The Tejano Conflict (16 page)

The storm wasn't done, but it had slowed and begun to fall apart, and the worst was over. Cutter listened to the reports, and mostly, CFI and the other units on The Line's side had weathered things just fine. Some equipment had been damaged, a couple of people had gotten smacked by flying debris, and there were some small injuries from slipping and sliding, to go with the burns and wounds from enemy interaction. Wink had been busy, but mostly with injuries from other than CFI troops. Plus his dickhead foray into enemy territory. Sooner or later, he was going to get himself killed, skating right up to the edge the way he did.

Of course, on Cutter, it looked different. His action had been necessary and right . . .

He smiled.

A relatively quiet night, all things considered. It could have been a lot worse on any of the fronts.

He realized that it was nearing dawn, and that he hadn't eaten anything since . . . lunch yesterday? Huh.

Third shift had things under control. He ambled to the dining hall.

There were a few people on break, mostly having junk food or caffeinated beverages. They had healthier fare, for those who wanted it, but mostly, troops wanted a fix of sugar or fat once action commenced. The prevailing philosophy seemed to be, Hell, I might get killed any second now, might as well eat what I want and fuck it.

War had a way of making
carpe diem
seem valid no matter what you wanted to seize . . .

He nodded at those who looked his way, went and collected a cup of coffee and a quik-heat roll, found an empty chair and sat. He sipped at the hot coffee, which was good. That had always been part of any unit he'd been in, that he had coffee you could drink and enjoy, and not stuff better used to clean rust stains from oxidized sheet metal. The roll was sweet-potato-flour-based, not bad, but not particularly delicious. Food, and good enough for the moment.

Formentara drifted into the room. Zhe collected a piece of fruit and took a seat three or four tables over. Zhe didn't see him, or if so, didn't acknowledge him.

Zhe didn't look any the worse for her adventure with Wink. His amazement at hir actions didn't extend to Cutter entirely. He had known zhe had some augs running though not the extent. If being out in a hurricane and a firefight bothered hir, it didn't show now.

Cutter watched Formentara, his gaze mostly unfocused. He was tired; probably wouldn't hurt to get a couple of hours' rest. A good soldier could nod off falling down stairs while eating hot soup, but when you were the officer in charge, that wasn't as easy as when somebody else was responsible and giving the orders. Once a war heated up, his sleep was always spotty. Sleep, diet, bowel habits, war changed a lot of things . . .

Zhe became aware of his attention. “Colonel?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Something I can help you with?”

“Ah, no, sorry, I didn't mean to stare. I was woolgathering.”

Zhe looked puzzled. Zhe stood, came over to his table. Raised an eyebrow at an empty chair.

He waved at the chair.

Zhe sat.

“Have fun out playing medical rescue with Dr. Death?”

“I did. It was invigorating. I got to test out my augmentation, and, of course, it worked just fine.”

“Of course.”

“What is ‘woolgathering'?”

“Old Terran expression. It means a kind of mindless daydreaming.”

“Wool is an animal product, the hair of ovines, is it not? How is that connected to a blank gaze? Do those kinds of animals have a thousand-meter stare?”

He grinned. “Not that I know about. As I understand it, in the prespace days, when sheep and goats were allowed to range free, they often did so among shrubs and bushes that could catch and remove bits of their hair. Enough so, apparently, that collecting the loose strands was worth doing. This was not an activity that required a great deal of mindful thought. People would wander about, plucking fur from thorns and branches, putting it into sacks, and since it didn't take much mental activity, their minds would be free for other tasks.”

Zhe nodded. “I see. Moving meditation. And what were you daydreaming about?”

He shrugged. “Life, death, the universe, my place in the scheme of it all.”

Zhe laughed. “Really?”

“More or less.”

Actually, his thoughts were less general and more specifically about Formentara, how zhe looked as she moved. Zhe was the brightest person he'd ever been around for more than a short time; zhe had an air of mystery about hir, and it wasn't just hir androgynous appearance, which he found attractive. He knew zhe was beyond adept at what zhe did; that there weren't a handful of aug experts in the galaxy who were as good, maybe none better. And why, he had wondered before, would somebody who could write hir own ticket, be the head of some corporation or university or just sit back and spend hir money be here, doing this? Working for him? On the face of it, it was a puzzle.

Then there was this grace-under-fire thing earlier this very night. Formentara as a fighter?

Fascinating . . .

Zhe chuckled.

His turn to raise an eyebrow query.

“You've never struck me as a . . . reflective person. More of a doer than a be-er.”

“True enough. Still, when one is in a profession that deals in the possibility of sudden and maybe unexpected violent death, the questions arise now and then for examination.”

“The questions being . . . ?”

“What does it all mean? Why are we here? Where are we going?”

Zhe laughed. “A warrior philosopher!”

“Not your bent, to muse on such things?”

“Oh, I used to ask myself those questions. Then one day, I realized that, as brilliant as I am, I couldn't divine the answers. That, unbelievable as it was, there had been many people
smarter
than I who had broken themselves of the rock of why-are-we-here? And, even if I happened upon The Answer, how would I know? Who would be able to verify it for me?

“Given my upbringing and experience, religion wasn't an option, the notion of Somebody-in-Charge-Who-Pays-Attention didn't work for me: Either zhe was unspeakably cruel, or unbelievably inept, no other possibility. So I let it go. Can't know the answer, no point in asking the question, is there? That way lies complete frustration. Better to concentrate one's energy on something useful.”

“I suppose. I think even the remote possibility of a come-to-understand moment, wherein the scales fall from my eyes, and I can see the whole flow of the universe, the why and wheretofor, is still there. It seems to have happened to others.”

Zhe shrugged. “I can do that. I can crank up the god-gene, ramp it into reality for a patient so they feel that cosmic consciousness, the oneness with it all with an absolute certainty beyond question. Since I can do it? Makes it harder to believe it's anything other than an accident of neurochem; a stray cosmic ray flipping an on switch. Would that be something you'd want? A fake epiphany?”

“No.”

“I didn't think so. If you got there on your own, you might buy it, but knowing it was artificially induced? Not your way. A lot of people would take the offer, but you aren't one of them, are you?”

“So we believe because we want to believe?”

“
Need
, more than
want
, I think. It's built into the operating soft- and hardware,” zhe said. “Some kind of survival characteristic, maybe, a sustaining comfort when great stress arises. Our bodies are full of chemical tides that ebb and flow to balance us physically and mentally. Why not one that does it spiritually? Such yearning seems to be common among most intelligent species, certainly humans. We need something beyond what we can see and touch and smell.”

He looked at hir, impressed that zhe had considered such things. He nodded again.

“Well. I will leave you to your snack and philosophy. I have augs to balance and programs to write. Good luck finding the answer.”

Zhe smiled, stood, then headed for the door.

He watched hir go, intrigued.

What a truly
fascinating
person . . .

– – – – – –

Dawn came to the only hill in the area and brought at least a little light. There was still fitful rain and mostly overcast, but breaks where the sun managed to peek through.

Jo took stock of the camp. There was a lot of standing water, plenty of debris, but mostly, the storm's worst hadn't been too bad.

Parts of the old houses had collapsed: window covers blown in, doors knocked open. Portions of the roofs had been torn off and hurled hundreds of meters away. The gardens were flattened, as were ornamental shrubs and small fruit trees. Cisterns were aslant or knocked over, and a couple of the outhouse structures toppled. That would have been a nasty surprise were you sitting on the outhouse bench when it tipped over.

If the squatters who lived here decided to return, they were going to have some work ahead of them to make the place habitable again.

A couple of the igloos had damage, but none of them had been peeled from their bases. None of the crawlers or transports took anything that would interfere with operation though one of the smaller APCs suffered a cracked side window from impact with something tossed into it at speed. Nobody had been seriously injured nor gravely wounded in the firefights.

Could have been a lot worse.

She checked the time. It was early, not yet 0600. Later today, there was going to be a major push, spearheaded by Colonel Buckley's force, to take the primary wellheads. All going as planned, the Tejas forces would be in control of the objective by this afternoon or early evening, with sufficient backup to keep it for the remaining three days until the conflict's termination. Holding the ground here to make sure nobody sneaked along the nearby road was part of the plan. As was breaking out and going down that road themselves to add their muscle to the plan.

Of course, no battle plan survived first contact with the enemy . . .

There was going to be a staff meeting of the various commanders in an hour, and a report on that would be forthcoming before the push. Shaping up to be a good day.

In theory.

Jo walked the area, avoiding the deeper puddles. The air was cleaner. Nothing like a hurricane to wash away air pollution, pollen, and anything else floating around. Her troops were up and slogging about, making the camp as functional as it could be with the mud as thick as it was.

Kay appeared and moved toward her. She didn't seem to sink as deep into the mire as she should. Yeah, she was lighter, but even so.

“Jo Captain.”

“Kay. Everything seems to be secure?”

“Yes. The enemy's dead and wounded are gone, no sign of activity on the hillside.”

“Aircraft will be cleared, we can expect to see drones pretty soon, theirs and ours.”

“Yes.”

Jo nodded.

– – – – – –

Zoree Wood looked at the staff gathered in the HQ. “All right, let's share, shall we? Colonel Buckley, why don't you lead off?”

Vim Buckley was a tall, gray-haired man of fifty-five, who had been kicked out of the Blue Hats as a lieutenant for decking a superior officer. He'd gotten the rank the hard way, via field commission. His scalp was depilated and he had the Ghost Lancer sigil tattooed on his head. He was harder than a leather sack full of rocks, and as good a soldier as Cutter had ever known. If he told you something, you could take it to the bank.

Buckley said, “Op Theater North is dogged down tight. The rain and wind caused some problems, but we got those fixed. We control much of the main access road to the wells, and our troops are set for a surge when we get the word, and we won't be taking the easy road. Once we start, anybody who wakes up and tries to follow us will be stopping to pick a whole lot of nasty splinters out of their feet.”

Wood nodded. “Shields?”

Del Shields had commanded the company that stood firm against five times its number during the Battle for Port Barton Samuels, on Veldt. Severely injured in that fighting, he retired a captain, and once he recovered, went into corporate military. He walked with an old-style power brace on one leg, didn't want the implants. Shields was a man who, like Buckley, if he said he'd do something, would—or die trying.

His comment was short and sweet: “Nobody is getting past our units on the Southwestern quadrant. They don't have enough troops on their side, even if the rest of you all go home.”

That drew smiles all around.

“Rags?”

Cutter said, “My people control the high ground overlooking the two roads from the east into the wellheads. We have additional forces ranging the forests and making sure nobody sneaks up that way. Once Vim's troops push, we'll cover his southern flank.”

Cutter leaned back and listened to the other commanders offer their comments. On paper, they had this in the bag. They had outmaneuvered the opposition strategically and tactically, and while you could never be sure until the cease-fire command, it certainly looked as if it was theirs to lose. Wood was a better general, she had picked better people, and they had done a better job of hitting their marks, before and after the shooting began. With only just over three days left until the war was over, it would take more than the other side seemed capable of doing to win.

Everybody here knew it, too; it resonated in their voices. They were all old pros, they knew which way the sun shone and the wind blew, and, for now, at least, those were at their backs, blinding and spraying grit into the faces of their enemy.

After everybody was done, Zoree said, “All right. We got this, all we have to do is keep executing as we have been doing. Don't start thinking about how you are going to spend your bonus, we don't want to jinx it, but as long as nobody screws up, we all know how this is going to end, right?”

That got a chorus of assents and grins.