《The Amtrak Wars I : Cloud_Warrior》14

Hartmann watched tensely as Colonel Moore and his four-man command
group appeared on screen, firing from shoulder and hip as they passed
under the lead wagons.  The linemen followed in waves, each turning to
cover the retreat of the one behind.  Their passage under the train was
not as smooth as Hartmann had hoped.  With the Mutes hard on their
heels, the battle continued as they struggled through the piled-up
debris; a primeval swamp landscape of tangled branches and shattered
tree trunks, clogged with mud and festooned with long sheaves of sodden
grass interlaced with limp foliage; a grotesque web woven by a giant
drunken spider which trapped and hindered and which, as Tracker and
Mute shot, hacked, stabbed and killed one another, quickly became a
Dante-esque vision of hell.

Hartmann waited a few moments more until the bulk of the Trackers had
fought their way clear of the lead wagons.

Several screens went blank as M'Call warriors smashed the external
cameras with their stone flails.  The remaining screens were filled
with Mutes.  'We'll try one to six, bottom line port and starboard,
Mister Ford,' said Hartmann, in a matter-of-fact voice.

'Head on six, bottom line,' replied the Systems Exec.

'Pipe steam!"  The sound pierced the layers ofarmoured steel, lead,
heat and sound insulation that lined the shells of the wagons, and for
those outside it was far more terrifying than the weird noises made by
the Mute wind-whips.  It was a chili, shrill, ear-piercing shriek.  A
hideous, ball-shrivelling banshee wail that drilled into the brain,
froze the heart.  Invisible, laser-thin jets of high-pressure steam
shot from the rows of nozzles along the curving'undersides of the lead
wagons; cutting through the air at supersonic speed, with the keenness
of a surgeon's scalpel and the irresistible, tearing force of a
buzz-saw.

The impact of the steam jets upon the Mute warriors surpassed the
horror evoked by Dante and indelibly engraved by Dor& Caught completely
unawares, locked in hand-to-hand combat with the last, unlucky linemen,
and with escape hampered by the debris in which they found themselves
entangled, a great mass of Mutes were blown ?apart.  Skin, flesh,
muscle were shredded, blasted from the bone; limbs were severed, bodies
cut in half, their contents splattered in all directions, blood spurted
onto some of the watching camera lenses, throwing a red curtain over
the carnage.

Even those who escaped the pulverising impact of this unseen fury were
not totally spared.  As the scything jets cooled to the point of
visibility, the survivors were enveloped in clouds of scalding,
blinding, blistering steam.

The rear ranks of the M'Call Bears wavered, then turned on their heels
and fled; those warriors who had been scarred by the breath of the
snake but who were still on their feet ran, stumbled or tried to drag
themselves to safety.  Most were cut down by Colonel Moore's men and
The Lady's gunners.

'Clear the screens,' said Hartmann.  He covered his face and pressed
his fingertips against his closed eyes in a vain effort to wipe the
blood-stained images from his retina.  His fingers could not reach deep
enough.  What he had witnessed had already imprinted itself on his
brain: had become another gruesome page in his own private war diary
that would haunt his mind's eye in the darkness when sleep eluded
him.

He composed himself and addressed the Systems Exec.  'Cap the line, Mr
Ford."

The Second Systems Engineer shut down the jets.  'One to six,
capped."

Hartmann called up Clay.  'Lady Lou to Anvil Two.

Report combat-sit, over."

'Anvil Two.  Remaining hostiles withdrawing northeastwards under fire,
over."

Colonel Moore came on the air.  'Anvil One to Lady Lou.

It's all over.  They're on the run."  His voice was shaky but
exultant.

'Roger, Anvil One.  Hold your position."  Hartmann suddenly felt
weighed down by the responsibility he carried as wagon master yet, at
the same time, he was also sharply aware of the advantages of his
position.  He had been able to wipe the horror from the screens but
there was no escape for his men out there on the ground.  They had
fought and died, had been subjected to the gruesome spectacle of a
couple of hundred Mutes being turned into boiled mince right under
their noses and were now faced with having to clean up the resulting
mess before The Lady could get underway.

Hartmann put himself through to the flight section and faced up with
his F.O.O. 'How many 'hawks can we put up, Mr Baxter?"

'Four sir.  Naylor, and three silvers.  Brickman, Fazetti and White."

Hartmann hesitated.  'This'Il be their first real operation.

Will they be able to handle it - I mean, after what's happened?"

'They can't wait to go, sir,' said the F.O.O.

'Okay.  Launch the air-strike."  Hartmann cleared the screen and called
up Lieutenant Commander Cooper, the Deputy Wagon master, stationed in
the rear command car.

'Mind the store, Coop.  I'm going outside."

TWELVE

The four remaining wingmen climbed into their cockpit pods with
expressions of grim determination and were lifted up onto the flight
deck where the ground crew unfolded the wings, locked them into place
and ran the aircraft in pairs onto the port and starboard catapults.

Once they were hooked onto the slings, the catapult booms were cranked
up fifteen degrees before hurling the Skyhawks into the air at a speed
of fifty miles an hour.  Naylor led Fazetti off the deck and set course
for the forest; Steve Brickman followed Gus White towards the
cropfields.

Baxter, the F.O.O watched them disappear with mixed feelings.  In terms
of casualties, it had been a catastrophic day.  In all previous
operations against the Southern Mutes, it would have been considered a
disaster to lose eight wingmen in a month.  Even if those now in the
air returned safely, The Lady would have to make for one of the
frontier way-stations to off-load the wounded and await the arrival of
reinforcements.  Baxter wondered how the result of The Lady's first
engagement with the Plainfolk would be received in Grand Central.  The
Amtrak Executive showed LITTLE sympathy towards wagon masters who put
their trains in jeopardy; costly tactical errors and failures in
leadership were dealt with harshly.  And it was not only wagon masters
whose lives were at stake.  If a team of Assessors came on board,
nobody was safe.  Everybody's performance was evaluated.  Right down
the line.

The scarred, defeated M'Call Bears straggled back over the hilly ground
to the east of the Now and Then River.

Reaching the comparative safety of the tree-line beyond a steep
escarpment, they flung themselves down in the shade.

Some drank thirstily from a swift running stream while others, who had
been scalded, splashed the cool water ineffectually on their raw,
blistered skin.  Slowly they gathered in dispirited groups, trying to
estimate how many warriors had fallen to the iron snake.

Given the disparity between the weaponry of the Trackers and the Mutes
it was a miracle that any of the attacking M'Calls had survived.  But
as many an old soldier can tell you, Lady Luck - or her shadowy sister
Fate - spares some in circumstances which defy comprehension; like
English infantrymen who survived four years of trench warfare in World
War One, or the US Marines who, against all odds, made it across the
beaches of Guadal canal and Tarawa in World War Two.

Of Cadillac's clan-brothers, Hawk-Wind and Mack-Truck had fallen;
Motor-Head had survived, along with Black-Top, Steel-Eye and
Ten-Four.

Motor-Head had passed under The Lady seconds before Hartmann had given
the order to pipe steam.  A billowing cloud had engulfed him, searing
his back and arms just as he faced sure and certain death under the
guns of three linemen.  His attackers had turned and fled.  Terrified
by the ear-splitting scream that obliterated the shrieking death
agonies of his brother warriors Motor-Head had run blindly through the
burning clouds up onto the bank.  There he had paused long enough to
glimpse the hideous slaughter wrought by the breath of the snake, had
hurled his stone flail at the nearest sand-burrower in a last gesture
of defiance, then had run away.  ?Motor-Head was brave to the point of
foolhardiness but he had enough wit to perceive that the iron snake and
its masters were strong in ways that the Plainfolk did not
understand.

Mr Snow had given wise counsel but, in one respect, he had been
mistaken.  The sand-burrowers were not animals.  They fought valiantly,
like men.  Motor-Head knew that, in single-combat, the Plainfolk were
the stronger but the sand-burrowers had strange, powerful sharp iron
whose crafting and function he could not even begin to comprehend and
against which the bravery of the Bears was like rain before the wind.

The Plainfolk were the greatest people on the earth but they were not
greater than the iron snake and its masters who lived beneath it.

Not yet.  But there would come a time when the sand-burrowers would be
defeated in battle.  The time prophesied by Mr Snow when Talisman, the
Thrice-Gifted One, would assume the leadership of the Plainfolk.

Mr Snow appeared.  A pale, grey, wizened figure, moving with faltering
step and the aid of a long, knotted staff, among the trees.  He moved
among the exhausted warriors, greeting them with words of comfort, his
face stricken with anguish at the sight of their raw wounds and scalded
limbs, swollen as if balloons had been inserted under the skin.  He sat
down facing Motor-Head.  'The Bears did well this day."

'.Not well enough,' muttered Motor-Head.  'We ran from the
sand-burrowers.  We have lost standing."  Tears trickled down his
cheeks.  'The Bears are nothing."

'The Bears have braved the breath of the snake, and the sharp iron of
its masters,' countered Mr Snow.  'Only the greatest of the Plainfolk
could have done that.  From this day you must learn a new kind of
courage - the courage to face failure, yes, even defeat."

Motor-Head's eyes flared angrily.  'She-ehh!  Where is the standing in
that?"

'Listen to me,' said Mr Snow firmly.  'Mark my words well.  It takes
great courage to fight bravely unto death.  The Bears possess this
courage.  Our clan-mothers give birth to heroes.  The M'Calls have
strong hearts.  Their fire songs have sung of their greatness since The
War of a Thousand Suns.  But it takes even greater courage to taste
fear, defeat and shame and still remain strong!  To face the power of
the sand-burrowers with your warrior's pride unbroken, ready to fight
again more bravely than before!"  Motor-Head eyed him stubbornly.  'You
told us we must have the courage of Bears but fight like coyotes.  Must
we also learn to run like fast-foot?  Must we turn tail, as they do, at
the first scent of danger?"

'Times are changing,' replied Mr Snow.  'The iron snake, the
sand-burrowers..."  He sighed.  'How can I make you understand?  This
is a whole new hall-game."

Motor-Head frowned.  'You talk in riddles, Old One.  The earth renews
itself, yellows at the Gathering and becomes old before the White
Death.  The clan-elders age, die, and are reborn in different bodies.

But some things do not change.  The love of Mo-Town, the Great Mother,
for her people.  The courage of the M'Calls whose fire songs you guard
within the head that we were born to defend.  A warrior who shows fear,
who runs from battle is without standing.  He must bite the arrow
before he is worthy to bear sharp iron again."

'I accept that,' said Mr Snow quietly.  'But you must also accept
something.  The old ways are finished.  The Plainfolk must learn new
ways to guard the earth until Talisman comes."

Clearwater was at the edge of the forest with a group of her sister
warriors when the four arrowheads were seen in the western sky.  Mr
Snow had ordered her to guard the clan-elders and the den-mothers who
had been persuaded to go deep into the forest with their newborn
infants and all children under five years old.  The She-Wolves - the
young, female warriors - were dispersed at various points around the
western edge of the forest ready to defend the hidden settlement if it
came under attack.  Clearwater was worried by the sight of the distant
arrowheads.  She had seen the burnt warriors brought back by the elders
and had learned of the deadly fire-eggs carried by the cloud
warriors.

If they should fall upon the forest...

Obliged by his renewed oath to stay out of the battle-lines, Cadillac
had helped to organise defence of the crop-fields.

This task had been given to the Bear Cubs - the M'Call children aged
from six to fourteen grouped under pack-leaders and reinforced by a
sizeable posse of She-Wolves.

Since the chin's treasured stock of crossbows had been taken by the
Bears to attack the wagon train, the remaining M'Calls were poorly
armed.  Cadillac possessed the only crossbow - the proud trophy he had
won in his combat with Shakatak D'Vine; the rest were equipped with
knife-sticks, sling-shots and stones, all virtually useless against an
attack from the air.

Like Clearwater, Cadillac had seen the devastating effects of the fire
from the sky.  If the cloud warriors returned there was little the Cubs
could do to stop them.  He and Mr Snow had agreed that the clan's
efforts should be directed towards limiting the damage caused by the
fire.  Neither had dwelt on the possibility that the cloud warriors
might not fly away immediately after dropping their eggs.  Cadillac had
put the thought resolutely from his mind and had concentrated on
teaching the Cubs and SheWolves how to make long-handled flat brooms
from bunches of red-leafed twigs and young saplings with which to beat
out the flames.  He did not appreciate that the carefully designed
adhesive qualities of napalm would render such precautions totally
ineffective.

The M'Call Cubs, their pack-leaders and the She-Wolves took up their
allotted stations; some around the edge of the cropfields; others at
strategic points within it.  The very young children ran from group to
group, bringing more stones to add to the piles which lay ready to be
hurled at any attacker.  The mood was one of defiant bravado mixed with
apprehension - not from any fear of the cloud warriors, but from the
worry about how they would acquit themselves.

Snake-Hips, a young She-Wolf, flung a pointing finger in the air and
called to Cadillac.  'Look!  They come!"  Cadillac turned and saw the
arrowheads circling over the mountains to the east; saw the sun flash
off their graceful wings as they dipped and swung round towards him.

Gripped by a tense feeling of excitement, Steve Brickman find Gus White
swooped down from the hills and banked low over the cropfields.  Gus
dropped a smoke-canister to check the strength and direction of the
wind; Steve studied the layout of the fields, trying to determine the
best place to lay down the napalm to cause maximum damage.  They were
met by a rising barrage of missiles.  Most of the hand-delivered ones
fell short; some of the sling-shot projectiles bounced noisily off
their cockpit pods or drummed against the taut wing fabric without
causing any damage.  One struck Gus White painfully in the side of the
neck.

'Little bastards,' he croaked to himself.

From his first low pass over the cropfields, Steve saw that the
hostiles were nothing more than a bunch of mainly unarmed kids who,
despite their show of defiance, posed no threat.  On the other hand, if
they did not move from their present position among the orange
cornfields, they stood a good chance of being barbecued when he and Gus
dropped their loads of napalm.

Steve passed this observation to Gus over the radio and suggested that
maybe they ought to try and scare the kids out of the fields first.

Gus's reply was swift and caustic.  'They ain't kids, god buddy.

They's little-bitty hostiles that grow up into big mean mothers.  We've
got to stop 'em now while we've got the chance.  As my old guardee used
to say, "There ain't nothin' that smells better than Southern Fried
Mute".

Yeee-HAH!"  Gus signed off with a rebel yell, did a fast wing-over and
fire-bombed the down-wind corner of the Mute cropfields.

Steve circled, stricken by a sudden reluctance to kill.  He was
conscious of being assailed by inexplicable, conflicting emotions as he
watched the young children, some of them on fire, run from the
spreading flames.  Others began falling with an untidy flurry of limbs
as Gus began picking them off with volleys from his air rifle.

Swallowing hard, Steve quickly regained his usual iron control and
headed back across the target area, dropping his own load of napalm in
an arc ahead of the fleeing children so as to cut off their escape.

'Look out!"  yelled Gus over the radio.  'One of those lumps has a
crossbow!  The sonofabitch just missed me by a whisker!"  Steve rammed
the throttle wide open and went up in a climbing turn, searching the
terrain below for the marksman.

Cadillac cursed himself for having missed the cloud warrior.  He cast
aside the bow and ran into the blazing cornfield to rescue a group of
panic-stricken Cubs.  Blinded by the rolling clouds of smoke and seared
by the terrible heat, their earlier bravado had turned into a
paralysing fear, rooting them to the' spot.  Cadillac somehow managed
to smother the sticky fire that was eating into some of their bodies
and shepherded them through the waist-high corn.

Despite his efforts, several of the children were gunned down by the
wheeling cloud warriors as they reached safety.

Seized by a terrible rage, and oblivious of the bullets that zinged
past him like angry mosquitoes, Cadillac ran to where he had dropped
the crossbow.  He snatched it up and, with a strength born from his
rage and desperation, tensioned the firing mechanism with one swift,
brutal movement.  With trembling fingers he scrabbled in the pouch on
his belt for his last remaining bolt.

Gus White, in the middle of a steep turn around his port wing-tip,
spotted Cadillac loading the crossbow.  Pulling his rifle into the
shoulder, Gus brought the red aiming dot out by the optical sight onto
Cadillac's chest and pulled the trigger.  Nothing happened.  His gun
had jammed.

Gus uttered a string of obscenities, rolled quickly over to starboard
and began to jink across the sky in the manner of the late Jodi
Kazan.

Steve heard the tail-end ofGus's imprecations followed by the news of
his jammed gun and the location of the Mute crossbowman.  The vital
details entered his ear while he was flying in precisely the opposite
direction.  Twisting round in his seat, Steve spotted Cadillac on the
ground behind him.

He threw the Skyhawk into a steep right-hand turn.  The last targets he
had fired at had been to port so his rifle, hanging on its overhead
mount was on the left side of the cockpit.  He reached over and grasped
the pistol grip to bring the mount and the rifle across and into his
shoulder.  The manoeuvre was only half-completed as he banked round
towards his target.

In the vital second before Cadillac came into Steve's sights, Cadillac
fired his crossbow.  The bolt shot skywards with terrifying speed,
punched through the upper part of $teve's raised right arm and pinned
it to his flying helmet.

Entering the helmet at a steep angle above the ear, the bolt gouged
through Steve's scalp, striking his skull a grazing blow and came to
rest with the barbed point poking out through the crown.  Stunned by
the force of the blow, Steve fought to retain consciousness.  The world
began to spin; became a blur as he lost control ...

In Unit 18, Gallery 3, on Level One of Inner State U at Grand Central,
Roz Brickman, who had been filled with a sense of foreboding all day,
tried to blot out yet another confused image of blood, broken bodies
and flames that threatened to engulf her.  It was a losing battle.  She
felt a sharp blow on the head and, in the same instant, a searing pain
shot through her upper right arm forcing an involuntary scream from her
lips.  The startled students working on either side saw Roz leap up
from her seat in front of an electron microscope with her right arm
folded across her head.  She spun round, her eyes turned up under the
lids then collapsed, unconscious, hitting the floor before anyone could
catch her.

Summoned from his adjacent office, the medical supervisor in charge of
the class found that Roz was bleeding from a shallow scalp wound which
he assumed had been caused through her fall to the floor.  He was,
however, unable to account for the additional loss of blood which, when
her lab coat had been removed, was found to be issuing from deep wounds
in her upper arm.

Cadillac watched impassively as the arrowhead spiralled down and made a
crash landing in the middle of the burning cornfield.  Five hundred
feet above, Gus White was still trying to unjam his rifle.  He swore
through clenched teeth as he tugged at the solidly locked breech but
could not find a way to free it.  Now that he had nothing to shoot with
- apart from the air pistol that was part of his survival kit - Gus did
not feel like hanging around.  He knew it meant leaving Steve in the
shit but with a Mute marksman somewhere underneath him he stood to get
a bolt coming up through his seat at any minute.  In any case, Steve
was probably dead.

Unaware that Cadillac had fired his last bolt, Gus jinked back across
the cropfield to take stock of Steve's situation.

'Blue Seven to Blue Three.  Come in.  Over."

After a moment's silence Steve came on the air.  'Blue Three, have
been, uh - hit.  Can you, uh - can you - cover me?"

'No chance, good buddy,' said Gus.  'My gun's still out.

The only thing I can hit 'em with is a pair of dirty socks and I can't
get my boots off.  How are you fixed for taking out that lump with the
crossbow?"

A long gasp preceded Steve's reply.  'Can't reach my rifle."

'That's tough,' said Gus.  'You hurt bad?"

'Yeah, but - as far as I can tell it's, uh - nothing that Keever can't
handle."

Keever was the surgeon-captain who led the medical team aboard The
Lady.

Gus made a wide circle around the burning cropfield.

'Okay, listen - you hang on in there, good buddy.  I'll go get some
help."

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Gus rock his wings in salute as
he climbed away in the direction of the forest.

The anaesthetising shock of the bolt's impact was beginning to wear off
and Steve was now increasingly conscious of the pain emanating from his
right arm.  He also found it difficult to breathe.  He was lying on his
left side, with his left leg twisted at an odd angle in the crumpled
wreckage of the cockpit pod.  Steve managed to undo his safety harness
but found that any attempt to move his left arm in any other direction
generated an excruciating pain in his shoulder.  He could also feel
blood seeping out of the wound in his scalp.  It was running down over
his face and neck.  He managed to get his left hand up far enough to
unclip his visor but he could not raise it more than halfway.  Its
movement was blocked by his pinned right arm.  He began to fumble at
the helmet chin straps.  If he could loosen the helmet and somehow get
it off his head he might then...

He stopped for a moment, breathing with short quick gasps, willing
himself not to cry out in pain.  It was going to be all right.  Gus
would come back with Fazetti and Naylor.

He would come back and...

When it was clear that the remaining cloud warrior had turned tail and
fled, Cadillac and several of the She-Wolves plunged back into the
burning cornfield to rescue more of the M'Call Cubs.

Hovering on the edge of unconsciousness, Steve saw a straight-limbed
Mute run past him without giving him a second glance.  The thought that
he was going to be left to burn to death filled him with dread.  He
could already feel waves of heat from the approaching flames and was
beginning to choke on the acrid smoke drifting over him.

Cadillac passed the broken arrowhead with a group of singed,
smoke-stained children.  They stopped and looked down at the trapped
cloud warrior with expressionless faces.

Steve stretched his left hand out towards them in a pain-filled gesture
of supplication.  'Help me,' he gasped.

' Please..."

The straight-limbed Mute eyed him for a moment then ushered the silent,
dull-eyed children out of his line of sight.

Steve cursed them silently.  Bastard, fucking lumpheads.

His thoughts drifted back to his own predicament.  What an end to all
his high hopes!  And what a dumb way to go roasting in fire that he had
helped start!  The irony of the situation did not escape him.  He clung
desperately to the hope that all was not lost.  He could not really
trust that yellow sonofabitch but if Gus did manage to unjam his gun he
might come back with Fazetti and Naylor.  All it needed was someone
with enough balls to land and pull him out while the other two flew
cover.  A Skyhawk without any ordinance could carry a passenger.  It
would mean a fresh air ride on the external racks but he was prepared
to risk that if...