Refuge: The Arrival: Book 1

by Doug Dandridge

  She and Burkes snapped to attention as the officer stepped to their front. She rendered a salute, which the Colonel returned with the abbreviated version favored by high ranking officers.

  “Welcome Fraulein,” said the Colonel, snapping his heels together and holding out a hand, then lifting Jessica’s to his lips. “Leutnant,” he repeated, holding out his hand to Burkes and giving the officer a firm handshake. “We are very glad to see you here. As you can see our air assets are limited. I am Oberstleutnant Karl von Hasslehoff, at your service.”

  A count, thought the Warrant Officer. Or at least a baron. She took a quick look around, then back at the dapper officer. “Is this all there is sir?” she asked, going to a formal at ease position, then to true rest as the officer gestured for them to relax.

  “Fortunately no,” said the officer with a smile. “Some other helicopters came across, maybe sixty, and most are in good condition. Some fast movers came across as well, but none of them made it intact to the ground.”

  “And you were in one, sir?” said Jessica, noting the wings on the Colonel’s chest.

  “Unfortunately yes,” said the officer with a tight smile. “I found myself over this strange world, with only my wingman in sight. And unfortunately, I didn’t have a VTOL, so when my fuel gauge went nil I had to punch out. Fortunately I was found by some of the forest Elves, before their city cousins could locate me. And here I am, to serve my people as a, what do you call it, a ground pounder.”

  “We’re happy you survived sir,” said Burkes.

  “And you are the pilot?” asked the Colonel of Jessica.

  She nodded her head. “The junior pilot of my squadron sir. And I don’t know where the others are. Some came across with us, but we lost them in a storm.”

  “Perhaps they are ahead,” said the officer. One of the fuel trucks drove over and men pulled out the long hose and attached it to the Comanche. “We will get you something to eat and drink, and maybe a short rest,” continued the Colonel, his eyes scanning the sky. “Then we need to get you on your way, where you can both be of use and have some protection on the ground. We have a Gepard over by the castle, but one gun can only do so much.”

  “We ran into some of those big flying bastards our first day here, sir,” said Burke.

  “And how did you do, against the big flying bastards?” asked the Colonel with a smile.

  “Jessica shot down three of the smaller bastards,” said Burkes, holding up a trio of fingers. “And chased a really big one away.”

  “So you are almost an ace,” said the Colonel, looking over at the chopper. “Well,” he said, nodding his head, “we don’t have any Hellfires to replace those you expended, but we do have some thirty millimeter for you. Now why don’t you come with me to my headquarters, such as it is,” he pointed over at a command van, “and we will get you something to eat and plan the next stage of your journey.”

  Jessica nodded and followed the officer. As politely phrased as it was, she had been in the Army long enough to understand an order.

  * * *

  “These damned mountains seem to go on forever,” stated Lt. Thomas Demkoski for probably the fiftieth time that day.

  Master Sergeant Paul Baurieth cursed softly under his own breath, wondering for the fiftieth time why the young man couldn’t learn to keep his opinion to himself. Because someone went and made the young fool the A Team commander, he thought with a wry smile.

  “I like to think we do a better job of whelping our young leaders,” said Senior Sergeant Paul Schmidt in Italian, a language they both possessed, and knew the American officer didn’t. “But I couldn’t prove it from what I’ve seen.”

  “The men seem to be holding up pretty well,” said Baurieth, holding up his hand to relay the halt order he saw ahead. He plopped his ass down on the turf while he had a chance, leaning his heavy pack against a tree to take some of the weight off his shoulders. He felt tired beyond his years. Maybe it was the shock of being transported to another world, and knowing that his own was in a world of shit. Or maybe it had been the dreams he had been having the last couple of nights.

  “They are young,” said the slightly older German NCO, pulling a cigarette pack from his pocket and offering one to the American. “They are resilient. Give them something to do, even if it’s just marching up and down slopes all day, and they adapt.”

  “How long we going to have to haul this shit,” complained Specialist Five Marquis from behind.

  “Just be glad you have that shit to haul,” called Baureith back to the specialist/medic. “Because they might not have any more shit for you to haul when we get where we’re getting.”

  “Hurray for small favors,” said the man, lighting up his own smoke. That had always amazed Baurieth, how the Army trained them up to such athletic standards, and then they pumped smoke into those perfect lungs.

  “They won’t have any more shit for you to hump, you dumb motherfucker,” said Staff Sergeant Johnson, glaring over at the medic. “Because we ain’t on our world, and they won’t be sending us any more shit.”

  “I think that was clear enough,” said Schmidt with a laugh. He took a puff on his cigarette and looked up at the clear sky that spanned the distance between the high mountain peaks. “I think I am glad to hump this shit, because then I know I am alive enough to hump this shit.”

  “Good point buddy,” said Baurieth with a laugh. “Good…”

  He stopped speaking as a shot rang out down the hillside. He knew they were about two hundred meters from the front of the column, and the point team should have been two hundred meters ahead of them.

  “Hope it’s not more of them damned Elves,” said Schmidt, getting to his feet and checking his weapon.

  “Or at least some of the good Elves we keep hearing about,” said Baurieth, checking his own weapon, something they seemed to spend most of their time doing. “I don’t supposed it could be the 509th Airborne?”

  “We weren’t supposed to meet with your chaps for another half day,” said the German NCO, “at least another twenty klicks from here.”

  “Yeah, we couldn’t be that lucky,” said Baurieth, shaking his head. It will be good to get another seven hundred hard core troopers in the fold. Not including his own Special Forces men in their three A teams, they had over twelve hundred German mountain troops with them, also hard as nails. But Airborne soldiers were the toughest in his opinion. Even the Jarhead Marines had to admit as much.

  “Master Sergeant Baurieth,” yelled out a German Leutnant, walking past the A-team officer as if he didn’t exist. “The Oberst would like you up to the front of the column. As soon as possible.”

  In Baurieth’s experience, when a colonel asked for you as soon as possible you ran as fast as you could to where they wanted you. So the Master Sergeant pulled the quick release straps on his pack and dropped it to the turf, then took off at a run. The young officer ran with him, passing the German soldiers crouching on the side of the path they had hacked out of the wilderness, until they were waved down by a Platoon Sergeant near the front, who motioned them to a walk.

  They came out into a clearing where some German soldiers were standing around. He recognized the Oberst, a hardened professional soldier if he had ever known one. The man was kneeling down and smiling. Baurieth stepped around a couple of soldiers and felt a smile tugging at his own face.

  A very short, very broad, bearded man stood there looking at the Oberst. A Brownee, was his first thought. No, a Dwarf. The creature wore a white robe that fell to the Earth, and carried a staff of wood that sprouted leaves from its upper third. The broad face of the Dwarf looked at him and a wide smile graced its face. Then Paul noticed the glint of mail under the collar of the robe, and the haft of some kind of weapon thrusting up over the Dwarf’s broad left shoulder.

  “Ah, Master Sergeant Paul Baurieth,” said the man in a deep gravelly voice. “We have been expecting you.”

  “And you are?” said the Sergeant, shocked that
this creature from another planet knew him by name.

  “He says his name is Chieftain Girison Tortural,” said the Oberst, looking over at Baurieth. “He says he is the chief of a local village as well as a Priest of the life Goddess. And he asked for you by name.”

  “Yes,” said the small man, nodding as if it were an unfamiliar gesture. “The Goddess herself said I was to look for you. That you were to join her order.”

  “What would your Goddess want with me?” asked the Sergeant. “I’m just a simple warrior. And how did you learn our language so well? So quickly?”

  “The Goddess herself imparted your language to me,” said the Dwarf, tapping Baurieth’s shoulder with his staff. Baurieth felt as if all the fatigue of the last couple of days flowed out of his body, and he felt an energy infuse him like nothing he had ever experienced. [Or we could communicate like this] came a thought into his mind.

  [How did you do that?] asked Paul, another shock on top of the others.

  [Another gift from the Goddess. And one many of your people possess, but do not know.]

  “I got some of that,” said the Oberst, with a smile.

  “It was broad beamed for all to hear,” said the Dwarf. “Though skilled practitioners can carry on a private conversation among thousands of the adept. But as to your second question, you can still be a warrior, if that is your wish. I was quite the warrior in my younger days, a couple of centuries ago, before I devoted myself full time to serving the Goddess, and my people. And I still fight at times, when the Goddess wishes it.”

  “Can I think that one over?” asked the Sergeant, shaking his head.

  “Of course,” said the Dwarf, nodding his head again in that unfamiliar way. “The Goddess would not make anyone act against his will. But I think you would find her a wonderful and loyal mistress.”

  “And Herr Girison here has promised us aid,” said the Oberst with a smile. “His people live in more than fifty villages in these forests, and have offered us food, shelter and guides to speed us on our way.”

  “You and your allies,” said the Dwarf Priest, nodding again. “We are in contact with your countrymen, Sergeant, and will arrange a rendezvous with them.”

  “Feeling better, Sergeant?” asked the Oberst with a smile. “I sure know that I am. I think your soldiers are used to being behind enemy lines. Our men not so much. It is good to know we have friends in Indian Territory.”

  “There is one thing you might be able to help us with,” said the Dwarf, bowing to the tall Colonel.

  “And what would that be, Herr Girison?” asked the Colonel, a bit of suspicion entering his voice.

  “There is a castle nearby, where our overlord lives,” said the Dwarf, his face flattening. “He is not a nice one, this duke, I think you would call him. You have a body of trained soldiers who are expert in fighting in this kind of terrain. What say you, evict him, from his castle?”

  The Colonel looked over at Master Sergeant Baurieth and raised an eyebrow.

  “As I understand it, sir, it is in our orders to help out the locals and cause as much damage to the ones we are fighting as possible,” said the Sergeant, looking back at the now smiling Dwarf.

  “Then we will do it,” said the Oberst, nodding his head. “It’s about time that the men had some fighting that doesn’t involve setting off ambushes.”

  “There will be no more of those either,” said the Priest, gesturing to the woods. Where dozens more of the small people, armed with spears and bows, appeared as if out of nowhere.

  “This is our turf,” said the Dwarf, looking up at the Sergeant, “and no one moves here without our knowledge.”

  * * *

  Dr. Vogel Kreigel looked once again at the trusting faces of the pack as they returned his gaze. What in the hell am I going to do with you guys, he thought, ruffling the fur of White Paws, the largest of the six canines. Rogue gave him a tongue lolling smile from his black masked face. He called Rogue over and ruffled the ears of the runt, still a sixty kilogram monster canine.

  Everyone else had headed home as soon as the rumors of war turned to more than threats. He had no family other than the canines of his creation, and he refused to abandon them. They were very intelligent creatures, ape smart he was sure from the tests they had run. But after seeing the rising mushroom clouds from a distance he wasn’t at all sure that they would survive that nuclear blasted landscape out there.

  He got up and walked back to the house, the wolves following him through the run. At least I have enough food for the next month, he thought, looking up as a flight of aircraft went over. If there is a next month.

  “I hope the others are doing OK,” he said out loud as he twisted the door handle. The wolves all whimpered, like one animal, and he gave them a curious look. They can’t have understood what I said, he thought. He shook his head, remembering the amazing results of the tests. But he couldn’t allow himself to anthropomorphize them. He had designed them to be the true companion animals that man needed in what he saw as an ever more dangerous world. But he had not designed them to be man, like some futuristic Dr. Moreau.

  “I’ll be back in a moment,” he told his canine children, and went into the house to get their provisions.

  * * *

  “Now what the crap is going on?” said Dr. Gunter Schneider, peering through the dirty windshield of the VW. He had thanked the God he grew up with that the old vehicle was still running. He had wondered why it was abandoned when they had found it in that empty field. He had finally come to the conclusion that it had made the transition to this Universe in an empty condition. And then he wondered why that would be so.

  “Because the Gods wanted it to be so,” had said Marcus Strom, looking up to the sky, then to the trees around them.

  The three seemed to be so much better than they had been at the institute. They were clear eyed, rational in their speech and actions, sometimes even brilliant. And then they would come out with something like what Strom had said, and he would doubt their sanity once again, and because of that he would doubt his own. But after what he had seen here wasn’t the man correct?

  He forgot about the past for a moment and focused on what was going on in the here and now, and right ahead. Where it looked like some military types were divesting a group of civilians of their vehicle.

  “You didn’t believe that garbage about unselfish German soldiers protecting us on the road to the refuge?” said Stephan, his eyes flashing red. “Looks to me like this unit is out for itself.”

  “Don’t do anything foolish,” said Schneider, looking at his three charges, and especially at Stephan sitting in the front seat next to him.

  A German soldier with Sergeant stripes on his sleeve walked up to the car. “Mein Herren,” said the man. “Fraulein.”

  “What can we do for you, Sergeant?” asked the doctor, giving the man a smile he didn’t feel.

  “We require your car,” said the man, opening the driver’s side door. “It is needed for necessary military movements.”

  “And what are we to do?” asked the psychiatrist, holding out his empty hands. “We are needed at the refuge, and I am sure your commanding officer will understand that need.”

  Three more soldiers had approached the car, their weapons held at the waist, leveled at the occupants. “We need your car, grandpa,” said one of the men, a cruel smile on his face. “Now give it up, or we will take it.”

  “Then you’ll have to take it, asshole,” said Stephen, and Schneider was sure the temperature went up suddenly in the car by several degrees.

  “Then I guess we will,” said the young man with the gun. “Now get out of the damned car before you make us render it unusable.

  “Out of the car people,” said Schneider, giving a resigned sigh. “They have the guns.”

  “And you have nothing, punk,” said the young soldier who had threatened Stephan. “Just like those overeducated punk boys I used to beat up in Berlin.”

  Schneider opened his mouth
to say something, before something bad happened. He was too late.

  “Punk this,” said Stephan, reaching out a hand and touching the barrel of the rifle. That barrel glowed red hot, and the soldier cried out as he dropped the now painful weapon to the dirt.

  “Why you little mother…” said another soldier, raising his weapon. And then suddenly every rifle within twenty meters was too hot to handle.

  “What are you?” gasped the Sergeant, reaching for Stephan with one big hand while the other moved back into a punching position.

  He never completed the move. A wind lifted him from his feet and flung him away. More soldiers moved toward them, but Katherine raised her hands and blew them all backwards. She stood there like a Goddess, lightning crackling between her hands while the wind lifted her hair, a cold smile on her face. Stephan stepped beside her, juggling a small intense ball of flame from hand to hand.

  “Look out,” yelled Schneider, seeing a man forty meters away raise a belt fed machinegun to his shoulder and aim at the pair.

  The man opened fire, and a wall of wind came up and deflected the rounds away. The man screamed as roots reached out of the ground and pulled him from his feet, then wrapped him in a tight embrace. Schneider looked over at Marcus, who was smiling while the trees around the path began to rustle.

  “Back off,” yelled Schneider, raising his hands. “All of you, back off, before someone really gets hurt.”

  The soldiers stopped whatever actions they were involved in. The mages all looked at him with confused expressions, but they backed down, and the psychiatrist was happy to know that he still had some authority with them.

  “What’s going on here?” yelled out a new voice, and the mages all turned. If they had been cats their fur would have ruffled and their backs arched.

  “They’ve gotten reinforcements,” said Stephan, his eyes flashing fire.

  “Everybody stay calm,” said Schneider, holding up his hands as the quartet of military police entered the area.

  “Sergeant,” yelled out the Leutnant who was leading the quartet. “I asked a question. What is going on here?”