Chapter e

    The vtol is a carbon fiber dragonfly with ducted fans in place of wings.

To preserve the troops’ night vision the interior is illuminated solely by dim amber diodes, so the flight is a surreal experience of half-blind unpredictable motion, set to a soundtrack of rushing air, squeaking composites, humming engines. Through the few scratched plastic portholes of the cargo compartment only darkness is visible. The squad is packed knee to knee on the fabric benches, their gear-bound bodies strapped to the walls with high-gee webbing, body armor clunking together with each change in velocity. Finally there is a terminal surge of deceleration. The fuselage flexes and settles with a solid thud. The rear yawns open and the cabin is filled with blown dust. The stick egresses in seconds from the cramped tube, heads down against the fan blast, boots hitting sand. Moments later they are sandblasted with wind, then the howl subsides as the vtol rises into the night sky and veers abruptly away over the horizon.
    Sergeant Neil McKenzie uses the back of his gloved hand to brush grit from his face. Should have put on the goggles, he thinks. He glances at Lieutenant Omert who’s speaking low and fast with the comm operator, Specialist Wendell. The LT doesn’t need immediate attention, so he takes stock of the rest of the squad. All ten are on their feet, except for Private Oliviera, who has dropped her weapon and pack and is digging in a pocket. He steps over to her. “Need a hand, soldier?”
    “I’m OK, Mack,” Oliviera says, looking at him sheepishly. “Just pulling out my water.”
    “We’re moving out,” Mack says. “We don’t want to hang around the LZ. Don’t hold us up.”
    “Yessir. The order comes, I’m ready to go.”
    “Move out!” Omert barks on cue. Mack grins at Oliviera and helps her to hoist the pack and pull the drinking tube across her shoulder. The rest of the squad is in motion. The Republic of California has managed to field a high-quality military organization, with a large pool of ex-USA veterans, local and state police, and National Guard reservists to draw upon, and the economic resources to provide modern equipment and generous pay. Mack is proud to be a member of this force. They’re professional, smart, motivated, and tough as hell. If it comes to a fight, he’s sure they’ll mop up the enemy. How much opposition could the Greater Utah-Nevada Commonwealth manage to field? GUNC is just a bunch of Mormons and rednecks, farmers with shotguns and pickup trucks. A week after the shooting starts, RoC’s armor will be rolling up the temple steps in Salt Lake City.
The landing zone is a relatively flat area at the bottom of a narrow gully. The vtol’s stealthy instincts guided it to a location that would he hard to observe except from directly above. Smart, but it means the grunts get to warm up by climbing up a steep, sandy slope sixty feet deep and peppered with spiny plants. The point man heads roughly eastward, traversing up the side of the gully, his labored breathing broadcast over the squad net into everyone’s earphones. Mack turns down the volume a few points.
    “Mack, form up with me,” Omert says on the officers’ subnet.
    “Right behind you,” Mack says. He always stays close to the LT when possible, to try to keep the overeducated geek from making any inadvisable changes of plan. It’s better for morale if Mack takes blame for mistakes rather than the commanding officer. Not that Omert is incompetent, Mack just trusts his own judgement more.
    “Mack, we dropped in almost a click west of where I wanted to be. So, we’re behind. I want the team at the base of Green Ridge within an hour. We need to keep up the pace, no stragglers, no piss breaks.” Their objective, an elongated hill that dominates the local topography, is nameless on the maps, but in their planning Omert has dubbed it Green Ridge.
    “Yessir.”
    “Once we’ve reached the checkpoint, we can hydrate and stretch out for 10 minutes. That’ll put us at 300 hours.”
    “Gotcha.”
    “After that, we’ll check status, divide up and proceed. Up the ridge in two fire teams. I’ll accompany the launcher team and you’re with the sensor team. Get the hardware in place within two hours and we can be buttoned down before sunrise.”
“Understood.” Mack tries not to give any signs of impatience. Omert is just restating the plan. He is apparently doing so for his own benefit, as Mack and the rest of the team are already executing it.
    The rest of the squad has faded into the night, except for Wendell, who also sticks to the LT like glue, in case he needs immediate access to the comm gear. Flicking his eyes upwards to his optics, Mack checks the tactical map, with symbols representing individual troopers moving across it. The point man has crested the top of the bluff and is heading eastward. Half of the squad is following his trail up the slope. The other half is clumped together at the base. He hears a few low-volume monosyllabic comments on the net.
    Mack pokes the controls on his chest with his thumb, keying the all channel. “Disperse and proceed, squad,” he says. “You’re looking like a good target for a cluster bomb right about now. And cut the chatter.” In a few minutes the unit spreads out and begins moving out of the gully.
    “OK, we’ve got a plan, now let’s show ‘em that the old men can keep up with the kids,” Omert says.
    Their little command group puts on a burst of speed, clambering out of the gully to the more level terrain above, then jogging for ten minutes until they are fifty meters behind the point man. Mack and Omert only break a light sweat, but the comm operator is gasping from the exertion of running with the extra weight of radios, satnav gear, antenna, and spare batteries.
    The desert here is mostly hard packed sand, gently undulating, scattered with cacti and scrubby clumps of grass and dwarf trees. After Mack’s reminder to disperse, the unit is adhering to its movement discipline, keeping ten meters or more between individuals, and at any given time he can only see two or three troopers even with starlight optics. Without the tactical map they would be all over the place in no time. With its guidance, they form a more or less evenly distributed herd, moving together, the unit centered on and paced by Omert’s command group.
    There is no moon, but with electronic enhancement, vision is hardly more difficult than during full daylight. The main difference is that the monotonous desert hues of brown and green are replaced with even duller shades of grey. Despite the weight of his rifle, water, armor, and assorted equipment, Mack rapidly settles into the familiar semi-alert reverie of cross-country movement. Not much attention is required to keep the LT in sight and to avoid stumbling over rocks and spiny plants. The desert nightscape is enchanting, bright unblinking stars in the blackness overhead, half-lit hills visible though the dry air many miles away, occasionally a varmint scurrying through the underbrush. He’s glad he is not carrying one of the heavy anti-aircraft system components it is their mission to deliver, as the exertion would be enough to prevent any enjoyment of the march. On the map the laggards are the unlucky individuals carrying the most massive pieces, such as the launch tube and antenna panels. If he were in command, he’d suggest a load swap, but the LT wants to push ahead to the checkpoint with no delays. Well, there’s sense in that. Push the unit hard while they’re fresh, and get set up and camouflaged as fast as possible.
    He wonders what GUNC is up to in the neighboring valley, beyond and below Green Ridge, which the system they’re lugging is meant to control. Maybe it’s just one of those contingencies that general officers worry about, what if GUNC were to route ground-attack aircraft through here, then we’d want anti-aircraft capability here. Maybe there’s already something over there, a forward base or depot. Could be that these sensors are meant to answer those questions, though you’d think spysats or flycams would do the job better than a fixed installation, even if it is on high ground. But how much can a grunt know about the grand plan of war, down here at dirt level?
    Not much more than an hour later, Mack is bringing up the rear with the slowest member of the formation, Corporal Nilsson, who bears the heavy launcher base strapped to his pack, and is barely lifting his feet as he walks. They reach a pile of boulders which merges with the rising slope of their objective, Green Ridge. The rest of the grunts have dropped their packs and sit in the sand drinking water and dozing. Omert hits keys on the comm operator’s console, sending an encrypted status code to the higher ups.
    “Whoooh, that’s a load off,” Nilsson says as he shrugs his web gear off and the launcher’s legs hit the solid-packed earth with a hollow thud of composite.
    “Doing alright?” Mack says.
    “Yessir, just need a drink, work the kinks outta my shoulders.”
    “You’ve got ten minutes. It’ll be someone else’s turn to hump that load on the way up the ridge.”
    “Nice. Thanks.”
    “Thanks for taking this the distance.”
    Nilsson nods and takes a long draw from the tube of his water bag. Mack strides over to Omert. “We’re in good shape.”
    “I concur, we’re on plan so far,” the lieutenant says. “Solid team we got here. Good work keeping the men together, Sarge.”
    “My job, sir.”
    “Alright. Five more minutes beauty rest and then we’re saddling up.”
    “Sir, something you should check out,” Wendell says tentatively.
    “Yup.”
    “Something going on with the radar net,” he says. “My display’s showing a lot of interference or somethin’.”
    “Let me check it out,” Omert says. He mutters a command into his mike and stares intently into his helmet display, frowning. “Yeah, something funny there. Looks like garbage to me. This good data?”
    “It’s piped from central command,” Wendell says. “They’re probably seeing the same thing.”
    Mack toggles his own radar display. The tactical map is overlaid with a shifting, random pattern of colored lines and temporary blips. He’s not experienced with interpreting this, but it certainly looks useless.
    “We’d better check in,” Omert says. “Give me a secure voice channel to ops.”
    “Roger, connecting,” Wendell says.
    On the radar screen, an oblong formaton of arrows appears, then vanishes, then re-appears closer to them.
    “Ops,” Omert says, “please advise on air data, over.”
    The arrows are steady now, and moving rapidly through the transient junk. Mack’s pulse rate jumps.
    “Sir, could be incoming,“ Wendell says.
    “Just a minute, Captain’s saying something,” Omert says.
    Mack reaches his own conclusion and switches to the squad net. “On your feet, troopers. Disperse. We’ve got bogies.” The flight of arrows is about to crest the ridge above them.
    Omert looks at him, then his attention snaps back to his earphones. “Say again,” he barks to someone only he can hear. “Say again!”
    Around them the troops are standing and grabbing their weapons. The faster ones begin running outward into the darkness. Mack unslings his rifle.
    Above them in the darkness there is a multi-pitched keening, first shrill and irritating like a cloud of mosquitoes, rapidly building into the polysymphonic wails of high velocity microturbines.
    “Air alert! Take cover and defend yourselves!” Mack shouts.
    Half a command escapes from Omert’s mouth before a hypervelocity projectile blows his helmet apart and he slumps to the ground beneath a plume of vaporized blood.
    Mack dives prone as Wendell’s comm pack is blown away from his body, taking an arm with it.
    In the darkness, someone manages to launch a stinger, which streaks upward and bursts, spraying smart pebbles into the attackers. Multiple rifles are chattering, firing full auto. Sounds of projectiles striking flesh and screams of pain.
Mack rolls to his back. He gets his weapon oriented upward and his optics scanning the sky. He sees one, no two, angular winged shapes circling. One emits a bright muzzle flash. He tries to lead it with his rifle and fires a long burst.
    To his left, the area where the squad was resting erupts in a white flash and a rising shower of glowing fragments. Microseconds later he is stunned by the shock wave, bits of shrapnel perforating his exposed flesh. Blinded, he keeps spraying ammo skyward.
    A sharp blow jolts his lower body followed instantly by excruciating pain and shock. Involuntarily he jerks sideways. His weapon explodes in his hands, disintegrating into fragments of metal and plastic. Something is terribly wrong with his legs. Reaching down, he feels ragged flesh, a sharp protrusion that shouldn’t be there, wetness.
    On the squad net, there are curses, cries. “Stingers!” “Santos, over here!” “Where are they?!” “Dammit!” Chillingly, “Medic!”
    Mack writhes on the ground. “Medic,” he groans. A rational part of his mind tries to lift his arms to drag himself into the lee of a nearby boulder. He shoves aside one of Wendell’s bloodied limbs.
    The rifle fire diminishes. More projectiles crack down from above. A flickering yellow light burns in the sky, and becomes a whistling comet which spins overhead and disappears behind a rise.
    The banshee whine fades from the air. Darkness returns, and an ominous stillness. Mack tries to control his breathing and pull himself to a sitting position, his back propped against the boulder. He tries not to look too closely at his legs. Both are covered with blood and the right one is bent sideways below the knee, where bone is protruding.
    Someone is moaning on the squad net. “Squad, report,” Mack rasps. Nobody answers. Maybe his unit isn’t transmitting.
    Time passes. He manages to pull a field dressing out of his pack and wrap it around his knee. The other leg doesn’t seem to be bleeding heavily. His face and arms are covered with oozing punctures, too many to deal with. Overwhelming waves of weakness and shock rack Mack’s body. He calls for status again with no response, and yanks off his comm set in frustration. The faint moaning continues. Whoever it is must be close by. He crawls in the direction of the noise, towards the smoldering bomb crater. The first two bodies he encounters are mangled and lifeless. The third moans again as he drags himself up to it.
    It is Oliviera. Her fatigues are shredded, her body armor perforated, helmet gone. Her face and body are bloodied. Looking more closely, he sees that half of her left arm is gone, and there is a large hole in the abdominal armor with shredded flesh visible within. He finds a medpack in the scattered debris, binds her arm above the point of amputation, stuffs a ball of dressing into her torso injury.
    Her eyes flutter. “Sarge,” she says. “Water.”
    “Sorry, Amanda,” he rasps. “You’ve got a stomach wound.”
    She emits an agonized moaning cry.
    The medpack contains a pain shot. He shoots most of it into her neck, and the rest into his own arm. Her face slackens into unconsciousness, and he feels the adrenaline of injury and shock fading, replaced by chemical warmth and stupefied acceptance of pain. He slumps to the ground next to Oliviera and offers the sky a glassy stare. Strangely, he feels fully awake, and a sense more of disappointment than sorrow at the destruction of his unit and deaths of his friends.
    On the western horizon, there is a tremendous blue-white flash, followed by a growing orange glow, and then a basso rumble he feels through the earth. Larger events are occurring, beyond their pathetic little massacre.
    The next thing he is aware of is the sky lightening to pale blue in the east, and the rising sound of an aircraft. He feels dim ticklings of panic. Have the killer birds returned to finish them off? But the shape that appears overhead is a dark green tiltrotor, with a helmeted head peering out the door.
    His next moment of lucidity comes as he lies semiprone on a stretcher in the rear of the plane. Oliviera is in an adjacent stretcher, eyes half-closed, still breathing. Plasma feeds from suspended bags into their arms, tended by a stern looking woman in a khaki flight suit. On the floor lie four or five anonymous bodies, lumps of torn flesh and bloodied camouflage. It seems that there is no point to giving them medical assistance. An unfamiliar logo is stenciled on the cockpit door, a shield with a golden dome, “GUNC” written below in white. Mack feels burgeoning pain, depression and defeat. He releases himself to sink into sedated blackness.