by Leo Champion
“Yes ma’am.”
* * *
The nomad was breathless on his zak as he came up to von Kallweit, who stood with Axhar and some bannermen overlooking one of the two gorges – the other was twenty miles away, linked by a chain of riders, hornsmen and scouts – that the rushing relief force would almost certainly be coming through.
It was ideal ground for an ambush, and the stingers would be able to take out the armored cars before the horde came in, closed in and finished them off. The enemy would be expecting an ambush, possibly – it never was wise to assume your opposite number was a moron – but they were understood to think the horde numbered a lot fewer than it did, and you couldn’t maintain perfect alertness for a three hundred mile forced march.
There’d be losses, but the relief force would be destroyed, and then the horde would turn back to wipe out Kandin-dak.
Now, though, he turned to the rider as he dismounted from his zak.
“Captain von Kallweit.” He nodded his head, then bowed far more seriously to Axhar.
“Yes?” This wasn’t a regularly scheduled report to the effect that nothing was happening at the fort…
The nomad gave von Kallweit a message cylinder.
“Technician Monier says this is for you, sir.”
Von Kallweit opened the cylinder and took the paper out. It was a note in Technician Second-Class Monier’s neat Swiss handwriting: orders from Colonel Lavasseur to abandon the ambush, because the relief force had been determined to be no more than a complicated ruse.
A ruse for what? Von Kallweit thought. The message didn’t say. Perhaps the operations director didn’t know.
The message directed him to take Axhar and the horde back to Kandin-dak, to attack and overwhelm the fort immediately, the second they got there. It was believed that everything known about the fort’s strength, in particular the number of men remaining and their ammunition levels, was disinformation. If they were playing strong, they must be weak. The place would fall easily.
“What does it say, Captain?” Axhar asked, looking over his shoulder. The khan was not one of the few nomads who’d been taught to read.
von Kallweit raised his hand and gestured east.
“Gather the horde,” he told the khan, “and march back to the fort as fast as possible. If we have to kill a few zaks to achieve that – then we have to kill a few zaks.”
“It’s five hours even at flank speed,” said Axhar. “And that’s going to kill zaks.”
von Kallweit was not in the habit of questioning direct orders from colonels.
“The zaks can be replaced, I give you my word,” he said. “Move!”
* * *
Arlene Lavasseur watched on the satellite feed as the horde mounted up and reassembled, from their camouflaged positions. Clearly the message had reached them, and von Kallweit was reacting as he should. Fast.
“Doom has his own satellites in orbit, ma’am,” Bujold observed as he sipped more espresso. “He’s watching the same thing we are right now. Or will soon.”
“Yes,” said Lavasseur. “He’s about to learn that we’re onto him. Whatever he’s got in mind, he’s going to have to execute it now or forget about it.
“We’ll assume he’s got something. All eyes on East Vasimir, Major. Have they reported anything yet?”
“Nothing out of the usual, ma’am. We’re keeping a close watch as per your directions.”
“Tell Hecht and his surrounding force to prepare. If we get wind of anything, the blocking force immediately attacks Kandin-dak regardless of cost. If Doom’s been signaling strength to us, it means the fort is weak; a thousand determined nomads are very likely to be able to overrun the place in themselves.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Oh – and contact Landsfarne Base. Is that strike flight ready?”
“Yes ma’am. The base commander’s been hesitant to go further, as you know, but he was willing to put armed planes on standby for you.”
“Launch them. As backup, just in case.”
Chapter Thirty
“Shit,” said Doom as he watched the nomad horde leave the ambush positions, shady figures from an overhead satellite. The footage was from two hours ago. “Shit, shit, shit, they’re moving.”
“They got wind of something?” Faden asked.
“Yes, Captain. Apparently. Let me check.”
A moment later, Doom saw his name in a flagged civil service email. Some stupid fucking bureaucrat had let slip his appointment in a public bulletin!
That the Euros would have seen, of course.
Arlene Lavasseur knew Doom was in charge of the battalion, and of course she knew him. The concealment effort had been completely blown.
The nomads would take about five hours to race back to the fort, if they pushed their zaks to their limits and were willing to kill a few. They’d started two hours ago. When they got there Bravo Company and the support elements would be annihilated.
“Why the hell didn’t someone let me know my name had been mentioned in that bulletin?” he snarled.
“People probably assumed you knew, sir,” said Senior Lieutenant Broder. “Probably that you intended it. As some kind of deliberate disinformation.”
“We’ve got three hours until the horde reaches the fort and kills everyone,” said Faden. “And that transport isn’t scheduled to even get here until this evening. Sir – is there anything we can do?”
Doom picked up a phone and sent a text:
‘Vancouver Mayfield’.
“Yes,” he said. “Rhee, are those men ready?”
“They’ve been on one-hour notice since this morning, sir.”
“We don’t have an hour. Get them now, Master Sergeant.”
“You do have a Plan B, sir?” Faden asked.
“Yes, Captain. There’s a scheduled supply flight leaving for East Vasimir in” – Doom checked a window on his computer – “eight minutes. It’s going to have a few unscheduled passengers.”
* * *
“Sir,” the Air Force corporal held up a protective hand as Doom approached, flanked by the pilots Chip and Glass and the Bravo Company men, who were in desert-yellow combat uniforms, body-armored up and ready for a fight. Doom and Broder were in their blue-and-white day uniforms; they hadn’t expected to personally go on the operation. “This is the flight line. You can’t enter without authorization.”
Doom raised his wallet and flashed the back of a library card.
“This is my authorization, Special pass.”
“I don’t recognize it, sir.”
“Because you’re not cleared to,” Doom snapped. “We’re going to East Vasimir – emergency. Which flight is TF-209?”
“That one, sir,” said the corporal. “But I can’t let you on.”
“Broder, take care of it,” Doom said. He pushed past the two Air Force men. The massive dark-green C-175 was loaded up and starting to taxi along the flight line toward takeoff.
Doom bolted after it, followed by the other men. It was moving slowly, advancing a place in the line at a time as other aircraft took off. He leapt up onto the step, reached up, pulled open the cockpit door and hauled himself in.
“What the—?” the Air Force pilot, a captain, asked.
“Stop the plane. For a moment,” Doom ordered. “Intelligence. We need a ride.”
“Sir?”
Doom stepped out of the doorway as Chip came in, followed by Faden then Glass. The pilot and the co-pilot had stopped the taxiing plane while they waited a moment, and didn’t restart until all fifteen men were inside, everyone but Faden, Doom and the civilian pilots moving into the rear.
“Sir, this isn’t authorized,” said the pilot. “I need to clear this with ground control.”
“Ground control knows,” said Doom. Broder would be on his way there now, and the lieutenant would have a good line of bullshit by the time he arrived. “Confirm it when we’re at cruising altitude. It doesn’t change your schedule. We’re still go
ing to East Vasimir.”
“Yessir,” said the pilot.
“Sir, we’re cleared to take off,” said the co-pilot.”
“Go,” Doom urged.
The C-175 taxiied a few yards further onto the runway. Doom took a handhold as the heavily loaded cargo plane started to move at speed along the runway, all four massive propellors turning as it cumbersomely gained speed and, with a rough bump, got into the air.
“Hold on, sir,” the pilot said to Doom and pulled the stick back. The plane started to climb sharply, gaining height as fast as it could. The cockpit’s aft bulkhead started to become a diagonal floor.
“Nomads with stingers known to be not far from here. We’ll be at fifteen thousand feet until descent into East Vasimir,” the pilot explained.
“ETA?”
“Little under two hours, sir,” said the co-pilot.
Doom shook his head.
“Glass,” he told the older pilot, “radio. Off.”
Despite the plane’s steep angle, Glass – holding onto seat-backs and a strut in the ceiling – reached for a master switch above the main controls and firmly turned it with a click.
“Sir, you shut off our radio contact?”
“Yes, Captain, I did,” Doom said. “Now I’m sorry about this, but I brought my own pilots so here’s what we’re going to do…”
* * *
“Shit,” Hadfield hissed quietly when the text came. “Vancouver Mayfield. Oh shit.”
Numminen looked up sharply.
“You told me about Mayfield – what’s Vancouver mean?”
“It means Plan B. Emergency backup, sir. Raymond, Kowalski?”
Those two men, in the command tent with Delta’s captain and XO, looked more surprised than Numminen. Kowalski had at least been briefed this morning, with the other platoon leaders and platoon sergeants.
“Yes, Senior Lieutenant?” the first sergeant asked.
“Would you two please round up everyone squad-leader or above; combat engineers too. Have them here in five minutes.”
Kowalski looked at Numminen, the commander. Cocked his head.
“Go with it,” Numminen said. “Get them quickly.”
“What does Vancouver Mayfield mean?” Numminen repeated. “Give me a heads-up before you brief everyone on the change of plan, OK?”
“It means Plan A has failed. Euros must have somehow got wind of the diversion. We’ve got to run with Plan B.”
“What’s Plan B?”
Hadfield reached for the pad he’d spent the last twenty-four hours casually doodling on. As he spoke, he began looking through it, selectively ripping out certain pages.
“Take over the airfield so an incoming plane can be refueled and equipped. Shut off all outbound communications from the airfield for the next two hours, so nobody can report that anything is amiss. Traffic proceeds completely as normal, just no distress codes go out. The men we don’t need for that, board the plane and get ready for a fight.”
“Let me get this straight,” Numminen said ironically, “you want us to take over an airbase and hold the commander and Air Traffic Control center hostage at gunpoint for two hours. Damn, Senior Lieutenant, I’m glad the plan doesn’t call on us to do anything illegal.”
“It’s the plan we were given, sir. The backup plan. And we’d better get cracking on it, because the colonel should be hijacking his transport right around now.”
“Plan, what plan? We don’t just walk in and take over a major military installation without some kind of an execution plan!”
Hadfield took a final drawing from the notepad, checked over them, and handed them to Numminen. These particular ‘doodles’ contained arrows and boxes, and patterns of squares and rectangles that had a surprisingly non-coincidental resemblance to the layout of parts of East Vasimir airbase.
The XO smiled.
“This plan, sir. I’ve been updating it since we got here.”
“In plain sight,” said Numminen. “Was that the colonel’s idea too?”
“Of course.”
“Sir, everyone’s here,” said Kowalski from outside the tent. “Do we come in?”
“Yes,” said Numminen. “Hadfield, brief the lieutenants and squad leaders on what we’re going to have to do, I guess, to save Bravo Company.”
“Yes sir…”
* * *
“Open the cargo ramp,” Doom told the two Air Force pilots. Chip and Glass stood watching. So far the two had complied with no false moves, which Doom appreciated. He’d have hated to have to tase one of them.
“Sir?” the captain asked.
“Faden, have the men in back empty the plane,” Doom continued.
Faden headed into the back as the pilots slowly lowered the cargo ramp, mid-air. At fifteen thousand feet the air was thinner and, outside the heated cockpit, chilly. The cargo area of the plane was stacked with pallets, wrapped in plastic, of crates upon hundreds of crates of MREs.
“Whole lot of food we’re going to be throwing away, sir,” Rhee observed.
“Get started. Plane’ll go faster without the load. And Delta Company’s going to have to fit in there, remember?”
“Got it,” said Rhee.
Soon the men were heaving pallets along the roller-ramps and off down the lowered cargo ramp, where the racing wind grabbed them.
“Sir,” Rhee said to Faden, “you do realize how much trouble we’re going to be in for this? Hijacking an Air Force plane and now throwing away twenty thousand MREs that they probably need at East Vasimir?”
“No worse than the trouble the company’s in if we don’t, top. Why, are you having second thoughts?”
“Little late if I did,” Rhee scoffed. “Just making sure you know what you’re getting yourself into, sir.”
“Seems like our only option. Besides,” said Faden, “I have the feeling this isn’t going to be the worst of it.”
* * *
“Sir,” said the pilot to Doom. “The C-175 doesn’t have the fuel to make an eight hundred mile round-trip as you seem to be planning to. Not without drop tanks.”
“They’ll be waiting for us at East Vasimir,” said Doom. Hopefully. There could also be an arrest party, if Numminen and Hadfield screwed up.
“This is an outpost, right?” asked the co-pilot. “Those tend to be short-runway. The C-175 isn’t built for STOL, Short Take-Off and Landing… you’re going to need a C-160 or something.”
“A C-160 would have been nice,” said Doom honestly, “but this is the plane that was available.”
There came a bump, followed rapidly by another one, as more food pallets went out the back.
“JATO rockets,” he said to the pilots. “We’re going to need JATO rockets.”
“C-175 doesn’t have JATO capability, sir,” said the co-pilot.
“It has hard points,” said Doom. “The ground crew have the duration of a refueling to give it that capability.”
“That would destroy the plane – stress the airframe to destruction,” the pilot stammered.
“Will it destroy the plane right away? In air?”
“Not immediately, but that plane would never be safe to fly again.”
“It doesn’t need to fly again,” said Doom.
“Anything can be JATO-launched once, Captain,” Chip said reassuringly. “Even a car.”
“Once, sir!”
“Once is all my men need, Captain,” Doom said firmly.
* * *
The ground raced under the pounding hooves of von Kallweit’s zak as he urged it forwards. After more than three hours at a headlong gallop it was tired, very tired, almost unsteady. Well, there were remounts if this one died.
Rock spires towered over them as the horde booked it east. Twelve thousand nomads, banners and the odd lance glittering in sunlight that burned through a cloudless desert sky to lash at them.
This would kill the zaks. It already had killed a few, but you rode with remounts for a reason. The Department would pay for new one
s, and Colonel Lavasseur’s orders had been unambiguous; back to Kandin-dak as fast as possible, storm the place and kill everyone before the enemy could save them.
Exactly what von Kallweit had been urging to do in the first place, yesterday.
It wasn’t the place of captains to judge colonels, but von Kallweit found himself wishing the operations director were German, and therefore consistent.
Thousands of hooves echoed around the horde as it thundered west. They would be at Kandin-dak in less than two hours now.
* * *
“Stop,” Staff Sergeant Lucas Clark of the United States Army told the group of Legion troops at the airfield gate. “You need a pass to go beyond this point.”
“Orders for you,” said the senior of the twenty-few men; Clark guessed them as two squads, led by a senior lieutenant. “Second Lieutenant Connor sent us to relieve you.”
“Mid-shift?” Clark asked skeptically. “Sir?”
“Yes, Staff Sergeant. She wants you and the gate team” – six men, including Clark – “to follow me. Sergeant Frost and his squad will be taking over your duties.”
“Let me confirm that, Senior Lieutenant,” said Clark. Too often, Legion men tried to pull stunts. Their officers were no better than their enlisted men, none respectable.
“Go ahead.”
Clark went to the radio.
“Lieutenant Connor, ma’am?”
“Thought you’d call,” came the platoon leader’s voice. “It’s legit. Follow Senior Lieutenant Hadfield and I’ll brief you.”
“Confirmation code, ma’am, please?”
“Hotel Echo Niner Golf Three Zero.”
That was the lieutenant’s personal verification ID.
“Thank you, ma’am. We’ll be with you shortly.”
* * *
“Good lieutenant,” said Senior Lieutenant David Jester of the Legion combat engineers to Second Lieutenant Connor, who was sitting on a chair in a small storeroom with her wrists zip-tied together behind her back.