Paul’s voice held concern, with a touch of dread. As if he had already found a solution and didn’t like it.
Lilith stated, “All indications are that Olaf is alive. The members of the bodyguard would have put in their code before the self-destruct, even if they used his nanites after catastrophic damage to his body. Only he knew the family nanites required no code.”
Continuing, somewhat cheerfully, “If he succeeds without the presence of a currently accepted military better, the projections of his prestige gain are, in fact, better than before the crash. There are too many imponderables to give any estimate of success. We don’t know what he could face.”
Paul’s face fell at the words ‘currently accepted military better’.
He knew he was considered an analyst and REMF. He hadn’t even been on a patrol in twenty years. Alecta had felt when the sniper's bullet creased his skull, or so she claimed. When he came to, he found out she'd had to be restrained. When she was more than a hundred kilometers distant.
If he didn’t offer, Boris wouldn’t even consider sending him. The problem with that was Boris would be frozen from indecision. He needed all his mind on the St Petersburg operation if he was to do the best there.
Paul grimaced internally, then said with an open grin on his face, “That only gives you one choice, boss. With what Lilith has just said, I'm your best option. Petrova’s a hell of a combat commander. She can keep me from making stupid mistakes. I have the experience, both operationally and from heading analysis and assessment, to avoid the worst mistakes as we move in.” He finished with a wink
“Alecta won’t like it, but it’s a command, not a frontline slot like Captain. I won’t be breaking my word to her,” Paul said.
Janna hid a smile as she said, “She may carry through with her threat and travel with you. She has Boris’s word she could if you ever took up a command.”
Paul only shrugged. He was half certain she would. He wasn’t happy about it, but it was the best answer among a load of shitty solutions.
Boris looked at Paul as if studying his face. He almost didn’t recognize the man. Gone was the serious professional, back was the joking warrior. Paul timed his final line perfectly.
“Besides, I have to back a play I’ve been suggesting for years. I’ll bet you that bottle of Glenfiddich that I’ve been keeping that your boy has everything sorted before we get there.”
Boris had to smile at that. They'd been using a bottle of that whiskey for the better part of sixty years on bets they were sure they couldn't lose. The old Paul was back, and that was worth a lot. That he was willing to go back in the field meant much. And in the post-Fall world, a madman in command wasn't the liability it would once have been.
Especially since Boris and every officer in his forces knew he could be serious and was highly capable.
“Very well,” Boris said as he rose and walked over to his friend. Kissing him on both cheeks and pulling him into a bear hug, he whispered to his friend, “It is good to have you all the way back.”
Paul answered back as quietly, “It’s good to be back. Now, let go of me before your wife or mine starts thinking there’s something funny going on, you ugly fuck.”
Despite the situation, or perhaps because of it, Boris couldn’t contain his laughter as he let Paul go.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The next morning Boris led the remaining three regiments out. He was grim-faced but without the malaise or lack of confidence a man who thought his son was dead or soon would be carried with him.
It was more the grim certainty of one who knew the unpredictability of battle and that a loved one would soon be caught in one.
Meanwhile, Paul was hurrying to form a command squad of ten. He'd found a lieutenant for adjutant, pinching him from Boris before his friend left. There were two solid sergeants he could pull from their temporary clerical assignments. The rest he would have to draw from the New Romanovka militia.
There was a polite knock on his door, and he absently said, “Enter.” A file landed on his desk, and he looked at it. Then, he saw the letters AKA after Corporal Martia Ilyushin. The name next to it was his wife’s name. He swore. He had spent too much time in work if she’d managed to go through militia training and reach the rank of corporal without him noticing.
Even if her rifle scores were still marginal at best, she was rated expert at unarmed combat and Wereform combat. Also, expert with a pistol and master with a shotgun.
He asked a simple question, “When?”
“When you made the trip to Mongolia fifteen years ago. I knew you wouldn't stay away from the field forever. Janna knew I'd be a liability in the field, but knew I'd follow you if you went back. She insisted. It was either I do the training, or you'd be shuffled out of the military side. I knew if they pushed you out, you would feel useless. It would destroy the you that I loved.”
He made a face at her and then seriously said to her, “The things we do for love.”
She smiled back and shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad. Besides, some of the pack were annoyed at my military service exemption, even if I was a scientist first. It calmed down some trouble that was building. Janna had been training me in Wereform combat for fifteen years already.”
Alecta scowled and grumbled “And she can still knock me out whenever she tries.”
Paul had to grin. The local militia rarely did long distance patrols, and she had been ‘sent to Arkhangelsk to assist with rebuilding’ often enough to cover for that. Her file said she was a qualified corporal and was signed off by Janna, so she was qualified whether he’d known or not. Leo would be back in a day or three, so the capital wouldn’t be without ‘family’ to look after it.
“Half my squad volunteered to fill out your command squad, sir,” she continued. In the regulars and reserves, familial interaction like this was frowned upon. No family member could sit on a promotion board, and every promotion outside of his own family had to be signed off on by Boris, above the rank of sergeant. Paul, Vilosty, and Tolstov signed off on promotions for Boris’s kids.
Both Boris and Janna promoted as the forces increased. There was no-one more qualified for overall command of any force or realm than Boris unless—or until—Bethany Anne or Michael returned. Janna was the one who had managed the entire retrieval of academics of every stripe that enabled everyone to prosper in their realm. That showed her competence.
Tolstov was a wildcard in many ways. Supremely competent, but ambitious, he was afraid of both Boris and Janna. While Olaf was the clear heir, he'd make no threat to them. If they showed no weakness and Olaf was gone, he'd not make a move either. But if he saw a large opening?
Well, that was something else.
But he was too competent to exile, execute or remove without active treason. Besides, Paul was sure Janna had people inside his confidence who would act before he could achieve anything against her or Boris personally.
Eisenhower had to deal with both Patton and Montgomery. Boris and Janna only had Tolstov.
‘Fraternization' was a crime of the past since the Fall. Rape was an entirely different matter, but with consensual relations, well, they needed every child that could be produced. If a woman had to be moved to other duties because of pregnancy, that was as respected a reason as a re-assignment for a lost limb. It took about a year for a limb to be regenerate and a person to get full use back out of it.
One of the sergeants Paul was pulling in for this op was just coming off maternity leave. The other was her husband. Their nine-month-old would be fostered with the militia. It was a frequent and respected situation.
“Well, get them to grab their gear. At least it will save me from having to go through the entire file stack,” Paul said with no small relief. In many ways, it was the sergeants and lieutenant in his command group that were critical. The rest of the personel served there as messengers, in case radio was contra-indicated, and bodyguards. He trusted his wife to have chosen competent bodyguards for him.
“Yes, sir,” she said, saluting and back in military formality.
“We have a long bike ride ahead of us,” Paul said with a slightly pained expression. He missed the days of motorcycles and helicopters. And with the threat taking out a shuttle, another couldn't be risked outside the borders. Especially when they didn't know how the first shuttle had been disabled.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Olaf knew they were in trouble. With the risk of long-term effects, he didn't dare use another nanite dose unless it was an actual emergency, but he still had four men on stretchers. They had been forced to move twenty kilometers northwest, but he'd been able to send four Weres ahead, searching for caves along the line of advance.
It had taken a two-day march to find anything appropriate, and that had been used by humans recently. Humans with rifles, by the scent of gun cleaning oil. It was not particularly surprising. Belarus probably had hundreds of caches before the Fall, and upgrading outdated military equipment had been a specialty. Ammunition stockpiles more considerable than most nations would have, a natural offshoot of such industry.
Russia was so vast that even ten times the ammo caches would be so scattered that they could be lost far more easily. Russia's population density had been less than a quarter that of Belarus.
There could still be half million or more living in an area only slightly larger than the region Boris controlled. Perhaps higher considering almost half the country had been forested before the Fall. Hunting would have been a simpler task than in the West.
The only reason Boris had more than that many living under his rule was that he had gone out of his way to consolidate survivors. Few leaders had the forethought to do so, not that many leaders had survived the Fall.
So many governments were considered culpable with what had happened that the population had taken the fear and anger out on them. Toppling them. That had left few organized and recognized leaders to provide such support.
Belarus was not such a unified realm. Even if someone had started the process, it would take longer than a decade to complete it.
So, Olaf had to worry about who had used the cave. Were they nomads merely moving through, hunting and scavenging? Or were they a more organized, militaristic group? Were they coming back? Were they potential allies or definite foes?
Olaf was lost in thought as others set up camp around him. Several of the Weres had gone hunting. Hunting as a wolf would leave less trace, even if they had to walk back to the cave as a man carrying the kill.
They could all use the fresh meat, and it was worth the small risk of a fire. The cave opening was very defensible. Guard posts above and around that cave mouth would give any attacker hell. Fresh meat to supplement the rations would improve everyone's morale.
Everyone in Boris’s realm was too used to thinking they could wipe the floor with any opponent. This time, they had been soundly defeated by an enemy, and it hit them hard.
Olaf needed some time to think. If he hadn't been reduced below twenty-five troopers by having to detach guards for the wounded, he would have been tempted to march towards the initial contact point. He just could not see a way to safely perform a scout and scoot against a force that may contain a Vampire with fewer than that.
If the Vampire abandoned all caution and caught a group of less than five alone, it was entirely possible it would wipe them out. Numbers, or possibly Olaf himself, would be needed to defend themselves against one of those, and the Forsaken were a plague outside Boris's lands in Eastern Europe. The Swedes were the other exception Olaf knew of.
Both realms treated Weres well. Weres could pinpoint the Vampires. Then assault groups could put them down, but not without casualties. After a Forsaken came within a hair’s breadth of gaining control over Sweden, the people found a determination to clear their lands of the threat.
A threat that had been revealed when a Vampire had tried to manipulate the heir.
Rejuvenating her to youthful beauty had, in retrospect, been too obvious and a mistake. A Were had managed to reach her and explain what would become her choices. The cost her people would already be paying. They had come up with a successful plan to counter the Vampire, and that had been the end of that.
Olaf shook himself. He needed to focus on the now. His opposition was known to have a Vampire. That meant he needed to keep his troops in groups of no less than five, three teams forward, two available to fall back on or to move forward in support. With the dead, wounded, and the pilot, as well as those needed to guard the hurt he had barely twenty available.
That made his best option to patrol the space around the camp until the wounded recovered. See what was going on in the vicinity, be prepared to move. Where there was a Vampire, within days, there could be a passel of Nosferatu.
Olaf called in Anatoly. Together, they started organizing patrols—Two of eight, one of five with Olaf. That should be enough to take out single Vampires. If Nosferatu were contacted in numbers, they were to fall back. Away from the cave to a secondary rally point. Gunshots should be heard across the patrol range and would signal the other operating patrol to converge on the secondary rally point.
One patrol would remain in place in the cave at all times. The signal that they would use was a shot from the railgun. It made a distinctive report that no-one could mistake for anything else. It was also as good as they were likely to get in protecting the bottleneck cave entrance. It would go through multiple Nos at once, crippling or killing any the slug passed through.
Olaf fervently hoped that a Nos attack would not happen. He had heard stories from his father and Danislav about how relentless they could be. There were a couple of other facts about them that niggled in his mind. For instance, Danislav had mentioned a propensity to hunt down family members.
In some ways, that would make them a devastating threat to any resistance movement. Find the family, turn a kid even, and that family would be, one way or another, of limited threat.
It could backfire, though. Surviving members could be even more driven to wipe out the Vampire. Or they could be broken. Unable to survive, let alone be a continuing threat.
Olaf hoped that was not a regular tactic. It wasn't something the Forsaken knew about, according to the records Danislav had researched before the Fall. Boris had only noticed it in passing over centuries, and often the Forsaken were more focused on immediate effects.
That combined with the semi-control they could impose on those Nos they created themselves meant few, if any, would realize that factor.
Lilith theorized it was an effort by the nanocytes to wind back the mutations to a level allowing Nosferatu to take conscious control. Close relatives would give the nanocytes the data needed to reduce the mindlessness, potentially.
That was not to say they wouldn’t target anything with blood to maintain the host. Just that a preference for relatives between targets in close vicinity.
Turn one, and it would go where the host remembered living if no control was placed on it, on a kind of autopilot. That increased the risk to family members if nothing distracted the Nos as well.
It might explain the empty villages that Were scouts had reported before they had found the cave, though. If that was a tactic being used, then that would explain the empty expanse. They had crossed several tracks that were overgrowing. Like the population that used them had only recently stopped using them.
The only place with recent human scents had been the hills, the region around the cave. If they were going to find anyone who they could obtain local conditions data from, it would be here or farther north by the look of things.
That was part of the reason he felt the need to patrol. Anatoly noticed his silence, and with the briefing the original bodyguard group had been given—that there was a Vampire in the area—put two and two together.
“Olaf, don't go borrowing trouble. No Vampire around would take Nosferatu lightly. They would cut into the food supply too quickly now. Fewer and warier humans since the Fall,” Anatoly sai
d, placing a hand on the older man's shoulder. He felt oddly paternal to his commander. He had much more experience in the field than Olaf.
Continuing, Anatoly stated, “You made the right choice taking the scanning mission yourself. I was thinking on it while we were searching for a signal or signature. Now that we have gone down, we still have enough supplies to stretch out to a month with some hunting. A smaller group would have been able to stretch that longer. However, they would have been forced to go to ground and hide. There are still enough here that we can scout. Look for information. Even fire up the shortwave radio in an emergency and contact base.”
Olaf frowned. The shortwave radio would give off a noticeable signature if they activated it. Pinpointing with even older radio detection technology would be easy. Without reliable satellite coverage, it was the only option for distance transmission. On the other hand, if they found something vital they would have to risk it. Perhaps even bait a trap with the transmission?
Still, it was not an answer for the current situation. It was not an emergency, nor had his forces obtained information that was of strategic value. A welter of concern filled Olaf. He kept to himself for the night, planning patrol ranges and time out before heading back.
<<<>>>
It was his third day patrolling, and they were about to head back. They'd found a few places that showed and smelt of recent human activity. The smell of anyone in the area ahead of them should have been brought to their senses by the wind that was blowing towards them. Olaf called time.
Though they had found a tracking sign, the Weres had been universally thwarted in tracking anyone by scent. They kept encountering patches of strong ‘woodlands’ odor that had overwhelmed their sense of smell.
Olaf was reasonably sure the hide they had found a half mile back was a day old or less. Still, even in his other form, the human scents had been faint. They were the smells of people who were taking extra effort to smell like the environment. Rubbing dirt and strong-smelling plants over themselves.
Redemption (The Boris Chronicles Book 4) Page 7
