by Jim Roberts
Krieger sighed, ejecting his spent shotgun ammo magazine and replacing it with a fresh drum, "Alright my friend. I learned hotwiring back in Blackwater. It is your funeral, huh?" A smile curled across his lips as that familiar look of certifiable lunacy sparkled in his eyes.
Joe began a count. "On three. One...two...three!"
Both men leapt out from the embankment, firing at the Centurions to the northeast. The two men bolted into the relative safety of the alleyway to where the car was parked. Forty feet up through the alley, five Centurions had decided to scout the forward position for better firing lines. Joe hefted his M4 and aimed through the red-dot scope. The carbine howled in his hands, spitting a stream of flame towards the troopers. Joe saw his burst rip apart the helmet of the lead Olympus soldier, spraying dark blood and brain matter on the wall beside him. The other Centurions instantly dove for cover.
Something had been gnawing on Joe about the Centurions he'd come across these last eight months. If he hadn't known better, he would have sworn they were getting better, tactically anyway. The troopers they had dealt with at Fortresses Bellum and Liberatio seemed like incompetent tin soldiers compared to these new guys. It was something in the way they moved as a team now, complementing each other perfectly, almost like a well-oiled Navy SEAL squad.
Joe put it out of his mind as he unhooked a 308-1 White Smoke grenade from his belt. Yanking the pin, he tossed the grenade towards the Centurions. The canister belched forth a thick white smoke that obscured most of the alley in front of the trooper's positions.
Joe had bought them a few precious seconds.
Krieger had already smashed the window of the driver seat and, with his meaty hand, yanked the ignition casing off the steering wheel. The car was so old, it came loose with little effort. He began to work, crossing the correct cables in order to start the engine.
"The tank is almost empty, my friend!"
Joe leapt across the hood of the car and bashed the window of the passenger seat, "Doesn't matter! As long as it can get us out of here, that's all we need!"
Suddenly a flurry of blind gunfire ripped into the concrete wall the car was parked parallel to. The Centurions were firing heedless of what they hit. Joe pulled the locking mechanism on the door and opened it, jumping into the passenger side. Krieger worked furiously, ripping the covers off several wires and splicing them together.
"Come on you govno! Turn on!" Krieger roared as he pumped the gas pedal.
The car refused to turn over.
"Keep trying!" Joe shouted, clapping a new magazine into his M4.
Krieger tried again and again. Finally after a nerve-wracking fifteen seconds, the engine ignited.
"Floor it!" Joe yelled, closing the passenger door. Krieger was all too happy to oblige. The car jerked forward and began to pick up speed. However, there was only one direction to go−
Into the street.
"Hold on!" Krieger shouted, spinning the steering wheel to the right as he drove directly into the line of fire of the Centurions and the Adam Khel tribesmen. Bullets ripped across the dashboard, tearing into the worthless metal of the car. Krieger swerved, trying to find an accessible road that would lead them out of the city. After a dizzying spin through the street, trying to avoid the gunfire, he found an exit: a clear road directly out of the city. Krieger gunned the tiny car's pathetic engine and they drove towards the freedom of the arid desert beyond.
* * *
THE CAR passed through the last of the buildings of Darra Adam Khel, leading Joe and his comrade into the craggy badlands of the western Pakistan desert. The car bumped and jostled as it chugged along toward their EVAC point. They were almost a mile out before the car began to falter noticeably. After a few seconds, smoke began to spew from the radiator.
"Looks like we took bullet in engine block, friend."
Joe checked his watch. They had literally one minute before evac. He looked behind him, worried they were being followed. Mercifully, it didn't seem they were. Joe switched on the comlink, "Danny we're nearly at the EVAC point, what's your ETA, over?"
Suddenly, Krieger hit the brakes, sending Joe forward roughly to almost split his head open on the dashboard.
Standing directly in front of them, obscured by the smoke spewing from the car hood, was Whisper. The stealth warrior was breathing heavily.
"What kept you two?" The husky voice from inside the suit sounded like it was gasping for air.
"What the hell happened?" asked Joe, as he got out, slamming the car door behind him, "You were supposed to take Decimus alive!"
"He shot himself before I could stop him, Joe."
"Why didn't you taser him? I know you have something like that in your suit!"
"As I said, the Accretion unit was drained from the shroud. I was unable..."
"Excuse me my friends," Krieger interrupted, pointing back at the village one mile in the distance, "But it seems we have new problem!"
The late afternoon sun was making it difficult to make out, but Joe saw what the Russian was pointing at easy enough. A single Cerberus drone was trundling towards them, obviously damaged, but still functional. As far as Joe could tell, it was a half a click away.
"You didn't destroy it?" Joe couldn't believe Danny would make a mistake like that.
"I thought I had! I hit each with a railgun charge−"
"Well you obviously didn't do enough damage." Joe squinted as he watched the machine closing in. He judged it would be within firing range in less than thirty seconds.
Krieger had exited the vehicle and was reloading the autoshotgun with his last ammo drum. "If you fools are finished fighting, why find some cover, dah? Or would you like to stay here and make friends with robot?"
Joe activated his comm, "Izy, where the hell are you guys? We need airlift in thirty seconds or we are dead!"
Isabella Cordova's high-pitched voice came over the comm. "I'm on my way now Joe. We had to alter course to avoid a Pakistan radar installation we didn't account for, ETA in two minutes."
The blood drained from Joe's face.
"We aren't going to last that long."
* * *
AS SOON as the news came through the comm, Joe and Krieger hoisted their guns and the three men took off, running into the badlands directly away from their mechanical pursuer. Joe knew they stood no chance in a direct fight; not with Danny at low power levels. They had to put some distance between them; run as fast as they could and avoid being shot in the back by the pursuing drone.
As they ran, Danny began to lag. The armor seemed to be moving as if its legs were filled with concrete. The Accretion device−the power cell that charged the Whisper armor−was almost out of energy.
"Krieger, give me a hand!" Joe shouted, slowing down to grasp Danny's right arm and sling it over his shoulder. The Russian followed on Danny's left side, hoisting up the weakening soldier and moving him along towards the desolate nothingness ahead of them. Joe risked a glance to his rear. The drone was getting closer now. Another thirty seconds and they would be in range of its chainguns.
"Listen!" Krieger shouted. The familiar thumping noise of distance helicopter rotors could be heard, coming due west of their position.
Joe heard the sound too, "Keep running! It's all we can do!"
A plethora of minigun-fire exploded around them.
The drone had opened fire, still slightly out of range.
A round smashed in Whisper's shoulder, throwing the stealth trooper off balance. Danny pitched forward and the weight of the Whisper suit pulled Joe and Krieger along with him. More bullets chewed up the ground around them.
This was it.
Joe looked back at the shambling drone, lurching towards them to get a final firing solution to blow him and his comrades straight to hell.
* * *
SUDDENLY, THE ground beneath the drone burst forth in a near volcanic eruption of smoke and flame. The machine vanished amidst a devastating barrage of cannonade, blown to pieces by Joe and his m
en's unknown savior. The acrid stink of toluene and dust mixed into the air.
Krieger recognized the cannon fire at once. "20mm Bofors cannon fire! It is the Barbarian, my friends!"
Joe looked up into the mid-afternoon sky and, sure enough, the vague shape of the C-17 Globemaster home base of the Peacemakers was pelting down cannon fire to aid in the team's extraction. Over the comlink, Joe heard the familiar cockney brogue of the team's second officer.
"Awright Joe, time to get off yer asses! Isabella's coming to pick you boys up!"
Alistair 'Brick' Reynolds.
Joe pulled himself to his feet and looked up into the sky.
"Copy that Brick! Nice to see you too!"
Over the hills half a click beyond, the Black Hawk helicopter finally came into sight; rushing towards them as fast as its lovely pilot, Isabella Cordova could manage. Joe and Krieger hefted Danny back to his feet. The wounded Canadian could barely stand. As far as Joe could tell, the bullet that had struck Whisper had been halted by the first two layers of the stealth suit, saving him from what would have certainly been a fatal gunshot.
Joe keyed his comlink, "Bring the bird down, Cordova! Let's get the hell outta here!"
Chapter 3
The Noclist
Bagram Airfield, Afghanistan, November 15th
Colonel Walsh's face was a mask of subdued rage. The twisted scar arching from the top of his head, through his marled left eye made the old war dog look especially intense.
"Alright Sergeant, start talking. What the hell happened out there?"
As Joe, Krieger and Danny crossed the CIA sectioned tarmac towards the landed Barbarian, a thought occurred to him−that right now he would rather be anyone else on the face of the earth.
It had been a four hour flight to Bagram from Darra Adam Khel, and thanks to the radar refracting technology of the Black Hawk, they reached the Afghanistan airbase unmolested. Joe was exhausted and he knew his companions were too. Krieger was supporting Danny, still clad in the damaged Whisper suit. They all looked like they'd been through hell.
But the Colonel was going to get his answers come hell or high water.
The three men came to a halt in front of the Colonel, just as an F-18 took off from an adjacent runway. The jet lifted into the night, on an unknown mission. Joe had to yell to speak over the engine roar.
"I'm sorry Colonel, Decimus is dead!"
"Were you not supposed to bring him back, preferably in one piece?" The Colonel was livid, Joe could tell. Walsh was not the type to yell like a blowhard if something went wrong, but when he was angry, it wasn't any less frightening.
"We tried, but things went out of control−"
"−They often do with you boys, don't they?" Walsh looked over the sorry looking bunch before taking pity on them, "Come on, let's get to the Barbarian and we'll hear what you have to say there."
Several technicians from the Barbarian ran past them towards the Black Hawk to begin folding the rotors for transport within the C-17. As they did, Isabella Cordova came running after the Colonel and his men. She matched stride alongside Krieger, yanking her helmet off as she did. Her luxurious mane of shoulder length brown hair spilled out.
"Rough out there today, huh boys?"
Krieger buckled slightly under the weight of the Whisper suit, "Not fun, if that is what you ask."
"Are you okay Danny?" Isabella asked, concerned for her teammate.
Danny lifted his head to look at the ex-marine corp pilot. "Just fine, Izy. A...malfunction in the suit, that is all."
Isabella looked concerned, but said no more. Joe looked at the Spanish-American pilot out of the corner of his eye. In the past year, he had lost count of how many times Warrent Officer Cordova had saved his and his Unit's butts with her extraordinary skills. In Joe's eleven years in the military, he had never known a better pilot than Isabella Cordova. Calm under fire, willing to risk everything to, as she put it, bring 'her boys' home. Off duty, Joe had come to know the spunky pilot simply as 'Izy'."
The group marched across the tarmac towards the waiting C-17. Reaching the aircraft, Joe saw the form of Alistair 'Brick' Reynolds, step down from the interior and make his way towards them. Brick's sea-blue eyes had a glint of 'I told you so' in them. His goateed face was stretched into a sardonic smile.
"So Joe, you guys have a problem with bringin' 'em back alive now?"
"Unforeseen circumstances," Joe said, walking past the no-nonsense ex-SAS soldier. Joe respected the British-African special forces man, but occasionally ran afoul of the man's penchant to judge others for doing the job differently then he would have. The man may be a good soldier, but Joe often found him relentlessly pessimistic.
Brick chuckled slightly, before speaking directly to the Colonel, "We'll be ready for takeoff within the hour, sir. We also just got a communiqué from Washington. NCO Deputy Director Hinton needs you to meet with him via satellite as soon as possible," Brick looked uneasy as he broke the news to the Colonel, "Umm, the Director was...not in his best mood, knowot' I mean? I don't know how, but I think he got wind of the Op."
The Colonel removed his cigarettes from his pocket as he marched up the gantry of the C-17.
"Christ," was all Walsh said to that.
Joe and Krieger helped Danny up into the aircraft and laid him down on a foldable cot. He was met by Doctor Toshiro Yune, who immediately began stripping the Canadian from the Whisper suit. Yune had changed little over the last few months, his excitable charm and ingratiating lack of tact made him an occasional butt end of jokes to the operators in the Peacemakers. But, at the end of the day, everyone in the Unit would admit wholeheartedly that without the Japanese master of engineering, they would have been destroyed countless times.
Before the suit could be completely removed, Danny pulled the small USB drive from the compartment in his belt and handed it to the Doctor.
"Analyse this, would you Doc?" Danny rasped, weakly.
"What is it?" Yune asked, scrutinizing the small drive in his hand.
"Something I found on Decimus's body. It's not booby-trapped."
Yune passed the item to one of his helpers, who took the drive into the forward part of the C-17. At peak operations, the Peacemakers kept a crew of over fifty technicians, logistic experts and mechanics aboard the Barbarian, each having an assigned task to perform for the Unit. The Whisper suit alone required the skills of four people to maintain.
As Joe and Krieger stripped off their combat gear, Walsh lit a cigarette, heedless as ever of the no-smoking sign stamped on multiple parts of the Barbarian flight deck. Joe noted every now and then, the Colonel would suppress a harsh cough.
"When you people are ready, meet me upstairs." The Colonel was referring to the meeting area on the second floor deck of the Barbarian, a small living area that included a kitchenette and small bathroom and shower. The Colonel had had the area furnished with a table and chairs for meetings between the operating staff.
Stowing his equipment, Joe walked over to stand behind Doctor Yune and the prone form of Danny Callbeck.
"How is he Doc?" Joe asked.
"Just exhausted, Sergeant," Yune replied, removing the beetle-shell style helmet of the suit and handing it to a waiting technician. He studied the readout on the Whisper armor wrist control panel, "The Accretion Device must of had some sort of failure. It's reading as totally depleted."
"I thought you said it has a forty-eight hour charge life. Why did it die so quickly?"
"The suit is molded to Danny's endocrine system. It utilizes the user's body as a type of host, if you will permit the phrase. The power of the Accretion Device is directly correlated to the user's current health, mentally and physically. Ergo, the stronger the user is, the more charge the Device has."
Joe eyed the prone form of his best friend, "Have you been feeling okay Danny? Anything you haven't told us about?"
Doctor Yune handed Danny the vision-restoring sunglasses the Canadian wore when outside the armor. His vision, robb
ed by a fateful blast of incendiary napalm, could be restored using the bionic glasses Yune had developed that beam light impulses directly into the brain. As the rest of the Whisper suit was removed, Danny pulled himself up to a sitting position. He shivered in the cold Afghan night air. One of the techs handed him a blanket. He only wore underwear while inside the Whisper suit.
"I...I feel fine Joe. Just a bit tired lately."
Braddock gave the Canadian a suspicious look, "I didn't know you got tired, Corporal."
"Just...some things on my mind. That's all."
Joe regarded the stealth soldier for a few seconds more before nodding, "Alright, if you feel up to it, meet us upstairs for the debrief. I'm sure the Colonel's going to have a great time chewing our asses out for this one."
Danny nodded, but didn't say anything more.
Krieger and Joe finished stowed their weapons in the arsenal locker and, along with Brick and Isabella, morosely followed the Colonel upstairs to the second floor of the C-17.
* * *
"−and after fighting through a few hundred Afridi and Burki tribes people, we made our way out of the city where we engaged the surviving drone and...well, you know the rest."
Joe finished the summation of the mission and sat back in his chair, gloomy at the prospect of what would soon be facing them when the CIA got wind of this botch of a mission. The faces of everyone surrounding him seemed to agree with Joe's mind-set.
The meeting area, compared to the rest of the C-17, was relatively roomy, allowing the five members of the Peacemakers to sit and speak comfortably. On the port hull was an LED screen, currently lit with a schedule detailing the Barbarian's time of departure to Washington. Walsh had listened to Joe's breakdown of the mission with a muted look on his weathered face. Braddock had skipped the small detail of Danny failing to destroy the last Chimera drone. He promised himself to get to the bottom of his friend's recent doldrums.
As Joe wrapped up, Walsh mashed the butt of a cigarette into the ashtray in front of him and leaned forward, speaking for the first time in twenty minutes.