Sun of the Sleepless (57 page)

Down on the farm -

Akosua lumped down onto the bare oak floorboards of the master bedroom in the farmhouse, sighing heavily as she leaned back against the cold stone of the wall. She had been crouched, using binoculars to scan through the small cottage window overlooking the drive and the snow covered meadow that lead away to the edge of the forest beyond.

'We won't see them until the last minute,' said Rey, acknowledging the frustration apparent in her forced exhalation. 'We'll more than likely pick them up on the radar before there is any sign of them in the grounds.'

'I'm just eager for something to happen,' scowled Akosua, 'we're all on edge and it blunts the crew for them to just be waiting for too long. I just want whatever is going to happen to happen soon, just to get it over with.'

'It'll be soon enough,' Rey smiled indulgently, 'but you have to keep yourself focussed, keep busy. Make a round of the crew, go and check that everybody is alright. I'm sure we could all do with a brew, put the kettle on and organise some drinks.'

Akosua sighed again, although she nodded and pursed her lips in mute acceptance of the suggestion before launching herself from the floor and clumping out of the room to visit the small pockets of defenders that had been dispersed at various doors and windows.

Rey glanced across at Private Ramsey and watched him nervously licking his lips, gently nibbling at the insides of his cheeks as his tension bubbled to the surface.

'You alright Ramsey?' he asked, conscious that his short exchange with Akosua may have unnerved him.

Ramsey quickly looked across and gulped before forcing a taut smile.

'Yeah, I'm just - well, I'm not used to this kind of thing, I mean, coming from the Seraphim, I've spent most of my life in academic study, physics, mathematics, that kind of thing.'

Rey nodded, knowing that the Brother had only been seconded to his team because of his knowledge of the vortex weapon and that he was not necessarily equipped to deal with the realities of active service. That was one reason why Rey had made sure that he had been posted close by where he could keep an eye on him.

'I'm sure you'll be fine,' Rey said quietly, trying to reassure him, 'just keep your head down and stay close to me, you've been issued with a weapon but I don't expect you to be leading the charge into the enemy ranks.'

Ramsey's taut smile flashed across his face again.

'I suppose that I just concerned myself with the operation of the cannon, I never really thought that we would end up in a live fire situation.'

'The cannon represents live fire,' Rey said flatly, 'people could die as a result of using it, innocent people who cannot afford to heat their homes, people who are susceptible to the cold, the elderly for instance. Were you alright with that?'

Ramsey looked down to the worn floorboards and exhaled sharply through his nostrils, shaking his head in quick short jerks.

'This is the old question isn't it? Who is more to blame, the scientist that creates the weapon or the soldier that fires it. Was Oppenheimer as guilty as Truman? Was the pilot of the Enola Gay free of responsibility?'

Rey pursed his lips and shrugged.

'I'm happy to take responsibility for my own actions Ramsey, the question is, are you?'

He watched as the young man before him look down to the floor again, averting his gaze from the direct stare of his commanding officer.

'It is easy to make decisions from the safety and isolation of an office a thousand miles from the battle front,' Rey consoled, 'it is the same the world over. In some respects I have been lucky in that I have been able to make decisions in the field for myself. Of course, I'm given an objective and I know that it may result in my having to take the life of another human being. I reconcile myself to the objective and I justify my decisions and actions, at least, I've been able to so far.

'Your science is different. You can convince yourself that you are creating, that you have engineered something good and useful to humanity.  The fact that it can kill thousands of people in a stroke is incidental.'

'It isn't incidental,' Ramsey snapped, pausing at the vehemence of his own response. 'I just - well, I believe that this weapon can bring about stability for humanity, it can surpass the capabilities of the military around the world. It can be used as a force for good to alleviate the suppression and oppression that is everywhere.'

'Yeah,' Rey nodded, 'it can. It can also be used to subjugate entire nations, even the whole of humanity, but frankly, you can't beat yourself up over it. It exists. It is a reality. It is a weapon and represents a threat even when it is not in use. It terrorises even when not directed. We can't imagine it away, just as we can't imagine nuclear weapons away. All you can do, right here and right now, is follow your orders and take comfort that you are undertaking a noble objective. You've already proven that you can follow orders -'

Rey let the sentence hang, hoping that Ramsey would take some solace from his previous willingness to refuse a request to deviate from standard operating procedures.

'My advice is to live the moment. A Brother Master in the Seraphim should know that. Don't worry about what has gone before or what is about to happen. Just focus on the here and now. Think of the tenets of the
Sigil Ring
, understand them, take comfort from them.'

Ramsey looked up and out of the window, still avoiding eye contact.

'I've never had to think about death before, not the reality of it, even with all the teaching of the Seraphim, I just - I just don't want to die. I'm not ready.'

Rey nodded and started to scratch at his chin, feeling the bristles of his stubble prickling under his fingertips.

'Nobody is ever ready to die, no matter what they say. I've seen men who have faced death a thousand times, hardened soldiers who have come through it all, better than anybody they should have been able to be philosophical about death, but I've seen experienced men break down and cry like little children at the moment that they realised that they were going to die in some shitty jungle or a field in the middle of nowhere, a thousand miles away from people that cared about them, from their family, from their home.

'Death is something that we all go into alone even if we're surrounded by people, sometimes that loneliness can bite. Nobody is ready to die until that final moment when they manage to reconcile themselves to the fact that everything they feel, everything they perceive, all of it will be gone. In truth, the majority of people never manage it, they die weak, scared, alone. You don't have to like it, but our Order and our beliefs try to put that within the context of the whole of existence itself. Think about what you've been taught and at the very least, just remember that fighting inevitability is a losing battle, so you may as well get used to the idea.'

Rey felt that he had spoken enough and scrabbled to his feet, suddenly feeling his age as his joints subtly moaned at having been compressed against the hard wooden floor for so long.  He edged around to the door, keeping his silhouette in the window to a minimum before he stopped at the door.

'I'll see about that brew.'

Wandering into the kitchen, Rey nodded at the faces that turned to see who it was that had entered, some of them showing focussed intent, others tinged with a wide eyed expression, anticipating the delivery of some news. Loftus just gave a perfunctory nod, his moustache turning up at one corner of his mouth as he smirked in acknowledgement.

'How are we doing down here?' enquired Rey distractedly, contemplating whether his team would really perform under the duress of an assault by Special Forces.

He knew that he had experienced men and women under his command but he also knew that some of his squad were relatively unscathed by the realities of a live fire fight.

'Not too bad,' grinned Loftus, 'nothing that a bit of action won't settle. You know how it is, the waiting is the worst of it.'

Rey nodded and hummed in agreement.

'I know, but this is better than being caught with our pants round our ankles. How is our retreat? Everybody know what they are doing?'

'Oh yes!' Loftus quickly replied, emphasising his conviction with a vigorous nod of his head. 'I've checked and double-checked, they all know what the score is.'

'Good, good, I just wanted to check and get a brew, I don't want -'

'INCOMING TARGET!' came the shout, interrupting Rey in mid-sentence and locking him into an instant of staring at Loftus.

'On your toes!' the Sergeant shouted. 'Take your positions and stay alert, remember, listen to what your NCO is telling you, use short bursts of directed fire, look sharp!'

Rey had exited the room in a flash and leapt two stairs at a time to the first floor, running to the bedroom where the radar unit had been set-up, Akosua closely followed him but passed him to take up a command position for the teams defending the upper storey.

After a few moments of spiked tension, weapons being levelled and aimed, men and women scrabbling to their primary positions, a grim silence settled through the whole farmhouse and Rey was suddenly aware of the almost imperceivable hum of electronics as he knelt down next to Private Stiles who was operating the radar screen.

'What do you have?' he asked, forcing himself to speak calmly.

'Three airborne targets, size and speed indicate that they are probably helos, they appeared travelling from the east as they crested the hills but they've ducked down and have disappeared. They're in a valley and should have come out the other side by now so they may be offloading some troopers.'

Rey grinned and suddenly felt serene. This was the start of it, he was sure of it. The helicopters were probably offloading troopers in preparation for a ground assault. An air assault would most likely only be considered as a secondary option if a direct entry could not be effected and heavier firepower was necessary, although he was aware that they would probably be brought up closer once the assault was under way.

'Keep on it,' he commanded as he quickly patted Stiles on the shoulder a couple of times, 'if you see anything, shout it out.'

'It's on!' Rey called out to the farmhouse in general. 'We probably have less than fifteen minutes before they get here!'

He started to stride to the master bedroom and as he entered he automatically scuttled low to position himself near to the front window without presenting himself as a target. He glanced across at Ramsey who was twisting his hands around the barrel of his rifle, his tension obviously heightened by the sudden change in activity and obvious expectations.

'Is this it, sir?' Ramsey asked.

Rey took a moment before answering, realising that he needed to provide some comfort within the confines of reality. For Rey, confronting and understanding the reality was the best comfort one could expect from a situation like this.

'Yup,' he nodded as he watched the area in front of the farmhouse, 'I'm afraid this is it.'

'What happens now?' Ramsey blurted, seemingly forgetting all of the training that he had undergone for precisely this scenario.

Rey sighed but decided that even he needed to remind himself of what would probably happen next.

'They'll perform some recon first, they'll send in a couple of spotters to check us out. They'll probably have infra-red, thermal imagers, maybe some laser microphones to check out our chatter, that kind of thing. They'll quickly ascertain that we're all holed up in here and that the cannon is in the barn. In all probability we can then expect a ground assault. They'll go for the barn first and try to pin us down. They'll have multiple teams engaging us here in the farmhouse, covering fire to the front, maybe an entry team from the side and possibly from the rear. The team that tries to secure the barn won't get very far and then it'll turn really bad. They'll go for the hammer blow to take us out.'

A shout suddenly echoed out along the upstairs corridor, Private Stiles was providing a further update.

'Laser wire perimeter breached!'

The blood seemed to drain even further from Ramsey's face and the stubble of his beard appeared patchy and stark against the white skin as he started to splutter.

'Can we stop them?'

Closing his eyes for a moment, knowing that their nemesis was approaching as he spoke, Rey tried to retain an even tone.

'No, we can't stop them, they're coming whatever we do, but we can hold them down for a while. A frontal assault can't get through without heavy losses so they'll just be providing covering fire. A side assault is most likely due to the field of fire we have from the house, but that is why I packed off a machine gun team to the hill behind us. They should be tucked in enough not to be spotted even by heat signature and they should be able to suppress any assault for a while. The same goes for the rear. We just need to make a move before they bring in air support.

'What about the barn? What will happen to the cannon?'

Rey frowned slightly.

'You saw Loftus and Moore, they've rigged the entire place. Once it blows then we start to fall-back.'

Ramsey paused and started to bite his bottom lip.

'What should I do? I don't know what to do -'