Chapter 13

Wednesday

Having gone to sleep early last night, I was awake early this morning. I didn’t want to disturb anyone else since they were all still up last night when I fell asleep. I finally got up because I had to pee. Then I took a quick shower. “You’re up early,” Cooper commented from the shower doorway. “I figured that you’d still be wiped out from yesterday.”

“I was pretty tired last night, but I’m okay this morning. I’m usually up this early to hunt or fish,” I replied.

“How do you think you’ll do today?” he asked.

“Should be easy,” I replied. “I should do fine with pugil sticks and martial arts.

“The commander will probably have you work with one fire team and try a mock assault against two other fire teams,” he warned.

“You’ll want to have me on your fire team,” I replied, grinning. “Remember, I’ll be able to see the actions of every other fire team. I’ll know where they are positioned, what they’re doing, and I’ll know about any booby traps or attempted ambushes. I’m betting that Lt. Commander Ferguson throws something unexpected at us to see if I’m able to detect it,” I warned.

“Like what?” Cooper asked.

“He may have more troops waiting for us than he said he would, or the target may not be where he tells us it will be,” I replied.

“That sounds like something he’d do. Have you worked with him before?” Cooper asked.

“Nope, I just met him the night you guys parachuted in and never really spent any time talking with him until Monday evening when he asked if I’d consider going on a mission with you guys.”

“You sure pegged him, thinking that he’d try something sneaky,” Cooper laughed. “He always insists that we be ready for the unexpected when we go on a mission, and he tries to throw in something unexpected when we have mock assaults. He’s embarrassed me more than once,” Cooper admitted.

By the time reveille played at 0500, Cooper and I had some contingency plans for today’s mock assault. I was surprised at breakfast that a group that had been sound asleep half an hour earlier could be so awake and rowdy this morning.

“They’re excited about the mission,” Cooper explained when I commented about it.

After we ate, everyone headed for PT. Cooper and Torres led the two squads through a vigorous workout. As they started on a five-klick run, Lieutenant Grant led me to a grassy workout area where I’d be tested with pugil sticks. I faced off against someone who had about five cm and at least twenty kilograms on me. Grant blew his whistle to start our match.

Ignoring his height and size advantage, I charged my opponent, attacking with the ends of the pugil stick moving as fast and as hard as I could. I could maintain the furious pace for at least four minutes. Don couldn’t even maintain it for a minute. This opponent couldn’t even keep up from the start and right from the beginning, every third blow or so landed. He tired quickly, and despite the heavy protective padding we wore, the frequent blows quickly took a toll on him. In less than a minute, I knocked him down and made a kill shot at his throat that I stopped short of completing.

“Where the hell did you learn to do that?” he asked between gasping for breaths of air. I was panting, but not nearly as badly as he was.

“When I was twelve, I practiced against a tree every day until I could maintain that pace for four minutes. Long before that, I managed to defeat my teacher who was your size,” I explained.

Next, they took me inside to a gym with padded floors, one obviously used for martial arts. The martial arts evaluation was anticlimactic; I took the instructor down three times in three minutes.

Don arrived at the front gate with the grav sleds loaded with the gear he had promised shortly after we finished. Lt. Commander Ferguson and I went to meet him, accompanied by the entire team. Once we returned to the barracks, it was like Christmas morning. Each bag had a name on it and contained a set of body armor included a LiCHDICH and boots. Don, Cooper, Torres, and I each grabbed a bundle, called out the name, and handed out the gear. I was surprised that there was even a bundle for me, but Don reminded me that I was still growing.

While everyone else was busy trying on the new armor, Don showed me one of four special sleds that he brought. The bodies of the four sleds were about eight centimeters thicker than the rest were. “These four sleds are made from the molds of the very first advanced sleds the company made, even before I started working for them. Those sleds had a 40 mm cannon and a larger anti-armor missile in addition to the 10 mm automatic rifles.

“They later removed those two systems and made the sleds thinner to reduce the weight so the first version of the advanced batteries could extend the range of the sleds. They added the pencil sticks to give the sleds some air-to-air capabilities without adding very much weight. Now that they have the fusion generators, they had forgotten about what they started with.

“Several of the engineers and fabricators worked all night to finish these four sleds. The 40 mm cannon has a twelve-round internal magazine. Once that magazine is empty, you can attach an external magazine here and replace it each time it empties,” he explained, pointing to a slot where the second and subsequent magazines of 40 mm rounds attached. “The seven larger missiles load the same way the pencil sticks did, and have a ten-klick range,” he explained, pointing to the second 40 mm aperture.

“They send their thanks for the reminder about both the sled and about the idea for the individual backpack unit they had shelved and forgotten about. They also added you to the revised patent application for the new shielding,” he said with a grin.

“Wow,” I replied, happy with the armament on the latest version of the sleds, as well as having my name added to the patent for the shielding. Lt. Commander Ferguson invited Don to stay for the mock assault. He agreed eagerly and Ferguson sent Red squad to set up their defenses. They had gathered their equipment last night after dinner. He told Cooper to choose a team from Blue squad to make the assault and was surprised when Cooper chose his own fire team.

“I have a feeling that this thing is going to happen, and I want him with my squad so I can keep a close eye on him, one way or the other,” Cooper explained.

We went to get our gear, making sure that each of our weapons had the laser unit that scored “hits”. Each of us had to put on a coverall that had embedded sensors to detect laser hits. A computer embedded in the coverall calculated the severity of each hit based on the affected body part. Each combatant would hear an announcement in their earpiece if they were hit, and the announcement would be transmitted to the suit’s computer.

The announcement could be anything from “slight wound, minor impairment of left hand,” to “right arm rendered non-functional.” It might also announce, “three-minute time out to tend to wound,” or “combatant no longer able to continue.”

As per our earlier conversation, we had everyone take extra grenades (dummy grenades, but they make a noise and emit a signal that’s read by the umpire’s computer. Anyone who would be affected by a regular grenade received an evaluation of the severity of their wounds. As we were getting our gear, I continued to monitor everything around me and turned to Cooper. “The other four teams from Blue squad are gathered around Lt. Commander Ferguson right now,” I warned.

“He’s probably planning to add them to the defenders,” Cooper mused.

“Nah, that would be too easy,” I replied thoughtfully.

“That leaves either a flanking attack or an attack from the rear,” I mused aloud. Cooper and I looked at each other and broke into a grin.

“I think my life just became a whole lot more interesting,” Cooper chuckled. We grabbed even more gear and were all heavily loaded as we headed for the chopper taking us to the heavily forested hill that was to be our objective.

“Your other four teams are pulling gear now, and two more choppers just landed,” I told Cooper as we headed out.

The flight lasted half an hour. “That’s the hill,” Cooper told me when it was visible. As we approached, I searched the hill to see what was waiting for us and then talked to our pilot, and then Ensign Cooper. The pilot reversed direction and flew away from the hill for a few minutes before circling the hill slowly as if reconnoitering. We rappelled out of the chopper to the ground twenty meters below us even while it was still moving, although very slowly. We literally hit the ground running, using a break in the trees to hide our egress from the chopper.

Once we formed up, we headed for the hill. Cooper put me on point since I was the one who knew where I wanted to be when we reached the base of the hill. By the time we got there, the chopper should have reached the usual landing zone for troops making a mock assault on this hill. The pilot would land where an old barn near the LZ obscured anyone on the hill from seeing what should have been our exit from the chopper.

We were able to climb about halfway up the hill before we worried about being seen. I’d been scanning for detection devices and didn’t find any. Torres had stationed one team near the peak and one about halfway up the normal approach from the expected LZ. Another team was stationed to the left and one to the right of the usual approach. The fifth team was on our side, but three-quarters of the way to the peak.

At this point, I could tell that Torres was concerned when they still hadn’t spotted us. I had everyone move into a shallow gully and we covered ourselves with infrared blankets that mimicked the temperature of our surroundings, hiding us from detection. The two choppers holding Cooper’s remaining teams were circling the hill, looking for us. Their sensors would be looking for motion or heat signatures, and the troops would be looking, hoping they might get a visual sighting.

Once they had moved away, we began the crawl up the hill, each of us still covered by our IR blanket. We had to stop each time the searching helicopters returned, but finally made it within two hundred meters of the team on this side of the summit. Cooper and I held a whispered conversation and he nodded at me after passing out orders to the others in our group.

The two snipers and I targeted the radioman and the team members at the top of the hill while everyone else targeted the five-member lookout team two hundred meters above us. “Click ... click ... click ... click,” we heard over our com units as Cooper signaled to us. The clicks counted down 3, 2, 1, fire.

Since everyone used suppressed weapons, our attack wasn’t audible more than a couple meters from us. Even though we used lasers, the weapons cycled and spit out a “spent” case with each shot. All of our targets were down, as well as three of the five at the top of the hill. We couldn’t physically see the other two, but I knew they were watching the other way.

Breaking cover, I rushed up the hill. Cooper sent one of the team members with me. The two snipers continued to watch for movement at the top of the hill. The other two team members hurried to the positions where the Red team members had been and covered them in case they had only been ruled as wounded. The two of us arrived at the top of the hill just as the last two members of the Red team came to check on what was happening.

Cooper caught up with us and took the radio. “Blue Three calling Blue One to report. Objective secured,” he reported.

“Roger Blue Three, good job. Report to debrief. Blue One out,” Lt. Commander Ferguson replied.

“How the hell did you do that?” Torres asked Cooper. He just jerked his thumb at me.

Rather than hike out, Cooper called our chopper and we extracted from the hilltop clinging to the same ropes we had used when we landed. We even gave Torres a lift. The pilot dropped us off near the normal LZ and landed so we could board. An hour later, we turned in our weapons and other gear. It was funny when Cooper took the spent shell casings and set each of them on the counter.

“Only seventeen rounds?” the supply officer asked disbelievingly. Cooper just grinned in reply.

Lt. Commander Ferguson was waiting for us when we arrived, as was everyone else on the team. “I watched everything you did and I’m still not sure that I believe it,” he said once everyone was inside. “And I can’t believe that you rappelled out of the chopper while it was moving and did it in less than three hundred meters. They even had time to pull the ropes back inside the chopper before the break in the trees ended.”

Then he had Cooper go to the front and explain to everyone what we had done and why. “I was worried when we started about how well Jim would integrate with our fire team. By the end of the exercise, I hadn’t seen anything that would lead me to think that he hadn’t trained with us for months. Even the suggestion to fast rappel from the choppers while they were moving was his,” he commented as he finished his report.

“Did you teach him that?” Ferguson asked Don. I don’t think I’d ever seen Don look prouder.

“Nope, how’d you learn that?” Don asked me.

“I tied a rope to the zipper on the zip line I put up and learned to rappel down the rope while I was moving. Even the girls think it’s fun to do,” I replied. Don just laughed at me.

“On another note,” Lt. Commander Ferguson said once everyone stopped laughing. “We reviewed satellite footage and found four oil tankers with Myanma registry that the Chinese must have seized when they invaded. They modified the tankers, and each of the goliath tankers delivered seven of the small submarines. One of the tankers has already docked in Santiago, Cuba and loaded goods, although I’m not sure how they explained filling a goliath tanker with something besides oil.

“The other three ships are still headed south. According to radio intercepts, two are supposedly headed for Rio de Janeiro and one for Buenos Aires. Sources in Cuba say that they bought rice and other grain, as well as tractors and other farming equipment. They paid for the goods with gold ingots. Where the rebels got enough gold to buy twenty-eight Chinese TK class subs and twenty-eight Dragon Claw-11 cruise missiles is beyond me.

“Acting President Talbot has given her approval to seize all four ships. How long will it take us to get to the ships from here?” he asked, looking from Don to me. I looked at the map he had projected on the wall so everyone could see.

“No more than six hours to the farthest ship; barely an hour to the closest one,” I replied.

“It should be even faster,” Don amended. “Each of the sleds is fusion powered. They have a second fusion generator for the weapons systems, as well as the cloaking and shielding. Implementing one of Jim’s suggestions, they reworked part of the electrical circuitry allowing you to power down any or all of the items powered by the second generator and divert that power to propulsion. They only had time for a few test flights before I left this morning, but we reached Mach 3.8, or nearly 4,000 kph.”

“So, less than two hours to the farthest ship, except that we’d want to cloak all or most of the way,” I mused aloud.

“Cloaking reduces the top speed to Mach 3.5,” Don advised.

“So, still two hours plus or minus to the farthest ship,” I commented.

“Damn that’s fast,” Cooper exclaimed.

“Can we be ready to leave here by tomorrow afternoon?” Lt. Commander Ferguson asked the room.

“We can be ready to leave right after dinner,” Cooper replied excitedly.

“Let’s plan on tomorrow. That’ll give us the rest of today and most of tomorrow to familiarize ourselves with the grav sleds, as well as the new armor and rifles. I understand that Jim has a ceremony to attend mid-morning tomorrow, but he should be back by thirteen hundred hours. Let’s plan to eat dinner at fourteen hundred hours and leave at sixteen hundred hours. Since the three empty ships are in a time zone two hours ahead of us, we should reach them about twenty hundred hours. It will be fully dark before then.

“These ships should each have a crew of twenty-eight. Jim, can you watch fire teams on two vessels simultaneously?” Ferguson asked me.

“Sure, but I may have to ask one fire team to hold up if the other is about to engage,” I replied.

“Then we’ll send four fire teams aboard each of the two ships bound for Rio. Once those two ships are captured, Red Squad will take the ship headed for Buenos Aires. When they’re done, Blue squad will take the straggler. We’ll have the Navy fly U.S. crews to a nearby ship or city and we can transport them to the ships by using the grav sleds. The Navy will sail the ships to Port Fourchon until it’s decided what to do with them.

“Prisoners?” Torres asked.

“We’re still working on that. We may have to leave troops aboard each ship to guard them, but I’m checking to see if we can transfer them to an aircraft carrier off the coast of Colombia,” he replied.

“If you use the sleds to transport prisoners, it’s best if they’re unconscious and securely strapped to the sled,” I advised.

“Noted,” Ferguson replied.

“Anything else?” he asked. “Reassemble on the sports field. Jim will explain the sleds to Blue Squad and Don to Red Squad. Dismissed,” he barked.

“Please tell me that I don’t have to meet with the Acting President tomorrow morning,” I said to Don when he caught up to me.

“Nope,” he replied smirking. “You have an appointment with Bishop Thibodeaux and some fiancées who are anxious to become wives,” he said. “Gina, Helga, Jackie, and Olivia want to get married before you’re deployed.”

“Do you think we can claim a bunch of the tractors and agricultural equipment from the ship that was loaded in Cuba?” I asked.

“Making plans?” he asked teasingly.

“Yeah,” I replied. “There are millions of hectares of unused farmland across Louisiana. At the same time, there is a sugar shortage, a corn shortage, hell, an overall food shortage. There is also a shortage of cotton, one reason that clothing is so expensive. Those crops all grow well in Louisiana. I want the girls to find a place or places where we can buy huge tracts of fertile farmland. I want to plant sweet potatoes, rice, corn, wheat, sugar cane, and cotton. After we have those going, I’ll consider chickens, dairy cows, and hogs. We can probably capture any feral brood sows and juvenile pigs that we need to begin raising hogs,” I laughed.

“Lucky Jim III intends to be a farmer, huh?” he asked teasingly.

“Lucky Jim III intends to oversee a lot of farming. I’m counting on finding qualified people to manage the day-to-day operations,” I replied.

“That shouldn’t be a problem. I can think of a dozen people just in Blanc Bayou that could oversee large tracts of cotton, corn, wheat, rice, sweet potatoes, and sugar cane,” Don commented. “There are enough unemployed and underemployed people in our Parish alone to make a good dent in the number of workers we’ll need. I think I’ll need to buy a few more stills and use some of last year’s excess corn to start making alcohol to run any new farm equipment, unless the Chinese bought electric equipment,” Don mused. “If it’s electric, it’s a good thing all the new construction will have solar panels,” he added with a chuckle.

It took Don and me less than an hour to familiarize everyone with the grav sleds, the onboard targeting computer, how to integrate with the targeting system in their helmets, and then how to link those to the new rifles. When Don and I left, the others were busy practicing with the new rifles, breaking them down and reassembling them. Fortunately, they were similar enough to the current model that it was a short learning curve.

Using two of the newest sleds, Don and I were home in no time. The family held off dinner until we arrived. Once I finished greeting each of my wives and significant others with hugs and kisses, I noticed new faces standing around the table. Ashley saw me looking at them and caught my attention, introducing them. “Jim, this is my boyfriend Heath,” she said proudly as she motioned to the very large black guy next to her. Heath had at least seven or eight centimeters and thirty kilograms on me. He also had a huge smile on his face. He was old enough that he had survived his time in the service.

“Good to meet you Heath,” I replied as I walked around and shook his hand.

“And these are Heath’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Washington,” Ashley continued. I shook both of their hands and welcomed them.

“And this is Heath’s sister Dijonae,” she finished the introductions as an ebony goddess stepped out from behind her father.

“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman,” my mouth was saying before my brain started working again. I’d taken her hand as if to shake it, but found it pressed against my lips while I had no memory of any intent to do that.

“We’ve heard a lot about you,” she replied in an alto voice that sent shivers down my spine.

“Hopefully there were one or two good things in what you were told to help offset the rest,” I replied.