Black Ops (Expeditionary Force Book 4)

by Craig Alanson

  The Dragon’s nose pancaked into the dirt, digging in and causing the craft to flip onto its back and skid wildly. Both wings and other pieces broke off, sending high-strength composites flying in all directions. After plowing a furrow eighty meters long, the Dragon came to a rest upside down.

  “Holy shit, Joe,” Skippy exclaimed in shock. “I did not see that coming. Sorry! I knew about that antiaircraft missile launcher, but it hadn’t detected our ships at all. Damn it! That was bad fucking luck! That had to be a million-to-one shot,” He lamented.

  We could analyze what had gone wrong later. If there was a later. “Is anyone alive in there?” A quick glance at my console told me both pilots were dead, along with three of the crew. Four other suits were showing life signs of varied strength, and two unsuited people had heartbeats according to their zPhones; I had no idea how anyone not in an armored suit could have survived.

  “Six survivors. Joe, I expect one of them will not survive more than the next few minutes. I am terribly sorry.”

  “Save the sorries for later, Skip. Right now we need to pull our people out of there.” I contacted the lead ship. “Reed, we have-”

  Skippy interrupted me. “Joe, hold!”

  “Reed, stand by. What is it, Skippy?”

  “Joe, all the antiaircraft batteries in that area are now set on automatic and are sweeping the sky with overlapping active sensor pulses; they could see right through the Dragons’ stealth. Sending the other two ships in there for evac would be suicide. I’m doing what I can, but it will be severely limited, their systems are on lockdown to prevent interference. Also,” he continued before I could react, “they have ground troops on the way to the crash site. Six Kristang in powered armor have exited the missile control center, and are running along this ravine.” He highlighted the area on my display. “They have rifles, antiarmor rockets and rifles. Joe, this is a dangerous situation.”

  “Got it. Reed, Chen,” I called the pilots of both Dragons, “set down at the coordinates I’m sending you and stay there, the area is saturated with AA. Major Smythe?”

  “Here, Sir, we heard what Skippy said. I have ten people ready to extract our people.”

  Ten humans, against six Kristang who were bigger, faster, stronger and tougher than any human. I did not like those odds.

  I liked watching the action with my butt in a chair even less than I liked the odds. I watched the battle from my console in a Thuranin dropship, following the action from afar. With the technology available, I could select views from the helmet cameras of every human soldier involved, I could overlay those images on a synthetic ‘God’s eye’ view of the battlefield that Skippy provided by creating a real-time composite of all the data coming in. I had better situational awareness than any human commander in history, and it was not enough. I needed to be there, to be with my people.

  Smythe was in a bad situation. The six Kristang infantry were alerted to other hostile aircraft in the area, and they sent up drones to get a visual. Smythe’s team also launched drones to counter the enemy; the drones tangled in furious air to air combat until they were all quickly destroyed. Each side got only glimpses of the opposition but that was enough; the Kristang now knew they were facing ground troops and I’m sure they could count. We knew any fight would be ten slow, weak humans against six physically superior Kristang who were on their own territory. Smythe had to retrieve our people, including the dead we couldn’t leave behind as evidence; while his people were extracting injured and dead from the crash site, they would be vulnerable. All the Kristang needed to do was stay behind cover and shoot; they knew reinforcements were on their way. It would have been better for us if the Kristang made a rush for the crash site, came out of cover where Smythe’s team could get a clear shot at them. Unfortunately, the six Kristang defenders thought they were up against ten Kristang, so they played it safe.

  Major Smythe held up a hand to pause his people, while he reviewed the drone data in his visor and considered what to do. With him were two British SAS and two Chinese Night Tigers. The team from the other Dragon, trotting up from the east, were three Indian paratroopers and two US Army Rangers; the French paratroopers still were recovering from radiation exposure and had not been cleared for duty. Nationality mattered little by then among the Merry Band of Pirates; Smythe had his people forged into one seamless Special Operations team. They all used the same weapons, and were crosstrained on tactics favored by the other four nationalities, Smythe chose whatever tactics worked best in the situation.

  At the moment, he had a difficult choice. The six enemy soldiers were lying prone in a strong defilade position overlooking the crash site, using a dry creek bed for cover. From that position, they could sweep the crash site and approaches from three directions. It was not a good situation, and the worst opponent he faced was time; enemy reinforcements were on their way and Skippy could not stop them. “Skippy, what can you tell me about the oppo?”

  “They are a garrison security force, assigned to the missile battery,” Skippy stated hurriedly. “They have only minimal training in infantry tactics. I cannot intercept their communications, as they are using line of sight lasers between helmets, and hand signals I can’t interpret from here. Wish I could tell you more, sorry. I am doing what I can to hack into air defenses in the area to give you air support, you shouldn’t plan for it.”

  “Thank you,” Smythe replied automatically, his mind already back working on the problem. One thing was certain; he could not allow the enemy to retain the initiative. Those six soldiers were effectively blocking the humans’ path to the crash site. Smythe considered splitting his team, with six firing at the enemy to keep their heads down, while four humans retrieved the injured from the crash site. He could see now that wouldn’t work. With the team assembled, he sketched out his plan, a tactic he hoped the Kristang would not expect. “Skippy, I have one more favor to ask of you.”

  “Whatever you need, Major.”

  Smythe’s favor was for Skippy to take remote control of all ten suits, and race them across country up and behind the Kristang. This tactic would get the human team into position on high ground above and behind the Kristang quickly; Smythe also wished to avoid risking the Kristang becoming suspicious, if his team ran at the normal slow speed of humans. Skippy took almost a full second to create a detailed map of the terrain between the team’s position and their intended destinations. Smythe wanted the team to proceed up a shallow swale together, then split, with five people going north and five south. They would take up positions to threaten the Kristang from above and behind, forcing the enemy to pull back from the crash site. If that were successful, Smythe intended for one team to keep the Kristang pinned down, while the other team circled around back to the crash site.

  The operation began well, with Smythe feeling his suit accelerate gradually, picking up speed until he was racing across the terrain at a truly frightening speed, so fast he would certainly have tripped and fallen on his own. They were running even faster than he had when escaping from the exploding Thuranin research base on the planet Jumbo, thanks to Skippy. On Jumbo, the suits had engaged an emergency escape mechanism to carry the user away from a threat, using the suit’s sensors to scan the ground in front of the suit and determine the best path forward with only minimal guidance from the user. With Skippy remotely controlling the suits on Kobamik, he had planned almost every footfall from detailed terrain maps the beer can had hacked from a Spike Tail clan database. The suits of Smythe’s team did not need to slowly scan the terrain in front and make decisions every millisecond; they only needed to follow Skippy’s preprogrammed instructions, and could extend every stride to cover maximum ground. The system was not perfect; armored boots slipped on rocks or loose dirt, ground had shifted slightly from the last mapping survey conducted by the Spike Tails. When one suit slowed to recover balance from an errant footfall, Skippy sent a signal for all suits to slow accordingly, keeping the team together.

  The speed with which t
he SpecOps team from Earth ran up the swale toward their objectives was deeply concerning to the leader of the Kristang infantry. Rumors had been flying that the attacks on the Fire Dragon had been possible because of advanced technology not available to most Kristang. The aircraft that had been shot down had not appeared on sensors at all, and now the infantry was faced with ten intruders who were running at speeds his soldiers could not match. Whatever force the infantry leader was up against, he had to assume they had access to technology far beyond that possessed by the Spike Tail clan. He saw with alarm what the intruders had planned, and he reacted.

  Major Smythe was reminded of two maxims from his early days in training. First, no plan survives contact with the enemy. Second, the enemy also makes plans. His team was nearing the upper end of the swale, where it flattened out and the land became flat for a hundred or so meters. At the end of the swale, his team would split and race across the open ground to proceed up the lower slopes of two hills. The suits would slow to climb the hills, for the ground at the base of the slopes was crumbled shale, making footing treacherous. The teams split, and Smythe felt his boots slipping alarmingly on loose rock. He let his legs go limp, letting the suit’s sensors and motors do the work for him, far faster than he ever could. Now that his brain was not constantly being jolted at high-speed, he took a moment to regain situational awareness.

  And did not like what he saw. The enemy had left their position covering the crash site, and were now running full speed, directly at Smythe! Both SpecOps teams were in a bad place, on exposed slopes with poor footing, and in an area with no tree cover. They could not climb quickly enough to reach the cover of the hilltop, nor could they retreat to the meager cover of the swale. “Skippy!”

  “I see it! Major, I can’t get you out of this, the signal lag prevents me from controlling your suits in real time.”

  “Team!” Smythe ordered his people to turn around and attack, he did not see any choice. If the humans kept climbing the crumbling slopes they would be sitting ducks. Aboard the Dutchman, every simulated fight against Kristang had taught Smythe one lesson above all; movement and speed are life. To remain static against superwarriors was death. The enemy was faster, stronger and had quicker reflexes. The only advantage Smythe had was superior numbers, ten against six.

  The six Kristang came over the ridge as Smythe’s two teams were still stumbling down the final couple meters of loose shale at the bottom of the hills. Explosive rounds struck shale just to the left of Smythe’s feet, sending jagged flakes of rock pelting against his armored suit legs and knocking him off balance. In desperation, he leaped up, even knowing that while he was in the predictable ballistic arc of the jump, he was vulnerable to accurate fire from the enemy. He landed on secure ground, surprised to be alive and not thinking about it. His rifle came up, his visor providing a vivid blue crosshairs to show where he was aiming. As he ran to his left and an enemy rocket lanced out toward him, he fired a four-round burst that astonishingly caught a Kristang in the chest, knocking the superwarrior backwards. Smythe threw himself to the right to dodge the rocket, which at the last second he saw was going to miss him anyway. He stumbled and almost went down, the suit compensating in an action that was jarring, making his chin smack the bottom of the helmet. At no instant did Smythe let himself be distracted, he sighted on another Kristang who was racing straight at him, firing directly at Smythe. The SAS man had no time to wonder how he could be alive, not even time to squeeze the trigger of his own rifle before the Kristang’s head suddenly exploded, ripped apart by explosive-tipped rounds from at least two other rifles.

  Smythe had to turn to the left to find another target, and his brain may have had a split-second of astonishment at finding only one Kristang still standing before he swung his rifle around and fired off a burst. His rifle added to the carnage inflicted on the last surviving Kristang, the lizard had already been hit several times before Smythe’s rounds reached out to stitch a line up the enemy’s torso and nearly decapitate the enemy. “Cease fire!” Smythe shouted, spinning around in disbelief to count ten humans still on their feet. Several people had dents and gouges in their armor, especially around the legs as explosive rounds had hit the ground near their feet. The worst damage was to Ranger Mychalchyk’s right thigh, and even that deep gouge wasn’t impeding the functioning of the suit. The slope behind Smythe’s team was smoking from impacts of rifle rounds and rockets. But not one of his team had been struck directly. And all six of the Kristang were lying dead. Smythe strode over to a Kristang soldier laying on his back, with holes ripped through his armored suit. The rounds fired by humans had alternated armor-piercing and explosive, standard tactics against light armor. Armor-piercing rounds used their kinetic energy to turn the tip into superheated plasma that burned its way through armor, weakening it and creating an opening for the explosive-tipped round to follow. As Smythe could see on the battlefield, the combination was quite effective. The enemy had almost certainly used the same ammunition against the Merry Band of Pirates, yet not one of them had been hit. “How the hell did that happen?” Smythe asked, astonished.

  “Holy shit,” my lips quavered in amazed shock. “How the hell did that happen?” I had been following the blindingly fast firefight from my dropship, unable to breathe. As the last Kristang’s head jerked back and he slumped to the ground, I shuddered with relief. A team of ten humans had just sliced up six genetically-enhanced Kristang superwarriors, without a single one of our team suffering any worse than shrapnel bouncing off their armor.

  “Yup. Looks like the Kristang really sent their ‘A’ team to this battle,” Skippy said with a verbal smirk.

  “What? Skippy, those guys couldn’t shoot worth shit. Damn, in a firefight between those Kristang and Imperial Stormtroopers, nobody would get hit. Did we just go up against the Spike Tails equivalent of Cub Scouts? ‘A’ team? That was more like their ‘Z’ team.”

  “Joey, Joey, Joey,” Skippy said sadly, I mentally pictured him shaking his head. “Apparently, you never watched the ‘A Team’. The guys on that show could empty an entire magazine and never hit the side of a barn, from inside a barn. Your knowledge of crappy 80’s TV shows is woefully inadequate.”

  “Oh, ha ha,” I laughed, my voice bordering on the hysterical, I was still coming down off the adrenaline rush. “‘A’ team, I get it. Your Magnificence, I’ll make a deal with you; you get us out of this mess, and I will let Professor Skippy give me a graduate course in crappy 80s TV shows.”

  “Deal!” Skippy shouted before I could change my mind. “We’ll start with ‘Manimal’, that’s widely considered the gold standard of ‘80s crappiness. Then we’ll work our way up to ‘Alf’. Although, hmmm, ‘Alf’ is about a super-smart alien stuck living with a group of ignorant humans, that scenario is just not believable. Hey, if you piss me off, I’ll make you sit through every episode of ‘The Love Boat’. The director’s cut. With commentary.”

  “Oh, crap. Am I going to regret this?”

  “Joe, after you finish watching the first season of ‘Knight Rider’, you will be praying for death.”

  “Shit. Fine.” I asked as I watched Major Smythe’s team running toward the downed dropship with long, powered strides. Bravo team was already at the crash site, and had the survivors huddled in a sort of ditch. It all looked good, I anticipated the other two dropships evacuating the whole group within minutes. No additional threats were showing on the display. My hands were still shaking slightly. “Tell me, Your Magnificence, did the poor shooting of those Kristang have anything to do with you?”

  “Me? Sweet, innocent little me? Well, heh heh, I might have screwed with the targeting systems of their rifles, and the guidance systems of their rockets. That was not easy, even for me. If they hadn’t all been clustered together in a small area, I couldn’t have done it. Also, their leader didn’t completely trust his soldiers, because he had much more actual combat experience. So he had their targeting systems slaved to his suit computer. I only needed to
infiltrate one system to get in. It was a lucky break. As you monkeys understand ‘luck’, that is.”

  “Hey, I’ll take all the luck we can get. Except bad luck, we’ve had plenty of that. Major Smythe, you are clear to proceed to the crash site. Be advised Skippy can give us a three minute gap in air defenses.” Our shiny beer can had found a way to reset the local air defense network and throw it into diagnostic mode; he estimated we had three minutes remaining before sensors became active again and the sky would be too dangerous for flying. “Our birds are on the way. Retrieve our people and leave Curly away from the crash site.”

  “Pull Curly from the fuselage and leave him, understood. Sir, we are all in shock here. What happened?” Smythe’s voice reflected uncertainty, and that never happened.

  “Major, I would like to tell you the skill and training of your team was responsible,” I replied with a laugh, “but you can thank a certain beer can for the enemy’s poor shooting.”