Louis Shalako
The
enemy were advancing up the road to Ryanville.
The
Confederation troops were ambushing them, mining key bridges, and defending
ridges, chosen almost at random. One or two of the higher hills had been
ignored for example, and then the enemy had been taken from the flank down in
the flatlands on the other side. It had cost them one of the Samsons, a couple
of infantry vehicles, and the Confederation had sacrificed a Puma.
The
crew of four people were now walking north-west, keeping a kilometre or so
southwest of the road. Killing two birds with one stone, they would report
observations or contact with the enemy. Foot patrols still had their uses, and
they had to get out of there anyways. At the rate the Unfriendlies were going,
they might even beat them to the next ambush point. If so, they stood a good
chance of pickup.
The
air raid had gone well enough, the drones dropping dumb little iron bombs (a
grand total of sixteen bombs for crying out loud), from two hundred metres
relative altitude onto the long string of trucks and small four-bys trailing at
the back end of the armoured column. This was far from any other ambush point,
coming out of nowhere as it were. They’d gotten a few hits and a lot of
near-misses, almost as good when using shrapnel against unprotected trucks and
other soft-skinned machines.
The
impression, was that the enemy column
was burning from end to end in the drone and other footage.
The
enemy drone operators, not expecting exactly that scenario, had seemed
powerless or unwilling to come down and interfere with such an operation. To be
fair, it was all over within one and a half minutes of popping up over the
horizon. Things might be different next time.
Having
dumped its load, Drone One had climbed out to the northeast, coming around again
and taking up station above and behind the enemy drones. Drone Two and Three
had returned to base on a zigzag, nap-of-the-planet course, Three for refueling
and dispersal, and Two for further bombing up.
Two
would await further action.
The
enemy drones appeared oblivious to the possibilities, but they clearly had
their function and their orders.
“Drone
One.”
“Drone
One. Colonel Graham. State your message.”
She
was unfamiliar with this one, but he clearly had some kind of training or
experience.
“Proceed
with the second part of the plan.”
“Roger
that. Initiating.”
They
watched onscreen as Drone One, a good three kilometres back, reduced throttle.
The operator, Trooper Kuri Mackinnen, with a wife and two kids back in good old
Helsinki, put the nose down and centred up on the first of the enemy drones.
The highest one. The one with the gun. All of his jammers were going at full
power in case of enemy missile launch.
“Firing,
Colonel.”
There
might have been a couple of hits.
This
guy was good. Still a few hundred or more metres behind the enemy drone, he
descended past it at a high rate of speed. Pulling up hard, he popped it right
in the belly from what looked like less than a hundred metres. Stuff fell and
spun away, and then it was burning and breaking up.
“…awesome.”
“Thank
you Colonel Graham—and we can wax one bandit.” This little piggy would be going
right into the bank.
It
would be a big help in giving his kids an education.
The
land went sideways in the view, and the craft was banking hard left, the nose
camera attempting to get a good shot of the enemy drone as it spun into the
ground and the trees.
It
was gone, gone from the board and that was good.
Kill confirmed.
“Careful
there—don’t pull the wings off.” That sure sounded like Noya, tapping in from the
drone base and its own little control room.
“I’m
fine. Shut up. Coming back around—” This one would take one hell of a bite out
of the home mortgage. “Powering up a bit.”
She
could almost read the thoughts sometimes. Pilots had a certain personality type.
He knew there were people watching. Some of them would be right there at his
elbow, getting a little on-the-job training for future drone operations.
With
a bit of luck, he’d get that other drone and then the enemy would be mostly
blind.
***
Movie
night on the big screen had been canceled.
Everything
that they had brought in, except for some bagged-up garbage, was on their
backs.
Team
Three was changing locations, in an operation designed to get them closer, to
within visual distance of the enemy command centre. They’d had enough reports,
but it was best to confirm it themselves before wasting the Mongoose missiles.
Breaking
out of their hastily-erected cubicle, all steel studs and drywall and batts of
insulation, was a work of a few minutes. They’d had light and heat and fresh
air ducts in the ceiling.
The
lights and fixtures had been there to begin with. It was easy enough to build,
and easy enough to escape. A bit of fresh paint in the air was hardly
remarkable in a commercial building.
Score
the back of the drywall sheet with a utility knife, V-groove it out, stand
back, and give it a push. Shove the blade right through, cut the far side’s
paper, and shove again. An anonymous workman, complete with work order, would
come in a few days later and tear it all out. The place would be back to
normal. All according to the plan. No one would miss the place, with its
completely blank walls, away from windows. Admittedly they’d had a washroom and
about a half a ton of self-heating ready-to-eats. They’d spent the time
off-watch reading, playing games, listening to their earbuds and sleeping as
much as possible. The joke was that
they all seemed to be gaining a bit of weight. Built in, seemingly a part of
the central support structure including stairwell and elevator shafts, it was
almost undetectable. No one, not even the most optimistic real estate agent
herding the most marginal prospect, had been through that floor in days.
The
thoughts of a civilian security guard walking their rounds through the upper
part of the building were not pleasant, quiet as they were keeping. Having
tapped into the internal closed-circuit system, plus the addition of a few
hard-wired cameras of their own, they’d been keeping a close eye on them.
There
was a desk in the lobby where the unarmed, private security guards (in their
horrid burgundy and black uniforms and zip-sided ankle-length boots), could
read, or watch TV and the front doors and back doors all at the same time.
The
stairwells were clear.
No
one talked, concentrating on the feet and walking silently.
The
sharp squeak of rubber on concrete was enough to draw dirty looks from all
concerned—
Dales
held up a hand.
Okay, okay.
It
was four a.m. and very dark, quite chilly when the trooper unbolted one of the
anonymous metal doors on the alley. A power failure, coming at just the right
time, ensured that the alarm didn’t sound. Slated for ten minutes or so, it
would soon end though, and so they had to move quickly and to get to their next
station.
There
were only the six of them, flitting through the shadows. The Unfriendlies,
suspicious enough by nature, would be wondering what the blackout portended.
They had people at the local power plant and it would only be possible to stall
for so long, to pretend, to obfuscate and to double-talk. The Unfriendlies had
engineers of their own. Again, people were taking a huge risk for the
Confederation and no one wanted to let them down—or get caught.
Whoever
had pulled that particular switch was probably walking north even as the
thought came to him.
Trooper
Dales paused at the end of the alley. According to their information, sure
enough, there were Unfriendly troops stationed at the intersection of two major
streets half a block away. They had two vehicles and a half a dozen soldiers
slouching around. Bored as hell, most likely. The city had been pretty quiet
for the last week or so. They’d be asleep on their feet at this point in the
shift. They’d be looking forward to relief, a good breakfast and then their
beds.
Luckily,
they were south and Team Three was going north.
This
time of day, there were very few vehicles parked along the streets. At least
they were on rougher concrete, a lot quieter under the soft-soled combat boots,
and a hell of a lot better than having crunchy old gravel underfoot.
Two
by two, weapons set on safety, keeping low and moving carefully, they crossed
the street, made their way to the mouth of another alley and then filtered in.
From
there, it was a bare five hundred metres, all quiet little side-streets and
even quieter alleys.
As
for accommodation, it had been provided for them.
All
that would take would be a trip via the stairwells to the twenty-fourth floor,
locate their particular unlet office space. They had a copy of the master-key.
Once inside, it was the work of a minute, using an electric screwdriver. All it
took was the removal of a couple of plastic trim strips, the demounting of one
sheet of high-grade, vinyl wallpaper-clad drywall, and one very brave and
enthusiastic civilian volunteer to seal it all up again once they were inside.
All he needed was the screwdriver and
a rubber mallet or the heel of his hand to pop back a couple of plastic
trim-strips. This little cubicle had been erected in between a couple of vacant
offices, from the outside just looking like a bit of blank hallway going along
there. Right down to the baseboards. You could plug a vacuum cleaner into the
receptacle, and it would work as the wiring was all live.
But
then—they needed power too.
At
that point, all they had to do was to
plug in with the boards, and this
time, they would at least have a window. There was food and water enough for a
week or ten days already in there.
That
man, an unarmed civilian security guard, probably making a fairly minimal wage,
was expecting them. The alarm on his particular building had also been switched
off.
As
for whether they completely trusted him, he’d been positively identified. He
had a house, one owned by his parents before him. He had a job, a vehicle, a
wife and three kids. He’d been well paid, half in advance, and the rest of it
they would find out soon enough.
They
were looking for a rusty brown door, with the overhead light housing a
burned-out bulb in case the blackout ended early. This was in an alley a
further two blocks up the street.
Turning
the last corner, in the dim light of early dawn, Trooper Dales saw a tall,
slender figure standing in the alley, a few feet from the door in question. A
red pin-prick of light flared. The guy was having a smoke, a pasteboard cup of
vending-machine coffee, flaring green in the goggs with the heat, sitting on
top of a crate and it looked like it was part of his regular routine. No
smoking in the building, right?
Dales
wondered how anyone could ever drink that shit—
One
some instinct, the figure turned.
“Jim?
Jim? Is that you?” There was some nervousness evident, but the man was there and
the door was wide open.
He
kept the small flashlight off.
Walking
up, straightening to his full height, Dales spoke, not too softly, but in a
relatively normal tone. The rifle was slung upside-down, in close alongside his
left shoulder, relatively inconspicuously, he hoped. The other people were
somewhere behind, covering him. Chances had to be taken. This guy was nervous
as all hell, judging by the odd tremor in the right hand. Either that or he had
Parkinson’s.
“Hey.
How’s it going? Looks like another lovely day, eh, Mister Marcus?”
Practically
hyperventilating, the guy’s head bobbed and he indicated the door.
“I—I’ll
be up in a minute.” He must need that cigarette pretty bad—
A
real bad coughing spell would draw attention, and Dales hoped the guy would
keep it together for a few more minutes. Dales was pretty sure they hadn’t been
followed, but if the gentlemen wanted to reassure himself, that was okay too.
It
was understandable enough.
“Sure.
We’ll be in the stairwell.” At the bottom, just around the corner, but he
didn’t say it.
Dales
gave the signal, keeping the weapon right where it was.
Dark
forms flitted past as the team made their way in. It was blacker than Toby’s
ass out there. Overcast, no stars or moons at all. His ears were straining,
hand up to keep Marcus quiet.
There
was nothing out there but a garbage truck on the next block and one very small
but excited dog, barking somewhere not too far away to the west.
From
there, there were two or three possible escape routes, including smashing out
second or third-floor windows and getting out by adjacent rooftops, ignoring
the more obvious street-level doors. The alleys between were only about two or
three metres wide and as far as jumps went, a bit of adrenalin would be all it
really took.
That
and a sense of commitment.
“Okay.
I will be off, sir. Enjoy the rest of your day.”
“Thank
you—thank you, ah, ah, Jim.”
Mister
Marcus was scared shitless, and Bales could hardly blame the man for that.
***
The
tops of the tallest modern buildings were festooned with aerials and antennas
of all types.
Team
Three’s little unit, placed there days before and with a cable coming in
through a hole drilled in the stone cladding just below the parapet, nicely
caulked so as not to leak, was slaved to the satellite. In good working order,
nothing bad had happened to it, (bird-shit down the antenna-tube, for example),
and there were no signs of enemy troops ever having gone up on the roof.
With
clear skies now over Deneb City, the signal was good. A strand of hair, glued
with a bit of spit across the bottom of the roof-top access door-frame in a gag
as old as time itself, was intact and appeared to have been undisturbed.
Not
even the cleaners had been through what was, after all, unoccupied space. Such
spaces, the top three floors in this case, were costing money and not
generating any revenue—so why clean them. According to the security guard, the
enemy hadn’t been in the building except for a six-man patrol that had come in
through the front lobby, and then straight through, out the back doors in what
might have been simple curiosity.
Nothing
like that had been seen since, and also according to him, the locals hated the
Unfriendlies. The other guards, on other shifts, all felt the same way.
Hate,
such a useful thing.
Hopefully
that was all true. This one was the only one with any information at all
regarding Team Three. They had his name, they had his address. All of that was
known to the Command Centre.
Betrayal
seemed unlikely, but they were taking an awful chance—sooner or later, you
always had to take a chance. After a series of thumps and snaps on the other
side of their partition, Marcus had gone off to play his role down below. In
the remote camera view, their outer wall looked pristine. Three minutes later,
Marcus was at his desk, movements jerky, hands visibly shaking as he pretended
to read a magazine.
Across
the street on the west side, and one building north, was the Unfriendly
headquarters.
The
distance was about seventy-five metres to the nearest corner.
“Team
Three.”
“Reporting.”
“Confirm
target please.”
The
trooper on the scope snorted and turned to his partner, the other four
team-members off-watch and trying to sleep on what was a pretty thin commercial
carpeting. It had some kind of underlay but it wasn’t very comfortable. They’d
been sleeping on commercial-grade floors for days now…
It
was only slightly better than bare cement.
“Put
this shot up for the Command Centre.”
It
was eight-thirty-two a.m. and a big black limousine stood at the curb in front
of the building in question.
The
driver was out of the vehicle and a lackey at the top of the steps was holding
a door.
“If
that ain’t good old McMurdo himself, I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
They
watched as he, and a more junior officer carrying a briefcase in each hand,
went up the stairs.
“Roger
that. Monitor the situation, please.”
“Give
them five or ten minutes. Then fire.”
“Yes,
sergeant.”
The
time wound down…
That
was it.
On
their own little battle-board, a red icon began blinking. Mongoose One was
live.
Two
orange carets appeared, tracking nicely towards town. For some reason, his
heart was pounding. This was about as real as it could get. There were dozens,
possibly hundreds of Unfriendlies in that tower, and boy, were they going to be
mad—mad as all hell. How in the hell Team Three was ever going to get out of
there was another damned good question.
Pray those
missiles track properly.
“You
might want to get your head out of that fucking window for a moment.”
“Roger
that, baby.”
He
looked over to where one baleful eye gleamed from a sleeping bag in the corner.
“Heads
up. We got incoming.”
“Argh.
Shit. Now?”
The
trooper nodded happily. This was their moment in the sun, the moment they had
all been waiting for.
“Aw,
fuck.” People struggled up, batting the next person on the shoulder to wake
them too.
Backs
to the front wall, knees up and helmets strapped on, with their hands
protecting their ears, they sat there waiting for impact.
Trooper
Dales, counting down silently in his head, scrunched his eyes closed real hard.
Head down, between the knees.
This
was going to be big—
(End of part thirty-seven.)
Previous
Episodes.
Part One.
Part Two.
Part Three.
Part Four.
Part Five.
Part Six.
Part Seven.
Part Eight.
Part Nine.
Part Ten.
Part Eleven.
Part Twelve.
Part Thirteen.
Part Fourteen.
Part Fifteen.
Part Sixteen.
Part Seventeen.
Part Eighteen.
Part Nineteen.
Part Twenty.
Part Twenty-One.
Part Twenty-Two.
Part Twenty-Three.
Part Twenty-Four.
Part Twenty-Five
Part Twenty-Six.
Part Twenty-Seven.
Part Twenty-Eight
Part Twenty-Nine
Part Thirty.
Part Thirty-One.
Part Thirty-Two.
Part Thirty-Three.
Part Thirty-Four.
Part Thirty-Five.
Images.
Image One. Confederation Public Communications Office.
Image Two. CPCO.
Image Three. CPCO.
Image Five. Collection of Louis Shalako.
Image Six. Acme Aerospace.
Image Seven. The cover of the book.
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