*****
Colonel Brunn Pienaar grinned from ear to ear as he listened, nodding curtly every time a particular point was made. The commander of EWAC appeared to be anything but an engineer, and Tora liked that about him. He was also game for the audacious plan.
“That sounds awesome! You know, every time EWAC goes on campaign you people never seem to know what to do with us. Usually you guys think we’re here to dig you a bunch of trenches, right? But we are a combat arms by our own right; we even fight as infantry or armor if there’s no alternative. And now there is no alternative.”
“What about the cadet’s request?”
“We can do that. Two of our Suits are on their asses; their drivers popped their fuses and have already been evacced to Lograin. He can take one, and if you have someone else trained to drive a Suit, he can take the other.”
Tora knew of one other, and made a mental note to ask for her assistance. Nodding to Pienaar, he bid his counterpart a momentary farewell and set off with his vice-commander in tow. Making a decision, he turned to Dale.
“Do you know a young woman by the name of Hannah Arakaki?”
The lieutenant-colonel appeared surprised by the question.
“Indeed I do.”
“And do you know where she is?”
“Well, I presume she’s still grinning like an idiot at her father’s manse. At least, that’s what she was doing the last time we met.”
The colonel pursed his lips.
“Well, that’s not quite up-to-date ...” he remarked, and then he explained.
“Oh lord ...” Arakaki exhaled, struck mute for a moment. His face then began to harden.
“Where is she?” he asked through gritted teeth.
“Before I answer, I’d like to make something clear. She may be your niece or thereabouts, but she’s MEWAC personnel first in my ledger. And as you may already have noticed, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon stuck up my ass, so I don’t care much about aristocrats’ special dealings with one another. If I need to use her, I won’t hesitate to give the order. And if you resist me on this I’ll have you in cuffs and out of the way, seeing as up to now you’ve been about as much use to me as a well-trained monkey. And you won’t be evacced either; you’ll sit in a room until we’re either victorious or smears on the ground. Understood?”
“Understood,” he replied, his cold eyes saying, however, that he didn’t understand at all.
The colonel sighed.
“She’s in medical bay, sleeping in one of the cots. Wake her gently, alright? She’s had a bad week.”
But the lieutenant-colonel was already on his way.
It was difficult, sometimes, deciding on the right thing to do. He could have kept his mouth shut about the cadet, but his old habit of keeping his closest subordinates in the loop had taken over, and suddenly there was one more variable to consider.
Sighing at his own foolishness, he gave Dennis his orders and set off to medical bay again.
His fears were laid to rest as soon as medical came into view. Tora crossed paths with Dale as the lieutenant-colonel marched in the opposite direction, alone and with a redness in his cheeks that the crimson sun could not entirely explain. He didn’t raise his eyes, preferring instead to curse the cadet he’d just left in a way that no family-member rightly should.
Tora smiled and entered the building.
He found the girl sitting stiffly on the cot she had been sleeping in, her arms just as crossed as her legs were. She turned her eyes towards him, and he momentarily saw her wrath there.
What in the hell are they feeding cadets these days? he wondered as he put on an apologetic smile.
“My apologies, Sergeant-cadet, but I wasn’t aware of the family feud until I had spoken the words. Although I’ve come to find this current generation of soldiers tends to resolve their family disputes by running off to the army.”
“With due respect, Colonel, I didn’t run off,” she objected. “I am here with my father’s blessing. As for the rest of the family, they were not a factor in this decision, nor will they ever be despite their foolish ideas.”
“Sorry, but I am not here to meddle in your personal affairs. What I am doing here is offering you and Sergeant-cadet Miura the chance to participate in an act of divine vengeance. Are you game?” he asked with a wolfish grin.
The cadet slowly unthawed, and she uncrossed her arms as the full weight of the proposal came to her attention.
“We ... we can kill it?” she asked uncertainly, her blue eyes darting towards the compartment door beyond which Toni rested.
“You can try. There are two Hammerhead Suits that EWAC will be making available for you, although the only weapons you’ll be using are still being put together by their personnel. They have six drivers who have never dealt with this thing before, so I have some expectations from your side. Get it?”
“Got it, sir,” she replied, licking her lips.
“You are to get off your rears and meet up with the EWAC section right now. You can find them two hundred meters further up the road. They’re expecting you, so don’t waste their time.”
He turned to leave and then changed his mind. Turning once more to the cadet he gave a parting shot.
“And tell that Miura something for me. His situation with the Templeton boy will be infinitely improved if he manages to kill the Unmil. That bakemono’s destruction could make the difference between a medal and a firing squad. Understood?”
“Y-yes, sir.”
“Good ...” he smiled his thanks and set off once more, mentally thanking Dale for being an idiot.
There was nothing more dangerous than a highly motivated soldier, and he felt he now had two instead of just one.
The next jaunt in his preparations took him to the war-materials deposit on the copterpad’s opposite side, where EWAC personnel worked on the improvised weapons to be used in the coming engagement. The deposit was made up of three separate compartments that curved around a common area. The first was a small room dedicated to assorted detonators and fusing systems for EWAC personnel, whilst a larger had been dedicated to small and medium caliber ammunition for the ROWAC force, along with hand-grenades and anti-armor munitions. The largest compartment, however, housed the astonishing consignment of explosives that had been dedicated to the construction of the path and the setting of booby-traps. Several tables positioned at the center of the common area were surrounded by combat engineers, and soldiers kept entering and leaving the largest compartment, carrying heavy brown sacks over their shoulders. Those sacks were being fitted into large backpacks while the remaining personnel installed the fusing systems.
A captain who was overseeing the operation approached him and saluted, proving to be yet another EWAC captain whom Tora wasn’t familiar with.
“Sir, Captain Van Dyke, Sir. I command the Fortification Section, sir.”
“FORTSEC, right. That’s the name of your Hammerhead section, isn’t it?”
“Yessir. I’m overseeing the preparation of the charges, sir.”
“Drop the sirs, alright Captain? You don’t want you to tire yourself out before the fighting begins. But I would like you to give me an idea of how these charges work, if you don’t mind.”
Momentarily miffed at the colonel’s comment, the captain nevertheless showed the frog-swallowing talent inherent to an officer and guided the colonel to the nearest table.
“DIMEs. Short for Dense Inert Metal Explosives. We’re taking sacks filled with a granular explosive charge of octogen and fitting them into these travel packs –”
“Who did the travel packs originally belong to?” the colonel interrupted, throwing the captain off his explanation.
“Uh, we had to commandeer them from all EWAC personnel, sir,” he replied before grimacing at having once again sirred his superior.
Some men simply failed to realize how much they entertained others with their antics. The colonel kept a serious face and shook his head in concern.
br /> “That must have caused some serious problems, didn’t it, Captain?”
“Oh yes, it did,” the captain replied with a pained expression. “Even had some trouble convincing a few of the more senior corporals to hand them over.”
“Horrible indeed. And what did you do with all their personal effects?”
“Well, sir. Um, we sort of overturned the packs onto a flatbed and sealed it.”
“Ahuh. I wouldn’t want to be nearby when they try and sort out what belongs to whom afterwards. What do you think?”
The captain’s face was dead-serious.
“Neither would I. There’ll be blood for sure.”
Try as he might, the colonel was unable to keep the smile off his face. Clapping the soldier on his shoulder, he continued with the matter at hand.
“Alright then, what’s a DIME?”
“They’re explosive charges filled with very fine tungsten powder. Doing that gives the charge less brisance but more pushing power per square-centimeter of surface area. Also good for seriously damaging any ocular devices within its range.”
“Are all the charges made that way?”
“No, sir. We’re rigging about half of the packs with DIMEs and lacing a blue cord to the fusing system to distinguish them from the more conventional charges.”
“Conventional as in conventional explosives?”
“Yessir. The remainder have only octogen as its main charge. Their cord is red, sir.”
“Where’d you get the cords?”
“They’re actually armbands, our boys like to carry them to recognize each other in combat. Blue is for the Mobility Company and red for the Counter-mobility boys.”
“Understood. Just give me a moment to observe,” he finally told the captain.
After a few minutes, the colonel began to understand the methodology. The travel packs were fitted with an eleven kilo-mass sack of explosives at its base. A hand-grenade, which a separate team had modified by cutting away its handling lever, was then placed upon the sack and a length of nanowire snapped onto its grenade-pin. The nanowire was then threaded through two more sacks as they were also fitted into the pack, before finally being clipped to an armband of the appropriate color on the opposite side. The pack’s cover was then closed and carefully sealed with duct-tape, with the armband sticking out of the orifice meant for its water tube. The end result was an explosive device of about 34 kilo-mass for a red-cord and 56 kilo-mass for a blue-cord.
“You think the travel packs will stand up to a Suit’s handling?”
“Easily, Colonel. They’re tough, they were designed to provide some protection against flack. That’s why we wanted them so bad,” the captain replied.
And the fusing system is reliable?”
“We tested it with a partially-deactivated grenade and sacks of soil. We finally got a fuse to pop after a good yank. The Suits are easily strong enough to pull the grenade-pin right out of the pack, but the damage to the sacks isn’t going to affect their ability to detonate. The tests also made us realize the only way to get it to pull reliably was to tighten the sacks inside their pack as much as possible. That way the grenade’s length is perpendicular to the pull direction, since it’s being pressed between the sacks. Hence the duct-tape, sir.”
“Nice. How many charges?”
“Depends, sir. Depends on when the Unmil arrives, mostly. The completed charges are soon going to be stacked outside along the deposit’s wall. We expect at least fifty within the next hour.”
“If that doesn’t get the job done, nothing will ...” the colonel thought aloud.
The captain remained quiet for a moment, before the need to speak overcame him.
“Sir, what are the chances of these charges being effective against the Unmil?”
“Sincerely? I’m a little upset that our travel packs aren’t a bit more spacious.”
The captain looked discouraged. Sighing, Tora decided to throw him a bone.
“Listen, Captain. Two MEWAC cadets who survived the debacle at the mines are on their way to your drivers. They’ve both had personal experience regarding what’s coming our way, and if you want more information regarding your enemy, then Miura’s the one to talk to. You’re also going to be their commanding officer for the coming engagement. They volunteered to drive your two unoccupied Suits. Understood?”
“Understood, sir,” the captain quietly answered.
Van Dyke kept the colonel company for the following five minutes as they inspected the weapons’ assembly until, hurriedly excusing himself, the captain left for the dirt road. The colonel had a suspicion the officer was on a mission to find the cadets.
Abandoning the deposit, the old colonel made his way back to his bunker, where he found a sulking Dale staring at a map.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” the lieutenant-colonel said without raising his head.
“Good. I don’t want to hear about it,” the colonel answered cheerfully.
“Your major’s back from the frontline. He decided to pull your entire complement of praetorians and pile them on the northern and southern shoulders of the Dogspine.”
“Good. I told him to.”
“He also decided to remark the map using your user-profile.”
“Good. I told him to.”
“You might have been kind enough to tell me to do that!” he suddenly barked.
“And I would have,” Tora calmly replied, “had you not shown greater interest in arguing with your niece. Do you understand the reason for my orders?”
Dale rubbed his eyes tiredly.
“Yes. I guess you pulled the bots so they’d be out of FORTSEC’s way, but left them in a position where they can still harass the Unmil to their hearts’ desire.”
“Correct. And the maps will shortly be uploaded to FORTSEC and redirected to their Suits, thus allowing them to know the minefield’s location, as well as their ideal defensive positions based on terrain curvature. Dennis, how is our minefield?”
“Up but not yet running,” Haven replied from his bench outside the commander’s compartment, rubbing his knees as he spoke. “They’re unrolling and camouflaging the lead-wires back here to Command. Pienaar apparently wants to use our bunker as his base-of-fire.”
“And he’s welcome to it,” Tora replied. “It’ll save us the trouble of comm difficulties and lag-time.”
“It also puts both EWAC and ROWAC commanders in the same spot of a combat theatre, in plain violation of Army doctrine,” Dale interjected, forcing the colonel to do a moment’s thought.
“I’ll allow it,” Tora finally decided. “Doctrine is not absolute, and it is certainly better to have two commanders in a hardened bunker than one outside of it, especially if the mission’s chances of success increase as a result.”
Tora took advantage of the time to inform them of the deposit’s state of preparations, and of Toni’s and Hannah’s recruitment to FORTSEC. The lieutenant-colonel simply shook his head when he heard of the development, and prudently refrained from voicing his opinion on the matter.
Over the course of the following hour, the diverse elements of their plan began to click into place. Exceeding their initial expectations, a hundred pack charges had been improvised and transported to their expected locations of use via flatbed trucks. Aside from the four Hammerheads that had remained at the frontline to assist in mine emplacement, the remainder had, after unexplained delay, finally settled into their initial positions along the entire front. More than a hundred lead-wires had been laid and camouflaged, converging on the carefully disguised Command bunker and feeding into an EWAC control console, where a simple switching system would allow remote-detonation of any of the hundred and three improvised landmines at a moment’s notice.
From the ROWAC side of things, all preparations had also been completed. After careful consideration, the old colonel had decided to remove from combat all bots not tasked to the anti-armor role and elected to evacuate them on foot to Lograin. This left t
he cramped heights that flanked their chosen frontline bristling with bot anti-armor teams, their rockets having proven to be ineffective, yet still hopefully capable of providing a lethal distraction for their enemy. Also nestled into the mountain face and expertly camouflaged were two remote camera sensors, providing secure video and audio feed via electronically shielded cables. Those cameras were ROWAC’s eyes in the field and their location provided ideal overwatch over the entire frontline.
All that remained was to wait as all systems were checked and rechecked, and the colonel took advantage of the time to send an update to Lograin, taking care to detail how the MEWAC cadets had been debriefed and recycled into FORTSEC. He tried not to overdo the report, conscious that to do so would be to take a departure from impartiality that could later bite him in the rear.
“Colonel, Lograin reports one of its drones has been destroyed over Fido. Our guest’s apparently not far off.”
Tora gave up writing his report and entered the war room, pausing to take a good, long look at the video streaming in before taking his seat at the head of the table. To his right sat Colonel Pienaar, who was junior to him, and to his left was Dale. The only other sitter was Pienaar’s vice-commander, a lieutenant-colonel with a name so complicated that he’d settled on calling him “comrade” for the time being. The remaining officers and aides mostly stood to accommodate their number in the cramped quarters, Dennis having barely managed to commandeer a spot of real estate to place his stool.
“Has there been anything of note on our images?” he asked no one in particular.
“Nothing, sir,” a captain answered.
“Contact Lograin and get the precise hour their bird got shot down. Then check our infrared feed at that hour –”
“That won’t be necessary, sir ...” the captain interrupted.
There was something strange about the way he said it, and the colonel quickly followed his gaze to the live feed displayed on a separate screen. There in color, in the forefront of a grove of trees reaching to spaulder level, stood an armored Suit, as static as a statue and as great as a god. At first he thought it was his imagination, but as the moment passed he became certain. Its helm was swiveling slowly, slowly, as if surveying the terrain before it.
“Transmit the feed to Lograin,” the colonel whispered, as if the Suit would somehow hear him if he spoke loudly enough. The image was pixelated and the screen’s palette of color was somewhat pastel, but he still noticed something resting upon its breastplate, and it –
“It suspects something ...” the major quipped from his stool, causing the entire room to wince at his loudness.
The Suit continued to slowly observe its surroundings and Tora’s anxiety rose, knowing full well that the nearest mines were only tens of meters away. He leaned towards Pienaar.
“What’s the nearest mine?”
“A17. We’re already ahead of you. It needs only take a few steps forward and we’ll send the fucker back into orbit.”
The Suit continued to slowly turn its helm until finally it faced forwards and ceased to move entirely. A full minute passed by, making it clear to Tora that the Unmil would not be easy prey.
The ground before it suddenly bloomed up and outwards, filling the entire screen, the vision quickly followed by a tremendous shudder that shook the bunker violently enough to rattle the logs against one other.
“Sir. Mines A16, A17 and A18 have detonated simultaneously!” he heard an EWAC captain shout.
“What’s the meaning of this?! Pull the image out! Get a fix on that Suit!” Tora ordered, shouting to make himself heard above the noise.
“Tora ...” Pienaar stated simply, showing him the pen-key he still held in his hand, the one that he had been about to insert into the com-con to initiate the nearest mine.
“If it wasn’t you ...” the colonel breathed. He turned to his comms officer, and the lieutenant answered his question before he had a chance to ask it.
“Strong electromagnetic interference emanating from the contact since the first moment of detonation, sir. It sent out a pulse –”
“– and the inducing effect was enough to force a current through the nearest lead-wires and into their detonators!” Pienaar exclaimed.
The cameras had zoomed out but the dust cloud was gigantic and filled their screens. Turning again to his comms officer, he ordered the man to contact FORTSEC. The lieutenant turned to his EWAC counterpart, who simply shook his head.
“Comms disabled due to enemy interference, sir.”
“Incoming!” someone suddenly barked.
The missile shot through the dust cloud and streaked off-screen in a fraction of a second. A moment later the bunker ceiling partly caved in as a tremendous shock-wave struck the fortification. Barbed wire snaked and coiled along the logs, making tearing sounds Tora’s concussed mind could barely register, until a loud snapping sound punctuated the abrupt end of his life.