M'tak Ka'fek (The T'aafhal Inheritance) (28 page)

“Right. Sergeant, we need to move through the wooded backyards of those two houses to the south. We want to deploy along the edge of those woods and get an unobstructed field of fire on the infiltrators headed south beyond. And let the people in those houses know we are the good guys.”

“Roger, Sir.”

“Lucas. Go with the Sergeant and see if you can help out,” the Major said to the looming white figure behind him.

“Aye aye, Sir.” The white giant loped off after the Sergeant.

They approached the side of the house that rifle fire had come from a few minutes ago. The Sergeant motioned a couple of men forward along the far side of the house. They held position at the back edge of the wall while the Sergeant shouted to those inside.

“Inside the house, listen up! This is the Republic of Texas Army. We need to move into your woods to attack the raiders, so hold your fire.”

“Yeah? How do we know you are who you say you are, buddy?”

“'Cause if we were outlaws we would’ve come in the front and shot yer asses.”

“OK, good point. How can we tell you from them desperadoes?”

“We look like regular soldiers, with assault rifles, helmets and white camo.”

There was a pause while the armed home owners thought that over.

“All right, come on by. We'll hold our fire.”

“Fuckin' civilians,” the Sergeant muttered, motioning for his men to move out into the wooded area behind the house. Once they were sure there were no hostiles in the woods, the Sergeant and Lucas move forward. As the seven foot tall, armored sailor moved into the home's back yard the voice from the house called out again.

“What the hell is that thing?”

“It's a Yeti, sent over by the Dali Lama,” the Sergeant quipped. “Don't worry, he's on our side.”

The squad was soon at the edge of the wooded lot, looking out across the scrub filled field beyond. Dark shapes could be seen moving against the white snow, seeking cover behind the low plant growth and occasional taller bush.

“All right, let's light 'em up—aimed fire, pick your targets.” The ten squad members began firing at the hostiles attempting to infiltrate past their position. This brought a fusillade of return fire, much heavier than expected. The soldiers were soon pinned in position and having to seek cover themselves.

“Shit! There would appear to be a lot more of these bastards than expected,” the Sergeant commented, firing a short burst in the general direction of their enemy. At this point, Lucas asked the Sergeant a question.

“Hey Sergeant. You mind if I lob a few grenades out there?”

“Hell no! Do it.”

Lucas stood up and unlimbered his standard assault railgun, selected time-on-target high explosive on the 20mm and fired a five round salvo at the outlaws in the field. Set by laser rangefinder, the salvo was timed so that the HE rounds exploded in the air, about four meters above the enemy positions. This sent a rain of shrapnel down on the bandits from directly overhead. A half dozen were killed outright and as many more grievously wounded. More importantly, the sudden shelling caused most of the remaining outlaws to break and run.

“Holy sheee-it!” the Sergeant exclaimed. “Why didn't you tell me you could do that?”

“You didn't ask, Sarge,” Lucas said, smiling to himself inside the helmeted suit. A few of the braver outlaws were still firing at the towering white giant. Lucas isolated their positions using his suit's IR sensors and took them out with short bursts of 5mm.

“All right Yeti boy, stick with me. The rest of you, pursuit with bounding over watch by fireteam, now.”

Shuttle One, Airfield

The shuttle dropped quickly from the leaden sky onto the runway at the local airstrip. The remaining platoon of Army soldiers deplaned and rapidly moved to form a perimeter at the edge of the airport property. Billy Ray sent the crew chief and remaining crewman along to support the General in his planned envelopment of the bandits.

“If you don't mind, I'll stay here with you, Commander,” said Sid watching the battle unfold on the shuttle's display screens. The pair of recon drones were orbiting overhead, continuously updating the map display with the positions of every warm body within their range. The General's platoon deployed along a dirt road that headed directly west from the runway's southern end.

“I thought you were anxious to apprehend these outlaws, Ranger.”

“I find that a pistol against a hundred or more bad guys with automatic weapons is a bit of a mismatch.”

Billy Ray chuckled. Then he contacted the General by radio. “Victor X-ray, Shuttle One. General, you are in position to cut off the retreat of the main body of raiders. They're being herded your way by the Major's force. Looks to be maybe sixty or so still moving your direction from the south.”

“Roger that Shuttle One. Thanks for the update.”

“I do believe that the General is enjoying himself.”

“Yep, these bandits have had him chasing his own tail for a couple of months and he did not like it at all.”

Just as a precaution, Billy Ray sent one of the recon drones on a wider sweep to the north of the airstrip. As it tracked from west to east, about a kilometer north of the runway red dots began to appear on the display.

“Oh, crap.”

“What?”

“It appears that we have a large force of unknowns headed south. Pretty much along the edge of these cleared farm fields north of the airstrip. They are going to reach the airfield's northern perimeter in about five minutes.”

“The airfield is wide open,” Sid noted. “They'll be able to move quickly across it and then roll up the General's flank.”

“I guess they don't know there's a Texas Ranger barrin' their way,” Billy Ray said with a hint of a smile.

“Everybody loves a wise ass, Commander,” the Ranger replied with a smile of his own. “Unless you have another pair of those suits in the back, we probably need to tell the General he's about to be taken from behind by a superior force.”

“As poetic as it would be for the two of us to be standin' on the runway, ready to throw down on that bunch of outlaws as they ride into town, I think we will try a different approach.” Reaching overhead he touched a series of backlit symbols. Muffled thuds, followed by whining motor sounds, could be heard in the cockpit. Billy Ray leaned back in his chair, seemingly unconcerned.

Then, out either side of the windscreen, odd six-wheeled vehicles could be seen fanning out across the width of the airfield. Closer inspection revealed multi-barreled, Gatling gun like weapons atop both vehicles.

“Victor X-ray, Shuttle One. Be advised that there is another bandit force approaching from the north of the airstrip. We are preparing to engage but you need to wrap things up and reverse your front to the north.”

“Roger Shuttle One. Interrogative size of enemy force?”

“Company strength, and some of them are mounted.”

“Armored vehicles?”

“No, horses.”

1
^st
Platoon, West of the Airstrip

The General just got off the radio with the shuttle and did not look like a happy camper. Between Maj Randolf to the south and east, and Capt. Stillwell to the west, they had the remaining bandits trapped in a copse of woods just south of the east-west dirt road. Unfortunately the enemy were still returning fire and had decent cover. They would either have to wait them out or make a frontal assault on the enemy position. 

“Sergeant, we need to wrap these bandits up quickly. We are about to get more company from the north.”

“If we rush their position we'll take casualties for sure, Sir,” the First Sergeant replied. Even general officers took advice from experienced noncoms, who often had the most practical experience in combat.

“It's that or leave them where they are, and leaving an effective enemy force in our rear doesn't strike me as the best of ideas.”

“Uh, pardon me General,” said the white armored giant that contained the crew chief. “I think that the boys and I might be able to flush those hostiles out.”

“What do you propose, Chief?” At this point the General was ready to take suggestions from any quarter.

“We aren't really at risk from small arms fire. I figure we could just stroll up to that clump of trees and reason with them.”

Having no better solution General Crotchet said, “Reason away, Chief.”

The chief conversed briefly with the other sailors via their suit radios and then addressed the General again. “Have your men pick off any that get by us, though there shouldn't be many.”

With that, four huge white figures emerged from cover and began converging on the bandits' position from four different directions. As they walked a hail of fire from the outlaws bounced off their armored bodies, jacketed rounds occasionally whining off as ricochets. The sailors halted 15 meters from the woods—they needed that much distance for the 20mm shells to work in time-on-target mode. Setting their rounds to penetrate three meters into the woods they started firing. Three rounds each, bump the range three meters, fire three more, and repeat.

The clump of trees was thrashed by explosions, severed branches and an occasional body part flying into the air. Silence descended as the sailors ceased firing. Soldiers began cautiously working their way toward the bandit position, but there was no longer any return fire from the clump of trees.

Observing from his position by the road the General spoke to his First Sergeant. “Sergeant, remind me never to pick a fight with these Moon folks.”

“Roger that, Sir. That is a big no shitter.”

Shuttle One, Airstrip

Ranger Hopkins and Billy Ray watched as the mass of bandits approached from the north, moving onto the open airfield. There looked to be about two hundred infantry and twenty men mounted on horses.

“How close you figure on lettin' 'em get?” asked the Ranger. 

“Want to get as many in the kill zone as possible.”

“They're starting to move off into the scrub in small groups.”

“Yeah, I guess it's time.”

Billy Ray tapped on the display, then used his fingers to trace several arcs across the mass of approaching enemy. Finally he tapped the word “execute,” highlighted in red at the bottom of the screen. From outside came the sound of dueling bandsaws. Seconds later the air above the bandits blossomed with fire from exploding shells.

Faster than humanly possible, the robot gunners sprayed alternating streams of canister and antipersonnel explosive rounds at the massed enemy. The canister scythed through equine and human bodies at waist level, the explosive shells burst just overhead as the robots walked the barrage up the airfield until all detected targets had been covered. Flame and flying debris obscured the view. Billy Ray tapped the cease fire control.

What had been a company of men and horses traversing a white, snow covered field was now a jumble of body parts on a swath of crimson. Wisps of vapor rose from the shredded bodies, condensing in the cold air. Both men stared at the scene through the windscreen. After a half minute of silence, Billy Ray spoke.

“That is about the most horrific thing I have ever seen.”

“I thought you'd done this before,” Sid replied, eyes still fixed on the carnage across the airfield.

“I fight aliens in a starship. When I kill bad guys it's normally from 10,000 kilometers away, and the targets don't bleed, they just disappear in a flash of radiation.”

“Well, I've killed men before, but it sure was nothing like that out there.”

“I hear ya.”

“Damn waste too.”

“Yup. We could have saved those horses.”

The two men looked at each other, in that instant coming to an accord—bound together by the knowledge that war was a horribly evil business, but sometimes necessary. As he placed the battle bots into standby mode, Billy Ray called the General.

“Victor X-ray, Shuttle One. We have neutralized most of the enemy force approaching from the north. Some may have made it off into the brush in all the excitement.”

“Roger, Shuttle One. We will make a sweep to pick up any strays. Good work.”

Billy Ray looked back out the windscreen at the ghastly panorama in front of the shuttle and swore to himself,
I will never take the Marines for granted again.
 

* * * * *

The airfield became a hive of activity, with soldiers coming and going in all directions. Some were working with the locals, a number of whom had been hiding in the buildings on the airport grounds. Together they organized a burial detail for the slain bandits—several large dump trucks and a pair of front-end loaders. The bodies would need to be buried, but the location had to be chosen so as not to endanger the local water supply. 

“I've seen carnage on a lot of battlefields, but that there tops them all,” General Crotchet said to Billy Ray and Sid. Catching the pained look on the Commander's face he quickly added, “it was necessary though. If you hadn't stopped them we would have been humped for sure.”

Lt. Duffy walked up to the three men and said, “Pardon me General, but the patrol we sent up Old Santa Anna Road found some civilians who captured several outlaws. They've hung two and are threatening to hang the rest.”

“Hanged,” said Sid.

“Pardon?” the Lieutenant replied.

“Hanged. A bull is hung, a man is hanged.”

The comment brought a slight smile to Billy Ray's face and a grunt from the General. “We need to stop that. We definitely don't want the populace taking matters into their own hands.”

“No, yer right,” Sid sighed, squaring his Stetson on his head and checking his holstered pistol. “This is my territory, and part of the reason I came along.”

“How's that, Ranger?”

“When it was an all out battle, it was a military matter. Now that the battle is over it's a law enforcement problem. Can't have people takin' to lynching any suspected outlaw they come across. Those outlaws that got themselves captured need to be taken into town and brought before the magistrate.”