James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

“My guess is they’re going to stand off a quarter mile or so and pound every likely spot in every building around here with grenades and main gun rounds from Toads and belt-feds while the troops advance on foot. It’s what I’d do.”

Conrad looked up at him. “So… time to get away from the windows?” They knew it was likely to happen sooner or later.

“Yeah. Center of the building. Will you still be able to communicate with the drones?”

“They’re programmed to stay on station even if they lose communication with the base.” He grabbed his pack with one hand and carried the combination drone controller/viewscreen with the other, and followed the Lieutenant Colonel down the hallway and into an interior office. “Little static, but not bad.” He pointed at the screen. “Look.” There, on the screen, were two very small figures. Bill and Seattle, exiting the south side of the building and heading southeast.

The endemic military was sure to have at least one drone overhead already. He didn’t feel like pulling out the sheet with the satellite coverage, but most likely there was a camera bird overhead as well. So he had to assume Bill and Seattle had been spotted, but hopefully two men alone wouldn’t merit much attention. Maybe the drone operators would even suspect the two men were bailing from the fight, retreating while they had the chance. As long as they didn’t look too closely at the rifles the men were carrying.

Even though he was supposed to be on the lookout for additional incoming military, Conrad kept one of the drone’s cameras trained on Bill and Seattle as they made their way a quarter mile south, eventually entering a six-story office building on Cass avenue. A minute later, Bill’s panting voice came over the radio. “Almighty, Outlier is in position, over.” Which meant they were on the sixth floor of the building, looking south.

“Almighty is roger on that, Outlier. We’ve got eyes in the sky, but keep us updated. Fireworks are your call.”

“Outlier copies, over.”

Conrad looked up at Morris. “Travelling by those tunnels seemed to work great. I guess now we find out if the combat engineers earned the rest of their money.”

Morris pointed at the drone camera feed. “Swing that one over farther to the west. That freeway there is practically a tunnel and I don’t want to miss any vehicles using it.”

“I thought we had the best seat in the house but all we’ve been doing is sitting out the war,” Brooke growled. From their perch in the New Center One building, all Cambridge West had done was listen to the combat unfolding as the Tab cavalry arrived. Other than the nose of the first IMP destroyed on 2 ndAvenue they hadn’t even been able to see any of it. They were in the center of everything, but all the action was happening around the periphery.

“You want to move?” Robbie asked her dubiously. “Where? There’s probably more Tabs coming.”

“You bet your ass there are,” she told him, “but they’re not going to roll up on us here.” Still, she chewed her lip, until the radio lit up again with a breathless voice.

“Cambridge East has Tabs in the building. Cambridge East has Tabs in the building.”

“Let’s go,” Brooke said. She called out to the three men with her, “We’re backing them up, sounds like they’re having problems.” She pointed. “Stairs. Walkway over to the hotel is on the second floor.” The dogsoldiers grabbed their gear and charged for the nearby stairwell. She grabbed her radio. “Cambridge West is on the move to you. Hold on.”

Ed was in the center of the Fisher Building lobby talking to Hannibal. They were standing on the first step down to the lower level, using the marble walls for cover. They’d both heard Brooke’s call out.

“Should we back her up? Send some guys?” Hannibal wondered.

Ed chewed his lip for a bit, then shook his head. “Let’s wait a bit. We bitchslapped them, but there’s still Tabs all around. I don’t want to pull guys out of here just yet.”

“If they push through Cambridge….” Hannibal said warningly.

Ed nodded. “You have at least one guy on the second floor, watching the walkway to New Center One?”

“Yeah. And on the ground floor. And you put one of your guys down below, making sure none of those guys who made it into Skybox are sneaking over through the tunnel?”

“Yeah.”

Hannibal had been in charge of holding the north and east sides of the Fisher Building. So far, his men had done nothing but nervously listen to others fighting. He looked all around the beautiful lobby. “I thought they were going to push harder on this building.”

“Be careful what you wish for.”

“No shit. If they’d come in from the west, like half of us were expecting, this place would be a ruin. But I’m wondering if we should displace to our secondary, or even just call it, all of us, get the fuck out while we can. We did a hell of a lot of damage, kicked their ass harder than it’s been kicked since the start of the war, and whatever they do next, we’re not going to be able to sucker them like we just did.”

There was a shout from the north end of the lobby. Both men turned their heads in time to see the north entrance explode and the men there thrown to the floor in a maelstrom of flying glass and twisted metal. Hannibal took off in a run as shouts and screams filled the air, and the radio. “IMP on the north side, IMP on the north side of Nakatomi!” he was finally able to make out.

One dogsoldier had grabbed one of his fallen comrades and was dragging him to safety when another grenade exploded a few feet inside the entrance and they were flung across the floor.

“Two of you!” Ed shouted to the group of his men guarding the south entrance. He pointed north across the lobby. “Go back them up!”

Early grabbed Jason. “Come on, Junior, time to nut up.” They ran across the long lobby as the remaining soldiers near the north end began firing.

“IMP’s across a parking lot, couple hundred yards away. Grenade launcher,” they all heard over the radio. “We need rockets or those AT grenades over here!” Another grenade exploded, just outside the entrance on the sidewalk, and gravel shrapnel zinged through the lobby, rattling off the walls.

George ran through the hallways, listening to the call-outs on the radio. The ground floor of the building was getting pounded by the IMP with its grenade launcher. He and his crew had just moved down to the sixth-floor of the thirty-story tower when the attack started, but running to the north side of the tower showed him his view was blocked north by additional sections of the building that were twelve and fifteen stories tall. They’d had to head east to a connecting hallway and then run north through the other sections of the building. Insanely there were still a few workers in their offices, hunkered down, at least until they saw the dogsoldiers. Then they ran for the stairs, some of them screaming.

“Here!” George said, skidding to a stop. He stuck his head around the door frame and looked into the office. There were windows on the far wall, looking north. Finally. “Stay here, out of sight,” he said to Mark, Quentin, and Kelly.

George dropped to his knees and crawled across the office floor, covered with a nice Persian-style rug, then stood up behind a two-foot-wide section of concrete between windows. He edged his eye out and looked, then pulled back and grabbed his radio.

“Tower to all squads. IMP is two streets north of the building. Still buttoned up, don’t see anyone on foot, just the roof gunner. Growler with it, behind cover.” He’d almost missed the Growler, but spotted its nose edged out past the corner of a building near the IMP. He suspected the Tabs who had been in it were spread out behind the building. He looked down at his six-shot grenade launcher, realizing he’d yet to reload it. “Will be engaging in one mike. Over.” He took another peek. How far was that, about one hundred and fifty yards? Maybe a little less.