"A thief took them."
The Captain blinked quickly as if surprised by the reply. "Sir? Did you forget a 'sir'? Are you deaf?"
Tomi opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again. "No sir."
"Then why did you not answer my question with Sir?"
"I, uh, I forgot, sir."
"What's your rank, prisoner?"
"I'm a civilian, sir. And about my boots, sir?"
"Oh," the Captain said with a smile. "About your boots. Sergeant, this man lost his boots. Educate him." The Captain turned away from Tomi. "Everyone else double speed into the hall. Go, go!"
The prisoners exploded into action. The sounds of moving men echoed through the cold halls. Calls, orders, barks, and commands followed behind.
Tomi stood and shifted his feet. He looked at the Sergeant. He felt uncomfortable, beyond uncomfortable, he knew something bad was coming. A smile broke across his face.
"Run."
"Pardon?"
"I said run!" the Sergeant bellowed.
Tomi ran the only way he could, out.
The Sergeant cracked him on the bottom with his club.
Tomi shrieked and ran faster. He turned a corner and ran past hundreds of men and women. They stood in groups of a hundred. The only sound in the entire hall was Tomi panting and the thump of the Sergeant chasing after.
They ran out the end of the hall and then the Sergeant called, "Halt!"
Tomi gasped for breath.
The mist drizzled down the walls and soaked the gravel around the perimeter of the building.
"You're going to run around this building," the Sergeant said as he fished a wooden pipe out of his jacket. He blew on it and a bit of ash sprayed out. "Until I decide it's time to go inside. If I think you're too slow," he tapped the pipe on the club handle and gave it a knowing nod, "I'll beat you."
Tomi shifted in his socks. He eyed the gravel. It wasn't the crushed sort, but the type that would be found in a river bed. Smooth, almost like peas.
The Sergeant plucked out a wad of tobacco and tapped it gently into the pipe. He struck a match. It hissed and flickered in the wind. He puffed slowly, rhythmically, and the fragrant blue smoke wafted into the air. "Run," he said through clenched teeth.
Tomi ran.
The first lap he picked his steps gently, carefully. His socks balled up and his feet chilled. He panted and coughed in the wet air. The bland concrete walls passed slowly by. Tomi had never run this far in his life. When he turned the last corner the Sergeant was still puffing on the pipe.
Tomi stopped.
The Sergeant looked up from the pipe and grabbed the club. "I didn't say stop."
Tomi ran. And he ran. His legs ached, his feet burned, then went numb. The tiny pieces of gravel bored into the soles of his feet. His mind rebelled, all he could focus on was the senselessness of it. He had no boots! How could they ask him to run? Anger gave way to rationalization, and that was followed by reluctance. He accepted his fate.
His lungs burned. His thighs felt like knives jammed into them. With every footfall the pea gravel felt like burning hot balls of iron. He tried to stop, take a breather, but then on the backside the Sergeant "encouraged" him to continue with a crack of the club.
On it went. Tomi fell, stumbled, wheezed, and just when he thought he couldn't do anymore the Sergeant would appear and strike him with the club. He was alone in his ordeal, no one could watch, no one could see, it was just him and the pipe-smoking Sergeant.
The day grew dim, the mist slid down out of the sky into a streaming rain and finally the Sergeant halted the run.
Tomi could barely stand. His legs quivered and tears mixed with the mist. He'd never known physical pain like this. The exhaustion was total, physical, mental, and emotional.
"Attention to detail," the Sergeant said. He tapped the ash out of his pipe. "Now get back to your platoon."
Tomi shuffled back just in time to meet up with the rest of his group. Corporal Mick took one arm while another soldier grasped the other. They sat him on the edge of a bunk and Corporal Mick jammed a hard wheat roll into Tomi's hand.
"Eat it," he whispered. "Quick."
Tomi devoured the roll and by the end barely had the energy to chew.
"We'll get you some boots in the morn," Corporal Mick said. He helped Tomi out of his wet clothes.
Tomi let out a deep sigh and pulled the coarse wool blankets up to his chin. He was so tired he didn't have a chance to think about the day and sleep pulled him into darkness.
#
Chapter Nine
Lishun Delta - Mackinof Front
The stargate crackled and hummed. The packets were ready for the daily dump. The collated data for multiple armies sat in high powered antennas. Today was a day for a data dump, not a day for supplies or troops.
General von Kessel walked out into the icy air. His face was chapped from the dry air and his collar high to his cheeks. Even staff Officers suffered the frigid weather.
The men tending the transmitters saluted and returned to work.
"On your call, General," an Engineer said. The man rocked from side-to-side and slapped his hands on his jacket.
General von Kessel waited as long as he could. They would be expecting the signal back on Vasilov Prime. He looked up into the sky and knew that shortly after the gate opened would come the bombardment. "Very well, sound the alarms."
A mournful wail rose into the sky. All throughout the complex men and equipment scurried for cover. Then the artillery interception batteries, or umbrella, slid into place and the crews uncovered the multi-barreled interceptors.
The goal was for the high-explosive charges to impact with every single artillery round that came into range. The system was beautifully efficient. At its core was an array of quantum computers, the only thing capable of coordinating the cannons. At any moment they might track, and intercept, ten thousand projectiles. They had, according to the manufacturer, the capability to handle 100,000.
"Send it," General von Kessel said.
The gate erupted with static and a crackling sound. The snowflakes hissed on the outer edge until the superconducting carbon and nickel matrix flared. There was a popping sound and as suddenly as it started the gate wound down. Pools of water formed under the structure as the ground warmed.
"Acknowledged!" an Engineer shouted.
A cargo hauler leapt into action and pulled the stargate into a bunker.
"Everyone in!" General von Kessel said. He waited until the last soldier stepped inside and then he too entered the bunker. There was a fear on him like something was waiting to pounce. There is, he thought, and it's coming.
Lishun Delta - Mackinof Front - Firebase Delta
Corporal Karl Sigorski huddled at the bottom of an access shaft and prayed. The wailing of the alarms assaulted his ears. He kept his mouth open and waited. Even the frigid air was an afterthought.
"How long?" Private Sedan asked. Her voice was high, tight, strained. Her teeth chattered as she spoke.
A distant booming sang like drums on the horizon. It was a cascade of thunder. A great rolling of stone sounds mixed with the hard edge of steel.
"Now."
"But the umbrella will get it, right?"
Karl didn't answer. He swallowed once, twice, and waited for the shockwaves.
There was a sound like a chainsaw ripping into steel. It sang through the sky and echoed into the trenches. A moment later explosions rippled through the sky. The explosive slugs from the umbrella collided with the artillery rounds and detonated them one-by-one.
But as the hail of artillery came closer, the weight of the barrage sagged the umbrella.
None of this was a surprise to Karl. He adjusted himself and kept his eyes closed. It wasn't uncommon for a Kadan shell to slip through. Those once in a blue moon lucky shells. Or unlucky, depending on where you were.
The sound grew deeper. Larger artillery rounds exploded against the umbrella.
Bits of loose
gravel and stone fell on top of Karl. He brushed them off and opened his eyes. Everything shook like a giant stomped inside of his eyeballs.
The sounds shifted and rolled and took on a bass tone. The larger of the rounds, massive mortars and liquid explosive charges, illuminated the sky.
A tinkling sound, like a thousand windows of shattered glass, rolled across the ground. Then tiny bits of shrapnel rained down, devoid of energy, and now just bits of scrap.
Karl finally relaxed and unclenched his teeth. His jaw ached. "Well, that one wasn't—"
A new sound erupted. A deep whistle and a hum and then the ground rippled.
"Get up," Karl said. He stood and clenched his rifle tight.
"What is it?" Sedan asked. She wore a nervous smile.
The sound struck again. The umbrella was silent.
"Everyone out!" Karl shouted. He slung his rifle over his arm and climbed up the steel rungs.
Karl's voice echoed down the chambers and others surged out from secure rooms. Soldiers pulled on jackets, loaded weapons, tightened boots, and surged out and up.
"There's no alarm!" someone shouted back.
"Get out! Get outside!" Karl shouted again. He didn't bother to look down. This was different, the sound was unlike anything he'd heard before.
The rumble struck again. A deep explosion rocked the walls.
Karl gripped the rungs as tight as he could.
An earthquake surged through the ground. Chunks of concrete and stone rained down the tunnel. Lights flickered and popped. Cries rang out in the darkness.
"Keep moving!" Karl shouted again, louder. A great fear gripped him and he pulled himself up one rung after the next.
His mind took in the details. This was new. They never got anything past the umbrella. Never. And now three strikes—at least three—and they were deep. Underground demolition? No, couldn't be, they'd have heard it.
Then he was out. He scrambled away from the edge of the hatch and propped his rifle up onto the edge of the trench. Other soldiers slammed weapons down onto the edge and peered into no man’s land.
The space between the lines was empty. The snow was broken in places, small craters marked where shell fragments landed, but there was nothing. Farther out, the snow swirled and danced and drifts grew. The twisted landscape of craters and dirt was a landscape of hell, with snow.
"Where are they?" Karl said.
"Oh god, it's gone," Sedan said.
Karl turned his head and gasped.
Great pillars of black smoke rolled up from the rear. The area around the stargate was devastated. A massive crater was nothing but muddy pulp. Drafts of steam and smoke rose up into the air as the soil chilled. Concrete compartments were broken open like cracked eggs. The entirety of the fortified base of the Mackinof front had been destroyed. All that remained were ruins and the outer trenches.
The whistle sounded again followed by a supersonic hum. A lance of light pierced the clouds and slammed into the crater. For a brief moment blue sky showed through the clouds. A light like a star burned through the clouds for the briefest of seconds.
Cascades of dirt, rock, concrete and steel rocketed into the sky and rained down into the trenches.
"Cover!" rang out from side-to-side.
Karl ducked low. Clods of soil and concrete dropped in clumps and heaps. He didn't want to think what some of the debris was. The moment the dirt stopped raining down he jumped back up to the edge of trench.
"What do we do?" Sedan asked.
"Get ready," Karl said. He propped himself up again and stared down the length of his rifle.
"Watch the line!" a Lieutenant bellowed. "Hold! We have to hold!"
"No shit," Karl mumbled, and thumbed the safety.
Hundreds of soldiers surged up from the depths and took stations all around. The wounded huddled next to the able, and anyone who could handle a weapon peered over the line. A heavy weapons team wedged an anti-tank cannon into the edge of a wall.
"Orbital," Karl said. "Has to be."
He'd reported the structure after the raid. The raid where he walked back alone. They never got a good look at it, just enough to know it was big. His Lieutenant had the scope with the photos and he was buried somewhere in no man’s land. The Intelligence Officer he briefed was sure the structure was just a construction crane. Nothing more. Now he was with a new squad, and he hardly knew their names.
"There!" a soldier cried out.
Karl focused into the distance and scanned his rifle from side-to-side.
The swirling mix of smoke and dust obscured detail. Shapes emerged and disappeared. A heavy machine gun opened fire down the line in sporadic bursts.
"Where's our artillery?" Karl mumbled. The chill wind struck him and he was afraid. The artillery always kept them back. It always held the line. The trenches caught those who made it through, but now... "Shit."
Sedan fired her rifle and the brass clinked onto the floor of the trench. Karl tightened his grip and let loose a round at a shape in the snow.
It fell in a heap and then was lost.
The sound of falling brass erupted all down the trench.
Karl flexed his fingers and pushed his snowmask over his face. It didn't make him any warmer, but kept the wind off.
The gusts blasted the line. Soldiers fired sporadically. Nothing seemed sure of how to proceed. Everything seemed mired in the mist. Orders wavered in the wind, men and women cried out for leadership. In some places it came from the Officers, in others people just stepped forward and took the reins. But mostly they lined up into the wind because that was what they were taught to do.
A line of Kadan troopers surged out of the blowing snow. They fired as they ran and tumbled as they came closer. The Vasilov soldiers opened fire en-masse. Almost the entire line of Kadan troopers fell dead. Some spun about and scrambled away only to be shot by the combined burst. They dropped into craters, behind snowdrifts, some just crumbled up and died.
Karl waited and picked his shots. He pulled in a breath, held it, and squeezed off a shell. One. Two. Three. Shoot. One. Two. Three. Shoot. Again and again, he fired.
All around the soldiers rattled off rounds into the snow. Kadan troopers emerged and fell but more came, more raced ahead, and still they fell. They came like ghosts through the winds and disappeared just as quickly.
"Make it count!" an Officer barked. The man ran down the length of the trench with his service pistol in one hand and a commset in the other. His helmet was gone and he stopped behind Karl.
The firing slowed down to an occasional pop. A higher pitched round sailed over the trench and reminded everyone that the Kadan were still coming. Karl peered at the nearest Kadan corpse and spat. Hate. Pure hate. It was a damned insect, barely intelligent. He wanted to race out and jam his Vasilov steel knife right into it.
The Officer spoke into the commset. "Lishun Command, this is Mackinof Base, we are down, condition black—repeat: condition black. Verify, verify, command word blossom. Blossom."
"Blossom," Karl mumbled. "Ya think they could've come up with something more masculine?"
Sedan didn't look. She scanned with her weapon from side-to-side.
"Corporal," the Officer said to Karl. "Get a rotation going here."
"Yes sir," Karl replied and stepped away from the trench. "In shifts!" Karl hollered. "Sedan, drop down, take five."
"Why?" she asked, her face tight with tension.
"Because we might be doing this for the next few days," the Officer replied.
Sedan dropped down and huddled tight. She pulled her collar up and tucked her chin down into her chest. All down the line others followed suit and dropped into the trench and waited.
A distant boom roared on the horizon. The sound of thunder rolled through the snow. The line grew silent as the soldiers huddled tight.
Karl's teeth chattered and he muttered a prayer. The first one that came to mind, the prayer his bubina taught him years before. She was an old believer, and believed
most specifically in a strict home with a quick switch to the behind.
"The umbrella'll get it, right?" Sedan asked. She tucked herself tight to the wall, nudged her body against Karl's. "Right?"
"Cover!" the Officer shouted and ran down the line. "Cover!"
The roaring of the distant artillery grew. The intensity and tempo raced until it seemed to be one giant stream of rounds. Then, the rounds fell.
And the umbrella engaged.
Three batteries held. Three automated cells, part of a chain of a dozen, still fired. The multi-axis multi-turret system danced like it had never done before. Gusts of steam rolled up from the heat sinks. A mound of discarded propellant heaped along the outside. Soldiers pulled at it, making room for more of the spent cartridges. It flooded out almost faster than they could move it.
One of the mushroom-shaped devices balanced on the edge of a crater. Another was crumpled and open, the weather shield torn loose from the orbital bombardment, but it was operational. The third was in even worse shape, mechanics and Engineers crawled over the shattered hull, and it fired in bursts.
Karl screamed. He screamed as the rounds slammed down on the edge of the trenches. The concrete shook and shuddered under him. The only thing he trusted in that moment was the rifle he clutched tight to his chest.
Far above the trenches explosives shell detonated against the incoming artillery rounds. The efficiency was a beautiful thing, the umbrella system operated at near complete capacity and never allowed a single round to pass through the defined zone. The umbrella held.
Something fell into the snow beside him and hissed. Steam rose up and a gnarled steel edge glinted in the gray daylight.
He opened his eyes and blinked at the shrapnel. Cheers rang out throughout the trenches. "The umbrella!"
"Here they come!" the Officer shouted.
A high pitched shot rang out.
The Officer took a step then fell back onto the ground. He squirmed and groaned. A bloodstain spread on his collar.
"Medic!" Karl shouted and knelt next to the Officer. He saw the man was a Major named Hollins.
Major Hollins mumbled and the blood steamed in the cold air. Karl pulled the anti-coagulant packet out from the Major's pocket and jammed it onto the wound. The pressure released the gel and it slid out of the pouch and molded to the wound. Gunfire erupted behind Karl.
Steel Breach Page 6
