“She was on a different rig, remember?” Leona reminded him.
“Yeah, yeah. I remember. Still, it was nice of him to give us some alone time.”
Leona nodded. “It was.”
Mulligan looked down at her for a long moment. “So listen, if shit goes sideways out there, remember what I taught you. Don’t get decisively engaged, cut and run. You’re not out there to kill goblins, you’re to meet SCEV Five when it rolls up. Avoid all contact with everyone—”
“Dude, I got this,” Leona said. “I remember what you taught me. Getting captured isn’t on my mission essential task list. As soon as I get to the rendezvous site, I’ll go to ground and monitor TAC one. The next time you see me, I’ll be with Laird and Kelly and your two favorite enlisted men.”
“Stay away from Cobar and Slattery. I’ve heard they have cooties.”
“I’ll wipe off the toilet seat before I use it.”
“Attagirl.”
A chime sounded as the outer airlock door opened. It would be Andrews and KC returning with the drone footage. Leona pushed herself to her tiptoes and kissed Mulligan again, long and deep. He squeezed her, then kissed her face as the inner airlock door opened.
“Watch the ruck,” Mulligan said as he released her and turned toward the airlock as KC stepped inside. He pointed it out to her and she looked down at it.
“Thanks for the heads up, Sarmajor,” she said as she stepped around it. Andrews pushed into the rig a moment later and closed the airlock behind him. He also maneuvered around the rucksack.
“This is all packed and ready to do?” he asked, looking down at it. “Enough stores for a few weeks?”
“Hooah, saw to it myself,” Mulligan said.
Andrews nodded as KC pulled her tablet from a pocket and switched it on. “Then I know it’s been done right, Sarmajor. Things look pretty good out there, we were able to recover the drone without incident. Still no track on the enemy rig, which is now beginning to bug me a bit, but things aren’t terrible just yet.”
“How many enemy did you see?” Leona asked. She watched as KC connected her tablet to the rig over its wireless connection.
“About a hundred or so, and we caught a glimpse of an encampment but didn’t overfly it,” Andrews said. The main display in the compartment came to life. Framed within its confines were the infrared captures, a moving map that showed the drone’s route, and a series of graphs that showed the different bands of electromagnetic energy that had been detected. Leona looked at the millimeter wave radar band and was disappointed to see it was blank; no MMR pulses had been detected at all. There was a fair amount of radio chatter from different areas, but none of the frequencies in use matched up with what a rig would be using, nor was the signal strength indicative of a more powerful, vehicle-borne transmitter.
“It’s odd that they’re keeping silent,” Leona said.
“If they’re under real military leadership, then they’re just exercising control,” Mulligan said. “They’ve announced their presence and their intentions, so I wouldn’t expect them to be flooding the airwaves with a lot of chatter.”
“I’d expect command and control commo,” she said.
Mulligan shrugged. “Listen, they’re basically setting up and waiting. Not a lot of control to exert.” He pointed at the infrared picture. “See here? They’re building fighting positions. Kind of far from Sherwood ... I read that as they’re looking to have areas to retreat to that they can defend. Maybe they realize Sherwood is a tougher nut to crack than anyone they’ve come across before.”
“Or maybe their boss is as ruthless as you are,” Andrews said.
Mulligan rolled his eyes. “Ruthless? Me? I’m but a gentle flower awaiting warm spring rains.” He pointed at the display again. “All kidding aside, they’re being professional about it. If they didn’t have a rig, I wouldn’t be so worried, but that they’re making preparations for a fight is a little worrisome. Can’t underestimate a committed infantry force.”
“No one is,” Andrews said. “But they’re concentrating to the east, with a smaller unit to the south.”
“Occupying the high-speed approaches,” Leona said. “They want to be able to move in and out as fast as they can.” Andrews grunted acknowledgement and took the tablet from KC. He sped up the playback, and Leona watched as the infrared view shifted and rocked from side to side like a speedboat on choppy water. It was a little disconcerting to take in, due to the enhanced fidelity of the capture.
“Vehicles there,” Mulligan said, and Andrews had the playback drop back to normal speed. Sure enough, barely visible amidst the trees were the boxy shapes of several trucks. They looked military, but had been modified with some sort of plating. They were cargo vehicles that had been converted to troop carriers. They didn’t give off much heat. Several dozen people were encamped in the area.
“That’s the laager area I mentioned,” Andrews said. “The drone slides past them pretty quickly.”
“Those trucks, they aren’t diesels, are they?” Leona asked.
Mulligan shook his head. “Nope. Electric tactical trucks. They were coming into service to replace the diesels and gassers. First wave of the new autonomous vehicles for the Army. They were starting with the truck fleet first, because the requirements weren’t as high as they would be for, say, a main battle tank or an APC. Those things are essentially one great big battery.”
“How did they survive the EMP?” Andrews asked.
“Shielding,” KC said. “So long as the EMP is discharged elsewhere, like into the ground or even the air, the circuitry will be fine. Batteries themselves don’t care much about pulses and the like.”
“But the charging stations have to be history, so they must’ve figured out another way to get them running,” Mulligan said. “Portable solar, probably. Anyway, those things have a three-hundred-mile range and can haul at fifty miles per hour. Even though it looks like they’re carrying a lot of extra weight on them with all that armor, let’s presume they can still make those stats and plan accordingly.”
“We can outrun them on the road, Sarmajor,” KC said, “and we have them beat in range, too.”
“We won’t be running from them, Winters. We’ll be killing them.”
“Hooah, Sarmajor.”
Andrews resumed fast-forwarding through the playback. He walked them through his initial analysis. There were two groups of hostiles to the north and east, but they were small in number. Each group had ten members each, and their body heat gave them away to the drone’s forward-looking infrared turret. They had small cook fires going. They were eating hot meals, and didn’t seem to be worried about who might smell the chow. They felt secure, which Leona thought was a good sign. That could mean they wouldn’t be relocating during the nighttime hours.
“And that’s basically the lion’s share of the collection,” Andrews said. “All commo is encrypted, and there was nothing on any of our cardinal frequencies that we could detect. No VCARS, no MMR in either ground- or air-search modes, no laser warnings. Visually, no sign of the rig, or its drone. I’m thinking they’re holding it back somewhere else.”
“Which means there’s likely a fairly sizeable dismounted force surrounding it,” Mulligan said. “Presuming these guys are led by former SF, he’s not going to hang out in a tin can all by himself. He’ll have a lot of security around, just in case.”
“In case of what? Someone from Sherwood walks up with a can opener?” KC asked.
“Sherwood’s got some decent weaponry, trust me,” Mulligan said. “Master Gunnery Sergeant Griffith would see to that. We already know about the Carl Gs, and those are old school antitank systems that were literally ready for retirement from the inventory before the war. If they could get their mitts on Gustafs, then they could get some Javelins or AT8Cs. If the electronics are still operational and the batteries had enough charge left in them, those would be pretty effective against a rig.”
“And if Sherwood has them, then the enem
y might as well,” Leona said.
Mulligan nodded. “Yep. Another pending thorn in our paw.”
Andrews checked his watch. “Okay, guys. We’ve got about fifteen minutes before it’s time to jump out. Lee, you and the sarmajor go ahead and review the intel one final time and determine if you need to make any adjustments. And just for shits and grins, you know the passphrases, right?”
“If I’m caught, I transmit ‘broke, broke, broke’ over TAC one. When I hook up with Five, it’s ‘joy, joy, joy.’ Not too tough to remember.”
“Okay,” Andrews said.
“We’ll review the data and make any last-minute corrections,” Mulligan said, “but I don’t think anything is going to change. The sooner things get underway, the better off everyone will be.”
***
Mulligan was right, there was no reason to change the plan. Leona agreed with his assessment after re-watching the intel capture again. The enemy was still setting up in the area, and was intent on making some defensive positions that they could fall back to in the event their attacks against Sherwood failed. But the route to the northeast wouldn’t stay open forever; if nothing else, the enemy would take positions to Sherwood’s north and launch some harassing attacks, just to keep the settlement on edge.
And then, it was time to go.
Mulligan helped her with the rest of her gear, and double-checked to ensure her high-fidelity night vision visor was properly calibrated. There were also two low-power millimeter wave transmitters on her helmet, which she could use to render the night even further in addition to the miniaturized infrared scanner on the helmet’s front. Using the radar wasn’t recommended—even though it wasn’t very powerful and could only track out to four hundred meters, the energy it radiated could travel much farther and might potentially be detected by a passing drone, which would give the enemy a great fix on her location. The infrared was passive, however, and its output would be projected onto the visor, augmenting the visor’s own light-intensification properties. Under normal circumstances, she would transmit everything the visor picked up back to SCEV Four, but again, radio transmissions could be detected and tracked. So all the tech would be for Leona’s benefit alone.
Mulligan also went over her weapons, checking to make sure they were fully operational. The rifle, its attached grenade launcher, and her sidearm were all good to go. Leona wondered if he would dump out her ruck and repack the entire thing, but all he did was help her swing into it. By the time she was done, she was carrying an additional sixty pounds of gear.
“Heavy, huh?” he asked her.
“No, no. Light as a feather,” she replied.
“Yeah well, you won’t think so if you wind up walking to where you’re headed. Remember, stay hydrated. It’s not killer hot up here, but even in the cold you’re going to need water.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Leona said.
Mulligan scowled at her. “That’s even worse than Sam.”
Leona checked the digital clock on the bulkhead. “Time’s up, Sam. I gotta jump out.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Mulligan stepped over to the airlock and opened the inner door. “After you.”
Leona pushed into the airlock and turned around. She pressed the rucksack against the outer doors and motioned him in after her. “There’s enough room for both of us, big boy.”
Mulligan grunted and stepped in. As the inner door cycled closed, she put her hands around his waist. “We’re going to have to work on these love handles.”
“I do not have love handles.”
“Warrior handles, then.”
“Somehow, that sounds even worse. What’s next, bacon rolls?”
Leona laughed. “Mulligan, you’ve been great. In a million different ways.”
He looked down at her. “You’re really telling me this now?”
Leona looked up at him and smiled. She really didn’t know what to say. There was a chance they might never meet again in this life, and she thought it was rather sad that their last few moments alone were going to come and go in the tight confines of an SCEV’s airlock.
“I have to tell you sometime, and now might be the last opportunity for a while,” she said finally. “Thank you for everything.”
Mulligan’s lips compressed into a tight line. “Don’t go getting all maudlin on me, Lieutenant. You’re only going to meet a rig at a rendezvous point.”
“And while I’m gone, Sherwood will probably be attacked.” She left out the part where she could get captured and killed herself.
“Don’t worry about me, if that’s what you’re getting at. Know what my first nickname was when I got accepted into Special Forces?”
“Do tell.”
“They called me ‘Too Big to Fail.’”
Leona considered that for a moment. “I don’t get what that means.”
Mulligan shook his head. “Never mind—more Old Guard shit. Anyway. We’ll all be good here, Lee. You just need to take care of yourself. Stay sharp out there, and don’t stick your neck out for anyone. Got me on that?”
“Roger that, Sarmajor.”
Mulligan nodded and touched her face, what little of it was available with the visor and her boom microphone taking up all the real estate. “And thank you ... for making an old man feel young again.”
“Is that all I did?” Leona asked.
Mulligan thought about that. “No. But that’s all I’m going to cop to right now, Lieutenant.” He nodded toward the outer doors. “And we’re unfortunately kind of on a schedule here.”
“Take care of yourself, young old man.”
“You too, kid. You too.”
Leona smiled and released him, then half turned and hit the button that would open the outer airlock doors. They cycled open, and Andrews stood outside still wearing his thankfully-laundered hand-me-down clothes. Amanda stood next to him, while men hovered in the background next to a pair of side-by-side electric ATVs with flat beds. There was already some gear lashed to the vehicles: backpacks, tents, sleeping bags. As Leona descended, she heard a metallic noise from atop the SCEV, and she turned to look. KC was up there, shuffling around the solar panels as she returned the drone to its bay for recharging.
“We all good to go, Lee?” Andrews asked.
She nodded. “Yes, sir.” She looked at Amanda. “How about you?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” Amanda replied. She wore a set of night vision goggles on her head, and like Leona, she also wore ballistic armor over her light jacket. Her hair was pulled back, and her eyes revealed nothing. “Mind telling me where we’re going?”
“She’ll tell you once you’re on the way,” Andrews said. “For now, you’ll be shooting out straight to the north.”
“We’re meeting your friends, right? Thought they were still a ways off.”
“They are,” Mulligan said.
“So you guys want your girl out of Sherwood before we get cut off, right?”
Andrews pointed at the ATVs. “How far can these things go before they need to be recharged?”
“About forty miles in a straight line,” Amanda said. “With two people per vehicle and carrying some cargo, maybe thirty.”
“Good. Are you ready to go?”
“You’re in that much of a hurry, huh?” Amanda sighed and waved Leona toward one of the ATVs. “All right, princess. You’re with me.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
The rig was ready.
Self-Contained Exploration Vehicle Five had been reborn. After weeks of assembly and testing, followed by four days of local excursions during which the new rig was broken in, it was time to leave the replenishment site and head out into the field proper. Laird and Kelly reviewed Cobar’s final assessment of the machine, and both signed off on it. Now fully stocked and brimming with additional weaponry, drones, medical supplies, food, and water, the almost pristine rig sat in the departure bay. All it needed was a rested crew.
Resting was suddenly difficult. Though Laird was physically exhausted, sl
eep was long in coming. It wasn’t that the work had been especially arduous physically, though there had been some of that. He was just burned out from concentrating on getting the rig ready for departure as quickly and as safely as possible. So had the rest of the crew, of course. Everyone had really leaned forward in the foxhole on this one, and their reward was a vehicle that had been certified by a senior crew chief and his assistant wrench turner as completely ready for field duty. Cobar was certain they could push the rig hard over the coming days and not have to worry about something breaking or falling off. Right now, the only thing that stood in their way was the fact the crew was worn out. Certifying a rig for the field wasn’t an easy thing to do, as the list of procedures and processes were endless. Even now, the seemingly infinite list of tasks continued to spiral around in his head. Though both he and Kelly had agreed with Cobar’s assertion the rig was ready, he was still fearful something might have been overlooked.
So he lay there on a rack with real sheets and a real mattress while staring into the darkness of the bunk room. Cobar and Slattery were already in deep sleep. Kelly tossed and turned on her rack, muttering to herself. Laird listened, trying to determine what she was saying. Her utterings were incoherent, the cadence broken. He figured her sleep was marred by dreams, perhaps one that included having to hunt down and isolate a voltage irregularity in one of the SCEV’s buses. Lord knew that alone was enough to ensure Laird didn’t get any rest.
None of them had heard anything from SCEV Four, but that was par for the course. Even though every rig that departed Harmony went dark once they were more than twenty miles out, Laird found he was becoming fixated on the silence. He worried about Andrews and the rest of his team, because they had no idea what might be creeping up on them. But there was nothing he could do about it. He and his team had, through essentially Herculean effort, managed to make a dormant rig operational in weeks instead of a month. That was the best effort they could make. Andrews and the crew of SCEV Four would have to do what they had been trained to do, and Laird prayed it would be enough. Presuming the planned route to the rendezvous was navigable, then the crew of SCEV Five would have their answers in four days. Presuming the rig could take the pounding, Laird intended to set out at an aggressive pace to the north, moving as fast as possible.
Earthfall (Book 2): Earthfall 2 [The Mission Continues] Page 35
