“C’mon, kid,” Rachel said, “let me show you the ropes, while things are still quiet. Once they start shelling us again, there won’t be time to do anything but shoot back.”
She watched and listened closely as the soldiers showed her the ropes, taking her through the software interfaces of the battle computers that acquired incoming targets, made lightning decisions on which guns would best defeat the threat, and fired on autoresponse a hundred times faster than human reflexes.
“Why do we need live gunners?” Yalena asked. “The computers are better and faster than any human could be.”
The Hellbore gunner, a hulking giant with skin as dark as carved basalt, answered in a voice full of gravel. “Because battle computers can go down. Because somebody has to man the loading belts. Not just on the 30cm guns, but the missile launchers, too.” He pointed to a stockpile of artillery shells and missile racks behind them. “It takes two people to lift shells onto those belts fast enough to keep the guns firing steadily. We couldn’t get autoloaders, so we do it the old-fashioned way.” He patted the Hellbore’s mobile gun-mount, a self-propelled platform nearly seven meters long, with eight drive wheels. “This baby operates with its own psychotronic target-acquisition and guidance system, but somebody’s got to sit on the hot seat, ready to switch to manual if anything goes wrong. This is old equipment, almost as old as Vittori’s Bolo.” Hatred put a cutting edge into his voice. “We’ve lost several Hellbores and their gunners to that Bolo. And we’ve had two battlefield equipment failures with Hellbore psychotronics in the past year. The first one went down in the middle of a running firefight. The driver wasn’t trained as a backup artillery officer. He was killed, along with the Hellbore. The second one went down three months ago. The gunner switched to manual and killed the bastards shooting at her. The Hellbore up here,” he patted his again and pointed to the other Hellbores atop the dam, “are the best and newest ones we’ve got. And every gunner on this dam is cross-trained on every weapons system up here. Any of us can step in and take over, if something goes wrong. Or if somebody’s killed.”
Yalena nodded. It was a good system. And they all knew the risks. She was deeply impressed and said so. “I spotted some of the other crews,” she said, pointing in their general direction. “Are all the batteries like these?”
Rachel shook her head. “No. We don’t have enough equipment for that. Klameth Canyon is a huge territory to defend, let alone the branch canyons and gorges. But we’ve laid down a fair coverage. Enough to knock down most of what they throw at us.”
“How often do attacks come?”
“Every few hours. It’s not predictable enough to set your watch by, but they get bored, with nothing to do out here but bitch about their officers and shoot at us. So they’ll sit around for a while, then fire a volley or two, then it’ll be quiet again.” Rachel shrugged. “So there’s no telling when to expect the next round. But it will come. That much, you can count on. Vittori doesn’t dare back down. Hatred of us is the only thing keeping POPPA glued together, right now. If he walks away from this fight, he’ll lose a lot of the loyalty he still commands, especially among the rank-and-file party members.”
That made sense.
Twilight had begun to fall by the time Yalena’s impromptu artillery lesson came to an end. She thanked her teachers for their time and trouble, then moved to the railing, peering down into the deep gorge, again. She could see someone hiking in from the house just outside the mouth of the gorge. A lone figure moved swiftly through the gun crews bivouacked along the edge of the Klameth River as it poured away from the deep basin at the base of the dam. Whoever it was, they were making very good time.
Within moments, they’d climbed into the lift installed by the rebellion’s high command, which consisted of a broad platform raised and lowered by electric pulleys that ferried cargo and passengers to the upper reaches of the dam. Yalena moved closer to the pulley system, peering down over the edge. The drop was longer and dizzier than she’d first realized. Even so, the lift platform arrived with swift efficiency, depositing the sole passenger at the railing.
Yalena started forward, a greeting on her lips, and abruptly checked her stride. Dinny Ghamal, reflexes honed by four years of guerilla warfare, swung abruptly toward her. She saw him clamp down on the reflex to snatch his sidearm out of its holster. She forced herself to move forward and gave him a wan smile.
“I wouldn’t much blame you, if you did.”
When he didn’t respond, she added in a low voice, “I was a repulsive little brat.”
Dark eyes flickered and a dark, unreadable gaze swept across her. “Yes, you were.” Then, reluctantly, “But you never turned in anybody to the P-Squads, the way some of your friends did.”
She winced. “No.” Coming from a man whose mother had been murdered by the P-Squads, who’d died in his arms, it was a concession that caused her eyes to sting. “Daddy—” she began, then had to swallow. “My father told me what happened. To your mother, I mean, when we were on the ship coming back from Vishnu. I never knew your mother and that was my own stupid fault. I didn’t know, back then, that I wouldn’t exist, without her. Or you. I didn’t know you’d both saved my mother’s life. There’s no way I can ever repay that debt. But at least now I know I owe it. And I’ll try my best to repay at least some of it.”
A muscle jumped in his jaw. He tore his gaze away, stared down into Klameth Canyon, which twisted away at their feet, a deep, twilight slash through the rose-pink stone. Yalena could see camp fires, now, at the refugee camp, where weary people with bruised souls were gathering around the cookfires to share what little was available to eat, sharing it with loved ones and new-found friends. Comrades in peril…
Despite the fear, the threat of destruction by people who hated mindlessly, the refugees in that camp were stronger, braver, and far better men and women than any fool who’d ever dreamed up or chanted a POPPA slogan.
They could be driven out of their homes. They could be tortured and killed.
But they could not be broken or demeaned into less than what they were.
Vittori Santorini had nothing like it.
And never would.
“What are you thinking?” Dinny asked softly.
She tried to tell him, but it came out all garbled, making no sense. Not to her, at least. But when she looked up, meeting his gaze, she found him staring at her as though staring at a total stranger.
“I never realized…” he said softly.
“What?”
“How much you’re like your mother.”
The tears did come, then. “I’m sorry, Dinny,” she whispered. She couldn’t say the things trembling and tumbling through her heart, because there weren’t words big enough or strong enough or deep enough to say them. He didn’t speak again. Neither did she. There wasn’t any need. When she’d wiped her eyes dry with the backs of her hands, she moved to stand beside him, gratified when he stepped not away, but aside, allowing her to join him. They stood, shoulder to shoulder, in the place of honor, the lookout’s place, guarding all that was good on this world.
For these few moments, at least, there was a strange peacefulness in Yalena’s heart. She understood, for the first time, why soldiers through the centuries had sung of the brotherhood that knew no bounds, neither race nor gender nor age, requiring only that its members had faced death together. They were still standing there, still silent, when the shelling began again. Gouts of flame twinkled like fireflies in the distance, where artillery shells were bursting far down the main canyon.
“Get inside,” Dinny said roughly.