[Fic] The Tenant of Room 404

[UrsusArctos]

It did occur to me, but 'rebuild' just doesn't give the impression of Realpolitik necromancers raising the Devil Herself.

Well said.

[BobBQ]

I wonder how many people get these chapter titles.

Part 14: Whatever Moral Ascendancy

Lion Rock Tunnel
New Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR
March 18th, 2016

“This is the end for Kowloon,” Kang Li pronounced solemnly. “Sha Tin and Hong Kong Island, as well... Even Second Impact didn't destroy them like you have.”

Knowing that Kang meant 'you' in an impersonal and plural sense didn't help Renaril, who already was close to tears. She resolutely kept her eyes pinned on the collapsed road overpass directly to the south, her back facing the twin tunnel mouths which emerged from the green slopes of the hill looming above. She couldn't stomach more than one look in that direction, more than one look at the twisted, burnt-out vehicles piled around the tunnels and the wide patches of dried blood staining the pavement.

Her Chinese companion displayed no such distress. “I didn't understand why Schuhart was so confident,” she admitted. “If I had, I would have called him a madman.” Kang stepped closer to an area where the road was liberally strewn with spent casings and picked up a large shell from a loose pile. “Serb fifty millimeter... It's brand new. Small wonder those antiques were so effective.”

“Colonel.” The Arume finally turned, cheeks shining wet. “Please...”

“They're calling it the 'Saint Patrick's Day Massacre.'” Kang laid the empty shell to rest with its fellows, her expression unreadable. “The world has seen what you wished to hide. Whatever you actually won or lost here will ultimately be irrelevant.”

Renaril suddenly dashed forward and flung her arms around the taller woman, burying her face in Kang's shirt. Only her sobbing could be heard for a long time after.

***

One day earlier

“Up! Everybody up!” Richardson's eyes snapped open at the shock of Schuhart yelling nearby. “On your feet, people! Action stations! Let's go!”

The gosta wriggled out of her bedding as engines rumbled outside the tent, Harrington, Krieghoff and Lebel close behind. Poking her head out, Richardson saw the long profile of the big half-track silhouetted in early morning light. The sky had cleared overnight, she realized, and soon the sun would rise. Snatching up her socks and sneakers, she scrambled into the open. “Uncle Roland, what's happening?”

“The enemy's mobilizing.” Schuhart raised his voice again. “Gosta, rally on me!” Without waiting he turned on his good heel and strode towards the tracked vehicle, where Nereus and one of the Russians were hitching a gun on a two-wheel carriage to its rear end. “Move, move, move!”

***

“Wake her up. Now.”

The guard – it was the same one who had proven so malleable before – bit her lip. “But Benacirael – ”

“Benacirael is about to undo everything we have tried to accomplish in this layer.” Renaril bared her teeth. “Do it.”

“Y-yes, ma'am!”

While the subordinate ran off to carry out the order, Renaril placed herself beside the hibernation box which held Kang. When the force field faded away, she carefully reached out and stroked the sleeping woman's smooth cheek. If I can sneak her out of here, she told herself, we might still have a chance.

***

“Here's the short 'n' scrawny,” Schuhart barked, gesturing to the large map hastily taped to the side of the half-track. “The enemy are advancing from Yuen Long, Shek Kong and Tai Po.” He indicated these locations with swift jabs of his finger. “Forces on the ground are probably Terran collaborator infantry supported by Arume assault hovercraft. We expect the Arume to also attempt an attack over water from the south or west using hovercraft or larger vehicles. The Russians let it be known that they'd declare war at the first sign of 'special weapons' use, which might work in our favor.” The one-eyed man glanced over his audience – the gosta and a large group of Hong Kong resident volunteers – before continuing. “We have two objectives, one on the water and one on land. The first is to break through the Arume blockade and allow the landing ship waiting offshore to begin on-site support. Our two destroyers will attack the blockading units and provide fire support in the channel. We've deployed batteries of artillery along the shore – those will defend the south side against enemy raiders and landing attempts from the surface or the air... Any questions about the first objective?”

Sauer raised a hand. “What happens when the, uh, landing ship gets here?”

“We'll determine that when the time comes, based on the tactical situation... Now, the land objective is simple: we need to hold as much of Kowloon as we can. If that fails, we'll be forced to retreat to Hong Kong Island and Lantau. The land attack is most likely to be launched from Sha Tin, passing through either the Lion Rock or Tate's Cairn tunnels or possibly along the Tai Po Road, so we've deployed forward troops to secure those already... The tunnels will protect the enemy from bombardment, but they also create choke points which we can exploit. Your squad leaders will give you more details on that... Questions? No? Report to your squads – dismissed!”

***

“Nnnnn...” Kang opened one eye, then the other. “Renaril..?”

The Arume's pulse leaped. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously. “Do you feel sick?”

“No.” The forime frowned. “How long... What day is it?”

“The seventeenth,” Renaril supplied promptly. “The sun will rise over Hong Kong soon... Colonel, I think we've run out of time.”

Kang used her elbows to push herself into a sitting position. “What's happened?”

“I'm not sure how it started, but during the night a large number of the displaced forime in Yuen Long tried to push out of their camp and return to the destroyed districts. Now Benacirael is using it as an excuse to attack Schuhart directly.”

“Schuhart...” Kang looked at Renaril suspiciously.

“I talked to him yesterday, using the satellite telephone. He told me a completely different story than what I got from Benacirael.”

“I see.” Kang swung her legs over the edge and placed her bare feet on the cool floor. “What... did you think of Schuhart?”

“He didn't seem like someone conspiring to fake terrorism,” the group commander confessed, “just annoyed and rude... But how could you be friends with someone like him?”

“We weren't always like this,” the soldier grunted, pulling her socks on. “At first I loathed him, even.”

“And then?”

“Things happened. Where are my shoes?”

***

Supplementary document: excerpt from chapter two of Arbuthnot Ponsonby's The Greatest War, first published by Oxford 3L Press in 2041

Schuhart's material resources were paltry compared to his opponent's, their common determination to settle matters with a violent clash regardless. Eto Delo's surviving staff in Hong Kong numbered a hundred and fifty at best, though a solid majority were Russian or Soviet bloc military veterans with extensive combat experience. Most were armed with various Kalashnikov assault rifles, supplemented by antitank grenade launchers and Indian copies of the Lee-Enfield rifle and Bren machine gun. They were supported by a hundred and twenty local volunteers who were issued the hard-hitting Mosin-Nagant rifle but had received barely a day's training, and by sixteen renegade gosta with little better. To improve their potential, the volunteer sections were each led by a company veteran.

Due to the critical shortage of arms and vehicles, all items remaining in commercial inventory and the entire portion of the Kampfgruppe Klapp collection which had already been shipped to Hong Kong were also put to use. Eto Delo's prime movers included an SdKfz 251 and two SdKfz 7 halftracks. Six 88mm towed cannon formed the backbone of the harbour defence, while a single 50mm antitank gun was deployed on the north front. Vehicle crews were issued the weapons abandoned by Erich Klapp's Panzergrenadiers in 1944. To alleviate the lack of armour, the defending side liberated an operable Sherman bulldozer tank from the ruins of the Museum of Human History. Its main gun had been deactivated, but it was successfully fitted with two .30 calibre and one .50 calibre machine gun and assigned to clear obstacles and support advancing infantry. A pair of M35 medium lorries were equipped with heavy machine guns for the same purpose. A number of light lorries which survived the bombing on 13 March were upgraded with Brens and employed as scouts, as were a handful of motorboats.

It was clear from the beginning that neither side intended to adhere to the customs of conventional war. While the Arume commanders authorized the deployment of flamethrowers and chemical weapons to frontline units, Eto Delo organized small raiding parties nicknamed 'punk busters' and equipped them with highly accurate Mauser rifles. Firing a type of explosive-incendiary ammunition originally developed for Luftwaffe machine guns, these offered the potential to inflict both physically and psychologically devastating wounds at long range. Certain of Eto Delo's other policies were comparatively generous, however: it was ordered that prisoners be taken and treated humanely whenever practical, a gesture not reciprocated by Benacirael.

***

Richardson and Harrington scored another ride aboard the Kettenkrad as the reinforcement convoy moved out. The operator, a man named Semyon, drove at the head of the column with a trailer full of ammunition behind him. Following the diminutive rig was the bigger half-track, towing the two-wheeled cannon which Nereus mysteriously called a 'pack'. Sauer had asked for and somehow gotten gunner duty aboard the noisy vehicle, and Richardson could see the other gosta grinning at her from the far end of the top gun. She liked that thing too much, the spotter thought wryly, then wondered if her own partner was any different: the scoped M14 hadn't left Harrington's hands since Uncle Roland gave it to her before disappearing to some other part of the battleground.

More importantly, what was she supposed to feel now? Not happy, she understood that much, yet she couldn't deny that she'd been looking forward to this. She wanted to fight the Arume and their cronies. The Chinese volunteers wanted to fight too, but Uncle Roland and his friends – Nereus and Karan and Daemon and Woodpecker and the others – acted more as if this were an annoyance and a distraction from their customary routines.

She was still pondering this when the half-track astern suddenly lost speed and pulled off towards the side of the wide road. Twisting around, the girl reached forward and prodded Semyon's back. He glanced over his shoulder momentarily before throttling down and looping back. When the Kettenkrad stopped, the Russian dismounted and jogged over to the motionless half-track. Richardson couldn't understand the exchange between him and the driver, so she merely waited for Semyon to return. “We have breakdown,” he announced. “Got to trade cargo and crew – you stay here, protect driver and follow when repair finished.”

The other fighters had already disembarked from the disabled carrier and quickly set about removing the Kettenkrad's load. The second driver – it was Vyacheslav, who had been working on the same machine earlier – climbed onto the half-track's sloped nose and opened an access panel. The rest of the convoy drove on, one truck after another passing them and disappearing into the two tunnels ahead. The Kettenkrad followed once all the other troops had climbed onto its rear or into the emptied trailer, leaving Richardson, Harrington and Sauer alone with Vyacheslav.

***

“We need detailed, up-to-date intelligence,” Kang declared once she and Renaril were holed up in the command room with Negadael and Eripol. “Those bird-shaped remote drones should help.”

“We can't use them,” Renaril protested. “I told you – ”

“I remember,” the Chinese woman said brusquely. “You're afraid to use them because their secrecy is compromised and you don't want anyone to capture your sophisticated technology... But right now you risk having a lot more than that captured, don't you understand?”

“I know, but it's impossible anyway. This ship doesn't have any provision for launching them directly and Benacirael might notice if we ask someone else to do it.”

Kang folded her arms. “How likely is that?”

“She may be watching even now,” Eripol pointed out. “Somebody was snooping on us yesterday.”

“Then one of you can go down there and use your phase-shifting trick to observe directly, can't you? I know any reflective surface might blow your cover, but nobody could actually hurt you, right?”

“That's no good either,” Renaril answered glumly. “We'd still have to enlist help on the surface.”

“Arrrgh.” The colonel took a long breath before speaking again. “Then all we have is orbital reconnaissance?”

“Afraid so,” Eripol volunteered. “At least the clouds are gone.”

“Get me the best imagery you can, and try calling Schuhart one more time.” Kang looked around for a place to sit, found none and resorted to leaning against the aft bulkhead.

“Nothing,” Eripol reported shortly. “I can't even make the connection – either he's out of range or he switched his transceiver off.”

Kang made another exasperated face. “Dammit.”

***

Richardson reached for another ammunition box, then stopped when she heard a distant booming. “What is that?”

“Eighty-eight,” said Vyacheslav. “German gun – killed a lot of tanks in Great Patriotic War.”

“Shore batteries,” Sauer grunted, passing with another box in her arms. “The Arume must be attacking from the water.”

Richardson shivered a little in spite of her resolve. “I hope they can't get through.” As she finally picked up the box, the gosta heard lighter gunfire from over the hills ahead. I hope they can't get through on the land either, she added mentally. “Uncle Vyacheslav, how much longer?”

“Not sure,” the man confessed. “Carburetor is pretty well broke.”

“Honcho Gamma calling Two-Five-One.” The tinny voice coming from the handset on Vyacheslav's harness was Daemon's. “What's your status, over?”

“Still fixing, over.”

“Can you hurry it up any? The people on the front need that PaK urgently, over.”

“I do what I can but it is hard without right tools, over.”

“Time is running out – we're about to engage here. Your position will be a fallback point if the forward company over there can't hold the tunnels, over.”

“Understood, over.”

“Godspeed, out.”

“What did that mean?” Harrington asked.

“It means,” said Vyacheslav gravely, “we fight here if Arume capture tunnel.”

***

“Your orbital optics are good, at least,” Kang remarked. “What's the refresh rate on these, forty seconds?”

“Forty-one,” Negadael answered. “I can increase the rate if you don't mind a resolution drop.”

“This is enough, thank you... Far better than I had in the army.”

“So far the first hovercraft attack has been repelled,” Renaril summarized. “The blockade craft scattered when engaged, but those ships are moving very slowly... Why?”

“Sweeping for mines,” said Kang. “It's the obvious thing to do... Move the focus inland again.”

The group commander's stomach did a somersault. How could the colonel keep her composure so well? Unfair circumstances forced both of them to watch helplessly as events unfolded, the friend of one set against the comrades of the other, and it was wreaking havoc on Renaril's emotions while Kang kept on watching impassively. “I still don't understand,” the Arume groaned. “What is Schuhart thinking?”

“In China we have what are called the thirty-six stratagems,” Kang mused. “Schuhart has been particularly fond of the fourteenth and twenty-seventh for as long as I have known him.”

Renaril reached for her PDA. Might as well look that up while she still had breathing space to do so.

***

The rolling thunder of the shore guns stopped after a little while, but the sounds of fighting over the hill did not. Terse bursts of speech came over the radio now and then, most of them unintelligible to the gosta. Vyacheslav kept working, occasionally climbing into the half-track's cab to test his progress... Until an especially frantic blast from the airwaves startled the Russian so much that he fell off his perch. Sitting up with a grimace, he hastily wiped his greasy hands on his fatigue pants and picked up his radio. There was an extraordinarily short exchange.

“Uncle Vyacheslav..?”

The man's whole demeanor had changed. “We are losing tunnels,” he announced. “Ran out of rockets and now enemy is using gas – we are not set up for chemical war.”

Richardson swallowed. “Are... Are they dead?”

“Not all,” Vyacheslav grunted. “Survivors retreating now.” Once upright, he headed for the rear of the half-track. “We must set up gun here, please help me!”

***

Kang squinted at the irregular blue-green shape on the primary display. “What is that?”

“The light carrier Defiant Fragaria,” said Renaril flatly.

“That's a rather literal translation,” Negadael pointed out. “I see what Benacirael is thinking – placing a carrier just inside her operations zone gives her air support we can't block.”

The Chinese officer's mind was already at work. “Tell me about it.”

“It's pretty new,” Eripol supplied. “The design trades capacity for survivability. It's not fitted to support either heavy bombers or microlight scouters, but it can launch and recover up to twelve medium ground-attack craft.” The image refreshed, a small blur streaking out from the seaward side of the carrier's curving hull. “See? It can deploy in several directions, but it normally keeps its shields up on the side towards the enemy and opens the hangars on the opposite face.”

“What does it have for integral weapons?”

“Not much... Mostly what I think you call 'point defense' stuff.”

“Then the destroyers can't damage it much, and vice versa.” Kang glanced at Renaril. “Cheer up – that means fewer Arume casualties.”

“Maybe,” Eripol corrected. “The attack fliers are vulnerable, and they operate with three-body crews.” The aide leaned forward in her seat. “Hey, I think Schuhart is calling.”

Renaril finally stirred. “Answer it!”

“Right.” Eripol hammered her keyboard. “It's done.”

“Hello..?”

“You train young women to drop exploding girls on people, but you won't let them paint the female nude on their spacecraft because it's 'obscene!'” The signal quality was very poor, but there was no mistaking the voice.

Renaril was trying to think of a reply when Kang interceded. “Schuhart, are you all right?”

“Well – your sky-eyed friends and their sock puppets are gassing and burning my courageous employees, we're about to get strafed from above, my squad of grass-green volunteers has been reduced to all of three people including myself, and now I'm racing off to reinforce a unit in like shape. How about you, Colonel?”

“Renaril smuggled me out of detention. We tried to contact you earlier, but you disappeared.”

“I had the batteries out of the phone for charging. Anyhow, you okay?”

“I'm fine.” Kang frowned. “Did you say something about gas?”

“Yeah, it's a white misty stuff – catch one good whiff and you drop of a heart attack. We were holding the line pretty well until they started firing it at us. Ring any bells, Group Commander?”

“Oh no,” the Arume whispered. “Oh no, oh no, oh no...”

“C'mon, start talking!”

“Technically speaking it's a nanomachine aerosol,” Renaril explained hesitantly. “It attacks the heart, like you say... It was – I can't believe I'm telling you this – it was developed as an emergency weapon against uprisings and revolts. Deploying any other way requires authorization at the highest levels... To use it here is... Is...”

“Is what Benacirael saw fit to do. Are there any antidotes? Countermeasures?”

“I don't think any were ever developed,” the group commander admitted. “The nanomachines degrade rapidly after release and we Arume are immune to their effects, so the creators saw no point in one... I'm sorry.”

“The hell you are... Find Benacirael, bust a cap in her ass and say she resisted arrest or something. I gotta go.”

Renaril could think of no Arumic word to adequately describe her feelings.

***

Only the Kettenkrad returned, spattered with blood and nicked by stray bullets. Those piled in the trailer had succumbed already, and the driver collapsed with chest pains not long after arriving. The subsequent plan of battle was a simple affair: Harrington would lurk among the trees by the side of the road and aim for individual soldiers, Sauer would spot targets and provide covering fire from the half-track, and Vyacheslav would operate the anti-tank gun with help from Richardson. The latter would have much preferred to remain at the sharpshooter's side, but the PaK – she still wanted to know what that actually meant – needed a loader. It had been determined that the Arume assault hovercraft were not particularly rugged, and that they could not use their main weapons in confined spaces. Vyacheslav therefore intended to knock them out as fast as possible when they emerged from the tunnels, denying them time to charge up and return fire.

It sounded good until the Russian admitted that he'd never fired the old cannon before.

***

Azanael had felt very detached from her old life these last few days. She wasn't sure if it was the tension of getting mixed up in something sinister once more, or just the sheer insanity of what went on aboard this huge vessel... Either way, the arrival of a video message from home actually surprised her for a change. She'd received them many times before, especially when her semi-civilian pilot job kept her far away and on the move almost constantly. This was the first to come since she'd returned to the navy, however, and she wasn't sure what to expect.

“Hi.” It was Akane, wearing a dress shirt with the uppermost buttons left undone. “The others took Yuko-chan to see a play, so it's only me guarding the castle... Just like old times, huh? I hope you're doing okay over there, wherever 'there' is. You're getting enough sleep and eating right, aren't you?” The restauranteur ran a hand through her tousled hair. “I guess it'll be a while before you can come home on leave, but I'd really like to have you around for more than just a day at a time... The bed here is too big for one person.” There was an embarrassed laugh. “That sounded kind of wrong, didn't it? Actually, an Arume proposed to me the day after you left. She's one of the regulars here – I don't think you know her... She's not a bad person, but you know how I feel about that kind of thing. If you have any fresh, uh, advice on politely turning down suitors, share it.” Akane hastily stifled a yawn. “Listen to me, telling you to get enough sleep when I'm not getting much myself... Probably not the only one, either. There are a lot of rumors going around about what's happening, of course. Most of them are plain ludicrous... Apart from that, not much has happened here. The others will probably send their own greetings before long. It'd be nice to get some back too, you know?” Akane offered a little wave. “Take care of yourself.”

When the playback ended, Azanael set her laptop aside and lay back on her bunk. She probably should send Akane a reply, but what would she put in it? She couldn't very well talk about what she was poking her nose into, could she?

Dong!

The pilot quickly sat up at the sound of her door chime. “Come in,” she called, releasing the lock with a little wariness. The door hissed open to reveal Kataphel, the engineer with the apparent insider connection. “Oh...”

“Seiichi sends his regards.” Kataphel quickly slipped in, tapping the closing button on the door's panel. “Sorry I was so abrupt with you before.”

The allusion to Yoshimura piqued Azanael's interest. “Feel like talking now?”

“I still can't, sorry.” The other Arume pulled out a data card and tossed it on the bed. “But we might be able to help each other. Right now I think you should take that to Elaqebil.”

“What's..?”

“See for yourself – just don't tell anyone who gave it to you, all right? Tell them whatever you want, as long as they can't trace it back to me.”

A brick of cold dread formed in Azanael's gut as she skimmed the card's contents. “When and where was this?”

“Early this morning,” Kataphel replied, “in one of the Hong Kong displaced forime camps. Like I said, better make it a rush delivery.”

Azanael nodded. “I understand...”

“Thanks.” The door opened and suddenly Kataphel wasn't in the room. “I'll be in touch.”

***

“Hovercraft with infantry, left tunnel!”

Vyacheslav sprang into action at Sauer's cry, rapidly spinning the two control wheels on the left side of the carriage. “Load!”

Richardson shuffled forwards with a shell in her arms, aligned it with the open breech and gave it a solid thrust forward. It disappeared into that mechanism's depths with a metallic schoonk, a large block automatically snapping into place behind it. Mindful of the gunner's earlier warning, the gosta scooted to the right and jammed her fingers into her ears. “Ready!”

BANG!

The cannon's barrel slammed back on its rails, spitting out the shell's empty case before recoiling. “Hit,” Sauer reported as Richardson grabbed the next round. “Front-left corner, low.” There was a ripping burst from her MG42 and a volley from Harrington.

Schoonk! “...Ready!”

It took a few moments for the next spotter's report to be distributed. “Hovercraft, right tunnel!”

Richardson couldn't see much past the double-layer bullet shield mounted on the PaK's carriage, so she focused instead on Vyacheslav as he frantically brought the gun to bear and slapped the firing button. “...Reload!”

“Hit, high center... Infantry, both tunnels!” This time Sauer really opened up, making communication at a polite volume impossible.

Richardson picked up a third shell and shoved it. “READY!”

Vyacheslav didn't fire right away, and Sauer stopped shooting after a handful of seconds. “Changing barrels!” The announcement was tailed by an alarmed yelp as a few bullets pinged off the angled facets of the half-track's hull. “Infantry, left! Transport, right!”

The PaK's next blast caught Richardson with her ears uncovered. Shaking it off with difficulty, she reloaded the weapon and tried to focus on her training from the previous days. They'd all been taught to provide covering fire for an occupied machine gunner, but the submachine gun she'd been issued today didn't have the range or accuracy to get the job done. Casting about, the gosta realized that the Kettenkrad driver's orphaned rifle and bandoleer were still lying on the other side of Vyacheslav. “Uncle Vyacheslav,” she shouted, pointing to them, “give me those!”

She could barely hear her own voice over the ringing in her ears, and the Russian's reply was an indistinct murmur. Still, she got what she wanted: a blunt-nosed bolt-action identical to Daemon's. Resting its fore-end on the upper lip of the steel bullet shield, she could see the enemy properly at last. The right fork in the road was mostly blocked now, thanks to the burning wrecks of the second hovercraft – a squat rectangular thing in blue and violet with the fat mouth of a plasma bombard in the middle of its wide snout – and the wheeled troop carrier behind it. The first hovercraft had gone wildly off course and plowed into a barrier where the tunnel roads joined, rendering it useless as well. One of its Arume crew was climbing out, perhaps hoping to get away before the inescapable hail of bullets resumed. Richardson held her breath, aimed for the middle of that slender body and ever so gently squeezed.

Crack!

The hapless Arume jerked in mid-step and tumbled to the hard tarmac. As she ducked back into cover and Sauer resumed her own role in the rear, Richardson took a fleeting moment to savor the thrill of first blood. Uncle Roland would be proud, she was certain.

Then the first little canister traced a long arc through the air, casting its nefarious white clouds upon the defenders.

[UrsusArctos]

Arbuthnot Ponsonby's writing doesn't impress me. I think I prefer the faux-wikipedia format way better. Long live Hacks, too!

Up the mayhem and destruction a little more for the next chapter, please. Have an 88 blow up an Arume hovercraft and send white blood and bits of flesh flying out of it, for extra gore.

[BobBQ]

Dispenser goes here.

Part 15: Unlimited Dieselpunk Works

The white cloud left a sour taste in Richardson's mouth. It visited worse on Vyacheslav, who was soon grimacing and wheezing even as he gamely stayed at his post. The gosta stayed with him, and the old cannon belched shells for another minute before the lone adult went bottoms-up. His last words were, as far as the sole witness could make out, “Blin, odin nash gotov...”

There wasn't time to mourn, or even to arrange the dead man in a way that seemed decent – Richardson could only drag the corpse aside and take Vyacheslav's place at the gun. The controls were mercifully simple: a wheel to raise and lower the barrel, a wheel to swing the barrel from side to side, and a button to fire. Everything else was automated. Peering through the slot in the sloping shield as the airborne poison dissipated, the gosta cranked until the sights were aligned with the relatively clear mouth of the left tunnel. Firing at the first glimpse of movement, she was rewarded with temporary total deafness and the sight of another personnel carrier streaking across the road with flames gushing from its nose.

Unfortunately there was a new hovercraft right behind the latest kill – and it was charging up to return fire by the time the anti-tank gun was reloaded. Richardson slammed her palm against the button without bothering to correct her aim. The shell ricocheted off the hovercraft's right flank, jolting the levitating machine just as it vomited a stream of searing violet energy into the air. The discharge landed somewhere behind the stranded half-track as Sauer doggedly did her best to keep more advancing troops at bay: she was yelling when Richardson looked back, but the words were indistinguishable. Panting, the de facto vehicle destroyer loaded a new shell and moved to the aiming wheels.

The hovercraft's crew had other plans: the attacker accelerated, scooting diagonally faster than Richardson could compensate. Next thing she knew, it was behind the immobile cannon entirely.

***

“Incoming message from Superintendent Elaqebil,” Negadael announced. “It's got a 'highest priority' label... Appears to be one line – 'talk to me once you've looked at these' – and a set of picture files.”

“Let me see,” Renaril answered wearily, positive that nothing worse could come out of it. “Put it on the big screen.”

“Yes, ma'am... Done.”

Negadael and Eripol gasped. Kang swore in her own language. Renaril clapped her hands over her mouth before she could vomit. There was a long silence, ending when the Chinese woman advanced to Renaril's console and began flipping through the images. “I walked along that street,” she whispered. “I saw those people.” When the next picture appeared, she pointed at a huddled figure near the lower left corner. “Zoom in on that.”

“Done,” Negadael answered weakly. “That... Who..?”

“Metford Lee,” Kang supplied. “The one who gave me Schuhart's number.” She straightened. “Well, Group Commander? Do you have authority to take over now?”

“In theory, yes,” Eripol cut in, her look of shock turning to one of anger. “In actuality, I don't think Benacirael will quietly step aside for anything.”

“This is insane,” Renaril mumbled, not listening. “All those forime, we were helping them... Eek!”

“Snap out of it,” the colonel barked, thumping the headrest of the Arume's seat. “We must dispatch a relief crew, and this time make sure somebody competent in charge of it... What department handles that duty?”

“Um... Ah...” It took a few moments for Renaril's tongue to come unstuck. “That's forime affairs, normally.”

“So how about your friend? Can we rely on her?”

“Who else is there?” Renaril scooted forwards in her seat, typing briefly. “Come on, come on...” She relaxed a miniscule degree when the curvaceous cinemaphile's face appeared on her screen. “Oh, thank goodness.”

“What's your plan?” Elaqebil asked immediately, adopting English for Kang's benefit.

“Um, yes... If you can deal with the situation in the camps, we'll, er... handle Benacirael. Is that all right?”

The superintendent nodded. “It's fine as long as you sign off on it, kid.”

“Then we'll get started,” Kang interjected. “There isn't much time – focus on saving anyone still alive and preventing the destruction of evidence. Stop for nothing and nobody. The fighting in Kowloon may distract Benacirael's allies down there, but watch out for stray shots.”

“Will do.” The Arume on the other end of the line cocked her head. “I can see why Renaril likes you... Anyway, what do you intend?”

“We have to remove Benacirael from the command structure,” the colonel replied, “along with anyone who could promptly replace her... Ideally we'll then be able to recall her troops.”

“Why doesn't somebody pull out a forty-five,” Elaqebil quipped, “and, bang, settle it?”

“One cannot interrogate a corpse,” Kang pointed out. “Enough chatter. Keep us updated as much as you can.”

“I will. Take care of yourselves.” The communication ended, leaving the primary display blank until Eripol reverted it to the satellite imagery.

“Right,” the Chinese officer sighed. “Now we just need to move in on the enemy control center.”

“Just a moment,” Eripol countered. “Let's make sure... Too late.” The aide frowned at her terminal. “Benacirael's not aboard... Looks as if she took a shuttle down to the Fragaria about eight cycles ago.”

“Straight out of our reach.” Kang massaged her forehead. “Should have checked sooner.”

***

“Now... Are we all comfortable?” The Arume captain looked around, gloved hands on bare hips and a cold, sadistic leer tugging at her lips. Her eyes were hidden behind a large visor. “We have a lot to talk about.”

Richardson wanted to attack, to sink her fingers into that soft throat, but all she could muster was a hateful gaze. Her limbs were heavy and unresponsive, the point of the tiny dart's impact on her shoulder a stinging point she couldn't assuage. She might as well have been glued to the PaK's trailer. Sauer and Harrington were in the same condition, propped against the half-track's treads until it was their turn. The Arume had come equipped to deal with them, Richardson realized bitterly.

“You killed my best friend back there, do you realize?” The captain motioned towards the disabled hovercraft at which the gosta had fired her single shot. “I'm not going to let you off easy, disposable.”

“Feh...” Sauer bared her own teeth. “If you... hurt us... Uncle Roland will definitely...”

“Definitely what?” The Arume picked up Richardson's third-hand Indian rifle and pointed it at nothing in particular. “He's a one-eyed cripple.” She took a few seconds to take in the ongoing noises of gunfire, explosions and plasma venting to the south. “He might already be a dead one-eyed cripple.”

“He will definitely come,” the gosta pronounced defiantly. “Just wait.” Richardson wanted to agree, but her private doubts would not sit idle. She hadn't thought to use Vyacheslav's radio when she had a chance – would Uncle Roland even know they were in trouble?

“Bah.” The enemy woman wrinkled her nose. “And what do you expect to get if he does? Freedom?” She started to say something more, but stopped as a signal from her communications headset distracted her. “I'm coming,” she snapped after a moment. “Tell Hyman to press on with the advance – I'll catch up as soon as I finish here... Of course they're desperate! We've almost pushed them back to the shore!” The Arume dropped the weapon and waved to a forime subordinate, one of the rearguard soldiers still in the vicinity. “I see... Yes, yes, I got it.” Raising a hand, she changed channels. “Number Two, we're moving out... It'll have to wait. Bring over the command platform.”

Turning her head – a remarkable achievement in her drugged condition – Richardson saw a hovercraft sporting a large number of antennae, weaving between the remains of the vehicles she'd helped destroy with a personnel carrier following and a large escort of foot soldiers flanking. It stopped almost in front of the anti-tank gun, a second Arume appearing out of a side hatch. There was a brief exchange between her and the captain, in which a small case changed hands, and then an exchange between the captain and the man she'd flagged, in which the case changed hands again. Richardson couldn't make out their words, but she didn't like the way the captain pointed at her before climbing into the hovercraft.

“Yay me,” the appointed soldier grumbled as he strode towards the helpless gosta. “I swear I'm either gonna be a Section Eight or a friggin' pedo by the time this tour's over...” Squatting in front of the girl, he set the case on the ground and opened it, revealing a row of compact syringes. “Fuck,” he grunted, “there's no instructions... Hey! Is it the blue one, or the dark blue one?”

The captain's head appeared through the open hatch. “The indigo one!”

“Oh... Guess that's dark blue.” The trooper reached into the case, fumbling among the little tubes. As he was doing so, however, dramatic music suddenly began to play from somewhere across the road.

It was accompanied by a very serious voice: “In 1972 a crack commando unit...”

“What the hell?” Abandoning the case, the soldier grabbed his rifle and took cover behind the PaK's breech.

“...Promptly escaped from a maximum security stockade...”

“Check it!” The Arume captain waved from her nest in the hovercraft, spurring the other forime forwards. “Go, go!”

“...Today, still wanted by the government...” Soldiers came running from all over the road, heading for the source of the interruption. Richardson dearly wished to know what it was, and apparently so did everyone else. She turned her eyes to her siblings but found no answers there. “...If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire – ”

The rest was blotted out by a cascade of machine gun fire, followed by the roar of an engine and a swell in the musical accompaniment. In the next instant the surprised gosta saw a gray van rocket up the right-hand exit ramp from the perpendicular road to the south. It zoomed towards the tunnels, weaving between smoldering wrecks as its occupants' shots raked the exposed soldiers, then came to a screeching halt in the distance. The rear doors flew open, revealing four figures inside. Two leaped out and quickly zipped away to the edges of the pavement, as if above the mundane constraints of friction, while the second pair unloaded a tubular device – the 'Carl G' used by Schuhart's friends on the day of their first meeting with the gosta.

The soldier next to Richardson ducked. “Oh sh – ”

The personnel carrier blew up, showering the man's fellow troops with bits of smoking debris as they regrouped around the top of the exit ramp. The attackers dropped and flattened themselves against the road as the soldiers, steadily moving forward, began to return fire. So did the one behind the PaK, aiming over the top of its bullet shield like Richardson herself had done, until the hovercraft began to move and blocked his line of sight. Then there was a sharp explosion on the far side of the freshest wreck and the number of enemy sound signatures dropped dramatically.

A feeling of heated emotion surged through the girl's slender body. Obviously this was Uncle Roland's rescue mission: she had to do something, anything to help! Casting about, she remembered that the cannon was still loaded – a fact lost to her enemies. The knowledge that help was close by gave her strength, helping Richardson fight the effects of the paralyzing drug. Making a clumsy attempt at subtlety, she leaned towards the front of the elderly gun and focused all her will into moving her left arm. She couldn't wield a regular weapon in this state, but finesse offered no bonuses at point-blank range with such firepower in her reach. Come on... Come on... Almost there...

The soldier pulled the magazine out of his weapon and jammed a full one into it before noticing what the erstwhile prisoner was up to. “Hey, what're you – ”

Richardson gave him a look of hateful triumph and pushed. The recoiling cannon struck the man right in the sternum, catapulting him backwards. The captain's hovercraft dropped as if it had been suspended by invisible cables only to have them suddenly severed, crashing to the ground with a jagged hole in its frame. Her view of the road cut off by the machine's bulk, the gosta had to settle for an ears-only observation of the fight. There was shooting from several directions now, as if both sides had scattered in the interval since she began to move, and that bouncy music was still playing in the background.

“Place looks loike Brisvegas aff'er the big flood!” Suddenly the girls had company: a fair-skinned man with a maniacal grin and khaki shorts, carrying a skateboard and a large revolver. “Yer okay, little sheilas?”

Richardson couldn't understand half of what he said, but she surmised that he meant herself and her fellows. “Yes...”

“Roight.” A bullet pinged off the PaK's trailer strut, heralding a renewed counterattack from the south. The man unlimbered a rifle with a heavily gouged stock and a large ring protruding from the back of its mechanism, returning fire with glee. “Come on, yah slappahs!”

The gosta needed another second to appreciate her own vulnerability. She was no master of the science of statistics, but it seemed reasonable to expect that, should she remain where she was, she would certainly become a casualty sooner or later. Worse, the burst of strength which empowered her in her moment of vengeance was dissolute and feeble now.

The cheerful stranger seemed not to notice: “G'day!” Bang! “G'bye!” Bang! “Smoile an' wait fer the flash, yah whackah!” Bang! “Bottlecapped!” Bang! “Oy, Errol! Back me up 'ere!” Bang!

“Comin', comin'...” The entourage were joined by a second man: identical to the first down to the revolver and the khakis, but with a capital 'H' prominently tattooed on his forehead. He carried a thing like a stubby shotgun with a ludicrously wide barrel and wore a bandoleer of fat cartridges over his shirt. “Where d'yah want it?”

Bang! “Straight ahead an' dead even, thanks.” Bang!

“Okay.” The second twin dropped onto one knee, aimed into the air and pumped. Richardson turned her head the other way, deciding no help would come from this quarter. She thought she could hear boots on tarmac close by, but who was it?

“Phil! Errol!” Keiko's shout was followed by a long burst of automatic fire. “Watch your damn flanks!” The gosta's heart soared as that giantess appeared on the far side of the PaK, shooting up and down the descending side ramp. Ending the fusillade with a tossed grenade, she sprinted across to the cannon. “Richardson, are you all right?”

The girl couldn't see her savior's eyes through those mirror sunglasses, but all of that powerful body radiated a comforting energy. “Yes, but I... can't move.”

“Hang on.” Tossing the machine gun onto the terminally impacted soldier's stomach as if it were a featherweight toy, Keiko ran around to the command hovercraft's unsecured side hatch and threw something into it. “There,” she proclaimed as a terrified yelp and a piercing blast came from within, “that should settle them.” The remark earned a wan smile from Richardson as the appointed pack leader took a green syringe from the forgotten case and bent over her. “This will make you hyper for a while,” Keiko warned, “but it's the fastest way to get you moving.”

Richardson wanted to ask how she knew that, but could only gasp as the injection began to circulate through her own veins. Keiko was gone already, moving to administer the same to Sauer and Harrington even while bullets whizzed overhead.

***

“You're back.” Renaril couldn't keep the relief out of her voice as Kang and Eripol entered the command room, arms laden with equipment. “What did you get?”

“We seized everything that might be relevant,” Kang reported crisply, “and turned the remaining staff over to internal security. What's happening on the ground?”

“Uh, yes.” The group commander reverted the main display to orbital view. “Schuhart's ships have sustained heavy damage, but they're still fighting. The transport is at the docks... Benacirael's forces broke through at the, um, the Lion Rock tunnels, but it looks like some kind of counterattack is happening there. There's a large contingent of her forces inside the destroyed city – they must intend to stop the evacuation.”

The colonel raised an eyebrow as the image refreshed. “That doesn't look like an evacuation to me.”

“Eh?” Renaril frantically zoomed in. “Eh? Eh?”

“That,” Kang went on, “looks more like an invasion.” Setting her spoils in the corner, she moved towards the screen. “They're landing T-Fifty-Fives.”

The top-rank Arume among the group watched in horrified fascination as the image updated once more, revealing a line of drab green tanks rolling off the ship's bow ramp. “Are those... good?”

“Old,” the soldier answered, “but light and relatively compact. They have NBC protection.”

“NBC..?”

“The lethal nanomachines will probably not affect them.” Kang looked to Negadael. “There's been no contact with Schuhart?”

“No, ma'am. Shall I try again?”

“Please.”

“I'll do it,” Eripol offered, sliding into her own chair. “Okay... Yeah, good... I've got a signal, routing it through.”

“Let me handle this,” Kang said to Renaril in an undertone. “Schuhart..?”

“I could have saved fifteen percent on my vehicle insurance by switching over to Geico,” the arms dealer lamented. His voice was quite loud, and the ambient noise level suggested proximity to a firefight. “What is it, Colonel?”

“Do you know what happened in the Yuen Long district this morning?”

“Some kind of trouble with the DPs. I don't have details.”

The colonel took a deep breath. “It seems cordon troops fired on the civilians. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of casualties. We don't know how it started.”

“Well, shit.” A grenade detonated somewhere not far away. “How about Benacirael?”

“We've applied for a revocation of command, but getting approval is a slow process... She's moved her base to the carrier on the water, so we can't just, er, bust any caps.”

“She's offshore, huh? And if she's taken out, command reverts to your nice friend up there, is that it?”

“Yes,” Renaril confirmed. “Yes, it does.”

“'Scuse me for a moment.” The man's voice faded a little, as if he were speaking at a distance, and affected an accent other than his usual. “Comrade Vinogradov, launsh the MacGuffinsh... Right, anything else from on high?”

Kang and Renaril exchanged a look of worry. “Not right now,” the former replied, “but try to stay in contact.”

“No promises... Later, ladies.”

Renaril blinked. “He didn't... seem very serious.”

Kang shook her head. “He was very serious... It's when he stops joking that you should worry about – Negadael, what's the matter?”

“I'm not sure,” the aide said. “There's a lot of traffic suddenly – wait...”

“I've got it,” Eripol chimed in. “Somebody fired a missile at the Fragaria.”

“From where?” Renaril demanded. “Show me.”

“The launch point is in the ocean due south of the carrier's position.” The satellite view shifted accordingly, revealing little of help.

“It's got to be that mystery submarine,” Renaril deduced. “But how did it get so close without being detected?”

“Sloppy reconnaissance,” her Chinese adviser opined critically. “More importantly, how does Schuhart think one missile will get through – ”

“Group Commander,” Eripol yelled, the short distance between herself and her superior momentarily forgotten, “the Fragaria just went off the grid!”

“What!?”

“Uplink, transponder, flight blinkers, everything. It's dead in the water.”

“Isn't that...” The group commander's voice trailed off briefly as the image on the main screen refreshed. The Defiant Fragaria was still there, albeit half submerged and listing. The water around it looked violently agitated. “...Impossible?”

“I don't know what it was,” Eripol continued shakily. “Data from remote sensors is still being tabulated.”

“I know,” said Kang grimly. “It was a nuclear depth charge.” She leaned over Negadael. “Call him again.”

“Yes, Colonel... It's done.”

“Schuhart, are you mad?”

“You already know it,” the man replied flatly. “I got Benacirael out of the way for you, so hurry up on your end.”

The look on Kang's face made Renaril want to hide under her console. “Did you think even for one second about the consequences? Did you?”

“If you called just to bitch at me for being practical, Kang Li, then the best thing you can do right now is to take that idiot GC someplace quiet, fuck her silly and leave the war effort to those of us with more than a moribund career at stake.”

“...I can't believe you just said that.”

“I can't either. Unfortunately my best lieutenant was just brought in with three fingers and a foot missing, so I have to go rally the lads.” With that the arms dealer rang off, leaving Kang in a daze.

“This has gone far enough.” Feeling all too alert for a change, Renaril scooted forwards in her seat and began typing. “The fighting has to stop, that's the first priority...” After taking a few moments to compose herself, the group commander began to speak. “Attention, all Arume and allied forces in the Hong Kong operations zone: this is Group Commander Renaril. As Group Commander Benacirael is missing in action, I am assuming command of operations. All units, cease fire immediately and withdraw to your starting positions. Evacuate casualties as best you can. That is all.”

“Finally,” Eripol sighed. “Let's just hope they heed it.”

“I know.” Rising, Renaril placed a hand on Kang's shoulder. “Come on,” she said softly. “The wounded and the stranded need us now. The rest can wait.”

“Yes...” The colonel nodded, her own voice just above a whisper. “Yes, that's right.”

***

“About damn time,” Keiko announced. “They've called a ceasefire. All the sky eyes are pulling out.”

“Buggah,” the first of the strangely upbeat newcomers – Phil, his name apparently was – complained. “Wos 'avin' so much fun, too.”

“Playtime's over, big boy. We need to clear the road and collect any wounded.” Keiko peered at the underpass just to the south, which had collapsed after taking one explosion too many. “Somebody's gonna have to go down there and direct traffic, too.”

“What should we do?” Harrington asked.

“Just a minute.” Keiko looked around the area, then went over to the pair of Arume she'd hauled out of the command hovercraft. “I suppose you little fish get tossed back,” the big woman said, producing a long knife and severing the cords which bound their wrists. “But pull any shit and I will fuck you up, understand?”

“We'll behave,” the captain muttered, rubbing her arms. Richardson didn't doubt that the black eye and cut lip she'd gotten for pulling a pistol on Keiko earlier contributed to her compliance.

“Good girl. Let's see... We don't have anything capable of heavy lifting, so it looks like we'll be hauling bodies for the most part... Ruslan!”

The Russian with the tubular weapon came running. “Here!”

“You're in charge of the cleanup. I'm gonna take the kids and these two losers into town – be back as soon as I find somebody who can fix the Two-Fifty-One.”

Ruslan nodded. “Got it.”

“Also, make sure the Darwins – ” Keiko waved to Phil and Errol, his tattooed twin. “ – don't get too crazy.”

“Da, da, I'll handle it.”

“I'm counting on you... And you two better listen to him, or Cousin Roland won't be handing you any Vegemite sandwiches.”

“Cousin,” Phil repeated, squinting. “Yer really family?”

“No,” said Keiko evenly, “I'm really a time-traveling clone of Roland grown by the Arume as a prototype organic Terminator.” Turning on her heel, the giantess headed for the van. “C'mon, girls, let's go!”

Richardson rotated the bolt handle on her never-fired MP40 into its safety slot and ran after the pack leader, Sauer and Harrington close behind. Was it, she wondered, really over so fast?

The captured Arume followed grudgingly as Keiko opened the vehicle's back doors. “Hanomag wheels and a Maybach engine,” she remarked, looking back at the half-track, “and it still takes just one little breakage to stop the whole thing.” The captain looked as if she wanted to say something clever about that, but kept her mouth shut. There being no seats in the van except for two at the front, she sat with her back against the side. Her comrade sat opposite her, while Sauer claimed the passenger seat and the other gosta established themselves at the rear.

Nobody spoke as the van navigated twisting roads littered with debris. It dawned on Richardson that her first experience of battle had been a mild one: the dead lay where they had fallen, dozens of them flashing by. Gradually the dead were joined by the living: Arume and forime soldiers alike walking in the opposite direction with bowed heads and slack shoulders. Many of the men had lost or removed their helmets and masks, revealing tired, empty faces. Rifles, some without magazines, dangled from numb hands. It didn't make sense to the gosta – as far as she understood, the enemy had been ordered by their own leaders to pull back in the middle of their advance. Why did they look so battered, so relieved to be getting away from the fight?

“We're here,” Keiko announced tersely, cutting the engine after several minutes. “Everybody out... Follow me,” she ordered once disembarkation was done, “and do me a favor – don't puke.” After slamming her door shut and pocketing the keys, she led the way down a side street and into a marginally less pulverized area full of people.

Richardson immediately wished the warning were more specific. All she could do was stare straight ahead and keep her mouth tightly shut as she followed Keiko through the middle of an open-air triage center. The unwilling glimpses she caught were the stuff of nightmares, as Arume and collaborators desperately worked side-by-side with friendly forces to help wounded from both sides. The injuries suffered by the enemy soldiers tended to be especially severe.

“Please,” the captain moaned behind her, “I can't take this...”

“Shut up.” Keiko sidestepped to intercept a passing man. “Yadugin, where's Schuhart?”

He pointed to the far end of the ward. “Straight ahead and right.”

“And the opfor CO?”

“Same place.”

“Thanks.”

And on they went. The grip of Richardson's submachine gun was slick with sweat by the time the six put the triage behind them and emerged back onto a wider street, whereupon Keiko departed in search of a mechanic. A line of hovercrafts, most of them damaged, were moving down the centerline of the pavement, escorted by squat tanks with long, jutting cannon barrels. A single tank sat on the near side of the street, Schuhart and an Arume with a large cap standing by its side. The former finished conferring with the bearded, turbaned man sitting in the turret's commander hatch as the others drew near, and the wide machine rumbled away to join the flock.

“Uncle Roland!” the gosta called impulsively. “Uncle Roland, are...” Her voice failed her as the arms dealer turned. His clothes were torn, scorched and covered in dust, his helmet had four new holes in it, and the right lens of the goggles resting against that steel dome had been shattered. Empty Thompson magazines poked out of his vest pockets and the butt of the Mosin carbine in his hand was stained with dried blood. “Are the others all right?” the girl finished solemnly. “Are we all – I mean...”

“We didn't loose any of your sisters,” Schuhart replied flatly. “How do you feel?”

“We're fine,” Sauer volunteered. “How can we help?”

“In about eight minutes the first helicopter will arrive with a load of cold, wet sky eyes freshly fished out of the South China Sea. Think you're up to handing out some towels?”

“Yes,” Harrington answered positively. “We are.”

“Wait!” Richardson pushed forward, gripping her weapon tightly. “Uncle Roland, why do you want us to help the enemy?”

“The 'enemy' have been asking me the same thing,” said Schuhart, unfazed by the outburst. “Let me tell you all a little story...”

[MatrixRefugee]

Just read the first page of this (I just wrote an especially emotionally draining bit of NGE fic and I need something to lift me up). WOW!!! Normally I'm leery of what the folks at the Godawful Fanfiction Forum used to call "BAMF" fics (so-called from the sound effect when Nightcrawler from the X-Men comics teleports), but this is so... dang... good!!! You got all the character voices just right, even hard ones like Rei (because she's so withdrawn) and Asuka (because she's so obnoxious). Of all the SIs I've seen, this one is impressively well-done! Keep up the good work!!

[UrsusArctos]

“Why doesn't somebody pull out a forty-five,” Elaqebil quipped, “and, bang, settle it?”

Waiting for Kung Fu.

Edit: Also, we need more nuclear depth charges. Nuke 'em all, I say!

[Tsachoul]

Tell us the story, Uncle Roland!

To be honest, I am enjoying Pilot more than I did Tenant, perhaps it is that the story is entirely fresh, or that the setting seems a good deal more complex and mature, or that I have no preconceptions as to how the story should turn out, or end. I do like to see old faces from Tenant make a return though.

[Tabasco]

It's a little sad that a 50 year old museum piece is a match for state of the art Arume tech. Not to mention that apparently no one on the other side has ever heard of a Faraday cage...

I'm not sure, I have a soft spot for Tenant, and still prefer it to Pilot. That said, I do look forward the updates here.

[BobBQ]

...or that the setting seems a good deal more complex and mature...

403 has a definite advantage in that it was begun with the major events and threads of the storyline already planned out.

It's a little sad that a 50 year old museum piece is a match for state of the art Arume tech. Not to mention that apparently no one on the other side has ever heard of a Faraday cage...

To be fair, the museum piece was firing modern ammunition against vehicles designed when the Soviets were still in Afghanistan, and a Faraday cage wouldn't offer much protection against a twenty-kiloton blast wave under one's keel.

Has it really been three months since Eo404 got updated?

[Tabasco]

Point taken, I read it as the EMP having crippled the ship rather than the shockwave.

And wow, ancient Arume tech is ancient if they haven't upgraded in that long.

[UrsusArctos]

The Arume probably never thought of upgrading their planetary weapons very far. Lack of conflict on their homeworld, I guess.

Something that struck me- the ship should have been drenched in radioactive water when the nuke went off. The ships in Bikini Atoll test Baker had all been thoroughly contaminated by the explosion. Also, the Fragaria should have been thrown high into the air by the blast before coming crashing down. That's what happened to the old 27,000 ton battleship Arkansas at Baker test.

[Tabasco]

Arume nanotech at work? Decontamination of the crew would still need to be done, but they might be more radiation tolerant and thus survive the dose.

As for the physical effects, the force field was active at the time of detonation, if only on one side. That might or might not make the difference.

[BobBQ]

For those who missed the original news, I had a hard drive fail.

Part 16: Why I Push Forwards

“Haah... Haah... Haah...”

Richardson's breathing was fast and shallow, air hissing past her teeth as her heart's pounding filled her ears. The MP40's barrel was too hot to touch, its supply of ammunition more than half exhausted. It was all the gosta could do to keep up with Schuhart as he shuffled along a sidewalk thickly cluttered with corpses, abandoned cars and the tattered remains of dozens of tents.

A bolt of bright purple energy hissed past the arms dealer, melting a new hole in a tent already on the verge of tearing to bits. Looking ahead, Richardson saw an Arume in a black bodysuit with matching gloves, hip boots and sunglasses emerge from behind a truck. In the next instant the girl's employer whipped up his own weapon and delivered a burst which raked the woman from waist to throat. She fell, limbs going slack as her clumsy pulse rifle clattered against the ground. Schuhart threw a quick glance behind himself as he resumed his advance, smoke wafting from his rifle's flash hider. “Who's a one-eyed cripple now, maggot?”

Captain Isobael said nothing. She was busy trying to keep a grip on her own pulse gun, moving in a permanent half-crouch in hopes of offsetting the visibility of her white uniform. The look on her face spoke loudly enough: What in the name of the first mother am I doing here!?

“One o'clock!” Popopopopopopoomph!

Schuhart hustled towards the truck, reloading on the go. Isobael ran after him, ineffectually firing from the hip at the enemies across the street while Richardson and the others dropped to the sidewalk. The gosta performed a belly crawl until she was situated behind the cold body of a middle-aged man, lying facedown with three charred holes in his back.

Pewpewpewpewpew!

Pah-pah-pah-pah-pah-pah!

Boomph! ...Boomph!

“Never fails,” the scarred cyclops grunted. “The villain always keeps his diehard elite mooks in reserve until everyone else is used up.” Popopoomph! Popopopopoomph! Popopoomph!

Richardson still didn't fully understand what Uncle Roland's educational narrative had to do with anything, or why she was expected to pretend that these people hadn't been trying to kill her a half-day ago, or even why she'd felt so sympathetic when she watched a frail Arume fall onto her hands and knees, seasickness with a dash of radiation poisoning forcing her to violently retch even after her stomach was emptied. What Richardson clearly understood was that right now it was imperative for her to do her utmost to make sure everyone got to the rally point alive.

“Clear up!”

“...Clear down!”

Schuhart waved. “Keep moving!”

Leather and nylon straps dug into the girl's shoulders as she scrambled back onto her feet, fumbling with the submachine gun's magazine catch. Reload whenever you get a quiet stretch, Uncle Roland had said during training. Being caught half-empty can get you killed almost as easy as being caught all-empty. The rifle on her back and the pistol on her hip hung heavy as she caught up with her benefactor and his unbelievable ally. On her tail were Sauer, newly issued a .30 caliber Browning machine gun, and then a procession of ammunition bearers.

At least they hadn't lost anyone yet. So far, so good.

***

Hours earlier.

“...And that's the 1914 Christmas Truce in a nutshell.” Schuhart eyed his audience expectantly. “Any questions?”

The Arume commander cleared her throat warily. “I'm not sure I see the relevance.”

“Just think about it,” said the arms dealer casually. “But hark! I hear a helicopter.”

Just as he said, there was a faint whupwhupwhup audible in the distance. Sauer took advantage of the remaining time to pose a question: “Uncle Roland, what happened to you?”

Schuhart shrugged. “I dove into a crater that turned out to be already occupied.”

“And the en – the other person?”

“Back there somewhere.” The man replied, waving towards the triage area. “He's probably waiting to find out whether superior sky eye medicine can save his incisors... That reminds me, I should introduce you. Girls, this is Commander Spiegel. Commander, these are Richardson, Sauer and Harrington.” He looked to the freshly arrived Arume. “And you two..?”

“Isobael,” answered the bruised one stiffly. “Captain, First Subset, Fourth Section, Second Fleet Land Operations Battalion.”

“Ferenil,” the second added quickly. “Mobile platform operator, same unit.”

“Right, now we all know – oops.” Schuhart stopped to unclip his shrilly ringing satellite phone. “I gotta get one with a better vibrate mode... Ja, hallo?”

***

Renaril briefly wondered if she'd gotten the wrong number. “Uh... Schuhart, is that you?”

“Ja. Was willst du?”

The alien officer took a guess at his meaning and pushed onward. “I was wondering if... I mean...” Come on, get it together! “Would you let us evacuate our casualties by air? I know your own wounded need attention, so it's better if I don't burden you with ours, isn't it? I'll only send unarmed transports, of course.”

“Jawohl, Gruppenkommandant.”

“I – I'm sorry, I can't understand that.”

“I'm probably doing it wrong anyway. Unarmed transports are fine, anything else?”

“Nothing here,” Renaril replied. “I should warn you that Colonel Kang has gone to join the first flight down... I think she's very upset about what you said.”

“Thanks for the warning. Any progress in Yuen Long?”

“I haven't heard anything,” the Arume admitted. “Let me get an update and I'll call you back, all right?”

“Good thing I opted for the premium service plan,” the arms dealer remarked dryly. “Oh, got anything more to say to Spiegel before I go? She's right here.”

“Not now. Maybe when I call again.”

***

“Nun, auf Wiedersehen.” Schuhart disconnected, directing the others with his free hand. “They're gonna land right in the street here,” he barked, raising his voice as the din of rotors threatened to swamp him. “Everyone get ready!”

Turning around, Richardson found that a mixed group from the triage space had arrived to help. In the next moment a powerful downdraft struck and then all she could hear was the endless WHUPWHUPWHUP over her head. Craning her neck, she saw the aerial machine descend: a fat-bodied thing – covered in mottled green and brown paint above, white below – with a long tail boom extending from high in the rear. It settled onto its tricycle undercarriage with unexpected grace, side doors sliding open as the other onlookers surged forward. The gosta followed them, their white hair vigorously mussed by the mechanical wind.

***

“The Fragaria must be at the bottom by now,” Renaril observed glumly. “How did it sink so fast?”

“Assuming no critical design flaws turn up,” Eripol speculated, “my guess is that its damage containment structures were overwhelmed by stress cracks from the bomb's pressure wave. Thousands of little ruptures letting water in everywhere... We're lucky so many survived despite that.”

“Yes...” Renaril watched the orbital image feed update, revealing one of Schuhart's helicopters skimming over the water. It was a Russian Mi-8, according to Kang: able to rescue two dozen Arume in one run and go back for more in mere minutes. That news offered the glimmer of hope which the group commander desperately needed.

***

“Broken leg? We can fix that.” Schuhart scooped an Arume up in his arms and marched towards the triage center, encountering Richardson heading the other way. “This one's the last for now,” he called. “Stick with me.” The gosta followed him, marveling at the great discrepancy in size between the man and his passenger. Her enemy looked so helpless, so childish even, clinging to Uncle Roland's vest with eyes shut and teeth clenched. “Almost there,” he assured her. “Just hang on – the airlift will be here any minute.”

Richardson waited until Schuhart had set the Arume down on top of a disused crate and caught the eye of a passing medic. “Uncle Roland, you said none of... none of us were lost, but what about the others?”

“Nereus and Daemon came through with cuts and bruises. Woodpecker has effectively lost a leg from the knee down, plus some fingers. Karan got a five-fifty-six through the arm, but he'll be okay... It's Camilla who won't be.”

“What happened?”

“She got cornered by a grunt with a flamethrower – burns all down her left side, and her arm will have to be amputated at the shoulder if she does survive.” Schuhart's expression tightened. “The guy was laughing when he lit her up.”

“Ugh!”

“Doesn't look like he's laughing now, though.” The scar-faced one pointed to a soldier near the middle of the triage. Richardson must have walked right past him earlier without noticing: his bloody hands were pressed over his middle, trying to keep his entrails from spilling out of the long gash in his belly. “KK got to him first.”

The gosta shivered at the spectacle. “Oh...”

“Come on.” Her 'uncle' turned his back on the patient. “We're just getting in the way here.” He began to walk back towards the open street, his student numbly trailing. “Let's go help the sky eyes up on hiiiiiiigh... It's myyyyy occupation: let's not think too much about moralityyyyy... I'm just a bad guyyyyyyy... Yes, everybody knows I'm just a bad guyyyyyyy...”

“Uncle Roland,” said Richardson awkwardly, “isn't it wrong to sing at a time like this?”

“Anything to take their minds off the painkiller shortage... A certain junta's got no cash to payyyyy... Small banana nation: how shall we – ”

“Roland!” Heads turned as Keiko jogged up the street. “Roland, we have a problem!”

“Fascinating,” the arms dealer replied sardonically. “Please do elaborate.”

“Knock it off,” the giantess snapped. After a worried glance at Richardson, she leaned in and whispered in Schuhart's ear.

His demeanor changed in an instant. “You gotta be kidding me... Okay, take over here. I'll handle the cleanup.”

Richardson gave Keiko a puzzled look as Schuhart strode away. “What happened?”

“Don't worry about it,” Keiko said curtly. “Here comes the first airlift. Ready to rock?”

The gosta hadn't even noticed the Arume craft approach, so silent was its flight compared to the bumbling intrusion of the helicopters before. It settled on the same part of the street which the forime machines had occupied, deploying a ramp from its tail. The first Arume to disembark wore the same style of boots, gloves and visor as Isobael: upon spotting Keiko, she saluted stiffly. “We're here for the sick and the wounded.”

The tall woman nodded. “Back there,” she said, waving behind her. “Anything you need, just ask.”

“...Thank you.” Signaling the procession which had assembled behind her, the alien officer marched across the street. Keiko looked set to follow along when a forime woman came down the ramp. Though Richardson had never seen her before, the girl instinctively knew by the clothes and bearing that this must be Kang Li.

“Where is he?” she demanded.

Schuhart's cousin shrugged. “If you're looking for Roland, you just missed him.”

Kang stalked towards her, teeth bared. “Where is he!?”

“Easy, sister.” Keiko folded her arms. “I think you'd better take a deep breath and – ”

“WHERE IS HE!?” Richardson reflexively covered her head at the unexpected shout. When she reopened her eyes, Kang and Keiko had come to blows.

The feeling of mesmerizing horror came back to her as she watched them battle. She better understood now why Uncle Roland spoke of Kang with such respect: the soldier was fast and agile, deflecting her opponent's punches and kicks or evading them entirely. It was obvious, however, that Keiko had earned his trust no less than her rival, as she intercepted Kang's own attacks with almost no effort. When Kang did finally land a glancing hit, Keiko simply shook it off and kept going.

After a few seconds, Kang upped the ante with a rapid volley of strikes. Keiko danced just out of her reach, then tensed and catapulted herself into a twisting leap. Powerful bodies clashed again: when they parted, the buttons on Kang's shirt had been torn away. One side of the garment hung off her shoulder as she and Keiko circled, each searching for a fresh opening. Pressing her advantage, Keiko struck hard. Kang fell, only to somersault back onto her feet. The rest of the world seemed to stand still as their fight rushed on, two fierce woman striking, blocking, charging, dodging –

SKREEEEEEEEEEEEEE..!

The combatants broke apart, withdrawing in a flash as the broad side of a pale blue pickup truck plowed through their sparring ground. “What..?” Kang gasped. “You!”

Schuhart leaned out of the driver-side window. “Here,” he grunted, extending a hand. “Have a safety pin.” While Kang did her best to put the front of her shirt back together, he opened the door, swung his legs out and started to put his brace on. “Got something you need to see,” the man added grimly. “In the back.”

Renewal of curiosity prodded Richardson forwards. What had Uncle Roland brought? Had they gotten Benacirael? As she came closer, Kang leaned over the truck's rear bed and pulled back the tarpaulin which covered its load. The gosta heard an exclamation in a foreign tongue. “...How did this happen?”

“The local volunteers,” Schuhart replied flatly, walking around to the back. “We organized them into ten-man sections, each led by one of our own people. Averkin got hit early on, and his section panicked and ran. Losing him was bad enough, but they... they stumbled across the wreck of one of those fliers from the carrier. The crew probably thought they'd be safe if they surrendered immediately.” There was a dull bang as the tailgate fell open. “I guess the deserters were feeling vengeful.”

Grasping the top of the truck's sideboard, Richardson boosted herself up for a good look. There were three Arume lying on the cargo bed: all naked, with their wrists tied behind their backs. The crude nooses of steel cable still tight around their necks and the agonized expressions frozen on their faces made it plain that their deaths were neither quick nor merciful. Beside them was a loose pile of Mosin-Nagants and ammunition pouches, presumably confiscated from the perpetrators.

The girl was trying to think of something to say when Kang spoke again: “Did you inform Renaril?”

“Haven't had a chance yet,” Schuhart admitted, taking out his satphone. “I'll do it now, unless you think I shouldn't.”

“No, go ahead.”

“Okay.” The arms dealer dialed the number and put the handset to his ear. “Group Commander, it's me again. You're not going to like this...”

***

“...I see,” Renaril sighed once Schuhart had finished. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Not much else I can do right now. We'll turn the bodies over to Spiegel, of course.”

“That would be good. What will you do about the offenders?”

“Don't know yet. You want 'em for murdering those Arume and Kang probably wants 'em because they're Chinese citizens... I wouldn't mind thrashing 'em myself, either.”

“Why?”

“Unlikely as it may appear, we are in fact professionals. We have rules of engagement and standards of behavior, and all the volunteers agreed to abide by them when they signed up. I don't like people who do these things and think they can hide behind me.”

“I understand,” said Renaril, hoping she really did. “As for our position on the deserters... I think it would be best if you settled that as quickly as possible.”

“I'll talk to the good colonel, then. There's been no sign of Benacirael yet, so that's all from me.”

“Ah.” The Arume took a few deep breaths. “Regrettably, I too must tell you something you will not like...”

***

In all honesty, Kang had expected much worse than this. Hopefully the lynching would prove to be an isolated failure of discipline, but she'd have to wait until Schuhart got off the phone before she could ask. Since he didn't seem to be reaching the end of his conversation, the colonel drew the tarp back over the corpses and headed for the triage center.

“Yo.” It was the large woman in fatigues whom she'd been fighting just minutes ago, walking in the opposite direction with a wounded man on each arm. “We need all the help we can get here.”

“Ah... Yes.” Seeing a third man doing his best to support a fourth as they staggered out of the alley, she closed in on them. “I'll take this one,” she said to the beleaguered soldier, shifting the weight of his companion onto her own frame. “Can you make it on your own?”

“Yeah... I mean, yes, ma'am.” He affected a salute with the arm that wasn't wrapped in bloody bandages.

“As you were.” Kang escorted the patients up the ramp into the transport, following her rugged opponent.

They were met inside by a bossy Arume in a white smock and thick gloves. “All low-priority patients to the front,” she ordered. “Hurry it up.”

“Nice bedside manner, Doc.” The giantess carried her wards to the end of the cabin and set them down. “Put yours here, Colonel... That's it, now for the next bunch.”

“Yes,” Kang agreed, returning to the exit. “By the way, you are..?”

“That's right, we haven't been introduced... I'm Keiko Kovalchuka, Roland's cousin. You could say I'm the XO in our outfit.”

I certainly picked a good person to start a fight with, Kang thought wryly. “I apologize for my behavior – ”

“Nah,” said Keiko casually. “You just needed to blow off steam. I had fun, too. We should do it again sometime.”

Keiko resembled her relative in more than just looks, the colonel decided. If she was as good with a gun as she was with her fists –

“KK, Colonel, over here!” Schuhart was waving at them. “Renaril doesn't want to deal with the deserters right now,” he went on once the women had joined him beside the truck. “But she does want to know how fast we can organize a joint operation.”

“Joint operation?” Kang repeated. “What do you mean?”

“I'll summarize.” Schuhart cleared his throat. “The relief unit which Renaril sent to Yuen Long has been taken hostage by renegade elements of the Second Fleet's Ninth Shield Company and Third Loyalist Battalion... One's an Arume internal security unit and the other is a second-layer collaborator formation. Apparently both of them have more combat experience than the assault troops that were allocated to Spiegel. They also have Harold Hyman advising them. So far they're only demanding to speak to Benacirael, but that's probably a ploy to gain time. Bottom line is, the group commander wants this dealt with promptly and she's willing to pay us for our help.”

“Hyman, huh?” Keiko cocked her head. “Did you tell her we've run into him before?”

“I mentioned it,” Schuhart answered. “Colonel, Renaril wants you to take charge of the Arume troops in this zone. KK, you round up the usual suspects and see what we can still use. I'm going to run back to the office and swap out some of my gear. You want anything from the locker?”

“My AR-Ten, my Gepard and the chrome Desert Eagle would be swell, thanks.”

“Mine again? What's wrong with yours?”

“Nothing, except that the ammo costs more than I make in a week.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Schuhart climbed into the truck's cab, stuffing his bad leg in without taking the brace off. “Colonel, you want anything while I'm stocking up?”

“She can use my spare SOPMOD,” Keiko cut in. “Off with you, boy.”

Schuhart nodded. “I'll be back in a few, then... And Colonel, sorry about what I said earlier.”

“Curious,” Kang mused as the truck rolled away. “If you hadn't told me, I would have thought you were more like brother and sister.”

“You're not the first to say that,” Keiko replied. “...Hey, did he just drive off with the bodies?”

“Yes.”

The giantess frowned. “He'd better bring them back... You wait here a minute, I'll run down Spiegel and Isobael for you.”

“Thank you.” Left alone, Kang watched as the last of a procession of levitating stretchers was guided into the belly of the transport. Feeling a presence at her elbow, she looked down to find an Arume in civilian clothes gazing up at her.

“You are Colonel Kang, who is Uncle Roland's friend.” No, not an Arume – a gosta.

“Yes...” The soldier blinked. “Did he order you to call him that?”

“No,” the girl said solemnly as the transport lifted off. “We chose it.”

“I see... Then, what is your name?”

“Richardson.” The gosta seemed very proud. “He gave us all names, because we only had numbers before we came here.”

Kang had told herself that it was best not to become involved in the gosta problem, but how could one remain detached when the 'problem' manifested in such a form? “That's nice,” she offered, sitting down on the curb. “Is Uncle Roland kind to you?”

“Very kind.” Richardson also sat after a few moments. “He told us about you.”

My reputation always seems to precede me. “What did he say?”

“He said you are a good person.” The girl wasn't looking at her any more. “But how can a good person be on the side of the Arume?”

For several seconds Kang merely sat and pondered. “I don't know if I can explain it very well,” she finally began. “My country is in a lot of trouble now. Our leaders are selfish and incompetent, parasites who feed on the people while everything I have fought to protect is let to wither away. The people have no will to do anything about it... Most of them simply believe the lies they are fed, or else they have forgotten why the People's Republic exists at all. This isn't the China my father's grandparents worked so hard to build.” She smiled wanly. “You should ask Sch – ask Roland about the Long March some time, he's a better storyteller than me. As for the Arume, the truth is that I was very suspicious at first... Since then I found that some of my fears were correct, but I also found my own 'good person' among them. One alone cannot make much difference in this large country... but two might be able.”

“So there can be good people mixed among bad people... and also bad people mixed among good?”

“That's right.”

Richardson's wide, curious eyes met Kang's dark ones. “Were those deserters bad people just because they were frightened and ran away?”

“...”

“I don't really understand,” the girl confessed. “It seemed like killing those Arume was what made them bad, but we have killed a lot of Arume too...”

“I see now.” Without consciously choosing to do so, Kang gently put an arm around the gosta's shoulders. “There's still a lot for you to learn... You see, killing someone who is trying to kill you is not the same as killing someone who is helpless.” I can't believe I'm saying this! “And in war, simply killing your enemy usually isn't the most important thing. Sometimes it isn't important at all.”

“But... what does that make Uncle Roland? Good or bad?”

Explaining the futility of a binary good-bad worldview would probably confuse the girl further, Kang decided. “The Roland who fought beside me was definitely a good person,” she declared, “but the Roland I see now... He's not the same man. I thought he had changed so much that he became someone else, someone who is bad all the way through.”

“That is why you were so angry?”

“Yes... All I could think of was how much I wanted to hit him.” The elder female shook her head. “But after being near him for a few minutes, I saw the old Roland start to reappear.”

***

“So what are you going to put in your official report?”

Renaril wished she could pretend she hadn't heard Eripol's question. “I'll worry about it when I write it,” she growled.

“Two new transmissions,” Negadael announced. “One is another complaint from the IAEA, the other is from the renegades.”

The group commander perked up slightly. “Plain text again?”

“Yes, ma'am... They're demanding that we recall the covert units operating inside Yuen Long.”

Renaril's eyebrows arched. “We have covert units in that district?”

“Maybe Schuhart does,” Eripol suggested. “Want to ask?”

“I suppose we'd better – hm?” Renaril turned her head at the sound of the door chime. “Who is it?”

“Aha.” The door opened despite being nominally locked. Beyond it stood a stern-faced Arume in a flowing cloak. “So this is where you've been hiding.”

Negadael and Eripol both jumped out of their chairs, saluting stiffly. “Senior Counselor Daebaril..!”

Renaril gulped. “...Hi, Mom.”

***

“I see everyone is here,” Schuhart observed, climbing out of his vehicle. “Did I miss anything?”

“No,” said Keiko. “We were just starting.”

“Great.” Reaching into the cargo bed, the man produced a Colt carbine fitted with enough accessories to pass for a Mattel display. “Here you go,” he said, handing it to the colonel. “Let's see now... This is for KK,” he went on, producing an old ArmaLite automatic rifle. “And these too.” Out came a humongous sniper rifle and a slab-sided silver handgun, followed by an old belt-fed Browning. “That's for Sauer... Richardson, these are for you.” The girl stepped forward to receive her presents: a vintage Luger and a Mauser carbine with a fat cup-shaped device clamped to the muzzle. “I'll explain them in a little while – just let me get my own stuff squared away.”

The Arume and gosta present watched incredulously, the rest less so, as the arms dealer slung a Heckler & Koch with a telescopic sight across his back, strapped a sawed-off Remington to his thigh, holstered a long-barreled and obviously custom fabricated pistol under each arm, tucked a pair of Colt .45s into the back of his pants, crammed a pair of Browning Hi-Powers – one of them intricately engraved and gold plated – into the front of the same, affixed a Taurus and a Steyr to the front of his vest with Velcro strips and finally crammed every pocket, pouch and loop on his person with the magazines for this assortment. After taking a moment to adjust the position of the Mauser broomhandle he'd been carrying all day in its snug wooden box, he clapped his hands. “Now, shall we get cracking?”

Kang had to smile despite the circumstances. “Welcome back, box-cannon man.”

[Tsachoul]

Damn, Camilla can't get a break, can she.

[UrsusArctos]

Sounds like the Pyro got sliced up by the Snoipah.

[Tabasco]

Sounds like the Pyro got sliced up by the Snoipah.

Good riddance.

[BobBQ]

No actual slicing this time but croikey, the P1907 bayonet is a big knoife!

Part 17: Oh No You Didn't!

Kang was certain she was dreaming, that the images flashing before her eyes were figments produced in her own mind as the numbing drug seeped through her body. She could no longer feel the sting of the dart still lodged just under the center of her collarbone. The projectile's launcher lay on the ground in front of her, maybe ten meters away. Beside it was the body of an Arume adjutant, her head lying at an unnatural angle, wide eyes staring blankly at the sky. The colonel didn't believe in childish ideas like fate or karma, but she couldn't deny that something in her life was coming full circle with a vengeance right now.

Roland Schuhart had used the same Steyr GB during their last fight together, on a bleak winter day in this city's coastal ruins. He'd pried it from the hands of a dead terrorist at the Museum of Human History, always on the lookout for odd or obscure weapons to add to his collection. The PT92 affixed to his front had come to him in the same way, same place, and same time. What a hypocrite she'd been to question his sanity then, when the whole world was going mad and dragging her with it. It was almost funny: she'd spent the day wishing the old Schuhart would return, and now her only desire was for him to disappear back into the depths of her memory...

Pakka! Spiegel jerked, a nine millimeter jacketed hollowpoint plowing a channel straight through and out the back of her skull. The collaborator NCO on Kang's right swore incoherently as he fumbled with his holster. Schuhart shot him twice in the neck, striking the chink in his armor without breaking pace. Isobael panicked and ran: there was a rapid pakkapakkapakka and she dropped with three rounds in her back. A bolt of violet flashed past Kang, piercing the outside of Schuhart's upper left arm. He grimaced momentarily. Pakka-pakka!

Yes, this must be a dream. That was why Schuhart's blood was white, why his eye glowed electric blue, and why Kang stood untouched as he so efficiently ended the lives of his allies. Bullets snapped past her, ephemeral copper-shelled bees buzzing angrily to their smashing finales. Schuhart slapped the empty Steyr against the Velcro strip on his vest and tore loose the Brazilian Beretta lookalike which hung beside it. Muzzle flashes bloomed dirty yellow in the fading light as the arms dealer moved into the shade of the church which loomed overhead, a gunman of the apocalypse sounding the death knell for this crazy world.

No... not a dream, but a nightmare.

***

Earlier

“Group Commander, do you copy?”

“I'm here,” Renaril answered distractedly. “What is it, Commander?”

“Our plan of operation is ready,” Spiegel reported. “We're waiting on your go-ahead.”

“Uh, that's good... Just give me, um, a few minutes to get a surveillance update.”

Schuhart pushed closer to the Arume transceiver around which the key players were gathered. “You're stalling, Renaril. What's wrong this time?”

“Nothing's wrong... Well, just... My mother is here.”

“So tell her to buzz off and let you get some work done.”

There was another of those awkward silences, broken by an embarrassed harrumph from Captain Isobael. “...Mister Schuhart, do you know who the group commander's mother is?”

“Do I look like I know?” Schuhart wrinkled his nose. “There's a war on, lady. I ain't got time for the warm 'n' fuzzy family shit.”

***

“Wow.” Astra ran a finger down the side of the Luger. “It looks really well made.”

“She got a classic,” Sauer agreed. “The forime don't build things like that now.”

“They don't?” The smallest of the gosta carefully grasped the pistol's toggle knobs and pulled the hinged mechanism up and back. “Why not?”

“Too expensive,” the boyish gunner replied, running a rag over her own new sidearm. “That was one of the last ever produced.”

“How do you know?”

“Look here.” Pulling the Parabellum from Astra's fingers, Sauer pointed to the markings crisply stamped along its top. “There was a list of dates and factory codes in one of my books... Richardson, why did Uncle Roland give you this model?”

“He said it would fit my hands better than the new designs.” Richardson didn't look up from her rifle as Sauer laid the Luger beside its mistress. “I don't think I'll actually need to use it.”

“Hopefully none of us will,” Benelli interjected. “But it's good that Uncle Roland trusts us enough to give them to us, isn't it?”

“I don't think it's about trust,” Rubin muttered. “Uncle Roland knows the Arume still want to terminate us.”

Webley shivered. “You mean the Arume might play a dirty trick?”

“They've played some already.” Sauer pulled back her slide and locked it. “Anyway, Uncle Roland was right about our hands – those Glocks the other side is using are huge.” She tipped the pistol up and peered into the breech critically. “Even this type is a bit thick...”

Harrington cocked her head. “Then why didn't you ask for something else?”

“Can't,” Sauer grunted. “Miss Camilla gave me this when they were putting her to sleep. I promised I'd keep it with me until she comes back.”

Richardson perked up. “You saw Miss Camilla? I heard she was badly hurt.”

“Very bad,” Sauer confirmed. “The side of her face was all... It was terrible.”

“Will she live?”

“I don't know. They took her to the ship, so I think we should try and visit later.” Placing the Hi-Power on the spread cloth between her knees, Sauer next turned to her machine gun. “I'm sure Uncle Roland won't refuse us if we do our best in the next mission.”

“What's that about me?”

When Richardson looked behind herself, Schuhart was standing close by. “We were hoping,” she said, switching from casual Arumic back to English, “that we could visit Miss Camilla later.”

“If the medics say she can have visitors, it's fine with me.” The one-eyed man nodded to the Russian who had silently watched over the girls during their practice. “Spasiba, tovarishch. You'd better refuel while it's quiet... I haven't heard any explosions in a while,” he went on, joining Richardson. “Did you finish already?”

“Yes... It was easier than I thought.”

“Not bad.” Schuhart looked approvingly at the rubble piles on the far side of the crater-pocked parking lot. “Well, girls... it seems we may not have any more fighting today.”

“It's over?” Sauer wasn't the only one to react with disappointment. “The renegades surrendered?”

“No.” The 'uncle' began to walk along the row of pupils. “Tessier-Ashpool put us on hold.”

Richardson didn't get it, but Korth seemed to understand. “Trouble with Renaril again?” she asked curtly.

“In a sense.” Schuhart picked up Rubin's submachine gun and broke it open. “Her mother found out what she's been up to... Seems the lady is some kind of politician up in the sky eyes' Villa Straylight, and she's making us wait while they give diplomacy its funeral oration.”

“Then the renegades are still out there?” Harrington frowned. “Are we doing nothing?”

“Of course not.” The arms dealer snapped the Shpagin shut and returned it. “The troops in the outer parts of Yuen Long District remained loyal to Spiegel, which left the renegades thinly surrounded from the beginning. Putting off the attack gives us time to reinforce the containment line and reconnoiter the area.”

“So they can't get away.”

“Right.” The man turned his face to the orange sky. “Let's hope this doesn't become a night fight. I hate – ” He was interrupted yet again by the ringing of the satphone. “Hello?” His expression suddenly turned to one of intense dislike. “Isabel...”

***

“How's it now?”

“Still hurts.” Elaqebil tried to stifle a whimper as her bearer hopped across a large hole in the road. “The movies always make flesh wounds look so trivial!”

“I've told you that enough times,” Azanael panted. Sweat trickled down her face and plastered her steel-shaded hair to her forehead as she ran, her troublesome friend's weighty frame pressing against her back. “It's not... a fun experience...” She glanced to her left, where Kataphel was chugging along with the double burdens of a small wounded Arume and a large automatic rifle. “Where are we going?”

“If we can get onto the Kam Tin Road,” the so-called engineer grunted, “we might be able to reach Shek Kong before they catch us.”

“All right...” The pilot didn't ask what would happen after that, as she was still trying to psychologically catch up with events thus far. Being taken hostage along with Elaqebil and the twenty-odd relief personnel had been unnerving enough, but the subsequent rescue firmly planted a cherry of surreality on top of this royally fudged state of affairs.

Kataphel was the only commando whose name she knew, if it was even her real identifier: the rest called each other strictly by nicknames. In addition to her, the commander and the other two who Azanael had seen in the mess aboard Hyacinth were present, as were several more who seemed to be part of the same crew. None of them were using any visible Arume equipment: they wore heavy boots, fatigue pants and load-bearing vests. When they talked among themselves, their rapid streams of cryptic words and numbers came in a blend of Arumic, English and something that sounded faintly like Italian. She still couldn't place the accents. Moreover, she'd never heard of an Arume unit like this. How long had it been operating? Where did it recruit its members? Who did it answer to?

“Arty scooters!” The shout came from the tail of the procession. “Five, six and seven o'clock, range three hundred!”

“Damn,” Kataphel sighed. “The diversion didn't work.”

“Incomiiiiiiing!”

“Get off the road!” The commander's cry drifted back from the head of the line. “Spread out, stay low, find cover!”

Better and better, Azanael thought sarcastically. So who rescues the rescuers?

***

“Let's go! Pack 'em in!” Schuhart had transformed into a frenetic dynamo, directing the hustle and bustle around the pair of rickety pickup trucks parked outside the triage site. “Everyone make sure your gear is ready – weapons, clips, mags, belts, bayonets and spare barrels if you got 'em, canteens, bandages...”

“Sherbet powder,” Errol Darwin chimed in, “caramels, mints, condoms – gwaaak!”

“...toothbrushes, combs and kitchen sinks,” Phil finished smoothly. “Quit wankin' about an' throw me a Smelly... Oy, Roland! Yah takin' all the li'l sheilas, yah seppo bastard?”

“Half in my truck, half in the other,” Schuhart answered briskly, “and one of you in each. KK, you have first pick.”

“All right.” The giantess dropped an armload of boxed ammunition into the bed of her allotted vehicle. “I want Krag and Johnson on Brens, Astra and Borchardt as Bren assistants, Karan as sniper, Errol as grenadier and... Vickers, Mannlicher, Benelli and Lebel as vanilla infantry.”

Her cousin nodded. “Okay... The rest of you ride with me. Phil, you too.”

“Wicked.” The Australian picked up his new bayonet and gave it an experimental swing. “Croikey, this is a knoife!”

“Watch where you wave that,” Schuhart admonished. “Colonel, you riding with me or with her?”

“Eh?” Kang needed a few moments to pull her focus away from all the locking and loading. “...With her, if that's not a problem.”

“Off with you, then.” The scarred man went around to the front of his truck and opened the hood. “This won't take a minute.”

“What about me?” Isobael asked crossly.

“You said you wanted no part in any unauthorized actions,” Schuhart reminded her. “Having second thoughts?”

The Arume captain folded her arms, her expression resentful. “I don't approve of this,” she snapped, “but one of us must still accompany you and observe.”

“Fine.” There was a muffled clunk from the vicinity of the engine. “Grab a weapon and get in.”

Her own preparations complete, Richardson turned her eyes to Keiko and her gathering forces. “Karan,” the big woman was saying, “are you okay with that?”

“Yes,” the Indian asserted, delicately placing the enormous sniper rifle on the open tailgate. “This is... very generous of you.”

“I don't feel like hanging back.” Keiko picked up Astra under the arms and deposited her beside the behemoth. “Have fun.”

The onlooking gosta understood that the pack leader wasn't literally instructing Karan to enjoy himself, but she wondered if the same was true for Phil. “Mister Darwin,” she asked aloud, “what happened to your rifle?”

“Nothing happened to it,” Schuhart interjected. “He used all his ammunition at Lion Rock and we're not exactly rolling in spare cartons of seven-point-five Swiss.” He leaned around the side of the raised hood. “You don't have to take an Ishapore, you know.”

“Hush,” said Phil indignantly. “It remoinds me of 'ome, even if it wos built by curry-eaters.”

“I heard that,” Karan called testily.

The offender wasn't listening. “Brian!” he whooped, accosting Daemon as he walked out of the alley. “Come tah see us off, yah pommie wowsah?”

“No,” the Anglo-African retorted, pushing his glasses up his nose while his voice dripped with sarcasm. “I came to pray for the well-being of my favorite argy-bargy convict spawn.”

“Gawd bless yer,” said Phil happily. Seeing that the gosta and their equipment were settled in the truck, he climbed aboard and pulled up the tailgate. “'Ave fun mindin' the castle, mate.”

There was a muted bang as Schuhart closed the engine compartment. “Sorry to dump the housework on you with no warning, Daemon. I don't think we'll be gone long.”

“I'm used to it,” the other said patiently. “But what should I say if the Arume start complaining?”

“Tell 'em I'll talk to 'em when I get back.” Schuhart took a shiny cylinder with a spring-loaded fitting out of his vest. “One dose should be enough, right?”

“More than enough.”

“Right.” The arms dealer jammed the end of the cylinder against the side of his weak leg. “Nnngh! ...I gotta quit stalling and find a surgeon.”

“You should,” his head of intelligence confirmed. “Before you develop an addiction.”

“I know.” Schuhart undid his leg brace and placed it behind the truck's front seats. “Right now that's a risk I can take.” He climbed in, slamming the door behind him. “Everybody ready?”

“Waiting on you,” Keiko called.

“Okay.” The engine turned over with a bellicose sputtering. Schuhart let it run for a few moments, then put the truck into forward gear and pulled away from the curb. Keiko followed at a moderate distance as the pickup weaved down the cluttered street and turned onto a wider road, gaining speed in the open.

“For the record,” Isobael declared, clearly audible to the other passengers thanks to the open center window at the rear of the cab, “I absolutely do not approve of this!”

“For the record,” Schuhart countered, “I heard you the first time... Look at the bright side,” he added, steering towards an on-ramp. “I'm the only one in this crate who isn't gay!”

“Humph.” The captain threw a withering look at Phil before resolutely staring ahead through the windshield. “This would be easy if we had an Evangelion.”

“Would it?” The trucks came to a place where part of a building had collapsed onto the road. The bulldozer Sherman was there, a compact green thing tenaciously plowing rubble out of the way. “You know what we'd be dealing with if the Evas were still around? Tomorrow the Freedom and Democracy Impact! Next week, the Great Proletarian Cultural Impact! We'd never get anything done!” Schuhart re-accelerated as the obstacle fell behind. “I'll tell you one thing, though: this would be simple if our Tiger weren't still out of action.”

“Tiger?” Isobael repeated. “How would a predatory cat – ”

“Not a cat,” the driver interrupted, “a tank... Herr Klapp didn't just throw his half-tracks into that swamp: he also dumped a Tiger, a Panzer Four and two StuGs... Desperate to keep 'em away from the Soviets. Anyway, the Tiger is an eighty-eight with fifty tonnes of armor and engine under it. Its name was once shorthand for 'serious business.'”

Richardson had seen glimpses of what the cannons along the shore had done to Spiegel's hovercrafts and, though she knew the guns of the tanks which had come off the ship were even better, she found the notion of a self-propelled 88mm very appealing. Isobael, however, didn't appear to appreciate it. “It was that good?” she asked skeptically.

“Good?” Schuhart laughed. “Try horrible. The Tiger was an expensive, fragile, underpowered gas-guzzler, too wide to be easily moved by rail and too heavy to cross small bridges or be towed by its own kind. What it did have going for it was a solid punch and brand appeal, which is why it's the Tiger and not the Panther that Hollywood pimps without pause... The way some of them depict it, you'd think the Germans won every battle by parking a Tiger out in plain view and putting up a sign that read 'Kommen Sie hier, Mutterfucker' until the day some Admiralty types put a battleship gun on a Sherman and sailed it across the Channel.”

“What..?”

“Exactly.” Schuhart paused to signal a left turn and put the wheel hard over at the next intersection. “Now there are hardly any real Tigers left, and ours is the only one that can still fight... That's when it actually works, of course.”

Isobael looked at him incredulously. “Why would you want to use such a thing?”

“Annoyances aside, the Tiger does have redeeming qualities.” The one-eyed man slipped a finger under the lip of his helmet and scratched. “It's a smooth ride. It can take out a Rand McNally atlas from a kilometer away. It has the best owner's manual ever written. Grown men wet their pants when they see it coming... You just don't get that kind of reaction with the T-Fifty-Five.” He glanced at the rear-view mirror. “Everyone okay back there?”

“We're good, mate.”

We are? Richardson's tender backside wasn't accustomed to this crude means of transport – the Kettenkrad's seats had cushions, after all. She believed Uncle Roland was trying his best to avoid the bigger bumps and potholes, of course she did, but at this speed he couldn't possibly go around all of them.

Her only solace was found in scrunching down into her corner of the cargo bed, bracing herself by using the plywood butt of her rifle as a third leg. Tucking her head in partially alleviated the buffeting of the slipstream, but left her with nothing but the Karabiner crutch to look at. Sauer had explained the meanings of the letters and numerals on its nicked and scuffed steel body, the 7.62 and byf and 41 neatly stamped in a column, though not the miniscule pictures on the side. One was partly effaced by a series of gouges, but looked like it might be a stylized rendering of a bird with spread wings above something in a circle. The other, a six-pointed star, was intact. She would have to ask Uncle Roland about them later.

Something nudged the girl's shoulder. Raising her head brought her face to face with Harrington. She felt a pang of guilt as their eyes met: here was the one with whom she shared a special bond, the one at whose side she was meant to stand in battle, yet she'd been unable to prevent their separation when unity was most important. Harrington nudged her again when she tried to look away, and stretched out across the breadth of the cargo bed's ribbed bottom. Richardson hesitated a few moments, then followed. Her action drew a smile from the other girl as she clumsily put her arms around that slender body. Harrington's lips moved silently, forming the request Richardson already anticipated: link with me. It was a desire to which the gosta would gladly accede at other times and places, but to do it here was risky...

Sauer, seated just aft of them, had missed nothing. The gosta gunner gave the pair a discrete thumps-up and casually positioned herself so that her own frame blocked them the others' view. Encouraged by this solidarity, Richardson carefully brought a hand to her partner's waist and slipped it under the back of her shirt. Harrington shivered, drawing closer as inexperienced fingers traced the contours of her back and wiggled past the strap of her bra. When Richardson found the sweet spot and applied her palm to it, the telepath pulled her companion into a firm embrace, smiling contentedly.

All the potholes in the world were suddenly irrelevant.

***

“You've been quiet for a while,” Keiko remarked. “What's on your mind?”

“Many things.” Kang watched the truck ahead with a pensive expression. “I feel as if one part of me believes the Schuhart I knew would never do the things he does now, while another part insists that he was always capable of ruthless actions.”

“I hear he used to be a real idealist,” the second vehicle's driver commented. “I wouldn't know.”

“No?” The colonel frowned. “But the two of you are – ”

“Are so alike, I know.” Keiko shook her head. “It's because he takes after my father... You've known him longer than I have.”

Looking to her left, Kang watched skeletal, half-submerged buildings flashing past in the water below the road. “Who was your father?” she asked at last.

“A soldier of fortune.” The muscular woman's tone was matter-of-fact. “He wasn't a great parent, but he tried to look out for me.”

“What was his name?”

“He had a lot of names.” Keiko took out a canteen and rested it against the steering wheel while unscrewing the cap. “I never knew if any were real.”

“And your mother?”

“Didn't have one – just an old killer with a soft spot and no cooking skills.” The operator laughed a little. “He must have looked just like Roland when he was younger.”

“What happened to him?” Kang realized too late that she might be prying deeper than she ought. “I'm sorry, I shouldn't – ”

“It's fine,” Keiko said placidly. “My father was killed in action, fighting a PMC over some refugees. He left me a little money, a pile of firepower and a note telling me to find a cousin I'd never met.”

“I see.” The Chinese woman digested the information for a short while. “So Schuhart resembles his uncle.”

“Totally.” Keiko took a sip from the battered metal container. “Want some?”

“No, thank you.” Kang could see the back of Schuhart's helmet framed in the rear window of the leading truck's cab, but nothing else. It was an aptly vague image. “It's strange,” she confessed. “I call him a friend even though I don't know his real name or age or almost anything about him.”

“That's how it is,” said Keiko frankly. “Roland Schuhart is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma... but he's the only family I have.”

***

“Mister Darwin?”

“Yeah?”

Sauer had to raise her voice even higher as the pickup traversed the crest of a hill, encountering heavier winds. “Where did you learn to fight?”

“Australian Army,” Phil answered with great pride. “I wos a marksman wi' the First of the Third of the First, an' me brother pulled wires fer the Navy.”

“Did you like it there?”

“Oh, it wos lovely... 'cept fer the pogos, the morale vamps an' the gun bunnies. Me digger mates were all roight, though.” The man began to recite a little ditty: “We are a ragged army, the A-N-Z-A-C! We cannot shoot, we don't salute, what bleedin' use are we?”

“Why didn't – ” Sauer broke off to grab hold of the truck's side as the vehicle descended a particularly steep stretch. “Why didn't you stay?”

“Got bored.” Phil offered a shrug. “An' I loiked the old elephant gun better'n the plastic fantastics they use now.”

***

“I can't believe you haven't been hit.”

“Same to you,” Azanael retorted, wincing when the gravelly dirt scraped the exposed part of her belly as she crawled to the rubble-choked end of the cramped alley. How she missed her forime coveralls! “It's still quiet?”

“Yeah.” Kataphel pulled the magazine out of her weapon, tapped it against the butt a couple of times and slapped it back in. “They know they can light us up the moment we try to escape. They're not in a hurry.”

“They could eliminate us right now,” the pilot pointed out. “Why wait?”

“We're the only leverage Hyman has. If we all die, there'll be no incentive for Renaril to put off grinding him and his friends into paste.” The sapper – that, according to Elaqebil, was the best description for one who was both an engineer and a soldier – rolled her shoulders to relieve tension. “How are the wounded?”

“Uncomfortable, but stable... I think.”

“Good. Any word from the commander?”

“She said help was on the way, but it doesn't seem to be coming quickly.” Azanael's brow furrowed. “I would have thought a group with a direct line to Yoshimura could call in some... serious favors.”

“Probably,” Kataphel agreed, “but we're no such group.”

Now it comes out. “Were you just name-dropping?”

“Oh, he knows about us. It would be hard to work without his approval.” Kataphel crawled a little higher on the pile of dirt and broken concrete. “He's not useful for much else these days. Mariel is the same.”

“So who are you? Some kind of internal police unit?”

The sapper shook her head. “Nothing so official. We're... how should I put it? We're very concerned by the path the Arume are taking, and by the way certain interests within our own race are actively undermining all attempts at reform.” She made a sweeping motion with her hand. “Hence the recent events on this peninsula.”

“I see,” Azanael said slowly. “How did you become involved in it?”

“I was an ordinary engineer on an ordinary ship.” Kataphel's reply was a candid one. “I didn't give a damn about the way we treat our subjects... I believed in the official policies, and that was that.”

“What happened to change your mind?”

“A midlife crisis,” Kataphel quipped dryly. “My crew were stranded in unoccupied territory. The forime there helped us survive, not caring that they stood to gain little from it.”

“And that made you rethink your attitude?”

“Feh.” Another shake of the sentry's head. “I wish I could say their kindness immediately showed us the error of our ways, but I can't. We screwed them over and didn't feel a wisp of guilt until we were home safe.”

“Oh.” So that's what you meant by breaking a promise... Wait! The hints and scraps Azanael had picked up over the span of her brushes with Kataphel began to click together like bits of some ornate machine. “You were part of a reconnaissance mission, weren't you?” she accused. “Those things happened here, before the existence of this world was announced to all Arume.”

“More or less.” Kataphel's speech became guarded. “I'll say this: the forime who are coming to save us have every right to hate our guts.”

[Tabasco]

Truer words are seldom spoken...

I'm getting more and more interested in the time skip between Tenant and this, even allowing for 3rd Impact and the invasion, some serious business had to have happened on a personal level to the Old Guard.

[Tsachoul]

Goddamnit, stop with the teasers that don't get resolved. They keep me awake at night.

[UrsusArctos]

“Good?” Schuhart laughed. “Try horrible. The Tiger was an expensive, fragile, underpowered gas-guzzler, too wide to be easily moved by rail and too heavy to cross small bridges or be towed by its own kind. What it did have going for it was a solid punch and brand appeal, which is why it's the Tiger and not the Panther that Hollywood pimps without pause... The way some of them depict it, you'd think the Germans won every battle by parking a Tiger out in plain view and putting up a sign that read 'Kommen Sie hier, Mutterfucker' until the day some Admiralty types put a battleship gun on a Sherman and sailed it across the Channel.”

OBJECTION!

The Tiger wasn't fragile, certainly not! The early models of the Panther proved outrageously fragile at Kursk, but the Tiger showed what it was worth as far as both reliability and armor were concerned. Part of the reason why it was expensive had to do with armor quality control, or so I've heard. The Tiger's power-to-weight ratio wasn't the worst, even by World War Two standards (Can't say the same for the King Tiger and Jagdtiger. Those had a terrible shortage of engine power).

The width and the inability to move it by rail without changing the tracks were serious logistical issues, all right. There were Tiger Armored Recovery vehicles around, so I assume it could be towed by its own kind, although I'm not sure about it.

As for the Panther...there were quite a few more Tigers than Panthers in places. Rather ironic. Anyway, anyone lucky enough to drive around the Tiger and shoot it in the rear before it could turn around would konk it out.