Windrider, 1.2

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The next morning they were sitting lined up at the bottom of a hill listening to the traffic go by and waiting for the other section to start.

As soon as they heard the explosions, they were flying over the hill. This time CT was waiting two hundred yards away as the smaller vehicles crested the hill and opened fire on first the biggest armoured vehicle they could find, then shifted to the transports carrying the food and other supplies. Duncan fired two grenades from the launcher mounted under the barrel of his rifle. He was surprised he hit something, as he had just fired in the general direction hoping just to cause some mayhem. Then as he started to fire the rifle, Bob swung the G-Wagon around and they were pelting back over the hill.

Ten of the armored vehicles chased after them. CT waited until they were at the bottom of the hill before he fired the main gun, taking all ten out with it before they had traveled halfway to him. The lighter vehicles didn’t even slow down going by him and as he was already facing in that direction, the Coyote was on the move chasing them as the last enemy vehicle blew up in a fire ball.

That night, Barb laid it on really thick. Because tomorrow would be the planetary troops turn.

“Incoming airborne,” CT reported over Duncan’s earphone. “It is our friends from the Guild.”

The small aircraft hovered and landed just outside the laager and the two men exited and walked into the defensive circle, their eyes darting everywhere taking in everything. They walked right up to Duncan.

“You have done well,” the Guild Master said. “Much better than expected.”

“We do our best,” Duncan said. “You have received our expenditures. Have you replenished them?”

“Yes,” the Guild Master said. “Madam Horshack has taken control of them and will transport them to your secret supply point.”

“Good, is that why you came all this way? To tell me of this?”

“No, not all,” the Guid Master said. “As a neutral observer, I am to conduct you to negotiations to end hostilities. You have been authorised by Madam Horshack to begin these negotiations on her behalf. Here is her written authorisation.”

He handed Duncan a sealed large brown envelope. Opening it Duncan quickly scanned the document and handed it to Katerina.

“When is the negotiation to begin?” Duncan asked.

“I and my assistant will leave immediately to confer with your opponents,” was the response. “You are both under a cease fire as of this moment.”

Then both men walked back to the aircraft and left, headed toward the enemy.

“CT,” Duncan said into his mike. “Little bird in position?” he started walking toward the Coyote. “Ya Dunc. The bad guys haven’t moved from last night’s camp spot.”

“Right, Jane, get bird two airborne and over to the cache location. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Roger Duncan, ETA about half an hour.”

“Everyone on peak awareness,” Duncan said. “Deploy all the remote sensors, full circle at max distance.”

Both Coyotes box like sensor boxes dropped the protective coverings and hydraulically rose to their full height. Small radar domes started revolving and the sensor mast on Jane’s Coyote rose up to its full height from its stowed position.

“Amanda, grab my lap top from the G-Wagon and bring it to CT’s wheels. Intelligence section to your posts, all other troops to perimeter guard after sensor deployment. Fire free if fired upon.”

Machine guns were removed from G-wagons and taken out ten meters from the laager, bi pods deployed and weapons belts fed into breaches. Once the remotes were deployed, the troopers came back and started digging two man rifle pits. One trooper from each troop keeping watch while the other two dug.

Duncan walked into the Coyote to find every monitor alive and consuls being manned and activated. The gunner had armed both the twenty millimetre cannon and the coaxial machine gun and was watching his thermal scanners, hands on the fire control system.

Katerina had followed Duncan into the Coyote and looked around her eyes wide. She had never seen all this equipment fully activated before, or the Wind Riders so determined, so focussed. Amanda yelled into the Coyote and Duncan motioned with his hand and she tossed his laptop bag to him. In mere seconds he had it plugged into a consul and looking around at all the monitors as he waited for it to boot up.

“Commander,” Duncan said. “Please man your position. If we require anything from you, you will be contacted.” Then he turned back to his monitors.

“CT, you up?”

“Ya Dunc, they transmit ,I’ve got ‘em.”

“Barb?”

“Monitoring the mercenaries Duncan.”

“Karen, you have my link yet?”

“Working on it Babe. They have multiple layers. Mom is working on a few, but we really need you.”

“Ya, in a bit, I have to handle something else first. Nancy, once I break this down, you keep an eye on this link.”

Katerina had not left yet and she was watching as Duncan’s hands were flying over his keyboard. His head pivoting between the portable computers screen and a monitor in front of him. Finally the main monitor showed her aunts board room with her full council around the table. The laptop was burning data across the screen and then finally stopped.

“Madam Horschak,” Duncan said. “I see you have your full council with you.”

“Mr. Kovaks,” Tanya said. “Why am I not surprised? You received the request then?”

“Do you trust them? I don’t,” Duncan said.

“Nor I. But the rules mandate we comply Duncan.”

“Mr. Minister of Agriculture. I think you will find your ear implant is no longer working. I have disabled it. Your link to the Guild is severed. Also, all communications into or out of that room have been disabled. Madam Horschak, I have summoned your security people and Informed them to arrest the minister. I recommend that no further discussions of any kind be done until he is removed.”

Six security men entered and removed the docile minister and when the door was closed Duncan began again.

“Have my supplies been delivered?”

“Yes Duncan, we are loading them in the warehouse right now.”

“Unload them, keep them there. Send the vehicles to the cache site empty. Have them enter the warehouse and stay for half an hour and then leave. I don’t really need them at this point. I recommend that you fully deploy right now and go comms dark. Shut everything down and keep it down. We will keep you updated from here. I will activate your systems when I need to and send you a message, then shut everything down again.”

“Agreed,” Tanya said. “Don’t agree to anything they propose. I don’t trust them.”

“Your wish is my command Madam Horshack. You have your comms back.”

“Commander I thought I told you to join your troops? Now get at it.”

Duncans fingers were flying across his key board again and after five minutes Karen came on the comm.

“Ok, I’ve got in hon,” she said.

“Right take over,” he said. “Then shut his computer down. All yours Nancy.”

He stuffed his laptop back in its bag, slung it across his shoulders and walked out of the Coyote. He headed over to his G-Wagon and stashed the computer once again, then took a look around at the perimeter. Everything seemed to be in order and he started waking over to Katerina’s position. Brett with his more powerful weapon was positioned in the middle and he as standing talking with Katerina.

“Commander, I realise you were curious and wanted to know what was going on,” Duncan said. “You already knew more than most of my troopers knew. As a commander of two troops, when I give an order to deploy, you follow it and report back to me when it is complete. If I need something from you, I will ask. Right now I have no time to discuss things with you. Ah, CT tells me the Guild is returning. As the planetary representative, you may join me.”

“The meeting has been set,” the Guild Master said. “I will give the Commander the coordinates for the meeting. You do not have the capability of that. You, one of your vehicles and its troops, will be the only ones to come within one mile of the meeting. You will leave your long range weapon behind Mr. Duncan. You will be allowed your side arm. Your vehicle will stop three hundred yards from the meeting place and you alone will come. The others will do likewise. The Guild member and his clients representative will be present for the meeting.”

“But the Commander is not allowed to accompany me?”

“No, she is not. In addition, I must remind you that there is a cease fire in effect. The first ones to violate that cease fire will be dealt with harshly. You have two hours to reach the meeting place.”

“Well then I guess we had better get moving then, Commander prepare your people and your vehicle,” Duncan said. Then he walked over to his G-wagon and put his rifle in the spring clip on the dash, pulled his mirrored aviation glasses off of the sun visor and stuck them in his breast pocket and took a small thin rectangular silver colored package off the map pocket storage area mounted on the door.

The Guild men were moving off in the direction of the meeting by that time and Duncan gave last minute instructions to Jane, who would be in command until he returned. As he walked, he opened the package he was carrying and put on the light weight Mylar jacket it contained making sure the shiny side was facing outward.

“Make sure we go no faster than thirty seven miles an hour when we reach the road,” Duncan said as he jumped into the middle rear seat. “I don’t want to be too early.”

The rear seat had more room and was more comfortable than the G-Wagons were and the ride was smoother and quieter. The fit and finishes were tighter and did not rattle as much. Brett had his weapon laying on his open window sill and he was actively scanning his side of the road as they drove. The trooper on Duncan’s left was doing the same.

“Where do you get these vehicles from,” Duncan said. “They are well made.”

“We make them here,” Katerina said. “They are very popular and are one of our major exports. The military models usually have ceramic bodies mounted on the same chassis. In this case, we just modified the interiors and added the gun mount on the roof. The suspension has been upgraded as has the tires. A few little upgrades in the interior for storage, but that is about the only difference between this one and the civilian one.”

“I see it has am internal combustion engine,” Duncan said. “I would have thought you would be using electric motors based on your advanced weapons systems.”

“This is a hybrid system Duncan. There are four electric motors, one for each wheel. The floor pan is basically a big storage battery. All the engine does is recharge the battery and run the electrical systems, especially when high performance is required. On a road such as this, we could easily do well over a hundred miles an hour with this load onboard. The engine is powered by a vegetable alcohol, oil mixture and we can run for about a week on one tank of fuel at the rate of speeds we have been doing with these operations.”

“So why are the enemy so reliant on fuel then?”

“They are using machines built on another planet,” Katarina said. “They are military purpose built only and are powered by the internal combustion engine alone. Most planets consider ours far to expensive to use for military purposes as the ceramic armor adds significantly to the price.”

“What else does your planet produce?”

“We are primarily an export based economy Duncan. We manufacture most of the consumer entertainment electronic devices everyone else uses. It is cheaper to manufacture them here as we have all the natural resources required. In addition, we have a very large agricultural impact. Most of the land is very suitable for grain crops or pasture lands. On the other side of the planet, there are very large forested areas that we harvest for wood, which is also exported. In fact the planet is named for the tree species that we harvest and replant. Oaken. It is a slow growing tree that produces very strong with tight fiber wood with beautiful wood grains. It is much sought after.”

“Sounds a lot like home,” Duncan said in German drawing a look from Brett.

“Once all this is over,” he said in English. “Maybe you can tell me more about Oaken and your people Kat.”

“It will be my pleasure Duncan,” she replied. “Our hosts seem to be early.”

An armed transport was parked at the site already with the Guilds aircraft parked beside it. Ten armed mercenaries were standing in front of it in a line and the two enemy commanders were talking with the Guildsmen. As they had been instructed, Duncan’s vehicle parked four hundred yards away from the other vehicles and everyone got out. Brett stood behind the vehicle, his weapon out of site, while the other three troopers stood in front weapons pointed at the ground.

“You see what I see?” Brett said in German.

“Ya,” Duncan replied in the same language. “One to the left prone about a hundred yards, the other crouched behind a bush the same distance to the right. You take the one on the left, I’ll handle the one on the right. But they fire first got it?”

Duncan put his sunglasses on and started walking toward the other men, who also started walking toward him.

“Good morning,” Duncan said saluting the two enemy commanders. “It is turning out to be a beautiful day.”

“We demand you accept this peace proposal,” the client’s commander said. Duncan ignored him.

“Your people fight hard commander,” he said. “Harder than we had imagined.”

“Why don’t you stand and fight instead of hitting and running then? You are clearly beating us. Stand and fight like real soldiers then.”

“Even though you have killed one of my people, you still out number us two thousand to one. Committing suicide is not in my job description Commander. I am authorised by my client to hear your peace proposal.”

The client haughtly outlined their proposal, which was almost the same as the previous one. The enemy would keep all the land they had taken. A number of Tanya’s people would be required as hostages. Absolutely no harm would come to Duncan’s people.

“Mr. Kovaks,” the Guild Master said. “The guild feels this is a good agreement. I should also point out that you have broken the spirit of this truce. Your man has one of your weapon systems pointed in our direction.”

Brett had his rifle laying across the roof of the scout vehicle, butt to his shoulder and eye at the scope.

“Sir,” Duncan said. “The trooper that was killed was from that scout troop. They were a man short and unfortunately, we have not had time to replace the dead trooper from the pool of local people available to us. It was necessary to put one of my people with this troop so that it could remain operational. Had you picked the other vehicle, this would not have been the case. You only specified that I could not bring my long range weapon, not my security detail.”

“I will once again remind you that breaking this cease fire agreement will be dealt with harshly,” the Guild Master said.

“I assure you sir, we will not be the ones breaking the agreement, but we will be the ones to punish those that do.”

Seeing the man to the left suddenly rise and point his weapon, Duncan turned so he was standing sideways to the man on the right and as he heard the shot coming from the left man, pulled his Sig Sauer from its holster with his right hand. The shot from the left reflected off the shiny Millar coating of his left shoulder as his left hand grabbed his right wrist and he levelled the pistol at the man at the right who’s shot missed him by inches blazing across his chest area. As he pulled the trigger for his first of two shots, Brett’s rifle fired three rapid shots. Both of Duncan’s shots hit his man squarely in the chest. The first shattering the ceramic armour, the second passing through the body and shattering the rear armor plating. As the man was flung to the ground, Duncan fired twice more, once to the chest, the last to the head, then he swung to cover the two enemy. The client had his pistol half drawn and stopped.

“Tell your people to stand down Commander,” Duncan said as the mercenaries began to run toward them. “Or they and you will be dead before they get in range.”

The mercenary commander yelled into his communicator for his people to stop, which they did.

“Now very carefully sir,” Duncan said pointing his pistol in the clients face. “Slowly remove your side arm and toss it behind me.” A red dot from Brett’s laser site lit up on the client’s chest armor.

A look of disgust was on the mercenary commander’s face and he turned to the Guild Master and plead his case.

While he was doing that, Duncan replaced the half empty clip with a full one and holstered the pistol. Then he gathered up the spent shell casings and put them in his pocket.

“I think you will find sir,” Duncan said to the Guild Master in a lull. “That those two men, are in fact the clients troops and I believe the Commander had no knowledge of this. As for myself, we did not break the ceasefire agreement, they did and we were only protecting ourselves. I intend to inform my client, that her enemy is still operating with dishonour and that in my opinion, any further negotiators with these people would be fruitless as they seem to be intent on breaking any and all agreements that they make. As they have in the past. Have a good day gentlemen.”

“You get all that CT?” Duncan said on his communicator as he walked back to his vehicle.

“Ya Dunc, it’s all recorded.”

“Ok, short burst it to headquarters. We should be back in half an hour. Get ready to move out. Have you isolated the Guilds surveillance frequencies yet?”

“Ready to start jamming when you give the word Dunc.”

“Not yet,” Duncan said as he was getting into the scout car. “Wait until after we start leaving for the next camp area. Home James and don’t spare the horse power this time.”

“That means, drive as fast as is safe to do so driver,” Brett said.

The next morning, Duncan and A troop were alone on the hill top overlooking the road. They were six hundred yards away from the road and in full view of it. The tail gate was down and Amanda had set up her spotting scope on it, but was sitting on the tail gate with her legs dangling. Bob and Scott were sitting on the hood and Duncan was standing behind it with his elbows on the roof and his binoculars to his eyes watching the approaching column.

Two of the scout vehicles pulled off to the side of the road twenty yards apart and observed them, while the other two slowed down and crept down the road, the observers with binoculars to their eyes scanning all around the area. Two armored troop carriers came up at a high rate of speed and as they came to a stop and dismounted the troops they had on board, the two scout vehicles took off to join the other two. The dismounted troopers quickly set up a defensive perimeter on both sides of the road and the turret mounts were constantly in motion scanning for movement.

“It took them long enough,” Bob said. “But they are finally acting like professionals.”

The advance guard was fully alert, weapons trained and turrets in constant motion. They were in a staggered formation and shifted position every three hindered yards or so. The main body was also on full alert and maintained a ten yard distance from each other instead of the close bunched up formation of earlier days. As the command group approached and Duncan saw he had been noticed by the enemy commander, he went to attention and saluted the Commander and was saluted in return. Then he grabbed his cup of luke warm coffee and joined Amanda at the rear of the vehicle leaning up against the back panel and watched the parade.

The rear guard and the rear scout troop passed by and five minutes later, the gaggle of unorganised local troops appeared. They were bunched together, no security was observed and troops instead of being inside the transports and protected, were riding on the tops, most with shirts off. Weapons not in view.

Duncan reached inside of the G-Wagon and pulled out his Tac-50 advanced sniper rifle. As he walked ten yards in front of the vehicle, he extended the bipod and the butt piece. Then he laid down and inserted the five round clip. When the command vehicle came up, he sighted on the body guard furthest away and shot him. Then moved quickly from man to man until all four of them were blown off the top by the high powered fifty calibre bullets. The last shot, he placed in the armour just to the side of the commander, blowing it and most of that side of the vehicle to pieces.

“That commander is what a real sharp shooter can do,” Duncan said into his radio. “Sleep well.”

Then he gathered up his spent shell casings and his rifle, stowed all the gear away and they sped off, leaving confusion behind them.

The next morning, all four sniper teams were deployed in different locations on both sides of the road. All of them were concealed and camouflaged and were at long range. This time they concentrated their fire on any officers or leaders they could spot in the gaggle of local troop vehicles. Twenty bodies were blown off transports in red misted clouds. The only warning the vehicles had that they were a target, was when the body was hit, followed by the loud sounds of the shots.

That night, the Voice was very sympathetic to the poor troopers. Making comments on how brave they were and how the paid professional troops that were supposed to be protecting them were failing in their duty. Right after promising them a special surprise for being so brave, all eight vehicles opened up with every weapon they possessed for a full minute from every direction. The dark night alive with tracer shells, laser bolts and explosions. Then everything stopped and all that was heard was the screams of the dying and the wounded.

“You guys have to see this,” CT said and the holographic projector on Katerina’s vehicle came alive.

Four large armored airborne troop transports landed, surrounding the warehouse that held their reserve supplies and as the troops came out, multiple barrelled weapons mounted on the transports started firing into the warehouse. While some troops set up a perimeter, others broke into the warehouse with satchels on their backs and a short time later, re-emerged without the satchels. Everyone reloaded into the transports, which took off and minutes later the warehouse exploded.

“Good thing there was only empty boxes in there,” Duncan said.

While the rest of the Wind Riders had been involved training, Janes troop had been using the new Coyotes to relocate all of their supplies to a different location, known only to the Wind Riders. While a few supplies had been lost, most of them were safe.

“What are you going to do now?” Katerina asked.

“Oh, we will make do somehow,” Duncan said. “Any idea who those guys were CT?”

“Locals from some place called Arial,” CT said. “They have also been funding the rebels.”

“What?” Katrina said. “But they are our closest trading partners and friends.”

“Apparently not,” Duncan said. “Include that in the nightly report CT, along with a request for the Guild to replace the lost supplies.”

“They will not reach here in time Duncan,” Katerina said.

“Maybe, then again maybe not. So this is the plan for tonight…”

Copyright, R.P. Wollbaum, 2016