Warzone: Nemesis: A Novel of Mars

by Morris Graham

  A technician, whose specialty was upholstering vehicles, made me a sheath out of Cordura nylon and metal snaps to hold it in place beside me in my tank when I flew. I’d purposely disabled the automatic leveling flight controls on my ship so that I could do nose up and down maneuvers. However, this could get hairy at times because sometimes the ship would attempt to roll on its side and need to be manually controlled to keep it upright. The idea of being gutted by my own blade was not very appealing, to say the least. I snapped it firmly in place, and unsnapped and re-snapped it a few times to get a feel for how fast I could retrieve it if needed.

  The next six months were very hard fought. I lost six more pilots: Lieutenants Magnum Force, Hard Core, Jolly Roger, Perdition, Crazy Horse and Skywalker. We also lost a lot of ships. I had a close call and was shot out of my tank, but my wingman picked me up before the enemy could take advantage of the situation. Each new transport freighter arrived with new pilots to replace the ones we were losing and I greeted them with a guilty conscience. The next new crop of pilots, Lieutenants Death Before Dishonor, Scourge, Pool Shark, Cross Swords, Pac Man and Janus Dread arrived with a nervous sense of expectation. I promoted CPT Dutchman to major, and he changed his call sign to Killer Instinct. I assigned 1LT Cross Swords as his wingman, and I chose 1LT Janus Dread as mine.

  THE KILLING OF COL KIKNADZE

  The parameters for our satellite were set to inform me immediately if COL Kiknadze left his post with only two other tanks. It was early zero five hundred when I heard my comm. buzzer. Blaze barked an alert that I had to attend to business. Accessing my computer, I got an alert, “COL Kiknadze is traveling with two other tanks directly north northeast, at twenty meters per second, approximately ten kilometers from his post.” The intricacies of this plan had been hatched months before. I entered the access code for the security system for the whole post: satellite, security, radar, and communications—to disable everything by forcing it into a self-diagnostic routine in fifteen minutes. MAJ Norsemun ran these once a month when the area was secure, and we had no patrols out, but I triggered it now on purpose. Locking out a security override was out of the question—we may need it back up. Erasing the computer log of my activity would ensure that the technicians would think the diagnostic was triggered by a glitch in the system. It was imperative to get my tank out of the last airlock before the diagnostic started.

  Quickly I threw on some clothes and headed straight for the hangar deck. Entering the hangar, I encountered only night security and dismissed them without explaining anything. Hurriedly I donned my flight suit and helmet, and pulled my ghillie suit over it and climbed into my tank. Then I booted my onboard computer up, ran the startup diagnostics and found all systems up. Most importantly, the redfield generator was operational, and all weapons systems were hot. Now I was prepared to shove off, with one minute, twenty seconds left to spare before the security self-diagnostic routine locked all the hangar doors.

  I had previously gotten my hacker team to get an open door to the Soviet satellite that covered the time of the day that COL Kiknadze usually went mountain climbing. They had a particularly mean virus ready, to infect it at my command, which would format the entire satellite’s hard drive. The program was already loaded to our comm. tower, and I had the authorization codes in my tank’s computer. A simple password would initiate the attack. It’s funny—rank can allow you to be stupid sometimes, and only a few people will challenge you.

  If my second-in-command, LTC Ricochet or my wingman 1LT Janus Dread had been up, I could not have stopped either from coming along. If they had to, they would shadow me from a distance. The same was true for my former wingman, MAJ Killer Instinct. Accessing the hangar deck controls from my tank’s computer, I unlocked the three transitional airlocks and checked my watch. This was cutting it close—only forty seconds left to clear the third airlock. Just before clearing the last airlock, I erased the computer log of the transaction. Ten seconds later the security self-diagnostic routine started and locked down the whole post. Unwilling to be tracked later, I pulled out a pair of wire cutters and disabled my ship’s transponder. All American combat officers had transmitters imbedded in their legs for search and rescue attempts. I had wrapped my leg with aluminum foil to stop the transmission—certainly less painful than cutting the transmitter out of my leg.

  Leaving my post behind, I headed straight north by northeast, adjusting my course to match where our satellite said the colonel was heading. I kept an eye on my radar, constantly getting updated reports from my satellite.

  CAMP SEAL—TACTICAL OPERATIONS

  ZERO FIVE TWENTY HOURS

  MAJ Norsemun awoke to a page. No problem, my alarm will be going off in ten minutes anyway, he thought. He called the TOC.

  “CPT Black Ice here, Major. We responded to an unscheduled communications array and security system self-diagnostic.”

  “Anything unusual?”

  “Nothing so far, but I’m doing a scan log to see if anyone hacked into our system.”

  “Be there in five mikes, Norsemun out.”

  Despite all of the major’s quirks, he was high functioning in his professional life, and known for precision and running a tight ship in the TOC. It was probably nothing, he knew, but this could be a brilliant cyberattack on the post if it were hacked from outside. That gave him an idea for his people to try for a new assault on the Soviet system. He did not want to wake COL Kahless if it was a false alarm. He was dressed and on the way to the TOC in record time. Arriving in exactly five minutes, he found CPT Black Ice and the night technicians trying to isolate the system glitch.

  “Any luck finding the cause?” queried the major.

  “No sir, dangdest thing, too. There was no outside access to our system, and no one inside accessed the system. The diagnostic just started to run by itself.”

  “Very good, put us on yellow alert and stop the diagnostic. I want a log of all computer activity on this post, one—no, make it two hours prior to the shutdown.”

  “Sir, yes sir.”

  It was now time to tell the colonel the reason for the yellow alert. He should have already been calling him demanding an explanation. Communications were now restored. MAJ Norsemun rang the colonel on the comm., and failing to get a response, paged him—still no answer.

  “Computer, locate COL Kahless.”

  “COL Kahless’ location is unknown,” the sweet voice replied.

  “Computer, access COL Kahless’ transmitter chip and compute his location.”

  “We are not receiving a signal from COL Kahless’ transmitter chip.”

  The major was beginning to hate playing Simon says with this idiot computer. Being the resident geek, he’d never betrayed to anyone that he, too, had a love-hate relationship with computers at times. “Computer, compute probable location of COL Kahless.”

  “Computer, compute probable location of COL Kahless.”

  “Unknown, not enough data.”

  MAJ Norsemun quickly contacted LTC Ricochet.

  “What is it, Major?”

  “COL Kahless is missing, and there was a security breach this morning.”

  After the major finished explaining, the post’s first officer called Chief Wolverine, who was grabbing a hot cup of coffee in the hangar deck’s break room.

  “Good morning sir, what can I do for you?” responded the chief.

  “Is the colonel’s ship in the hangar?” He glanced over to the bay where he’d been doing some routine maintenance on it himself at the close of business yesterday.

  “No, sir.”

  “Check the airlock logs, now!” The chief accessed the hangar deck’s security logs of the airlocks and found nothing, but that didn’t surprise him. He’d watched his friend become consumed with grief over the death of COL SEAL and he feared something like this might happen.

  “Nothing sir. According to the airlock logs, they haven’t opened today.”

  “Then where’s the colonel’s ship?” he demanded. />
  “I suppose if you find the colonel, he’ll be in it.”

  LTC Ricochet was sore tempted to take out his frustrations on the chief for that last remark, but he appeared worried, too.

  “MAJ Norsemun, I have the computer activity logs. COL Kahless got an alert from us that COL Kiknadze had left his post with two wingmen just after zero five hundred,” reported CPT Black Ice.

  “I didn’t authorize that alert.”

  “No sir, he did. In any case, our department notified him and he’s gone.” The major contacted LTC Ricochet.

  “Sir, COL Kahless got an alert that COL Kiknadze was flying with two wingmen outside of his post.”

  “My God, he’s gone after him alone.”

  “Yes, sir, it appears he has.”

  LTC Ricochet decided against launching an all-out search. If he sent every tank he had looking for the colonel, the Soviets would know something was up and scramble every tank they had and start looking, too. Odds were that COL Kahless was now deep in Soviet territory and starting an all-out search could sign his death warrant. He would send only the usual routine patrols and wait. His next task was an unpleasant one. By now, CPT Black Ice had already reported the security breach and the colonel’s absence. He had to file his own report to GEN Spears.

  THARSIS PLAIN (COL Kahless)

  I knew very well that it might be a trap, similar to what we first laid for the Soviets just over six months ago. But from the information we extracted from our captive, COL Kiknadze had to have times of solitude, going mountain climbing with only two wingmen. I was betting everything this was what he was doing.

  It wasn’t time to disable the Soviet communication system yet. To do so would be inviting the Soviets to send more tanks to protect their commander. However, I had to be concerned with the Soviet satellites when they flew by. My ship’s computer had a map of all of the craters deep enough to hide in when the satellites went by, and was well aware of when they would be watching. I hit my first crater just about five minutes before the next Soviet satellite would do a flyby. The crater was thirty meters deep and sixty meters wide. Leaving my antigravity hover device engaged, I shut down my propulsion jets and nosed down into the crater. It simply wouldn’t do to stir up a dust cloud in the crater’s bottom for the satellite to see. Then I covered my ship with a tarp that was a dark-colored heat-shield tarp. When it was safe to proceed, I pulled off the tarp, fired my engine up and continued my quest. By the next satellite flyby, the dust will have settled. I had to repeat this four times before getting into Soviet territory. Flipping the toggle switch, I engaged the redfield generator. Being discovered before reaching Kiknadze would be disastrous.

  I traveled for four hours north-northeast. I was within radar range now and picked up the three Soviet ships. The mountain the Soviet was climbing was part of a ridge that ran north to south. Parking my ship on the south side of the ridge in the shadows and out of sight, I placed a camouflaged heat shield tarp over it.

  Walking over to the south edge of the ridge, my boots crunched the salt-hardened sand and made radial fractures around my boot prints. The crust was called caliche, made up of calcium carbonate deposits from surface water sublimation. I had to crawl a hundred meters to get into position to see what they were doing. That took time. The ground was littered with stones, and I had to rake them aside before belly-crawling forward. The caliche in the surface of the sand held the stones like weak cement and cracked when I broke them from the ground. The ground crunched as I crawled along the surface, moving stones and crunching the calcified caliche surface. The whole process took over thirty minutes. Finally, I had the three tanks in view. Kiknadze’s two men were outside of their tanks facing the mountain. COL Kiknadze was descending from the cliff face. I figured he would be down in about fifteen minutes. It was time. Returning back to my tank, I initiated the virus attack on the Soviet satellite, grabbed my sniper rifle and crawled back to my spot. This trip only took five minutes because the rocks had been cleared on my first trip.

  The Soviet commander was another five minutes from being on the ground. I used my spotting scope and judged from the lack of dust that there was almost no wind today. My rangefinder indicated the shot would be about two thousand meters, not too bad—considering the air density and gravity here. Even with less gravitational pull on the bullet and less bullet drag because of the thin atmosphere, I still had two more calculations to make. At this distance, the curvature of the planet and Mar’s orbital rotation had to be calculated. This was not a problem—I’d been practicing shots like this for years. After finishing my calculations, I put my flash suppressor/silencer on the end of my rifle, set up my tripod and watched the two wingmen with a razor-sharp focus. Three times they almost gave me the shots that I wanted and COL Kiknadze was now about two minutes from getting his feet on the ground. Patience, move over, just a little more… The two Soviet wingmen were both facing Kiknadze, one about a meter forward of the other and on his right. It would take about three seconds for the first shot to arrive, so I had to make this good. Bringing my scope into focus, I selected the pilot to the rear and on the left, and after making all of the compensating adjustments, I aimed for his gut and spine. After carefully squeezing off a round between my heartbeats, I quickly chambered another round. The second pilot had two kill areas exposed, his lower spine below his oxygen tanks and his head. My finger squeezed off the shot at his spine one second after firing the first shot. Three seconds after I fired the first shot the first pilot fell. The second pilot turned his head to see his partner drop to the ground just as the bullet caught him in the lower back.

  Both men were now lying on the ground. A cursory check with my spotting scope revealed that they weren’t moving. The Soviet commander was now on the ground and was running as fast as a man in full flight gear could manage to get into his tank. I fired again and caught him on the run, shattering his right ankle. He fell face-first onto the ground, and I followed up with another shot to his left ankle. Kiknadze dragged himself to one of his wingmen and grabbed his rifle. My third shot went through his right shoulder and he dropped the rifle.

  Removing the camouflaged tarp from my tank, I hopped in and fired it up. Then I flew over to the wounded Soviet, unsnapped my sword and hopped out of my tank. One of the Soviet wingmen’s arms was still twitching, so I beheaded them both. Time was of the essence; Kiknadze had lost a lot of blood from his shoulder wound and soon he would be in shock. He’d had the presence of mind to patch his suit in three places before his suit depressurized. The strength spent on the suit repair left him too weak to resist when I arrived.

  With the Soviet satellite down and their commander away from his post, would be on high alert and scramble their entire fleet. I wanted him to know who was doing this and why. He hadn’t lost consciousness yet. He was sitting up, so I put my boot hard into his wounded shoulder to force him to the ground. His eyes met mine. Despite his pain, he knew who I was. He knew it was over and he was making a show of being brave. The lust for revenge that welled up within me didn’t want to end this yet. Laying my sniper rifle down, I plunged the left end of my two-handled sword into his belly above his navel. Cutting in a circle, I continued to cut with the blade now moving toward his ribcage until I had finished disemboweling him. He would die a hideous death before the effects of decompression or suffocation took over. His bowels had spilled out of the slash in his spacesuit while his suit started decompressing. COL Kiknadze was now in excruciating pain, his face a grotesque death mask, his eyes revealing only madness. Something about the madness in his eyes awoke me from the madness driving me. Suddenly I realized that no man should die this kind of death. I lifted my sword and beheaded him right there. His head and helmet rolled three feet away and came to a stop against a rock. His headless body spurted blood, while his low-pressure air hose created ripples in the blood spray. I surveyed the macabre scene. One thing remained. Taking my utility knife from my suit pocket, I cut his blood-soaked name patch off of his suit and
stuffed it into my pocket.

  Next, I checked his tank and typed in the security codes that the young Soviet pilot we’d captured had given us. Everything looked good to go, so I started it up. Walking over to my tank, I removed the flight recorder, transponder and the pictures of my parents and grandparents from the dash. Taking my ship out of redfield mode, I accessed the partitioned part of my ship’s computer that controlled the actions of scuttling my ship. Next I released the quarantined virus and executed it so it would start eating all my ship’s data with the exception of the separate partition. From that partition, I activated the self-destruct sequence, specifying to blow the ship the next time the hatch was opened or being towed. Writing on a piece of paper in Russian, I stuck the note with some tape to the inside of the transparent hatch. I was hoping their curiosity would get them to open the hatch. Using the security codes we extracted from our prisoner, I fired up Kiknadze’s tank and was on my way. Radar showed four squads of Soviet tanks three minutes and closing.

  My reason was beginning to return to me, so I decided to get the hell out of there. I flew south by southwest at maximum speed. Since I knew Russian, I accessed the proper console buttons and switches to get all the features I needed up, including their own redfield. I remembered the arduous task of learning to read and write Russian and how badly I wanted to skip those classes, but today I was glad I hadn’t. I needed to keep the redfield going until I was clear of Soviet territory and at least had a strong enough lead on them so they couldn’t catch me. Leaving the radio on the Soviet frequency, I kept my ears open. The radio reports that they have my disabled tank on their radar. I kept an eye on my radar, searching for what I thought was the first opportunity to call my post. I heard the Soviets saying they’d arrived at my tank. There was some real agitated conversation.