by Hoybrin's gesturing rifle. Dwyer and Trooper Powers had thrust their weapons through the firing slits. When the soldier within turned in sudden confusion, it was to face the muzzles of a pair of guns aimed at his chest and right eye. His hands rose silently and his jaw began to tremble.

Sergeant Hummel stepped past Hodicky and tugged the slung rifle from Breisach's arm. The captive was still in Federal uniform, but his collar wings were ragged. All the non-coms of the 522nd had been publicly stripped of their rank tabs as part of the restructuring process of their new overlords. A few soldiers had been hanged as incorrigible idolators as well, but that had been a ploy to get the attention of the rest. The Council of Deacons knew as well as anyone else did that religious partisans were assigned to shock units, not sumps like the 522nd Garrison Battalion.

"In there," Hummel rasped to their captive. "And don't move except I tell you."

Breisach obeyed with a look of sullen hatred. Hummel opened her mouth to send Trooper Hoy-brin in to watch the prisoners. Pavel Hodicky was already following the ex-sergeant. The section leader blinked, but she had more important things to worry about at the moment. Standing outside the shelter for the sake of radio propagation, she began to report the situation to the rest of the command group in urgent tones.

The shelter was cramped by three men and the tension. Pavel Hodicky did not know the other captive though he also wore a Federal uniform. The little private only glanced at that man, however. He was focused on Wolfgang Breisach, just as the big ex-sergeant glowered at Hodicky alone instead of at the weapons pointed at his back.

"You're gone, you know, you little bastard," Breisach said. "You got nowhere left to run." His torso was angled forward, lowering his head. The shelter was deep enough to clear Breisach's hair along the arch where he stood, but anger was tugging him forward against the chain of fear.

"Didn't think they'd leave you all here," said Private Hodicky. His mind was widely separated from his voice, from the present world. "Lotof things I didn't think."

"You know what they're going to do to you and your little faggot friend?" Breisach continued hoarsely. "The-the Deacons, they don't like queers, no. They'll-"

"Quade's dead, you know," Hodicky said. He was smiling. "It was really because of you and Ondru thathe, that he had to go off the way he did."

"Kid!"Churchie Dwyer whispered from the firing slit. Del had pulled aside the curtain, but he was viewing the interior of the shelter with no more than his usual mild interest. The other prisoner was openly terrified. He had backed into a corner. He did not notice the radio until his hip brushed it. Trooper Powers was twisting her own weapon to keep it bearing on the nervous man, unable to intervene through the opening in any other way.

"Hey, that's toobad," Breisach sneered with his voice rising. "Burning in Hell like that, what do you suppose he'd give for a taste of your nice, juicy cock?"

"Why don't you ask him?" said Pavel Hodicky. He fired. The bullet shattered Breisach's breastbone. The other prisoner knocked over the lamp as he flung himself against the wall. There was a cavity the size of a fist at the base of Breisach's throat. Air which had been rammed through his upper windpipe blurted out his mouth with a spray of blood. The involuntary sound was lost in the blasting report of the rifle. The dead man fell forward. His clawing right hand brushed his murderer's boot.

Sergeant Hummel slid pastDel in a crouch, her weapon waist-high and ready. "What thehell"?" she snarled as she took in the tableau.

"Victor to Blue Light," demanded the radio.

Private Hodicky walked to the set. The remaining captive scrambled away from him on the dirt floor. Hummel started to move toward the little private, but she caught herself after only a step.

The radio was one from battalion stores, perhaps one Hodicky himself had signed out one day in the past. He keyed the microphone and said, "Blue Light to Victor. We had an accidental discharge but no harm done. Over." Fresh blood and powder smoke stank in the confined shelter.

"Victor to Blue Light," said the radio. "I'll have to log this, you know. Over."

"Do anything you please," said Pavel Hodicky."Blue Light, over and out." He set down the microphone.

The section leader touched Hodicky gently on the arm. "I'll take over," she said."Go on out, get a breath of air while I talk to our friend here." She toed the living prisoner. He was beginning to stand up again.

Hodicky nodded and walked to the curtained doorway. Del Hoybrin moved back to let him through. Before he stepped outside, the little private turned again. In a voice of sedated calm he said, "Q isn't queer, you know. Neither of usare."

"To tell the truth," said Jo Hummel, "it hadn't occurred to me that it mattered."

Shaking her head, she began to question the wide-eyed captive.

Sergeant Mboko's boots scrunched as he ran toward the gunslit. The noise sounded louder to him than it really was. Every time his toes slammed down, his ears felt the shock of all his weight and equipment in addition to the airborne sound.

It also seemed louder because the black non-com knew exactly what would happen if any of the men in the bunker awakened. It was unlikely that even a garrison soldier could miss with a burst at a point-blank, no-deflection target.

They would rather have bypassed the bunkers. The Company had returned to Smiricky #4 looking for escape, not a battle. Though the bunkers themselves were spaced widely enough that a file could safely thread between them in the darkness, each position also housed an intrusion alarm. The sensor loops of the alarms effectively closed the interstices between the bunkers.

The plan of attack banked on a peculiarity caused by the real mission of the 522nd, which was to prevent the laborers from escaping. Both ends of the sensor loops were attached to the monitors by lead wires. If a bio-electrical field approached the charged portion of the loop, the alarm would sound. The portion of the loop which was lead wire, however, was insulated so that the outpost itself would not set off the alarms; and around the Smiricky compound, the leads were toward the outside instead of on the inward face of the enclosed area. Unless the Rubes had changed the system-and the prisoner swore they had not-the sensors were arrayed to warn of escape, not attack. Mboko should be able to get very close before the defenders realized he was there.