by Brian Bakos
TOP SECRET
Commanding Officer’s Eyes Only
The envelope is thin, only a sheet or two inside. I can tear the paper into bits and bury it, or swallow it, if necessary. But before I can do anything, alien voices intrude.
No ... I don’t really hear them, I feel them on some level beneath conscious hearing.
Get away from the plane!
I stuff the envelope into my flight suit’s interior pocket and beat a quick retreat to the forest. I fling myself prone into the underbrush and aim the pistol back into the clearing. Moments later, partisans emerge from the far stand of woods and approach the wreckage of my airplane. I fumble the little binoculars out of my survival pack for a better look.
There are fifteen partisans, including two women and a few boys who appear to be younger than myself. The rest are hard-bitten men, raggedly dressed, unshaven. They seem like a pack of hungry wolves come to feast on the carcass of Y-47. Everyone is heavily armed.
Their apparent leader is a large, bearded, ferocious-looking brute hefting a submachine gun. His peasant’s cap is pulled low over one eye, concealing much of his face. He roves his single exposed eye over my aircraft, taking in the dead courier. Then he looks out across the clearing toward my position. A dark wave of evil accompanies his gaze, reaching corroded fingers for me.
My heart leaps into my mouth, a cold fist slugs my chest. And I know, with greater certainty than I’ve ever experienced, that he is the one. The man who ordered my brother’s murder.
A grim ancestral voice roars in my ears, demanding vengeance. Stilikan’s blood cries out to me from the ground. My teeth clench so hard that they seem about to break. I chamber a round into the pistol with a sharp clack-clack!
Then I regain control of myself. Fool! I’d never hit the bastard at this range. Thank God for the artillery explosions, or somebody might have heard me cock the gun.
Yes, the artillery ... it’s louder now. I scarcely noticed it earlier above the tumult of my emotions. The partisans halt their examination of Y-47 and glance skyward. Then the leader makes some hand gestures; two groups of four detach themselves from the main body and head toward opposite ends of my woods.
So, this is their game, comb through the trees and snare the fugitive. Well, two can play at it. I’ll maneuver to intercept the group on my right. With any luck I can ambush them and take out one or two. I’ll pick up a fallen submachine gun and –
But the gods of war have other plans. They send an artillery shell hurtling our way, like an express train roaring through the heavens. A long moan, changing to a whine, then a scream. The partisans dive to the ground as the shell explodes in the trees behind them. The earth shakes under my belly.
The leader is the first one back on his feet, yelling in the harsh slobe language and waving his arms. The people he’d sent after me return to him on the double. Then they all melt away the direction they’d come.
Another shell explodes in the area, then another and another. I hug the ground for dear life; shrapnel whistles past my ears. I feel a mad exaltation along with my terror. Then the maws of the big guns direct their fury elsewhere. Things become, relatively, calm once more.
Against all odds, I’ve been granted a reprieve. Whose guns are those, anyway, ours or the enemy’s? It hardly matters.
If I had any sense I would take maximum advantage and run off. But I must know where the partisans went. If they have a base camp nearby, I need to find its precise location so that I can direct an attack against it ...
I need to kill the leader of that band and all the others who assisted him in Stilikan’s murder.
I hump my way across the open area, pistol at the ready, and enter the far stand of woods. This is taking a huge risk, but the last thing the partisans expect would be pursuit from their intended victim. So, an element of surprise favors me. The forest is dense and marshy, an easy place to get lost. I pull out my compass and guide myself in as direct a line as possible.
I don’t have far to go. After a sloggy period of stepping over fallen trees and negotiating underbrush, I suddenly emerge from the woods into a ghastly open area. ZOD!
The shock pulls the air from my lungs.
A vast silence assaults my ears, a howl of emptiness. Confronting ZOD close up is far worse than seeing it from the sky. Up there I can determine its limits, but from here is seems to go on forever – a desert of nonexistence that appears to be in motion, somehow, like a sluggish whirlpool of nothingness. Here and there a poisoned vapor hugs the ground.
The fetid odors of the forest are gone, sucked away into the void. The rumble of artillery becomes subdued, as if I am hearing it from a great distance underwater.
I shrink back into the woods and peer out from a place of comparative sanity. I look all directions through my filter of underbrush. There is no sign of the partisans, as if they’ve vanished from this earth. My own mind seems to be slipping away into the vacuum. Panic gnaws at me; I fight the impulse to run.
And then, I detect ... the blur.
When I look directly at it, the blur disappears into the blasted landscape. But when I turn my head and use peripheral vision, it wavers back into view. What on earth is it – is it even of this earth?
Maybe it’s a camouflaged tunnel entrance of some sort, an underground escape route for the partisans. Where else could they have gone in this barren wilderness?
For a foolish moment, I consider trying to enter the blur myself, but that would be suicide. If the partisans are anywhere around, I’d be a sitting duck wandering out into that wasteland. No, I’ll have to come back later, in force.
I slink away. ZOD laughs at my impotence.
31. Revelation
My initial progress toward home base is swift and sure, driven by the fear of partisan bands. I’ve flown this route so often before that navigation poses few difficulties. An occasional compass reading keeps me on course, and I don’t bother with the little paper map tucked inside my flight suit. The map in my head is sufficient.
I keep to the forest edges and the empty fields, avoiding places that might contain settlements, hoping fervently that one of our patrols will appear. But none does. I am alone in the alien wilderness.
I give a wide berth to a farmhouse. Smoke curls from its chimney, and it is clearly occupied. A large barn and some outbuildings stand nearby. The farmstead seems out of place in the middle of so much emptiness. I see other abandoned buildings along my route and am tempted to stop for a while. But I press on.
A swift moving river, perhaps 30 meters wide, halts my advance. From the air, it is just a little ribbon, a check point from which to orient myself. But close up, it presents a substantial barrier. It rushes through the woods at the bottom of steep embankments. The little canyon seems to be far deeper than is necessary.
I know there is a bridge upstream and am sorely tempted to use it. Maybe it is even guarded by our own men ... but maybe not.
And, if partisans are about, wouldn’t they be keeping an eye on that bridge? How can I hope to cross unnoticed? Tall, blonde guy wearing an enemy flight suite – a pretty bad disguise. So, I make my way down the embankment and search for a point to cross the river.
After some time of stumbling through underbrush and shore mud, I find one. The river at this spot passes over a sandbar which seems to extend most of the way to the opposite bank. If I am careful, I just might make it across without getting fully soaked.
I step into the water, wincing as it floods over my boot tops and soaks my feet. Then I pause as a frightening thought occurs. If this is the best place to ford the river, won’t the partisans know about it too? Might they be watching right now from the opposite side, aiming rifles at me, waiting for me to reach the midpoint so as to be the easiest target?
To hell with all that, Dytran, get moving!
I take another step and pause again. What if the water is deeper than it looks – what if I have to swim for it? I’ll be soaked clear through with a cold
night coming on. Should I strip off my flight suit and try to hold it up out of the water?
No time for that.
I plunge ahead.
My fears about snipers and water depth are quickly joined by another anxiety – the current. It tugs at me, constantly forcing my progress farther and farther downstream. And the water is frigid, as if it is running off a glacier. It rises up to may waist, freezing my genitals.
I am staggering on the very edge of the sandbar, looking at the deep eddies of a drop-off, when I finally gain the other side. I slosh onto dry land again, numbed from the cold water.
“Piece of cake,” I mutter through chattering teeth.
I ascend the embankment, stopping only long enough to pour the water out of my boots and ring my socks semi-dry.
My trek resumes. Now that I am out of immediate peril, the day’s accumulation of fatigue and horror starts to drag me down. I feel a strong urge to stop and rest and, maybe, not bother to get up again. Just lie on my back, facing the pristine sky, and wait for whatever comes along.
I might have done it except that a strange, glowing presence seems to be moving ahead of me, urging me to keep going. No ... it isn’t really there, not so you could see it, but I sense it somehow – an almost erotic manifestation.
It is, doubtless, just my overwrought mind going down some weird survival channel. Still, I dare not challenge its command, for if I do, all will be lost. So I keep moving steadily through the hours, despite my numbed brain, aching legs, and wet, clammy flight suit.
My guide needs a name, so I gave it one – Ket. Yes, that’s who it is!
Her letter glows inside my pocket, spreading warmth throughout my exhausted body. Images of her beauty flood my mind. She stays ahead of me for while, then moves to my side, holding my hand, her long fingers stroking my palm. My other hand grips the pistol.
Ket whispers into my ear, words of love and lust that I cannot quite make out.
But as dusk approaches, I know that I have to be stopping soon. The partisans own the night, and I need to find concealment. Even my guide realizes this and vanishes as mysteriously as she had appeared.
I am fairly confident of my location, as I’ve just passed the scummy pond I’ve seen so often from the air. But a final check would be in order before the light becomes too dim. I reach inside my flight suit to get the map nestled there; my fingers touch the manila envelope.
Damn! I’ve forgotten about the dispatch. Idiot!
I’ve been wandering about for hours carrying a top-secret message, all ready for anyone who cared to read it. The atmosphere ratchets up its burden of paranoia. I can almost feel enemy hands wrapping around me, seizing the document I have so foolishly allowed to survive.
I slip inside a stand of trees. I need a place to spend the night, and this one is as good as any I am likely to find. I pull the envelope out of my flight suit. It stares up at me, cold and severe, with its TOP SECRET warning stamped in blood red.
The thing is oddly terrifying, like the paper that bore the message of Stilikan’s fate. It has already cost a man’s life, and my beautiful airplane, as well. My duty is to destroy it immediately, tear the paper up and bury it in the muck. Or I can burn it. Nobody will see my damp little fire in this concealment.
But something about that envelope compels me to read its contents. Ever since the crash, my brain seems to be operating on some weird, intuitive level that defies all logic. But reading the dispatch could be considered an act of treason. If the partisans catch me, they can force me to reveal secret information.
I glance down at the pistol. No, the partisans will never take me alive. So, without any clear idea of what I am doing, I tear open the envelope with my trembling hands and read its contents in the dying light.
To: Division Commander
From: Army Group HQ
Subject: Reprisals for recent partisan attacks
Select any villages of your preference. All men to be shot, all women and children to be burned with the houses.
Signed,
Army Group Commander
***
I dare not leave my area of concealment. Yet I cannot stand to be around that cursed message, either. I dig a small hole, tear the paper to bits and throw them inside. Then I set them afire, then bury the ashes. I move as far away from the grave as possible and try to get some badly needed sleep.
But it won’t come. Whenever I start to drift off, I see the flames of hell and of doomed villages. I hear the shrieks of burning children, worse than the cries of the butchered Youth League members after the air raid. A constant roaring, as of a powerful wind, fills my ears.
I try to summon the Magleiter to banish these images, but he doesn’t come. In fact, I am quite certain that he is actually bringing the horror to me. The revelation banishes all peace. An unbearable thought tortures my mind:
How many other death warrants have I delivered in my airplane – how many children have already burned with my help?
There is no way I can undo the harm!
I can make sure it never happens again, though. At least that much is in my power. I’ll simply make sure that others run the courier flights from now on. I am the squadron commander, aren’t I? That still counts for something. And nobody would object, except for Bel maybe. Courier flights are greatly preferred over ammo drops and the other assignments.
But that would be a dishonorable evasion. I’d be a coward sending others to do the filthy work that I shrink away from myself ... Maybe I could put a bullet through my foot ... another cowardly evasion.
This is war, you spoiled brat! A harsh, uncompromising voice bellows in my head. What did you expect? Right this minute, they’re murdering your national comrades with their air raids. They’re not human. Kill them all!
But I can’t accept that. The slobes are human, all right, just as much as we are – for all our mutual crimes.
My desperation grows, hemming in my mind, until only a single way out seems possible – suicide. A blast from the pistol would liberate me from all responsibility and redeem my personal honor ...
But an image of Mama’s grief-stricken face floats up into my consciousness, and I know that I could never subject her to that. Then I hear the voice of Stilikan in my mind:
“You think too much, twerp!” he cries, smacking the back of my head. “Try to feel more. Believe and trust – obey the Magleiter’s will.”
Yes, he’d actually said things like that to me when we were kids. I wonder if he still felt that way toward the end of his life. Judging by his final letters, I’m inclined to doubt it. And what were his thoughts when they tied him to that tree – when he confronted the brutal face of hatred and revenge?
Pure, unreasoning hate had murdered Stilikan, the same monster as in the dispatch I’d burned. That partisan leader ... what was he like before the atrocities started? Was he a normal man before the hate took over? The hate that we brought to this cursed land.
Damn him! Whatever else happens, I will kill that man and all the others who are responsible for Stilikan. I am part of the vicious cycle now.
32. Death Storm
An exhausted morning finally arrives, bringing with it a breakfast of cold emergency rations and a gulp of tepid water from my flask. I’ve gained nothing from my restless night, have no idea how I will conduct myself when I get back to base ... if I get back to base. If the partisans don’t catch me first.
I resume my journey. With any luck, I might be able to arrive by nightfall.
But luck is a rare commodity today. Twice I have to find concealment as groups of men pass by. The first group appears to be laborers, the second one seems less benign – hunters perhaps, or maybe partisans going about incognito under the bright sun. And I have to give a wide berth to people working in the fields. Much of the farmland in this area is abandoned, but some of it is still under cultivation, which complicates matters greatly.
This is supposed to be ‘conquered territory,’ but I feel no s
ecurity at all traversing it. Our forces are merely a thin crust on the surface of this foreign land, like an egg shell. Beneath it, other forces hostile to us roil and hiss.
I increasingly seek the protection of trees. Up here in the hills, the woods lack the fetid swamps that choke the lowland forests, and traversing them is not too difficult. In another situation, I might enjoy strolling among such tall, stately trees, but they only appear to me like sentinels of doom now.
I remember reading an article about the great slobe forests that we would be developing for our own use after the war. The article spoke of the vast tonnages of paper, building materials, and decorative woods that would flow into our country from this inexhaustible resource. The profits from this industry would be immense.
Right.
My progress is slow, and I have already resigned myself to another night in the outdoors when the boy appears. He is standing stock still, hiding behind a tree. I might have bypassed him were it not for the supercharged senses I’ve developed since the crash. As it is, the corner of my eye catches a glimpse of him. I drop into a fighting crouch and whip out my knife. The lad bolts.
“Hey!”
Fear drives my quarry on, but I quickly narrow the gap. I leap the final distance and bring him down.
Kill him! The savage voice roars in my head.
I raise the knife high, targeting a spot on his back that leads direct to the heart ... then I lower the weapon.
I roll the boy over and clamp a hand over his mouth. His face disappears, except for a pair of frantic eyes gaping up at me.
“Keep quite!” I snap.
I touch the knife blade to my pursed lips, then draw it symbolically across my throat.
“Get it?”
The boy can’t have understood my words, but he grasps the meaning of my gestures well enough. He nods, all the while his eyes bore into mine. I feel oddly ashamed, as if I’ve defeated an unworthy opponent. Stilikan had toppled gigantic Papa before threatening him with a knife, while I am confronting a mere child.
“All right, on your feet.” I take my hand away.
The boy rises slowly, glancing around himself like a frightened doe. I brandish the pistol under his nose.
