The easiest thing would be to simply speak with him over the tactical net but, didn’t want to risk radio contact until after they’d engaged the enemy. Anything which was likely to give them an early warning was probably best avoided.
Instead, she kept her eye on the enemy’s movements. They had been heading for a clearing about two hundred metres directly ahead of her but something had changed. Instead of the single file approach they’d adopted earlier they seemed to be moving in two distinct groups. They were preparing to approach the camp obliquely, from two sides rather than walking straight into an area which might very possibly be booby trapped.
Her respect for the Da’al went up a notch or two after that. So, these weren’t the mindless drones she’d been expecting. Seems like they did have some strategic awareness after all. Exactly how much was still to be decided but it left her now with a major problem. The ambush they had planned was quickly falling apart.
There was still a chance that they could make it work but in order for that to happen they’d have to go now. Problem was, Walker was still some distance short of his position.
Did they proceed, or did she give the order to stand down?
“Walker, what’s your current status, over?”
His voice came back almost immediately.
“Currently unable to proceed to my agreed position, over.”
“What’s wrong? You hurt?”
“Nothing serious,” he said but the strain in his voice was clear. “My unit is struggling to regain telemetry.”
“He’s fallen over, hasn’t he?” Barnes growled.
“Is that right?” she asked.
Walker was growling to himself.
“Guess so. I’ve been trying to get myself stabilised for the last few minutes but I keep sliding back. Seem to be in some sort of gully.”
“Give me strength!” Barnes said.
LaCruz’ mind was whirling. Everything was falling apart. She needed to take charge of this situation, and fast.
“What about your mortars. Can you launch those currently?”
“Er, no. That’s a negative. I just need a minute to get sorted.”
“We don’t have a minute.”
Alerts flashed up on LaCruz’ screen indicating that Barnes had just activated a number of systems.
“Barnes! What are you doing? Do not engage the enemy at this time. Repeat. Do not engage the enemy.”
“I’m improvising, is all. And that’s what you should do. Come on, corporal, let’s saddle up.”
LaCruz didn’t have enough tech savvy to clear the data currently saturating her HUD but she didn’t need to. She didn’t need a clear screen to see the missile powering skywards from Barnes’ position.
A tankbuster missile, designed to rise to a height of two thousand meters before its targeting systems came fully on-line.
She didn’t see it fall back to earth but the sound of the explosion was loud enough to be heard twenty klicks away.
“What an asshole!”
The resulting concussion wave rocked her suit back on its heels but she’d been expecting it and so had braced herself. As soon as she was able, she started up the shallow incline. Her thermal imaging capability had been swamped by the ferocity of the explosion and it looked as though Barnes had managed to take down their drone along with everything else. She was going to have to rely on normal vision backed up by her motion trackers.
It wasn’t much but it was all she currently had to work with.
The first two Da’al soldiers appeared over the brow of the hill. One of them appeared to be on fire. That didn’t stop her from opening up, though, the reverberation from her two light machine guns vibrating throughout her suit.
As her adrenalin started to kick in, the urge to charge the enemy was almost irresistible. But then she thought back to those V.R. exercises. The reason behind her continued success had been simple: she hadn’t allowed her emotions to swamp her intellect. Indeed, the most challenging thing about wearing the suit was resisting the sense of invulnerability it brought with it.
If she was going to survive this experience she needed to stay in charge of all her emotions.
She forced herself to pause, to take in a full breath and then to exhale slowly.
Once that was done, she knew what she needed to do next.
“Barnes? Can you hear me?”
“What is it now? I’m busy.”
The whine of his plasma canon recharging was clear in the background.
“I’m sure you are. I’m holding my position east of you. I suggest you start flushing the enemy in my general direction. Think you can do that?”
“What’s the matter? Scared you’re going to miss the action?”
“Yeah something like that.”
“Shit!”
“What’s wrong?”
“These bastards are trying to flank me,” there was a sudden tension in his voice.
“Who are?”
“Heavy weapons guys. Two of them.”
Barnes’s plasma canon squawked five times in quick succession.
Panic firing. Not good.
“I’m on my way,” LaCruz said. “Try not to let them dig in behind you.”
She could hear Barnes’s ragged breathing in her head-set. “Yeah, do my best.”
LaCruz started off at a run but almost immediately, the warning notes started sounding and she had to ease off. She’d have difficulty keeping the suit fully balanced in broad daylight, if she started pushing herself uphill things were likely to take a turn for the worst. She didn’t want to follow Walker’s lead and end up flat on her back, now did she?
Small arms fire ripped out of the undergrowth to her left and she felt as much as heard the rounds spanging off her leg. She kept moving as she switched between various screens while the suit struggled to acquire a target. Then it appeared right in front of her and all she had to do was smile and the threat collapsed.
She switched off the thermal imaging as she neared the clearing, or at least what was left of it. Barnes’s tankbuster had left a large crater where it had impacted, sprinkling Da’al bodyparts all over a large area. In its wake, she was left with a warm fuzz of readings which suggested that the whole area was heavily irradiated. Not the place to hang around if you were mindful of your long term health, so she decided to keep moving.
She tried to scout around the thick undergrowth as much as she could anticipating unseen caltraps but sometimes she had no choice but to risk it. She was guided on her way by the occasional flashes of purple light in the distance which occasionally lit up the wilderness. Her mind went back to that initial electro-magnetic scan which had been the first indication that the Da’al were carrying unconventional weapons.
“LaCruz, you better get your ass in gear. I’m taking some serious fire here, girl.”
She could hear the panic in his voice and found herself speeding up in spite of everything. All the while she was reviewing the options her weapons library was throwing up. The option of a rocket attack popped up in her vision just as a bright flash strobed the landscape and thunder rolled all around.
“Shit. Walker! Barnes!”
Suddenly, she got a lock-on signal, immediately followed by her cross-hairs glowing red.
She didn’t hesitate and fired immediately, the whole suit rocking with the massive discharge.
The screen darkened automatically, to prevent her from being blinded by the after-launch. The missiles seemed almost to hang in the air before eventually streaking off towards their target. The dual explosions, when they came, sent a tremor through the earth. Whatever it was she’d hit, there was no sign of it now.
She didn’t have a moment to gather her thoughts before a burst of purple light arced past her and away into the darkness. It was immediately followed by a second surge of violet only this one hit the ground directly in front of her, the resultant explosion peppering her suit with ice and rock fragments.
Her opponent was over to her lef
t although currently invisible to her. She flicked through all the screens available but nothing came up.
If only she still had access to that drone feed.
She started scrolling through all the ordnance at her disposal, hoping she’d get lucky again but it was all fairly conventional stuff when what she was looking for was some kind of game changer.
No such luck.
The blast impacted against the left hand side of the suit, pitching her into the air. She watched, helpless, as the world cart wheeled in front of her and, when she finally hit the dirt, she felt something pop in her neck. Warning klaxons sounded in her helmet but they may have been a million miles away for all the notice she took of them.
All the air had been knocked out of her by the blast and for a second she thought she might pass out. Then she felt a slight scratch on the back of her neck and the looming darkness receded. Instantly, her heart started to race.
Her suit had just administered its own special cocktail of stimulants. That should be enough to neutralise the pain while keeping her fully conscious.
She extended an arm in the hope of being able to lever herself upright but soon realised that something was stopping her. She opened her mouth wide and experimentally flexed her jaw to check that it wasn’t broken. It wasn’t but when she ran her tongue over her teeth she tasted blood.
“Come on, girl!” she chided. “Time to get your shit together.”
A number of her screens had gone blank, including thermal imaging. She was currently lying on her left side, trying to make sense of everything via her electro-magnetic scan alone. Problem was, all that was telling her was how the contours of the ground around her were arrayed.
What she really needed to do was to be able to sit up and turn her head. At least she’d be able to see what was going on, but currently that was proving impossible.
Tracer fire from over on her left arced across until finally it found her, carving a pneumatic line across her chest. Since no further alarms were activated she had to assume that any damage inflicted had been minimal. The suit’s armour was doing its job – she just wondered how long that would continue.
Her opponent no doubt had a good reason for targeting her with small arms fire. Invariably, they were using their sub-machine guns as some kind of range finder. For all the information the suits provided you with, every once in a while you just had to open up with your guns to remind yourself that you were still in the fight.
They’d be readying themselves now to find some way of finishing her off.
She needed to get moving but couldn’t manage even to right herself.
What was wrong? Why couldn’t she get back on her feet?
Hydraulics. Had to be.
Her left arm must have been damaged in the blast.
Nothing else for it.
Servos squealed as she rocked herself onto her right hand side, trying to build up some momentum. She desperately hoped that her right arm was still functioning. If it wasn’t, she was likely to pitch face first into the dirt and there would be no coming back from that.
The sound of screeching metal assaulted her ears as the right arm finally came to life, swinging wide before finally planting itself down firmly.
“Come on,” LaCruz chided, the drugs already having taken effect. “Up and at ‘em.”
With a solid push she started to rise, reeling maniacally before somehow managing to get her legs set under her. Next thing, she was staggering to her feet with the suit’s hydraulics finally kicking in, boosting her torso into an upright position.
As her head came up, she was gifted a wonderfully clear view of her attacker moving towards her in silhouette. The Da’al’s weapon was ovoid in shape, with various vents along the top generating that distinctive purple light. Whatever sort of weapon it was, it appeared to be in the process of re-charging.
LaCruz experienced a momentary sense of confusion as she tried to remember how best to select an appropriate weapon. Then she felt a sharp prick in her neck as the suit attempted to sooth her muddled thoughts.
By looking to one side, she managed to bring up the profile for a grenade launcher – a grenade launcher she didn’t even know she was carrying.
Her eyes sought out the ‘Fire’ decal but, just as quickly, her main screen started to flash.
Malfunction. Malfunction.
Her opponent’s weapon was projecting a garish purple light which illuminated its pay-load of seven individual pulse rounds.
The sound of heavy machine gun fire snapping past her head broke her out of her reverie. She watched, dumbstruck, as the fifty calibre rounds punched into her opponent’s midsection, staggering him so that his weapon was no longer pointing at her.
The enemy’s weapon discharged twice, straight into the ground the resultant conflagration ensuring that its legs and lower torso were consumed in a ball of flames. The Da’al soldier struggled to turn back in her direction but another burst of fifty calibre rounds put paid to that.
LaCruz’s mind was still struggling to come to terms with what she’d just seen, to accept what it meant, when she heard mechanised footsteps coming from her right hand side.
“LaCruz? That you?”
It was Walker.
“That’s right,” she felt suddenly light headed. “Thought you weren’t going to join us, at one point.”
“I was tempted to slip out for a nice, cold beer but in the end I decided against it.”
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Morton wasn’t sure where she summoned the strength to drag the body out of the waste bin. Bayas thought she was having some sort of breakdown and only stepped in once she started shouting at him.
She hadn’t been sure at first – hadn’t wanted to believe.
But then she’d seen the letters etched into the crepe like skin.
Oderim dum metuant.
Let them hate so long as they fear.
With Bayas taking hold of his legs, she struggled to get purchase under his arms but then she just pulled.
It was as his body flopped over onto the floor that Morton’s worst fears were confirmed.
Lying there naked, his head twisted one way and his legs the other, was Faulkner.
She gave his face a few light slaps, hoping for any kind of response, but there was nothing. The only thing keeping her from tipping over into despair was the fact that his body was still warm. That, surely, had to count for something.
She rolled him onto his back and immediately started CPR.
“There’s an auto-doc around here somewhere,” she gasped between compressions. “Think you can find it?”
“I don’t even know what that is.”
“Yes you do: an auto-doc. You must have seen it. It’s got to be around here somewhere.”
Finally, he appeared to understand her. “Ah, one of those old incubator things. Yes, I have seen one of those.”
“Good!” she managed. “I need you to set it up. Think you can do that?”
Bayas contorted his features. “I can try.”
He was back within five minutes but to her it seemed much longer. The strain of all those compressions had taken it out of her.
“I don’t think it’s working,” he said. “I’ve tried everything.”
“Well go back and try again,” she said. “And when you’ve done that come back with a gurney.”
When she heard him coming back almost straightaway she broke off from administering mouth-to-mouth but was relieved to see that he’d brought a gurney with him.
She was gasping for breath and if she’d been on her own, she’d have had no chance of getting Faulkner onto that gurney. Luckily, Bayas took charge. He sat Faulkner up so that he could grab him round the chest. Then, after getting himself into a squatting position, Bayas was able to manhandle him onto the trolley, with Morton darting ensuring that Faulkner’s legs didn’t slip off the side. They didn’t want to have to do that again, if they could help it.
She checked for a pulse. Thought
she might have detected a flutter but she couldn’t be certain.
Bayas pushed the gurney along the corridor before swinging it out into the main thrust of the medical centre. The auto-doc was in a separate room over to their left, they must have walked straight past it when they’d come in. Just to see it lit up and seemingly working gave her a fresh boost of confidence. These things might be ancient but they warranted their place in even the most advanced medical facility because, in one sense, they were so very reliable. If your patient entered in a stable condition then chances were that the auto-doc could keep them alive when they might not otherwise have survived.
They had, over the years, built up something of a negative reputation – somewhat unfairly to Morton’s mind. Too often, unscrupulous contractors had opted to employ auto-docs in lieu of properly trained medical staff in their more remote facilities. Then, when their workers sustained some quite frankly horrifying injuries they found themselves dumped inside an auto-doc. When they subsequently died as a result it inevitably suited everyone concerned to blame the machinery rather than the way it had been utilised. In truth, many of these fatalities would have needed a top surgical team, along with a raft of specialist robotics, to have had any chance of survival.
After their difficulties in the mortuary, transferring Faulkner’s body into the auto-doc’s booth was a fairly straightforward procedure and, while Bayas worked to better arrange his limbs, she busied herself with fitting the defibrillator across his chest. The machine was capable of doing all this independently but that would take time, and time was one thing they had very little of.
Once she was satisfied, Morton stepped back to allow Bayas to close the cabinet and within seconds the defibrillation process was underway.
In all, the machine shocked his heart eight times. Bayas had begun checking her reaction after the third attempt. They both knew how unlikely it was that these repeated shocks would change the inevitable outcome but she never gave up hope. After each unsuccessful attempt, she would nod her head as if to say, ‘Again.’
Act of War Page 22
