Task Force (20 page)

“Angel Team, status check!” Chisnall yelled, and got a chorus of “Oscar Kilo.”

“What about the driver?” he asked. Price was already up by the grille peering through. She shook her head.

“Are you sure?” Chisnall asked, clambering in that direction to look for himself.

Price stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. “Don’t, Ryan. It’s not something you want to see,” she said.

The lights inside the MPC flickered a couple of times, then went out, but a hammering sound came from the rear of the vehicle and light and fresh air poured in as Monster wrenched and kicked the buckled rear ramp open.

Wilton clambered to the door and pushed past Monster, who grabbed him by the collar and jerked him back inside, saving him from a volley of Bzadian bullets that would have taken his head off.

The Demon’s MPC was behind them and the fifty-cal on the roof was pouring fire into the surrounding forest. But the
gap between the vehicles was widening. The MPC was reversing, following its own tire marks back out of the minefield.

“Hey! Hey!” Chisnall yelled, sheltering behind the now-vertical rear ramp.

The Demons came to a halt about a hundred feet from the Angels. A hundred feet that might as well have been a hundred miles. Chisnall knew they would be dead before they made it halfway to the other MPC. Even if they made it, the entry ramp was on the far side of the vehicle. It was suicide to try to get there.

But where else could they go? The Demons’ vehicle was the closest refuge from the hail of gunfire around them.

Varmint’s voice came in on the Angel channel. “Get over here!”

“We’ll never make it!” Chisnall yelled. “You get over here!”

“We can’t! It’s a minefield!” Varmint yelled. “You come here!”

“We’ll never make it!” Chisnall yelled again.

Varmint must have thought so, too, as he didn’t try to argue. The MPC began to reverse a little more.

“Varmint, you coward!” Chisnall yelled, but then realized his mistake. The MPC was turning, a quick one-eighty to bring the rear of the vehicle—the ramp, and safety—around to face the Angels.

The ramp of the vehicle was already half-lowered and Varmint was in the rear doorway, one hand on the door edge, one hand on his coil-gun, ignoring the incoming rounds, laying down covering fire. Whatever he was, he was no coward.

“Come on! Come on! Get in here!” Varmint yelled.

“Get closer!” Chisnall yelled back.

“Come on!” Varmint yelled.

“Get closer!” Chisnall yelled again.

“Don’t be such a little girl!” Varmint yelled. But that was the last thing he said before the MPC disappeared.

It happened so quickly that it was merely an imprint on the mind’s eye, and it was only afterward, when Chisnall ran the scene back in his head, that he could see clearly what happened.

The Demons’ MPC executing a three-point turn on the narrow country road.

The ramp that was half-open, exposing the innards of the armored beast.

The streak of light from the edge of the forest. An RPG that should have bounced off the reactive armored sides of the MPC.

The whistle of air as it rocketed past Varmint, through the open doorway, right inside the MPC.

The endless moment that was only a fraction of a second when it appeared the round had been a dud.

The white space and white noise that filled the exact same space where the MPC had been, as the rocket detonated the Demons’ demolition charges.

The blinding light that was gone in an instant as the buckled ramp of the Angels’ vehicle slammed shut, protecting them from the worst of the blast.

The explosion shunted them forward and, somehow, Chisnall found time to be afraid that they would hit another mine.

When the roar and the incredible blast of superheated air subsided, Monster kicked open the ramp door again, and they stared out at the crater where the Demons’ MPC had been. At the hole in the road. At the void in the universe.

“Azoh,” Barnard managed.

The others, including Chisnall, were too stunned to speak.

A curious lull had settled over the forest after the explosion, their attackers also stunned or knocked unconscious by the shock wave rippling out through the trees.

“Azoh!” Barnard said again.

BY 08:00 HOURS, OPERATION MAGNUM WAS IN TROUBLE
.

The Haigslea Forest ambush by a relatively small force from the Borallon Defense Barracks had stopped the task force in its tracks.

The Bzadian defenders had laid antitank mines ahead of the convoy and had also mined the road behind the task force once they had passed in order to block their retreat. The task force was trapped and under heavy fire.

It was the German Kommando Spezialkrafte who saved the day. The doors of their MPCs were open before the vehicles had stopped moving and the elite German special forces soldiers melted into the forest.

The Bzadians found themselves in a fierce gunfight among the trees, which halted the attack on the convoy and allowed the rest of the task force soldiers to dismount and follow the Kommandos.

The fighting was brutal, and sometimes tree to tree. The smoke from the burning tanks was so dense that a human and a Bzadian could be on opposite sides of the same tree and not know the other was there. Some of the Kommandos put away their guns entirely and drew their knives, slipping through the forest like ghosts.

The fierce fighting amid the smoke-shrouded trees continued for over an hour before the Bzadians were forced back deep enough into the forest for a mine-clearing team to secure a path.

The convoy, now comprising just seven tanks and fifty-nine of the original seventy MPCs, headed south out of the forest, then north, across open farmland.

Finally, they were back on their original course, but the operation, already an hour behind schedule, was delayed another hour. Hours that would prove crucial in the battle to come.

THE MPC BUMPED AND BOUNCED OVER THE UNDULATING
farmland, cutting across country to get to the highway, skirting around the killing zone of the Haigslea Forest.

The Angels were in the rear of Task Force Actual, the command vehicle. So many vehicles had been knocked out in the forest that it was the only free space. Unlike most MPCs, it was divided into two sections, with a command module at the front and seating at the rear. Colonel Fairbrother and three command center staff were busy on the radios, consulting maps and monitoring views from aerial cameras that flew over the convoy in tiny, hand-launched drones.

The Angels sat in the back. They watched each other,
unwilling to speak, the silence growing into a rigid wall between them.

Barnard was the first to break it. “What a moron,” she said.

“I thought he was brave,” Wilton said after a moment.

“He was stupid,” Barnard said. “Just a dumb grunt. Drawing fire like that.”

“He saved our lives,” Price said.

“Dumb Pukehead,” Barnard said.

“I’d have done the same,” the Tsar said.

“Oh, you’re such a hero,” Barnard said.

“I think I would too,” Wilton said.

“Yeah, really?” Barnard said. “You’d give up your own life to save these guys? Don’t be an idiot. They don’t even like you very much.”

“That’s not true, Wilton,” Price said. “Don’t listen to her.”

“I would, if it came down to it, yeah,” Wilton said.

“Why would you do that?” Barnard asked. “Get yourself killed. Why would anyone do that?”

“Great men are always prepared to lay down their lives for their country, or their planet,” the Tsar said.

“You’re not a great man,” Barnard said. “You’re not even a man. Not yet.”

“Can it, Barnard!” Chisnall said.

Barnard had taken off a combat glove and was wiping at her eyes. When she took her hand away, they were dry but red-rimmed. “And I suppose the same goes for you, Wilton,” she said. “Are you a great man?”

“I’m no hero,” Wilton said.

“Then why?” Barnard asked.

“It’s just, you know,” Wilton said, with a slightly embarrassed look around at the others, “we’ve been through a lot together.”

“So what?” Barnard asked.

“I wouldn’t want to let them down,” Wilton said.

“You’d rather die first?” Barnard asked.

“If I had to,” Wilton said.

“Boo-yah,” Monster said quietly.

Barnard considered that for a moment, staring at Wilton. He turned away, uncomfortable under her gaze.

“I still think you’re an idiot, Wilton,” Barnard said. The corners of her lips curled upward in a rare smile. “But not all the time.”

“You knew Varmint somehow, didn’t you?” Chisnall asked Barnard.

“John. His name was John,” Barnard said. “He wasn’t the idiot you guys seem to think.”

He wasn’t an idiot at all
, Chisnall thought.
Far from it
.

“Barnard, were you and he …?” Price asked.

“No, I told you. Nothing like that. It was …” Barnard stopped and took a deep breath. “It was on the voyage out. I was wandering around the ship. It was late.” She paused, and there was silence except for the growl of the engine and the rumble of the tires on the rough ground. “I was up on the deck. I ran into three of the Russians.” She carefully avoided the Tsar’s eyes. “They were drunk.”

“Drunk?” Chisnall asked.

“Must have smuggled something on board,” Price said.

“They cornered me,” Barnard said. “Asked me for a kiss.”

“A kiss?” Wilton asked.

“They were egging each other on. Said it was the closest they’d ever get to kissing a real Puke.”

“So I gave them some lip, which pissed them off. Then I tried to push past them, but suddenly it was vodka breath and hands everywhere. There were three of them, and they were a lot bigger than me,” Barnard said.

“Jeez!” the Tsar said.

“It was going badly, if you know what I mean, and the next minute someone else was there, laying into them.”

“Varmint?” Chisnall asked.

Barnard nodded. “I don’t know where he came from but that evened up the odds a bit.”

“They’re real tough, those Spetsnaz guys,” the Tsar said.

“Maybe, but they were drunk, I was angry, and Varmint was one hard-ass son of a bitch.” Barnard said it matter-of-factly. “It was pretty even. Then a squad of Kommandos turned up, out for a training run. The Russians disappeared real fast.”

“Why wasn’t this reported?” Chisnall asked.

“On the eve of the operation? What good would it have done? We’re all on a suicide mission anyway. Put it down to bad vodka and worse timing.”

“Why didn’t you tell
me
?” Chisnall asked.

“You would have reported it,” Barnard said.

“I …” Chisnall stopped himself. She was probably right.

“What do you mean, a suicide mission?” Price asked.

“You figure it out,” Barnard said.

“Freaking Russians,” Wilton said, then glanced at the Tsar.

“I mean …”

“Don’t judge all of us by the actions of a few,” the Tsar said.

Barnard reached across to the other side of the vehicle and put her hand on the Tsar’s knee. The action surprised Chisnall in its intimacy. It clearly surprised the Tsar as well. As she continued to hold his knee, without speaking, he grew more and more uncomfortable, but she did not remove her hand.

“I don’t judge you by them,” Barnard said eventually. “I judge you by you.”

The Tsar held her gaze.

“I know what happened at Hokkaido,” she said.

The Tsar said nothing, still holding her gaze.

“I know and I don’t care,” Barnard said. “Just stop pretending you’re a hero.”

All eyes were on the Tsar, and he stiffened and straightened.

“I’ve got news for you, sweetheart,” the Tsar said. “I’m not pretending. We could use a little more of that around here.” This last was followed by a pointed glance at Chisnall.

A low growl came from Monster’s throat.

“Be very careful what you say from now on,” Price said.

“Go easy. Maybe he’s right,” Chisnall said.

“Not in my book,” Wilton said.

Barnard let go of the Tsar’s knee and leaned back in her seat.

“Yeah, Tsar, you’re a hero,” Barnard said. “The kind of hero who gets other people killed. Chisnall, he’s the kind of hero who’s doing his damn best to get everyone home alive.”

Chisnall looked up, surprised that Barnard would stick up for him like that.

“It’s not about us surviving. It’s about completing the mission,” the Tsar said. “If the LT can’t see that, then maybe he’s not the man for the job.”

“Who is? You? Forget it,” Barnard said. “These guys love Chisnall. Look at them. They would never follow you. In fact, they think you might be a traitor.”

“That’s not true,” Chisnall said.

“Really?” Barnard said. “You thought I was.”

Chisnall opened his mouth to reply but shut it again. She was right.

“Why would you accuse me of that?” There was surprise and anger in the Tsar’s voice, and Chisnall didn’t think he was acting.