That the soldier hadn’t just dressed and left…It loosened something in him. It was what he’d been braced for, expected. To hear the door slam shut and that would be the end of it. It took him a few minutes, just lying there, to reassemble the shards of his sanity and force himself out of the bed.
Sergei stood in the kitchen, wearing just his uniform trousers, chest and feet bare, cutting up cold meats and cheese and slices of bread and arranging them on a wooden tray. His hair was still wet and spiky, making him look boyish and untidy. Somewhere in the Doctrine, that was forbidden too.
“Ravenous.”
Mike leaned against the edge of the counter, silent. Giving the man his space. Enjoyed the view, of course. Drank in every inch of the soldier, the shifting muscles in his torso as he moved. Mike didn’t think he’d ever tire of the sight. Not in this lifetime, surely not in five. But this would be the last chance he got, for a while. Or ever. Pessimistic of him, but he couldn’t see through the dark filter that was the next few months of deployment and make out anything resembling this on the other side. Not if Pat did his job right, not with the intel Mike would pass on.
Breaches of trust, like the one Mike was currently guilty of, left nothing but desolation and destruction in their wake. So he just stood there and watched, not saying anything.
Sergei put the knife down, picked up the rest of the cheese, bit off half, then offered the rest to Mike. “It’ll be just rations soon. Better eat as much fresh food as you can. There’s no fun in rations.”
Mike took the chunk of cheese, forcing a smile, and savored the sharp tang against his tongue. “Can’t be worse than dehydrated space rations on a long-hauler.”
“No.” Sergei laughed. “Nothing beats that.” He licked his fingers and grinned. “Long haul is bad. That puts everything into perspective.”
The man’s humor was infectious. Mike couldn’t dredge up the energy to fight it. He took another bite of the cheese and pulled out a chair, motioning Sergei toward it. “Sit. I’ll find something for us to drink that isn’t fetid water or caustic liquor.” Mike found the pitcher of cider in the back of the refrigeration unit and poured them each a glass before sitting across from Sergei.
“Why does it matter? Whether I would leave or fight?” He wiped crumbs of bread and cheese from his lip with his thumb and took a long drink, gauging Sergei’s body language, his reaction to the question.
“Because I want to be elsewhere when you do.” Not if. Sergei swallowed and paused before reaching for the next bit of food. “Posted elsewhere. Just to be sure.”
“Don’t want to look down the sights of your e-rail cannon and see my ugly mug?” Mike joked, suddenly understanding. It wasn’t that Sergei was trying to poke and prod and goad him, he just didn’t want to be around when the inevitable happened.
Which just made Mike feel that much guiltier. What could he say, though? Sorry, too late to back out now. You’re already in the middle of it. Right. So tactful. He couldn’t do it.
Sergei paled and shook his head. “I’d…I’m not sure how I’d react.”
Mike took pity on him. “I don’t think I could do it.” It didn’t make him any less of a soldier, admitting that. He paused with a slice of bread inches from his mouth and considered. Strong possibility that he’d let Sergei kill him, in lieu of actually inflicting harm on the man. If it came to that. He doubted it would.
“If you do, make it fast.” Sergei reached over and pressed his hand for a long moment. “Fast and clean.” He fell silent and withdrew into himself, thinking gods knew what.
He stared at Sergei, studying the man’s pale eyes, somber and serious. Stared at the strong hand resting on his. Closed his eyes, took a deep breath. “I promise,” he said, softly. “Quick and clean. If it comes to that.”
It won’t, he raged silently. But he couldn’t offer that guarantee. And this, this promise he could keep. It was the very least he could do. Mike hated that it was all he could give. Hated himself, in that moment. The feeling of impotence returned, the same surge of emotions he’d felt upon seeing the marks on Sergei’s neck. He wanted to punch something again. To lash out, even though he knew it wouldn’t change a thing.
Chapter Fourteen
The battalion deployed exactly on schedule. Sergei had driven himself like a madman, working almost around the clock to get everything off the ground on time. Even an advanced war machine like Doctrine troops required a lot of effort to put on the march—especially in such rough, underdeveloped territory.
He barely had a moment to himself, let alone time to meet Mike. Hours ticked away like nothing, and suddenly he was headed toward the mountains, his objective as deep in his mind as if it had been carved there. Secure the valley, the outposts, establish a bridgehead. The hover vehicles were all but useless in this territory, so it was landcars, and Sergei assumed that a lot of the patrols would even be on foot.
The mountains themselves were inscrutable—although they were populated, no figures existed on exactly how many tribes or family units lived up there or what their military capabilities were, beyond harassing the Doctrine’s patrols. Just that the territory would work in their favor. Sergei’s confidence lay in superior firepower and uncontested control of the airspace.
Airstrikes, though, would have to be called in. While the Doctrine’s space fleet would be able to provide a minimal level of suppressive support in a dire emergency, or when they had to nuke the whole valley, the real power would lie in the helicopter gunships’ sonic cannons. And they had to remain based out of Rhada. The terrain, the weather, was too unpredictable, the mountains too inhospitable. Wind shear alone would negate the impact and maneuverability in a confrontation.
Sergei’s gut screamed this whole deployment was a disaster waiting to happen. Advantage: natives. No question about it. He wouldn’t give in easily, nor would the battalion. Every last soldier was gunning for action, ramped up and ready to kill. Including him. This was what he’d been itching for, from the moment he’d set foot planetside.
The battalion on the move was an impressive sight. The stream of land transports, their heavy armored bulk shielding the infantry, kicked up a plume of dust. Made it difficult to breathe, so Sergei kept the windows up, the air filtration unit running full-blast.
At one point, when he topped a low rise in the terrain, he caught a glimpse of the entire battalion streaming out in front of him.
Initially, the sight made him smile, the zing of adrenaline spiking through his blood. The might of the Doctrine, mobilized, and the soldier in him loved it. Then his gaze drifted to the size of the plume marking their passage, toward the mountains beyond, like sentinels standing watch.
Anyone who didn’t see them coming a hundred miles away had to be old, decrepit and blind.
He wished he could remember more of Mike’s foul language right then. Because his own wealth of vocabulary was pathetically inadequate to give voice to his rise of panic.
They will yield. We’ll score a few decisive victories, and the rest will fall into line. The start will be much harder than the finish. Every spirit could be broken. Once they saw the benefits of becoming part of a greater whole, they would fall in line.
If the adults didn’t, it was enough to gain control of the children. Educate them in the Doctrine, as the Doctrine had done with Liberty a hundred years ago. And nowhere did the Doctrine thrive as much as on Liberty. Theirs had been a military society for ages, and it had adapted and perfected the Doctrine once it was fully embedded in their collective minds. The Cirokkans would make a great addition to the Doctrine, once they embraced it.
Zasidka Pass, as the natives called it, gave Sergei a healthy respect for the construction of the land transports. Soil was sparse. The terrain seemed to be nothing more than boulders and rocks worn down by the elements. His driver was well trained though, muscling the controls as the vehicle jolted and shuddered over the protruding granite, twisting, sliding, bouncing. Sergei kept a firm grip on the braided nylon mount
ed to the passenger door, and it barely kept him in his seat.
Mike and Sergei’s staff sergeant were in the back, restraint harnesses snugging them into the vehicle’s bucket seats. More than once, the vehicle threw them around when it caught a large boulder with a little too much speed. When Mike let out a string of colorful phrases in Cirokkan, Sergei glanced back. The man rubbed gingerly at the side of his head and glared daggers at the driver’s seat.
“Do that again, and I’ll offer to drive,” Mike grumbled.
He couldn’t blame him for it. The vehicle jostled roughly again, sending Sergei’s head into the roof. Sergei grimaced and slid a hand under his helmet to check for blood, then tightened his lap restraint another notch. That was definitely going to leave a mark.
“Be glad we’re not moving under fire,” Sergei said, trying to find something positive in the situation. So far, nobody had shot at them. He was careful about speaking more, though. He didn’t want to bite off his own tongue. If he’d imagined he’d be able to catch some rest, this meant that he’d not only end up black-and-blue, but unrested too. He might have to file for some stimulants if that continued. He assumed it would.
He checked the pad, confirmed they were moving at the speed he’d calculated. They’d be on-site for the first camp in the allotted time. Once that was established, they’d fan out to build the other strongholds. He tapped out a status message and sent it.
Not long after, the battalion’s snaking progress up the mountainside slowed to a crawl. Sergei did some quick recalculations. The first vehicles should have at least made it up into the pass itself not long before, and that worried him.
His driver brought the vehicle to a halt, disengaging the throttle, and Sergei glanced up from his pad to see what the holdup was. The bumper of the land transport in front of them loomed larger than life less than a span away.
Sergei turned to ask what the problem was, to have the driver use his comm-link to communicate with the point transport. The thunderous rumble that vibrated down through the mountain was answer enough. Loose shale rolled down the steep hillside to their right, sliding like a river of stone and dust under and around the transports.
He keyed the subvocal microphone strapped to his neck. “Status update, unit one.”
Silence. Then static. More silence. A cough. That was promising, at least. “Encountered an explosive device.”
No shit. “Equipment assessment. Casualty count.” Sergei tapped quickly on the screen of his pad. The electronic sensors on the point transport seemed intact. All readings within operational limits.
“Minimal. Zero.”
“Acknowledged,” Sergei answered, keying his mike. “Battalion. Activate all proximity detectors and resume at ninety-percent pace. Let’s get through this pass as quickly as possible.” Until they did, the whole battalion was much too vulnerable. He leaned forward and looked out the reinforced plexi windows, scanning the mountain that reared above them. Too many outcroppings, boulders larger than a transport. Too many places for the natives to hide. Was the explosive device just coincidental? Remnant of a bygone era’s war, a revenant from the graveyard? That this deployment was following a previously traveled route didn’t bode well.
If it wasn’t an accident, then this had just been the first hostile act on this foray into the mountains. Ambiguous enough to keep them guessing, but just as bad for morale.
They crept over the pass. The tension built in him, but Sergei kept his features impassive. The last thing any soldier should see was hesitation or fear in their commanders. The first man he had to control was himself. At least now he wasn’t tired anymore. And while he was aware of Mike’s presence, sex was the last thing on his mind. Maybe it would be easier than anticipated to keep his hands off the man, pretend he didn’t see male beauty, pretend he was unaware.
That part of who he was would have to stay asleep while he did this. The soldier and officer were taking over, and Sergei didn’t see how Mike could fit in there. Apart from as a skill at his disposal.
The battalion convoy poured through the pass and moved down into the next valley without further incident. Even after the adrenaline finally left his blood, Sergei didn’t lose that edge of alertness. His gaze drifted to the mountains again and again, sheer, steep, flanking them on every side. Though the valley itself was open and large enough to provide optimal terrain for the base, it also gave anyone in the nearby peaks a flawless bird’s-eye view of their movements.
Daylight finally failed, the sun sliding out of sight behind the ridgeline. The sounds of camp, the clatter of the soldiers at the mess truck, getting hot drinks, hot food. Casual conversation, even laughter. The strain was bleeding away. Sergei began to think the incident in the pass had been just a false alarm. A fluke.
All the same, he arranged the fire-patrol details in rotating three-hour shifts. That would keep the men fresh and still maintain a buffer of awareness around the camp. It wasn’t too much of a camp, just yet. A gaggle of land transports, their hypersensitive solar-skins calibrated and ready to charge up when the moon rose.
Until then, only the glow of the chem-lamps disrupted the blanket of darkness. Before moonrise, it was so complete that Sergei could barely see his hand in front of his face. He settled into the makeshift tent his staff sergeant had constructed for him, nothing more than a tarp draped between the side of his vehicle and a few poles pounded into the ground. It would serve well enough. The night breeze actually felt nice. A welcome change from the fetid heat in a closed-up vehicle all day. Recirculated air got horribly stale after a while.
The first sound echoing down from the northern ridgeline almost went unheard. Distance made it faint enough that the camp noises all but drowned it out. Sergei recognized it as something unnatural and set aside his mess kit, scooted closer to the open side of his tarp. He scanned the camp, listened, straining.
It came again, stronger, more definitive. The camp went still. Deathly silent. A few chem-lights winked out. It was undoubtedly the call of some wild beast, Sergei decided. Nothing else it could be. He pushed to his feet, thinking it would be good to walk through the camp and steady the men. Let them know the sounds of the wilderness at night weren’t anything to be overly concerned with.
The whoosh of air movement just above his head had him changing his mind and recalculating. He ducked and pulled his sidearm, then saw dark shapes above them, blocking out the scattered starlight. Then a bloodcurdling scream, rapidly rising.
Human. Panic. “Help! Help meeee!”
Sergei rushed to one of the vehicles, grabbed a flashlight and switched it on, holding it against his chest. The white-blue beam tore shapes out of the darkness, moving almost too fast to track. Lizard. Huge, flying creatures, large enough to carry off men. Something—riders?—hunkered down on their backs. He heard the report of a high-powered sniper rifle, and others began shooting as well. More lights flared up, while the battalion scrambled to recover from the surprise.
One of the ugly lizards turned toward him, descended with a swoop and flew straight at him. Light reflected red off its pupils. Somebody barged into him. Sergei let the light go, which fell down. A brush of wings, another scream, as the lizard’s hand-long claws closed around the device and carried it off.
Sergei twisted his head to track the white-blue beam across the night sky until it disappeared with disturbing abruptness. He blinked and keyed his subvocal mike. “File leaders, report.”
It took a few precious moments, but the voices came back to him in his earpiece. The swell of relief, hearing the edge of discipline reasserting itself past the visceral reaction of fear, made Sergei’s muscles feel loose.
“Unpack the proximity alert system from the supply transports.” The lights would kick on at the slightest movement. “Point the detectors at the sky.” The flying demons weren’t going to be anything more than a minor inconvenience, not if they didn’t like the lights. When the file leaders didn’t immediately acknowledge his order, Sergei wanted to snarl.
He flinched toward the ground, ducking at the sound of something whooshing past his head. “Now! Move it!”
He hoped for a fleeting moment that Mike was all right, then focused everything on leading. Be visible. Lead by example. He scanned the sky, wondering if the man who’d been carried off would return. Not likely.
At least the strategy was being implemented. When the next lizard swooped down, it was caught in the crossbeams of three flashlights. It shrieked murder and struggled ungainly for altitude. They were circling at three hundred, maybe four hundred yards up, several dozen of them, wheeling not unlike vultures, jagged shapes of triangular wings. The fact that they had riders only now sank in. Well, that answered the question about the response from the mountain-dwelling natives. These were the natives.
Sergei walked through camp, checked on the men, the file leaders especially. They seemed rattled but, gradually, their Liberty-typical stoic determination won over. They were itching to pay them back. Now the silk gloves were off. Rules of engagement—out of the window. There would be no negotiating with the enemy.
When the next file leader cracked a joke about those fucking “primitives,” Sergei knew morale wasn’t damaged.
“The translators will come in handy once we get a couple of those bastards,” they said, and Sergei nodded. War required intel. They’d get it from the enemy, one way or other.
He received the report of missing and wounded. Two men had deep puncture wounds from the claws, one had broken his clavicle when he’d been dropped from a few yards up. Another one had been bitten on the arm, flesh hanging in strips from his bone. The medics were attempting to save the limb. One man was missing. Sergei only hoped he wasn’t being tortured or eaten. He had no way to track him in the darkness. That was against the Doctrine—leave no brother behind. But how not to break the rule? Without endangering more?