Against the Tide

Chapter Thirty

“Duke Edmund,” Captain Karcher said, dropping her salute as the pipes dwindled away.

“Captain, glad I was right in choosing you,” Edmund said, gripping her hand.

“We were lucky, milord,” Karcher replied, shrugging.

“Luck favors the prepared, Captain,” Talbot said.

“My XO, Commander Sassan,” the captain said, ignoring the implied compliment.

“Pleasure to meet you, Commander Sassan,” Edmund said, shaking the major’s hand.

“Major Herrick you, of course, know.”

“Herzer,” Edmund said, grinning then noting the way he was standing. “Catch one?”

“In the ass, milord,” Herzer replied.

“Happens,” Edmund said, chuckling. “Embarrassing, though. Hey, Joanna.”

“You owe me quite a combat bonus, Eddie,” Joanna replied. “My wing took out both remaining carriers. Based upon clause fourteen, sub-section b…”

“Submit a bill,” the duke said, shaking his head.

“And this is Councilwoman Megan Travante,” Karcher said, ignoring the interplay.

“Mistress Travante,” Edmund said, gently, noting how close she was standing to Herzer. “I know your father and I have the honor, I think, of calling him a friend. I am glad beyond measure that you are with us again.”

“Thank you, Duke Edmund,” Megan said, curtseying.

“Mistress,” Edmund said, grinning slightly, “while you’re not a member of the aristocracy, you are of much higher status than I. You don’t curtsey to me, I bow to you,” he added and did so.

“That… is going to take some getting used to,” Megan said, fingering the chain around her neck. “I would like to introduce my… retainer, Baradur.”

Edmund peered at the wee folk for a moment and then said something in quick, liquid tones.

The guard frowned for a moment and then replied, puzzled.

“The language has shifted,” Edmund said, frowning. “But where did you come from?”

“The wee folk are among the tribes of the Highlands,” Megan said, surprised. “You know of them?”

“Not from the Highlands,” Edmund replied, rubbing his beard. “But I recognize them. Old memory, very old people. Good soldiers, the best. There were some in Anarchia as well. I’d give my right arm for a battalion of them. And on that note, we need to talk. Mistress, if I could have a moment of your time. Herzer, Joanna, which means the wyvern bay, damnit. Shar, get the fleet squared away on the course we agreed upon and then come join us.”

“Yes, sir,” the admiral said.

“Mistress?”

“This way,” Megan replied, gesturing towards the wyvern bay.

“What we have here is a grade A cluster f… a grade A cluster,” Edmund said as soon as chairs had been secured for the bay. Joanna was curled at one end with Bast lounged on her and the rest were gathered in a semicircle. “New Destiny landed on the north end of the peninsula, inside of it, and have put in a fortified camp cutting off Balmoran. They also have control of the waters around it but only until we get there. However, they’re installing portals and can supply through them…”

“I thought that porting into Norau was impossible,” Megan said, frowning. “It certainly was for me.”

“Force majeure,” Bast said, shaking her head. “Who hold land own land. Very old protocol, but protocol still.”

“Correct,” Edmund said. “They hold the land, now, they have sufficient forces in place that we cannot immediately throw them off, and have water access to it. Ergo, under the damned protocols, they can port into it. Even destroying their fleet won’t change that. We have to beat them on the ground.”

“Fortified camp?” Herzer said, frowning. “That will be hard.”

“Indeed it will,” Edmund replied. “And they took the Naval base and most of its stores. That’s where they’re resupplying from, now.”

“Rachel?” Herzer asked.

“Unknown,” Edmund replied, his face hard.

“If they’ve captured Rachel…”

“It doesn’t matter,” Edmund said. “This is not about rescuing Rachel, Herzer, get that straight. It’s about breaking New Destiny’s invasion.”

“Rachel is your daughter…”

“I know that very well, Herzer,” Edmund replied, tightly. “But this is not about special privileges for my daughter. She takes her chances just like every other combatant…”

“I was about to say,” Herzer said, cutting him off, “that as such, she has access to information that New Destiny wants to know. Yes, I care if Rachel lives or dies, but I suspect that if New Destiny knows that she is there, they’re more interested in what they can squeeze from her. Recapturing Rachel, therefore, certainly has an allowable level of necessity to it, Duke Edmund.”

“Edmund,” Joanna said, “Herzer has a point. You might be so close to the situation it’s a point you’re ignoring to avoid the special privilege issue.”

“We don’t know where she is,” Edmund ground out. “We don’t know if she’s among the refugees from the peninsula. Or if New Destiny has already ported her back to Ropasa. If they have, she is gone. And this meeting is not about where Rachel is. It’s about how to throw New Destiny off the peninsula.” He looked at the others and nodded. “Very well. The bow corps is on the dreadnoughts about a day behind us…”

“I have five remaining wounded,” Rachel said, trying to ignore the blood-spattered monster following Conner. Not to mention Conner who, if anything, terrified her more. “I am aware that you normally kill your enemy’s wounded and I cannot prevent that. However, if you leave them be, I will willingly work on your own wounded. If you kill them, you can still force me to do so. But I will do a much better job as a willing doctor than as an unwilling one.”

“Show me,” Conner said, gesturing courteously towards the wards. “I promise on my honor as an acolyte of the Lady Celine I will not have them killed.”

Rachel tightened her face and led the way into the ward. At the sight of the blood-spattered elf the two conscious wounded drew up, aware that with no weapons there was little they could do.

Conner strode over to Kalil, looking at him with his head cocked to the side and then extending a hand and muttering. Kalil flinched back but all that happened was that an enlarged hologram of his skull appeared in the air. Conner looked at it, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“So much power,” Rachel whispered, leaning forward to examine the hologram.

“We have power in New Destiny,” Conner said. “You can have power, if you are willing. A plate?”

“Subdural cerebral hematoma,” Rachel sighed, ignoring the implied offer. “I didn’t have enough power to do internal repairs; I had to relieve the pressure.”

“It’s very good work,” Conner replied.

“You’re a doctor?” Rachel asked.

“Of sorts,” Conner said. “With power, not this sort of work. But we have techniques that you don’t, or are unwilling to use.” He continued down the line of wounded, examining each of them. At the last one, an abdominal injury, he stopped and shrugged.

“This one is dying anyway,” he said.

“You don’t discuss a patient’s condition in front of them,” Rachel snapped.

“Well, he’s unconscious, isn’t he?” Conner replied, ignoring her. “Would you like to save him?”

“Of course,” Rachel said, angrily. “But I don’t have the power.”

“That is what you think,” Conner said, smiling at her in a maddening way. He whispered under his breath and the soldier began to glow. “There. There is the power you need.”

“I can’t sap a wounded man for the power to heal him!” Rachel snapped.

“Oh, you must not take too much,” Conner admitted. “But there is power in plenty here. He is not so far gone.” He touched her shoulder and whispered again. “There. Take it. And heal. You can take it from him. You can take it from others. You can take it from yourself. Everywhere, there is power to be had.”

Rachel felt the link and used it to bring up a diagnostic holo, one that she had rarely been able to use. Power was apparently power and her own protocols worked with it. The soldier had been struck by a cart. The legs and ribs were easy enough to repair, or at least splint, but the swollen abdomen had shown extensive internal injuries and without a skilled team she had been reluctant to open him up. Now she could see the extent of the damage. There was no way she could draw enough power from him to even repair the ruptured spleen, but… she tapped into herself, drawing her own nervous energy, and began to effect what repairs she could.

“Silly,” Conner snapped as her knees sagged. “Very silly. Draw from him, not yourself or you’ll never be able to do anything.”

“I’ve stopped up the worst,” Rachel said, weakly. “I can do the rest later, when I’m recovered. I won’t be you!”

“Then watch how I heal them!” Conner roared, spinning her across the room to the elf and extending a hand. He began to chant and light formed around all of the wounded.

“What are you doing?” Rachel asked, desperately. “Stop it!” she yelled as, one by one, the wounded began to shriek, encased in balls of light. Then the shrieking changed tones to hoarse bellows and when the light was gone five orcs were sitting up in the beds, snarling at one another and shouting curses at the Changed elf. They cowered away from Conner when he glanced at them, though.

“I promised I wouldn’t kill them,” Conner said, maliciously. “Take her away.”

“Bloody hell,” General Magalong said, quietly, as the cohort closed ranks again to make it through the gate. “Get the ballistas ready, we’ve got to get them some room.”

New Destiny had taken the Fleet base and established a large fortified camp on the north end of the peninsula. Even with all their forces they couldn’t cut the peninsula entirely, but they could do so for all intents and they had. He had sent the cohort, one of three, out to probe the defenses. He was getting back less than two thirds.

Besides the orcs that made up the bulk of the New Destiny forces there were massive creatures scattered among them. Orcs could rarely break the shield-line of a well handled cohort but these things had simply smashed into the line, soaking up the sword and spear damage to open holes that the orcs poured into. Three times the cohort had nearly been broken before they retreated. The things weren’t particularly smart or fast but they were immensely large and powerful; he had seen one pick up a trooper in either hand, while their fellows hacked at its legs, and throw them through the air.

Another of the things made its way through the orcs, charging clumsily at the line of legionnaires. The general smiled faintly as the line didn’t even bend, just kept up its steady backward motion, the troopers facing the thing like battling automatons. There wasn’t any percentage in turning to flee, that would just open up a bigger hole for the orcs to attack.

This time, though, they were close enough for support and three ballistas fired at the thing. Two of them missed, one pinning a pair of orcs to the ground in the front lines and another falling deep. But the third hit it on the shoulder, spinning it around and off its feet, the shoulder nearly severed. Despite the enormous wound, the thing got back to its feet, but it never even made it to the legionnaire line, falling and crushing an orc as it finally bled out.

The legionnaires continued to shrink their formation, closing their gaps as they filed into the camp. As they closed with the walls, defenders began pitching pots of burning napalm at the orcs, slowing them up and keeping them from pressing on the legionnaires. More ballista bolts fell as well and bolts from some of the crossbowmen. Finally, a massed company threw their pilums and the last of the legionnaires marched stolidly through the gates, which closed behind them.

The New Destiny forces pressed forward as well but the rest of the legion was already manning the walls and the attack was repulsed with bloody losses, the legionnaires poking the orcs from above with their pilums and groups of them using them to pincushion the larger monsters. After about fifteen minutes of that horns rang from the far camp and the New Destiny forces retreated, leaving a windrow of their dead under the UFS lines to stink up the morning.

New Destiny was already starting siege operations against his lines as well. Attack trenches and parallels were going in, the earth being moved by more Changed and a few local humans who had been unlucky enough to be captured. The cohort’s primary mission had been an attack against those. One that had not been successful.

For that matter, he wondered at the preparations. New Destiny could simply swarm him. If they threw enough bodies. There had been ten thousand, at least, in the invasion fleet. More would be coming in through portals. They had to be worried about time and they couldn’t move until he was reduced. So why were they starting an elaborate siege?

“Send for Lieutenant Pedersen,” the general said. “I want his thoughts.”

Rachel stepped back from the casualty as she finished suturing the artery.

“He’s going to be in pain when he wakes up,” she said, lifting one eyelid with a blood-covered hand and checking the dilation of the pupil. “I’ll write out an order for morphine. No more and no less, understand?” she said to the orderly. The man nodded at her, frightened, and called for stretcher bearers to move the officer out.

Rachel had only been working on humans. The Changed were so numerous, and of so little relative worth or so it seemed, that only their human officers were given treatment for wounds. Changed either survived them or died.

Rachel turned on the spigot and ran her hands and forearms under the water. The one good thing about this camp was that New Destiny had installed running water in the hospital. On the other hand, it was cold and getting blood off with cold water was a pain.

She turned her head at a flicker in her peripheral vision, frowning at Conner who, as always, was followed by his monstrous elf-thing.

“Pity you couldn’t save the leg,” Conner said, glancing at the casualty.

“I said you weren’t going to get my best work if you pissed me off,” Rachel replied, coldly, turning her back and ignoring him. He wanted to see her suffer. He could kill her, he could rape her, but she was damned if he was going to see her sweat.

There was another flicker in her peripheral vision and a distinctive “swish-thunk.” She spun around and the Changed was just about done wiping his sword. The New Destiny officer’s head had not even had time to roll off the blood-spattered surgery table. It did, as she watched, and struck the ground with a sound like a broken melon.

“You SON OF A BITCH!” she screamed, picking up a scalpel and throwing it at him as hard as she could.

Conner leaned slightly to the side to let the wandering missile pass and smiled maliciously as the elf-thing caught it in midair and stepped forward.

“No, Roc,” Conner said, holding his hand up and laughing. “Let her get it out.”

“Do not waste my time!” Rachel snapped. “Do whatever you’re going to do to me. Torture me, rape me, kill me, whatever. But don’t waste my time!”

“But that,” Conner said, gesturing at the headless corpse. “That was a waste of your time. We have no need of crippled officers. One more mouth to feed.”

“You people are too much,” Rachel said, turning back to the sink and scrubbing her hands furiously. She grabbed a towel and gestured at him, half angrily and half in amazement. “You’re a fucking idiot, do you know that? Not just a fruitcake, that goes without saying, but an idiot!”

“Why am I an idiot?” Conner said, calmly, tilting his head to the side as if her opinion was of enormous interest to him.

“Do you know who Herzer Herrick is?” Rachel said, throwing the towel in a basket and taking off her apron for a new one.

“Oh, yes, paramour of yours, isn’t he?” Conner replied, smiling.

“No,” Rachel said. “Your oh-so-puissant intelligence is off on that score. But would you say he’s useless to the UFS?”

“No,” Conner replied. “Quite useful, actually.”

“And did you know he was missing a hand?” Rachel asked, gently.

“Yes,” Conner replied.

“IS HE ANY LESS USEFUL WITH ONE HAND?” Rachel shouted, throwing her hands up and then pointing at the corpse. “Do you know anything about that person?”

“Other than the fact that he has no head,” Conner said. “no.”

“So you don’t have any idea if he might have been of use to you,” Rachel said, throwing her hands up. “He might have been a whiz at logistics! A master of sorting out intelligence and finding that one clue that wins the battle! But you don’t know! And now, you never will! Because you cut his head off! A tisket, a tasket, a head in a basket! That is why you’re an idiot, not to mention a FRUITCAKE.”

“Miss Ghorbani, you suffer under a misapprehension,” Conner said, smiling faintly. “The misapprehension is that anyone in New Destiny cares. Oh, not about your opinion, that, as you said, goes without saying. No, rather about the fate of one individual, no matter how potentially able. Are you familiar with the saying ‘Quantity has a quality of its own’?”

“Stalin,” Rachel said. “My father loves to rave about its stupidity. He especially cites the reality of Zhukov.”

“Who is Zhukov?” Conner asked. “For that matter, who is Stalin?”

“You see?!” Rachel snapped. “You’re an idiot. You’re quoting things you don’t even know the genesis of! You don’t know the reality surrounding them or to what it directly related! It wasn’t a general quote it was about a particular weapon! And if you’re going to apply it to people, the falsehood of the statement is directly associated with the original person who said it!”

“So… who is Zhukov?” Conner said, politely.

“Ack! I’m not here to teach you ancient history,” Rachel snarled. “I’ve got more butchery to perform. I suppose you’d prefer that I concentrate on those who aren’t too far gone and won’t need a lot of recovery?”

“Yes,” Conner replied. “More or less. You’re not going to tell me who Zhukov is, are you?”

“Go look it up!” Rachel snapped.

“Russian general,” the elf-thing said, sibilantly. “Commanded the Siberian Army during the early stages of the Phase Two of the First Planetary War. Later commander of the whole army. Possibly saved Russia. That is arguable.”

“If Zhukov hadn’t mobilized his Siberians, Moscow would have fallen,” Rachel snapped.

“Russia had lost Moscow before,” the elf-thing replied. “It destroyed Napoleon.”

“Completely different situation,” Rachel said. “Even with the partisans, the Germans had the logistics to hold it through the winter, easily. And by the end of the winter, they would have held Murmansk as well and taken Stalingrad. The only thing that kept them from doing that was Zhukov.”

“They didn’t have sufficient security for their supply lines,” the elf argued.

“Excuse me,” Conner said.

“They could draw them, were drawing them, from units from Eastern Europe,” Rachel said, shaking her head. “No, it was the Siberians…”

“EXCUSE ME!” Conner shouted. “What in the hell are you talking about?”

“The Russian Winter Campaign of 1942,” the elf-thing replied.

“That tells me so much!” Conner snapped.

“What are you?” Rachel said, looking at the elf-thing.

“I am Roc,” the elf-thing replied.

“I said what not who,” Rachel said, thoughtfully.

“What am I?” Roc asked Conner.

“You’re my bodyguard,” Conner snapped.

“I’m a bodyguard,” the elf-thing said, turning back to Rachel.

“Like hell,” Rachel said, musingly. “You’re one hell of a violation of protocols is what you are. I assume the Lady hasn’t found out, yet. Pity. Be interesting when she finally opens Elfheim back up. She flipped her lid when they made the wood-elf prototypes. She’s going to find a new meaning of mad when she finds out about this… thing.”

“That is besides the point…” Conner said, showing the first real signs of anger.

“Not in your case,” Rachel said, happily. “Just knowing you’re anywhere near one of these things is going to make you a special treat for the Lady. She’s had thousands of years of experience in coming up with nasty things to do to people. I’m sure she’ll pull them all out for anyone associated with… that,” she finished, pointing at the elf. “And why the hell is he a bodyguard when he’s the first thing I’ve found in this crowd that doesn’t have his head screwed into his ass? At least he knows who Zhukov is.”

“That is not your concern,” Conner said, his mouth -tightening.

“Hey, Roc,” Rachel said, grinning. “You really ought to take over, you know? At least you have a clue.”

“Roc is not going to ‘take over,’ ” Conner said, smoothing his features. “He is fully controlled.”

“Like hell,” Rachel said, frowning. “Hey, Roc, what do you think about Bedford Forrest?”

“He was a fine cavalry general,” the elf-thing replied. “He had the gaslan.”

“Elf word, damn,” Rachel said, wonderingly. “They’re not preprogrammed. The data on Zhukov could have been but why preprogram elvish…? This isn’t a construct, is it?” she added, horrified.

“That is enough,” Conner said, raising his hand. “One more word and you will find out how controlled Roc is.”

Rachel opened her mouth and then closed it with a clop. But she stepped forward, nonetheless, right up to the thing, staring it in the eye. It stank. Not human body odor, something like the smell of the orc Changed but much worse and included in it was the smell of the rotting blood in its harness. But she stayed there, for a moment, peering into his eyes, trying to find any spark of what he had once been. All she could see was that there was a world of fury behind those eyes. She reached up, gently, touched it on the face and then turned away.

“I’ve got more butchery to do,” she said, her voice catching. “But I guess I’m not the first, huh?”

“Just get back to work,” Conner said, gesturing the thing to proceed him.

“Goodbye, Roc,” Rachel said, softly, stepping over to the sink and starting to wash her hands again. “Whoever you were.”