Then cadre whistles shrilled; the exercise was over. The arms that pinioned him relaxed, and the warbot got up, rolling Esau off. For a moment he lay stunned, not from any blow, but by what he considered an unfair trick. Warbots! No one had said anything to them about the Wyzhnyny having warbots!
The platoon leaders were taken back to the regimental area by floater, to evaluate the exercise. The trainees marched back, led by their platoon sergeants. They marched "at ease" (no talking), left to their own thoughts, double-timing once they reached the road.
It was a lecture shed they went to, and did fifty pushups before going inside. 1st Platoon was also there; it had been their adversary in the game. The two platoons sat on opposite sides of the center aisle. Four bots were also there, sitting farther to the rear. It was Captain Mulvaney who reviewed the exercise with them.
"All right, men," he said, "at ease." He looked them over. "Who here got hit, by any kind of weapon? I'm talking about before the warbots attacked."
Esau looked around. On 2nd Platoon's side of the aisle, nine hands raised. Considering all the shooting, he was surprised there weren't more. 1st Platoon had only four, but it had been dug in.
Mulvaney questioned everyone who'd raised their hand. Of the thirteen organics who'd raised theirs, eight would very probably have died.
"And who was hit during the warbot charge? Keep them up so I can count you."
Esau didn't try to count them. All four bots had been hit. They'd charged into the middle of it, been big targets and drawn lots of fire. "Seventeen," the CO said, "plus the bots. Okay, take them down. Your ensigns and Division's umpires all agree: 2nd Platoon, you carried out your approach and attack very professionally. 1st Platoon, you dug in effectively in the limited time you had, and fought a good defense."
He looked toward the bots. "Corporal Sciacca, where were you hit?"
"In the head, sir, by a blaster. A hard pulse would have ruined one of my ocular sensors. I also took hits on my chest and left leg, but even if they'd been hard pulses, neither one would have done damage."
"Thank you." Mulvaney paused, turning his gaze entirely on 2nd Platoon. "What did you think of the warbots?"
Esau's hand shot up. "Esau," the captain said.
"Sir, it wasn't fair to use warbots against us like that. No one told us the enemy had any. We didn't have a chance."
"War is seldom fair," Mulvaney answered, "and surprises are part of it. So far as we know, the Wyzhnyny don't have warbots, but they'll have something dangerous we don't expect. When fighting an enemy we know so little about, we can expect more surprises than usual, mostly unpleasant. This evening you got some notion of what it can be like.
"Some of you responded very well, incidentally."
Mulvaney turned his attention to 1st Platoon. "1st Platoon, Division's umpires estimate you took twenty casualties from phosphorous burns. You've seen demonstrations of what that can mean, so you can be grateful this was an exercise, with dummy grenades."
He paused, scanning both platoons. "The reason we didn't have you feign death when hit was, we didn't want you to forego the complete action. In combat, of course, when you're hit, you're hit. When you're burned, you're burned." Another pause. "History tells us that many soldiers go through numerous actions without being wounded, but there are also actions where casualties are very heavy. The best chance you have of coming through, of winning and surviving, is by working as a team." Again he paused. "Let's hear you say it: `We work as a team!'"
"We work as a team!" they answered.
"Say it like you mean it!"
This time they shouted: "WE WORK AS A TEAM!"
Mulvaney grinned. "Good. I got that. And there are other things: We keep the enemy under heavy fire. Say it!"
"WE KEEP THE ENEMY UNDER HEAVY FIRE!"
"We maintain contact with the enemy."
"We are aggressive."
"All right! You will learn more about all these things over the weeks to come, including when and where they don't apply. You will practice till doing the right thing is as natural as breathing. And when you first go into battle, you'll be as good as you can get, short of actual combat experience." He paused, raised his voice. "You want to know what surprise really is? Surprise… " He slowed, his voice softening, becoming confidential. "Surprised is what the Wyzhnyny will be the first time they tangle with you. They're going to wish they'd stayed wherever they came from."
He hadn't anticipated the cheers he got. Inwardly it shook him. He'd have given his life to cancel this war and send his trainees home, but it wasn't an option. For anyone. The Wyzhnyny had come, and there was nothing that would cause them to leave, short of defeat. And there was no reason to expect even defeat to drive them away. If they had to be hunted down and wiped out on each world they'd occupied, this would be a truly hellish war.
Chapter 30
"… and God Created
Humankind in Her
Own Image… "
Summer had shortened and cooled substantially as far south as the Dakota Prefecture, and the Keewatin Ice Sheet-actually the fifth-year firn line, deep in metamorphosed snow-had reached the north end of Canada's Reindeer Lake. The previous winter's snow had survived the summer southward almost to Lac La Ronge. Four hundred and fifty miles north of Reindeer Lake, near the heart of the ice sheet, soundings reported an average of more than eighty feet of ice, with plastic flow on slopes.
Not surprisingly, Saskatoon's population was less than a third that of 250 years earlier. Over the past two decades, a congregation of the Reformed Church of the Holy Mother (Gaean), had formed there, centering on the campus of a defunct Church of the Divine Liturgy. The long decline of real estate values had attracted members of the sect from all over Terra, making Saskatoon the RCHM capital of the world. One of its activities was the production of "The Daily Worldwide News Roundup," broadcast from warm and pleasant Oaxaca, Mexico, by Gaea Worldwide, an ecumenical network of Gaean sects. It claimed a listener base of 80 million-roughly point-zero-seven percent of the planetary population.
Gaea Worldwide was part of the Peace Front, but Jaromir Horvath and Paddy Davies seldom listened to their program. The Gaean sects had not been major players. But the two leaders had been notified that Gaea Worldwide would release a shocker on the roundup, at noon Greenwich and at intervals afterward. So both men were tuned in, Horvath in Kunming, and Davies in Sydney. They'd discuss afterward whether to follow through on it.
The roundup began with a summary of refugee labor battalions: their locations, projects, home worlds, and the number of refugees "enslaved." Old stuff, thought Horvath. Obviously not the promised bombshell.
Next was a report from "an anonymous source high within the government." Horvath's ears perked up; Gaea was trying to add authority to what came next.
A different voice read it, the accent British. "Kunming," it said, "has inaugurated a new and unspeakable outrage against humanity and the Holy Mother. This station has previously uncovered Kunming's unconscionable use of mentally handicapped persons as slaves for War House. Now the government has taken those vile, soul-corrupting acts a long and evil step further. They have conscripted a large number of severely handicapped children and have… " The voice stumbled, paused. "Have murdered them!-butchered them like animals, then ripped out their brains and spinal cords and transplanted them into what are termed… `bottles'!" He almost choked on the word. "Bottled innocence! Human beings designed by Gaea's holy evolution as the ultimate life-form for Planet Terra. In bottling the pitiful shards of these sad creatures, Kunming, under the leadership of Chang Lung-Chi and Foster Peixoto, has not only enslaved the souls of these children, their very humanity has been stolen. They are being installed in guided missiles, and assigned to Kunming's war fleet for use in the brutal war against our visitors from deep space.