Fire on Ice

Chapter 1 Gelada, 2285 They had it all wrong. Hell was cold, and Bard was there. Someone had said it was minus fifty-five Fahrenheit this morning, at least before the thermometer froze, the red liquid inside congealing like clotting blood in the bulb. On Gelada, the Uni-Fleet Troops fought two enemies—the—illusive, barely-visible armies that harried them with continual swift-stabbing attacks and the weather. So far the weather had inflicted the most casualties. The natives were small, almost bug-like in appearance, and attacked in insectoid swarms, using cruel though tiny spears and arrows, glass-bladed war axes, weapons primitive almost beyond belief. Only the fact they could move lightning fast, in spite of the snow and ice, and were all but invisible until they fell upon you made them even marginally effective. Silence and surprise were their stock in trade. Woe betide the straggler who fell a few steps behind the unit. He was marked for death at once and taken down with merciless efficiency. Three of their number had been lost that way before word spread and everyone stayed closely bunched. Bard found a certain irony in the fact that, for all the technology at the Universal Council’s disposal, troops on the ground, armed with old-fashioned projectile firearms were still often needed to take and hold territory. On many of the worlds the council sought to conquer and add to their galaxy-spanning empire, much of the technology simply did not work. Gelada was one of those worlds. What value they perceived in this misbegotten ball of ice on the outer fringes of explored space, he had no idea. He only knew no electro-magnetic-based devices were reliable here. The experts had some lengthy explanation about magnetic fields and energy bands that he didn’t fully understand. Because of this, he knew his force was operating at least five hundred years into the past. They carried EM-25 rifles that used gunpowder and archaic metallic projectiles. They communicated with battery powered wire-linked “phones,” or tried to when the batteries didn’t freeze. At close range, some radios worked some of the time. The rest of the time it was shouts and hand signals, neither too effective with the constant howling winds and blizzard conditions that cut visibility to a hundred yards or less. His only reliable contact with the upper command structure, secure and comfortable in a large ship orbiting high above, was the telepathic link through an implant in the bone behind his ear. He could receive orders through it and send an occasional urgent message back in an emergency—provided a tele-tech was on duty at that particular console on the ship. “Ours is not to wonder why,” he muttered to himself. Captain Bardon Welstaad has no need to know the big plan. He has only to lead his unit of mixed army and marine troops and take control of a section of this icebound wasteland. If he doesn’t freeze to death first or fall victim to the snow wasps’ diminutive blades, that is. Right now Bard doubted he would ever be warm or see sunlight again. Sensing motion at his left, Bard turned his head. Easily recognizable in his bulky cold weather gear, Gordon Farrell marched beside him. The senior enlisted man in Bard’s command, Gordon was a veteran of numerous campaigns on worlds hot, cold, dry, wet, and filled with every horror one could imagine. The big man’s unfailing calm and almost uncanny ability to say and do what was needed had made him Bard’s de facto second-in-command. Without Gordon, he wasn’t sure he could even keep the unit together, much less maintain the discipline needed to press on and pretend to take control of this long rocky peninsula of arctic terrain. To the right lay the sea, black water that somehow did not freeze, perhaps due to the concentration of mineral salts it carried. The wind blowing off that body of water cut like razor blades. Down the other side was a river. They’d glimpsed it a few times, roiling water plunging down cataracts and racing through rapids in a mad dash to join the ocean. Neither offered hope of a hospitable safety zone in an emergency. Supposedly other units moved up similar long fingers of land and they’d all meet somewhere ahead where the ragged arms joined a mainland. That was really all he knew. Lost in thoughts that had wandered too far from the moment, Bard stumbled at a sudden impact. When had his pack suddenly trebled in weight? The next thing he registered was hundreds of darts of pain as the cold flowed into his insulated body gear through gashes made by the sharp blades of a hoard of snow wasps. He’d read once of an ancient torture called Death of a Thousand Cuts. He’d never expected to experience it, even in this strange variation. Thought faded as first pain overwhelmed him and then hypothermia shut down his conscious mind.