Episode 27
Strategic Objective Achieved
The rest of the sabotage went off without a hitch. As we got to the last one, I looked in an almost empty hanger and spotted an unattended hoverjeep on my thermals.
“Hey boss,” I said to Jock, “can you spare me for a minute?”
He nodded and I jogged over to the hangar. It was pitch black and I could see the engine of the jeep was still warm from having been run within the last few hours. Good, it was working then. To my great delight, the keys were in the ignition.
This was really turning out to be easier than it should have been, but that was all the fault of the Ulimbese. Their perimeter was about a kilometer out. Last thing they figured was that someone inside that guarded line was going to be fiddling with their stuff. I cranked the engine and the skirting of the jeep rose from the floor. It was almost like antigrav or like taking a flat-bottom boat out on a lake. You just glide over everything. As a bonus, the jeep had a mounted gun and some ammo in it. Life was good. I cruised up to the last gunship as the men jumped down from the wing.
Jock looked at me and the jeep and grinned. “Nice,” he said. “Shotgun!”
I laughed and the guys jumped in, then we headed back to join Leighton and our accidental prisoners. When I got there, a couple of the guys jumped out and joined Leighton. And then we saw someone walking rapidly across the tarmac in the near darkness towards us. “Evening,” he said. “Did you happen to–” then he stopped, realizing we weren’t Ulimbese—and that we had our rifles out. Another pilot.
He stood there dumbly staring at us. Jock sighed. “Alright, flyboy,” he said, “obviously you’ve stumbled on something that shouldn’t be happening. Thing is, if you yell, we’ll kill you. And we’re not here to kill anyone, you understand?”
The man had now seen the two people in the back of the jeep. “But–”
“They are not dead,” Jock assured him. “And you won’t be either if you do what I say.”
The man nodded.
“Great,” Jock said, indicating Ward. “This nice man here is going to walk you over to that storage bay, then you are going to get inside and get down on the ground and stay there until you count to five thousand. If you make any noise or try to open the door too soon, I swear to Possenti we will blow your idiot brains out. Got it?”
The pilot nodded again and Ward led him to the bay, put him inside, then pulled down the slotted metal door and tied a piece of cordage through the lock hole.
Then he jogged back to us and we crammed ourselves into the jeep. We drove back up the path, pausing to pick up Four-eyes. He jumped on the back bumper and tossed a Ulimbese cap into the front seat.
“Where’s the rest of the guy?” I said.
He shrugged. “Probably still running.”
Then, up ahead, I saw multiple sets of headlights. “Off the road!” Jock said, and I took the hoverjeep right into the woods as Park did the same with his jeep. Surprisingly, the weird vehicle handled the rough transition perfectly. I could get used to this thing.
Then there was a moan from behind me. It was the sentry. Jock pushed his gun barrel into the man’s chest and made a shushing sound. The guy looked confused as he realized there was also an unconscious girl sprawled across him.
Then the vehicles passed us—a few trucks heading to the airfield. They didn’t spot us but we stayed put as we heard more movement along the dark path.
At that point, the lights went on at the airfield. Must have sprung the backup breaker.
We watched the road for a couple of minutes and saw nothing more, so we jumped back on and headed to base.
There we found an absolute mess. Colonel Emerson had established a perimeter around the barracks, the mess hall and the command tent. Meanwhile, troops were unloading bags of roots and grains, ammo and various goods from a truck with inexplicably flat tires, while others faced a disorganized mob of Ulimbese, while a sergeant with a bullhorn yelled that the goods were being requisitioned in the name of the Emperor and the imperial war effort.
We explained the unexpected prisoner situation to Captain Marks and he handed them over to a couple of privates for safe keeping. They grinned at the girl, who was now conscious and cursing everyone in sight, only taking breaks every now and then to plead for permission to talk to her father.
Before long, we were ordered to move out and occupy a sprawling neighborhood and sports field a little ways outside the palace grounds, nearer to the airfield where we’d just been.
We moved out, taking our ill-gotten loot with us. A posh hotel was commandeered for a barracks and a couple of nearby buildings were set up as command posts. We had a solid perimeter set up within half an hour, though clearing the few civilians in the area out took some time and apologies. We were very nice, I’d say. I don’t think we even had to break any arms or jaws.
I didn’t have to deal with weeping hotel denizens, however. The Sergeant on Guard sent our squad up on a roof with a radio to watch the road back to the palace. I parked my jeep in the hotel parking lot and took the keys with me. No sense in letting some other soldier take my sweet ride. We parked the other jeep next to it. Now we had a grand total of two vehicles, unless the colonel had managed to free any others from the Ulimbese.
“The Stratarches must be pissed,” Park said to me from his perch behind a big industrial AC unit, “over under on how long it takes to call in a strike on us?”
“I dunno,” I said. “I doubt he’d try it.”
“Crow One, this is Kilo One,” came Captain Marks’s voice over the radio. Jock picked up. “Crow One, I read you Kilo One.”
“Hope you achieved strategic objective, Crow One. We’ve got activity at the airfield.”
“Roger that.”
We looked down towards the light of the airfield and saw the rotors start to spin with our hearts in our mouths. Faster, and faster, then—POP! We saw the light of a small explosion on the side of one craft—then another—then a string of ’em, followed by the pop of small explosions. Ace grinned ear to ear.
Yeah, gotta love success. I pulled out the corn puffs and passed them around along with the half-bottle of wine. As the pink fingers of dawn stretched across the sky, we munched contemplatively and took swigs while we waited to see if the Ulimbese would try a ground strike.
Nope, not that dumb. All in all, it was a great night. And tomorrow, we should have some breakfast. Emerson was a cold-blooded bastard but he loved his men. Tark had no idea who he was pushing.
