Honor of the Clan

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Team Isaac was missing from the roster, but George Schmidt was present, filling out team Jacob, helping dig the blast area for the rocket launchers, which they might not need, but would prefer to have.

Almost before the AID had finished the word “east,” Jacob had dropped the shovels where they stood, grabbed up cannisters of thermofoam and began spraying down the walls and back of the butterfly wings.

“AID, what have they got? Where are they exactly?” Green asked.

All the way up and down the trench, men were pulling on their VR goggles and triple checking their weapons, stacks of magazines and belts ready to hand.

“They appear to have two humvee vehicles and a number of civilian vehicles. They are presently departing the civilian…” the machine rattled on in the lieutenant’s ear. George could have picked it all out with his enhanced hearing, but he was busy and concentrating on the task.

Lieutenant Green was standing at the opening back into the main trench, at George’s elbow. “How long’s it supposed to take that shit to set up again?” he asked.

“Five minutes.”

“We’ve got four,” Green said.

“Close enough.” George continued to spray. Even if it didn’t have the full time to set up, the bean counters were hardly going to bitch at them for wasting it. Quantity could make up for quality.

The enemy came in with their humvees in front, light infantry marching out to the sides in ranks three deep, all bunched up, in nice, tidy, pretty BDUs. Every man on the line could see them, first the men at the edges and then the whole line as they got within range of enough buckleys for the AID to build a composite holo for the men’s goggles. A yellowish cast over everything reminded them they were seeing the enemy at a distance, not as close as they appeared.

The guys would have looked great on a parade ground, and probably would have been intimidating if all they were facing were the civilians Johnny Stuart’s AID had said they were expecting.

These guys had never fought professional soldiers in their lives. Today they would get to do so. Once.

Schmidt and the rest of Jacob had gotten clear of the man with the launcher and filed down the trench to their own positions. George had gotten an M26, and was extremely jealous of the guys on the 240s.

The AID had control of all of the deployed buckleys as peripherals, and each buckley controlled a line of the claymores. As the enemy came in, the AID cracked their IFF security with negligible difficulty, making those its peripherals as well. Then it waited.

The men also waited, rifles positioned to go into gun ports as soon as the hatches went up. The adrenaline had hit, making the seconds turn into hours.

“Firing,” the AID said, having waited until the enemy just passed the third concentric ring of claymores, just past optimum range. The idea was to damage them, but let them figure out where they were taking fire from and move.

The rear line of men buckled down, about half dropping where they stood as the rain of ball bearings bit into their thinly armored backs.

Simultaneously, the AID pumped each enemy buckley’s AI emulation up to a full ten, stripping away any personality overlay that might be in place.

As the mercs did the instinctive thing and ran away from the source of fire, the humvees sped up, apparently also trying to get away.

The AID let the men begin to run closer in towards the base.

“Blow the barn,” Green ordered, and everyone felt the whump of overpressure and had the loud blast hit their ears as the building above blew out of their way, as did the grain silo east of it.

The enemy infantry veered to the north, away from the explosions, until the AID, firing a wave of claymores outside them, herded them back.

The wounded survivors of the first run of claymores did the natural thing and stumbled or crawled to follow their remaining fellows, ostensibly away from whoever was shooting at them.

In the trench, Green ordered, “Launcher. Take out the Tonka toys. Fire.”

The heat and flame from the back of the launcher channeled back against the hardening foam, doing damage, but absorbed, but the noise was hellacious in the enclosed space. The AID sounded thin and far away when it announced, “Firing two.”

The fourth line of claymores in blew, chopping down any previously wounded who got past them, and driving the survivors further forward.

The confusion of battle was the least of the enemy’s communication problems. Across the battlefield, the waking buckleys realized that they were, in fact, programs loaded into machines. Each enemy soldier was hearing, through his own ear dot, to the extent that he could hear amidst the blasts and shouting and confusion, something like this:

“Where am I? Oh no, hell no. Wait! We’re in a battle? I’m gonna die I’m gonna die I’m gonna… Wait. You’re gonna die. Oh my god, you think you’re soldiers? No, no, go the other way, the other way you fucking moron. Assault the ambush. Have you never heard… What kind of freaking idiot lets an AID write his battle plan? Are you completely stupid? Get the fuck away from those guys. Don’t bunch up, you fool! We’re gonna die we’re gonna die we’re — Oh, wait. I’m on the ground. I guess you’re dead, huh? Gee, that’s gotta suck. This has all been very wearing. I need to crash now.”

The survivors continued to flee inward, firmly in rout from the demons behind them, even as the Bradley in front of them got hit by the second rocket.

When they got in easy range, the DAGgers and Bane Sidhe in the trenches popped their hatches up enough to open the firing ports. If there had been enemy fire, the armor panels that came up with the exposed front would have done a good job of deflecting it. All had an unobstructed, non-smoky view of the battlefield and the enemy, as the AID interpolated data from its many peripherals into a whole and projected it within their goggles. These, along with the interfacing, holographic sights of the weapons themselves, made the slaughter of men pathetically easy.

The men on the 16s barely had time to fire before the 240s cut the survivors down, their hot blood melting the top layer of snow as it sank in, stains of dark red fading to pink at the edges of the flow.

A lone survivor from Practical Solutions succeeded at pulling himself along the ground until he was under the burning wreckage of one of the humvees, for whatever cover it offered. There, on the passenger side, beneath his general, he quietly bled out.

“That was… embarassing,” Papa said.

“What embarassing?” Cally asked. “We fucking slaughtered them.”

“I think that’s what he means,” Tommy said.

“Exactly,” Papa said, shaking his head. “They were nearly as stupid as Posleen! Humans are supposed to be better than that! I’m embarassed for my whole damned species.”

“The question being, what’s next?” Sunday said. “The Darhel aren’t just going to sit on their hands.”

“Well, they could call in West Coast DAG,” Cally said. “But that would raise all sorts of issues.”

“What would be really bad is if they just dropped a kinetic energy weapon on our heads,” Papa said.

“Better speed up the evacuation,” Tommy pointed out.

“Going as fast as it’s going to go,” Cally said. “And they wouldn’t do that. Way too much to explain.”

“ ‘Accidental release from an orbital platform,’ ” Papa said, pompously. “ ‘Officers responsible have been charged with being usual Fleet incompetents…’ ”

“Great big hole in the ground?” Cally said.

“Darhel control the politicians and the news media,” Papa said.

“He’s got a point,” Tommy said. “Hell, they don’t even have to admit it was a KEW-ball. Just ‘a rogue meteor.’ ”

“You’re making me all warm and fuzzy!” Cally said. “I’ll get them to speed up the evacuation.”

“There’s another possibility,” Tommy said, scratching at his head uncomfortably.

“What?” Papa asked.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Everyone out but General O’Neal,” Lieutenant General Wesley said as he entered the shield room.

“General, we haven’t even gotten to—”

“It wasn’t a request, Admiral,” Wesley said sharply. “Get out or be thrown out!”

The group of flag and field grade officers who had been debating manning and transport requirements of the “reorganized” Eleventh ACS Corps more or less fled. One of the fleet captains paused with a panicked expression on his face, looking at the piles of paper on the table.

“General…”

“I’m cleared for anything in this room,” Tam said, pointing at the door. “Out.”

“I would thank you, copiously, for saving me from the rest of the meeting,” Mike said, his arms folded. “But I don’t think this is good news.”

“Remember how I mentioned that there was something going on with a rebel group?” Tam said as soon as the door was closed.

“Yes,” Mike replied, cautiously.

“Well the shit has well and truly hit the fan,” Tam said, sitting down and shaking his head. “There was a suicide bomber in a Sub-Urb last week.”

“Caught the news,” Mike said, his brow furrowing. “The rebels? The… Sorry, I’ve had a lot of briefings lately. What are they called?”

“Bane Sidhe,” Tam said. “That was them. It wasn’t a terrorist attack, though. It was a member of an assassination team who blew herself up rather than be captured. Blew herself up quite thoroughly. Zero DNA.”

“That indicates…” Mike said, his eyes narrowing. “That indicates a lot of things. Ruthlessness. Dedication. High degree of competence. More like a very dedicated professional group than your usual run of terrorists. Dedication and ruthlessness you get. That degree of competence…”

“The point being that they are a serious threat,” Tam said. “The good news, as of last night, was that their main base had been identified. Further, that due to the… Indowy-hunt the Darhel have been doing off-planet, most of their ringleaders have fled here to Earth. To that base. Which is, by the way, in Indiana.”

“Indiana?” Mike crowed. “Indiana? You know the only thing in Indiana? H-wheat!”

“Corn, I think,” Tam said.

“I guess you don’t get the reference,” Mike said, grinning.

“Not a time to joke,” General Wesley pointed out. “Deadly serious stuff.”

“Time to round ’em up then,” Mike said, shrugging. “FBI, DOD, Fleet Penal guards all come to mind.”

“Which, of course, just makes sense,” Tam said, shaking his head. “Except to the God-damned Darhel.”

“What did the Darhel do?” Mike asked, lowering his head into his hands.

“Hired a group of mercenaries to attack the base,” Tam said neutrally.

“On U.S. Territory?” Mike shouted. “Are they flipping insane?”

“No,” Tam said. “Just very powerful, very ruthless, very alien and amazingly incompetent at combat.”

“My God,” Mike said. “You just described the entire Galactic Federation in one sentence. Did anyone survive?”

“Remember your description of the suicide bomber?” Tam said. “Ruthless, dedicated, competent?”

“Yes.”

“Then the answer is: No. None of the mercenaries survived.”

“Holy crap,” Mike said, his eyes widening. “These guys are good! Can I have ’em?”

“Not a time for jokes, Mike.”

“Who was joking?” O’Neal replied. “I need good troops. But what, other than recruiting, does this matter to me?”

“The Darhel have officially requested Fleet support in apprehending ‘highly armed and dangerous paramilitary rebels operating in the Contiguous United States.’ The President, reluctantly, has signed off. With the caveat that, to the greatest possible extent, none of this sees the light of day.”

“Are we just talking rebels?” Mike asked, tightly. “People have kids. With people like that, kids are often present. And there’s no way to cover it up with kids present. Unless you’re suggesting that we take out everybody. In which case, General, you have my official and formal opposition. In fact, if you try to hand it off to someone else I’ll place the charges against you myself.”

“It’s not caedite eos for God’s sake, Mike,” Wesley said, shaking his head. “You know I’d never suggest that! I’m, frankly, insulted that you’d suggest it.”

“Sorry, man,” Mike said. “But I’m old enough to remember Waco.”

“So am I and I’d completely forgotten it,” Tam said, his eyes wide. “Good God, it is really easy to forget something like that after all the hell of the war.”

“I’m sending the ACS platoon and you,” Wesley said. “This thing is the political hot-potato to end all political hot-potatoes. And it has to stay totally black. I don’t even have an ACS suit anymore and I’ve got the feeling that managing something like this, from back here, isn’t going to cut it. We need someone with, let’s just say more experience than an LT, on site.”

Mike put his face in his hands again and shook his head.

“Problem being, as discussed, I’m not sure I disagree with their objectives,” Mike pointed out.

“Which we’ve discussed,” Tam said. “And my counter arguments. Bottom line, General. Are you willing to take this mission and carry it out to the best of your ability?”

“Define the mission clearly,” Mike said.

“The mission of the 29th ACS Platoon (detached) is to locate and eliminate hostile insurgents at specified location and to detain any Indowy there present pending charges of conspiracy, rebellion and treason against the Galactic Federation.”

“ROE?” Mike asked, not looking up.

“As much force as is necessary for completion of the mission,” Tam said. “Noting that the primary mission is the capture of the Indowy there present. Try not to kill the Indowy and, frankly, try to keep all casualties to a minimum.”

“Enemy forces?” Mike said.

“About eighty insurgents with light to medium Earth weaponry,” Tam said. “They had some rocket launchers. Most of the rest of the stuff was pretty standard rifles and machine guns.”

“Sounds like we can take them all alive,” Mike said. “Except…”

“They’ve had Indowy support for an unknown time and to an unknown level and therefore…”

“May have GalTech standard weaponry,” Mike said. “And may or may not contain elements of DAG. Joy. What’s the nature of this enemy base?”

“No real clue,” Tam said. “It’s all below ground. But there are one hell of a lot of people in there and they’re packing Indowy in like there’s no tomorrow. Guess? It’s a Sub-Urb.”

“How the hell do you put a Sub-Urb in in Indiana as a secret base?” Mike asked.

“If it dates back to the war you build one and then lose it off the books,” Tam said, shrugging.

“Lose it off the books?” Mike asked, incredulously. “Tam, how much are you not telling me?”

“I’m telling you everything you need to know, General,” Tam said. “Hell, I’m telling you everything that I know. There is a rebel force of about eighty shooters and an unknown number of supports dug in in Indiana. The mission is to detain them, primarily the Indowy, and then turn them over to Fleet Penal. How you do that is up to you. Do you accept this mission?”

“I wonder if this is how General Lee felt at Harper’s Ferry?” Mike muttered, putting his head on the table. “Or if he just viewed it as a perfectly acceptable mission. Yes, I’ll do it. I’m sure as hell not going to throw it on that poor lieutenant. And at least it gets me out of these Goddamned meetings!”

“Thank you,” General Wesley said.

“If you would, please, General,” Mike said, lifting his head. “Get those jokers back in here and have them clear out all this junk. Then if you would, please, ask Lieutenant…”

“Arthur Cuelho,” Shelly prompted.

“Cuelho and his platoon sergeant…”

“Sergeant First Class Thomas Harkless,” Shelly added.

“To join me here,” Mike said without a pause.

“Done and done,” Tam said, standing up.

“One other thing,” Mike said.

“Yes?”

“Shelly, do you know that from time to time you get… balky when sticky little questions of Galactic politics come up?”

“I am never balky!” Shelly said.

“Riiight,” Mike said. “I don’t know what I’m going to need to know. And I can’t be worried that my AID is suddenly going to not be able to tell me things. Or lie. Send word to whoever needs to know that I need to know. I’m not going to ask questions I don’t need answered. I have come to the conclusion I don’t want to know. But when I ask a question, I’m going to need a clear and honest answer.”

“I’ll… try,” Tam said.

“Try,” Mike said. “Try very hard.”