Back on Luneburger's they'd been quickied on driving light AG ground vehicles, and had loved it. Now the idea of driving a flakwagon, perhaps even firing its heavy weapons, really brightened their eyes. Most of them, he reminded himself, were in their late teens and early twenties. "As for the floater," he went on, "Sergeant Esau, you'll have to settle for learning to fly one of ours, you and your squad. An instructor will talk to you about some of the possible control differences you may encounter in a Wyzhnyny machine. Then it will be up to you to fly it if you can."
For despite his promotion to platoon sergeant, in this raid Esau would wear another hat. He was regarded as the best stealth man in B Company, so he'd been assigned the most critical single job on the raid: to steal the Wyzhnyny command center.
And as 4th Squad's sergeant-they had a 4th Squad again-Jael had one of the next two most critical jobs.
The next week they went over it all again, this time on a full-scale mock-up, with themselves in the action roles. Themselves and F Company, which played the Wyzhnyny much more effectively than calves had. In the struggles, lips were inevitably split, eyes blackened, noses bloodied. But when wrists and ankles had been securely taped, the captives were dragged from the orchard no more roughly than necessary, to be loaded onto genuine cargo floaters. The injuries were minor, and gave the medics something real to do. They also "treated," and transferred to medivacs, jumpers designated as casualties by umpires from Division. After the second day they ran their drills at night, for realism, and slept late in the morning.
When each drill was over, the casualties were declared whole and sound again, the enemy ordained human, and they all attended a critique of the exercise by the Division referee and Captain Zenawi.
The mock-up had been prepared in advance by a company of Burger engineers, on a prairie area 380 miles from base. To serve as the orchard, they'd planted rows of stout, ten-foot posts at appropriate intervals. Among the posts they pitched actual squad tents in which the troops would live that week, along with two mess tents and canopied latrine pits. They also installed the two inoperable, partly stripped Wyzhnyny flakwagons.
By the end of the second week, everyone had familiarized themselves with the operational third flakwagon, and dry-fired its light, four-barrelled trasher. Each member of 4th Squad had manuevered it around and live-fired its trasher.
Esau and his team had each flown a floater, with a certified pilot beside him. And, on each subsequent day a new floater was brought, each with the control system differently rigged, for them to figure out if they could. Only once did the Indi floater tech have to solve a problem for them.
And every raider became proficient with the short bola-a tough, slender, thirty-nine-inch cord with weights on both ends. Properly thrown, they tangled the legs of rustled Wyzhnyny livestock. Coupled with a quick, aggressive, three-man follow-up, and tough plastic tape, the bola would hopefully serve in lieu of stunners.
On the last night at the prairie bivouac, Esau and Jael walked out of camp beneath a richness of stars that both beggared and lifted the soul. The Candle had set, and the Lamp wouldn't rise till near dawn. Esau had carried a poncho and an insect repellent field generator, and they'd gone to a cedar grove, to make love in the privacy of its deeper darkness.
Afterward they walked slowly back to camp, holding hands.
"Do you recall," Esau said, "what I asked you after the Tank Park Raid?"
She didn't answer at once. Not as if she didn't remember, but as if she was thinking about it. "I remember," she murmured at last.
"What do you think?"
Again her answer lagged, then finally she told him. "I'm still against it, for me. But if you want to, I won't complain or say you shouldn't, because in most ways, to sign up is a good thing."
His only reply was a nod, and after a moment she spoke again. "I read something when I was a child, in Elder Hofer's Contemplations on the Testaments. Even then it struck me as right, and I've reread it since. `Beware what you set your mind on, lest you thereby create it in the world of phenomena.' He was writing about wishing ill on people you don't like, and the debt it might create for you in the eyes of God. But it seemed to me the meaning went beyond that.
"And I'm afraid if I sign a bot agreement, I might bring harm on myself, and maybe those around me, in order to fulfill it."
Esau frowned. He didn't find it convincing, but again said nothing. After a minute they made out the darkness of tents beneath the stars. "But if you want to," Jael repeated softly, "I won't say you shouldn't. Because… because I may be worrying about nothing."
He turned, gripped her shoulders. "I'll let be," he said, "for now at least. And if I change my mind, I'll tell you before I sign."
"Thank you, Esau," she said, and reaching up, pulled his face down and kissed him. "You're a good husband, a good person, and I love you dearly."
Two nights later, at 2350 hours, the Candle was well down, and high thin clouds screened the stars. Esau was planing in from the north, navigating by his HUDs. Now, by night vision, he could see the orchard itself.
What he didn't see were the sparks and vivid flashes far above.
As he drew nearer, he watched for the edge of the uncut grain. It wouldn't do to overshoot it. His night vision showed the standing crop darker than the stubble field. Ensign Hawkins had explained it-something about dew and "evaporative cooling"-but it hadn't meant anything to Esau. He could also make out the broad path a crew had trod through the stubble, and steered so he'd land near it, but in the uncut crop. He could see two others who'd landed ahead of him. They were stuffing gear.
His encased blaster and stuffbag dangled on a line below his feet. The ground leaped upward, the 1.42 gees of gravity jarring him even as he rolled. Then he knelt and looked around. He was, he decided, about three hundred yards from the orchard. Looking back he saw two more jumpers incoming. Their chutes and thermal coveralls were black, but by night vision the coveralls shone faintly golden, barely perceptible.
After pulling in his blaster, stuffbag and chute, he shucked out of his coverall, removed his musette bag and gear, and stuffed chute and blaster case into the stuffbag. It took seconds. By then two more troopers were on the ground. Another was coming in fast, and still another was in sight.
He called up a time readout; keeping on schedule was more important than having the full team. "Bag your gear," he murmured into his helmet mike, "and be ready to move. And keep low." The ripe grain was pale. Their black night-fatigues would be conspicuous against it. Dismissing the no-show from his mind, he murmured, "I'm moving out. Keep twenty-yard intervals crossing the stubble." After two weeks of rehearsal they knew what to do, but reminders were standard.
He straightened just enough to locate the path through the stubble field again, then moved through the crop on all fours. Thirty yards brought him to the stubble's edge, where he paused, prone. The footpath didn't reach the uncut crop. He had twenty yards to go through pale stubble eight to ten inches high. There was no way to avoid it. Leaving his bulky stuffbag just within the crop, he began creeping, pulling with his elbows, pushing with his feet, blaster cradled on his forearms. Then he reached the footpath, where Wyzhnyny feet had scuffed and trod the stubble down, baring dark earth.