Freehold (53 page)

They converged through the trees, cutting across a curve in the road by going over a hill. This road predated the use of orbital missiles to cut straight routes and wound through the hummocky forest. Kendra joined him on one side, Vikki on the other. Brian and Eric were with them, leaving Sandra to watch the baby and the farm. They glanced through the heavy growth.

Below was a terrifying sight. A civilian vehicle had been stopped by a squad of soldiers. The soldiers were clearly harassing the occupants just for fun. Their definition of fun was on the grotesque side.

The car's male occupant was on his knees. His lips were bleeding from the obligatory slapping around and while they watched he took another punch to the guts. He made retching sounds and convulsed.

"Shit, Kyle, you and Brian get over to the other side for a three-way ambush. Dak, you and Vikki take the north, I'll cover this point," she whispered. They slid off into the bush, leaving her a lone spectator.

Naturally, they dragged the woman out and stripped her across the hood of the car.
"What is it about aardvarks and rape?"
Dak had asked once. Marta probably could give him a sociological explanation, she thought. Rob would discuss the history of atrocities in warfare. Truthfully, Kendra didn't know. It happened here all the time, it had happened on Mtali and it had happened in every war in history.

Dak clicked ready. She acknowledged and waited for the others to get in position.
Soon
,
she hoped.

There were noises from the back of the vehicle.
Dear God, not kids!
she thought. Dak clicked again and she acknowledged, willing him not to do anything too soon. She hunkered in and got a good aim below.

While the rape commenced, the male victim was shot in the groin at point blank range with a stun bag. He curled into a ball and twitched more. There were jeers and laughs at the handiwork. Then someone shot him in the face with stickyweb.

As he scratched at his face, trying desperately to tear a hole through which he would still not be able to draw a breath until his diaphragm and groin muscles became unparalyzed anyway, Kyle clicked ready. Kendra squelched a long and a short on her transmitter, then curled around her rifle and fired.

On the outside of the curve, Kyle and Brian had the south, Vikki and Dak had the north and Kendra was across from and between them. They'd practiced this regularly on paper, often in rehearsal and not at all live. She hoped it would work anyway. The five of them should be sufficient for the nine in the squad below.

Her bullet caught one soldier between his body armor and helmet. He thrashed and dropped. Rapid fire caught two others, against their armor and exposed arms. Either Dak or Vikki got a clean shot through both legs of the current rapist, who screamed and fell.

The other five scattered into the brush, shouting. Kendra slid back and moved several meters north, not wanting to stay in a location that might have been sighted. She heard fire coming from a couple of points that would be troops below. Lousy fire discipline, since they couldn't possibly see anything to shoot at.

Kendra crept forward a few centimeters at a time, rifle over her arms and ready. She stretched out her ears and eyes to locate a target. There was a buzzing feel to her brain and she felt an excitement that was not fear. Movement caught her eye, barely, and she twisted her rifle up and shot. She knew she'd missed and shifted again as he returned fire. Move, shoot. There was one, still twitching. She ran forward and swung her weapon, putting a bullet through his neck. They were all quiet now. The victims could be heard slightly, down below.

She knew about where another was and thought about a grenade, but the rifles were suppressed. The noise of a grenade explosion would carry a long way, even through the trees. Better not to risk it. She fired a burst, then again, and was rewarded with a yelp. Then fire came from both sides. She threw herself flat.

Stupid! Stupid! She had run down into the kill zone and her teammates saw movement. Being camouflaged, they couldn't tell who was who and were shooting at anything in that zone. Damn. Four nasties still loose and she couldn't move.

Nothing to do but wait and shoot anything that came close. There was rustling and a patch of leaves moved aside. The figure rising was not wearing hunting camo, and was wearing UN woodland material. She made a shot into the hip, just below the armor, and was rewarded with a scream. It stopped quickly, as massive hemorrhage from the hypervelocity slug ended any woes.

After several more seconds of sporadic fire, she clicked out an advisory and stood. There were two bodies below her, leaving two. Where the hell were they?

There! By the car. She swung her rifle up and shot one as he tried to aim at her. The other gave her a defiant look and started shooting. He fired into the car, then shot the woman whimpering on the hood, then the slightly twitching figure on the ground. She got him, but too late.

In seconds, everyone was gathered around the scene. "Oh, shit, no!" Vikki said. "It's the Thompsons!"

Dak was furious, gently covering up the woman's body, weeping aloud. The child in back was a girl about six local, dead of course. There was nothing to do but drag the bodies into the woods for the slashers and swipe all the weapons and ammunition. There was little intelligence on the enemy bodies, but then, they'd shown little intelligence, being this far out and unescorted. The vehicle had a machinegun, which they dismounted and took, and the rest of the equipment was quickly torched. There was no point in recovering commo gear; the coms were all coded individually and no one in their group knew how to crack it. They had several put aside for when they did find someone trained in that art.

They were silent on the way back. Obviously, the Thompsons were friends of Dak and Vikki, but they didn't offer information and she wasn't going to ask. She just wished they'd been sooner. Maybe it would have helped. Maybe not.

"Laws are silent in time of war."

—Cicero

If summer operations were bad, winter was even worse. True, there were no bugs and no grimy sweat. On the other hand, it was harder to hide footprints in snow and harder to move. There was the constant risk of cold injuries, and Kendra was peeling dead skin off a frostbitten ear. It was superficial, but hurt. The cold led to flaking, itchy skin and painful dandruff, clogged noses and bleeding sinuses. It was painful to excrete, as it took several segs to get undressed and then was hellishly cold. Then there was the way they glowed on infrared. She thought about suspending operations for better weather, but it would allow the UN to solidify its position. She decided to press on.

The tempo was slower, the immediate risk higher. It balanced out. That was Kendra's thought as she lay under a thick bush, swathed in heavy clothing. She wore a thermal undersuit, quilted liners, pants and shirt, a parka with another quilted liner and her cloak on top with the winter camouflage section out. Her outer clothing was also covered in sewn white fabric mottled with gray paint. Vacuum-insulated boots, elbow-length shooting mittens, scarf, balaclava and hood completed the outfit. She could barely move, and it was still brutally cold on her face. She wished for a true arctic assault suit, but realized she had to make do with what she had.

She became alert as the convoy below came to a halt. It appeared to be engine trouble on the part of the first truck. The crews of the other two came forward. Sloppy to bunch up like that, sloppy to send so few vehicles and sloppy to assume the rebels wouldn't operate in the cold. She wasn't going to complain about that sloppiness, however; one took one's targets of opportunity as they presented themselves.

She coded a burst and moved closer. They were oblivious to her team, even as they came out of the snow and the trees. As near as she could tell, only two of them had lethal weapons. They weren't wearing night vision, having relied on the vehicle displays while driving and not anticipating an attack.

She raised her weapon and fired twice. The two with rifles dropped. The others tried to scatter, but were rounded up by her team. Someone had misunderstood and another soldier was shot as he came around the vehicle. Or maybe not misunderstood. It was hard to quickly tell who was armed with what and Dak still had a tally. She shrugged inwardly and rounded the survivors up.

"Into the back of the truck," she ordered and they obeyed in a hurry. It was almost sad the way they refused to fight. She shook her head. She should be grateful.

They didn't drive them to the farm out of security considerations. They went instead to a hunting lodge on the edge of the wood. It was a simple wooden building, not far from the road, and the falling snow promised to hide the tire marks and any sound.

At rifle point, they were prodded into the shack. Dak and Kyle lined them up while Sandra and Kendra kept them covered. The prisoners were searched by the foolproof method of stripping them bare. They struggled and received a few bruises, but were shortly naked against the wall. "Who are you?" Dak demanded.

There was some foot shuffling. "Who are you?" he repeated. "Speak up and you can have your clothes." Wind blew a trace of snow through a chink between the planks.

One protested, "Man, that's boolshit! We got a right to—"

"You have the right to have your balls shot off if you don't answer me," Dak informed him, kneeing him in the testicles. He collapsed, squealing, and curled up.

"Who the fuck are you?" he asked again.

The three standing looked at each other. Finally, one spoke. "Ash, Gerald B. Master Sergeant Second Class, UNPF service number—"

"That's fine," Dak cut him off sharply. "And you?" he said, facing a second.

"Minar, Vashon D. Sergeant."

The others identified themselves in short order. Nine of them, all under thirty-five Earth years, ranging from specialist to master sergeant second, three of them women.

Dak tossed over their underwear. "Now, what post are you from?"

"I protest!" Ash said. "We've told you who we are and you have to treat us—"

"After the things I've seen you animals do," Dak rasped, "you should be glad you're alive. Now, what post? Give me some answers or it's going to be chilly."

Shouted refusals echoed in the small building and nothing happened for several segs. "You're bluffing," one of them said finally and reached for a parka.

Sandra shot a round into the dirt floor bare centimeters from his reaching hand.

"We're not bluffing, punky," Kendra said without thinking.

They gaped at her. Her accent had come out thickly in the presence of other Earthers.

"
Jee
zus!" Ash said. "You're a fucking human, not a rebel?"

His words hung in the air and the antagonists stared at each other. Dak finally broke it by saying, "Aardvark, I asked you your unit."

Shouting began again. Kendra heard "aardvark" tossed around, "rebel cocksucker," and a few other epithets. Into a pause she said, "Quiet."

She was obeyed. That of itself stunned her for a moment. "I'm from Minneapolis years ago, I live here now and I'd like some answers. All we need is data to confirm a few things."

"Fuck you, whore," Ash said. "This procedure is bullshit, your rebellion is bullshit and you're a fucking traitor." The noise picked back up. One of the younger ones tried to get in her face and managed to spit on her.

She punched him, hard enough to hurt through her glove and he went down, face split. "You rebel cocksucking punta! You—" and another shouting match broke out.

This was not good. They had so little respect for authority and so little training in real military matters that they were acting as if it were all a vid show. Thrown dirt and snow splattered her, and it was frozen hard enough to hurt. It was the same kid.

Kendra was revulsed. Had she actually been part of this? This undisciplined? This stupid? She wanted to deny it, but she remembered her own contempt of authority. Nothing obvious, but she had rarely ever used honorifics like "sir" in the UNPF. She'd thought it was casualness, now she realized it was lack of respect for both people and the system.

She snapped back to alertness as she heard the kid snarl, "Just like one a them Midwest
slutas.
I've
fucked
puntas like you a thousand times since we landed. When we get found, you'll get dragged. Ah'll be looking, snatch. I jest hope you like havin' yo ass slammed. You beg nice and we might use a little axle grease—"

Kendra whirled, dragged him off the ground and jammed a stiff hand into his solar plexus. As he curled up, she kneed him several times in the face, feeling his nose shatter against her knee. Her own pain was a welcome focus and she yelled incoherently. She drew back slightly, chambered her foot and snapped the armored toe of her boot into the ruin. His head bounced back and the body began to collapse. A quick draw, a release of strength like an uncoiling spring and her sword sheared the head cleanly off. She chopped it on the ground and hacked the body a few times, then leaned on her knees, panting for breath, pulse thundering and throbbing in her temples as blood dripped from the Warbride. Finally raising her head, she asked, "Dak, do we have any way to process prisoners?" Her voice was bereft of emotion.

"No," he replied and raised his rifle. Eight coughs of the muzzle were unheard under the meaty slap of rounds hitting flesh. Three of the faces carried their expressions of horror and disbelief into death. The others had died too soon to comprehend.

Rage burned inside her, her body hot and itching. She wiped off the sword, sheathed it and turned away from the grisly scene. "Close up here. Can we burn it behind us?" she asked.

"We'd better. What if they find the bodies like this?" Kyle replied.

For an answer, Kendra turned and disemboweled two of the dead, poked out the eyes on a third and made two savage chops into the groin of a fourth. She jabbed the headless body a few times and said, "Fuck them."

She turned and walked out into the snow.