Crucible (19 page)

The S-Three assassin was the only passenger they had carried that day. The rest of their manifest had been a few tonnes of ammunition and food supplies, barely enough to fill half of their otherwise empty cargo hold. The shuttle had been full on its return journey, however, the hold and passenger compartment crammed full of wounded Souther troops lucky enough to be evacuated out of the warzone.

Halmada looked out through the cockpit windows as the shuttle descended through the final layer of chem-cloud and saw that Nordstadt was spread out below them. They were above the landing zone now, with the terrain beneath them secure and still in Souther hands, but from his aerial vantage point Halmada could clearly see the distant columns of smoke, lines of burning buildings and concertos of artillery explosions that marked the areas of front line combat. These were now quite clearly far nearer to the landing zones in the centre of the city than they had been previously, and it was horribly easy to see the advances the Norts had made in the last few days.

Halmada prepped his craft for landing, convinced that, unless Milli-com had something very special up its sleeves, this would almost certainly be the last time he would be touching down in Nordstadt. From what he had seen from the air, the landing zones would be overrun by the Norts in less than a day.

SEVENTEEN

"General, with respect, I really must remind you again of our original orders."

Ghazeleh Fyalla turned patiently to his executive officer, affecting an air of quiet puzzlement. "Maybe you should, Major Garr. What were they again?"

Garr shifted, obviously suspecting he was being mocked again by the general. In the seal-protected, temporary headquarters dome, the other members of Ghazeleh's staff watched the exchange with amusement, some smiling in anticipation of its inevitable conclusion.

"Sir, our orders from Milli-com were to abandon our advance immediately, break off from all contact with the enemy and fall back to rejoin the main Souther front line at our original start-up position."

Ghazeleh smiled, nodding in agreement. "Ah yes, that was it, wasn't it? Well remembered, Major Garr. And now tell me, what are we doing at the moment, then?"

Garr swallowed nervously. "Sir, we're retreating, as ordered, but-"

Ghazeleh cut him off. "Retreating as ordered, yes. That's what we're doing exactly, isn't it? And is it our fault if we seem to be suffering an abnormally high number of mechanical failures among our vehicles, forcing us to stop frequently to make urgent repairs? And is it our fault if the Norts then keep on catching up with us, forcing us to stop again to engage them in battle to protect our rearguard? And is it our fault if at times other Nort units somehow keep on crossing the path of our route, forcing us to break off and engage them in battle in order to protect our flanks?"

Garr reddened, stammering for an answer. Many in the command dome openly smirked now.

Everyone knew that Ghazeleh had ordered all his tank company commanders to report every minor malfunction, whether it was flickering console light or a broken storage locker latch, as a major mechanical failure which necessitated the whole three division strong armoured column to stop to allow the item to be repaired. When no genuine malfunctions were forthcoming, unit commanders were encouraged to create some of their own, and Ghazeleh himself had "accidentally" shot out the headlights of his command vehicle with his service pistol, and then insisted that the retreat be halted for four hours, until the unfortunate damage was repaired. The fact that, in those four hours, the force's rearguard units engaged and destroyed almost a full company of Nort armour was neither here nor there.

Likewise, no one other than Colonel Garr saw fit to mention that the route they were retreating to bore little resemblance to the one they had originally advanced from. The advance had been a blazing, almost straight-line thrust through Nort-held territory, making a direct, rapid advance push towards Nordstadt. The retreat, in comparison, was a slow-moving, meandering affair, as Ghazeleh's army weaved its own oddball course back home. Encouraged by Ghazeleh, forward reconnaissance squads and meteorology and intelligence officers on board suddenly started finding various problematic obstacles along the direct route back to the Souther lines. In some places, dense banks of chem-mist blocked off the road back home. In other places, it was unexpected large concentrations of Nort forces - which on subsequent reconnaissance seemed to have disappeared as strangely as those banks of chem-mist - or the fact that the radiation and tox-levels of an area of terrain seemed to have unaccountably risen to dangerous levels since the time the column had first advanced through them. One imaginative meteorology officer had even predicted a violent meteorite storm in the column's path, and the detour Ghazeleh had taken to avoid this disastrous event had somehow accidentally led them straight towards a fortified Nort strongpoint, which of course had to be attacked and destroyed to secure a safe path through for the rest of his force.

Yes, General Blood and Guts Ghazeleh was complying with orders and retreating alright, his staff joked amongst themselves, but if this was retreating, then at least it was retreating in style. It was a manner of retreat unlikely to be found in any military history textbooks, causing almost as much damage to the enemy as their original advance had done.

Ghazeleh looked at the dome's holo-map display, once again silently cursing the orders he had been given, and the Milli-com fools who had issued them. Despite all the delays and detours he had managed to contrive, they had still travelled more than five hundred kilometres away from Nordstadt, and were now only about a hundred and sixty kilometres from the Souther front lines. The thought of all the damage he had inflicted on the enemy along the way did little to ease his simmering anger.

"Sir, a message from Milli-com. They're requesting an immediate update on our current position," reported one of his staff officers, almost apologetically.

Ghazeleh deactivated the holo-map with an angry flick and turned to bark orders to his waiting division commanders.

"Damn it, break camp and get ready to move out. Look on the bright side, boys. There's still a few Norts left standing between us and the front line. Let's see if we can't find some of them and remind them what this bastard war is supposed to be all about."

Hanna liked Surgeon Major Henri Artau. She had met too many senior medics who just seemed to view the wounded men and women under their care as a necessary inconvenience, objects to be sewn up and stitched back together and then shipped out as quickly as possible, either sent back to their units or med-evaced out of the warzone before the next batch of broken and bleeding bodies were delivered into their care. Artau was different from these other war weary medics whose humanity seemed to have been worn away by the endless stream of injured and dying bodies passing through their field surgery operating theatres. He was not like those full of bitter resentment at being drafted into military service and called away from their comfortable and lucrative civilian practices.

Artau wasn't like any of those. For one thing, he seemed to actually passionately care about the wounded soldiers that filled his field hospital to overflowing. And, for another thing, he had volunteered, not just for service on Nu Earth, but for here in Nordstadt itself.

"Ah, Sergeant Coss, how are you doing today? That leg and thick trooper skull of yours feeling better?"

"No complaints, doc," she answered, returning the grey-haired surgeon's smile. "Any idea when I can get out of here and give up this bed to someone who needs it more than I do?"

When she had arrived at the field hospital, the medics had quickly discovered that she wasn't just suffering from a broken leg and tox-exposure, but also had a hairline fracture to the skull. The explosion from that Nort Blackmare round had knocked her around worse than she thought. Still, the anti-pathogen drugs they had administered had flushed the chem-pollutants out of her system, and a few hours plugged into a rapi-heal machine had mostly repaired in hours what would normally have taken weeks to heal otherwise. The skull and leg fractures were gone although her leg still caused her some pain. She was eager to get out of there. The field hospital was deep inside one of the secure zones, but the relentless rumble of artillery in the distance and the ever-increasing flow of casualties into the wards told her that the Nort attack was still growing in ferocity. Some of her squad had survived yesterday's nightmare battle in the steelworks sector and she knew her place was with them back on the front line.

"Hmmm," mumbled Artau, making a notation on his handheld compu. "That head injury must be worse than I thought, sergeant. I could have sworn I just heard you volunteering to run back out there and get shot at again, right after we've barely finished fixing you up from the last time that happened to you."

Hanna opened her mouth to respond but was silenced by a look from the surgeon. "The accelerated rapi-heal treatment takes its toll on the body's natural resources, sergeant. You need to rest for a day or two longer and build your strength back up before we can let you out of here to get yourself blown up again."

"Surgeon Major Artau."

It was more a command than a question. Artau looked up, annoyed at this interruption of his daily walk of the wards. His annoyance increased considerably when he saw who it was that was doing the interrupting.

Two military police officers stood there, both of them wearing holstered sidearms. Artau didn't allow weapons inside his hospital. His annoyance increased even further.

"I've told you people already," he snapped, "I won't allow you to pester Sergeant Coss here while she's still a patient under my care. I'm sure she'll be happy to answer all the questions you've got to ask her about her alleged encounter with this mythical Rogue Trooper fellow, but not until after I'm fully satisfied she's recovered from her injuries and I've signed her official medical discharge order. If you have any problems with that, I suggest you take them up with my divisional commander."

"With respect, Surgeon Major, I haven't got a clue what you're talking about," said the more senior of the two Milli-fuzz men. "We're here for you. Our orders are to escort you to the landing zone for immediate shuttle evac out of the warzone."

"I see, lieutenant. Am I to consider myself under arrest, then? Can't say I'm surprised. Lord knows, I've complained enough over the years about this idiotic war and the way our beloved leaders are fighting it."

This time there was an edge of barely-restrained impatience in the military policeman's voice. "I wouldn't know anything about that either, sir. Our orders are merely to make sure you're on the next shuttle out of Nordstadt."

Artau purposefully turned his attention back to his handheld compu, scribbling case notes into its memory files.

"Well, as far as I'm aware, I don't have any leave furloughs coming up, and as you can see, lieutenant, we're all rather busy here at the moment, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to decline your generous offer of a free trip out of the warzone."

The two Milli-fuzz stiffened in anger. Hanna wasn't the only one to notice the other policeman's hand moving towards his holstered pistol. Other surgeons, medical orderlies and some of the more mobile of the hospital's patients were also now watching the encounter closely. If it came to an open confrontation between Artau and the Milli-fuzz, there was little doubt about which side everyone here would be jumping in on. The other policeman must have noticed this too. His hand strayed closer to his pistol holster.

"I'm afraid that won't be possible, sir," warned the first Milli-fuzz, indicating the compu device he was holding. "Our orders are very specific, straight from Milli-com, and you're not the only one who's been scheduled for immediate evac."

"Let me see that thing!"

Artau snatched the compu out of the policeman's hand, scanning the information displayed on its screen. What he saw there appalled him.

"My god! You've got just about every senior officer in the warzone listed here. If you strip away every division's command cadre, then how in hell are we supposed to be able to..."

His voice trailed away, realisation dawning in his eyes. "I don't believe it... Those maniacs in Milli-com, they're planning on pulling out of here and leaving all the poor bastards here to rot, aren't they?"

"I wouldn't know anything about that either, sir," said the Milli-fuzz lieutenant, forcefully. "All I know is that we're leaving for the landing zone and we're taking you with us." The man drew his shock-baton, activating it for extra effect and looked meaningfully at Artau.

"I assure you, sir," the policeman told Artau, "one way or another, you most definitely will be coming with us."

A medical orderly stepped forward, obviously looking to grapple with the military police lieutenant. The other Milli-fuzz, standing beside Hanna's bed, drew his pistol and took aim at the orderly. Hanna lashed out with her uninjured foot, kicking the gun out of the man's hand and sending him sprawling. The gun dropped to the floor where someone else kicked it out of harm's way beneath one of the nearby beds.

The Milli-fuzz lieutenant swung his shock-baton, felling the orderly. The police issue weapon was designed with several settings, shocking its victims with electro-blasts of varying intensity. From the way the orderly shot backwards for several metres across the room and smashed headfirst into a wall with a sickening skull-cracking sound, Hanna could tell that the Milli-fuzz man had definitely selected one of the higher settings.

The lieutenant had his pistol out now, waving it threateningly at the crowd around him. Artau was shouting, telling everyone to stop fighting, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to him.

"Stand back!" screamed the lieutenant, firing a warning shot into the hospital dome's shielded roof, sending the crowd of medical staff and patients scattering back in panic. "I have orders from Milli-com to summarily execute anyone attempting to interfere in our mission. We're leaving and we're taking this man with us."