But the large central screen was a wonder to behold. Spread across its thirty feet was an awe-inspiring image of Earth—live high-definition video from twenty thousand miles in orbit. The day-night line cut diagonally across the eastern edge of Russia, with North America in a band of daylight that stretched to the Western seaboard of Europe. Most of the Southern Hemisphere lay in darkness. Great swaths of Europe were woven with intricate filaments of light, blending into the glow of metropolitan sprawl. Knotted clumps of light daisy-chained across the landscape. Japan glowed like a tear in a lampshade down in the Pacific.
Connelly could see the lights from the vast night-fishing fleets in the Sea of Japan. The lights of Seoul bringing back fond memories of the DMZ. Beijing, Hong Kong, and Mumbai glittered. Indonesia blazing in the South Seas. Wildfires raging in north central Australia. More traceries of light stretching along the Trans-Siberian rail line into Russia’s heartland. Natural gas burn-off smoldering in the blackness of Siberia.
Connelly felt an adrenaline surge verging on euphoria. What would Napoleon have given for the power he now held? He turned to Johnston.
Johnston nodded solemnly back.
Even he’s hushed by it. They were gods.
Red lights were still flashing on dozens of other sensors. Connelly concentrated on the task at hand.
Suddenly a Klaxon warning sounded. Johnston jumped in his seat. Connelly turned around to face a nearby Korr board operator. “Report to me.”
The board technician was clicking through monitors. Images on the big board changed. He brought up an overhead view of the massive ranch with its concentric rings of fencing. Hundreds of flashing red points arrayed all around the ranch—in a 360-degree arc. “Seismic sensors have gone off on the fence line all around the ranch, sir.”
“Along four hundred miles of perimeter? Unlikely. No one would scatter their forces like that. What are the chances that our security system has been compromised?”
“We’re on it, sir.”
Johnston scowled. “If our security system has been breached, then that might mean Daemon operatives know about our plans.”
“Unlikely. But even if they did, it’s too late to do anything about them. We’re going to move ahead on an accelerated schedule.”
Connelly was motioning to gather subordinates around him, but he spoke to Johnston.
“A Daemon counterattack was anticipated, but much of the darknet’s bandwidth should disappear when we conduct the blackout.”
“What the hell are we waiting for?”
Connelly ignored him and instead barked at the control board operators. “What are we seeing from our surveillance drones on the perimeter? I want live visuals.”
“Yes, sir.”
In a few moments the central screen showed black-and-white infrared imagery of the prairie floor from a few thousand feet. The fence line was clearly visible running into the distance. Nothing unusual. The image jumped to another drone aircraft. Then it flipped to a third. Then a fourth. This one showed a rail spur stretching out to the horizon. The plain was empty.
“Looks clear on the perimeter, sir.”
Connelly nodded. “If false alarms are the worst it can throw at us, then we can manage. Lieutenant, seal the ranch and put the base on high alert. No one enters or leaves as of now. I want Kiowas in the air in a thirty-mile radius, and I want perimeter roads watched closely.”
“Yes, General.”
A piercing air-raid siren slowly wound up to a long mournful wail somewhere outside the bunkerlike building.
Connelly and his assembled staff officers gathered around a plasma-screen table displaying a satellite still image of the ranch. He pointed with a pocket laser light as he spoke. “The seismic sensors along our perimeter have been compromised. Ignore them. However, we can’t rule out that this is the beginning of an attack.
We have six surveillance drones airborne, but since we can no longer trust our perimeter alarms, that gives us too much terrain to cover. Have the garrison pull back to the secondary perimeter and establish kill boxes at the service gates here, here, and here, and at internal ranch road junctions here and here. Keep a garrison at the south airfield.”
“What are the rules of engagement, General?”
“Fire on anything that approaches our lines by land or air.”
“Anything?”
“Let me make this clear: if a horse and buggy filled with orphans and nuns approaches a gate waving a white flag—open fire at four hundred yards and keep firing until those bitches are down. Sobol was devious enough to conceive of the Daemon and devious enough to build it. If his agents get into this compound, they will sabotage our systems and sow confusion in our ranks. That must not be allowed to happen.”
“Do we pursue retreating forces?”
“Don’t get drawn out from our perimeter. Keep your forces concentrated around what matters: the inner perimeter, the airfields, and the power station. Call in an air or artillery strike if you’ve got them on the run.”
“What about the rail spur?”
“We’ll blow the tracks at Snake Bayou if outside rail traffic appears.” He scanned the faces of the gathered officers. A tough bunch of career warriors. Veterans of many secret wars. “You will not be forgiven for allowing the enemy to enter our perimeter. The mission is simple: hold your positions until the tech folks give the all-clear. At that point resistance should stop.” He looked at them all. “Any more questions?”
A one-star frowned at the board. “Who is it we’re expecting?”
“Intelligence reports indicate elements of Daemon militia are en route. They’re going to be lightly armed civilian irregulars—susceptible to electronic countermeasures and disbursement by heavy weapons. However, we all know what happened to Operation Prairie Fire. So we can’t assume anything. The difference this time around is we’re on our home turf.”
Another officer gestured to the map. “What about unmanned vehicles?”
“High likelihood.”
“What about unmanned car bombs?”
“They’ll be easy targets out here in the prairie—particularly for the Bradleys guarding these interchanges, here and here. Instruct the crews to engage with their cannons. I don’t want TOW missiles wasted on Toyotas.”
He paused for any further questions. “You have your orders. Dismissed.”
The officers scattered to the exits. Connelly called to the nearby analysts. “Have you traced the fault in the seismic sensors yet?”
The analysts conferred briefly. One of them looked up. “We’ve lost contact with our aerial drones, General.”
“Where?”
“Northeast sector, near gate two.”
“The north road.” He examined the map. “Have the remaining drones increase their altitude, and scramble a Kiowa chopper to the northern sector. I want aerial imagery ASAP.”
“Roger. ETA roughly twelve minutes on the chopper.”
“Twelve minutes?”
“It’s thirty miles, General.”
“Damnit.” He turned to Johnston. “But we don’t need to outsmart the Daemon. We just need to keep it busy long enough for the techs to cut its claws off.” He pointed to the analysts. “Get me some intelligence about what’s on my perimeter. Send out scout teams if necessary—but get it. In the meantime, let’s keep in close radio contact with the perimeter gate teams.”
Johnston sat in a leather chair at the edge of the video table. The ranch map spread out before him, showing the placement of forces.
“How long until we execute Operation Exorcist, General?”
“Not long now, Mr. Johnston. Not long.”
Korr Military Solutions captain Greg Hollings stood next to his Humvee inside the north gate of Emperor Ranch. Arrayed around him in foxholes on either side of the road his squad lay in ambush, watching the large, wrought-iron estate gates, chained shut fifty yards away. Three concrete highway dividers had been dropped in front of them—blocking the way. A fifteen-foot-high sto
ne perimeter wall on either side of the gate stretched into the darkness in both directions, but Hollings knew it was largely cosmetic and only extended a few hundred yards before yielding to barbed-wire fencing and seismic sensors. Sensors that were all in alarm.
What was to prevent attackers from outflanking them way down the perimeter—coming in from behind and reconnecting with the ranch road miles south? HQ lost a surveillance drone seven or eight miles north of here. Those were his eyes in the sky. It didn’t bode well.
“We’re meat-on-a-stick out here, Chief.”
“Keep it together, Priestly.” Hollings scanned the perimeter with a FLIR scope. He had already ordered the exterior lights on the guardhouse extinguished, plunging the area into darkness. “Give me a status report.”
Lieutenant Priestly spread a map out on the hood of the nearest Humvee. They both flipped down their night vision goggles. “We’ve got a sixty and a Javelin crew in that guardhouse and another here in ambuscade. Two fire teams entrenched alongside with SAWs. Interlocking fire on the gate centerline. Ten sets of Claymores guarding the north road beyond the gate, starting at one hundred yards out and spaced ten yards apart. Motion activated.” He gestured into the darkness right and left. “We’ve got Humvee-mounted M60 teams on both our right and left flanks, a hundred and fifty yards out—at the ends of the gate walls. They’ll serve as artillery spotters.”
“What about Lopez and Tierney?”
“Their vehicles are in reserve. I figure we’ll move ’em wherever they’re needed.”
Hollings nodded. “Face them rearward. I’m concerned we’ll be attacked from behind—these walls don’t go far. The moment we make contact, I want remote fire support. Any word from the Kiowa they sent up?”
“Negative, sir.”
“Goddamnit. I’m blind.” He pointed back at the map. “We do not fall back to the guardhouse—it’s a death trap. Not enough windows, and it looks highly flammable. If we get overrun, we mount up and join MRTP a few clicks south. Understood?”
Priestly nodded as he folded the map.
Hollings surveyed the area. This would not have been his first choice for a defensive position. He’d rather dig in somewhere in the prairie with his men deployed in a ring. They’d be able to see anything coming a long ways off. But here, the broad expanse of a fifteen-foot perimeter wall thirty yards ahead of them blocked their view of the road north—and it was worthless as a defensive position; too tall to fight behind and too thin to stop much. Only two courses thick with no parapet. It was for show only. Like the guardhouse. Apparently, corporate military brass was just as dumb as the government kind.
Hollings looked at the large, log-cabin-style guard building just to the left, inside the gate. It had an overlarge, peaked slate roof with field-stone chimneys and log-cabin walls. Some billionaire’s idea of pioneer style. It blocked his field of fire to the east, and it had no windows on that side. He couldn’t have designed a more useless building if he’d tried. And yet he’d been ordered not to demo it.
This was a civilian security layout. All-out assault wasn’t contemplated. The guardhouse was the largest structure for miles, and was intended as a rest stop for guests and employees starting the thirty-three-mile drive toward the center of the ranch. Restrooms, refreshments, and house phones next to a small parking lot.
And then there was the guard shack outside the gate, used for greeting vehicles as they drove up to the closed gates. More Davy Crockett-style nonsense. A small pedestrian gate beside it lent access to the guard shack from the main building.
“Priestly, we bring any C4?”
“Yeah, some.”
“I want to take down these curtain walls near the gate. It’s just blocking our field of fire.”
“Already asked, sir. Not approved.”
“For chrissakes …”
Suddenly a shout from the guardhouse went up, and then along the line. “We’ve got company!”
Silence prevailed for a moment. Then they all heard it. The sound of distant tires wailing on pavement, coming from the darkness of the north road. The noise of many engines also came in on the breeze.
“All right, places ladies! Wait for the claymores, and keep an eye on our flanks!”
The Korr soldiers adjusted their night vision goggles and hunkered down in their foxholes around M249s and M60s. Another readied a Javelin anti-tank rocket launcher. They were all trained professionals here. Steady fingers rested near trigger guards as last-minute radio calls squawked in the blackness.
“There, sir!” Priestly pointed.
Hollings trained a FLIR scope into the darkness through the bars of the wrought-iron gate. He could see them coming—a long line of cars racing in at over a hundred miles per hour, only a half mile out. He didn’t see any end to them. “Vehicles one thousand yards! Coming in fast!”
Gear creaked in the dark as hands clenched around pistol grips and straps were pulled taut.
“Give ’em hell, gentlemen!”
The roar of approaching engines took center stage now, echoing off the outer face of the estate wall. Suddenly a booming wall of sound hit their eardrums—followed by a shower of sparks and flame. Quickly followed by several more sharp explosions and the screeching of metal.
There were hoots in the ranks. “Yeah!”
A flaming, twisted piece of wreckage slammed into the wrought-iron gates, knocking one gate off its hinges and filling the grillwork with fire. Another flaming wreck slammed into the first, toppling the gates completely. They crashed down onto the highway dividers, sounding like a xylophone tumbling down a staircase.
“So much for our gates.” Through the flames Hollings could see that the claymores had taken out another dozen AutoM8s, which were burning in the ditches alongside the road.
But there was now a veritable roar of racing car engines. The flames revealed dozens more cars coming in from the night.
Just then a staccato boom echoed and tracer fire flicked out of the guardhouse—tracer rounds bounced off the distant prairie and metal wreckage. The M60 near Hollings opened up, too, as another sedan plowed through, smashing into the burning wreckage filling the arch and sending the whole pile over the highway dividers. The deafening crash washed over them, flaring into a brilliant fireball as the wreckage cartwheeled into the corner of the guardhouse. Another car blasted through. And another—which tumbled into the ditch alongside the road—partially blocking their field of fire to the gate.
“Jesus H. R. Pufnstuf Christ!”
“Priestly, put some arty on that road!”
“All I’ve got is static, Captain. Comm just went down!”
“Goddamnit, get on the landline in the guardhouse. And bring some fire down!”
Priestly saluted and took off at a run toward the guardhouse. Flames and tracer fire silhouetted him against the surrounding blackness.
Soldiers around Hollings were flipping up their night vision goggles. It was getting bright in the kill zone with all the flames.
A rocket streaked out of the guardhouse window and disappeared through the gate opening. A flash and boom echoed out there. Another rocket raced in from the foxholes and detonated against the stone wall. Rock splinters blasted back, dinging against the Humvee fenders as Hollings ducked down. “Damnit!” He stood back up and had a much better view of the road now. Good thinking. They could build a new fucking wall… .
A whole row of SAWs on his right opened up through the new opening—tracers screaming toward the sound of a NASCAR race approaching them out of the darkness to the north. Ricocheting off of unseen targets. Another rocket raced out of the guardhouse. An explosion. The burning wreckage of a car knocked down a section of wall to the left of the gate.
Machine-gun fire rattled from the extreme right and left flanks—out by the ends of the wall.
“Keep on them! Keep firing!”
Several more cars raced into the meat grinder, crashing into the barriers and pitching up. But by now the barriers were partially pushed
aside or smashed in two.
He could see Priestly racing through the guardhouse door. The guardhouse was starting to catch fire now. Soldiers raced up, pulling pieces of burning wreckage away from the wall. A Humvee with the .50 caliber on top roared past Hollings and slowed near the wreckage—nudging it from the building.
“Good job, Lopez!”
Lopez waved and opened up with the .50 into the maw of the gate. The deep, slow booming of the .50 was a kettledrum section to the crackling of small arms fire.
Another rocket streaked out of the guardhouse and nailed a car on the approach road.
Hollings looked around at the carnage. Good lord … Flaming wreckage littered the prairie. It looked like something from Revelation.
The gunfire was crackling less intently now. Soldiers were changing drum clips. Barrels were smoking hot. Their field of vision was now the radius of light around the flames. Their night vision and FLIR scopes were useless so close to this light and heat.
But the sound of approaching engines only got louder—and there was a deeper one among them. Hollings stood up and shouted. “Truck! Incoming truck!”
Just then another two sedans smashed through the opening, and tracer fire ripped through them. One caught fire and tumbled over the foxhole nearest the road. Shouts and screaming. Nearby soldiers ran to help their trapped comrades.
“Goddamnit!” Hollings could see Priestly rushing out of the guardhouse, waving his weapon over his head. He sprinted down the road toward Hollings’s position among the Humvees.
“Captain! Phone line’s been cut. We have no communications! They must be—”
Just then a steel-plated concrete truck plowed through the wreckage filling the mouth of the gate—sending burning wreckage, concrete dividers, and stone blocks flying. It continued on into Lopez’s Humvee, crashing into it and plowing it through the front wall of the guardhouse. The truck followed, crushing the front wall and collapsing the rest of the structure under the weight of the enormous peaked roof. The nose of the concrete truck was buried under debris. Lopez, his driver, and the guardhouse team were gone.
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