| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Morning Aftermath |
| Date: | Mon, 17 Nov 1997 21:29:32 +0000 |
>>>>>[Yeah, the studio wieners say there's not enough interest in this
to broadcast it. Bite me. We're reporters, we're reporting, we get paid
the same whether it runs or not.
Oh, yeah. It's coded up, there's some confidential material in here.
+++++begin trideo
The sun is beginning to rise in an ominously crimson dawn, long shadows
thrown across the plain and the night's frost glitters in the golden-red
light. The camp still smokes and burns in places, and the rocky ground
is littered with scores of burned-out vehicles and hundeds of corpses.
The four tanks sit in a wide arc, guns aimed at the road cutting to the
northwest (one's crew are busy with sledgehammers and tanker bars,
changing a damaged track). Carrion birds are already descending to this
unexpected feast.
A column of missile-armed Scarabs are returning (two towing damaged
comrades), and a LAV with a bulldozer blade is filling the craters in
the airstrip. Soldiers in Rebel uniform wander across the plain,
checking bodies and retrieving equipment. Occasionally one will wave,
and a LAV will drive over to collect a body that was wounded rather than
dead.
"Jesus, did we live through that?" Kelly Robson asks beside the camera
and out of shot.
"Yeah. Where did all that come from?" The cameraman pans to track two
Stallion helicopters as they settle carefully into landings next to the
camp: evacuating wounded, probably. Thunder rumbles in the distance.
"Don't know. Any sign of Rusanov?" Robson wanders forward, pauses by one
of the bodies. A young man, maybe not out of his teens, with a straggle
of beard framing his chin. Yesterday, someone's son, a handsome youth:
today, a huddled sack of laundry pierced by red-stained holes. The dead
boy's dark eyes are open, their lashes are rimed with frost.
"How many dead, do you think?"
"All of them?" The cameraman says, nonplussed. "I mean, it was a hell of
a mess."
A grey-camouflaged soldier is heading their way at a jog, reaching
Kelly. "You two looking for the CO?"
Robson straightens and seems to change in an instant, from a tired and
scared civilian to a professional news reporter. "Yes. Is there
somewhere I could freshen up?"
The soldier laughs. "You're kidding, right? Follow me."
He does at least walk, rather than run, covering the half-mile to the
camp's bulldozed ramparts at a brisk pace that leaves Kelly and her
cameraman breathing hard. The airstrip seems to be a makeshift dressing
station, rows of wounded laid out awaiting treatment. Another helicopter
lands, disgorging cases of field dressings and plasma before accepting
five wounded men: though the Rebels are the only ones being lifted out,
many of Akbar's wounded have been patched up, a triage system clearly
evident. The cameraman stops worrying what he's filming as he, the
soldier and Kelly struggle over the steep gravel bank.
Inside the camp, it's surprisingly intact. Though the buildings have all
been flayed by mortar shrapnel, it's done little more than scratch the
concrete: the burned-out shell of a LAV and three wrecked trucks show
what happen to vehicles from direct hits, though. The news crew are led
to the mine control room, now Colonel Rusanov's headquarters.
Inside, amidst a tangle of cables and a collection of comms gear,
Rusanov and three others are studying a holomap. "...and keep the H&I on
these junctions. Mix in scatterables too.." He looks up.
"Miss.. Robson?"
"Colonel Rusanov. Now you've destroyed Akbar's military force, what do
you intend to do next?"
Sasha looks puzzled. "Destroy his force? We defeated one brigade of his
troops. He has at least two more." His Russian accent is more pronounced
in person. "We are collecting wounded and preparing to evacuate."
"Evacuate?" It's Robson's turn to be startled. "But you won!"
"We win this fight. We cannot be sure to win the next one, with what we
have here: we had surprise and shock and enemy was stupid. Now we must
retreat from superior force."
"But what about the camp? You're under contract to defend it, aren't
you?"
"No." Sasha shakes his head with finality. "Action like this is outside
terms of contract. Contract was voided, moment when enemy with armoured
vehicles and mortars attack us. This is not contract work, this is
survival and escape for my men."
"So Akbar gets all three mines anyway?"
"Da. Though we have made this expensive and bloody business for him. Now
I have war to fight, if you will excuse me? There is another helicopter
arriving soon, will take you to firebase." Rusanov turns back to the
holomap, studying the dispositions of his troops and the reports of
Akbar's forces in the area: an ominous cluster of red markers are
advancing from the north.
+++++pause
The helicopter is a Hughes Stallion, familiar worldwide: this one has a
compact rack of avionics cans mounted high behind the cockpit, IR
jammers and decoy dispensers mounted on the tailboom, and a pintle-
mounted Vengeance minigun in each door. The floor is crowded with five
stretchers and a corpsman tending them: Kelly and her cameraman have
crammed themselves into the seats. Beneath them, the harsh rocky hills
flit by.
The view tilts as the helicopter flares and slows, settling towards the
ground and kicking up dust and gravel. Almost before its skids touch
ground, the wounded men are being pulled out and rushed towards a large
grey tent roofed with a red cross and red crescent on a white ground.
The cameraman stretches a little, looking around: Kelly's sleeping, and
he reaches out to brush her hair away from her face with a surprising
tenderness.
The Stallion's engines shut down as a coverall-clad Elf connects an
earthing clip, then jams a fuel hose into the receptacle and begins
filling the helicopter's tanks. Behind him, eight long-barreled
artillery pieces sit, well-spaced, each with pallets of ammunition
nearby and surrounded by the discarded packaging for shells and charges.
Grey-uniformed gunners are lining up yet more 155mm shells ready to
fire.
Further away, eight more vehicles sit: all the ubiquitous eight-wheeled
LAV chassis, but four mount long-barreled guns - similar, maybe
identical, to the towed guns - and are solidly braced in place by
extensible hydraulic jacks, their crews loading shells and charges into
the rear of their vehicles. The other four mount clusters of pipe on
trainable mounts, maybe two dozen tubes each.
Through the other door, two more Stallions can be seen; these, though,
mount stub wings laden with rocket pods and missiles, and belly turrets
with cannon. A poor man's conversion, no match for a dedicated gunship,
but a cheap way to put massive firepower down onto a target. They're
being rearmed, groundcrew loading long belts of ammunition into the
cannon's ammo tank and sliding rockets into the pods. Smoke stains and
occasional bullet scars show they've already worked hard.
The towed guns suddenly fire in unison, and Kelly wakes with a start.
"Where are we?"
"Landed. Some sort of firebase. This is where the artillery came from.
Where did all this come from?"
"Seattle?" suggests the reporter.
"Smartass. Anyway, we're refuelling. Then... I don't know."
"I do." the pilot, returning, says around a sandwich. Her copilot offers
a bag and a steaming cup to the news crew, who fall hungrily on the food
and coffee. "We've got a pickup to make. Want to come along for the
ride?" The doorgunners climb inside, attaching their safety harnesses.
The flight out is uneventful: after only a few minutes, a plume of smoke
can be seen on the horizon where Camp Two sits. The helicopter follows
the road for a while, and overflies a column of LAVs and Scarabs heading
south at speed.
"Where are they going?" Robson shouts over the rotor noise.
"Setting up blocking positions!" the doorgunner replies. "So anyone
chasing us on the way out gets held up!"
They skirt the camp - the carnage looks as bad from the air as it did
from the ground, though at least the corpses are less visible - and
descend, from a comfortable five hundred feet until they're skimming the
ridges. The doorgunners both power up their guns, scanning for threats.
A few more miles of this, before the helicopter rises a little. A speck
of blue light rises into the sky, falls.
"I see a blue flare, repeat blue." The pilot says: after a moment,
adding "Rog. Coming in."
The helicopter settles to land on the crest of a hill, apparently the
same as any other: until three men rise into view, as if from nowhere.
One wears dusty and battered Rebels camouflage, another an unfamiliar
desert pattern, and the third is dressed like one of Akbar's men. All
carry assault rifles, and there's a common factor to their bearing: a
quiet and professional confidence, perhaps.
The two uniformed men speak to the third as if bidding him farewell,
then run to the Stallion with the crouched gait that becomes instinctive
under a helicopter's rotors. The man in Rebels fatigues glances at the
news crew, and says simply "Broadcast that and I'll kill you both."
"No problem." The cameraman says. "Who's he? A spy?"
"If you like." The helicopter lifts. "He's an infiltration
specialist."
Both men appear to be Native American: honour feathers in their hair,
faces camouflaged in a subdued pattern that still resembles war paint.
Both drop and stow their packs and unload their rifles, then sit as the
Stallion lifts off and turns to race back to the firebase.
"So it's _not_ all over? Rusanov intends to fight on?"
"We're gathering intelligence. We want to know who did this and why.
Someone's backing Akbar and we want them. Don't broadcast any of this.
My friend here's wanted in some jurisdictions, you could get him in a
hell of a lot of trouble if you showed his face." The Rebel - his
nametag reads "Lynch" shrugs.
"Yeah. There's personal curiosity involved here too, you know." The
cameraman suggests.
"Okay. Still off the record? Good. Short answer is, someone's going to
splatter Akbar off the face of the Earth. The Corporate Court do not
like the precedent that you can grab corporate assets by military might
just for the hell of it and they want Akbar gone. We're convenient.
Expect us to get heavily reinforced by a megacorp or three. The Court is
basically hiring some of its members' military muscle to back us up, to
send their message."
"Why do they need you? I mean, your gear isn't exactly state of the
art..."
"Nope. But our troops are more experienced, we know the terrain and the
enemy better, and for us it's personal." Lynch stretches his legs and
sighs with relief, as the Stallion parallels the highway for a few
moments and the column of battle-scarred mine trucks and LAVs can be
seen, the Rebels escorting the surviving miners back to the firebase.
Glancing back, both soldiers already appear to be asleep.
+++++end trideo
Not just cool. Frosted.]<<<<<
-- Kelly Robson <21:22:56/11-17-58>
Turner News Network
