The pilot must have been hit in the first few seconds. The second helicopter abruptly nosed over and crashed into the trees. The four surviving machines veered and circled back the way they had come.
They hovered a kilometer away, waiting.
A Yak fighter snarled over the village just ahead of its exploding ordinance. Three hundred square meters of forest blew into flying splinters and burning trees.
The fighter etched a circle and returned with cannons clawing out, searching for targets. Again the air filled with bullets. But the Dena were used to the slower helicopters and very few, if any, rounds found the aircraft.
The Yak didn’t return. The helicopters swiveled and thwapped away to the southeast. The forest waited; only the crackle of small fires broke the stillness.
In excited jubilance, the Dena emerged from their bunkers and shelters.
“Where did you get all those Kalashnikovs?” Nik asked in awe. “The army had no hint you were so well armed.”
“From allies who prefer not to advertise their aid,” Chan said, his eyes gleaming. “One of these days soon you’ll be serving in that branch of operations.”
“Obtaining military aid?” he asked.
“Apparently you find it difficult to comprehend what an incredible asset you are to this cause.” Chan pulled him away from the others and they slowly followed a path through a stand of birch. Their breath hung around them in the cold air as they talked.
“I, I do know a great deal about weapon procurements, but nothing about shopping for them.”
“Why are you here, Nikolai?” Chan said abruptly. “How can you turn your back on a St. Petersburg education, an army commission, and a politically influential family?”
“I’m not turning my back on my education. I’m using it.” He threw his arms out for emphasis. “I have never agreed with my father politically. That’s why he got me a military scholarship—as punishment and challenge.” Nik glanced out through the gleaming birch. The white trees held back the subarctic afternoon darkness.
“The academy was hell, but the mathematics, engineering, and electronics were worth the price of admission. For a short time I even worked with the command logic machine.”
“The what?”
“The command logic machine. It’s a calculating machine. It can solve great mathematical equations in a few tens of minutes.”
“What do they use it for?”
“Mostly mathematics. But it’s a wonder.”
“I’m still wondering about your presence.”
“At first I was scared to death. But I knew my mission wouldn’t go on forever and so I decided to do the best I could and help you turn Grisha into what you wanted and learn all your secrets at the same time.” Nik hesitated, his burning eyes stared intently into Chan’s face.
“Then I realized that you have the beginning of something here that could change the face of the continent.” Enthusiasm bloomed in his voice.
“And I wanted to be part of it.”
“Why? You’re not an Indian.”
“Do I have to be an Indian to be part of the Dena Republik?”
“Of course not. But—”
“Then my race doesn’t matter, only my attitude does.”
“Go on.”
“I know the definition of ‘republik,’ and I also know that Alaska will always be a Siberian colony as long as the Czar rules here.”
Nik’s words echoed back at him and he realized how loud he had become. He abruptly lowered his voice. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to shout.”
“You’re saying you don’t like the way things are out there? Why should you care, or want to be part of this? You’re part of the aristocracy. Aren’t you descended from the great Baron Rezanov?”
“Christ! What a cross to bear.” Nik spat in the snow. “Yes, Count Rezanov was my eight-times-removed ancestor, as well as his lovely, and much younger, Spanish bride. The love story that secured a continent! Until history decreed something different.”
“So why are you here, with us, when you have so much back in St. Petersburg?”
“Because it’s wrong to keep a people down where they can’t see the horizon,” he said with a slight tremor in his voice. “And it’s double-damned wrong when what’s keeping them down are animals who are nothing more than pustules on the buttocks of decent humanity.”
“My word,” Chan said with a smile. “You’re still a romantic.”
“My only other choice was much worse. That’s why I’m here now.”
“Why did it take Cossacks to get you to tell us the truth?”
“I was trying to obtain something here that was never available in St. Nicholas or New Arkhangel. But when I saw those slinking dogs in uniform, I realized that what I wanted had to be earned, not given.”
Nik peered at Chan in the gloom. “My only chance to live the way I wish is to help you do the same thing.”
“Welcome home.” Chan patted the taller man’s back. “Have I ever got a job for you. But first we’ve got to get this village packed up and out of here before daylight.”
“What? We’re going to evacuate everybody tonight?”
“That fighter will be back in the morning with a lot more just like it. Toklat has served its purpose. We knew this day would come.”
“So where are we going tonight?”
“First to Minto. A council of war must be held in the next few days. Then we will go to many places. Some will go into Chena.”
“Chena, on the road? There’s a huge garrison there.”
“We know,” Chan said with a wide grin. “We know.”
26
Minto buzzed with excitement. Visitors from upriver and downriver crowded into the available guest space and spilled into the council chambers. The log building had been ordered built by the Imperial Army to serve as military quarters when needed.
Villagers had completed the project, which gave them a sense of ownership. Grisha found the fact amusing but doubted the army would. On reaching Minto he realized Toklat had been a military operation.
Minto swarmed with children, and the resident adults were not as enthusiastic about an impending Dena Republik as the people who had inhabited Toklat.
“You people are just going to bring the Russians down hard on us!” a middle-aged man bitterly informed Grisha. “They got an army, a navy, and an air force. How you gonna stop that with your fancy words?”
Grisha parroted Hamish’s answer. “Politically and economically.”
“Shit!” the man responded. “Them Russians hit this place ’cause of you, you’re gonna be dead, one way or another!”
After that, Grisha asked quiet questions of Haimish, Chan, and Wing. The village was typical of the entire region, roughly thirty percent of the population were sympathetic to the cause, about forty percent seemed to tolerate it, ten percent didn’t care one way or the other, and a vocal twenty percent adamantly opposed their goals.
“What’s wrong with them?” Grisha had demanded of Chan. “Don’t they want their own country?”
“They see themselves as realists who don’t want to lose what freedom and property they already possess. Many of them consider themselves Russian even though they would play hell convincing the citizens of St. Petersburg of that.”
