“As far as we can tell,” Joker added.
“Understood, Stalker,” Viper said. “Numbers?”
“Three living tangos,” I said. “If there are others ...”
Viper cut me off. “Remain in place; I say again, remain in place,” he said. “We’re moving to launch position now.”
I scowled as the connection broke, then peered down at the hillside. It wouldn't be easy to get down to the village from where we were, at least not without being seen. I looked for a prospective route that might give us at least some cover, but saw nothing. We’d have to sneak back the way we came, then around the village to have any hope at all of getting close without being detected.
“Fourth tango,” Joker whispered. “On the church roof.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Call it in.”
Joker did so, just as two more terrorists emerged from the schoolhouse. I hastily tried to estimate how many terrorists - and hostages - might be hidden in the building, but gave up when I realised it was impossible. Growing up in the Undercity had left me with a skewed idea of just how many people could be fitted into a tiny apartment and my first estimates had always been an order of magnitude too high. There were six terrorists now, not counting the one we’d killed. God alone knew if there were any others.
And my estimates for how many villagers there are might be off too, I thought, grimly. There can't be more than a hundred people in the village.
Actually, there were probably a great deal less. Most people in the Undercity were either sheep or wolves; the former would offer no resistance to terrorists, the latter would probably be dead by now, having flung themselves on their tormentors. But villagers on a colony world? They might well know how to use weapons, or have the nerve to defend themselves ... I contemplated what my life might have been like, if I’d grown up in such a place, then pushed the thought aside as the squad appeared at the edge of the village, moving forward in a careful manner. Something was nagging at my mind, but I wasn't sure what it was ... something worrying.
“Tangos one, two and three are still outside the schoolhouse,” I warned, keying my radio. “Tangos four and five are advancing towards our position; tango six is on top of the church.”
“They may be coming to relieve the moron we killed,” Joker muttered. “Or to check on him. He didn't have a visible radio, but that means nothing.”
I cursed under my breath. We’d been told a little about human augmentation, which ranged from implanted weapons to enhanced muscles and cyborg modifications that allowed humans to survive in space without protective garments. If a terrorist happened to have an implanted radio ... it wasn't something I would care to have, but it might come in handy, under the right circumstances. Or what if there had been some kind of signal the dead terrorist was meant to send that had been missed?
“Understood,” Viper said. “Remain in place, but avoid contact.”
Joker blinked. “Avoid contact?”
I shared his astonishment. If the terrorists came up the hillside, they’d stumble over us no matter what we did. There was no way we could both remain in place and avoid contact! My mouth dropped open as I realised, finally, what was bothering me about the advance. The squad wasn't moving forward organically; it was being directed, with Viper pulling the strings. He wasn’t leaving any room for the point men to take advantage of unexpected opportunities or to react to any surprises.
“They’ll be on us in minutes,” I said. If there had been just one terrorist, we might have jumped him, but two were depressingly even odds. “We need to leave or engage them as soon as they come closer.”
“Do not engage,” Viper ordered. Down below, the terrorists had started walking up the hillside. “When we engage ...”
It became academic before he could finish the sentence. Tango six had spotted the advancing squad and opened fire, alerting his comrades. I swore, then opened fire myself, picking off both tangos four and five. Tangos one and two had started to run towards the squad; tango three had jumped back into the schoolhouse. I knew it wouldn't be long before they started killing hostages, if they hadn't already.
“Take out six,” I ordered, sharply. Joker was a better shot that me, even though I hated to admit it. “Viper, Stalker; get in quickly, now!”
“Countermand,” Viper snapped. “We need to get all our people into the village!”
“This isn't the time for a fucking debate,” I snapped back. On paper, there was nothing wrong with what he was doing, but time had just run out! We needed to save the remainder of the hostages before it was too late. “Get the point men forward ...”
“Don’t argue with me,” Viper thundered. “Get ...”
He was drowned out by a sudden burst of shooting from one of the buildings. I swore out loud as the point men came under heavy fire. They hadn't taken the time to check for traps, even though they should have known to take precautions. Viper barked orders no one heeded as the advance came apart, Professor hurling a grenade into the building seconds before a burst of fire sent him tumbling to the ground. The shooting stopped, too late. A flash of light marked the destruction of the schoolhouse ...
“Exercise terminated,” Nordstrom said, over the communications network. It looked as though we weren't going to have a chance to exterminate the remaining terrorists, even though it would be pointless. “I say again, exercise terminated.”
“I’m going to fucking kill him,” Joker snarled, as he picked himself up. “What sort of stupid fucking idiot would come up with a half-assed plan like that?”
I found it hard to disagree as we walked back down the hillside and back to the RV point, where Viper was surrounded by a handful of angry-looking recruits. It reminded me of school, when one of the unpopular kids was lynched and beaten to death; Viper looked torn between defending himself and keeping his mouth firmly shut. If the Drill Instructors hadn't been there, I think the whole issue would have been settled through violence.
“That was one of the worst showings I have ever seen in my long career,” Nordstrom said, coldly. “Seven recruits killed, along with twenty-five hostages. A complete failure by any reasonable standard.”
I swallowed. We’d been told that accidents happened during hostage rescue missions and, sometimes, the hostages were killed by the people trying to save them. But this time, the terrorists had had a plan to kill all the hostages and, thanks to Viper, had been given time to hit the switch before it was too late. If it had happened in reality, I had a feeling there would be an inquest and possibly a court martial. Viper had screwed up badly ... and, as it wasn't the first time we’d gone through such an exercise, he hadn’t learned from earlier screw-ups.
“So tell me,” Nordstrom said. “What went wrong?”
He glowered at Viper, who paled. “This recruit’s plan didn’t work,” he said, slowly. At least he was willing to admit it had been his plan. “That’s what went wrong.”
“How true,” Nordstrom agreed. “And why didn't the plan work?”
“Because the enemy saw us coming,” Viper said.
“True, but very incomplete,” Nordstrom said. His voice was very cold. “You committed two separate cardinal sins, recruit. The first was that you assumed your enemy was stupid. The second was that you clung to the plan even when it fell apart.”
He paused, significantly. “Your plan wasn't a bad one, but it failed to take account of a sudden change in conditions. You intended to assault the schoolhouse from three different directions, after getting your people in place. However, the enemy had both spotters watching for your approach and a pre-prepared ambush. You discovered the former, thanks to your observers” - he nodded at Joker and me - “and yet you failed to adjust your plan. The latter could have been discovered with a more careful approach, giving you a chance to back off without alerting the enemy.”
“Stalker and Joker already killed a terrorist,” Viper protested.
“Which wasn't an immediate problem,” Nordstrom said. “You would have had tim
e to decide on a new approach before the terrorists realised they were missing someone.”
He paused, his expression darkening. “At that point, the whole idea was sinking fast. Your original plan was dead in the water. You could have ordered a rush at the schoolhouse, using grenades to clear the buildings as you rushed past them, if you had thought it wasn't worth the risk of backing off and finding a new angle of approach. Instead, you hesitated and kept following the plan until it was far too late. It cost you the mission and far too many lives.”
I swallowed. It hadn't been my fault, but I still felt as though I’d failed.
“These missions are never easy,” Nordstrom said. “We shall be doing it again and again, until you understand just how to balance planning and on-the-fly improvising. Do you understand me?”
“YES, SIR,” we bellowed.
“Good,” Nordstrom said. He made a show of checking his watch. “Seeing we still have another hour before chow, we might as well spend it on the training field. There are some exercises that will remind you, once again, of the value of teamwork ...”
“Perhaps he’s a plant,” Professor muttered, later that night. Our free hour wasn't, thanks to an order to go through everything that had gone wrong and work out how we could have done better. “They put him here deliberately to see how we react to him.”
“Or perhaps he needs a beating,” Thug suggested. It was odd how he and Professor had become friends, but they’d learned to rely on each other - and, of course, the rest of us. “He just got us killed!”
“Only in a simulation,” Posh pointed out.
“That didn't save me from being bawled out for accidentally shooting Smartass in the back,” Joker snapped. “We’re supposed to treat these as if they were real.”
“Maybe we should all complain,” Professor said. “It could be one of those tricks where we have to report someone.”
“Or be taken for snitches,” Thug growled. “If we’re supposed to be a team, and we are, how can we betray him?”
“There's a difference between betraying someone who works hard to be part of a team and someone who manifestly isn't interested,” Professor offered.
“Give it until the next set of exams,” I suggested. We’d been warned that the second set would be harder than the first. “If he doesn't improve, we can complain as a body.”
“Or have another word with him,” Thug said, cracking his knuckles. “I think this has gone far too far.”
Chapter Sixteen
Loyalty, of course, depends upon loyalty. A person who is not shown loyalty will not feel any great urge to offer it himself. This, of course, explains why so many institutions in the Empire were crumbling to dust; the best and brightest workers felt underappreciated, so they kept their ideas to themselves or sought better opportunities elsewhere. Ironically, the one place where loyalty was actually rewarded - the bureaucracy - was the one place where it was actively harmful ...
-Professor Leo Caesius
The written exams for the second phase were harder than the first, but - thanks to endless cramming - I didn't have many problems with them. But I was dreading - really dreading - the practical exam. It would be the hardest thing I’d ever done (at least until the next hardest thing I’d ever done came along.)
“All right, ladies,” Bainbridge said. “Pay attention, because I’m going to tell you this once and only once.”
He glowered at us all. “You will be taken up in an airplane and parachuted down to a location within Kirkwood,” he continued. Kirkwood was a vast wilderness to the north of Boot Camp, where we'd gone for survival training. “Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make your way through Kirkwood to the RV point. The good news is that you will have a standard emergency pack with you; the bad news is that a team of dedicated hunters will be after you. Should they catch you before you reach the RV point and safety, you will be taken to a POW camp and interrogated. They will do everything in their power to make you give up the piece of sensitive information” - he held up a set of folded envelopes - “that you will be carrying. I don’t think I need to add that you will fail if you tell them anything more than the basics.”
There was a long pause. I felt sick.
“You will be completely on your own from the moment you’re launched out of the plane,” he warned. “In the unlikely event of you stumbling across one of your comrades, you are not allowed to stay together. Give each other the finger and then move on or you will be counted as a failure. You will also be given a dedicated emergency transponder, just in case you run into trouble. Using it will mean another automatic failure unless you have a very good excuse. Any questions?”
“Yes, sir,” Professor said. “This recruit would like to know if there’s a reason we can’t stay together?”
“Because this is a solo test,” Bainbridge said. “If we had the time, each of you would be sent in completely alone. However, Kirkwood is large enough to minimise the odds of you running into each other accidentally. Any other questions?”
I frowned. Perhaps we could ... but it was a bad idea. They’d be tracking us through the implants, I was sure, and they’d know if we stayed together. And if we were being chased, two people would be easier to track than one.
Thug held up a hand. “This recruit would like to know how long we have to complete the exercise?”
“It shouldn't take more than a day for you to escape, unless you get lost,” Bainbridge said. “If you’re not back in two days, we might just start getting worried.”
There was an uncomfortable pause.
“The hunters will be dispatched from their base at the same moment you are booted out of the airplane,” Bainbridge warned, after it was clear that no one else had any questions. “You will, at best, have twenty minutes to make yourselves scarce before they arrive at your landing site and start hunting. I suggest you remember the basics and put some distance between yourself and the landing site before it’s too late.”
He took a breath. “The aircraft will depart in thirty minutes,” he concluded. “Be there or fail.”
“This should be fun,” Joker said, as he checked his survival pack. “I could stay ahead of them long enough to escape.”
I nodded, but I still felt sick. Countless hours of survival training hadn't made me feel much better about walking through the countryside, even though I’d grown up trying to slip through dark corridors where gangsters could easily be lurking, waiting for me. The jungle that made up much of Kirkwood was terrifying, on a very primal level. Joker, who’d had much more experience of open spaces, didn't seem so scared.
“See you on the far side,” I said. My survival pack, as per orders, held a small collection of ration bars, a bottle of water and a map and compass. It was lucky my map-reading skills had improved or I would have been in deep shit. “Have a good one.”
“You too, mate,” Joker said. We headed for the plane, silently preparing ourselves for the ordeal to come. “You too.”
Bainbridge greeted us when we reached the plane. “This is your piece of information,” he ordered, passing us each an envelope. “Open it, read it, then give it back to me.”
I glanced at the envelope, then opened it carefully. Inside, there was a single sheet of paper, with a single line of text. THE PEN OF MY AUNT IS IN THE GARDEN. I blinked in astonishment - I’d expected something different, perhaps information on military operations - but it did make a certain kind of sense. The nonsensical phase was easy to remember and, naturally, hard to forget. I shivered, again, as I recalled the training I’d been given on resisting interrogation. Did they know what they were trying to get me to say? Or were they merely planning to interrogate me until I coughed up the truth?
“That’s funny,” Joker said. “Why ...?”
“That piece of information is yours and yours alone,” Bainbridge said, curtly. “Do not share it with anyone else.”
“Yes, sir,” I said. I put the paper back in the envelope, then passed it to him. The p
en of my aunt was in the garden. I wouldn’t forget. “When do we leave?”
He gave me an evil look. “Now.”
The skies were darkening rapidly as the pilot took the plane into the air, the airframe shuddering so much I was sure we were going to have a real accident. Humans had learned a great deal about terraforming since Mars had been colonised over two thousand years ago - it wasn't uncommon for Mars-like worlds to be terraformed within a century - but Mars still had ghastly storms that sprang up from time to time. I had an unfortunate feeling it was going to start raining badly and, as long as it happened after I landed, that was fine by me. Visibility would be down to almost nothing, giving me more opportunity to hide.
“Stalker,” the jumpmaster bellowed. I had never warmed to him. He seemed to have a nose for sniffing fear and a sadistic urge to exploit it. “You’re up!”
“Good luck,” Joker called.
First To Fight (The Empire's Corps Book 11) Page 15