Shift Tense: Eshu International Book 2

by Patrick Todoroff

  Thick twangs sounded as a hail of rubble and road flares arced through the smoke-filled sky toward the next stretch of putting-green lawns and manicured flowerbeds.

  Tam and I watched them soar. “Vandals at the fall of Rome. I swear to God,” he muttered.

  ***

  Even with the plated armorglass windows, the rattle and thump of gunfire reverberated in the president’s War Room. A dozen Red Beret soldiers stood at attention like itchy statues nervously fingering weapons, the urge to flee written large in their eyes. The holo-table displayed the estate’s grounds in miniature, a luminous topography of faded greens, yellow warning icons and ominous red flags flashing all across its surface.

  President-General Goma Dhul-Fiqaar sat in his chair on the raised dais in the center of the room and screamed into a phone. “Not one ounce! Do you hear me? Not one, single ounce!”

  On the other end of the line, Director Hugh Brenton fantasized about throttling the caller. “Threats,” he replied slowly, “should be made by people who can carry them out. You’re trapped in your own house, General.”

  “I will bury myself in coltan. Make the mines my tomb. If I fall, you get nothing!”

  Brenton kept his voice steady. “I’ll re-task the Nemesis drones. Tell your men they’re on their way.”

  “I need them now!”

  “What about the National Army units stationed in the capital?” Brenton countered. “An attack will take pressure off the estate.”

  “Cowards! Traitors. They let the rebels into the city without a fight. I’ll have them shot, all of them—with their families. They betrayed me—they betrayed the nation!”

  Brenton suppressed a sigh. “Where are the Duub Cas? Your Hangash police?”

  “Fighting!” the general screamed. He held up the phone. “Are you deaf? Do you not hear them fighting? They are out there because your machines failed—the mines, the turrets… The Professor is at my door.”

  “If you’d listened—” Hugh Brenton started then caught himself. There was no convincing the man. It was time to salvage what he could. “I’m sending the Nemesis drones,” he finished.

  “More machines, more lies!” the Somali dictator shouted. “You’ll say anything to get the coltan.”

  Truer words… Brenton thought. Fact was in that second, the corporate envoy didn’t care whether Qasr al-Salaam was burned to the ground or not. Except for the coltan…

  “What I’m giving you,” Brenton replied acidly, “is all the help I can. And then some. Order your men to stand their ground. The Nemesis drones will be there momentarily.”

  “More machines!” President-General Dhul-Fiqaar bellowed and hurled the phone onto the holo-table. The image flickered as the shattered pieces skittering through the translucent landscape like shrapnel.

  ***

  Humming away quietly in an air-conditioned trailer at Hargeisa International , the BEECH A.I. processed the new orders in less than a micro-second. It flashed them across the bright skies of Somaliland, tasking lead flights with snapping the target’s defense picture for the tactical network.

  Initial gun-runs would degrade the target, but more importantly, they’d identify exact weapon systems, compute reaction times, and gauge the depth of any electronic countermeasures. Their destruction was irrelevant; the A.I. would process the drones’ data and send it to the remaining flights. In fact, the data would be constantly updated as the battle unfolded, the remaining drones’ tactics upgraded with each pass until the attack was honed to a lethal, efficient edge.

  A single electronic bleat confirmed the kill orders, and in half a dozen locations, twenty-four Nemesis drones simultaneously banked then arrowed towards the suburbs of Hargeisa.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR – Snowcrash

  Presidential Palace, Hargeisa, Somaliland

  With the path cleared through the last of Dhul-Fiqaar’s automated killers, we let the Ukrainians lead the way to more human ones, the ones defending the presidential mansion. Tam and I helped Poet9 lug his cyber-gear while the Triplets watched our backs.

  Our advance was unopposed and slightly surreal. It was like we’d sidestepped into an alternate dimension. There was an eerie calm as we skirted a long, white-gravel driveway, surrounded by pristine putting-green lawns, sculpted topiary and blooming flower gardens. Thirty-plus soldiers kitted for carnage in a Christie’s listing.

  Battle noise drifted over the trees like the roar of a distant ocean, but the loudest sounds around me were boots tromping and men panting through an immaculate landscape.

  We halted around the final bend a thousand meters from the mansion. If immediate tranquility was odd, the scene around Qasr al-Salaam was weirder by several orders of magnitude.

  The mansion had been transmogrified by a post-apocalyptic alchemist. Every window was scabbed over with concrete panels, steel shutters covered the doors. Hesco barriers formed crenellated, castle-like walls in front of porches and patios where red-bereted troops with heavy machine guns and automatic grenade launchers had replaced hand-carved teak furniture. Our vantage point revealed that the tasteful stone walls and raised cement flowerbeds sprinkled through the grounds were actually arrayed to funnel any attack straight into their kill-zones.

  Bristling lethality was incongruent, but not unexpected. The SPLM was paying a visit, after all. It was the thick mist steaming up from the lawn that twisted the scene into a massive, malignant hallucination. Dhul-Fiqaar’s entire mansion-turned-fortress was enveloped in a greasy, gray fog.

  Once again, Hester’s files came in handy: it took Poet9 all of three seconds to determine the irrigation system was spraying a reflective aerosol to counter any laser-guided missile threats. Knowing that somehow made it even more bizarre.

  The Ukrainians fingered their weapons and looked at us for the next move.

  Tam stared at the shrouded house. “Dhul-Fiqaar’s mashing all the panic buttons.”

  “He’s taking the whole ‘fog of war’ thing pretty serious,” I noted.

  “Funny.” He looked at Poet9. “Tell me there’s a back door.”

  Poet9 had set up his gear behind a thick, glazed brick planter topped with a thousand tiny crimson roses. Our splicer was jacked into his laptop, a thick green cable linking the Brain Box grafted on his head to his edgy little Ono-Sendai. He swiped through multiple screens, schematics and blueprints flashing by in the blink of an eye, and frowned after a dozen breaths. “He hasn’t hit all of the buttons yet. And no, we have to ring the front bell.”

  I eyed the mansion. “We could make our own door.”

  Poet9 rejected the idea. “Not unless you got a bunker buster. Walls are two meters thick. That’s a reinforced double roof. Hell, the picture windows are armorglass. They’ll stop an RPG round. The doors are actually the weakest spots.”

  “Shi-bal,” Tam swore. “Pass that tidbit back to the SPLM command. Sajiid will want to know.”

  “On it.” Poet9’s fingers danced on his keypad. “Already synced with their tac-net. Hacked their command net too.”

  “Always helpful,” I noted.

  Poet9 bowed. “I live to serve.”

  Information, electronic and cybernetic warfare: combat evolved to new dimensions of complexity and lethality. Without them, armies would stumble around the battlespace little more than medieval hordes. As our splicer, they were Poet9’s concern, and if knowledge is power, his job was to make us omniscient.

  Several small comms dishes yawned skyward and four thick black antennas were sunk into the soil. He must have gathered some new toys while repairing his BLADE jammer.

  Poet9 punched a button on his Ono-Sendai then fussed with one of his blinking black boxes. His voice came over our headsets. “Sky’s still shit-soup. I scripted something for us and the Legion, but all the broadband and pinpoint jamming reduce comms to a couple hundred meters. So tell the kids to stay in the yard.”

  Behind us, the clank of heavy armor announced the Professor and his elite Muharib Guard. The coup against the D
hul-Fiqaar regime was moving into its final chapter.

  “Rest of the band is here!” Tam shouted. “Party’s about to start.” The Ukrainians checked their weapons and hunkered down.

  Tam knelt beside Poet9. “If Ghotta or Alpha go fangs out—”

  “No hay bronca,” Poet9 grinned. “I’ll let you know five minutes before it happens.”

  SPLM troops were pouring up the clear corridor. The two boxy command vehicles and their armored escorts pulled off to one side as infantry and jeeps surged forward. A cry went up when the rebels spotted the house. Most scurried behind cover and assembled in assault teams to wait for new orders, but several squads charged ahead, firing as they ran.

  Zealous, infuriated, or maybe just wanting to the whole thing to be over, ten, perhaps twelve men plunged into the fogged area. Young men morphed into murky shapes darting across a hazy green lawn. The oily mist muffled the flash and crack of their weapons.

  SPLM troops cheered them on, every eye straining to see, hoping they’d make it, yet waiting for the trap to spring.

  They made it as far as a large fountain by the front entrance when the mansion’s façade lit up like a rabid Christmas display. Gunfire erupted from every corner and crevice of the house. The blurry shapes of the SPLM men jerked and tumbled to the turf in pieces.

  Then the whole scene went Hollywood.

  Nearby sections of lawn vanished as pre-set IEDs sent rebel troops flying. The mansion defenders shifted their fire toward the main SPLM force. Beside the main house, every door on the multi-car garage mawed and a dozen hulking SARKOS suits strode into the light. The cartoon tiger emblem of the regime’s hated Duub Cas regiment was legible even through the fog. They lumbered toward us, heavy machine guns blazing. Solar panels on the garage roof retracted, and a legion of quad-copter mini-drones swarmed into the sky like an anime sign of the apocalypse: giant robotic locusts buzzing with camera bulb eyes and gun barrels slung along sleek polymer thoraxes.

  An incessant bickering of rounds hissed and cracked over my head. I hugged dirt and prayed we hadn’t camped atop a clutch of old artillery shells or a kilo of C4. While I was at it, I hoped Sajiid had the horse sense to keep pressing the attack at other points around the estate. This was bad, but if the pressure was off, even Dhul-Fiqaar’s brain dead lackeys would figure out they could concentrate all their remaining troops right here. On us.

  Mercifully, nothing exploded underneath Eshu or the Legion.

  Suddenly a thrashing sound crawled up my back into my ears. Behind me, two of the rebel’s ancient Hind D gunships flew towards the mansion. The 23mm cannons winked in their chin mounts, but the stubby wing hardpoints hung empty. Their holds crammed with troops, the heavier armament had been jettisoned for additional men. Major Sajiid was trying another air assault.

  A metallic shriek cut a second rebel cheer short. Two fingers of light hosed up from the estate grounds on my right. They touched the lead copter and cut it in half. The pilot of the second helo panicked and yanked the aging machine in three directions trying to avoid the fireball and debris. The helicopter veered wildly, pitched and yawed like a drunk, then flipped to one side and spiraled straight down. The explosion rattled my teeth, and smoke heaved into the sky.

  “The Kashtan!” Poet9 screamed. “The anti-air is still active.”

  “No kidding!” I yelled back. So much for doing this the easy way.

  Despite the loss, the Muharib Guard regained their balance and returned fire. They were elite for a reason. A 120mm mortar was thumping out shells, the crew ranging by eye. Multiple RPG teams hustled forward, launch tubes tipped with pointy warheads. Laser-guidance foiled by the fog, the rebels fell back on old-fashioned direct-fire munitions to deal with the heavy armored suits and the mansion’s defenses. The Ukrainian Legion raked fire onto the portion of the house closest to us, hoping to suppress the heavy weapon crews. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Triplets disappear into the brush. The toe-to-toe slugfest was starting.

  The quad copters swooped down on the rebel lines like a dark cloud. The weapons fused along their bodies were single-shot 12-gauge shotguns, and they blasted a bloody swathe through a section of men ahead of the Duub Cas SARKOS suits. Ammo then expended, they rose into the sky and fanned out over the battlefield. The government operators would use the camera eyes to form their own picture of the rebel attack.

  Tam and I shifted our fire as SPLM RPG teams rushed to plug the gap. Rocket rounds screeched in from our left and blew three of the lead armored suits to pieces. The Triplets were bringing pain, blunting the counterattack.

  A line of Hesco barriers vanished in a spray of fire and gravel. The rebel heavy mortar had found its range. One by one, the heavy weapon emplacements nestled along the east side of the mansion were blasted out of commission. The Muharib Guard advanced, rifle teams leapfrogging down the slope, slipping into the fogged area. Tam ordered the Legion to shift position to a small fold in the lawn to provide covering fire.

  One of the Muharib RPG teams launched a long shot at the mansion’s front door, and the round plowed into the broad stone steps. A second team crept to the fountain and knelt among the bodies of the first attackers. Their shot screamed straight into the atrium and shredded the steel shutter covering the front doors. One more would blow them open.

  Every fight has its tipping point; this one was right now.

  Sudden movement on our right caused Tam and me to hold fire. A ten-man section of Muharib Guard had nestled right beside us. Armed, intent, tensed for action, they weren’t shooting. The lull made me look. They were waiting for something. Then I recognized four faces: the soldiers who’d dragged us out of the bunker.

  The ones in the room during our meeting with Secretary Ghotta.

  Shit.

  Behind us, the command vehicles cranked their engines, and the missile launchers on the diminutive air-defense Wiesels tracked the skies. The Centauro wheeled tank roared ahead. It halted directly in front of us and began blasting away at the mansion. Scores of SPLM soldiers were on the lawn now, hazy, faceless men stalking through a fog luminous with gunfire. The Ukrainian Legion were laying down suppressing fire on the last of the heavy weapon emplacements. The Triplets were nowhere to be seen.

  The growl of diesel engines grew louder. The boxy M577 Mobile Command Centers were fifty meters off. I glanced back to see Professor Hamid and Major Sajiid clustered with a handful of SPLM officers around a tactical display. Secretary Ghotta stood in the rear of the second vehicle, a frown on his face and ice in his liquid-silver eyes.

  He smelled victory. Ghotta was making his move.

  Or rather, he wanted us to make his move.

  Just then, Poet9 mumbled. I tore my eyes away from the secretary. “What?”

  “The sky just cleared.”

  I didn’t understand.

  “The jamming umbrella from the estate just vanished,” he explained. “The sky is clear.”

  “Maybe somebody smashed something important,” Tam snapped. “Thank Ares, Indra, Chi You, and any other fucking god of war for small miracles. Sajiid can send in more choppers now.”

  Poet9 shook his head, puzzled. Jacked into the Net, his long fingers flicked repeatedly through a series of images. Something didn’t Tetris. “Dunno,” he finally said. “Felt like it was turned off—”

  Suddenly there was a violent belching overhead, and I flinched.

  The twenty-three-ton Centauro quivered like it had been slapped. It stopped firing as smoke, then flames boiled from a row of large, new holes in the rear deck. More metallic retching, and down on the lawn, twin walls of dirt geysered straight through a clump of infantry. The mist, tinged red, settled slowly on the grass.

  Three dark shapes flashed overhead, and Sonic booms rattled my teeth half a second later.

  Drones.

  “¡Me cago en todo lo que se menea!” Poet9 blurted.

  His fingers flew over his keypad. He was staring wide-eyed at the screen, but I knew it was bad already; that was
his ‘it just hit the fan’ swear. A heartbeat later, the sky was scorched with jet engines and the wicked rip of chain guns.

  Dozens of black, bat-like drones were diving, banking, and strafing everything that moved. They were so fast, I couldn’t get a count. But even one was too many.

  The SPLM infantry scattered, spraying gunfire wildly in the air. There was yelling and screaming on the radio all over the grounds. The firing from the mansion resumed.

  It took several confused moments for the SPLM officers to realize what was happening. When they did, the command tracks popped smoke and panicked, rolling with their hatches and back ramps still open. Equipment was crushed under treads, men clambered inside or were pulled on board. I glimpsed both Professor Hamid and Secretary Ghotta shouting orders before the smoke screen boiled over them.

  The SPLM air-defense Wiesels split left and right, engines revving in a high-pitched whine. Their missile tubes jerked spastically as they tried to target lock even one of the attackers. Machine guns hammered away skyward, rifles chittered in a frenzy. I even spied RPG trails lacing the sky, but the black drones didn’t relent.

  One or two wobbled, struck by gunfire, but most evaded as if they anticipated the shots. They dove in sequence, screaming past for brief, terrifying seconds, cutting down groups of infantry with each pass. The SPLM attack was being systematically decimated with surgical precision.

  I looked back to see the sky all along the clear corridor filled with the things. Whatever they were, they were sealing the gap in the estate’s defenses. Professor Hamid’s coup had gone from the cusp of victory to the brink of collapse in under three minutes.

  Frustrated or finally on target, a rapid series of hisses signaled the Wiesels’ counterattack. Missiles lanced up, and four of the black drones disappeared in a smear of flame and smoke. A fifth veered out of sight, trailing fire.