Tales from Kalgachia - 5

The Kalgachi Defence Force installation known as Site 215 was a sign of the times, if nothing else. From the surface it resembled many other sites of its kind; a concrete archway set into the mountainside with a pair of blast doors, suggesting an underground adit large enough to convey a group of people but too small to drive through. This particular site had no road leading to it - it stood at the head of a dry stream bed which, when not buried in snow or running with the waters of the springtime thaw, served as the easiest access path.

Inside the entrance was a guardroom with kitchenette, a bathroom, a bunk room and a generator room, all of which were uncomfortably small and rendered in stained, badly-set concrete. On the far side of the guardroom stood another set of large doors; the entrance to the complex proper which, aside from the two KDF soldiers on guard duty, nobody was authorised to enter.

Not that Site 215 had a lot of visitors. Sometimes a party of KDF troops on manoeuvres would stumble breathlessly through the entrance, slinging their equipment down on the guardroom floor and requesting shelter from the inclement weather that often swept over these slopes. They came in during fine weather too, once word of the guards' capacious coffee pot had gotten around. Sometimes pilots would arrive by helicopter, landing on the high plateau a few hundred metres uphill and turning a mere waypoint on their navigational exercise into a more sociable affair. It was the jollity of the old country writ large, enjoyed and reciprocated by the two guards who welcomed any break in the tedium of their lonely posting. There was even a local civilian goat herder who called by; against regulations he was allowed to use the guardroom as his seter for a few days at a time, while his goats grazed the scattered tussocks that clung to the rocks all around.

But whoever they were, no visitors were ever allowed to pass through the inner doors. The inevitable rumours abounded of what lay behind them; samples from Minarboria's old bio-weapons arsenal? Captured Safir extraterrestrials? Lord Toastypops, the undead gift-bringer of Toastytop? A smelter and bullion vault served by the local gold mines? Most of the visiting troops knew better than to ask the guards directly, and those few who did were met with jovial evasions. The guards, Corporal Florianov and Private Bantz, noted triumphally between themselves that no visitor had ever correctly guessed what lay behind the inner doors. The answer was, after all, impossibly simple.

Nothing at all.

Anyone with the key to unlock the doors and open them would find the same edifice of brown concrete wall that lay on either side. Like many other KDF underground installations - the majority, in fact - Site 215 was a decoy. Beyond the guardroom and its modest facilities, it did not exist. Even the blast doors were made of timber, lined with wooden dowels as fake rivets and painted over in a russet grey to give the appearance of steel. Of the hundred or more names listed on the KDF's roll as garrisoned here, all were fictitious except for Florianov, Bantz and the two female soldiers of their relief watch who were currently on leave. That was the secret, one which was being kept all over Kalgachia. KDF High Command had concluded that despite the camouflage skill of their engineers, sufficient scrutiny of satellite imagery and sensor data by potential adversaries - as would precede an invasion, for instance - would identify many of the KDF's bunker entrances for targeting by huge concentrations of air power. The only solution was to build more entrances than could possibly be triaged for bombardment or capture within an operational timeframe, even by the largest military powers. The steady drip of visitors to such venues as Site 215, encouraged by the chain of command, helped to maintain the appearance of an active installation. Other decoy sites with road access were visited by electronic warfare specialists who, when it was too dark or foggy to obtain optical confirmation from above, spoofed the ignition coils and infrared plumes of vehicles in transit. The existence of the whole arrangement was, in all probability, known to outside intelligence agencies - any remotely competent OSINT analyst would have noted the gross mismatch between the Kalgachi labour supply and the number of structural traces appearing on satellite imagery. The chief effect lay in them being unable to tell the fake bunkers from the real ones. To the admission of all involved, the arrangement was an obsessive one - but any doubters were silenced by the KDF creed which was drilled into the ears of every soldier from day one of basic training:

"If you ever wonder why - look at the map. If you think there's too much fuss - look at the map. If you want to know who the enemy will be - look at the map. If you think retreat is an option - look at the map. And if you think surrender is an option - for that, read the history books..."

The downside of their noble task was readily apparent to Florianov and Bantz; as a fake operation they were provisioned in a fake manner. There was barely enough generator fuel to keep the lights running, never mind the temperamental hotplate which provided the occasional cooked meal between warmings of the coffee pot. The guards' rifles, like the doors, were painted wooden mockups - the only real means to defend the place was Florianov's sidearm, an old Shirley pistol of Passio-Corum origin whose ammunition was near impossible to obtain in this part of the world; Florianov only had half a clip of it left. But he was more comfortable with his armament than that of Private Bantz, who possessed a single white phosphorus anti-lich grenade of Shirerithian issue that had doubtless passed through many hands before somehow ending up in KDF service. Bantz had purchased it from a local cossack in exchange for a two-thirds empty bottle of potato spirit while under the influence of those same two thirds, only noticing the grenade's coating of dents and rust spots when he sobered up. Sensing that it was more than likely a dud, or else might detonate the moment the pin was pulled, Florianov had ordered the grenade relegated to the shelf beside Bantz's bunk where it was now gathering a respectable layer of dust.

The two guards kept a sixteen-hour watch, locking the doors for eight hours overnight while they slept. On one particular evening, Florianov had announced he was 'turning in early' to the bunk room - a euphemism indicating an intention to spend an hour alone with a copy of 'Marrying Out', a risqué periodical featuring the zaftig maidens of the Ashkenatzi west in a series of tastefully-posed colour photographs. Bantz, being descended from the bagel-chomping peoples himself, was faintly disgusted with the whole premise of the publication; not least because the girl on the front cover bore an uncanny resemblance to his own sister.

Florianov was aware of this - luxuriating in the fact that his appointed hour was invariably extended by Bantz remaining at his post for an extra thirty minutes, as a precaution to ensure Florianov's perusal of Yiddish smut and any associated self-abuse would be safely concluded by the time Bantz joined him in the bunk room. So it was with some surprise that a mere ten minutes into this evening's session, Florianov was violently interrupted by the door of the bunk room bursting open, requiring a flurry of hasty fumbling. Bantz stood trembling and pale-faced in the doorway as Florianov finished buttoning up his pants. For a moment, he appeared incapable of speaking.

"What are you doing here, man?" snapped Florianov. "That guardroom has to be manned for another fifty minutes yet!"

"S...s...someone's at... th-the door..." stuttered Bantz, sliding into the room and shrinking behind his own bunk with his eyes fixed on the point he had entered.

Florianov was immediately suspicious. Site 215 hardly ever got visitors at this hour, and Bantz was not a man to frighten easily. Then he heard it; the insistent THUMP-THUMP-THUMP of a fist beating on a door. From the holster belt hanging at the head of his bunk, Florianov snatched his Shirley pistol and moved into the guardroom.

Bantz crept out behind him, squeaking in protest as Florianov began to lift the bar across the doors to the outside world. "No..." he said.

Florianov froze. "What is it?" he said.

Bantz shook his head. "Not... not that door..."

Another THUMP-THUMP-THUMP rang out. It was not coming from the front doors at all - it was coming from the fake doors. The doors which lay against a solid wall and led nowhere.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP.

Now it was Florianov's turn to lose the colour from his face. There were other sounds now; the sound of rubble being scraped away, and muffled voices. He raised his pistol at the doors and his eyes darted to his comrade. "Okay, Bantz... I need you to open it," he whispered. "Do it quick."

Bantz in his terror was rooted to the spot, unable to move.

"Come on, Bantz, stay with me!" hissed Florianov. He gestured with his pistol, which seemed to get through to his terrified comrade. Bantz duly crept forward, lifted the bar across the doors and dropped it onto the floor with a hollow wooden clunk. Then, seizing the thick handle of the door nearest to him, he hauled it open.

Through the sight of Florianov's quivering pistol stood five men in KDF uniform, three of them officers and two with pickaxes, silhouetted against the maw of a freshly-hacked tunnel by a blinding floodlight. Others stood behind them, figures in dark hooded robes. The three officers jolted at the sight of Florianov and his pistol, but found the wit to laugh as he recognised their uniforms and hastily lowered it.

"Site 215?" said one of them.

"Yes sir," said Florianov, a mixture of relief and utter bewilderment flowing through him. "Forgive me, I..."

He was interrupted by the clatter of an object bouncing forward past his feet. Bantz's sketchy grenade - minus its pin - went rolling into the freshly-cut tunnel.

There was no time to react. Before Florianov could turn and call out Bantz for the hysterical idiot he was, a flash of blinding white filled his entire field of vision, accompanied by an otherwordly hiss as he instinctively crouched to the floor. Then, somewhere beyond the blobby mess of his burned-out retinas, he heard the screams of his incinerated visitors echoing off the walls. A little of his sight came back to him, useless as it beheld a cloud of dense creamy smoke filing the room. He became aware of a force tugging the pistol out of his hand, followed by a rapid succession of gunshots that illuminated the smoke in yellow flashes.

"Bantz!" he yelled, "Stop!"

For his efforts he felt two bullets tearing through his torso like chariots of pain, causing him to crumple on the floor. His perception of the world began to fade away instantly, but with satisfaction he noted a volley of gunfire coming from the visitors' tunnel and the corresponding thud of Bantz's body falling behind him.

For a while he thought and felt nothing, besides a general acceptance that he was dead. Then, after an unguessable period of time, he found he could hear the sound of people walking around. A little light crept into his eyes, and in that light was a series of human shapes - another officer, shouting something. He was shouting for a medic. Another figure, presumably the medic, came bounding toward him, only to be stopped by one of the dark hooded figures who seemed to appear from nowhere and spoke in a calm, low voice:

"You will allow death to take him, colonel, as it has taken his foolish friend. They will come to no harm in the world beyond. The fewer who know of our work here, the better."

"But brother," said the colonel, "We had him lined up for retention in the site upgrade. His record is impeccable. And he's a KDF man! How can we abandon one of our own?"

"Your sentiment is enlightened, colonel," said the hooded figure, "but fate has decided against you on this occasion, and I do not intend to debate the matter with the uninitiated. He will have the proper rites to send him on his way... of that you are assured."

A huff of frustration, and the colonel was gone. Florianov's attempted screams of protest were muted by his paralysed body, helpless to do anything but process his senses which began to sink away again. His last sight was a hand from the hooded figure's gaping sleeve, extending two fingers to press his eyelids closed.

"Farewell, warrior of the light. The Garden awaits you."