In the Valley (35 page)

The colonel didn’t even pop a micro. The ride “home” was uneventful.

When they rolled into Kill-a-Guy and dismounted, Green and Dirty, who had stayed back to render rear-area logistics support, greeted them. Paul hopped out of the top of 3-4 in his whole suit, got down, and popped out of the thing right in the gravel of the motor pool.

Green came up to him after he had finished. Paul had the suit completely opened and was washing it out with a hose. Dirt and stink streamed out onto the ground.

“Hey, Paul, how’d it go?”

Paul didn’t look up as he played the water across the interior of the suit. “It was fucked up. You see my ground-car?”

“Yeah, looks like it went through a blender.”

Paul turned off the hose and watched water stream out of the suit. He reached for a smoke and lit up. “It did—a blender called buildings, walls, a river, and a couple of trees.”

Green was taken aback. Paul looked him in the eye. Green must not have liked what he saw; he looked away and said, “Well, when you get straightened around, you’ll have to come over to the intel shop and debrief.”

Paul dragged on his smoke. “Will do, Green. Give me a couple of hours to get squared away.”

Green looked back at him, made a hands-toward-him gesture, and said, “Hey, man, take your time.”

Paul nodded and took his rifle out of the suit’s arm stowage compartment. Cleaning the M-74 was next on Paul’s list. It was filthy from the dust.

Finally, toward sunset, Paul had all his shit straightened out, and he had dismounted the grenade launcher from the ground-car with a little help from the Z-man, who was also busy cleaning his stuff and replenishing his medic’s supplies.

The grenade launcher turned out to have a nasty kink in the barrel. It was shot. Another victim of the Baradna, thought Paul.

He walked into the barracks building, his immediate chores done. He turned left in the doorway and walked down the tiled hallway. About halfway down, he turned right and unlocked his door. Paul felt like he was unlocking a museum vault; it had been so long since he had been in here, his cozy little home away from home. He haloed the light on and was greeted by the sight of his Spartan accommodations, covered lightly with dust.

The room was just as he had left it, weeks earlier. He dropped his battle harness in the corner and placed his M-74 on the table with his helmet and mil-grade halo. Next, he stripped off his filthy clothes, nose wrinkling from the stink released when he took them off. He had been wearing the same uniform the entire time in the valley, his usual practice when in the field.

The uniform reeked. He sat down on his bed and stripped off his socks. He threw them into the miasmic pile with his uniform. There were no underwear; he would have thrown them away if there were. He scooped up the pile of filth and stuffed it into a laundry bag.

He grabbed the necessary supplies from his wall locker and a towel and headed, wearing flip-flops and not much else, to the shower. He walked into the shower room and was greeted by the clean smell of running water and chlorine; he drank the wonderful odor in. He put his stuff down on a little bench and turned the water on hot. He got it.

Oh what a wonderful feeling, he thought. It seemed the water was sluicing away ten layers of crud and filth. He knew from experience that to feel really clean he would have to repeat the process at least three times before the field funk was banished for good. He shaved in the shower, watching his budding beard wash away in the circling water of the drain.

With regret, he turned the water off and toweled himself dry. Feeling light and fresh, he went back to his room. He selected a clean uniform from his wall locker and stepped into it. What an amazing feeling he thought—he felt like a new man. Even the clean socks felt wonderful.

He put on his pistol and hat and walked to the modest little chow hall. They were serving braised beef. It smelled heavenly to him. Even though he had washed himself and put on a fresh uniform, people were looking at him funny; maybe it was his imagination. He had no idea why. His mind turned entirely to his food. Paul gorged himself. Z and Birthday came in. They got their chow and sat down beside him. The little group feasted; it seemed the bland force food was chock-full of fresh delights. Paul couldn’t get enough.

There was a cake on a table against the wall. Paul fell on it and vacuumed it up. He thought he had eaten half of the cake. It was an amazing experience, as far as he could tell.

Finally sated, Paul and company rolled out of the chow hall. It was full dark. He lit up a Fortunate and didn’t let it get him down that he still had an appointment with Green in debrief. Also, he had to prepare Birthday’s inadequate ground-car to replace his beloved and heavily damaged 3-4.

For just a moment, all was well with Paul. And then he remembered he had to return to the Baradna the following day; his mood turned sour at the thought. With a sigh, he walked up the slight hill to the TOC. He would debrief with the waiting Green.

When he went into the intel room, he was in for a surprise. The colonel was there, speaking with Green. Paul turned and went to leave, but the colonel called him back.

He had been talking with Mighty Mike via halo, and Mike would be coming up to Kill-a-Guy to bring in a casualty. Green would be returning with Paul to the Baradna to take Mike’s place with First Company.

So Paul debriefed with Green. He described the assault into Kanaghat and told Green what fun it had all been. Green duly noted Paul’s impressions and pumped him for all kinds of information, seeing as how it was his turn to land in the frying pan.

Finally, they finished. Paul still had to get Birthday’s vehicle ready before they turned in to sleep. With an inward groan, he walked into the motor pool. Birthday and Z were nowhere to be found. Paul was not happy, not happy at all. They should have been working on the ground-car while he debriefed.

He pounded on their doors and addressed them both in a similar manner. Z had been playing halo entertainment games, and Birthday had been sleeping. The conversation he had with them both went something like this:

“Hey, asshole, why aren’t you out in the motor pool getting that sad sack of shit of a ground-car ready?”

“Uh, I didn’t know we had to do that tonight.”

“We’re leaving in the morning. Did you think the work was going to get done by itself?”

“Uh, no. But I’m—!” Sleeping or playing games, depending on the one.

Both Z and Birthday looked hurt at this point. Paul didn’t care about their feelings; there was a mission to perform.

“So fucking what. You have five minutes to be out in the motor pool, with your shit squared away, or I will have your ass.”

Neither Z-man nor Birthday would have rated Paul very high on their popularity list right then. But to their credit, they showed up in the motor pool, and the work began.

It isn’t possible to describe the next couple of hours work from the three men’s perspective. They took all the mission equipment from 3-4 and put it on Birthday’s truck. They cleaned a new grenade launcher and loaded all of its ammunition. They checked the ground-car’s systems and repaired them where necessary. In short, they generated a mission-ready truck for the convoy back to the Baradna the next day.

The effort had been a necessary, but colossal, pain for the three very tired soldiers. At 2300 local, they finished. Their chariot waited to take them back to the valley, whether they liked it or not.

A
fter morning chow the crew strapped into their ground-cars to return to the Baradna Valley, where they might get their dicks shot off. Paul was in his suit, parked back in his customary position as the gunner for the colonel’s ground-car.

God, Paul thought, does it feel good to not be sticking up out of the top of the ground-car like some kind of dummy. He ran his halo through diagnostics and did an ammo check on the grenade launcher mounted above. Just thinking about it, he moved the turret back and forth through a firing arc. All systems checked green.

He listened in on the halo freq to the other vehicles. Birthday was in command on the one ground-car; Green was in command on the other. It could have just been Paul’s imagination, but he thought he detected an excited note to Green’s voice. He must think it’s nice to get out of the office, Paul thought.

Birthday, on the other hand, sounded anything but pleased to be going back. Paul fully sympathized. The last place he wanted to go back to was the Baradna Valley. Just thinking of the hellhole made Paul’s fun meter peg out.

But they were going back. There was no doubt about it. The colonel got in and suited up. He did a comms check, and the little convoy left, heading back to the valley.

The journey was much the same as other journeys in a mounted combat patrol. Paul was comfortable, seeing as how he was suited. He watched his sector. The other ground-cars watched theirs. It was a pretty routine trip, if you counted a trip toward combat as routine.

On the way, they saw a new bomb crater; the thing was ten meters across and about two meters deep. The colonel whistled.

“Wow,” he said, “that must have hurt.” Paul looked at the crater by slaving Z’s feed. Yep, it was a monster. Traffic had already made a road around the pustule. The Juneaus were nonchalant like that.

Southbound they continued, past villages that were at most a hundred years old, but they already seemed as old as time. Onward they rolled, past beggars and donkey carts alike. Paul was continually amazed at how the colony worlds frequently looked like something out of Old Earth’s distant past, as opposed to the product of amazing technological progress.

Mostly, he reflected, it was a mixture of the two. As if to prove his point, he saw a man on a donkey cart clicking off icons in the air, guiding electronic dreams around like clouds in the sky while riding a donkey cart that had been the height of technology at around 1000 BC.

The sight brought a slight smile to Paul’s otherwise grim face. They were nearing the turnoff from the provincial highway onto the road that went straight to the heart of the Baradna.

They turned off the highway, and Paul started looking at his sector just a little closer than he had been. About ten kilometers along the twisting road, he saw his first marijuana plant. It was a danger sign; he knew.

It was crazy really. This whole province of Juneau was dangerous as hell. But there was danger, and then there was danger. The Baradna Valley, he thought, must be capital
D
dangerous. Experience had taught him so.

Finally, around 1400 local, the little convoy reached the Chickenfoot. Firebase Atarab was dead ahead. Everything had gone smoothly on the way in this time, as opposed to last time he had ridden that way. Commander Mohammed, who was still on the loose, hadn’t chosen to place any bombs this time.

The team rolled back into Firebase Atarab. They parked their trucks in the same old spots. No one had taken them when they had left. Paul felt like it was old home week. He even plopped back down on the same cot in the crater. No one had messed with that either.

Mike came sauntering over. “Whew-wee, look at the squeaky-clean lieutenant! Welcome back, clown.”

Paul smiled and laughed. “Good to be back, fuck nuts. When are you retards leaving?”

Mike thought about it for a second, scratching his beard. “As soon as I’ve talked with the colonel. He’s with Fasi right now.”

“What have you guys been up to? Did you catch the shithead who killed Lyek?”

“Nah, we ran around like crazy while you guys were gone, knocking around a bunch of villages. But no one had seen him, or they wouldn’t tell us, in any case. That guy is gone.”

“Shame.” There was not much else Paul could say on that score really.

Paul’s halo pinged. He said to Mike, “Hey, the colonel is done with Fasi; he’s over by the mechanics’ tent.”

Mike looked down on him and nodded. “Thanks, brother. As soon as I speak with him, we are gone.” With that, Mike turned and left. Ten minutes
later, Paul heard the hum of heavy electric motors cranking. Shortly thereafter, he heard the gravel crunching under their wheels as the First Company advisors left with the mechanics.

If the operation hadn’t wound down, they would be back after dropping off the casualty. The guy hadn’t been hurt bad enough for a shuttle medevac, and Mike’s team needed a break. Paul wished them luck.

In the meantime, though, he was stuck back in the Baradna Valley, waiting for a mission. He reached into his sleeve pocket and pulled out a Fortunate. Home, sweet home, he thought and lit up.

Later on, as he was sitting sentry go in his suit, his hand started to shake uncontrollably. He looked out over the valley with his suit-enhanced sight and saw nothing but Death, who he felt awaited him. In his suit, he felt OK. When he was out of it, which was more times than not, he trembled and felt naked beneath the uncaring, alien sky.

He felt alone and vulnerable—a soldier a long way from home, waiting for the end.