Crucible (30 page)

The missiles detonated in a mixture of medium-altitude airbursts and direct ground impacts in various different locations around the city. Nordstadt disappeared in nine simultaneous flashes of blinding light that banished the fading pre-dawn gloom from the battlefields of Nu Earth for hundreds of kilometres in all directions.

Hundreds of thousands of lives, Nort and Souther alike, disappeared in an instant. Tens of thousands more Nort troops, on the outer fringes of the city and retreating in panic away from Nordstadt, were consumed by the firestorm that swept out from the heart of the nine combined nuclear blasts. The blasts and the firestorms reached up into the skies, knocking down dozens of atmocraft, shuttles and fighters that had lingered over the city for too long.

The shockwave of Nordstadt's destruction was felt all over the planet. It appeared as a flash on the horizon thousands of kilometres away, causing troops on both sides to look up in fear and wonder at it. Communications were disrupted for a few minutes almost planet-wide, as massive amounts of electromagnetic radiation pulsed outwards from the centre of the blast, creating invisible energy storms all across the planet's ether.

Just about everyone on Nu Earth felt, saw or somehow detected some sign of Nordstadt's destruction and all of them knew exactly what it meant. Hammerfall's planners had long ago prepared their cover story: that the destruction of Nordstadt was the work of the Norts, who with their assault stopped dead by the city's heroic Souther defenders, had fallen back on this most final and brutal of scorched earth tactics. Now these carefully prepared propaganda lies would never be believed by their own troops, not since Gabe's warning had been heard all over Nu Earth. Now, with their plan revealed, Hammerfall's architects would not even have the benefit of Daniels's precious Nort kill tally to defend their actions with. An estimated less than three hundred thousand enemy troops had been caught and destroyed within the crucible. It was undeniably a grievous loss to the Nort forces on Nu Earth, but it still fell far short of the million plus casualties that had been confidently predicted. Souther losses were calculated at some ninety-four thousand. The last-minute, unofficial evac operation had brought almost nine thousand troops out of the crucible in the few confused and danger-fraught hours before Nordstadt's destruction, an act that was hastily declared to be a triumphant act of heroism by Milli-com's propaganda experts.

In private conference, however, Milli-com's masters pronounced quite a different verdict on Operation Hammerfall and its aftermath. Grand Marshal Cohen was allowed to resign in disgrace, citing unexpected health problems for his decision to leave the Souther military and retire to his extensive estates on Nu Sussex. From there he was able to dwell on the alleged achievements of an otherwise glittering military career.

His underlings were not allowed the same privilege. For them, there was only career-ending ignominy and a large number of demotions, courts martials and official courts of enquiry.

Most Souther military historians didn't trouble themselves to record the fate of these lesser players in the Nordstadt disaster. However, a careful checking of Milli-com records would have revealed the fact that, less than a year after the destruction of Nordstadt, a Captain Daniels, recently demoted and transferred out of Milli-com, was listed as killed in action in the latest outbreak of front line fighting in the Karthage campaign.

All this was still to come, however. For the present moment, there were other matters yet to be settled.

TWENTY-SIX

"You can't leave yet," shouted Artau, angrily. "For God's sake, man. You're wounded. Your injuries need time to heal."

"I'm Genetic Infantry, doc," Rogue told him, standing up and gathering his equipment. "They built us to be low med-maintenance and fast to heal, and there's plenty of others here who need you a lot more than I do."

Rogue was right. It was chaos in the landing zone. Every few minutes, another flight of shuttles came in to land, each of them disgorging another group of shell-shocked survivors from the crucible, many of them carrying some kind of wound, others hungry and exhausted and just needing a hot meal and a place to sleep and recover from the ordeal they'd just barely survived. Every med available in all three of General Ghazeleh's divisions had been brought in to help, but the number of casualties passing through the encampment was still overwhelming. The general's tank forces were drawn into a wide protective circle, old-fashioned wagon train style, forming a solid barrier of steel around the makeshift landing zone. Flights of Souther fighters made continual low-level passes overhead, protecting the encampment from aerial attack and flying escort for the next wave of incoming shuttles and their human cargos of more Nordstadt survivors.

Rogue shrugged off the surgeon-officer's objections and made his way to the med-dome's airlock, meeting Ghazeleh and a group of his most senior officers on the way. One of them pointed in sudden agitation at Rogue.

"There he is, general. He's a notorious deserter and renegade. I demand he be placed under arrest straight away."

Ghazeleh stared at the Rogue, seeming to look right through him and seeing nothing but empty space. "Are you sure, Colonel Garr? If there was any blue-skinned super-soldier in here, I'm sure I would be able to spot him."

Garr turned almost crimson with rage. "General Ghazeleh, you know as well as I do that Milli-com has issued specific orders that this deserter be arrested on sight. As a senior officer in the Souther army, it's your duty to carry out Milli-com's commands."

Ghazeleh turned in apparent puzzlement to one of his other staffers. "Captain Vickers, do you see any deserters here?"

"Not at all, sir," answered the officer, with a grin. "Perhaps the stress of battle is affecting the colonel's eyesight. A soldier with blue skin, who doesn't need a chem-suit? I must admit, it does sound all rather fantastical."

"Agreed, captain," said Ghazeleh, turning back to his executive officer. "Colonel Garr, you're relieved of your duties and confined to your quarters, pending a psychiatric report on your current state of mind."

A pair of large, burly sergeants stepped forward and dragged Garr out of the med-dome. Ghazeleh turned back to Rogue, looking in approval at him.

"Good work, trooper, and good to know you're still with us. If I had a few more like you under my command, we'd probably have won this bastard war years ago. I suggest you get out of here, though, before the Milli-fuzz get here, and the rest of us have to start suffering the same hallucinations as poor Colonel Garr."

"Understood, sir. Before I go, here's something you might find useful." Rogue handed Ghazeleh a data-disc. "It's a recording of something the Traitor General told me, about an S-Three officer called Marckand. I thought you'd know the right people to get it to."

"I'm sure I'll be able to come up with some reason about how it came into my care, without making up stories about blue-skinned figments of my imagination."

Rogue was outside, walking away towards the edge of the encampment and the chem-mists beyond, when he heard the shout from behind him.

"Rogue!"

He turned, seeing Rafe hurrying towards him. They stood together, sharing a moment of awkward silence. Rafe was the first to break it. "You could stay here, you know. General Ghazeleh's supposed to be a good man. He could protect you from Milli-com."

Rogue shook his head. "Got a friendly warning that Milli-com will be here any minute. The general's a good man, and we need more like him. That's why I can't give Milli-com the excuse they might be looking for to replace him. Besides, I've still got a mission to finish."

"The traitor's dead, Rogue. He died back in Nordstadt."

Rogue wasn't so sure. He looked at the barely-diminished radioactive glow on the northern horizon, which was now all that remained of Nordstadt. "We got out, didn't we? Maybe he did too. Been hunting him for too long to know better than to take anything for granted when it comes to that scumbag. Until I find out different, we stay rogue and keep on looking for him."

Rafe offered him her hand. Rogue hesitated for a moment and then took it. "Not many of us left, Rogue. Us GIs, we've got to stick together, got to stay solid blue. You ever need any help again, you know who to call."

"I'll bear it in mind, Air Force. Count on it."

He turned and walked away. She watched him go, following him with her eyes until the chem-mists had finally swallowed up the last vestige of him.

TWENTY-SEVEN

Marckand was still in his office when they came for him. The hidden warning devices in the corridor outside had told him of their approach; a full squad of Milli-fuzz, armed with pistols and las-carbines, and wearing full body armour.

They hammered angrily on the door, their security overrides unable to bypass the private encryption codes Marckand had installed into its electronic lock. The door was armoured and they would have to send for explosive charges or las-cutting equipment to force an entry through it. Marckand made good use of the intervening time, systematically wiping every file and all the incriminating evidence those files contained from his desk compu. When he had finished, he drew his sidearm and fired half a dozen las-rounds into the thing, reducing it to molten wreckage.

The room was filled with the smell of burning as the men outside started cutting through the door. Marckand knew he was almost out of time and there was still one plentiful source of evidence against him left in the room.

He sat back in his chair, put the muzzle of the pistol into his mouth and pulled the trigger, leaving nothing for his accusers to pick over.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The Kashans rode in silence, the shuttle they were travelling in riding out the last few fading shockwaves from the explosion far behind them, as Nordstadt disappeared in a column of nuclear fire.

Their injured and dying lay on the floor at their feet, a Kashan medic going from one to another, tending to each of them as best he could. One of the last of them to be loaded aboard, as the Kashans turned their guns on the panicked members of other, lesser Nordland regiments who had tried to climb aboard their evac craft, was a Kashan major. The man was in a bad way, his face gruesomely burned, his chem-suit slick with blood from his wounds but, like a true Kashan, he had never uttered one sound of pain.

The medic bent over him, scanning the details from the man's electronic dog-tags. "Have courage, Major Pasha," he whispered to the semi-conscious man. "You will recover from your wounds, and then you will have another chance of revenge against our enemies."

Beneath the mask of another man's blood that he had smeared across his face, the traitor smiled.
Major Pasha of the Kashan Legion
. It would do as a new identity, at least until he found a better one.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Gordon Rennie lives in a state of befuddled cynicism in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he writes comics, novels, computer game scripts and anything else anyone's willing to pay him money for. In between waiting patiently to become the main writer on the 2000 AD Judge Dredd script, he spends his time getting into Internet flame wars and pretending to be a lifelong supporter of Hibernian FC. He's recently started smoking again, and so hopes his wife isn't going to be reading this. His first contribution to Black Flame was
Judge Dredd: Dredd vs Death.