Harry Turtledove - The Valley-Westside War

“Why didn't Cal know they had it?” somebody asked.

“Beats me,” the soldier answered. “He didn't, though-never in a million years.” He paused, then added one more telling detail: “Pots is dead. That gun chewed up his armor like it wasn't there. Chewed him up, too.”

People moaned and wept when they heard that. The monster mutant dog had been a symbol of Westside strength for years. What did he symbolize now? The collapse of Westside strength? It sure looked that way to Liz.

Sack of avocados in one hand, chicken legs in the other, her head full of news, she headed back toward the house. She was glad to give her mother the chicken. She wasn't so glad to pass the news along.

Mom's mouth tightened. “I was afraid of that. Remember how your father said a heavy machine gun would be big trouble?”

“Well, he was right.” Liz didn't say that every day. She got on well with her father, but she didn't always agree with him- not even close. She paused, gulped, and asked, “What do we do if… if the Valley soldiers come here?”

“Try to stay out of their way,” her mother answered. “Try-not to make them notice us. Try not to get in trouble. Try to protect UCLA, if we can.”

“How do we do that if we're doing all those other things, too?” Liz asked. This time, Mom didn't answer. Liz wondered why. She thought it was a mighty good question.

Dan was over the top of Sepulveda Pass. The wall the Westsiders had run up-the wall that had started the war-lay behind him. Prisoners the Valley troops had taken were already starting to knock it down.

“All downhill from here!” Captain Kevin shouted. The men in his company cheered.

The captain meant it both literally and figuratively. Dan figured the fight would get easier from here on out, too. And it was downhill from here, all the way into Westwood and Brentwood, the Westsiders' most important northern centers.

Not all the enemy soldiers had given up and run away. Somebody fired a musket from behind a boulder. A cloud of black-powder smoke told where he hid. The bullet hit the asphalt maybe twenty feet from Dan and ricocheted away.

“Shall we hunt him down, sir?” Sergeant Chuck asked.

Captain Kevin shook his head. “No. It would only waste our time, and that's what he wants. Spread the men out so they're harder to hit, that's all. Once we finish taking the Westside apart, this guy will have to surrender, too.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant said. Dan didn't think he liked the order, but he obeyed it. Before long, the musketeer fired again. He missed again, too. A musket would shoot farther than a bow, but it was less accurate. If he'd had an Old Time rifle, now… But he didn't, and Dan was glad he didn't.

Before long, the Valley men came to another barricade across the 405. This one was made of rubble, and plainly brand new. Some Westside soldiers crouched behind it, aiming to stop the troops from the Valley-or, more likely, to delay them, anyhow. A couple of the Westsiders did have Old Time weapons. They opened up too soon, though, and warned the Valley men. Dan and his comrades scrambled off the freeway into the brush to either side. If they had to work their way past the men with the dangerous weapons, then they did, that was all.

And then the machine gun started hammering at the Westsiders again. With that gun reaching for you, you had to be crazy, or at least crazy-brave, to expose yourself to the death it spat.

Some of them were. They held their ground and tried to shoot back. But the machine gun was too much for most of them to face. Some of its bullets even punched through the junk they'd piled up to protect themselves. So was it any wonder that a lot of them ran away to fight somewhere else another time-or maybe just to save their own lives?

Wonder or not, one of the Westsiders dashed past Dan without knowing or caring that he was close by. The enemy soldier couldn't have been more than a year or two older than he was himself. Dan set an arrow on his bowstring, drew, and let fly all in one smooth motion. The string scraped across his leather wristguard.

The arrow caught the Westsider in his right calf. He went down with a wail. Dan had aimed at his chest. Still, a hit was a hit. Drawing his shortsword, Dan ran forward. “Surrender!” he yelled. “You're my prisoner!”

“It hurts!” the Westsider said. “It hurts!” He hardly even knew Dan was there. Pain twisted his face. Blood ran from the wound- Dan could smell it as well as seeing it. All at once, gulping, he was less proud of what he'd done.

“You give up?” Dan said roughly, and then, “You better give up. You reach for that musket, it's the last dumb thing you'll ever do.”

“It hurts!” the Westsider wailed again. After that, he blinked and seemed to realize he had company. He looked from Dan to the musket he'd dropped. “Stupid thing isn't loaded anyway.”

He could say that, which didn't make it true. “Do you surrender?” Dan demanded. “This is your last chance.” That sounded tough, but what would he do if the Westsider said no? Kill him in cold blood? He wasn't sure he could.

He didn't have to find out, because the Westsider answered, “Yeah, I surrender. What else can I do? Will you put a bandage on my leg?”

“Sure,” Dan said. “Want me to push the arrow through first? Otherwise, the surgeon will have to cut for it, and I don't think we've got ether for prisoners.”

“Oh, wow.” The captured enemy sounded bleak. Dan would have, too, were it his leg. Only luck that it wasn't, luck and a heavy machine gun. If one of those slugs had hit this guy, he wouldn't be freaking out about a nice clean wound. He'd likely be dead. Dan had gone past some Westsiders who'd stopped.50-caliber rounds. Even if the bullet didn't hit a vital spot, the shock of getting smacked by something moving that fast could kill.

“Well, do you?” Dan asked when the Westsider didn't give him a straight answer.

“Yeah. go ahead.” The other youngster set himself.

But before Dan could, Sergeant Chuck said, “Come on, kid-get moving. Throw his musket some place where he can't grab it, and get yourself in gear. He won't be your personal slave, even if you did shoot him. You're here to fight. We've got other people to clean up the mess afterwards.”

“Okay, Sarge.” Dan wasn't sorry to have an excuse to get to his feet. He knew what you were supposed to do about an arrow wound, but he'd never tried it before. He didn't much want to, either. Hurting somebody on purpose, even if you were helping at the same time, seemed harder than shooting at the same person had been. That was crazy, but it was true. He nodded to the Westsider. “Uh, good luck.”

“Thanks a bunch,” the wounded soldier said. Dan grabbed the musket and flung it into the brush. The Westsider wasn't likely to go after it.

“Let's move.” Chuck gave Dan a shove. Dan got moving. The sergeant asked, “First one you shot?”

“First one I know I did, anyway,” Dan answered.

“Yeah, sometimes you can't tell,” Chuck agreed. “How do you feel about it?”

Dan wanted to brag about how heroic he was. He found that the words wouldn't come out of his mouth. What did come out was, “I almost barfed.” He waited for the tough sergeant to laugh at him.

But Chuck only nodded. “Well, that's honest.” he said. “I felt the same way the first time I did it. People who aren't soldiers think war's a game. The ones who have to fight know better.”

“Some soldiers brag about what they do,” Dan said.

“Most of the ones who brag haven't really done it,” Chuck replied. “Some of the others…” His mouth tightened. “Well, some people get off on hurting others. They're good killers. They usually aren't good soldiers. There's a difference.”