Soldiers

The sergeant had gotten up then. "I guess we've looked at your question about as well as we can right now," he'd said. "Sooner or later we'll get it solved, maybe on New Jerusalem, or maybe between lives."

They'd separated then, Isaiah going to the hut. He'd told Sergeant Hawkins things he couldn't have dreamed of telling anyone before. When he'd been eleven New Jerusalem years old, his father had taken him aside and spoke to him about the sin of Onan, and told him that in God's eyes it was a very small transgression, when done privately. As if to set his mind at ease. But he'd never expected to tell anyone about it; surely not till he had a son of his own.

Maybe the sergeant didn't know what the sin of Onan was; probably he didn't. But even if he did, it had seemed to Isaiah the sergeant wouldn't think ill of him for it.

He remained a little uncomfortable with what his sergeant had said about living a whole string of lives though. It seemed-heretical. But Jesus had said, "You must be born again." It seemed there was more than one way of taking that. And in a way, it kind of fitted with some of the things Elder Hofer had taught. Though he didn't think Elder Hofer would much like the idea.

During the months since then, it seemed to Isaiah that somehow or other that conversation had defanged the issue of killing Wyzhnyny, because it no longer really troubled him. He still wondered now and then-maybe feeling a little discomfort-but it didn't plague him now.

A sudden booming snagged his attention. Artillery fire. The surveillance buoys had reported that the Wyzhnyny had quite a bit of artillery left, here and there. Probably hidden from the Dragons. The army didn't much use artillery, unless you counted field mortars and tanks. Mostly it depended on aerial attack to deliver destruction behind hills and the like. He wondered if War House was going to regret that.

Then his lieutenant's voice spoke in his sensorium. "Load up, men. Time to get your feet wet."

To Isaiah, the command produced a sensation like he'd felt when they'd loaded on the floater for their first parachute jump: a sinking feeling in the belly, even though he didn't have a belly any longer. As his long metallic legs strode up the ramp of an APF, he heard the artillery's followup sound: the crashing of shells much nearer than the guns that fired them.

Lord God, he prayed silently, let me do what is right in your eyes.

When the booming reached Esau Wesley, he knew what to expect. Actually he knew and he didn't. Live fire exercises, with the rush of rounds passing overhead, and buried explosives simulating shell bursts, had given them a notion of it, but they weren't the same thing. He realized that before the first rounds struck. Stepping down from the firing step, he crouched in the bottom of the foxhole, Jael beside him. This is it! he thought. The games are over! The thunder of howitzers told him-that and Jael's wide eyes, and Captain Mulvaney's calm voice in his ears.

Then the shells arrived, the noise indescribable. Many exploded in the treetops. Wood and shell fragments whirred and whistled, thudded and slapped. Dirt flew, hissing. The couple ducked under their little roof. The ground shook, and now Esau was glad for all the tough woody roots; they helped keep their foxhole from caving in on them. Jael's eyes were no longer wide. They squinted, perhaps against flying dirt, perhaps in response to the noise, the violence.

He read her lips. "Blessed Jesus," she murmured, then said nothing more. The shells kept arriving, roaring. After the first salvo, they arrived more irregularly. Along the line, the sound was a steady roar, but the nearer explosions were sometimes overlapping, sometimes single. Esau spit dirt. Heard a scream. A tree crashed down. "Medic!" someone cried. Captain Mulvaney's voice spoke in his ear, in his skull: "Listen up, B Company. They're sending out armor-tanks and APCs. Stay down, ready on my command. Blastermen, fix bayonets."

As squad leader, Esau was no longer its slammerman. He slipped his bayonet over the studs of his blaster barrel and clamped it firmly. Then, unable to resist, he stepped out and popped a peek over the berm. What he saw riveted his attention. The tanks, those still coming, were already halfway across, riding their AG cushions, their antiperso

She did not rise up to see, simply looked anxious. Captain Mulvaney's voice spoke in their ears again. "B Company, on your firing steps!" Esau stepped onto the firing step again, hardly able to restrain himself, wishing he still carried a slammer instead of just a blaster. The line of tanks, much thi

"B Company, fire!" Mulvaney almost shouted it, excitement in his voice. "Give 'em hell! Wipe 'em out!"

Esau rested his blaster on the berm and sought targets. The artillery had stopped, but Wyzhnyny tanks continued to pump heavy trasher bolts into the forest. Wood still flew; branches and treetops still crashed down. The APCs had also thi

All along the line, Wyzhnyny kept coming. A ru

They kept coming, coming. Another flight of friendly aircraft swept the field, and another, and another, killing, but the attackers did not pause. Esau half heard fighting behind him. Those who'd broken through had been engaged by reserves.

"Trasher crews! Trasher crews!" This in a voice new to Esau. "Our own armor is moving in from the north, with camouflage fields and red pe

That was nothing Esau needed to worry about. He kept firing, glad he'd started with a full bandoleer of power slugs. This wasn't likely to stop for a while.

The bot APF had settled through a hole in the canopy about three hundred yards back from the forest edge, and unloaded its five-bot squad. They were somewhat back from where the shells were landing, except for the occasional long round. Their built-in radios told them the first wave of Wyzhnyny was halfway across the field. The bots didn't immediately run to engage them. No foxholes waited to shelter them-bot tactics centered on high mobility-and they were too few to waste.