by Mark Harritt
Fancheion was relieved that she had taken his advice and inclined his head forward to signify acceptance of her new orders.
Taectis leaned forward, Fancheion forgotten as she traced the outline of the canyons with her finger.
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Chapter Nine
After the wave of robots, Mike wondered what they’d be hit with next. He didn’t think they’d give up that easily, and he was right. His question was answered by something he hadn’t heard since Baghdad, the muted thump, thump, thump of mortar base plates driving into the the ground.
“Incoming!” Mike yelled as he looked for cover. He didn’t like it, but there was only one place they could take cover, the only cover left in the canyon. The two giant, smoking robots. It might get a little hot, but that was all they had. They’d scoured the canyon so that attackers wouldn’t have anything to hide behind. He could drop to the ground, but that was about it. This was a mistake he’d never make again, if he lived through this one.
“Follow me!”
Mike ran like a fiend, once again, hoping that everybody else was keeping up. Luckily, they weren’t too far away. He’d hoped to get there before the mortars hit, but he couldn’t get that lucky. The shells exploded overhead and the shrapnel drove into the ground, ripping into the earth. Mike could feel chunks of shrapnel impacting and bouncing off his body armor. He wondered how much longer that would last; how long it would be before a sliver of shrapnel made its way through a seam.
He did his best running for home imitation and slid in under the shell of one of the giant robots. The team had followed and scrambled and slid to get under the mech. It was tight, and they were still exposed, but hopefully the mech would keep most of the deadly shrapnel off of them. He wasn’t sure how effective it would be as cover. Most of the shell had been ravaged by fire, and he didn’t know how strong it was.
“Fuck me!” Ken said, “Are they attacking us?”
Mike shrugged, “Maybe. I’m surprised they aren’t using H.E.”
“H.E.?” Rich asked.
“High explosive. That’s what you use when you want to root somebody out of an entrenched position.” Mike nodded at the area outside the mech that was getting chewed up by the shrapnel, “All this does is keep our heads down.”
“Mike, is there anything I can do?” Jennifer asked in a worried voice.
“No, Jen, we’ll ride it out. At least you’re completely armored up.”
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Daldath led his team forward. Ahead, he could hear the concentrated explosions as the heavy mortar section made sure that the enemy was occupied. The mortars had been dropping smoke for the past ten minutes. Heavy smoke, mist, and the darkness masked their approach. Or, that’s what he hoped. He didn’t know what kind of optics the enemy had, so it was a crapshoot whether or not they made it into the canyons. Movement to contact was the life of the Infantry, though, and he was used to it.
The sound was an intense, physical thing. He could only imagine the meat grinder that the enemy soldiers were enduring. He’d been on the receiving end of mortar fire before, and the only thing he remembered from that was trying to dig as deep into the ground as possible. He didn’t remember much else from that day, but he did remember that.
He couldn’t see where the barrage was hitting because it was masked by the low mountains that bordered the canyons. He only knew the barrage continued because of the whistle the mortar rounds made as they flew overhead, and the muffled sound of the exploding rounds deeper in the canyons.
Shaedur Taectis had initiated the heavy fire to mask the approach of the main infantry body. Three battalions, one for each of the canyons, were going to bring death to the enemy. The terms of the contract meant that they had to kill everybody in there, men, women and children, which made his life much easier. It meant he didn’t need to be careful about who he shot at. That made the possibility of the maximum bonus easier to collect.
The Shaedur was all about maximizing profitability. Word had gotten around about the size of the bonuses that the merc brigade would earn if they hit their goals on schedule. He was looking forward to spending all the money he was about to make.
Daldath had the privilege to lead the attack on the thregari entrenchments, and, since he and his people were first in, they qualified for a ten percent increase. First kill was a bonus. Each waypoint crossed on time was another bonus, with additional bonuses if you were ahead of schedule. Still, he could only collect if he was alive at the end of mission, so he didn’t plan on being too hasty.
The heavy mist in the air, the smoke from the mortars, and the darkness of the night concealed their approach to the canyon, but it also concealed the enemy. Sensor robots were sent in as an early warning, ranged a few hundred feet ahead of them, ready to give alarm if the enemy had set ambushes in place. The slow wind that drove the mist out of the canyons hadn’t dispersed all of the smoke the mortars had dropped, but that concealment worked both ways. If they were going to be ambushed outside of the canyon, this was probably where it was going to happen.
The mist and smoke in the night air was playing havoc with the sensors in the standard visual range. The infrared was slightly better. It showed the terrain around them with a heated but cooling mist drifting out of the canyons, and a mass of greens and blues that indicated the mountains ahead of them. A steady stream of information scrolled down the side of his visor, with the approximate positons of the sensors placed in front of him. So far, there was no indication that the enemy was out there.
The area to his front was riddled with canyons. Most of them ended in blank walls or narrowed to the point where they weren’t passable. The h/k’s served as a movement to contact method to tell you exactly where the enemy was without endangering your soldiers. With the knowledge the Sh’raithe gained, they knew exactly where the entrances to the inhabited areas were. So far, they’d found three entrances into the mountains that lead to the thregari soldiers.
Every robot sent in helped to advance Sh’raithe knowledge of enemy positions and capabilities. Now they had an idea of the approximate strength of the enemy. Daldath was a little bit concerned with the giant robots they’d seen, but he’d faced robots on the field before. Briefly, he glanced back at the weapon that Manmet was carrying, and he felt a little bit better about their chances.
He faced forward again, following the moving sensor array in front of him. His team was approaching a region of low swells comprised of gravel and dirt covered with a waist high, tough grass that masked the area in front of the canyon mouth.
He tensed up as he moved forward, slowly moving his head across his field of fire. He checked the sensor suites again, and didn’t see anything that would indicate danger for him and his fire team. He moved into the low swells of earth and gravel and slid in behind one. The rest of the team, seven in all, slid down also, taking cover behind the natural berms.
Once more, he checked the sensors, and didn’t see anything.
“Oberan, this is Oberan 4, over.”
He heard the crackle of static as his commander replied, “Roger Oberan 4, this is Oberan, over.”
“Oberan, we’re in position.”
“Roger, Oberan 4. You are a go. Send in the sensors. Stick to the schedule.”
“Don’t worry, you’ll get your bonuses, you Athar bastard,” Daldath thought to himself. Then he replied, “Roger, Oberan.”
As he finished his reply, the thumps of the mortar base plates stopped. The last of the mortar rounds whistled overhead and shattered in the sky over the canyons. The world seemed to stand still in that brief moment, as if waiting impatiently for something to happen.
He typed in a series of commands on his wrist comp, and sent new orders to his sensors. The active sensors started toward the mouth of the canyon. The passive sensors pinged his head’s up as well. The passive sensor arrays had been inserted around the operational area, just to ma
ke sure the Sh'rathe scouts hadn’t missed anything. They were there to ensure that after the Sh’raithe went in, no one would be able to sneak back out. Shaedur Taectis had even put men in strategic locations on the the other side of the mountains. She wasn’t leaving anything to chance. They’d finally found and fixed the bastard thregari. She wasn’t going to lose them now.
The sensors slipped forward on their short, mechanical legs. The strange, oppressive silence was still present. After the deafening sound of the mortar barrage, the movement of the sensors through the stiff grass barely registered. They scurried forward, and two of the sensor slipped into the canyon. The other two moved to the mouth of the canyon and stopped in place. Daldath looked at his map, noting a long turn in the canyon. The enemy soldiers were on the other side of that long turn. One sensor package moved forward to the turn and stopped before it exposed itself. The other stopped halfway between the mouth of the canyon and the turn.
Daldath looked at the sensor information he was receiving. There was nothing out of place. No heat signatures, nothing to indicate that there were any soldiers waiting for them. Daldath knew that was deceptive. They were there, just further into the canyon. He turned, and gave the hand signal for his team to follow him. He lunged up and crouched as he ran to the mouth of the canyon. He could hear the sound of footsteps to his left and right. He ran to the face of the cliff that delineated the shift from rolling mounds to the start of the canyons. Half of his team was on his side of the mouth, the other half was on the other side.
He tapped a command, and the two sensors on either side of the canyon started moving forward. They moved as a staggered set, and they would continue forward until they encountered the other two, then they would stop and wait for further commands. Once again, he checked the data. It showed him that everything was clear to the turn in the canyon.
He caught his assistant patrol leader’s eye, and motioned to move into the canyon. Most team leaders would send their junior soldiers in first. Daldath was the best scout on his team, though. He didn’t have patience for the stupid little mistakes someone else would make, so he took the lead. It was a little bit more dangerous for him, but it felt better that trusting someone else. In the past, it had led to greater bonuses for him and his team.
He slipped around the lip and moved into the canyon. It was exactly like the sensors had indicated, nothing in front of him, no hidden enemy soldiers. There were no magnetic readings or any other indications of hidden traps. He and his men slowly moved forward, a column on each side of the canyon, studying the scree on the ground for traps. They held their weapons at the ready, but he didn’t see any targets to engage.
Slowly, they made their way down the canyon until, the two sensors with him stopped, falling into a staggered pattern with the first two. They waited for further commands. He tapped a new pattern into comms. The primary sensor moved past the bend in the canyon. A picture started to emerge as Daldath watched, giving him an idea of what lay past the curve. Multiple shots rang out. The shots hit the head of the robot, and the sensors exploded. That didn’t affect the mobility of the robot, though, and it kept walking forward.
Whoever shot the robot was canny. The shooter didn’t try to engage the mechanical torso, so Daldath felt the enemy must have a pretty good idea of what the sensor could and could not do. Or, conversely, maybe they just didn’t care, using it for target practice. Who knew how these strange soldiers thought. The only thing that Daldath truly knew was, that the alien soldiers had decimated the rest of the robots that had been sent in to kill them. Daldath motioned and the rest of his team moved forward with him, mimicking the speed of the sensors. The second sensor moved around the bend, and more shots rang out. This time, not all the sensors were hit, and some were still active.
Daldath had a glimpse of what waited for them. The detritus of the failed robot assault was still scattered across the canyon, with two large robots smoldering in the middle of the canyon. The large mech that he’d seen in the intel packet was still there. Their infantry was ranged to take cover behind the burning hulks of the dead robots. More gunshots rang out, and the sensor exploded. That was okay, though. Daldath had a good idea of how their forces were arrayed. He looked back over at his shoulder at Manmet.
“You see that?”
Manmet nodded his head, “Yah, I got it. Just keep the infantry’s head down, and I’ll take out the mech.” He reached out to thumb a switch on the side of the big tube. The sound of a very large capacitor charging filled the air. The weapon charged slowly, but when it hit a robot, the large Maser punched through armor like it was tin foil.
“You got it. Everybody else, grenades. After Manmet takes out their big robot, we go in full force.”
The rest of the team concurred with his assessment. Daldath pulled out his grenade launcher. The rest of the team was already in the process of doing so. They mixed dazzlers in with shrapnel. The dazzler’s would hopefully overpower the infantry’s central nervous system, and then they could drop shrapnel and high explosives in among them. Manmet would have to take out the giant mech, but he was good at his job. Daldath had seen him do the same to multiple targets, fairly quickly. The only thing that slowed him down was the time it took the capacitor to charge. In combat, four seconds could seem like a lifetime.
The third sensor took a hit as it rounded the curve. It was knocked back, but the sensors still functioned long enough to corroborate what he’d seen with the second sensor. He was expecting another shot, but suddenly, he heard a buzzing sound, and a fiery stream of incandescent projectiles filled the air in front of him. He blinked, stunned at the display of firepower, and then, realizing that the rounds were ricocheting, he dropped to take cover. Most of the projectiles slammed into the ground, digging a trench, but some of the cooling chunks of metal ricocheted from the cliff wall. There was nothing left of the robot. Behind him, he could hear cursing. Somebody hadn’t been as quick or as lucky as he had been.
The buzzing sounded once, twice more and he could only assume that the two other robots, had been dealt with in the same way. Chunks of dirt and rock flew, propelled around the bend, enforcing this perception.
Watching the rounds carve into the rock, he suddenly didn’t rate their chances as high as he had previously. He looked around at the canyon walls. That was the problem. They were walking straight down a corridor that funneled them right toward that damned mech. He wished there was a way that he could flank the enemy, but that wasn’t possible in these canyons. He had a sinking feeling they were well and truly fucked. He shook his head. Pissing and moaning wouldn’t get him anywhere.
He swallowed that sudden fear. He’d been in dangerous predicaments before. He wasn’t going to allow fear to deter him from his course of action. That way led to dishonor and death. He didn’t hear any more buzzing, so he stood up. He looked back and saw that one of his soldiers was still on the ground. Jrith went to check on him, then looked up at Daldath and shook his head. It looked like Cradol wasn’t going to get his bonus. The cursing hadn’t stopped since the rounds started ricocheting. Manmet had a large bleeding cut on his arm. He was busy telling the gods what he was going to do to the enemy soldiers.
Daldath motioned, and the team fell in behind him. They moved forward, and about a hundred feet from the curve, he stopped and looked around to make sure the team was ready. The plan was to to hug the inside of the curve, use the rock face for cover, and pop off the grenades down the canyon. It wasn’t a long shot, so he set his sights on medium range. They’d fire the dazzlers first, then hit them with fragmentation, reload and put smoke down range so that Manmet could get a shot off at the robot. Once the robot was down, they’d hit the infantry with more frag, and move into the larger portion of the canyon.
He motioned and his soldiers on the outside of the curve, minus two to pull security, moved to the inside. Manmet stood just to the outside of the line, waiting until Daldath gave him the signal to assault. The line of grenadiers shuffled forward until the
y were close to the bend. Daldath was last in line. He would be the last to shoot and then he would call Manmet up to use the Maser. When he was sure everybody was set and ready, he waved for the first one to move forward. They wanted to put multiple grenades in the air quickly, so his team was stacked close, nut to butt.
As they shuffled forward, his eyes were on the back of the soldier in front of him. He wondered how close they were so he leaned away from the wall and looked down the line. As he looked, his eyes were drawn to the far wall of the canyon. There was . . . something there. It was small. He couldn’t tell what it was. Movement of some kind. He shuffled forward, muscle memory putting his body on automatic, but his attention was keyed to the far wall. Something didn’t look right. Maybe the mist and smoke that drifted through the canyon was playing tricks on his eyes. There was a hint of a line, maybe a curve. He couldn’t tell, though. The wall in front of them looked natural, but something on the rock face teased him.
There was a slight breeze, and then he saw it. Something moved, ever so slightly. It was small, and thin, like a root or string, dangling from the rock, nudged by a breeze. He followed the movement. The rock just above that spot seemed to be discolored. Then he noticed it, the thing that drew his attention, the thing that wasn’t natural, and shouldn’t be where it was. It was a graceful, curved line, almost circular.
The breeze and the moisture had combined to weaken the combination of dirt, rock, and grout that had been used to cover up the hole. The antenna, the wire that Daldath had seen moving, had been jarred loose and was swinging when the breeze brushed against it. Any place else, and Daldath and his team would be able to move laterally away from the threat. The canyon was a funnel, though, and there was no place to go but forward or back.
Improvised Explosive Devices are actually pretty easy to construct if you know how to do it. This one was a remote controlled IED, or RCIED. Mike and the team had plenty of experience with IEDs overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. They could take them apart and put them together in their sleep. With three engineers and two electrical engineers, they’d pretty much perfected this one. This particular IED was set up as a fougasse, the poor man’s claymore. There were fifty pounds of rock and gravel stuffed into the hole that Hank and Will had cut into the cliff face, powered by two pounds of the explosive they’d stolen from the Turinzoni compound. All of that had been stuffed into the rock, and then spackled over with a homemade concrete mixture. The small antenna was there so that they could turn the power on and off. Right now, the power was on, and the computer chip was just waiting for a signal from the IR switch, set to detect body heat.
