Read Survivalist - 15 - Overlord for Free Online Page B

killing, the fighting. But we all sort of wanted what came afterward.”
    “Do you think we’ll ever find what comes afterward, John,”
    Natalia asked him. “Do you think we’ll still recognize it if we ever do find it?
    “I mean,” and she cleared her throat. “Sometimes it is very hard. Would we still recognize it?” And she looked at each of them.
    John Rourke had no answer for her, let alone for himself.

Chapter Six
    Captain Dmitri Pavornin considered it a challenge. A small force against heavily entrenched enemy forces, small in number but well equipped. It was the least important of the two prongs of attack ordered by the Hero Marshal Karamatsov. But it could be important for him, Pavornin knew. If he could distinguish himself here—if only—
    The sun had long ago set. He glanced at the chronometer on his wrist.
    It was nearly time for the attack to begin.
    Pavornin walked across the open expanse of the staging area. It was desert here, inhospitable dunes of coarse sand, shifting and blowing in the wind, a wind pummelling his face now with grains of sand which stung like sleet. His survival training had been in the Urals. He knew discomfort. His men moved busily at the last of their preparatory tasks, the gunships ready, their rotors in all-but-silent motion, their downdrafts adding to the wind which blew the sand. He wore goggles to protect his eyes, thin gloves to protect his hands. It was cool here, nearly what one could call cold. But after the Ural Mountains survival training, he rarely called anything cold anymore.
    He checked the timepiece again, starting toward his command helicopter. He would use it to join those elements
    of his forces already moving up on foot for the ground attack against Eden Base.
    Eden — Pavornin was aware of the Judeo-Christian creation myths, the Garden of Eden a paradise on earth from which man was forever exiled. He scoffed at such superstition, both openly and privately.
    And he wondered, privately, if the men and women who had journeyed to the edge of the solar system and back during five centuries of sleep had thought they would awaken to paradise somehow renewed.
    Pavornin smiled. If they had, they would learn very quickly that they were mistaken.
    Akiro Kurinami had been attempting to see Commander Dodd since word had first been disseminated to expect a Soviet attack. And Dodd, Kurinami had determined several hours ago, had been trying equally as hard to avoid him.
    Kurinami looked at his wristwatch. Elaine would be worried that he had not returned, but Kurinami felt that if he abandoned his vigil outside Dodd’s command tent, all chance of seeing Dodd before the attack began would probably be lost.
    And so he waited, trying to fill his thoughts with Elaine Halversen rather than the growing disgust and distrust he felt for Commander Dodd.
    Elaine was older. She was, of course, black, while he was Japanese.
    But he had never felt this for any other woman except his wife, now five centuries dead, as was the rest of his family, every friend he had ever made, every cadet with whom he had trained, every man he had ever flown with. Someday, he promised himself, there would be time. He would take a gunship and fly to Japan, taking Elaine with him. He promised himself that, though he had never told Elaine this, she should see the land that had been so rich in history. And
    somehow, he felt that he owed it to the land itself, to go there and shout to the emptiness that there was one who lived who had not forgotten.
    He would shout it until he could no longer speak.
    Commander Dodd exited his tent, with him one of the German officers. Akiro Kurinami started forward. “Commander. I must speak with you, Commander Dodd.”
    “I’m really very busy, Lieutenant Kurinami. With this impending attack and all. Tomorrow?”
    Dodd, his brow furrowing the way he always furrowed it to show intensity, thoughtfulness, and concern, smiled. Kurinami ignored the man’s words. They were