■ ■ ■
The heat was staggering, a wind blowing across the desolate terrain like an unrelenting blast furnace. A range of purple mountains shrouded in heat waves stretched across the backdrop and flat-topped buttes jutted out of the desert floor. Kyle Steele stood next to a barrel cactus in jeans and a loose white t-shirt looking bronzed, nearly sunburned. His t-shirt flapping in the breeze, he scoured the horizon with binoculars, “Lynette... Lynette!”
The big helicopters were back again, but this time they weren't searching the desert in long sweeping patterns, they were headed straight for the house. For at least a week they had been searching the desert, the canyons, the ranches. He hustled back to the house, his aching knees preventing him from a real run. Past the large angular boulders bordering the rock garden, past the pool, over the deck, almost colliding with his wife as she strolled out through the french doors, dishtowel in hand.
“What on Earth are you shouting about?”
“Military helicopters.” Kyle steered her back through the doors, into the modern adobe ranch house built partially into the side of a foothill, the only structure for at least five miles. “They're headed here...” He pulled the cheap cell phone Phil Cooper had given him for emergencies out of his pocket and flipped it open, texting 911 to the only number programmed into the phone. He had taken to carrying with him wherever he went the day the helicopters first appeared. Jamming it back in his pocket as soon as the message sent successfully, he continued to steer her. “Pete? C'mon Pete! Where is...”
The Black Lab trotted out of the kitchen, his tail swaying, looking up at Kyle, water bowl drool running down his chin.
“What do we do?”
“Storm shelter...” he replied, guiding her through the house across the Mexican tile floors, Pete following closely behind.
“You know how I hate that thing. Have you cleaned out all the scorpions yet?”
“Yes, yes...” he said tediously, passing a native Indian totem pole carved into one of the house's main support posts. Once in the dual purpose, man cave - office, he pulled on the wall-sized media center and it swung smoothly away from the wall, mounted to a door, suspended mere millimeters from the surface of the floor. Ushering her in, Kyle pulled the heavy vault door closed behind them and turned the manual locking wheel, sending the pistons into the surrounding steel and concrete frame.
“I always feel like I'm going to suffocate in here,” complained Lynette looking around the darkened concrete room lined with shelves of food and water, bunk beds lining another wall. Pete walked around sniffing the floor, inspecting each and every corner.
Kyle didn't offer a reply, flipping on a switch, lighting the windowless but sizable room. At twenty-five feet by thirty feet, it was comfortable, holding enough food and water for several months. At the back of the house, tucked completely into the hill and sitting on bedrock, the room remained a constant seventy degrees, the previous owners having used it as a wine cellar. Air vents hidden above them at the top of the hill in the low trees, scrub and rocks, provided filtered, fresh air. Kyle had added a coax cable and a camouflaged Ham Radio antenna rigged to the trunk of one of the trees, its top hidden in the leaves. He moved to the small desk and flipped on the Ham Radio...
■ ■ ■
Marine Warrant Office Dale Alaroot locked the heavy armored torso to the frame tabs sticking out of the waist, the legs and torso now powered as the system connections linked up. “Boss are you sure you want to do this? I told you we'd handle it for you...”
“I know...”
“What changed your mind?”
Steele shrugged inside the suit, the armored shoulders moving up and down, “I don't know Dale, it just feels like something I should do.”
Dale held up Steele's TRS brace, “You sure you're not going to need this thing?”
“I'd wear it but it doesn't fit in here...”
Dale hung it on an empty armor rack, “The suits are pretty snug. I'm glad we had one that fit you... But don't make me regret taking you along, I don't want to catch flack from Doc...”
“Let me worry about Doc. He said I couldn't fly, he didn't say I couldn't walk.”
“Or shoot?”
“Right, or shoot.”
Dale locked Steele's helmet in place, “Systems and HUD up?”
Jack scanned the information on the heads-up display that positioned itself in front of his eyes no matter which way his head moved, visor up or down. “It's a lot like our flight helmets. Yep, everything seems to be good.” He accepted the carbine, attaching the sling to his shoulder mount. He noticed when he looked at the other Marines, a No Shoot and X appeared over their target outline. Nice.
“Bridge to Admiral Steele, sixty seconds to ground. We have targets on the ground and in the air. Sending images to your TESS.”
TESS' holographic screen appeared above his armored wrist, live video of three desert camouflaged helicopters, one on the ground, two in the air, men moving about and two desert camouflaged armored vehicles on the dirt road, a Humvee and an MRAP.
“If they engage us, shoot them down,” he ordered.
“Aye, sir.”
A red light near the ship's door frame winked to yellow, “Popping seal!” yelled a deck hand.
■ ■ ■
With the ARC system on, Lisa eased up within a hundred feet of one of the helicopters hovering a football field's distance from the house on overwatch, swinging her nose to bear on the cockpit from an angle, the pilot in the crosshairs of her gun pipper. “Mac, where did those F-16s go?”
“One of the security flights from the Conquest is running them ragged. There are two other flights in the area, F-35s and they're busy too. We have one flight in reserve about ten miles from here.”
The Revenge came screaming in from her left, behind the helicopters, skimming the undulating dessert terrain, a massive cloud of dust behind her. Her nose reared up as she came to a hover, settling level and descending to the sand, an armor plate on her waist popping open and sliding up the side of the hull, revealing the reinforced door within. Lisa saw the moment the pilot she was watching noticed the intrusion and she switched the ARC system off, the Reaper slowly appearing like glitter in the sun, toggling her shields on, the hum of her shield generator whining up.
“Door gunner just woke up...”
“I see him.” The pilot's head whipped around on the gunner's call and the surprise on his face quickly turned to determination. She shook her head in an exaggerated no, “Don't do it buddy...”
The door gunner let loose, the heavy machine gun rounds splashing on the shields as the pilot swung the nose.”
“He has rocket pods...”
Lisa squeezed the trigger, the turret's Cryo Gauss Guns rattling a burst of frozen exploding metal spikes through the armored skin, heavy Lexan cockpit perspex and pilot, who completely disappeared in an obscene splash of red slop. It blew the gunner out of the helicopter door and he hung unconscious in his harness as the mangled bird dropped out of the sky and crushed itself into the desert below, creating a miniature sandstorm.
She watched a little too long, seeing the Marines drop down the Revenge's ramp to the sand, passing into the dust storm, fire and smoke. The clattering of hammer blows on the Reaper's hull illicited a simultaneous slew of profanities as she cranked the anti-gravity actuator, vaulting her ship straight up out of the line of fire, nudging the throttle.
“Break! Break!” The Reaper leaned over and the artificial gravity generator struggled to keep up with the demand when Lisa punched the throttle, pilot and EWO grunting under the pressure. “Firing decoys,” gasped Draza Mac. The missile detonated harmlessly near the second decoy, Lisa pulling the throttle back into the negative, sliding the Reaper flatly around over twenty miles away from their starting point. She bought the nose around and the moment the gun pipper passed over the computer's outline of the chopper she squeezed the trigger, the ammo chain feed rattling as the guns chattered, rewarded by an instant fire
ball. “Prick...” she hissed, easing the throttle back up. “Damage?”
“Shield loss was momentary, all systems running normally.”
■ ■ ■
In response to being fired upon, the Revenge's defensive miniguns were clattering away as the hull door opened, cutting the helicopter that was sitting on the ground in half. It fell apart like someone had sawed it into pieces. Stepping out onto the ramp was a dicey proposition as a rain of helicopter parts fell from the sky, a smoking fuselage slamming into the ground a hundred feet away with a crushing thud. Debris and sand splashed against Steele as he tromped down to the rocky sand, his visor down, the helmet's visual pickups allowing him to see through the blowing smoke and debris.
What looked like soldiers in full desert gear poured out of the house and had already positioned themselves outside their vehicles along the gravel road to the house. Small arms fire erupted from multiple angles, forcing the armored UFW Marines to engage with brutal superior force.
Jack dropped to a knee, prompting his thigh to scream at him, reminding him how much of a bad idea it was. His armor deflected hits like hail on steel but some felt heavier than others, producing substantially more noise and feel. He wondered how much the armor could take. Sighting in, he hit one, two, three, with short controlled bursts, keeping his eyes and muzzle moving. The Marines swept right, out toward the large boulders of the rock garden. He moved to his feet, concentrating his fire on the men along the road.
The whack in the center of his chest was almost deafening inside the armor, pitching him over backwards and taking his breath away.
“Man down... Man...”
“I'm OK! I'm OK...” he called. With a groan he rolled to his side to right himself, seeing a streak of fire pass to his right, taking a marine off his feet and carrying him through the air, his armor exploding out the back, the rocket powered projectile designed for antitank use, dooming him instantly.
Jesus! That was either an RPG or a LAW rocket... “Reaper where are you? LISA!”
A Marine medic in full armor trucked across the sand and slid on his knees to his fallen squad mate, hooking a tether to his armor, jumping back to his feet, and like a tow truck on a race track, bolted for the ramp, dragging him out of the fight.
“Lining up... heads down...” called Lisa.
Another streak of fire passed from the vehicles on the road, smacking into a boulder with a jarring explosion, the boulder splitting down the middle, a sphere of shrapnel and granite spraying in all directions, pelting Jack's suit with a hailstorm of metal and stone, Marines tumbling left and right to get clear.
“LISAAA!”
Steele saw the streak of black as it screamed over the house, the nose turret growling angrily, blue-white flames cutting a wide trench in the road, right through both vehicles. The up-armored Humvee blew apart like a cheap soda can, flaming tires flying outwards, airborne, bouncing, rolling across the desert, its wreckage sitting where it dropped, twisted beyond recognition. The MRAP fared better but not by much, the body bloating as the explosion inside was contained by the mangled armor, smoke billowing out of the window openings, the fractured bulletproof glass laying in the sand along the road, the turret missing, blown clear, laying in the scrub brush somewhere out of sight.
The Marines pressed around the house and Jack moved across the open, firing on the move. Catching a sparkle of light in the brush on the other side of the road, his artificial eye zoomed-in without prompting or conscious thought, identifying a sniper with a .50 caliber Barrett searching for a target. Jack tromped to a stop, sighted and squeezed the trigger, holding it until he was rewarded with something that resembled an exploding bowl of spaghetti and red sauce painting the sand and rocks.
Back on the move he hustled to the rear of the house nearly running into a soldier coming out of the patio doors. A 9mm pistol in hand he backed away, plinking Steele's armor. “Pew, pew, pew,” laughed Jack, his voice sounding evil and metallic outside the armor. He lunged forward and swatted the handgun out of the soldier's hand, snagging him by his tactical vest. “Today is your lucky day, I'm not going to kill you,” he sneered, dragging him backwards out the patio doors to the deck. He flung him bodily through the air into the pool, the suit's power assist providing him greatly magnified strength. “Somebody keep an eye on that one.”
“Aye, sir.”
Jack scanned the area, Marines pressing toward the road beyond the vehicle wreckage, “Dale, where are you?”
“On your six, boss.”
Steele reentered the house not sure what he was looking for, when a soldier emerged from another room, a fully automatic 12 gauge shotgun in his hands. Steele brought the muzzle of his carbine to bear and it clicked, the charge-pack empty. Dale danced to one side to get a shot but Steele had already dropped his carbine and charged, hands outstretched, the carbine dropping across his body, hanging from its sling, banging against the armored suit.
Backpedaling, the soldier fired and held the trigger down, the rounds thumping out past Jack's shoulder as he swept the muzzle wide, blowing pictures off the wall, destroying the flat screen TV, killing plants, crystal figurines and a Navajo wall rug. Driving him bodily backwards with the force of a small, angry locomotive, their momentum stopped in a wood splintering, bone crushing collision with the totem pole, the eagle's beak blasting through the soldier's spine, impaling him there. Steele backed away and the soldier hung there, his eyes vacant, the shotgun dropping to the Mexican tile with a clatter, blood running down the totem forming a pool at the base.
Steele collected his carbine and purposefully ejected the spent charge-pack from its receiver, letting it bounce across the floor, slapping a full one in place. “Search the house, they have to be here somewhere...”
■ ■ ■
“Boss! Got something back here...”
Steele followed Dale's voice to the entertainment room, “Whatcha got?”
Dale pointed at the far wall with the entertainment center against it, “Use your thermal...”
“Steele closed his visor and brought up his thermal vision, seeing a section of the wall considerably cooler than the rest. He went over and moved items on the shelves, reaching behind and tapping on the surface, “Its metal...” He checked the rest of the wall, which was concrete. “This has to be a door...”
“Knock on it.”
“It's too heavy, I don't think they'd hear it...”
“Bridge to Admiral Steele.”
“Steele.”
“We're seeing a radio signal transmitting from this area. Low tech but we can still work with it...”
“Can you send it to my TESS?”
“Aye, routing the signal.”
TESS's holo-screen popped up, her face appearing in the corner. “What would you like me to do with this Admiral?”
“I want to receive and send. Can you do that?”
“I will have to lower my signal standards...” she said sarcastically.
Steele exchanged a curious glance with Dale. “Just do it please...”
“Very well...”
■ ■ ■
As the mechanism rotated the door's locking pistons scraped metal on metal before clearing the frame. Swinging open slowly, heavily, the entertainment center and big screen TV moved with it. Jack waited patiently, resisting the urge to pull it open, Dale Alaroot standing behind him.
The muzzle of a shotgun preceded the person holding it, emerging from the dimly lit room, Kyle Steele squinting in the brighter light. Lynette hesitated, a flash of fear crossing her features and Pete stomped stiffly out to Kyle's side, his sizable Black Lab bulk hackled in protection mode, giving a low guttural growl, his teeth showing.
“Boss, is your visor up or down?” Dale almost whispered.
Steele shook his head mentally, “Thanks,” he replied, reaching up slowly and touching the release, the gold reflective shield sliding up out of sight, revealing his smiling face, his eyes moist at having found them, safe and sound. “Hi guys..
!”
■ ■ ■
Steele wasn't sure what he was more upset about; that the soldiers were a private corporate army or that he'd lost a Marine, a good man, Corporal Dunnom.
The armored suits were an outstanding design, a composite metal skin grown molecule-by-molecule in a special process, lined with a bioelectrical conductive encapsulated gel. When your muscles moved, the gel read the bioelectric impulses and told the suit what to do. The gel kept the occupant's temperature regulated and provided a distribution of force quotient to minimize the transfer of kinetic energy from exterior impacts to the wearer. The only drawback Steele could see was they were heavy and considerably slower than a man, unencumbered, on foot. You'd lose a footrace in one of these things. But if that footrace was though a firefight, slow and alive was better than fast and dead.
But the suits were not meant or designed to defeat something like an antitank weapon... Dunnom was dead before he hit the ground. Hell, he was dead before the projectile exited the back of his armor, cut in half then juiced by the explosive pressure created inside the suit. The upside, if there was one, was that he probably never saw it coming and he never felt a thing, the event of his death measured in hundredths of a second.
Examining the empty armor suit hanging on its rack, he rubbed his hand over the dent the .50 caliber round put in the armor he was wearing, the bullet's copper jacket permanently fused to the armor, a smooth, burnished, golden plasma burn on the surface. He reflexively rubbed the softball sized bruise on his chest. At the time, he hadn't even noticed that the impact had blacked out half of the suit's HUD. It was probably why he had run out of ammunition in his carbine's charge-pack without noticing.
His thoughts went to the private corporate army. So many of them, and in some cases, so little oversight. And depending on the company and its integrity, so little ethics or control.
Wings of Steele: Revenge and Retribution Page 52