Retaliation

by Paul C. Middleton

  Still, Boris doubted that any formal attack on the base would be necessary. Another thousand of his troops would be filtering into the area within a day, so they could stand off and reduce the base then if they needed to without the chance of additional casualties. To increase the one-sided nature of the encounter, the mortars were on their way with the reserves. Without the vampire leading the base forces, Boris suspected many who had joined the NVG would disappear into the forest or surrounding villages.

  With the NVG force shattered, he would be surprised if there were anyone left living on the base when he got there. Janna’s appearance would spread the panic quickly, ensuring that those that had not already fled upon hearing of the death of their vampire leader and the decimation of the special Were troops would rapidly depart. Not one NVG Were had escaped, although they had caused forty of Boris’ fatalities. A bitter toll, but lighter than it would have been without Bethany Anne’s support on the logistical front.

  He slowly got to his feet and went to assist those organizing the evacuation of the wounded from the area. Perhaps they didn’t need to move far… not yet at least.

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  Janna was shocked when she approached the base. There was no defensive fire, in fact, there was nothing but silence. It looked like Evgeni was right. The fear of the routed thugs had spread to the base defenders, and the news of Konrad’s defeat and death had caused widespread abandonment.

  She had changed back to her human form when the main areas had been cleared and the defensive weaponry secured. Evgeni had been surprised and a little confused that it was her and not Boris. Janna promised to explain it later which seemed to calm him.

  Danislav had brought her pants along with him. She was relieved more than a little. Being one of less than fifty women and the only one that was half naked had been kind of embarrassing, even if none of the men had looked at her inappropriately or commented.

  They had two reasons to avoid any commentary she supposed. First, she could break any one of them over her knee. While that was scary enough, it didn’t even approach what Boris was likely to do to them if he found out they had disrespected her.

  She heard the trucks with the wounded and the remainder of their force approaching in the muted growl of engines. The vehicles passed a group that was organizing the dead for recovery and burial. This late in the autumn, it was best to just cover the bodies and set guards. It had already been decided to bury them in the Romanovka cemetery before they left.

  Boris had jumped out of the lead truck before it was fully stopped and immediately went to her.

  “Have the buildings been cleared yet?” he asked

  Janna replied, pointing to each of the buildings in turn, “The barracks, base hospital, and mess hall have all been checked along with the armory and towers. The main administrative building and base brig are being searched at this time by combined teams of Weres and Spartans.”

  Boris nodded and waved the convoy towards the base hospital that Janna had identified. The trucks moved obediently toward their target. With over eighty moderately wounded troops that had not been treated with nanites due to a supply shortage, the most lightly injured might end up in the barracks. Still, none of those were life-threatening or critical, so there was no reason for concern.

  One of the Spartans came running from the administrative building toward them.

  “Sir, Ma’am, we have found a man being held in one of the basement offices that had been converted to a cell and office combination. We thought it best to inform you immediately and ask how you wanted to deal with the situation.”

  Boris turned to Janna, who nodded. “Lead on. Maybe he knows something that could be useful to us.”

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  When they entered, the odor of both old blood and unwashed human was overwhelming. It was evident that the man in the room was a prisoner. One that Konrad had, for whatever reason, felt was valuable, but was not controlled enough to let roam free. The prisoner looked a little gaunt as if he had not been receiving enough food. He had distinctive East Asian heritage but was taller and more muscled than common in the area. His hair was a dark brown rather than the more prevalent black as well. After a few moments, they could detect the odor of a Werecat under the stronger smells.

  Janna’s attention was immediately drawn to the desk. Despite having a laptop on it, her focus was the folders on the surface. On top of the filing cabinets, on top of every flat surface in the ‘office’. Folders and more folders. She opened the filing cabinet drawers to find even more files, most of which contained a mixture of printouts and handwritten notes. Showing obvious delight, her expression turned to disgust as she looked more closely. A variety of curses wafted around her like stinging bees.

  “Goddamn, paranoid needle fucker,” she muttered.

  “What’s wrong?” Boris asked.

  “All of this is written in German or one of the Norse languages for starters. I know German but never studied the northern languages. Despite the ability to recognize them, I have not the capacity to translate anything in the language to something we can use. Even then much of it is in shortened forms that would take a team weeks to decrypt. Some of it also looks like code.”

  Boris looked at her incredulously. “Why is that a problem? Why would we need a team to decrypt them? We send them up the chain and get them to sort it,” he said, very conscious of the prisoner’s presence. He thought to her, ADAM can probably help us there.

  She blushed at slipping into her past role, and forgetting the resources available to her now.

  The prisoner spoke up at this point. Softly and hesitantly he said, “Make sure you send the laptop with the papers then. He would often refer to it while writing. I suspect it has some of the code keys on it.”

  “Who are you anyway? What had you done to attract the attention of these motherless bastards and made them give you such palatial accommodations?” Boris asked with irony in his voice. Before Shen could answer, Boris raised a commanding hand, speaking with absolute steel in his voice. “Before you answer, I’ll inform you now I want the truth and am feeling quite tired. Killing a powerful vampire is never easy. We will be checking the truth of your answers. But afterward, I will promise you at least a hot shower and a meal. Be aware, however, if you lie to us, it will be your last meal.”

  Shen was worn out. He had meant to gloss over his past, but it wouldn’t be worth trying to fool the Ghost Bear. His reputation, as the saying went, preceded him. If he had defeated Konrad, as seemed likely given the situation, he was out of Shen’s league. Konrad had made Shen feel like a kitten. Not that fighting was Shen’s skill set.

  “I was trading the location of a Soviet-era weapons cache for some quantum processors. Prototypes. When I turned up to make the deal, there was the smell of vampire. I was ambushed as I left and felt that changing in such a built up location to escape was a… bad idea. It was a painful discovery to find that the vampire was interested in me as an experimental subject. He’d take my blood at least once a week and try to make more werecats with it. Only had one success, a real shitjacker called Andrev.

  “Between the pain and the boredom I was slowly going insane. When what I am assuming were your attacks started to be a problem, he gave me profiles of groups opposed to him and set me on pattern analysis. Basic stuff for a computer science major, especially since I’ve studied human to machine cybernetic interfacing. I came to the conclusion that you were a likely cause of his problems.

  “He was convinced that if you were to attack one of his bases personally, it would be his research site near Archangelsk. His ‘most secret’ base he called it. I didn’t voice it but given the pattern of your attacks, switching from higher risk to low risk, the attack on the convoy didn’t make sense whether you knew the base was here or not. Unless it was a trap. I dodged the question when he asked me since I’d figured out by then he could
tell when I was lying. So I took a chance. He’d already convinced himself and his second to wipe out the raiding force. Then you found me here.”

  Boris looked at him thoughtfully and continued with his questions, “Your personal history?”

  Shen looked uncomfortable. “My mother was a werecat who fell in love with a werewolf. Such couplings are taboo in China, so they fled to India. Dad runs a successful export business. I earn my way by representing the family enterprise. I do a few black market information deals on the side. Mom doesn’t know, and Dad doesn’t like it, but he accepts my choices. I think his attitude stems from how judgmental their families were. Maybe because he sees it as me making my own way in the world…”

  Shen continued rambling through his family history for a few minutes. His exhaustion was evident so Boris called in Danislav.

  “Take him for a shower and some food. Put him in a clean prison cell. Two guards at all times, suicide watch. We’ll need to take him with us. He might be useful, but we can’t have an information seller out there with data on us to sell to the highest bidder. He’ll probably sleep. Make sure the guards know if something happens to him before what he’s told us is checked out they’ll answer to me.”

  Boris turned and left, looking for a meal and bed himself.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Hunting Cabin, Middle of Nowhere, Siberia

  It had been a busy couple of months for Boris and his command group. Often they had to split into two groups, with Danislav leading one assault and Boris with Janna leading the other. Occasionally, four separate and simultaneous attacks occurred. Mopping up the outposts, bases and separated forces of the NVG had fallen to his group. The Russian military had been given the information, including that the group's leader had been a German citizen. Given the potential political fallout from this, a compromise had been negotiated between the military establishment and Boris.

  The number of criminals and former criminals that had been found amongst the casualties by military analysis teams was above twenty-five percent. The NVG needed to be broken up before someone strong took the helm. The military was leery of doing it, as were the internal police forces and the Border Force. That left calling up the national guard, as it was their role in Russia, legally speaking, or using Boris’s forces and calling it ‘fighting amongst criminal elements.’ He had agreed to take on that role if two conditions were met. The first was full clemency papers for every member of his group for the duration of the ‘necessary actions for the security of the state.’ The other was payment.

  His group had provided enough of the papers and files to show that Konrad’s intention was to use the NVG to force the government to dance to his tune. Boris could prove that despite Romanovka’s history, they had never been a danger to the state. The NVG was. Some in the military were suspicious of his motives when he added two provisions to the deal. One was the monetary payment, which was about the same as it would have cost the military to mobilize units and neutralize the remaining NVG. The second was two suitable pieces of land surrounding bases of his choice to explore the repatriation and relocation of Romanovka’s people if they so wished. Throughout the negotiations, he had implied that his forces were mercenaries who he was either paying himself or owed him favors.

  Considering what had happened with China, who had accepted the refugees, not to mention… other political concerns, they had decided not to press that point. Most of the military bases in question were in the east anyway. The Russian government was currently running a program giving land to foreigners to attract settlers to Siberia. So it wouldn’t cost the state anything if the price of that land was rolled into the existing program.

  In exchange for their graciousness, Boris had agreed to hand over any prisoners. He had made sure any Were amongst the NVG died in battle. They had all fought to the end so it had not become an issue. The Weres knew the punishment Boris would exact for joining a group willing to commit mass murder. Better to die cleanly in battle had been their unanimous choice.

  The exception was Shen, who remained with Boris’ team. The Werebear commander had permitted him to let his parents know of his safety so they didn’t worry. After weeks of working on small projects, mostly cross-checking captured records for them, Shen seemed a comfortable fit within the team.

  He was still, however, a prisoner with work that was important but always double-checked. Shen was an essential part of the eradication of Konrad’s organization. It was important that it be eradicated, rather than cutting its head off only to have it grow back like a hydra. He had ten guards assigned to him permanently, both for protection and control. Considering that Shen was now free to shower, eat whatever he wanted, and sleep in a proper bed. His living situation had improved tremendously. It was evident that he appreciated the improvement and was becoming more comfortable with the team itself.

  Boris knew that it was not ADAM or Tom's fault that Janna had been almost killed, but it did not seem to calm his nerves anytime that he remembered the appearance of her unconscious body. His knowledge of the great abilities that they represented could not totally overwhelm the protective instincts of a Were for his mate.

  Boris thought about how the last few months had changed him, his relationships, and the world around him. Behind his closed eyelids, he mentally compared his world before Bethany Anne and now, smiling a bit in reminiscence. He opened his eyes after his thoughts returned to the present, realizing that they were nearly at their destination.

  They had a dozen small outposts left to conquer and the one large base, the Archangelsk. If only they could figure out where it was located. Its precise geographic site had been absent from all the notes. ADAM and TOM had tried several methods to try and find it from orbit but to no avail. The scans hadn’t picked up anything particularly of interest.

  There was something peculiar about how Konrad had referenced the base, in every entry where he had written about it. Boris knew that there was something important there, something that teased his brain and tugged on his intuition. Bethany Anne agreed with him, knowing that it was important and feeling just as frustrated over their joint inability to locate it.

  “Boris, stop that,” Janna said sleepily as he kept going over things in his head. “You agreed with Danislav’s choice of commanders to take out the recruiters and recruiting stations. When you go all analytical like that for long enough, it always wakes me up.”

  She snuggled her naked back against him. The contact of her warm form brought back other, pleasant, memories of the last two months. He had been both surprised and pleased that combat gave her an uncommon reaction. She had been demandingly affectionate when they had reached safety after each mission. Not that he was complaining. It had been very enjoyable, he thought. It was nice to have found someone with whom he could share all of his life, rather than fleeting moments that were edited carefully. Being able to just be himself gave him a freer feeling than he had ever had.

  It was also something he had never really dreamed could be an option. His mother’s warning against turning someone had pretty much ruled that out for him. He had never found a female vampire to his taste, since many of them were among the Forsaken. The few that were not had possessed an arrogance that set him on edge. Trying to build a relationship with a Were faced two problems. The first was that he was a Pack Leader, with the obligations that went with the position. Additionally, he was an oddity among Weres in that he had an extended lifespan. If he had taken a fancy to a Were, it would have complicated things within the pack, and he would have lost his mate after what was only a small portion of his life.

  He felt a warmth in his heart that he had rarely experienced before in his long, long life. He realized that his life before he met Janna - apart from the all too short love a century ago - had been just marking time. He had causes and people for whom he cared but after seeing so much of the worst of humanity, he had kept them at arms length with very few exceptions. Paul, Danislav, a handful of others, he had let in close. B
ut none of them as close as the redhead lying next to him.

  “I know a way to distract you from your damned introspection,” Janna said with mischief in her voice. She rolled over and changed her word to action with a deep, lustful kiss.

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