The Assault

10. UXB



[0950 hours]

[Exclusion Zone, Uluru Military Base, New Bzadia]

YOZI WAITED UNTIL THE LAND ROVER DISAPPEARED INTO the blur of the desert. Only when he was sure they were well out of sight did he twist his arms slightly, just once, pulling one hand through the tie and bringing his arms around in front of him.

His bzuntu, his jagged war knife, had not been taken from him, and he quickly used it to cut through the second tie that fastened his ankles.

“Sloppy,” Alizza commented, noting the ease with which Yozi had got free.

“Did she look sloppy to you?” Yozi asked as he quickly freed Alizza and the others.

“No.” Alizza rubbed some circulation back into his wrists. His bonds had been tight, to the point of cutting off the blood supply. But Yozi’s had been loose. Far too loose. And she had overlooked the bzuntu blade, despite the shaft being clearly visible in the sheath on his inner arm.

Then there was the odd look she had given him as she had tied him: a slight widening of the eyes, nothing more. Or had he merely imagined that?

“Kezalu?” Zabet asked the question nonchalantly, as if it mattered not at all. But it did matter. He could see it in her eyes.

“Leave the body—we can do nothing for him,” Yozi said. “We will send someone back for him. Right now we have to get back to Uluru and stop whatever Chizna is up to.”

“It’s a long way,” Alizza said.

“We will head for the crashed Dragon,” Yozi said. “There was a lot of wreckage. Azoh may smile on us.”

He set out at a run.

Whoever Lieutenant Chizna said he was, he was someone else entirely. When Yozi had met Chizna, he had assumed him to be competent but harmless. That assumption had not done justice to Chizna at all.


[1000 hours]

[Uluru Military Base, New Bzadia]

A soldier directing traffic at an intersection was the first to catch sight of them. He glanced at the insignia on Chisnall’s shoulders as they slowed. “This way,” he said. He pointed with a flat hand. “What took you so long?”

Chisnall did not reply but caught Brogan’s eye as they turned down a road in the direction the soldier had pointed. Immediately ahead of them was the huge four-storied building that was the gateway into the rock. The entrance to Uluru. They were close.

On this side of Uluru, the rock formed massive ridges, like the toes of some gigantic creature. The building was built into a cleft in the rock, a gap between two toes. It was obvious that something serious had happened here, although it was not immediately clear what that was.

The curved front of the building was stone. It looked to be intact. The main way in and out of the building—in and out of Uluru—was by monorail. The track of the monorail, thrust into the air on pillars two stories high, curved in front of them over a parking lot before disappearing into the building through big metal doors. There was no monorail car in sight. On top of the structure, a row of fierce alien gargoyles scowled down at the land around it.

A tall, solid-looking security fence blocked access to the building. Inside the fence was a lot of activity—soldiers running in seemingly random directions. An ambulance was just pulling away through a gate in the fence as they approached. The heavy gate slid quickly shut behind it.

Price gunned the Land Rover forward, past a series of smaller buildings, toward the scene. As they got closer, the reason for the trouble suddenly became clear. The big metal doors where the monorail track entered the building were damaged. There was a gaping hole where the edges of the metal had been bent backward like paper. The doors were warped open, leaving a man-sized gap between the edges.

The Land Rover slowed and stopped at a low outer fence about two hundred meters from the building, where a group of soldiers were manning a barrier arm.

Chisnall leaned out of the window and asked a soldier, “Where’s your commanding officer?”

The soldier waved and a tall female came running over.

“What have you got for us?” Chisnall asked.

“Unexploded missile inside the building. It’s in the monorail bay, right by the tunnel entrance.” She looked nervous.

“Any idea what type?”

“My sergeant thinks it’s the one they call ‘Tomahawk.’ ” She struggled with the pronunciation.

Chisnall made himself appear shocked. “A Tomahawk! Why hasn’t the area been evacuated?”

“We’re doing that as fast as we can. There were some injuries when the missile hit.”

Chisnall nodded. “Okay. We’ll see what we can do.”

The barrier arm lifted and then closed behind them.

“Dude, I don’t know squat about disarming a Tomahawk,” Wilton said as they accelerated toward the beckoning mouth of Uluru.

“That makes two of us,” Brogan said.

“Three,” Chisnall said.



The security gate slid open as they approached and then closed smoothly behind them. They pulled to a halt at the front entrance of the building and were greeted by a large, square-faced soldier. He looked capable and tough. His uniform markings showed him to be the head of a security detail.

“What the hell was the delay?” he yelled.

“There are unexploded missiles all over the base,” Chisnall said. He stepped down from the vehicle and saluted calmly. “I’m Chizna.”

“The only missile that matters is this one. It’s right by the tunnel entrance,” the security officer said. He examined Chisnall for a moment, then returned the salute. “I’m Conna.”

“Has the building been cleared?” Chisnall asked.

Conna nodded. “The last of the wounded have just been evacuated.”

“Then show us the way,” Chisnall said.

Conna led them in through the single door into the building. As they passed into a large entrance room, Chisnall glanced at the door. It was a massive metal contraption with interlocking bars that slotted into the door frame when it was closed.

The entrance room was a blank-walled space, with no exits on the ground level. Conna led them up a flight of stairs against the left wall to a mezzanine level. The balcony of the mezzanine was stone and crenellated like the turret of a castle to provide cover for any defenders while giving them a perfect field of fire down onto the first level.

A single point of entry, Chisnall noted automatically. A single flight of stairs up to an easily defended position. This building was impregnable. The aliens had gone to a lot of trouble to protect what was inside Uluru. Now the tables were going to turn.

From the mezzanine level, a long corridor led deep into the building. A few twists and turns took them past a control room to the monorail bay. A flight of stairs led down from an observation level to the monorail platform. Another flight of stairs led up.

The bay was a mess. One and a half tons of Tomahawk was a lot of energy to disperse, regardless of whether it exploded or not. The missile had smashed through the huge metal outer doors and struck a troop transport car that had been stopped at the monorail platform.

The car had been shunted down and forward by the impact, and the mangled wreckage was now jammed up against a second set of metal doors, behind which lay the entrance to the tunnel. The missile had become embedded in the car. A spiral of smoke or steam was rising from the rear, above the fins. All the lights were out in the monorail bay and the illumination came from outside, sneaking through the rent in the outer metal doors.

“Okay, we’ll deal with it from here,” Chisnall said to Conna.

“I’ll be back shortly,” Conna said, looking as though he would rather be anywhere else in the world than in the same space as that unexploded missile.

“You knew this would be here,” Brogan said as soon as Conna was gone.

“Of course,” Chisnall said.

“How did you know there wouldn’t be a real Bzadian bomb squad here already dealing with it?” Price asked.

“Just lucky,” Chisnall said.

“Somehow I don’t think so,” Brogan said.

Chisnall shrugged. “There were unexploded missiles scattered all across the base,” he said. “Enough to tie up all of their bomb squads, and then some. This missile was one of the last to arrive, so the real bomb squads would already have been called out to the others.”

“Won’t a real bomb squad be on their way here soon?” Wilton asked.

“If any of them are left,” Chisnall said. “The other duds were all booby-trapped. We were hoping to put as many of the squads out of business as possible before we arrived.”

“And how could you guarantee that this missile would make it through the air defenses?” Brogan asked.

“There were three of these. They came in last, after the air defenses had been smashed. The first one to reach the target sent out a self-destruct signal to the others.”

“This mission must have been planned for weeks,” Brogan said.

“Months,” Chisnall said as he climbed down the stairs from the observation level to the monorail bay.

The main doors to the monorail car were a crush of corrugated metal. The windows were all smashed, but the narrow, uneven gaps they left were not big enough to climb through. At the rear of the car there was an emergency door that was still relatively intact, and by clambering up the wreckage, Chisnall was able to get to it. The impact had forced the door from its frame and it jutted open. He wrenched at it, but it was jammed solid. He tried again, with no more success.

“Monster, eat this,” he said, which was Bzadian slang for “sort this out.”

Chisnall moved out of the way and Monster took his place, wedging his body against a handrail from the observation level that had been bent like a piece of cooked spaghetti. He hauled on the door with both hands. As he strained, whipcord muscles began to stand out in his neck. Nothing happened. He shifted position slightly and tried again. There was a long, slow grinding sound, followed by a terrified shriek from the metal, and the door slowly began to bend, folding back on itself like a tin can being opened.

Within a few minutes the gap was wide enough for them to enter. Monster beat his chest like a gorilla. Chisnall caught his eye and shook his head. It wasn’t something a Puke would do.

“Anyway, I loosened it for you,” Chisnall said, which earned him a smile.

Monster moved to one side, balancing on the bent railing, to allow Chisnall access to the car. Chisnall was barely able to squeeze into the narrow gap between the missile body and the crumpled car walls.

The narrow nose of the Tomahawk had entered from the rear of the car, making a fairly neat hole. It was the stubby wings of the missile that had done most of the damage. Rather than slicing through, like the nose, they had snagged and carried the car forward. This left half of the missile—the part in front of the wings—inside the car, while the rest protruded outside. The missile itself was almost undamaged. The front end, which housed the guidance systems, was completely mangled, but the payload, or warhead, section behind that was still in one piece.

Chisnall checked the payload carefully before easing his way back out through the emergency door. He used a mangled piece of the wing to climb on top of the Tomahawk, and sat astride it while he examined the top panels.

“You’re sure this won’t go off, LT?” Price asked. Her voice was surprisingly steady, considering that if it did explode, there would be only a cloud of vapor where she was now standing.

“Not until we want it to,” Chisnall said.

The top part of the aft-body section, just behind the wings, usually contained an extra fuel tank, but that had been removed on this particular missile. Chisnall placed his hand on a panel on the top. There was a pause as it scanned his fingerprints, followed by a click as the panel came loose. He lifted it slightly, then slid it toward the tail.

Monster, still balanced on the railing, looked at him and raised an eyebrow.

Inside was a tightly packed compartment. Chisnall took a quick glance at the contents to check that everything was undamaged.

“Price, get back up to that observation level. Keep an eye out for our square-faced friend.” She nodded and disappeared back up the stairs.

Chisnall slid the missile compartment closed.

“What are you waiting for?” Wilton asked. He nodded toward the inner doors of the monorail bay. “This is what we came for, isn’t it? Let’s get those open and get in there.”

“Not yet,” Chisnall said.

“Then when?” Brogan asked.

“When the RAF guys get here,” Chisnall said.

“Have you forgotten that they’re stuck inside the PGZ headquarters?” Brogan asked.

“Not for much longer,” Chisnall said.

“Have you got a Get Out of Jail Free card?” Price asked from the platform above.

“Something like that,” Chisnall said, smiling up at her. “By the way, they’re not RAF. They’re SAS.”

“Figures,” was all Brogan said.

“Here he comes,” Price said. “Stand by for company.”

“Copy that,” Chisnall said. “See if you can find your way up to the roof and get eyes on what’s happening back at the fence line. Update me if there is any change out there. Do your phantom thing—don’t let anybody see you.”

Conna arrived on the upper platform a moment or two later. “Anything to report?” he asked, peering nervously over the handrail.

“We have a problem,” Chisnall said.

“What kind of problem?” Conna asked.

“The wiring is all wrong,” he said. “This missile has been booby-trapped.”

“Can you defuse it?” Conna asked.

“That’s what I’m hoping,” Chisnall said. He looked at the big metal doors behind the crushed car. “These doors lead straight into the rock—am I correct?”

“Yes.”

“You’d better start evacuating whatever is in there.”

“That’s not possible,” Conna said. “So do your job. Make sure it doesn’t go off.”

“We’ll try,” Chisnall said. “But it’s not that simple. We think the scumbugz are deliberately targeting bomb-disposal teams. We have already lost some good people today.”

Conna swore a long violent curse in Bzadian. “What can you do?”

“There is one hope,” Chisnall said.

“What?”

“Our comms are down, but do you have a hardline?” Chisnall asked.

“Yes, in the control room.”

“Is it still working?”

“So far.”

“Good. Contact the PGZ headquarters. I have heard that two human prisoners were taken there a short while ago. Forward spotters for the raid. Find out if this is true. If so, have them brought here,” Chisnall said.

“Why?” Conna asked.

“If they were involved in the raid, then they are likely to know about the booby-trapped missiles.”

“The PGZ do not like to release prisoners,” Conna said. “Persuade them,” Chisnall said.

Conna shook his head, but headed off up the stairs to the control room.

“We’d better act like we’re doing something,” Chisnall said. He climbed back up onto the wreckage and pretended to examine the Tomahawk.


[1020 hours]

[Exclusion Zone—Uluru Military Base, New Bzadia]

Zabet had found an emergency beacon under a section of the fuselage that had detached and buried itself partway into the desert floor. They had activated it more than half an hour ago. Yozi was starting to wonder if it was functional when a dust plume in the distance announced that help was on its way.

The rescue squad that arrived was surprised and wary when, instead of a downed flight crew, they found themselves approaching a squad of angry Republican Guards.

Yozi hadn’t bothered arguing or trying to explain. There was no time for that.

“Take us to PGZ headquarters,” he said. When the rescuers seemed unsure, Alizza growled a low noise from deep in his throat, and that was the end of the discussion.


[1050 hours]

[Uluru Military Base, New Bzadia]

Conna came out onto the observation level. “No,” he said. “They won’t release the prisoners.”

“Then persuade them,” Chisnall said. “We can’t get into the payload to find out what it is, but we are picking up higher than usual levels of radiation. It may be a nuclear warhead.”

If Conna had looked nervous before, that doubled now. “Are you sure?”

“No, I’m not,” Chisnall said. “Do you want to risk it?”

“Can’t they just ask the prisoners? The PGZ can be very persuasive.”

“Sure,” Chisnall said. “And the only way we will know if the scumbugz are lying is when bits of Uluru start raining down out of the sky. I want those two prisoners standing right next to the missile while we defuse it.”

“Uluru is designed to withstand a nuclear attack,” Conna said.

“I’m sure that’s true,” Chisnall said. “But I’m also sure it’s not designed to withstand one right at the mouth of the tunnel.”

Conna seemed doubtful. “They said there was no way they were—”

Chisnall cut him off. “Look, soldier. I don’t know what you’ve got going on inside that rock, and right now I don’t really care. If this missile goes off, then whatever is inside this rock is history. Understand? If I were you, I’d get hold of whoever is in command inside there and let them know that they’re about to be vaporized. Then you get them to talk to the PGZ.”

Conna disappeared again, and through the window of the control room, they could see him talking animatedly on a handset.

He was back in a few minutes.

“My commander has spoken directly to Commandant Goezlin at the PGZ. The humans are on their way.”

“Azoh would be proud, soldier,” Chisnall said. “Now, I suggest you put as much distance between yourself and this missile as you can. Tell everyone you can find to evacuate the area immediately.”

Conna, for all his fierce looks and tough attitude, took no further convincing. He disappeared with a short salute. Chisnall suspected that when he got to the outer fence line, he was not going to stop running.

“That was almost too easy,” Brogan muttered beside him.

Chisnall nodded. “That shows you how important Uluru is to the Pukes. When the Uluru commanders say jump, even the PGZ asks how high.”