“Damn, Colonel,” Joey said, smiling. “Looks like they could teach our people something about stealth.”
Jonah knew the young mercenary was talking about Native Americans. He was sure the ancient indigenous people who’d fought the Europeans could have done as well. His own, more modern people, were really no different in most respects than the rest of the Humans living in North America currently. His team, on the other hand, were well trained, and he had no doubt they could move as silently and as unseen as the Kalagarta.
“Okay. We might be able to work with that,” the colonel said, looking over at the war chief. “And the second route?”
“Through this creek that flows through the area. It’s near the size of a medium river and slow moving. We swim in until we reach this point here, then leave the water and move around this hill.”
“How does that spot look to you, Sandra?” Jonah asked, looking over at his chief sniper.
“Looks like a good perch,” the woman said, putting one of her fingers on the map and moving it toward the compound.
“I’m thinking this depression here might make a good spot for us to set up,” Ahmed Mohammed said, pointing at a small hollow a mile to the north of the hill, and maybe a mile further back.
“Good enough. So you four will go in by the creek.”
“Why don’t we all insert that way?” Charley asked, brows furrowing.
“We used to have success with that path,” said Kalaprax, his gill slits showing his emotion. “They have a water craft that plies the creek and the river, with some kind of sound-pulsing system to find underwater objects. We learned to avoid it, since it gives itself away long before we are within range.”
“How did you do that?” asked Sandra, who would be one of the Humans going in that way.
“We stayed right on the bottom and went silent and still when it got close. But we ran into a problem.”
“What kind of problem?” Ivan asked.
“We don’t know,” said the Kalagarta war chief, hanging his head. “All I know is that the last three groups that went along that path never showed up at the compound, and never returned to us.”
“Underwater drones? Robots?”
“One of the above,” Jonah said, nodding to his partner. “You still want to try that way, Sandra?”
“Sure. I think we’ll prove too much for any robotic creatures. With Xou’s help, of course.”
“I think I can come up with something to discomfit any electronic minions,” the Chinese said. “Just give me a day to plan and design.”
“Sounds good,” the colonel said, looking over at his snipers and mortar crew, still worried about them going into a situation they might not be able to handle. He wanted his people at those terrain features, though, while the rest of them would be going in from the northeast.
“I think we’ll insert from the hills, just like you do,” the colonel said, looking over at the Kalagarta war chief. “Then we can work our way around the side and attack them from a position I hope they won’t be considering.”
“Not all of my people will be going that way,” said Kalaprax, looking over at some of the other war chiefs. “We feel it will help the mission if we move in from four or five different paths in case they discover one.”
“Won’t that give them warning?”
“Not if they only find two. That is the most we have ever sent, and we can hope they will assume that is all we have sent.”
“And if they all get through?” Charley asked.
“That will not happen,” said another war chief, looking down at the ground. “My party will do whatever we can to focus their attention on us far out.”
“But you’ll be killed,” Sarah said, looking at the Kalagarta with a horrified expression.
“Probably,” replied the chief, “but we have done little against the invaders to date. The time has come for us to contribute to their defeat.”
We probably aren’t going to defeat them, Jonah thought, no matter what we do. The Kalagarta can at least die fighting for their best chance of a victory, even if it isn’t much of one.
“How long to get us all in position?” Jonah asked, looking back at Kalaprax, who was still staring at the map in an attitude of deep thought.
“If we start in the morning, let’s say three days.”
“The Ravagers are supposed to be here in four,” Charley said, eyes narrowing in thought. “If they’re coming.”
“Let’s assume they aren’t,” Jonah said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Still, we should time it so they can join the battle if they do show up. It would be bad form to win the battle before they can get in it.”
The Humans all smiled, and Jonah smiled back. Of course they knew the other mercenary company wasn’t coming, and they couldn’t win this fight on their own. This was the definition of a forlorn hope. It would go down in history as an example of a losing battle in a worthy cause, if anyone other than the Syndicate ever knew about it. Unlikely, since a criminal enterprise never wanted the common people they preyed on to know they could be fought.
“Then I think we’ll start off tomorrow, then set up camp at the edge of the clear cut.” The colonel looked over at his snipers and mortar team. “You four can start off three days from the start of the attack. That should get you into place in time, and not expose you to too much of their sensor net.”
If something in the water doesn’t take you out. If that happened, they might never know what happened to them, only that they hadn’t shown up.
“This brings us to you, Avgust,” the colonel said, turning toward the Ukrainian. “What do you have planned?”
“I have put together six two-pound remote charges,” the man said in his heavy accent. “Our friends alerted me to some very nice plant substance that will sustain the blast. That leaves me with eight pounds of explosives to use in the assault.”
“If you can capture their attention at the right time,” Charley said with a smile.
“Just get that gunship in the air where I can get a shot at it,” Ivan said, the Russian slapping the Ukrainian on the back.
“Just hit the damn thing when you shoot,” Avgust retorted after a snort of a laugh.
It was said in jest but was still a serious statement. They had two of the small multipurpose launchers, and a total of four remaining missiles. The enemy had more than just the gunship, and there were probably some armored vehicles in the compound.
Jonah stood silent, thinking about what they had to take the enemy home base. Every one of his people had their own weapon, in most cases a standard magrail rifle with eight hundred rounds and a couple of spare power packs. They also carried carbon nanotube knives and a few grenades each. The mortar team had lighter carbines, along with their weapon and a total of twenty-three of the three-and-a-half-pound rounds.
The snipers had their specialty rifles and ammo. Two hundred rounds in Sandra’s case, while Sarah carried ninety of her much larger projectiles. Of course Amobi Kabir had his grenade launcher, with nine magazines of twenty-millimeter projectiles, for a total of two hundred and seventy micro-grenades. Kevin Graham carried the only laser in the team, a heavy weapon powered by a backpack energy source. Then he had his ninjas, with their carbines, but their specialty was the close, stealthy approach to take out the target with their blades.
We’ll be facing an enemy with eighty or so armored Xlatan soldiers, and maybe the same number of other alien mercenaries, with possible armored vehicles and definite air cover. He gave them a sixty percent chance of getting into striking range without being picked up and obliterated from the air, and a less than five percent chance of taking out the compound. But as my uncle on the reservation used to say, “If you don’t play, you can’t win.”
“Everyone get a good night’s sleep,” Jonah ordered, wondering if any of them would. He was sure his sleep would be disturbed by bad dreams caused by worry. Still, he had to try, so his mind would be fresh when it was time to move.
* * * * *
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Why are you still alive, Sergeant Lrator?” Mmrash asked as the two ate a meal together in the Xlatan commander’s office.
I guess the commander wanted to talk to me by himself, thought the sergeant, who still felt completely out of sorts after a short night’s sleep. At least the night had been spent in his own quarters, where he hadn’t had to start at every sound in the night. He’d fallen into his bed and had slept the sleep of the exhausted.
“I really don’t know that, sir. The Kalagarta wanted to make me the guest of honor at an interrogation ceremony, but the Humans seemed to have some kind of code against abusing those they’d taken prisoner.”
“Why in all the hells would they have a code like that?” asked the incredulous commander. “They’re money fighters, aren’t they?”
Maybe they have a moral compass we no longer possess, the sergeant thought. He believed they did. Why they did was the question. Most beings in the Galaxy, as far as he knew, were only out for themselves, plain and simple.
“Well, I’m happy they were such fools. And I’m very happy you survived the attentions of the Kalagarta. I wouldn’t want to fall into their hands.”
“No, sir,” Lrator said, picking up a cup of the hot beverage his people drank for breakfast and taking a sip. He smacked his lips in pleasure, savoring the slightly biting taste of the beverage. Putting the cup down, he looked back at the commander, who was sitting patiently waiting for him to say something. “The Kalagarta were as shocked at the decision of the Humans as I was. They kept arguing for the Humans to give me to them in payment for the aid they’d given the aliens.”
“And they discussed their plans in front of you,” Mmrash said, his ears twitching with disbelief.
“They made sure I was at a distance, and I didn’t have my helmet to translate, so they probably thought I couldn’t understand anything being said.”
He hadn’t been able to understand the Human speech. The sergeant thought no one on the planet could decipher their speech. What the Humans and the Kalagarta hadn’t realized was that the sergeant, while not a linguist, could understand about half of everything the amphibians said. That came from having a particular affinity for languages and having patrolled in the jungle and worked around slaves. So he could make sense of most of what the amphibians were saying, while the Human helmet systems were blasting out the same croaking language.
“They were talking about attacking the compound?”
“Yes, sir. The still expect the heavy infantry, the mecha, to come dropping in. Or I should say, they have that hope, though not very much hope. A few of them seemed to think whoever set them up on arrival would also make sure the other Humans didn’t get here.”
“So they’re not total fools after all?”
Lrator stared at his commander in disbelief, trying to clamp down on the signals his ears were transmitting, not to his complete satisfaction. So far, except for being shot down in the initial engagement, the Humans had out-thought and out-fought the Xlatan at every turn. They might be outnumbered, but whatever plan they came up with was sure to cause the Xlatan a lot of trouble.
Fortunately, Mmrash was looking at a map on the Tri-V and not paying attention to his sergeant’s non-verbal signals.
“Well, we’ll be ready for them,” the commander continued, picking up a piece of meat that had come from a Kalagarta tribesman and taking a bite.
Lrator stared at his commander eating from the forearm of a native, something he would have engaged in himself before his last adventure. Having been thrust into the presence of Kalagarta who weren’t slaves, and weren’t trying to run away from enslavement, he was having a harder time seeing them as a food source. Xlatan didn’t eat Xlatan, but they ate any creature they considered inferior. He’d come to lose that opinion of the Kalagarta and would never consider the Humans an inferior species.
“Not hungry, Sergeant?” Mmrash asked, pointing with the Kalagarta forearm toward the plate of the other Xlatan.
“I’m too tired to eat, sir,” Lrator replied, sure the commander would see the lie.
Mmrash huffed out a breath of air but left it alone. “Well, I for one am glad you’re back. The rest of my NCOs are a bunch of idiots. And since Major Grolrror is dead, I have no one else in the unit who can actually think beyond what they’re going to eat next, so I’ll be counting on you as my second-in-command. You’ll be given a field commission so the other sergeants won’t give you any grief over being in charge. Think you can handle being called lieutenant?”
Lrator knew the signals of his ears weren’t getting past the commander this time, and he didn’t care. He’d been hoping for an eventual commission, and receiving one in the field ensured he’d go to an officer’s academy when the unit returned home.
“I can definitely handle that, sir. And thank you.”
“Good. Then we need to discuss our plans. When the Humans walk into our trap, I want to take their heads off with little trouble. Plain and simple.”
Lrator doubted anything with this particular band of Humans would be plain or simple, but he wasn’t about to tell that to the commander. His ears were giving off signals of anxiety, but the commander was once again not paying attention. And Lrator wasn’t about to call Mmrash’s attention to it.
* * *
“We’re here, sir. Two days ahead of time, as you requested.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Colonel Alexander Ramos replied, standing up from his desk, making sure his magnetic boots were gripping the floor. “Anything to report?”
“One small frigate much further in, within a couple million miles of the target planet.”
“Have they seen us?”
“Probably,” Captain Melody Chu said, smiling out of the Tri-V.
“Can you take them if you have to?”
“I’m sure I could,” said the captain, a woman who’d been commanding the ships of the Ravagers for over five years. “I’d prefer not to, since fights tend to break things aboard my ship, but in a head-to-head pounding match, I’m sure I could.”
The Guadalcanal was first of all a transport, capable of carrying the one hundred combatants of the company and their mecha. There was also room for all the supplies they’d need for a half-year deployment and fifty or so support personnel. Ramos had wanted more than that and had paid the extra money to arm and armor the ship. It was really more of a cruiser in that respect. Unfortunately, it hadn’t been built as a warship, and slapping armor and weapons on it didn’t change the inner structure of the ship.
“If it looks like they’re about to open fire, Captain, you have my permission to shoot first.”
“We’ll still get hit, unless it’s at extreme range.”
“Then on the way in I want you to plan for a first shot on my command. Set it up the entire way in. Don’t bother me with your plan, just be ready to open fire as soon as I give the word.”
Ramos walked out of his cabin, placing his feet on the metallic surface as he headed down the corridor. The boys and girls were sure to have their equipment ready, since they’d had weeks to prepare. That was part of their responsibility as professionals, while it was his responsibility to make sure. Getting into a combat situation and finding that the weapons hadn’t been checked out wasn’t a blame-game situation. It was to be avoided at all costs, hence the necessity to check it out.
“Colonel,” a voice called from behind him.
Ramos turned to see the liaison officer for the Fierce Eagle Company, Captain Jaqueline Burdett, walking toward him.
“Any sign of our people?”
“You know better than that, Jacqui,” Ramos answered, shaking his head. “If there was any sign of them from space, we’d know the mission had failed. Instead, we still aren’t sure they even went in.”
“They went in, alright,” replied the small woman who was the Eagle’s business manager.
Ramos knew from experience that Burdett had a combat record as good
as any. But one too many missions had taken a toll on her body, and Jonah White Eagle had kept her on the staff to provide her with an income, while taking advantage of her skills as a staff officer.
“First, the Geronimo wasn’t waiting for us at the rendezvous point,” Jacqui said, holding up a finger. “Second,” she continued, holding up another finger, “the people who supposedly hired us have dropped off the grid. The same people who told you that the contract was cancelled, while paying above the required cancellation fee. The same bastards didn’t say squat to us before they disappeared. Why didn’t they cancel our part of the contract?”
“I know it has a suspicious feel to it,” Ramos agreed, nodding, “but we won’t know for sure until we assault the planet. And at that point, we might be violating Galactic Union law.”
“Third,” the woman said, sticking up another finger and ignoring what the colonel had just said, “I have a gut feeling about this. I know that’s not very scientific, but I’ve rarely been wrong.”
“Don’t worry, Jacqui. I’m not about to leave Jonah and his people in the lurch. I’m just stating the facts. I’m going out on a limb here.”
Ramos raised a hand to stop Jacqui from saying what he knew was going to come out of her mouth. “Jonah and Charley have taken risks for me and my company. Why, a year ago they saved us from annihilation. I only hope they’re still alive down there, but I wouldn’t place odds on that.”
“Then we can hammer those Syndicate bastards, yes?” Jacqui growled, looking up into the eyes of the large man with a fire that would discomfit most.
“That we can,” the colonel replied with a nod. “If we can’t rescue them, we can exact revenge.”
Of course, if he went down there and got his whole command destroyed, there was no one who would come along to avenge his people.
When Eagles Dare Page 29
