December 31, 2009, 6:54 PM
Bluestone, Colorado
The dark night had thoroughly fallen long before the party reached the safehouse on the outskirts of Bluestone, Colorado.
Clearly, the party had already started, and waited for them.
They'd torn through the backroads as fast as the lamed rig could manage. Which was decreasingly good—hey, now, try to be more optimistic. Don't think "less good," think "more BAD."
"Safehouse" was a description. A six bay Arbco garage, equipped for servicing heavy trucks. A downright bland sight in any rural mountain town, franchised out to a sleeper or a pensioner. They were a disgustingly effective cover. And this one might have sat inactive since she was a—since the Reagan years.
She'd hoped she'd have to use her skills and some cunning plan to get the Ice Wolf inside and under cover, unnoticed.
It looked like they'd be able to drive right up to the front doors. She just knew it. What she'd been dreading.
There had been three more defensive encounters with the…creatures, since the breakout, only one in any force.
The rest, loping singletons or in pairs, she thought were stragglers. There'd been a sort of hurried agreement that they were not scouts, something she still feared was wishful thinking, but the fact bore out that they weren't waylaid or ambushed on their run.
As much of a slog that going cross-country had been, the Captain had been cagey about hazarding the paved roads. Expediency, the increasingly protesting grind of the treads, and the following dark had forced the attempt, and proved the first set of fears groundless—the roads were unplowed, and too bad, in his opinion, for untracked yankee civilian vehicles to try and take in the weather. It had been a relief, for a shining moment, that at least they could count on escaping being spotted and reported in by motorists…
They'd come across the first car after a mile. An Aerostar, stopped in the oncoming lane, neat as in a parking lot, buried up to the grill in snow. The headlights were off, but the wipers were still running. And both doors had been torn off.
They didn't stop. Daria hadn't looked too closely as they passed.
The second one, a bit further on, had evidently tried to chance the roads, and had ended up high-wheeled under some buried obstruction against the berm of a hillside. The lights were still on, and the strangled note of what remained of the horn was wailing. A charred thing was still scrabbling greedily through the shattered windscreen at a ruddy mess mashed into the airbag. They left that one be, and it swiftly vanished behind in the dark.
She could make out the skyglow of the town, some time before they rounded the last bend, having risked the main highway. An electric aurora, drowning in the snowy cloud cover. There wasn't enough of it for a town of that size.
And too many spots of flickering red.
There wasn't much else to see. Sparse country, a general flat area between the road and the town, hemmed in on two sides, and an impressive gorge or canyon on the other side—but she only knew that from the map. It all looked black, or things silhouetted in black.
'Wasn't much to keep herself occupied—she'd been developing a crawling notion that she wasn't much removed from the frozen slabs of meat they were lugging along in the fighting compartment had arisen, and she was having trouble shaking it.
They passed the smoldering carcass of some now unidentifiable model of vehicle.
Between it and the glint of the blackout lamps from the rig, was just enough light to make out a jaunty sign waiting perched over a bank of grimy powder:
Bluestone says HOWDY!
Pop. 5,050
Nothing on telecom—just an increasing amount of dead air. No kind of emergency broadcasts, by the book, that would be good—no raised alarm, no heat called down…and all it meant to Daria was that she was plunging deeper into a black pit, an abyss in the blind spot of the world. "Miss D', she d—"
Her seat jumped, not a little, as the rig turned off the road. She'd damned almost missed it. Damn it. There was a slight incline in the garage, maybe for drainage. The building was closed up, a good half-dozen bay doors neatly trimmed closed, but some dim light perching through the gunslit windows.
There were figures standing outside. Clumped up, like cats sniffing after food. None of them were dressed for the cold.
They got surprisingly close before the creatures even seemed to notice the rig. She almost thought the driver was going to—
An enfilade burst from the side cut through, and the awful band crumpled, mowed to the ground. The mantle of snow dusting their topsides flew off, sparkling, hanging daintily in the air like chaff.
She demurred from observing her men drag the sizzling carcasses away from the doors. There was, plausibly, something of interest on the roofline—ah, there.
A frosted oval shape, just a bit bigger than would have been normal for something of it's kind, peaking into view against the dark sky. Good.
Ahead, the garage door jerked, and began rolling with an ungodly screech. Daria jumped in her seat. It didn't look like anyone noticed, luckily enough. A couple of unlucky Snow Serpents were heaving the door open, with a few times that many holding the entrance under the gun.
Nothing swarmed out. Her men swarmed in, silent as toy soldiers. The rig's engine thrummed, and the hulk crawled forwards.
Just an empty building. Daria tried to marvel at the oiled clockwork of the display, the weird, wordless certitude, thought and communication rendered down to drill, and deliberated instinct…
It kind of helped distract from the nagging awareness that she'd been more upset about looking foolish from being startled by noisy door than she was from just watching a dozen people get machine gunned right in front of her.
Nah. What was left of a dozen people.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
The Ice Wolf was inside and the door slammed shut before Daria dismounted. The poor machine practically seemed to sigh as the engine died.
She clambered down, her boots met concrete after a hop. Her nose prickled in the cold as she took in the grand surroundings—she'd gotten used to the heat of the cockpit.
It was—well, what the hell was she expecting, Gawilghur? It was a garage. The walls were probably armored remarkably well, but it was just a building. A stupid, mostly empty building. 'Smelled like tire rubber.
Of the other repair bays, three had been vacant. A castrati-class pickup was up on lifts next to the IFV, like you'd presumably see in any other auto shop, although an impressive looking Steel Monster with a long snouted V-hull named the "Masher"—according to a scrawl of spray paint—rested in the third bay. But it lacked an engine.
Daria puffed, and saw her breath. She decided it probably wouldn't do to rub her nose. Or her eyes.
She ought to find Dragonsky—no. No, you green idiot. He finds you.
He did. "Sir, the interior is secure."
"Horrorshow." A thought flashed. "No one was home?"
"Negative. No one here, and no bodies."
"Super. That's probably a wonderful sign." She didn't rub her eyes, again, but gestured towards what had to be the office. "Let's go…"
It was nothing out of the ordinary; desk, couch, chairs, dull buzz of a fluorescent strip overhead, security shutters dawn over the window, and on the far wall, a vintage "JUSTIFICATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION" poster bore sun-bleached tiger stripes across a shot of a sports car-riddled garage of a Malibu DreamHouse. Apparently unspectacular.
Dragonsky had lead the way, while she stuck by the doorway. "You are…certain this is right place? Sir?"
Spindoctor glanced right, to the little Winnemacean kamidana of decorative bric-a-brac gracing the near wall; the hood of a '78 Mustang King reproduced in miniature…a homey Arbco-brand apple pie ad…a slightly incongruous little Henry Heerup print with a more than slightly suggestive blue squiggle flopping about luridly. Cute. "Yep. Here…"
Daria reached up—had to teeter a bit on her toes to make it—and grabbed an Indo-British lager bottle planted on the shelf with meticulous carelessness, sporting a coat of painted on dust. She gave it a twist, it ratcheted solidly.
On the facing wall, the Higher Education poster made a dial-tone chirp, and slid away with an electric purr.
The crates glutting the alcove behind bore the usual liberal plastering of red snake head emblems.
"Ammo?"
"Standard cache, small-arms, power cells, maybe some light anti-tank. Any belts or grenades, probably stolen and sold…they always are." No one ever keeps grenades around, her mind grumbled. She didn't rub her nose, again. "I need to get onto the roof."
The Russian snapped his fingers, and called out. "Misha, Schützer, sweep roof. Get me overwatch—escort the subcommander. Anything else, sir?"
"Well, it's probably a good a time as any to start taking potty breaks. I don't think I care to supervise the operational details on that point."
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
It was an enclosed stairway to the roof access, not that it made it any warmer. Daria kept a professionally respectful distance from the veteran professionals at their work—screw it, heading up the rear, so she wouldn't get stepped on. She be not proud.—the door at the top of the narrow flight was locked, but unbolted.
Her men popped through, fast, without undue fuss. The sniper, the last one through the door, stepped outside like he was walking onto a yacht. He'd only turned his head to cover his slice of the roof. The gun followed—and snarled once, spitting a sliver of brass against the dark sky. He didn't even break stride.
"Clear."
Spindoctor nodded, and started climbing. Daria was a little surprised that she had to take her hand off her sidearm. Settle down, 'Patton.'
The view from the roof was more expansive, if not any more pleasant. The yawning maw of undeveloped ground between the Safehouse and Bluestone proper, maybe a half mile distant, loomed dead black, like the surface of some frozen lake. The town didn't look much worse off than it had on the drive in.
But on the ride in, she'd been sitting in twenty tons of tracked, clattering diesel. She hadn't been able to hear it.
Faint enough, with her rattled ears, to be indistinct. Just loud enough to be recognizable as human. Almost human.
The wind brushed her face, tanged with smoke. Daria pushed her glasses up her nose. Get your head back in the book, Morgendorffer. There was work to be done. "And I have Promises to Keep"…
She marched over to the forward edge of the roof, and the shape she'd spotted from outside. She gently dusted some icy powder off it as she knelt behind.
The dish, by all appearances, was outwardly identical to the countless others you'd find digitally fire hosing in the Pigskin Channel on satellite TV—that was probably what this one did, normally—with any other features carefully made unrecognizable save to expert eyes.
The cable from the Feed Horn antenna popped out with barely a spark. Goody. Now…
She got herself as comfortable as possible (not much), and turned her attention to the bit of kit strapped to her left hip. The one she was supposed to be expected to be using, normally, like she'd been trained to…like I'd been HIRED to…damnit…
The black plastic box, slick, tough and featureless, was heavy enough to need both straps of a drop-leg holster. Daria unlocked the thing, swiveling it in place on her leg, and flipped up the lid. She was rewarded with a homey beep and a flare of warm light.
The glow resolved, into a blocky glyph. The quill-and-chessman of Cobra Public Affairs. Here we go.
The "CX-2000 'Electronic Message Unit.'" 50 Megaflop Transputer CPU. 24 million word universal Bubble Memory. Integral acoustic coupler. Integral DTP and image setting suite, with built-in Knowledge Navigator with preemptive multitasking…
Super. And if it were still 1989, that would actually have been hot snot, not outclassed by a phone she could get at the Mac store on the Mag Mile…
That was a little hard. Even an iPhone 3 didn't come with a U-229 and an C-H128/AMOS 519 cryptographic engine. Yet.
She turned thoughtful, for a moment. This was probably the last time she was going to use the tough little idiot…
Good god, she wished she hadn't thought that.
She shuddered off the notion. The cable reeled out from the dish, and she plugged it in one-handed, fiddling at the nub mouse and the keypad with the other. Didn't even need to take off the gloves—she'd certainly done it long enough to feel her way around through the lambskin, God knew. She couldn't help but feel a sense of relief start to settle when she got to type again…
The Communications Program booted, and the dish jerked, the motors in the base roused from their slumber.
A pixelated pipper superimposed on a sky map flashed on the EMU screen, and the dish slowly began tracking a transponder…probably Alpha Oph 1, at this longitude. Seemed to lock okay—thank god. The Look Angle was easy enough to compute, but she did not relish the thought of trying to get a fix manually through mountains in this muck—she glanced up, skyward. Which was a mistake, as it brought the ugly sight of the town back into view.
She thought she saw silhouettes. Moving ones…
Daria quickly locked her eyes back on the flickering orange gas-plasma.
The calculus of the situation took the chance to percolate in her brain. Twenty-five men—plus her—plus two thousand pounds of frozen "specimens" to evacuate intact. That was close to the end of the good parts…
The computer booped, and a cheery little status alert popped onscreen. Success.
All working. That bled off some of the tension…Aside from worrying about the Block Upconverter burning a hole through her lower femur, at this point, it was just a bog standard SATCOM setup
Nothing fancy, just your typical encrypted uplink to a run of the mill regenerative transponder hidden in the derelict upper stage of an old Nova booster drifting twenty thousand miles up, downlinking to a humdrum clandestine relay outpost boltholed in the mostly-buried ruins of Irem in the Empty Quarter…
Simple.
The next part—ah! She was an old hand, here. Getting on the paleo web via the county library catalog, via telnet, via her mother's Macintosh LC, when she was supposed to be teaching herself WordPerfect, when she was…13? 'Great time, if you didn't care about graphics. "I only read it for the articles," Insert some nonsense about Jamming with the Console Cowboys in…focus, FOCUS…
She focused. Daria attacked the keypad, and the Terminal screen lit up.
S: Penknife calling Minstrel Boy.
The focusing didn't help much. Now she was just acutely aware of the shuffling, crunchy sound coming from ground level, below. And closing. Slow. She didn't bother to look.
A column of neon diodes next to her screen spiked. The last line of text blinked, and leapt up a line. An answer. A new friend.
I: Flash
That brought a shiver of relief. It was him. With a formality to get out of the way—a simple challenge/countersign exchange, the last layer of human security on top of the invisible electronic firmament securing the connection. Spindoctor treated it with the solemn and professional care due to it's part in the process…
She typed in the prearranged response:
S: Priapus.
The diode by the screen flickered again as the reply from Interrogator flittered down.
I: With you. You want a ride home?
She typed back, a little more forcefully than the keyboard deserved:
S: I need you to get us the hell out of here.
I: Ah. Gory details?
Daria made a little face, at that, but she dutifully filled him in. He returned the favor.
He was being a good guy about it, keeping to the arcane codewords which stuck out like neon, but hopelessly non-indicative. Starlight had reached and secured point Fardowner—somewhere between Rockville and New Moon, twenty-ish miles distant. As the tree-snake flew, which in the mountains was almost meaningless—no opposition, no apparent detection…
I: I've done what I can. All having a good time.
I: You should be happy with the arrangements.
She frowned.
S: Perfectly?
I: Well quote Very unquote happy. Artie is no go.
S: Blew you off?
I: No, they've been good. But am advised that battery would be operating at limits of range to begin with, + weather conditions would reduce accuracy below acceptable levels.
I: ...Even by normal standards.
Well THAT thought was enough to run it's chilly fingers up her spine like it was a baby grand.
I: Direct fire support is still possible.
Oh joy. Even better. Using a battery of 155mm artillery firing "whiffs of the grape" at effectively point-blank range as they tried to withdraw through the rear...she'd rather not have to resort to *that.*
I. wait
I: WORMS advise that PGMs possible, if you can lase targets.
That…
A little spark of hope flared to life, then quickly guttered; the firepower was as alluring as anything with a hundred meter kill radius had a right to be, but to be usable on the run…
She looked up, taking in the glowering shadow of the town. Inserting a Spotter into that cauldron, trying to guide in volleys of balky laser-guided shells coming in at, what, eight hundred miles per hour? It was bad business. Bad business all around…
Daria stole a glance over her shoulder. Schutzer, perched like a buzzard on an AC box, dusted with snow like a cloak, head and gun moving on the same camshaft. The dead faceplate rotated back towards the town, in a slow circuit. For a second, it was like he was looking straight at her.
The wind lapped at her cheek again. Cold, with colder landings of ice.
Spindoctor turned back to the screen.
S. Affirmative.
The noises from below were getting distracting. It wasn't even very loud, just…like hearing an empty stomach grumbling…moaning…
I: New problem. Airborne element.
Interrogator interrupted her before she could finish typing.
I: Not weather.
I: Sort of. They're invoking a hazard clause to operate in these conditions. In advance. More than I can handle from where I am.
Daria stifled a groan, but indulged in an eye-rub before responding.
S: And I thought you liked me.
I: If I didn't, we wouldn't even be talking. But liking does't pay the bills. You know how things are.
Daria's neck had started to cramp up. Her glove found it's way back to give the knot a rub—she felt burned hair. She sighed, soft and low. *If this is the WORST thing you have to deal with tonight…*
S: Yes. I know how things are.
S: Switching over to authorize resource disbursement. I'll recontact you shortly.
I: See you.
She had to open up a different digital telecom suite—the access portal featured a menu starting with "ARPAnet" and scrolled down to…good god…"WorldWideWeb," slotted right after "Usenet" and "VNIIPAS." Charming. Too good for semaphore, ya Bevo-swilling whippersnapper? Well, if the thing worked at least…
It did. Daria didn't need to waste much time fussing with it, just jackhammered in the address and login details. It was familiar enough, she could've done it one handed, in the dark…
The screen blipped, and she was rewarded with text tracing on the little screen:
Welcome to FeeFriend, NotAShellCo188!
The ASCII rendering of the logotype blending the "r" and "i" into one chubby looking vowel. All right, step two. And the baksheesh was going to…she thumbed through one of the antique rolodexes cluttering the desk of her Memory Palace. Ah, that's right.
"Extensive Enterprises Livestock Culling and Maceration Services" got entered in the Send To screen, plus a figure she typed out with a wince. "If it's the worst thing you have to deal with tonight…"
A dropdown menu she was sure was going to cause trouble, didn't. She popped open the increasingly arcane and euphemistic list of currencies her Special Executive Membership bought access to…Dollars…Euros…Krugerrands…Uncut Red Carbon Crystal…very droll.
She stuck with greenbacks, hit "pay," sucked in a breath…
Problem.
We were unable to process the payment at this time, please check your payment settings. err 82
The ASCII rendition did a passable rendition of the cutesy error-message mascot.
The cold fist behind her ribs clenched, and jackhammered her throat for a good two or five beats before her head cleared it. Not a comms problem, and not a software error…it wouldn't have worked at all, or it would have given her gibberish…
Off in the town, something sparked and flared, silently, bright enough to feel a kiss of heat on her face before the little fireball dissipated into the night. The bang reached her a few seconds later.
She nubbed over to the "Account Settings" tab. It loaded, swiftly and smoothly.
There, in one line, text blinking orange. Of all the imbecilic…
CARD EXPIRED 12/2009.
It wasn't even…oh. Oh.
Well she felt sheepish. It was New Year's Eve. And in Zurich, seven hours ahead, where the bank/server was actually located, it was already next year, wasn't it?
The little black replacement card was likely sitting in that week's little pile of unopened mail, safe and snug in her nice warm apartment, waiting for her to get home. Home…
Daria shook off the thought. Of all the things she hadn't thought she'd have to do, today…
She managed to tug out her wallet with something approaching grace, which had to be abandoned entirely when it came time to pick through the cards. She'd fumbled at them a moment, fumbled again trying to doff her glove, finally gave up and tugged it off with her teeth.
The air prickled the exposed skin. Her wrist twinged in pain—she noted it absently, with a notion of incipient carpel tunnel—while she tugged out the backup piece wedged behind her battered green and white library card.
She had to squint, twisting the stupid thing to catch the dim light enough to read. Of course it one of the fancy, un-embossed moderné ones…
Off in the town, half a dozen sharp cracks broke the night—obviously someone suddenly, excitedly, emptying all six chambers of a revolver.
Daria flinched, grimacing around the leather she still had in her mouth. What the hell was she doing up here without a helmet?
No…what the hell was she doing here?
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
A short while later, she plodded back down the staircase to the garage. Her feet felt like she'd just stepped off a tippy little boat—it was becoming a theme.
The "dance floor" of the garage was already busy. The pickup had been lowered enough for three men to work on it at once, a man on top finishing the welds on what could only be a pintle mount in the truck bed, and sparks from god only knew what the others were screwing with in the undercarriage. Was that what you CALLED the underside of a truck? Probably. Who knows. Screw it, who cares.
It was still cold. Was the heat out, or didn't anybody think to—Screw it, who cares. Again.
She thought she heard arrhythmic thumping from outside, it was hard to pick out over the clamor of tools and metal. A few other Serpents were carefully sawing a couple of oil drums in half, width-wise, joining a small pile they'd already completed.
Spindoctor pointedly didn't ask, and snaked her way to the garage office.
The thumping got a lot louder when she entered the room—no wonder, boss' office, public-facing part of the business? 'Nice big plate windows at street level, great view of the security shutters bouncing as they got pounded.
The voices carried better, too. "Voices"? Tongueless, droning simianism…
Dragonsky had set up inside with a cadre. The cheery laminated tourist maps of the town and ski country had been pulled off the wall and plastered on the desktop, anchored by a few satchels of kit and a stack of mags in various stages of reload.
Seated, tracing a dagger finger over an inked line on the paper, snow still clinging, seemingly unnoticed to the wreaths of furs on his outfit…the man was the image of a chieftain, some cossack warlord. More than true, really.
"Spindoctor," the man said, in something keeping a respectful distance from a greeting. Dragonsky gestured towards the map.
"Us," he tapped the marks on the print, the first one sitting in the middle of a long stretch of road, and backed on one side by a very large hill or a small mountain, "Here. Town." A tap on the blotch to the immediate west of the first mark. She thought it was west. "Here—" he swept left—south—from the blotch into the loops and whorls of a blank wilderness, with a thready little line that eventually traced back to the garage. "little road, back into hills. Here," the hand went north of the blotch to the other rough spot, edging in the other edge of the town, "hills, no road. Here, main road, back the way we came." He tapped the line a little too forcefully. "Sixty miles until hit nearest freeway. Bad going the whole way, getting worse. Probably would meet company coming from other direction. Also bad."
The hand moved to the other side of the blotch, and the chasm cutting from past one edge of the map to the other. She knew what was coming.
"Here, bridge. Good bridge. Only one. Good roads. Town." The fingers spread, and he gave the map a bug-smack slap. "Between it and us. As you have heard…" He raised his arm in a little voila flourish. ""Obviously, we have company," he drawled, "either they chase us, or after 'cargo. Either way, they're chasing dinner. Oh! Here—" Dragonsky scooped up a frumpy brick of blue plastic, spilled out of one of the gear satchels, and tossed it. Daria caught the thing—very light—and checked the printed label, automatically.
Cobra Meal Ready To Eat, Menu #24. Bushmeat Burgoo and a bar of Panzerschokolade—plus a spork, wet-naps, and a pack of Manitobas. Cute.
"How long can you hold?"
"Indefinitely, assuming they don't start acting clever, or yankees find us." Shrug. "Which will happen. Probably both. Is inevitability. Who knows how long for freaks outside. For yankees? Maybe eight hours. Twelve, if Joeskis sleeping off hangovers."
Daria quietly felt her hackles raise at mention of that name. She tried not to show it.
Dragonsky continued. "If we try breakout, make for bridge? We have four vehicles—meaning four men driving, who can't shoot—two snowmobiles, one tachanka, and one armored vehicle on last legs with fighting compartment already stuffed with corpses." The man had drawn a CMRE of his own out, and was fiddling with it, absently. "Is no way to take a city. Maybe better to die here than to try and leave."
The Captain left it there, not elaborating further. That was it, then. Daria sighed. "You know, your mellifluousness is like a perfumed spring blossom of whimsy, Captain. I truly hope you appreciate that." She was vaguely aware of a clomp-clomp of boots coming to a stop in the doorway behind her.
"We are Russian, is a gift of our nature." He got a corner of the bag open, and tore it the rest of the way. A little more forcefully than was necessary. "This would probably be good time inspiring blue blouse propaganda speech. Sir."
The stopped boots had turned into the savannah brain awareness of a presence—at least one, probably a couple of big things silently looming at her back. To any lady with any sense, it would be intimidating. Alarming.
But it was a little late in this particular evening to start having good sense—Spindoctor only had a demitasse of irritation to run on. So that's how you wanna play, Tovarich? Okay, we play.
"Well…" she drawled, giving her spectacles a little nudge, "I hate to keep you waiting for a good aria agitata, but you might be more interested to learn I've managed to buy us some technical support."
"Brave Vasilisa?"
Daria Hmmm'd a reply. She decided to let her fingers loose at her ration pouch—did these things have a tear seam or something?
"Never met her—what's she look like?"
"About three companies, one reinforced Paraviper platoon, organic artillery, armor, air assets, a couple of 'Codenames,' and as many Battle Android Troopers as they could squeeze into a shipping container."
It would have been a good, stunned silence, if not for the continued pounding from the mob outside.
Spoilsports.
"Command is leaving us out to dry…you really expect that much?"
"Oh, not at all. Not slightly."
Dragonsky flipped his hand, expectantly.
"I told you. I bought it. The dialectic of historical inevitability and the dark forces of speculative capitalism, Comrade—I predicted something like this was going to happen, and so I turned to a free market solution…Cobra is in the Private Military Training and Assistance business. Weapons, tactics and support fire. We have been for many years. The dogs of war are for sale. So I bought some."
Daria gave up on the bag, and passed it above her shoulder to the Shape lurking unseen behind her.
"Would you open this for me, please?"
"Uh…konechno." The bag lifted from her hand, gentle as a kitten.
"Thank you." Daria took a stride ahead, closing the distance to the map table. One of the Serpents actually backed up to give way. "Before you ask—to be safe, right now, on paper, they're providing security augmentation to a narco lord in Sierra Gordo. Getting our cut from helping secure the free world's Crystal Twyst supply. In reality, the bulk of the force is enroute via armored train…" Daria scanned the map, oriented on a land mark. She snagged a rifle cartridge off a pile holding an edge, and slid it sideways to mark the spot. 'Supposed that made it a rook. "…to here, where a ground relief force will break comm silence after they disembark. I'm informed the train will proceed further…" the bullet slid again, over a marbled paper gnarl of peaks and ridges "…to here, and set up to provide artillery support."
"How long expect to be driving this road?"
Until the radio goes dead, her mind piped up, not very helpfully. "Three hours, once they touch asphalt, I'm told. Call that…11, 11:30." Damn. She probably should have added twelve to the hour. Screw it. "Airborne elements are going to be here faster. Unless, Captain, you have a countermanding recommendation, they plan to make their drop zone—" Spindoctor slid the whole glove over the other map, and gave an empty spot, that gaping black maw between the garage and the town a good rap, "—here. Assuming, and I quote, that 'the 'Ivans' can hold the 'deezee' for ten minutes.'"
"We can hold." Dragonsky droned. "When will pet eagles be on station?"
"Two hours…assuming they can really make the drop in this weather—"
The man scoffed. "This? Compared to Pitomnik, this is touching two fingers. They make drop."
Daria felt her eyes widen a little—she glanced over the top of her glasses. Dragonsky had pulled back his mask, and was gnawing on an entree fished out from his ration pack. A stick of unesu jerky, by the look and smell of it. It was the first time she'd seen his bare face.
The realization ruddily dawned on her of just how old the old man was…
"So, once reinforcements land, we make a thunder run though town and link up with relief forces, yes?"
The composure snapped back into place. "That's the understanding among the gals in the steno pool, yes. Then, we exfiltrate with the specimens to the train. Unless you have any professional objections?"
"Tough trip. What happens if we show up without you?"
"Then you're linking up with a couple of hundred fresh, well-armed, pissed off troops who aren't getting their bonus."
Dragonsky shrugged, affecting a bobbing, long-faced nod. That said it all: Eh, fair enough.
The man's fingers drummed. Daria leaned back. Was that it? Had she sold it?
"Gorky, get us ready to roll out by 21:30."
"Getting through those doors is going to be a real gemorroyem."
"Get ready to start scraping them, then."
Well holy cats, she'd sold him.
The man's fist had already started flexing a trepak over the map of the town. He looked up—"by your leave, of course, sir."
She nodded, graciously. "The order is given. I'll be on comms, as soon as I finish some paperwork in my office—"
"'Office'?"
"The crapper. Keep me abreast of any unusual developments. Like you said—ready to sally out in 90 minutes."
He hrmmmed an "ayesir," engrossed in his work, and around a mouthful of seafood.
She'd thought that would be it—but as soon as she turned around, he'd found his voice again.
"We're not getting inspiring speech, sir?"
Daria stopped. A saucy little impulse bubbled up….oh, what the hell. 'Probably the last time she was going to have fun this evening.
She raised one gloved hand to her chin tapped her mouth lazily with one finger, with the best "lost in cultured contemplation" look she could manage. A trifle melodramatic, for her tastes, but…
She gave it a good second and a half. Mostly using it to study the business license on the wall "Richard Welt"? Sure, that sounded like a real name. No question.
"If you need one…you'll be issued one." She left the room with a nod. The little gaggle of commandoes in her way parted like the Red Sea.
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
The Little Girl's Room didn't look like it got much use, but the door was still intact, and the interior was considerably insulated from the starved howl coming from outside, so, that much going for it.
She'd hazily intended to take a few minutes to compose herself, 'tried to imagine she was clamping down on her nerves, but….she wasn't. She just wasn't. She couldn't even pretend.
She was just tired.
Daria tried to ignore the weirdie in the funny outfit in the mirror, but the sight reminded her. She glanced down at the ration baggie she was still carrying, and the vacuum pouch of stewed monkey meat.
She actually was a bit hungry, didn't that beat all. She had skipped breakfast today, missed lunch.
And seen the mangled insides of a few score human carcasses…
She kept staring at the bag.
Her stomach gurgled.
Damnit. Didn't work. Well, she'd skip dessert, at least. That would buy her out of hell, right?
She started fishing for the spork packet. 110 minutes…that, one last push, and her pilgrimage was over.
Until then, it was just…waiting. Waiting.
Waiting.
Waiting…
⁂ ⁂ ⁂
Notes:
"Waiting."
By now, some readers who are still around might have caught on to the artistic tribute behind this story's name, general theme, and indeed one of it's primary inspirations. Everyone else can check the updated "soundtrack" playlist, posted earlier, for the punchline.
For the record, I'm at this point also pretty convinced that I cursed myself with that choice of a title. In retrospect, using part of the ominous, chanted Latin litany of a deranged legion of cultists may have been a bad call. Who knew.
In any case, at the risk of sounding rash, I think I can say that this chapter may well have taken much too long to write. In my defense, I was…busy at work?
On the plus side, the next chapter is actually almost entirely written, just needs editing. I wrote it…um…
17 years ago.
All right, there may be a further delay, as I get some "sitting in the dark, listening to Beethoven and staring at the moon" out of the way. I may have to break out the ceremonial brandy snifter and diaphanous wind-blown curtains, as well.