I bit back a reply, very much wanting to choke him right then. Letting him silently consider his own failure was worse than anything I could say. Also, I didn’t trust myself to speak right then, as the Dragon rocked violently to port, and this time it didn’t flop back on its belly. Instead, it skidded across the lake bottom with a shrieking, grinding sound.
Then it fell.
And kept falling.
The Dragon tumbled over and over, spinning around every axis on its way down. Tail over nose, yawing left then right, and rolling to starboard. The dropship bounced on the way down, I could hear and feel the wings and engine nacelles being torn off. All I could do was sit strapped into the pilot seat, try to relax so the jarring impacts didn’t tear a muscle, and keep my breathing as calm as possible. The carbon dioxide level in the cabin had long ago exceeded a dangerous level, so I was breathing my limited supply of emergency oxygen. Once that bottle was gone, I had no options.
With a shuddering BANG, the Dragon halted its plunge. Whatever the ship hit, it was solid; there was no rocking back and forth after the initial impact. When the Dragon began rocking again, it was gentle. After sitting rigidly tense following the final impact, I allowed myself to relax and breathe. Ok, I was still alive. The cockpit door hadn’t collapsed and let high-pressure water crush and asphyxiate me. That was the good news.
The bad news was, I was even deeper in the lake than I had been, and Skippy had used the last trick in his bag of magic. What else could go wrong?
No, wait.
Do not answer that.
I don’t want to know.
Lt. Reed held one hand to her zPhone earpiece and used the other to call a halt. Captain Zhau was taking a turn assisting Singh to limp along as best she could, so Sami was in charge of comms. “Yes, Major Smythe, what is it?”
“Captain Xho and his Night Tigers will be with you shortly, they have powered suits and one of them can carry Singh. Are any of you injured other than Singh? Her leg doesn’t appear to be serious.”
Sami was puzzled. “How do you know that, Major?”
“Look directly above.”
Sami tilted her head back and didn’t see anything. Wait. She heard something, like the flapping wings of a hummingbird. A large hummingbird. Then, ten meters above her, a drone unstealthed. “Oh!” She waved. “No, just Singh.”
“Understood. Hold your position, we know where the Thuranin are and if they become a threat to you, the Night Tigers will,” he paused, “render them unable to threaten anything.”
“Yes Sir,” Sami replied with an ear to ear grin. “What is happening to the lake?” The three pilots had gone down into a stream valley and could not see the lake from their position.
“That is one of Skippy’s ideas. Unknown if it will be successful or not.”
“Joe, the lake level is about as low as it’s going to get. If you wait much longer, it could begin rising again. I wish you could see the view from up here; Major Smythe’s team is feeding me images from drones and the lake level is way down. It is very dramatic. Hopefully the lake draining away scares the shit out of the Thuranin.”
“I hope so too. Should I try the door again now?” With one eye on the falling oxygen meter and the other eye on the water level in the cabin, I was anxious to get moving.
“Yes, and please hurry. You don’t have a lot of time.”
“I kinda know that, Skippy.”
“Sorry. Get moving, knucklehead.”
The stupid cockpit door still wouldn’t budge! I tried moving the manual crank both ways, and nothing worked. All I accomplished was creating a slow leak at the bottom of the door. The leak was so slow that I couldn’t see or feel the high-pressure water coming in. The first way I knew there had to be a leak was my ears painfully aching, as the incoming water squeezed the cabin air into a smaller space and my flightsuit adjusted to accommodate. A pressure gauge built into the left wrist of my flightsuit indicated a slow and steady increase. Like, really slow. Cranking the door the other way didn’t halt the leak; the door was absolutely jammed where it was. “This damned door is not moving at all, Skippy,” I reported, trying to keep emotion from my voice.
“Crap. Darn it, I was afraid of that, Joe. Either the original water pressure bent the door too much, or the ship getting thrown around warped the door frame. I am sorry, Joe.”
“It’s not your fault, Skippy.”
“I failed, Joe. I failed you.”
“No you didn’t, Skippy. You did great! You, you, had a monkey-brained idea. I would never have thought of draining a freakin’ lake.”
“Really? You’re serious?”
“Absolutely. Using missiles to drain a lake is totally inventive thinking.” It may seem odd that, with me trapped and my oxygen running out, I was the one working to make someone else feel better about the situation. Part of my motivation was I felt empathy for Skippy’s pain, and part of my motivation was to keep my mind off the declining supply of oxygen in my emergency bottle. “How did you dream up such an amazing idea?”
“Thank you, Joe. I think. Unless you’re being sarcastic?”
“Totally for realz, Skippy-O, I’m giving you props for being clever.”
“Oh. In that case, thank you very much. I’m not sure where exactly I got the idea from, Joe.” He went on for a while, half speculating and more than half bragging about how magnificently clever he had been, while I zoned out, concentrating on slowing my breathing and letting my mind wander. The Dragon was sitting almost completely still, with water in the cockpit sloshing very gently side to side. In the lights of my helmet, I watched the ripple move slowly from one side to the other. On the starboard side, the water was just touching the bottom of a horizontal handhold; I used it as a marker for how fast the water was rising. The answer was, not fast at all. The good news was, I almost certainly would run out of emergency oxygen before the water rose enough for me to drown.
As good news goes, that totally sucks.
I have a terrible fear of drowning, so in that way, it was good news for me.
On the west side of the lake, Major Smythe scanned the forest through the scope of his rifle, then pointed the muzzle at the ground as the three rescued pilots ran past him with Xho’s Night Tigers. “Retreat and cover,” he ordered, as he fell back with his people. “Captain Chandra, we are secure here. What is your situation?”
Chandra replied immediately. The Indian paratrooper was leading the eastern assault team, facing far more Thuranin than had been on the west side of the lake. “Approaching start line,” he advised, “Charlie team had just reported they are in position below the ridgeline to the east. No contact yet.”
“Understood. I see from the drones those Thuranin settlements extend at least four kilometers to your south,” Smythe had a good idea what to look for. At first, the land had appeared to be only forests and meadows. Then the drones had been able to discern cleared cropland, and huts dotted throughout the forest. From the heat signatures on infrared, Smythe’s team estimated they faced almost a thousand Thuranin, with an unknown number of weapons. And unknown types of weapons. So far, the Merry Band of Pirates had seen surface to air missiles, rifles with explosive-tipped rounds, grenades and man-portable antiarmor rockets. If that was all the Thuranin had for weapons, Smythe’s people could deal with them. The trouble was if all thousand Thuranin were armed, they could outflank and overwhelm the SpecOps teams. And if the little green bastards had something stronger, like powered armor or combots, the tide of battle could turn against the humans in a hurry.
Smythe needed to make a decision. Risk the lives of dozens in an attempt to clear four or more linear kilometers of enemy resistance, or hold their position and do nothing to assist Colonel Bishop. The question was, if they launched the assault, would it matter? To allow dropships to hover over the lake and lower a cable down to the sunken Dragon, Smythe needed to be sure, damned sure, the area was clear of little green MFers armed with man portable antiaircraft missiles. Even a single Thuranin
with line of sight to the lake’s lowered surface could launch or call in a deadly missile. If that happened, and the vulnerable hovering dropship’s defenses could not intercept the incoming missile or missiles, then four more human lives would be at grave risk. All to save one man. Before he gave the order, Smythe needed better situational awareness.
“Skippy?”
“Yes, Major Smythe?”
“We have the three pilots who escaped; they are safe now. Captain Chandra has his people ready to-”
“I know what you are going to ask, Major,” Skippy said quietly.
“You do?” Smythe raised an eyebrow to Lt. Poole to his left, who silently mouthed ‘what is up’? Smythe shook his head.
“Yes, I do. I am not a military strategist or tactician, but even in my reduced state I can see the situation. You are weighing whether an assault to clear enemy positions east of the lake is worth the risk to rescue Colonel Bishop.”
“Correct,” Smythe answered slowly.
“An assault is not worth the risk to your team. I do not say that lightly, Major. There are two reasons your people should pull back now that the pilots have been rescued. First, despite my actions to drain the lake, Colonel Bishop is still trapped in the cockpit; the door is jammed solidly and I do not see any way for him to get out. Second, an action to clear and secure the eastern shore would take longer than Joe’s remaining oxygen supply. Thus, there is no point to risking a costly assault. At this point, there is nothing your team can do to assist Joe.”
“Bloody hell.” Smythe swallowed hard, temporarily turned off the zPhone’s transmitter and covered his eyes with a hand. After a moment in which the people around him knew their leader had just heard very bad news and also knew not to speak, he angrily wiped his eyes and turned the phone on again. “I refuse to believe there is nothing to be done. Can we not send down a drone to cut open the cockpit door? Surely there is a way a drone could be dropped from high altitude by a dropship, to minimize the exposure to AA fire.”
“I thought of that, Major,” Skippy said without any of his usual snarkiness. “None of the drones we have are capable of operating in water at that depth.”
“Unacceptable,” Smythe barked, his anger directed at the situation rather than at Skippy.
“Major, the equipment we have has been begged, borrowed and stolen,” Skippy gently reminded the Special Air Services soldier. “Everything we have with us is designed to operate in space, in the air and on the ground. Submarine warfare is not a capability that has widespread use in the war between the Maxolhx and Rindhalu.”
“This can’t be the end,” Smythe snapped. “There must be something we can do.”
“Major Smythe, if there is, I am open to suggestions. Your quarrel is with time and the laws of physics, not with me.”
“It’s not with you,” Smythe agreed. He took a deep breath. “You’ve done your best, Skippy.”
“Thank you, but if the best I can do results in Joe suffocating under a stupid lake on a lame planet, then I am Skippy the Useless. Skippy the Idiot,” the AI’s voice broke off in a fit of sobbing. When he recovered with a sniff, he asked “Would you like to talk with Colonel Bishop, to confirm?”
“No,” Smythe replied with a shake of his head. “I’m the commander on the scene; I am not kicking the decision upstairs. Colonel Bishop has enough problems to deal with right now. Besides, we both know what his order will be.”
“Yes we do,” Skippy sounded thoroughly miserable.
Without wasting any more time, Smythe called Captain Chandra on the east side of the lake. “Captain, pull your people back, I do not want contact at this time.”
“Major Smythe?” Chandra asked incredulously. “Please repeat.”
“At this time, we are not, repeat not, proceeding with the operation. Pull back a half kilometer and hold for another,” he checked the timer Skippy had loaded on his zPhone. It showed Joe Bishop had only twelve minutes of oxygen remaining. “We hold for fifteen minutes,” he decided. That should provide a cushion in case Joe Bishop thought up one of his signature monkey-brained ideas to rescue himself. “Then we conduct a retreat to the LZs and evac. Is that understood?”
“I acknowledge the order,” Chandra replied unhappily. “I do not understand.” Around him, his people were geared up and ready to hit the Thuranin. Their supreme discipline would have them complying with an order to pull back, even if that meant abandoning their leader to a watery grave. It did not mean they would be happy about it. “Chandra out.”
“What’s up, Cap?” Ranger Mychalchyk asked quietly, not taking his eyes away from the scope of his rifle.
“We’re pulling back, then holding.”
“What?” Mychalchyk broke concentration just long enough to glance at the Indian paratrooper.
“I don’t like it either. We have orders,” Chandra announced with a hateful look at his zPhone. With advanced zPhone technology and an alien AI facilitating communications, he could not fall back on the old battlefield excuse of garbled communications.
“Is Colonel Bishop safe already?” The Ranger asked, confused.
“I think that is very unlikely. We will conduct an orderly retreat-”
“Excuse me, Captain!” The Ranger interrupted in a hoarse whisper. “They may change our plans a bit.” He gestured forward with his rifle, where something moved in the forest.
It was a trio of combots, coming straight toward them at high speed.
“Captain Xho!” Smythe shouted.
“I see it!” Xho replied as he and his two armor-suited companions were already rushing toward the east shore of the lake. In the jarring, bouncing view of his visor display, he could see the powered armor team already on the east shore were speeding toward Captain Chandra’s position. He also saw neither of the armor would reach Chandra before the three enemy combots overran Chandra’s position. “We are on our way! But, Major-”
“I know!” Smythe was out of breath because he was also running toward Chandra, and Smythe didn’t have the advantage of a mech suit. The three Night Tigers, although they started over a kilometer farther away, would blow past Smythe and reach Chandra’s position much faster than the slow, unassisted humans. “Chandra is on his own!”
Less than two minutes later, Xho and his two companions raced past Smythe without exchanging pleasantries. And Smythe slowed, not because he knew no amount of effort would get him to the battle in time to do anything useful. But because the battle was over.
“Hot damn,” Mychalchyk gasped in disbelief, checking the counter on top of his rifle. He had fired only eighteen rounds, all selected for explosive tips but no way, no way should a Thuranin combot have been stopped by eighteen rounds from a Kristang rifle. Mychalchyk barely had time to drop, roll behind a fallen log and take aim before one of the combots was practically on top of him. Large caliber rounds from the combot had chewed into the log, sending splinters to pepper the Ranger’s left side as he returned fire, with one of his rounds by pure luck striking a rocket fired by the alien machine. He carefully got to his knees, keeping the muzzle pointed at the combot that was down and only twitching slightly, with most of the bot scattered in pieces across the forest floor.
The point was, he should not have had time to drop, roll behind a fallen log and take aim. A combot that close should have shredded him before gravity could have pulled him behind the log. “What the f-” he caught himself. Captain Chandra did not appreciate foul language, although he had used it on rare occasions. As the official common language of India was English rather than Hindi, Chandra had dropped F-bombs just like an American.
“Yes,” Captain Chandra looked around at the three destroyed enemy combots. He looked at Mychalchyk and nodded, safing his own rifle. “What the hell happened here? Sixteen rounds,” he recited the number expended from his rifle.
“Eighteen here,” Mychalchyk reported, knowing Chandra could see the expenditure from every one of the team’s weapons.
Chandra did check that data i
n his helmet visor. Even if all rounds fired from the entire team impacted the combots, the tough machines should not have been so easily dispatched. More tellingly, Chandra’s team, without the benefit and protection of armored suits, should have been wiped out. Instead, not a single soldier had been seriously injured. How could he explain it? He turned to the Ranger and they both spoke the same thought. “Skippy!” On Kobamik, after a golden BB had shot down a dropship, Smythe’s team had a brief firefight with armored Kristang, and the lizards had been decimated. That battle went in the humans’ favor due to the intervention of an alien beer can.
“Nope, that wasn’t me,” Skippy scoffed through their earpieces. “From base camp, with the skimpy bandwidth over the relays, no way could I hack into those combots. My guess is they are simply old, and their operators are out of practice. If the Thuranin have been on Gingerbread as long as I suspect they have been, they may not have the advantage of cyborg implants. It is likely the operators used a manual backup control system. That is good news for you, because their aim was terrible. I mean, seriously, they didn’t hit a single one of you?”
Chandra got a thumbs up sigh from his entire team, verifying the data available in the helmet visor. Not one person had suffered more than minor injuries from flying splinters and shrapnel. The people with Chandra were not wearing Kristang powered armor, but they were all equipped with Kristang lightweight body armor panels and helmets, in addition to their standard-issue UNEF gloves and boots. Mychalchyk standing a few feet away had small spots of blood on one side of his uniform. When the Ranger saw the team leader looking at a streak of blood coming down from his hip, he shook his head. “I’m fine, Cap, it’s just splinters got through a gap in armor panels. I’ll spray some of that fake skin stuff,” he meant a nanobot-enhanced spray sealant that temporarily formed a layer of artificial skin, “when we have time.”
Zero Hour (Expeditionary Force Book 5) Page 32
