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Breakthrough, western Tennessee, March: Operation Javelin and Colonel (later General) Seng's march to the Virginias, later to studied and debated-turning point or footnote?-with good arguments on both sides, began with a masterstroke.
The thousand foot Kurian tower at Mississippi Point had stood for two generations. Every now and then Southern Command would bring some heavy artillery forward and shell it for an hour or so, just to see the light show as mysterious rippling bands of violet rose and detonated the shells a mile from target. The scientists from the Miskatonic attending these shows tried to study the effect with their poor collection of instruments but always left flummoxed.
The Kurian in that tower controlling the Mississippi between Memphis and Paducah is called "the Goobermaker." Even the best Hunter, sneaking into the woods around that tower, slowly becomes confused and disoriented. The more cautious, or maybe luckier, staggered away, underwear sometimes loaded like a sopping, sagging diaper, wondering what their name is. Most recover their sensibilities and memory eventually.
The Miskatonic consider the Goobermaker a powerful Kurian, feudal lord to sub-Kurians stretching from the outskirts of Nashville to Memphis and into southwestern Kentucky. He makes claim to the river as well, extracting tolls for water traffic, and ever more exorbitant fees in auras for cargo cutting across his territory to the Ohio or the Tennessee when Southern Commmand gets the upper hand against the gunboats of the river patrol.
David Valentine always chuckled and dismissed his participation in the assault as being
"on the bench-when I wasn't sitting in the bus with my helmet."
* * * *
"Are you fucking kidding me?" Glass said on his return from the ammo dump with the last boxes of brass, lead, and smokeless powder for the .50s.
"'Are you fucking kidding me, sir, Corporal,'" Valentine corrected. "You'll follow orders, just like me. No matter how ridiculous."
It was the last week of February and spring peeped through the twigs and breaks in the iron gray clouds as a bitterly cold storm blowing in from Canada exhausted itself somewhere over southern Missouri.
Their assault barge yawned before them at the end of a boarding plank. It was a Kurian transport for aura fodder, and someone had painted the inside a soothing pink. It looked like a giant mouth extending a sickly, rusted tongue held down by a twelve-foot depressor.
Valentine smelled of sandalwood. He'd treated himself to a long shower to relieve the jump-off tension.
He looked out at his company through the Halloween mask rubber-banded across his face.
The soldiers looked like a bunch of burned matches, with tinfoil wrapped around their head except for eyeholes.
Glass submitted to having tinfoil wrapped around his head and spray-painted dull black.
Patel helped him poke eyeholes and breathing apertures in it.
"At lest it's warm," Glass muttered. His heavy-weapons Grogs already had their masks on.
Some artiste in the company had formed tinfoil strands into horns on the Grogs' heads.
"Hey, Sergeant Major," a soldier called. "Shiny side out, remember? Glass's grouchy enough without getting brain bake."
"It doesn't matter," Patel said, securing Glass's headpiece with a rubber band at the forehead.
It wasn't a very good joke, but Valentine was relieved to hear it. The men smelled nervous, that sharp electric acid odor of anxiety.
Word had filtered up through the NCOs that some of the men were remembering what happened to Quislings caught fighting for Southern Command. The Kurians developed imaginative and painful manners of extracting auras from those guilty of such treasons.
Every Southern Command soldier knew that, if captured, they could probably expect to be shuttled to some work camp or other- they were young and fit, after all. Officers could expect a good deal of interrogation. Leading figures of the resistance, majors, colonels, and especially generals could expect a long period of wear and tear under drugs or blunter instruments before the inevitable show trial. Valentine could never find it in himself to condemn those captured in the Kurian Zone who confessed to plans ranging from blowing up hospitals to poisoning Youth Vanguard bake-sale cookies, because the confession was undoubtedly forced and false.
"We're ordered to load, sir," Preville said. Preville was a nearsighted company com tech with an old Motorola headset wired to the pack radio. He made do with some old round glass women's frames that didn't do much for his face. Valentine, through Rand, had insisted that he see a Southern Command doc and get some regulation glasses, but Preville liked how he looked in his lenses. The new ones hadn't shown up in time anyway.
Patel had overheard, so all Valentine had to do was nod.
"Load up and board! Load up and board!" Patel bellowed.
Word had it that General Lehman was watching the embarkation, going from formation to formation giving a last few words of encouragement. He hadn't made it to Valentine's group.
Odd-looking and inhuman in the painted tinfoil that obscured hair and ears, they filed into the barge.
"Enjoy, guys," Valentine said. "This'll be the easiest part of the whole trip."
With Ediyak, the company clerk, and Preville trailing behind, Valentine boarded. "Last on gets to be first on the Kurian shore," he said.
