A Desert Called Peace Part 42

Daugher straight-armed the bolting, panic-stricken legionary, dropping him flat on his back. Carrera and his party had headed toward the sound of firing as soon as they'd heard it. When it had grown into a cacophony they'd broken into a run to get there. They'd slowed when they saw the soldier fleeing without his rifle.

Carrera bent down and, grabbing the soldier with one arm, backhanded him across the face with the hand of the other. "What the f.u.c.k is going on, trooper?"

The kid just shook his head back and forth saying, "I don't know, I don't know, I don't know..."

"Mitch.e.l.l, this soldier is under arrest. Follow. The rest of you, either side of the street. Let's go see."

Carefully, the headquarters party advanced, Carrera just behind Bowman on one side, Daugher taking point on the other. Mitch.e.l.l, taking up the rear, prodded the arrested soldier forward at muzzle point. They saw no more fleeing troops. On the other hand, they did see small groups of Sumeris advancing across an intersection without any obvious opposition.

Carrera took the radio microphone from Soult. He called Parilla first, to tell him what he thought had happened and to warn the Dux Dux to be prepared to defend the CP and the airfield. Parilla was already shouting instructions before he released the microphone on his end. to be prepared to defend the CP and the airfield. Parilla was already shouting instructions before he released the microphone on his end.

Confident that at least the Command Post wouldn't be taken unawares, Carrera next called the Cazador Cohort.

"Tribune," he'd said, "I don't care if your men are tired. I don't care if they're dragging their guts behind them. Meet me at..." he stopped to look at his map..."Meet me at Checkpoint Alpha Seventeen. Now....yes, your whole f.u.c.king cohort."

"What now, Boss?" Bowman asked, eagerness and excitement in his voice.

"Now? Now we go seal off that intersection and try to buy some time."

Daugher and Bowman said, together, "Yeehaw!"

Carrera's only responses were a smile, the word, "Lunatics," and the order, "Let's go."

Jimenez had to admire the elegance of the thing. While his men fired up the lower stories of the apartment buildings across the park, the choppers pulled pitch and lifted up above Jimenez's own positions. They advanced above the park blazing away, lacing the fronts of the enemy held buildings with fire. As they crossed from overhead to his high front, Xavier saw that even the crew chiefs were leaning out the side doors and windows to add their machine guns to the din.

With no significant return fire coming, the center two IM-71s arose, then swooped down, one falling in behind the other, to the center and tallest of the apartment buildings. The first disgorged its troops there, then moved forward to give room to the helicopter following.

When it did, the far side of the building the side where there was no suppressive fire and which had not been touched by the mortar barrage erupted with machine guns and RGLs. The helicopter tried to get away, but its own downdraft corrected at least one grenade in flight, straightening it out by the wind on the fins and causing it to surge upwards. This struck it on the tail, wrecking the tail rotor and causing the helicopter to tilt half over to one side and go into an uncontrolled spin. Spinning still, it spiraled to the ground behind the apartments and crashed in smoke and flames. Pinned tight by centrifugal force, none of the crew escaped.

Jimenez didn't see the crash. He caught a single glimpse of the spinning tail boom and then heard the fiery explosion. "s.h.i.+t," he said quietly, nausea gripping at his stomach.

Lamprey and his RTOs landed even as the previous bird was beginning its death spiral. The pilot of the IM-71 that disgorged this second group saw what had happened to his predecessor and had no no intention of following. Fortunately, he didn't have to. The first bird had taken the dangerous route out to clear the rooftop as quickly as possible for the second. Since only two were scheduled to carry troops to the tallest of the buildings, the second chopper didn't have to get out of anyone's way and could take the time to lift and do a fairly leisurely turn. intention of following. Fortunately, he didn't have to. The first bird had taken the dangerous route out to clear the rooftop as quickly as possible for the second. Since only two were scheduled to carry troops to the tallest of the buildings, the second chopper didn't have to get out of anyone's way and could take the time to lift and do a fairly leisurely turn.

Once it had cleared the rooftop, the third and fourth helicopters eased in to the lower buildings flanking the center one. Before they touched down, forty of the forty-eight paratroopers of the 731st that had already landed had burst through the rooftop and were clearing out the Sumeris hiding below in vicious, no quarter, room-to-room and hall-to-hall fighting. that had already landed had burst through the rooftop and were clearing out the Sumeris hiding below in vicious, no quarter, room-to-room and hall-to-hall fighting.

Lamprey, staying on the roof, led from the rear.

Rocaberti stopped running only after having sprinted half a mile and zigzagged several times to make sure he was out of the line of fire. It was a not unimpressive performance from a man in his early forties. Gagging with exhaustion, he leaned against a wall to catch his breath. Behind him, he heard enough firing to suggest that his entire command had not been exterminated.

This was a problem.

When Rocaberti heard the roar of a big gun a tank, he thought he knew he had a really big problem. If the century somehow held out there would be witnesses, dozens of them, against him at his future court-martial. He considered the way Carrera had treated enemies who had broken the rules. What would he do to nominal friends who had? Thinking of ropes and short drops, the tribune automatically felt around his neck.

Not that Rocaberti considered Carrera a friend; the legate had always been a bit distant. In fact, the sinking feeling in the deserter's stomach might not have been quite so deep if Carrera had been a friend.

"What difference does it make though?" he wondered aloud. "Jimenez is his best friend and Carrera would even have him him shot if he'd run as I did. f.u.c.k; f.u.c.k; f.u.c.k! Why did I ever let my uncle force me back into uniform?" shot if he'd run as I did. f.u.c.k; f.u.c.k; f.u.c.k! Why did I ever let my uncle force me back into uniform?"

Though it did not answer the question, another blast from a tank's muzzle half a mile behind him did punctuate it.

Mendoza had to admit, the food was was a bit better this morning than it had been. He sat in his driver's compartment, surrounded by the dials and controls of his tank, eating breakfast, fried sausage and some yellow-greenish stuff that probably had egg in its ancestry somewhere. Del Rio had gone and fetched it for all three men; the infantry century they supported still hadn't quite figured out what to do with them. a bit better this morning than it had been. He sat in his driver's compartment, surrounded by the dials and controls of his tank, eating breakfast, fried sausage and some yellow-greenish stuff that probably had egg in its ancestry somewhere. Del Rio had gone and fetched it for all three men; the infantry century they supported still hadn't quite figured out what to do with them.

Between bites Mendoza watched the legion's attack aircraft swoop in on some targets blocked by the buildings to either side. Between those attacks, his mind wandered to a pretty girl in a yellow dress...

The cry of "Allahu akbar" echoed down the street. Mendoza heard Sergeant Perez shout, "Oh, s.h.i.+t!" He looked up from his food and saw a part of the Sumeri wave was.h.i.+ng down the street. Without orders, Mendoza pushed the starter b.u.t.ton to bring the tank's engine to life. With only the slightest hesitation he tossed the food up and out of the driver's compartment, then pulled on his combat vehicle crewman's helmet in time to hear Perez ordering, "...HE, Infantry."

The tank rocked as del Rio fired a round point blank into the oncoming Sumeris. The sh.e.l.l exploded a bit further than would have been ideal but the Sumeris went down anyway, killed or wounded or merely stunned by the explosion behind them.

Perez shouted into the microphone, "Jorge, back up! Back up, dammit!" Mendoza threw the tank into reverse and stepped on the gas. These actions were automatic; he didn't need to see. Instead, he looked up and saw parties of the enemy racing along the roofs on both side of the street. Several of them carried rocket grenade launchers.

Distracted by the threat above, Mendoza lost track of the direction his tank was going. Instead of moving directly back, it lurched at a slight angle to the lay of the street. Thus, just after pa.s.sing an intersection, the left rear struck the wall of a building, smas.h.i.+ng it and lurching up on the mound of adobe fragments it created. The tank bellied up and stuck on the mound.

Perez was firing the heavy, pintle-mounted machine gun in front of the commander's hatch, the steady hammering feeling like blows to the driver. Maybe Perez saw the attackers above; maybe he didn't. The firing stopped, in any case, when the tank crashed into the wall and came to a sudden halt. Mendoza, stunned but not out, keyed the microphone on his CVC and tried to warn Perez. "Sergeant Per-"

Whatever warning he was about to give was cut off when an RGL round, fired from above, struck the top of the tank, over the engine compartment. Jorge didn't see the hit, but he felt the sudden overpressure all around him as if it were a set of ma.s.sive clubs, applied equally and simultaneously to every square inch of his body.

He didn't feel the second round impact on the roof of the turret. Nor did he feel it when a round of the ammunition, caught halfway between the armored carousel below the turret and the breechblock of the gun, went off.

Having seen off the spoiling attack, Sada, Qabaash and a few of their men retraced their steps back toward the command post. It was daylight now and, even though he knew in principle that he was at least as likely to be seen crossing the trench across the park at night as in the day, it still took all the courage Sada could muster to take that first crouched over step out into the sunlit trench.

The sh.e.l.ling had stopped, which seemed to Sada a good thing as the shards from the airbursts might well have found them out even below ground level in the uncovered ditch. On the other hand, the helicopters above seemed seemed as threatening. as threatening.

"But they're not looking down here at all," Sada said to himself. "Hmmm. If I had had an RGL would it be worth the shot? No matter, since I don't." an RGL would it be worth the shot? No matter, since I don't."

Halfway across the park Sada and his party turned left and followed a narrower, zigzagging section of the trench that led to the apartment building's bas.e.m.e.nts. n.o.body saw them, all the enemies' eyes still fixed on the buildings looming above.

Private Muqtada Fawash saw one RGL round strike the tank's rear grill, setting it alight. The blast knocked forward the man in the tank's commander's hatch who had been stoutly serving his machine gun until the moment the blast hit. Muqtada didn't know if that blast had killed him. He was certain that the second round impacting had been fatal though; it was so close to the enemy tanker's body that it should have cut his torso nearly in two.

As impressive as that was, it was as nothing to the blast that came a fraction of a second later when, so the private a.s.sumed, the second RGL set off some almost certainly not all of the tank's internally stowed ammunition.

Right before Fawash's eyes two bodies were blown completely out of the tank. The first the tank commander's flew almost straight up and in two pieces, a geyser of flame following it. The second was expelled from the driver's compartment. The force must have been something awful, for it had caused the driver's legs to be nicked off when they struck the inside ring of the hatch.

Fawash winced in sympathy.

Muqtada was a bit of an oddity in the Sumeri Army, though not all that uncommon in Sada's brigade. He whispered a prayer as his hand reached up to caress a small golden cross hung about his neck. Then, he hurried to where the second body had fallen to see what he could do to help a fellow Christian.

There wasn't much, Muqtada saw, once he got a good look at Jorge Mendoza's body. Still, what I can; I must. Still, what I can; I must. He cleared Jorge's airway and made sure he could breathe. Then he took the cord from the CVC helmet and tied it around one leg to stop the gush of blood. The victim's belt did for the other. He cleared Jorge's airway and made sure he could breathe. Then he took the cord from the CVC helmet and tied it around one leg to stop the gush of blood. The victim's belt did for the other. Best I can do. Best I can do. He made a quick sign of the cross over Jorge just as his sergeant barked, "Fawash, get your He made a quick sign of the cross over Jorge just as his sergeant barked, "Fawash, get your Nazrani Nazrani a.s.s in gear." a.s.s in gear."

"Yes, Sergeant."

Fawash hurried, like a good soldier, following his sergeant. In accordance with the prearranged order, this small group of a dozen men was to fan out left and find some position that could be defended and which would block or delay the enemy advance into the area just reconquered.

Daugher and Bowman trembled with an almost s.e.xual excitement. This was going to be so much fun fun. Carrera, Soult and Mitch.e.l.l were calmer. Let what is coming, come. Let what is coming, come.

The Sumeris came on fast, a dozen of them, right up the street. It wasn't bad tactics, Carrera thought, just a desperate mission that required throwing the book away. They were plainly looking more to accomplis.h.i.+ng their mission than to safety.

Amateurs initiate an ambush by doing something silly like shouting, "Fire!" Professionals begin one by simply opening fire with their most powerful weapon. In this case, that was a light machine gun carried by that human fireplug, Mitch.e.l.l, who still kept the fleeing trooper from earlier beside him. Carrera waited until the Sumeris were well into the kill zone before slapping Mitch.e.l.l's back. From behind the flattened automobile tire where the two had taken cover Mitch.e.l.l depressed the trigger and st.i.tched an entire rotary drum magazine, seventy-five rounds, into the Sumeris, spraying bullets out as if from a water hose. Men twisted and fell, spilling blood across the street. Before the drum was empty the barrel was smoking.

On the other side of the street from Carrera, Daugher and Bowman joined in gleefully but taking more care to target individuals. Bowman counted off, "One...two...three..." He was counting bodies, not bursts.

By the time the last Sumeri was down, a uniformed tribune dropped beside Carrera and Mitch.e.l.l. "Legate, it's Tribune Valdez, 6th motherf.u.c.king Cazador Cohort. What are my motherf.u.c.king Cazador Cohort. What are my chingada chingada orders?" orders?"

Carrera answered, simply, "Contain and destroy that outbreak ahead."

The tribune arose, made a half a salute and then turned to urge his men forward.

"C'mon, you scrofulous pieces of runny s.h.i.+t!" Valdez cried. "There's enemy up ahead and you can kill kill their b.u.g.g.e.red a.s.ses. Now their b.u.g.g.e.red a.s.ses. Now move move, f.u.c.kheads!"

As he was moving forward, still cursing a storm, Valdez happened to look down at the Sumeri bodies in the street and was struck by the glint of a small golden cross, strung around the neck of one of them.

Interlude

Rift Transition Point, 12 April, 2092 The technology had improved considerably. s.h.i.+ps were larger, lighter and stronger. They could carry more. Moreover, deep sleep techniques had improved to the point that the colonization s.h.i.+ps could be stuffed almost to the rafters with people who, thus suspended, needed neither food nor air. Only the crews remained awake during the voyages, and even they slept for as much as two thirds of the time. The crews had shrunk considerably as the s.h.i.+ps had grown more reliable and automation had further improved.

The colonists' livestock, too, could be sent in greater numbers and variety. There was even room for seeding the new world with the animals, especially the endangered animals, of the old. (Though some of Old Earth's endangered animals were themselves dangers to Terra Nova's.) Moreover, cows could make cows, rice plants could be set in moist earth to make more rice seed, horses made more horses. Little machinery was s.h.i.+pped, and that mostly of the simplest types. Books came digitalized. Medicines and some medical equipment were sometimes sent.

There were ninety-seven s.h.i.+ps, either built, laid, or planned. They were, in comparison to earlier vessels, huge, capable of hauling as many as fifty thousand pa.s.sengers in deep sleep. Their light sails...well, "enormous" hardly did them justice. The s.h.i.+ps took months to load and unload.

To fill those s.h.i.+ps voluntarily, however, required an end point at which the pa.s.sengers would feel comfortable. The Agreement of 2087 divided up the new world into sections roughly comparable to the areas held by the nations and supranationals of Earth, which sections were then often further subdivided. In the division, some got a bit more than they'd had; some got a bit less. Switzerland's colony, Helvetia, had a bit less mountain and a bit more pasture. j.a.pan's Yamato was an island chain of three large islands and numerous small ones, and was somewhat larger in land area though just as mountainous and almost as resource poor as the home islands. Canada got a largely frozen wasteland. It also was next to the colony for the United States. As Canadians saw it, this made sense. They knew their Americans and knew that no American-founded colony would stint their war department. Thus, how else could their settlers ultimately get the best defense in the world and have to pay nearly nothing for it.

Mexico, too, wanted a land border with the gringo colony. From the point of view of the upper cla.s.ses which had ruled Mexico to their own benefit for so very long, how else could they hope to export the ma.s.ses of the jobless and hungry their preferred system was sure to create unless there were to be a labor hungry and prosperous land nearby? They were reasonably certain the Americans, wherever they went, would create such a land.

Not everyone was a volunteer, of course. The nations of Earth sometimes used their allotted s.h.i.+ps to send off their criminals en ma.s.se. Unsurprisingly, their criminals often did very well in the new land. Others used it as a population control measure. China's people often took the s.p.a.ce route to fecundity, since the one child policy, except for party leaders and the rich, was being strictly enforced again. India's poor were given the choice of departure or continuing to sleep on the pavement and starve. They went in droves and died in droves.

Weapons were permitted to the new settlers by most Earth governments, if the settlers could afford them. Wisely, most elected to bring a level of technology, roughly that of late seventeenth to early eighteenth century Earth, which could be sustained. Some Earth companies, for example, made not-so-small fortunes building flintlock rifles for the emigrant trade. Flint could be found; percussion caps required industrial manufacture.

This load, leaving the solar system and transiting the Rift on the 12th of April, 2092, consisted of colonists from the Republics of Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras, all in the vessel of April, 2092, consisted of colonists from the Republics of Panama, Costa Rica, Colombia, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras, all in the vessel Amerigo Vespucci, Amerigo Vespucci, Captain Ngobe Mzilikazi, UNSN, Commanding. The Captain Ngobe Mzilikazi, UNSN, Commanding. The Vespucci Vespucci departed without incident, accelerated to the requisite speed for transition, reached the Rift, and disappeared from Earth's view. departed without incident, accelerated to the requisite speed for transition, reached the Rift, and disappeared from Earth's view.

Chapter Twenty-four.

The courage of your enemy honors you.-Arab saying

Ninewa, 9/3/461 AC It took two days to contain and clear out the remnants of the spoiling attack Sada had launched. When it was finally done, the legion was pleased to discover that about half the century which had been under a.s.sault had managed to hold out in a stout adobe building and beat off all attacks. Even the wounded who had not made it to the building were found, as often as not, neatly laid out and, to the extent practical, cared for, in nearby structures. The sergeant in charge, though wounded, was still ready to fight when the first relieving troops reached him.

He didn't have a bad word to say about the Sumeris, but he had more than a few for Manuel Rocaberti. After hearing the sergeant out, Carrera had returned to the command post and had a long conversation with Parilla.

Parilla and Carrera were still talking as Manuel Rocaberti entered the legion's command post. A private, looking very frightened, stood to one side under a guard supervised by McNamara. The Dux Dux and Legate immediately stopped whatever the conversation had been and turned to face the tribune. The private was the same one who been stopped and arrested for desertion under fire. and Legate immediately stopped whatever the conversation had been and turned to face the tribune. The private was the same one who been stopped and arrested for desertion under fire.

"Manuel," Parilla began, "myself and the legate were just discussing what to do with this man. Carrera wants him shot before the legion. I think maybe we should be kinder, under the circ.u.mstances. You're still officially his commander. What do you think?"

Rocaberti had been surprised that he had not been arrested when he'd shown up to report the destruction of his century. He a.s.sumed, then, that they must have all been killed but for this private. It was either that, or the position of his uncle, that was acting to save him. Perhaps it was both. Still, that also made the private the only possible witness against him.

"Shoot him," Rocaberti answered. "Court-martial him and shoot him. Discipline ought to be maintained."

Though it jarred his half-healed wound, raising a wince, Parilla's fist lashed out of its own accord, catching Rocaberti on the jaw and knocking him to the floor. He was surprisingly fast for someone nearly in his sixties.

"That was your last chance, Manuel," Parilla said. "Sergeant Major McNamara, arrest this man. He is charged with desertion under fire. And release the private back to his unit." was your last chance, Manuel," Parilla said. "Sergeant Major McNamara, arrest this man. He is charged with desertion under fire. And release the private back to his unit."

University Quarter, Ninewa, 10/3/461 AC The sun was up enough to cast long shadows across the streets and parks of the town.

Carrera sighed, a bit wistfully, looking from his high perch down onto the grounds of the university below. Be a shame to destroy it; it's the only bit of decent architecture I've seen since coming here. Be a shame to destroy it; it's the only bit of decent architecture I've seen since coming here.

The University of Sumer at Ninewa was smoothly white and surrounded on three sides by a three meter high wall that, but for the bullet marks, would have been equally smooth and equally white. The river bank made up the fourth side. A green strip of park, fed from the waters of the river, framed the university. Two-lane, one-way boulevards ran to either side of the park.

Older than most of the smashed city behind him, Carrera knew that the University predated the current dictator of the country and so hadn't suffered his megalomaniac urge towards heroic monumentalism or outsized construction. It was low-lying, for the most part, and tasteful in the way that traditional Arabic architecture almost always was, all high windows and graceful arches, with geometric decoration on the walls where those walls were not smooth.

There were three gates into the compound, one in the center facing to the southwest and two more flanking that one to the northwest and southeast at a distance of about four hundred meters. Another broad boulevard led from the town directly to the main gate.

"Patricio, I think you're insane," commented Parilla, standing next to Carrera and looking out over the same scene. "Let someone else go. Send me me."

Behind the two, Soult added in, "G.o.dd.a.m.n straight."

"Besides," Parilla continued, "you don't know you can trust this man."

Not turning his head to address his friends, Carrera insisted, "He's fought like a soldier so far. No tricks...well, no dirty dirty tricks. He's been a tricksy enough b.a.s.t.a.r.d in every permissible way though; that I'll give you." tricks. He's been a tricksy enough b.a.s.t.a.r.d in every permissible way though; that I'll give you."

Clasping his hands behind his back, Carrera began to pace. "Raul, we can't send you," he said. "Your English is, at best, so so. Fahad doesn't speak Spanish. I'm the only one with the right combination of languages and rank. And I don't think it's right to insult this man by sending anyone lesser."