Alaska Republik-ARC

by Stoney Compton

  “I think the Czar sent us to dissuade them, General,” Bodanovich said with an air of abstract discovery, “…and we failed.”

  “How dare you speak to me like that?”

  Bodanovich worked to focus on the old man, finally giving up. “Because you need to hear the truth or completely lose what army you have left, and the men don’t deserve that. And it no longer matters what I say because I know I am dying.”

  “Don’t be absurd. You are wounded in the arm; that’s not fatal.”

  “The bleeding has yet to stop, I need medical attention, and all of our combat surgeons are lying dead back there by that little stream. I’m not stupid, merely terminally flawed.”

  “You make no sense whatsoever!”

  The command car slowed and stopped.

  Myslosovich slapped his baton on the back of the driver’s seat. “I did not order you to stop.”

  “The scout car has stopped, General,” the driver said over his shoulder. “The lieutenant is walking back toward us.”

  Myslosovich peered through the windscreen and visually verified the sergeant’s words. “Why has he stopped?”

  The lieutenant jogged up to the general’s side window, stopped and saluted.

  The general rolled his window down. “What is it, man?”

  “The road had been blocked, General. Our men are clearing the obstruction as fast as they can.”

  “Tell them that Lieutenant Colonel Bodanovich is dying and we need to find medical aid immediately!”

  “Yes, General Myslosovich!” The lieutenant saluted and ran forward.

  Myslosovich turned to his adjutant. “There! They will have us down the road in mere moments. Sergei?”

  The lieutenant colonel was slumped in the seat, staring at the floor but seeing nothing.

  “Oh, Christ!” Taras felt tears well up. The overwhelming feeling of grief nearly unhinged him. He angrily rubbed at his eyes.

  A rap on the window brought him up short: the lieutenant again.

  “There’s an aircraft, General. Perhaps you should have a look?”

  Glad for the diversion, the general climbed out of his command car and accepted the proffered binoculars, peered through them.

  “My God, that’s an old Grigorovich IP-1, and in splendid condition, too. I haven’t seen one of those for thirty years.”

  He shoved the glasses back to the lieutenant. “Take a hard look at that. It’s something you can tell your grandchildren about—you’ll sure as hell never see another one!”

  He burst into tears.

  39

  2,000 meters above St. Anthony Redoubt

  The Grigorovich roared into a wide descending turn and First Lieutenant Jerry Yamato couldn’t suppress his grin. Satori, his destroyed P-61, could have outrun this old bird; even flown rings around it. All the same, this plane had heart and soul, and Jerry had fallen in love with her.

  He forced his mind back to the mission. The retreating column was mere miles from Delta but inching along.

  He twisted the supple craft eastward and flew over Delta again, glancing down to see if he could spot Magda. No such luck.

  Approximately three miles down the road he spied the remaining Freekorps. Jerry easily recognized the scorched hulls on the tanks and APCs as his handiwork.

  The retreating Russians and the Freekorps were about to meet. Remembering his first encounter with the Freekorps, he figured the Dená didn’t have to worry about the retreating Russians; they probably wouldn’t survive the introduction. Then he flew in a wide circle around Delta, admiring the braided Tanana River and the smaller Delta River feeding into it. Earlier he had flown north and saw what had to be the Salcha River also joining the Tanana.

  Magda told him that the Tanana finally flowed into the Yukon some 200 miles northwest of here near the small village of Nuchalawoya, which in the local dialect meant “place where two rivers meet.” Tanana was just a few miles downriver from there.

  Jerry spied the road again and flew east-southeast. After ten minutes he saw dust on the horizon and flew wide of the disturbance. He dropped down to 300 feet and aimed straight for the center of the dust cloud. At full speed he crossed the Russia-Canada Highway and saw it was packed with military equipment from tanks to troop carriers.

  He waggled his wings and soldiers waved. If they had all fired at him, he would have been riddled. Pulling back on the stick, he rapidly gained altitude and looked down the road as far as he could see.

  His blood went cold when he saw the second column, no more than five kilometers behind the first one. It was as large as the leading element if not bigger.

  Delta doesn’t have a chance!

  He turned and flew a straight line back to St. Anthony. With all of these visitors, people had to be warned.

  40

  Delta, Russian Amerika

  “Is the hospital all packed?” Bodecia’s voice sounded tight as a fiddle string, Magda thought.

  “Yes, Mother. And all the medical personnel have already moved everything up to the Refuge. Do you have everything from the house that you can’t live without?”

  Bodecia stopped and looked at her with an expression of surprise. “Of course not! How can I save the afternoon light coming through my kitchen window, or the doorjamb where we measured your growth for fourteen years?

  “I have a lifetime of memories in that house, and most of them are good. How can I save them”—she tapped the side of her head—“except up here?”

  Magda wondered if her mother knew she was crying. Her own tears startled her and they hugged each other and wept. While she stood there holding her mother, she wondered when the older woman had become so small and thin. Magda suddenly felt fiercely protective and angry at the circumstances causing so much upheaval and turmoil.

  “We’ll get through this, Mother. We both have years of memories ahead of us. What’s happening right now will be a strong one.”

  “Don’t forget your sewing machine,” Bodecia said with a sniff. “A girl who’s looking to get married needs a sewing machine.”

  “I’m not ‘looking to get married,’ Mother.”

  “Oh, save it for later; just make sure you don’t forget it.”

  “I won’t.” She watched her mother hurry off to direct someone to do something, and she smiled. Her sewing machine was one of the first items she had put in the cart for the trip up the mountain.

  She saw Jerry on the far side of the square, just leaving the Russian compound. He peered around at the people rushing about. When he finally looked in her direction, she waved, and was rewarded with his smile and instant motion toward her.

  When he reached her, he took her in his arms and kissed her. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to her, and she kissed him back. He held her tightly to him for a long moment.

  “Okay,” he said, dropping his hands to his side and staring at her with his puzzled-boy expression. “What’s the Refuge?”

  “I’ll tell you while we’re driving our truck there. We’re completely loaded and ready to go.”

  They moved swiftly through the village to the house where she had spent her entire life. The Russian truck Bodecia had liberated sat waiting.

  “You said loaded; that thing is overloaded! If we hit a good sized bump, we’ll break an axle.”

  “You’ll have to drive slow, Lieutenant Yamato,” she said sweetly, “and try to remember you’re not in California any longer.”

  “Haven’t had trouble keeping that one straight,” he said.

  Jerry pulled the driver’s door open and found Rudi sitting in the seat, a pistol in his hand.

  “What do you—oh, is you, Lieutenant. Are we to leave now?”

  “How are you feeling, Rudi?” Jerry asked.

  “Not good as unused, but nearly there, I am told.”

  “Are you riding up to the Refuge with us?” Magda asked.

  “Yes, if I may.”

  “Great. Scoot over to the window; three of us will fit in here
.”

  Jerry eased the truck forward. The chassis groaned with the load but the engine didn’t falter. He pulled in behind a Russian Army lorry and maintained a thirty-foot distance.

  “So where is it we’re going?” he asked.

  “The Dená Separatist Movement has been around for about twenty years, but didn’t really have any muscle until about five years ago.” She noticed both men listened carefully. “That’s when my mother, father, and I, joined.”

  “You are revolutionary, Magda?” Rudi asked with a trace of amazement in his voice.

  “Yeah, I am, okay?”

  “Of course, but you are young, and to be five-year veteran already gives me astonishment.”

  “Yeah,” Jerry said. “I’ll drink to that.”

  “I’m a sergeant of scouts, for what it’s worth. Anyway, we knew the day would come, that this day would come, and we’d have to leave the village or be destroyed. So we built the Refuge.”

  “How long did it take before you finished?” Jerry asked, easing the truck through a series of potholes.

  “Who said we finished? There is still much to be done before it’s comfortable, but it’s serviceable right now.”

  “Is like a redoubt?” Rudi asked.

  “The village council knew about this large cave and kept it a secret from outsiders, like the Russian Army or any promyshlenniks who might be passing through.”

  “Any what?” Jerry blurted.

  “Ah, promyshlenniks,” Rudi said. “They are hunters and woodsmen, very brave and adventure-seeking. Russian children read tales about them.”

  “Which are all lies,” Magda said, putting daggers into her words. “They’re a bunch of filthy, drunken rapists who think they own Alaska and everything in it. They lie, steal, cheat, and would sell their mothers to the Spanish if it meant they wouldn’t have to do honest labor for a week. They’re lazy cowards who will kill you for your shoes and you must never trust one of them.”

  “Whew,” Jerry said.

  “I was approaching that part,” Rudi said in a hurt tone. “But she is affirmative. Worse than Russian Army I think.”

  Magda patted his knee. “Much worse, and not as good in a fight.”

  Rudi preened and looked around. “We climb into mountains?”

  Magda stared through the windscreen, trying to see the land as if it were the first time. Spruce and birch covered the hillside at this elevation, although the largest spruce were no more than four meters in height and were probably 200 years old.

  Within another hundred meters of elevation, the trees thinned to solitary stalwarts claw-rooted into the rocky soil and bent away from the prevailing wind. Brush and lichen grew thick between the increasing number of rocks and boulders. The constant breeze grew stronger.

  “We worked hard on this redoubt. There’s probably something like this near all the Dená villages.”

  “You will win this war.” Rudi spoke with the conviction of a man who has just comprehended universal truth.

  “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  “Russian high command believes you are all wastrel rabble, to use as basic labor but for nothing complicated. They have no idea what they fight.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant Cermanivich. That is the finest compliment I have ever received.”

  Rudi shrugged. “You are welcome. Is true.”

  The truck slowed as it climbed up the increasing slope. Jerry pushed the accelerator against the firewall and held it there.

  “This crate won’t last much longer,” Jerry said.

  “It doesn’t have to—look.” She pointed ahead to where the lorry had suddenly found level ground and turned between two large boulders. Their truck gained power when it leveled out and Jerry had to hit the brakes to keep from rear-ending the lorry. Magda watched Jerry’s mouth drop open when the lorry drove into the mountain.

  “Holy Shasta, that’s one hell of a cave!” Jerry said.

  “It’ll hold the whole village comfortably.”

  “What about the Russians?” Rudi asked.

  “They’ll fit, too, but it will be a bit of a squeeze.”

  “This is all well and good, but how could you defend it?” Jerry asked.

  Magda smiled and looked at Rudi. “Did you see them?”

  “The gun emplacements? Da. I made count of four.”

  “You missed two. I didn’t expect Mr. Flyboy here”—she bumped her head on Jerry’s shoulder—“to spot them. But you’ve had a lifetime in armored divisions. I’m glad you missed two of them; that means we did it right.”

  Jerry looked dour.

  “Hey, did I hurt your feelings?”

  “There’s no place to land a plane.”

  “You mean the Grigorovich?”

  “Yeah. They’ll destroy it or steal it.”

  A man with a hand torch waved them to a parking spot near the cave wall. Jerry parked the truck and switched off the engine. The area thundered as other vehicles followed them into the cavern. Sound bounced off the rock walls to collide with itself.

  “Jeez, I don’t know how much of this I can take.” Jerry put his hands over his ears.

  “You flew an open cockpit aircraft this morning. I’ve been up in those things—they’re deafening.”

  He grinned at her. “Well, next time wear a helmet. The one I used was great.”

  “Pardon for my asking,” Rudi said, “but what now?”

  “Now we set the trap,” she said with as much authority as she could muster.

  41

  Delta, Russian Amerika

  “Something about this bothers me,” Jerry said.

  “What would that be?” Doyon Isaac asked.

  “I’m flying under false colors; what if they shoot me down?”

  “You probably wouldn’t survive the crash, but I don’t think that’s your point, is it?”

  “They could hang me as a spy.”

  “Lieutenant,” Colonel Romanov said, rising from the couch in the corner. “You are still wearing your uniform. If you are ordered up in a craft with the wrong insignia, that’s merely the fortunes of war—we use what we can get. You couldn’t be mistaken for a spy.”

  “I sure hope you’re right, Colonel.” He faced Doyon Isaac again. “I’m ready to go.”

  “Remember,” Colonel Romanov said, “don’t engage them, just piss on their boots.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jerry zipped up his flight suit and, carrying his helmet under his arm, walked out to the command car waiting for him. They drove out onto the airfield where Sergeant Suslov and his mechanics waited next to the Grigorovich.

  As soon as he had climbed out of the truck at Refuge, a Russian lieutenant had given him orders to return to the redoubt: he had a mission to fly. It had taken him twenty minutes to walk back down the mountain, waving at people and vehicles streaming up from Delta. He still only counted three gun emplacements.

  Jerry thanked the driver and got out of the command car. When he turned to the sergeant and the ground crew, they all stiffened to attention and saluted. Jerry returned the salute.

  “Is she ready?”

  “Yes, Lieutenant Yamato,” Suslov said. “Where did they tell you to land after the mission?”

  “Chena, if I can. Fort Yukon, if I can’t.”

  “They will think you are the enemy. They might shoot you down.”

  “I’ll lower my landing gear when they approach; that’s the sign of surrender.”

  The crew frowned together as they considered his words.

  “Then I’ll be back with modern warplanes to help defeat the enemy.”

  “Not all are enemy, Lieutenant Yamato,” one of the corporals said. “My brother is a conscripted gunner with the Fifth Armored en route from Tetlin. I would hate to bury him.”

  “Tell him how good you have it. He might join us.”

  “I hope he is offered the opportunity.”

  Jerry climbed up into the cockpit and went through his brief preflight. In moments they had the e
ngine turning at full revolutions. Two minutes later he soared into the sky.

  After climbing to a thousand meters, he surveyed the ribbon of road. In the distance to the northwest, he saw the dust cloud of the retreating army headed toward Delta. To the south he saw the lead column no more than ten kilometers from St. Anthony Redoubt.

  He angled over and caught the approaching armored column from Tetlin in his sights; in moments, he tore down through the sky at the leading elements. Somewhere in his head he knew this was a sucker punch, but when you’re outnumbered, you try to even up the fight.

  The Russian scout car stopped to see what he was going to do. He zoomed over the car and bored toward the main column at full speed. At 500 meters, he began firing.

  42

  RustyCan near Delta

  “We are being attacked by an antique?” Lieutenant Colonel Samedi Janeki shrieked at his driver. “Order them to shoot that damned thing down!”

  “Yes, Colonel.” As the driver radioed back to the main column, heavy fire erupted behind the car.

  “Good. They didn’t wait.”

  The Grigorovich finished its strafing run and roared back up into the sky. It didn’t seem to be hit, nor did it return.

  “I want an officers’ meeting in ten minutes. Have an appropriate space created.”

  The driver snapped orders into his microphone, passing coronaries on down the chain of command. He pulled the car over to the side of the road and parked.

  “Would the colonel prefer tea or vodka at the meeting?”

  “Provide both, let them choose. Leave me be now; you make the decisions for ten minutes.”

  The driver grinned and slid the thick glass window shut, sealing off the passenger compartment from the driver. Two trucks screeched to a stop beside them and men boiled out with equipment and began chopping down trees and clearing ground.

  Lieutenant Colonel Janeki flipped through the sheaf of papers from his dispatch case.

  “There,” he muttered. His finger ran smoothly down the page and stopped near the bottom. “St. Anthony Redoubt is garrisoned by fifteen officers and ninety lower ranks. Minimal artillery, three tanks, and support vehicles.”

  He raised his face to the glass and peered through it. “But they have an aircraft.” His soft voice aided his train of thought. “So what else might they have which St. Nicholas Redoubt doesn’t know about?”