Swords and Saddles (7 page)

“Okay. We open it quick and I look out. Hopefully if any Izkop are waiting we’ll surprise them. If they rush us, get that door sealed even if I’m stuck on the other side. Got it?” Adowa and Goldera nodded.

Johansen took up position near the door, his weapon held at shoulder height, ready to fire. Adowa and Goldera, working together, yanked open the bars and pulled the door open fast without regard for the noise, then Johansen stepped into the opening, quivering with tension.

The yard lay silent in the afternoon light. From here, none of the Izkop bodies littering the front of the compound were visible. About a hundred meters distant in the barn, the cow stood looking back at him blankly. After carefully studying everything he could see for signs of Izkop, Johansen focused on the figure sprawled several meters from the door.

Juni’s body lay face up, his abdomen torn open and entrails spread to either side, his mouth still open in a silent cry, his expression locked into incomprehension.

Adowa edged to the door and took a look. “From the way he bled, they killed him fast and quiet, then tore him open.”

“How?” Goldera gasped. “I was listening. I didn’t hear anything!”

Johansen pointed toward the milk bucket lying in the dirt, the soil around it wet with spilled milk. “They let him milk the cow before they killed him. They really seem to care about that animal.”

“Sure wish I was that cow,” Adowa muttered.

“Yeah.” Stepping back inside, Johansen gestured to the others. “Seal it.”

“We going to leave him out there?”

Johansen hesitated. “There’s no place to put him in here. We’ll bury him proper if we get the chance later.”

“More likely we’ll be lying out here with him,” Adowa said. “I sure hope I’m dead when they cut me open.” She gave Johansen a sharp look. “Neither of you guys are going to make any comments about Old Harvard?”

Johansen looked at the dead man and shook his head. “Nah. Overkill.”

“Yeah,” Goldera agreed.

Ariana took the news with a sad nod.

Scorse finally spoke once more. “I’ll use one of those spears next time they attack. I’ll stay here and fight.”

All Ariana did was nod again. “Sergeant, I’d appreciate help with getting the meal.”

“Johansen. You and Archer. Eat while you’re helping so you can stand watch while the rest of us eat.”

#

The Izkop came in the night this time, their numbers undiminished, filling the yard as the soldiers emptied their rifles and pulled out their pistols, the piles of dead Izkop forming ramps in front of the windows so that some Izkop came running and hurling themselves inside while others smashed through the front entry. The soldiers’ weapons had little muzzle flash, providing just enough light to see the masses of Izkop as the soldiers fired, then the last pistol was empty and they fought in the dark, stabbing with knife and spear at smaller figures, Johansen being forced backwards toward the rear of the room and praying that he wouldn’t accidentally spit either Archer or Goldera. He could hear Scorse over by Stein, the civilian yelling obscenities as he fought with an Izkop spear. Burgos also shouted from her post near the door until her voice fell silent.

Pain burned as a spear went into his thigh. Johansen thrust back, despairing as the bodies pushed forward shouting in the Izkop language, then as he made another stab Johansen realized the pressure had lessened, that the movement of the enemy had changed. The area in front of him held only a couple of Izkop, then none as the aliens fell back through the door and windows again, leaving the humans alone in the building.

There was a moment of strange almost-silence then, the only noises the harsh breathing of the soldiers trying to catch their breath and the faint sounds of the mass of Izkop fading into the night. Sergeant Singh spoke first. “I’m moving to the door. I’m there. All the Izkop here seem dead. Burgos is on the threshold. She’s got a dozen spears in her. No pulse. Everybody else report.”

“Johansen here,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Got a bad wound in one thigh. Everything else seems minor.”

“Adowa. Got one or two deep cuts in my right arm and lots of minor stuff.”

“Nassar. Just small stuff. I’ll live.”

“Goldera. Small cuts. Except I think maybe I lost a finger. Oh, man, I lost two.”

After a pause, Singh called out. “Stein. You still with us?”

The answer came from Nassar. “Here he is by the window. Oh, hell. Stein’s dead, Sarge. So’s that civ, Scorse.”

“Damn. Archer? Archer?”

No answer.

“We need to find Archer, people,” Singh ordered. “Adowa, Johansen, Goldera, you three patch each other up enough to stop major bleeding. Nassar, look for Archer now unless the other three need first aid help. I’ll keep an eye on the outside.”

They fumbled in the darkness, cursing, until Singh told them to use hand lights. “The Izkop know we’re here. Use enough light to take care of bad wounds and find Archer. She must be buried under some of the dead Izkop. And make sure all of those Izkop in here
are
dead.”

#

Half an hour later, med patches melding into their skin to seal off the worst injuries and stop bleeding, the five remaining soldiers halted their search of the building. “She’s gone, Sarge,” Nassar said. “Archer’s not here. They took her.”

“The comm unit is gone, too,” Adowa reported. “Why’d they take Archer?”

Goldera replied in a bone-weary voice. “Why not ask why they stopped and left? We were all dead in another minute or two. Why’d they stop?”

No one tried to answer that. Johansen sagged against a table, looking out into the darkness, feeling no hope, no curiosity, just tiredness and a resigned sort of fear.

An inside door opened, spilling pale radiance across the front room littered with dead. Ariana stood in the doorway, her breath catching at the sight of them still standing. “The children are scared. They heard all the fighting. What do I tell them?”

“Damned if I know, ma’am,” Singh said. “I guess all you can tell them is that we’re still here.”

“That’s a lot,” she finally replied. “They still believe in heroes.”

Johansen felt himself straightening up at her words, standing a little taller despite his weariness and injuries, and noticed the others doing the same.

After Ariana had closed the door again, Nassar gusted a single soft and sardonic laugh. “If we got to die anyway, it’s nice to know someone appreciates it.”

Sergeant Singh nodded, his expression impossible to make out in the dark. “We got one more fight left in us. Two-hour sentry duty, one soldier on at a time so the others can rest.”

“You don’t think they’ll come again tonight, Sarge?” Goldera asked.

“I still don’t know what they’ll do, let alone why they’re doing it. All we can do is protect those kids for one more night, and hope that effort of ours somehow matters to the Iskop when they’ve got the kids at their mercy.”

Johansen had the watch when the sky began paling with dawn’s light. He sat on the floor, leaning against the wall next to the window, looking outward, an Izkop spear in one hand, as the growing daylight began turning the vague, gray shapes of night into clear objects with color and meaning. The med patch kept his thigh numb, and while that served as a reminder of the wound it covered it also meant that when just sitting here he could pretend it wasn’t a bad injury. Sitting quietly felt right anyway. In that strange stillness that dawn always held, there might have been nothing else living on the entire planet except for themselves and the distant shape of one of the local flying predators wheeling across the sky.

Silence and stillness. The right and left hands of death, someone had called them. She had died, too, on a planet far distant, gone cold and quiet like the mounds of Izkop here lying forlorn in the growing light. He thought about other dawns to come, without him around anymore. The idea felt impossible, and strange, even after all he had seen.

Archer was out there somewhere, but he tried not to think of that, except to wish that she got it like Juni had, a quick death before any mutilation.

He heard soft sounds behind and looked quickly to see that Ariana had come out of the back. She seemed to be emotionally used up and physically exhausted from dealing with the children, but that really shouldn’t matter much longer. “Mornin’,” Johansen whispered to her, pain stabbing through the numbness inside him as he thought about Ariana dying, too. One more person he couldn’t save.

She reached the wall and leaned next to him, her eyes on his face. “Good morning. Are they out there?”

“I expect. Can’t see any of them, of course.”

Rising up a bit, she looked out as well, their shoulders touching for a moment before Ariana slumped back again. “I thought soldiers had all sorts of special equipment built into their bodies, to let you see in the dark and do other things.”

“No, that’s just in stories,” Johansen said. “In real life, they kept finding out that implanting gear into people, biomechanicals and stuff, created a huge Achilles Heel. Anything like that could be hacked or intruded or jammed. One good hack could take out an entire force. Eventually, they decided the only firewall good enough was maintaining physical separation between human and equipment.”

She actually smiled slightly. “No secret superpowers to save the day?”

“Nope. Just the same old, same old as back at Troy.” Johansen tapped his spear.

“Does that make me Cassandra?” Ariana sighed. “What were you thinking about before I came out here?”

He hesitated before answering. “I was thinking how strange it is to know that this is the last sunrise I’ll ever see. I mean, there’s always a chance any sunrise will be your last, but this time it’s certain. Kind of a weird feeling. At least it’s a pretty sunrise.”

“Yes, it is. Are you sorry you came here?”

“Well, yeah.” Johansen glanced at her. “Not that we came to this spot. We would have died anyway, and at least coming here meant a chance for you and the kids. But this planet I could have done without.”

Ariana stared at the bodies of Burgos, Stein and Scorse against the far wall as if unable to believe that they were real. “I thought they’d last the longest. Scorse, I mean, and that woman soldier.”

“Burgos?” Johansen shook his head. “She was pretty certain to die early on. After the massacre in the valley and watching Ramada gutted, all Burgos cared about was killing Izkop. Your Scorse seemed to be the same way.”

“But if they wanted to keep killing –“

“I said that was all they cared about. They didn’t care about living any more, just killing. People who get like that don’t tend to last too long, because self-preservation just doesn’t occur to them.”

She gave Johansen a quizzical look. “But you want to kill Izkop, too, and you told me that you don’t expect to live.”

“No, but you see I only want to kill Izkop so I have a chance to live.” Somehow Johansen mustered a small smile as he watched the sun rising over the bluffs. “Get me out of here in one piece and I’d be happy never to kill another Izkop. But not Burgos and Scorse. They’d have jumped right back in.”

“But don’t you want revenge? For all of your friends killed back at Amity?”

He shook his head. “Revenge never brought back anyone. It’s just something those still alive do for themselves. I could kill every Izkop on this planet and it wouldn’t give me back a single friend. I know that. So did Burgos, but she didn’t care. I figure my friends would want me to go on living. To try to, anyway. That’s what I’d want for them if I was the one dying.”

“What about the big one? He seemed so calm, so steady.”

“Stein?” Johansen exhaled heavily. “Yeah. He wasn’t the brightest star in the sky, but he was loyal. He was fighting alongside Scorse, so he wouldn’t leave him, wouldn’t fall back alone. That wouldn’t even have occurred to Stein.”

Ariana nodded, her head lowered. “And Juni.”

“Don’t blame yourself for that. Juni was stupid.” Out of the corner of his eye, Johansen could see Ariana’s head come up, tears lining her face. “We told him not to go out there. He went anyway. Most of the time in life, stupid just gets you in trouble. In a combat situation, stupid gets you dead. I’m sorry,” he added, because he was. “Juni seemed like a decent guy. And it’s not like he was trying to run out on us. He was trying to do something he thought was important. He just thought he knew more than he did. People who think they know all the answers seem to often end up killing themselves or other people in one way or another.”

She didn’t reply, just crying as she looked toward the door leading to the back room. “Listen,” Johansen said as gently as he could, “when they get done with us, they’ll break down that door. You just stand there and you beg, you hear me? You can’t fight, so plead with them. Beg for the lives of the kids. Not for you, for them. Sometimes that makes a difference. Tell them whatever humans did, or whatever the Izkop think we did, it wasn’t the fault of the kids.”

Ariana nodded. “You’ll be dead if they get to that door?”

“Yeah. They won’t get to it before then. I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Thanks for being Horatio.”

“I’m no hero, but you’re welcome. I’ve got to admit, I don’t understand why you civilians come to places like this.”

She actually smiled slightly. “We come to try to learn more about others and about ourselves. Humans, that is. There’s plenty of civilians who wouldn’t understand why you’re here. Guarding that door even though it’s hopeless. You don’t understand why we do what we do, and we don’t understand why you do what you do, and neither group of us understands why the Izkop are doing what they are doing.”

“I hope they at least have a good reason,” Johansen said dryly. “As long as I’m going to die because of it.” Shapes appeared in the distance, coming around one of the bluffs. “Sarge!”

Singh was up at his own window in a matter of seconds as the rest of the surviving soldiers also jerked awake and scrambled into position. “What’ve we got?”