This attack will be dicier than the base to the north was. This base is bigger, it isn’t being pressed by a big ground assault, and there’ve been two battles in the area already. So no element of surprise. Our only advantage in this attack will be pure bounce.
Sean gets us a general layout of the base. Most of it is hardened: bunkers, underground cabling, silos. Fortunately for us, the antennas that are a key component of the space defense system are above ground. The system designers weren’t fools; the antennas are designed to be replaced quickly and easily should something rain death from above. But that replacement will take time—a few hours at best. When we get those antennas it will be “mission accomplished” for us.
“There are six antennas, four in an antenna field and two in the base proper,” Sean tells us. “You need to destroy four, any four.”
“I have a thought,” I say. “How are those antennas monitored? What will tell the users that there’s a problem?”
“There’s an automated monitoring system,” says Sean.
“Find out details if you can. If your military is like any other military the monitoring system was well-designed in the beginning but the first part to get scrimped upon when budget cuts came. It may be quite vulnerable as well and taking that down will add to confusion.”
“I’ll have someone get right on it.”
<<<<*>>>>
We helicopter to the scene once more and get dropped off on the backside of a forested hill five kilometers from the base.
“There’s a lot of air cover over the base right now. We can’t get any closer safely,” says Sean.
“When will the raid begin?” I ask.
“Call back. We’ll commence twenty minutes from your call. You need to be quick; our people will fly up as if they’re going to do damage but the base’s response should be big enough to ‘scare them off’. They’re only there to distract and just the threat should do that.”
We take twenty minutes to visual the base carefully. As we’re doing so Sean tells me, “Here’s the information on the monitoring system.”
I look it over. “Good, there’s a key wiring closet exposed and next to the radar field. That’s our first target, lady and gents.”
Two kilometers from where we will breach the perimeter we stop and call for the parade to begin.
The provincials are good to their word and the federals are sharp in their response. Eighteen minutes later we see signs that the scramble has begun. We make our move.
Normally we would deal with a base like this using Death from Above: If a base commander chooses to be a hero the capital ships in orbit simply drop things on the base until the commander sees reason. Anything falling from that far hits with meteoric speed, and it’s the speed that does the damage. Nothing fancy about it, which means there are no good countermeasures.
But since we’re lacking space superiority for this engagement we’re once again, as Al puts it, “adding new pages to the merc manual.”
The spot where we choose to go over the perimeter is at the boundary between the radar field and some base buildings. The whole base is on level terrain so there are no hills or gullies to take advantage of, and this is the closest point to the monitoring system wiring closet that we want to take out first.
We bounce in low, three meters tops, with camo running. There are klaxons sounding and hopefully there will be some modest confusion as the base goes to general quarters to fend off our friends in the air.
There is indeed enough confusion. We hop the perimeter fence with no sign that anyone has seen us. I head for the wiring closet while Chin, Al, and Gunther head out onto the radar field.
If we were doing this for the media we’d bring our flashiest explosives and work over the support struts to provide photogenic explosions and big antennas tumbling down. Instead we’re using acid on gear trains. Antennas get inaccurate when their gear trains develop play and that makes them non-operational—it looks to the operators like super-fast aging. I’m going for the monitoring box so that the repair people will have to do some research to find out what we’ve buggered up.
The box is unguarded but exposed to view from many directions—I keep my camo running. I open the box and spray the inside with an acid-based foam that takes only a few seconds to apply versus a minute or three to install explosives. The foam will gum up the works for any repair people. In the meantime it eats at both wire and insulator for many hours, causing random outages.
Now it’s time for me to get Antenna One, my target … but I hear a sharp whump from the antenna field.
“Mines,” says Chin over the comm channel.
“You OK?” I say.
“OK, but the world is now looking,” she says.
I decide to take out one of the base antennas instead. “I’m going for Antenna Five. Take out Six, too, if you’re done with yours,” I say.
“On my way,” she replies.
“Gunther to Five when you finish. Al to Six,” I say.
“Acknowledged,” they both reply.
I bounce. As I head into the building complex area there are shouts, the sound of running boots, and siren shrieks filling the air around me. The word is spreading that there are ground intruders. I use Doppler to watch for motion around me and bounce through quiet areas.
In these cases I use alleys. Some mercs favor roofs, but I prefer bouncing off walls and letting alley fences get in the way of those who may notice me. I think roofs are too exposed, and you really can’t get up to full speed bouncing when you use long ballistic arcs as you have to do in jumping roof-to-roof.
Antenna Five is three blocks away. I’m there in a minute. Two people may have seen me, which isn’t bad. I pop the cover on the gear train section and spray in foam. Once again it’s quick and in thirty seconds I have the cover back on. I take another fifteen to spot-weld the cover shut before bouncing back into an alley.
“Done here, ready for home,” I say.
“I have a parade following,” says Al.
“Take them to Never-Never Land,” I say, meaning Al will lead them off slowly on a wild goose chase then double back fast. “Chin, any luck?”
“Finished with mine in the field but I have a lot of spectators, too.”
“Bounce out. Lead them away. We about done, Gunther?”
“I’m beside you, Commander,” and as he says that, he is.
“Gunther and I will get Number Six. You two play wounded bird for one minute then lose them and hightail to the breach point.”
“Got it.”
Gunther and I bounce the two blocks to Antenna Six. We bounce over a machine gun nest and a light vehicle with a machine gun mounted on top. Neither group sees us. I foam Six while Gunther keeps a watch.
“Done,” I announce. We head for the breach. We’ll all go over the same place at the same time; it’s safer that way. Two blocks away I hear a sound I don’t want to, the chirrup of tracking radar. That may mean an anti-aircraft gun, and that can hurt us.
“Tracking radar. It’s near you, Chin.”
“I have it localized,” she responds. “I’ll be to it in fifteen seconds.”
“Circle until it’s down then everyone hit the breach thirty seconds later,” I order.
It happens but it’s not fun—circle bouncing, that is. We don’t stop at times like these. If we stop we’re sitting ducks. So we just bounce randomly while we wait. I bounce by a big building. I’m about to bounce in one of the windows when I notice some Doppler from inside. It’s occupied.
“Done,” announces Chin. The chirrup is gone.
“Everybody out of the pool.”
There’s a farewell group waiting for us at the breach; someone must have noticed our entry. Even without the radar there’s a lot of hot lead in the air. I take two hits but no damage.
Half a click from the fence I look back. “Whoowee! They’re madder than wet hornets!” I say. “And there’s a posse on our tail. I see three choppers flying our direction.”
“There’s more than that,” says Sean. “There are three jets overhead, too. I can’t get you out with that much coverage.”
“Are those more of your assault jets?” I ask.
“No. These are regular air-to-air jets. The kind that eat choppers for breakfast and lunch.”
“The kind that attack with missiles?”
“… Oh, yeah.”
“OK, then let’s deal with the choppers and we’re good to go. There’s a forest up ahead. Let’s meet them there.”
A kilometer from the base is a wooded knoll. The trees there are ten to twenty meters tall and barely thick enough to provide visual cover from someone looking for us from a chopper. The four of us hightail for the woods and watch how our pursuers handle the situation.
“My goodness,” says Al cheerfully, “they have no idea what power armor can do, do they?” The choppers are coming in low about five meters over the tree tops and using searchlights, proper procedure for finding fugitives escaping on foot.
“Well I guess we’ll just have to show them, won’t we?” I declare with equal good humor. “Chin, you get the one in front, Al number two, and Gunther number three. I’ll be the rabbit on this one. We’ll use the high point on the hill.”
“Got it” I hear from the others.
As rabbit I get to lead the choppers past that high point. As the others move toward it I run, not bounce, through the edge of the forest until I’m nailed by a searchlight. Then I broken-field run up the slope by the hilltop. Sure enough, the three choppers line up on me and sail by fat, dumb, and happy. As they do each acquires a new friend as Chin, Al, and Gunther each bounces up a tall tree, jumps, latches on to a chopper, rips open its top, pulls up a mess of cables and hoses from the interior, and starts those wrapping around the rotor before they jump off.
The results are impressively destructive as the strong rotor wraps up the strong cables and hoses. The choppers sort of implode before the rotors seize up completely, and the choppers drop like rocks.
That problem solved, we hightail for Sean’s chopper and depart.