Responding to his memory, Reaver whispered. “For I am the baddest motherfucker in the valley.”
The squad found spare space in a back room on the ground floor of the former apartment building. Once most of his squad had bedded down using their helmets or arms as pillows, Reaver returned to the front room of the building, which had been converted into the communications control hub, Space Case on his heels. The rest of the first and second floor were devoted to planning and operations management while the rooms of the remaining three floors had been claimed by different officers and senior non-commissioned officers. The non-commissioned officer in charge was an Army staff sergeant, who handed Reaver and Space Case each a fresh cup of coffee as the Recon squad leader stepped up to the tactical display table.
“Appreciate it. Can you give me a rundown on the situation in the city?” Reaver asked before taking a drink from the cup. Leading his squad to beard the lion in its den, he wanted every advantage he could find.
“Don’t mention it,” the staff sergeant replied as he twisted controls and centered the tactical map on Craxus and set it to zooming in, the top-down three-dimensional rendition of the city constantly updated from scout reports and overflights by Hawks and Eagles. “Heard your team was the one that took out the artillery in the harbor. Good work on that one; you tossed a serious wrench in their gears pulling that off. Marines landed a couple Companies over there an hour or so after those tubes went up, just in time to intercept a large Renk force. Was close a few times but the Marines held ‘em off. Apparently, that route had been a main supply line through the city, and we took it away from them.”
The NCOIC re-oriented the map away from the harbor and closer to the city center, highlighting three primary operating bases and then a string of reconnaissance outposts forming a chain across the city. “We’ve been pushing the Renks out, block by block. They push back, but they are stretched thin across the planet. Their last point of strength in the city is the northeastern sector. That’s where we think you’ll find that lieutenant they snatched up; it’s the right area for where those screams were coming from, and it’s the only place we can’t get a strong handle on. Fuckers in there are good and know their shit.” The staff sergeant paused and looked at Reaver.
Reaver’s eyes scanned over the display, drinking in the details and mapping routes in his head. They had a layout of the target sector, but no hard intel to go on. He glanced toward Space Case, whose hands were twitching like he wanted to run the controls himself. Turning his head, Reaver caught the Army sergeant’s look and nodded. “Thanks. I appreciate the dump.” Pushing back from where he was leaning, Reaver finished his coffee and set the cup down on the edge of the table. Cups were luxuries in the field, and he wasn’t going to make off with this one. He turned to head back to his squad.
“Hey Recon,” the staff sergeant said, stopping Reaver. “Bring the LT home. Nobody deserves what that kid is going through.” The sergeant’s eyes were tight as they locked on the tactical display.
Reaver paused. “Renks do.” With that, he walked out of the communications center and down the hall to the room where his squad had bedded down.
Space Case stayed behind to do his version of magic, sleep optional when information could be hunted out. If he found anything mission important, Space would have time to share during the long walk in. Reaver, as the decision-maker, needed to rest.
Chapter Fifteen
He had been the second-to-last of the squad to find a piece of real estate in the back room to rack out, but Reaver still woke up first, having told his body to get only a couple hours rest. As he opened his eyes, his initial view was of the ceiling, cracked and peeling paint creating nonsensical designs. He sat up and the dragon scales lining his combat shirt flexed with his movements. A slight grunt escaping his lips as the scales pushed against areas still tender from surgery. He took a moment to roll his head; the relieving pop of pressure giving way echoed around the room. He knew it had been significantly loud when Harlequin quipped, without opening his eyes, "Sure you didn't break something with that one?"
Reaver snorted in his half-chuckle way. “Even if I had, I wouldn't be complaining. Felt good." Standing up, Reaver reached down and snagged his helmet, which he had been using as a pillow, and moved toward the room's sole door. He tapped Bull's foot with the side of his boot as he passed, and when the squad leader cracked his eyes to look at him, he explained, "Everyone up and out in ten, clock's ticking."
Bull nodded in response and Reaver continued out of the room, heading for the communications center for a final check on any new information. Especially if Space Case had left requests for specific information, which he had.
Exactly ten minutes later, the entire squad had reconvened in the front room of the command building. Reaver pulled a couple of hardcopies of images the overflights had sent down for the squad to get a lay of the land they would be working in and used them to dial in the wireframe display. The northeastern sector of the city had become a maze of demolished buildings and twisted ruins; much of the demolition had taken place in the last three days as Renk forces sought to stave off the Allied advance into their remaining stronghold within the city.
Space Case verified the pattern he asked one of the flights to focus on, and he pointed it out to the rest of the squad. “The demo patterns are circular, like the ripples in a pond. Track the ripples back, and we find their point of origination. From intel reports, that’s a common Blades’ tactic."
Harlequin, busy tracing the circular pattern of the explosions and demolitions as he muttered to himself, circled a portion of the sector with his finger that had seen almost no damage or fighting, and dead center on the area where the most recent patrol had heard screams. "Brings us here."
Titan had been eyeing the maze of streets and debris. “Gonna be a helluva time getting in there without them seeing us. If this ain't conscripts or clones, for damn sure they’re gonna have trip alarms and traps set on any route in."
Reaver took the time to look each member of his squad in the eyes before he spoke. “Then we take our time getting in, grab the LT, and didi mao the fuck home. This isn't a suicide run, and we aren't avenging anyone. In and out. Clear?"
He directed his words at Space Case, who had a haunted gleam in his eyes, a mixture of slow-boiling anger and resignation. It was a mix that could make someone do something stupid at the worst moment with little to no warning, even if he could focus while in a command center. The squad would keep an eye on their fellow Marine to ensure he kept his head in the game; if Reaver had had a choice, Space would stay here, but they were understrength and he couldn't sacrifice the manpower.
Finally, Space Case nodded his head, and the haunted look in his eyes took a backseat to the determined gaze of a Recon Marine ready to do his job. How much of it was Space Case’s natural acting ability, Reaver couldn’t be sure.
Reaver gathered up the hardcopies and folded them up to be slid into a zippered pouch on the inside left of the combat vest, designed specifically for documents and maps. Pulling his helmet onto his head and securing it into place, the remainder of Dragon Two following suit, Reaver led his squad from their briefing area to the exit from the square that ran off between buildings toward the northern sectors of the city. As they passed the guard shack, Reaver tapped the sergeant on duty. “Six going out," and waited as each member of his squad passed until he was the only one left.
As he passed, the sergeant of the guard clicked his radio mic and transmitted to higher. “Six outside the wire."
Drawing power from the magnetic field generated by the human body, the Marines’ identity tags would log the time they had left and would send a secure transmission to monitoring stations to inform the higher-ups within Recon that Dragon Two had entered bad-guy land.
Reaver and his squad had only about an hour until the sun had completely set, and they wanted to use that time to get into position on the outer edge of the enemy-controlled sector. Then, they would use
the cover of night to begin infiltrating the enemy's established perimeter. The tricky portion would be clearing a path into the center of the sector without alerting opposing forces that they were in the area, so that they could use the clear path back out once they had secured their package. If they had to fight their way out on the back end, life would get very interesting.
Reaver set Space Case on point with Alice as his guide; working together, the pair kept the squad to back alleys and side streets as much as possible to avoid sightings from enemy patrols. The route the Marines picked through the maze of the city's ruins logged itself into the data cores of their personal mapping systems and could be recalled at any moment to assist in determining their location within the city or navigating their way back to the outpost. For now, the route was generally straightforward; the twists and turns would come later, and the self-navigating feature of the system could serve as an incredible boon to the entire team.
Space tried to keep them to the most direct route to the sector’s outer edge, but even then, the pace he set had been slow and methodical. As the sun dipped into the western ocean and the shadows had long begun to grow within the city depths, the Recon squad halted outside the first twisted wreckage marking the outermost edge of the Renks’ demolition efforts. Space Case led them into the cover of the ruins of a once proud structure. Reaver directed them into a three-hundred and sixty-degree security and then drew a half-moon across his face and ear with his finger starting at his nose then passing his eye on its way to his ear.
Each Marine pushed their senses out into the silence. The fires had long since died out, and the rich scents of fresh charred wood had been replaced with the stale stench of ash and slagged metal. Beneath the straining groans of twisted graphsteel beams, their ears stretched, listening for the tell-tale shifting of boots not their own through rock dust and across graphcrete streets.
Reaver slid his visor up and swept his eyes side to side. Technology was great, but it could fail, so he and the rest of his Marines put their peripheral vision to use searching for movement in the darkness. Only after he had seen nothing in his sector, and no one else in the squad reported anything, did he slide his visor back down into place and activate the night-vision mode. The whole process took nearly a full hundred and eighty seconds, but by the end of it, he was well and truly sure their position was secure.
Reaver signaled for Bull, Alice, and Space Case to grab some chow; the members of Bravo team pulled meal bars from their thigh pouch and rapidly set to eating while the other three maintained overwatch. When the first three had completed their meal and returned the empty packaging to a waste pocket within the thigh pouch, they took over security overwatch, allowing the other half of the squad to quickly down a meal.
Less than ten minutes after they had arrived in the ruins, Reaver motioned for Harlequin to take point and Titan to walk the pace; Bull would cover the rear with Alice and Space Case between him and Reaver. Reaver would have preferred they make their way through the buildings using holes and passages already blown into the structures of the buildings but finding the right combination of mouse-holes to use could get tricky and was time-consuming. Time was not an ally on this mission and, in many ways, was actively working against them, so the direct route it was.
Here, the mostly random destruction within the city became more deliberate. Reaver could see how entire structures had been brought down to cut off streets and create chokepoints, in preparation for the larger assault the Renks must believe was coming. The scrambling sound of debris and dirt scratching across the road pulled Reaver’s attention to the head of the column where Harlequin had lost his footing and nearly slid into one of the many craters blown in the roadway. The craters were uniform in depth and smooth around the edges; had to be shaped charges. Reaver would have used the same technique to prevent an armored force from utilizing the roads as a reliable means of transit, and something bothered Reaver about the pattern of the craters. That’s what it was; the pattern was similar to the shape taught in Recon school. Where would the Renks have picked up that trick?
Harlequin spotted the first tripwire, a similar setup to the one Bard had discovered, and he was careful in his scanning of the area before moving forward to disarm the wasp grenade waiting in a nearby hidey-hole. Reaver had the young sniper pass along what signs he had seen to lead to the trap to the rest of the squad in rushed soft exchanges through the internal-net, then rotated him back while Titan took point, and Alice walked pace.
The setting and arming of the traps had been hasty, and Reaver bet it had been done to cover a vast area in a short amount of time. Most of the traps seemed to have been in place for days, a fine layer of dust having settled over the explosives and triggers and, in many cases, hiding them better than the initial camouflage job. After the fourth wasp grenade was lifted from its hidey-hole and pocketed by a member of the squad, Reaver waved off repurposing any more explosives. Simply disarming the traps hindering their path took up enough time; cutting the wires would have to suffice.
Reaver was on point when he signaled the halt. With their numbers so low, the squad needed everyone to rotate through the point position, just to keep everyone’s eyes fresh and prevent burnout. Nearly two hours had passed since their meal stop, and they were near the interior of the Renks’ stronghold inside Craxus. The enemy forces had systematically dropped buildings across streets and collapsed structures, creating an effect like the walls used to ring the cities of frontier worlds to stave off raiders and predators. As the Recon squad worked deeper into enemy territory, the pathways to move further into the core had become fewer and more heavily patrolled. Enemy patrols were obstacles to be avoided at this juncture, and with any obstacle that you couldn’t go around or through, you had to find a way over it.
Reaver swept his gaze across the buildings around them. He needed one that Titan or Bull could free-scale with relative ease. Settling on one that appeared not only sturdy but also had an exterior façade that would make climbing easier, Reaver waved Titan and Bull forward to his position. Pointing at the two Marines, Reaver mimed climbing hand over hand, then patted the pouch carrying his climbing ladder. Each of his squad carried one, in the same spot as their squad leader, so Bull or Titan would have one when they got to the top of the building to drop down for the rest of the squad to make the ascent. Once they both gave him a thumbs-up, Reaver held up a hand with his fingers splayed, telling them they had five seconds to decide who was going up.
Bull and Titan looked at one another, and nearly simultaneously they dropped their right fist into the palm of their left hand. Their fists bounced three times, synchronized, and then on the fourth bounce made their sign with their right hand. Bull threw rock and Titan threw scissors; Bull pointed at his fellow Marine and then up the building, a smirk creasing his face. Titan’s response was to flip Bull off and roll out his shoulders in preparation for the climb. Reaver spread the rest of the squad out, along the base of the building, as Titan began his ascent.
The scuff of boots scraping across stone and a grunted curse pulled Reaver’s eyes upward. Titan hung about halfway up the building’s façade and dangled by his fingertips. He must have slipped a foothold. Reaver held his breath as he watched his Marine scramble to regain his footing, trying to will Titan to stay on the wall. It only took a few seconds, which seemed like minutes, for Titan to secure his footing and resume his climb. Releasing the breath he had been holding, Reaver let his eyes fall back to check on the remaining members of the squad, and motion from the corner of the building where Alice had posted herself drew his attention.
Chapter Sixteen
Alice cursed to herself as she heard the commotion behind her; a glance showed her Titan’s predicament, while the heavy bootstep of a single sentry echoed from the alley between the building she was pressed against and the next one over. The footfalls moved closer, coming to investigate the odd sounds in an abandoned city street. Alice listened closely for an accompanying step to tell her the
soldier had backup, and when she heard none, she said a silent ‘Thank you,’ for small mercies.
Letting her rifle hang from its sling points, Alice reached across her body and wrapped her hand around the solid composite handle of her K-bar; a sharp downward tug silently freed the blade from its sheath. Moving toward the corner of the building, she braced herself and waited.
When the Renk came around the corner and smacked into Alice, the surprise had been entirely on his part; colliding with a Corporate Alliance Marine where there wasn’t supposed to be one made his lack of response easy to understand. For Alice, there was no hesitation. The enemy’s surprise was short-lived as the female Recon snapped her non-firing hand around and behind the back of his neck to pull him closer, while in a smooth upward thrust plunged her knife into his throat and buried it to the hilt at such an angle that the blade punched through the brain. Any warning the Renk soldier may have sounded was silenced before it could even become a thought. The last thing the soldier saw was the anonymous dark visor of the Marine as his vision darkened.
Guiding the body to the ground, Alice slid her knife free of the Renk’s throat and swiped the blade clean on his uniform before returning it to its sheath. With Bull’s assistance, the body got dumped through a smashed window of the building Titan was currently climbing. Alice resumed her watch at the building’s corner, her rifle once more in her hands, and a minor crisis averted. The blood on her hands would be an easy clean when they got back to base.
A cough from overhead signaled to Reaver that Titan had made the rooftop and confirmed it was clear. He couldn’t hear the scraping, but Reaver knew Titan would be securing the hooks at the top of the ladder over the edge of the roof before letting the coils unravel down the front of the building.
Dragon Two-Zero (Fury's Fire Book 1) Page 20