by Isaac Stone
In the other corner was the mummified corpse of a young man. He’d been there a long time. Shamsana walked over and looked at him.
“Starvation,” she pointed out. “Look at the ribs. Maybe a common illness. There haven’t been any medics around in the past month.”
“Then why didn’t he eat this?” Krodha asked as he picked up a few unopened tins of food. “This wasn’t even touched.”
“Could be they belonged to someone else,” she pointed out. “Perhaps the woman we saw. After a few weeks of this insanity, perhaps she didn’t mind sharing a safe spot with a dead body.”
Krodha grunted in agreement and shoved the tins in a pouch he had slung over his shoulder. Any food they could find was useful for the brigade. The tins weren’t much, but they would help. Since the army couldn’t get supplies to them, the marines were forced to scrounge around and find what they could. One of the purposes of today’s mission was to locate edibles for the rest of the post.
The post used by Aadya Brigade was located in an abandoned office building near the center of the city. When the brigade set up their location days ago, the Synarchists were further from the center of the city and the Jacobites hadn’t made much of an appearance. Now the Synarchist troopers had taken most of the city and there were reports Jacobite knights were in the area. It was only a hundred yards away, but distances increased dramatically in the war zone.
Krodha cradled his rifle and stepped out to look at the skyline. No movements, which was a good thing. No movements meant no obvious snipers. It wasn’t like the Synarchists to leave snipers behind, but the Jacobites enjoyed them placed at strategic points. If a Jacobite knight followed the Synarchist column, he just might be ready to take them out as well. The column was far forward and a gun retort could originate from many places.
The two worked their way down the sides of the nearest buildings until they reached the former Education Ministry edifice. Outside the ministry building was a small alcove designed to shade the office workers from the sun when they were waiting for the bus. Right now, it was a godsend as the alcove gave them the necessary cover from any scoped rifles on the other two sides. When he decided it was safe, Krodha signaled to Shamsana who ran between the two buildings and joined him under the alcove.
“Nothing out there,” she told him. “I think the enemy has gone further into the city.”
“You never hear the rifle that shoots you,” he reminded her. “If the Jacobites have someone up there, we’re still an easy target. Let’s get off this street and inside the building.” He walked over to the maintenance door. It was next to the shattered glass doors once used by schoolteachers on their way to pick up lesson plans.
Krodha let out a sigh of relief and gently tapped out a signal on the door. He turned to make sure Shamsana was with him. The last thing he needed was a sentry who panicked at the sight of a lone marine when two had gone out.
The door cracked open and two eyes stared out at him. The eyes widened with they saw the woman with him. The door flew open and a man stood there in a similar tattered uniform. He motioned them inside and they quickly vanished into the building.
“I was about to give up on you both,” said the man, who was known as Vatuka. He was in his thirties and a little bit older than the other marines.
Vatuka was from the engineering side of the military. Prior to the invasions, he’d spent time building bases and designing reclamation centers. Since there had not been any kind of major war on Jyotish in the past two hundred years, his role was limited to the support provided for anti-smuggling operations and against the occasional pirate raid from other systems. Up until the fall of the Wotan planets, Jyotish had an agreement on security with a few other star systems. With the onslaught of the Jacobites and Synarchists, it was every planet for itself.
They hurried up to the second floor and entered the atrium, which the Education Ministry used for presentations until the invasion. In the huge open area where conferences were held last year, a refugee camp was hastily organized by Aadya Brigade. Word drifted out to the few remaining citizens around the center of the Parmesh about a military unit in the deserted building and people began to flood into it.
Everyone wanted some kind of help, but the marines were in no position to give it out. The eventual plan was to bring in a transport vehicle of some kind to a safe zone inside the occupied territory and fly these people out. Since the last VTOL that tried to make a landing was shot down by the enemy, this would be a long time in the future. For the present, the few marines who could be spared where given the task of watching over the thirty refugees camped in the atrium. Occasionally, the refugees would be sent out with a marine escort to find supplies.
Shamsana tried not to think about the little girl who was sleeping in her mother’s arms as they walked past her. She looked a lot like her sister, who was safely evacuated from the city last month. Why hadn’t this mother left with her daughter when she had the chance? There was no use trying to understand some people.
They emerged on the eighth level and walked past a sentry to the former Minister of Rural Education’s office. Inside, right next to a window, stood Commander Sura Singh. She was barely thirty, but already a legend in the Jyotish Special Forces. When the first Synarchist drop ships arrived, she organized twelve strike teams that kept them pinned down for days. The strike teams eventually fell back when Synarchist reinforcements appeared in orbit, but the delay she caused the enemy put them way behind schedule.
Commander Sura turned and gave them a gaze that pierced through their souls. She wasn’t a large woman, barely over five feet tall and was thin to the point of starvation. But her mind and reaction time made up for whatever her mass lacked. Shamsana had seen her pick up a fallen rifle and use it to gun down an entire advancing squad of Synarchists two weeks ago. She was never one to be underestimated. Somehow, Sura managed to repair her tan uniform every time it was torn.
Next to the commander sat a man named Tripada. He was another new inductee. When a bombing run by the Synarchists on his hometown wiped out his entire family, Tripada joined up with the marine units the next day. He was a communications technician by trade, but had risen to the role of Sura’s second-in-command in the Aadya Brigade.
When they were dropped into the city from VTOL’s, the brigade had numbered a hundred souls. Now they were down to less than twenty. The constant hit and run attacks on the Synarchists had whittled them down to the point where they were barely a threat to either enemy.
As they watched, Tripada typed out a code to their contact hundreds of miles away. With the satellites down and the cables spotty, the best they could do was send a long wave to the Jyotish Army and pray for a quick response. At the moment, Tripada was letting them know they’d lost more marines two days ago, although they did stop the immediate advance of the enemy. However, he had to let them know the Synarchists were on the move again.
Plaster floated through the air. The windows were busted out last month during the first firefights in the city. The Synarchists tried their own marine raid into the middle of the capitol, but were met with ground fire before they could land. The shells of three burnt-out drop ships lay several blocks away where the antiaircraft fire took them down. The military were able to hide several missile launchers around the city and used them against the first wave.
“We lost three good men two days ago,” the commander told the two new comers when she saw them walk into the room. “I listened to it happen. They took out fifteen of the enemy, but we lost our people in the process. Fifteen for three might seem a good trade, but not if you’re so far down in the numbers, you can’t bear to lose any more. Did you two see anything out there?”
“An entire marching column headed into the city,” Krodha told her. “Some crazy preacher with a bullhorn and new recruits. I never thought I’d live to see the day when our own people would turn against us.” He dropped his head.
Shamsana opened her mouth and almost said “sahiba”, bu
t remembered the commander had told her not to use formal titles this far into the occupation zone. A simple “Commander Sura” would do just fine. Besides, a salute or bow let any sniper know whom to shoot.
“We picked up some supplies,” Krodha continued and brought the tins out of his pouch. He laid them in front of the commander.
“These aren’t much,” she said turning the cans over, “but they’ll have to do for now. The refugees didn’t find much today and, with that column nearby, I don’t think we can let them wander too far. Did you find that East Sector unit which was supposed to be on its way here?”
“Not one glimpse,” Shamsana replied. “We didn’t find much at all outside the building and in this part of the city.”
“Those three men the other day,” Sura continued on, not caring who heard her, “they did exactly what I told them to do. Today, we were able to get another twenty refugees back and three marines in the building and the Synners didn’t see them. I can only assume that group form the East didn’t make it to our lines.” She picked up a canteen and took a sip.
Two more marines sat in the outer office area of the room she occupied. They were both asleep on a couch once used by teachers who came to lobby for more funds for the farm kids in the bush. Sura wondered if it would ever be possible to clean this building up. There was so much debris tossed everywhere that it might have to be leveled after the Synarchists where kicked off the planet.
“I just received a message from both the South and North cells,” Tripada said from behind the radio. “They haven’t heard a word from the Eastern one either. I don’t think it looks very good for them.”
“Mark them as KIA,” Sura told her second. “Let the South and the North know what happened. Make certain you get confirmation from HQ. I’ll have to come up with another plan. We can’t just sit here and let these refugees get wiped out by the Synners.”
“I would like to remind you, Commander,” Tripada brought up, “We don’t have a responsibility to those refugees. Our primary mission is to stop the Synner’s advance.”
“Don’t you tell me how to do my job,baba,” she snapped at her second. “I make the decisions here. Now send those messages sent before I find someone who will do it for me!” Embarrassed, Tripada returned to typing out a code on the radio.
Shamsana and Krodha continued with their verbal report. Sura winced when they told her about the woman in rags who was stabbed to death because she tried to run to the preacher. She seemed curious about the starved corpse found in the hiding place, but changed the subject again.
“The Widowmakers are the worst of that bunch,” she told them. “Scum, every one of them. They’ll all come back as dung beetles.”
“We’re stuck here for the time being,” she concluded. “We’ll need better intelligence to find out where that column went.”
Commander Sura sat down in the chair that the minister once used. It was a fine one made from the wood of the northern forest. It was made on Jyotish at a small shop were the carpenters worked with wood for the past five generations. Only the best for a government minister.
“You read much scripture, soldier?” Sura asked Shamsana.
Shamsana was puzzled by the question, especially now when their lives were at stake. “Just what I learned at the temple, commander,” she told her. “We had a small one down the street where I grew up.”
“Thou shalt find thy end in the bitter winds that blow from the East,” Sura quoted. “It’s in theKagamusha Upanishad. They ever teach you that one?” She took the pistol out of its holster and checked the clip to make sure it was still full.
“It was one of my dad’s favorites,” Shamsana responded. “If I recall right, doesn’t it also say something about hope from the North?”
“Yes it does,” Sura agreed. “’And so from the North shall hope arise’. I think that part is in the second chapter.” She returned the pistol to its holster on her belt.
“We haven’t heard much from the North in the past few days,” Tripada brought up to them. “All I have received on the radio are some beeps and clicks. The last message I decoded said they were running out of food and ammunition.”
“Appears we may be the only ones left,” Sura said to the people in the room. “And we don’t have much to work with. Add to the refugees down in the atrium. What happens when the Synners find out we’re here? Do you have any idea how difficult it will be to fall back with all those unarmed civilians? I don’t have to tell you what the Synners will do if they catch us out in the open. I’ve read the report from the initial landing they made at Baimum. After the marines fell back, they started killing people at random. They don’t care, it’s part of their philosophy. Anyone who isn’t one of them is a fair target. Anyone who doesn’t surrender is killed instantly. They don’t take prisoners, if you notice. They seem to find plenty of recruits wherever they go. I guess people want to sign on with the winners.”
Commander Sura was from a farm outside one of the smaller cities on the planet. Her parents wanted to marry her off to a farmer next door who’d lost his wife, but she wanted no part of the arrangement. At sixteen, she skipped out of the manor house and made her way to the nearest city where she managed to survive on the streets doing odd jobs and whatever anyone would pay her to do. When she turned eighteen, Sura enlisted in the Jyotish Army, which wasn’t very active at the time. She managed to volunteer for the most dangerous assignments until she was the only one who survived out of her pool of recruits. For her entire career, she’d anticipated someone like the Synarchists and Jacobites. When it happened, her ranting was no longer funny.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Sura said aloud. “I hope this is some good news.”
Two people entered the room. The first was another marine in the worn uniform of the Special Forces. Behind him was a woman of about twenty. She’d cut her straight black hair off to shoulder level, but Krodha recognized her movement and walk as one that belonged to a professional dancer. Why the hell had she remained behind after the evacuation was declared?
“We managed to find enough food to feed the people in the atrium for another five days,” the marine reported to her. “Sheena knew where we could find some provisions in an abandoned warehouse. I don’t know if we’ll be able to get back there again now that the Synners are in the middle of the city.”
“Did you find out any more about them?” Sura asked him. “Any plans they seemed to be hatching? Anything we need to tell HQ?”
“No,” he replied. “But Sheena did notice something.” He turned to her. “Why don’t you tell Commander Sura what you told me?”
The dancer took a few steps toward the older woman and dropped her eyes to the floor. “I saw some of the local punks traveling with that column today,” she told Sura. “I used to see that bunch around the club where I worked. They thought they were a bunch of tough boys, but the bouncers never had much trouble with them. I thought you’d want to know.”
“This doesn’t surprise me,” she told her. “You may both return to your posts. This information was still useful.” Seconds later, the two had left.
“The rest of you can go as well,” she told the other marines. “I have some things to go over with my second.” The door closed behind Shamsana, Krodha, and Vatuka as they left the room.
Tripada pulled out a map from below the desk on which the radio sat. He took a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses out of the drawer and shoved them down on his face. He walked over to the desk in front of Commander Sura and spread out the map.
The map showed the main thrust of the Synarchist movements around the city. At one point, the locations of the marine units were penciled in at various locations. Those locations were scratched out for the most part. Only a few locations remained. Sura took a pencil out from her desk, sighed and marked off the Chanda Unit.
“I still can’t understand why they didn’t level this city by bombing it from orbit,” Sura said to her second. “Look at this map. We�
��re on a river plain, goddamit! There are no natural boundaries to protect the capitol! All they needed to do if they wanted to control this city in days instead of months was to land some armored vehicles on the outskirts and drive them to the center. They have the heavy equipment, why didn’t they do it?”
Tripada traced the map outline with one finger and looked at it over his glasses. “Perhaps they didn’t want to waste the manpower,” he committed. “Look at this, they already have most of the South and are driving into the West. Parmesh was evacuated last month; I don’t understand why they want it. You’re right; they could have destroyed it from orbit with a few nukes….”
“It would have been too much of a risk on their part,” Sura returned. “No one’s used a nuclear weapon on a military target in hundreds of years. It’s not worth the gamble.” She didn’t have to say why; they both understood the use of nukes on a military target would bring down the wrath of every other planet in known space on the wielder.
“I don’t think these Synarchists care much about what other star systems think about them. They seem to be on some kind of insane crusade to take as much civilized space as they can. Sooner or later, they’ll run up against someone who doesn’t want to be pushed around. Or they will use a nuke and the entire galaxy will turn on them.”
“But right now,” Sura sighed, “we have to deal with them. At least they didn’t sit back at range and level the city the way they took Mons, near the mountains, last month. Doesn’t mean they won’t if the city can’t be taken according to their schedule. I think there might be something in the capitol they want. Something that forces them to do as little damage as they can. Plenty of buildings were leveled when they rolled in, but not as many as they’ve done in the past.”
She looked out the window and returned to her second. “No sign of Jacobite knights?” Sura asked him. “I didn’t hear anything from the people we just had in here.”
“The last thing we heard about them was here and here,” Tripada mentioned as he pointed to several spots on the map. “We’re not even sure how many are out there. Could be one or two knights working alone. They don’t seem to like to operate in groups. It’s against their sense of warfare.”