Collapse Series (Book 6): State of Vengeance

by Summer Lane

  Every time I blink, the surface of the Earth appears to be getting closer. The gut-wrenching rush of terror-made adrenaline that I felt when I jumped out of the plane is back. The momentary, paralyzing fear that my ripcord might not work – that my chute might malfunction – is very real.

  The altitude tracker on my pack screams at me through the helmet. I reach my right arm behind me and my clumsy, cold, gloved fingers close around the ripcord. I pull it, and the drogue chute tears out of the pack, ripping the main chute with it. It catches the air above me and the straps tighten, catching my fall. The rings under my shoulders pull up and my legs snap downward. I am still moving down – and pretty quickly, too – but I’m not falling. I’m floating.

  My pack of supplies drops below me like an anchor, drawing me down to earth again. I am hanging from the nylon straps. I grab the risers as I waft down to the earth. As I get close to the ground, I bend my legs and brace myself for contact. As soon as my boots hits the surface, I roll onto my shoulder, distributing the impact through my body, sparing myself the unneeded pain of broken ankles.

  My parachute billows around me like a tent. I use the Capewell releases to escape the risers and quickly move to unbuckle my vest. My fingers are cold and clumsy. As I break free of the parachute, the rest of the team begins to land on the ground, too.

  I step away from the parachute, dizzy, and unclasp my oxygen mask and tube. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. The terror is over – I am safe on the ground. My heart is still racing, but I feel great. I feel powerful.

  I overcame one of my greatest fears.

  I survived a HALO jump.

  Thanks for letting me live, I think.

  The parachutes billow on the dark, rocky plateau, like jellyfish washing up on the seashore. It’s an odd sight, but every single parachute means that our men are making it through the jump. I take my helmet off and discard it.

  Chris jogs up to me, his words quiet.

  “How do you feel?” he asks.

  “Like I just got off the worst rollercoaster in the world,” I tell him. “Hyped.”

  “Adrenaline?”

  “Supercharged.”

  “That’s the energizer bunny I know and love.” Chris kisses my forehead. “Let’s finish this.”

  Vera fights her way out of her parachute, glaring.

  The temperature is cold. Snow and ice cling to the rocks, but it is not snowing right now, and the weather seems pleasantly warm compared to the freezing temperatures of the HALO drop. The clouds are swirling around the rocks, hiding the presence of Sky City.

  “That was fun,” Vera states, a sour expression on her face. “Let’s do it again sometime.”

  “Please don’t make me laugh,” I reply.

  “Watch me.”

  As soon as every pair of boots is on the ground, we move out.

  “Sundog, this is Yankee,” I say into the radio. “Boots are on the ground. We’re moving in, en route to Checkpoint Charlie.”

  “Copy that, Yankee,” he replies. I can hear the smile in his voice. “How’d you enjoy the ride?”

  “It’s a once in a lifetime experience that I’d rather not repeat,” I reply.

  “What? Falling out of the sky and plunging toward earth with nothing but a parachute between you and death doesn’t give you a thrill?” he replies.

  “Not my idea of a party,” I say.

  “Boring, boring, boring.” There is a brief pause. “Hang on, Arlene wants your ear.”

  “Team formation,” Chris commands. “Follow my lead, we stick together, we keep it tight, and we keep our mouths shut. Let’s go.”

  The silence of the forest is a stark contrast to the blistering speed and fear of our jump in. It’s such a sudden change, I almost don’t know how to handle it. It’s not like I’ve been trained to jump out of planes – I’m just learning on the job.

  We delve into the forest, threading our way through the trees. We keep our goggles on – they are night vision, and I can see what’s going on around me. Everything is a clear picture of greens and yellows, illuminating the darkness. I am thankful for these handy tools, compliments of Commander Buckley and Camp Freedom.

  The radio communication is connected to everyone on the team – when Arlene checks in, we can all hear her voice.

  “All right, in about a half a mile, you will come to a clearing,” she says. “Across the clearing, there will be a cluster of granite rocks, and in those rocks are more trees. One of those trees is not a tree – it’s a radio tower. You’ve seen them before in cities. Large towers disguised as trees. From a distance it’s hard to tell, but up close, they’re as fake as a piece of plastic.”

  We keep moving.

  “Once you take out that tower,” she says, “you’ll have about ten minutes to push your way to the entrance. They’ll think it was a malfunction. They’ll send scouts out to fix the tower. That’s when you move in – you’ll be close. The bunker entrance is just around the corner.”

  No one answers her. We have all seen the map. We know what it looks like. We know exactly where we’re going and what we’re doing – but it is always helpful to have someone walk you through enemy territory. Otherwise you can feel a bit lost.

  When we reach the clearing, I spot the cluster of rocks across the meadow. There are trees there, too, caked with snow. “One of those is it,” I whisper to Chris.

  He nods. We move across the clearing as quickly as possible.

  In the back of the pack, being watched by multiple militiamen, Harry plods along. He does not make a sound. He knows that we will kill him if he becomes a problem. If worst comes to worst, we can just use a breach blast to open the steel airlock of Sky City. Sure, it’s the hard way. But it’s better than having our location given away by Harry. It is this knowledge that keeps him silent.

  When we reach the other side of the field, we gather at the base of the rocks, hiding in the shadows. Andrew sticks his head out of the group, breathing hard.

  “I’ll find it,” he murmurs.

  Vera rolls her eyes.

  “He’s such a martyr,” she whispers. But there is pride in her voice. Vera is too fond of Andrew to mean half of what she says. Which is saying something, coming from her.

  Andrew scurries up the rock, nimble and quick, looking over the rock formation. “It’s up toward the top,” he tells us. “I can disable it. Somebody cover me.”

  “I’ll go,” I say.

  “Not without me, hero,” Vera replies.

  “Both of you get over there,” Chris commands.

  I climb up the rock, following Andrew over the curve of the granite formation. I don’t like being up here, exposed. The moonlight seems too bright. I don’t even need my night vision goggles. I push them up against my forehead, adjusting to the natural colors of the night.

  We reach the base of a tree protruding from the top of the tallest rock. Up close, it’s obviously fake. Nothing but a metal rod and strange, metallic branches. A small fence is built around the bottom. Andrew whips his backpack off and cuts through the fence with wire cutters, going to the base of the tree.

  “So,” Vera says. “The HALO jump. Thoughts?”

  I raise an eyebrow.

  “I’ve had better forms of evening entertainment,” I reply.

  Silence.

  Then she says, “I was scared.”

  I look at her. “Who, you? I don’t believe it.”

  She glares at me.

  “I’m only human,” she says. “And I’m not the ice queen you make me out to be.”

  I say nothing.

  “I’m sorry, too,” she tells me. “About your dad going MIA.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I know what it feels like.”

  She smiles weakly.

  “Okay, if somebody could hand me the charges, that would be great,” Andrew interrupts. We both look at him. He mutters under his breath and rummages through the backpack himself, taking the charges out – little more than a har
mless binding of square blocks.

  But only harmless in appearance.

  He straps them to the base of the radio tower, checks his handiwork one last time, and stands up. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s go.”

  We scurry across the rocks, back to Chris and the rest of the team. Once we’re safely clustered behind the granite, Andrew takes out the radio trigger. He holds it in his hand, looking around.

  “Once this thing goes down,” he says, “remember that we’ve only got about ten minutes to get to the front of Sky City. They’ll be sending scouts to check out the radio tower. They won’t be able to communicate.”

  He swallows and squeezes the trigger. The charges detonate. It’s not a huge explosion – just enough to crack the base of the radio tower apart and fry the electrical wiring. The tall, metal tree crashes to the ground in a shower of sparks, a chute of light in the darkness.

  “Go,” Chris says.

  We do. We spread out in teams, divided evenly between the thirty of us. Chris takes one team, Alexander takes another, and I take the last. Vera and Uriah are with me. Harry is with Chris’s group.

  We skirt around the cluster of rocks, delving into the thick net of trees. A bit of familiarity strikes me then. We are very close to the front entrance. I snap my night vision goggles back on and sling my rifle over my shoulder, keeping it locked and loaded, ready for use.

  As we sweep forward, I can see the guard towers hidden in the trees. There are three of them situated like tree houses in the limbs. They remind me of duck blinds. In the darkness, they should be invisible, but I can clearly spot the irregular shape of the towers. I know, because I am a sniper, and snipers wait for me inside those towers.

  Uriah and Vera are right behind my shoulder, and ten more operatives follow behind me. We are spread apart, covering all our flanks, but I hold up a fist and stop behind a tree. I sink down to one knee and peek around the corner, keeping my rifle secured against my shoulder, using the optics to find the guard tower closest to me. I take a deep breath, steadying myself, finding my natural point of aim.

  The night vision makes the camouflaged guard tower look like a mass of green and black shapes. I pick out movement from somewhere up there – ever so slight. But it’s enough. I squeeze the trigger and take the shot, using a special subsonic round for a stealthy kill - but the distinct sound of a body hitting wood tells me that I am right on target.

  “Tango down,” I say into the radio.

  I take a couple of more shots, then move from tree to tree, peering at the next guard tower. Chris and his team have the first one covered, which leaves this one to my team.

  Uriah kneels down. He’s got this one.

  He makes quick work of the guards inside and we move forward. As we near the tower, I take my night vision goggles off again. I am used to the darkness of the forest – it was my original training ground, after all. I feel more comfortable. This is where I belong.

  With the natural light, I can clearly see the makeshift ladder rungs at the base of the trees beneath the platform guard towers. A gunshot zings by my head and I duck to the side. Uriah pops a few rounds into the bottom of the platform. There is a distinct thump as a body hits the floor.

  “Sorry,” Uriah says, and shrugs. “I thought I had them all.”

  It happens. At least the guard in the tower had terrible aim.

  I quickly climb the rungs of the ladder and pull myself into the platform in the trees. Three dead Sky City troopers are on their stomachs on the floor, blood seeping from their chests. I kneel down and take the radio from one of their belts and listen. There’s nothing but static.

  Good.

  “All clear,” I say into my own radio.

  “All clear,” Chris returns.

  We are good to keep moving.

  I climb back down the ladder.

  “Dead?” Uriah asks.

  “As a doornail,” I reply.

  We don’t waste time. Up ahead, I see the clear glint of the barbed wire fencing surrounding the entrance to Sky City. There are at least twenty guards. A large, white spotlight is illuminating the fence line. Lots of activity.

  They know something is up.

  We hover in the shadows, gauging the enemy’s position. With no radio tower, they can’t communicate with the guard towers. They don’t know that we’re so close. If they did, they wouldn’t be lined up at the fence, waiting for us to take pot shots at them.

  I lower my voice and talk into my radio.

  “Alpha,” I say, tagging Chris. “Let’s clean this mess up.”

  “Roger that, Yankee,” Chris replies, his voice muffled on the radio wave.

  I turn to Uriah.

  “Take them all out,” I say.

  My voice is cold and emotionless. Vera nods, checking her gun one more time. She ghosts a half-smile at me. This is something she and I both understand – something we both agree on.

  I check my rifle one more time before we rush the fence, appearing from the forest like a tidal wave – catching the entire force completely by surprise. Taking down twenty startled guards with thirty highly trained operatives is an easy task, compared to the other things we’ve had to do.

  I take out three guards, then two more. We reach the fence. I look up at the barbed wire coiled around the top. There’s no way any of us are going to climb over that without being cut to ribbons.

  “Back up, back up!” Andrew yells.

  He sets a detonation cord at the base of a section of the fence and we pull back into the cover of the forest. When it detonates, it cuts a nice hole in the fence for us to enter through.

  I sprint forward, the rest of my team hot on my heels, moving through the smoke, the taste of burnt metal on my tongue. By now, all of Sky City must know that we’re coming.

  The steel airlock built into the side of the mountain is as big and ominous as ever. The scanner to the left of the door sits there, glowing a dull red. Chris rests his rifle against his shoulder and gestures to the operatives in the back of the group. They drag Harry forward.

  Always the dramatic one, he lifts his chin and slowly sets his hand onto the scanner. The pad glows green and there is a low hiss as the airlock opens.

  “Access granted,” Andrew says. “Nice.”

  Gunshots tear out of the entrance as the door swings open. I duck and roll to the side of the door. Omega guards in Sky City uniforms open a barrage of gunfire on us. The sound is deafening. I fire as many rounds as I can, peeking around the corner. Chris looks at me from the other side of the door, nodding.

  “ANDREW!” I yell. “DO YOUR THING!”

  He doesn’t hesitate. He takes his backpack off, and I turn back to the entrance. Several brave troopers have pushed to the front of the passageway. I take a shot at the first one, hitting him right above his vest, near the collarbone. He twists and hits the ground. Uriah shoots the remaining two, and their enterprising adventure is over.

  Andrew kneels close to me.

  “Cover me!” he says, sweat rolling down his forehead.

  I nod at Chris. Both of us jump into the open with our team, ripping through the Omega defenses with a wall of gunfire. Andrew runs forward and throws the backpack as far as he can. It slides down the passageway, and we immediately pull back to cover again.

  Bam. The detonation makes my ears ring. I squeeze my eyes shut and wince. The pressure from the blast makes my brain feel like it’s being squeezed. I force myself to breathe evenly, open my eyes, and struggle to my feet. I look around the corner. The passageway leading into the bunker is lined with dead Omega troopers.

  More grenade launchers. Gunshots.

  Bam, bam, bam.

  I force myself forward, leading the way with Chris into the bunker. The dim orange lights illuminate the passage. The guard posts are abandoned. The guards lay dead on the floor. It smells of gunpowder and burnt human flesh. The second steel wall and door is locked shut. There is no scanner, no entryway.

  “Give me an update,” Arlene says
over the radio.

  “We’re at the second door,” I say, catching my breath. “There’s no scanner. Not even a keyhole.”

  “Sky City was designed to be opened only from the inside once the second door was shut,” she replies. “You’ll have to breach it.”

  Everyone looks at Andrew.

  “Apparently I’m the go-to guy for things that go boom,” he remarks, annoyed. “I have no more flash-bangs. But that wouldn’t cut it anyway.” He converses with some of the operatives in the group and comes out with two backpacks. “Time to light the birthday candles,” he announces, a happy smile on his face.

  “So you just carry bombs with you wherever you go, then?” Vera asks.

  He sets the backpacks strategically along the steel wall.

  “Basically,” he replies, standing up. “I mean, it’s what I do.”

  “Hate to break up the love fest,” I say, deadpan, “but once we blast these doors open, all hell is going to break loose. There are a lot of Sky City troops in there. This blast will stun them and get them away from the entrance. But we’ll have to move fast.”

  “Let’s go for it,” Vera says. “I’m ready, aren’t you?”

  “You’d better believe it,” I reply.

  High on adrenaline and anger, we back out of the tunnel. We wait outside until Andrew detonates the breach blasts, placed at strategic points in the metal. It will not rip it apart – but it can cut it. It’s an incredibly strong explosion, unlike the first two blasts we’ve been present for tonight. It’s earth-shattering.

  I crouch on the ground with my hands over my ears and my eyes shut, trying to save myself from permanent hearing damage, or from getting shrapnel in my eyes. It takes a few moments for the smoke to settle.

  “Here we go,” Chris says. “Move in. On my command, I’ll take the first shot. Shoot to kill. We are not on a mercy mission. We are here to wipe these suckers off the face of the Earth.”

  Chris’s team moves in first, and I’m right behind him. I flick the flashlight attached to my rifle on, beaming it down the dark passageway. The orange lights are destroyed, and there is nothing but dust, dirt and smoke wafting through the air.

  Chris’s silhouette disappears into the tunnel.