Alaska Republik-ARC (13 page)

She popped out of her bed as if spring-loaded. In a few seconds she had slipped into her hide boots and rushed out the door.

“Good thing I had a head start,” Jerry muttered, following her.

Magda didn’t hesitate, but hurried down a flagstone path to a larger house. She slammed the door open with the heel of her hand and disappeared inside.

“Doesn’t anyone knock in this country?” Jerry said loudly, following on her heels. If someone took offense at her lack of manners, he might have to rescue her.

“Frank, where
are
you?” she shouted.

The house felt empty. Jerry wondered if she had gone to the wrong cabin. He started to suggest his question, but—

“Damn him! They’ve gone without us. That low-down, condescending, hubristic son of a bitch went without us!”

Relief surged through Jerry and he silently thanked Frank and William and whoever else went with them. He focused on Magda, realizing he had to get her calmed down or end up following her through these woods carrying anything between an automatic weapon and a spear.

Magda was certifiable, as his grandfather used to say. She didn’t hesitate to consider consequences, just acted. Or did she?

In controlled circumstances, she was quite deliberate, such as their first meeting. He frowned, upset that he had jumped to conclusions.

He had worked so long and hard on that one.

“So what should we do?” he asked.

“Nothing, damn it! I hate being treated like a-a…”

“Well-loved young woman?”

She started to answer, and then suddenly her eyes bored in to his. “By whom?”

“Your parents and your uncle, dimwit!”

“He knew I wanted to go along,” she said, close to a pout.

“He also knew you were exhausted, ready to drop, and completely overwhelmed by circumstances.”

She frowned at him but it faded into a moue. “You’re right, dammit, Lieutenant Yamato.”

“But.”

“But it’s my fight, too!”

“He knows that, and he respects it. That’s why he had to trick you to get you to sleep long enough to do some good.”

The moue solidified into a frown. “You’ll get nowhere with me by being right all the time!” She stomped into the next room.

After four silent responses he elected to say nothing. He followed her into a kitchen and realized how hungry he had become.

“Can you handle a moose steak?” Magda asked.

“Better than it can handle me,” he quipped with a smile.

“Good. That’s about all we got.” She stoked a wood range and tossed sticks into the firebox, opened the flue a quarter turn. “Rare, medium, or well done?”

“Medium. I’m a medium kind of guy.”

“No, you’re not. I wouldn’t like you if you were medium.” She burrowed into the refrigerator and pulled out a plate holding two large pieces of meat. “I don’t believe the Republic of California picks medium guys to fly their fighter planes.”

She dropped each steak into its own pan and began pawing through the spice shelf. “No, First Lieutenant Yamato, I think you’re more of an extreme guy”—she looked at him over her shoulder, nearly hiding her smile—“who isn’t afraid of risk and is always looking for an adventure. Right?”

The steaks sizzled in the pans and the aroma of cooking meat touched his nose. His stomach growled. She filled his thoughts.

“Never thought about it that way, but to a point you’re right. You have to want to fly more than anything else in the world to make it through flight school, not to mention put up with more military bullshit than you ever imagined.”

“But you did it,” she said, still smiling and turning toward him. “Because you’re an extreme kind of guy.”

She crossed the small space between them and kissed him; he wanted it to last forever. She finally pulled away and he saw something new in her eyes.

“You get through this safely, Jerry. We have a lot to do together.” She turned back to the stove and flipped the meat.

Jerry decided he was in love. He wasn’t sure exactly what that would mean to him in the future, but more than anything, he wanted to grow old with Magda and love her as much as possible every single day.

“I’ll be careful,” he said. “I promise.”

25

St. Anthony Redoubt, Russian Amerika

“Colonel Romanov, we have lost all communications with Taiga 10 command.”

Colonel Stephan Romanov sighed and tore his gaze from the natural beauty outside his office window.

“When did they last report in, Sergeant Severin?”

“Yesterday at noon. Captain Kobelev said they were eager to advance whenever the order came.”

“Nothing since noon yesterday?” Romanov chewed his lip and wondered at this turn of events. Until a year ago this had been pleasant, if boring, duty.

“It’s either faulty equipment or the damned Dená,” Sergeant Severin said.

“I hope you’re right about the first part.” Despite his aristocratic name, Romanov’s grandmother was a Yakut from Siberia and he held deep sympathies for the Dená. He tried to keep his attitudes to himself, but others had noticed.

A visiting colonel once asked for an Indian woman for the night.

Stephan had frowned. “I’m not a whoremonger, Colonel. You’ll have to solicit for yourself.”

“You do not know women who—”

“No. You’ll have to ask one of the privates.”

Thankfully, the colonel let the matter drop. Romanov would not allow his men to molest the local women nor mistreat any of the civilian population. He preached brotherhood to his troops and had a corporal lashed within inches of his life for drunkenly beating an old Athabascan man.

Now this stupid war has made a hash of everything
, he thought. Not that he blamed the Dená. In fact he felt they were right: St. Petersburg had abused the Alaskan peoples for over 200 years and it was time for a change.

Colonel Romanov glanced up guiltily at his sergeant to see if the man had interpreted his silence correctly. The sergeant was staring out the window.

“Are the pilots sober today?”

Sergeant Severin snapped his head away from the window. “I don’t know, sir. Shall I send an orderly?”

“Yes, do that. Have the orderly tell them that I require a reconnaissance mission. Now.”

The sergeant grinned and pressed a button on his desk. A private walked in and snapped to attention.

“Turgev, go to the officer’s quarters and tell the pilot-officers they are to report for a mission immediately.”

“Even if they are drunk, Sergeant?”

“Even if they are drunk, Private Turgev.”

The colonel and the sergeant grinned at each other as soon as the door shut behind Private Turgev.

“What if they wreck the helicopter?”

“We’ll be rid of both of them. That’s worth a helicopter, don’t you think?”

“As long as I don’t have to pay for it,” the sergeant said with a laugh.

“If they’re not drunk, they will be suffering hangovers large enough to split rocks.” Colonel Romanov chuckled.

“Perhaps Taiga 10 received orders from the front and we were not informed, Colonel?”

“I thought of that already, but dismissed it for two reasons. First, I am in nominal command of the force since I am the district commander and would have been notified as a courtesy and for protocol if nothing else. You know how much the army loves protocol.

“Second, we are between their last position and the front, unless there is a new front to their rear. But Alaska Command would have notified us of that also, no?”

“I certainly hope so,” the sergeant said.

The door to the office banged open and two blonde men stumbled in, cursing and complaining.

“Colonel, we are in no condition to fly today, we can barely walk!” Captain Ivan Fedorov said without so much as a salute.

“My brother is right,” Captain Georgi Fedorov chimed in. “Besides, this is our stand-down week and—”

“Silence!” Colonel Romanov bellowed, not allowing himself to smirk when both men flinched in pain. “This is not the St. Petersburg Officers’ Retreat. We are in a war.”

“We know that,” Georgi mumbled, “but we—”

“Taiga 10 has not reported in since yesterday at noon. This is not only unusual, but also alarming. The only way we can contact them is by motorcycle messenger or helicopter.”

The pilots looked at each other. Ivan scratched his unshaven jaw.

“I have already dispatched a motorcycle messenger, but I want an aerial reconnaissance as well. Now.”

Ivan straightened into a semblance of military bearing and gave Colonel Romanov a weak salute. A moment later Georgi copied his brother.

“As you wish, my Colonel,” Ivan said in a ponderous tone. “We leave as soon as the helicopter is warmed up.”

“Yes,” Georgi said with a firm nod.

“The maintenance crew has already started the machine,” Romanov said. “By the time you reach the flight line, it will be ready to fly.”

Both pilots turned as one and shuffled out of the office, leaving the door open behind them. Georgi’s voice drifted back to them, “I told you we should bring the vodka with us.”

“Holy Mary, Mother of God,” Sergeant Severin said in a low voice. “How did they get through officers’ training, let alone flight school?”

“Their father is a nobleman and supporter of the Czar. Those two uniforms on his worthless sons are a gift from a grateful ruler,” Colonel Romanov said. “Therefore, they become our problem.”

“How do they fly that thing?”

“I don’t know and I don’t care. All I want from them is a report about Taiga 10 or word of their deaths.”

26

39 miles south of Delta

“What are you all doing this far from home?” Major Riordan inspected Bodecia through narrowed eyes.

“Going for a walk, if it’s any of your business.”

“Forty kilometers, one way, on a walk?”

“We enjoy trekking. Now leave me alone.”

“You have a choice, madam. You can answer my questions now or after we string your husband up by his thumbs and carve on his belly for a while.”

“In a fair fight my husband would kill you in moments. But you know nothing of that; you’re just a damned grouse-hearted bully. I will tell you nothing or lies—your choice.”

“You place him in peril.”

“He placed himself in peril, I just went along for the exercise.”

“If I had three subordinates like you, I would rule the world.”

Hatred burned from Bodecia’s eyes. “You are as full of shit as a Christmas goose.”

“Lock her up, Corporal,” Riordan snapped. “Now!”

He watched the corporal of the guard usher the small woman out of his tent. Riordan felt angry enough to spit nails. Never in his life had he met such an intractable, insolent bitch.

She reminded him of his late mother.

Perhaps I should just shoot her now and get it over with.

What were they doing out here? Spying on the Russians? There was nothing else; they couldn’t have known about the Freekorps.

Lieutenant Grudzinski pushed open the tent flap. “Major, there is a helicopter out there.”

“Headed this way?”

“Difficult to tell, sir. It seems to be quite erratic.”

“Show me,” Riordan said, grateful for the distraction.

They moved briskly into the center of the camouflaged vehicles and tents. Lieutenant Grudzinski pointed north, “There, sir.”

Riordan trained his field glasses on the machine, keeping it in view with difficulty as it dipped and yawed.

“It’s Russian, but the pilot must be drunk, or very clever. Never have I seen such an unmilitary flight pattern.”

“I’d vote for drunk,” Grudzinski said with a nod.

“Shoot it down, Leonard.” Riordan returned to his tent.

27

39 miles south of Delta

Captain Ivan Fedorov pulled the stick back and the helicopter leveled out. It always took him a few minutes to get the feel of the craft after being away from it for more than two days.

“Like a woman!” he exclaimed.

“Who is?” Georgi said, continuing to stare out the side window.

“This sodding helicopter, you dolt. What did you think I was talking about?”

“I never know. What is that down there?”

“Where?”

“Over on the left there. See all those hummock thingies?”

“They’re probably hummocks, you idiot.”

“But some have barrels, big ones.”

“By the balls of St. Peter, you’re right. I’ll get a little closer.”

“If they are what I think they are and we get any closer, they will shoot hell out of us.”

“You’re right again, Georgi. So what should we do?”

“Well, if they’re Russian, they either won’t shoot at us, or miss us if they do.”

“True, Georgi. But what if they aren’t Russian?”

“Then we are already in very deep shit. We’ve been here too long.”

The helicopter abruptly leaned to one side and then leveled again. Georgi glared at his brother. “Wha—”

A high-velocity shell shrieked past them.

Georgi’s glare popped into surprise. “Get us out of here!”

Ivan already had the helicopter in a tight turn when two more shells burned past.

“Look at them, dammit, while I fly this stupid machine. How many hummocks are there? Do you see any troops, or insignia?”

“Shut up so I can think!” Georgi bellowed.

Ivan turned hard and flew directly at the encampment. Several large shells whistled past, aimed where the helicopter might have been had they not changed course. Ground fire, some of it larger than hand-held weapons, winked up from the camouflaged equipment.

Suddenly the canopy perspex starred in three places and small bits of the heavy plastic danced across the floor. Rounds buzzed past their heads and the helicopter jerked with the hammer blows.

“That’s what I wanted to know!” Ivan twisted the flight path into a “U” and pushed the throttle to maximum. “Took them by surprise, didn’t we?”

“Mostly,” Georgi said slowly, staring down at his feet. “We took a few hits.”

Ivan snapped his head around. “Are you injured?”

“Perhaps a little. A bullet went through my thigh.”

“St. Michael preserve us! Put a tourniquet on the damned thing, Georgi.”

Georgi fumbled around, peering around in the cockpit as if looking for his other dress glove. “What should I use, d’ya think?”