Gettysburg: A Tale of the Second War for Pennsylvanian Independence (8 page)

“I guess we’ll find out,” replied their captain.

She went straight to Colonel Neville’s tent to make her
report. He and half his command had managed to rendezvous in the woods and
evade Transport, but he’d lost the other half, along with four cargo ships, six
drones, and the personal arms and equipment of every soldier who’d died. In
return, he’d gained one shipload of precious okcillium, a score of laser
rifles, and further disdain for the costly tactics of Mary Brenneman. The
debriefing wasn’t pleasant.

While their captain was being upbraided, the remaining
members of B Company reunited. Charlie and Delta squads were like inverse
images of one another. Charlie had helped cover TRACE’s retreat from Gettysburg
but had hardly seen any real action. As a result, the squad had lost no one. Delta
Squad was a different story. Charger and her troops had held the tree line
against Transport’s flanking drones, then continued the fight when the
Authority had taken the field in force. In the end, they’d lost all but one: their
sergeant. Everyone called her Pusher. She held her head up but talked to no one
in the camp, silent tears tracking randomly down her cheeks. Still in shock, she
seemed like a mother who’d just been told that her children had died in a
senseless accident.

Hatch sat across the table from the QB in what passed for a lounge
in the rebel camp. The waitress had left them each a bourbon, neat, and walked
away.

“Bad?”

She shrugged. “Some would say not bad enough. Pusher might
say that.”

He shook his head. “I doubt it. She’s grieving. Let her do
it. Try not to take it personally.”

Her eyes met his with a look that assured him there was no
other way to take it. She was in command. These were her troops. Her orders had
led them to their deaths.

“What’d Neville say?” he asked.

Again a shrug. “The usual. I bit off more than I could chew.
I should’ve waited for his backup to get there. By moving early, I tipped off
Transport. The usual.”

“Or . . . had we not moved when we did, the Authority
might’ve had the entire town reinforced by the time he got there and we’d have
come up with bupkis. It wasn’t your fault the intel was wrong and we bumped
into Transport on the first day. Command should’ve known a warehouse full of
unguarded okcy was too good to be true. The only question after we made contact
was how quickly to move. I think you made the right call.”

She slugged the bourbon back. “Command seems to agree with
you. I’m still here.”

Hatch smiled. “Good. You should be. And Neville?”

She reached over, took his glass, and slugged it back too.
“So’s he.”

Less happy now, Hatch nodded to the waitress. “The next time
you want a double, just order one.”

She twisted her mouth at him.

“So, in the AZ, I gotta ask. How did you know that hole was
in the wall?”

Mary shrugged. “I played around there when I was little. All
the kids did. There are holes all along the wall, though Transport tries to
keep them plugged up. I figured if we looked hard enough, we’d find one.”

“And Yoder? What was he going on about?”

Her face went flat. She’d known it was coming, and that it
would come from Hatch. As close as they’d once been, she’d never shared her
history with him, the circumstances of her life that had led her to join the
resistance. Her shunning by the Plain People. And she didn’t feel inclined to
share it now.

“It’s not something I talk about. I’ve tried to forget it
ever happened.”

A laugh if there ever was one
, her inner voice said.

The waitress set down their drinks and walked away.

“Oh, come on, Mary,” he urged. “It’s just you and me here
now.”

“I was young and stupid, Lieutenant,” she said. She used his
rank to let him know their personal connection wasn’t going to work here.

He took his glass in hand and sipped it. “Have it your way,
Captain.”

She immediately regretted the distance she heard in his
voice. The distance she’d put there. But she didn’t want to talk about her life
in the AZ.

Ever
, her inner voice confirmed.

“It’s just not something I want to relive, Sean,” she said.
“But I appreciate your concern.”

Hatch finished off the bourbon. “I care about you, Mary. You
know that. Whatever our ranks.”

She nodded. She knew.

“Hey, you know what tomorrow is?” he asked.

“It’s not today,” she replied. “That’s a start.”

“It’s the Fourth of July.”

She stared at him, uncomprehending.

“It’s an old holiday back on Earth. Independence Day.”

“Ah. How ironic.” Her voice bled with sarcasm.

“Don’t say that!” Hatch said. Sometimes her defeatism, though
it was rare, really got to him. Maybe its rarity was why it hit him so hard.
She was a rock. Most of the time.

“I’m sorry, Sean. I guess I just don’t feel much like
celebrating.”

Hatch nodded. He got that.

Pusher walked through the door. She looked around, spotted
them, and headed straight for their table. Mary braced herself. She’d seen this
before. The release of grief by assigning blame. Blame that Mary thought might
even be justified. Every tactical situation was different, a complex web of
opportunities and decisions. All a soldier had was her training and her gut
instincts and a dubious relationship with the Almighty. A small quiver of
arrows, really, when it came down to it. “I did the best with what I had” often
fell flat with those asked to pay the price for her decisions, good or bad.

The sergeant stopped at their table but didn’t sit down.
Everyone in the lounge went quiet and watched.

“I lost my squad yesterday, ma’am,” Pusher said. There were
no tears. Just a clenched jaw holding them back. “I lost Charger. I lost them
all.”

“Yes, you did,” said Mary. She wanted to harden up, to be
the QB. But something about the pools of anguish staring from Pusher’s stony
face wouldn’t let her. She had to take this as a person, not a soldier. Death
was never impersonal.

“I just wanted to say, I’m proud to serve under you, Captain
Brenneman. I’m proud of what we did. I’m proud of my soldiers. I’m proud of my
lieutenant. I’m proud that they died for something worth dying for.”

Mary stood up. Standing was required to honor the woman in
front of her, who was stock-still and looking her captain straight in the eye. Standing
was necessary to pay proper respect to the dead.

“I’m proud to have you in my command,” she replied solemnly.

Pusher reached out her hand and Mary took it. The sergeant
saluted and walked away.

When Mary sat back down, she did all she could to hide her
emotions. To reestablish the mask of the QB. The old trick. The muscle memory
of command.

Hatch pushed her bourbon toward her, but she let it sit.

“And that’s the difference between you and Neville,” he said
simply. “That’s the difference between being a leader and being in command.”

Mary was unable to catch it, so a single tear bled down the
curve of her cheek. She quickly wiped it away.

“And now what?” she asked, her voice hitched.

“It’s like I told you when the heat was on. Now, we have to
get ready for the next battle. Bestimmung Company still needs its captain,
Mary.”

She picked up the bourbon, rolled its weight around in her
hand. She took the shot in one slug, its smoky tingle burning the back of her
throat.

“Well,” she said, “I’m still here.”

The American Civil War has always seemed like a
Shakespearean tragedy to me. Its five acts spanned 1861 to 1865, and its two
sides were matched as inverse images of one another, seemingly fated to fight
an extended, bitter conflict. The Confederacy had better leaders, more élan
early in the war, and—whatever our modern perception of its rationale for
secession (the catch-all concept is “states’ rights superseding federal authority”; the
most obvious expression of those rights involved the continuation of slavery as
a cheap labor force, something the South considered vital to its economy)—an absolute
belief bordering on religious fervor in the rightness of the Southern cause. In
other words, the Confederacy was more motivated to fight and—thanks to the
quality of its military leadership—more capable of doing so effectively,
despite obvious but willfully ignored strategic disadvantages.

The Union, on the other hand, had everything else. A larger
population from which to draw soldiery, a mature industrial base, a more
thoroughly developed transportation system, a better-equipped navy—which it put
to good use in strangling Southern trade from abroad—and President Abraham
Lincoln, whose force of will is often credited for our having a cohesive United
States today. What the Union lacked early on was effective military leadership,
and that simple fact extended the pain of the conflict—the crucible of the
American character—much longer than it should have lasted. In an ironic twist
worthy of the Bard, a week after the start of the bombardment of Fort Sumter on
April 12, 1861, then-U.S. Army Col. Robert E. Lee was offered command of the
Union army. But this was a day after Lee’s beloved Virginia seceded and he demurred,
saying he could never march against his home state. In Lee, the Confederacy
found a brilliant, daring leader for its own army, and some consider him the
greatest military commander in American history. His greatest blunder was the
Battle of Gettysburg.

The battle is called the “high-water mark” of the
Confederacy because it represented the culmination of a rare offensive campaign
by a Confederate army and the South’s last real threat to Northern soil. Losing
the battle began the long descent of Southern fortunes that ended at Appomattox
Court House on April 9, 1865, almost four years to the day since hostilities
began. Until July 1863, the Confederate army had won (or, in some cases, fought
to a draw) every major engagement of the war. In the North, the political will
to continue the fight was waning, as evidenced by draft riots and Copperheads
(Northerners favoring an immediate peace with the Confederacy). Had the Confederacy
won at Gettysburg, many historians have suggested we might well have two
American nations today.

When Michael Bunker created the world of
Pennsylvania
,
he brought forward to his land of New Pennsylvania many of the artifacts and
familiar places of old Earth. I decided to have fun with that notion. It wasn
’
t so hard to imagine that folks who immigrated to this new
land—named for a state in the old world—would also bring their town names with
them, perhaps even naming a town Gettysburg. And what if fate and history
conspired to create circumstances that resonated with events more than 250
years in that world
’
s past? Instead of
Confederates looking for shoes and bumping into Union cavalry, let
’
s have TRACE looking for okcillium and bumping into a platoon
of Transport soldiers. Yeah, that
’
s the ticket!

I had a lot of fun reimagining aspects of the battle as
elements of my story. I just gave one Easter egg away with the shoes/okcillium
example, so I won
’
t give away any more. But if you know
the battle, maybe you’ll find and crack open some more of those eggs. I hope
you enjoy their discovery. And if you
’
re not a history
buff like me, it
’
s cool; I hope you enjoy the story for
what I primarily intended it to be: a tale of adventure, bravery, and
catastrophe—much like the Civil War itself.

Interested in Mary Brenneman and what led her to fight for
TRACE? And what about all that cryptic venom Marcus Yoder was sending her way? Check
out my short story, “Gelassenheit,” in the forthcoming
Tales from Michael
Bunker’s Pennsylvania
, the first short-story anthology set in the world of
Pennsylvania
,
due out in November 2014. It’s chock full of great stories by first-rate
independent authors like Nick Cole, Edward W. Robertson, and Michael Bunker
himself, just to name a few.

Dave Monk Fraser Adams designed
Gettysburg
’
s classic cover. It reminds me very much of the sci-fi novels I
grew up with. Dave is an awesome Aussie and never minds my asking for one more
tweak. Thanks, Dave, for your flexibility, patience, and willingness to lend me
your talent.

The excellent illustrations that front each of the story’s
three sections come from the fertile imagination of Ben Adams. They look like
electronic woodcuts to me—the perfect mix of contemporary expression and
traditional composition. Ben’s style creates an impression both fresh and
classic. Thank you, Ben, for perfectly capturing three moments in time from my
story.

My beta
readers helped tremendously to identify and iron out
glitche
s, typos, and “wha?” moments.
The first of these, as always, is
my wife Alison. I conceptualize stories and characters with her, and she always
has a nuance or texture to add that I hadn’t thought of. I hand her drafts
tentatively, knowing she’ll be honest
but hoping
she’ll like what I’ve written. She’s my biggest supporter, and I love her for
it (one of many reasons).

My “official
”
beta
readers were
Ellen Campbell, Nick Cole, Samuel Peralta, K
im Wells, and Bridget Young.
Thanks, guys, for your
suggestions
and the gift of
your
time
in reading the story
.
Howard Hendrick and Bob Rink, my
geek gaming buddies for decades—and two of the most intuitive, knowledgeable
men I know when it comes to military history—helped me with some fact checking.
Much appreciated,
guys!

A special thank-you to my nephew, U.S. Marine Captain and
Judge Advocate
Alec
Pourteau.
In the dedication, I devote this story to my older brother, Randy, who is no
longer with us. Alec is his son. There’s a certain serendipitous elegance in
having
Alec help me fill in some practical gaps in my
knowledge of squad tactics, since it was his father that introduced me to them
through classic wargaming when I was a boy.

David Gatewood, known as “the editor extraordinaire” among
independent authors, also
lent me his insights and
corrections, and I’m very grateful for his eagle eyes.
And Michelle Benoit, an old
friend and the sharpest proofreader I know, gave the manuscript a final
perusal. Thank you, Michelle, for always being willing to look over my shoul
der.

Thanks also to my authorial inspirations, including Bernard
Cornwell, Joe Haldeman,
and
John Scalzi
. And
, of course,
thanks to
Michael Bunker for creating this sandbox
and letting me play in it.

I’m also grateful for your time in reading my story. I
hope you enjoyed it. Please consider taking the time to
review it at the venue where you bought it, as well as on Goodreads. As a
reader of independent author
s
, you
’
re both our market and our marketing force. If you
’
d like to hear more from us, let
us kno
w that with your online reviews.

Coming soon:
Susquehanna
, the next adventure of Mary
Brenneman and Bestimmung Company. Be sure and join me for the ride.

Chris Pourteau
September 2014