Something was wrong. There were a few containers presumably filled with electronics, but in the center of the space was a translucent plastic container with a liquid of some sort. He pulled it out, setting it on the floor. Oddly, behind the jug was a bag of charcoal, two copper kettles connected by metal tubing, and a bag of potatoes.
"Oh, great," came Jeni's voice from above.
"Bathtub vodka?" Randal was incredulous. "You left equipment behind to make vodka?"
Jeni clambered down the handholds to hover protectively by her cache of liquor. "Johnny and I get thirsty. Like we were supposed to know the stupid part would burn out."
Randal's hand twitched with the urge to smack the side of her head. Eventually, the absurdity of it all overcame his anger. Jeni Cho wasn't so much a person as a force. And like tornadoes or floods, the object wasn't so much to control as to survive her.
"You're in real trouble..." He pointed a finger, the tip almost pressing her nose.
She took a step back.
"Unless I have a cup of that in about two seconds."
Jeni grinned, turning to rummage in the compartment for a cup. "Belly up to the bar, Randy." Wiping out a cup with her dusty fatigue blouse, she poured him a drink, then one for herself. He took a swig. The stuff was foul, but he thought it might mix tolerably with the punch powder that came in their rations.
He motioned with the cup. "I've got a question for you. Do you really buy into that Abkhenazi being a cavalry scout? It still seems dodgy to me."
Her face took on a hooded expression, the kind that told him he was straying into Classified territory. "Nabil's all right, Randy. A bit mad, but he's on the level. You don't have to worry about him."
"How do you know?"
Jeni didn't answer, instead changing the subject with a casual, "So. . . You fancy the little medic, huh?"
Randal coughed, both from the awful taste of the vodka and the question. "What?"
"C'mon, Randy, I've seen how you look at Miss Prim. I wonder, do you think she's ever kissed a guy?"
He felt like he should defend Ariane somehow, but that would only encourage Jeni's prodding. "I don't look at her any way. She's just a friend. Honestly, she's not even a friend."
"Uh-huh."
"She's not hard to look at. Can we drop it?"
"As long as I get to be a bridesmaid." Jeni sipped her vodka, smirking at him over the cup.
He stalked off, mind turning to other things. With their long-range commo deadlined, they'd be walking into Providence nearly blind. The rest of the day would be devoted to planning the safest approach. He expected the Abbies would have the north end of town staked out by the time they arrived. It was going to be tricky to filter through enemy lines and make it to friendly forces.
***
Unable to sleep, Randal read a digital copy of Augustine's Confessions from a slim datapad. Hearing someone approach, he glanced back. The footsteps belonged to Ariane, returning from checking on Nabil.
The girl sat down cross-legged on the edge of his bedding. "Having trouble sleeping, Corporal?"
"You can call me Randal when it's just us, Ariane. And yeah, a bit tense. Jeni Cho—"
Ariane smiled, seeming as amused by Jeni as the other woman was by her. "What did she do now?"
Randal told her about the spare parts, omitting the talk about bridesmaids. "She really has no concept of social niceties, have you picked up on that yet? She's une belle dame sans merci." He winced at his own pronunciation.
Ariane's eyes lit up. "You know Keats? I love the Romantics."
"Really? I know hardly anyone who's read them." His eyes glanced upward as he grasped for a long-ago memorized passage. "I saw pale kings and princes too, pale warriors, death-pale were they all; they cried — 'La Belle Dame sans Merci hath thee in thrall. . .'" For once he didn't feel at a loss for words with her.
"Ah, bien sur. Whenever I'm down I read them — Byron, Gautier, even evil old Baudelaire." She admitted with a grin, "Especially evil old Baudelaire."
He watched her as she spoke, though he was careful not to look at her in that way, whatever it was. "I usually turn to Augustine or one of the Stoics." He tapped the datapad. "What made you join the Defense Force, anyway? Don't take it wrong, but you don't seem all that military."
Her smile faded. For a moment she sat quietly, fingers twisting the fabric of his sleep sack. "Jean-Marie."
"Was he a boyfriend of yours?"
A melancholy laugh. "Non, he's my little boy."
Randal blinked, words tumbling out before he could weigh them. "But you aren't married."
The smile she gave was a tired one. He was sure this wasn't the first time the fact had been pointed out to her. "You don't have to be married to conceive a child."
"I know that," he answered a little too quickly. "I just haven't known many people personally who did. Listen, I spoke without thinking...I'm sorry."
"It's okay, I get it a lot. I was stupid. This boy, he said he was going to take care of me, that we were going to get married and I could get out of my father's house." Her voice was distant. "He said a lot of things."
"Until you got pregnant."
She nodded. "He was in the Diplomatic Service Academy. There were only a few months until graduation and acknowledging me would have gotten him expelled. So I kept quiet. When he was posted to the embassy on Durban he promised to send for me. Hélas, he never wrote."
"But your parents, they wouldn't help you?"
Another pause. "My father is a senior director for the Haelbroeck Corporation in Providence. I humiliated him. He would barely even talk to me after Jean-Marie was born."
The Haelbroeck Corp was owned by his friend Pieter's father, along with half of the rest of Providence. They had a mammoth set of complexes. To reach a director slot was impressive.
Randal always felt more comfortable giving people solutions than commiserating with them. "Have you talked to your family pastor? Your father needs to forgive you."
"My father is an atheist. Not just an unbeliever, but an atheist. And I'm still really new to the faith. When I got pregnant he kept saying 'And you're supposed to be some kind of a Christian or something.' God has forgiven me, but my father never will. He's a very hard man." Pressing palms to her forehead, she pushed back her bangs and twisted them.
"Who has Jean-Marie while you're here?"
She winced, and he could see the worry in her eyes. "My mother is watching him for me. You don't think the Abkhenazi would hurt civilians, do you?"
Randal smiled, lying for her sake. "Of course not. They're only worried about the Army." Impulsively he reached out, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. "You'll have to introduce me to Jean-Marie when we get to Providence."
She brightened a little. "I'd like that."
CHAPTER 7
Once we have a war there is only one thing to do.
It must be won. For defeat brings worse things
than any that can ever happen in war.
—Ernest Hemingway
The next two weeks seemed endless as they waited for Nabil to recover enough to travel. Nerves frayed in the dim, blue-green world of the caverns. Pyatt needed to be pulled off of Johnny and once even Ariane snapped at Jeni when the passive-aggressive needling got to be too much. Worse for Randal was his claustrophobic streak. Long walks above ground helped a bit, but inevitably he had to return to the close confines of the caves. It felt hard to breathe down there.
Finally, though, all was ready for them to leave.
The reverend organized a prayer service and everyone raised entreaties for their protection. Once suited up, they filed out, Johnny deftly threading the PSV through the entry tunnel.
Outside, Mayor Jowett shook each one's hand. When he came to Randal, he paused. "Good luck, son. Thanks for your help back at the village. You're a good lad." Randal was surprised to see the big man was a bit misty.
"Once we link up with the Army, I'll pass word to the right people about your situation
," Randal promised, though he wasn't sure what anyone could do about it.
The mayor smiled knowingly. "I appreciate it, but I doubt we'll rate high on the priority list. We're mountain people. We'll do just fine on our own."
The wind was bitterly cold. After another quick round of good-byes, the mayor hurried back into the cavern. Once more the team was on its own. Soon the entrance was out of sight, its safety and warmth a memory.
Randal pushed the team hard on the march, anxious to reach Providence. He didn't relish a return to combat, but if they missed a decisive battle he knew it would always haunt him. Their progress was slowed by the necessity of following back trails to avoid detection. Despite this obstacle the team performed well, covering nearly forty kilometers a night. Randal was relieved to see that discipline hadn't suffered too badly during the slack time with the villagers. Given the motley composition of his squad, he'd been concerned.
The forward edge of the battle area was well to the south, and they didn't run into any Abkhenazi ground forces. Three times during the march to Providence flights of enemy air units tickled the PSV's sensors, but none strayed too close. One thing that still troubled Randal, however, was how exactly to get his team through enemy lines and into friendly territory.
A steady stream of suborbitals traced overhead, small silver pinpoints against the night sky. Their arrival in New Geneva demonstrated more engineering prowess on the part of the Abkhenazi than Randal would expect of them. Each suborbital was longer than a football pitch. Hewing a landing strip for the craft in mountainous terrain during combat conditions was a marvel.
The end of the fourth night found the team about fifteen klicks out from Providence. They encamped in a deep draw, while Van Loon guided down the PSV with flashes from his UV headlamp. As soon as the skimmer touched ground, they began covering it with vegetation pre-cut for the task. That they weren't already caught by an Abkhenazi patrol indicated that God was looking out for them, but Randal didn't want to be presumptuous.
"Jeni, this is for covering of doors," Lebedev said, the last of his words lost to a sneeze. "Please take quickly, they are allergic to me."
The dronekeeper took the branches, camouflaging the doors. "It looks good from up here, Randal. Ready for me to pop a commo drone and see who answers?"
"Please do. But keep the transmissions short and be careful."
"You're going to make someone a wonderful mother someday." She climbed into the harness and launched the drone. Six sets of eyes followed it anxiously. Randal paced the campsite, nervously flexing armored hands.
"Randal, c'mere," Jeni said a few minutes later, waving him over to the open cockpit of the PSV.
"What did they say?"
Jeni set the dronekeeper's helmet aside, sighing. "I couldn't raise them."
"Grand. You mean the short-range commo is fritzing now, too?"
A slow shake of her head. "No, sweetie. Like there was no one there to answer me." His face must have reflected his stunned incomprehension, because she spelled it out slowly: "There. . .is. . .no. . .one. . .out there. The Army isn't here."
"Oh. Well." That explained the suborbitals. The Abkhenazi hadn't built a landing strip — they were using the spaceport at Providence itself. It took a moment to absorb. There were nearly a quarter million civilians in the city, what was their fate? "Try picking up civilian radio or trideo transmissions. Maybe we can get an idea how far south the Army was pushed."
"I thought of that too. Either the military censors have a media blackout going, or the transmissions are being jammed."
Feeling like his wind was knocked out, he leaned back against the PSV and smoothed a palm over the rounded dome of his helmet. "The militia. Can you try hailing one of the militia cells? Maybe they know something."
"That won't be easy. Each cell is autonomous, with its own frequency and encryption. And their freqs hop on a pre-set pattern every twelve hours. On top of that, they're gonna be paranoid. Our story is a little thin."
"Any better ideas?"
She shrugged. Donning the opaquely-visored helmet, she switched on a panel Randal remembered was devoted to decryption. "The coms they issue the militia only operate on a narrow freq range. I'll have to narrow the search pattern." Jeni didn't bother to explain anything further and Randal didn't ask questions. She was being cooperative, no sense in tempting fate.
The girl set the receiver scanning in the target band. It didn't take long to find a transmission with the characteristics they were looking for. "I think I've got one. Turn around while I hack it. This part's classified."
"Huh? Don't be silly."
Her small chin elevated slightly. "Am I going to have to get cross with you, Randy?"
With a sigh, Randal averted his eyes. Jeni was fertilizer for the spiritual fruit of longsuffering.
After a bit, Jeni reached out of the cockpit to smack his helmet. "Bow before your queen, sweetie. I am good." She switched the audio feed from headset to speakers. Terse messages were being transmitted back and forth, most of it difficult to understand without context.
Jeni broke in. "This is Lance Corporal Cho, NGDF. How copy?"
The next voice to speak was panic-filled. "It's a trick, Marcus. Don't answer! Turn off your com!"
Silence.
Twice more she contacted militia cells, only to be rewarded with dead air. "This is making me mad. Climb in Johnny's spot, Randy. You can talk to the next bunch."
After shedding his armor, Randal slid into the pilot's seat and donned the headset hanging on the stick. Static filled his ears, followed by a confused jumble of digitized sounds. After a while these coalesced into clear speech.
"Providence militia, this is Corporal Randal Knox, NGDF. We are behind enemy lines and in need of assistance."
The line was immediately taken up with answering transmissions. In their haste to silence each other, the members of the commo net stepped on one other. Only fragments of speech came through, much of it profane. These tapered off into silence.
Randal couldn't blame them. In the event of occupation, the militia was intended to go guerrilla. Self-containment was their only defense against the enemy using the capture of one cell to hunt down the others. "Try one more, Jeni. If this doesn't work, we'll go catch some rack time. I'm exhausted."
"Roger that."
It took her some time to slice an active channel. "Go."
"This is Corporal Randal Knox, NGDF. Please listen."
"Even if you are, you're violating protocol. I'm signing off."
Another voice came across the com. Something about it struck Randal as familiar. "Did you say Randal Knox?"
"That's a rog."
"Then tell me how you broke your leg six years or so ago?"
Randal grinned. "This nutter I knew amped the juice on my board without warning me." He wasn't surprised to find his friend Pieter hooked up with a guerrilla cell. The boy joined any club that would have him.
"I don't believe it, Randal Knox! It's been ages, Kipper!"
Randal shot a warning look as Jeni erupted in snorting giggles at his prep academy nickname.
She spoke up on the channel. "Keep it short. Even dumb Abkhenazi can plot you if you chatter long enough."
"Pieter, we've been incommunicado for days. I'd like to meet with you. Can you get out of town? Remember the hunting stand on Capshaw Mountain where I took that buck?"
"Yes and yes. And I shot the big buck there."
"You always had a vivid imagination. Anyway, meet you there. I'll be in place by 2100 tonight."
"See you then, Kipper. Stay sharp."
Randal set the headset aside, rubbing tiredly at his eyes.
"Kipper? You must have been quite the lady-killer," Jeni said, laughing so hard her eyes closed.
"It was prep school. Everyone had a nickname."
"Undoubtedly, Kipper." She struggled to catch her breath. "We should get some sleep."
"Keep calling me that and it might not be safe for you to sleep," he grumbled,
climbing from the cockpit. "Thanks for the help with the commo."
"No worries, ducky. Sleep tight."
***
The rustle of feet on dry underbrush carried to where Randal and Van Loon lay hidden beneath a leafless elm. A snapping twig spooked an owl into flight. Pieter and his friend weren't woodsmen. Randal clucked his tongue to get their attention.
The two were edgy, freezing as soon as they heard the noise. "Knox?" Pieter asked softly, training his autorifle on the shadows around him.
"Yeah, over here."
Randal and Pieter talked while Van Loon and Pieter's comrade kept watch. "It's good to see you, man," Randal said, shaking his hand warmly. "Where's your group holed up?"
"You know P-city used to be an Abkhenazi mining center, right? The land underneath the city is just riddled with shafts for kilometers down. We call them the Catacombs. Our militia cell is in the tunnels, and we've seen signs that other groups are operating from there as well."
Along with much of the rest of New Geneva's legal system, the militia statutes were based on the old U.S. Code from Terra. The militia consisted of "every able-bodied male ages sixteen to fifty not convicted of a felony." However, New Geneva took the law seriously, issuing each militia member a weapon. In a city like Providence, that meant thousands of armed men. Randal had wondered where they were hiding.
"Is there much of a Resistance in place?"
"Not really. When the Abkhenazi first came there was a lot of street fighting. Heavy casualties for us and them. But once it was clear the army was abandoning the city most of us went underground."
"Abandoning?" Randal was surprised at the bitterness in his friend's voice.
Pieter made a disgusted sound. "They fled south when the Abkhenazi came. Word is they decided their position was 'untenable', and chose to trade land for time." His eyes focused in the direction of Providence. "People for time you might say."
Randal could understand why NGDF command had made the choice it did. No one had expected the savagery with which the enemy attacked, or how swiftly they advanced. Likely the NGDF wasn't able to reinforce sufficiently before the enemy fell upon them. Faced with the option of losing the army or evacuating, they made the only decision they could. The destruction of the main NGDF force would have meant defeat and ultimately the end of their way of life. He imagined it was the kind of decision armchair generals would debate forever, provided any of them survived to do so.
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