James Axler - Red Equinox

"Any armapiercers, J.B.? Or any grens?"

The Armorer sniffed. "Nope. Not enough to stop them. You?"

Ryan shook his head. "Nothing. Could take out the tires when they get closer. Pick off one or two when they break for the house."

"Burn big stairs," Jak suggested, eagerly handling his huge cannon of a blaster. The teenager was frustrated that, so far, he'd been able to contribute nothing to their defense.

"Could. Trouble is, start a few flames in the center of the house and the whole place could go. Last resort, mebbe."

Krysty touched Ryan on the shoulder. "Didn't tell you what the freezie wants, lover."

"What?"

"He's ready for death. Welcoming it. Insisted I gave him a pyrotab, and he's sitting there with the cans of gas. Says that as soon as we jump, he'll blow the whole place. Himself with it. He means it, lover. I know."

"Fine. I'm not going to stop him. Couple of gallons of gas down there would come up the stairwell like a blasting nuke. Be a hell of a good way for a man to go." The admiration rode high in Ryan's voice.

"Long as he doesn't light it too soon," J.B. warned.

"They got a gren launcher," Krysty announced, shading her emerald eyes from the bright cutting edge of the rising sun.

"Then it's time we moved," Ryan growled. "Get ready for Cawdor's last stand."

Unless the defenders had some secret cache of nukes, Zimyanin knew his men couldn't fail to destroy the damaged building. They could pound it with high-explosive rounds until it was only rubble. Or they could napalm it and roast the Americans alive. But that would leave vital questions unanswered. Questions that Marshal Siraksi would be asking in the next few hours.

Who were these terrorists?

What were their aims?

Did they have allies within the homeland?

How did they get into Mother Russia?

What did the age-old dacha hold that was so important to them?

Zimyanin's own promotion would depend on how many of those questions could eventually be answered. And if he simply chilled them all, the answers would be few and far, far between.

He had commandeered the small wag of the local sec commander, and driving the vehicle himself, followed behind the line of lumbering armawags. The whole advance would stop at his order when the gren launchers were set up and ready.

"Instructions requested, Comrade Major-Commissar, for opening fire."

The voice came crackling from the talkie on the seat next to him, the reception surging and fading as it always did.

Zimyanin picked it up, feeling a rush of excitement. He waited a moment before pressing the Send button. A phrase from his English handbook came to him. "I have great pleasure in declaring this event to be well and truly open." He pressed the button. "Zimyanin here. I want three roads of low-ex grens from each launcher. Aim at the left and right flanks of the building, the ground floor."

"Shall we open fire, Comrade Major-Commissar?"

"Yes."

"Repeat, if you please, Comrade Major-Commissar. I say again, please repeat order."

Zimyanin controlled his swelling anger with the greatest possible effort. He held down the Send button with his index finger and kept his voice calm. "Fire. Fire!"

Two of the grenades failed to explode at all. One only traveled about twenty yards before burying itself in the damp earth, sending a cascading fountain of mud over the lead wag when it finally detonated.

A third missile sailed high over the dacha, vanishing into the bright morning sunlight and landing on the far edge of a deep swamp, sinking out of sight without exploding.

One of the remaining pair of low-ex grens clipped the right-hand corner of the building and exploded with a deep-throated roar of noise, bringing down some of the exterior woodwork in a shower of torn splinters.

The last gren was more successful.

Ryan and the others spotted the firing of the launchers and had time to throw themselves to the floor, hands over ears, eyes closed, braced for the explosions.

It was the sixth gren that landed plumb on target, striking the broken window at the lower left corner of the imposing facade. It bounced across the empty room, and exploded in the back room, where it caused extensive damage to the corpses of the wolf pack.

Chunks of the ceiling fell down in a fog of white plaster. The building trembled under the impact, but it had been solidly built and suffered little structural harm.

"Worth a few shots at the guys with the launchers?" J.B. asked.

Ryan considered the chances. The parked armawags partly blocked a clear sight line. The fog was dissipating fast, lying only in a few hollows and covering fewer of the bodies that seeded the field.

"Not worth it. Figure they'll soften us up from a distance, then send the sec men in under cover of the grens. Our best chance is to hit them, mebbe once, when they're inside. Bottom of the stairs. Fire the place, like Jak said."

Krysty brushed dust from her hair. "That door to the gateway is real well hidden, lover. How about we try and chill some of the first wave in? Then fire the stairs and pull back into the attic. Close the door."

"They'll move fucking slow thinking bullet from anywhere." Jak grinned hugely at the prospect of more of a firefight.

"Could work," the Armorer mused.

"Not sure about burning the stairs. Better leave them a way up and then chill the shit out of them when they try to use it," Ryan suggested.

"More grens," Jak warned.

"By the hammer and the anvil!"

Gregori Zimyanin had lived long enough under the Russia ruled by the Party to be aware that not everything worked properly. But one and a half hits out of six grens was devastatingly poor, even by those low standards.

He grabbed again for the talkie at his side and pressed the button to transmit his orders to the rest of the command.

"Gren launchers! Three more rounds each. Repeat! Three more rounds each."

"What target, Comrade Major-Commissar? Repeat. What?.."

Zimyanin interrupted the speaker, jabbing his finger angrily on the button. "Just attempt to hit the rad-rotted house!"

The second volley was marginally more successful than the first.

Only two grenades either failed to detonate or misfired. Three struck the front of the mansion, exploding with a dull rumble, while the fourth soared skyward in a sweeping rainbow trajectory and landed just behind the dacha.

"They going to wait out there and bring the walls down around our ears?" J.B. asked. "From the noise, they're firing low-ex at us. Take them all morning to shake somewhere as solid as this."

"Still take us all out with a fluke shot," Ryan reminded him.

"Could circle and hit 'em behind," suggested Jak, still eager for action.

"No. Triple-no! Best we got's here. Let them come at us. We'll move out to the back room. Should be safest there."

Ryan led the way, making sure that they could still keep an eye on the stairs. The main door was closed and the hall was in darkness. Anyone who came in that way would let in a flood of sunlight. They all crouched and waited.

Moving with extreme caution, aware of the range of the long guns the Americans had, Zimyanin eased himself around the side of the wag. He surveyed the front of the dacha with the glasses, raking the magnifying lenses from left to right.

He nodded to himself. "The structural alterations are virtually completed," he said, smiling in a self-congratulatory way at his memory for the English phrases. The far left of the building was devastated, with the corner of the roof tilting drunkenly over the tumbled wreckage.

"No more grens," he ordered into the talkie. "But stay ready in case I need backup. All armawags engage low gear. Prepare to move."