by Steve Hertig
Chapter 24
Plus: 22 Jan 2076
Jen looked around the Mountain's quiet OC; everyone was tense after the creation of the Sojourn. They all knew the Time Corps was accelerating their downline push, and Plus was now the backstop to the war.
She took a long drink of generic scotch. The bar was running low on essentials, and the best single malts had been the first to go. Her mind wandered to Jennifer. She had left for Minus with Tye soon after the cabin rendezvous and Jen felt her twin was keeping something from her and Jenny. She finished the last half of her scotch with a wince.
"Welcome back. Good stuff?" Major Timberin said seeing her grimace as he joined her at the bar.
"Fantastic," Jen said pushing the nearly empty bottle of whiskey the corporal had left her back across the bar.
West had ordered her into the mountains for two days of much-needed rest and she had missed the last few morning briefings. She knew they were all bracing themselves for what was coming. Resources were in short supply and trying to scrape up some humor was about all that she could do.
She knew pressure was building rapidly on the east and west Rocky Mountain fronts after the Appalachian defeat. The enemy now controlled all the US east of Nebraska, most of the western Seaboard and heavily infiltrated what was left of Denver as well as major cites to the south. Even reports of isolated pockets of resistance outside the Rockys ended weeks ago.
"Any more Tequila?" Timberin asked the private behind the bar who shook his head.
Jen's head cleared slightly knowing Cale well enough that tequila generally spelled optimism. "Good news?" she asked him.
"Maybe. We have a lead from the copy of Hudson's cloned pad. A relic from a recovered auto-deleted GPS app file."
"A location?" Jen asked.
"Seems like it. We're not so sure when or how far upline the coordinates could relate to."
"Why not here in Center?" Jen asked.
"The coordinates' are in the Tien Shan Mountains in the north part of the Taklamakan Desert of western China."
"And our new friends have checked it out, finding nothing," Jen said looking at her empty glass. She was surprised when the Chinese made contact shortly after the Sojourn requesting an alliance.
"And we believe them?" she asked.
"Not sure if we have a choice," Timberin said. "A full recon could take weeks to pull together even with Chinese support. And politically, I'm not certain if we could swing a redo of the Chinese recon."
"We're probably about to get slammed big time any day now," Jenny said, "and politics are still a consideration. Fuck that."
"We only have the Presidents TRs from upline anyway so there's just one location to check." Timberin said with a raised eyebrow.
Jen knew the sacrifice their only set of upline TRs represented. "I guess that means maybe the Chinese don't have an upline TR set after all." Jen said thoughtfully.
"Who knows? But the President wants your team to do the recon."
"My team? That's all we need bumbling around upline China."
"Command wants only two sets of boots on the ground," Timberin said. "I've begun to pull available support resources together, and I'll have your back from the op center."
"So who're the other boots?" Jen asked thinking the mission might not be a huge cluster fuck after all.
"Up to you."
Jen instantly knew whom she wanted. "When do we leave?"
"Two, maybe three days." Timberin replied.
"And how do we get to these mountains in very remote western China?"
"Now that's the fun part," Timberin said with a devilish grin.
Jen was doing her own walk around the VTOL. It was one of the Air Forces few remaining reconstructed CV-22Fs at Peterson. Somehow, most of its parts were sheltered from the nano attack; the rest, the Air Force had re-manufactured at great cost. And with extra wing and cabin fuel tanks, Elmendorf was in its range. The AN/APQ-T900 terrain-following radar would ensure a low, undetected flight along the Rockys to Anchorage, not that the enemy had much air support, but a single drone could be deadly.
"I think there's a nut loose over here," a voice said on the other side of the fuselage.
Jen leaned down to look under the fuselage to see a big grin on Carl Watkins face.
"Lieutenant, glad you could make it," Jen said as Carl walked around to her side of the aircraft. "Hope you got some time in on the range."
"Just back, Colonel."
"Not many left qualified on a 50 cal around here," Jen said noticing the rifle case he was carrying.
"It's a L115A3, .338 caliber."
"British made?"
"Yeah. A family heirloom I got over before the TRs shutdown. I've killed an elk at 1000 meters back in Prime. It's hard to find ammo though."
"Short stuff," she quipped. "Get your gear stowed; we're wheels up in less than an hour."
It was a long, rough flight following the spine of the Rockys at two hundred meters. After the pilot announced bingo, Jen nudged Carl from at least an hour-long snooze. She was impressed that he could sleep in the bouncing, cramped cabin.
"Sorry, Colonel," Carl said sleepily as a tattered issue of Guns and Ammo fell off his chest onto the floor.
"At least you could get some shut eye in this carnival ride," she said through a yawn. "Here's the long and short of the mission brief. First, we get to Elmendorf and hook up with the Chinese, who will ferry us to the Taklamakan Desert. They've got good cover identified a couple of kilometers from the coordinates where we'll transit upline for the recon."
Carl looked at the back of the cabin at the crates of equipment piled around auxiliary fuel tanks and remembered his Pelee transit. "The kit in all the black boxes?" he asked.
"There are EM shields and some experimental stuff from Higgs lab I thought could come in handy as well as the upline TR set. The rest is gear for the support team we're meeting in Alaska," she said looking out the window at the snowy, moonlit peaks.
Wheels down at Elmendorf were smooth and a relief. Disembarking the CV-22F, Jen recognized a Russian IL-90 tanker nearby, but it was the smaller aircraft under its left wing that caught her attention. She saw Carl staring at the small aircraft as well.
"What the hell is that?" Carl said.
"That must be the fun part," Jen replied as a sedan that had been parked by the tanker rolled to a stop next to where they were standing, "and this must be our guide."
The sedan's driver stepped out and quickly opened the passenger door. A thin, young Chinese man in a flight suit emerged and walked over to Jen.
"Colonel Scott, I am General Su Zhong," he said.
His English was perfect. In fact, Jen considered that he could easily be a New Yorker. He was young to be a general, but the war had taken a toll on older vets. It was probably the same or worse for the Chinese.
"General, good to meet you," Jen said. "This is Lieutenant Carl Watkins."
"Lieutenant," Zhong said as he shook Carl's hand.
"You from Queens, General?" Carl asked.
"Ah, a good eye for accents Lieutenant," Zhong said. "I grew up in Brooklyn, went to Pratt. I used to be an architect as well as a pilot until I returned for service after the invasion. You're from the western US, although I can't pin it down."
Carl grinned, and then said, "Colorado, up north near Lyons."
"God's country. And spring break ski trips," Zhong said with a sigh. "But now down to business. There're two ways to get to the Tien Shan Mountains, slow and low," he nodded to the Osprey and made a slow hand movement along the tarmac, "and high and fast." He nodded to the small aircraft attached to the tanker. "And as we've degenerated, more or less, into a conventional war, any LZ around the coordinates must be assumed to be hot. The enemy is protecting its flank, but not excessively. So we can drop in unexpected."
"Kind of hard to drop out though, General," Jen said thinking what a cowboy this kid from Brooklyn appeared to be.
"Don't worry, we have a cunning plan for extraction," Zhong sai
d with a grin. "But we must hurry. Previous transits have given us an optimum time window for our surveillance."
Jen realized the general just told her the Chinese had upline TRs after all. So then, why were Carl and she here? She sighed, knowing they were committed at this point and would have to see just where Zhong would take them.
"So this," Carl said pointing to the aircraft beneath the tanker's wing, "is how we drop in. But what is it?
Zhong walked over to the craft and rubbed one of its stubby wings. "The TIS-15, a multi-tactical insertion scramjet," Zhong said with obvious pride. "These three glide units will allow us a silent ingress," he added pointing to the smaller crafts surrounding the scramjet.
Jen stepped back to get a good look at the detachable gliders. It was obvious they employed stealth tech as indicated by the dull matte, angular surfaces.
"It'll do MACH seven," Zhong said.
Jen and Carl exchanged glances. Unfortunately, Jen was sure hers had 'Oh shit' written all over it while Carl's was all pleasure. She wondered how the aircraft had escaped the enemy's ubiquitous nano attack. Maybe the Chinese had a few sealed underground storage facilities, too.
"There's limited space for supplies so we'll be restricted to the essentials," Zhong said looking over the pile of gear crates that had been unloaded. "You mission packs should be okay."
"We're riding in that," Jen said looking at the large exhausts of the small aircraft, "the whole way?"
"After separation from the IL-90, flight time will be less than 30 minutes. The TIS-15's three integrated high-altitude glide units will get us on the ground, nice and quiet."
Jen looked at the squad of six support personnel who joined them from Elmendorf.
Zhong must have read her mind. "We have places on the IL-90 for the rest of your team," he said, "if you want them along until drop."
Jen looked at Watkins inspecting the scramjet in detail. "Not necessary General. It looks like it'll be just us."
Chinese techs helped them into pressure suits and then into their individual cockpits aboard the aircraft. Flight controls would be in General Zhong's hands; there was nothing to do until landing.
Jen's integrated glider was located over the TIS-15's stubby right wing and adjoining its fuselage. As she looked to her left, Zhong gave her a thumb up from his cockpit.
As the Tanker took off from Elmendorf, the tiny scramjet shook horribly in its cradle and then stabilized into a steady, rhythmic vibration. Jen found it hard to focus on any of the Chinese characters labeling various glowing dials and knobs around her.
Jen's sat-chron, a gift from Jenny back at the cabin, indicated forty minutes had elapsed since takeoff, and they must have crossed the terminator as darkness had now enveloped them.
"Separation in ten mikes," Zhong said.
"SITREP, Lieutenant," Jen said nervously.
"Still holding on," Carl said through a noisy com.
The view from Jen's compartment was limited to starry sky and the dim outline of the bottom, port nose of the tanker. She thought the sky was darker than before just minutes before.
"Separation in sixty seconds," Zhong said as the vibration turned to a full rattle.
Jen guessed it was a final acceleration to help reach a speed critical to ignite the scramjet.
"IL-90 separation," Zhong said calmly.
Then Jen could feel a constant and smooth acceleration pushing her into her seat.
"Confirming scramjet ignition," Zhong added.
Zhong reported each successive MACH until they reached a speed of MACH 7.2 and the TIS-15 settled into its cruising speed. It was a relief that the flight was now much smoother and the next twenty minutes past quickly.
Jen noted the altimeter reading had dropped to ten thousand meters, about the only dial in English as well as Chinese except for the ejection handle.
"TIS-15 separation- ten seconds," Zhong reported.
Jen finished the countdown to herself, and then an eerie stillness filled the cockpit as her stomach indicated she was in a free fall.
"SITREP, Lieutenant," she said.
Jen could now see Zhong's glider slot in front and left of hers as the detached TIS-15 banked hard left and disappeared aft.
"SITREP, Lieutenant," she repeated.
"Copy. Feeling like a scrabbled egg, and I'm guessing you're to starboard and Zhong's out front," Carl said.
"Rodger that," Jen said, her stomach confirming a steepening nose-down decent angle. Her eyes widened in the silence within the glider as their decent reached almost vertical. She felt the pressure suit tighten and hoped it was in response to the craft flaring for landing. The altimeter indicated they were still high above Tien Shan Mountains.
"Starting LZ approach," Zhong announced as they turned sharply in unison and headed out over the Taklamakan Desert.
Still dropping rapidly, they turned again and Jen could just make out the vast barren landscape of the desert in the lifting darkness below.
At one thousand meters, Zhong turned the formation on a heading straight to mountains. The altimeter showed a slowing decent corroborated by Jen's relieved stomach. Zhong tightened the formation as ghostly outlines of peaks streaked past at eye level both right and left. She realized they must have been heading through a pass.
"Brace for landing," Zhong announced just before the formation flared in harmony.
Jen felt only the slightest jolt and deceleration to indicate they were on the ground. Her cockpit hatch opened as the aircraft came to a stop and in time to see Carl's do the same. General Zhong was already climbing out of his glider. She surveyed the rugged peaks surrounding the narrow valley where the three craft now sat.
"Welcome to China," Zhong said removing his pressure suit's helmet. "It'll be full light soon; we need to get these gliders undercover for later retrieval."
They peeled off their pressure suits, stashed them in their cockpits, and then pushed each glider between nearby boulders.
Zhong quickly covered each with a simple dessert camo net. "The coordinates are on the plain just on the other side of this pass," he said. "We should be able to find a suitable upline ingress point in the hills overlooking them before first light. We've been lucky so far, no blips on the approach."
Jen hefted up a mission pack onto her back as Carl slung his rifle over his shoulder and followed Zhong down their improvised runway towards the pass.
Zhong regularly consulted a pad similar to theirs for any signs of the enemy as they worked their way through the pass. They only had to take cover twice during the two hours to reach the hills overlooking the Taklamakan Desert. Jenny was impressed that the Chinese must have high altitude or even sat surveillance support.
"Your choice of transit location, Colonel," Zhong said. "Recon made several recommendations, but I felt for security reasons you should determine the exact spot."
"Thanks General. We appreciate that," Carl said scanning the area to their left with binoculars.
"Yeah, good idea," Jenny added. Just like withholding the evac plan, if there is one, she thought.
"Looks like a cave or overhang five hundred meters east," Carl reported and pointing up a small gully to their left in the first dawn light.
Jen surveyed the area Carl had identified. "Looks good, but I guess we'll have to see what's waiting for us upline to be sure, we can always relocate if necessary."
"I can help with that," Zhong said and dug into his pack to remove a small case. He opened it to reveal a vehicle with a camera mounted on top and a remote controller. "This rover will reset your TRs and return almost instantly if there's trouble," he said.
Jen didn't like the idea of a bind transit, but hated the idea of their only upline TRs making transit without her, let alone with a Chinese toy.
"Let's check out your spot," she said to Carl.
By the time, they reached the overhang it was late morning.
"General, I suggest we set up one of our EM shields," Jen said unsatisfied with the concealment.<
br />
"It's your op; I'm just the taxi driver," he said.
They spent the next half hour arranging rocks for cover and installing the EM shield that would protect them from any heat and audio sensors as well as other stray EM emissions they might inadvertently produce. General Zhong placed several small monitors around their observation nest as Jen set the TRs up to one side.
"Ready for your recon transit, General," Jen said, "but I'm going, too."
She saw Carl start to protest, but cut it off with a quick look. "If there's trouble," Jen said, "the lieutenant will be in command."
"Very courageous," Zhong said with raised eyebrows as he lifted the small recon vehicle out of its case and set it before the TRs.
"I'll leave my mission pack here with you. I'll just take the hydration day pack," she told Carl, "When the buggy returns with the all clear, transit and bring my pack with you."
"Aye, Colonel," Carl said.
"The vehicle can recognize English commands," Zhong explained. "Just tell it to recon, hold or transit. In recon mode, its AI will take over and start various data capture sequences. There's also a voice recorder."
"If there is trouble, I'll send the thing back," Jen said.
"Ready?" Zhong asked.
"I'll go first," she said stepping in front of the recon device.
"Sorry Colonel, landing five to seven years hence would not be good. So, the rover must go first as it will interface with your TRs to set an optimal transit distance."
"Okay General," she said wondering just how advanced the Chinese TR tech was.
Zhong set the rover in front of the TRs and said, "Transit."
The rover inched forward and disappeared; Jen cursed as she followed the rover and vanished.
Plus 1: 12 Feb 2085
Jen instinctively fell to the ground, her senses assaulted by deafening explosions and brilliant flashes of light. It took her a few seconds to realize it was night.
"Recon," she commanded the vehicle as she withdrew another EM shield from a belt pouch while still prone. Once activated, the noise and flashes became more bearable. Peering out from beneath the overhang, she could barely discern the shape of a large building complex illuminated by what looked like vertical lightning flashes and a nearby, transport aircraft enveloped in flames. She then realized the complex, and much of the surrounding area was under attack by energy weapons from somewhere above.
The complex, blocky and windowless, was taking heavy bombardment from beams that mostly dissipated in spherical arcs above it. After watching the barrage for a few minutes, she could tell that explosions occurred only when several hits occurred at one place or the color of a beam changed slightly.
The barrage was focusing on the western end of the complex and had sliced open the largest block. She retrieved a small box from her belt. Opening it, she poured tens of metallic pellets, Higgs called them bugs, and a miniature sighting scope into her left hand. She tossed the pellets out into the desert air. Instantly, they sprouted wings and began to hover just beyond the overhang. Jen looked through the scope at the building currently under bombardment and gave the order for the bugs to recon the opening. They formed a swirling flock and raced to the complex as the barrage slackened.
Jen took a quick glance at her sat-chron for a time check. It was a null reading. She cursed at the lack of sat coverage as she pulled her pad out of the pack and initiated the app needed to feed video from the bugs. The screen would show noise until the bugs stabilized their composite video construct. She hoped the flock was too minuscule and dispersed to generate a definable EM signature.
The pad announced the feed was beginning just a beam lit the night sky over the shattered opening in the complex. The pad updated the current bug count as 40 percent. It took several long seconds for the feed to regenerate as quiet filled the desert.
The video showed debris filling a room directly under the blast opening. From the pad, Jen instructed the bugs to split into three flocks, enter the building, and set up separate feeds. They would focus on any movement they could detect. One flock showed several bodies by thermal imagery in the debris pile. Another flew to one corner and held station showing the remainder of the room empty. Jen pointed the last flock to the only internal doorway in the room and ordered them to execute a basic investigation routine.
On the other side of the door, the flock discovered a large illuminated space with an elevated platform in its center. They automatically took station in the farthest corner. She could see a closed door opposite the one the flock had entered.
Jen turned her attention to the only lead available, the feed on the dimming heat signatures in the debris pile. She instructed the covering flock to investigate. Several bugs left the flock flew into the pile between the debris to try to contact the heat signatures. She watched intently as the bugs crept through the tiny spaces between the rubble. As one bug neared its objective, the feed changed to its individual video. It crept up a clenched fist and then on to the sleeve of a dying man. There seemed to be a unit's patch just past the elbow, but it was impossible to read from the pad's screen. Just as she tapped it to use the holographic projector for a better look at the uniform, all the feeds failed at once.
Jen rolled on to her back to stare at the roof of the overhang.
"Command. Record audio. Situation stable. Lieutenant, come as soon as possible. Transit," she instructed the buggy. It rolled through the TRs, vanishing with them. Jen realized the usual momentary lag the TRs took to transit themselves never happened. Instead, it was instantaneous.
"Colonel?" Carl said tripping over his still prone CO with her mission pack in hand and followed by the rover.
"Ouch. And get down," she said rubbing her hip. "Hold," she added for the rover's benefit, but it still reversed off her and aligned itself with the TRs before coming to rest.
"Sorry," Carl said taking the night-sight, thermal imaging binoculars Jen handed him as he lay next to her.
Jen saw what had dug into her hip. It was a familiar looking knife hilt. "Check it out," she said pointing to the largely intact complex.
"We must be only two kicks, nice overlook," Carl said looking through the binoculars at the complex.
"Wasn't so nice a few minutes ago. Aerial bombardment with energy beams and is that my knife?"
"Energy beams? That must have been a nice transit," he said while studying the site below with one hand holding the binoculars and the other wrestling his pack off.
Jen heard the buggy's gears engage, but it was too late. It and the TRs were gone again. She tapped Carl's shoulder. "I think you just stranded us here when you said 'transit'."
Carl rose on his elbows to look over Jen where the TRs should have been. "Sorry. So much for Chinese AIs, huh?" he said returning his gaze to the complex.
"Zhong should return it," Jen said, "What's the situation downline?"
"A scanner blip, but I never saw anything," he said then checked that the KA-Bar was still secure in its new sheath. "And Jenny gave it to me."
Jen lost hers a few years ago in a downline recon gone disastrously bad. "You've earned her respect," she said earnestly. "Any idea on the complex?"
"Very blocky architecture."
Did all scientists need to state the obvious before getting to the point? Jen thought.
"It looks like concrete but the rubble pieces have conchoidal fractures. More like ceramic and we've got company." He handed her back the binoculars.
Jen focused on the opening in thermal mode. There were six orange figures, holding what looked like rifles, working their way across the rumble in front of the opening. She heard Carl push a clip into his rifle.
"Let's hope they don't head this way," he said, "and Zhong and I agreed the LZ here is the backup egress point, just in case."
"Where is the rover?" Jen asked and then cursed herself for trusting the Chinese.
"Damn," Carl groaned looking down his rifles' scope in night-sight mode, "they are heading this way."
"They must have back tracked the bugs somehow."
"Higgs pets? Now that's hard to believe."
"We've got more to worry about. Hear that?" Jen said turning to look west and at the pass. "There goes our escape route. There's some kind aircraft hovering at the entrance to the pass. We'd never make it."
"They're one thousand meters," Carl read from the scope's range finder and chambered a round with a smooth push of the bolt. "I can start shooting at anytime. They have limited cover at six hundred meters where I can take them all out, eventually. But it's our weird friend in the sky over there I'm worried about. There's a not even a window to shoot through."
"I agree," Jen said, "but we need to know what's going inside that complex."
Carl nudged her shoulder. "Orders?"
"When they reach six hundred meters, take out as many as you can while I provide a distraction. I'll try to make it into the complex." A direct assault covering two clicks with just a sidearm was her plan. She cursed to herself at its shear lunacy as Zhong appeared next to her and immediately stumbled, falling across both their legs.
"You guys call a taxi?" he asked.
"Good timing, General," Jen said tersely as they all scrambled to escape through the returned TRs.
Plus: 22 Jan 2076
"Sorry for the delay," Zhong said after they transited back under the overhang in Plus. "The recon rover returned with some fascinating data. Congratulations Colonel on finding what looks like a major enemy transit hub."
"Thanks General," Jen said knowing he had seen it all before. "We'd better bug out."
"Just what I was thinking," Zhong said and then spoke curtly in Chinese into his com.
Jen and Carl both instinctively took a step back when a six-rotor VTOL aircraft appeared, aft-end open, with its ramp resting on to the ledge.
"It was unfortunate this Fúdòng-7 was unavailable for our ingress," Zhong said while motioning to them to enter the aircraft.
They scrambled across the ramp with their gear, through a cargo area and into seats along one bulkhead.
Zhong explained they were to head east into the Chinese controlled zone as Jen, looking out the nearest window, saw the exterior of the aircraft disappear as the ramp closed.
"We have our Higgs, too." Zhong chuckled.