For a very long moment, the little group of amphibious predators eyed one another. Then, apparently deciding that the odds weren’t in its favor, the crocodile turned in his own length and slithered back into the mangrove knees, disappearing from sight.
Quillain and the squad leader carefully and quietly released a couple of imprisoned breaths.
“You Tarzan, Skipper?” The noncom whispered, grinning into the night.
Quillain returned the knife to his harness. “Fuck Tarzan,” he replied darkly. “Me Cheetah.”
“Carondelet advises they have Hide S1 at Conflict Reef secured,” Christine Rendino reported over the link from Floater 1. “Site unoccupied as per intel projections. No contact with hostiles reported. Rations, light military stores, and fifty gallons of gasoline captured. Miscellaneous documents recovered. Lieutenant Clark is standing by for further orders.”
“That was the easy one,” Amanda replied, speaking softly into her headset mike. “Have the Carondelet’s landing team document the hide on video and then destroy it.”
She had no real reason for keeping her voice low. The seafighter was station-keeping in the shallows five hundred yards off the coastal mangrove line. Still, instinct was strong.
“Have the Carondelet team extract and reposition to support the Queen and the Manassas,” she continued. “Tell Clark to expedite. He’s our force reserve now.”
“Roger. Will comply.”
Amanda sat at the small navigator’s station in the Queen of the West’s cockpit, striving to maintain a situational awareness of both her flagship’s mission and that of the task force as a whole.
All cockpit lights and telescreen gains had been turned down to bare minimum and the blackness beyond the wind screen had a steamed velvet tangibility. Up forward, she could barely make out the silhouettes of Steamer Lane and Snowy Banks. Bulked out by K-pot helmets and by the composite foam and Kevlar battle vests that could serve as life preserver and body armor both, they sat silently ready at their control stations. Overhead, Chief Tehoa manned the cockpit weapons mount, positioned behind a massive pair of Browning heavy machine guns. A blessed trickle of comparatively cooler night air leaked past him through the open hatch.
“What’s the situation with Santana at Rio Compony?”
“Hide L1 is now also secure,” a faint trace of jubilation crept into Christine’s voice. “And Santana has scored! No gunboats, but a garrison was present on site. Three guerrillas captured and one dropped in a short firefight. No casualties our side. Four hundred gallons of gasoline, a stack of documents and large stocks of rations, equipment and armament have been captured. The assault team leader reports at least enough to outfit a full platoon. He has a perimeter established and he wants to stay on the beach until daylight and have another look around for more supply caches in the area.”
“I concur, Chris. This one’s a keeper. Have Santana and her Marines hold on station until Guinean government forces can relieve them. What about the Sirocco and Manassas teams?”
“Still positioning. Should be ready to move soon. No unusual activity indicated in any of the hides we have drone coverage over. No atypical radio traffic. We’re still looking good, boss ma’am. The penny hasn’t dropped yet.”
“Acknowledged, Floater. Maintain operations as per the mission plan.”
“Roger. Floater is out and on the side.”
Christine dropped off link.
Almost immediately, however, another transceiver ID number blinked on the communications telepanel. A digital electronic hail was being received from another transceiver integrated into the command net.
Amanda captured the channel hack with her joystick controller and opened it with a blip of the thumb button. “This is Royalty. Go, Mudskipper.”
“At estimated channel departure point. Turning inland. Request position verification.”
Captain Quillain’s voice was husky and sibilant, a whisper amplified by the com system’s automatic gain control.
“Stand by, Mudskipper. Verifying now.” Amanda turned her attention to the tactical display screen.
From their prior reconnaissance, they had learned of two conventional lanes of approach to the Union boat hide. One was from the sea, a narrow tidal channel running almost a full kilometer back into the coastal mangrove swamp. At that moment, the Queen of the West was standing off the mouth of that channel.
From the landward side, a single narrow, snaking trail ran in along a natural causeway through the tangle of marshy rain forest to an area of higher ground at the head of the inlet.
The last few yards of that approach were covered by both claymore mines and a machine-gun emplacement.
The plan developed by the Queen’s raider force had been to take advantage of a second, smaller tidal channel that ran parallel to, but some 500 yards to the west of, the first inlet. Going ashore at the mouth of the second channel, Quillain and his men would follow it to a point directly opposite the Union boat hide. From there they would brush-bust across through the mangroves, taking the camp from its undefended flank.
Stone Quillain’s SINCGARS radio had an integral Global Positioning Unit in addition to its communications circuits. Now Amanda accessed that unit via an encrypted datalink microburst, acquiring a download of the landing team’s position. A few moments later, a friendly unit hack blipped into being on her tactical display, the Queen’s navigational system integrating the Marines’ position into its operational database.
The hack was at the proper point on the graphics map. Quillain and his men were where they needed to be.
“Mudskipper, your position is verified,” Amanda replied over the voice circuit, relishing the commander’s luxury of knowing the exact location of her deployed forces. “Bearing to objective is zero eight seven true. I say again, zero eight seven true. Range to objective four niner zero meters.”
“Acknowledged, Royalty. Movin’ out.”
“Good luck, Mudskipper.”
There was no verbal response, just a double click on the transmitter key.
Amanda leaned forward and touched Steamer Lane’s shoulder. “We’re starting final approach. Take us in.”
The hover commander nodded. He rolled forward on the propulsor pod throttle and shifted his hand to the dial of the steering controller. The Queen of the West ghosted ahead on her silent electric drives, her blunt bow aimed at the mouth of the tidal channel.
Snowy Banks spoke lowly into her headset mike, a hoarseness to the normally light and true tone of her voice.
“All stations. We are proceeding upchannel. All gunners, we are guns hot. I say again, all gunners, we are guns hot.”
Overhead, Chief Tehoa yanked back the cocking levers of his twin Brownings, the lead shells in his ammunition belts jacking into the firing chambers. Releasing the levers, he allowed the bolts to slam forward again. The metallic chuck chang! of the cocking machine guns rang in the tepid darkness.
It can be startling how quietly a body of well-trained and heavily armed men can move through heavy undergrowth. All equipment is buckled tight and taped down; nothing is left loose to snag and catch. Rifle barrels probe ahead, carefully bending and brushing aside branches and vines without breaking them. Boots are lowered in millimeter increments, sensitive to even the faintest touch of resistance from a cocked twig lying on the ground. And, of course, there is absolutely no acknowledgment of clawing thorns, clinging insects, or the sticky-slimy caress of the jungle.