The Infinity Brigade #1 Stone Cold Read online

  Between the low gravity on Mars and the power of the Stark suits we made short work of the two kilometer climb. Once on top I scanned the surrounding area with my suit’s LIDAR system. In less than a second I had a pretty good map of what was ahead of us. Of critical importance was the lack of enemy fighters. I did spot Camp Charlie and based on the active radar signals I was getting from them… they knew we were here as well. I passed this information onto JJ.

  “Do we care that the Drills know we are here?” he asked using a near-field Bluetooth comm channel.

  “I think it’s a good bet they plan on following us pretty closely no matter what we do. I’m also pretty sure they won’t be giving our position away.”

  I pointed the direction I wanted him to go. We would be splitting up at this point so we could survey our target from two directions. “Set your GPS for 100.343.00 by 034.200.85”

  Those coordinates would move him about six klicks north of Central City. I would be approaching from the west. “Set your comms to microburst encrypted channel one-one-four.”

  He nodded without a word and headed out at a run. I turned and started to run myself. In less than fifteen minutes we had traveled the roughly thirty kilometers to our chosen scouting positions.

  I was glad I had thought to grab the camo poncho. My suit’s AI detected three active sensor sweeps as I advanced toward my planned observation point. Whatever was going on it was clear that the enemy was not waiting until tomorrow to take action.

  I was almost to my destination when my comm chirped. “Go ahead JJ.”

  “Sarge I think ‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark’.”

  “I agree. I’ve had three radar sweeps pass over me in the last several minutes.”

  “Yeah I have too,” JJ admitted. “But it’s more than that. Those wankers didn’t bother to stop at Central City… They kept going.”

  I adjusted the optics in my Stark suit. JJ was right. This was never about capturing a few random buildings. This was an assault directly on Camp Beta.

  Chapter 10: Boot Camp – Fun With the Enemy…

  I switched my comm channel to the Beta Platoon frequency. There was every possibility that the channel was being actively monitored by the enemy. If I shouted a warning to our side I would buy them a few minutes to organize a haphazard defense. What I really needed to do was to get the enemy fighters to abort their attack. To my way of thinking, it was time to play poker.

  “Beta assault leader. This is forward scout three. The enemy seems to have bought into our game. They are heading towards the decoy camp. Their TOC is virtually undefended. Recommend immediate…”

  At this point JJ caught on to what I was doing. I was worried because I needed him to get in on the act. Fortunately he handled his side perfectly.

  “Forward Scout Three you are transmitting unencrypted! Switch to encrypted channel immediately.”

  As if on cue, my encrypted channel light lit up. “AG here,” I acknowledged.

  “Ensign Highmark here. What’s going on Sergeant?”

  “Ma’am you have a large number of unfriendlies heading your way. You have maybe five minutes before their forward scouts get to your AO. I would recommend vacating the camp to the rear and going dark. With any luck they will think you are attacking their camp and abort this assault.”

  “Damn AG you were right,” she said. “I feel like such a fool.”

  “Live and learn Ma’am. Live and learn. JJ and I really can’t get there in time to help you. We are going to head into the enemy’s camp and leave them some surprises. If they don’t show up in ten minutes give us a shout out because it means they are heading back our way.”

  “Be careful AG. You’re heading into the lions den.”

  “Don’t ya know ma’am… that’s the best place to beard the lion!”

  ***

  JJ and I made it to the Delta Camp undetected. As far as I could tell it was identical to our set up. It also appeared to be empty except for a few of the specialists that were still hooking up equipment in their B-TOC.

  “JJ, can you rig those Stark umbilical’s to report charging while not actually feeding any juice to their suits?”

  “Bloody hell yes I can,” he answered with a grin. “I’ll inject a thunking layer in their system update software that will upload to their suits. It will tell the umbilical that the batteries are full. At the same time it will feed a false charge level to the suits AI. Once capacity falls to twenty-five percent it will start reporting actual level. That should keep them safe while shortening their leash quite a bit!”

  “Do I want to know how you will accomplish all of this on such short notice?”

  JJ’s grin widened even more as he pulled a memory stick from a cargo pouch on his Stark. “A smart man carries his tools with him at all times. I have several different types of RATs in here.”

  “Rat? Can I assume not of the small furry rodent variety?”

  “Naa, these are of the Remote Access Trojan variety.”

  “Isn’t that a violation of your probation?”

  “Bollocks! You might be right.” He went to put the memory stick back in his pocket.

  “Hey, I didn’t see a thing,” I said with a wink.

  It was always good to have a committed software hacker on your side. While JJ worked to leave a gift that would keep on giving for days or perhaps even weeks… I rummaged through their armory which had been carelessly locked with the standard recruit key codes.

  I found what I was looking for and returned to JJ who was running a final diagnostic on his software patch.

  “We good to go?” I asked.

  JJ gave me a thumbs up. “Patch is good. I even changed the update log to hide it. It will take somebody checking byte transfer logs to see the discrepancy. I could fix that too but I think we may already be out of time. Their forward most troops should be scrambling back here any minute now.”

  Now it was my turn to smile. “Pop your front power pack off and put this on.”

  I handed JJ a Mark Three ammo pack. Our Mark Two Starks could conceivably pass for Mark Threes if no one looked too closely.

  “Tweak our Idents to report us as Charlie team Warrants,” I ordered.

  “Ya do realize, Sarge, that that is technically illegal.”

  I pointed to his cargo pouch were he stored his hacking tools.

  “Point taken,” he said. “Ok, Chief Stone… we are all set.”

  I stashed our secondary batteries in Delta’s armory. I hated losing them but it was a small price to pay if we were successful. Hopefully they would not be doing an inventory anytime soon.

  As we began to make our way upslope in the general direction of Camp Charlie, the first of the Deltas came running into their camp at full speed. We ignored them and they ignored us. We were operating with full active radar and LIDAR which made us stand out like sore thumbs but since we were ‘Charlies’ and supposedly not part of their exercise we were given a wide berth.

  As we topped the rise and looked down into Valles Marineris into the enemy’s camp I couldn’t help but gloat at what we had accomplished. Call it a personal failing… but I was proud. Sure we had bent the rules a little… but isn’t that why General Chesty Puller said ‘Take me to the Brig. I want to see the real Marines!’

  JJ and I watched the Deltas swarmed over their camp like ants over a disturbed mound. Look as they might they did not find the enemy troops they had been expecting. JJ and I were scanned with Radar once and our Idents pinged. After that the Deltas ignored us. As the sun began to lighten the horizon JJ and I walked back into our camp. The remaining charge in my single battery pack was down to three percent. JJ’s must have been in a similar condition because the first thing he did was head to the swap out station.

  Ensign Highmark met us there as we finished the procedure. She looked at the Mark Three ammo packs that we had discarded.

  “So Chief Warrants Stone and Hammond… congratulations on your promotions. Do I want to know
why your Idents are showing such a dubious distinction?”

  I turned to JJ and frowned.

  He said “I’ll fix it right away Sergeant and Ma’am”

  I turned back to Gretchen. “Ensign, I have two words that might save you a lot of grief in the coming days.”

  “And what might those two words be?”

  I smiled, “Culpable Deniability.”

  ***

  The next several days were interesting. Senior Drill Sergeant Harris visited our camp a few minutes after we reported our activities to Ensign Highmark. He immediately asked to speak with Warrants Stone and Hammond.

  I was sure we were headed to the brig but instead the Senior Drill just wanted to know about the nature of the modifications we had made to our opponents Stark suits. It seemed the time-honored doctrine of ‘all’s fair in love and war’ was going to be honored. The only concern was for the safety of the opposing troops. JJ explained fully the steps he had taken to ensure the enemy forces would have ample time to deal with any sudden power issues that might crop up with their suits. Satisfied, the Senior Drill said nothing else about the matter.

  The Drill’s presence delayed our departure for Central City but there was nothing to be done for it. We still managed to hold the City against the combined Delta/Echo assault. To be fair, it was a rather uninspired frontal attack that lacked proper planning. My guess was they were hoping that the actions last night would have forestalled the need to attack the city.

  It was a valuable lesson for me. I think all good leaders learn from their mistakes. The best leaders, however, are able to learn from the mistakes of others. The lesson here was always have a well-thought-out backup plan. This was especially important in the armed services where it was said ‘No plan ever survives contact with the enemy.’

  To her credit, Ensign Highmark stationed lookouts dressed in our makeshift camo ponchos all about the perimeter of the camp. With her approval I added three more lookouts but these ones I placed in somewhat obvious positions and I placed them without the benefit of camo. In short they were bait. Four of these positions, two hidden, two exposed, were staffed even when the rest of the platoon was deployed in the field.

  It turned out the precautions were well founded. While most of us were busy defending Central City that first day, a small contingent of Deltas and Echoes attempted to raid our camp. I’d like to think they were inspired by what JJ and I had done the other day but at this point I was still fairly sure they had not figured out they had been raided. That would change shortly.

  According to one of the hidden soldiers we left guarding the camp, a Private Hansen, a group of mixed Delta/Echoes crept into range of our sentries. Hansen, who was one of our best snipers, managed to take three of them out before they even understood they were the ones under attack. The remaining three were quickly surrounded and disarmed. These three were allowed to walk back to their camp on the proviso that they not join the ongoing battle.

  The three that Hansen had shot were a different matter. Once their AI’s detected simulated fatal hits, their suits locked up tighter than a drum. Apparently the same was not true for their commlinks. The word has it from the same Private Hansen that some unkind comments were made with regard to his genetic heritage.

  This might go a long way towards explaining why Hansen, who was a big bruiser even without a Stark suit on, felt it necessary to carefully stack all three on the complainers in a pile and use them as a bench to sit on until the exercise was over.

  At about the same time as this was going on in our camp, the main body of the enemy forces were advancing on Central City. Understand, even though we were the defenders we were facing roughly two to one odds. Delta and Echo were a combined force facing our Beta platoon. Alpha, who would normally be our partners had been ordered to stand down for this series of engagements. When we were done, we would stand down and Alpha would face the now more experienced Delta/Echo platoons. By mid-week everybody would switch.

  As I watched from our hastily prepared positions inside the walls of our fake city, I was amazed at how fast the situation could change in a combat situation. We tried to hold every bit of high ground we could. The importance of high ground had been drilled into us by the Drills – pun intended. The problem was the Enemy was receiving the same training we were.

  The very first thing they tried to do was to lob simulated mortars at every high point in the city complex. Central City had three tall building near its center. These were actually two hundred foot tall platforms with metal ladders that you climbed to get to the top. We had multiple snipers on each one. Together, they were able to create a curtain of death around the city. If the enemy was going to advance on the city they would need to deal with these towers.

  The rest of the city was unremarkable. We used that to our advantage. There were twenty or so buildings that surrounded the towers. They were of varying heights and were nothing more than empty box-shaped structures with a handful of randomly placed windows and reinforced roofs that a soldier could stand on if needed. The streets between the buildings were either wide… or narrow… depending on whether they were meant to simulate a major thoroughfare or a side street.

  We had placed point defense lasers on the buildings surrounding the towers. They easily took care of the first round of mortars. For these exercises, the simulated shells were nothing more than smoke bombs. The most they could do was to perhaps knock a fighter off the firing platform should they be lucky enough to actually hit the recruit. They certainly would not hurt a man wearing a Stark suit and a fall from that distance on Mars would not serious harm a person in a Stark.

  After the first round of mortars were dispatched by the point defense systems the enemy changed tactics. They fired ten more mortars but this time they were fired at the point defense systems themselves. The PDS tracked all the incoming mortars and took them out methodically. Unfortunately the shells got progressively closer. Before the first set of ten were done a second set of ten were on their way. It was an especially wasteful technique for dealing with defensive laser batteries but it would work if you had enough mortars. Lasers needed a fixed amount of time on target to burn through a shell’s defensive armor. That meant they could be overwhelmed if you were willing to waste enough ordnance. It certainly seemed this was the enemy’s plan. In a few minutes they took out each of the point defenses. Red simulator smoke roiled from the rooftops of the buildings that had housed them.

  While the bad guys were still working our PDSs over, I ordered Corporal Johnston to get gunners up on the roofs to take over Point Defense duties with kinetic weapons. A suit’s AI could help to aim such a crew-served weapon but it took thousands of rounds to knock a mortar out of the sky. Frankly, we would only be able to deal with a few before we ran out of kinetics.

  As the last of the PDSs reported themselves killed, the enemy switched their fire back towards our snipers. I suspect they were surprised when the first few of those mortars also got knocked out of the sky. The Delta/Echo platoons made up for a fundamental lack of imagination with dogged persistence however. Soon enough all three of our sniper towers were also billowing volumes of red smoke.

  At this point, the battle had been going on for the better part of twenty minutes. In a battle, time dilates. Those twenty minutes felt more like two hours. Ensign Highmark was trying to direct troops by sending them from here to there depending on where she was seeing the most fire coming at our positions. Unfortunately every time she did this she opened up a hole in our defenses. I tried to point this out but she was too busy micromanaging the movement of the troops to listen. I suspected the After-Action-Review for this exercise was not going to be a fun experience for her… but hey… we were here to learn. Better she muck up a simulated battle now than a real fight later.

  The enemy began to advance in earnest. The advance was ragged. We really had not been able to take many of them out from our defensive positions. Also they outnumbered us two to one. At this point it should have been a
rout. Instead we saw signs that the enemy was slowly retreating.

  Gretchen looked at me confused. I took the opportunity to share on an open comm what JJ and I had been listening to all morning. When JJ had hacked the opposition’s Stark suits he had taken the opportunity to pull their encryption keys which meant for the moment we had access to all ten of their encrypted communication channels. It was their command channel which was most interesting at the moment.

  “Damnit Sarge! We had them. What do you mean you’re out of juice? Didn’t you have the men plug them in last night for a full recharge?”

  “Sir,” a shaky voice answered, “I checked everybody’s levels this morning. Everybody was good to go. I swear to God I don’t know how in the world we managed to run down the power packs so fast. We must have a defective charging unit.”

  “How many effectives do we have left?”

  “Sir, I’m afraid it’s just the six of us. Everyone else is down to under twenty percent on their secondaries. They’ll make it back to camp but as far as fighting… until they can swap out packs… their day is done.”

  I looked at Gretchen. She held up six fingers. I nodded.

  “Ma’am,” I said with a grin that threatened to split my face from ear to ear, “it would seem like a real shame for the neighbors to come all this way to say hello and not get to see us. What do you say we send a couple of squads out to say hi? I’ve never had the privilege of capturing an enemy combatant. I’d kind of like a chance to try it.”

  Chapter 11: Boot Camp – Embedded…

  Ensign Whitmore of Echo platoon and Sergeants Fahad and Jamison, of Delta and Echo respectively, were not happy to see me. I could tell by their frustrated looks and the amount of swearing coming over their comm channel. I led a team of six Betas over the southern ridge. This allowed us to approach their position which was located in a small protected gully about two klicks from Central City.