Days of Burning, Days of Wrath

by Tom Kratman

  Outside Leinenfeld, Sachsen

  The woods had held through to within about a mile of their target address, 2 Brunnenstrasse, the residence of Ann-Marie Maybach, mistress to the Sachsen Minister of Finance, Olaf Kubier-Schmidt.

  “We could probably go further,” Khalid said, “but I think we’d be better off holding up near here until nightfall.”

  “Near here,” in this context, and after a bit of exploration, turned out to mean holed up inside an office some ways down a deep tunnel. The tunnel itself had been dug long before for the trains that weren’t running in Sachsen for the nonce. It had, once upon a Great Global War, done service as an air raid shelter.

  Of course, the door just had to be both very stout and locked.

  “Not a problem,” Khalid said to Alix, “we’ve both had that course.”

  “Standard part of the training package,” Fritz explained. “Shall I?” he asked Khalid.

  “Sure, probably better if you do. I need to crank the power for my computer, go outside to get a satellite link, and get a message to Fernandez that we’re within a mile of the target and that we intend to take our target tomorrow. We need him to have the extraction helicopters ready to move with an instant’s notice.”

  “We’ve never discussed that,” Alix observed. “What do you mean by ‘take’?”

  “I mean we’ll go into the apartment with as much violence as called for, then ask him to come with us, and, if he doesn’t, I’ll apply as much pain as needed to get cooperation.”

  “Oh. That works for me. What about his girlfriend?”

  “That’s a really good question to which I don’t have a really good answer. Ideally, she’s calm and collected and wants to come with us with a fervent desperation. If it’s not ideal . . .”

  “And ideal is never the way to bet it,” interrupted Fritz.

  “. . . then we may have to knock her out and tie her up, or beat her silly and carry her, or . . . harsh, I know . . . kill her.”

  “Kill her? My God, why? And could you kill a woman?”

  Khalid’s answering smile was quite sad. “Remember when I said I had revenge for my murdered family down to the last generation? Yes, I can kill a woman.”

  Changing the subject, he told Alix, “Take your shoes off and rest your feet. Clean them. If you know how to bandage and moleskin a blister, there’s a first-aid kit in my pack. If you don’t, wait for me and I’ll see to your feet when I get back.”

  Tauran Union Defense Agency Headquarters, Lumiere, Gaul

  Casualties had been getting bad enough that Jan Campbell’s crew had had to take over the same sector of the ground flow as they’d held above it, allowing the four remaining of the previous defenders to take over their old area, upstairs.

  The Anglians had lost two men, both to head shots, since they’d moved. Those bodies were also stuffed into one of the basement rooms. Moreover, the stench was, if anything, worse down here where there was less of a chance of a breeze to waft it away.

  Sergeant Greene came from the back side area held by the other half of the section and, while standing in the door, gave her a head and eyes signal, inviting her to a tête-à-tête out in the central area. The door, by rights, should have been blocked off and a passageway been carved through the wall, covered by some furniture. It was on Jan’s list to have done but, for now, They’re just too weak and hungry.

  Telling Turenge that she was in charge until Jan returned—“And being in charge means no shagging, Captain”—the major followed her senior noncom out.

  “You know, ma’am,” Greene said, “I’ve become the senior noncom—well, the senior infantry noncom—in the headquarters. There’s a Gallic tanker and a Sachsen admin guy who outrank me, but they sought me out and made it clear that they defer to my judgment. I walked around, right after they came to me, and did a little checking.

  “Fully one-quarter of the people we have manning the defense here were civilians until we handed them rifles. Their first day of training was on the job. There are less than fifty grenades left in the whole building. The average machine gunner is down to under five hundred rounds and the average rifleman has a bit over sixty. We’ve still got a little night-vision capability, enough, say, for twenty men for about three hours. That’s how few batteries we have left.

  “There is literally no food left in stores, though some of the troops have a half a meal or so secreted about their person.”

  “And?”

  “And so it’s my judgment that it’s time to try to cut our way out of here.”

  “We should have done that some time ago,” Jan said. “We couldn’t, because we were key to the defense and, while we were here, the flanks wouldn’t fold. Or so we thought.”

  “Our holding here helped,” Greene admitted. “But it was a miracle they hung on as long as they did. The fat and overaged veterans they pulled in to form a militia just weren’t up to it, long run.”

  “If they’d been Balboans, they’d have been up to it.”

  “Maybe so,” Greene conceded, “but we have a serious dearth of Balboans here and on our side.”

  “Point,” it was Jan’s turn to concede. “So how do we get out of here? Who do we take? What about the wounded? We can’t leave them to be captured. They’ll be skinned alive. Literally.”

  Greene sighed with inexpressible weariness, and that not merely physical. “There’s enough morphine to give the ones who can’t walk out on their own power a pleasant enough send-off.”

  “Kill our own? How can we do that?””

  “Oh, the usual way, I’d imagine,” the sergeant said.

  Jan felt a trace of heat rising. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know what you meant, ma’am. Would it actually make you feel better if I told you that our senior medic, that Gallic senior sergeant, Pangracs, will do the injecting?”

  Her head hung. “I suppose it wouldn’t. Okay, let’s say we’re going to try; have we informed the senior officer commanding or are we just going to leave him in the lurch?”

  “Oh, did I neglect to mention it? The last officer senior to you took a bullet through the spine. You’re in charge, Major. And I took the liberty of calling a meeting of the remaining section chiefs for two hours from now.”

  “Why two hours?”

  “Because you and I are going to need that much to come up with a plan. There’s no more time for discussion; when they get here you need to give them an order.”

  Airship Pegasus, enroute to Taurus

  Marciano’s force lacked even a tourist map of their own countries. Fortunately, the Pegasus was able to print off the very best maps available to the public.

  Unfortunately, the ship could only print off maps on standard, eight-by-eleven inch paper. This, while taped together to form several larger wholes, was less than optimal. Especially when paper or tape tore.

  On a different sheaf of papers, Claudio had a copy of the new constitution approved by the main force under Janier. So far, he hadn’t shared it with anyone but Rall and del Collea. It was time now, though, time before they voted—as he thought they had to vote—on their target.

  There was no assembly hall on the ship big enough for everyone. There was no way to bring over even representatives from the other two, smaller airships. There was, however, a local video system that could patch into the other two ships and into every room and public spacing on all of them. With a camera focused on his face, seated at a table in the Pegasus’ main dining room, and with about three hundred and fifty senior officers and noncoms as his audience, Marciano began.

  “In a few minutes, or perhaps an hour, or perhaps even two, we’re going to be voting on where we’re going to try to land in our home continent. Before we get to that, we have to know why we’re going to land and what we’re going to try to do.

  “I’ll tell you right up front, that whatever we decide will make no difference on our own. The main force that was captured in Balboa, and which has been ransomed, has already
voted. They accept the constitution I am about to discuss with you. Since they’re about twenty or more times our size, we’re already outvoted and outgunned in the matter.”

  Claudio paused to take a drink of water, then gave off a couple of small coughs to clear his throat.

  “Point the first: the constitution we propose to vote on is not a parliamentary system. It’s rather more like the Federated States’, with two houses that are elected differently and of different composition, but equally strong. It has also an executive, called a ‘Consul,’ and a high court.”

  Claudio snorted with a grim humor. “Hell, in Taurus we change our constitutions at the drop of a hat. One could even make the straight-faced argument that we do not have, and never have had, a genuine constitution in our history. It’s probably true that for most, maybe all, of us, our national governments at one time or another were set up about the same way.

  “There are some differences, though. This constitution”—and here Claudio waved the thin sheaf of paper—“is only about eight thousand words. In Taurus, in trying to legislate all kinds of newly found, vote-buying, ‘rights’ into our constitutions, while legislating away as many others that might prove inconvenient to the state, our constitutions can run as many pages. Or, at least, they seem like they do.

  “Each branch of government, as far as the constitution goes, has a slightly different focus. For example, the two houses of the legislature have enumerated powers, and not too many of those. The executive, on the other hand, has no listed powers, but only responsibilities the powers to meet which are said to be there. The high court, conversely, has a mix of both, along with some things that are forbidden to it and some things over which it can have no choice. There are, for example, some ten crimes which have mandatory death penalties for everyone, and a special mandatory death penalty for any member of the court who should vote in such a way as to increase the power of the court.

  “There is also a list of misdemeanors which have only two penalties, flogging and jail, no fines allowed.

  “But the big thing, the really huge thing, that makes this different from what we’re used to is that no one votes or holds public office or the position of a decision-making bureaucrat without having first volunteered for, served in, and been honorably discharged from the armed forces of what is to be the ‘Tauran Confederation.’”

  Marciano stopped then, to wait for the cheering to die down.

  Leinenfeld, Sachsen

  They must have looked convincing enough; they hardly ever had to produce the imam-signed certificates of appreciation cum travel passes. Tonight was no exception to this rule.

  The streets were mostly darkened but not empty. Gangs of newly minted slaves swept and picked up garbage. Others, those of the new ruling class, walked around, invariably armed. Tents, too, had been set up in public places for majlis, and the powers that be stopped at these from time to time to meet and greet.

  Khalid, Alix, and Fritz carried their arms openly, slung or nestled in the crook of an arm. Khalid and Alix walked up front, with Fritz taking up the rear to cover the natural sway of Alix’s posterior.

  Alix suddenly stopped, staring at a black and white wanted poster, pasted up against one wall. She’d seen the same sorts of signs before; it was only the angle of this one and the presence of a stray moonbeam that caught her attention.

  “That’s him,” she whispered to Khalid. “That’s Olaf, the finance minister.”

  Khalid who, unlike Alix, could read the script said, “Interesting. They’re offering . . .mmmm . . .let me think . . .one hundred thousand gold dinar . . . four and a quarter grams of fine gold each . . . about twenty million Federated States Drachma. That’s not small change.”

  “No,” agreed Alix, “it isn’t.”

  Khalid continued to read, giving summaries as he did. “He’s wanted alive . . . he is believed to be in hiding here in Leinenfeld . . . death for anyone who knowingly hides him or helps him escape . . .”

  “The bastards want him to release the gold in the Federated States to them,” was Alix’s no doubt spot-on judgment. Now that she was tipped to the poster’s existence, she realized they’d already passed quite a number of the things.

  “Let’s keep walking,” Khalid said. “This means a couple of things. One is that we can’t bluff our way out with him, we’re going to either have to take him out clandestinely, or as if we’re carting him off to the new local authorities—no, I don’t think much of that idea, either—or maybe change the rendezvous to the roof of the house he’s in.

  “But the other thing is we can’t necessarily expect him to come with us peacefully. Tell me, did he strike you as being very brave?”

  “No,” she replied, “if he’d been any more of a pussy, I’d have been willing to eat him.”

  Khalid barely suppressed a laugh. “Anyone ever tell you that you have a wild sense of humor? I’m almost tempted to actually take you to a whorehouse, if we could find one, and buy you a girl.”

  “Maybe later,” she answered, with twinkling, mischievous eyes. He’d noticed that her flights of anger and depression had lessened a good deal in both anger and intensity as they’d gotten closer to their objective.

  I like this woman enormously, thought Khalid. It’s entirely hopeless, of course.

  “In any case, we still have a worse problem than we thought. I need to look at the roof of the place, and the nearby roofs, as well.”

  The Leinenfeld Bahnhof, or train station, lay on the left, its two seven-windowed wind breaks parallel to and dividing the town’s main road. Of course, no trains ran yet.

  “I just noticed,” said Khalid, “there are no traditional lampposts suitable for lynchings anywhere we’ve seen yet.”

  “The bulk of our politicians have very keen survival instincts,” Alix replied. “I’m sure they had them replaced at public expense ages ago. But, if you look just ahead”—she pointed with her chin—“you will see that a number of them were not quite instinctive enough.”

  Khalid then did notice three bodies hanging by the neck between the four columns of the entrance to what looked to him like an old town hall, or Rathaus.

  “Here’s our turn,” Khalid said, putting the lynched politicos out of his mind. Immediately to their right, as they made the turn, was a white ashlar building. Under the moonlight, they could just make out the hand-painted sign, “Islamischevereinsbank.”

  Past the bank were what appeared to be apartments, one of them labeled “2.”

  “I hope,” said Khalid, “that there aren’t too many apartments for that one entrance.”

  “This keeps getting harder, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  “Before I make a pronouncement on that, let’s see if we can’t get up on the roof of one of these buildings. I need to find a pickup zone where we’re not too likely to be shot at while we load. Failing that, we need one where we can hold them off while we await the helicopter . . . potentially for several hours, if we don’t time it right.”

  Tauran Union Defense Agency Headquarters, Lumiere, Gaul

  The “hospital,” for certain highly constrained values of “hospital,” had actually been set up in one of the latrines in the basement. It stank, of course, but at least there was running water. It was also reasonably protected from the more or less continuous sniper fire, while the tile floor and walls lent themselves to easy and certain cleaning.

  There was still a goodly supply of denatured alcohol. The chief medic in the building, Gallic Sergeant Pangracs, had made enough alcohol lamps out of old cans and whatnot that one could see well enough to navigate, well enough to treat, to the extent he could treat, and well enough for Jan to see what he was doing.

  If I can tell him to do it, I can at least give him moral support while he does.

  Jan knew the number remaining to her by heart. There had been some seven hundred and twenty-five people when the rebellion broke out. Three hundred and eleven of those had been civilian, about two-thirds male, and over eighty
percent Gauls. All of the civilian women had been ordered out, before the flanks collapsed, leaving two hundred and seven males. One hundred and fifty-one of those males had elected to stay and fight, while fifty-six had taken their leave. Since there hadn’t been, initially, enough rifles for all of them, they’d been let go willingly. Of the one hundred and fifty-one, sixty-three were now dead, and stuffed into rooms in the basement, thirty-one among the walking wounded, fourteen among the nonambulatory and, in the main, “expectant” wounded, and only forty-three still able to fight.

  Of the four hundred and fourteen military, some fifty-nine had been drafted to help form up and take charge of the civilian militia being raised outside the headquarters. Of the remaining three hundred and fifty-five, ninety-seven were dead, with all but one of their bodies rotting in the basement. One hundred and twenty-six had been more or less badly wounded. Of those, seventy-four had been evacuated before the flanks collapsed and the building was surrounded. Fifty-two, pus the fourteen civilians, were in the makeshift hospital under Sergeant Pangracs’ care.

  About half of those still able to fight were wounded to some extent. Even three of Jan’s own SAS troopers bore wounds to some degree or another, though only one was serious.

  Two hundred and six, including a few of the tougher women in that figure, and including also all of the walking wounded, remained approximately able to fight.

  Two hundred and six, thought Jan, including in that number some limpers and some lame, are all I have to try to cut our way out with. Or maybe a few less; some will certainly lose their nerve and stay behind.

  Pangracs was a big boy. She remembered him from earlier months as being rather beefy. Short rations, stress, and despair had slimmed him down almost to the point of emaciation. Looking at him caused her to look down at her own sadly deflated chest.