by E. E. Knight
He was an intelligent youth. Valentine could see why they sent him.
"What's your name, kid?"
"Jones, H. T. Youth Vanguard, but I'm only in it for the sports trips. Quit now, I hope. Vanguard service is just a rotten apple, shiny on the outside."
Bloom studied the brigade's defensive positions on her map. A few of the companies had been bled down to little more than platoons. A careful assessment of the mortar readiness status sheet would bring either tears or laughter. "Valentine, can we get one more fight out of the brigade, do you think?"
"I'll ask them," Valentine said.
Duvalier shook her head. "It's another gaslighting. This greasy little squirt's eyeing up a brass ring."
"Hey," the boy said, but Valentine held up his hand.
Bloom thought it over.
"Valentine, take your old company and go across the river and offer assistance. If we can catch a break in the city, safely tuck away our wounded. We can make that dash into Illinios and get to the mighty Miss."
"Define assistance, sir." Valentine hated to sound like he was crabbing out from under orders. "If it's to be combat to clear the city, I'd like a Bear team at least. If they're holed up in the manner this boy describes, I'll need demolition gear too."
"Just get over there and make an assessment. Use your judgment. We've got those two big guns we captured. Might as well use them for something other than blind fire on crossroads behind us."
* * * *
They came across in the dead of night in an unlit barge, downriver, and marched through a muddy, overgrown tangle of long-dead industry on the riverbank to the west side of town.
Evansville itself burned and rattled with the occasional pop of gunfire.
Bodies hung from the streetlamps. One torn-frocked churchman still clutched his Guidon in the grip of rigor mortis as he twirled in the fall breeze.
He made contact with the local resistance, a trio of a butcher, a teacher, and the man who ran the main telephone office. All introduced themselves first as belonging to the Evansville Resistance Lodge.
What was left of the Kurian Order, with their few troops pulled out to fill gaps in the Moondagger lines and their populace burning and score settling, had retreated to the bowl-like bulk of the civic center.
The resistance had power, water—Valentine even passed a hospital with big, spray-painted triage signs for illiterates bringing in wounded. Barrows full of farm produce crept along the sidewalks, distributing food to small patrols and sentry teams. Charcoal-fueled pickups brought in gear—scavenged or improvised weapon. There were workshops fixing up firefighting equipment with bullet shields so that an assault might advance under cover of water sprayed into windows.
Parts of the city might be burning, but Evansville appeared to be functioning with a good deal more organization and energy than he'd expected. He met men who worked in machine shops and fertilizer plants.
Fertilizer plants could be converted to the manufacture of high explosives. How long would it take some of Evansville's workshops to convert to the production of mortar shells?
"We cut off their water and juice," the telephone office manager named Jones said. "Of course, I think they got a reserve. Some kind of emergency plan is in effect. A cop prisoner told us they had three days of water. That's how long they're supposed to be able to hold out in an emergency until help arrives from Indianapolis or Louisville."
"Who's left in there?" Valentine asked as Rand set up the fire control observation station and tested radio communications.
"Middle-management types who were in the militia," Jones said. "Local law enforcement. The Youth Vanguard Paramilitary Auxiliary. Go ahead, blow them out of there. Won't nobody miss them."
He got the nod from Rand.
Valentine had shells from the guns march up Main Street toward the civic center. The last one impacted just inside the barricade. He'd made his point.
Valentine examined the civic center and the pathetic assortment of cars piled up on the sidewalks around it, along with dropped bundles and half-unpacked trunks. Entire families had retreated to the security of the big building. In panic or by design, the Evansville Quislings had assembled a barricade out of the civilian and order-enforcement vehicles, stringing barbed wire through broken windows and between fenders.
Dead bodies hung here and there on the wire. Black birds shamelessly feasted on the detritus of desperate valor.
He couldn't blow the remaining Quislings out without killing their kids with them.
He couldn't drop 155mm shells on a bunch of kids and fill the approaches to the civic center with a mixture of dead civilians and his company.
That left talking.
One of the mob behind him sneezed and wiped his nose with a onionskin page from a New Universal Church Guidon.
Valentine heard a metallic clang! A string of men emerged antlike from a utility hole mid-street and made a dash for the civic center. Gunfire swept the street. Poor shooting—they only got one. The others made it to the safety of the barbed wire and vehicle necklace around the building.
He lay, groaning.
"Cease fire! Cease fire!" Valentine shouted, hoping that energy would take the place of training and military discipline. The gunfire died down.
"Go on and get him," Valentine shouted at the civic center. "Nobody's shooting. Just let us get to our people too."
"Really?" a voice from the dark maw of the main doors called.
"Absolutely, positively really," Valentine shouted back, feeling a little giddy at the absurdity of the question.
They dragged their man out of the street and the Evansville mob got their own. Some resistance men, pinned down beneath a school bus, took the opportunity to return to their own lines.
"Rand, I'm trusting you to keep things from getting out of hand. If someone takes a pot shot at me, I don't want a sniper duel. We'll be back to trading machine-gun fire in no time."
He unsheathed his sword and gave the blade to Rand. "If they drop me, give this to Smoke."
"Let me go, sir," Patel said.
"You're too slow a target. And Rand, it would be a tragedy if someone put a bullet through your double helping of brains. Colonel Bloom gave her orders to me."
Valentine walked out into the center of the street under a white flag tied to his sword scabbard.
"Could I speak to whoever's in charge in there? I represent the United Free Republics, Kentucky Military Assistance Expedition."
Valentine had been wondering what to call the forces across the river; the improvised name sprang from his lips without involving his brain, evidently.
They answered with a shot. The bullet whizzed by close enough for Valentine to hear it with his right ear and not his left. He was either lucky or the sniper was a bad shot. He forced himself to remain erect.
"Who shot?" a voice yelled from the darkness. "Tell that dumbshit to cut it out. He's got a white flag."
"Killing me won't give you another day of water and power in there," Valentine shouted, advancing toward the barricade. "It'll just start the fighting again. Don't see that's gotten you much so far, and there's artillery being set up across the river. How many shells is it going to take to collapse that big roof?"
Valentine wondered if there'd be an instant's realization of his folly if the marksman decided to put the next one between his eyes. Would that be better than having part of his face torn off, or a bullet through the neck?
The street hit him in the back hard and Valentine felt an ache in his chest. He never heard the shot.
Valentine felt busted ribs, burned a finger in the hot bullet embedded in the woven Reaper cloth on his vest.
It felt like someone had performed exploratory surgery with a jackhammer on his chest. Valentine felt content to lay in the street for a moment, holding up the white flag like a dead man with a lily. He let his Wolf hearing play along the other side of the barricade.
"Quit firing. I'll shoot the next man who fires."
"That's treason talk, Vole," another answered. "Kill-or-die order, remember?"
"The man who gave that order quit on us two days ago, you've noticed."
Valentine rolled to his feet.
"I'm trying to save lives, here," he called. He tasted blood.
The next shot went between his legs, but he made it to the cover of the bus barricading the main entrance. Barbed wire hung off it like bunting.
"I'm right here if anyone wants to chat." It hurt like fire to shout. "Does that kill-or-die order apply to your kids? Maybe we can get them out of there, at least."
A bullet punched through the far side of the bus. Valentine slid to put the engine block between himself and the sniper.
The bus window above him broke and fell in stands. Luckily it was safety stuff. Valentine heard more shooting, a deeper blast of a shotgun.
"We got the gunman, Terry," Valentine heard.
Valentine looked through the rear doors of the bus. Someone had cut a hole in the other side, offering egress through the barricade. He lurched in, marked a claymore mine sitting under the driver's seat, and decided that maybe entering the bus wasn't such a good idea after all.
He sat on the bus's entry step.
"I'm still ready to talk."
"We're sending a party out to talk under a white flag."
Valentine looked at the advertisements running along the roof edge of the bus. Church fertility treatments, infant formula, exhortations to join the Youth Vanguard, warnings against black market deals ("Profit to the enemy, Poverty for your friends"), and invites for the sick and halt to enjoy a refreshing sojourn to the Carolinas and the "best medical care east of the Mississippi." A photo of a smiling silver-haired couple in beach wear lounging in chaises under an umbrella, he with a cast on his leg, her with a cannula and IV? hanging from a mount shaped like a flamingo, had a buxom nurse serving what looked like tropical drinks.
Visitors to Evansville were invited to see the Eternal Flame at Affirmation Park and add their names to the Wall of Hope for a small NUC donation.
The Kurian Order in microcosm.
Valentine heard movement from the other side of the bus. A trio of men, two in law-enforcement blue and one with a clean coat thrown over dirty collar and tie, entered one at a time. A cop went forward, yanked a wire from the mine, removed the detonator with a pocket screwdriver, and tucked the inert explosive under his arm. He had a huge nose that made his eyes look small and swinish in comparison. Valentine noticed numerous breaks in the greasy proboscis, a beak of scar tissue and whiskey veins.
"What do you have in mind, Rebel Rick?" the other cop said.
"Name's Valentine, major, Southern Command." Valentine said, learning to breathe with half his chest. He'd heal from this. He always healed, but always came back only to 90 percent. He wondered how many 10 percents he'd lost over the years.
"Cloth from a robe. That's why he's still alive," the man with the tie muttered to the other cop.
"I'm Vole, senior captain, Evansville Security and Enforcement," Big Nose said. "Emergency Militia Leader Albano, Temporary Mayor Bell."
"I was clerk of Resource Allocation," Bell said. "I never carried a gun or signed a retirement warrant my whole life."
"No separate deals!" Vole barked. "What's your offer?"
"No more fighting between you guys and the resistance," Valentine said. "That's my deal. Come out without your guns. I'll put any dependents under supervision of Southern Command personnel. They'll come to no harm."
"What about us?" Vole asked.
"That's up to you and the Indiana boys."
Albano purpled but instead of turning on Valentine, he elbowed Vole. "I say we hang him, just like they did with Sewbish. No more flags of truce—just delays the inevitable."
Vole ignored him. "Understand, Valenwhatever, we've got nothing to lose and orders to kill any rebel we can get our hands on."
"A hard rain's going to fall here, just a couple more days," Albano added. "A HARD RAIN."
"I'm sick of that weather report, Albano," Bell said. "Where's that relief column out of Indy? Tommorow, tomorrow, always tomorrow."
"Shut up, you two," Vole said.
Bell ignored him. "Lindgren said the Moondaggers asked for it to cross the river into Kentucky to secure their lines for the retreat out of Kentucky. We're bloodpiped. Let's refugee north to Indy. Even if a new guide comes, he'll have his own people. Better to start at the bottom rung somewhere else than get caught up in a reorg here."
"You willing to let us just walk out of here?" Vole asked Valentine.
"I'm sure that could be arranged," Valentine said. "If you turn over your weapons and gear intact. I'll try to make the local resistance see the advantage of getting their hands on your guns. But are you sure of the reception you'll get in Indianapolis or wherever you end up? You might be surplus to requirements. Someone's got to take a fall for a debacle in a city the size of Evansville. Might just be you all."
He let that sink in.
"Seems to me you men have two alternatives. Stay here and fight it out, waiting for help that's not coming, or surrender yourselves to your fellow Hoosiers."
"Six of one . . .," Albano said.
Valentine coughed up a little more blood. "Fight or die, they told you. Take 'em up on it. Fight them for a change."
They blinked at him like sunstruck owls.
"Rengade and get picked off on some Reaper's manhunt?" Vole said. "Or get a stake pounded up my ass by a vengeance team? Painful way to go."
"I'm wearing what's left of one of those Reapers you're so scared of," Valentine said. He might be called a liar. Valentine looked at it as shaving the truth. "Join the fight against the Kurians. I lead a bunch of fighting men that's nothing but former Order. I can always use more men. You might get killed, but if you fall, you'll fall on the right side and you won't get recycled into pig feed. Once you've proven in combat, you're a new man, so to speak. We'll give you a new identity if you like."
Valentine was exceeding his orders and knew it. But if it would spare a mutual slaughter—
Valentine noticed that both sides had advanced on the bus, scraps of white tied to tips of rifles or held aloft at the end of bits of pipe fashioned into spiked clubs, trying to hear what was transpiring inside.
The resistance was more numerous, the Kurian Order forces better armed, facing each other across abandoned vehicles and curlicue tangles of razor wire.. ..
The Quislings looked a rough lot. Of course there would be the bullies, the cowards, and the lickspittles—the Kurian Order attracted such—but he had a tough, experienced bunch of officers now. They'd keep them in line.
The battered, big-nosed leader looked at Valentine with suspicious eyes.
"Trust comes hard, I know. I spent time under the Kurians myself. Don't they always garland their deals with a bunch of roses? What did they tell you before you joined Enforcement? Quick path to a cushy office and a luxury card? Any of that come true? I'm telling you you'll have it hard, but you'll be able to look yourselves in the mirror. No more bundling neighbors off into collection vans."
Valentine had no more words in him. He caught his breath, waited. The three exchanged looks.
"I want all this written up on paper with some signatures," Vole said. "And I want us to keep all our light weapons and sidearms. It's got to say that too. Every man gets a choice: join you, surrender, or walk out."
"Save us the effort of finding guns for you," Valentine said.
* * * *
Valentine left a platoon of his company under Ediyak and Patel to organize the surrendered Quislings and returned across the river in a small boat, heartened. A barge would follow, laden with food, mostly preserved legworm meat rations marked "WHAM!—hi protein" in cheery yellow lettering. The barge would bring the wounded back, where the Evansville hospital could give them a bed and rest at last.
"That Last Chance feller payed us another call while you were across the river," Tiddle told him outside th
e headquarters tent as Valentine scraped riverbank mud from his boots. "Said he was giving us one more chance to give up before turning us into charcoal briquettes."
He called a staff conference and gave the good news to Bloom, trying to stay awake and alert. When it was done, he felt as tired as Bloom looked. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes. "We can get home."
He took a breath. Decisions like these were always easy, when, as Churchill said, honor and events both pointed in the same direction. "Hell with that. We've got a secure base in this country and they don't. Let's go on the offensive."
"With the brigade worn to pieces?" Bloom asked, looking as though Valentine had reopened her incisions.
"Now's our best shot. Colonel. If we can buy some peace and quiet to get things organized to support us in Evansville, we can cut river traffic or the Ohio and give some real help to the uprising in Kentucky."
"What happened to going home?" a Guard captain asked.
"Every time we've had a chance to run, we've run, and where's it got us? Javelin ends with a whimper as the men pile onto barges and motorboats under shell fire. If Javelin's going to die, I want it to die hard, trying to do what it was designed for: to establish a new Freehold. If we can take the Moondagger main body with us, Kentucky has a chance. We've got the technical people, even if they've lost a lot of their gear on the retreat. We've got the Wolves and Bears, even Smoke and a Cat or two."
"I wouldn't want to be up against this brigade," Gamecock said.
"Fingers around the enemy's throat and teeth locked on hide," Bloom said. "God grant me the strength to get out of this chair one more time. Valentine, will you help me draw up a plan for your clutch hit?"
"In this situation it'll be a simple one, sir," Valentine said. It was hard to say which emotion dominated, relief that they were turning at bay like a wounded lion, or anxiety over this last throw of the dice.
"If you do this, what's left of the Kentucky Alliance will be with you," Brother Mark said. "Believe it or not, we've still got riders from all the five tribes. Most are either Bulletproof or Gunslingers. Tikka's worked out some kind of command structure. Bitter-enders all. They want their ton of flesh from the Moondaggers."