by Chris Bunch
“We’re just going to have to keep pushing ‘til our boot goes up his ass and comes out his flipping throat.”
• • •
Njangu never told Garvin about almost breaking, but for some reason he did tell Maev Stiofan, one time when they were given an hour off duty at the same time.
He watched her closely, looking for a flicker, a flash of disdain. But none came.
“You know,” she said when he was finished, “I think something like that happened to my father. His crew was loading chemicals, and there was an explosion in the ‘ponies plant.
“It was, I guess, really messy, and only three or four of the crew lived. My mother went to the hospital, and came back very quiet, but said Father wasn’t burned, didn’t have any broken bones.
“The company moved him … and us … to what I think was a sanitarium. About a month later, they discharged him as ‘kay, and found him a job at another plant, doing something different.
“He never talked about that day, but afterward, he was a little … different. Quieter. I even thought he was shorter.”
Sure he was different, Njangu thought. That black frigging monster took part of him away, and he could never get it back. He shuddered.
“I’m not dumb enough to say forget about what happened,” Maev said gently. “But time’ll pass.
“Besides, the way this war is going, we’re all going to get killed, and we won’t have to worry about being psych cripples afterward.
“Come on. Both of us need a shower, and I just happen to know a chemical warfare company that’s got one, even though they call it a decontamination unit. And I also know an abandoned hotel where there’s a real bed that hasn’t been shot full of holes. I found a big mother padlock and put it on the door myself.”
• • •
The Larissan’s Ayesha had been shot out of the sky a long time ago, smashing half through an office building. A month? A week? He didn’t know. The man lay in his own stink, smelling his leg as it began to rot.
There was no food, but he had no appetite, anyway.
It rained once or twice, and water dribbled through a shellhole in the Ayesha, and he licked it.
He guessed the ACV had crashed between the lines, since he didn’t see any of his own soldiers after the first day. He’d tried to call to them, but had been too weak.
Then there was nobody for a time.
He drifted, not unpleasantly, in and out of consciousness. But he didn’t like that, tried to stay alert.
Then he heard voices, saw other soldiers. Enemy soldiers. They weren’t what he wanted, so he waited longer. A day, another night passed.
He peered through the starred plas of the cupola, saw, coming along the street, a group of the enemy.
His vision was blurry, and he kept blinking.
Eight, maybe ten of them. Not enough. But then he saw the men with coms on their back, clustering around a man who held himself like a commander, carried what looked like a map board.
That would do.
He spun the control wheels of the turret, and slowly, laboriously, the cupola swung until the autocannon sights were on the officer. He could not miss.
He reached for the manual firing stud, and his hand fell limply, without strength. Again he stretched, lips moving in a prayer, a curse. One centimeter … two … five more.
Touch the button. You have enough strength. Then you can die. But touch the button first.
• • •
“All right,” Haut Pol Trygve said firmly, pointing at the projection on his map board. “We’re almost on the palace, and we’ll take up new positions as soon as it’s dark, and get ready for tomorrow. Put Rocket Company over here for the assault, which gives them adequate cover, and line of sight for support. Two assault companies will go in here, and — ”
The machine cannon on the wrecked ACV blatted half a dozen rounds, sweeping across the command group. Two 20mm rounds took Trygve in the body, killing him instantly. Others cut down a com operator and Second Regiment’s III Section Commander.
Garvin Jaansma was bringing Trygve some replacement officers when the ACV opened fire. He saw Trygve’s body convulse as the rounds tore it almost in half.
He was flat, blaster looking for a target, even as he realized where the rounds came from. Other soldiers were shooting, maneuvering toward the wreck. Grenades cascaded, then an infantry rocket launcher crashed into the Ayesha, exploded. Soldiers closed on the wreck, shooting as they went.
Somebody found a hole in the Ayesha, tossed grenades in.
Then there was silence.
Garvin was on his feet. He grabbed a mike from one of the surviving com operators, who’d stood in the middle of the firefight like a statue.
“Get me First Brigade Headquarters freq,” he snapped.
“Huh?”
“Come on, man! Move.”
“Oh. Yeh. I mean, yessir.” The man touched buttons. “You’re on their frequency, sir.”
“Lance, this is Lance Seven Actual,” Garvin said into the mike.
“Lance Seven Actual, this is Lance. Go ahead.”
“Lance, this is Seven Actual. I shackle, uh …”
“Four Aleg One is the current code, sir,” the operator said, now fully alert.
“… Four Aleg One. Pilum Six Actual is down. Keld Ind Alf. Request orders, over.”
There was a blurp of surprise from the other end, silence for a time, then:
“Lance Seven Actual, this is Lance Six Actual.”
Caud Fitzgerald.
“Understand your message, Seven. Do you have a handle on Pilum’s situation and its orders?”
Garvin thought hard, felt a hard flame of confidence roar up inside.
“That’s affirmative,” he said. “I was there for your briefing.”
“Then continue the mission. Your call sign is now Pilum Six Actual until otherwise notified. This is Lance Six Actual, clear.”
Garvin was now the Commanding Officer of Second Regiment, almost a thousand men at full strength. He tossed the microphone to the com operator.
“All right. You … Jenks it is, right? Stick on my ass. You’re now my main voice. Call in my assault company commanders, and we’ll get ready to take some real estate.”
• • •
“Remember what you told me, a couple of days or centuries ago,” Njangu asked Maev. “About that long passageway that went somewhere down to Redruth’s rathole?”
“Surely.”
“Well, I went and authorized some low-altitude, high-speed IR flights over the palace, without anybody getting dead, thankfully, and ‘lookee what I got.”
Maev examined the eerie hologram.
“Here’s our lines, theirs, of course,” Njangu said. “Here’s the palace …”
“Shaddup,” Maev said. “I’m a trained officer, too. I can read this projection as good, probably better, than you.”
Her fingers touched places on the hologram not far from the palace.
“What looks like open country here, and here,” she said, mocking Yoshitaro’s delivery, “should not have any heat emanations like they do. That suggests there’s something underground, with exhaust vents.
“Like maybe a bunker,” she went on. “Like maybe a very, very big bunker. A command center. Or maybe just a whole bunch of weapons pits.”
“Nawp,” Yoshitaro said smugly. “No guessing needed. Look at this. This is another infrared, from a Grierson, way up overhead, hovering, so you don’t have the same detail. This is a nice time-delay series, every ten minutes or so for half a day.
“Now, you notice how the emissions from those spots you pointed out wax and wane regularly, like the poets say? Which means to me if they’re weapons positions, all those regimented bastards cook at the same time, warm their little toesies at the same time, and so forth. Or else it’s one big honkin’ position with exhaust vents all linked together.”
“I think you’re right,” Maev said. “And I think if we can get some backu
p and permission, it might be time to go exploring.”
“Kinda thought you’d say that. But I’m not thrilled with that ‘we’ bit. I mean, this is dangerous, and all.”
Maev gave him a look.
“Are you going?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Well, then.”
Njangu started to say something, stopped.
“ ‘Kay. Lemme set some wheels turning.”
• • •
Garvin led two attacks as Regimental Commander, taking moderate casualties. Each time, Second Regiment held a few dozen or hundred more meters.
He was scared spitless the first time, more confident the second. Nobody showed up to relieve him, so he guessed he was doing all right.
Other regiments attacked on their fronts, and the noose around Redruth tightened. Building by building, block by block, the brutal city fighting went on.
The ruined spires of Redruth’s palace loomed. Death struck from its every spire, every hidden bunker, every innocent-seeming outbuilding.
Hastily trained replacements came in from D-Cumbre, were fed into the combat formations and, as often as not, died before they understood how real war worked.
• • •
“Knock,” Njangu said, peering into the round concrete pipe, half-buried in rubble, that was Garvin’s private quarters. A dozen meters away was the culvert that was his headquarters. Garvin looked up from the map of the palace he’d been studying, saw Yoshitaro and Stiofan, crawled out.
“I’d ask you in for an aperitif,” he said, “but it’s a little cramped. Sorry.”
“Congrats on the promotion,” Njangu said.
“Yeh, well, it’s a job,” Garvin said, trying to keep the pride out of his voice. He cupped hands, shouted. A particularly filthy Alt stuck his head out of the culvert.
“What do you need, boss?”
“Valento, somebody shake me up some frigging caff for my guests, or I’m over there to beat butt!”
“Right, boss,” the officer said. “Sorry. I should have seen ‘em coming.”
“Goddamned disrespectful swine,” Garvin muttered. “If he wasn’t so good at killing people, I’d probably do something drastic to him.”
Njangu looked at Garvin’s drawn face, at the lines of exhaustion, and decided not to say anything.
“Speaking of which,” Jaansma said, “when’re you going to get your ass back on the staff where you’re supposed to be? Us field ossifers need guidance.”
“Angara seems hell-bent to keep me forever,” Njangu said. “I’ve been whining to come back to a place where a man can stand up and get kilt, but without results. And Fitzgerald isn’t any happier than you are, either.”
“Shit,” Garvin said. “I’ve got an attack at dawn tomorrow, and don’t have the froggiest on how to do anything except hit ‘em again and keep getting slaughtered.”
“Actually,” Njangu said, “that’s why we’re here. Your orders have been changed.”
“And Fitzgerald didn’t bother telling me anything? What is this, some kind of supersecret that you’ve got to hand-carry the news? You sure this isn’t one of your schemes, Njangu?”
“Well, actually it is,” Yoshitaro said. “But mostly Maev’s. Angara personally approved this one, and Fitzgerald said we should deploy through your sector. Sit down, gimme your goddamned map, and I’ll show you how we’re going to let you win the war.”
• • •
Garvin moved four assault companies as far forward as he dared as soon as full dark came.
Now the palace was very, very close.
This is a good place to get killed, he thought. But Njangu and Company stand a better chance in the corpse lottery.
• • •
There were four of them: Njangu, Maev, Tweg Calafo, and Striker Fleam. Njangu thought of other names, other soldiers he might’ve preferred. But they were dead, wounded, or in another unit now.
There was very little left of the I&R Company he’d led. But that seemed the way of things.
The four wore light-absorbing clothes that should also reflect ground radar and IR, and their faces were blackened. They carried only a couple of energy bars and a single canteen each. They carried blast pistols, fighting knives, plus the antique suppressed single-shot projectile weapons. Fleam also had a short nail-studded club he swore was the best weapon of all on a night patrol.
Two hours before false dawn they crept out of the Force lines in an area that hadn’t seen action in a couple of days, moving across the lines to the Larissan outposts.
The enemy troops were alert, but as exhausted as their enemies, so the four infiltrators weren’t ID’ed, didn’t have to kill anyone.
They went on, past buried turrets, bunkers with gun barrels sticking out, pop-up cannon positions. No one was above ground. Being seen, even at night, was an invitation to death.
A fighting patrol or a night attack would have been discovered and wiped out. But no one allowed for a few skilled men, moving silently, which I&R had discovered on their various reconnaissances.
The ruins of the palace were around them, strange, jagged formations that’d once been logical constructs of men.
Njangu looked up at the ruins, remembering his promise to do a favor for the Universe’s architects when he first saw the rococo nightmare, thought he hadn’t meant to do the work personally.
A sentry hidden behind a broken statue saw movement and aimed. Yoshitaro’s knife went home in his throat and he died. They dragged the body behind a pile of rubble and went on.
If they succeeded, they wouldn’t come back this way. If they failed … it didn’t matter.
They moved into the huge main entrance of the palace. The great doors had been blown in by airstrikes, and the tapestries were smoke-blackened, the art on the walls torn, ruined.
Maev led them down a long hall, toward the sound of voices. A door was open a crack, and light, the sound of voices came out.
She motioned them down, and they crawled silently past the room, went on.
Smaller halls opened, some still occupied, others bombed into rubble. Maev led them deeper into the palace, never being seen. Twice she stopped, realized she’d lost her way, and they went back, took another passage.
Again, light gleamed.
Maev took Njangu’s arm, nodded, pointed. This was where the passage she’d wondered about began. She drew her pistol, as did the others.
She’d said there would probably be only two sentries at the door.
Njangu held up one finger … then another … then a third, and the four jumped around the corner, weapons leveled.
Six Protector’s Own gaped, then brought their blasters up. There were four dull clicks, and four Larissans were down, small projectile holes in their foreheads, under their helmets’ bulge. Njangu was moving forward, snapkicked the fifth’s blaster spinning up, knife strike going into the man’s throat, spinning him, snapping his neck and letting him down as Fleam’s bludgeon crushed the skull of the last.
They left the piled bodies where they’d fallen. If someone came, there’d be shouts and alarms when they saw the corpses. If the guard post was vacant, someone might look for the missing men quietly and surprise the raiders.
Njangu checked his watch finger. It was just about time. All they had to do was keep on creepy-crawling, grab somebody, and pull out their toenails until he or she told them where Redruth’s quarters were, once Garvin’s attack started and gave them some cover noise. Then they could go on to finish their mission with Redruth either kidnapped or, most likely, dead.
But it didn’t quite happen that way.
CHAPTER
30
The artillery preceded Garvin’s attack with a barrage that walked from the lines back to the palace, then came forward again. Velv, aksai, Zhukovs dived, firing missiles at any target that presented itself on any screen.
The palace grounds were worked over as thoroughly as any farmer’s plowed field, not for the first nor the te
nth time.
The Larissans held in their positions, knowing that fleeing, or even coming into the open until the artillery and aerial hells stopped would be utter suicide. They waited instead for the enemy infantry to attack, dark figures walking slowly toward them through the boiling haze.
Garvin’s assault companies came out of their positions, went forward as the artillery gave the palace a final pounding, and a wave of aircraft dived in for a final strafing.
No one ever knew who fired the rocket. But it hit something delicate. A massive explosion shook the ground, and smoke boiled high, over the palace’s tallest tower. For an instant, Garvin thought someone had set off a tactical nuke. But it wasn’t that, something more conventional, perhaps a fairly small ammunition dump that’d been hit.
The ground was ripped open, revealing torn concrete that’d been laid, then concealed with meters of dirt.
The first Cumbrian to reach the smoking crater looked down, saw the shatter of a room, and an open door.
“We got a way in!” he shouted. His platoon sergeant echoed the command, and infantrymen streamed toward the hole, dropped down, and the Force was inside Protector Redruth’s command center.
• • •
Njangu and the other three heard the battle begin, opened the doors to the passage, and started down it. The sound of the artillery and bombing got louder as they got closer.
A huge explosion rocked the tunnel, sending them sprawling. Dust cascaded, and Njangu thought for a moment the passage had collapsed. They slowly picked themselves up, half-deafened, drew their blast pistols, since noise was clearly no longer a factor, and hurried on.
They heard shouts, saw two men, rather fat, technicians most likely, running toward them. The men didn’t see the infiltrators, but were looking behind them, as they were being pursued. Then they spotted the four ahead. One shrieked in panic, the other tried to draw a tiny pistol, and both were shot down.
Someone invisible in the haze beyond shot at them, and Njangu and the others ducked into an alcove, and shot back.
• • •
Protector Redruth listened to the shouting, the slam of blaster bolts exploding, grenades blasting.
“You,” he told his senior aide. “Take the rest of my Protectors and drive the Cumbrians out! Take any member of my staff you see with you.”
