by Daniel Gibbs
“Might be nice if you asked your superior officer before telling everyone what we will be doing, Cal,” David groused, using Calvin’s nickname to ensure it came across as a joke.
“All joking aside, I want to put a round into the head of a man who’s willing to shoot women from cover,” Calvin replied, his voice testy.
A mark appeared on the HUD inside of David’s helmet, showing the general location of the hidden shooter. “That’s a bit of selective outrage, don’t you think? We use snipers to great effect too. Or is it that they’re all women?” David asked as they moved forward through the smoke toward the building indicated.
“Hey, I’m old school. Never set right with me to see women get killed.”
David thudded to a stop, peering quickly around a corner to see the building in range. “Me either. One of the realities of war, though.”
“Well, look who’s all grown up and sounding like a soldier,” Calvin said sarcastically.
“Coast clear… You got a drone on you? We can use the infrared mode to sniff him out.”
“Why’s it got to be a him? Could be another woman.” Calvin pulled a tiny box off his belt that contained a miniature drone that was the size of a fly. He opened up the case, and the drone instantly synched up with his armor suit, providing telemetry data and a visual feed. Using a small handheld control, he expertly maneuvered the drone and began to scan the windows for the sniper.
David looked down the scope of his battle rifle, manually scanning each window for any apparent signs like an open shade, but the going was slow.
“Gotcha, jerk,” Calvin muttered. “Third window from the left, top floor.”
David shifted his aim up and quickly found the indicated window. “Got a target. Tango with long rifle perched in the window. That’s our sniper.”
There were sounds of a magazine being ejected from Calvin’s battle rifle, which caused David to glance over. “Changing bullet types?”
“Yeah. AP rounds make a nice hole in the helmet armor.”
“Doesn’t exactly line up with non-lethal means.”
“I’m not wasting a perfectly good shot on some BS non-lethal bullet. This guy is going down hard.”
David shrugged; he didn’t care enough to argue. In truth, the Monrovian deserved whatever was coming his way. “No movement on the target.”
“This one’s mine, Colonel,” Calvin said, dropping to a prone position and taking aim. “Adios, mother…” He didn’t finish the curse and squeezed the trigger.
David watched the soldier jerk through his scope as the bullet hit him in the direct center of his head.
“Nice shot. Since when don’t you cuss like a proverbial sailor?”
“Since we’re around a bunch of nuns. Seems…wrong somehow.”
David snickered quietly. “So that’s what I need to do to clean up your act…put a nun in the wardroom.”
“I’d get over it eventually,”
David keyed his comm to Kaufman’s channel. “Sister Kaufman, the enemy sniper has been neutralized.”
“Thank you, Colonel,” Kaufman said.
As the two men covered the front of the building, the rest of the nuns came running through the smoke. David watched as they leapfrogged from cover to cover and fired into most of the windows and openings, though there were no visible targets. He realized this would serve to suppress the enemy force, and there was little danger of long-term harm to civilians thanks to the use of stun rounds. Perhaps they’re onto something with this non-lethal force bit.
Kaufman trotted up to the dumpster that David and Calvin had taken up position behind. “Thank you, gentlemen. I do detest snipers.”
“Any time, Sister,” Calvin said in his self-assured Marine voice.
“Orders?” David asked.
“We’re going to press forward to pin down the remaining guards in their barracks and ask them to surrender.”
“How about we just call in an airstrike on them and go home?” Calvin asked.
Kaufman ended up rolling her eyes. “Stubborn as an ox, Colonel.”
David laughed. “Just tell us where to be.”
“I’d like you two to provide security for the medics that are coming up behind us now; get into each of these bunkhouses and help as many people as we can.”
“With respect, Sister, I’m a lot better at shooting things than administering first aid and passing out food,” Calvin retorted with his trademark grin.
“Demood… I don’t want you to forget what kind of ammo you’re using again accidentally. Best way to do that is to handle the rest of this op our way and have you take care of rear security,” Kaufman responded in a direct tone of voice that belied her annoyance.
“Are you kidding me?” Calvin said, his face turning red. “That guy was picking you off one by one. TCMC would have simply leveled the building. That’s how you treat hostile forces.”
David put his hand on Calvin’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s their op. We do it their way. Those were the terms we agreed to. Regardless if you or I agree, the sisters place a great deal of importance on the sanctity of human life. Now let’s provide overwatch as she asked.”
Calvin came to attention. “Yes, sir.”
“Thank you, Colonel Cohen. And, Demood… thanks for tagging that sniper. This is a hard row to hoe sometimes, especially when I see my friends get wounded or killed.”
Calvin nodded begrudgingly. “No problem.”
David took Calvin by the arm, and they walked off to meet up with the swarm of medics that were entering from a recently landed shuttle. As they did, David heard a sonic boom. A voice he didn’t recognize cut into the comm feed. “We have enemy aircraft closing on our position rapidly. Request assistance from any friendly air assets!”
To punctuate the warning, the ground rattled as an explosion rocked the camp, somewhere off to the right. While David didn’t see the actual strike, he saw the aftermath; a fireball and smoke curling up from it. It didn’t take either him or Calvin more than a second to reach the same conclusion; find cover as soon as possible. They took off at a run toward the nearest bunkhouse.
18
“This is David Cohen to any friendly air assets. We’re under attack by Monrovian bombers!”
Amir did a double take at hearing his friend’s voice. “This is Colonel Amir. Can you provide any further details?” He was in formation with five other fighters, having just successfully bombed an enemy airfield.
“We’re getting lit up by enemy air, Hassan! Are you anywhere in the vicinity?”
“They’re four minutes away from us, Colonel,” Arendse’s voice said through the commlink. “I’ve got a general distress call going out from the onsite sister militant. You got any air-to-air missiles left?”
“I have one LIDAR tracking missile remaining, as well as my neutron cannons,” Amir answered. “What about everyone else?”
“About the same. Several of us are Winchester except for the energy weapons.” Winchester was the code phrase for being out of munitions. “That’ll have to be enough. Christus Vincits, break to heading 165, stand by to engage hostile aircraft!”
Amir adjusted his heading as soon as Arendse spoke; he had planned to regardless of her orders. Leaving David and Calvin alone and without support isn’t happening on my watch. “Christus two acknowledged, steady on new heading 165.” The squadron had collectively decided to shorten their callsigns to Christus; the full name was simply too long for the chaos of combat. “Colonel Cohen, we’re on the way. Hold fast!” he said back to the channel David had broadcasted from; there was no reply.
“Colonel, I am thinking we fire our remaining missiles at long range, then push it up to max thrust and close in,” Arendse said on a private channel.
She’s getting confidence in tactics and her fighter; very good. “That’s exactly what I’d do, Sister,” Amir smiled inside of his flight helmet. “I believe we can scatter their formations, then pick them off one by one.”
“Sounds
like a plan to me, Colonel,” Arendse replied, mirth in her voice.
“Let’s make our first volley count,” Amir said, watching the range decrease rapidly with the blob of Monrovian bombers. “I show missile range in thirty seconds!” Allah, please protect my friends and the sisters from the enemy. The wait as his fighter closed to missile range went by in an agonizingly slow manner. It seemed like an eternity had gone by before the familiar tone of LIDAR missile lock sounded on the nearest bomber. “Christus two, Fox three!” Amir yelled, pressing the missile launch button.
The missile dropped free from the underside of Amir’s fighter, its rocket engine kicking on and it roared away at Mach ten toward its hapless target. A few seconds later, the rest of the fighters fired the few air-to-air missiles they had left; five in total. He also saw two surface launches from what he assumed were air defense systems the sisters had onsite. The Monrovians attempted to deploy Chaff and spoof the incoming weapons with ECM, but as before, their technology was utterly ineffective. All five launched missiles connected with their targets; wings blew off aircraft, engines exploded, and five out of twenty-eight bombers were destroyed.
“Christuses, break and engage!” Arendse said as her shout filled the comm channel.
Amir quickly discovered that his fighter was a lot faster than the enemy bombers, and in turn had to slow down by nearly six hundred kilometers per hour. It’s hard to fly this slow without stalling out in a modern space fighter, even when it’s optimized for atmospheric flight. Sliding in behind one of the lumbering bombers, Amir said, “Christus two, guns, guns, guns!” into his mic, even as his finger pulled the trigger. Several direct hits later, another Monrovian craft exploded. He pushed the throttle forward, which increased his forward speed and pressed his body back into the specialized pilot's chair from the G-forces.
The next target was the nearest bomber; Amir turned into its path and met it head on, firing his neutron cannons. Once again, the Monrovian craft exploded in mid-air, its debris raining down on the ground below. Pausing to view an overlay of the battlefield in his HUD, Amir saw they were getting the best of the bombers; now there were only nine left. As he turned toward what he hoped would be his next kill, the missile alarm sounded. No less than forty enemy fighters suddenly appeared on his sensors. His mind thrashed, determining that the only thing that made sense was they had been flying so low to the ground as to evade detection.
“Bandits! Bandits, one o’clock high,” Arendse said from the commlink. “Forty-two bandits confirmed! Christus, abandon pursuit of the bombers, form up into finger four formations and engage the enemy.”
Amir pulled up hard on his flight stick, fighting for altitude and vectoring himself toward Arendse’s fighter to provide her cover; two more friendly craft slid into position, and they roared off toward the enemy. Numerous enemy missile launches occurred, and Amir’s HUD went into overdrive, showing the plots. As before, they were almost all spoofed by the powerful ECM carried by the Phantoms, but the pilots they faced had to know that already.
“They’re heading straight into air combat maneuvering with us, Colonel,” Arendse said through the commlink on the private channel she kept open between the two of them.
“In other words, a dogfight, Sister,” Amir commented softly to himself. There was always a new buzzword or phrase, but pilots preferred the words from many hundreds of years ago. “If we only had missiles left, we could destroy them at decent ranges. Unfortunately, we need to engage them on their terms. If we don’t, they’ll be able to destroy our ground forces with impunity. I don’t care how bad their technology is, troops are sitting ducks against air assets. It’s been that way since the beginning of air combat.”
“We’ll take them, Colonel.”
“Good hunting, Sister,” Amir said, focusing on the incoming enemy, which now split into formations of three fighters each. Steeling himself, his finger stayed on the firing trigger for the neutron cannons as they made the first pass through the Monrovian formation. The speed at which the fighters were closing was so high that it made visual targeting nearly impossible. Amir opened fired as he ripped through the air in the hopes he’d hit something. The rest of the sisters did the same thing, and miraculously, they came out of it unscathed, with several hard kills to their credit.
Arendse’s fighter rolled to the right, tracking a group of three Monrovian craft, and Amir stayed close behind her. He found himself impressed by her natural flying ability; even with limited hours in the Phantom, she was dogfighting like an expert. While she lined up her shot, Amir lined up his, sliding in behind an enemy craft despite its best efforts to throw him off. “Christus two, guns, guns, guns!” Amir called while pulling down the firing trigger. His reward was with another kill.
“Christus one, splash one bandit!” Arendse said as she downed the fighter she was engaging.
The dogfight had degenerated into a tail chase that pilots referred to as a “furball.” Typically, not something CDF pilots had to deal with, as in space most kills occurred as a result of missile hits. This was a challenging battle space for Amir to navigate, especially in the atmosphere where he couldn’t flip his craft around using relative speed and fire on pursuers. Three Monrovians settled into his six, and as Amir was the fighter to the extreme left of the formation, he had no wingman. As his early warning system detected energy weapon fire, he began a series of maneuvers called “the scissors.” Slowing his speed by climbing, he caused the three enemies to overshoot him, and they immediately started a dive, gathering airspeed.
Lining up the shot as the nearest fighter crossed into his forward cone, Amir quickly obtained a hard lock and fired his neutron cannons. Blue fire lashed out from his fighter and reduced another enemy to debris. Thanks to a poor angle taken by the attackers, Amir was able to slide to his right and engage the second fighter, in the same manner, quickly destroying it as well.
The third, though, was made from slightly sterner stuff. Its pilot whipped around in a counter scissors move, and Amir matched him turn for turn. The superiority of the Phantom in thrust-to-weight ratio coupled with its advanced G-force protection for the pilot allowed him to perform incredibly tight turns that would cause a pilot to black out in a less capable craft.
It took five interlocking scissors maneuvers, but he finally lined up the opposing fighter and held the trigger down, sending blue bolts of neutron cannon fire into the fuselage of the Monrovian fighter, which exploded in midair.
Straightening out after the tight-turning fight, Amir realized a split second too late that he had lost situational awareness when incoming fire from a fourth enemy fighter impacted his right wing. The master alarm sounded, and his controls became sluggish. As the enemy craft lined up for the kill, it suddenly exploded.
“Watch your six out here, Colonel,” Arendse said as she flew above the debris cloud. “Not bad shooting, though.”
A sigh left Amir as he contemplated that just a few seconds before, he was inevitably going to die. “Allu Akbar, Sister!”
“That he is, Colonel. Can you still fly?”
“It will take a few minutes for the auto-repair systems of the Phantom to repair my avionics, but yes, I’m still flight and combat capable.”
“Form on me, then. The rest of the bandits appear to be disengaging; we’re going to provide combat air patrol while our ground forces finish mop-up operations.”
“Roger that, Sister,” Amir said, gently nudging his fighter along and not overtaxing the damaged wing. Taking a moment to review the common tactical picture in his HUD, he noted with satisfaction that they had downed three-quarters of the enemy fighters. He hoped that David and Cavin were having similar success far below them on the ground.
David surveyed the mostly smoking ruins of the concentration camp they had just liberated. Fires still burned in several buildings, and a sea of former prisoners were lined up in the main yard being attended to by nuns with medical training. Calvin walked up to him, the visor on his helmet flipped up. “Colon
el, you okay?”
David nodded, making eye contact. “Yes, a bit rattled, but okay.”
“You fleet guys don’t get down to the ground enough,” Calvin observed.
“Something like that.”
“There’s something you need to see,” Calvin said gruffly.
“Lead the way.”
With Calvin out in front, the two of them made their way across the camp, walking through destroyed buildings. Propaganda posters were hung everywhere, promising a better life if the inhabitants accepted science and reason. “These guys lay it on thick, don’t they?” David said as he climbed over some rubble.
“Heh, yeah. That’s one way of putting it.”
It took fifteen minutes to reach their destination: a field outside of the camp that held a giant burn pit. Just beyond that area, David could see earth-moving equipment lined up. As he made his way around the bulldozers and backhoes, he discovered a large trench dug in the firm red clay. The stench hit him first, causing nausea and retching inside of him that threatened to make him vomit on the spot. As he peered down into the trench, the cause of the smell was clear; hundreds of bodies littered the ground where they had been tossed… women, children, men, young and old. All shapes, sizes, and colors were represented.
David stood speechless, tears running down his face at the sight.
“Yeah… me too, Colonel,” Calvin said. “I couldn’t believe it at first. I’ve seen so many things, but this is worse than even the League gulags I’ve been a part of liberating.”
David’s mind was full of anger. Someone has to pay. “Where’s the commanding officer of this camp?”
“The sisters have the prisoners rounded up in one of the bunkhouses.”
“Show me.”
Nothing else was said as the two men trudged once again across the camp. David was lost in a private thought process that shifted from sheer rage to despair that he hadn’t known sooner, blaming himself for not being able to help. Arriving at one of the intact bunkhouses, he noticed it had several armed guards stationed at both entrances.