by Drew Avera
Not a bad plan, given the information he has to work with. Just not the right one, as it turns out.
“Bravo units, status?” he barked, checking his IFF and the radar and lidar readings in his HUD.
He could see all the transponders were live, all but one still in the air. Mischa was moving, but slowly, on the ground along New York Avenue less than half a kilometer away. He picked up one bogie that might have been an enemy mech, but it was four kilometers away and trying to circle back to the White House.
“This is Bravo two,” Mischa reported. “I’ve taken damage to my jump-jets but my mech is still operational. Heading your way.”
“Bravo three, four and five are up and functional,” Giorgi said. Anton cocked an eyebrow. In Mischa’s absence, Giorgi seemed to have appointed himself second in command.
Good. About time he showed the ability to handle some authority.
“Bravo three and five,” Anton ordered, carefully considering the words and the trust he was placing with them, “assume a patrol perimeter and keep the enemy mechs off our back. Bravo two and four, on me and prepare to dismount.” His lip twisted into something between a smile and a sneer. “We’re going inside, and we’re going on foot.”
Chapter Fifteen
“What the fuck is going on here?”
Roach wanted to snap at Jenny for violating communications protocol in a combat situation, but she didn’t. First and foremost because the woman had probably forgotten more about combat than one Rachel Mata would ever know, and second because…well, it was a damn good question.
Washington DC was a nightmare landscape even at night. Especially at night, with no lights to hint at habitation or any remnant of humanity left behind in what had once been the center of the world. Oh, there were people down there. She could see them on thermal, could see guttering cessfires squeezed between buildings, furtive shapes dashing this way and that as if they were afraid of being stalked by predators.
And maybe they are. Not all predators run on four legs.
In the sea of darkness, an island of light stood out, the beacon of malevolent arrogance that had once been the home of the President of the United States. She took it on faith that the man occupying it now was malevolent because he’d kidnapped her friend, but such an auspicious display of power and resources was definitely arrogant. He was inviting someone to attack and here they were…but they were not the first.
It was obvious on thermal even from four kilometers away, a three-ring circus of mech thrusters and gunfire and the detonation of missile warheads. Roach could see the explosions without the aid of thermal optics, yellow blossoms of fire across the sky from the south and east of the White House.
“What’s goin’ on,” Fuller said, in formation to her right, “is that the show’s already started and we’re late.”
“Do we abort?” Jenny wondered. “We should abort, right? I mean, there ain’t gonna’ be no taking them by surprise when they’re already in the middle of a fight. We’ll be lucky if we don’t have both sides shooting at us at once, whoever the sides are in this shit.”
“We’re not going to abort,” Roach said firmly. “This is a distraction and we’re going to take advantage of it.”
She took ten seconds to scan the sensor readouts overlaid on the map in her HUD, getting an idea of the dispersal of forces, and she came to a decision right about the time Jenny got impatient.
“You awake in there, girly?” the older woman wondered.
“The action’s all on the South Lawn,” Roach observed. “I think that’s where they’re concentrating their defenses and I know it’s where the attack is focusing.”
“That don’t mean they wouldn’t notice us trying to sneak in the back,” Fuller objected in advance of what he expected her to say.
“They’d notice our mechs,” she agreed. “Jenny, you know how to switch your mech over to remotely piloted vehicle mode?”
“I could do it with my eyes closed.”
“Good. Here’s what we’re going to do. We’re heading straight down New York Avenue, but we’re going to ground-level and slow to a patrol walk. Then Jenny, you and I are going to set our mechs to RPV mode. FOG, you’re going to slave Jenny’s mech to yours. Mule, you’re going to be controlling mine and you’d better not fucking get it blown up. You hear me?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ramirez said, sounding a bit doubtful about the whole thing.
“We’re going to come up on the east side,” Roach went on. “When we get to a blind spot where neither side can see our approach, Jenny and I are going to bail out, and you two are going to engage the enemy mechs on the south.”
“Just the two of us are going in there?” Jenny asked, a tinge of outrage in her tone. “You and me? Why can’t I take James along?”
“Because we’re looking for my boss,” Roach reminded her, “and neither of you has ever met the man. Now are you going to grab that big gun of yours and go with me or do I have to bring Ramirez along and make you look bad?”
“Oh, fuck you, you manipulative little bitch,” Jenny grumbled but without any real rancor behind the words. “You know I’m going in. You’d better be as good with a gun as you are with a mech.”
Roach grinned. Jenny was an abrasive old coot, but she liked her.
“We’re about to find out. FOG, lead us in. It’s time we got Nate back.”
Nate Stout sprang awake, rising to a seated position and grabbing at the sides of his bed instinctively. The walls were shaking and a light spray of dust was coming down from the ceiling, twinkling in the glow of the nightlights, and he wondered if this was an earthquake…until he heard the rolling thunder of the explosions.
It was an attack. But who was attacking? Hope surged inside him and died just as quickly. Bob had pissed off an awful lot of people, and was planning on pissing off a lot more. This could be just about anyone, and they might not be too selective about their targets.
And not only do I not have a gun, I don’t even have a fucking pair of pants.
He swung out of the bed, wincing at the pain in his leg as he put weight on it. It wasn’t as bad as it had been and he could, at least, sleep now, but it still hurt like hell to put pressure on it…
Somewhere, a chain gun boomed with a distinctive thud-thud-thud rhythm. Tagans. Nate let go of the bed and walked to the door, gritting his teeth against the pain. It hurt, but it wouldn’t kill him. A Tagan would kill him.
The door was locked, which wasn’t any huge surprise. He pounded against it in futile rage.
“Hey!” he yelled. “Somebody get me the hell out of here!”
He kept pounding and kept yelling, almost drowning out the chatter of machine gunfire, but not the chain gun that responded…or the explosion after that.
I’m gonna fucking die in here in this stupid-ass hospital gown and no shoes. All the shit I’ve been through, and I’m going to die with my ass hanging out in the wind.
The door unlatched and swung open, nearly knocking him over. He hopped backwards on his good leg and Svetlana Grigoryeva pushed into the room, her arms full of his clothes.
“Put these on,” she told him, shoving the flight suit and combat boots towards him.
“Thank God,” he hissed, ripping off the hospital gown, not caring he was naked beneath it. She’d seen everything he had to offer.
“Don’t be thanking anyone just yet,” she cautioned him, pulling a compact handgun from a holster at her hip.
She was dressed, he noted, in practical fatigue pants and a long-sleeved pullover rather than the alluring dresses she’d worn earlier, but somehow he found it even more attractive. He tried to put the images aside and concentrate on getting his boots on. Pushing his bad leg into the boot hurt, but he still felt immeasurably better once he had the straps secured.
“Who’s attacking?” he asked her when he straightened back up.
“I don’t know for sure,” she admitted. “I think it might be Russians, or mercenaries working for them.”
“Do they know Bob’s planning on back-stabbing them?” he asked her, eyes going wide at the thought.
“Nathan Stout,” she admonished him, lips skinned back over her teeth, “do you wish to stand here all night and speculate on the nature of the people trying to kill us, or would you rather go somewhere else where people are not shooting at us?”
“I’m fresh out of places where no one’s trying to kill me,” he told her, grinning lopsidedly, feeling good and not quite knowing why. “But if you’re getting me out of here, I’ll definitely follow you.”
She nodded and stepped back out into the hallway with Nate on her heels. The section of the underground complex beneath the White House that had been converted into a clinic was deserted. Maybe it was the attack or maybe it was the hour, but the lights were dim and there was no one but the two of them edging down the corridor, Svetlana with her Makarov held at low ready.
“I don’t suppose you brought one of those for me,” Nate ventured quietly, gesturing at her pistol.
“I’m afraid I don’t trust you that much yet,” she said, a bit of sadness in her smile when she glanced back at him.
“You think I’d shoot you?” he asked, a bit more challenge in the words than he’d intended. “Or are you afraid I’d shoot Bob?”
“Robert is not here. And no, I’m not afraid you would shoot me.” The corner of her mouth turned up slightly. “I’m afraid I’d wind up having to shoot you.”
Nate didn’t laugh, mostly because he wasn’t sure if she was kidding. Instead, he stopped talking and let her turn her concentration back to the hallway ahead of them. Through the doorways where he’d once seen cloning machinery, he now saw only bare, stripped rooms and empty hallways.
“Bob didn’t just leave,” Nate murmured, “he cleared everything out.” He speared Svetlana with a glare. “He’s doing whatever he’s gonna do now, isn’t he? He’s on his way.”
“He is,” she said, pausing at an intersection, a corner leading to the armory where he’d seen their mechs on the way in.
“And he didn’t take you along?”
“May we have this and all other conversations later?” she ground out, checking both ways down the corridor.
“Sorry.”
She waved for him to stay with her and hugged the wall as she took the corner, heading to the left. The sounds of battle were getting closer, and Nate wondered if that was really the direction they wanted to be going, but he didn’t want to start talking again when she’d just told him to shut up, though more politely than that, of course. But he really wanted a gun. Or better yet, a mech. He’d never wanted more badly to be in the cockpit of a mech, not just for the weapons and the armor but also because his leg was screaming at him, and it would have been really nice to let the machine do the walking for him. If any threats came along, he wasn’t going to be running from them.
Almost as if on cue, he heard running footsteps coming up behind them. Svetlana pushed him against the wall and leaned across him, stretching her pistol out in front of her, eyes with all the emotion of a targeting screen in a Hellfire’s HUD. Nate recognized the men’s uniforms immediately despite the dim lighting—they were Franklin’s people, his foot soldiers or guards or whatever he wanted to call them. There were three of them and he thought he might have seen them before during his various movements from one wing to another, but the various drugs he’d been subjected to made him doubt his memory. All three of them were average height and build, dark in hair and complexion with a vaguely Eastern European look to them that said as much about their origin as the Russian rifles they carried.
Svetlana only relaxed a millimeter upon seeing the identities of the men, which surprised him. What did she know that he didn’t?
“Svetlana,” one of them said, his rifle swinging down to low port. “We are being attacked.”
“No shit, Meladze,” she said, an eyebrow going up. “Have you also come to tell me that water is wet?”
The man she’d called Meladze—it was Georgian, if Nate wasn’t mistaken—scowled, though it wasn’t clear if it was from her harsh tone or the fact she hadn’t yet lowered her handgun.
“Where are you taking the prisoner?” Meladze asked her, an edge to his tone. “Mr. Franklin was very clear about what was to be done with him.”
He was? And what the hell was he wanting done with me?
“Whoever is attacking us might be here for him,” Svetlana said, an explanation that sounded reasonable to Nate. “I am taking him somewhere more secure.”
“You’re taking him somewhere secure,” Meladze repeated, skepticism obvious in his voice, “and yet he is not restrained and you asked for no assistance.” The barrel of the man’s rifle began to raise, though the other two hadn’t seemed to realize yet what he was implying. “Svetlana Grigoryeva, I am going to need you to put down your…”
He never finished the sentence. The pistol shot was high and spiteful, a punctuation at the end of Svetlana’s conversation. Meladze’s head snapped back and his blood sprayed into the faces of the other two men, shock evident in their faces. One squeeze of the trigger, even unaimed and reflexive, could have cut them both down in the narrow hallway, but neither of them ever got the chance.
Svetlana had moved with the first shot, putting herself out of line with the others, and Nate followed much slower and clumsier but trying to imitate her tactics, knowing what she was doing even if he couldn’t quite match her grace and agility. When she fired again, it wasn’t a surprise to anyone but the bearded man she killed. Another headshot because there wasn’t time for anything less certain. She swept across the front of the last of them and his gun barrel moved to follow her. Nate fell into a crouch rather than chance stepping in front of the rifle…or tried to fall into a crouch and simply collapsed instead, winding up on one knee, leaning against the wall.
Svetlana grabbed the rifle’s fore-stock and tugged the man off balance, landing a hammer-fist between the last guard’s eyes with the butt of her handgun as the striking surface. The man cried out, his grip on the automatic rifle loosening, and she took the opportunity to put her gun barrel against his temple and pull the trigger. Nate felt droplets of blood hit the side of his face and he pressed his lips tightly closed, not wanting to get the man’s blood in his mouth.
The body sank to the floor and Nate scurried backwards away from the spreading pool of red, wanting to hop back to his feet but lacking the strength in his bad leg. Svetlana offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet with strength he wouldn’t have expected from the slim woman. He began to bend down and grab one of the men’s rifles, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
“Leave it,” she cautioned.
He wanted to argue, but he didn’t. What stopped him was the three dead men on the floor. She could have let them have him, could have turned him over or even killed him herself. She didn’t want him dead. That was what he kept telling himself, trying to talk himself into it.
And of course, there was always the fact that if three trained killers with assault rifles hadn’t been able to take her out, what the hell chance did he have?
He shut his mouth and followed her.
Chapter Sixteen
Anton Varlamov was happy to have his feet back on the ground and a gun in his hand. It was simpler, more straightforward, something he could wrap his brain around and handle on instincts without having to think too much.
He could tell Mischa felt the same. The big man cradled his rifle like a lover, eyes alight with the intensity of trying to stay alive while other people were trying to kill you. As for Orlova…well, the thin, gangly soldier didn’t seem all too happy about anything right now, but that probably had less to do with their current location and more to do with the field bandage wrapped around his left side under his fatigue shirt. He could see the ragged hole in the shirt, just beneath the edge of Orlova’s armored vest, stained with blood, and he knew the man had to be in pain.
Kolya is tough. He’ll deal w
ith it.
Which didn’t mean he’d like it. But he was alert and carrying his assault rifle at high ready, and that was enough for now.
The three of them had to pick their way past the remains of the last Hellfire. The pilot had thought he’d be safe, hiding inside the cargo entrance, just waiting for one of their mechs to step through. Like too many foot soldiers throughout history, he’d confused concealment with cover. The external walls were thick, but not thick enough to absorb two missiles and a hundred rounds of 25mm chain gun fire. The walls had tumbled and burned, and the Hellfire had tumbled with them.
Anton grimaced at the smoking remains of the pilot, twisted and burned inside the ruptured cockpit, half the ceiling collapsed around him. It was a bad way to go, burning. He’d long since come to terms with the idea he’d die with a bullet in his chest, lungs filling with blood, but he hated the thought of being burned alive. Hopefully, the pilot of the Hellfire had died from the bullets or the missile warhead fragments or the concussion.
A quick death is the most any of us can ask for in this business.
No more Hellfires waited inside for them and, if there were any ground troops, they’d retreated from the explosions. Which was the smart thing to do, he admitted. They wouldn’t have been able to fight against mechs with small arms and they would have no way of knowing what a dumbass plan he’d come up with, abandoning the armored machines for a slog on foot.
The interior lighting in the hangar or storage room or whatever it was had been knocked out in the explosions, but there was plenty of light to be had from the fire, the roaring flames throwing flickering shadows across the room. The smoke was, so far, being mostly sucked out through the hole in the wall, but God knew how long that would last.
Maybe the whole thing will burn down this time.
