“Why didn’t you?” Buchek asked.
“I was eager to get up here and start our recon,” Andrews said. “I let my emotions get the better of me. I should have chased down the loose ends, instead of delegating them to Laird.”
“We all threw in on that one, sir,” Mulligan said. “After almost eleven years sitting vacant, I never seriously thought the site had been compromised. But now, it’s pretty obvious that might have happened.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” Griffith said. “I’m glad you leaned forward and got up here when you did, because if you’d stayed, our friends might be at our door before you could arrive. And at least now you know there’s a hostile vehicle out there, somewhere.”
“Yeah, I kind of agree with that,” Buchek said. “Crap luck for you guys, but it’s a win for us.”
“Hey, if you guys are done tugging on each other’s dicks, maybe you can tell me if you’re going to help out Beulah,” Marquette said. “There are still people over there. They were still alive when we left.”
“How long were you in the field?” Andrews asked.
“Four days before we got here,” Marquette told him.
Andrews rubbed his chin. “Well. We should at least send the drone out—”
“No, we can’t,” Leona said. “We can’t afford to lose it.”
“She’s right, sir,” Mulligan added. “Right now, the drone is as important to us as the SCEV is. We need it for early warning.”
“But you said if you fly it high enough, no one would be able to see it,” Amanda said.
“Yeah, that’s true. But it’s not visual surveillance we’re worried about,” Leona said. “The UAV isn’t low-observable. It would show up really nicely on a rig’s millimeter wave radar set, especially one that’s configured for air-search mode. If our friends out there know about us, then they know we have a drone, and they’d be looking for it. If they kill it, they reduce our ability to see over the horizon.”
“I’ve already taken the liberty of sending out three patrols toward Beulah,” Griffith said. “Sorry,” he added when Buchek suddenly turned toward him. “I wanted them to jump out as soon as possible. They’ll also put eyes on Ironside as well. If they’re still there, then Ironside needs to know there’s a possibility hostile company is in the area.”
“Well, shit. You were supposed to run that stuff past me, Eldon!” Buchek snapped.
“You were tied up dealing with all of this.” Griffith nodded toward Marquette and his people. “Seemed like time was of the essence, so I took it upon myself to see it get underway. They’re to observe and report back. Can’t use the radios even for a short burst, so they’ll have to return to the town and report face to face.”
Buchek scowled. “Eldon, you cannot be making unilateral decisions like this!”
Griffith shrugged. If he was put out by Buchek’s attitude, it didn’t show. “Did it, Stan. Had to happen quick, so I went ahead and got that taken care of. Everyone’s on foot, so it’s going to take a week or so for us to hear anything.”
“Recon’s essential right now, Stan,” Mulligan interjected. “The sooner we put eyes on, the sooner we’ll know what we’re dealing with.”
“I’ve already told you what you’re dealing with!” Marquette said.
Mulligan looked at him passively. “Yes, you have. Please excuse us while we try and verify your tale in a more deliberate and professional manner.”
“You’re a fucking murderer,” Marquette said.
Mulligan cleared his throat and got to his feet. He turned, grabbed his rucksack, and opened it. He pulled out an MRE and walked over to Marquette. “You look hungry, sir. Here.” He held out the prepackaged meal. Marquette slapped it away.
“I don’t want any of your—”
Mulligan slapped him across the face with the MRE with enough force to knock the man right out of his chair. A startled gasp went through the crowd and Marquette sprawled across the wooden floor with a squawk. Andrews pushed back and got to his feet as Leona flew off her barstool and grabbed Mulligan’s arm. He shrugged her off and pushed the MRE into Marquette’s hands, driving him back to the floor as he tried to flounder back to his feet.
“You don’t want it?” Mulligan said, his voice a deep snarl. “You don’t want something to eat? Tough shit, because this is what you’re going to get from us. Really, how did a whiny little bitch like you manage to survive all this time? I’ll bet you never produced a God damn thing, but you lived your life like a fucking dependent, right? All take, no give? Well holy hot shit, princess, here’s a newsflash—that MRE is the only thing you’ll ever get from me, other than a severe and lethal ass kicking. And I’m pretty sure you really don’t want that, huh?” Mulligan straightened up and glared at Marquette. For his part, Marquette was practically cowering at Mulligan’s feet, clutching the MRE with both hands, eyes wide.
“Now any rational, sensible human being would see that neither I nor the people I work for had anything to do with your community getting sacked,” Mulligan continued. “But the truth of the matter is, if a loud, jet-powered, eight-wheeled vehicle which is about as stealthy as a burning building managed to get that close to you guys, then your people might have just won the first Darwin Award to be handed out in a decade. Congratulations, you’ve managed to demonstrate that stupidity is the enduring legacy of mankind.”
“Yeah, okay, Mulligan,” Andrews said. “I think he gets it.”
“Scott.” Leona grabbed Mulligan’s thick arm again and tried to pull him back. Mulligan held his ground, and he bent forward slightly, still glaring at Marquette.
“You know what this is? This is the beginning of a war. War isn’t a place to start prancing about waving your arms to get other people to do the heavy lifting. Just in case you needed to learn that lesson, cupcake.” With that, he straightened up and released a heavy sigh. He pointed at the MRE Marquette still held in both hands. “You’ll probably like the jalapeno cheese spread in there. It’s literally the best thing to ever come out of the military procurement system.”
“You ... you people have the jalapeno cheese spread?” Griffith asked in the silence that suddenly permeated the room. “And you didn’t offer an old Marine any?”
Mulligan returned to his barstool. “You sent people on a recon mission and didn’t tell me?”
Griffith shook his head. “Well, Sarmajor, even if I wasn’t retired, we’re still the same pay grade. And you’re active duty—only your commanding officer can send you into the lion’s den. But truth be told, I think you’re best held in reserve.”
“So if we’re done fighting with each other and all that bitching,” Amanda said, “do you think we can actually decide what we’re going to do?”
Buchek sighed. “Marquette, if you’re not too badly hurt, why don’t you get back in your chair?”
Marquette slowly clambered back to his feet. His left cheek was a bit puffy from where it had blocked Mulligan’s MRE. He tossed the package onto the table and slid back into his chair. Andrews reclaimed his, looking over at Mulligan as Leona sat down next to him, her hand on his shoulder.
“Mike, what do you say?” Buchek asked.
Andrews thought about it. “We do need the intel, and between the drone and the teams Master Guns sent out, we should be able to develop a picture of what’s going on. I think we can agree there’s a rogue SCEV out there, and I’m going to presume it’s supported by a lot of infantry. To be honest, the rigs aren’t really designed for combat. They’re based off some venerable platforms and have some credible weapons, but combat isn’t their primary mission. So you need to understand that it’s not like the attackers are extremely strong, it’s that you and the other communities here are fairly weak. Maybe Sherwood can hold out longer than Beulah did, but it’s better if we go out and find the enemy before he finds us.” Andrews looked at Marquette and his companions. “Can any of you tell us exactly how big the attacking force was?”
“Bigger than us,” Marquette
said. “Maybe two hundred people. All armed. I saw a lot of uniforms, and they acted like they had training. They hit us at night, and from different directions at the same time.”
“Synchronous attacks on all flanks,” Griffith said. “Textbook mission, especially at night. Any indication something was up? Any advance warning?”
“Yes,” said the woman.
Andrews raised his brows. “Oh?”
“A fishing team went out and didn’t come back,” she said. “A search party was going to set off at first light. We thought that maybe Sherwood had hit them, to be honest.”
Buchek squirmed in his seat, the offense clear on his face. “Okay. Not true, but okay. I’m guessing they were supposed to come back by nightfall, and they didn’t?”
The woman nodded, then went back to staring at the tabletop.
“So you were attacked that night?” Andrews asked.
The trio nodded silently.
“And how did you manage to escape?” Griffith asked.
“My father told me to get to Sherwood,” Marquette said. “He told me to grab anyone I came across and take them with me. We took the Shattus Creek way to the north, then hooked back toward the butte. I caught these two on my way out of the town, right before the explosions started. Before then, it was just rifle fire—lots of it, them pushing down on us from the hillsides. Then the explosions, and I saw the vehicle firing missiles in a field. There were about six or eight guys around it, and when the vehicle started moving, they ran with it.”
“Infantry providing security,” Griffith said.
“So if this happened at night, how could you know it was an SCEV?” Leona asked. “Do you have night vision devices?”
Marquette shook his head. “No. But when those missiles started firing, they lit up the area pretty well.”
Leona nodded and settled back on her barstool, her hand remaining on Mulligan’s shoulder.
“So with infantry dismounts out there, that makes things a lot more complicated,” Griffith said. “Captain, your rig is going to be a big fat target. If they know about you, then they’ll come for you. That SCEV is going to be their number one priority.”
“I’ve already made arrangements for it to be hidden in the motor pool,” Buchek said.
“That’s conceal-only cover which would be good for about three or four minutes,” Griffith said. “It’s transparent to the type of radar they have. The enemy will find the rig there, just by overflying it with a UAV.”
“Marquette, how much food is there in Beulah?” Mulligan asked.
“A lot. Enough for a couple hundred people to live off of for two years,” Marquette said. “We were well stocked before the war, and we’ve been proactive in farming wherever we could. We pickle and salt everything, and we store it in the cold caverns.”
“Those caverns are an offshoot of the mine,” Buchek said. “Natural formations that weren’t developed, as far as I know. Marquette’s people used them as shelter in the early years.”
“I figured you knew about them,” Marquette said. “We sure knew about your mine.”
“There are no secrets when it comes to survival,” Buchek said. “Turning back to Captain Andrews’s rig ... Eldon, you have any recommendations?”
“Get it out of here while you still can,” Griffith said. “Because it’s basically a ballistics magnet otherwise.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
KC Winters wasn’t a professional pilot, but she didn’t have to be to send the drone up to five hundred feet and transition it to a hover. The unmanned aerial vehicle was easy enough to fly, especially since she could essentially program it to do what she wanted before even launching it. So she programmed it to keep stationed five hundred feet over the SCEV and maintain a laser lock on one of the receiver antennae for it to communicate with the rig as opposed to the encrypted VHF radio it normally used. The laser comm had been designed for secure point-to-point communication, and while it couldn’t send and receive as much data as the VHF, it was still efficient enough to do the job. Besides, all the little aircraft was doing was hovering and listening while slewing its small infrared turret around to surveil the dark countryside. There wasn’t a lot to see, other than the three groups of people that passed through the walls surrounding Sherwood. They eventually disappeared into the pine forests, fading from view as the terrain enveloped them.
She ran the drone from Leona’s command intelligence station. The radios were still on, so if the rig’s crew needed her, they could break EMCON and contact her directly. The SCEV was running on battery power at the moment, and the forward shield door was closed in order to prevent any illumination from escaping through the cockpit view ports. Those had blast shutters she could have closed, but they were finicky devices. They were known to stick in the closed position from time to time, as other rig jockeys had reported. While SCEV Four’s were brand new units and had been tested before leaving Harmony, KC thought it was better to just close the shield door separating the cockpit from the rest of the vehicle. She really didn’t want to have to disassemble the forward instrument panel to get to the shutter mechanicals.
So she deployed the drone after sunset as she had been ordered, and monitored its progress as it catapulted up to five hundred feet and held a constant hover over the SCEV. It was configured to return to the cradle when its battery charge dipped below twenty percent, which could take five to six hours. As it wasn’t doing anything that resulted in an energy cost beyond keeping the infrared scanner chilled and slewing it from side to side in addition to transmitting data along the laser link, the UAV’s station time would border on substantial. Usually the little octocopters had an endurance of three hours, but as it wouldn’t be doing any flying beyond what was necessary to keep it aloft, the unit would be up for quite a time. KC spent the time examining the displays and refamiliarizing herself with the command intel station’s layout. While she had been trained on its operation, she was still very much a novice when it came to working with it.
And in the back of her mind, there was the woman Amanda to consider. KC was still young, but she wasn’t so young as to not notice when someone was interested in her. Which didn’t happen very much, as she usually hung out with wrench turners and gear heads, most of whom were male. That a woman would indicate interest was something new and different. And that she wasn’t horrified by it was even more new and different. Then and again, the majority of the amorous times she’d spent at Harmony had been comprised of avoiding Chip McCready when he’d managed to score some locally sourced alcohol. Not exactly a dreamboat situation, though it could be worse—she could be shacking up with old Mulligan. The thought made her shudder.
Curiously, the thought of Amanda didn’t induce the same result. KC wondered exactly what that meant.
A tone sounded over the monitor speaker in the overhead, and KC focused on the displays before her. She’d been watching them the entire time, of course, but hadn’t really been paying attention. The drone was picking up radio traffic. It was encrypted, and operating in the same spectrum as the handsets the people of Sherwood used. KC shook her head at that. The community of survivors were going to be in for a world of hurt if they didn’t stop using their radios and start practicing some discipline in how they communicated. KC checked to ensure the drone’s surveillance was being recorded, and it in fact was. Already, almost a gigabyte of data had been collected, from infrared video to signals collection to data regarding the drone itself. It was still hovering in the night sky five hundred feet above the SCEV, bobbing slightly in the six mile per hour breeze that whispered through the mountainous terrain. She studied the data and checked the radio direction finder. The signals weren’t coming from inside Sherwood, or even from the teams that had disappeared into the forests. They were coming from farther east.
Which is where Beulah is, she thought.
According to the RF meter on one of the displays, the radio traffic was pretty weak—less than three dBm, or deep in the milliwatt range
. That meant the transmitting units were likely handsets, and the radio frequency traffic was attenuated by distance and intervening terrain. KC was a rig mechanic, not a signals intelligence analyst, so she didn’t know which element was more in play. But she figured that if the handsets were anything like the personal communication gear used by the SCEV crew, then they had an effective line of sight range of five miles at a peak two point five watts of transmission power. That would rate around thirty-three dBm, so the broadcasting units were likely many miles away. She wondered if there was a way to compute a more accurate range presuming a base transmission power of two point five watts, but that was generally beyond her. There were too many environmental variables to take into account. The terrain alone might make that impossible.
Though if I elevate the drone ...
She considered that option. Increasing the UAV’s hovering altitude to one thousand feet would provide greater reception, and possibly increase the chances of capturing a more precise range of the distant radio traffic. The power expenditure would be minimal, at most costing another thirty seconds of station time. And Andrews gave her the latitude to do what she felt needed to done, just so long as she didn’t send the UAV on a long-distance recce run.
So up it goes.
She added another five hundred feet to the altitude tape on the flight display, just by dragging her finger up the tape’s length. The drone climbed out immediately. Sure enough, the strength of the radio transmissions increased, rising into the two-watt range. And then the drone’s radio interferometers picked up even more signals. One of them surprised her.
TAC seven ... shit, that’s one of ours!
Another tone sounded, and a corresponding alert flashed on the display. The drone was intercepting millimeter wave radar in a decent swath. Not radiating at full strength, which meant the drone was reading backscatter from the waves bouncing off terrain. But definitely in the millimeter wave band, and on the same electromagnetic frequency as the dormant system that sat pretty much right above her head.
Earthfall (Book 2): Earthfall 2 [The Mission Continues] Page 28
