Solfleet: The Call of Duty (45 page)

“I hope so.”

She
hesitated, then asked, “We’re not prepared to go up against one of their
regular Army units tonight, are we?”

She sounded
scared. She’d seen combat two or three times before, but never against a
superior or near equally as well trained armed force. “We’ll be fine, Marissa,”
Dylan assured her. “The rest of the platoon has our backs. Just be ready in
case we need you early.”

She sighed
loud enough to be heard over the comm-link. “You can count on it.”

“I never
doubted it.”

With Marissa
reassured...he hoped...there was nothing more he could do but wait for the
others to report in. Fortunately they began to do so almost immediately.

“
Alpha
team, in position.
”

“
Bravo
team, in position.
”

“
Charlie
team, in position.
”

“
Delta
team, in position.
”

“
Echo
team, in position.
”

“Acknowledged,”
Dylan responded. “All teams in position. Let’s do this thing right and go home.”

“
You said
that already,
” Running Horse commented.

Dylan
grinned. Leave it to Billy to crack wise when they were all about to risk their
lives. “So I did, Billy, but you heard what Ortiz said. Be careful.”

“
Always.
On my way.
”

Running
Horse, one half of Echo team, crouched low and crept forward in virtual silence
through the deepest shadows as though he were possessed by the spirits of his warrior
brave ancestors. As he made his way slowly toward the check point guard shack,
the knowledge that Degger, Teezer, and Private Jeffrey Walters, his new
teammate, held the three terrorists above the gate dead in their sights
comforted him. He didn’t yet know Walters very well, of course, but Degger and
Teezer? He’d never met two better marksmen, or two finer people, in his life.
He was truly proud to serve with them.

He reached
his goal quickly and without being spotted, and hunkered down against the base
of the wooden guard shack’s forest-side wall. The door stood to his right and
opened onto the dirt road that led into the compound. He reached around the
left corner, searching blindly for the main power conduit that had to have run
from the guard shack to the invisible security grid’s first amplifier post. He
found it easily, then pulled the laser cutter from his belt and quietly got to
work. Seconds later, with only a quiet pop to betray its change in status, the
grid went down.

“
Jee bock
to nae?
” the guard mumbled.

A shuffling
sound came from inside the shack. Then the door opened. The guard stepped out
and rounded the corner. Running Horse drove his fist into the Sulaini’s solar
plexus like an iron battering ram, forcing the air from his lungs and doubling
him over so far that he collapsed breathless to his hands and knees. Then,
before he could utter a sound, Running Horse grabbed hold of his jaw and the
back of his head and twisted violently. His neck answered with a satisfying
snap and his body fell limp and lifeless to the ground.

Running
Horse put on the dead man’s hat, lifted him into the shack and laid him gently on
the floor, then closed the door and sat down in the chair with his back to the
small window that faced the compound.

“
Security
grid and checkpoint guard neutralized,
” he reported—the cue for the other
teams to move out from their positions in the woods and approach the walls as
near to their assigned towers as possible without leaving the shadows, and to begin
their silent ascents.

“Acknowledged,”
Dylan responded. “Ortiz, where’s the roving guard now?”

“Left side,
moving away from us toward the far tower,” she answered. “He’s about a quarter
of the way there, more or less.”

“All right.
Bravo team, you’re up first.”

Having
already pulled their razor-sharp climbing claws over their boots and onto their
hands, Corporal Greenburg and Sergeant Matrewski quietly scaled the wall,
slipped over its top about twenty meters to the right of the far left tower—actually,
the tower was nothing more than a small makeshift shack that sat atop the
corner of the wall—and lowered themselves onto the walkway. They removed their
claws, then crept toward the tower slowly, being careful not to make a sound
and staying low in the shadows until they reached its side. Matrewski stayed
down while Greenburg unholstered his dart gun, slowly rose up on his knees, took
aim, and gently squeezed the trigger. They were in the shack to catch the dead
guard’s body before it could hit the floor.

If the
roving guard could even see the shadowy figure leaning comfortably against the
wall in the shack ahead of him, he no doubt believed it to be his comrade,
probably drowsy with boredom and possibly even sound asleep. He lowered his
weapon as he stepped through the door, right past Matrewski’s position.
Matrewski rose up behind him, slapped a hand over his mouth and yanked his head
back, and Greenburg delivered a lightning-fast knife-hand strike across his
trachea before he even had time to think about struggling. The guard fell limp,
and Matrewski lowered the body gently to the floor, laying it next to the other
one.

“
Bravo
team, secure,
” Matrewski reported.

Despite his
somewhat questionable political views, killing Sulaini terrorists without mercy
was apparently not going to be a problem for him.

“Alpha,
Charlie, and Delta teams, prepare to move,” Dylan ordered.

“Confirming
Bravo team’s status,” Marissa reported. “Roving guard is neutralized. Far left
tower is secure.”

“Acknowledged,”
Dylan responded. “Alpha, Charlie, and Delta teams, go.” And just a few moments
later...

“
Charlie
team secure. Tower guard neutralized.
”

“
Alpha
team secure. Guard neutralized.
”

“
Delta team
secure. Guard was indisposed but is now neutralized. Made a hell of a mess, too,
Sarge.
”

“Spare me
the commentary, Andolini,” Dylan warned.

“
Sorry,
Sarge.
”

Marissa
shifted slightly to observe each team’s situation for herself and confirmed
their reports for Dylan. “All primary targets confirmed neutralized, Sarge.”

“Acknowledged.”

So far, so
good. They’d gained the wall and the towers without being detected. He could
only pray their good fortune would continue.

He drew a
deep breath and let it out slowly, then said, “All teams, proceed with act two.”

Dylan had
assigned Alpha team—Private Baumgartner and Lance Corporal Frieburger, along
with Doc Leskowski, who stayed close behind the other two—to recover the
hostages. They descended the near left tower’s steps and emerged inside the
compound at the rear of what Ortiz had identified as the likely stockade.
Baumgartner then moved to the left, Frieburger to the right. Being a medic, Doc
was considered a non-combatant until such time as it might be necessary for him
to defend a patient, so he hung back in the tower doorway for the moment.
Frieburger would call him forward if and when they needed him.

Peering
through the old-fashioned chain-link fence, they could just see the seated
guard at the far corner. Baumgartner knelt down as she and her partner raised
their pulse rifles and took aim. Frieburger gave Marissa the ready signal.

Marissa
slipped her binocs back into their case, then raised her sniper rifle and took
aim at the guard manning the spotlight atop the front of the wall. “Alpha team
and I are ready,” she reported.

“Walters,
ready on the right,” Running Horse’s partner reported, aiming at the
crew-weapon gunner on that side of the spotlight man.

Dylan
sighted in on the one to the left. “Ready, and... Fire.”

All three of
them fired one silenced shot each in almost perfect unison. The crew-weapon
gunners collapsed right where they stood, but the man on the spotlight flipped
backward over the railing and fell to the dirt road below with a resounding
thud.

Startled by
the sound, the stockade guard leapt to his feet and raised his weapon, but
thanks to Baumgartner and Frieburger he ended up lying face down in the dirt
before he could make any noise of his own.

Marissa
eyeballed the compound through her scope. “All secondary targets neutralized,”
she reported.

“Act three,”
Dylan ordered.

As Dylan
waited for Marissa to climb down from the tree, Delta team—Lance Corporal
Sweeney and PFC Andolini—dashed toward the control panel above the gate, where
the crew-weapon gunners lay dead. Baumgartner and Frieburger began cutting into
the fence around the stockade, while Greenburg and Matrewski moved to the
armory. Charlie team—Private LeClerc and PFC Shin—ran to the soldiers’ barracks
to cover the doors on either end.

“
Front
gate locks are deactivated,
” Sweeney reported. “
I’m opening it now.
”

Dylan and
Marissa dashed into the compound and double-timed to the commander’s hut,
followed closely by Running Horse and Walters, who broke off halfway there and
ran toward what Intel had identified to be the main hall.

Baumgartner
and Frieburger finished cutting through the fence and hurried around the side of
the building farthest from the center of the compound, where the shadows were
darkest, and made their way to the door. The lock was solid but easily
defeated. They slipped into the building and found themselves face-to-face with
another guard who looked as surprised to see them as they were to see him. The
Sulaini raised his weapon, but never got off a shot. He was dead before he hit
the floor, so didn’t resist when Baumgartner stripped him of his key cards.

“Building’s
clear, Doc,” Frieburger advised the medic. “Come on in.”

Leskowski
broke from cover, dove through the opening in the fence, and scrambled around
the side of the stockade and into the relative safety of its interior.

There were
four makeshift cells, but only one was closed. In it they found a near
middle-aged man, alone. He’d obviously been beaten, was dressed in tattered,
dirt-caked, bloodstained rags that left him half naked, and was chained to the
floor, cringing in the corner in fear.

“We’re here
to get you out, Prince,” Frieburger told the frightened future monarch as
Baumgartner went to work on the cell door. “How fast can you run?”

“I will run
fast that you tell me to run,” the prince assured his rescuers. His English
wasn’t too bad, considering, though he spoke it with a fairly heavy accented. “But
where am Carrina?” he then asked. “Please! Was you find her? It is unspeakable,
what things they was did poor my Carrina!”

“Our people
will find her, Highness. Don’t worry. They’ll carry her out of here on their
backs if they have to.”

“I thank
you.”

Baumgartner easily
defeated the cell lock and threw open the door. Leskowski rushed past her and
knelt at the young prince’s side. “Are you seriously injured in any way,
Highness?” he asked as he ran his medical scanner over him, while Baumgartner
and Frieburger started working on his chains.

“I think no.
You find?”

Doc shook
his head. “Scanner readings look good. You should be fine.”

The prince
sighed with relief. “Thank to the gods. But Carrina!”

“Alpha team
confirming pickup of Objective One,” Baumgartner reported as Frieburger
finished cutting the prince free of his chains. “Negative on Objective Two at
this time.”

“
What’s
his condition?
” Dylan asked urgently.

“Physically
abused, possibly tortured, but I think he’ll be all right.”

“
Is he
okay to move?
”

“Doc here,
Sarge. Affirmative on that.”

“
All
right. Get him out of here.
”

“We’re as
good as gone, Sarge.”

Dylan and
Marissa had gained entry into the poorly lit commander’s office and were busy
grabbing all the documents they could find and sealing them into the
water-proof/fire-proof envelopes they’d brought with them. A quick check with
Echo team revealed that they were doing the same thing in the main hall. Bravo
team was still trying to deactivate the security field around the armory.
Charlie team was watching the barracks—still no sign the enemy had become aware
of their presence, so far—and Delta team had moved from the wall to the motor
pool, where they were busy disabling whatever vehicles they had found there.
All but one, just in case they needed a ride out.

“Looks like
that’s everything, Sarge,” Marissa said as she stuffed all the envelopes she’d
filled into her rucksack. “I’ve emptied every drawer or cabinet I can find.”

“Same here,”
Dylan answered as he pulled his pack onto his back.

“Good,” she
said as she pulled hers on as well. “Then what do you say we get the hell out
of...” She fell silent and turned and stared, unmoving, into the blackness just
beyond the lone interior doorway.

“What is it?”
Dylan quietly asked, raising his rifle. “What’s wrong?”

“I thought I
heard something in there.”

“Like what?”

“I’m not
sure. Like...someone crying maybe?”

He stopped
with the questions and listened with her to the darkness beyond the doorway.
After a moment, he heard a faint moan.

“There it is
again,” Marissa whispered.

“I heard it,
too,” Dylan advised her. Marissa looked back over her shoulder at him, but she
didn’t have to ask. “Let’s check it out,” he said. “Carefully. You’re behind
me.”

Slowly,
treading as softly as they could, they stepped into the darkness, one on each
side of the hallway and staggered, Dylan on the right and in the lead by a
couple of meters, brushing the fingertips of his left hand lightly along the
wall ahead of him, his rifle raised and resting across his forearm. About three
meters in his fingers hit something hard. He stopped to listen for a moment—Marissa
kept her distance—then ran his hand lightly over the object’s surface. It felt
smooth like polished transluminum, but more like some kind of hard plastic or a
more basic metal. He detected no imperfections in its surface that might have
been controls. It ran all the way down to the floor and rose overhead to the farthest
extent of his reach, where it turned and continued horizontally. A doorframe. A
very tall one. Had the front door been that tall? No. Not that he’d noticed
anyway. He drew his hand away and paused to listen for another moment.