Resilience (Warner's World Book 6) (30 page)

“No, let’s see what our rogan friend can do.” Dave turned back and pointed to Branish and beckoned him forward. He showed him the footage of the flechette.

“Nasty…” said Branish and then with one of his trademark grins added “and you still doubt this is the place?”

Dave smiled back. “Can you disarm it?”

“Hard to say….if I fail to login correctly it may well activate and do nasty things to me.”

“Better not fail then.”

“Are you going to stand by my side?”

“Nah” said Dave “burdens of command.”

Branish chuckled. “And I thought that excuse was peculiar to rogan officers.” It was Dave’s turn to smile.

Chapter 8. Lewista 1920, 21 September

Meeka had commandeered eight vehicles to carry the physical loot from the Treasury vault. He was only waiting on Melnar to call him back with the rendezvous location. But Ciantus Melnar was having problems of his own.

He had barely got away from the ISS detachment that had raided his facility at Chelcene spaceport. The net was tightening and for the first time in his life Ciantus felt real fear. But it wasn’t enough to dampen his own supreme confidence in his ability to outsmart everyone else.

“Think!” he chastised himself as he drove the car. He knew he couldn’t go back to Chelcene, so plan A was no longer a valid option. “Plan B it is then.” He made a call while he drove on one of the public tunnels that would eventually take him to an innocuous building just next to the freeway to Rowisus. There he would gain access to his own tunnel system and meet up with Sallusam.

He had thought about going to the other entrance but it was too close to the Treasury where Meeka’s forces were and he presumed Republican forces would soon be arriving. The last thing he wanted was to be caught up in a battle.

“No” he hailed to the person on the line “they will provide the trucks but you need to provide the drivers – eight drivers got that. Oh and make sure your men are armed.” Ciantus terminated the call.

Satisfied that he would have the support he needed, he called Meeka, gave him the instructions to access the tunnel system from an office building just one block from the Treasury.

Meeka cursed about the complicated process but he knew he had little option but to go along with it. He cursed when two enemy fighters flew overhead causing his drivers to take evasive action. He cursed again when the opening barrage of the attack on the spaceport sounded in the distance. Time was running out. He cursed again five minutes later when he realised it would take him a good twenty minutes to get all the vehicles down into the tunnels.

He ordered his 3
^rd
Brigade commander to leave one battalion securing the entrance here and commit the rest of the brigade to secure the spaceport.

While he waited for the logistics to conclude Meeka sat down in one of the chairs next to Hecton a good twenty metres from the elevator. Hecton saw Meeka take out his communicator. He peered surreptitiously at the small screen and recognised the tell-tale login of Meeka’s bank app. Hecton’s breathing stopped. He saw Meeka’s eyes almost bulge out of his head and Hecton resisted the urge to feel for his pistol.

Meeka turned to face Hecton and asked in an annoyed manner. “What do they mean ‘pending processing’?” demanded Meeka. Hecton made a gesture with his hands indicating he didn’t understand. “The bank transaction…It says here that it’s pending processing.”

“Oh that can take several days” advised Hecton. “They need to verify it with the local branch where the account is held and then they will release the funds. It’s probably got to ping Slidwon and then come back before it’s all confirmed.”

“That’s not what you led me to believe.”

“Standard procedures I’m afraid, especially for such a large transaction.”

“Is there a chance this may not go through?”

“Yes, but I wouldn’t worry about it Sir.”

Meeka pulled his head back slightly and eyed Hecton with a degree of wariness. Hecton kept his cool and Meeka pocketed his communicator, shook his head and then bellowed to the loadmaster at the elevator “Hurry it up!”

A minute later Meeka, ever impatient, stood up and walked to the elevator to harry them further. After five minutes Meeka tired of being the supervisor and turned to the seats from which he had come. However, he was struck by the fact that Hecton was no longer there. A thought crossed his mind, but then he dismissed it.

Meanwhile at Casement, Branish had managed to avoid being torn to shreds by the flechette tower. Jim had arrived with the rest of the Resolute detachment and Dave ordered him to secure the entrance and to post delaying forces in both directions. Ginty did not complain when asked to lead the way yet again.

Branish had found the light controls and the place was soon transformed from pitch black to very bright. “According to this layout” advised Branish “you should find it opens up around the bend. There’s a series of smaller rooms on the left and one big open space on the right.”

Ginty wasn’t taking any chances. She pushed out a pair of droids to scout ahead. They made their way down the tunnel for 30 or so metres and then around the bend where it opened up. She and Dave were looking at the camera feed from the lead droid, which moved to the far end scanning carefully from left to right and back again.

Satisfied there were no ‘surprises’ Ginty led her marines forward.

“Branish” called out Dave “with me.”

“Wouldn’t miss it” said Branish with a mischievous look on his face.

“Any idea what this thing will look like?” asked Dave as they walked down the tunnel.

“Not really. But I wager we’ll be able to identify it by its labelling.”

Dave was sceptical but he said nothing. Once in the main area that Ginty had now secured, Branish brought out his communicator where he had recorded some information. He pointed to a sign on the first door on the left, scanned it with his communicator, then interrogated the result it displayed and said “High capacity relays…comms gear.” He went forward to the next, repeated the process and said “Apparently a classified prototype for a comms project called Wanich.” On the next one he went “Ooh Personal for Mr Melnar. Shall we?”

Dave shook his head. “No let’s do the lot first.”

A few minutes later they had finished the rooms on the left and made their way out to the open space on the right. There was a row of fancy looking vehicles, a huge palette of some metals that Branish remarked with a “Ooh naughty Mr Melnar!” and then there was a row of racks containing various items of equipment. It could have been any of these and Dave indulged in a moment of despondence. It was going to take them hours to scan each item.

“My money is still on that one over there marked Personal or the unmarked one” proffered Branish.

It didn’t take Branish long to gain entry to the one marked Personal. His eyes lit up when he turned on the lights to reveal a virtual treasure trove. “What a waste” he said as he waved his arm around the racks full of works of art “all this beauty and no one to see it.” It took them several minutes to realise the device was not in here.

Branish gained entry to the unmarked room. There was a large rack running down the right hand side. There were two crates on the top shelf and space for another two below only it was now empty. Branish scanned their ID code and his eyes lit up. “Uraba!” he exclaimed with much glee.

“What?” asked Dave.

“This is it. The IDs match” said Branish with a big grin. He then spied two smaller devices sitting on a desk at the far end of the room. He scanned their IDs and said “Interesting. These must go with them” he said. Not sure exactly…maybe a controllers.”

“I don’t care” said Dave.

“Why not? Oh you’re going to destroy them aren’t you.” Dave nodded. “But you don’t know what that might do here.”

“Well it didn’t seem to create a black hole when we demolished the main facility.”

“Yes, but there weren’t any complete systems there. It would be, how do you say, unwise.”

With all the action of the last few hours Dave had not even considered this aspect. He knew he did not have the expertise to know one way or the other. He wished he had Julian Smythe down here, but he wasn’t. The more he thought about it the more he realised he could not take the risk. But likewise he did not want to take the risk of this device falling into enemy hands.

Jim poked his head in. “This it then?” he asked.

“So our good sergeant reckons” responded Dave. “But he cautions against blowing it up. What do you think?”

“I’m just a grunt remember.” Jim addressed Branish “Do you reckon it might activate if we try and destroy it with explosives?” Branish nodded. “Gee” said Jim as he too pondered that possibility and its consequences for them right now. “So the question is to move it or not?” Dave nodded.

No one spoke for a good minute. Finally Jim proffered “Well there’s only narrow ways in here, so we can probably hold off whatever the enemy throws at us till our ammo runs out. Then it will be bleak. So I guess it depends on what our rogan friends upstairs are doing.”

“Yeah I agree. Alright I’ll call the Admiral” said Dave. But then he became frustrated when he realised he could not get a signal down here. “Damm it” he said. “How much ammo have we got.”

“A lot less than what we started with” responded Jim “enough for one good engagement but that’s about all.”

“We move then. Place them in the middle of our order of march. Let’s get going now.” Dave felt better having made the decision.

Jim set about organising the move. The first problem he realised was that they did not have enough vehicles, now that they had to load the devices as well as the troops. “Can you get any of these vehicles to work sergeant” he asked Branish.

“Can but try” said Branish with a grin. “I always wanted to drive a flash car.”

Chapter 9. Lewista 1940, 21 September

“Finally” exclaimed a frustrated Meeka. It had taken longer than he had earlier been told, so he was not a happy-chappy. But he now had his small force ready to move off at the base of the tunnel. It consisted of the 1
^st
company of the battalion now guarding the entrance above, plus the eight commandeered vehicles and a driver for each. All up though, he had some twenty trucks.

He gave up waiting for Hecton to arrive. When he tried to hail him, he could not get a signal. He was not going to wait just for a major. He assumed he had gone back to his brigade.

But that was a wrong assumption. Hecton had made his way via the public tunnel system to the nearby shopping centre. Because of the emergency, it was deserted. He broke into a store, wearing his uniform, and exited in civilian clothes. Now he was taking the walkway in the tunnel that led to an outer suburb called Waqanin. Why this one, Hecton did not know. He picked it at random. He didn’t care either as long as it took him away from where his past was.

He took the time, as the walkway sped him along, to read the advertising that bombarded the users of the public tunnels. There was a video of a family on a holiday in the exotic tropical wonderland that was Dobinistra. The prepubescent daughter reminded him that his youngest would be about her age. “Wouldn’t that be nice!” he said out loud.

Five minutes later, the lead vehicle in Meeka’s column was engaged by droids from Ginty’s platoon. Meeka was in one of the utilities at the back of the column. They were in a curved section of the tunnel and he could not see what was going on but he could definitely hear the sound of the rocket that destroyed their lead vehicle.

He opted to leave the management of the fight to LtCol Frenti Felsun, who he knew to be a veteran battalion commander, but he hailed him for a situation report.

“We’ve encountered an enemy blocking position – droids. Putting in an attack now” hailed Frenti who was now taking cover behind the fourth vehicle in the column. His company commander had already moved forward to get his forward platoon to assault. The enemy fire was not that intense, so Frenti concluded that this was just a picket. He was keen to brush past this but he knew better than to harass his subordinate commanders. He knew they knew their stuff.

Inside the Casement facility Ginty received a hail advising her of the contact and she jogged out of the facility and headed up to where her second team was manning the blocking position. She could hear the firing up ahead but because of the curved section could not see anything yet.

“McGyver what’s happening” she hailed as she continued to jog forward.

“They’re putting in an attack…need help” reported Cpl Gus McGyver, now acting team leader of Charlie team.

“Right hold on” hailed Ginty. “Bel, get your team out here now.”

“Ginty SITREP?” hailed Jim who was ready to start his column of vehicles.

At that moment Ginty came round the bend. Most of the tunnel lights were knocked out but the tunnel was being lit up by the pulse fire going in both directions and by the flickering light of a burning vehicle some 150 metres down the tunnel. She could clearly see McGyver and two other marines prone and firing. They were no more than forty metres ahead of her. Another twenty ahead lay the mangled form of at least one droid. There should have been three more but they were nowhere in sight.

As Ginty craned her head to see further she was struck in the face by a pulse shot. It blew her head backwards. Ginty was dead by the time she hit the ground. She would never reply to Jim’s hail or his follow up hail.

“Shit” exclaimed Jim “bloody comms. Kong, go and see what’s happening.” While Kong set off at a run with another trooper Jim turned to Dave and said “I’ll stay here, you better get going now.”

Dave nodded “We need at least twenty minutes.” Jim nodded. “I’ll have the Phantom detachment backstop you at the base of the tunnel.”

“OK, time to go” said Jim earnestly.

“Thanks Jim and take care.” With that the column began moving out back to Echo One. Dave felt dreadful as he slumped back into the seat of the lead vehicle. Leaving Jim and the others behind went against every fibre of his being but he knew that these devices could not be allowed to fall into Meeka’s hands, no matter what it took.