Children of Steel (62 page)

I went and checked up on Hess and Marko to
make sure they had their gear in order, then went and saw to mine.
About two hours after I was finished Aruba showed up, she had a lot
more to deal with getting her platoon in order for the drop.

“You will not do anything stupid,” She said
to me later that night in bed. “And that’s an order, okay?”

“Where’s the fun in that?” I grumbled and
rolled onto my side, pulling her against me.

“The fun is when I reward you afterwards,”
she chuckled and then yawned. “Seriously Raj, can you go six weeks
in the heart of enemy territory without trying to kill everyone you
see?”

I nodded, “Of course, when the payoff is
getting them all,” I yawned as well and then nibbled her ear.

“Good, cause I’m going to hold you to that.
Remember it.”

The drop went perfectly, and as the troops
started to attack the installation our shuttle took us off towards
our drop point. About five minutes out John got a call from Dave
who was the WSO on our shuttle. “Sergeant, we’re getting some
strange chatter from the attack force.”

“What is it?

“I think you should hear it, let me pipe it
through…”

A moment later and I could hear Aruba’s
voice: “No contacts over here either sir, my squads haven’t seen
anyone. The whole place looks deserted.”

“Damn, my third squad found a couple of
squatters of some kind at the gate, but that was it.”

“Well at least we know why this area had no
missile defenses.”

“The mine here must have run out or
something. Okay, set charges so we can at least get a nice fire
going and call for pickup. No reason to stick around if there’s
nothing here.

“Roger that Captain.”

“What do you make of it Raj?” John asked me
as Dave cut the feed.”

“Not good, if that place isn’t operational,
then those rail lines are definitely dead.”

“Just what I’m thinking. Well, nothing we can
do about it now.

“Pilot, how long to drop?”

“Twenty minutes Sergeant.”

“That’s too long,” I said, “They’ll be
starting to pull out in twenty minutes now.”

“You’re right; if they just sit there and
wait it’ll look suspicious. Damn, let me check my map.”

I motioned to the others to hook up as John
checked it.

“Okay, this should work. Pilot there should
be a valley to the east of the tracks, coordinate M thirty-four,
west twelve.”

“Got it, it’s about ninety seconds. Prepare
for drop!”

John hooked up and stowed his map and we all
assumed drop positions.

“Twenty seconds!” and the door came open.

“Drop!"

I tossed the drogue chute out and we
deployed.

I looked to either side as my main chute
opened, they had dropped us below the ridge line to either side,
about a hundred feet above ground. I dropped my pack to its tether,
and then rolled when I hit. I took a few minutes to gather in my
chute and bury it. We formed up as a group ten minutes later.

“It’s a hundred miles to the drop zone we had
picked. We might as well get started.” John said.

We all nodded and fell in. It was a long
walk.

By daylight of the second day we had reached
the building. It was an abandoned rail station. We could tell by
looking at the tracks they hadn’t been used in ages. We guessed
that this place must have been mined out and abandoned by some corp
decades ago, and our friends probably moved in later and set up
their own shop. Several fighter jets had passed over head during
our trek in the previous night, and a transport had flown by much
later. We’d taken cover each time just in case, but if they guessed
we were here all the cover in the world wouldn’t be enough.

The four of us in charge settled down in one
corner to examine the maps while the others spread out to see what
they could find.

“Sir, come take a look at this!” I heard Hess
call over my com.

“Just a minute guys,” I said to the other
three, “Hess has something.”

I found him in one of the inner rooms.

“What’s up?”

He turned his flashlight to on the wall.
“Check it out Sir.”

I looked and there was a map of the entire
continent on it, with all the rail lines shown, and each of the
towns on it as well.

“Look at that. Outstanding Hess.”

I called John and the others in and we all
sat there and compared the map to the composite we had made on the
ship’s computer.

“A lot less outlying towns now, hmmm, I
wonder what’s at those places these days.” Ran asked.

“Good question. One I guess we’ll have to
check out soon.

Nic looked up then, obviously listening to
his private channel. “I think one of my guys might have found
something useful,” He said. So we followed him outside and back
around to what appeared to have once been a garage, though it was
partially collapsed now.

“What have we here Ron?”

“A handcart Sergeant!"

I watched as four others helped him extricate
it from the debris.

“I think we just solved our transportation
problem!” John laughed and we all nodded.

A little more digging found a second one so
we left the troops to get them in order while we four planned our
next step.

By nightfall we had the two carts on the
rails and were moving down the railway at a fairly decent clip.
Russ and Hess were positioned as snipers on the front cart just in
case we came across any unexpected surprises while the rest of us
took turns pumping the treadle. We had covered almost two hundred
miles by dawn, and holed up in another abandoned railway
station.

“See if you can’t turn up another hand cart,”
I ordered the rest while the four of us reviewed our plans.
According to the maps we now had there was a major line about a
hundred miles further down. Nic and Ran would take their halves
down there, and split up further as they came to the installations
in that area. John and I would take our halves further down this
line and split up when the line split a second time.

“Remember,” John said, “We’ve got six weeks,
so take your time, the rail lines probably won’t be safe as we get
closer in, so it’ll be back to foot.”

We all nodded.

They were able to find another hand car, and
we had it working by morning. There was a second one here as well,
but it was missing several parts. We all set off again that evening
going down the rail line once more. By dawn of the next day we had
all split up and was each taking our halves to our respective areas
to see what we could learn about the area.

The next six weeks had the three of us on the
move constantly. We never slept in the same place twice, and never
stirred during the daylight. Several times we were forced to raid
an outlying house or sneak into a town and rob a store for
provisions. That didn’t prove to be too much trouble, most of the
towns were small and security was light. I suspected they didn’t
have a lot of problems with crime this far out.

We’d had to infiltrate several of the towns
anyway while gathering what intelligence we could. One interesting
thing we uncovered was that all of the abandoned towns that didn’t
show on the new map, but were on the old one, contained hidden
missile silos and rail gun emplacements to protect the larger base
they surrounded. They also had a small support team to service,
man, and probably protect it. We made note of each of those as we
found them.

After we’d spent four weeks covering the
outskirts we headed in towards the major installation that was our
primary target of interest. It took us a lot longer to work our way
closer to it, but security here seemed to be more concerned with
theft and appearances than with infiltrators or soldiers. So we
were able to sneak in close enough to spend three days mapping out
the port and its defenses.

We’d achieved all of our objectives with a
few days to spare. We were packing up our gear on the top of a
hill, when Hess turned to me.

“Now what, Sir?”

“Well our orders are to pull out and wait for
them to attack so we can upload our data once they’re in
range.”

“Yeah, right. So what are we really going to
do?”

I smiled and looked back at the installation.
“That’s a real nice command and control bunker they have down
there, isn’t it?”

He nodded, “Yup, bet if someone got in there
or blew it up during the initial phases of the attack they could
wreak some real havoc with their command and control.”

Marko looked over at the two of us. “You guys
are crazy.”

“No, we’re highly motivated soldiers,” I
smiled. “What’s the matter, don’t want a citation in your
record?”

“Not posthumously."

“They’ll never expect it, we have the element
of surprise after all.”

“We’ve also got a lot of data here that we
need to send, which we can’t do if we’re in a firefight, or dead,
now can we?”

I nodded, “Good point. Let’s find someplace
to hole up for the day; I want to think about this.”

Marko turned to Hess, “See what you
started?”

“Well I wouldn’t want our Warrant to lose his
reputation, would you?” he snickered.

The next night we were scanning the port from
another vantage point, taking the time to make more detailed maps,
but now they were for our use.

“This is insane you know,” Marko said.

“Got any better idea’s?” Hess asked.

“No, but let’s face it, that bunker is
probably the one place they’ve got good security, sentries, you
name it. I’m all for doing something, but I don’t think that’s
it.”

I was looking up and down the field listening
to them whisper back and forth with half an ear.

“Don’t worry; I’m sure he’ll figure something
out. He always does, doesn’t he?”

“Always does? We’ve only been on seven drops
with him!”

“Hess, Marko, quiet down and look back over
at the base.”

“What’s up sir?”

“I’ve been watching that damn bunker for five
hours and you know what I’ve noticed?”

“What?” they both asked sounding amazed.

“That we don’t have the ability to get in
there.” I sighed.

“What!?” Hess sounded shocked, Marko looked
smug.

“
However
,” I continued, “Look at the
hangers over there that they have most of their assault shuttles
and fighters parked in."

They both turned.

“What do you see?”

“Two sentries.”

“Exactly, and what’s that they’ve been
parking between those two hangers every night now?"

Marko smiled, “Why, a fuel truck.”

I nodded, “We could get down there, kill the
sentries, open the valves on the truck and set that whole place up
in pretty short order. Bet that would make quite a mess, wouldn’t
you both agree?”

“See? I told you he’d come up with
something!” Hess laughed softly.

“Enough guys,” I checked my watch, sometime
tomorrow the task force was supposed to come in range of our long
range com unit.

“Let’s go find a place to hole up until
tomorrow.”

I choose a different hill as our starting
place the next night, it didn’t have as a good vantage point over
the hangers and the west end of the installation, but it would
do.

“Okay, here’s the plan,” I said looking
around. “Hess, you’ll stay up here with the comm unit and your
sniper rifle. Marko and I will move down into position, and take
care of those two guards. Then we’ll move into the hangers and open
all the fuel access points we can on the fighters and shuttles.

“After you’ve gotten the upload signal give
us a double click on the helmets, then when you’ve finished
transmitting move over to the position we had last night. You can
provide covering fire as we need it. Marko and I will move the
truck then, and light the place up as soon as we can.”

“And then what?” Marko asked.

“Targets of opportunity as we withdraw to the
south. That should keep us away from the locals and any targets for
the initial barrage from orbit.”

They both nodded.

“Let’s go.”

It took a while for Marko and me to get down
to the hangers without being seen. The security down by the flight
line wasn’t that extensive, but there was a lot more of it here
than we’d seen so far. The sensors didn’t stop us however; Marko
was very good at dealing with those.

Moving from shadow to shadow and ducking
around some crates and old vehicles that provided cover we moved in
closer. Using hand signals I motioned Marko over into the cover of
the Hanger nearer to the second sentry as I drew my knife and
flattened up against the wall and waited for the first sentry to
come around the corner.

He didn’t know I was there until he felt my
hand over his mouth quickly followed by my knife sliding into the
base of his skull. Then he didn’t know anything at all. I pulled
his dead body back deeper into the shadows and stashed it in a
large trash container I’d seen. A minute later I joined Marko in
the first hanger as he stashed the body of the other dead sentry in
a barrel. We then went and opened all the fuel points and drains we
could find on the four fighters in the hanger.

Ten minutes later we were in the next hanger
in the row doing the same thing, working as quickly as we could.
There were ten hangers to cover, the last one however turned out to
have two alert birds and their crews sitting in it.

“Damn,” I whispered to Marko, “I didn’t
expect this.”

He nodded as we watched the group, there were
six of them total, four crew and two techs. I heard the double
click on my helmet radio.

“Damn, transmission has started.” I knew it
wouldn’t take long for them to zero in on our comm unit, so all
hell would be breaking out soon enough.