Ashes of Freedom

by K. J. Coble

  “We’ll hold here and wait for the link-up with the company from Group North. They’re supposed to be across that hollow, on that hill.” He gestured towards a low rise that was still only a deeper darkness in the gloom. “Probably already there.”

  “Shouldn’t they have sent somebody to meet us?” the hide-clad woman asked.

  The Squad Leader flicked a glance at Vorsh. “Guess they’re running late. Groetz says they’ll be here. It’s fine. We’ll just wait.”

  Time dragged and the sun began to flicker on the horizon, tongues of light licking the clouds above. The female partisan fidgeted and filled the air with the stink of her fear. The Squad Leader watched the dark hill across the hollow, more still with concentration lining his face, but his fear filling Vorsh’s nostrils, all the same. Vorsh glanced about at the spinebush. Easy to lose track of someone in this mess. His hand itched for the dagger.

  The Squad Leader tensed and stood slowly, eyes searching. He turned and said, “I saw something. I’m going.”

  He scurried down the path and was quickly swallowed. The woman glanced at Vorsh, skin taking on a gray shade, no smile for him now. Vorsh caught himself fidgeting. There was little time. There would be too many around in a few moments

  Vorsh rose and shouldered by the female partisan’s hissed protests. He slipped down the path, ignoring the swipe of razor-edged undergrowth as the warmth of excitement filled him. He heard the human bitch following and cursed the complication. His hand slipped to the bone handle and drew the blade, metal flashing as a beam of newborn sunlight touched it through the trees.

  He heard scuffling below, saw the helmet of the Squad Leader bobbing towards him. There was more, a sound like wind passing through the forest. That would be the link-up element from the other Company. Very little time left. Vorsh’s strides lengthened, slashing through the weeds and brambles.

  The Squad Leader came scrambling up, red-faced and breathing hard with words on his lips. He jerked to a halt, the words freezing in his throat as he saw Vorsh, caught the glint of steel and the madness in the Shmali’s eyes.

  Plasma fire shrieked and lit the Squad Leader’s helmeted skull with a cyan halo. Vorsh hit the ground, his forward motion carrying him down over slippery clay and cutting thorns to the spot where the human had dropped like a sack of garbage. Energy blasts slashed the air. Vorsh pressed himself low. A rattle of return fire spread fitfully above and behind him as partisans roused and responded to the attack.

  “Screwheads!” hollered the female guerrilla as she crawled to Vorsh’s side. “Fucking hell! Those are Screwheads! Where’s the link-up? Where’s the—oh, shit...Brad...” She dropped the rifle, her hands fluttering over the fallen Squad Leader.

  Vorsh looked at the wounded human. His helmet had fallen aside and his head lay open, a hatch of skull sliced away as neatly as if done by a surgeon’s laser, still smoking, the brains unraveled across the dirt like discarded yarn. But he was alive, opening and closing his mouth as a fish cast onto a ship’s deck. Eyes pulled open, rolling about and white, more with surprise than any pain he could still feel. His panicked gaze settled on Vorsh, on the dagger in his hand. The human seemed to shrink in upon himself. Vorsh smiled.

  “Brad...oh, shit, Brad...” The female guerrilla tried to cradle the man’s head, abandoned the effort as plasma bolts keened overhead and forced her down. She looked at Vorsh. “What do we do?”

  Vorsh hadn’t stopped grinning. He thumbed back the way they’d come and said, “I’m going to warn the Platoon Leader.”

  “Warn the...what about—”

  Vorsh did not hear the rest as he sprinted uphill. The air was full of smoke and flashes and the scream of incoming mortar rounds. He hunched to avoid the fire of partisans now shooting over his head at the threat spilling into their rear. Faces blurred by. One of them called his name.

  Cole.

  The hilltop leaped skyward on a wave of explosions that darkened the air with debris and drowned out screams and shouted orders. Vorsh lunged to the ground as the air snarled with shrapnel. He felt a hand shake his shoulder and looked up.

  “Vorsh!” Cole hollered into his face. “What’s happening?”

  “Where’s the Platoon Leader?” Vorsh had to scream to be heard over the cacophony.

  “Groetz? Why do you...” Cole’s soot-smeared face changed as the words died on his lips. His eyes quivered as they passed over the unsheathed dagger. His grip on Vorsh’s shoulder tightened. “Vorsh, you can’t be—”

  “Where is he?” Vorsh’s voice went nearly as shrill as the next salvo of incoming. Thunderclaps drowned out the last syllable. Vorsh wriggled further into Cole’s shallow fighting hole as fragments slashed trees and soil to tatters.

  “Leave him be, Vorsh!” Cole shouted. Vorsh could barely hear him over the ringing of his ears. “The Korvans are all over us!”

  Vorsh gave Cole an icy look and ripped the human’s hand from his arm. “It’s over, Cole. It’s all done. Fuck it. Save yourself.”

  Vorsh lurched from the human’s side and dashed into the churning chaos. He thought he heard Cole’s screams at his back. It wasn’t long before they faded.

  Cyan licked brush and stone at Vorsh’s heels. He glanced over his shoulder to the north and east. Shadowy, fast-moving shapes flitted from tree to tree across the hollow, spitting plasma into the crumbling guerrillas. No time! They had left him no time, damn them!

  The Platoon Leader had to be close. There would be all sorts of runners coming and going. No easy way to do this, now. Vorsh’s hand tightened on the handle of his blade.

  To hell with them all...

  The ground in front of Vorsh erupted in geysers of smoke and dirt with yellow flames stabbed through their hearts. Vorsh didn’t remember hitting the ground, found himself thrown downhill into spinebush. He started to sit up, began to pull himself free of the tangle of vines. He stopped, grimacing at the roaring ache in his left arm.

  A partisan sprinted by Vorsh, casting aside his weapon and wailing something. Another followed.

  Vorsh saw Groetz, finally, in the dirty haze, screeching at partisans to stay put, to fight, to rally. The Platoon Leader clobbered a Grak as the stocky creature tried to get by, kept kicking at him. His face was tight and red with the maddened rage of somebody gone beyond panic.

  More incoming churned the hillside. Vorsh rolled over into an armored ball, shuddering as explosions rolled over and by, slivers of metal crackling across blastisteel. He raised his head but could no longer find the Platoon Leader in the flames and airborne filth.

  Vorsh looked at his arm. The sleeve was in tatters. Something had carved a line in his forearm. Pinkish pale skin was going red-black as blood streamed down and trickled off at the fingertips to bead on thorns of spinebush. His hand trembled but he couldn’t feel it.

  He wobbled, felt sick, felt like it couldn’t be happening. Wounded. Not scuffed, not singed, not battered, but wounded. No one had ever touched him like this, not the police or the other acolytes on Shmal, not the Masters.

  A feeling welled-up like vomit inside him.

  He had to get as far from here as possible.

  Binding the injury in shreds of sleeve with his good hand and sheathing his dagger, Vorsh turned and followed the stream of partisans splashing away from the Korvan attack.

  ANOTHER WAVE OF MORTAR rounds roiled across the hillside. Cole clutched the blastrifle he’d plucked off a corpse and ducked as smoke and debris washed over him. The air flashed with pulses of white as the Station fought Korvan heavy artillery for the skies. Plasma bolts clipped the trees and crisscrossed overhead from both the left and front.

  “Oh god, oh god...they’re all over us...fuck this shit!”

  The hollering boy, ten meters to Cole’s left, leapt from his fighting hole and dashed behind the squad on his way to the rear.

  Cole turned to his left to watch his Squad Leader. She screamed something about cowardice at the kid, her hand going to the pistol at her hip. He kept go
ing, energy bolts licking around him. Her face screwed itself into a whitened knot then relaxed as her hand went back to the grip of her rifle. She swore to herself and screamed to the squad, “Next one who breaks, gets fucking shot!”

  Cole tightened his hold on the blastrifle, tried to forget about the chaos to his right, tried to forget about the look he’d seen on Vorsh’s face.

  Shadows moved through gaps in the forest, the details of Korvan battle armor and weapons occasionally coming into focus. They were coming up close to the front now, less than a hundred meters. Cole touched off a blast that started a small fire but didn’t seem to hit anything. He tightened up, tried to focus. More incoming whistled above. He squeezed down into his fighting hole. The ground shuddered beneath him and shrapnel plucking at his helmet.

  When Cole came up out of his crouch the air was yellow with sour, mucous-searing fumes. Tendrils of sulfurous smoke boiled up from plastic balls strewn across his front.

  The AI in Cole’s helmet responded, a mask folding out from the helm’s sides and sliding over his face with a whir of mating plastic and alloy. For a moment he wheezed in panic, but adjustment came quickly.

  “Gas! Gaaaas! Aaahhgghhh...get outta here!”

  The partisans to either side of Cole sprang from their spots, clawing at their faces as they raced from the crest of the hill. In theory, the Movement was to have issued protection against chemical attack to everyone. In reality, Cole knew from his time in the supply caverns that the Movement had never had enough of anything, let alone gas masks.

  Cole’s helm visor dropped as the yellow fog spread over him. Icons highlighting movement sprang across his vision, as numerous as fireflies on a summer evening with the kids. Can’t stay here...hell with it...we’ve lost...nothing more I can do...

  Cole rose to leave. The scream of more incoming filled the air.

  The Squad Leader lay on her side beside a crater, clutching the ruin of her chest and squirming as coils of gas serpentined toward her. Cole tried not to meet her gaze as he moved by. She caught his pant leg, a bubble of blood bursting on her lips as she tried to cry for help.

  Ah, shit...

  Cole dropped the blastrifle and reached for her. He got an arm over his shoulders, got his hand under her knees and strained to lift her. She screamed, gurgling as her blood sprayed across his facemask. The wail of incoming reached a crescendo. Cole hefted the woman against her agonized protests.

  Mortar rounds exploded in the treetops and sprayed the ground with splinters. Crashes tore the hill and filled the air with a yellow-red flash. Cole felt an impact like a giant hammer, felt it cut his legs out from under him. He was spinning for an instant. Then the ground smashed into him.

  Cole blinked, couldn’t feel his body. He was face down in the dirt and had to force his head to turn and see what had happened.

  What was left of the Squad Leader lay a meter away, motionless. Yellow mist rolled amongst the overgrowth. Feet pounded past him. He felt himself drifting, recognized and welcomed the blackout.

  Distantly, he felt hands grabbing him.

  WE’RE FUCKING DEAD...

  Holograms swam before Crozier, flashes and shifting patterns that spelled disaster. His hand locked over the wedding ring at his chest. The command chamber felt still around him. Transmissions came crackling in, officers breaking the radio silence to warn of the collapse, voices high with panic and sometimes screams. One of the girls at the command console prayed softly through tears.

  The Station shook and thrummed as the fusion battery flailed the horizon against wave after wave of Korvan heavy artillery streaking in from Outpost 9, from Teshima and even as far away as Mondanberg. Weapons system readouts began to edge into the red. The mountain itself seemed to groan with the blasts. Crozier wondered how much more the big gun could take.

  “Still no word from Choson, Major,” Janotski said from his seat.

  The Korvan breakthrough had come so quickly and totally that they hadn’t appreciated the full extent of the catastrophe for nearly twenty minutes. By the time Crozier knew how bad the damage was, there was nothing left to do. Nothing. The kilometers-long arch of the Movement’s line had bent in the middle and snapped. Entire companies had simply disappeared and with them hundreds of lives. Crozier bit his lip and tasted salty warmth. People, not just statistics...

  Sandy...

  “Hrangar’s transmitting on open tactical frequency,” Janotski said. He swiveled his seat to face Crozier. “Major?”

  White noise screamed through Crozier. He gripped his ring until the knuckles creaked and his hand shook with the exertion. Blood from the bitten lip trickled down his chin. It isn’t enough that they got Cameron and Ro...it isn’t enough that they raped this world...it isn’t enough that they destroyed my life and my marriage. Hadn’t they taken enough? When would it be enough?

  “Major Crozier, sir!”

  Crozier’s surroundings jerked back into focus around him. He looked at Janotski, saw the lines of the old man’s face pulled tight and the quiver of fear behind his eyes. The girls watched him, too, the feverish glint of panic across their faces. Crozier knew he couldn’t let that fear spread its poison. There was already too much of it.

  “Put Hrangar on the screen,” Crozier said.

  The old Grak’s wild-haired visage filled a quadrant of the HoloScreen. He hunched low as flashes lit his background. A repeat blastcannon team tore away at something as partisans scrambled by.

  “Right flank is gone!” Hrangar’s voice punched through a snarl of static, already difficult to understand through his gravelly, Grakan accent. “They rolling us up like wet blanket! Lost contact with Group North. I think Choson dead. Korvans are pushing us hard from the west again. I pull what I can save back across Cedar Creek.” The Grak paused, seemed to fight with himself. “Not much else to say, I think. We try to hold on as long as we can.”

  Crozier nodded at the hologram, even though there was no way Hrangar would see or appreciate the gesture. “Give us just a few more hours, Group Leader. Consolidate on the ridgeline east of Cedar and pull in tight. I’ll throw everything we have left to block this penetration, try to scrape together what’s left of Group North. As soon as I can stabilize things, I will give the final withdrawal signal and we scatter. Understood?”

  “I do,” Hrangar replied. “Any way we can get little more artillery?”

  Crozier’s fingers pinched down on his ring. “If I give you anything, we won’t have enough left to cover the retreat.”

  “Understood.” The Grak’s voice had the resignation of an old boulder sliding off a cliff. “We do our best. Good luck, Major.”

  “To all of us,” Crozier replied. The transmission winked out. Crozier figured it poor odds he’d see Hrangar again. He ran his hand across the stubble of his head and said to Janotski, “Connect me to Svetlana.”

  The commander of the Station garrison company materialized on the screen, in battle armor with helmet cradled under her arm. In the cavern behind her, partisans armed and suited up. Her sharp features had a pale, haggard look to them.

  “Captain, it’s your turn,” Crozier said. “Assemble your company at Exit Cave Northwest. And scrape together anyone else you can find, anyone who can carry and fire a weapon.”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied, her confident tone sounding frayed at the edges. “Where are we going?”

  “To plug a hole. I’ll give you the specifics when I reach you.”

  “When you—”

  “I don’t remember this being a two-way conversation, Captain. You have things to take care of!”

  “Yes, sir! I am rolling!” The transmission cut.

  “Major?”

  Crozier ignored Janotski as he stepped over to the small locker in the corner of the chamber. He opened it and began pulling out and putting on his battle armor. One of the girls got up from her seat to help him into the chest plate. He smiled his thanks to her. The blastisteel felt heavy and good on his back. He shouldered a bandoleer of
charge packs and picked up his blastrifle. The helmet he grabbed last, hoisting it onto his head and smiling at the smell of stale sweat on synthe-leather padding.

  Janotski watched him, something of a half-smile on his face. “What do you plan to do?”

  “More good than I’ve done back here,” Crozier replied. He grinned at the old man. “You think you can hold the fort till I get back?”

  Janotski’s smile grew full as he caught on to some of Crozier’s bravado. “I suppose we can keep the Screwheads out for a little while.”

  “Good. I’ll see you in a few.”

  Crozier turned and strode from the command chamber. The chill crystallized in his core, every movement crackling with it. Crozier began to run through the Station’s empty tunnels, unafraid for the first time in weeks.

  FEAR GRIPPED THE PARTISANS in its teeth and spat them out a tattered mob, spilling through the woods. The sound of them was a flood, roaring over the crash and shriek of the battle they fled. They had stopped being soldiers or individuals, even—had disintegrated into something primal and fluid.

  The tide carried Sandy with it. Around her, smoke and flames transformed the figures of routed guerrillas into hunched blurs appearing for only an instant between trees. She was too tired to pay them heed, too tired for fear as she strained downhill with the weight of Cally draped at her side. Ahead, Sten labored with Runt, the tiny man riding on his back with his thigh wrapped in soiled bandages.

  They were all that remained of her squad, perhaps of the platoon, overwhelmed at dawn when the Invaders came again and the northern units caved in. They had given ground grudgingly at first, then desperately when the ammo gave out and some had surrendered to ludicrousness and thrown rocks at the attackers. Sandy knew she would never exorcise the faces of the ones left behind.

  The trees thinned below. People were shouting with purpose, finally, not panic. Sandy wanted to cry and thank God someone was still here, that she had found her way back to the aid station. She couldn’t bear Cally much longer, bruises and fatigue burning through the last wisps of adrenaline.