Buildings, vehicles, everything in its path, disappeared into the cloud of dust.
Even out in the desert, well out of the cone of destruction, inside a solid metal battle tank, Chisnall felt the force of the explosive anger.
Behind them, the second tank, closer to the outer edge of the blast, rocked on its suspension. Two figures on the back of the tank went flying, arms and legs cartwheeling through the air, slamming into the wet sand of the desert.
In front of them, the gunship rotorcraft shook and shimmied in the sky but held its position.
The fast movers were not so lucky. They were almost directly over Uluru when it blew. The upward blast of burning fuel hit one of the jets, spinning it like a football. It rolled sideways, clipping the tail of the other jet. For a second, it looked as though they would both recover. Then the first jet exploded, dissolving in a fireball, while the second, without a tail, spiraled into the desert.
Chisnall stared at the fire and dust pouring out through the openings in Uluru. The tank’s cameras saw the explosion, but his mind saw more. Much more. He saw the faces of the young mothers, impaled on their cots by snaking tubes, their dull eyes reflecting the white flare of the blast for a fraction of a second before they vanished forever.
The jets were gone, but it wasn’t over yet. In front of them, flashes came from the gunship. Rockets.
Chisnall shut his eyes, waiting for the impact.
“They’re firing too high!” Price yelled.
He opened his eyes and looked up to see the trails of the rockets passing over their heads—two of them. He twisted around and saw a brilliant flash as they both impacted, dead center, on the tank behind them. It exploded with a brilliant flash and a scream of rent metal, jagged hunks of tank rising in parabolic arcs before crashing down into the desert sand.
“They got the wrong tank!” Wilton yelled. “They got the wrong tank!”
“No, they didn’t,” Chisnall said.
He watched the rotorcraft sink to the ground in front of them. The transmitter on the tank’s desk continued to flash, identifying them. The pilot of the medivac craft had said a second craft would be coming for them. He had just neglected to say that that craft would be a gunship.
Chisnall turned the knob gently and rolled the big tank forward, pulling it to a halt just in front of the rotorcraft.
“We are Oscar Mike,” he said, jumping down into the well. “We are Oscar freaking Mike.”
As they ran across the open desert to the waiting rotorcraft, Chisnall glanced back at the burning hulk of the second tank.
Behind it, in the sand of the desert, he could see two crawling figures. Yozi and Alizza. He flicked a salute at them as he ran up onto the gunship. They’d never see it. But it felt like the right thing to do.
Exhausted, Chisnall collapsed into a seat in the small, circular bay in the interior of the gunship. Price sat next to him, supporting her broken wrist on her knee. She barely seemed to notice it. Her head was down, staring at the floor.
There were no other seats, so Wilton and Monster propped themselves up against the curved wall of the bay. Wilton closed his eyes, but Monster stared at Chisnall, grinning.
“The Monster thinks that was better than a really good fart, my dudes.”
Wilton groaned. Chisnall laughed. Price was silent.
He thought about Hunter, resting forever in the sands of the desert.
He thought about Brogan. His now ex-girlfriend. Had she ever had feelings for him? Or was that all just part of her plan? Probably he would never know. And for Brogan, Chisnall knew, the relief at surviving would be tempered by the knowledge of what would be waiting for her back in the Free Territories.
As the rotorcraft took off, Chisnall looked back at Uluru and the triangular path of destruction centered on the monorail entrance. Flames were still belching from the air shaft, and a cloud of gray dust hung around the top of the rock. It slowly disappeared behind them, first a lump of rock, then a pebble, then a dot on the landscape. Then it was gone, swallowed by the vastness of the Australian desert.
END NOTE
THERE ARE VARYING ACCOUNTS OF MANY OF THE EVENTS on the Uluru mission. But the key facts are not in question, only some of the finer details.
For example, some historians have claimed that Lieutenant Ryan Chisnall did not fall into the watercourse down the side of Uluru, but rather jumped into it willingly, knowing that it would end up in the rock pool at Mutitjulu. The most reliable account of this particular event, however, comes from Captain Trianne Price, ACOG, Recon Team Angel (Ret.). She states that, in her opinion, Chisnall simply slipped, and that if it was a planned move, he would have said something to the others first.
Price was awarded the Victoria Cross (by the New Zealand government) and the Bzadian War Medal (by the New Earth Council) for her courage in laying the explosives on the monorail track in the face of the approaching car.
There are also varying stories about the role of Specialist Janos Panyoczki (Monster). Historian Hayden Glanville, in his study of the Uluru mission, came to the conclusion that Monster was there to keep an eye on Chisnall. Not even the team commander was above suspicion. Panyoczki, still on active duty, is now a general in the Hungarian Free Army. He has never consented to any interviews about his service during the Bzadian War, so it is unlikely that these questions will ever be answered.
At his parents’ request, the grave of Specialist Stephen Huntington was located after the end of the war, although no remains were found.
Specialist Blake Wilton continued to serve with both the Angel and Demon Recon teams, before he grew too tall for undercover missions and transferred to the Canadian Land Force Command. He served with honor and distinction, earning the Medal of Military Valour and two Sacrifice Medals before losing his life heroically in the Battle of Bering Strait during the Second Great Ice War.
Staff Sergeant Holly Brogan received a pardon from the New Earth Council after agreeing to assist in locating other Uluru children who had already infiltrated human society. She passed on extensive inside knowledge of the Bzadian military, which helped bring about a turning point in the war. She is now considered a national hero of Australia.
Lieutenant Ryan Chisnall returned to alien-occupied territory with other members of Recon Team Angel less than six months later, as part of Operation Magnum. They got out. He did not. An emergency signal was picked up by satellite, but an extraction team found no trace of Chisnall. Official reports list him as missing, presumed killed, in action.
His luck, it seems, had finally run out.
GLOSSARY
Everything about the Allied Combined Operations Group (ACOG) was a mishmash of different human cultures: tactics, weapons, languages, vehicles, and especially terminology. The success of many missions depended on troops from diverse nations being able to understand all communications instantly and thoroughly. The establishment of a Standardized Military Terminology and Phonetic Alphabet (SMTPA) was a key factor in assisting this communication, combining existing terminology from many of the countries involved in ACOG. For ease of understanding, here is a short glossary of some of the SMTPA terms, phonetic shortcuts, and equipment used in this book.
Air mobile: airborne vehicle
Bogie: enemy aircraft
Cal: caliber (of weapon)
Chaff: metallic strips dropped in a cloud to confuse enemy radar
Claymore mine: directional antipersonnel mine
Clear copy: “Your transmission is clear.”
Coil-gun: weapon using magnetic coils to propel a projectile
Comm: personal radio communicator
EV (Echo Victor): exit vehicle
FACC-E: free-fall air-cushioned container—equipment
Fast mover: fixed-wing aircraft such as a jet fighter
Foot mobile: person walking
GPS: global positioning system
Ground mobile: land-based vehicle, such as a car or truck
HAFLP-P (Half-pipe): high-alt
itude free-fall landing pad—personnel
HMDS: helmet-mounted display system
How copy: “Is my transmission clear?”
Klick: kilometer
LAV: light armored vehicle
LT: lieutenant
Mike: minute
NV goggles: night-vision goggles
Oscar Kilo: okay
Oscar Mike: on the move
PFC: private first class
Puke: military slang for a Bzadian
Rotorcraft: helicopter with internal rotor blades at the base of the craft
RV: rendezvous point
SAM: surface-to-air missile
Sit rep: situation report
Slow mover: rotary-wing aircraft such as a helicopter or rotorcraft
Spec: specialist
Sys-check: systems check
Sys-OK: systems check completed okay
Tab: hike or walk
Three, six, etc.: direction given as per a clock face
NOTE ON PRONUNCIATION
There is no equivalent in English for the buzzing sound that is a common feature of most Bzadian languages. As per convention, this sound is represented, where required, with the letter z.
NOTE ON BZADIAN ARMY RANKS
The ranking system and unit structure of the Bzadian Army are markedly different from those of most Earth forces. Many ranks have no equivalent in human terms, and the organization of units is different. For simplicity and ease of understanding, the closest human rank has been used when referring to Bzadian Army ranks, and Bzadian unit names have been expressed in human terms.
CONGRATULATIONS
The following people won the grand prize in my school competitions and have all had a character named after them in this book:
Theo Bennett
Hebron Christian College, Auckland, New Zealand
Conna Brajkovich
Sir Edmund Hillary Library, Auckland, New Zealand
Holly Brogan
St. Cuthberts College, Auckland, New Zealand
Bryan Brown
Vista Del Valle School, Los Angeles, USA
Easton Bunker
Alexander Dawson School, Las Vegas, USA
Ryan Chisnall
Belmont Intermediate, Auckland, New Zealand
Sean Fleming
Masterton Intermediate, Masterton, New Zealand
Hayden Glanville
St. Patricks at Strathfield, New South Wales,
Australia
Bonnie Kelaart
Lowood State School, Queensland, Australia
Janos Panyoczki
Kaiwaka School, Kaiwaka, New Zealand
Trianne Price
Woodcrest State College, Queensland, Australia
Blake Wilton
Orewa College, Orewa, New Zealand
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Anyone who has ever published a book will tell you about the debt they owe to the books they read in their formative years. For me, it was the adventure thrillers of Alistair MacLean. Recon Team Angel is in many ways a tribute to books like Where Eagles Dare and The Guns of Navarone.
I stand on the shoulders of giants.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
A native New Zealander, BRIAN FALKNER now lives on the other side of the Tasman Sea, in Australia. To research the settings for The Assault, he camped in the Australian Outback, sleeping under the stars and visiting Uluru. Find him online at brianfalkner.com.
The Assault Page 21