“I think I can pretty much guarantee that as well.”
Gerry Conner settled into the Adirondack chair on his porch overlooking the lake. He in fact did know the operations on Julian and Verano were going to kick off – and probably conclude – today. When he logged into the office, he found a report from his agent within the Imperial Navy staff about the QE links being down on both planets.
The next twenty-four hours should be interesting.
“You seem distracted today,” Bernd Stauss said.
“Oh, it’s nothing. A little side project,” Dieter Stauss said.
“Anything you want to share with me?”
“No. No, not yet. Soon, I think.”
“All right. Well, I’m here if something comes up,” Bernd Stauss said.
“Yes, of course. Thank you, Bernd. I should know soon.”
The Resistance Goes Active
“Go Active. Go Active. Go Active.”
“OK, that’s the signal. Get a move on,” Brigadier General Mark Chapman – a.k.a. Tom Jefferson – said over the VR.
“Roger that. We’re moving.”
“Yup. We’re rolling, too.”
The expatriate resistance coordinator who had been their mail relay point had transmitted to Chapman two days ago the full mail list and personal data of all resistance members, including the flagged names of known collaborators, informants, and Secret Police infiltrators. Now the operation was going active, Chapman sent the mail list to all non-flagged resistance members. For the first time, they could all see who was who, past their aliases.
The list included their unit and rank, assigned by Chapman over the weekend. The messages assigning individuals to a reporting time and location for this morning had gone out last night.
The Sunday night-shift in Secret Police headquarters had received a couple of the reporting locations from infiltrators whose cover had evaded cross-referencing against the Security Ministry employee payroll list. They didn’t know how many people were reporting to any location, though, and the Secret Police’s orders were not to interfere with resistance activities for now. The infiltrators had thus been given orders to show up as ordered by the resistance.
The warehouse doors opened, and four big semi tractors pulled out. Two of them pulled big end-dump trailers full of crushed rock, and two of them pulled tanker trailers full of diesel. They were on the outskirts of downtown, about ninety degrees around the ring boulevard circling downtown from the Government Center complex. They headed toward the complex in pairs, a gravel truck leading the diesel tanker in each pair.
The two main entrances to the Government Center complex were at intersections of city streets. One of the legs of the intersection ran toward the complex, winding back and forth around staggered epoxycrete barriers to prevent a truck or tank from crashing through the gate. These epoxycrete barriers were sunk deep, to prevent them being pushed over or out of the way. One entrance was on the side of the Government Center complex toward the downtown. The other was on the far side from downtown.
One pair of semi rigs approached each of the two entrances. When they got there, the gravel semis pulled over to the side of the cross streets so their trailers blocked the exits from those staggered epoxycrete barriers. The drivers struck flares and threw them out of the cab windows onto the entrance roads, between the first two barriers. One of the diesel trucks pulled in hard alongside each of the gravel trucks, and the drivers threw valve switches on the dash.
Both drivers at each location exited their cabs on the far side from the gates, and, behind the cover of the trucks, got into battered sedans that pulled up alongside. The sedans took the legs of the intersection heading directly away from the government complex, using the trucks as cover from the guns on either side of the gates.
When the diesel fuel hit the flares, the results were predictable. The fires grew as the diesel fuel continued to drain from the tankers, engulfing both trucks at each location. Tires exploded, the engines were rendered inoperative, and the flames continued to grow.
Those trucks weren’t going anywhere for a while, and that meant the inhabitants of the Government Center complex weren’t either.
When the order to go active came in from Mark Chapman, a school bus left a warehouse out near the spaceport. Ostensibly a work crew for manual labor, the workers had gathered at the warehouse that morning. Now the bus driver drove them to the spaceport and was waved past by the perimeter guards that had appeared with the go-active order.
The bus driver knew where he was going. He drove to a set of ten equipment containers on the verge of the encampment toward the city. The doors were already open, revealing two twenty-four-foot box trucks in each container. The forty men on the bus exited and ran for the containers.
Darrel Thompson was one of them.
Thompson knew his assignment. Second truck in the third box, as shotgun. He ran for the container, and made his way past the first truck to the second, stepping over the shipping restraints that had already been unlatched by the Marines.
Thompson opened the cab door, and unlatched the seat belt from around the duffel there. He put on the body armor, pulled the pin on the IFF module, and strapped on his cover. He climbed up into the truck and put the ruck on the floor between the two seats as the driver did the same. The driver also put his SBR on the floor alongside his seat, then fired up the engine.
“Darrel Thompson,” Thompson said by way of introduction.
“Bruce Jacobs,” the driver said. “Nice to meet ya.”
They both grinned at each other, and Thompson opened his side window and checked his SBR. He pulled the magazine from the clip on the stock, inserted it, and released the bolt lock. The bolt shot home with a satisfying clack. Waiting for the truck ahead, Jacobs picked up his SBR, did the same, then put it back on the floor.
Jacobs eased the truck forward as the truck in front of them moved out. They pulled directly out onto the spaceport access road and headed into town, their delivery route clear in their VR displays.
Jacobs backed the truck up to the loading dock at the small manufacturing facility. As he backed up, the roll-up door opened. He and Thompson stayed in the cab and watched for trouble.
At the rear of the truck, a couple of guys opened the roll-up door of the truck and then six guys walked into the box and started tossing duffels from the truck to the hundred or so men standing nearby.
“All right, you guys. One to everybody. The size is marked on the outside. Just grab one and then trade around after everybody has one. Within one size is OK.”
When everybody had a duffel, a couple of guys rolled the truck’s overhead door down and latched it. One of them pounded on the back door of the truck with the flat of his hand.
Jacobs saw that his instruments showed the back door closed and latched. He put the truck in gear and drove away. The truck had initially held five hundred duffels, and they had dropped perhaps three hundred of them. Just two more stops, and he and Thompson would join the company at the last stop.
Given that they had a truck, their company would be partially mobile.
They closed the roll-up door of the small manufacturing facility as the truck started away.
Inside there was a bit of bedlam as people sought to trade for their size. The truck drivers and their shotguns hadn’t had this problem, because they had all been picked to fit into an extra-large. One smaller guy got stuck with a two-extra-large when he needed a medium. Several guys switched up a size to free up a medium for him.
“All right, everybody. Suit up. Let’s go,” Bruno Hass bellowed.
Hass was First Sergeant for this, Company Four of Third Battalion of the Julian Free Militia. Captain Tim Keegan, the company commander, was happy to have him. Hass was big, loud, and competent, which would all come in handy today.
When everyone had suited up, Hass bellowed again.
“OK. Master sergeants. Hold up your platoon number. Spread out so your guys can fit around you. Come on. Let
’s go. This ain’t kindergarten.”
While the platoons were sorting themselves out, Captain Keegan met with his lieutenants. They were huddled together, reviewing a map in VR.
“All right, so we’re going to split up into platoons and advance up these four streets here. The idea is to neutralize opposition in this part of the city so nobody can sneak up on the rear of the offensive after they go past. We’ve got their backs, and they’re gonna face the big stuff, OK? Everybody understand your route and your role?”
There were assents all around, and Keegan continued.
“Now if you run into anything big, call it in, then stay back. We’ll get our buddies to pop ‘em from upstairs, or on their way through, and then we’ll go in and clean up. All right?”
More assents.
“OK. Good. Let’s get ready to move out. Oh. And don’t get in their way when our friends come through. Just stay back and watch the show.”
General Turley watched the proliferation of IFF icons in the city on her VR displays. They were popping up suddenly in groups of a hundred or so in a ring around the Government Center complex and perhaps a mile or mile-and-a-half distant. So that looked like it was going to plan. Excellent. Having an extra ten thousand infantry never hurt anybody.
And they’d already done a good job of bottling up the entrances to the complex. Now to get there before the forces inside worked their way out.
Turley used the QE radio on her command vehicle to send a message to General Vargas on Verano that they had gone active and were in progress on Julian. She would maintain an embargo on the QE links out of Julian until Vargas’ forces went active, so there would be no spoiler to his surprise.
Turley then contacted Mark Chapman, the nervy and smart leader of the resistance she had met as Tom Jefferson.
“Yes, General Turley. We’re almost ready here.”
“I can see that, General Chapman. Nicely done. We’ll be moving to the Government Center in thirty. Three-zero. You may kick off your operations whenever you’re ready.”
“Very well, General Turley. Moving in five. Zero-five.”
“OK. There’s the order. Let’s move out, everybody.”
First platoon went out the front door of the building, toward the east, and their assigned street. Fourth platoon went out the back door, toward the west, and their assigned street. Second and Third Platoons went out the loading dock doors, due north. Their assigned streets were at either end of this block.
They went down the sidewalks, with two squads on each side of each street. There had been no general announcement of anything going on, and people in the vehicles and sidewalks on the streets stared at them in frank amazement.
Keegan and Hass traveled with First Platoon. It was this street Keegan was worried about. There was a police station on this street, and every local police station had a Secret Police component that had grown larger and larger over time. It was now almost all Secret Police in the police stations, as if the regime didn’t care about criminals, only dissidents.
First Platoon moved up the street cautiously.
The Secret Police in that local police station was headed up by Captain Aaron Corcoran. Corcoran had received information from a Secret Police informant within the resistance over the public VR system, in which the informant reported the provision of SBRs, helmets, armor, and rucks to the resistance group of a hundred or so men he was with. A second report said they had divided up into platoons and were moving toward the Government Center complex.
Corcoran was between a rock and a hard place. He had maybe twenty men total, and a number of them were out on patrols. If he opposed the resistance forces, it was going to get nasty. If he didn’t oppose the resistance forces, it would get even nastier when the government reasserted itself as the assets the Empire had provided came on-line. At the same time, the Security Ministry’s secure VR system was out, and he had no communication whatsoever with higher. He couldn’t even contact his immediate superior over the public VR system.
Not knowing what else to do, Corcoran had contacted his patrols over the public VR system, and ordered them all back to the police station. He now had his full force of twenty men available, and they had all suited up in body armor. They had opened up the weapons lockers and issued weapons, some of which included grenade launchers the resistance forces apparently did not have.
Corcoran’s men were now in a defensive position, in a brick building, they had close to numerical parity with a single platoon of resistance forces, and they had a few weapons that outmatched the attackers, at least based on what he knew. There were at least four platoons of resistance fighters out there, though, and that was just what he knew about. If they called up their full force, it would get much nastier.
The resistance forces were largely untrained, however, and his men all had at least some training. The counterpoint to that was that most of the Secret Police’s training was in police work such as surveillance and enforcement, not in combat. How it would all turn out was an open question.
What to do about it when the resistance forces showed up was a decision he did not yet have to make.
First Platoon had hunkered down out of sight of the police station on the next block.
“We go any further, Sir, and we’re going to expose ourselves to their fire. If they decide to fire,” Lieutenant Dinesh Kumar said.
“All right. Top, what do you recommend?” Keegan asked.
“They’d normally have between a dozen and two dozen active guys, Sir,” Hass said, “and we know they have grenade launchers. In a fortified position. This could get real nasty.”
“Air support, do you think?”
“That would seem best, Sir.”
“Maybe I’ll give them a chance to surrender first.”
“That would make things easier, too, Sir.”
Keegan placed a public VR call to the police station, and asked for the captain of Secret Police.
“Who may I say is calling, sir?” the receptionist asked.
“Captain Tim Keegan of the Julian Free Militia.”
“One moment, sir.”
It was a voice-only call, and there was a few seconds’ delay before a male voice came back.
“Captain Corcoran here.”
“Good morning, Captain Corcoran. Captain Keegan here. I thought I would call and give you the opportunity to surrender and save your men’s lives.”
“I don’t think so, Captain Keegan. I have force parity, better weapons, and I’m dug in. And I expect relief soon. Why would I surrender?”
Corcoran’s knowledge of Keegan’s situation caused some concern, but he had been warned they probably hadn’t weeded out all the Secret Police’s plants in their organization. Corcoran’s expectation of relief, though, was an issue he could address.
“Perhaps you’re thinking of those assets the Empire delivered to the government, Captain Corcoran. Unfortunately, those assets were actually for us. So I won’t fight it out with you in any fair way. I wanted to give you a chance to surrender before I called in air support.”
“An interesting assertion, Captain Keegan. With no proof, however.”
“Let me see if I can arrange that for you, Captain Corcoran. Just hold the line a moment.”
Keegan opened another line to the air support request line he had been given.
“Air support.”
“Captain Keegan here. Company Four, Third Batt. Can I get some sort of demonstration hit in front of the police station on Third Street between Park Street and Market Street?”
“A demonstration hit, Captain?”
“I’m negotiating a surrender, and I need to demonstrate air assets.”
“I see. Let me arrange that for you, Captain.”
“Thanks. Out.”
Keegan switched back to the call with Corcoran.
“You should have all the proof you need soon, Captain Corcoran.”
Corcoran thought about it and decided the safe play was to assume Keegan wasn�
�t bluffing.
“INCOMING!” Corcoran yelled.
The call was repeated around the police station, and Corcoran’s men hunkered down below the windows they were manning.
“What do you think, First Sergeant?” the captain tasked with aerial support for the resistance asked.
His First Sergeant looked at the surveillance feeds from the drones over the scene.
“How about that police van in the alley, Sir? Won’t throw debris very far. Won’t get our guys, who are hunkered down over here.”
He pointed to green IFF icons overlaid on the surveillance feed.
“An anti-vehicle round?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“OK. Let’s do that.”
“Targeting, Sir.”
“All right. Everybody keep your heads down. We have incoming,” Hass called out to First Platoon.
The platoon was backed into the recesses of doorways, standing around the corner in the mid-block alley, and hunkered down behind parked vehicles.
The heard it before they saw it, a whistling scream. The rocket slammed through the windscreen of the police van, out of sight from the platoon in the alley alongside the police station, and blew up inside the vehicle. It gutted the van and blew flames and debris, including the hood of the van, out into the street a block in front of the platoon.
Captain Corcoran didn’t see the hit on the van, but he sure felt it. The concussion shook the building. Some items in his office fell over, and he saw the hood of the van cartwheel out into the street.
“We can send some rockets into the windows of the station if you want to inspect them close-up, Captain Corcoran.”
“That won’t be necessary, Captain Keegan. We surrender.”
Advance
When General Turley’s armored column reached the spaceport, her first tank company went down the spaceport access road, then deployed in platoons of four tanks down each of three streets leading to the Government Center complex several miles away, on the other side of downtown. The command element of two tanks took up position behind its second tank platoon in the middle of the three streets.
EMPIRE: Intervention (EMPIRE SERIES Book 13) Page 12
