David Drake - The Forlorn Hope

The troopers began to file out. Mboko called after them, "Dubose, get a dressing on Platt's hand."

"Christ, Butter," Dubose muttered as he glanced from the cut to Platt's face, "you're a real sicko. You really like hurting people, don't you?"

"Hey," said the other trooper as he stepped into the night, "do I talk about you and your little girls?"

Mboko switched off the wand. He held it in one of the sand-bagged firing slits and flicked three pulses toward the darkness and the rest of the Company. They were keeping strict radio silence now that the ridge no longer shielded their transmission from the receivers in the Complex itself. All clear. No problems.

God, what a way to make a living.

The Sergeant stepped out of the bunker and drew another deep breath. The fresh night air flushed the abattoir reek from his lungs, but nothing could clear his mind.

There were no guards posted outside theKatynForest. The bridge scuttle was retracted and all three cargo holds were clam-shelled shut. Nothing could be done about the rent in the hull where the bomb had punched through, however. The handholds meant for operation in a vacuum gave access of a sort up the curve of the hull. It was not access which would have done Albrecht Waldstejn much good without Trooper Hoybrin above, hauling him up by rope to the point the cylindrical hull began to curve in again, however.

Panting, the Captain reached the hole on which they depended for entrance. Sergeant Hummel and three Black Section troopers were already there. Waldstejn, with his familiar face and uniform, had to be the first inside.

Necessarily, they had made a great deal of noise on the hull. The lights visible within the Power Room meant nothing-in that location, the glow strips were probably permanently charged. Waldstejn braced his hands on the impressed lips of the bomb puncture and let his legs dangle. Maria. If a squad of Republican guards were waiting for the first man through the hole… well, it would be quick.

Churchie Dwyer gave him a thumbs-up signal and a stainless steel grin. Waldstejn grimaced, then dropped to the deck with a clang.

He was facing the muzzle of a rifle. The bearded First Officer-Captain Ortschugin- watched him over the sights. His eye was as cold as that of any of the Company's gunmen.

Albrecht Waldstejn picked himself up carefully. He raised his hands, but he smiled. "Vladimir," he said to the grim-faced spacer, "we need to talk, and I'll take a drink if you've got something handy. I think we're each other's tickets home."

Thorn was running through the pre-flight check with other spacers in the stern compartments. Except for that, Ortschugin was alone on the bridge with Waldstejn. The Cecach officer felt cramped, especially after the days he had just spent without a roof over him.

"I don't mean I'm not in this," the spacer said. "These-fanatics, it is not possible for normal people to live around them. Only by staying sealed off in the ship can we survive here, and if they carry us back to Budweis, well… But we have no chance, not really. Just crossing the whole compound-" he spat tobacco juice into a can-"pft!"

Waldstejn grinned. "You haven't been with these meres," he said. "I-in garrison, there wasn't much to choose between them and the 522nd, you know? Soldiers with nothing to do but raise hell. But out there, Vladimir, Mary and the Saints…" The Cecach officer shook his head. "Nothing's sure. But I'm as sure as I can be that we'll get clear of here without a problem. For the rest, well-Bittman talked big, but their front-line tanks are going to have more to worry about than just us. We'll have to trust some to luck and your hull plating, sure, but… if it doesn't work, they'll believe you were hijacked at gunpoint. And for the rest of us, there's no other chance anyway."

A mercenary with drooping moustaches and a look of unexpected enthusiasm came clashing along the corridor from the holds. "Captain," he said as he burst into the bridge, "Guns says to tell you the old girl herself's back there! And the ammo!"

"Your cannon?"Waldstejn translated uncertainly. He glanced at Ortschugin. "What'sthe cannon doing here?"

The Swobodan nodded. "All your gear," he said. "Their gear, I mean, the meres. Next week, when the pylons are laid to here, we carry it back to Budweis with ourselves and the copper-all spoils, useless here but of value to the Return, you see."

Thorn turned from his controls. He said something to his captain which Waldstejn thought was a report that they were ready to go.

Ortschugin confirmed that. "Whenever you want," he said to the Cecach officer in English. "Thorn says the board's green."

Albrecht Waldstejn stood. "I'll check with the others," he said. "There's still three hours to dawn, no need to lift before everything's locked down tight." He grinned at Cooper, the mercenary who had brought the report, then looked back at Captain Ortschugin. "Hell, Vladimir," he said, "I know it doesn't matter a damn whether their gear's aboard or not, not for getting to Praha. But doesn't it make you think that-well, keep a crucifix handy, hey?"

The young officer was laughing as he strode off down the echoing corridor. He had changed in a very few days, thought Vladimir Ortschugin. An impressive man, now. A pity that he was going to die so young.

"Hold Three, ready," said the intercom in Sergeant Mboko's voice.

"Hold Two ready," it immediately added as Sergeant Hummel.

Sergeant-Gunner Jensen nodded to Albrecht Waldstejn across the dim interior of Hold One. "Hold One ready, sir," the blond man said.

"Waldstejn to bridge," the Cecach officer said to the intercom on the bulkhead beside him. "Raise the hatches."

When the mercenaries first filed aboard theKatynForest, there had been no copper stored in Hold One. Now thelength of the hatches on both sides were lined with a waist-high breastwork of ingots shifted from the other two holds. The mercenaries who knelt along the breastworks stiffened as machinery began to squeal. The metal-to-metal seals of the six great doors broke. The Company had boarded by the narrow bridge scuttle because of the noise entailed in opening one of the holds. Now there was no choice. Gray light spread in Hold One as the top-hinged hatches swung up along the full length of both sides. All lights within the holds proper had been doused, though in One and Three there was a slight scatter from the bow and stern compartments. The noise of the hatches rising might not itself provoke a reaction from the garrison, but it would certainly awaken everyone in Smiricky #4 and focus a fair number of eyes on the starship. Ideally, they would have waited until they were under way, but the auxilliary power unit could not winch up the hatches and raise the ship simultaneously.

One after another, the hatches squealed to a halt. Their lower edges hung a meter above the hold's decking. Every member of the Company able-bodied enough to shoot now knelt behind the inner barriers of copper. The four seriously-wounded troopers were in the crew's quarters, while all the personnel of the freighter itself were at their stations.

Albrecht Waldstejn squinted into the night. His hands trembled violently on the assault rifle he had never before fired. Any time now, he thought. Any time.

The intercom crackled in Russian. A moment later, Captain Ortschugin repeated his laconic statement in English: "Lifting ship."

Its lift engines driven by the full power of the overloaded auxilliary power unit, theKatyn Forest began to lurch toward the lines of pylons and the havoc sure to come.

A twenty-kilo ingot of copper clanged to the deck before the drive steadied. Alone of the troopers in Hold One, Del Hoybrin did not wonder what would happen if the whole bulwark shifted in on them.