Inchoate nightmares chased each other through Lon’s mind in such rapid succession that he could hold on to nothing of them. There was only a vague realization that they were present, a web from which he was powerless to escape. But neither was he able to grasp pain or discomfort, or sense the duration of his sojourn in limbo. Even when his mind started to climb back toward consciousness, he could hold nothing of what was transpiring inside his head or happening to his body. It was not until he was actually waking that he realized that the experience had not been like the other time. When he opened his eyes and saw that he was not in a trauma tube, he was not surprised. A tube would have prevented most of the mental nonsense.
“How do you feel?”
Lon blinked. It was daylight. The sun was out. He did not recognize the face that was looking down at him. The man was dressed in the work uniform of ship’s crew, the insignia of a medical orderly on his chest. “I’ve felt better,” Lon said, his voice cracking over the words. He tried to clear his throat.
“Here, have a sip of water.” The orderly held Lon’s head up and brought a canteen to his lips, but did not leave it in place long enough to begin to quench Lon’s thirst.
“Not too much,” the orderly said. “You’ve had a rough time. We didn’t have enough trauma tubes to go around, and the ones who were hurt worst had to have priority. All we could do for you was pump in blood bugs and painkillers.
You’ll have to do four hours in a tube on the way home to get rid of the scars and patch up the damage.” He smiled. “Like as not, they’ll schedule you for a night in. That way you won’t miss any duty at all.”
“On the way home? What about the couple of months of training we were supposed to provide?”
“Don’t know about that, mate. Word I had is that this battalion will be going home in a couple of days. Maybe they’re going to have somebody else come in for the training. Or maybe that’s been called off. They don’t tell me everything. I’m lucky if they tell me when it’s time for chow.”
“When can I get back to my mates?”
“Soon as you feel fit enough to get up and walk. Don’t be in any big hurry about it, though. Sit up, have something to eat—if you can stomach food yet—and have a drink or two of water. That’ll go a long way toward making you feel fit. Just don’t push it. Remember, you haven’t had your gig in a tube.”
Lon sat up. There was still a little pain in his left shoulder and side—another reminder that he had not been in a trauma tube—and he still felt short on energy, but there was no hint of dizziness or nausea.
“I guess I’m going to make it then,” he said under his breath. Not like some. Lieutenant Taiters came to mind. I wonder how it happened?
“You’ll make it, in my professional opinion,” the medical orderly said with a short laugh. “I’ll leave this canteen with you. Yours were empty. And I’ve left you a meal pack here as well, straight from ship’s stores, not the battle rations you’ve been living on.”
Lon nodded his thanks and reached for the water. The medical orderly got to his feet. “Take it slow with the water for a bit. You have any problems, there’ll be one of us around. If not, good luck.”
• • •
He ate slowly, savoring each bite as if it had come from a gourmet kitchen instead of ship’s stores, and taking a lot of small sips of water. The water was actually cool, not tepid, like most of the water he had drunk since coming to Norbank.
While he ate, Lon looked around. He was in a valley with at least forty other wounded men. Most were still on their backs. A few were up and eating. All looked the worse for wear. Lon was not certain if the valley was one he had seen before, or just where it was.
The sun was high enough that it left no shadow on the slope to the east, but Lon had to pick up his helmet and look at the timeline to see that it was after ten o’clock in the morning. He put the helmet on after he finished eating and selected the channel that would connect him to Sergeant Dendrow.
“The medicos are turning me loose for now,” Lon said when Dendrow answered his call. “Where do I find you?”
“Don’t try,” the platoon sergeant said. “Just stay put. We’ll pick you up in about twenty minutes.”
“I’m okay now, Sergeant, really. I can make it on my own.”
“Maybe, but save the effort. We’ve just got orders to move back to the capital, and we’ve got to go right past where you’re at to get there.”
Lon chuckled. It was not so much returning humor as simple relief at the prospect of getting back to his unit, his friends. “Okay, I’ll be here. I’ve got nowhere else to go.” There was a temptation to stay on the line, to continue chatting, just for the sake of hearing a familiar voice, but Lon knew that it would not be proper. Nor did he call Corporal Girana or get on that squad’s frequency. The reunion would come almost soon enough. He could wait.
Fortified as much by that as by the food and water he had consumed, Lon felt stronger, better. The pains in his shoulder and side seemed somehow to recede. He got to his feet carefully, testing, waiting for any increase in his discomfort, or a feeling of greater weakness, but neither came. I guess I am going to make it, he conceded.
A few cautious steps reinforced his optimism. No one’s going to have to carry me. He looked around the open-air hospital with a little more attention. Some thirty yards away, one soldier stood guard over several dozen weapons. Lon looked at the ground near where he had been lying. His rifle was not there. The web belt with his pistol—the holster anyway, Lon recalled dropping the handgun on the ground during the battle and he had never had a chance to retrieve it—was also gone.
I guess I’d better see if my rifle got here, at least, Lon thought, starting toward the guard. The soldier looked up as Lon approached, then lifted his visor. Lon did not know his name but recognized the face. He thought the man was from Charlie Company.
“My weapons weren’t with me,” Lon said. Then he identified himself. “I still had a rifle when I was hit last night. The pistol might have been lost before.”
“You remember the serial numbers?” the guard asked.
Lon recited his rifle’s serial number first. The guard pulled his helmet down to scan the list he called up on his head-up display. Then he lifted his visor again and went almost directly to the rifle and pulled it free from the stack. Lon took the weapon, checked to make certain that the safety was on, then pulled the bolt back to see if there was a round in the chamber. There was not. The magazine was empty as well.
“What about the pistol?” the guard asked. “Just in case it was turned in.”
The sidearm was also there, and back in its holster. “That’s more than I expected,” Lon said. “Thanks.” There was no need for him to sign for the weapons. The camera in the guard’s helmet would have recorded the transaction.
“That’s what I’m here for,” the guard said. “That and to make sure nobody comes in and steals them.”
“One question. Just where are we? How far from the hill where we fought last night?”
“You were in the platoon up on the hill?”
Lon nodded. The guard pointed due north. “That’s where you were, right there,” he said. “Top of that hill.”
Lon turned and looked. Nothing about the hill looked familiar from this angle. He could not even see the thicket to the west of it, or Anderson’s Creek. “Looks different now,” he said. “Thanks.” Then he turned and walked away, looking for the rest of the platoon, wondering if it was just third platoon or the whole company—or perhaps the entire battalion—that was heading back to Norbank City.
Lon was sitting under a tree when Alpha Company arrived—walking in loose columns rather than marching. It was shocking to see how shorthanded the company appeared. Maybe it’s not all casualties, Lon thought, trying to reassure himself. Some of them could still be on duty, just not with the rest of the men. But he was not comforted by that possibility.
The company took five minutes, resting while officers and noncoms checked to see if any of their other wounded were ready to return to duty. Lon felt guilty that he had not even looked around among the other casualties to see if he knew any of them. It had not even crossed his mind.
Third platoon—what was left of it—welcomed him back warmly. There were missing faces. Lieutenant Taiters had not been the only one killed on top of the nameless hill. And there were men who had been shipped back to Long Snake in trauma tubes. Of Lon’s special friends in second squad, only Dean Ericks was missing—and Phip and Janno were both quick to tell Lon that Dean was only wounded, that he had been among the first casualties sent back up to the ship, and that he would be all right. “Probably in better shape than you are, right now,” Phip said, pointing at Lon’s torn and bloody battledress top.
“Is it true that we’re going right back to Dirigent?” Lon asked. “That’s what the medical orderly said he had been told.”
“I guess,” Phip said. “Tebba said we’re all going back to the ship anyway, today or tomorrow. The old man must be calling in someone else to do the training part of the contract.”
Girana came over. He welcomed Lon back, then said, “We’re going home. Delta Company is staying over to handle the training. Tyre is going to stick around to ferry them back to Dirigent afterward.” Tyre was the supply ship that had accompanied Long Snake. Earlier in its career, Tyre had served as a one-company transport. It would not be as comfortable as the larger and newer Long Snake, but it could handle the chore.
“So the rebellion is over?” Lon asked.
Tebba shrugged. “I guess they figure there aren’t enough rebels left to be that big a threat. This is just rumor, but the word is that more than two thousand of them have been killed since we got here. I know for a fact that the militia collected more than twelve hundred rebel rifles this morning, from a like number of bodies.”
Lon could not repress a slight shudder. “Bodies? No prisoners?”
“Not many,” Tebba said. “I know of only five rebels who were taken alive and unwounded. There may be a hundred or more who were wounded too badly to keep on fighting. They’re being cared for by our people right now. Guess the old man doesn’t trust them to the government. Don’t say as I blame him.”
The walk back to Norbank City was taken in easy stages. The company stopped for five minutes each half hour. Even so, it took only two hours to make the trip. The people in the capital were in a festive mood, despite the fact that their militia companies had suffered 38 percent casualties—killed and wounded—in the previous night’s battle. No one seemed to have any doubt that the danger of the Divinist rebellion was past, that they would be able to handle those who remained.
Twenty minutes after Alpha Company reached the city, Bravo arrived. They were guarding the few prisoners who were not wounded. Tebba Girana had missed the count. Bravo had eight rebels with them.
More than a hundred civilians came to stare at the prisoners, to jeer and curse. The soldiers of Bravo’s first platoon kept the civilians away, forming a ring around the prisoners, rifles at port arms. The rest of the company remained nearby, but not overtly part of the protection. Alpha Company was also close, in case things got out of hand.
I don’t give much for the odds of them surviving long after we leave, Lon thought. Somebody gave this mob the idea, they might try to stone the prisoners to death right now.
It took fifteen minutes before a platoon of Norbanker militia arrived, escorting Colonel Alfred Norbank, the commander of the militia. Colonel Norbank went straight to Captain Wallis Ames, Bravo Company’s commander.
“We’ll take these men off your hands now, Captain,” Colonel Norbank said. “I’ve brought sufficient guards.”
“Glad to have your men here to help, Colonel,” Captain Ames said, “but I can’t turn them over to you yet. Sorry. My colonel told me to see them safely into town, but I don’t have orders to turn them over to local authorities. And until Colonel Flowers does issue those orders, these men are still my responsibility.”
Colonel Norbank hesitated, as if ready to argue the point. Lon Nolan watched closely. He was only twenty yards from the confrontation. He could see how tense the colonel was, and he saw when he made his decision. Colonel Norbank’s posture relaxed, just slightly.
“I understand orders, Captain,” he said, nodding. “I think it is a waste, but we will wait for your colonel to release these traitors.” He turned to the militia lieutenant with him and gave orders for his platoon to take up positions around the prisoners, with the Dirigenters. Once they were in place, Colonel Norbank went closer to the captured rebels himself. He started around the group, moving clockwise, just inside the circle of soldiers and militiamen who were guarding them.
“They don’t seem so fierce now,” he said, turning toward Captain Ames, who had remained outside the circle.
What happened next came too quickly for anyone to stop it, or even give warning, but at the same time, Lon thought it seemed to be happening in slow motion.
He caught a movement among the prisoners out of the corner of an eye. One of them seemed to reach into the front of his trousers, as if he were going to scratch himself. The hand seemed to reach deep into his crotch. When the hand came back out, the other hand went to meet it. Lon blinked as the realization hit him that the man had managed to hide a hand grenade, and had it out now.
By the time Lon realized what was happening and opened his mouth to shout a warning, it was too late. The prisoner lunged toward Colonel Norbank, extending the grenade in front of him—holding it, not throwing it. Colonel Norbank turned toward the rebel. His mouth dropped open. Surprise blossomed on his face.
Then the grenade exploded, erasing not just the look of surprise but the face as well.
Lon was on his way down to the ground when the blast sounded, his warning cut off. There were screams from civilians, farther off, and cries of pain from wounded closer in—Dirigenters and Norbanker militiamen … and from a few of the other prisoners as well.
As soon as the shock wave passed him, Lon was back on his feet, rifle up and moving forward, even though he still had no ammunition for the weapon. Scores of other mercenaries were also moving in, rifles covering the remaining prisoners, hurrying to see to their comrades as well.
• • •
It took time to sort through the confusion. The prisoner who had set off the grenade was dead, as were two of his comrades. So was Colonel Norbank. Two other militiamen and one Dirigenter also had died. A dozen people had wounds, most fairly minor; the dead had absorbed most of the shrapnel. The remaining prisoners were stripped to make certain that no one else had any lethal surprises. The civilians were ordered away. They went, most of them quiet.
The wounded were separated from the dead and treated. The surviving prisoners were marched off toward the edge of town. They had not been permitted to put their clothing back on.
Lon went toward where the man who had exploded the grenade lay, uncovered, his head, arms, and the upper part of his torso horribly mutilated. His hands had simply vanished.
Lon shook his head as he looked at the body. “How can anyone hate that hard?” he asked himself, unaware that he had spoken the question, or that anyone was near enough to hear.
“Some people don’t know any other way,” Tebba Girana said. “For guys like this, dying is the only way to stop.”