The men half smiled, half gaped at the large warrior in front of them, who went on, “Hassim, you will take your force there and secure the area. Even with the bulk of the remaining forces concentrated in the northern part of the base, you will still have a fight on your hands. I estimate that at least five hundred men will be tasked to defend the armory, which is why I will then bring my force up from the perimeter to flank them, helping us secure that area.

“Once we have the armory, we will … procure some of their hell-sent anti-personnel mortars that are stored there and set up a reinforced battery aimed at the main bulk of their troops surrounding the silos and bunkers in the north. That should awaken their complacent souls, eh?”

The two recently promoted young men nodded, smiling while the other men gathered around began nodding and started to get riled up. Shahim decided it was time to set them going. He was pretty sure that once they started launching mortars into the three thousand or so men dug-in in the northern part of the base, then they would soon find that the force up there had some pretty unpleasant surprises of their own. But at that point he would have accomplished everything he needed to with these unwitting assistants. After that it would be up to him and him alone.

Pitching his voice above their heads, he used his phenomenal volume to deliver a rousing speech to the amassed soldiers. He told them that they would all be famed for this day. That from this moment on they would all be remembered as the greatest of all Allah’s faithful. He wound them up, giving them impetus to drive them into the heart of the base’s defenses ahead of them. He had no doubt they would make a real dent in those forces. But he also knew that his message to the AI about the futility of the attack was, in essence, true. In the end, such a small, disorganized force would be crushed by the army that awaited them. But that did not factor in what a fully armed, fully weaponized, and singularly resolute Agent could do in the chaos that would ensue.

* * *

Across the mile-wide base, huge explosions blossomed like flowers, shedding fire and death like pollen. Night had fallen once more, but the evening was lit with detonations that rocked the soil beneath the fighters’ feet. Hassim could feel his knees shaking. He could not believe the sheer force of their attack. The column of trucks had indeed driven through the checkpoint on the approach to the base without hindrance. There had been no sign of Shahim, but nor had there been any sign of resistance from the checkpoint’s guards. Some kind of explosion seemed to have rocked the area.