War Criminals by Gavin Smith (ereader for textbooks .TXT) 📕

‘I can,’ Kaneda told her as he finished assembling the rifle, ‘but this is quicker.’ Kaneda pulled the ghillie suit back over his head and disappeared, except for a few disturbances in the air. He dragged the extended sniper’s sleeve over the long rifle and that too disappeared. Miska was only aware of him taking position on the cradle because of her boosted hearing.

She pulled her own ghillie suit over her head and moved around the mech’s head to survey the situation. The Sneaky Bastards first squad, of which Kaneda was a member, had split into three four-man fire teams and had taken up covering positions. Second and third squad were cautiously advancing between the two columns of mechs, still all but invisible, towards the concrete bunker and the drop shuttles, respectively. The biggest threat was the trailer-mounted point defence lasers. They were designed to shoot incoming artillery, mortar shells and missiles out of the air but they could be repurposed for an anti-personnel role. The Bastards were relying on stealth and having the mechs between themselves and the point defence lasers to keep them safe. So far the Sneaky Bastards had mostly been engaging the spider sentry drones, leaving small smoking piles of wreckage in their wake. There were, however, more than a few dead guards hanging from the mech cradles and lying on the ground.

Miska’s audio dampeners filtered the otherwise deafening roar of the Bofors rail sniper rifle firing. She assumed the electromagnetically propelled, hypersonic, half-inch titanium penetrator had just blown a sizeable hole in something, or someone. Despite the noise there was no muzzle flash, and the near-invisible Kaneda would still be difficult to spot.

Miska peeked sideways into the net again.

Now let’s see if the command codes work. She turned to look at one of the point defence lasers. It was spinning, stopping, and then spinning in a different direction. It had been repurposed. It was searching for targets.

‘Hangman-One-Actual to all Sneaky Bastards call signs,’ Miska subvocalised over their own comms net. ‘They’ve repurposed the point defence lasers, everyone hold their positions.’ C’mon, she added silently. Things were going to get interesting very quickly if the virus with Raff’s command codes didn’t work.

‘Heavy-One-Actual to Hangman-One-Actual, what about me?’ Mass asked over a private link. Despite being the commander of the Heavy Bastards, Miska’s virtually trained, currently hypothetical mech platoon, the Mafia button man had come in with the Sneaky Bastards. While parachuting in Miska had checked his biometrics. It hadn’t looked like Mass had enjoyed the experience.

‘Very quietly, Mass, I want you to make your way up to the third level of the closest cradle to you, the one I’m on.’

‘Understood,’ Mass said and then over the command net: ‘Heavy-One-Actual on the move.’

‘Sneaky-One-Seven to all Sneaky call signs,’ Kaneda said over the comms net, ‘we’ve got movement from the maintenance hangar.’

Miska glanced that way and saw a squad of Triple S guards making their way cautiously towards the mechs.

‘Let them close,’ Miska subvocalised over comms and then admonished herself for not using the correct protocol. She glanced at the net feed again. Suddenly all the mech base’s systems and those of the vehicles present opened themselves to her. The expert system contained in the virus took over. It had a simple command: attack any personnel that weren’t members of the Bastard Legion until Miska told it to stop.

Three of the point defence lasers were firing. Where the Triple S squad that had emerged from the bunker had stood there was now just red steam, the dirt streaked with glass.

‘Hangman-One-Actual to all Bastard call signs. We’ve got control of the base’s systems,’ Miska announced over the command net. ‘Heavy-One-Actual, the Medusa is all yours.’ She heard movement on the cradle below her.

‘Understood,’ Mass replied.

Miska checked her IVD to see who was closest to her.

‘Hangman-One-Actual to Pegasus-One and Two, we’re ready for you.’

‘Pegasus-One to all Bastard call signs, myself and Pegasus-Two are inbound,’ replied McWilliams, an OG, or original gangster from the Hard Luck Commancheros prison gang, who was piloting the first of the two Pegasi assault shuttles. ‘Please be advised, if you haven’t switched off the air defences this will be a short flight.’

Then the ground shook. It had been a while but Miska instantly knew what it was. It was the thing that infantry feared the most.

‘Hurry the fuck up, Mass!’ Miska snapped, forgetting comms discipline for the second time. At least it had been over a private comms line.

Backlit by the hangar’s lights a huge shadow was thrown across the ground.

‘I mean it, Mass!’

The Mafia button man still didn’t answer.

‘Hangman-One-Actual to all Sneaky call signs, continue to hold your position,’ Miska told them

The Medusa-class mech stepped out of the hangar. She guessed its comms had been taken offline due to whatever work they had been doing on it. That would explain why the virus hadn’t suborned it.

With a thought, Miska dialled down the power on her M187 and prepared to ‘lase’ the mech. She could then send the targeting info to the inbound Pegasi, who could feed it to their missiles’ guidance systems. The world went red again as the base’s point defence system targeted the mech, to little effect other than scoring up its paintwork. The mech raised the 30mm chain-fed railgun it carried like an oversized carbine and fired a short burst at one of the offending point defence systems. The electromagnetically-driven cannon rounds tore the laser to pieces. The 200mm mass driver on its back unfolded and fired, and another point defence laser ceased to exist. The show of firepower was, as ever, awe inspiring and terrifying if you were that way inclined, Miska supposed. She might not have felt the fear but there was a sense of mounting concern, and she quite wanted Mass to get his Medusa up and running.

Another point defence system was sent tumbling into the jungle as 30mm rounds ripped into it. The enemy Medusa was moving towards the two columns of