“You look like Humpty Dumpty.”
A new voice cut in: “I don’t think your chatter…well, it should be mission specific.” The apprehension in that voice couldn’t disguise its youth.
“Who’s that?”
“Spook handler. Call’s himself Frost.”
“Where’s Trask? Job came through his team.”
“How well do you know him?”
“Well enough. Know how his nose is broken?”
“You did that?” Mock laughed. “Why?”
“I felt much better after doing it.”
“Really, please, guys, he could listen to the tapes—”
“Roger that, Frost, I’ll play nice.” Kell turned his head and the projected holographic hyper-spatial display provided a visual-light image of Zlitan’s harbor. At the bottom a red ribbon scrolled past, providing him running diagnostics on the energy output from the hydrogen fuel cell engine strapped to his back. Weapons displays ran down each side in green, but did little more than track ammo. Still, all weapons were green, so he was loaded for bear.
“Mock, you got a tac-map?”
“Sending.”
The puzzle-piece image of the city dropped into the lower left corner of his display. The gold star designating his target pulsed, and seconds later, on his main display, a golden arrow appeared in the air, stabbing down toward his goal.
He cleared his throat. “Kane, overlay IR, pump vis-light, and give me 20% on mag-res.”
“Talking to yourself, Kane?”
“Negative, Mock. I’m Kell. Kane is the ride.”
“Killer of men?”
Kell chuckled. “I suggested Fluffy. Agency nixed it.”
“So, what is your ride?”
Frost moaned. “No, please, need to know, and you don’t need to know, Major.”
Kell ignored Frost. “Mobile Weapons Platform One, experimental. Technically this is a field test. I’m the G. I. Joe of the future. Anything this side of a thirteen millimeter cannon isn’t supposed to bother me, whereas, I’m supposed to annoy the hell out of everybody.”
“Doesn’t sound like you have a problem with that.” Mock laughed and Kell decided he liked the sound of her voice. “On your tac-map, green’s the safe zone, red’s the bad guys. Head south.”
“Roger that.” Kell started forward, walking as close to normal as he could manage. Sensors sewn into his spandex suit let his onboard computer track the position of his legs. They extended into the machine’s legs but only to the knees. The computer translated positioning information to the onboard gyro-stabilizers and the motors which fed electrical charges into the electro-convulsive polymeric fibers that served as muscles. As he picked up speed, the cockpit shifted position, leaning him forward so he could feel as if he was running. Locomotion within the XMWP-1 had taken the most getting used to, but once he had the ten-foot tall machine moving, there wasn’t much that was going to stop it.
He moved up from the harbor and through the warehouse district. He tried to run close to the line dividing the map. The green zone might be home to “friendlies,” but they were friendly only in the sense that they weren’t supporting Gaddafi. They see me cruising through their area, they’re going to open up.
The main display, as per his previous command, had collected more light, turning the cityscape into that hazy greenish-blue where everything looked like it was trapped in the tube of a dying black-and-white television. He’d added infrared data, and the heat signatures showed up in reds and golds. The city had cooled enough that he could discern the faint glow of appliances and, thankfully, saw no one huddled in homes on the firing line.
The magnetic resonance information etched faint skeletons on buildings, showed old pipes and reduced vehicles to vector-graphic outlines. There wasn’t as much metal as he’d have liked, since it had its uses for cover.
Ahead, to the right, four loyalists raised AK-47s. Fire lanced from muzzles. A few bullets hit, pinging off, then the shooters ducked behind a car. “Mock, I have small arms fire, forty meters, south by southwest.”
“Roger, looking for their friends.”
“I’ll take them.” Kell brought Kane’s right arm up. The XM-25 was one of two weapons built into the cylindrical forearm. Using a joystick, he dropped a golden crosshair on the vehicle, raised it over the top. “Kane, XM-25, range plus one meter.”
A gold dot pulsed at the crosshair’s heart.
Kell hit the trigger.
The XM-25 fired a smart bullet equipped with a computer chip. It emerged from the barrel, chased by fire. The chip tracked the bullet and was able to calculate its location in real time, based on the bullet’s rotational speed. As per the programming command, the bullet traveled a meter beyond the range designated by Kane’s laser range finder. The High-Explosive Air-Burst projectile then exploded, spraying the area behind the car with a lethal storm of metal fragments.
“Kell, break left, now. Incoming on your two.”
Taking Mock at her word, Kell sprinted the XMWP-1 to the other side of the street. As he did so, his computers pulled an image from Mock’s camera and popped it in an unused corner of his display. Lines traced it, then a box opened beneath it, identifying the vehicle as a Russian-built BTR-60 armored personnel carrier. The eight-wheeled, slope-sided vehicle had a turret with a 14.5 millimeter KVPT heavy machine gun mounted front and center.
Before he could bring weapons online to deal with it, light streaked down from the sky. The Hellfire missile hit it dead on. Golden fire blossomed along the side street. Windows shattered, buildings sagged, and the armored personnel carrier flipped into the sky, burning merrily. It crashed down through the roof of small store, its tires boiling.
“Nice work, Mock.”
“My pleasure.”
Frost appeared at her left. “This isn’t good. You’re not supposed to shoot unless I give the authorization.”
“I’m just protecting our man.”
“He’s not supposed to be there, Major, and you’re blowing the place up.”
She gave him a hard stare and Frost almost melted. “Hey, Kell, looks like this is one of those missions that never happened. How did you get stuck being expendable?”
“Broken nose, remember?”
“Frost thinks someone will notice one more explosion in a war zone.” She frowned. “I only have one more punch, so you might have to play hide and seek.”
“That was kind of my plan, but I’m not complaining about the help.”
Frost’s eyes narrowed. He tapped a finger against the tablet’s screen, then grunted. “There’s an update to the tactical map.”
Sarah glanced down. The red line near where she’d blown up the APC pulled back. “Well, well.”
Frost shot her a sidelong glance. “It wasn’t your shot that did that. We have phone chatter. Loyalists are pulling back. Kell, move it.”
“Roger that. What’s up top?”
“One klick out to the big square in the salient, hang a right to your target. Looks clear, I’ll do a sweep.”
Kell cut toward the east, keeping on the political divide. He shot a glance down the street where Mock had blasted the Russian APC to bits. Though Kane had no viewport, the hyper-spatial imaging display gave him a full 360 degree view. The designers had initially tried to shrink that into a 180 degree field, using a box to show him what was in his forward firing arc, but turning the head was just too natural a motion to train pilots out of.
The display automatically faded the infrared imaging of the fire, but he saw nothing beyond it. Kane bounced forward smoothly, despite moving on bird’s-legs. He’d disliked how they looked until he remembered that velociraptors had the same kind of legs. He asked the designers to weld big claws on the front of the feet, but they refused, saying there would be no practical use for such a thing. He argued it would scare the enemy, which they thought would be a good idea, so they painted Kane up like a ninja: all black.
No imagination, these people. Hello Kitty would have been
a lot more scary.
Kell pushed south, moving fairly quickly along the main road. He passed easily enough beneath electrical and phone wires. His sensors picked up a few Wi-Fi networks. He really couldn’t imagine many folks checking email while Rebel and loyalist forces were shooting in the middle of the town, but during his Army career, he’d seen stranger things happening.
A single bullet pinged off Kane’s armored shell. His sensors read the disturbance in the air created by the passing bullet, and immediately traced it back to an upper story window one hundred fifty meters away. IR sensors painted a faint ghost of a crouched man. Kell brought Kane’s left arm up and around. Its crosshair materialized in blue. He dropped it on the red-gold outline, got a pulse, and pulled the trigger.
The .50 caliber bullet blew through the wall. The sniper disappeared. Kell smiled, though not at the death or even making the shot—the sensors and computers made it more difficult to miss than hit. His pleasure came from using one shot where others would have fired hundreds. The XMWP-1 had an AR-15 built into the right arm, right beside the XM-25. Another pilot might have just sprayed the window with a couple dozen bullets to accomplish the same objective. Those were the same sort of men who would feel invulnerable in the warmech. It would make them into Lords of Death, stalking through the streets, killing people simply because they knew they couldn’t get hurt.
Kell hated that idea. War was brutal. No need to make it any worse than necessary.
“Mock, we still good?”
“Movement south. The kid called it. Loyalists pulling back.”
“Good, coming up on the square.” His first glimpse matched the photographs in his briefing, though those were daytime shots. The square itself had a four lane roundabout circling it, with a tall obelisk in the center. It memorialized something to do with Qaddafi’s revolution. Four major streets met there, and four minor streets headed out at in-between angles. The sensor display revealed several dead cars, and another BTR-60 APC that had been shot to pieces.
As he moved forward, looking for whatever had riddled the APC, his tactical map shifted. What had been green suddenly went red.
And across the square, hidden in shadows, the thing that had killed the BTR-60 opened up with all four of its 23 millimeter cannons.
“What the hell just happened, Frost?”
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.” Blood drained from Frost’s face as he pounded on the tablet’s screen. “Gaddafi just bought out Kayar. There’s no safe zone. We can’t evac our people.”
Kell’s voice crackled through the headset. “Hang in there, Frost. We’re not done. We can get them out. I just need some help.”
Sarah brought the Predator back around. “Holy shit. Is that a Shilka?”
“Yeah. Should be shooting at you, but wants ground targets.”
“Let me take care of that.” Sarah smiled as she swiveled the gun camera onto the Soviet era ZSU-23-4 mobile anti-aircraft vehicle. It looked like a baby-tank with a radar ball on top. She launched her remaining Hellfire and reduced it to a fiery circle of debris.
“Damn, Mock, with you up there, the Agency could have gotten their guys out in a taxi.”
“Roger that. You better move. Kayar’s people are coming up to take control of the city.”
Kell sprinted to the BTR and studied the tactical map again. The whole town was red now and gave him one advantage: Now he didn’t have to be too particular about sorting friend from foe. Even so, Mock had been right. He’d do better playing hide and seek than gunslinging, and seeking was first order of the day.
The gold star marking his target blinked about three hundred meters to the west. Kane rose from the BTR’s shadow and headed that way. The warmech had gotten ten yards from the BTR when Kell caught a flash of gold in the corner of his left eye. He turned to look. The golden images of two men glowed fifty yards away behind a sandbag emplacement on a second story balcony. Magnetic resonance sensors drew a .30 caliber machine gun on a post beside them. The way they crouched, Kell assumed they were trying to get a belt of ammo ready to go. He contemplated turning to shoot them, but instead just increased his speed.
That gave him a half-second to puzzle over the fact that his departure seemed to make them more anxious than less. He couldn’t imagine why that would be.
And then the world exploded around him.
Fire sprayed out in a brilliant arc from the square’s western edge. It hit Kane hard. The armored figure stumbled forward. Shrapnel ripped past, shredding cars, including the old VW Bug that Kane’s bulk crushed when the warmech finally went down.
“Kell! Kell!” Sarah glanced at Frost. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.”
“Kell, get moving.” She zoomed her gun camera out. “Kell, I have a BTR coming in through the square, at your nine. You have about thirty seconds. Kell, can you hear me?”
A well-manicured finger reached out and stabbed the mute button on her display as the room’s door clicked shut. “It’s best he can’t, Major.”
“Finally crawled out from beneath your rock, Trask?”
“This mission is done, Major Ashton.” Trask shot the French cuffs on his shirt. Diamond chips glittered coldly from his cufflinks. “Paint him.”
“What?”
“Paint Kell with your targeting laser. I have assets in the area that will clean up this mess.”
Frost glanced at his tablet. “Assets? What assets, I don’t have—”
“Shut up, Frost, and save yourself jail time.”
Sarah shook her head as the BTR continued to roll toward Kane. “That mess is a man, Trask. He’s in there to rescue your gold-star buddies.”
“And he has failed.” Save for his broken nose, the blond man had the elegant looks that could have made him the Agency’s answer to James Bond. “The XMWP-1 is a prototype weapons system which will reshape warfare. If our enemies get any piece of it, they’ll eliminate our advantages for the next fifty years. Kell knew the risks.”
“He knew breaking your nose was a capital offense?”
Trask pointed to the screen. “Paint him.”
Sarah rotated the weapons camera and dropped the laser on the downed ovoid form. Then she popped her hand up off that controller and punched her communications circuit on. “Hey, Kell, Trask wants you dead.”
Trask lunged to mute the radio again. Sarah smiled. His attempt to shut her up gave her all the time she needed.
Kell wasn’t sure if he’d blacked out or not. He tasted blood from where he’d bit his tongue. His ears rang. He shook his head to clear it, and fought the claustrophobia of being trapped inside Kane’s dark shell. He tried to move his arms and legs, which he could do, and that meant he was okay.
The XMWP-1, on the other hand, remained inert.
This ain’t good. Kell punched the ignition button and a secondary screen flickered to life. He swiped a hand across his mouth and it came away bloody. He dried his hand on his chest, then settled his communications headset in place again.
His main computer came up, and he punched a button starting a replay of the last ten seconds of activity. He didn’t see much but a bright light, then static, but the computer made sense of it. It picked out a small curved rectangle that had been hidden near the BTR-60.
A Claymore. Now it makes sense.
The mine, which was packed with C-4 and filled steel balls, was intended for use against an advancing mass of troops. When it detonated, it vomited its deadly payload in a sixty degree arc. Kane had been square in the middle of the metal storm. Steel shot had peppered his armor and had tossed him into a parked car.
“Mock?”
The radio remained silent, but computer diagnostics said it should be working. The computer also picked up a fire back in the square. It was having a hard time identifying weapons, but picked out the hulk of a burning BTR-60 and what looked like pieces from a Predator drone’s engine.
Kell took a guess at what had happened. He’d been down, so Mock had driven her d
rone into the APC, buying him some time. Now he had no support in a city where everyone was against him. As nearly as he could tell, however, his objective was intact. If I can move, it’s time to move.
The secondary computer screen resolved itself into diagnostic graphs. The engine was coming up on forty percent capacity. Kell shunted power to the muscles, then to his sensors. Yet before the latter could come up, he felt the limbs respond. Blind though he was, he heaved the machine back onto its feet and raised both arms, happy with the ease and range of motion.
His visuals came on. He had vislight and magres, but IR kept flicking in and out. It was enough, however, so he turned west and trotted toward the Hotel Malta. Two hundred and fifty meters further along, he cut to the right and into the hotel’s courtyard, arriving just in time.
Four soldiers were forcing a trio of civilians into the back of troop transport. An armored Mercedes was parked in front of the truck, with flags at the nose, ready to lead the procession away. A man in uniform and his driver stood on the hotel’s steps, their look of satisfaction dissolving into one of horror as Kane loomed into view.
The Agency folk made his work much easier. As the guards turned assault rifles on the warmech, the Americans dove to the ground and rolled beneath the transport. Ignoring the bullets bouncing off the armor, Kell brought the right arm up, snapped the AR-15 online, and tracked fire from left to right. The four soldiers went down immediately, and bullets tagged the two National Police officials before they’d reached cover.
Kell flicked on his external speakers. “Kayar’s defected. Can’t evac through his zone.”
The agents emerged from beneath the truck. “Then we’re screwed unless you have a plan.”
Kell smiled and wished they could see his face. “Get the dead guy’s cell phone and keys. Call the Agency in Rome. They’ll put you through to the sub that’s waiting for me. Drive fast to the harbor and you’re good.”
“I don’t think the Benz can outrun a bullet.”
“We’ll give them something else to shoot at. This is how we sell it. You come tearing out, I’ll be chasing you, guns blazing.” Kell laughed easily for their comfort. “They’ll let you through.”
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