by James Hunt
Money was exchanged, but no handshakes, no glances. Each man took their payout without a word then disappeared into the port. Every crewman that left, Lance felt an anger rising up inside of him, but by the time the last man was paid and gone, the anger had been replaced with grief.
“Giving them the choice was the right thing to do.”
Lance perked up at Canice’s voice and found her standing behind him. He scrolled down to her name on the ledger, which was the last one on the list, checked it off, then extended her payment. “I know.”
Canice pocketed the money and followed Lance down the docks. “You’re heading straight to the capital?”
“General Monaghan is waiting for me.” Lance mounted the horse brought to him, and when he looked over, Canice was on a mount as well. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going with you.”
Canice had said it so matter-of-factly that Lance felt a blush of shame rush in his cheeks. Of course she would. But he offered no other words, and when the two turned the corner of the port’s exit, Lance pulled up on the reins, his jaw dropping in disbelief. Every single crewman was there. All of them.
“We’re with you, Captain,” Canice said.
Lance swung his horse around, turning the animal in circles. This is why Rodion wouldn’t win. Because his people didn’t quit. “Thank you. All of you.”
***
Rodion’s mount pounded the ground with its hooves, even while standing in place. The animal was just as eager for battle as he. After weeks of marching, today they were within sight of the enemy lines. His scouts had just informed him the Northwest soldiers were less than an hour’s march away. “Bring the guns and the rest of the armory forward.”
The officers in Rodion’s army started to assemble their battle formations, and the scent of anticipation grew thick in the air. Every soldier felt their pulse quicken, and a lump caught in their throats at their general’s orders.
Mixtures of fear, anger, and hunger rippled through the ranks, and Rodion double-timed their march forward. He could smell battle in the crisp air. The beat of hooves, the clatter of steel and armor, all ringing together.
“General, your weapon.”
The servant extended the AK-47 to Rodion, who snatched it and loaded a magazine. All of the work, all of the trips, the negotiations and deals he had to make to get to this point had driven Rodion to the brink of madness. But now, with an army at his back and the first new wave of modern weapons at his disposal, he would unleash that madness on the world.
***
The tent was quiet save for General Monaghan going over their battle plans. Lance made sure to listen carefully. He knew the old general was well seasoned, and from everything he’d seen so far, they’d put themselves in the best situation possible.
“Trenches have been etched out on the front lines, providing cover for our men and an obstacle for Rodion’s calvary should he push us back.” Monaghan thumped his swollen knuckles on the map. “All of our supply lines are prepared, and the men are ready.”
Lance nodded. “And what about the clans? You mentioned my brother spoke to them and they agreed to fight with us?”
Monaghan frowned. “None of the clans have shown. We are on our own.”
“You’ve done well, General.” Lance took a walk around the edges of the map while the rest of the officers looked on. All of the due diligence had been completed. All that was left now was the fight itself. “I thank all of you for your work while my brothers have been away. We know little of our enemy, but what we face will be the greatest standing army our men have ever seen. However, there has been no enemy we haven’t beaten. And we will not break that tradition today.”
Lance stepped outside and found Kemena waiting for him. With the scouts informing him about the closeness of Rodion’s army, he had little time to look for her. He kissed her cheek and held her gently. “How have you been holding up?”
“As well as anyone could be considering the circumstances.” Kemena was dressed in her doctor’s garb, the red cross plainly visible across her chest. She fidgeted with her hands nervously, looking to the horizon, toward the battlefield.
“We’ll be fine, Kemena.” Lance took her hand and rubbed it gently. “Where are Kit and Sam?”
The mention of their nephews brought Kemena back to the present. “They’re at the capitol. It took a unit of guards to keep Kit from trying to rush to the front lines.”
The thought brought a mixture of pride and sorrow. The boy had the fighting heart of his father, but Lance knew the burden the boy would feel from that for the rest of his life. “I’ll talk to him when this is done.” He hugged her one last time then made ready for battle.
“On the line!” Orders were shouted down the deep trenches carved at the edge of the field where Lance and the army would face Rodion.
Despite Monaghan’s request that Lance stay behind with the rest of the commanders, Lance rode with his crew, wedging themselves in the center. And while cheers of the Mars name echoed down the lines at the sight of Lance with the heart of the fighting force, most did double takes at Canice, who rode right beside him. It wasn’t often men saw a woman in battle. At least not one who fought with them.
Mud splattered Lance’s boots and legs as he took position, his eyes peeking over the trench and to the tree line where he heard the rumbling of Rodion’s army. The scouts that returned had said Rodion’s numbers weren’t like anything they’d seen before. It was an army with no end. But Lance knew it would end. Everything ended.
The trees rustled, and a noise carried on the wind that Lance didn’t recognize. It had the churn of metal yet the stampede of men and horses.
“Captain?” Canice asked, sporting the same expression as he did. “What is that?”
Lance had nearly crawled all the way out of the trench, his stomach scraping against the side of the wall as he pulled himself up. His fingers gripped into the earth as the noise grew along with the echoing shouts of the Russians. Lance dropped his rifle to the ground when the first armored vehicle pushed through the forest line, layered thick with steel plates and rolling forward slowly, guarding units of men.
“Captain!” Canice reached for Lance’s ankle and yanked hard. With his foot pulled from underneath him, he smacked the ground as gunfire exploded over him. But the shots were quick. Faster than any powdered rifle. Rodion had moderns.
Lance rolled back into the trenches as soldiers kept low to avoid the gunfire rifling over their heads. “Fire the cannons!” Lance barked his orders over hunched men, and it wasn’t until he shoved the first few into place that the boom of their cannons sounded.
Cannonade dotted the field with craters, but none were able to disable Rodion’s vehicles. Soldiers popped their heads out of the trenches like prairie dogs, taking aim and firing then ducking back below to reload.
Lance made his way to the rear, keeping low to avoid the gunfire. He found the general’s tent and burst through, the officers already in a frenzy as to how to respond to Rodion’s weaponry. An advisor to General Monaghan spoke up first, the vein in his pencil-thin neck throbbing with anxiety. “We need to retreat, fortify a position back into the capital, and begin evacuations to the south.”
“No,” Lance said, startling the generals to his presence. “We give Rodion any ground, and he will use that momentum against us. Bring up every modern weapon we have. I don’t care who it belongs to; confiscate it from locals if you have to.” Lance made his way around the generals to their own gun case, pulling out a bomb belt and strapping it around his waist. “And bring up every cannon we have, quickly.”
Most of the modern equipment in any military’s possession was a varied type of modification to its predecessor. The bomb belt was the poor man’s grenade but did its job efficiently. However, Lance knew they’d need more than bomb belts to bring down what Rodion had.
Soldiers wheeled the cannons closer to the front lines as Lance marched with them, positioning the artillery to clu
ster to allow for better accuracy. Gunfire grew louder, and the slow roll of Rodion’s vehicles had made it halfway across the field, with only a handful of the vehicles destroyed.
“Fire!” Lance dropped his arm, and the artillery units blasted cannon fire at the Russians. Lance doubled up the teams for each cannon to speed up the reloading process. He dropped his arm again, just seconds later, and another volley thundered into the enemy.
The sky above was blocked out with a heavy layer of lead raining down on the Russians’ relentless press forward, and it wasn’t long until the Russians had progressed close enough to the front lines that the artillery fire became impotent.
The Russian soldiers sprinted from behind their armored protectors and charged the trenches, the stampede of their numbers rattling the ground. Lance pulled his rifle and fired then dropped the weapon, pulling his sword, his jaw clenched. He re-joined the ranks, most of the men still cowering in the trenches. “To arms! To arms! We fight until we die or drive them back.” He viciously grabbed each of the soldiers he passed, rattling the fear out of their very bones. “This is our home! Only we stand between us and the lives of our families! Do not fear the death that all men will know. Fight!”
The Russians grew closer, the rapid firing of their weapons zipping over their heads. Lance kept close to the edge of the wall, waiting, listening for their chance to get a jump on them, pulling them into close range to where their rifles would be less effective. “CHARGE!”
Lance leapt over the side, nearly running into the front of one of the engine-powered vehicles. He cut right, his sword knocking into the rifle of the enemy before he fired, but the rest of his men weren’t so lucky. The first barrage of machine gun fire tore through their bones, ripping their bodies to pieces. Three dead with one pull of the trigger. Six dead. Nine dead. All in seconds.
Lance ripped the rifle from the dead Russian and fired their own weapons against them, doing his best to level the odds, but there were just too many. He tore the belt bomb off his waist and chucked it against the side of one of the armored cars. The blast melted a hole through the thick armor, and it was knocked to its side, crushing anther handful of Russians on its way down.
Lance picked up another of the Russians’ rifles and continued to fire through the smoke, squeezing round after round into the enemy’s flesh until five sharp cuts sliced through his stomach and right arm. He gasped for breath, a rush of cold overtaking him as he hit the ground. At first he felt nothing, but as time went on, he felt his left heel dragging against the rocks, and it wasn’t until the gunfire had faded that he heard Canice’s voice.
“Hang on, Captain!” She dragged him from the front lines to the first medic she could find. All the while, Lance kept looking up at the sky. It was a painfully beautiful day, hot, but the skies so clear he felt like he could reach up and touch it.
“Hey, look at me.” Canice grabbed Lance’s face, forcing her way into his line of sight. He saw the worry on her face, the concern that was always just below the surface. He reached up and touched her cheek, adding to the blood and dirt already smeared on her skin, which prompted a quick burst of tears from her eyes. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
The cold had spread to most of Lance’s body now; he felt it even with the sun blazing above him. One of the doctors ripped open his shirt, and he felt a light tug on his stomach. He looked down to the sight of his own guts spilling out of him, with tweezers tugging the bullets out of his flesh. His fingers found the pendulum around his neck clumsily, and he yanked it from his neck. “Canice.”
The tears had cut a well-worn path through the blood and dirt that caked her face, and for a moment she looked as though she were bleeding tears. “Don’t speak. Save your strength.”
Lance took her hand and put the pendulum in her palm then closed her fingers around the small idol. “Give that to my brothers. No one else. Stay alive. So they can… You need to…” Lance choked on both the words and what life remained. Those last moments felt like an eternity, his last piece of defiance to keep the reaper waiting.
But what Lance thought of most was the face in front of him. The pair of eyes that had always watched him closely, the hands that helped guard his back in battle, and the mouth he had always longed to kiss but never did. Lance squeezed Canice’s hand, feeling her strength one last time.
Chapter 13
Dean sat while Jason paced back and forth impatiently. Jason’s eyes were glued to the door, and he mumbled under his breath. “It’s been too long.”
“You told me we could trust her,” Dean said. “If Gabriela gave us her word, then she will return.”
“But with what we want?” Jason raised his eyebrow skeptically. “One of us should have gone with her.”
“How was it that you two met again?” Dean had asked the question before but received only vague words and gestures, which Jason repeated once more.
When the door opened, the two brothers jerked in anticipation. Gabriela stepped inside, and Dean swore he heard a sigh of relief spill from Jason’s lips. He pushed past his brother until he was directly in front of the rebel general. “Did you find anything?”
“No. The place was there, just like Ruiz had said, but it was empty.”
Dean deflated. Whatever Ruiz had conjured up with his engineers at the palace was no doubt valuable to the Chinese. If the ambassador had taken them, the war could be over much sooner than expected, having them on the losing side. “I need to speak to him.”
Gabriela gave a nod then led both Dean and Jason to the cell. The two brothers hung back a bit, and Jason leaned into Dean’s ear. “You think she’s lying? That tech could be useful to keeping us off their backs.”
“I’m less worried about the tech and more worried about the engineers,” Dean answered. The knowledge that Brazil possessed was what made them such an appealing trading partner to begin with. Dean had use of the minds here in the south, and he would need them now more than ever. “How many did she say we have?”
“About half,” Jason answered. “The others must have fled with Fung.”
“He’s inside.” Gabriela opened the cell door. “I’ll keep my guards here.” She turned to Jason. “Make sure you don’t do anything stupid.” Then she disappeared.
Ruiz was shackled and chained to the wall. His arms and legs were spread apart, and his head hung limp from his shoulders. He’d been a prisoner for less than a day, yet he looked as though he had aged years. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of my usurpers?”
“We never had any intentions of taking over your lands, Ruiz.” Dean crossed his arms, keeping a few feet between himself and Ruiz. “You have the rebels to thank for that.”
“And I have you to thank for helping them.” Ruiz lifted his head and smirked. “Find what you were looking for?”
“What were you building for the Chinese?” Dean asked. “Have you helped the Russians as well?”
Ruiz laughed, sweat dripping from the tip of his nose. He shifted uncomfortably in the shackles, his face wincing from the movements. Chains didn’t suit the man’s sensitive constitution. “Are you a student of history, Governor Mars?”
“What did you build, Ruiz?” Dean took a step forward. He was losing patience and time. Every second wasted here was one more where the Chinese could already be sailing to the northwest to join in Rodion’s fight.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the subject. It was a common interest that Delun and I bonded over. He’s cleverer than you think, Governor,” Ruiz said.
“Cleverer than you?” Jason asked, mocking Ruiz.
“Yes.” Ruiz snapped the word quickly. “He’s smarter than all of us, but he lacked the resources that I possessed. And his was a mind I couldn’t resist trying to conquer. Sadly, I believe it was the other way around.”
Dean brought his fist to Ruiz’s cheek, knocking loose a tooth, which Ruiz spat on the ground. “What does Delun have, Ruiz? You tell me, and I promise that when we kill you, it won’t be torture.”
“That’s impossible. Even with your engineers,” Dean replied.
“Not with what Rodion found. The good general stumbled upon an untouched factory in the wild of his own country. He’s been constructing modern rifles for the past three years.”
“You’re bluffing,” Jason said. “We would have noticed a surge in your ore trading if it were true.”
“They didn’t get the ore from me. You know, much of the African continent has remained untouched since the Great War. One man has capitalized on that and built quite a following in the northern territories of the continent. And Rodion has become good friends with the man behind the unification.”
Dean grabbed Jason’s arm and pulled him back. He kept his voice low as he spoke. “You think he’s telling the truth?”
“It would explain what Lance saw in Sydney. The weapons there could have just been a small sampling.”
“We won’t know for sure until we hear back from Lance once the fighting with Rodion starts.” Which could have happened already. Dean knew that if Ruiz was telling the truth, that if Rodion and Delun truly had the weapons of the Great War, then they would only have one option available to them.
Dean gripped the two pendulums around his neck, and Jason did the same. The two brothers shared an expression of fear and anxiety, which was cut short by Ruiz’s laughter.
“You brothers have built quite a legacy for yourselves, but I’m afraid it’s coming to an end. Rodion and Delun will wipe you off the map. They have enough bullets to kill every man, woman, and child in your regions. It’s only just a matter of time.”