In the Valley (38 page)

Paul ducked back up again and burned off more ammo toward the target. By now, the whole Second Company was roughly on-line, and all were firing toward the evil house and its odious inhabitants. Paul heard the spring in his stock twang, felt the Plastlar under his gloves start to heat up.

Paul’s halo pinged. He ducked back behind the wall to talk.

“Two-Three, this is Five.” The colonel was calling.

“Go ahead, Five.” Paul’s job, after all, was to let the colonel know what was going on.

“Two-Three, what is your situation?”

“Five, some angry homeowners are shooting at us.”

“Two-Three, give their location. I can’t see the point of origin from my micro feed; there are too many trees. Do you need me to shoot a flare?”

“Negative, Five. We know where they are.”

“Roger, Two-Three. Call me back when you have more info. Five out.”

Boom boom!
Paul watched a death blossom open up on the side of the house: red was its heart, and black were its petals. Paul chanced to look behind him. No one was pulling rear security! An asshole could have walked up to the firing soldiers and mowed them all down, with no one the wiser. Something had to be done.

Paul grabbed Z-man and a Juneau nearby. “Pull rear security, Z. Do it now.”

Z-man was caught up in the moment, firing away. “No way, sir!”

Paul grabbed the medic by his harness and rudely twisted him around. He pointed at a place on the ground. “Right fuckin’ there—pull rear security.”

Z’s eyes were wild. “If you get me killed, sir, I’m gonna haunt you!”

“You do that then, fucker, but pull rear security.”

Z oriented himself toward the rear. “Roger, sir.” Paul was going to need him soon again, anyway, so it was better that Z was relatively safe back behind him than on the line.

A Juneau ran up to Paul. “Sir, sir! We have a wounded man; we need Z!”

Great, thought Paul. No sooner had he placed rear security than Z had to get up and go. Paul grabbed another Juneau to take Z’s place facing rearward and sent Z off with the Juneau soldier.

The firing continued; bullets made their malignant
wheeps
overhead. Marijuana leaves lay scattered on the ground, along with branches from dinosaur trees. What a fucking mess, thought Paul. The situation was now somewhat under control after the first few hectic minutes. It was time to call the colonel.

“Five, this is Two-Three with a SITREP.” Paul figured he would give the colonel a nice, official situational report.

“Go ahead, Two-Three.” The colonel, as usual, was talking in his cool, clipped tones.

“Five, we have been engaged by seven hostiles at 0509 hours local.” Paul had a nice, clear number thanks to his halo’s abilities. In earlier days, they would
have guessed. Paul continued his report. “We are receiving fire from a house two-seven meters to the south of my position. We have been engaged by rifle, machine-gun, and antiarmor-rocket fire. There are reports of a wounded soldier or soldiers on the line. I have dispatched my medic with a runner. Will advise when the picture is clearer.”

“Roger, Two-Three. Standing by.”

“Two-Three out.”

Paul spoke with Bashir, who had calmed down and was issuing clear, frank orders to his men. Bashir was crouched slightly to prevent his head from being blown off. He was taller than your usual Juneau.

The firing was dying down. Paul checked his halo clock on his visual; it said 0525 hours local. Damn, thought Paul, that was only fifteen minutes. It had seemed like hours. Paul went around to individual Juneaus who were still firing and looked over the wall by their positions. He saw no more muzzle flashes from the house opposite them.

The suppressive fire had had its effect; the enemy was either dead, or they had decided to hightail it. Good, thought Paul. Either option worked for him. He wanted to get Commander Mohammed though, if at all possible. After all, that had been the point of this unholy exercise.

Bashir came up to Paul. He wanted to talk. “Ah, Paul, my friend, it has been another glorious day of battle! Would you take a walk with me?”

“Sure, Bashir, my friend, what’s up?”

“I would like to walk my lines and make sure the men are doing what they are supposed to do.”

“Seems like a good idea to me. Let me call my medic first and see if he can join us.”

Paul pinged Z’s halo; he was busy with the wounded. Paul decided to let him be. He called up the colonel and let him know what the plan was. That would prevent the colonel from looking at his micro-drone feed and wondering why his lieutenant was ranging up and down the battlefield.

“All right, Bashir, my people know what’s going on. Let’s go for a walk.”

With a gesture to accompany him, Bashir led Paul, and they started to walk down the line. Bashir would stop every few soldiers and speak a few words to him, mostly along the lines of “Stay sharp!” or “Good job.”

There was still some firing, and from the
whppp
he heard a few times overhead, not all of it was outgoing. As Paul looked around, he was struck by the sheer volume of leaves on the ground. There had been a lot of bullets that had come through this patch of Juneau lately.

The two men reached a low wall and crossed it cautiously. They were still hidden from the village by the wall; it wouldn’t do to get careless at this stage of the game and get shot. Bashir stopped to speak with a machine-gunner; he patted him. Paul and Bashir continued to work westward along the line of men in the cordon.

At one point, within view of the house, Bashir and Paul had to run crouched low in rushes, lest they get hit. The soldiers that were on the line there were lying behind a low dike. They were exposed as little as possible, for good reason.

Paul and Bashir got past the danger point and straightened out a little. Then they heard the shouting.

“Look! Look! They’re running!” Paul looked south, in the direction of the pointing fingers, and pulled up his rifle. Suddenly, from all sides, men started shooting at the running figures. Paul watched one go down under his sights, but he was not sure that his had been the fatal shot. There was a lot of lead being directed at the running men.

The fleeing shitheads didn’t get far. They were being shot down in a clearing about fifty meters south of Paul and Bashir. A fire burned within the clearing. A farmer had probably started it before dawn.

Paul looked toward the clearing and felt as if he had touched a live wire. He almost looked at his hand to see if it had been burned. As he watched, some Juneau soldiers ran up to the clearing and started doing something. Because of the pot plants all around, Paul couldn’t see what.

Bashir said, “Come—let’s look at the enemy.” His eyes betrayed nothing of what he felt. Paul didn’t want to go, but he couldn’t show weakness to Bashir, so he went. Besides, he thought to himself, this is your job, asshole.

The two men walked slowly toward the clearing. Every now and then, Bashir would touch the shoulder of a man they passed, make eye contact with him, and move down to the next man.

As they got closer to the clearing, Paul could see the Juneau soldiers were gabbling to each other excitedly and stripping the dead. There were two wounded enemy combatants lying there: one was screaming and rolling on the ground; another was stuttering, trying to speak with blood coming down his mouth. A soldier with a rifle was threatening both men.

Bashir and Paul walked up. One dead guy had fallen into the farmer’s fire and was starting to smoke. Another lay like a broken doll nearby. Piles of rags and flesh, Paul thought.

“Is either of these men Commander Mohammed?” Paul asked Bashir.

Bashir shot him an identification card mug shot of Mohammed. Yeah, one of the dead guys was him. Paul had some calls to make.

“Five, this is Two-Three—over.”

The colonel appeared in his visual. “Five, here.”

“You slaved to my feed, Five?”

“Roger. Looks like you got Commander Mohammed and his merry men. Good work.”

Paul was glad the mission was a success, but he definitely didn’t feel good about the dead meat in front of him.

“Roger, Five. I have to go; looks like I need to call Z over if he isn’t busy.”

“I’ll get with you, Two-Three.”

“Two-Three out.”

Paul proceeded to call Z-man over. Z had stabilized Second Company’s wounded; he could be spared to work on enemy prisoners of war. A few shots rang out from the village. Paul figured they hadn’t gotten all the bad guys in the clearing here. Bashir made a halo call to his men and sent a platoon in to flush out the last remaining holdouts.

Z walked up to the clearing and its bloody apparitions, those who had been formerly known as living men. He took one look and said, “Oh, shit.” Then he went to work.

Paul crouched down, felt for his smokes, and lit up. The sun came out from behind the ridge. Back at Kill-a-Guy, it would be time for chow.

P
aul ran into the combat-stress technician one morning at chow toward the end of his tour. He had sat down to eat some delicious biscuits when the man sat down in front of him. There was no avoiding the encounter. No one was sitting particularly close by, and Paul had no good excuse to stand up and leave, so he was stuck.

“I see that you have been in close combat lately.” The man had a surprisingly deep voice. He had no doubt been snooping in Paul’s halo diagnostics—the shrinks could do that.

Paul chewed his biscuit and nodded. He knew to never say more than you had to in front of these guys and gals—they would get you sent away from your unit so fast your head would spin. One part of him wanted to start blabbing, to tell the shrink all that went on behind his eyes. The more rational part told him to shut up.

The psychologist tried again. “You fired your weapon. Did the experience bother you?”

Paul’s mind flashed to crouching behind a wall, his rifle recoiling on his shoulder, the red aiming chevron. Paul shook the memory off. He knew he had to speak sooner or later.

“What is going on with you right now, Lieutenant Thompson?” The shrink looked at him intently.

“Nothing, nothing really. Just trying to eat my biscuit.” Paul chewed as if he had a mission.

The combat-stress guy bored in. “Your halo is telling me you are experiencing elevated stress levels right now. Are my questions bothering you?”

Paul wanted to reach across the table and punch this fucker in the face. Who was he to pry in his head? What the fuck was he going to tell this smug fuck, this dude who had never been on the line, who had never fired a shot?

Paul spoke nicely instead of acting out with the violence he craved. “No, not at all. I know you’re just trying to do your job.” He tried a smile. It felt glued to his face like a cheap child’s mask.

“Part of my job is speaking to soldiers like you, Lieutenant Thompson. Or may I call you ‘Paul’?”

“Call me whatever you like. Is this going to take long? I have to go out on a mission in an hour.”

“This conversation has a direct relation as to whether you do go back out, Paul.”

There it is, thought Paul, the threat. He would say whatever was necessary to return to the team and not end up on a shuttle to Jade. “All right, what do you want to know?”

Satisfied, the shrink continued, “Have you been reliving your combat experiences?”

“Yes.”

“Are you easily startled?”

“In my shoes, wouldn’t you be?”

“Do you feel uncomfortable without your weapon?”

“Of course, we have to carry one with us all the time here. You should know that.” What a dumb fuckin’ question, thought Paul.

The shrink nodded. He continued; no doubt a questionnaire was scrolling down in front of his eyes. “Do you feel detached from others?”

“Yes, how else will I command them in battle?”

“Do you have trouble expressing your feelings?”

Paul laughed. Was this guy kidding? “Who am I going to express my feelings to? My mom? My girlfriend?”

“Please answer the question, Paul.”

“Expressing your feelings isn’t high on the list of things to do in a combat unit. Does that answer work for you?” This guy was getting on Paul’s nerves.

The shrink nodded. “Yes, I believe that works as an answer.” He continued, “Do you feel as if you are a danger to yourself or others?”

Paul saw himself shooting Najibullah the Bomb Maker, who was still alive and well. That fucker, he thought. He had to get hurt. He saw the dead at Kanaghat, at Pashto Khel, other places. They were piles of forlorn rags and flesh. Yes, he thought, I am a danger to others.

He must have been woolgathering because the shrink was looking at him intently. “Paul, are you there?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“Could you answer the question, Paul?”

“Of course I’m a danger to others!” Paul lost his cool. “What the fuck do you think they pay me to do?”

“I’m speaking of inappropriate violence, Paul. I’m well aware that you are a combat soldier. I’m going to ask you this one more time: are you a danger to yourself or others?”

This fuckhead, thought Paul. This cheese dick. With difficulty, he mastered himself. “No, I am not a danger to myself or others.”