Desperado (Murphy's Lawless: Watch the Skies Book 2) by Kevin Ikenberry (any book recommendations txt) 📕

monitor the set frequency precisely at the top of the midnight hour. Once again, Aliza was late. Whatever the reason, she was not able to transmit on time for the fifth day in a row. While he tried to tell himself she was busy, that she was ensuring her own security, he was worried. She was fiercely independent and could hold her own, but she wasn’t a soldier, no matter the rank bestowed on her.

Why did Murphy promote her?

Bo chastised himself at the thought. During the J’Stull Job, Aliza had taken command of a defensive position when Sergeant First Class Whittaker was killed. Even before the skirmish, she was a natural leader and teacher. In more ways than one, she was a better officer than most of the people Bo knew during his life in the 1980s and ’90s back on Earth. She deserved the rank and, frankly, had earned it in combat.

Bo leaned back on his hands and stared up into the unfamiliar heavens. He knew where to look for Earth, but there was nothing there for him anymore. Everything he needed, and everything he wanted, was right there. The problem was he couldn’t articulate it well enough for Aliza. Either the time wasn’t right, or the words wouldn’t come out. While he knew he shouldn’t be thinking about it, he couldn’t help it as he waited for her. If all went well, he’d see her soon.

For the last seven days, he’d deployed his cavalry force to scout Imsurmik from a distance. He could have moved them closer but decided against it. From his current position he had a commanding view of the area around the town of twenty thousand. There were two major roads which intersected about five kilometers to the southeast of the town. The crossroads sat almost exactly a kilometer to the west of a junction between a wide, shallow river flowing from the northwest to the southeast and an intermittent creek from the north. The river, known as the Sallus, flowed all the way to the R’Bak Sea. Eventually, the bulk of the Lost Soldiers would follow the river as the operation progressed and he would provide security for them. For the moment, though, his attention was on the town and the roads leading into it. Traffic had burgeoned over the last several days, and, if Colonel Murphy’s intelligence was correct, it would continue to do so.

What troubled Bo more than Aliza’s tardiness was the number of armed militants he’d seen moving into the city itself. From a distance, it was hard to determine if the weapons systems he saw being moved by vehicles were staying in the Outer City or if they were being pushed into the Inner City itself. Until the enemy emplaced their weapons along the top of the glacis, there was no way of telling. Therefore, he had to assume the worst, which was that the enemy was merging their forces. So, with every passing day, they grew stronger, which would be a problem for the Lawless.

“Your orders are to observe the town and be prepared to strike,” Colonel Murphy had said. “Once we get the intelligence we need from the inside, you’ll move on the town and secure it. After your initial attack, a strike team led by Captain Cutter will go in and grab our high-value targets.”

“What are our high-value targets?” Bo asked.

Murphy smiled. “People.”

Bo had seen through Murphy’s statement. “So, my job is to attack the town and distract all the enemy forces so that the strike team can get in, get our targets, and leave, right?”

Murphy nodded. “This is more than a distraction, Bo. If worse comes to worst, and we can’t get off the planet, this could be a site where we could hole up for the Sear, if necessary.”

Bo shook his head. “You’ve stated we’re going to get to orbit and get off the planet before the Sear happens. What changed?”

“Nothing has changed, Bo. We will get off the planet, but you of all people know sometimes in combat things don’t go as expected. We have to prepare for the unexpected, no matter how successful we are.”

Bo knew that all too well. His experience in Somalia with the United Nations coalition had been a less than stellar effort. Far too often, they had gone on convoys and minor operations without the proper intelligence. Granted, in an urban area like Mogadishu, credible and actionable intelligence had been almost impossible. The state of the enemy was always in flux, and they held the advantage and the initiative on the ground they knew like the backs of their hands. Frequently, Bo’s forces were engaged by irregular troops and armed civilians they had not expected. Staring across the valley at the low houses of the Outer City, Bo couldn’t help but think how familiar Imsurmik looked. He could have mistaken the Outer City for areas of Mogadishu, and the similarity did not sit well with him.

He leaned forward and checked his watch again. It was almost fifteen minutes after the hour. Bo turned on the radio, as procedure dictated, and listened. Nothing. With a sigh, he turned the radio off and kept looking up at the unfamiliar sky. After a few moments, he saw the streak of a falling star and it brought a smile to his face. As a teenager, he’d enjoyed taking the family’s pontoon boat out on the southern spur of Pickwick Lake. One night, just before his sixteenth birthday, he’d been out on the boat alone, lying on one of the long, padded seats, watching the sky. He’d caught the peak of the annual Leonid meteor shower; over one hundred shooting stars per hour lit up the night. For a moment, he could have almost been back home, and Bo let himself enjoy the wait. To his surprise, at precisely forty-five minutes after the hour, he heard Aliza’s voice.

“Desperado Six,