Task Force Read online

  “Reverse polarity of magnetic field, and it push you away,” Monster said. He seemed to hesitate for a moment, then asked, “How is Price doing?”

  “I’ll find out,” Chisnall murmured, and keyed his comm. “Price, how are you doing?” There was no answer. He tried again. “Price?” Still nothing. He said, “Tsar, delay them as long as you can.”

  The Tsar, wearing the first mate’s uniform, was still out on the small top deck, his coil-gun concealed beneath a canvas tarpaulin by his feet.

  Ten soldiers were standing on the wharf, while two more manned the heavy machine guns on the Land Rovers. Along with the drivers, that made fourteen. There were sixteen more guards somewhere on the island.

  The Tsar saluted the waiting soldiers in the Bzadian way, with a clenched fist to his shoulder. He flashed his award-winning smile. “Thank you for allowing us to land.”

  He seemed relaxed but not too much. Just about right for the first mate of a boat that had been through an accidental explosion and was putting in for emergency repairs. His accent was perfect, and he leaned on the side rail like someone who had been around ships all his life.

  A sergeant stepped forward and returned the salute. “We heard about the explosion. Everybody okay?”

  “Apart from a few concussions and ruptured eardrums, all is good,” the Tsar replied. “We were lucky.”

  “Do you require medical assistance?”

  “Thank you, but no—our medics have everything under control.”

  “Our own medics are here and waiting to assist,” the sergeant said.

  “A kind offer, but not necessary, thanks,” the Tsar said, with just the right mixture of charm and condescension. A natural actor, Chisnall thought. Completely convincing. That worried him a little.

  “Then you will permit me to come on board and have a look around,” the sergeant said.

  There was a silence.

  “For what reason, Sergeant? We are simply resting here till first light, while we try and repair some of our equipment,” the Tsar said.

  “This is a secure area,” the sergeant said. “We cannot allow you to land here without a security inspection.”

  “Delay him,” Chisnall whispered on the comm, thinking of the twenty or so Bzadian crew members tied up belowdecks. “Everyone be on your toes. When the brown stuff hits the fan, it’s going to fly everywhere.”

  They had to wait for Price. When she took out the power, it would cut communications to the island. They couldn’t take a chance that someone on the island would alert the Coastal Defense Command.

  On the deck, the Tsar straightened his back and glared down at the sergeant on the wharf below. “Sergeant, this is a secure ship. We cannot allow you on board without explicit authority. We have highly sensitive information and equipment.”

  “I am afraid I must insist, sir,” the sergeant said, making the Bzadian gesture of apology, covering his face with both hands. “Please lower your gangway and allow us to board.”

  “On whose authority, Sergeant?” the Tsar asked.

  “On the authority of Coastal Defense Command.”

  “This is going to go south real fast,” Chisnall murmured into the comm.

  “I will have to check with my captain,” the Tsar said. He turned and walked, as slowly as he could without seeming suspicious, to the door that led into the bridge. He opened it and stuck his head inside, winking at Chisnall.

  Chisnall followed him out onto the deck.

  “What is the problem?” he asked.

  “The sergeant would like to inspect us,” the Tsar said, nodding down at the wharf.

  Chisnall gripped the handrail with both hands and leaned down. “Good evening, Sergeant.”

  “Good evening, sir,” the sergeant said.

  “Please repeat that, a little louder if you will,” Chisnall said, tapping an ear with a finger. “I cannot hear too well. Ruptured eardrums.”

  “I said good evening, sir,” the sergeant said loudly.

  Chisnall nodded. “Please explain your request.”

  “We wish to board and inspect your vessel, sir.”

  “Would you mind repeating that slowly?” Chisnall said.

  “We request to board and inspect your vessel. Sir.”

  “Yes, we will be inspecting the vessel for damage at first light,” Chisnall said.

  “You misheard me, sir,” the sergeant said. “We wish to inspect your vessel.”

  “You wish to inspect it for us?” Chisnall asked. “Why? Are you naval engineers?”

  Next to him, the Tsar had to stifle a smile.

  The sergeant wasn’t smiling. “Coastal Defense Command has requested a security inspection of this ship.”

  “A what inspection?” Chisnall said, aware that he was pushing the difficulty-hearing thing a bit too far.

  “A security inspection.”

  “Security? Not really necessary, I can assure you, but of course, if those are your orders, we would be happy to oblige.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the sergeant said, looking relieved.

  Chisnall turned to the Tsar.

  “Please organize the gangway for these soldiers.”

  “I’m afraid it’s out of action, sir,” the Tsar said.

  Chisnall feigned surprise. “Well, get it working.”

  “That won’t be necessary, sir,” the sergeant said. “We have a ladder.”

  How convenient! Chisnall thought.

  “I can have the gangway working in a couple of minutes,” the Tsar said.

  “Thank you, but we will board now, under direct orders from the Coastal Defense Command,” the sergeant said.

  “Could you please repeat that?” Chisnall said, floundering for any further way to delay them. The lights on the hill remained resolutely on. Had Price been captured or killed? He had sent her in there alone. Had he sent her to her death?

  “No, sir, I can’t,” the sergeant said. “Please instruct your crew not to interfere with our inspection.”

  A short folding plastic ladder was brought out from the rear of one of the Land Rovers, unfolded, and placed against the side of the ship.

  Chisnall said, “Of course, Sergeant, and welcome aboard.” Under his breath on the comm he said, “Monster, the magnetic mooring.”

  “Way ahead of you,” Monster said.

  Two soldiers moved to the ladder. One steadied it while the other began to climb. On the wharf the remainder of the soldiers watched the proceedings. Their weapons were holstered on their backs, but only a click away.

  The first soldier arrived at the top of the ladder and reached out for the deck railing.

  “Now,” Chisnall said quietly.

  There was a loud humming from below him as the magnetic polarity of the mooring device reversed. The ship eased away from the wharf. The ladder slipped, twisted, then toppled into the sea. The soldier managed to get a hand to the railing but lost his grip and fell, arms flailing into the water.

  On the wharf the coil-guns of the other soldiers were now in their hands, and most of the barrels seemed to be aimed at Chisnall.

  “It was an accident,” Chisnall shouted. “An accident!”

  Price strode to the next leg of the turtle, the power plant. An outer passageway ringed the dome, and a series of doors led to rooms in the interior. Some were open, others closed. A few eyes glanced up at her incuriously from within some of the rooms.

  She grinned a little inwardly. Here she was, right in the heart of the enemy, on her own, without backup or support. Yet here she felt the most at home. Relying on no one but herself. Wandering amid the enemy as if she owned the place.

  A door appeared on the outer wall of the dome. It opened into another of the plastic walk-tubes.

  She closed the door behind her and locked it, sprinting down the short circular corridor to the next door. It slid open with a sound like a loud, deep breath.

  A flashing blue light filled the corridor and a siren began to wail. It was so loud that it was painf
ul. It seared her ears and filled her head. Even the air she breathed seemed heavy, full of the sound. Price felt a moment of panic but forced it from her mind and pushed the door shut.

  The power plant master switch was clearly marked, as were the controls for the backup power supply. She pressed them both and the siren and the flashing blue light cut off as the complex plunged into darkness.

  “Hit them!” Chisnall yelled as the glowing radar antennae on the island blinked into darkness. The lights on the wharf also shut off, and Monster cut the ship’s lights a fraction of a second later.

  Chisnall had dived for the door to the bridge. The troops on the wharf, well trained and edgy, had reacted instantly. Bullets crackled through the air where he had been standing.

  On the roof, Wilton’s coil-gun boomed, then boomed again. There was no need for quiet, and he had cranked the speed dial back up to full, for distance and accuracy.

  The Tsar and Barnard were spraying puffer rounds at the soldiers below.

  The Angels had been prepared for the sudden loss of light. The Bzadians had not. But it didn’t take them long to switch to NV, and then came the staccato thunder of the machine guns from the Land Rovers.

  “Get down!” Chisnall yelled, and threw himself to the floor as a series of fist-sized holes stitched a line through the wall by his head. The thin metal plating on the bridge was no match for the fifty-caliber bullets.

  On the video screens he saw Barnard and the Tsar lying prone, covering their heads with their hands as the heavy machine gun chewed up the decks around them. A row of bullets splintered the deck right in front of the Tsar’s face and he panicked. The Hero of Hokkaido started to get up, right in the line of fire of the fifty-cal. Chisnall knew he was dead. But Barnard’s hand reached up and grabbed him by the chinstrap of his helmet, thudding his face back down onto the deck. Alive, for the moment—but not for long, the way the fifty-cal was chewing up the side of the ship.

  Chisnall jumped up, ignoring the bullets, and slid into the seat of the weapon station. He punched the button for Target A and squeezed the triggers on the Bushmaster controls in one fluid movement. In an eruption of flame and smoke, one of the Land Rovers leaped up into the air, then out over the far edge of the wharf, the gunner cartwheeling off into the water. Overhead, Wilton’s rifle boomed again and Chisnall saw the Bzadian sergeant drop with a surprised look on his face. He switched to Target B. The Land Rover was racing forward, trying to get to the stern of the ship, out of the big gun’s zone of fire. It was shooting as it went. Bullets were ripping the wall to shreds all around Chisnall. On the screen in front of him, the electronic target indicator settled on the Land Rover and stayed there, a pipping sound indicating that the target was locked in. He squeezed the trigger just as the weapons console exploded around him, disintegrating as he ducked and tried to shield his face with his arms, metal and glass flying past him. Something smashed into his head.

  The lights went out.

  Price’s gun was steady. The door at the far end of the corridor burst open and a burly Bzadian soldier burst through it, a flashlight glaring from the barrel of his coil-gun.

  The flashlight and the weapon were aimed high and he never had a chance. Lying on the floor, her pistol aimed through a crack in the inner door, Price shot him once in the chest, lining up the next soldier even as the first collapsed, unconscious, in a cloud of puffer smoke. The second soldier, a gaunt female, stopped in her tracks as the round exploded on her armor. She stood motionless for a second; then her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell backward into the arms of the soldier behind her.

  Monster was standing over Chisnall, helping him to his feet, and although he was speaking, Chisnall could not hear the words. His face felt numb and when he looked down, he saw the ruins of the weapons station lying on the floor around him. The fifty-caliber rounds must have hit just as he fired the Bushmaster.

  He raced out to the deck and saw the wreckage of the second Land Rover upside down, burning on the edge of the wharf.

  “We’ve got to get to Price,” Chisnall said, his voice falling thickly on his own ears.

  Weapons appeared around the edge of the door, the thunder of the coil-guns vibrating the air in the corridor. Price rolled to the left as a line of bullets cut holes in the floor where she had been lying. A grenade would have sorted things out quickly, she reflected, but would have also damaged the plant equipment. The stutter of the weapons was continuous now and impossibly loud, echoing off the smooth round surfaces of the corridor as the Bzadian troops advanced behind a shield of bullets.

  She kicked the door shut. There was no way out. In just a few seconds they would burst through that door, and she would only have a puffer pistol and a can of Puke spray against a horde of deadly coil-guns.

  Price rolled up onto her feet and leaped, catlike, onto the control panel for the backup power supply. Stretching out, she sprang across to the main power plant, a huge machine in the center of the room. Her toes scrabbled for a hold on a narrow grille on the side of the machine as she tried to pull herself over the edge. Something on her belt was jammed on the top lip of the machine, but after a moment it came loose and fell to the floor with a metallic clatter. The can of Puke spray. It rolled over to the wall and came to a halt by the door. That left her with just the pistol.

  She flattened herself on top of the machine as the door smashed open.

  The plastic ceiling of the dome reflected the flashlights of a crowd of Bzadians bursting in, guns aimed in all directions. It would only take them a few seconds to realize that she wasn’t on the floor, and only a few seconds more to work out where she must be.

  Price slid forward, hoping to escape through the door. No luck. Two soldiers stood blocking the exit. The others had spread out inside the dome.

  One of the soldiers by the door noticed the spray can wedged against the wall, and without lowering his weapon, reached down and picked it up.

  Take a sniff, you dirty Puke, Price thought. She considered shooting the can, but she knew that the compressed powder of the puffer bullets would not be strong enough to penetrate the metal skin.

  Behind her, a soldier climbed loudly up to her hiding place. She twisted around just as a coil-gun appeared over the edge, followed by the face of the soldier who carried it. Price kicked at the barrel as the coil-gun fired, feeling the wind of the bullet’s passage, missing her by inches. She grabbed at the barrel of the gun, then kicked again, aiming for the Bzadian’s face, feeling the crunch of a broken nose. She wrenched the gun off its cable spring as he fell backward.

  It was the only shot she had. It was her only chance, the only time she would have. A matter of seconds that would determine whether she lived or died, right here, right now.

  In one clean movement she rolled to the front of the machine, brought the weapon to bear, and squeezed the trigger.

  The shot hit the can slightly off center, the metal bullet puncturing it cleanly on both sides and punching it out of the soldier’s hands. A white mist filled the room and spread through the open door into the access tube. The room filled with an eerie silence.

  They found Price lying in a room full of peppermint haze, surrounded by staring Bzadian soldiers whose eyes flicked constantly and whose expressions spat hatred without a muscle moving in their faces. She had crawled toward the door but hadn’t made it. She was semiconscious and retching, but alive.

  “I’ll go get her,” the Tsar said.

  “Don’t be a hero,” Chisnall said. “Wait till we can find a gas mask or ventilate the room. It’s not safe.”

  “I’ll go,” Monster said.

  “Wait …,” Chisnall began, but there was no arguing. From the look on Monster’s face, nobody was going to stop him.

  So it was Monster who held his breath and entered the corridor to the plant room while the others secured the rest of the complex, rounding up the technicians and operators and keeping them under guard in a meeting room, subduing those who tried to resist with puffer b
ullets and Puke spray.

  And it was Monster who emerged from the corridor with Price over his large shoulders and laid her tenderly on the floor in the entrance pod, where the air was clearest. He wiped vomit from her lips, checked her vital signs, and gently stroked her forehead. When he put his ears to her lips to listen to her breathing, her hand slipped around the back of his neck and pulled him close. Monster didn’t pull away.

  When focus finally returned to her eyes, they were all gathered around her. The SONRAD facility was secure and the remainder of the soldiers down at the wharf had been rescued from the sea, disarmed, cuffed, and placed in the meeting room with the others.

  Monster stood back as Price took in the faces that hovered over her.

  “Are you okay?” Chisnall asked.

  Price tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough. “Happy New Year,” she said.

  Chisnall checked the time. It was after midnight.

  “Happy New Year, Price,” he said.

  8. OPERATION MAGNUM

  FROM THE FIRST PROPOSAL TO THE TRANSPORT SHIPS arriving off the Australian coast, Operation Magnum had taken just three weeks.

  The task force was made up of seventy amphibious Marine Personnel Carriers (MPCs) carrying 1,200 soldiers: US Marines, Canadian Black Devils, Russian Spetsnaz, and German Kommando Spezialkrafte. In addition, there were three British L118 artillery pieces and ten Chinese T-63a amphibious tanks (although only nine actually made it ashore).

  The Bzadians had chosen Lowood as the site of the fuel-processing plant due to its proximity to the mighty Wivenhoe Dam, which provided the constant high-volume supply of both water and electricity that was vital to the production of the cells.

  Experts had ruled out an attack on the dam. Wivenhoe was a huge earthen embankment, safe from anything short of a nuclear bomb. The massive metal gates, among the largest in the world, were almost indestructible and heavily defended.

  Instead, the plan called for the task force to infiltrate Bzadian territory through the Brisbane River. Amphibious vehicles, mostly submerged and cloaked by an artificial mist, would have to navigate nearly a hundred miles of river in the pitch-black, without being detected. Power stations had to be knocked out. Sonar and radar had to be eliminated.