I’m not— #7
I had to hand it to him. Jacopo didn’t rile easily.
His eyebrows lifted a millimeter higher, a soft smile touched his mouth, his eyes locked on me.
His body went liquid smooth, flowing into his shooting stance as if he held a weapon in both hands.
His body had just issued a challenge, all the more deadly for the lack of bravado.
I grinned at him. Holding that smooth, killer’s stare.
“Step one,” I said, as if speaking to him alone, “we disable the big earth mover they brought. Step two, we attack the troop transport with hydraulic fluid: Open the hatch and spray five or six liters into the cabin, low pressure spray. The warriors, most of whom probably think they’re working a properly sanctioned Top Secret Op or a peace mission, will immediately be too slippery to do much, their weapons will be screwed up, and they’ll be coughing their lungs out, and trying to get the fluid off their bodies and their gear because hydraulic fluid will break down most anything over time.
As long as it isn’t sprayed under pressure and doesn’t penetrate skin, hydraulic fluid isn’t instantly lethal.
A good medbay will make them like new. And before you ask, yes, I have that much hydraulic fluid.
Enrico already completed Step One. He went inside that Sikorsky and drained their earth mover’s hydraulic lines. ”
Enrico tapped the canisters at his feet. I let my eyes leave Jacopo and peruse the room.
Bengal sat into his own sling chair, his bot hand no longer opening and closing as if he wanted to throttle someone. “Then what?” he asked.
I let my grin start and spread, shifting my gaze from Bengal, to Tomika, then to Jagger. I told them my plan.
When I was done, Jagger was smiling. “Thirty seconds, one minute tops, and we’re done?”
I tilted my head. Everyone here knew an OPLAN lasted until the first salvo. Then it all went to hell. Always.
“We won’t have to hit our own warriors? Our soldiers, our military?” Tomika asked, suspicion in her eyes. “I’m talkin’ the grunts,” she added. “Don’t give a shit about the brass.”
I tilted my head again, that equivocal gesture that communicated, That’s the plan. For what it’s worth. She frowned, thinking it through, knowing how well battle plans functioned.
“We won’t be able to see each other work,” Bengal said. “We can’t see where we’re going or where the helos are.”
“It’ll all be about timing,” I said, looking at my morphon.
We had been nattering on for an hour. Waste of time, especially with a dead body in the snow that could be discovered any second, but that couldn’t be helped.
I could have stood the chatter better in my armor, because that was heated, but I hadn’t brought the charging station.
That took too much room and . . . when I started out on this stupid bloody trip I hadn’t been preparing for battle.
Or a blizzard. I was frozen. Everyone was miserable.
I said, “Enrico will have to guide us into position. He’s got the spatial awareness and the directional certainty of a ninja.”
Enrico bowed slightly, old school Italian, learned from the Berger chips I had traded to repair his brain, to make him less dependent on me as his queen.
“That’s a fucked up idea and shit for a plan,” Bengal said to me. “But hey, it’ll be fun. I’m in.” He looked over his shoulder and said, “Puta Bella, Chewey, you and One Eye in? It’s not club business. It’s unfinished war business.”
“Stupid question, Boss, respectfully of course,” Puta Bella said. “But yeah, we’re in. Been a while since we had a little fight.”
One Eye cracked his knuckles, audible over a break in the wind. The half of his face that still worked grinned, showing missing teeth. He was scary as hell, but he had three cats on his lap, purring.
“Can’t speak for McQuestion,” Jagger said. “But I’m in.” McQuestion was the de facto general of the OMW. No one spoke for him.
“Enrico? Jacopo?” he asked. “Do you speak for your men?”
I tucked my chin into my frozen collar. That was a loaded question, and it put Jacopo, likely heir of the Marconi chapter, on the line.
He might be temporarily working for Jagger of the OMW, but in reality he was a hostage, his safety guaranteed with an HA hostage—the Hell’s Angels’ president’s daughter—who was living and working with Marconi.
If Jacopo displayed too much independence, that would cause problems with the alliance and truce between the two biggest clubs. Too little, and his own men would disrespect him when it came time to vote in a new prez.
Jacopo laughed softly, a bitter tone in the sound, shaking his head, his hawk eyes still on me. “Well played, bitch.”
I grinned. “That’s President Bitch to you.”
“Jeeze.” Jacopo turned to Jagger and said, “Request time off from the Enforcer of the OMW for personal business.”
“Granted,” Jagger said.
The kid stood up and shouted, “Marconi chapter! To me!” The HA’s disappeared from the scant protection into the storm to find a place to chat, all but Enrico, who sat in the corner plastered to his seat by the weight of cats.
In the end, we were all agreed. The storm was wearing itself out or shifting east, or whatever.
The winds were less gusty, the snow showing occasional gaps where we could see each other and, occasionally, up to ten feet away.
My plan, such as it was, depended on the storm. We had to act fast. I armored up.
* * *
I drove my front-end loader, bucket down, using it like a snowplow to position the earth mover where it could do the job I had envisioned, front and center of the command helo. Its batteries and generator were going, so hopefully, the storm hid the engine’s roar.
The cab wasn’t enclosed and even with armored, heated gauntlets, I could feel the cold emanating from the steering wheel and hydraulic controls, but I got the snow-packed beast where I wanted it.
Securing the side stabilizers in the snow, I emptied and set the backhoe down to provide more immovability, adjusted the rocker, tightened my seat belt, and turned the front bucket upright.
I tapped my armor into fully automated battle mode, the actively repositioning armor, Chameleon skin, and auto hardening now under AI control so I could think about other things and still be protected.
The recoil-anti-recoil sleeves and legs tightened and released, telling me everything was functional.
Mostly, I was warmer, though using power faster than I wanted.
Jacopo, his rifle in hand, leaped into the bucket and I jockeyed the bucket up high.
Both uphill and downhill shots have a flatter bullet trajectory than a level shot of the same distance, meaning both will strike higher than expected if not corrected for, but the few feet involved here wouldn’t be a difficulty for the wonder-shooter.
Wind and obscuring snow were greater problems. Or being seen.
It wasn’t like I could move us quickly. Without the snow, in perfect conditions, the fastest this baby had ever moved was less than twenty-four KPH, and I had just stuck us in place as firmly as I could.
I checked the suit’s morphon and tapped to begin the countdown.
On another part of the morphon’s face, a timer began.
Ticking down. This was the moment Enrico and two of his father’s men tossed bags of hydraulic fluid into the helo cabin that was overfilled with grunts.
We expected them to slip and slide out of the helo, fighting to breathe, fighting to get the fluid out of their eyes and off their faces and bodies, leaving behind their drenched, useless weapons.
What might have been a scream came on the wind.
Bengal and Jagger, nestled in the snow, would now be taking the enemy down, securing them as best they could. The plan was to give each enemy warrior a bag of warm water so they could begin flushing their eyes.
All we could do in a pinch. Time in a medbay would fix the corneal damage. Hopefully.
A second scream yodeled past. We had delegated forty seconds to the grunts’ takedown stage. That was too short a time for the brass in the target helo, to figure out a plan. There was an old saying about too many generals, too few troops. We were about to prove that axiom.
I had sealed my armor’s helmet and faceplate, but I still caught a wisp of hydraulic stench on the air. I strained to hear. I might have heard a third shout on my enhanced armor pickups. Or it might have been my imagination.
I felt around my armor for my weapons’ placement. I didn’t armor up often. It wasn’t second nature for me.
At the forty second mark, Puta Bella and her crew began climbing up each of two Sikorskys to disable the rotors, leaving only the rotors on the command center helo for Jacopo to take out.
Or that was the plan. Assuming everyone was able to do their job.
Assuming no one got delayed or killed and missed their mark.
Assuming everyone on our side was really on our side.
There were times when I hated being a worst case scenario thinker.
I also hated not knowing what was going on. Hated depending on others to do their jobs when I couldn’t keep track personally. And this time, in this battle, we had no local comms, no vid, no nothing but timers, like war in the twentieth century, utterly archaic and chaotic.
At the sixty second mark, something black flew past my head. Slammed into the windscreen of the command center Sikorsky. Dead bird.
Spy leaped into my lap. “Bloody cat,” I half shrieked, rolling against the seat and seatbelt. “Near scared me out of my skin.”
The gray cat cast me a contemptuous glance and leaped into the snowfall, landing in the bucket with Jacopo. She and her two lieutenants were wearing war harnesses, each carrying a camera. There were pockets for a water bottle and for food, both currently empty.