Children of Steel Page 46

“Okay, this should work. Pilot there should be a valley to the east of the tracks, coordinate M thirty-four, west twelve.”

  “Got it, it’s about ninety seconds. Prepare for drop!”

  John hooked up and stowed his map and we all assumed drop positions.

  “Twenty seconds!” and the door came open.

  “Drop!"

  I tossed the drogue chute out and we deployed.

  I looked to either side as my main chute opened, they had dropped us below the ridge line to either side, about a hundred feet above ground. I dropped my pack to its tether, and then rolled when I hit. I took a few minutes to gather in my chute and bury it. We formed up as a group ten minutes later.

  “It’s a hundred miles to the drop zone we had picked. We might as well get started.” John said.

  We all nodded and fell in. It was a long walk.

  By daylight of the second day we had reached the building. It was an abandoned rail station. We could tell by looking at the tracks they hadn’t been used in ages. We guessed that this place must have been mined out and abandoned by some corp decades ago, and our friends probably moved in later and set up their own shop. Several fighter jets had passed over head during our trek in the previous night, and a transport had flown by much later. We’d taken cover each time just in case, but if they guessed we were here all the cover in the world wouldn’t be enough.

  The four of us in charge settled down in one corner to examine the maps while the others spread out to see what they could find.

  “Sir, come take a look at this!” I heard Hess call over my com.

  “Just a minute guys,” I said to the other three, “Hess has something.”

  I found him in one of the inner rooms.

  “What’s up?”

  He turned his flashlight to on the wall. “Check it out Sir.”

  I looked and there was a map of the entire continent on it, with all the rail lines shown, and each of the towns on it as well.

  “Look at that. Outstanding Hess.”

  I called John and the others in and we all sat there and compared the map to the composite we had made on the ship’s computer.

  “A lot less outlying towns now, hmmm, I wonder what’s at those places these days.” Ran asked.

  “Good question. One I guess we’ll have to check out soon.

  Nic looked up then, obviously listening to his private channel. “I think one of my guys might have found something useful,” He said. So we followed him outside and back around to what appeared to have once been a garage, though it was partially collapsed now.

  “What have we here Ron?”

  “A handcart Sergeant!"

  I watched as four others helped him extricate it from the debris.

  “I think we just solved our transportation problem!” John laughed and we all nodded.

  A little more digging found a second one so we left the troops to get them in order while we four planned our next step.

  By nightfall we had the two carts on the rails and were moving down the railway at a fairly decent clip. Russ and Hess were positioned as snipers on the front cart just in case we came across any unexpected surprises while the rest of us took turns pumping the treadle. We had covered almost two hundred miles by dawn, and holed up in another abandoned railway station.

  “See if you can’t turn up another hand cart,” I ordered the rest while the four of us reviewed our plans. According to the maps we now had there was a major line about a hundred miles further down. Nic and Ran would take their halves down there, and split up further as they came to the installations in that area. John and I would take our halves further down this line and split up when the line split a second time.

  “Remember,” John said, “We’ve got six weeks, so take your time, the rail lines probably won’t be safe as we get closer in, so it’ll be back to foot.”

  We all nodded.

  They were able to find another hand car, and we had it working by morning. There was a second one here as well, but it was missing several parts. We all set off again that evening going down the rail line once more. By dawn of the next day we had all split up and was each taking our halves to our respective areas to see what we could learn about the area.

  The next six weeks had the three of us on the move constantly. We never slept in the same place twice, and never stirred during the daylight. Several times we were forced to raid an outlying house or sneak into a town and rob a store for provisions. That didn’t prove to be too much trouble, most of the towns were small and security was light. I suspected they didn’t have a lot of problems with crime this far out.

  We’d had to infiltrate several of the towns anyway while gathering what intelligence we could. One interesting thing we uncovered was that all of the abandoned towns that didn’t show on the new map, but were on the old one, contained hidden missile silos and rail gun emplacements to protect the larger base they surrounded. They also had a small support team to service, man, and probably protect it. We made note of each of those as we found them.

  After we’d spent four weeks covering the outskirts we headed in towards the major installation that was our primary target of interest. It took us a lot longer to work our way closer to it, but security here seemed to be more concerned with theft and appearances than with infiltrators or soldiers. So we were able to sneak in close enough to spend three days mapping out the port and its defenses.

  We’d achieved all of our objectives with a few days to spare. We were packing up our gear on the top of a hill, when Hess turned to me.

  “Now what, Sir?”

  “Well our orders are to pull out and wait for them to attack so we can upload our data once they’re in range.”

  “Yeah, right. So what are we really going to do?”

  I smiled and looked back at the installation. “That’s a real nice command and control bunker they have down there, isn’t it?”

  He nodded, “Yup, bet if someone got in there or blew it up during the initial phases of the attack they could wreak some real havoc with their command and control.”

  Marko looked over at the two of us. “You guys are crazy.”

  “No, we’re highly motivated soldiers,” I smiled. “What’s the matter, don’t want a citation in your record?”

  “Not posthumously."

  “They’ll never expect it, we have the element of surprise after all.”

  “We’ve also got a lot of data here that we need to send, which we can’t do if we’re in a firefight, or dead, now can we?”

  I nodded, “Good point. Let’s find someplace to hole up for the day; I want to think about this.”

  Marko turned to Hess, “See what you started?”

  “Well I wouldn’t want our Warrant to lose his reputation, would you?” he snickered.

  The next night we were scanning the port from another vantage point, taking the time to make more detailed maps, but now they were for our use.

  “This is insane you know,” Marko said.

  “Got any better idea’s?” Hess asked.

  “No, but let’s face it, that bunker is probably the one place they’ve got good security, sentries, you name it. I’m all for doing something, but I don’t think that’s it.”

  I was looking up and down the field listening to them whisper back and forth with half an ear.

  “Don’t worry; I’m sure he’ll figure something out. He always does, doesn’t he?”

  “Always does? We’ve only been on seven drops with him!”

  “Hess, Marko, quiet down and look back over at the base.”

  “What’s up sir?”

  “I’ve been watching that damn bunker for five hours and you know what I’ve noticed?”

  “What?” they both asked sounding amazed.

  “That we don’t have the ability to get in there.” I sighed.

  “What!?” Hess sounded shocked, Marko looked smug.

  “However,” I continued, “Look at the hangers over there that they have most of t
heir assault shuttles and fighters parked in."

  They both turned.

  “What do you see?”

  “Two sentries.”

  “Exactly, and what’s that they’ve been parking between those two hangers every night now?"

  Marko smiled, “Why, a fuel truck.”

  I nodded, “We could get down there, kill the sentries, open the valves on the truck and set that whole place up in pretty short order. Bet that would make quite a mess, wouldn’t you both agree?”

  “See? I told you he’d come up with something!” Hess laughed softly.

  “Enough guys,” I checked my watch, sometime tomorrow the task force was supposed to come in range of our long range com unit.

  “Let’s go find a place to hole up until tomorrow.”

  I choose a different hill as our starting place the next night, it didn’t have as a good vantage point over the hangers and the west end of the installation, but it would do.

  “Okay, here’s the plan,” I said looking around. “Hess, you’ll stay up here with the comm unit and your sniper rifle. Marko and I will move down into position, and take care of those two guards. Then we’ll move into the hangers and open all the fuel access points we can on the fighters and shuttles.

  “After you’ve gotten the upload signal give us a double click on the helmets, then when you’ve finished transmitting move over to the position we had last night. You can provide covering fire as we need it. Marko and I will move the truck then, and light the place up as soon as we can.”

  “And then what?” Marko asked.

  “Targets of opportunity as we withdraw to the south. That should keep us away from the locals and any targets for the initial barrage from orbit.”

  They both nodded.

  “Let’s go.”

  It took a while for Marko and me to get down to the hangers without being seen. The security down by the flight line wasn’t that extensive, but there was a lot more of it here than we’d seen so far. The sensors didn’t stop us however; Marko was very good at dealing with those.

  Moving from shadow to shadow and ducking around some crates and old vehicles that provided cover we moved in closer. Using hand signals I motioned Marko over into the cover of the Hanger nearer to the second sentry as I drew my knife and flattened up against the wall and waited for the first sentry to come around the corner.

  He didn’t know I was there until he felt my hand over his mouth quickly followed by my knife sliding into the base of his skull. Then he didn’t know anything at all. I pulled his dead body back deeper into the shadows and stashed it in a large trash container I’d seen. A minute later I joined Marko in the first hanger as he stashed the body of the other dead sentry in a barrel. We then went and opened all the fuel points and drains we could find on the four fighters in the hanger.

  Ten minutes later we were in the next hanger in the row doing the same thing, working as quickly as we could. There were ten hangers to cover, the last one however turned out to have two alert birds and their crews sitting in it.

  “Damn,” I whispered to Marko, “I didn’t expect this.”

  He nodded as we watched the group, there were six of them total, four crew and two techs. I heard the double click on my helmet radio.

  “Damn, transmission has started.” I knew it wouldn’t take long for them to zero in on our comm unit, so all hell would be breaking out soon enough.

  “Go take care of the truck,” I whispered to Marko as I pulled out a grenade, I’ll handle this.”

  “Okay,” he nodded and turned to trot back to where the truck was.

  “Hold up a sec,” I said and he stopped as I looked back at the two fighters, loaded down with missiles, an idea forming in my head.

  “Oh no, you’re not thinking what I think you are,” he whispered following my gaze.

  “Here, take my rifle,” I handed it to him, it’d never fit in a cockpit and I didn’t want to lose yet another one. “Now go!”

  I pulled the pin and waited. I heard the truck start up and start to drive down the line of hangers outside; inside no one seemed to pay any attention to it.

  A moment later the base alarm went off and everyone jumped up. I guessed they’d finally tracked down the signal. I tossed my grenade into the midst of them and hugged the floor as a moment later a loud explosion shook the room and debris flew everywhere.

  I shook my head to clear it and then looked over the wreckage of the flight room, two of the crew seemed to still be alive, the rest of them were dead. Using my pistol I shot them and headed over to the two fighters.

  Looking outside I could see Marko had made it down to the far end of the hangers, so I moved back inside pulled the chocks and climbed into one of the fighters and checked the controls. It was a standard setup as they were all Continental series mark twenty fighters. I was familiar with it and it started right up without a hitch.

  “Marko, light it off and find a good position!” I called on my helmet comm. They’d know we were here in a second anyway, so radio silence wasn’t important anymore.

  I taxied the jet out of the hanger and the base really started to come to life now, Marko had lit the fuel and the fire was spreading rapidly into the hangers. I kept taxiing faster away from the flames as I strapped myself in. I drove down past several troops running the opposite way; they probably thought I was one of the flight crew trying to save the plane from the fire.

  I hit the right brake as I came to the building I wanted and slewed the fighter around ninety degrees on the ground, then hit both brakes bringing me to a stop. And there it was, a hundred yards away, with its guards, sentries, and big heavy doors. The command center.

  I smiled and launched the first missile, then a second, then a third, then a fourth. Missiles spent I triggered the gattling gun and held it until it ran out. As the smoke from the four missiles and their explosions cleared I could see the doors where gone, and a good deal of the building was destroyed. I knew however that those things usually went deep, so odds are the people down below weren’t dead yet.

  By now I was starting to take fire from some of the soldiers running around outside, my canopy was beginning to star from the bullet impacts. I locked the front wheel to straight ahead, ran the throttles up to full afterburner, and as the plane started to lurch forward against the brakes I pulled the ejection seat.

  I heard a loud explosion as I was kicked hard in the butt and launched up out of the plane, going a good two hundred feet into the air as the seat deployed its parachute. I was in the air for maybe another second as the chute opened and grabbed air giving me another hard jerk and then the seat hit the roof of a building and tumbled over spilling me out of it as the straps released. I rolled to the edge and grabbed for my pistol when the sky was lit up with another explosion. Peeking over the edge I saw the jet had crashed through the doors and I guess the fuel tanks ruptured and then the hot engine exhaust had torched it all off. Nothing of the building was left above ground and a large hole burned as jet fuel ran down into it.

  “You okay Sir?” I heard Marko call on my comm.

  “Yeah, but I think I’m pinned down up here.”

  “Head back towards the hangers Sir, Hess and I will try to support.”

  I turned and crawled across the roof, getting to the edge as the first of the hangers blew up. Looking down I saw two soldiers beneath me who had turned to look at the explosion. Shooting them, I then swung over the side and dropped down to the ground where they lay. Borrowing a rifle I continued to head back towards the explosions that were coming every few seconds now, the bright flashes giving me dark shadows to hide in as everyone’s night sight was ruined.

  Hess and Marko had taken up good sniping positions by this point, and were covering my retreat while telling me the best way to run at each turn. When the four shuttles with their rockets blew it killed everyone in a hundred yard radius, and knocked me flat even though I was well over two hundred yards back and behind a building.

  I got up
before anyone else did and continued on, my ears ringing. The explosion had thrown burning material everywhere, I was having to dodge around large pieces of burning debris and ragged chunks of smoking metal, the fire was spreading all over. Everyone at this point was either stunned or so busy trying to control the fire that I managed to get away without too many more people interfering. Of course Hess and Marko’s shooting helped significantly with that as well. Another ten minutes and I joined up with Hess and Marko and we started our retreat.

  “You’re slipping sir,” Hess laughed.

  “How’s that?” I asked as we made our way out past the perimeter fence, we’d run into very little opposition on the way out.

  “You didn’t get shot once!”

  “Maybe I’m just getting better at this,” I grunted and we made off into the remaining darkness.

  The assault started at sunrise, which was a good twenty four hours sooner than any of us had been told to expect. We ended up being ordered back to edge the enemy installation to provide ground observer information for the strike forces on the defenses. It took them two days to pacify the base and the nearby town; our little escapade had helped soften the local defenses by destroying most of their aircraft. They started landing troops on the third day and set up the invasion force beachhead. From that point on we were split up and each assigned to work as scouts for different elements of the Infantry Company that had landed using our personal knowledge of the area to guide them.

  The troops however were not from Tri-Star, they where instead from one of the corporations that had allied itself with Tri-Star in the war so far, Hudson-Trinity. I protested the assignment at first, but the radioed response from the Lieutenant brooked no argument. So I had to do something that I’d never done before in my entire life, deal with people from another corporation, and do it all by myself as well.

  “Greetings Warrant Rakir,” said the wolf Major as I saluted reporting in. “I’m Major Schrende, this is Captain Rust who’ll you’ll be working with,” I saluted the Captain, who was also a wolf and had rust colored fur. Crèche workers sometimes did things like that to people when they named us.