“That’s better, isn’t it?” Shari smiled, and all became right with his world. He could think of nothing but her, her presence, how much he wanted to be with her. All doubts had been washed away.
“Yes, thank you. I love you, Shari,” Rick said, and he believed it. He really did, even while somewhere within him wailed a thin small boy crying noooooo. He ignored the warning, focused on the woman in front of him, the only thing that made his life worthwhile. “I really do.”
“I know you do, Rick darling. We just have a little more work to do to get you ready. Get rid of some of those pesky little memories that just get in your way.” She held out her hands to him again and he came into her arms, and everything was really and truly fine, better than it had ever been.
-10-
The Beast held four now, with Donovan gone: Lockerbie in the driver’s seat, Butler one-handed on the gun and Grusky backing them up in the rear. Jill could have found a replacement but she didn’t feel like trying to fit someone in at the last second. From the passenger seat of the monster truck she stared at the assault aircraft.
They were MH-60 Black Hawks from the 160th Aviation, the same kind of birds that had brought the SEALs in to take out Bin Laden. A bit old, but much upgraded and impeccably serviced. Other countries had helicopters more advanced than the US did now, but she knew that once the nation got back on its feet they would get some better ones. For now, the tried and true was good enough.
Four birds cranked up their rotors, and she watched forty nanocommandos load up. She ground her teeth, wishing she was going in with them, but then again, they couldn’t exactly fly the Beast along.
Her team was going in with the ground assault. That was supposed to start as soon as the commandos were down, and was mostly there to surround the place and keep anyone from getting away.
We’ll see, she thought.
The helos lifted in two pairs, each lead and trail about one hundred meters laterally separated. They disappeared into the dawning sky, barely visible with all their running lights off. On top of their surfaces they had faint green glow-strips so they could see each other, invisible from the ground.
Intel had detected no radars or air-defense weapons, so they had a good chance of dropping the assault teams off safely. Getting out might be another issue, but the aviators of Task Force 160 were the best in the world, dedicated support for the Delta hostage rescue teams and other special operations forces.
In fact, Jill had heard that once the commando nano was fully stabilized, Delta would be the next ones to get it. More power to ‘em, she thought. Gotta respect the D-boys after what they laid down in Mogadishu. Besides, she had a better plan for taking the next step up, and it was waiting in front of her.
The go-code crackled over the squadcomm and Lockerbie cranked up the Beast. They were parked behind a monstrous M1A4 tank with “Big Daddy” painted in white on its rear end. The laser antimissile R2D2 fitted to the turret made it look like something from a sci-fi movie.
They were supposed to let the tank, and its fellows strung out left and right of her, charge forward across the open fields and pasturelands outside of the Pax River complex. The Navy and Marines were making a similar assault on the Solomons Island complex across the narrow strait. Bill had given them all he knew but he’d never been to this area, the heart of Septagon Shadow, so a simultaneous assault was the best bet to rescue prisoners, capture scientists and take as much of the technology intact.
The big tank lurched forward and Lockerbie pulled in directly behind it as per orders. Dawn was just breaking to the east but the driver had the Beast’s infrared sensors linked into her squadcomm helmet and drove like it was daylight.
“See that next open field?” Repeth asked
“Sure, Top.”
“As soon as Big Daddy in front of us squashes that fence, pass him on the left and punch it.”
“Ah…okay, Top. Hope he doesn’t decide to put a round up our ass.”
“Naw, we got IFF on, right?”
“Right,” answered Grusky from the back seat after checking the comms stack.
“Fine. I want to be in on the kill.”
“Funny, Top, I thought you might say that. I didn’t need my next stripe anyway.” As the tank flattened the fence, Lockerbie accelerated and roared around the behemoth, bouncing over the ruts and bumps. “Shit!” she yelled as suddenly some hills grew legs. “They didn’t say anything about cows!” She wrenched the wheel hard to the right, then left again.
“Intel always sucks, you know that,” Repeth said dryly as the black-and-white milk cattle scattered in all directions.
In front of the Beast they could see the target complex, a low line of buildings now lit by flashes of gunfire. Whirlybird shapes appeared briefly above the treeline to their left before disappearing into the night at nap-of-the-earth height, wheels brushing the treetops.
“All right folks, let’s get in there and give the glory boys some help. Butler, you are weapons free, but be damn sure what you’re shooting at. Use Needleshock to start with in case it’s our guys.”
“Roger,” came Butler’s laconic reply. “Uh oh, here we go.” He ripped off a burst with his gun, a sound like steel cans going through a wood chipper. Yellow fire reached out from the Vixen as the tracers among the shells lit their path. An enemy SUV burst into flame and rolled to a stop, men bailing out.
“Cut them down,” Repeth ordered. “They might be Shadows. Needleshock will give them a fighting chance.”
“You got it, boss.” More light stabbed out, short bursts that touched the figures and threw them like puppets to the ground.
Then they were in among the buildings, and the weakness of Repeth’s rogue plan became apparent. There was a bewildering array of structures. Some looked like offices, some like hangars or utility sheds or warehouses. Remembering the Noman Cole plant, she said, “Keep a lookout for a building with skinny windows and concrete walls, like the other one we hit.”
“Like that one?” Grusky pointed over his shoulder to the left.
“Good eyes.” Repeth could not see any activity at that building, but the windows glowed with internal light and it was clearly occupied. “What do you think, Lock? Will the Beast take the hit?”
“The front entrance? Uh…no, I don’t think so. That’s reinforced concrete. This isn’t a tank.”
“Hmm. Good thinking, Lockerbie. Put you in for a medal.”
“I think you already owe me one or two, Top.”
“I’ll make sure you all get one good one, I promise. Now turn this puppy around and go find Big Daddy.”
***
“He’s not here.” Repeth kicked her prisoner in the butt, causing him to stumble.
“Boss, throttle down, okay? There are civilians.” Grusky hurried alongside her to keep up.
“They’re Unionist pigs, that’s what they are. Here, Corporal, got another one for you.” She shoved the hapless man with the Unie patch in the direction of the MPs and their makeshift stockades, then turned back toward the building and the Beast.
Big Daddy had rammed the front door of the building, after a bit of persuading on her part. The tank commander had waved as he pulled back to his position in the breaking dawn. Nobody was likely to have noticed their little deviation from the op plan.
The team had searched the building over the past half hour, and had cleared it of all resistance on the first floor. Now Repeth and Grusky returned to the Beast, which was now half-inside the structure with the Vixen pointed at an armored door. It was the only one they hadn’t been able to open, even with blasting charges. Whatever it guarded had to be important.
“You sure you don’t want to get some backup?” Grusky asked.
“Ask forgiveness, not permission,” Repeth growled. “Our answers might be behind that door, and I’m not waiting.”
“But how are we going to open it?”
“Go get Big Daddy again. Tell them it’s another case of beer each.”
�
�But Top, if you blast down the door it might kill everyone inside!”
Repeth looked Grusky up and down with evident disgust. “And they say women have no spatial sense. Follow me.” She led Grusky in a fast circuit of the room the door guarded, a twelve by twelve cube. “That’s either some kind of vault, or it’s an entrance to the basement, where the real facility is. Either way I doubt there’s anyone on the other side of the door to be killed. And I’m not waiting around for engineers to get it open; it will take them hours.”
“Okay, boss. On my way.” Grusky trotted off to look for their favorite M1 tank and crew.
***
The slap on her shoulder startled Repeth, and she turned to snarl at Grusky. “What!” She was about to tell him to use the damn squadcomm when she saw who was attached to the arm.
A midnight-black figure in head-to-toe spidersilk armor, articulated plates making him look like a laminated medieval knight, spoke through the cloth over his mouth. “Let me go first, Master Sergeant.”
“Back off, nano-boy,” she said, trying to jerk her shoulder out from under his hand. It felt like a clamp, and she didn’t go anywhere.
“We only found half a dozen cyborgs, and they weren’t that scary,” the man went on. “Aren’t you Repeth? The one who hit the other facility, and wrote the report?” He let go of her shoulder.
“Yeah, that’s me, so what?”
“Remember what the guy you snagged said. They had some boosted guards. I think that’s all we found. Not the real Shadow Men.” He gestured down the stairwell on which they were standing. “If these things are anywhere, they’re down here.”
“Or they got away. Okay, you go first, meat shield.”
“Right. Echo Team, let’s go.”
Suddenly there came a rapid fluttering of black all around her as five nanocommandos leaped the rails, bypassing Repeth and her team. “Right,” she muttered, and led the way down as fast as her legs would take her. Her grenade launcher bounced on her back as she descended the stairs: one, two, three landings, then an open door.
The sound of gunfire echoed down the corridor to their front, and in the glow of emergency lamps she saw black figures flicker, fire and leap. Something swung into jerky motion, picked up one of the figures and whirled it once over its head to slam it against a wall like a child with a bean-bag doll. A sickening crunch reached her ears and the man lay still.
The thing turned her way with glowing eyes, then twitched as automatic weapons opened up on it from the right. Jill lifted her grenade launcher and aimed, but the apparition bolted to her left down a corridor. She rushed forward, weapon ready, to shine a flashlight on the fallen figure.
It was a black-clad commando. She had no idea which one, since they didn’t wear nametags and she couldn’t see their faces, but it didn’t really matter much to her. The only thing this one needed a name for was his funeral. It leaked fluids, a carcass in a silken bag.
The commando team leader swore next to her, which identified him for Jill.
“You still good on taking point, nano-boy?” she asked.
“We’re good,” he grated back. “We’re going to get this bastard.”
“Might want to send up for something heavier than those PW-15s, then,” she said, gesturing with her grenade launcher. “Like this.”
He stared at her for a long moment, then nodded. “Good thinking. Can your team hold here for a few minutes?”
“Yeah. We’ll save a couple for you. Go. Hurry up.”
The four remaining nanocommandos bolted for the stairs, leaping upward like preying mantises, leaving the four Edens with the bag of bones. “Grusky, Lockerbie, set claymores to cover those two corridors. Have two more primed and ready to go, back out of blast radius. Butler, toss a flare down each one, I want to be able to see.”
They broke open their backpacks while Repeth tried to cover both openings with one weapon. The flares went first, then the two claymore mines – blocks of explosives faced with seven hundred steel BBs, the lethal kind – were placed three meters down the way.
Forty seconds later there came a scraping from the corridor the thing had fled down. Repeth put one eye around the corner and saw those glowing red orbs. “Get ready,” she whispered. “Soon as I pull my head back, clack that thing.”
She watched it edge forward to pick up the flare, then toss the burning light back up the corridor toward them. “Crap, it’s smart. I can’t see it anymore. Throw another flare down there.”
She heard Butler digging in his pack when she saw the eyes halfway to her and moving fast. “Clack!” she yelled, throwing herself backward from the corner. A wave of pneumatic shock washed over her, would have deafened her in the enclosed space except for the noise-cancelling squadcomm inserts. As it was she still felt like a giant hand had slapped her across the floor.
She rolled to her knees to see the Shadow cartwheel among them. Too fast, it’s too fast! It must have gotten beyond the front face of the Claymore, avoided the sleetstorm of steel balls, and been shoved forward into their midst. Jill watched in horror as it stood and kicked Butler as he lay on the ground. The sound of his breath being driven from his body came over the link as she raised her grenade launcher.
The muffled bark of the weapon transmitted itself through the kick in her shoulder as it punched the man-thing backward. Lockerbie and Grusky opened up on it from their prone positions, hammering it with Needleshock on full auto.
It lay there for a moment, blue lightnings playing over its body with the electrical discharges of the charged-capacitor flechettes. That wasn’t so hard. Then, without warning, it leaped upward to cling to the low ceiling, insect-like, before scuttling across it toward her. Her weapon boomed once more but she missed, it moved so fast, and then it was on her with a hissing roar.
A face loomed before her, a demon visage of shredded flesh and glowing red eyes – they must have added those for effect, she thought in one of those frozen flashes of irrelevance that combat often brought – before it slammed her over backward with monstrous strength.
She could see it jerk and twitch, stitched by bullets from her teammates, even as it backhanded her across the room. In a confused grey haze she saw it turn on its tormenters and lunge for them. Groping for a weapon, she found her PW10 on its retractable sling and brought it up to fire.
Click. She struggled with the weapon, running at speed through malfunction procedures drilled into her nervous system by years of practice, but she knew she would be too late. The golem had Grusky in its hands and with a twist, it pulled her assistant’s head off and flung it from him.
Screaming in rage and lining up on the thing’s body, she poured another magazine into it on full automatic, but it’s not enough, I can’t kill it with these weapons when an avalanche of darkness swept past her.
At least a dozen black-armored knights lined up, raised their guns as one and fired at the Shadow. Jill’s bones rattled with the explosions of heavy weapons and the thing came apart under the pummeling. Grenade launchers filled with flechette, auto-shotguns, squad automatic weapons and even a .50 caliber M2 heavy machinegun lifted from its pintle atop an Abrams tore it to bits.
Ignoring Grusky, who was clearly beyond help, Jill staggered over to Butler, trusting the cavalry to deal with security. She rolled him over and saw his chest had been caved in and he was not breathing. With her combat knife she cut his body armor free and tried to figure out what to do.
A black-clad figure with a Red Cross patch shoved her roughly aside, then stripped off its mask to show a hawkish Semitic face. “Let me handle this, ma’am,” he said as he pulled off his gloves to reveal long slim fingers. Deftly he reached inside Butler’s crushed and bloody chest and pulled the ribcage forward into something resembling a normal position.
Jill knew that, assuming there was any life left in his body, it would be frantically healing itself. The commando medic had to rearrange the bones before they knit in a position that would keep his heart from beating. She could see
the logic in it immediately.
Now that the bone structure was not pressing on the internal organs, Butler’s breathing was visible, his diaphragm working. “He’s an Eden, right?”
Jill nodded.
“He’ll make it then. Good luck.” With that the man was gone, racing after his comrades.
“Get a nutrient IV started,” Jill ordered Lockerbie, then staggered to her feet to look for her grenade launcher. Now that she had time to think, the whole front of her body felt bruised. Once she had retrieved the weapon she walked over to look at what was left of the Shadow Man.
Gleaming metal bones, unbroken still, poked out of the wreckage. Its plastic joints and sockets weren’t quite as tough, and had shattered and popped under the commandos’ weapons fire. The skull was a steel horror movie prop and the flesh…the flesh was just meat, bloody meat. Wires and implanted machines ran throughout the mass.
Jill thought about what one of these things could do if it carried a weapon – a 7.62 Gatling minigun for example. She shuddered to think. If a nanocommando was worth several ordinary troops, this thing could match several of them.
Then she remembered her conversation with Colonel Muzik. What had she said? “Then I guess we get ourselves some upgrades.” It had been flippant bravado, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense. At some point the Tiny Fortress project would come up with combat nano compatible with the Eden virus, and when it did, she would be pushing to the front of the line. But now…maybe…it wouldn’t be like a nano shot. Building cyborgs must take days, weeks, even if all the techniques were perfected. She filed the thought away.
Jill shook herself out of her musings to check on Butler. He seemed to be resting comfortably. She was torn between staying and going forward. Finally, she compromised. “Let’s get him up the stairs. It’s less risky to move him than to take a chance one of those things shows up again.”
The Orion Plague Page 7
