| From: | Paul J. Adam Shadowtk@********.demon.co.uk |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Hit and Run |
| Date: | Fri, 7 Apr 2000 13:54:00 +0100 |
>>>>>[My first field command.
Not an unalloyed success. But pretty good for a first-timer, huh?
+++++begin video
Jules walks up the track, scanning the forest carefully. No deer, which
isn't much of a surprise (they've probably learned to avoid the fire roads)
but, today, no hunters in sight either. The young British ex-soldier
_probably_ wouldn't have shot them for getting in his way...
Probably, not certainly. What _is_ clear is his relief at finding the area
clear, at least to casual inspection.
He breaks track a little short of a hill crest, follows the slope downwards
until the trees peter out at a weld-mesh fence. Every few yards, a sign
proclaims "DANGER - NO ENTRY - GUARDS WILL USE DEADLY FORCE" in
Salish, English and Spanish, all below the grinning skull-and-bones that
should be pretty universal.
Tucking himself behind a tree, Jules checks his watch (0524 local), a Nav-
Dat portable locator (wherever he set as his destination, he's within
twenty yards) and finally starts shedding gear.
The lever-action rifle goes first, propped against the tree. Then the
shoulder bag, which thumps to the forest floor with an ominous weight:
last, the rucksack, which earns a groan of relief as it comes off.
"Next time, I take a partner. Enough of this macho bravado hundred-
pound-combat-load bullshit." Jules mutters to himself, as he opens the
shoulder bag. Inside it, are four olive-drab tubes, and the black
phosphated steel of a Heckler & Koch belt-fed medium machine gun. The
H&K goes beside the Winchester rifle for now, as two of the cylinders go
into the fence, wires curling back to Jules' tree.
On the other side of the wire, across two hundred yards of flat, mown,
grass, is a cluster of buildings; one low, solid, concrete structure, and a
cluster of prefabs. On the roof of the concrete building, is a spindly tower
built of scaffolding, with two men just visible at its top. Jules seems to
move in fits and starts, perhaps when those men are looking away: his
eyes might have magnification, the camera doesn't.
"Irish. T minus five. You in position?"
"Setting up." A gruff voice replies. "We'll be ready unless you hear from
us." Meaning, don't clutter the airwaves with detectable traffic, unless you
hear different I'll be ready on time.
"Blondie. Entry team in position?"
"Standing by, m'sieu." An accented voice. "Ready when you are."
"Good." Jules finishes wiring the Bangalore torpedoes in the fence, to his
detonator. "Four minutes and counting. Wait for my signal."
He takes his time, over the final preparations. Taking five nylon-wrapped
belts of ammunition out of the rucksack: one goes into the H&K's breech,
three more are unwrapped and linked end-to-end to give eight hundred
ready rounds, the last belt goes over his shoulder in best movie-hero style.
Not the ideal way to carry MG ammo, it twists the links and increases the
risk of a jam, but it leaves your hands free (which the ideal methods
don't).
The other two green cylinders prove to be shoulder-fired antitank
weapons, with yellow stencilling of cartoon instructions and Cyrillic text.
As his watch counts down past one minute to go, Jules carefully unfolds
and extends both weapons, laying them beside his machinegun. Loading
the free end of the belt into the machinegun, he works the bolt to cock
the weapon and strip the disintegrating-link off the first round, leaving
the weapon ready to fire. The last thing he does, is to settle a hockey
mask over his face, hiding his features.
Thirty seconds. He picks up one of the antitank rocket launchers, balances
it across his shoulder.
Fifteen seconds. Jules is fidgeting nervously, until he mutters "No
cigarettes until _after_ the job's done." A last tightening of his gloves, to
give his hands something to do.
Five seconds, and he reaches for the detonator.
At T-2 the fence blows apart, the Bangalore torpedoes tearing a ragged
hole in the welded wire mesh. Almost exactly on T=0, Jules squeezes the
trigger on his first LAW.
By the time the projectile's hitting its target, the young ex-soldier has
discarded the empty launch tube and picked up the second: firing that,
too, at the guard tower as the first five-pound warhead explodes against
a corner. The second warhead hits dead-centre. One was probably
enough: two, eliminated that tower as a threat.
The second detonation occurs as Jules tosses the smoking launch tube
aside, and pulls the H&K MG47 into his shoulder. The corporate site, two
hundred-plus yards away, lies exposed under his sights.
Jules sprays off fifty rounds, wildfire into the accomodation prefabs. Not
much chance of hitting anyone, but enough to let the occupants know
they're in a warzone. By the time he's finished, though, someone's firing
from the opposite side of the site and its clearing. Someone with a heavy
automatic grenade launcher: someone who's placing careful bursts of
delay-fused concussion grenades inside each prefab in turn.
Two figures break cover, firing at the treeline. Security guards, shooting
at the drifting smoke of Jules' opening gambit. They don't have a good
target or they'd be shooting better... Jules shifts his shoulder, fires,
aiming low: walking the burst across their legs. Still maybe lethal, but it
gives them more chance to survive.
A moment to check both are down (they are, one screaming helplessly in
agony, the other struggling to use her medkit on the messy wounds in her
thighs) before he shifts his fire to the concrete building, raking it with
three quick bursts before hosing the prefabs with a hundred rounds, fired
a little high. Anyone not concussed, would _definitely_ be getting the
point that staying put and staying prone is wise.
Staying put inside the prefabs means breathing the gas grenades Irish is
methodically pumping into them, of course, but better Neurostunned than
machine-gunned...
"Blondie! Moving!" on the radio, as another explosion blows a hole in the
fence. Half-a-dozen camouflaged shapes run across the open ground: Jules
and Irish increasing the intensity of their cover fire, to ensure that nobody
interferes with the thirty-second sprint.
"We're inside." Blondie reports, as Jules checks his weapon (barrel smoking
hot, though still within parameters: about six hundred rounds fired). "Un
moment, un peu de difficile-"
Jules looses a short burst into a prefab that showed movement. "Irish,
sitrep?"
"Loaded and ready. Enough ammo left to be useful. I got this covered."
"Okay, I'm going in. Yell if you need me."
"Will do, kid."
Jules doesn't protest the 'kid' - at least, not from Irish. Instead, he picks
up the Winchester lever-action and runs through the gap he'd blown in the
fence: sprinting the two hundred yards at a respectable pace.
Reaching the concrete main building, he slings the Winchester and reaches
inside his jacket to draw a HK227K submachinegun, before he moves
around the corner to the loading bay and the ragged ruin of the roller
door that once blocked it. Gunfire echoes inside the constrained
structure.
The loading dock is empty of living people, though three security guards
lie in spreading black pools. Further inside, is trouble: first heard, then
seen, as Jules picks his way into the building.
"...I said, come _here_, kitty!"
"You leave her alone-"
"Oh, you want some of this? You wanna be a hero? You wanna be _dead_?
Yeah? Kitty come here, kitty gonna play, and you get to watch." A cocky,
confident male voice.
"Hey, Jones, I don't think-"
"You right, you _don't_ think. You watch them while Kitty and me play.
Then you get _you_ turn."
"I _better_ getta turn."
"You gonna. You hear, Kitty? You gonna love this, you got two big healthy
Redmond rude boys hot for you pretty self."
Jules keys his radio, checking that the selector on his compact
submachinegun is set to AUTO. "Blondie, sitrep."
"We are in the lab. Clearing carefully, in case we missed an opponent.
Jones and Whale are guarding the prisoners, Tight Ass Joe is dead."
"We may be about to lose Jones and Whale." Jules says softly.
"Merde. I told them, to behave-"
"Look at it this way - it's fewer ways to share the payoff."
"C'est vrai." Blondie agrees. "And they are not my friends."
Jules steps around the doorjamb, weapon raised. The room is lined at one
end with kneeling civilians, hands behind their heads, facing the wall. One
DPM-clad raider covers them with a shotgun, though glancing back to the
amusment behind him: the other raider is tearing at the clothing of an
attractive young woman, having already ripped the buttons off her lab
coat and now trying to make a start on her blouse -
"Jones!" Jules snaps. Whatever the reasons for the British Army turning
him down for commisioning, nobody could fault him for the tone of
command in that one word.
"Fuck off, sir, you can have her after me'n'Whale have had-"
Jules delays his reaction by a half-second to point the HK227K one-handed
at the hostages, a couple of whom had turned to see what this new
element was. That done, he braces into a two-handed firing stance, aims
for a moment, and fires a five-round burst.
Jones lets go of the pretty female lab technician and says "Uh.". He
touches his chest, looks at the incredibly red, frothy blood coursing out of
the small neat punctures in his torso, and says "Uh?" again.
He has time to stare, horrified and incredulous, at Jules before his legs
collapse under him.
"Whale. Guard them." Jules says, conversationally. "If they behave, leave
them alone. Don't kill them. Don't rape them. Don't do _anything_ to them
unless they try to escape. Understand?"
"Yessir!"
"Jonesy said 'yessir', Whale. It seems 'yessir' means 'fuck you, sir, I am
going to do what I fragging well like'."
"I'll guard them and leave them alone unless they make a move. Sir."
"Good, Whale." Jules steps over to the lab tech. "Ma'am? Please accept my
apologies for this terrible misbehaviour."
"Just... leave me alone, okay? I never saw your face. I don't want to die."
"You don't need to, unless my idiot cheap help screw up _again_. Join your
friends, please." She does, in a hurry. "Whale, I told all you guys, no
freelance amusement. You _see_ what happens when you don't listen to
me." Whale simply nods, looking badly scared.
"Jules? Blondie. We have it. Coming out."
"Good. Jones is dead."
"C'est la vie. He was not a good man."
"Which was why he was molesting the prisoners?" Jules asks.
"Better that, than hiding when I needed his help in a gun battle. He is no
loss, mon general. Prisoner casualties?"
"One upset, nothing worse."
"Bien. We are coming out."
+++++end video
Irish and Holden had hightailed it by then, lugging the launcher back to
their vehicle. Blondie gave me the box when she came out, and I just ran
for my hole in the fence, grabbed my weapons and got out of Dodge fast.
Gather my gear, run to the car, hide the weapons under the false back
seat. And, as I hit the highway, take off the hockey mask: it would look
suspicious, otherwise. Ten miles clear, in a picnic area that was empty
(still barely six a.m.) I changed into proper civvies and switched plates on
the car.
First shot to out-and-gone, nine minutes. The first Ares helicopter didn't
arrive until eight minutes after we were gone. That worked.
They've got Jonesy and Tight Ass Joe to autopsy... good fragging luck,
SINless losers from the High Lord Killers are not exactly easily traced to
me. Wish I'd had better help... but I at least had Irish and Blondie, who
both definitely have their drek together. Those two, are worth
remembering.
And La Dona has her box. A small carved wooden box, with a great many
teeth inside, carved from green jade. Or she _will_ have, when I deliver it
and get paid. She got her vehicles and most of her weapons back (albeit
with some interesting forensic history, if anyone gets a chance to
crosscheck them against Ares databases) as well: we left them at the
agreed dropoff points, and made our own ways home.
Already the cynicism is rubbing off: I think I'll have Blondie cover the meet
from a distance. Just in case.
It doesn't hurt, to play safe. I don't expect a problem... but then, who
ever does?]<<<<<
-- Jules <13:53:34/04-07-61>
