“Rescue them,” Frida snapped, angrily. I looked at the orbital images again and decided that rescue was probably out of the question. The burning vehicles might have taken the dead bodies with them, as a message to the farmers’ enemies, or they might have been dumped elsewhere. I doubted that they’d bother taking prisoners. They probably believed that it was war to the knife. “Do what you’re paid for and get some of your men out there and rescue the poor bastards before they’re all killed!”
“Yes, Councillor,” I said, icily, and broke the connection. It was tempting — very tempting — to just abandon them, but I had my orders — besides, trouble like that had to be nipped in the bud, if possible. We’d barely started looking at long-term programs to avoid disaster, regardless of who won the war that had just begun. I keyed my earpiece and waited for Erica to respond.
“Yes, sir?” She said, from where she was preparing the helicopters for action. “We’re ready to move on your command.”
I wanted to board one of the helicopters and fly with them, but Peter and my other subordinates — hah — would never allow it. “Launch a quick reaction force to the following coordinates,” I said, and recited the coordinates of the first burning vehicle. “I’m dispatching a UAV to recon the area first. Get a platoon there and examine the vehicles if it seems safe, but watch out for ambushes.”
“Yes, sir,” Erica said. Her tone told me not to tell her how to do her job. “We’re launching the QRF now!”
I heard the noise of the helicopters rising up into the air as I came out of my quarters and headed towards the command centre. I paused to watch as the heavily-loaded assault helicopters lumbered down the runway and lifted off into the air, while the transport helicopters hovered directly into the air. I watched them go with a sense of growing unease. A single farmer with a SAM missile launcher could inflict serious losses on our helicopter capability at a very fair return. The UAV would lead the way and their flight path would keep them away from any known habitations, but anyone could be out there, waiting for them.
The command centre was on full alert when I stepped in and received salutes from the sentries at the door. The main display was showing where hundreds of government agents had made their last reports before vanishing from human ken — which probably meant that they were dead. Other reports suggested that there were people moving in the cities, although no one was sure what they were doing, or if it were a legitimate protest or something else. We’d put the soldiers on high alert, but there was nothing else we could do until someone started shooting.
I sat down in my chair and watched the live feed from the UAV as it coasted to the farmer’s hub. It really was beautiful countryside, with golden fields giving way to blue rivers and lakes, but I saw it as a place where any number of ambushes could be carried out at will. A person who knew the territory would be able to set traps for my men and force us to spread our forces thin to try to keep the peace — although I suspected that it was already too late for that. The peace had vanished the moment Frida had started her measures to save the population from starving. After that, it had only been an illusion.
“We’re coming up on the target coordinates now,” the UAV pilot said. He’d been a UN pilot before joining us and had rapidly become a great fan of how I ran my organisation, where he didn’t have to sign off on every little risk. “There’s little sign of obvious threats, but there wouldn’t be at this point anyway.”
I nodded as I glued my eyes to the screen. The UAV was covered in a stealth coating that should have rendered it invisible to radar — although the farmers didn’t seem to have radar — and was almost completely silent. They might be able to spot it with binoculars, but it blended well against the blue of the skies. Even if they did spot it, bringing it down would have been difficult — although we’d lost UAVs on Heinlein. If the Freedom League was really involved with the farmers, what might they have given them to play with?
And, for that matter, what had they given the miners to play with?
“Contact the government and tell them to check what’s happening at the mines,” I ordered, leaning over to Peter. The government kept observers at the mines and they’d stayed in place, despite the political unrest — brave men or fools, I hadn’t decided. “Ten gets you twenty that this has spread there as well.”
“No bet,” Peter muttered back, but he went to carry out my orders. A moment later, he returned. “They’re overdue for their standard check-in, sir.”
“Dead or prisoners,” I said. The William Tell was out of position to observe the mountains. I made a mental calculation and realised it would be hours before we could get any live feed from the starship. “The crisis will have spread there as well.”
“Fighting in the mountains against the Mountain Men,” Peter said. “This isn’t going to end well, sir.”
“No,” I agreed. “We just have to hold on long enough to stabilise the planet and then we can leave.”
“No sign of enemy activity,” the pilot reported. “No, wait; there are possible enemy combatants, moving around and armed with rifles. No other weapons detected.”
“That proves nothing,” Peter commented, grimly. “They could be hunters or farmers for all we know.”
I looked at the image of the burned-out vehicle. “They either were involved or they know what happened,” I said, sourly. “Estimated time of arrival for the helicopters?”
“Twenty minutes,” the pilot said, as he pushed the UAV into a holding pattern high overhead. “I’m picking up low-level power sources, cause unknown, and numerous heat signatures inside the houses. I estimate around fifteen people inside the house, but the readings could be misleading.”
“Of course,” Peter growled. We shared a long look. We’d both been misled before by simple countermeasures on Heinlein. “There’s no point in bombing them on suspicion.”
I clicked back to the life feed from the helicopters and watched as they swept towards their destination in full combat formation. Their course was erratic, but I knew that the enemy would probably be able to guess their destination anyway. There weren’t many other places they could be going in that general direction, unless they headed towards Fort Galloway. I’d be leading a convoy there tomorrow, according to the plan, but I was already rethinking that plan. Open hostilities meant revising the ROE and placing other forces on alert.
“No trouble in the cities,” Peter muttered, upon my whispered question. “Our spotters are reporting some rumours running through the cities, but other than that, no real trouble.”
“The helicopters are arriving now,” the pilot said. The main display clicked back to show the direct feed from the UAV as the helicopters drifted into view like massive hunting falcons, or crows. The enemies would probably think of them as vultures. “They’re scanning the area now.”
The attack helicopters took the lead, swooping near the burned out vehicle and watching for ground-fire. They were surprisingly tough craft and could have taken machine gun fire without being seriously damaged, but a single SAM would have blown them out of the sky. The remaining helicopter — the transport — hovered far back. Unloading troops was the most dangerous time in a helicopters life — apart, perhaps, from when it was on the ground and helpless — and I wouldn’t allow them to start unloading men until we were fairly sure it was secure. No fire arose from the ground to challenge then; indeed, the handful of locals we could see were heading away from them as fast as possible.