To keep from sweating, despite the temperatures the team had their jackets partially unzipped and most were only wearing a balaklava over their face and head. Gear-wear ran a knife-edge as thin as they ridge they were walking up. If you wore too many clothes you got too hot and started sweating. By the same token, any exposed flesh was liable to frost-bite.

  Keeping an eye out for hypothermia, frostbite and hypoxia was the job of the assistant team leaders. Heck, it was everybody’s job. When a person became hypothermic, hypoxic their judgement dropped to nil. And frostbite only occurred after a portion of skin had become so numb from cold you couldn’t tell it was frostbitten. The only way to tell was to look. And it was hard to look at your own face.

  The problem was, what with the exertion, fatigue and general malaise caused by the low O2, everybody was thinking slower and so worn all they could do was concentrate on the next step. Mike found he had to flog his brain to get it to work. It was worse than being awake for a couple of days.

  The team paused to rotate the point and he was willing to just stop and breathe for a bit. The guys breaking trail couldn’t take the added exertion for long. Mike had set a hard time limit of twenty minutes on trail-breaking and everyone, including him, took turns.

  Just climbing up the slopes, carrying one heavy ass ruck, with a quarter the amount of oxygen available in lower areas, was hard enough. But when you also had to stamp down snow on each step it became a nightmare. So they were rotating. Mike found himself only two back from the front as they shifted the safety rope back. The previous point was standing by the side of the trail, carefully balanced on the edge of the knife-ridge, just breathing deep. Mike wasn’t sure, what with the helmet, goggles and face mask over the guy’s face, but he was pretty sure it was Sawn.

  “Sweat?” he asked as he passed the previous trail breaker. He checked to see there was no exposed flesh but as far as he could see Sawn was covered from head to toe.

  “Good,” Sawn said, gasping. “Tired. Fucking tired. No sweat.”

  “Good… man,” Mike gasped back, taking another step. Even conversation was impossible.

  Three more days.

  * * *

  Pavel slid the piton hammer into place and triggered it, slamming one of the spikes into the rock wall.

  Pavel had never taken rock climbing training. He had only recently begun, through the internet connections the Kildar had installed, to realize there were others like him in the world. For among the Keldara Pavel had always been considered strange; he liked to climb.

  The Keldara would sometimes, when grazing was bad, run their sheep, goats and cattle into the high valleys. And while sheep were stupid, goats were canny. They frequently did not want to come back to the corrals at night. And goats could climb. My, could they climb.

  Since Pavel was very young, he had followed the herds into the mountains. And since he was a child it was often Pavel who went searching for the recalcitrant goats. Because anywhere a goat could go, and more, Pavel could, and would, go. With a grin on his face. The higher, the stranger, the more brutal the face, the more he enjoyed himself.

  Currently he was in heaven. The Kildar had carefully pointed out the “difficult” portions of the mountain crossing to him, the places where it would be necessary to climb. And the device in his thigh pocket said that this face would be about fifty meters. Because of the angle of the shot, nearly vertical, it was hard to judge how difficult the climb would be. But the Kildar, although an excellent fighter, was clearly not an imagery analyst.

  It was more like a hundred and fifty, much of it about a grade five if he was capable of judging. It was night, the clouds finally cleared off and the wind howling. It was probably forty below zero in celsius. And he was splayed across a rock wall, one finger stuck in a crack, his boots barely scrabbling to two more points and slamming in a piton with the biggest grin in the world on his mask-covered face.

  This was the fucking shit as the Master Chief would say.

  He clipped a carabiner to the piton, ran his safety line through it and looked for the next set of hold points. Frankly, directly up there weren’t any. But he’d seen an easy ledge off to the side.

  He let go of all three points, holding himself only on the piton and swung sideways. For a moment he was suspended in the air, flying free as a bird. Then one hand slammed into the crack in the rock, the “easy” ledge that was a bare jutting of rock, and thumb and finger clamped to it like a limpet.

  For a moment he hung, suspended, then the other hand came up, sliding a pair of fingers into the crack and clamping them in a knuckle hold. There wasn’t anywhere to put his feet, but he could see another hold just a half meter or so up. He’d have to leave the fingers in the crack and lift himself on those to get to it.

  This was assuredly the shit.

  * * *

  “How long we gonna be doin’ this shit?” Serris asked.

  They’d been out on the mountains for only a day and already he was ready to head back to the barracks. First of all, there wasn’t a thing moving except them. You got a feel for an area pretty quick and all the animals they’d run across had that “undisturbed” feel. They’d sat on one trail in ambush positions all day and half the night and seen dick all.

  Then there was the terrain. The area reminded him of Afghanistan except for the, often thick, underbrush and the trees. The vegetation was more like around Dahlonega, the Rangers’ primary mountain training area. But the slopes were one fuck of a lot higher; Dahlonega was in the Appalachians not the fucking Alps. And they seemed steeper. They’d been slithering upwards towards the treeline for the last day, except for the ambush position, and they could quit any time as far as Ma Serris’ little boy was concerned.

  This was just stupid.

  “Til we’re done,” Staff Sergeant Jordan Lawhon said. “Time to do one of our ‘deception operations’.”

  The Ranger squad had stopped on the east slope of a ridge, looking out over a small valley that had a trail running down the far side. Just to their north and west the valley funneled to a pass through the mountains, the source of the trail. The deciduous trees and choking underbrush of the lower slopes had given way to firs, mostly wide spaced. A careful visual check hadn’t spotted anyone in view, though, so it seemed like a good place to do a “notional” ambush.

  “This is such shit,” Lane replied, flopping down and leaning back on a tree. He opened up the breach on his Squad Automatic Weapon and pouted. “I’m gonna foul the shit out of this, you know that? I’m gonna have to break it right the fuck down, clean it and then maybe I can load live rounds again.”

  “Quit the bitching,” Lawhon said, frowning. “We’re all gonna have to clean our pieces. Which is why only Alpha and Bravo team are gonna fire. Charlie’s gonna stay hot.”

  Squads were broken down into two “fire teams”. Each of the fire teams was led by a sergeant or corporal and had five men, the team leader, a SAW gunner, a grenadier and two riflemen. At least on paper. Rarely was a TOE, table of organization and equipment, filled.

  “Fine,” Lane sighed, pulling out his blank adapter and a case of blank ammo. “Let’s get this over with. We gotta run and shout or what?”

  “I think we just shoot the shit,” the squad leader said. “Maybe do some shouting.”

  “This is fucking nuts,” Serris said, readying his weapon. “Say when.”

  “Everybody ready?” Lawhon asked. “Charlie, do not fire.”

  “Got it,” Corporal John Pitzel, the Charlie team leader, replied. “Team, check fire.” Since the team was sprawled out on the ground in the traditional “rucksack flop”, that was unlikely.

  “Okay, Alpha and Bravo, open fire,” Lawhon said and pointed his blank-adapter covered muzzle in the general direction of uphill before pulling the trigger.

  The blank-adapter was required because without the back-pressure from the round that normally travelled down the barrel, the weapon would only fire one time and the receiver wouldn’t cycle the next round into the breach. With the usually red blank adapter screwed into the barrel the weapon would cycle normally even firing the blank ammunition.

  The other problem with blank ammunition was that it was dirty as hell. The propellant was a less refined material than the usual propellant in live rounds and coated the weapon in carbon that was difficult to remove. You could fire thousands of rounds through an M4 before it fouled. You might get a couple of hundred blanks out before the damned thing jammed solid.

  Despite those facts the Rangers had as much fun as they could.

  “ARRRRHHH!” Lane screamed, triggering expert five round bursts from his SAW despite having the barrel cover laid over his right knee. “TAKE THAT YOU DIRTY RAGHEADS!”

  “EAT SHIT AND DIE, ISLAMIC MOTHERFUCKERS!” Serris replied.

  “YOUR MOTHER WAS A WHORE AND YOUR FATHER A PIG!” Lane screamed, not to be outdone.

  “I WAVE THE BOTTOM OF MY SHOE IN YOUR GENERAL DIRECTION!!!” Serris added then looked up. “SARGE! WE’RE TAKING FIRE!”

  “CHECK FIRE!” Lawhon screamed, diving to the ground. He had been firing properly, weapon tucked into his shoulder, leaning into the non-existent recoil and aiming. In this case at a tree over by the trail, but training was training. Now he dove to the ground and looked up. Sure enough, the branches overhead were being cut by fire. “Where the fuck is that coming from?” The rounds were big. Maybe a fifty caliber. And now that the firing had stopped, he could hear the weapon firing, the dull thud-thud-thud of a heavy machine-gun.

  “Not in sight,” Pitzel replied. “Sounds like it’s coming from over the ridge.”

  “Serris, check it out,” Lawhon said, instantly.

  “Can I at least put live rounds in?” Serris asked, sarcastically. He already had the blank adapter unscrewed and was seating a mag of hot.

  “Just get your ass up there,” Lawhon replied.

  * * *

  “There you are, you fucker,” Serris hissed. He’d pulled a ghillie cloak over his head and pulled up his balaklava to reduce the shine on his face then slid up the ridge to the crest. The top was a knife-edge and by laying belly down, half behind one of the firs, he had a pretty good view of the far side. The valley they’d been in hooked around to the west and up at the head of it, right at the opening of the pass, there was a bunker. It was hard to spot, whoever built it had camouflaged the hell out of the damned thing, but Serris had spent enough time in the Stans to get pretty good at spotting shit like that. One of the reasons Lawhon sent him up. He also had “sniper eyes”, the ability to pick out something from the background that others missed.

  The bunker, though, was damned near two klicks away. They must have been firing at the sound. For that matter, thinking about the approach, the squad had never been in view of the guys, probably Chechens, in the bunker. The stupid fuckers had given their position away for nothing.

  “Bunker up in the pass,” he hissed over his shoulder to Lane. “Can’t see anything in it. Probaby a 12.7.”

  “Got it,” Lane replied. “Here comes the sarge.”

  “What you got?” Lawhon asked from just down the slope.

  “Bunker,” Serris repeated. “Probably a 12.7. Maybe a 14.5. Nobody outside.” He paused as something, he wasn’t sure what. “Damn, make that two… no three bunkers. Any of them could have been firing.”

  “Could they see us?”

  “Negative, wrong angle.” Serris turned his head ever so slightly and verified that. Yeah, their whole approach had been out of sight. But if they’d gone another couple of hundred meters up the valley. “They’re securing the pass.”

  “I called in,” Lawhon replied. “We’re to pull back. Our job is not to bet into a pissing contest with them unless they come down from the mountains. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

  “Ay-firmative,” Serris said, sliding ever so slightly backwards. “I don’t want them taking my head off.”

  * * *

  “Captain Bathlick,” Colonel Nielson said. “Another familiarization flight?”

  The pilot was just exiting her recently completed, there was still sawdust on the floor, ready room, helmet under her arm.

  The first of the pre-fab hangers was in place. The structures were large versions of the venerable “Quonset” huts, large enough that the Hinds could be slid in with their rotors still on. They had come packed on dozens of pallets and the non-militia Keldara men had taken less than a day to get the first one up: the concrete holding up the curved metal skeleton was still drying.

  Tacked onto one side was a small utility hut, the pilot “ready room.” Kacey was pretty sure it was going to be cold as hell when full winter hit.

  “Not plowing one of the birds on the supply drop missions was luck as much as anything,” Kacey said. “The more time we get in the birds the better. Especially at night.”

  “I agree,” Nielson replied. “However, you might want to wait up a bit. The first thing you need to know is that we just found out the Guerrmo Pass is secured by heavy weapons.”

  “Damn,” Kacey said, shaking her head. Guerrmo Pass was the lowest pass into the area of the Keldara operation. It was their primary route if they had to go in in support. All the other ways were much higher and, thus, they could carry less equipment in or casualties out. “That’s bad news. How secured?”

  “At least three bunkers with heavy machine guns at the opening,” Nielson said. “Not sure what might be further in.”

  “The Hinds are tough, but… ”

  “But, indeed,” Nielson admitted. “Not tough enough to take cross-fire from multiple heavy machine-guns. So stay away from the opening to Guerrmo Pass. The second reason you might want to wait up is that we were just informed that there is a shipment from the Georgian military on the way. They said it was left over parts from their Hinds; they recently decommissioned them. You probably want to look it over. Chief D’Allaird as well.”

  “Great,” Kacey said, grumpily. “DXed parts from the Georgians. These should be great.”

  “Never look a gift horse and all that,” Nielson said, smiling.

  “Oh, I’m not,” the pilot replied. “But D’Allaird is going to have to fully cert them before they go in the bird. What are we going to do about the bunkers?”

  “That is under discussion.”

  * * *

  “Well ain’t that some shit,” Captain Guerrin said.

  “I think we can take ’em out,” Sergeant Lawhon offered. “They’ve got the pass covered. But if we swing up on the shoulder of the mountain we can come in on them from behind and above. Either hammer them from up there with Carl Gustavs or get a team down on top. I don’t think they can fire at each other or back up the pass.”

  “And if they have supports further up the pass?” J.P. answered. “No, our mission isn’t to take out bunkers. Certainly not yet.” Guerrin paused and thought about the situation, both the “known” situation and the potential mission to support the Keldara. “But we need to keep an eye on them. Keep your squad up here. No more patrolling. Put in good security and keep a watch on that trail. Stay defiladed from the machine-guns but if anything comes out of that pass I want to know about it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Lawhon replied.

  “I’m going to redirect the company in this general direction,” Guerrin added. “So if you get in the shit, holler for help and we’ll come a runnin’.”

  * * *

  “Well ain’t this some shit.”

  Mike looked down the slope and wondered if he should have stopped earlier. He had been in the lead on the last stretch of the ascent so it was all his fault if they had. He unzipped his jacket all the way, feeling a bite of cold sink into his mid-layer of fleece pullover, and pulled out his rangefinders. The battery-powered range finders, along with all their batteries, had to be carried under their clothes to keep the batteries from being drained by the cold.

  He looked through the binos and pressed the button for range-finding. An invisible laser, good for about ten miles much less this short distance, lased the ground below and returned a range of nearly five hundred feet.

  Fuck.

  They had a couple of thousand foot ropes with them but he would have liked a bit more safety margin. However, this was as good as it was going to get.

  He waved to Gregoriya and Mikhail then dumped his ruck in the snow. The serious climbing gear was in an outside pouch and he pulled out the pre-rigged harness. Some climbers would have clucked in horror at the piton hammer and pitons he pulled out. However, at the moment environmental consciousness was the last thing on his mind.

  He used his ice axe to clear away some of the snow until he found solid granite then looked for a crack in the face. The air-driven piton hammer would drive one of the stainless steel spikes straight into the granite he had to do that. But a crack to start it was preferable. The good news was that it was granite. Feldspar or limestone, both prevalent in the area, both had the possibility of being highly friable, that is, the piton might work loose. That would be bad.

  He found a crack, finally, and loaded the piton hammer then laid the tip of the piton on the crack, leaned into the hammer, and fired it.

  The sound rebounded across the rocks. If there were any Chechens around he’d just definitively given their position away.

  He punched in three pitons then connected caribiners to each of the pitons. The military called caribiners “D rings”, a metal “ring”, generally some form of oval with a sprung-loaded opening bale. Some people used them as key-rings but they were originally designed for climbing. Finally, he took one of the ropes Mikhail handed him, uncoiled it and then recoiled it in two heaps. Taking the center section, he began tying it off. That was a bit complex. He didn’t want to leave the rope behind so he had to put in a recovery knot. However, he also wanted to make sure that nobody fell, thus the three pitons. Putting in a three-way recovery knot was a pain in the ass. Finally, he managed it. The knot had a slip-knot built into it that permitted someone on the ground to untie it by a hard yank on one of the two dangling ropes. The problem was that they could start to untie all by themselves under heavy use. The answer was to slide a pin of some sort into the loop of the slip-knot until the last climber was ready to go down.