Black Ops (Expeditionary Force Book 4)

by Craig Alanson

  “Do what you can, Skippy,” Smythe told himself he had been in worse situations, as he felt the chute straps detach and he plunged downward. Falling out of control toward the surface of a planet more than a thousand lightyears from home, above a city filled with hostile aliens, and little hope of rescue if he could not reach the primary or alternate landing zones. Moments later, he was spun head over heels in the air as something flashed by him close enough for his visor to display the outline of a Kristang single-seat fighter aircraft. The turbulence was violent enough that the helmet’s internal pillows inflated to prevent his skull from smacking into the back of the hard shell. Even so, he briefly lost consciousness and was completely disoriented for several moments as he tumbled out of control. The view from the visor was dizzying, and he saw that all the visor was showing was a feed from the local sensor network, the probe that extended outside the suit’s stealth field must have been damaged. “Four thousand meters,” the suit announced. “Danger. You are falling unsupported. Recommend you deploy descent-control apparatus.”

  “I’d love to, you sodding bugger,” Smythe said through teeth he had clenched to prevent losing his dinner all over the inside of the visor. “Skippy?”

  “I am here, Major. I am happy you were not seriously injured; Lt. Robertson fared better than you. You are clear of the turbulence, engaging suit stabilizers.”

  Smythe stopped spinning rather abruptly, his feet swung back and forth three times, then he was falling smoothly feet first. The backup probe must have extended down from his other boot, because he now had a clear view below, not only the synthetic composite image from the local network. “That was good, can-”

  “Deploying backup chute,” Skippy announced. “Major, this chute deploys more slowly and is smaller, therefore it has less capacity. As you cannot discard either your stealth generator or Zinger missile over the city without giving away your position, your landing could be rougher than anticipated.”

  “Could be?” Smythe grunted; the backup chute had deployed more abruptly than his main chute had. His legs swung wildly once, twice before the suit’s stabilizers halted the dangerous movement.

  “Will be. The landing will be rough, very rough. I was attempting to put a positive spin on the situation.”

  “Skippy, I am a soldier. Give me the facts.”

  “Very well. The backup chute is not able to land you and the missile without damage to both. Since the missile cannot guide itself, what I propose is that just before you impact, I mean, sorry, before you land on the roof, you release yourself from the chute. I will guide the chute to drop the missile softly down. Lt. Robertson is still using his main chute, he does not have the same problem.”

  “Leaving me to fall by myself? How far?”

  “No more than ten meters. Well, maybe twelve.”

  “Twel-” Major Smythe bit off his reply. Twelve meters, nearly forty feet. Even with the protection of his powered suit, he could not survive a twelve meter fall, and the sound of the heavy impact on the roof would alert every Kristang in the vicinity of the building. “This,” he swallowed to control his suddenly quivering lips, “maneuver you propose, it will allow Lt. Robertson to use my missile?”

  “Yes, it should- wait, what? Why would Robertson use your missile?”

  Smythe forced himself to tear his eyes away from the rapidly-approaching roof. When he signed up for the Army, and later during his SAS training and service, he had never expected to die on an alien planet. Certainly not to die by falling onto the roof of an office building. It seemed so casually ordinary. Not a death appropriate for the Special Air Service. “The mission parameters require two missiles to ensure success. If I am unable to fire my missile, Robertson needs to do it.”

  “Um, perhaps I am missing something here,” Skippy sounded puzzled. “For what reason would you be unable to fire your- oh. Crap. Major Smythe, I apologize. You are thinking a twelve meter fall will render you dead or disabled?”

  “Unless you know something I don’t.”

  “Ha! There is not enough time for me to list everything I know that you don’t. In this case, I know that I plan to trigger your suit’s boot thrusters after you are released from the parachute. While the thrusters have a limited capacity, if I use up all the fuel in one hard burn, they will slow your fall enough that it will feel like falling no more than two meters. And the shock absorbers in the legs and spine of the suit will cushion both the effect on your body, and the impact forces on the roof.”

  “Ah,” realization that he would not die right then dawned on Smythe in a brief shudder he was unable to control. “Thank you, Skippy.”

  “No need to thank me, Major Smythe. If you were scared, that was my fault. I should have considered how the information might be perceived. Although I will deny it if you tell anyone, I am rather fond of you backwards humans, particularly those like yourself who have reached the peak of your profession by hard work and dedication.”

  “That was,” Smythe was sufficiently thrown off balance he had to search for words. “Nice?” It was odd using that word to describe a being who normally was proud to be an arsehole. “Again, thank you.”

  “Ah, don’t get all mushy on me,” Skippy sniffed. “Save your thanks for after you land safely. There is a whole lot that could still go wrong.”

  “Such as another joyriding fighter pilot?”

  “Nope. Air traffic control finally called in a military air patrol to close the area to unauthorized traffic. You might be pleased to hear that joyriding jackass suffered a catastrophic engine failure over the ocean a couple seconds ago. He had to eject at high speed, and that broke both of his legs.”

  “An engine failure?” Smythe asked suspiciously.

  “Yup. For some unknown reason, the locking pins that hold the engine fan blades stationary during maintenance engaged in flight. What a terrible, shockingly unfortunate event,” Skippy lamented the accident.

  “An accident, hmm?” Smythe had to smile inside his helmet. “Thank you for that.”

  “It was the best I could do on short notice. The only reason I was able to do that is because that jackass was so eager to fly, he skipped securing those locking pins during preflight. Serves his punk ass right. His daddy will not be happy that Junior destroyed an expensive jet fighter. Well, enough chit chat for now, we both need to concentrate on your landing.”

  Smythe nearly cracked his helmet against a boxy device on top of the roof, using a hand to arrest his fall. The powered glove left a big dent in the box, whatever it was. “Down safely,” Smythe reported tersely. In two powered steps, he collected the missile in its protective container, as he watched the nanofabric of the parachute already beginning to go discoherent; the microscopic machines releasing their grip on each other. In less than a minute, the parachute mechanism would be unorganized dust blowing off the roof to disperse over the city. Securing the precious missile at the base of the box he had collided with, he glanced upward to track the progress of Robertson. The man’s silhouette was outlined in Smythe’s visor, but when Smythe briefly switched off the synthetic vision, he could not see Robertson at all. The portable stealth field generators in their backpacks were quite effective. Without waiting for Robertson, Smythe pulled the latch to release his backpack and shrugged out of the straps. If the operation went wrong, they were to destroy their advanced personal stealth fields, which contained a mixture of Kristang and Thuranin technology. All either of them would need to do would be reach inside the pack, twist a lever and pull it outward, starting the process of nanomachines turning the stealth field generator into dark gray goo. The goo would solidify slowly, and by the time the operation was over and Kristang swarmed onto the roof, there would be no trace of the stealth field’s advanced technology. Nor would there be any evidence that humans had been involved in the operation.

  Smythe watched Robertson coming in, ready to assist, but Robertson landed gracefully, avoiding Smythe’s clumsy bounce off equipment on the rooftop. Within seconds, Rob
ertson’s missile was secured and both chute and stealth field generator were being dissolved. The two men walked, hunched over, between two large devices that Skippy described as part of the building’s air filtration system. Both of the units hummed loudly and vibrated, providing sonic cover for the actions of the humans. In the darkness between the units, shadowed from the glowing haze of city lights, they knelt, removed their missiles from the protective containers and inspected them. “Alpha team down and ready,” Smythe reported. Despite unexpected interference from one jackass in a fighter aircraft, a two-man SAS team had infiltrated the heart of an alien city undetected, and were poised to wreak havoc with missiles. The enemy would not be expecting an attack, particularly not one launched from within the city.

  Lt. Williams and his companion, Petty Officer 2nd Class Marvin Jones, had jumped after Smythe’s SAS team and were spared being tossed around the sky by the wake of the jet fighter. Other than avoiding severe turbulence, the SEALS experienced that same descent as the SAS men, until forty four seconds from landing.

  “Shit!” Skippy shouted in Williams’ ear. “Damn it!”

  “What?” Williams responded with alarm. His visor was not highlighting any threats. Then two fuzzy yellow dots appeared, on the roof he was supposed to land on. “What is that?”

  “Two assholes going on the roof to drink or something. Sorry, they must do this regularly, the stairwell and door they used must have the sensors disabled so they can sneak around. I had no idea they were in the area, until a camera on another building detected their body heat. This is going to be trouble, I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Can we land on another building?” The building had been selected because it was taller than most surrounding structures and had both a mostly uncluttered roof without an aircraft landing pad.

  “Not now, it’s too late, you are too low. You and Jones are committed to landing on that roof, or in the street below.”

  “Not an option. Are those two security personnel?”

  “Building security. Civilians. They are supposed to patrol the building instead of goofing off on the job.”

  Williams felt for his rifle, strapped to his left leg. “Will those two be missed if something happens to them?”

  “My guess is, they come up on the roof during times they know no one will be looking for them. What are you thinking, Lieutenant?”

  “I’m thinking we deactivate the explosive tips on our rifle ammunition and put two rounds in each of them.” Their Kristang ammunition had three modes: armor-piercing, explosive or inert. The rifles usually alternated armor-piercing and explosive when fighting opponents wearing armored suits. Against the two lizards on the roof, all the SEALS team needed was the kinetic energy of inert rounds.

  “You are enveloped in a stealth field, however as soon as you land, the Kristang could hardly miss your presence,” Skippy advised skeptically.

  “My intention is to shoot them before we land,” Williams explained. “Jones, you listening?”

  “Yes, Sir,” Jones replied.

  “Are you sure you can do that?” Skippy made no effort to conceal his surprise.

  “Unless those two knuckleheads duck behind some sort of cover,” the roof was mostly open, and the heat signatures of the two Kristang were standing far from any place they could conceal themselves. “We got this. Jones?”

  “Ready,” Jones replied. His own rifle was out of its carrying pouch and in his hands, the rifle’s magnetic grips firmly attached to the suit so he could not drop the weapon.

  Williams switched the visor from the composite data provided by Skippy, to the more focused view coming from the sensor probe extending below his right boot and outside the portable stealth field. He could now see the two Kristang as distinct outlines; they were standing almost stationary, providing easy targets. Williams fed the probe’s data to the targeting scope of his rifle. The roof was approaching fast, there was not much time to act. “Jones, take the one on the left.”

  “Negative,” Jones replied. “If this wind swings you in front of me, you’ll block my line of sight.”

  “You take the one on the right, then.”

  “The one on the right, confirmed. I have a shot, Sir.”

  “On three. Three, two, one, fire.” Williams lightly pressed the trigger twice, knowing Jones was doing the same. The two figures on the roof collapsed and dropped silently.

  The SEALS landed on the roof easily, and within a minute had their gear secured and were dragging the two dead Kristang under some apparatus on a corner of the roof. “How much time do you think we have, Skippy?” Williams asked anxiously.

  “I cannot say exactly. You should have plenty of time to complete the mission. The only other security personnel in the building have recently started their meal break, and they are down on the third floor.”

  “Outstanding. Bravo team down and ready,” Williams reported in, then knelt down to wait.

  “Delta team down and ready.”

  “Yes,” I pumped my fist in an unprofessional manner. A real colonel would control his emotions and be cool under pressure. By getting excited at hearing the fourth missile team was down safely on its target rooftop, I was letting everyone know I had been concerned the mission would fail before it had barely gotten started. What I should have done was acknowledge Delta team’s report with a simple ‘Understood’, or even ‘Outstanding’ if I really wanted to go crazy. What I did briefly took the focus off the mission and made it all about me.

  I knew all that, I just couldn’t help myself. Dropping four missile teams out of a Thuranin ship over a Kristang city, had caused my heart to race as if I had been parachuting with them. I was not one of the eight men chosen for the ground mission, because I was not qualified. I was also not in one of the three Kristang dropships now flying toward the city, because I was not qualified for that phase of the mission either. What I was doing was sitting aboard a Thuranin dropship in relative safety, commanding the mission like I was supposed to be doing. Whether I was qualified to do that is a matter of opinion. At least Major Smythe had not been forced to argue with me; I knew there were eight Special Operations men far more skilled than I was, and I knew there were six pilots who could fly ring around me.

  So, I was aboard a Thuranin dropship, which had better communications equipment than the Kristang ships, so I could exercise better command and control. There wasn’t much for me to do; when two of the missile teams had encountered obstacles all I had been able to do was listen, keep my mouth shut and trust my people to handle it. Which they did.

  Mostly because I felt the need to do something, I contacted the Three Musketeers, as we called the three Kristang dropships, and authorized them to continue toward the city. They acknowledged, and I watched the icons for the three ships approach the city.

  “How are you doing, Sir?” Lt Poole asked from her own console, where she was likely watching the same images.

  “Fine, Poole. I feel like I should be doing something.”

  “How about a game of checkers, Joe?” Skippy’s avatar popped to life on the side of my console.

  “Thank you, Skippy, no. I meant I should be doing something useful.”

  “You’re the commander,” Poole reminded me. “Command, Sir, command.”

  I knew what she meant; trust my people and stay out of their way. It sucked.

  Smythe’s and Robertson were the first ground team to launch their missiles, they were the farthest away from their target, and those missiles had the most complicated route to fly. Robertson held the launcher tubes as Smythe acted as spotter, because Skippy’s view through the sensor networks was imperfect, and launching was when the missiles were most visible. Smythe peered over the railing, looking down into the streets far below.

  “Clear?” Robertson asked in a whisper.

  Major Smythe was not certain exactly what ‘clear’ meant in a densely-populated city of over thirty million hostile aliens. The streets below held steady streams of traffic even at
the late hour; he was able to follow individual cars, trucks and buses by their headlights as they passed by on the street below. They were all moving smoothly, there was no indication the Kristang authorities had any idea humans had infiltrated their city. Unlike any large human city he could think of, the air was not filled with a cacophony of noise from motor vehicles as all the vehicles moving on the streets below were electric and made hardly any noise. With motion of all vehicles controlled by a traffic network, there was no incessant honking of horns. It was quiet, a little too eerily quiet to Smythe. A door opened at ground level across the street and a small group of Kristang spilled out onto the sidewalk, illuminated by a rectangle of light from the doorway. They appeared unsteady on their feet, two of them especially weaving on their feet, and a shift in the breeze swirling between the office building towers brought snatches of loud, boisterous conversation wafting up to him; words that were unintelligible even to his suit’s microphones and translator but clearly happy and celebratory. With a blink, he adjusted his visor’s view to zoom in on the group wandering down the sidewalk, with the enhanced image he thought the aliens were two males and four females. The females were distinctly smaller than the two males, and each male had his arms around two females. If the males were drunk as they sounded, the females were struggling to keep their men upright and from toppling into the street. As Smythe watched, a vehicle glided to a stop next to the group, and one male was helped into the car by three of the females. When the car drove away, the lone male began shouting at the lone female and she cringed as he raised a fist. Then the male swayed on his feet, held himself up with one hand on a parked truck, and waved the female away dismissively. She was pleading with him about something as another car pulled over. Whatever the male had been unhappy about, he put aside as he was helped into the vehicle, and it pulled away. For a moment, the sidewalks on both sides of the street were empty. “Clear,” Smythe said without taking his eyes off the street. “Launch now,” he urged Robertson to act before another group of revelers came out onto the street. As high up as their rooftop was, it was unlikely anyone on the street would be looking up, or could see the missile in flight. Smythe was being extra cautious, as the SAS did not train their people to leave anything to chance.