Chapter 33

Shortly before dawn the next day after the second burst message had been sent we spotted movement. A vehicle drove past our location and Cain said there was a Mage inside. From the 'feel' it was the same one we had encountered at the old safe house. There were two others in the vehicle with him. He further said that when he tried to invade the vehicle to set off any foci that were in use the mage had immediately returned and defended himself. He said he was sure that the mage would be able to tell that he was someone the mage had encountered before also.

So, we had been spotted and so had they. If we kept to our pattern we would now run and they could take us as we came out in the different vehicles. That was probably why the van had driven past, they wanted to spook us. But we weren't keeping to our pattern. We were staying and defending ourselves and our position. We got into our armor and armed ourselves. In shifts we cleaned up, became alert and ate breakfast. With that out of the way we each went to our action stations and got comfortable.

Smokey, Helen and I would be manning the twelve remotes. Yesterday we had constructed a real nest for the remotes. We were surrounded by more than 40 centimeters of concrete slabs and we even had a roof over us. This was going to be the heart of our defense so we had taken special pains to protect it as much as we could.

Using the radio headset Blake kept us informed from the monitoring station. His cameras had height that ours lacked. He could see further away.

The sun had been up about an hour when he said, "Heads up, positions 6 and 9." I was covering 6 and Smokey had position 9. We were alert and as ready as we could be. I could catch glimpses of movement but nothing definite. Even if I had I'd have waited to sucker them in deeper before I opened up on them. I could hear Smokey saying she had movement but they were too far away. We waited. As I've said before that's the hardest thing that a soldier can do and it was even harder for Smokey and I because we weren't really soldiers.

Just as Blake called in again Helen called out movement at position 3. All we needed was someone to knock on the front door and the four cardinal points would be covered.

"Position 6, firing," I called to Blake and then repeated Smokey's message of position 9 firing. They were close enough to take out several and the surprise the drek out of the others. Three went down in the burst that I swept across their front. I was too busy to check and see how Smokey was doing but she appeared to be using short burst like we had told her. This was not a good time to burn out the barrel of a gun. Those in front of me went to ground. Some I could still see and by making small corrections I fired on them. They were returning fire but they didn't really have a target to fire on so were shooting blind. If the positions had been manned by live soldiers then the firing might have worried them some and forced them to drop their heads but remotes have no such feelings so we kept watching and firing as targets became available.

From the noises that she was making I knew that Helen was firing also. I was still checking the other three monitors from time to time when I saw that some of the troops from Smokey's gun had shifted over to their right. They were moving into the area of fire for position 8. I let them move closer and then opened up on them. I got all four. I don't know if I killed them but they were hurting if not dead.

It was also obvious from what I had seen on my monitors that there were more than the twenty security guards involved in this. Some of them looked like straight street punks, while others had more class. Between my position and those moving from Smokey's I had fired on twelve myself, there were others that Helen and Smokey were firing on so there were a lot more than twenty. I reported that to Blake.

"Yeah, we been watching them. So far it's just ground forces. Can you handle it ok?"

"If they keep on like this, yes. If it gets busier we're going to need another gunner. With numbers like this three people are going to be snowed under. We can't keep watch on everything at once. In fact while it's still kind of light send us another gunner and he can work his way in."

"Can do. Keep me informed of what's going on. I'm kind of busy here myself, they just put up an eye in the sky."

Toad joined us in the nest and we shifted positions. He was good with monitors so he picked up on our action with no problem. I pointed out that for right now position 10 might be the hot spot as they might try to move around from position 9. It was while he was getting situated in front of his monitors that explosions started to burst around several of the positions.

"Blake, they're bombing us from somewhere. Can you spot it?"

"They have a mortar set up. Hang on just a second and it'll be taken care of."

As suddenly as it began it stopped. Several of the troops jumped to their feet to charge forward and we cut down more of them. That convinced the others to again hit the dirt and crawl for cover.

"Front," called out Toad. I glanced at one of the front monitors in time to see a large force charging forward. Helen was able to traverse one of her guns around to assist while Toad raked them with two of his. With three guns sighted on their location their force was reduced to dog meat in short order. Those that were still alive made for cover and others tried to retreat. Not many of them were able to do that.

Things cooled off for a bit after that while the Togiwara forces tried to regroup and reorganize. Blake told us to stay on our toes because it could all start up again at any moment. He had no more than said that than a helicopter made a strafing run across the warehouse and some of our positions.

"Where did that come from? You alright over there?"

Scrag answered, "Blake's busy. Dat helo hugged da ground 'til it got cheer. We dent see it 'til it started shootin. He's got a drone goin up adder it. Day also got some kinda car comin. Blake said ta tell ya da Cain's gonna try ta take it out."

We waited while Blake and the helo danced. We could see short bits of the dancing but not much.

"Da say two more helos comin. Might git busy." reported Scrag.

Blake took out the first helo and Cain took out the armored car but the other two helos took out the Hunter drone and began to strafe and launch rockets at the warehouse. Now the roof to our nest paid off as bits and pieces of metal from the higher up warehouse walls as well as bullets rained down on our position.

Blake launched the second Hunter and rockets were fired at one of the helos. It was hit and smoke began to boil out of the rear of the cabin as it turned away. The last helicopter seemed to lead a charmed life. Whoever the pilot was he was good. Two different missiles missed it and just at the last second it would jinx out of the way of the drone. It was a Hughes Stallion which isn't exactly a small aircraft but the way that pilot was handling it you would have thought it was a bumblebee as it shifted and changed directions. It would flit and dart about, ducking and weaving while still firing on our warehouse and our gun positions.