Strike Force

In the meantime, Brakeman had donned his battle armor’s powered exoskeleton, which was a latticework of armored microhydraulic actuators that attached to his battle armor and gave him added strength, mobility, and speed. He looped two spare battery belts over Hal’s shoulders, strapped ammo bags and spare battery packs to his back, and checked his electromagnetic rail gun. Hal picked up two more weapon backpacks — again, he didn’t feel as if he was carrying a thing. “Ready to move out?”

“Ready,” Charlie said. She too was carrying two weapons backpacks in her hands and spare battery packs on her shoulders. Ricardo had already donned her exoskeleton, loaded herself up with spare battery packs and ammo, and her rail gun was at the ready.

“Good luck, guys,” Hal said. He extended an armored fist, and the others touched their fists to his. “I’ll see you all at rally point Bravo.” He gave an eye-point command. The barrel of his grenade launcher extended and leveled to firing position, and he chambered a high-explosive round. “Let’s go kick some Iranian ass and get the hell out of here.”

Their attack plan was simple: each commando had a circuit of about twenty to twenty-five miles in which to search for and attack targets. The last known location of Shahab transporter-erector-launchers was on their electronic charts, and the team followed the land navigation prompts in their visors to each launcher. Only about half of the estimated fifty to sixty missile launchers were displayed — they hoped they would come across the rest of them as they proceeded. Since one Tin Man commando didn’t have a pre-planned circuit, Ricardo and Brakeman traveled together.

Using millimeter-wave radar images, visual enhancement, and datalinked images downloaded via satellite and transmitted between the other commandos, each unit was able to “see” all of the targets around them well before they approached them, and as soon as they detected new threats the rest of the team — as well as the men and women aboard Armstrong Space Station, the Megafortresses orbiting nearby, their headquarters back at Battle Mountain, and the persons watching the mission in the White House Situation Room — knew about them too. The commandos ignored dismounted security patrols and most light patrol vehicles because their weapons couldn’t pentrate their armor — they just simply ran past them directly at the Shahab launchers.

Maria Ricardo found the first targets, a group of four Shahab-2 launchers arrayed about two hundred yards apart in a small gully, with their missiles already raised into launch position. “Jackpot,” she crowed. “Four Shahabs ready to fire.” She knew that about a dozen soldiers and at least one light vehicle was chasing her, but she didn’t care. Ricardo simply lowered her electromagnetic rail gun to her hip, locked the millimeter-wave aiming emitter in with her helmet’s aiming cue, and fired one round at each TEL. She didn’t wait to see if her shots had any effect because she knew there were a lot to attack in a short space of time, but she didn’t need to wait — shortly after leaping off, she heard four satisfyingly loud explosions behind her as each TEL detonated, ripped apart by the two-pound hypervelocity tungsten slugs she pumped into them.

“Got some too,” Charlie reported. “Two Shahab-3 TELs. Look like they’re fueled but not yet elevated.” She fired one armor-piercing grenade at each launcher, then a high-explosive round at the maintenance and fueling vehicles still nearby. She could feel machine-gun bullets pinging off the CID’s armored shell, but she ignored them. “Moving on. One, how’s it going?”

“I feel like some fucking mythical avenging angel, that’s how it’s going, Three,” Hal Briggs responded. He had come across another group of three Shahab-2s, also in firing position. He fired armor-piercing grenades at two of the launchers, causing their missiles to topple over and explode on the ground. “I’ll show ’em how it’s done now!” he cried out through the flaming wreckage around him. Hal ran over to the third TEL, put his spare backpacks down beside them, then stooped down, grasped the TEL, and lifted. The entire launcher and missile flopped over on its side, crumpled as if it was made out of cardboard, ruptured, and caught on fire. Hal picked up his spare backpacks and ran off before they exploded. “Come and get me, you bastards!” he shouted over the radio. He stopped, turned toward the Iranian Revolutionary Guards soldiers pursuing him, and raised the backpacks triumphantly. “Come and get me, assholes, because I’m coming to get you!”