"Saber six, this is Lancer," his internal comms net interrupted him. Reno made it a practice to assign colorful names to the stations within his own net, although it was forbidden by regulation. You had to add a bit of dash to things, if you were going to compete with show-offs like Tercus over in First Squadron.
"This is Saber six, over."
"We've got one," the other station said. "Looks perfect. Isolated. No nearby combat reserves. It's ours for the picking. Over."
"Roger. Report approximate size."
"Looks like eight box-bodied vans backed into a cluster. With a few dozen utility vehicles scattered about. No shooters."
Reno thought for a moment. The site sounded just about perfect. Safe. Manageable. They could do it quickly. Get it over with. Taylor wouldn't even know about it until it was too late to do anything about it.
"This is Saber six," Reno said. "Transmit grids to my navigational aids. Take out the support vehicles, just to be on the safe side, then have the dragoons secure everything. I'm on my way. Break. Second Saber, this is Saber six. Take over the squadron. I'm going to help Lancer capture an enemy headquarters site. Out."
Taylor was a fool, Reno thought as he strolled through the picturesque, carefully spotlit wreckage of the enemy field headquarters. It was really a very minor facility. But you wouldn't be able to tell that from the photographs.
"Sir, if you could just move a little bit to your left. There. I'm getting too much backlighting," Reno's staff photographer said. The enlisted man raised his camera to his eye.
"Well, move your goddamned lights," Reno said irritably. Taylor had scratched the idea of any dismounted operations except in emergency situations. But this was, of course, simply a matter of seizing the initiative. Taking advantage of the opportunity to capture an enemy headquarters. No one could challenge him on that. And the press would love it.
Reno stepped over an Iranian body. He waved his hand at the photographer.
"No. Too gory. Wait until we get outside and we'll take a few shots with the prisoners."
The media would be desperate for photos. The Pentagon would try to fob off "strategic" imagery that meant little to the unpracticed eye. The press would be only too grateful for on-the-ground human interest pictures, complete with the tale of a daring raid on an enemy headquarters.
Reno descended the ladder from a ruined van and stepped out into the darkness.
"Where the hell are the prisoners?"
"Over here, sir." A flashlight clicked on, lighting the way.
Reno turned to his photographer. "You're sure you've got the right goddamned film in?"
"Yes, sir. No problem, sir. The pictures are going to be great."
Reno's boot caught something heavy and slightly giving and he almost fell face forward in the snow and mud. He slammed his boot down into the object to steady himself.
"What the hell's this?" he demanded angrily.
"Sir," a voice came out of the darkness. "That's one of the friendly casualties. When we were dismounting, the Iranians—"
"Get him the hell out of here," Reno snapped. "You," he told the photographer. "No more pictures until all of the casualties have been cleared away. Understand?"
"Yes, sir."
Reno's dismounted cavalrymen scrambled to clear their fallen comrades from the scene, while the photographer arranged his battery-powered spotlights. In a few minutes, the photo session was able to resume.
Reno stood proudly in the cones of light, jauntily training an automatic rifle on a group of Iranian officers and men whose hands reached up to catch the falling snow.
It was a great day to be an American, Reno thought.
Air Captain Andreas Zeederberg of the South African Defense Force was in a bad mood. His deep penetration squadron had been only fitfully employed during the offensive, and now, promised a high priority mission, he found himself leading his aircraft against a rust heap.
"Old Noburu's got an itch," his superior had told him, "and we've got to scratch it."
There were not even any verified military targets in the Omsk industrial complex. But, what the Japanese wanted, the Japanese got. Zeederberg liked to fly, and he liked to fight. But he was getting a bit weary of Japanese imperiousness. And now there was a damned outbreak of Runciman's disease back at base. The squadron's energies would have been better spent in displacing their entire operation to a new, uninfected site. Instead, they were wasting mission time bombing big pieces of junk into smaller pieces of junk.
Zeederberg smiled, despite himself. He pictured some poor old sod of a night watchman in the Omsk yards when the enhanced conventional explosives started going off. Wake up, Ivan. There's a nice little cossack.
In a way, you had to pity the Russians. Although they had certainly made a cock up out of their country, Zeederberg would have felt more at home fighting on their side against the Iranian brown boys. Still, you took your shilling and did what you were told.
Old Jappers with a touch of nerves. And everything going so well. They wanted the Omsk site leveled. Completely.
What's the hurry? Looking at the overhead photos, Zeederberg had figured that, if only they were patient, the place would fall apart on its own.
Suddenly, the aircraft leapt up into the darkness, then dropped again, bouncing his stomach toward his throat.
"Sorry about that, sir," his copilot said. "We're entering a bit of broken country. Nasty bit of desert. I can take her up, if you like. Two hundred meters ought to more than do it."
"No. No, continue to fly nap-of-the-earth. We will regard this as a training flight. We shall make it have value."
Zeederberg snapped on his clear-image monitor, inspecting the digitally reconstructed landscape. Barren. Utterly worthless country.
His copilot glanced over at him. "Makes the Kalahari look like the Garden of Eden," he said.
It occurred to Zeederberg that men would fight over anything.
"We'll hit a sort of low veld to the north, sir," the copilot continued.
The navigator's voice came through the headset, unexpectedly nervous and alive. "I've lost Big Sister. I think we're being jammed."
"What are you talking about?" Zeederberg demanded. He hurriedly tried his communications set.
White noise.
"Any hostiles near our flight path?"
"Nothing registers," the weapons officer responded. "Looks like clear flying."
Probably the damned Iranians, Zeederberg decided. Jamming indiscriminately. "Keep your eyes open," he told the commanders of the eight other aircraft in his squadron, using a burst of superhigh power. "Minimize transmissions. Move directly for the target area. If we lose contact, each aircraft is responsible for carrying out the attack plan on its own."
The other aircraft acknowledged. It was a bit difficult to hear, but they possessed the best communications gear the Japanese had to give, and they were flying in a comparatively tight formation. The messages could just get through. But communicating with a distant headquarters was out of the question. The jammers, whomever they belonged to, were very powerful.
Zeederberg felt wide awake now, despite the heaviness of the predawn hour. The jamming had gotten his attention. The on-board systems read the interference as broadband — not specifically aimed at his flight. But you could never be too careful.
The mission was growing a bit more interesting than he had expected.
"Let's go with full countermeasures suites on," he told his copilot. "I want to isolate the target area as soon as we're within jamming range. And then let's do another target readout. See if they've got the digital sat links jammed too."