Winterhome

by Blaze Ward

  “And we landed on the west side, well away from the only militia base, so we could get intel on Buran’s land forces,” Vo completed the thought. “That might have been a mistake, since we possibly could have overwhelmed the motor pool where that thing must have been hiding. Send notes to everyone to be on the lookout for more than just the one coming through the middle of town at us. They think that it’s tough enough to take us, so I am concerned.”

  “What about an airstrike?” Iakov Street looked up from his own tablet.

  “Don’t want to order an orbital bombardment, Street,” Vo growled. “You, of all people, should understand that.”

  “Do, zu Arlo,” Street got serious. “Didn’t say orbital. Keller’s got bombers and GunShips up in orbit. We already know that nobody’s got ground defense artillery, or they would have engaged us coming down. Betcha Strike Bombers would enjoy having something to do.”

  Vo’s smile matched Streets. Looking around, it matched a number of them.

  He was used to thinking in two dimensions with a Legion. But yeah, adding a flight wing to things would be good. Seventh Ala? Maybe a DropShip converted to handle a bunch of heavily-armed aircraft? Smaller, cheaper, and easier than space fighters, probably not much larger than a tank, bundled up.

  He made a note to inquire with zu Wachturm, or Bedrov, whoever he saw first.

  “Get me a link to Jessica,” Vo ordered.

  The Fleet Centurion was on the line within moments.

  “Who’s in a better spot?” Vo asked. “Iskra or Tamara?”

  “What do you need?” she asked.

  Rather than explain, Vo transmitted several stills, along with some of his annotations.

  “Vishnu,” she gaped.

  “Yeah,” Vo smiled. “In the interest of surviving, could you drop something heavy enough to crack that thing? And then maybe blast the hell out his base? I realize you don’t have bombs, but just blowing up some buildings and hangars would be nice.”

  “I’ll have someone call shortly,” Jessica replied. “How soon do you need to bug out?”

  “Oh, I’m going to have us move now,” Vo smiled. “Thing like that needs to be drawn back into the distant suburbs and wilderness, as much as possible. Hoping it blows up really nicely. We’re trying not to commit a mass casualty incident on Xi-Shong-Ri.”

  “Understood, General,” Jessica nodded and cut the line.

  “Reese, back all of Sixth Ala up to E-574 and let everyone know that the artillery will be off-line for a bit,” Vo said. “Have Saber maintain a soft touch, but get the tanks backed up and leading it this way, if he’ll come. If not, whichever way he turns, tell that Ala to run. No point in trying to engage it toe-to-toe, if we can bring in a bigger hammer.”

  “Roger that,” Reese began typing.

  Vo met Street’s eyes across the tent. The man had nothing to do right now except bug out with everyone else, since Cutlass Force was a backstop. But that gave Vo a team of experts he could trust.

  “Street, I have to stay here,” Vo said. “Act like a general, coordinating our engagement with that beast.”

  Street nodded and stood. Hans Danville seemed to emerge from thin air, popping up from where he might have been napping. Danville could fall asleep at the drop of a hat.

  “Take Cutlass Force and circle Xi-Shong-Ri fast and hard to the south if the Terrapin stays on course towards us,” Vo ordered. “Get me eyes on that barracks and check in. I might need a Forward Observer for the airstrike, and I might need you to call them off from that part and go in and destroy things yourselves. Remember, we’re not staying long, so don’t get into a slugging match with anyone. Destruction, panic, and retribution.”

  Street smiled and even saluted, but that was enthusiasm. The man liked blowing things up.

  Within forty-five seconds, the ten skiffs of Cutlass Force had lifted off and blasted away at high speed. Reese and his team were already folding up computers and tables to stow on their transport. Everyone he could see was armed, so Vo wasn’t worried about personal risk.

  And that beast wouldn’t even notice if he shot it with his pistol.

  Time for an introduction to Sun Tzu. And maybe a little Light Horse Harry Lee.

  Chapter XXXVI

  Imperial Founding: 180/11/29. Xi-Shong-Ri, Severnaya Zemlya

  Trooper Victoria Ames looked around the inside of Cutlass Ten’s skiff and tried to pretend she was as tough as these men. The last year had been even harder than the one before it. The hardest duty she had ever known. Or loved.

  General zu Arlo, the Aquitaine Cowboy, had made her a soldier. Inducted her, trained her, and apparently even protected her from the Emperor herself. She would do him proud.

  The gunner in the front seat of the skiff had projected his gunsite camera’s view onto the inside back wall for Street’s team to watch. Right now, they were sitting on a hill on the other side of the city, tracking that horror-vid monster from a very long ways away, as it traded fire with the tanks of Fifth Ala, the former 273rd Regiment that was now CCLXXIII Heavy. It didn’t look like a fair fight, but Street had said that the General knew what he was about.

  Other teams took occasional potshots at the thing from the flanks, but nobody was willing to get close enough to make sure their shots got home hard. She had been in a corner reading a book on logistics theory when Street suggested bombers, so she wanted to see what a craft intended to shoot heavy cruisers in space did against corvettes on the surface.

  “Arad One to all ground forces,” a woman’s voice came suddenly through the speakers, scratchy with static and maneuvering. “Thirty seconds to engagement.”

  “Arad One, this is Cutlass Ten,” Street suddenly sounded more like a professional soldier and less like her dad. “Secondary fire mission coordinates transmitted. We’re on the south side on a hill with a view. Transponders are on. I need one solid strafing run, west to east, hitting those two buildings. We’ll handle the rest.”

  “Roger that, Cutlass Ten,” she said. “Stand by.”

  Victoria had never imagined this life. Fribourg wouldn’t have allowed it, but for zu Arlo. Shortly, they would likely be in combat, so she checked her gear. Med kit. Spare ammunition in magazines and speed loaders. Helmet with flip-down optics and audio built in. Modified chest armor that had to cover her growing shape as regular food and hard exercise gave her curves she had never expected. Her mother had been a tall, skinny pencil, so she must have gotten something from the other side of the family. Something useful, anyway, to go with the rest.

  She half-drew the extra blade that Danville insisted she tuck into her boot. He glanced up as she did and grinned at her, yet another big brother. Not that they were protecting her, but would tease her and treat her like one of them in equal parts.

  “Cutlass Team, this is Street,” Iakov said sternly. “Start moving now, so we come in right on the back of the strike. Anything inside the wire that moves is fair game. Outside the fence only engage if they fire first.”

  She supposed that Cutlass was supposed to have a Centurion, but they had always been zu Arlo’s personal guard, so that part of the Standard Table or Organization and Equipment had never been occupied. Victoria wondered if she wanted that job bad enough. Considering the opinion of most officers that she had absorbed from Cutlass, she wasn’t sure, but she also knew that these men didn’t believe most officers could measure up to their standards.

  Lots of candidates hadn’t, once they realized that it was hard work and not relaxing in barracks while you sent the troops out to do things for you.

  There was no slack in the 189th, and that included Trooper Victoria Ames.

  Street caught her eye now.

  “You and Danville on point when we drop,” he ordered. “Aday and Koga will be set up on whatever high ground they can find as a sniper team, but you’ll be inside, if the building survives. Take your carbine, but leave it slung and do this with pistols. The boys behind you will have firepower if you need it, plus I’ll have
the other teams close enough to flank or enfilade as needed. I will remain here to coordinate everyone. Questions?”

  Danville shook his head, but he was a quiet man at the best of times. Most of the guys were action-first, and strategy second.

  “Prisoners?” she asked. “Or just intel?”

  Street thought about it for a second. Then his face got serious.

  “Your call, Trooper,” he decided.

  Victoria felt a thrill of elation surge through her. That was what acceptance by these men meant. She could decide, and they would back her.

  The skiff powered up and slid forward, retracting the skids just enough to stay at maybe two meters flight ceiling. Low and fast. Hard and mean.

  The gun turret rotated, so she lost the view of the giant turtle as the thing engaged with the GunShips making a high-speed pass. Instead she got a front-row view of a buzzsaw carving lines of destruction into the side of the armory and across the grounds.

  Buildings didn’t explode. Not like in vids. No, they just collapsed more or less like sand castles facing a tide, especially as four craft let loose with everything they had from short-range. Windows would explode, showering the parking lots and grass with kernels of glassy corn when the heat and pressure inside got to be too much to contain.

  Both buildings had been hit, and the airstrike cleared a section of cyclone fencing that had been severed by high energy beams.

  Cutlass Ten grounded hard and skidded forward about two meters before it stopped. Danville already had the door open and moved as soon as the ground stopped, pistol in one hand and turning left. She drew and pivoted right, with the rest of the team piling out as soon as she cleared space.

  They had trained her to attack, so Victoria began to jog forward, meeting Hans at the front bumper and quickly scanning both directions and the front of the building. People were starting to move around inside the buildings, but the shock would hold them for a little longer.

  Hans nodded to her and started to run. She was a pace behind him.

  Behind them, the turret opened up on the front of the building. The door wasn’t armored. Probably solid-core and fireproof, but that just meant it took three shots to blast it off its hinges and fill the entry hallway with smoke and debris.

  By the time they got to the door, everyone still alive in the front room had bolted for the back of the building. Four people remained behind dead.

  She had dealt with death, as well as dealt it in her life. The smell was ugly, burning shit and bile, but she focused on the open door. Hans moved to one side and hurled a grenade through it without bothering to see who or what might be there.

  A picture painted on a side wall, behind a waist-high counter, looked like a unit crest. She moved to the other side of the door from Danville and studied the words. They were written in letters, rather than ideograms, so she could understand parts of it from the Mongolian she had been studying.

  The words Motor Transport Depot jumped out at her as the grenade went off, but she grabbed Danville’s arm and held him.

  “Put another one in there,” she said, running on a hunch.

  Danville glanced, nodded, and reached into a pocket. Behind her, someone fired a few potshots, but they weren’t engaging anyone. Just keeping heads down.

  “Street, who has the second building?” Victoria asked over the unit comm.

  “One and Three,” came the quick response.

  “This is a motor pool and repair unit,” she said. “There should be data pads lying around over there for repairing that beast, so they’ll have full specs and capabilities.”

  “Good call,” Street said. “Cutlass One and Three, steal me some working slabs when you hit the place.”

  Victoria nodded and turned back to the open door. Downrange, the second grenade exploded. She reached her pistol around the wall and fired twice, blind, but they didn’t know that.

  Danville was through so fast he probably got her gunsmoke on his face. She was right behind him, pulling a speed loader from a belt pouch and holding it in her off-hand against need.

  The building itself had only been three stories tall, yesterday. Today, she could actually see daylight overhead from a shot that had torn off a section of the roof and collapsed onto the second floor.

  “Someone put some grenades upstairs,” she yelled, moving in Danville’s wake like a remora.

  The first office was open and abandoned. The one across the hall was a room for computers and such, tucked out of the way. Victoria had no idea how their electronic systems worked, so she couldn’t take one apart to steal the good parts. Plus, they weren’t staying.

  “Kill this room,” she pointed as she and Hans penetrated deeper into the building.

  Hard voices yelled behind her, and then an explosion shook the building, so someone must have put a pair of grenades in and pulled the door closed.

  The back of the building was a kitchen and dining facility, currently abandoned, with the back doors only now swinging closed from whoever had bolted through them. She wondered if this unit was a local militia rather than active duty. A weekend thing for retired soldiers. Certainly, they hadn’t stayed to fight, but she supposed they were mechanics and not line troopers, given the situation.

  Hans fired a shot through the slowly-closing door. It was maybe one hundred meters, at someone running away full tilt across an empty quad, but the man stumbled, stopped, and then collapsed. Victoria knew she wasn’t good enough to kill someone running at that range with her pistol.

  Yet. That would change. It would have to, if she wanted to belong.

  Someone, several someones, fired back at them as they approached the door. Everyone dropped below open window sockets or turned over tables to provide cover.

  “This is Cutlass Ten, we’re taking fire from the rear quad, directly back from the rear center of the building,” she called. “Who has eyes back there?”

  “Stand by, Cutlass Ten,” a man called.

  Around her, the men with carbines opened up, mad woodpeckers firing single shots at a building.

  A skiff must have moved sideways around the building, having dropped off its crew. The cannon poured fire into the quad. She peeked over the edge of the window. There was a shed back there. Probably supplies and parts. Right now, the front of it was disintegrating as a second skiff opened up, joining the first.

  An explosion lifted the roof straight up, and metal walls flipped over as an explosion mushroomed.

  “Target appears suppressed, Cutlass Ten,” the man’s laconic voice came over the line.

  “Roger that,” Victoria said. “Thank you.”

  Everyone peeked, but nothing fired.

  Danville moved past her again, back into the building. Methodically, they checked every room, but all they found were corpses at this point.

  Eventually, they did find a man upstairs, trying to hide in a bathroom stall. From his uniform, Victoria guessed he was an officer. From the poor fit over a pot belly, she guessed that he really only did this sort of thing on the weekends and must have a job that let him eat too well.

  Certainly, he wasn’t out on thirty kilometer hikes with his troops like zu Arlo.

  They got him zip-tied quickly. A check found no weapons, not even a pocket knife.

  Fribourg believed in paper. Buran did not. 189th’s headquarters would have had all manner of records in filing cabinets, the kind that could be stolen, but here, everything was contained in computerized records reviewed by their God on a regular basis.

  “Cutlass Command, this is Cutlass Ten,” she said, keying in the General to talk to her. “We have a prisoner. Transmitting image now. Orders?”

  She waited, keeping an eye out the shattered side of the building to the hangar next door where the Mechanical Terrapin had been housed.

  “Trooper Ames, this is Cutlass One,” Decanus Audie Teagle called her out by name, so Victoria ducked out of sight.

  “Go ahead,” she replied.

  “We’ve got a stack of da
ta pads for mechanics and enlistees,” the man said. “Probably twenty or so. Plus pictures of the hardware and tools.”

  “Load them all,” she said automatically. “Steal any tool you can move and not identify. We’ll crack the systems next week on the way home, but there’s nothing useful for the General right now.”

  “Acknowledged, Ames.”

  The way Danville was grinning at her made Victoria blink hard. She had been giving these men orders as they went, and expecting them to obey.

  And they had. That was pretty weird. Utterly awesome, but strange.

  “Ames, this is zu Arlo,” the General was on the line. “If your teams have rounded up electronic intelligence, I don’t need the prisoner. He looks like the equivalent of a Patrol Centurion, so he probably won’t know anything useful.”

  “Roger that, sir,” she said.

  All the men were looking at her, even the two with the prisoner in the corner of their eyes.

  “What?” she half-demanded.

  They smiled. All of them.

  Outside, the sound of gunfire and cannon had dwindled to nothing.

  Even the background sounds of the battle across the city were tapering. Hopefully, that meant that the airstrike had worked.

  After a moment, it dawned on her. They were waiting for her orders.

  Hers.

  Seventeen years old. Many of these men had been in uniform longer than that.

  And she was acting like she was in charge.

  Fine.

  “Leave him here,” she decided.

  Hans was already moving towards the stairs at a rapid clip. She fell in behind him and the rest of Cutlass Ten was right behind that.

  Outside, their skiff was backed up against the front door so they could load up without crossing the open quad. Street was standing in the doorway with his carbine, but he stepped to one side and the team piled in without breaking stride.