*****
“Sergeant-cadet Templeton reporting, sir,” the youth declared.
The filthy cadet had an injured wing. No, more like a badly injured shoulder, his arm having been confined to a sling. Nevertheless the soldier stood rigidly at attention, silently awaiting recognition by ROWAC’s commander after having arrived on base as one of the occupants of a single rover. Tora raised his weary head from the map he had been studying.
“No need to stand at attention, cadet, just take a stroll to medical bay and see to your injuries. You’ll have time to do that; there won’t be an evac to Lograin for the following two hours –”
“Sir, I have an urgent matter I must first discuss with you. May I?”
The colonel squeezed his lips together in irritation. The tent’s window flaps had been lowered to prevent the sunlight from reflecting off the display panel’s surface, and he and a couple of captains from EWAC had been studying a map of the outlying area, discussing what to do about their uninvited guest’s eventual arrival. The captains were young but sharp as daggers, and they had shown to be possessed of a practical intelligence he greatly appreciated.
And now this.
“You’ll want to take quick run to medical bay, because the only way we’re going to talk is after those bandages are fresh and clean. Understood?”
The youth stood there for a long moment and the colonel began to suspect that he was about to object. Then the cadet gave his senior a stiff nod and made an abrupt about-face before exiting the tent briskly. The colonel paused for a moment, wondering if there was something wrong with the boy. Pressed for time, however, he soon returned to his duties.
The meeting lasted the better part of an hour, and the wind had in the meantime picked up and begun to ruffle the campaign tent as well as those inside. He was relieved when an EWAC sergeant finally informed them that the fortified bunker was complete and ready to receive ROWAC Command. The colonel had to wonder how long it would be in use, but he knew at least that those quarters would not be falling prey to the coming tempest.
As the command section reached the site, Tora found the ground surrounding the bunker to still be marred by innumerous footpad-prints from the Suits that had built it. The shelter was a low-set construction cut into ground, bracketed by tall pines and capped with a central mound meant to provide protection against direct artillery hits. An array of camouflage nets lay over that squat artificial hill, although a moment’s look at its soiled surroundings made clear that they formed what was essentially a bull’s-eye for any drone. One of the EWAC captains quickly put his concern to rest.
“They’ll return shortly with more netting. I’ve ordered those to be erected with spacers.”
“I trust your men when it comes to these things, captain. Although perhaps those nets on the hill should be on spacers as well,” Tora declared.
The captain grinned and shook his head.
“That’s exactly what we won’t be doing, sir. If the site gets detected, we want them to focus on attacking the areas that appear like we made an effort to properly camouflage them. We’ll be placing decoy tents and heat generators on the ground beneath the spaced nets, and that might give them the impression that the center-mound is nothing more than an empty mustering ground. We’ll even be marking the hill appropriately to that effect. We have little hope avoiding detection, so decoying is the only other viable option.”
The colonel nodded and quickly banished all doubt from his mind. The plan probably wouldn’t work if Unmil nuked the spot, but there wasn’t much that could be done about that. The engineers’ logic was sound for anything less than the worst scenario, and worrying about that when so many other problems needed to be dealt with was a waste of time.
And time was getting more precious with every passing hour.
They entered the bunker’s access tunnel, its walls solidly reinforced with tree trunks laid on their sides and meshed together with barbed wire. It was all very slapdash in appearance, but Tora was familiar with that spec of wire, knowing that its tensile strength, cross-section, and the design and placement of its barbs had been optimized for just that function. The logic was that, the more any nearby explosions shook the structure, the more those barbs would bury themselves into the wood and hold the bunker’s structure together.
As they reached the bunker’s pre-fabricated concrete heart, the colonel entered the tiny compartment reserved for the HQ commander and stowed his knapsack inside, and then he began to instruct his aides on how he wanted the War Room to be organized. By the time all tables, chairs, assorted placards, data-screens and communications equipment had been positioned, the injured cadet was back, somewhat cleaner than before and with freshly dressed bandages. Sighing at the chore but conscious that soon he would have no time at all, the colonel received the boy in his newly furnished office.
“So, cadet, what is the problem?”
The cadet spoke slowly and carefully, laying out a story that surprised and shocked the old soldier. As he listened, Tora happened to remember the boy’s surname and was doubly surprised.
“Earthlings. I admit I wasn’t even considering that possibility any more. But this is good news, I think. If they have pilots inside their Suits then our plans might just have the effect we’re hoping for. And the enemy nukes disabled two of their Suits. This is very useful information indeed, cadet. I thank you. But how did you lose that prisoner?”
The cadet continued with his story, and as he spoke the colonel’s eyes began to narrow. That part of the story was more unpleasant to listen to, rife as it was with war-crimes, insubordination, mutiny and negligence, and with the assertion that some of that was presently on its way to Base Fido.
Armed with the newfound information, the colonel wrote up a detailed report, keeping the young cadet seated beside him for occasional prods for information. Haven showed up shortly afterwards to quietly read the report from the screen. Its content was enough to elicit a whistle of admiration from the soldier.
“When can I be evacuated, sir?” the cadet finally asked as they encrypted the report for sending.
“Next copter is fourteen minutes away and closing,” the major rasped. “Keep your pants on, boy, we’ll get you out.”
The cadet thanked his seniors and left in a hurry, leaving the two men to sit quietly inside the cramped compartment, each immersed in his own thoughts.
“Is it just me, or was that boy just plain desperate to get the hell out of here?” the major finally asked.
“Isn’t just you. But don’t forget the cadet who shot him is about twenty minutes off.”
“What’s taking them so long?”
“Apparently peeled away from the trail by mistake and had to forge a new path. They’ve got a seriously injured cadet with them. Apparently an amputee, and the leg’s no good for reattachment, it’s been separated from the body too long ...” he observed grimly.
“Poor boy ...”
“Girl. And young.”
“Shit! Couldn’t we have had the copter evacuate her?”
“You know we’re prohibited from flying beyond this point with what’s coming our way.”
The major gave his commander a look which told him precisely what he could do with that order.
“The pilots aren’t ours to order around,” Tora defended.
“We’ve gotta get us some of our own one of these days ...” the major sulked.
The officers returned to their duties until the distant rumble of rovers caught their attention. The revving engines intensified and then slowly died away. The officers looked at one another.
“Medical bay!” the major declared.
Driven by curiosity, the pair momentarily left matters in the lieutenant-colonel’s hands and passed by medical bay, where the arriving rovers had finally rolled to a stop.
The medical bay was located opposite from the Unmil’s expected axis of approach, the common wisdom being that men previously injured in combat probably wouldn’t appreciate f
irst-class seats to the forthcoming battle. It bracketed the copterpad along with the war-material deposit, the setup following a classic “bullets and bandages” philosophy. This allowed an incoming logistics copter to touch down with its most common cargo destinations only fifty meters away. The downside of that logic was that any missile strike against that deposit would probably leave the bay roofless at the very least. The world wasn’t perfect, of course.
The rovers rested unguarded beside the bay’s low-set roof, its occupants loitering at the building’s entrance or already inside. The soldiery saluted the colonel smartly as he entered, their expressions grim. He heard screams from within one of the compartments.
That’s my cue, he thought, and duly entered.
The first thing he came upon was a naked leg cleanly cut a palm above its smooth knee, the limb having been discarded on a hospital cart like surplus gear.
Petite foot, he thought, swallowing his horror.
Its owner lay on an evac cart, thrashing about madly as orderlies tried to tie her down for transport. She was a beautiful thing even in her distress. Two soldiers leaned against the opposite wall, both of them as dirty as hogs in a sty. The male cadet, his bandages brown with dry blood and grime, kept his eyes fixed on the cadet as she screamed. As someone who came from a family of naturals, Tora had seen those eyes many times before. They were Sanpaku eyes. If one could see the whites of a man’s eyes below their irises as well as beside them, those eyes were saying that their owner was at the end of his rope.
It was the most telling sign of mental fatigue he had ever known.
In a gesture of familiarity and comfort, the girl beside the cadet had her arm draped over his shoulders. Her serene demeanor said much about her mettle.
He approached the pair and they straightened at his presence.
“At ease,” he said, shaking their hands. “Is this your comrade?” he asked, turning towards the struggling figure.
“Yes,” the girl replied. “Laser did this to her.”
“I see. Your name?”
“Sergeant-cadet Hannah Arakaki, sir”
“Arakaki? You wouldn’t happen to know a Lieutenant-colonel Dale Arakaki, would you?”
Her expression hardened a little before becoming impassive again.
“Yes, sir. He’s my uncle.”
“Ah, yes, I would have expected greater similarities between the two ...”
“Twice removed, sir,” she added.
The colonel smiled, liking her for disliking his second-in-command. He watched quietly as the orderlies finally managed to sedate the amputee and then turned to the boy.
“And you must be Toni Miura.”
The cadet’s three-corner eyes fixed onto his senior’s and held them unblinking for a while. The expression conveyed nothing, yet the colonel began to feel distinctly unsettled.
“Yes, I am, sir,” the boy finally replied. “I expect a cadet named Ian Templeton spoke to you, sir.”
“That’s right, but let’s not worry about that for now. The next copter is coming in within the next half-hour to evacuate you three –”
“I never said I wanted to leave, sir,” the boy interrupted quietly, puzzling the colonel.
“I see ...”
“The copter was leaving when we arrived. Tried to wave it down but it just kept going. I thought I saw Ian there, but I’m not sure ...”
“He was on the last copter, all right. As I said, all that can wait for later, first you’ll receive treatment and then you’ll be evacuated.”
“I arrested him, he helped the prisoner escape ... and then Ray –”
“That’s enough Toni,” Hannah interrupted gently. “The colonel doesn’t need to know that now. I’ll see to it that he’s treated, sir, although what he says is true. Toni arrested Ian because he believes he helped a prisoner escape. The prisoner, Kaiser’s his name, then entered our camp and cut our mate’s throat.”
As the colonel heard her speak he slowly began to suspect that he had made a blunder. He had made that very same mistake more than thirty years ago, when he took the words of a soldier to be true without speaking to the other party involved. A sergeant had stood at court-martial for that error, although thankfully there had been no conviction. He had promised himself he would never again be “impregnated through his ears”, as the saying went.
Oh well, I did it again, he realized, and cursed his own foolishness.
Turning to Dennis, he found the major observing him with an amused expression. His eyes appeared to be saying that it wasn’t yet too late.
“Well,” he decided, thinking hard, “so you’re not really interested in leaving, are you, Toni?”
The cadet’s eyes widened slightly, and then he gave a short nod.
“No sir. I faced one of these Suits personally, and I know none of you are ready for what’s coming.”
“Not entirely true, but I’d appreciate your input anyway.”
With their more seriously injured patient temporarily out of the way, the orderlies began to focus on the task of addressing the cadet’s injuries.
As he watched them work, marveling at the injuries and how they had already begun to knit back together by themselves, he received a call from his second-in-command.
“Colonel, the time you wanted? You’re not going to get it. The Unmil successfully captured one of the captains and has set off with him in hand. I suspect it has ceased harassing the companies and is returning to the trail, and I expect it will be arriving at Fido within the next four or five hours.”
“I see,” he breathed. “I guess that was all for naught. Tell the boys to remote-detonate, clump together and standby for evac.”
“Standby for wha–”
“EVAC!” the colonel roared, angrier by the second. “Do as I say. I’ll take care of the rest. Understood?”
As soon as he was certain that the fool understood him, Tora turned to his old friend.
“We’re about to get into some aggressive negotiations with the next copter pilot to arrive. I expect you to do your best, Dennis.”
“You can expect the worst ... I mean, the best of me!” the major answered with a sly grin.