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Checkpoint Charlie #8 - Gateway to Valhalla |
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Written by Charles Engelbrecht
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Sunday, 05 August 2007 |
.jpg "Image") Suddenly the engine faded and the huge helicopter dropped like a stone. Around me I could see knuckles turn white and eyes freeze over with fear ...
Everyone was obviously hoping that the pilot would get his timing right. He was using a combination of low rotor speed and forward pitch to drop quickly, nose first through the dangerous, vulnerable last 500 meters. We all felt as if our stomachs were trying to climb through our mouths. At 50m the engines roared into full throttle and the rotors started kicking in. At 30m our stomachs started climbing the other way. At 20m the pilot flared while at the same time pushing the gas turbine engines to their limits. Amazingly, the helicopter stabilized at 5m and the pilot suddenly had to fight the rotors to get the machine to go lower.
Everybody slumped over in a visible expression of intense relief. Our eyes immediately sought out the red doorlight. The moment the pilot was sure he was stable at 3m he flicked a switch and the red light turned green.
Immediately, the three men closest to either doorway got up and leaped with their full battle kit into what would have been a bone-breaking jump. The cables attached to harnesses that were slung under the men's armpits immediately took their weight and transferred it to winches built into the top of the doorframes. Each winch acted like a bungee cord and caused each soldier to land softly, after which a simple pull on a rip cord released the harness, which shot back toward the 'bungee winch'. Total insertion time for the first six soldiers: two seconds.
I was in the second jumping line on the left doorway. We had to wait one agonizing second for the first jumping line's harnesses to shoot back into their winch chambers.
Then it was jump, drop, step, rip cord, shoulder the rifle, run.
As we darted for cover positions, the Puma hung over us for one more second before angling sideward and upward to make its escape. It had been only 30 seconds since the big helicopter had started to dive from 500m – a perfect insertion ...
... (Click 'Comments' below to read the full episode) ...
We quickly took up positions in the tree line. The sound of the helicopter faded until we could hear only the insects around us. The exhilaration of the brutally perfect insertion soon faded as it dawned on us that we were isolated in a hostile environment, unable to break radio silence until our job was done and we could radio the helicopter for extraction.
Our first job was to fall flat in a rough, outward-facing circle on the forest floor. Our second job was to slow our breathing and become invisible – to become part of the forest and to listen in detail to every sound … and every lack of sound.
From our hopefully invisible positions we started to analyze each pattern of color, light and shadow, looking and listening for tell-tale signs that something was wrong, that something was watching us, that we had been the one-in-a-thousand team that had managed to insert right on top of an enemy patrol.
After fifteen minutes of intense silence, our platoon leader was satisfied that we had a clean insertion. Lieutenant Miller signaled and Sarge crawled over for a whispered discussion. The “Lute” pointed toward the open area beyond the tree line. It was a grassy field that sloped down gently for about 50m before terminating against the bank of River 34. Next to the river was a small patch of forest that extended thinly toward us. Behind us the forest continued uninterrupted up a subtle slope that slowly rose into a low hill.
The patch of trees next to the river would be a perfect setting for an ambush. The robots would have to come from the left and stay in the open area, where they could walk at speed. The tree patch narrowed the open ground to a mere 30m. The robots would have to pass through this funnel to get to their destination. By lying in two complementary firing lines on either side of the funnel, we would turn the open ground into a dead zone from which no robot could escape.
Or so we hoped …
A few kilometers to the east, attack robot #2245 was standing with its head bowed, pointing the satellite dish on its back like a steel foil flower toward the south. The robot was beaming a signal toward its control satellite and the web browser of its VIA NanoBook interface computer found the secure website of its Command and Control Center. At its headquarters, The Hegemony’s command structure analyzed the robot’s data and beamed its answer as coded data back to the satellite. The satellite bounced the data back toward the robot’s dish, from where the data flowed into the NanoBook.
After a few seconds, the robot retracted its fold-up satellite dish and fed the new data via its NanoBook’s Bluetooth to the NanoBooks of the other three robots in its attack group.
Headquarters had advised that the attack group slows down to 10km/h to allow other attack groups to catch up to it and shadow it. The attack group had been instructed to proceed in full ambush alert. That was all.
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Visitor
Wednesday, 08 August 2007
:) Cool, man. This stuff is friggin chillin!
Visitor
Saturday, 11 August 2007
:? Is the nana book the winner?