Rebellion

by Edward M. Grant

  “Halt,” Desoto yelled. The claws of his suit’s feet scrabbled in the dirt as he slowed, then stopped. Logan stopped on the far side of the road, a few metres back. He crouched down near the treeline, and swung his rifle as he stared into the woods, his eyes searching for approaching insurgents.

  Nothing visible, and nothing on infrared, either.

  The truck’s tracks clunked and the motor hissed as it stopped a hundred metres behind them.

  Desoto took a slow step forward.

  “Desoto, report,” Bairamov said.

  “I’ve got something under the road, sir. Metallic, about a metre across, hard to tell any more than that.”

  Logan glanced that way for a second. A red oval on his HUD showed the object Desoto’s suit had detected. His own suit’s sensors showed nothing that way, but he was more than ten metres from the object, and the ground-penetrating radar wouldn’t normally read that far.

  “Desoto, back away,” Bairamov said. “McCoy, hit it with the grenade launcher. I don’t like sitting around out here with a stationary truck.”

  Logan backed away and unslung the launcher as Desoto took slow steps back toward the truck. Logan selected HEDP grenades, aimed at the spot Desoto had flagged, and fired one.

  Then flinched as the ground erupted into a ten-metre-tall cloud of dirt and debris.

  The cloud spread above the road as it fell back toward the ground, and dirt, stones and chunks of shrapnel tapped on the skin of Logan’s suit. Then it was gone, leaving just a five-metre wide crater in the road where the IED had been.

  The truck was built to protect the crew against radiation, and the hull might, perhaps, be tough enough for the men inside to survive an explosion like that. But it wouldn’t have been going anywhere in a hurry afterwards. If ever.

  “Good find, Desoto,” Bairamov said. “Move on, and keep your eyes open. Truck, move up slow. Let’s get out of here.”

  Logan switched back to his rifle, and swung it toward the woods as Desoto jogged onward. Then he followed, keeping a safe distance between them, and staying far over on his side of the road. The truck’s tracks clunked behind them as it began to move again.

  CHAPTER 19

  Another hour, with another IED buried in the road, and yet another hidden at the treeline. Both spotted early by Logan and Desoto’s suits, and detonated before they could damage the truck or Legionnaires. If the Compagnie had been equipped with suits with as many sensors as the Legion’s, they’d have had no problem getting the trucks along this road so far.

  Logan jogged on along the dirt road, as he had for what seemed like eternity. The road they were following was slowly rising toward the grey, snow-capped mountains at the end of the valley.

  The land on the right of the road had dropped away until it was now just a narrow strip of bushes and trees that ended at a dark cliff falling thirty metres or more to the river at the bottom of the valley. The woods on the left had thinned out over the last hour and a half as they climbed out of the valley, as the road rose away from the river, and the water that kept the plants alive. The trees were now thinner and shorter, with fewer leaves. That meant less cover for insurgent attacks, but the rocky hillside above them partially made up for it.

  “They’re just fucking with us,” Desoto said. “If no-one’s been up this road for months, they probably buried a few IEDs before they found somewhere else to go and take potshots at the Compagnie.”

  “You can complain to Poulin when we get back,” Bairamov said. “But, if you don’t keep your eyes open, you’re not going to get back. And Volkov will give me shit if I lose another man. So stay focused. We’re almost there.”

  The map on Logan’s HUD showed the twisting road ahead rising into the hills until it reached the mine. At the rate they were moving, it was still half an hour away.

  Probably more, if the truck continued to slow every time the gradient of the road increased as it climbed toward the mountains. They were lucky the trailers were empty going in this direction, because it surely wouldn’t be climbing the hill fast with tons of ore piled in them. But, only a kilometre or two ahead, was the village of Saint Jean.

  On the map, it looked to be balanced precariously on the side of the cliff. Logan could barely see it up the hill, not so much by the dirt-covered buildings as the glittering waterfall where the stream that ran through the village tumbled over the edge of the cliff and broke into a spray of water droplets as it fell toward the river.

  The suit’s external mikes could just make out the crash of the water smashing into the rocks at the edge of the cliff, the hissing as it poured down through the air, and the splashes as it joined the river down below them.

  The village grew clearer as they jogged closer.

  The buildings were almost the same colour as the dirt around them, but the blue sunlight reflected from the windows in the side walls. But no-one was moving in the streets, and no smoke rose from the chimneys in the curved roofs.

  The fields beyond them, which must have been rough at the best of times in this poor soil, were little but a mass of knee-high grass and scraggly Earth trees whose branches had twisted into shapes he’d never seen back home. They curved and wrapped around each other as though the radiation had turned them into cannibal monsters devouring each others’ flesh.

  An antenna rose a few metres above the roof of one of the buildings. Probably the village comms centre. But Alice wasn’t picking up any signal from it. At least, none she could decipher.

  “Sir,” he said, “the village looks deserted. Like no-one’s been there for some time. Months, maybe.”

  “Halt,” Bairamov said.

  The truck wobbled on its shock absorbers as it came to a halt with the trailers twisting slightly in the dirt behind it. The Compagnie men stared out warily, with their rifles ready.

  Desoto jogged to a rock at the side of the road, and crouched behind it. Logan dropped prone in the dirt, then studied the village through his rifle sight.

  From the road, he could see little of the village. The road ahead followed the curve of the cliff around to the left, with only a metre or two of grass and bushes on the right. One screwup by the driver, and the truck would be tumbling down into the valley.

  The rounded sides of the dirt-covered buildings were lined up in a single row along the side of the road furthest from the cliff. Beyond them, a wooden bridge constructed from thick tree trunks was laid across the river. It barely looked strong enough to hold the truck, but it must have supported plenty of ore trailers over the years.

  “No-one’s answering from the village or mine,” Bairamov said. “Comms have been getting worse the further we go into the mountains. Even the relay in the drone can’t reach anyone any more.”

  The longer Logan studied the village, the more the sight made his skin crawl.

  No-one had been here in quite some time. The insurgents could have had their run of the area, if they wanted to. This could be another Petit Tolouse, for all they knew.

  At least he couldn’t see any heads on spikes.

  So far.

  “It’s a trap, sir. It’s got to be.”

  “There’s no way for the truck to drive around the village on the cliff side. We either roll straight through, or head up the hill to put enough distance between us and the village to be safe.”

  “Do you think the truck can do that?” Gallo said.

  “I’d rather it got stuck than roll over an IED.”

  Logan tilted one of the drone’s cameras for a moment, using it to follow the stream up the hillside. The water twisted and turned between the rocks on the hill as it tumbled down from the mountains. The stream was at least a couple of metres across, and dropped through a series of rapids on the way.

  “I don’t see any way over that stream, aside from the bridge. Can the truck ford it?”

  Bairamov was silent for a moment. “Driver says the truck could, but not the trailers.”

  “So, who wants to bet there’s an IED under the brid
ge?” Desoto said. “We can’t blow that one up. And they know that.”

  Bairamov didn’t respond for a while.

  “We’ve got a job to do. Every minute the truck is stationary out here is another minute it makes a great target. The Legion is gonna get up this damn road, or die trying. Otherwise, Poulin will be pissed.”

  The faint buzzing of the drone faded as the motor slowed and it descended, then the buzzing grew louder again as it moved ahead of them, scouting out the village. Logan scanned the hillside for insurgents, then brought up the drone’s cameras on his HUD.

  The village looked as empty from the drone’s point of view as it did from his. More so, in fact. The door of the building with the antenna was swinging gently from side to side in the wind as though no-one could be bothered to close it.

  “Desoto, McCoy, move up,” Bairamov said.

  Desoto glanced at Logan, then pushed away from the rock, and jogged up the road toward the village. He dropped prone in the dirt a few seconds later.

  Logan pushed himself to his feet and followed, then dove to the ground again, raising a thin cloud of dust around him as the front of his suit slammed into the dirt.

  Desoto moved on, crossing another ten metres at a run as Logan covered him, until he went prone right at the edge of the village. Logan stared into the village and fields again for any sign of movement.

  Aside from the swinging door, there was nothing.

  He pushed himself to his feet, and jogged toward the village, going prone again just before the first building. He sure wasn’t going to get close enough to the walls to get blown up. The drone moved ahead of him, only about a hundred metres up.

  A red square appeared on his HUD, around the bridge. “There is something under the bridge,” Bairamov said. “Can’t see much detail from the drone, but it doesn’t look good.”

  Desoto moved up until he’d passed the building at the edge of the village. Logan glanced at the drone footage on his HUD. There was something boxy in the shadows beneath the bridge.

  Wrapped in cables, or ropes... or wires.

  The bridge itself was a mass of logs tied together with ropes. What they were seeing there could be just more logs tied to the bridge to support the weight of the trucks passing over it.

  Or it could be a bomb.

  Desoto stared along the street through his rifle sight. “What do we do now, sir?”

  “McCoy, take a look. Desoto, cover him.”

  Sweat was running down Logan’s forehead as the rushing blood in his veins warmed his body faster than the suit could cool it.

  He took a deep breath, then another. Then pushed himself to his feet. He jogged into the village, passing Desoto before he went prone on the road between the first two houses.

  He glanced toward the dirt pile on the roof. It didn’t look like anyone had dug into it recently to plant a bomb. But who could really tell?

  “Alice, scan this place.”

  “No contacts. No threats.”

  “Alice, scan it again.”

  “No contacts. No threats.”

  If Alice’s numerous sensors couldn’t see anyone, what chance did his eyes have? He jumped to his feet and ran along the alley between the houses to the weed-strewn back yards, which were barely distinguishable from the tall grass of the overgrown fields beyond. Bones lay in the dirt of the yards; chickens, he’d guess, from the size.

  And it was hard to mistake the pig’s skull at the end of a long, mangled spine with thick ribs. The planks around the pig pen were cracked and bent as though the animal had smashed them apart with its own weight.

  Then died soon after.

  If the people had decided to move out of the village, would they really have left their animals behind? If the insurgents had cleared the village out, why didn’t they take them? They could at least have cooked the pigs and chickens and had a good meal.

  Whatever had happened here, it made no sense so far.

  Logan climbed to his feet, jumped over the log fence around the yard, then sprinted across the gap between this house and the next. He jumped over the next fence, and dove into the dirt behind the next house. Still nothing on the suit sensors.

  He took half a dozen deep breaths, then jumped over the next fence, and jogged through the yards until he reached the bank of the stream. He slammed down on his chest again a few metres from the back wall of the house, safely away from any IED that might be there, or under the bridge.

  “What do you see, McCoy?” Bairamov said.

  There were another half-dozen buildings on the far side of the river. Logan swung his rifle along the row, but the sight view showed nothing except dirt piles, wooden frames, and wooden fences. And a kid’s tricycle lying on its side on the far side of the bridge.

  He peered below the bridge. Boxes were tied to the logs with ropes, for sure. And thin, brown wires connected them, and ran up into the logs. It looked a lot like a bomb.

  “Alice, scan the bridge.”

  The boxes glowed orange on the suit’s HUD. He was too far away for the suit’s sensors to give a definitive answer, but they were showing a 30% chance of being explosives.

  “We were right, sir. Looks like a bomb, and looks like it’s set to detonate if anything rolls over the bridge.”

  “Think you can defuse it?”

  He’d taken demolition training, but that was mostly about blowing things up, not defusing them.

  There were specialists for that, and they had drones to do the hard parts of the job, the ones that would get you killed. Pulling out detonators was easy enough... until you pulled out the one they’d booby-trapped to set the bomb off if removed.

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “Then you’d better find another way across the river. And do it before the insurgents find us.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Logan jogged from rock to rock as he followed the stream up into the hillside behind the village. He’d covered about three hundred metres so far, and that was about as far as he wanted to go on his own, even with the drone following for support.

  The stream was still too wide and deep to ford. Below the bridge, at the top of the cliff, the water was about five metres wide. Here, it was still at least four.

  He crouched beside the stream behind the cover of a two-metre tall rock, then leaned forward far enough to lower his suit’s arm into the water.

  The hand went in past his elbow, and his metal fingers still hadn’t found the bottom. That made it easily a metre deep. Much too deep for the truck’s trailers to roll though.

  With the suits, they could easily knock down some trees to build a bridge solid enough for it to cross, but, even with the nuclear-powered strength of the suits to help them, placing the logs and locking them down would take hours.

  “You hurrying, McCoy?” Bairamov said. “Because my ass is out in the wind down here, and the bastards could come to take a look at any moment.”

  “Only chance I see, sir, would be to push some rocks into the stream so the truck could roll across. But dragging them here would take an hour. Maybe more.”

  “Alright. Fall back to Desoto. I’ll try to raise the Lieutenant and see what we do from here.”

  “This is the kind of thing they should have thought about before they sent us here,” Desoto said. “They should have known to send a portable bridge with us.”

  “Tell that to Poulin next time you see her.”

  “Maybe you can ask her to come and defuse the bomb, sir.”

  Bairamov didn’t answer, but the drone’s motors buzzed louder, and it rose into the sky.

  Logan stood, and jogged back toward the village. The less time he was out on his own with no backup, the better.

  He pulled up the drone’s camera views on his HUD. It was creeping back toward the village as it climbed, and the area the cameras could see grew larger with every second as it rose higher. All he could see was an expanse of dirt, rocks and tall grass, with the occasional tree.

  And something
else. Something bright flashed further up the hillside, and a glowing dot raced across the image.

  Logan turned just in time to see a bright light trailing a thin stream of smoke rising into the sky from the rocks higher up the hill. Heading toward the dark dot of the drone.

  “SAM,” he yelled.

  He sprinted for the nearest rock, and dove behind it. He glanced back at the drone’s camera image on the HUD just in time to see it catch the nose of the missile as it approached the drone. Then the signal dropped out. A split second later, the boom of the exploding warhead reached Logan, as the drone disintegrated into a cloud of debris that glittered in the sunlight as it fell toward the village.

  “Contact,” Desoto yelled as rifles cracked.

  Logan leaned around the rock. Chips flew from it, thrown up by rifle fire from a rifleman lying prone in the grass a couple of hundred metres away. Logan pulled back fast, and looked up the hillside. A man was running downhill, heading toward the rocks beside the river. Logan swung his rifle that way, and fired a burst. The insurgent’s rifle tumbled through the air as blood spurted from his body, and he fell to the ground.

  Red squares appeared rapidly on his HUD as the others marked targets. At least a dozen men were moving over the hillside, and heading down it toward the truck, with their weapons held ready.

  Rifles cracked from below Logan on the hillside as the other Legionnaires began to fire. Some of the red squares stopped moving, around insurgents smart enough to take cover now they were taking fire themselves.

  Logan grabbed the grenade launcher from his back, selected HE grenades, and raised the muzzle high for indirect fire over the rock. The impact point showed as a circle on his HUD. The insurgents were smart enough not to group up enough for him to hit more than one with a grenade.

  He aimed at the nearest square, then twisted the launcher a few degrees ahead of them to allow for their movement, and fired a burst. The launcher boomed, and the grenades arced across the sky.