The Fight for Peace (26 page)

“Yeah,” Arinna admitted. “I was curious as to what she said. You did a good job.”

“I meant it.”

Arinna met his gaze, surprise in her eyes more than anger or hurt. Finally she looked away as she exhaled a half laugh. “Did you really think about selling me out?”

“Hell no. I didn’t mean that,” he said quickly, troubled that there was a glint of pain in her eyes. “I meant I wondered where we’d be if we hadn’t pulled back to Europe. We might have already been in Irkrist.”

Arinna swallowed a mouthful of beer, leaning into her chair. “Maybe. But if we hadn’t sent Derrick, we wouldn’t know about Isle Royale. They might have sent reinforcements ... or a force to Europe while the Guard stormed Crystal City, and MOTHER would still have been in Europe. I’m not saying I like how everything turned out, but I do like some of the improvements.”

“Shit. Why do you never get mad at me?” Jared said, wiping the moisture he was surprised to find on his cheek.

“Oh, I do. But not over this. I respect you too much. I’ll miss fighting with you.”

“You won’t get rid of me that easy. I plan on wrapping things up in Crystal City so I can come over to Isle Royale to save your ass. Again.”

“Good. You owe me a few.”

Derrick watched with Jared as Arinna took off in her dactyl the next morning. He looked as troubled as he was hopeful, which was exactly how Jared felt.

“We give her three days to complete the staging. Day four she should be ready to begin at Isle Royale and we’ll move to Irkrist. I don’t want one city giving the other warning.”

Those three days passed in a flurry of activity. Jared was with Kehm in Command reviewing old aerials around Crystal City for sub-bases when the messenger came in from Arinna’s force. The trick of scanning for movement had worked well enough to give Arinna locations of other hot spots to watch for. But the number had done little to build Jared’s confidence. Knowing it was too late to change the strategy, he’d thrown himself into planning the assault on Irkrist. If he ended things there, he could do as he’d teasingly promised Arinna. He could go and help her.

“The western forces are in place and ready to attack at first light local time,” Sergeant Picerno reported.

Jared took a final glance at the aerial wishing it was live, wishing he could see where Arinna waited just out of sight of Isle Royale amid semi-frozen tundra. Heck, he’d have been happy to talk to her instead of a messenger.

“Take a break, eat, and then head back to deliver this,” Jared said, handing over a final stack of maps with potential problems highlighted. There were far too many sheets of paper in the pile.

Jared waited until he was alone again with Kehm before adding, “Arinna said once that the results of the war reminded her of the eighteenth century. Now we are relaying messages like in the days of calvary.”

“As you said to her, ‘what part of flying a plane running off spent nuclear waste reminds you of the eighteenth century?’“ Kehm said. “This isn’t ideal, but the dactyls make the flight in four hours.”

“I know, and I know you are still looking for more satellites, but I fear the need to receive and respond to a message that requires attention faster than hours.”

Kehm looked at Jared, sighing as he turned away. “You and I both. I’ll find something. I’m almost out of sky. If there is anything, I’ll find it in the next day.”

Jared left at that to spend a few hours with his family. His section of the Guard would leave that afternoon to fly north of known FLF locations even if most workcamps should still be unoccupied at this time of year. During his brief window before departure, he wanted to be certain Kieren was set with Europe and the border, as much as he wanted to see his children and kiss his wife.

Derrick caught sight of Jared in the hallway. “I heard a dactyl was in.”

“Captain Prescot will start her attack at first light her time. We move this afternoon to be in position.”

Derrick nodded, pausing. “That means we launch our attack in the dark.”

It was a statement more than a question. Derrick wouldn’t complain that Arinna’s assault held the advantage.

“I gave her choice of time,” Jared confirmed. “We’ll move out in two hours. Send the orders.”

Derrick turned to leave, then faced Jared again. “If I might say, Captain, I thought something much worse when I saw you. I wouldn’t recommend walking the hallways looking like that.”

Jared snorted. “I really should promote you to a Captain. Hell with it, this coming battle isn’t like anything we’ve pulled the entire war. I wish it didn’t make me nervous.”

“Great, now I get to be worried you are nervous and you might promote me. Like I didn’t have enough problems tonight,” Derrick shot back. “I’m really looking forward to seeing Crystal City and Damir again. At least I can pay back what happened at the peace negotiations.”

“Good point,” Jared said. “Then let’s get going.”

Chapter 29

THE LADY GREY

ASSAULT ON ISLE ROYALE

A little over half the Guard sat in the darkness of late spring an hour’s fast flight northeast of Isle Royale. Arinna looked out the cockpit of her dactyl. The night was moonless and the shapes of transport planes and another dactyl merged with the darkness. All lights were off. All communications, what little they had, were down. Right now the goal was to remain unnoticed for a few more hours. After that it wouldn’t matter.

She couldn’t have pulled off the massive staging for the assault without the four Argentinian recruits. What sat around Arinna in a snow-covered field of Canada was only part of the days of hectic preparation that had just passed. Rosa, Soledad, Javier, and Mateo had been treated like no other Cadets once they made it through the first half of basic. Then they had been thrown as much extra training as could be fit into their days.

Each could fly the transport planes, understood assault and defense tactics, and had even had a few lessons in the dactyls. They’d been told that it had been so they could help train other Argentinian soldiers when they returned home. When this plan had been crafted, the training took on new meaning. They had enthusiastically volunteered to lead their countrymen in attacks up and down the Americas with a goal of tying up the FLF outposts. Ideally, they would win arms and free workers to aid the fight. Minimally, they would delay reinforcements reaching Isle Royale.

It would all begin in a few hours.

Arinna sat in the dark, rolling over the plan in her mind and looking for the weak points. She wanted contingencies for every possibility. She wanted to win this damn war at long last.

A light rap sounded against the hull of her plane, too soft to keep her from reprimanding whoever was outside but loud enough to get her attention. She dropped the back hatch, keeping one hand on her pistol even though the chance of it being anyone other than Guard was remote. But she wasn’t about to take chances.

“You should be getting some rest,” Arinna said to Farrak when she realized it was the Lieutenant who walked up the ramp, his face lit by the red tactical lights. “We won’t have much chance for it the next few days.”

“I might point out the same to you,” Farrak said, hesitating at the cockpit door. Arinna kicked her feet out of the way to make room for him to reach the second pilot chair. “Besides if everything goes well, we should hopefully have quite a long time to rest.”

“I like that idea,” Arinna replied. “So what’s on your mind?”

He looked away as he sat, which was unlike him. Farrak took the direct path. Arinna steeled herself for a problem. Finally he met her eye again, leaning forward as he spoke.

“I’m not Captain Vries and you are not Lieutenant Faronelli. As much as we’ve fought together for years, I’ve never split a command with you. And to make it more complicated we can barely talk to each other except with finicky handhelds, which will be a great situation in an emergency.” 

“Oh you mean like when we might need to use them?” Arinna held back laughter.

Farrak almost smiled. “Something like that.”

“So what do you propose, Lieutenant?” she asked more seriously. He really was bothered.

“I was hoping we could go over strategies a few more times.”

“A few?” God dammit if she wasn’t amused again.

“Like half a dozen?”

Arinna blinked, unsure if he was serious until she saw the faint lift to one side of lips. She huffed a laugh as she sat up. “Well I got nothing better to do and I’m sick of everything rattling in my head. Let’s see what we can come up with together.”

Arinna appreciated Farrak’s desire to prepare as much as it distracted her from worrying about Jared. She couldn’t help Jared on the assault or plans for his coming battle. She knew that. But her mind refused to let go of the desire to hear his voice and see his smirk to know all was ready on his end.

There was a glimmer of light along the horizon to the east when she and Farrak finally put away the maps and aerials on vid. The time for planning was over and that felt exhilarating.

“You take rear guard,” Arinna told Farrak over the walkie as she warmed up the engines on her dactyl. “I’ll take point until we are within visual of Isle Royale. Then we both peel off to remove the airport, outpost, and dock while the transports set up.”

“Affirmative,” Farrak clipped.

With that, she sent the signal that it was time for the operation to begin. Thirty transports lifted off behind her dactyl. They stayed low and ran on minimal lights, sweeping over the landscape at the maximum speed the heavy planes ran. And these were running heavier than most between gear, soldiers, and a special rig that allowed them to float.

The lights of Isle Royale were brighter than the dawn when Arinna peeled off, ordering the transports to continue along their planned route. She and Farrak had half an hour to cause havoc on the targets ringing the lake before they needed to be in place to protect the transports. The timing was tight, but the dactyls were fast. Farrak’s screamed under her as she rolled north toward the hidden airport, using the geo-locating program Derrick had created on the flight to Argentina to mark her location and arrival. Missing the runway and planes was not an option. She wanted to win this damn thing, not die in the first hour. As Jared had pointed out, he was the fighter pilot. She simply knew how to fly and shoot. The less things in the sky with her and Farrak to worry about the happier she’d be.

An explosion south of her along the lake announced the beginning of the assault. Farrak had beat her to his mark and made the first impact of the battle. Lights flashed on a mile ahead of her, lighting up hangars as the FLF air base reacted to the emergency. Arinna cast Farrak a silent thank you and swept in, slowing enough to drop bombs from the belly of her plane but not enough to make her a target. It wouldn’t take the FLF long to fully react.

Her first pass took out the runway and ignited a line of planes. Guessing which shadow held fuel tanks, Arinna made a second pass at speed and with lasers. Explosions shuddered the dactyl as the darkness behind her erupted into a fireball. Banking hard, she took the time for a final pass, this time launching two missiles into the heart of the gathering of hangars and few untouched fighter planes just to make sure the airport would not emerge as a threat. This time bullets traced lines upward, trying to hit a form barely seen in the fading darkness. None came close. Besides, she was done here anyway and running out of time.

Arinna raced her dactyl southwest and beyond the barrack that was her next target before the first of her bombs struck it. It was a sloppy run at such speed, but total annihilation like the airport wasn’t necessary here. It’d be nice, but destruction of infrastructure and equipment was the goal in these opening minutes. If she could take away weapons and weaken resolve, that would be a good start to the day.

Two more targets disappeared in fire, both found thanks to searches for movement. With a squadron of tanks and military vehicles erased from the field, Arinna spun toward Isle Royale. In the rising dawn, the towers of the city glowed pink. Interior lights were off, as if that could minimize the skyscrapers as targets.

There was too much of Jared’s recklessness in her. Arinna sped directly through the city along its widest street, streaking her jet through the heart of the FLF’s home, and she didn’t shoot a damn thing. Because destroying it wasn’t the point. She wanted to win the war on her terms, not become something as evil as the FLF who’d destroyed countries to achieve world domination. Arinna had never wanted to rule. She just wanted the freedom for people to choose something better. Even the damn FLF.

“Having fun?” Farrak asked over the walkie.

“Actually yes, and I think you are, too. How are the transports doing?” she asked before looping around the outside of the city. Along the northwest shore, fires ate the docks as the flaming hulls of ships sank into the morning waters.

“The last is getting into position now. I’d get out of the airspace around the city, my Lady,” Farrak warned. His dactyl sped over the water opposite hers as they both cruised counterclockwise around the island.

The warning was unnecessary. Arinna wouldn’t risk another pass through Isle Royale. This was an FLF city. They tended to have missiles. Along the shoreline of the island, people gathered watching the transports position themselves in the water. Only watching. Arinna did a double glance, but could not see any who appeared to be soldiers.

“Have you seen any shooting from the island, Lieutenant?” Arinna asked into her walkie.

There was a pause before Farrak answered. “Negative.” He sounded as uncertain as she felt.

They couldn’t be lucky enough that they’d also managed to separate the soldiers from the politicians and families who surely resided on the island. That certainly didn’t mean the fighting would be any less. But that it might stem more from shore rather than the island as well would be an element in their favor.

The Warrant Officer in charge of the transports signaled they were ready, marking a countdown that had Arinna holding her breath. The answer to whether this entire mission had been a waste of time waited in the next few minutes. The count reached zero and the first transporter initiated a shield.

Arinna stopped circling to watch as the electrical field grew, wavering as it connected to the next in line. When she and Jared had tried this around a town in the Wasteland, they’d had time and no threats to contend with. Certainly not a lake and a hostile city the size of an island. That he wasn’t there to see how nervous she felt was the one benefit to the split assault.

The shield connected between the last two transport planes, forming a solid wall of crackling power. But it wasn’t stable yet. The shield worked as a bubble, not a ring. The haze of electricity arced upward, flexing and snapping as it grew. But the top edge was thinning.

Over the walkie, Arinna could hear the whining strain of engines on the transport planes. They were running at maximum, but for the shield to stabilize it needed more. The growth slowed, lines of power erupting like solar flares from the leading edge. The upper extent started to retreat.

“Damn it, shoot at it, Farrak,” she hissed into the walkie. “Use the lasers at full power.”

She didn’t really think he would, not without understanding what she meant. But there simply was no time to explain. The shield threatened to fail with a whiplash of millions of volts. As she threw all power into her lasers, enough that the lights dimmed in the dactyl and it wobbled with stabilizers sputtering. Across the airspace above Isle Royale, she saw Farrak’s lasers hit the failing shield.

Opposite him, hers touched the charged surface as well. The extra power ignited a deeper glow. It was either going to kill them all or give the shield the boost it needed. The good news was it didn’t fail immediately. Instead the wavering steadied. She shot it again, Farrak doing the same.

This time the extra charge fed growth. The shield flowed upwards, reaching beyond the point where it had begun to unravel. Another few bursts fed it enough that the arching edges seamed into one, slicing through a skyscraper in order to complete the half sphere. The crumbling concrete disintegrated as it fell against the outside of the shield wall. Fragments crashed toward the lake, missing one of the transporters by a hundred feet. Waves rocked the floating transport, the shield shifting with the motion. But not failing. The shield was stable.

Arinna’s hand was shaking on the dactyl’s yoke. “Everyone all right down there, Warrant Officer Makkonen?” At least her voice held steady.

“Affirmative. That was ... close, my Lad
y–
Captain Prescot,” he corrected. Along with his answer came the much more stable sound of the transport plane’s engine.

She huffed a laugh with relief. “I don’t give a damn what you call me. Prep for defense. Lieutenant, let’s survey for weak spots before we call this phase one complete.”

When she had a chance to see Farrak face to face, she’d tell him how much she appreciated he’d done as asked immediately. Heck, that he had figured out what she meant. She owed him a beer. If he drank.

They circled the enclosed city again, slower this time. Arinna fired into the shield twice, with less power though, near the apex just to be sure it really had closed. Only then was she ready to believe the forced siege of Isle Royale had begun.

“Company is coming,” Farrak announced over the walkie as she finished her last flight over the hissing shield. On shore, boats that had survived the quick bombing runs launched toward Isle Royale.

If she were with Jared, Arinna would have made a comment about sloppy shooting. But she was afraid Farrak would take it personally. Plus she had another worry, one bigger than the dozen boats racing toward the transports. She really wasn’t sure Jared and Derrick would be able to deploy their shield around Crystal City. Considering that their operation should be beginning at the same time as hers, she had no way of warning them.