by Rod Walker
The name might sound innocuous, but Operation Mousepad promised to be a real doozy.
The Listeners all got a special briefing on the plan.
“Gentlemen,” said Major Randolph once we had gathered for the briefing in one of the prefab buildings outside Spokane. “Let’s get right to the point. We are preparing for the final assault on the Darksiders’ stronghold and gate in Spokane. This is the last significant gate in the territory that the Division currently controls, and is one of the last remaining major gates between the western mountains and the Mississippi River.” He didn’t mention the Las Vegas and the Los Angeles gates, probably because they were, at least at present, the GDC’s problem. “I do not need to tell you that if we can shut down this gate, it will be a major turning point in our war to liberate America. A victory here would give us the strategic advantage, and free up vital resources for new actions elsewhere. A defeat will cost us dearly, and give the Dark a chance to catch its breath, maybe even open another major gate somewhere in our territory. Therefore, we cannot, and will not, fail.”
Jack and Bull and some of the other Listeners cheered. Rigger only scowled, but he always scowled, so that didn’t mean anything. I didn’t do anything. My natural cynicism, combined with more than a year of experience in the Division, told me that this was going to be a nasty fight.
“We have solid intelligence that tomorrow our rivals to the south,” by which he meant the GDC, “are launching a major assault on the Dark’s stronghold in Las Vegas. The General and the other senior officers have therefore decided this is an excellent time to finish off the Dark in Spokane. We suspect the hive mind can only divide its attention in so many directions at once, so hitting it with two major assaults simultaneously will increase our chance of success.”
“We really want to help those GDC dogs, sir?” said Rigger. For some reason, he really hated the GDC. Sure, he hated everyone, but he especially hated the Committee. Jack’s theory was that Rigger had a personal vendetta against someone in one of the cartels that had been absorbed into the GDC. I suppose it was possible.
“The Dark are the enemy, corporal,” said Randolph. “First and foremost, our mission is to defeat them. The GDC are merely our opponents. We humans can get back to settling our differences once we’ve kicked the Dark off our planet and back to their Hell-world.” Rigger scowled, but he didn’t say anything else, and Major Randolph went back to his briefing.
He had a PowerPoint, of course.
The plan was simple, despite the size of the operation. The Dark’s last gate was set in the fortified ruins of the old Spokane Convention Center downtown. Starting at 0600 tomorrow, our artillery would start hammering the fortifications. The armored troops would form spearheads and engage the enemy in the streets, while teams of infantry seized nearby high points and used them to shoot down any flyers. While all this was going on, three assault teams would cross the Spokane River on rafts and rush the gate while the rest of the attack held the attention of the enemy.
“Each assault team will contain two Listeners,” said Randolph, much to our surprise.
I blinked. Listeners seldom made direct contact with the enemy, much less joined assault teams. We were too valuable and too difficult to replace. Granted, I had been in a lot of firefights in the last year, but usually from the safety of an armored vehicle or an overwatch position. Still, I think this was the first time the operational plan had involved sending Listeners to the front. And the fact that redundancy was required made it pretty clear that the General didn’t expect all of us to survive the attack.
“You may be wondering why the plan includes a break from our usual tactical doctrine,” said Randolph. “We think the Spokane gate is powered by a unique transductor crystal, which explains its unusual resiliency and size. Based on the scientists’ calculations, anyone but a Listener who handles the transductor crystal for the Spokane gate will either be instantly killed or go insane.”
Silence answered that cheerful announcement. That was why they needed two per team. Just in case one didn’t make it to the gate.
“Do we have any idea of what the terrain is like on the other side of the gate?” said another of the Listeners, a man with a captain’s rank.
“We do not,” said Randolph. “However, we know the crystal will have to be within one kilometer of the gate. The scientists have decided that it is mathematically impossible for a transductor crystal to be any further in than one kilometer from an open gate.” That matched up with what I had seen in the field. I think the deepest in I had ever gone to retrieve a transductor crystal was only five or six hundred meters. “Additionally, reinforcements have been coming through the gate on a five day cycle. Those reinforcements are coming through right now, which means we’ll have to fight them here on Earth. If all goes well, the area of the Dark’s world inside the gate ought to be relatively clear. The transductor crystal will probably be a little larger than usual. As usual, once we enter the gate, we will seize the crystal and immediately withdraw back to Earth. Are there any questions?”
There were more than a few, and I listened as the other Listeners asked the major about various aspects of the operation. It seemed tough, but doable. It wasn’t going to be an easy fight, by any stretch of the imagination, but I had enough military experience by now to recognize that we had the necessary firepower to make it work. The problem was that we were going to take a lot of casualties. I hoped I would not be one of them.
That night I made sure to call my sister. Maggie was doing well. Frankly, I think she was doing better at Castle Base than she would have under Dad’s guidance. Dad had prepared us well for a world at war with the Dark, but I don’t think Maggie would have grown up the way she did at Castle Base, because Dad would never have let her become so popular, and everyone loved her at Castle Base. The Division was short of good IT people, and Maggie was tireless when it came to thankless data entry. So she was alternating her time between going to the base’s school and working in the IT offices.
She was healthy and happy. I hoped she would be able to stay that way.
And to make sure of that, the first step was to close the Spokane gate.
Right at 0600, the artillery bombardment began.
I waited with my team on the northern bank of the Spokane River, across from the old convention center. The Dark’s invasion and the subsequent war had shattered the city, its streets now paved with rubble, and entire neighborhoods were burned-out shells. Yet the empty shells of the old downtown buildings jutted into the sky across the river, and the Darksider citadel squatted in the midst of them.
It looked sort of like a giant turtle, albeit a giant turtle with black spikes jutting from its shell. The spikes weren’t decorative. They were the emitters for a plasma weapon like those the Overseers carried, and they could shoot down helicopters with ease. They could also bombard other neighborhoods of the city, but they had trouble hitting anything on the ground within a few hundred meters of the citadel’s base. Still, if the Dark saw our assault teams coming, they would have no trouble whatsoever blasting our boats out of the water.
I was in a platoon of twenty men led by Captain Howard and Sergeant Mendez. I was glad that they were in charge of the platoon, since both of them knew their business and had steady heads. Bull and I were the Listeners assigned to them. As the other men checked and double-checked their weapons, Bull and I did a last check of our own equipment, though Bull was praying in silence the entire time. I knew him well enough to know what he was doing, since his lips never stopped moving in silence when we were heading into danger.
I hoped that God was listening. Even after a year of war, I was still a bit shaky on God. I figured He probably existed, but that He hated us. He must, to let the Dark come through their Hellgates.
But maybe He hated them more. I don’t know. I just hoped He was listening to Bull. I finished up my check as Bull wrapped his up, his mouth still moving in silent prayer.
Then the clock hit 0600.
The explosions rang across the river, and I saw the bright flare of high explosives striking near the massive citadel. There were more explosions across Spokane, and the spines covering the citadel began to glow as they gathered energy for a plasma discharge. Fortunately, the artillery began to hit home, and the explosions began shattering off the spines. The barrage took off about half of the plasma emitters, mostly those closer to the ground. The citadel could still shoot down any aircraft, but hopefully it would not be able to direct any fire towards the ground.
We waited, listening to the roll of explosions. I glimpsed hordes of Darksiders pouring out from the citadel, rushing to meet the Division’s offensive on the other side of the city. Another volley of explosion shook the citadel, snapping off more of the spines. Most of the Darksiders moving out from the citadel looked like assault drones, and in the cramped confines of a city streets they would be absolutely brutal.
The radio headset inside my helmet crackled.
“Strike Teams Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta,” said General Culver. “You are go. I repeat, you are go. And God go with you.”
“You heard the General,” said Major Randolph, who was in charge of the amphibious assault. “All teams, get to your rafts and go. Meet you at the gate.”
We hurried down to the river bank where our rafts awaited. Each team had two inflatable rubber rafts with an outbound motor attached. I got on one raft with Sergeant Mendez and ten men, and Bull got on the other raft with Captain Howard and ten other men. The idea was that if one raft sunk, the team wouldn’t lose both of its Listeners.
A moment later the engines started, and the rafts began sliding across the waters. The Spokane River has a lot of falls and rapids, but we were upstream from them, and the rafts got us across without incident. I breathed a sigh of relief when we hit the other side. It had been the river crossing, without any cover, that scared me most. Once we reached the opposite bank, we dragged the rafts up after us. No telling if we might need them for a quick escape.
The rumble of constant explosions and the crack of gunfire from the rest of the city had gotten much louder. Operation Mousepad was in full swing. If we were going to close the gate, this was our best chance.
“Move out!” said Howard. Sergeant Mendez gave a stream of orders, directing men to their position in the column. Bull and I went in the middle. That way we wouldn’t walk into any traps the enemy had set, and if they came at us from behind, we wouldn’t be the first targets in any attack from the back.
We jogged quickly towards the black dome of the Darkside citadel, each team moving off on its own predetermined course. We zigged and zagged past the ruined high rises that had once held shops and offices and condos, past the burned-out hulks of wrecked cars that littered the debris-choked streets. It was hard to believe that this place had once been a city of two hundred thousand people. Now it was just a rubble-strewn graveyard. It looked like something out of a post-apocalyptic movie.
Except we were now living the apocalypse.
“Hold up,” snapped Mendez. “Delta group’s encountering resistance.” He spoke a series of orders into his microphone, listened, and then nodded. “Sir, suggest we circle around the back of the block. The street ahead is blockaded, and Delta and Charlie groups are trying to fight their way through. They ran into assault drones and three Overseers with plasma guns.”
Howard nodded. “Fine. Let’s move.” I almost protested that we ought to go help the other teams, but I knew better. The mission was to close the gate. It didn’t matter how many Darksiders we killed today if we didn’t close that gate. The Dark would just send more.
We jogged through an alley between the damaged shells of two high-rise buildings. Debris and chunks of twisted steel I-beams littered the alley, and I was careful not to trip. It would be just too stupid to break my ankle right in the middle of a vital mission.
A few moments later we emerged from the alley and were at the base of the citadel, which loomed over us like some huge alien creature. Which, since it was organic, I supposed it was. It was hot near the thing, partly from the waste heat from the plasma discharges, and partly from the metabolic heat the huge building gave off all on its own.
“Entrance is ninety meters that way,” said Mendez, pointing at an opening in the base of the citadel.
“Right,” said Howard. “Let’s–”
It was right about then that something went badly wrong.
That’s the thing about war. No matter how carefully you plan, no matter how thoroughly you train, no matter how completely you prepare, something that no one expected always goes wrong.
And when it does, good men die.
One of the damaged plasma emitters high on the dome apparently tried to fire at a target on the other side of the city. From what I understand, the Dark’s plasma weapons work by wrapping a magnetic envelope around some superheated plasma, and then shooting it towards the target. Except this plasma emitter had been chewed up by artillery shrapnel, so it wasn’t able to generate a proper magnetic bottle.
Which meant that the emitter blew up, and sent out five or six wild streams of plasma in different directions, one of which hit the street right in front of us.
There was an explosion, asphalt fountained into the air as if it was water, and everything went white.
I flew up into the air and hit the wall of the building behind me, my helmet bouncing off the wall, then I struck the sidewalk. The plasma stream had been diffused, at something only like a third of its proper strength, which was the only reason I wasn’t incinerated. For a while I wasn’t coherent, and then the smell of burning Kevlar and meat brought me back to cold, harsh reality.
There was a big smoking hole in the street, and the platoon was gone.
All of them. All of them were just dead. Those nearest to the impact point were nothing more than twisted, charred husks. The men further away had been killed by shards of molten stone that had pierced vital organs. I spotted Howard and Mendez, both of them dead. They had been killed so fast they probably hadn’t known what hit them.
Bull lay a few feet away, a chunk of cooling stone jutting from his chest.
“Bull?” I said, and I felt stupid. He was obviously dead. At least it had been quick. A wave of emotion rolled through me, so strong I couldn’t identify it. Rage? Yeah, there was a lot of that. Grief? He had been my friend, and a good man.
“I hope you like Jesus when you meet him,” I told his corpse.
Then I heard a clicking noise, and that jerked me out of my stupor.
A trio of hunter drones were moving down the street towards me, big, ugly things that looked like human-sized mantises, albeit with scorpion tails that fired volleys of poisoned spines. Reflex and training took over, and I snapped my M4 up and started shooting. My first two shots took a hunter drone through the head, and the other two fired spines at me. I ducked, and the spines bounced off the ground.
I came back up, flipping the gun to full auto, and put one burst through the first hunter drone, and another burst through the second. The spines were coated with a neurotoxin, but a gun could fire far more quickly than the launcher in the tails of the hunter drones.
I kept my gun leveled at them, but they didn’t move.
Right. I had to keep moving. Someone had to get that transductor crystal, and it might as well be me. I tapped my radio, trying to report in my location and get an update on the status of the battle, but I only heard static. The shock wave from the explosion must have damaged my radio.
Or maybe the Dark had wiped out the other assault teams too, and I was the only one left.
I jogged down the street, heading towards the gaping black hole of the citadel’s entrance. Nothing else moved on the street, though the roar of explosions and the chatter of distant gunfire was a constant background noise. I ran faster, trying to get to the entrance to the citadel before anything stopped.
Two assault drones burst from the entrance, their legs clicking against the ground. I cursed, t
ook aim, and started shooting. I sent bullets into the first drone, aiming for its head, and I managed to penetrate its carapace and hit its brain. The creature went into a jerking dance and collapsed to the ground, black slime leaking from the gunshot wounds. The second assault drone was heading right for me, and my M4 clicked empty. I jettisoned the empty clip and jammed a second one into the weapon, but I wasn’t fast enough. I would have time to get off a couple of shots before the assault drone ran me down, but that wouldn’t be enough to kill the thing.
Then I heard the roar of nearby gunfire, and someone started pouring bullets into the assault drone. I finished reloading my own weapon and joined my fire to the attack, and the assault drone staggered, went limp, and collapsed to the street. I looked up as two men in fatigues and body armor identical to my own jogged towards me.
“Roland, you all right?” said one.
My brain, still a little woozy from the explosion, snapped back into focus. It was Jack and Rigger. Both were dusty and a bit battered-looking, but as far as I could tell, they were uninjured.
“Yeah,” I said. “Yeah. My team’s not, though. There was a rogue plasma discharge from the dome. Took them all out. I was right at the edge of the explosion, but everyone else is dead.”
Rigger swore several times.
“I seen it happen before,” said Jack. He glared up at the dome. “Those spines leak plasma if they’re damaged and they try to fire, I guess they blow up. Charlie and Delta are pinned down. I think we’re the only ones who made it this close to the entrance.”
“Where is the rest of Bravo?”
“Don’t know. We got separated.”
“What are we going to do, Sergeant?” I said. Jack outranked both Rigger and me, so he would have to make the call.
“We keep going,” said Jack without hesitation. “We fulfill the mission. If we don’t get that gate closed, a lot of men will have died for nothing.”
“Won’t bring them back,” grumbled Rigger, but he didn’t complain further as he checked his gun.