by John Lumpkin
“Some naval personnel captured in the battle upstairs, a civilian, and some foreign nationals,” Kelley interrupted. Neil got the hint: No reason they need more details than that. It annoyed him.
Rand’s people, a sergeant named Aguirre and a PFC named Lopez, asked Davis about the war, and Neil took Rand aside. “How are you?”
“Been better. Lost most of my platoon in the initial attack, and the rest in the fighting since. Early on, it wasn’t so bad. We got food and shelter from ranchers, but they have all vanished. The Hans have been depopulating this area of Americans and moving in as colonists.”
Neil hadn’t known that. “So they intend to stay.”
“Looks like it. How’d we get involved in this disaster? Tell me we’re winning somewhere.”
Neil shook his head. “Not that I know of. The Hans and Kims have taken Earth orbit and most of the Solar System.”
“Have they hit the States?”
“No, they haven’t had the firepower to go after our surface-to-orbit defenses. They’re in a high orbit, last I heard. Though we’ve been out of contact for several weeks now.”
Rand’s relief was obvious. “Thanks. It’s been so long since I checked in with the family. You never know,” he said.
Neil looked Rand over again. He didn’t look like party animal he used to be, the guy who could drop a grand in a night at the casinos and not think twice. He was tougher, meaner, in command of himself and the people around him.
Rand said, loudly, “Did anyone bring some beer? It’s been weeks since I’ve had one, and I think that’s some violation of the Geneva Convention.”
Neil laughed with the others. We’ve changed, seen war and death, and somehow we’re still ourselves.
They had little time to dawdle – every hour in the Sequoia countryside was another hour that a satellite or drone might decide to investigate the little cluster of heat signatures out in the wilderness.
Rand, Torren, Kelley and Sanchez scouted the prison, built on the outskirts of Cottonwood, and when they returned everyone conferred to come up with a plan.
“There’s a platoon of MPs assigned to the prison, but really only one squad is on duty at any one time,” Kelley reported. “Another squad is on light duty – training, eating, recreating. The third is asleep.”
“What’s their kit?” Davis asked.
“The on-duty squad has combat armor and dragoon gear. Didn’t see anything heavier than an assault rifle except for one heavy machine gun at the gate. They have a couple of rifleman up in guard towers, as well.”
“The Hans added the towers and the outer fence,” Torren put in. Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged. “It’s a county lockup. There’s not a lot of crime out here, and the place is pretty small. Still, it’s the most secure facility in 500 klicks, and they can’t be using it for anyone but important prisoners. They are shipping everyone else to Sycamore.”
“Are we sure our objective is there?” Sanchez asked.
“As sure as we can be,” Neil said.
“Beyond the MPs, what are we going to run into?”
“They use a system of layered quick-response teams,” Rand said. “You’ve got a platoon that can reach a problem in fifteen minutes, a company in twenty-five, a battalion in forty or so. They love their drones – the little bastards are just about everywhere in town. So expect a couple of their fighter birds – those tilt-turbofan gunships – within about ten minutes, fifteen if you get lucky.”
“We’ve run into those before,” Neil said.
Rand looked at him intently, his eyes saying, That’s a story I’ve got to hear.
Davis looked at Torren. “How long would it take to search the entire facility?”
“It’s all of two floors,” Torren said. “The building is laid out in a rectangle with a hole in the middle. That’s the rec yard. Small chance our targets could be there. First floor is administration offices, a dispatch center, the security center, the armory, a couple of rooms for lawyer-client meetings and a courtroom if we don’t want to take a suspect downtown. Cells are upstairs. You could search the whole compound in fifteen minutes, given unrestricted access.”
“Which we won’t have.”
“If I can get into the security center I can probably unlock all the doors. Otherwise …”
“We can handle the otherwise,” Sanchez said.
Torren stared at her, annoyed at being interrupted. “I hope so.”
The jail was built on a barren rise west of Cottonwood. The lights of the town below looked like amber and white jewels in a black bowl. A few jewels were moving; some of these were drones patrolling a few hundred feet above the town streets. It was after dusk, yet the air remained hot and oppressive. They could still make out the rows of green towers outside the town, covered with genetically enhanced moss made to grab excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
They had about four hours of semidarkness before the sun rose again. Flight Officer Kieran Wu thumbed his handheld, typed in a brief command, and nodded at Davis.
A few moments later they heard a distant boom, followed by several rifle shots. One of the amber jewels, a patrol drone, blossomed orange as a missile took it down. The Pathfinders were at work, raising hell by hitting a Chinese motor pool at the edge of town. Rand’s two remaining soldiers, Aguirre and Lopez, had gone with them as guides. Wu desperately missed being with his comrades, but the American and Australian handhelds couldn’t talk to one another on encrypted channels, so he stayed with the Yanks to serve as the go-between.
Davis had no way to know if the diversion would work, but he hoped the Chinese quick-response teams would descend on the Aussie attack, only to find the Pathfinders already withdrawn. They were to leave their only combat drone behind to keep the Hans occupied.
Neil and several of the others lay on their bellies, hiding behind a rise a few hundred meters from one side of the jail. Rand and Wu were to his right, each wearing grim expressions. Davis was to his left, looking uncomfortable in his tight-fitting battle armor. Torren was beside Davis. A knot of Marines were further off to the right, including the designated marksman, Fabini, who was taking aim at one of the guard towers. Beside her was Apodaca, one of the squad’s two spotters – troopers equipped with ocular implants enhanced to see into the infrared spectrum. They also had small radar units, but these were turned off to avoid alerting the Hans to their presence. For the moment, they were well-concealed, outside whatever perimeter sensors the Chinese employed. The exterior of the jail was well-lit, with lights on the ground pointing up to illuminate the sides of the building. Neil and several others had removed their exoskeletons: The extra speed wouldn’t do them much good inside the jail. They would don them again after their escape.
Neil considered his situation. He was facing his third shootout in the service – one hell of a career for a pilot! – but this one was different. This was a planned hit, an operation where Neil and his comrades had the initiative. He held an M7, the stubby carbine version of the M6 rifle most of the Marines carried. Obsessively, he checked the safety setting. The M6 and M7 were bullpup weapons, with the magazine behind the grip. They fired caseless ammo, so left-handers didn’t have to worry about a 6.5mm shell ejecting in their ear. Neil had minimal training with the weapon, but had taken time to practice while on board Fremantle. If this went well, he wouldn’t have to use it. If this doesn’t go well … Neil believed the op was entirely on his head. He had advocated it and planned it. If someone dies … but that’s the question with any rescue, isn’t it? How can one life be worth another?
Rand was staring at the Latin on Kieran’s RAAF shoulder patch.
“What’s ‘Per Ardua Ad Astra’ mean?” he asked.
“Our motto. ‘Through struggle, the stars.’”
“Nice. That come from your space program?”
“Nah. Royal Flying Corps, 1912.”
That was thinking ahead, Rand thought.
Davis said, “It’s time, Fabini.”
Donovan wondered if they were just having fun with him. His captors had stopped with the gruesome pictures, and were just filling his vision with kaleidoscopes of color, sometimes so bright he felt like his rods and cones would burn away.
At some point his conscious mind was going to give up. Some part of his mind he couldn’t control would take over, and he would start talking, just to make the torture stop, to allow him to reconnect with reality.
That part couldn’t lie, he knew. He’d been on the other side of such interrogations. It was coming, the loss of control, and coming soon. Deep down, the knowledge hurt terribly; his own mind, the part of himself that had always served him, enabled him to become somebody of importance, somebody who did interesting and significant things, was about to betray him.
He might have broken already but for an admission from Li Xiao. Li claimed to have been on Commonwealth and to have fired the shot that killed Rafe Sato. He described the sequence of events precisely enough for Donovan to wonder if he was telling the truth … it was hard to be sure. But Li’s claim had actually given him some strength, in a perverse sort of way. True or not, Donovan realized Li told him not to get information out of him, but simply to hurt him, probably in revenge for the Donovan’s killing of his partner, back on Entente.
Unprofessional, Donovan thought. I can beat this amateur.
When he heard the first shot he initially assumed it was part of the latest sensory invasion. But the feed into his ocular implant suddenly stopped, and his vision returned.
Fabini fired again.
“Machinegunner is down. Tower one is down,” she reported.
She sighted again, but did not fire. “Tower two is obscured. Bastard must have dropped,” she hissed, talking to herself as much as transmitting to the rest of the squad. She dropped the rifle barrel to the base of the tower, where the guard had to be hiding, and fired three times. She saw through her scope that the shots holed the tower. No way could she have missed him.
“Tower two is down,” she transmitted.
The remaining threats in view were a pair of guards who had wandered outside, to talk or smoke or just get some fresh air. They had come out the back door that the Americans planned to enter. At the shots both had unslung their rifles and kneeled. They peered around, unable to determine where the shots came from.
Fabini dropped one; Neil, through his binoculars, saw the flash of red on his chest as he keeled over. The other dived behind a short brick wall. Fabini kept her sights on the wall in case he should pop his head up.
Davis said, “Sanchez, advance.”
This was dangerous, but they hadn’t come up with any other way to get close to the building. Two Marines still in their exoskeletons stood up and ran, their walker gear propelling them across the rugged ground toward the perimeter fence. One Marine sliced an opening in the fence, and they were through, running toward the jail itself.
Sanchez, Harkins and four more Marines followed.
When they reached the fence, Davis said, “Command element, advance,” and he led Neil, Rand, Torren and Kelley toward the break in the fence. Wu, Fabini and the remaining Marines would remain behind; from their vantage, they could direct fire on most points around the jail.
As Neil ran, each breath echoed in his helmet. A shot! Are we under fire? For a moment he considered diving to the ground. The shot came from behind; it was Fabini, killing the last guard by the back door.
He was at the fence. They had to stop to duck through. They ran again, arrived at the windowless exterior wall of the jail. Rand, wearing a wild-eyed grin, pulled up beside Neil, Chinese rifle at his shoulder.
Li Xiao exulted. Again the world twisted itself to serve his ends. His only worry was that Mercer would for some reason stay back from this action. He thumbed his handheld.
“Security, Private Cao,” answered a voice. It was on the edge of panic.
Li did not have to identify himself. “Have you contacted the Quick Response Unit?”
“Yes, sir, but we were told they are already engaged at another incident at the brigade motor pool,” he said. “It may be some time until additional forces can arrive.”
Sanchez and Harkins arrived at the back entrance, some sort of heavy service door where the jail took its deliveries. Sanchez reached for the knob and pulled the door partially open. She leaned a tiny camera around the corner, waved all clear, and entered the jail.
Shots echoed from around the building. “Two hostiles tried to walk out the front door,” Fabini transmitted. “One down, one back inside.”
Two Marines remained behind to guard the exit, and Sanchez and the others muttered to one another the tenets of close-quarters fighting. Speed and precision. Check the corners. Stay out of the center of the doorways.
Once they were inside the building, Kelley took the lead, with Apodaca beside her. Torren and Sanchez were behind them. Torren pointed down a narrow corridor: The security center was that way. They moved into an office, a long room broken up by two rows of head-high cubicle partitions. Sanchez fanned her Marines out, and they crept through the room in three lines. Kelley and Harkins went right; Neil and the others stayed in the center, heading for the far door.
Apodaca, the spotter, was free to use his radar now; the other side knew they were here. He swept his gun around the room, the small radar unit under the barrel pulsing through the walls and feeding the return to his ocular implant and to the helmets of the other members of his squad. As it reached the far door, it alerted him to human forms and motion on the far side.
The Marine shouted a warning as the far door opened, and someone fired at them, a rifle on full automatic. The shots were random, but Davis gasped and went down on his backside, sitting up but clutching at his chest. Sanchez took a shot in her right arm, dropped her rifle and dived behind the nearest cubicle, Torren right behind her. Neil and Rand hit the floor and crawled behind another.
Neil reached for Davis, stunned and groaning, and Rand joined the Marines in firing blindly at the door. Neil couldn’t see any blood.
Davis grunted. “So that’s what a broken rib feels like.”
Rand ducked behind cover to change a setting on his gun, and said to Neil, “You know, part of why I joined is because I hated the idea of working for sixty years in an office setting.”
Three bullet holes appeared in the partition about two feet above their heads, blowing little chunks of cloth and plastic on them.
Neil said, “I guess they don’t like the office either.”
Nearby, Kelley, wearing only a light vest, moved swiftly along the line of windows along the outside wall, a shadow illuminated by the bright muzzle flashes as the Chinese and Americans exchanged fire. Sergeant Harkins followed her, feeling clunky in her battle armor.
She knew two or three Han MPs were behind the doorway. Smart, in one sense; it was good cover. Stupid, in another sense, they had no peripheral vision. Kelley hit the floor, and Harkins crouched behind her. Kelley looked at the Marine, pointed silently down the room, to where the rest of the Americans were pinned down, and made a cutting motion with her hand.
Harkins got the message. As quietly as she could, she transmitted, “Hold fire.” The shots from the Americans trailed off, stopped.
Kelley pulled a small disk from her pocket, pressed its button, and flung it through the doorway. A bright flash followed; Kelley sprung into the doorway and fired her M7, one-two, three-four, five-six. Harkins peered behind her. Three Chinese soldiers were down, all shot in the head.
Harkins nodded at Kelley with something close to reverence; her attack had been perfect. She stared in fascination at the mess of red gore and gray brain matter on the floor and walls, reflecting that Kelley was probably trained on raid guns instead of the heavier M7 battle carbine. With the lighter weapons, they trained you to go for head shots because the bullets couldn’t always penetrate modern combat armor.
Shouts of “clear” echoe
d from all corners of the office.
While Neil and the Marines checked on the wounded Sanchez, Rebecca Torren walked to one of the cubicles, Rand close behind her.
“This used to be my desk,” she said, looking forlorn. Any signs of her occupancy were gone. A solitary picture was pinned to one of the cubicle walls; it showed a man in a PLA lieutenant’s uniform, his arm around a woman holding a baby.
“Rebecca, we need to go,” Rand said. Sanchez and Davis, both wounded, would withdraw from the building, taking a Marine to help. They would join the others outside the back door. The rest pressed forward.
Li Xiao cycled through the feeds from the security cameras. He didn’t have much time, but it wasn’t long until he found a top-down view of a file of troopers, moving carefully through a corridor on the ground floor beneath him. Their armor and weaponry gave them away as American Marines, although a few … there. One flicked up the visor on his helmet to look at his handheld. Li knew the face.
Mercer. He’d taken the bait, although Li’s trap hadn’t sprung properly. Major Shen’s MPs would probably be unable to repel this determined attack, and the fighting in the city had diverted the PLA quick-reaction force from arriving here as it should. They were en route, now, but it would be some time.
Beside him, Khenbish was fitting into her battle armor, utterly devoid of modesty. Li Xiao smirked as he watched Major Shen’s eyes flicker toward her bare back and dart away. Li had looked once, too, but Khenbish had not approved of his suggestion that had followed.
Major Shen said, “We can ambush them at the entry to the cell block.”
Li Xiao said, “Do that. But Khenbish and I must see to the prisoners.”
“What do you mean?”
“They must not be allowed to escape, so we will kill them.”
Major Shen said to Li Xiao, “That is illegal. I won’t allow it.”
“I don’t see that you can stop me,” Li said. His sidearm was still in the holster, but Khenbish had picked up her rifle. For the moment, it was pointed at the floor in front of Shen.
