Going Dark (36 page)

Montrose continues. “You will be inserted six blocks from the target, a distance designed to protect the gunship from ground-to-air defenses. You will make your way past resistance—”

“Professional?”

“Irregulars.”

“Got it.”

“The target is a basement-level biowarfare lab.”

We’re hunting the angel of death,
Tran says over gen-com.

Montrose’s gaze shifts to Tran, which tells me he’s monitoring gen-com, but he doesn’t comment, just continues with his briefing. “You will take control of the facility. Collect intelligence and transmit all data to Command. Relaying that data is your highest priority. We must collect evidence of the specific bioweapons under development. You will then hold the facility until Command authorizes you to destroy it.”

“Then we get extracted?” I ask.

“Assuming you get that far, the exercise is over.”

I trade a skeptical look with Logan. Our last two
missions had deficient extraction plans. But this is just an exercise.

“This is a timed operation,” Captain Montrose adds. “The goal is to get in, get the data, and transmit it within sixteen minutes.”

It takes longer than that to discuss the details and to issue nonlethal ammo.

•  •  •  •

It’s just an exercise. I remind myself of that as the Black Hawk puts down on the cracked and weed-grown concrete outside the hangar, because my heart is racing, powered by a cocktail of anxiety and anticipation.

“Combat-hyper?” Kanoa asks over gen-com. He’s along virtually as our handler.

“I like it that way.”

The Black Hawk’s side doors are open. We board. Gunners are in place at the forward windows. There are no seats, but then, we don’t need any. This is going to be a very short flight. At the crew chief’s instruction, we sit in the right-hand doorway, feet dangling into space as we lift away from the concrete. We roar over the base, just above the treetops, with no lights visible below us.

But we’re high enough to see beyond the perimeter fence. Just a few kilometers away, the lights of surrounding towns blaze in night vision. Cars are in motion on the streets and highways. It’s a different world out there.

The crew chief speaks over our helmet audio. “Fifteen seconds to insertion.”

We come in low above an ugly sprawl of concrete block buildings—some burned out, some broken—a mockup of a war-torn urban combat zone. We’re greeted by simulated gunfire, blazing in night vision. The Black Hawk’s gunners open up in response as we drop with stomach-curdling
speed toward a small square. But our descent is a feint. The square isn’t big enough for the Black Hawk to land. The rotor wash sends debris spinning away below us as we skew sideways toward a flat rooftop spiked with antennas and netted with empty laundry lines. A low wall encloses it. The pilot settles a skid on the wall. The crew chief barks, “Move out!” And I jump. A horizontal evacuation, keeping my head low, landing in a crouch. Logan and Tran come down beside me.

I sweep my HITR in a half circle, letting the muzzle cams scan the scene so my tactical AI can assess the surroundings. I do a simultaneous visual assessment, noting that the laundry lines are low enough to snag our helmets. Debris is skipping across the roof, remnants of chicken coops and cardboard boxes that pile up against the enclosing wall. Off to my right, there’s a break in the wall that the map shows as leading to an exterior stair.

The dim glow of a projected path appears in my visor, pointing to the suspected stairway. The Black Hawk lifts off behind us. One of the gunners resumes firing, the sound either suppressed by my helmet or simulated by it, I don’t know.

We are operating without a dedicated angel because the insertion was too precipitous to allow us to deploy one. But we do have data from a high-flying observational drone that allows the battle AI to continuously update a map of the neighborhood. We also have seekers—army-issued microdrones with sound-damping technology, designed for urban surveillance.

I shift my HITR to one hand, open a chest pouch, and pull out the first of the two seekers I carry. “Deploying Seeker-1.”

“Roger that,” Kanoa says. He’ll be handling the device. I hold it clear of my body. He signals the seeker’s helicopter
blades to deploy on their struts and spin up. As soon as I feel a tug of pressure, I let it go. The seeker streaks away, buzzing softly as it follows the projected path.

“Street and stairway show clear,” Kanoa reports. “But it won’t last.”

“Roger that. Logan, move out.”

“Moving.”

He scuttles along the path, bent over, his HITR scanning for targets. Tran and I fan out to either side of him so that we can cover him on the stairway. But I pull up when I see motion on the roof across the street.

The rules of engagement limit aggressive action to known combatants. We are not to fire on civilians, even armed civilians, unless the battle AI designates a target. But if we’re being shot at, we can shoot back.

“Kanoa, across the street, what am I seeing?”

“Undetermined.”

Whatever it was, it’s gone.

I move up to the wall, peer over. We are three stories up. The stairway is a steel fire escape that descends in six flights. The street below is clear.

A stealth helicopter isn’t quiet. It’s just quieter than a standard Black Hawk, so we assume the enemy is aware that we have arrived in the zone. That means speed counts for more than stealth. Logan jumps the first flight of stairs, coming down with
bang!
on the landing. The rusting bolts holding up the stairway twitch. He turns and jumps again.

Tran moves to follow.

“Tran, hold up.” We watch the street. No enemy in sight. The drone has already turned the corner to the south. The staircase shakes as Logan hits the third landing. “Okay,
go
.”

With the weight of two soldiers on the stairs, the bolts jump harder. I try not to watch them, keeping my attention on the street.

“Cross street clear,” Kanoa says.

“I’ve got movement to the north.”

Night vision shows me the muzzle of an automatic rifle scanning around a corner at street level. A targeting circle pops up on my visor. Whoever is holding that gun is still out of sight. I shoot anyway. A simulated spark jumps off the tip of the muzzle as I’m awarded a hit. The weapon vanishes from sight.

Logan reaches the street. He drops into a crouch, covering the north end. I start down, bounding after Tran, not caring at this point if I bring the stairway down. I want to move out before enemy forces have a chance to trap us.

“Tran, take point. Move south.”

“Yes, sir.”

The seeker is out ahead of us, sniffing for explosive chemicals, listening for motion, scanning the rooftops and windows. As soon as I reach the street, I turn to follow Tran.

“Clear to cross the intersection,” Kanoa says.

“Roger that!”

Tran sprints, making it across in three bounds. He continues down the block, but at a more cautious pace. I keep my interval, ten meters behind him. Logan follows.

That’s one block down, five to go, before we reach the entrance of the target lab.

The seeker pulses a motion alarm, highlighting a second-floor window on the left side of the street. Tran hurls himself against the wall, his HITR aimed overhead. Nothing happens. No target posts on my visor.

“Unconfirmed,” Kanoa says.

By this time, I’ve caught up with Tran. “I’m taking point.”

I move out, sprinting to the corner. I crouch there while the seeker reconnoiters the cross street.

“Clear to cross the intersection.”

We get past the next two blocks with no opposition. Then all hell breaks loose.

Gunfire erupts from a third-story window across the street from me. There’s more gunfire from the rooftop above. I want to stay in this war game, so I throw myself sideways, diving through a broken window into the shelter of the closest building—a burned-out shell—landing on my shoulder and rolling to my feet.

Two strides take me back to the broken window. I’ve got my HITR raised to shoot high. My AI marks the third-floor site where the shots originated, but before I can return fire, a grenade takes out the target window in a white flash, the muffled boom echoing off the buildings.

Over gen-com, Tran pronounces a single word of quiet triumph. “Slam.”

I shift my aim to the rooftop, where the second shooter was positioned. I can’t see a target, but I can at least discourage any further gunfire. “Grenade,” I tell the AI. “Set distance.”

For the exercise, we use flash-bang grenades: light and noise but not generally fatal.

A green light flares in my visor, indicating the next grenade in line has been programmed to go off at the requested distance. I pull the second trigger on my HITR, but I don’t stay to see the result. I jump through the window. As the grenade goes off overhead, I’m sprinting to the end of the block. When I get there, I glance at my squad map, confirming Tran and Logan close behind, and then I bound across the intersection.

I’m ahead of the seeker now. That’s bad, because I see motion a block farther on. I crouch behind the charred hulk of a car. “Kanoa, I need eyes.”

“We’ve lost the seeker.”

I reach into my chest pouch to get the next one, but my gaze, and most of my attention, is on the street a block ahead where night vision shows me what I think are two soldiers—no, three—rigged in armor and bones.

I get the seeker out, set it on the dirty sidewalk. “Deploying Seeker-2.”

“Roger that.”

The little device buzzes to life and lifts away, streaking south.

“Do we have allies here?” I ask Kanoa.

“Negative.”

“Who are the rigged soldiers?”

“Unknown.” He sounds angry. “Best guess from Intelligence—the competition.”

“Another outfit trying to take this lab?”

“Roger that.”

“I can’t believe Command brought in a squad of LCS soldiers to run against us.” It doesn’t make sense, because there is always a shortage of LCS squads in the field. “If they can do that, why the fuck don’t they bring in the rest of
my
squad?” Something else occurs to me. “Or are these hired guns?”

“Unknown! But you are cleared to engage.”

“Roger that.” The ROE says we are not to fire unless fired upon, but that rule exists to protect civilian lives. These are not civilians.

I check the squad map. Tran is a few meters back, sheltering behind the corner of the building. Logan is farther away, beyond the intersection.

“Logan, move to the opposite side of the street. Then cross the intersection. As soon as you reach the curb, we’re both going to hit that block with grenades. Got it?”

“Roger that.”

“Tran, you stick with me.”

“Yes, sir.”

Logan crosses the main street in two bounds. He draws the interest of the enemy. A grenade goes off in the street. It’s not a direct hit, but Logan’s icon goes yellow, indicating he’s taken shrapnel. The battle AI designates it a minor wound; it doesn’t lock up his rig. He transits the cross street next, takes cover behind the corner building, and using his muzzle cams, he lines up a shot. So do I.

I stand up long enough to launch a grenade over the roof of the wrecked car I’ve been using for shelter. Then I drop down again. I wait for the double explosion—my grenade and his. Then I take off, running hard the length of the block, with Tran a few meters behind me.

“Target overhead,” Kanoa says.

I throw myself back against the closest building. Tran crouches at my feet. He starts shooting south down the street while I look up.

A gold glow projected on my visor marks a fast-moving target. I cover it and shoot.

The battle AI registers a hit.

“Enemy seeker down,” Kanoa says.

“Good. Tran, you got anything?”

“Negative. No visible targets.”

“Logan?”

“Negative.”

I flinch as an explosion goes off. I don’t see it directly, but I see the flash, hear the
boom
. It’s from the cross street at the end of the block. Gunfire starts up from the roof of the target building. I look for the rooftop shooters, but I can’t see them. I can’t see any muzzle flash.

“Shooters are on the opposite side of the building, aiming south,” Kanoa says.

Aiming at our competition. Can’t ask for a better opportunity than that.

“Advance!”

We run the block, cross the intersection, and we’re there. It’s a big building, filling up the entire block, and like the rest of our simulated city, it’s a wreck—but we’re supposed to interpret that as camouflage for the high-tech lab in the protected basement.

We are to enter through a basement door in the middle of the block.

The gun battle around the corner rages on, but not all of the building’s defenders are engaged. Through the seeker, we watch one of the rooftop shooters falling back to cover our side of the building.

“Enemy on the roof,” Kanoa says.

Tran covers me while I step away from the building, just far enough to get an angle on the figure three stories above—but the defender disappears before I get a shot off, and I get tagged with a nonfatal in the helmet. That would have given me a nasty headache if this was real.

Logan is already past us, advancing on the target: a steel door at the bottom of a half flight of stairs. “Confirm target,” he says over gen-com.

“Target confirmed,” Kanoa responds.

Logan tosses a grenade down the stairs, falls back as the flash and
boom
go off.

“Tran,” I order, “cover us.”

I catch up with Logan at the top of the stairway.

The door looks intact.

“Consider it open,” Kanoa says.

I use a hand signal to instruct Logan to take point. He jumps to the bottom of the stairs, tries the door knob, and the damn thing just opens. He pushes it back only a couple of inches, just far enough to pitch another grenade through. After it pops, he sticks the muzzle of his HITR in, scanning the scene with his muzzle cams.

“Image,” I tell Kanoa.

He posts the video feed to my visor. Inside is a small, barren lobby with charred walls, empty of everything but a few bits of debris. Across the lobby is another steel door that should lead deeper into the building. Logan moves in. I jump down the stairs. “Tran, come in behind me.”