Ashes of Freedom

by K. J. Coble

  Crozier paused, looked across the faces. “Now, understand one thing: our mission is not to win the war. Those of you with grandiose visions of marching into Mondanberg in six months should ditch that fantasy now. Our goal is to make it impossible for the Korvans to win.”

  A hand went up. Crozier hadn’t intended to allow himself be interrupted, but the subject in question was a huge, black-skinned man who he’d heard called Bull. The word was Bull had been a Sergeant Major in the Defense Force and had held together the tatters of a company for two years after Mondanberg and their Cause fell.

  Crozier nodded to the man.

  “Excuse me, Major, but you keep telling us how it ain’t our job to win the war. Well, tell me, then, who in the hell’s job is it? I mean, we all keep hearing the stories that the Coalition is coming. But it’s all talk until they get here. And talk is shit. It’s been years and none us has seen the cavalry coming over the horizon.”

  Grumbles and murmurs at that. Crozier nodded, had expected something like this.

  “Spring, next year. Summer, at the latest. One Lurinari year.” Crozier looked around. His gaze settled for an instant on a rapier thin woman who looked nearly too young to be here. “And believe me, it is definitely your duty to die before that information is ever revealed to a Korvan interrogator.”

  “Not that it will help them, in the end. That’s because we’ll be hurting them for the next year, people. We will be strangling them and bleeding them and driving them to such paranoia that they’ll be paralyzed when the invasion does come.”

  “And now we’re going to show you how...”

  BOOK III

  SUMMER

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HaustMarshal Tan-Ezatz sat at the conference table in her office alone with her elbows on the polished surface and her hands folded together, forming a steeple in front of pursed lips. Her eyes appeared to be on the holographic display on the wall facing her, and the figures of troop dispositions scrolling across it.

  But her mind saw other things as they swam across the Awareness. She blinked her eyes—

  —and saw the crushing darkness of a holdout tunnel system, navigable only with a Korvan’s infrared implants. She could feel the Fanrohaust tunnel rat’s fear, edged with barbs of barely suppressed claustrophobia and her disgust at the filth she had wriggled her way through so far—including a pile of concealed feces she had smeared her way over in a particularly tight corner.

  Above this, souring her harmonic in bitter waves, was anger with her superiors for sending her down at all. Surveillance nano-probes had been dispatched into the underground network first. All had dropped off the scope. That meant countermeasures. That meant worms down there and alerted. Why not pump in napalm and be done with it? But the CO wanted more data, and wouldn’t trust a numb-witted Minrohaust. Descendance had been threatened if she refused—damned barracks-room officers—so she had little choice but to be down here in this shit.

  The Fanrohaust froze and Tan-Ezatz tasted her sweat as her pulse thumped against the tunnel floor. Ahead, visible to hard-wired senses, was a bulge in the dusty surface, a booby trap concealed with skill but not quite enough care. She grinned mentally with the thrill of catching the trap, flicked off a report to her commander, edged forward, the trap becoming more obvious as her senses refined the data. Definitely a mine.

  A warning came back from her officer to check that the booby trap wasn’t a ruse to draw her into—

  The Fanrohaust felt something shift beneath her, heard a metallic click. She had enough time to realize the worm trickery, the decoy and the perfectly concealed explosive, before themine erased her in a red flash.

  Tan-Ezatz blinked.

  A HaustCaptain, one of the Tan genotype—something of an indirect relation of the HaustMarshal’s—lounged on the forward deck of a transport barge, last in a line of five such craft cutting down along the Estrek River. They were seven hours east of Stone Reach, on route to Forlorn with a shipment of food, fresh uniforms, and spare parts.

  The summer sun was sharp and hot in the sky and the wooded banks of the Estrek were mysterious in a blurred curtain of humidity. Fanrohausts sat together in knots at the bow while Minrohausts waited in formation to aft, mindless eyes on waters some of them may have plied in their former lives.

  He heard the scream of a heavy rocket, was fast enough to see the projectile’s trail cut hazy air and strike the barge just ahead of them amidships. An anti-matter flash split the hull, sent debris and a least one intact body skyward while the shockwave scooped a crater from the water. Then the barge was gone—a brief glimpse of bow and stern before the river rushed in to swallow them—and the northern bank exploded in muzzle flashes and blaster bolts as worms raked the little fleet.

  One of the Fanrohausts lunged for the heavy plasma blaster mounted in the turret jury-rigged to the barge’s deck. The HaustCaptain saw another gout of flame from the bank, heard the wail of incoming, and turned to dive off the edge of the ship.

  He hit the water with an ungainly slap made worse by the slamming explosion above him. As the battle sounds dulled above him and cold dark pressed in around him, he hoped there would be enough wreckage left of the ships for him to float down river to Forlorn with.

  Blink.

  A freshly Ascended HaustLieutenant sat at a table on the patio of a worm restaurant catering to Korvans in the small riverside settlement of Ta’Na’Tak. The flicker of the Estrek’s waters showed below and the town’s cobblestone streets teemed with Collaborators taking advantage of the excellent weather. The district rang with the calls of vendors while scaly carcasses dangling from the frames of their kiosks filled the air with a salty-fishy redolence.

  The new officer glanced at his companions, three Fanrohausts of his old platoon. All took pleasure in the company of a giggling trio of worm females.

  All except him. Ascendance was often a shock to the young ones. The comrades of yesterday becoming the subordinates of today, their thoughts, desires, angers and prejudices as open as the air, and the reality of who they were as much of a curse as a privilege to know.

  A spindly, battery-powered moped purred into the street, coming to a halt a meter from the patio. A pair of wild-haired Grak stepped off, curious as worms in this region were not allowed to own even the rudimentary automation of the little bike. More curious were the heavy coats they wore, so heavy that both were panting, their tongues white and frothy in the summer heat.

  One of the Fanrohausts made a joke. A worm girl draped her leg across the HaustLieutenant’s lap. He half-looked at her.

  The Grak flung off their coats, submachine guns flashing into sight. The HaustLieutenant’s reflexes already had him flinging off the worm female and diving for the ground with his flechette pistol in his hands as his mind screamed, it can’t be happening here! The Grak weapons barked and the air filled with screams and blood and the whine of ricochets.

  The officer’s comrades and the worm whores fell in a tangle of limbs and toppled tables and chairs. He fired his pistol, held the trigger down and sawed a crimson line across the torso of one of the Grak. His fingers blurred in motion, dropping the expended clip free, loading the fresh one.

  The other Grak cocked its arm back, threw something. A renewed stream of razor-edged needles chewed its chest into ruin. The HaustLieutenant heard something ring beside him, turned, and saw the plasma grenade centimeters from his face.

  Something in him screamed that it wasn’t fair, that he hadn’t had the time to truly enjoy his newly earned name of—

  Tan-Ezatz blinked her eyes several times and pinched the bridge of her nose, feeling the crackle of violent deaths fade—though not the ache of a wearied mind.

  “I thought Zarven was going to put an end to all this,” Bakta’s angry voice said.

  Tan-Ezatz’s fingers moved to her temples to massage. “It’s been six standard months. We have to give him time.”

  “While morale continues to degrade, both here and at the front?” />
  “Summon Kavanaugh,” Tan-Ezatz said, pretending her subordinate hadn’t spoken. Bakta was in an annoying mood and she lacked the patience for it today. “Final projections for the Winter Offensive are in. We will be in need of an entirely new formation, a fresh Ground Strike Division. That means harvesting, perhaps as many as ten thousand Minrohausts, and the camps are nearly empty.”

  “The Lottery?”

  “That’s right,” Tan-Ezatz replied. “That means his cooperation.”

  A pause from Bakta. “My people are seeing to it.”

  “Good.” Tan-Ezatz looked up at the holograms before her. A mental command converted the entire wall of displays into a map of the Free City States and the surrounding regions. Blocks in red indicated Korvan brigades, divisions, stretched thin in a rope backing the worms against the coast.

  As Tan-Ezatz watched, the rope thickened, new icons trickling in to bulk up three full Army Groups—nearly half the Korvan strength on Lurinari. When this process completed they sat poised and strong, as they would be on the eve of the winter campaign.

  Tan-Ezatz gave another mental command. The blocks of crimson drove southward, the Army Group in the middle bowing the worm lines, bending into a salient that ruptured and snapped. Korvan units stacked up behind poured through to swallow the centermost of the worm cities. The HaustMarshal’s mind never lost track of the ever-rising tally of casualties, projected expenditures in the database. By the time the schwerpunkt reached the south coast of Freebourne, the other two Army Groups were pressing in and the worms, their back broken, were squeezed into ever shrinking pockets that finally collapsed.

  “We will split them down the middle,” Tan-Ezatz said, a raggedness to her thoughts as she knew things never worked as nicely as they looked on HoloScreens. “Smash through To’Hatma and drive for the coast. No more maneuver. No more stratagems. We will sledge-hammer them.”

  Bakta’s mind glowed with anticipation. “Army Group Center is to be mine?”

  “Yes,” Tan-Ezatz replied after a regretful pause that she was certain her old friend had noticed. “A very difficult and dangerous command.”

  “An honor. Thank you.”

  “You’ve earned it.” She paused and suddenly wished he were physically present, not touring fortifications to the south, very near what would be the step-off positions of his future command. “I will miss you, my friend. Good Chiefs-of-Staff are not easily found.”

  “Kavelton will do fine,” Bakta replied.

  “He’s young,” Tan-Ezatz said with mock distaste. “One of the New Order Homeworld is churning out.”

  “Not many of the Old Guard left, HaustMarshal. They will inherit the future.”

  But what future? She almost said. The darkening thoughts returned, and with them focus on the work at hand.

  “Supply will be the critical factor. Expenditures for the breakthrough, especially in the artillery, will be exorbitant. We will have to saturate the worm defenses and maintain that saturation until the primary goals are achieved. I have no taste for heavy casualties but will authorize maximum effort, if unavoidable. We place all our hope with this.”

  What went unsaid, what both knew with a shiver of certainty was that should this effort fail, they would no longer possess the ability to press the attack, would in truth be forced to abandon the siege and the offensive for good.

  The war on Lurinari would be lost.

  KAVANAUGH, CLAD IN a tousled sweater, slacks that had obviously been thrown on in haste, entered the room, casting about the furtive glances of a stalked animal. Kavelton, tall and dark in black duty uniform, followed the worm Governor. Tan-Ezatz waited at her desk, sunlight filtering through the semi-opaque window at her back.

  Kavelton indicated one of two chairs before Tan-Ezatz’s desk and Kavanuagh seated himself. Kavelton took the other and leaned back in a posture that suggested confident relaxation. Kavanaugh glanced at him, then looked at Tan-Ezatz. She sensed the slamming of his elevated blood pressure, could easily see beads of sweat across his upper lip and marshaling at his hairline. The air grew ripe with his fear, the smell of recent drunkenness adding a sour tang. He blinked, ran a hand over scraped-back salt-and-pepper hair and tried to force a smile.

  “My Haust, may I inquire as too the reason for my presence here?” A hint of indignance stung at the back of his voice, a hint of the politician’s former strength.

  Tan-Ezatz couldn’t suppress a quiver of amusement. She leaned forward. “The time has come again for sacrifices. Are you prepared to cooperate, Governor?”

  Kavanuagh paled, shrank back in his chair for a moment, then sat back up, angered and fired with fear. “You told me the last time was the last!”

  “War is difficult. We must replenish our losses.”

  “But I thought...we had a deal!”

  Tan-Ezatz’s smile changed into something more pointed. The fool actually didn’t understand. You do not get to dictate terms with the beast that is about to devour you.

  “Look upon this as a re-negotiation.”

  Kavanuagh looked like he wanted to say several things at once, looked like he wanted to leap across the desk and kill. But the blaze in his eyes died quickly. He sagged into a resigned posture. “How many?”

  “Ten thousand,” Kavelton said for Tan-Ezatz. “Perhaps twelve.”

  “Twelve—” Kavanaugh cut himself off. He leaned forward, elbows to his knees, fingers intertwining. Sweat droplets drew glimmering tracks down his forehead. He didn’t look up as he spoke. “My Haust, the last time we had the Lottery, the subjects harvested were troublemakers, known criminals. The removal of these elements was welcomed, even looked upon as an improvement by most of the populace.”

  His eyes flicked up to meet Tan-Ezatz’s for an instant before returning to the floor. “A Lottery of that magnitude would not go so...smoothly, this time. People are going to notice when their neighbors and family members start going missing and are seen weeks later marching in one of your reinforcement columns.”

  “Are you saying you won’t help us?” Tan-Ezatz asked, the amusement leaving her.

  “No, no, never that. I’m just saying...it will be decidedly more difficult this time.” He met her gaze again. “And I’m pleading with you to look for alternatives.”

  Alternatives? Tan-Ezatz snorted mentally. We’ll see how he likes our alternatives. She flashed an annoyed mental nudge at Kavelton.

  “Governor, the last time was a Lottery in name alone,” the younger Korvan said. “The names were pre-selected from a list of potential agitators. There was no randomness. This time, however, we’ve queried from planetary databases, keying off no particular variable.”

  Kavelton handed Kavanaugh a HoloPad reader. “You will note amongst the results drawn from the Coreal Valley region the names of your wife and niece.”

  Kavanaugh dropped the HoloPad and seemed to deflate.

  Tan-Ezatz rose from behind her desk and stepped to the worm Governor’s side, arms crossed. “Governor, there are privileges to be had by those who cooperate. You know that as well as anyone. Why not assist us in making this difficult process move more smoothly?”

  Kavanaugh’s color worsened and his smell ripened. He did not look at her as he whispered, “You bastards.”

  Annoyance twitched involuntarily across Tan-Ezatz’s lips. She leaned close to the worm, put a hand to his face, ran it down along his cheek. Fresh sweat dampened her fingertips.

  She said in a gentle, hoarse voice, “Or perhaps you’d like to be first on Haust Kavelton’s list?”

  Kavanaugh flinched away from her touch. “You wouldn’t. You’re bluffing.”

  “Lurinari’s original Governor—your former superior—said the same thing to me as our battle fleet waited over him in orbit.” Tan-Ezatz stepped back around behind her desk, seated herself. “And I turned your capitol city into a molten crater around him.” She cocked her head slightly to one side. “You, too, can be replaced...Governor.”

  Kavanaugh didn’t move,
seemed in some sort of shock. Finally, he ran a hand across his wet forehead and blew out a long breath. His words sounded like limbs being torn free. “Very well. I will cooperate. You win.”

  “Of course,” Tan-Ezatz replied. “We already have.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Lighting in the bar was poor, the filthy window glass allowing only weak streamers of sunlight through. The walls had a stained, blackened color to them. The place stank of sweat, old booze, cigarettes, and the faint, background whiff of sour bodily secretions.

  Sandy, seated at the bar, shook herself and tried not to think about what went on upstairs in the establishment. She glanced about in the thick haze of the room.

  The clientele was two-thirds Collaborator Militia, well-fed men in drab gray uniforms streaked with chalky lines of sweat salt that expanded and contracted in the stagnant heat of the brothel. She was the only non-employee female in the room, something the Collaborators had so far ignored, a feat accomplished by tucking ragged hair into a sagging forage cap, donning the drooping, tattered hides of a badlands poacher, and not bathing for over a week.

  Sandy took a last pull from the cracked jug of warm beer in front of her and strained to appear casual as she looked over the bar’s other occupants.

  The Invaders occupied two round tables near the back of the room. Bunched together like a shadow in their off-duty black bodysuits, most facing the door and windows. Their features rarely changed, even as a painted, young girl in a worn skirt slit practically to her hip flitted into their midst and sat in one’s lap. Sandy grimaced and looked away.

  “Another drink, sir?” asked a pained voice.

  Sandy looked up at the bartender and wanted to grimace again. The man—it was hard to think of what stood before her as such—was a tangle of metal and piping. Arms had been replaced by a spider web of robotic appendages that fussed over drinks, were seemingly independent of the bartender’s will. Legs and lower body were gone in favor of treads and a compact chassis that whined with belts and parts badly in need of maintenance.