Open Arms (On Silver Wings Book 7)

by Evan Currie

  “Leave them for now,” Sorilla decided. “The armor is on lockdown again, and they’re not prepping for any invasive attempts to breech it, which is what I was worried about. We have the lay of the land now. I’m thinking this is where we do exfil.”

  The chief laughed. “That’s ballsy, ma’am. Caliph is going to love you.”

  “She needs training in a real hot drop anyway,” Sorilla said. “It’ll be fun.”

  “If you say so, ma’am. So, what now?”

  “Now we head for the airfield.”

  *****

  Thankfully the rich dicks never seem to want to live close to the poor bastards who pay to keep them on top.

  Social elitism seemed bred into humans, and while it offered some advantages to the elite…particularly when times were good, it also made them easy and obvious targets in bad times. Right now, Sorilla and the men and Lucians with her were looking to usher in some very bad times indeed for whoever had tried to take them out at the villa.

  They bypassed the colony, using the extensive irrigation ditches for cover once the thicker flora was no longer an option. Since the local elitist types didn’t want any of the underclass living up next to them, much of the surrounding area was ostensibly irrigated for food production.

  In reality, Sorilla discovered as they got closer, the plants growing in those fields were more chosen for their pleasing appearance rather than any caloric or nutritional value.

  It figured.

  It was a walled compound, but the overall security was nothing particularly impressive. There was evidence of cameras. However, they were either turned off or in bad repair because she was able to scan the models and determine that there was no power to any of them.

  “Security seems light,” the chief said as they observed the area.

  “They didn’t build to keep out soldiers,” Sorilla said. “The wall is…it’s strange. It’s not a rich man’s wall either. Those are more ornate.”

  “Seen it before, ma’am.”

  Sorilla half turned. “Where would that have been, Corporal?”

  Corporal Janus stepped in closer and nodded to the wall. “It’s a typical militia design, ma’am. Still in use back home. It’s not really intended to keep out a military force; it’s more intended to slow down cops.”

  Sorilla slumped. “I should have realized that. They probably built it after the ship landed, using specifications they were familiar with. Well, good for us, I suppose. Corporal, shall we?”

  She gestured to the wall, and Janus nodded before stepping in closer.

  “Quietly, please,” she told him.

  “Yes, ma’am.” Janus put his hand on the wall, using the suit to scan the construction a little closer with the suit’s infra-sonic system. “Okay, we can breach with a standard kit, ma’am.”

  “I said quietly, Corporal,” Sorilla reminded him.

  “Trust me,” Janus said, retrieving a kit from his pack. “We’ve made them better.”

  Sorilla held up her hands, conceding the point to the corporal’s experience as she stepped back. “Do your thing, Corporal.”

  Janus got to work, laying out a strip of flat, rubberized material in an oval large enough to walk through, then he grabbed a small detonator and connected it to the rubber material.

  “Okay, step back,” Janus said, taking his own advice. “Fire in the hole.”

  Sorilla automatically started to flinch away, but rather than the dull crump she expected, the sound was more of a fizzle and her gut twisted very minutely. Intrigued she looked back and leaned in, noting the almost smokeless burn from a pure white flame. The sizzle ran quickly, just a few seconds, and material started melting away from the wall in a small river.

  The section inside the thermal material slumped in place, then fell back as Janus stepped aside to let it land in the mud.

  Sorilla nodded and looked through the hole. “Impressive. Clean through. I didn’t think you could get that without an explosive cut.”

  “Directional thermite,” Janus replied. “It uses an EM field to direct the iron in the paste. At least, that’s more or less how they explained it.”

  “It’s not electromagnetic,” she said, looking through the hole.

  “It’s not?” Janus asked. “I distinctly remember the briefing saying that.”

  Sorilla nodded, swapping to the squad secure channel. “Not surprising. Pretty sure the real reason is classified like you wouldn’t believe. I’m surprised they issued it to you for this mission.”

  “Why this mission, ma’am?”

  Sorilla glanced over to where the Lucians were standing, observing them.

  “Just don’t let the Alliance people get too close when you’re using that,” she ordered. “The EM story should hold, for now.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Janus said, sounding confused but accepting the order.

  “It’s cool enough,” Sorilla said, scanning the hole. “Proceed.”

  The team broke cover and moved through the wall, heading into the compound and toward the airfield.

  *****

  USV SOL

  “Finally.” Ruger rolled his eyes as they watched the team enter the compound and begin their approach to the target.

  “I told you, Ruger,” Mattan said, “Sister makes her own calls.”

  “I’m not annoyed with her, or her decision,” Ruger grumbled. “What I am is aggravated as hell that we couldn’t give her enough intelligence to keep her on target from the start. This mission is a mess, start to finish.”

  “Finish is a long way off yet,” Mattan said, “but yeah, it’s a field op. They’re always a mess. Now, where's the target aircraft?”

  Ruger gestured over the table and one of the hangars lit up. “Right here. Is the backup team ready to go?”

  “Sleeping in the tubes. They have been since the start of this,” Mattan confirmed. “We’ll launch them the second the team is spotted, or when Sister calls for them, whichever comes first.”

  “Drop ship will be following them down, I presume?”

  “With the Saddleback covering them both,” Mattan nodded. “Relax. We know our job.”

  “I hate field ops.”

  Mattan chuckled. “I’ve seen your record. You’re surprisingly not bad at them for someone who dislikes them so much.”

  “Too much at stake to be less than perfect, General. Far too much.”

  *****

  With the Lucians, Sorilla reflected absently as they moved quickly to the side of a hangar for cover, she had the equivalent of a full platoon for the operation. It was an odd composition for a Special Forces platoon, of course, but so far it seemed to be clicking well enough together just the same.

  The twelve-person team settled in against the corrugated metal of the hangar, waiting while the forward observer edged out to the corner and extended his suit scanner beyond so he could get a picture of the field beyond.

  Piggybacking on his scans, Sorilla observed the scene carefully.

  It looked much like any small airfield might, on Earth or Hayden. Her own personal field, in fact, was quite similar. The days of long stretches for takeoff and landing were mostly gone, aside from a few seriously large heavy lifter vehicles that still had need of the space, so everything was assigned to relatively small pads that were carefully leveled out of the local terrain and surfaced over to prevent FOD damage from any stray particulates.

  The hangars were for repair tools and gear, as well as more secure spaces for people who wanted to keep their craft protected from whatever might happen. Less affluent sorts just left their own vehicles out in the open in their own space.

  All very standard, extremely normal.

  Except one of these was flying toward Eri’s villa right at the time of the attack.

  It seemed…less than likely to be a coincidence.

  “There’s the target hangar, ma’am,” the forward observer said, tagging the building in question.

  “Map us a least-contact path to the buildi
ng,” Sorilla ordered. “Everyone else, look for witnesses. I want to be in and out quietly, if at all possible. Certainly I want to acquire whatever evidence we need before the shooting starts, clear?”

  “Crystal, ma’am,” Chief Warrant Officer Brackston said firmly. “We’ll ghost this whole damn place if that’s what it takes.”

  Sorilla smiled slightly. “I suspect our friends here might feel put out if we don’t get in at least a little shooting, Chief.”

  “There’ll be shooting enough for everyone when we recover the bodies of our own, ma’am.”

  “Right you are, Chief. Very good point. Ghost away.”

  The chief warrant officer nodded and gestured quickly, signaling the others without accessing the NFC communications channels. Men broke up into pairs, swiftly going about their business with the quiet professionalism she expected from the Fifth.

  Sorilla caught the shoulder of one of the men, the team’s shooter, and gestured with two fingers to a tower near the wall some distance off.

  “That looks like an old watchtower, Sergeant Craig,” she said. “No sign of use for some time, but I believe you might make good use of that?”

  The sergeant glanced over at the tower, considering for a moment.

  “Yes, ma’am, I believe I can. Permission to take Corporal Gilbert and secure the tower, ma’am.”

  “Make it happen. Oh, and Sergeant,” she said before he could head off.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Be sure to secure your egress point as well.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sorilla watched the man tag another troop and the pair broke off, keeping low in the weeds as they started across to the tower.

  Chief Brackston came over. “Ma’am?”

  “We need overwatch from a little closer than orbit, Chief. I’ll feel better with a marksman watching my back.”

  Brackston nodded. “No complaints here, ma’am.”

  “Ma’am.” A corporal gestured, calling her and the chief in closer. “We have an approach route.”

  “Good. I want to see the inside of that hangar. Let’s move.”

  *****

  “What happened!?”

  The elderly man roared his anger over the voices of everyone present in the opulent establishment.

  “We sent over SEVENTY men! Seventy men armed with the best weapons we could acquire from those beasts that call themselves our rulers. How is it possible for us to have lost so many against so few?”

  The listeners shifted uneasily, no one willing to volunteer a response.

  “No one?” he ground out. “Not one of you even has an excuse?”

  “Apologies, Elder,” one younger man finally said, stepping forward. “We misestimated the skill of the Earthers who were working with the Xenos and traitor. Elder, we have not had a standing army since landing on Arkana. Our militia are brave fighters, they did not flinch, but they were outclassed on every level.”

  The old man glowered hotly across the room at the speaker, letting his hands drop to the table.

  “So, one of you has the balls to state the obvious,” he gritted out. “We have had no need for an army here, not since we left the filth of Earth behind. We should have realized, perhaps, that eventually that filth would reach out to us…or even that there would be other unholy beasts from beyond the stars themselves that would seek us out.”

  He sighed, taking a seat with ginger care. “Pull the archives, everything we have on organization and training for a standing army. It is clear now, we have been complacent. We will no longer be guilty of that sin.”

  He sighed, looking around the group.

  “Call up the militias,” he ordered. “I want the weapons secured. Eri survived, and as long as that holds, there will be elements in the colony we’re are unable to fully control. These damn Xenos and the Earthers are conspiring against us, and at this point we do not need that sort of attention.”

  *****

  “Colonel, overwatch,” Sergeant Craig said as he lay prone in the old watchtower that had seen its best days more than a few years before. “In position.”

  “Roger, overwatch,” the colonel’s deceptively soft voice came back quickly. “Standby. We’re going to cross to the target hangar. Watch for any sign of witnesses. Sing out if you spot anyone.”

  “Roger that. On it.”

  Neither he nor the corporal splayed out beside him were looking through scopes just yet, using their suit systems to get a decent magnification on the compound. Sniper scopes were more powerful, by far, but the field of vision was correspondingly narrow and that made it difficult to spot anything other than exactly what you were looking at.

  “Call out if you see anything,” Craig ordered over the NFC link to the corporal. “I’m going to check the windows of the big hall over there.”

  “Got it, Sergeant.”

  Craig shifted his focus, tightening in on the large hall. The building was ornate, with lots of large windows opening up on the zone the team was going to have to cross. He quickly scanned from window to window, looking for anyone that might be peeking out in the wrong direction, but determined that the windows had to be set high in the building to provide light rather than a view.

  The locals seemed fond of gothic architecture, or perhaps neo-gothic might be more accurate.

  “Colonel, overwatch. You’re clear to move.”

  *****

  “Go,” Sorilla hissed, gesturing to send the first four men sprinting low across the open space to the hangar.

  The rest hung back until they had gained cover by the hangar, then Sorilla paused just long enough to confirm they were clear again before she sent the next group across. That left her and the Lucians waiting for the next window.

  “We’re next,” she said. “No contact, no shooting. We’re still in intelligence-gathering mode. Clear?”

  The Lucians all gave her a look that she interpreted as rebelliousness, but Kriss nodded curtly.

  “We understand. Patience is a warrior’s ally,” Kriss said. “We can be patient…until it is time to not be patient.”

  “That time is coming,” Sorilla promised, glancing over as she cocked her head to listen to a voice they couldn’t hear. “Move.”

  They broke cover, springing low and bent over as close to the ground as they could, not stopping until they reached the cover of the hangar, where they were met by the rest of the squad with rifles covering all directions around them.

  “All clear, Colonel,” the chief said, gesturing over his shoulder. “Side door, just up there. We’ve scanned the building, eyeball and tech. No one inside.”

  “Breach the door,” she ordered. “Let’s get inside.”

  “Roger that,” the chief said, gesturing to the breaching team.

  The door popped with no effort, and they went through quickly into the dark interior of the hangar.

  It was big, of course, with a single aircraft parked in the middle.

  They approached slowly, the team covering all sides as Sorilla, Kriss, and the chief walked up to the aircraft.

  “Access is open,” the chief said, nodding to the lowered staircase that was unfolded from the fuselage.

  “Old design,” Sorilla said as she approached the access point. “We haven’t used tubular fuselage in…what, decades?”

  “More,” Chief Brackston said. “I’ve flown on a few of these rattletraps, restored antiques and the like. They fly like pigs who can’t figure out how they got up there.”

  Sorilla chuckled as she climbed the stairs into the belly of the beast. It was large enough inside, she found, and clearly outfitted as a mobile command post of sorts.

  “Chief, call in Keane,” she ordered.

  The chief nodded. “He’s on his way.”

  The technical specialist appeared seconds later. “Chief? Ma’am?”

  “This looks like a mobile command vehicle, Corporal,” Sorilla said. “I want a full data dump of their computers before we move on.”

 
; “Yes, ma’am.”

  Sorilla watched briefly as the man got to work, but turned her focus away to move forward to the cockpit.

  She took a seat in the pilot’s chair and examined the controls. They were pretty standardized; controls hadn’t changed significantly since the VTOL systems became standard. She reached under the console and flipped the switch marked for power, bringing the systems online.

  “I’m going to pull the flight data,” she said as the chief stepped in behind her. “See if you can find anything useful.”

  “I’m not much of an investigator, ma’am. More of an instigator, frankly,” the chief replied.

  “Noted,” she said as she turned on the navigation system and flipped through the recorded waypoints stored in the system. “Someone was definitely planning on landing at Eri’s villa…huh…”

  “What is it?” the chief asked.

  “They weren’t coming here after the villa,” she said. “They had another waypoint set.”

  “Where?”

  Sorilla shifted, looking to the north for a moment. “Out to sea, several miles out to sea.”

  The chief frowned. “I don’t remember any islands or structures out that way on the map.”

  “There aren’t any. I expect it was a one-way trip for someone,” Sorilla said, shutting it down.

  The chief winced. “Ouch. Seems a little extreme, though. Why not just shoot the target and plant him somewhere?”

  “Politics would be the obvious answer,” Sorilla replied. “Some people are too dangerous to leave around, even if they’re just a dead body…especially a dead body in some cases. It’s not uncommon to lose a body that’s more trouble than it’s worth, Chief. We’ve done it in the past.”

  “Chief! Colonel!”

  The pair got up and made their way back into the command post part of the plane.

  “What is it, Corporal?” Sorilla asked.

  “Data dump is finished. You might want to check this,” Keane said, sending a packet to them.

  Sorilla opened it quickly, examining the files.

  “Oh, shit.”

  “What are seeing?” Brackston asked. “I’m not seeing anything here.”

  “Kriss!” Sorilla twisted, heading out of the aircraft. She only paused to glance back. “Good work, Corporal. Shut it down. Get back with the squad.”