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

by Walter Blaire

  “I give you orders.” Sethlan gave him a dark smile. “But who leads us?”

  “The dashta leads.”

  “You’re gearing up for a reason. There’s a nightsong in your blood. You’re going out to chase down some Happies, just like the soldiers at the front.”

  “Which they only deserve.”

  “The Haphans took our dashta. They took Nana. It’s the only thing she fears, being separated from her boys. Being dissevered of her unit, with not a man to pester, or baby, or feed poison to. But Diggery knows where she is, and we’re going to get her back.”

  They met this with awed silence.

  “You know your histories,” Sethlan said. “What happens when a dashta is taken from her boys?”

  “It doesn’t turn out well,” said Pleural.

  “You don’t steal a dashta,” said another.

  “And you don’t order a summary on her,” Sethlan said. “The Haphans are going to strangle her and toss her onto the body pile. We won’t see her alive, ever again. Nana is afraid.” Sethlan knew he had them. “There’s fighting in the Haphan Quarter already, and we have to get her out. We’re going through any Haphan or Tachba that tries to stop us.”

  20

  Gawarty

  Gawarty goosed the general’s staff car down the street, dodging piles of furniture and the occasional solid block of fleeing refugees. The general and his staff had evacuated the front on armored carriers, and his father’s last assignment was to get Jephia out of Ville Emsa. By the look of the Haphan Quarter, it was a good idea.

  The building housing Jephia’s Native Affairs was in turmoil. He pulled up behind a huge troop carrier and watched orderlies toss full filing cabinet drawers bodily out of the windows into the truck’s bed. He tried the front door, but it was clogged with staffers maneuvering desk-sized calculating machines through the halls. The back entrance was still clear, though a steady snowfall of forms and paperwork from some unknown source above slowly coated and raised the exposed surfaces. The floor was three inches thick with messenger paper.

  He came across Jephia on the landing just beneath her offices. She was leaving the dimly lit cell block when he called her name. She turned quickly, then holstered the pistol in her hand. “You know, Warty, not half an hour ago, Daddy wired that you were with him.”

  “He sent me with the car to collect you. Terrific driving, I took the train tracks like a steam cart. There is nothing moving—as if our side of the front is just gone.”

  She led him back up the stairs. “Our Tachba stood firm under Daddy. Everywhere else in the Ville Emsa sector, they shot their generals and walked away. Here in the Quarter, we have enough Happie aristocracy for a coronation, and they’re shitting themselves, all of them refusing to take control. Any Sessies still in the trenches are unsupported and unsupplied, since they wisely knocked over their own supply trains. Naturally the tracks are empty—there’s nothing running.”

  They entered Jephia’s office, and Gawarty went straight for the bar.

  “Pour one for me—” Jephia began, but then saw him drinking straight from the water decanter. “When the Tacchie artillery began, we didn’t have much to answer with. No munitions. Our artillery limbered and got the hell out. The whole Haphan side of the military is marching away, overland.” Jephia shuddered. “There is nothing between us and the Moon Kingdoms but six miles of dirt, Warty. This is the end for us, certainly for Ville Emsa. It’s very likely the end of the war.”

  “If we can’t answer their barrage,” Gawarty said, “they will crawl up to see what is going wrong.”

  “They will.” Jephia smiled briefly. “I remember one night, I was on the line. A Southie whispered to me from the outside my shell hole. They were sending over an attack soon, and were we ready yet?”

  “So it won’t be long. When can you leave?”

  Jephia poured herself a glass of wine, and then emptied the remainder of the decanter on the floor. “Most of my staff is gone, so I’m off the leash.” She gestured around her office. It was broken down to sticks and leering empty drawers. “Did you see, I re-decorated?”

  “Jeph, are you all right?”

  “No, Warty.” She gave a wet sob of laughter. “I am the Native Affairs. Under my nose, the entire Promise breaks down. Tachba not reporting for duty, trains waylaid, Haphans shot. My career is done, but I don’t mind that because I’m a steady drinker. What are you looking at?”

  Gawarty had paused by the window, staring. The street had gone empty and quiet. Gunshots sounded in the distance.

  Jephia crossed the office quickly and shouldered Gawarty aside. At some point, the large troop carrier had driven off, and the only thing left in the street was Tawarna’s command car.

  The doors and windows on the opposite buildings were closed and secured—or as closed and secured as they could get in the Haphan Quarter.

  “Nothing is happening…”

  She shook her head and spun the roller at the bottom of the window. It cracked slightly. Gawarty heard faint whistles. The isolated, distant sounds in the otherwise empty view chilled him to the bone.

  “They’re coming,” she said grimly.

  “It can’t be the South,” Gawarty said. “Not already.”

  “Those are Sesseran whistles. You don’t whistle in their presence. We have our Tagwa battle language, and they have hand signs and whistles. Hands and whistles.”

  A few blocks away, a Haphan repeater coughed. It started up and didn’t stop for a long time. There were a few pops, and a chorus of shouts. The repeater died away, but soon picked up again.

  “Oggie gees,” Gawarty said. “I guess they’re trying to clean it out.”

  Jephia pointed. A Sesseran in front-line kit edged around the corner, surveying the building frontages. He held up a curled hand where other soldiers would see it on the side street, and then sprinted for an open doorway. His acceleration was astonishing. He was through the door and into the shadows before Gawarty could draw a breath.

  “I think he signed ‘house has visitors,’” Jephia said. “They know the buildings are full. They’ll come at us city-style. That first one will shoot his way to the roof and then start whistling. In fact, we should get away from the window.”

  Neither of them moved.

  As they watched, Tachba poured around the corner and through the doors of the corner buildings. They came in broken intervals to frustrate snipers. Even so, when a nearby Haphan repeater burst to life, it gunned down an entire column. The soldiers collapsed against the wall and slid to the ground. Gawarty gave an ambivalent nod of satisfaction, but then the Tachba stood again—all but a few—and sprinted in every direction, leaving blood on the sidewalk.

  Jephia told him, “Those are Sesseran soldiers, cream of the crop. We’re in for a treat. All the built-in Tachba skills and all the Haphan military training.”

  “Who do we have in our building?”

  “Probably a few hundred clerks, scattered around. They’re crapping themselves and hiding in closets. I would be too, but this blouse wrinkles.”

  The next squad entered the street at a full run, shooting from the hip. “That’s us,” Jephia said, and pulled him down.

  A line of bullets splintered the glass above them.

  When they glanced back over, the gun-battle was raging but there was little to be seen. The primary fighting was in the buildings or back-and-forth across the empty street.

  Gawarty said, reluctant, ”Jeph, you won’t like this, but I know those men. Those are the 314th Observers down there.”

  “Yes, if you told me that, I would surely become suspicious.”

  Since no more shots came their way, and the battle seemed to be sinking deeper into the buildings, Gawarty risked another glance over the sill.

  “And there’s Sethlan.”

  They watched the man stride into the street, pointing and shouting instructions.

  “I really can’t explain this,” Gawarty said.

  Jephia grinned
at the anguish in his voice. “Don’t worry. He’s still a ‘good guy.’ I stole his dashta, is all, and I expected this would happen. Of course, I also thought we’d have some negotiating room when he arrived.”

  Sethlan’s hands flickered. Soldiers peeled out of the shadows and charged to the next covert. They quickly converged on Jephia’s building. Sethlan seemed indifferent to any danger, walking down the middle of the street with only a few other officers around him.

  “Is it over that fast?” Gawarty said. “Won’t they shoot him down?”

  “If we weren’t all paper-pushers, we might have kept them on the street for a while. But instead, we’re meeting them in the buildings. It will be slower work that way, but it won’t help us in the long run. Hold on—what’s that?”

  A Haphan shopkeeper charged into the street with a broom.

  He ran directly at Sethlan, who slowed his steps, puzzled. When the shopkeeper reversed the broom and stabbed with its handle, Sethlan brushed it aside and tried to move on. He received a crack over the skull with the handle.

  Sethlan turned back with intimidating speed, but the shopkeeper was already swinging again. The Sesseran finally moved for real, catching the stick and pulling his pistol.

  There was a shot, and the civilian fell to the cobblestones.

  “Was that man drunk?”

  More Haphans emerged on the street, even children. They charged out and fell on the Tachba soldiers.

  “What are they doing?” Jephia spluttered. “This… This is foul.”

  It only took moments for the Tachba to lose all patience. They clubbed the civilian attackers with rifle stocks. Gawarty saw one child, broken arm dangling, rise to her feet and attack another soldier. The bulk of the civilians formed a spearhead which pointed at Sethlan himself. They threatened to overwhelm his guard even though the Tachba had finally started shooting.

  “Axabascht zsanglasit-schaxlach!” Sethlan shouted, his familiar voice faint in Gawarty’s ears.

  “He said ‘walking corpses have no song,’” Jephia murmured, puzzled. “He called those people actors? Well, the Sesserans will be gentler, for what that’s worth. They like entertainers.”

  Abandoning the odd melee, the 314th charged Jephia’s building and gained it easily, leaving behind the scattered bodies of civilians and at least a dozen Observer officers walking circles.

  The floors below Gawarty and Jephia erupted in gunfire, shouts, and then screams.

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” Gawarty said. The civilians were still chasing the soldiers—chasing Sethlan.

  “It’s enough to know where Semelon is going.” Jephia said with forced calm. “Sergeant Twigath! Get in here!”

  Footsteps behind them.

  “Twigath, go free the dashta. Free, I said, so she can walk around and talk, and then meet us at the back stairs. We’re sneaking out the back door, Haphan-style.”

  There was no answer. Gawarty glanced at Jephia, and saw her wince with understanding.

  “Sergeant Twigath,” she said softly.

  “I didn’t see any Sergeant Twigath,” Diggery said behind them, “but I’ll be sure to pass the message to—”

  Jephia moved with blinding speed.

  Diggery was speaking—Gawarty wasn’t really listening, he was so used to blocking the helpie out—and in the middle of his sentence, Jephia kicked herself off the wall and into the lee of a filing cabinet, where Diggery couldn’t see her.

  That left Gawarty himself, sprawled under the window in front of Diggery’s pointed pistol. Gawarty tried to work out why he wasn’t already dead; this seemed to be the day for shooting Haphans, after all. It made sense when he saw Jephia motion for him to keep still: Diggery couldn’t shoot him without being shot by Jephia, but he also couldn’t take cover without losing Gawarty, who was essentially keeping him safe. By moving so quickly, Jephia had kept them both alive, but essentially pinned Gawarty and Diggery in the open.

  Diggery trailed off and huffed with annoyance. “So I have to keep my gun on you, Warty, sorry. I’ll be shot the second I point it somewhere else.” He thought for a moment, and added, “She is armed, isn’t she?”

  “Of course she is,” Gawarty said automatically, and then checked to see if it was true. She had slid her pistol out of the holster under her arm.

  “I didn’t shoot either of you,” Diggery said loudly. “Jephia, I’m not here to kill anybody. In fact, I’m breaking orders.”

  “Here I am,” Jephia said, popping over the filing cabinet with her gun leading. “Don’t move, and don’t fire that gun. I’ll shoot you dead. You think you’re faster than me, really?”

  “Frankly, yes,” Diggery said.

  “What did you say about breaking orders? Of course I know you’re breaking orders, Diggery. All the snappies in the world have gone insane and are breaking orders.”

  Diggery shook his head. “Then I mean I’m breaking those orders, the new insane ones. I’m supposed to be hunting for Nana—but I figure she can stew for a few minutes longer.”

  “You’re wasting my time, as usual. Won’t you just tell me what you want?”

  “I want…” Diggery hesitated. His eyes drifted down, though the barrel of his gun never wavered from Gawarty’s chest. “I want—another sandwich.”

  Jephia stared at him.

  “I can’t stop thinking about that sandwich we shared. Do you remember?”

  “I know the one.” Jephia said slowly. “That night when I asked you to talk to Cephas,” she added, clearly for Gawarty’s benefit.

  “It turns out I killed Cephas,” Diggery admitted, “but it was never the fault of the sandwich.”

  Jephia’s face stayed hard. “Look, Diggery, it’s very nice for a girl to hear that someone likes her cooking. If you lower your gun and back away, I might even let you live.”

  “I’m here to help, Jephia. Your Haphans are folding like garden-chairs, and there’s no getting away. You’ll need me to keep people from being shot, people like yourselves. If not for your sake, then think of your brother’s safety.”

  “That would be more touching if you weren’t holding him hostage. I can do quite fine on my own, without any help. Only I need you gone.”

  Diggery flinched. “But I want to stay with you!”

  ~There is a snappie near your location.~

  “What?” Gawarty glanced around wildly. He did not recognize the voice and there was nobody else in the room.

  “Geh?” Diggery’s attention turned back to him.

  ~He’s a big bastard named Sethlan Semelon. Just aim for the highest-ranking Tachba officer you see, will you? I’m taking your body for a moment. Kindly look around and see if there are other people near you. There is so much scattered glass I can’t find a firm lock…~

  “Who are you?” Gawarty’s limbs shook. He watched in horror as one leg bent and gathered underneath him.

  “What are you doing, Warty?” Diggery said. “Just stay still, if you please—”

  Jephia risked a glance in his direction. “Warty, stay put!”

  Gawarty fought the compulsion in his limbs, but it only made him unsteady. He slowly clambered to his feet.

  “Don’t do that!” Diggery sang tensely.

  Gawarty’s hand moved to his side-arm.

  ~Tell them not to shoot you, please,~ said the voice in Gawarty’s head. ~I need you for a few minutes more, so you can kill Semelon.~

  Gawarty clamped down on his mouth, refusing to speak. If that voice wanted him to do something, then by hell he would die first.

  Jephia stood up, completely exposed. “Warty, he will kill you! Do you think Diggery really cares? Don’t be stupid, Warty!”

  ~This is too slow,~ the Voice said. A blinding explosion inside Gawarty’s head, and control drained from his limbs. It was the ugliest sensation Gawarty had ever experienced. He fought against it, mind convulsing, knowing he would lose.

  “What is he doing?” Jephia asked Diggery.

  “It’s his eyes. I�
��d say it’s the ancestors taking over, like on the streets.” Diggery’s eyes followed Gawarty’s hand on the pistol, tracking its movement as it rose in his direction. Warty was going to well-and-good shoot Diggery. Diggery’s pistol trembled in his hand as he overcame his defensive reflex. Diggery was trying to wait until the last possible moment…

  Jephia turned with her gun. It coughed in her hand and Gawarty dropped to the floor. Jephia and Diggery stared at the body in silent shock.

  The body emitted a gargled laugh.

  Diggery sighed in relief, and dropped his own weapon. “Shoot me, Jephia. I’m done with madness today.”

  Jephia ignored him. She ran from behind the cabinet and knelt over her brother. “I just winged you,” she said, “I promise!”

  “It’s gone,” Gawarty said. “I’m back, the voice is gone. I’m sorry to be such a pain. You’re crying!”

  She snorted. “I’m crying because I always wanted to shoot you.”

  “It’s too late: I’ve already seen that you care.”

  Rather than meet her brother’s greedy stare, she turned back to Diggery. Over his shoulder, she saw a pair of Observer officers enter the office. They were bleeding from several wounds, and glowing with the hurt.

  “We could use your protection,” Jephia told Diggery.

  “What a good idea,” Diggery said. “I wish I’d thought of that. Here’s another one: if they get their dashta, they’ll leave you alone.”

  Jephia told the boots where they could find Nana, and they saluted her, just as if everything were normal. She glanced back at Diggery. His eyes had stayed on her face the whole brief conversation.

  “I must look ravaged,” she said. She pushed her hair out of her face, leaving a streak of blood across her temple. She waited until Diggery noticed the blood, and then her eyes flashed, just for him, before she turned back to tend to Gawarty.

  21

  Sethlan

  Sethlan heard a gasp behind him and turned.

  Pleural, a long-lived and flexible lieutenant, stopped in his tracks. He shivered and then gasped, “The ancestors say I should shoot you, Semelon.”