Revolution (52 page)

    By selling the government sub-standard
choppers, he assured their eventual destruction in an all-out air battle.

    Campion lined up her enemy and fired, diving sharply to the right as her opponent blew apart. She steered toward the next red blip on her radar screen, determined to eliminate them all one by one.

********

    Rayne decided it was time to take charge.

    “I need you guys to cover the corridor. You two, cover the front doors,” he said, pointing to four soldiers and two locations. “The rest of you, come with me.” He advanced toward the elevator.

    Rayne went to the elevator’s side panel and entered his stolen code. The elevator doors rushed open. He stepped inside and pressed the “door hold” button. Brennon followed him in, signaling to the others to wait outside.

    “We can’t just ride the elevator down and walk out,” Rayne said – as if thinking out loud. “If they’re smart, they’ll have a squad down there with their weapons trained on the elevator door. We have to find another way,” he added, looking up at the ceiling.

    “I agree. Let’s check out the elevator roof,” Brennon said, pressing against a roof tile with the nozzle of her rifle. The roof tile didn’t move. It was welded into the ceiling.

    “Step outside for a second, Sarge,” the corporal advised.

    Rayne thought he knew what she had in mind and stepped out of the elevator. Brennon stood outside the elevator, picked a spot in the corner of the roof, and opened fire with her rifle. They watched bright sparks shoot from the elevator roof. She paused for a moment, inspected her handiwork, and opened fire again. She stopped firing and turned to Rayne.

    “All set, Sarge. Wanna give me a hand up?” she asked.

    “Sure, no problem,” Peter said, stepping into the elevator and looking up.

    A hole had been blown in the elevator ceiling, which looked just large enough to accommodate a human being. Rayne placed his rifle on the elevator floor and gave Corporal Brennon a “ten fingers” lift by placing both hands under her right boot and lifting. Brennon grabbed the ceiling edge and lifted herself up while Rayne pushed. He watched her disappear into the hole in the ceiling. She looked down at him a second later.

    “Sarge, there’s enough room for three more people up here,” Brennon said.

    “Okay, very good. You two-” Rayne said, pointing to the two closest soldiers. “Come with me. As for the rest of you, wait here in the lobby. If we survive, one of us will come back up and get you. If not, you’re on your own. Your orders are to continue the mission. Understood?”

    “Yes, sir,” the squad answered.

    “Okay, then. Give me a lift up,” Rayne said to Thompson.

    “No problem,” Lorick said, giving him the “ten fingers” lift into the ceiling.

    The remaining soldiers helped the next two soldiers up until all four were standing on the elevator ceiling.

    “Okay, we’re here,” Rayne said, stating the obvious. “Now, what’s the plan when we get down there?”

    “We’re assuming they have a squad down below with their weapons trained on the elevator door,” Karyn said.

    “Yes, exactly.”

    “We can’t very well hang upside down and fire at them, or risk waiting for them to come into the elevator and shoot through the ceiling,” Brennon said.  “We’ll have to throw a grenade at them. The timing will have to coincide exactly with the opening of the elevator doors.”

    “Okay, then that’s the plan,” Rayne stated. “Now which one of you is the best shot with a grenade?”

    “That would be me, Sarge,” Brennon replied without hesitation.

    “Do you think you can throw a grenade under-handed through the hole without looking where you’re throwing it?” Rayne asked, skeptically.

    “I know I can.”

    “All right. Good enough for me. I’m sure you don’t need me to remind you that if the grenade isn’t thrown at least twenty feet away, we’ll be caught in the blast radius.”

    “I’ll throw it at least forty feet.”

    “Okay, I believe you. Let’s do it.”

    Brennon leaned down through the hole and instructed one of the soldiers to hit the button for the lowest floor; B-1. Rayne and the other two soldiers gave her some room so she could lie down flat on her stomach. As they descended, she took a grenade off her belt and practiced throwing it through the opening.

    “Piece of cake,” she said, grinning up at their anxious faces.

   Rayne rolled his eyes and hoped he had made the right decision. The fact was that he couldn’t think of a better plan. He and the other two soldiers stood tensely as the elevator descended, clutching their rifles in tight grips. Brennon seemed completely at ease, lying flat on her stomach with her right arm dangling through the hole in the elevator roof.

    “As soon as I hear the doors opening, I’m throwing it,” she advised.

    Peter noticed a light sweat building on her forehead as he felt the elevator slowing down. He felt a slight shudder as the elevator stopped. He heard the doors rush open and saw Karyn’s body tense up on the floor as she pulled the pin on the grenade and threw it. She tossed the grenade and immediately pushed herself up to her feet. Peter handed her the rifle from the floor. They stood waiting, staring at each other. Long seconds went by and they didn’t hear an explosion.

    “How long is the delay on those things?” Rayne asked.

    “Five seconds,” Brennon said.

    “It’s been a lot more than five seconds,” Peter said. “Why haven’t we heard an explosion?”

    “Sarge, I thought you knew. There is no explosion,” Karyn said. “At least, no conventional explosion. These are laser grenades. When they go off, all you see is a flash of blinding red light. Then, everything in the vicinity of the light disintegrates. I’ve been told you can’t look directly at the explosion because you’ll go blind.”

    “Sorry, I’ve never used these grenades before,” Rayne apologized and then added, “I’m old school. Where I come from, grenades make a loud bang.”

    “No problem, Sarge,” Brennon said, grinning.  “There’s no sense waiting. One of us needs to go down there.”

    “I’ll do it,” Rayne said, handing his rifle to Brennon.

    He took a deep breath and lowered himself through the hole in the elevator ceiling. His entire body was tense as if he was expecting his legs to be blown off. When his legs dangled for a few seconds in the open air and remained intact, he lowered the rest of his body down. Brennon handed his rifle down to him. He landed on his feet, focused his rifle ahead, looked down the corridor, and saw a wide black mark on the floor ahead. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was seeing, but he knew it wasn’t an attack squad waiting to blow him away.

    “Okay. It’s all clear,” Rayne said, stepping into the corridor.

    His eyes squinted as he tried to figure out what the rough black shapes on the floor, walls, and ceiling were. Scattered, unidentifiable debris surrounded the large black mark on the floor. Peter heard someone else dropping down into the elevator as he moved toward the black shape. As he approached, he realized it was a massive crater.

   Peter was horrified when he recognized one of the pieces of debris. It was a bloody human forearm with a black armored hand clutching a rifle. The barrel appeared to be intact, but half of the stock was missing as if it had been sawed cleanly off. He stepped closer and recognized some of the other pieces of debris scattered around the hole in the ground: a set of five armored fingers, the toe sections of a pair of shiny black boots and in another area of the corridor, an intact Shock Trooper faceplate lying in a puddle of blood on the floor like a Halloween mask. Next to the faceplate was an armored leg severed at the knee.

    The incredible power of the laser grenade hit him psychologically. Stepping closer to the detonation area, Rayne inspected the forty-foot crater imbedded into the ground, walls, and ceiling. The crater sunk down about five feet – a rock floor at its base. Huge chunks had been taken out of the walls and ceiling, exposing rock beneath.

    “Wow. Not much left of them, is there?” Brennon observed.

    “No, there isn’t,” Rayne said, uneasily.

    “The whole idea of the laser grenades is psychological intimidation,” she explained.

    “Well, it worked. I’m intimidated,” Peter said.

    “The fact that there is no actual explosion works to scare the enemy out of their wits. All they see is a blinding flash of light and then pieces of their colleagues start falling all around them.”

    “I can see how that would be intimidating,” Rayne said as he approached the crater.

    He figured there was no way he could jump forty feet so he dangled his feet over the edge and dropped down to the crater’s rough rock floor. He walked across it and tossed his rifle up when he reached the edge. He grabbed the edge and pushed himself up onto his arms. Grunting with exertion, he lifted himself over the edge. Standing, he turned toward the other rebels waiting at the edge on the other side.

    “I need one of you to go back to the elevator and get the rest of the squad,” Rayne shouted across the crater.

    “You got it, Lorick?” Brennon asked the young black woman.

    “No problem,” Thompson replied, turning and running back down the corridor toward the elevator.

    Brennon lowered herself into the crater and walked across. The remaining soldier, a tall, brown-haired man in his early twenties whose name Rayne had forgotten, followed her. Rayne helped them up when they reached the other side.

    “I figure we’ll do some recon in case there are more squads waiting for us ahead,” Rayne said. “The good thing is this squad had no time to radio for reinforcements before they were vaporized.”

********

    Campion steered toward the closest red blip on her radar screen and felt as if she was on top of the enemy craft when it suddenly disappeared from her screen. She saw a bright explosion in the sky ahead as another rebel chopper beat her to the punch.

    No problem, there’s still plenty of targets left
.

    Jane climbed toward another target high above her. She came up under it and caught the enemy craft visually. Her eyes squinted as it suddenly exploded into flaming wreckage. Jane steered away from the exploding airship into the clear sky. Looking down at her radar screen, she suddenly realized there were no more red blips. She switched her headset to the main channel.  

    “L-1 to all Battle Groups. All enemy fighters have been destroyed. I repeat, all enemy fighters destroyed,” Jane communicated to her surviving fighters. “Attention Battle Groups Bravo, Charlie, and Delta. Resume attacks on primary targets. Battle Group Alpha, converge on my signal and assume attack formation. We’re resuming course for our secondary target.”

    “Enemy destroyed. Resuming course for secondary target,” Sergeant Jacques repeated.

    “I’m switching to channel two to talk to B-Squad,” Campion said.

    “Received,” Sergeant Jacques replied.

    Jane watched her fighter squadron assemble around her and counted the number of green blips on the radar screen, ten total. Her group had suffered the loss of four more fighters in the air battle for a total loss of nine fighters.

   
Those soldiers will be remembered as heroes. When this is all over, we’ll build a memorial in the city.

    “L-1 to Bravo Squad. Come in, Sergeant Pearlman,” Campion spoke on channel three.

    “L-1, this is Corporal Bosworth,” an unfamiliar voice answered her. “Sergeant Pearlman didn’t make it.”

    The blow hit her like a sledgehammer. She had known Pearlman for close to eight years. He had been one of the original members of the freedom organization.

    He was a brave
fighter and a good friend
.

    Jane tried to concentrate on the task at hand so she wouldn’t break down.

    “All right…..corporal. Message received,” she said, trying to focus on what she had to do next. “How many fighters do you have left?”

    “Sir, Bravo Squad has four remaining fighters, including myself.”

    Jane closed her eyes, gritting her teeth.

    Only four fighters! Sixteen fighters from Bravo Squad have been destroyed!

    “Corporal, I want you to abort your air attack and land your fighters near the Statistics Bureau. The location should be programmed into your navigation computer. Get in contact with B-Squad’s remaining Sergeant on the ground, Peter Rayne, and back up his troops. Understood?”

    “Received, L-1. We’re setting course for the Statistics Bureau,” Bosworth replied.

    “Very good. Switching channels,” Jane said.

    Campion returned to channel one. She didn’t have time to check with the other two squads because she was closing fast on her secondary target. She could see a number of fires breaking out in the cityscape ahead. As they moved closer, she could see the White House on fire. Delta Squad had targeted the security station located in the left wing of the White House during their initial attack.