Rebellion at Ailon

by T J Mott

  “You ready for this?” Thad asked. Jason glanced over at Thad and nodded silently. Thad activated his radio. “First Platoon is ready and standing by. Eighth, you may begin your attack.”

  “Copy.”

  Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then the distant crack of discharging supercapacitors began to ring out across the way. Thaddeus could not see Eighth Platoon’s position since they were on the other side of the depot, but, in theory, they were well dug-in and now firing upon the guard shacks and any visible patrols.

  “Second and Third Squad, stand by,” he warned. He watched and waited, suspecting the far-from-elite Avennian soldiers were about to make a blunder that would made his part of the mission much easier.

  And he was right. About a minute into the firefight, two of the three patrols on his side of the depot broke away to join the battle, leaving only four soldiers. Taking out all of the patrols would have attracted attention, but with most of them gone, distracted by the other Rebel force, he was confident that Jason could quietly deal with the four remaining soldiers, leaving his platoon undetected by the enemy.

  He smiled to himself. “Jason, take out that last patrol.”

  “Yes, sir!” the teen said in an enthusiastic whisper. A moment later, he fired. The discharge seemed terribly loud just a meter away from Thad’s ears, but he knew nobody would hear it with all the noise going on at the other platoon’s location. A laser beam flashed out from the kid’s rifle, its dim red ray only slightly visible in the night as it reflected off airborne dust particles. The rearmost soldier in the patrol crumpled to the grass. The other three heard both the shot and the falling body behind them, and were instantly alert. They might have even seen the laser beam, but only out of the corner of their eye where they couldn’t pinpoint its source.

  One of them shouted something. Another jogged the short distance to his fallen comrade and knelt down to check on him. He collapsed just a second later as another of Jason’s near-invisible beams took him down.

  Now the remaining two soldiers were spooked. They’d seen Jason’s beams take down their comrades, but not well enough to know where it came from, and both started firing at the windows and rooftops across the street from them. None of their fire was quite directed at the high rooftop where Thad and his squad hid.

  Jason triggered three more dim red flashes in quick succession, and the final two soldiers fell. “Good work,” Thad congratulated.

  “Was that fast enough?” Jason asked. “What if they got a radio call out?”

  Thad shrugged. “We’ll find out soon enough.” He keyed his radio again. “Second Squad, Third Squad, proceed. Weapons Hold.” So far, First Platoon was likely undetected. He wanted them to stay that way. “Remember, no charges on the hydrogen tanks,” he added. He wanted to set fire to the fuel oil. It would burn slowly at first, allowing him time to retreat before things really got blazing. But blowing the hydrogen tanks would attract too much attention, too quickly, and he didn’t want to deal with the possibility of enemy reinforcements.

  “Copy.”

  He peered down at the street below. The mostly-unlit street curb seemed to come alive as his troops crawled up and across the narrow strip of grass that separated them from the fence. They stopped at the fence as a few of them began cutting through, and then they trickled through to the other side.

  Weapons fire continued to ring out on the other side of the fuel depot, and diffuse violet light flashed through the intervening structures, reflections from the laser fire on the other side. “Eighth Platoon, report.”

  “Exchanging fire with the enemy. I don’t think anyone has hit anyone on either side yet, but we sure pissed them off for you!”

  He grinned. “Copy, and thanks!”

  Meanwhile, he watched from above as elements of his own First Platoon continued to advance in a low crouch. They reached the complex without incident, and now it was a waiting game for his own squad on the rooftop.

  Five minutes later, they were done. “Charges placed. Second and Third Squad are retreating.”

  “Copy,” Thad replied. “Jason, can you see the charges from here?”

  The teen put an eye up to his rifle scope and examined the complex. “I think I see some of them,” he said. “But it’s pretty dark, and all that laser fire over there is dazzling me.”

  Second and Third Squads had finished their retreat from the fuel tanks and were outside the fences again. “Good work. Break up and head home.” It was far easier for them to return to base unnoticed in smaller groups that travelled at different times. An entire platoon attracted attention. But two or three people covertly moving through dark alleys and lawns were almost invisible in comparison.

  “Copy. Good luck, Chad.”

  Thad waited a minute to make sure the rest of his men were clear and then sent the other platoon a warning. Finally, he looked over at Jason, giving him a nod. “Set them off,” he ordered.

  Beside him, Jason peered through his scope, searching for the charges the other Rebels had placed on the fuel tanks. Thad watched as the kid aimed, paused, and then squeezed the trigger. A nearly-invisible red light lanced out from his rifle, intersecting one of the taller fuel oil tanks, and something in the dark went bang with a sudden, momentary flash of light. There was no explosion or fireball. Jason’s laser had merely set off the high explosive charge, which had enough concussive force to blast a hole in the aluminum holding tank but not enough energy or burn time to actually ignite the fuel oil inside.

  “Good shot. Now, find the next ones. Shoot as many as you can find.”

  Jason nodded, and fired again. Another dim laser beam flashed out, but nothing happened this time. He frowned and fired twice more to no effect. “Either that one doesn’t work, or it’s not one of the charges,” he said. “It’s so hard to see over there.”

  “Leave it and find the next one then.”

  The teen shuffled slightly and twisted his rifle a few degrees. He took aim, waited, and fired again.

  Bang.

  He found and set off three more charges that way, and lost some time either missing or shooting at objects which, in the dark, only looked like charges.

  “Hold your fire. Good work. Now, we wait a minute for the oil to flow everywhere, ignite it, and leave.” He keyed his radio. “Eighth Platoon, start breaking off and heading home at your discretion.”

  “Copy.”

  The sounds of laser fire seemed to reduce somewhat. “Jason, can you see any oil?”

  Jason took a moment to look through his scope again. “Oh, yeah! Giant puddles of it everywhere around those tanks! Looks like a little waterfall in a few places!”

  “Good. Stand by.” He wanted the other platoon to have a chance to get some men off the battlefield, but if he waited too long, the Avennians would press the attack.

  “Chad, this is Chet.” Chet and the other half of First Squad were scattered around nearby positions, acting as lookouts for Thad’s rooftop element.

  “Go ahead.”

  “We might have some problems. Four AFPF cars just came to our side of the depot.”

  “Damn, that was fast.” The Ailon Federal Police Force, with their agile hydrogen-powered cars, had often acted like cavalry for Avennia. They were lightly-armed but very mobile, able to respond far more quickly than the Army troops could.

  Thad had learned that much of the AFPF had been on the Rebels’ side during the first war. Originally, it had been Ailon’s own law enforcement agency, mostly staffed and controlled by Ailonians. But the agency had been completely taken over by Avennians after the war.

  He looked down the street. And there, to the north, he saw the cars approaching in the distance. “They suspect something’s up,” Thad observed, his radio still active. “Probably wondering why Eighth is retreating already and this side of the complex is all quiet.”

  “Seems likely,” Chet replied.

  “Jason, start firing at those oil puddles. Remember, that oil takes a while to get goin
g, so I want multiple ignition points all over.”

  “Yes, sir.” Jason started firing indiscriminately, his nearly-invisible laser beams instantly darting across the distance and stabbing into the ground around the fuel tanks a hundred meters away. A number of orange flames appeared where his lasers hit, slowly growing higher and spreading outwards as the pools of oil began burning.

  “Chad, you better get moving now!” Chet said over the radio. “I’m pretty sure they saw that!”

  Thad looked down the street again. A number of police troopers were piling out of the cars not far from his building and they were heading in his general direction. They looked very alert, laser carbines at the ready and their heads tilted up towards the nearby rooftops.

  He glanced at the fuel depot again. The fire was still spreading, slowly. One of the fuel tanks was now spraying a waterfall of fire through the gash left behind by one of the Rebel charges, but it could be several more minutes before the facility really went up.

  They weren’t supposed to arrive here that quickly. We need a bigger distraction. “Jason, open fire on one of the hydrogen tanks. Keep shooting at the same spot until it goes up. Chet, I want your guys to fire on those police cars and distract them a bit, but don’t get caught up in a firefight. Second and Third Squads already left, so we’re outnumbered here!”

  Several violet beams erupted from dark alleyways, stitching burn marks into the AFPF cars parked in the narrow streets. As the police troopers became distracted by incoming firer and looked away from the rooftops, Jason opened fire again, tossing laser beams at one of the hotdog-shaped hydrogen tanks in the middle of the complex. He fired once…twice…three times. Nothing happened.

  The police returned fire, sending their own brilliant violet-colored laser beams into the Rebels hiding in the alleyways. “Get ready to move!” Thad ordered his section of the squad. Standing up, he stepped away from the rooftop’s edge, far enough back that he wasn’t exposed to the street below, and focused his eyes on the slowly-burning fuel depot, watching as Jason continued firing. Thad considered joining in with his carbine, but his lasers would stand out too much and the enemy would know exactly which rooftop to focus on. Besides, he didn’t know if he could steady his weapon well enough with only one hand. Not at long range.

  And Jason was still firing. He’d have burned a hundred little holes into the thin-walled oil tanks by now, but the hydrogen tanks were just too thick and too efficient at soaking up the heat from his infrared rifle, their thick metal skin making a good heat sink and quickly wicking away the heat from his laser shots before it could melt through. “Jason!” he barked. “It’s not working! Pack it up and get moving!”

  Behind him, Ria and Ailin were already on their feet and advancing towards the roof exit. Across the street, the fuel oil tanks were completely surrounded by flames now, and the flames were getting higher and higher, reaching up a good two or three meters in some places. And the tanks were still draining, dumping their fuel oil out through the openings made by the Rebel explosives, pouring into the flames below.

  Jason climbed to his feet and slung the heavy rifle across his back. “Follow me!” Thad barked as he sprinted to the rooftop exit. Seconds later, they were running down the stairs through the apartment building, likely waking up every single person who lived there.

  They dashed out the building’s back door into a narrow alleyway. Thad led his group to the left—it seemed like the police would be to his right somewhere. Reaching the street at the end of the alley, he peered out. “All clear!” he said in a harsh near-whisper as he broke out into a jog. Hopefully the depot fire kept everyone’s attention. If his group could get a few blocks away very quickly, they’d be safe.

  He glanced back to make sure the other three members of his fireteam were still with him. They were. An intersection was ahead, he was almost there. He reached the corner of the building, started to round it and go to his right—

  And immediately dropped to the ground with a surprised yelp. An AFPF patrol car was parked right there, disembarking troopers. The three troopers on foot saw him drop and began sprinting forward.

  Falling prone in the grass between the building and the streets, he grabbed his carbine and pointed it forward, resting its pistol grip on the grass in front of him, and opened fire. His shots went wild and he had trouble aiming. His sling was trapped beneath him, with no slack, and he couldn’t quite bring the weapon to bear properly. Still, it startled the enemy, and the police troopers dashed in three separate directions, dodging his fire, managing to sling a few laser beams over his head as they moved.

  The rest of his squad must have caught up. He heard the crack of discharging supercapacitors behind him and suddenly the space above his head was filled with laser fire. One AFPF trooper fell to the street as a Rebel beam burned into his side. Thad yanked hard on his carbine, pulling enough sling from beneath him to have some working slack, and pumped three more shots into the fallen cop just to be sure.

  He re-aimed, going for the next trooper, wishing for all the world he was in cover and not lying prone out in the open. But this group of enemies had taken him completely by surprise. Squeezing off a few shots, he heard a couple pained yelps, one in front of him—and one behind him?—and that trooper collapsed.

  Another volley of laser beams flashed overhead, lensing through the driver’s window of the police car and killing the driver inside. The last remaining trooper made a mad dash for the car, trying to get behind it for cover, but Thad cut him down before he could make it.

  The intersection became awkwardly silence. In the distance, he could hear the roar of the fire from the depot’s fuel tanks and the occasional laser blast as the Eighth Platoon stragglers exchanged fire with their pursuit.

  He clumsily climbed to his feet and looked around. Ria and Ailin seemed okay. But Jason lay in the grass, curled up in a ball, moaning and writhing in pain. “Ria!” Thad exclaimed. “Assess him! Ailin, you and I stand watch!” He moved to the corner of the building for cover while Ria examined their fallen comrade, and Thad wondered how they were going to safely move him back to base with so much enemy activity nearby. It was only a matter of minutes before the group that had engaged Chet’s fireteam—

  Chet. Thad keyed his radio. “Chet, report!” Nothing. Examining the push-to-talk button taped to his carbine, he cursed, realizing the wire had snapped. He must have strained it while trying to pull his weapon out from under him on the ground. “We’re on our own, radio’s broken,” he announced to the others.

  Ailin, kneeling in a shadow a few meters nearby with his carbine at the ready, cast a nervous glance in Thad’s direction.

  Ria stood up, looking extremely disturbed, and walked up to him. Not far away, Thad heard the sound of police car motors. “Direct hit to his heart and aorta,” she said quietly, looking down at her feet. “It’s cauterized, but it’s not survivable.” She choked up slightly. “It’s going to take a while…”

  Thad nodded grimly. With a slug wound of that nature, he’d bleed out within seconds. But lasers usually cauterized the flesh they burned up, preventing bleeding. He looked past Ria, at Jason, writhing on the ground with some portion of his heart melted and burned away, clearly in excruciating pain. There was no chance of treating him or evacuating him, not in their current tactical situation. Not far away, the police motors were getting louder as they moved up the street on the other side of the block.

  He stepped around Ria, towards Jason, and held out his carbine. “Chad, what are you doing?” Ignoring her, Thad pointed his weapon at the back of the dying teen’s head, from just a meter away. He squeezed his trigger once. The carbine cracked in his hand and the streets around him momentarily flashed violet, illuminated by the laser beam that instantly flashed the one-meter distance between him and Jason. Behind him, Ria uttered a sharp gasp. In front of him, the fallen Rebel immediately quit squirming and went silent. “Let’s get moving,” he said softly, starting to jog away from the scene.

 
The three of them were just about to round the next intersection when one of the police cars turned in behind them. Ahead of Thad, the buildings flashed as the police car’s headlights flooded the area, and he could see his own shadow blown up on the structures that surrounded the narrow, dark street. Seeing the Rebels in the street, the car accelerated and the whine of its motor quickly reached full volume. “Faster!” Thaddeus ordered, pointing towards another alley.

  He regretted being in an Avennian sector of the city. Ailonian property couldn’t be locked—to do so was highly illegal. But these buildings were all owned and occupied by Avennians, and Avennians had far more rights than Ailonians. The Rebels were surrounded by potential cover and hiding places, but they didn’t have the time to break into any of buildings like they had near the fuel depot.

  The car rounded the corner and skidded to a stop. The doors opened and troopers started exiting the vehicle. At almost the same time, another car appeared at the other end of the block, too. Now there were police on both sides of them. “Into the alley!” Thad said as he stopped running long enough to fire a burst of shots into the first car. Twisting the other way, he then fired a burst towards the second car. During that moment of redirection, several shots flashed at him and the alley from the first car. He redirected again, dumping ten shots in quick succession towards the car and the cops who took cover around it, with no idea if he actually hit any of them.

  He glanced behind him—Ria and Ailin were gone. He fired a couple more times and then took off into a sprint down the dark, narrow alley. Behind him, he heard the police shouting at each other. His heart thudded powerfully, and he sprinted faster, looking down the alley and seeing it was deserted. Where had his companions gone?

  Several meters later, he nearly tripped. Recovering his balance, Thad looked back, and his heart went cold. In the middle of the alley, almost invisible in the dark, was the body of a small, petite redheaded woman. “Ria!” he said, running back and stooping to check on her. She was alive, sobbing, breathing heavily and on the verge of hyperventilating. She didn’t react to his presence.