There was a noise in the tube that led to the crow's nest, and Edimar quickly composed herself, wiping at her eyes and taking deep calming breaths.
Three people floated into the room, and the sight of them further put Edimar at ease.
"Give me a pair of goggles," said Dreo. "I want to see the code on this thing."
Edimar handed him a pair. "It's tagging every piece of debris as a collision threat. I need to create perimeters that will isolate only those objects that are indeed too close. But I don't know how to do that."
Dreo had the goggles on. "All you need to do is write in a simple script. Toron didn't teach you how to do that?"
"I'm sure he knows how, but he doesn't want me tinkering with the programming."
"Then he shouldn't be leaving you alone," said Dreo. "It's irresponsible and puts all of us in danger. How old are you anyway?"
Rena put an arm around Edimar's shoulders. "Yes, yes, Dreo. Why don't you worry about the Eye and let Mono and I tend to Edimar."
"Don't give her all of that chili," said Dreo.
Rena was holding a container with a hot pad.
"I could use some of that, too, you know," said Dreo. "We haven't eaten on the helm in hours."
"Fix this Eye, Dreo, without further harping on Toron or Edimar," said Rena, "and I will make you your very own pot."
That put a smile of Dreo's face. "I'll be silent as space."
Rena took Edimar's hand, and they flew over to the other side of the room with Mono.
"Did my Father really leave on a quickship with Vico?" asked Edimar.
"Yes," said Rena. "And with my husband. They're looking for more survivors."
Edimar bowed her head. "They won't find any. It's been too long."
"We don't know that," said Rena. "We didn't expect to find anyone when we got here, and so far we've found nine."
"Believe me," said Mono. "If anyone can find more people, it's Vico. He might even find Alejandra."
Rena tensed slightly at this and glanced awkwardly at Edimar. "We certainly hope so, Mono," said Rena. "We're all praying for that very thing."
Edimar wanted to feel bolstered by the boy's innocent optimism, but she knew it was hopeless. And she could see that Rena thought so, too, only pretending to be optimistic for Edimar's sake. "Here," said Rena, handing Edimar the container of chili. "This is probably cool enough to eat. You must be famished." She popped off the lid on the straw and the aroma of beans and meat and cilantro wafted up to Edimar, who suddenly realized how hungry she was.
"Thank you," said Edimar.
"I can smell that, too, you know?" said Dreo. "You're making it difficult to concentrate over here."
Edimar sucked up a mouthful. It was warm and spicy and exactly what she needed. She wanted to cry again. Rena seemed so much like Alejandra in that moment. Edimar knew it was silly to even think it--Rena was old enough to be Jandita's mother--but the way she had pulled Edimar aside and showed her kindness was exactly what Alejandra would have done.
"What kind of parameters should I set up in the program?" Dreo asked.
"I wish Father were here," said Edimar. "He would know better than me."
"Well, he isn't," said Dreo. "You have to decide."
Edimar thought for a moment. "Cancel out all the debris that's beyond two hundred meters of our position yet within ten kilometers. That should cancel out most of the objects the Eye is tracking but pose no real threat to us. The one exception should be the quickship. We should continue to track that."
"I don't know which of these objects is the quickship," said Dreo. "I can't isolate that."
Edimar put on her goggles and found the quickship easily. "That one," said Edimar, moving the icon for the object into Dreo's monitor field.
"All right," said Dreo. "The quickship is still on the watch list. What else?"
"Now we're primarily looking at debris within two hundred meters of us," said Edimar. "Plus whatever we can see beyond the debris cloud."
"That's still over eight hundred objects," said Dreo.
"Most of the objects are merely drifting, though," said Edimar, "so we really don't have to worry about the small ones. They won't damage the ship. It's the big ones we have to track. Cancel out all debris that's less than two meters in length. That should remove all small debris and bodies from the watch list." She remembered that Mono was listening and removed her goggles enough to glance at him.
"I know what a dead body is," said Mono. "You don't have to talk different just because I'm here."
"Takes you down to fifty-three objects," said Dreo. "Much less than you started with."
"Can you put the objects in order of priority based on their distance from the ship?" asked Edimar.
"Done," said Dreo.
Edimar adjusted her goggles and smiled at the list. This was certainly more manageable. This she could handle, even without Father's help. She started at the top and scanned down to the bottom. The last object on the list instantly wiped the smile from her face. It was only a few thousand kilometers out and moving in their direction at incredible speed.
"What is it?" asked Rena. "What's wrong?"
"It's the pod," said Edimar. "It's coming back."
CHAPTER 12
Tech
Captain Wit O'Toole moved through the forest under the cover of night. His footfalls were soft and silent. His P87 assault rifle was at his shoulder. His body was slightly crouched, keeping a low center of gravity. His helmet had no visor or eye slits but covered his face completely with blast-resistant metal. His body armor was lightweight and camouflaged for darkness. Beside him, six MOPs in identical gear, carrying identical weapons, kept pace with him as he advanced up the slope of the Parvati Valley in northern India, weaving through the pine and fir trees as quiet as the wind.
Inside Wit's helmet, his HUD projected a 180-degree view of the terrain in front of him, as bright as if it were day, allowing him to see every detail of the forest. The computer helped further by flagging any obstacles in his path. A root, a low branch, a patch of uneven ground.
A female computer voice said, "One hundred meters to target."
"Full stop," said Wit.
The six MOPs stopped their advance and moved into a tight circle, dropping to one knee with their backs to one another, rifles up, covering their position from every approach. It was a simple tactical move, but it was done swiftly and silently, without hesitation or missteps, as fluid as a practiced dance.
"We're a hundred meters from the target," said Wit. "Now what?"
"Threat assessment," said Bogdanovich.
"How?" asked Wit.
"Satellite feed," said Lobo, "I'll patch us in."
A window popped up on Wit's HUD showing an overhead view of their position taken from a satellite. Wit blinked out a command, and the satellite image shifted, scrolling upward over the treetops in the direction the team was headed. The tree line ended, and a wide meadow came into view. A concrete two-story building, with an almost bunkerlike appearance, stood in the center of the meadow. The Indian military had built it here for military exercises like this one. Several armed guards patrolled the perimeter.
"What a lovely mountain resort," said Pinetop.
"The brochure said five stars," said Lobo.
Tonight's mission was a rescue operation. Calinga was acting the part of a foreign diplomat being held hostage by Islamist extremists. The extremists were actually fellow MOPs and Indian PCs eager to play the bad guys for once.
It was the tenth field exercise in as many days, and Wit had no intention of letting up.
He had devised all kinds of different scenarios: rescue operations, refugee protection, urban warfare, demolition, counterinsurgency measures--each with its own different cultural consideration, terrain, and enemies. One day he'd tell them they were being dropped into a dry mountain valley in Tadzhikistan. The next day they were being dropped at a beach in New Guinea with nothing but jungle as far as the eye could see. The idea was to train
for every contingency and enemy.
"I count five guards around the perimeter," said Chi-won. "But there are probably others we can't see with the satellite. I say we go thermal from here on in."
He meant switching their helmet cams to detect heat signatures. "Agreed," said Wit. "What else?"
"There are more of the enemy inside," said Pinetop. "We need a floor plan."
"Coming up," said Lobo.
A three-dimensional schematic of the structure appeared on Wit's display. "If you were holding hostages, where would you keep them?" Wit asked.
"Away from windows," said Chi-won. "Terrorists prefer to keep hostages close, and they're terrified of snipers. A centralized room is best, probably on the second floor since there's no basement or attic. And the stairwell can easily be defended. If they were going to hide a hostage, I'd say they'd do it here."
A blinking dot appeared on a room on Wit's floor plan.
"Other ideas?" asked Wit.
The men briefly discussed other possibilities but everyone agreed that Chi-won's assessment was probably accurate.
"Now what?" asked Wit.
"We could send in a peeker and scope out the interior," said Pinetop.
Peekers were small, near-silent hover drones that carried a through-wall radar. Land one on a roof or a wall, and its signal processing could detect any movement on the other side.
Wit voiced no objection. Pinetop took a peeker from his backpack and flew it upward through the trees using his HUD. They all watched the vid coming from the peeker as it flew high over the meadow and settled on the building's roof. Three minutes later, they had confirmed Chi-won's assumption: The hostage was indeed being held on the second floor in the centrally located room.
"Pinetop, you take point," said Wit. "From here on in, I'm a grunt. You're in charge."
Pinetop responded without hesitation, giving out orders to everyone. His instructions were clear, thorough, and intelligent, as if he had been planning his strategy for months.
They advanced up the slope quickly, fanning out, rifles at the ready, approaching the meadow from multiple angles. Thermal imaging revealed three enemy guards hiding in the forest, but the MOPs took these out easily. Their P87 rifles fired almost silently, and the three enemy guards dropped, their dampening suits stiff.
The MOPs crouched at the tree line in the shadows. The guards in the meadow hadn't noticed the takedown and continued to patrol the perimeter without any sign of alarm. One of the guards walked within a few feet of their position, and Chi-won leaped out of the underbrush and hit the man with a spider pad. The man's suit stiffened, and Chi-won dragged him back into the darkness.
Four down.
"There's too much open ground between us and the building," said Pinetop. "We'll sniper the rest."
They extended the barrels of their rifles and made adjustments to the weapons for longer-range fire. Wit put his rifle to his shoulder and blinked a command in his HUD that caused the arms, shoulders, and upper back of his body armor to stiffen. This minimized the slight movements in his hands and made his upper body as steady as a tripod, greatly enhancing the accuracy of his shots. The computer then highlighted each of the targets on Wit's display. Seven guards total, one for each of them.
Wit watched his display as, one by one, the targets were marked with the name of the MOP who had selected it for takedown. Wit chose the last unselected target.
Pinetop gave the order. The MOPs all fired, and the seven guards went down.
After that it was a matter of following Pinetop's instructions. They rushed forward and stormed the building. The enemy combatants were exactly where the computer told them they would be. The peeker, which was still attached to the side of the house, warned them whenever new threats charged toward them from elsewhere in the house, giving Wit and his team plenty of time to seek cover or move into a position to neutralize the enemy.
Wit made every shot count, getting up the stairs just behind the others, stepping over the enemy that had already fallen. Calinga was waiting for them in the room. The last enemy guard, who was taking his role as a terrorist rather seriously, attempted to use Calinga as a human shield. But the advancing MOPs fired in unison, and five spider rounds hit the terrorist's helmet in nearly the same spot. The man's suit went stiff, and he released Calinga. He didn't even bother dropping to the floor as was the rule of the game. It was all over at that point.
"About time you got here," said Calinga. "It's no fun being the hostage. I don't get a weapon, and they wouldn't even give me something to read."
When they got outside, Wit ended the exercise. He blinked the command to unfreeze everyone's suits and had them all gather in the meadow for a debriefing, both MOPs and terrorists alike. The men sat in a wide circle all around him under the moonlight.
"What did we learn?" Wit asked.
"That Calinga makes a terrible hostage," said Deen, who had played a terrorist. "He wouldn't stop whining. We almost shot him to shut him up."
The men laughed.
"I almost shot myself," said Calinga. "Boring as hell, this crew."
The men laughed again.
"Here's what I learned," said Wit. "Seven MOPs prevailed against twenty-four equally trained commandos. Why? Because we're better soldiers? Because we're smarter? Faster? No. We won for two reasons: One, you bad guys were sloppy. You weren't taking proper cover. We picked you off way too easily."
"We were giving you the real thing," said Deen. "Terrorists are always sloppy."
"Don't give me the real thing," said Wit. "Give me you, one of the finest trained, most intelligent soldiers I know. Be merciless. I don't want realism. I want worse than realism. I want a hundred times more difficult than realism. Do everything in your power to annihilate us. That way, when the bullets are real, when our lives are on the line, we will do our duty with exactness. We will never lose. I should have seen nothing when we approached this compound. You should have been completely invisible to me and the satellite. You should have killed us before we left the trees. Why didn't you?"
"You were with the new guys," said Deen. "We thought we'd make it a little easier for them."
"Do you think they need any hand-holding?" asked Wit. "Do you think that just because they're new to this unit that they're not good enough or experienced enough to take you at your best? If so, you're in for the surprise of your life tomorrow when we do this again. From here on out, we pull no punches. If you lose, it's because you screwed up and were bested and not because you let someone win."
"I was actually trying," said one of the guards. "Chi-won jumped out of the bushes so fast, I nearly pissed myself."
The men laughed.
"Good," said Wit. "I'm glad you only nearly pissed yourself. Had you actually done so your suit might have short-circuited and given you quite the shock."
"Smoked sausage," said Deen, to another round of laughter.
"From here on out," said Wit, "you act as if your life is on the line. No more going easy. No more pretending that the enemy is inferior or less intelligent than you. Which brings me to the second reason why you failed. We MOPs had better tech. The enemy had older rifles, no computer assistance, no satellites, no peekers, no thermal vision. This was a tech war, and we won because of our equipment. Pinetop, if I had stripped you of all of your gear, could you have taken the hostage?"
"I don't think so, sir."
"Why not?"
"I'd be unarmed."
"So you're only an effective soldier if I arm you? You're only good if I give you better equipment?"
Pinetop hesitated. "No, sir. It's just more difficult. If I had been unarmed, I would have taken down one of the guards and confiscated his weapon. Then I could have picked off the others."
"And what if you didn't know how to operate the enemy's weapon?" said Wit. "What if it was tech you had never seen before?"
"Then I'd be in a pickle, sir."
"So you would have given up?"
"No, sir. I would just have a
harder time of it. I'd need to devise ways to beat my enemy using what little resources were at my disposal."
"Such as?"
"The forest could supply me with spears, for example."
Deen laughed. "Spears? Against twenty-four armed men holding a defensive position?"
"Does that seem unlikely to you, Deen?" asked Wit.
Deen saw that no one else was laughing. "Forgive me, sir, but that sounds a touch impossible, doesn't it?"
Wit stared at him for ten long seconds. "Are you a MOP, Deen?"
"Yes, sir. To the core, sir. Absolutely."
"Then I expect you to take down twenty-four armed men, using only a spear. I expect you to take down a thousand men with a toothpick. We are not soldiers until we know how to go stark naked against a fully armed enemy and kill him."
Deen nodded, humbled. "Yes, sir."
Wit turned to the others. "We have become too reliant on our tech. Who's to say we will always have the technological advantage? What if there were an enemy with capabilities and weapons far beyond our own? Do we give up?" He waited for a response. "I said, do we give up?"
The men shouted in unison, "No, sir!"
"This is an inevitability, gentlemen. Sooner or later we will face a threat whose tech surpasses our own. Or we will face an enemy who figures out how to completely neutralize our tech. Weapons, communication, GPS, drones, rifles, explosives, everything. Let's figure out how to fight them no matter what they do and no matter how hard it is." He paused, coming to a decision. "From here on out, we will also train for missions without tech. Zero. Then we'll train for missions without gunpowder. Then we'll train for missions in which the enemy can always see us. Whatever the situation is, we will always be at the severe disadvantage. It's time we reminded ourselves what makes us PCs and MOPs. It is not the chips inside our rifles. It is the gray matter between our ears. The enemy may outgun us, but they will never outthink us." He turned to the six MOPs with whom he had taken the compound. "Gentlemen, leave your rifles and tech here. Carry only a pouch of spider pads. These will serve as your spears. Wear only your dampening suits. No helmets. Head into the hills, no farther than three miles. In two hours, twenty-four soldiers equipped with all the tech we possess will come hunt you down and kill you unless you kill them first."