| From: | ANGLISS BRIAN EDWARD <angliss@****.Colorado.EDU> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Lynch's View |
| Date: | Fri, 15 Mar 1996 16:51:44 -0700 (MST) |
>>>>>[Lynch went AWOL for a bit, but he asked me to put this up for him.
+++++begin
Others are telling their tales: well, I'll tell mine.
I was with the HALO team, and the first out. On the drop we could see that
they'd already made the plane, the SAMs were coming up before we'd even got all
seven out, and at least one of Blade's squad - Lieutenant Kahler, the leader -
died in the air when the missiles hit. The guard towers must have guessed that
the plane had been there to drop a team, and they opened up like ammunition was
going out of fashion. Blade and I had to come in on the south end of the
bunker, or risk being caught in our shrouds in an interlocking field of minigun
fire.
I was never so glad to have six septillion tons of Earth slap me across the
feet as I was then, believe me. Down, roll, and hit the quick-released: no
worries about gathering *that* chute and repacking it! We landed on top of the
bunker itself. The damn chute blew off the end of the bunker and wrapped itself
around some poor sucker who was watching the wire: with all the noise and
light, he'd missed me landing twenty yards behind him. He started to thrash and
yell before I shot him - silenced pistol - as Blade landed near me.
We were pretty badly scattered. The mage was out in the open, Blade and I were
on the roof but at the wrong end, we had two by the entrance - already trading
fire with the guards, losing one but killing two - and Walacher was completely
outside the armoury perimeter. I started laying grenade fire on the Maxim
troops on the perimeter - flash, smoke and concussion, there wasn't much hope
of getting shrapnel through their armour, but I wanted to spoil their aim while
Nazario moved to rejoin us. He got hit, Blade had to go get him, but one of his
team and I kept suppressive fire on the gomers while they did it.
So far we hadn't even needed to talk, let alone break radio silence, and while
we had come down scattered the Nightgliders were joining on us: the magician's
hundred-yard dash had drawn enough fire and attention that most of the gliders
made it down in one piece. The defences at the armoury fence were, thankfully,
set up to keep attackers out, and they weren't as well prepared for a force
landing inside the fence: their own defensive obstacles were impeding them by
that point. There was a team still in the armoury, though, and we were trading
fire with them - well, shooting at their firing slits at least - while slash
rigged the door to blow. During all this, we're taking and returning fire from
the Maxim troops on the wire, who are getting more and more numerous and bad-
tempered.
It was about then that my overpriced comms gear decided to show how good it
was, when it not only broke onto the Maxim tactical net but DF'd the guy who
was talking at the time. You see, he was saying "Bravo Four Two, this is
Whiskey Three One Alpha. Fire mission, Target Charlie, spot, over" to their
mortars. I hear his words, I have his signal pattern, and there's a fuzzy glow
in my vision giving me an idea of where he is.
The nice thing about a Smartgun II is that it lets you reach right out to touch
people. The Alpha's not a sniper rifle, but at 126.2 metres it can put three
rounds into a helmet faceplate without too much trouble: the Maxim guys were
spread out enough that I could break out who was transmitting and kill him.
And I had a cruddy approximation of his voice already - you'd never fool
someone in person with an internal voicemask, the 'mimic' feature is usually a
party toy, but over a partly-jammed radio net on men in combat, it works just
fine - and as the first round burst near us, I said "Four-two, this is three-
one-alpha, drop seventy and fire for effect, dolly mixtures, emergency rate.
Out."
Alternate WP and airburst HE, fifteen rounds per tube per minute, and there
must have been eight 81mm mortars firing. They only fired for about thirty
seconds, but it was enough. There had been most of a company there before,
moving up and around towards the gate while they tried to keep us pinned: I
don't know how many of them lived through the barrage, but the smoke and dust
and flame blocked that area off as a threat for a while and bought us some time.
They cut the fire, changed frequencies, and I was off the air: but by then we'd
smoked off the armoury and Slash had the door open - damn near vapourised - and
we were busy grenading everything inside. Chemicals, concussion and flash.
(Frags and willy-petes aren't a good idea in a nuclear storage bunker, my
skillchips told me <g>)
Apparently we got nailed with some sort of spell on the way in. I have to say I
didn't notice, too hyped and too worried about what we might find inside the
bunker. Lo, Blade and I took point going in: everyone inside was dead or
unconscious.
The weapons were what I'd expected: the old US B-97 design. Ares acquired it
over a decade ago, and Maxim must have stolen it from Ares. I didn't have to
improvise at all: just let the skillsoft talk me through it. The explosives
around the core, and their detonating circuit, are critical: shaped charges,
the same as a HEAT warhead, except instead of forming a jet of plasma they
compress a hollow plutonium core into a sphere, much denser than it should be.
Destroy the timing mechanism that sequences it all, and the weapon is
incapacitated: then pack the core with thermite, and you melt down the
plutonium into a puddle. A non-critical puddle, too, the shape factor is wrong.
I didn't have time to see how Buzz did his wrecking, but he was as thorough as
I was.
It only took fifty seconds to sabotage four weapons. Buzz was slower, but then
his arm was such a mess you can hardly blame the man. Just as I'm crimping the
detcord to daisy-chain the thermite charges, everything goes batshit: my vision
locks into thermal-only at maximum magnification in one eye, my hearing shuts
down completely, my nose and ears start bleeding like someone turned on a hose,
and how I remembered to hit the sonic neutraliser I still don't know. That got
me sound and vision back, but my rifle was still sparking and crackling: the
screamers must have wrecked the smartgun hardware. All my comms gear was
recycling, and I'd lost all the data on Maxim's encryption: so I could pretty
much forget about any more radio games.
And this was the point where it really hit the fan, because while I'm getting
everything back on line and finding out what I have left to fight with,
something big and nasty is coming for the bunker. Meanwhile, Slash has just
discovered that our radio detonators got wrecked by the screamers, and Nazario
- who's in a bad way - just takes the backup deadman switch. I didn't
consciously notice at the time, though I should have. Griffyn used some sort of
spell to blow a hole in the wall, I still had my shotgun - the smartlink was
still working, too, the holster must have shielded it a little- and since I
wasn't going to need the doorbusters any more I used them to clear the
reinforcing rods and widen the gap until it was large enough to use.
While I was reloading with sabots, Lo and Blade are falling back. This is now
my first close look at a Maxim Quad, and I've already decided I don't like
them. Lo and I move up and we're laying fire, trying to keep it back: it's
already thrown some sort of acid bomb, it's packing more ordnance than a
platoon of infantry, and it's inside the bunker with us. Her HK227 didn't seem
to scratch it: 5.56mm APDS, it was wary of, at least enough that it wouldn't
let me get a clean shot. Normally I'd have been last out, but Lo didn't seem to
be in a hurry while I was there. Blade warned me she worked first in-last out
for her people, so I left her to it.
It didn't hit me until Blade helped me out of the hole that Nazario was still
in there. I had just skipped over the fact that he was chewed up so badly and
holding the dead-man switch, zero delay. By the time I figured that we were
leaving him to die, Lo was coming out, I was trading shots with one of the
Quads that was still outside - it went down, whether just from the impacts or
from fatal damage I don't know - and then we're running like hell because Slash
planted an eight-litre FAE in that bunker and it was going to blow any second.
I hit pretty hard getting prone when the FAEs went off behind me, and I was
surprised as hell: that bunker was *tough*, it just collapsed. A FAE that size
should have made it rain concrete for days. I don't know where Slash got his
info on that bunker, but I might have to find out: that was a *good* source.
Anyway, while we're fire-and-manoevering clear of the armoury - Maxim moving
more troops in on us, all of us skirmishing back and trying to slow them down
while covering ground - two things happen. One, they pop a salvo of illum on
us, and two a second Quad unit comes over the wire at us.
I'm firing HEDP grenades at the Quads, and I get a very unsatisfying hit on one
- my only hit on a Quad to produce a known result, which infuriatingly was none
at all that I could see: direct hit, square in the chest, and the damn thing
just kept running. While I'm cursing and wondering what to do, some sort of
spirit proceeds to materialise out of nowhere and smashes Blade to the ground.
>From the bunker roof, remember. I heard several somethings break when he hit,
and it sounded painful.
I, dumb gunbunny that I am, turn, aim and fire completely by reflex: wasting
the rest of a clip on a magical being, that doesn't really understand the idea
that you're meant to fall down dead when people shoot you. Perfect grouping and
pattern, a dozen rounds into an area the size of my hand, smack in the middle
of its chest. That should have dropped a CVR-7: this toxic spirit shows its
appreciation by slapping the Alpha out of my grasp. The buttstock hangs up on
my forearm while my hand's still on the pistol grip, and it's my turn to hear a
nice crisp crunching noise as first the plastic reinforcements, then the bones,
give way. About 0.01 of a second later, the pain breaks through my damage
compensators. Lots and lots of pain. I hardly even notice the minor detail that
my expensive, new, off-the-shelf, almost-unfired Alpha is dissolving where it's
lying on the ground. Still, could have been worse. If it hadn't been for the
bone lacing, I might have lost the hand outright.
The spirit's eating Slash, Dracon Daimyo's fighting it with a katana, one of
the Quads zaps Lo with a laser - she's hurt but functional - Griffyn's
doing some sort of magic, and one survivor from the Quad that hit us at
the armoury is racing around to flank us, thinking we're preoccupied. He
was nearly right, it was only luck that let me see him.
He came out from behind a bunker and into my fire. Twelve-gauge APDS will
defeat CVR-7 armour, boys and girls, though you'd better fire the whole
magazine to be sure. After the frustration of seeing them bounce HEDP, this
made up for a lot.
His friends didn't like that at all. *I* didn't like that at all: I was firing
right-handed, resting the SPAS on my forearm, and the autofire shook my broken
wrist so badly that I compounded the fracture. But seeing that metallic
motherfucker go over was worth the pain.
As I'm trying to reload (it's a damn sight harder than usual when only one hand
works) I see there's another spirit - one of ours - between us and the Quads,
and two of the Maxim metal monsters are discovering that it's screwing up their
lasers. Whatever other weapons they have evidently aren't in range yet, and
they must have seen what happened to their buddy: now they're being a lot more
cautious in their approach. Suddenly spirits are appearing around us: one of
them goes for the toxic that Dracon Daimyo's fighting, another picks up
Slash and whoosh, gone, over the fence and out towards the treeline.
We have a few moments, and Buzz and I move to get Blade, who isn't moving. Lo's
team had biomonitors, Blade and I don't, and I don't know what sort of shape
he's in. As Lo, Griffyn and Dracon Daimyo are moving to join us, someone
drops a willy-pete right on them: the Quads had called in mortar fire on
us. Damn thing must have been guided, it was right on the money. The
next one is a HE groundburst, not five feet from me. That hurt.
Instinctively putting out my left hand to land on *really* hurt.
While I'm trying to bring the world back into focus, and wondering if I have
time to splint this thing, and then wondering how much blood I'm losing - the
whole side of my body is wet with the stuff, and I know it can only be mine -
Lo breaks EMCON to tell us the Quads are moving in, though the bunker's
blocking them for now. I can't see Blade: with a few hand signals, Lo tells me
one of our spirits has lifted him clear. Buzz and I grab Griffyn and start
hauling him towards the fence. Buzz very considerately acts as a firing rest
for me when I see a couple of baby drones in the wire - they must have been
spotting for the mortars - and finally, those fucking starshells burn out.
Finally. 81mm illumination paraflare, burn duration fifteen to twenty seconds.
Fifteen seconds, and it seemed - looking back, still seems - like a lifetime.
Now we can see why the guard towers are all firing into the wire, instead of at
us: zombies. Walking (or in some cases crawling) dead bodies, shambling towards
the perimeter through tracer fire, only heeding the mines as an inconvenient
removal of a foot, backlit by a dozen or more fires in the forest and scores of
smaller blazes - grounded paraflares, WP hits, burning bodies, a wrecked
helicopter, less identifiable debris. Pretty intense: I hadn't seen anything
like this since Gallivare, five years ago. More tanks, fewer zombies, back
then <g>
Behind us, I hear the explosions of a surprise gift that someone left for the
Quads: one goes into a spastic seizure. Control system, probably, disabling it
and almost certainly lethal to its occupant. The explosion persuades some
smartass in a tower that we're more interesting than shooting at the corpses
cadavres, and I use my last two smoke grenades to screen us off: I would have
done more, but I'm down to the shotgun and a pistol and the LMG has me
outranged.
The spirits show up again. One lifts Buzz and I, the panda takes Dracon
Daimyo and Lo. I put my last rounds of sabot down on the most exposed
Quad, I don't even know if I hit him or not, then we're suddenly in the
trees.
It takes me seconds to realise I'm out and alive, and that the thunder of
gunfire is coming from some distance rather than all around me. I ditch my
helmet - trying not to look at the damage it's taken - and take inventory.
I've got twenty rounds of 00 buck, so I reload the shotgun: that, and my old
Predator - my father's pistol, my good-luck gun - are all I have left. Next, I
uses two of the useless magazines for my now-dissolved Alpha and a field
dressing to finally splint my wrist, trying to ignore the trickles of blood
where the bone had broken the skin. My right arm, side and thigh are a mess of
small shrapnel rips, mostly the arm and my hip where my armour was lighter:
nothing I can do about that right now, and the bleeding was already slowing.
There's no sign of Dracon Daimyo, and Lo's only just being carried in: she's
missing most of both legs below the thigh, and has a lot of shrapnel
damage. I only found out from her simsense that she'd come down in the
minefield and trod on a MC antipersonnel mine.I start doing what I can:
which is basically just finish amputating the ruin of her left leg and
tie off the stumps so she won't bleed to death, and then give her a big
jolt each of No-Shock and Coraxine. Then a walking corpse shambles up
and puts Dracon Daimyo, paralysed, down by the other wounded. I try hard
not to stare at it and to act normally.
It gots kind of hectic again about then. Luckily, I'm still articulate enough
to explain that I'm a trained paramedic and that if I can walk and provide
first aid, I'm a lower priority for treatment than someone with their vital
organs hanging out of their body: I can help with triage and do physical medic
work to help the mages out, because they're beginning to come apart at the
seams with so many wounded needing their help. I was tired and fuzzy enough
that someone had to stop me from trying to treat a zombie's wounds <g>
We're doing all this on the move to the backup RV, where I get to see just how
many people - our people - I got killed and maimed with my bright idea about
artillery.
Right now, though, our transport is arriving and we're loading the wounded. One
of the magicians, a woman who calls herself Diana - the corpses seem to do what
she says - does something to my hand so I can at least use it a little. She's
damn near dropping from all the work she's done, I don't try to argue with her
or say others need it more, because it is nice not to have that pain being the
centre of the universe for a while. And all this time we're beating feet most
ricky-tick. Looking over my video, the time from the jumpmaster's first "Go!"
to us boarding the trucks out was less than five minutes: I don't know exactly,
the ultrasound screwed with my clock chips.
The ride out was almost anticlimax. I scrounged Blade's leftover twelve-gauge
ammo, and those of us who were still conscious and capable concentrated on
killing the drones Maxim was sending out after us. Most were spotters, and they
were the worst because Maxim started hitting the road with artillery fire. They
didn't have or at least didn't use any FASCAM rounds, or we probably wouldn't
have made it out: as it was, we were able to kill the spotters that designated
us for smart rounds before the shells hit. Result, clean misses. We got a few
nearer things from salvoes that were just DFing the road where they thought we
might be, but that was about it.
At Phnom Penh, we switched vehicles and herded ourselves into a cargo
container. AJ had planned ahead well: the container was well-stocked with
medical gear and I was able to get a drip of Hartmann's going into Lo. The
Hartmann's solution, blood expander, was at the right temperature already: that
guy is sharp. Quite a few of us had luggage, in my case just one of my usual
overnight bags: a change of clothes, a certified credstick, and a Browning
automatic. In this case, a red contaminated-waste bag, too. Once I had done
what I immediately could for the wounded, I ditched the combat gear, all of it,
into the waste bag: it wasn't desperately hot, but I'd added another half rem
or so to my lifetime dose that night. I did a quick decontamination on my
Predator, though, and checked it - cold, at least compared to background. I
cleaned it properly since, of course.
My side, right arm and right thigh were a real mess, caked with sticky drying
blood, and I took the time to clean it up and pick out the most obvious
shrapnel. before I cleaned and dressed what I could, gauze and micropore tape
to keep the dirt out. By now, my INS as well as my ears said we had been loaded
onto a truck, shifted into an aircraft of some sort, and were heading east at
about four hundred and fifty knots. My INS also said we were somewhere over
Africa, but then screamers will do that to you. AJ's going to have to do a
little repair work and a lot of recalibration for me, but it can wait. I was
glad to see nothing vital went down, though, compared to how badly Buzz got
hit. Once I looked a little more human and had plugged the leaks, I went back
to patching casualties. We had plenty.
Someone must have cleared us through Customs very slickly: either good fake
papers, corporate cover, or plenty of palm grease. You could hear the shift
from cargo hold to a truck bed, we drove a while, and we came out of the
container into the loading bay of Action Jackson's clinic: very neat, very
fast, right to some excellent medical gear and some extra help. I don't think
anyone else will die now, not with this sort of care available. Everyone should
be able to be rebuilt. I owe AJ one, I hope he knows that.
I'm writing this to post when I come out, so nobody will see it until the 16th
or so: AJ doesn't want attention drawn to his place, and also doesn't want
anyone except him and his crew using the new matrix satlink there, since he
irrationally believes that Maxim may harbour some sort of grudge against him. I
call it paranoia, myself <g> He'll start to think that people around him work
for covert Government agencies next, if you ask me.
He wasn't even going to let me call in my report to the Agency, until I gave
him a ten-figure grid reference for where we were: my INS was screwed, but GPS
was still working just fine. On the other hand, I don't think he needs to worry
about me being a threat to him unless he does something like try to eat me: and
there's not enough of me to make a snack for a vampire, let alone a meal.
And he had been good enough to make sure he had a stock of whiskey as well as
other pharmaceuticals, because I had real trouble sleeping the first night. I
still keep seeing Nazario, there in the bunker, left to die alone.
But he did his job well, he died a warrior's death, and it was truly a good day
to die.
If I say that often enough, maybe it'll stop bothering me.
+++++end
Drek, there's someone else who knows where the frag Dad's clinic
is....]<<<<<
-- Diana, Mistress of the Night <16:45:29/03-15-57>
