by John F. Carr
Köln made a turn so sharp as to swing half his bulk out over that vertigo inducing gulf, then left the precipice and his own fatalistic musings behind. He began walking up the steps to the landing area, to meet the First Rank’s shuttle. Although he was still six levels below them, cheers of greeting from the Soldiers assembled to greet the First Rank were already a roar and growing louder.
Climbing the steep, narrow paths cut centuries before into the stone of the mountainside, he reflected that while he had turned away from one brink, it would not be long before he must come to another. And the step he took then would have far greater consequences than the death of one lone Cyborg.
II
The bunker shook once again as yet another Sauron missile found its mark on the surface eighty meters above. Colonel Edon Kettler didn’t quite stagger, just modified his brisk pace for a few seconds into the rolling gait which the inhabitants of Brigadier-General Cummings’ field redoubt had come to call the “Sauron Shuffle.” This time, it was two steps to the right, one back and three forward. But like most modern dances, one just sort of moved the way it felt right.
Like everybody else in Cummings’ orbit, Edon Kettler was running to an appointment. Formerly an officer of Enoch Redfield’s Satrapy air force, Kettler was now more or less attached to the Fort Kursk garrison, since he had flown through the Sauron’s initial orbital strikes to reach Fort Fornova with a request for aid and a rapidly contrived plan to strike back at the invaders. Even before his arrival, all contact had been lost with the Redfield Satrapy, and Kettler had come to accept the fact that his status as a sort of military “minister without portfolio” was now permanent.
Brigadier Cummings had agreed to his proposal for attacking the Saurons. Mostly, he had been impressed by Kettler’s assessment of the invaders’ plans, which had allowed a team of “volunteers” to target a missile at the last Sauron shuttle down to Haven, the shuttle which Kettler had reasoned would be carrying their senior staff officers—including Vessel First Rank Diettinger. Monitoring the Sauron transmissions in the hours which followed the attack, it had turned out that Kettler—a career military man in a provincial air force on a backward moon, who had never even seen a Sauron—had predicted their actions perfectly.
Well, Kettler admitted to himself, almost perfectly. They’d targeted the shuttle, but there was no way to keep its pilot from guessing the tactic and maneuvering to break the missile lock. Instead, the missile had locked onto an alternate target, the Sauron battle cruiser, and destroyed it midair.
Even so, Cummings had seen the value of Kettler’s contribution, and with no country of his own to return to or way to get there, it had been only natural that the displaced pilot would find a place here.
Kettler put his briefcase up under one arm and pushed open the heavy door. He thought again about almost catching the Sauron commanders and remembered what he’d been told about no one being able to shave a margin of success thinner than a Sauron.
And anyway, “almosts” don’t win wars, he reminded himself. He tried not to think of his family as he entered Brigadier Cummings’ briefing room. Kettler reflected that he would try to do better this time.
Cummings looked up as he entered and though he looked tired, there was none of that bone-deep weariness that Kettler saw in the eyes and posture of the other inhabitants of this post. He lives for this, Kettler realized, and then remembered that Cummings, too, had a family when the invaders bombed Haven. His wife is dead, killed in the first hours of the invasion, and a daughter and son-in-law who are also dead and another daughter he can hope is safe, but whom he’ll probably never see again. Kettler supposed that he probably looked the same as Cummings, himself.
Kettler’s home had been in the Redfield Satrapy’s heavily industrialized Home Valley district, an area which the last scouts had reported was filled with a twelve-thousand rad-level dust cloud. It was, he decided, a common bond with most of Cummings’ command.
“Good morning, sir,” Kettler greeted his de facto commander-in-chief. He was surprised at how natural that felt, considering the past difference between Redfield and the militia. But he reminded himself that “past” was indeed the word; the coming of the Saurons had changed everything.
“Morning, Ed.” Cummings idly brushed brick dust from the map he was studying. “Came rather close this morning, didn’t they!”
Kettler shrugged. “The price of using these old tunnels so close to the power stations. Every time the citizens try to restart a generator for one of the hospitals, they get another strike for their troubles.”
Cummings nodded, looking at the cracked ceiling. “At least they’ve stopped using nukes—for now. But if they even had a hint we were burrowed down here, they’d put a nuke right into this room.”
A young lieutenant brought two cups of yerba mate.
“Time to get a move on,” Cummings said as he looked into his cup. “What I would give for a real cup of coffee, though…”
Kettler nodded, although it had been more than two decades since his last cup.
Cummings continued, “We’ve almost run through the supplies in this cache, Colonel. What have you got for me?”
Kettler spread his papers over the map. “Concentrations of tribesmen in the Northern Highland steppes and bandits known to have been operating in the Shangri-La Valley before the invasion. The information includes the remaining records of the Redfield Satrapy, Cracovia steppe patrols and Novy Finlandia Intelligence—”
Cummings interrupted. “They’re Finns, Colonel,” he reminded him. “They call their nations Uossi Suomi: they’re rather touchy about people using the Russian version of their name.”
Kettler grumbled to himself that everybody outside “Uossi Suomi” had called it “Novy Finlandia” for as long as he could remember. And there probably wasn’t much left of the place, whatever they called it. Still, he assumed that the Brigadier had a purpose for wanting him to amend his own patterns of address. Cummings seemed to have a purpose for everything.
The Brigadier became absorbed in the data before him.
Kettler watched and waited. He knew that Cummings had fought the Saurons for a good long time as an officer of the departed Empire. He knew his foe, without a doubt, but he still welcomed Kettler’s input. Kettler had exhibited a knack for guessing what the Saurons would do in a given situation. Perhaps he was more than a little similar to them, but no one yet had been foolish enough to tell him this to his face. Kettler suspected that it was his objectivity that Cummings valued. Where Saurons were concerned, the Brigadier was conspicuously lacking in that characteristic.
Cummings began without preamble. “We’re changing our methods of engaging the Saurons.” He sat back with a folder on the horse-clans of the northern steppes, flipped open a pair of glasses and put them on.
For a man approaching seventy—based on his lengthy military career and stay as commander of the Haven Volunteers—the Brigadier looked half his age. Kettler wondered if the rumors of Cummings having gone through the expensive regeneration treatments (so expensive that Enoch Redfield had been unable to afford them before the Empire abandoned Haven) were true or false. They must be true, he decided, since there’s no other way he could look so young and energetic. How did that go over with his family? Or himself, for that matter. No family man wanted to outlive his children and be the Last Man Standing. Not that Brigadier Cummings had to worry about that anymore…
“I’d love to think, “Cummings continued, “we could stage a major confrontation with the Saurons but I don’t think we’d win it—even with the aid of every Havener capable of carrying a weapon.”
“That’s a cheerful thought, sir.”
Cummings looked at him over the rims of his spectacles and smiled. “Here on Haven we were losing our wars against each other, long before the Saurons came, Colonel. We’d fractured and polarized ourselves into a state of balkanization that made late Twentieth Century Earth look positively monolithic.”
Kettler had no idea what ba
lkanization meant, but he could figure it out from the context; still, he remained dubious about Cummings’ assessment of civilization on Haven’s decline. The Redfield Satrapy had been an extremely stable—if despotic—entity, and its major opponent in the last years before the Sauron invasion was the depressingly resilient republic of Novy Finlandia. Or Uossi Suomi, as he was trying to think of it now. Many of Haven’s states hadn’t been getting on too well since the Empire pulled out, to be sure. Other parts had gotten along quite nicely, thank you. Better than ever, in fact.
Cummings went back to his notes. “Dispersal of the industrial base would have finished us off in a century. Haven just can’t support its population at Imperial levels with dispersed industry and limited planetary energy resources. So, while I’d like a united front against the Saurons, it’s going to have to be established in rather an unorthodox way. You were a fighter pilot, isn’t that correct, Colonel?”
Kettler cleared his throat. “I’m a qualified pilot, Brigadier; Mister Redfield insisted that all members of the Satrapy Air Force be able to fly.”
Cummings’ eyes bored into him. “The Redfield Satrapy had enough of an aviation industry to make that worthwhile?”
Kettler nearly blurted out the standard security-conscious phrase, before realizing its absurdity. “Actually, we did have a surplus of aircraft, Brigadier. Frankly, though, we had a rather poor pilot training program, in my opinion.”
“And you would be qualified to judge,” Cummings stated.
It was not a rebuke, Kettler realized. Nor was it a question. “Sir?”
“Colonel, surely you don’t think I’d have welcomed you into my staff without a thorough vetting, did you? You were a staff officer of the Satrapy Air Force. You were, in fact, something of a fair-haired boy, Enoch Redfield’s organizational genius. That was before you ran afoul of the heir apparent, however.”
Kettler remained silent at first, but knowing an answer was expected, he finally said, “That was all some time ago, Brigadier.”
“Indeed it was, Colonel,” Cummings agreed. “It was, in fact, a different era. And it’s as dead as Enoch Redfield and his up-and-coming tyrant of a son. But what matters is that you were his air arm organizational expert. Weren’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” he answered. And here it comes, Edon, Kettler thought. You’ve outlived your usefulness and, if you’re lucky, you’ll be put out on the road to try and survive the wasteland of cratered destruction that Haven was becoming. He’d seen things happen like that a dozen times under Enoch Redfield; Kettler himself could have been cashiered, too—after the duel—had he not been useful to the old man as Cummings had noted.
But it would happen here. It would happen because Cummings owed no loyalty to a Redfielder. After all, he had no need for a pilot, no food to spare to keep one more drone around. Most importantly, the Brigadier had no air force. Kettler’s years of training and study and self-discipline at the Redfield Satrapy University had been to develop the one skill which, even as a youth, he perceived his fellow citizens in the Satrapy lacked. He was an organization man and in the world of guerilla warfare which Cummings had mastered, Kettler’s kind of organization existed to be disrupted.
“Colonel?”
“Sorry, sir.” Kettler closed his briefcase. “Yes, Brigadier, now that my flying days—and everyone else’s on Haven—are over, my sole expertise is in organizational work. I suppose there’s little need for that in the new militia.”
Cummings blinked. “Colonel, I don’t know what you’re talking about. Organizational work is exactly what you’re going to be doing for the next few years—if you live that long.”
“Sir!”
“The Empire made Haveners live together in peace. But the Saurons will give Haveners the opportunity—even the incentive—to ignore or kill one another; either is to the Saurons advantage. There has to be a third alternative, and I believe you’re the man to help provide it. We’re going to try unionizing.”
Kettler wasn’t quite sure what the Brigadier was getting at until Cummings added: “You are familiar with the phrase ‘Hearts and Minds,’ aren’t you, Colonel?”
Suddenly understanding, Kettler smiled. He still had a job, after all.
Chapter Two
The Citadel had been designed for security, which First Rank Diettinger allowed was not the same as privacy. The cattle had allowed the Citadel, which they had called Ft. Stony Point, to fall into shameful disrepair. The instant Combat Engineer Denbannen had finished designing the Firebase network, Diettinger had re-assigned him to the refurbishment and expansion of the Citadel. In the meantime, most of the Sauron females were quartered in the livable quarters at the Citadel.
The one notable exception was Lady Althene, former Vessel Commander Second Rank. She remained at Diettinger’s side, as much to reinforce the image of the new dynasty as for her valuable counsel.
She was at Diettinger’s side now as they walked the rounds of the Command bunkers enclosure. They were stealing time away from attendants and staff, seeking in the open the privacy denied to them within the thick-walled bunkers and close quarters of the Citadel.
“We must not let this attack postpone our plans,” the Lady Althene said, as she reviewed the plans they had outlined for the transition of the Sauron colony from an invasion force to an established dynasty. “You are now First Soldier. In fact, next month during the First Settlement Celebration you will be officially instated as First Citizen, too.”
Diettinger heaved a sigh at her tone. “Yes. And now you will trouble me with the subject I have so far avoided with such success.” He almost wished for another raid by the cattle at this moment if it would but change the subject.
“Your pardon, Galen, but yes, I will. What of the Cyborgs? You have denied them participation in the pacification of Haven, denied them the one thing they know how to do—fight. You foresee no resentment from this act?”
“Their resentment does not concern me, only their survival. And their obedience.”
“Your insistence on the one may well cost you the other.”
“Althene, even in victory the Empire cannot long outlive Sauron. This war has bled them into exhaustion. The resulting dark age may last as long as a thousand years. During that time knowledge will be lost, technology will deteriorate, and skills will disappear. Even spaceflight may die out; the resolve to use it certainly will—for a time.
“Planets concerned with survival will not be interested in exploration, not when they will likely find only other worlds hungrier than they are. Cattle are motivated by profit, not conquest.”
He took her arm and drew her toward a bench in the faint sunshine, where they sat and faced the southwest expanse of the Shangri-La Valley.
“The first planets’ to regain the stars after the interregnum will be armed with weaponry primitive by our standards,” he continued, “primitive even by the standards of two centuries ago, perhaps. Even melee weapons, such as swords and axes, may not be uncommon. In that environment, the Sauron Race would be indomitable.”
He turned and lowered his voice. “And a Cyborg would be like a god. With such an inherent biological advantage, we would possess an unbeatable augment to whatever technological abilities we might retain. It is in that future time where my concern lies for the preservation of the Cyborgs. Their genes must not be lost in pointless military adventures to pacify this world. Why do you smile?”
“You present a formidable argument, husband. You sound almost like a historian.”
Diettinger could not help smiling in reply. “I have been living with an expert in the field, after all.”
Althene gave him a shy smile that made his heart beat faster. “This is not the time or place, Galen,” she said. “We have too much to discuss. Breedmaster Caius is confident that our genetic standards can be maintained, perhaps even augmented, by crossbreeding with the Havener women.”
Diettinger nodded. “Yes, an innovation that will no doubt please the Soldiers.” He stood
and looked out over the courtyard of the Firebase, watching as dozens of Soldiers went from station to station with a sense of purpose that would mark them as unmistakably Sauron. “Even so, we must be cautious. Caius proposes breeding Sauron to Havener, then Sauron-Havener progeny to Sauron and Haveners, and the issues of such unions back to Saurons, so long as the original strain remains.” His voice faded on the last words as if he had only just realized their implications.
“And the difficulty Haven presents for birthing?” Althene referred to the thin atmosphere, to which only the Saurons themselves and a few small strains of local cattle had any resistance whatsoever.
“They will be brought to the Citadel during their pregnancies, of course. Caius’ staff will have completed the breedchambers from the salvaged equipment on board the Fomoria. They will be effective enough for our purposes.” Until they too, wear out, he thought. “Plus we have the birthing chambers that we confiscated in Evaskar; there are more in Castell City and the outlying towns.”
Many of the Haven towns supplemented their revenues by ‘renting’ out the birthing chambers to out-of-towners, mountain dwellers and nomads. Evaskar’s principal source of revenue had been the fees they levied on the northern Highland nomads, who would bring their pregnant women down from the steppes and into town for birthing. The Town had done this for centuries and made a rich living doing it. Evaskar reportedly contained the most fabulous Mosques in the Imperium outside of Levant.
“Engineering and his Rankers,” he continued, “are working on means of acquiring remaining Haven technology and industry to repair or fabricate any other such items we might need.”
“Tribute,” Althene said simply.
“Eh? Yes, of course; we can demand local females—”
“Why limit it to females? With half our machine shops lost in the attack and spares lost too, we need toolmaking equipment and all kinds of things. After our initial strike, the Haveners must be in dire need of basic necessities. Exact tribute from them in trade for our surplus. When hungry and cold this winter, what might they be willing to trade for a meal and a cheap heater: a radio receiver, computer, internal combustion engine, lathe... This will free our Techs to work on important projects, rather than basic light industry.”