In the Valley (24 page)

“Yeah,” said Jack, “Glimmer comms don’t do it for me. Mother pings me from time to time. I should get better about answering her back. Haven’t heard from your father in ages; guess I upset him about something.”

Jack made a futile, hand-tossing gesture. Paul didn’t know either, so he let that slide. It was none of his business.

He thought about it. Grandmother had to be past a hundred. It had been a while since he had heard anything about her. Maybe Jack would know more.

“Have you heard from Grandma? How is she?”

“Yeah, got a Glimmer ping from her a couple of months ago. From what I saw, she looks good for her age. From what I heard, she’s as cantankerous as ever. Keeps asking me when I’ll come back for good.”

A force soldier had three potential shots at going back to Old Earth. The first chance was at the end of the initial enlistment. That ticket could only be used upon separation. The second chance was if you were lucky enough to be posted on Earth itself. The last chance was upon retirement: the retiree had
one ticket back, to be used at one’s discretion. The retirement ticket had no expiration date.

Jack had never used his. He claimed to be perfectly satisfied with Mumbai 3, his adopted home and world of separation.

“Well, will you ever go back, Uncle Jack?”

“I don’t know. You know how it is, Paul. Once you start travelling around, living out of a duffel bag, things are never quite the same again. I don’t know if I could go back to the valley and live.” Jack sipped at his whiskey. “Maybe I’ll go back to die.”

He continued, “You know what I miss the most about Home?” Jack cocked an eyebrow and looked sidelong at Paul.

“No idea, Uncle Jack.”

“Well, first you can quit calling me ‘Uncle Jack.’ It’s just plain Jack. We’re both veterans, you and I.” Paul gestured his agreement.

“What I miss most,” he continued, “is the sun—ol’ Sol. I’ve been to a dozen plus worlds, and it seems the suns are never quite what I remember from home, even though Mumbai here comes pretty damn close.”

Paul agreed; the suns never did look quite right, no matter how one sliced it. But he missed other things.

“What I miss are the people, Jack. And I miss the trees. I’d give six months’ pay to walk through the forests again with Father.”

Jack snorted. “Well, you can always walk in the forests via halo. Gotta say, Paul, that’s not something I think about much. There’s plenty of wildlife here.” Jack’s eye followed two teenage girls as they walked through the bar.

“I wonder how much they cost,” he asked in a low voice, musingly.

“Dunno, Jack. Whores have never been my cup of tea. I like the thrill of the chase too much.”

“I getcha, Paul, but I’m tired of all that. It’s cash on the barrelhead for an old lech like me.”

Paul was a little let down by his long-lost uncle. Yeah, whores had been on every world he had encountered. But Paul was playing it square with his uncle when he said he didn’t like to go to them. The few times he had visited a prostitute, it had been first out of curiosity and then once or twice out of desperation. Usually he had no need, and he felt bad about paying women money for what was better freely given.

Of course, at least with a whore you were with an actual woman.

“Maybe they’re pleasure bots, Jack.”

“Nah, I can tell those in a heartbeat. Those are real women. Besides, this bar doesn’t have pleasure bots; it’s not that kind of place.” Jack cocked his eyebrow again. “Do you really think I’d bring my long-lost nephew into a place like that? Hell, we’re just having a nice meal and catching up a little.” He glanced at the menu. “This is, after all, the first time in over thirty years I’ve seen a relative. It’s a red-banner occasion.”

Paul was frightened a little; he saw himself in Jack.

“You’ve never run into anyone else?”

Paul had had other relatives go to the stars, of course. Everyone on Earth seemed to lose half of their families to the colonies.

“Nope. You’re it.” Jack shook his head. “Anyone ever tell you that you look a little like Alfred?” Alfred: Jack’s younger brother, Paul’s father.

“Hell, I don’t need anyone to tell me that, Jack. I’ve got a mirror. Our hair’s different, though.”

“Yeah, there is that.” Jack looked at the menu in satisfaction. “Try the Trilobite à la Mumbai, Paul; it’s delicious. And snapping the shells off is a breeze.”

What the hell, thought Paul. Trilobites it is; the rest of the menu confused him anyway. He was too used to force standard chow halls, where the food was all the same.

Paul and his uncle chatted some more and drank while waiting on the steaming trilobites. The delicacies finally arrived: they were fiery red in color and the size of a child’s hand.

The trilobites smelled delicious. As Jack had promised, they were easy to peel and tasted a little like a cross between Old Earth cod and lobster. There was a buttery sauce to dip them in, and Paul and Jack dug in. After dinner, Paul brought Jack a little up-to-date on some relatives he had heard from, and Jack regaled Paul with some pretty good war stories. It turned out they had both been stationed on Rio for a while, and in sister units.

They drank some more and finally found some dance partners. They had a pretty good time and hit all the fleshpots along Montgomery Street.

Paul ended up staying at Jack’s place for a couple of days while he waited on his shuttle off-world. When the two men finally had to take leave of each other, they parted as friends—not bad for two strangers who happened to share genes.

K
illing is in these people’s genes, thought Paul. Third Battalion had moved into the Baradna Valley a couple of days before and set up a firebase. Paul had gone on a couple of short patrols in the time since, but this was the first battalion-sized operation.

Today, Third Battalion was engaged in sweeping the village of Pashto Khel, rumored to be the hometown of a certain Commander Mohammed. The Juneau Army had targeted Mohammed after a meeting with the local elders, who had fingered him as one of the chief shitheads in the area.

Therefore, Third Battalion was going on a sweep through his hometown. The immediate objective was for Second Company to search Mohammed’s house while First Company went on the ridgeline overlooking the village.

Apparently, Commander Mohammed and his boys had set up a bunker on the ridge and had been firing on the provincial police from up there. The bunker and Mohammed had to go, as a first step toward the pacification of the Baradna Valley.

Paul walked through the extensive marijuana fields of the area. His company was going to set a cordon around the village with a couple of platoons while headquarters platoon searched Mohammed’s residence. Second Company
was making the move in broad daylight, with F-71s overhead as overwatch. Word had it that Mohammed had taken off with his boys, so no opposition was expected.

However, everyone was on his toes. Paul sure as hell was. He was moving unarmored in a column with the colonel, Fox (the air-control guy), and Z-man. Paul walked on dikes through the rice and pot fields. He also walked along the Baradna River, which was chuckling and gurgling invitingly next to the column of men.

Bashir was immediately ahead of Paul with a rotating crew of Juneau Army platoon leaders. It was Bashir’s technique to periodically summon his lieutenants for off-halo conferences. The security of the Juneau Army halos was questionable, at best.

Looking around, Paul was surprised these people had any halos at all. The fields were tilled by oxen and wooden plows—for Pete’s sake, you couldn’t get much more primitive than that.

Paul stumbled and fell painfully in some dirt clods. Time to pull my head out of my ass, he thought. The colonel gave him a hand up.

Paul checked the micro feed on his visual. First Company had gone along the southern side of the village, and elements were already heading up the ridge, to the supposedly empty bunker on the hill.

I’ll bet there’s some pucker factor there, thought Paul. Yeah, the halo feed said no one was home, but you never knew.

After much walking along the Baradna River, Second Company had reached the ford point directly across from Pashto Khel. The Juneaus started across—some of them fell, sputtering, into the rapidly moving water. It would have been funny except for the fact that this was an operation into a hostile
village with a known dissident presence. Paul crossed slowly, feeling naked as a jaybird the whole time.

His eyes were on the walls around the village; he peered into the dinosaur trees. He felt his way with his feet among the rocks of the creek, praying no one would start shooting while he was midway in the coursing river. He held his rifle at port arms, sloped upward across his body from right to left. “Oh Lord, which art in heaven,” went through his mind. His heart raced; his mouth was dry.

He reached the opposite shore, found a low wall, and started scanning the area in front of him, smelling the pungent aroma of marijuana everywhere. A few seconds later, Z-man joined him.

Paul looked over his shoulder; the colonel was midway through the stream. Paul checked his halo micro feed again, alternating between using his own eyes and the drones. There was no hostile activity.

Paul started to calm down a little. The colonel was across, and Second Company had a toehold in Pashto Khel.

A couple of hours later, Paul and the colonel were sitting on a street outside of Commander Mohammed’s house. The provincial police were questioning an old man who lived there. The guy was saying, of course, that he didn’t know where the commander was. Second Company was inside the compound, and a dog was barking furiously.

Mike popped up on the colonel’s and Paul’s halo visuals simultaneously.

“Five, this is One-Three.”

The colonel took the call. “Go ahead, One-Three.”

“Yeah, Five, we took the hill and found the bunker. We’re coming across a lot of munitions.”

“Show us the munitions, One-Three.”

Mike slaved his halo feed, and Paul and the colonel were treated to a view of 107 mm rockets, mortar rounds, and box upon box of bullets.

“One-Three, that’s a lot of stuff. We can’t just leave it there, and it looks like too much for your force to pack out. What do you suggest—over?” As usual, the colonel spoke with a calm, measured voice.

“Five, roger. Can we call the F-71s on top cover and have them put a Hadesfeuer rocket into this place?”

“Dunno, One-Three. Let me talk to the air-control guy and see if we can work something out. Give me five mikes. Out.”

The colonel looked over at Fox, who had come along for the day’s activities.

“Hey, Fox, talk with our air cover, and see if they can shoot the weapons cache Mike found.”

Fox sat up from where he had been squatting. “Roger, Sir.” He adjusted his special air-controller’s helmet halo and spoke.

“Big Guns One-One, this is Goblin Two.”

A voice came back with the whine of combat shuttle engines in the background. “Goblin Two, I read you.”

“Big Guns One-One, I request weapons release on coordinates 21Echo WS 46573 87465.”

“Authenticate commander—over.”

“Hotel Papa, call sign, Five.”

“Roger, Goblin Two. I see friendlies in that AO; suggest they clear out before release.”

“Roger that, Big Guns. We will clear them out when you are ready to fire—over.”

“Goblin Two, I will release at your convenience.”

Fox looked over at the colonel. “How long to get Mike out of there, sir?”

The colonel called Mike—he needed ten minutes to get clear. Fox relayed the info to the combat shuttles overhead.

Paul heard the barking dog inside the compound start to wail; there were some thumping sounds and cursing. The dog was silent thereafter.

“Man, sir, I sure am glad that fucking dog shut up,” Z said, shaking his head.

“Yeah, Z, I know how allergic you are to dogs.” Paul pulled out a Fortunate and lit it while checking First Company’s positions on the micro feed. From what Paul could see, they were hauling ass off the hill. At the rate they were going, some of them looked like they were falling more than running. Well, Paul thought, no one wants to be around when a Hadesfeuer comes in.

Bashir came out of the compound with a shit-eating grin.

“Ah, Paul, Colonel, my friends! We have found some of Commander Mohammed’s explosives—look!”

Some of Bashir’s men came walking by with bricks of TNT and mortar rounds. Someone produced a sack, and the stuff got dumped in. There looked to be quite a bit.

“Where did you find it, Bashir, my friend?” Paul was curious. Second Company had been searching the compound for an hour, and the last time he had checked, they hadn’t found diddly.

Across the street, the provincial police were screaming at the old man they had found in the compound earlier. The old man said not a word.

“Years ago, when the force was my enemy, we soldiers of God had many crafty places to hide our weapons and ammunition. When my men found nothing, I told them to look under the doghouse with the barking dog. That is where the hiding place was, God be praised.” Bashir looked mighty pleased with himself.

“What happened to the dog?” Paul was curious as to why it had gone quiet.