Maybeck was pulling at his shirt collar in a desperate attempt to breathe. Chaud watched him as he grabbed Chillemi for support. He stood up from the table and gasped for breath through his closed throat.
Chaud swallowed, but knew deep down it was a necessary demonstration of power and intolerance for poor performance. Maybeck had screwed up the shoot at the university, and if things had gone differently after that, they may have lost some people. And it wasn’t his first mistake. As Chaud watched the dying man fall to the floor, gurgling his last breaths, he knew it would be his last mistake.
“Now,” Prophet said, looking back at Chaud, “where were we?”
<<<>>>
Scene from Gabriel’s Revenge - Book 3
Gabriel could hear the thin Mars atmosphere whipping past his combat helmet’s visor. Visibility from a thousand yards altitude was excellent, enhanced by his helmet’s optics, but no matter how hard he stared, there was simply nothing to see. Even the approaching dust storm barely visible in the distance held no interest for him.
Ordinarily, a typical first-time visitor to Mars would gawk at the wide open plain and the terraced steppes of the northern rim of Valles Marineris, or marvel at the flashes of dirty gray water ice in the shade of some of the peaks, or point excitedly at the ancient dust-covered Russian and Japanese landers. But today, like yesterday, his mind was elsewhere.
The last time he had set foot on Mars was over a week ago, kissing Renay goodbye in the skyhook terminal. There was a young boy who had been hesitant to approach him, and he had won him over with a tiny gift of a patch. The image of Renay’s smile at that small action flashed across his mind, and he closed his eyes to the outside world.
The ache in his chest returned, a similar type of ache he had felt many years ago when he learned of his father’s death during the Dark Days. But there was something else there, something different from that feeling of despair he had borne for years. He knew Renay wasn’t dead. And he was going to find her.
The secure call he had just received from Major Andon had surprised him, but not completely. Now that he had specific information in hand, information he hoped he would have prior to arriving at Eos Chasma, he was feeling more confident in the plan he was formulating.
He gritted his teeth as for the first time, he regretted bringing his team. He opened his eyes and looked around at the battlesuited soldiers arranged around the perimeter of the hopper’s platform. They stared back, though he knew they weren’t seeing him, that it was just an illusion brought on by his regret. He was sure they were looking at their HUDs, or going through their individual battle preps, or in the case of Brevik, maybe napping. They put their full trust in him, as they had for months now, and they followed him unquestioningly. Even now, with an unspoken plan of attack many outsiders would consider seat-of-the-pants, they were here.
He pushed down the regret. He brought up the schematic Andon had sent him, and he felt his lips tighten into a grim smile. Now we have a target.
The engines’ scream changed pitch as Ky delicately balanced the hopper on four tongues of flame and began their descent. Gabriel closed his eyes again, thinking back to some of Tomas Katoa’s final words on Eden. “Joining my friends in the SAR,” he had said. “They’ve got larger plans.” He clenched his armored fist hard enough that it crumpled the hopper’s safety railing he leaned against. They were behind all of this, he thought.
“Commander I’ve got… I don’t really know what I’ve got.”
Takahashi’s voice over the team net snapped Gabriel’s eyes open. He immediately linked into Takahashi’s sensors and put the image on his helmet’s HUD. The marker showing the research outpost was circled in blue, and a tiny red icon had just popped up adjacent to it. His neuretics instantly tagged it as a threat and his linked Otero systems spun up to full readiness.
“Hang on, we’ve got…” His voice was cut off in a roar of high explosive.
He tasted blood.
Gabriel opened his eyes and saw nothing but blackness tinged with green. His fuzzy brain took a couple of seconds to process the fact that his visor was pressed into the Martian surface, with only his combat helmet’s internal readouts illuminating the few inches in front of his eyes.
He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth and winced at the pain feedback. He had bitten through the tip of it.
“Oh hell,” he said in a low voice. A reflex almost made him spit out the blood, but he caught himself before he fouled the inside of his visor. He swallowed, grimacing at the taste, and took a quick sip from his water tube to wash it down. While he drank he sent out a neuretics scan, not trusting the Otero’s systems just yet. The impact of the crash had been hard; a throbbing ache in his lower back confirmed that.
The scan came back showing his team scattered across a swath of land fifty yards across. All pinged back with life signs. He activated the team net, but stayed still. He wasn’t detecting any potential enemy, but there was no sense in giving them a moving target. Or crawling target, he thought, noting his own face-down position.
“Everyone report in,” he said, and took one last drink to clear his throat. One by one, verbal status reports came back, all except Olszewski. He checked his Mindseye map and saw that Takahashi was closest to the MDF soldier’s position.
“Ensign, check the private. But do it slowly,” Gabriel said. He sent out a low-level active scan out an additional hundred yard radius. Clear. He raised himself up on all fours and checked their global position. They were just under two hundred yards west of the research outpost. And from whoever shot us down.
“Commander, Stan’s out cold. Steady life signs, probably a concussion,” Takahashi said. “Want me to hit his suit’s adreno?”
Gabriel shook his head inside his helmet, not remembering no one could see the movement. “No,” he said. “Not until we’re behind cover.” He remained on all fours and did a visual sweep using his retinal IR implant. Nothing but the team and a pile of flaming wreckage that lit the night sky. A pile of wreckage that pinpointed their exact location to the enemy.
“Lieutenant,” he said. “Gather up the equipment. They’ll be coming to make sure we’re down for good, so we have to move quickly.” He scanned the local area map again. “Here,” he said, sending the map and a highlighted location to Brevik. “Behind this rock formation. It’s shielded from their probable approach by the edge of the wadi we’re in, and far enough away from the hopper fire. Take…”
“Commander, ah…” It was Negassi. Her icon showed her nearest the wreckage, right next to… dammit.
“Go ahead, Specialist,” he said, suspecting what she was calling about.
“Sir, the pilot… he’s gone.”
Gabriel had forgotten about the pilot. He had only scanned for team links, not untagged civilians. The environment suit Ky had been wearing wouldn’t have protected him at all in the crash. The heavy Oteros barely did, as evidenced by Olszewski’s concussion, but without powered armor and active restraints, a fall from their altitude was unsurvivable.
“See, told you,” muttered Sowers.
Gabriel was about to chastise the petty officer when his battlesuit flashed a warning in his HUD. Multiple icons were headed their way from the direction of the outpost.
“Incoming. Move.”
Other Available Works
Find the complete Evan Gabriel Trilogy for Kindle:
GABRIEL’S REDEMPTION (Book 1)
http://www.amazon.com/Gabriels-Redemption-Gabriel-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B004LZ5686
GABRIEL’S RETURN (Book 2)
http://www.amazon.com/Gabriels-Return-Gabriel-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B005HEXAP6
GABRIEL’S REVENGE (Book 3)
http://www.amazon.com/Gabriels-Revenge-Gabriel-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B006P10FBW
GABRIEL’S JOURNEY (Complete Trilogy)
http://www.amazon.com/Gabriels-Journey-Gabriel-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B006P2BSFS
oint (Evan Gabriel Trilogy)
Gabriel: Zero Point (Evan Gabriel Trilogy) Page 9
