Through the camera, in that split-second, she was looking at me.
She wasn’t pleading for help. She was beyond that. Help wasn’t coming. She wasn’t even enduring, not living. She existed, that’s all she knew.
No one is supposed to endure that.
Little girls are not supposed to have that stare.
“Fabron,” I toggled to the private command channel. “In case you don’t know this, the Geneva Convention does not apply out here. I want all those lizards dead.”
Fabron’s reply was simply two clicks of the transmitter. He understood my message and didn’t want to break focus to speak with me. I should not have bothered him, he knew the rules of engagement. We were not leaving witnesses behind.
After the last of humans were roughly shoved or kicked out of the cabin, the door closed most of the way, staying open only a crack. Dazed and demoralized, the prisoners shuffled resignedly under the only shade available; the wings of the Stork. Four of them huddled together were blocking the best camera angle, so I switched to the overhead view.
Fabron called me. “Colonel, we can’t hit the second aircraft without killing the people outside. My team does not have a shot.” Frustration was evident in his voice. “I would appreciate any suggestion you might have.”
“Understood. Standby one.”
What the hell could we do? The four lizards were relaxing in the cool cabin, maybe taking a freakin’ nap. What I wanted to do was knock on the door, claiming I was delivering pizza. Scratching my chin with a thumb, I mulled over an idea that might actually be useful. “Skippy, there are a couple things I have learned about flying.”
“Keep the greasy side down?” He guessed.
“That too, but also that you can trade altitude for airspeed, and airspeed for altitude. It’s Ok to be flying slow if you have enough airspace under your belly, you can dip the nose down to regain airspeed.”
“Mm hmm, that makes sense. Um, why are you telling me this? It is not Trivia Night, Joe.”
“I’m telling you, because there is one situation when having plenty of altitude is not a good thing.”
“When is that?”
“When you’re on fire. If you can’t eject, you want to set down ASAP.”
“Ok. Why do we care about that?”
“Because at any altitude, fire in an aircraft is terrifying, Skippy.”
“I believe it. Um, again, why are you telling me this?”
“You are still connected to both Storks?”
“Yes. Currently, I am glitching the portable cooling cart, so it will take longer for the pilots of the first aircraft to get access to the turbine.”
“Great. I want you to cause a fire in the cabin of the second aircraft.”
“Hmm. Ooh! I get it. Great idea, Joe. I can’t actually cause a fire, but I can short out wiring and fill the cabin with smoke.”
“Do it.” Activating the transmitter, I called the Commando leader. “Fabron, those lizards will be coming out of the second aircraft soon. Be aware there will be smoke in the cabin.”
“Our rifle scopes will not have a problem with smoke,” he assured me.
From there, it was all up to Fabron’s Commandos. He needed to find a moment in time when his people had clear shots at all eight lizards. I worried that when the lizards ran out of the second aircraft, the humans there would also scatter instinctively to get away when they saw smoke pouring out the door. If they milled around aimlessly, they could block sightlines and screw up the entire operation.
Oh, thank God! When the four lizards fumbled down the steps of the second aircraft, gasping and choking from inhaling smoke, the humans ran the other way. We had four lizards on one side of the smoking Stork and the prisoners running and looking for cover on the other side. Though the camera view was intermittently obscured by people running in front of the lens, the Commandos were being fed a synthetic composite view, based on all camera angles.
Now all we needed was for that one asshole to stick his stupid freakin’ head out the doorway of the first aircraft.
We waited.
And waited.
And waited.
The sun had climbed overhead so it was no longer shining in the doorway of the first Stork, so that asshole should have been hanging out, enjoying the breeze. Instead, he was unseen in the cabin, where we had no view of where he was or what he was doing. He could have been camped out on a seat, playing games on his phone, for all we knew.
“Um, hey, Joe,” Skippy interrupted my thoughts. “I don’t want to make this waiting worse for you, but that lizard who is alone inside the cabin? He was reprimanded three times during the flight, for abusing the prisoners.”
“Oh, hell.”
“He was beating children and taunting the adults, so they would fight back. He wanted an excuse to kill. I hate to think what he is doing in their alone, and the camera in there isn’t working. I don’t have a view.”
“Shit. Can any of Fabron’s team get to that door, before the lizard inside could react?”
“No. I don’t think so. Joe, that lizard has grenades. He could kill everyone.”
“Ok. Ok, we need to get this shit over with, quick.” I debated doing the burning wire thing to the first aircraft, but humans might run out first and get in the way. “Uh, we need to get their attention. Can you make more smoke?”
“There aren’t many flammable materials inside a Stork. I’m doing the best I can. The fire is almost out already.”
Slapping my forehead, I reprimanded myself. We didn’t need more smoke. The crew of the first aircraft had not noticed when smoke was pouring from the other ship, the wind was blowing the smoke out to sea. We didn’t need to create another incident, all we needed was for the first crew to know about the smoke. The second ship’s crew hadn’t called for help yet, probably they were hoping the fire-suppression system could deal with the problem without them needing assistance. “Skippy, fake a distress call from the crew of the smoking Stork. General call, make sure everyone receives it.”
We saw immediate results. The three lizards working on the first aircraft stood up and looked to the north, finally noticing whispy tendrils of smoke. That still did us no good, until the jackass in the cabin stuck his head out to see what was going on.
“Execute,” Fabron ordered.
Around the first aircraft, people in powered armor exploded up from under the layer of sand that had concealed them. Having received targeting data to their visors and rifle scopes while they were still buried in hot sand, they only needed to keep focus as they rose. Rounds were flying out of rifle muzzles before the shooters had risen halfway to their knees. One, two, three, four lizards jerked as they were double-tapped, three of them targeted by more than one operator and so took multiple hits to the chest and head. It may have been for insurance, or it may have been for spite, but some of the bodies were rocked by additional bullet impacts as they were falling.
After they fell, none of them moved. The asshole who was in the cabin got knocked backwards by the impacts, bounced off a seat in the cabin and fell to sprawl on the steps, his booted feet still inside the cabin. To minimize the risk of collateral damage, the Commandos had not selected explosive-tipped rounds, so I was a bit surprised to see the back of asshole’s head had a big chunk missing, then my attention was taken elsewhere.
There wasn’t any thick layer of sand close enough to the second ship, so the Commandos there had to lay flat on the bottom of the ocean just offshore, relying on the chameleonware of their mech suits for concealment. They had moments of anxiety when crab-like creatures crawled on and over them, worried not about being bitten through armored suits, but that a Kristang might have looked down into the water and wondered why a crab was crawling on something invisible. It was fortunate for us that none of the Kristang got out of their air-conditioned ship until they had to, and at that point they were occupied by concern that their crappy ride home might explode.
Fortunate for us, but it sucked for t
hem.
On hearing Fabron’s ‘Execute’ order, the four Commando operators leapt out of the water on powered legs, the bottom of their boots coming clear above the surface. Water fountained outward and cascaded down, sluicing off the hardshell suits and ignored by the operators. They would splash downward in seconds, possibly into awkwardly-placed rocks or deeper pockets in the coral-like ridges that encircled the island. Trusting their suit computers to bring them to a soft landing or at least not get them wedged into a crevice when they fell, the four focused all their attention on their designated targets.
Last to shoot was United States Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant Greene, his initial targeting needing a fractional adjustment, so a bullet plunging through a lizard body did not continue on to hit a human in the background. Before Greene splashed back down into the water over his head, he saw his target’s head jerk backward in a red spray of blood, while his visor confirmed three other kills had been made.
“Cease fire,” Fabron ordered in a manner absolutely free of excitement, as he rose free of the sand covering his suit. The task was complete, there was no need for anxiety. “All targets terminated.”
Gunnery Sergeant Greene splayed his hands outward to slow his plunge down through the water, assisted by an airbag inflating from his backpack. The suit’s computer adjusted the pressure in the airbag so Greene did not pop to the surface like a cork, out of control. It gave him just enough buoyancy to cancel the weight of the hardshell suit, he waited a second for his rifle’s sling to retract the weapon over his shoulder out of the way, and began swimming toward shore with smooth, powerful strokes. The suit had automatically engaged its swim-assist mode, having been preprogrammed for that phase of the operation. Near shore, visibility under the surface was poor, the water clouded by churned-up sand and air bubbles from the crashing waves. He had to guess how close he was to touching bottom, until he remembered how to activate the sonar function of the sensors. The Commando team simply hadn’t enough time in Kristang armor, and the control menu and functionality was completely different from the skinsuits he was used to.
Digging his boots securely into the sandy bottom, he used his arms for balance until he was splashing ashore, waves washing only up to his waist. To his left, two operators just had the tops of their helmets emerging from beneath the waves.
“Greene,” one of the French operators called out. “I joined the army to be a paratrooper, not a fish, Non?”
“Hey Simon, I’m a Marine. Amphibious landings are what we do,” Greene answered with a laugh more hearty than warranted. It was nervous energy burning off, he knew. He was tempted to strike a pose and announce ‘I have returned’, but General MacArthur was an Army puke, and Greene was a proud Marine.
As he walked up the steep beach, slipping in the soft sand as his boots sank in halfway to his knees, he was able to see the parked aircraft, and beyond it, humans huddled in groups of two or three. Half of them were fearful, ready to run though not knowing where or why. The others stared numbly at him, having been drained of the ability to feel terror long ago. “Oh, shee-it,” Green breathed. “Hey, guys, faceplates open. Let them see we’re not lizards.”
He went a step further, without orders and against standing protocol in a potential combat situation. His suit had indicated all four lizards were thoroughly dead, and his own eyes could confirm that. The only threat in the area was that of frightening one of the humans into jumping into the water, where waves might bash them against the jagged coral. “It’s OK, everything is Ok," he called out softly, unsealing his helmet and placing it on the sand. “I’m human, we,” he pointed to the other operators, who had their faceplates open, faces exposed to the sunlight. “We’re all human. We are here to rescue you.”
The only reaction was some of the people blinked. Most did not react at all. They were so used to cruel games being played on them, they no longer believed that hope was an option. Greene walked forward slowly, to where a boy of about eight years old was sitting on the sun-baked rock, hugged knees to his chest. He stared up at the mech-suited Marine. “Home,” Greene pointed his own chest, then the sky. “We are taking you home.”
No reaction.
“Oh, hell,” Greene shook his head. “I am a United States Marine. Does anyone here speak English? Or Spanish?” His Spanish was awful. To use the translator, he would have to put the helmet back on. “How about French? Parlay-voo Frahn-say?”
“Marine?” A man croaked with a dry throat, pushing himself up to stand on shaky legs. He spoke with a Texas drawl. “My brother was in the Second Division. He went offworld.”
“Camp Lejeune, huh?” Greene knew parts of the Second has deployed with UNEF as an Expeditionary Brigade. Back then, the military had pulled people from whatever units were available and reasonably combat-ready. The thinking had been, get people aboard the space elevator, and figure out unit composition during the flight. Since they didn’t know where they were going, who or how they would be fighting, it was good enough. “I have some friends from the Second. What is your brother’s name?”
The man acted as if he hadn’t heard the question. “You came here from Earth?”
“No. From Paradise.” The man just stared at him, and Greene realized the abductees might have been taken from Earth before UNEF landed on Camp Alpha. Before any human heard of the planet called ‘Paradise’. “That’s the planet we shipped out to. When we get off this rock,” he scuffed the surface with a powered boot, sending a shower of dust and rock chips scattering away from him. “We are taking you to Earth. All of you.” That was close enough to the truth for that moment.
“Not many of us are left,” the man said woodenly. “We prayed you would come. You didn’t. Not for so long.”
“We didn’t know about you until recently. Listen, we are here now. We have a spacecraft, to take you up to a starship.”
“Home?” The boy finally spoke.
Greene kneeled down and bent over so he didn’t tower over the boy. “Earth. We are going back to Earth.”
The boy looked up at Greene, not blinking even in the brilliant sunlight. “The war is over?”
Cocking his head, the Marine heard the faint rumble of an approaching dropship. “It’s over for you. I promise.”
With a Stork parked on the only place to land on the peninsula, a dropship couldn’t set down there. I thought of having Skippy remotely fly the Stork away and dump it in the water, but a dropship was still too big to land on that narrow ledge of rock anyway. If the Stork lifted off, all the people there would need to be a safe distance away before applying takeoff power, and if they were going to trudge through hot sand, they might as well walk to where Fabron’s team was waiting. The Dragon crew rolled canteens of water and food ration bars in blankets, and dropped them as best they could. One roll bounced and fell into the water, I watched as a French soldier waded out to retrieve it. When the water, food and blankets were handed out, it surprised me that the people we rescued didn’t fight over the sudden bounty. The adults drank from the canteens first and took tentative bites of the chewy ration bars, which pissed me off until I realized they were testing our gifts for poison. Gunnery Sergeant Greene made a show of gulping water and gnawing off half a ration bar, to assure the abductees they were in no danger. Whatever my very personal misgivings about Lamar Greene being with us, I had to admit he was a stand-up guy.
After the operators tossed the dead lizards into the ocean on the eastern side of the peninsula, where the current could carry the bodies away, they led the still-wary civilians toward Fabron. From the cameras, I could see Green and the others offering to carry the children, so they didn’t have to march across the hot sand, but the young people would not go near them. We were running out of time, so when the Commandos stopped to tear strips off the blankets and show the civilians how to wrap them around their bare feet, I was mentally urging them along, and I couldn’t complain. If my boots had been on the ground, I would have done the same thing.
That part o
f the operation was a success. Eight dead lizards, no humans killed or injured, and no alarm signal had gone out. Skippy remotely flew the first Stork to perform circles around the island while the first Dragon landed and began taking people aboard.
“Congratulations to your team, Fabron,” I called. “That was outstanding.”
“Ah, yes. It was. I have a recommendation, if I may?”
Lessons Learned were usually held for the after-action report, but I didn’t mind constructive criticism. “Sure, tell me?”
“All future teams should be equipped with an advanced piece of equipment.”
“What is that?”
“A beer can.”
I laughed. “An asshole beer can?”
“That is the best kind, Non?”
“The only kind, I am afraid to say.”
“Hey!” Skippy protested.
“Colonel Bishop?” Fabron called me, and this time his voice held none of the anxious tension. This time, he was relieved that the operation had gone successfully. This time, he was happy. “I need to know something.”
“Shoot. I mean.” Damn it, I needed to remember that not everyone understood American slang. “Go ahead, Commandant.”
“This operation went outstandingly well, the goods were delivered directly to us, on schedule.”
“Uh, yeah. What’s your question?”
“Are we supposed to tip the delivery driver?”
“Oh. Ha!” We both laughed. “Yeah, I have a tip for him.”
“What is that. Sir?”
“Don’t trust your ‘Check Engine’ light.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
With Fabron’s Commandos having taken care of the Storks assigned to them, I turned my attention back to the other pair of aircraft, which were sixty kilometers from the seaside resort where Smythe and Kapoor were preparing a reception for the lizards.
Valkyrie (Expeditionary Force Book 9) Page 54
