Pete’s grin doubled in intensity. “This is the first time I got to play with them since I joined the Program.”
“We are supposed to be low-vis,” Alex said pointedly.
“With the giants in play, we can’t be,” I said. “Not if we want to survive.”
Eve was still unimpressed. “Okay… so… do I get to use them?”
“No.”
“Why?”
In that word, she sounded like a girl denied her favorite candy.
“You haven’t been trained on them, and we don’t have dummies,” I said. “We don’t need you blowing us up by accident.”
“More rockets for you guys, huh.”
Pete gave her a thumbs-up. “Yup!”
There were seven crates left standing. Each of them were identical, about the length of a man and double the width and breadth. These were all labeled. First names only. I identified mine and pulled it away from the others.
“Is this what I think it is?” Eve asked.
I undogged the catches.
“Looks like.”
The crate opened outward like a book. One half of the crate held an exoskeleton. It was lean and stark and minimalist, titanium bones mated to polymer artificial muscles. Next to it was a combat helmet that doubled as the exoskeleton’s man-machine interface.
The other half contained accessories. Armor plates for the arms, legs, groin and chest. Fuel cell. Spare parts. And, just for me, extra nythium and aetherium cartridges.
This wasn’t power armor. Military-grade power armor was larger, more robust, and boasted a larger suite of features. This was a civilian suit, used by emergency response workers, search and rescue teams, and police tactical units. But for our purposes, it was good enough.
“How do I put this on?” Eve asked.
“Here, let me help,” I replied.
Eve and I wrestled her exoskeleton out of its crate and stood it upright. She backed up into the exoskeleton, and I showed her how to don it.
“Strap it on your arms and legs first,” I advised. “Leave the belt and chest harness alone for now.”
When she was done, I picked up her limb plates. Every plate was nestled inside a specially-designed pouch with silent Velcro straps. I showed her where each piece of armor went and she helped herself.
“It’s a bit like wearing plate armor,” she remarked, donning her gauntlets.
“Modern power armor took its design cues from medieval plate armor.”
“Guess some things never change.”
“But some things do.”
The groin plate and breastplate were modern designs, specially contoured to fit her body. I mounted the former to the latter and then showed her how to mount them on attachment points on the exoskeleton. Finally, she snapped the suit’s belt and load-bearing harness in place.
“You’ll wear ammo and accessory pouches on your harness and belt,” I said.
“I see,” she said.
I passed her the helmet. “Plug this in and put it on, but do not turn anything on yet.”
She plugged the helmet into a socket at the base of the exoskeleton’s neck. “Okay.”
“Now test the suit. Check for fit and range of motion.”
She walked in a circle, graduating into a jog. She sprinted from one end of the room to the other, then flowed into squats, push-ups and jumping jacks and graduated with a cartwheel.
“Someone’s having fun,” Pete called out.
“How do I use the computers?” she wanted to know.
I dug around the crate, retrieving the last item within: a paper booklet. I tossed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“The instruction manual. Memorize it.”
She made a face. “Wow! You know, I never figured you guys for the type that actually read the manuals.”
***
We spent the next few hours familiarizing ourselves with the kit. We dry-zeroed the rifles with laser boresighters, ran through the pseudo-power armor’s list of functions and checked all the other equipment we had requested. As I inspected my AK, Eve’s phone pinged.
“Brandt has replied!” she called out. “He’s set up the meet.”
We dropped everything and headed to the war room. The moment we took our places around the table, Eve showed us her email.
Dear Eve,
I’m glad you’re well. I was hoping at least some of us had managed to escape the dragnet. I can reveal that the Swiss authorities do not consider Hexenhammer as a top national security priority.
Let’s regroup at the Farm. You can land your airship here and take refuge for as long as you need. Please let me know when you are coming, and I will smooth things over with the relevant authorities.
Good luck and Godspeed.
“What’s the Farm?” I asked.
“The Farm is… an actual farm,” she said. “Brandt says it belongs to his relatives, the Koehls, who are sympathetic to our cause. We used the Farm as a safe house and training ground for people in between jobs; the newcomers are explained away as seasonally employed farmhands.
“The farm itself is in southwestern Switzerland in Valais canton. It’s extremely remote; the nearest neighbor is a half hour away by car. We could run live-fire practice there without disturbing anyone.”
“The perfect place for an ambush,” Pete said. “I bet Brandt’s Plan A is to shoot us down while we are landing. Plan B is to massacre us while we disembark. There won’t be anyone around to hear us, much less help.”
“The giants are going to come out to play,” Keith said.
“We’ll be ready for them,” I said. “Eve, do you have coordinates of the farm? Or an address?”
She had the latter. Armed with that information, I called up overhead imagery on an active panel, courtesy of Google Earth.
The image was extremely blurry, even at the highest resolution. I could make out some farmland and a few blurry rectangles that I guessed were buildings, but that’s it.
“I wish we had proper satellite imagery,” Pete said.
“Nobody’s gonna redirect a Keyhole for us,” Alex said.
“Eve, you know what’s what on the farm,” I said. “Walk us through.”
Stepping up to the display, she described the farm and its surroundings. The men chimed in, quizzing her about microterrain, acreage, weather, everything we needed to know before we went in.
Situated on a plain, there was no way to conceal our approach. We would have to cross miles of grassy field before we reached the perimeter fence. The wooden fence was supposed to be chest height, easy enough to climb over, but you never know until you get there.
We had two viable avenues of approach. The western half of the farm spanned acres of cropland: grain, legumes, tubers, leafy vegetables. There were a pair of greenhouses and a garage-cum-tool shed at the southeastern corner of the cropland. Nearby, there were a bunker silo and a tower silo.
“I don’t like the tower silo,” Alex said. “The enemy could put a sniper team up top and dominate the area.”
“We’ve got plenty of rockets,” I said.
“You’re just going to blow it up?” Eve said.
“It worked for us in World War Two,” Pete said nonchalantly. “And Three, come to think of it.”
The eastern half of the farm was again divided into halves. On the map, the northern half looked like long rows of green smudges.
“That is an apple orchard,” Eve said. “The Koehls are famous for their… Oh.”
“What?” I asked.
“Harvest season has just begun, I think. There might not be any crops left for cover.”
“And there might be civilians on site,” Bob said. “You know, farmhands and such.”
“Do you think Brandt would allow civilians on site?” I asked.
Eve tapped her chin. “He’s… I would have said he’s not that ruthless, but now? I’m not so sure.”
“Just great,” Keith muttered. “You sure we can’t get more manpower?”
The southeastern section of the farm was dedicated to pasture. There was a chicken pen at the northern edge, and to the west there was a massive barn.
“The Koehls have a dozen cows,” Eve said. “They are stalled on the lower floor of the barn. The upper floor is for fodder and grains.”
“There are windows in the barn?” Pete asked.
She scrunched her eyebrows. “Hmm… Yes. One facing north, the other to the south.”
“If they have the manpower, they can place a sniper team on the silo and MG teams in the barn to cover all the approaches.”
“This is going to suck,” Alex said. “I wouldn’t take this objective without a company of Marines and armor or air support.”
“We have to make do with what we’ve got, brother,” Pete said.
“I didn’t sign up for a suicide mission.”
“Let’s not make it one.”
There were two residential buildings next to the pasture. The larger one was the farmhouse proper. It was a three-story building with an attached garage and driveway that led out to the main road. The other building, resembling a longhouse, faced the cropland. Solar panels lined the roofs.
Eve pointed at the latter. “This is the guesthouse. It’s for visitors and seasonal workers.”
“If there are civilians on site, Brandt would want to hold them here,” Pete said. “He won’t want them getting in the way.”
“Agreed,” Bob said. “But this ain’t a hostage rescue, is it?”
“Our priority is to defeat the ambush and snatch Brandt,” I said. “Hostages are… secondary.”
“What did you just say?” Eve said.
“Hostages are secondary,” I repeated.
She frowned. “We’re not going to rescue them?”
“We have to concentrate our forces. If there’s more of us, sure, we can pull off a hostage rescue. But we can’t.”
Ricky grinned. “Besides, if we kill all the bad guys, any hostages are as good as rescued.”
Eve sighed. “Fine. How do you want to do this?”
Everyone looked at me.
“What?” I asked.
Pete grinned. “Hey, you’re the ossifer. You did this sort of thing for a living.”
“And if you screw up, we’ll let you know,” Bob added cheerfully.
“Very funny, guys.”
I headed over to the display.
“We’ll split into two teams,” I said. “Alpha and Bravo. Alpha will be the assault element; Bravo will be the support element. I want the psions in Alpha. That means myself, Keith, Bob and Eve. Pete, Ricky and Alex will be Bravo. Pete, you’re Bravo team lead.”
“Gotcha,” Pete said.
“Wait. We’re taking her on the assault element?” Keith protested.
“If we’re going to fight giants in close quarters, we’ll need all the psions we can get.”
“She doesn’t have combat training. Well, our standards of training.”
“Eve, you’ll be the ammo bearer. Stay at our rear, go only where we go, and do not do anything unless we tell you to. Watch our backs and stay out of our way.”
She nodded. “Understood.”
“I hope we’re not going to regret this,” Keith said.
“Me, too,” I said. “But back on point.
“Alpha will approach from the north. We’ll infiltrate through the orchard. Bravo will come from the west and use the crops for concealment. Alpha will wait while Bravo clears the silos.
“Bravo, if you can get up on the tower silo without being compromised, do it. Take up security positions and cover our approach. If you can’t, blow it up and then cover us.”
“Not a good idea, boss,” Alex said. “The ATS-90 only has a maximum range of three hundred meters. If we’re spotted, enemy snipers can pick us off closing in.”
“Consider it incentive to use proper fieldcraft,” Bob said.
“Take the sniper rifles with you,” I said. “If you see the enemy, take ‘em out from long range.”
Pete nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking that, too.”
“If you’re compromised going in, Alpha will support,” I added. “At which point we’ll go dynamic. Worst case scenario, we’ll blow up the silo ourselves.”
“Not the best but…” he sighed. “I can live with it.”
“Good,” I said. “Alpha, once the silos are clear, we will compress time and move on the farmhouse. We will break compression and then breach and clear. Once inside, I will control further use of time compression and psionics as necessary. Bravo, take out squirters or reinforcements.”
“We should warp inside and save ourselves the trouble of breaching,” Bob said.
“We can do that, but Eve can’t,” I said. “We need to avoid interpenetration.”
Warping around solo was easy. Warping with others was tremendously difficult. You can’t feel everybody else’s intended destination, only what is already there. You must precisely communicate your destination to the rest of your team and build in a margin of error. The slightest mistake would cause people to warp into each other. In the Near East, I’d seen too many wannabe jihadis with too much testosterone and too little brains try to warp in for a point-blank ambush. They’d inevitably smashed into each other, fusing into writhing, screaming, lumps of flesh and blood and bone. The only way to treat them was a bullet to each of their heads… and hope the brains were where you thought they were.
In MAD and the Detachment, our preferred method was to warp in one at a time. Two or three if you could hold hands and remain aware of their masses and positions in space-time. When warping into unknown space, it was the only viable method. But breaching an enemy-held room in piecemeal was a surefire way to get slaughtered. With Eve—someone who hadn’t trained alongside us—in tow, warping was right out.
“The longer we’re outside, the longer we’re exposed,” Keith said. “How about this: we’ll double up and warp to the door. You and Eve will stack on one side of the door while Bob and I stack on the other.”
“Works for me,” I said.
“What if the enemy has psions?” Eve asked.
“Simple. We kill them before they come into play. If we can’t, we counter their magic, and then we kill them.”
“You make it sound easy,” Eve said.
“The only easy day was yesterday,” Pete replied.
Theta: Double Game
Working for the government had its perks, among which was the ability to fly in a death squad unmolested.
The moment Eve had mailed him, Brandt started calling his contacts within the Organization. He dug deep, burning a lifetime of favors and drawing on every last ounce of his personal magnetism. This was a major operation, he argued—their last and best chance to eliminate Hexenhammer once and for all.
Eva Martel. Eve. She was too clever and too capable by far. Even when she had pitched him the idea of Hexenhammer in that clumsy, hesitant way, he knew she was a force to be reckoned with. She had more brains and guts and sheer bloody mindedness than most men he knew.
Unfortunately, he thought he was even cleverer than her. He’d put her and the other Kraken recruits through a truncated tradecraft course under the pretext that he was developing foreign assets. He’d trained them in the basics—just enough that they would feel confident in their skills—nowhere near enough to survive an international manhunt.
He had thought they would fail. Once their mutilated bodies turned up in a ditch somewhere or when the police hauled them to court, he could pull his levers and have the press excoriate the boogeyman of Pantopian ultranationalism.
Incredibly, she had survived. Prevailed, even. Somewhere along the line, she must have contacted some other intelligence agency. The Hesperians or the Yigalis, though Brandt judged the former more likely. The Yigalis were more low key while the Hesperians weren’t afraid to go loud and proud if they had to.
The Hesperians meant NISA, maybe even o
ne of their fabled black counterterrorist programs. It was the only plausible reason she had foiled him three times and counting. Somehow she’d kept that a secret from him, a trump card only she knew.
She had to have contacted them recently. Hexenhammer hadn’t been around for too long, and in the early days she had kept him updated on her every movement. At least until she wised up and kept her mouth shut. It might have been as early as half a year ago after he had passed on information about that terrorist financier to the hacker cell.
And if she had a hidden ace up her sleeve, why not more?
He had to know who else she was connected to. What else she knew. He would snatch her, move her to one of the Organization’s black sites, pump her dry and dispose of her so completely it would be like she had vanished into the Void. But he’d settle for killing her so long as nobody else knew she died.
But if she had covenanted with a god…
You need more information.
Yes, that was the way to go. All he had was what Alpha had told him and Lin’s reaction. It wasn’t enough to make a solid decision. He needed to know the truth. He could worry about gods later.
Her parents though… They could be a complication. Colonel Martel would want to know what happened to his daughter, and he still had many friends in government. The Martels had to be terminated. They hadn’t done anything to deserve it, true, but the security of the Organization was paramount, and you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.
At least the men he’d be flying in wouldn’t have any qualms about it.
He couldn’t get the Yellow Ghost. The man’s liaison had turned Brandt down point blank, claiming he was needed elsewhere. Fortunately, the Organization had other killers on its payroll.
He prepared a private hangar for them at Zurich Airport. They had the facility all to themselves; every civilian plane had been chased out and placed elsewhere. All he had to do was wave his badge and claim it was a snap counterterrorism exercise, and the airport staff fell all over themselves to meet his demands. He didn’t even have to spend a franc.
As the hours passed, men and materiel gathered in the hangar. First to arrive was what was left of his team: two controllers and the eight giants. The daimons were expendable—more precisely, their bodies were—but the handlers were not. He made a mental note to keep the handlers out of harm’s way.
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