Redoubtable

11

Jack had his computer, Sal, project a picture of the stadium for him and Tilly. He tried to concentrate on her fingers as she took him on a walk through the stadium.

It was not easy.

Three million years of evolution had trained the male eye to look for movement . . . and the female form. As the truck bounced from pothole to pothole, it jiggled two beautiful examples of the female breast right in front of his eyes.

Normally, Jack considered himself a very disciplined man. Today, evolution was winning hands down.

So he kept his hands in his pockets and tried to keep his eyes on her fingers. At least his ears worked normally.

“The field is pretty much a mess. They’ve had people living there for the last two months,” Tilly said. “At least they dug latrines down at this end. Still, a lot of people have gotten sick.”

“What about water? Water in? Water out?” Jack asked.

“We have to water the grass most of the summer. Not a lot of rain then. Winter, we get lots of rain. It gushes off the seats in rivers. So, yes, a lot of water comes in and a lot has to be taken out. Why?”

“Because where the water goes out, I was hoping to take my Marines in. You know anything about the sewer system?”

Here, the gal shrugged, and Jack got a glimpse of even more of her. Her tank top covered little of her midriff, and the cutoffs were badly frayed. Everybody was wearing clothes that had seen better days, but Tilly seemed dressed to distract males.

Or attract them.

Yet the woman talking to Jack was self-possessed and unassuming. The clothes did not match the person they covered . . . or hardly covered.

One thing was sure; she had a tight hold on her rifle. And unlike most, her pocket bulged with a box of ammunition. She would not shoot herself dry in one lone magazine.

“I don’t know anything about the underground, just that there is a lot of piping and ducts inside the stadium where no one goes. My job that summer was mowing the grass and painting the seats.

“Here and here”—she pointed—“there’s room to march a band in from the parking lot. You should be able to drive your trucks right onto the stadium grounds.”

“I doubt if we can do that,” Jack said, pointing to where men stood with rocket launchers high on the entrance ramps that ringed the stadium. “We wouldn’t get halfway to the stadium before they blew us away.”

“Oh, I hadn’t thought of that,” Tilly said, and worried her full lower lip. “I never watched many war films. I didn’t like all that killing. It seemed such a waste. Now, there are a couple of guys I really want dead, and I don’t know anything about how it’s done.”

“Movies aren’t the place you learn how to fight,” Jack said. What he really wanted to know was more about the guys she wanted dead . . . and why. Instead, he asked, “Do you know how to use that rifle?”

“My dad used to take my brother hunting. Before they went out, he insisted my brother learn how to shoot. I went along to their target practice and beat them both.” She grinned. “Brother said I cheated. I had these two pillows to rest on.”

She glanced down at the “pillows.” “Dad got Mom and Bro up-country before things got too bad around town. I stayed behind, trying to get a boy to go with me.”

“What happened?” Jack knew if the boy had gone, Tilly wouldn’t be here.

“His dad’s a road engineer. Jackie has him working for her. She’s got his wife and son at the stadium. Sometimes he gets to visit them.”

“And you.”

“I tried to visit his son. Two of the guards said they’d help me if I’d just wait in the locker room. I think I could have taken the two of them, but they brought some of their friends.” Her words petered out, but her grip on the rifle got real tight.

“I managed to find a place to sight this puppy in. I only used three rounds. You get me a target. I’ll hit it. I’m good to two hundred meters.”

Jack didn’t doubt she was.

He concentrated the spy eye on the line of manhole covers stretching from the shipping entrance across the smaller parking lot to the road behind the stadium. He followed more sewer lids until he came to a tree-lined residential street not two blocks from the parking lot.

“Sergeant Bruce, get ready to spin off some small scouts. I’ve got a sewer line I want mapped.”

“Oh joy,” the sergeant replied. “When my DI said to suck it up and soldier, he warned me there’d be days like this.”

Jack pounded on the roof of the truck cab and shouted instructions.

Beside him, Tilly caressed her rifle like she might her firstborn.

Colonel Cortez operated the risers on his chute. It had been a long time since he’d made a jump, and somehow it had gotten a whole lot harder to control one of these things since then. Still, he landed only twenty meters from his stick mate . . . and did so at a sedate walk.

As he spilled his chute, he took in his situation. He was in a farmer’s field, trampling green wheat not yet ready for harvest. The field consisted of several gently rolling hills. Off to his left, a four-lane road hugged the trees, which hid a decent-size river.

Unless he was blind, he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

Traffic on the road at the moment was nil. A dozen Marines who had landed closer to the road spread out along the shoulder and prepared to stop anything going in either direction.

Colonel Cortez joined the fifty or so Marines humping their gear toward the road. Word was he’d have transportation along soon.

It was unusual, but it looked like everything was going according to plan.

Private Lotermann hadn’t expected to have his very own command, not with just six months in the Corps, but here he was in charge of three trucks, responsible for getting them to Colonel Cortez.

He was on his own. It was a beautiful day. This was kind of fun.

“Turn left up here,” he told the driver.

The local riding shotgun for him had given up his seat in the cab, preferring to ride standing up on the truck bed. Now he stooped down to the vacant window.

“You want to turn right here,” he said.

“The map the princess gave me said we turn left,” Private Lotermann said, turning toward the volunteer.

And found himself facing a machine pistol with the arming bolt already pulled back and the safety off.

“I could care less about your princess. The Dragon Woman wants us to head for Tranquility Road, so that’s where we’re going.”

The gunman fired; the Marine private heard nothing.

Lieutenant Commander Kris Longknife signaled the driver to turn off six blocks short of Tranquility Road. Three hundred meters up the quiet, tree-lined street, she had him stop.

The other two trucks full of Marines spaced themselves at hundred-meter intervals as they halted. Quickly, Marines dismounted and began filtering through the yards, covering for each other as they bounded forward.

“Penny, go with them. Get some scouts out,” Kris ordered, then turned to motion the trucks full of volunteers to come up to where she stood.

“Good luck with that bunch,” Penny said, looking around. She spotted Lieutenant Stubben and jogged to join him.

It took a lot of waving to get the trucks to join her. By the time they reached her, some of the volunteers were already walking along beside them. A few had tried to follow the Marines and seemed very unhappy when Marines paused in their advance to quietly send them back.

“What’s going on?” “Aren’t we going to fight?” “I came here for a fight, and I’ll fight those hard hats if they get in my way again.”

Kris would dearly have loved to turn this bunch over to a good DI and wash her hands of them. She doubted a harangue from her on discipline would do any good.

“Get out of the trucks. I’ve got to talk to you first,” was the best she could come up with.

It wasn’t like these were the first irregulars she’d led into battle. She’d had some really nasty experiences with civilians who’d insisted they could stand in the line and fight.

She’d also saved the planet of her birth with a ragtag and bobtail collection of rejects, reservists, and volunteers.

With a sigh, Kris surveyed this bunch. Other than eagerness, they had little to recommend them.

“Corporal,” she ordered under her breath, “take your fire team and spread them out in front of this bunch.”

“Yes, Commander.” The orders were given and obeyed. “Now what, ma’am?”

“I’m not sure,” Kris admitted, “but if something goes wrong among our so-called volunteers, I’m sure your Marines will know it before you and I do.”

“Yes, Commander,” the corporal said, and whispered further instructions into her mike. Her troopers stayed casual . . . but kept their eyes on the volunteers.

Kris then ordered the sniper to roam around, facing out. “Try to keep us from being disturbed.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Kris began. “First, I would like to welcome you to the first annual, and hopefully last annual spring battle royal of Kaskatos. If you’re lucky and pay attention, you might live through today.” As Kris talked, she walked up the line of armed men and women, eyeing each one carefully.

Most of them treated their weapons like toys they’d gotten for Christmas and didn’t know what to do with. Rifles were pointed up, down, or held at the end of arms that just dangled. Pistols and machine pistols dangled the same way.

“You are my reserve,” Kris went on. “In War College, they teach that victory usually goes to the side that is still holding on to a reserve force when the crisis of the battle arrives.”

“And you’re gonna know when that crisis shows up,” a guy said.

Kris didn’t like his attitude. She liked even less that he was bringing up his arm with his machine pistol at the ready. It was fully cocked, and the safety was off.

Unfortunately for him, Kris had been waiting for something like that. She had her own automatic out and three sleepy darts sprouting from his chest before this optimistic assassin could get his own weapon up.

He fell backward against a truck; his weapon clattered onto the pavement.

Suddenly, the Marines were guns up.

“Guns down, volunteers,” Kris shouted. “Lower your weapons, or I’ll drill every one of you with a sleepy dart.”

“Why sleepy dart the traitor?” said someone with a machete, and used it to take the head off the guy Kris had darted. People jumped back, many looking quite shocked at the amount of blood that could spew from a human neck once the head was no longer attached.

“Everybody just stand where you are,” Kris ordered. “I wanted to talk to that puke.”

“Sorry,” the machete wielder said, and almost made it sound like he meant it.

“Corporal, have two of your Marines go down this line and see if anyone else has a weapon cocked and ready to start shooting.”

The Marines did. Kris spotted at least one fellow whose rifle was all too ready; she got her automatic ready for him to go violent like the last one.

No, this one was just very dumb . . . or ready to act that way to avoid the fate of the other. Once everyone was verified safe, Kris explained herself.

“I shot that guy with a sleepy dart because I didn’t want to start shooting just then, and I don’t want to start shooting now. The soft pop a dart makes is not going to alarm anyone, and that is the way we want Jackie and her thugs—not alarmed. If he’d sprayed us with his pistol, he might or might not have survived. But Jackie Jackson would definitely know we are at her doorstep. Do you understand me?”

The blank stares looked a bit more informed. While they milled about, Kris did a radio check.

“Colonel, you down?”

“I’m at point X-ray with third platoon, Your Highness.”

“Fourth platoon is at point Uniform,” came from its LT.

“Commander, I’ve got no action at X-ray, either coming or going,” the colonel reported. “As soon as your trucks arrive, I’ll displace two squads forward. I suggest that fourth do the same.”

“The trucks aren’t there yet?” Kris asked.

“Not in my line of sight.”

Kris tried them on net. Three privates reported that they were going as fast as they could but that the roads were a pot-holed mess.

The fourth private did not answer Kris’s call.

“Jack, you on net?” she asked.

“I’m at my target, about to go off net. I’ve got a cloak of invisibility that may help me out a bit.”

Cloak of invisibility? Kris shook her head; Jack would explain it when he wanted to. Right now, he might have a problem he wasn’t aware of.

“Jack, I’m not sure all our volunteers are on our side. One tried to gun me down here, and one of our truck convoys is not answering my calls.”

“I haven’t had any trouble with mine,” Jack replied. “But with Tilly leading the volunteers, a guy would have to be blind not to want to follow her.”

Why was Kris not surprised? It took a few seconds for Jack to continue. “But come to think about it, none of the three truck drivers I’ve got here are all that interested in following us. One of them in particular. Hey, guys,” Jack shouted, “have I got a deal for you.”

There was a roar of truck motors at the end of Kris’s street, and three trucks raced by, headed for Tranquility Road. Kris only got a quick glimpse, but it looked like the lead truck had a Marine slumped in the passenger seat.

“Jack, I think I just spotted our missing convoy, and it’s headed for Jackie.”

“I knew we should have done a full field security check on all those enthusiastic volunteers,” the Marine answered on net. “Looks like it’s time to play ball. Good luck, Kris.”

“Good luck to you, Jack.”

Kris blinked to change net. “First platoon, you are weapons free.”