35 Planning
Pru, Lia, Maeve and Xing Lao-Tan met in the command post for a field-kitchen dinner. Surprisingly, it was excellent Chinese cooking. Pru looked up at Lia with raised eyebrows after her first mouthful.
Lia grinned. “I like good food, and when you consider how much OSG spends on ingredients, there’s only one reason why military rations aren’t healthy and tasty.”
“And?” Pru lead her.
“Poor cooking, of course. So, I get the best cooks in OSG and then I send them out for additional training. I want my people to eat well. That way, they’ll perform well, too.”
“Helps the re-enlistment rate, too, I suppose.”
“Right!”
When the bowls and chopsticks were cleared away, Pru took the lead. “I’m hoping we can clear this matter up tomorrow. We still have seven days before the general has an excuse to carry out his plan, but I want to end this successfully as soon as we can.”
She looked at Lia, “What are the comNews channels saying?”
“I’ve had to make several appearances. You know I hate that. But, I’ve followed your suggestion and emphasized that OSG’s mission is first, to get the hostages free, then, to bring the perpetrators to justice. Of course, because I can’t give them anything concrete, they’re all over me, and skeptical as hell, but I can deal with it. And General Lao is doing everything he can to make us look bad.”
“Thank you, Lia. I’m sorry I can’t take some of the flak, but you know why that is.”
“Oh, I do. I hope you know how glad I am to have you here. I would have followed doctrine, and that would probably have played right into the general’s plan.”
“Well, thanks. But now, we’ve got to get those guys out of there. The sooner we do, the better it will look.
“I have a few questions. First, when we were at the site, none of the guards seemed to have IDs. Is that still true?” She looked around the table.
Xing spoke up. “We’ve had people on the scene ever since you were there – they’re still there. They’re monitoring for IDs all the time. Late this afternoon, we got a flash of an ID that belongs to one of the hostages.”
“What do you mean, a flash?” Pru asked.
“I mean, we got about a thirty-second look at a med ID. The scout thinks that someone must have done something that made the ID detectable.”
Pru asked, “You mean, they have a way of masking IDs?”
Xing nodded. “We know there are ways to do that. Usually it involves covering the site of the ID with a metal mesh that’s grounded. They call it a Faraday cage. We think one of the guards must have removed the cage for some reason. Maybe he or she took off their pants to pee.”
Maeve laughed and punched Xing’s arm. “That’s getting to the bottom of it, Lo-Tan.” She almost giggled.
“So we have an ID,” Pru observed. “Does it match with anything we already have?”
“Yes. It is one of the hostages’ IDs.”
Pru and Lia exchanged glances. Pru took a deep breath. “Okay, tell me what that means.”
Lia spoke first. “My guess is all the guards are ‘hostages’. By that, I mean there aren’t any hostages; they’re all in it together with General Lao.”
Pru nodded. “Most likely. But, that leaves a big question: Who’s going to get killed at the end of the month? And, who else is inside that field?”
Maeve nodded grimly. “General Lao’s in there, and probably all 30 ‘hostages’.”
“Can we assume there are others?” Pru asked.
“No evidence,” said Xing, “either way.”
“Best case, that’s all,” Lia said.
“Recommendations?”
Lia spoke first. “We have to get inside the field. That’s the only way we can stun them all. I’m just not sure how we do that.”
“I am sure they know that,” Xing offered. “They must have prepared for that.”
“How would you do that?” Pru pursued.
Maeve said, “We know about the tazer perimeter defenses. And, they only use the one portable portal generator. They’re being very careful.”
“I’ll bet they have explosives in there,” Lia concluded, “and I’ll bet they’re ready to set them off if we attack.”
Pru nodded. “What’s your guess on a deadman switch?”
Lia closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Oh, shit.” She looked at Pru. “You’re saying he doesn’t plan to survive this. It’s a suicide mission.”
“What about the hostages?” Xing asked.
Pru looked grim. “My guess is, they don’t know he’s going to kill them all. I think he has them convinced they’re going to win, or that he’ll somehow manage to get them out alive. I think he’s always planned to kill them. It’s the only way he can have a winning operation.”
“But, how does that work? How does killing his supporters get him what he wants?” Maeve asked.
“I see where Pru’s going,” Lia said. “All he wants is to enrage the Han majority. All he wants is to generate a deep reaction against the Uighur. If OSG attacks, he blows everyone up; it’s the ham-fisted Han OSG forces who take the blame. On the last day of the month, he blows everyone up and it’s the OSG Han forces who failed to meet his demands. He thinks he has us by the short hairs.”
“That’s my take,” Pru said. “Now, we have to figure a way to get around him. So far, we have Sun-Tzu on our side.”
“How so?” Lia asked.
“We know that Elik Baltar is General Lao. We know that the hostages are fake, and what’s more that they are sacrificial lambs. We know his technology and his location. We have superior intelligence, and we have out-deceived him.
“There’s only one thing we don’t know.”
“What’s that?” Lia asked.
“You know. The deadman switch.”
They all sat there for several quiet moments.
“Okay, I want recommendations for a plan of attack,” Pru said.
For several minutes, they discussed a variety of options, none very promising satisfactory.
Pru took the initiative. “When we were on site, I noticed that the birds aren’t bothered when they land on the field. Xing, what does a portable portal generator weigh? And, how much weight will a field support?”
“The generator weighs about 30 kilos. The field won’t support more than about 10 kilos. Anything heavier causes a bulge and eventually falls through.”
“How close to the field does the generator have to be to open a portal?”
“It has to be in contact with the field. But, only just in contact.”
“The field we’re using isn’t translucent like the ones over a Controlled Area.”
“No,” Maeve said, “the camouflage fields are opaque so they can mimic the surroundings.”
“If we fly over, they can’t see or hear us?”
“No. Not if we use a small lifter that’s quiet.”
“Try this for size. We hang a portal generator from a lifter and bring it in contact with the field. We open a portal just big enough to dump a bunch of stun grenades through and close it up. In 30 seconds, we open a bigger hole and dump troops through. Will it work? And, if there is a deadman switch, what are our risks?”
Lia thought for several seconds. “Xing, get the Chief.” The Chief Engineer arrived quickly. “Chief, what would happen if you set off a large quantity of explosives inside this field?”
“With respect, Captain, I assume there would be no one inside?”
“That’s not what I asked, Chief.”
The engineer swallowed hard. “Well, sir, a large explosion, such as the detonation of an ammunition supply, would pulverize everything inside. Turn it into mush and dust. The atmosphere would be unbreathable.”
“What about outside? What would happen to people who were outside the field?
“Probably nothing, sir. The field is designed to be almost completely impervious to any kind of kinetic attack such as a bomb or shell from any direction. As you know, you can’t harm it with hand tools or weapons. Such an explosion would cause the field to bulge, but it would create a crater, as well. And of course, if the force of the explosion were sufficient to destroy the field generators, the field would simply collapse.”
Pru asked, “Chief, Sgt. Major. Xing just said that a 10 kilo mass will cause the field to depress and will sink in. How does that square with what you just told us?”
“A heavy body at rest,” the engineer explained, “will depress the field proportionately to its mass and be absorbed through the field. A body moving at speed will only cause the field to resist it more forcefully, again in proportion to its inertia and the speed with which it impacts the field.”
“So we can throw rocks at it all day and get no where, but if I stand on it, my feet will sink through?”
“That’s correct, mam.”
“Thank you, Chief. That will be all,” Captain Jiang said.
The engineer saluted and went off, shaking his head.
Pru looked at Lia. “You have good people. Now, how about we get some volunteers together and practice this assault tomorrow on this location until we have it down cold? Then, we can try it out for real tomorrow night.”