God's Dogs Book 2
Chapter 19

You hit like a vegetarian.

Arnold Schwarzenegger (Escape Plan)

The strategy briefing involved Charvo, Ikel, and four others, the apparent leadership of the three squads and the covert ops unit. All four Coyotes attended as no one said they couldn’t.

The room was a sparsely furnished meeting room with simple, bolted down, metal table and chairs. The walls were bare and painted a dull green.

When all were seated, Charvo said, “Let’s get started. The strategy seems straightforward. We contact each of the belligerents, demand a cease-fire, request the royal family be delivered to our custody and go from there.”

He sat back in his chair and asked, “Any comments?”

Moss didn’t hesitate to comment, “Other than it won’t work, yeah, it’s a great plan.”

Pax shot a quick glance to River who frowned. They both felt the simmer of resentment in the room flair to a low angry boil.

Charvo asked, “Have you an alternative?”

Quinn spoke up, “Not an alternative so much as a backup plan in case it turns bad. We have a saying: plan for the worst, hope for the best.”

“Go on,” Charvo said in a low voice.

“Contact the combatants, like you propose,” Quinn began. “When you go to meet them, take only half your men. The other half and whatever marines the ship carries will be loaded into assault shuttles. If the first group is attacked, the second group drops from orbit to rescue them. At the same time, we drop from low altitude and land on the palace roof. In the confusion of the battle, we evacuate the royal family.”

Silence met Quinn’s proposal. After a moment of increasing tension, Pax said, “If your plan works, we avoid needless fighting. If they choose to fight instead of choosing diplomacy, our plan saves the lives of your men, removes the royals as leverage, and provides a path to resolving the conflict, in that we would be negotiating from a stronger position. Do not let your animosity towards us compromise the mission.”

Senior Lieutenant Ikel butted in, “And what does the female have to say?”

River felt the disgust roll off Ikel when he said it. Apparently females were not valued as fighters where he came from.

She leaned forward. “This female sends a challenge for hand-to-hand combat to your platoon champion.”

Ikel jumped to his feet and emoting both outrage and confusion shouted at her, “How dare you!”

“We need to get past this animosity,” River answered in a level tone, “and start acting like professionals. When I kick your champion’s ass, maybe we can find some mutual respect.”

Charvo gestured to Ikel, who sat down. Then the commander said, “I’ll consider this, but having a backup plan is sound military thinking.”

Then he focused on River, “This afternoon in the training room. Let’s say 1500 hours.”

River nodded. “Have him bring his A-game.”

The team shared a light lunch and avoided the platoon in the mess hall. The energy shifted, though. Instead of full-on animosity, now there was curiosity, disbelief, and not a little anxiety in the troops.

Pax grinned over his soup. “I think it’s working, River.”

Moss interjected, “Definitely not as cocky and smug as they were before.”

“You sure about this?” Quinn asked her.

She nodded and smiled. “Win or lose, we will change the dynamic. Hopefully for the better.”

“Well, Charvo is at least willing to listen,” Quinn concluded.

“He should,” Moss snorted. “His plan was a complete fantasy.”

River spent the next few hours pampering herself with a sauna and shower, then hydrating with water mixed with electrolytes and minerals, then she meditated for an hour.

She showed up ten minutes early at the training room. It was large enough to hold the entire platoon, which was already present and muttering among themselves.

She strode to the center of the mat and went through a series of stretches, performed a quick kung fu hand form to warm up, and ignored the muttering going on around her.

Charvo entered at 1500 exactly with a bear following him. They marched to the center of the mat and halted before River.

Charvo said, “A challenge was offered and accepted. Coyote River, this is Sergeant Massengat of the Hurang people. He accepts your challenge on behalf of the platoon.”

River saluted him, but this salute was executed from a left kick stance. The ancient symbolism denoted this salute as a challenge. The sergeant bowed by dipping his chin to his chest.

“The match is ended when one of you submits or cannot continue. Is that clear?”

Both nodded and stepped back a few paces from each other. Charvo retreated to the edge of the mat.

“Then, begin,” he ordered.

River took two running steps and lunged into the bear leading with a right knee to the groin and a forward right hammer blow to the bear’s nose. All of her kinetic energy came right down his centerline.

The bear had set up to grapple, feet apart, arms out, and facing River square-on. Her charge rolled him over his heels, and he hit the ground hard, flat on his back.

River stepped to his right side and right stomped his solar plexus, which popped his head off the mat. She pivoted to the left and slid the blade edge of her right foot into his throat and pushed until his head was back on the mat. Then she slowly pushed deeper into his throat, her heel threatening to crush his trachea, until he began slapping at the mat with both hands.

She stepped back to let the bear recover, which took a few moments. The crowd was silent as he rolled to his hands and knees and slowly stood on wobbly legs.

He breathed deep a few times before saying, “Coyote River, I’m glad you’re on our side.”

River grinned at him and saluted, this time from a right kick stance, denoting respect. “Me, too.”

The reaction in the crowd was mixed, and Charvo left without a word.

Moss patted River on the back. “You knew he was a grappler.”

“I think they all are, except for the elves. They look like ambush predators.”

“Yeah. I think you’re right. Maybe you can start classes for them and teach them how to fight.”

River snorted. “They need it, but I’m a female, remember?”

Moss gave her a puzzled look. “I hadn’t noticed.”

She shook her head and muttered, “Fuck you, Moss.”

Quinn and Pax laughed at that and they left as a group.

Before the strategy meeting the following day, Ikel confronted Charvo in his cabin.

“We need to do something,” he challenged the commander.

“We did something,” Charvo retorted. “And a female bested our champion in seconds. Before that, the four of them boarded and captured a destroyer. What more would you have me do?”

“That is why we must do something,” Ikel persisted. “They are unnatural freaks with unfathomable power. No one with that kind of power can be trusted not to abuse it.”

“The briefings from Penglai addressed this issue. Did you read it?”

Ikel didn’t answer, and Charvo went on, “Then read it. It’s a fully referenced and footnoted academic paper on the goals of Coyote training, and how well they have achieved those goals. The authors spent some time with the concern you voiced.”

“It’s biased.”

“It’s peer reviewed, and follow-up studies confirmed the original results. Coyotes will makes mistakes, but they do not abuse their power.”

“It’s not possible.”

“Read the damn report, lieutenant. Their spiritual disciplines and testing protocols do what they say,” Charvo said it forcefully, and Ikel knew he had been ordered to read the report.

Then Charvo’s tone softened. “She didn’t even celebrate her victory, Ikel. I would have been bragging for weeks.”

“She showed restraint,” Ikel allowed but changed the subject. “What about the strategy?”

“Let’s go talk about it with everybody.”

They walked down the passageway and entered the briefing room. Even Charvo could feel the mood was lighter in the room.

He sat down and said, “We’ll go with what Quinn proposed. Download your unit assignments. To summarize, Senior Lieutenant Ikel will take Alpha squad to the planet to confer with the combatants – assuming they agree to a meeting when we contact them from orbit. The rest of us will be in drop ships in low orbit. If we are needed, the activation phrase is ‘broken promise.’ Once those words are spoken, we go to the extraction plan. That includes the Coyotes evacuating the royal family to a safe house, and from there we will transport them to the ship.”

“Broken promise,” Ikel’s voice crackled over the shuttle’s communication link. “We are retreating to rendezvous point Charlie.”

Quinn activated the helmet of his light armor and told the shuttle pilot, “Open the bay door. We’re jumping immediately.”

“Aye, sir.”

Quinn hustled through the pressure doors to the vacuum of the aft compartment. The door was down and he jumped into space. The others were already in the air, arrrowing for the palace.

The Masul home world was thickly forested. Roads linked medium-sized cities in a loose network of civilization that wasn’t far from nature. Half the world was oceans, but they were surrounded by land masses so that the bodies of water were more accurately called seas – about a dozen of them.

The imperial city was larger, and the palace dominated it from a low plateau at the front of a mountain range. The palace complex consisted of large pitched-roof structures that housed not only the legislature, the many bureaucracies and agencies, but also museums, concert halls, and shopping malls. The palace itself was taller and more ornate.

Luckily, there were a few flat spaces for the team to land on. Also, it was late in the afternoon of a partly cloudy day, and the shadows would help with concealment.

They maintained terminal velocity until they were three hundred feet from their LZ. Then they activated their anti-gravity packs to slow them down. They also activated the camo feature in their light armor.

River was in the lead and reported, “Five tangos on the roof.”

A few moments later she said, “All clear.” As their sniper, it was her job to maintain a safe perimeter for the team to complete their missions.

In the near distance, they could see the fire fight, the armed and armored drop ships strafing the enemy, and the damage near the front of the palace. It wasn’t clear yet who the enemy was – the Masul or the Berndt, or had they teamed up against the Congress’ efforts to broker a peace?

The team landed and followed the maps projected on their HUDs. The layout of the palace was known, and they had a good idea about where the royals should be.

They entered through a door, where one of the guards River killed lay crumpled, and met resistance when they tried to enter the top floor. There was a roving patrol of three Berndt soldiers. Since they weren’t wearing armor, the team stunned them and shoved them into an empty room.

River scouted ahead as they did so and found nobody else on this floor.

Each of them entered different widely spaced rooms, popped the windows, and rappelled out to inspect the next floor from this wider view.

Moss reported first, “I see the thirteen-year-old boy.”

The royal family was mom, dad, older sister, and younger brother. On file were recent photos of them all.

River was next, “I’ve got mom and dad.”

“Okay,” Quinn said. “Go ahead and breach. We’ll find the girl along the way.”

They entered through the windows.

Moss grabbed the boy and told him, “Make a sound and I’ll stun you. We’re your rescue party, so don’t make a sound. Well, tell me where your sister is.”

River came through the window and dropped her camo. “We’re with the Congress. We will get you to a safe place. Keep quiet and stay away from the doors and windows.”

The royal couple huddled away from the door as River reengaged the camo and opened the door to the hallway.

Pax and Quinn exited the rooms they entered and headed in opposite directions. They took out another four guards.

River could see the elevator where another two guards lounged. She slipped out and stunned them. However the elevator door opened as the guards fell. Two guards and the royal daughter were in the elevator. The guards were slow to react to the crumpled guards in the hall, and River stunned them. Then she cancelled her camo.

“Hi,” she said to the girl. “We’re your rescue party.”

She motioned the girl out of the elevator as Pax and Quinn showed up. They dragged the guards out of the car into the hall, while River went back to retrieve mom and dad – the king and queen.

Quinn said over their tac-net, “We’ve got them all. Moss, bring the boy. We’re headed for the roof.”

As they gathered at the stairs, River scouted ahead. Quinn turned and spoke to the royal family, “The plan is to fly you to a safe house a few miles away. Then a shuttle from our ship will transport you there.”

“Very well,” the king said. “I don’t suppose we have time to pack anything.”

“No. But make a list,” Quinn instructed. “We’ll retrieve what we can as soon as possible.”

River’s voice came over the tac-net, “You’re good to go, and I’m on over-watch.”

The team herded the royal family up the two stories to the roof. Quinn called for a pickup as they climbed.

The plan was to use one of the assault craft to disguise the pickup. It would fly behind the palace, drop down for the pickup, and buzz in an arc around the combat perimeter. Then it would make a sweeping turn to disguise the drop off.

“We’ve got enemy birds,” River said. “No. It’s just one, but there are others trailing it maybe ten miles back. I think the one coming in is an artillery spotter. Both our ships are out of position. Yep. It’s slowing down to laser-fix targets. Let’s see if I can make this shot.”

The group reached the roof, and Quinn searched the sky for the enemy craft. It was spirally out of the sky.

“Well,” River reported, “I missed the laser array, but I hit something important.”

The spotter crashed a mile away, and the trailing companion craft shot away from the battle zone. A short time later, the shuttle came in and propped a skid on the roof.

“All aboard,” Moss called.

“I’ve got high value targets,” River said. “The enemy is pushing hard at our guys. I’m staying, Quinn.”

“Understood,” he said. “We’ll let the pilot know to come get you.”

“Thanks,” River said and started taking down targets at a thousand yards. She moved after every few shots and worked her way across the landscape of the palace roof, moving closer to the fight. Because of its elevated position, and the fact the bad guys were assaulting toward the palace, her field of fire was remarkably open.

On the tac-net, she heard Quinn report the royal family was safe. That triggered a recall of all the troops from the planet.

River switched to the platoon/marine tac-net and called the pilot of her shuttle, “X-ray-seven-two, this is Coyote-four. Pick up with the last load. I’ll be at the tower on the east wall.”

“Will do, C-4,” was the reply. “Estimating another half hour before your pickup.”

She clicked the transmitter for acknowledgement and moved to a new position. From her position, she could easily see that the Masul and Berndt soldiers had joined forces. They fought as separate units, but they did coordinate a pincher attack on the Congress forces. She didn’t have the luxury of wondering about the implications of their collaboration, but it was a glaring inconsistency to what they expected.

By now, she had fired over fifty rounds at both attacking parties. Most of those shots took out a ‘high-value target,’ an officer or NCO. She could see that the attack the troops started, now without leadership, had stalled out. This provided some relief as the assault shuttles came in to retrieve the marines and the platoon.

She worked her way back to the east, continuing to stop periodically to locate and dispatch an enemy, and finally set up in the tower.

“On our way to you, C-4,” the pilot told her.

“Hover low on the northeast side of the tower,” she instructed. “I’ll drop on the shuttle’s roof.”

She did so, slung her sniper rifle on her back, and dropped through a top hatch.

The shuttle was packed with marines and elements from all three squads. One of the Hurang pulled her to a seat along the starboard bulkhead. She moved her rifle to between her knees as she strapped herself in.

The shuttle stood on its tail and clawed for orbit in an erratic, juking path. Once in space, the ride leveled out, and soon the shuttle landed in the destroyer’s shuttle bay.

As the troops disembarked, each of them touched River’s shoulder and muttered their thanks. She sat until the shuttle was empty. Then she stood and made her way to the armory.

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