The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

The voice in the phones changed. Someone else spoke. “Are the troops still aboard?”

“No. They’re off.”

“Then take that craft to Green A-one immediately.”

“My—my wife’s in there!”

The colonel’s aware of that.” Jeremy Savage’s voice was calm. “That machine is required, and now.”

“But—”

“Fuller, this regiment has risked a great deal for those hostages. The requirement is urgent. Or do you seriously suppose you would be much use inside?”

Oh, Christ! There was firing inside the cave, and someone was screaming. I want to kill him, Mark thought. Kill that blond-haired bastard. I want to watch him die. A babble filled the helmet phones. Crisp commands and reports were jumbled together as a background noise. Frazer’s voice. “We’re pinned. I’m sending them back to A-one as fast as I can.”

There was more firing from inside the cave.

“Aye-aye,” Mark said. He gunned the engine and lifted out in a whirling loop to confuse the ground fire. Someone was still aboard; the Gatlings chattered and their bright streams raked the rocks around the open area below.

Where was Green A-one? Mark glanced at the screen in front of the control stick. There was gray and white matter, and bright red blood in a long smear across the glass surface. Mark had to lift Bates’s head to get a bearing. More blood ran across his fingers, and something warm trickled down his left arm.

Then the area was ahead, a clear depression surrounded by hills and rocks. Men lay around the top of the bowl. A mortar team worked mechanically, dropping the shells down the tube, leaning back, lifting, dropping another. There were bright flashes everywhere. Mark dropped into the bowl and the flashes vanished. There were sounds; gunfire, and the whump! whump! of the mortar. A squad rushed over and began loading wounded men into the machine. Then the sergeant waved him off, and Mark raced for the rear area where the surgeon waited. Another helicopter passed, headed into the combat area.

The medics off-loaded the men.

“Stand by, Fuller, we’ll get another pilot over there,” Savage’s calm voice said in the phones.

“No, I’ll keep it. I know the way.”

There was a pause. “Right. Get to it, then.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

* * *

The entrance to the boss’s cave was cool, and the surgeon had moved the field hospital there. A steady stream of men came out of the depths of the cave: prisoners carrying their own dead, and Falkenberg’s men carrying their comrades. The Free State dead were piled in heaps near the cliff edge. When they were identified, they were tossed over the side. The regiment’s dead were carried to a cleared area, where they lay covered. Armed soldiers guarded the corpses.

Do the dead give a damn? Mark wondered. Why should they? What’s the point of all the ceremony over dead mercenaries? He looked back at the still figure on the bed. She seemed small and helpless, and her breath rasped in her throat. An IV unit dripped endlessly.

“She’ll live.”

Mark turned to see the regimental surgeon.

“We couldn’t save the baby, but there’s no reason she can’t have more.”

“What happened to her?” Mark demanded.

The surgeon shrugged. “Bullet in the lower abdomen. Ours, theirs, who knows? Jacketed slug, it didn’t do a lot of damage. The colonel wants to see you, Fuller. And you can’t do any good here.” The surgeon took him by the elbow and ushered him out into the steaming daylight. “That way.”

There were more work parties in the open space outside. Prisoners were still carrying away dead men. Insects buzzed around dark red stains on the flinty rocks. They look so dead, Mark thought. So damned dead. Somewhere a woman was crying.

Falkenberg sat with his officers under an open tent in the clearing. There was another man with them, a prisoner under guard. “So they took you alive,” Mark said.

“I seem to have survived. They killed George.” The boss’s lips curled in a sneer. “And you helped them. Fine way to thank us for taking you in.”

“Taking us in! You raped—”

“How do you know it was rape?” the boss demanded. “Not that you were any great help, were you? You’re no damned good, Fuller. Your help didn’t make a damned bit of difference. Has anything you ever did made any difference?”

“That will do, Chambliss,” Falkenberg said.

“Sure. You’re in charge now, Colonel. Well, you beat us, so you give the orders. We’re pretty much alike, you and me.”

“Possibly,” Falkenberg said. “Corporal, take Chambliss to the guard area. And make certain he does not escape.”

“Sir.” The troopers gestured with their rifles. The boss walked ahead of them. He seemed to be leading them.

“What will happen to him?” Mark asked.

“We will turn him over to the governor. I expect he’ll hang. The problem, Fuller, is what to do with you. You were of some help to us, and I don’t like unpaid debts.”

“What choices do I have?” Mark asked.

Falkenberg shrugged. “We could give you a mount and weapons. It is a long journey to the farmlands in the south, but once there, you could probably avoid recapture. Probably. If that is not attractive, we could put in a good word with the governor.”

“Which would get me what?”

“At the least he would agree to forget about your escape and persuade your patron not to prosecute for theft of animals and weapons.”

“But I’d be back under sentence. A slave again. What happens to Juanita?”

“The regiment will take care of her.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Mark demanded.

Falkenberg’s expression did not change. Mark could not tell what the colonel was thinking. “I mean, Fuller, that is unlikely that the troops would approve turning her over to the governor. She can stay with us until her apprenticeship has expired.”

Emotions raged through him. Mark opened his mouth, then bit off the words. So you’re no better than the boss!

“What Colonel Falkenberg means,” Major Savage said, “is that she will be permitted to stay with us as long as she wishes. We don’t lack for women, and there are other differences between us and your Free State. Colonel Falkenberg commands a regiment. He does not rule a mob.”

“Sure. What if she wants to come with me?”

“Then we will see that she does. When she recovers,” Savage said. “That will be her choice. Now what is it you want to do? We don’t have all day.”

What do I want to do? Lord God, I want to go home, but that’s not possible. Dirt farmer, fugitive forever. Or slave for at least two more years. “You haven’t given me a very pleasant set of alternatives.”

“You had fewer when you came here,” Savage said.

A party of prisoners was herded toward the tent. They stood looking nervously at the seated officers, while their guards stood at ease with their weapons. Mark licked his lips. “I heard you were enlisting some of the Free Staters.”

Falkenberg nodded. “A few. Not many.”

“Could you use a helicopter pilot?”

Major Savage chuckled. “Told you he’d ask, John Christian.”

“He was steady enough this morning,” Captain Frazer said. “And we do need pilots.”

“Do you know what you’re getting into?” Falkenberg asked. “Soldiers are not slaves, but they must obey orders. All of them.”

“Slaves have to obey, too.”

“It’s five years,” Major Savage said. “And we track down deserters.”

“Yes, sir.” Mark looked at each of the officers in turn. They sat impassively. They said nothing; they did not look at each other, but they belonged to each other. And to their men. Mark remembered the clubs that children in his neighborhood had formed. Belonging to them had been important, although he could never have said why.

“You see the regiment as merely another unpleasant alternative,” Falkenberg said. “If it is never more than that, it will not be enough.”

“He came for us, colonel,” Frazer said. “He didn’t have to.”

“I take it you are sponsoring him.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Very well,” Falkenberg said. “I doubt, Mister Fuller, if you realize just how you have been honored. Sergeant Major, is he acceptable to the men?”

“No objections, sir.”

“Jeremy?”

“No objection, John Christian.”

“Adjutant?”

“I’ve got his records, Colonel,” Captain Fast indicated the console readout. “He’d make a terrible enlisted man.”

“But not necessarily a terrible aviation officer?”

“No, sir. He scores out high enough. But I’ve got my doubts about his motivations.”

“Yes. But we do not generally worry about men’s motives. We only require that they act like soldiers. Are you objecting, Amos?”

“No, Colonel.”

“Then that’s that. Fuller, you will be on trial. It will not be the easiest experience of your life. Men earn their way into this regiment.” He smiled suddenly. “The lot of a junior warrant officer is not always enviable.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You may go. There will be a formal swearing in when we return to our own camp. And doubtless Captain Fast will need information for his data base. Dismissed.”