Palacio Libre

MARCH 24TH, 2009
10:30 AM
FT. KURUGEN, DVORYTS (PALACIO), RUSSIAN WEST INDIES

Lieutenant Colonel Pavel Pavlovich Strelnikoff sweated through his uniform in the 100-degree heat. It was only March, but it was yet another muggy, appalling humid day. Russians were not made for warm weather, and any natural advantage his troops may have had was mooted by this fact. Russians in the Caribbean? It seemed like Zulus in Iceland, to the Colonel.

And yet his men toiled on, looking curiously out of place in their khakis and camofalgue, constructing barricades and going about their daily routines of barracks duty and drill.

War with the United States was far in the back of Strelnikoff's mind, even after the Hamilton incident, which had happened on Green Island and was not his responsibility, but that of that upstart shavetail, Captain Petrovich. He had more important things to think about, like the fact that he had been passed over for promotion to full Colonel by his old classmate from the academy, Yevgeny Pushkin.

This drew Strelnikoff's ire, made his blood boil intensely. Didn't they realize how impotent the Lieutenant appellation made him? He had the responsibility worthy of a full Colonel, perhaps even a Major General. He had the 7th Rifle Brigade, plus the 41st Motorized Batallion, under his command. And yet his epaullet ranked him as not even worthy of a Colonelcy, but the lacky of a non-existant commander. And yet here he was, commanding 15,000 men on an important Russian military base, with a worthless word clinging to the front of his title. It galled him to no end.

Strelnikoff had served the Russian Army loyally for over 20 years, having served in the waning days of the Afghan War and the disturbances in Chechnya. He was a cruel man and yet a model soldier, who always did as ordered, but occasionally did it too well, too vigorously for the Marquis of Queensbury. He was a stickler for detail and precision and had no tolerance for contrary opinions. And he was petty - any insult, any slight angered him and would color his perception of a person or situation for the rest of its days. He was a martinet, not respected but feared. His very name - Executioner - made him feared by his troops, and there was a rumor that, in Afghanistan, as a young Lieutenant, he had once summarily executed a Sergeant for refusing to fire on a group of Afghani horsemen, fearing they were civilians.

Strelnikoff watched impassively as his men drilled and chatted, seemingly in want of something to do. Then his aide, Lieutenant Komarov, rushed up to him with an urgent dispatch.

"Colonel, the insurrectionists have attacked our supply depot at Shansky!" the young officer reported.

The Colonel snapped to attention. It was news of action, which quickly jolted him out of his stuporous contemplation.

"How long ago?" the Colonel asked officiously.

"About fifteen minutes ago," the Lieutenant replied. "About two hundred rebels launched an attack. Few specifics, but it looks like the depot was overrun."

The depot was overrun... That meant rifles, machine guns, ammunition, in the hands of those goddamned apes. Strelnikoff boiled over with furious anger. He swore, then drew his pistol and fired a shot into the air, breaking the silence and scattering a flock of birds.

"Organize B Company and come with me!" the Colonel shouted, suddenly galvanized. The Lieutenant saluted and ran off to pass the word.

* * *

The insurrectos finished emptying their carbines into the guts of the last Russian soldiers. After this was done, they moved forward into the destroyed depot, eagerly looking for any surviving guns and ammunition.

Overseeing their efforts was Major Revnow. Although he spoke fluent Spanish and fought with the resolution, ruthlessness and determination, if not quite stupidity, of Che Guevara, he was actually an employee of the CIA, sent to help organize and aide the insurrectos against their Russian occupiers. With him was a small team of spooks, including his unlikely second-in-command, Lieutenant Emma - a female agent of the State Department until she was "commissioned" by her bosses for this mission, just months ago.

Revnow had been on the island since the following the Georgia War of the previous summer. Russia's attempts to re-establish a foothold in the Western Hemisphere had unnerved the Bush Administration; buying military bases in Venezuela and Cuba was one thing, but actually occupying a long-forgotten, virtually-abandoned and unknown series of islands within hopping distance of Florida was too much. The Cold War had re-booted with a vengeance, and Revnow was caught smack in the middle of it.

Revnow was an extreme cynic towards US foreign policy; he had been disgusted by America's invasion of Iraq and found Bush to be an idiot. But now he was being given a covert job, allowed to play a liberator - at least in his own mind - against a cruel oppressor. And cruel the Russians were; he had seen the mass graves, had watched deaths of too many of his newfound comrades, whether in battle or by firing squad, to maintain his pacifism.

But his subordinate, Lieutenant Emma, was a mysterious figure that he barely knew. She had been sent, allegedly at the behest of the State Department, but in fact by Rahm Emanuel himself to assist with covert operations. Revnow didn't pretend to understand the political machinations at work behind his back; he just knew he had a job to do, a people to liberate.

As the insurrectoes counted their weapons, sifted the uniforms of the dead Russian troops, and rested and recovered from their hard fight, they heard sounds of a motor vehicle coming down the road. Revnow signalled for his men to prepare to receive a counterattack; but they were too engrossed in their looting to notice.

An explosion rocked the ground, sending dirt and debris flying. Revnow fell on his stomach, then stood up, pulling his Beretta 93R machine-pistol out of his waistband.

"Companeros!" he shouted. "They are here!" But it was too late, and the men had lost their organization in the aftermath of battle. The partisans, armed with a museum's worth of weapons ranging from Enfields and M1 Garands to AKs and various burp guns, rushed out to greet their foe, but it was too late to arrange a proper reception.

The first armored vehicle appeared over the ridge, an armored personnel carrier. The few insurrectoes that Revnow had managed to organize fanned out across the road, lying on their bellies in ambush. A few were able to take cover in the bushes, or amongst the ruins of the depot, hastily preparing their newly-acquired weaponry.

The first shots were fired by a machine gun within the depot. Within seconds the firing became general. Revnow's men, their rifles and machine guns virtually worthless, were sitting ducks, and the vehicle decimated their ranks with chain gun fire. Only those within the depot, and those hugging the ground with Revnow, escaped unharmed. The men had used most of their explosives in the initial attack; one man tried to aim an RPG but was shot down, while another, attempting to suicide bomb the truck, was turned to red mist by the high-caliber bullets. In less than a minute the Russian vehicle had single-handedly wiped out half of the partisans, and the rest gave up any pretense of further resistsance. Now it was just a question of fleeing, of survival, and only a handful of men remained with Revnow as more trucks rushed forward.

A platoon of Russian infantry carrying submachine guns rushed forward, covered by another machine gun truck. Revnow fired a burst of ammunition into their ranks, wounding two of them. But once in position, the platoon's return fire decimated his front line; a half-dozen Palacios were killed in the first volley, and the rest turned to flee, despite the American's fortitude. "Stand and fight!" he shouted as bullets crashed around him; but it was no use, as the partisans fled into the brush, desperate to escape the massacre. Few did, and most were gunned down in the back by the merciless fire. A few brave souls remained in the depot covering the retreat, or falling back through the brush under cover of rifle and machine gun fire; but the day was already lost, and survival was paramount.

Revnow stood in the road, facing the Russian vehicles alone. He aimed his pistol at the armored truck and fired, but his gun was empty. He then picked up a dead burp gun from a fallen colleague and launched a suicide run, shouting and firing his weapon at the truck. He felt a burst of gunfire enter his side, missing his arm and slamming directly into his chest; and he fell, the continuing rattle of gunfire echoing as he faded to black.

* * *

Revnow's eyes burst open. He struggled to focus, and sat up, but was immediately met with the sharp kick of a boot across his chin. As his eyes focused, he saw two Russian soldiers standing over him, rifles aimed.

Revnow coughed; he tasted blood in his mouth. Through the sunlight appeared the face of a cruel looking man - clearly an officer, he could tell from the cap alone. His white uniform was drenched with sweat and dirt.

Revnow fumbled around his waistband, hoping he could find his spare pistol, a small Walther PPK, to either kill himself or go down fighting. But he could move little under the eyes of the Russian troops, and found himself face to face with the officer.

"You are an American," he said in broken English.

Revnow coughed and sputtered, blooded running down his chin.

"CIA, yes?"

Revnow refused to say anything. The officer signalled for the soldiers.

The officer drew a small pistol from his waistband and aimed it at the wounded man.

"Sir!" a junior officer rushed beside the senior officer, grabbing his arm. The Colonel brushed him away, infuriated.

"He is an American," the officer said. "He's CIA. He could be valuable to us-"

The Colonel cut him off with a sneer. "So? Haven't you read the papers? We're at war with America now." He then cocked his pistol and aimed it at Revnow's head. All the Major could do was close his eyes and wait for Strelnikoff to live up to his name.