Honor of the Legion

by Leo Champion

  “I am not,” de Klerk repeated, “going to sacrifice my career for your personal vengeance, Lavasseur. I am not going to start a war for you.”

  Lavasseur angrily cut the connection.

  “Get me Major-General Armand,” she snapped. de Klerk’s superior. She’d go over his head for the fighters if necessary.

  She turned to Bujold.

  “And tell Lieutenant Hecht to activate all stingers.”

  * * *

  “Already bringing them up,” Hecht said into the radio.

  There was fighting through the city, and Karlsen hadn’t reported. A moment ago he’d hit the horn-button; he didn’t have his own hornsman, because the computerized synthesizer he did have could produce the right signal louder than any nomad’s lungs.

  Hoon-hooooooon-hoon-hoon, it went again, over the shouts and the gunshots.

  “Sir,” came Sergeant-Major Third-Class Karlsen. “At least one group has made the walls. We’re falling back.”

  Hecht was alone in the command center, except for a couple of Qings with stingers. The fighting was getting close.

  He picked up his personal weapon, a blocky ME-DE railgun that was the European Federation’s equivalent to the M-31. If he had to fight himself, and it looked likely? He was ready to.

  * * *

  A jezzail shot blew chips off the battlement behind Mullins’ head, having missed him by inches. He returned fire, a burst that cut the nomad down inside his window.

  They were coming up onto the roofs now, wielding stingers. So far they’d been suppressed, but there was a plane coming in and the nomads knew it. All it would take was for one guy to get a missile-lock on the incoming plane and everyone was going to be dead.

  “Left! We’ve got a counterattack happening!” Lennon shouted.

  Jorgenson and Bogdanov moved that way, along the wall.

  Shooting everywhere. Another nomad with a stinger appeared through a trapdoor onto one of the roofs the walls overlooked. Mullins fired a single shot, missing but causing the nomad to duck back.

  Crouching, his rifle ready to shoot at any more nomads who appeared, he ran along the wall to join Lennon, Jorgenson and Bogdanov. Another musket-ball whicked around him.

  * * *

  On top of the walls on the other side of the city, Janja and Hill ran forwards. To what seemed like a command post.

  A heavy-set man with a shaved head and an ME-DE railgun appeared in front of them, firing from the hip and cutting down the two Black Gangers leading the way. The railgun’s pellets tore through their bodies and eviscerated them, but then the fast-moving Janja was on him, smacking the man – he wore military fatigues, no insignia like all of these advisers – across the side of the head with the butt of his M-25.

  He crumpled, and Hill had dealt with the man’s nomad guards.

  For a moment there was silence.

  “Looks like we have the wall,” Janja remarked. There didn’t seem to be any more opposition here.

  The radio was burbling something, someone talking in what Janja assumed was Eurolang; it wasn’t French.

  The adviser had been knocked cold, not killed. It didn’t cross Janja’s mind to cut his throat; that would have been beneath dishonorable. He took a pair of zip-ties and cuffed the human’s wrists together, then took the pistol from its holster. A Luger with the distinctive slanted butt, and perhaps an older weapon; nice gun. He stuck it into his own belt.

  Cramer appeared, helping Reuter along. Mondragon brought up the rear.

  “Put me down here, doc,” Reuter said, gesturing. The doctor helped him down, to where he could sit overlooking the rooftops.

  A pair of nomads appeared. Hill shot at one, Reuter the other. They went down, although Janja couldn’t tell whether it was because they’d been hit or just spooked.

  From across the city Janja could see other men firing down from the wall, Team Lennon. He gestured at them: clear.

  * * *

  “LZ is clear,” Mullins shouted into the radio microphone. “Repeat, LZ is as clear as it’s going to get.”

  “Good,” came through his earpiece. “Because we were coming in anyway.”

  Engines howling, the C-175 roared in low over the ruined city’s rooftops. The air shook as it thundered in, its landing gear extended and cargo ramp lowered. Mullins ducked, looking up at the plane so close that he could make out individual rivets on the wings. It cleared the wall with feet to spare, descending.

  * * *

  Gartlan dodged his head away from a slashing blade, swung his rifle butt at the Qing who in turn blocked it.

  “Godfrey holds!” Pantaleo shouted desperately next to him. What was left of First and Second Squads were backed into a corner, twenty or so soldiers and Black Gangers fighting for their lives. Khaliq was down and Kiesche standing over him; Garza was injured and Pantaleo’s own face was covered in blood.

  “Godfrey holds!” Blanket cried, raising his rifle to block a thrust spear—

  A moment too slowly. The point of the spear jabbed through the blond man’s throat. Blood founted from his neck as Blanket tottered forwards and fell, a Black Ganger with an M-25 moving to step over the body.

  Gartlan’s world had shrunk to the few feet around him, desperate men fighting for their lives and dying one by one.

  Then the plane roared in behind them, shaking the air.

  * * *

  The C-175, its cargo ramp already lowered, bumpily touched ground.

  “Go!” Faden and Numminen shouted to the men in the back. “Go, go, go!”

  Seventy men in full combat kit poured out of the back, hitting the unprepared nomads from behind.

  * * *

  Croft, like everyone else, had paused for a second as the transport came thundering in behind them. Soldiers poured out, shooting down nomads as they ran forwards. Some of them scaled the ladders, others simply fired up through the battlements.

  Some of the nomads turned to face them. Others turned to run, and were cut down.

  Organized squads pushed through the gates and into the fortress, one group – Croft thought he recognized Captain Numminen – heading for the melee around the sick bay.

  Others headed up to the blockhouse, killing their way up the steps in a way that reminded Croft of hot knives through butter. One of the nomads desperately leapt off the wall; the others died. In moments Captain Faden was climbing the steps to the blockhouse, Rhee behind him.

  “God damn, sir,” said Croft, extending a hand. “Is it good to see you.”

  Faden shook Croft’s hand.

  “You too, Lieutenant. Sounds like we got here just in time.”

  “Men in the city, sir,” said Rhee. “I’m going to fetch them back.”

  “I’ll contact them,” said MacGallagher, who was exhausted like everyone else and covered in both human blood and Qing ichor.

  “Reinforce them,” said Faden to Rhee. “Don’t call them back just yet. We’ve got to get the wounded out. That’s going to take a few minutes.”

  * * *

  Mullins snapped off another shot at a Qing emerging from a window, and this time he was fairly sure he’d nailed him; the nomad went tumbling down ten feet out of sight to the ground.

  “Sick bay secure,” came over the radio; First and Second Platoons of Delta Company had come in on the transport. The fort was safe, for now, and over his shoulder Mullins could see the big cargo plane starting to turn around on the runway.

  “You want us to pull back?” Mullins asked.

  “Not just yet,” came Faden’s voice over the radio. “We’re backing you up for now. While we get the wounded men out.”

  * * *

  Lance-Corporal Eric McMahon couldn’t believe it: he was alive. With the help of Lieutenant Henry and some of his platoon, who’d fought their way down from the battlements, they’d held.

  Men were dead, men and a few female combat engineers were wounded, but they were alive.

  Atkinson clapped him on the shoulder now.

&
nbsp; “Good job.”

  The Legion people who’d relieved them were picking up stretchers, hustling to get them through the gates and toward the plane that was landed. McMahon had had a drink of water and that was all he needed; he’d been about to help those guys.

  Now the platoon sergeant pressed a spool of wire into McMahon’s hand.

  “You know where to do this. The charges are mostly placed, where you’d expect them to be. Help me set them up. We don’t have much time.”

  * * *

  “Almost there,” von Kallweit reported through the radio, as the horde approached on winded, staggering but still rapid zaks. They could see the walls of Kandin-dak city from here. Just a few more miles…

  * * *

  “It’s us,” Rhee said as he ran along the wall, a squad behind him. “Don’t shoot!”

  “Dear God, top,” said Lennon. “It is good to see you.”

  “Good to see you too, Lennon,” the first sergeant nodded. “Get your wounded the hell out of here. Mullins?”

  “Yes, top?”

  “Stay on the radio. When they say to get out, we’re bugging out right away.”

  * * *

  “Getting toward the end of them,” said Kirby to Faden. “Start getting the healthy men on board.”

  “Croft, your guys first. Mac, the radio,” said Faden.

  “Bravo Six to exfiltration unit,” the captain said, “get back here.”

  * * *

  Men piled into the back of the crowded transport, whose engines had been idling. Now Glass revved the power up, starting to spin the propellers.

  Through the open back door, past the Bravo Compan men who were getting in amongst the wounded, Doom saw figures running from the old city.

  * * *

  The plane was starting to move!

  “Come on!” Janja shouted as they ran.

  Mullins’ boots pounded on the hard dry ground as he ran, pushing himself, extending his strides, covering ground. Ahead of him others were getting into the plane as it began to slowly move forwards, the cargo ramp still thank God down.

  Janja leapt into the back, then Cramer; hands reached out as Mullins made his own leap, pulling him up. Bogdanov and Kwan piled in as the plane began to pick up speed, more hands helping them up the ramp as it began – nobody had been left behind – to move faster.

  * * *

  “This is your captain speaking,” said Glass over the airplane intercom, his voice coming through a couple of speakers in the crowded hold. His hands were firmly on the plane’s controls, while the jerry-rigged JATO activation switch was in Chip’s hands.

  “We are about to take off, we don’t have a lot of runway, and this – doesn’t always work. Strap yourselves in if you have straps, and hold on if you don’t – because this is going to get rough.”

  Faden and Doom were in the cockpit’s jump seats, Croft with them. Atkinson was in the doorway, and now the engineer platoon sergeant held tightly to a grip just inside. In his free hand was a radio detonator.

  “Hold on, Lieutenant,” Doom advised Croft; there was no bucket seat for him. “This is probably going to be rough.”

  “Sir,” said Croft without seeming to really get the message. The pilots fed power to the engines, picking up speed, starting to wobble—

  “Now,” Glass nodded to the co-pilot.

  Chip flipped the switch—

  Voom.

  Stressed metal shrieked as the JATO rockets engaged, the plane shaking and shuddering worse than it had been on the way over the wastelands. The noise was tremendous and for a moment G-forces made the back of the cockpit feel like down. Croft tumbled backwards, was caught by Faden; the young lieutenant held on tightly to the handhold he’d scrabbled to find, his knuckles white as he lifted into the air.

  Presently the shock eased, but the plane remained near-vertical.

  “Too bad about the dead,” said Croft. “Wish we could have buried them.”

  “You can, sir.” Atkinson handed Croft the radio detonator. “Armed and ready, sir. There was almost a ton of C4 in one of the Conex boxes and I used all of it.”

  The platoon sergeant grinned as Croft took the detonator in his free hand and pressed it.

  Below and behind them, most of a ton of high explosives went off around Kandin-dak, blowing the fort into a flaming fountain of rubble behind the transport.

  * * *

  “Colonel Lavasseur,” came the voice of Air Force Major-General Armand. “I am backing Group Colonel de Klerk on this: no. He did you enough of a favor to scramble the flight to begin with. I am not authorizing them to be sent across the border against an American military target. That would be an act of war, Colonel, and I am not going to start a war on your say-so!”

  They killed my brother, thought Lavasseur, but she wasn’t going to plead with him. A small part of her mind said that a thorough personal investigation might be warranted of both Armand and de Klerk, and their families. Everyone had some dirt about them.

  But that would be petty, not as though she wasn’t always above being petty. For now, though, a clear ‘no’ was just that.

  Damn it.

  She put the phone down.

  “Get me Doom,” she told Bujold.

  * * *

  The C-175 was slowly turning around toward East Vasimir when Arlene Lavasseur’s voice came through the cockpit, on the battalion radio net.

  “Well played, Doom.”

  “Thank you,” Doom said. And after a moment: “I’m sorry about your brother.”

  Lavasseur’s voice turned cold.

  “It was his first assignment, Doom. He was a baby.”

  “His behavior was a disgrace to the organization,” Doom said, “and his death was an embarrassment to it. I’m sorry for your loss, but he deserved what he got.”

  “His behavior would have been dealt with internally by the Department, Doom,” said Lavasseur icily. “Julius doted on Andre.”

  “Julius knows the game has risks,” Doom said. Below them the nomad hordes were reaching Kandin-dak, but the plane’s electronic countermeasures were active and they were well outside stinger range anyway.

  “Julius is not going to be happy, Richard,” Lavasseur said, “and eventually he’s going to come back into favor. You’ve borrowed trouble.”

  “I’ve had your brother’s grade of trouble before,” Doom replied. “He’s running labor camps on Svalbard nowadays.”

  “Not exactly labor camps, Doom. Watch your back.”

  The connection went dead.

  “What was that about, sir?” Atkinson asked.

  “Nothing we can’t handle,” said Doom.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Croft sat at a table in the officers’ mess of the East Vasimir base, a couple of days later, with a plate of chicken bones in front of him.

  “So the Governor’s office came through,” Faden said, putting down the last of his own lunch. It was the first real food, as opposed to MREs, Croft had eaten in three weeks. “Black Gangers, all the survivors of 209, have their sentences commuted effective immediately.”

  “Isn’t that a Chauncy decision to make, not the Governor’s Office?” Croft asked.

  “Technically. But the Commandant is going to follow their recommendations on this. They fought well, and we’d have died without them.”

  Senior Lieutenant Jester came in, Hadfield and a couple of others following.

  “You guys are free?” Croft asked with surprise as Hadfield sat down at the table opposite them with a plate of fried chicken.

  “Conditional release,” said Hadfield. He took a bite from a chicken leg, paused to chew it.

  “Command decided that because nobody was hurt and nothing was disrupted,” he went on, “they could suspend charges. Not drop, you understand, and we officers are definitely getting reprimands in our files. But they don’t want to lock up a hundred men that are going to be needed dealing with the nomad crisis.”

  “There’s certainly enough trouble
,” Croft said. He’d been reading reports. “Bad news everywhere.”

  * * *

  Arlene Lavasseur finished the email to Julius, looked it over and hit Send. It would probably reach him, given ship schedules, at about the time he was hearing about his baby brother’s death. The assistant director would not be happy.

  Outside of the Team Nine disaster, however… and the Anzing Hills horde was finally heading to Chongdin, von Kallweit’s reports saying it had so far almost doubled in strength as tribes joined in that had not wanted to be involved with the tedious siege and bloody assaults… outside of Team Nine, the operation had gone well.

  The Chongdin Empire was being ripped apart, American control reduced to a few fortified areas and a lot of surrounded units. Reinforcements, of course, would be coming any time, but it would take America real resources to stop the destruction.

  In fact, teams reported that the nomads had been so successful that some of the khans were talking about staying to conquer. That had been a predicted best-case possibility on Lavasseur’s decision tree, and she was ready for it. Not to take American Dinqing, of course, but to get substantial territorial concessions, and to give the diplomats something to negotiate with on other worlds, around other situations.

  It was important, Lavasseur thought, to consider the big picture. Her own personal loss aside, the operation was going better than planned; Paris would be happy.

  Her own personal loss, of course, was something she had not forgotten.

  And was not going to.

  Professionalism only had to go so far, when you were French.

  * * *

  Dmitri Bogdanov sat at a computer looking through social media. The real-name networks, two big ones, had both found the person he was fairly sure was the right one.