On My Way to Paradise (58 page)

I couldn’t imagine risking my life three times in
twelve seconds. It seemed insane. Garzón ordered all craft back on
course toward the Yabajin, and I exercised the state of
munen
, no mind.

The laughing and betting of my compadres continued
but their voices seemed to fade into the distance. The Yabajin
craft, that was what mattered. I watched them as a cat watches a
mouse, ready to pounce. My jaw didn’t quiver, my teeth didn’t
rattle. I felt calm and in control, and even though our own craft
was twisting and bouncing as it encountered new slopes and angles
in the desert floor, I imagined I could see a path that would lead
us to the Yabajin. I imagined I could pick my target at will and
the enemy would fall under my guns. I felt invincible, the way all
good soldiers feel just before they die in battle.

We seemed to be rushing towards them slowly, too
slowly. I watched their men in the distance as they drew close, in
armor the color of the red sands behind them, and saw the sun
gleaming off their teflex battle armor. Yet time did not stop for
me. I did not achieve Instantaneity, that state of mind where
eternity is found in a moment. Abriara claimed she and others had
learned to attain that state at will, and with her elegant Eridani
chemicals that may have been true. I hoped to attain that state of
mind in this battle, believed her chemical patch had been on long
enough to produce the effect; yet it did not happen for me.

I had no thoughts of life or death, victory or
defeat. I desired only to do my part well, to aim and fire
perfectly. I didn’t experience the fear necessary to catalyze
Abriara’s drugs.

We floated toward the Yabajin as if sliding through a
long dark tunnel. We came in upon their first line and
simultaneously both armies began to fire. The beautiful and
peaceful "whuft, whuft, whuft" issued from the Yabajin plasma
turrets, like the sound a pigeon makes beating its wings while
trying to hover. Our hovercraft rattled as it bounced over the
ground and I bent my legs and balanced myself as I held my rifle
poised. Super-heated air sparkled silver as the Yabajin fired their
lasers. And we thundered our answer with Housers and flechettes and
all before us the Yabajin hovercrafts seemed to rip apart in
midair.

Splinters of armor flipped up like shingles tossed in
a storm, and I saw the left arm of one Yabajin turret gunner rip
away as if it were made of papier mache. A hovercraft before us
became a fireball that engulfed two other Yabajin craft, and the
drivers of the Yabajin zagged in confusion, trying in vain to
retreat from our onslaught. I heard screaming that did not come
over helmet mikes and realized the Yabajin were screaming in
surprise and pain, and then we were into them—a hovercraft of
startled men coming up on my right—a front turret gunner gone,
flakes of red armor in the air as if he’d just exploded; a driver
hunched over a burning control panel; a laser gunner staggering
backward with a gaping bloodied wound in his shoulder as he fired
off a burst; a man leaning on a plasma turret, shooting into the
air over our heads—and then I fired into the laser gunner and the
armor in his helmet splintered and exploded and a shell pumped into
my flechette and I fired and the plasma gunner broke in two at the
waist. A white flare blossomed on my forehead and my right eye
closed down. That momentary touch would have fried the retina of a
real eye. I rubbed my hand in front of it, swatting away some
Yabajin sniper’s laser blast as if it were a mosquito.

The hovercraft of our compadres in front of us was
taking heavy fire. The rear Houser gunner was spinning and the
forward gunner had dropped. Perfecto went to his knees, plasma
dripping from his chest plate—pinned to the floor for the duration
of the battle. We were coming in on the second ranks and I didn’t
have time to think: The oncoming craft veered to ram us and I fired
two shots before I took out the driver. He veered left and hit
reverse as he died, and his companion craft to the left didn’t have
time to react to his maneuver: the companion craft slid in over the
top of the wounded craft and rolled in the air like a badly thrown
discus, crashing into the ground in front of us. It exploded into
flames then we came in upon the last line of Yabajin.

They’d slowed and were turning to give chase some 400
yards behind their compadres. We opened fire at long range and kept
it up, but they seemed to part before us like dandelion seeds blown
in the wind and we fired once as we came parallel, then there were
no more targets for me. They split away from our position on both
sides, and we burst through their lines. Mavro reached back and
tossed a packet of Mexican hair into the air, and it exploded
behind us; thin blue flakes of steel floated on the wind. I
unclipped my bomb from my belt and tossed it in a mad rush, and
everywhere, men went for their hair bombs. A wall of black steel
fibers raised behind us.

In front and to our left a soldier tossed a Mexican
hair bomb—but he was too close to us, too close, and I knew we’d
hit that hair before the Yabajin did.

Abriara veered right and cut her engines so the hair
wouldn’t get sucked into our intakes; we soared and dropped. The
bomb exploded almost beneath us, and the air crackled as with
static electricity as wisps of steel spattered the skirt of our
hovercraft.

Then we passed over the danger area and Abriara
re-started the engines. Behind us some Yabajin pressed through the
veil of Mexican hair and many of their engines burst into flames
immediately. But some Yabajin soared around our barrier and gave
chase at a distance.

I quickly surveyed the damage to our troops. Behind
us several craft floundered under the hands of dead drivers, and
hordes of Yabajin were attacking and overwhelming these unfortunate
men. I counted fourteen combat teams going down in this manner.
Even among the main ranks our hovercrafts took damage—burning bits
of plasma ate through teflex plating like fiery serpents.
Everywhere our gunners were hunched and sprawling as if dead. Yet
almost to the man our gunners began to rise to their feet as if
returning from the dead. We’d taken surprisingly few
casualties.

I removed the half-empty clip from my gun, and
inserted a full one. The desert stretched before us, an open
highway. We could have turned and slaughtered the few Yabajin that
followed. We had the firepower, but they were only the first
obstacle to our conquest of Hotoke no Za.

Garzón didn’t order us to attack.

The few dozen Yabajin could follow if they wished. It
didn’t matter. Halfway back to Hotoke no Za they’d simply founder
in the desert for lack of fuel.

I’d been holding my breath. My chest was tight and I
noticed something wrong—our compadres were pulling away; the
Yabajin behind us were gaining.

Oily smoke issued from under our hovercraft and the
turbines in two intakes whined as if in pain. The whole hovercraft
began turning left in a slow arc, meter by meter, and we slid out
of formation in front of our rear-most gunners with their big
Housers and across their paths.

"I can’t hold this speed!" Abriara shouted through
her helmet mike.

Zavala’s helmet swiveled toward the dozen Yabajin
craft closing in behind. "Don’t slow down!" he said.

We passed to the left of the last three gunners and
they began pulling ahead of us. The whining of our damaged turbines
grew to a whistle.
This isn’t supposed to happen
, I thought.
In practice this never happens. Our crafts are invincible in
battle. They never fall apart on us
.

Perfecto shouted over his helmet mike, "We’re going
to blow those two engines at this rate! I can only repair the
damage if they don’t blow! I’m going to disconnect their fuel
lines," and he got down from his turret, crawled on the floor up by
Abriara, lifted some panels and stuck his head down under the
craft. I noticed puck marks in his burned armor on the back of his
legs, and took out some resin and began filling the holes for him.
We continued in our wide arc, heading more northeast than east. The
two whining engines suddenly stopped, while the other sixteen
engines hummed. "Got them!" Perfecto said.

He crawled to his knees.

Some men in the other crafts noticed our predicament
and began to chatter. "Sifuentes’ team has engine trouble. Give you
six to one they don’t make it! Six to one!"

"Don’t waste your money, cabrón!" Mavro shouted.
"Things aren’t so bad!"

I laughed at his joke. We rumbled up a small hill.
"Compadres," Abriara said, "we cannot go on like this. We cannot
keep up. I think we should cut away, head north for a while and
hope the Yabajin do not follow—but it is a risk. I will not do it
unless we all agree."

"Do it!" Perfecto shouted, and Mavro said "Sí" and I
whispered "Yes."

Zavala said, "Let me think! Let me think!"

Mavro growled, "We don’t have time for you to
think!"

We topped the hill. It dropped quickly into a wide
but shallow gully. The hovercrafts before us were bouncing across
it. The cement ferns grew tall here—six or seven meters high. The
desert appeared flat and even, yet I’m sure it must have held many
small gullies like this.

Abriara said, "Here’s our chance," and she veered
into the gully and headed almost straight north, following the
contours of the land. At top speed our hovercraft barely cleared
the cement stalks of the ferns and actually knocked the tops off
some while the leaves of others sucked back into the stalks. The
depression deepened just a little ahead, enough so we could almost
hide in the fold of ground till the Yabajin passed if we could
maneuver over the taller ferns.

Zavala shouted, "Are you crazy? We can’t go in
there!"

"Good," Abriara said, plowing into the ferns, "then
the Yabajin can’t follow!"

If the Yabajin had been a kilometer farther behind,
they would not have seen us split away, but the trail of quivering
leaves gave us away. We watched the hill to our rear, and as the
Yabajin came over the hill one man pointed at us and five craft
split away to give chase. My heart sank.

"This is not so bad!" Mavro said, "This is not so
bad! This is not so bad!" and he turned his turret so it faced the
Yabajin.

"We’ll follow this gully for a few minutes, then we
head back to the mountains, back toward Kimai no Ji," Abriara said
as if speaking to herself. "We can beat them in the mountains.
Everyone hunch down—help cut down the wind resistance!"

Perfecto squatted on the floor, then got out his
resin pack and began patching his armor. Mavro hunched and pointed
at my forehead, "You’d better paint that spot quickly," he said,
"Before we meet the Yabajin," and suddenly everyone was patching
their armor with resins. Abriara kept her attention on driving. I
listened to the comforting chatter of our compadres heading for
Hotoke no Za, but our little head mikes were not meant to carry
signals over a dozen kilometers. Some time while we repaired our
armor, the voices began to crackle and break up.

When Perfecto had his own furrows filled, he inched
forward and began working on Abriara’s armor. He suddenly shouted,
"Abriara, you forgot to throw your hair bomb!" He unsnapped it from
her belt.

"I was more concerned with other things!" she said.
"Keep it. Throw it when it will do us the most good."

We continued down the gully for several minutes and
watched for a place, any place where we could throw the bomb and be
sure we could take out some Yabajin. But there was no such place.
We didn’t have to turn back toward the mountains—the gully we
followed wound back that direction. We kept dropping lower and
lower, and the sides of the gully became steeper, like those of a
bowl, and the ferns disappeared altogether. The Yabajin were slowly
gaining. In ten minutes they closed to within half a kilometer. In
another ten minutes they’d be sitting in our laps.

Abriara raced past rock formations at top speed.
Ahead, stony red pinnacles seemed to spring from the ground in
vertical cliffs. To hit one would be like hitting a wall. We
crossed a ridge and dropped toward a broad but shallow brown river
that meandered along the feet of the mountains. Pale grey trees and
Baker’s native grasses grew along the riverbanks. The wind whistled
across the folds of my helmet.

The Yabajin thundered out of the winding gully just
300 meters behind us. A laser gunner hazarded a shot, and a silver
beam split the sky overhead. Abriara bolted through the trees till
we hit the river, then followed it north over the sluggish brown
water.

The Yabajin drew close, and there was no place where
the river channel narrowed enough so our bomb would do any good. If
we tossed it, the Yabajin would just whip around the danger zone. I
watched the samurai, picking my targets. One hovercraft had only
one gunner aboard, a turret gunner whose armor was shattered at the
shoulder, and he kept himself propped against his turret. The craft
behind it had two gunners.

Abriara shouted, "Lay down grazing fire in the
water!" and I remembered our race down the valley in the snow. I
reached under my seat and grabbed a laser rifle and fired into the
water. Mavro and Perfecto began firing with their plasma turrets,
and the water boiled behind us. A fine mist arose, but not enough
to provide a smoke screen. The trick had worked in the snow at
night, but the sun overhead pierced our thin fog.

The Yabajin were nearly within firing range. The
three forward plasma gunners shot into the air at a sixty-degree
angle as if firing at incoming aircraft, hoping the plasma would
rain down on us. We twisted over the meandering river and watched
plasma spatter behind.

"I’m going to throw this bomb," Perfecto said. "It
won’t do any good, but I’m going to throw it!"

Mavro raised his own turret and opened fire at the
sky.