by K. J. Coble
CHAPTER FORTY
The Awareness snarled with surprise and rage as Korvans spilled from bunkers and barracks. Much of the Mondanberg garrison’s transport and most of its armor had been sent south for the Winter Offensive, forcing many Korvans to race to the disturbance on foot. The result was clumsiness and an uneven response to a building crisis.
Tan-Ezatz, surrounded by flashing holograms with her head full of arguing officers, could not help but marvel at the worms’ audacity. A nucleus of worm partisans with a small arsenal of heavy weaponry seemed to be leading the dregs of Mondanberg’s south side in an uprising. The earliest reports indicated staggering damage to the local industry she had worked so hard recently to harness for the greater good of the Imperative.
“If they believe we’ll show restraint because they hide in the midst of noncombatants,” Tan-Ezatz said to Kavelton, standing at her side, “then they are sorely mistaken.”
The mass of the headquarters building trembled as weapons emplacements on its exterior unleashed a salvo of bombardment rockets in support of the Korvans advancing into the industrial district. Tan-Ezatz would lay the entire city to waste around her if that was what was required to put down this little rebellion.
Tan-Ezatz stepped from holographic maps to the windows behind her desk. The smear of fire across the south mocked her, driving a spike of rage into her abdomen. How could they? How...dare they?
“HaustMarshal,” Kavelton said with a twinge of concern, “perhaps we should move to the lower-level command center.”
“This act of desperation worries you, Kavelton? You surprise me. This will be a small matter. Our garrison will—”
Flashes sent her flinching from the panorama with a roar that rattled the plasteel of her windows. The headquarters building shuddered and her mind filled with the shrill bite of electromagnetic disturbance. She put her hands to her desk to keep balance. Kavelton was wincing with his fists clenched against the sides of his head.
Tan-Ezatz lurched back to the window. The entire riverfront was exploding at once. White snaps of antimatter detonations walked across the rail yards and wound through the warehouse district in lightning patterns. Buildings collapsed into themselves, then blew back out in roiling clouds of fire as fuel and munitions meant to help crush To’Hatma cooked off. Train cars flipping and bounced liked kicked toys. A bridge across the Estrek sagged into the river like wax in a flame.
Tan-Ezatz didn’t realize she was yelling, didn’t feel the impact of her fists pounding the plasteel. She saw the ravening fireballs, could do the calculations without her AI; supplies destroyed, rail lines smashed, and time lost. Time...
“Get away from the window, my Haust!” Kavelton stood behind her, gripping her shoulders despite the affront that could represent. “Get back!”
A flash smote Tan-Ezatz’s retinas, jerking her face back in reflex, then smote her body. The floor jumped beneath her and the world erupted in sound and motion. She felt her feet leave the tile, then a crash as she landed on her desktop. The room darkened around her.
She was still.
She blinked, tried to decide if she was hurt. Her back ached where she’d landed. Walls of holograms had darkened. Lights flickered and died. She heard the whistle of wind and the thunder of destruction outside, no longer distant. Somewhere, an alarm was blaring.
Tan-Ezatz dragged herself upright. The reddish glow of fires cast scintillations through shards of shattered plasteel panes. She heard coughing and looked to her side.
Kavelton had landed in a sitting position against the side of her desk. He clenched the right side of his face as blood poured through the spaces between fingers. It had drenched his torn sleeve and much of his chest. His uncovered eye stared at her, wide with surprise and horror.
She knelt at his side.
“You...are all right?” Kavelton managed.
“I’m fine.” She touched his shoulder. “Hold still. I will send for a surgeon.”
“Worms...worms in the building...”
Tan-Ezatz stretched her mind through the Awareness, still ringing with the antimatter blasts and the shock of hundreds of Korvans in an uproar. The headquarters building had been hit by a flurry of heavy rockets fired at close range, from nearly across the street. The primary weapons systems were knocked out before they could do any good and worms had scurried through the hole torn in the building’s armored hide.
They were in the lower levels.
The floor shuddered as something caved in several levels below. She heard the thud of grenades and the shriek of energy weapons.
Tan-Ezatz began throwing out orders and warnings as she scrambled over to her private weapons locker and pulled out a flechette rifle. Little more than confusion answered her from the Awareness. The headquarters guard consisted of a reinforced company, but worm raiders or wreckage had them pinned down in the floor levels.
Tan-Ezatz stepped back to Kavelton’s side and kneeled, slapping a fresh clip into the well of her weapon. She touched his chest. “I don’t think help is going to reach us quickly. We’ll have to make our way to them. Can you move?”
Kavelton grabbed her forearm with his free hand. “Leave...I’ll be all right. It’s you that they’re after.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, they wouldn’t—” Tan-Ezatz cut herself off. She considered the raid, obviously aimed at maximum damage. The uprising in the south, the destruction of the supplies, this attack on her headquarters. She thought about the damage her death might mean to the Korvan cause on this world. She thought about her plans—and the shambles they were already in—and all the things that had to get done or else...
A cold filled Tan-Ezatz that could only be terror. The only force she could count on to sweep the worms away lay thirty-five kilometers to the east.
Under the command of Dramen-Singlo...
Bakta! Tan-Ezatz flailed across the Awareness. But her old friend and war horse—though his gaze twisted toward her cry across the distance—was thousands of kilometers away, carrying out her orders for To’Hatma.
That left her only—
ZARVEN...
The cry across the Awareness found Zarven struggling into battle armor as his battalion churned into motion around him. Tan-Ezatz’s desperation froze his hands, poised to fasten the torso plates together. Her fear and shock swept through his core. Her suspicions struck like lightning.
Zarven swept the Awareness, sampling the minds of Haust and Fanrohaust, alike. Confusion reigned, stirred by frustration. Junior officers received contradictory instructions and rooted about for clarification. Senior officers argued. Fort Ranzac shuddered with agitation, but did not act.
And in the heart of the maelstrom sat a passive Dramen-Singlo.
“Tetzrak, have the battalion ready to move in ten minutes!”
“Ten minutes...but what—”
“Just take care of it, HaustCaptain!”
Zarven remembered the words of the Ubermind—protect Tan-Ezatz—and realized, finally, what the scrap of communication really meant.
“Churvak, to me! Bring a squad, fully-prepped! We’ll be paying the CP a visit!”
Zarven didn’t wait for his battle-car to be brought around, led Churvak and his Commandos out into the cold. Jogging through the alleys of Ranzac, still working to get his armor situated, he tried once to contact Dramen-Singlo. Zarven wasn’t surprised to receive no answer.
Korvans milling about in the streets flinched away as the Commandos swept by. The fort command post was a squat building beside the Awareness Node. Vehicles crowded its front parking spaces and officers thronged at its entrance. They parted as Zarven and his bodyguard detail came storming out of the snow. Security details offered half-hearted challenges. Zarven ignored them.
Dramen-Singlo’s officers took up the building’s top floors. Zarven didn’t bother with the lifts and led Churvak and the others clambering up the stairs. They emerged into the upper command levels, damp with sweat and shivering with adrenaline. Zarven’s mi
nd was a blaze of rage, scattering Korvans before him. Most of the staff stood dumbfounded or terrified as the Commandos strode through their midst. All shared the same sick realization; their master had gone too far this time.
The doors to Dramen-Singlo’s main office parted. The HaustCommandant sat at a broad, marble desk, facing a bank of HoloScreens. Staff officers clustered to one side—Zarven was surprised to see Rovan. Dramen-Singlo swiveled his seat to face Zarven.
He was smiling.
“HaustColonel, good to see you. It appears the worms have started something of a stir in the District Capitol.”
Zarven strode to the edge of the desk. Behind him, Churvak and his Commandos spread into the room, their weapons not exactly aimed.
“I want you to scrape together whatever armor and hover transport you’ve got in this hole and give command of them over to me. I’ll be taking my Commandos into Mondanberg to clear the worms out. Even if we get started now, it’ll take at least twenty minutes to get there.”
“Already working on it.”
“Funny, as it didn’t look like you were working on much of anything.”
Dramen-Singlo’s smile slipped from his lips. His harmonic narrowed in focus and Zarven knew they were speaking alone, despite the full room.
“Zarven, perhaps it’s time you and I had a conversation.”
“You’re wasting my time. Issue the damned orders!”
“I think you should take a little time to think this through, Zarven. There’s a new wind blowing. Tan-Ezatz’s policies have failed. Her offensive teeters on the edge of disaster. It’s time for new thinking. It’s time for new leadership.”
“I don’t remember anyone making you an Ubermind,” Zarven replied. “You realize you’re speaking to an officer of the Omniptorate. And the words I hear are treasonous.”
“How far away is Homeworld, Zarven?”
Zarven began to retort but found himself hesitating.
“Yes. You begin to see what I am saying. We are the law here, Zarven. This world is ours to win or lose. Those fools back home have forsaken us. The time has come to take what we can for ourselves.”
Zarven could hear Tan-Ezatz’s pleas in the back of his mind, growing more desperate. He heard the Ubermind’s words echoing back and forth through his skull.
“Let me offer you a piece of the future, Zarven.”
Zarven shook himself. Fury warmed his mind again. He broadened his focus so Churvak could hear what he was saying.
“HaustCommandant, I want you to give me command of Ranzac’s armor and transportation assets. I am going to the relief of Mondanberg and our commander. Now.” He glanced at Churvak. “If you resist further, on Omniptorate authority, I will judge it treason and have you shot where you sit.”
Something quivered behind Dramen-Singlo’s eyes. “Zarven, you are making a mistake.”
“I’m sure it won’t be the last.”
Zarven’s smile was broad and genuine.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The hulls of two Korvan battle-cars burned side by side near the middle of the park. Bodies lay scattered around the wreckage, one Minrohaust’s corpse dangling in the rusty bars of a jungle gym. The sky behind the park was a tapestry of fire and flashes as Mondanberg burned.
“Here comes that hovertank,” Crozier said into his helm mike. A tactical map glowed across the inside of his visor, showing the golden-haloed icon of the Korvan vehicle edging to the far side of the park.
Missiles arched from the roofs of the buildings behind his headquarters platoon’s position, cutting spark-strewn trails through the snow. Fireballs lit the tree line on the opposite side of the park. Figures silhouetted by the glare scurried to either side of the approaching armor. The sound of the explosions slapped through Crozier.
A bolt of cyan from the tank’s main gun stabbed back in response, lancing through the heart of the apartment building directly behind Crozier. The plasma blast’s shriek was lost in the crash of the building façade’s collapse as a cloud of debris clattered across the partisans.
The hovertank slid into the open, its forward hull glittering with the bluish sparks of its gauss cannon. Crozier pressed low into the undergrowth and steadied his blastrifle against his shoulder. The storm of projectiles sizzled through the air, chopping branches and chunks of bark free from the trees to fall on him and his companions.
A line of Korvans flanked the hovertank. Every other Korvan paused to kneel at three to five step increments to touch off a burst of covering fire. Crozier stroked his trigger pad and watched the energy beam flop a still distant figure to the snow. Partisan riflemen began to add their fire to his.
The two repeat blastcannon in Crozier’s command section poured streams of chain lighting into the hovertank, turning its forward deflector screens into a curved bank of cherry red fire. The tank slowed nearly to a halt, its energy reserves shunted into redirecting the assault. To either side, the Korvans dropped prone nearly as one and began punishing the partisan side of the park with aimed fire.
The informant beside Crozier screamed something and lurched for the rear. A partisan rose to knock the panicked man down and was cut down instead. The informant got four steps before his head was splashed away in a cyan smear. The headless body ran another three steps before stumbling to the ground and thrashing about.
One of the repeat blastcannon had stopped firing, leaving a single stream of plasma to stall the hovertank. The vehicle began to drift forward again. The gauss cannon spat their blue-white sparks.
Crozier gritted his teeth as he shot down a Korvan that had risen from its crouch. Can’t take much more of this.
Four rocket trails converged on the front quarter of the hovertank within a half a second of one another. The strikes were spaced too closely to be discernible as separate blasts. For an instant, Crozier could see the angled gray hull of the tank through the swirling flames.
A fifth missile fired from one of the weapons teams on the ground with Crozier hit the tank low on the forward hull, slamming it backwards. Its rear skirts dragging into the ground for a fraction of a second before the vehicle shattered in the boiling yellow cataclysm of a fusion reactor breach.
Crozier howled into the punishing explosion, though the rush of searing air ached in his lungs and tingled hot and tight across exposed skin. Around him he saw upraised fists and could barely make out the hoarse baying of victorious partisans. They fired recklessly into the Korvans, now sprinting back to the opposite side of the park. Some of the Korvans writhed with flames they could not escape.
Cut that a bit close...
Crozier’s helm visor blinked blue with an incoming message. The communication contained no text or code, was simply a pulse of noise, transmitted from lookouts poised thirty-five kilometers away. Hopefully in the clutter of background racket the fight was churning up, its transmission would go unnoticed. But its meaning was clear.
The Korvan reaction force was finally leaving Fort Ranzac.
They would reach Good Days and Hrangar’s blocking force there in five minutes, if they pushed hard. That meant in another ten minutes—fifteen at the very greatest—the force would be at the outskirts of Mondanberg.
Fifteen or twenty minutes. Or less? Crozier glanced northward where the horizon burned. The pyramid of the Korvan headquarters building looked like a blackened stone in a bonfire. Occasional jolts of energy fire lit the sullen haze.
Sandy was in that mess somewhere. The infiltrators would not be out. Not yet. Crozier had to give them more time. If it meant drawing the Korvan reaction force south to him, he would do it.
The commander of his headquarters section touched Crozier’s arm. The young man had to holler to be heard over the din. “Major, the Number Two blastcannon is out of commission. And we’re down to our last few rockets. Most of the other teams are reporting the same kind of thing.”
“A few minutes more. Tell them that’s all.”
“Sir.” The partisan grabbed a fistful of Crozie
r’s smart-fibers. “How much more damage can we possibly do?”
Crozier glared at the partisan officer. The expression was apparently enough to compel the youth to release him.
“I said a few more minutes.” Crozier gestured north. “Those are our comrades up there and we will give them a little longer to break free.”
By God, Crozier would give her more time.
VORSH FIRED A BLAST down the alleyway, lighting the tight, dark space white. He ducked behind the corner of wall as bolts of cyan spat back, glancing off brick in sprays of shattered mortar.
The reload warning light blinked on the stock of his weapon. He jacked the spent charge pack free and fumbled for another. The guerillas, loaded with explosives before, had packed light as far as other items went. Vorsh found only one pack left in his bandoleer. Cursing, he dropped the charge slug into the well and slapped the priming lever forward.
Sandy stepped by him and fired a probing burst. She flinched away as a flurry of gunfire replied. Across the alley, Sten and a handful of partisans watched and waited. A body smoldered in the street. The guerilla had been cut down as she crossed the narrow space.
The platoon had scattered through Mondanberg as the hell they had strewn broke loose at their backs. Most had vanished without resistance, the Collaborator population apparently choosing to cower in their basements rather than impede the withdrawal. And the forces that would otherwise hound the partisans were either tangling with Crozier or fighting fires.
Sandy’s command team had stumbled into the exception, an isolated squad of Invaders who had apparently shadowed the partisans since their flight from the rail yards and had gotten ahead of them in the maze of streets. They had sprung their ambush just before the command team reached Mondanberg’s suburbs.
“There’s two of them behind that dumpster and another further back.” Sandy hollered at Vorsh. “I don’t know what happened to the others.”
