Tinaree: Trial By Inferno (Shadows Of Peace Book 1)
Page 5
‘Stand down. Don’t fight.’
"I’m fine," he said aloud.
Kaydeen and Salayla immediately fell silent. Tonee took a moment longer. He had a split lip and a dark welt spreading across his left cheek. The two guards beside him looked worse. Their batons, the rod Taylor had felt across his back earlier, slammed into the back of Tonee’s knees, forcing him down. He complied without a struggle, his eyes whirling with anger and frustration.
‘I need you alive.’ With his hands still bound, Taylor’s signals were crude. He doubted anybody could miss them. He was wrong. They all did, all but Juvak. But this time, no jab to the knee came. Instead, a smirk and a minute nod of approval as he untied Taylor’s hands.
"You might live up to expectations." Juvak’s tone had changed, a thoughtful contemplation replacing his indifference as if a mask had cracked and his true skin peeked through. "Good leadership shows in the discipline of your troops."
"They’re not my troops."
"They are now." Juvak paused.
Taylor thought about pointing out that they were the same rank, but he was sure Juvak had no problem reading the insignia on their uniforms before the mercs had stripped it off them.
"Rank has nothing to do with leadership," Juvak hissed, and the cracks were gone, buried by the iron mask. "You want them to survive, you lead them through."
Taylor had no idea what to make of the man.
He didn’t have time to contemplate the questions in his mind. A jab to his back propelled him forward, out the door, down a hallway, and into a lift tube. The door closed, the lift started downward, and the light faded away.
And he knew what awaited him: Absolute darkness and a long hard battle back to the light.
"They what?"
The mid-grade intelligence officer, or IO, leaned back at Commander Kilrian’s sharp tone but held his ground.
"To intercept all of our SILCs and ambush the frigates, they must’ve had specific strategic details," IO Carmichael explained. "We checked the data Commander Richards forwarded, and his slicer is correct. To pre-position that many ships and missiles, they not only had to have specific details of our plan of attack, but had them with enough notice to set up the ambush before we arrived in system, and circumvented alarming the Tinareean Resistance." He glanced at Dean. "Unless the Resistance was aware but chose not to warn us."
Kilrian stared at him as the accusation hung in the air; then both turned to Dean.
Well played, young man, Dean thought. Redirect his attention, and possible wrath, onto somebody else. "And why would they do that?"
The last few hours had been a flurry of manic activity interspersed with spans of deadening stagnancy as officers had come together in the Sit-R to pool data their different sections had compiled. It had effectively turned the two main compartments of the BCC into the Fleet’s C4I, with Command and Control, or C2 as it was referred to, in the main compartment and Communication, Computing, and Intelligence, the rest of the alpha-numeric acronym, taking over the Sit-R.
In the chaos of the immediate aftermath of the ambush, Kilrian had aborted the second and third waves of the attack and ordered the fleet into a holding pattern at the terminus of their first micro-jump into the solar system. Unit Commander James Tagger of the 615th SF had contacted him soon after and requested for his unit to deploy as a Quick Reaction Force. Kilrian had denied the request. While an SF unit was best suited to act as a QRF, doing so would have left the fleet depleted of its Special Forces. Kilrian instead chose to send in two stealth scout ships and a handful of surveillance drones. The scouts made it back—barely. The drones did not, proving Kilrian’s suspicion that the ambush was still ongoing and designed to deprive the fleet of all its SF capabilities.
While the scouts were out, Kilrian had ordered the data to be pooled within the BCC so he could have immediate access while allowing his specialists to continue working with minimal interruptions from briefings. He had also requested Tagger transfer to the Cartage to act as SF advisor to the C2. By the time Tagger had arrived in the BCC, the scouts had returned and reported the ambush that had been lying in wait for them. In response, Kilrian had kicked intel-gathering into high drive and ordered any and all rescue operations held back until further notice.
Data had flooded into the C4I, but progress had stagnated as the different sections had struggled to make sense of it. Then Torrents had finally reported in, or better, Robert had done so for him. It had been a highlight, as the slicer’s data had kicked off one of the few instances when information actually fit together in a sensible string of events.
Dean remembered his earlier exchange with Bastogne. Allowing the Intel section to compile data into an abridged report might not skew the report toward this intelligence chief’s opinion, but it sure as hell didn’t always include all essential information in the correct order. Nobody but Torrents had thought to check the civilian telecom satellites, at least not in the timespan he did. They probably would have gotten around to it—once they had exhausted all other options.
"Could something have changed their minds?" Tagger asked.
He didn’t voice it, but Dean understood his train of thought. If the Resistance had been compromised, its actors might have come under pressure from threats to their or their families’ lives or freedom. The Traverse was notorious for making dissidents or their families disappear into the flourishing and vast slave trade in its territory.
"If they had changed their mind, they could’ve simply called this off." Bastogne, standing beside and slightly behind Kilrian, waved him off.
"Not necessarily," Dean interjected. "They’re fully aware of what kind of juggernaut their request for help brought to life and how hard it would be to call off, especially once it got going. Plus, what calling it off this late in the game would do to their chances of having future requests for aid answered. From that point of view, it would be better if this mission was aborted because of an external factor, like a mass casualty event during the initial phase of attack."
"Losing four hundred and thirty-four troopers won’t deter us," Kilrian said. "Quite the opposite."
"Four hundred and thirty-one, sir," Carmichael interjected.
"Excuse me?"
"Two mechanics of the 215th were injured during the loading preparations," the IO explained. "The Unit Commander decided to leave them behind on the Cooley. And a sniper was transferred from the 415th to Commander Tagger’s unit."
Tagger shrugged when Kilrian eyeballed him. Pre-mission transfers were usually made to boost a deploying unit’s personnel or specialties, not decrease them. "Commander Qauros requested a temporary transfer as a cool-down period," he elaborated. "There seems to have been a—" he paused to consider his words. "Let’s say, a conflict of personalities." He nodded with a frown.
"That bad, huh?" Kilrian tilted his head to the side and raised his eyebrows. He was clearly familiar with the unique challenges SF commanders faced when dealing with that many Type A personalities in tight spaces during the build-up to a mission, and the organizational leniencies SF Units were afforded.
"Ash is a special case, all right." Tagger pursed his lips. "One of the best in his field, but he’s on a whole ‘nother level of Type A personality. And that ‘A’ doesn’t stand for alpha."
"Ah," Kilrian nodded in understanding. "Well, that gives me three troopers less to weigh on my conscience, then." He turned back to Carmichael. "But I still won’t abandon four hundred and thirty-one of my people, dead or alive. We will finish this mission, and we will recover them."
He turned toward Dean. "In your estimation, what are the chances that the leak came from the Resistance?"
"Slim to none. Quite a few of the details needed to set the ambush were need-to-know information," he paused, "and the TRM didn’t need to know."
"Do we know what intel was leaked?" Kilrian turned back to the IO.
"Not until we determine the extent and nature of the leak," Carmichael replied, "but we can make some educated guesses. Fro
m the areas and angles the satellites were monitoring, we can deduce that they probably knew only the SILCs’ general flight paths. They positioned forty to fifty missiles across each of those target zones to ensure at least one would be within reach once the SILCs were detected. The satellites were probably equipped with AIs that were programmed to link up with an operator when they made visual contact with atmospheric disturbances that matched the parameters of CCS ghosting. If that link-up was a quick data burst providing the satellite’s ID and the data from the suspect sighting, the SILC’s passive sensors would have a hard time picking it up. Once the operator positively ID’ed the sighting as a ghosting, he could have sent an attack command or remotely fired up a missile’s propulsion system and guided it in by hand." He paused before adding, "All that is conjecture, of course, until we have more data."
"An AI?" Bastogne asked. "Tinareeans don’t use autonomous AIs. It goes against their core beliefs."
"But the Traverse has no such constraint. Slavery of AIs, humans, and other self-aware organics or non-organics is well-documented and widespread in Traverse territory," Tagger objected.
"They didn’t have to be full AIs," the IO clarified. "They could’ve been limited AIs, similar to our mainframes. The behavior they exhibited doesn’t require autonomous decision-making and is easily programmed into any level of dumb AI."
"So, we can’t determine if the attack was initiated by the Traverse or the Tinareean government," Kilrian said.
"Not yet, sir," Carmichael replied.
"All right." Kilrian folded his left hand into the crook of his right arm and tapped his chin with his right forefinger. "What else do you have?"
"We have some preliminary casualty numbers as recorded by bioskins and uploaded with the data dumps."
Kilrian nodded his understanding of what Carmichael was offering. "How reliable is it?"
"Extremely, but it’s also incomplete since it shows only the health data of the SILCs and only up to the point when the mainframes initiated their dumps."
"Only for the SILCs?"
"Yes, sir. During a mission, the SILCs actively monitor and record their troopers’ activities, movements, and bioskins data. The frigates do not."
"Ah, of course." Kilrian nodded. "And what does that data tell us?"
Carmichael hesitated, glancing at Tagger as if only now realizing how this information might be received, then ventured ahead. "That the SILCs had a ninety-five percent casualty rate during the initial attack."
Richards’ core turned icy at his words.
"Ninety-five percent?" Kilrian sputtered.
Beside him, Bastogne’s mouth and eyes gaped wide open.
"Yes, sir." Carmichael pressed his lips into a thin line as he nodded. "They timed it perfectly." He stole another glance at Tagger, who had frozen in place, his face stoic. "Most of the squads were out of their seats readying to jump when the SILCs were hit, so their seats’ APS would’ve been useless."
"And of those ninety-five percent, how many died?"
"Thirty percent of the bioskins reported flatlining of vital signs." Carmichael shifted from foot to foot but didn’t break eye contact.
"And the rest?"
"Various degrees of injuries, from shrapnel to dismemberment."
"And only five percent made it through the initial attack unscathed?"
"Yes, sir." Carmichael nodded. "But that doesn’t mean they survived the crash," he cautioned.
"That’s not especially helpful," Bastogne put in.
"Actually, it is," Dean refuted him. "We now know that the rescue missions will need to be medevacs, and that captives will most likely be held in or near medical facilities."
Carmichael nodded his agreement. "It also means that few of them, if any, would’ve been able to escape on their own."
"So, you’re saying that we can expect most, if not all, survivors to be taken prisoner," Kilrian clarified.
"Yes, sir," Carmichael agreed. "That’s our conjecture."
Kilrian nodded in acknowledgement as he digested the implications.
Not only had the strike force lost four hundred and thirty-one of its people, but four hundred and thirty-one of its best fighters. Those troopers represented three-quarters of their SF contingent, their best trained and most rounded warfighters.
It was a severe blow, one that would have far-reaching implications within the fleet and for the mission. Their current battle plan relied heavily on SF to seize and hold strategic locations and important infrastructure to help minimize the damage and maximize the fleet’s ability to quickly turn over the planet to its rightful government. Intergal wasn’t in the business of extended nation-building, but of keeping nations free and independent, after all.
Those plans would have to be re-drawn, and not only to account for the leaked data. The one SF Unit the fleet had left didn’t have the manpower to complete all the missions the original plans had assigned to SF teams. Either ground forces or Resistance fighters would have to complete some of those missions, which meant the mission profiles would have to be changed to fit the skillsets of the people executing them. But first, they had to sort out the leak, control its damage, and see how much of their original plan was recoverable. And that would take time—time the downed SF units didn’t have.
"Okay, keep me apprised of all developments." Kilrian nodded in dismissal and turned toward the small-scale simulation taking shape above the compartment’s central table. When Carmichael didn’t move, he turned back.
"Something else?"
"Yes, sir."
"Then spit it out."
"It’s sensitive, sir." Carmichael replied and showed the screen of his hand-held datapad to the commander. Kilrian took the hand-held and read the screen. Carmichael kept his eyes straight ahead and his posture locked, not at attention but in avoidance. Dean wondered if the young man realized how much his attempt to not divulge the subject of their conversation actually gave away.
Kilrian looked up from the screen.
"How conclusive is this data?"
"Enough to warrant dispatching security details. Due to the sensitivity of circumstances, Commander Herletogue wanted to inform you first and verify that all executives are secure."
Dean raised his eyebrows and scanned the compartment. Sure enough, a security team had entered the Sit-R while they’d been talking. They were mingling by the Sit-R’s main hatch, trying to be inconspicuous.
Kilrian nodded thoughtfully as he handed the datapad back.
"And, are they?"
"Not yet, sir. One is within reach of the target."
"Commander Richards," Kilrian turned to Dean, "we need to have a word." He looked around. "In private."
6
Darkness
Taylor wasn’t sure what was worse, the ache in his knees from kneeling on the rough-hewn rock and his previous injury, or the spasms in his back from staying in a semi-upright position. His face was a good contender too, and the total lack of light and the tricks his mind played on him because of it. It must have been hours since the last ray had disappeared with the closing of the lift tube doors. The lift had descended for some time, but without a reference point for its speed, he had no idea how deep they’d gone. It could have been a slow-moving five stories or a well-buffered thousand. Not that it mattered—his guards had kept full control over him. Using his new neck jewelry as a handle, they had dragged him from the lift tube and down a warren of passageways he hadn’t been able to sense, but they had navigated with ease. Not to say that had kept them from letting him stumble into the occasional corner, wall, or boulder. Though, as painful as that trek had been, it had verified that the vision enhancement devices his guards were using, were sophisticated ones. When his feet had found a nest of large rocks and he had tumbled into a ditch, they had grabbed their convenient handle on the first try and dragged him back to his feet. His throat still ached from the sudden chokehold the collar had put on it in that maneuver. Nothing as bad as the spasms in his back righ
t now, but enough to stay with him. That fall had also confirmed his impression that they’d left the manmade building and entered a rough-cut tunnel.
Now that he had some time sitting still and attuning his other senses, he could make out the distant pings of metal hitting rock, the scrape of rocks being dragged or rolled, and the thuds of muffled explosions. A mine? He’d never been in an active mine, but he imagined this was what it sounded like. That would explain the comments from the fat guy upstairs, the money on the table, the ring around his neck, and why he hadn’t been interrogated or seen any Traverse. Juvak had sold them to a miner.
Somebody approached. Two somebodies. Their steps were too soft to make out if it was the same two who had brought him down. One stayed back while the other unclipped the cable holding him in place, then grabbed the collar and dragged him to his feet. His legs screamed in protest, but it was either get his stiffened knees and cramping muscles moving or choke. He gritted his teeth and forced his feet to carry him.
Left, right, right, half-left, full back. He wasn’t sure if they were trying to confuse his sense of direction or were simply lost. Either way, he’d have a hard time finding his way back to the lift tube on his own. At least his legs moved easier as they went along, and he was steered clear of any obstacles. That was a definite boost to his morale and overall wellbeing.
Then, they stopped.
"Kneel."
He had barely enough time to register the demand before the baton slammed into the back of his knees and forced him down. The hand on the collar switched to the top of his head and forced his neck to arch back.
"Open."
Again, they acted faster than he could react. One of them grabbed his jaw and shoved two fingers and a thumb into his cheeks.
Why are they even bothering giving me commands?
"Drink."
This one came at the same time as the liquid hit his mouth. He gagged, tried to spit it back out, but a hand grabbing his larynx made it clear that wasn’t an option.