The Fall of Valdek

by P. L. Nealen

  The valley itself appeared to be deserted at first glance, but not to the vehicles’ advanced sensor suites.

  “Commander Rehenek,” Kranjick called, “the tanks are mine. You have nothing to fear from us.”

  A moment later, a figure stepped out of the trees. The vehicles had already pinpointed the reinforced company of Valdekan troops and their vehicles, hidden by camouflaged netting back in the trees. Rather than the bulkier fighting vehicles that Atelevek had brought, they were narrow, wheeled vehicles, that appeared to be articulated in the center, with small powergun turrets fore and aft. With their separately articulated suspensions, they appeared to have been purpose-built for use in mountains and forests.

  As soon as the driver brought the sled to a halt, Scalas banged on the hatch, which dutifully lowered. The infantry Brothers piled out, weapons ready, moving perhaps a little gingerly from having been crammed into the cramped rear compartment of the sled for the last few hours.

  Scalas straightened, feeling his back pop, and then strode toward where Kranjick was climbing out of his own sled. It still amazed him that the older man could show no discomfort even after folding his considerable bulk into such a small space for so long.

  As the armored figures of the Brothers set in their perimeter, Kranjick led the way to meet Rehenek.

  Commander Amra Rehenek was a short man, shorter than his father, and slightly built. There was still an intensity, a vibrancy about him, that was palpable even through the deep weariness that showed on his face. He was dressed in a similar combat suit to the ones that Atelevek’s commandos were wearing, but had his helmet under his arm, his powergun slung over his shoulder.

  Kranjick came to a halt a few paces from the young Commander, looking down at him, his own helmet still in place and his BR-18 in his hands. Rehenek looked up at him, a faint squint around his pale eyes, and ran his free hand through his lank, dark hair.

  “You are the Caractacan Legate?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Kranjick rumbled. “Your father asked us to find you.”

  “Good,” Rehenek said briskly. “If your men are half as good as their reputation, I could certainly use your help. The enemy has a considerable force gathered around the command ship, and it’s going to be a hard target to get to.”

  But Kranjick shook his head. “That is not our mission, Commander,” he said. “We were specifically asked to get you and as many of your men as possible off-world, to rally support for the liberation of Valdek.” He held out the data chip. “Your mother sent this.”

  Rehenek’s eyes flashed, and his jaw worked, but he stepped forward after a moment and took the chip. He pocketed it without looking at it. “I know what it says,” he said bitterly. “’Run, save yourself, Valdek is lost.’ Well, I don’t believe it.”

  “Whether or not you want to believe it is immaterial, Commander,” Kranjick said. “Facts are facts. Look around you. Your mother and father coordinate a defense slowly being whittled away, in the last standing planetary defense fortress on this world. You are attempting to assault a battlecruiser with a reinforced company. And you may not know it, but a dreadnaught of a size that has not been seen in living memory has entered orbit in the last few hours. Valdek is lost. And our launch window to get you off is closing swiftly.”

  “Valdek is not lost until these vrykolok march over the bones of the last of its defenders!” Rehenek snapped. “You would have me abandon my people, run off to the stars to be safe while they suffer under the boots of these abominations? Never! My place is here. If that means I die in Valdek’s defense, then so be it.” He straightened and squared his shoulders. “I am going to take that command ship or die in the attempt. Either you can come with me, or you can leave while your launch window is still open.”

  But Kranjick would not budge. “We gave your father our word,” he said.

  “And that means nothing to me,” Rehenek retorted. “My father is wounded, and my mother may be strong, but I am her weakness. My duty is here.”

  “Is it your duty to kill any hope that is left to your people, boy?” Kranjick ground out relentlessly. “To fight gloriously and die, leaving no one to lead them except their new overlords? No one to rally a liberation fleet, thus leaving them under the boots of the vrykolok, as you call them, for Heaven knows how long?” He took a step closer. “You are no common soldier, boy. You are a leader, and will soon be a head of state. You have responsibilities beyond your own glory.”

  As if it had been orchestrated, at that moment, the comm chimed. “Challenger to Brother Legate Kranjick.”

  Kranjick did not move, but simply answered, “Send it.”

  “We thought you should know, sir, that we just lost all contact with the fortress,” Captain Hwung-Tsi reported.

  Kranjick switched to external speakers. “Say again, Captain,” he said heavily.

  “I say again,” Hwung-Tsi repeated, slowly and loudly, probably thinking that the comms were bad, “we have lost all comm contact with the fortress.”

  Rehenek’s expression was frozen. He didn’t move a muscle. Kranjick said nothing more for a moment, letting it sink in.

  “Brother Legate?” Hwung-Tsi called out. “Did you copy?”

  “Yes, Captain,” Kranjick said. “Is it possible that it is simply a comm disruption, given the storms we flew through to get over the mountain?”

  “Doubtful, sir,” Hwung-Tsi replied. “We had decent comms until a few minutes ago. They did report that the dreadnaught appeared to be deorbiting and descending toward the fortress itself. That was one of the last exchanges we had with anyone in the fortress.”

  “Acknowledged,” Kranjick said. “Do you have a current read on the dreadnaught?”

  “Negative,” was the reply. “It is over the horizon, blocked out by the mountain. The attack group coming from L2 appears to be entering low orbit, however, and there might be another group coming in from L3.”

  Rehenek wasn’t looking at Kranjick anymore, or any of the Caractacans. His eyes were far away, as he processed the news. It had to be a shock, though Scalas wondered just how many shocks a man had to face before he went numb to it all. Valdek had been hammered by an unprecedented war for weeks now; he couldn’t imagine what all the young man had seen since the “Galactic Unity” had first entered the system.

  “There is nothing left, Commander,” Kranjick said softly. “If your world is to have any hope of liberation, we need to leave.”

  Rehenek brought his gaze back to the present and focused on Kranjick. There was nothing but bitterness and rage in his eyes. “I thought it went against your Caractacan Code to flee before an enemy,” he sneered.

  Kranjick took a step forward at that, and Rehenek recoiled, despite himself. “Flee?” the Brother Legate growled, his helmet’s speakers making it a harsher sound than even the older man’s deep voice could. “If you do not truly understand the difference between flight and strategic retreat, boy, then I wonder if perhaps your people wouldn’t be better off if you killed yourself in a pointless assault on an asset that is clearly no longer vital, given the presence of the dreadnaught overhead.”

  He took a deep breath. It was the closest Scalas thought he had ever seen to a display of temper from the Brother Legate. “I know your rage, boy,” he said quietly. “I know the helplessness of knowing that all is lost, and that you must leave with the enemy undefeated. I was on Pontakus IX; I was on the retreat from Meretreya.”

  Scalas couldn’t help himself; he looked over at Costigan. The other Centurion’s visor turned toward him, and though he could not see his friend’s face, he could see surprise in his body language that mirrored his own. Costigan shrugged slightly. Who knew that Kranjick had been on Pontakus IX? That was fifty years ago. How old was Brother Legate Kranjick?

  “I could have stood and fought, and inevitably died,” he continued. “It would have satisfied the demands of honor and glory. But in so doing, the handful of us left would have left the other handful at Chalchais understrength,
to be ultimately overrun. As it was, we were just barely enough to hold the line, once we returned. Had we held to our pride, held the line, and died, then we would have failed our responsibility to our brothers.

  “It is a fine line,” he continued, “between honor and duty. Sometimes it seems that duty is nothing more than a justification for abandoning honor. But duty must come first. And your duty now is to your people. You cannot help them by throwing yourself at that command ship.

  “Those men in the woods are relying on you, Commander,” Kranjick said. “The survivors in the cities are relying on you. Even if you were not hereditary head of state, you are now, to my knowledge, the only Valdekan military officer still at large. You can throw your life and those of your men away, or you can come with us and have some hope of organizing an off-world resistance and perhaps, eventually, rally enough allies to liberate your planet from this so-called ‘Galactic Unity.’”

  Another, older Valdekan had come out of the trees after Kranjick had broadcast Hwung-Tsi’s transmission. He stood just behind Rehenek, barrel-chested and pugnacious, with a scarred, battered face that looked like it had picked up more than a few new wounds since the war had started. He spoke in rapid Satevic to Rehenek, who answered in the same language, the same strain of bitterness in his voice. But the older man glanced up at Kranjick, then spoke even more urgently, gesturing toward the command ship and the flatlands below, where the Unity forces were pushing forward.

  “That is Major Zorek,” Viloshen said quietly, at Scalas’ elbow. He hadn’t even noticed that the old corporal had come with him. “He is arguing that your Legate is right, and that we must either decide now, or go to their forward operating base; the enemy is getting too close to stay here.”

  Rehenek turned back to Kranjick, the same bitterness still in his eyes. “It seems that my executive officer agrees with you, Legate,” he said angrily. “Though I am still not convinced. However, he makes a good point; that we need to move to a more defensible position if we are going to plan our next move, whatever it is.” He pointed uphill. “We have set up our forward base in some old lava tubes, higher up the mountain.” He looked around at the blowers and the bigger IFVs. “I think that we can fit most of your vehicles under cover,” he mused. “They are very large lava tubes.”

  Scalas could imagine. Everything about Gorakovati seemed to be oversized.

  “We will try to find a route that your tanks can negotiate without too much trouble,” Rehenek finished, as he began to turn back toward his men and their vehicles. “Try to keep up; the enemy will not leave us alone for long, now that they know we are up here, thanks to your little firefights earlier.”

  Scalas scowled a little as he turned back toward his sled, glad that his visor hid his expression both from Rehenek and from Kranjick. He was sure he knew what his old mentor’s expression looked like; still, placid, almost bored. It was often infuriating to many, how imperturbable Kranjick was. It was something he’d tried to pass on to his men, including Scalas. “Never let any man get under your skin,” he’d said. “Patience is the only way a warrior keeps his head, and keeping your head is the only way you will survive a tough fight, much less survive with your honor intact.”

  He waved at Viloshen to get back to the vehicle, and followed after him. Not without a glance at the eastern sky. Was that an aircraft, or only a bird?

  Were there any birds left on this war-blasted world?

  ***

  It was getting dark by the time they reached the caves. They were actually lower down than he’d expected, the entrances nearly hidden by trees. It took a short moment’s observation to see that not all of the trees were actually growing there; the Valdekans had cut some down and hauled them up to thicken the grove around the entrance. Some were pulled out of the way to facilitate getting the vehicles inside. As they passed into the massive lava tube, the defensive emplacements, heavy powerguns and HV missile launchers set behind parapets built of quickset steelcrete and rock, were visible just inside. Anyone trying to force their way into the caves would have a tough fight on their hands.

  The tanks and sleds roared and howled, the noise battering at the dismounted troops in the enclosed space. Scalas and the rest of the infantry Brothers stayed in their sleds until the vehicles were set into spaces along the walls of the cave, their noses pointed back toward the entrance, along with their turrets. It was more to keep them out from under the maneuvering vehicles, but Scalas was also glad not to have to be battered by the thunderous noise of the fans inside the cave. He pitied the Valdekan troops who had to be out there, without the hearing protection built into the Caractacan Brothers’ helmets.

  A glowing symbol appeared in his visor. Kranjick was calling assembly. Scalas gave his Squad Sergeants quick instructions; let the men get some rest, but be ready to move out in a minute or less. It was standard Brotherhood procedure for a temporary security halt in hostile territory. Then he was heading deeper into the cave, past vibrating tanks and assault guns, toward the deep bunker where Rehenek had set up his field headquarters.

  The headquarters itself was barricaded almost as strongly as the defensive positions at the entrance; clearly the Valdekans were prepared to mount a defense in depth if they were found. Inside, the command post consisted of little more than two heavy comm units, with cables stretching off into the darkness, and a single holo map, which was currently displaying Gorakovati and its much smaller neighboring mountain, the name of which Scalas didn’t know.

  Rehenek was leaning over the holo map as the Caractacans approached, and looked up. He seemed more composed now, and there was a certain air of resignation about him, though not unmixed with a certain resentment.

  “Major Zorek has convinced me that you are right,” he said to Kranjick. “It is a bitter thing to swallow, but yes, Valdek is lost unless we can gather enough force to overwhelm this ‘Unity.’” He sighed. “I will not thank you for taking me away from my world and my people in their time of need, but I can recognize the strategic necessity of it.” He pointed to the holo map, which zoomed in on the smaller mountain. A tracery of lines began to show what looked like a large and extensive installation in or on the mountain itself.

  “I will not go as a helpless refugee in a Caractacan ship, however,” he said. “From what I know, you don’t have enough space aboard your remaining starships for all of my men and our equipment. We have somewhat more than a reinforced company; it is more like an understrength battalion. And I will not leave this for the vrykolok.”

  The view zoomed in farther, and revealed that there was a starship landing silo built into the peak of the mountain. And it was a big one. A very big one.

  The ship inside was a massive, towering cylinder, with a thicker, tapered ring wrapped around her hull amidships, and huge, tapered engines at the base. “What is that?” Soon asked.

  “That,” Rehenek said, with a little bit of satisfaction in his voice, “is the most powerful ship we have. One of the last ships we have, now,” he added, some bitterness creeping back in. “Unfortunately, we did not have him crewed and ready to launch by the time the rest of our fleet was destroyed, and my father did not wish to see him destroyed for nothing.” He paused at that, with a small frown, as if his father’s logic had suddenly clicked in his mind, applied to the current situation. He shook his head a little and continued. “That is the Pride of Valdek, a Triamic Hegemony Astrana-class dreadnaught.”

  Costigan let out a little whistle. “How did you end up with one of those?”

  “He was stationed here while Valdek was a protectorate of the Triamic Hegemony,” Rehenek explained. “When the Hegemony collapsed…”

  “They just left it here?” Soon asked.

  “The crew was of the Hagrash Pack,” Rehenek explained. “Their pack-home destroyed…”

  Scalas could not suppress a bit of a wince. One of the horror stories that had made it out of the Triamic worlds after the Hegemony’s collapse had been the genocide of entire Packs. Hagrash
had been one of the worst hit. And something about the pack culture of much of the Triamic race had led the survivors to suicide once word reached them.

  “They were good enough to swallow poison instead of flying the ship into the sun,” Rehenek said dryly. “Our people cleaned up and have worked to maintain him ever since.”

  “Even so,” Kranjick said, “that ship must be almost two centuries old.”

  “Older than that,” Rehenek said, “but I have been assured that he will still fly, and still has working weapons.” He stared at Kranjick. “I will come with you, Legate,” he said, “but in my own flagship. If my new task is to find allies to free my world, I will not do it as a refugee and a beggar, aboard someone else’s ship.”

  Kranjick only nodded. “Very well, Commander,” he said. “We happen to have some of your spacers with us; they returned with us from the wreck of the Mikadik.”

  “They are welcome,” Rehenek said. “The dreadnaught’s crew is presently extremely small, based on the last reports I had.”

  Kranjick nodded. “How quickly can the ship launch once we get there?”

  “It will take some time, even with the spacers you brought with you,” Rehenek admitted. “At least two hours. And there appears to be an enemy unit not far away from the mountain that we will have to get past.”

  “And in the meantime, they will be massing for an attack here on Gorakovati,” Kranjick said, “now that they know that there are resistance forces here. We do not have much time.”

  “No, we do not,” Rehenek agreed. “My men will be ready to move in thirty minutes. Can your men be ready in that time?”

  Kranjick looked down at him. “My men are ready to move now.”

  Rehenek might have looked slightly chastened as he nodded.

  Chapter 19

  Under cover of darkness, the combined column of Caractacan and Valdekan fighting vehicles rumbled out of the lava tube and turned north, toward the mountain where the Pride of Valdek waited.