The Fringe Wars

3.1

Reclaiming Rebus

Rebus Station, Terra

Critch scanned the building across the street through his binoculars.

"Are they set up yet?" Birk asked at Critch's side on the warehouse roof.

"Not yet. They're running late. Lucky for them, Seda's also running late. Can't anything get done on time around here?"

"Looks like our friends in the Collective Unified Forces are right on schedule," Birk said. "Seventeen minutes after the motion sensors were triggered."

Critch glanced down to see a patrol car turn onto the street below. He scowled and looked back across the street. Still no sign of his other team.

"What do we do?" his right-hand man asked.

He read his wrist comm. No update from Seda Faulk. If Critch moved now, the stationmaster could be on his own. If Critch waited, they'd blow their chance at taking the warehouse district. He put away his binoculars, and then motioned to the team waiting behind him on the roof. "Showtime."

He heard footsteps as his team took off running across the roof to move into positions on the lower floors.

Birk lifted the portable photon cannon and rested it on the roof's edge. He took his time as he aimed at the patrol car.

Critch waited and watched in perfect stillness. Inside, his heart raced. Adrenaline was pulsing through every muscle, and he was ready to leap up at any second.

Birk fired. The beam hit the patrol car in the center. The vehicle exploded in beautiful blue and orange flames. Death to the occupants would've been instantaneous.

Critch leapt to his feet and helped Birk strap the large cannon onto his back. They ran across the roof. When they reached the door, he checked the time. They had roughly thirty-eight seconds before the gunships would arrive, and another six minutes before military vans would arrive.

Birk was first through the door, with Critch right behind him. They hustled down the stairs, all nine flights, until they reached the ground floor. The increasing sounds of loud engines rattled the windows. As a pair of gunships approached the district, Critch and Birk dove under a waterbed that had been propped up on two-by-fours.

Critch check his comm. Thirty-nine seconds. Not bad.

The gunships all but skimmed the buildings as they scanned for heat signatures. When the planes didn't fire, Critch felt himself relax ever so slightly. He knew then that his teams had all reached their positions in time, hiding under waterbeds to camouflage their body heat.

When the gunships swooped in for a second pass, cannon fire blasted upward from windows in the warehouse across the street. Critch rolled out from under the camouflage to see the first gunship explode. The second gunship lost a wing, and it spiraled into the ground, exploding upon impact. Windows shattered, and Critch shielded his face from flying glass shards.

He shook his head at the CUF's obstinate adherence to standard operating procedures. He knew gunships always flew two passes to scan for heat signatures. The CUF likely assumed insurgents would move after the first pass, that their targets would think they were then safe. What the CUF didn't assume was that torrents had studied the military's routines. The first pass gave Critch's teams time to acquire moving targets in their automated sights, and the second pass gave them the opportunity to produce an impressive fireworks display.

More gunships would come, but Critch knew the CUF kept only two ships on standby. By the time they finally got around to sending more, the vanloads of dromadiers would already be deployed and in the middle of a maelstrom.