An interminable minute passed. Two. Abruptly the woods in front of them erupted with crashes of exploding antipersonnel rockets, and the formless roar of multibarrelled slammers sounding from the sky. Zenawi reacted at once, his words broadcast wide band. "Everyone to the boats! Head downstream! That's downstream. Fighter command, we're under air attack. APFs, pick us up at rendezvous, half a mile downstream, on the west bank where the woods pinch out!"
Torn palms still ignored, Esau had already run to the nearest pile of boats, Jael with him. Alone they manhandled a top boat into the water, where he stood holding it. Others grabbed a second. Soldiers were spilling onto the beach, a small flood. More boats were launched, and wounded were loaded into them. For some reason the Wyzhnyny air attack was focused on the woods instead of the beach. Zenawi helped Bremer into a boat, the XO like a doddering old man, then jumped in with him.
The escape hardly used half the boats, and some of them weren't full. Some had still not gotten under way when Indi fighters hit the Wyzhnyny attack floaters.
The rendezvous beach had no place to land, so the troops went over the side, towing or carrying casualties, then boosting and pulling them and each other up the bank. Floaters were waiting, with medics, who helped first at the cutbank, then at the floaters.
By that time a group of antiarmor floaters hovered over the tank park. These too were Indis, and their fire was not antipersonnel. They wanted to make sure no tanks remained fit for renovation.
Chapter 52
Afterward
Seven large APFs had landed in the Wyzhnyny pasture, only twenty to fifty yards from the cutbank-an APF for each platoon, and two medivac versions for casualties. The unwounded had already pretty much sorted themselves by squads and platoons-their "families and extended families." Crew chiefs called out the names of the platoons they'd come for, and the surviving officers and senior sergeants began loading their people, recording who was there.
Blood had darkened Jael's right sleeve when Sergeant Hawkins stopped her. "You're hurt," he said. "Go get on a medivac."
"Yessir," she answered. As she left, Esau started after her, but Hawkins put a restraining hand on his arm. "The medivacs are just for the wounded," he said. "You'll go back with us."
Jael called back without stopping. "Show him your hands, Esau."
Esau held them out; Hawkins looked. "Go with her," he ordered. "Yessir," Esau said, and left, moving sluggishly, the adrenaline worn off.
Hawkins continued loading what remained of his platoon. Jerries! he thought. They're not used to having medical treatment available. They don't expect it, don't seek it. Add that to the warrior trait of ignoring illness and pain, and you get people like those two.
He'd long ago decided that Jael was as much a warrior as Esau, simply less aggressive.
The platoon APFs were ready, but the two medivac APFs were still being loaded. They'd leave together as a convoy, escorted by fighters waiting protectively overhead.
Jael and Esau were examined briefly, injected with painkiller, directed to seats, and strapped in. Except for painkiller, only Jael received treatment. A medic had cut off her right sleeve at the shoulder seam, exposing a ragged laceration of the right deltoid, apparently by a rocket fragment. She'd felt it when it hit, but they'd been busy launching boats. The medic cleaned her wound, then bandaged it. It was hard to tell how much blood she'd lost. A significant amount, he decided, but not dangerous. The water had been deep at the cutbank, and most of the blood had washed away in the current.
Esau's hands were ignored. They threatened no blood loss, and the medics gave priority to cases that might be serious. Most were. There'd been screams when casualties were manhandled off the boats and up the steep bank, but aboard the medivac, the sounds were muted groans, mutterings, and occasional cries.
A warning sounded, and the medics grabbed stanchions while the medivac first lifted, then accelerated. Then they continued treating wounded. Plasma injections were begun. Stasis 1 was injected where the wounds seemed mortal, and the dog tags had been stamped to indicate a bot agreement. Or where there was no stamp, but death was imminent, or limbs were ruined beyond repair. It wasn't all according to regs, but the surgeons could decide what to follow up on.
Tom Clark, one of 4th Squad's replacements, was aboard with a bullet wound through the belly. He'd been doped for the pain, but not too doped to accost a medic. "How about some of that stuff you give the bot cases?" he said. He fumbled for his dog tags. "I signed the agreement."
"Sorry, soldier," the Terran medic said, "but you're going to live and be good as new in the body you've got."
"Don't matter. With so many worlds to run the Wyzhnyny off, this war's going to last a long time. So I'm bound to get killed sooner or later. I might better get my iron suit now. The more bots we have, the sooner we'll get it over with. And that way, who knows: I just might come through it all alive." His chuckle was a weak, dry sound. "Spend my old age rusting in the sun."
"Take it up with the doc," the medic told him, then patted his shoulder and went on.
Esau had watched, listening. The painkiller had taken hold; things seemed a bit remote and disjointed. But one thing was clear: there was a lot of hurting going on. All of it because some Wyzhnyny decided to take away other folks' worlds. He'd known that much all along. He just hadn't realized everything that went with it.
Speaker Farnham had it right, he thought, or the book did. A lot of the time Esau hadn't been sure when a speaker was speaking his own words, and when they were the Lord's, or some prophet's, or Elder Hofer's. But what it amounted to was, when we have a task, we need to carry it through the best we can, and trust in the Lord. And it seemed to Esau that was the situation the army was in.
Shortly he felt the medivac settling downward. A minute later they were on the ground, and the rear doors opened. More medics came aboard, and within a few minutes, all the wounded had been unloaded. Esau and Jael were among the last-the least wounded-and walked to reception.
Brigadier Consuela Hagopian clicked her video control, and the wall screen went blank. Despite her salt-and-pepper hair and the lines in her face, to Chang Lung-Chi she looked more than smart and confident. She looked combat-trained and fit.
"As you see," she said, "it was an informative night. We are very pleased with the performance of our Jerrie troops, their auxiliaries, corps command… all of them. Less happily, we're also impressed with the toughness of the Wyzhnyny troops. But General Pak suspects our experience has been very largely with the Wyzhnyny main force, their regulars, and he's probably right. I hope so, because they have lots of soldiers. Most of them second string, we think. Call them reserves. We suspect their entire adult population is armed and trained."
What she says matches what Olausson says, Chang thought. And Kulikov had spoken well of her. But what impressed Chang as much as anything was the way she pointed out errors and uncertainties without being slippery.
"After the Battle of the First Days," she went on, "both sides have used their armor and air squadrons cautiously. We seem to have an advantage in the air, so we've been a little bolder with our air units. The Wyzhnyny have been bolder with their tanks, but with the destruction of the battalion in the tank park, that may change.
"Meanwhile they have a large advantage in troop numbers. And a lot of artillery, while we… had to make difficult resource decisions in preparing for the ground war. And decided to rely on airpower as our main bombardment force. We intended our initial softening-up phase to largely destroy the Wyzhnyny armor and air units, but we'd overlooked something. Our principal colonized region on New Jerusalem, now the Wyzhnyny colonized region, has areas of karst terrain. With caves-something we'd overlooked. Wyzhnyny command was foresighted; they modified some of them to shelter armor and air squadrons, and for backup base installations."