“Vehicle one is hit!”
“Fuck!”
“It’s gone. I can’t see it.”
In their excitement they dropped call signs, and the transmissions came too fast for me to identify the speakers, but the message came through clear enough. A few seconds later a commanding voice took charge and brought order.
“This is Alpha Seven. Clear the net. Alpha Two, report.” The platoon sergeant. Realizing that the platoon leader had been in vehicle one, he’d stepped in and called for a report from vehicle two.
“This is Alpha Two,” a female voice answered. “Something exploded. A mine or something, but bigger. Estimate five hundred kilograms.” Wow. That was big, if accurate. Enough to split one of our vehicles in two.
“What’s your status?” asked Seven.
“We’re stationary. Operational. It shook us, but no significant damage. The smoke and dust is clearing around One. I don’t know how anyone could have survived that, but we need to get in there and see if there are wounded.”
“Roger. Two, Three, and Four, put your dismounts out. Watch for secondary devices. Three, get forward to far-side security and give cover to Two’s people. Two, establish near security and search the wreck. Four, you’ve got rear security.”
Nine soldiers. That’s how many each vehicle carried between crew and dismounts. If we’d lost that many . . . part of me didn’t believe it. This wasn’t a war zone. Even in a war zone, we didn’t see anti-vehicle mines that big. Not often. Despite the setback, it made it even more imperative that we reach the facility. That sounds callous. I know that. But if someone would go to that length to protect it, there had to be a reason, and we couldn’t turn back and try later. Nothing would be there.
Mac and I dismounted with our team but didn’t immediately take up security to the rear with the others. Four of them could handle it. We’d passed through the area already and had seen no enemy. I walked to vehicle five, which held the platoon sergeant. He had his door open but still sat in the seat. I stood by him as we waited for the initial report. He had the video replay from vehicle two up on his screen, showing the incident. The explosion initiated directly beneath the vehicle, which was good news. There might be survivors. The v-shaped undercarriage would have shunted some of the force away from the crew compartment. If only the explosion hadn’t been so big. Seeing it, five hundred kilograms seemed like an overestimation, but not by much.
“We have survivors,” came an excited voice over the net.
“This is Seven. Roger. How many.”
“Working it. At least three alive. Stand by.”
The platoon sergeant flipped his feed to live, and the camera from vehicle two showed the team at work. Two soldiers were inside, and the four outside already had two soldiers evacuated. Neither was moving, but neither had visible wounds. They wouldn’t, necessarily. The overpressure and concussion from a blast that size could be enough to kill them. I found myself holding my breath, waiting for the next report.
“Casualty report, three KIA, six WIA. All need immediate evac. Major concussions in all cases, broken bones in most. Medic is treating for shock and says all are stable and can await transport.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Yes, sir.” The platoon sergeant, Sergeant First Class Ahwed, opened a direct channel to me. “We got lucky.” It seemed odd to say when we had three dead, but he was right. “What now, sir?”
“It’s your call. I’m along for the ride,” I said.
“We both know that’s bullshit, sir. Call it. I reported it to HQ and they’re not sending anybody else. We go with what we’ve got or we head home. You think we still have enough ass to complete the mission after we get these evacs done?”
I took a few seconds before responding, trying to get the emotion out of my decision. Of course Oxendine wouldn’t send more troops. She couldn’t, with the governor watching. “We have enough. I don’t think they’ve got anything that’s going to stop us. Then again, I didn’t expect a deep-buried bomb.”
“Nobody did.”
“We’ll have to go dismount, watching for more traps. They obviously know we’re coming.”
“Maybe not, sir. This thing could have been there for a long time.”
“They probably heard it, though,” I said. “How’s the other platoon doing?”
“No contact. On schedule.”
“Good.” The enemy might not be expecting someone to come from the back side. “It’s five klicks. We can walk it. Have the other platoon hold up to get in synch with us. I’m afraid that if we back off now, they’ll evacuate the place before we arrive and we’ll miss any value that we’re going to get.”
“Roger that, sir.” Ahwed’s voice stayed neutral. Just another day at the office for him. “There’s a clearing about four hundred meters ahead. We should be able to get a dust off for the casualties there. I’ll get that set, then we’ll regroup and move out. I’m coming on the dismount.”
“Roger,” I said. “You take charge. I’ll advise you as you see fit.”
“Yes, sir. Would the colonel like to change the rules of engagement, given what just happened?”
I thought about it. We had set the engagement criteria tight because we didn’t want a firefight unless it was absolutely necessary. The mine changed things, but while it seemed likely, we didn’t know for sure the people at the facility had planted the bomb. “Let’s keep them the same for now. If nobody else dies today, that’s our best outcome. So, keep weapons tight . . . but have a plan to kill everyone we meet if it comes to it. And if it’s you or them—”
“It’s them. Got it, sir.”
Mac and I backed off, letting Ahwed do his job. I checked in with Fader, who probably hadn’t experienced live casualties before. When she had made her argument to go on the mission, she hadn’t mentioned any combat action, and she would have. Now I wanted to look her in the eyes. You never knew how something like this might affect someone until it happened.
“How are you doing?” I asked over a private channel. Mac had faded back to give us a little space.
“I’m pissed, sir.” Pissed was good. Pissed kept you moving forward. The only problem with pissed was that sometimes someone did something dumb, trying to retaliate. Fader didn’t seem like that type.
“The mission’s still a go. We can’t let them evacuate the place. We’re staying dismounted. You still good?”
“I’m good, sir.”
I believed her. I might have been fooled by false bravado once or twice back in the day, but I didn’t suspect it here. “Okay. Hang toward the middle of the formation when we move out.”
We completed the air medevac and moved out, walking either side of the road, sensors attuned to other possible booby traps. We didn’t hit any, and we covered most of the distance to the facility in about fifty minutes. When we got to about five hundred meters, we left the trail and moved into a wedge formation in the jungle. We picked our way through the growth without much trouble, though in spots we did get canalized into one or two paths.
The first shot took the point soldier in the chest, dropping her.
I dropped too, but not before I saw the soldier roll away. Her body armor did its job. We didn’t have time to celebrate, as the entire jungle lit up. A pulse weapon scorched a tree next to me, and I had to scramble away as part of it came tumbling down with a thud. I tried to count the enemy weapons, but I lost track when our side opened fire. Red icons started to populate my heads-up as others identified targets.
We had the numbers, but they had a defensive position, and for a moment we were stalemated. We didn’t have rockets and our vehicles couldn’t support us from their position, so we had two choices. We could try to pin them in place and flank them, or we could keep them tied up while our other force closed in from behind. Ahwed quickly made the call over the radio. “Two and Three, provide base of fire. Four and Five, flank right. Lift and shift fires on the call of Four, green flare for backup.” A simple plan, swiftly communi
cated. I appreciated the professionalism.
I moved with the rest of my team around to the right, keeping low and moving in short bursts so that the enemy couldn’t get a bead on me. As we got clear of our troops returning fire, the sounds distinguished themselves. Even with just two teams of six firing for us, we had them outgunned. My heads-up showed four, then five red dots for the enemy, but the sounds indicated more like six or eight. We just couldn’t get a clean fix on them in the jungle. Other fire sounded in the distance. Our other platoon had hit resistance too. Good thing Ahwed hadn’t counted on them supporting us.
My heads-up went dark. One minute it had showed a map with both blue and red icons, the next . . . gone. I didn’t hesitate this time—my mind went directly to our systems being hacked.
A burst of fire tore through the vegetation in front of me, shredding a giant leafy plant, and that snapped me back to the more immediate problem. I didn’t know if the enemy had detected our flanking force or if the burst had been random, but I stayed down for a few extra seconds, just in case. I made eye contact with Mac, who had grabbed the ground about a meter away, before springing back to my feet and sprinting a few steps. A distinctive thwunk came from the enemy position, followed quickly by several more.
Fucking mortars.
I keyed my system to announce incoming, but nothing happened. Dead.
Shit.
An explosion burst overhead—way overhead—up in the treetops. The thick canopy had intercepted the mortar. We caught a break with that.
No sooner had I thought it than a second mortar round riffled through the vegetation to my right. I dove left, but too late. The crunch of the explosion shook me as I hit the soft ground. I lay there for a few seconds, waiting for a burst of pain. When none came, I pulled myself to my knees to look around. The round had hit maybe twelve meters away, but the soft soil and thick undergrowth it landed in muffled the blast.
Someone from our side lobbed a few smoke grenades between us and the enemy, giving us even better cover, the gray smoke swirling through the vegetation and giving the whole area a look right out of a horror holo. I scrambled back to my feet and ran. Anywhere beat where they were shooting mortars. The next explosion came well behind me. Somebody screamed. I whipped my head around, looking for Mac, who burst through another one of those large, leafy plants.
“Let’s go, sir!” I could barely hear him through his helmet, but I got the point.
We sprinted for more than a few seconds, which is not a good idea, but we had enough vegetation between us and the enemy that they didn’t zero in on us. We hit the ground again near the rest of our team. We’d gone far enough to begin our flanking move. Hand signals flashed, and three soldiers rushed forward while three of us waited and watched, ready to suppress any enemy fire. None came. When the first group set, Mac and I joined the other soldier and leapfrogged past them, staying to the right so we didn’t block their line of fire. Still no response. The continuing enemy fire must have been focused on the other squads. Good. That was how we planned it.
After four rushes, we reached our position. The jungle obscured any chance of seeing the enemy, but the sounds of gunfire came from our left. Six or seven projectile weapons and one pulse, based on the volume. The pulse fired sporadically, probably running out of charge. We had six in our squad and fifth squad had four remaining. I could make out part of the dome through an opening in the vegetation, still a hundred meters away. I’d expected it to be bigger. It was maybe forty meters in diameter and low, possibly recessed into the ground. We turned and put it on our right, orienting on the enemy.
The squad leader gave the hand signal for attack, then he stood and fired a green flare forward at a forty-five-degree angle upward. The bright-green projectile blazed over the enemy position, signaling the rest of our platoon to lift and shift fire. I said a silent thanks for troops who trained in backup plans, just in case they lost comms. Lift and shift meant our support force would keep shooting to make the enemy keep their heads down, but that they’d redirect the fire, to the left or over the enemy’s heads. That way, as we ran forward to clear the position, we wouldn’t get shot by our own troops.
I tripped and almost fell, jamming my wrist as I caught myself. I shook it off and kept moving, blocking out the pain. The adrenaline helped.
I found my first enemy by accident, when I broke free from some thick undergrowth. He had snugged down in a depression, which gave him cover from the other direction. He looked up and froze for a second, then tried to swing his weapon around to shoot me, hindered by his fighting position.
I fumbled my weapon, too slow, so I ran forward and kicked him hard in the face. His head snapped back, and his faceplate cracked. The top of my foot throbbed from the impact. My good foot, not my robot foot. I leveled my weapon at him. He groaned and twisted, trying to get up, and I went for my trigger. If I’d had my finger on it, I’d have shot him, but I thought better of it and instead stepped on his rifle, driving it down into the soft ground before clubbing him in the helmet with the butt of my weapon. This time he didn’t rise.
I took some plastic zip ties from a Velcro pocket and knelt on his back while I fastened his hands together. Shots to the front caught my attention, but nothing came near me. A pulse weapon fired wildly, burning a hole through the canopy above.
Everything went quiet in what felt like an instant. One minute the jungle echoed with gunfire and yelling, the next, nothing. Voices gradually replaced the gunfire, one person crying out in pain, another swearing.
The comm came back to life, and fourth squad leader called for reports from his soldiers. Mac called in to announce his status, and I took that as my signal to do the same. “This is Butler. Uninjured. I’ve got one prisoner with a cracked faceplate.” The outside air wouldn’t kill him right away. We had about twelve hours to get him to quarantine and treatment. Plenty of time, now that the shooting had stopped.
I flipped to the company net to hear the other platoon’s traffic and heard Ahwed calling in his report. With our platoon leader down, the other lieutenant had overall command now with Ahwed in charge of our unit.
“This is Red Seven. We’ve got six enemy KIA, two prisoners, one is WIA. Friendly forces, one KIA, three WIA.”
“This is White Six. Roger. Continue mission. Secure the facility. Watch for additional shooters inside.”
“Roger.”
Our platoon consolidated on the objective and got all the wounded to one place. Ahwed called his squad leaders together. He could have done it over the comm, but he probably wanted to see them and get an assessment of their mental state. He took less than a minute, and our squad leader came over the comm. “We’ve got the airlock. The other squads will cover us.”
Good. I wanted inside in the worst way. Ahwed probably knew that when he gave the assignments. The defense we’d just fought through made me believe even more that we’d find answers in there. We moved in a squad wedge, the other squads in the same formation, one to our left and one to our right with the final one securing the prisoners and the wounded. The flank squads would drop and return fire at the first hint of resistance. I didn’t think we’d see any more on the outside. Someone might take a shot at us after we entered. There had to be people still inside. Not everyone they had would have handled a rifle. Not if it was a facility where Caliber conducted experiments.
We were about fifty meters from the airlock when the world flashed and then went dark, as my faceplate blacked out. My helmet muted sound as I flew backward. My feet hit, then my ass, then the back of my head. White flashed in my eyes and I tasted blood. My faceplate cleared, but smoke and dust hazed the air, making it hard to see. I lay there, stunned. I wiggled my fingers and toes. Everything worked, even my robot foot.
“Sir, I’m hit,” said Mac over a private channel.
I pushed myself up and the world swam for a moment. I put a hand on the soft ground to steady myself. “How bad?”
“I’ll live. It fucking hurts, though. Suit’
s compromised.”
Shit.
I got to my feet, still wobbling, checked the status of my suit in my heads-up and found it intact, then squinted into the haze. I found Mac, sitting, his hand over his left side, just beside the chest plate.
“Shrapnel,” he grunted, and I could tell it was worse than he was letting on.
I grabbed the med pack from the pouch on his left arm. “Okay. On three, take your hand away. One, two, three.”
He pulled his hand away and I replaced it with a coagulating bandage. Mac jerked at the pressure, but I held firm, keeping the dressing in place with my gloved hand, putting pressure on it. We’d worry about getting it cleaned up later. For now, we needed to stop the bleeding. Blood had already soaked through his inner shirt, and some leaked down his armor.
“What happened?” I asked.
“The dome,” said Mac. “It blew. The whole thing must have been rigged.”
“That had to be a hell of an explosion. How are we alive?”
“I don’t think it was targeting us.” He winced. “I think a lot of the blast focused inward. There was a lot of flame, too. Like an incendiary.”
That explained my blacked-out faceplate—my helmet had done it automatically, saving me from being blinded. “Someone didn’t want us to find whatever was in there.”
“Nope.”
The medic showed up, a short woman. “This looks stable. We’ll get you an evac. You want a shot for the pain?”
“I’m good,” said Mac. “The colonel’s going to want to search the wreckage. I’m not going anywhere until that’s done.”
The medic looked at me and shook her head.
I turned to Mac. “We need to get you back. It’s not just the wound. It’s the bacteria in the environment. The faster they start treatment, the faster you’ll be back on the job.”
“Sir, you need—”
“I’ve got him.” Fader walked up. Her chest plate had a hand-sized piece of shrapnel embedded in it.
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