Caliphate (13 page)

Unfortunately, the suits still weren't going through any major trees. These, the platoon had to snake around. Even as they did, though, branches and leaves and long, sharp grasses lashed at them, tearing at uniforms and sometimes slashing the skin beneath. No matter; one of theirs was somewhere ahead, facing a grisly death unless rescued. What was a little blood and pain not to have to face that failure?

Hodge stopped as Aguinaldo stiffened. The scout gestured with one hand, the other holding his rifle, for the platoon to move to the left. They did.

While they were doing so, Aguinaldo took a small remotely piloted vehicle, a miniature helicopter, from his pack and prepared to send it aloft.

"What is it, Sergeant?" Hodge asked, once she and the platoon were off the trail and hidden amongst the jungle's fronds.

Aguinaldo started the small RPV and lofted it before answering, "I can't say, ma'am. Something's not right up ahead. It's—"

The air was suddenly split by half a dozen large explosions, the homicidal shriek of the jagged metal those explosions threw forth, and by heavy fire from more rifles and machine guns than Hodge had devoutly hoped would ever be aimed in her direction.

"Listen carefully to the sounds, boys," said Rustam. "That's fire going high."

Down in the pit, prepared to bring down a target, mark it, and hoist the target back up, Hans listened. He also watched as new holes appeared in the target. Sometimes he could catch them as they were created and match the distance and direction to the quality of the bullets' crack.

This is what it will sound like when I am under fire. This is what I will hear after I pass training and am accepted as a full janissary.

Once the boys had been trained on the .22s, they'd moved up almost immediately to thirty caliber rifles, about the most they could handle with thirteen-year-old bodies just now beginning to fill out properly (because only recently given enough to eat reliably). It was with the .30s that they were taking turns firing on the known distance range, one half firing while the other half worked the targets. It was a low tech solution, one that would have been sneered at in any of the armed forces of the Empire (excepting only the Imperial Marine Corps, a regressive lot, to be sure). And yet it not only worked, it had the double benefit of accustoming the troops to the variable sounds of fire directed their way.

This was also one of the benefits of using janissary troops. With boys raised in Islam, not only the religion but the culture behind it—or most of the cultures behind it; there were some exceptions—it was almost impossible, and at best, with the best candidates, very difficult to train them to shoot properly. Hits, after all, came through the grace of Allah as did everything else. This, for mainstream Sunni boys (Moros and Afghans being among those exceptions), was so much a given that no amount of lecturing and no amount of punishment could break them of it.

Christian boys, however, raised in the belief that God helps those who help themselves, would retain that attitude—it was too inchoate to call it a philosophy—even after they reverted to Islam. For one generation, they would, anyway; which was one reason why janissaries, after release from service, were never permitted to send their own sons to the corps. Abdul Rahman's, for example, were, in one case, a cobbler, in another a fireman, while a third was still apprenticed to a shopkeeper. But janissaries they would never be.

What the Corps of Janissaries would do after the last Christian in western Europe reverted neither Abdul Rahman, nor Rustam, nor even the caliph, knew.

Hodge never knew what hit her. One moment Aguinaldo was telling her something, the next his body had practically disintegrated in a blizzard of hot metal shards while Hodge herself was knocked almost senseless by the blast and spun head over heels by something striking her right thigh.

When she recovered enough to rise to her hands and knees, she saw and smelled the blood, not hers she hoped, dripping from her helmet and Exo. Hodge shook her head to try to clear and felt a wave of nausea wash over her. That she'd emptied her stomach earlier didn't help her as she'd eaten again, hurriedly from a pouch, while on the track of her lost soldier. She re-emptied her stomach, the puke mixing with the scout sergeant's ghastly remains. Then she looked at the bloody, torn meat of her right thigh and wanted to puke again.

When the shock wears off, that's really going to hurt.

Already, Hodge's Exo had analyzed the damage and applied a nondisorienting general pain killer. It wouldn't make the damaged leg any better, but it would help Hodge make full use of what was left.

There was firing all around; that much she could hear even if her vision was blurry with concussion. An indistinct shape appeared over some rocks hard by. It was shouting something unintelligible and waving something that looked shiny. Automatically Hodge pointed her left hand at the shape, formed a fist and dropped it. A burst of fire from her Slag leapt out, ripping the bolo-wielding
Moro
to shreds. His ruined body tumbled back over the rocks.

"Charlie Niner-Six, Bravo Two-Three," Hodge gasped out. "Ambush. We're fucked."

"Hang on, Two-Three," answered Thompson's calm voice. "I've got a drone inbound, ETA three minutes. Air support is coming."

"No go on the air support," Hodge answered. "I think they're all mixed in among us. Wait, out."

Even as Hodge said that, her left arm was once again pointing at a
Moro
, this one carrying a rifle rather than a bolo. The stream of fire that lanced out practically sliced the man in two.

"Report," she managed to get out.

"One: Sergeant Caudillo's dead . . . .three others down. Pinned. Returning fire."

"Two: Six left unhurt, two wounded. Holding on. They're between us and first. I think third's out of it. What we gonna to do, El Tee?"

She waited in vain for a report from her third squad leader. "Sergeant Ryan," she ordered, "report. Anybody in third squad, report. Anybody?"

There was no answer from third. She'd had to force herself to keep the sound of desperate pleading out of her voice when she asked that last, "Anybody?"

"Ma'am, Sergeant Pierantoni here. I'm with second . . . close enough, anyway. The rest of the company's better than half an hour behind us. Maybe more; if they hit us here they might have something waiting back there. I don't think we're going to hold on that long."

Hodge had been up near the point, near Aguinaldo. One could argue she'd been too near the point, but that was for the future if, indeed, that argument was ever to be made. Third squad, which had been nearest to her, was destroyed, insofar as she could tell. Sure, it was possible there was a man out there wounded and alive, or one with broken communications. But the way to bet it was that they were dead or soon would be.

"Recommendations, Sergeant?" The drug in her system was all that allowed her to keep her voice human.

"You pull back to first. We'll cover you and first. Then we can take turns, bounding back."

"No go, Sergeant, I can't move far."

"I'll come for you."

Hodge's voice was both sad and determined. "No. Here's what I want. First squad?"

"Ma'am?"

"I'll cover as best I can from here. Get yourself back to second and the platoon sergeant. Sergeant P, carry out your plan once you and second and first link up. I'll . . . "

"No, ma'am, we'll wait."

Hodge wanted to cry, not just from the pain that was ebbing from her ruined thigh, but also from the knowledge that the life she'd hoped to have with Hamilton after she left the army was just not going to happen. She wanted to cry; what she didn't want was to argue.

"No. I've only got a little left in me. I need to use that to cover first squad."

"Ma'am . . . "

"Don't argue with me. First squad?"

"Ma'am?"

"If I can't get the order out; when you hear me fire, go."

Thompson and Hamilton could hear Hodge through the command circuit.

"Laurie, hold on. I'm coming," Hamilton cried into the radio, as he started tearing the jungle apart in an attempt to move farther, faster—

"Lieutenant Hamilton, hold fast," ordered Thompson in the same calm voice as usual. The captain had the good grace not to say,
I warned you about this.

"Captain, that's—"

Hamilton couldn't quite bring himself to say it, that Hodge was the woman he loved. It would have been worse than Thompson saying, "I told you so." Instead, after a pause, he said, "That's one of ours. We can't just—"

"I'm aware, Lieutenant, of who she is."

Another voice, the forward observer sergeant's, piped up, "Captain, airship Pershing on station with a heavy load of ordnance. They're carrying whatever we might want to ask for. Well, short of nukes, they are."

The company was still pushing on through the jungle. In his head, and aided by a map painted onto his eye with a low-powered laser,

Thompson calculated the time it would take to get to Hodge against her very short life expectancy. No matter how he tried to calculate it, he kept coming up short. There was no way he and the troops would reach her in time.

"Private circuit, Lieutenant Hodge," he said into the radio. "Laurie, your plan is approved. We won't make it to you in time. I can deal you aces and eights to prevent capture. Your call."

"Give what's left of my platoon a chance to break contact, Captain," she answered. "And . . . "

"Yes?"

"Don't make John call in the dead man's hand . . . It wouldn't be fair."

"I understand. Let me know when."

"Yes, sir . . . .Sir, if you don't hear from me . . . if I'm not able—"

"I'll call it in myself, Laurie."

"Thank you, Captain. Hodge out . . . break, break . . . First squad; prepare to move."

Dragging her ruined right leg behind her, Hodge slithered to the blood-flecked rocks nearby. She extended a monofilament microviewer from her right glove and looked over the area first squad had been in. Already some of the Moros were out, rifles slung across backs and wavy swords in hand, chopping their way through the tough battledress and inner coolsuits of the dead and wounded troopers.

"Bastards," she whispered, before retracting the miniviewer and taking her rifle in hand.

The rifle, a Model-2098, had its own viewer, which was connected by radio to Hodge's helmet. In theory, and especially when augmented by the Exo to absorb recoil, one could fire the thing effectively from behind cover with only the armored hands exposed. Practice was better than theory, though, and practice said that the natural shooting position of rifle against shoulder and eye aligned with barrel was more effective.

Hodge had counted seven of the Moros out in the open, finishing off the wounded and making sure the dead were dead. Her firing position had her to the right side of the base of the rock gathering. Sensibly, she opted to take out the rightmost Moros first, thus keeping the rock between her and those she had not yet engaged. With a whisper, she instructed the rifle, "Activate. Fire on center of thermal signatures as you bear."

With that, she swept the rifle steadily from right to left. When the first thermal image was center of mass, it opened fire with a five round in a sixth-of-a-second burst, then repeated as its operator aligned it with the next target. Hodge was quick and four of the seven went down before the remaining three realized what was happening and dove for cover.

In seconds, Hodge's rock was deluged with fire, driving her back to shelter behind it.

"Go, first squad, GO!"

"Sir, Sergeant Pierantoni here. We're out of immediate danger . . . maybe half a klick from where we were ambushed. The El Tee's stopped firing right as we heard a pretty big blast. I think it's time. We can be seven- or eight hundred meters away before anything can hit."

"Concur, Sergeant P . . . break . . . Lieutenant Hodge? Lieutenant Hodge? . . . negative contact . . . break . . . FO? Does Pershing have an FAE pod ready?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Release on Lieutenant Hodge's position."

Much as one could only rarely train someone raised in Moslem culture to be a decent shot, so too the Moros expected that if Allah did not want them to rape their captives, He would say so or otherwise prevent it. If He allowed it, as He invariably did, it was because He wanted it to happen. If there was a different price to be paid for it, then that, too, was merely in accordance with the will of the Almighty.