by John F. Carr
Now it was Althene’s turn to interrupt, “And culled.”
Köln and Diettinger shared a look; it was the Cyborg who finally spoke. “Yes, Sargun was given the patrol because of the very great likelihood he would engage Haveners in combat. Over-Assault Leader Bohren was put in command because his lack of combat experience would require those under his command to demonstrate great levels of initiative to survive the Havener ambush.”
“You knew!?”
“I guessed,” Diettinger said. “That was the reason for the delay in pursuit after the engagement at the river. To give the nomads time to be contacted by one of the roving militia patrols our scouts have reported to be organizing guerrilla activity in the Shangri-La Valley and in the Northern Highlands.”
“But we lost eighteen dead, all irreplaceable…”
“Eighteen dead, including two Cyborgs, all of whom were, arguably, weak links in the chain we must forge here if we are to survive.”
“Galen; Pyrrhus of Epirus is not a Sauron role model. Were our troops to kill a thousand Haveners for every one of us lost in battle, we would still lose such a war of attrition.”
Diettinger frowned; he was not used to Althene failing to understand him immediately. “That is precisely my point, Althene. We have no business fighting wars of attrition. The war we will fight here will be against Haven and ourselves. Captives such as those taken today, and local women given over to our Breedmasters in tribute for passage through the Karakul Pass into the Valley, will be the true war. Success in crossbreeding Saurons with Haveners, the true victory. Engagements like those today will keep the more bellicose segments of our new society occupied, particularly the Cyborgs. Eventually, there will be a revolt—”
Althene went white with shock. “What—?”
He shook his head. “It is inevitable, but with Cyborg Rank Köln and myself manipulating the ringleaders, it will be contained, with the outcome finally establishing civil authority in our society here.”
Althene’s head fairly swam; could this be the same direct, straightforward man she had fallen in love with? Was it possible that he could be so calculating as to conceive of, let alone support, such a ruthless scheme? “Galen—why?”
“Because, my dear, as you said yourself: ‘We have here a population of young wolves.’” He nodded toward Köln. “And, if you will, bears. But these wolves and bears have no competition worthy of the name to keep them wary, hungry and smart. None, that is, except each other. Haven is a fine crucible, but it will be generations before they appreciate that. For now, they must be prevented from turning all their attentions into a fruitless war of attrition against cattle, which are very uncattle like, indeed. By shifting the focus of their competition toward each other, we strengthen the security of all. Moreover, they will begin to compete with one another as breeders, even as fathers.
“To that end we can all be guided toward battling our only real enemy on Haven: Infant mortality. We will mount a war against the Haveners, but one led by the Breedmasters. A war where the tally of names will be those of healthy Sauron children safely born, and not young men and women needlessly killed.”
The First Citizen of Saurons sat down beside his wife, placing his hand against her flat stomach; a gesture of human protectiveness older than the race itself.
“And that, in the end, will make it a better kind of war, after all.”
Chapter Sixteen
Sergei Kamov watched his daughter and shook his head. For a month now, she had been tending the wounded captive, whom Sergei had been surprised to learn knew a smattering of Russian. And who had learned more very quickly.
When you’ve lost an arm at the elbow and a leg at the knee, Sergei reflected, you probably would appreciate the opportunity to concentrate on something else—like a language.
He studied the Sauron pilot, Stahler, his name was, and how he looked at Natalya…or a pretty young girl, he amended his thought.
The Sauron had healed amazingly fast, he noted. Stahler had recovered so fast that he had been well enough to hand over to Cummings’ people at the rendezvous. But Sergei, new Headman of Haven’s Don Cossacks, had explicitly forbidden any of his people to even mention their “guest,” and Colonel Kettler had returned to the Valley empty-handed.
Sergei had not forgotten Kettler’s gamble with his life and that of his family, to say nothing of the tribe. Nor had he appreciated how long it had taken before the medical aid facility the Colonel had promised had arrived. Four of their people who might have been saved had died of gangrene. He was beginning to have serious doubts about Kettler’s policy of attrition.
He watched as Nikolai went to check on his sister and her charge; his son seemed to get along well with the Sauron. And why not? He was just a soldier, doing a soldier’s work. His part in what had happened was, at least, honest.
In truth, Sergei found it difficult not to like this Stahler.
He heard Natalya’s laugh, a rich, strong woman’s laugh. He saw the flush in her cheeks at something Stahler said as he leaned forward to point at Nikolai’s legendary sidearm, and his arm brushed against Natalya’s and stayed there a little longer than necessary.
His own kind would put him in a breeding facility, if he were to go back, Sergei knew from his talks with Stahler. Locked onto a hospital bed for ten years or more until he died of boredom. That was no life for a man. And when he was better…well, Sergei had known a great many one-legged horsemen with less strength and physical ability than this Sauron, crippled though he might be.
“A Cossack without a horse is like a man without legs,” he mused aloud. But a Cossack with a horse doesn’t need legs.
Nikolai had left them, and Sergei saw Natalya and Stahler talking in much lower voices, now. The blush was back and Stahler appeared a bit reserved.
Good, he decided. He had lost a son; he would take a son-in-law.
Brigadier Cummings would go mad if he ever found out, of course, but what of it? It was his man Kettler who had given him the idea, after all. Hadn’t he told them all that what the Saurons really wanted were Haven women to breed their next generation of soldiers? All right, then.
Sergei Kamov watched his daughter lean forward, receiving and taking her first kiss from his future son-in-law and thought about what mighty Cossacks his grandchildren would be.
Two can play at that game.
Part Two
DEATH’S-HEAD REBELLION
Chapter Seventeen
I
The Sauron Fleet battleship, the SNS Leviathan, rocked and buckled as it took another direct hit. Knocked out of a sound sleep by the attack, Fourth Rank Roger Boyle heard barked orders and the shrill cry of the blaring klaxons as they echoed through the ship. What am I doing here in my bunk? I have to get to the bridge!
As he swung out of his bunk, a brilliant flash of light filled the room with an eerie glow that pulsed from the cracks at the edge of the door and along the metal joints.
A thermonuclear! Is the Langston Field down?
Another massive rumble. A moment later he was catapulted out of his bunk, landing in a heap on the barrack’s floor. As he scrambled to his feet, Boyle saw other Soldiers crawling on the floor or lurching out of their bunks. His ears were pummeled with the sounds of explosions and warning sirens going off.
Then it hit him—I’m not aboard Leviathan. I’m on Haven. Part of the Firebase Five garrison.
Leviathan was many standard months and hundreds of light-years gone. The Academy was radioactive dust. So was the Homeworld. He had watched it die, writhing like a living thing… Even the ship that had brought Boyle to Haven, Fomoria, was radioactive scrap on the planet’s grim hills. But, before dying, she’d wrecked Haven’s meager resources of high technology and the refugees the Fomoria had carried from Homeworld mostly landed safely.
The last free Saurons had lost an important resource. Before the crash they’d planned on using their ship for raw material in the metal-poor area of Firebase One and the Citadel. But t
hey were alive, armed, on their feet and ready to fight to establish their new colony on Haven.
Time had passed quickly, in acquiring and organizing territory, establishing firebases and skirmishing with the Haveners. There were no pitched battles; some of the Soldiers were heard to say that the cattle had shot themselves dry with their strike at the Fomoria.
First Citizen Galen Diettinger hadn’t joined the optimists. Boyle followed his lead. Now the cattle had proved them right.
Boyle used a fleeting moment of calm to stand and find the barracks commlink. He wasn’t surprised to find it dead. All around him in the darkness able-bodied Soldiers were dressing and arming themselves. The wounded lay quietly, waiting for help to arrive.
There was another bone-jarring rumble and he was thrown against a partition. Soldiers were shouting, trying to be heard over the blaring klaxons. He pushed away from the partition, standing groggily. Others were doing the same. For a moment the barracks room was complete confusion before the Soldiers sorted themselves out and began throwing on their battle gear and equipment again.
“Any rankers here?” Boyle shouted.
“Aye, aye, sir,” a voice replied. “Patrol Leader Phineas Gault, at your service.”
“Fourth Rank Boyle. Is there anyone who is senior?”
There was no answer. Somehow he’d known there wouldn’t be.
“Fourth Rank Boyle assuming command,” he stated, as he’d been taught. He left out the tech designation; during a state-of-emergency rankers, even tech rankers, were assumed to be Soldiers first, techs second. In his fantasies when he took command he did great deeds, and High Command was proud of him. Now it was for real. What needs to be done?
“Patrol Leader, organize scouts for a recon of the area.”
In two minutes Gault was leading a small party of scouts out the heat-lock door. The only sounds were Soldiers checking equipment and an occasional burst of automatic weapons outside.
“Who’s closest to the primary commlink?” he asked.
“Trooper Tareyton, sir.”
“Does it work?”
“Checking. No, sir. Nothing but static. Dead air, sir.”
“Keep at it, Soldier.”
“Yes, sir!”
There were sounds of combat outside. Small arms fire and artillery. Boyle pulled on his jacket and turned on his sleeve comm unit. “Fourth Rank Boyle here. Is anyone on line?”
Nothing but static. At least the radio was working. He hadn’t expected much more.
“Help the wounded,” he ordered. Now, nothing to do but wait.
Patrol Leader Gault came back through the door. He tried to keep his voice calm, but there was a nervous tremor to it as he said, “High explosive rounds dropping on command bunker area, sir. It’s lethal out in the open. The Haveners used fuel-air warheads and a lot of cluster bombs to pepper the barracks. The only barracks damaged are those which took a direct hit.”
It has to be Brigadier Cummings’ militia, he decided. The Haven Volunteers, that’s what they’re called. There was no other serious opponent on Haven with the Brigadier’s military assets.
Boyle silently blessed Diettinger’s orders that the firebase barracks be built of ferrocrete and designed like bunkers. Each firebase was built like a fort, with independent commands scattered throughout the Shangri-La Valley, each defensively self-sufficient. Anyone who lived through the attack on Firebase Five would probably owe their lives to the First Citizen’s foresight.
Anti-personnel munitions—they weren’t likely to do much damage. But where in the hell were all the high rankers? His orders were to survive. As the only officer present that was mandatory, until another ranker showed up. More sounds of artillery. “That’s ours,” he said, and regretted it. They all knew it, same as he did.
“Any enemy ground or air support?” he asked.
“Limited ground support, sir, but no air support,” Patrol Leader Gault said. “Now that our counter-batteries have been activated, very few bogies are getting through.”
How did the missiles get through in the first place? he asked himself. No time to worry now, nor was it his job. Boyle decided he wouldn’t swap jobs with First Citizen Diettinger for all the women in the Citadel.
The question now was: What could he do with the Soldiers under his command? Fort Kursk, which they’d been refurbishing, was past helping; but what about the command bunkers? If the militia took out the Firebase staff, it would delay the Valley’s pacification by months. What can I do to help?
“What’s the status of Communications Central?” he asked.
“Bunker appears intact,” Gault answered.
“We’ll go there as soon as it quiets down.” Which ought to be soon enough, with our counter-battery fire.
“When we move out, Patrol Leader, you’ll reconnoiter.”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked around for anyone in white battledress. Over in the corner he saw the remains of the unit’s medic. “Who’s had advanced med tech?”
“Trooper Swenson, here.”
“Good. Trooper, you’ll remain behind with the wounded. Soldiers—if you can’t walk, stay here in the barracks. We’ll send Medical ranks for you when we can. Swenson, do what you can, and keep Channel Four open.”
“Yes, sir.”
All talk was silenced by an incoming barrage of missiles.
II
Boyle waited until it was quieter, watching his sleeve timer. Minutes passed. Still quiet. Long enough, anything on the way had already arrived. “Move out, and make it smart. They’ll shift positions and fire again. It’s our job to secure the command bunkers.”
Boyle followed Patrol Leader Gault and his squad out of the barracks. He counted thirty-eight Soldiers out of fifty moving stealthily in the dim orange light, where Cat’s Eye hung in the sky like a bloated one-eyed jack-o’-lantern.
A colossal explosion threw him to the ground! Not cluster bombs this time. High explosives, and they’d detonated something. Now the fuel dump belched dark smoke and tongues of red flame. A nearby fighter was only smoking wreckage, its fuel long since burned out. Everyone still on their feet dove for cover as debris rained down from the sky.
Fuel and ammunition supplies, Boyle guessed…has to be those. So what have we got left? Damn little…
But, we have US: The Cyborgs, and the Soldiers. First Citizen Diettinger. High Command. The Citadel and four other Firebases. While we live, Sauron lives. Even if we breed with cattle, Sauron lives here. Sauron rules here. And one day we will return to rebuild Homeworld.
The crew and command of the Fomoria were the last surviving Saurons in human occupied space. And, they were too few to be genetically self-sufficient. They would have to interbreed with the Haven peoples without ceasing to be Saurons—the Race the Empire of Man had thought it had destroyed. They would learn otherwise and the Sauron Homeworld would be avenged, although not in Boyle’s time, probably not even his great grandsons’—if he survived this attack.
The cattle are getting bolder, he decided. Last week it was the steppe nomads attacking, now it’s the Valley militia.
Check the debris for salvageable components—
After you report to the command bunker, he told himself. Keep your mind on the mission!
Boyle looked back at his command. All but two were on their feet again. He gave an order to have the wounded taken back to the barracks, then led them forward, as a ball of flame rose to the left of the fuel dump. He braced himself for the shock wave. Gravel and dust whipped past, stinging eyes and skin.
That had to be the ammunition dump. The ammunition depot, with most of Firebase Fives’ diminishing supply of bombs and missiles in it.
Flaming debris arched into the sky from the fireball, then plummeted to earth. Some of the flaming objects looked like men—had to be men, some of them maybe his friends…
He shut the thought out of his mind. It was not only useless, but it was unworthy of a Soldier. His friends had done their duty, gone to
their posts and fought the enemy—right now, the fire—to their deaths. Honorable deaths. Now it was his duty and that of the other survivors to make sure those Soldiers had not died in vain.
His mood improved by this conviction, Boyle entered the Communications bunker. The Communications hadn’t been hit. An island of calm order in a sea of explosions.
“Fourth Rank Boyle here, reporting for duty. Who’s in charge?”
The Patrol Leader who doubled as security and radiation monitor saluted.
“Greetings Fourth Rank. Do you relieve me?”
“I relieve you. Report.”
“Headquarters heavily damaged, may be destroyed. Radiation level stabilized at forty-four millirems, projecting sixty-five in two hours. We’re getting a slight increase in the readings, thanks to that dump explosion.”
“Acceptable,” he replied. Saurons had been bred for high-radiation tolerance; survival on Homeworld demanded it. Haven, too, had high levels of background radiation, but less than half of Sauron’s usual output.
Boyle walked over to the main console where a Communications rating seemed to be in control.
“Communications Rating Basson reporting, sir.”
“Communications Fourth Rank Boyle here. Report change of command here to High Command, and carry on.”
At least he was among friends, who were no more Soldiers than he was…We techs can play at being Soldiers. In fact, we damned well better. Go by the book. What else can we do?
“Aye, aye, sir.” Still no contact with Headquarters. Cave-in at HQ bunker after the first strike, Fifth Rank.
Boyle nodded. “Damage?”
“Extensive. Command requested we take over main communications load at 2208.”
“Check the status of Hawks—Red, Green and Blue. I saw one out on the apron.”