They took off in darkness, a faint ground mist lapping around the landing gear, leaving swirls of fog as they strode from the house to the landing pad. The team settled in, checking their gear while Marius ran through the pre-flight, and soon they were in the air, fading into darkness as a spirit wrapped them in it's concealing touch.
They flew almost due west, heading into the spine of mountains that ran down the western side of former Azerbaijan and into Armenia – though the Trans Caucus League theoretically made all of the lands below one big happy family, tribal and cultural history couldn't be erased in a single generation.
Onwards they flew, the sky around them gradually lightning as the first rays of sun peeked over the horizon to the east. To their south, a flame danced in the night sky, glittering and flickering brightly. Tads swung her viewing prism around to check out the unexpected sight, peering into the optical relay and squinting to try and make out what it was. After a few moments she called through to the rest of the team, and Hunter checked the map – informing her that it was the peak of Mount Arrarat they could see – the glacial peak probably reflecting and refracting the first rays of sun and scattering them wildly. Marius immediately turned a few degrees north, opening up the distance between themselves and the peak, not wanting to get any closer than he had to – it was rumoured to be where Aden made his lair, and that was reason enough in his book to stay well clear.
Shortly afterwards, leaving the peak in their wake, they crossed over the arbitrary line on the map that signified the Kurdish Autonomous Zone. Below was still dark, the ground rugged and undulating, upland valleys, small lakes and chains of peaks that marched to the horizon, the visible backbone of the world below them. Here and there were isolated spots of light, small villages or homesteads, the occasional car or truck labouring up a steep road – but mostly it was wild countryside, the farmers of the area trying to tame it and fight against the pollution born upon ill winds from the more populated areas, and driving back the mutated and awakened world that fought from the other side.
Onwards they flew, through the lightening sky, closing in on the border with the Turkish zone of control. Marius twisted further north, crossing the border sooner and then looping around in a large arc to approach the target location from the north, directly opposite the shortest path to the border itself, hoping that this would make it easier to avoid any surveillance. Flying through the chasms and twisting valleys, the advanced stealth materials of the craft helped him avoid the thin and sparsely planted radar stations, and the magical concealment meant that nobody even saw a faint sensor ghost on their displays.
"I've been thinking," Aswon said, as they approached the landing co-ordinates, "we really need to determine what kind of magical surveillance they have. If they have on site mages and a flock of watcher spirits – then we're going to have problems. But if they don't – if they're magically undefended, like the troops were in Samara, then… well, we can dance rings round them. Between Tads and her invisibility cloaking spell, and her spirits' concealment, we can probably walk right by them and not be spotted at all. We'd be able to just wander through any guards or perimeter they might have, and get right up to these vehicles and sabotage them. And though we probably can't use magic to assault the vehicles – they're too big and heavily armoured to make that viable – we can use magic to let us break them in more mundane methods."
"What about if they have a couple of watchers spirits or an elemental guarding them?" Kai asked.
"Well, in that case, they need to be part of our first strike. It will alert whatever mage summoned them, and make them aware that there's a problem – and they'll probably respond quickly. But until they do, we're golden, and we can make a lot of progress.
"Coming in on the landing site. It is quite high – Hunter tells me the observation point is at twenty-six hundred metres, on the reverse side of a peak overlooking the town. Stand by for landing, and get ready to deploy the nets. Weather is poor, watch your footing." Marius switched through his visual feed to the screens in the troop bay, and they saw what he meant. It was too mild to be a blizzard – but the air was filled with flakes of snow and ice, driven by strong winds, and it still lowered visibility to less than two hundred metres. The temperature was around freezing, but it appeared that there was a lot of moisture in the air, as the flakes that hit the windscreen were large clumps of very wet snow, quickly clumping together into a mush that stuck to the wipers and left smears over the glass.
Marius pivoted the craft and bought them into a hover, gently lowering them down and sliding backwards towards the peak, leaving the nose pointing towards the clearest facing. At some point in the past an avalanche or other earth movement had shifted part of the slope, creating a mostly flat area about fifty metres below the peak. It was more than big enough for the tilt-wing, and Marius set them down gently on the boulder-strewn area, his rigged senses 'feeling' the ground underneath them until he found a spot where all the sets of landing gear were firmly touching the ground and he could safely throttle back.
The team popped the rear hatch, shuddering slightly as a cold knife-like wind raced into the bay with a swirl of snow chasing it. Pulling on their insulated gloves and pulling up hoods, most of them manhandled the cammo netting out and started to climb up onto the aircraft, pulling the netting up and draping it over the fuselage and then pinning it down over the wings, breaking up the shape of the aircraft. Hunter grabbed a pack and headed up slope however, dropping to his belly and crawling as he got within a few metres of the ridgeline.
Slowly working his way forward on his belly, he crested the ridge and looked down, studying the landscape below. Adjusting the power on his transmitter down almost to the minimum, he broadcast his first observation report.
"In position. When you get up to the ridge it's pretty sharp, there's a distinct edge, and the ground drops away sharply on the other side. Make sure you stay low when approaching – there's definitely not a rolling top here. Altimeter here reports two-six-two-one metres of elevation. Town of Erzincan is to the general east. Far reach of town at bearing two-seven-two, but it spreads quite a lot, covering the valley round to a bearing of two-four-five. Town is approximately three thousand six hundred metres away at closest point, furthest is over ten-thousand metres – the range finder is losing lock there. Sprawling town, maybe a small city. No central business district I can see, not in this light, looks mostly single and double story dwellings and low rise industrial."
"There's an airport of some kind to the south-east of the city, single runway approximately three thousand metres long. One control tower, no current activity. In between the airport and us there's what looks like the major highway, which should be the E80 or D100, depending on which map we look at. That runs to the south-east and heads into the Kurdish zone, or west and around the town."
"From our perch, we've got a drop of close to a thousand metres down a fairly nasty-looking scree slope, lots of outcroppings, ledges and ridges. Then it eases off into a gentle hill and drops away to fields and agriculture until you hit town. Providing we don't get skylighted on the ridge, we should be nigh on invisible up here against the rocks, and there's no way they can see the landing site. Looks like the dude was right on the money on this being a good observation spot."
Hunter ended his transmission, and returned to studying the town, noting down observations on his pad and trying to work out how and why the town had grown as it had. A number of things didn't make sense, and he pulled out the connection from his deck, punching a signal back to the tilt-wing and connecting up through the sat-link to do a bit of research. A few minutes later he had some answers at least, and he keyed the transmitter again.
"Additional information – it turns out that the region used to be well known for skiing and wilderness recreation. Lots of the town below used to be guest houses or chalet style hotels, with the town's population doubling in the peak of winter. The hills we're in, and the stuff to the north and east used to be littered with ski routes and trails, and this was the major town to access them. There's two hospitals in town that I've identified, and I bet they're heavily slanted towards things like breaks and fractures in their care departments, but it also explains the odd mix between housing and industry, and the sprawl. But, the rise of the fundamentalists drove the tourists away, and once the bubble popped, the town has become a bit of a ghost town – lots of closed businesses and service industries that all relied on the tourist income, and it's pretty depressed now by the looks of things."
He heard grunting over the radio, and slid backwards from the ridge, turning to peer downwards through the snow and sleet to landing site. They'd just about finished with the netting, struggling to get it thrown over the propellors, turning the aircraft into an ungainly lumpy protrusion – but one that didn't look like an aircraft at all. As snow landed on the netting, it started to build up quickly, adding to the camouflage effect.
"Bird looks good – hard to spot from here, so you should be ok from observation. Heading back up to the ridge."
"Ok, Hunter. We're heading back inside to warm up. Let us know when you need relieving."
"I'm good Kai. Maybe tomorrow or something." Hunter pulled out his own section of cammo net and slowly eased it over the top of him, anchoring it down to a few rocks on either side and then gently extended a couple of poles to lift it up off his body, creating a tiny tunnel for him to lie in. Just like the aircraft, the snow quickly gathered on the white and grey mesh, landing on the artificial leaves that were festooned around the netting and quickly he started to merge into the ground, disappearing from view.
In the tilt-wing, they raised the rear ramp, cutting down on the wind and relaxed in their seats, recovering from the exertion of putting out the netting. Aswon got a brew on, passing around cups of hot coffee to everyone except Tads, who got a sweet and rich hot chocolate to sip on instead.
"If the artillery turns up, and we got spotted and they start shooting at us… we're a bit frakked, aren't we. I mean, if the artillery hits us – we're toast?"
"Yes. A direct hit from a 155mm shell will wreck the bird, without any issue at all. In fact a hit anywhere within about twenty metres will probably kill the aircraft – explosive splinters and blast effects will destroy the control surfaces and wreck the engines, making us non-viable. A hit that close will probably not kill us, though – not if we are inside. But it will destroy the aircraft, effectively."
"Any idea on the minimum range of those things, Marius?"
"I would guess that they are able to fire on a fairly flat trajectory – almost like a tank or a weapon system mounted on other ground vehicles like our truck. But they can also elevate significantly, and it would depend on the power of the charge they use. My understanding is that this can be determined from the range and other data, and they can use precisely the right amount of propellant charge to send the shell where needed."
"Hmm, that doesn't sound good. Not for us anyway. So they've probably got something built in for a minimum safe distance – probably only a few hundred metres, just to make sure they don't frag themselves. But after that, it's easy enough to hit us. And they can probably shoot indirect as well, if they work it out right."
"Indeed."
They settled down to wait, leaving Hunter out on point, reporting in every fifteen minutes, mostly with more trivia about the town. As the day progressed the winds remained but the snow-storm faded away, and with the rising light level Hunter could see further and with more clarity, reporting on the town. There was a freight rail link to the south of the city, but no sign of passenger rail at all, no metro or light rail in the town – but a mass of cars that choked the side streets and main roads alike. No central core of the city with high rise towers – instead it just seemed to blanket the area with three story dwellings and offices over shops, in a monotonous sea of terracotta tile. Even the sports stadium was limited in height, barely eclipsing the surrounding houses.
It was a few minutes before ten when Hunter raised the alarm, piping though a somewhat grainy video feed that jumped and stuttered as it struggled for bandwidth to the team's receivers.
"Got a large convey appeared, western side of town. Extreme range at the moment, but there's a lot of stuff painted green and looking like it has big frakking guns. Might want to get one of you magic types up here."
"I'll go." Tads grabbed her staff, and then rested it against the doorframe while she did up her coat, tugging out her gloves and sliding her hands into the insulated inners. "I'm on my way." She slid open the side door, trying to get out as quickly as possible and reseal the hatch before the bitter wind stole too much of the warmer air from the tilt-wing.
"Convoy still coming. Looks like we have a couple of APC style vehicles up front. Then a couple of tanks, big assed tracked monsters, not LAVs. Behind that is a couple of trucks, similar to ours. Then we've got arty… lots of arty. Still coming. Ok, that's a dozen pieces, still coming…" He paused for a moment, shuffling to one side and making some room in his hide in preparation for Tads' arrival. "Ok, by my count we have eighteen – one-eight – self propelled artillery pieces, they look like an exact match for the T-155 I showed you the other day. Behind them are some jeeps or small APCs, then some more trucks. And bringing up the rear is another tank, same kind as the ones at the front. Lots of vehicles… all heading east down the highway, towards us."
A minute later, Tads crawled into the hide, squirming up on her belly to join Hunter. She pulled out her own optical binoculars and followed the line of Hunter's arm as he pointed to the right area to get her zeroed in.
"I see them. The two big tank things at the front, they're warded for sure. Looks like all the big guns are as well, and the tank at the back. Hmmm. None of the smaller vehicles are though. Nope… none at the front, either." She scanned back and forth several times, gently poking at their astral auras and trying to look for any subtle hidden wards or signs of unusual magical activity.
"Ok, I'm not seeing any active magic down there – no mages, no spirits, no elementals. No active spells on the equipment or anywhere nearby. The big things are all warded, and by the looks of things, it's a gestalt. I'm picking up traces of multiple individual signatures in there, so I'm guessing it's a team effort. Wards look permanent, and they're quite strong – not strong enough to filter out all of my spells, but most of them would be stopped unless I hammered the ward down first. Not all the wards are the same on all vehicles, but I'm getting common threads through them – I think it was the same magical support unit that put them up, looks like a permanent effort as well, but the members of the unit rotated in and out at a guess. But they're protected, pretty well. We should forget about direct magical assault on the big vehicles for certain. The little ones – the trucks and the armoured car things, they're possibles."
"Just pan left and right, will you, Hunter, nice and slowly." Hunter obliged, feeding the image back to Kai and the rest in the truck.
"There's only really the one main road that I can see. Lots of side streets in town and stuff, but once you're away from that, there's very little. And you've got mountains on both sides of the town, rising sharply. If they set up here, then their flanks are pretty well protected against direct assault – stuff like trucks and tanks. Everything has to come down the valley to them, and probably by the road if they want to move fast. But from how you describe those guns firing, up in ballistic arcs, then they've got really good firing angles here, way out into the Kurdish zone.
The team watched as the military convoy swept down the highway, travelling at a steady forty kilometres per hour. The occasional truck or car lumbered past them, but the convoy continued, unhurriedly to the east. They passed the airport and only slowed as they reached the bend in the road where it swapped to a more southerly direction. Here they split, with the APCs and artillery departing the highway, suddenly forging out directly across the fields that abutted the main road, forging their own path in a straight line to the east. The two tanks swung to the south, proceeding perhaps half a kilometre and then waiting, guns pointing to the south.
The artillery continued for just shy of a kilometre, before turning and starting to form up. Behind them the snow was churned to a brown paste, the fields ripped apart by the passing of the heavy military vehicles, hedges destroyed and the ground scarred by their passing. The first six formed a firing line, spread out ten metres between each vehicle, all on a line facing to the south. The next six vehicles formed a second row, and the last six formed a third, making a box nearly eighty metres long and forty deep. The trucks pulled up to their rear, back fifty metres or so and parking much closer together. As they stopped a horde of infantry disgorged, falling into ranks to the rear, while the armoured jeeps apparently offloaded officers who moved to chivvy them into formation and get them ready for inspection. A few minutes later they started to peel away, the ten-man infantry squads heading out in all directions across the fields. They pushed out about eight hundred metres from the artillery platoon, spread out in a huge circle around them, then started to dig in. Those near hedges started to string bashas up from the fence or hedgerow, while those in the middle of fields set to with entrenching tools, scraping out foxholes or at least shallow hides from the cold frozen soil.
"Each of those positions will be in line of sight for the two neighbours, even at night. The weather would have to be awful to block them. That's a pretty good defensive net." Aswon murmured, as he watched the flickering feed. "Look like standard battle dress, so they're going to be somewhat armoured, probably level two body armour, and it looks like a radio operator, three rifle men and a non-commissioned officer, forming a five-man section. The second section will be the same, but probably a full corporal or a sergeant instead of a lance corporal. Or whatever ranks they're using. Looks like the officers are staying concentrated in the middle. Look over there, will you, Hunter? Thanks… yeah, looks like all the officers are hobnobbing in the middle, no sleeping in the snow for them. Ahh – and that looks like a heavy weapons squad or platoon, probably the reaction force, for if anything trips the perimeter. Light machine gun teams, and what looks like 60mm mortars. Man portable, but with a good couple of kilometre range, and very rapid firing."
The viewpoint shifted suddenly as Hunter caught a faint noise on the wind, and he watched as the third tank, the one that had been guarding the rear of the convoy, caught up with the two at the front, and then all three set off down the highway to the south, travelling perhaps a kilometre before then setting up in an echelon on the highway, guns facing towards the Kurdish zone, forming a powerful and clear road-block.
"Just a thought. Could we take off and book to arrive in the airport? Would that get us anything?" Tads asked.
"I don't think so – I don't think it would attract any attention from this lot, but while we'd be a bit closer to them, we'd lose all the height advantage we've got for observations. Given how flat the town is, and how similar in height everything is, I don't think we'd get a decent view from down there." Aswon replied.
"Hmm, I hadn't thought of that. Oh well. Still no sign of active magical support by the way. Nothing moving at all on the astral plane." Tads signed off, and continued to watch the site astrally, probing gently at the wards to confirm there were no holes, and looking for anything unusual to report.
"Ok, one of the trucks is offloading some cargo… looks like a drone. Bit like ours. No… that's not right – it's way too big. Same kind of design, but massive. Marius, what do you make of this?"
"Ja – surveillance done for sure, but I agree. The lifting bag is much bigger – about the size of a small car. The gondola is scaled up as well, and it looks to have four rotor engines on spurs. That will have endurance for days with that size lift bag, especially if they have photo-cells on the top part, and the rotors will give it excellent station keeping ability, even in high winds. It is likely to have a very competent sensor suite as well. If that gets overhead, the netting may not be enough to save us."
"Aswon, swap with me, will you? I'm coming back."
"Sure thing, Tads, why?"
"Sounds like we need to be more concealed from overhead. Time to shape some earth…"
Aswon moved forward to take up the magical overwatch, sliding into the spot vacated by the shaman, while she slid back down the hillside and moved towards the tilt-wing, then started to gather mana to her. The mountains at least were fairly pure, high above the pollution of the valleys and relatively unscathed by the depredations of the sixth world, and the mana flowed smoothly. As she'd done before, she started to raise a barrier from the very bones of the mountain, shaping it up into a wall that rose and rose, gradually rising to form an arch above the tilt-wing. She moved around, raising more sections, slowly covering the tilt-wing while leaving a large opening facing the valley beyond. After a few minutes of intense effort, a stone hemisphere enclosed the tilt-wing, and she started to shape the exterior surface, adding crags and outcroppings, fault lines and cracks, blending it into the mountain below.
Inside the newly-formed hanger, Shimazu and Kai climbed out, and started the laborious task of removing the cammo nets so recently draped over the aircraft. If they needed a quick get-away, then they could save precious minutes by doing it now – and with the new stone roof over their heads, it wasn't as if they would do any good now anyway.
Marius, meanwhile, broke out his electronic tools and spares, and made his way up to the ridgeline, dragging a cable and small antenna with him. Passing it to Hunter, he asked him to train it on the artillery unit, and then slid back down towards the tilt-wing, paying out wire behind him until he got back to the aircraft, sliding through one of the overhangs Tads had left for access. Plugged into the electronics systems on the aircraft, he fired up his surveillance software and set up the decryption routines, ready to try and intercept any transmissions made.
"Tads, the troops down below are laying out lines from what looks like a command vehicle to each of the artillery pieces?"
"And?" she replied, concentrating as she continued to build up the defences over the tilt-wing.
"Well, I know you're busy, but it might be worth breaking off for a few minutes and coming up here. If you can plant an influence on these guys to mess up their job, it'll help immensely." Hunter panned the binoculars back and forth watching the men move around below, then continued. "If they have a communications line between each of the vehicles, they won't have to transmit via radio – they can use the physical link. And that means Marius has no chance of intercepting at all. If we can persuade them to break or damage the cables somehow, then we might have a chance."
"Coming." Tads gave a little sigh of frustration, but then cleared her mind and headed up, squeezing in between Aswon and Hunter, making their little shelter groan and strain slightly. She took the offered binoculars from Aswon and aimed down at the valley, spotting the soldiers rolling out cables from one central jeep at the back to each of the eighteen artillery vehicles. So far they seemed to be just laying them out, and not connecting them, and she reached into the astral once more, drawing in mana to try and reach out to them and subtly influence their minds.
She concentrated for a few minutes, bending their minds slowly and gently with her will, reinforcing the idea as much as she dared. A tiny smile formed at the corner of her mouth as she saw one of the soldiers pick up the end of the cable and then repeatedly poke at the delicate electronics inside before jamming it into the waiting slot on the vehicle, applying a great deal of force. The two soldiers repeated this one after another, trying to insert the cables upside down in the holes and using plenty of brute force and ignorance to force them into place, even when it was obvious they weren't supposed to go that way. With that done, Tads cast another spell, altering their memory and wiping the event from their minds, replacing it with the idea of a job well done…
With that done she wiggled backwards, popping out of the hide and sliding back down the reverse of the slope, returning to the tilt-wing and it's new hanger, and started work on disguising the formation once more. Aswon and Hunter stayed watching the activity below, and were rewarded twenty minutes later by a number of officers climbing out of the command vehicle and moving around to check the comms lines, then catching up with the soldiers who'd laid them out for what looked like an epic dressing down. There was no way to hear what was being said, but from the gesticulation and waving of damaged components under their noses, it was clear they weren't very happy with the work done, while the soldiers kept protesting their innocence.
Around the perimeter, the infantry had continued to dig in, and were now well entrenched in their positions, a ring of soldiers providing a buffer nearly a kilometre deep around the artillery position. To the rear of the artillery, the technicians finished their checks and the drones started to lift off, four of the giant inflatables rising up and gently motoring out to take up positions at the cardinal directions. To the team's relief they only rose a few hundred metres to start with, rising up to about two thousand metres above sea level at first.
"Probably doing diagnostics and adjusting the cameras, calibrating sensors and establishing telemetry. Yes – I am picking up encoded traffic now. Highly agile and compressed bursts. I do not think we have any hope of intercepting that – these are quite advanced drones. Very capable."
"We're covered though now, so we'll be ok, right? What about the spotter team?"
"As long as they stay camouflaged, they should be ok – the main issue will be heat dissipation, but with the cold weather gear we have, that is partially covered, Kai. Just move slowly, and don't get too hot. And yes, we should be fine under this stone shelter."
"Ok, cool. What about those data lines they were laying out. Could we tap into those?"
"Very unlikely. Obviously we would need to get down and into range – which is the first hurdle, as that means getting past the infantry perimeter. But also then I would need to infiltrate their network. There is a good chance they have a rigger on there, co-ordinating the activities and movements of all of the heavy vehicles, and I would have to fight against him for control of the network – so that is not exactly a stealthy approach. We would need to eliminate them first, before I could control their network. Much as I hate to rely on it, magic may be our best offence here – illusions of ghosts and such like, preying on the minds of the young and weak, much like we did with those hoodlums back in Constantinople."
"Well, I'd rather be doing that than something like digging a tunnel. I've looked at the terrain between us, and I don't fancy digging something that long – or at that kind of angle. I don't care if Hunter could keep me on track with his things in his head, I just don't think I can dig a two kilometre tunnel that quickly or well. Building a cover for the plane is one thing, but this…"
"It's an orientation system, Tads, and it's perfectly natural." Tads shuddered as Hunter teased her. "But joking aside, it would actually be a stretch to maintain accuracy over that kind of distance without a few more tools and preparation. And I don't know how much time we have…"
"And another thing – you said these vehicles weigh many tons each? I wouldn't fancy digging a tunnel near them – the last thing we want is one of those coming through the roof and crushing us to death!"
"Well, if we do have to get through the perimeter – I actually think we've got a pretty good chance." Aswon murmured. "I've been watching the troops, and their equipment looks pretty basic. Looking at the distance between them, I think they've set up like that because of the distance they can see with their night-vision equipment. With a good spirit concealing us, we should be able to slip through between the pairs of guards quite easily, I'm sure."
"Any sign of the crew of the artillery, yet?"
"Nothing Kai, they're staying inside their vehicles. I'm guessing it's nice and warm in there…wusses." Hunter's disdain dripped from his voice. "Oh, hang on – the drones are going up. All four. Standby." They waited a few minutes, then Hunter called back. "Looks like they're up to four thousand metres and holding steady up there. They're going to have the whole area inside their sensor footprints, that's for sure, and probably overlapping in the middle. As they went past, I zoomed in, can't see any weapon loads on there at all – looks like it's all just sensor gear. Bad news for getting spotted, but good if they do, as all they can do is watch us."
"At least with sensor systems like that, we have known parameters. They will almost certainly be fooled by magical concealment – it is the weak point of any defensive design." Marius shook his head. "They must have very little magical support to not have a mage attached to this strike force. A glaring oversight – and one we must take advantage of. If we can approach under magical concealment and get inside their perimeter, I think it is time to expend a considerable amount of explosives on those vehicles. Under cover of night, we should be able to slip in and out like ghosts, and plant enough C4 and C12 to ensure their destruction. We could even send someone forward to do the same things with the tanks on the road to the south."
"Those things are going to be armoured up the wazoo though!" Aswon complained.
"Ahh, but only against certain attacks. If you can get to the rear of the turret, and plant explosives under the blow-out panels – where an enemy would never normally be able to shoot at them, I am sure you could breach the doors and destroy their ready supply of rounds. That would effectively 'mission kill' the tank, even though it is intact. Without ammunition for the main gun, they are little threat."
"Or we could steal one maybe?" Kai gave a big grin. "You could drive it, right, Marius? You can drive anything, right?" There was an edge of challenge in his voice, as he appealed to Marius' ego.
"I can drive just about anything, that is true. But those vehicles are probably designed for a crew of four. I can drive it, but without training I doubt we could operate the other systems, and thus it would provide limited value to us." Marius broke off suddenly, and stared into space ahead of him. "Standby, I am picking up traffic – lots of traffic. Ahh – they are establishing tactical control links. The command vehicle is sending out encoded messages, and each vehicle is responding in turn. Analysing…"
They waited a few minutes, continuing their observations on the ridgeline or just waiting inside the tilt-wing.
"Ach, no. That is not going to happen. Their encryption gear is maybe not first-rate, but it is considerably better than what we have, and their security protocols are very tough. Kai – there is no effective way to break into that network. We might be able to jam it, for a short time – but to do that, I would need to run the engines up to power and turn our systems to maximum to stand a chance at this distance – and those blimps would locate us quickly if we did so. At the moment, our best way to reduce the effectiveness of this unit, in my opinion, is to take out that command vehicle."
"Yup – we should kill that first. I reckon I can hit it from here with my Panther cannon. Couple of shots will knock it out! That'll stop them."
"Nein. It will reduce their effectiveness and accuracy. But all of the vehicles will be able to operate independently. At least they will have the technical capacity to do so – whether the crew have the training to be effective is another matter. But without evidence to the contrary, we should assume they do!"
"Can we take out their tracks somehow? Is that something that would stop them?"
"Possibly. Historically, more tanks have been knocked out by destroying or damaging tracks and rendering them immobile than were ever knocked out by direct fire – but as a consequence most armies drill their crews heavily on track maintenance and repair. A good crew can replace broken or damaged links in twenty minutes and get a vehicle operational again. Once more it comes down to training for them and the environment. It is a lot easier to replace a broken link on the apron of the repair base in the middle of a clear day than it is to do the same job in the middle of a battle when you are being shot at…"
"What about gumming things up? That expanding foam insulation you used to keep the electronics bay warm and stuff. If we got cans of that, could we go and fill up their air vents and block bits from working?"
"Perhaps, Kai. We would need schematics of the vehicles – Hunter would need to find those on the matrix, and we could study them, to determine any weak or vulnerable spots. But again, the crew probably can clear such things with relative ease. It would delay them, but not stop them."
They continued their observations, though there was diminishing activity now – the infantry were fully dug in, and whatever tactical network they needed was established. Just before 13:30 though, the front left artillery started to move, the barrel elevating to an angle of about fifty degrees. A klaxon sounded, the faint echoes just reaching them at the top of the mountain.
"If that fires… I don't think a spirit can stop the shell. It's too big, too fast."
"I agree, Tads. Could we maybe try to flood the engine?"
"Not sure Kai – I need to be able to see it to affect it, and I'm not even sure where it would be on something like that."
"Maybe we should contact Yez and warn him… I didn't think they'd start the assault today."
"If you are going to do it, then make it quick – with the drones up, we cannot risk extended contact." Marius warned him.
"I know. Patch me through, we have to warn him." Kai was interrupted with a loud report. At the top of the rise, Aswon and Hunter saw the gun fire, a massive gout of flame stretching out of the barrel as the enormous round was propelled out of the barrel. Massive shock absorbers went into action as the gun recoiled, damping the forces involved, but it still created an enormous visual signature. Around the tracked vehicle snow exploded off the ground as the shockwave hit, rising up a metre into the air and flying outwards in a ripple, a million snowflakes sent fluttering through the air, dancing on the bow wave of the expanding circle of air.
[Yez, artillery has opened fire. Take cover] Kai hit the send command, and then glanced down at the grainy and choppy footage, his guts twisting as he imagined the massive shell striking some farm or village in the Kurdish area, exploding and ripping apart bodies before the chemical warhead sent a wave of death floating downwind. Moments later his phone rang, the caller ID matching Yez. Kai stabbed the button to answer the call, but couldn't get a word in before the angry voice exploded at him.
"What is going on! You were told to deal with this threat days ago! Now you tell me we are going to be attacked? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"
"Look, the convoy only arrived today, but they set up and are starting their shots now. We were planning on assaulting them tonight, under cover of darkness. We didn't think they'd move straight to an attack posture!"
"What kind of imbeciles are you? Of course they're going to attack? I'm going to have to speak with people and let them know about this… this… failure!"
"Look, we have to go, we're under surveillance, and they might be trying to trace this call. We'll deal with it. Just give us time." Kai disconnected the call before he could get a response, and then disconnected from the sat link, stopping any more calls coming in to him.
"We have movement in the town below. Kids were out playing in the closest housing area, but they're screaming now and running for cover. A whole bunch of people came out to see what was going on, but are heading inside now. It looks like they're expecting trouble – everyone is going to ground." Hunter reported. "Even a couple of cars on the main road have stopped, and it looks like they're turning around now – don't want to get any closer to the guns. Can't say I blame them."
"Shit. We can't go in during daylight, can we?" Kai asked.
"The chances of being seen are astronomically higher. If we go in about three in the morning, most of them will be asleep, and even the sentries will be drifting. That's the best time to attack, tactically."
"Aswon is right. The crews will be wide awake now, and on high alert. Psychologically speaking, it's better to wait for nightfall."
"Concur. Much better chance of catching them napping at night."
"Ja. I agree also. Too risky for a daylight assault against a prepared position."
Kai listened to the team, as much to their tone of voice as to their words. Several of them sounded manifestly upset with what they were recommending, no doubt imagining the impact of those monster shells on the civilian population just as vividly as he did.
"If I cast some kind of magical effect on a vehicle, even an illusionary one – do you think it would weird them out and make them stop firing?"
"Possibly. Probably even – but then they would definitely call in magical backup I think, and you'd have an astral fight on your hands." Aswon said with certainty. "Wait a second… second artillery is raising its gun. Looks like the same kind of angle."
Exactly one hundred and twenty seconds after the first gun fired, the second barked, a similar tongue of flame extending from the barrel and leaving a bright afterimage on Hunter and Aswon's eyes, and with the same massive jump of snow from the ground as the tracks thumped downwards.
"Can we make the demo charges invisible and get spirits to carry them in?" Kai asked, feeling helpless and not liking it one bit.
"We can – but they won't be able to place them for shit. A shaped charge has to be placed precisely on target to have the desired effect. If they put them on just randomly, we're not going to get the destruction we need." Aswon sounded as unhappy as Kai did. "Maybe if you made ME invisible and I took them down, we could do something. But I wouldn't want to be close to one of those guns when it went off, I'll tell you that for nothing!"
The third gun elevated its barrel, joining the first two, an angry finger of death pointing south into the Kurdish zone.
"Guys, they're getting ready to fire again!" Hunter warned.
"Their firing rate is very low. They should be capable of much higher rates – and more sustained fire than this. If they wanted to." Marius noted.
"Probably part of the effect they're after – slow, continuous, unrelenting attack, in a way that can't be responded to. A deliberate terror attack on the population." Shimazu's hand gripped the hilt of his sword, and his jaw muscles flexed as he thought about the effects on the shepherds and farmers in the area of the shelling.
On cue, a hundred and twenty seconds after the previous shot, another two hundred and fifty kilogram projectile was fired at over Mach one, ripping through the air and disappearing over the horizon to rain down more death and destruction.
"Right, we're all agreed that it's crazy to launch a full frontal attack on an army unit in daylight, right?" Kai asked, getting a number of muttered responses from the team to the affirmative. "So, how about we do it anyway?"
"I thought you'd never ask." Aswon gripped his spear tightly. "I think we're going to need some help from you, Tads, and a bit of luck. Make that a lot of luck."
Tads had gone white, and was sitting in her chair, eyes closed tightly shut as she tried to block out the noise of the guns firing. In her head her imagination ran wild, replaying the images they'd seen from the year before, the massive damage to the environment wrought by the chemical munitions, the images of the Russian mortar attack replayed by Hunter giving her first hand accounts of what it was like near the impact of the massive shells. She was a protector – Elk kept people safe, nurtured, well. It was her job to keep people alive, protected from things like this. She didn't like combat, shied away from it where she could. She didn't like killing – her normal 'attack' was to stun people to insensibility, to avoid taking their lives. But this attack on the Kurdish people struck at her very heart, and it awoke some ember of anger deep within her.
A tic formed at the left corner of her mouth, an involuntary twitch that pulled at the muscle as the anger manifested the only way it knew how. She threw off her harness and stomped over to the door, sliding it open and dropping down to the frozen ground below, and started to march up the slope towards Hunter and Aswon's position.
"Right. I think we're launching an attack! Shit… gear up folks!" Kai called, and jumped down to follow her, checking his sidearm, for all the good that was going to do at this range. Shimazu and Marius grabbed their weapons and followed him, while Aswon looked down over his shoulder to spot the furiously determined shaman heading towards him.
"This is gonna get interesting…" he whispered to Hunter, who was busy loading a round into his Panther cannon, a large grin forming on his face.
"I know."