“The Epetar people believe we are coming up as security forces in support of them,” Jake continued. “We will encourage them in that belief as long as possible in order to infiltrate the facility. In line with that, they are expecting us to report to this area,” he pointed to a loading dock on one end of the building, “for briefing on the situation and deployment within the building. Which we will do.
“We will be carrying buckley PDAs, and only buckley PDAs, for full compatibility of communications, secure from the enemy. We will insist on keeping members of the same platoons as close together as possible. I do not anticipate any trouble persuading the Epetar people to comply.
“Major Kelly will brief you on the mission plan for location and liberation of hostages.”
Specialist Quackenbush, 19, who did not know that his company XO now classed him as “the FNG with the AID,” stopped one of the other guys in his platoon as they rechecked their webgear for the mission prescribed equipment. “Hey, what the fuck is up with these mission orders? Vigilantes? Corporate terrorists? Is the old man off his nut? I mean, what the fuck are his fucking orders? Really, honest to God, is he insane? Dude, I’m seriously asking.”
“What the fuck is your problem, Quackenbush?” Specialist Grady hissed. “If you think for one moment that the old man would disobey his orders, or maybe you don’t have confidence in the rest of your chain of command, then what the hell are you doing in the service and how the hell did you make it here?”
“Well, excuse me for breathing, Grady. You find nothing strange about this?”
“Cherry, did you ever maybe think we’ve got the term ‘Fucking New Guy’ for a reason? Shut the fuck up and follow your orders. The old man knows what he’s doing.”
Quackenbush received a professional ass-chewing that took less than half a minute and left him feeling about two inches high when Sergeant Mauldin relieved him of his AID, again, before they climbed into the choppers, popping the little computer neatly into some kind of envelope and tossing it in the back of one of the jeeps in the motor pool before climbing into the bird. He grimaced as he tried to orient the PDA that the sergeant had shoved into his hands instead so that he’d be able to use the thing, and hoped it didn’t snow or something and break his AID. This buckley didn’t even have a damn personality overlay. He shut up miserably in his seat among the other Bravo guys. He was in the doghouse for sure, and right now had no idea whether the world had gone crazy or he had.
Sergeant Major Mueller pulled him aside a few minutes later as they got off the chopper. The enlisted man resigned himself to another ass-chewing and maybe even an article fifteen.
“Look, son.” The old sergeant clapped a hand on his shoulder in a fatherly manner. “You’re in a counterterror unit. We’re liberating civilian hostages. Just keep your eye on the ball, and your mind on the mission. You’ll do just fine. And if you don’t, I’m going to shove a size sixteen boot up your ass so far my toe is going to be kicking your tonsils.”
The loading bay was large, for what it held. Three stories high and a bit larger than half a basketball court, it stood mostly empty. Made largely of Earthtech materials, the Galtech portions had the look of replacements and repairs, as if someone had been uninterested in building new, but had had such ready access to Galtech materials that cost was an afterthought whenever anything needed repairs. Boxes stood in palleted stacks along the walls, separated in clumps as if grouped for type. A couple of forklifts sat in the middle of the floor, as if their operators had knocked off without parking them away.
The mass of men in green-detailed coveralls either ignored the forklifts or leaned against one as they listened to the shift supervisor explain why they had all been called in after six o’clock on a fucking Friday. Turned out one of the suits had a wild hair up his ass about some corporate raid that probably existed only in his imagination. The general mood among the guards whose shift it wasn’t was pissed off, except for the ones who really needed the double-time pay, coming up on Christmas. The general mood among the guards whose shift it was was pissed off, on account of not getting paid double-time along with the other guys.
The half dozen DAG troops who weren’t actively patrolling had positioned themselves on one side of the mass of security guards, giving them a clear field of fire across the bay. They had picked the side nearest some stacks of boxes they could retreat behind for cover. That gave them the cover boxes, and the boxes on the far side of the hostiles, to absorb ricochets in the bay. The haphazard mix of Galplas and cinderblock walls was unlikely to be fun as backstops. Better to ruin the enemies’ day than their own.
Six specwar troopers with pistols and shotguns, versus sixty armed idiots. The odds were jimmied by the two or three juved war veterans, riffed out and working at whatever they could get on planet. That, plus the shells in the DAG guns, all of them, which were supposed to be rock salt but weren’t. Buckshot was downright unpleasant for human targets, not to mention the other little specials among the shells on their belts. The number of shells had had many of the regular guards making snide remarks about expecting ice on the roads.
The Bane Sidhe operatives, which all of them also were, had each security guard classified more in the category of “target” than “human.” To the extent that they considered the guards people at all, the men classed every facility guard based on their willing employment in support of an organization committing atrocities against civilians. Nobody in DAG, Bane Sidhe or not, had problems with killing bad people.
The DAG guys had no anticipation that they would be killing these particular guards in this particular place, or in the next few hours, or at all. They each followed the general principle of having a plan to kill everyone he met. When off duty, but together, the counterterror troops resembled a wolf pack between hunts. When operational, the troops — being all O’Neals and in the same unit, to boot — moved in an easy flow so coordinated it was almost telepathic.
Their distribution now differed little in kind from their distribution around the civilian security people for the past couple of weeks. The specifics followed the tactical situation. Without ever seeming to realize why, one or two of the guards had developed a strange tendency to jump at small noises when the DAG guys were around.
Cally, still taking point, opened the door to the loading bay and immediately tried to step backwards through it, seeing that Mr. Murphy had finally struck with a vengeance. Unfortunately, she’d been seen.
“Hey! No, goddammit, don’t you dare leave. You’re fucking late and I’m not repeating myself just because some asshole who couldn’t be on time didn’t get the memo. Get your ass down here, and you better believe I’m docking your pay for this. Who’s your supervisor?” All of this left the shift supervisor’s mouth in a rapid-fire staccato burst, without pause for breath.
He was approaching the base of the stairs as he said it, obviously to continue chewing her out, so instead of retreating, Cally continued down the right half-flight of stairs, noting the six-inch steel rim rising at the floor of the landing and running along the line of the stairs down on each side. She’d seen better cover, and worse.
Having seen the troops deployed along a line at right angles from her team’s angle of entry, and realizing that an unintentional ambush could still be close enough for government work, counting the odds, she made an instantaneous decision.