Shadows and Anguish (A Cat Among Dragons Book 8)

by Alma Boykin

  Rachel had been perched on the running board of a lorry, idly skimming her trans-temporal e-mail. Too bad I can’t send the ‘Hart forward to get data and have it passed back she mused wistfully. Be nice to have the Imperials’ satellite system too—and then an idea hit her. She swore, then started typing furiously. “Access code delta four sigma, lancer eight mrrakleh sheevoul tsrigmai Vergeltung four,” she chanted into her helmet’s microphone as she typed, and the others around the vehicle realized that she’d been tapping the keys in a rhythm. “OK, I have what we need and don’t ask how I got it,” she informed them, looking up at last. Three humans clustered around to look at the screen and O’Neil whistled, making the Wanderer cringe.

  “Ah, this is an overlay on a CosMol image, isn’t it? Realtime?” the English officer said.

  “I said, don’t ask,” Rachel snapped. “I can get us ten minutes an hour, five times a day at most before someone notices.” Ben David’s eyes widened as he looked at the images and he started taking notes as quickly as he could. It showed five of the Vreenahlwee armor units moving east, toward the German defensive line, and another four standing on a ridge three kilometers from the British.

  That decided McKendrick. “All right. O’Neil, start the evacuations in this area.” He indicated a trapezoidal swath from Seesen southeast to Braunlage and west to Oesterode. “Use the line to the Bundeswehr to call the mayors and have them start people moving, if they haven’t already.” A stream of private vehicles and buses was already filling the westbound roads as the locals fled. “Ben David, we start pushing our way in along here,” and he tapped a river. As he did, Commander Na Gael shook her head. “Problem?”

  “That’s how the Vreenahlwee caught the German vehicles, Command One. They have weapons that can collapse a hillside onto us, sir. I’d suggest not giving them easy targets.” Her words were properly respectful, but McKendrick didn’t like the tone of her voice. Nonetheless, she made a good point.

  “Very well.” He thought and looked at the terrain. “We start here then,” he said, and gave his orders. There were no more comments and McKendrick dismissed his people.

  So once again Rachel found herself riding to the sound of the guns. She wanted to be on the front lines—the better to start getting her revenge as soon as possible. Sergeant Lee had assigned Corporals Hajo Mikitori and Mike Ford to guard and assist her, and the three took their places in the line of vehicles moving toward the backcountry roads into the mountains. The warm afternoon sun flashed off metal ahead of them and the convoy broke for cover as the first shot blasted down from a ridge at their ten o’clock. Rockets launched in reply, and the British scored their second kill. “Now it gets hard,” Rachel muttered to herself.

  As the British carefully felt their way into the massif, Joschka sat back and chewed the stem of his unlit pipe while the secretary concluded the briefing. “And the governments of Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, and Austria have reached their decision,” the secretary informed the listening men and women. “You are authorized to utilize the Gehenna Protocol if necessary.” It took all of Joschka’s self control not to react to the news. The others were not so restrained, and a wave of gasps and sick looks flowed through the conference room.

  “Fortunately, Mr. Secretary, the situation appears to be reaching containment at this moment,” Joschka managed calmly. “However, we will keep the Gehenna option in mind, should the need arise.” After that, the secretary terminated communications for the moment and the Graf-General looked around at his current staff. “I assume everyone knows what is being discussed?” They all did, but he summarized the situation just to be certain. “At present, based on the reports being forwarded by the Bundeswehr, the Vreenahlwee have been contained within the Harz. Unless the situation changes drastically, the forces on the ground will continue as they are and we will use strictly conventional weapons.” He used the same tone as he always did and the Defense Force staff relaxed. He completed the briefing, then sent everyone off to work.

  The Austrian stole a moment to collect his thoughts and allow himself a shiver. The Gehenna Protocol was something only discussed, never used. Although, he sighed to himself, the Soviets had used it once back before the Global Defense Force had even been imagined. He shook his head at the thought of having that much firepower at his command. It was terrifying, really. Because the man now called Joschka Graf von Hohen-Drachenburg knew exactly what the result would be if he needed to take recourse in Gehenna. He and Major Rada Ni Drako had been on a mission with the Adamantine Division’s scouts when one of the warring parties had decided to commit suicide and take the opposition with them.

  Please God, may it not come to that, Joschka prayed, seeing once again the bare and scorched wasteland that had been a city at the foot of the mountain where the scouts had been deployed. His stomach churned at the thought of being responsible for the deaths of his own people—and the deaths of innocents, as well—if it came to that. Holy St. Michael, defender of heaven, give us the strength to deal with this without using nuclear weapons. St. Leopold, pray for us, the graying general pleaded. Thank you Lord that Rada could identify our enemy and that the British passed the information along before they were under the jamming screen.

  And with those cheerful thoughts, Joschka took a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and returned to the fray.

  “I’m going to strangle that idiot,” Rachel snarled. Or at least, that’s what anyone who understood Azdhagi would have heard, which fortunately none of the humans did. To their ears it was simply a wordless expression of unhappiness. She and her escorts had been diverted from the probe into the Harz by a medical emergency, one induced by Captain O’Neil’s failure to do his homework. So what if the internet is down? It’s a big town, so it has a hospital! Gads, how did that mono-synaptic excuse for a vertebrate ever manage to get a commission, let alone promotion to captain? It was just as well that it took twenty minutes for Rachel, Ford, and Mikitori to work their way into Seesen once they reached the highway, because it gave her time to get her temper under control. She’d returned to civility by the time the Jeep-like vehicle reached O’Neil’s temporary base.

  “You said someone needed medical assistance?” she inquired after checking in.

  The nondescript Englishman waved towards the municipal hospital. “If I understand right, the doctors have some patients they claim are too sick to move without specialized ambulances or air-evac. Take care of it,” he ordered, then turned back to other, more important, matters.

  Rachel’s mouth opened, then shut, and her left hand twitched. For a split second her claws flicked out and her ears went as flat as the prosthetics allowed. Then she spun on her heel and strode from the room. As if by magic, a path cleared. She slammed the door open and marched outside into the cloud-dappled afternoon sun. “Hospital that way?” she pointed.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Colour Sergeant St. John said, wondering who was about to be verbally eviscerated.

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” Rachel replied absently, heading in that direction.

  By the time she and “her” men reached the hospital door, the Wanderer had regained full control of herself. She went in and smiled blandly, looking for the GDF medical personnel. “Lieutenant Housemann?” Rachel inquired once she found the medical officer’s assistant. “Captain O’Neil says that some patients are too critical to move?”

  “Yes ma’am: an adult, a child, and an infant in an isolette. If we can get the infant’s heart stabilized, we can move her and the isolette both. The child is on a respirator in an induced coma due to traumatic injuries sustained when the invaders attacked and captured his village,” she explained as she led the way to the pediatric ward.

  “And the adult?” Rachel wanted to know, already gathering her strength.

  “Senile dementia and refuses to allow anyone close enough to give him a sedative, which we need to do to be able to transport him,” Housemann explained with some frustration.

  Rachel gave her satchel,
blast rifle and cane to Corporal Ford before she scrubbed and gowned, then walked into the dim, quiet children’s ward. She spoke to the doctor in charge. “My name is Commander Na Gael. I’m a medic with specialization in transportation and trauma care. Captain O’Neil said that you did not feel these patients could be transported safely?”

  A no-nonsense older man nodded curtly. “Your captain is a fool. I can move the child if we have a proper ambulance, but the baby is too precarious to transport with the equipment you seem to have available.”

  Rachel walked slowly over to the isolette and looked in at the tiny baby. “Premature?”

  “Yes. The mother developed complications of preeclampsia and required an emergency C-section.” After glancing for permission, Rachel gloved and reached into the clear isolette. She very gently massaged the baby’s chest, extending her Gift and working to strengthen the heart and the blood vessels feeding it. She also sensed a developing airway obstruction and soothed the swelling there and around the brain. As she watched, the infant grew pinker—a good sign. Rachel pulled her hands out of the crib and blinked.

  “And the other child?”

  The pediatrician could barely believe what the monitors showed him. “What did you do?” he demanded.

  She shrugged, “Babies like me. The other child Herr Professor Doctor?” After another strange look, he led her to the child’s bed. Yes, trauma indeed, and Rachel frowned. “Do you have a respiratory therapist here? When I finish, you can take him off the machines,” and she set to work. This required less delicacy, since all she was doing was accelerating an on-going process. She emerged from her work in time to hear an explosion and to see Corporal Mikitori poking his head in. “Ma’am, we have to leave now! The enemy is moving into the town!”

  Rachel muttered some unkind words. “Doctor, move the children now, please, however you can.” She turned and rushed out to meet Lieutenant Housemann. “Where’s number three?”

  “This way,” and the brunette led Rachel down into a locked ward. A muscular older man cursed and thrashed wildly. Rachel evaluated the scene and took a deep breath.

  “Do you have the drugs ready?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” A nurse held up a syringe. Rachel ducked and trotted for the man. All she needed to do was lay a hand on him—she managed to slip under his swinging fist and touch his bare arm. She slammed into his mind, stopping him for a moment. As she did, the nurse injected him and within seconds he was asleep on the floor. Rachel stepped back and staggered, drained for the moment. She leaned against the wall and just watched the humans bundling the old man out of the ward and into an ambulance. Another dull whoomp echoed through the now empty hospital, and Rachel tried to clear her head.

  “Right, we get out now.” She trotted up the corridor to where Ford and Mikitori waited, fidgeting as they stared out the window. “By the black heart of Cygnus X-1!” An enemy in battle armor loomed outside the main entrance, blocking it. Ford tossed her the blast rifle and her helmet, and Rachel switched from healer to killer, slinging the rifle over her shoulder. Her official weapon was in the 4×4 on the other side of the Vreenahlwee. Too bad, but the gun’s not worth dying for. Rachel grabbed her field bag and pointed with her head. “I think I saw a door back this way,” and the three ran for it. They emerged into sunlight, got their bearings, and trotted away from the enemy. Mikitori led them back towards the GDF lines, but screeched to a halt when they found two more of the enemy.

  “Okay ma’am, I heard shots up that way,” Ford panted, and the trio wove around the rubble of what had probably been an apartment block. They found the source of the firing: several men in German uniforms trying to block a grey-and-black heavy attack unit. Rachel triggered the passive scan on her targeting monocle and frowned.

  “Ford, can you launch a grenade?” she asked sotto voce, and pointed to what seemed to be a weak spot in the suit’s midsection shielding.

  “Affirmative.” He switched some pieces on his heavy rifle, mounted a grenade, and fired. The hit staggered the armor, and two more Germans raced forward, threw a rope around one of the legs, and ran back to a waiting car. The driver sped off, pulling the Vreenahlwee off-balance. It smashed into the ruins of a building, flailed, then began to smoke as something short-circuited. Rachel pumped her fist in the air and whistled, getting the exultant Germans’ attention. Three more Vreenahlwee stomped in behind her, cutting off any hope of rejoining the other Defense Force troops. O’Neil, I hope you have jam in your pockets when I catch up with you Rachel thought bitterly, because you are going to be toast!

  “To me, to me!” Rachel called in English, then German. Her two escorts and the surviving German reservists pounded up to her, and she pointed toward the cover of the hill behind town. “That way. We’ll regroup and let the Vreenahlwee get past.” She crouched down and ran that direction. The soldiers followed without comment, and soon ten warriors sheltered behind a thick stand of trees and underbrush, watching as the enemy’s force lumbered away. “Everyone okay?” Rachel asked, meeting eyes.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Corporal Mikitori said for himself and Corporal Ford.

  The Germans compared notes. “We are all fine,” their lieutenant answered.

  “Do you speak English? Sprechen Sie Englisch?”

  He shook his head. “Russian and French. Knut speaks a little English, but just the basics.” Rachel nodded and translated for her escort. Ford had (rusty) Canadian French and Mikitori knew Japanese and Thai. Oh well. We’ll muddle through, as usual.

  “If you need medical attention, speak up. I’m a field medic, among other things,” Rachel reminded everyone, once again in German as well as English. No one took her up on the offer. “All right. Time to make some plans. We’re here.” At her nod, Ford unfolded their map. “The Vreenahlwee we saw are here, here, and here,” she pointed. “Do you know of any others?” she asked the Germans.

  “There were two of them back here,” the lieutenant advised, pointing farther into the massif. “They were westbound.”

  Rachel thought about their options. “I see two possibilities. One is to try to work back through the Vreenahlwee and regain contact with our units.” Dubious looks met her suggestion, and she nodded. “The other is to take the fight to the enemy. You seem to know the terrain much better than we do, Lieutenant. We know how to fight things like these and how to work around their technology.”

  Now that the enemy had stopped shooting at them, the Germans regained their composure and the lieutenant frowned. “You are a civilian. Why are you giving orders to soldiers?”

  “Because I’ve been fighting these sorts of creatures for many years, Lieutenant,” she looked for his nametag and didn’t see one. “My name is Commander Rachel Na Gael. I was invalided off of active duty and am currently the xenology specialist for the British Branch of the Global Defense Force.” The officer didn’t like her answer and didn’t trust it, but the British corporals were nodding their agreement. Rachel rolled her eye, reached into her armor and pulled out her ID. The officer recognized it, and accepted it, albeit reluctantly.

  “If you know how to fight them, then let’s fight them. I’m Lieutenant Alois Grauberg. I’ve heard of the GDF through a cousin,” he said, and Rachel wondered why the name seemed familiar. Oh well. “What do you suggest we do, besides getting under better cover?”

  “First, we find our prey, Lieutenant. Then we kill them.” Rachel repeated her words in English, drawing nods of agreement from the GDF men. “You know the area, so we’ll follow you.” The Germans conferred, and Grauberg pointed to a faint path heading into the trees. Ford took tail, and the group set off to flank the Vreenahlwee.

  As Rachel and her new friends were taking the fight to the enemy, Captain O’Neil watched the last vehicle speeding out of Seesen and then turned to follow. As he told Corporal N’Theki to take them back to the Regiment’s current location, Lieutenant Patel asked, “Sir, what about Manx One and her guards? They’re still unaccounted for.”

  The English
man hesitated for a split second, turning to look at the towering armored Vreenahlwee lumbering up the road behind the refugees. “If anyone can take care of herself, it’s Manx One. She should have moved faster, and we don’t have the people to hunt for her as well as guarding the refugees, even with the American armored unit that’s joining us—now go!” Patel didn’t say anything more, but his black eyes snapped with anger and disappointment. The Defense Force had one ironclad promise: we never leave anyone behind. Patel watched out the back of the Magog troop carrier as the single Vreenahlwee stopped, then turned back to Seesen.

  McKendrick smiled at O’Neil’s report. “Good work! Lieutenant Gretchkaninov phoned in that the other towns have been evacuated—the Germans had already cleared out Oesterode by the time she got there.” McKendrick looked at the map of the Harz, with colored areas showing where the GDF and Bundeswehr had scouted. “Apparently the Vreenahlwee don’t want to challenge the tanks and self-propelled guns the Americans have brought up,” he tapped the new markers filling in the flat ground on the western edge of the massif. McKendrick continued, “some civilians reported that the Vreenahlwee have set up very tight security in this area,” he said, indicating the heart of the massif, the Brocken. “There are a lot of old mines, and apparently this part of the mountains looks like Swiss cheese inside. Which explains how the creatures hid so well.” He outlined the possible next steps.

  Sergeant Ruiz handed Lieutenant Cluj a message and the Serbian officer looked puzzled. When McKendrick and O’Neil paused for a moment he interjected, “Excuse me sirs, didn’t Manx One go with Captain ben David?”