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"You can call me Val, James. When I'm off my feet, we can drop the formalities."
"Well, there's someone came in special to meet you, sir. Major Brostoff. Said he used to serve with you under LeHavre in Zulu Company. He'll dock my ears if I keep you any longer, he's looking forward to sitting down with a drink or six with you."
Northern Missouri: The Iowa Kurians and Brass Rings, mindful of the importance of their fertile land and rail corridors, cannot put any more physical distance between themselves and Southern Command's forces in the Ozarks, so they do the next best thing. They put difficulties in the path of any move north and do all they can to add to the psychological distance.
The first layer of their defense is the free Grogs. While a few clans have been subverted by Kurian agents to launch raids and counterraids against Southern Command's forces-David Valentine experienced one in his last year as a Wolf-in order to keep bad blood between man and Gray One, most are doing what tribal communities always do. They tend their herds, gather their crops wild and planted, and guard their territory from all comers as fiercely as needs must.
The Iowans keep these Grogs well supplied with weapons matching their formidable size and voracious appetite for heads taken in battle, accepting surplus legworm and mutton (the Gray Ones are fond of sheep and lamb for their meat and wool) and the wood and leather gewgaws the females and youngsters produce at a great disadvantage. But if the Gray One traders cackle over the canniness of their trades, they are oblivious to the manner in which their lives are being sold cheaply in skirmishes with Southern Command.
The next layer of defense is the Missouri River. The wide-ranging River Patrol with their fast, shallow-draft boats traveling between the kudzu-chocked banks, backed up by artillery barges towed into position when and where necessary, make life miserable for any incursion in strength. With every bridge demolished and the riverbanks full of hostile Gray Ones, keeping a large supply of boats for crossings or rebuilding a bridge becomes a near impossible object.
Between the Missouri River and the Iowa heartland is the brushfilled expanse of Northern Missouri. This is the realm of the Gray Baron.
It's hard to say why men choose service as military advisors to the Grogs. Freedom from the strictures and Reapers of the Kurian towers, the Universal Church lectures, and the endless "volunteering" for timewasting make-work projects can be found in the brush as an Officer of Nonhuman Forces. The capricious Gray Ones are good friends in victory, but after a defeat are likely to place the blame on allies and assuage the sting of humiliation with the ONF scapegoat's brain-basted liver. The Gray Baron is unusually adept at keeping his allied Grogs in line, perhaps because his savagery matches their own.
His Grogs roam the lands between Omaha and the Mississippi, running their own railroad (the "Grog Express" runs the chord of his protective arc between Saint Joseph and Hannibal). They provide a backstop for any in-strength incursions from Southern Command and do what they can to stop the raiders and cattle thieves of the free Grogs south of the Missouri River.
Finally, there is the formidable military organization of the Iowa Guard. Able to draw on the sons and daughters from Kur's most privileged Quislings, the wearers of the coveted Brass Ring, these scions of aristocracy get to "prove their brass" in keeping Iowa fat and contented. When the Grogs in Omaha cut the key rail line running to the west, they started a long, hard-fought campaign to evict the rebel Golden Ones. After a costly frontal-assault disaster and an even bloodier attempt at an envelopment, they settled into a siege that eventually broke the Golden Ones with heavy artillery and fearsome flame-spewing vehicles.
The Golden Ones still refused to surrender, and fled into the wild tangles of Northern Missouri for shelter. There they were eventually run to earth by the Gray Baron and bargained for what autonomy they could in exchange for giving up the fight.
Picking up with the rest of their unhappy history in this fateful year begins with the Force Light team's venture into the Missouri brush from the Wolf outpost.
Brostoff's airy tent still smelled of leather and rank sweat, the old odor Valentine was all too familiar with from his days in the Wolves.
Long ago, Valentine had served with Brostoff as a lieutenant. He was still obnoxious but a decent enough man when sober, who looked after his Wolves as though they were his own sons. Carefully guarding their health and blood, he made sure each of his team was equipped and ready before sending them out into the brush.
Still, it struck Valentine as odd that he'd made major. Especially major in a forward area. Southern Command kept all but the most secretive drunks in quieter areas until they either sobered up or their health gave out.
"We supply ourselves by trading with the Groggies," Brostoff said. "There's a good supply of root beer mix, always ready to send north. As long as we don't shoot at each other, root beer flows north and lamb chops, 'shrooms, and spuds come south."
Valentine sipped his root beer-the old Southern Command syrup, a legacy of some boggy old general who believed that the men built stills to brew alcohol because there were no quality soft drinks available. Brostoff drank artificial lemonade, a popular Kurian Zone beverage that Valentine suspected was generously seasoned with bad vodka. At least he tossed it down as if in a hurry to have it hit his stomach in the same manner he'd used as a younger man in Zulu company. Though in those days his hand didn't shake when he set the glass back down again.
"My team needs to get to wherever those Golden Ones have been taken, sir. The sooner the better," Valentine said.
"Wish I had a couple of scout cars or a good truck, but all our wheels have been put into reserve," Brostoff said, topping off his glass. "You know, they used to have a plane at this post, back in the day, after we captured Dallas and those airfields in North Texas. I looked it up on the old base TOEs. There was talk of flying out to Colorado for talks with the Legendaires-the 4th Division. See if we could meet up mid-Kansas. I would have liked to have seen that. Now the 4th could be in Kansas City, Kansas, calling for help, and I'd have to sit on my hands and patrol the security zone. Defensive stance my right nut."
"How about a guide?"
Brostoff downed his tumbler and belched. He winked at Valentine. "I can do better than that, Val. I'll get you a couple of Cats to take you there. Cats don't pay no attention to the Defensive Stance any more than the Bears do."
Scheier and Jarvis were both impossibly young for Cats, to Valentine's eyes.
Scheier, small and dark and pinched, looked to be older by a year or two and talked as though she were vastly senior to Jarvis, though Valentine doubted there was more than a year's difference between them. Perhaps the extra attitude made up for the fact that Jarvis was a full head higher. Jarvis reminded him of the big, strong milk-fed farm girls of Wisconsin. She even bound her head in a red handkerchief like a teen setting off to do the morning milking.
Being Cats, they both wore civilian attire, or at least what a sensible civilian moving among the Grogs might wear. Heavy canvas, layers of flannel, and some discreet padding at the knees, elbows, and shoulders offered a little protection under vented leather jackets.
They took Valentine's team north in a series of careful quick-marches. Sometimes they moved by day, others by night. Valentine approved of the care they took in open country, careful to never skyline themselves and keeping well in the trees whenever possible.
The march was tough on Pellwell, however. She was still basically a civilian, and for all the power in her wiry body, she exhausted easily and finished her meals too quickly.
"The shorter the rations, the longer you chew," Chieftain suggested during a morning meal of a toasted, doughy paste and some young heartroot Ahn-Kha had dug up from an old Grog campsite.
He rarely saw their two guides together. One always remained behind "babysitting" as he heard them whisper, while the other scouted, scrounged, foraged, explored, or picked out the next four-hour dash for safety.
Valentine had killed his first Reaper when their guides were practicing their handwriting on a blackboard. Babysitting, indeed.
Valentine discreetly inquired of Duvalier whether she knew anything about the pair.
