'Sure, they can,' said Random. 'Politicians are nothing if not practical people. They need the cobalt this planet produces, and they'll deal with whoever they have to, to get it. Hard times make for hard choices, or at least, that's how they'll sell it to the public. If the rebels win, and give the appearance of distancing themselves from Shub, Parliament would do business with them. It doesn't matter. It's just one more reason why we have to win this battle. Pass the word, Savage. It's time we were moving out. The lull will hit our chosen location in just over six hours, and we don't want to be late.'
Savage bobbed his head and hurried off into the crowd, shouting orders. Men and women gathered in their companies and formed ranks, as they'd been trained. Random turned to Ruby.
'Off we go to save the day one more time. You know, Ruby, I've missed this. Things are so much simpler on a battlefield.'
'This is where we belong, Jack. Right in the middle of things, in blood up to our armpits. Peace was just a dream. You can't fight destiny.'
'Maybe,' said Random. 'Maybe.'
The great gates opened, and the last army of Vidar filed through the huge airlock and streamed out into the raging storm, disregarding the violent weather in anticipation of the fighting still to come.
They made good time across the dark, jagged landscape, and five hours later they passed through a narrow valley to reach the open plain where the lull was supposed to hit. They set up a temporary camp of reinforced tents and waited impatiently for the storm to pass. When the lull finally came, it was like a kind of magic. The wind's voice fell away like the end of an oratorio, and suddenly there was utter silence. The air was still, like the eye of a hurricane, and the dust settled slowly to the ground. It was like the end of the world, the last pause before Judgment Day. The army emerged from their tents and looked around them, seeing their world with new eyes. Most had never known anything but the endless storms.
People laughed and joked and cheered and slapped each other on the shoulder, as though the lull was a sure sign of victory. Savage had them start stripping off most of their protective armor, so they'd have more freedom of movement once the fighting began. And when that was over, everyone just stood in place, looking expectantly out across the open plain. The world was very still, as though holding its breath, waiting for everything to begin. And then the holo cameras out on the plain sent back the first pictures of the rebel and Shub forces. They were on their way. Random, Ruby, and Savage crowded around a small monitor screen and nodded, satisfied. The enemy had taken the bait and committed all their forces.
The Vidar army surged out across the plain and the enemy came to meet them. There was no time or need for subtle tactics. Two opposite forces crashed together, no quarter asked or given, and blood spilled on the dusty ground. Human fighters threw themselves against walking corpses, and the thought of surrender was alien to both of them.
Within an hour, most of the living on both sides were dead.
The battle was a mess, groups of fighters surging this way and that, each concerned only with their personal part of the war. Swords rose and fell, hacking at living and unliving flesh. Axes chopped through human meat and jarred on bone. And from everywhere came the sudden flaring and roar of discharging energy weapons. Men and women fell and did not rise again. Ghost Warriors fell too, blown apart by energy beams or surrounded and cut to pieces by howling warriors. The maddened mob surged back and forth on the blood-soaked ground, driven by rage and hatred that could be soothed only by victory or death. And among them moved the living dead, driven by cold disappasionate minds that killed and killed and felt nothing at all. The bodies piled up to every side, and still the battle raged on.
Peter Savage fell, unnoticed.
He'd stuck close to Random and Ruby, guarding their backs, awed and amazed. He saw men and Ghost Warriors fall under their blades, swept almost casually aside by superior strength and speed, and his heart swelled to be fighting in such company. He thought they were invulnerable, protected by fate and destiny, and because he fought at their side, he must be too. He never even saw the blade that came thrusting out of nowhere to slam into his rib cage and out again. Driven by servomechanism-assisted muscles, the blow threw him to the bloody ground, and ignorant feet stamped around him.
At first Savage thought he'd just had the wind knocked out of him, and tried to get up again. But his legs wouldn't obey him, and when he put his hand to his side, it came away dripping blood. Pain hit him then, and he cried out in spite of himself. He was no quitter. He kept trying to get to his feet, even as his lifeblood drained away. His place was at Random's side. But his body wouldn't listen. He died there, unseen and unremarked. Peter Savage was a brave man, and a hero, but he was never more than human.
Jack Random and Ruby Journey, so much more than human, fought savagely and tirelessly, dealing out terrible wounds and sudden death with every blow, and what small injuries they took healed almost immediately. They never saw Peter Savage fall, or even missed him until much later. They were too busy doing what they did best—surviving against impossible odds and killing everything within reach. The dead piled up around them, the blood-streaked skin of the fallen rebels lying next to the gray flesh of fallen Ghost Warriors. And Random and Ruby never even noticed that gradually, foot by foot, they were being separated from the main body of the fighting.
It took little more than an hour for the human forces on both sides to pretty much wipe each other out. They never even noticed that the Shub forces had moved away, so wrapped up in their own needs they never knew the real battle for the future of Loki was being fought somewhere else.
The long, narrow valley between the open plain and the city of Vidar hadn't looked like much when the city army marched through it, but Random had recognized its strategic importance. It was the only way to reach Vidar that didn't involve a days-long detour. If the Ghost Warriors were to reach Vidar while the lull still held, they had to pass through that valley. So when Random and Ruby finally realized how far they'd been herded from the rest of their army, they wasted no time in cutting their way out of the surrounding Ghost Warriors and ran like hell for the valley. All that remained was for them to defend the one strategic location that actually meant something. They soon outdistanced their pursuers and took up a position guarding the entrance to the narrow valley.
It was over a mile long but barely twenty feet wide, narrowing to ten at the entrance. Which meant two people could hold off an army. For a time, Random and Ruby stood together, leaning wearily on each other while they got their breath back. They'd had to cover a long distance at a dead run, and even more than human legs and lungs had their limits. And the fighting itself had been long and hard, with Random and Ruby having to operate at the very limits of their strength and speed. After a while their breathing slowed and their hearts no longer hammered quite so frantically in their breasts, and they were able to stand alone. They looked out at the army of walking corpses gathering in the open plain, and swore more or less in unison. There were almost a thousand Ghost Warriors, with swords and guns and a complete readiness to be destroyed if that was what it took to bring the enemy down.
'Can't say I like the odds,' said Jack Random. 'A thousand to two is just a little worrying.'
'We've faced worse,' said Ruby Journey.
Random looked at her. 'If we have, I must have missed it. A thousand Ghost Warriors would cause even Owen Deathstalker to have doubts. However, they have to come at us from the front, so that means only a handful can reach us at a time. If we pace ourselves, we might just outlast the bastards.'
'Unless they figure out some way to sneak up on us from behind. Or come down the sides of the valley.'
Random looked back into the valley, frowning thoughtfully. 'Unlikely. It would take them days to march around to the other end of the valley, and one way or another, we won't be here that long. And the sides of those mountains are pretty near vertical. No, Ruby, they have to come straight at us. Head to head.'
'Best way,' Ruby said briskly. 'So all we have to do is hold the Ghost Warriors off until our side wins, and comes to relieve us, right?'
'No,' said Random slowly. 'From what I saw of the fighting, I don't think we can count on anyone joining us. We have to assume that we're all that stands between Vidar and Shub. If we can hold them off till the lull is over, and the storms return, then we'll have won. The city will be safe.'
'What about us?' said Ruby.
'We made it to the city through the storms before. We can do it again.'
'And the battle?'
'God knows,' said Random. 'Last I saw, the city army had the rebel forces on the ropes, but the real threat was always the Shub forces. And I don't think we made much of a dent in them. And there's something else that worries me.'
