Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield

by Joel Shepherd

  “Danya!” Kiril shouted. “Danya, they're firing at us!” They were at the back of the huge room, by the big bed farthest from the windows, but that wouldn't save them here. Ragi stood in the middle of the room, no doubt seeing everything that they saw.

  “Ragi!” Danya shouted. “You can suicide if you want, but you don't have the right to take us with you!”

  And then on his own glasses, he could see the onrushing missiles suddenly turn upward, five of them, fanning out like the petals of some flower. And continuing onward, streaking into the night. Ragi turned to look at them resentfully.

  “You're a very manipulative boy,” he told Danya.

  Danya stared, heart thumping. Ragi could turn missiles around. He hadn't known that, but he'd been hoping. Surely Ragi would have run somewhere else if he couldn't, seeing what Danya was doing, drawing attention to this spot.

  “You haven't seen anything yet,” he told Ragi breathlessly. “Because Operation Shield just saw that, and they'll guess what did it.” Ragi sighed and muttered something under his breath. “Svet, put the gun down. Ragi's on our side now whether he likes it or not.”

  Her back to the wall by the bed, Svetlana lowered the pistol but kept both hands on it by her side. And Danya found time to marvel that hyperstrung Svetlana seemed the calmest one in the room. It was the gun that did it, he knew. Some kids liked a safety blanket, Svet liked an automatic…or even better, Sandy.

  “I'm not sure you quite realise what you've done,” Ragi said somberly to Danya. “This choice is far from optimal.”

  “Ragi,” Danya retorted. “There's no good and bad choices. Just bad and worse. Deal with it.”

  “Oh, I'm dealing with it,” said Ragi, exasperated. As one after another, five distant A-12 combat flyers were hit by incoming missiles and exploded.

  “Woah!” Kiril shouted. “Danya, that was Ragi! He turned their own missiles around on them and…”

  Crash! as something big and fast-moving plowed through the big glass windows. Danya grabbed Kiril with his good arm alongside him on the bed, as Svetlana dropped to a simple crouch and aimed…it was an FSA hopper, brutally armoured and protruding with cannon, launcher, and antenae, thrusters and power train howling and now a metal chank! chank! chank! as it ran across the floor, half as tall again as a regular person.

  The visor popped, and here was Vanessa, alarmed and out of breath. Ragi, Danya saw, hadn't even flinched, had probably seen her coming. “You guys okay?” Vanessa asked.

  “We're fine,” said Danya, as Vanessa noted the sling and foot cast.

  “Guys, you gotta get out of here, you're targeted! Get in the central stairwell and…”

  “They're in no danger,” said Ragi, as Vanessa stared at him.

  “He turned their missiles around!” Kiril explained. Vanessa blinked.

  “Vanessa,” said Danya, “can that suit generate a com net? Kiril's uplinks are working just enough to pick that up; you can transmit it on the net and…”

  “Don't bother,” Ragi said quietly. “I'll do it. The best way to save lives now is for one side to win quickly, negotiations and deals will only prolong the conflict and increase suffering. Kiril, close your eyes.”

  In ready room one by the landing pads, Captain Arvid Singh, acting Commander of CSA SWAT, watched the feed pouring in. Rami Rahim's voice narrated, a surreal counterpoint if there ever was one for those more accustomed to dirty jokes on a Saturday night.

  “…okay, we understand Detective Sinta and Special Agent Ruben were nearly killed in that big explosion Operation Shield blew in the L35 freeway four days ago—and here we can see what they were trying to get back to HQ past the net blockers, and what Operation Shield doesn't want you to see. Folks, this is a brand-new GI production facility in the League, we don't know where, but we're talking to some experts here who can tell you it's genuine…Harley, jump in here…”

  And Rami's newly linked expert proceeded to tell them what they were looking at. There were a lot of vats, a lot of sealed units, machines lining walls, white and sterile. Bio-synth growth and fabrication, even the average Tanushan citizen knew them to look at them, they'd featured in enough news vids and bad movies over the years, and a few good ones. The handheld camera moved down corridors, past sealed doors marked “secure” and “sanitised,” and the narrator continued to explain why a biosynth full production facility would be laid out like this and not like something else.

  “Sinta thought they had Idi Aba killed for this.” Arvid turned on Chandrasekar, leaning against the wall by a display. SWATs One, Five, and Six were here, the rest in the other ready rooms or sitting against the walls in hallways, waiting. The place was crowded with clattering, whining armour, even as they tried to keep still. “She's awake and talking, says she has a clear evidence trail that goes back to Operation Shield. Idi Aba was meant to get this footage.”

  “I know,” said Chandrasekar somberly, arms folded.

  “And he would have used it for the emancipation cause, and that's the end of the amendments, because obviously once the public learns the League is back mass-producing GIs again, possibly higher-designation ones, there's no way they'll allow amendments that will handcuff the Federation's response.”

  “They've been trying to keep this quiet until the amendments pass,” the Director agreed. On their separate tacnet feed, they were now receiving an overview of FSA tacnet, showing the general location of the front, and defensive forces. It showed them arriving at CSA HQ in several minutes. “We can't do anything about the Grand Council, it's not our jurisdiction. But President Singh's administration is plugged into the current GC network; all Callayan civil service and government apparatus, including us, are at least nominally supporting Operation Shield.”

  “He has to stand down,” said Arvid with a direct stare. “Tell him to stand down.”

  “He's not responding,” said Chandrasekar. “The entire administration's gone autistic. I think they're panicked.”

  “He's complicit in a coup. He's helping them now, and he was involved from the beginning. At the least it warrants arrest.”

  “A coup against the Grand Council,” Chandrasekar countered. “A federal crime. We enforce Callayan law, not Federal.”

  “He allowed a foreign force to occupy Callay and take over its security,” Arvid retorted. “That's treason. That foreign force has since assassinated, or attempted to assassinate, members of Callay's security forces and civil service whose interests the President is supposed to protect. At the very least it presents Callay with an immediate security emergency, which the Callayan government can't respond to because it's partially the cause. This administration must be removed as a matter of immediate security emergency. If they won't go quietly, we'll kick them out loudly.”

  Chandrasekar thought about it. On the incoming tacnet, FSA forces were advancing fast now. “Caretaker administration,” he murmured. “Opposition leader heads, CSA Director as deputy, new election immediately following full and public investigation.” And he nodded, once and firmly. “Wait a few minutes and FSA will have forced Shield back enough you'll have a clear space. Then you can fly to the Parliament.”

  Arvid gave one hand gesture, and everyone moved to their flyers, in determined, orderly lines.

  “Go go go!” Sandy yelled, and kicked herself onto a high trajectory through uncovered airspace that would have got her killed a few minutes ago. But not only had Operation Shield's own missiles been turning back on themselves to destroy their point of origin, her own side's missiles were now getting through the defences, destroying airbourne and ground units and leaving Shield units without support. Those were now running, falling back in disorganised flight, and if ever there was a moment to drop everything and charge, this was it. If she'd had bayonets, she would have fixed them. “Max speed advance, kill everything!”

  She drew fire on this trajectory, or attempted fire, but with her reflexes most of those were dead before they could pull the trigger. Still she had to land, thrust
ers were reactor-powered, so fuel was no problem, but temperature was. She landed atop a residential with a running thud, coolant gens running at a howl that nearly rivaled the engines, took a knee and pumped mag rounds after an escaping hopper at fifteen hundred meters’ range—it dodged once, twice, and she guessed with the third, a flash as the ammo ignited, then a flare of falling debris. Missile fire ripped past her, but from behind heading forward, all one way at the moment; Shield were scared to fire. And now, their networks were disintegrating, though whether that was the same thing that was turning their missiles, or local hackers, or something else again, she had no idea.

  “…ssandra?” The link told her it was Hando, from FSA HQ. “Cassandra, can you…”

  “I hear you, Hando! Situation?” Temp readings touched blue, and she jumped. A UAV targeted her from behind a building, and she put a round through it at six Gs acceleration.

  “The compound's a smoking mess, Cassandra, but we're all in the bunkers, so we're okay! The Director and Amirah are still pinned down in the GC!”

  “I copy that, I'm…nearly twenty minutes away.”

  “He's not going to last five by the sound of it!” Hoppers weren't equipped for sustained long-range flight. Ahead, tacnet showed an A-12 hit, spin, fall into buildings and explode.

  “I'll get there. I've got an idea.” And flashed over onto main net again, as an announcement came through. It was Li Shifu, Grand Council chairman himself. The closest thing the Federation had to a President.

  “…Federation Grand Council is currently under attack!” The picture setup was not professional, a bit lopsided, the lighting poor. Li looked scared. That would freak people out, they weren't used to seeing the GC Chairman genuinely frightened and hearing that authentic wobble in his voice. “I urge all Federation patriots, including all available elements of the Federation Fleet, to defend your capital with your lives. We are under attack by League GIs, synthetic soldiers who have declared war on their organic creators. All who value their freedom must defend the Grand Council from this new wave of tyranny that descends upon us.”

  Sandy slowed her cannonball descent, braked hard across some trees and rooftops. “Hando, put me on main net!” Flicker of static connection, and she was on. “This is FSA Commander Kresnov to the Grand Council.” Roar and thud, as she landed on a suburban street with a jolt, no longer worried about incoming missile fire, and now uplinked in search of automated taxi services. “Any individual directly assisting Operation Shield will be killed, by me personally if necessary. Federal employees are advised to sever all network connections at this time and assume an unthreatening posture. We apologise to Federation citizens for this temporary break in Federation democracy. Normal service will resume as soon as possible.”

  Fleet didn't bother her: they couldn't do anything from orbit. Getting through that final defence grid without losing nearly everyone bothered her. And the prospect of doing so while Ibrahim and Amirah were still alive did too. There were pedestrians here in the ’burbs, she noted, hiding in their yards, filming her with devices. A few, seeing the FSA insignia on her armour, were waving, yelling encouragement. Good lord, one incoming artillery round, and they'd all die.

  She kicked thrusters again as a new rendezvous point established, and now she had a Fleet frequency incoming, as the burb blasted away beneath her…Captain Tsien of the carrier Danube. “Commander Kresnov, this is an act of war against the Federation. This action will be met with counter-attack by Fleet, you cannot hope to hold your objective even should you achieve it.”

  “Hello, Captain,” she said, zipping past the top floors of low-rise residentials. “The first thing I'll do when GC is captured is gain full control of planetary defences. The second thing I'll do is remove you and your warship from Callayan space by ground-to-orbit strike. If you start running now, you might get clear in time, reaction missiles move much faster than carriers.”

  Well, at least Operation Shield's friends in Fleet were revealing themselves. Then she saw the rendezvous site ahead and landed hard to cool before one last kick.

  The explosion blew in the wall to Ballan's office waiting room and took all merely human visibility with it. Ibrahim had been expecting it, thanks to Amirah's warnings that it was imminent, and was hiding under the heavy secretary's table, two legs collapsed to make a shield. Even so, the force of it deprived him of air and sense, ears ringing and only barely aware of shooting now in the neighbouring room, from where the explosion had come. Amirah had warned him of this too.

  The shooting stopped. Amirah could be dead in there, but this was the plan, so he scrambled from under the table, slipping on shattered wall and dust, hand over his mouth, AR glasses shielding his eyes from the worst of the dust, they and uplinks giving him some kind of fragmented vision overlaid onto swirling dust…here was the hole, roughly a meter and perfectly circular, the wall not wide enough for multiple entry points without risking bringing down the roof.

  He scrambled through, into a nearly identical office waiting room, the visibility much better here, and found Amirah already arming herself with better weapons. The armoured corpses of the assault team who'd blown the wall were splayed about the room, their injuries horrific, armour crushed. Explosive entry into a room containing a high-designation GI was ill advised at such close ranges, because she could be through the hole before your follow-up grenades and flash bangs. And then, at point-blank range, you got this, a slaughter.

  Amirah tossed an automatic at him, then a pair of attached mags, which he somehow caught, then went to the hallway door and tossed out a couple of newly acquired grenades on an impact fuse. They blew the corridor beyond to hell, and then she was gone again, with another flurry of shooting, into the hall from one doorway farther around the bend than she was supposed to be.

  Then a yell, as they were still without uplink coms, “Sir, on me!” Ordering him like a private, and he ran, expecting to be shot in the back at any moment from someone Amirah had missed in that direction, but nothing came. And here against the inner curving wall, as he kept running, were more dead personnel, nearly all headshots, five of them…but their weapons and armour were nowhere near as advanced as their previous opponents. This was all?

  And here at a junction hall was Amirah, standing left shoulder to the outer wall for the best angle both ways, rifle ahead left-handed, big auto pistol on the right hip in case someone came at them behind—she'd see that on her headset's rear cam, literally eyes in the back of her head, and her right hand could draw that weapon and put rounds precisely on target within milliseconds. And to think that Amirah was dismissive of her abilities next to Sandy.

  “Where to, sir?” she asked, seeing from his run that he was relatively unhurt. His suit was a mess, he had cuts and bruises everywhere, but on this much adrenaline with all augments hypercharged, he barely felt a thing. “I'd like to put some armour on you, we're so exposed to shrapnel out here, but we're short of time.”

  “Only five in the hall?” he asked, crouched low by her leg so he wouldn't block her line of fire in either of direction.

  “Plus five more in the assault team,” said Amirah. “I think five more up the other end of the hall, but they'll be having a crisis of confidence by now.” Given that every time one of them showed himself or got a bit too close, he died. “They'll be moving most of their numbers to the outer defences now, they thought fifteen was enough to bottle us up.”

  And then made the mistake of trying an assault with numbers only sufficient for containment. “We'll only have a clear run until they realise we're loose,” said Ibrahim, checking his rifle, AR glasses trying to display GC schematics, but the GC network terminating the graphics before they could fully form. “Our best bet is strategic command, you know where that is?”

  “The war room, yes, sir. Sir, try to stay forty-five degrees on my forehand flank…” she indicated his present position.

  “I know, and keep low.” He was baggage to her, though thankfully self-propelled baggage. He wasn
't sure his dignity could survive being thrown over her shoulder. “Let's go.”

  With one hopper clinging to each side of its bodywork, the taxi cruiser could barely get airbourne. But once airbourne, it could maintain 300 kph at low altitude without having to stop every few hundred meters. Sandy hung off its right side, Gamma 4 off its left, like two giant insects hitching a ride on some unwilling host. Steering was by uplink, largely reflex, and now as a number of other units copied her manoeuver, they were rushing onto the enemy hoppers faster than they could retreat. Deprived of network cover, FSA troops were lobbing mini-missiles at them that countermeasures were no longer defending, and enemy hoppers were either hiding or dying.

  “This is Red 1. I've got some surrenders here!” came a call, six Ks north.

  “Make them crack their armour and climb out,” Sandy replied. “If they don't comply immediately, it's a trick, so kill ’em.” And switched to Ragi's link. “Ragi, get me some progress on the GC, we can't control planetary systems without it.”

  “It's a heavily secured command system, Cassandra,” came Ragi's voice. “It's mostly output and very little input, I must admit it's very hard to penetrate, even for me.”

  “Well, get it done, because that grid has magfire defences; you can't just turn them around like missiles once they've been fired.” Though God knew how he'd been doing that, because those missiles were supposedly autistic too…though she knew of some technologies that used main net frequencies in urban areas to penetrate even missile guidance…but take control of them?

  They were six Ks out from Montoya District now, and she knew there were units on the streets that extended the air grid, probably tanks or AMAPS of some sort, the towers would block line of sight of those extended units, but there were precious few fire shadows showing on tacnet, and most of those shadows became traps once you were stuck in them…