David Drake: The Forlorn Hope

Smiricky #4 was on permanent Yellow Alert. Officers and non-coms were required by regulations to go armed at all times. Ondru carried his assault rifle in a patrol sling that cradled it muzzle-forward at his waist. Like the Intruder patch he had bought from a drunk in Praha, the sling was the affectation of a man who had not seen combat in the seven years of bitter war that had wracked Cecach. Now it put the grip of the rifle in place for the Sergeant's right hand. He raised the muzzle at the same time as his other hand dragged Hodicky's face down to meet the weapon.

Private Quade hit Ondru across the temple with the edge of a metal-covered receipt book.

Ondru dropped as if his legs had been sawed off at the knees. There was a pressure cut through his blond hair, as clean as anything a knife could have left. The book flew out of Quade's hand and flapped into a lobby wall. Hodicky lurched back when the Sergeant released him, but his companion had already started to vault the counter and finish the job. Quade s mouth was open but soundless, and his eyes held no expression at all.

"Mary and Joseph!"Hodicky cried. He grabbed Quade by the waistband and jerked him to a halt. "Q, boys," he said, "let'stalk this over!"

Private Quade was no taller than Hodicky, but for an instant as he twisted he towered over his companion like the angel with the flaming sword. Then Quade's expression cleared. His hand, raised to strike though he had no weapon to fill it, lowered as Hodicky watched transfixed. "Jeez, Pavel," the black-haired man mumbled, "you know not to touch me when I get, get, you know…"

Then the loudest noise in the warehouse was a click. Sergeant Breisach had recovered enough to draw back the charging handle of his own rifle.

"You little faggots," the non-com said in a quavering voice. At his feet, Ondru moaned. The side of the fallen man's head was a sticky mat of blood. "I ought to shoot you both, but I'd rather see you hang. And you will, by God, don't think your prick of a lieutenant's going to save your asses this time."

Quade turned slowly. At this range, the light projectiles of the assault rifle would shred the plywood counter and the men behind it. The little man's eyes were going blank again. His muscles braced for an action which was quickly slipping out of conscious control.

"Sergeant, hell, what're you talking about?" Hodicky babbled brightly. His companion frightened him worse than the man with the gun did. Breisach might or might not be ready to kill; Quade was beyond doubt ready, though Hodicky hoped he alone of the spectators knew that. "We're partners, right, Sergeant Breisach? Just like you say-we slip you booze out of the stores and you boys split the profits with us after you move it. Sure, we're all friends here." Hodicky's right hand was resting on Quade's waistband again.

Sergeant Ondru had risen to his hands and knees. Breisach swallowed and took a step backward. His hands were relaxing minusculey on his pointing rifle. The Sergeant's body was beginning to quiver with the pain of his own injuries. His mind was not wholly able to absorb the return to the subject which he and Ondru had come to the warehouse to discuss.

"Say," Hodicky rattled on, "you boys'll need uniforms too, won't you? Q, go on back and get a-large-long and a large-medium, right, Sarge? Go on, Q, the boys won't want to wait."

Quade shook himself like a dog coming out of the water. "W-what did you say, Pavel?" he asked thickly.

"Go get a couple uniforms," Hodicky repeated in a low voice."Large-long, large-medium. Quick, Q, it's what the Lieutenant would want."

Nodding, not really aware of what he was doing, the black-haired private walked through the door to the back. With a smile too stiff to be wholly engaging, Hodicky said, "Now, Sarge, maybe you could point that thing some other way? Don't want any accidents that'll screw up profits, do we?"

Briesach grunted, fumbling for the safety catch. Blood seeping from his shrapnel wound glued his collar to his neck. "If you bastards think you're going to try something cute when this is over-" he began. He did not finish the threat. The sonic boom of the follow-up run sent all of them, even the logy Ondru, scrambling for cover again.

From the sensor screens within the massive hull of theKatyn Forest, the shower of anti-personnel bombs was merely an intriguing spectacle. First Officer Vladimir Ortschugin spat into the bucket and watched the show. Idly, he reached for the stick of tobacco in a thigh pocket of his coveralls. TheKatynForest was a freighter, not a warship, and her home planet, Novaya Swoboda, was quite neutral in the struggle taking place on Cecach. The starship was at Smiricky #4 to load cargo at double rates for the hazard allowance. Nothing that had happened thus far justified the bonus.

The bombs swept the broad valley like surf on a dun beach. Pin-prick flashes flattened nearby grass and lifted rings of dust from the soil. Then, while the after-image of the opening still clung to the brain, the main body of the cluster overran it in undulant glares of white light. The wave rushed past the buildings of the Complex and the bunkers set out five hundred meters in a perimeter. One miner stood in the open. He blinked at the sight until it washed over him and left him liquid and as formless as yesterday's sand castle.

Ortschugin watched unmoved, letting the sensors distance him and save his sanity.

The bridge was dancing with the bright chaos of the screens. The Power Room communicator shrilled, "Ortschugin! When are those idiots going to shut off the conveyor? Don't they know we can't secure the ship until they do?"

The First Officer raised his eyes to Thorn, the other crewman on the bridge, and then to heaven. "Excellency," he said, "I can't raise anyone in Central Warehousing. I'm sure they've gone to cover." The ones with common sense, at least. "Why don't we just-" relax would be the wrong word- "wait it out. The most these little bombs will do is scratch the finish of the hull. For that, it doesn't really matter whether the holds are closed or not."

TheKatynForest was a hundred and fifty meter cigar. Her bridge and hyperdrive inverter were forward; her engines were astern. Most of the ship's length was given over to her holds amidships. HoldOne, forward, already held several carboys of mercury, a by-product of the smelting process. The remaining cargo volume was being filled with copper ingots by the Complex's automated loading system. The conveyor belt was not in the least affected by the fact that Captain Kawalec and the crewmen stowing the copper under her direction had bolted into the Power Room. The great cargo doors could not be closed while the conveyor was hooked up; and the conveyor could not be disconnected so long as hundreds of tons of ingots continued to roll up it and spill into Hold Two.

Not, as Ortschugin had said, that it made any real difference to the freighter.

"The Front has collapsed, then," said Thorn, fingering his beard as he watched the screen. "I hope that doesn't mean we'll be overrun here."

"Ortschugin!" the Captain demanded. "See if you can get those cretins now that thebombing's stopped. I want to raise ship and get the hell out of here! Full holds be damned, I'm not paid to be shot at!"

"I'll try again, Excellency," Ortschugin replied. He carefully turned off his sending unit after he had spoken. "Don't get your bowels in an uproar, bitch," he muttered before he made another perfunctory call to Central on the land line. No one answered, of course.

The lower curve of the freighter's hull rested a meter and a half deep in the ground. Normally theKatynForest would have docked at a proper spaceport like the one at Praha. Copper would be carried from the smelter to the port on ground-effect trucks which hissed down the line of broadcast power pylons. Increased pressure on the Front thirty kilometers to the east had brought a modification. A starship would be landed directly at the mine and refinery complex to eliminate the slow process of transferring the cargo and to free scarce transport to carry materials to the Front.