“Base One, Intelligence, Tetsuko, please.”
There was a moment of silence; Debbie Lefkowitz used it to control her breathing, and the throbbing and dizziness in her head receded. Very faintly, the sound of explosions echoed in through the entrance and the opening overhead. The communicator chirped.
“Triphammer Base Beta, Yoshida here,” he said. “We have a live survivor from the enemy surveillance plane; Lieutenant Deborah Lefkowitz, one of Falkenberg’s people, recon interpretation specialist. Field Prime is with the advance element. Yes. Yes, sir, I’m sending all the equipment we salvaged in an hour or so with the next evacuation sled. Sir, I have no facilities or drugs for—yes, sir.” The printer spat more paper with soundless speed, as the officer looked around.
“Sergeant Sikelianos,” he called.
“Sir?”
“I don’t have time to attend to this, and your guard squad might as well be making themselves useful. Here’s a list of information we need from this prisoner: get it out of her, but she’s got to be ready to travel in a couple of hours; Tetsuko wants to do a more thorough debriefing. See to it.”
“Yes, sir.” Sikelianos was a thickset man, you could tell that even through parka and armor, with a rifle slung muzzle-down across his back. Thick close-cropped beard and hair twisted into a braid down his neck, both blue-black. He was grinning, as well, showing white, even teeth with the slightly blueish sheen of implants.
“Remember Field Prime’s Rule, Sikelianos. One chance.”
“Yessir. Come on, you four.”
The four soldiers—armed men at least, if not soldiers, she thought with contempt beneath her fear—tied her hands behind her back and hustled her into the dark area where the rock did meet overhead. Past a herd of mules within a rope corral, into echoing silence and chill; the cold was beginning to drain her resources, and she shivered slightly.
“OK, this is good enough,” the guerilla noncom said. It was almost absolutely dark to her eyes; they would be using their nightsight goggles. Hands came out of nowhere and threw her back against the wall; she saw an explosion of colored lights behind closed lids. Then real light. Sikelianos had switched on a small hook-shaped flashlight dangling through a loop on his webbing belt. It underlit the men’s faces, caught gleams from items of equipment slung about them.
“OK,” Sikelianos said; he was smiling, and she could see him wet his lips behind the white puffing of his breath. “We got some questions for you, mercenary bitch. You going to answer?”
“Lieutenant Deborah Lefkowitz, Falkenberg’s Mercenary Legion, 11A7782-ze-l uhhhh.” He had hit her under the breastbone, fast and very hard. She dropped to the ground, gagging and coughing as she struggled to draw air into paralyzed lungs. They waited until she was merely panting before drawing her up again.
“You going to answer the questions?” Sikelianos said, brushing his knuckles across his lips.
“Under the Mercenary Code and the Laws of War—”
This time the fist struck her almost lightly, so that she was able to keep erect by leaning against the rock. Again he waited; when she straightened up, he had drawn the knife worn hilt-down at his left shoulder. The blade was a dull black curve, but the edge caught the faint light of the shielded torch. His left hand held a pair of pliers. He laughed, putting the point of the knife under her chin; she could feel the skin part, it must be shaving-sharp. A tiny stab of pain, and the warmth of blood on her cold-roughened skin.
“You mercs and the Cits, you deserve each other.” The knifepoint rose and she craned upward, head tilted back until the muscles creaked. “Now, by now even a stupid cunt like you ought to realize something. This is the Revolution, we’re not playing no stinking game, and we got our own rules. Like, everything is either them or us, you understand? Other rules we sort of make up as we go along.”
“But,” he went on, “we do got a few real ironclad laws. Field Prime’s Rule, that’s one. You listening?” He leaned closer. “Outsiders get just one chance to cooperate. Savvy? You answer our questions, we take you back to the officer and you get a nice warm blanket and a safe trip to Base One, everything real nice, you can sit out the war in a cell. Maybe we even exchange you. You don’t answer . . . well, you will. Up to you, smooth or rough.”
“Lieutenant Deborah Lefkowitz, Falkenberg’s Mercenary Legion, 11A7732-ze-l,” she began. Then she closed her eyes and clamped her mouth tight as he gripped the collar of her jacket and slit it open down the front.
“Hey, Sarge,” one of the guerillas laughed. “Goosebumps—maybe she likes it rough.”
There was a shark’s amusement in his voice. “I always got the pliers to fall back on.”
Deborah Lefkowitz remained silent when a boot tripped her. She only began to scream when they stretched her legs wide and slashed the pants off her hips.
“Goddamn it!” Lysander swore to himself in quiet frustration, as the cry of incoming echoed across his position. The engineers stayed at their positions long enough to fire the breeching charges, stubby mortars that dragged lines of plastic tubing stuffed with explosives through the air across the minefield. Then they copied everyone else and dove for cover, many of them rolled under the bellies of the six armored cars that had come forward. The assault company of infantry had no such option, nor had there been time for it to dig in. They hugged the earth and prayed or cursed according to inclination; a few managed to roll into already occupied holes dug by the Scout company.
“Overshot,” he murmured a moment later; there were mortar rounds falling on them, but the rockets . . . on Peter, he thought. Well, he has those armored cans. . . .
“Sir.” The Legion helmet identified the speaker, Junior Lieutenant Halder, Fourth Platoon, the ones he had sent down to scout the woods. “We’re engaged, ran into an enemy unit in the thick bush. They were moving south, sir, hard to tell how many, but they’re loaded for bear. I’m getting heavy rifle grenade and antipersonnel rocket fire, sir.”
“Calderon, switch the company mortars to support Third Command.”
“Owensford here.”
“Sir, Code—” he punched at the keyboard woven into his cuff. “Code ALGERNON, repeat Algernon. Code MOSEBY.” Enemy forces in large but unknown strength west of my position.
“Copy. The land-line should be connected now; link to Sastri to call in fire support. Hurt them, Kicker Six, that’s what you’re out there for.”
* * *
Another blast of shrapnel from the antipersonnel bomblets swept over the command caravan. Goddamn it, I’m an Infantryman, not a turtle, Owensford thought. Although there was a certain comfort to having 20mm of hardened plate between you and unpleasantness.
Movement in the ravine. Hmmmm. Up north around Slater’s column, the enemy had been using infiltration tactics down the wooded corridors. Potentially more of a problem here than there, since the proportion of forest was greater.
He looked at the map; squares were beginning to fill in for enemy units. The tiltrotor’s sacrifice had been worth a lot; now they knew where to fly their drones, and they were getting more data.
So. What do we know?
The Fifty-first out on his flank had been hit hard, infantry attacks in strength right on the heels of the first bombardment; now they were gradually turning front as parties of the enemy tried to work around their rear. The Third on his left was moving east and north to cover the flank of his probe through the minefield, the Second on the far left was getting hit-and-run skirmishing and snipers and moving slowly to close up with the 3rd.
“Andy, link me up with Barton and Alana. Can we do that securely?”
“Sure can. Got a new fiber thread laid five minutes ago. Stand by one—got it.”
“Ace. Jesus. Stand by to trade data sets.” Peter slapped the function keys, and lights blinked. His map screens changed subtly.
“All right, Jesus,” Peter said. “What are they trying to do?”
“It depends upon whether or not they are fools.”
“What do you think?”
“Don’t look like fools to me,” Ace Barton said.
“They are not fools,” Alana said. “Their plan is well executed. The problem is that they have not enough force to accomplish what clearly they believe they can do.”
“Say that again.”
“Colonel, they look to be trying to cut through to your base camp and destroy it. All their movements point to that. Yet they have not enough force to do it, and the result is that they expose themselves to attrition, and then to counterattack.”
“First they build a pocket for you, now they stick their own dicks in the garbage grinder,” Ace Barton said.
“Not fools but acting like fools.”
“That’s close enough,” Alana said.