Escalation

by Peter Nealen

  We had circled almost the entire castle before we finally found him, up in the cathedral’s bell tower, scanning the edge of the city with thermal optics and talking on three different radios at once. It was a tight fit up there, but we made it up.

  “You survived,” he observed, glancing over at us as he raised his binoculars again, looking south.

  “So did you,” Bradshaw replied, deadpan. If Rybàr caught the hint of accusation in Tyler’s voice, he didn’t show it. I glanced at Bradshaw. He was holding it together, but it was clear that he was hurting. Having lost four more men fighting for a city that wasn’t ours wasn’t sitting well.

  Of course, expecting a septuagenarian to be out on the front lines with the young bucks was probably a bit of a stretch. I wondered a little at Rybàr’s age. He’d probably been retired, and had left his pension behind when the civil war had started.

  “What do you plan to do now?” Rybàr asked, still peering through his thermals at the edge of the city. They had to be just about the only way to see anything, between the darkness and the pall of smoke still hanging low over the city.

  “First thing is rest, if we can manage it,” I said grimly. “Most of us are dead on our feet.” I almost regretted my choice of words; too many of Bradshaw’s boys were flat dead.

  He nodded. “Of course,” he said. “We all need rest. I only hope that we can get the chance.” He lowered the thermals and looked at me for the first time. “Talk to Sỳkora; he can show you where the other Americans, the regulars, stayed during the battle. It is reasonably secure.”

  I nodded warily. “Reasonably secure” could have more than one meaning, under the circumstances. I was sure the Nationalists weren’t too happy about having Americans sitting on their hands while the Nationalist stronghold was getting pounded to rubble.

  “We already found it,” I said. “The rest of our men are there now.” He nodded, his eyes to the thermals again.

  “But I would caution you,” he continued quietly, “to be ready to move quickly, before you rest.”

  I frowned, and felt more than saw Bradshaw’s stare get slightly sharper. “Pokornỳ?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Rybàr replied. “I strongly suspect that he sold his soul to the Russians a long time ago, before even this current crisis. But even if he is only using them as allies of convenience, he is very proud, and has a strong hatred for all the ‘peacekeepers’ who came into our country to force us to follow the dictates of the EDC. He will not want it to get out that he defended Nitra with American help.”

  Not that we were any kind of lynchpin, but I see his point. “You think he’s going to try to make us go away?”

  “He might,” Rybàr replied. “He should have his hands too full at this point, but he can be a vicious, vindictive man. Do not underestimate him.”

  “So,” Bradshaw said, “we still need to plan on getting out of here and heading for Poland.”

  Rybàr nodded again. “Yes,” he said. “I should be able to get you transport in the morning, or the next day.” He fixed us both alternately with a steely gaze. “Do not make the mistake that I am being soft-hearted in sending you out of the country,” he said. “I can still use you here, and as you have seen, this war will use men up. But whether your countrymen know it or not, you are now as much at war with the EDC as we are. And American resources will help us. Alone, eventually the EDC will manage to break the Nationalist movement.” His gaze suddenly got far away. “We have already lost more than we could afford, here.”

  “We’ll be ready in the morning,” I told him. I glanced at Warren, who had been standing back by the ladder, being very, very quiet. He stepped forward, straightening to attention.

  “I’ll make sure my soldiers are ready, as well,” he said. He looked at Bradshaw. “We’ll hold security tonight.” He swallowed. “We’ve had more time to rest.”

  I had to hand it to him; that took some balls. My estimate of Warren went up a notch. The guy I’d initially taken him to be would have kept hiding behind his rank and his fears of political and career repercussions. But maybe, something about sitting in that hospital, watching Killian and several other of his soldiers die, watching the casualties come pouring in, listening to the hammering of artillery, airstrikes, tank fire, and small arms fire down in the city, had changed something in him.

  I hoped so. Because we still had a long way to go to the border.

  “What few reports I have received are saying that the peacekeepers are still out in force in the countryside,” Rybàr said. “But if the word spreads to the rest of the Loyalists in the Army about what has happened here, they will be considerably weakened. Speed should get you to the border with reasonable safety, especially if we pick the route carefully.”

  He stood, stretching his back. “We will speak more about it in the morning, my friends,” he said, shaking Bradshaw’s and my hands. “I will not forget what you have done here. What you have sacrificed. Slovakia will not forget. You have my word.”

  Neither of us had much to say to that. We were too tired and strung out. We just shook his hand before turning and heading back down the ladder.

  ***

  Greg had the HF radio set up when we got back down below, to the red-roofed cottage where most of Killian’s soldiers had been put, and the rest of the Triarii had now joined them. And he had a look on his face that immediately woke me up. Greg didn’t look that grim. Ever. He held out the handset. “It’s Kidd,” he said. “You’d better talk to him.”

  I grabbed the handset. “Pegleg, Deacon.” I didn’t bother with the unit callsigns; we all knew who was who, and under the circumstances, I’d probably end up screwing it up, anyway. Damn, I was tired.

  “Deacon,” Kidd said heavily. “I’ve got some bad news.” He paused, as if trying to figure out how to say it. “We finally got an HF shot back to the States. We don’t have a lot of details, but it’s bad. Really bad.

  “Somebody hit us at home, Deacon,” he said. “And I’m not talking like September 11th. Orders of magnitude worse, from what the Colonel told me. At least sixty percent of the grid is down, hard. Attacks on infrastructure. Mass-cas attacks in multiple major cities, mostly the ones that haven’t already turned into battlegrounds. There are rumors that the President’s dead. Enough transport hubs have been hit that cargo’s at a standstill. Which means the cities are starving.”

  I closed my eyes. It wasn’t as if things had been good before we’d left. Now, with the US at war, whether it knew it or not, it sounded like two-thirds of the country was going from civil war to post-apocalyptic wasteland.

  “The Colonel’s moving fast,” Kidd continued, without waiting for my acknowledgement. “The areas we had already partially secured are doing all right, mostly. But it’s still a relatively small part of the country.” He sighed; I could hear his breath gust against the mic.

  “So,” I said. “That’s why they figured they could get away with wiping out the American FOBs in Slovakia. They figured they had us licked already. And they’re not far from wrong.”

  “Oh, they’re wrong,” Kidd snarled. “We’re definitely on the ropes, but we’re not down yet. The Colonel made that abundantly clear.” He paused. “It’s just going to take some time before we can really hit back effectively.”

  “We’re heading for Poland with the Army survivors in the morning,” I told him. I still felt numb; the shock and horror of the last two weeks, coupled with my own bone-deep exhaustion, were keeping me from really, fully processing what he’d told me. It all seemed very distant, very abstract at that point. “What’s your plan?”

  “We’ve officially made contact with the Hungarian government on behalf of the Triarii,” Kidd replied. “They are already pissed about what’s going on right on their border. We’re hearing that Budapest has formally recognized the Nationalists as the true government of Slovakia, and that Hungarian Army units are deploying to the border to reinforce the Hungarian militias. We’re moving up to join them tomorrow. I d
on’t think we can get to you quickly, though. Slovakian airspace is still extremely non-permissive.”

  “Don’t try,” I told him. “The Nationalists are going to try to get us to Poland, and there’s a lot of Slovak Army and EDC forces between you and us. I’m pretty sure that the last major US bases in Europe are in Poland, and somebody’s going to have to link up with them and help get things sorted out.” I realized that I was probably going to get stuck doing a lot of liaison stuff with the Army in the near future, and stifled a groan. “And Poland’s probably going to be just about the only place we can land more troops and equipment.” Of course, there was Italy, that had rejected the EDC several years before, but that was an even longer haul.

  “Good luck, then,” Kidd said. “Not much else we can do.”

  “No, there isn’t,” I said. I took a deep breath. Kidd was my senior, but he sounded downright shell-shocked. “We’re not out of this yet, Pegleg. Remember that.”

  “I’ll try,” he said, a touch of the old acid in his voice. “Pegleg, out.”

  I handed Greg back the handset. He was watching me, his eyes a little wider than usual. “Like I told Kidd,” I said, “we’re down. We’re not out.”

  He nodded. “I know,” he said. Greg was optimistic like that. Even after what we’d just been through. “It’s just…I never expected to live through a Fallout game, you know?”

  “None of us did,” I said, finding a spot against the wall. I looked up at the ceiling. “We were taught from when we were kids that those days were over, never to come again. Even in the face of every bit of evidence to the contrary.”

  Despite my exhaustion, it wasn’t easy, getting to sleep that night.

  Chapter 31

  It was still dark when a hand shook me awake.

  I was alert immediately. I hadn’t slept soundly, and when I’d finally drifted off, it was to more hair-raising nightmares. Opening my eyes to the dark hell of reality was almost a relief, after what I’d seen behind my eyelids.

  The shape above me was hard to make out, but a moment later, Scott said, “Sỳkora’s here with Rybàr. Says it’s urgent.”

  I sat up, only to find that as lightly as I’d slept, it hadn’t kept my body from stiffening up. I groaned. Everything just hurt. My eyes felt like they had ground glass in them. I still got up on my feet and followed toward the front door.

  Two angular, six-wheeled Tatrapan personnel carriers were sitting on the road outside the cottage, their engines rumbling. Rybàr and Sỳkora stood at the base of the steps outside the door.

  “Come,” Rybàr said, “I know it is early, but you need to leave, now.”

  “What’s up?” I asked, as Scott went back inside to roust the rest out. Warren was already assigning who was going on what APC among his own men.

  “I just received word,” Rybàr said, “that the First Division of the European Defense Corps crossed the border from Austria four hours ago.”

  I frowned. “The European Defense Corps?” I asked. “You mean that show unit they built out of the old Franco-German Brigade?” That didn’t sound right, particularly not given the grim way that Rybàr had said it.

  “That was what they masked it with,” he said darkly. “For four years now, just like the Germans did before the last war, they’ve been building a larger force in secret. There have been rumors, about compounds on German and French military bases where no one is ever allowed, and regular units being denied training areas for no reason, only to hear live fire on those same training areas.”

  I hadn’t heard any of that intel, but I supposed it made sense. I knew enough about the EDC to consider them the biggest pack of utopian sociopaths on the planet, but that didn’t make them stupid. They’d wanted a military force capable of bringing the rest of Europe to its knees ever since Macron and Merkel had been talking up the idea of an EU Army, and when that misbegotten idea had shown how worthless it was in Kosovo, being built on the hollowed-out shells of the Bundeswehr and the Armee de Terre, they must have decided that some other path was necessary. While the Bundeswehr and the Armee de Terre had been using active conscription for the last several years, trying to get their strength up, this sounded like something different.

  “How big is this force?” I asked. “I need to know everything you can tell me about it.”

  He shrugged. “We haven’t gotten any information that is really certain,” he said. “I have heard that they have only one division, about the size of the French Foreign Legion. I have also heard that they have as many as five. The force coming against us is only one division in strength, but it is more than we have to oppose it, even if the entire Loyalist remainder of the Army joins us.”

  It was hard to make out his expression in the pre-dawn darkness, but I tried. “And you’re going to stay here and fight, anyway?” I asked.

  “This is my country,” Rybàr replied. “I will not flee. Not without a fight.” His teeth flashed in the dark. “Do not worry, my friend. I have no intention of making a futile sacrifice. If we cannot smash them in an open battle, we will become partisans and bleed them slowly. But now, your escape to Poland is even more important. We need help. We need American help.”

  I nodded, numb. I couldn’t tell him that that help might be a long time coming. Not until I knew more. Colonel Santiago was a mean son of a bitch, as well as being smart as hell and determined when it came time for it. Once he figured out that the EDC had been involved in the terrorist attack on the US—and at that point, I had no doubt that they had been—he was going to find a way to make them suffer for it.

  But getting the forces into Europe to do that was going to take time. Time that Slovakia was going to spend under the boot. There was no getting around that. And I didn’t want to tell Rybàr that.

  Not that he’d necessarily rescind his help in that case. He might, but I felt that I’d gotten to know him well enough to trust that he wouldn’t. But at zero dark thirty, outnumbered and surrounded by men who had just had the daylights blasted out of them, who might or might not really be friends, didn’t seem like the time or the place to say that.

  Rybàr waved another man over, who was wearing green coveralls and a tanker helmet. “This is Major Medved,” he said. “He will be leading the unit that will escort you to the border.” He shook my hand and clapped me hard on the shoulder. “Good luck, my friend.” I gripped his hand firmly and nodded. While I knew that his first concern always would be the Nationalist cause, we would have been dead a long time ago without Rybàr’s help. He nodded back, returned Medved’s salute, and hurried off with Sỳkora in tow.

  I shook the Major’s hand. “We’ve got another thirty or so men coming out,” I told him. The Tatrapan’s were already looking pretty full.

  “We have two more BOVs and an old OT-64,” he said. “It should be enough, though it will be tight quarters.” He turned and started walking up the road, even as Scott and the rest of the team started coming out of the house. I waited for Scott, took my ruck, which was somewhat lighter by then, from him, and started up the road after Medved.

  Up at the crest of the hill, the rest of the little convoy was waiting, engines already rumbling. At the head was a single T-72. The crews were aboard, though the hatches on the BOVs and the OT-64 were open. Medved paused at the lead BOV and waited, as my team and I caught up.

  “Reporting says that the road is clear at least as far as Hronskỳ Beňadik,” he said. “But there are still drones and aircraft up. You Americans need to try to stay out of sight as much as possible; all my men still have their Slovak Army uniforms. We should be able to slip through most checkpoints as Slovak Army, particularly after what happened here.” He grinned tightly, with little humor in the expression. “We have captured enough Loyalist deserters, along with those who came over to us in the last couple of hours, to be fairly certain that the state of the Loyalist Army is very bad right now. A mixed convoy just trying to get to Zilina will not be out of place.”

  I nodded, waving at the
rest to start loading the vehicles. Everyone had freshly-filled magazines and their weapons in their hands. We’d made sure to load back up before we’d gone down for the night. “What’s the planned route?” I asked.

  He pulled a map out of his pocket and spread it on the BOV’s hull, pulling out a small green-lens flashlight so that we could see it. “Here is Nitra,” he said, pointing. “Most of the territory to the north and east has been mostly controlled by us for the last few weeks. The EDC and the Loyalists pushed in from the west and south, but were unable to penetrate far onto our eastern flank, and not at all into the mountains to the north.” He traced the line of the R1 Highway toward the hills to the northeast. “We should be able to move quickly along this road,” he said. “The biggest threat on that route is from the air, and the EDC took severe aircraft losses in the fighting here. They will be cautious about risking more aircraft. Once we reach Hronskỳ Beňadik, we can make contact with the cells there and get updated reporting about Žarnovica. There was a Loyalist mechanized infantry company holding that city, last we knew.” He let his hand fall. “From there, we can determine the route north that will present the least opposition.”

  I nodded, as I looked back at the rest of Bradshaw’s men. Draven was with Bradshaw; he’d folded his section in with the other infantrymen for the moment. My team was loaded up, and Draven and Bradshaw looked like they were the last of theirs. Bradshaw gave me a thumbs up. “We’re ready to go when you are,” I told Medved.

  “Let’s go then,” he said. “As you Americans say, ‘We are burning daylight.’” He laughed. It was still dark, without even the beginnings of dawn showing in the east.

  I was too tired to join him. I just swung my ruck off my shoulders, chucked it into the crowded back of the BOV, and swung up behind it, finding a cramped seat next to Tony, the ruck almost keeping me from finding any place for my feet. I leaned out and pulled the hatch shut, and Scott, across from me, dogged it. A few minutes later, the vehicle lurched into motion.