David Drake - The Forlorn Hope

The edges of Mboko's knife shimmered in the starlight: very close indeed.

Hussein ben Mehdi lay on his belly, wishing the herbicide sprayed on the valley every quarter had been more effective. The growth which managed to sprout on the blasted soil was stunted and deformed even by Cecach standards. None of it was over a hand's breadth high, so it was as useful for cover or concealment as the felt on a craps table. The thorns jabbing at his sixth and seventh ribs, however, were as long and as sharp as anything he had felt on this planet- might the Stoned One devour it!

There were four White Section troopers beside the Lieutenant. They were watching dust puff around Mboko's boots as he sprinted the eighty meters to the dug-outs. The troopers were tense, ready to follow their Sergeant if he were successful.

Lieutenant Hussein ben Mehdi was with them because he was their only hope of survival if the shit hit the fan instead.

Sergeant Mboko ran in a crouch, ready for the shock of the bullets which would prove he had failed. Ben Mehdi felt a shiver and looked away from the non-com. His grenade launcher was two centimeters shorter now than issue, the amount which had been tattered by its own blasts in the tank intake. Gunner Jensen had suggested that ben Mehdi switch weapons with another of the grenadiers, but two practice rounds had proved to the Lieutenant's satisfaction that the short tube still had what it took. His hands knew the launcher's grip and fore-end. Objects may not have souls, but familiarity can give them the semblance of one.

If the guards in the bunker opened fire, somebody had to lob grenades through each of the gunslits. No one in the Company could be trusted to do that at night except Hussein ben Mehdi.

Everyone in Fasolini's Company was armed with a real weapon, even the nominal 'lieutenant' who had been signed on as a negotiating tool. Most people thought that ben Mehdi had chosen the grenade launcher over an armor-piercing squeeze-bore because the former was relatively light. That was not the case. The recoil of the squeeze-bore made it almost impossible to fire from a prone position, hugging the ground with the greatest surface of your vulnerable flesh. By contrast, ben Mehdi could launch gas-propelled concussion grenades all day and never have to lifthimself in the face of fire.

And he had gotten very good, against the day that the Colonel might decide that his five grenadiers were superfluous to a company of tank busters and should be reequipped. The Lieutenant had wanted to be able to prove thathis skill, at least, was too great to be discarded.

That skill had just set him at the Windy Corner.

Sergeant Mboko reached the bunker and flattened himself against the face of it, between a pair of gun-slits. He waved back at the troopers waiting to follow if he made the run himself without tripping the alarm. Quickly but in single file, the five mercenaries scrambled to obey the summons. Further back in the darkness, the remainder of the Company lay tense but immobile until the leading team had cleared the bunker.

Lieutenant ben Mehdi was the last man in the file, but he got to his feet without hesitation. Him in a shock commando-him!

And the strangest thing of all was that, as Allah willed, the situation did not seem to be bothering him the way it should have.

The bunker was dug halfway below surface. Its roof was only a meter above ground level. Sergeant Mboko braced his left hand on the top and sprang up, directly onto the soldier sleeping there.

The Cecach soldier started up with a cry which would have been louder if much of the breath had not been driven out by the mercenary's hips. For the Sergeant, it was like stepping onto a platform that was not really there. The irregular, sand-bagged surface had hidden the guard in the darkness. Mboko had kept his face-shield up because depth perception was more important to him than light-gathering while he sprinted toward the bunker.

Now Mboko swung wildly at the cry in the same instinctive horror with which he might have brushed a spider from his eyelid. The knife jarred and twisted in his hand despite its keen edge. The human bulk beneath him kicked while its throat made clucking noises. The Sergeant had not slashed through the neck as he had intended; he had buried ten centimeters of his blade in the soldier's temple.

Mboko could hear the troopers of his section running toward the bunker. With a desperate fury, the Sergeant tugged his weapon clear. The soldier's heels were drumming on the sandbags. It seemed impossible that the guards within the bunker would not awaken at the perfect time to slaughter the five men. Mboko braced his left hand on the Cecach soldier's chest.

The soldier had been a woman. Her breasts lay like gelatine over muscles which were going rigid in death.

The knife came free. There was no sound from inside the bunker.

The first of Mboko's troopers vaulted to the top of the position as the Sergeant waved them on.

It was not a neat operation, but they were not in a business where neat bought any groceries. The six mercenaries poised at the narrow doorway. That many men would be in each other's way inside. Ben Mehdi and another trooper knelt, facing the Complex proper. Mboko counted with his raised fingers for the others. As the Sergeant dipped his hand the third time, Dubose launched himself into the bunker. He carried a knife in his right hand and a light-wand in his left. The Leading Trooper flicked on the wand, silhouetting Mboko against a background of dull yellow as the Sergeant plunged through the doorway himself. The other two of the entry team were a step and a step behind.

There were three Cecach soldiers inside. One was up on his elbow, awakened by the scuffling above him. The guard had time to shout and raise a hand before Dubose landed on his chest. The mercenary tossed the light-wand aside reflexively as he grappled, striking twice at his victim's throat. Three of the dying soldier's fingers came off as his hand convulsed on the blade it had clutched in desperation.

The light-wand was necessary for speed and safety, but its saffron glow awakened the other two guards as well. The section leader ignored them. He jumped past Dubose to the alarm monitor in a corner. Mboko put the toe of his boot through the screen. The alarm disconnected with a pop and a stench mingled of ozone and arcing components. Only then did Mboko turn to find that his men had handled their tasks with the necessary competence.

Butter Platt was cursing. He had tripped on a foot-locker and cut his own left hand badly. That had not prevented him from ripping his target all the way from belly to collarbone. He had kept the blade of his knife to the right of his victim's sternum, where the ends of the ribs are still cartilaginous in a young man. The opened body cavity gaped like a run spreading in a stocking. The point had not nicked a bowel, so the bunker filled with a smell like that of blood on turned earth. When the curly-haired mercenary looked from his own wound to the damage he had caused, he began to smile. His uniform developed a bulge where it covered his groin.

Chen did not care for knives. Because of the bunker's low ceiling, he could not swing his entrenching tool properly. Instead, he stabbed down as if the short-handled shovel were a fishing spear. Its sharpened edge bit, but the Cecach soldier somehow managed to scream until the shovel had chopped him three more times.

The light-wand had rolled under one of the cots. Sergeant Mboko picked it up. In its yellow light, the four mercenaries appeared to be smeared with a black that glistened on their skins and molded their uniforms stickily to their bodies. The section leader took a deep, shuddering breath. "OK," he said, "that's it."