"The Forlorn Hope" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

Chapter Eleven

The markers were stakes of brush split lengthwise so that their white cores faced the oncoming troops. Tape would have been better, but they did not have tape, did not have wire-did not even have cloth which would not determinedly blend in with its surroundings. Directly ahead of Pavel Hodicky, Churchie Dwyer grunted as he thrust another stake into the ground. He began to crawl forward, angling to the right this time.

The Cecach private had not thought about the mines at all during the time he was stationed at Smiricky #4. The mines had been strewn around the valley years before in much the same way that the cluster bombs had been dropped during the Republican attack. They were laid on the reverse slopes instead of being targeted on the valley itself, of course; and unli'ke thebombs, they did not arm themselves until they had been exposed to the air for an hour or two. After that, they slowly weathered to the look of rocks the size of a child's fist. They remained lethal until they were detonated, and a kilogram's pressure or less was quite enough to set them off.

"Another stake!"Churchie whispered.

Hodicky passed one to the veteran, taking another in turn from Del Hoybrin behind him. Colonel Fasolini's escape route had been a genuine corridor, cleared to a minimum width of two meters. It had a single dog-leg in it so that a fortunate intruder could not simply follow his nose across the minefield; but the escape route had been intended for fast use under adverse circumstances.

Churchie Dwyer had not needed such a corridor, -nor could he have have cleared one without being caught. Wherever possible, Dwyer had skirted mines which lay in his immediate way. Only when chance had sewn an area too thickly to be avoided had he actually removed mines. There was no safe way to do that except by blowing them in place. Trooper Hoybrin had carefully dropped a hundred-kilo sack of dirt on each mine while his partner prayed that both the blast and the noise would be adequately absorbed.

The path which resulted from the troopers' combined labors was a snake trail. Churchie himself was muttering gloomy appraisals. Pavel Hodicky would have been terrified of what he was doing, except that he was even more terrified of what he might be about to do.

Hodicky had been issued a helmet salvaged from one of the four dead. It had blood on the inner lining, but that wasnot why he did not wear it now. Bareheaded, with the darkerWoodland pattern of his uniform turnedout, Hodicky might for a moment pass for a Rube soldier. The off-planet precision of the metal-fiber helmet would mark him at once to anyone who saw it; and Hodicky had learned very early in life that the top of his head was generally going to be the first part of him people saw.

Dwyer paused again. Hodicky had been following by watching the veteran's boots and pretending there was nothing else around him. Now Churchie was gesturing forward with one crooked finger. The Cecach private forced himself to look.

Slightly above them and less than three meters away was the sand-bagged end of a shelter. Two narrow firing slits had been left in the facing wall. The light from within the shelter made the slits glare at Hodicky like the eyes of a predator.

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.

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."

The troopers began to file out. Mboko called after them, "Dubose, get a dressing on Platt's hand."

"Christ, Butter," Dubose muttered as he glanced from the cut to Platt's face, "you're a real sicko. You really like hurting people, don't you?"

"Hey," said the other trooper as he stepped into the night, "do I talk about you and your little girls?"

Mboko switched off the wand. He held it in one of the sand-bagged firing slits and flicked three pulses toward the darkness and the rest of the Company. They were keeping strict radio silence now that the ridge no longer shielded their transmission from the receivers in the Complex itself. All clear. No problems.

God, what a way to make a living.

The Sergeant stepped out of the bunker and drew another deep breath. The fresh night air flushed the abattoir reek from his lungs, but nothing could clear his mind.

There were no guards posted outside theKatynForest. The bridge scuttle was retracted and all three cargo holds were clam-shelled shut. Nothing could be done about the rent in the hull where the bomb had punched through, however. The handholds meant for operation in a vacuum gave access of a sort up the curve of the hull. It was not access which would have done Albrecht Waldstejn much good without Trooper Hoybrin above, hauling him up by rope to the point the cylindrical hull began to curve in again, however.

Panting, the Captain reached the hole on which they depended for entrance. Sergeant Hummel and three Black Section troopers were already there. Waldstejn, with his familiar face and uniform, had to be the first inside.

Necessarily, they had made a great deal of noise on the hull. The lights visible within the Power Room meant nothing-in that location, the glow strips were probably permanently charged. Waldstejn braced his hands on the impressed lips of the bomb puncture and let his legs dangle. Maria. If a squad of Republican guards were waiting for the first man through the hole… well, it would be quick.

Churchie Dwyer gave him a thumbs-up signal and a stainless steel grin. Waldstejn grimaced, then dropped to the deck with a clang.

He was facing the muzzle of a rifle. The bearded First Officer-Captain Ortschugin- watched him over the sights. His eye was as cold as that of any of the Company's gunmen.

Albrecht Waldstejn picked himself up carefully. He raised his hands, but he smiled. "Vladimir," he said to the grim-faced spacer, "we need to talk, and I'll take a drink if you've got something handy. I think we're each other's tickets home."