Redemption (The Boris Chronicles Book 4)

by Paul C. Middleton

  That had slowed the assault just enough for Boris to reach it before the enemy could enter the building. His gallant soldiers had brought the time he needed to charge their rear with their blood and their lives.

  Bodies flew clear in a maelstrom. The violence and destruction he inflicted on the rear ranks was immense. Shattering damage had been done before the enemy force all knew he was there. Limbs were torn off, and bodies smashed into ruin against the blighted city ground. Skulls shattered as strong men landed against the fractured concrete.

  It had been a decade or more since Boris had found it necessary to take this form in combat. The reserve troops paused in shock and awe at the carnage he generated through the enemy formation. As the rear lines fell, the waning support from behind caused the assault by the front ranks to falter.

  The loss of their fellows in the moans and screams beyond those normal, even in violent combat, gave them pause. Those who turned to face the carnage froze again at the nightmare, the blood covered bear-man, behind them. Those pauses were all it took for the reserve force to regain their equilibrium and fire a fusillade of bullets into the remaining forces, cutting them down like wheat at harvest.

  His most elemental fury and anger satisfied, Boris managed to regain enough control to shift back into his human form. He did so with a shudder. After so long since he had taken that form in combat, he had forgotten the extra call it made, practically begging him to stay in it. He looked down at his wrecked uniform, then shrugged. He had things that needed to be done first.

  He started barking out orders, Weres in wolf form gathered to track the sense of the attackers back to whichever hole they had come out of. Perhaps the raiders had managed to hide away, only to find themselves encircled. Enough of Viktor's forces had been left in place to harass Boris and his men during the advance. Attacking hidden bases, the intention had been to disorder his advance. It was possible the sole intention of this raid had been to cause chaos.

  Then again, perhaps it was something else altogether.

  A fire team of five Werewolves quickly gathered to Boris's infuriated orders. As he cursed and harassed his tired troops out of shock and back into an organized force, the Procolici started tracking the trail such a large party of men would have to have left.

  Under the stern eye of his bodyguards, he hurried to his quarters to pull on a fresh uniform. After a scowl from the one that had followed him to his quarters, he grabbed his personal heavy combat armor and donned it as well.

  Even a commander could have tyrants that gave him orders in their own subtle way.

  <<<>>>

  Boris shook his head as one of the Weres reported back. They had found precisely where the enemy force had infiltrated their lines.

  It was an old sewerage line. No one had cleared it or secured it because most of the sewage lines in the occupied sections of St. Petersburg were above ground. Almost medieval in nature. His forces, himself included, had believed that the old sewer lines were useless because they could not have remained intact.

  This one was intact enough to allow passage underneath both perimeters to behind his lines.

  But if it allowed passage inside his lines, it might provide a route deep inside Viktor’s defenses.

  It was with some relief that Boris realized that he had to act now. He did not have the time to consult Danislav or Janna if he wanted to take the risk or, as he preferred to think of it, grasp this opportunity which had been presented to him.

  He had to organize a penetration force now. After considering the defenses and their needs, he gathered up platoons to make a company. That was all he could afford to pull from the towers and the perimeter. Then he ordered a company pulled from the reserve regiment for the raid. It would take about an hour to gather them.

  From the forces that made his bodyguard, about two platoons had followed him to the entrance that the Wolves had found. He selected five troopers. They, along with the Shifters, would scout the sewer tunnel, and check if the exit was guarded.

  Boris had his doubts that it would be, as Viktor seemed to lack the training of his father or the experience of his grandfather. Neither of them would have risked an enemy having an unguarded sally port. Both of them would have defended the upper floors of those Soviet towers to a far greater extent than Viktor had.

  As forces gathered, the tension amongst them ratcheted up. A successful raid would throw their opponents even more off balance. It would allow his forces to dictate the pace of combat. But given the direction this tunnel headed, Boris had hopes of an even more significant breakthrough.

  Several of the escaped civilians had revealed a probable location for Viktor's headquarters when they were debriefed. Before they were sent outside of the city. Depending on where the tunnel exited, it could allow an actual assault on his headquarters. An opportunity to pull off a successful raid on the enemy command post as a riposte to the unsuccessful raid against his own.

  Other methods at hand had been considered for taking out that site. Each had disadvantages severe enough to cause their abandonment.

  Bombardment was a problem due to a combination of distance and the heavy overhead cover of Viktor's chosen command post. Even though the heaviest howitzer shells could range in on it, there was no guarantee they could penetrate the heavy concrete that made the roof of the complex. Any bombardment would warn him that they had pinpointed his command post, and therefore the entire concept had been dropped.

  Air assaults had also been considered, but Viktor had broken out anti-aircraft weaponry after those towers had been taken. Despite the age of the weapons, they could well take down the shuttle while it was landing troops.

  The Gravitic engines had to be shut down to allow troops, especially unenhanced troops, to disembark safely. While the shuttles were adept at hovering on thrusters alone, they were vulnerable when deploying troops due to the requirements of a stable rappelling platform.

  However, if Viktor had been careless enough to leave no guards, or even too few guards, on the exit to the sewer tunnel, it presented an opportunity Boris could not ignore.

  An underground passageway offered his forces an opportunity, the same opportunity Viktor had seen, to penetrate the enemy lines. Boris's forces simply had not considered it because the sewage channels and other underground conduits had seemed derelict when they first investigated them.

  <<<>>>

  His forward team had managed to take down the four guards that has been left on the sewer exit without attracting attention. Deploying more than two companies through the small exit without attracting attention from the patrols had been a more difficult challenge.

  In fact, in the end, they had been forced to stalk and eliminate one of the patrols. That unit passed over near the tunnel entrance too regularly for a covert deployment of any significant force to be successful.

  Knives and silenced pistols had managed the task efficiently and effectively.

  Rather than bull their way through towards the command post, Boris’s forces moved stealthily, silently, flitting from cover to cover like ghosts in the night. That had been the downfall of Viktor's attack. His forces had gone in without regard to the noise they might make and any forces that might be attracted to it.

  Once they were in clear sight of the watch post, Boris started detaching marksman and sniper teams. The command post and surrounding areas were heavily patrolled, but there was only so much fortification possible in this ruined city. Although this area was in better condition than the portion Boris had captured, many of the buildings were crumbling.

  Boris pushed on after the detachments with the bulk of his forces, preparing to assault the main entryway. Two platoons of troops were detached. Moving around the patrolled perimeter, they were to complete the encirclement of the command post. Doing so would ensure no escape was possible.

  He was still concerned about the possibility of Viktor escaping with a significant number of loyal followers. That would allow Viktor to continue to cause problems
for everyone, both in St. Petersburg and elsewhere in the realms.

  His actions already showed he had the mindset of a bandit or raider rather than those of a true ruler. Now, Boris had to wait while his forces infiltrated and proceeded into position. The lieutenant in command of the platoon and responsible for covering the rear of the command post would send up a green flare when his forces were in place. That was when Boris would launch his assault.

  Now, all that was left for Boris and the assault force was a long, nervous, wait.

  <<<>>>

  Tension filled the air. Boris forced himself to remain still as the time he estimated his platoons should have taken to gain their positions passed. Nervous tension filled him like a tightening spring, but outwardly, his face showed a confident and imperturbable calm. His troops did not need his nervousness to add to their own.

  There was a quiet hiss and pop as the flare finally brightened the slightly greying sky. Dawn could not be far off. As soon as they saw it, his troops leapt into action with Boris near the head of the charge. While he would prefer to have been at the head of the charge, his bodyguards had managed to position themselves so as to make that impossible.

  Sniper shots cracked loudly, breaking the silence of the night. Guards at the entrance to the command post went down, slumping to the ground as the assault force placed charges on the steel doors.

  Taking cover to either side of the main door, they waited for the boom that echoed through the night. The ground shook slightly at the blast required to guarantee a breach through the thick, steel doors.

  Troops surged through the entryway, and gunfire slammed some of them back as it struck their armor, or less often their arms, heads, or legs.

  Men went down, injured and dead, but their comrades surged forward over them, firing on the run. Injured men rolled out of the way as they could, taking position behind whatever cover they could find.

  As those still charging forward slowed their fire, those who had been injured and made it to cover took up the slack. The enemy guards were forced to keep their heads down until Boris’s loyal soldiers crashed over them, killing or incapacitating them as quickly as a wave can destroy a sandcastle.

  There were none of the hostages actually in the command post. That had been considered too risky, even by Viktor. After all, what would have happened to his plans if they had been listening in and managed to escape?

  Finally, Boris reached the front of the charge. Troops were cut down by gunfire as they left the rooms they had been performing staff or communications duty from. An entire squad of half-dressed men was cut down by bursts of rifle fire as they turned out of what must have been a resting ready room.

  Finally, he burst through a door from which the sounds of tables being overturned and other makeshift defenses being readied could be heard. Kicking down the thick wooden door, Boris burst into the room quickly enough to recognize Viktor as he attempted to flee through a door on the far side.

  Time slowed as he saw the man responsible for all the pain death, destruction, and senseless waste he had seen in this campaign. Almost as if moving through syrup, his rifle rose to his shoulder, but everyone around him was moving slower. Taking careful aim, he fired a shot straight through the knee of this worm of the man.

  A scream of agony ripped through the room. There were loud clatters as guns were dropped to the ground. Time sped up again for Boris, and he heard his enemy shouting through gritted teeth, “I surrender, damn it! I surrender!”

  The others in the room raised their hands and backing up against the wall as Boris walked down the center of the room to his prey. When he reached Viktor, the coward was still face down on the floor, one hand under his body, the other splayed wide. Keeping his weapon trained on Viktor, Boris rolled him over with a booted foot. Boris half-expected the stupid, young fool to be holding a drawn pistol in his hidden hand.

  When Viktor saw the cold anger in Boris’s eyes, he blanched. In an almost panicked scream, he gibbered, “Try me in court, do whatever you want, just please…”

  Whatever Viktor had been going to plead for, the world would never know for sure. Boris raised the muzzle of his rifle to the madman’s face. The tired leader’s face took on an expression of dispassionate justice. With no hesitation, he squeezed the trigger to send a three-round burst through Viktor’s brain.

  <<<>>>

  With the capture of Viktor’s command post, effective resistance along the perimeter slowly disintegrated. Fire teams and squads started surrendering as command devolved into conflicting orders from commanders who expected to be Viktor’s successor. Reserve forces hunkered down in buildings intensifying the fortifications they had already put in place around their areas of responsibility.

  Along the siege lines squads, fire teams, sometimes even single troopers, surrendered. Some few groups of troops rose up in defense of the civilians that Viktor had ordered be held hostage. Others simply threw them out of the areas they now controlled and settled in for smaller seizures. Food supplies had already been running low for the defenders of St. Petersburg when Boris had decapitated their command.

  The result was just as inevitable. Boris was through wasting lives. Instead, he set up cordons around the remaining strong points and batted them into impotence with his artillery. Some few commanders from Viktor’s forces tried to surrender for the sake of their own men’s lives. Boris granted clemency to these as he could respect officers who cared more about their men’s lives than their own.

  Others tried to surrender for their own lives. Boris included commanders who had offered their own lives in exchange for their troop’s lives as part of the negotiations teams. This caused several spontaneous mutinies to occur in large portions of the city.

  After the mutinies, the now commanderless troops surrendered.

  Still, maybe as many as a quarter of the strongpoints fought to the bitter end, to the death.

  Not that they inflicted much death on Boris’s forces. Now that he controlled the majority of the city’s remaining food stores, and all its civilian population, he could afford to bombard them from a distance. With a civilian population free from retaliation, he had no qualms about simply battering whatever enemy forces remained from a distance. Within three weeks, the conquest of St. Petersburg was complete, and relief supplies were flooding into the city.

  EPILOGUE

  Alecta was still recovering from wounds in the battle. At the insistence of both Olaf and Boris, Paul had been used as a go-between to set up this summit. He was more sympathetic to Olaf’s reasons than Boris’s, to be honest. Olaf did not want to return, and Boris was being difficult, dictatorial, and somewhat ridiculous about it all.

  The loss of an arm was inconvenient for Alecta, and time-consuming for Lilith to fix. More serious had been the two shells of buckshot that had been fired at point-blank almost directly into her face. If she had not been a Werebear, her chance of survival would have been between close to zero and absolute zero.

  Even as a Werebear, she had taken weeks to be able to function normally. Her spine had suffered some minor damage. Even for nanites, that could be a slow repair.

  In the end, Paul got a measure of revenge. He had organized the summit, but refused to mediate it. His advice had been to let Janna and Stasia negotiate the terms. Boris was not about to stand aside, and if he did not, neither would Olaf.

  Boris approached the chosen meeting site with trepidation. It would be the first time he had seen his son Olaf in months. While Boris had been busy sorting out the division of the St. Petersburg region, Olaf had been busy organizing the partisan bands and population of the region encompassing a large section of Belarus and the North Ukraine into a functioning, governable entity.

  Much to everyone's surprise, Olaf refused the offer of leading the region himself. Instead, he guaranteed to defend the realm with his life. “Father,” Olaf said coolly as he saw Boris.

  When Boris had first heard of his son's success, he had offered to integrate the region a
nd people into his realm. Olaf had point blank refused. After they had been elected, so had the entire body of the two-house democracy that the new realm’s constitution had formed.

  Throughout history, both Belorussia and the Ukraine had been dominated by Russia. They wanted their free nationhood. Between the grain-rich plainlands of the Ukraine and the weapon stockpiles and improvisation and mechanical know-how of Belorussia, the region had a good chance at prosperity.

  Perhaps it would have had a better chance at immediate and midterm survival as part of the realm Boris had built. But forgiveness, even for ancient mistakes, was not often in the spirit of peoples who had been recently, and historically, subjugated. Even an approach from a historical subjugator after a long time and global disaster, with the best in mind for the new realm, rankled the people too much for them to accept.

  Even if a refusal of such unity endangered both parties. In this case, it only endangered the new realm.

  “Son,” Boris returned, respect clear both in his tone and his expression.

  After the story of everything Olaf accomplished had spread through the militia units that had been designated as under his command, more than two-thirds of them transferred their direct loyalty to him. All the Amazons were amongst those so transferred. They were to form the core, along with some of the most experienced and a few of the youngest partisans, of the new defense force for the Ukraine regional government.

  The father and son stared off at each other across the table. Neither would give in on this critical point. Olaf was refusing to return to Arkhangelsk, and Boris was standing firm on Olaf’s status as heir. A status Boris felt required Olaf to live in New Romanovka.

  To be fair, the twins just were not responsible enough to be designated heir. Now, Olaf had felt freedom from New Romanovka, and he had also found responsibility. One that bound him to the new realm. He had no desire to return.