The tents were designed to camouflage the heat and X-ray signatures of the men and their equipment. The Chinese satellites were regularly over this area, and the barren landscape made it difficult to conceal anything from the ‘eye in the sky’, as the satellites were nicknamed. The tents were just large sheets of a carbon-fibre material that dispersed the heat source and reflected the X-rays, so that to the satellites’ imaging software it looked like nothing but more desert.
They knew the times the satellites passed over the top. The Chinese had at least two that were in orbit over Australia, which meant every day and night, for about three hours, they had to ensure that everything was under a tent, otherwise they would be spotted.
‘You reckon these things can fool the satellites, Bull?’ asked Finn as they were erecting one of the large square sheets.
‘Mate, we’ll know before lunch. If you hear a San’ coming low over the desert, you know we’re fucked,’ replied Bull.
The San’, or rather, Sankaku-104, was a three-man attack helicopter that was both revered and feared. The Sankaku had been devastating on the ground troops, they were fast, heavily armed, and the crews that flew them were merciless.
‘Yeah, great. But these things must have been tested, right?’ said Finn, somewhat concerned.
‘They would have been tested on our satellites and the Yank ones, but who really knows what the Chinese have up their crafty little sleeves?’
‘Ah well, too late to worry about it now, I guess,’ replied Finn.
Once the tents were set up they helped the rest of the grunts unload the truck. The black sky was now turning into a dark, inky blue. Not long now, and the sun would be up. Not long now, and a Chinese satellite would be overhead, concentrating on their position with an array of imaging devices.
‘Right. Come on, boys. We’ve got just under half an hour to get this area under cover before the satellite comes over. Let’s move it!’ yelled Higgins.
The men sped up their actions, and five minutes later everything was off the trucks. With 20 minutes to go, Higgins was doing last-minute checks with the platoon commander, Lieutenant Taylor. Hovering over the laptop perched on the back of the truck, they were checking the inventory list. Once everything was accounted for, they ordered the men under the thermal tents. They got comfortable with 10 minutes to spare. It was surreal because the other squads in the convoy, who were packed and loading their gear onto the truck, were leaving today.
Finn watched as a couple of guys he knew from another squad were climbing into their truck. Finn waved but they did not wave back. Nobody knew the extent of the Chinese imagery technology and the last thing anyone wanted to do was give away the fact that there were soldiers staying behind. The success of the mission depended on stealth and the ability to stay concealed for as long as possible.
The trucks, including their own, moved off at 0530 that morning. The plan was that, hopefully, the Chinese would stay focussed on the number of vehicles in the convoy. It would travel north for many more days, dropping teams off every morning but continuing on with the same number of vehicles as though it was still one large convoy. Finally, the convoy would turn east and away from the Chinese transportation lines. After two days of driving east, they would stop and set up an outpost with the remaining men and women.
The eight-man squads, subsets of their platoon, were independent and self-sufficient. They would have scattered and disappeared into the desert by the time the Chinese figured out that the outpost had less than half the personnel that started on the convoy.
Sitting under the tent, the sun was already up and the heat felt good after the cold desert night. As more and more trucks left, the dust cloud became thick, making it difficult to breathe.
They had to stay under the tents for at least another two hours after the last truck had rumbled past before it would be safe to come out. Looking around, Finn saw three other squads huddled under their tents. ‘Sarge, are we going to be operating with the other squads out there?’ asked Finn, squinting at the bright sunlight as he pointed to the other groups.
‘No, Hunt. We’ll be working independently, as will they. None of us will know the other squads’ positions, so that if we are captured we can’t give away any useful information,’ replied Higgins, addressing the whole squad.
‘So, Sarge. What if they need back-up in a firefight — or if we’re in trouble, will we be able to locate one another?’ asked Jessop.
‘No. What part of independent don’t you understand?’ said Higgins, somewhat irritated. ‘We’ll have zero contact with other squads — if we get into trouble, we get ourselves out of it. We’re on our own now, boys. This is what we trained for, this is what our mummies raised us to do, and this is what we’ve been ordered to do by our supreme leader, General Stephens. Now, the lieutenant is going to brief us on our specific orders. So listen the hell up,’ said Higgins, now in operation mode.
Taylor stood from the crates he was leaning on. He was a slender man, and seemed to Finn like an oddly gentle type to have chosen a career in the military. Most of the squads had only a sergeant to lead them but, by the luck of the draw, their team had Higgins and had also pulled the lieutenant, bringing their total to nine men. ‘Thank you, Sergeant. Right men, our orders are very simple — simple, but not easy. We are to break camp and move 11 clicks northwest of here, to a point that is elevated and within strike distance of our objective. This will be our base for operations. There is an abandoned mineshaft there that we will be appropriating. Supplies and equipment have already been deposited there for us. We must reach this point by sundown. The next satellite fly-over is scheduled for 2034, and although these thermal tents seem to do the job, I would prefer to have 30,000 tonnes of rock between us and their satellites, wouldn’t you agree?’
The men nodded, listening intently.
‘So, in 90 minutes we can come out from under our tents and get moving. Until then, get your gear in order. We have a long hike and a lot of gear to lug through the desert. Keep your fluids up, hats on and sunblock reapplied regularly. It’s going to be toasty out there today and we can’t afford to be slowed down by illness.’
Higgins, who was standing next to the lieutenant with his muscular arms crossed, dropped his hands to his hips. ‘Right, you’ve heard the platoon commander — get your kit together. In a little while we’ll be hiking through the desert.’
The men loaded the crates onto the US-made Mule, which, unlike most Yank equipment, was not an acronym. It was called a mule because it had the ability to carry phenomenal loads over rough terrain. The Mule was essentially a small but powerful golf-cart-sized all-terrain cargo carrier. It was controlled remotely by a man on foot but, cleverly, the Mule did not need to be driven by anyone. It could determine the best path to take over any obstacle through its onboard cameras. The Mule made operations like this achievable, as there was no way the men could carry their own supplies into this unforgiving territory. Higgins wasn’t sorry that they were using the Mule rather than PALs — most of the PALs had been destroyed in the initial conflict, and he had some bad memories of those. Besides, he doubted they’d be used in such a remote location — they were finicky and needed routine maintenance, so couldn’t be used on such specialised missions like this one.
By 0915 the squad had moved out. At first the going was relatively easy, with hard-packed sand and rock. But after a few hours it got much harder. The sand became softer and deeper, the rocks bigger. The Mule was handling it better than the men, which prompted some to ask why the military hadn’t bought Mules for the soldiers, too.