Chapter 26 Close Action
ieutenant Jeremy Ashland had a good view from his broom hovering near the roof of the cave with the rest of the Air Element hovering with them. Z Troop was lined up on either side of the cave, cocked and primed for fire support with their cannon. The cave chamber was cluttered with all sorts of obstacles, any of which could have been cover for a Death Eater who had heard or seen the breach. Their first job was to do a sweep to make sure there were no Death Eaters in ambush.
Surprise is holding. So far. He tapped his wand, making sure he had selected the Air Element's comms rune net, not the Command net, then took a deep breath and made sure his voice was calm and steady as it had to be.
"Sweep as briefed." He ordered. Now I earn my pay. There are no easy jobs in MMS, and Air Element's a plum job.
That plum job had a price tag attached to it. Like any other recce unit in any military force in the world, they were the eyes of the force. They were lightly armed, relying on mobility and stealth, and the enemy's first care was always to blind those eyes if they could.
Hanging motionless against the cave ceiling under Disillusionment and Silencio, they were as near to undetectable as anyone could reasonably ask. Swooping down low enough to detect enemies under cover who they had to assume were also using those concealment measures meant giving up a good deal of that. The human eye was tuned by millenia of evolution to pick up on any movement.
*Supersensory Ocularis*. Air Element was spread out in echelon, covering the width of the cave chamber and moving slowly to check each potential ambush in turn. The vehicles of X and Y Troops were also moving slowly under Disillusionment and Silencio.
Ashland checked behind a rock spire and a fold in the rock wall and found both places of cover empty. They were nearly at the entrance to the chamber. That was a vital choke point. It was a place where an inferior force could make a stand, inflict delay and casualties out of all proportion to its numbers.
He floated slowly along next to the rock wall toward the entrance, scanning for threats. If they could take it and secure it before surprise was lost, they would be a long step toward taking down this terrorists' lair.
What's that? Jeremy saw a faint glow in the entrance, throwing a shadow that resolved itself into the shape of a man on foot. Likely more than one, by the way the shadow fell. He goosed his broom a little and readied his wand. If he could take them down quickly and quietly with a Stupefy, then they might yet seize the choke point unopposed.
He tapped the Air Element comms rune with his wand and whispered, "Activity at the entrance."
It was likely enough that his people had already seen that and were moving to intercept, but it was better to be sure.
The glow emerged into the cave from the entrance and Jeremy could see it was three men, one of them holding up his wand, which was glowing with a Lumos spell.
*Lumos Maxima*. The Death Eater holding up his wand cast again, and the light from it suddenly flashed incredibly brighter.
"What the Hell?" One of them shouted, drawing his wand and pointing it, not at Jeremy but at where one of his men was likely to be. Jeremy cast a Stupefy at him, but the range was long and the three of them were scattering to cover.
"Engage!" Jeremy shouted, using Sonorus. The boom of a Bombarda Maxima echoed through the cave. Jeremy saw with a flicker of relief that it had detonated against the cave roof, and so had missed whoever of his men it was cast at.
The spell was answered by automatic rifle fire from three places, and the troopers of the Air Element flicked into visibility, aiming wands and rifles down at the three Death Eaters. Jeremy had his own job to do. He flicked his wand to the Command net. "Contact. Wait. Out."
That was enough to tell the Commander what he needed to know. In the far future of a couple of minutes from now when this firefight was ended, he would be able to fill in more of the details.
The Death Eater who had cast the Bombarda Maxima had taken a few seconds to do so before taking cover, and he paid for that as a storm of rifle fire chewed up him and the stone floor around him. He went down hard and the light from his wand snuffed out instantly. Instantly there was a blast of flame from where he had gone down that reached almost to the ceiling then slowly died away. A second tower of flame erupted right beside the first, flinging another harsh glare through the cave, and it too died away again.
Darkness fell again in the cave. Balloon's gone up, for fair. "Cannon. Call for fire. Three illumination rounds, spreading left."
The darkness endured for a handful of seconds, then there was a triple crack of cannon fire and three star-bright objects sprang into existence up against the roof of the chamber. Jeremy blinked hard and held up his hand to shade his eyes against the sudden glare of light from them.
Jeremy saw a flicker of movement as someone ran back toward the entrance, pursued by rifle fire. He made it back into the entrance. There was no third blast of Fiendfyre, so if the Death Eater was wounded it could not be seriously. The grinding of treads on the stone floor and the roar of engines hit his ears like a blow as the MMS flung concealment aside.
Clouds of dust and dirt exploded around the cave entrance as dismounted troopers sprinted toward the cave entrance. With surprise gone, speed was what mattered now. The soldiers of the MMS were using the tried and true tactics of fire and movement to achieve that speed and ensure that any Death Eaters at or near that entrance would be well motivated to keep their heads down.
The Beowulf Doctrine. Magic doesn't have an ammunition allowance. Jeremy snapped on the Air Element's net, "Rifles. Overwatch."
The soldiers on the ground, moving from cover to cover for the assault, would need someone up high with a good field of view - and fire - to engage anyone with the hardihood to show himself to fight back under the storm of magic that had just hit them. That was their job.
Jeremy watched the entrance closely, looking for any flicker of movement as the dust and dirt of the *Bombarda*'s settled again. There was a hint of movement in the entrance, perhaps only a shadow cast by the harsh and pitiless illumination of the illumination rounds from the cannon, imbued with a powerful *Lumos Maxima* charm. Jeremy's men, and at least some of the troopers on the ground, saw it as well. They reacted instantly, and a storm of rifle fire fell on the entrance.
Jeremy waited tensely, but there was no third blast of Fiendfyre. Jeremy frowned, then shook his head. Evil doesn't mean stupid. It was quite possible the Death Eater had simply bugged out, as better men than he would have done without shame at facing such odds.
The lead elements of the ground assault reached the cave entrance, and Jeremy snapped, "Hold fire, say again hold fire." on the Air Element net. Friendly fire was an ever-present concern in any firefight, and doubly so in a hot dirty fight in a sack like this.
BOOM! BOOM! Bombarda explosions thundered through the cavern, and dust and dirt erupted from the entrance. Beowulf strikes again. Normal non-Magical soldiers carried a strictly limited number of grenades, very useful in ensuring enemies and booby traps were neutralized. Bombarda did that just as well, and had no ammo limits. Training mattered here, too. The soldiers of the MMS could use that spell with a measured precision that no ordinary wizard could even approach, which minimized the risk of bringing down a chunk of the cave roof on them.
"Close in. Prepare to transit breach." Jeremy and his men all knew the plan. The assault force would secure the breach, and as soon as they did Air Element would head through into the next chamber and recce it for threats. Jeremy didn't need to look at the map that MK-1 had brought them, showing the movements of the Death Eater they had tagged like a songbird. He had it in his memory. The wall between the two chambers was relatively thin, and the chamber beyond a large one. By the looks, the Death Eater had wandered around in the dark until he found the entrance, so they had a good idea of the shape of the wall in that area.
Jeremy watched as the soldiers at the entrance formed a line against the wall of the cave in the order they would go into the entrance, "the stack" as it was known. There was a momentary lull in the noise of battle while they did so.
It was broken by the boom of a Bombarda, followed by a shout of Diffindo Maxima, Diffindo Maxima! Jeremy realized it didn't come from his side of the entrance. He watched as two thin slashes appeared in the stone over the entrance, and he had just time to think, Evil doesn't mean gutless, either.
The leading soldiers in the stack fired into the entrance, but that didn't stop whoever on the other side was casting the spells, and more thin criss-cross slashes appeared in the stone of the wall above the tunnel. A voice he couldn't identify shouted, "Clear the breach! Clear the breach!"
The stack unraveled as the soldiers next to the wall realized the danger and pulled back. The collapse of the tunnel seemed to happen in slow motion, huge chunks of stone slowly collapsing down into the tunnel and out into the chamber itself, throwing out dust and debris until the whole heap of shattered stone ground slowly to a halt.
"Medic! Medic!" Not all of the soldiers in the stack had got away from the wall in time. The designated ambulance vehicle came up and slammed to a halt, and casualties started being loaded into it. It didn't have the traditional red cross on it, or any distinctive markings at all. That would just have made it a target for the Death Eaters.
No plan survives contact with the enemy. This one's dead. The Man will take it from here. Jeremy hit the rune for the Command net and started his report to the Commander. He took a couple of minutes at that, compressing what he'd seen to the needed facts. When it was done and acknowledged, he glanced at his watch. The firefight and its aftermath had taken just 17 minutes. It only seemed like hours.
The Command Post was now mobile, in the Commander's vehicle. Stan the Man, his staff, and the leadership, including Jeremy, were gathered at the tunnel into the next chamber.
"HOLDFAST." and a brief nod to the pile of broken rock, put the spotlight on the Sergeant in charge of the Engineer detachment.
"The breach is filled with recent rubble, certainly unstable and difficult to remove. Clearing the way for the vehicles would take an hour, perhaps more."
The Engineer Sergeant pointed with his wand at the rock above the pile of rubble, showing zig-zag cracks and cuts from the Death Eater's Diffindo spells. "The rock above the breach is compromised, and might well have to be braced. That would take longer."
"Recommendation?" The Man looked up at the heap of fractured stone and the cracked and cut stone above it with narrowed eyes.
Jeremy could follow the Man's train of thought, and it wasn't a pleasant one. Hours to clear the breach and make it safe for the vehicles to transit. Hours for the Death Eaters to get their act together, hours for them to to set booby traps, prepare an ambush, or both.
"Recce and prep a site for a new breach. Take less time and it will give us a breach that's trustworthy," the Engineer Sergeant replied.
"Approved. Make it so. Expedite." The Man dismissed him with a gesture to get started on that urgent job, where every minute counted.
Jeremy felt a surge of relief. With luck, the Death Eaters would be focused on the original breach and would be caught on the back foot. Like the chicken in the joke, they would not know which way to point their peckers.
"Eyes. Be prepared to transit the breach and conduct a tactical recce." The Man ordered, turning his attention to Jeremy.
"Sir." Jeremy replied. I have my nickname. Not much planning needed here.
He glanced up at the heap of broken rock as several chunks of rock rolled down to the floor.
"Sergeant Fletcher. Assessment as to the enemy's courses of action."
"Some of them may panic and try to run for it. Few, if any. The ones who are prone to panic are already dead, and any who do will be. They could conduct an orderly evacuation, taking Voldemort's body and what they need to reanimate it with them. That would likely take time to prepare. They could stand and fight. The most likely course of action is an evacuation of the leadership and the body of Voldemort. The expendable low level wands will be sent against us to buy time in all cases. The unknown is how close to being resurrected Voldemort is, and thus whether he would be a factor in the tactical situation."
The Man acknowledged Fletcher's statement with a brief nod, then turned to Harry. "Sir Harry, what have you for us?"
Sir Harry jerked his head at Beowulf, who flicked his wand to unroll a piece of parchment and hang it in the air. "Scorpion is in the main complex, milling about. He would be one of the wands sent against us once they get themselves organized. Apparently they haven't, yet."
Sir Harry weighed in. "There are several options for dealing with the known entrance. What do you want done?"
The Man paused for a few seconds, his eyes narrowed in thought. "A diversion. We want them to think we are coming at them by that route. It will also have the effect of cutting that off as a route for their evacuation."
Sir Harry paused for a few seconds. "We can do that. Right away?"
"On my order. It needs to be coordinated." The Man said at once.
Sir Harry nodded, pushed up the sleeve of his robe and tapped a comm rune. "Entry Team, this is Chief. THUNDERBALL, say again, THUNDERBALL. Make ready to deploy, deploy only on my order. Acknowledge."
The reply crackled back instantly. The Man turned to the Troop Commanders. "Assume an opposed entry, plan to me by the time the breach is ready."
The quiet in the cave was broken only by men writing in their field notebooks. "To your duties, dismissed."
The object on the platform resembled the big brother of PP 9 3/4, but the platform at the top did not hold cameras. The members of the Entry Team stood around the dais, checklists in magical fire hanging in the air. There were no soldiers among them this time. The MMS needed every wand in the field.
There was silence in the room after the bustle of preparation. Adrian Carbuncle flicked his wand at the voice rune on the platform. "Chief, this is Entry Team Lead. THUNDERBALL is ready, say again, THUNDERBALL is ready."
"Copy that." Sir Harry's voice was recognizable even over the voice rune link. "Stand by."
"THUNDERBALL, go! THUNDERBALL, go!" Sir Harry's voice crackled from the rune. Adrian raised his wand to start the planned sequence of events that would launch THUNDERBALL. He felt like the conductor of some madman's orchestra, doing his own part then cuing the others to do their in turn.
There were no Silencio or Disillusionment spells this time. That was not THUNDERBALL's purpose. Adrian raised his wand for the last act. "Facere Omnia!"
The Portkey activated and THUNDERBALL vanished.
Eyes and the Air Element were not in the air. They were well back in cover as Sergeant Beavertail, the Engineer Sergeant, completed the final preparations for the breach of the cave wall. He had picked a spot where the cave wall dimpled in and so the tunnel to be excavated was slightly shorter. There had been no nonsense about picking the site. There was neither time nor use for elaborate "we think that they think that we think" games.
Sergeant Beavertail's voice resounded through the cave, amplified by a powerful Sonorus charm. "Fire in the hole!"
There was a tense pause while Jeremy counted the seconds. No form of detonation using electricity could even be considered, so it was back to doing it old school. The detonation train consisted of two kinds of fuse. Slow fuse was just that, to impose a delay so that everyone had plenty of time to ensure they were in cover. In the tense silence, Jeremy could hear the crackling as the fuse burned, then he put his hands over his ears, crouched down and waited.
The slow fuse hit the set of other fuses twisted together, each leading to a separate charge drilled into the stone wall of the cave. Quick fuse burned instantly, and Sergeant Beavertail's skill ensured that the shaped charges detonated at exactly the same time to a tiny fraction of a second.
The roar of the explosion was ear-shattering even for men who were in cover, ready and prepared. Jeremy felt the shock wave slam past him, a hard slap even though he was behind solid cover and the charges were shaped charges that directed almost all their force into breaking the rock to form a new tunnel into the next cave.
Jeremy counted five seconds, took his hands off his ears and stood up to see the results. He grinned savagely. There was a huge ragged hole in the cave wall, nearly clear. Anyone on the other side of that new tunnel would have had the twin impact of the shock wave from the explosion and the huge shotgun blast of rock fragments driven by the explosions.
Jeremy swung onto his broom and kicked off. "Air Element. Go! Go! Go!"
With his men behind him, Jeremy led the way into the cloud of dust and the unknown perils of the next cave.