by Danny Loomis
“Not to mention it’d be hard to pass up knocking off some politicians,” Brita said.
“Exactly,” Nance said with a nod. “We’ll have the platoon on full alert, two squads sitting in shuttles. Here’s where the ceremonies are taking place.” He keyed in a holographic map of the city from the table’s audio-visual support and indicated an area where residential neighborhoods butted up against the downtown core.
“We’d like you to have one sniper team in place, with the other team inside the house where the ceremonies are to be held.”
Brita looked at the map closely. “Do you have a close-up of this area?” Wordlessly Nance increased magnification and indicated which house he’d just mentioned.
“Good, it has a second story. Blade, you and J.C. on the second floor. Protect the civvies inside if anything comes down. Understood?” There were nods from both.
“Irish and Pointy, I want you on this tall building five hundred meters north of the site,” she said, indicating a ten-story structure. “Pointy, you’ll need to be in top form to spot the targets for Irish. Take the Zoomies with you.” These were binoculars with extra-large lenses, capable of panoramic as well as pin-point focus.
She turned back to Nance. “Can you make sure the Mayor and his party enter from the north side of the house? That way we’ll have them under constant surveillance.”
“No problem. We’ll have two squads hidden within a stone’s throw of the house, too. Tie that in with the company of local militia, and I think we’ve got it locked up.”
* * *
Ian peered over the edge of the structure at the ground ten stories below. Perfect. What a great place for a sniper. He smiled, in his element for the first time since he was wounded. They’d managed to place several sensors around the area being watched, while Brandy and J.C. contributed a handful.
The trip to the top of the building had been interesting. They’d worn their ghillies and walked up ten flights. Twice they’d stopped to let people go by. Both times there’d not even been a flicker of notice.
Pointy produced a lunch sack from under his ghillie suit. “Here. No tellin’ how long we’re gonna be. That restaurant on the first floor won’t miss a couple sandwiches.” He tossed the sack to Ian, after taking out a sandwich. Ian’s hands were busy at the moment, and it fell to the rooftop with a loud “Clunk”.
“What the…” Ian picked up the sack and felt bottom of it. That felt suspiciously like—“Grenade!”
Again the sack clunked to the rooftop while he and Pointy dove for cover in the stairwell. When there was no immediate explosion, Pointy gingerly approached the sack. He looked inside, and carefully moved its contents about so he could see more clearly.
“Jeez, Irish. There’s a grenade taped to the bottom sandwich. You’d have to pull the pin, though. If this was a booby trap, someone sure screwed it up.”
Ian keyed the radio. “Brita? This is Irish. We’ve got a situation.” When there was a hesitation, he could almost hear her thoughts: Already?
“This is Brita. What’ve you got?”
“The restaurant on the ground floor of the building we’re on is apparently supplying weapons and explosives to the bad guys. We got a sack of sandwiches, with a grenade in the bottom of it.”
There was a longer hesitation this time. “How did—never mind. I’ll talk to you two later about how. Right now I want your thoughts on what you think this means.”
“Gooners who want to get close to the Mayor and his group before they attack will look like the rest of the population, to include bringing their sack lunch or other bags, as if they’ve been shopping. Once they get close enough, they pull ordnance out of the sacks and attack.”
“They could also have back-up,” Brita said. “We’ve got a squad on the way to that restaurant, plus any similar places in the neighborhood. Nice work.”
“Thanks,” Ian said. “Skywatch out.” He turned to Pointy. “Break out those Zoomies. Look for people with shopping bags, sacks, whatever, that approach the neighborhood watch site.”
Pointy scanned the crowd that had begun to gather below. “Shit, man, half the people are carryin’ some kinda sack.” Just then the Mayor’s car rolled up, followed by several others.
Ian activated his scope and tied his bio link in with the sensors scattered below. “You scan the front of the crowd from left to right, I’ll scan right to left.” He spotted three figures pushing through the crowd, closing in on the mayor and those with him.
“I’m targeting three suspects,” he commed. “Approaching from north side, through the middle of the crowd.”
“Make sure they’re bad guys before you fire,” Brita commed. “I know it’s a tough call, but let’s not have an incident with innocent victims.”
“No sweat,” Ian said, and squeezed off his first shot. The middle one had just pulled a grenade from his bag. His round caught the man in the chest and knocked him to the ground. He targeted the other two and fired as his mind deciphered their actions as hostile. Both were down with head shots.
Pointy checked in his visual sweep with the Zoomies. “Left front, one man. Has a pistol.”
Ian was back in focus, scanned left. A man was lifting his pistol when he squeezed off a round. The target fell as if boneless and caused a couple next to him to stumble over the body.
“Chest shot,” Pointy said. “Target five feet right of him.”
Another shot. “Lower chest,” Pointy said. That one had fallen with a splash of blood, drenching several nearby strollers.
By this time the crowd began to react to the sight of bodies on the pavement, blood streaming everywhere. The discharge of the Webley was so quiet it would never have been heard two floors down from their perch, let alone in the square five hundred meters away and ten stories down.
Ian glanced at the Mayor in time to see two blurred shapes hustle him inside the house.
“Good guys secure,” came the call from Blade.
“Target, three o’clock. Top of four story building,” said Pointy, urgency in his voice.
Ian scoped the building’s top and saw two figures, one sighting on the neighborhood watch headquarters with a shoulder launched missile. More from instinct than intent, he fired and knocked the launcher from the man’s shoulder. He fired twice more.
“Two hits, both chest,” Pointy muttered. “Jeez, man, this is gettin’ monotonous.” He continued to scan. “Where’d you learn to shoot like this? Not at the same sniper school I went to.”
Gunfire broke out on the left side of the square, one block away from the neighborhood block headquarters. Several figures spilled out of a side street, scurried toward the headquarters. Before Ian could react, they were cut down by fire from the headquarters. J.C. and Blade.
By now the square below was empty of all life. Further away Ian could see figures run from the scene of battle. Things quieted down. Firing had ceased on the eastern side, with no movement observed. One of the prone figures just cut down by needler fire from the headquarters erupted in a ferocious blast. The shock of air and sound reached Ian and Pointy moments later.
“God damn, they were downright serious, weren’t they?” Pointy said as he continued to scan with the binoculars.
Ian scoped the west side of the square, then back to the outside wall of the headquarters. He identified three friendlies in Confederation uniform cautiously move along it. Sudden movement to their side…
* * *
Lieutenant Stanton and two privates ducked out the side door of a house in which they’d been. His helmet commo had gone on the fritz when it was banged on the floor during the explosion. Unluckily his head had been in it at the time, and his ears still rang from the force of the blast that had knocked out windows for over a kilometer.
They’d reached the side of the neighborhood watch house, when a rush of feet to their left caused him to turn and fire his needler. Two rebels were caught in his fire, and suddenly he was fighting for his life as six more slammed into h
im and his two men.
One of his soldiers was already down with a knife in his chest. He and the remaining soldier managed to get back-to-back. Jerry drew his knife and parried the first knife thrust with his own blade, but there were too many. He felt blows to his body, and heard a grunt of anguish behind him as a blade struck home in his last ally. Stanton spun wildly, and made them back off for a moment. He twisted to the right and tried to slash his nearest opponent. He slipped on blood, going to one knee.
There was a wet “Thock” sound, repeated five more times. When he staggered to his feet he found himself encircled by six dead rebels, from the results of a heavy needler round through the chest or head. It was then he felt the two knife wounds he had received, one slash to his left upper thigh, and a stab wound to the left shoulder. He reeled like a drunk to the front of the headquarters, and was met by a rush of people coming out to help.
* * *
Ian grunted in satisfaction as he watched the Lieutenant taken inside the house. That had been a ticklish combination of shots. Good thing Lieutenant Stanton fell when he did, or he’d have been dead meat.
“Sonofagoddammbitch,” Pointy blurted. “You’n me have got to talk when this is over, Irish.”
Muted sounds of shots and explosions sounded below them. After a couple of minutes, even that sound went away. All was quiet. Ian continued to calmly scan the area around the headquarters, satisfaction creeping over him.
“All units, this is Control. We have a cease fire. Friendlies entering the kill zone.” Two shuttles roared overhead to punctuate his command.
Ian reached for the bag. “Still got any of those sandwiches?”
* * *
The debrief that evening was made more interesting than normal by the presence of Colonel “Mad Mike” Grayson. He sat in a corner, an observer.
Lieutenant Stanton was also present, bandages and all. He’d held off being flown to the Tolstoy and its sick bay until after the brief.
“After the explosion, two of my men and I were checking damages to the headquarters, when we were attacked by eight rebels. We managed to shoot two of them, but the others closed to within hand-to-hand range. My men were killed, and I was wounded. I would’ve been slaughtered, but all six of the rebels were taken out by sniper fire. For the record, I wish to say that Corporal Ian Shannon’s skill and coolness under fire held the number of friendly casualties to a minimum.”
Sergeant First Class Nance gestured to Pointy. “Corporal Winters, would you care to contribute to this debrief?”
“You bet, Top,” Pointy said. “Irish ’n me went to the roof of the buildin’ we were assigned, and set up a sniper’s post. On the way I, ahh, found a bag of sandwiches, which I brought along. Come to find out, there was a grenade in it.” He managed to look indignant, as if the receiver of shoddy merchandise.
“Irish—Corporal Shannon—called in to alert our controller about what we’d found in the bag, and a squad was sent over to look into it. We heard later they struck pay dirt.” Two rebels had been killed, and four taken captive.
“Then the shit hit the fan—I mean the action started. Irish spotted three gooners and blew ’em away.” He continued with the story, ended with “Once Lieutenant Stanton fell down, it left Irish enough separation that he nailed ’em. I’ve never seen anythin’ like it for speed. There we were, over five hundred meters away and ten stories up. Wind swirled between buildin’s, and he still made chest and head shots. I counted a total of twelve confirmed kills for him.”
“Thank you,” Nance said. “Corporal Shannon, do you have anything to add?”
Before he could speak, Colonel Grayson stood. “Thank you, Platoon Sergeant, but we’ll have to forego any comments from Corporal Shannon. I think the others have covered all the bases. This debrief is closed.” Ian slumped in relief. He hadn’t looked forward to an attempted explanation of what happened from his viewpoint. From the questioning looks cast his way, he knew the explanations were just postponed. The Colonel was still talking. “Sergeant Weiss, Corporal Winters, and Corporal Shannon. Please come with me.” He marched from the room. The three of them hastened to keep up.
Grayson didn’t slow his pace until he was in the empty mess hall, where he gestured everyone to sit. “Pointy, could you bring over a pot of coffee and some cups?”
Once everyone was situated, Grayson smiled at Ian and chuckled. “The look of imminent doom on your face made every minute of that debrief worth it.” He shook his head. “When I told the medical types to put that bio implant in you, I didn’t expect this much of an improvement.”
Again he gestured at those around the table. “These are people who have to know the full story of your new capabilities. So tell us. Everything you can remember, from the first shot to the last.” Major Grant appeared, and placed a recorder on the table.
“Sorry, Brita, Pointy. I was under orders,” Ian said. “Couldn’t tell you the whole story at the time.” He proceeded to recount how his implant had assisted during the fire fight, as well as how he could now tap into communications and tactical nets with little or no problem.
Major Grant frowned. “That wasn’t anticipated, Colonel. I suggest we bring Ian back to the Tolstoy for a full medical work-up. This level of response to a bio link has never been seen before outside of the full service implants they put in for pilots. And that involves major brain surgery.”
Ian flushed and started to speak, but was waved down by the Colonel.
“No. No, I think we’ll go with him as is. Maybe after we’ve completed this mission and are on our way home. Then we can spend some time finding out why Irish is suddenly so much better than he should be.” He gave a suspicious look at Ian. “You weren’t this good before, were you?”
“No, of course not, Sir. It’s just a lot easier to use my Webley now. The shots seem to come faster. And I make up my mind on a shot a lot faster, too.”
He rubbed his cheek where the scar used to be. “The strangest part is I seem to remember stuff a lot better than I ever have before. So yes, I’m also a little scared about what’s happened. But I agree with you, let’s wait until we’re headed home. Then I’ll be curious as the next person about what’s happening inside my head.”
Grant still looked reluctant. “Let’s hope we haven’t made the wrong decision. Doctor Martins was quite concerned when he heard. Said it was impossible for Ian to be doing what he so obviously was, in regards to tapping into the tac net.”
“We’ll keep a close eye on him,” Brita said. “If Pointy or I see anything getting beyond the bounds of normalcy to the point it could hurt him or others, we’ll shut him down.”
“I don’t like the sound of that, Sarge,” Ian said.
Brita stared at him, a serious look on her face. “Ian, Sergeant First Class Boudreau and I will use your sniper abilities to the max. But the moment it looks like you’re a liability, it’s off to the Tolstoy with you. Or would you like to take the chance that you might start hallucinating and accidentally shoot one of us, thinking we were gooners?”
Ian shuddered. “Point taken.”
“All right,” Grayson said. “We’ll keep using you, until further notice. Valkyrie, I’ll leave it up to you and Sergeant Boudreau.”
Outwardly calm, Ian was a storm of emotions inside. Was he changing inside his head? He didn’t feel any different. But would he be aware of the changes? It was said a crazy person was the last to know they were crazy. Was that the case here? God, how his head hurt.
STAR’S END: RICHLAND (Day +51):
After the busy day at the plaza, the next three dragged. No hostile activity was noted throughout Richland. Ian leaned back into a comfortable nest he’d made in the corner of a rooftop parapet that ran around a three-story office and warehouse in southeast Richland. Pointy and J.C. had also been turned into snipers, and six spotters assigned each of them. Beefing up spotters helped. But only if there was something to see.
He flicked on the helmet’s tac map and surveyed, for t
he nth time, where his guys were located. Two were on adjacent buildings. One on a building five hundred meters to the south across the park that spread out below them, and the other three off-shift. He’d put them on a rotation of two hours on and two off, to keep them alert. But who would keep him alert?
“Eagle Three, this is Chick One,” whispered his comm. Oh, damn. Not another call from PFC Dufur. He called in every time a dog trotted by.
“This is Eagle Three. Go.”
“Van just pulled into the warehouse you’re on top of, Corporal. Just thought you’d want to know.” At least he sounded a little apologetic now. Ian had gently chewed on him the last three times he’d called in. Since the warehouse was open for business, transports that entered and left weren’t uncommon.
“Look, Dufus, I know you mean well, but like I told you. Only call in if you see something out of the ordinary.”
“Oh. Okay, Corporal. It’s just—well, this one…”
“Spit it out, Chick One. What about it?” Jeez, another two hours before he could go back to the barracks.
“This is the first one with more than one person in it.”
“Good eye, Chick One. Keep up the good work.” Have to praise him once in awhile, or he might not call in anything. Ian snuggled deeper into his corner. With a ghillie draped over him and activated, he was invisible in the shadows cast by the late afternoon sun. Pleasant up here. Again he drifted off.
The access door to the roof swung open, almost hitting him. He was close enough to touch the four men who came through. Two had smaller boxes, and two carried a long box. They started opening them, all within ten meters of Ian. After his first start of surprise he held perfectly still.