Collateral Damage (32 page)

19

Libya, north of Mizdah

R
ubeo walked back toward the trucks, conserving his energy. His leg muscles had tightened, but adrenaline was surging through his body, and he knew if he could just pace himself, he'd last the ten minutes or so until his people arrived.

He was sure they were close.
Ten minutes,
he told himself.

About fifty yards from the first truck the sky exploded above him. He threw himself down, sure that a missile was streaking at his head.

Gradually he realized it wasn't a missile but the Tigershark, descending at high speed in the direction of the helicopters.

Rubeo got up and continued toward the van, half running, half trotting. One of his dead captors lay in the dirt about thirty feet away. He saw the rifle nearby and ran to grab it. Winded, he paused to catch his breath and examine the gun, making sure it was loaded and ready to fire.

The helicopters were directly south along the road. One was a large Chinook, the other a Russian-made Hind. The Tigershark flew across their path twice, apparently trying to warn them off, but neither helicopter changed direction.

Rubeo thought about the bots, sitting in the back of the nearby van. Diomedes wasn't particularly exotic; it was basically a personalized version of robots Rubeo's company sold to the government. But Arachne was at least a generation and a half beyond what anyone else in the world was using, including the U.S.

He went over to the back of the van, thinking he would put a few bullets through the bots' sensors and intelligence sections. But as he opened the door to the vehicle, he realized he might be able to use the larger bot to get Kharon to safety. And if he was going to save that bot, he might just as well save the other, especially since Arachne was still attached to Diomedes.

He climbed up into the truck. Deciding the laptop-sized controller would be awkward to run with, he removed the smaller handheld mobility controller attached to Diomedes that worked on voice commands. This was a transmitter about the size of a television remote, intended as an aid to workers when moving the bot. Its limited command set could not control any sensors, but that wasn't important now.

Rubeo took the controller and unwound the small headset, which looked like a slightly heavier-duty version than the stereo and microphone headsets used for many mobile phones. The machine took a few moments to boot itself up, checking subsystems and sending current to its motors and limbs. The bot then authenticated Rubeo's voice, checking it against the patterns stored in its memory.

“Exit truck,” Rubeo told it as soon as it was ready.

The machine began backing from the vehicle. Six small video and IR cameras and a sonar suite allowed the bot to orient itself.

“External imagery unavailable,” declared the machine, telling Rubeo that there was no feed from an overhead source such as a UAV. This was actually an artifact of the combat control program, which was configured to assume that a full combat situation awareness suite was present. The machine also had a GPS locator and could download area data into its temporary memory if necessary.

“Understood. Proceed.”

As Diomedes came to the edge of the truck bed, the sonar unit detected the drop-off. It measured the terrain and decided it could handle the drop. It pushed off quickly, adjusting its arms to balance its weight; it looked almost human, if something with the profile of a sawed-off vacuum cleaner could be said to resemble a person.

It landed flat and drove itself toward Rubeo.

“Follow me,” he said, and as he did, something whizzed over his head.

“Gunfire detected,” warned the bot. The warning was another attribute of the combat program.

“Move faster,” yelled Rubeo, scrambling for the rocks.

20

Above Libya

“G
round fire detected,” the computer told Turk.

“Locate.”

“Highlighted.”

“From that group of civilians?”

“Rephrase.”

“Disregard.” Turk clicked into the Whiplash circuit. “Danny, I have gunfire on the ground. Rubeo is under attack. Somebody in that group of people is firing.”

“See if you can scatter the group and isolate the people with guns,” said Danny. “Take them down.”

Turk turned the plane northeast so he could swing down and attempt to scatter the group.

From his perspective, the gunners were using women and children to shield themselves, making it difficult for them to be attacked without killing innocent lives. Of course, that was the idea. They figured they couldn't lose: if he didn't shoot, they'd get Rubeo. If they were shot at, the odds were the civilians would be hurt as well, undoubtedly giving them some sort of propaganda victory.

Had something like that happened with the kids? Were they actually trained to use MANPADs? Was one hidden somewhere nearby?

But if so, what could he have done?

As Turk approached the group, he lit off IR decoy flares, showering the area. At the same time, he pulled the Tigershark onto her back and hit the throttle full blast, jerking the aircraft upward. The noise was deafening—not quite a sonic boom, but more than a little distracting. One or two of the people began to run, then everyone started to follow, fleeing to the east.

He tilted on his wing, trying to get back into a position to find the people who had fired. But they'd thrown down their weapons in panic, and when he asked the computer to identify them, it responded that none of the people were armed.

“Who threw the guns down?” said Turk.

“Rephrase.”

Turk decided to concentrate on the helicopters instead. They were almost at the trucks.

He fell back toward the earth, spinning the wings level and sending off another shower of flares, this time directly in the helicopters' path. They diverted east.

Turk zoomed out the map and took a look at the tanks, which were now moving on a road in the direction of the highway and Rubeo.

“People ran. Helicopters going east. Tanks are still moving,” he told Danny. “Can I take them out?”

“Stand by.”

“They're close enough to fire,” warned Turk.

“I know—hold on. I have allied command.”

Danny's tone made it clear that he wasn't happy about what he was hearing on the line.

“I
have people under fire,” Danny repeated for the French colonel who'd contacted him directly from the command staff. “I have to be permitted to protect them. We're in the middle of a rescue operation.”

“We have been told that there is active negotiation between forces, and all forces require an immediate cease-fire,” said the colonel, whose English was so-so. “I have these orders, which have come from the general himself to me. All allied aircraft and forces are to stand back.”

“Listen, Colonel, with all due respect, I am going to protect my people.”

“You must follow the order.”

“Yup, that's what I'm doing,” snapped Danny, closing the line. A few seconds later the combat air controller came back on.

“We're seeing those tanks moving,” said the controller. “You want some help to watch them?”

“I want clearance to blow them up.”

“I can't give that to you,” said the colonel. He spoke quickly. “I have a flight of A–10Es that I'm going to divert south.”

“Are they cleared hot on the tanks?” Danny asked.

“Negative at this time.”

The controller gave Danny the contact frequency and call sign—it was Ginella's squadron, which of course made sense, since they were the only Hogs in the theater. Danny quickly made contact with Ginella, who was leading the flight.

“We are en route to you,” she told him, without the slightest hint in her voice that they had ever spoken or met. “We should be there in about zero-six minutes.”

“Appreciate your help.”

“Be advised, I have been ordered to restrain from using weapons at this time,” added Ginella.

“Copy that.”

“Colonel, just so you know: I do not intend on allowing any American to be harmed in this operation.”

“You and I agree one hundred and ten percent,” said Danny.

21

Libya

B
y the time Rubeo reached the first rock and started up the incline, the bot had caught up. It moved to the right of him and began trudging up the hill, moving at a slow but steady pace. The gunfire had stopped, and the helicopters appeared to have moved off.

Rubeo told the bot to pause as it crested the summit of the second hilltop. He reached it a few moments later, caught his breath, and then had it follow as he climbed over the last hill separating him and Kharon.

The young man blinked at him as he came down the slope. Pain lined his face.

“They'll be here any minute,” said Rubeo.

“Don't shoot me.”

“I'm not going to. Don't worry,” said Rubeo. He glanced self-consciously at the gun, which was pointed at the ground.

“What's going to happen to me?”

“You'll go to the hospital.”

“Then what?”

“I don't know.” Rubeo shook his head. “I'll help you.”

“Why?”

Rubeo couldn't answer the question, not even for himself. He had only a sense that it was the right thing to do—not because of logic, but because of emotion. And even that was vague.

Something shrieked overhead. Rubeo turned his eyes upward, sure it must be the Tigershark. Then there was a loud clap nearby, and the ground seemed to shatter.

“Something is firing at us,” he told Kharon.

A second shell whistled nearby. This one was even closer; dirt and debris rained across his back.

“We have to get out of here.”

“T
anks are firing!” Turk told Danny.

“Take them.”

“Yeah. I'm on it.”

He was already on a direct line for one of the tanks, roughly three miles to the west. He zeroed it in his targeting screen, corrected slightly, and fired.

A slug sped from the aircraft, hurtling into the fat turret of the tank. Unsure of the result, Turk fired twice more, then pulled off.

The bullets put three large holes in the top of the tank, disabling its main gun and the engine. The T–72 jerked to an abrupt stop, disabled though not in fact destroyed. The almost surgical gunfire had left the crew hatches undamaged, and within a few seconds the three men who had been manning the tank scrambled away from it, undoubtedly stunned and unsure what would happen next.

“Tigershark, this is Shooter One. Are you engaging the tanks?”

“Affirmative Shooter. They have commenced firing.”

The sitrep map showed Turk all four Hogs, IDing them by their call signs and squadron identifications. Ginella was flying lead.

Her wingman was Li.

“We can engage,” said Ginella. “We're just coming into range.”

“I have the one to the north, that one leading on the road,” said Turk. “You can have the rest.”

“Roger, Tigershark, we copy. We're going to take the others.”

“Copy.”

Turk swung north to line up his shot. As he did, the RWR began to sound—the MiGs that were supposed to be intercepted by the French planes had turned in his direction. But it wasn't him they were targeting; it was the A–10s.

D
anny Freah took a long, slow breath, ignoring the cacophony of protests in his headset. He leaned forward between the two Osprey pilots, trying to spot the trucks in the distance.

“I'm being told to turn back north,” the pilot told him. “The air commander is trying to reach you.”

“You're under my direct orders,” Danny told him calmly. “You have no responsibility.”

“Sir, I'm going to save our guys, too. Screw everything else.”

“Let's do it, then.”

“We have more vehicles coming up the road,” he told Danny. “Looks like a scout car, and a couple of pickups. Those pickups usually have fifty cals on the back. I'd like to engage them.”

Even without the allied order to stand down and avoid combat, engaging the vehicles was highly questionable. They had not fired at either the Osprey or Rubeo, and in fact had done nothing overtly threatening. But the situation now was simply too chaotic, and their mere presence was a threat. The Osprey couldn't land close to a fifty caliber, let alone three of them.

“Fire some warning shots and see if they stop,” Danny told the pilot.

“If they don't?”

“Then splash them.”

R
ubeo heard the roar of the Osprey's engines in the distance, but the shells were still raining down, passing overhead. He guessed they were being aimed at the road, but that was hardly a consolation—any second now he expected one to land short and wipe them out.

“I can't carry you,” he told Kharon.

“Leave me!”

“That's not what I meant. Come on.” Rubeo hooked his arms under the other man's shoulder's. “I have to get you on the bot.”

Kharon screamed in anguish. Rubeo hesitated, but the whistle of another shell going overhead convinced him to continue. He half lifted, half dragged Kharon to the nearby bot, cringing as the younger man howled in pain.

“We're getting out of here,” Rubeo told him, putting him down as gently as he could manage on the rear bed of the bot. Kharon twisted, grabbing hold of the spar.

“Diomedes, follow me,” Rubeo told the bot, starting out of the small hollow where he'd taken shelter.

He'd taken exactly three steps when he felt himself pushed from behind, thrown forward by a force he couldn't fathom.

22

Over Libya

T
urk zeroed his gun on the tank and fired six bursts, the bolts leaping from the gun in a sharp, staccato rhythm that seemed to suspend the Tigershark in midair. The line of his bullets was tighter this time, and there was no escape for the men inside—the first slug ignited one of the tank's shells, and secondary explosions ripped through the tight quarters of the armored vehicle, mincing its occupants. The rest of the bullets simply sliced through the fireballs.

As soon as he let off the trigger, Turk turned his attention to the MiGs. They had separated into two groups, one duo diverting toward the French interceptors and the other coming at the Hogs.

The A–10s were easy targets for the MiGs, but to their credit they remained in their attack patterns, closing in on the tanks.

“Shooter, I'm on those MiGs,” Turk told Ginella. “I have them.”

“We appreciate it.”

There was a launch warning—the MiGs were firing.

“Four missiles,” reported the computer. “AA–10 Alamo. Semiactive radar.”

“Plot an intercept to missiles,” said Turk. He could line up and shoot at the missiles with the rail gun.

“Impossible to intercept all four.”

“Best solution.”

A plot flashed up on the screen.

Three targets. Two were heading for Ginella's aircraft, Shooter One. The other was going for Beast in Shooter Three.

“Identify target of remaining missile,” Turk said.

“Missile is targeted at Shooter Four.”

Li's plane, on Ginella's wing.

“Recalculate to include missile targeting Shooter Four.”

The computer presented a new solution, striking one of the missiles on Ginella as well as Li's sole missile. But Beast was completely unprotected. Before Turk could decide what to do, four more missiles launched. The computer began running a variety of solutions, but Turk realized that none were going to completely protect the Hogs.

“Choose Solution One,” he said, moving to the course queue as it snapped into his heads-up. “Shooter squadron, you have missiles inbound.”

“We're aware of that, Tigershark.”

“I can get some, not all.”

“Whatever you can do for us,” said Ginella. Her voice was cold and flat, without effect. “Tanks will be down in a second.”