First To Fight (The Empire's Corps Book 11) (36 page)

“Yeah,” I said, as I rose to my feet.  “My right hand doesn't have much to say to me either.”

All eyes were on us as we stalked out of the diner.  I hated them all in that moment; the bastards who did nothing while we fought, bled and died on the streets.  If a gunman had appeared and opened fire ... I knew I would have stopped him, but I would have regretted it afterwards.  The SPs followed us at a distance, their faces relieved.  They’d known they would have come off worst if we’d started a real fight.

“Stupid bitch,” Joker muttered.  “Sif would have had her for breakfast.”

“Her back-up wasn’t much good either,” I agreed.  “What do you think Nordstrom would have said if we’d clowned around like that?”

“He wouldn't have said anything,” Joker said, after a moment.  “He’d just have dragged us into the pit and beaten a few lessons into us.”

I smiled in fond recollection.  None of us had ever managed to land a real punch on the Drill Instructor, even when three of us had tried to gang up on him.  Now, even after the Slaughterhouse, I wasn't sure I could have taken him.  Nordstrom had been an absolute master of
Semper Fu
.

The other eating places didn't look any more welcoming.  I shook my head at a place that boasted of fresh lobster - I hoped they’d caught them in the ocean, although only an idiot would eat something pulled from Earth’s polluted waters - and sighed as I saw the senior officers clogging the tables.  It looked very much like a demented birthday party; I’m sure several of them were rat-assed drunk.  One of them staggered outside, threw up in the gutter and then bellowed thankfully incoherent orders at a waitress.  She looked revolted - she hid her feelings well, but I could tell - as she helped him back inside.

“If she wasn't a rebel before coming here,” Joker muttered, “she sure as hell is now.”

I looked into the entertainment complex as we walked past, but there was nothing to catch my interest.  A handful of gambling machines, a collection of primitive gaming consoles and a giant projector for watching flicks; I rolled my eyes at the cartoon on display, then walked past.  There were just too many people on Earth who remained glued to the viewscreens, no matter what happened.  The lives of virtual people on the display were more important to them than their partners and children.  My mother had done that too, when she hadn't been banging random men.  I had no intention of wasting my life away like her.

“This looks promising,” Joker said.  “A brothel.  Coming?”

I looked at the building.  A long line of men, mainly REMFs, stretched out of the doors and around the block.  The signs advertised male as well as female prostitutes, but there didn't seem to be many women standing in line.  I supposed the female personnel found it easier to pick up a partner for the night without going to a brothel.  Just for a moment, I was tempted to wander through the bars and see what I could find ...

“They’ll probably try to get you off quickly,” I said.  I’d seen brothels on Mars; the pimps worked hard to keep customers moving, threatening the girls to force them to hurry up.  “Sure you want to go here?”

“We can find someone else tomorrow,” Joker said.  He dragged me into the back of the line, behind a pair of actual combat soldiers from the army.  “But for tonight, I just want to get laid.”

“Good idea,” one of the soldiers said.  He looked tough; not as tough as us, of course, but tough enough to earn respect.  “Ask for Mary, if she’s available.  She’s ugly, but damn if she isn't good in bed.”

“She’d have to be,” Joker said.

“Just don’t go for Bella,” the other soldier said.  “She just lies there and takes it.”

“Probably doesn't want to be here,” I said.

I never found out, but I was fairly sure that was the answer.  The prostitutes were mainly women who’d managed to get into debt, then discovered that the only way to get out was to sell their bodies.  And the debts would be carefully managed to ensure they never got out of debt, no matter how hard they worked.  The pimps wouldn't hesitate to brutalise any whore who started demanding her freedom ... or kill her, if she pushed too hard.  There was no shortage of others where she came from.

Yes, it
was
a shitty war.  And all we'd really done was make it worse.

Chapter Thirty-Six

As always, Edward understates the situation.  It is hard to be sure, but during the fifteen years of imperial involvement with the Moidart Civil War, over twenty thousand young women were press-ganged into service as waitresses, cleaning women, maids and prostitutes.  Horrific as it may seem, this was one of the better situations; there were a number of worlds where the entire population was effectively indentured in payment of their debts to the Empire.  Indeed, the (limited) involvement of the imperial military helped prevent worse atrocities.  Even so ...

It is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that prostitutes turned out to be one of the better sources of information available to the rebels.

-Professor Leo Caesius

The remaining three days of shore leave really seemed far too long.  It was almost a relief - despite picking up a sweet filing clerk in a bar on the second day and spending almost all of the third day in bed with her - to be heading back to the FOB.  The enemy welcomed us with a handful of mortar shells, then rocketed out of town before our counter-battery fire could take them out.  As always, when we reached the mortar sites, we found nothing apart from a handful of IEDs. 

It was an even bigger relief, therefore, when Captain Webb called us into the briefing room.

“We’re being redeployed,” he said, once we assembled.  “General Gordon has determined that Warlord Douglas, a former clan chief whose father was evicted from his lands when the corporations arrived, has grown far too powerful to be tolerated.  Accordingly, he has decided to reinforce our bases in the Western Hills and then start operations to prune the warlord down to a more manageable size.”

I winced, inwardly.  Urban combat had its dangers, but it tended to favour us; rural combat, on the other hand, gave the insurgents a considerable number of advantages.  It was going to be nasty, all the more so as we’d be offering a challenge to the warlord he couldn't refuse.  He would
have
to come after us if he didn't want his allies to start slipping away.  But, on the other hand, there would be fewer civilians to get caught in the crossfire.

“The General has assigned us, and five companies of imperial troops to the operation, which he’s termed Operation Rampaging Lion,” Webb continued.  “I'm sure you know what this means.”

There was a collective groan.  Operation Rampaging Lion - honestly, I couldn't imagine what idiot had come up with that name - would be known to the rebels already, before we or the imperial troops had been told what was expected of us.  And six companies ... if the route wasn't already determined, it wouldn't be hard for the enemy to guess.  We’d be better off flying in, but I already knew we were alarmingly short on helicopters or transport aircraft.

“We’re going to be heading up the main highway,” Webb warned.  “The General wants to prove that his forces can go anywhere, while the insurgents can do nothing to stop us.  I expect you all to remember that the enemy knows which way we’re coming ... and will go all-out to stop us.  They won’t be any match for our firepower, but that may not matter when they have ample time and warning to set ambushes.”

It wasn't a cheerful bunch of marines that headed out to prep the vehicles for deployment, even though the Rangers looked envious at our departure.  We all knew it was going to be dangerous; hell, we would have preferred to carry out the operation ourselves.  There might be some advantage in displaying our ability to go where we please to the rebels - and to everyone sitting on the fence - but I doubted it would be decisive.  The rebels would melt away from us, after firing a few shots for honour’s sake, and then pressure the locals to refuse to have anything to do with us. 

After all
, I thought sourly,
we’ll be leaving soon enough and the rebels will be ever-present
.

An hour later, we drove over to the regimental HQ ... and waited.  H-Hour was 1000 precisely, but it was 1300 when we finally left.  Someone, I gathered later, had been finagling readiness reports; two of the five companies that were meant to be backing us weren't remotely ready for a deployable operation.  Their training was poor, their vehicles were nether fuelled nor properly maintained and their ammunition stocks were low.  And their commanding officer - I never caught his name - stormed backwards and forwards, wearing himself out screaming at his men.  I wouldn't have been surprised to discover he was the one playing games with the readiness reports.

“Move out,” Webb ordered, finally.

General Gordon was
determined
that the rebels should have no opportunity to miss our advance, I realised, as we crossed the ring road and headed into the countryside.  There were fifty AFVs and light tanks, a hundred trucks transporting men and supplies and a dozen attack helicopters hanging overhead, just searching for targets.  I was grateful that we were at the front, even though it was fairly certain we’d come under fire first.  Everyone else got a shitload of dust in the backwash as we churned up the roads.

“Keep your eyes peeled for IEDs,” Singh ordered.  “They’re very good at hiding them.”

I’ll say one thing for the planet’s government; they knew how to build highways.  It would have been hard for someone to conceal one on the road itself, while there wasn't much concealment to either side of the tarmac.  Even so, we spotted a handful of suspicious objects and halted the whole convoy while Lewis and his fellow EOD officers inspected the devices, then blew them in place.  There was no point in trying to disarm them.  I scanned the horizon as the mountains grew closer, a cold wind blowing down towards us.  We were moving outside territory controlled by the planetary government, whatever they (and the General) claimed.  This was warlord country.

A handful of shots rang out.  Parker swung the machine gun around and fired a short burst towards the shooter’s position.  I don’t know if the shooter was killed or not, but there weren't any more shots from that position.  One of the helicopters broke off and swept over the countryside, searching for additional trouble; nothing, as far as anyone could tell, appeared to threaten our passage.

“Could be worse,” Lewis said.  “Maybe they’re just waiting for us to reach the base and then split up.”

It was possible, I agreed.  The local government had managed to maintain control of a number of firebases - mainly through superior firepower - but the warlord held the rest of the countryside in an iron grip.  We wouldn't be remaining together for long, either.  He'd know that we’d be splitting up, once we reached the FOB.  Smaller units would make easier targets ...

A missile lanced out of nowhere and slammed into the lead helicopter, which exploded in a colossal fireball.  Moments later, mortar shells started crashing down around us, taking out several trucks and badly damaging an AFV.  I cursed and knelt down for cover as bullets pinged off the AFV, the driver picking up speed to get us out of the ambush.  But behind us, all hell had broken loose.  Several of the drivers had hit the brakes - precisely the wrong thing to do - and other vehicles had crashed into them.  Another helicopter vanished in a ball of fire, pieces of flaming debris crashing down around us.  The enemy had somehow got their hands on HVMs!

Either that or they saved them for the best possible moment
, I thought, as I searched for targets.  The enemy
had
prepared well; the only way to see them was through picking out the muzzle flashes.  Parker opened fire, sweeping bullets across the side of the road, as the helicopters turned and started to launch missiles from a safe distance.  But it wouldn't really be safe if the enemy had more HVMs ...

“Dismount,” Webb ordered, as the machine guns chattered away.  A third helicopter was blasted out of the sky, forcing the others to retreat.  “We’re going to have to push them away, now!”

“Prep grenade launchers,” Singh added.  “Fire on my command.”

I glanced at the rest of the column as I snapped the launcher onto my rifle and loaded a grenade.  It was absolute chaos; the better soldiers had taken cover, while the undertrained and underprepared had thrown themselves to the ground or were running in all directions, screaming their heads off.  At least one idiot had been run over by an AFV; he clearly hadn’t recognised the danger until it was far too late.  It would definitely have gone better if we’d been the only ones involved; hell, we hadn’t even had time to work together.

(Later, I found out that the General was under a great deal of pressure from the Governor, who was in turn under a great deal of pressure from the Grand Senate, which was itself being pressured - confused yet? - by Hammersmith Corporation.  He wanted to produce something that could justify the immense cost of the military deployment to Moidart.  I don’t think he got what he wanted, but that explains why the whole operation was launched with literally less than a day’s notice.)

“Fire,” Singh snapped.

We fired, then ran forward under cover of the explosions.  The enemy had dug a network of trenches, half-hidden by the undergrowth; they popped out and opened fire as we appeared, only to be cut down savagely.  A number threw grenades of their own, then turned and ran for their lives.  Someone was screaming over the command net about no mercy, about killing them all, but we did our best to ignore them.  The handful of prisoners we took were dragged off to the AFVs, where they would be held until we could hand them over to the intelligence staff.

“Move the rest of the convoy up the road,” Webb ordered.  He seemed to have taken over command - or, at least, everyone obeyed his orders without question.  The nominal commander kept his head well down.  “Can the damaged vehicles be repaired in five minutes?”

“No, sir,” Lieutenant Spook said.  With a name like that, he really should have been in intelligence, but he was too clever and thus overqualified.  “They’re beyond repair, unless we get them to a workshop.”

“Blow them,” Webb ordered.

“But captain,” one of the army officers objected.  “They’re expensive.”

“And right now they’re a goddamned liability,” Webb snarled.  “There’s no point in leaving them here and no point in trying to ship them home, not when we just don’t have the time to handle them.  Strip them of anything useful, then toss a grenade into the cabs and get rid of them.”

I stood guard as the damaged AFV was stripped, then fused.  An AFV doesn't have the solid armour of a Landshark tank, yet it’s still damn difficult to destroy without heavy weapons.  I half-expected the captain to order us to take it out with an antitank missile, but he settled for removing everything of value and burning out the control circuits.  In theory, a clean-up team would pick up the remains and ship it home for recycling, but in practice it was probably stuck there until doomsday.  We pushed the wreckage off the road, then abandoned it.  There was no point in trying to do anything else.

“We could set an IED,” Lewis suggested.  “Give the enemy a nasty surprise when they come to call.”

“Too much chance of killing children,” Webb said, as we mounted up again.  “All we can do is remove everything that might be of value and abandoned the rest.”

I glanced up as the helicopters swooped back over us, as if the pilots hadn't been too damn scared of HVMs to do their goddamned jobs.  Everyone says that pilots live lives of luxury and that their uniforms are made of silk ... and while that isn't true, they do tend to put their aircraft ahead of everything else, including supporting the forces on the ground.  It didn't make much sense to me - Moidart should have been capable of turning out attack helicopters, AFVs and an infinite supply of ammunition - but we had to ship most of it in from out-system.  Someone, somewhere, had probably won the contract for supplying the military forces on Moidart and had no intention of allowing any local competition.

And to hell with the military necessities
, I thought, coldly.  At least the locals should have been able to supply their own requirements, although it didn't look as though they were even doing
that.  What’s the point of using simple vehicles and basic weapons if we can't even have them produced locally?

The drive from Charlie City to the FOB shouldn't have taken more than a couple of hours, but - thanks to the rebels - it ended up taking over ten.  They didn't set another ambush, thankfully; they settled for sniping at us, setting the occasional IED and trying to wear us down with constant alerts.  We had a
very
nasty moment, as the sun was setting, when we practically stumbled over a
huge
IED some enterprising bomber had concealed right next to the road.  Lewis told us, afterwards, that it was easily big enough to wipe out most of the convoy if it had detonated at the right time.  By the time we rolled into the FOB, which was surprisingly large for its location, we were all tired and in desperate need of sleep.  Even Singh was starting to look a bit wan.