Episode 16

I Have a Target

“Squad—recon—let’s get our bearings.”

We peered down towards Malliol, seeing the city for the first time. It wasn’t a great view, thanks to all the smoke. I’m sure on an average morning the spires glittered in the red of the rising sun like an elven citadel amidst the rolling fields and all that shit, but right now it was a stark green and black image in my goggles.

They had blocked off the road with piles of junk—everything from vehicles to massive concrete block, sandbags, and coils of razor wire. We could see more than one road into the city from our slight elevation, and they were all a complete obstacle course.

I knew the colonel was receiving film feeds from some of our goggle recorders. Though he almost certainly wasn’t watching them himself, the techs would feed him data from streams of interest.

Our guys were all over the place now—I could see them scattered here and there, crawling under the smoke. I zoomed in on the enemy positions, looking to see what we faced. Beyond the scattered pockets of artillery, cannons and mortars were plenty of troops. I tried to make sense of the various groups based on the data feeds I’d absorbed on the trip into the system. Some of those guys were Corwistalian regulars. Uniforms were what we’d already seen in previous assaults. Then there were guys in simple slacks, shirts, books and caps—more like police. Those must be city militia, local volunteers. And then—yes, I saw some seriously decked out guys in armor, with crested helmets. Those were elite troops of some sort. Maybe the prince’s guard, actually.

Colonel Emerson’s voice came over the radio, calm and clear. “Men, move in close. Bravo and Lima company—send your squads to take the Palace Drive entrance. Delta, move around to Fairview—and get those troops on the bridge. Kilo—continue on your present course down towards the main road and bust ’em up. Squads—get me tags on everything we need to hit as you go and we’ll drone ’em for you. You must break the artillery on the edges of the city—they can’t hit us effectively from inside. Take ’em down!”

“Launch smoke, Kilo!” came the voice of Captain Marks, and our guys did, as did others. Four-eyes had a launcher. Jock was sticking to his tablet and just his rifle, navigating us in. I had a few hand-thrown smoke grenades and a few primitive frags but from this far out they weren’t worth anything.

Sporadic enemy fire answered the smoke but the Corwistalians obviously didn’t know where to shoot. We ducked and ran in quickly, staying behind what cover we could as we came into a more suburban area. Houses, kids’ play equipment, parked cars—we were running down sidewalks through the smoke, getting close to the nests. Here and there along the road we saw abandoned belongings and trash, marking a quick evacuation of the civilians. There was a lot of smoke in the air thanks to multiple burning houses and vehicles from the shelling. We were separated from the rest of Kilo company now as teams spread out through the neighborhood. It was just the eight of us. Just how I liked it. Quick and deadly.

A rattle of fire tore past me, shredding the leaves off an oak and I ducked lower. That was close—just up ahead somewhere.

“There,” Jock hissed. We jumped a hedge, then saw a chainlink fence on the other side of a small road with neat sidewalks. Past the fence—there! The barrel of a machine gun lit up from the hillside rising above a field—a sports field. I eyed it up—yeah, they were plenty high enough to spray rounds down to the main road. Sandbags surrounded the position, and I could make out at least a half dozen men manning the nest.

“Drone team—I have a target,” Jock said. “Bring the fire—on the tag.” As he said it, Park popped up his tripod and lit the targeting laser, putting a drone-visible dot right inside the nest. Fortunately we were using an invisible spectrum laser—if we’d been one tech level down, that thing would have glittered in the smoke and brought fire on our heads quicker than you can say shock and awe.

“Now we wait,” Jock said—but even as he did, a vehicle rolled slowly up the street between us and the park, coming through the neighborhood. It was a truck, two guys in the back, two in the cab. “Back behind the hedge, keep that laser on target,” Jock ordered.

“Going real slow, Sarge,” Private Leighton observed. Rocky already had taken aim with his rifle.

“Smoke—they can’t see well. And hold fire,” Jock said. “Not our target. Just stay down.”

They rolled closer, then closer. And then they stopped at our end of the block—right in the path of the targeting laser.

Jock cursed. “Turn it off—Park—off! If that drone is over us right now–” Park grabbed for the tripod but snagged his uniform on the hedge, knocking it to the ground with a clatter.

Then everything happened all at once. The guys in the back of the truck ducked and opened fire—Rocky fired right back at them—and then the radio erupted into static and clods of dirt flew into my face as I staggered back from the fence to find a better position.

“Abort!” Jock yelled into the radio. “Abort the drone now!”

But they didn’t hear us. All there was on the other end was noise.