The Lion in Paradise

by Brindle, Nathan C.

  "Aye, aye, Major." Smith complied and the inertial dampers whined as the little transport cut back from 200 MPH to a standstill in about a hundred feet.

  Delaney unbuckled, got up, and turned around to face aft. Her face blanched. "Shit."

  "What?" said Harbinger.

  "There's a tunnel runs all the way back to the station, or within a few miles of it, anyway. It's covered with this same tight Mesh, it's like trying to look through granite. No wonder the frigates couldn't see it . . . the whole basin between the cliffs and that mountain just west of the station is smashed flat like this. I don't think they realized it, but it made perfect camouflage for them. I have to call Mom." She hauled out her comm and hit the speed dial.

  "Go for 1/1 Actual."

  "Colonel, this is Major Fox. First of all, we've found the caves. Would recommend an immediate fire mission for the frigates on the following coordinates." She rattled off longitude and latitude. "They're really going to need to unload on that base, the Mesh over it is so thick, I couldn't see individual gridlines until we were under a hundred and fifty miles out. I'll have Sergeant Smith put a laser designator on the target." She looked back at Smith, who gave her a thumbs up and started to handle that.

  "All right," came back Ariela, "so the base is six hours, minimum, away."

  "No, ma'am," replied Delaney. "Well, yes, the base is. But there's a tunnel running from the base in almost a straight line to the research station, to within . . . I can't really tell well from here, but it looks like ten to twenty miles. I would respectfully suggest a bet on there being a vast number of troops in that tunnel, getting ready to sortie against the station, would get you pretty flat odds in Vegas."

  Her mother chuckled. "Roger that, no bet. I'm calling the frigates now, and sending elements of the 1/1 east in search of that tunnel entrance. You say it runs almost straight back here from where you are?"

  "Yes, ma'am, it curves back and forth a little, here and there, but otherwise it's as if it were drilled right at you."

  "RIFs not Sons of Martha, been there, done that, got a medal for it. Are you at a safe distance from the base in question?"

  "Aye, aye, ma'am."

  "You'd better not be danger close, because I'm going to tell Farage and Green you're safely away."

  "That would be the truth, ma'am, we're probably about seventy miles out."

  "Standard protocols, then."

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "Calling the frigates now. Expect incoming any moment. 1/1 Actual, out."

  Delaney slipped her comm back into her pocket and hastily resumed her seat, buckling in hard. "Everyone, buckle in!" she shouted. "Smith, incoming Rods imminent. Be ready to head for the hills when you see the flash."

  "Aye, aye, ma'am." Smith spun the transport back toward the station for a fast start, but managed to keep lasing the target.

  "What's our altitude?"

  "Three thousand feet."

  "Okay." Delaney knew he'd have to bank and put the transport into a steep dive to build speed and avoid the shock waves, which would propagate through the atmosphere faster than the speed of sound. She sighed in relief that they had sufficient altitude to execute that maneuver, which would end up with them speeding back toward the station within seconds, at nearly ground level and full cruising speed.

  She saw a flash through the front port.

  Smith immediately banked the transport, hard; the inertial dampers whined again, and one of them popped; she felt the sudden weight come on and as quickly go away again as a backup damper swapped in and took up the load. As she looked through the port, she noticed the ground was coming up very fast.

  And as suddenly, the transport leveled out at about fifty feet AGL, going like a bat out of hell toward the west and the station. Another damper popped as Smith executed the leveling maneuver, but again, another backup took up the load and the maneuver was barely felt.

  "Stand by for shock waves!" shouted Harbinger. "Take hold, take hold, take hold!"

  The shock waves from a typical Rod impact traveled at around Mach 3 in a one-atmosphere pressure environment. The reason for getting as far away as possible at the highest possible speed was the same as the protocol for the old air-drop atomic bombs – get the hell away from the worst of the atmospheric shock wave so it doesn't wreck you in mid-air. The little transport was a fairly sturdy ship, nothing at all like the old B-29's used to air-drop nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, but still – nobody likes to be buffeted around in a small ship if they can avoid it.

  The transport was running about Mach 1.5 when the Mach 3 shock struck. But it was also only about 50 feet AGL, as previously noted. So most of the shock went well above it, with ground effect somewhat slowing down the parts of the wave near the surface.

  So when the wave hit the transport, the differential was only about Mach 0.5, and dropping the farther away they traveled from the blast site.

  Even so, the transport got shaken and stirred pretty well. Smith had all he could do to keep the ship on an even keel, and Harbinger was helping all he could. Delaney could hear cursing coming from the turret – Gunny Stirling was strapped in, of course, but the turret was never a place one wanted to be when the ship was being tossed about.

  The two snipers, who'd had nothing to do all mission, just sat in the back and looked miserable. When she glanced back at them, she noticed Foster had an air-sick bag in her hand.

  Finally, the transport leveled out again, and was flying on a reasonably-straight course back to the station at about Mach 2 – a little faster than it should be, but nobody was arguing.

  "Everyone all right?" shouted Delaney.

  A variety of replies came back, indicating everyone was okay.

  "That was some tangled Mesh you wove, back there," laughed Harbinger, still a little high on adrenaline.

  Delaney smiled, and shook her head. "No," she said. "It was a tangled Mesh unwound."

  Her expression hardened.

  "And now it's unwound, we can finish this bullshit once and for all."

  Chapter 10

  A Day of Guns and Scimitars

  "Don't see it."

  "They said the tunnel entrance would be practically invisible."

  "Well, it is, far as I can tell."

  "Wait a minute . . . what's that?"

  "Where away?"

  "There away!"

  The Space Force Marine corporal pointed east.

  "Oh, holy shit," said his sergeant, hauling out his comm. "1/1 Actual, this is First Sergeant Kaczorowski, 1st Company. We've got incoming RIFs, lots of them, about 20 miles due east of the station. The whole crowd are motorized, so they'll be there in minutes. We're taking off and heading back now." He motioned to the corporal, who gladly turned the Humvee they were riding in around, then put the pedal to the metal.

  "Easy, corp. Sure, we've got fusion electric drive in this thing, but let's try to keep it in ground effect, what do you say?"

  "Sorry, Top." The corporal eased off to about 120MPH. Which was still more than the RIFs in their non-upgraded diesel Humvees – or whatever those Chinese knockoffs were, looked like crappy old Dongfeng Warriors – could make, even with a tailwind. Most of them were spewing copious black smoke, too.

  "How hard do you suppose it would be," mused Kaczorowski, "for them to adjust the fucking injectors, once in a while?"

  "RIFs, Top. Insh'allah."

  "Yeah, yeah." He sighed, and knocked wood (every SFM Humvee had a real piece of wood permanently mounted in the dashboard for that very purpose; Marines were fairly superstitious about certain things). "Would be nice to have a real enemy to fight, once in a while."

  Just for good measure, he knocked wood again.

  His comm buzzed; he'd never disconnected it, but he figured Colonel Wolff had better things to do than chat with an old acquaintance, and would get around to him eventually. He lifted it to his ear. "Yes, colonel?"

  "Give me a better number than 'lots of them,' Kazy. You know better than that, y
ou've been a recon Marine longer than I've been a Marine."

  "Yes, ma'am." He chuckled. "I guess we did make a Space Force Marine out of you."

  "Old home week later, give me numbers now."

  Kaczorowski reached over to the dash and flipped the switch for the rear-facing camera. He stared at the holoscreen for a few moments, and finally replied, "Ma'am, it's hard to say how many they have aboard those vehicles, and with the dust they're throwing, even harder to say how many vehicles. Can the frigates see them now and do some infrared views or post-process the images to get rid of the dust? That will probably give you a better number, I mean, I could pop up a drone but that's just a waste with the frigates in orbit."

  "They're working on it. What do you think? Give me a best guess, or a WAG if you have to."

  "Best guess would be, if they've got six to the vehicle, and I'm wild-ass-guessing there are a hundred to a hundred and fifty vehicles based on the dust plume, anywhere from 600 to 900 effectives, maybe more – and that's an informed guess based on what we know about the other regiments. Corp, slow down, we've almost got the station in sight."

  "Aye, aye, Top." The vehicle began to lose speed.

  "When you get here, go reinforce FTSA1 at the garage entrance. There's only two of them on watch there, the others went to do a different recon."

  "Would that have had anything to do with the ground shock we noticed, about half an hour ago?"

  "That would be a yes, Top. The two frigates dropped a shitload of Rods on the RIF base over against the mountains. Unfortunately they'd already headed into the tunnel, and now they're on their way to the station." She laughed, grimly. "But they'll never use that base again."

  "Maybe we should drop a rod on that tunnel entrance, if we can find it, ma'am."

  "Too close to the station; I don't want to start a ground tremor and damage anything there. Wait one . . . Captain Green says they've located the tunnel entrance, but agrees we should not drop heavy ordnance. She suggests plasma cannon from LEO might do the job, but I think we'll hold off, and send sappers in later to blow the tunnel from inside. Or we may have another alternative, but I can't go into that."

  "Yes, ma'am. We're pulling in now, we'll go to the aid of the team on the garage door."

  "Good man. Stay safe."

  "We'll do our best, ma'am. Kaczorowski, out."

  "We've got the M2 in the back, Top. I can hump that out and over to the station if you'll grab the tripod and a can of ammo."

  "Do you one better, pull right up to the garage and we'll drive the Humvee in if they have room for it."

  "Great idea, Top." The corporal turned the big vehicle and pulled it up at the foot of the ramp. An armored, female Staff Sergeant carrying a Harbinger, with an M11 slung over her back, walked up. The two men noticed she was rather beautifully Asian.

  "I think that's Colonel Wolff's adopted daughter," murmured Kaczorowski; the corporal nodded agreement, and rolled down his window.

  "Staff Sergeant Fox, medic, FTSA1," the woman introduced herself. "Here to help?"

  "Yes, Staff Sergeant," replied the corporal. "Corporal Wieczenski, Bravo Squad, 1st Company. That's First Sergeant Kaczorowski in the passenger seat. We were doing recon on where the exit tunnel might be."

  "Staff Sergeant, is there room for us to park this beast in the garage?" inquired Kaczorowski. "We've got a load of ammo and some heavy weapons in the back. I'd hate for those to somehow walk away when the RIFs get here."

  "Sure, Top. Got anything to feed a hungry Harbinger, in there? Our transport took off for different pastures and forgot to leave us any ammo, other than what we were already humping."

  Kaczorowski smiled, broadly. "That would be an affirmative, Staff Sergeant."

  "Doubly-welcome, then. Hey, Brown," she shouted over her shoulder, "raise the door, willya?"

  The door went up, and Fox waved them in. Wieczenski drove carefully up the ramp and parked the beat-up command Humvee next to a gleaming-white, extra-row civilian version of the same vehicle. The civ Humvee had the seal of a university on the front doors. Kaczorowski snorted. Of course the university people would have the good stuff. "Unass," he said, and both he and the corporal jumped out onto the metal decking.

  "Help yourselves to the ammo in the back," he said. "Weezy, let's set up that M2."

  "Aye, aye, Top." Wieczenski popped open the back hatch and pulled out the big gun, while Kaczorowski hauled out the tripod. They put the weapon together on the deck near the ramp while Brown and Fox pulled out ammo – several 100-round cases of linked .50 BMG for the M2 first, Kaczorowski noted, approvingly, and then a couple of boxes of .45XCP (explosive ACP) for the Harbingers and .556 NATO for their M11's.

  "Thanks for grabbing our ammo," he said.

  "Not a problem, Top," grunted Fox, carrying her ammo over to the corner, with Brown following with more of the same.

  "Hey Top," called someone from outside the garage. Kaczorowski looked out and saw Captain Adkins and a group of SF Marines from the 1/1 – looked like 1st Company, 3rd Platoon from their armor patches. "Colonel sent us to help. Brought our own ammo, too. We'll spread out around here and set up a defensive line." He looked at the gun they were setting up. "Say. Nice Ma Deuce you got there."

  "Thanks, Captain," replied Kaczorowski. "We'll be sure to shoot it over your heads." He grinned.

  "You'd better, Kazy," mock-growled Adkins, with a smile. "Just remember, I've always outranked you, and always will."

  "Works for me, sir. And always did. Shame about you going mustang, though."

  "Well. Someone had to do it."

  "Incoming vehicles!" shouted someone Kaczorowski couldn't see. "500 yards!"

  Adkins turned around, looked, and grimaced. "Jesus. Look at all that rolling coal. Basic diesel maintenance is beyond them?"

  "Insh'allah, sir," reminded the first sergeant.

  "Heh. Either that, or they think it makes a great smoke screen; if so, they're wrong about that. Dead wrong, as it turns out. Okay, Fire Teams Alpha through Charlie, you're on that vector, open fire at 100 yards. Delta through India, back them up and watch for the action to move around toward you. Again: At 100 yards, Teams Alpha through Charlie, execute."

  "Fire when you see the whites of their eyes!" somebody yelled.

  "Fuck that," yelled someone else, "just fuck 'em up!"

  "OORAH!" shouted all of the Marines.

  "Ought to be their fucking company motto," said Kaczorowski, shaking his head and grinning.

  "FIRE!" shouted Adkins.

  And the battle was joined.

  First blood was drawn by a rifleman in Team Charlie, who, admittedly, had managed to find himself a Javelin in all of the ordnance the 1/1 had brought along on its little camping trip in the desert. This became obvious when one of the leading RIF vehicles blew up, spectacularly, taking with it the vehicles on either side, and also the one behind it, for good measure.

  "Who the hell authorized Javelins?" shouted Adkins. "Now I have to account for that. How many more have you got, Charlie Six?"

  "Three more," came the reply.

  "Well, waste not want not. Go ahead and use 'em up."

  "Oorah, Captain!"

  A few seconds later, another RIF vehicle blew up, taking others with it. Then another. And another. The RIF advance, already slowing with the loss of their first four Dongfeng Warriors, came to a complete halt after the loss of twelve more.

  "Dumb fuckers," said Corporal Wieczenski. "Even I know enough tactical doctrine to know you don't bunch up your goddamn cavalry like that."

  "Well, yeah, but you're a trained rifleman, not a fucking RIF."

  "True enough, First Sergeant."

  "Did we bring any more of those?" Adkins was shouting. Meek responses were coming back from up and down the line; Kaczorowski idly counted them, and in the end it sounded like there were thirty or forty of the tank-killer missiles in the hands of the nine squads.

  Staff Sergeant Fox had edged over, slightly wide-eyed. "What are those th
ings?" she asked.

  "Tank killers," replied Kaczorowski. "I don't think anybody uses them anymore but the SFM. They were a major force multiplier in the sandbox back when your grandfather was still a gunnery sergeant in the USMC."

  She giggled.

  "What's funny?"

  "He and I are nearly the same age," she laughed. "It's still funny to hear someone else call him my grandfather, even if I guess from a family standpoint, it's true. I suppose there's enough difference between us for him to have been my father, but—"

  Third Platoon started lighting up the RIFs again. They swung around and peered out the doorway. Several hundred RIFs were advancing past the line of the destroyed vehicles. Most of them carried AK-47 variants. A few were waving . . . scimitars?

  Adkins was shouting something about the sword-waving RIFs being the officers, shoot them first, but it looked like his platoon were simply mowing the charging irregulars down indiscriminately.

  "Yep," yelled Kaczorowski, "The RIFs dismounted. Nice talking to you, Staff Sergeant, but we have a game to get into."

  He dropped next to Wieczenski, who'd already seated himself behind the M2 and was peering through its sights, hands on the grips but thumbs not quite touching the big butterfly trigger. "Are they going to use those Javelins, or not?" yelled the corporal.

  "Guess not right now," he yelled back. "May as well add our special music to the orchestra. I'll feed you." He scooted over to get into position. "Ready?"

  "Got a clear field of fire. Ready, Top."

  "Open her up, Weezy. Fire!"

  Wieczenski opened up with the Big Motherfucking Gun, and while it wasn't quite as spectacular as Javelins going off, a hit with .50 BMG will surely fuck up a RIF's day, and two or three have a pretty good chance of going through enough metal to blow up a vehicle's load of ordnance. Which was precisely what happened as the M2 reached out and touched a few of the RIF vehicles that had so far been spared.

  "OORAH!" shouted Wieczenski, grinning so widely, Kaczorowski almost feared for his own life.

  "When you care to send the very best to do the very worst," he agreed, and kept feeding ammo. They were shooting 3-round bursts, so he hadn't had to grab another belt yet. But just as the thought registered, the last of the first belt of linked ammo fell through his hands.