Winterhome

by Blaze Ward

  “Driver. Go,” Street ordered, pulling the hatch closed.

  Victoria found herself between Colton Formain, the Draconarius, and Thaddeus Gunderson. She felt like the crossbar on a capital H, as tall as those two men were, but they were all smiles, right now. All of them were.

  “Good job, Trooper,” Street said as he got a seat and strapped himself in.

  Victoria finally relaxed long enough to smile back.

  She had asked for this duty. Hopefully, the General wouldn’t be mad at what she had done.

  Chapter XXXVII

  Imperial Founding: 180/11/29. Ground Coordinates E-574, Severnaya Zemlya

  Vo stood and walked out of the tent when Cutlass Team came blasting over the hedge and into the sorghum field that they had taken over. He tried not to laugh as Ten un-assed from the skiff and immediately began cleaning firearms and restocking grenades from boxes on a nearby flatbed.

  Teagle and Cutlass One landed just long enough to hand Street and Ames several bags filled with datapads and other stolen property. The skiff took off a moment later, shifting over to their spot in the line of vehicles.

  “How’d it go?” Vo asked Street, keeping Ames in his peripheral vision as the two of them came more or less to attention.

  “She’s a natural, zu Arlo,” Street said. “We’d have just blown everything to hell and called it good. All the intelligence from this load was her decision. And we left the poor bastard tied up when we left.”

  “You decided not to kill the man?” Vo turned his attention on Ames.

  She got confused. It was cute.

  Vo couldn’t remember ever being that innocent. At her age, he had already been sentenced to his first contract with the Navy, instead of doing two to five years for burglary and possession of stolen goods.

  “Why?” Ames finally asked.

  Vo let his face fall into instructor mode, channeling Navin the Black.

  “Not everyone would have just left him, Ames,” he said. “Not many of my men would have shot a prisoner they decided they didn’t need, but other units probably would have.”

  “So it was a test?” she asked fiercely, staring up at him.

  “Every day is a test, Soldier,” Vo semi-quoted Navin. “Ethics are what you do when nobody is looking, and reputation is what you do to someone who can neither help nor hurt you.”

  “Oh,” a little lightbulb appeared in her eyes. “Understood, General.”

  He could tell she was restraining an impulse to salute him. Never appropriate in the field, but obviously heart-felt.

  Vo nodded and smiled.

  “Get yourselves cleaned and ready,” he said. “We’ve done enough damage down here, and other militia units around the planet are starting to get their acts together. I intend to be off-planet in twenty hours or so, and we’ll be holding the landing field until last.”

  “What happened to the turtle, zu Arlo?” Street asked.

  “Those things are tough,” Vo replied. “Even the airstrike only hurt it, but they lost the two front legs on the starboard side, so the thing can’t move until it gets repaired. And your team destroyed the repair facility and burned everything that you could, so it will take a while. That’s part of the reason I am so happy we will know how it is assembled.”

  “Be fun to take one apart on some future planet, sir,” Street grinned savagely.

  Vo’s smile matched him.

  Moirrey would see this as a challenge when he talked to her.

  And then they’d go hunting.

  Chapter XXXVIII

  Date of the Republic December 1, 402 IFV Indianapolis, Severnaya Zemlya

  Ballard had finally reported in, so Jessica knew what had happened, watching the whole local system from her comfortable command seat in Indianapolis’s flag bridge.

  The Tigershark had rendezvoused with the last Hammerhead well out in the darkness, and the four vessels had run for deep space like their tails were on fire. That had left Jessica’s team in complete control of the planet, at least until that Director could get someplace with a major fleet, like Ninagirsu or someplace deeper into The Holding, and bring back enough help to dislodge her. Except that she would be gone in twelve hours.

  Nobody had been expecting her to land troops, though. Blast things from orbit, perhaps, but giving them the 189th as a housewarming present was better. More personal.

  And this was never going to be like Thuringwell. That mission had been a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to strike at one of Fribourg’s weakest points. The psychological damage had been important, but headed in a different direction.

  Look at what Jessica Keller could do, take away your planets from you, one by one…

  Here, the folks down on the surface were dealing with a very contained storm, a tornado that had carved a delicate path of destruction through military facilities, starports, and the industrial backbone of the region while still not doing much damage to civilians. A planetary raid by angry people with big guns.

  Where will she land next? What will they destroy? Is anybody safe?

  Yes, she could play upon their minds, destroying their harmony and peace. They needed to fear her more than they did The Eldest.

  Vo’s last DropShip was climbing out of the gravity well as she watched.

  “Get me Vo,” she looked up from her display and fixed her eyes on Enej, seated directly across from her as always and lurking quietly.

  He nodded and began to type.

  “Ground Command. This is zu Arlo,” the big man’s voice rang out of the speakers in short order.

  He sounded tired, but Jessica didn’t expect he had slept much in the last week. Even on a quick, surgical raid like this one, things could go wrong. And had. Too many civilians in the way at one point, as refugees began to flee Xi-Shong-Ri and a column of scared people stumbled right into a wave of skiffs trying to avoid hurting random pedestrians.

  And that damned Mechanical Terrapin. The GunShips had only damaged it. They probably could have gone back around a second or maybe third time and finished it off, but that hadn’t been the mission. And Vo’s folks had stolen repair guides, so Moirrey or someone could figure out how to undo one later.

  “Keller,” she replied, letting the moment of introspection hang. “Are you the last?”

  “Affirmative, Jessica,” Vo said, finally willing to treat with her like an equal rather than a Security Yeoman talking to his Command Centurion. It was amazing, how far they had come in the last decade. “I was the last soldier off the surface. Victoria Ames was second to last.”

  Jessica smiled at that. She had heard all about the young woman Vo was fostering into Imperial Land Forces. It was like opening a new front in her own, personal war with the male chauvinists in command.

  Emperor Karl VIII had served in the Navy. Why can’t I?

  Victoria Ames is an Army Trooper. If she can do it, why can’t other women?

  Jessica could just imagine the conversations playing out as young women looked around and began to question the old way of doing things.

  “My plan is to bring the entire force back to Osynth B’Udan,” Jessica said. “We’ll need repairs in dry-dock, and you’ll want to pick up the rest of your team. Is there anything you’ll need before then?”

  “Negative, Flag,” Vo replied. “Just a lot of sleep, and then more training. Need Moirrey to figure out how to kill turtles for me before the next time.”

  “Understood,” Jessica noted with a smile in her voice.

  They would go home now and recuperate. And see what the state of the war was.

  Emmerich had sent her vague notes, suggesting major happenings.

  Hopefully, Moirrey and Yan were up to no good.

  Part Four

  Stalking the Beast

  Chapter XXXIX

  Date of the Republic November 12, 402 Army Training Depot “King Olaf,” St. Legier

  She dinna appreciate the giggles emanatin’s and stuff from the tall, blond chick standin’ nexts to hers on
the reviewing platform, but Moirrey’s long learned that ya wasn’t supposeds to tell the Emperor to behave. At least nots out in public-like.

  And Casey were having an on-going, low-level fit o’giggles.

  “Is not funny, ya knows,” Moirrey snapped under her breath.

  Quiet-like, ’cause other folks were around, and might listen if she spoked too louds.

  “Is, too,” Casey whispered back, still chuckling.

  They was up on a reviewing stand. Big wood platform with flags and bunting and stuff. Bundled up ’cause it were kinda cold today, with a storm front comin’ up fr’m the sourthwest and bringing hints of rain ta goes with dreary skies.

  Casey’s House Guards were everywhere, faceless with shields down and lots of guns. Not all that nervous’n’stuff. Just being professional paranoid, and all. One of them even held a big flag on a wooden post, apparently fer days like this. Who knewed?

  189th’s last bits not up wit’ Vo were deployed in fronts of them, all standin’ tall and mostly organized over on the left. Two lunatics on zip-bikes detacheded themselves and cruised over, mostly sedate-like. At least fer zip-bikes. Moirrey’d owned more’n’one in her time.

  Ya could goes fer crazy feats, if you trusted yer leathers enough.

  They parked and dismounted, coming to rest and even attentions, facing her and Casey above them on the wee stage.

  Patrol Centurion Oleg Chilikov. Draconarius Erik Windstrom. The two craziest boys Pyotr Martin had been able to peel out of 4th Ala and leave behind to train the crazies that had volunteereded to ride the skies.

  Windstrom telescoped a baton out to three meters and pulled a flag from his pocket, attaching it and letting the breeze pull it tight.

  Chilikov snapped to and saluted, right hand up against his forehead, where a unicorn horn emerged from the helmet, in front of a mane of real horse hair, long and black. The helmet, like most, had almost thirty centimeters of clearance over his skull, a French curve-lookin’t thing with alien lines thet comed up to a rough point high enough Vo’s be lookin’ up.

  Were intentionals. Makes them look two’n’half meters tall. Especially whens ya factored in the wings that ran down each arm and went fifty centimeters past yer fingers.

  “This is where you salute back,” Casey murmured in a voice obviously on the verge of hysterical laughter.

  Weren’t funny.

  Still, she’d done this thing. And were gonna get ever richer from it.

  She held up her hand to her head and tried to smile. Helped if she focused on the Patrol Centurion and ignored the flag.

  The one with the silhouettes of an angel in the middle of a Norman kite shield outline, surrounded by words that said Lady Moirrey’s Own in big, white letters on a red and gold background.

  “Can’t believe you approved that,” she hissed out of the side of her mouth.

  But she knowed the Emperor were bullet-proofed on that one.

  “I did owe you one,” Casey snarked back quietly as the two men turned and faced the rest of the field.

  An’ she did. Not like Moirrey’s been white-hands around her. Still, there were practical jokes, and then there were something like this.

  Weren’t funny. Not one damned bit.

  But Chilikov musta yelled on his comm. All of a sudden the whole force hopped off’n their bikes like cats an’ stood still. Chilikov only had a Patrol, not a whole Ala, so were pretty easy to track. Eighty-one bikes. Ninety troopers, countin’ him and Windstrom and the sidecars. All of them wearing the Angel O’Doom Winged Scout Armor she’d dreamed up and built.

  Amazin’ what ya gots when the Army finally puts enough men and money behind a project.

  Every dude over there on a zip-bike. Each lance of ten bikes had one with a sidecar where they could mount a heavy weapon of some sort. Mostly light autocannons, but occasionally missiles and mortars fer messin’ with peeples.

  On some unheard call, the first Lance deployed telescoping nodachi swords and threw themselves at th’horizon. Every heartbeat, another lance moved.

  It were like a plague o’locusts comin’ fer yer corn.

  Nine-sided polygon quick-formed on the right edge of the field, as the teams landed and went defensive laager, pistols out in every direction.

  Cool part were when they whistled fer their horses. One lance at a time, the riderless zip-bikes flowed across the field on remote control. That were the awesomest part of the whole idea. Ya goes in full tilt on back of a zip-bikes, then jumps off in the middle of the run and lets inertia gets ya up when your repulsors grab ground and lets ya go like an angrier-than-normal hummingbird.

  And then yer bikes coasts to a stop, or flies along the programmed path, and can comes back fer ya later.

  Last were two open-bed skiffs with turrets on top, like the rest of the legion used, and two heavy-lifter skiffs with full repair shops stashed on the back.

  Whole unit could move as one.

  Moirrey could only imagine what would happen whens this lone patrol turned intas a whole Ala.

  A whole Legion of those fools would gives folks nightmares.

  “Kinda awesome, Chilikov,” Moirrey yelled loud enough to be heard.

  The dude next to Casey with the flag did something, and Windstrom dipped his flag back, so musta been rights.

  “I’m just glad you’re too old to volunteer for that duty,” Casey murmured. “Then you’d somehow talk me into getting fitted for a suit as well.”

  Moirrey grinned and side-eyed the lanky chick. She’d given it thought, but them old bones just dinna like the hard landin’s and sleeping rough parts of doing that. Better to stay inside where the coffee were fresh and the beer were cold.

  And maybe give demonstrations’n’stuff fer civilian daughters thet might wanna play. Somewhere Victoria Ames were busy trooperin’. ’Bouts time more comed.

  Chapter XL

  In the Ninth Year of Jessica Keller, Queen of the Pirates: December the Seventeenth at St. Legier

  Night had settled on St. Legier. Pops hadn’t been in the mood to stay later than dinner and a few drinks with Yan and Ainsley, and Summer had suggested an early night anyway.

  Emperor-girl had put them all up in a newly opened hotel not far from where folks where busy building a new Imperial palace, over on the shore of a canal cut between Lakes Zurich and Werder. Salvage divers would be busy for decades, cleaning up the area below water, but Mother Nature was busy filling the basin in with every rain shower that passed, and the locals had decided to just let it go for now.

  Pops and Summer had retired to their room. Brushed teeth and a nice soak in an oversized tub, which he appreciated after a long day climbing around design mockups, asking questions and testing theories.

  They were alone. The lights were down to a lowest setting and one of the most beautiful women he had ever known was curled up against his side and breathing on his skin.

  “Serious question,” Pops said, letting the conversation in his head finally bleed out into the room.

  She tensed, but only a little bit. Probably not surprised, because they had been together more or less for nearly three years now.

  Rather than speak, she leaned back and looked up at him, blue eyes bright and inquisitive.

  “Pretty soon, we’re likely to get serious with this project,” he said carefully. “That’s going to involve heading to the front to meet Jessica.”

  There. Faintest echo of a twitch she probably thought she suppressed, but it was hard to do that when you were touching someone with almost half your skin.

  He let the moment drag out, giving her the opportunity to deflect him, if she wanted. After all this time, Pops still didn’t know that much about the woman, except rumors, suggestions, and innuendo. Even her stories never seemed to add up, on the retellings.

  Plus she knew jokes that only people his generation seemed to understand.

  She chose to remain silent.

  “I need to ask, and to do it probably now, so we can plan,” Pops c
ontinued. “Do you want to either stay here, or should I arrange for transport back to Aquitaine or Corynthe for you?”

  “Why would I leave?” she finally met his eyes.

  Hers were cold and calculating, but he had known that was coming.

  “Jessica Keller makes you nervous,” he replied simply. “I don’t know why, and I’m not asking now. I’m trying to give you the option to avoid meeting her in the flesh, if you want it, rather than dragging you along with me because that’s part of my job.”

  “What makes you think I don’t want to see her?” Summer finally asked.

  “I’m good at details,” Pops said, kissing her on the forehead. “Noticing things. Tracking them. Extrapolating to logical conclusions. Nobody else really gets a response out of you. Not even the new Emperor. But Jessica does.”

  “It actually won’t be that bad,” she sighed after a pause. “Moirrey was willing to accept me at face value, so I expect Jessica will as well.”

  “Moirrey knew you from before?” Pops tried to keep his amazement contained, but he knew he would fail.

  Summer nodded.

  Moirrey had gone from a nobody on the lower decks of engineering to one of the most famous and dangerous designers in the galaxy in the last decade. If this woman had known her, and Jessica, Summer must have been there for some of their adventures.

  It hadn’t been when Jessica first came to Corynthe. Pops had been on the fringes of things then, just settling into a new life with Cho grown up and pursuing her dreams. Still, he would have registered a woman like Summer Ulfsson.

  Everybody did. She had the quietest charisma of anyone Pops had ever known, including his first wife Yasu. Walk into a room and every head rotated to scan her at least once. He really didn’t mind all the dirty looks he got from everybody as a result of being arm-candy on her arm in those situations.