Into the Maelstrom

by Loren L. Coleman

  No one interrupted him. Brygan watched the simulation start over and run again, only part of him ready to continue on while the rest hung mesmerized by the unveiling of that alien sky. This time he caught something new.

  “There,” he said, stabbing a thick finger at the console screen. He glanced over at Major Williams, who stood next to a man of higher rank and more decorations on his pristine uniform. Brygan glanced back to the console, preferring to avoid the colonel’s scrutiny. “I caught a halo of cold blue along rim of the eastern hemisphere. What was that?”

  “Nebula,” Randall Williams said.

  The scout traced the ridge where the dark blue had shown before vanquished by Luna’s lightening atmosphere. “Nebula?” Nebulae were immense areas of glowing gas, any one larger than a regular solar system. Stars were born in a nebula. “How close?” he asked.

  “Three hundred million kilometers,” Williams answered. “About the greatest distance possible between Earth and Mars.”

  “Not anymore,” Brygan said quietly, for the first time feeling a sharp stab at the loss of Mars and his relationship with the red planet.

  Williams covered the awkward silence with a cough, then quickly brought the conversation back on track. “We’ve dubbed it the Styx Nebula, and it is apparently a lot smaller and more condensed than any known nebula. You can pick it out on our horizon, but it won’t be adequately visible to Tycho until we swing around the Earth and find it in the night sky. Stations Freedom and Independence have made extensive observations of it already.”

  “Not Liberty?” Brygan asked, with a frown, uncertain whether he had been meant to catch the omission.

  “Station Liberty did not survive the Induction.” A new voice, rather high-pitched. The colonel’s. “The disruption knocked it into a rapidly decaying orbit, much like Sputnik-23.”

  “Twenty-three is gone? Proklenath,” Brygan swore. He turned, reacted to the colonel’s presence for the first time. “Apologies, Colonel . . . ?”

  From over Brygan’s shoulder, Captain Drake made the introduction. “Brygan Nystolov, this is Colonel Travis Allister of Tycho Base and currently second-in-command of Luna.”

  Brygan ignored the full import of the man who stood in front of him. “Apologies, Colonel Allister. Sputnik-23 was one of our best achievements in space observation.”

  The colonel smiled thinly. A big man, larger than Drake and Brygan both, the tenor of his voice seemed at odds with his bulk. “Not a total loss. We recovered its logs.”

  Military man or Neo-Soviet scientist or scout, Brygan Nystolov reacted as any citizen of the empire would, with thinly veiled anger. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for their return?”

  Allister smiled, obviously enjoying his control over the Neo-Soviet. “Well, that depends. Major Williams here has filled me in on your agreement to share information that results from the Kolyma’s data. If you were to help us explore some leads developed from Sputnik’s log recorders, I could see allowing a similar agreement. You would be free to deliver this information back to the empire, as soon as hostilities cease.”

  Warning bells rang in Brygan’s mind. The colonel was a bit too free with such intelligence, though by right it did belong to the Neo-Soviet empire. There was more being proposed here than a simple sharing of information. “What is it you mean, to explore leads?”

  Colonel Allister turned more officious. “By order of General Hayes, we are going to try and search out a way back to our own universe. We need to send out exploration teams to detect any final traces of the event that brought us here, and a path by which to return. Your late arrival in the Kolyma lends hope to the idea that such a path exists. The missions will also be responsible for exploring any nearby phenomena, to ascertain their threat or benefits.” He nodded toward Williams. “Major Williams will head the science team aboard the Icarus.”

  “And I would be allowed to accompany? To observe?”

  “To work,” the colonel said. “The major has asked for your participation, and has suitably impressed on me the need to be a bit more open-minded considering our mutual . . . position.”

  Brygan faced Randall Williams, amazed. “You would trust me as crew?”

  “No,” Williams said evenly. “As staff. Captain Drake will actually command the vessel, for that you would have to deal with him. But it’s only fair to warn you that he was against your inclusion on this mission. At any time he or I can put an end to your involvement, though that runs both ways. You may simply confine yourself to your quarters at any time and end your participation.”

  Bluntly spoken. Still, Brygan warmed over the offer—that implied trust given to him by Williams. And it was the kind of challenge that had endeared the Bear to Mars. Holding up under Drake’s suspicions could hardly be worse than the oppressive presence of men like Vladimir Leonov. He looked forward to the exploration with more enthusiasm than he would have thought.

  “When do we depart?” he asked simply.

  That seemed to settle matters for the three officers. For Brygan, it was merely the beginning. He would have to be careful to maintain his credibility, always on guard against a slip. But the opportunity, both for the empire and himself! The slightest twinge deep down worried him that it had all been too easy. Too perfect. But then it was known that the Union could be overly trusting when it came to the single individual.

  Brygan could even cite a few cases from history where similar deals had been struck. The scout smiled. It felt good to know that he was valued, even if under slightly false pretenses. That he could be valued for himself and his own contribution, not looked down upon for an inability to conform. Something he had never realized could be so important. And more than any note in a history book, this was the ultimate answer behind his enthusiasm.

  He wanted to believe.

  16

  * * *

  C olonel Raymond Sainz had ordered the rear guard loaded into the last Hydra antigrav transport, and then the Seventy-first Assault Group was fully mobilized and with a half hour’s lead against the alien creature. Lieutenant Landvoy’s Aztecs served as flanking guard as the Seventy-first worked its way out of the deeper folds of Gory Putorana, the cycles’ generators whining a protest as they raced over hills and swept around steep cliff faces. Always angling southwest. Twice, the columns were forced to double back when canyon walls ran too steep for antigravity drives.

  Then the assault group hit the Kotuy River, and by following it upstream managed to avoid such blind turns. Where the Kotuy swung northwest the Seventy-first quit its banks. Raymond Sainz hated abandoning the guiding waters, but by maps he knew that to follow it any farther would mean climbing up toward the remote Irynutsk Nuclear Power Facility and then on to the river’s headwaters. Also more of the creature’s symbiots flew overhead to the north, their dark bodies easily spotted against a cloudless pale blue sky, as if reconnoitering the landscape for the monster.

  No other word for it, either, that thing that had clawed its way out from a den in the earth. A monster. At first Sainz had considered the idea that it was some new creation of the Neo-Soviet empire. A colossus mutant—could that be the Chernaya Gora aim? Then he recalled how the hill had materialized after the sky changed. This abomination was no Neo-Soviet creation. It was a new scourge, alien, released in the Russian heartland and welcome to it. The colonel’s responsibility now was to his command, keeping them alive. Chernaya Gora, if it existed at all, would have to wait until the Seventy-first could rest and regain the initiative. And if he had to ride an ADD straight down that creature’s throat, Sainz vowed to buy them that time.

  So instead of turning with the river, the assault group cut across country straight west. It ran them toward easier terrain, where the antigravity vehicles would be able to easily outdistance the monstrous creature or any Neo-Soviet patrol that happened to run a crawler across their path. Buttoned up in the Hades command transport, along with Major Howard and their immediate aides, Colonel Sainz followed the course plot being
figured by a transportation specialist corporal. By his calculations, the Fifty-sixth Striker had to be several kilometers to their rear. Now they had only to clear the broken-ridge territory of the southeast Gory Putorana. Fifteen minutes to clear into open terrain and then a few hours until nightfall cloaked them. That was all Sainz asked for.

  Then the Neo-Soviet Fifty-sixth Striker attacked.

  Little warning preceded the assault. There was no hearing the whistling descent of Thunders through the Hades’ armor or over the stressed field generators of two nearby Wendigo tanks. The driver up front yelled a quick, “Incoming!” and then the Hades rocked over as if shoved rudely from the left. In the back, the colonel managed to get a death grip on his command chair. Rebecca Howard was thrown against the opposite wall and then fell to the floor.

  “You called it,” she said weakly, trying to rise even while the driver threw the command vehicle into a series of tight turns.

  Sainz shook his head. “Can’t be. Crawlers can’t move this fast.”

  When Sergeant Tyree had reported a large force of Rad Troopers and Chem Grunts moving against them, but few Vanguard, the colonel had guessed it a feint to drive them west and that his Neo-Soviet counterpart had moved the bulk of her force into position for an ambush. Against Rad Troops alone he might have turned and smashed them first, foiling the trap, but Chem Grunts brought with them a horrible death, and Sainz had not wanted to see any of his people ending that way. He had backed Major Howard’s order for a forced movement west, but with half the assault group deployed and ready to meet the ambush.

  Only it hadn’t come, and instead the Seventy-first passed right under the shadow of the monstrous creature Sergeant Tousley had discovered. Rearguard casualties had run high. It cost two squads just to rescue the two and a half Tousley brought in with him—three bodies irrecoverable when the creature lunged forward to bury the fallen beneath its massive bulk. A pair of Wendigo heavy armor completely shorted out when they slipped in too close to the creature, some kind of electromagnetic field, and then were picked up by the strange tentacles that separated from the monster’s back, crushed, and tossed aside. Several of the symbiotic creatures had fallen on the ruined vehicles, driven back by the infantry just long enough to recover bodies. Sainz had been about to commit power armor and a squad of Ares heavy-assault suits when Neo-Soviet forces had hit the alien creature from behind and diverted its attention long enough to escape.

  This wasn’t Union soil, and the colonel had seen no reason his men should die for it.

  “Message coming in from the Aztecs,” a private on the communications board called out. “Lieutenant Landvoy reports under attack by Vanguard. Two Crawlers.” She paused, listening intensely. “Elements of the Fifty-sixth Striker, confirmed.” Then she tore away the headset, a look of pain flashing across her face. She stabbed several switches on the board, then tried the headphones again. “Jammed. I’ll try to cut through.”

  Gunnery Sergeant Daily monitored a different channel. “Everyone is running sawtooth patterns, but we need to commit to a direction fast.”

  Sainz slammed an open palm down against his armrest. “She can’t be here,” he said hotly, rising from his chair and locking his large hands around the overhead runners. The Hades swerved hard right, its antigravity generators shrieking protest as the colonel’s arm muscles strained against the effort of hanging on. He studied the numerous monitors, which offered real-time video in eight different directions.

  The major clawed her way back into a chair, began typing rapid input onto a touch-sensitive tabletop screen. A topographical map flashed over the horizontal monitor. She placed Vanguard on their far southern flank. The two-dimensional screen was no substitute for being outside, able to observe and better read the lay of the terrain, but it was better than commanding blind. She traced a quick line from their previous battlefield to this one, seeing Sainz’s point. “At their best speed, Crawlers should’ve fallen into our rear quarter five klicks back.” She looked to Sainz. “Transports?”

  “Neo-Soviet command is not in the habit of giving their field officers long-term control over a transport. They prefer that their senior officers be reliant on the upper echelon for retrieval.” Sainz worked his way forward toward the Hades’ cockpit. “We can’t extend radio comms better than ten kilometers. I refuse to believe they’ve contacted Noril’sk.”

  At the door that separated the command functions of the Hades from the small two-man cockpit up front, Sainz leaned through to study the terrain with a critical eye. On one of the dashboard monitors, the view aft, he saw the ruined and smoking remains of a Hydra and two Trojans. Even as he guessed their positions, the tech riding shotgun confirmed, “We lost Hotel Seven and Tangos Four and Nine.”

  Sainz gritted his teeth. Tango-Trojan-Nine was powered armor support. “Major, circle two Trojans back to make pickup on any survivors,” he yelled into the back. “Detail a Wendigo for protection. Any idea where those Thunders fell from?”

  “Dead ahead,” Gunnery Sergeant Daily answered from his weapons station.

  Sainz assumed the man meant dead ahead on their original track. That placed them beyond a small rise that could be hiding anything. One they were fast approaching. “So close,” he whispered. The Seventy-first had been within minutes of their goal.

  “Hard targets,” Daily yelled, and Sainz ducked back into the Hades. The sergeant manned the targeting system for the command transport’s light rail cannon. “Typhoon missile crawlers, backed by Vanguard and Grunts, all across our left flank.”

  Sitting in between the Aztec patrol and the relative safety of the Union assault group, Sainz noted. And no way of warning Lieutenant Landvoy.

  The sergeant squeezed off a shot, then shook his head when another hard turn fouled his aim. The explosive ingot passed its target wide, raising a cloud of fire and smoke against an impotent knoll. Daily cursed in time with the muted thunderclap of the explosion. “Give me a steady run, damn you!” On the screen a cloud of smoke rose over the four missile crawlers as they launched a coordinated barrage.

  “Hard left,” Sainz ordered. “Howard, turn the columns into that barrage.”

  This was not the kind of fight any commander wanted to be forced into. A battlefield not of your choosing, where the enemy revealed itself only when convenient and usually to devastating effect. If the Union relied on wheeled or tracked vehicles as the empire did, the battle would be all over. Fortunately the ag transports and armor could skip over the terrain’s rough spots without severe trouble.

  Sainz’s mouth ran to a metallic dryness as he watched the monitors to see the first missiles begin falling around the forward edge of the Seventy-first. Two clipped another Trojan, this one carrying the Ares assault suits, but did little more than shred some armor off the back and side. The main barrage passed overhead, unable to compensate their arc for the Union’s maneuver. However, it also left the Seventy-first charging the enemy line, and who knew how many reinforcements.

  “Reverse the second column. Tell Dillahunty to run sawtooth patterns north.” Raymond Sainz gripped Sergeant Daily’s shoulder. “Get me one of those Typhoons,” he ordered.

  The second barrage was late in coming. As the Union line split, half the vehicles reversing course and zigzagging away from the Neo-Soviet position and the other half barreling down, someone took a few seconds too long to choose targets. The over-canopy missile launcher on the third Typhoon from the left suddenly erupted in an incredible blossom of fire and thunder as Daily put an explosive rail round right into the full launch tubes. The force picked up the Neo-Soviet Typhoon and sent it spinning into the air to the right, slamming into a second Typhoon and caving in its side. The surviving Union Wendigos slammed several more shots into the immediate area, but none with Daily’s accuracy or success.

  Colonel Sainz gauged the remaining distance by eye, then backed up his estimate with a quick glance to the computerized range finder. “Split off first column’s Hydras and Trojans, Major. Same o
rders as Dillahunty.” That would leave only combat vehicles sweeping forward. And the Hades, of course. “Corporal, get through to Landvoy and let him know he’s riding into hell out there. Gunny, you get one more shot. Make it count.”

  Daily selected a Shredder shrapnel round, one of the rail-gun ingots that would detonate in a storm of tiny drill bits spinning outward so fast that no body armor could hope to deflect them. He centered crosshairs on a group of Chem Grunts. “Give me three seconds on a steady line,” he called out to the driver, “now!”

  The turreted rail gun up top spat its load dead on into the Grunt formation. Daily had chosen his target with the eye of a man who understood ground forces. As the Grunts’ chemsprayer tanks exploded, pierced by the flying metal screws, the harsh chemicals sprayed out over other Grunts and even washed over a squad of the Vanguard. A few infantrymen dropped at once, while others stumbled a few meters before succumbing. Three other squads broke formation and scattered rather than face their own chemical weapons. Enough to throw the southern line into a few seconds of confusion. Sainz reached over to slap Daily on the back for a job well-done.

  Then Landvoy led his remaining Aztecs right into the budding disaster.

  Down another antigrav cycle to a total of five, the Aztecs tried to shoot the gap opened in the Neo-Soviet line without realizing what had caused the disruption. Jets of dark green and others of brackish yellow still washed over the area from the Chem Grunts’ ruptured tanks and hoses. The Aztecs wove through the nightmare, and almost made it until one final tank blew outward and enveloped two of the rare machines in a greenish cloud. They flew through and on, even as Sainz gave the order to reverse all of first column and get them the hell out of there.