Chapter 5

The Kingman raid was getting out of hand. The entire local club had signed up to help and they had brought along 57 more recruits. This gave Jim a total of 77 assault troops and helicopter crew, which meant he had to hire enough helicopters to transport 42 troops, 43 if he was forced to include Jane, and he didn't see how he could keep her away.

Actually, Kingman was right to be paranoid; Jim could probably get several hundred troops if he was willing to advertise, but he was afraid of giving Kingman too many hints of what was coming. Jim had no idea of how universally hated Kingman was, both from his actions as a warlord and his political machinations since. If they worked the publicity right, Jane could score a monumental political coup from this; maybe they should hire a PR expert!

Jim felt like a general operating without a staff, so he put out a call among the current volunteers for people with staff experience; he particularly needed logistics help. Fortunately, three of the volunteers had some experience in industry with planning, logistics, and intelligence gathering (!?!). He immediately asked John Gunther (planning), Roberta Grimm (logistics), and Helen Arthur (intel) to join in the planning for the raid.

When they all enthusiastically agreed, Jim put them straight to work. Roberta was set to work hiring the additional troop carrying helicopters and Helen contacted June Locklear for any additional information she might have gathered on John Kingman.

Jim and John began work on planning the assault and assigning people to specific jobs. They spent two solid weeks of John's vacation time working on the problem and had a usable plan ready for execution within four weeks of Jim's original fun at Kingman's compound. They both knew that there would have to be some improvisation once the attack started, but they would have to live with the current plan as a working outline.

Everybody assembled at the small city of Asimov, about 15 miles from the Kingman compound with their weapons and equipment during the day before the night of the raid. All of the troops were experienced in small-unit tactics and individual combat, so Jim hoped that they would be able to manage the attack without additional training.

There was no real advantage to hitting Kingman at night—with night-vision and infra-red technology for both the weapons and the troops, the attack was scheduled for that night simply to cut the warning time Kingman would have. Besides, a night attack was traditional! Also, it was more fun! Everybody on Sauna was a born predator, so this operation was the highest form of entertainment. Everyone in and around Asimov was going to be pissed off that he or she was not invited to join the party!

It had been decided that there was no real reason to bother with the between-the-walls defenses since everyone was going in by helicopter and wouldn't need to set foot on the ground until they were past the second wall. There were no ack-ack defenses between the walls, so the helicopters had no worry there.

They led off the attack by launching 20 of the native hyenas into the central field behind the second curtain wall using four trebuchets. Some of the hyenas were killed by impact with the ground, but most triggered defensive fire which daisy-chained around the compound. Either Kingman was a slow learner or there was not enough time to fix that problem with the automatic defenses.

Once the automatic defensive fire had run out of ammunition, the transport helicopters landed and discharged assault forces, while the gunships hovered overhead with their crews cursing at all the fun they were missing. This disappointment didn't last long, because human directed fire opened up from the manor house, itself. This is what the gunship crews had been hoping for; now they had a target for their pent up frustration. Every gun flash or other heat source that appeared at the house was hit with devastating fire from the gunships; finally, Jim had to order the gunship crews to stop shooting so the assault troops could enter he house.

The gunship crews reluctantly complied, but with a lot of grumbling, and the assault on the house by the troops actually began. The attackers spread out and hit as many separate doors and windows as they could. They had divided into two- or three-man units to make their attack. Each person was equipped with a personal IFF (identify friend or foe) beacon and detector, all set to the same frequency and keyed into the weapons, so there was no chance of accidentally shooting one of their co-attackers.

Once they were in the building, the attackers stopped using the doors. Instead, they used shaped charges to blast openings in the walls between rooms; these were the entrances they used to progress through the house. The defense had been set to concentrate on the doorways, so these impromptu passageways were less likely to encounter organized opposition. It did mean that they had to send runners back to get more charges from the supply points, but nobody minded the short pauses while this was done.

Jim and Jane were on a mission to find Kingman, himself. Helen had managed to find some plans for the manor house, so they knew that Kingman would have barricaded himself in a bunker below the main cellar. He was going to be tough to dig out of there, but they were determined to do it. Kingman had started this fight and it was time for Jim and Jane to end it.

But, first things first. They had to clear the upper reaches of the house of live opposition, and that's what everybody was engaged in, now. The helicopter crews had asked permission to join in the fight, even the hired taxi drivers! Jim OKed the commitment of the crews, except for the pilots, figuring that the helicopters were not in serious danger, but the pilots could take off if the situation changed. With a cry of triumph, a dozen more fighters charged the house.

The fight now became more time-consuming than dangerous to the attackers, so accidents were bound to happen. Out of impatience, a couple of attackers did blunder into the way of defensive fire and were killed, but the few others that were put out of action had suffered annoying, but not fatal, wounds. The IFF was working as advertised and there were no casualties as a result of friendly fire.

The manor house had three main floors and an attic, besides the cellar and bunker, so it took some hours to clear the building enough so that it was safe to move into the cellar. By this time, Jim had lost about 20% of his attacking force and Kingman had lost about 95% of his, either killed, wounded, or captured. This was nearly the same number of people put out of action, since Kingman just didn't trust having a lot of people around him holding guns.

There was only a token defense mounted in the cellar, so they cleared that and stopped for a coffee break. No plans had been found for the bunker, itself, so they were going to have to play it by ear. Several people volunteered to lead the way down the stairs into the bunker and Jim agreed; he didn't care who killed Kingman, just so long as he was dead.

There was no fooling around on this part of the attack, anybody still in the bunker and moving was a "dead man walking!" The point carried grenade launchers and fired at every obstruction that looked the least bit menacing. The stairwell and corridor quickly filled with smoke and dust and they had to pause several times to allow the ventilation system to clear the air. They passed several bodies on their way down, so they knew that their tactics were paying off.

When they reached the bottom of the stairwell, they paused for a discussion of further tactics. They had reached a corridor that they were sure was laced with automatic defenses that they couldn't pinpoint. Somebody suggested that they get the most recently killed body and throw it into the hall. That should draw fire that they could watch for and pinpoint its location. They could work out how to suppress the fire once they knew what they were facing.

This idea was approved and they found a usable body. It was tossed into the corridor and all hell broke loose. Just like on the outside, the weapons were all controlled by AI and there was a daisy-chain effect. The first weapons shot at the body, but the other weapons shot at the heat-signature from the explosions. Whoever had designed the defenses had done the attackers a great favor. To be sure that the ammunition was depleted, they threw another body into the corridor—nothing happened! The corridor was safe and they could advance.

They moved on to the first door leading off the corridor and set a charge against it. They were sure that opening the door would be tantamount to suicide, but blowing it open would be unexpected and stun anybody inside. The shaped charge went off and blew the door all the way to the opposite wall; there was an immediate explosion within the room as a booby trap was triggered. There was no movement inside the room after the second explosion, so an observation probe was stuck into the room.

There was a chatter of automatic weapon fire and the probe was shattered before they could get the video display properly oriented. Was this an AI aimed weapon or was there a human in the room? They couldn't tell, so they stepped back and fired a drum of six grenades into the room. This time, they didn't expect any opposition when they probed the room. The video showed the room to be clear, so five troopers went in.