Tara nodded. “We’ve got a good position. Once we get folks into those caves, we’ll see. That’s about the only place in the jungle we saw that something could be living. With all the predators out there, a protected place makes the most sense, you know?”
“Indeed,” Reilly smiled. “If you see anything, I want to know immediately.”
“You got it, boss.”
Reilly clapped her on the shoulder. “Fantastic. Oso says you’re a helluva pilot, Tara. I’m glad we brought you along. You keep this up, and there’s a permanent spot on the roster for you.”
“Thank you for the opportunity.”
Reilly shrugged and put on an aw-shucks smile. “Go get ‘em, Deathangel. We’ll be right behind you.”
* * *
By the time she returned from the latrine, Tirr and the young creature were gone, and the compound’s central area was filled with the familiar noise of a unit preparing for patrol. Oso stood to one side of the infantry with his arms crossed. Tara moved around the formation of soldiers and stood next to him. Still bouncing from her commander’s compliment, she assumed a similar stance to Oso and frowned at the new recruits being formed into a loose infantry platoon under the direction of one of the maintenance personnel, who looked as if he’d not led an infantry patrol in about ten years.
Oso kept his eyes on the formation but leaned over to her. “All we have to do is get them to the objective, but I’m still worried about them. They’ll last five minutes with any resistance.”
“If the chicken things come again, less than that,” Tara agreed.
Oso harrumphed but didn’t say anything as the patrol fell in and loaded aboard two stripped down combat skiffs. The time and effort to traverse to the saved coordinates would be reduced to the absolute minimum, but they’d only have the ammunition and weapons aboard the CASPers if things went bad. Tara looked up and saw the ammunition crew finish with both her and Oso’s CASPers at the same time. They moved much faster than in normal operations, and as she glanced over the rest of the assembly area, she realized most of the CASPers appeared to be loading for combat operations.
“We’re the tip of the spear, huh?” Tara asked Oso. “The boss thinks we’re on to something, and he’s sending reinforcements. He told me they’d be right behind us.”
Oso nodded. “Yeah. We’ll have a head start, but it won’t be much. Whatever you think we’re gonna find, we gotta find it fast.”
“How fast can you load up?”
Oso grinned at her. “Almost as fast as you can, Boss.”
“Saddle up, then,” she said. As her wingman turned away, Tara walked up to the infantry formation. Their apparent leader stood behind the formation, while a younger, much more squared away soldier walked the group through loading a combat skiff for transportation. As much as she wanted to listen to the safety brief, Tara walked over to the leader and found him fumbling with his combat slate. He clearly wasn’t an infantryman with the extra girth he sported around his sweaty waist. His coveralls were already dark with perspiration, almost down the lengths of every extremity. As she approached, she smelled a distinct odor emanating from his vicinity.
“You’re in charge?” she asked, trying not to breathe through her nose and failing.
“Yeah,” the man said. “My name’s Geoff.”
Tara nodded and leaned in as much as her offended nose would let her. “Listen, Geoff,” she stressed his name sarcastically, “all I want you to do is deploy your people exactly where I tell you to, when I tell you to. Do that, maintain security during movement to the objective, and we’re good. You understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Geoff replied, an anxious hitch in his voice. “We’ll follow your orders to the letter. They’re just a bunch of kids who’ll do anything you tell them to do.”
Tara looked away from the platoon leader’s wide eyes for a moment, remembering the Angels and Demons of Force 25. They were kids, too, but they were so much better than the ragtag formation in front of her. “Make sure they do what they’re told, Geoff. Get them loaded on the skiffs. We move in five mikes.”
The platoon leader’s brow furrowed. “Mikes? I don’t know if any of them are named—”
“Minutes!” Tara swore under her breath. “Load them on the skiffs and be prepared to move in five minutes.”
Geoff sputtered. “Yes, ma’am. Should they load their weapons?”
Gods!
Tara opened her mouth and knew her voice was too loud and abrasive, but it felt good to let loose on the imbecile. “What in the fuck, Geoff? Yes, I want their weapons loaded. They’ll be riding on top of the fucking skiff, and there are about a million things out there ready to attack and eat every single gods-damned one of us! The minute we roll out of the compound, everyone has to have their shit wired tight. Especially you, because I’m not going to babysit your platoon all damned day. Now, get them loaded on the skiffs and ready to fight for their lives. I don’t have the time or the inclination to do anything else for you. This mission is on your fucking shoulders. Get me?”
Geoff was already moving toward the combat skiffs and didn’t respond. He gestured wildly at the soldier in front of the formation, but the young man’s eyes were on Tara, his mouth agape.
Tara saw red at the edges of her vision. “Move! Move, godsdamnit!”
The entire formation scrambled for the combat skiffs. Red-faced and breathing hard, Tara did an about-face and stomped to her CASPer. She climbed the ladder and saw Oso closing Mike 77’s canopy as she turned and loaded into her vehicle. He winked at her and smiled. The canopy came down, and she could see that Lucille was halfway through the combat start checklist without her assistance. It was just as well.
“Status report, Lucille.”
<
“Sensors and weapons to standby positions. Lock and load once we’re outside the perimeter.”
<
Tara shook her head and fastened her shoulder restraints. “As long as I have direct comms, the rest of the spectrum doesn’t matter in the jungle.”
<
“No time, Lucille. I want us moving toward the gate in twenty seconds.”
There was no response from the program, but the CASPer’s engine fired up, and all the dormant cockpit systems flickered to life in an instant. As the forward camera views snapped into focus, the heads-up display appeared and reported the servos were engaged and prepared to move. The haptic processor panel reported all green, so Tara took a step forward, and the CASPer moved flawlessly.
“All forward elements, this is Deathangel 25. On me. Let’s move with a purpose, people.”
Oso clicked his microphone twice, but there wasn’t a response from the skiffs. Tara was about to press the radio button again when a memory from her first mercenary training program surfaced. One of the kids in her class had been a large, good-natured kid—Dennis Whitehead—who shouldn’t have been a mercenary under any circumstances, but whose heart was big enough that he wouldn’t let himself fail. They’d performed a raid mission in the awful mosquito-infested forests of Mississippi and were standing around on the objective when the instructors started throwing artillery simulators around the group. She’d been a squad leader during the exercise and, unlike her classmates, started moving immediately off the objective. In the chaos, she’d turned to see Whitehead standing in the open with his mouth open.
“Whitehead! Let’s go!”
He turned and faced her but didn’t move. Eyes wide and chubby cheeks flushed with exertion, his body shook in what resembled absolute panic, but his feet never moved. Sweat streamed down his face as more simulators, each the equiva
lent of an eighth of a stick of dynamite, erupted around them. The objective was clear save for him, and the instructors laughed and closed in on the unsuspecting kid.
She’d stomped to him in double-time, grabbing his load bearing vest roughly and shaking him. “Move, Whitehead! Move with a purpose!”
The big kid had shrugged his shoulders and screamed out in a wobbling, high-pitched voice, “I don’t know how!”
Tara’s radio clicked and snapped her mind back to the present. “Deathangel 25, this is Titan Six. Loaded and ready for movement.”
“Listen up, people. This is my show, and we’re going to do it my way. Mike 77, lock on your INS fix and take us out. Titan Six, follow Mike 77. Deathangel 25 has rear security. Weapons locked and loaded—engage direct threats only. Maintain 360-degree security. Move out and push the pace.”
Through the forward cameras, she watched Oso do exactly what she wanted him to do. The two combat skiffs followed. Given their width, some of the areas they’d passed on the patrol routes would be challenging and could require the use of weapons to cut their way through. While it might warn the creatures and send them scurrying into the caves, it couldn’t be helped. On the ground, her infantry could counter the threats posed, if there were any, and they’d secure the area before Reilly and the bulk of the Raiders showed up. He’d said he’d be right behind them.
Tara called up the command frequency and saw a green indicator light on her heads-up display indicating the frequency was open and unjammed. “Boss, Deathangel 25 on the command freq.”
Connection took about ten seconds, probably long enough for the signal to be relayed from the communications switches to wherever Raleigh was in the compound. “Go ahead, 25.”
“Moving now. My ETA to our objective is one hour and twenty-two minutes. Status of follow-on forces? Over.”
Reilly’s voice came back almost immediately. “I’m impressed, Miss Mason. Your assumption that I’m willing to commit forces to provide additional security to your patrol and secure whatever you may find on your hunch is admirable. It’s almost as if you’ve come around to my way of doing things. I certainly hope that’s the case. You would become an even more valuable asset to the Raiders.”
Tara beamed in her cockpit as her CASPer pushed through the compound’s open gate and into the jungle outside. “Boss, I’m doing the job I was hired to do. All the rest of what you’ve said is up to you and the unit. I’ll support the mission to the fullest.”
“Copy that, 25. I’m sending six CASPers to back you up. They’ll depart in thirty minutes. I recommend you establish an objective rally point and wait for them to join you. Once they’re with you, you’ll have more than enough combat strength to take care of anything you find out there.”
“Roger that, Boss.”
“But, I do have a question.” Reilly’s voice echoed in her ears for a strange moment. “I know what you think you’ve found out there, Mason. You think these things live in caves, and you may well be right, but there’s more to it than that. How did you follow them? More specifically, what aren’t you telling me?”
Tara took a deep breath. “I studied some imagery from our recon sats. A long time ago, I learned how to analyze basic satellite imagery, and I used one of those techniques. I found something that resembled a path and decided to follow it. The path stopped at the river and the cave system just beyond it. It’s a good lead, Boss.”
Reilly chuckled. “I agree, 25. You have many more talents than I expected, Miss Mason. You pull this off, there might be a platoon command in it for you. I mean, as long as there’s something worth my time and your efforts. I’ll send support as soon as I have it ready. Good hunting. Raider Six, out.”
Tara did the math in her head. If they were thirty minutes ahead of the follow-on CASPers, that was a decent head start, but without having to babysit two combat skiffs, the CASPers would likely jump into the objective rally point maybe five minutes after her forces got there. There wasn’t a whole lot of time to find a cavern and get inside, and if she waited for the other CASPers, the idea of her staking any claim at all to the findings went right out the proverbial window.
“Titan Six, Deathangel 25. You push those skiffs as fast as they’ll go. Mike 77, you’ve got a road to plow. Stay to the north of our track, where the terrain was better. You with me?”
She heard Oso’s microphone click twice, and the skiffs didn’t bother to acknowledge at all. Stomping behind them, Tara wondered how far into the jungle they’d get before either the chicken things swooped down on the infantry and laid waste to the entire plan, or she’d get mad enough to leave them behind.
<>
“Lucille, if it’s not something you see on our sensors or a way to get us to the objective faster, I don’t care. Nothing matters except getting to whatever’s out there before anyone else. That’s the only way we’re going have a job going forward, okay?”
There wasn’t a response, and as much as Tara expected there to be a familiar emptiness, there wasn’t. She had friends now, and a viable wingman doing what she asked him to do. Lucille was a program, after all. As such, she wasn’t really a friend and couldn’t possibly understand the pressure Tara felt to perform. Oso and the others did, and that brought them immeasurably closer to Tara with every passing moment. These were her comrades in arms, and there was nothing that mattered more than them, save for the prize, whatever it could be, thirty kilometers away.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Four
Deep in the Weqq Jungle
In her thirty-two years, Jessica couldn’t remember being as happy to see daylight as when she could finally see the thick jungle around her in full clarity. Hours of working through the trees, climbing up and down the scaly-barked, wide-leaved trunks, and wading through chest deep foliage proved physically challenging enough that she could feel fatigue setting in as the dawn broke behind them. Not being able to clearly see anything except the pixelated, depthless images in her rudimentary night vision goggles had been much harder on her mind. For every slimy, scaly thing that touched her bare hands or the near-screech-inducing ones that managed to find a way under her hood and brush against her face, Jessica’s heart raced despite her best efforts to keep things in check. Peacemakers used a whole bevy of calming techniques to center the mind and the body, and Jessica found exactly none of them worked in the middle of a hostile jungle, at night, surrounded by a million things capable of killing her without her knowledge or ability to stop them.
Two hours past sunrise, Kurrang slowed his pace and crouched down under a large, flowering bush much like the ones she’d seen outside the MinSha compound. He made a “come over” gesture to her, and Jessica crawled up beside the massive TriRusk warrior.
“What is it?”
Kurrang pointed up into the trees. “Do you see it?”
Jessica looked at the canopy and saw the upper treetops swaying with a breeze that had no prayer of reaching the surface. Sweeping her eyes from side-to-side like a radar scan, she saw nothing other than some wildlife directly above them. “What am I looking for?”
Kurrang snorted softly. “What shouldn’t be there.”
Jessica frowned and stared up at the canopy again. Her training said seeing things as they needed to be seen sometimes required a focus far away. She relaxed her eyes and kept them fixed in the bright clouds above the swaying trees. The winds were from the southwest and strong above the treetops. Most of the upper third of the canopy was moving significantly from her left to her right, and as she followed the movements, one tree directly ahead of them appeared to not be moving as much as the trees around it. The effect was clearly artificial. “There’s something camouflaged up there?”
“I do not know this word.”
Jessica pointed. “A disguise. It’s designed to look and act like the trees around it, but it’s artificial. Meant to fool the casual observer or for them to dismiss without a sec
ond glance.”
Kurrang nodded, and his lower jaw worked in a half-smile. “I didn’t expect you to see it until we were upon it, Jessica. Well done.”
“Thanks,” she said aware her cheeks flushed with pride. “Is that the cache?”
“Yes. I found it several days ago. Given the amount of supplies inside, I believe there’s a well…camouflaged…ship nearby, but I haven’t been able to find it. There’s no place for one to land within thirty kilometers, but I believe otherwise. Assassins have ways around such limitations.”
Jessica blinked. “Assassins?”
Kurrang looked at her for a long moment. “Come. We’ll climb up there and rest. After some food, we can plan our next steps. What you see up there may change your mind about the situation.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jessica whispered, but Kurrang was already moving to the base of the tree. She followed close behind and realized the tree was more massive than the redwood trees of northern California. The dark-red bark hung out from the trunk by a meter in some places, and the canyons between those spires ran up the tree. All things considered, the climb appeared to be an easy one. Kurrang vaulted up into a wider vertical canyon, placing his hands on one side and his feet on the other. He shimmied upward without much effort. Jessica picked a narrower crack and stepped inside the bark on either side of her shoulders. Stepping up with her left foot, she braced against the bark and repeated the move with her right foot. Reaching up with her hands, she braced and pulled her feet up under her, braced them against the tree, and repeated the reach with her hands. Her muscles warmed to the exertion after about ten meters, and while she wanted to push herself faster, speed was unnecessary. Getting to the level of the cache without reducing her arm and leg strength too much was key. The climb was at least fifty meters, and Jessica didn’t bother looking at anything other than the tree and wherever she need to place her hands and feet. The dense bark took her weight easily, and she was able to rest when necessary.
Honor the Threat Page 26
