CALIPHATE(32)

"Bastards," she whispered, before retracting the miniviewer and taking her rifle in hand.

The rifle, a Model-2098, had its own viewer, which was connected by radio to Hodge's helmet. In theory, and especially when augmented by the Exo to absorb recoil, one could fire the thing effectively from behind cover with only the armored hands exposed. Practice was better than theory, though, and practice said that the natural shooting position of rifle against shoulder and eye aligned with barrel was more effective.

Hodge had counted seven of the Moros out in the open, finishing off the wounded and making sure the dead were dead. Her firing position had her to the right side of the base of the rock gathering. Sensibly, she opted to take out the rightmost Moros first, thus keeping the rock between her and those she had not yet engaged. With a whisper, she instructed the rifle, "Activate. Fire on center of thermal signatures as you bear."

With that, she swept the rifle steadily from right to left. When the first thermal image was center of mass, it opened fire with a five round in a sixth-of-a-second burst, then repeated as its operator aligned it with the next target. Hodge was quick and four of the seven went down before the remaining three realized what was happening and dove for cover.

In seconds, Hodge's rock was deluged with fire, driving her back to shelter behind it.

"Go, first squad, GO!"

"Sir, Sergeant Pierantoni here. We're out of immediate danger . . . maybe half a klick from where we were ambushed. The El Tee's stopped firing right as we heard a pretty big blast. I think it's time. We can be seven- or eight hundred meters away before anything can hit."

"Concur, Sergeant P . . . break . . . Lieutenant Hodge? Lieutenant Hodge? . . . negative contact . . . break . . . FO? Does Pershing have an FAE pod ready?"

"Yes, Captain."

"Release on Lieutenant Hodge's position."

Much as one could only rarely train someone raised in Moslem culture to be a decent shot, so too the Moros expected that if Allah did not want them to rape their captives, He would say so or otherwise prevent it. If He allowed it, as He invariably did, it was because He wanted it to happen. If there was a different price to be paid for it, then that, too, was merely in accordance with the will of the Almighty.

Thus, by the time Hodge awakened from the blast that had propelled her into unconsciousness, the Moros had stripped her from her Exo and, apparently noticing she had tits, begun to strip her of her battledress. A line of them were forming up even as eight of them began staking her arms out and her legs spread. A ninth and tenth cut away her clothing, taking some care not to cut her so as not to damage the merchandise any further. A blond infidel with tits? She'd bring a high price from one of the datus, the Moro chieftains. Or maybe she could be presented as a gift to the sultan.

Hodge's vision swam in and out of focus. She raised her head and saw one of the Moros pulling out what she couldn't help thinking was a laughably small penis. In fact, she did laugh and was rewarded with a light kick to the head. That made her see stars and wretch yet again.

"Goodbye, John; I loved you," she whispered. "Anytime now, Captain. Anyti—"

She barely caught the flash as a huge thermobaric bomb detonated a few hundred meters overhead.

They found Hodge's lost soldier in among a group of Moros. That much satisfaction the men and women of her platoon had; at least their comrade hadn't been roasted alive. They found Hodge, herself, apparently raped, with her skin—where it had been exposed—dried and scorched and her body blue where it wasn't scorched black. (In fact, there had not been time for rape but the soldiers couldn't know that.) Her luxurious strawberry blonde hair was gone, except for a blackened, crispy residue next to her scalp. Her eyes . . . well, the less said about those, the better; Fuel Air Explosive did bad things to soft eyes.

The company set up a wide perimeter around the site. Within that perimeter, military police gathered DNA samples of every Moro body found. Those samples would be used in every village they cleared out. Adults who matched as being family of the ambushers would be killed, in every case.

It had long since become that kind of war.

Hamilton, suited but with his helmet off, grieved beside Hodge's body, arms wrapped around shins and rocking erratically. Yes, the lieutenant had responsibilities that he was neglecting but Thompson gave him a pass on those for a while.

Thompson still didn't say, "I told you so."

He did say, however, "I'm sending you back with the body. I'm allowed to send someone back and your platoon sergeant can handle things well enough for a week or ten days." That was being tactful; the platoon sergeant needed no lieutenant and would do better without having one whose nose he had to wipe.