Zone Yellow

Chapter 21

We made it to the barracks without any further adventures; it was a long, narrow bunkhouse with a strong ratty smell. Lst went in, preceeded by Sergeant Dvd. There were a few local troops in the building; they left by the back door at a run. The major came back out, looking pleased.

“No problem, Colonel,” he said. “And I think I can recruit most of these fellows, if you’ll excuse me.” Without waiting for my approval, he yelled for Dvd and sent him after the dispossessed soldiers. We settled in, after throwing out the ratty-smelling bedding. The bunks were too narrow, but we were tired.

I stood the first watch and was relieved by Helm after an interminable two hours. Nobody bothered us. Then I slept like the dead. I awoke when Sergeant Dvd came back with another non-com in tow and the ousted troops straggling behind, reported that the cadre, twenty-five recruits, trained as well as the Ylokk knew how to train a soldier (at least they knew how to come to attention and fall in and do close-order drill), were all in favor of a return to the Old Ways. There was a lot of talk as each one explained to the others how he’d been forced to cooperate with the Two-Law intruders. They were curious about us humongs, who they couldn’t really believe weren’t dumb animals until I got fed up and chewed them out in my broken Ylokk. Then they got busy and briefed our original contingent, most of whom they knew, on late developments.

By dusk, we had a good, tight organization, apparently eager to go. The Two-Law cadre were holed up in what had been the town’s best inn. They would be our first target.

“Colonel,” Helm addressed me, worriedly, “I thought the Two-Laws were going to attack us. Major Lst said―”

Just then the nearest window exploded inward and a paper-wrapped brick thudlded on the barracks floor beside us. Helm unwrapped it and showed the wrapping to the major.

Lst glanced at the close-packed writing and threw it aside. “The fools! That’s a standard ‘Reward For Escaped Slaves’ notice, with some bloodcurdling threats scribbled at the bottom. I’m mentioned by name: it seems I’m an enemy of the Folk, a traitor, a thief, a liar, and so on!” I could hear his teeth gnashing.

“We’d best prepare, Colonel,” he said tautly. “The scum will assault the barracks.”

“Will they wait until dark?” I asked him.

He shook his head. “This kind don’t like night operations,” he dismissed them. “I propose, Colonel,” he went on, diffidently, “that I organize my troops in defensive posture, and that we await their assault. It would be foolish to sally forth and expose ourselves needlessly.”

I agreed with him, and he got busy lining up the crowd of Ylokk troops from the three different units, getting them in ranks and counting off. He set them to work piling up bunks across the middle of the barracks as defensive breastworks. They were too low for humans; I pointed that out and they stacked them a little higher. I was wondering what kind of assault he was expecting from a force without projectile weapons.

“They have a supply of captured firearms,” he confided. “These fellows are all veterans of the, ah…”

“Slave-raids,” I supplied. About then the artillery preparation began, only it consisted of massed small-arms fire instead of fifty-millimeter rifles. We all hit the deck as the side walls exploded inward in a hail of wood-and-glass chips.

That phase only lasted for a few seconds; then Andy stuck his head up, and I yelled at him, but he called, “They’re moving up, sir! I can get one―” and fired. Smovia and I joined in, as well as a few of our native levies who had pistols. I had to call them off and remind them to fire only at easy targets to save ammo, of which we had little. This was a strange idea to the Ylokk, who were used to their no-reload energy weapons.

I saw a rat-snout poke up above the ruined end-wall a few feet from me, a bold Two-Law trying to sneak around right-end. Andy and I fired at the same moment, and the head disappeared in a splatter of brains and other debris. Then another appeared and was also blasted instantly. By then, all our guns were firing; apparently the Two-Laws assumed their initial volley had killed everything inside, and were moving in quite casually to mop up.

Instead, we moved out, our pistols picking them off in windrows, while the local boys moved out past us and went to work with their clubs. They grabbed the handguns the enemy had dropped and joined in the turkey shoot. In five minutes, the Two-Laws were gone, either dead, fled, or in the case of two sergeants and a captain, surrendered. All three of them were talking at once, proclaiming their loyalty to the Jade Palace, and claiming they were forced to serve the Two-Law.

“I don’t doubt their sincerity,” Lst told me, “now that they see the Two-Laws are losers.”

We had so many troops now, the situation was getting unwieldly. I told Lst to divide them up into four squads, platoons, companies, or whatever size unit fit best; then I told Gus and Ben to take command of two of them, and Andy and I took the other two. I asked Marie to take care of Minnie. Both of them complained at not being included in the assault force, pointing out that they’d done their part in the fighting so far.

I explained to them that we were going on the offensive now, and that from now on things wouldn’t be so easy. Meanwhile, the enemy attack had petered out completely.

My plan was to launch two companies in a direct frontal assault on the warehouse where most of the fire was coming from; meanwhile the other two groups would go out the back, swing wide left and right, and come back and hit the warehouse from both sides at once. Andy pointed out that it wasn’t much of a plan, but he admitted he had nothing better to offer.

Smovia was busy giving quick physicals to all our troops, who lined up docilely and submitted to his poking and thumping. He found two in the early stages of the Killing, and quarantined them in one end of the long barracks, after inoculating them.

When I couldn’t stall any longer, I had my company fall in, and we went out in a single file, which was all the narrow door allowed; then we did a column-right, halted, and left-faced.

There were a few unaimed shots from the warehouse. We ignored that, and started off double-time, holding our fire until we had targets, visible through the open doors, skulking outside their refuge. The fire picked up a little, but not much. The Two-Law levies seemed to have lost what little enthusiasm they’d had.

We reached the warehouse. We didn’t slow down, but ran in through the big wide-open, garage-type doors and slammed into a mass of Ylokk huddled in the center of the big room. They were in a hurry to surrender; our boys had to crack a few heads, and there was a little snapping and biting, but none of them used their firearms.

The arrival of the two flanking parties was anti-climactic; the fighting was all over before they got there. Lst had an earnest talk with pink-striped Captain Blf―the one in charge of the garrisons―and reported back that the entire unit was ready, even eager, to attack the “real’’ Two-Laws, the group of only about thirty dedicated rebels who had invaded the town in the very beginning.

There were no casualties on our side, except for a few contusions and a couple of bites. Doc got busy and patched them up. Good old Gus had a bruised shoulder; he was skulking and complaining about fraternizing with rats. He got louder and louder, demanding that he be allowed to shoot the rat that had bitten him, whom he claimed he could recognize by the black stripe down his back.

Lst asked Captain Blf about that. “A full colonel? Here? Why?”

Blf went off and picked the colonel out of Smovia’s clutches (he had a crease in his scalp Gus had given him in the process of getting himself bruised). Lst then questioned him very respectfully. He seemed puzzled; the colonel answered him readily enough, but seemed to be evasive at times.

“He’s being cagey,” the major reported. “There’s something going on he doesn’t want to talk about, but he gives himself away by his seemingly erratic pattern of avoidance. I’m a well-trained interrogator, Colonel; any casual questioner wouldn’t have caught it.”

“Keep after him,” I directed. “Meanwhile, we have a town to liberate―or to inform that they’re already liberated.”

While Lst and I were making preparation to send out well-armed squads of three to spread the word, and incidentally locate useful supplies, Smovia came over and asked to go along, to identify the sick, and start getting them into some sort of improvised clinics until he could get to them.

“I’ll have to train some people to help me,” he confided. “I trust I have your approval, Colonel.”

I told him to go ahead, but to look sharp for trickery. He assured me he wasn’t interested in suicide, and showed me the heavy revolver he’d become attached to. “I’ll use it if I have to,” he assured me.

It was time for a council of war. I called the humans together, plus the Ylokk officers and non-coms, as I’d be relying heavily on them; not too heavily, I hoped. But the troops seemed to be highly motivated, especially since the attack, such as it was, on the barracks had showed them how willing their erstwhile comrades had been to fire on them.

“We have to be careful,” I told them, “not to be overconfident: so far we haven’t really faced any determined opposition by organized units, such as we can undoubtedly expect in the city.”

Major Lst wanted to say something, mainly to us humans: “My people,” he began, “though not practiced in the arts of war, are not lacking in intelligence, or in courage. It was Grgsdn who observed the constant strife among the humongs in those phases dominated by them; that gave him, he said, the concept of taking by force that which we desired―and what more desirable than a source of intelligent and vigorous slaves, to perform those chores that are beneath the dignity of the Folk,’ as he put it. The response was astonishing. First hundreds, then thousands flocked to hear him screaming his message of the eternal holiday; no more work, forever―coupled with an unheard-of abundance of every kind of desirable goods.”

“That’s an incredibly naive concept,” Smovia commented. “Did he imagine these fierce warriors he so admired could not resist?”

“His intent was to overwhelm with numbers,” Lst explained. “Plus the new ‘weapons’―we had no word in our language―which rendered our troops irresistible, he declared.”

“And,” Helm contributed, “he could hardly expect to install his New Order until he had eliminated the old; thus the revolution and the kidnapping of little Minnie.”

“He must have remarkable charisma, this Grgsdn,” I remarked. “What’s he like?”

Lst didn’t know; he’d never seen him. Few had, it seemed; none in our army. His disciples spread the word, but Grgsdn himself stayed in hiding, adding the allure of mystery to his appeal.

“They were fools,” Lst snarled, “but please believe me: they are not representative of the Folk in general. The great majority would gladly return to the old ways, if there were a way. We shall provide that way.”

We talked it over at length and decided to move in openly, in a single column, with the human personnel in the center. Let the Two-Laws wonder what was happening. We’d surround and neutralize any detachment of Two-Law militia we encountered, and enlist as many as possible before moving on. We’d advance directly to the Skein technical compound and secure it, then invest the Palace, and relieve the Loyalists still defending it. When calm had been restored, we’d cap our fait accompli with the presentation of Her Highness the Princess.

“Then, maybe,” Gus grumbled, “we can give some thought to our own problems.”

“When we have secured the technical facilities,” I pointed out, “we can immediately .put an end to the flow of reinforcements for the invasion, and arrange for our own return home. And only when we hold the compound,” I emphasized. Finally old Gus had stopped griping, partly because of the belated realization that there would be no massa-ere of “rats,” and partly because he was beginning to understand that it really wouldn’t be a good idea.

Smovia, having administered his medicine to all the sick troops in our bunch, was more relaxed, and indeed eager to get on with it. For their part, the soldiers, seeing their dying comrades restored to full health, tended to regard the Doc as a magician, and to be very protective of him. I felt a little bad about what I had to do.

We commandeered backpacks from the supply-room attached to the barracks, packed them with food, sleeping gear, and whatever else anybody wanted to carry. In a shed behind the supply-room, there was a cache of human-made clothing and small items like watches and pocket-knives. Lst told us it was a two-mile hike to the center of town. We started at dawn, well-rested, watered and fed. Three fellows were still sick and we left them behind.