by Sid K
The fighter planes left them as they got closer to the airfields and the pilot landed the helicopter in the middle of an empty runaway.
“Give him the stuff,” the pilot said to the rangers in the back.
The rangers gave the police chief the objects and he got out of the helicopter. He quickly ran towards the five cars that he saw approaching from behind. Another open car was fast approaching the helicopter from the front. A man stood up on the front passenger seat and spoke in a megaphone.
“This is your order from the Air Army. Do not fly your helicopter or we will shoot it down.” He pointed to an anti-aircraft gun attached in the back seat of the car.
“Bastard,” the pilot said. “He told them in code to arrest us.”
“So what, just fly off,” a ranger from the back said. “That’s just cars.”
“Look out ahead,” the pilot said. “They have an antiaircraft gun in their car. At this range even a fighter plane could not escape.”
“Radio the boss and tell him,” the second ranger said as the cars rapidly closed the distance.
“I am trying, but the bastards have jammed our radio,” the pilot said. “I should have never listened to the chief.”
The car in the front stopped and four of the five cars coming from behind surrounded the helicopter. Four Air Army soldiers with ATRs jumped out of each of the cars and walked towards the helicopter. The pilot and the Ranx Rangers came out with their hands in the air and surrendered.
The police chief was picked up by the fifth car and none other than Air Commodore Altar was a passenger in it. They drove back to the base building.
“How are you doing, chief?” Altar asked.
“Like I just woke up from a nightmare,” the chief said. “My men are still hostages, along with SPASI guards that I didn’t know were coming.”
“Your worries are over,” Altar said. “The army has taken over the Coldwoods matter now.”
“Glad.”
“So what is this message for the House of War that their boss has?”
“Some photos, a tape and documents,” chief said looking at them. “Formal demands, I presume. I have to get them to the House of War.”
“Ever ridden in a fighter plane?”
“Never.”
“You will enjoy it and they will be flying top speed today,” Altar said, “I have two fighter planes ready to fly you to the Air Army base just north of the Capital. Also radioed the House of War; they are expecting you.”
They reached the headquarters building where a couple of soldiers stood ready with airplane clothes for the chief who was still wearing his police uniform. He hurriedly changed and then the car rushed him to the fighter planes waiting on the runway.
* * *
Boss Hantex had Sayett and Slyntya escorted to the third floor of his tower in the main technical control room of the storm machines. A dozen technicians sat in front of panels and instruments with light bulbs, flashing signs, knobs, wires and displays. Boss Hantex was smiling with a cigar in his mouth and a glass of whiskey in his hand while Suka Manx, standing next to him, looked angry. A half dozen Ranger guards with automatic rifles in their hands stood near the walls.
“You aren’t a Starfirian are you?” the Boss asked Slyntya, approaching her slowly. Suka Manx walked behind him.
She did not know what to say. Had he discovered her true identity and also found out about her husband? She stayed quiet, but Sayett answered the Boss with a question of his own.
“What makes you say that?” Sayett said. “Do you think we would make an outsider one of our Constellars?”
“Don’t be a fool, detective,” Hantex laughed. “She doesn’t look like you Starfirians or like us Ranxians either. I would bet you are a Karalnar,” he said to her. “Your accent, your looks...I kidnapped a few Karaln scientists and I see the similarity.”
“Would that be a problem if I were?” Slyntya asked.
“On the contrary, better for me.” the Boss said. “Starfirians are a major pain.” He turned to Sayett. “We decided to build the Storm Tower in your country, because we knew defeating you from the outside would be very hard—you would not surrender. You had to be taken from inside.”
“What makes you think we will surrender just because our enemy is inside?” Sayett asked.
“Because now your civilian population will be facing the brunt of the storm,” Hantex said. “Your armies will brave the storms even if it means their death, I will give that much credit to you fellas. I mean to intimidate your state by intimidating your people.”
“That is a low and mean way of fighting,” Slyntya said, “threatening us civilians, including the women and children.”
Hantex guffawed. Suka scoffed. Sayett stayed quiet, but Slyntya was near tears.
“I forgot earlier,” Hantex said, “the reason I asked you whether you were a Karalnar, well take a look.” He pointed to a large display screen that had a map of Coldwoods and surrounding towns with mountains, roads, rivers etc. “You have seen machines that show photos, but nothing like this. I stole this from the Karaln Nation. Neither the Starfirians nor the Narducats have anything like this; when they were experimenting with the storm machines, they had to use pilots with binoculars and radios in airplanes to guide the experiments. But this display machine allows me to target the storm where I want while sitting in this room.”
Slyntya looked at the machine with amazement and for those moments forgot her fear and grief. When she was still living in the Karaln Nation, there was only talk of these machines in the universities and the technical journals: display machines that would be fed maps of areas and then connected to other machines to allow coordination of physical activities by personnel sitting in a central control room. No more need for a large number of operators with radios and binoculars calling in locations. She hadn’t taken the talk seriously, but here it was.
“Tell them about the three rangers,” Suka Manx said.
“Forget them fellas,” the Boss waived him away and started drinking whiskey.
“No, tell them,” Suka insisted then proceeded to tell it himself, “Your government arrested three of my rangers who were escorting the Coldwoods police chief. I should execute three of your SPASI guards in retaliation.”
Sayett’s anger was aroused but he knew better than to give it voice. Suka Manx held the upper hand now, Sayett would bide his time.
“Bah…” Boss Hantex said. “I don’t want to kill people in cold blood,” then he chuckled, “unless of course they get in the way of my plan. Suka, forget those three rangers, I didn’t expect the Starfirians to react any differently.”
“You sent them expecting them to be taken?” Suka scowled at the Boss.
“You never sent soldiers to a battle expecting them to die?” Boss asked.
Suka clenched his teeth and kept quiet.
“Alright, the time has come,” the Boss turned to his technicians. “Start the Storm Machine. Keep the eye of the storm on our compound, but spread its fury all around.”
The technicians went to work pushing buttons, dialing knobs, pulling levers, talking to each other. The display machine lit up and showed a red circle that a technician moved over the Coldwoods area to where their compound was located. He turned a knob to narrow its size till it barely covered the compound and no more. Then he turned another knob that displayed jagged lines spreading out from the edge of the circle in all directions. He turned to Boss who walked over, entered a numerical code and pressed a big button. The machines on the roof came alive with great buzz and thunder.
chapter 22 – into the eye of the storm
Pilot Pelyett was flying his helicopter low and slowly as Sthykar had told him to do. It was possible that the rangers had radar and antiaircraft guns. It had started drizzling and he had turned on the wipers. Sthykar was operating the radio from behind.
“Colonel Jontvyk, Sthykar here,” he said. “What is your position?”
“We are all set here, hiding behind trees and bushes
just a couple hundred meters from the gate,” Jontvyk replied. “There are four rangers behind the gate, we will have to storm them to clear it for you.”
“Don’t do that,” Sthykar said. “That would draw more rangers from the barracks and defeat the purpose of my helicopter raid. We will take care of them; you be ready to storm the gate just as soon as I use the explosives.”
“Shall we move up?” Jontvyk asked.
“Crawl up without making any noise,” Sthykar said. “We will be coming in from the side to avoid being sighted by the rangers. Fortunately the rain will cover the sound of the rotors.”
“Do you think this is the Storm Weapon that you told us about?” Jontvyk asked. “The sky was clear just a while back and now the rain comes from nowhere. The wind is also picking up”
“Could be,” Sthykar said, “but we are too close to the compound. They won’t be fools to flood their own place. Alright then.”
“Alright,” Jontvyk replied. Jontvyk signaled for the rest of the group to get on their bellies and start crawling towards the compound gate.
* * *
Capitan Haryett’s divisions had already come under fire from the enemy. He had sent out some troops to cross the road when the Rangers from the hills had opened up on them and slain a few. Their bodies lay scattered on the road as the rest of troops pulled back into the woods. The warriors had opened fire on the hills as well and a long distance firefight had broken out.
“Capitan Haryett,” a soldier said. “What do we do with the dead bodies? There will be cars and trucks coming. Those people will be in danger as well.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Haryett replied. “The Supreme Commander has ordered the police chiefs of towns in the north as well as those in the south to close this road to all traffic.”
Haryett slowly walked up to the trees near to the road where his soldiers were returning fire. He looked at the hills with his binoculars. Rangers were well hidden, but still visible. There weren’t that many of them, definitely less than five hundred, he estimated. If he could get a few hundred soldiers across, he thought, looking at the map in his hand, he could either close off their retreat into Coldwoods or force them to run back downhill before his troops reached the foothills.
It had started drizzling. The wind had also picked up. Perhaps this had to do with that strange storm weapon these villains supposedly had. He picked up his rifle, walked a safe distance into the woods, climbed on a rock and waved his rifle.
“Listen up,” Haryett said. “The enemy is well positioned on the hills. But our orders are to cross the road here and we are going to make a mad dash across the road. Prepare yourself, we go in ten minutes. Capitans and sub-officers meet me here.”
He jumped off the rock as the two other capitans as well as the sub-officers came running to him.
“Prepare your troops,” he said. “As soon as we cross the road, we are going to rush those rangers.”
The capitans and sub-officers dispersed to prepare their troops. Haryett had to strike a balance here, if he sent them all out in a column formation, they could get across the road quickly, but that would give sure targets to the Rangers. Sending them out scattered would give them a chance to avoid getting hit, but it would take longer. He had positioned his troops as far north as his orders permitted; they were almost out of the Rangers’ firing range as it was, and most of the hills were to their south. Still a few bullets would manage to hit the target, if out of sheer chance alone.
He decided to send them out thirty at a time, a few feet apart, with the next batch of troops four seconds behind. As the troops assembled, they were given their directions and they stood at attention while Haryett walked up with a megaphone.
“No matter what happens, don’t stop in the middle of the road,” Haryett said. “Those who are wounded and fall down, turn over and lie on your stomach, put your bags over your heads, and your rifle over your lower back. The rest of you keep running; we will come back for the wounded as soon as we have run the Rangers out of those hills. When you cross, head over to them, there aren’t that many of them.”
Capitan Haryett then walked out of the way of his troops. They all looked tense and ready with ATR’s in their hands, leaning forward, just waiting for the command.
“Attack,” Haryett yelled through the megaphone. “Attack! Attack!”
The mad dash began. The Starfirian warriors ran across the six lanes of the road, jumping over the two-foot divider in the middle. Ranx Rangers opened fire. Every four seconds more troops ran across, and every time a couple, three or more got hit, fell down, tumbled over, or sometimes plain died on the spot. Remaining Starfirians had opened up on the Rangers from the woods to provide cover but it wasn’t of much utility as the Rangers were well protected behind the rocks.
Eight to ten minutes later, many Starfirians had made it across including a capitan. He led the warriors straight towards the hills. Yelling, screaming, shouting, they ran at the hills. The Ranx Rangers realized they had to make it down before the Starfirians reached there. Their leader gave them an order to pull out and they rapidly descended from their hills, and started retreating back towards the compound.
It was now safe for the majority of the troops still remaining on the other side to cross . The capitan who had made it across and his troops ran up the hills to find the Rangers gone, barely a few minutes before their arrival. He radioed in their capture of the hills, but Haryett had already guessed from the fact that the firing from the hills had stopped. All of his troops were crossing unharmed. He gave orders for the wounded to be taken back to the nearest town and then crossed the road himself along with the rest of his warriors. As the last of them crossed over, Haryett looked at the map with satisfaction. The hard part was over; the rest of the way to Coldwoods was only forest, no place for the Rangers to dig in. He ordered his warriors to march straight ahead to their target: Boss Hantex’s compound.
* * *
“They just won’t stop coming,” said a Ranger positioned flat on the ridge next to Corporal Montex said.
“And the damn rain won’t stop either,” opined another Ranger on the other side of Montex as he fired his gun down the hill.
“Boys, that’s our storm weapon,” Montex said. “At least I hope so.” He chuckled and the other Rangers nearby guffawed. Montex had never seriously believed the idea of a machine that could create storms and hurricanes. It sounded like the magic that people thousands of years ago believed in; like gods who allegedly threw lightning bolts and worked up a fury of wind and water. He doubted that most of the Rangers believed it either; they were loyal soldiers and were following orders. For a great many Rangers, stirring up trouble in Starfire Nation was itself the prize. Starfirians had the reputation for having one of the best land armies in the world and fighting them was adding a patch of honor to one’s shoulder. However, it was also a great pain to fight them, and the first Ranger was right—the Starfirian troops kept charging up the hill. The Ranger fire was taking down more than a few of them, but they kept coming and coming, taking cover behind trees, retaliating with deadly accurate gunfire. If this was Starfire Nation’s reserve army, he did not want to think how much more determined and aggressive it’s regular and elite armies would be.
Montex unloaded another magazine as the enemy soldiers had come almost half the distance up the hill. The rest of the way would be harder for them now as the trees had thinned out, but the Ranxian Rangers had to prepare for a retreat as well. If they didn’t do so in time, they would have the unpleasant task of retreating downhill while their enemy had the high ground. Montex put his back to the rocks and fumbled for another magazine, but he had run out. He ordered a soldier to throw him a half dozen more magazines and he checked them for bullets.
Montex had been chosen for this mission because he was known as an early supporter of the Ranx Rejuvenation Party. He was a party loyalist and Boss Hantex wanted just such a person. He would be honest and acknowledge that there were at least fo
ur corporals and capitans in Ranx Rangers that were better than him; he wasn’t the second best after Suka Manx. But he was the only one with the party card for RRP. He had joined this party because he wanted Ranx to try to become a great power, although he didn’t care much for the history or about the Sanguine Empire. He had found the idea of a storm machine laughable when he had first heard it. He had, however, agreed to participate in this project because if there was even a remote chance of this working, he wouldn’t want to miss the historical event.
Corporal Montex unloaded a couple more magazines, but their enemy just kept charging up the hill. His troops were now getting massive incoming fire and the bullets were ricocheting all around the Rangers. He was secure behind a big rock, but the other Rangers were not so lucky. He could see them getting hit more and more often and hear their screams. It was time to pull back.
“Retreat to the next hill,” Montex yelled and he shouted a couple more times. A few Rangers stayed back to cover their retreat, the rest rolled down and headed south to the hill behind.
Soon thereafter Capitan Duftar’s warriors took the tallest ridge from the Ranx Rangers and they were jubilant reaching the top. Here on out, they would have an easier time pushing back the Rangers, rolling them up, using the high ground behind them to provide cover fire. Capitan Duftar lit up a cigarette and radioed in his first victory to Colonel Weltar.
* * *
The shootout broke out at the creek just as Capitan Jolvyt had predicted. His three thousand troops were stopped by the three hundred Ranx Rangers from the other side. The trees and vegetation were very dense; the soldiers were almost invisible behind the stumps of the trees and were firing their rifles over the creek at each other. Mostly the rifle barrels stuck out from behind the trees on each side. Capitan Jolvyt had lined up his soldiers from one end to the other and they had opened up on full automatic, but to no avail so far. The Rangers had positioned themselves well.
Jolvyt called over a few soldiers. “Find me the narrowest crossing point of the creek,” he ordered. The rain and wind had picked up and he did not want to wait long as the higher the creek got, the longer it would take his soldiers to cross, incurring more casualties.