held him up. His dying thoughts were of his mother.
Heated by a lodged fragment of a tracer, a piece of wood began to smolder. Soon enough it would blaze.
The platoon sergeant, still ignoring his own wound, spoke orders into a microphone. The tracks rolled forward, toward Balboa's Estado Mayor.
'You managed to drag it out a lot longer than anyone could have expected,' Hennessey said, by way of condolence.
'You pushed faster than anyone should have expected,' Jimenez retorted.
Behind him was nothing but fire and smoke and dead bodies, some of them carbonized. The nauseating stench of burnt flesh overlaid that of burnt wood and diesel exhaust. Ahead of him was more smoke, more fire… and much of the fire was of the directed variety, the bronze- jacketed lead variety.
Hennessey ducked his head barely in time to avoid a random burst in his direction. The bullets made sharp cracks overhead. They were too close together to make out individual rounds. He spoke into a radio and, on command, a helicopter gunship came in low to rake a threatening section of the compound with cannon fire and rockets. Another command and a team of his infantrymen rushed the wall to emplace a demolition charge.
'Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!' the men shouted, racing back to the cover of their armored personnel carrier. Again Hennessey ducked as a dark, angry cloud blossomed from the wall.
His men resumed their fire as the last of the demolition-spawned fragments pattered on the ground. Hennessey lifted a hand, then swung it forward. One platoon, still covered by the armor of their carriers, raced for the breach. Hennessey's own track followed.
He didn't think it funny, at the time, that he was not afraid. It was just one of those things that was. Some people were calm before the storm and mere wrecks in it. Hennessey was always at his calmest and coldest under stress.
If the defenders were afraid, none of the attacking force could see it. Outnumbered, outgunned, to a degree also outfought, but not surpassed in courage, they continued to hurl their defiance at their assailants.
With a clang of metal on metal Hennessey emerged from the rear door of his carrier. He spared a quick glance at one of his platoon leaders. Phil will be fine, he thought, seeing one of the medics apply a bandage to a wounded leg. Another wider glance encompassed the men. They seemed ready.
Hennessey smiled confidently, nodded once and shouted, 'All right, motherfuckers… Let's gooo!'
With a roar the men followed.
They followed as if into a vacuum. Bodies lay sprawled everywhere, in every manner of undignified death. Here lay a headless torso, there a torso-less head.
Hennessey shook his head with regret. He thought again of his old classmate, Xavier Jimenez, probably even now lying dead somewhere in compound. Jimenez would never run; this Hennessey knew.
Around him, to either side, his platoons and squads fanned out across the compound. Occasionally, shots rang out wherever an FSA trooper simply felt he could not take the chance. This was the price of a fierce resistance; a price the Balboans had understood when they had decided that honor demanded that resistance.
Hennessey heard a scream rising above the sounds of battle, the scream coming from a burning building. Poor bastard, he thought. Horrible way to die. Why the hell didn't they surrender when they saw it was hopeless?
Of course, he knew the answer. I wouldn't have. Jimenez wouldn't have either. And the men will follow their leaders… if they're good men… and have good leaders. And Xavier is a good one.
A fire team leader, a corporal, led his three men to the sound of the scream without being told to. Dodging from cover to cover, they reached the building just as it collapsed. The screaming grew for a few seconds, then petered out into sobs amidst the smoke and falling sparks. Then the sobbing stopped, small mercy.
From off to one side, at another building, one of Hennessey's troopers called out, 'I've got five of 'em, here.'
A sergeant ordered, 'Bring 'em out.'
The answering voice was composed half of shock and half of wonder. 'I don't think so, Sarge. They're all fucked up.'
Hennessey jogged over to investigate. He passed the trooper standing flush against the wall by the door, entering a room taken straight from hell. Bodies, parts of bodies… above all, gallons of blood that lent the air an iron stench, even above the smoke. He looked for signs of life. He looked for his friend.
Hennessey knelt beside one body that still showed signs of life. With grief shaking his voice he asked, 'Oh, Xavier, you big, dumb, brave fuck. Why the hell didn't you surrender when you had the chance?'
To his surprise the body answered, 'Because I had my duty, Patricio.'
'We sure as hell tried to get you to surrender, you know.'
'I know that too, Patricio. But we had taken our oaths. We had our duty as we saw it.' This time it was Parilla's turn to nod in silent agreement.
'It was too late, though?' Hennessey enquired.
'Patricio, it was always too late. It was too late when Herrera was killed in the plane crash that-I am morally certain-Pina arranged. It was too late when General Parilla here let himself be tricked out of office by Pina.' Here, Jimenez referred to one of the cleverest coups in human history, where one would-be dictator, Antonio Pina, convinced a rather reluctant dictator, Raul Parilla, to resign his military post in order to run for the civil office of president… then ensured there would be no civil elections.
Parilla muttered, 'Son of a bitch cocksucker,' under his breath, then added, with a rueful smile, 'I've got to admit it was clever, though.'
'It was too late,' Jimenez continued, 'when the thieving son of a bitch lined his pockets with the money we might have used to build and train a force big enough and powerful enough to make your president think twice about invading until we could solve our own problems. It was too late when some of us launched the coup in October, 447, and failed. It was always too late.'
'Speaking of which,' Hennessey interjected, seeing that his guests had begun to look weary, 'it's late, in general. I've had Lucinda make up guest rooms for both of you. If you'll tell her what you would like for breakfast, I am sure it can be arranged. In any case, we need to turn in.'
The three stood then, leaving the study and walking across the courtyard to the bedroom side of the house. The rain had stopped; the skies cleared. Hennessey looked skyward at the familiar constellations-the Smilodon, the Leaping Maiden, the Pentagram-and wondered which of the bright points of light overhead were the ships of the UE Peace Fleet.
Interlude
4 August, 2040, Mission Control,
Houston, Texas, USA, Earth
The budget had been busted with not a damned thing to show for it. Then had come the scandals, the resignations, the heavily publicized trials… the obligatory appearances for public flagellation in front of a posturing Congress. Then had come very damned little money, let me tell you, brother. NASA was reduced to minor projects, as flashy as possible, to try to overcome the bad press and re-fire the public's imagination for the potential of space travel.
One such flashy mission-it amounted to little more than another photo op of the rings of Saturn-was underway now.
About the only thing positive to come out of the loss of the Cristobal Colon was that any number of astronomers and physicists had turned their attention to the area in which the probe had disappeared. There was a theory on the subject.
Based on the presence near the area of microwave variance that the physicists described as 'lumpy,' it seemed that the area concerned was very similar to conditions believed to have existed when the universe was virtually brand new. The theory was that the speed of light was not the same in that area as it was more generally.
This theory, by the way, was not exactly correct.
