The Battle of the Hammer Worlds hw-2 Page 16

  Finally, from the kitchen, the materials went to small manufacturing groups set up in each hut. From there the hundred and one items the Ishaqs would need to survive in the bitterly cold wilderness that surrounded the camp flowed in an endless stream, to be taken out and buried in caves cut into the five-meter-high snowdrifts that filled the lower part of the camp compound.

  Fellsworth was not simply planning to survive. She meant to get the Ishaqs home. She had allocated three months for the group to get clear of the worst the Carolyn Ranges could throw at them. That meant a lot of walking each day, every day, and for months. It was a huge task at first sight, but a close look at the high-resolution maps loaded into every Ishaq’s neuronics showed that it could be done.

  Fellsworth had picked the Hammers’ weak spot, a weakness that showed up every day in their complete indifference to what actually was going on inside I-2355. The Hammers had a simple view of things. They thought that there was no point escaping. That was why the prisoner of war camps from the last war were where they were.

  I-2355 had been built deep in the heart of the Carolyn Ranges, the mountains at the southeastern end of Maranzika, a 16,000-kilometer-long landmass and Commitment’s largest continent. Apart from the isolation camps used by DocSec to lock away its prisoners, the nearest civilization was the small fishing village of Penrhyn, more than 1,200 kilometers away in a direct line across snow-covered mountains, their serried ranks reaching up past 10,000 meters. Safety in the form of the FedWorlds embassy in McNair was a truly demoralizing 7,000 kilometers north of Penrhyn.

  As far as the Hammers were concerned, escaping was just another way of dying, slowly and painfully. If hypothermia did not do the job, starvation surely would, and only a fool would risk that.

  Fellsworth took a different view. She had set up a small working party as soon as she had arrived at I-2355. Working in secret, their job was to find a way to get everyone out of the camp and a way for the escapees to survive long enough to get clear of the Carolyn Ranges. Once clear, the main group would go to ground, living wild off the plentiful game that roamed the northwestern foothills of the Carolyn Ranges; smaller groups would strike out toward McNair. All they needed was a computer with access to the Hammer’s public net. Twenty minutes was more than enough time to post a message on the right public bulletin board, and their job would be done. In theory, at least, the embassy would pick up the message and decrypt it. The decryption would tell them where the Ishaqs were and how many of them there were. How the embassy got them out safely was another problem, but that was their problem, and Fellsworth was not going to worry about it.

  Fellsworth and her planners also believed the Hammers would expect them to head for the coast; God knew, only a lunatic would head deeper into the mountains. She relied on the Hammers looking coastward-to that end, an elaborate false trail had been constructed running in the wrong direction-as she led the Ishaqs up the narrow valley that cradled I-2355 and across a 4,300-meter-high pass before dropping down into the valley of the Upper Gwyr River as it ran down to the O’ksander Valley, a thickly wooded temperate rain forest rich with game. That was Fellsworth’s initial target. There the group would rest until the Hammers had given up looking for them before embarking on the next and most dangerous part of the plan: leaving the O’ksander Valley to travel down the Gwyr and disappear into the untracked vastness of the Forest of Gwyr.

  It was at this stage in Fellsworth’s briefing that Michael had come close to admitting that the doubters might have a point. It was not much of a plan. Taking advantage of Commitment’s long nights and the invariably foul weather that prevailed across the Carolyn Ranges to screen them from surveillance satellites and marauding landers was one thing. Cutting down trees to make crude rafts before floating, huddled under chromaflage ponchos, down a river thick with broken ice and rock-strewn rapids did not look like a recipe for success. It was more like a recipe for mass drowning in his opinion.

  But Fellsworth’s was the only one they had. To Michael’s way of thinking, anything but anything was better than being a prisoner of the Hammer. If the plan worked, they would be down out of the Carolyn Ranges well below the snow line, safe in the Forest of Gwyr, where ten million Hammers would never, ever find them. God knew, they had all the time in the world to get there.

  So here he was, safely through the shallow tunnel, one of two laboriously cut by hand under the razor wire-topped fences that surrounded I-2355, belly down in a deep snowdrift overlooking the camp, well clear of security holocams and movement detectors. Michael shivered as he waited for the rest of his stick, trying to ignore the cold slowly seeping into his body, only his eyes showing under the thin chromaflage poncho. To the casual observer, there was nothing to see. Only snow, snow, and more snow, the slowly drifting flakes warning of the coming blizzard.

  Michael whistled softly with relief as the last three spacers in his stick finally appeared, the three spacers squirming and wriggling past him to follow the rest of the stick already on their way to the rendezvous point one kilometer up the small creek that cut down past the camp. Once they were safely clear, they would have at least eighteen hours of darkness to press on hard, ten before the Hammers discovered they had no takers for morning roll call. Michael intended that his stick would be at least fifteen kilometers away from the camp by then. He would push until two hours before dawn, and then they would dig in to sit out the long Commitment day before moving off again. It was going to be tough. The snow was deep, and more was due. But they had little choice, and Michael was confident they would hit their initial objective. Fellsworth’s training regimen had been brutally tough, and the Ishaqs were as ready as they would ever be.

  Well, things were off to a good start. They were safely outside the wire, and he had his full complement of seven spacers, well, spacers and marines. To his surprise, Fellsworth had allowed the leaders to pick their own teams, figuring that they would perform better than would complete strangers thrown together at the last minute; she changed people around only if she thought the teams were seriously unbalanced in some way. Michael had gotten the people he wanted: Stone, Yazdi, Murphy, Ichiro, and Petrovic, plus a couple more he had not met, including a junior spacer named Jamie Piccione, possibly the youngest and most frightened of all the Ishaqs he had come across. His slender form made him look like a baby up against Murphy’s massive bulk. Fellsworth had had a quiet word with Michael before they left, making it clear that even if he did not make it, she expected Piccione to. One of the privileges of leadership, she had said, and she was not joking.

  With a deep breath, Michael set off behind Murphy as he bulldozed his way into the worsening blizzard, the rest of the stick falling in behind. It was going to be a long, hard night.

  Tuesday, November 30, 2399, UD

  Koenig’s High Pass, Carolyn Ranges, Commitment

  Above 4,000 meters, the wind was a maelstrom of vicious, stabbing knives. The cold sliced through weatherproof clothing as if it were made of rice paper.

  Michael had not felt his feet or his hands for well over an hour. He assumed they were still there; he was able to walk, and every time he fell forward into the snow-which was often-he was able to push himself back up. His eyes were beginning to freeze, and the tiny amount of exposed skin around them was dead to his gloved touch. The rest of his stick trudged ahead of him, heads down, hunched shapes disappearing into the snow-driven darkness. Only the monofil guideline laid by Fellsworth’s advance party kept them on track, with each member of the stick secured by a single safety strap clipped to the line. It was their only protection against a fall into the howling black void that dropped away from the narrow path that wound its way along the foot of a sheer black wall, disappearing up into the night.

  There was no going back. Michael did the only thing he could: He struggled on, chest heaving in the thin air, and prayed that the nightmare would be over soon.

  They were close to the top now, thank God. It had been a long climb up to Koenig’s High Pass fr
om the complex of caves they had sheltered in to escape the Hammer aircraft scouring the mountains for the escapees. Every step of the way, the wind had ripped and torn at them like a howling animal. He knew that his stick could not take much more punishment.

  He climbed on. Suddenly he almost lost his footing as the path turned sharply down. The snow had been scoured off the track by the wind, leaving only rough broken rock; the dim light from his chemstick showed him where to put his feet as he accelerated downhill. They had made the crest, but if anything, conditions had worsened. With every meter he climbed, the wind had strengthened, battering at him, threatening to pick him up and throw him bodily down the mountain. Now it seemed to have a mind of its own, a demented, malevolent creature determined to rip him off the path, out into the emptiness, and down to his death on the rocks far below.

  Michael had to force the pace. He had to get his stick into shelter soon or he would have severe frostbite to deal with on top of all the other injuries his team had picked up in the relentless climb to get clear of Camp I-2355. Ichiro had fallen heavily, a greenstick fracture of her forearm the result. Piccione had a badly gashed forehead but fortunately, in spite of an impressive amount of blood, no concussion. Stone, the weakest of the team, still not completely recovered from the injuries he had suffered in the Hammer attack on the Ishaq, had twisted an ankle early on; he now relied on Marine Murphy’s massive strength and seemingly limitless reserves of stamina to keep going. The rest of them were hanging in but would not be for much longer. They had to get out of the wind, get their boots and gloves off, and start getting some warmth back into their hands and feet.

  Making his way down the hill, Michael uttered a small prayer of thanks. The wind had begun to ease at last. Even as it did, the snow began to deepen, the track ahead of him a well-beaten furrow in the soft white surface. Michael cursed softly. The track was a mixed blessing-good for getting off this damn mountain quickly, bad because it would show the Hammers which way their missing charges had fled. He could only hope that the blizzard lasted long enough to cover it over. Otherwise, they were probably dead. There were only two ways in or out of Camp I-2355; if their tracks were spotted, even the dumbest Hammer commander would have no trouble bottling them up until they starved to death.

  A faint gray tinge marked the start of a new day by the time Michael’s stick hit the tree line. They came off the rock-strewn slope into the protection offered by increasingly thick forest, the wind dropping away almost to nothing, a shocking, snow-deadened silence falling like a blanket over the group. By Michael’s calculations, another few hundred meters would see them at the control point. Once he had checked in, another kilometer would bring them to their lay-up point, a deeply cut ravine that was thickly wooded overhead. Once there, they would have a good chance of finding a deep, dry cave where they could recover in safety.

  The control point was around and underneath a huge boulder tucked away out of the snow that still was falling heavily. The tracks left by Michael’s stick already were disappearing. Fellsworth and her small command team stood motionless as Michael made his way over, signaling his stick to take shelter.

  The pale green light from the chemstick made Fellsworth look shockingly worn, her face a mask of exhaustion. Even so, she was smiling. Michael’s was the third from the last group across. Sixteen more spacers to come, and she would have led the Ishaqs across one of the highest passes on Commitment in weather so appalling that nobody in his or her right mind would have thought of trying to cross.

  “Michael,” she said, her voice hoarse with tiredness. “Good to see you. Not much fun, I know.”

  “You can say that again, sir.”

  “Your stick looks good. No casualties?”

  “Some minor stuff. Nothing serious.”

  “Good. Any sign of the sticks following you?”

  “None, sir. Sorry. Couldn’t see the proverbial red barn at ten paces.”

  Fellsworth laughed. “Not to worry. They’re two of the strongest teams, so hopefully we’ll see them soon. On you go. Lay up until first light tomorrow. Whatever you do, set a fire only if you can find a cave, a deep one. And keep it small. No bonfires. Got it?”

  “Sir.”

  “Good. Stick commanders’ conference at point Bravo Golf one hour after first light.”

  “Roger that, sir. See you then.” Turning away, he moved downhill, waving his stick into line behind him.

  Wednesday, December 1, 2399, UD

  Upper Gwyr Valley, Carolyn Ranges, Commitment

  Even though he had slept well, Michael was exhausted. He had been completely drained by the enormous effort it had taken to get his stick away from the camp and safely across the brutal nightmare that was Koenig’s High Pass.

  Michael lay back against a rock while he waited for Fellsworth to get things going. His feet hurt, his hands hurt, and parts of his face had the bluish-white patches of early frost damage. Even so, he had gotten off lightly. Apart from his face, he had avoided any serious damage even if the process of rewarming had been a painful one. A few days and he would be fine; happily, so would the rest of his stick.

  He looked around at the group, counting heads. He sat up; something was wrong. Another quick check confirmed it: It looked like they were one stick commander short. With the blizzard still howling over the treetops high above them and the snow falling relentlessly through the trees, Michael knew that anyone not off the mountain by then had no chance. He shivered, and it was not just from the cold. The mountainside fell steeply away from Koenig’s High Pass in an uninterrupted sweep of icy, wind-scoured snow, dropping hundreds of meters down into a boulder-strewn, snow-choked ravine. Anyone who came off the guideline would fall. Unable to slow down, let alone stop the fall, they would have smashed into the ravine too fast to have any chance of surviving.

  Michael closed his eyes at the awful thought. He had been less than half a step away from the same fate for all those long hours, a perverse and vindictive wind toying with him as he struggled to keep his feet along a path that was only thirty icy centimeters wide in places.

  “Okay, folks. Listen up.” Fellsworth’s voice was tired, but her underlying strength showed through the fatigue. Nobody listening to her could have any doubts that she was going to make a success of what inevitably had become known as the Long March.

  “Right, first the bad news, though I’m sure most of you have worked it out already. Lieutenant Kamarova’s stick is lost. They were last to cross the pass, and no one saw them go. We think they may have cut the guideline too early, someone slipped, and that was it.” She stopped for a moment, the pain of losing eight of her spacers clear in her eyes. “We won’t forget them. I’ve sent a team to check out the bottom of the ravine below the pass in the hope that someone made it. There’s a faint chance, but I don’t hold out much hope. I’ve given the search party until last light, and then they’ll come back in, earlier if the blizzard looks like it’s easing.”

  She took a deep breath in. “Right,” she declared firmly. “First up, there’s a small change of plan. I am concerned that Lake Schapp could be a trap. Here, have a look.”

  With a few strokes from her staff, she drew a quick mud map of the Gwyr River as it ran northwest toward the Forest of Gwyr. A small circle in the middle marked the position of the moraine-dammed Lake Schapp.

  “By now, the Hammers must have worked out that we did not head for the coast. That is,” she said with a grim laugh, “as long as they don’t think we’re all dead in a snowdrift. So, putting a blocking force in is their best next option, and the lake is the obvious place to do so. In fact, it’s the only place they could get landers in and out safely given the shitty weather in these parts. The rest of the Gwyr Valley is too steep-sided. If they have troops in place, I don’t want to run into them. The bad news is that those of you with marines and spacers with covert ops experience in your sticks will have to hand them over. They will become my recon unit.”

  A small groan went up from those a
ffected, Michael included. Yazdi and Murphy had been the rocks on which his team had been built. To lose his two marines now would be a real blow.

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Fellsworth acknowledged patiently when the muttering died away. “I would not want to lose them either, but not crashing into a Hammer patrol is a higher priority. Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. The recon patrol will leave four hours before dawn. They will check the route to Lake Schapp. If the Hammers are there, they’ll pull back, and we’ll have to sit and wait them out. If it’s clear, the plan remains unchanged, but we’ll go a day later. I’ll get you the precise departure schedules sometime today when we’ve had a look at the injury list. The most mobile sticks will leave first, cut down to the Gwyr River, turn downstream, and continue on to set up camp past Lake Schapp tomorrow night. Bivouac there two days before pushing on. Any questions?”

  After a brief flurry of questions, none of any significance, the briefing broke up. Michael got to his feet, pleased that he would have an extra day to recover. A day’s break would be wonderful. He had not gotten far when Fellsworth waved him over.

  Michael’s heart sank. He smelled a new assignment, and he would bet his life that it would not be counting the rations. Michael walked over to where Fellsworth was sitting.