“Our short range systems are being Jammed, Sir!”
Pierson nodded to the soldier, slapping him on the shoulder. “The Helo computer link was working fine, get a wire link run back to her systems.”
“Yes Sir!”
The Soldier quickly dropped the hard cases with the portable command systems and whipped his hand around in the air a couple times. “Give me some fibre over here!”
Pierson left them to it as another soldier sprinted over with a spool of nearly thread thin fibreoptic wire, and turned to the closest Lieutenant. “Get me spotters on the rooftops here, here, and over there! I’m going to need an inventory of what we’ve got with us, and all the men who survived the attack as soon as we get a link to the other Helo computers! Move it, son!”
“Yes Sir!”
The Lieutenant ran off, grabbed a Sergeant and a couple Corporals, and started snapping orders. Pierson left him to it, and just grabbed another young man by the shoulder of his BDUs, this one a lowly trooper. The Colonel didn’t care much about rank at the moment anyway.
“Son, you see that big bastard of a tower over there,” He asked the kid, pointing to the East.
“Sir! Yes Sir!”
“Good, I want you to get up on one of these buildings and put an eyeball to that bugger. Somewhere there they’ve got a radar setup that you should be able to spot. Find it for me, Trooper!”
“Yes Sir!”
“Watch your ass, son! This place ain’t a trooper friendly environment right now!”
The young man nodded quickly, “Yes Sir!”
“Go on then! Get out of here.”
Pierson watched the kid run off just as the Lieutenant, Lt Penning he recalled quickly, ran up with the spool of fiberoptic cable unwinding behind him. He paused for a second, slapping the whole thing, spool and all, down into the `toilette roll’ on the side of his command computer, then plugged the military standard interface port into the side of his system.
“You’re online with the Helo computers now Sir!”
“Good work, Penning!” Pierson said, accessing the computer data-link for information from the other helo transponders.
He grimaced almost instantly, noting that there were only another three systems still responding to the transponder squawk, and that they were scattered over about three kilometers of the city’s area.
“This is Colonel Pierson, calling all units. Report in. I say again, report in,” he said calmly into the mic that jutted out from his helmet.
There was no immediate response.
“Where the hell is everyone”
“Shut up, Corporal,” Sergeant Bill Harris growled, swinging his XM-90 to cover the rooftops as he and his squad left the smoking wreck of their Black Hawk helo behind where it had `landed’ halfway inside a storefront.
Inside the smoldering machine, their pilot and three of their buddies were already cooling in the desert air, their lives snuffed out in the crash or the mass of anti-aircraft fire that had preceded it, and the survivors were more than a little jumpy as they put some distance between themselves and the pillar of smoke that was announcing their position to the entire world.
“I’m just saying, Sarge,” Corporal Bingsly murmured softly, “A crash like that.would have brought me running. You think everyone is in the tower now”
Harris grimaced, eyes sweeping the streets as much as the muzzle of his rifle. “Naw. There’s a hundred thousand people in this place. You ever try to get a couple dozen civies to go the same direction It’s fucking near impossible. They probably got wind of something and are trying to ride it out in their homes.”
“Jesus, Sarge, I’ve never seen a goddamned city without some traffic in the streets!” Bingsly hissed.
“Don’t you pay any attention to the briefings” A trooper hissed in response, “This whole town is rigged for public transportation, see those rails that run right into the building over there Here you ride or you walk. The streets are probably like this normally!”
“It’s fucking creepy if you ask me.”
“Nobody bloody well asked you, now did they!” Harris ground out through clenched teeth, “Now shut the fuck up and soldier, boy!”
The squad quieted down, other than a little more pissing and moaning about being hammered into the ground in the crash. Sergeant Harris let them get away with it, mostly cause he wanted it out of their systems before the shit hit the fan like he just knew it was going to in short order.
Colonel Pierson carried his command computer as he and the rest of his team sprinted down the block a ways from the downed Black Hawk, trailing a nearly invisible thread of fibreoptic line behind them. They quickly found a storefront that suited their immediate requirements and barged inside, sweeping the room with their assault rifles while others did fast sweeps of the alleys.
“Down! Down! Down!”
Pierson deposited his command and control computer against a wall while his men put the lone occupant of the store on the ground, frisking him quickly, and then cinching his wrists with plastic ties before letting him up again.
“Who are you” He demanded quietly of the badly frightened man.
“Freddy Bern.This is my store.”
The man’s eyes darted around, watching the men who were flooding in with guns, and he obviously wanted to ask but didn’t.
“Put him in the corner, behind the counter there.” Pierson ordered, “Mr. Bern, I’m sorry, but we’re appropriating the premises for our operations. We’ll try to clean this up and get out of your hair as quickly as we can, but I can’t make any promises.”
“What the hell is going on!” He asked as he was half led, half dragged back to his store counter.
“We have a terrorist situation, Sir. Please, just sit quietly and don’t distract my men.”
Bern was starting to get his mental footing again, and wasn’t having any of it. “What the bleeding hell are you on about Does this look like Israel or Iraq or fuckin Baghdad to you!”
Pierson just shook his head, but one of the soldiers dragging the man growled out a reply.
“Listen here, pally, we just dropped about two hundred men and two billion dollars worth of machinery onto this city in flames. If it don’t look like Baghdad now.give it about thirty minutes, now shut the fuck up and keep your goddamned head down!”
It wasn’t poetic, perhaps, but Pierson had to concede the basic truth of it.
An alarm rang in the station just as they were about to walk out the doors, causing Anselm and the others to pause and glance back.
“What the hell is that,” One of the SAS man asked in annoyance.
“Fire alarm.” Gwen said, paling.
“Well no shit. Those burning hunks of metal must have woke someone up,” Another man muttered grimly.
“Aw Christ,” Anselm muttered, “Will the Fire department respond”
“Of course.” She said, hands up, “What else would they do”
“Oh bleeding perfect.”
“Shit.” Malcolm snarled, “We do not need a bunch of heros running right into the middle of a firefight. Call them off.”
“Call them off!” Gwen blinked in horror, “But people live in this city! We can’t leave fires unchecked!”
“She’s right, Major.” Anselm growled, “This isn’t some random warzone. We’ve got a lot of civilians here that are going to fully expect protection from their military, police, and fire services. If it’s not provided, there’ll be hell to pay if any of us get out of here.”
“If being the operative word, mate.” Malcolm growled, but reluctantly nodded. “Alright. Fine. Can we get information on where they’re going to go”