Gods of War (Jethro goes to war Book 5)

by Chris Hechtl

  “Help,” he said weakly. But there was no help coming.

  <)>^<)>/

  Corporal Lishman swore softly as he saw the kid go down and turn the snow around him a lurid red and black. He was down to five people including himself now he thought. Barely enough to cover each side of the building at all times. They were cold, weak, starving, and desperate, but the kid had gotten the job done. He'd run the wire to the antenna outside. Pushing him to get some wood had been his undoing though.

  He grimaced. They needed food and clean water as badly as they did fire for warmth.

  Sometimes he wished they'd just get it over with. Just charge in, take their licks, rip the doors down and then tear them apart. But they wouldn't. They were either playing it smart or fearful of the winnowing his people could affect on them if they tried. Perhaps some small measure of good had come from that truck battle he thought with a brief tight smile. He shook his head to clear it as he looked over to Adkins working the radio.

  “Wanna bet someone will want to try to cut the wire?” Adkins demanded as he tried to finesse the cobbled-together equipment. The previous owners had been courteous enough to have a HAM radio, but it had been covered in dust. The transmitter wires had been corroded, and a mouse had made the radio case it's home until it had been evicted and cooked.

  Splicing what was left of their gear in with the HAM radio had been a hobby of Adkins until it had turned into something of a desperate Hail Mary plan.

  “So you'd better make it count. Pity the windmill generator is too far away. I'd love to use that,” Vincent replied.

  That got Adkins to pause from his work to look up. “Shit yeah, I could make an induction coil to help heat this place …,” he waved. Then his face fell. “But it might as well be kilometers away as good as it does us,” he said with a sour grimace.

  “I know,” Vincent said. He poked Private Fornell awake. Fornell grimaced, then turned the hand crank generator Adkins had rigged up. It was hard, really hard in the cold, but it generated enough of a charge for Adkins to get a weak HAM signal.

  “Now we see if we can get someone to respond,” Adkins said as he tried the jury-rigged radio set.

  <)>^<)>/

  “We should rush the bastards. Or get them so focused on one side, we sneak someone else in on the opposite side and smash in the door or a window. Or hell, dig out the basement door and go in that way,” Bordou said, eying the farmhouse.

  “All nice ideas. Why don't you try tunneling there? The damn snow's deep enough,” Milo growled.

  Harambe looked at the Neopug, then snorted. “It's not a bad idea,” he said quietly. “You'd fit, right?”

  Milo did a double take at the Neogorilla. “Boss, I was kidding,” he said nervously. “I try to fire a regular gun and it'd break me. Or at the least, I'd go sliding across the floor on my ass.”

  “The .22 might be your size; pity we don't have a hand gun that size though,” Bordou said.

  “Right, like it'd be worth sending him in to do what? There are five, six of them left now, right?”

  “They can't cover every door,” Bordou insisted. “We get enough of them on one side; the other sides will be spotty at best.”

  “Yeah, but that snow makes you sink. It's got a thin crust on it in some places, but powder in others. It's not worth it,” Harambe said with a shake of his massive head. “No, we still to the program. We wait them out.”

  “Right,” Miles said with a nod.

  <)>^<)>/

  The following morning after Roy had given his life to get the wire hooked up; an exhausted Adkins managed to get someone to respond on the HAM radio. They hung up on him when he let slip who he was looking for so he tried a different channel. “At least we know it works,” he muttered as he tried again.

  As he scanned through the channels, he managed to get in contact with someone representing Captain Eronez. The signal was really weak, and the other guy was super suspicious of him for a while. Finally, he put someone else on.

  “You'd better not be wasting my time, gringo,” Pablo growled as he took the radio.

  Adkins heard the voice and then turned and poked Corporal Lishman awake.

  Vincent yawned, then took the microphone. “This is Corporal Lishman. We are trapped in a farmhouse and under siege. I need to talk to Captain Goddard or someone in my chain of command.”

  “I'll pass on your message,” Pablo said. “Where are you?”

  Vincent snapped his fingers urgently, then went and grabbed a map he'd saved from the fire. “We're at …,” he rattled off the coordinates. “This is map Three Q.”

  “Okay. Um, authenticate Victor Foxtrot.”

  “It's a little late for that, and besides, we've been out of radio contact for weeks. We don't have the current code books even if they exist! Look, just tell Captain Goddard or whoever is in charge it's Lishman; he went to the fallback position she told him to and got his ass chewed by the mother frackin locals. We're in deep shit and need a handout.”

  There was no reply. He tried to get a response, but no one called back.

  <)>^<)>/

  Pablo looked at the name he'd scratched out with the pencil, then grimaced. He didn't know everyone in the military, but he vaguely remembered a Lishman. Something about a corporal managing one of the towns … Farnsworth? Fallbrook? Gill Springs? He wasn't sure. It had just enough names in it to make him want to believe. So, he bit the bullet and called the radio network and passed it on to someone else who may or may not care.

  “We need to find Jean Claude and put him out of our misery,” he growled.

  “We've triangulated his transmissions. He's not on the Debois farm,” Patrick Scalari stated.

  “Burn his old farm down as a message. Tell our people I'll put a bounty on his head. The general wants him dead. If you know where, by all means radio our people and tell them to kill the bastard! I'll pay double if they get it done fast!”

  “Yes sir,” Rio said with a nod.

  <)>^<)>/

  “Are you serious, sir? Lishman is alive?” Captain Goddard demanded.

  “That's what Captain Eronez reports. Lishman is on a ham radio held up in a farmhouse under siege.”

  “Why the hell … wait; you said he's under siege. So he's trapped? Is that why he didn't meet up?”

  “Exactly my thinking.”

  “I tried to radio him, but he didn't respond. One of my RTO's claims that fallback point is a valley bowl with some high metals in it that might have been blocking the signal. I thought he was dead or gone bush. Huh,” the captain murmured.

  “Yes, all well and good, the question is, what do we do about it now?”

  “We …” Captain Goddard grimaced as she recognized her boss's tone of voice over the radio. “I was going to say mount a rescue op. I don't think we can get in there, not by vehicle, sir. And we'd be outnumbered. We need heavy support.”

  “I'll look into that,” the general drawled.

  “Yes, sir.”

  <)>^<)>/

  Private Adkins was about done in when a scratchy voice came over the speakers. He cranked the radio generator for more power and then pressed the speaker to his ear to hear the reception. He heard something about message received and to hunker down and hang tight. He grimaced.

  “No help there,” he muttered sourly. “So much for this,” he said in disgust as he set the radio speaker down hard.

  <)>^<)>/

  General Drier discussed Lishman's situation with Captain Goddard and then Captain Zhukov. Godard had practically pleaded with him to get Lishman and his people out.

  “Delta Baker, I want you to get in there and relieve him. Kill as many of the enemy in the area as you can while you are at it,” the general said.

  “Well, sir, it's like this. We're your A team. Do we go in to save a pawn and expend resources, resources we have in finite supply, resources we'll need later … or do we save them for when the real big enemy comes in?” Captain Zhukov asked.

  “Y
ou are putting me in a hell of a position, Dimitri,” the general said as he digested that concept.

  “I know, sir. My recommendation is to get an air transport in and airlift them out.”

  “Airlift …” The general paused to consider that option. He checked his status board, then the map. He had one aircraft that might get there with clear skies.

  “Ground is out in that terrain and in this snow. Air would let you get in and out fast, sir. In fact, it is the only way in and out right now. Even my people have limits, sir.”

  “I'll look into it,” the general growled. He kicked himself for allowing the captain to see what he had not. Obviously he was too tired to think straight he thought, rubbing his temple and then scrubbing his face with his hand.

  “Thank you, sir. It will go a bit with troop morale to know we're willing to go in after them. And it'll show the natives that we're still a force to be reckoned with,” Dimitri replied.

  “I'll consider it,” the general growled. “Charlie Alpha out.”

  “Delta Baker One out,” the captain replied with a dismissive shrug in his voice.

  <)>^<)>/

  Dimitri hung up the radio and shook his head. It was bitter cold outside but the caves kept a consistent temperature of 9.5 degrees C. It was even warmer in the electronics shack. He preferred the cold; it kept him awake, though there wasn't a lot he could do.

  His little side base had changed since the bombing. His people had been fat; now that the Federation had shown them the errors of being complacent, they were getting lean and mean. Rationing was strict so those with excess fat had lost a lot of it. PT was also required, though he'd eased up on a few of the more aerobic activities to cut down the need for more calories. Water was the one thing not restricted; the engineers had rigged up sinks, tubs, and even hot water tanks. There was even a crude hot tub.

  He checked the status board and nodded once. They had plenty of power due to the fusion reactor, so it was powering the computers and the VR SIMS he'd set up for training and to keep his people focused and busy.

  It was that or stare out into the icy snow and go mad he thought.

  He somewhat regretted rejecting the general's demand. Sending a team to the farm compound would have given some of his people something to do and get some actual field training in. But it would have exposed them to the enemy. He was more concerned about losing an operator than some realized …. and even more concerned about someone recognizing the armor from a distance and then spreading the word that they weren't dead.

  No, their time in the light would come … but only when he chose the proper time to shine.

  <)>^<)>/

  “You hear that? Something's coming!” Mike Fornell said as he looked up blearily. He could hear something. Then he turned to the radio.

  Adkins heard something scratchy and then grinned. “Aircraft coming in! We're out of here!”

  “Pack your shit and get to the door!” Vincent said with a grin of his own. They were almost ready to drop, but the adrenalin would get them to the aircraft he was sure. “Just weapons and stuff you can carry. Leave the rest,” he growled.

  <)>^<)>/

  The early morning sound of whomp whomp whomp in the crisp cold air said that there were aircraft engines nearby. It also told Harambe something was up. He ordered his people to cover the fields and farm, but two of them were off their posts looking for food. He swore when he got that news.

  He swore even more when the aircraft landed near the barn between him and the house with its ramp to the house. Before he could do anything, five figures with weapons and rags wrapped around them came out, then staggered through the snow to the bird. By the time he was in position to fire, they were on board.

  “Son of a bitch!” he snarled as he watched impotently as the aircraft rose into the morning air. Bordou raised his rifle to fire, but the Neogorilla just pushed it back down. “Don't bother, you'll just waste a bullet,” he growled, glaring at the retreating aircraft. He shook his fist at the departing aircraft, but there wasn't much more he could do.

  <)>^<)>/

  General Drier hated to admit it, but every member of his division and militia were now important. None of them were expendable; he had to husband not only his people but also the resources they controlled. Many also served as his eyes and ears in their area.

  There were no more natives stepping up to join their ranks. He had experienced problems with desertion but had instituted draconian measures to curb it. That had sparked some fear and resentment, but they'd get over it.

  His people were besieged by the weather as well as the natives, but most were holding their own. They took what they needed to survive. Lishman's team had been the only ones about to fall. He hadn't liked burning the fuel and risking the aircraft, but it had worked. The five men that had been picked up looked like hell warmed over, barely skeletons, but he knew they'd flesh out given time, food, and rest. Just about all of them had lost a piece of themselves to frostbite, but they served as reminders to do a better job.

  And they would. He'd seen the burning hatred in some of their eyes. Their compassion had been burned off; they were ready to fight.

  He'd tried to kill the bastard Jean Claude after Pablo's people had missed. Unfortunately, his people had arrived a few minutes too late. He'd burned over that for several days.

  When spring came, the snow would dry up, and he'd be able to regroup and get reorganized. His division might be a poor shadow of itself, but with no Federation forces in sight, he intended to make the most of it. It would take time for the roads to dry out, but when they did, he'd move his forces out to take more of what they needed. He'd strip entire towns if he had to do so, and anyone who got in their way would be shot irregardless of species.

  His was still a force to be reckoned with, and he intended to prove it. That would cow the natives back into submission. And once they were cowering in fear, he'd have his people move their gear and spoils to more secure dispersed caches and bases in the mountains and countryside away from prying eyes.

  <)>^<)>/

  The Horathians had interrupted many aspects of life on the planet. One that had been overlooked for a long time had been the woodsman. Many who had plied that trade had been Neos. They had gone bush when news of the genocidal campaign against their kind had reached them. Some had taken their families; others had mourned their dead and then gone hunting for the bastards responsible.

  The woodsmen did many things. They brought in materials from the forest: game, pelts, some herbs, and veggies, as well as fish and raw materials. But the most important material that was partially industrialized was wood.

  Wood for the carpenters, for the builders, and most importantly, for the people who burned it for their only heating source during the winter.

  Isabel wasn't happy about the oversight. She'd taken Pete and others like him for granted and hated herself for it. She scrambled to find some way to heat her home and feed herself in the winter.

  Neighbors began to band together out of mutual support. Judith and Claire moved in with Old Buck. They even tore apart their old home for firewood or things to sell. The old jurist was glad for the help, though he was occasionally ornery about having two women in his house.

  Mort, the gangly, sickly white mortician, remained alone. He was a nice guy but ghoulish and quiet. His family had been low gravity dwellers. He had the look, long stick-like limbs and fingers. He kept to himself a great deal, always in his black garb and top hat. He was also ironically one of two people, the other being Zane the pharmacist, with any sort of medical training left in town since Doc had been killed and Chuck and Freya had fled.

  Isabel fervently hoped he never had to visit her or one of her friend's homes any time soon.

  A few of the chimeras had crept back to their homes after the Horathians had left, but there wasn't much to come back to. Their homes had been ransacked or burned. They'd been embittered by their neighbors’ inaction, and a few of the Horathian supporters h
ad hounded them right back out of town.

  The mill had run for a while until the river ice had become too much for the machinery to handle. Then it had shut down. With production low and the heavy taxes from the Horathians, a lot of people feared they wouldn't have enough food for the winter.

  A lot of sour looks were shot at Al and his family. They'd profited immensely from the Horathians. Al and Serena had noted the sour looks and had kept their family homebound.

  There were questions about the economy and what they would do. Destria had a meager export, mostly crops that had gone to nearby star systems like Pyrax. Crops that weren't easily grown in the space colonies like maple syrup, some pharmaceuticals, fruit, and other things. Now everything was up in the air. There was no law and order in the streets.

  She had moaned softly to herself when she'd seen fire light up the night sky one evening. She'd gone out to find her friends and neighbors trying to throw snow onto the fire. The old stables behind the smithy had caught fire, some said by a kicked-over lantern. The stock bawled inside, but only a few people were willing to brave the flames to go in and get them out.

  Eventually, they had to abandon trying to get the fire out and just watch it burn. It was a heartbreaking experience to have to endure, but one among many for her and her people.

  The following morning, she went out to empty her midden pot and noted people tearing apart the abandoned homes and buildings in the area. She bit her lip then grabbed a hammer and went to help herself as well.

  <)>^<)>/

  Jon and Vanessa had been doing all right … that was right up until Vanessa had taken a couple of people in from town and a pair of cousins from down the eastern road a ways. The cousins had lost their home due to raiders, or so they said. The extra mouths to feed hadn't been easy, but one or two were distant kin to Vanessa so he'd been obliged to hold his tongue.