Desperado (Murphy's Lawless: Watch the Skies Book 2), Kevin Ikenberry [reading the story of the txt] 📗

by some chance a local had learned about either from one of the Lost Soldiers, it was beyond plausibility that they would have learned about both.

Bo grinned at the layers of subterfuge. He’d never pegged Murphy as a baseball fan, and the likelihood was that his commanding officer was not. Bo’s knowledge of the sport was mostly limited to the games played by his beloved Atlanta Braves. At the time of his disappearance, things had been looking up for them and their competitiveness would surely have taken them on to more World Series. He wondered what had happened to those teams, but it wasn’t pressing enough for him to actually look it up. Still, the J’Stull and the others on the planet did not understand what baseball was, and that was what mattered.

In their communications procedures, balls were the number of Priority Information Requirements they’d been able to gather. Strikes were the persons of interest and other Commander’s Critical Information Requirements.

“One ball, one strike,” Bo reported. “Confirmed on Foxtrot.”

“How’s the pace of play?”

Bo chuckled. “Speeding up. Seeing more players in the dugout.”

“How’s your pitcher?”

“Got a pretty decent pitch count today. Still looking good,” Bo replied.

Truth be told, he wasn’t exactly sure what Aliza was doing, but doubt was the least of the things he could give her the benefit of.

“Understood. Got your relievers ready?”

“Always ready, Home Plate.”

“Glad to hear it. Keep me informed. What’s our inning?”

Bo gave it some thought. According to the procedures, bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded would be the time for the attack. “Bottom of the third, Home Plate. No runners on base.”

“Bottom of the third, understood. All green?”

“All green,” Bo replied.

“And what about you?”

“We’re fine, Home Plate. Bottom of the third, no runners on base. All green.”

“Understood. Maintain procedures. Home Plate, out.”

Bo shut down the PFM and stood up, dusting off his pants. Scout rose to a standing position but kept staring across the valley. Bo followed his mount’s eyes. In the gloomy darkness, Imsurmik’s lights glowed against the exposed façade of the plateau, illuminating the upper part of the escarpment.

What’s up there?

Bo put his hands in his pockets, preparing to walk back to his makeshift bunk. Instead, he stared at the plateau and wondered if he’d been looking at the mission, and the terrain, wrong. All the principles he’d learned about key terrain pointed to the valley and the riverbeds as their fastest avenues of approach. Yet the wide, flat top of the plateau could prove valuable for his forces.

At the very least, it merited some reconnaissance. Bo smiled to himself. Aerial reconnaissance was out of the question. The Hueys had their own mission to prepare for, and until the attack, stealth would be the name of the game. Any reconnaissance of the plateau would have to be a mounted excursion.

That’s exactly what we’ll do.

And it’s what we do best.

* * * * *

Chapter Three

Imsurmik

Sleep didn’t come for Aliza. After four hours of harvesting and another two spent dancing and eating kr’it and a variety of things she’d never imagined were edible, much less good, she finally laid down to sleep on the tiny grass-filled mattress.

Except her brain refused to cooperate. It spun and explored variables, playing them out to logical conclusions until the only thing she could be sure of was that there were far, far too many of them. For five days, she’d moved through Imsurmik, her eyes darting quickly from potential subject to potential subject. On more than one occasion, she had felt eyes on her, as well. Her features were not typical for the region, and Aliza suspected that many of the locals assumed she was from the Greens or further north, near the Pole. But she disarmed them with a smile and her mastery of the local dialect. Children loved her, and the old women took her under their wing. Integrating into the routines of Imsurmik had come easily.

Still, the atmosphere of the town changed daily. As caravans arrived and the farmers and other migrants departed, there were more and more fighters. Some were bright-eyed and nervous, like the recruits she’d seen coming to Dachau as prison guards. Others, the ones who worried her, had the steely-eyed stare she’d seen in so many of the Lost Soldiers. Among the arriving soldiers, there weren’t many of such hardened types, but they had clearly seen conflict and had a more thorough understanding of warfare. Given the chance, they might put up more of a fight than the Lost Soldiers would be capable of handling.

And so, her mind continued to wander.

“When things overwhelm you, Aliza,” Colonel Murphy had said over the PFM before her mission started, “focus on the priorities you’ve been given. Identify who is in the town. What are they doing? Most importantly, what information will Bo need to prepare his attack? Because, rest assured, he’ll be coming ’round the mountain, so to speak.”

What information will Bo need?

Without the training of a military officer, Aliza relied on her brief experience in Palestine working with the Haganah. Ben Mazza, her oldest friend, had taught her to ask the questions. On the ground, what can you see? What do your enemies see? Is there some place that has an advantage over every other place? Could an enemy cover it and its approaches with supporting fire? What would stop someone from getting there?

Lying in the darkness, Aliza closed her eyes and envisioned the town of Imsurmik as if she were flying over it like an eagle. She’d focused on the layout of the town with the diligence of a cartographer. Now she visualized the town, starting at the Outer City and the irrigated farmland, moving toward the hill where the Inner City lay. With the detail she’d collected, making a scale model