The Fight for Peace (30 page)

The last was a rough whisper. She twitched twice, before sighing. Derrick closed the young woman’s eyes.

“Lieutenant Eldridge,” the Cadet kneeling next to Pyotr called urgently, breaking the worries and sorrow Assandra’s words and death created.

Pyotr coughed weakly, breath shallow and struggling. “He needs to sit up. There is fluid in his lungs.” Derrick pulled Pyotr upright, easing him against the barn as Pyotr hacked up blood and phlegm.

“I’m all right,” Pyotr choked, wiping the blood from his lips.

“You need a hospital,” Cadet Heylor told him.

“There’s one about three blocks that way,” Pyotr said, waving a blood specked hand toward the city. “Just leave me here. I’m sure they’ll take me.”

“Ha ha. Your cousin is funny when he’s in pain, Cori,” Cadet Hussef said to the woman kneeling at Pyotr’s side.

“Cousin?” Derrick sat back and stared at her. “Coriann
e—
”

“Cadet Heylor,” Cori said. “Shut up, Pyotr. You owe me a damn date. I’ll carry you out if I have to.”

Derrick knew Corianne had joined the Guard and trained in the same class as Pyotr, but he’d never looked at the Cadets close enough to realize this was her. He’d forgotten the short hair, but not her wide, blue eyes. “We’ll get him out,” he said to her. “I promise.”

Cori nodded, tears filling her eyes. Derrick was pretty sure she didn’t believe him. She stood, walking a pace away. Derrick hesitated before joining her in the small privacy the distance made.

“He doesn’t need to make it back to a battlefield. He needs a hospital. I know that,” Cori said.

“He is my friend as well as a soldier,” Derrick told her. “I’ll get him back to Europe, Corianne.”

She shook her head. “Cori, that is all I am now.”

“Which is still quite a lot. I owe you a debt of thanks,” Derrick said. She stared at him. “Byran is my best friend. Arinna is my wife. You saved them both, and you saved my life today as well.”

Cori looked away, blushing, which returned some of how Derrick remembered her to her face. But this was not the same young woman who’d attended balls and tried to catch his eye. That made him understand the awkwardness as she struggled to find a reply.  

“I see movement,” Cadet Atell hissed, dropping into a defensive position.

Cori gave him a frightened and desperate glance. Derrick hurried to Pyotr’s side. “Well, Pyotr, you get to try morphine on this visit to Crystal City,” Derrick said, pulling out a syringe and needle from the med pack. “Then we’re gonna see how fast you can move.”

Chapter 33

CAPTAIN JARED VRIES

FAILED MISSION

Jared tensed for whatever Derrick had to tell him. That it wasn’t Derrick’s death being reported was some good news, but many potential dire scenarios followed behind that thought.

“Cadet Pyotr Grekov has been shot, sir.”

Jared swore. “How bad?”

“Serious,” Derrick replied. “He needs a hospital if he is going to live.”

Derrick stopped there, not asking the question his tone hinted at.

“Can you move him?”

There was a pause and static hiss in place of an answer. Jared cursed and considered launching the walkie out the window.

“We sort of have to,” Derrick replied.

The pace of his breathing sounded like he was running. Jared couldn’t tell if the staccato of clicks came from poor reception or gunshots. Instinct told Jared to dive his dactyl to help. When he looked down, he was staring at the writhing surface of the shield. For the first time in his life, Jared was out of swear words and had too many people he wanted to yell at, starting with Arinna and her idea to use the shield. But he wouldn’t risk the bad mojo, not when he couldn’t talk to her. Not when her fight could be going so much worse.

“Tell me you are still alive,” Jared said after another minute of circling the shield above Crystal City. He was pacing in his plane and knew it. But there really wasn’t a damn other thing he could do. That infuriated him.

“Five more minutes,” Derrick clipped.

That meant he was doing okay, but Jared hoped the answer was how long until he could talk, not expected lifespan. He flew another loop.

“Fighting has picked up,” Derrick said. “Can you see anything from topside?”

“That fighting has picked up. The FLF is organizing in three locations. Unfortunately one is near your dactyl. I think they like it.” Derrick cursed in Jared’s pause. That almost made him smile. “You somewhere safe?”

“No.”

How could one word chill him so much? Jared swallowed nausea. “How’s the boy?”

“Awake enough to be really annoyed you didn’t call him Cadet.”

That did make Jared grin. He had to figure out a way to get Derrick out of there. Apparently with an injured soldier in tow. He skimmed closer to the shield. “Where is your location?”

“Northeast of the city, near the lake. There are long, low buildings, ones that are still dark - barns, pastures, and shit.”

It took Jared a minute to realize Derrick meant shit literally. “Your best bet is to the east along the shoreline. The transporter there will be a trek through the snow, but the FLF is leaving it pretty much alone at the moment.” Derrick didn’t answer. “What went wrong?” Jared asked, more to hear his Lieutenant speak than for the answer. So many things could have gone wrong.

“Apparently our assault on Crystal City galvanized the disaffected youth into soldiers who want to uphold their parents’ fighting heritage. We ran into a group making certain the workers stayed out of the fight. Oh, and I managed to get confirmation Sergi wasn’t the only one in charge of Crystal City.”

“That is quite a lot in less than an hour. How’d you manage all that intel?” Nerves were making Jared feel chatty.

“I ran into Damir. The good news is Cadet Heylor killed him.”

Jared rubbed his eyes, not liking the answer on many levels. “You should get moving,” Jared said instead of asking for more details. He really didn’t want to know. “They’ve got a few snowmobiles running out from the lake. Think they may want to make sure that transport plane isn’t lonely.”

“The eastern transport is a no go,” Derrick answered, sounding apologetic. That made Jared want to yell at him. “The snow would be too much with Pyotr’s injury and I need to get back to my dactyl. I shouldn’t have left it.”

“Is it in defense mode?”

“No. Not without the ability to communicate and recognize our soldiers. There are too many people running around in the dark.”

Jared understood, but it gave him a few tough decisions to make.

“Captain?”

“Understood, Lieutenant. I don’t advise returning to the gateway transport and dactyl. The FLF seem to recognize that one as significant and it is one hell of a fight going on over there. Heavy equipment is trying to navigate off road and through the snow to reach it.”

“They don’t know there is a small force behind them. We might be able to split the FLF force by surprising them.”

Jared wanted to argue it was a horrible idea that would get Derrick and the platoon he was with killed. But if it worked, Derrick was right. As the bursts of Guard fire inched towards the transport, he knew it was a maneuver that was needed.

“Check in with me when you get in position and if you have any problems. Be on the lookout for the FLF forces moving into position,” Jared ordered. He waited long enough to hear Derrick’s affirmative before switching channels. “Warrant Officer Kassen, come in. What is the status on the fight near the dactyl?”

“Hot inside the shield, sir,” Shelley Kassen replied. “Quieter outside with a few FLF trying to cause problems, but mostly staying pretty far back.”

“Let me know if that changes and there are any immediate threats to the plane,” Jared ordered.

If the links between the dactyls worked, Jared wouldn’t worry. He’d leave it or program it to move. It could be flying tail with him right now. But the loss of the satellite links had killed many features and they hadn’t found ways around the problems in the short amount of time before the assault. There was no easy way of moving the thing other than someone who knew how to fly it getting in and moving it. And there weren’t many of those.

Jared made a pass over the area, checking to see how close the dactyl rested to the transport. Very close. Blowing it up and not damaging the transporter, and hence the shield, would be tricky. Jared hoped with every nerve in his body that he wouldn’t have to do that.

To kill time, Jared kept up his outside sweep of the shield, targeting any clusters of FLF he saw. The concentration of flying and aiming calmed his mind, pushing aside the numerous problems as he listened to reports on the growing battle inside the shield. They had known the inside would be bad. But what bothered Jared was that there would be no relief. They’d encapsulated a city of armed hostiles and they wanted out. The assault on Crystal City wasn’t a siege so much as a high tech containment. The only good aspect at this point was that they were mostly trying to get out. Things would go to crap real fast if outside forces also decided they wanted
in
.

The time on Derrick’s return mission stretched into hours. The only reason Jared didn’t think him and the platoon dead stemmed from the infrequent updates. The fighting inside the shield intensifying slowed their progress further. Jared kept telling himself that at least outside remained quiet and the dactyl remained safe, even if the FLF pushed closer to the gateway transport plane and the grounded plane. He started worrying about alternatives if the FLF reached the transport. They could take down the shield just as easily as blowing the dactyl would.

Thoughts a morass of one bad contingency after another, it took Jared a minute to register he saw headlights on the horizon. The night slipped from extremely bad to worse. Jared changed flight paths to intercept what was coming, feeling uneasy when he confirmed it was what he feared: a small convoy of heavily armored equipment, nearly invisible in its FLF dark paint. He took them out with a missile and the lasers, but in the distance more approaching lights were visible. They were too far away to fly and still be in range of communications from the forces in the city.

“Warrant Officer
Nickelson,” I need you to run recon on approaching hostiles coming from the west. Stay high and don’t engage unless necessary. I want to know where they are coming from and how many,” Jared ordered.

With that he peeled back to Crystal City, watching the lights of a third dactyl that had been observing from the skies west, toward Europe, of the city. He’d debated calling for its help when the shield nearly fell, but that wasn’t the mission it held. It was to watch and report back to Europe, especially in the case of extreme failure. But having them run a scouting mission, especially when his Lieutenant wasn’t available, seemed a reasonable compromise.

“Captain,” Derrick cut in as Jared reached the edge of the shield, “we are in position and going to begin the maneuver in five.”

The news was a relief, especially after the interminable wait to hear it. But for the first time in his command, Jared didn’t know what to say. He’d watched Arinna pull off moves just as risky, usually to save him. But that this time it was a good friend and Arinna’s husband, her second husband, made Jared want to land the dactyl and rail at the universe for how disproportionately unfair it was being.

“Report as soon as you’ve joined the Guard line,” Jared clipped. There was nothing else he could say.

Attention divided between the approaching lights and the fighting along the inside edge of the shield, Jared just tried to make sure he didn’t fly into it. Dawn was breaking to the east, but the flashes of gunfire below were as frequent as lightning bugs swarming on a summer’s eve.

The Guard line before the gateway transport fell back, FLF forces rushed forward. From behind them, a small grouping of bursts firing so frequently as to look continuous split up the middle. Jared held his breath. Derrick’s commandeered platoon made it halfway into the FLF force before they were turned on. In the confusion, the Guard front line sprang forward again. Jared couldn’t ignore that there were less points of gunfire from Derrick’s platoon, but there were still a few that rushed forward to meet the Guard. Jared counted to sixty, waiting for a report ... from someone.

“In the transport, sir,” Derrick said, voice and breath coming rough.

“Injuries?” Jared asked in general knowing it wouldn’t help morale to admit he was most worried about the Lieutenant.

“Lost two in the run, a few scrapes, but it looks like the operation worked. Guard has gained ground and the FLF outside lost a lot of soldiers. Cadet Grekov is here and ready for extraction.”

“Good. Prep for flight. Things are getting a little more crowded outside,” Jared warned. He really needed Derrick’s dactyl airborne and shooting at the vehicles racing their way.

“Warrant Officer Nickelson, did you get a visual?” Jared asked, radioing the third dactyl.

More than a half hour had passed since he’d sent it out and the weight of the silence of not knowing how bad the news was ate at him. The line crackled over distance. Jared waited, seeing the other plane racing toward him. He fidgeted until the distance had been halved before trying again.

“These are the lead trucks to the main army,” Nickelson clipped rapidly. “The force looks to be about two hours out and moving fast, Captain.”

The news knotted Jared’s stomach. He and Arinna had hoped the FLF army would be close to Europe ready for an assault. But if they were two hours out, it meant they had been about ten hours away from Crystal City. A hellish battle was about to be unleashed for Irkrist. The only good news Jared had was that Derrick hadn’t been killed yet. At least on the outside of the shield, he and Derrick could be of use in the dactyls.

The shield flaring like an aurora caught Jared’s attention in time to see four MIGs careen over the city while launching missiles at the shield.

“Captain, you seeing them?” Derrick spat over the walkie. “When the hell did the FLF get planes?

“Of course they have planes. They sent bombers to Europe. We just thought they were all out.”

Just like they’d thought the main army wasn’t too close. The probability of winning Crystal City teetered on a thin line made all the narrower by FLF air support that would keep him and Derrick busy until dealt with. Which left their ground forces unprotected.

In the distance four black specks were banking to circle toward the home they wanted to protect.

“Nickelson, land behind dactyl two when it takes off. I need you to pick up an injured soldier and return with him to Europe. Give a report to Command and come back,” Jared ordered. “Lieutenant, I need you up here. Now!”