The Eternal Front: A Lines of Thunder Novel (Lines of Thunder Universe)

by Walter Blaire

  “Queen,” Mourner said sternly. “You have to make sense.”

  Nana met her gaze. “We lead the men, but we can only lead them one direction at a time, can’t we? The helpful idiots. If there is any room for confusion, they will find it. The bosses who are not in our loop, like Goldros and Bucephalon—they will see an opening, and want to move in with all sorts of nonsense. We must have something simple. Something that the lowest boots can repeat without forgetting. We must have something that can withstand any order from the Haphans. We tell them, refuse to move. Refuse orders. Refuse to attack. Refuse to retreat. Refuse to move.”

  Mesma said, “It’s a stop-order, isn’t it? Which they’ve been learning since birth. Refuse to move.”

  “Refuse to move,” the women repeated.

  The next few women were called by the nurse at the door. Nana would be called next. She finished quickly, “The word must be spread through the dashtas, and it must be done here and now. The stop-order must reach every division stationed around Emsa. There is not much time. A day, at most, before I am discovered.”

  She heard the sudden intake of breath around her, and couldn’t meet their eyes. She might have no choice but to be important, but it was still embarrassing.

  “Refusing to move is not an answer for the problem,” said the Mourner. “By itself, it will lead to a lot of wasted young men.”

  There is no more time to discuss this. She wished the old crone would just shut up and follow. With an edge in her voice, she answered, “Ah, but you saw how long I had to argue for those three simple words. Must I really unfold the entire game and make you all conspirators?”

  The Haphan nurse called Nana’s name.

  And thank goodness for that, Nana thought, even as she drew tense. She didn’t have an ‘entire game’ to unfold anyway.

  “Refuse to move,” she repeated. “It is really a simple thing and a service both to Sessera and the empire. We should all wish to be so useful with so little effort. Refuse to move.”

  “Refuse to move,” they repeated, even the Mourner.

  Nana broke away and moved slowly to the nurse with the clipboard. The other women were too discreet to stare, but she felt their eyes on her as she walked. She never had to turn; the way opened for her. She was used to this in the club and on the streets of Ville Emsa, but not in a gathering of other dashtas. She was well and truly separate from them, now, wasn’t she? She was something important in their minds, for better or worse, and she had better think of her next steps after the hospital before her weird momentum carried all of them over a cliff. Either that, or find a way to disappear altogether and be done with it.

  Luckily, the nurse was oblivious to the attention; to the women, and to Nana’s watering eyes. “You are Nanatique Naremsa, the 314th’s whore?”

  “Nana, dashta-meh, and you’re a broken fingernail.”

  The nurse glanced up with a slight smile, not entirely unkind. She opened the door and led Nana down the hall, rustling papers. “Your third review since the flu struck, and no prescriptions. Have you been visiting a pharmacienne?”

  “I am a pharmacienne,” Nana told her.

  “But have you been using homeopathic remedies? Mixtures and reductions and the like? ‘Magical’ potions?”

  “Of every description.”

  The nurse made disapproving marks on the page and then hung the clipboard on the door of one of the examination rooms. “Through here, and wait for the doctor.”

  She pushed the door open with the back of her heel, then turned down the hall. Nana stepped through and heard the door click behind her.

  She was not alone.

  She saw the uniforms first—two tall Haphans, almost as big as Tachba, in the undecorated, utilitarian dark gray of Native Affairs. They stood as still as gargoyles, with dead faces and small repeater rifles in their hands.

  Nana was not afraid of them, never of men. However, they were merely bookends for the slim, gorgeous woman in the middle. The woman was a colonel, elegant and fragile compared to the muscle, but with cynical eyes that seemed to pry Nana apart.

  “You’re hard to catch alone,” the woman said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “On the streets at night, you have no less than thirty boots shadowing your every step. Or weren’t you aware?” The woman watched her closely for a moment, then gave an indifferent shrug. “We’ll find out soon enough, I suppose. Bag her.”

  One of the men stepped forward, with—this can’t be happening! He held a large burlap sack, its drawstring gathered in his hand.

  Nana had always believed she would fight. That she would struggle at least. But he was so large and practiced, and the bag was so…odd. It closed over her head and blanked out the room, and in a moment it was tied around her ankles

  “I— I’m supposed to have an exam. The doctor…” Her voice bounced back at her inside the sack. Her knees trembled.

  “Oh please,” said the woman. “You’re implicated in the murder of Captain Cephas. Tell me I have the wrong person. We’re bringing you back for questioning, and then you’ll be strangled and thrown into the body pile behind the building. It’s what we do with all the little girls.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. You can confess or not; I really don’t care. You’re already dead, Nana, you just haven’t been squeezed yet. I have your medical form here. I’m writing, ‘Went to her death without a fight.’ What a calm end to a life you surely thought was special.”

  Move, you stupid girl, she told herself. Do something. Do anything! But she only stood, docile, listening to the sounds of their preparations. Just as her legs finally gave out, one of the men hoisted her to his shoulder. She still didn’t move, she didn’t kick, and he seemed to know she wouldn’t. She was already nothing more than a corpse.

  “You sure you don’t need another few guns to cover this one?” one of the men joked in Tagwa. “Wasn’t she supposed to be a minx?”

  The reply was low. Nana wouldn’t have heard it, except that she had nothing but her ears left to her. “Naw. These slight girls are built from scratch for easy killing.”

  15

  Gawarty

  “The incoming is picking up,” Sethlan said brusquely when Drivvy dropped the three of them at the front. “Since this is a Happie unit holding the trench, Gawarty, won’t you root out the general for us?”

  A month ago, Gawarty would have prepared an explanation and apology. Now, he simply collared a passing Haphan regular, a young woman with tired eyes, covered in grime. He met the soldier’s hollow stare with one of his own.

  “I wonder if General Tawarna still quarters near here.”

  The soldier’s mouth worked for a moment before she found her voice. “Straight up that communication, sir, just follow the line of messengers. Everybody knows where Old Sticks is. Give him a cheer for us.”

  Gawarty nodded and led the way, polling soldiers at every turn to build a consensus picture of the general’s location. In twenty minutes Gawarty had a firm lock on the command bunker, and in thirty the three of them were trudging down the stairs.

  This was a deep bunker, fifty feet of claustrophobic stairway. Because the earth was riddled with granite, sometimes the passage shrank to a crawl-space, bordered by intruding stones. They only continued because the Sesseran soldier guarding the entrance had sounded quite certain he was guarding the right hole in the ground. Gawarty led the way since it was nominally a Haphan crevice, and was the first to stick his head through the trap door and see his father’s body.

  General Tawarna was dead—or so it seemed when Gawarty climbed into the room. The general’s form was stiff and unmoving on the folding chair, his legs askew and his mouth open, eyes staring unfixed over Gawarty’s head. The barrage roiled overhead, bowing the ceiling beams and causing the packed earth floor to jump. With so much minor movement, Gawarty had to watch for a long, still moment before he saw his father breathe.

  “Only sleepin’, Ribbon,” Thache muttered from the d
arkness.

  Gawarty located the servant lying on the floor where he could keep an eye on the general. His head was at an odd angle against the wall, making him look like a child’s doll cast aside.

  “Does he always sleep like a snake?”

  “He does now,” Thache said.

  Sethlan glanced around with every sign of disapproval. No furniture except what could be moved through that sphincter-like passageway. No desk. In fact, no paperwork at all, unheard of for a general, even a fighting general.

  “Are we in the right place?” Sethlan asked, and they all knew what he meant.

  As if in answer, they were jostled from behind, and a messenger finished climbing out of the hole.

  “Which keepin’ it clear-la,” the messenger said cheerfully, birthing himself through the floor. “Reports for the genny. Papa! Reports.”

  Tawarna’s face swiveled toward the hole. “Let’s hear them.”

  “I have three, your grace. It’s like a fucking democracy, innit. Captain Sophie is unbudged and having fun, but the Southies are not giving up and he’s running low on doggie gees, isn’t he, and wouldn’t some relief just answer? From Lord Piss-Bucket, he has some dreadnought shells landing, he could use a few interdiction tail-heads to maybe give his boys some peace. And lastly, Captain Talmon needs to maintenance his trench but he’s short on trenching tools; all their gear got stolen when Southie washed over them and fell back.”

  Tawarna clucked. “That’s too easy, soldier. Lord Piss-Bucket won’t be meeting any Tacchies soon, so tell him to get away from the barrage—he can move down the trench to assist Captain Sophie. Tell him to leave his trenching tools behind, and then tell Talmon to send a detail to fetch the tools. That’s all of them, right?”

  “Right as rain,” said the messenger, ducking back down. “And the line is saved.”

  The general’s head swiveled back, but before he could go still again, Gawarty said, “Daddy, it’s Warty.”

  “Warty! Here?” Tawarna sat up stiffly, gave a death’s head grin. “Ribbon, I’d wanted to see you at the last.”

  “At the last? You’re not dying.” Gawarty glanced at Thache, who shrugged.

  “I am preparing to lay my head down for a time. I doubt I’ll wake up before our imbecile counter-offensive is smashed flat.”

  “You must get to the hospital,” Gawarty said.

  “I’m going to be carried out, now or later. In six hours, it won’t matter if I look dead while they do it. For now, I can’t show my face like this.” He gave a one-sided shrug. “Enough about me. Is Jephia working?”

  “Jephia is engaged,” Gawarty said neutrally.

  “Is she tied down? Or is she active?”

  Gawarty still didn’t know what his father meant. “She’s…solving problems.”

  “Wracking and cracking. You would not know it, but she loves the Tachba more than any of us. It’s what makes her interesting. It’s her conflict, and don’t we all have one?” The general yawned hugely. “I never gave a soft turd for the clapper dances, for the arm soup. I just thought I would know a good soul when I saw it. I never thought I was living my sorry life backwards, like some sad fuck. We Haphans are being knifed in an alley, typical snappie style.”

  “Father, I have brought Haut Captain Semelon,” Gawarty said.

  “I’m not saying anything Semelon doesn’t already understand.” The general’s eyes found Sethlan, and he lurched abruptly to his feet. “Semelon, I always thought that if I was useful, the Sesserans would see it and be useful as well.”

  Sethlan’s eyes dropped.

  “I’ve lost control of this place.” The general said, his voice a creak. “Have we forgotten that the complete and utter death of the empire crouches only fifty yards in that direction? I’ve had Haphans attacked by our own Sesserans, assaulted in the trenches by parties of feral Sessies. Done in the view of the South. I’ve had my orders refused by Sesseran officers. Refused. What the hell is going on, Semelon?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” Sethlan answered. His voice was so odd, Gawarty turned to him.

  He’s lying, dammit! Sethlan is lying, but he doesn’t lie! Tacchies don’t lie! Gawarty felt sick, nearly as sick as Sethlan now looked, as the captain realized what he’d done. He did not lie well, and they all had to be aware of his deception hanging in the air. It made the general even angrier.

  “There are more Sesserans leaving their posts than arriving to fill them, Semelon! I have neither the time nor the energy to cajole you into being a proper soldier today. Please be useful and simply tell me what the hell is happening out there.”

  Sethlan bristled, but before he could respond with something improper, Thache passed between them. “Which I will get our regular tea service for the guests.”

  “Oh, fuck off, Thache,” Tawarna snapped.

  The old aide waved a hand, not even slowing. “Tea fixes everything, general.”

  They all watched Thache lower himself gingerly into the hole, wincing together when he chirped his shin against the granite edge.

  “Lord General,” Sethlan said, calmer, “I see from the preparations that the offensive is still planned. The attack will fail, the South will counter-attack, and we will be overrun. Any Sesserans who are taking a holiday today will simply be more strength tomorrow.”

  “Oh, not good enough!” the general cried. “Was that supposed to sound reasonable? The empire will not be philosophical about wretched animals that leave their posts. We’re the goddamned Hapha; we’re a damned interstellar empire. I have family silverware older than your race! You fucking liar! You liar! You’re breaking the Promise!”

  “Father!” Gawarty rushed forward and kept him from actually striking Sethlan. The old man was kindling in his arms. Gawarty bundled him back to his seat and glanced up at Sethlan.

  The haut captain was…untouched. That was the word. His father’s accusations would have scourged any servitor Tachba in a normal frame of mind. On Sethlan’s face there was nothing of concern, shame, or hurt to be found.

  Gawarty only knew of one reason for this level of indifference: it was an indicator inculcated into his training since boot camp. It meant the Tacchie had already taken a decision, irreversibly taken it, and his decision was worth neither revisiting nor regret. A Tachba who stopped caring, who couldn’t be reached with insult or praise, was the most dangerous creature on Grigory IV. The survival of Gawarty and his father might well be measured in seconds.

  Gawarty unclipped the cover of his holster before standing and turning.

  “Better business!” cried a surprised voice from the hole. “Better business, if you please! Put it up!”

  They turned to the new messenger, who was addressing Diggery. Diggery had a pistol out, his eyes on Gawarty’s hand.

  “General, trouble is on the way,” said the Sesseran messenger. “Won’t you please summon some Haphan muscle to the bunker?”

  “Haphan muscle?” Gawarty’s stomach lurched. “Why Haphan soldiers?”

  “I’m ashamed to say,” the messenger shrugged. “You’ll want some nice guns here, and maybe a medic for the general’s aide.”

  “A few details, if it doesn’t trouble you,” Gawarty snapped.

  The messenger opened his mouth to answer, but then disappeared down the hole with the sudden deafening sound of a gunshot. He was replaced by a rising haze of smoke, and then a new head rose above the floor, a grinning Sesseran officer, who emerged to show captain patches on his shoulders and a heavy pistol in his hand. There was something about that grin which Gawarty recognized.

  “Put it up,” the officer told Diggery, who slowly obeyed and holstered his pistol again. “I’m just another boot, la, coming up for air. Won’t you move over and stay in front of me?”

  The lieutenant climbed out and holstered his own pistol. “Well, Old Sticks himself! Very pleased, very pleased.” He gave a quick bow. “Acquaintance. Captain Panthan Elyseuran, your acquaintance.”

  “From the Trench Express!” Ga
warty blurted, not daring to hope. Here was an experienced trench fighter, proud of his commission. Perhaps the odds in the bunker had just improved.

  Panthan glanced at him, then his eyes widened. “My old friend Gawarty. On the train south, and me barging into your cabin to share a nice chat. It’s a pleasure to meet you again.”

  “Perhaps you can explain…” Gawarty began, before he remembered the messenger’s face and Panthan’s pistol. “You shot the boy?”

  “All messengers must be killed today,” Panthan adopted a doleful expression. “I am so sorry to meet again like this.”

  “Shall we get on with it?” the general said tightly.

  The captain saluted him, and said, “We shot your helpie. He’s up in the trench bleeding out.”

  “You shot Thache? Dead?” Diggery straightened.

  “Not dead,” Panthan said. “No one had the heart to bullet his brain—we know him too well. He’s too evil to ever kill completely, so he’s waiting up there for a corpsman and maybe some patching.”

  “You are dissembling and wasting time,” Sethlan said slowly. “I am your superior and you will tell me your orders.”

  “With respect, then,” Panthan said airily, “I’ve been ordered to remove our Haphan leash. My squad is clearing the trench of Haphan officers, any who don’t have the sense to flee. Which turns out to be surprisingly many! We’re running low on ammunition, so I decided to come right to the top of the problem.” He turned back to the general. “You see, Old Sticks, some historical decisions have been made, unfortunately for your ilk. We don’t need Haphans around, shouting orders that will only confuse our men. You’re to be shot, beheaded, put on a pike, and carried through the trenches, and maybe the other imperials will get the message and finally leave us alone.”

  “I…” Gawarty started.

  Panthan paused, wryly polite. When Gawarty trailed off, he turned back to the general and continued. “It will be quick, sir, too quick to worry about. I have a firing squad in the trench. The next man up the stairs will be shot on sight, and we won’t miss.”