by Tom Hart
According to Tony the mercenaries were also rounding up captured Australian soldiers and herding them onto the cruise ships. This included all reservists on leave. The Chinese had a database with the names and addresses of every member of the Australian Defence Force who lived in Perth. Tony did not know where they were going to be taken.
Sarah loaded her groceries in her car and followed Tony's ute out of the city as they had agreed. She parked next to a battered old caravan where a group of casually dressed but muscular men were standing around talking. There was no mistaking the special forces look. Tony made the introductions. The men shook Sarah's hand. ‘Sarah is our liaison under Protocol 9.’ The men nodded, Protocol 9 formed part or every SAS member's training.
Sarah got straight to the point. ‘Our orders are to transit to Darwin and join the remnants of Norforce.’ Norforce were the small but elite Northern watch who patrolled Australia's Northern wilderness. Highly trained in jungle and urban warfare Norforce was the only Australian Army unit to avoid being captured or destroyed in the opening days of the invasion.
Made up of less than three-hundred men it was comprised mostly of indigenous Australians whose expert knowledge of the bush and tracking made Norforce a ghost force which attacked then melted away into the jungle. Their leader Colonel Bill Donovan had been one of Tony's instructors at the Royal Military College when he was an Officer Cadet. Donovan was a legend even then. If anyone was going to give the Chinese grief it would be Donovan.
Sarah consulted her notebook before continuing. ‘Norforce has been joined by a company of US marines who refused orders to ship out and decided to stay and join the fight. They kept a pair of Abrams tanks with them and shot up a squadron of Chinese T-72s before they were destroyed. The tank crews and marines escaped into the jungle and were rescued from a pursuing Chinese battalion by Norforce.’
‘Good old yanks,’ a Trooper said to a cheer.
Sarah allowed herself a small smile. ‘The decision has been made by the acting chief of the Australian Defence Force, Brigadier Wilson, that Perth’s geography makes it an unsuitable location to stage an effective resistance. He believes there is a better chance of hurting the Chinese in Darwin where the majority of Chinese transports and leadership elements are based. The surrounding jungle makes it hard for the Chinese to respond. We will be travelling as a group of bikers.’
This resulted in a few raised eyebrows. ‘My organisation,’ she didn't say ASIO out loud but the SAS men knew it, ‘has contacts in a Perth outlawed motorcycle gang. These bikers can be trusted. They are agents like me.’
More raised eyebrows this time. ‘So ASIO uses bikers now?’ a smart alec Trooper called out.
‘Most outlawed motorcycle gang members are ASIO agents,’ Sarah said flatly. The grin on the Trooper's face evaporated when he realised Sarah was serious.
When Tony, Sarah and the men arrived at the Reaper's clubhouse they were met by Mark, the Sergeant at Arms. Mark had more tattoos than even the most inked member of the SAS troop. Mark was surprisingly well spoken, which Sarah explained was because Mark didn't need to be in character around the SAS men.
Tony was shocked but also excited to be handed a large steel box by Mark which contained a set of advanced night vision goggles and a Mark IV Prometheus surveillance drone. The Prometheus drone was one of the most sophisticated light drones on the market. With its 4.2 million dollar price tag, even the SAS weren't equipped with them. Its optics were superb, ultra HD across three independently mounted cameras, capable of night operations and equipped with whisper quiet twin rotors. Tony had been told a Prometheus drone could hover three metres behind a person without being detected. Mark confirmed this to be true with a demonstration.
‘She's the quietest drone we have ever had, longest battery life too, you and your boys should get a solid nine hours out of her. She can range up to eighty kilometres from the control unit too.’
Tony was impressed. He was even more impressed when Mark gave him a duffel bag full of tightly wrapped $50 and $100 notes. There's three-hundred thousand dollars in here. It should allow you boys to stay off the grid for a while.
‘You sure you should be giving this up?’ Tony said with a grin.
‘The paperwork's a pain,’ Mark said. ‘ASIO policy says I'm supposed to ask you for receipts for when you spend it but given we got invaded I think I can ignore that requirement.’
One of the Troopers standing next to Tony saw the cash. ‘Beer money sir?’
‘Nah Fitzgerald,’ Tony said. ‘It's to cover the cost of your hair gel.’
The Troopers around Tony laughed. Fitzgerald's hair was always slick and in the latest style. He said the ladies liked it but his mates told him he just looked stupid.
The clubhouse bikes were ready to go. ‘Look after our babies for us,’ Mark said waving them off. Tony had ridden bikes all his life but never a machine as nice as this one. Sarah rode alongside him on a mean looking Harley, her hair streaming behind. She looked hot in her leather pants and jacket. Tony shook his head to distract himself. He needed to stay focused.
The traffic stayed well away from the bikes. Many motorists looked frightened as they pulled off the road to allow the bikes to pass. They managed eight hundred kilometres on the first day. Tony's backside ached, he had not done a long ride for years. Sarah noticed him walking funny. ‘Bit stiff, looks like you SAS boys have become soft getting carted around everywhere in helicopters.’
Tony laughed then cringed as the laughing sent a jolt of pain down his abdomen.
They refuelled the bikes at a hidden SAS fuel cache. One of the reasons Sarah had originally suggested the bikes was because she suspected the Chinese would start seizing fuel stations and rationing fuel soon. The bikes were a less fuel dependent option, more mobile and easily hidden. Tony was impressed. Most ASIO agents he had met were more of the deskbound type. Not this girl.
The next three days of riding were uneventful. On the fourth day they came across a lone white tour bus much like the type Matthews had seen at the base of the 13th. It had the same tour company markings and the way it rode low told Tony it was carrying one hell of a load. Much heavier than tourist luggage. Chinese heavy weapons? The bikers casually overtook the bus. The windows were tinted so Tony could not see inside. The driver was Asian though.
Tony's troop set up a roadblock ten kilometres ahead of the bus. They lay a motorcycle on its side and poured some fuel on the ground and ignited it. One of the Troopers pretended to be injured and lay still on the roadside.
The rest of the troop hid their bikes in the bush and arranged themselves in ambush positions. The bus came to a stop one hundred metres from the bike. The driver got out. He walked cautiously up to the Trooper. The driver was wearing a red shirt and white shorts with the logo of the tour company stencilled on it. That might have passed for normal if he wasn't wearing Chinese combat infantryman boots and carrying a pistol in his belt.
From his vantage point Tony could see two Chinese soldiers crouched in the stairwell of the bus with their AK-47s at the ready. Tony’s signal to fire was when he shot one of them in the head with his Steyr.
The SAS Trooper feigning injury twisted and shot the bus driver in the face before diving into a ditch on the side of the road. An SAS crew with a light machine gun opened up and ripped hundreds of holes in the soft skinned side of the bus. A Trooper crouched and ran up to the still open bus door and lobbed two hand grenades inside. They went off with an enormous boom and ripped a jagged hole in the roof of the bus. Only three Chinese soldiers managed to make it out of the bus. Tony's men promptly gunned them down.
Tony had noticed Sarah firing her little Uzi machine pistol into the bus. She looked sexy in her black leather while firing the gun in short controlled bursts. She caught him looking at her and smiled.
Trooper Sanders walked up to Tony. ‘Twenty nine dead Chinese infantrymen. No casualties on our side.’
‘Good, any intel of value?’ Tony asked.
; ‘A few maps with the Pine Gap region highlighted. No other documents. A good load of weapons though.’
‘What did they have?’
‘Two anti-tank rockets, two shoulder mounted Dragon-fly anti-air missile pods and a 12.2 mm heavy machine gun.’
‘Good, take what you can fit in the two bikie vans and include the Dragonflies they might come in handy.’
‘Yes sir,’ Sanders said and hurried off.
‘Not bad Captain,’ Sarah said to Tony.
‘If you ever get tired of ASIO, there's a spot for you in the SAS if you want it,’ Tony replied.
Sarah laughed. A soft bright laugh. Tony liked her laugh. ‘I'm afraid I don't look good in army fatigues,’ she said.
‘I can't imagine you looking bad in anything you wear,’ Tony said. He immediately regretted it.
‘They warned me about you Captain,’ Sarah grinned. ‘Your file said you were a flirt.’
‘What file?’ Tony asked worried.
But Sarah had started walking away. She turned, glancing over her shoulder before winking at him. Tony felt his cheeks grow warm. He paced off towards Maloney. He needed the distraction. Sarah was getting in his head.
Maloney was arranging items collected from the dead Chinese soldiers into a pile. ‘I see your new mission involves trying to get into the ASIO agent's pants.’
Tony went to protest but Maloney gave him his drill instructor look. ‘Don't even think about lying to me boy.’ Few would get away with calling an Officer boy but Maloney was Maloney. Tony nodded in defeat.
‘What have we got?’ Tony said trying to change the subject.
Maloney smiled to himself and pointed. ‘These reds were a heavy weapon's platoon, 202nd regiment, 14th combined arms Division. They are basically Chinese air force ground defence troops.
‘Where were they heading?’
‘Laverton?’
‘What's out there?’
‘Nothing,’ Maloney answered. ‘Just a disused Qantas airways emergency runway from the 1970s.’
‘An air defence platoon heading to an abandoned runway in the middle of the desert? Sounds suspect to me.’
‘We looked up the maps and it’s a four-thousand metre runway, second largest in Australia,’ Maloney said smiling.
‘Okay spit it out Sergeant,’ Tony said.
‘I think they intend to bring their S-9 transports across. That runway is about all that could take them over here.’
Tony whistled. The S-9 aircraft were huge. Monstrous six engine beasts capable of carrying five main battle tanks a piece or three-hundred fully laden infantry. Tony looked thoughtfully at the wreckage of the bus. ‘Well, it seems to me there is a vacancy for some Chinese troops at that runway. Do you think they would mind if we took over as the official welcoming committee for their S-9s?’
Maloney grunted his agreement. ‘I doubt these beggars could say much to stop us,’ he said glancing down at the body of a Chinese soldier.
‘Let's saddle up,’ Tony called to his men.
They reached the runway at the end of the next day. It was deserted but in surprisingly good condition. All the lights still worked after they got a dusty old diesel generator going.
The runway was huge. It was built on a low ridge and the engineers who built it had done an exceptional job with the drainage system. So much so only a handful of weeds had broken through the heavy bitumen of the tarmac.
Maloney used the captured Chinese radio to send a message to Chinese headquarters in Perth to confirm the fake Chinese Platoon had secured the runway and were in position to receive aircraft.
Maloney did such a fine job he received a very pleased acknowledgement from a Chinese Captain. Maloney was told to expect the first transport at 1900.
Tony and his men crouched in wait as the enormous transport taxied to the end of the runway before coming to a stop on pad with a giant white number 1. The six turbofan engines span down and the cargo ramp descended. It struck the bitumen with a loud thud. A Chinese Major strode down the ramp, his hand held over his eyes to shield them from the harsh sunlight. The Major looked around confused. Where was the Chinese platoon he had been told to expect?
The bullet struck the Major in the right eye. The lead SAS assault team sprang from their hiding place in the tall dry grass and sprinted up the ramp. It was all over in less than a minute.
Maloney and five Troopers dragged the bodies of forty-eight Chinese off the aircraft and buried them in a nearby drainage ditch. The remainder of the SAS troop started unloading the aircraft. The task of unloading the transport was made easier by two mini-forklifts stowed near the ramp. Crates of tank munitions for the five T-72 tanks strapped down in the S-9's belly were the first items to be unloaded. Next were a pair of Chinese army jeeps. One of Tony's Corporals had served in the 1st armoured regiment before joining the SAS so knew how to drive a tank. He gave four other troopers a crash course on tank basics and the five tanks were unloaded within the hour. Tony's men loaded the tanks to the hilt with extra ammunition, fuel and rations recovered from the S-9.
The second S-9 arrived four hours later. As it came into land an SAS trooper fired a single Chinese Dragonfly heat seeking missile. The missile shattered the starboard engine mount. The pilots of the S-9 tried desperately to guide their stricken aircraft down for an emergency landing but they lacked the necessary altitude to recover. The S-9 hit the ground three hundred metres short of the runway and exploded in a giant fireball.
‘Let's move out,’ Tony spoke into his tank headset. Five T-72 tanks and one Chinese command jeep left the runway heading towards the highway ten miles away.
Tony had deliberately left the remaining jeep parked next to the first S-9. The bodies of two Chinese soldiers had also been propped up in the jeep. The runway had been sown with mines with explosives on timers designed to coincide with the arrival of the third S-9.
Despite the wreckage of the second S-9 being visible to the third S-9, it continued its approach. The pilots could see one S-9 was parked safely on the tarmac with a Chinese command jeep nestled in next to it. Besides their S-9 lacked the fuel to divert anyway. It landed safely and came to a stop where the crew of the S-9 on the ground had helpfully marked as a designated parking bay. The crew were half-way through unloading the first tank when the explosives detonated.
Tony heard the explosion despite being twenty-five kilometres away. He smiled and adjusted his padded tanker's cap. He was enjoying being a tank commander. He and his little detachment were going to run amok. ‘Alright boys let's get some more runs on the board.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
THE UNION
The Union Ambassador was back at the palace. This was the second time this week. He wanted an urgent meeting to discuss the detention of a Union freighter on Proxima Twelve. Scarlett rolled her eyes as her personal secretary informed her of the request. Some aspects of government were far from glamorous. Like dealing with taxation and customs. Her father had appointed her in charge of such affairs. ‘A Queen needs to know everything there is to know about trade my darling.’
She knew her father was right but the Union Ambassador was such a bore. ‘Tell him I am available in one hour.’
Her secretary bowed. ‘Yes majesty.’
Scarlett spent the next half an hour reviewing the material sent from her various agents and spies throughout the spiral. That was another thing her father had taught her. ‘It's not the largest empire that wins Scarlett, but the one with the largest network of spies and saboteurs. You only need one spark to light the powder keg.’
One report caught her attention. A sighting of the President of the Shadow Weavers in the Magnus System. ‘What are you doing all the way out there Mr President?’ Scarlett whispered quietly. The Magnus Cooperative was a pitiful collection of fifteen tiny planets of agrarian specialists and their families whose only export was cattle. Scarlett examined the picture. Was he truly three-thousand years old as many claimed? He looked so young, handsome even. At three-th
ousand he was by far the oldest leader vying for supremacy in the Spiral. Scarlett's father was only nine-hundred. If he was truly three-thousand years old he would have the tell-tale purple eyes of a long term Triglesium user but his were still a deep brown like the rest of the population.
‘The Ambassador is waiting in the conference wing Majesty,’ her secretary whispered in her ear. Scarlett screwed her face up in a most un Royal manner.
‘Ambassador how delightful to see you,’ she lied.
‘Your Majesty, the pleasure is all mine.’ The Union Ambassador added a flourish to his bow. If only the Union and Confederacy were at war right now, Scarlett could have the dreadful man assassinated on the spot. Too much to wish for she thought as he began to drone on about the injustice of the freighter having to pay excise when some old treaty said it wasn't required. Scarlett tried to look attentive. It was no wonder the two empires had been at war on and off for most of their history.
Perhaps Scarlett would be ruler when it was time for the next conflict, something more than a border skirmish would be good. The Vofurion Confederacy, led by her father the King controlled the most space, had the largest navy and was the wealthiest this time around. The Vofurion Union remained the most technologically advanced, had the largest population and while the Duchess hated to admit it was more accomplished in the arts. But her spies assured her the Union still lacked the military capability of the Confederacy.
The Ambassador was looking at her as if expecting an answer. She had drifted off. ‘I see, that is most troubling, please continue,’ she said quickly. That seemed to be what the Ambassador wanted to hear. He began to speak about the Shadow Weavers. That got her attention. One thing the Union and the Confederacy had in common was their mutual hatred of the Shadow Weavers.