The Assault - By Brian Falkner Page 0,32

size of an egg.

Chisnall looked at him for a moment, then said in a cool voice, “There were friends of mine on that craft.”

Yozi covered his face for a moment with both hands, the Bzadian gesture of apology. “Who are the scumbugz?”

“From their uniforms, downed pilots,” Chisnall said. “I don’t speak human well enough to question them.”

“Forward spotters, more likely,” Yozi said. “Which language do you think they speak? Young Kezalu speaks a little human-Chinese.”

“I don’t know.” Chisnall feigned ignorance. “They don’t look human-Chinese.”

“They all look the same to me,” Yozi said. He looked closely at the RAF uniforms. “Their markings are human-English, I think.”

Chisnall walked over to Fleming and kicked him viciously in the leg, just pulling back at the last moment so it seemed more violent than it actually was. Fleming clutched at his leg and told Chisnall several very unpleasant things about his mother.

“What do you think?” Chisnall asked. “Sound like human-English?”

“Sounds like animals jabbering to me,” Yozi said. “Let’s get them back to base. Let the PGZ sort them out.”

Chisnall smiled and nodded but felt his guts clench up inside. Since the start of the war, stories had been filtering out of enemy-held territory about the Bzadian secret police, the PGZ. If the stories were true, the PGZ made the Russian KGB look like a support group.

It was said that it was better to die than to fall into the PGZ’s hands.

Brogan glanced at him, her expression neutral, but he knew what she was thinking. They were going to deliver two human prisoners to the worst Pukes on the planet. What she didn’t know was that they had planned for that possibility.

“What’s it like back at the base?” Chisnall asked.

“It’s a mess,” Yozi said, the grin disappearing instantly. “The scumbugz have hit us hard.”

“Everywhere?” Chisnall asked. Implied in the word was concern for his unit. It would be only natural in these circumstances for a soldier to be concerned about his friends and comrades.

“Yes. You’re with the Thirty-Fifth,” Yozi noted, his eyes flicking over Chisnall’s uniform. “I have no news on them apart from the rotorcraft crash.”

“As soon as we can, I’d like to return to my battalion HQ,” Chisnall said.

“Of course.” Yozi regarded him for a moment. Evaluating him. “It’s a good unit, the Thirty-Fifth,” he said.

“We are proud of it,” Chisnall said.

“You should be,” Yozi said, frowning a little. “What your battalion did in Moscow will make footsteps among the stars.”

“Be glad you were not there, my friend,” Chisnall said. Was that the right thing to say?

“Azoh! The Russian scumbugz would have taken one look at Alizza and given up without a fight,” Yozi said.

Alizza grinned fiercely again. He certainly looked like the kind of soldier you would want to have on your side in a battle, bad teeth and all.

The two SAS men were marched to the rear of the first of the patrol vehicles and made to lie on the cargo tray. Chisnall and Brogan climbed up with them, covering the “prisoners” with their sidearms. Wilton, Monster, and Price climbed into the back of the second vehicle. Alizza, after a quiet exchange with Yozi, well out of earshot, climbed onto the rear of the first vehicle, apparently not trusting Chisnall and Brogan to guard the prisoners properly.

Or perhaps to guard Chisnall and Brogan.

Chisnall smiled at him but got only a scowl in return.

Kezalu began to hum to himself as the Land Rovers took off, then to sing, a syncopated reggae-sounding Bzadian song, full of buzzes and clicks. The singing seemed more and more incongruous as they headed toward the pall of smoke in the distance that was the Uluru military base, but Kezalu didn’t seem affected by the rising devastation. He began tapping his fingers on the machine-gun mount, keeping his own rhythm. Chisnall caught Yozi’s eye and smiled. Yozi rolled his eyes.

Chisnall swapped glances with Brogan as they bumped and bounced across the tussock of the desert floor. He knew they were both thinking the same thing.

If Yozi was convinced, then they had just passed the first test.

If not, then they were about to be hand-delivered to the headquarters of the Bzadian secret police.

Lieutenant Lucky, they called him. He hoped his luck was not about to run out.

8. THE BASE

[0630 hours]

[Perimeter Wall—Uluru Military Base, New Bzadia]

A BOMB-DISPOSAL TEAM WAS WORKING ON AN UNEXPLODED missile on the outskirts of the base as they approached. It was a German-designed Taurus missile, easily recognizable from the odd, flat-sided shape. It had plowed a hundred-meter-long