Armored Tears (16 page)

22.

The
automated sensors outpost wasn't much to look at, as far as Bernie was
concerned. It stood atop a massive stony outcropping amid a jumps of other
boulders and rocks. The outpost was just a cluster of tall antennas and sensor
pods, with a tiny concrete bunker —empty, set there to give the
maintenance crews someplace to work when they visited— at the sensor
towers' base A spread of solar panels surrounded the bunker and sensors towers
and around the entire installation was a minimal wire fence that served no
purpose except to mark the territory as off limits to anyone who might wander
by.

The
six frame carriers dwarfed the outpost, but the stony outcroppings around it
gave them some cover. Which was better than none, Bernie thought.

Everyone
was tired, and thirsty, and though the carriers' supply of water wasn't running
short yet, the captain had everyone on rationed water intake already; there was
no telling how long it would be till they made it to a place where they could
get more water. This sensors outpost wasn't that place, at any rate.

Bernie
had taken the chance to get out of her frame and take off most of her armor.
Captain Wilson had allowed about half the company's frame troopers to get out
of their frames and armor, while the other half remained on watch, weapons
ready.
           
She
was sitting on a smooth stone, doing her best to rest, watching as the captain
talked to one of the carriers' system operators about the outposts'
communication systems.

The
satellite uplink at the outpost seemed to be as non-functional as the uplinks
on the carriers.

"I'm
not sure the satellites are still up," the captain said, after the third
systems check came up blank.

The
shortwave and parabolic radios were no better. The parabolic dish was aimed at
another outpost, about a hundred kilometers away, further up north in the
Isthmus Highlands. It should have worked, no matter what had happened to the
satellites, but it was silent. The shortwave worked, but now that they had
access to the outpost's far more sophisticated comm systems, it was possible to
pick out the reason why no one was answering.

"Do
you see this line, here, Captain?" asked one of the frame carrier systems
operators, a corporal named Korrabi.

"I
see it," the captain replied. "What's it mean?"

"I
think it's jamming. Really sophisticated jamming. I... I mean, we never saw
stuff like this in training, but it looks like some sort of capture-effect
jamming. Or maybe some sort of really subtle wave modulation technique
delivering an info-war attack of some sort, that mimics a capture-effect."

"Corporal,
you're the comm expert, not me. I don't have a clue what that means," the
captain said.

"It
means we're being jammed, I think. But it's really advanced. I don't know if I
can even get a read on where it's coming from."

"Shit,"
the captain said. "Can we use the directional antenna to send a signal
past the jamming?"

"We
can try, sir. But it's aimed at a specific outpost. If the chain of outposts is
interrupted..."

"Can
we aim it somewhere else?"

"I
think so. We'd need to sweep it as we transmitted. And even then, we wouldn't
know of anyone heard us. But someone might."

"Do
it," the captain ordered. "We need a rest, and that gives you time to
try it. Get all the systems operators working on it."

"Yes,
sir," the corporal said, and trudged off to find the others.

The
captain looked over and met Bernie's gaze.

"Hell
of a thing, Sergeant. Hell of a thing."

"Yes,
sir," she replied.

"I
think... I think we'd better all suit up again. Half of us can be on watch, and
the other half can dig some entrenchments. If the enemy is hitting comm
outposts, they might try for this one, and we're way too exposed."

"Shit,"
Bernie said. "Right, sir."

She
started putting on her armor, frowning bitterly; she couldn't even blame the
captain for this; the bastard was right.

***

Lord
Wang Li Hu sat in the back of the UEN utility truck and ran his hands along the
stock of his new rifle. He was wearing a new outfit, a suit of camouflaged
battle fatigues, with a fist-sized gold star pinned over the left breast
pocket. He had a armor-plastic combat helmet on his head, with another star on
it.

His
boys... no, his
soldiers
... were
crammed in with him, and filled another half dozen trucks as well. And every
one of them had a new rifle, and a portable rocket launcher, as well as helmets
and camouflage fatigues, though theirs didn't have the gold stars. Ren had told
him that only
lords
got to wear the
gold stars.

So
far, Wang thought, having an army had been great. The UEN forces had been
mostly respectful. The officers had been OK, though some of the UEN Peace Force
troops had sneered. Ren was right, though, Wang thought. Sloppy garrison troops
could sneer all they liked; they were in no
way
as tough as his men were, growing up in the refugee camps. And besides, he'd
shown them, now, what he and his men could do.

They
had hit three Arcky settlements, places they had been too weak to hit before.
But with the firepower that the UEN gun trucks had, plus his boys'... no, his
men's
... new weapons, all three
settlements had fallen easily. The loot... the loot was good. Not many
captives, though; the Arckies were tough fighters; not many had been taken
alive. Some of the captured girls looked like they'd be worth fucking, though
the UEN pukes were
probably
right; if
he let his men start in on the girls, they'd take all day to get rounded up and
ready again.

And
anyway, Wang realized that they had moved past that sort of thing, now. An
army
like his could
always
get more loot and captives. Any time. The real prize wasn't
loot or pussy; the real prize was something much better.

What
they needed to do now was to smash the DF motherfuckers who stood between his
army and the only real prize that mattered; power.

***

Sergeant
Li Ziming had been surprised when the Peace Force captain had left him in charge
of the irregulars. The Peace Force tended to use officers for any sort of
command positions, with NCOs like Li limited to supporting roles, leading
enlisted men in executing an officer's orders. But it seemed that when it came
to trying to control a band of savage thugs, none of the officers wanted the
job.

That
was fine with Sergeant Li. It wasn't much of a command, but he'd spent weeks
training and readying Wang's forces, and he content to remain in charge now. Of
course "lord" Wang thought that
he
was in charge, but that was alright, too. Savages like Wang and his thugs had a
role to play, but it wasn't the one that they were expecting. And it was almost
time for them to play it.

"Are
your... irregulars ready, Sergeant?" asked the fresh-faced lieutenant.

"Yes,
sir," Li replied, holding himself almost at attention.

The
lieutenant was some sort of Indian by his looks, and Li didn't trust any of
them, Northern, Southern, Hindu, Muslim or any of the other strains. India was
a ramshackle place, full of ramshackle people. On the other hand, the UEN took
men from all the UEN member states, and India had enough influence to have a
lot of its people placed in officer positions. It could have been worse; the
man could have been Korean.
      

"You
understand the plan, Sergeant?" the lieutenant said, speaking in a patient
voice.

"Yes,
sir. The Arcadian framer company has been located at one of their communication
relays. Our forces will undertake an artillery bombardment, counting on the
enemy not to have laser defenses. After the initial bombardment, they will
deploy smoke. At that point, the irregular forces are to close in and attempt
to overrun the Arcadian frame infantry in the smoke. The intended effect is
attrition of the Arcadian forces and the expenditure of the irregular forces,
whereupon Peace Force frame infantry will move in to mop up. Do I have it
correct... sir?"

The
Indian lieutenant blinked. "Yes, Sergeant," he said, with a bit of
surprise, and rather less condescension, in his tone.

Well,
Li thought, maybe the man wasn't used to dealing with Special Operations. A
sergeant in a Peace Force framer company might be
just
as stupid as this lieutenant had expected.

***

Bernie
heard the inbound shells before the alarm went off, a distant whistling sound
that she couldn't make out.

"Inbound
artillery!" shouted Captain Wilson. "Take cover!"

Artillery!?
Bernie thought incredulously as she dove down into the fighting trench she had
finished excavating not ten minutes before. Who used
artillery
? Laser emplacements could shoot down almost any number of
artillery shells, and ground-skimming guided bombardment missile were more
effective anyway; modern armies didn't
use
artillery.
         

The
ground began to buck and heave as shells landed and exploded. The sound was
felt more than heard, a series of massive concussions that felt like they were
slapping her from the inside.

Clods
of dirt were coming down like drops of water from a big splash. In the rare
moments between explosions the only sound was the screaming howl of more shells
coming in. Bernie had
read
about
artillery barrages, and had seen old 2D vids, but they gave no
hint
of the utter, shocking terror of
it.

Something
heavy fell into her fighting position, hitting her across her helmet and her
armored shoulder, hard enough jar her in spite of the frame's servos. For a
moment she thought it was a big clod of dirt, thrown up by the bombardment. It
wasn't until a rivulet of blood began to run across her visor that she realized
that the object that had struck her was a severed, armored, human arm.

Bernie
shuddered, eyes wide, and huddled as low as she could, pressing herself against
the walls of her trench.

And
then, abruptly, the shells stopped. The silence was sudden and deafening.
Bernie looked up and saw that a thick white wall of smoke now obscured
everything.

"Platoon,"
she called into her comm, in a voice she barely recognized "anyone, come
in..."

"Hold
it together, Sergeant," came Lieutenant Maynard's voice. "Get your
squad up and ready; switch to thermals. If they've got infantry, they'll charge
us in this smoke."

Bernie
nodded, then acknowledged over the comm, forcing herself to follow the
procedures she'd trained in.

"B-Squad!"
she called, switching to her squad-level comm push and trying to keep her voice
for squeaking, "Heads up and scan for targets. Thermals. Use thermals. And
check your weapons."

***

Lord
Wang tried not to look too wide-eyed, but the view through the binoculars, of
the ground exploding under the fire of the UEN artillery, was... was like nothing
he'd ever seen before. It was awesome... terrible... glorious. It was beyond
any words that he knew. It was
power
.
And he wanted it, more than he had ever wanted a hit of smoke, or a woman, or
anything else in his whole life.

"Get
your men ready, Lord Wang," Ren said to him. "As soon as the smoke is
out, we'll drive at them. When we get close, your men will get off the trucks
and charge in. Shoot everyone, right? Is the plan clear?"

"It's
clear, man. It's clear. But... why not just blast them all? With those huge
guns?"

"The
guns..." Ran said. "A pair of 155mm auto-howitzers. They're old
technology. We barely use them anymore. We don't have much ammunition for
them."

"Barely
use them?" Wang asked, incredulous. "Fuck
me
, man! How could you not use them? Fuck! Wait! I want 'em. If you
guys don't use them,
I
fucking want
them!"

Ren
looked coldly at him, as the huge guns kept up their thunder and their distant
targets roiled under erupting in columns of dirt and fire. The UEN man's eyes
were suddenly hard enough that Wang felt the hair on the back of his neck rise,
like when some rival had a knife out behind him. But then the look was gone,
and Ren was back to the same bland, blank-faced look he always wore.

"Alright
Lord Wang. You want our old artillery pieces. I'll see what I can do. But after
you attack those Defense Force troops. After."

"Yeah,
man, sure. After. We'll talk after."

"Right,"
Ren said. "Now get your men onto the trucks. There's not much time before
the smoke goes out. And then you can show us what you can do, Lord Wang."

***

The
smoke was "hot smoke" which made thermals barely better than plain
visual. Worse, it made the laser targeting system of the M39 useless. Bernie
had no idea what to do, but she knew that the rest of the squad would be
looking to her, and she knew that letting her people panic wasn't the right
answer.