Dawn of the Mad (41 page)

“Perhaps.” Roman threw back a shot of the strong alcohol and winced as it burned the back of his throat. Instantly, a warm feeling washed over him. “So what can I do for you, Sergeant? Why was I brought here?”

The sergeant threw back her own shot and placed the glass on the table, rotating it in her fingers. “Off duty, you can call me Rima, on duty you will call me Sergeant,” she said. “I know who you are. You were a lieutenant with the police. And I know you are not of this world.”

“OK. You got me. So what?”

“‘So what is that the ISSB, or better yet the Shadow, thinks you are on an ore mine off world somewhere.” Seeing Roman flinch at that comment, she smiled. “Relax. Your friend Sebastian is a good friend of mine. He had you assigned here, and I agreed to watch over you until you ship back to your planet.”

Roman sat back in his metal chair. “I feel so much better now,” he noted sarcastically. “You know, my chest still burns from that damned whip of yours.”

Rima laughed again. “I had to make it look good, you know.” She poured another shot, and quickly downed it. She stood up, directly in front of Roman. “There are still certain parts of me that are human. Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement while you are here in training.”

Roman smelled the strong odor of rubbing alcohol, or maybe it was the liquor. He wasn’t sure.

“Maybe you could throw the eye patch back on or something,” he suggested.

Rima smiled widely as she put her muscular arms around Roman’s neck. “You know, if I had my way, I would keep you around and not let you ship out.

Petor woke up at the sound of the corporals walking up and down the aisles, yelling and flipping random sleeping bodies out of their cots and onto the floor. Petor rubbed his eyes and glanced at his neighbor’s cot, relieved to see Roman back in it. He shook his head, feeling sorry for his new friend. Seeing Roman stir, he talked softly, in case Roman had a headache. “Are you OK?

“Uh.” Roman grunted as he raised himself to one elbow on the cot. His chest displayed several bruise marks in addition to the marks from the whip. “It appears they worked you over good last night,” he said. “I told you to keep quiet. They have ears everywhere. You talking about escape all the time, you had it coming.”

Roman attempted to sit up, but grabbed his back in wincing pain. He answered Petor, his tongue mildly thick from his hang over. “Yeah, you told me.” Thinking back to his time in sergeant Rima’s quarters earlier in the morning, he continued, “You would think I would keep my mouth shut.”

CHAPTER 39

“OK, lock and load, you maggots!” the sergeant yelled to the eight recruits under his command. The steady rain that had begun three days ago showed no sign of letting up. Roman, Petor, and Chana stood at the rear of the eight-man assault team. Chana was the lone woman in Roman and Petor’s platoon. Over the course of the last four weeks, Roman and Petor had tried to get better acquainted with her, and it seemed to have worked. Although she still did not talk, she displayed a thorough understanding of small unit tactics and unarmed combat. After the first week of training, she had stuck with Roman and Petor as much as she could. Recognizing natural team cohesion, their superiors often grouped them as a three person fire team. Today was no exception. It had helped that Roman suggested to Sergeant Rima, during one of their early morning “meetings,” that putting the three of them together would be beneficial for the battalion as a whole.

Each member of the assault team was armed with a standard-issue automatic rifle, ammunition, and frag grenades. The military administrators chose not to provide more technical and powerful equipment, such as EMRs, to a penal battalion. Its members presented potential danger, and they were expendable.

Sergeant Rima walked up to the assault team leader, a large, bald man named Lon, otherwise known as 800. The other two assault teams in the company separated and marched out of sight under their own leaders. Roman noticed out of the corner of his eye the captain who initially had taken charge on the first day of training. He appeared to be keeping his distance from the recruits and made no attempt to interfere with their training; Sergeant Rima and her staff of corporals had been left in charge. Roman also noticed that all of the regular military wore pistols, and the assault ranges used for training were ringed with automated gun turrets around the perimeter, no doubt to encourage discipline and discourage escape attempts. Their obvious placement needed no explanation from the training staff. The company had spent the past week learning the ins and outs of urban combat. With the exception of the steady rainfall and mud, Roman had found the training not unpleasant and fairly well done. It appeared to him that the penal battalion was being trained to defend itself and be a truly effective force, rather than just a bunch of expendable bodies to throw at the enemy. He found more evidence for that opinion when, beginning in the third week of training, the penal companies sometimes were intermingled with conscript companies.

“This is a live fire exercise!” Sergeant Rima shouted. “Watch your line of fire and do
not
kill your teammates! There are other friendly elements in close proximity. Enemy combatants are marked by robotic sentries. They will stun you if you get in their way, so make your shots count!” The sergeant made her way to the observation tower that dominated the vast expanse of the urban training grounds, joining other trainers in the massive tower, all of them watching their corresponding troops through binoculars.

The grounds themselves consisted of several high-rise residential and commercial buildings mocked up to look like the real thing. The robotic sentries randomly placed throughout added to the reality; they had a nasty habit of shooting back. Roman had found that out the hard way yesterday. When his weapon jammed and he was unable to eliminate one, it gave him a nasty shock to simulate a shooting. Corporal Henri had been the first to chime in on the radio inside Roman’s battle helmet. “Make your mistakes here, puke, because when you’re downrange, you don’t get a second chance!”

Roman checked his rifle once more. The digital shot counter read 45 indicating a full magazine. He turned around and checked Petor, who appeared to be OK, although his gear looked a little big on him. Roman checked Chana’s equipment quickly, and she looked squared away. She tugged on a couple of Roman’s ammo pouches, checking his equipment as well. She also slapped Petor on the shoulder after checking him over, both getting her seal of approval.

Roman heard Sergeant Rima’s voice on his helmet radio. “OK. 800, take out your team. Search and locate target. Target is a weapons cache that may be heavily guarded. Recover the cache and get to the extraction point, where you will rendezvous with 1st and 3rd assault teams.”

“Copy,” he replied, audible to everyone. He turned around and, with a quick forward flick of his hand, moved the squad out. His voice crackled over the radio again. “OK, we go silent from here on, since those robots seem to locate us through our helmet transmissions as well as by sight. They got us good yesterday. Watch my hand signals.”

800 led the rest of the squad, moving slowly and carefully watching the environment. Sporadic rifle fire and grenade blasts elsewhere on the training grounds indicated that other teams already had engaged. 800 moved slowly down one block, and dropped to one knee, holding his fist in the air. He turned and raised the face shield of his helmet, allowing the rain to cascade down his face. The others followed suit, raising their own face shields so that they could communicate without the radio.

“711, 769, and 777!” 800 hissed. Roman, Petor, and Chana quickly made their way to the front of the team.

“What?” Roman asked.

“I want you three to go east and conduct a sweep of those buildings,” 800 said. “I’ll send the rest of the team to the west. 1st and 3rd teams are clearing buildings to our west. Head east one block and clear the buildings facing that street for one block north, from there come back west to this street to regroup. We will clear out this street together, and meet with the other teams.”

“What?” Roman hissed back. “Let’s just clear the buildings in a straight line. We may not last long if we split up.” Chana nodded her approval of Roman’s plan, while Petor nervously looked ahead.

“Damn it, 769, I am in charge! Just do it!” 800 closed his visor and indicated for his portion of the team to follow him. They moved west down the street, leaving Roman silently cursing him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the man and apparently he had some previous military training, but he just didn’t seem to make the best decisions. The team usually lost more than half its strength when he was in charge of a mission. Only two members had survived the previous day’s exercise.

“OK,” Roman said his face shield still open, like those of his team members. They had anticipated that he would comment on 800’s orders. “We do what he says here. Let’s go. Close face shields, but turn up your external helmet amps and listen for anything out of the ordinary. Petor, watch the rooftops. Chana, you’ve got the rear.” Roman refrained from calling his friends by their numbers when they were alone. Without waiting for a reply, Roman set off to the east, preparing to enter the first building on the left.

Hearing nothing externally except thunder and rainfall, Roman stacked his team again the wall of the building. He tested the door sensor, and it opened the door. He brought his weapon up to face level and activated the holographic sight; a red “x” now was projected forward wherever he aimed. His helmet sensors aided his aim by automatically switching to infrared and night vision. Roman panned around the darkened room, which was mocked up as a diner. Roman activated his thermal sensor. Seeing nothing on any of his sensors, he entered cautiously, followed by Petor and Chana.

Roman raised his face shield and hissed, “Chana, you take the kitchen. Petor, you watch the front door and the street. I’ll check the shitters.” His teammates nodded in response. Petor took cover behind an old, slashed vinyl booth and dropped to one knee. Chana worked her way to the back, with her weapon raised. Roman silently checked both the male and female washrooms, which were in serious disrepair. Nothing. Roman lowered his weapon and wondered if this training range used to be an actual city. The detail was incredible. He closed his helmet visor and continued his sweep.

His thoughts were soon interrupted by 800’s panicked voice, coming over the helmet radio. “2nd team, regroup! We are under heavy attack!”

“Calm down!” Roman answered, annoyed. “You’re not gonna die. What’s your location?”

Chana emerged from the kitchen and shook her head. Roman walked behind Petor and peered out of the grimy window. “Anything?” he whispered to Petor over the radio. Petor shook his head no.

“Get your asses back to the main intersection!” 800 ordered. “We are taking fire from the north and the west!” The sounds of sporadic gunfire and grenade explosions came over the radio, as well as the quieter telltale sounds of the robotic sentries’ stun weapons and grenades.

Roman muted his helmet mike, raised his face shield, and faced Chana. She and Petor also raised their shields. “No, that’s way too quick. They usually wait awhile to attack us, and they usually hit us as a group. I think they are trying to attack our fire teams individually now. We are going to get popped if we back him up.” Chana didn’t react.

Petor looked over his shoulder at Roman, leaving his weapon pointed toward the street. “It’s too quiet here. Perhaps we could slip out the back door?”

Roman nodded and unmuted his mike. “OK. Standby, 800. We’ll be there in a second. Don’t shoot us!”

“Copy!” 800 yelled back.

“Back door?” Roman asked, looking at Chana. Chana nodded.

“Good. You got point. Close your face shields. Watch our six, Petor. Let’s move.”

Within seconds, the trio stood in an alleyway that eerily reminded Roman of Dallas back home. The surrounding buildings looked to be constructed out of some sort of large brick, not the usual concrete and steel mix that Roman knew from most of the buildings on Hellenheim.

They moved up the alley slowly, checking each entranceway and covering each other. When they had covered about a hundred yards, Chana held up a fist, and Roman and Petor immediately hit the ground. Chana pointed to her helmet, and pointed ahead. Roman turned up his helmet amp to maximum. He kept his amp on low so he could hear the radio transmission. The rain was deafening, but he also heard the artificial noise. He turned the amp level down and he activated his thermal sensor.

The sensor indicated five to six robot sentries ahead, exiting the back door of a building and moving west, toward 800’s position. The sentries were constructed to resemble humans in their movements and their signatures on the various sensors, but not in physical appearance. Their heat signature usually was the easiest way to spot them. The thin grey “skin” over their metallic exoskeletons enabled them to blend well with their environments. They also walked with a pronounced limp but were very quick on the trigger. The team quickly learned the sentries’ programming enabled them to listen in on radio transmissions and triangulate positions of their attackers. Roman sometimes thought that the military should just build and arm more sentries and send them, rather than humans, off to battle.