by D W Bell
Boudreaux smirked as two portions of the video feed went dark, “Tsk tsk. Bad form, gentleman. Bad form. You’re ruining my shots.” He swirled the clouded liquid in his glass as he thought, “Rober- err, Bob! Let’s stay with the high-angle overwatch stuff for the approach, keep the large drones hovering at a less aggressive altitude. Let those boys settle in and get comfortable. We’ll swarm the small drones once the battle is truly joined.”
“As you command, sir.”
“Make sure everything gets saved as well. It may be a fun project to cut the drone feed together with the helmet and body-cam footage of the operators. Might make for some interesting promotional tools. First-person shooter, point-of-view sort of thing. Maybe even 3D!”
“Brilliant, sir.”
“Throw the Redshirts at them first. Let us see how much ammo they brought.”
―
No sooner had the smoking barrels slowed to a low-pitched roar and ceased spinning than the incoming alert clicked over the earpieces of the defenders once again. Smith looked to the highway that ran perpendicular to the long drive and saw troop transport trucks and Humvees rolling into view from both directions, like a goddamn Branch Davidian Waco nightmare.
The Humvees all sported mounted weapons, even a few M-2 machine guns and a couple Mk-19 grenade launchers. However, you could tell Boudreaux had had to put things together in a hurry. The deuce-and-a-halfs were old-school green and the Humvees were desert tan, but, to the old showman’s credit, you could tell he had tried to minimize the effect of the glaring imbalance by alternating each vehicle accordingly to bring order to the aesthetic chaos. Frankly, it worked.
“Well, John, are you a Thermopylae or an Alamo kind of guy? Or maybe you’re an anglophile and it’s Rourke’s Drift?” Master Fu was beaming. John could only stare blankly in answer. Master Fu chuckled, “I see Father Dmitri’s teachings on quietude have rubbed off on you. Brothers, why don’t you enlighten John and our arriving guests with a passage from The Word… The Gospel of Gustaf.”
Two of the monks practically skipped with glee as they ran to the rear of the transformed vans and retrieved the recoilless anti-tank rifle. The Carl Gustaf.
Returning quickly to their firing position behind the door-wall fortifications, the gunner shouldered the weapon and knelt in an aspect of joyous prayer, the loader standing piously behind him preparing the high-explosive dual-purpose sacred scriptures to be delivered to the infidels, cradling them reverently like ancient scrolls of ultimate truth.
John no longer saw the approaching vehicles as imminent doom, now they reminded him of the ducks and bunnies on the tracks of an old-timey carnival shooting gallery. Just on the edge of the Gustaf’s effective range to make it challenging, if they had enough rounds.
Master Fu nudged the transfixed John out of the back-blast area, clapped him on the shoulder, and said with a glimmer in his eye, “Brother Gustaf! Show them the Way! Fire for effect!”
―
“Cute.” Boudreaux’s voice was calm as the technicians seated at their workstations failed to suppress their shocked gasps as the lead vehicle in both convoys exploded into flames in quick succession, the precise interval it took for the monks to reload and present the next passage of The Gospel of Gustaf to the nonbelievers, straight from the prophet’s mouth.
He sighed, took a drink, and said mostly to himself as more trucks exploded, “Pickett’s Charge then. Game on, old man.” Boudreaux dropped the aw-shucks act and resumed his sterile, forceful command voice and barked over his shoulder, “Robert!”
“Sir!”
“Have all units dismount and assault the compound. Tell those Redshirt gimps they better hoof it if they want to live. Assholes and elbows, people. The hummers can open up with the .50s and Mk-19s for cover fire from the road.” Boudreaux turned his attention back to the screens in time to see the diminutive digital version of Master Fu leap to the roof of each van and pop a smoke grenade. One red, one white, and one blue.
With a raised eyebrow, he raised his glass to drink, but was interrupted by a panicked voice behind him, actually causing the proverbial slip betwixt the cup and the lip, spilling clouded spirits down his shirt.
“Sir! Long-range sensors show multiple bogies inbound, fast!” And then all four drone feeds went black, one after the other, in rhythmic cadence, with the timing of one clapping along to the chorus.
Chapter 33
As the last lesson of Brother Gustav’s fiery sermon streaked down range to turn another troop transport into flaming, screaming wreckage, and hundreds of sinners began their limping charge across the open void directly into the teeth of the Voice of God, Master Fu gathered himself with great formality into the stance of an orchestra conductor, cleared his throat with the exaggeration of an opera singer, and broke into song. With all the seriousness he could muster he belted out over the comms:
The old fucker has finally lost his goddamn mind, John thought, but, in a display of impossible precision, four drones exploded overhead in perfect imitation of the customary claps the Texas standard was famous for, with the rest of the chorus answered in 4-part harmony over the radio.
It lacked the theoretical or technical complexity of Wagner’s Die Walküre, but it had a beat that you could dance to.
The entire exchange had been delivered with the standard detached pilot’s dispassion, but you could feel the excitement that the professionalism sought to disguise. This wasn’t some recon support or PR stunt for the company like the veteran flight crews were normally tasked with, this was proper war.
The pilots lit off the AGM-114 Hellfires at the centermost targets then snaked their SuperCobras to opposite ends of the Humvee battle line. They then came about to face each other and streaked towards the middle, working the rockets and strafing, turret cannons blazing all the way.
The choppers buzzed each other at the exact center of the column of blazing wreckage, each pilot saluting the other cockpit and their RIOs giving each other the finger while taking cellphone pictures from the backseat, before peeling off to turn the trucks still deploying troops at the road head into their own scaled-down version of the Gulf War’s Iraqi Highway of Death.
Smirking at the silliness of it all, but thoroughly enjoying himself, Master Fu replied,
―
The technicians sweated nervously despite the technological chill in their theater seating behind Boudreaux. By virtue of the encapsulated isolation of his favorite balloon chair, no one could judge the diabolical little bastard’s reaction as he stared at the darkened screens and they all watched the green indicator lights go red as communication and tracking connections to individual vehicle assets went down, presumably destroyed.
A claw-like hand extended from within the curved b
oundaries of the chair and placed an empty glass on the side table next to the green-hued decanter. A deathly cold voice spoke calmly, too calmly, “Let’s get eyes and ears back up, shall we? Activate The Swarm.”
With a flurry of switch-clicks, keystrokes, and whispered voice commands the techs and drone pilots rushed to do the devil’s bidding.
―
Boudreaux’s main force faltered in confusion, like cattle smelling the slaughterhouse, as the pilots’ sudden air assault forced them into the hopper of the machine gun grinder. The silent monks methodically counted their 7.62 mm rosary offering fully-automatic absolution to the unrepentant sinners. 2000 to 6000 prayers a minute, depending on the fervency of the damned.
John was surprised to hear euphoric chuckles begin to erupt from the monks as they mowed down their enemies. While the Voice of God vowed to abstain from spoken words, it certainly knew the joys of laughter at slaughter. He decided to join in on the turkey shoot by taking up a position amidst the monks behind the barricades. The more the merrier. Up above, the airborne ranch hands drove the stupid but cunning beasts across the range and into the chute of the beaten zone.
―
“Shit!” The explosive expletive came unbidden from Yellow Rose’s backseat, barely audible over the noise of the cockpit.
“What’s up, Panch? She yelled the question over her shoulder at the man seated behind her, but her answer came over the radio as Pancho’s screen filled with hundreds of small radar contacts and he transmitted for all to hear.
“Shit.”
―
“There, that’s better.” Boudreaux smiled as images and video feeds blinked to life on the massive screens and began to flow providing a nearly omnipresent point of view. Scores of light-duty variants and hundreds of micro drones powered on and emerged from their concealment in the treetops, decorative bushes, flower beds, manicured hedges. rain gutters, and drain grates all over the estate.
“’Twas blind but now I see.” Boudreaux mocked the hymn in his deceptively pleasing baritone before devolving to his usual off-putting, unsettling, otherworldly cackle. “You boys work me up a sit-rep now that we are back on-line, won’t you? Let’s see if we can catch the tiger by the tail.”
―
With a scowl Master Fu pounced down from his perch atop the center van and found John taking potshots with his MP5 from the monk’s protected firing line. “John! Time to go!”
John nodded, patted the shoulders of the brothers next to him in farewell, and sprinted low for the waiting Raptor truck. Time to pick up the girls. He was never the type of man to keep ladies waiting.
―
“Sir, all their major assets are currently focused on the chokepoint to keep from being overrun and the air support has pulled back in deference to the Swarm’s area denial capabilities. One unit has taken the pickup truck and is moving deeper into the compound.”
“Splendid. Have two of the rearguard units double-pincer around on both sides, find a way over the wall, and go for the double envelopment or full encirclement.”
“Aye aye, sir.” The lead technician nodded to his subordinate in charge of communications to begin issuing the necessary orders.
“Oh. And, Robert?”
“Sir?”
Boudreaux nestled back into the tufted cushion comfort of his command chair, steepled his fingers, and with a spot-on impression of his favorite prime-time television cartoon villain said, “Release the hounds.”
“Right away, sir.”
“Excellent.”
―
They had deployed silently and unseen in the pre-dawn dark, free-falling through the oculus of the pastor’s private Pantheon. The grand scale of the previous owner’s fiduciary masturbation allowed for HELO infiltration.
High-Energy Low Opening. A technique said to have been originally devised or, more properly, discovered by a member of the British SAS whose chute did not open as intended during a jump for an anti-terror mission. Nearing terminal velocity and certain death a final desperate yank of the cord by the operator deployed the canopy and arrested his descent, the force of the sudden upward pull whipping his body like a heavily-armed rag doll.
Rather than splattering like a bug on a windscreen against the side of the building that the operator had intended to land on the rooftop of, his steel-toed combat boots shattered the office window glass and the rest of him followed inside.
Tucking and rolling in an attempt to absorb momentum over the shard-strewn, carpeted floor, thousands of hours of training took over and mined the last few joules to stand the body up, carbine up. Scanning for threats as his body settled from the shock, the operator was face to face with the flabbergasted, slack-jawed faces of just the terrorist twats he had come to sort out.
“’Ello!” With the stereotypically proper British aplomb, as if he had just popped in for a cup of tea or a pint, the operator politely greeted his insurgent hosts before gunning them down. This part of the legend is what engendered the phenomenon of operators who know of the technique pronouncing the acronym with bad movie-cockney accents, but few are brave or foolhardy enough to put the crazy as fuck breaching style into common practice.
For Boudreaux’s top dogs it was just another walk in the park. They had wing-suited in from miles away to avoid detection by distant watchers or drone surveillance and flawlessly executed their HELO landings within the secrecy of the dome in perfectly synchronized intervals, just enough time to clear space for the next doomed soul cast from Heaven. Dark angels. The Fallen.
Fresh back from performing the scheduled atrocities in one of the various Sand-lands at Boudreaux’s behest, they were as smooth and sharp as razor blades on ball bearings. True war-demons. Things of fire and smoke. Boudreaux’s personal shayatin.
They loitered patiently, secluded in the shadowed alcoves and recesses of the replication of a Roman temple dedicated to all gods, and awaited their orders. The sounds of explosions, small-arms, and heavy weapons fire was of no concern to them. Let the fodder feed the cannons. These howl-less hunters had been sent to corner, kill, or capture the great tiger, and they were completely focused on this mission.
The awaited go-light went green with the expected tone in the headsets of all the operators. Each emerged and quickly rallied with their group, two squads of nine, before moving swiftly and quietly out into the sunlight.
The one code-named Golem popped a stick of Clove Gum in his mouth as he brought up the rear of his cadre of killers. A nostalgic brand, now discontinued, it was once popularized to mask the scent of the surreptitious imbibing of spirits during the American Prohibition.
Cry “Havoc,” and let slip the dogs of war.
Chapter 34
To me belongeth vengeance, and recompense;
their foot shall slide in due time:
for the day of their calamity is at hand,
and the things that shall come upon them make
haste.
‒Deuteronomy 32:35
The battle raged on, and the doomed kept coming. Wave upon thinning wave they crashed against the wailing wall of lead. Their forces dwindled, partly in answer to the monks’ smoky prayers, but mostly due to the orders for the bulk of the main assault force to abandon the suicide charge and pincer-probe another way.
Fewer and fewer sallied forth from the line of flaming wreckage and impromptu fighting holes that had been dug by previous explosions, their luckier cohorts using the smoke and flame as concealment to flank the walls. Master Fu saw the feint and ruse and was not pleased.
Satisfied that the situation was well in hand, Master Fu took advantage of a lull in the gunfire as the poor, mindless bastards fell back and regrouped for another round of sermons from the brothers and took a pull from his whiskey flask, toasting the heavens in gratitude. He rolled the peaty scotch around on his tongue as he looked over the troops.
They were all cut and bloodied by shrapnel and bullet fragments from the sheer volume of fire that their mobile barricade had withstood, but all the brothers were still grinning and firing. Making a joyful noise. Doing the Lord’s work. Master Fu grimaced as he eyed the crates of preloaded magazines stationed between each pair of monks, ammo was getting low. He couldn’t really blame the brothers; it was permissible, even expected, to get a little trigger-happy while in the throes of righteous bloody rampage and overzealous zealotry.
<-itch! For fuck’s sake!> The radio transmission crackled to life mid-curse signaling all was not well with their guardians in the sky.
There was a seething pause as all concerned pondered their fate and how to cheat it in their favor. An unlucky ricochet caught the monk manning one of the outboard miniguns full in the face, killing him instantly. An RPG round sailed over their heads and exploded behind them. It was time to go.