Task Force

by Brian Falkner

  To the left and the right of the MPC, the forest was spitting fire and metal. The sides of the MPC rang constantly from the impact of the rounds. Through the grille and out through the windshield, Chisnall could see the Canadian MPC shuddering as heavy machine-gun rounds slammed into it.

  The thick glass of the porthole beside his head cracked and starred, once, twice, three times. He ducked instinctively. Hot shell casings landed on the roof as the thudding sound of the fifty-cal came from above them.

  “How did they know we were coming through there?” Price asked, her coil-gun in her hands, ready to fire but useless inside the MPC. For a second Chisnall wished the vehicle had gun-ports, like on old sailing ships, so they could return fire instead of sitting uselessly inside the vehicle.

  “I don’t know,” Chisnall said.

  “Why were we taking tanks through a forest?” Barnard asked. “You don’t take tanks through a forest if there’s another option. Basic tactics! Tanks are easy targets when the enemy can get up close. Why were we going that way? We could have gone around.”

  “I don’t know that either,” Chisnall said.

  The porthole by his head shattered, blowing glass across the inside of the vehicle. Price ducked, protecting her face with her arm. One direct hit too many, Chisnall thought. The glass could only take so much. He hoped the armored sides of the vehicle would fare better.

  He glanced up at the broken window. Now it was a gun-port. Chisnall stood, aiming his coil-gun out the window, and ripped off an entire magazine into the forest. Whether he hit anything he didn’t know. The explosion and the screech of tires were simultaneous as the wheels of the MPC locked up. Peering through the small metal grille at the front of the vehicle, Chisnall caught a glimpse of the Canadian MPC in midair, fire and smoke billowing underneath it as it landed on shredded tires.

  “Mines!” Monster yelled as their own vehicle slewed to one side.

  The Angels were thrown forward. Barnard’s helmet smashed into Chisnall’s head, and only his own helmet saved him from a knockout blow. The back of the MPC lifted as it braked. Chisnall had just enough time to wonder how the Bzadians had managed to lay a minefield so quickly, and how lucky they were not to have hit one, when there was a roar and a flash of heat and light from the front of the vehicle and flames shot through the grille. In slow motion, the world turned topsy-turvy and smoke was everywhere and there was a leg lying over his face.

  The MPC was on its side. He could tell from the seats that had appeared on the ceiling and the fact that he was now lying on his back.

  It was Price’s leg that covered his face and he was greatly relieved when it moved.

  “Monster! Monster!” he yelled, unable to see his friend through the smoke. Talking, however, forced him to breathe, and breathing brought in lung-gripping mouthfuls of acrid black air, choking him.

  “The Monster is here.” Monster surged past him, to the rear of the MPC.

  “Angel Team, status check!” Chisnall yelled, and got a chorus of “Oscar Kilo.”

  “What about the driver?” he asked. Price was already up by the grille peering through. She shook her head.

  “Are you sure?” Chisnall asked, clambering in that direction to look for himself.

  Price stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Don’t, Ryan. It’s not something you want to see,” she said.

  The lights inside the MPC flickered a couple of times, then went out, but a hammering sound came from the rear of the vehicle and light and fresh air poured in as Monster wrenched and kicked the buckled rear ramp open.

  Wilton clambered to the door and pushed past Monster, who grabbed him by the collar and jerked him back inside, saving him from a volley of Bzadian bullets that would have taken his head off.

  The Demon’s MPC was behind them and the fifty-cal on the roof was pouring fire into the surrounding forest. But the gap between the vehicles was widening. The MPC was reversing, following its own tire marks back out of the minefield.

  “Hey! Hey!” Chisnall yelled, sheltering behind the now-vertical rear ramp.

  The Demons came to a halt about a hundred feet from the Angels. A hundred feet that might as well have been a hundred miles. Chisnall knew they would be dead before they made it halfway to the other MPC. Even if they made it, the entry ramp was on the far side of the vehicle. It was suicide to try to get there.

  But where else could they go? The Demons’ vehicle was the closest refuge from the hail of gunfire around them.

  Varmint’s voice came in on the Angel channel. “Get over here!”

  “We’ll never make it!” Chisnall yelled. “You get over here!”

  “We can’t! It’s a minefield!” Varmint yelled. “You come here!”

  “We’ll never make it!” Chisnall yelled again.

  Varmint must have thought so, too, as he didn’t try to argue. The MPC began to reverse a little more.

  “Varmint, you coward!” Chisnall yelled, but then realized his mistake. The MPC was turning, a quick one-eighty to bring the rear of the vehicle—the ramp, and safety—around to face the Angels.

  The ramp of the vehicle was already half-lowered and Varmint was in the rear doorway, one hand on the door edge, one hand on his coil-gun, ignoring the incoming rounds, laying down covering fire. Whatever he was, he was no coward.

  “Come on! Come on! Get in here!” Varmint yelled.

  “Get closer!” Chisnall yelled back.

  “Come on!” Varmint yelled.

  “Get closer!” Chisnall yelled again.

  “Don’t be such a little girl!” Varmint yelled. But that was the last thing he said before the MPC disappeared.

  It happened so quickly that it was merely an imprint on the mind’s eye, and it was only afterward, when Chisnall ran the scene back in his head, that he could see clearly what happened.

  The Demons’ MPC executing a three-point turn on the narrow country road.

  The ramp that was half-open, exposing the innards of the armored beast.

  The streak of light from the edge of the forest. An RPG that should have bounced off the reactive armored sides of the MPC.

  The whistle of air as it rocketed past Varmint, through the open doorway, right inside the MPC.

  The endless moment that was only a fraction of a second when it appeared the round had been a dud.

  The white space and white noise that filled the exact same space where the MPC had been, as the rocket detonated the Demons’ demolition charges.

  The blinding light that was gone in an instant as the buckled ramp of the Angels’ vehicle slammed shut, protecting them from the worst of the blast.

  The explosion shunted them forward and, somehow, Chisnall found time to be afraid that they would hit another mine.

  When the roar and the incredible blast of superheated air subsided, Monster kicked open the ramp door again, and they stared out at the crater where the Demons’ MPC had been. At the hole in the road. At the void in the universe.

  “Azoh,” Barnard managed.

  The others, including Chisnall, were too stunned to speak.

  A curious lull had settled over the forest after the explosion, their attackers also stunned or knocked unconscious by the shock wave rippling out through the trees.

  “Azoh!” Barnard said again.

  18. KOMMANDOS

  BY 08:00 HOURS, OPERATION MAGNUM WAS IN TROUBLE.

  The Haigslea Forest ambush by a relatively small force from the Borallon Defense Barracks had stopped the task force in its tracks.

  The Bzadian defenders had laid antitank mines ahead of the convoy and had also mined the road behind the task force once they had passed in order to block their retreat. The task force was trapped and under heavy fire.

  It was the German Kommando Spezialkrafte who saved the day. The doors of their MPCs were open before the vehicles had stopped moving and the elite German special forces soldiers melted into the forest.

  The Bzadians found themselves in a fierce gunfight amon
g the trees, which halted the attack on the convoy and allowed the rest of the task force soldiers to dismount and follow the Kommandos.

  The fighting was brutal, and sometimes tree to tree. The smoke from the burning tanks was so dense that a human and a Bzadian could be on opposite sides of the same tree and not know the other was there. Some of the Kommandos put away their guns entirely and drew their knives, slipping through the forest like ghosts.

  The fierce fighting amid the smoke-shrouded trees continued for over an hour before the Bzadians were forced back deep enough into the forest for a mine-clearing team to secure a path.

  The convoy, now comprising just seven tanks and fifty-nine of the original seventy MPCs, headed south out of the forest, then north, across open farmland.

  Finally, they were back on their original course, but the operation, already an hour behind schedule, was delayed another hour. Hours that would prove crucial in the battle to come.

  19. BAD TIMING

  [MISSION DAY 2]

  [0910 hours Local time]

  [Northwest of Haigslea Forest, New Bzadia]

  THE MPC BUMPED AND BOUNCED OVER THE UNDULATING farmland, cutting across country to get to the highway, skirting around the killing zone of the Haigslea Forest.

  The Angels were in the rear of Task Force Actual, the command vehicle. So many vehicles had been knocked out in the forest that it was the only free space. Unlike most MPCs, it was divided into two sections, with a command module at the front and seating at the rear. Colonel Fairbrother and three command center staff were busy on the radios, consulting maps and monitoring views from aerial cameras that flew over the convoy in tiny, hand-launched drones.

  The Angels sat in the back. They watched each other, unwilling to speak, the silence growing into a rigid wall between them.

  Barnard was the first to break it. “What a moron,” she said.

  “I thought he was brave,” Wilton said after a moment.

  “He was stupid,” Barnard said. “Just a dumb grunt. Drawing fire like that.”

  “He saved our lives,” Price said.

  “Dumb Pukehead,” Barnard said.

  “I’d have done the same,” the Tsar said.

  “Oh, you’re such a hero,” Barnard said.

  “I think I would too,” Wilton said.

  “Yeah, really?” Barnard said. “You’d give up your own life to save these guys? Don’t be an idiot. They don’t even like you very much.”

  “That’s not true, Wilton,” Price said. “Don’t listen to her.”

  “I would, if it came down to it, yeah,” Wilton said.

  “Why would you do that?” Barnard asked. “Get yourself killed. Why would anyone do that?”

  “Great men are always prepared to lay down their lives for their country, or their planet,” the Tsar said.

  “You’re not a great man,” Barnard said. “You’re not even a man. Not yet.”

  “Can it, Barnard!” Chisnall said.

  Barnard had taken off a combat glove and was wiping at her eyes. When she took her hand away, they were dry but red-rimmed. “And I suppose the same goes for you, Wilton,” she said. “Are you a great man?”

  “I’m no hero,” Wilton said.

  “Then why?” Barnard asked.

  “It’s just, you know,” Wilton said, with a slightly embarrassed look around at the others, “we’ve been through a lot together.”

  “So what?” Barnard asked.

  “I wouldn’t want to let them down,” Wilton said.

  “You’d rather die first?” Barnard asked.

  “If I had to,” Wilton said.

  “Boo-yah,” Monster said quietly.

  Barnard considered that for a moment, staring at Wilton. He turned away, uncomfortable under her gaze.

  “I still think you’re an idiot, Wilton,” Barnard said. The corners of her lips curled upward in a rare smile. “But not all the time.”

  “You knew Varmint somehow, didn’t you?” Chisnall asked Barnard.

  “John. His name was John,” Barnard said. “He wasn’t the idiot you guys seem to think.”

  He wasn’t an idiot at all, Chisnall thought. Far from it.

  “Barnard, were you and he …?” Price asked.

  “No, I told you. Nothing like that. It was …” Barnard stopped and took a deep breath. “It was on the voyage out. I was wandering around the ship. It was late.” She paused, and there was silence except for the growl of the engine and the rumble of the tires on the rough ground. “I was up on the deck. I ran into three of the Russians.” She carefully avoided the Tsar’s eyes. “They were drunk.”

  “Drunk?” Chisnall asked.

  “Must have smuggled something on board,” Price said.

  “They cornered me,” Barnard said. “Asked me for a kiss.”

  “A kiss?” Wilton asked.

  “They were egging each other on. Said it was the closest they’d ever get to kissing a real Puke.”

  “So I gave them some lip, which pissed them off. Then I tried to push past them, but suddenly it was vodka breath and hands everywhere. There were three of them, and they were a lot bigger than me,” Barnard said.

  “Jeez!” the Tsar said.

  “It was going badly, if you know what I mean, and the next minute someone else was there, laying into them.”

  “Varmint?” Chisnall asked.

  Barnard nodded. “I don’t know where he came from but that evened up the odds a bit.”

  “They’re real tough, those Spetsnaz guys,” the Tsar said.

  “Maybe, but they were drunk, I was angry, and Varmint was one hard-ass son of a bitch.” Barnard said it matter-of-factly. “It was pretty even. Then a squad of Kommandos turned up, out for a training run. The Russians disappeared real fast.”

  “Why wasn’t this reported?” Chisnall asked.

  “On the eve of the operation? What good would it have done? We’re all on a suicide mission anyway. Put it down to bad vodka and worse timing.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Chisnall asked.

  “You would have reported it,” Barnard said.

  “I …” Chisnall stopped himself. She was probably right.

  “What do you mean, a suicide mission?” Price asked.

  “You figure it out,” Barnard said.

  “Freaking Russians,” Wilton said, then glanced at the Tsar.

  “I mean …”

  “Don’t judge all of us by the actions of a few,” the Tsar said.

  Barnard reached across to the other side of the vehicle and put her hand on the Tsar’s knee. The action surprised Chisnall in its intimacy. It clearly surprised the Tsar as well. As she continued to hold his knee, without speaking, he grew more and more uncomfortable, but she did not remove her hand.

  “I don’t judge you by them,” Barnard said eventually. “I judge you by you.”

  The Tsar held her gaze.

  “I know what happened at Hokkaido,” she said.

  The Tsar said nothing, still holding her gaze.

  “I know and I don’t care,” Barnard said. “Just stop pretending you’re a hero.”

  All eyes were on the Tsar, and he stiffened and straightened.

  “I’ve got news for you, sweetheart,” the Tsar said. “I’m not pretending. We could use a little more of that around here.” This last was followed by a pointed glance at Chisnall.

  A low growl came from Monster’s throat.

  “Be very careful what you say from now on,” Price said.

  “Go easy. Maybe he’s right,” Chisnall said.

  “Not in my book,” Wilton said.

  Barnard let go of the Tsar’s knee and leaned back in her seat.

  “Yeah, Tsar, you’re a hero,” Barnard said. “The kind of hero who gets other people killed. Chisnall, he’s the kind of hero who’s doing his damn best to get everyone home alive.”

  Chisnall looked up, surprised that Barnard would stick up for him like that.

  “It’s not about us survi
ving. It’s about completing the mission,” the Tsar said. “If the LT can’t see that, then maybe he’s not the man for the job.”

  “Who is? You? Forget it,” Barnard said. “These guys love Chisnall. Look at them. They would never follow you. In fact, they think you might be a traitor.”

  “That’s not true,” Chisnall said.

  “Really?” Barnard said. “You thought I was.”

  Chisnall opened his mouth to reply but shut it again. She was right.

  “Why would you accuse me of that?” There was surprise and anger in the Tsar’s voice, and Chisnall didn’t think he was acting.

  “You gotta wonder who tampered with the Demons’ sonar,” Price said.

  She refrained from pointing out that the Tsar was their communications and sonar specialist.

  “Not me,” the Tsar said. “Someone at the naval base? Maybe it got knocked when it was loaded onto the sub. Maybe it’s just some faulty two-dollar computer chip.” He stared around at the other members of the team. “Why would you even think that?”

  “We thought the Pukes might have captured your family,” Chisnall said. “That they could be using them against you.”

  The Tsar shut his eyes, swaying a little in his seat. He seemed suddenly a long way away.

  “They’re not holding my family,” he said.

  “And I’m sure there’s a way of proving that,” Price said.

  “There’s nothing to prove,” the Tsar said. “My mother and father were killed at Volgograd.” He took a deep breath and continued without opening his eyes. “I had two sisters and a little brother. My aunt tried to get us out. Pukes stopped us at the border, did some kind of eeny-meeny-miny-mo thing and let me through.”

  “What happened to the others?” Price asked.

  The Tsar finally opened his eyes and looked around the cabin. “I don’t know. I heard shots. I wanted to go back, but … I didn’t want to go back.” He dropped his head into his hands.

  “Jeez,” he said, “I was only twelve.”

  20. WARREGO HIGHWAY

  [0940 hours local time]

  [Warrego Highway, New Bzadia]

  PLANS HAD CHANGED.

  Without the Demons, the Angels had become the backup plan, tasked with destroying the generators at Splityard Creek. They were all issued with packs of high explosive. As for Reservoir Hill, in Fairbrother’s words: “That’ll just have to bloody take care of itself.”