SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) (42 page)

"More than ready! I'm eager to see if this works.
It will be an interesting experiment in Kristang social dynamics."

"Uh huh, sure thing," I agreed.
"Activate Phase Three whenever you can."

"Done. If you're right, we'll know pretty quickly."

"Yup, that's what I hope. Let me know soon as
anything changes over there."

Phase Three was simple; it didn't involve any decoys,
any manipulation of satellite data, any shooting down aircraft, or any
elaborate cover-ups of human involvement. The essence of Phase Three was that
the truth shall set you free. Only, in this case, the truth was being given to
the Kristang forced laborers, and the 'you' really being set free was the human
assault force. Free, hopefully, from having to engage in a protracted firefight
with the Kristang.

The 'truth' part of Phase Three was, in fact, truth.
What Skippy did was grant the forced laborers access to secure communications
of the six Kristang leaders, not a hundred percent exactly what the leaders
said to each other, Skippy spiced things up a bit to get the laborers'
attention quickly. Skippy made the breakdown in communications security seem
like a system glitch, and it took the laborers a while to notice, even longer
to take advantage of their surprise access. The data they had access to was, in
essence, all truth; the food supply at the base was dwindling, and the six
leaders planned to either kill or abandon their labor force on Newark when the
starship arrived. While maybe the laborers suspected that was going to happen
anyway, getting smacked in the face with it certainly made them hopping mad.
Anger is a useless emotion unless it can be channeled into action, and that was
where the other data Skippy gave them access to came into play. He gave them
access to the base physical security systems, like the doors that kept the
laborers locked in when they weren't working. And the doors in the entire base,
including the high security area where the six leaders lived. And, most
especially, the locks to the armory building, where the leaders kept almost all
the weapons, and three of the four working armored suits.

Sentient beings, whether they are human, Ruhar,
Kristang or any other species in the Milky Way galaxy, tend to avoid risk, and
tend to hesitate when presented with new information, particularly when that
new information makes them question things they previously believed.
Fortunately, most groups of sentient beings have one or two members who do not
hesitate, who take decisive action, and those dynamic individuals usually bring
the group with them. In the case of the laborers, there were three Kristang who
didn't hesitate, who boldly and angrily took action. These three Kristang were
younger sons, who were not technically prisoners or slaves, they were younger
sons of impoverished subclan families, who had volunteered to join the
scavenger expedition in a desperate attempt to improve the fortunes of their
families back home. These three felt especially betrayed that their leaders
planned to abandon them on Newark with the criminals and slaves who made up
most of the work force. The first thing the three did, was verify the access
codes truly could open the door that kept them trapped in their defacto prison.
When that door opened with a metallic click, they moved out immediately. The
laborers knew their leaders were watching them, knew the leaders had seen the
laborers becoming agitated and angrily arguing amongst themselves, and knew the
leaders would be notified as soon as the door was unlocked without the leaders'
authorization. So, as soon as that door opened, the three bold laborers moved
quickly, and the others followed.

The others followed, because they knew their leaders
would punish all the laborers equally for attempted rebellion, knew they faced
death whether they actively participated in the mutiny or not. It was all or
nothing, and such clarity is a great motivator. The entire group of laborers
raced through the camp toward the armory, while the six leaders hesitated,
stunned, for crucial seconds.

When the six leaders finally faced their shocking new
reality and roused themselves to action, the first thing they did was argue
amongst each other. The primary leader, the one who had funded the scavenger
expedition, knew that only he and two others had codes to unlock the armory
door, yet he could see on the security system display that the laborers were
confidently racing toward the armory building, and had already unlocked the
gate to the electric fence that surrounded the armory. The primary leader
instantly drew only one conclusion from what he was seeing; one of the other
two Kristang with the codes had given them to the laborers, in an attempt to
take over the base and steal the precious Elder artifacts for himself.
Accordingly, the primary leader took out of its holster the pistol he
constantly kept on his belt, and shot the other two. Now there were four
leaders left. And one armor suit available, in the primary leader's cabin, the
other three functioning sets of armor were in the armory building. After killing
two of his fellows, the primary leader, with his pistol pointed at the three
others, backed into his personal cabin and locked himself in. He came out four
minutes later, in an armor suit, and led his three fellows toward the armory.
On the video screen, the leaders could see the laborers had reached the armory
and had already unlocked the outer door. A minute later, as the leaders reached
the fence that surrounded the armory, shots rang out from both sides.

It was a chaotic, bloody mess, a pure fire fight
without any planning, tactics or coordination. The primary leader charged
directly toward the back door the armory building, he must have known that if
the laborers got the other suits on, it was game over. The other three leaders
poured fire into the open doorway of the armory, cutting down laborers as they
came out, firing blindly. The laborers numbers began to tell, as one of the
leaders went down, and the other two pulled back around the corner of a
building for cover. Three times Smythe reminded the team not to fire,
regardless how tempting the target was, and to keep down and out of sight. Our
Alpha team, the two men in suits, were particularly itching to get into the
fight. Keeping our heads down was a good idea not only so the Kristang didn't
see us, but also because there were explosive-tipped rounds flying thick
through the air all around the base. The leaders had a few heavier weapons, and
explosions sent shrapnel everywhere, the laborers responded with improvised
explosives they'd taken from the armory.

When the fighting ended, there were only three
Kristang left alive on the planet. Two leaders, wearing armor and hunkered down
in their own building, likely still in shock and trying to decide what to do.
One laborer, holed up in the armory building. Holed up, with the precious stash
of Elder artifacts, and a whole lot of explosives. Explosives he threatened to
detonate, if the leaders didn't take off their armor suits, come into the open,
and negotiate how to split the artifacts and assure the laborer he would be
getting safely off the planet. According to Skippy, he actually did have a
chance to survive; though Kristang society would not be happy about him
participating in a violent mutiny, they would respect his courage, and more
important, his success. The Kristang rewarded success in combat, I knew that
from very personal experience. Unfortunately for him, we knew from Skippy
listening in on the two leaders' conversations that they planned to betray and
kill the laborer.

We needed to deal with the three remaining Kristang.
To put it simply, we needed to kill them quickly. And with minimal risk to
ourselves. By 'ourselves', I mean the SpecOps troops, not me. I didn't even
have a weapon, what I had carried across the surface of Newark was ammo and
part of an armor suit. Yes, I had experience in combat, I'd even killed
Kristang. With the SpecOps teams, I could only get in their way. Each team of
four or six had trained extensively with each other, knew their tactics, knew
each other, knew their roles, knew what every other member of the team would do
in a situation. Each teams had trained with other teams, and each soldier had cross
trained with other teams; Rangers had taken a place on the Chinese team,
Chinese with the SAS, French paratroopers with their Indian counterparts.
Although I had participated in some of their training aboard, and outside, the
Dutchman
,
I wasn't qualified to go into combat with them. "What do you think?"
I asked Smythe.

"It would help if we could draw those two leaders
out of cover," Smythe mused, "going to be a hell of a fire fight, if
we have to go in there after them. Two armored suits against two armored suits,
and they're bigger, faster and stronger than humans. They've been using armor
probably since they were little, we still don't have enough real experience for
me to be confident of our chances in this one. That bugger with the explosives
is the real problem, that's where we could use our suits; go in high speed and
hit him before he can react. We can't do that if we need our suits to engage
those two leaders. Somehow, we need to make that laborer disarm those
explosives, or distract him even a short time, make him hesitate." He
looked up at me. "You have another magic trick up your sleeve, sir?"

"I wish I did," I said, shaking my head
slowly. Magic is what we needed right then. The SpecOps people were committed
and brave, willing to go in and accomplish the mission, regardless of the cost
to themselves. Willing to go in, if I ordered them to. An order I didn't want to
give. It wouldn't be right for me to send them into a straight, brutal fire
fight simply because their commander couldn't think of a better tactical
solution to the problem. Yet, we'd come this far, we couldn't simply give up
now. A magic trick would be a great thing to have right then. All magic is
based on deception-

I sucked in a sharp breath. "Captain Smythe, I
may have an idea. Skippy, you listening?"

"I'm here," Skippy acknowledged.

With an attentive audience, I explained my plan.

Smythe grinned appreciatively. "Sir, I think
Skippy is right, you are an evil genius."

I had to laugh at that, despite the seriousness of the
situation. "This will work?" The SpecOps people were the experts on
what they could accomplish, and not.

"Oh, yes. We'll handle it from here, sir,"
Smythe said and turned to sketch out an attack plan in the mud.

Phase Three Bravo, that I'd dreamed up on the spot,
began by Skippy transmitting over the radio, in the clear, a message supposedly
from the Kristang who had shot down the Luzzard and the dropship, and stolen
the Elder power tap. Pretending to be one of those Kristang, from the Red Stone
clan, Skippy made a plea to the laborer with the explosives, explaining the Red
Stone clan's ship had never truly jumped away, it had been hiding behind a
stealth field in orbit the whole time. The Red Stone clan had given the
security access codes to the laborers, and if the one remaining Kristang
laborer deactivated the explosives and joined the Red Stone, he could split the
reward. Our two men in armored suits stepped over the ridge into clear view,
and began running toward the storehouse where the laborer was holed up with the
Elder AI, the precious comm node, and a pile of explosives.

Three Bravo worked, because the three remaining
Kristang heard Kristang talking to them, and saw two unfamiliar Kristang
armored suits pop up and run toward the base. The scavengers were alone on
Newark, as far as they knew. They believed our story about the Red Stone clan
instantly, because that was the only possible explanation, based on what the
scavengers knew. They had no reason to think the two Kristang armored suits
running toward the base contained anyone other than Kristang from the Red Stone
clan, to think anything else right then would be absurd.

Our deception worked as intended, the two leaders in
armor screeched angrily over the radio and stepped out from behind cover to
race toward the armory, intending to get there before the two Red Stone clan in
armor suits could. From where they were, the two leaders couldn't get a clear
shot at our two armored warriors; several buildings were between the two pairs
of combatants, and our men weaved as they ran, using low spots in the hill
slope to keep out of plain sight. The SpecOps teams had practiced this broken
field running in suits many times. Skippy's opinion was that, because of the
size gap between humans and Kristang, and the different running gaits of the
two species, a human wearing armor would look strange to a Kristang, and any
Kristang would notice something wrong fairly quickly. With our two men running
down the hill slope, leaping from cover to cover, they weren't clearly visible
long enough for the Kristang to tell those armored suits didn't contain
Kristang. Or so we hoped.

The two scavenger leaders were not making any attempt
to keep to cover, racing at the full amazing speed their suits could manage.
They were fast, almost too fast. Our entire assault team, except the Alpha team
of two men in armor, and one rifleman waiting for a clear shot at the laborer,
had our Kristang rifles sighted in on the scavenger leaders, and even with
advanced knowledge of how fast beings in suits could run, and the super
technology of Kristang adaptive gunsights, most of our first volley of shots
missed. Enough shots did hit the two scavenger leaders that they went down
quickly, stumbling and falling, skidding across the ground. Now alert to the
danger, they separated and attempted to get behind cover, they were too late.
Massed fire, with eight to ten rifles concentrating on each set of armor,
knocked them back down again, and our explosive-tipped armor-penetrating rounds
began to bite through the tough armor.