Temo heard the boom, felt the ground shake, and smiled approvingly as she turned to watch a column of black smoke rise from the top of Signal Hill. Her grandmother’s death had been avenged. Now with a half file of troopers to do her bidding, she was about to settle another score. Resistance had been lighter than expected. That meant the legionnaires and Antov’s Rifles were elsewhere. Out on a training exercise? Or marching toward Headstone? One of the two. It didn’t matter. Antov wasn’t in the field. Not with his leg. That was all she cared about. Weapons rattled, people screamed, and the slaughter began.
Behind Antov’s waterfront home, and on the other side of Bay Road, a steep trail switchbacked up a slope to the spot where he and his wife had enjoyed occasional picnics. He hadn’t gone up there in years. Not since her death.
But the hill would give him the advantage of height and a place from which he could harvest as many Ramanthian lives as possible. Maybe he would stuff one of the bastards and put him next to the fireplace!
First, however, he had to drag his ass up the hill, which was hard to do on crutches, and get into position. Santana would return, of course. And bring the newly formed battalion back with him. But it would be too late by then. The TACBASE was gone, along with all of the supplies stored inside. The three-legged quad had given a good account of himself, though-before being blown off the hilltop. All of which had been reported to CENTCOM using one of only four hypercom sets on O-Chi 4.
Antov looked back over his shoulder as the remaining aerospace fighter circled above. Heedu was about fifty feet to the rear, carrying two heavy rifles plus a backpack filled with ammo and other supplies. “Pick up the pace,” Antov ordered. “I’m on crutches, for God’s sake. You should have passed me by now.”
Heedu made no reply as Antov turned back and redoubled his efforts. He arrived at the picnic spot three minutes later. Someone else might have been tempted to pause and look out over the destruction, but Antov wanted to kill some bugs. Sightseeing could wait.
So he chose his spot, flopped onto his belly, and called for the Hawking. Having just arrived, Heedu knelt, gave the long-barreled rifle over, and began to load the second weapon.
Antov felt a grim sense of satisfaction as he put his cheek to the rifle and looked through the telescopic sight. Houses were on fire, and smoke was drifting across the scene below, but at least half a dozen targets were shuffling south.
Rather than alert the entire file by shooting their leader, Antov guided the crosshairs onto the spot where the last bug was about to be and squeezed the trigger. The stock slammed into his shoulder, and the Ramanthian went down as if poleaxed. Antov smiled as he worked a second cartridge into the chamber. The report had been loud, but thanks to the incessant chatter of Negar assault rifles all around, it had gone unnoticed.
So Antov killed the next trooper, and the next, until a trail of five bodies lay in the road. All head shots. Then, with a single bullet remaining, Antov prepared to take the leader down. But, as he made the necessary adjustment and the final target filled his vision, Antov saw something entirely unexpected: Major Temo’s face! The rotten bitch had not only gone over to the enemy-but was taking part in an attack on her own people.
Well, not for long, Antov told himself, and pulled the trigger. But that was the moment when Temo turned to look back over her shoulder. The bullet missed by less than inch, she saw the bodies, and broke right. Antov swore, put the Hawking aside, and said, “Give me the Walby. Quickly now.” Nothing happened.
Antov swore again, rolled over onto his side, and was about to rip into Heedu when he found himself staring into the Walby’s barrel. The weapon was steady, and, judging from Heedu’s stance, he’d been practicing with it. “What the hell?” Antov inquired. “Have you lost your frigging mind? Give me that weapon. We’ll discuss this later.”
“There will be no later,” Heedu replied woodenly. “Not for you.” And with that, he pulled the trigger.
Temo was scared. And for good reason. Every single one of her Ramanthian troopers had been killed by a sniper located on the rise behind Antov’s house. Could it be Antov himself? Quite possibly. He was arguably the best shot on O-Chi 4. So if she were stupid enough to raise her head above the concrete retaining wall at the side of the road, he would blow it off. Fortunately, there was a simple solution to her problem.
Temo removed the Ramanthian radio from an ammo pouch on the front of her chest protector, fumbled with the squeeze-style mike control, and identified herself. Then, speaking distinctly so as to avoid any possibility of a misunderstanding, she gave the necessary order.
Moments later, the fighter made a lazy swing to the south, came north again, and began to lose altitude. The dart-shaped aircraft was no more than a hundred feet off the ground when its pilot released the fuel bomb. There was a flash of light as the top of the rise was consumed by a rising ball of fire. Rivers of red flowed downhill, set the brush ablaze, and stopped just short of the road.
Confident that the sniper was dead, Temo stood and continued up the road. The plan had been to find Antov and kill him. But when she arrived at the house, she found that the front door was open, the servants had fled, and its owner was nowhere to be found. That made her feel even more confident that Antov had been killed.
Temo left through the front door and walked away. It wasn’t until three minutes later, when she was halfway to the Ramanthian extraction point, that she gave the final order. The fighter swooped in, a bomb fell, and the Antov house ceased to exist. The mission was complete.
From Santana’s perspective, the first two days of the field exercise had gone fairly well. By giving Alpha Company to Captain Jo Zarrella, Bravo Company to Rifles Captain Motu Kimbo, and Charlie Company to Scouts Captain Corin Ryley, he had been able to spread the leadership responsibilities around. And by assigning each company commander a quad, six T-2s, and eight legionnaires, Santana had been able to ensure rough parity among the three units. It was a strategy intended to build morale and ensure operational flexibility. Because it would be a mistake to rely too heavily on any one company.
In an effort to make the exercise easier to control, the war game had been held on the Antov family’s coffee plantation. The trees were laid out in orderly rows, and there wasn’t any underbrush to contend with, which made it easy to move around. Weapons, food, and other gear were stored in a half-empty warehouse, where they were kept under guard.
The rules of engagement were not only simple but very similar to a game called capture the flag that Santana had played as a boy. The main difference was that the battalion was divided into three teams rather than two.
The first thing each team had to do was take control of the territory assigned to it and hide its flag in keeping with Lieutenant Ponco’s rules. Each company commander could divide the force into groups of attackers and defenders, using whatever criteria and percentages they considered to be appropriate.
With that accomplished, it was time to hide the unit’s flag, position defenders around it, and send people out to capture enemy flags. Individuals who were caught and tagged were placed in prisons where they were held, traded for other POWs, and sometimes freed by opposing special-ops teams.
The rules were intentionally simple so that the company commanders could demonstrate initiative and creativity, which they immediately did by forming alliances, employing spies, and launching sneak attacks. There were verbal conflicts and some fistfights, but Ponco was able to keep things under control, which left Santana free to observe.