King of All I Survey
Chapter 119: It’s Go Time

Chapter 119: It’s Go Time

Dad was just shaking his head. I didn’t know if that was good or bad. Mom had a tear in her eye. Ok more than a tear in her eye. Tears were streaming down her face. She rushed forward and hugged me. "I’m so proud of who you are, Timmy. That was beautiful. It’s everything I’ve been, I mean everything Maribel has been fighting for in Guatemala, but she could never say it all so clear and direct like that. If you speak like that, the rest of the world better just step back and get out of your way, Tim."

Ok, now my eyes were starting to get a little teary.

"Yeah, that was good." Dad added, "I think you hit all the right notes. You know somebody is going to leak those words to the press at some point." He shrugged, "If they don’t I will..."

I pulled away from Mom and wiped my eyes with my sleeve. "Yeah, when I heard it, I thought it sounded pretty good, but you know..." I shrugged. "Anyway, I think it’s time we make it clear what our overall goals are. You know, I mean, aside from conquering the world and setting me up as the rightful king of everything." I grinned.

Dad grinned back, "Don’t let it go to your head, kiddo. One or two little countries hidden in the jungle somewhere doesn’t exactly make you Supreme Ruler of the Entire Earth Solar System and Nearby Space. We’ve still got a lot of work to do. Not the least of which is getting those one or two little countries to acknowledge your hegemony."

"My what?" I asked in mock indignation, "Dad! Mom’s right here."

Dad shook his head and rolled his eyes.

Mom got a very Maribel expression as she said, "Don’t worry King Tim, I’m sure when you grow up, your little hegemony will be better than anyone else’s."

"Mom!" I cried out, blushing now, "I’m eight! That’s not appropriate."

Mom rolled her eyes, "Joe, remind me to get our dear king a dictionary for his next birthday.

"Acknowledged."

Hey, hey, the airstrikes are about to go, look there’s activity at the airbase." Dad announced pointing at one of the larger, dynamic tactical map displays up on the Status Room wall.

"Joe, can you give us a drone view of roughly what the spotters see?" I asked. "Also, make sure you’ve got drones watching for any casualties. Shoot down bullets or whatever, if they’re going to hit anyone. Identify anyone firing at the rebels directly."

"Acknowledged," Joe answered as eight new displays appeared near the top of the wall. The helicopters were just taking off. We could see the men inside. There was a large swivel mounted machine gun just inside one large sliding door in each cabin. The men inside chatted, wondering if they’d take fire. Estimating the relative ranges of their big guns against those mounted in the jeeps.

"They’ve got stingers, too. I’m more worried about them than the guns," one of them said.

"Yeah, stay ready with the flares man."

"We’re supposed to keep our eyes on them and report what weapons they use... Don’t the brass know what they issue to their own army?"

"Who knows man, if they were working with the cartels they could have anything."

"Ninety seconds out," the announcement came one by one from each pilot as the helicopters got closer to the target. One spotter in each cabin clipped on a safety harness and stood up to open the big sliding doors in front of the gunners. The gunners were already snapped in.

"Door locked at ready." Each announced as the door slid into the full open position. The gunners angled the big barrels forward and down to fire at about fifteen degrees away from the helicopter’s path.

They each flipped a locking mechanism near their left thumbs to hold the gun in that position until the switch was flipped again to release it.

"Gun locked and ready."

"Thirty seconds to target zone, mark."

"I’ve got eyes on targets, Jeep mounted heavies. I count six."

"Clear the zone!" Gunners yelled.

The big guns erupted, drawing a line of flying debris across the ground as the heavy slugs ripped into the ground fifty yards out in front of the rogue division.

"Prepare for incoming heavies tracking us! Wait? No, looks like it jammed. Looks like they all jammed. What the fuck? They look pretty pissed off... Stingers at ten o’clock! No! Holy shit, they won’t fire either. That’s what you get when you don’t take care of your weapons, assholes!"

The guns on the helicopters did work and kept working in bursts as the four helicopters flew across the path of the ground forces. Laying down a trail of destruction in neat lines in front of them. One after the other. Four helicopters for each of the two rogue divisions. Each force about 15 miles away from the other. Each helicopter made one pass then peeled off away from the enemy.

"Safety engaged!" The gunners yelled. Spotters moved to shut the big doors.

"Doors locked!"

"That’s it boys, heading back to base."

"What the hell was that? Even their rifles didn’t work. Every last one. There’s no way."

"The intel boys must have known what they were up to and snuck in at night or something."

Eight minutes later, the birds were back on the ground at the base. The spotters were calling in their reports to their handlers. A minute after that hastily typed reports popped up on the General’s laptop back in Bogota.

"They did it. Our boys say the enemy tried to fire heavies, stingers and even personal weapons. Not a single one fired. Enemy shooters were kicking the heavies, trying to unjam rifles, looked like they were caught completely off guard by the disabled weapons."

"How did Flores’s people manage that? Every weapon in two complete divisions."

"They would have had to know they were going to go rogue more than a day ago, maybe several days. I don’t know how they would get access. Every rifle, every shoulder-fire, every big gun."

"It’s crazy... Those bastards in Chiapas wouldn’t have had a snowball’s chance in Colombia."