“Nicole,” he said. “I need you for a second.”
She looked down at the man’s face. His eyes were wide, but distant. The Legion had good painkillers. They needed them. The man smirked at her, and nodded.
She released his hand, then followed Logan outside. He led her along the alley, away from the square to the main street, so fewer ears would be listening to what they had to say. With the failing leg of his suit dragging behind him, he didn’t even have to try to walk slowly so she could keep up. The suit could barely hobble faster than she could walk.
“What happened to your leg?” she said.
“The suit took a hit during the fight. How’re you doing?”
“I had no idea it would be this bad.”
“Welcome to a day in the life of the Legion.”
As they reached the corner of the building beside the street, she crossed her arms over her chest, and stared at the massive destruction around them. The village buildings had been torn up by rifles and grenades, the surface of the street was a mass of craters, one on top of another in places, and shrapnel protruded from every soft surface along it.
She glanced at the headless Panzergrenadier across the street, the smouldering suits and bodies of wounded and dead men, then at the wounded Legionnaires who were being helped out of their suits by the survivors, and carried to the aid station.
“So, this is what your little insurgency came to,” Logan said.
She turned toward him, shaking.
“What’s going to happen to me?”
“You’re done with this insurgency business, right?”
“I didn’t want this.”
“Well, this is what happens when you pick sides in a war.”
“I just want to go home. Forget about everything that’s happened.”
“Maybe you’ll meet a nice miner. Have some kids.”
“I don’t think I could live like that. Spending my whole life here, farming and making dinner, like my mother.”
“Trust me. There are worse ways to live.”
“Maybe I could marry a soldier.”
He could even come back here, maybe. In another five years, when his enlistment was up. If they’d let him.
If he survived.
Come back to a world where everyone wanted to kill him. Even the sun. Maybe not such a great plan.
He watched the 2nd Platoon medics carry a man past them, heading toward the aid station. Another Legionnaire held the wounded man’s lower left leg, which hung from the knee by a strip of muscle and skin.
“Not much future in that,” Logan said.
“I guess you’re right.” Nicole nodded as she watched the medics pass. “I should get back to helping your friends.”
“You probably should.”
She turned and hurried after the medics, as fast as she could move with her injured ankle. Logan hobbled along the alley behind her, back toward the village square. Volkov, Lieutenant Merle, and Poulin were still conversing near the village hall. Best to keep out of that.
Logan hobbled past them, and stopped beside the barricade at the south end of the square, where he could look out over the hillside below. The bark on the tree trunks had been shredded by thousands of rifle rounds, exposing fresh wood beneath that had been decorated with hundreds of chunks of shrapnel that glittered in the sunlight. He sat on the barricade, put his rifle across his lap, and stared down over the hillside. 2nd Platoon were busy rounding up the survivors among the insurgents.
Some were still able to move, and the Legionnaires led them away at gunpoint. The wounded were carried toward the aid station. The dead… would have to wait.
Two of them carried a man with a familiar face, and a bloody mess where his right forearm should have been. Scar-Face yelled in Prussian as they carried him up the hill toward the square and the aid station. At least Logan might score some points with Poulin when Scar-Face was introduced to Intel.
Volkov’s voice came from Logan’s suit speakers. “Where’s the girl, McCoy?”
Logan glanced back toward the aid station. Should he tell them? No, maybe someone could have some kind of happy ending after this. Or, at least, a not-so-unhappy ending.
“She didn’t make it, sir.”
Volkov strode across the square toward Logan, opened his visor, then stared at Logan in silence for a moment, as though trying to determine he was lying.
Logan put on his best poker face.
“I’m sorry, sir. The insurgents got her in the battle. There was nothing I could do.”
Volkov huffed. “Merle’s putting you up for a medal for your crazy stunt today. You’re officially a hero.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“And that’s another reason I don’t want you around. Heroes get people killed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“There’s a fireteam leader position open in 1st Platoon after they ran into an IED. You’re it. Try not to cause them as much trouble as you’ve caused me.”
Promoted and cast aside in the same breath. That was Volkov for you. The sergeant turned to walk away, but Logan interrupted him.
“How bad was it, sir?”
“The battle? Twenty WIA, fifteen KIA, last I heard.”
Volkov strode away. Including all the men they’d lost since arriving here, that meant maybe fifteen men in the platoon were still fit to fight. Damn.
Merle stood beside the entrance to the village hall, talking to a male civilian. Logan hobbled that way. He’d sent Merle the recording from his helmet earlier. Now he should check in.
“Morning, McCoy,” Merle said as he approached.
“How’s it going, sir?”
“Intel managed to crack that tablet you found, and they were very interested in your recording from the mine. Chaput is on his way to an appointment with Madame Guillotine if he doesn’t tell them everything they want to know. And some of his aristo friends won’t be far behind him. Without the aristos’ support and Panzergrenadiers’ weapons, the insurgency will be crippled. The Compagnie can handle what’s left.”
“I need to recover my suit, sir. And Legionnaire Gallo’s body from Saint Jean.”
“I’ll arrange a transport. But do it fast. We move out in forty-eight hours.”
“More Panzergrenadiers, sir?”
“With the intel from that pad, the Marine LePen has picked more Panzergrenadier transmissions from orbit. The rest of the regiment is moving in to clear them out.”
“Why wouldn’t they all attack together?”
“Your arrival at the mine must have pushed this group to act early, before they were ready. Fortunately for us.”
He was probably right. Scar-Face had no way to know whether Logan had warned the Legion they were in the mine. Their only hope for surprise was to attack straight away, and kill as many Legionnaires as they could. And they’d come damn close to killing the whole platoon.
Logan glanced across the square toward Poulin, who was now slumped on the steps outside the village hall with the rifle across her lap, staring at the ground.
If she hadn’t been so resolute about sending them to the mine, they’d never have found the Panzergrenadiers, and the regiment would be facing coordinated, surprise attacks across the planet in the near future. That would have been a bad day for everyone.
Maybe she’d done something right for once.
“What were they doing here, anyway?”
“We may find out when we interrogate the survivors. But while the Panzergrenadiers have been stoking the insurgency against us, the Prussians have attacked the colony on Saint-Simon. It looks like part of a bigger plan to tie us up so we couldn’t get there to help. Even now, we’re three wormholes away. We still may not get there in time.”