Packmule

by Blaze Ward

  A mob trundled down and joined him off to one side, backlit by the bright lights inside the landing bay and the exterior floods on the hull itself. A few moments later, Markus Dunklin fired up the big repulsorlift truck they had stolen on Barnaul and eased it quietly down the ramp.

  Unlike most of the crew with him, the marines had combat helmets with some serious built-in electronics, so he called up a map and checked distance and topography. They had landed more than thirty kilometers from the nearest farmhouse, and even then had come down to the deck and flown several hundred kilometers below the horizon, just to get here quietly.

  Around him, Nakisha Onks had her original helmet, as did his only security Yeoman, Teresita Riechs. She was the one he had left in charge, back on 405, while he was off having adventures, and she had done a good enough job that she would probably be his peer as a Centurion pretty soon.

  Heather and Siobhan came down the ramp a few seconds later. They had two of the remaining helmets with all the stuff built in, and his folks wouldn’t be that far from someone connected.

  Trinidad counted noses again and checked the charge on his pulse pistol. Nervous habits.

  Everyone accounted for.

  “You ready?” Siobhan asked as she got close.

  “Just waiting for you,” Trinidad replied.

  “Mount up,” Heather called to the group, walking over to the truck and climbing up inside.

  It would be a tight fit, with her and Siobhan crammed in next to Markus, but they needed to be warm and out of the nasty wind that would come up when the truck got moving.

  “Remember,” Trinidad yelled over the grumbling. “Backs to the front of the vehicle, except marines on watch. Keep your packs on to block the wind, scarves tight, and heads down.”

  The bed of the truck was designed to transport a six by six by eighteen meter container, one of the standards that Buran used. There was a one-meter-tall gunwale around three sides, mostly to hold a box in place. It wasn’t solid, but it was enough to generally shelter people.

  Trinidad dropped his faceplate down and locked it. Nakisha and Teresita were already ahead of him. He put them on the two front corners and took a back one himself, with Vlad and Gerry opposite him. Wil and Little Jim were riding in the middle for now. They would swap out with Vlad and Gerry in twenty minutes or so, those four not having a helmet with a heater built-in to offset the wind chill of the night.

  Trinidad glanced up, but the sky was a wall of clouds, a slightly lighter gray than the ground. Abakn had a couple of smaller moons that didn’t do much to light up the nights on this planet, even at full face.

  No, this felt like the kind of place where folks rolled up the sidewalks at dusk, put the kids to bed, and then read by firelight for an hour or so, rising with the damned chickens in the morning to milk the cows.

  Trinidad could hope.

  “Stunt Dude, you’re up.”

  The words broke through the reverie that had descended on Trinidad as the truck had slowly wended its way through the trees. At one point, they had even flown over a creek, following it a while to get closer, and now they had reached the point that the two women in command had decided was close enough.

  The truck was grounding as Trinidad checked his pistol once again.

  Wil and Little Jim piled out the back and took up positions on the flanks before Trinidad even got to the ground. Vlad and Gerry were a moment behind them.

  “Strike team, form up forward,” Trinidad said in a loud enough voice.

  He strode to the front of the truck and joined his six people, plus Heather and Siobhan.

  The lights were off here. Markus had one of the helmets and used it to drive in the dark, so hopefully nobody but the owls knew there were pirates on the planet.

  Everyone was armed on this mission, which meant stunners for everyone, plus pulse pistols for his marines. Nakisha carried the rocket-grenade-gun Markus had dreamed up, but wasn’t supposed to use it without specific orders. And he could generally trust her discretion.

  But at the same time, only he and his people were trained in combat. They would lead, bringing Heather along, while Siobhan waited here with the rest of the crew to come in once the building was secured.

  Everyone was expendable down here, but the marines were more expendable than the rest.

  Trinidad checked the map on the inside of his faceplate. They should be just over a small hill from their target, and about a kilometer straight-line. It had started snowing again, but this was a fine, soft drift, without much weight or wind driving it.

  Back home, his dad had referred to this kind of weather as a footprint of snow. Just enough that you could mark it, but not enough to make life miserable.

  Of course, there were already about eight centimeters on the ground here, and the weather didn’t look to get above minus five anytime soon, but that would work in his favor. People would stay indoors, hopefully.

  Clock said they still had about three hours until sunrise, so hopefully nobody was awake over there.

  Trinidad counted noses again. It was something of an obsession, but it calmed him. Shortly, it would be time for Lights! Camera! Action! and he needed to have everything prepared.

  There would only be one take, so it had to be perfect, special effects and everything.

  Working on a tight budget, B-film again.

  “Any last minute thoughts?” Heather asked.

  She was technically in charge of this part of the raid, but he had talked with her extensively about what was coming, and she was happy to stay a little back and let his folks expert the hell out of this. They were getting to be pretty good at the job of pirates, although his mother would wail with indignation at what her youngest son had turned into.

  More than normal, that is. He could have been a doctor, or a lawyer, like his older siblings. Instead, he had become an actor, and then a marine.

  Now, piracy.

  “What’s so funny?” Heather asked, looking at the grin on his face.

  “What am I gonna tell my Momma?” he said with a grin.

  “Mine thinks I play piano in a cat house,” Nakisha laughed. The rest joined in.

  It was an old joke. Anything not to tell her you joined the Navy.

  “Nothing here,” Trinidad said. “At this point, we just need to get a clear view of the target and assess the next steps.”

  “You’ve got point,” Heather said.

  “While you’re walking, we’ll have a quick potty break here, and then mount up to come to your rescue,” Siobhan promised. “Try not to do anything too embarrassing.”

  “Who?” Trinidad was hurt. “Me?”

  “Gerry,” Siobhan turned to the biggest marine present. “Make sure you get it on camera.”

  “Aye aye, sir,” Gerry even saluted, while everyone else laughed, but Trinidad was Stunt Dude.

  As the saying went: he could have been an actor, but he wound up here. And he was still kind of an actor, depending on how you looked at it. And this was just another stage.

  “Move out,” Trinidad grumbled, once everyone stopped giggling.

  He and Nakisha had point. Teresita and Heather were in the middle. Wil and Little Jim had the rear. Wil was a big guy, strong and tough. A recruiting poster kind of marine.

  Little Jim, on the other hand, was the absolute minimum, both in height and weight, for a male marine. He was, however, as mean as a weasel when it came to violence. As crazy as Nakisha, but even more deadly. Anyone trying to sneak up on them tonight would be sorry they even got out of bed in the first place.

  Top of the hill. Trinidad found a fence.

  Damned good thing it was snowing, or he would have walked into it, but there were four lines of ice-cold running horizontally on his thermal sensor. With barbs. And the top one was a double wire, with an inner one isolated by plastic arms, so an electric current could run through it.

  He didn’t feel like checking to see if it was live.

  “First barrier,” he said aloud,
crouching down and waving the rest to join him.

  Beyond the fence line, and down in the hollow spot below, a series of warm spots stood out against the cold. From the size, he guessed cattle, but he wasn’t about to go wake them up and check.

  He could see the front of the main building from here. Two stories, with a porch that wrapped all the way around the outside, from this vantage point. No lights were on in windows right now, but the porch had one, as did something on the back, out of sight.

  Off to his left, a long, skinny barn, similar to what they had built for Bok and Avelina, back at the Lighthouse, so Trinidad tentatively assumed horses. Not his problem, as there were a couple of crew back with Siobhan that claimed to understand the beasts.

  On the right, a low building that covered a lot of ground, but was only one story tall. From the smell, maybe a barn for the cattle to come in for milking.

  The building he wanted was on the far side. A barn just like artists drew when they wanted to say farm. Dutch colonial roof and all. Red walls faded and worn. Big sliding door on the near end. That would hold some of the equipment Bok had tasked him with procuring, hopefully.

  Even with light amplification, the snow made a mess of distance vision, so Trinidad flipped a coin in his head and went left. They could cut through a pasture with cattle, as long as they gave them a wide berth, but he was looking for a road or a trail that could skirt them.

  He got lucky, maybe.

  The field with the cattle was fenced off, and a roadway circled the bottom of the hill. Ruts looked to have been cut by wheels and reinforced by hooves, giving them a path to follow.

  Nakisha’s arm on his stopped Trinidad cold.

  “Dog,” she murmured.

  “Where?”

  An arm came up and pointed to a small building off to one side. He had thought it was a chicken coop or something, until she pointed it out.

  “Little Jim,” Trinidad turned and said quietly. “Dog needs to go to sleep.”

  Unlike Nakisha, Little Jim didn’t revel in violence. He just got the job done. And the mutt would most likely survive. That wasn’t a given had he sent Nakisha down there.

  Instead of taking Wil along, the weasel tapped Gerry on the shoulder and the two of them moved like black ghosts across the white field.

  Trinidad made a note to plan more uniforms for future raids. His brain had said night raid, so everyone was in dark clothing. But everything here had a layer of snow on it, reflecting a little light, so dark things stood out. He would need probably two more color schemes in the future. Something white for alpine ops, and something a neutral gray-green that would fit into shadows. And maybe something tan color, for a place like the valley where Lighthouse Station was, with all those grassy meadows scattered around.

  Gotta have a bigger wardrobe budget.

  The air was still and calm. The light snow falling was more like confetti in a parade than anything else. Trinidad watched his two ghosts slide forward along the edge of a fence, until they settled.

  Snow muffled the sound, so if they fired a stunner, nobody heard it up here. Hopefully nobody down there, either. After a few seconds, they moved closer and settled again. Trinidad really needed to pee from all the adrenaline coursing through his system right now, but it could wait.

  Finally, the two figures separated and closed slowly with the building.

  Gerry turned and flashed a pocket light in their direction once. Silent and effective. Either the dog house was empty, or one of those shots from a distant angle had been effective.

  The dog was hopefully safe. Trinidad didn’t mind hurting people in his vocation, but the dog hadn’t asked for it.

  “Move out,” he said quietly, standing and following his two marines into the front yard.

  The doghouse made a good enough amount of cover from most of the house, so Trinidad gathered everyone there.

  Let’s see, first unit director over there. Secondary cameras there and there to pick up action shots like snipers. Bad guys like us charge this way. Heroic defenders move off that way to escape and call the police to save them.

  Trinidad chuckled a little too loud.

  “What?” Heather whispered.

  “I think I already made this movie once,” he said. “About five years ago. Almost the exact, same setup, except we don’t have repulsor bikes and flamethrowers.”

  “Markus can probably fix that,” Nakisha observed dryly.

  And he could. Crazy-ass redneck engineer was just itching to build new toys.

  “Okay,” Trinidad said. “I’ll take the front door with Wil and Little Jim. Teresita, you have the back door with Vlad and Gerry.”

  “What about me?” Nakisha huffed.

  “You and Heather are the backstop,” he said. “Anyone getting out of the building is likely to go for a vehicle in the barn. You stop them from getting in there.”

  “And if we can’t?” Heather asked.

  “Then I shoot them down,” Nakisha patted the grenade-rocket-gun fondly.

  Trinidad nodded.

  “What if they get a horse instead?” Heather asked.

  “Then it’s an entirely different movie,” Trinidad said to quiet laughter. “Move out.”

  He watched the front of the building for any movement, any lights, while the others got right up against the side of the building, below the level of the windows. The house had eight steps up to the front door, so the bottoms of the windows were about four meters up. As long as everyone was quiet and unseen, they could do this.

  “Little Jim, they likely to lock the front door in a place like this?” Trinidad asked as the others disappeared around the edge of the building.

  “Doubt it, boss,” the man shrugged. “But I’m sure that they can drop a bar inside that will stop anything but Nakisha from getting in. Cheap insurance against something like a bear deciding he wants in. If it was summer, I’d expect upstairs windows to be open, and we could climb up and get in that way. You and I could, anyway.”

  “Anywhere you can go, I can manage,” Wil rumbled with just a hint of defensiveness.

  Trinidad smiled. They were always competitive, his marines. Made them better soldiers.

  “You take the door,” Trinidad told the weasel. “Wil, you’ve got the right flank. I’ll take the left. Just waiting for the signal from Teresita.”

  As if on cue, his helmet beeped once. Nothing more than that, and over as quickly. Anyone awake had to be on the right frequency and paying attention, and even then all they would get would be that meaningless beep. But it told him enough.

  “Go,” he whispered, rising.

  Little Jim went up the front stairs like a ghost, possibly not even leaving footprints in the snow, but Trinidad wasn’t going to take the time to check. He and Wil were noisier, about as loud as a church mice, by comparison. Everyone had a stunner in their hands.

  The weasel turned the knob on the door without pushing it in more than a quarter inch. He looked back and nodded to indicate that he could get in. Trinidad nodded back. He could see better in the dark, with all the electronics in his helmet, but he figured that maybe put him on a par with Little Jim.

  The door opened on silent hinges and they flowed inside, to Trinidad’s first surprise.

  He had been expecting an interior like you always saw in a Western.

  Big salon for entertaining guests. Dining room for family and hands. Grand staircase up to the bedrooms.

  He kept forgetting this was Buran, The Holding. They didn’t do it that way around here. Children were separated off at birth and sent to training crèches, probably in the city.

  The room he was looking at was a dining and recreation area like he might have built for marines on a ground assignment. It did have a flight of stairs up, but there was no carpet anywhere in sight, just polished hardwood floors worn by a lot of feet and a big, common room, thankfully empty and with nightlights at shin level providing some modicum of light.

  No, not empty.

  S
nores emanated from a corner.

  Little Jim was there in a heartbeat. Stunners made remarkably little sound, and the snoring stopped.

  A wall separated them from the back of the building. Trinidad moved close and listened. The door was on a pivot, rather than hinges, reminding him of a restaurant.

  He took a chance on the comm.

  “Teresita, common room in front,” he said quietly into the radio. “Door to the kitchen I’m guarding.”

  “Kitchen in back,” she replied. “Cleared. Coming through that door now.”

  Trinidad stepped back as the door cracked enough to reveal his Yeoman’s helmet and her gun. He grinned and motioned her forward.

  “Thoughts?” she whispered as she flipped her faceplate up and came through, the other two in her wake

  “Bigger cast than we expected,” he smirked. “Lots of extras working for day wages and no Screen Actors Guild card.”

  She nodded.

  “Upstairs?” Wil said. “Feels like a barracks here.”

  “Probably a big, open room filled with stacked bunks,” Little Jim said. “Space walled off for officers, showers and head probably down a whole wall. Or would they do two?”

  “One,” Gerry, of all people said quietly. The big, dumb marine? “The Holding is done in common, so they won’t gender the facilities. You aren’t allowed to mate without permission, but sex is acceptable, within limits. Probably an even gender split upstairs.”

  “Weapons?” the weasel followed up.

  “Assume Packmule,” Trinidad said. “Officer will have a weapon, and probably keys to an armory with long arms for dealing with stock and predators. Everyone ready an assault grenade, in case we have to soften the place up.”

  “Boom stick?” Vlad asked.

  “No,” Trinidad said after he considered it for a moment. “I need Nakisha keeping everyone bottled up here. Wil, you’ve got the best arm. If all hell breaks loose, put your grenade into the officer’s quarters. Follow it up with a frag if you can’t get close enough to use your stunner. He’ll have the radio, as well.”

  Nods. Serious faces. A small assault against a single family with kids and hired hands, all easily controlled, might have just turned into a small riot.