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"Third platoon, covering positions," Valentine told signals, who spoke into his walkie-talkie, shielding the receiver with his palm. "Second platoon: Forward!" Valentine shouted over the firing.
They'd done it, and done it well, dozens of times in training. Now it was for keeps.
"Check fire," Patel roared, as a soldier paused to blast the caboose. "Check before you shoot. There are friendlies down there."
They did it well, moving all at once at a rush. Third platoon, higher on the hillside, moved forward to the prepared positions.
Valentine, half sliding down the steep hillside nearest the cut, landed and glanced at the front of the train. One of his men was already inside the engine compartment, waving off additional fire. At the bridge, there was nothing to see but Crow, kneeling beside the soldier who'd clobbered the lieutenant with the shovel, a bloody pistol in his hand.
Bee loped after him, one of her sawed-off shotguns in one hand and an assault rifle in the other, moving forward like a fencer with the assault rifle pointed at the caboose, the shotgun held up and back.
"Get Cabbage over to Crow," Valentine ordered as he approached the caboose. "He's not calling man down but I think Salazar is hurt."
Cabbage was the company medic, when he wasn't assisting the cook. Formerly a demi-doc in the KZ, he'd gotten sick of signing unfitness certifications.
"Cover the cars until we know for sure what's inside," Valentine told Patel.
People were shouting for help from inside the boxcars. Valentine looked beneath the cars, searching for explosives. He'd heard of the Kurians sending decoy trains lined with plastic explosive and claymore mines to take out guerrillas when someone hit the kill switch. This didn't look to be that kind of train, but it was best to make sure.
No sign of strange wiring leading from the caboose.
Valentine looked through one of the bullet holes into the armored caboose, saw a twitching foot. Rutherford slunk up beside him.
"I'm going in," Valentine said.
"Let me go first, sir," Rutherford said.
Valentine noticed blood running down from his forehead, already-caking into cherry flakes.
"Rutherford, you wounded?"
"It ain't mine, Major. I got some on me when DuSable and I were checking for booby traps.
It was dripping out of the caboose. The cars look clear. DuSable's checking the rest forward."
He was a cool head.
Second platoon had taken up firing positions, covering the caboose and the rest of the cars up to the engine.
There was some trouble with the caboose's metal door; it was either jammed good or latched from the inside. Valentine pointed to the hinge rivets and the second platoon entry man employed a monstrous four-gauge shotgun on the door. Then Bee smashed it open with her shoulder.
Rutherford slipped in, pistol held in a Weaver stance.
Nothing but blood and body parts awaited them.
Valentine checked the radio log. The set itself was as dead as the gunners inside the caboose, but there was a notation that an unscheduled stop had happed, with approximate location, and that the message had been acknowledged by LEX.
Lexington, Valentine guessed.
* * * *
They opened up the boxcars, giving in to the pleading and pounding from within.
"Liberators," an old man in a black coat shouted. "They're liberators."
"That's better than 'shit detail,'" Ediyak commented.
They thronged around the soldiers, some in blue and yellow and pink clothing that looked like hospital scrubs woven out of paper fiber. In some Kurian Zones, they even begrudged you the clothes on your back when selected for harvesting.
