Rhea looked up at the machine and smiled. She’d already forgotten about the safety. Bringing her thumb up, Rhea tapped the knob and then brought her focus back to the target to her front. Regaining her composure, she checked her breathing and focused her arm towards the wall. She watched as the barrel of the weapon hovered up and down over the centre of the X, and when she was finally ready, she squeezed her hand around the weapon and watched as a thin blue bolt of light streaked away from her towards the wall, striking the X dead centre.
Dropping her arm back down to her side, she looked at the SC, “How did I do?” she asked with a smile from ear to ear.
“Very well. Now do it again.” He ordered.
Rhea covered her eyes from all the sand that was billowing in the air as the three Chinook helicopters landed fifty metres from the edge of the village. Each was loaded with a full complement of soldiers, with another group in five Blackhawk circling overhead carrying American forces.
Major Tattersall was standing by her side and had already made a comment on the weapon that she had on her hip. She paid him no notice and turned back to see the Sentinel Commander standing on the edge of the village looking on. She didn’t want to admit it to the Brits who were taking the lead on this operation, but she had serious doubts that they would be successful without the help of the SC. There were just too many factors against them. They weren’t sure where the Coalition forces were, and even if they had an idea of where they were, it didn’t mean that they’d be able to stop them. The SC had told her that there was a chance that the bullets fired by the rifles the humans were carrying wouldn’t even penetrate the armour that the infiltrators would be wearing.
As Rhea started walking towards the waiting helicopters, she knew that she had to rely on some luck and good fortune to see this operation through to a successful conclusion. As one of the key delegates between Earth and the Alliance, she was starting to understand what it meant to be involved in all alien activates.
34
The moment the helicopters had taken off, the Sentinel Commander went back to the shuttle with a series of concerns running through his neural-net. The two pilots, both Floxian, were standing next to the front of the shuttle talking when the hulking machine walked up.
“I want the shuttle ready to depart on 30 seconds notice for combat operations.” He instructed.
The two pilots nodded in unison, and returned to their seats in the cockpit, buckling themselves in, the activated all the ships weapons systems and put the engine on standby for an emergency launch.
The Sentinel Commander moved to the centre of the main hold and checked his weapons that he had left behind. They were fully ready and prepared for duty. Kneeling, he checked his communications suite and started searching for the frequencies that the forces that were after the infiltrators were on. It didn’t take him long to access both pilots comms channel, as well as that of the leadership.
Listening in, he felt helpless. If there was going to be a fight, he wanted to be part of it, not stuck on the sidelines, miles away from where the action was. He was built for combat, not sitting by and watching others fight. But on this occasion, he was very concerned that Doctor Stokes was going into harm's way with a team of people that were not up to the challenges that were going to present themselves.
As the wind continued to blow through the virtually deserted town that surrounded the shuttle, the SC knelt in silence, listening to the radio chatter that was bouncing over the net. The assault force had landed and was taking up positions to encircle the insertion team, and all was quiet.
It was almost five minutes before the first shot was fired. Militants were in the area, and they had engaged the British forces just as the infiltration team was passing through the centre of the town. From the radio traffic that was flying about the airwaves, all of which the SC could intercept, decode, and translate, there was a three-way fight developing, and with the militants using mortars and rocket-propelled grenades, it was escalating quickly.
Certain pieces of information were clear. The Brits had encircled the town and had air-cover in place. What they hadn’t counted on was the high number of militants in the village, and if what he heard was accurate, Doctor Stokes was with an element that had pushed into the centre of town before being ambushed by a group of militants. The communications coming out of the village was spotty at best, and even though he was able to intercept every single transmission, the messages being sent were not complete and were at points inaudible.
Finally, he heard something that gave him cause for serious concern. The sound of an energy-based weapon being fired in the background. And if his sensors were hearing things accurately, it was the same sound as the weapon he had given Doctor Stokes.
“Pilots! Get us airborne at to the combat zone, now!” The SC’s voice was thunderous, and probably gave the two pilots a shock, but they reacted without pause, and within fifteen seconds, the shuttle was in the sky and hurtling towards Rhea.
Major Michael Tattersall was applying as much pressure to his right leg as he could. The 7.62mm round had torn through his thigh, and he was bleeding profusely. His radioman was dead, and the team medic was desperately trying to apply a tourniquet to the leg. The loss of blood was already causing his vision and thinking to become unclear. He knew that they had landed outside the village as they had expected, but how they ended up pinned against the front of this shitty, godforsaken building in this dump of a country was beyond him.
Blinking heavily, he could see Doctor Stokes kneeling next to the group, a composed look on her face as she continued to deliver accurate laser fire towards the militant fighters that they had stirred up. He could see that she was more exposed than the rest of his men, who were lying prone; perhaps it was her armour, because every so often, Mike could hear a distinctive ping of a round hitter her, then falling to the street below without even leaving a scratch.
“Sir!”
Mike blinked and looked to his right. His medic’s face was an inch away from his.
“Sir! Stay with me!”
What was this man talking about? I’m fine. Not a care in the world. A bit hot, but that wasn’t so bad.
He was starting to feel dizzy.
In the distance he could hear mortar rounds going off, and looking down the street from where they had come, he was just in time to see an RPG zip by, destination unknown.
Suddenly, Mike could hear a funny sound coming from the heavens. Something artificial, that was certain, but what, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t a helo and it wasn’t a jet. Smiling to himself and his silly considerations as if drunk, he looked back down the street just in time to see the alien shuttle swoop down, and start to approach their position.
He was certain he had told them that this was a human fight. For humans, by humans, and without the need of those other things. That was right, he thought to himself, we can handle this on our own.
For some reason, the shuttle kicked up barely any dust as it moved down the street, and when it was ten metres away, the imposing figure of the Sentinel Commander jumped from the still hovering vessel, weapon in hand, and already firing past Mike’s position. Blue bolts of charged energy ripping down the street.
The weapon made a loud humming sound when fired, and considering the rate of fire the SC was laying down, it almost sounded like a coin-operated vibrating bed in a cheap motel. But perhaps on that day, in that village, it sounded like salvation.
When the shuttle had been on its final approach to the village, the SC had hacked a satellite that was in orbit and feeding real-time imagery back to the British headquarters to give him a clear understanding of how the battle was unfolding.
The Paras had managed to surround the town, but they had run into fierce resistance from a pocket of heavily armed militants, and the location of the infiltration team was yet unknown.
Pouring fire down the street with his massive energy weapon, he blasted whole chunks out of buildings to neutralise the threat. It was an in
discriminate use of force, and it was overwhelming. The ten-foot tall machine moved meticulously down the street towards Rhea’s position, taking a considerable amount of hits from small arms fire, but for every shot that was finding its mark, he replied with one hundred times the force, vaporising militants in some instances. He wasn’t here to negotiate, this was an execution.
Just as he reached the huddled pocket of humans where Doctor Stokes was holding her ground, a militant popped out onto the street with an RPG just twenty metres away and fired. Before the explosive round could even finish leaving the launcher, the SC activated his energy shield, which ionised the 2.5 kilogrammes of explosives upon impact as if they were drops of water.
The threat neutralised, the SC quickly dispatched the militant with a shot that made the enemy headless, allowing the body to slump to the ground with a thud. And after that, there was silence.
Looking down at the wounded major, the SC knelt and pushed the medic to the side. Grabbing the injured man's leg, he ran a full spectrum scan of the injury and a bio-scan, checking the major’s physical condition. The man had already lost a considerable amount of blood, and his survival looked in doubt.
Doctor Stokes holstered her pistol and looked at Mike, who was pale, and cold to the touch. “Is he going to survive?” She asked
“Not if we don’t get him proper medical attention immediately.”
Using his internal comms system, the SC contacted the shuttle and ordered them to land at his position at once.
The shuttle came roaring back down the street and landed just a few metres away from their position. The SC picked up the wounded major and carried him to the ship, the medic following closely. Setting the major down on the rear bench, he looked at the medic.
“Where is the nearest field hospital?”
“Mosul.” Came the reply.
The SC forwarded the information to the pilots and walked off the shuttle, a second later the ship was airborne and moving away at Mach 4. The sonic boom deafening those it flew over at low altitude.
Moving back towards Doctor Stokes, the SC looked down the road towards the centre of the town, then back towards the perimeter that had been established. A series of shots rang out in the distance. Still patched into the communications channels that the British were using he knew that a few militants had tried to slip their trap. The only problem now was that it wasn’t the militants that he was worried were going to escape.
Knowing his options were limited, the SC poured over his database for a possible solution to the crisis. He was aware that if too much time passed, the infiltrators, which he suspected were somewhere in the village would try to break-out, which could be a disaster for the friendly forces.
Suddenly his need for inspiration was answered. He knew that several oil fires were burning near Kirkuk, and the Iraqis were dropping fire retardant in an attempt to put out the flames, and the retardant was red and would stick to anything it landed on.
Cutting onto the comms channel being used by the British commanders, the SC forwarded his suggestion to Colonel Cundey, who at first demanded that the SC get off the net and leave the combat zone, then finally came around to the concept that was put forth.
Conversation over, the SC looked down at Doctor Stokes. “The Iraqis are going to drop flame retardant on the village. Everything will be covered in the chemicals, including the Shimmer Suits.”
“Won’t they just hide inside when the planes fly over?”
“I doubt they’ll know what’s happening until it’s too late, and if they lose their stealth capabilities, the British can engage them effectively with anything bigger than .50 calibre weapons.”
“Don’t you want to capture them, to interrogate them?” She asked.
“I do, but at this moment we must preserve the lives of your fellow humans. I have an awful feeling that this day’s events could have serious repercussions for both Earth and the Alliance.”
It took twenty minutes for the old pair of Douglas A-26 Invaders to make their pass over the village. They had been given to the Iraqi Air Force by the US in 2007 and seen extensive action fighting oil fires across the country, but this was their first combat mission since the Korean War.
The two Second World War planes passed over the village fifty feet off the ground, and fifty yards apart. Their first and only drop of retardant fell within the confines of the village, it was a perfect bomb-run.
As the planes banked hard and started their climb away from the village, Colonel Cundey came on the net.
“If you see something move that doesn’t look right, kill it.”
Rhea heard the transmission and looked up at the SC. “What now?”
“We wait.” The SC opened up his comms channel with the shuttle and discovered that Major Tattersall had been delivered alive to the trauma centre in Mosul and that the ship was now headed back to the village.
Things were looking up. Once the ship was in orbit over the town, they would be able to use the motion tracking systems to detect the Shimmer Suits, which stopped being undetectable by such contrivances when covered in anything from too much dust and dirt to fire retardant. It was one of the suits significant failings.
When the shuttle finally arrived back on station, there was an eerie silence gripping the village. A shot hadn’t been fired for several minutes, and the assumption was that the threat from the militants had evaporated, but there was still the genuine threat from the infiltrators.
Meanwhile, nearly 5500 kilometres away, Kio and Twiv were still moving towards their drop-pod as night started to fall on their jungle habitat. As the sun dipped below the horizon, the air cooled as the duo hiked their way back along the trail they had carved earlier, which was not standard protocol for security reasons, but Kio was not worried about encountering a threat this deep in the jungle, but perhaps he had not given proper consideration to the kind of threat that actually existed in the thick jungles of central Burma.
With the drop-pod insight, and a sense of relaxation coming over him, a massive, 350 kilogram, Bengal Tiger launched itself out from a concealed position next to the pod and flung itself at Kio, who managed to dive out of the way of the attack, leaving Twiv standing on the trail, and in the way of the beast, which was over three metres in length.
Leading with its huge paws, the tiger easily drove Twiv to the ground and sunk its teeth into the suits neck armour with a force of almost 1000 pounds per square inch. It didn’t matter that its teeth couldn’t penetrate the armour, the strength was enough to put a tremendous amount of pressure on Twiv’s throat, and in an instant, he was struggling to breathe as the beast clamped down tight on his frail body.
Kio gathered himself after diving off the makeshift trail and brought his rifle to bear on the massive creature that was crushing his team-mate’s throat. Quickly setting the weapon to stun, he fired at the animal, hitting it in its midsection, and instantly downing it.
Springing to his feet he dashed over to his colleague and tried to push that tiger off Twiv’s body, but the weight of the animal was just too much for him to move. He could see Twiv clawing at his neck, almost as if was trying to tear open his suit.
“Hang in there!” Kio shouted.
Changing his position, Kio moved to a spot where he could grab Twiv’s shoulders and slowly pulled his body out from under the beast. After a few tugs, he was able to free the body and started dragging it to the drop-pod. He knew that it was impossible to provide aid in an environment where the air was not breathable, and his only hope was getting Twiv back to the mother-ship for medical care and that the suits built-in med-system could keep him alive until better care was available.
Hoisting Twiv’s body into his chamber, Kio quickly secured the restraints around the body and watched as his team-mate continued to writhe in pain. Moving to his slot, he quickly strapped himself in while activating the automated recall system that would return the pod to the mother-ship without any interaction from the two operators inside it, and after an a
nnouncement warning of the launch, the shuttle blasted off from the jungle floor, and quickly reached its terminal velocity of 50,000 kilometres per hour on its return course to the moon.
As the pod raced back to its base, Kio wondered how the other teams were getting on. He knew that Sinus Fu had taken the riskiest assignment for himself, and the wastelands that the third team had targeted would produce their own troubles. He and Twiv had only been on Terra a short period, but protocol dictated that they report their findings as soon as possible. Kio wasn’t sure if he’d be able to send a transmission back to Rancor, but at least he’d be able to secure the data aboard the stealth ship.
When the pod finally came to a stop in its final resting place, safely secured on the mother-ship, Kio quickly hit the hatch release, and stepped from his side of the pod, and turned to see Twiv’s body slumped down, supported only but his restraints.
Shaking his head, he sat down on the ground next to the pod, staring at Twiv’s body. Pulling off his helmet, he sucked down the chilled air that was on the ship before he set his helmet on the deck. Pulling out the vial that was in his utility belt and looked at the sample that he had picked up on the planet. It didn’t seem like much to him, but he had been surprised before on intelligence gathering missions. He just hoped it was worth the life of a good if inexperienced operator.
Setting the vial down next to his helmet, he got back to his feet and moved towards the pod. Bracing Twiv’s body with one hand, he unclipped the restraints and gently lowered the body to the ground. It took Kio several minutes to pull the Shimmer Suit off of the corpse. Looking at Twiv, he noticed a massive amount of bruising on the neck, but no signs of an actual puncture. The force of the bite had been enough to crush all the vital organs in the neck and caused more trauma than the suits med-systems could handle. Death must have been slow and agonising on the flight back to the ship.
Dragging the Shimmer Suit back to the storage locker, he put it, and Twiv’s weapon and kit in their proper locations, and retrieved a body-bag from Twiv’s locker. When he finished closing the bag, he proceeded to remove his own suit and return his kit to its appropriate locations. When all of this was done, he picked up the vial with the mineral fragment and moved to the ships science station.
Horizons Page 15
