The investigation only took a day. The men in charge concluded that the rocket launchers were complex pieces of machinery that required routine maintenance after every battle—maintenance that generally required a minimum of four days to complete. With the Avatari attacking every three days, finding a good time to disassemble and repair the batteries was pretty much out of the question. The investigators also discovered that Newcastle had nothing to do with the maintenance of the rocket launchers. The order to work on the batteries had come from Brigadier General Samuel Hauer, the tough little weasel who was number two in the Army chain of command. As Hauer was the one who called for the investigation in the first place, the matter was dropped. Hauer resigned his commission the following day.
Even after the investigation ended, whenever General Glade referred to this battle, he inevitably called it, “Newcastle’s speck-up.” He also referred to the ruins along Vista Street as “Newcastle’s sandbox.”
I heard all of this secondhand. Generals like Glade and Newcastle did not invite me to their high-level meetings unless Sweetwater or Breeze asked for me by name.
I had it better than any of my men. At least I knew about the Science Lab. I knew that the government had assigned great minds to this planet. My men heard nothing about Sweetwater and Breeze. They heard about the infighting among the generals and saw the costs of incompetent command, but they heard nothing about the mines, the spider-things, or whatever discoveries the scientists might make. Not that it mattered. The generals distracted most of their men with bounties for dog pelts and other entertainment. And then there was the work. We had an embattled city to maintain.
I didn’t allow myself to worry too much about incompetent leadership as I fell into the rhythm of life without the protection of Vista Street. Within hours of the battle, the brass placed all personnel on a new duty schedule. We had a twelve-hour work detail, followed by a four-hour shift in which we could do whatever we liked, then an eight-hour sleep period.
The brass enforced this new schedule with a vengeance. We could loaf around the base or slum around town during our off hours; but, to a man, anyone not present and accounted for during work shifts and lights-out would find himself in the brig.
I spent my first work detail driving into the forest with Philips, Thomer, and eight other men looking for survivors. I did not think we would find anyone with a pulse, but I was wrong.
It was a cold, miserable shift. By the clock, it was 2200 when we arrived on the spot. The time did not matter as far as daylight was concerned, not with the ion curtain smothering the planet in a blanket of light. But ion curtain or no ion curtain, Valhalla became colder at night. The rest of the men wore combat armor; the lucky bastards had climate-controlled bodysuits to keep them warm. My dislocated shoulder already hurt from the last time I’d put on my armor, so I came in fatigues with an interLink piece clipped to my ear.
We found our first bodies along the highway, just a scattering of men the Avatari had killed as they headed toward town. Once we went off road, we found large pockets where soldiers had died trying to make a stand. They were everywhere, and it quickly became obvious that once shot, no one survived. We found a few wounded who had fallen behind because of broken legs or other injuries.
Philips and Thomer took turns loading survivors into jeeps and chauffeuring them back to town, while the rest of us stayed back to “smart tag” the dead. Smart tagging meant painting a laser beacon onto the bodies. This was not about burying the dead; it was about accounting. By scanning the bodies with lasers, we cataloged how many had died.
Burial was not a high priority. Right now we had more important things to do. With any luck, the winter chill would keep the bodies from decomposing too quickly. Once the spring thaw began, we’d probably set the forest on fire to cremate the remains.
So there we were, bright ion curtain light dissolving anything even resembling a shadow under the thick canopy of trees. I was cold and wishing I had worn my armor, bad shoulder or no, when Phillips said, “There are a lot more humans than Mudders out here.”
“I heard the Mudders evaporate after you kill ’em,” Thomer said.
Part of me wanted to say, “At the Science Lab, they refer to it as degrading, but these creatures are not ‘Mudders,’ they are ‘Avatari,’ and they don’t die, they break.” I wanted to tell them the truth. They deserved to know what they were up against. Instead, I followed the party line and played dumb. I said, “Yeah, I heard that, too.”
“How many do you think we’ve tagged so far, sir?” Thomer asked. He brushed aside the ferns and made a gagging noise as if he was about to vomit. Even Philips grimaced.
“Six of ’em down here,” Philips said. “Hey, there’s barbecued brain poking out of this guy’s skull.” Philips was faking the old bravado. That was a good sign. I found myself watching Philips constantly, looking for signs of him recovering from the shock of losing Huish and White in our first encounter with the Avatari.
He had not yet reverted back to the reckless, obnoxious Philips of old, but some of his former swagger had returned to him. I could push him more now, but I didn’t dare mention Moffat or the Hen House.
“Okay, we got them,” Thomer said, straightening up and dusting dirt from his armor. “Where now?”
I suggested we head over the rise.
“Are you guys heading into town after this?” Philips asked. He sounded hopeful. He was still restricted to the barracks, but I mentioned that I might ask Major Burton for permission to take him out with us.
“After this detail? Man, I want to get good and drunk,” said Thomer, who seldom got drunk.
“How about you, Harris?” Philips asked. As a noncom addressing a superior officer, he was supposed to refer to me as “Lieutenant” or “sir,” but under the current circumstances …
“I’m ready to tie on a good one,” I admitted.
We crested the rise, and the massacre was suddenly laid out before us. Fatigue-clad bodies carpeted the ground ahead of us, and every last one of them had muddy white hair and brown eyes wide open and startled. They lay in intricate patterns like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle poured out of a box.
“Lord.” Thomer sighed.
“Shit,” groaned Philips. “There must be a million of them down there.”
I surveyed the scene. It was absolutely still. Even the wind had stopped, but not everything was silent.
“There’s a live one,” Thomer said. He pointed along the ridge that surrounded the clearing. There, sitting on the ridge, was an old soldier curled around an M27. He cradled it to his chest and rocked back and forth. His sobs carried across the forest floor.
“Go get the jeep,” I told Philips. “We’d better run this guy back to town.”
Thomer and I stepped over bodies and made our way around the rim of the clearing. When we came to the bottom of his hill, the old man turned and stared down at us. “The Liberator,” he said, his voice drenched with disgust. “All of these men die, and the specking Liberator makes it out alive.”
It was Glen Benson, the Liberator-hating old man who sat next to me on that flight to Mars. Even with all these men dead around him, this piece of shit could not let go of his prejudice. All these men died, and this asshole walks off the field untouched, I thought, then realized he had just said the exact same thing about me.
“What is your name, Corporal?” Thomer asked, stepping between me and Benson.
“Benson. Corporal Glen Benson.”
“Are you hurt?” Thomer asked.
“Just my leg,” Benson said. Now that he mentioned it, I saw that it was bent at an unnatural angle.