Daria 2 Read online

  I get down prone on the padded shooting mat and squiggle in behind the pulse rifle, get comfortable, get a good cheek weld, and wait. It doesn’t take long. The ships alarms start screaming as the pirate ships come onto the radar. I feel the vibration of the engines stop as the ship stops its propellers.

  “I have control of the ship, stabilizing, wait for it, wait..., wait..., there you are good to go.” says D as she shuts down the alarms.

  “Take the lead boat on the left of the two others.” says Frosty. “I have him ranged at thirty-six hundred yards and closing.”

  “Roger that, ok ready.”

  “Send it.”

  “THUNK” says the pulse rifle.”

  “High, you cleaned off the lights, antennae, and sat dish off the roof of the bridge. Shoot a little sooner as they come up the swell.

  “THUNK,” says the pulse rifle.

  “Impact, nice, right through the bridge.”

  Through the scope I can see the bridge and occupants explode into shrapnel.

  “Hit them again, I want the boat destroyed, no evidence!”

  In the background I can hear Captain Stevens yelling frantic orders to his crew to find out why his controls are not functioning.

  “Hurry up guys, I’ve got a recon satellite coming over the horizon.” says D.

  “THUNK,” says the pulse rifle!

  “Impact, explosion, bodies in the air, you hit the fuel tank or munitions magazine. The boat is a goner. Hang on a second while I range the second boat, the one on the right is turning off. Got it, he’s three thousand yards.” says Frosty.

  I move the rifle and settle into position, place the crosshairs on the bridge of the boat and watch the timing as it raises and falls.

  “THUNK”, says the pulse rifle.

  “KA BOOM” goes the pirate boat, exploding into debris.

  “Impact, excellent shot”, says Frosty. “Ranging boat three, he’s coming straight at us, twenty-five hundred yards and closing.”

  “THUNK” says the pulse rifle

  “Impact, on the bridge, but he is still coming”

  “THUNK”

  “Impact, through the hull, still coming”

  “Come on guys, hit the freakin boat Matt, we’re on the satellite recon camera’s!” hisses D.

  “THUNK”

  “Impact, on the hull again, still coming, turning to his starboard side. Come on Matt, hammer the son of a bitch!”

  “THUNK”

  “KA BOOM” says the pirate boat as it explodes in flames and flying bodies.

  “Impact, hell yeah, good shot”, says Frosty

  “It’s about time you guys, jesus, like there was no rush, I’m releasing the ship override.” grouches D.

  I can feel the engines power up and feel the propellers dig into the water.

  “Did we miss the sat-scan?” I ask

  “Likely, as the satellite was just coming over the horizon, D added some interference to block us, but it was way too close.” replies Frosty.

  “All radio frequency blocking is shutdown.” says D. “You guys should wander back and ask the Captain what all the alarms and fuss were about, and next time Matt please try to get a little more sleep to improve your aim!”

  “Ouch, duly noted, D,”

  “Enough you two,” growls Frosty.

  The Captain is upset, very upset, and has sent his crew scurrying off to find the reason for the interruptions to the controls of his ship.

  “Morning Captain,” says Frosty. “Heard some alarms and it felt like we slowed down or stopped. Is everything ok?

  “Everything is fine, no reason to worry. We had some false alarms which have resolved themselves and the crew is investigating them thoroughly. It’s not a good place to have trouble as you realize we are in Pirate waters.”

  “Pirates, be serious Captain.”

  “Oh I am very serious, fortunately nothing is showing on our radar and we will be through this area soon enough. Now then, can I interest you in some breakfast?”

  “You certainly may, the fresh air is making me ravenous.” replies Frosty.

  Chapter 9: Goodbye Cheryl

  We’re on our last day at sea as we are nearing the port of Rabat. Cheryl and I are on the fantail of the Dae Sun watching the wake stretch out behind us. It is evening and the sea is calm. We are attempting small talk but it’s awkward and each of us is avoiding the real topic.

  “We dock in Rabat tomorrow,” says Cheryl quietly as she looks at me.

  “Yes I know, I heard the Captain and crew talking about it,” I reply watching her.

  “I’ve really enjoyed our time together Matt,”

  “The time went too quickly didn’t it, I’m going to miss you Cheryl.”

  “It’s funny how hard goodbyes are, even though we both knew this was just a one week fling.”

  “These things are never easy Cheryl even though we wish them to be. To know another person at such a personal level as we have it’s never just well goodbye and thanks for the sex”.

  “Indeed and some are so much harder than others. You know if things were different Matt and you wanted to, we could hang out together longer.”

  “You are very kind Cheryl and in other circumstances I would be very pleased to spend some more time hanging out with you. But it is not and both of us have different directions to go and commitments.”

  “Is there someone else Matt?”

  “No, there was... but... Rachel died.”

  “I’m sorry Matt, if you change your mind look me up,” she slips a business card in my shirt pocket.

  “Goodbye Matt,” she kisses me lightly on the cheek and turns away.

  “Goodbye Cheryl, take care of you sailor girl,” I say as she walks away.

  Memories threaten to flood back, memories of a different time and place and a girl named Rachel. I can feel the ache in my heart and the burn of tears.

  Chapter 10: Landfall at Rabat

  The port of Rabat, Morocco is mayhem personified. I don’t know how else to describe it. At least it seems so to my cultural familiarities. People seem to be literally running around in a state of hysteria in the pursuit of executing their duties. So the cadence seems just wrong to me. It’s loud, very loud, and noisy. True enough there is a high level of activity in the port, but it strikes me as the noise level is higher than the activity level suggests it should be.

  A distinct possibility is the noise is trapped in the port basin by the rising land surrounding it on three sides. Your regular grungy dirty warehouses and container stacks giving way further up the slopes to cleaner working class residential and business buildings, which in turn give way to very bright whitewashed cement or stone building which reflect the light like fields of snow.

  Eventually through a contact supplied by Captain Stevens we are able to rent a heavy duty truck. It’s a massive great machine with four fat wide tires per side and a long flatbed on its back, upon which to set D’s sea-can. It was a late 80’s military vintage heavy duty truck originally used to haul Pershing Rockets from location to location. Long since de-commissioned and used for heavy cargo in the civilian sector, the MAN 20 ton 8 X 8 cab-over beast was sporting a paint job of faded camouflage sand colors. Some three hundred horsepower diesel powered engine coupled to a six speed auto transmission and eight wheel drive, its most redeeming feature for us is the very wide low pressure tires. They are as wide as duals on regular highway trucks, and run such low air pressure they looked half flat. All deliberately designed to float over the sand and not sink while carrying the heavy loads on its back. And very handily it comes with camouflage netting sufficiently large to cover D’s sea-can and the truck itself, or a Pershing missile, if you happened to have one of those.

  We bribe the correct longshoreman, if they are called that, and get D’s sea can set down on the truck flatbed and latched down securely. The cab of the MAN truck is really large so we have plenty of room to store our personal gear behind the driver and passenger seats. />
  I swear to god we could have left D in her container right in the middle of this port hysterical mayhem. She just seemed so comfortable and so absorbed by her surroundings. Within minutes she understands and can speak the various languages. This, she informs us, is modern standard Arabic and Moroccan Arabic called Darija. In addition most locals seemed to speak French. Well French mixed with various flavors and expressions of Arabic. All this spoken in a high pitch voice almost a yell overtop of the racket of the port and markets, over top of endless shrill horn music, which seemed off key to my ears. Mayhem, just fucking hysterical mayhem is my impression. Oh, and by and large it did not smell nice at all. Frankly it stank, a multiple of not so good smells, over a base stench of sewage. Yikes!

  Chapter 11: On the Road

  How we find our way out of the port without being lost, crushing a dozen people wandering on the streets, or mashing small kids into a wet marks in the sand, and being arrested to rot in prison is a miracle of D’s ingenuity. Even Frosty seemed tense and on edge. Just the cultural frantic tone as much as anything I think. But we make it out and the racket of the port of Rabat fades slowly in the rear view mirrors with the swirling clouds of sand.

  While the MAN truck seems awkward and just big and clumsy on the narrow roads, it soon came into its own when the broken pavement disappeared and the roads become just a barely graded trail of sand and gravel. Now the brilliance of the eight driving wheels, the huge wide low pressure tires and the torque and grunt of the engine and auto-transmission became apparent. The MAN just goes where you point it with a diesel growl, turbo whistle, rumble, and a soft swaying bouncy ride. As it is a cab-over design and I am actually sitting ahead of the front wheels, I am constantly moving up and down almost like driving a boat in a swell. It’s a sweet ride and makes us sleepy. Frosty is asleep in no time and I drive according to D’s navigational directions. It’s actually very pleasant and I would have to say with the exception of the non-pavement road the scenery of the desert outside of Rabat is remarkably similar to the scenery driving from Palo Verde, California down through Glamis, and through the Imperial Sand Dunes over to Brawley on the Ben Hulse Hwy.

  Our objective is to get to a set of co-ordinates in the SW of the Grand Erg Occidental Desert, which is the location of the Daesh camp. To get there we have to negotiate a route through the Atlas Mountains. There are lots of roads and we are constantly changing from road to road as D navigates us by way of local knowledge of the roads, maps, and drone visuals of the area. It’s a distance of some four hundred miles, but we likely drive closer to six hundred because of how the roads are and because the travelling is slow. A couple of hundred miles per day with a beast of a truck like the MAN in these conditions is pushing it. D brought it to our attention in years past the Paris-Dakar Rally was originally run on a lot of the roads in this area. Good grief, I can’t imagine anyone racing anything over terrain like this.

  We know we are getting close when on day three we began seeing signs for Taghit, Algeria. This is likely one of the major supply towns for the encampment. So we turn off the road and head east into the desert. From the US satellite, drone videos, and pictures, D has selected a good camp site. Out of sight and out of mind, easily concealed, yet close enough to the encampment to make quick trips back and forth with our quad copter.

  Chapter 12: The Desert

  Sand, sand everywhere, as far as the eye can see in any direction. Just freakin sand, undulating in waves, shimmering in the heat, leading to the sky/sand horizon. Shades of dull yellow fading to subdued gold tones depending on the time of day and how the sun hits it. Flat light at noon, you can’t see the humps and bumps of the sand dunes as the sun is directly overhead and allows no shadows. Just sand, flowing in the breeze, stand in one spot and watch the sand work at burying your feet. Sand in everything within minutes, it’s in the air, its everywhere, in eyes, ears, nose, mouth, hair, clothing, underwear, gritting in places it shouldn’t.

  Hot beyond reason, the sun searing down from the sky is actually cooler than the heat bouncing up off the sand. Heat which stifles your breath, burns the underside of your chin, and dries your nose and lips until they crack and bleed. Heat means you must wear gloves to handle tools as they are hot enough to blister flesh. Heat burns and blisters your feet even through combat boots.

  Yet the nights are cool, there always seems to be a breeze blowing in from the sea. It is cool enough to need a jacket. Hard to believe after being seared and burned all day long it would be cold enough to be uncomfortable at night. The sand is always flowing, moving, rattling and scuffing against the rocks, soft and constant, hissing, moving, and alive.

  “Are you awake, Matt?”

  “Nope, snoring like a lamb.”

  “No you’re not,”

  “What’s up D?”

  “Um, I could hear you when you said goodbye to Cheryl,”

  “Oh,”

  “I could monitor you and hear Cheryl and monitor her too when she was close to you,”

  “And,”

  “And I’m sorry I was invading on a personal moment, and I was very surprised at your emotional state and that of Cheryl’s. She really likes you Matt, she had tears as she walked away.”

  “Hmm, you know ending a personal relationship is always awkward and often has some pain associated with it,”

  “I see that, but I had no idea of the gravity of the effect on either of your emotions.” says D. “It was startling.”

  “Humans take their relationships very seriously if they think anything at all of one another. Emotions are a huge part of the human make up.”

  “I’m sorry that leaving her made you feel sad, Matt. Emotions are hard for me and I feel bad now about being mad at you for being with Cheryl.”

  “It’s ok D, I know it is hard for you. Both Cheryl and I knew when the end came it would be quite sad. But we did it anyway for better or for worse.”

  “You humans are so hard to figure out with your emotions.”

  “Sometimes we don’t understand ourselves either D.”

  “Matt, who was Rachel?”

  “Ahh... perhaps another time D.”

  “Ok, goodnight Matt

  “Goodnight D.”

  Chapter 13: The SSW Device

  Back home we had some very long and complicated discussions on how to best deal with the Daesh encampment. I was pretty much out of my league on something this size, and my experience was the traditional military methods of aircraft bombing, helicopter gunship, drone hellfire missile solutions. All tried and true methods to be sure, but in the venue of extreme dark ops these methods were as subtle as charging in with a tank. Just not acceptable at all I was told.

  D said she has some ideas based on the sand the whole encampment was built on. She went on to say if you shake the sand just so it loses its solidity and becomes for all intents and purposes just like water. Therefore anything on the sand would just sink. It has to do with the pounds per square foot of pressure loading of whatever is placing on the sand. Things which have higher ground loading sink faster than things with low ground loading. I could see the wheels going round in Frosty’s head as D explained it. To me it was pretty much magic.

  The Seismic Surface Wave devices or just “the device” is what I call them for lack of a more concise term, were designed by D and assembled by Frosty and I. The actual fabrication had been done stateside. There were four devices actually, a primary and three slaves is the way D describes it. The devices are not particularly impressive to look at as they are the size of microwave ovens by and large. The primary device is a little larger with some dial setting on the upper portion of the device. Each unit has a rubber duck antenna attaching to it and a sort of fat flashlight tube which can rise and lower and swivel. D explains it is for “radiative wireless power transfer” which in itself just explains to me batteries or wires are not required. Excellent I think, as it means something less to have to haul around.

  The concept seems right out of sci-fi.
We are to put the four devices in place at the four compass headings around the camp. Each device has to have its flashlight tube aligned carefully with the primary device so it could receive power. The primary device is controlled by D and she will use it to create a seismic surface wave or ambient vibration wave at a very low frequency. The primary device and the slave devices are all time synchronized. The primary starts the vibration which passes through the sand to the secondary devices. They echo the vibration and increase the amplitude propagation and send it back toward the opposing device, back and forth, back and forth through the sand. The longer the four systems run the stronger the vibration hence the stronger the seismic surface wave. At a certain point the friction between the grains of sand is reduced to a point where whatever is on the surface in between the four devices will just sink out of sight. I ask what “out of sight meant” and D replies the sand is very deep under the Daesh encampment and we can choose our depth by how long we run the SSWG (seismic surface wave generator).

  I ask D if she has done this before and if it will work, which is a perfectly natural question to ask between humans. Many times human designed devices don’t function quite as envisioned and require adjustments, re-design, fine tuning and those sorts of things. But D is not human and is not impressed at all. She fixed me with those big blue eyes and crosses her arms and asks me when anything she has designed and engineered has not worked as per her description. I have to admit she has me there as her stuff always does work as she says it will. D goes on to say her and her sisters have run basically five years worth of computer simulations fine tuning the design of the SSWG and it will damn well work exactly as described, if us humans do our part. I feel chastised for doubting her and said so. I’m not sure she forgives me or understands why I have questioned her judgement.