Ashes of Freedom

by K. J. Coble

  “Why not fire her up?” Cameron asked, voice high with excitement and wonder.

  “And let every Korvan on the continent know where we are?” Vorsh snarled.

  The main screen glowed with a holographic map of the station. It went down several levels still, hallways and chambers spread out in a web around the central shaft. The particle cannon, itself, extended up through the face of the mountain but would be hidden under buried blast doors.

  Crozier scanned the map and found what he was looking for. He pointed to a holographic chamber on one of the lowest levels and said, “And give me an inventory reading for the armory, level 7, please.”

  “Cursory diagnostic shows all primary systems at nominal. Complete evaluation will require reactor power-up.” A quadrant of the map divided off with a checklist of systems flashing green. The armory chamber blinked in blue. “Last inventory check shows armory at full capacity.”

  Enough small arms and heavy weaponry for an understrength battalion. Crozier allowed a weary grin. He swiveled his seat to look at his companions.

  Cameron smiled back, energy smoothing his young face. Janotski’s features wrinkled in excitement, moisture forming in his eyes. Vorsh stood somewhat apart in apparent disinterest but the flash of needle teeth in an upturned mouth could not be mistaken.

  Ro’s ears had drawn up, the tips quivering as he came to lay a hand on Crozier’s shoulder. “I never really believed them,” the Grak said, his voice nearly a purr. “It’s all here.”

  Crozier patted the Grak’s hand. “It is. Go tell the others. You’ve been fighting the Korvans for a long time.”

  “Now, we’re going to start hurting them!”

  BOOK II – SPRING

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dread and defeat hung heavy about Outpost 9, like the scent of warm feces. The sensation grew ripe, pungent as Zarven’s dropship shuddered with the strain of braking gravity drives. Zarven stretched out his mind, took in the individual harmonics of the garrison, the demoralization of Hausts, Fanrohausts, even the jittery, herd-animal unease of the more developed, aware Minrohausts.

  The Korvans tasked with bringing the southeastern Coreal Valley Military District into line were beaten.

  The Dorex touched the ground with a groan of worn landing gears and a thousand stressed joints. Out of synch gravity drives wailed and a subliminal part of Zarven could make out the unbalanced fields, an odd prickling along the back of his neck. The wail rose to a shriek before falling silent. Zarven grimaced inwardly at the garbage Dramen-Singlo had left him to work with.

  Zarven was out of his seat and restraints before the forward hatch had finished dropping. Powerful steps carried him out onto the blastcrete of Outpost 9’s landing pad where the air was bright with Lurinari’s primary but still chilled with a last hint of winter.

  Outpost 9 sat atop a cleared hill in the midst of the Coreal foothills, surrounded by slopes of razor-grass already green with spring and speckled with blasts of color. Hills rose, in some cases much higher than the installation, grim and wreathed in tendrils of lingering morning mist. Lowlands were forested or thick with marsh, except where the gray slash of the Military Highway cut through, the artery that fed the Outpost. An artery pinched so tightly of late by guerilla activity that much of the base’s supplies had to be brought in by air.

  The base, itself, lay in a tight oval. A high embankment formed the perimeter, reinforced with electrified barbed wire, blastcrete bunkers, revetments for artillery, and unseen sensor suites. Beyond, mine fields, tank traps, and improvisations Zarven would have to guess at for the time being.

  Zarven strode across the field, noting with distaste the potholes and general deterioration of the landing pad. He took in the row of neatly parked assault skimmers, six of the one-seat Braka-class scouts and a pair of the heavier, two-seat Vendo-class ground support models. A Haust and a Fanrohaust bent over the open maintenance panels of one of the insect-like Brakas, but its sister craft lay dormant, neglected.

  A breeze picked up. Zarven felt his cloak loosen and billow behind him, heavy black silk fashioned by the defeated Srazak race—worthy Minrohausts, those—lined with a shiny blood red to match the trim of his Commando dress black. The cape was well beyond regulation—and had cost Zarven no small amount—but conveyed the image he desired. He didn’t want to scare the garrison of Outpost 9; endless months of attrition and poor leadership had already done that. No, Zarven wanted to take them beyond fear, beyond defeatism, to a place where maybe they might remember that they were soldiers and Korvans.

  Steel-shod boots rang on blastcrete as Churvak’s platoon unloaded. The air began to wail with the gravity drives of another Dorex coming in. Fanrohausts and work details of Minrohausts spilled onto the pads to assist. Their harmonics cringed at the idea of coming near the Commandos, but withered more at nightmares of punishment for lack of zeal. Their uniforms hung tattered about poorly fed frames.

  “Welcome, HaustColonel,” spoke the voice of the Outpost Commander, HaustCaptain Merrak.

  Zarven wrinkled his nose at the reek of anxiety on Merrak’s harmonic. He didn’t reply, nor did he require the schematic pulled from his AI to locate the squat bunker near the heart of the complex that housed the command post. The harmonics crammed inside bled fear into the Awareness like an open sore.

  A Minrohaust sentry opened the blastisteel door to the CP. Zarven pulled his cloak about him as he ducked through. He descended steps—careful of the trough of the grenade sump—and followed the single corridor past office doors firmly locked. At the end of the hall glared the lights of what appeared to be the only occupied chamber.

  The command center was a cramped square with unoccupied duty stations along the wall opposite the entrance and a holographic display table dominating the center. Six Hausts stood or sat around the table.

  Merrak stood unevenly at Zarven’s arrival. His bodysuit was stained and frayed and undone at the collar. Gray eyes flickered from dark circles the color of old bruises. Data jack studs at his temples had the faint look of corrosion and fresh bruising around their perimeters suggested recent virtua-fantasy—or some other controlled media—abuse. His left eyelid twitched. He was a mere twenty-nine but the sagging death mask of his face robbed one of any impression of youth.

  “I say again, welcome, HaustColonel,” Merrak repeated. Somewhere, faintly in the background of his harmonic, echoed a jabbering that could either be the madness that greets one at the end of terror or the damage done by mind-altering cyberware.

  “I received you the first time,” Zarven replied with intentional cool.

  He looked the other Hausts over, Merrak’s Executive Officer and four junior HaustLieutenants. The youths had managed to achieve somewhat better hygiene than their commander. One of the juniors had the shaky feel of a media-abuser, though—so hard to tell as the really potent programs distorted the user’s reality so much that the user often had a hard time knowing that they’d done anything wrong.

  “My apologies for the state of things,” Merrak said. “We were only informed of your arrival a few hours ago.”

  “That’s curious, as this was to be a surprise,” Zarven responded with ice shards on his words. He was rewarded with Merrak’s fumbling thoughts and the hazy image of Dramen-Singlo’s warning to his subordinates. Curse the fool’s meddling...

  “It is a surprise...that is—”

  “Make this easier on yourself by quieting your harmonic,” Zarven said, pulsing rage at the other Korvan. Merrak’s features blanched at the shock from the Awareness.

  Zarven stepped over to the table and seated himself, careful to adjust his cloak. The others remained standing and he offered them no invitation to make themselves more comfortable. He wrinkled his nose again, this close to them. They looked like defeat and they smelled like it.

  “We’ll start with an explanation of how things got as they are—or are not, as the case may be,” Zarven said, slipping into a conversational tone.

  He locked g
azes with Merrak and focused on the quivering light that was the officer’s mind. A moment of disorientation, then fear, striking Zarven as a breeze does through freshly opened door. Zarven brushed the impression aside, sought deeper, plowing through the free-fall nausea of Merrak’s panic at being probed, through the layers of weariness, of inadequacy, of frustration.

  Months of pointless skirmishes, ambushes in the rain, the snow, deepest woods, endless valleys, all poured through Zarven. Outpost 9 had enjoyed weighty kill ratios and a string of victories in the early days, only weeks after the fall of Mondanberg and the establishment of the Outposts to control the valley. The worms had fought on with desperate abandon, organized pockets of resistance attempting to engage the Korvans on conventional terms where aerial superiority and orbital observation made them easy targets.

  But the game had changed. Small, mobile groups had begun to appear, quick to disperse at the sign of heavy Korvan deployment, quicker to exploit isolated patrols, destroy re-supply efforts, bomb and terrorize and turn the Collaborator settlements against their Korvan benefactors.

  Merrak’s requests for reinforcements, for supplies, for anything had grown increasingly panicked. He could send out patrols and expect half of them not to return. He could count on supply convoys to turn around at the hint of guerrilla activity and aerial re-supply to concoct excuses—weather, malfunctions, alleged worm anti-air capabilities—why they could not make the connection all the way out to Outpost 9.

  Merrak’s thoughts became hazy as Zarven proceeded, scarred by contraband cyberware abuse. Images distorted, sexual fantasies with worm females screaming crimson delight or horror, childhood memories twisted with pulsing colors of passion and adrenaline, sadistic dreams of domination.

  The HaustCaptain had created a deviant alternate reality for himself, dissociation from the battered, bloody reality of an Outpost under siege.

  “So now you see,” Merrak’s voice had clarity not present before, frosty with defiance.

  “Now I see,” Zarven replied. He shook himself mentally as he pulled away from the other Korvan’s psyche. A nightmare. Of course, Zarven was quite accustomed to those. “I see that you and your command are falling apart.”

  “You are surprised?”

  “I am disgusted.”

  “This Outpost was abandoned, HaustColonel!”

  “Irrelevant. We are Korvan. We do not allow circumstances to batter us down. We persevere.”

  “Easy for the Omnip—”

  Zarven sent jolts of rage crackling down the Awareness at Merrak. The other Korvan recoiled mentally and physically, almost stumbling.

  “Tread carefully, Merrak.” Zarven injected the chill of vacuum into his tone. “Omniptorate wrath is one thing; mine is something else.”

  “What can you possibly threaten me with? Giving me command of Outpost 9?”

  Zarven slammed Merrak with a bolt of outrage, dropping him into his chair. His frame twitched and loosened like that of a beaten drunk. A wail sounded across the Awareness and flickered behind Zarven’s retinas in pulsing strings of brilliance.

  He turned on the younger Hausts. They wobbled, cringing from the overflow of his mental backlash. The youngest—the one who Zarven suspected of taking up his commander’s abusive habits—slid halfway to the floor, catching himself on the holographic display table. The air stank of fresh sweat and the vomit leaking from the corner of Merrak’s mouth.

  “I hope you Hausts found this informative,” Zarven said to them. “Such is the fate of any who flag in their devotion to the Korvan Imperative. Your people—our people—demand your finest, demand it despite the shit that this installation has been allowed to slide into!”

  “What will...happen to him?” The tentative voice belonged to Merrak’s Exec, HaustLieutenant Mingas, a whip-thin female who’d allowed a rakish roan ponytail to grow from the base of her otherwise bare skull.

  Zarven looked at her, met her gaze, and smiled when she managed to hold his. She was scared, but under that lay outrage, dulled by weariness but still hot with determination. Something to salvage, after all...

  “I’m here to win a war, not make martyrs,” Zarven replied, standing and tightening his cloak about him. He indicated Merrak’s slumped form with a mental gesture. “This filth will be Descended to Fanrohaust, denied its familial genotype name, and assigned to the ranks.”

  Some shock from the young officers at that, but some relief, too. Despite his failures, they had some loyalty to their former commander. None of them wanted to see him purged and reduced to Minrohaust. Or liquidated. Not really the poor fool’s fault, this disaster...damn you, Dramen-Singlo...

  “HaustLieutenant Mingas,” Zarven said to the woman. “Operational command of Outpost 9 passes to you until such time as a replacement is sent for Merrak or your Ascendance is confirmed.” He smiled at her, a gesture he could see triggering unease in the younger Korvan. “And now, with the permission of the Outpost Commander, I will finish unloading my Special Commandos.”

  Mingas’ harmonic swirled with counter-currents of shock, elation and anxiety.

  “I—that is, permission granted.”

  “HaustColonel Zarven.”

  Zarven winced as he sensed Dramen-Singlo’s frowning presence across the Awareness. He ignored the voice, pulled his cloak tighter about him as he watched Commandos unload on the landing pad. The sun had passed behind a puff of cloud, the sudden shade bringing an unexpected chill with it.

  “Zarven...” Dramen-Singlo’s self-control faltered slightly, allowing a breath of his frustration to whisper in Zarven’s mind. “Zarven you will answer!”

  “HaustCommandant, good afternoon to you,” Zarven replied with openly false cheer. “I am pleased to report that my command’s transfer to Outpost 9 has so far proceeded with little incident.”

  “I understand you Descended the Outpost Commander.”

  “Yes, an ugly business. Merrak was a Haust of some note, but damaged goods now. Which reminds me; we should address this growing epidemic of contraband cyberware abuse amongst the—”

  “Zarven, you had no authority!”

  Zarven felt himself stiffen, felt a chill in his harmonic as his tone changed from grimly taunting to frigid anger. “I have the authority of the HaustMarshal. What’s more, I carry my authority from Homeworld, from the Uberminds. Perhaps you’d like a reminder of the Omniptorate’s mission?”

  Dramen-Singlo’s pause was noticeable. “I have made every effort to cooperate with the Omniptorate and with your Special Commandos, HaustColonel—”

  Zarven glanced at the Dorex-class dropships on the landing field, the oldest models in Dramen-Singlo’s reserves and battered with overuse and abuse.

  “—some consideration, some consultation with myself and local commanders would be appreciated, is all.”

  Zarven willed muscles gone tense in his shoulders and neck to relax. He switched his tone to one of implied sincerity. “I understand. I apologize for the abruptness of my actions. I felt swift measures were needed. Hard enough to hold a garrison together without the chain of command decaying from the top.”

  Dramen-Singlo’s satisfaction at Zarven’s obeisance was palpable enough to sicken. “Of course. Merrak’s decline was regrettable.”

  “Which brings me to another point,” Zarven said. “This base is falling apart and in dire need of provisions. I request an immediate re-supply effort be made. I understand that the warehouses at Teshima are quite full. I would be willing to coordinate it myself.”

  Dramen-Singlo hesitated. “Air transport assets in that region are dreadfully short. Unless you plan to use the drop-ships I allocated you?”

  “No. I had ground transport in mind. Teshima motor pool databases indicate a generous number of available resources—captured worm vehicles, in particular. I can provide Special Commando escort, if necessary.”

  Dramen-Singlo’s hesitation was less pronounced, this time. “Thank you, but no. I will coordinate with the local commanders. Forwar
d a file of supply requests when you have compiled one and I will see to it.”

  “You have my gratitude,” Zarven replied with a sparkle of sarcasm he couldn’t resist.

  “Yes.” Dramen-Singlo’s tone was terse with fresh annoyance. “Good day to you, then, HaustColonel.”

  Zarven had no time to reply before Dramen-Singlo cut the connection.

  The sun returned from behind the intervening cloud, casting gentle warmth across the landing pad and Zarven’s bare head. He watched his Commandos as they went about their business with mechanical precision.

  Zarven’s gaze drifted across the base and came to rest on the command post. The Fanrohaust that had been Merrak a few minutes ago was being led from the bunker, slumping as if dazed. He stumbled and Mingas caught him. His blank eyes rose and caught Zarven’s, even at the distance. Zarven felt the feeble touch of the disgraced Korvan’s harmonic.

  Merrak wailed in Zarven’s mind, shrill with self-pity that lay over his thoughts in a dulling mist. But a flash of rage stabbed up through the haze, piercing with the sense of betrayal. Betrayal by cowardly or inefficient or frustrated superiors, betrayal by the Korvan system, by the race, by Fate, itself. And screaming above it all, the question...

  Why?

  Zarven looked away and broke the connection with an angry mental snap. He sizzled with thoughts of Dramen-Singlo, content behind his kilometers of defenses where he and his flunkies watched holographic maps and discounted the tiny flicker of skirmishes that were killing Korvans with a shrug.

  And out here, in the war, Zarven felt shame as he avoided Merrak’s gaze and hid from the hint of regret.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Crozier lay prone in the midst of flowering spine-bush with the spicy fragrance of blossoms heavy in his nostrils and the lazy drone of insects in his ears. Spring rains had left the ground damp and the air hazy. Late afternoon sunlight shafted through gaps in the forest canopy, casting his surroundings into a sharp contrast of thick greens, brilliant blues, and weighty shadow.