CHAPTER
THIRTY-THREE
Exfiltration from Gilbert’s Corners, Ravenette
The flight of the survivors from the failed assault against the Marines’ left flank acted as a catalyst. The soldiers to their left saw them running, saw the wounded and dead men lying to their right and left, and joined in the flight. Then the soldiers to their left did the same, and the next soldiers, and the next after them, in ripples, until everybody in the barracks area who was able to run or hobble toward the fields, away from the Marines, was on the move.
“Let them go,” Captain Wainwright ordered on the all-hands circuit. “Sections, report.” While he waited for the section leaders to get casualty information from the squad leaders and report back, he checked his satellite feed to see where the forest patrols were and made a preliminary report to Force Recon headquarters on board the CNSS Kiowa. He was in turn given news.
“Commence withdrawal as soon as possible. Elements of the Ninth Division have left their base and are en route your position.”
“Third section,” Staff Sergeant Keen was the first to report in, but he was only reporting for the reaction force, “no casualties.”
“Second section,” Staff Sergeant Morgan reported, “no casualties.”
“Blocking section, no action, no casualties,” Sergeant G’Knome reported for the two squads in the fields.
“South section, no casualties,” Sergeant Timony reported; he sounded astonished that no counterattack had been launched against the two squads he’d led on the south of the barracks area.
It took Staff Sergeant Fryman the longest to report in. “First section, no Kilo India Alpha, four Whiskey India Alpha. All mobile.”
“You all have your exfiltration routes,” Wainwright said. “Go. First section, hold your positions, the corpsman is on his way to you.”
Doc Natron had begun moving as soon as he heard Fryman say “no Kilo…” because that told him there were wounded Marines in first section.
The first casualty he found was Sergeant Bingh. Three fléchettes had ripped across his left buttock, peeling off a two-square-centimeter patch of skin and gouging the muscle underneath. The wound was already bandaged. Natron reached to undo the bandage to check the wound.
“You don’t want to see what’s under there, Doc,” Corporal Musica said with a grin. “It’s not as ugly as it was before it got hit, but Bingh’s still got to have the ugliest ass I’ve ever seen.”
“I’m a corpsman,” Natron said, ripping the bandage off. “I’ve seen uglier than you can imagine.” He looked at the wound as he pulled some synthskin out of his medkit. “But you’re right, that’s a damn ugly ass.” He quickly applied the synthskin and a fresh dressing. “I’m not going to give you anything for the pain,” he told Bingh. “That scratch isn’t bad enough to seriously impede your ability to get out of here, but if you don’t feel any pain, you run too great a risk of aggravating the injury.”
He patted Bingh on the shoulder and stood. “Gotta go!” He was off to tend to the other casualties.
All three of the other wounded Marines were in second squad. Lance Corporal Ilon had a fierce bite on his right forearm that he’d suffered when the Coalition soldiers piled on him. Natron gave the wound a disinfectant, injected an antibiotic, then dressed the wound.
“You need to give that arm a rest and jerk off with your other hand until that heals,” he told the Marine.
Sergeant Kare had a broken arm. Natron splinted the arm. “You heard what I told Ilon? You don’t have any choice in the matter.
“Where are you hit?” he asked Corporal Quinn, whose chameleons were heavily blood-spattered.
Quinn shook his head. “None of that’s mine. I don’t get a wound stripe this time.”
“I’d hate to see the other guys,” Natron said with a shake of his head.
“Look around, you’ll see them,” Quinn said, and waved a hand at the dead and wounded Coalition soldiers slumped around the squad.
“You said four WIA,” Natro said to Fryman. “I’ve only seen three.”
“It’s Kassel.”
Corporal Kassel was standing, but now that Natron looked at him, he saw the reconman looked a bit queasy.
“What’s the matter?” the corpsman asked.
“My back.” Kassel sounded as if he was in pain.
“Where?” Natron began probing Kassel’s back.
“A bit to the left.” Kassel gasped when Natron’s fingers probed in the right place.
“Here?”
“There.”
Natron gently felt the area that Kassel said hurt. “It feels like you’ve got a couple of cracked ribs. There’s not a lot I can do about that here. Take off your shirt.”
Kassel’s torso became fully visible as he gingerly peeled off his shirt. His back was bruised where it hurt.
“There’s not a lot I can do for broken ribs in the field,” Natron said as he rooted through his medkit. “Stand erect.”
Kassel winced when Natron applied tape over the injured area.
“That’ll help stabilize the bones,” Natron said when he’d finished taping the ribs. “You can put your shirt back on. I’ll give you something for the pain. Not enough to knock it out, I don’t want you to cause yourself any more injury, but enough to dull the pain so you can move without too much discomfort.”
In another moment Natron reported to Captain Wainwright that the wounded were ready to move. He requested and was granted permission to travel with the injured Marines of second squad.
Second platoon’s second squad’s exfiltration route took it north of Gilbert’s Corners; fourth squad’s went south of the village. Captain Wainwright had Lieutenant Rollings and Bravo command group go with fourth squad. He took his own command group, minus the corpsman, with first squad through Gilbert’s Corners. Even though it was no more than a secondary objective and he didn’t have time to search for anybody, he still hoped to capture a member of the Committee on the Conduct of the War. Third squad took a different route through the village, while the reaction force separated into its squads, each of which took a different route around Gilbert’s Corners.
Inside Gilbert’s Corners
Kory Dillard, a farmer who sometimes supplemented the family’s larder by hunting game birds, was wakened by the sounds of battle at some not-too-great distance. The distance was great enough, though, that he concluded it had nothing to do with him, and he rolled over and spooned his wife, who made a faint moan in her sleep. Dillard didn’t want to wake her and take the spooning to the next step, he wanted to go back to sleep, which was why he draped his arm over hers instead of cupping her breast. But before he dropped off again, his night was further disturbed, by shouts. The shouts were much closer then the shots, they were in the streets close to his home. So he groaned, gently disengaged himself from his wife, and eased out from under the sheet that was all the covering he and his wife needed for night comfort. He slept naked, so he took a few seconds to pull on a pair of trousers before padding barefoot out of the bedroom to look out the living room windows. What he saw shocked him to full wakefulness.
The streetlamps were out, which told him the time was past midnight—with everybody abed at a decent hour, the village fathers saw no need to keep streetlamps burning all night and turned them off soon after the last of the bars and restaurants was supposed to close. Despite the lack of streetlamps, Dillard could see what was going on; a red glow in the sky to the northeast cast enough light for him to see by. And what he saw was people milling about or running back into their homes. Most of the people were village farmers or shopkeepers in various states of undress, but some were soldiers—like the villagers, in varying states of dress.
Two of the soldiers were yelling—one at the other soldiers, apparently attempting to get them into some kind of military formation, the other at the villagers. When Dillard listened, he could make out that second soldier’s words over the din of shouts from most everybody else—he was telling the villagers to wake their neighbors and grab whatever weapons they had to repel an invasion.
An invasion! “Goddamn!” Dillard swore. He’d known no good would come of having that damned committee move into Gilbert’s Corners. Soon enough the Beelzebub minions of the Confederation of Human Worlds were bound to find out and come after them. And so they had. Muttering under his breath, Dillard went back to the bedroom to pull on a shirt and boots. He grabbed his birding gun and a box of shells from the closet.
“Wazza madda, ’oney,” his wife asked as he dressed.
“Nothin’ fer you to worry yer little hay-ed about, honey,” he answered. “Now you jist get yersef back ta sleep.” Dressed, he got his bird gun from the closet and went outside. He didn’t hear his wife get out of bed behind him.
Outside, Dillard recognized the soldier who was yelling at the villagers to wake their neighbors and get their guns; he was some kind of officer, maybe the general in charge of the soldiers here. Something like that, anyhow. Unlike the other soldiers, he was mostly in uniform, even had those ivy leaves, or whatever they were, on his shirt collars. Dillard could also see that the red glow in the sky was from a growing fire, probably at the soldier-housing buildings that had taken part of the cornfields. He heard the sounds of fighting from that direction, and it was a lot louder than he’d realized before he came out.
“What the hell’s goin’ on, Gen’l?” Dillard demanded.
“It’s ‘Colonel,’” Colonel Osper snapped when he turned from a yapping man Dillard recognized as one of the tutti-frutti big shots who’d moved to Gilbert’s Corners. “The Confederation has launched a major attack, what do you think that’s all about?” Osper waved a hand in the direction of the burning barracks.
Dillard cocked his head and listened for a second. “Don’t sound lak no major attack now, Gen’l.”
“That’s because they whupped our troops and is comin’ here now!” the tutti-frutti shrieked.
“Shut yer yap,” Osper snapped at the tutti-frutti. “Either get yerself a weapon and get ready to fight, or get the hell out’n my way!” He looked back at Dillard. “That don’t look like much of a gun you got there, but it’ll do. You got people in another part of town, go get them and their weapons. We need ’em all to hold until our reinforcements arrive.”
Osper turned his back on Dillard and the still yapping member of the Committee on the Conduct of the War and marched to the ragged formation of officers and senior noncoms that had been assembled by his executive officer. He grimaced when he saw how many of them weren’t armed, and how many of the others had only sidearms.
“I want you to start pulling these here civilians into fire teams and squads,” he barked. “I figure we only has a few minutes before them Confederations are here, so find yersefs some fighting positions with cover. Now do it!”
Dillard thought he knew what that meant, and he didn’t want to get organized into no damn fire team or squad, whatever they was. So he made off like he was going to get relatives and friends from another part of Gilbert’s Corners. He didn’t, though. He’d seen near everybody he knew what had a gun, so’s there weren’t nobody else for him to find. If he had to fight them Confederations, he’d fight ’em his own way!
As soon as Dillard was out of sight of the soldier boys on his street, he began wending his way toward the north edge of the village. One thing he knew from bird hunting is you comes at your game from a direction it doesn’t expect—and you hides when you get there and let it come to you.
The Widder Throgmorton lived on the edge of the village and had a root cellar where she kept the tubers and vegetables she dug up from her kitchen garden. The entry hole to the root cellar faced northeast, the direction from where the Confederation soldiers would come. That’s where Dillard headed himself; he figured that root cellar would make a mighty fine blind. But before he took up his position, he thunk he otter let the Widder Throgmorton know he was there, and that mebbe she should get into a good hidey-hole her ownself before the shootin’ started. So’s he knocked on her door.
“Who’s there?” came her quavery voice.
“It’s Kory Dillard, Widder Throgmorton.”
The Widder Throgmorton opened the door just a crack to see if it was truly Kory Dillard. “What do you want, comin’ round in the middle of the night like this?” she demanded. Despite her name and her quavery voice, the Widder Throgmorton weren’t no old granny-lady, nossir! She was a mighty fine-looking lady of forty-five.
“What, didn’t you hear all that shootin’ down by the soldier area? The Confederation’s comin’. They done whupped ass on the soldier boys and they’s coming here next. I’m goan get in yer root cellar and fight ’em from there. Thought you should know and find yersef a hidey-hole.”
The Widder Throgmorton gave him a searching look, but saw only truth in his face. “Give me a minute to get decent, and I’ll join you in the root cellar. It’s the best hidey-hole I got.” She glanced at his bird gun. “That all you got to fight with?”
Dillard shrugged.
“I still got my husband’s deer rifle, I’ll bring it; it’s better for shootin’ Confederations than a bird gun is.” She disappeared into the darkness of her house.
Dillard shook his head. The woman was right about his bird gun; a deer rifle would be a whole lot better for shooting men. He went around the side to the root cellar and stood next to its entry hole. True to her word, the Widder Throgmorton joined him in a minute, dressed in what looked to be her late husband’s hunting clothes. Had to have been his, the way it all bagged and hung off her frame. She thrust the deer rifle into his hands. He juggled a moment until he had a firm grip on both weapons.
“I’ll go in first,” she said. “Then you hand the guns in to me and follow after.” The root cellar was almost totally underground; a seventy-centimeter-tall mound was the only thing above the surface. The entry hole was right at the base of the mound. She unlatched the door and moved it aside, then sat on the ground with her legs inside the hole and slid inside. Once in, she twisted around and held out her hands. “Gimme the bird gun first,” she ordered. When Dillard gave it to her, she slid it down the hole by her side and reached back up for the deer rifle, then completely disappeared down the hole.
Dillard followed. The tunnel down into the root cellar ended on a step less than two meters down; it was just the perfect length for him to stand on the step and have only enough of himself exposed to aim. He stepped down into the cellar proper just as the Widder Throgmorton lit a lamp. The lamp gave off a faint red glow, just enough for him to make out her shape and the shapes of mounded tubers and vegetables. From the looks of the edges of one mound, he suspected she’d been pilfering in the cornfield. The root cellar was a tight fit; he found he had to crouch, which put him face-to-face with the fine-looking Widder Throgmorton, and he instantly understood why so many men in the village come sniffing around her. But all that sniffing didn’t do them no good; they was all married, and she weren’t having no truck with married men. So it wouldn’t do no good for him to take advantage of the closeness.
She handed him the rifle and said, “Scoot.”
He twisted around and slid up the hole until he could climb onto the step. He noticed she turned the light off before he got in position. Good, light would give him away when the Confederation soldiers came. He looked in the direction of the fires and saw the damnedest thing he ever seen!
There was some shapes, man-sized and man-shaped, moving away from the fire. The damnedest thing about them was, the one farthest away, what was right on the edge of the fire glow, was there he is, there he ain’t. It were like he disappeared when he wasn’t in front of the fire. And when he was, it was like seeing his shadow instead of him. The same with the other four who were between Dillard and the fire; they looked like shadows rather than the men what threw the shadows.
Shadows or men, they had to be Confederation soldiers. Dillard put the deer rifle to his shoulder, drew a bead on the nearest shadow, and squeezed the trigger. The crack and buck of the rifle caught him by surprise, just like it should when the trigger is being squeezed right. He brought the muzzle back in line and looked side to side through its sights. Men or shadows, he didn’t see anybody. He didn’t know if he’d hit the one he’d aimed at or not, but…
“Where’d that shot come from?” Sergeant Kare asked on his radio’s squad circuit.
“I think it was almost directly to my front,” Corporal Quinn said. “I was looking into the village, but I caught the muzzle flash in my peripheral vision.”
“Kassel, Ilon, did either of you see it?” Kare slid his infra into place while he asked the question and looked along the line directly ahead of Quinn.
“Negative,” Ilon replied. “I was checking our rear.”
“Kassel? Speak up.” Kare’s infra vision spotted something. “I see him. Seventy-five meters. Looks like he’s in a hole. Kassel, where are you? I’m going to fire on him. Ilon, when you see where my bolt goes, put another one in the same place. Quinn, watch for anybody else.” Aiming with a broken arm was difficult, but Kare managed. He aimed at the image of a man’s head—and arms holding a just-fired weapon—and squeezed his blaster’s firing lever. There was a double crack-sizzle as Ilon’s bolt followed his by a split second. Kare squeezed off three more rapid-fire bolts in case someone else was in the hole with the shooter.
“Where’s Kassel? Ilon, check for him.”
A moment later Ilon reported, “He’s hit. It’s a through-and-through in the belly.”
“I’m on my way,” Doc Natron said. “Show me.”
Ilon raised a bared arm. Natron saw the arm and sprinted to it. It was two long minutes before the corpsman reported to Kare.
“I’ve got the bleeding stopped,” Natron said, “but he’s hit too badly for me to deal with here. I have to put him in a stasis bag—we have to carry him out of here.”
“Shit! All right, get him ready to be moved. Quinn, come with me, let’s check out the shooter.” Along the way, Kare gave a report to Lieutenant Rollings.
“One of the reaction squads should be near you,” Rollings said. “I’ll ask the boss to divert it to help you.” Then he broke the connection to call Captain Wainwright.
Kare and Quinn found a body slumped in the entry hole to what looked like a root cellar. Quinn grabbed the rifle that had fallen from the body’s hands and tossed it away.
“A civilian!” Kare exclaimed when he looked at the body through his light gatherer.
“How the hell did he see Kassel?” Quinn mused. “That wasn’t just a blind shot.”
Kare put that question aside for a moment in favor of something more immediate. “Is anybody else in there?” he shouted down the hole. He got a moan in reply.
“I’m hurt,” a female voice said.
“Sorry to hear that, ma’am. Anybody else with you?”
“No, just me and Kory, and he’s dead—you kilt him.” The voice ended in a whimper.
“Kory, that’s the man up here?”
“Yes. I’m hurt bad.”
“I’m sorry about that, ma’am, but he shouldn’t have shot at us. We would have left him and you alone if he hadn’t shot at us. Now you wait right where you are, and I’m sure somebody will come and help you in a bit.”
“Can you pull Kory out of the way? Mebbe I can crawl up and find help myself if you do.”
“Can’t do that, ma’am. I don’t know you’re hurt. If I move him, you might come up and shoot us in the back. Can’t have that. Now you just be patient.” Kare signaled Quinn, and they headed toward the group around Kassel.
Kare stopped after a few meters and let Quinn go on ahead. He raised his shields and looked at the corporal in visual light. What he saw made him swear; Quinn showed up as a shadow against the light from the burning barracks. “I should have thought of that,” he muttered: chameleons pick up the color and visual texture of whatever is nearest, not what is behind. Quinn’s chameleons were the color and texture of the ground cover he was walking on and stood out sharply against the fire. When the squad moved on, he’d have to endeavor to keep them from being silhouetted by the fire.
“Down!” Kare shouted; he spun and dropped at a thumping and scrabbling to his rear. There was a loud bang, and he felt something hit his splinted arm and his side at the same time he saw a muzzle flash. He didn’t pause to wonder what hit him or to check it out; he pointed his blaster where the muzzle flash had come from and squeezed the firing lever three times in rapid succession. A voice was cut off in midscream.
“Cover me,” Kare ordered Quinn. He jumped up into a low crouch and ran toward where he’d fired.
It was the root cellar. The man’s body was out of sight. In its place was a woman, her dead face contorted in rage and surprise.
“Dammit, woman, why’d you do that?” Kare shouted. “If you and your husband had stayed in that hole and let us go by, you’d both be alive and well.” He drew back a foot to kick her, but put it back down. She was dead, her stupidity didn’t merit further punishment.
Doc Natron had Kassel in a stasis bag by the time Kare and Quinn reached them. The corpsman quickly checked out Kare’s new wounds. All they needed immediately was a daub of antiseptic and a patch of synthskin.
“You were hit by tiny pellets,” Natron said. “A surgeon can easily pluck them out when we get back aboard the Kiowa.”
“Show us where you are,” Sergeant Hemrich’s voice suddenly came over the radio—third platoon’s fifth squad was on its way to help.
“Here we are,” Kare said. He lifted a bared arm.
“I’ve got you.” In a moment, Hemrich and his three Marines were there. They quickly rigged a litter and lifted Kassel onto it. Quinn and two of Hemrich’s men carried the litter past the sounds of a firefight raging inside Gilbert’s Corners.
Kare made sure they were far enough away from the village that nobody inside it could see them silhouetted against the fire. As they went, he heard voices from their left rear; someone had discovered the two civilians he’d killed.