Winter Duty

by E. E. Knight

  She smiled, dazzling white teeth against those pink lips. “More dangerous than Reapers, Mister Patel?”

  The men had to be fed, one way or another. The only other option would be to go in and take it at gunpoint, and they weren’t pirates. At least not yet.

  Valentine weighed his options. Once Kentucky got itself organized, Fort Seng would petition for support from the Assembly. Though Valentine wondered if his forces, being neither fish nor fowl, so to speak, would find themselves divested of support from both the rebels in Kentucky and his own Southern Command, especially once General Martinez took over and instituted his new “defensive” policies.

  Mrs. O’Coombe waited, her hands clasped decorously in her lap. She’d only nibbled politely at the meager fare.

  “Madam, I accept your very generous offer on behalf of my men,” Lambert said, her train of thought arriving at the decision platform.

  “Always willing to help the Cause, Colonel,” Mrs. O’Coombe said. “Now, Mister Valentine, perhaps you will attend to the matter of facilitating me in the effort of finding my son. I would like your advice on routes and what sort of personnel we should bring.”

  “A complicated question, madam,” Valentine said. “It depends on supply capacity in your vehicles, what sort of fuel they need . . .”

  Duvalier hummed quietly:

  The choice tan, the bought man,

  Prisoner ’tween golden sheets . . .

  It was a pop tune from just before the cataclysm in 2022 and had been prominently listed on most barroom virtual disc-jockey machines.

  Patel let off an explosive fart and excused himself, but it stopped Duvalier’s quiet amusement.

  Well, if Valentine was going to take her gold, he’d get more for it than butter and eggs. Valentine hemmed and hawed his way through the conversation about the trip to recover her son—and others, of course—and as usual struck upon an idea while his brain was busy fencing with Mrs. O’Coombe.

  Valentine escaped Mrs. O’Coombe the next day, pleading that he had to go into Evansville to see about purchasing supplies.

  Evansville had an impressive city hall thanks to the region’s ample limestone, but it reminded Valentine of a church with long-dead parishioners. Most of the offices were empty.

  They should have used the empty rooms for the overflowing waiting room. Luckily, his uniform brought him right to the attention of the city’s governor.

  How they arrived at that title Valentine didn’t know then, but he later learned that since Evansville considered itself a different state than Kentucky even though it was now part of the Kentucky Freehold, by definition it should have a governor as chief executive.

  In this case the governor was a former member of the underground named Durand. Professor Durand, actually; he ran a secret college devoted to preserving classical Western education from the tailoring, trimming, and alteration of the Kurian Order.

  He reminded Valentine a bit of Trotsky in his dress and glasses, minus the brains and the talent and the vigor.

  “Can I help you, Major Valentine?” Durand asked. He was sorting papers into four piles on his desk, and he glanced up at Valentine as he stood before his desk.

  Valentine would have sworn in court that he recognized some of the documents from his last visit three weeks ago, before the action at the power station, when he unsuccessfully pleaded for the Evansville provisional government to purchase supplies for Fort Seng.

  “You’ve done so much already, Governor,” Valentine said. “I’m simply here to pay my respects before we depart. A last duty call before I plunge into getting the camp relocated.”

  “Depart?” Durand asked, looking vaguely alarmed and suddenly less interested in the paperwork on his desk.

  Valentine examined the walls of the office. A few corners of torn-off Kurian NUC enthusiasm posters remained between the windows. “Yes, the fort will be relocated. For security reasons I can’t disclose our destination, but the town’s leadership has made a most generous offer, and strategically it makes sense—we’ll be closer to the center mass of Kentucky, able to operate on interior lines. . . . You know the military advantages.”

  “But . . . the underground has word of an armored column north of here. Cannon, armored cars, riot buses, gunabagoes . . .”

  “Yes, how is the city militia progressing in its training? The key is to brush back the infantry support. Then it’s much easier to take out the armor.”

  “You’ve made so many improvements to your camp, I understand. Hot water, electricity . . .”

  “Perhaps your militia can relocate and take advantage of all our hard work. True, that would mean a longer response time if you needed them to deal with, say, some airdropped Reapers.”

  “What is this other town offering you?”

  “Offering? I’m doing my duty, Professor, not engaging in bid taking.”

  “Surely Evansville has its advantages. The textile plant, the appliances, our phone system . . .”

  “All are superior to central Kentucky, I grant you,” Valentine said. “But my men are running short on eggs and dairy and fresh meat and vegetables. The new town has offered to supply us amply. I have to consider the health and fitness of my men.”

  Valentine took out some of the gold coins Mrs. O’Coombe had so generously offered. “Of course, we’ll have more difficulty purchasing building materials, tenting, plumbing supplies, munitions, uniforms, and such in Kentucky. After I’ve finished here, I will visit the marketplace and see if I can’t have a selection packed and ready for transport.”

  Durand’s eyes watched the jingling coins. “We’ve had something of a food crisis here, as well,” Durand said. “It appears to be easing since the vote to declare openly against the Kurian Order. We’ve been neglectful of our protectors across the river. Now we could easily restart the flow of foodstuffs. I expect a boat full of chickens and eggs could be put across in no time.”

  Valentine took out a piece of paper. “We’ll need this every week.” He passed the grocery list to Durand.

  “Basic staples shouldn’t be difficult. But chocolate?”

  “Some of my soldiers have a sweet tooth, but I imagine most of it will end up in the stomachs of Evansville’s beautiful young women.”

  “You drive a hard bargain, Major. Is this quite ethical? Extorting the people you promised to protect?”

  “Evansville’s delegates voted to support the armed resistance to the Kurian Order in men and matériel. I’ve most of the men I need. My material needs are small compared to the army they’re trying to build outside the Kurian Triangle. You might consider yourself lucky.”

  “It appears we are bound to be symbionts, Major. I’ll see to the deliveries of your foodstuffs.”

  “Then we shall be happy to remain in our comfortable and beautiful surroundings, with the congenial company of Evansville and Owensboro,” Valentine said.

  “I’m sure,” Durand said. “I feel as though I’ve been played like a harp.”

  “If that column comes roaring south out of Bloomington, you’ll be glad we stayed, or you might end up playing your own harp, sir.”

  He didn’t want to go on Mrs. O’Coombe’s expedition. He wished Moytana were still present; it would have been a much better assignment for a group of experienced Wolves.

  It took a direct order from Lambert to get him to agree to do it.

  They talked it over across her desk. Lambert had a policy that in private, when seated, you could talk to her without military formalities and treat her as a sounding board rather than a commander. It was a tradition Valentine had always followed with his own subordinates. Valentine remembered picking it up from Captain LeHavre. He wondered if Lambert had acquired it from Moira Styachowski.

  Or did it come to Lambert from Valentine, in a roundabout way?

  “Take whoever you like, just none of my captains,” Lambert said, signing a blank ad hoc special duty personnel sheet and passing it to him.

  Damn. So much for Patel.
He could have ridden the whole way.

  “I was thinking two Bears. Ali.” As a Cat, Duvalier was considered a captain in rank, but Valentine suspected Lambert didn’t need to hold on to her. “A Wolf scouting team.”

  “Medical staff?”

  “They have enough to do here. Our patroness said she has her own medical team.”

  “Why don’t you take Boelnitz too,” Lambert said. “He’s been making himself a nuisance here. I don’t know if he’s filed a story yet.”

  “Maybe he’s working on a novel,” Valentine said. He observed that Lambert’s desk was as clean as an Archon’s shaving mirror. Lambert managed to do a tremendous amount of work—she was in the process of reorganizing Fort Seng from the top down—but there was no evidence of it except for a three-drawer file cabinet and a brace of three-ring binders. Her clerk was always buzzing in and out like a pollen-laden honeybee, keeping the binders updated.

  “I’d hate to be away if that column moves south,” Valentine said.

  “We’ll just call you back,” Lambert said. “Mrs. O’Coombe can delay them with a pillar of fire, and then spread her arms and part the Tennessee for us to get away.”

  Valentine couldn’t say why he didn’t like the idea of leaving Fort Seng. How do you put disquiet and restlessness into words? Normally he’d look forward to picking up his men and getting them on the road home—that sort of thing left a better aftertaste than surviving a battle.

  One more thing bothered him. Red Dog had appeared a little nervous of late, always looking around with the whites of his eyes showing and hiding under tables and stonework. He’d even been dragged out from under the defunct hot tub in the estate house’s garden gazebo.

  Red Dog had been a tool of the Kurians in the retreat across Kentucky, when one Kurian had somehow linked through the dog’s mind to Javelin’s commanders at headquarters. If Red Dog was nervous, Valentine was nervous.

  “Nice work at the dinner,” Valentine said. “I think when Mrs. O’Coombe had to eat what we’ve been living on, it encouraged her to part with her gold.”

  “I just think she’s a deeply decent person,” Lambert said. “You don’t often meet one of those.”

  “I met one back at the war college in Pine Bluff,” Valentine said. “A little stick of a thing, always dotting i’s and crossing t’s.”

  “And I remember a shy young lieutenant who was always looking at his shoes and talking about the weather when he should have been asking me to a dance,” Lambert said.

  “We were both too busy, I think,” Valentine said.

  “And now we’re in a fort where Southern Command rules on down-chain, up-chain, and cross-chain fraternization will be strictly observed. And not ‘strictly’ in the fun, blindfold and handcuffs sense, either.”

  “Dirty Bird Colonel,” Valentine laughed. “Hands off.”

  “That goes for your captain, too, Major.”

  “Nilay Patel and I share a love that cannot—”

  “You know who I mean. I don’t want Boelnitz returning to his paper with an episode of Noonside Passions ready for action.”

  “Yes, ma’am. But rest easy: Ediyak didn’t earn that rapid rise the hard way.”

  Duvalier waited a beat. “You’re impossible, Valentine. Anyway, let’s keep it zipped up for once, shall we?”

  “As long as you restrain yourself with Boelnitz. You’ve made time for how many interviews?”

  “I don’t recall him being in the chain of command,” Lambert said. “And if he were, I’d just have my clerk make a new page minus his name. But point taken, Valentine. Honestly, the only thing I want to get intimate with is that hot tub, if Prist and To yonikka get if functional again.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Civilian and military relations: Southern Command has a long history of “turnouts” to offer assistance to civilians in need. Their ethic might almost be described by the words “protect and serve.”

  Bases always serve as a temporary haven for the lost, dispossessed, or desperate. The men and women in uniform know they depend on the civilian populace for food and support. There are endless tales of whole camps going hungry to share their rations with hard-up locals and their children.

  In return, civilians do what they can to provide for soldiers on the march, act as spare pairs of eyes and ears, and put in extra hours as poorly paid labor levies doing everything from laundry to garbage burial.

  Especially in frontier areas, the soldiers are the only law and order around. While they can’t treat criminals as combatants, they do have the power to hold someone until they can be turned over to civilian authorities—and the farther out the base, the longer the wait for a marshal or judge riding circuit to appear.

  More important for this period in the turbulent history of the Middle Freestates, they can provide escort for vehicles, trains, and watercraft.

  For all Valentine’s reluctance to join Mrs. O’Coombe’s famous and tragic trek to recover her son, the rest of Fort Seng worked like demons to prepare her group and vehicles for their journey. “Home by Christmas,” the men said to each other, hoping that ten days on the road would suffice to recover the men Javelin had left scattered across Kentucky.

  Each soldier could picture himself left behind somewhere. They provisioned and checked and armed the already well-equipped vehicles. For the average man in the ranks, letters from the president and connections in the general headquarters staff were remote facts, like the Hooked O-C straddling much of southern Oklahoma and northern Texas. What they understood was that the cots bolted to the inside of the trucks and vehicles would bring home those who’d been left behind—at least those who survived their injuries and the sweeps of Javelin’s trail by bloodthirsty Moondaggers.

  He met O’Coombe’s team on a warm December day. Valentine hadn’t seen vehicles like these since the drive on Dallas, and these specimens were in much better condition.

  They sat there, not exactly gleaming in the sun but looking formidable in their grit and mud streaks.

  Mrs. O’Coombe introduced him to her right-hand man, an ex-Bear named Stuck. Valentine hadn’t met many ex-Bears. It seemed you were either a Bear or you were a deceased Bear; the ex-Bears he’d met were all so badly damaged they couldn’t stand up or hold a gun.

  Stuck had all his arms and legs and sensory organs intact. All that seemed to be missing was the bristling, grouchy Bear attitude. He was a big, meaty, soft-spoken man with a wide, angular mustache.

  Stuck took Valentine down the line. He introduced Valentine to the wagon master, Habanero, a tough older man, thin and dry and leathery as a piece of jerky. He had a combination hearing aid-radio communicator that he used to issue orders to the drivers in the column.

  “Ex-artillery in the Guards,” Stuck explained as they left to inspect the vehicles. “Used to haul around guns. Deaf as a post but knows engines and suspensions and transmissions.”

  First, there was Rover, the command car. It was a high-clearance model that looked like something out of an African safari, right down to a heavy cage around the cabin. Extra jerricans of water and gasoline festooned the back and sides, spare tires were mounted on the front and hood, packs were tied to the cage, and up top a pair of radio antennae bent from the rear bumpers and were tied forward like scorpion tails. The command car had a turret ring—empty for now.

  Stuck said there was an automatic grenade launcher and two bins of grenades in the bay.

  Then there was the Bushmaster. The vehicle was a beautiful, rust-free armored personnel carrier, long bodied with a toothy grin up front thanks to heavy brush breakers. An armored cupola sat at the top, and firing slits lined the side. Valentine saw canvas-covered barrels sprouting like antennae.

  “Teeth as false as Grandpa’s,” Stuck said.

  Stuck glanced around before opening the armored car’s back.

  The vehicle was under command of a thickset homunculus. The man looked like he’d been folded and imperfectly unfolded again. Scarred, with a squint eye and
an upturned mouth, his face looked as though someone had given his unformed face a vigorous stir with wooden spoon. Even his ears were uneven.

  Valentine recognized him. “I know you, don’t I?”

  “Yes, sir, thanks, sir,” he said as they shook hands. “March south to Dallas. We was just ahead of your Razorbacks in column with the old One hundred fifteenth. I drove a rocket sled.”

  A vicious-looking dog that seemed mostly Doberman sniffed Valentine from next to the driver.

  Hazardous duty, since the rockets had a tendency to blow up in the crew’s face. Southern Command had any number of improvised artillery units. Crude rocketry was popular because the howling, crashing projectiles unnerved even the most dug-in Grogs. Someone said it was because the rockets made a noise that sounded like the Grog word for lightning strikes.

  Valentine suspected it might be the other way around—that the Grogs started calling lightning strikes after the sound effect from the rockets.

  “Dover—no, Drake. Your crew pulled my command car out of a mud hole outside Sulphur Springs.”

  “That we did, sir.”

  “Serves me right for taking the wheel. I never was much of a driver.”

  Stuck spoke up. “Drake here is on her ladyship’s—Well, we call them the ranch’s sheriff’s deputies. He keeps law and order among the hands and their families.”

  “Not popular work, sir, but it pays well,” Drake said.

  “Quite a dog you have there,” Valentine said, looking at the beast’s scarred muscle. “Can I pet it?”

  “You can, sir, but I wouldn’t advise it. I don’t even pet him.”

  “How’s she drive, Drake?” Valentine asked.

  “Like steering a pig with handlebars shoved up its ass, but it’ll get there and back,” Drake said.

  “Riot control platform, isn’t it? I’ve seen these in Illinois.”

  “That it is, sir.”

  Stuck opened the small access hatch in the larger back door. “We’ve got it rigged out to carry injured in comfort.”