Into the Maelstrom

by Loren L. Coleman

  The man frowned. “I’m certain the Mentals in Moskva are coherent again. By now they have certainly informed the empire of this monster you face, and what it will take to defeat it.”

  “Then you see reinforcements on their way, da?”

  “Nyet. There will be none sent.”

  “If you know what’s at stake, you know that they must send them.”

  The Mental sighed wearily. He swayed on his feet, looking like he might fall over at any moment. “There are no reinforcements to be had. The empire is engaged heavily against the Union, and everything must be weighted accordingly. Reinforcements will go where they are most needed.”

  Romilsky swore silently. She had so little time left to decide. “Are you saying that I will not require reinforcement to stop the Sleeper?” A simple yes or no question, though the chances of receiving so simple an answer were slim.

  A slight pause, and then the Mental gave her more than she had wanted. “None you do not already have access to.”

  And that was the answer Katya Romilsky had most feared.

  19

  * * *

  T here could be no concentrated line of battle in the rough country below Gory Putorana. Deep canyons and slopes too steep for antigrav craft broke the Seventy-first Assault Group into four separate and uneven forces as soldiers and vehicles fought against the creature and its symbiot army. The creature’s tortured-soul shriek reverberated off cliff faces, echoed in part by Union antigravity generators screaming their labor. Wendigos, especially, fought for sheer volume while the four remaining Aztecs worked for an earsplitting pitch. The constant chattering reports of assault rifles and the occasional hard clap of grenades blended and rolled over the mountainsides as artificial thunder for a cloudless day. It reminded Rebecca Howard too much of the nightmare they had all lived through—was it only yesterday? It seemed as if the Seventy-first had been fighting for days. She certainly felt the strain.

  So many creatures. They swarmed over the rise to the south or soared in the air overhead, worrying her flanks and waiting for that opportune moment to attack. The Seventy-first never had any idea of the alien’s full resources. Many of these must have trailed the parent creature, kept back as a reserve. That spoke of intelligence or a highly evolved sense of tactical instinct. Worse was the idea that this thing was learning with each engagement, though certainly they were showing a great deal more caution than when they had met against Tom Tousley’s squad. The sergeant had thought so as well, calling back earlier from her forward line.

  The Aztecs had been left under her command while the colonel led most of the heavy armor in complicated maneuvers meant to harass and hopefully wound the alien. So far Sainz was reporting back little success. Now the ag cycles picked up a flanking maneuver by the creatures on the right without her orders, Lieutenant Landvoy charging forward confidently at the head of the pack. It was her strongest position, anchored by the antigrav cycles and one squad of Ares assault suits. As opposed to her middle line tormented by spear-shaped fliers with their stinger-tipped pseudopods and the wasp-bodied Spitters. The front line sagged back as the fliers swung down again, stingers raking one man across the face and shoulders.

  “Damn!” she yelled, feeling cheated and helpless at the rear while her soldier up front fell into a violent fit and then lay still. She carried a Pitbull assault rifle and a holstered Pug but had yet to fire either, more intent until now in directing her troops and trying to force some kind of advantage. She hated admitting that this was the kind of battle the Neo-Soviets were better suited for, where mobility was curtailed and personnel could be expended with more impunity.

  “Order a general move back on our position. We need to concentrate forces as much as possible.” It would further limit their mobility, an asset the Union constantly relied upon, but she saw little choice. She cursed herself now for placing the bulk of the Hydras under Captain Dillahunty’s command. They would have given her a stronger fallback position. But then Dillahunty was holding the Seventy-first’s rear against a possible Neo-Soviet threat, scouts having placed at least some elements of the Fifty-sixth Striker behind them now, coming down out of Gory Putorana. “Tell Colonel Sainz he’s about to lose his left guard and that we may need to order a fighting retreat.”

  Not before she claimed her own ounce of blood, though. Rebecca Howard all but threw her Pitbull at a nearby corporal and grabbed the Weatherby Mk-VI Bloodhound he held out for her. “Tell Sergeant Tousley to swing right and help swat those fliers,” she ordered. It left Tom vulnerable to the press coming in, but the major trusted Landvoy’s Aztecs and the Ares to handle that. And Tousley was also the most experienced in leading a rear guard, though that kind of experience no one liked acquiring.

  She wrapped the rifle’s carrying strap two hard turns about her left wrist for steady control, chambered the first round, and brought the rifle up to her shoulder. She paused for a practiced flick of her gaze over the battlefield, then raised the marksman rifle to her shoulder and sighted in where she expected the Spitter to land. The high-powered scope left little room for error, two meters in either direction and it would fall outside her sights. However, she knew better than to close her left eye, a mistake common among those not trained as marksmen, and so tracked in even when the Spitter made another last-second correction to its arc. It fell dead center and she squeezed off a round, then bracketed it with two more off center.

  The first 5.56 round took a fraction of a second to make the four hundred meters, tearing into the Spitter’s wide neck. The take-down power of the Weatherby knocked it sideways and ruined its tensing for a new leap. One of her follow-up shots passed overhead, but the second took it square in the thorax. The wound that opened up spat small pieces of flame at the air, then erupted in a gout of fire and flesh. She swung around, ready to send precision death at any creatures still pressing in on the right.

  Just in time to watch the Aztec’s SPEAR missiles fly outward on thin contrails of gray smoke and slam into the formation. The explosive radial submunitions tore through chitin and flesh, spilling that strange mixture of radioactive material most of these creatures called flesh and blood. Now one of the hovering Feeders moved down from above, coming in behind to avoid direct fire and hopefully scavenge any usable “food.”

  Major Howard had silently cheered the complete destruction of the probe, though already the effects of their solid victory were apparent. More fliers moved in, and on the ground, anywhere that the creatures gathered in tight knots they now spread apart to make such destructive power less effective. She did note it was not an instantaneous change, but that it swept over the alien line like a wave starting with the creatures nearest the Aztecs and spreading over and onto other battlefields no doubt.

  “Message from the colonel,” Lance Corporal Bo Huffer called out. “It’s faint—I think he’s dropping too deep in the canyons. He’s lost three—that is three—Wendigos and is already falling back on this position. He asks you to hold.” The comms specialist swallowed hard. “Says to remind you we got nowhere left to go.”

  And they didn’t, except to implement the escape plan Raymond Sainz was so dead set against. Break the Seventy-first into small squads and each flee at best speeds. The creatures could not hope to stop but a small percentage. The danger came from Colonel Romilsky and her Fifty-sixth Striker. If she was ready, she could conceivably wipe out the Seventy-first. But it gave some of their people a fighting chance to survive. A tough call to make. But as the exec her responsibility was to lives, a natural check against the commander’s oath to engage the enemy. She would have to argue her case again.

  “Say again?” Barnes asked into her headset, one hand cupping the earpiece as if it could help improve transmission. “Who is this? How did you get this freq?” His face screwed up in half shock, half anger. “Major Howard, I have someone coming in on one of our secure frequencies, but unscrambled, and trying to reach the colonel. It’s faint, and he’s in a communications shadow right now. It’s go
t to be some kind of joke.”

  “Who is it, Corporal?”

  “She is identifying herself as Colonel Katya Olia Romilsky,” he said, slurring the Russian names slightly.

  Howard nearly leapt for the comms specialist, grabbing his spare link. There was not time to hunt for it in her own headset. She wasn’t sure exactly what she expected. A new threat, most likely. “This is Major Howard, executive officer, Seventy-first Assault Group. How do we know you are who you say?” she asked by way of opening.

  “I can bring a Class F mutant and Vanguard escort again, but that would take more time than you have. And one mutant cannot help you here.”

  “And you can?” The major harbored no doubts that this was Romilsky, though she lacked any idea of what the Neo-Soviet colonel might be up to.

  “That is my intention, da. I have a transport and will rescue you. But I will not risk the vessel without a guarantee that no weapons will be fired on the Leonid. Not without the word of Raymond Sainz.”

  So Romilsky did have a transport. Rebecca Howard stared at her comms specialist, then reached out and took the man’s headset. These kinds of conversations were sometimes best kept in the upper echelon. She walked several paces away, keeping a wary eye on her force’s fallback maneuver. “You are asking us to surrender again. He won’t agree.” But would she? Her primary responsibility was to the lives of the Seventy-first after all. Tom Tousley and many others would rather die fighting, she knew. Truth be told so would she. But what she wanted did not always mesh with what was required of her.

  “Nyet, not surrender. A truce. What you would call a deal.” Slight pause. “I rescue you, and you agree to help me destroy this Sleeper.”

  The Sleeper being the monstrous creature which had twice forced the Union into a near rout. “How do we know your word is good?”

  “My word is good as that of Raymond Sainz. Also, you have little choice as I see it. If you do not want to accept my assurances, I will leave you to be finished off by the Sleeper. Maybe you will wound the Sleeper enough that I can kill it, but I don’t think it is so.”

  Howard could see where the monstrous alien posed a threat large enough to force Romilsky into such a position, that she might deal with Union forces. That meant, though, that they had no way of requesting reinforcements from Neo-Soviet High Command, or that reinforcements were not available. Howard found herself wanting to believe the offer, though she knew that under any other circumstances she would turn it down flat. Trusting the Neo-Soviets was just not an idea she would ever be comfortable with. But the commander, he would take the deal. The major knew it. And her commander’s opinion carried a lot of weight with Rebecca Howard. “All right,” she said, voice catching on every word, “I’ll agree.”

  “I desire the personal word of Colonel Raymond Jaquin Sainz.”

  “There’s no way to put you two in direct communication yet, and minutes might count. I’ll give it for him.”

  Romilsky sounded more than a little surprised. “You can do that? He is trusting you very much.”

  “No.” Major Howard shook her head. “I am trusting him.”

  * * *

  Raymond Sainz did not truly believe the deal his exec had struck until the Leonid Sergetov actually landed and Union forces began to move up its two loading ramps. The transport was an interplanetary vessel, and looked as if it had been through some major scrapes of late, but would serve well enough. Vanguard infantry spilled down from the immense vehicle bays, taking up flanking positions to keep the alien creatures off the loading Seventy-first. The colonel sent Howard back at once to gather in Tom Tousley, anticipating that the sergeant might not react too favorably to the Vanguard presence and wanting to avoid any difficulties. Tousley was the most reactionary of all the juniors. He wanted the man under control.

  The large bays were marked off for crawlers, though the Union antigravity vehicles fit in well enough. Infantry quickly posted themselves at every possible ingress point, forming a living wall to protect their unit. Trojan supply carriers were placed in the middle, surrounded by Hydra transports. The assault group’s four remaining Wendigos boxed the corners, each turned to cover a possible danger spot. The miscellaneous vehicles spread out in between. The transport had barely risen from the ground, coming up in vertical takeoff on huge thrusters, when the Neo-Soviet commander made her appearance.

  Romilsky was first through the door, unconcerned with Union efforts to secure the bays. She left her Vanguard escort by the door and proceeded through the bay. The Union infantry stepped aside for her, a little too eager to place themselves in between the enemy colonel and her escort. The Vanguard shifted uncomfortably, but held their positions.

  “Strasvicha, Katya Olia Romilsky,” Sainz said as she approached. Both he and the major gave very formal nods of greeting. Romilsky returned the salute. Major Howard stumbled her way over the awkward Russian pronunciation, then Sainz continued in the same language. “Your timing was exemplary. One might almost say prescient.” Why that would cause a temporary tightening around Romilsky’s eyes, Sainz didn’t see. Until then he had been willing to believe the timing simple chance since he did not believe the Neo-Soviets had cracked their communication system. He filed the new doubt away for future review.

  “You have questions, da?”

  “Nyet,” Sainz said, surprising her. At least, he hoped he had surprised her. Romilsky was too sharp to allow her to control the conversation. “The arrangements were explained to me. For the rescue, we help you destroy this creature—this Sleeper as you call it. But I’ll make it clear up front that the Seventy-first will not be used as part of your human wave attacks.”

  Where his disagreement earlier had not fazed her, now she reacted as if insulted. Her voice held a sharp edge to it. “If you thought I would suggest that, you would never have come aboard the Leonid and bound yourself to the agreement.”

  As may be. But Sainz had not forgotten Romilsky’s applied dedication to destroying the Seventy-first Assault Group, and how tightly she watched what she said. The comment was not meant as an insult, but the opening move in how they would coordinate an assault against the Sleeper. The Leonid rocked off center, and the Union colonel frowned. “Your pilot needs practice.”

  “The ship was recently salvaged from a crash site. Appreciate that we had it at all to rescue you.” She glanced around the bay at the heavy force the Union assault group still commanded. “The Sleeper is threatening empire soil,” she said. “Our homeland. I will devise the plans. You may review them, and propose changes. No battle is set until we both agree. Is that acceptable?”

  “Very,” Sainz said at once. Too easy. “You speak as if this was arranged, Katya Olia.” He shortened her first name, implying that he would talk more openly if she would. “Has Moscow authorized your deal with my forces?”

  She shook her head. “I anticipate a great deal of . . . you would say controversy . . . regarding this action.” The ship pitched again, and she frowned forward in the general direction of the cockpit. “But let me only say that Moskva will not find this unexpected and leave it at that.”

  “What about our forces?” He nodded at the hostile attitude between her Vanguard at the door and his infantry blocking them from the two officers. He also saw Sergeant Tousley, Bulldog held easily in his hands, waiting off to one side and not bothering to hide his mixed expression of anger and revulsion. “Will they accept it so easily?”

  Romilsky shrugged. “That depends on you and me, Colonel Sainz. Doesn’t it?” She offered him her hand.

  Slowly, the Seventy-first’s commander took it. “I guess it does, Colonel Romilsky.” He couldn’t shake the feeling that he was bargaining with the devil herself. It was a creeping sensation that worked its way from the base of his neck up over his scalp. But proof enough of her sincerity existed to balance out those remaining doubts. He would watch her, as no doubt she would him, for that first misstep.

  “Here’s hoping,” he said in English, “that we each l
ive up to the other’s expectations.”

  20

  * * *

  T he crystalline formations hung against the black backdrop of space. Three of them, moving in a rough triangular pattern at a constant speed that the Icarus slowed to match. The smallest was of a size similar to the crystal forest Brygan Nystolov had inadvertently smashed on Luna; a hundred meters wide by two hundred long, but fifty meters thick, which suggested that the forest had been buried deep in the lunar soil. The second was double the size of the first. The third was two times bigger than the second, an impressive kilometer in length and a half klick wide. Laser sampling from a distance confirmed a similar emerald coloring that the Icarus staff could not pick out by naked eye. With the Icarus coming in on the back side of the formations, only their outlines were visible as light creased the edges. Light from that hideous scar in the heavens—what Randall Williams had named the Maelstrom’s Eye, and now everyone was calling the Maw.

  Williams was one of the three people still paying attention to the imaging array that continued to feed the scientists information on the Maw. He and Brygan Nystolov, and Paul Drake, who had just come down to the main science station to discuss procedures. On the console screen, the blazing wound altered its shape. One thick arm appeared to shorten—actually it moved so that it pointed more toward the Icarus and beyond it, toward Earth—while two others stretched out even farther into the void of the Maelstrom’s Inner Ring.

  The Maw’s heightened activity was what had led them to the crystalline formations, which had drawn their attentions toward the system’s source of light. Light, but not heat. Or at least, not heat that behaved as anyone understood it. That had been Brygan’s discovery, one among many the scientists made on approach to the gas giant they had—briefly—surveyed earlier. Even though he was reeling from the unexpected travel time between Earth and the next planet, Williams was the first one to catch the physical changes to the Maw.