The Fight for Peace (32 page)

“No.” Admitting that made him feel foolish. “At least not from the last report, which was nearly five hours old when I heard it.” The words rushed from him, pulling with it the sadness he’d been fighting. Tears dampened his cheeks.

Isabella slipped around his desk from where she’d stopped halfway across the floor. She cradled his head against her stomach, sliding her fingers through his hair.

“I can see how MOTHER pulled off hiding the war. I barely know what is going on,” Byran confessed. “I can’t tell you how many times I felt like lying about how things are going or how scared I am.”

Chapter 35

THE LADY GREY

TIPPING POINT

A transport plane rocked as a shell exploded barely ten feet away, lifting a corner of its makeshift barge skyward. The shield rippled, arcing electricity with a surge of unstable power. But it held. Arinna shot it, just to be sure, sending an extra jolt to course across the surface.

“This was easier before the FLF figured out not to aim at the shield, but to aim at the things generating the shield,” Lieutenant Farrak Assad said over the walkie.

Arinna cursed, beyond exhaustion but not past anger apparently. Farrak watched from as far as he could safely get from the action and still be able to keep an eye on things. Just in case one of the shells being sent toward her forces hit her instead.

As the battle swept onward through a long day, a longer and frighteningly explosive night, and into the second, she and Farrak had realized they’d have to spell each other. The Guard forces needed the air support, which the FLF knew and so kept aiming at the two dactyls like hitting one assured grand prize at a fair. But the hours of fighting threatened to drop both of them from the sky simply from reactions slowed by exhaustion.

Arinna finally snapped open the line on the walkie. “You are supposed to be resting, Lieutenant.”

“The missiles are keeping me awake.”

It was a line so much like she’d have expected Jared to say that tears sparked in her eyes. Damn him, she hoped he was doing okay. The storm that had delayed the arrival of Sergeant Picerno not only made her update to Command and Europe late, but kept her from hearing how things went against Crystal City. The lack of news was driving Arinna nuts.

“We need to do something about the heavies on shore,” Arinna told Farrak, doing her best to focus on the violent battle pitched across fifteen miles of water between the FLF on land and the far too exposed transport planes generating the shield.

The shelling had become so consistent that the FLF boats circled to areas of the shield that were out of reach of what was being tossed from shore. Unless they got bored and decided to zip around unwinding machine guns at the transports for the fun of it.

The only good thing Arinna could come up with in the mess, beyond maybe there hadn’t been a large amount of FLF reinforcements appearing, was that the city remained quiet enough to be eerie. The only conclusion she had is they really had cut off the civilians from the military. Which, considering how adept at weaponry the FLF seemed to be, felt miraculous. Or a wild underestimation of what was brewing behind the electrical barrier.

Whatever the answer, it did allow the troops fighting a chance to rotate for food and some rest. Those inside the shield needed to remain vigilant, but it was a break from the chaos outside. The worst of that hellstorm lay protecting the transports from the long-range tanks on shore.

Fully half of the landward FLF equipment tracked the dactyls, taking shots if Arinna or Farrak slipped within range. The few times they’d made a run toward the tanks ... well Arinna still wasn’t certain how both of them had escaped the barrage with only a few scratches marring the plating on their planes. The air hadn’t seemed capable of supporting the amount of explosive metal thrown into it.

But like it or not, the tanks had to be eliminated. With both herself and Farrak out of missiles, that meant lasers. Which meant needing to get close.

“You up for a run?” Farrak asked.

Arinna hesitated, deciding to admit the truth. “No. Let’s swap. I’ll take a break for a few hours and then we’ll try it tonight running dark. Maybe come in from the north.”

“I like it. Will be airborne in five. Sweet dreams, Captain.”

Years of fighting and leading the Guard had taught Arinna to sleep anywhere no matter the sounds, unless, of course, someone called her name or an emergency signal went off. This time she woke to both. She jerked the dactyl sideways out of instinct, fighting unwieldy controls as the air next to her ignited. It was a nerve wracking thirty seconds before she was certain she wasn’t on fire or about to crash into the lake.

“What the hell?” she yelled, sliding out of the fireball engulfing where she’d been resting.

“You have a cat’s knack for escaping death,” Farrak said, voice shaking.

“Sure, that’s why I bled all over Jared in the Urals. Please tell me that wasn’t air support?” she asked, scanning the sky and sunset glistening lake for what had attacked her.

“Patrol boat,” Farrak told her. “One with better distance and aim than most. We just had a bit of a surge in offense. Probably as a distraction.”

“Oh, I am so done with this,” Arinna growled. “Let’s get rid of some of this shit.”

Arinna stabilized her erratic flight, swooping low over the water. One boat sat away from the fleet, casting a long shadow across the waves. Despite the distance between itself and the remainder of the FLF, it churned through the water after its aerial prey, spitting bullets.

All the frustration and worries of the day’s battle fueled Arinna’s headlong flight toward the patrol boat. Bullets racked the dactyl’s plating as she and the boat came within range of each other. Ready to fire the lasers, a thought froze Arinna’s hand. She rolled the dactyl sideways to avoid an RPG, her flight twisting as she raced over the boat.

“My Lady?” Farrak asked, worried.

Arinna glanced behind her as the ship slowed, altering course as it shifted guns to track her. She swore once more, wanting to blow something up as if it would make up for lives and years lost. But it wouldn’t. So she latched onto a different idea. Because hell with it, she’d always been the maverick. Jared was the sane one.

“That is a really nice boat, Lieutenant. We could use a nice boat.”

Farrak hesitated in his answer, leaving an echo where Arinna could swear she heard the laughter that statement would have spawned from Jared. “I wish you weren’t serious,” Farrak replied.

“I’m gonna play wounded bird and lead them a bit farther away, since they want to shoot me so badly. Why don’t you pick up some reinforcements and join us,” Arinna said, even though it really was an order.

Without the satellite link, the dactyls were unwieldy to fly. That was why the list of capable pilots had dropped to just over a dozen. Of those, there weren’t many Arinna would trust with the machine in combat. So pretending something was amiss with her war bird fell to simply flying a little less skillfully.

The dactyl swerved over the water, wobbling in unsteady rolls. She let a gust push it sideways. The boat tailing her sped up. Arinna went so far as to sputter the engines, knowing the failing and brightening glow would act as a beacon in the growing dark. Meanwhile, she looked for a place where Farrak could play pirate.

Dozens of islands dotted the shore to the north along the section of lake she and Farrak had used for respite. Arinna limped toward them as if seeking a place to set down.

“I’m coming up on the other side of the island to your left,” Farrak told her. “Let’s swap out. I’ll set down in the shallows of the beach on the tip so that I can let out soldiers. You come up from behind.”

Arinna suspected that Farrak also didn’t want her to be the prime target, but it was a good plan. He needed some way to spill the small force he’d crammed into his plane. She wobbled over the tree line of the island, cutting her lights as soon as she lost sight of the patrol boat. From the shadows ringing the island, Farrak rose with lights powering on and headed toward the tip where a long ridge of stone jutted into the lake. In the darkness, the FLF hopefully wouldn’t notice the subtle difference between the two planes.

Farrak had landed and the forces on the patrol boat were ordering surrender as Arinna slipped up behind the FLF ship. She flipped on all of her lights as she hovered a dozen yards off their stern. Soldiers in dark uniforms held up hands to block the sudden glare as Guard soldiers spilled from Farrak’s dactyl. By the time the FLF soldiers reacted, Farrak was airborne and pointing his guns at the lone boat. When ordered to surrender by the armed Guard soldiers on shore, the FLF dropped their weapons.

Arinna let out a breath with a smile. Now they had a boat and it was dark.

“Do you think they managed to radio the main force to let them know what happened?” Farrak asked as the Guard soldiers made their way onto the stolen boat, dropping the FLF troops on shore with hands bound and weapons confiscated.

“Best to assume so. But let’s hope they don’t know for sure which one. Want to make a run on the heavies? This time with a little sudden waterside support to confuse the heck out of things.”

Running dark, she and Farrak circled north at a slow clip to give their troops a chance to adjust to the stolen ship and get into position. When a long range shell hit the shore where the FLF troops were located, Arinna picked up speed. The ground forces didn’t expect their first run. They had a lot less equipment to fire at her and Farrak on their second. Not to mention the conflagration of burning vehicles and stockpiled weapons, scattered troops and disorganized any resistance.

“I think we better give our new boat some backup,” Arinna warned after her third pass, glancing toward the confused mass of shooting on the water. Too many things were directed at one target that wasn’t a transport for once.

“I’ll finish up here. Just to be sure we didn’t miss anything,” Farrak said. “Join you in a minute.”

The lack of long-range fire from shore made flying easier, but didn’t alleviate all the problems. She had to avoid shells sent skyward, but the aim was worse than earlier as the FLF watched their land forces burn. Many of the FLF ships launched full assaults on the transports, knowing the battle had reached critical. Explosions reflected on the dark water. Wide shots sent ripples across the glowing shield.

Arinna zigzagged the dactyl between ships, using speed to stay ahead of most shots. She’d fought the FLF before when they’d grown sloppy. It required not becoming overconfident and pushing the advantage as hard as possible. Guard force on the transports redoubled their efforts, reserved troops joining the melee.

Having eliminated most of the immediate threats to her newly confiscated boat, it hunted down outliers. Within half an hour, the Guard force had overtaken three more ships, sending FLF troops swimming as they raced toward transports to pick up more Guard soldiers. Arinna wasn’t sure she could believe it, but the battle was tipping far sooner than she’d ever expected and surprisingly her way.

At midnight, she called her troops to hold fire. The FLF forces had grown smaller and far less aggressive in the last hour. They’d moved from offense to defense, clustering their ships in a circle surrounded by a ring of commandeered vessels and the two dactyls.

“Ask them to surrender,” she radioed down to Warrant Officer Makkonen. The FLF answered by raising a white t-shirt as a flag.

“Holy shit,” Farrak said over the radio. Tears stung in Arinna’s eyes, but hearing that she started laughing. Farrak chuckled self-consciously. “Do you want to ask to speak to representatives in the city?”

“No. Not tonight. Let’s clean up out here and let them stew in there till dawn. We have prisoners to take care of, wounded to tend, and troops that should rest. Plus I really want to make sure there isn’t something hidden waiting to blow us up.”

The only thing missing in that moment was being able to tell Europe and Captain Vries what had just happened.

Arinna managed to snag an hour of rest before she joined Lieutenant Assad and Warrant Officer Makkonen in the remnants of the militarized town of Thunder Bay. There the leader of the FLF troops formally offered his surrender, giving Arinna a chance to look over who’d she’d been fighting the last two days. It, like the battle, wasn’t what she was expecting.

Gaunt was the first word that came to mind. All the FLF soldiers looked too thin, skin pale and hair lacking luster. Farrak caught her eye, concern in his expression.

“Disease?” he asked.

“All of them, fighting that hard?” she said. It made sense, if she’d ever considered the combined effects of all the things she’d known about Isle Royale. “Captain Vries and I had thought so the first time we flew through the Americas, but I don’t think that is it. They are trucking food from as far as South America. The land around here is contaminated by fallout, and Free Argentina had reports they were building a new city in Brazil - not to expand like we thought, but probably to relocate. This place is poisoned.”

Farrak took a slow breath. “No wonder we didn’t get much of a fight from inside the shield. Who knows how much they have for food.”

Arinna snorted at his answer, turning to look at the shielded city. A glint in the sky to the south caught her eye. “We have incoming. Aerial incoming.”

The nervous reaction of the FLF troops to the sudden tension infusing the Guard told Arinna that whoever the approaching plane was, it wasn’t expected. She had the prisoners moved to securable buildings while Farrak launched skyward. Within fifteen minutes he radioed back. It was a dactyl - the one they’d sent with the Argentinian forces.

Arinna was just happy it wasn’t new trouble, not when things had looked wrapped up. But the report, as well as passengers, made the day that much better and the Guard position more secure.

Raoul Caverra walked with Sergeant
Montaya down the back hatch, his gaze torn between the destroyed armored equipment and the city obscured by the faint glow of the shield.