Gods of War (Jethro goes to war Book 5)

by Chris Hechtl

  “We'll deal with it,” Flo said.

  “Easy for you to say lady; you are on Main Street. What about us on the suburbs?” a voice asked off to the left of the Neochimp.

  “The best thing you can do if you see trouble coming is to hunker down. Get out of sight, get underground if you can. In a basement. Just like a storm you need to ride it out,” Sergeant Ivanovich said. “The wall won't stop a determined attacker for long. It is just there to funnel them towards the roads.”

  “Then why build it at all? Why waste the time?!?” the irritated voice demanded.

  “Because it is something we can do,” Tessa said. “I think we can do a moat too. If you've got ideas on how to make it interesting for them …,” she eyed the sergeant.

  “We can figure something out,” the sergeant said with a nod her way. “I suggest you folks with weapons train with them. But if you've got a small caliber rifle and see a suit coming, just get down like I said. They'll shrug off light rifle fire like rain,” she warned.

  “Lovely,” Al muttered. He grimaced, then looked around. “I don't have a lot of free time, but I'll dig near my place,” he said with a nod. “There is a bridge and old creek that feeds into the river. Maybe we can put one of the walls there?”

  “It's possible,” the sergeant said slowly. “I'll ask the brass. They can ask an engineer or run the terrain through a computer program and have it spit out a plan.”

  “Thank you, Sergeant,” the grocer said with a nod to her.

  “I'm sorry we can't do more right now,” Jasmine said with a grimace. “But we're going to win. Just do what you can to be patient.”

  “Which means winning while in the future isn't anywhere on the horizon,” Judith said.

  “No, ma'am. But we're working on it.”

  <)>^<)>/

  “They are going on the defense. I think we really hurt them,” General Drier said with a grin.

  “They may have their horns in for now, sir, but it might be just to get us to stick our necks out so they can lop it off,” Captain Goddard warned.

  “Possible,” the general murmured as he rubbed his chin. He was starting to grow a goatee. He wasn't sure if he liked it or not yet. It gave him more of a rakish look but sometimes itched. “We need to test the waters.”

  “Yes sir. We need more of our people with the militia units, sir.”

  “I … damn it,” the general growled as he sat down heavily. “I don't like leaving our troops like that. But the militia units need the leadership.”

  “Yes, sir. Remember, Lieutenant Lishman did fine to keep his people in line,” the captain said.

  “True. But we've also had three incidents of troops turning on their controllers. We've had to execute two people for gross insubordination and failure to follow orders as examples. But we've lost a corporal to someone with a knife and a grudge.”

  “And we rounded up her unit and executed all of them as a warning to the others,” the captain said with a nod. “They don't have anywhere to go, sir.”

  “Try telling some of the timid that,” the general said as he stared at the map. He had tried militia units before. The pawns had mixed results. A few of the units in the larger population centers had fared well; they'd been able to blend before and sometimes after an assault. But not always he reminded himself.

  Some of the militia units in the cities and towns had gone AWOL or had refused to engage their targets. He had ordered one unit to go after another AWOL unit only to lose both when the second unit was exposed to the natives and run down by the Marines. The first unit had tried to run and had been taken down as well, so he felt only mildly better about the incident.

  The only good news out of that nightmare was that neither unit had known any base locations. Two of the safe-houses in Quenos had been lost along with some gear and one or two patsies but none of his major bases.

  “Give the order. I want them to hit and run. If possible, drop an IED with a timer or anti-tamper device and walk away. I want them to keep looking over their shoulders and keep funneling troops into the cities and towns.”

  “Keeping pressure off us,” the captain said with a nod.

  “Urban combat is where we have a chance to hit them. They've got too much of an advantage in the air if we're exposed and out in the open,” the general said. “Just look what happened to Zhukov's units and that KEW strike,” he said with a grimace.

  “And the robots, sir? He has about a third left.” The captain frowned as she checked her notes. “Call it forty,” she said after a moment. She looked up expectantly.

  “No. That's under the captain's discretion. He can't control them effectively without being jammed or traced.”

  “Understood, sir,” the captain said, making a note. “We're limited on our air units too. They've got a lot of cover in the air and on the ground. The captain wanted to use the air to move some of his gear and troops, but I honestly don't see how we can pull it off.”

  “Recovering that unit that hit the spaceport you mean?” the general asked.

  “Yes, sir,” the captain said as she nodded. “They got the personnel out and their gear hidden in a nearby mill downstream. Lieutenant Robinson floated the idea of getting them in and out. Dropping them off in the forest and have them walk in to us or something if we can't get them back to their main base.”

  “No,” the general said with a shake of his head. “No way am I going to have them lead the enemy here.”

  “Understood. They have the power to get the suits back online, but they can't get them back to their own base with all the eyes in the area.”

  “Damn,” the general said mildly. “For the moment they'll have to sit tight.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I mean it on the pawns. Get them moving. IEDs, sniper fire—whatever the locals think they can handle. Make sure they use cutouts, I don't want our networks exposed.”

  “Understood, sir,” the captain said with a nod. “We have a couple of mortar units. We could pick up some heavy gauge pipe and use them as well. Bury them pointed in the direction of a target, then set them off remotely. Then the unit could get clear before the enemy reacts. We can even booby-trap the tubes,” she offered.

  The general grunted. “All right, it's cute, but I think you might have something there. Give whoever thought it up a green light.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter 56

  “No fracking way, Blake! There is no way they could be near the spaceport! We've gone over it with a fine toothed comb!”

  “And yet, the data shows that they head in that general direction after an attack.”

  “Then what about the spaceport raid itself?” Zen asked. “Eh? Tell me about that?”

  “Would you go in the direction of your home right off the battlefield in front of everyone? They went to where they could lose pursuit, which they did,” Blake said patiently. He'd brought the lieutenant in because he needed someone else to bounce his ideas off of. They'd hit it off a long time ago since they were both in intelligence.

  “I get that. Could it be disinformation? They led us into those other two traps,” Zen said, rubbing the brow of his head with the tips of his fingertips.

  “I think we need to take it seriously.”

  “Okay, so what do we do about it? It's not exactly like we've got a lot of resources to run them down you know,” Zen said.

  “I realize that. But, if we saturate that area with drones, then they'll know something is up.”

  “And why exactly would we do that? Don't we want them to come out and play?”

  “On our terms,” Blake replied patiently. “What I'm suggesting is we step up surveillance around the spaceport. If necessary, we get the Navy... …”

  “Meaning me.”

  “To relocate satellite coverage over the area. Say, a GEO orbit?”

  “Why not a ship? It'd be more powerful …,” Zen grumbled.

  “We could do that if you think it would work out better.”
<
br />   “I don't honestly know if it will.”

  “What I'm trying to do is, yes, head off another attack, and yes, find their base so we can blow it and them into splinters. They have to be getting their power somewhere, and they have to be getting their parts and ammunition from somewhere. Have it stored somewhere that isn't obvious or detectable to us.”

  “Hence underground,” Zen said.

  “Exactly. So, we can talk to the natives; find out where all the caves are in the area, then pick them off one by one.”

  “They could go in deep. Avoid the inner part and leave no trail in or out.”

  “If they are that good, they'd be ghosts. They aren't.”

  Zen blew his cheeks in and out as he thought about it before he shrugged. “Okay, I'm with you.”

  “You'll sign off on it?”

  “Yeah. At the least, it will either make them think they've got us running in circles, which, I'm not at all convinced they aren't having us do … or they will see the air coverage and keep a lower profile until we get reinforced.”

  “Exactly,” the major replied with a nod.

  <)>^<)>/

  Colonel Harley climbed out of her shuttle and studied the spaceport. She looked over to see the fallen skeleton of the Skywhale. The engineers had added layers of security in-between it and the spaceport. They'd also created a berm around part of the town.

  “Talk about locking the barn door after the horses have escaped,” she murmured.

  “Sometimes you have to do that to assure people you're keeping it from happening again, ma'am,” Major N'v'll said. She turned to the Veraxin as he came to attention. She waved off his salute.

  “Sorry, ma'am.”

  “We're technically in a war zone. I don't know if the enemy has us under surveillance but let's just assume they do. I don't want a bigger target on my back than I've already got.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “Moving on,” she said as they walked to the HQ.

  “Yes, ma'am,” the major said as he fell in beside her.

  “I'm still trying to figure out that Skywhale,” Dana said, looking back over her shoulder to it. A few entrepreneur people had used pieces of the fallen shuttle's skin as roofing material she noted. She shook her head as a new thought came to her. “How the hell they got it here …”

  “More like why, ma'am,” the Veraxin said.

  She turned to eye him. She raised an eyebrow in inquiry as she tucked her hands behind her back.

  “They had to have landed something big with it at one time or another. Maybe several somethings. Or they wanted to move an entire unit in one go. Stupid to risk all their eggs in one basket. Pity we weren't around for it,” the Veraxin said with a predator buzz in his voice.

  “It makes me wonder what big ticket item they landed. Tanks? Artillery? Defenses? An engineering battalion? Planetary defenses? What?” the colonel mused.

  “Yes, ma'am, none of that is a pleasant thought,” the major said thoughtfully.

  “No, it isn't. I'm also wondering why they were allowed to keep it,” the colonel said.

  “Ma'am?” the Veraxin asked, clearly confused by the thrust of the question.

  “There have got to be a few of those in their inventory. So, why here?”

  “I … don't know, ma'am,” the Veraxin said slowly after accessing his implants. “We know they've got a platoon of powered armor down there, the Death's Head Brigade,” the Veraxin said with a sniff. “That is who has been hitting us. They could have used the shuttle to bring them in or something for engineering or …,” the Veraxin signaled second-level befuddlement.

  “The Death's Head are supposedly their elite unit or one of them at any rate,” Captain Dernigz interjected as he fell in with them. “Ma'am,” he said with a nod to the colonel.

  “Correct, Captain,” the Veraxin replied with a human-style nod to him.

  “Could they have it assigned to the unit? To the Death's Head Brigade, Platoon, whatever? To make it easier for the unit to move around? You know, from continent to continent?”

  “I don't know. I have a sneaking suspicion though we're going to find out,” Dana said.

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  She turned to see Blake and Zen outside the HQ building. She nodded to them. “Anything on the Skywhale?” she asked them, pitching her voice to be heard over the sudden sound of a shuttle taking off behind them.

  “We know how they controlled it, but the signal was bounced all over, ma'am. We're working with communications to try to pinpoint their lines of communication,” Lieutenant Liu said as he got the door for them and opened it.

  “Not what I meant,” the colonel said as she stepped inside. “Why did the Death's Head give them the shuttle?”

  “Um, they didn't, ma'am,” Lieutenant Liu said, clearly dubious about the topic and how she didn't know the information. She turned to frown at him. “That shuttle was here before they got here. They just used it for their own purposes. They probably left it behind because the two transports that brought them in didn't have the lift for it.”

  “So … here. Huh. So again, why? Why did the natives have it?” The lieutenant shrugged. She snorted. “Well, one mystery solved for another that doesn't really matter. That knocks our previous discussion into the can,” she said, turning to Major N'v'll and Captain Dernigz.

  “It does indeed, ma'am,” the major replied as they signed into the CQ with their implants, then went to the conference room. “Just goes to show our spooks are on the ball,” he said.

  “On most things. We're still getting up to speed on others. But we did have some ideas on that,” Major Zedeal said as he indicated for the others to proceed him.

  “Oh?” Dana asked as she entered the room and went to the head of the table. She checked out the maps and boards around the room, then nodded. “Do tell?” she asked.

  “Yes, ma'am. We have an idea …”

  “Should we wait for the others before pitching it?” Captain Dernigz asked.

  “They'll get here when they get here. I want to hear this,” the colonel said as she went to the carafe in the corner and poured herself a cup of coffee to cut the trail dust from her recent flight. “Give,” she ordered.

  Major Zedeal coughed into one hand and then looked at Lieutenant Liu. Zen waved to him. “You started this, sir. Your party,” he said.

  “Okay,” Blake said as the officers each took a seat.

  “Ma'am?” a marine clerk said sticking her head in the door. The major paused before he started.

  “Yes?”

  “Major R'nz, Captain Silverman, and Captain Irenez's compliments, but they said they'll be running late. Weather in their area is pretty bad,” she warned.

  “See? Okay, they can play catch-up then,” the colonel said making a shooing motion with one hand. “I'm glad we didn't wait,” she said, looking attentively to the INTEL spooks.

  “Yes, ma'am,” Blake said. “What we've got is a series of theories. I admit they are like a house of cards, but the information we've got points to the same general conclusion …”

  <)>^<)>/

  Dana sat back as she studied the boards and maps. She was glad for the moment that the other officers had trickled in during the dog and pony show but had saved their catch-up questions for the end.

  She frowned thoughtfully. The general consensus from her staff was mixed. She personally had concerns; if she followed their plan, she would be pulling most of her air assets out of other sectors to cover one area. That might work … if they were right.

  She couldn't say that the evidence was thin or nearly nonexistent. They had a lot of information, but there were a lot of qualifiers and variables in there. A lot of cover-their-ass WAGs she knew. She hated Wild Ass Guesses; they tended to bite the same orifice half the damn time.

  But sometimes … sometimes they were right she reminded herself. And they had to take a stab at it.

  “Okay,” she said with a nod. “We'll go with the plan. We'll work out the
basics of it shortly. I understand we should be getting a shipment in within a few months …,” she held up a hand. “I'm not going to uncover everyone, but we've got to take risks,” she said as she saw some of her people puff up in protest. Some of it was pro forma she knew; some might be people playing devil's advocate. A few might genuinely believe that the risk wasn't worth it.

  And a few people just didn't like the idea of losing an air asset. She could and did empathize with them. But it was up to her to make the hard call.

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “While we're working on that,” the colonel said, turning to Captain Dernigz and then a few of the others in the room. “I want General Murtough and you to work on replicating better detection gear. Even simple passives we can use to saturate an area would be nice.”

  “The problem is how to power them, ma'am,” the logistics officer said. “And where the raw material will come from to make them. What did you have in mind?”

  “Get me a list. I'm thinking something thermal or solar for stuff we can drop and walk away from.”

  “Fire and forget sensors? It could be done, ma'am,” the captain replied with a nod.

  “Good. While you are looking into that, I want more EMP weapons. I want what we've got in storage into the hands of the troops with the most likelihood of running into the enemy ASAP. I want more replicated.”

  “EMP grenades are a pain in the ass to make, ma'am,” the logistics officer said, checking his tablet. “We've only got so many in inventory. EMP traps are easier to make. The simplest are coils of wire and the right systems to send an overload charge …,” he frowned.

  “Look into it. I want them and any heavy weapons ready for another attack. Anything we can do on that front …”

  “I … am not sure at the moment, ma'am.”

  “Any captured hardware we can use?” Major R'nz asked from the doorway. “Sorry I'm late,” he said as Captain Silverman and a few of the other senior officers in his brigade filed in behind him.

  “Not a problem. Mother Nature has her whims too,” Dana said with a smile and nod to the officers. “You can play catch-up later,” she said.

  “We can send you the recordings of this and our files,” Major Zedeal said.