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Raid, The
A raid goes bad, of course politics and treachery abound
by Jon Selbo ''Bunsin'' |
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Waters edge
TRDC research facilities
3058
Much of the equipment used in the TRDC's original research mission, due to its massive size and the simple fact that the building was built around it, was left in the sub basement when the building was renovated . There were three entrances to the basement floor; an elevator shaft that ran the length of the building on the north west side, an emergency fire escape in the opposite corner on the north east, and the maintenance crawl shaft in the center.
Under normal circumstances access through the maintenance shaft would have been impossible without setting off the building alarm. As it was the guard station lights would still have activated when the hatch was opened and one of the attackers might see it, but that was just a risk Ken was going to have to take. As Ken moved through the crawl space and down into the sub floor, the smell of hydraulic fluid seemed to cling to the air.
*****
Captain Horia Lorentz knew that the time had come to make his frontal assault on the building. His attack force had been whittled down from thirty men supported by two SRM teams of four men each to about fourteen plus his rocket teams. The worst casualties occurred when one of the SRM squads had misidentified a group of his own men on the north side perimeter as TRDC guards and had decimated their rank. The only man left from his north team was a badly wounded private. Just the sight of that sixteen year old kid with his clothing on fire had sent a wave of nausea through him. The other major problem had been the snipers on the top of the building. While his attacking force was trying to deal with the security perimeter, those snipers had picked off most of his command squad including the other officers and had taken three of the grenadiers off the SRM teams. The snipers were eliminated by a lucky indirect hit from an SRM team that landed right on the top of the building. The assault on the west entrance would be simple compared to what they had endured to get here. There stood only three guards with light rifles against him. Horia ordered a rocket round for the front doors.
*****
Ken felt the ground move and saw dust fall from the reinforced I beams in the sub basement. Unlike a man on a mission who has purpose to sustain his mind and give him the drive to continue in the face of danger, Ken no longer felt like he knew what was going on. Probably his best chance for survival lay in hiding and hoping no one found him, but something about that just made him feel not quite safe. Finally the adrenaline that had kept him going wore off and his body began to shake in response.
****
"We're inside sir and are proceeding with operation clean sweep." Colonel Kelly couldn't stomach the thought of giving Horia a citation for this, but he would have to find some aspect of this mission that could be celebrated, and his attack on the TRDC seemed to be the only part that was working. The local militia was holding its own against his main attack force, and without the lost blocking lance for backup he lacked to firepower to deliver a fatal blow. Four of his light and medium mechs had taken enough damage to be removed from the fight. His personal mech, a battle weary Warhammer had lost a PPC and two heat sinks all ready. Those blasted guided missiles were keeping him from overcoming the defense centered on the production facility.
He did retain control of one of the warehouses, and it was being looted as fast as possible. Even if he could not fulfill his primary objective of getting the production line, he would not go back empty handed.
"Sir the drop ship is inbound." " We expect contact in less than fifteen minutes." The message came as some relief for the colonel. "They will touchdown at checkpoint charlie." The material from the warehouse, mostly retrofitted launchers and the guidance systems, was nearly loaded up when a bonus prize had been found. One of the mechs, an old Bombardier, that had been outfitted with the new missile system was located in the back of the building. It was apparently being worked on to replace some mechanical parts. It would take two heavy mechs with hand actuators to retrieve it, but it would be well worth the effort. Perhaps he would get his bonus yet, thought Kelly. "Very well sergeant, let's get those trucks moving towards the rendezvous", the colonel replied.
*****
The rocket attack had destroyed the front doors and wiped out the guard station. It had apparently knocked out the backup power, because the floor lights and the security systems were completely off line. This last piece of news was the most disturbing for captain Lorentz. The backup power supply located in the sub basement should not have been effected and without it they would have to carry out all the equipment instead of using the lifts. Captain Horia contemplated the possibility that some guards had escaped within the building so he sent out teams to clear all important areas. "Send a team down and see if a wire got knocked loose off that backup supply, and let me know as soon as you have cut through the security doors on the top floor." Horia wanted to be the first one to look over his prize.
*****
Ken stepped away from the backup power supply and picked up a broom laying on the floor next to an old crate. Slowly unscrewing the handle from the broom he looked for a spot to take cover in. When he decided that it was impossible to hide behind the old pole coat rack in the corner of the maintenance room, he chuckled and walked back out into the main area. Ken looked around with his flashlight and saw a huge hydraulic pressing unit.
Stepping behind it he pulled out the buck knife his father had given him and quickly started to whittle at the end of the stick. When he had sharpened the end to a point, he put his flashlight back in his pocket and put on the infrared goggles. Within minutes of getting set the emergency exit doors began to open.
*****
"Sir we finally made it to the basement." The young sergeant looked over at his radio man and let out a crooked smile. This time with the mike button released, "I bet that pencil pushing Captain gets us ripped at the bar when we get done with this cakewalk." Sargent Miles Gopan was the youngest NCO in the unit. His uncle was a wealthy merchant supplier on Koverone whom the colonel Kelly himself was said to do a lot of personal business with. Much to the disdain of some of the more senior personal, Miles had made sergeant in just over one year. His reserve squad hadn't taken any casualties in the assault, and so it was broken up to fill in with the people securing the upper floors. The three remaining members of his alpha team, himself, and a tech were tasked with securing the basement and getting the back up power supply on line. Besides even if they ran into trouble, they should have enough fire power handle any stragglers.
"OK guys, the guards won't have any way to see us so flip on the emitters and let's get going." The emitter on his IR goggles shone a path of about ten meters ahead, and it spread out for five meters left and right. The return optics were wavelength shifted to higher energy, but the resolution still made everything fuzzy. The overall appearance to the viewer was that he was in a monochromatic twilight. The green tinge to the optics caused hot items like the power generator to shine like a ghoulish sun. Simply looking in its direction ruined a persons night vision. "Turn down the sensitivity to minimum, or we'll never see a blasted thing in here. Now spread out and don't trip on nothin." With that the five men made their way into the floor.
*****
"Captain Lorentz you have fifty minutes to vacate before the TRDC's relief forces arrive" Colonel Kelly was glad that the local militia in the Capital City had been hit hard and taken completely off guard. The mechwarriors were mainly killed in their sleep while the supposedly friendly mercenaries were on guard. The next closest force would be a lance coming from Redreif and it would take some time to get to the capital, however that time would not last forever.
The original plan called for the TRDC raiding party to get back into their trucks and head out to a checkpoint fifteen kilometers south of the capital. There, in a easily defendable area, they would link up with the mech force that took out the Capital City defenders mech force and they both would wait for the dropship to leapfrog from checkpoint Charlie and pick them up.
Colonel Kelly looked over his people, some still sniping away at the local defenders. Neither side had developed a clear advantage and standing ground, in this case, helped the defenders more than it did himself. "We have fifteen minutes to clear the area. Make sure we get that Bombardier hauled off and from here on out grab what you can and let's go!" Kelly knew that disengaging from a firefight was never an easy proposition so he had planed a diversion to hit the defenders as heavy as they could from two fronts then the main force would retreat in good order while the diversionary force made its way back into the woods sniping at the defenders the whole way. With all the "non combatants" out of the way he could outrun whomever remained and the diversionary screen could act as a rear guard. There should be enough confusion to let him break away cleanly.
*****
Ken's nerves were starting to wear thin. The pit of his stomach was churning with acid and he had broken out in a cold sweat. He had heard people moving on the main floor for the last ten minutes and with his IR viewing goggles on he could tell some of them were headed his way. One of the raiders walked right by the press and began to come around the west side. The raider's emitter made his head stand out so Ken was able to time his attack well. The modified skewer jammed home in the man's larynx. The only sound was a gurgling and the all to familiar clang of a weapon being dropped. A weapon being dropped was one sound that no soldier could mistake for anything else. Even the most basic recruit dreads that sound , because sure to follow it up was a beating by the drill instructor. Ken quickly jammed his buck knife in the man's temple and grabbed the now dead man's rifle and ammo belt.
*****
"Sergeant Gopan, where you at?" the private had lost sight of his sergeant when he went behind the big press and he hadn't seen him come out. He also had heard the sergeant drop his weapon and that wasn't like him at all.
*****
Ken heard another raider call for the dead man. He turned the dead sergeants goggles with the emitter back towards the corner he had come from and Ken worked his way around the opposite corner. It was an interesting game. They could see in the direction they were looking, but they stood out like a lamp to Ken. Unfortunately Ken could not see the objects in the room unless one of the soldiers was looking at it and so he was walking around blind. Finding hiding places was going to be next to impossible unless the raiders were looking right at it and that sort of defeated the purpose.
Plus if he ran into something on the way over to one he would be instantly caught. His other major problem was what to do with the rifle he had acquired. It was not as if he didn't know how to fire a weapon, it was simply that he had never seen this particular design. If he could see the thing in the light he might be able to figure out where the safety was, but groping blindly at it was proving irritating. Ken pushed up what he hoped to the correct selector and pointed the gun at the light source coming from the soldiers head. He slowly squeezed the trigger, but not exactly to his surprise, nothing happened.
*****
"Hey sarge what's going on?" Private Dostren whispered as he worked his way around the huge machine. Upon clearing the corner he saw Gopan crumpled on the floor ten meters away. "Sommers get over here the Sarge is Hurt!"
*****
"Oh just frikin wonderful" Ken thought. There was at least one other raider in the basement and within minutes they would figure out that their sergeant had not just accidentally tripped on a sharpened stick. "Alright time to make this thing work" Ken moved the selector switch all the way down and peeked around the corner. The dead sergeant's emitter was aimed directly at the other raider so Ken had a full view to shoot at. He stroked the trigger once and the gun started to rise. Ken had hit upon the rapid fire selection and twelve rounds made it out of the chamber before he had released the trigger. The raider had looked up in time to see a greenish figure peek around the other corner of the press.
*****
Of the twelve rounds only four had hit there intended mark. Two of those four had shattered Dostren's left femur and the remaining two rounds entered his lower abdomen. The momentum imparted from the impact left Dostren's return shots ineffective. As the nausea swept over him, Dostren flipped the selector to auto and jerked down on the trigger.
*****
Ken saw a long stream of hot lead ricocheting off some machine along the wall behind him. The ejected brass from his previous shots were still hot enough to see and they looked like small stars in a dark sky. The emitter from the man he had just taken down must have been smashed because once again Ken was shrouded in darkness. Ken knew it was time to move.
*****
Captain Horia grumbled as the demo team took out the last entrance door to the security floor. The backup power still had not come back on and he only had eighteen minutes to find, secure, and transport the design programs and schematics sure to be on some computer here. He turned his goggles back on and flipped on the emitter. "Once this is secure I want some flashlights brought up here so I can blasted well see something!" Horia really hated using these goggles.
The blasted doors lay off to the side and ahead of him and to the left lay the main corridor. "I want someone on point!" Horia thought that he was sure not going to take a bullet for some other idiot.
The team of three led out five meters ahead of Captain Lorentz. They spread out in a wedge pattern to give the most space between them in case of a concentrated attack. Each man checked for a trap but noticed that there was simply nowhere to hide in the hallway. The first room was cleared and Captain Lorentz sent the team to the next room. In each room every computer that could be carried off was picked up by someone and carried out to a truck. Captain Lorentz ordered the search team around the corner into the main corridor. The point men cleared the corner and began down the hallway.
As Captain Lorentz cleared the corner he noticed a light suddenly start blinking at the far end of the hall.
The kiamonc computer battery which had been hot wired to a capacitor series was set to discharged across the electronics from a camera flash assembly. Within milliseconds of the motion sensors acquisition of a moving body it began its deadly discharge. This in tern set off the Meg 90 detonator inside of the solid fuel booster of the LRM. Horia Lorentz, looking through his IR goggles, only saw what appeared to be a green flaming sun hurtling down the hallway. Shortly before it decapitated him, he watched the point men burst into flames. |
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