The Forlorn Hope Page 4

  The gangling veteran clapped his friend on the shoulder. "Come on, sweetheart," he said. "The first load was for us, keep our heads down. These aren't clusters. I'd suspect those bastards in the buildings and the spacer are going to have something to do besides laugh at us in a little bit!"

  * * * *

  When it was too late, Vladimir Ortschugin realized the point that he had missed. The Republicans might have been willing to deal with the Katyn Forest on normal business terms if she had landed in their territory. Since she had not done so, however, it was well worth their time to see that the starship stayed on the ground until they captured it. The Smiricky Complex itself was not the target—it could not fly away from the onrush-ing Republican columns.

  All eight armor-piercing bombs of the second stick were aimed at the grounded starship.

  Ortschugin and Thorn could watch the missiles swell on the screens, but they could do nothing to stop them. The crewman had fumbled out a golden crucifix at the end of a rosary. Tobacco juice, unnoticed, was drooling from the corner of the First Officer's mouth.

  The first bomb landed a hundred meters short. The earth quivered, then shot up in a steep, black geyser from the buried explosion. Almost simultaneously, one of the next trio hit the Katyn Forest astern. The vessel pitched like a canoe in the rapids. Both men on the bridge were thrown to the deck.

  The impact of the bomb was followed by its slamming detonation within the Power Room. Dissonant vibrations made the thick hull slither. They drove the surviving crew to shrieks of pain. In Hold Two, a cargo grab whipped. The rotary teeth which had been hooking ingots into the feed pipe snatched a crewman's leg. She screamed, but the operator was unconscious and there was no one to prevent her from being hauled all the way up the twenty-five centimeter pipe.

  No one else died in the hold. Captain Kawalec was alone in the Power Room when the bomb exploded on the main fusion unit.

  On the ground, the Katyn Forest supplied its internal needs from the auxilliary power unit forward. The main bottle was cold when it fractured. That saved the ship and most of Smiricky #4. It would not have mattered one way or the other to the Captain, who must have been within touching distance of the bomb when its two-hundred kilo charge went off. The five survivors of the crew shed more tears for the main drive than they ever thought of doing for Her Excellency Nadia Kawalec, however.

  Ortschugin rose to his feet. He wiped his face with the back of his hand. The instruments worked perfectly. The emergency tell-tales pulsing for the Power Room hull and the main fusion unit left no doubt as to what the damage had been. The bearded First Officer pushed the general address system. "Shut off all equipment and report," he croaked to the crew. "The bombing's over for now, you don't have to worry." After a moment he keyed the system again and added, "This is Ortschugin speaking, the Acting Captain."

  Chapter Two

  The lobby and counter area of the warehouse were silent except for the scraping of the front door which Albrecht Waldstejn had unlocked to enter. Enclosed, the fumes of the explosives were more noticeable than they had been outside. The Lieutenant's stomach roiled, not only at the odor. There were splashes of blood on the lobby floor.

  He stepped forward. "Hodicky!" he shouted. "Quade! Where the hell are you?"

  Hodicky popped out of the main storeroom so abruptly that Waldstejn cursed despite his relief. "Private Quade all right too?" he asked in his next breath.

  "Oh, yes sir," the little enlisted man said. "Q's up on the roof, checking the part we can't get to from below because of the racks. If it's all like this—" he waved at the lobby roof with its bright splotches of sky—"just the sheeting and not the beams, we'll have a quick fix done before dark."

  Somebody finally shut off the siren at Headquarters. Waldstejn had not realized how irritating its distant throb had been until it ceased. "How do you plan to fix that?" the officer asked, duplicating Hodicky's upward wave. Maybe, he was thinking, they could set a fan in the front doorway blowing out to vent some of that damned sweetish stench.

  "Well, sir," Private Hodicky said brightly, "the plastic sheeting for waterproofing the insides of dug-outs came in yesterday. We'll use it ourselves instead of issuing it. And I just checked stores. There's thirty liters of spray epoxy, that'll be plenty to tack the sheets down with." He frowned. "Now, we're not talking blast-proof, but a quick fix to keep out most of the rain—that we can have up while it's still daylight."

  "Well, I'll be damned," Waldstejn said. He nodded his head in agreement. "Just the two of you, though? You don't need some more bodies?"

  Hodicky snorted. "You think they're—" he thumbed in the general direction of Headquarters— "going to assign more men because you ask them, sir? No, Q and I'll handle things, don't you worry."

  The Private glanced upward. The roof quivered thinly to the touch of boot soles. "Ah, sir," Hodicky said as he eyed the roof, "you wouldn't mind if a couple bottles of gin evaporated from the booze locker, would you?" Immediately within the main storehouse were two large steel cabinets. One held small arms and ammunition, the other held the battalion's medical supplies and the officers' liquor rations. Their hasp locks would open to Waldstejn's thumbprint alone. "There was a lot of stuff flying around a few minutes ago. Some it it probably busted a bottle or two, don't you think?" Hodicky hopefully met his superior's eyes.

  "I think," said Lieutenant Waldstejn very carefully, "that if anything evaporates from that locker, you will get the same three years in the glasshouse that Quartermaster Stanlas got when I caught him."

  The silence was broken only by the measured pad of Quade's boots, coming nearer along the ridge line. "However," the Supply Officer continued, "I will very cheerfully withdraw two bottles of gin from my own ration as a present for you and Private Quade when you've finished with the roof."

  "Mary, you scared me, sir!" Hodicky gasped through his smile. "We'll get right on it." He turned to dart back into the store room. But as the little man did so, he paused and turned again. "Sir," he said, "I ought to just keep my mouth shut, I know, but.. . . Look, it's just as much against regs to issue your own booze to enlisted men as it is to let a couple bottles disappear. What's the deal?"

  Waldstejn smiled, more at himself than at the question. "Look, Hodicky," he said, "if you get caught and my ass comes up on charges as a result—fine. I trusted somebody I shouldn't have and I got burned for it like I deserved. I never swore to anybody I'd make sure enlisted men got pissed on beer and officers on spirits. But my accounts are going to be straight because / say they will, not for some damned regulation. Now, go fix the roof while I take a look at what's happened inside." He walked toward the counter's gate.

  "It's like you said, Pavel," Private Quade called from above. His head was silhouetted against one of the larger rips in the lobby ceiling.

  "Come on down and help me carry," Hodicky shouted back. "We're in a hurry."

  Hodicky waved the Lieutenant through into the stores area and followed him. In a low voice— though there was no one nearer than Quade, whose rapid footsteps were slanting toward the ladder at the back of the building—the Private said, "Ah, sir, I noticed lots more rat droppings than we'd thought when I was checking things out a moment ago. The shipment of warfarin hasn't come in—" it had, but Hodicky had checked the invoice himself— "and you know how they give Q the creeps. While you're in the locker, why don't you withdraw some digitalis from medical stores. I'll lace some flour with that and put it out for Q, you know. I don't like it when he gets upset."

  The holes in the roof now lighted the warehouse more than the glow strips did. Waldstejn frowned at his subordinate in puzzlement. If Hodicky knew that digitalis was poisonous, then he did not have some wild-hare idea of using it to get high on. The officer sighed. "All right," he said, "but be careful. You two are the only staff I'll get from the Major, and I don't need you keeling over with heart attacks."

  "Thank you, sir," the Private said. He began to walk briskly down the aisles toward the back door o
f the building.

  "If this bombing means what I'm afraid it does," Waldstejn called after him, "I guess we're going to have worse problems than rats in a little bit."

  * * * *

  Maybe you will, Pavel Hodicky thought as he jogged between racks of boots and uniforms. For the Privates, though, a couple of rats named Breisach and Ondru were the number one problem.

  If Hodicky did not take care of it fast with spiked gin, Q was going to do it his own way. At the moment, Hodicky was still uncertain which result frightened him more.

  Chapter Three

  The pounding on the door was audible over the gnat-swarm keen of the computer terminal. Private Quade wore a taut expression as he returned to Waldstejn from the front lobby. "I shouted through the door like you say," the Private explained. "He won't go away. You let me—" Quade drew a trembling breath— "and I'll get him to leave."

  "No, wait here," the Lieutenant said. His desk beside the terminal was littered with computer tape and hand-written notes. It was a rush job and he was a long way from finishing it. Quade's condition, however, indicated that Waldstejn had better take care of the problem fast. In many ways, Jirik Quade was an ideal subordinate. He was dogged, and he would accomplish without complaint any task within his capacity. Quade seemed honest; he was as strong as men half again his size; and his utter loyalty to Waldstejn, the first commanding officer who had treated him like a human being, was embarrassing.

  Still, you do not ignore your guard dog when it starts to growl at children; and Waldstejn did not intend to ignore Private Quade when he started to shake with frustration and rage. The Major could wait for his figures.

  The Supply Officer did not bother to close his tunic front, but he did snatch up the equipment belt which he had looped over a drawer pull. He carried it in his left hand. The weight of the radio and holstered pistol made it swing as he strode.

  There was a rustle from the other end of the warehouse. Private Hodicky was scrambling out of his sleeping quarters at the back. This was Quade's night for late duty, but Hodicky could hear the knocking and shouts; and he could extrapolate an outcome as well as his Lieutenant could. Waldstejn decided to handle the problem himself anyway. His rank and his assurance that he was acting on instructions of the battalion commander might quiet someone determined to get supplies on the orders of some lower officer.

  Besides, it would give Waldstejn a chance to unload some of the frustration which he owed properly to the Major's request.

  The knocking, paced but determined, continued as the Lieutenant strode through the lobby. When the call from Headquarters came through, Waldstejn had ordered Quade to letter a sign for the front door: CLOSED BY ORDER OF BATTALION COMMANDER. NO REQUESTS ACCEPTED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE. Now as Waldstejn threw open the door he shouted, "What's the matter with you? Can't you read the bloody sign?" Then he blinked. Switching to English and a subdued tone, he said, "Oh, ah, Vladimir. Look, I've got another fifteen, thirty minutes work for my CO and there's nobody else here who can run the computer. I really can't even talk to you now."

  "Ah, sir," said Private Hodicky from behind the counter. "I can handle the computer, if that's what you want. We had the same unit in my lyceum."

  The little man had not intended to admit his competence with the system. As short-handed as the Supply Section was, he would probably wind up with his previous duties as well as work on the computer. For another thing, it was the lyceum computer which had gotten him sent down with six months active and a forced enlistment for the duration of the war. Hodicky had broken into the school office at night and used its terminal to transfer funds to his own bank account. The transaction had been flawless from a technical viewpoint; but the branch manager had known perfectly well that a seventeen year old slum kid should not have been able to withdraw thirty thousand crowns. Using common sense instead of what the terminal told him, the manager had called the police.

  But Hodicky had not expected to be serving under an officer like Lieutenant Waldstejn, either. . . .

  "I don't mind waiting," said Vladimir Ortschugin. He massaged the heel of the hand with which he had been pounding. "But I need to talk to you as soon as you're free, Albrecht."

  "Sure," the Lieutenant said, "just a second." He had tossed a few glasses with the spaceman in company with the two mercenary officers. He could not have remembered Ortschugin's last name for a free trip to Elysion III, however. Switching back to Czech, Waldstejn exclaimed, "You can really work that bitch, Hodicky?" The Private nodded. "Well, you're one up on me," Waldstejn continued. "They're in the middle of a staff meeting and somebody decided they had to know everything about arms, ammunition, and ration stocks. Not just our stores, mind, but unit stocks as well. That means we've got to run platoon and section accounts, issued and expended, for the whole six months to get the bottom line. You can really handle that?"

  "Yes, sir," the little man said. He turned and trotted back toward Waldstejn's alcove.

  "That's a silver lining I didn't expect," the tall officer muttered in English. He led Ortschugin into the counter area where there were a pair of tube-frame chairs. They left the outer door open. After struggling with the accounts for two hours, it would be relaxing to handle the sort of oddball supply requests that might come up at this time of night.

  "I apologize," Ortschugin said. "I know you must be busy, but—" he took a leather-covered flask out of his breast pocket and uncapped it— "we know now what we must have, and it is crucial that we learn as soon as possible who we must see to get it." He handed the flask to Waldstejn, shifting his cud of tobacco to his right cheek in preparation for the liquor's return. "We must have a truck power receptor so that we can fly to Praha on broadcast power."

  * * * *

  Waldstejn choked on his sip of what seemed to be industrial-strength ethanol. "What?" he said through his coughing. It was not that the request was wholly impossible, but it certainly had not been anything the local man had expected.

  The Spacer drank deeply from his own flask and belched. He stared gloomily upward before he resumed speaking. Several of the brighter stars were tremblingly visible through the plastic sheets. "Our powerplant is gone, kaput," the bearded man said at last. "Replacement and patching the hull, those are dockyard jobs. We can fly, using the APU to drive the landing thrusters—but minutes, you see, ten, twenty at most before the little bottle ruptures also under load and we make fireworks as pretty as those this morning, yes?" He swigged again, then remembered and offered the flask to Waldstejn—who waved it away. "So we are still sitting when your Republicans take over, yes?" Ortschugin concluded with a wave of his hand.

  The Swobodan's flat certainty that the battalion would be overrun chilled Waldstejn. "That may be, I suppose," the local officer said carefully, "but— well, from what you said that night with Fasolini, that you just shuttled cargo, you didn't mess with politics. ... I wouldn't think it would make much difference to you. The Rubes don't have much time for mercenaries, I'm told, but like you say, you just drive a truck."

  Ortschugin did not at first answer. He began craning his neck, trying to look all around him without getting up from his chair. Waldstejn, guessing the ostensible reason for the other's pause, hooked a wastebasket from under the counter. The spaceman spat into it.

  The delay had permitted Ortschugin to consider the blunt question at length. He found he had no better response to it than the truth. "You are right, of course. The problem is not—" he gestured with both hands and grimaced— "patriotism, it is mechanics. We can use the broadcast power line to fly to a dockyard—if we have a tuned receiver, and if the dockyard is in Praha. Budweis has an adequate dock, surely; but there is no pylon system to Budweis. We must leave now, and for Praha, if the Katyn Forest is not to lie here until she rusts away ... and ourselves, perhaps, with her. I—"

  The Swobodan paused again. He made no effort this time to hide his embarrassment at how to proceed. At last he blurted, "We—Pyaneta Lines— can pay you. To save the vessel, they w
ill pay well, only name it. But there are troops guarding the trucks still in camp, and the officer in charge will not deal with me. You are our last hope."

  Waldstejn stood and walked idly to the terminal on the counter. He cut it on. "Diedrichson won't deal with you?" he remarked. "Wonder what got into him. It wasn't honesty, that I'm sure of." He began tapping in a request, using one finger and wondering how Hodicky was doing on the other terminal. "Diedrichson and the Major are close as that," the Supply Officer concluded, crossing his left index and middle fingers and holding them up. A massive silver ring winked on the middle finger. A crucifix was cast onto the top in place of a stone setting.

  The local officer turned again to his visitor. "So," he said in a tone as precise as a headmaster's, "because you couldn't bribe the fellow in charge of the vehicles themselves, you decided to bribe the Supply Officer. Right? Figured I'd be an easier mark than Diedrichson because we'd had a few drinks together? That is right, isn't it, Lieutenant . . . you know, I've forgotten your last name?"

  Ortschugin set the flask down with a thump on a shelf beside him. He did not meet Waldstejn's eyes. "Albrecht," he said quietly, "I came to you because I know of nowhere else to go. I am no longer First Officer—" he raised his bearded face— "I am Captain. Her Excellency died in the attack."

  The spaceman stood and his voice took on a fierce resonance. "The vessel, the four crewmen who remain, they are my responsibility. If I must steal to save them, if I must bribe—I will save them." He slammed his broad, pale hand down on the counter to punctuate his statement.

  Lieutenant Waldstejn's icy distaste melted. He reached out and laid his hand on the back of the spaceman's, squeezing it. "Hell, I'm sorry, Vladimir," he said. "I'm just pissed because you're getting out of this hole and I probably won't." He drew a deep breath. "There's an antenna in stock; we're set up for some transport maintenance here, you were right. You can have it." Then, "Got anything left in your flask?"