Wind Riders 2.0

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Unfortunately, I had a problem with the thumb drive I save Duncans Quest on and lost most of the data. So now have to rewrite it all.

So, until I get it all back, here is another project in the works. Wind Riders 2.0.

Enjoy.

Wind Riders 2.0 Chapter 1

He didn’t know it, but he was tossing and turning in his sleep. His vivid dream was of a huge herd of sheep under assault by a huge wolf pack. The swift lean herd dogs were valiantly trying to keep the herd together, moving away from the wolves, sometimes trying to defend themselves from the larger more powerful wolves and dying.

Bigger shaggy white guard dogs were operating in pairs like they did against smaller packs. They were effective, but not effective enough. Wolves were getting through and killing sheep forcing more and more of the guard dogs to the herd to drive off those wolves. Duncan sat on a hill, but he was alone. If he had help, he knew he could defeat this wolf pack, but there was none. So, he stood, saying to himself, it is a good day to die and he launched his four paws straight for the largest group of wolves intent on killing as many of them as he could before they killed him.

Duncan’s eyes snapped open and the dream dissipated. He was laying on his back looking up at the sky, not a hotel room ceiling. The sky was not blue, but the violet that sometimes comes before a large storm. He sat up and looked at his combat booted feet. His tan combat pants were tucked into the boots and as he levered himself up to stand, he could tell from the weight, he was carrying a full combat load around his body. His Sig was by his left shoulder and his C-8 lay at his feet. He picked it up, ejected the clip, saw it was full and put it back in the rifle. The other three members of A troop were laying as he had been, on their backs, beside their G-Wagon.

Looking around he saw it was a full deployment. Four other G-Wagons and two Coyotes with their crews lying beside them were haphazardly parked in a small clearing surrounded by strange trees that were more yellow in colour than green. From the position of the reddish sun in the sky, it looked like it was late afternoon. At first singly, then in groups, the other Wind Riders woke up, all just as confused as Duncan.

“Ok,” Duncan said, more as a test of their personal com system than anything else. “Get these vehicles in a proper laager. Get a perimeter set up. Drivers and gunners, ammo, fuel and food status. Coyotes, start searching frequencies and coordinates and see where the hell we are.”

Training took over and troopers deployed to all points of the compass with weapons at the ready scanning the tree line. The Coyotes moved to a position ten yards apart, noses facing opposite each other, then deployed their large antennae arrays, both satellite and surveillance. G-Wagons formed a circle around them broadside to the outside of the circle.

All the vehicles had full fuel tanks and four spare Jerry Cans also full. They had full loads of rations and ammunition and each vehicle had in addition to four full Jerry cans of fresh water, all of their sleeping gear, medical equipment and spare clothing. After deploying the remote sensors for the Coyotes, Duncan called the security teams back in. CT and Jane reported no human or even animal activity in the area, so Duncan called them all together for a meeting.

“So,” he said. “We have no idea where we are or why we are here. All I can say for sure is that we ain’t in Kansas anymore Toto Anybody else got any ideas?”

Before anyone could say anything, they heard a rash of sizzling in the distance followed by some deep booms and screaming. Duncan motioned for his troop to follow and everyone else deployed into defensive positions as he and the rest of A troop cautiously made their way through the trees, going to their bellies at the edge of the tree line and crawling forward to the edge of a hill and looked down.

About five hundred grey armoured troops were attacking a town. There were twenty odd looking large vehicles with them, which in ten second intervals fired a stream of red into the town which exploded. Highly outnumbered defenders in light blue armour were engaging as best they could, but they were quickly outflanked by another hundred troopers on each side who only seemed intent on capturing women and dragging them back to a penned off area.

“Well,” Duncan said over the radio. “I don’t know who the bad guys or the good guys are, but I don’t like what I see the attackers doing. Bring all the vehicles forward and spread out on this hill.”

The G-Wagons spread out two to each side of Duncan and the two Coyotes placed themselves ten yards back of the line, one to each side. Duncan had everyone but the drivers and the gunners deploy twenty yards in front of the vehicles, each troops snipers with their long range rifles in hand. They would first take out any obvious officers, then the snatch teams and finally the prisoner guards. The two Coyotes were to fire a Sabot round at the biggest of the opposition vehicles and see what happened. Hopefully that would draw the attackers attention and take some heat off of the defenders.

The weapons the others were using looked like they only had about a hundred yards of good range and were not much good over two hundred. If they attacked, the Wind Riders would engage at three hundred yards with only C-8’s at first. Slow single shots first. Then three round bursts and only as a last resort full auto with the C-9’s joining.

Duncan switched frequancies on his radio and all the PA systems on the vehicles went live.

“We are the wind rustling through the leaves and the grass, bringing fresh air and comfort.

We are the babbling brook, bringing refreshment and soothing.

We are the sun in the sky, bringing warmth and sustenance.

We are the Wind Riders, bringers of Peace, Hope and Justice.

We are the torrent that rips trees from the ground.

We are the raging flood waters that destroy homes.

We are the burning sun that devastates crops.

We are the Wind Riders, bringers of Despair, Death and Destruction.

I am the Ghost in the Wind, the bringer of justice, prepare to die”

He had spoken the words in Arabic and as he switched his frequency back to the command net, he noticed that the attackers had seen them, but disregarded them.

He deployed his bipod at the end of his .50 caliber sniper rifle and lay down behind it, sighting on a man directing troops in the middle of the attackers formation. Then he began a five second countdown speaking aloud and as he hit one he squeezed the trigger and the big gun went off along with the five others and both twenty millimeter guns in the Coyotes turrets.

“Holy shit!” Brett said, “those two vehicles just blew right apart.”

Duncan was now sighting on a trooper that was dragging a woman on the ground by her hair. The grey armour blew apart in small pieces as the big bullet hit it and drove the man onto his face, Duncan shot one more and the others dropped the women they were carrying and ran, then Duncan and the other four shooters concentrated on the guards who ran after only one shot each.

All the women were sprinting back to their comrades and now a group of twenty five grey clad troopers and one vehicle were advancing on the Wind Riders position in line abreast. They held their fire until the attackers were at 300 hundred yards then twenty five shots rang out and twenty five troopers were down. Only then did Jane’s twenty millimeter gun fire, once and the vehicle exploded in spectacular fashion.

The next attack was more ambitious. Two lines of a hundred with two vehicles in each line approached. This time the Coyotes spoke first, the exploding vehicles taking out many of the troopers on foot, then the C-8’s began to fire in single fire. The snipers had changed to the smaller caliber weapons now. After three shots each, the attackers still standing ran. The defenders had now consolidated, not having to deal with flanking attacks any longer and were taking a toll on the attackers. Towns people, male and female were joining the fray, with what looked like bars of steel, lengths of wood, hammers, axes anything that had weight and that could be swung. The attackers had enough and ran.

Duncan dispatched B and C troops with Jane,s Coyote in support to follow the retreat with orders to not let them stop for ten miles at least and then to watch until night fall or until recalled. D and E troops he had do a perimeter check with their G-Wagons while A and CT’s Coyote kept watch for any stragglers and on the town itself.

“Notice anything weird about that sun?” Brett said.

“Ya, it looks like it’s almost noon now,” Scott said.

“This is getting weirder by the minute,” Duncan said.

D and E came back in and dismounted. Every one relaxed but alert. Jane reported that the grey people had linked up with vehicles and loaded up and took off in the opposite direction at a high rate of speed. Duncan called them back in and now they all sat around and waited for something to happen.

They were deployed in their laager formation with a trooper manning the C-9’s in each vehicle while the rest reloaded clips and cleaned weapons. Someone had a camp stove going with two pots of water on it to boil their MRE’s and Bob handed Duncan a cup of hot coffee. There were grey clad bodies all over the field in front of them and broken pieces of vehicles littered the ground in a large radius. Blue armored troopers and towns people were gathering their own dead and wounded, with many hasty looks at the tan uniformed Ghost Riders and their tan vehicles on the hill top.

Duncan sat on the hood of his G-Wagon sipping his coffee and Karen sat beside him. She was paler than usual and her eyes were darting all around the field before them. Duncan put his arm around her waist and kissed her neck. She sighed and laid her head on his shoulder.

“What now?” she asked.

“We wait,” Duncan said. “Somebody is bound to come up and talk. We didn’t expend to much ammo and I want to keep it that way until we get more information. If this gang comes at us, we hit them, then fall back. CT is going to get one of the birds up to look around for some place to fall back to. Right now this is as good a place as any. We out gun anything these guys have.”

“Duncan,” CT said. “I’m picking up some traffic on a weird HF band in some weird language. It’s on an AM commercial frequency.”

“Visitors coming,” Dianne said.

Seven blue armored figures were making their way forward, five of them armed. Duncan told the C-9 gunners not to waste the bullets and they picked up their C-8 rifles and laid them across the roofs of the G-Wagons pointed at the seven figures as they walked toward them. When the seven reached two hundred yards from them, the gunners jacked a round into the breaches and activated the laser sights putting red dots in the center of each of the blue chests that were carrying weapons. The seven stopped on the spot. The five with weapons kept them at port arms, weapons angled across chests, while the two unarmed figures advanced forward with their arms low by their thighs, away from their bodies and palms forward.

Duncan and Karen watched them make their way toward them, he still with his arm around her shoulder she with her head on his. As the visitors reached a distance of a hundred yards away from them, Duncan took a last sip of coffee and slid off the hood as did Karen. Both of them chambered a round into breaches and started to walk toward the approaching visitors. Both flicked off the safeties, but kept their fingers on the outside of the trigger guards and the barrels pointed down and away. They stopped walking when they were two yards away from the visitors as did the visitors who came to attention and hit clenched fists on their chests.

Duncan and Karen took right hands off the rifles and saluted.

“Master Warrant Kovaks, commander of the Wind Rider Squadron,” he said in Arabic.

Both of the figures before him looked at each other then back at them and shook their heads. Both of them were about 5foot ten. Their heads were covered in full face helmets with dark visors so their faces were not visible. The blue armor covered their whole bodies, so it was impossible to determine their body size, but they had five fingered gloves. The armor was smooth and shiny and looked ceramic. The figure on the right spoke in a language of some sort. It sounded female, but other than that was indecipherable.

Duncan tried Russian, she tried something else. He tried German, she tried something that sort of sounded similar. He tried French, she tried something he might be able to work with.

“Well if this doesn’t work, I’ll try French,” Duncan said to Karen in English. “We can maybe work something out in that.”

“Sir, I speak this can,” the figure on the right said. “Say many thanks we come.”

“Your accent and form is old,” Duncan said slowly. “But I can understand you. I am the commander of my group, this is my third in command.”

“Assistant to Commander I,” the figure on the right said. “Commander he.” She pointed at the one on the left who nodded at Duncan. “Not speak this he. Speak I for he.”

“We consider it very impolite to talk with our faces covered,” Duncan said.

The figure on the right spoke to the commander in the French sounding language and it undid the chin strap and removed the helmet from his head. She followed suit. They both had human looking faces, with short cropped black hair and green eyes. Their complexion was dark, like Mediterranean’s.

“Thank you,” Duncan said nodding at the commander, who spoke to the woman but looked at Duncan while he spoke. Duncan was catching about every third word he said.

“Sir, sorry say commander,” she said. “Intend not insult. Thank you help for intend. Understand you well I. Speak well not. Learn only school I. Speak seldom I.”

“You are doing fine,” Duncan said. “What can I do for you?”

She looked at him and spread her hands palm out to her side.

“What do you require from us?” Duncan rephrased.

“Require not you we,” she said. “Offer feed and sleep you we.”

“Ghost!” CT’s voice came over his earphone. “Airborne fast movers inbound!”

“Defensive NOW!” Duncan said and he and Karen went to one knee and brought their rifles up to bear on the man and woman before them. Multiple red laser dots appeared on each of the five armed troopers, the gunners on the G-Wagons dropped their rifles and armed the C-9’s while the two Coyotes moved forty yards apart, the rear weapons pods deploying 50 caliber chain guns that automatically started tracking the inbound air craft. As did the twenty millimetre cannons mounted on the turrets, all on automatic tracking now.

“Kill not! Kill Not!” the female yelled. “Friends are! Friends are! Please! Kill not!”

She was down on her knees, her arms outstretched. The commander followed suit.

The aircraft were smaller nimbler versions of the larger vehicles the attackers had used. They came to a hover behind the line of five troopers and landed. Five people came out of each craft, ten were armed and armored, five were not. These five made their way forward, while the guards had red dots appear on their chests.

Duncan and Karen stood, rifles still in hand but pointed at the ground. There were three women and two men approaching them. All of them very human looking wearing very colorful clothing of rich looking fabrics. Their black hair was longer than the soldiers was, coming down to their shoulders, their skins the same color as the two soldiers. None were as tall, but all were of a uniform five foot six in height. None of them were overweight. One of the men approached Duncan with his hand outstretched.

“Mr. Kovaks, so glad to meet you in person,” he said. “I am your employers representative. Impressive very impressive.”

Duncan made no move to greet the man, but pointed his rifle at him instead.

“Oh my,” the man said dropping his hand. “I do not see what we have done wrong. We have followed standard guild practice and you have proven your competence with your employer who is willing to provide you with a higher fee for your services.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Duncan said. “I don’t know who you people are, where the hell I am, or how the hell I got here. I have signed no contract to provide services to you people and don’t know what the hell your talking about with this guild shit.”

“Mr. Kovaks,” a woman with grey streaks in her hair said. “I am your employer. I am the ruler of this country. We are being invaded by an unscrupulous neighbor who has employed a group of mercenaries to attack us. We contacted the mercenary guild to provide us with a counter measure and here you are.”

“Listen lady,” Duncan said. “I have no signed agreements with anyone at this moment. I have two contracts under review, but they will not be conducted until the end of the year, if I decide to accept the offers. It is very unlikely I would accept this kind of contract anyway.”

“On the contrary Mr. Kovaks,” the man said. He pulled an envelope from beneath his jacket and gave it to Duncan. “This is a signed contract between Chinook Winds International GMBH and Mercenary Guild Interplanetary, to provide security consulting services for a retainer of 20 pounds of silver per year. In addition, Chinook Winds International agrees to provide a security force when required or otherwise not employed. We require your services and by your own admission you are not currently employed. Thus we are exercising our option. At our own expense, we have equipped and transported you here for an audition of your capabilities and your new employer has agreed to your employment and has reimbursed the guild for its costs.”

Duncan looked over the contract and could see why the investment banking arm of his multinational, multi-company assets would agree to it. Easy money from a bunch of crackpots. If they needed some security consulting, there were a number of freelance ex-military types that could be contracted to do that. At the current silver exchange rate it worked out to $150,000 a year, for doing nothing.

“Well sir,” Duncan said. “I would suggest you take this up with Chinook Winds International GMBH. It is an investment bank, not a security professional. My people and I belong to a company called Wind Riders Security and as I said, I have signed no agreement with you people. I would recommend that you return the fees you have obtained from this fine lady, pay my firm 25 pounds of silver for services rendered and return us from whence we came.”

“Oh my,” the Guild man said. “This puts us in a terrible quandary. You see, Interplanetary Law states that once formal war has been declared and the belligerents have agreed to contract Guild members to fight for them, For the period of one year, or the cessation of hostilities, only one inbound transportation of personal and no out bound transportation of any kind is allowed.. Oh my.”

“Please Mr. Duncan,” the female ruler said. “Can we not come to some form of agreement you and I?”

Duncan looked at Karen who shrugged her shoulders. “We can at least listen Duncan.”

“Bob,” Duncan said to his microphone. “Have you got some shade set up yet?”

“Ya Ghost, all set,” Bob said.

“Right, I’m bringing some guests into the perimeter for tea,” Duncan said, then he turned to the female ruler. “Mam, if you would come with us, we will hear your proposal. Guild man, you come along and you two soldiers, everyone else stays put.”

Some one had made a fire pit and gathered wood as a camp fire was going underneath a fifteen foot by twenty foot dark tan tarp attached to Jane’s Coyote on one end and collapsible tent poles on the other. Eight collapsible camping chairs with side mounted tables were placed around the fire pit. The four visitors sat together on one side of the pit, the ruler and the guild man in the center chairs and the two soldiers on the outer. Duncan sat down, Karen on his right, Bob to her right and Jane to his left.

“I would offer you some food,” Duncan began. “But unfortunately all the Guild provided us with was field rations, which are nutritious to be sure, but taste completely horrible. They did however provide us with a substantial quantity of a fairy tolerable alcoholic beverage which I can offer. If that will not offend you.”

The ruler smiled and nodded and Duncan ordered up a 24 of beer and four mugs. Scott brought out a case of twenty four beer, popped the tabs on four of them and poured them into the cups and handed the cups to the visitors. Bob reached over and tossed a can to each of the Wind Riders and sat back down. The four of them made a show of popping the tabs and gesturing to the four in front of them before taking a deep pull from the cans. The other four made the same gesture and took tentative sips from the cups, then the ruler smiled and took a much bigger drink.

“This really is fine Pilsner beer,” she said, then drained the cup and motioned to the case on the ground. “Just toss me one. I am not a pampered court lady.”

“Like I mentioned,” Duncan said, as Bob tossed her another can. “It is tolerable. Like everything else on this operation, the guild got it almost right. Now, why don’t you tell me your story?”

The ruler popped the tab and took a deep pull right out of the can. “Ah much better,” she said.

Sensing what was about to occur, Scott brought another case and put it by the visitors.

The ruler began her story with the stranding of five thousand strangers on their planet two generations earlier. How her people had given them land and help to settle and survive. How these people had prospered and had now grown to be almost fifty thousand people. They had approached her husband for more land. Her husband had explained that the district they had would accommodate one million people easily and that they did not need another district. But then these people had attacked the next district and killed everyone in it. Her people only had small armed forces designed really as policeman, not an army. They were overwhelmed easily and then the people attacked the next district. This time they killed everyone but young girls and children. Her husband had rallied all of the policeman and demanded the people return to their own district. These people had then declared war on her people and contracted a large contingent of mercenaries. He husband and his troops had confronted these mercenaries and had been killed to a man.

For the last year, this group had taken district after district, until now they controlled almost half the planet. Along the way they had killed all the people but the very young and the prettiest of the women. She had used a lot of her resources in obtaining weapons and training for her people and had contacted the Guild about hiring mercenaries herself, but she had limited funds and the guild had recommended Duncan as the best solution. That they were small in number, but highly skilled and able to handle this situation. What she had just witnessed had proven it.

“How many troops am I looking at to fight?” Duncan asked.

“Twenty thousand mercenaries and ten thousand indigenes troops,” the Guild man said.

“Jaysus,” Bob said. “We’re good but not that good. That’s ten thousand to one odds against.”

“One of the things my people are good at is negotiating settlements in situations like this,” Duncan said. “Is there any way the Guild can arrange a meeting between me and the other people?”

The man took a box out of pocket and hit a button on it.

“Done,” he said. “You have a one day truce, starting now. I will transport you to meet with them.”

“Right,” Duncan said. “Everyone stay put until I get back.”

In less than half an hour, Duncan and the guild man were in the commanders quarters of the enemy camp. Duncan explained that he would like to come up with an agreement that would end the conflict without any more loss of life. The Guildsman translated his word into a Slavic language that Duncan found he could understand. The mercenary turned to the man next to him and in archaic French relayed Duncan’s words. After much back and forth, which Duncan followed easily the enemy presented a proposal that would work.

Duncan would be allowed to surrender after providing a token resistance. His women would only be used for one night by five men each and returned to him otherwise unharmed. The men would be entertained by a feast and the next day they would be allowed to leave unharmed.

Duncan asked for five days to bring the proposal to his people and to plan for how to make it look like they would be defending vigorously. To his surprise, he was given twelve days and that a truce would be in effect on the enemies part for that time. Duncan assured them that they would have his answer at the end of the truce period and then he and the guildsman returned to his own camp.

“Interesting how you people twist things to suit yourself,” Duncan said.

“I do not approve of these methods,” the man said. “But my hands are tied if both of you agree.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that jackass will honor any agreement,” Duncan said and he stayed quiet for the whole trip back.

Duncan rejoined the group around the camp fire, his face grim.

“I accept the assignment,” he said without preamble. “You will pay us twenty four thousand pounds of silver. Nonnegotiable. You will deduct forty pounds per month which you will pay me at the first of every month. You and your people will do exactly what I say, when I say to do it. You Mr. Guildsman, will provide me with whatever supplies I require at your, not the planets cost. Nor will you demand or receive any commission from myself or the planet. It was your screw up, not ours. I will do what I can to wipe those asshole off the face of the universe. They give no quarter, so no quarter will be given in return. If the guild does not like it, tough shit.”

The ruler swallowed hard and nodded her head in agreement. As did the guildsman.

“Ok,” Duncan said. “I have bought us twelve days. This is what we are going to do.”

 

Also, Go Germany Go. Saturday Germany vs Italy