Ashes of Freedom

by K. J. Coble

  “This is just the beginning.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sweat burned in Sandy’s eyes. She wanted to wipe it away but that would mean retracting her helmet visor and taking a hand off her blastrifle. That would draw too much attention from her focus on the low, forest-shrouded hill a hundred and fifty meters away. She blinked away the stinging tears and prayed for a lull in the fight.

  A dense patch of spinebush, much of it now smoldering, dominated the hollow between the low hill the Invaders occupied and her ridge top position. At dawn, the Invaders had pushed to within forty meters of her line until mortar fire, confusion, and partisan tenacity forced their withdrawal. Now, late into the morning, her squad and the rest of the platoon was left sparring with Invader infiltrators while the fight shifted elsewhere, the crackle of a drawn-out scrap to the south and a heavy firefight somewhere far to the north, by Rose Lake.

  Sandy’s helmet visor highlighted a hint of movement behind a battered clump of young pines. She licked cracked lips and wobbled the loose tooth with her tongue. The firing dot settled on the small space between the trees and a jagged chunk of overgrown sandstone. She waited.

  To her left, the repeat blastcannon spat short bursts onto the opposing rise, cutting down saplings, spraying dirt and rock, starting fires amongst dead wood and dry leaves. A long burst slashed down into the hollow where Invader dead and wounded lay strewn and tangled in the choking, slicing undergrowth. One body, still alive though its right arm dangled by a shred of cloth and flesh, twitched and mouthed silent agony. Sandy longed to put a bolt between the slave-beast’s eyes, but wouldn’t waste a charge on mercy, would not let her attention slip from the other hill.

  A blur of motion between trees and rock. Sandy touched her trigger pad and particle beam lightning leapt the short hundred and fifty meters to claw the darting Invader down. The body flailed away in a puffball of smoke and sparks.

  She lunged behind the lip of her fighting hole as the inevitable return fire tore up dirt and undergrowth. A one-second burst from the blastcannon silenced the response.

  It had been like this for hours, the Invaders sending their Living Dead lackeys forward in sudden pushes while they hung back and picked off partisans as they exposed themselves to fight. Sandy had been ready for the hectic brawl of the early hours but this prolonged duel was beginning to unnerve her.

  The red light above her pistol grip blinked that the charge was running low. She jerked back the priming lever above the grip and a long slug dropped from its tube in the stock, glowing faintly. She pulled a fresh charge pack from her bandoleer, slapped it in and shoved the lever forward, mating the power source with the priming matrix.

  Movement behind her brought sudden tension until Sandy recognized Sten’s hoarse breathing. The gaunt corporal pulled himself the last few meters to her hole and dropped himself in. He stank of sweat and heaved as he tried to get himself under control.

  “Runner just came through from Anders,” Sten finally got out. “Says if we can hold on, we’ll have some relief coming up in an hour.”

  “I guess we’ll hold, then,” she replied. “How’re we doing out there?”

  Sten wiped mud from his face and adjusted his cap. “Chen’s hit. Looks bad, gurgles when he breathes. And the new kid got it, early on.”

  “Shit. How’s Cally holding up with the blastcannon?”

  “I sent Runt to keep an eye on her.”

  Sandy wiggled the tooth, was so worn she almost didn’t notice the pain. “Sounds like we’re doing passable.”

  Sten shrugged and gave a wordless nod.

  “All right. We hold on for another hour.” She patted him on the knee. “Better get back to your position.” He started to crawl from the hole. “And be careful!”

  He flashed a quick smile that left her with a surprising warmth. It subsided as soon as he was out of sight and Sandy found herself shivering, though she had been blazing hot all morning. For the first time, she noticed that drizzle had given way to sleet that hissed in the trees and stung against the skin. She wondered what Cynthia was doing, wondered if she was safe. She could feel her mother’s crucifix throbbing against her chest.

  Incoming mortar rounds ended her reverie. She shrank into the bottom of her hole as they came howling in. The ground jerked beneath her like a body struck by a chain of blows. Flashes cut the air. Torn bark, dirt and smoke rushed over her. She forced herself up as debris clattered off her helmet and armor, forced herself to the lip of her firing hole.

  Her helmet AI highlighted figures coming over the opposite hill.

  Here we go again...

  WAITING IN RESERVE in the freezing mud, the passage of time reached unbearable sluggishness.

  A hard fight had been snarling up and down the kilometers of partisan occupied ridges and hills all day, sometimes fading to a growl in the south, sometimes erupting in staccato thuds to the north. And all the time, the Station fusion battery gouged the heavens.

  By dusk, Cole had had enough, could no longer tolerate huddling in a half-flooded hole in the ground while a thousand fingers of anxiety poked his belly. In the hazy dark it was a small thing to creep from his position and find his way back along the crest of the low ridge. Scampering from hole to hole, asking questions, careful to avoid the officers, he eventually gathered an idea of where he needed to look to find the only being who might give him a hint of comfort.

  Flashes silhouetted the hilltop to the west and Cole flinched low as a rash of blaster fire keened across the valley. More pulses cut the gloom and by their light he glimpsed a familiar form slumped in a hole by a gnarled tree with its helm tilted over its face. In a burst of energy, Cole scurried over to Vorsh.

  And jerked back as the point of Vorsh’s dagger touched the underside of his jaw.

  “Shit, Vorsh, it’s me!”

  The Shmali’s eyes glittered from under the brim of his helmet but his blade didn’t leave Cole’s neck. For a panicked instant, Cole felt the point press in, parting skin.

  “Vorsh...”

  Vorsh’s eyes lost their maniac light and seemed to focus and cool. The dagger retracted. “Sneaking around could get a person into a lot of trouble.”

  “Don’t care,” Cole replied, pushing his way down into the hole beside the Shmali. He put a hand to his neck and the bead of blood forming there. “These assholes don’t have a clue.”

  “What do you want, Cole?” Vorsh asked, beginning to sharpen the dagger, his eyes never leaving the blade.

  A flurry of blasts ripped from the Station, catching the world around them in aching white fury that sizzled in the nerves and bones, set hair standing in ripples. Groans issued from partisans in fighting holes. Cole blinked painful sparks from the back of his skull, felt sick, felt tremors shuddering through his body as delayed thunder from detonated Korvan shells shook the horizon.

  “I don’t know,” Cole answered the Shmali after getting himself under control. “Wish they hadn’t separated us.”

  “Keeping the hotheads apart.” Vorsh chuckled. “Not that it’ll matter, the fools.” The strokes of his blade across the whetstone grew faster.

  Cole gritted his teeth in sudden frustration and slapped a hand over Vorsh’s. “You wanna stop doing that?”

  Vorsh looked up and glared at him—Cole expected the knife at his throat again. With a hiss, the Shmali put his stone away and sheathed the dagger.

  Letting out a relieved breath, Cole looked west, toward the flicker of battle. “How do you think it’s going up there?”

  Vorsh snorted, glancing around at the preparations of the company. “There’s plenty of killing going on up there. I figure we’ll be in the thick of it before long.”

  Cole bit his lip and was suddenly overcome by rage and the urge to haul off Vorsh. Probably get him killed in short order. Of course, getting killed was the whole problem. He shook himself and began to climb out of the hole, muttering, “You’re a waste of fucking time.”

  “You should know t
hat, by now, Cole,” Vorsh said at his back.

  Cole turned and glared at him. Spitefully he said, “Good luck to you, Vorsh.

  Something shifted and gave in the Shmali’s polar eyes. A pinching at the corner of his mouth did not quite suggest a smile. “You too...”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  At dawn, the worm attacks had let up, fading back across Cedar Creek to settle for desultory sniping. Zarven had ordered the reconnaissance teams forward across the creek to investigate the ridgeline on the eastern bank. The result had been a predictable shoving of a stick into a hornet’s nest.

  The scouts had been attacked—nearly overrun, actually—and driven back to the creek. They had held on, there, digging in where the automortars could shower their attackers. But the worms had trumped the move with mortars of their own and the scouts’ situation became desperate.

  By dusk, Zarven had lost more than half of them and had had to pull them back to the western bank where A Company could feed reinforcements through quickly.

  Zarven crouched atop the line of hills west of the Granite and Cedar, overlooking the low ridge between the two creeks as well as the higher ridge beyond. The mist was back, faintly shimmering in weak starlight and nearly shrouding the lower crest from sight. Fires flickered, a scattering of baleful jewels in the syrupy dark. Plasma and blaster fire caught scurrying figures in sudden freeze-frame images while worm tracers flicked along the creek like willow-the-whisps. The banshee shriek of energy bolts had a disembodied quality to it by the time it reached Zarven, five kilometers away, the pop of conventional rifles and thud of grenades a sharp counterpoint.

  “I hadn’t expected such stiff resistance,” Zarven said to Ozer, who was down by Granite Creek, hurrying reinforcements across. “They’ve shown a willingness to take heavy casualties to hurt us.”

  “You are impressed?”

  “Surprised,” Zarven replied with a touch of menace. He gave his AI a command and schematics laid across the panorama, showing hints of movement in the folds of the terrain. The worms had learned fast, had stopped bringing their units forward over the hilltop after A Company’s heavy weapons spotted and plastered them. “They’re bringing up more.”

  “That’s obvious,” Ozer said, letting his strain show.

  “They’ve hurt us. They know it, too.” Zarven glanced back into the hollow behind him. C Company was coming up, waves of Korvans assembling in the gloom. “They seem to think they have an advantage to press.”

  Zarven stretched himself out across the Awareness. “If they are pressing this hard to our front, they must be weakening somewhere else.” An order to his AI brought up a tactical display showing the ruby icon of B Company coming down to the northeast of Rose Lake. Quickly, Zarven acquired the harmonic of HaustCaptain Tetzrak, the company commander. “The rest of us begin to wonder after your progress, HaustCaptain.”

  “Damn this worm-infested, shit-encrusted mudball of a planet! If I could burn my way through these fucking spinebush thickets with a fucking nuke I’d be there now!”

  The stream of invective was something Zarven had grown accustomed to in the fiery officer. Her uneven temperament was also what had gotten her purged from the regular ranks. But salvaged by the Omniptorate.

  “HaustColonel.” She pretended to notice Zarven for the first time. “I apologize for our glacial progress but I...well, you have to see this. Our lead elements appear to be coming down behind the worm line.”

  Images flowed through Zarven, snippets taken from scouts and drones. A worm column, at least a company, hustling through a hollow, the hologram enhanced enough to pick up details, sweat across brows, strain and fear in the eyes, bodies bowed under the weight of weapons and gear. They looked ragged but dangerous in the way of animals cornered in their warren. The column snaked eastward, up the hillsides. Zarven recognized the ridgeline to his front, could see the flash of fighting from the worm side.

  “I am intrigued, Tetzrak” he said.

  “We’re almost out of drones and we’re still held up. I’ve had to let the heavy weapons sections lag behind. This country is fucking lousy, can see why the worms holed up here. My scouts might be able to spot for your artillery.”

  “No. Let’s not play our hand prematurely and frighten the prey off.” Zarven felt suddenly cool, the details of terrain and unit positions springing into clarity through the fog of war. “Do you think you can be in position by dawn?”

  “Earlier,” she replied with fire, but her harmonic held reservations.

  “Dawn. Bring up your company quietly, Tetzrak. And no more drones. We’ll hold their attention until you’re in position. Then, we’ll fold them up.”

  “About fucking time...”

  Zarven shook her off with amusement. His intent and orders flicked out to his officers.

  “Zarven,” said the unexpected tones of Rovan.

  “The HaustBrigadier honors me with his attention,” Zarven replied with no attempt to conceal his annoyance. Rovan had made few or no attempts at communication since first contact and the only understanding Zarven had of the situation to the south was through the general clatter of minds unshielded from Omniptorate perusal.

  Rovan paused, obviously an attempt to marshal his own distaste. “Zarven, we are hard-pressed to break through on our front. As I have received little update of your progress, I must guess at your progress in the north.”

  Zarven ignored the barb. “Hard-pressed, as well. The worms appear to desire a fight.”

  “Yes. We had expected a decisive push from your sector by now.”

  Frustration boiled in the back of Zarven’s skull. “I expect to make a major push from the north by early tomorrow. The worm right flank appears to be in the air.”

  “Excellent,” Rovan answered, unmasked irritation giving way before energy. “I will hit them hard at dawn, pin their southern wing in place.”

  “That would be appreciated.” Zarven felt a touch of guarded optimism. Finally, they seemed to be acting in concert. So damned hard, getting everything into place, the troops, the firepower, the egos.

  “One more thing,” Rovan said. “I have had contact with HaustColonel Jesep, with the northern wing. He reports finding the remains of worm camps to the northeast, but little else. He fears they are slipping away. I feel speed to be critical at this stage if we are to catch the partisan main body. Are we in agreement?”

  “Of course,” Zarven replied. Jesep wasn’t totally inept, though the incredibly slow movement of his northern prong was contributing as much to the worms slipping away as anything happening to Zarven or Rovan’s fronts.

  “Speed, Zarven,” said Rovan with bluster that was so forced Zarven wanted to groan. “We will expect your breakthrough at sunrise.”

  Zarven was relieved to have the other Korvan gone from his harmonic. He turned his attention back to the fight at his front.

  At a command to his AI, the perspective of a Senior Fanrohaust sprang across Zarven’s vision. Totten had been killed that morning leaving the lesser Korvan in command of the string of teams still holding out on the west bank of the Cedar.

  Again, the teams had dug into fighting holes, this time only a dozen meters from the mist-shrouded creek with the long, low slope at their back. Trampled razor grasses gleamed wetly under tendrils of smoke that reeked of burnt foliage and charred meat. The bodies of worms killed in the give-and-take fight of the last thirty-six hours were strewn all around the Korvans, a reminder of what they could expect if they broke and fell back across the open ground.

  Icons glittered down by the creek. Weapons clattered, feet sloshed through waters still high from flooding and churned muck left over as the tide receded. A thud and curse as a worm tripped and went down. Then a chain of bone-jarring crashes as the worms hit the mines the scouts had left in their earlier withdrawal. A low snarl rose from the creek bed as an enraged mass of worms swarmed toward the Korvans.

  The Senior Fanrohaust tensed and flicked encouragement out to her teams, th
ough she knew nothing would see her through the next few minutes alive.

  The automortar pods opened up in the hollow behind Zarven again, the racket augmented as C Company’s heavy weapons were now in position and getting some action. Tongues of fire lit the ridge around him as rocket teams sent plasma rockets screaming downrange to paste a chain of ravening cyan hemispheres along Cedar Creek. Water screamed into steam and worms screamed in panic as their comrades vanished in miniature suns and their own clothes burst into flame. More rocket trails sparked across the valley, probing the worm-held ridge for mortar positions.

  Worm repeat blastcannon sent strings of lightning pearls chopping at the Korvans. Zarven caught a ripple of yellowish sparks from behind the reverse slop of the worm ridgeline only instants before heavy rockets came keening in.

  Korvan point defense energy lasers—mounted on the same make of hoverpod chassis as the automortars—cut most of the missiles from the sky in a ruby glitter. A single warhead corkscrewed through to hammer a Korvan rocket team away in an anti-matter blossom.

  Zarven dropped into razor grass as a doughnut of heat, smoke, and debris swept across the hilltop with a roar that left his temples pulsing. He spat grit from his mouth as he pulled himself to his feet.

  “Damned worms are certainly showing some spirit, this evening.”

  “HaustColonel,” Churvak asked with a proper mixture of obediance and scolding, “perhaps a more secure position?”

  Ducking low as repeat blastcannon fire ravaged the air above him, Zarven retreated to the reverse slope with Churvak and his bodyguard detail. The motions were mechanical rather than hurried. His mind had returned to the Senior Fanrohaust down by Cedar Creek.

  The worms pushed through the screaming energy and metal. A female got to within meters of the Fanrohaust’s hole with her arm cocked to toss a grenade. The Fanrohaust sprayed her into shreds with her flechette rifle and ducked to evade the jolting blast of fragments. She came up again for more targets, saw another worm, an assault rifle-armed Grak, hurtling toward him. The Fanrohaust touched her trigger and let fly a burst that should have cut the Grak in half but took only a chunk from his shoulder before cutting out. The Fanrohaust was still realizing her weapon had clicked empty when a bullet took her in the cheek.