Gods Dogs, Book 3

In every battle there comes a time when both sides consider themselves beaten, then he who continues the attack wins.

Ulysses S. Grant

Quinn and his group of marshals dropped to a warehouse in an industrial part of a major city. It was night, and the lights were out in the surrounding buildings. The SWAT team had already set up a perimeter, and the drop ship landed in the parking lot.

The marshals announced their arrival over the loud speakers on the ship and stacked up to assault the main entrance. SWAT moved into covering positions around the perimeter. Then the marshals shot the hinges off the door.

Fire met them as the door crashed in. The marshals were under cover alongside the door and called out again.

“League marshals. We have legitimate warrants. Cease fire!”

Another burst of needles flew out the door opening. If the best they had, Quinn thought, is needle guns, it would be a short fight.

“Cease fire or we will return fire. Final warning.”

Then they popped tear gas grenades into the building.

“SWAT, prepare to breach,” the marshal-in-charge sent over their command network. “In 3-2-1, breach!”

The SWAT breaching teams entered the other three entrances, and the marshals made tactical entry through the main door. Quinn followed and let Shiva, his A.I., scan the interior.

[No heavy weapons,] Shiva reported. [There are seventeen lifeforms. It looks like two of them are trying to erase their files. We are preventing that.]

[We?]

[Satya and I.]

[I knew she was preparing something.]

[She slipped a worm into their network yesterday, and I activated it when we were in range of the network at this site.]

“Clear,” was the call ahead of them, and it was repeated a number of times.

The suspects were corralled, cuffed, and transported in the SWAT prisoner bus that pulled up. Forensic teams off-loaded the bus and began processing the site.

River’s target was a home in a housing track halfway around the planet. It was early afternoon, and SWAT set up a cordon a block square to reroute the minimal traffic. Patrol officers evacuated the few residents near the target house.

When the stage was set, the drop ship landed on the lawn of the house, and the loud speakers blared, “League marshals! We are executing a legal warrant.”

SWAT breaching teams moved in, and snipers took their stations on rooftops. The marshals shotgunned the door and entered. The inhabitants immediately surrendered.

Becky reported, [We’ve got eight suspects here, and the data is secure.]

Moss’ group met with similar results. The speed and shock of the assaults gave the insurgents scant time to respond.

Ari told him, [By taking over their computers, we have prevented the self-destruct that some of these locations possess.]

[Well, that’s good news. How did you pull that off?]

[Satya introduced a worm yesterday. The Coyote A.I.s activate it when we arrive on-site. No computer access for the bad guys after that.]

[Nice.]

Around the planet, at virtually the same time, the assaults went quickly and successfully. The exception was Nina’s team.

Nina was in the same class as Jian. Whereas Jian was perfectionistic, Nina, who was of Tibetan descent, was more laid back and thoughtful.

She was dogged in her pursuit of the necessary physical skills, but took to the spiritual practices as if born to them. Since she was Tibetan, that wasn’t a big leap.

She qualified in computer hacking and combat first aid, and wasn’t far from qualifying as a sniper. She was also good at reading energy but declined empath training. She saw herself as a team leader some day, and empaths couldn’t act in that capacity.

As a jack-of-all-trades, she fit on Jolene’s team as a hacker, even though Jolene was the better hacker. Jolene, though, liked that she could concentrate on leadership and let Nina handle the hacking. She liked her team and the easy but definite leadership style Jolene role-modeled.

The site for Nina’s group was a farmhouse in a rural area. The closest neighbor was a mile away. The closest town was ten miles away. This site was the only one that LEOs were unavailable. Sixty station marines served the SWAT function of backup and muscle.

The platoon was in position before the drop ship landed. The speakers blared the marshals’ intent as they flew in.

Immediately, though, they came under attack, and blaster fire holed the drop ship as it flared to land. With its ramp down, the ship swerved and plowed into the ground and ended up on its side. Fire streamed from the cockpit back to the rear hatch.

Nina rolled out of the ship, and after a moment of disorientation, took cover behind the ship. Her A.I., Lily, let her know, [Blaster fire, consistent with cyborg weaponry, brought down the drop ship. Marshals are down. Drop ship crew is down.]

[Call in Pax,] Nina ordered, [and patch me into the platoon-net.]

[Done. Pax is ten minutes out.]

“Marines, Coyote Nina. Probable cyborgs on site. Marshals and flight crew are down. Backup assault shuttle is inbound. ETA ten mikes.”

“Nina, Lt. Ryan. Do we breach?”

“Affirmative. Give me cover fire on the southeast windows. Send a heavy weapon team to follow me in. The rest of you, keep them busy around the perimeter.”

Nina rolled from behind the smoking drop ship when the marine cover fire started and dived through a window. The farmhouse was one-story and eight rooms. It was spread out with a large kitchen, dining area, living room, and spacious bedrooms.

The cyborg fire came from the northwest part of the house. The drop ship spun away to the southeast when it crashed. Nina was hoping the perimeter fire would fix the cyborgs, and whomever else was in the house, in place. She and the two-man heavy weapons team would then become a blocking force within the house. Pax, when he got here, would do the sweeping.

The heavy weapons team crashed through the window and joined her. So far, they were unopposed.

Pax called her, “Give me coordinates on the cyborgs’ locations. We’ll try a strafing run on our way in.”

Nina switched to IR and Lily located the cyborgs’ heat signatures. Linking that to GPS coordinates, Lily sent the coordinates to Ari via the A.I. battle-net. Then Lily told Nina, [They are soft coordinates. No way to triangulate. The shuttle will fire on its way to a crash landing through the northwest corner of the building.]

“Marines, Coyote Nina. When I say drop, you hit the ground and cover. The shuttle is coming in guns blazing. It will crash into the northwest corner of the house. You will find cover. I want no more casualties.”

Two minutes later, Nina called out, “Drop and cover!”

The larger caliber rail-guns on the shuttle tore into the house with devastating effect, ripping apart walls, bodies, kitchen appliances, and scoring hits on the cyborgs.

Moments later, the armored shuttle crashed into the building at 30mph. The ramp dropped. Pax and his squad of marines from the destroyer raced to form a perimeter defense around the smoking shuttle.

Nina popped up and began scanning. She could make out the fuzzy heat signature of two cyborgs, and they were moving in a way that indicated injuries. She couldn’t find the third one. She could find the other occupants of the house. There were twelve of them, and they were mostly along the north side. Some were down, and the rest were moving slowly.

“Marines, Nina. Tighten the perimeter. Switch to single shots. Maintain your fire discipline.”

The LT took her directives and assigned firing lanes, and Nina moved forward. The heavy weapons team flanked her.

Lily told her, [Pax has engaged the third cyborg. My battle-net feed showed me that cyborg was uninjured. He was behind where the shuttle ended up and tried to oppose the marine deployment. Pax decapitated him.]

“Pushing them your way,” Pax then told her.

Nina ordered her team, “Three-round bursts. Aim for the joints.”

One of the cyborgs crashed through a wall and began sweeping its larger rail-gun fire across their position. Its left arm wasn’t working, though, and Nine timed it so she could leap past the fire.

She released her rifle to retract to the back-mount and pulled her melee weapon. It was a collapsible staff with a short sword instead of a spear point. It was a classic Chinese weapon known as a guan dao.

Charging the cyborg, she deflected the rail-gun rounds with the flat of the sword blade when he repositioned his aim. She lunged forward and landed in front of the cyborg and brought the staff down where the neck joined the shoulder. The blunt force trauma from the butt-end of the staff staggered the cyborg but didn’t hurt him.

But then she reversed her stance and brought the sword end up from the groin to collar bone. The cut from the mono-blade nearly split him in two. Then she reversed the staff and cut off his head.

She could see Pax advancing on the final cyborg. He was deflecting the rail-gun rounds with his sword, while his marines peppered the cyborg with rifle fire.

Pax lunged and drove his mono-blade through the cyborg’s neck. The cyborg fell, and Pax finished him with a downward thrust to its power core.

“Cease fire,” Nina called out. “Cease fire. LT, Nina. Clear the building. Begin at the northeast and work toward me.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” was the response.

“Hold here,” she told her heavy weapons team as Pax stepped through the smoking mess of the house.

His marines were clearing the west side of the building. When they finished, they formed a cordon around the two Coyotes.

“How are you holding up?” Pax asked her on their tac-net.

“Well, I don’t have the adrenaline shakes yet,” she answered.

“It was pretty intense,” Pax replied. “How did you survive the drop ship crash?”

“I don’t know. I was the last one out. I think I got thrown clear.”’

Lily put in, [You did, and you were momentarily knocked out.]

“Well, you recovered well enough,” Pax said. “Good job in keeping this from going sideways.”

Pax’s marine lieutenant stepped up and said, “I’d like you and Coyote Nina to follow me.”

Pax chuckled. “Okay, LT. Let’s go, Nina. They want us to stay safe. We’re like thoroughbred race horses, or something. They only let us out to run the race.”

The marines smirked at that, but insisted on leading them outside. Then Pax’s shuttle fired its hovering jets and lifted off to land near the group. The marines moved them into the shuttle.

The other marines cleared the house, secured the few remaining insurgents, and saw to the dead and wounded. The house was a total loss from a forensic perspective, and they let it burn to the ground.

A few hours later, they were all back at the space station. Pax stayed with Nina as her A.I. compiled the after action report. As she reviewed the battle with Lily, she made comments on her decisions, justified her orders, and wrapped up the report after an hour of meticulously nitpicking it.

Pax went over it once she was done and concluded, “You rose to this challenge, Nina. Your orders to the marines were clear, and you trusted the lieutenant to carry out the missions you requested. I’m also impressed by how you calmed the marines down and got them focused by telling them you wanted no more casualties. It was a brutal surprise attack, and that can rattle any group of soldiers. You got them back on mission with compassion. It boosted their morale, and they followed your orders with a renewed fighting spirit.”

Nina’s stoicism kept her from blushing at the glowing praise, but she couldn’t come up with an answer to Pax's comments.

Pax went on, “Now, the bad news.”

She gulped.

“The drop ship sensors should have picked up the cyborgs.”

“Oh,” she managed.

“It wasn’t your area of responsibility. That’s true enough, but in the future, don’t let your primary mission close you off to the big picture.”

“I got tunnel vision.”

“You did. It was understandable. You were working with a team, and you relied on them to do their jobs. They didn’t, and they are dead because they didn’t.”

“There was a lot to keep track of,” Nina said in a sad voice.

“It’s what your A.I. can do for you. Both of you can learn from this.”

Lily sent, [I didn’t think of it either, Pax. I will not make that mistake again.]

“I know, Lily. The lessons we learn are hard ones especially as compared to normal people. So don’t let that bring you down either. When you do the bardo meditation, include the drop ship crew and the two marshals that died. Then visit the marshal that survived and cheer him up.”

“Okay, Pax,” Nina said. “And thanks for walking me through this.”

“You’re a good Coyote, Nina. I suspect you’ll have your own team in the future. Your command style is already evident. People will follow you into hell some day, because they know you’ll bring them back. Not everyone can inspire that in battle-hardened troops, but you can.”

“Yeah, well, I think I need a lot more experience before I’m ready for that.”

“You do,” Pax said with a smile. “You also need to learn the self-care unique to leaders. They are alone in a way that is necessary, but it can also be debilitating. When you experience what I mean, seek me out, or one of the others empaths, and we’ll help with that.”

Nina sat with this far-reaching, and not a little disturbing, discussion. She felt the rightness of it. It was a conversation, she realized, she’d been longing for. Someone saw and approved of her potential. But now that she gained that imprimatur of approval, there was a new standard to live up to. On the one hand, it was an intimidating challenge; on the other, it also triggered her fierce determination to succeed.

Pax rose, patted her on the shoulder, and left the station cafeteria. Nina sipped her coffee and gazed across the room. Other Coyotes were finishing their AARs. Marines in fatigues, support staff, pilots, mechanics, marshals, and others were coming and going.

Lily told her, [I’ve filed our AAR.]

[Thanks. What did you make of Pax’s comments?]

[He is an empath. He probably knows you better than you know yourself. I would take all of what he said to heart.]

[Okay. I think we need to check in with Jolene. She may be worried about me.]

[She’s not. I let her know you were with Pax.]

[So what do we do?]

[My advice: Sit here and drink coffee.]