Ashes of Freedom

by K. J. Coble

  “A few more moments,” Zarven replied with exasperation. “Just leave me be.”

  Churvak receded from his mind.

  Below in the street between buildings, a Fanrohaust of the 10th Ground Strike Division was jogging his squad to the outer perimeter to relieve a current shift. Minrohausts plodded behind him, their booted feet thumping a mindless cadence.

  Zarven stepped to the edge of the roof to watch them tromp by. He reached through the Awareness and touched the other Korvan’s mind. Disgust and discomfort greeted his initial contact. Below the sensations lay grumbling toward the Fanrohaust’s immediate superiors. Zarven probed deeper, peeling away layers until he found the thing he had been sensing like a shroud across the entire fort.

  Despair.

  Zarven stepped back from the edge and began to pace again. He thought about the transmission he’d prepared for his family back on Homeworld but could not send, as there were no starships to carry it across the void. An imprint of his harmonic, recording the experiences he’d had since last being in contact with them through the Awareness, it would let them know of his time here on Lurinari.

  Probably better that he could not send it, he conceded. The Omniptorate monitored all such things and were especially mindful of their own people. He had too many enemies outside his order without making new ones within.

  Still, he wished someone to know how things had been.

  Zarven looked to the east, out beyond Ranzac’s rings of defense into the white, rolling countryside. The worms were out there, waiting. Dramen-Singlo and the other fools had congratulated themselves on dissolving the worm resistance and forcing the destruction of their Station. But Zarven knew they’d return, when they recovered and the weather improved. They’d gather, like the snowflakes building into small piles on his shoulders. And the Korvan garrisons, bone-thin from the exertions of the offensive in the south, would have little hope of containing the chaos in the Coreal Valley.

  Zarven had no illusions. The 18th Special Commando Battalion had sustained over 50% casualties since coming to Lurinari.

  He strained his augmented senses, tried to pick out details in the distance. Snowfall prevented him from seeing too far. Staring into it was like staring into oblivion.

  Something comforting in that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Mondanberg was a mass of black speckled with lights that winked feebly through the snow-shrouded night. Sandy could just make out the skeletal outlines of the nearest bridge over the Estrek River, only a kilometer away. The bridge was her guide, pointing straight into the heart of the rail yards.

  Sandy pulled against the straps of a sled laden with explosives. The icy surface of the Estrek felt slick beneath her feet. Her platoon stretched in front and behind her, a tattered snake of hide-clad figures hunched under the burden of heavy sacks and toiling with sleds like hers. She remembered the column of Sothran Rangers in the pass and hoped this charade was a little more convincing.

  Shanties and huddled figures materialized out of the snow, huddled along the bank of the frozen over Estrek. These were the River People, a sub-culture of nomads that had sprung up in the wake of Invader occupation who traded trinkets and contraband up and down the length of the Estrek. Other than the occasional atrocity, the Invaders ignored their black market and the shack villages that sprung up during the winter months.

  A handful of river folk was directing the guerrillas off the Estrek and up along a trail through the hovels. Sandy strained against the sled’s straps. Its skids went from the ice to churned slush and muck and began to resist. Sandy slipped and swore. Another partisan appeared at her side and took up a second set of straps. A third pushed from below.

  The River People watched the guerrillas pass through in silence. Shrunken forms shivering in rags, their eyes glittered with a feral light. Sandy saw a girl crouched under a tree with a holed tarp draped in the branches, gnawing on a length of leather hide with bleeding, toothless gums. The girl looked up and Sandy felt a jolt pass through her, the waif’s eyes reminding her of Cynthia. She began to shake. Her dead twin’s voice screamed for her to get out and leave the madness behind. The Invaders were going to win. Why resist any longer? Better to...

  A figure was waving her into a large hut ahead. Sandy halted the sled in a clearing where other guerillas had paused and were trying to relax and keep warm. She turned and retrieved her blastrifle from under the sled’s hide tarp and shouldered the weapon. The gibbering of fear receded to the back of her consciousness.

  Sandy turned to thank the partisan at her side who’d helped her up the riverbank and was surprised to see Vorsh. The Shmali smiled at her, rows of fangs white between pinkish lips. Something in the expression made Sandy want to be away from him.

  Sick bastard is enjoying this...

  She gave him a stiff nod and hastened into the hut.

  The Defense Force spy man, Klein, kneeled with a circle of partisan and Sothran Ranger officers around him. Weeks with the guerillas, trekking cross-country, had made him frayed and hungry-looking. He touched the side of his helm and projected a holographic map of Mondanberg across the dirt floor of the hut. Sections of the city blinked, objectives.

  “Remember this is a raid. Nothing slick. Get into position quickly and wait. Once Major Crozier’s demonstration has developed the Korvans and drawn them south, move in, plant your charges, and get the hell out. And understand that you have no margin for error. If there is anyone still out there when the detonators go...tough shit.”

  “Where will you be in all this, Mr. Klein?” asked one of the partisan officers.

  “Around.” Klein’s unshaven jaw tightened in an expression that did not encourage further discussion. He let his eyes pass over the partisans. “Do any of you have questions about your teams’ assignments?”

  Silence edged with tension answered him.

  “Good luck to you all, then.”

  Sandy stepped from the hut into a blast of snow that stung against her face. Cynthia’s wails began to echo through her skull again. She clenched her eyes shut and tried not to hear. A knot of sickness was forming in the pit of her stomach. She tasted stinging bile at the back of her tongue.

  “You all right?”

  Sandy opened her eyes. Sten stood before her, a concerned smile shining through his obvious anxiety. She tried to grin back. “Fine.”

  “Time to go already?” Sten glanced toward the clearing where partisans and Rangers were throwing the tarps off sleds and distributing explosives and weapons in a rush.

  Sandy nodded. “Klein seems to be in a hurry. Your squad know its route?”

  Casualties and desertions had left gaps in Movement leadership. Now Sten was the Squad Leader and Sandy had the platoon.

  “Yeah. Just hope the damned maps we studied aren’t too out of date.”

  “It’ll be fine,” Sandy said. She felt a surge of warmth for the gaunt man and touched his shoulder. “You take care, Sten. Make sure you go home alive to your wife.”

  “She says she’s always praying for us.” A muscle in his face quivered.

  Sandy glanced at the partisans taking weapons from the crates they’d dragged or hauled for hundreds of kilometers. Her eyes came to rest on Vorsh, leaned against a tree, sharpening his knife again. He looked up and noticed her with the same smile as before. Sandy looked away. Cynthia stirred somewhere in her gut.

  I’m glad someone else is praying for us. Sandy felt her mother’s crucifix rub against her chest. Because mine never seem to do a damned bit of good...

  THE SOUTHEASTERN CORNER of Mondanberg was loosely referred to as “Scumville”. A sprawl of lean-tos, abandoned warehouses, and garbage-strewn alleyways bordering the industrial district, it counted among its population poverty-stricken Collaborators and the dispossessed souls who preyed upon them.

  Like many such warrens that had sprung up around the occupied cities, Scumville was rarely patrolled by the Korvans. They left that task to the under-manned and woefully inept
Collaborator Militia.

  Crozier and the two companies with him had little trouble locating their contacts and infiltrating the decrepit neighborhood. They spent the earlier part of the day laying low in basements and garages. When nightfall came and the Militia sweeps pulled out, the partisans sallied forth, spreading through Scumville by squads and fire teams until they reached the edge of the industrial sectors.

  A squirrelly, wide-eyed informant guided Crozier to the edge of a kilometer-wide park. There they dropped to their knees amongst the snow-encrusted undergrowth of the narrow band of forest that bordered the grounds. Crozier’s headquarters platoon hung back, silent shadows.

  The informant fidgeted at Crozier’s side. His front teeth looked like they’d been bashed out and as a consequence he made a whistling sound when he spoke.

  “Milishee are ‘cross the way.” The little man rose from his crouch and pointed.

  “Fool!” Crozier gripped the informant’s shoulder and thrust him to the ground, face-first to smother his surprised squawk.

  Dropping his helm visor, Crozier looked across the park. The snowfall had grown thick after nightfall; a blessing to those with augmented vision, a curse otherwise. Street lamps lined the park grounds, catching the clouds of flakes in a bluish glow. At least a third of them were burned out. A thin tendril of trees stretched into the heart of the park, encircling a frozen over pond and a neglected-looking playground. The smoke stacks of a coal power plant to the east and the flame-capped spires of a Grak chemical plant to the west flanked the park.

  The AI highlighted movement on the far side of the park. Night vision snapped across Crozier’s eyes, greenish and flat. Icons drew themselves over armored cars parked in a row on the street just beyond the far tree line. A pair of sentries stepped from one of the vehicles, one man lighting a cigarette for the other. More icons lit across a trio of bunkers, spaced evenly at the tree line. Prefabricated concrete modules reinforced with sandbags, they were situated to rake the open ground from one side to the other.

  This is the spot. When the partisans began blasting Collaborators and using the nearby factories for target practice, the Korvan response would have to fight through the death trap back alleys of Scumville to reach their foes. Any armor the Korvans had would surely attempt to punch through here, though this wide-open space where some maneuver was possible, rather than risk the urban gauntlet.

  Crozier waved to either side, signaling the headquarters platoon to take up positions. Carrying more than a generous load of heavy weapons, the task of plastering whatever came through the gap of the park fell to them.

  Crozier glanced back through the ice-sheathed trees at the two- and three-story buildings behind him. More weapons teams would already be on their roofs, ready to open the bombardment on the Militia and on any real estate that looked expensive.

  That the surrounding populace would be caught up in the ensuing firestorm had occurred to Crozier. But the chill kept the sick abdominal lump of such thoughts temporarily suppressed.

  Bastard...Sandy’s right about me...

  Crozier blinked a command to his helm AI. A map plastered itself across a quadrant of his vision, displaying a tiny settlement to the east of Mondanberg called Good Days. A military highway bisected the hamlet, traffic being funneled through by dense stretches of forest and the peculiarities of geography. A blue icon denoted the partisan platoon left hidden in the village under Hrangar, leavened with a disproportionate load of heavy weapons teams.

  When the raid got under way, Korvans were going to come spilling out of Fort Ranzac to take the hurt off the Mondanberg garrison. Hrangar’s people had to slow down that response long enough for the partisans in the city to disengage and scatter.

  Fucking suicide mission. Crozier’s hand wandered to his chest, in search of his wedding ring. Armor plate stood between the talisman and his fingertips. No difference, really...this whole thing’s a suicide mission.

  Crozier’s hand shook. His augmentations, the chill, did not seem to be doing their usual job. He thought about Sandy again, thought about the promise he had made her. He hoped he could keep it. He really did.

  A tap on the shoulder turned Crozier around. A Shmali partisan crouched at his side, nodding. The platoon was in position. Crozier glanced at the holographic chronometer glowing in the corner of his vision. Getting late. Anyone not in position would just have to make do.

  Crozier took a long breath, raised his blastrifle, and keyed his helm mike to broadcast on the general tactical frequency.

  “Let’s light it up!”

  VORSH CROUCHED BESIDE the wheel of a boxcar at the end of a train left immobile on a track at the edge of the rail yard. A gust of wind puffed snow across him and his fangs chattered despite his jaw’s tight clenching. Entrance to the rail yard had been achieved by crawling through sewer drains into slush-choked drainage ditches. The soaking hadn’t seemed so bad until the partisans emerged from cover into the open air.

  Sandy kneeled at the back of the car, leaned slightly around the corner with her helm visor down, watching the progress of her raiders. Vorsh caught the occasional glimpse of a stooped forms scurrying from the ditches at the yard’s edge to the nearest cars. The weapons trailers were obvious, armored hexagon modules bolted to flatbed chassis. The contents of the battered, more conventional cars sharing the track were somewhat more difficult to guess.

  Vorsh glanced about at endless strips of icy track, glistening under signal lamps. He didn’t trust the stillness of the night. The Movement’s informants insisted they had been infiltrating these grounds for months, rummaging through the foodstuff cars to bring back sustenance for their starving families. As long as they didn’t tamper with the weapons cargo, the Korvans seemed to ignore them.

  But Vorsh didn’t trust the easy entry. And he sure as hell didn’t trust any weak human informant.

  A bird-like figure appeared from the ditch behind Sandy’s teams and scrambled to her side, breathing hard. Vorsh recognized him, Sandy’s senior squad leader, Sten.

  “Everyone’s at their jump off spots,” the scrawny human said between puffs.

  “Any sign of sentries?”

  Sten shook his head. “Not much. There’s Collaborator Militia on the south side of the yards but hardly any Screwheads, at all. It’s weird.”

  Sandy raised her visor and looked at Sten. Vorsh watched her profile, the way her lips pressed into a tight, thoughtful line. A loose tendril of hair dangled from beneath her helm, plastered against a sweat-dampened eyebrow. He caught a faint auburn highlight and his free hand brushed against the bone handle of his dagger, sheathed at his hip.

  The Cedar Valley debacle had left Vorsh an orphan with no unit. The powers that be in the Movement had thrown him, along with a half dozen other broken pieces of units, into a single new formation under Schweppenberg, newly-minted Platoon Leader. Vorsh had requested he be assigned to Sandy’s command team in what amounted to a bodyguard capacity. He’d used his close relationship to Sandy in the old days as leverage.

  That both the Movement and Sandy had blessed the assignment nearly sent Vorsh into chuckles, even now.

  Sandy patted Sten’s armored shoulder. “All right. Off with you, then.”

  Sten had no sooner disappeared into the ditches than the southern horizon exploded. White globes of anti-matter fire underlit the snowy overcast and an orange-red blossom lifted a sizable chunk of factory skyward to the southwest. The sound of the detonations reached the waiting partisans, rippling through the air to tremble in the bones. As the initial roar subsided, the distant keen of blaster fire could be heard.

  Sandy dropped her visor and stared at Crozier’s fireworks. Behind her, the partisans of her command team waited and shivered as the bombardment ground on. Vorsh fingered his dagger’s handle. The chronometer in the corner of his helmet visor displayed the trudging progress of time. He resolved to shut it off.

  Blazes from the factories began to spread. Sheets of flame devouring the horizon illum
inated Mondanberg in an eerie red light. Cyan flickers began to play along the inferno. A plasma fireball spilled into the air as a fusion reactor ruptured. The flash of Korvan weaponry tripled within minutes. The fight for the industrial district swelled.

  Vorsh’s arm throbbed with its old injury. He remembered running through the woods, bleeding. He remembered abandoning his unit, his comrades. Cole. His legs shook beneath him, ready for flight. His skin felt cold and slick.

  Sandy stood and waved. Partisans scrambled from their jump off points into the rail yard. She lurched forward and the command team had to sprint to keep up.

  Vorsh felt the impact of every step in his stomach, where a sick lump was growing. Around him, knots of guerrillas divided off into the lanes between rails. Twos and threes knelt beside cars, setting charges. Everyone seemed to know his or her job. Everyone seemed to have focus.

  What the hell was wrong with him?

  Ahead, Sandy had slowed her pace to a cautious prowl. It was only her, Vorsh, and one partisan, now, the rest of the command team having slipped off on a task of their own. Sandy reached a weapons trailer and knelt. The dark mass of the loading docks lay only a dozen meters beyond. They had nearly crossed the rail yard.

  Sandy had the other partisan kneel beside her and turn around so she could undo the flaps of his backpack. She got it open and strained to pull out the plate of an anti-matter mine. She pressed the bomb to the armored side of the Korvan weapons module and raised her helmet visor as she worked the mine’s controls. Her face wrinkled in concentration.

  Vorsh kneeled beside the two where he could watch the docks around the corner of the railcar. His gaze wandered to Sandy. The sickness in his stomach worsened. The trembling of his legs spread to his crotch. He licked his lips and tried to control his breathing.

  The thunder of fighting in the south of Mondanberg was no louder than the pounding of Vorsh’s pulse.