The sound of something nearby splashing in the water made him turn and fire in the direction of the noise.
The attack was sudden and brutal. Cole stepped out from the dark, wrapped his left arm around his prey’s neck, and pulled back. A split second later, he thrust his knife deep into his opponent’s side and twisted the blade. He felt the man’s knees buckle. Without letting go of the insurgent’s neck, Cole brought him down to the ground before yanking his knife free and plunging it into the man’s heart. He waited a couple of seconds for the Chosen agent to die. When he was sure that the man was dead, he quickly rummaged through he pouches on his belt looking for anything that might be useful. He found three small, flexible hand grenades and a couple of non-lethal flashbang devices. He pocketed them all, turned around, and looked in the direction where he had last seen Sheridan. With his carbine in his hands, he began to make his way through the trees to his friend’s side when he heard the sound of a large industrial saw coming to life.
The trees in front of Sheridan seemed to spring to life. They shook from side to side as they were torn to pieces. A second later, he saw a drone flying just above the treetops. Hanging from the underneath of the machine was a long pole with a dozen circular saw blades on it. The noise of the blades tearing through the forest deafened Sheridan. He turned to run when a spotlight shot down from the drone lighting him up. In an instant, the flying machine dropped lower in the trees and began to cut a swath of destruction straight at Sheridan. He sprinted away, zigging and zagging through the trees, trying to make it hard for the drone to keep up with him. He had no idea how he was going to bring down the robot. His carbine lacked a grenade launcher and without one, it would be hard to bring down the robust machine. In the distance, he saw a cluster of tall-standing rocks and ran for it. The razor sharp blades would be useless against the rock and it might buy him some time to figure out how to deal with the drone.
Cole broke from cover and ran toward the far end of the arboretum. Rather than waste ammunition trying to bring the drone down, he was after the person operating the machine. As he sprinted around a parked vehicle, he saw a darkened shape standing behind a long table. He could see a man controlling the drone with a tablet in his hands. Cole could hear the shriek of the blades as they struck rock somewhere in the woods. He brought up his weapon and fired off a sustained burst into the man, dropping him. Without anyone at the controls, the drone switched off its cutting arm and hovered in the air, waiting for new directions. Cole jogged over to the man he had just shot and nudged him with his boot to make sure the insurgent was dead.
Sheridan couldn’t believe his luck when the drone stopped in mid-air and hovered above him, dark and lifeless. There could only be one answer. He brought up his watch to his mouth and called his friend. “I take it I have you to thank for this?”
“Who else is going to save your butt, Captain,” responded Cole. “You okay?”
“Yeah. I got one, what about you?”
“Three. You’re letting the team down, sir. Grab the tech and meet me by the elevator. I’m going to shoot out all the cameras I can find while I wait for you to join me.”
One floor below in the control room, all eyes were fixed on Harry Williams. No one spoke. No one moved. In a matter of minutes, their number had been reduced by almost a quarter.
Williams let out a breath through his nose and shook his head. He had hoped to catch Sheridan alive so he could watch his plan unfold, but it was not to be. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t afford to risk any more lives. He said, “Bring up the station’s schematics on the main screen.”
Tranquility Station came up on the display. Williams walked over and studied the picture for a few seconds before pointing to a series of large clasps spaced out all around the outside of the arboretum. “Are these what I think they are?” he said to no one in particular.
“Yes, sir, they are designed to keep the greenhouse attached to the top of the station,” said a man who had been working for months undercover as a member of the control room team.
Williams clapped his hands together. “Time for some target practice. Detach the greenhouse and fire up the station’s gun batteries.”
“Yes, sir,” replied an insurgent as he typed in the commands on his keyboard.
“Goodbye, Michael,” said Williams to the screen.
Chapter 28
The snow stuck to Tarina’s clothes like a cold, wet blanket. With Wendy walking in her footsteps, she walked blindly forward through the swirling snow.
“Where are we going?” asked Wendy.
“I don’t know,” replied Tarina. “I just want to get as far away from the base as possible.”
Through chattering teeth, Wendy said, “My feet are turning numb. If we don’t find shelter soon, I’m going to get frostbite.”
Tarina knew it wasn’t an exaggeration. If they didn’t get out of the cold, they would soon succumb to exposure and die. She slung her rifle over her back and pushed. Together they strode through the knee-deep snow. Before long, each step seemed to be harder than the last. Tarina thought she saw something and brought up a hand to block the blowing snow. A dark shape soon appeared before them.
“Come on, I think it’s a shed,” said Tarina trying to encourage her friend.
Seconds later, they pulled open a side door and stepped inside a pitch-back building. Right away they felt safer and warmer now that they were out of the bone-chilling snowstorm. Tarina moved her hand along a table until her fingers found a flashlight. She picked it up and turned it on. The light lit up the room. Inside the small maintenance shed was a snow tractor with a plow on the front of it. She had never seen one up close before but knew that they were used to keep the roads open in the winter.
Wendy brushed the snow from her body, opened the driver’s side door on the vehicle, and poked her head inside. After a few seconds rummaging around, she stepped back. In her hands were a couple of survival blankets.
“Thank God for that,” said Tarina as she took one of the blankets, knocked the snow from her body, and wrapped it around her shoulders. It didn’t take long for her body to begin to warm up under the wafer-thin blanket.
“Do you think they’ll come after us?” Wendy asked.
“When haven’t they?”
“For once, I’d like them to give in and let us be.”
“In the snow, it’s going to be hard to track us, but we have to be ready for them when they arrive. Beside these blankets, was there anything else of value in the cab?”
“Only a flare pistol.”
“Grab it. It’s not much but it something we might be able to use.”
Wendy nodded and crawled back inside the vehicle to retrieve the flare gun and its shells.
They had at best ten minutes before they were found, Tarina thought. For a brief moment, she thought of Angela and what fate had befallen her. She didn’t expect the insurgents to treat her well at all. She may be a Kurgan, but that didn’t guarantee her safety in the long run in the hands of fanatics. If they had to, she knew they would kill her to achieve their goals.
“Now what?” asked Wendy, holding up the loaded flare gun.
“Let’s plan a little surprise for our friends,” Tarina said with a mischievous glint in her eyes.
Chapter 29
Sheridan found Cunningham right where he left him, lying face down in the grass. He had to drag the young man to his feet to get him moving. He could hear Cole shooting out the cameras as they walked through the forest. It didn’t take them long to step foot on a path that lead to the closest elevator.
Cole was already busy trying to pry open the doors when they arrived.
“Are you okay to climb down the elevator shaft?” Sheridan asked the reluctant private.
“I guess so,” replied the technician.
“There is no guessing here, Private,” said Cole, slipping back into his NCO mode. “Either you can or you cannot. Which is it?”
“I can . . . I can.”
“What the hell is going on?” asked Sheridan.
The private came to life and pushed his way past Cole and looked down the shaft. “Hurry!” he yelled as he grabbed hold of the nearest ladder and rushed to climb down below.
Cole and Sheridan exchanged a look before leaping onto the ladder and hurrying after the technician.
Sheridan climbed down as fast as he could. He called out to Cunningham, “What’s the rush?”
“That is,” replied the private looking below them.
At first, Sheridan didn’t see what the problem was. A second later, his eyes widened when he saw a steel plate moving across the elevator shaft to seal it off.
Cole saw it too. He yelled out, “Jump!”
Without hesitating, all three men let go of the ladder. They shot past the steel door and fell another few meters before crashing down onto the roof of a stationary elevator.
Sheridan landed hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs. He moaned and rolled over just as the plate slammed into another plate, plunging the shaft into darkness.
Above them, the sound of dozens of latches releasing all at once reverberated down on them.
“What the hell just happened?” Cole asked.
“They’ve jettisoned the greenhouse out into space,” explained Cunningham. “That’s why the alarm went off. If we hadn’t gotten beneath the steel safety barrier, we would have been sucked out as well.”
“I guess we owe you our thanks,” said Sheridan, attempting to sound better than he felt.
“I didn’t want to die either, sir.”
Cole asked, “Anyone got a light?”
“I’ve got one in my pants pocket,” said the private.
Cole reached over. Right away Cunningham winced in pain. “Easy does it,” Cole said as calm as he could. He found the light and switched it on.
Sheridan looked over and saw why the young tech had gasped; his left foot was broken just below the ankle. “Hold still, Private, while Master Sergeant Cole and I check your injury out.”
“Looks like a clean fracture to me,” said Cole.
“I agree. We’re going to need something to splint his leg with.”
Cole shone the light around until he spotted an old technical manual jammed behind an empty metal box. He grabbed it and formed it into an expedient splint which, with Sheridan’s help, he placed it underneath the damaged ankle. Next, he took Cunningham’s belt and wove it around the splint until he pulled it tight. causing the young private to moan in pain.
“That’ll hold you for now,” reassured Cole. “You’ll be up and playing soccer in a week.”
“I hate the game,” griped Cunningham.
“You know, I don’t see a way down from here,” said Sheridan as looked down at the roof of the elevator they had landed on. It was a smooth, seamless metal surface.
Cole moved the light across the roof. “Damn, you may be right.”
“Well, one thing is for certain, we can’t go back up the way we came, so we have to find a way down.”
“I think I can help,” said Cunningham. “See if you can find a circuit breaker or a power box.”
Sheridan and Cole jumped to their feet and scoured the side of the shaft, desperate to find a box.
On the screen, the stadium-sized arboretum floated farther and farther away from the station. Tracked by a battery of guns, it was only a matter of seconds before the order was given to blast it into a million pieces.
Harry Williams stood silently watching the dome as it drifted out into space.
“Sir, the greenhouse is at a safe distance from the station to engage,” reported one of his weapons technicians. The last thing they needed were jagged fragments of the dome hurtling back at them causing catastrophic damage to the outer shell of the base.
“Are you locked on?” asked Williams.
“Yes, sir.”
“Then open fire and send them both to hell.”
The man pressed a button on his console. Outside, a row of forty-millimeter guns opened fire spewing thousands of rounds in a matter of seconds which ripped hundreds of holes in the bottom of the greenhouse. Mere seconds later, violent decompression finished off the dome as it collapsed in on itself. The once majestic forest floated free in space with the rest of the debris field.
“Now that that’s behind us,” said Williams to the people in the room, “let’s get back to work. Have we heard anything from the ADF regarding our demands?”
Chapter 30
“What the hell was that?” asked President Martinez, almost jumping out of his seat.
“Sir, looks like they just destroyed the station’s greenhouse,” reported a lieutenant-commander sitting behind a computer at the back of the president’s situation room.
“Why would they do that?”
“Maybe to send you a signal to hurry along with your decision, sir,” offered General Sadir.
A slender woman in a tight charcoal-gray suit stood up from her chair at the back of the room and handed the president a tablet. “Sir, World News Network caught the whole thing. It’s being carried on every station out there.”
Martinez placed the tablet down and rubbed his throbbing temples. He had already taken several pills for his migraine, he doubted a couple more would take the edge off the hurricane raging in his head. He took a deep breath to ease the pain and looked over at Sadir. “General, scrub the rescue mission, we’re far beyond that now. How long will it take you to place all of the Chosen detainees on Mars on a transport ship?”
“Sir, Home Guard Command has assured me that they can have them loaded onto a ship within an hour. He has people in place on Mars ready to give the order.”
“Give it.” The words felt like bile in the president’s throat. He had been forced to give into terrorism, and he didn’t like it one bit.
“Mister President, what about the offer to evacuate people from the station?” asked Sadir. “Shall I order the fleet to extract those people?”
Martinez sat back in his chair with a crestfallen expression on his face and nodded.
All around the room, staff officers hurried to get the orders passed. Martinez didn’t hear them, he sat staring at the picture of his predecessor hanging on the wall and wondered why all of this had to happen while he was in power. It seemed so monumentally unfair. He was about to reach for a glass of water when a warning light went off in the back of his head.
“General, what about the virus? We still don’t know where it is. If we evacuate those people, the virus could be hidden among them, or they could already be infected with it.”
Sadir pondered the president’s words before saying, “Sir, we can quarantine the ships that are used to pull our people from the station until they have been checked out medically. Also, we could take this opportunity to try to sneak some of Colonel Valens’ men on board during the evac process.”
“Do it!” The president’s sour mood lifted a little. If the virus could be found, then perhaps some good could come from the debacle unfolding on Tranquility Station.
An army colonel stood up and looked over at General Sadir. “Sir, the terrorists want to speak with the president.”
“Put them on,” said Martinez.
Harry Williams appeared on a wall-sized screen. “Good evening, Mister President. I take it you saw my little demonstration of this station’s firepower?”
“Yes, we saw it, Mister Williams. How may I help you?”
“Have you decided what you are going to do, or do I need to open the airlocks on one of the floors to help you make up your mind?”
“That won’t be necessary. I have given the order for all of the detainees on Mars to be loaded onto a transport ship. They should be on their way to Kurgan space within an hour.”
Williams smiled. “What of my offer to evacuate ten thousand people from the base?”
“That too is in hand. Once the fleet has sorted out the ships that are available to evacuate those people from the station, they will dock on the lower levels and begin the extraction.”
“A jump-capable ship?”
“That will be brought to the station within the hour.”
Williams nodded. “So far so good. Now let’s talk about the reason for this unfortunate incident. Have you sent a message to the Kurgan High Council asking them to engage in ceasefire negotiations?”
Martinez clasped his hands on the table in front of him and leaned forward. He looked deep into Williams’ eyes. “Mister Williams, I don’t think you are a fool, so don’t play me for one. Even with relay satellites, you know any message sent that far will take weeks for it to get there and weeks for a response to be sent back here to me. I have asked the Kurgans to talk, but you and your people from the detention centers on Mars will be home long before I ever get my answer.”
“That is good enough for me. Now, President Martinez, keep your soldiers on a short leash and this will end in just under two hours with no further need of bloodshed. Just remember, if a single soldier steps foot inside this station, the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent people up here will be on your head, not mine.”
The screen went blank.
Martinez sat back in his chair and ran a hand through his hair. He turned to look at Sadir. “General, something isn’t right about all of this. What it is, I’m not sure . . . at least, not yet.”
Sadir agreed, “He’s hiding something.”
“The more I think about this, the less convinced I am that they intend to release the Alpha Virus. They lost thousands of operatives staging worldwide attacks in an attempt to discredit me politically. The same goes for taking Tranquility Station. This was all a carefully conceived information operations stunt. The virus is the wildcard here. Why release it when they are asking us to sue for peace?”
Vengeance (The Kurgan War Book 4) Page 16
