Chapter 21
Zollo
7th of Fourthmoon, Saintclair 12
E33, Elsanto Mountains, Neveland
The Palatinian officer looked at Root and the others with complete indifference.
"Put those stupid things away," he said in nearly flawless Franca. "Look at me. What can I do to you? Even if I was armed, maybe I could shoot one of you. What difference would it make?"
Root holstered his Barkley and motioned for Heine and Graeme to lower their rifles. Even if the Palatinian was going to try anything, Root was confident that he was fast enough on the draw to shoot him first.
"You're the captain, I presume," he said.
The Palatinian nodded.
"Capitano di Corvetta Albright Zollo. At your service..."
"Lieutenant Maartens."
Captain Zollo nodded again.
"Ah, a tenente..."
Root looked around at the wreck of the bridge and asked him, "What happened here?"
"You did," Captain Zollo replied. "One of your shells came right in here. Killed my first officer and half the bridge crew. Rendered most of the equipment inoperable. We hoped to get at least three of the rotors working so we could limp back home, but that proved to be impossible. That was why we tried to take your ship. Given that you are here now, we were obviously unsuccessful. Two squads of Alpini should have been enough..."
So their situation was even worse than Root imagined. Taking the Junker Jorg was their last hope, but even then, the Palatinians didn't throw everything they had at them. It was a mistake they couldn't take back, but at least Zollo could be comforted that the Alpini's reputation wasn't entirely unfounded.
"They took the ship, Captain," Root told him, "but then we took it back."
Captain Zollo shook his head.
"Perhaps I was wrong to tell them to kill as few of you as possible."
It was true. His mercy for the enemy condemned his crew to death, but there was nothing to be gained by dwelling on that. Root had to try his hand at getting whatever intelligence he could from the Captain. Zollo had no reason to help, but maybe a man as defeated as him would have loose lips.
"What do you know about the target?" Root asked.
"The target?" he asked, not realizing what Root meant at first. "Oh, that thing. No more than you. Maybe less. It passed through our airspace, we calculated where it was likely to land, and this ship was dispatched right away. I suggested sending at least two ships, but I was overruled. I wonder what the Admiralty will say now."
Nothing good, Root imagined. It wasn't so much that the Palatinians underestimated the Byrandians, though. It was just bad luck. If anything, by all rights the advantage should have been theirs.
Root continued his questions.
"Iokannan Faustman is part of your crew, isn't he?"
"Ah, the White Wolf," Captain Zollo said with relish. "You met him?" He shook his head. "No, if you met him, you would not be standing here. Yes, Tenente Faustman was part of the crew, but I have not heard from him in, what, ten days now? Either he is dead—unlikely—or he is fighting his own war. He will make life very difficult for you if you remain here."
There wasn't much else Root expected to learn from the Captain, so he then said, "You and your men are now prisoners and will be treated in accordance with the laws of war."
Captain Zollo scoffed at this.
"Don't lie to me, Tenente. We have no illusions. Now, don't give me that look. You are too old to be so naive. Your commander is not going to put some two hundred men in a cargo hold and carry them all the way back to your Byrandia. We are all dead men. We know this." He sighed. "I should have sent every able-bodied man. Perhaps then they would have lived and we would have accomplished our mission."
"I'll be contacting my ship to arrange for your transportation," Root said.
"As bad as it is to lie to others, Tenente," Captain Zollo replied, "it is worse to lie to yourself."
Root knew that there was a very good chance the Captain was right. Unless Tofels really thought there was an advantage to be gained by taking on so many prisoners, they were almost certainly going to be left to die. That or the Blackamoors would kill them off before starvation or the cold could do their work.
It was a happy coincidence that Graeme was the one entrusted with the team's wireless. If it was Renard or Suisse, they'd have to rely on another team's radioman.
Picking up the receiver, Root said, "Brünnhilde, this is Siegfried. Fafner is dead. I repeat, Fafner is dead. Over."
It took a moment for the radio to crackle and pop, then respond with the voice of one of the Junker Jorg's bridge crew.
"Siegfried, this is Brünnhilde. Acknowledged. Over."
Root continued, "Brünnhilde, request permission to transport Nibelung prisoners. Over."
Tofels then came on the line, saying, "Negative, Siegfried. Negative. Do not transport Nibelungs. I repeat, do not transport Nibelungs. Gungnir is inbound. I repeat, Gungnir is inbound. Ten minutes. Evacuate at once. I repeat, evacuate at once. Over."
Gungnir? Tofels never said anything about Gungnir in his list of codewords. The spear of Wotan... It could only be one thing: the Sky Lance guided missile.
"Brünnhilde, you can't do that!"
Tofels was, as ever, entirely unsympathetic.
"Get your people out, Siegfried," he said, "or I will hold you accountable for their loss. Wotan, out."
Tofels never said anything about his codename being Wotan either, but that was the furthest thing from Root's mind at the moment.
Captain Zollo did not seem particularly concerned, though, chuckling to himself.
"Poor fool..."
Root went over to the console for the PA, but as soon as he picked up the receiver, Zollo told him, "It's broken, Tenente."
"Where else can I access the ship's PA system?" Root asked.
"You can try the quarterdeck, but I can promise nothing."
"You need to get out of here, Captain."
"What do you think I can do?" the Captain asked. He opened his greatcoat to reveal his right arm in a sling. "You think I can survive out there like this? No, Tenente. If any of my men would rather brave wind and snow, they are welcome to it, but I shall remain here. A captain has a duty to go down with the ship, even if it is already down."
The Captain laughed at what he clearly thought was a clever turn of phrase.
Even if it wasn't his fault, Root couldn't help feeling guilty for how things turned out.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"What do you have to be sorry for?" Captain Zollo asked. "It is war. We would have done the same to you. Go, Tenente. The White Wolf may have you yet."
For whatever it was worth, Root saluted the Captain. With his right arm unusable, Zollo returned the gesture with a lazy wave of his left hand that roughly approximated a salute.
Root went back to the wireless and switched to the frequency for communication between the teams. He just hoped no one left their wireless off.
"All teams, this is Heart King. I repeat, this is Heart King. Evac. We have inbound. I repeat, evac. We have inbound. Over."
There was no response.
"I'm goin' ta the quarterdeck," Root told Heine and Graeme. "Try gettin' ahold a' ever'one again, then get the hell out. You copy?"
"Copy, sir," they replied.
As soon as he was in the passageway, he shouted to the civvies, "We got inbound, people! Time ta move!"
He headed on out to the main deck and went to the OOD's station on the quarterdeck. The PA console seemed to be intact. If he could give the Palatinians the chance to pick how they wanted to go out, it'd be the least he could do.
He picked up the receiver and said, "Attention, all hands. Attention, all hands."
He didn't hear his voice on the speaker, so he tried beating on the console.
"Attention, all hands."
Still nothing. Root threw the receiver against the console, smashing it.
"Dammit!"
"Mister Ruto, we must go," Azuki said.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know."
Root saw Forcas and Osman's Blackamoors already making their way back to the trucks. His own team was making their way out of the superstructure. He motioned for them to hurry up.
"Come on! The Blackies'll leave us if we don't pick up the pace!"
"This is bullshit, Root!" Ian complained.
Ignoring Ian, Root continued to urge them along.
"Let's go, people! Move it, move it!"
Root counted his people as they made their way off the deck. Ian, Pops, Calhoun, Daniels, Heine, and Graeme. That was all of them.
"Be careful goin' down those damn ropes," he warned. "I can't have ya breakin' your ass when we're tryin' ta move out!"
"Stop yer cluckin', momma hen," Pops said. "Jus' don' forget ta get yer own ass down too."
Once all the others were going down the ropes, Root and Azuki followed. When he got down, though, he noticed one of the civvies lying in the snow. Root went over to him. There were no bullet wounds. The way he was sprawled out, he must have lost his grip while climbing down the rope. It was only about a three-meter drop into ten senches of snow, but it was still a fall that could kill you if you landed wrong.
"He is dead, Mister Ruto," Azuki said, tugging on his sleeve. "We must go."
There was nothing Root could do for him. If nothing else, he wasn't alone, but Root didn't plan on keeping him company. He and Azuki ran toward the vehicles, catching up with others who had a good minute's lead on them.
"Load up! Load up!" Root shouted as he went. "We gotta move!"
Because Timofey was wounded earlier, they needed a different driver for the jeep. Root was already on top of it.
"Heine, take the wheel. Graeme, in back."
"Copy, sir," Heine replied.
"Yes, sir," Graeme said with far less enthusiasm. Apparently he didn't like the prospect of being in the gunner's position for the next three and a half to four hours.
LeGrange and Timofey were already there waiting in the jeep for them. Root made one last scan of the area before getting in himself. He felt bad about leaving the dead, but they weren't the first ones to be left out in the snow and they probably weren't going to be the last either.
As Root got into the jeep, he saw that LeGrange was favoring one side as he sat, holding his hip.
"What happened ta ya?" Root asked.
"Goddamn Pally assholes took a chunk outta my ass is what happened," LeGrange said irritably. "While you was foolin' around up there, a bunch of 'em came out the underside to make run for it. They peppered us with some fire as they went. That woman Burtt got hit too."
"How bad is it?"
"Got her in the foot of all places," LeGrange said. "She'll live. But that's nothing, you'll—" He stopped himself, then told Heine, "Come on, Private. Start the damn thing and let's get movin'."
"Yes, sir," Heine replied.
Root made the hand signal for the other vehicles to move out, shouting, "Let's go! We got less than a minute!"
The trucks were having to make wide circles to get turned around, but the buggy was already leading the way back. By the time they were turned around and going, the Sky Lance streaked past them overhead and it was only after it went by that you could hear the roar of it tearing through the air. Root quickly turned around just in time to see it hit the Junker Woland. It hit just to the fore of the amidships rotor. The explosion sent up a huge cloud of smoke, followed by secondary explosions as ammo in the magazines cooked off. Captain Zollo said there were some two hundred men left in the crew. Anyone who wasn't in the group LeGrange was talking about was dead. Those who got away were bound to die too, but their deaths would come a lot slower.
Unlike Root, however, LeGrange was unburdened by any conflicted feelings about the missile strike. He picked up what he was saying right where he left off.
"You'll never believe what that Blackamoor Forcas found in the belly of that damn Pally tub. That patrol from Second Squad that went missing, there was a survivor."
Whatever guilt Root was feeling about the Palatinians was gone in an instant. A survivor from Second Squad?
"Still alive?" Root asked.
"Beaten all to hell, but he'll live, yeah," LeGrange replied.
"Well, who is it?"
"Goddamn Sergeant Hight. That tough old bastard isn't dead."
Root couldn't believe it. After being written off for dead, Hight was alive after all. For a moment, Root breathed a sigh of relief, one of the few since they left Berenice. However, that relief was short-lived. Iokannan Faustman was still out there. The White Wolf could have them in his sights before they ever got back to the Junker Jorg.
Cradling Martinique, he took out his binoculars and started scanning the ridges. He could be anywhere.
"What is wrong, Mister Ruto?" Azuki asked.
"We may have taken out the ship," Root replied grimly, "but it's not over yet."