Nolan leaned into the tree and drew in a deep, calming breath. He studied his enemies just as he studied his terrain, his analytical mind breaking everything down to individual components.
The Black Crows wore lightweight combat suits. No problem for his Balefire or Bex’s MK75. Their three-quarter-shell helmets protected their skulls, but the pulled-down translucent visors shielding their faces wouldn’t stop a high-caliber bullet or blaster bolt. Grenades sat on their belts—all conventional frags and flashbangs. No rocket-propelled plasma grenades or rifle-mounted grenade launchers that he could see. All trace of confidence had fled from their posture, and they looked as scared as freshly graduated Ironhands in their first battle. They’d come heavily armed and armored, yet the first taste of blood—their own—had rattled them badly.
Good. A savage grin spread across Nolan’s lips. Fuckers won’t live long enough for the piss in their pants to dry.
The rainforest between him and the five Black Crows was too dense to get a clear shot at this range—thick leaves, dangling vines, and solid tree trunks made difficult visual obstacles. The uphill angle complicated things further.
But, as he’d hoped, the Black Crows’ attention was riveted on their wounds and the cabin to their north. Only one of the contractors faced his direction, and he was too busy shouting into a comms device for backup—his loud, panic-edged voice carried through the trees—to look down the hill for any trouble.
Without hesitation, Nolan lowered his rifle and broke into a loping run. Skim-skating uphill was always exhausting, but he had no need for stealth. The Black Crows would be so consumed by the adrenaline rush, the threat they knew awaited them in the cabin, and the loss of their comrades to detect his movement from hundreds of meters out.
He ran until he was within two hundred and fifty meters of the Black Crows—so close he almost imagined he could hear their hammering heartbeats and the sound of their accelerated panting—then took cover behind the moss-covered trunk of an enormous hemlock tree. Raising his rifle, he sighted on his targets.
From this range, he couldn’t miss, and the forest had thinned enough to offer a clear line of fire on all five. He scanned the contractors, his mind running through its instinctive threat assessment and ranking his targets by priority—all in the space of two seconds.
He closed his eyes and drew in three breaths to slow the beating of his heart after the uphill run. His hands steadied on the Balefire’s smooth metal stock, and his mind settled into that place of calm where nothing existed but him, the barrel of his rifle, and the enemy in his crosshairs.
His eyes opened. He sighted through the scope, taking aim at the highest-priority threat: the man shouting over comms. His finger slid onto the trigger and, with perfect precision, he pulled it nearly to its break point.
One long inhale, hold for two, then exhale. His finger squeezed. The Balefire Mark 2.1 hummed in his hands, and the barrel spat a white-hot needle. Pink mist exploded out the back of the first Black Crow’s head as the bolt tore through his face shield, skull, and helmet at nearly two kilometers per second.
Before the body began to fall, Nolan moved, sighting on his next target. The contractor on the far right had half-turned away from the cabin, his gaze locked onto the man who’d been talking on comms. The heavy machine gun in his hands could do massive damage if he ever got off a shot. Nolan put his lights out with a single clean hole through the side of his skull.
The next target never had a chance to turn toward the man to his right, who was slumping and dropping his heavy machine gun. Nolan’s bullet drilled a hole through the base of his skull, severing his spine. He flopped to the leaf-covered forest floor without a sound.
On to the next. A quick breath, a squeeze of the trigger, and the fourth Black Crow was down. The last man barely had time to register the sizzling hiss of the bolt searing through his comrade’s skull and exploding out his face before white-hot light tore through the back of his own head. He collapsed facedown into the root he’d been using for cover, appearing for all the world as if he’d simply fallen asleep.
Nolan drew in one final breath, let it out, and removed his finger from the trigger. Enemies down, he thought.
He rose quickly, smoothly, every sense on full alert. His five targets didn’t stir, but he couldn’t take chances, not with reinforcements on the way.
Silence filtered through his helmet’s auditory sensors. The rainforest around him had gone utterly still and quiet, leaving him with only the slow, steady beating of his heart for company.
He set off at a run, dashing the last few hundred meters up the hill toward the cabin. He followed Taia’s charted path, which led around the randomly placed anti-personnel mines and approached the structure from the southeast.
Nolan’s heart leaped as he crested the hill and spotted the cabin fifty meters away. The Black Crows on the north side hadn’t resumed their offensive, but had fallen back to take cover. The cabin’s walls and windows remained intact. The sight of the slowly swiveling automated turrets felt strangely reassuring—it was damned good to have that kind of heavy power on his side—but he knew they’d just slow his enemies down, not stop them. The Black Crows’ first order of business would be to eliminate those.
“Jadis, I’m coming in!” Nolan called over comms. He deactivated his digital cloaking as he raced toward the back door on the cabin’s east side. “Hold your fire.”
He tore open the door—which Taia had unlocked at his approach—and raced through the kitchen toward the living room. Empty, he found. The couches, wooden dining table, and furniture had all been overturned and shoved together into a surprisingly well-constructed barricade. It didn’t matter that the furniture made poor cover and only half-decent concealment; it served as proof that Jadis was still sharp and clear-headed despite the threat to her life.
“Jadis?” he called out via comms. No answer. Fear set his pulse racing and he tried again, this time using both comms and his helmet’s external speakers. “Jadis, where are you?”
“In the basement!” Her voice sounded faint, distant.
Nolan charged out of the living room, along the hall, and through the doorway that led down the stairs into the basement. Relief flooded him at the sight of the three figures in the bare subterranean room—she’d heeded his instructions and gotten underground.
Jared lay atop a blanket thrown onto the hard permacrete floor. Unconscious, it appeared. Nolan couldn’t tell if his brother’s condition had improved or worsened. Jared still looked so weak, his emaciated body terribly pale and yellow in the dim basement light.
Roz sat at Jared’s side, holding his large hand in both of her small ones. She rocked back and forth, singing a song—to herself or to Jared, Nolan didn’t know. Her eyes were closed and her cheeks wet with tears.
A fully armored Jadis knelt over Jared. The helmet to her combat suit—his older-model armor—sat at the base of the staircase, next to the BR51 blaster rifle she’d leaned against the wall. Worry lined her face as she looked up from Jared, but it gave way instantly to bright relief at the sight of him.
“Nolan!” she called, leaping to her feet.
Nolan raced down the stairs and swept her into a fierce embrace. Her arms wrapped around his neck and held him close, so tight he could feel the fear rippling in every muscle fiber. Yet she gave no outward sign of the terror he knew had to be coursing through her. Instead, she pulled back to arm’s length and looked him over. “You’re okay!”
A lump rose in Nolan’s throat. Even with her life in danger, armed men attacking the house, she worried about him. “More importantly, I’m here. And Bex is on her way. Just had to take care of a little situation.”
Hope filled Jadis’ eyes. “And the others?”
Nolan grimaced and shook his head. “The Scimitar’s not quite as fast. They’ll be here soon, though.”
For a moment, Jadis’ expression darkened, despair replacing the flickering spark of hope. But it passed quickly. Her jaw muscles
clenched, her face hardened, and she nodded. “Soon will have to do.”
Pulling away from Nolan, she turned and knelt in front of Roz. “Roz, love, open your eyes and look at me.”
Roz obeyed, her eyelids fluttering open. Fear shone in the little girl’s eyes, and she shrank back at the sight of Nolan.
“No, look at me, Roz,” Jadis said in a firm voice. She took the child’s hands in her own, and Roz turned a tear-stained face toward her. “Your mommy’s on the way. She’s coming to make sure the bad men don’t hurt us. But I need your help. I need you to help me protect him.” She gestured to where Jared lay on the blanket, still unconscious and far too pale for Nolan’s liking. “Can you help me keep him safe? Stay here with him, and make sure that he’s okay. Can you do that?”
Though tears streaked Roz’s cheeks and fear shone in her eyes, her expression took on a very familiar stubborn cast. “Yes,” she said quietly, nodding. “I can keep him safe. I can be brave for my friend Jared.”
A lump rose in Nolan’s throat at the sight of Roz taking Jared’s hand. He’d seen that look of sheer determination mirrored on Bex’s face so many times before. The little girl had inherited her mother’s strength, willpower, and courage. Terrified as she was, Roz was still a fighter. She would be brave…for someone else’s sake.
Suddenly, the light in the basement flickered and went dark. The humming of the appliances upstairs fell silent, too.
“That was an EMP blast,” Taia said.
Nolan’s fists clenched. He’d guessed as much, and he knew what it meant. The Black Crows were preparing to assault.
The real battle was about to begin.
Chapter Thirty
Nolan spun toward Jadis, activating his Ominstalker vision. “Stay here! Anyone that’s not me comes down those stairs, you know what to do.”
He turned to leave, but Jadis grabbed his arm. “I can fight!” she hissed. In the digitally amplified light streaming through the basement doors, Nolan saw the anger written on her face. “If this is some stupid chivalrous—“
“Jadis!” Nolan’s voice was firm, hard as stone. “I know what you can do. I know you can fight.” He hated the idea, knowing the danger she faced, but the Protection Bureau and their contractors left him no other choice. “That’s why I need you down here. Guarding our way out!” He thrust a finger in the direction of the durasteel door that led to the underground hover-train. “If we’re not surrounded already, we soon will be. I can only hold them off for so long. If shit hits the fan, we’re going to have to bug out, and this is our exfil route. I need you to make sure that we can escape. Because if they cut us off, we’re well and truly f—“
Roz sniffled in the darkness, and Nolan quickly corrected himself.
“—fried,” he finished lamely. He gripped Jadis’ hand. “I promised Bex I’d keep her daughter safe until she got here. Please, I need your help to keep that promise.”
His words snuffed the anger on Jadis’ face. Her expression hardened, growing determined, and she gave him a terse nod. “Go!” she said. “I’ll hold here. No one’s getting past me.”
Relieved, Nolan squeezed Jadis’ hand once—a gesture he hoped reassured her more than it did him—then released her and turned to race up the stairs. He didn’t dare look back; the sight of the quietly crying Roz, unconscious Jared, and battle-ready Jadis tore at his heart.
We’re getting out of this! he vowed silently to himself. No matter what it takes.
He’d survived fifteen years in the Silverguard, fighting the Terran League, an enemy with technology, manpower, and skill commensurate with—and, occasionally, surpassing—the Nyzarian Empire’s. He’d endured nearly five years under the Protection Bureau’s thumb, taking on gangs, cartels, corporations, and terrorists to fulfill his contracts. Ex-Umbra’s pet AI had failed to take him down, as had Gavin Carson’s Silverbacks, Wolfe’s White Sharks, and Drake’s Ghostwalkers, an entire organization of killers-for-hire, and a terrorist outfit run by both former Terran League military and a Protection Bureau asset.
Countless enemies had tried to put him in the dirt. All had failed. He’d be damned if he let some half-trained contractors succeed now.
He reached the top of the stairs and raced toward Jadis’ barricade. She’d built it in an ideal location, with clear lines of sight to the front door on the cabin’s north side, the picture windows that offered spectacular views of the Celestial Cascades to the west, and the eastern back door through which he’d entered. He had the solid southern wall at his back, and the only weakness on that side of the house was the window in the kitchen.
A wry smile tugged at his lips as he vaulted the barricade. She never fails to impress.
The fleeting thought vanished from his mind in a moment. The energy clips she’d arranged inside the barricades were for her BR51, far too small for his Balefire Mark 2.1. There were no grenades, no RPGs—conventional or plasma—and only a single back-up weapon: the GMD Ripper he’d taken from Captain Drexel. If the time came when he’d need Ol’ Rippy, it would mean the situation had gone truly FUBAR.
“Taia, talk to me!” he said. “Tell me you’ve got eyes.”
“Yes and no,” Taia said. “The EMP fried my external cameras along with everything else inside the house. However, the digital optics built into the turrets remain active.”
“What?” Nolan’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean—“
“All four turrets remain operational,” Taia said. “They were built with integrated EMP shielding.”
“Hah!” Hope soared within Nolan. The turrets gave him a fighting chance—for a while, at least. He’d just have to use them cautiously.
The meaning behind Taia’s “yes and no” became clear. “You can’t rotate the turrets without letting the Black Crows know they’re still active.”
“Precisely,” Taia said. “And their current angle of view leaves a number of blind spots in our perimeter.”
“Good thing we’ve got thermals, then.” Nolan activated his penetrative thermal imaging with a mental command. “We’ll see them the moment they…”
He trailed off, his brow furrowed as he tried to scan the property outside the cabin. The anti-thermal shielding Taia had incorporated into every square centimeter of the building’s walls and doors made it impossible to see the structure’s occupants, and the carbon nanofiber reinforcing the glass windows generated a heat barrier that his infrared vision couldn’t penetrate.
“Shit!” he cursed. It made perfect sense as a defensive measure—anti-thermal shielding blinded the Protection Bureau’s satellites and prevented hostiles from identifying targets within the cabin. It also made it damned hard to keep a clear watch on the perimeter. “Anything else you can use to get eyes outside?”
“Negative,” Taia said. “Any camera-enabled equipment in the cabin was fried by that EMP blast.”
Nolan’s mind raced as he rearranged his defensive position. He adjusted the couch so it served as a solid gun rest for shots to the west and pulled the overturned dining room table slightly back, giving him a better sight line on the north-side front door. Then he set the GMD Ripper to the side, out of the space he’d need to move smoothly between firing angles, and made certain he could see the eastern back door from the corner of his vision. When the Black Crows made their move, they’d hit hard and fast.
“At the first sign of movement outside,” he told Taia as he gave his Balefire a quick once-over, “give me eyes.” A mental command activated his digital cloaking. “We’ve got to time this just right to inflict maximum damage, force them to think twice before they hit us again.”
“Copy that,” Taia said.
“How long until the Scimitar arrives?” Nolan asked.
“Twenty-nine minutes and thirty-two seconds.”
His next mental command prompted Taia to call up a countdown clock on his HUD—small, well out of his field of view, but visible enough for instant reference. He needed to know exactly how far out reinforcements were so he could
work out his strategies.
At the moment, there was nothing to do but wait and prepare for a fight. Aside from his six grenades—three Gatecrashers, a standard frag, and two flashbangs—the cabin offered nothing serviceable for booby traps, thanks to that damned EMP. That meant he had just his Balefire, his wits, and his reflexes to keep him alive in the battle to come.
He considered reaching out to Bex, updating her on the situation, but thought better of it. She’d had to circle wide to the west to come at the Mule Kick from an angle the Black Crows weren’t expecting. Her route wouldn’t bring her back inside the interference field until she was within three klicks of the SAM battery.
She’s got this, he told himself. If anyone can do this particular impossible, it’s her.
He just had to hold this position long enough for Bex to take out the surface-to-air missiles. The explosion required to take out the Mule Kick would be visible for kilometers in all directions—hopefully within range of the Phantasm’s cameras—and serve as the signal for Taia to bring the ship racing toward them. The Phantasm would make quick, bloody work of the Black Crows.
Nolan watched the forest outside the cabin through his scope, searching for any sign of movement. If the contractors were even half-trained, they’d be smart enough to stay out of his line of sight. Easier said than done, of course. The north side of the cabin had a clear view of the access road and the open front lawn. Any breach team advancing on that side would be visible at least two hundred meters out.
No, the Black Crows would come from the northeast, heading straight toward the corner of the cabin where no windows or doors offered him a line of sight. Southeast was far less likely, given that he’d dispatched the strike team waiting there. But they might risk that approach if they could get forces there in time.
His guess proved accurate.
Rampant Destruction (CERBERUS Book 10) Page 24
