Til Valhalla

by Richard Fox

  “No.” Roy shook his head.

  “Much appreciated, we’ll be leaving now.” Digger opened the top of her skin suit to slip the bottle inside but accepted a small canvas ammo pouch from Standish instead.

  “Enjoy!” Standish waved as they left the illicit establishment.

  ****

  “And I said…” Digger paused to take a swig from the bottle before passing it to Payne where they sat against the legs of his Armor. “‘…you’re lucky. If you were in Sydney, you’d have to pay for it.’”

  Payne choked mid-sip and spewed whiskey onto his sleeve.

  “Hey!” Roy said, raising his hands in protest from where he leaned against the next suit.

  “I thought you didn’t want any.” Payne stretched the bottle out to him, one eye squinting hard.

  “I don’t drink,” Roy said, “but I did pay for it and don’t want to see it wasted. Standards.”

  “Suit yourself. More for us.” Payne kicked the bottle back and slouched against his suit. “Ah…I missed this stuff.”

  Digger took the bottle and held it up to the light, examining the remaining third.

  “How many Chi-com you think were on the Damocles?” she asked. “Couple hundred? Thousand?”

  “Enough for a good start,” Payne said. “You care?”

  “I want the scales tipped heavy,” she said. “I want them to know what one di xia did to them. Know how much I made them bleed.”

  “Hatred,” Roy said, looking up at his Armor. “Good a reason as any.”

  “Keeps me warm at night.” She took another drink and winced. “This’ll work for right now.”

  Sigmund came around the side of a suit and cleared his throat. Roy snapped to attention and looked around, as if needing an escape route. Payne didn’t react. Digger worked her jaw from side to side then offered the new arrival the bottle.

  Sigmund raised an eyebrow at Roy.

  “No, sir. I didn’t, but they did. No. I mean, I bought it, but I didn’t want to and—”

  “Keep a hand on that rod of iron,” Sigmund said, taking the whiskey. “I’d only be disappointed if you wavered. Skol.” He took a deep drink.

  Digger laughed and wobbled ever so slightly. “That stick up his arse doesn’t go all the way to his plugs,” she said.

  Sigmund squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed hard.

  “Not bad,” he said. “Chasers?”

  Payne jiggled the pill sheet.

  “What’s the word?” Digger asked.

  “It’s ugly,” Sigmund said. “Chi-com high command in Beijing are…erratic. First orders they sent after the Damocles was destroyed were to pull back from the battle around Brisbane and Derby. An hour later, they ordered a general advance. Full attack in all sectors. Launched bombers out of Ho Chi Minh City and Singapore. Even sent a wing to hit Anchorage.”

  “If they bomb US soil again,” Roy started, “then—”

  Sigmund held up a hand. “Most of the bombers have been destroyed,” he said. “Ground-to-air missiles—some planted on the seabed by our Navy, some on islands along the route by our Strike Marines—hit them en route.”

  “Seabed?” Digger asked.

  “We call them cork mines,” Sigmund said. “Drop them in the ocean. They sink deeper than the Chi-com can find them. We send a low-frequency signal through the ocean to activate them and they float to the surface and the missiles activate.”

  “That…wasn’t done recently,” she said.

  “The Union’s been prepping for this battle for years,” he said. “Still…a lot can go wrong. The Chi-com ground assault in Australia took us by surprise. Casualties are heavy. Brisbane area command thinks they can last another two days before the city is untenable.”

  “Big word for saying the front breaks and the city gets destroyed,” Digger said. “What about the space fight? Nukes?”

  “The Treaty of Pretoria is holding,” Sigmund said. “Intel thinks there’s some sort of power struggle going on in Beijing. The Damocles going down in a fireball embarrassed some senior party figures. Lose enough ‘face’ in that culture and you lose control.”

  “So the world won’t end in nuclear fire just yet,” Digger said.

  “That…remains to be seen,” Sigmund said. “The Chinese people are tired of war. Tired of bleeding to hold so much new territory. Just how many more will be ordered to die depends on how this palace coup plays out. Some factions are worse than others. Same as it ever was.”

  “Same as it ever was,” Digger echoed and took a sip.

  “How many casualties?” Roy asked.

  “In the tens of thousands,” Sigmund said. “That’s just Brisbane sector.”

  “Good God,” Roy said.

  “Better to fight to be free than to have surrendered to the Damocles,” Digger said. “How do we get back to the fight and where we going?”

  “Sub will be here soon,” Sigmund said. “Carius wants us back in Brisbane. ASAP.”

  “And what about the incorporation agreement?” Digger asked. “Or whatever Canberra’s calling it. Australia part of the ‘Atlantic’ Union. Heh. Atlantic.” She nudged Payne.

  “Vote’s on hold until the front stabilizes,” Sigmund said. “Doesn’t change the Union’s part in the fight.”

  “Wow…a little consistency from the Union, what a change of heart.” Digger tapped the empty bottle against her foot. “Sorry. Old habits die hard. You two—at least—have been quality.”

  “Was that a compliment?” Roy asked. “Is that what being drunk does to her? Makes her pleasant to be around?”

  “You…” she said, flipping a finger at him and swallowing hard. “…you paid for this stuff so I’ll forgive you. For now.”

  “Carius passed on some other news.” Sigmund’s face darkened. “Roy, I need to speak to you. In private.”

  “Sir,” Roy said, looking around, “this place isn’t that big. Doubt anyone can keep anything secret if they want to.”

  “It’s of a personal nature for you,” Sigmund said.

  Blood drained from Roy’s face and he pressed his hands against his legs. “It’s my brother, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “He passed,” Sigmund said. “Happened late last night. Your parents have been notified.”

  Payne reached over and touched Roy’s shoulder.

  “He…he’d been fading,” Roy said. “Redlines don’t last long. Last time I saw him, he was…God, he was so thin.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sigmund said. “He was a good soldier, an honor to the Armor Corps. Carius—this is regulation, you understand? Union policy—we have to ask you, no matter the circumstances. But as per the Sullivans Act of 2059, after the death of an immediate blood relative from combat conditions, you may opt out of hazardous duty until such time as you feel—”

  “No.” Roy shook his head. “Josiah died the minute he redlined. His body’s finally caught up to his spirit. I’m…I’m fine.”

  “—until such time as you feel mentally and emotionally ready to return to your previous duty.” Sigmund shook his head. “The option for an other-than-honorable discharge is—”

  “No!” Roy sprang to his feet and turned to his Armor. He put his arms up against the leg and covered his face.

  “What would he do?” Digger asked. “Sit around here with the jarheads, polishing his suit?”

  “Red tape.” Sigmund rolled his eyes. “No one takes a Sullivan off the battlefield, but the offer must be made.”

  Roy’s chest heaved with a sob.

  Payne got up, unsteady from the drink, and put an arm over Roy’s shoulders. “Tell us about your brother,” Payne said. “Tell us a good story. That always helps us feel better when someone’s time’s up too soon.”

  Roy turned and hugged Payne, his face buried against the taller man’s shoulder.

  “I’ll tell you about Josiah Roy,” Sigmund said. “He was in the Brave Rifles, American Lance. In my same company during the last offensive in Alaska. It was winter, so cold, I tho
ught I was back home in Norway—not that it mattered while in Armor, but the times we had to dismount were miserable. We were on the attack, through some no-named town whose only claim to fame was a gas station and the house of an early-century sci-fi writer, when the Chi-com brought in a flight of Dagger close-air-support fighters through a gap in the weather. Very risky, almost reckless on the part of the commander, but it worked. Caught my whole company by surprise.

  “We were in a forest and had just spooked a herd of elk when the Daggers made their first pass. Killed Chief Lomis before she could react. Fernandez took direct hits from a rocket pod…we didn’t find much of him. And Lieutenant Lachance, she…she took a golden BB. Single bullet from a Dagger hit her Armor.” Sigmund touched his collarbone. “Round went through a seam and ripped apart the cybernetics attached to her pod. The feedback killed her instantly.

  “She just stood there, weapons raised to the sky…frozen like the winter had finally got to her. Gone in an instant. That was the end of her and the rest of the Telemark Lance. My suit was damaged and I…was not acting as Armor should.

  “But then Josiah arrived with the Brave Rifles and set up a perimeter. Shot down two of the Daggers and drove off the rest until a blizzard rolled in and put a stop to our worries from the sky. Do you know what he said to me? Said to me as I was there grieving, about to dump my suit so I could crawl through the snow and find what was left of Fernandez?”

  “‘This where you’re gonna quit?’” Roy said.

  “Yes.” Sigmund smiled. “Someone told you this?”

  “He’s my brother,” Roy huffed. “We were on the same football team in high school, but he was a few years ahead of me. I wasn’t the biggest or strongest…or fastest. And I wasn’t as prepared as I should’ve been before I went out for varsity, so I got my clock cleaned more than once. Every time I was about to give up…he’d know when to trot by and ask, ‘This where you’re gonna quit?’ Even when he was the one that just knocked me flat.”

  Sigmund nodded. “‘This where you’re gonna quit’ and I looked around at my dead lance, the frigid nowhere that is Alaska, and it dawned on me how useless it was. There was no time to feel sorry for myself. Armor…has no time for remorse. Not there, at least, and certainly not then.”

  “And then?” Digger asked.

  “And then Josiah took a leg off Lachance’s suit and swapped it with my wrecked limb. Dangerous to do in the field; redline risk is too high. He got me back on my feet and then the Dragons found us,” Sigmund said. “Came out of the blizzard guns blazing.”

  Sigmund took the bottle from Digger and drank deep.

  “It was like fighting ghosts. Josiah and I got separated almost immediately. Then it was this nightmare of stumbling upon someone in the whiteout and figuring out if they were a friend to help or an enemy to kill before the other Armor could do the same. Stray rounds coming from all over. Take a shot and who knows what you’d hit. But weather is the great equalizer. It hurt the enemy just as much as it did us. It came down to individual fights in the storm, and we won. Most of them.”

  Sigmund swished the last bit of the alcohol around the bottom of the bottle.

  “I found Josiah when the storm cleared. Dead Dragons all around him. His suit was badly damaged, lying facedown in the snow, but he was still alive. Redlined, but alive. He must have taken too many hits, fouled his cybernetics. But he was in a fight and he pushed himself past the line to win. To keep the rest of us alive. This war takes the best of us. Takes them to Valhalla where they wait for the rest of us to prove we’re worthy enough to join them.”

  “I didn’t know you were there,” Roy said.

  “I’m not proud of how that battle ended. Even if we did drive the last of the Chi-com into the sea at Nome a month later,” Sigmund said. “I will…need your parents’ address.”

  “Of course, sir,” Roy said.

  Red warning lights came on and swirled around. A shadow grew next to the dock and water rose and spilled over the edge of the pier as a smooth submarine with a slight mound for conn appeared.

  Digger snatched the bottle away from Sigmund and proffered it to Roy, who shook his head. She killed the bottle and tossed it into the water.

  “Fun’s over.” Payne popped a pill and gave the sheet to Digger.

  Roy stepped back from his Armor and looked up at the gauss rifle locked to the suit’s back.

  “Back into the fire,” he said.

  “Don’t worry,” Digger said, her shoulders shaking as the pill went to work, purging the alcohol from her system. “A robot’s giving us a ride to the fight. What could go wrong?”

  “You’re ready?” Sigmund asked Roy. “There’s no shame in—”

  “There’s nothing but shame in ducking out of a fight,” Roy said. “I am Armor. Let me fight the bastards that killed my brother.”

  “Good.” Sigmund slapped him on the back. “Good.”

  Chapter 15

  Major Liu of the People’s Liberation Army bumped against the inside of his armored personnel carrier as it screeched to a halt. He looked up from a board over his lap, then to a leaky seam in the roof where water dripped down onto the overlay sheet he had over a map of eastern Australia. He looked across the cramped compartment to his radio operator, who had handsets to each ear.

  The radio man shook his head quickly.

  “Driver?” Liu called out over the idling engine.

  “Lead vehicle’s stopped, sir,” came back.

  Grumbling, Liu leaned over and tapped the legs of the turret gunner. Rainwater dribbled down in a sheet as the turret slewed around.

  “Can’t see a damn thing in this storm,” the gunner said. “I think the bridge ahead might be out.”

  “What?” Liu looked at his map and frowned, then took a tablet off a wall mount next to his head and double-tapped the screen. A terrain overlay came up, still showing the bridge in place…along with a notification box that the system hadn’t updated with the Corps’ data link for several hours.

  “All I need…” Liu lit a cigarette and took a long drag, ignoring the coughs of the other men in the troop compartment. “Ten hours in this shit box and now I’ve got to get wet. I hate this miserable country. We should’ve been happy with Indonesia as a client state…but no. You know we’re all supposed to be back home on leave?”

  “I know,” the radioman said. “My girlfriend in Shanghai thinks I’m shacked up with some slut in Hanoi.”

  “I thought your girl lived in Chengdu,” the major said, taking another long puff.

  “That one thinks I’m a good boy.” The radioman shrugged.

  “Get the radio tower set up,” Liu said. “The bridge is out and we’ll have to break radio silence to send a report back.”

  “If we transmit, the dogs will slam us,” the radioman said, using a more affectionate term the PLA had for Australian and Union forces.

  “They can’t get a missile through this, and we’ve got EMP emitters through the convoy. They’ll fry anything they send, so stop being a pussy and get the fucking mast set up.” Liu kicked the radioman in the leg and opened the rear hatch. Thunder rolled in as he swung his feet out the small hatchway and stepped into a torrential downpour.

  The smell of idling diesel engines mixed with the wet soil from the forest to one side of the highway. On the other was a guardrail and a steep drop to the Pacific Ocean. Liu hunched over, protecting the lit end of his cigarette by keeping his head angled down and the lip of his helmet sticking out. He worked the butt to one corner of his mouth and breathed deep, trying to bring the “cherry” in closer to his mouth.

  Good cigarettes were hard to find while on maneuvers. Damned if he’d lose one to the weather.

  It was night, and hours until morning. He had no doubt the view over the water would’ve been spectacular under moonlight, but the storm cut visibility down to a few tens of yards.

  He walked past his APC and counted steps to the next one ahead. He cursed and banged a fist against the driv
er’s compartment. The forward hatch popped up, and the fresh face of a young driver gawked at him.

  “Sir?”

  “Your interval is too close.” He gestured to the next vehicle, a main battle tank a few yards away. “Too good of a target. You thought because the weather is so piss you can screw around? Fix yourself next time we move—” he paused to peer into the hatch at the driver’s uniform as it got soaked from the rain “—soon-to-be Private Ma.”

  Liu kept smoking as he ran up the line of vehicles, past a company of main battle tanks. His boots stomped through puddles as he hurried past the EMP generator. The Party assured its soldiers that the radiation from the generator was harmless, but a rumor that the equipment operators only ever sired daughters had been around for years, and he didn’t want to test it out for himself.

  He made out a loose gaggle of soldiers standing in front of a tank and he slowed to a walk as he closed. It wouldn’t do for a field-grade officer to seem rushed. He recognized one man, tall for a tank commander and forgoing a rain slicker in the weather.

  Chang, ever the hard-ass.

  “Captain,” Liu said as he came up to a half-collapsed bridge over a short gap in the coastline. The near side hung to the cliff by bent spars as the waves crashed up through the open segments.

  “A meter we can’t drive over might as well be an ocean,” Chang said. He lifted a pair of binoculars to his eyes, then handed them to the major. “Lucky the division engineer assets were ahead of us. They’ve got a modular bridge on the way. They say ten minutes until it’s on-site.”

  “Which means three hours.” Liu flicked through the optic settings and used the night vision to see a pair of Chinese tanks at the far end of the broken bridge. A vehicle-long section of the guardrail was missing about halfway across the bridge.

  “Sabotage?” Liu asked.

  “Fatigue,” Chang sneered. “My bet is the driver fell asleep and slid off the cliff. Hard to know for sure as the tank is under who-knows-how-much seawater right now. No crew survived. This road march has been going on for over twenty-four hours. Factor in the days-long scramble to deploy out of Saigon and—”