"I know it's not my place," said Martel, looking up out of her bed, tubes still running into her arms, disappearing under the sheets aimed toward her chest. "But if it was something . . . if you wanted to talk . . ."
In his mind, the ambassador could feel long-buried memories clambering up out of the dark corner to which he had relegated them so many years before. He could feel the hot wind blowing in off the desert, hear the explosions all around him, see the thousands of enemy shapes hunkering off in the dark night.
The taste of burned plastic and fried air came to him again. The feel of sweat trickling down behind his ears returned to him so realistically that his hand almost rose to wipe it away.
So reflexive had his instinct become to pull away from anyone who came close to him—to his past—that Hawkes found himself actually pushing away from the woman's bedside. His involuntary response tore at him, pushing up walls almost faster than he could tear them down. His fingers clawing into a fist, he steeled his will, then said, "It was a long time ago." The words felt awkward in his mouth. Pushing them out one by one, he continued, saying, "It was my last year in the service. Of course, I didn't know then that it was my last year . . . I just, I mean . . ."
Her hand moved slowly, dragging itself across the bed to reach his shaking fist. Her fingers closing over his hand, she closed her eyes and simply listened as he talked.
"I was, what? Twenty-one, twenty-two? A kid. A kid playing at being a man."
Hawkes could see it all again. Fire rained down out of the sky, drenching the reflector net, lighting the area. His remaining troops were illuminated—revealed for the pitiful handful they were. For eight days Hawkes had maintained the line he had been sent to hold. He had lasted longer than anyone else Hensen could have sent because he would go anywhere, carry out any order, and his troops would follow him. They knew he would always get them out, no matter what.
"I'd advanced pretty quickly. I kept trying to get myself killed, command kept giving me medals and promotions for it."
He could see the last night clearly again. To his right was Max Carnahan, his second in command, his best friend. On his left was Angie, Captain Angela Lodge, his reconnaissance and communications chief, his best officer, his fiancee. Neither of them was worried. They had followed Hawkes from the Aleutian campaign, through the Korean run, the Standard Oil/Sudanese conflict, and the food riots in Providence. They knew he would find a way to turn the tide.
Another flood of fire washed down at them, and then the final assault came. The robot tanks began their crawl across the sand, followed by the thousands of starvelings desperate to follow them to food. They came in evergrowing waves, and try as they might, Hawkes's troop simply did not have enough trigger fingers to aim at the never-ending torrent of bodies.
"The enemy just kept coming. The force had invested in machines along the perimeter. Thought the threat of death would be enough to hold back the border. Didn't think they needed more than a handful to monitor their automatic weapons. Well-fed bureaucrats in air-conditioned offices. Forgot what hunger does to people."
The ambassador shuddered as he relived the final assault. Explosions continued to light up the night sky, pounding at the enemy, pounding at his own encampment. While his people continued to concentrate on the unceasing line coming toward them—advancing constantly over its own dead—Hawkes continued to argue with his superiors, trying to force them to recognize the reality of his situation.
Finally, when they broke connection, demanding he stay in place, he had turned to give the order for withdrawal. Let the bloody fools come, he had thought. Let them take what they want. They were going to, anyway . . . he saw no reason to die to make sure a few more or less were stopped.
And then, just as he turned to order his people out, a lone shrieker burst through the reflector net. The chemical gas bomb had shattered a fried-out section of the silvered plastic screen directly over Hawkes. Carnahan and Lodge saw it before he did.
"A bomb—a burner—made it through our defenses. I didn't know. It was right over my head—couldn't hear it for all the other noise. But two . . . two of my people . . . they saw it. They both moved before I knew what was happening . . . pushed me out of the way. Took the brunt . . . they took . . . they, they . . ."
And then, the tears broke forth. The tears held back for more than thirty years exploded out of him, shaking his body, washing his face, dripping onto his chest. As Martel put all the energy she had into holding his hand, the ambassador dropped his head forward, pressing it against the restraining bar on the side of the bed.
He closed his eyes as tightly as he could, but he could not hold back the tears, or the horrible sight so long buried in his memory. He saw them again, burning, screaming— the sticky gelatin paste clinging to them, eating into their skin, charring them to the bone, and beyond.
He had lost his mind then. Racing to the sandbag wall, he had slaughtered those coming forward, throwing everything in his armory at them. The thin line of human decency, the pity he had felt for his starving opponents, had unconsciously stayed his hand before. But that thin line had been crossed.
Gathering up control pads one after another, he set off every mine, blew every shell, launched every missile, every rocket, dropped every piece of sky-high he had on the approaching horde. The charred smell of his burning
