Unknown - The_Growing_589064

But that is an illusion, and she knows it. There is no safety anywhere. Not on the battlefield, not off it. They must break the enemy here, and they must break him now. There will be no second chance. I will be here when you return, Puma had said. But prophecy is contingent. None knows that better than Koda.

We could still lose. We could lose it all.

Finished with the map, Koda folds it and slips it into her field pack. “About ready?”

Kirsten shoves the last round home, slipping the full magazines into loops in her belt. She looks up, smiling briefly. “I’m ready.” Then, the smile fading, “I’ll be glad when this is over.”

“Me, too,” Koda says quietly. She rises and shoulders her own pack. One way or another, the world will be a different place in twenty-four hours.

Kirsten follows suit, snapping down the holster on her Colt and lifting her kit by its straps. Her helmet dangles from it by the chinstrap. Her battle dress, like Koda’s own, bears no insignia. No need to advertise their identity to the enemy. Forward parties have already caught and killed half a dozen human spies; it would take only one to recognize her and carry word of Kirsten’s presence to the enemy. They have no way of knowing how many they have missed, any one of whom could betray their strategy to the enemy.

Go to Plan B . . ..

Unfortunately, there is no Plan B. They have not the resources.

A shadow passes across the window, dark in the light of the low sun. Knuckles rap lightly on the jamb, and Maggie pushes open the door. Like Dakota and Kirsten, she wears combat fatigues, the bulk of her Kevlar vest showing clearly beneath her tunic, an M-16 slung over her shoulder. A wry smile quirks her mouth upward. “Madam President. Would you like to inspect the troops?”

“No,” Kirsten says succinctly. The tension in her voice runs along Koda’s nerves. “Let’s just go.”

Maggie’s mouth tightens, her eyes narrowing. “Let’s try that again. Madam President, would you like to inspect the troops?”

Kirsten glances up at the taller woman, her own face set. “I said—”

“Kirsten,” Koda says softly. “You are their Commander in Chief.”

Koda notes the rise and fall of Kirsten’s shoulders underneath her jacket, hears the breath as it leaves her. “All right. Nothing formal.”

Maggie nods. “Nothing formal. They need to see you, though. They need to know you see them.”

It is something Koda has learned over the last months, slowly and with reluctance. A commander is as much symbol as leader, as much a fighting band’s faith as its head. The troops who had followed her across the bridge at the Cheyenne had not done it for freedom or democracy or the idea of a state. They had done it for her. Kirsten’s face loses its stubbornness as the realization comes to her as well. “All right,” she says again and steps through the door Maggie holds for her.

Over her head, Maggie’s eyes meet Koda’s. “You’ll do,” she says, and Koda is not sure whether she means Kirsten or herself. “You’ll do just fine.”

Outside, the low sun lays long shadows on the tarmac, fantastic angular shapes that barely suggest the APC’s and Humvees and Bradleys that cast them. The vehicles themselves form a convoy strung out half the length of the runway, most single file. Lead and rear contingents are both armor, tanks and their two mobile howitzers. Personnel carriers cluster in the middle. All along the line, the troops stand at attention, men and women drawn from every branch of service, the reserves, the civilian population. All are well armed, most are, more or less, in uniform. There is no shortage of equipment, only of soldiers to use it.

Parked just outside the office, the Jeep that had once been General Hart’s stands waiting. Its door bears his three stars, or once did. Now all that remains of them is a single star and two splotches of fresh paint. From the front fenders fly miniature flags: the Stars and Stripes from one, the blue Air Force banner from the other. Andrews sits at the wheel. Maggie slips into the front seat beside him, Koda and Kirsten into the back. Just as Kirsten turns to arrange her gear, Koda says, “Stand, cante skuye. Let them see you.”

For a moment it seems that Kirsten will demur. But she faces front, one hand on the rollbar, as the Jeep begins to roll. A ripple precedes them up the line, hands raised to salute. Koda watches as Kirsten smiles and acknowledges the gesture, her own back straight as a young birch tree, all traces of anger and tension gone from her face. It comes to Koda that Kirsten has a true gift for leadership, one very different from her own. Her lover’s wildness is all for her, nothing that near-strangers or even friends will ever see. To them she is a still point of order in chaos; a fragment rationality in a spinning vortex of dementia. She is the center that will hold against the circling dark.

The Jeep comes to the end of the line, the rear brought up by one of the howitzers. Then it swings back to take its place in the middle of the column, and the line of vehicles shudders into motion.

“Here we go,” Kirsten says, taking her seat. In her eyes, apprehension shadows her pride in the moment, and Koda knows what she fears.

“Here we are,” she answers, taking her hand. “Always.”

*

“It’s a good thing they already know we’re coming,” Kirsten shouts into Koda’s ear, “because this is sure as hell no sneak attack.”

Koda grins and nods, not even attempting speech. Before and behind them, the Bradleys and howitzers, the mortars and the other tracked vehicles crunch along the asphalt. The tanks’ characteristic shrill whine carries on the evening air like the howl of lost souls, punctuated only by the whup-whup of a pair of low-flying Apache choppers scouting the margins of the road. The air chills as they pass, blue with dusk, shadows fading into the oncoming night. Stars hang low on the eastern horizon before them; behind them the scudding clouds flame gold and crimson as the sun slips below the edge of the world. To either side of the road, barriers of derelict cars and trucks loom high, broken shapes out of nightmare bulldozed into place to funnel the enemy advance between Tacoma’s forces and Maggie’s. Also along their flanks, invisible now under brush and rubble, ten-foot wide trenches run from the pavement into the trees that line the road. If the enemy follows the battle plan hammered out by the Ellsworth officers—if the enemy can be forced to follow it—the ditches will trap and incapacitate the droids’ armor. At intervals, two-and-three man teams peel off the line of march to take stations, in the woods or behind rocks, where they can lob armor-piercing missiles into the mired tanks from shoulder launchers.

Koda fastens the chin strap of her helmet, pulling it tight and checking the adjustment of the night sight. She does not lower it yet; there is little to see now save the bulk of the APC lumbering along ahead of their Jeep, the heaps of wrecked metal looming on either side at irregular intervals. Beside her, Kirsten does likewise, her lover’s smaller hand seeking hers again. They will separate soon, Koda to lead her detachment into its position on the south flank, hidden from the road, Kirsten to remain with Maggie among at the command post personnel as communications chief. It is not a position of safety; Maggie will have charge of the center, where the enemy attack will fall hardest. In the dark, in her own mind, she tries to find reassurance in Kirsten’s vision, in Puma’s promise that she would be here, on this ground, at Koda’s return.

But this is a return, now, and Puma is a warrior spirit. It is battle that waits. There is no guarantee of ever coming here again.

Neither is there any guarantee of leaving.