THE PRIZE: BOOK TWO - RETRIBUTION by Rob Buckman Page B

the Thrakee could, especially at this distance. The Thrakee were dug in on top of a scarp and even from here, it was possible to see some of their emplacements. The Thrakee had set up interlocking fields of fire with their heavy weapons, so crossing the two hundred yards of cleared ground between the edge of the forest and the top of the escarpment was out of the question. It was an open invitation to get all his Marines killed without gaining a foot of ground. The tricky bastards had learned their lessons well about not clearing a field of fire in front of their positions, and had paid the price in an earlier engagement. The word from ‘brass hat’ was never to attack the Thrakee the same way twice, and so far that advice had paid off. It also meant they had to think harder about ways to attack differently each time, a tall order after a while. They’d tried the feint and thrust, advancing under a hail of mortar and artillery fire and a half dozen different ways to attack the Thrakee defense positions. From the look of it, this was the lizard’s main LZ and initial landing point. Capture this base and the battle would be over, other than some cleaning up of wandering units. Flicking through the filters and frequencies, he muttered a soft curse. As if the heavy weapon emplacements weren’t enough, the Thrakee had a shield over the whole base. Not really unexpected for their main LZ, but frustrating. Pounding them with MRL and mortars was out of the question while the shield was up, so first they had to figure out a way to disable the shield. Moving back under cover, He went onto a vid conference with the other commanders and the Captain as they tried to find a way to crack this nut.
    “A frontal attack from any direction except the rear is out of the question, unless we want to lose all our people.” Captain Erik Sanders opened this discussion.
    “Wish we had some air support, Cap.”
    “How about a battle field nuke while you’re wishing.” Erik shot back.
    “We could try a ‘HALO’ drop.”
    “Too risky, besides which, there’s no way they could get through that shield, and we’ve done that before, so they’ll be expecting it.”
    “You’re right there. Even with a mortar and artillery pounding, there’s no way to ensure we’d get all their heavy weapons emplacements.” The Captain added.
    “It also means they probably have an eye in the sky, so anything we do, they’ll see.”
    “Not if we blind them with smoke and CS gas they won’t.”
    “Then what? I’m betting those heavy weapons are on auto. The moment they detect movement they start firing.”
    “Yeah, and as this is their main base they won’t be running out of power packs or replacement barrels any time soon.” While they chatted back and forth, Ted Lewis studied the picture the ‘hawks’ were sending back.
    “Oh yeah.”
    “What’s up, Teddy?” Captain Sanders asked. In answer, he shot a short section of vid to his commander and the other Lt’s.
    “On three sides we have steep, cleared ground to cover, but on the fourth side it’s a sheer rock face dropping almost eight hundred feet into a fast flowing river, see?”
    “So?”
    “What if we climb the wall and come in from the back side and slip under their shield?” Silence met his remarks.
    “Oh, doing the Wolf and Quebec thing huh. Doable if we can find a few people with mountain climbing experience, but what about the time factor. No way are you going to climb that in the dark and get there before first light.”
    “Wait! Don’t we have gecko suits?” For a moment, there was silence on the net as no one could answer the question.
    “Let me check with HQ - hold one.” Ted switched frequencies and after a short wait the duty officer came online.
    “HQ - go.”
    “Lieutenant Lewis here. Do we have any gecko suits available?”
    “Wait one Lt.” While he waited, Ted zoomed in on the scarp, but as far as he could see from the angle the hawks were at, the cliff