Come the Revolution (24 page)

That gave me some comfort, but only for a minute or so. Then I thought about what that meant.

If he’d really do as well without me as with me, what good was I? Was I just a sperm donor? If somehow I managed to survive this nightmare, what difference would it make in his life? What would I give him? What would I change?

Nothing.

He’d grow up with a good education, enough money to open doors, enough opportunity to follow whatever talents he found in himself, and go as high as a
Human
could go, but only that high and no higher. I’d gone about as high as a Human could go, and I hadn’t had any of the advantages he’d have, so what good would those advantages do?

The system was rigged and everyone knew it. We all just made our peace with it, got by as well as we could, and said there was nothing we could do to change it. I’d settled for a place in it for me, and I guess that was my choice. But along the way I’d settled for that place for him, too, and that
wasn’t
my choice to make.

I’d spent the last two years worrying about me, about
my
future,
my
soul, and all I could come up with was don’t make the same mistakes I made before. Was that it? Sit for the rest of my life at twenty-two and zero and just run the clock out?
That
was my plan? For what? What difference would it make to anyone? What difference would it make to my son?

What difference was
I
going to make?

“Boss, you okay?”

I turned and saw Moshe Greenwald, concern on his face. He had five or six gauss pistols in his arms. We’d gotten some from when the line troops got better weapons but we hadn’t distributed all of them yet. This morning we’d decided to.

I looked down the alleyway.

“You kids, something’s about to happen, something big. Get on back home, pronto.”

They looked at me with resentment at first, but then they saw the yellow-orange LOG on my jacket, waved, and took off. Everybody knew LOG, even when they didn’t know it stood for logistics.

I pulled off the soiled grey arm sling and dropped it into the rest of the trash covering the alley. I flexed my right arm, stretched it over my head. It was stiff, a little sore, but the mobility was satisfactory. They must have pretty good nanites in that Varoki med center. I wiped the tears from my face.

“I’m fine, Moshe.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You know, I think I really am. Get all the department heads together at the clinic. Ten minutes. We got a nightmare coming and hardly any time to get ready.

“And give me one of those gauss pistols.”

Chapter Thirty-Three

Two hours later I crouched with the troika and a crowd of our troop leaders in the long shadow of a rusty cargo container that smelled of soiled diapers and rotting food. Beyond the shadow, the setting sun turned the tangle of debris and improvised structures soft orange and dull red, like a painting you’d sell to a rich Varoki: a miserable existence scrubbed clean of its despair by cheerful use of color.

Zdravkova, Katranjiev, Stal, Aurora and I faced the eleven platoon leaders and eleven platoon sergeants of our miniature army. Off to one side my six department heads waited for their own final briefing. Aurora was recording everything, although most of them didn’t know that.

“Okay,” Zdravkova started, “you know this is how it could have wound up all along, and now here we are. We know from refugee reports that the Army has moved in and that their orders are, ‘No Human Prisoners.’ That means us, and everyone else in Sookagrad.

“We have two objectives. First, find a way to break out of this pocket. Second, and if that fails, hurt them so badly they’ll think a truce might be worthwhile after all. But your fighters have to understand that we are against the wall. Maybe nobody wants to be a hero. I sure don’t. But today the uBakai Army gives us no choice.

“So, reserve platoons two-one through two-five have completed their relief-in-place, taken over the defensive perimeter, and assault platoons one-one through one-five are back in their assembly areas. When we break up here you five assault platoon leaders have thirty minutes to brief your squad leaders and get your platoons to their lines of departure. It’s not much, but we need to move fast and hit hard, before the regulars have settled in. Our guess is the militia has effectively stood down in place, now that they think the regulars are here to protect them, and the regulars aren’t expecting any action until
they
start it. Surprise is our secret weapon. Does everyone understand that?”

I saw intensity, excitement, and a fair amount of fear in their faces, but I also saw twenty-two heads nod.

“Here’s the mission: each assault platoon pick a quiet route away from the main barricades, advance in loose column of twos, squads stacked one behind another, with scouts out front and flank. Avoid contact for as long as you can. Get deep, find those regulars, and hit them hard.

“Trailing squad in each platoon split off and double back to hit the militia roadblocks from behind: plow the road for the reserve platoons and provide rear security for the assault force.

“Reserve platoons, your main job is perimeter security. But when you hear shooting in front of you, hit the militia as hard as you can. We hit them from both sides, most likely they’ll cave. You’ve got the portable mines. When you move forward and take over the old militia positions, that’s where you place the mines. On
their
ground, not covering our approaches. Understand?”

More nodding heads.

“Assault platoons, show me your flares.”

The platoon leaders and platoon sergeants of the five assault platoons each held up a hand launcher, designed to fire three yellow flares in succession.

“Okay. You do whatever damage you can, but you also look for a weak spot, a way out. If you find it, you fire those yellow flares. What do you do if you find an open road?”

“Fire the yellow flares,” they answered in a ragged chorus.

“Striker Platoon, I’ll be with you. There may be more than one open road, so we’ll make the decision then, decide where to break out, and we’ll punch straight through. When we make the call, we’ll fire purple flares at the base of the breakout corridor.” She paused and held up her own launcher. “We’ll keep firing them as we move into the corridor, but we only have a few, so keep your eyes open.

“Assault platoons, when you see our purple flares, or when it gets too hot out there, break off and fall back, passage of lines through the reserve platoons and to the old barricades. Once you make contact with the reserve platoons, you assault platoon leaders are senior, and in local command. Reserve platoons, if the chain of command is disrupted, wait ten minutes and then break off. Fall back and join the assault platoons. Don’t forget to set those remote mines.

“I’ll try to get runners to you assault platoon leaders when it’s time to collapse the sack and go, but things are going to get very crazy and you may just have to make your own call. Questions?”

One of the platoon sergeants raised her hand and Zdravkova nodded to her.

“Ammo. Can we get any more? We’re going to burn through our basic load very quickly.”

Zdravkova turned to me.

“You’ve got every single magazine we have,” I said, “loaded and charged. When that’s gone, we’re dry.”

I saw quite of few of them exchange worried looks at that.

“It works out to every one of your troopers having a magazine in the system and one backup magazine, and then you’ve got a platoon reserve of one more magazine per system. How you want to split that up is your call. But here’s what I’d emphasize to your people: there are a shitload of RAG mags out there where you’re going, all of them compatible with our systems. Snag as many as you can.”

Zdravkova bobbed her head. “Yes, live off the enemy. Take their ammunition. But also remember, we can’t get bogged down in protracted firefights. Most of the damage we do will come in the first minute or two of contact. Unless the enemy panics and runs, break off and find another spot to hit.”

“What about my reserve platoon?” one of them asked. “Almost every weapon we have is a sporting rifle. Assault rifle magazines aren’t going to do us much good.”

“If you find RAG magazines, you’ll find RAGs with them,” she said. “Upgrade. Anything else? All right, assault platoons jump off thirty minutes from my mark…
now
. We’ll meet again on the other side of this.
Confusion to the enemy!”

“Confusion to the enemy!”
they chorused, and then they were off, trotting in pairs, each in different directions. They didn’t have a lot of time to spare. I waved my department heads forward and with less precision the six of them moved over and sat or squatted on the ground.

“Doc, have you got our wounded ready to move?”

“Those who can move, yes,” Dr. Mahajan answered. “The critical cases will stay, and I’ll be staying along with a med tech and five volunteer orderlies.”

“I’d rather you came with us.”

“I know and I appreciate the sentiment, but we’ve been over this. No matter what happens, not everyone will get out. There will be wounded from the fighting as well. My work is here. We just have to hope they exempt the clinic from the no-prisoner order.” She clasped her shoulders with her hands, arms crossed, and shivered, although it was not at all cold.

“We have litter bearers for those who cannot walk but can be moved, with reliefs for each party, so they can keep moving. Both of my doctors and seven medtechs will move with the column and will be available to give first aid along the way. I do not know what else we can do.”

“No, I don’t either,” I said. “Dolores, what about traveling rations?”

“There’s not much we can do, given how little warning we had,” Dolores Wu answered, her voice betraying exasperation. “We have been cooking riceballs for the last hour, boiling pots of edamame, and we have some sacks with a piece of fruit or two, some pickled vegetable, and whatever else we can find, to pass out to whoever we can get them to. Also we’re filling as many people up with miso soup now as we can, but any liquid container we have we will need for potable water. We are passing out tomatoes and peapods to whoever wants them as well. At least there will be something.”

“Yeah, I know it was short notice. Tell your crew good work under some impossible time constraints.

“Everyone else, you and your team members all have your assignments—dormitories, shelters, residential blocks. Everyone recognizes these orange-painted LOG shirts. They think we actually know what we’re doing, so we’re the guides. Your folks will explain the breakout plan to the civilians, get everyone ready to go, but keep them in place until you see those purple flares. Section leaders, it’s your jobs to tell them when to start moving. Space the serials. Tell your guides to keep their people together and moving.

“Billy, your construction goons don’t have assigned groups to lead. You are the traffic cops along the breakout route. Keep them moving, but moving in the right direction.”

“Don’t worry about us,” he said.

“Okay. Remember, no equipment destroyed. Fabricators, generators, everything left in place and workable. Folks are going to need it later. Although Petar, make sure all the, uh…military software is scrubbed from the fabricators.”

I didn’t want to say “illegal software” with Aurora’s recorder running.

He glanced at Stal, his old boss, and then looked back to me. “Not problem.”

“Anyone else want to say anything?” I said to the three troika members.

“Yes,” Zdravkova said. “All of you people in logistics have done a wonderful job, I really mean it. The improvisations, the clever ideas, the long hours of work…I’m sorry this isn’t ending in a parade, because you earned it as much as anyone. Many of my fighters are still alive because of you. Thank you. Now I’ve got to go.”

She stood and trotted down the street into the lengthening shadows. I looked at Nikolai Stal and Bogo Katranjiev. Maybe Bogo realized there was a recorder running, because he cleared his throat before speaking and managed a hard-jawed look of steely determination.

“What Commander Zdravkova said is true. No one ever thanks the people behind the scene, the little people, but none of this would have been possible without you. My hat’s off to you.” He reached up but then remembered he wasn’t wearing a hat and tried to turn the gesture into an awkward salute. I saw some smiles, but more from gratitude rather than ridicule. Folks might not think of Katranjiev as a dynamo when it came to leadership, but they appreciated the effort. I did as well, insincere as it may have been.

Stal pointed at my crew. “When shit hits fan, stay low, keep moving. Most of you guys too ugly to die, but not you, Dolores, so don’t press luck, okay?”

She chirped like a bird and smiled. Dolores Wu was probably pushing seventy and thin as a stick, with graying black hair whacked off in an uneven line across the back of her head and then shorter above her eyes. Maybe she’d been pretty when she was younger. I hadn’t expected flattery from Stal.

“Okay folks,” I said, “get back to your teams and get ready to move. Our assault teams jump off in about twenty minutes, but if all goes well they’ll slip through the enemy lines and there won’t be any fighting for a little while. When it starts, sit tight and wait. We don’t even know that we will find an open road, but when and if we do, be ready to haul ass.

“Thanks for everything you’ve done—even you, Billy.”

“Eat me,” Conklin said, but he grinned past his fear.

As the group broke up, Stal paused next to me and said in a low voice, “You want one of my guys take care of CSJ agent before leave?”

“Already taken care of,” I said. He looked at me and his eyebrows went up, but then he just nodded and left.

* * *

“You get that last bulletin on the pipe?” I asked Aurora after the others had gone back to their teams.

“Yes,” she said. “I told about the refugees bringing us word of the Army’s orders, the fear it was causing, the feverish preparations for a last ditch defense. Nothing about our attack, of course.

“Our father wants to travel with us.”

She was taking it for granted that the two of us would be moving out together, and she was right. I couldn’t trust her survival to chance. I also couldn’t guarantee it myself, but what I could do I would. Not for her, for the bio-recorded record she carried of everything all these other people had done here. That story needed to get out. Maybe she was right about the politics. Maybe it wouldn’t change everything. But it might change
something
, and that was a start.

“What do you think,” I asked her, “about the old man traveling with us?”

She looked down and moved some trash around with her foot. “When there were only two seats, he had to choose between me and our mother. He chose me because of my singing voice. You don’t remember but—”

“Yes I do,” I said, and I was surprised, because I hadn’t remembered until she said that. But then I recalled her singing when our parents had friends over for dinner, a recital at her school, and even her singing me to sleep once when I was sick. Her voice had been like the tone fine crystal makes when it’s struck softly.

“Oh,” she said. “Well, there was a great deal of talk about me as a child prodigy and Father decided my career was more valuable than Mother’s companionship. He remarried here on Hazz’Akatu, once Mother’s death was confirmed. It didn’t last.”

“And your career as a child prodigy?”

She shrugged. “My voice changed when I got tits. I still have okay pipes, but not good enough for Father to retire on. Not in the style to which he always wanted to become accustomed, although the bioweapons career worked pretty well for him until recently.”

“He sounds like quite a guy,” I said. “I guess that explains where a lot of my personality comes from.”

Her head snapped up, eyes narrowed in anger. “Don’t say that! Don’t you
dare
say that. You were my little brother and there was nothing wrong with you. Nothing! Your only crime was…was not being
marketable
.

“What do I think of him coming with us? He’ll just slow us down and the first chance he gets he’ll try to sell us out. Leave him to die, like he did you.”

I
had
been her little brother, hadn’t I? I’d actually lived a fairly normal existence once, had even been loved by my parents, if only in a perfunctory sort of way. I had bits and pieces of memories, just flashes. Some of it was probably suppressed, but some was just gone, physiologically gone due to my traumatic brain injury. But so what? It was so long ago, so fragmentary, it was more like a half-remembered story I’d heard than something that actually happened to me.

But it was real to Aurora. I could tell how miserable she felt about that, and maybe about her whole life. For the first time I felt sorry for her. I thought it would make a big difference to her if I called her
Avrochka
again, like I had as a little boy, maybe let her start forgiving herself for a crime she had no real responsibility for.