Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield

by Joel Shepherd

  “Well, that always cheers me up,” Vanessa remarked as her armour reached the same point. She sounded better, adrenaline had that effect on both of them…or in Sandy's case, pseudo-synthetic adrenaline.

  Helmet and visor last, a flash of electronic vision with multi-layered depth, a universe of interactive function and sensory awareness. Cannon mount, ammo feed, coolant…the six mini-missiles in the back rack counted off and ready, then sim-gyros as the drive train engaged, environmentals breathed warm air at her neck, coolers flushing hot air from the core into the surrounding cabin. The flyer would get damn hot inside if they stayed too long.

  The flyer was just hovering now, cabin open, above a park surrounded by residential towers, not daring to advance into what was unfolding ahead. Sandy pulled clear of the hold restraints, clomped for the rear with Vanessa following, performed a quick thruster check, and jumped. A five-meter fall ended neatly balanced on the downthrust, then a gentle touch on the grass, Vanessa joining her as the flyer powered away once more, presumably to find two more FSA grunts to pilot the two other suits, certainly there would be others out tonight, dispersed from hiding toward the city's western edge.

  Surreally, with no immediate missile fire or explosions, it suddenly seemed that just the two of them were standing alone in a deserted park in Tanusha one evening. Unusually deserted, certainly, normally at this hour there would be people here, walking the dog, jogging, some old folks strolling after dinner, a couple making out on a bench. But unusual or not, everything suddenly looked so mundane. People lived like this, Sandy thought, never seeing the forces that ruled them. An apartment here, in one of these buildings, a park to play in, restaurants to eat in or grab takeaway from. Sports on weekends, VR club on weeknights, holiday plans around the corner. And here was she, with all of these lives in her hands.

  “We good?” she asked Vanessa.

  Vanessa bounced and swung her arms as though limbering up. The suits’ dexterity was ridiculous, you could tango in them. If you could tango. “Seem to be.”

  “Not what I meant,” said Sandy.

  Vanessa shrugged, for the suit shrugged too. “I know. Let's go.” As tacnet inserted them properly into the formations. They jumped.

  Sandy kept low, a power cruise at ten meters, kicking the thrust again and again for course change and velocity boost. It made a trajectory like a drunken blowfly, rising and falling, just avoiding towers at the last moment, and largely unpredictable to any watching armscomp. Ahead, the forward wave was just starting to get seriously engaged, where the defending tacnet established an outer kill zone and defensive fire became kinetic as much as self-propelled. That was five Ks in from the perimeter. Tanusha was seventy Ks across, and roughly circular by design, not as big a footprint as a lot of old Earth megacities, but many times the population of most—an even spread of density, not the traditional thick in the middle and thin around the edges.

  The Grand Council and Federal District were in Montoya, which was on the far eastern edge, right up against the jungle. A ground assault had to go right across the city because coming in over the jungle put you in the kill zone of a truly brutal aerial defence grid that could erase everything above bird size, irrespective of number or velocity. But they couldn't employ that system west, because of all the civilians who lived here. Even coming in from north or south was fraught, because although it made the distance shorter, it also severely limited the ability to manoeuver, one flank vulnerable to counter-hooks under the cover of that aerial grid, the distance of which was then also shorter. All the sims, or for Sandy just a casual glance, told her that doing it the long way from due west, across the entire city, was far smarter—it took the aerial grid out of play, opened up the full expanse of Tanusha's urban terrain to manoeuver in, and forced the enemy to defend in depth and width, spreading them out and making gaps, just what a mobile attacking force wanted.

  Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones with hoppers. In fact, looking at what was rising up ahead of them, it looked like they might be outnumbered. It was hardly surprising, no one really knew what Fleet had been bringing insystem the last few days and weeks through Balaji, no doubt a lot of heavy stuff in case things went belly-up. Behind those, the ubiquitous A-12s. Around Montoya and the GC, it was well known, a lot of mobile defence grid units. Plus all the installed aerial and ground defences Callay itself had built at great cost to the Callayan taxpayer, now employed against Tanusha's own liberation. And now, just to mess things up more, here came the UAVs, lots of them, some for potshots, others for recon and tacnet expansion, others for jamming and disruption…expect tacnet to get wobbly when they started taking parts of the network down. But two could play at that, and defenders were somewhat more entrenched and immobile in what facilities they could employ…

  “Good evening, boys and girls,” Sandy said calmly as the scale of this particular assault began to wash over her, three-dimensional and crazy mobile. “Welcome to Tanusha, my name is Sandy and I'll be your guide this evening, as we are about to pass through some of the most wonderful tourist spots in all the galaxy, have your recorders at the ready and your weapons loaded at all times.”

  She grounded on a footpath beside a road, there was still too much traffic out, crazy fucking Tanushans still driving, across from this urban square were people pointing as she landed. “Our plan tonight,” she continued, “is small-unit action, four by four, I want pairs and squads to advance by Vita Formation, we move fast and penetrate, get in amongst them and back our reflexes over theirs. That simple.”

  Satisfied she'd retained good position, she leaped again, a slam of Gs and she was off, screeching past neighbouring towers. Ahead was Baidu District, towers, a nice bend of river…and shit, she remembered an evening here with Ari, music and dancing, Ari rarely danced, but he'd danced with her, sat up ages talking and kissing, then home for some great sex…and now Ari was in intensive care, and these people had put him there, and were now occupying her city, because it was her city, and she loved it like she loved Ari, and Vanessa and Rhi and everyone else who'd become so vital to her life in this place.

  And these fuckers who'd done it, they were going to die.

  “No no!” Rami was shouting from his penthouse living room, a huge thing under three storeys of heavy floors and well away from the windows. “Use the secondary network, not the primary, that'll take the local security grid out of play! And boost this fucking signal, I can barely get a feedback reading!”

  “If we boost it,” his producer Liz came back in his ear, “we could get traced.”

  “Well, I'll fucking risk it!” He sat on his sofa, banks of screens randomly arrayed about him. Trying to get the wireless net to sync them all wasn't as simple as it should have been. In the studio all this shit worked seamlessly, but despite Tanusha's crazy mobile tech aptitude, it never quite came together so smoothly on its own. “Anyone who doesn't want to be here can leave!”

  “Holy shit!” said one of the techs, watching a feed screen while trying to get the local construct gens synced. “Look at this, it's a fucking war!” As the feed showed missiles ripping and dodging between Tanushan towers, exploding from counter-fire, now tracer and mag rounds glowing white hot with velocity. Still little sign of who was shooting; in modern war you saw a lot more shooting than shooters.

  “Yeah, well Sandy fucking warned us, didn't she?” Rami muttered, making frantic adjustments. The local feeds wouldn't match with the net security construct; if he went live like this he'd be asking for an Operation Shield high-explosive round through the ceiling for sure.

  On cue, his uplink blinked—his personal link, the ones only close friends and family knew. “Rami,” came Sandy's voice. “Challenge to the netsters, break the Operation Shield tacnet.” She must have been speaking aloud, her voice strained abruptly, as though she were pulling Gs. Then the unmistakable sound of mag fire, thud-thud-thud! Given how Sandy aimed, that probably meant someone just died.

  “Sandy, they don't all work for you
!” he exclaimed.

  “Rami, we can kill their hoppers, but they're buying enough time to deploy a mobile defence grid, which is going to get real nasty the closer we get to the GC. The GC's no longer controlling the main network protocols, but I'm still looking at eighty percent casualties before I reach the GC defences, and that won't leave enough to breach it. Some tacnet confusion would be great right now, and we grunts just don't have the time.” And, “Hang on—Ceta Squad, evade and redirect, target 255 left, watch your line of advance!”

  Pause as counter-chatter came back, Rami couldn't hear what. Then, “Rami, gotta go, about to get seriously busy. Get it done, I'll promise them anything, up to and including wild sex with all of them, just do it!”

  Hoppers were useless against entrenched forces in urban combat, you overflew sophisticated weapons systems you hadn't seen, and they killed you. But Operation Shield forces were not entrenched, and Tanusha was not entrenchable, and for rapid ground assault hoppers were unmatched.

  Tacnet showed her a line of confirmed and semi-confirmed dots, a line of possibles behind that, and a whole bunch of question marks farther back, dots flickering and shifting as the system updated itself. Even now tacnet was trying to sift the local nets for data feeds from Tanushan civilians, filming hoppers, artillery, A-12s, and feeding that input into the grid, but the Feds had a bunch of programs finding that data and destroying it before they could access.

  City-level topography suggested blind spots, and she took one with a wingman, tearing past low- and mid-rise buildings, then grounding with a skid and run on the road where they ended, aiming past building sides as two other pairs similarly advanced. An eruption of missiles, six Ks behind the lines, probably an A-12, never quite close enough to hit. Accelerating fast, as the targeted suits took rapid cover, and the missiles airburst close rather than take out civvie buildings, showering them with shrapnel…but two made it far enough to draw fire from another building rooftop, revealing a location properly. Someone lobbed a missile from a shoulder rack, the shooter jumped, and Sandy's cannon boomed—a two-K shot, but the mag round got there in less than a second, the enemy hopper spun like a crazed top and fell from sight.

  “Gamma Five, Gamma Four, move move!” She left cover and ran up the road, then leaped—this crescent of higher buildings terminated ahead at Porcetti District center, big towers and gleaming lights—going through it would run them into close range defence, going around it would leave them exposed.

  Gamma Five dodged in mid-air as missile fire nearly had him. Gamma Four took out the offending UAV with a mid-air spin, hiding behind a building and awaiting opportunities. Sandy saw more long-range fire coming in, kicked harder and turned the hopper into a rocket, speeds over 600 kph toward the big buildings at barely treetop height past lower buildings, glimpses of flashing suburban houses and swimming pools…then blew a UAV on reflex as it appeared at five hundred meters, ten o'clock low behind a rooftop.

  Then she hit the brakes, feet first and thrusters howling, fired an airburst blinder grenade above an intersection, a white flash to temporarily blind sensitive night vision, and nearly nailed an enemy hopper that leaped from a taller rooftop in time, skimming his armour with a shot; missing was acceptable if you achieved results by fear. She hit a big city road at eighty Ks, bounded like a kangaroo, just missing some hastily abandoned vehicles, then leapt abruptly skyward as sensors showed indirect fire…a missile blew a hole in the street as she rocketed up fifty floors and blew a hopper off the rooftop on the way past, a split-second snap. Cut thrusters and coasted up the glass front of a 140-storey mega-rise, gravity for brakes as her teammates arrived below, flashing rapidly moving fire as they chased other hoppers down the canyons, a twisting of missiles, a shower of glass from a detonation.

  Approaching zero velocity at apex, Sandy slammed another round down at a fleeing hopper…it was dodging, and she made a hole in the road instead, at these ranges and speeds, accuracy even with 50mil armour-piercing mag rifles wasn't certain—she never missed, but targets often weren't where they should be when the round arrived.

  Another short kick took her to the top of the mega-rise, grounded with heavy boots on the roof amid com and transmission gear, and took a look out at her city. Flashes, shooting and missile trails across the tower-studded horizon. Not every munition was detonating early; in a few places, things were burning, and emergency crews were braving the night in flyers and cruisers, IDs on full blaze and hoping no one blew them from the sky by mistake.

  The net she could sense was a mess, conflicting security protocols destroying each other, out-of-control code eating other constructs, data channeling to relatively secure pathways and feeders. Lots of vid feeds, lots of interrupted regular broadcasts, lots of emergency announcements, shouting, politicians, personalities, regular folks screaming for the shooting to stop, can't we all just talk about this?

  Been talking, Sandy thought with contempt. Now shooting. People who didn't care then but suddenly cared now, rated on the moral minus scale. Fuck off and shut up, the grownups are working.

  Suddenly she had at least ten incoming missiles from a variety of ranges. All angling for the top of this tower. She jumped off, turned head down and kicked, ripping down the towerside at building speed enough to make a fatal crater if her thrusters died…but she righted, kicked again, and they slowed her at a bone-crushing 18Gs amidst the smaller towers. The Gs made her synthetic muscles clench, just to stop her internal organs from rupturing, and then the missiles were streaking in, and these were not airbursting but ripping into walls, blasting huge waves of debris across the roads as Sandy cut thrust, fell again, bounced off the road then kicked again into rapid flight at no altitude…a missile streaked an intersection ahead and blew out a wall ahead, as she dodged wildly over the top of it, wreckage showering off her armour.

  “I reckon they know this is you,” Gamma Two suggested.

  “Fair bet,” said Sandy, bounding again, then kicking up to a well-sheltering cover of gardens and parking atop a fifteen storey, and crouched while taking another look. And violated all tacnet protocols by opening to an external net link, which quickly propagated into broadcast across multiple channels. “Yeah, here I am, cocksuckers. Come and get me.”

  No immediate reply of missile fire. In fact, a noticeable pause across the immediate five-K front. Fear had its uses. Soldiers facing her would demand more support, weakening other sectors. Some might panic, with reason. They might throw more soldiers this way, thus losing more. In war as in chess, you made your opponent do something they'd rather not. Something different, out of their comfort zone. If she was bait for that, so be it.

  A broadcast channel opened. “Hello, Tanusha, this is Rami Rahim, going live in the middle of a FUCKING WAR, isn't this fun?” Everyone who liked Rami, and there were millions, were now receiving uplink alert of an unscheduled show running off black code. “Now we've got some great shit lined up for you folks who wanna know what the fuck is actually going on, suffice to say that this violent removal of parasitic scum is brought to you by Director Ibrahim and Sandy Kresnov, that same duo who previously brought us such hits as ‘Die Feddie Fifth Fleet Die,’ and ‘Die League Assassins Die,’ and are now bringing you their brand-new single, ‘Die Operation Shield Fuckholes Die.’ But before we bring you the good stuff, here's a little track to warm you up—this is for you, Ambassador Ballan!”

  And the audio erupted to the thudding percussion and power chords of Death's Door, Tanusha's best metal band, the best power riffs this side of the Federation; Sandy had nearly damaged walls dancing to it when no one else was home. It had always had the alarming but fascinating effect on her of dropping the red mist of combat vision, like she suddenly wanted to kill someone—so she hadn't heard it since the kids arrived.

  Now she used her own uplinks to bounce the signal off about three thousand major relays, just to make sure everyone had it. “DIE MOTHER FUCKER DIE!” roared the pounding opening, before the ball-tearing rhythms cut in. They'd k
now that signal came from her too. Psych warfare was not usually her style, but this time it seemed appropriate. Even more so, given that by now, Ambassador Ballan really would be dead.

  Ibrahim sat in the green room and stayed low, as the walls shook and rattled with incoming fire. Ballan's office had been hit several times from across the vast open space across the GC building donut and was now a flaming ruin, but the intervening walls to the waiting room were thick enough to keep the blasts out for now. He kept AR glasses on, uplinked through several systems into the GC mainframe, newly liberated with Ballan's demise and FSA attack codes, and tried to manage things from the little portal he'd set up there, surrounded by hostile defences. At the front doorway, barely four meters away, Amirah was holding off assaults from two directions at once, currently crouched in the doorway and reloading, hair a-mess from dust and debris kicked up by incoming fire. But the bend in the main hall made it hard for assaulting forces to get an angle, plus putting them at severe risk of hitting their friends farther up if both sides fired at once.

  A grenade hit the far wall and showered her with debris. Amirah barely flinched. “Sure could use a grenade,” she suggested.

  “They barely let you in here with guns,” Ibrahim replied, hands flying over visual icons in the air before him; it was too dangerous for a full emersion dive when he might need to move so suddenly. “With grenades, no chance.”

  Amirah stuck her arm out and fired a burst, just to keep heads down.

  Hando tried to reach him for the third time. “Sir…work unstable…pound under fi…spond if poss…”

  “Certainly seems the FSA compound is under attack,” said Ibrahim, trying to get a clearer picture with the various command functions available to him. It was difficult; he wasn't a net tech, he could only rely on the superior coding given to him for use in this sensitive location, behind the primary barriers. “Hando can't get a clear connection here, we're on our own.”