by Neal Asher
Mirsky led three squads to the forward concrete structure, still a kilometer from the bridge. The top of the foundation was flat and covered about three hundred square meters. The upper surface offered no protection. The concrete was two meters high, practically a wall behind which they could walk upright. Even such protection wasn't enough, however; Mirsky worried about the firing angles and opportunities offered by the chamber's curve. Did the enemy have lasers or small projectile weapons that could penetrate twenty or thirty kilometers of air? If they did, his men could be picked off easily wherever they hid.
He aimed the radio at the southern bore hole and searched for the transponder signal. Finding it, he transmitted a message to Lieutenant Colonel Pogodin in the first chamber, asking how many troops he had and what his situation was. Pogodin had been aboard Chaika with "Nev."
"I have four hundred," Pogodin returned. "Ney is missing. Colonel Smirdin is badly wounded. He probably won't live.
Have captured two compounds and taken ten prisoners. We control zero elevator."
From the fourth chamber, Major Rogov reported a hundred men in position, but no objectives taken; the tunnels were heavily defended. He was contemplating moving his men to an island by rubber rafts captured at a recreation site. "Lev" had not survived the collision of Chevy with obstacles in the bore hole. Colonel Eugen was dead, and there was no sign of battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Nikolaev.
Their command structure was in a shambles.
The hatred rose in him again, making his throat clutch and his stomach burn. "Fan out and pick your targets," he ordered the squad leaders on the near side of the bridge. He waved his arm to both sides and stayed behind the concrete to direct the other squads.
A rattle of small-arms fire greeted his men as they broke cover and spread in groups of twenty for trees and other foundations to either side of Mirsky. There was no way of telling how many laser weapons were being used; they were silent and invisible except in moist or dusty air. He lifted his radio and spoke with the captain in command of the squads on the far side of the bridge.
"Cross fire," he said. "Rush and divert."
Then he called up another three squads and ran them in a different pattern toward the river shore, where they took firing positions in the woods and behind a circular foundation.
With his binoculars, he could make out the faces of the defenders behind their plastic shields. His men had no such shields; only his binoculars were proofed against laser blinding, if the defenders possessed such systems; almost any laser cannon could be converted to spread a barrage of blinding beams. There were any number of weapons the NATO troops could have and could use, which he did not...
The defenders had set up sandbags in lines paralleling the bridge road. Not all the positions were manned; if he could get his troops to the lines before the positions were up to strength, they would have almost a clear run to the bridge.
He popped up to sweep the positions again with his binoculars and then dropped down to pass instructions to the opposite squads. The air was broken by a hideous crackle; Mirsky's eyes widened and he subconsciously prepared for death. He should have known the Americans would have something advanced and deadly up their sleeves; they were
fiends for surprise weapons—
The crackle sounded again and was followed by an extremely loud voice. The voice spoke Russian with a strong German accent, but the words were clear.
"There is no need for fighting. We repeat, there is no need for fighting. You may hold your present positions for the moment, but do not advance any farther. It is imperative you listen. There has been a disastrous exchange of nuclear weapons on Earth."
Mirsky shook his head and switched on the radio again. He could not waste time listening—
"We have sufficient weapons and personnel to annihilate you. There is no need. You have compatriots among us already—the Russian science team. And there is corroboration from your comrades in the heavy-lifters. Your communications can be fed through to them; they are waiting outside the bore hole."
Mirsky pressed the transmit button and ordered the attack forward. He then ordered his remaining squads to take the river shore and join up with their opposites beneath the bridge abutment. The cover looked good to that point—and once beneath the bridge, they could fire along the Americans' lanes of sandbags and prevent them from being manned.
"Fighting us is useless. Our supreme commanders are dead or out of communication, perhaps for years. Your deaths would be meaningless. You may hold present positions, but signify your acceptance or we will open fire."
Then another voice identified itself, distorted but familiar to Mirsky—Lieutenant Colonel Pletnev, squadron commander of the heavy-lifters. Either he had capitulated or he was still outside the bore hole; there was no way he could have been captured; he would have died in the bore hole entry, not been taken alive.
"Comrades. Our countries are at war on Earth. There is devastation in both the Soviet Union and the United States.
Our plan is no longer effective... "
The hell with him. Mirsky moved his men up from both sides. Take this objective, and then the next, and then perhaps—
"Psshkommander Mirsky," his radio hissed. "Enemy reinforcements crossing the bridge."
The gunfire started again and Mirsky, for the first time in his life, heard the screams of dying men.
*29*
Heineman squirmed in the V/STOLs pilot seat, listening to the exchanges in Russian, English and German. Transponders in the bore holes were automatically carrying radio signals from chamber to chamber and down the corridor; why hadn't they been switched off? Perhaps they had—perhaps he was picking up signals from Russian transponders.
He had propelled the tuberider beyond any conceivable danger; he was now a thousand kilometers down the corridor, stationary on the singularity, feeling useless. He had programmed communications processors to track on multiple bands and retrieve all messages, storing concurrent messages for separate playback. He had a ringside seat; there was even some video coming down the bore hole.
He witnessed the crown fire sweeping the Earth before the signal gave out.
It was purely by accident that he looked over his shoulder and spotted the moving glimmer of white. It swung smoothly over his head and to the opposite side. Whatever it was, it seemed to be spiraling around the plasma tube, staying within the plasma layer; its wake was a visible shadow within the general glow.
There were no other aircraft within the Stone—none that he had heard of, at any rate. He doubted the Russians had anything sophisticated enough to follow such a difficult course.
What was it, then?
A boojum. In the middle of all the excitement, he had seen his first boojum. That's always the way, isn't it? He switched on the aircraft's tracking systems.
For a moment, he had a clear blip on the screens and even a computer-enhanced magnification of the craft's general outline. It was sleek and resembled a blunted arrowhead. He recorded about five seconds of information on it before the trackers suddenly wheeped and lost the target.
Patricia felt icy cold inside. She stared through the transparency in the side of Olmy's craft, watching the even tan and pale gray landscape passing below. Two personalities conflicted within her; one, by far the stronger, forbade any motion or outward reaction. the second was a normal, fascinated, even slightly amused Patricia. If she spoke, she
knew the second Patricia—the distant, uninvolved one would try to be funny and make light of what was happening. But the first had grown to a position of control and she did not speak. She did not even move her head. She simply stared at the walls of the corridor turning and passing behind them.
"Are you hungry or thirsty?" Olmy asked. She did not answer. "Are you tired, do you need to sleep?"
Nothing.
"We'll be some time. Several days. The Axis City is a million kilometers along the Way—the corridor—now. Please let us know if you're in need... "
He glanced back at the Frant but received only an outward-turning of one eye, indicating nothing to suggest.
Patricia could feel it all coming apart; all the tight-wound ambition and hope could not hold back this inevitable shattering. Her shoulders began to shake. She looked around at Olmy and quickly turned away. Her eyes seemed to float; tears gathered and broke away when she shook her head, drifting around her. She slowly raised her hands and held them before her face; the teardrops touched and spread on her fingers and palms.
All going now, all the glue going—
Her chest heaved. "Please," she whispered.
They're dead. Really gone. You didn't save them.
"Please."
"Miss Vasquez," Olmy reached across to touch her, then drew his hand back as she flinched away.
"Ah, Jesus y Maria." Her body jerked and her legs shook with the force of her sobs. Each tore something out of her chest and pierced the dark behind her eyelids with jagged red. She clutched her shoulders with her hands and rocked back and forth in the couch, back arched, teeth clenched and lips drawn back.
Her spine reversed of its own will and she curled her chest and knees together. Is this a fit?
This is grief.
This is loss. This is awareness. This is not fooling yourself.
Olmy did not try to ressure her. He watched the woman weeping for a world lost—to his kind for many centuries. Ancient woman, ancient agony.
Patricia Luisa Vasquez grieved for dead billions and ways of living unknown to him.
"She is an open wound," the Frant said, moving forward to crouch by Olmy's shoulder. "I wish to help, but I can't."
"Nobody can help," Olmy said. Even across thirteen hundred years, the Death bent and hobbled his people with scar tissue. That became clear to him, looking at her, gauging her differences; the Nexus had been forged in the Death, the Naderites had come to power as a result ... And how many of their prejudices, how much of their willful blindness, was a drawn-out echo of Patricia's pain?
"If help is impossible for her, then it hurts me to think," the Frant said.
*30*
Gerhardt carried the roll of maps from his makeshift command headquarters.
"They control the southern end of the first chamber including the science team compounds and the elevators to the south polar bore hole. They're still fighting us in the second chamber, but it looks like a stand-off. Berenson sent half his troops from the fourth chamber as soon as the alert was sounded. They crossed the bridge under heavy fire. The Russians didn't try anything in the third chamber—and they're scattered in the fourth, not very effective." Gerhardt smoothed the map down with a sweep of one hand. "We don't have the strength to wipe them out, but they don't have the strength to take more ground than they already have. And so far they haven't responded to our overtures."
"We still have people in the staging areas?" Lanier asked.
"Yes, and they can hold out there for months—we hadn't shipped down the last load of food and supplies. Fourth chamber is self-sufficient, and Berenson's troops are definitely in control there, so it looks like the only problem will be the first and second chambers. Our soldiers have supplies for about two weeks. Unless we drop supplies to them from the axis—we're studying that proposal now—they'll run out."
"How are we handling the heavy-lifters outside?"
"Still haven't let them in. There's one we suspect is carrying heavy equipment to be dropped into the second chamber from the axis. We don't want them breaking through the barricade. They don't sound happy, but they can cool their heels for a few days without any problems."
"They've offered to surrender?"
Gerhardt shook his head. "No. Pletnev broadcast his little speech, but he's not going to turn his ships over yet. He's offered to try to negotiate an end to hostilities. The heavy-lifter crews want to join their comrades. They know they can't go home, and I suspect they know their troops inside are under strength because of the carnage in the bore hole."
"Such a goddamn desperate maneuver..."
"It didn't work ... anywhere," Gerhardt said grimly. "But it's put us in an uncomfortable position. The Stone is a capped bottle as far as we're concerned. Not that we particularly want to leave, or could go anywhere if we did. I'm worried about SPETSNAZ, myself. They could have assassins and sappers spread throughout the second chamber by now, and they'll find their way to us in a few days; we don't have the troop strength to keep them out of the third chamber, or the fourth. They're nasty individuals, Garry. Dedicated and well trained. The longer we wait, the more they'll drain us."
"So we're at an impasse in the second chamber?" Lanier asked, his eyes darting nervously to the maps.
"Everywhere. Nobody's going to move. The only thing progressing will be casualty counts."
"Do you think they know that? I mean, will they acknowledge it to themselves?"
"Having come all this way, with all the training that would require, I think we can safely say their COs aren't fools."
"What about the grunts?"
"Like us, I doubt they have any grunts."
"How long before they start listening to reason?"
"Hell, Garry, they may be listening now. They're just not showing any sign. We stick our heads up, they start shooting, and vice versa."
The sergeant stood before his superiors with a troubled expression. His face was covered with scratches from crawling through undergrowth in the patches of forest. He saluted and bowed in Mirsky's direction.
"Colonel, they have found our transponders in the bore holes. We cannot communicate with any other chambers."
"Now I ask you," Mirsky said, "is that a sign they want to lay down their arms and welcome the wolves into the sheep pen?" Garabedian took his binoculars and surveyed the forests and fields between them and the bridge, a kilometer away. He then looked at the shell-pocked, laser-scored bridge—marred but still very much functional—and returned the glasses.
"Pavel," Garabedian said, "we should cut that bridge, don't you think?"
Mirsky looked at his deputy commander disapprovingly. "And what other way do we have to cross? We can walk fifty kilometers or more to the next bridge, or we can swim."
"Then they cannot cross, and they cannot get any more reinforcements from this chamber—"
"No, but they can be reinforced from the first chamber. We have no idea how many there are in there."
"Trapped like pigs—"
"We keep this bridge intact," Mirsky said. "Besides, we can ill afford to lose more men on a desperation move. Or
to lose them from snipers while we swim!"
"It was an idea," Garabedian said.
"I am not short on ideas, Viktor. I am short of laser cannon and artillery. We can assume Zhiguli with all our artillery and supplies did not make it through, and will not now, since they have obviously reinforced the bore holes enough to find our transponders. We can assume our operative has been captured and the Russian science team is ineffective, either by choice or because they are in stockade. And we can also assume that our heavy-lifter pilots and crew do not relish staying outside for weeks while we get ourselves killed in here."
"What are you saying, Pavel? Be blunt." Garabedian smiled. With his undershot jaw, he had always reminded Mirsky of a sturgeon.
"We are not getting the support we need."
"Do you believe the war has been fought on Earth—and lost?"
Mirsky shook his head. "I believe we have taken out their orbital capability. That would make quite a show from up here—"
"Pavel, they surely can tell the difference between an orbital showdown and holocaust."
Mirsky clamped his jaw and shook his head stubbornly. "We are here to fight and take an objective. There must be a
reason."
"Ask the Zampolits. We are here to spread Socialism and safeguard the future of our State and our country."
"Shit," Mirsky said, surprised at his vehemence. He hated the Zampolits. He had always hated all Zam
polits wherever he had served. As usual, the company's political officert—Major Belozersky—was in the rear, issuing orders that sometimes conflicted with Mirsky's own. "Yes, fine, they've cooked the Earth. So what are we to do, abandon the fight and—what? Go home to ashes? This time, it would not be a little exercise in the schoolyard between hero and bully. It would be a flaming rubber-stamp skull and crossbones across the northern hemisphere!''
"That's what they're saying has happened. Pletnev backs them up. Surely we couldn't expect to take out their orbital defenses and have them kick their heels in the air and scream for mercy."
"They are corrupt," Mirsky said. "Weak and fearful."
"Pavel, I do not like playing your Armenian voice of reality. You, of all people, should face facts and their implications. Do not underestimate the enemy. Do weak and decadent people march ahead of you in almost every sphere?"
