The Oppressed

by Matt Thomas

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The operations center was strangely quiet. Given the events of the previous days, coupled with Columbia’s departure from the Twins to return to the main fleet, it didn’t surprise Xander that everyone took some extra time that morning. Perversely, he looked forward to getting work done that morning in some relative quiet while he sipped his coffee. He didn’t make it to his computer though before Tennison intercepted him with one of his key analysts, Sergeant Lutierez. Tennison carried a tablet and both wore huge smiles. “Sir, you got to see this.”

  “Is it going to ruin my morning?” Xander asked, trying to brush past them to get to work.

  “Oh no, sir, it’s going to make it. It’s awesome.” They hit a button and took over one of the screens on the OPCEN wall, displaying the familiar overhead view and shades of gray of a Loki thermal image.

  Xander sipped his coffee calmly. “What am I looking at?”

  “This is from Two-Two’s TIC the other day at the Metic Ahai compound. The night shift was confirming Sergeant Kendrick’s kills and found this.”

  Xander tilted his head at his Sergeant Tennison, who usually knew not to waste his time or the staff’s tight resources. “Why were they counting his kills?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “There wasn’t anything else going on. But you got to see this.”

  Xander looked carefully, and the NCO pointed out the roof of one of the buildings. A bright white spot lay stretched out on what looked to be an old air conditioning unit. “That’s Sergeant Kendrick. Now watch this Komodo over here.” She pointed to the very edge of the screen, where one of the armored vehicles sat outside the perimeter.

  “The angle’s weird.” Xander said.

  The NCO nodded. “Yeah, that’s part of it. It’s parked on a a bit of an incline so it’s tilted towards the compound.”

  “How far away?”

  “It’s about four-hundred-twenty-five meters, but the distance here isn’t the thing. See how the gunner hatch is open in the top? Kendrick already got the gunner. You can just barely see one of the Hetarek inside through the hatch.” In fact, he could make out only a sliver of the distinctive Hetarek thermal shading inside the vehicle.

  “Now watch this.” She hit play. On top of the building, Kendrick’s rifle flashed. At the hatch of the Komodo, the heat signature of the Hetarek suddenly expanded into a cloud and dissipated. “The GEOINT guy said that, from Kendrick’s angle and the angle of the Komodo, he had maybe two inches of space to make that shot. At more than four-hundred meters. In combat.”

  “And Kendrick uses standard caseless three-oh-eight rounds, no laser, not guided rounds.” Xander said.

  The logistics officer, Major Amersvoort, spoke up from his seat in the very back of the room from where he had clearly been eavesdropping. “That dude didn’t even take any guided rounds with him. Said he didn’t trust ‘em. Said they made him lazy.”

  “He’s lazy enough in other ways.” Xander commented as they replayed the shot again. “Yeah, I have to admit, that’s a pretty badass shot. You said they were counting his kills. Just out of curiosity, how many?”

  “Fifteen for Kendrick out of twenty-three total.”

  “I’m surprised it wasn’t more.”

  Amersvoort butted in again, to Xander’s annoyance. “He only had twenty rounds with him.”

  “He only missed five times?” Collin said, impressed.

  “He shot out two windows.” The NCO said. “Wounded three Hetarek but not enough to get the confirmed. Then he runs out of ammo, just climbs down and hangs out until they leave. From the comms chatter, it sounds like Howe was pretty pissed at him for not bringing enough rounds and just quitting.”

  Xander sighed. “That sounds about right. For both of them.”

  Lieutenant Colonel Berne appeared on the OPCEN floor later than usual, carrying an over-sized, steaming cup of coffee.

  “You seen this?” Collins asked.

  CHOPS looked up at the screen. “Yeah they showed it to me last night. Kendrick’s a fucking magician behind that rifle. Too bad he’s a fucking disaster everywhere else.”

  “You were here last night?”

  Berne smiled wide. “Not everyone calls it quits at one in the morning.” He took his seat in the center of the operations center. “When are you meeting with the Ahai?

  Xander checked his tablet. “It looks like twenty-one-hundred tonight, after we get back to the fleet.”

  “You going to take the video of Jedynak and Smithstyne trying to save that Metic Ahai?”

  “I thought it would help them feel better about the operation.”

  “Good. Get them back on track. I don’t know why they weren’t happy after we took back the Twins.”

  “S’Maned said they’re worried about getting sucked into battle. I think that they think we’re just using them.” He replied.

  “We are.” Berne replied unapologetically. “Just don’t let them know that.”

  “Don’t worry, sir. I’ll hold their hand.”

  “You’d better. This whole thing depends on them, both out here and on the ground. If they get cold feet, I’m going to find some way to blame this on you.”

  “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t, sir.” Xander answered, wondering himself how this fragile alliance would survive the next few months.

  *****

  "Why are you doing their job for them?" Ava asked her brother. She insisted on driving, largely because he couldn't contain his excitement. She didn't want to stop at a Hetarek checkpoint with their legitimate travel IDs and real, reasonable business only to have them become suspicious because he couldn't stop fidgeting or staring at them with some sadistic smile.

  "I'm helping them. I want to help." Julian tripped over himself, smiling like he was somehow proud of the work he was doing.

  "You're getting involved in something that is completely not your business."

  "It is my business.” He shot back. “Don't you want to be free?"

  She gestured to the beautiful hills around then. "I'd rather be able to drive through this on my own than be caught or killed. Do you remember what happened to the Moses Lake community? Do you want to end up like them?" The thought of the bodies, cloven in half and stuck on poles mounted outside any community within driving distance. Most only had to see the one outside their own compound. Ava and Julian had to see all the ones outside all of their customer communities. "They tried to revolt. It didn't work out so well."

  "But Bryan and them aren't farmers who just got their hands on thirty year-old weapons. Their soldiers. They're Free Humans. From the fleet."

  "Exactly.” Ava spat back. “They're not from here. They’re Runners."

  They were quiet as they approached a Hetarek checkpoint. A sign proclaimed in English that they should stop and show travel documents. Two trucks sat on either side, the Hetarek manning the turrets looking more bored than intimidating. A pair of Metic Ahai stood next to one of the trucks, waiting to be called into some menial service. Two Hetarek approached their truck, and she caught the distinctive whiff of dried skin and musty breath when she rolled down the window. She handed over documentation for both of them. The Hetarek examined the three-dimensional images and their faces. The second one gave a perfunctory glance inside their truck. Julian remained calm, or at least, not as hyperactive, probably sulking from his sister's points about previous insurgencies, and drew no suspicion.

  Apparently satisfied, the Hetarek handed back the documentation. His voice gave the deep crackling she had heard enough that she caught the meaning, if not the actual translation, and drove away.

  Julian picked up where they had left off. "So are you going to stop me?"

  She had to think before she answered. "I hate them too. You know I hate them. For what they did to mom and dad and everyone else. I'm not going to stop you, not that I could anyway. But I'm not going to let you be an idiot. Do our job. Deliver your message as discret
ely as possible. And that's it."

  He didn't respond immediately, which was a response in itself.

  "And definitely don't even think about that."

  Julian spun around shocked. "About what?"

  "Doing more than being their errand boy."

  "Look, if they really want to fight the Hetarek..." The desperation in his voice removed all hope at convincing his sister.

  Ava snapped back. "They can find other idiots to have their bodies torn apart." She looked at the village gate ahead of them. "We’re here. Just deliver your message. Nothing more. Do you understand? You’re not the only one who could get killed."

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The cloud cover concealed the mountain peaks on every side. The light rain mixed with snow muffled the weapon reports and heavy footsteps amongst the dead leaves and rocks. There were a lot of boots on the ground, far more than the ten professional soldiers present. Three dozen recruits went through a series of training stations. Lucas MacIntyre had somehow come through and scratched up a surprising number of volunteers, nearly none of whom had participated in any type of insurgency against the Heterak. Taylor and Starek stood in front of one group, doing what they did best, waxing poetic about the conglomeration of weapons, mostly hunting weapons scavenged from the countryside, providing far too much detail for a group of true-believers and adventure-seekers who just wanted to kill Hetarek. Many had never fired a weapon before, and they were getting their chances in groups of six under the guidance of Smythstyne and Alona Riese. Kearney and Jedynak taught a block of instruction on first aid to a small group, since there weren’t nearly enough weapons to go around. Bryan paced, weapon in hand as always, O always within arm’s reach with the radio.

  He enjoyed the training portion of his job, honestly more than he enjoyed the adrenaline rush of a firefight. They only had a few months to mold the recruited locals and turn them into a force they could trust on an operation. But, before they got that far, the team had to smuggle the recruits to the makeshift training camp between the ridges, far enough from the highway remnants to avoid casual inspection, but not so far as to make it impossible for recruits to sneak away to. The camp was nowhere near their headquarters, of course. None of Lucas’s crew knew where the team lived, with good reason.

  Lucas himself tried to make himself a general. It drove Bryan crazy to see this man late in middle age, overweight, with rubber boots and hunting gear wandering from point to point giving shallow encouragement rather than taking the time to learn the skills. The man had seen combat, which was no small qualification in this group, but he admitted to having been out of the action for most of the occupation. His assessment of his own competence met neither his skill nor his fitness. With Genovese dead, Bryan had to take what he could get. It wasn’t much. Julian and Ava paved the way for the team to show up at the compounds, and then he pointed any volunteers in MacIntyre’s direction for organization.

  “It’s been a long time since anyone’s done any real UW.” Jess said as she walked up to Bryan, a knit cap pulled down so only a few strands of dirty-blond hair got wet in the rain. Her hands were in the front pockets of her jacket, but her sniper rifle remained slung over her shoulder and her pistol stuck out from its place tucked into her pants.

  “Eighty-Two-Fifteen was supposed to do it for the Gemini operation.” Bryan corrected. Even that was a rare foray into the world of unconventional warfare, the art of training a population to overthrow its oppressive government.

  “That’s not quite this scale.” She replied.

  Bryan looked at the motley group. “This doesn’t feel like that much.”

  “Not yet. It will. Once we get the Metic Ahai involved, and we get these guys trained, we’ll start making some headway.” She kicked a rotted log and glanced around.

  “Have you and Evan decided who you’re going to pick for the higher-end stuff?”

  She nodded. “We’re starting to sort the wheat from the chaff. There’s a couple who have got promise, Cho, Dominguez, Nelson, that guy from Yakima whose name I always get wrong, it’s like Willis or Williamson or something...”

  “Not MacIntyre, though, right?”

  She laughed. “Lucas driving you nuts yet?”

  “I’m waiting for him to suggest a frontal assault on Seattle tomorrow.” Bryan scoffed.

  “He got us this many people.”

  “That he did. It’s a start.”

  Jess shook her head. “No, he’d be a disaster, and I wouldn’t want him to even know about that part. If he started getting all the sexy explosive and espionage training, and then got washed out because we don’t feed him or let him sleep, he’d get pretty pissed. And I figured that would ruin some of the plans.”

  “I’ll keep letting him think he’s important and getting all the fun shit.” Bryan said. “What’s the training schedule look like?”

  “For this? Weapons familiarization and some basic marksmanship.”

  Bryan shook his head. “The other thing.”

  “I guess it depends on how many we pull in. We’ll do some covert communications, evasion, concealment-type shit. Some basic Hetarek stuff for sabotage. Evan and I figured we’d take them into a ravine somewhere and teach them some heavy weapons and explosives for a couple of days. Run the fuck out of them. Starve them. Torture them. There’s only so much we can do in a few weeks before someone notices they’re missing. It would be awesome if we could get some Metic Ahai. Evan’s put together a pretty good plan for them to intercept and redirect communications.”

  “It’s all that time sitting around the lodge waiting for things to happen. He likes to dip back into his glory days.”

  “I think these are supposed to be the new glory days.”

  The radio crackled. “Beast Two-Two, Serpent Eight-Two, over.”

  Bryan took the handset Siskind offered. “Go for Beast Two-Two, over.”

  “Be advised, Loki has a Hetarek patrol turning off the MSR and headed your direction, over.”

  “Two-Two copies all. Out.”

  He handed the transceiver back. Before he needed to ask, O flipped open the small screen attached to his body armor. Bryan and Jess crowded around to see the feed from the overhead satellite. Four Komodos, glowing on the infrared, had turned off the remnants of the main highway and slowly made their way up the draw between the mountain ridges.

  Rather than yell, Bryan keyed his mic. “Cease fire, cease fire, cease fire. Take cover. Hetarek inbound.”

  He didn’t have to check to know his team was gaining control of their trainees. Weapons fire stopped and everyone got quiet.

  Bryan continued to watch the screen.

  “We must not be far enough away from the highway.”

  “You think they heard the shots?” O asked.

  “I wouldn’t think so, unless they have some kind of audio sensor we’re not tracking.” Jess answered.

  Bryan looked around at the civilians, most of whom looked back at him, anxiety in their eyes. He checked his map. “What do you think, Jess?”

  She examined the patrol’s route, leading them straight into the ravine beneath them. The patrol would have vehicle tracks in the mud to follow that far into the mountains, even without the retort of gunfire to draw their attention. Those tracks would lead them to a switchback up the hill, but would take the Hetarek right past the training grounds.

  “We can make it work. I’ll get Harry to break out the AT-Nine.”

  He waved over Starek and showed him the route. “You think they can handle it?”

  The NCO smiled wide. “In this terrain? With us? Absolutely. How much time we got?”

  “Three minutes, max.” Jess estimated.

  Without needing instruction, Starek ran back to the group of civilians, passing out ammunition and giving very simple instructions. Don’t shoot until he did, then keep shooting at the trucks until told otherwise.

  The plan was almost too simple. The Hetarek would go int
o the kill zone and get killed. The recruits would become resistance fighters with a gunfight under their belt. Bryan and his team could have taken on the Hetarek without help, but having the locals present would dramatically increase their confidence. Confidence brought success and, hopefully, more recruits.

  The team leader gave out his instructions, and his team set up positions, spread over fifty meters of ridge, hiding behind the tall pine trees but keeping an eye on the old logging road below.

  “Serpent Eight-Two, Beast Two-Two. Over.”

  “Beast Two-Two, Serpent Eight-Two. Go ahead. Over.”

  “Be advised, we are initiating contact in one mike. Engaging four-by Komodos with small arms. How copy?”

  “Serpent Eight-Two copies contact. Good luck. Out.”

  Bryan and O took position in the middle of the line, lying flat with a tree between them. Over the rocks he could make out the vehicles coming forward. He heard the nervous recruits shifting nearby, and hoped no one would get too skittish and start firing early. The four vehicles continued their route up the road towards the switchback, the turrets scanning the ridgeline but not picking up anything.

  “I’m set.” O’Hare said softly through the headset. A glance down the line showed the Senior Engineering Sergeant on a knee behind one of the large pine trees, the long cylinder of the anti-vehicle weapon on his shoulder.

  “Me too.” Jess Kysley added.

  Without another word, a bright flash erupted to his left. O’Hare’s anti-armor blast ignited the first Komodo and detonating its ammunition and fuel. A spreading shower of fire and debris fell amongst the trees and ground cover. The explosion nearly drowned out the sound of Jess’s shots as she took out the gunner on the rear vehicle and placed just enough rounds on the driver’s window that the vehicle skidded as it tried to brake.

  Starek opened up with his machine gun, followed by the irregular reports of the myriad weapons firing nearly blindly. Bryan watched lasers and projectiles impact the sides of the three remaining Komodos, with more than a few striking trees and dirt nowhere near their targets. That could be fixed with training, Bryan thought.