Steel Breach

by Casey Calouette

  At that, Colonel Clarke realized he was dismissed. He looked at the Officers around the table and couldn't help but crack a smile. "Yes sir."

  He walked out and passed a table of medals. There was slab after slab of bronze, brass, and silver. Next to it was a stack of papers, each with the title of a barony, county, magistration, or manufactory. This wasn't about success, it never was. It was about maintaining a status quo, a method of social movement and promotion. He scowled at the heap of metal.

  Colonel Clarke marched into the cold and knew that he'd do everything in his power to end this war, or die trying. But first, to the South.

  #

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Vasilov System - Deep Space

  Morning found Umi doing push-ups, planks, leg raises, and whatever exercise would do without weights. With each completed rep he snapped into the next. The starship hummed underneath him and he cracked a smile. Riding a starship, no one got a ride like this, and here he was doing push-ups.

  It bothered him that there were no windows. He'd asked and Sevel pointed at a view screen. Somehow a video feed wasn't quite the same as an honest window.

  Lady Atli woke next and jabbed her foot into Tollefson's ribs. "Wake up, lazybones, I need your help."

  Tollefson rumbled to his feet and gave his arm to Lady Atli.

  Umi watched the pair leave. The giant and the Iron Lady, quite a pair.

  The Lokeen hadn't thought about a bathroom, so when they did fashion one it was in Engineering. This is where they logically thought it should be. For how much they enjoyed human movies, they seemed woefully ignorant of anything not explicitly shown in a movie.

  The room slowly came awake. Kolich rolled off his cot and rubbed his face. Riga sat up and there was an audible sound of the safety on his weapon engaging. Vik and Blaser snapped awake at the sound.

  "Don't trust our hosts?" Umi said.

  Riga tucked the pistol into his jacket and yawned. "I can fight another human and when it's all done we really have a lot in common. He might fish, well, I might fish. Maybe we both like soccer." He stifled another yawn. "But an alien, even if he's my friend, ain't got the same connection. Ya know, how do you get to know 'em?"

  "You trust 'em boss?" Blaser asked. The man stood and started rummaging through a box of Colonial rations.

  Umi stood and wiped the sweat off his face. Did he trust them? That was a question he'd wrestled with ever since deciding to become a mercenary. "For now, yes, I have no reason not to."

  "I don't trust 'em," Riga said. He leaned back and grabbed a blue ration pack.

  "You don't trust your own mother," Vik said. He stretched his muscled frame and his knees cracked. His buzz cut was smooshed to one side and he had a serious case of bedhead.

  Riga snorted. "How could I? Look at me!"

  "How's this gonna go down, Cap?" Vaughn asked. The Engineer stood and started folding his sleeping bag. His face was narrow and his nose perched on his face like a flake of granite.

  "Once we come into orbit, Sevel is going to launch us in a cutter. Supposedly where Atli said the item is."

  "What is it?" Blaser said.

  "A datacore."

  "Big? Small? Can we carry it? Do we have to disconnect it? Is it defended?" Vaughn asked.

  "Man portable, already disconnected, should be ready to roll," Umi said.

  Riga kicked open his bag and pulled out a block of ammunition. He dropped it onto his cot. "Why didn't the Vasilov take it with them?"

  "I bet they ran into trouble," Vik said.

  "Yes, they did." Lady Atli came in with both hands clutching Tollefson's arm. "Someone left hunters there, animal-machine. At first they prowled and watched, later they hunted. Only a few made it back to the rendezvous to gate out."

  "And we'll fare better?" Riga said. He opened a case and started assembling a short barreled sniper rifle.

  "We know where it is. Last time it took the creatures days to finally attack. You'll be fine." Lady Atli waved her hand.

  "Says the politician," Riga said.

  "Quick in, quick out, and we drag it back, just keep on your toes," Umi said.

  "Who lived there?" Kelly said. "Who left the big cyborg dogs?"

  Lady Atli sat on her cot. "I don't know."

  "Why didn't they want anyone visiting?" Vaughn asked.

  "Maybe they didn't want anyone leaving," Riga said.

  #

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Mackinof Front - 19th Armored Cavalry Staging Area

  Sparks danced as the maintenance staff ground the welds on the inside of the tank. The tiny embers glowed in the darkness. A layer of bluish smoke floated at the ceiling. It smelled of burnt steel and fear.

  Tomi shivered inside of his sleeping bag. He stared at the diagnostics panel in his headset and watched the armor integrity indicator. "Eighty-four percent!"

  The grinding stopped and there was a crackle of an arc welder. Harsh blue light danced through the hold.

  "Hold up, it's going down again." Tomi pushed through a menu and saw that as the weld was laid the remaining armor was losing its hardness.

  "Well, it'll keep the snow out," the welder called. The man packed up his equipment and popped open the hatch.

  "Close the damned door!" Tomi yelled. He peeled himself out of the sleeping bag and ran to the back and sealed the hatch. He cursed and stomped. The hold was frigid again. "Asshole."

  He looked down and stepped back. A red stain on the floor grates marked where Gous had nearly died. They'd saved him, though his entire shoulder would become a mass of titanium and synthetic bone. Almost everyone in the back had received a concussion along with shrapnel wounds. The hull had an anti-spall liner and a pressure reliever, but the cold had made the armor brittle and froze the relief valves.

  But still, he was alive. They were alive.

  He ran his hand over the weld. It was ugly and stuck out like a steel scar on the smooth hull. Ideally it would have been repaired with a proper piece of armor plate.

  Tomi looked down at his hands. They were cold, wrinkled, tinged white with a grimy coat of oil and hydraulic fluid. He'd tried washing them but it didn't seem to help. They only ached in the lukewarm water.

  The intercom crackled and the wind outside overwhelmed whoever spoke. Tomi knew who it was and he walked to the back to pop the hatch.

  The rest of the tank crew rushed inside. They were bundled up from head-to-toe with trails of steam following them like white cigar smoke. Mick thrust a sealed container at Tomi. "Stew!"

  The infantry peeled out of their outer white jackets and piled them in a heap. Everyone sat and ate silently. The clinking of spoons announced they were finished. Hutch leaned back and popped open an ammo stowage tube and retrieved a length of sausage. Wellington and Hess started up a poker game on a tablet with Mueller leaning over and watching closely.

  "Where do you guys keep finding that stuff?" Tomi said.

  "Don't ask," Hutchins said. He sliced off a frozen round and passed it down the line. "Then we don't have to lie to you."

  Mueller grinned and chomped on the half-frozen sausage.

  Kallio and Nikov sat at opposite ends of the tank. Nikov's face was coated in bruises, Kallio didn't look nearly as bad.

  "Torori is the new CO," Mick said. "Norton shot himself before the mission."

  The crew looked up but no one said anything.

  "We've got our orders. But first, we need to discuss our family," Mick said. He set his empty mess tin down and pulled out a cigarette. His fingers shook as he lit it.

  Tomi looked at Kallio then Nikov. Neither one looked up from their food.

  "This tank is a family. It's our home. We take care of it, it takes care of us." Mick puffed on the cigarette and let it droop from his lip. "Now we got a problem. How we gonna solve it?"

  Kallio looked up. "I'm sorry, it's, well, hard."

  "Damn right it's hard. It's hard for all of us here. Hutch has ten more years of this. I've got four. You and
Nikov, a measly two years. But until that time is up, we need you here. You're the medic, what if you were too fucked up to patch up Gous?"

  "I just, you can't help it, you get that urge, it's like—"

  "Stop. You don't go anywhere alone. Not to piss, not to shit, not to get supplies. Can you do your job?"

  Kallio sighed and nodded. "Yes."

  "Right, we put this behind us then. How bout you, Nikov?"

  "Get fucked."

  Mick grinned past the glowing ember. "Still got some spunk, eh? I can work with that. I can't do your job, I'm infantry, my job is back here."

  "You want my job? Take it." Nikov leaned back and closed her eyes.

  "None of us wants it. We don't have time to get it right, you've got the training, and I can't very well ask the Lieutenant for more time."

  Nikov didn't say anything.

  "Well?"

  "Well what? What do you want me from me?" Nikov yelled. "I'm an addict, I can't kick it."

  "Do you want to?" Mick asked calmly.

  "Yes."

  Mick pulled the cigarette from his mouth. "Then we'll help you."

  Nikov's face was tight and her eyes burned. She leaned forward and opened her mouth but didn't say anything. For a second her hard shell broke and she was open, and just as quick the scowl returned. "Leave me alone."

  "We can't. Where you gonna go? It's not like you can transfer to another unit. Can you stay clean?"

  Nikov looked back and narrowed her eyes. "Yes."

  "Bullshit. Same for you, you don't go anywhere alone. Listen to me, Sergeant, you have a critical job, you need to snap out of your self-pity and defeatism and remember who you're here for. You're a good NCO, I know what you're capable of."

  "That was a long time ago," Nikov said in a quiet voice. Tears welled up in the corner of her eye.

  "We've all gone through tough shit," Mick said. "Now we put this behind us. Everyone's on a fresh slate. Objections, anyone?"

  They all sat for a moment in silence with only the hum of the heaters. The air was finally warming up, they all knew because it started to stink inside.

  "Orders came in, we're headed to Reach tonight. Kadan are sieging 'em fierce, they're cut off and we need to punch a hole. We need supplies, you guys get out and steal, borrow, and beg anything and everything. We're bringing Bulldog to the depot and stocking up."

  "Going past LISCOM?" Puck asked. "Be a fuckin' hurricane."

  "No." Mick took a final puff and stomped the cigarette on the floor. "We're going South overland."

  Tomi crept through the crowded supply depot with Puck leading ahead of one tread and Vaughn ahead of the other. Even with a full circular view it was still tough to navigate tight quarters. He slammed on the brakes as a cargo truck bounced past.

  "For fuck's sake," Nikov yelled. "Careful!"

  "Sorry," Tomi said. He pulled his headset off and looked up. Nikov was half hunched over with her eyes closed. He wanted her to be gone, he didn't care where, just gone. She couldn't do her job and he was the one who'd have to take up the slack.

  Another truck moved past. Puck stepped out and shook his fist at the driver.

  Though, he thought, I was a puddle of piss not long ago myself. All right, I just won't cut her any slack, she certainly won't give me any. He mulled on that while a convoy crept by. Mick did say she was a good soldier once, this gave him an idea. Might as well ask now. "Sergeant?"

  "What?" she grumbled back. "Why aren't we moving?"

  "Traffic. Uh, what did you do, uh, before?"

  "Before I became an addict?"

  "Yes, Sergeant."

  "Christ," she grumbled. "I served here, did my time, then went back after some serious shit and got into Kettle. That enough for you?"

  Tomi steered the tank ahead and pulled it next to an open cargo vehicle. As soon as he stopped the side popped open and a team of soldiers tossed crates and packages on top. Puck and Vaughn clambered up and secured it.

  "I led a rescue op," Nikov said. "We fought out to an observation post just to watch it get smashed by artillery. Only a few of us made it back. Things got rough for me after that. I was going to marry a man who was in that post."

  Tomi didn't know how to reply to that one. He stared ahead and listened to the hum of the power coil.

  "That hits ya kind of hard, right? I didn't cope well. But neither did Mick."

  "What happened to him?" Tomi said.

  "He was one of the guys we rescued."

  "Oh."

  Puck waved them ahead and Tomi crawled the tank onto a rise.

  All around them, acre after acre, were heaps of supplies. Crates, packages, mixed bundles, slabs of meat, everything and anything. Earthen walls ringed mounds of ammunition. At one edge a team of excavators dug through the frozen ground. Snow and ice packed everything together. Soldiers struggled to dig items free.

  They crawled ahead from one pile to the next. The last stop was for ammunition, they received plenty for the Vasilov weapons, but the supply of Sigg tank ammunition was thin. Puck pointed at crates but the supply Officers wouldn't hand any more over. He waved back to Tomi and keyed up his comms. "Fuck, it's cold!"

  "We done, Puck?"

  "Yah, let's see what Mick and the boys wrangled up."

  They drove back to the company staging area and fell into line behind Big Bodacious Bastard. No sooner had they stopped when the crew came running in. Mick arrived with a heap of blankets, Wellington and Hess with a case of biscuits, Kallio and Hutchins with a slab of beef, Waslinski and Veriha each waddled in with a crate of rations, and Mueller rounded it up with a bottle of whisky.

  "Someone always has whisky," Mueller said.

  It was all stowed when Lieutenant Torori stomped in from the cold. "Supplied and ready to go?"

  "Yes sir," Sergeant Nikov said. She wore a facemask and a set of tinted goggles.

  "Get some rest, we're departing at 0100. Last chance for hot chow this afternoon, full caloric load." He glanced around the tank. "Is this a full load? You guys seem, hmm, overloaded?"

  "Not at all, sir," Mick said as he stood in front of a cabinet. "We've been conserving our supplies for when things get tough. A lot of old vets of Lishun here, sir."

  "Very well," Torori said suspiciously. "You guys haven't seen the Colonel's whisky by chance?"

  "Sir? We'd never steal from the Colonel," Mick said. "We're a reformed lot in this unit, sir."

  "Hmm."

  The Lieutenant left and the crew compartment was cold again.

  Mueller grinned and sat with his hands on his lap. Hutchins ruffled his hair and the whole tank broke out into laughter.

  "You heard the man!" Mick said. "We sleep 'til dinner, we eat, then we sleep again. I have a hunch shit's gonna get squirrely after that. And Mueller, don't steal anything from the Colonel again, okay?"

  #

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Mackinof Front - Southern Grid

  Colonel Clarke sat in the TC's position and watched his armor form up. The enhanced vision through the headset showed everything in an odd shade of gray. Armor crawled ahead, the single main cannon stowed. A huge gust rocked his tank and then everything was white. Comms chatter died as everyone waited for the wind to subside.

  A comms request popped up from Commander Arap on a private channel. Colonel Clarke closed the fire barrier so he had a bit of privacy and keyed the comms. "Staying warm?"

  "Ooofta! She's wicked cold tonight," Arap said. "Gonna be one helluva trip, Cole."

  "Yes, yes it is."

  "We should be hitting that Kadan complex right now. They got half that damn army down south poking at Reach and we're fiddle-fucking around. What the fuck is Deveraux thinking?"

  Colonel Clarke sighed and held his hand on the comms key. He hoped someone somewhere had a damned good reason. Breaking the siege on Reach was important, but if they could break the Kadan now, the war would practically be over. "If Reach falls, then they got a route into LISCOM."

  "I know,
but man, this is our chance. Oh, one moment, sir."

  The smell of cooked sausage wafted up into the TC's area. Clarke was surprised at how quickly the crew found every hot spot on the reactor and engines. He could hardly inspect the engine without some food product falling out.

  "MPs want to search the column for stolen goods," Arap called.

  "Bullshit," Colonel Clarke said. "We're leaving in ten minutes."

  "They, uh," voices yelled in the background. "They say we're carrying stolen goods."

  "Unless they can find my damned whisky they aren't stopping this column," Colonel Clarke said angrily. How someone had managed to get into his personal effects and acquire his whisky was beyond him. He'd planned on breaking that out for some important occasion. He wasn't particularly sure what the occasion would be, but it was going to be something important.

  "Get the fuck out!" Araps yell came onto the comms. "They let all the heat out."

  Colonel Clarke understood that argument. Though he figured that no one else gave two hoots about the heat inside of the tank. The door system on the Sigg armor was particularly lacking in that regard.

  The wind broke and the wall of gray dissipated. The tanks were stippled white and each had the look of a gypsy wagon. Packages, crates, parcels, and bags hung from the sides and were heaped on top. The middle tanks towed low trailers with skis instead of tires.

  "Gonna be missing Captain Koramov for the trip," Arap said.

  "He'll be there at the end of it when it counts," Colonel Clarke replied. He disliked leaving the gunship behind, but he couldn't very well have it hovering around waiting for a slow column. They had started with two, but one had a turbine failure early on, it was now stripped for parts.

  "That gunship is good eyes, he could scout us out."

  "And he's also a big radar signature."