SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) (32 page)

No way would the scavenger leaders risk that, they
were coming again for our decoy. Of that, I was certain.

After ten minutes, with no movement from the crashed
Luzzard, I gave Smythe the go ahead to send in the Alpha teams. Two Chinese
were closest, when they got the signal, they popped up from the covered hole
they'd been concealed in, and quickly raced across the muddy grass to the
crashed Luzzard. Those two soldiers had way more discipline that I could have
managed under the circumstances, in powered armor I would have rocketed out of
that hole thirty feet in the air, and leaped halfway to the target in a single
bound. These soldiers used the advantage of their suit's power in a controlled
fashion, sticking close to the ground, rifles always fixed securely on the back
ramp door of the Luzzard. The rear door had popped open in the crash, the force
of the impact wrenching the top of the ramp loose from its latching mechanism.
One of the soldiers held a zPhone up to the gap so we could get a view inside
the Luzzard, while the other soldier covered him.

"I don't see anything moving in there," Xho
declared.

"Agree," Smythe said, "wait for the
French Alpha team, then we go in."

The two French soldiers in powered armor, who had been
concealed a half kilometer down the canyon, were almost at the crash site,
approaching from the front of the Luzzard. Through the feed from the zPhone
network, we could all see inside the busted ship, it was chaos in there. The
Kristang had exercised poor discipline in securing items inside their ship, the
crash had caused all kinds of equipment to break loose and fly around inside
the cargo compartment. The occupants may have been in more danger from their
own gear, than from falling two hundred meters straight down. Whatever caused
the damage, they appeared to be all dead, there wasn't anything moving inside
the main compartment of the Luzzard. Two lizard bodies were visible in the
narrow view provided by the zPhone, their legs were at awkward angles, and dark
red blood was seeping onto the floor.

When the French arrived, one of them slung his rifle,
and jumped easily up on top of the Luzzard near the front, then lay down and
crept forward to peer in the cockpit windows. "They're both dead up
here," he said, holding a zPhone so we could all see the carnage. I
recognized the voice; it was Renee Giraud. And if I had been paying attention,
there was an icon at the bottom of my zPhone screen, telling me the view I was
watching was from 'Giraud, R (FR)'. The Kristang were hateful lizards, but they
made good phones. Especially after Skippy replaced the original software with
something of his own creation. "They must have been hit by shrapnel from
the warheads," Giraud reported, "the windows have holes in them. The
cockpit is shredded. It's, it's ugly," he said softly.

"Should we check inside, sir?" Smythe asked.

"Yes, if we can get the back ramp or a side door
open, I don't want us to cause any damage that doesn't look like it was caused
by the crash," I said. "We need to maintain our cover story as much
as possible."

The side door had a recessed handle, with instructions
written in Kristang, that Skippy had the visors on the suits translate for the
Alpha team. It was simple; in case of emergency, the door was supposed to be
easy for rescuers to open, just like a human aircraft. One of the Chinese got
the side door open easily, and panned his zPhone around. There was still
nothing moving in there. Because the armor suits were bulky, the four Alpha
team members waited for the Indian team, without suits, to arrive from up the
canyon. The four Indian paratroopers quickly entered the Luzzard, and within
thirty seconds, reported that the Kristang inside were all dead.

"Understood," I said, "all teams, pull
back, cover our tracks." That was the signal for the Alpha teams, weighed
down with armor, to leave the area first, and for the people not wearing armor
to sweep the embedded footprints and cover deep, muddy footprints with grass
we'd collected from other areas. When they were done, it was hard to tell
anyone had been there, and as heavy rain was expected that night, all signs would
be securely washed away by morning. I called that a success. Phase One,
complete.

When I'd explained my Phase Two plan to deal with the
scavengers' second aircraft, a dropship, and destroy the scavengers' remaining
air power, Smythe had not been enthusiastic.

"No good," Smythe had said, pointing at the
map, "too many possible landing sites for us to cover. We only have six
Zingers left."

"Captain," I asked, "tell me, where
would you land that dropship?"

"That's the problem. I'd touch down here,"
he indicated a spot far to the east of the site where we had placed the fake
Elder power tap, "or here, or here, or here. Touch down, drop off a three
man team in armored suits, then drop off another three man team in armor
somewhere over here," to the west of the crash site. "Then the
dropship would fly high cover, out of Zinger range, while their two teams
approach the target from opposite directions."

I nodded. "That's what I would do also. That's
not what these Kristang will do. Dr. Mesker, could you come here, please?"

"Certainly, what is it, Mister Bishop?"
Mesker didn't get the nuances of military rank structure.

I pointed to the crash site on the map. "This is
the decoy landslide site, you're familiar with the area? We put our bait there,
the fake Elder power tap? It's in that canyon behind the cathedral
complex."

"Yeah, sure, I've been there. That's a steep
canyon."

"Right," I tapped the crash site on the map.
"If you were flying in to examine the decoy site, where would you
land?"

"Uh," he tapped the map to bring up a
satellite picture overlay, then back to the map. "Here, the canyon widens
out and the floor is big enough to land on this side of the stream, plus it's
an easy walk up to the crash site. Except you'd need to cross the stream here,
it hugs the canyon wall."

I smiled. "Thank you, Dr. Mesker. Captain Smythe,
that's how a civilian thinks, and that's how the Kristang here think also.
These scavengers are civilians, they're not soldiers. You're used to planning
to counter a military opponent. Remember, these particular Kristang have no
reason to think the Luzzard crash was anything but an accident, they think
they're alone on this planet. They're going to land that dropship as close as
possible, to reduce the distance they have to walk to get our decoy, and the
distance they have to carry anything they salvage from the crash. Mesker is
right, they're going to land on the canyon floor somewhere, likely further down
than he said, because their pilot doesn't want to take any risks with their one
remaining aircraft, he'll want a clear path for a takeoff if he's fully loaded
on the return. Somewhere in this area," I pointed near where that canyon
opened into a broad, shallow canyon. "Your Zinger teams can take position
above the canyon here and here, and on the canyon floor here. That dropship
will likely overfly the crash site before selecting a spot for landing, you can
hit him as he's over the canyon, minimize the pilot's reaction time."

Captain Smythe thought for a moment, then nodded.

"What do you think," I asked, "two
Zinger teams on the canyon floor, covering the best landing site, and one team
on each side of the top of the canyon?"

"Two on the canyon floor, yes, I'll want them
able to cover each other. One on top of the canyon wall as you said, the south
side, and I also want one team up here, on this hilltop. A team up there can
cover the whole area. The hilltop doesn't give the best angle for a shot, we'll
keep that Zinger team in reserve in case things go very sideways."

I, of course, approved the SpecOps team leader's plan,
because he knew a lot more about clandestine operations than I did. To my
surprise, when the dropship arrived, Smythe wanted me atop the hillside,
instead watching the action from inside the cave. Of all the people on Newark, Smythe
explained, I was the only one who had fired a Zinger in combat. The SpecOps
troops had trained with a simulator aboard the
Dutchman
, but they all
had much more extensive experience with whichever model of Man Portable Air
Defense missile their country's military used on Earth. Smythe was concerned
that, in the tension of combat, Zinger teams would be subconsciously thinking
in terms of the MANPAD missiles they were familiar with on Earth, and not the
much more capable Zingers on their shoulders. He wanted me, essentially, acting
as a spotter on the hilltop for the primary Zinger teams below on the canyon
floor. That was much better than what I expected him to want me to do, which
was to sit in the cave and watch the action on an iPad or zPhone screen. He
even went so far to suggest that, if the hilltop team, our reserves in case
things went squirrelly, needed to shoot at the dropship, I personally should
fire the missile. "You have experience shooting a Zinger, sir,"
Smythe explained. "Your report from Paradise says you got off a snap shot,
at a Chicken that was aware of you and about to shoot back. That's one less
variable to worry about, if we truly need it."

"I appreciate your confidence, Captain, I will be
on the hilltop." While Smythe was on the valley floor, where we expected
the dropship to land. "There shouldn't be anything to be concerned about,
these Zingers are extremely easy to use." I certainly hoped I was right
about that. Until Smythe mentioned it, I hadn't even considered our team's lack
of live fire experience with Zingers to be anything to worry about. That's
where Smythe's greater experience and training showed, against my own. He
considered anything that could go wrong, I'd only thought of things likely to
go wrong. That was one difference with elite soldiers; they left almost nothing
to chance.

Phase Two didn't work exactly as I expected. Again,
the Kristang waited until there was clear weather over both their base and our
area, a delay of two days. We watched the dropship being loaded, taking off,
and cruising toward us. The dropship didn't bother to overfly the crash site;
they must have thought they had plenty of intel from the satellites. From
listening in to the dropship pilot's communications with the scavenger leaders
back at the base, we knew the leaders were extremely anxious not to take any
risks with their last functional aircraft, they ordered the pilot to land in an
open area, and to stay away from narrow canyons. Instead of overflying the
Luzzard crash site, the dropship came straight in from the southwest. My
services as a spotter for the Zinger teams were not needed, because the
dropship flew directly over a site we thought was a likely place for the
Kristang to land. The British SAS had a Zinger team there, they hit the
dropship as it flared to go into hover mode, the pair of Zingers streaked up in
the blink of an eye and both hit the dropship's starboard engine pod. If that
dropship had been at higher altitude, it might have had a chance to recover. It
didn't. It flipped over and hit the ground hard, almost nose-first into a big
boulder on the canyon floor. The force of the impact pancaked the front quarter
of the dropship like an accordion, no way anyone inside had survived the crash.

Smythe held his Alpha teams, the people in armored
suits, back for ten minutes to be sure no angry Kristang came out of the wreck.
And to be sure the whole thing didn't explode on us. I didn't waste any time,
as soon as the dropship hit, I left the Zinger team on the hilltop and ran to
the new crash site. It was downhill almost all the way, it still took me over
an hour to get there, that was frustrating because from the hilltop, I'd been
able to see the crashed dropship, and it took me freakin' forever to get to it.
In defense of my fitness level, Newark's gravity had me weighing fourteen
percent more than Earth normal, and the low oxygen level had me breathing hard
simply when walking around. While running relatively easily down a gentle
slope, I checked in with Skippy. "Hey, Skippy, how are your Oscar-winning
special effects going?"

"Oh, Joe, this is truly an epic Hollywood
production. It has chills, thrills, shocking surprises, and pulse-pounding plot
twists that leave the audience gasping. I laughed, I cried. It's the feel good
movie of the year! Well, unless you're the scavenger Kristang here, in which
case, it's the feel bad movie of the year. Maybe the century."

"Uh huh. They buying it, then?"

"Hook, line and sinker, I believe that is the
correct expression. Yes, they believe everything they see and hear through the
satellite feed, there is no reason for them to doubt the data."

What the scavenger leaders saw, through the
manipulated satellite feed, was their dropship getting shot down by a pair of
Zingers, Skippy hadn't edited that part at all. This time, we wanted the
scavengers seeing their aircraft shot down with Kristang portable anti-aircraft
missiles. After the dropship hit the ground, Skippy had faked the imagery. The
scavengers didn't see humans approach the scavengers' crashed dropship, instead
they saw Kristang on the ground take the camouflage netting off a concealed
dropship, then get aboard that dropship, fly over to the Elder power tap, pick
it up, and fly into orbit. The mysterious second group of Kristang, having
taken the big prize, then rendezvoused with a ship in orbit, a ship that
lowered its stealth field long enough to take the dropship aboard. The ship
then climbed out of orbit, out to safe jump range, and when this nonexistent
shop was on the other side of the planet from the scavenger base, it jumped
away. The satellite data feed included the tell-tale gamma ray burst of a
starship jumping. It was all, Skippy assured us and we hoped, very convincing.