“My duties are clear,” he said. “Regardless of today’s bizarre events, I’m sworn to defend my command so long as the means exist to resist you. If you want us, Katya Olia, you’ll have to pay the price. We’ve already proved that your greater numbers are no guarantee of victory.”
Romilsky’s icy blue gaze got icier for a moment, then she spoke again in English for the sake of the Union guards. “Then it would appear our business here is concluded, Colonel. I will withdraw, and I suggest you worry about rescuing your comrade before he suffocates.” She nodded to the man entrapped in ice behind Sainz.
He had no intention of taking his eyes off her, but one of his own men cried out, “He’s alive! Captain Searcy!”
Sainz did glance back then, and saw the fingers sticking up through the ice flex stiffly. He hurried over and laced his fingers between those of the captain while peering deep into the ice. No sign of movement within. Searcy’s eyes were closed, but there was no mistaking the subtle pressure as his fingers squeezed back. In a flash Sainz had his survival knife out and was savagely chipping away at the ice, scratching and gouging slowly through the clear wall.
“Get axes, saws! Someone call Howard and tell her we need combat engineers.” He wasn’t sure what the engineers might do to help, but they were the closest unit with any kind of experience dealing with structural integrity. Maybe they would know—or at least guess—how to split the ice flow. He briefly wondered how long Searcy had been trying to signal while everyone had turned toward Romilsky. Sainz didn’t want to believe that Romilsky might have noticed but let the man suffer.
“Colonel!” The warning shout came as a large shadow fell over Raymond Sainz. The ice reflected back the image of a large Class F mutant moving up behind him commanded by its handler. With only his knife in hand, Sainz spun about and readied for an attack.
They stood there, the mutant towering over its handler, the power supply for its radiation-source weapon venting into the air above its thick, broad shoulders. It was so close Sainz could have counted the copper wire hairs covering the massive chest if he’d been of a mind to. Oversize hands tipped with titanium blades hung at its sides. The hose running from abdomen to back flexed and stirred in time to wheezing breaths. The creature’s metal face mask stared impassively down at him, its red optics port glowing dully.
Romilsky moved to Sainz’s side, laid a hand on his arm. “Colonel, if you please?”
She pulled him away, letting the Cyclops fire a low-intensity heat beam into the ice, which scattered as it turned bloody red. Water ran at once, the heat beam accomplishing in one swipe what Sainz could not have accomplished in ten minutes of hacking and chipping away.
When the beam splashed over Searcy’s outstretched fingers, Sainz saw a flexing response, and noticed the skin reddening as if sunburned. No telling how much radiation the officer might absorb under that beam, but then radiation sickness was the least of the man’s worries if he couldn’t be freed. That the Cyclops didn’t use a full-intensity beam at least boded well for Searcy surviving.
The beam carved deeper, exposing the captain’s right hand, then the right arm and his left hand. Next came the whole right leg and the man’s shoulders and head. Searcy fell forward, the last of the ice shattering under his weight. He hit the ground and drew his first deep, shuddering breath. His eyes flickered open briefly, staring but unseeing, then closed as shock sent him unconscious.
Sainz knelt at his side, checking for a pulse. He found one, weak and thready, but there. He pointed off two infantry. “Pick him up and get him back to the medics,” he ordered. “Go!”
He stood up and turned to Romilsky while the mutant was led back toward the crevice. “Pochemu?” he asked simply. Why?
She answered in English, no doubt so the rest of his men would understand and pass along to the others. “By bullet or buried in ice, he is going to die. Better his end come as a soldier, da?” And with that she turned and followed her Cyclops back through the ravine. The Vanguard infantry brought up the rear.
Sainz stared after them for a long time after they disappeared from view. Wondering.
* * *
Rebecca Howard had heard the single, rolling echo from Sergeant Tyree’s shot and demanded an immediate situation report. Tyree remained silent, and no one in the colonel’s guard answered their comms either. She quickly classified the two alternatives. They were unable to respond. They were unwilling to respond.
Unable meant the death or capture of the colonel and his guard, and the sergeant as well. Not a likely scenario, since only Tyree had fired a shot and the Neo-Soviets rarely relied on silenced weapons. When they came for you, they wanted you to know it. The loss of Colonel Sainz would also bump her into the Seventy-first’s number one slot, something she didn’t like to think about. Though not always in agreement with Sainz, she managed to see past his Tamalipais birth to recognize his talents. Right now, few men might hope to pull off this mission and extract the Seventy-first alive. Even Tom Tousley would admit that, if he allowed himself a moment of complete honesty.
So that meant they were unwilling to respond, for which she could think of no likely scenarios. Maybe it had to do with the terrifying changes in the Earth. Whatever the reason, she would go and find them herself.
She had just told off a full squad to accompany her when Tyree broke the silence. “Stand down, Major. Colonel Sainz is all right, but we have a very tense situation, and you don’t want to break in just now.”
After Tyree’s complete and full report, Howard handed out the initial orders to mobilize the Seventy-first and then paced a tight square, waiting for the colonel’s return. Tyree kept her abreast of what he could see, and almost sent her racing off when the Cyclops looked about to attack the colonel. That they were able to retrieve Captain Searcy seemed little gain for the risk Sainz was taking.
Then came the two infantrymen carrying a live but unconscious Ryan Searcy to the medics, and Sainz followed soon after.
“But you don’t trust her,” Howard said, after the quick briefing. She read the hesitation on her CO’s face. “You can’t believe that she’d be so free with Neo-Soviet intelligence?”
Sainz frowned, rubbed a hand along one side of his jaw. “She paints a believable scenario, you have to admit. And she gave us back the life of Captain Searcy.”
Rebecca Howard couldn’t refute that. As for Romilsky’s supposed scheme to create conflicts among various parts of the Union military, she couldn’t deny that it would be a good one. Her own Texan birth biased her against the Mexican Contribution Forces, but she tried not to let it cloud her thinking. Tom Tousley, though, and others like him, would use such an event to push for American-preferred status in the Union.
“It’s devious enough,” she admitted. She glanced southeast with a strong measure of concern. “But I wasn’t there. You’re the best judge of her honor.” She didn’t mean for her latter remarks to sound like an accusation, though they rang doubtful in her own ears.
“We couldn’t have predicted that Katya Romilsky would take such a chance, approaching with so small a force. I would rather you had been there, too, Rebecca,” Sainz said, with neither apology nor rebuke. He always let her speak her mind. “As to her honor, I couldn’t say. Yet.”
His tone gave away the direction he was leaning, however. “Then what would you say if I told you a large Neo-Soviet force had been working its way around the southeast edge of that broken terrain?” she asked.
“You’re sure of this?” There was a trace of wounded surprise in his voice.
“Sergeant Tyree has a good vantage point. He observed them working through the petrified dunes east of here once he could safely tear his eyes away from your confrontation. The whole time Romilsky kept you occupied, she was working a large strike force of Rad Troopers, Grunts, and some Vanguard onto our left flank.”
“How many Vanguard?”
“At least one company.”
“Vehicles?”
“None not
ed. Doesn’t mean they aren’t there, however.”
Howard could almost hear the wheels spinning in the colonel’s mind as he stood there thinking for some moments, and she wondered suddenly if she’d missed something.
“An impressive gamble,” he said finally. “Katya Romilsky knew I’d refuse the order to surrender. She wanted to be ready to strike as soon afterward as possible. But if I’d known of the troop movements, I might have forced the issue and tried to put her down or capture her.”
Howard stared at him in disbelief. “You don’t see this as proof of duplicity?”
Sainz shook his head. “It’s a fine line to walk, Major, but Romilsky did it admirably. She gave me no word to break, and there were no terms on the order to surrender. She even told me at the end that she was simply giving Captain Searcy the chance to die as a soldier. The clues were there.”
He glanced around, apparently noting the preparations of the Seventy-first.
“I’ve already ordered preparations for a full mobilization,” she said before he could ask. She knew Sainz well enough to predict that he would want to withdraw and decide on a battlefield of his own choosing, not that of Colonel Romilsky. “Eastern-deployed units are regrouping with all haste. We recovered nineteen bodies and another two squads equivalent of infantry. I’m afraid Captain Foley was among the bodies recovered.”
Vincent Foley was commander of the first column. His loss created a serious hole in the table of organization. “I recommend Lieutenant Dillahunty for field promotion to captain of first column.”
“Seconded,” Sainz said at once. “Give him two of our best sergeants, and make sure he knows to rely on them as he breaks into the position.” He smiled grimly. “Officers lead men forward,” he said.
“Sergeants keep men alive,” Rebecca Howard completed their two-part motto. “I’ll deliver the orders at once, and have the Seventy-first into staggered columns and fully mobile within the half hour.”
“Battle alert,” Sainz amended. “After a thirty-minute run, I want one column deployed on foot.” He stared at her in easy silence, obviously waiting for her to disagree.
Howard obliged. “It will slow us down, Colonel.”
“Over distance the Union infantry can outmarch any troops the Neo-Soviets field except for Vanguard. If they want to catch us, they’d have to leave behind the bulk of their forces.”
There it was again, the feeling she had missed something Raymond Sainz had noticed at once. Then again, she’d already placed her confidence in him to pull the Seventy-first through in one piece.
“I’ll order it so, Colonel. But if you still plan to continue the search for Black Mountain, that means we’ll be fighting again. I’d rather give us a bigger head start, and the men more time to rest.”
“Time is a luxury we don’t have, Rebecca.” Raymond Sainz looked southwest, past the newly risen hill and toward what apparently only he could see. “Colonel Romilsky has proven she can walk the knife edge of honor and duty. Now it’s my turn to gamble, but I’m willing to bet she knows how to cut with that edge as well.”
13
* * *
F ighting constantly to retain the higher ground, Sergeant Tousley led the three men left to his squad in a rearguard action while herding a medic team and a Draco squad ahead. No one moved with much confidence over the great hill that had magically replaced what had been open territory in the shadow of Gory Putorana’s steep cliffs before the cataclysm. How could they trust that the Earth wouldn’t suddenly give way beneath their feet again? He saw his people glance nervously at the sky, fearfully wondering whether the nightmare heavens might return, and Tousley caught himself doing it, too.
Fortunately, the squad had some idea of its route. Somewhere farther up the hillside Kelly Fitzpatrick reconned their path over cracked and broken ground, past steam vents and the occasional deep fissure. Footing was treacherous enough, thanks to the occasional Thunder artillery round dropped in the area and the resulting sympathetic tremors shaking the hillside, but fortunately there wasn’t much loose rock to threaten them with falls or set off an avalanche.
“Travel gets easier another sixty meters up,” Fitzpatrick promised over Tousley’s private channel. “I marked the best route.”
“Great news, Kelly, except it’s still the wrong direction. We need to double back to make rendezvous.” Each step took them farther away from the main Union force and any hope of succor.
The mission had sounded simple enough. But then they usually did.
“Go in and find the stragglers,” Sainz had ordered, outlining the area that surrounded the newly made mountainside. It lay west of the main Union position, on the other side of the ruined battlefield where the sergeant’s squad had been posted before the nightmare. Major Howard had gone off to organize another relief force, one that would head into the debris-choked land that separated the two opposing armies, leaving Tousley under Colonel Sainz’s control. “You’re down another two soldiers, with Carr and Johnson under treatment. Do you need reinforcement?”
Did Sainz think Tousley couldn’t accomplish the job on his own? “Throwing new men into my squad would create more problems than it solved at this point. We’ll work better alone.”
He did request Corporal Fitzpatrick as scout, though, and Sainz had recalled her from a recon of the strange redrock dunes.
“In and out in ninety minutes,” Sainz had ordered brusquely, then walked off, calling to his personal guard.
Ninety minutes. Sure, Tousley thought, if it weren’t for the Neo-Soviet splinter force that crossed their path of retreat. They’d run into a nasty combination of Chem Grunts backed up by Vanguard. If the Draco-equipped team hadn’t found them and scattered the Neo-Sovs when they did, Tousley’s squad would have gone down for good. Even so, Corporal Richardson was walking wounded and PFC Scott was coughing bloody phlegm, thanks to a dose from a chemsprayer’s toxic wash. Not to mention a nearby Thunder site the Neo-Soviets had contacted.
Only the occasional bullet rang past now, in between infrequent artillery barrages. As far as Tousley could tell, the pursuing force was down to a single Vanguard infantryman. The Chem Grunts, however, were the larger threat. Hunched over, laboring under large tanks strapped across their backs, the Chem Grunts were bandaged all over from the burns and blisters raised by contact with the chemicals they carried and sprayed with seeming impunity. If they gained higher or even equal ground, where gravity worked in their favor, they could shower the hillside with the vile substances stored in their tanks, and it would be all over.
“I’d be the last to complain about your pathfinding abilities,” Tousley told Kilpatrick, “but our lines are back to the east.”
“Not happening,” she promised with false cheer. “And it gets better. We have a decision to make. Should we try for the cliffs, or make for the far side of the hill?”
Strand themselves with backs against a rock wall, or head downhill and leave the Chem Grunts free to pour lethal toxins over their heads? Not the kind of choice Tousley looked for. He stopped and fired downhill, putting a bullet just a handful of centimeters off the head of a Chem Grunt. It ricocheted instead off his tank of breathing air, but didn’t penetrate and blow the tank. The Chem Grunt turned his sprayer uphill, washing a stream of greenish fluid in Tousley’s direction. The stream fell short but its caustic smell overpowered the metallic scent riding up from nearby steam vents, and Tousley stumbled away, retching.
“You have any good news?” he asked, exasperated, taking cover behind a steam vent and hoping the white curtain would hide his ascent another few meters.
“Sure. A CBR tech with the medics reads high radiation from the steam vents.”
Tousley climbed faster. A good thing as a jet of acrid waste washed over his previous hiding place, draining instead into the steam vent.
The ground shook again, violently this time, dropping him to his hands and knees on the rough ground. He heard a cracking noise, the grinding of pulverized rock. He looked b
ack and saw that the steam vent had split wider, now ten meters long and two wide. He awarded the crevice two grenades from his dwindling supply, hoping to collapse the rock face into an avalanche that would take out a few of the Chem Grunts. The grenades detonated with muffled thumps, and the ground heaved and pitched more. For an instant Tousley thought he had outsmarted himself and brought down the entire eastern face with himself on it. Then the shock settled into a series of light tremors. The crevice had widened only marginally.
It did flush two Chem Grunts into the open, though. The heavily burdened soldiers moved as if they had limitless strength, clambering over rough terrain with their packs and chemsprayers. Tousley noticed Private Nicholas rise up from hiding at the same time he did, sighting downhill. The two of them caught the lead Chem Grunt in a cross fire, throwing out several short bursts each.
Red blossoms stitched their way over bandages and what looked like a tattered and mold-covered uniform. Then one bullet struck a chemical tank, and the Grunt simply ceased to exist as the explosion of a high-pressure tank shredded him and rained foul waste over the lower slopes. The explosion triggered another quake from the unstable hillside. During the tumult PFC Brian Scott broke cover lower down the slope and made a scrabbling dash uphill without calling for cover.
“Dammit, Scott. No!” Tousley shifted his aim to fire a hail of bullets over his man’s head, managing a burst of four before the Pitbull clicked empty. Jim Nicholas had missed Scott’s break and dropped back down from sight. It took Tousley two seconds to eject his spent clip and snatch a new one from his vest, slap it home, and chamber a round.
One second too long, as it turned out. The final Neo-Soviet Vanguard rose up below, dripping greenish fluid and swaying as he sprayed the hillside on full automatic. One bullet clipped Brian Scott’s right hip, throwing him to the ground. Two, then three yellow-green jets of toxic chemicals converged on his location, pinning him beneath a deadly wash.
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