Off World- Ragnarok

by J. F. Holmes

  Baird scanned for a while, not actually knowing what he was looking for. “OK, I see a line of them, maybe ten K out, heading down the road.”

  “Evening patrol. They run them regularly through the night.” The corporal gave his lecture about what Baird was seeing in a low, disciplined voice. “Just past them you can see a major town; we call it Jonesville.”

  “What do the Gvit call it?”

  “How the hell do we know?” was the answer.

  Baird felt a little stupid, but he said anyway, “I dunno, like, don’t we talk to them? We have a treaty and shit, right?”

  Running Lance actually laughed. “Yeah, we have a treaty. The NSA ran recordings of the Gvit language through an AI, it spat something out, we air dropped a shitload of speaker boxes, and they pulled back to the suggested treaty line this side of the mountain. Obviously they figured it out. Of course, that was after we kicked the shit out of them.”

  “What about the Chak?”

  “What is this, fifty questions?” said Running Lance, but he was just giving Baird shit. “I know, Sarge told you to learn everything you can. I get it.”

  Then he settled into a long lecture about what was known about the Gvit and the Chak. “The Gvit are the warrior class, and the Chak are a separate species, closely related, but bred to be slaves, as far as we can tell. Where they aren’t slaves, they’re hunted for sport, down by the swamps in the delta.”

  “So that’s why I see them on the base. How smart are they?”

  “Chak? Smarter than an ape, less than a human. I don’t know, do I look like a xenobiologist?”

  Baird, stung a little by that, went back to observing. After studying the town, he swung the MPT-90 a little further out, adjusting the focus. “What’s that out past the town, by the next range of mountains? A military base?”

  “Move over,” ordered Running Lance, abruptly pushing the private aside. He put his face to the viewfinder and started making notes on a tablet.

  “What is it?” asked Baird.

  The corporal said nothing, just rang the landline. “Sergeant Johnson, we have an issue. Can you come down?”

  The reply came back, half awake, “Two minutes,” and he was there in less. “What have you got?”

  “Major troop concentration, about twenty-five klicks out, ten past Jonesville. I estimate ten divisions, maybe two hundred thousand.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” said Baird.

  “No, it’s not,” muttered Johnson, “but shut up, you’re distracting me. Yup, but maybe even bigger. That’s a lot of fucking rhinos.”

  After about ten minutes of observation, Johnson pulled a data stick from his pocket and downloaded all the video. “The intel weenies are going to love this.”

  “That’s some bad shit there, Joe,” said Running Lance.

  “Agreed, but nothing we can do about it. It’s their country.” At that moment, to the south and very close, sounded a horn that echoed around the valley below them. Baird started up, but the corporal grabbed his arm and sat him back down.

  “Just chill, another patrol’s coming down from their base at the top of the pass, where the road goes over.”

  “Uh, Dave, I think we have a problem,” said Johnson. “I see movement in that big ass camp, looks like they’re falling onto formation…yep, I see them assembling in marching order.”

  “Which way?” The Cherokee was already packing up what little evidence there was that they’d been there and ordering Baird to roll up the commo wire.

  “Coming west, starting out on the Great Road. This damned way! Pack up, let’s go, we have to get back to Rorke’s Drift ASAP and call this in.”

  Baird was confused, but his questions were ignored as the two NCOs packed up the scope and Johnson called for them to prep for bugout. Then Running Lance put his ear to the solid bedrock that poked out of the ground a few feet away.

  “That patrol…is coming, I can feel the vibration.”

  “Time to go, gentlemen,” said Johnson, then spoke into his radio, “Daisy, Claymores across the trail. Alverez, make sure your 240 is working, rhino patrol headed this way.”

  “Are we going to ambush them?” asked Baird.

  “No,” said Running Lance, “we’re going run like you ate a bad MRE and the latrine is two hundred meters away. Now, GO!”

  Chapter 11

  ACECOM HQ, Gate Crash minus nine hours

  “I’ll need that personnel report before the 09:00 briefing on Tuesday, Staff Sergeant Yi.”

  “Yes, Colonel, on it,” she answered back, not looking up from her laptop.

  “Thank you, Linda,” said Colonel Elmhoff, already turning to the G-3 and demanding operational plans updates.

  She kept typing, correlating the reports from each of the battalion S-1 shops, but muttered under her breath, “Frigging dickhead.”

  “He’s gonna hear you someday,” said Sergeant Jones, grinning.

  “I hope so. Stick up his ass,” whispered Yi.

  Jones let out a deep laugh and said, “Honey, you’re on the mark, but we got eighteen more months on this tour.”

  Yi said something in Chinese, and Jones said, “I don’t even want to know what that means.”

  “It means it’s sixteen thirty, and I’m outta here. Let’s go, Shanice.”

  “Don’t gotta tell me twice,” said her subordinate, closing her laptop and pulling her CAC card from its slot.

  “See you at PT tomorrow morning,” said Yi. “I’ve got a date tonight with Billy!” The woman smiled, her delicate features lighting up.

  “Get some, girl! Off to get my extensions done.”

  Staff Sergeant Linda Yi rode the shuttle bus back to NCO quarters, ignoring everyone around her, thinking about her friends and how the future would affect them all. Her mind was literally more than four light years away, thinking of her family back in Hong Kong. She hadn’t seen them in ten years, since emigrating to the US, but she still thought of them every day. Changing into civilian clothes, she caught another shuttle down into the commercial area of Seaside, watching the ocean as the bus passed over the causeway. Still thinking.

  As she got off the bus and walked down Baker Street, her mouth watered at the thought of the Sichuan food at The Golden Dragon, a favorite of the ethnic Chinese, both first generation immigrants and those born in America. The food was spicy and hot; the cook had taken to using Alpha Centauri herbs to come up with unique dishes. Tonight, though, there was business to conduct before pleasure.

  Yi walked into the restaurant, passed into the kitchen, nodded to the cook without saying anything, and continued into a back room. She was the last one there, having taken her time. Being the commander of her unit, PLA Special Forces, South Blade, Detachment Seven Nine, she could do as she wished. The Det was only four people, but they were elite among the elite. Captain Linda Yi knew them all, and trusted them with her life.

  The first man wore the rough clothes of a worker from the rigs, with oil stains permanently ground into his skin. Chief Sergeant Second Class Zang Yeung was in his late forties, and looked tough as nails with a scarred face. Though he spoke perfect English, his cover as an ethnic Chinese Indonesian fleeing persecution had earned him entrance into the US five years ago, and he acted as if he had a bare smattering of the language. Enough to pass unnoticed, as long as he did his work.

  Next to him was an older woman who held the nominal PLA rank of Sergeant, though she’d been living in the US for twenty years. “Annie” Fan operated a nail salon and, like Yeung, pretended to speak little English. Captain Yi got her nails done at her shop once a week, exchanging idle gossip and, more importantly, information.

  The last man was young, and had the mixed features of a half Caucasian, half Chinese. Like Yi, he’d been born in Hong Kong, of a Chinese mother and an American sailor. Claiming his birthright citizenship, PLA Lieutenant Hui Zhou had become first Private Billy Zhou, then worked his way up the infantry ranks in eight years to the rank of Sergeant First Class in t
he American Army. He was the second in command of their infiltration unit and, despite orders to the contrary, Yi’s occasional lover. That, she knew, would have to stop tonight.

  It was Fan who spoke first. Her contacts back on Earth often sent messages and instructions in the supplies she ordered through Ali Baba, the Chinese equivalent of Amazon, and she passed them on to Yi. “Celestial Dragon will happen tomorrow at 02:00 Alpha Centauri time.”

  Yi nodded and turned to the older man. “Weapons need to be in place by Proxima rise tomorrow evening.”

  “They already are, and I have pre-sighted the mortar positions on our targets.”

  “Excellent. Thank you, Sergeant Yeung. Lieutenant Zhou,” she paused, trying not to look at him directly; they’d said all they needed to say last night, in the late hours, “you will have the Humvee ready for our extraction?”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Billy Zhou had done four tours in the Middle East and Central America, was no stranger to combat, and could be relied on implicitly. The group spent the next ten minutes reviewing their plan of action, then Fan and Yeung left the room to sit together at a table out front. They were often seen together at dinner, old friends, or maybe more. No one noticed them, the best kind of intelligence agents.

  When they were gone, Zhou reached across the small table and took Yi’s hand. “Linda,” he said in Cantonese, “are you sure we should do this?”

  “Hui, I know you are concerned about your friends in your unit.”

  “They are good soldiers, and do not deserve what is about to happen,” he said earnestly.

  She shook her head and said, “When the Gvit attack, it will be people like you and I who convince them to stand down without bloodshed.”

  A pained look passed over his face. “I would think you would understand. You have lived among the Americans as long as I have. They will fight, hard. Many will die.” Hui Zhou had hated the American father who’d abandoned him, but had grown to love his troops as he led them into battle. Periodic visits to his home in Hong Kong, seeing the oppression people lived under despite the glitz, had dented his indoctrination into the way of the Party, even as insiders had arraigned his assignment to the 9th RGT and Alpha Centauri.

  Yi saw the doubt in his eyes, the man who had, last night, professed his love for her. “Then it is up to us to convince them not to. Once we access the Mark 47s and carry out our secondary attack on their leadership, they will surrender.”

  He scoffed, “You have been serving in headquarters too long. The line units will fight, regardless. Linda, it is not too late to stop the slaughter. If we go to General Halstead, explain the hopelessness of their situation, then…”

  “Maybe,” she said simply, and leaned forward to kiss him, putting her left hand on the back of his head as a gesture of intimacy. As their lips touched, she drove the ice pick straight into his ear, twisting it around. He stiffened and tried to stand, but she twisted it around, gouging though his brain. Holding his head, she let him slowly collapse to the ground, marveling at the frailty of the human body.

  “I have not come this far to fail,” she hissed at his still-twitching body. Then she wiped the ice pick off on his clothes and stepped out into the kitchen. “Wu,” she said to the cook, “please take care of the storeroom.”

  The man nodded. Within hours, the body would be dumped in the vicious surf on the seaward side of the peninsula. He would be missed tomorrow morning at formation, but before any investigation would start, the Americans would have more pressing matters to attend to.

  Chapter 12

  Fort McHenry Motor pool, Delta Troop, 1-69 Armor parking area, Gate crash minus eight hours, Alphaset

  This is too easy, thought Linda Yi. She stood watching the sea on a windy promontory, the fence guarding the motor pool off to her left. Through the chain links she could see the rear ends of the eleven functional M1a2 Abrams tanks, their gun barrels pointed over their back decks in travel position. The twin suns were setting, and Proxima was rising, a strangely beautiful time of day when the lights were slightly mingled.

  In a way, she did regret what was about to happen. Alpha Centauri, or as it was called in China, “Xīn de zhōngjiān wángguó”, the New Middle Kingdom, was a beautiful place. She wasn’t so naïve as to believe her people wouldn’t eventually spoil it, as they’d done the Earth. For now though, the sea air was fresh, and she felt very, very alive. If only Hui hadn’t been such a fool, they could have made a life here.

  In her hands the Chinese soldier held what looked like a camera. To all intents and purposes it was a camera, and could even take pictures. It was a popular Japanese model, with a large telephoto lens, but bulkier than an average camera. Nothing out of the ordinary, though, at first glance. She had it mounted on a tripod, pointed at the furthest oil platform. The lights had come on, and it looked striking against the growing darkness on the western horizon.

  There were few other people around her; one couple sitting on a blanket a hundred meters away, and someone braving the massive waves further down the beach to collect rockfish. It was a dangerous job; the tides and surf were far more vicious than anywhere on Earth. The fish, a type of amphibian, were a delicacy and sold very well back home. The fact that people often lost their lives collecting them only made them more valuable, and the practice continued despite an official ban.

  Seeing that the couple were very into themselves, she turned the camera toward the motor pool, about another hundred meters away. The fence wouldn’t be a problem for the directional radio signal, or so she’d been assured. She leaned into the view finder and pressed the shutter button, and a sensor showed the live electrical systems of the tanks. Maintenance had shut down for the day, and none of them were running. What she was after was the delicate electronics in the tank’s turbine engine. A little green light blinked, and she pushed the shutter button a little bit further.

  Inside the “camera”, a highly-sophisticated directional wireless modem came to life. It “pinged” the tank’s electronics, seeking out a tiny component on an electronic chip, a component which had been installed surreptitiously when the subcontractor provided the chips to a US manufacturing company. Once a connection was established, the sleeper modem in the electronics was activated, and it received a bigger virus, downloading it in a few seconds. Once the tank’s power systems were spun up, the virus would run rampant through the computer controlling the fuel input and RPMs of the turbine engine. At best, an untraceable shutdown in the fuel flow. At worst, a turbine not stopping until it glowed red hot and shattered.

  She’d targeted seven tanks, each taking about ten seconds, when she heard approaching footsteps. Seeing that it was an approaching patrol, she made a great deal out of looking up and stretching. She was wearing only a bikini top and shorts in the evening heat, and showed off her body to good effect as she glanced at them. A look of delight crossed her face, her hand surreptitiously moving the camera to point back out to sea.

  “Oh, what a beautiful dog!” she exclaimed in her best Ohio-accented English. “Can I pet him?” she asked the young MP and his partner, both of whom were obviously still trying to get a good look at her body. It didn’t hurt that Yi had some very exotic features, and her hair was piled messily on her head.

  “Uh, you better not, Ma’am. Hidalgo is a police dog; he’s not really friendly,” said the handler. He was annoyed, swiping at the bugs that seemed to be filling the air around them.

  “I bet you’re a big teddy bear to nice people, aren’t you?” Yi said, holding out her hand and letting the dog lick it. She bent forward to show some cleavage and ruffle the German Shepard’s head. She really loved dogs and knew how to talk to them. She also knew how to talk to men, too, turning a perfect smile on the soldiers.

  “Don’t call me Ma’am, either, Specialist Coy. I work for a living, just like you. Staff Sergeant Yi, HHC S-1 shop.”

  “Ah, well, I guess he likes you. Be careful of the surf, Sarge,” said the MP, blushing furiously. His partner, even youn
ger than he was, just kind of stood there awkwardly, not saying anything.

  “I will, Specialist! Too bad you aren’t off duty; it’s a great sunset. But I need to get back to it if I’m going to catch Proxima rise. Oh, and by the way, someone is down there collecting rockfish, and the surf’s picking up. I’m pretty sure they were down in the restricted area by the fence before.”

  “Here that, Hidalgo?” said Coy, “Time to go bite someone!” The dog barked excitedly and strained at his leash, and the MPs jogged off.

  Coy looked back once, sneaking another glance at her, utterly dumbfounded by a pretty woman. “Boys!” she muttered, then said it again in Mandarin. Might as well get used to it, she thought.

  There was no doubt in Linda Yi’s mind of the ultimate success of her masters back on Earth. She knew the war would be horrible; all war was. She liked her friends in the personnel shop, but unlike her late boyfriend, she had the will to do what needed to be done. Yi honestly believed China needed to be the preeminent nation among the stars, and there was always the family back in Hong Kong. She had no illusions of what would happen to them if she failed.

  The next five tanks were done in less than a minute, and with a small handheld weapon, the 9th Regiment, and ACECOM, had lost half of their most effective weapons against the Gvit and the Chinese forces that would come through the Gate. The other half, air power, they would take care of later.

  Yi packed the transmitter into a bag, along with the tripod, and walked back to catch a bus to the single NCO quarters at the fort. That there’d be no Chinese forces coming through the Gate had never occurred to her. There would be, eventually. She was sure of it. Now, though, she needed rest before the next part of her plan was put into effect. It was going to be a long night, and she wasn’t actually sure she was going to live through it.