Another rocket went over, bursting close beside the first. Blade saw a glimmer of green laser-light just below the rocket. So the Doimari had developed laser guidance systems for their rockets? And infiltrated a launcher team into the rear of the Kaldakans? They deserved credit for both their technology and their tactics.
Then Blade had to abandon his professional detachment. The platoon commander shouted, «Forward! Get those bastards!» then died with her mouth open as a third rocket hit the piled mortar ammunition. Fragments and whole shells flew in all directions, and one of them tore into the commander's chest. Another soldier had his head ripped off. His blood sprayed over Blade as he started to move out.
The attack got only a few steps before several lasers opened up, along with something like a grenade launcher. At least grenades which couldn't have been launched by hand were suddenly bursting among the Kaldakans.
That stopped the attack almost before it began. The platoon went to cover in the long dry grass of the meadow, moving only when grenade or laser-set fires burned too close. Some of the wounded couldn't move in time. Blade heard their desperate pleas for help, then their screams as they burned alive.
Blade ruthlessly closed his ears to the screams and watched the smoke from the fires thicken. Before long it would be thick enough to hide a moving man. Off to the left was a little ravine, running toward the enemy-held hill. Under cover of that ravine, a squad might get to within killing distance of the rocket launcher.
Blade looked at the men nearest him. Some were too stunned to move, others too badly wounded. He gritted his teeth. It looked as if he might have to do the work of a whole squad himself. He collected some extra grenades from two corpses and started crawling toward the ravine. At least this time he wouldn't have any witnesses to his work.
Halfway to the ravine the smoke started thinning.
Blade knew he'd be visible and vulnerable in another minute and gambled on speed. He leaped up and dashed for the bank of the ravine. As he reached it, the earth crumbled under his feet and dropped him ten feet to the shallow bed of a rocky stream.
Blade knew how to fall, so he wasn't hurt. Neither were his grenades. His laser rifle, however, was bent like a banana. Trying to fire it only produced a pathetic fizzing noise. Blade was annoyed with himself for being in such a hurry that he hadn't grabbed a spare rifle. Now he'd have to attack with grenades only, then pick up a rifle off a Doimari corpse. This would turn an already dangerous job into a real suicide party. However, the other choices were even worse. He could sit here until the Kaldakans won, when he would probably be court-martialed as a coward and possibly go under the truth-seer, or until the Doimari won, when they would kill or capture him.
At least he could be an anonymous hero this time. He rose to his feet, then jumped back as a large body hurtled down the side of the ravine. It trailed a cloud of dust and gravel, so Blade didn't recognize the man at once. Then the new arrival held out a laser rifle.
«Here, Voros. I brought two.»
It was Ezarn. «What are you doing here?» snapped Blade.
«Coming with you,» said Ezarn.
«You're crazy!»
«Not crazy like I'd be to lie there, let 'em chew me up. Or crazy like you going up there without no rifle.» He dropped a fresh power cell into his own rifle. «Besides, you're lucky. Some of it'll rub off on me.»
Blade wasn't so sure about that, but there was no time to argue. «All right. Follow me.»
So Blade wound up being a public hero for the third time since his return to Kaldak.
He and Ezarn went up the ravine, then crawled to within grenade-throwing distance of the Doimari without being detected. The Doimari were concentrating on doing as much damage to the apparently helpless Kaldakans below, and forgot about their flanks and rear. It was an old mistake, and just as fatal as usual when the grenades started bursting about their ears.
One of the grenades set off a rocket warhead, and it touched off several more rockets. When the smoke cleared away the rocket launcher was scrap metal and its crew mincemeat. Blade and Ezarn jumped up and waded into the survivors with their rifles, fists, and boots. Blade worked off a lot of anger and frustration on the surviving Doimari and Tribesmen.
When other Kaldakans finally joined them, twenty bodies were lying around. Another twenty Doimari and Tribesmen were running off in all directions, chased by the survivors of Blade's platoon. Blade himself was kneeling beside a badly wounded Doimari woman, apparently a technician, trying to give her first aid. She was too badly hurt to save, though, so he held her hand and pretended to be her father while she died.
Then he looked up to find the commander of the Fourth Battalion staring down at him. Blade realized he must be a fairly gruesome sight, his face black with smoke and dirt and most of his clothing soaked in blood.
«It's not my blood, sir,» he said hastily.
The commander laughed. «Good. Then you'll live to get what you deserve. A promotion to Squad Leader at least, and whatever else High Commander Sidas thinks right.»
«Sidas?» said Blade.
«That's right, you're the fellow who lost his memory.» He explained who Sidas was and how Blade was going to be sent to Kaldak to be honored by the High Commander himself. When the battalion commander finished, he looked at Blade again.
«Meeting the High Commander doesn't make you nervous, does it?»
Not usually, would have been Blade's honest answer. But when he's someone who might recognize me and expose the Dimension X secret, it's another matter.
Aloud, he said, «No sir. Or at least not more than fighting the Doimari.»
Chapter 11
Blade got a fresh uniform and boots and was told to tidy himself up to make a good appearance before Commander Sidas. He didn't have to shave off his beard; otherwise he would have seriously considered deserting. If Sidas recognized him or even got suspicious, he would almost certainly go under the truthseer. As it was, Blade boarded the lifter for Kaldak with a positively piratical black beard. Few people will recognize a bearded man they've last seen clean-shaven thirty years ago. Blade was willing to gamble that Sidas wasn't one of them, in the hope of finding out more about what was going on in this Dimension. Even if nothing came of it for the Project, Blade was curious about what had come of his work.
A few friends in high places would also do Blade no harm in the eyes of Chyatho's friends.
The lifter spiraled down to a landing at what Blade christened «Kaldak, Municipal Airport.» It was six acres of rough asphalt, surrounded by hangars, wooden repair shops, and what had to be stables.
Teamsters led out a long cart drawn by twelve oxen. The lifter rose again, then settled onto the cart. The teamsters cracked their whips, and the oxen hauled the lifter off toward one of the hangars.
Blade shook his head as he watched them go. The combination of the far future and the Middle Ages in this Dimension still held a few surprises for him.
The airport was so close to the city that Blade's party walked the rest of the way. That was one advantage of antigravity-you didn't need to put the airports halfway into the next county to give the planes room for landing and taking off. Theoretically you could land a lifter right in the middle of the city. However, if the generators failed, lifters didn't glide. They came down like falling bricks. It was better to have them digging holes in farmers' fields than in the roofs of apartment buildings.
The road was crowded with traffic moving both ways in a fog of dust. Blade saw munfans-the kangaroo-like animals he had witnessed last visit oxen, animals whose remote unmutated ancestors might have been something like horses, and lots of human porters. Every so often a Fighting Machine came whining along, making the dust worse and driving everyone to the edge of the road as it wavered past.