by Aeryn Leigh
"One to go," said Beowulf. "Then all that is left is the black building where Merrion found Mick." He nodded, and the ram broke the heavy door wide open. Silence. Another crash, then nothing, the seconds passing, until Merrion's voice rang out.
"Clear," said the voice, then almost wistfully added, "unfortunately."
Laurie and Beowulf walked in, their eyes adjusting to the single lantern. The stench sickly-sweet. Its source so familiar. Beowulf swore. Merrion hurried over to the doorway as Laurie, with a sweeping rage, lifted his MP 40 and fired burst after burst, moving up and down the rows of columns of caged dogs with their lower jaws and tongues removed, throats cut out to stop barking, all with some form of butchered limbs or impaled on metal spikes — but eyes — all their eyes gazing on him in liquid brown pools of innocence and pain. Captain Lawrence John put a bullet into each of their heads as saline dripped from his human eyes until every canine lay dead, then with a snarl, ran out the door straight for Building Two with Beowulf and Merrion in pursuit unable to gain on him through the maze of cobblestones. As he passed the threshold of the building holding the scientists he dropped the MP 40 and unsheathed the sword of Hffylson and amongst the cries of those guarding them ran the nearest prisoner right through the guts with a savage cry.
The room fell deathly silent as the others caught up. The captain placed his boot on the screaming scientist and pulled his sword out, intestines spooling onto the wood, his breath hard, teeth grinding.
"You fucking bastards. You fucking bastards. Men of science." He spat on the gutted man. The forty-three remaining prisoners dressed in white cowered, their expressions ones of terror as their colleague writhed on the building floor. "Start talking now and give me answers. You there. What's in the black building?"
The nearest prisoner stammered. "It's the, it's the . . ."
The captain thrust the steel into the man's stomach through the white cotton fabric and lifted it up in a vertical cut. "It's the what?" He tore the sword to the right. "Couldn't make that out. What's your objective?" Entrails began to fall to the floor in a wet slopping sound as the man’s blood bubbled through his mouth. He removed the sword with a yank, and the scientist fell, foetal to the ground.
"Barbarian." A scientist stepped forward. "What I would expect from men like you. Godless savages who give no quarter or understand civility —" and his words died in his mouth as two feet of gleaming red steel removed his head.
The body toppled to the floor as its head rolled to a stop against the doorway. Merrion smiled, and shoved it aside with his boot.
"What's in the black building? Who is in charge here? " Laurie moved to the next group of scientists. A couple of white coats pointed at the man without his head, their faces in shock. "Second in command? What, no takers?"
The living incarnation of wrath moved onto the next prisoner. With a clamour of coherent speech and information and thrice-wrought steel, the remaining scientists spilled their guts.
Chapter Sixty-Nine
Shoe Polish
"So, if there's a whole division down there, why aren't they attacking? Jesus, Griffin, what is this stuff? Shoe polish?"
"Well don't drink it then. More for me."
"No, no, now don't get so hasty mate. Delicate notes of oak barrels with chocolate overtones marinated in fucking God knows what are coming through to me — gentle floral scents like a summer's day in the hills of Scotland."
"It will put hairs on your chest, no argument. Homemade bourbon from The Pit's still. Ahhhh — yep — damn lot of hairs. Well Sergeant Ward, whoever's in command down there knows we ain't going nowhere in a hurry. There's enough artillery down that hill to level these top three sections to rubble. The weapon stores are below us. Between us and the remnants of the First and Proud, another full damn battalion inside that mountain guarding them."
"Well why haven't they come out, Mister Gunnery Sergeant?"
"Why would you? It's our move, not theirs. Time is on their side. Bourbon?"
"Cheers. So, basically we're fucked."
"Seems so. The Captain has cheered right up."
"Bugger."
"Look on the bright side."
"And what's that?"
"You're leading the mountain assault with him."
Laurie sat on the cobblestones, his back against the black building containing the Inquisition scientists and researchers. The cold seeped through his trousers and sent chills up the spine in all the wrong areas, magnifying a lifetime of accumulated wounds and injuries.
Fucking philosophers. Some prick high up in the Inquisition gets a hold of Descartes from the damn wormhole and it's fair game for humans and animals alike. The body is just a mechanical clock. No real pain. Just an approximation that sounds like suffering. Tick. Tock.
Chemical weapons of war. So that's what you bastards are up to?
The Inquisition. The Republic. Everyone is playing the long game except for me. Then the other voice whispered from the rebellious part of his brain. The long game, mate? You never had one. Every day you went out and did your best to die.
Well, son, it's time to get one. His left hand rummaged into his pocket and pulled out a couple of leaves, shoving them into his mouth and began masticating them carefully.
If joy could be cold and calculating, and by itself give warmth in some perverse inverse relationship, then joy filled Laurie from head-to-toe. Red mist and white-hot rage had gone. Finding joy in hatred. He thought about what the Inquisition scientists had told him as he chewed and ruminated on it. And the general's long-term plan to end the war, well — then so be it.
All of it.
But to achieve that, we need to reach the First and Proud trapped inside that mountain. Christ, Marietta's mum. Sarah? She's a Second Front all by herself says Merrion. Makes Marietta a pushover by comparison.
He rubbed his temples.
Free the army.
Maybe some of the toys they found in Building Seven could help with that.
All the toys, like the Inquisition that created them, had laid in perfect order upon the long lines of metal shelving and hooks up and down the rows in the large room. Immaculate, not a speck of dust, the result of an SS Colonel's memory and diabolical execution made manifest.
He stood up, and took a piss, and even that too, hurt.
Chapter Seventy
Open Ground
Metal screeched on metal, echoing uphill. Griffin bolted wide awake, as far in the distance sunlight poked over the horizon. Predawn. The clouds were the colour of rust. The gunnery sergeant threw the single blanket he'd been napping under aside and dashed from the guard tower's floor room to the defensive positions behind the portcullis.
More metal clanked on more metal, the roar of exhausts booming in the quiet. The sound they made took Griffin right back to the day of the invasion, the only thing that made such a sound.
Tanks.
Griffin crawled on his belly using his elbows and came up behind the 20mm Hispano-Suiza Mk. V autocannon Laurie had insisted bringing. The captain was right. The pair of cannons from the Lancaster, damaged upon landing had taken forever to repair, long after H-Day.
One went into the Catalina.
The other was sitting on its custom tripod with its rudimentary iron-cross sights and it was this seven-foot long weapon Griffin eased himself up to, assessing the threat. Hilda already lay prone, the long belt of 20mm ammunition in her hands.
In the darkness, under the starless sky and the fog down the valley, all but obscuring the next wall down, the roar of engines boomed and droned and rolled toward them, underwritten by the faint sounds of masses of armoured infantry clinking and the louder sounds of dozens if not hundreds of footsteps on cobblestones.
Griffin performed one last check, and thought of family.
Still the noises came, and now he could feel just the tiniest vibrations beneath him. In the low light, he looked at Hilda, whose eyes were also wide.
The tremors grew. Griffin swivelled his head ar
ound and checked the guard tower immediately up and above their position. In the murkiness, he saw the two Vikings manning the .50cal and their hand signals.
"Hold your fire on the twenty," said Captain John, "until I say so. I want that cover for us." That damn open ground, and that bloody fog. I was hoping to kill the first tank just after the archway and create a bottleneck, but no. So the tank wrecks would make nice forward cover for the team's MP 40's. Hopefully. "The rest of you, go, and wait for my signal. Beowulf, if you don't mind, mate, stay here with us."
The rest of the assault team, minus the two covering the fortress gate, the two on the Browning above and the one guarding the prisoners, moved quickly to spread themselves along the top fortress wall.
The first sun appeared, as in the murky blackness somewhere in the private gardens, boxy shapes formed through the dim morning fog.
Three Inquisition tanks rumbled through the fog and began crawling up the hill on their two-foot wide iron treads either side of an overturned iron rectangular bathtub the size of an humongous elephant. Their straight-six motors bellowed at full throttle as they started the laborious climb up the mountain path at nothing more than walking pace, side by side. Not even that going uphill.
Laurie crouched behind the left archway, furiously studying the tanks rolling jets of coal through his set of binoculars. Same as the ones on Invasion Day. I hope. Four inches of steel plate on the front, two Maxim-clone machine guns each, port and starboard, another two out front, with a medium-range flamethrower that spewed flame eighty yards, give or take.
Four inches of armour. No wonder they only moved at walking pace. Who the hell puts that much plate up front? Bastards. We bring modern machine guns and even a bloody autocannon and still can't hit 'em head on.
Which leaves the tracks. He rubbed his nose.
The line of tanks opened up with their Maxims. Six machine guns walked their fire along the top of the wall and the closed gate, the bullets making a terrific sound, canvas ripping at high speed. Anyone with half a brain would be hunkering down, and they all did as stone chips flew in all directions, especially up in the guard tower as bullets struck the rear walls and ricocheted.
Hilda gripped tight the wooden stick holding the large hardwood door upright in front of the 20mm, as incoming fire drummed upon it, cracking it here and there. Griffin cocked the cannon. Laurie stuck out his own short stick with a reflective piece of metal and counted down the yards.
Smart. Not all firing at once, overlapping fire to cover the other guns as they reloaded. Damn they learnt quick. But where was their infantry support?
The lumbering monsters in another minute would be in flamethrower range. Ponderously, yard after yard they traversed the clearing, churning right through beds of flowers and greenery.
A blast of a whistle.
The roar of battle cries.
The wave of Inquisition Marines from another world charged straight from the fog, a thick white tide spanning the breadth of the gardens. Even Beowulf on the opposite side of the arch gave pause. He grinned back at Laurie.
Eighty-four rounds for the Hispano-Suiza. Just on seven hundred for the .50 above, plus another couple hundred for Betty next to the 20mm. Twelve men with MP 40’s.
Over a thousand — maybe more — soldiers ran straight at them. Massed charges against machine guns. Laurie went right back to Passchendaele, France in 1917 for an instant, and just for a second, not even that, felt sorry for the poor bastards, as he brought the battle horn to his lips.
And blew defiance.
Chapter Seventy-One
Gotcha
Hilda let go of the stick and the ripped-off-at-the-hinges door crashed down, and Griffin pulled on the crude trigger. The Mk. V cycled up to 750rpm and alternate rounds of HE/I and SAP/I spat from the autocannon at 2,750 feet per second right at the middle tank, mushrooming balls of fire blooming across its front as Griffin got his eye in for the next burst and this time sent another second burst straight into its small section of front left tread, between armour plates.
The middle tank kept moving straight for a few more yards as its tread unspooled before it spun to the left, presenting its flank and crashing into the nearby tank's front quarter with grinding metal.
Gotcha.
Another blast of the battle horn and the Browning atop the guard tower returned fire as the two Vikings did their best to stay down yet operate the heavy machine gun as now machine-gun duels erupted across the killing grounds only one-hundred and fifty yards apart from each other.
But the Browning wasn't aiming at the tanks, but the jammed mass of humanity running over the crisp green field.
Then Griffin put another dozen rounds into the tank's side and a couple of tungsten-tipped incendiary shells pierced the underside and entered the main compartment where they ignited flamethrower fuel canisters — and Griffin with the others lost vision as the middle Inquisition tank blew up like the world's biggest hand grenade, the solid construction of the shell only aiding the explosion.
The tank next to it wobbled, then stopped as the lateral shear forces broke both treads.
Griffin fired another short burst into the disabled tank. Eight cannon shells hit the exposed area of metal sprockets and gears then the muffled pops and little explosions as now it too detonated wiping out two maybe three squads of Inquisition Marines coming up hard on its rear to use as cover. At the same time the two Vikings manning the .50cal popped up and fired accurate, short, controlled bursts into the charging infantry.
.50 calibre slugs slashed through the front ranks of the enemy, the massive bullets tumbling through body after body after body.
One last tank.
Griffin started it and pulled the trigger. It jammed.
"Griffin," said Laurie.
The last remaining tank lumbered forward. "Beowulf," yelled Laurie, diving from cover to the machine-gun nest and in a smooth motion flicked the battle horn underarm mid-jump, landing next to Betty.
But the Viking King was already in the air as with a roar he also braved gunfire and landed next to Hilda who was helping Griffin open the breech of the Hispano-Suiza, catching the horn with outstretched arm. Beowulf grabbed the end of the long stick and pushed it forward, raising the wooden barricade up.
Laurie set up behind the customised Browning M2.
The roiling plumes of smoke from burning flesh and fuel drifted through the portcullis and over the four.
Laurie nodded to Beowulf who raised the battle horn and issued two short blasts.
He dropped the stick.
Laurie hammered at Inquisition troops forming between the still alive tank and the burning middle and killed dozens.
The tank entered flamethrower range.
A high-pitched sound, one solid hiss.
Dragon fire spat toward them, long gouts of flame. The terror weapon unleashed its own version of fire, brimstone, and hell. The flame stopped thirty yards in front of them yet the heat terrific at that range.
The smell of oranges and gasoline.
Griffin found the blockage.
The flame jet died away. The sound of gunfire and the screams of the living and dying and all in between filled the air. Now an even higher pitch and hiss issued from the remaining tank as it fired the flamethrower again. The end of the fireball kissed the stone and metal portcullis then the jet rolled vertically up the guard tower. The Viking crew stopped firing.
The extended-range flamethrower set everything flammable ablaze. The Vikings tried swatting the flames away with their hands but found the sticky gel couldn't be extinguished and even the Vikings began to scream.
A well-aimed burst from the front Maxims killed both men.
The hardwood door burned fiercely. Hilda performed her mechanical magic and screamed into Griffin's ear. All clear. And with his cheeks feeling like crispy seared flesh, Griffin cocked the autocannon then took aim at the third and final tank and held down the trigger.
The 20-mm cannon fire ripped metal trea
ds away and it stopped directly facing them. The flamethrower fired again.
If we could just hold out a little longer, thought Laurie, recalling the flamethrowers internal fuel tanks inside the destroyed tanks back at the Pit — before the horrific scenes of those same tanks emptying liquid fire into Republic bunkers replaced them in his mind.
It was a terror weapon. It wasn't meant to sit out and duke it in battle all day long. The flame tanks ran dry with a long, drawn out hiss.
Beowulf blew the horn once. The Vikings along the wall raised themselves over the lip and fired their MP 40’s on what remained of the Inquisition infantry running across the open gardens. The portcullis clanked upward, and Beowulf let off another great cry and leapt up charging the immobile tank sidestepping left and right as the Maxim gunners tried their best to stop him, yet he made it to the tank, back slapping hard against the metal side. In the next breath, the barrel of his MP 40 shoved right through the closest visor slot, pulled the trigger emptying the whole magazine of thirty-two 9mm rounds and turned the ten-man tank crew into mashed up pieces of ricocheting death.
They'd done it. The field was theirs.
In the distance, the sounds of mechanical engines bellowed.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Low Friction Coefficients
Ella dreamed fitfully, and awoke in darkness, the air hot and muggy. Next to her, the warm body of Rob. She could hear his breath. We are in a pocket of air under snow. Ella tried moving her hands, still in Helena's gauntlets, and even as her limbs and muscles hurt, the weight of snow shifted slightly. Not too buried then. With a hard shove, she broke through the snow heaped over the blankets, exposing their heads, and was rewarded by blinding sunshine and the sweet taste of crisp, fresh air, even if it was cold.