Open Arms (On Silver Wings Book 7)

by Evan Currie

“A hunch?” Grant raged. “Do you know how much the things you destroyed here will cost to replace?”

  “Less than the cost of being surprised,” she said, a light flickering on her armor as she spoke.

  “Surprised by what?” Grant demanded. How can she know?

  Her face faded away, the helmet darkening back to matte black. “Anything surprising, of course.”

  *****

  USV SOL

  “Armor’s up!” the watch officer at the comm panel said.

  “Send the intel from the scans,” Ramirez ordered. “How are shuttle preps going?”

  “We can launch in three minutes, sir.”

  “Get those birds into space,” Ramirez snapped, standing up.

  “Comms up!”

  The icons on the display went from light grey to blue as the soldier’s armor began transmitting IFF signals. Every human sign outside the villa switched to red, while the remaining signals inside remained yellow.

  “Colonel Aida,” Ramirez said, “we’re monitoring a significant force closing on your location. They’re coming in from all sides. Full details to your tactical HUD.”

  *****

  Sorilla twisted, looking around herself as her HUD lit up with data from the SOL’s scanners. It wasn’t realtime, but now that they had a lock on the OPFOR surrounding them, the SOL was able to feed steady updates without using the extreme power of a full scan.

  Red icons lit up her HUD in all directions, with distance and heading information listed. She watched as the forces approached.

  “We have a company-scale force approaching,” she said, “and we have to assume that they have Alliance weapons. Air support and dust-off is still twelve minutes out, at best, but they’ll be cautious with gravity weapons in play, so I’d expect a little longer.”

  “We’ll need to move the APC out so it can provide support,” Strickland said. “Inside it’s of limited value.”

  “We’ll get one strike before that,” Sorilla said, “through the walls.”

  “Through the walls?” Eri objected. “This is my home!”

  “And a fine home it is,” Sorilla told him honestly. “I think I may make some changes to my plans back home based on your architecture. However, right now, it’s soft cover and nothing more.”

  She turned on Grant, striding over and grabbing his shoulder before he could move.

  “Let…go of me!” he snapped, gritting his teeth against her enhanced grip.

  Sorilla ignored him, tearing at the scorched pocket and pulling the burnt-out device from within. She flipped it up, tossing it over her shoulder to Nicky as he reached up and snagged it from the air.

  “See what you can learn from that,” she ordered, not looking away from Grant. “Tell me if we have a Judas, or a goat.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the corporal responded, cracking open the case of the device and examining the burnt-out remains.

  “Grant, what is she talking about?” Eri demanded, looking around in both fear and confusion.

  “I have no idea!”

  “Judas, ma’am. It’s a secure comm, not a tracer,” Nicky spoke up.

  Eri turned back to Grant. “What have you done!?”

  Grant’s expression twisted. “What you didn’t have the spine to do.”

  “That’s what I wanted to hear,” Sorilla said, twisting to toss him toward Kriss. “Hold onto him. We’ll need what he knows.”

  The Lucian easily caught the man as he stumbled across the room. “I am no interrogator, nor am I a prison guard.”

  “You’re lucky I’m not tying your dumb ass down and leaving you out of this entirely,” she snarled. “Or did you really think I wasn’t going to notice that you’re bleeding?”

  The Lucian’s hand went automatically to his side, hiding his wince. “You knew?”

  “Wasn’t my business if you wanted to be an idiot,” she said flatly, “but you’re not fighting beside my men with an open wound. When did you pull the stitches?”

  “At the Red Room.”

  Sorilla nodded, unsurprised. “You stay back, guard the prisoner…or I knock you both out and come back for you when the fight is over.”

  The Lucian glared at her, something she returned in kind, though he couldn’t see through her helm. The others shifted uneasily as the silence built up slowly, until Kriss finally laughed sharply and gestured in surrender.

  Temporary surrender, of course. That was the only kind a Sentinel would permit himself, and even then, never in battle.

  “I will watch the prisoner,” he said finally.

  Sorilla continued to stare for a moment before nodding curtly and turning away to address her men. “We have multiple priorities, but survival takes top spot. Major, what do you think? Defend or break out?”

  Strickland frowned, considering the question.

  “A company-size force with Alliance weapons is a problem,” he said.

  Sorilla snorted. “No shit.”

  “I mean that I don’t know that we can defend a soft target like this for twelve minutes or successfully break out with only a single APC as our primary asset,” Strickland answered.

  “You have a third option?”

  Strickland looked over to Kriss. “Are we cleared for heavy weapon deployment, Sentinel Kriss?”

  “Define heavy,” Kriss responded. “Alliance officials will be unimpressed, shall we say, if you were to deploy weapons of mass destruction on an Alliance protectorate.”

  “Understandable,” Strickland replied. “I was thinking more along the lines of low-yield kinetic warheads, launched from orbit.”

  “Still problematic,” Kriss responded. “Orbit-to-ground destruction is viewed in very similar lines as any other weapon of mass destruction, I am afraid.”

  Strickland swore softly. It was a bad thing to be between a rock and hard place. If the Alliance looked poorly on the use of orbital bombardment, that might cause relations to degrade, which could lead to resumed fighting. On the other hand, without some type of support, he didn’t see a way out for the team.

  “Sentinel Kriss,” Sorilla spoke up, “can you contact Seinel? He could release weapons clearance, I believe?”

  “If anyone in the system could, or would, it would be him.” Kriss nodded. “I will try.”

  “In the meantime,” Sorilla said, “prep for breakout.”

  Strickland looked at her for a moment, but then nodded. “You heard the colonel. Let’s move, people!”

  Chapter 14

  Airfield

  Lieutenant Sharon Caliph, call sign Peregrine, bolted upright when every system on her baby started screaming.

  “What the hell is going on?” she blurted, leaning in and examining the instruments as her eyes widened. “Oh holy hell.”

  Someone had just stepped in a bear trap.

  She slapped her hand down on the alert, triggering a lighting shift in the small flight deck of the shuttle drop ship and an external alarm. She heard people scrambling in the back, and in a few seconds Captain Harrison stuck his head through the open blast door that separated her from the troop section.

  “What’s going on?” the captain demanded.

  “The SOL just went scanners active, full power ping,” she said. “I’ve got updates coming in. Looks like the team got themselves in a bit of a mess. No orders yet, but get everyone ready to move, and step up the alert.”

  Technically she shouldn’t have been giving orders to a superior officer, but as the pilot in charge of the drop ship, she could lay down the law to a certain degree, no matter who she was talking to. Up until the SOL issued orders, at least.

  “Got it,” Harrison said, ducking back out as Caliph brought the drop ship’s scanners up to full power.

  While her baby didn’t have the power of the SOL, the drop ship’s scanners were plenty potent. On full power, though, they’d drain her standby batteries in no time, forcing Caliph to bring the reactors up.

  Let’s see if that’s necessary, she thought as she worked, pau
sing only to glance over her shoulder. “Someone tell Swift to get his ass in here!”

  “I’m coming!” Ensign Thomas “Swift” Gin shouted as he stumbled through the hatch, quickly dropping into the RIO seat. “What’s going on?”

  “Team stepped in the shit, now we get to see how deep. Bring up the scanners,” she ordered. “I expect we’ll get orders to move in short order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Caliph leaned forward, checking out the armored windows of the drop ship. The field looked quiet. She wasn’t seeing anything that made her worry locally, so far at least.

  She hoped that kept up.

  *****

  Scott Harrison stomped down the ramp, waving to bring his team in close, noting that the Lucians who had been left with them followed suit.

  “What’s up, Cap?” Lieutenant Hardy asked, speaking for the team.

  “Colonel stepped in something. Alarm’s been sounded. For now we make sure we’re secure here,” he said. “Peregrine is going to scan-pulse the area, but I want eyes out on all sides. We don’t know what’s going on yet, but if the colonel found trouble, it might come looking for us. Go.”

  His team split. They knew their jobs, leaving him standing there with the Lucians.

  “Who’s in charge absent Sentinel Kriss?” he asked, looking them over.

  “Whoever is most capable in the given situation,” one answered simply, which told him pretty much nothing at all.

  “Who would that be now?”

  They exchanged glances briefly, one stepping forward.

  “I am Sentinel Mae,” he said in the gravelly tone Harrison had come to associate with the Lucians. “I am best versed in establishing defensive requirements and directing them as needed.”

  “Alright, Mae, you’re with me,” Harrison said crisply. “Deploy your Sentinels as needed, but keep in contact in case we need to lift off. The situation just became highly unstable.”

  “Very well,” the Sentinel answered curtly before turning and barking out orders in the Lucian language.

  Harrison caught perhaps one word in three, likely less. He was starting to learn Alliance Standard, but his Lucian was far from fluent.

  He was really going to have to work on that.

  *****

  “Scanners up!”

  Caliph glanced over at the main threat board as the scanner echoes started hitting back. There were several grounded birds around them, all local build, all atmospheric designs, of course. None of them had any sign of power, which left them dead on her scopes. The building was lit up, but no signs of anything hostile were in evidence.

  People were another story.

  There were quite a few, of course; it was a semi-busy airfield and had people coming and going regularly. They were all pretty much armed. Figuring out which of them was a threat was going to be a pain.

  “Okay, we have thirty-four yellow-level threats. Log them, track them, and elevate them to red if they breach the outer perimeter,” Caliph ordered.

  “Roger that,” Ensign Gin acknowledged.

  She didn’t see any military signals—not Earth or Alliance, at least—anywhere in range. That surprised her slightly, in all honesty. They’d been on the ground for some time. She would have expected some sort of response from local authorities by this point, even if it was just to keep an eye on them.

  “SOL, Peregrine,” she said into the comm.

  “Peregrine, go for SOL.”

  “What’s going on?” she asked the comm officer. “We’re not getting any updates here.”

  “Still gathering intel, Peregrine. You’ll have to standby.”

  “‘Standby’ he says,” Caliph grumbled, killing the signal as she looked over to her RIO. “Do we have anything on the colonel and her team?”

  “Relay data from the SOL only,” Gin told her. “Location, not much more.”

  “Great. So where the hell are they then?”

  “Forty-eight miles due north…give or take a little to the east,” Gin told her. “Suit feeds aren’t being relayed. We’ll have to get closer to get into those.”

  “We’re not taking off yet,” she told him.

  “Going to have to make a choice soon,” Gin replied. “Batteries are down thirty percent. We’ll have to kill the actives soon, or light the fires.”

  *****

  Eri’s Villa

  “APC is ready to rock and roll, Colonel.”

  “Thanks, Corporal,” Sorilla responded, her focus on the external perimeter.

  The approaching forces were almost to the hundred-meter line, which would put them within range of most unaided small arms. Given that they were equipped with Alliance warp blasters, they were well within their effective range.

  So why haven’t they opened fire yet?

  Sorilla was well aware of the effective ranges of the weapons in question, and in their place, she would have already engaged. She also had a good idea why the enemy was holding back, or were apparently doing so at least.

  They have no idea what they’re doing, she realized with a sudden certainty. They’re children playing with toys they haven’t the training, or the intelligence, to understand.

  That thought reoriented her thinking, and she started working out how they were likely to operate with limited tactical experience with their weapons.

  If they’re using those weapons entirely on manual control, they’re going to be extremely crippled by that.

  “Major!” she called, turning from the window. “They think they’re carrying assault rifles.”

  “What?” Strickland looked over, confused by her statement.

  “They think they’re using rifles, Major,” she said again. “They have no clue how to deploy the weapons they’re carrying.”

  Strickland turned, looking out and through the walls with the augmented HUD, pensively silent for a few seconds as he considered that.

  “Break out,” he said, nodding firmly. “Master Sergeant!”

  “Sir!” Chavez responded instantly.

  “Weakest point in the enemy line?” Strickland snapped, getting in motion as he headed for the APC.

  “Northeast, away from the river, sir,” Chavez said. “And the airfield!”

  “Noted, Master Sergeant,” Strickland said, looking to Sorilla. “Colonel?”

  Sorilla nodded. “That’s the move. Break out through the gap at the three o’clock. Hook up with our backup in eleven minutes. Re-evaluate our options then. Go!”

  *****

  Reggie Maxim shifted uncomfortably as he moved through the scrub that surrounded the villa.

  Damn Xeno crap. What can’t they build these things to fit humans better?

  He twisted the Xeno weapon around, trying to keep it from rubbing against his arm and chaffing the skin off any more than it had already. Nothing about the damn thing was right. It felt like it had been designed by a retarded child, if anyone were to ask Reggie his opinion.

  No one ever seemed to, more’s the pity, to his thoughts.

  The back of the villa was just up ahead. He and the others were supposed to make sure no one came out the back door, but there was no motion at all in the entire back section so it looked like they were wasting their time. The guys in the front were going to have all the fun, apparently.

  Wasting a race traitor like Eri was the best kind of fun too.

  Any righteous man would have known better than to trade for Xeno goods. Human gear was perfectly fine; no one needed the off-world junk.

  One more traitor down, and Arkana would be that much more pure.

  Reggie paused as he adjusted his grip again, speaking into the encrypted communications system he was wearing.

  “All clear on the rear. Looks like they’re holing up inside,” he reported.

  Good luck to them, Reggie sneered. The weapons he and the others were carrying were going to turn that villa into a smoking crater, along with everyone inside.

  He was still fantasizing about the state he was going to
leave Eri’s ranch villa in when the back wall of the garage blew out, sending him and the others diving to the ground for cover.

  *****

  The electric motors on the APC all spun up instantly, sending pure torque to the six wheels. The airless tires bit in and twisted under the stress, throwing the big vehicle forward with acceleration. Everyone inside was thrown back, almost two full G’s of acceleration slamming them into their bolstered seats as the APC lurched forward and the main gun fired.

  The explosive round blew out the back wall of the garage just a second before the APC hit the remnant rubble and exploded through, flying over the threshold and slamming back to the ground before accelerating away in a cloud of dust.

  Men scattered in all directions as the big APC bounced, spinning its wheels in the air and biting them into the ground when it landed, teetering precariously on as little as one wheel at one point before finally settling into its suspension and getting full traction.

  Farther away from the explosive exit of the APC, some of the men got themselves together a little quicker. Several shifted their focus, arming their weapons and trying to get the APC in their sights.

  The main gun on the big armored vehicle whirred around, supersonic explosions erupting from it. The air ignited in a direct line from the gun to the target, and there the ground erupted and men were sent in all directions from the blast.

  *****

  “I have the gun,” Sorilla said over the din of the APC banging around, just seconds before the cannon roared.

  “Four targets down!” Chavez called. “Two ain’t getting up, not without some pretty impressive prosthetics, at least! Don’t know about the other two.”

  “As long as they’re not shooting,” Strickland said, “I could not care less!”

  The major pulled down the security brace a little harder, cinching himself in against the jarring motion of the APC. He had the tactical overview up on his HUD, the realtime imagery from the SOL filling his worldview.

  With Aida handling the gun, however the hell she was doing that, he focused on the tactical situation.

  “Shift course, three…no, eight degrees east,” he ordered the driver. “They opened a hole in their line when they dove for cover.”

  “Roger that.”

  They were all shoved to one side as the APC turned. The gun roared again, shaking them even through the armor.