COMMANDER
Chapter 22

Captain Lewellyn was less than enthusiastic about my idea. Still, he did agree we had little choice. Our only other option was to flee and leave Hanos to handle their own problems. As I had indicated to Tamaria, we never even considered any sort of military takeover. In the end, we agreed he would handle the Torbor ship and I would handle the planetary problems. I left the lieutenants to work out a tactical plan with the Navy while I focused on the RCF and the ministry.

Tam gave us her contact information for getting in touch with the RCF leadership and the radio frequencies used. We located a high hilltop thirteen kilometers from our position and sent Buzz and Star on a cross-country run through the hardwood forests and glades. They would send a coded message from the hilltop, then move to another 5K from the first to wait for a response, then return to the team.

Six hours after the initial broadcast, we met with the RCF in the forest. At the eight-hour mark, they reluctantly agreed there was little choice and they would take action with us. At the twelve-hour mark, we had a tactical plan. While Team Zulu, Tamaria, and selected RCF personnel would initiate the action at the capitol, other RCF leadership would be settling on their own strategic plan for the coup and the aftermath on the other continents.

While the RCF quietly moved fighters and weapons into position at the capitol and on two of the other continents, we took the AV back to the river camp, ducked underwater, and made our way back to the bay outside the capitol. We split the team based on the reports of Torbor occupation provided by the RCF spies. Ronin took Buzz and CanMan to the Torbor compound to neutralize the personnel inside. Boomer led Stitch, Star, and Wheels to engage the Hanosian security guard, and I took Spear, Mouse, and Tam into the ministry buildings to locate and neutralize the alien technology. Flyboy and Dog would wait in the AV for our signal to over-fly over the ministry sector and provide air support as necessary.

While all of this was going on, Captain Lewellyn would T-jump the Rontar out into deep space far outside this system, then immediately jump back in to reappear only a kilometer from the Torbor ship. The first jump would get Torbor attention in a big way and create a distraction as they attempted to react. Their personnel would be trying to figure out what happened and why. When the Rontar reappeared right next to them, they would be unfocused and in disarray, believing the threat had already fled the vicinity.

AI analysis indicated the Grafnal cannon would be effective as it was based on photonics principles. With it, the Rontar should be able to cut through their shields and take out propulsion and main weapons with only a few salvos. At the instant of reappearance, half of the heavy and light fighters would launch to attack the hangar launch bays of the Torbor ship with all weapons. All of the nuclear and plasma missiles aboard the fighters had been replaced by photonics.

The Navy and Combat AIs would link and scan for any transmissions of any recognizable kind and attempt to jam them, whether from the alien ship or the planet, and particularly those same emanations we had intercepted from the planet which had called these aliens. As far as we could tell, we were the only ones using subspace which could not be jammed.

Everyone was in position, finally, several minutes before the deadline when the RCF teams would set off several large explosions in widely separated areas of the city as diversion in concert with the Rontar beginning her attack run. According to the RCF, it would take six minutes for the security troops to react, group up, and head out to the sites of the explosions. Our assault would begin in twelve.

Bursts of light flashed and low, faraway booms were heard moments later. We all watched from cover as the security troops scrambled and sirens began to wail and emergency vehicles accelerated in multiple directions over the next twelve minutes. We gave them the extra time to clear the ministry area and get further on their way, and less likely to turn and race back to any newer threat.

Remaining guards were on high alert, searching for foes trying to infiltrate their defenses. Torbor retreated to inside their compound and walked around craning their necks to look and squawking at one another. At the eleven-minute mark, the guards began to visibly relax as they let out the breaths they had been collectively holding.

Time! Nine battle-armor suited Marines leaped from hiding along with one very frightened but determined Hanosian woman and charged. Two teams of RCF fighters, each twenty strong, also charged at their assigned targets. I was scanning for enemy as I ran to the main ministry building. Tam was following me, and Mouse and Spear were taking up side and rear guard, Mouse left and Spear right. We all had plasma cannon and minis locked and ready in defensive mode, lasers powered, and handguns or rifles ready.

Gunfire began sounding around us as we charged, and the noise of battle arose from several directions. I could see the blips of Boomer’s team on my HUD, heading quickly toward the security compound. Several guards appeared around us but Spear and Mouse took them out efficiently. I hit the doors to the ministry with my boots and crashed through with loud noise and glass shattering. I landed on one knee and scanned the large rotunda lobby for enemy while Tam and the others entered. Two appeared from hallways and were down instantly with a 5mm explosive round each, blasting at supersonic speeds into their bodies before exploding like tiny grenades ten milliseconds after contact. Then we were up and running, following Tam who took the lead.

A group of ministers and guards were gathered ten meters down a hallway as we raced past. A couple of the guards fired their weapons at us so Mouse put a plasma cannon blast into an exterior wall of the hallway and exploded glass, metal, and wood fragments at them in a hailstorm. We didn’t stick around to mop up but kept moving. Where we were headed was deep in the building’s interior and up several floors.

Tam led us to a large central lobby area a hundred meters from the reception lobby, where automatic moving staircases and elevator banks provided access to five of the eight floors of the huge building. Security guards began appearing from all directions and several floors above, firing down at us in the main floor rotunda. Spear grabbed Tam and placed her against a large stone column and both Spear and Mouse stood next to each other and in front of Tam, an armored blockade. They began picking off guards as projectile rounds clanged off of their armor.

I leaped from the main floor to the passage deck of the second floor and swept both sides with my left laser. As projectile fire began banging me, also, I dropped several guards on the main floor with my handgun, allowing the others to head up. Then I was sweeping the third and fourth floors with both lasers. Fires were burning everywhere it seemed as building material caught fire from the lasers. Burning bodies lay strewn about.

A group of guards had flipped a heavy metal table on its side down one hallway to use as a barricade and shield from which to shoot at us. A plasma cannon burst turned it into shards which ripped the four guards to numerous bloody pieces in an instant. They never knew what hit them.

Suddenly, that awful cramping pain I had endured before was felt again, although this time it was many factors less as my suit and shields mitigated and dampened the effect. Good news! It was only painful and debilitating, as compared to the previous agonizing and paralyzing. I twisted my head and saw Grone Nefal on the fifth floor pointing a device downward at me and there were some sort of distortion waves emanating from it. My suit AI was not affected in the slightest by this device and quickly locked on and fired the plasma cannon.

Grone Nefal and his device disappeared in a bright blue explosion. The bastard had been a double-agent!

Now we knew the alien device only affected living tissue, a handy fact to have. More guards were appearing on the fifth floor, and two of them held what appeared to be shoulder fired rockets of some kind. I ran to my left to draw their fire and, as soon as the rockets burst forth on their flaming trails toward me, I used the repulsors in my boots to leap clear to the fifth floor. I landed just in front of the bank of elevators which served the first five floors.

Withering projectile fire came at me from both sides, multiple enemy, all firing automatic weapons. I dropped flat on my back as the rockets exploded three floors below, extended both arms, and raked the guards with laser fire. Twelve men were dead in an instant with their bodies cut into multiple pieces and now burning.

Mouse, Spear, and Tam were pounding up the stairs after me. I picked off a few more guards who fired at them, including the ones reloading their rocket launchers, and then we were racing down a hallway following Tam and headed for the elevators serving floors six through eight.

“Explosives!” my AI yelled at me as the elevator in front of us dinged in preparation for the doors to slide open. I turned and grabbed Tam and leaped over the heads of Mouse and Spear, to roll at the last moment and land on my back with Tam on top. A massive explosion shook the building just as I rolled up onto my side with my back to the blast to shield Tam. The concussion wave moved me a full meter along the floor. Tam was nearly unconscious, her eyes rolling and eyelids fluttering. I pinched her shoulder a little, hoping the pain would shake the cobwebs from her mind.

It worked. She gained some clarity and we clambered from the floor. Spear and Mouse were both climbing to their feet, as well. There was a huge smoking hole in the floors and walls where the elevator used to be and flames licked at building material.

“Is there any other way up?” I asked Tam through the external speakers.

She looked at me, confused, then pointed at her ears. She had been deafened by the explosion. I pointed upwards and shrugged my shoulders. Comprehension came to her face and she motioned us to follow. We raced to another hallway and to a single elevator. This was not acceptable. Too dangerous to Tam considering what just happened with the other elevators.

“Stay with Tam,” I said to Mouse and Spear, “while I go up and send the elevator down after I clear it.”

I ran back to the great burning hole and leaped into the elevator shaft area, sinking the fingers of my suit glove into the building material, ripping handholds as I climbed. I ran through the next floor kicking open doors and scanning for life signs, searching for any traps or ambushes. I repeated the performance on the next floor and then climbed to the eighth floor. I ran straight to the elevator and called it open. It was clear. Within a minute, Tam was on her way up with Spear. Mouse would follow after they arrived.

When we were together, Tam led us to a large room with great, wooden double doors. I pushed them open, shattering the locks like tissue paper. Inside, there were at least twenty women, thirty or forty children, and twenty to twenty-five ministers, all standing huddled together in a great circle around a central area of perhaps four meters diameter. Five security guards holding the civilians in the rough circle died in only moments as Mouse, Spear, and I raced in and separated. With the suit AIs auto-scanning and identifying hand weapons, the guards were easy to target.

From my left, Mouse dispatched a floater-spy, a tiny spy camera fitted with a pair of small, whirling blades to keep it aloft and maneuver like a miniscule helicopter. Mouse directed it to the ceiling and then to the center of the large conference room, and it sent back live video feed to our HUDs. Several pieces of gear were piled in the center section and one man was in there crouching over the gear, Prime Minister Edder Bando.

Bando was manipulating the controls of one of the devices, and laughing. He was squatted down, unseen behind the human shield he had erected around himself. He was laughing because he knew we would not fire at him through those innocents, destroying them to get to him.

He had absolutely no idea how wrong he was. A trooper is trained from the beginning of Basic to take out the target, no matter what, or who, is between them and the target. We do not acknowledge human shields. Period. We acknowledge only the target. It sounds harsh, and cruel, and uncaring. But history has proven when policing agencies began shooting through human shields to kill the evil men who hid behind the innocents to press the button to destroy millions, evil men stopped using human shields and tried to figure out some other way of protecting themselves.

That being said, we always attempt to figure out the best way to limit collateral damage as much as possible. We had no time. Whatever he was doing behind those people was bad, and dangerous for us.

I opened a window in my HUD to look directly at Spear, as she was the best of us with guns, and raised my eyebrows at her in question. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she locked her gaze on my face in her HUD and she nodded. I gave her a quick flick of hand sign and she immediately jumped in a long, flat arc taking her up to the ceiling with her back only centimeters from the tiles. As she passed over the center of the group, directly above Bando, he stopped laughing when her 5mm slug blasted into his head and blew his skull apart like a melon. Spear hit the floor on the far side of her arc and rolled once in a graceful somersault and came to rest on one knee. She stood and pointed her handgun straight up. No hesitation, no doubt. Perfectly done, she had taken out her target with zero collateral damage. Yeah, her shit was right and tight and her head was on straight.

Some of the women screamed in horror or fear, and many of the children were crying. I tapped Tam and the shoulder and pointed at them. Tam began speaking to them, calming them.

“Mouse, Spear, clear the other two rooms on this floor.”

They were back in thirty seconds. “All clear. Just conference rooms.”

“Alright! Mouse, start separating the ministers from the women and children. Get them herded into a separate room. Once they are all inside, fuse the lock and the hinges with your laser. That should keep them safe until this is all over.”

“On it, Wolf.”

“Tam,” I said through the speakers, “get the women and children into the big room across the hall, separate from the ministers. Reassure them we are trying to keep them safe and no one will be harmed unless they attack us. Tell them we will lock them into the room to ensure no bad people can come in and get them. Got it?”

Tam nodded and began her job. Within a few minutes all of the civilians were locked away in the two other rooms and we were examining the alien technology. A couple of them had indicator lights glowing but none seemed to be actively emanating. I signaled to Mouse to record everything on all sensors and visually.

“Ronin, status.”

“Green. One hundred five enemy casualties, twelve prisoners.”

“Hold what you have.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Boomer, status.”

“Yellow. Objective achieved. Star is down from a direct RPG hit and Stitch is on him.”

“Hold what you have. I’ll be there shortly. Wolf out.”

“Flyboy, status.”

“We’re up and supporting RCF ground teams. Dog is providing cover fire and maintaining air superiority.”

“Any sign of incoming from above?”

“Nothing on the screens but an armed column headed this way from the north, one and a half klicks out.”

“Have Dog drop some HE into their path to take out the roadways, block them off.”

“On it, sir.”

“Once you have them stopped, get the trauma bot to Stitch asap.”

“Already done, boss. We dropped it out of the hatch on a grav sled and slaved the controls to Stitch.”

“Well done, troopers! Wolf out.”

“Team Zulu, mission is green, mission is green. Maintain positions. Wolf out.”

“Tam?” I said.

She turned from examining the alien tech. “Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

Tam looked around the room, at the alien devices, at the nearly headless body of Edder Bando, and turned back to me with a smile.

“Yes, actually. I am alright. I’m going to have a whopper of a bruise where you pinched me but I don’t mind.”

“Good. We need to get you on a radio asap to let your people know what has happened. There is going to be a lot of adjustment and cleaning up to do.”

“Don’t I know it!” she responded. “There is a communications room on the first floor, south of the lobby.”

“Okay, you stick by me.”

“Mouse, remain here and guard the alien technology. It stays in our hands at all costs.”

“Clear, Wolf. I’m on it.”

“Spear, get us to the main floor.”

She headed for the door without reply. On the way back down there was almost no resistance. Our escort only fired a couple of times, and most of the living guards we saw had dropped their weapons and were filing out with their hands above their heads. Within a couple of minutes we were in the communications room and Tam was speaking passionately into the microphone to the RCF command and then to the leadership enclaves on the other continents. I noticed the bloody body of Joonia Valco lying in a hallway not too far from the communications room, a gun near her outstretched arm. She’d chosen the wrong side.

An RCF team showed up and, after Tam said she knew them, Spear and I headed out of the building and ran to the compound where Boomer and her team waited. By the time we got there Star was loaded onto the grav sled, the trauma-bot was connected to the suit AI, and Flyboy was bringing in the AV.

“Stitch, report.”

“Star took an RPG on the left side of the helmet. It was a glancing blow off his shield, and the device exploded a meter beyond and moving away from him. AI reports vitals as erratic but survivable as the shields and armor kept out shrapnel. It’s the concussion. The bot says he has swelling of the brain due to concussion. We’re administering drugs for induced coma and stabilizing vitals. We won’t know anything more for a while. His nanos are onsite and repairing leaking blood vessels, so, everything that can be done is being done, sir.”

“Carry on.”

“Boomer,” I said over private channel, “how you doing?”

“Gods be damned, sir! I never thought it would be so tough to see a trooper go down.”

“You didn’t have responsibility before. That’s what makes the difference. Is this anybody’s fault?”

“No, sir. Just battle. Could have been any of us.”

She would be alright. Some never recovered from losing troopers in their first command situation. I nodded to her.

“Outstanding, trooper! Hold what you have.”

Spear was assigned to replace Star and Stitch. I stepped off a couple of meters to review.

“Rawlings to all channels, Planet Mission Green, repeat, Planet Mission Green.”

There was no response from space. Either they were really busy up there, or they were already sent outside.

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