by Leo Champion
Delta Company had escaped their fortresses on the western side of the Vasimir Pass, Captain Numminen was now reporting. Into the mountains until enemy contact had been broken, then working their way south. Jamming in the mountains, the report said, and it took us time to reach a network-connected landline.
A more detailed outline of what had happened followed; the email ended with a status – most of the company alive, about a hundred effectives – location coordinates, and a request for orders.
An AI had helpfully recognized the coordinates in the email as coordinates and turned them into a hotlink. Ramos clicked the link, which brought up a new window with a map, the exact coordinates highlighted in pale red.
Where he’d thought, where it made sense. They’d gotten through the mountains, were about twenty miles – inside the Chongdin Empire, along roads that had been built long ago to connect the inner foothills – from the inward side of the Vasimir Pass, near a secondary base area called East Vasimir.
One-Four-Four had another effective company. Lieutenant-Colonel Hall was going to be thrilled. As thrilled as he, Major Juan Ramos, was. And Senior Lieutenant Hadfield, the incoming XO who’d gotten a promotion along with his wound treatment; previously he’d been a platoon leader in the same company – yes, he should get Hadfield and the other Delta men in here right now.
He was reaching for a phone to do just that when the communications network lit up. Across the command post, signalmen and officers moved to attention.
“Sir, Alpha Six Actual with an urgent report,” a senior RTO said to Ramos.
“Gambler Five Actual,” Ramos said into the headset to Alpha Company’s commander, Captain Deeton.
“No sir,” said Deeton. Ramos could hear gunfire up close, the same shooting that had been going on for a bit in his distance. It seemed more intense than it had been. “You’re Six Actual now, sir. They killed – they got the CO, sir.”
It took Ramos a second to comprehend it. Budding legends like Hall, who had been promoted fast even by Legion standards, were not supposed to die. They were supposed to get decorated and wounded, of course, and Hall had been to the coma tanks any number of times, but killed?
“Dead for sure?” he asked semi-incredulously.
“Blew his head off, sir. He was off reassuring the guys in the front trenches when a sniper got him.”
“Well, shit,” Munoz breathed.
Gain a company, lose a battalion commander, the XO thought. Back to acting commander again.
Of a battalion that now had three effective companies, rather than two. Senior Lieutenant Hadfield would be thrilled – but at some level, Captain Faden might be even more upset about his loss.
* * *
Cormac Faden’s boots tapped on the streets of Vazhao’s Government Zone as the captain paced around the block. Nominally he and the other B Company men were assigned to Captain Diodorus, which in reality meant they were pulling guard shifts on two of the same gates the full B Company had earlier been assigned to.
There wasn’t a lot for their commander, whose company now consisted of twelve men including himself, to do but walk the morning streets, lost in thought.
It had been a relief, admittedly, to hear just now about Delta Company. Numminen was a good friend of his and he needed to congratulate the man on his promotion. Some riflemen from Bravo had ended up in Delta too, after the Force 2214 reorganization.
That brought his circling thoughts back to Bravo Company, who were solidly out of communications in the middle of nomad wasteland, spread out building a road.
There was no reason to think any of those men were still alive.
He could not accept that they had been wiped out. Ortega and Gardner were smart and resourceful. His other NCOs knew their shit, Croft knew to listen to direction. He’d never met Junior Lieutenants Henry or Nakamura but their files seemed solid.
“Sir,” said Rhee, running up to him.
“What?” Faden snarled. Couldn’t his first sergeant realize he wanted to be left alone in thought, to figure out some solution to all of this?
“One-Four-Four really has gotten unlucky with commanders lately,” Rhee began. “First Fadid. Now Hall.”
It took Faden a second to realize what that meant, what had happened to the battalion’s previous commander. Killed in action. And now—
“Ramos has taken command?”
“Yessir. Until or unless higher command appoints someone, he’s in charge.”
“Then the battalion is in fine hands,” Faden said, not caring all that much. He’d heard of Hall – officer grapevine hadn’t been surprised by his promotion to battalion command, he was regarded as a great leader and a badass – but they hadn’t really met until yesterday. It wasn’t like Faden had known the man.
“Sir?” Rhee’s tone suddenly got more serious.
“Yes?”
“You’re not achieving anything pacing around like that. Let’s go to Intelligence. See if you can find out anything.”
“Intelligence,” said Faden. It would be more constructive than pacing. He could learn something about what the situation out there might be like. Perhaps radio transmisions had gotten through the jamming or something, or some troops had made it back across the wastelands?
It was possible, right?
* * *
Insubordinate scum, Newbauer was thinking as he lay in the shed, on a sleeping pad with a blanket over him. He was tired, but as he often was, he was too angry to sleep.
Lieutenant Croft was going to see his fine West Point career, the one he’d already of course squandered by joining the Foreign Legion, end because of this. Refusing to help, when he was tired. Scum.
A movement in the doorway caught his eye. Something landed on his lap.
Newbauer jerked up, stark terror coursing through his mind as he realized it was an unpinned grenade, the handle raising fast toward vertical.
Desperately he reached for it, knowing at some level that it was pointless.
Boom.
* * *
Cramer was jolted out of a very uneasy sleep by the explosion of a grenade. Her hand scrabbled for her pistol, closing around it as she realized: there was no shooting going on. No flurries of gunshots – just the one grenade explosion and now people shouting.
“What happened?” she asked as she staggered out of the tent. She held the pistol, but nobody else was reacting in shock. They were definitely not under attack.
“It was in the colonel’s shed,” Lennon called, looking through that door. The corporal grimaced: “Grenade.”
“Someone threw a grenade in there?” Senechal asked incredulously. “Who?”
“Someone,” growled Alvarez, looking around the group.
Suddenly Cramer realized what they were getting at; Newbauer had been murdered, and murdered by one of the men standing here.
“Not necessarily,” said Mandvi. “I saw him being careless with grenades a couple of times.”
“Playing with one in his own shed?” Alvarez demanded.
“The point,” said Hill, “is that Lieutenant-Colonel Newbauer is dead. As the ranking NCO present, I’m taking charge of this party. Any objections?”
Eyes turned to Senechal, who shook his head, and then Cramer, who rapidly shook her head. No way; of course she was not going to try pulling rank that wouldn’t apply anyway.
“As our first move, we get out of here and we cover our trail. Blowing the generator will draw attention, a reaction is coming and we need to be out of here with time to cover our trail before it does. Strike camp, people! Now!”
“Corporal,” said Cramer as people ran to pack tents. Something had just occurred to her.
“Yes, Doctor?”
“As a psychiatrist, I knew Lieutenant-Colonel Newbauer well,” she said. And then lied smoothly, surprisingly smoothly for something that could be proven a lie by any check on her filed notes: “He expressed suicidal tendencies to me more than once.”
“You think the colonel kil
led himself, Doctor?”
“Whoever’s coming here will find a dead man and a blown power cable. They won’t look too hard for the rest of us if they think Newbauer was a lone straggler who blew the power cable. Then killed himself in despair at learning the fort was surrounded.”
“He’d need a radio,”
“This close to Kandin-dak he might have been able to use his personal electronics. The ones they’re going to have to dig through a mess to check the blasted remains of,” said Cramer.
“The Euros might think that,” Hill said. “It would give them an excuse to get back to the main warband where the glory is. But a suicide note would help.”
“I don’t suppose he left one behind, did he?” Hoping against hope that it might actually have potentially been a suicide.
“No ma’am,” Hill said. Then mused for a second: “What do you think he would have said in it?”
“Simple English.” Cramer found herself handing over a notepad and a pen. “English any Euro adviser could understand, so no big words.”
Hill wrote the note and showed it to Cramer, who nodded; the handwriting was clear and blocky – probably Hill’s natural writing, there was no need to disguise it since nobody knew what Newbauer’s handwriting looked like anyway, let alone the Euros – and the message was short and to the point: “All this distance for – nothing. I have lost hope. I give up.”
Am I abetting murder, she wondered as she hurried to pack up her own tent.
Had it been murder? Maybe it could have been some kind of reckless accident.
Not something she wanted to think about. Nor her relief that the dangerous idiot was no longer in charge. The experienced Hill now was, and their chances of survival had just gone up significantly.
“Strike camp!” Hill’s voice repeated. Mullins and Jorgenson appeared, their own tent packed, to help Cramer with hers. She knew enough to stay out of the way and check the rest of her pack.
We may have a chance now, she thought. Somehow.
“Maximum distance from this area!” Hill urged, “before they get here!”
* * *
Second Lieutenant Hecht folded up the suicide note, which had been stuck with a knife into the sandy ground outside the construction shed.
What was inside the shed was – messy.
Pathetic mongrels. But this one had gotten in a bite before killing itself in despair.
“Sir,” he said over his radio. Now the jamming was down in this area there was no reason the European Federation advisers couldn’t communicate themselves that way. Or communicate with satellites; von Kallweit was probably right now compiling a report for transmission to Binwin.
“What was it?”
“Cables blasted, looks like a high-explosive grenade. Looks like the same guy then killed himself – he left a note saying he couldn’t take it.”
“Can the cables be fixed?” von Kallweit asked.
“No – it was blown right at the box intersection. Blew a hole in the side, in fact,” said Hecht. “Not just a matter of running new cable, if there’s spare.”
“American coward,” von Kallweit said. “A destructive coward, though. Anything else to report?”
“No sir.”
“Out,” said the captain and Hecht’s connection went quiet.
Good, thought Hecht. He waved in the air, calling over the chief of the clan he’d been riding with. They’d be just as happy to get back to the main siege, in any case. Just in case something happened.
It was a pity. He’d hoped for a fight with whoever had taken down the jammer. It was too bad there’d just been the one man there.
* * *
“Bravo Six,” Mullins said into the headset. They were three and a half miles from the transmitter on the other side of a steep hill, dug in among the scrubby trees of a gully. This close to the fortress, good line of sight was nice but far from essential. “Come in, Bravo Six. This is Bravo Three.”
“This is Bravo Five,” came a female voice. Must be the second-ranking officer, if Croft’s first, Mullins deduced.
“Get Croft, ma’am. Please.”
* * *
“Lieutenant-Colonel,” said Croft warily. Was this a call for help? Shortly after the jammer had gone down, men on the blockhouse had noticed a detachment of nomads leaving the main circle and heading east. Heading for exactly where the lieutenant-colonel would be coming from, intercepting him and Mullins – and who else? – on their way to what, of course, would have gotten them all killed anyway.
But Mullins didn’t sound like a man who thought he was about to die.
“Lieutenant-Colonel Newbauer couldn’t… handle the stress,” Mullins said.
“He resigned command? Recused himself?”
“Killed himself, sir,” said Mullins. “With a fragmentation grenade.”
“He killed himself,” Croft repeated. Something in him said there was probably more to the story than that, but he’d leave that bone buried for now.
“So who’s in charge?”
“Me, sir,” said Hill. “Hill.”
“God damn, Sergeant—Corporal—it is good to hear you! You’re alive, who else? Janja and his guys?”
“The Indians are fine. We linked up with Lennon and the lieutenant-colonel’s group. All our Gangers are dead, though. And Sergeant Greene.”
“What about the rest of you?” asked Croft eagerly. “You met up with Team Lennon – what about Ciampa and his team?”
“All dead,” said Hill. “We got the bastards who did it, though.”
“Lennon, Theron, Reuter, Mondragon are fine though?”
“No sir. Theron bought it and Reuter’s leg is shattered, he can barely walk with a crutch. Uh, the chopper pilot is fine, co-pilot dead. Doctor’s fine, her assistant didn’t survive the minutes after the crash. And Doc Jorgenson’s fine.”
Quickly Hill and Croft filled each other in on what had happened since losing contact.
“We were hoping you could link to a satellite and get help,” said Hill, as the gathered other men and Cramer listened.
“No open communications satellite scheduled to pass right overhead for the next five days,” Croft said. “We can talk to you, and – that’s it.”
Thinking about the uses he’d have for them. Exfiltrating people from Hubris hadn’t been a possibility since the siege began, but here he had eight men, plus a couple of supernumeraries, already exfiltrated. The nomads didn’t do much for supply lines, did they? And – thank God – they didn’t have artillery. There had to be some important vulnerability, though.
“Stay in place,” Croft said slowly. “Don’t draw attention, but stay in the area, got it?”
“Roger that, sir. Any other orders?”
“When I think of them,” said Croft. “Out.”
* * *
“So, we’re to stay put in this area while the LT comes up with something for us to do,” Hill summarized the conversation.
“Do they have supply lines we can target? Something important in their rear area,” said Janja.
“This map might help,” said Mullins, producing the ones the Qing chief killed at Diamond North had been carrying. He chose the one containing Hubris and laid it out on the dirt.
“Covers too big of a space, no detail on the immediate area,” Lennon said. “And it doesn’t reflect the current situation – these maps would have been made before the operation began. From what I gather from the lieutenant, they probably hadn’t expected this place to last long.”
“They’d have prepared better if they had,” Hill agreed. “Brought some artillery, or at least mortars.”
“That we could go after, if they existed,” said Janja.
“Get some rest and wait,” Hill decided. “They’ll have orders for us sooner or later.”
Mullins wondered what kind of good they could do, but… at least they had some contact, and sensible orders were being given now.
* * *
“Sirs,” the front-desk staffer at t
he Planetary Intelligence offices had eventually told Faden and Rhee, “you can’t stay here all day.”
They’d been there about forty-five minutes, Rhee doing something on his phone while Faden stared into space, thought about possibilities and restrained himself from pacing. If they were readily, immediately available then someone might give them five minutes.
Rhee got up, a clear signal. But yeah, the woman seemed serious. They were being kicked out.
“I’ll be available any time,” said Faden.
“Sir, I’ve passed your communication to as many relevant channels as it can go to. You’ll be paged when a suitable officer is available to address it,” the bureaucrat repeated.
Unfortunately, Planetary Intelligence here was a civilian bureaucracy, and Fourth Battalion was here without a brigade-level command structure; the battalion was directly attached to the governor’s office via a dotted administrative line to Second Brigade, Fourth Division, which did have its headquarters on Dinqing.
The brigade G-2’s office had referred him directly to Planetary Intelligence. Fourth Battalion’s intelligence officer, Captain Southard, had given Faden the time of day but hadn’t been able to tell him anything of value. These guys were the only people he could talk to—
They’re busy. There’s a crisis going on. You can’t expect people to jump just because some O-3 has questions.
He wasn’t even sure which questions he’d ask, but it seemed like the only available course of action.
With nowhere else to really be, he and Faden headed down the street back toward Supply, where they were officially assigned but had nothing to do.
Except to wait.
* * *
Lieutenant-Colonel Richard Doom sat with his feet on his desk, a tablet in front of him full of low-priority updates about the ongoing situation. Bored – it was absurd to be bored at the height of the worst crisis American Dinqing had been faced with since the Insurrection, but the nomad invasion was a pure action-level problem that intelligence simply wasn’t applicable to at this point.