“I’m so sorry, my friend,” Magda blurted.
“That bad, huh?”
“I really don’t know. You don’t look good to me, but I’m not a—” She threw her head back and screamed, “Medic!”
Two small men abruptly appeared. Magda thought they were a hallucination; they looked identical.
“Hi, I’m Tiberius Titus,” one said, quickly examining Anna’s wounds. The other winked and said, “I’m Titian Titus. We’re twins.”
“I’d have never guessed,” Magda said, frowning. “Is she going to be okay?”
“She’s concussed,” Tiberius said.
“This isn’t necessarily fatal,” Titian said.
“But it could be,” Tiberius added.
“I like how you each cover the other’s ass,” Magda spat.
“We’ll do the best we can, Magda,” Titian said.
“We promise,” Tiberius said with a nod.
She backed away while they eased Anna onto a litter and then they disappeared through the rocks. Magda sat for a moment, waiting for others to make themselves known, then followed the Titus twins, wondering if she would see tomorrow’s dawn.
64
Over the Battle of Delta
“There they are, Major!” Jerry Yamato yelled into his microphone. “Sitting ducks!”
“My gawd,” Colonel Shipley said. “Look at all the targets! Hit ’em, guys, they’re the last of the Russian forces threatening us!”
The flight dropped and strafed the column below then. Some antiaircraft fire answered, but nothing of any consequence. The squadron roared over, leaving death and wreckage in their wake. Then they turned and did it again.
Jerry noticed that most of the armor was in the front of the column and concentrated on hitting as much of it as he could. As he strafed the hulking machines he wished he had rockets or bombs to smash them. But he didn’t.
As the squadron strafed the Russians for a third time, a click sounded in Jerry’s headphones.
“That’s it, guys,” Lieutenant Colonel Shipley said. “Head back to the barn.”
As replies clicked over the radio, Jerry turned and flew low over the huge cave, waggling his wings, before turning north with his squadron.
65
Battle of Delta
With Colonel Janeki’s words bouncing about in his head, Senior Lieutenant Kubitski’s knuckles whitened as he grasped the wheel of the scout car.
Get a trooper next to every one of the mercenaries and on your signal have them kill every one of those bastard bandits!
Leonid wasn’t sure he could give that order. It was murder; therefore it had to be an unlawful order. But to defy Lieutenant Colonel Janeki was suicide. That the man was unstable had become manifestly evident even to the lowest private.
He didn’t hear the aircraft or he would have immediately taken evasive measures. In one heart-stopping moment, the windscreen of the car vomited out onto the hood—Captain René Flérs blew to pieces before the man could even scream—and something punched Kubitski in the side of the head so hard that the impact flung him through the door and he was unconscious before he hit the ground.
Nails hammered into his head as adrenaline relentlessly shuddered him awake. He pressed his right hand to his head and pushed himself up with the left. Blood flowed from a perfectly straight gouge on the side of his head; a large caliber round had grazed his scalp.
If it had so much as nicked bone, his face would have been blown off. His massive headache suddenly seemed oddly reassuring.
A bullet whined by and he realized he was in the line of fire at about the same speed as his well-honed reflexes kicked in and he scrambled toward the back of the nearest large object.
Lieutenant Kubitski observed that he was taking cover behind a burning tank, a Russian burning tank. He willed his mind to function and surveyed the area with a soldier’s eye. His scout car had rolled and now fed a petrol fire that engulfed the entire vehicle.
The battered red and blue kepi that Captain René Flérs had kept perfectly straight on his head lay in tatters in the middle of the road; blood and heavier material adhering to it pushed the felt and leather into the dirt. What was left of the captain was being cremated.
Half of the vehicles around him were in flames. Men screaming in fear and anger suddenly became incredibly louder as his ears popped and instantly added more pain to his head.
Something had gone incredibly wrong here.
66
Near Delta, Russian Amerika
The night before when the Russians began fighting the force in front of them, Colonel Buhrman had waved his men into cover. They went into cold bivouac and got what rest they could.
The morning’s first Russian high velocity shell had dropped onto the mountain approximately an hour earlier. Every fifteen minutes after that, another shell had been fired. Buhrman was counting down the seconds until the next one when a man walked into the middle of their area with both hands in the air and an automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.
Buhrman shot to his feet. “Jackson, you sonuvabitch, you trying to get killed by friendly fire?”
Colonel Benny Jackson grinned and lowered his hands.
“C’mon, Del, you were the only one of your troops that saw me, and I know you wouldn’t shoot me.”
“How’d you do that? I have men out in every direction.”
“Well, every fifteen minutes they couldn’t hear much. On top of that, they weren’t anticipating anyone coming through their lines from the rear. The only guy I saw was tightening the laces on his leggings, and he only looked down at his hands for thirty seconds.”
“Good thing you weren’t on the other side,” Buhrman said with a rueful grin. “Where are the rest of your people?”
“About a thousand yards beyond your perimeter. I wasn’t about to chance the life of anyone else before making contact with you.”
“What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? I’m joining up with you to fight the Russians.”
“Good. I think the Dená are going to need all the help they can get. Once the—”
Another cannon shell screamed into the mountain.
“As I was saying, once the Russians figured out they’d been fighting their own people yesterday, I knew they were really going to be pissed.”
Jackson chuckled. “Oh, that’s precious, their own people! Let’s just hope they were all good shots. But where are the Dená?”
Buhrman turned his head and quietly said, “Major Smolst.”
“Heinrich!” Jackson shouted as the man materialized from the brush. “How good to see you!”
The men shook hands and grinned at each other. For the first time in a very long time, Colonel Buhrman was at a loss for words. Finally he cleared his throat and said, “So you two know each other?”
“Colonel Jackson was with Grisha when he and I reunited after a ten-year absence.”
“Yeah, and in the middle of one of the coldest damn nights I’ve ever experienced,” Jackson added. “My piss froze before it hit the ground, I shit you not.”
“I believe you. Heinrich, have your sergeant tell him about Refuge,” Buhrman said.
Sergeant Jerry Titus filled Jackson in on the story and location of Refuge.
“Okay, Del,” Benny said. “What do you think we should do?”
“Link up with the Dená, and very carefully. Right now they’ve got itchy trigger fingers.”
“Why don’t we wait for the Dená to make a move and then we hit the Russians in the ass?” Jackson watched as Buhrman thought about it.
“That’s good, Benny; that way we don’t have to worry about anyone getting hit by friendly fire. But do you think the Dená will do something offensive or continue to maintain their defensive position?”
“They started this revolution because they were tired of taking shit from the Russians. I’ll give you two-to-one odds they hit the Russians within the hour.”
Buhrman’s grin seemed wolfish. “No bet
. I remember that poker party down in the Arizona no-man’s-land. You only give odds when you have an ace in your hand.”
“You’re never going to forgive me for beating you in poker, are you?”
“I’m never going to forgive you for cheating me in poker!”
They both laughed at once.
“Bring your guys in; I’ll let my people know. Glad you’re here, Benny.”
“Likewise, Del.”
Colonel Buhrman quietly called his people together.
67
Battle of Delta
When Jerry’s squadron attacked the Russians, everyone at Refuge had cheered, hugged one another and some even danced in circles. Then the planes were abruptly gone. Night fell and the firing slackened and died.
They slept fitfully, those who could sleep at all.
Magda felt bereft. Of all her squad only she and Anna had made it back. The artillery had blown seemingly safe rocks into blizzards of shards that sliced people to unidentifiable bits.
And the air raid by Jerry’s squadron was still generating animosity.
“What the hell!” Sergeant Kasilof had screamed. “They call that an attack? Even the Russian Air Force could do better than that!”
“Well, you’re damned lucky that you’re wrong, Kenny,” Magda snapped. “We haven’t yet seen a Russian plane that wasn’t ours. And that’s because of the 117th!” Finally she also slept.
Chris Anderson woke all of them. “Hey, Pelagian wants to talk to us, right now.”
Everyone had slept in their clothes. They groggily followed him toward the center of Refuge. Smoke stung Magda’s nostrils.
People were cooking breakfast over small fires and the aroma of hot food made her realize how incredibly hungry she was. She wondered if terror could suppress one’s appetite since she hadn’t been at all hungry yesterday.
The huge space contained so much life it seemed to breathe on its own, Magda thought. Two Russian tanks parked side by side, tread to tread, blocked the main entrance, their cannon pointing outward. Behind them the crowded vehicles and groups of people flowed to the sides and back into the dimness of the cavern’s depths.
Nearly everyone had brought all their possessions and some of the “camps” looked quite comfortable. The cries of babies echoed back and forth. She noticed a long line at the only two latrines.
Sure glad they remembered that, she thought.
A long band of orange ribbon marked the area the military needed for operations. It wasn’t crowded with people; it held brown-painted cases stenciled with a two-headed eagle and full of 7mm rounds. There were also olive-drab cases stamped with usa that held mortar rounds and new mortars still packed in protective Cosmoline. A pallet of ration cases each had roc prominently displayed.
The civilians had been drafted to unpack and assemble the weapons and over two dozen worked at cleaning the preservative off the weapons. All traces had to be eliminated or the weapons, especially the mortars, would not operate properly. Magda felt gratitude for their help, otherwise there wouldn’t have been enough time to do what they all had to accomplish. They finally reached Pelagian.
He stood in front of a split steel drum whose ends had been welded together and the whole thing turned into a grill. He turned moose steaks as the woman next to him fried eggs on a slab of thin steel.
“You folks hungry?” Pelagian asked.
“Jeez,” Bernard Sunnyboy said in a tone of relief. “I thought we was going to have to eat Russians for breakfast!”
Stoneware plates, porcelain plates and everything in between found eager hands and the army ripped through breakfast. Pelagian put away his apron and shrugged into a flak jacket boasting a charging bear of the Republic of California. His gray steel helmet featured the imperial double eagle.
A question flitted through Magda’s mind. She wondered if the Dená Republik would ever be its own master. She decided things would be fine as long as their official language wasn’t Russian.
“We’re going to hit the Russians,” Pelagian said in a conversational tone. People stopped chatting and listened to him.
“They’ve been throwing an artillery round at us every fifteen minutes for the past two hours. I think they are preparing an all-out assault on our positions. I would like those positions to start a lot closer to them than they currently are to us. You have five minutes to finish your meal.”
Conversation evaporated as everyone wolfed down food. Magda wondered for how many it would be their last meal. The five minutes went fast.
“Grab your gear; we got work to do.”
Once through the sinuous entrance, Pelagian moved briskly down the mountain and the Dená with their Russian converts kept pace. The landscape had changed. Many boulders were now shattered and strewn over the formerly open areas. Shell craters pocked the ground.
They passed dead Athabascans as well as dead Russians. Magda saw an upright boot with the foot and shin still in it, nothing else of the person evident. Massive amounts of blood had sprayed rock walls, some thick enough to still be viscous.
Flies buzzed everywhere as the day quickly heated. The smell of dead flesh eddied about them like an incoming tide. Magda knew that would also get worse as the temperature rose.
The carnage lay evident on all sides, but still they maintained their rapid pace down the mountain, slipping around the larger rocks, hesitating brief seconds to ensure the way ahead was clear, then moving relentlessly onward. Magda felt the fierce collective determination as if it were a palpable part of them all.
They would not again cower before the Russian guns. They would bring the battle to the foe and they would either triumph or die. Tears slid down her face and she wondered if she would ever see Jerry again.
“Halt!” the order hissed over the rocks and all immediately crouched behind cover. Most of them could see the mass of Russian armor and troops beyond the last rocky ridge below them. They checked their weapons and waited for orders.
Suddenly Russian troopers moved up from behind the ridge and there was no more time for further reflection or fear. Three ranks of Russians abruptly filled the space between them and the ridge.
“Fire!” Pelagian bellowed in his best “voice of God.”
Magda aimed and fired, aimed and fired, aimed and fired…
68
Battle of Delta
“Send everyone up that mountain!” Colonel Janeki screamed. “Kill everyone you find, spare nobody!”
He turned to find General Myslosovich staring at him, still chewing on a piece of bread from breakfast.
“Janeki, this has turned into a tragedy.”
“Not at all, General. We will soon have this batch of rabble eliminated and then we can return to Chena and finish this once and for all.”
“That’s easy for you to say. I’ve been to Chena. This whole thing is coming undone. We do not have the Russian Army Air Force aiding us, nor do we have any allies willing to send troops. This has been political from the beginning and we, dear Janeki, are the damned pawns! The Czar has sacrificed us to move his bishops and knights elsewhere!”
“Are you finished with your histrionics, General?” Janeki snapped. “We are the avenging saber of the Czar! We will prevail here and in Chena! If you do not believe that, then you are a defeatist and you know what that will bring you!”
“Christ, Janeki, look about you. We have killed enough of our own troops and destroyed enough of our own equipment to be suspected as traitors. The Dená still resist even though we have pounded their positions with heavy artillery. Why haven’t we already won?”
Janeki turned to the old man, a man he loved, the man who had helped him through the Byzantine labyrinth of gaining rank in the Imperial Russian Army, the man he was now tired of placating and supporting. “Taras, you have to let me lead this army or—”
The left side of General Myslosovich’s head abruptly exploded out in a grisly eruption. Bullets snapped and whined around them. Janeki whipped around and, in total disbeli
ef, saw troops charging his position.
“Corporal of the Guard!” he shrieked. “Corporal of the Guard!”
Myslosovich’s body thudded to the ground unnoticed.
A master sergeant and his squad of ten troopers surrounded Janeki and retuned fire. Janeki scurried away from the fighting, his heart in his mouth, wondering who these people were and how to deal with them.
69
Fort Yukon Aerodrome, Dená Republik
Upon landing the previous evening, Captain Jerry Yamato turned his P-61 toward the refueling station.
“Captain Yamato,” Lieutenant Colonel Shipley snapped over the comm channel. “Where do you think you are going?”
“We’ve got to refuel and get back there, Colonel,“ he said in a plaintive voice. “They don’t have a chance without us!”
“Stand down, Captain. That’s an order. We have to reassess the situation and obtain further approval from high command.”
“Colonel Shipley, you saw what those people are facing out there! We’ve got to get back there and help them.”
“That’s not our call, Captain. We’re not running this war. Follow me to the line, sir.”
With a sinking feeling in his guts and pain in his heart, Jerry complied. He wondered whom he could pay off to rearm and refuel his bird.
“All pilots proceed to debriefing,” Shipley snapped over the radio.
Jerry turned the P-61 around and followed the rest of his squadron. His ground crew clustered around the plane and Master Sergeant Mike Marinig pushed the ladder close and climbed up to help Jerry.
“Did you kick their ass, Captain Yamato?” he said.
“Ran into a flight of Russian bombers and fighters headed north toward Chena. We lost Major Ellis and Captain Fowler, but we took out four bombers and a few Yaks.”
Master Sergeant Marinig sobered and went still. “Major Ellis is dead? His kids and mine play together back at Fremont Field.” The sergeant looked off into the distance for a long moment, his face working.
Jerry had almost forgotten what a close-knit family the ROC Air Force was. Everybody pretty much knew everybody else. The traditional military distance between commissioned and enlisted was for the most part minimal. Jerry thought that was one of the best things about the Air Force and exactly why he hadn’t joined the Navy.
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