Open Arms, page 20
part #7 of On Silver Wings Series
Mattan snorted. "Someone bigger always is. You really think any revolt or rebellion was ever as clean as the history books pretend it was? Without big money interests, guerilla factions are usually not much worse than a minor annoyance to established governments."
"Tell that to the founding fathers," Ruger replied.
"Do you really think that was a revolt?" Mattan asked. "Revolts are when the underclass rise up and overthrow the rulers. In the Americas, the founding fathers were the ruling class. They were the power and the authority and the establishment. That wasn't a revolt; it was a war of secession. Power against power, albeit unbalanced powers, I agree...and you have no idea how close that came to turning out differently."
He shook his head. "No. Trust me, Admiral, revolts need backing. The people here would fight regardless, I have no doubts, but to be making the Alliance actually take them seriously, someone is backing them. If these counterfeits are as big a deal to the Alliance as you seem to think, then we've located proof of that."
"All this game-playing isn't worth our time," Ruger grumbled. "We need to find the puppet masters. Probably the Alliance itself, playing shadow games with us."
"Possible," Mattan conceded, gesturing to focus the tactical display in on the fighting. "The locals, how well-trained are they?"
"Poorly," Ruger answered. "They're good enough shots, but tactically they're completely unfamiliar with their weaponry. That many warp blasters, they should have turned the villa to a crater and been done with it."
Mattan nodded slowly. "Where are we on air support?"
"Took a couple minutes to clear it with the Alliance, but they're dropping through the upper atmo now. Seven minutes to intercept."
Mattan grimaced.
Seven minutes was a long time on the ground with no support.
*****
Airfield
"Peregrine, SOL."
Caliph practically lunged for the controls, securing the comm channel. "SOL, go for Peregrine."
"Standby for relay," the communications officer said. "Field team is now in motion."
"Finally," Caliph growled, looking over to her RIO. "Call them back. We're going mobile."
"You've got it, Peregrine."
The telemetry relay from the team's armor was up on her HUD a second later, making Caliph stare with wide eyes for a moment at what she was seeing.
"Holy..." she drawled. "SOL, confirm, are they withdrawing under fire?"
"Confirmed. Be aware, enemy combatants have Alliance warp blasters."
Caliph swore. "Because of course they do."
Alliance warp blasters were a pain in the ass. They weren't exactly intended to be anti-air weapons, but they could hum the tune in a pinch. Actually, they weren't really great at any one aspect of battle, as best she knew, but they were probably the finest multi-purpose weapons she'd ever heard of.
"Roger, SOL. We are aware. Peregrine is standing by to deploy," she announced.
"Air support will be on the deck in six minutes," the comms officer told her. "Field team has a potential asset and a prisoner we need intact. Get into position and dust-off with the asset and the prisoner. That is your first priority."
Caliph scowled. She knew exactly what those orders meant.
"SOL, please confirm. The team is going to be in the APC for dust-off, correct?"
"Ideally, yes. If not, then they can take care of themselves for a while, Peregrine."
That was pretty much exactly what she expected.
"Roger that, SOL." She confirmed the orders, swearing mentally the whole time.
"Reactor is firing up," her RIO said. "The field team is pulling back into the ship."
"Tell them to buckle up," Caliph ordered. "We're going into a hot LZ."
*****
"Watch the flank to your three o'clock!" Sorilla called, hopping backwards as she tried to stay ahead of the enemy while keeping herself and her team between them and the APC.
Her guns roared, but she had killed the auto-shoot function in her implants just out of concern that the Sentinels would cross her sights and be mistaken for a Tango. She absently noted two of her squad break off to cover the six o'clock position. A small squad of the locals had gotten ahead of them, dug in, and was now peppering the general area with warp blasts.
Sorilla was about to order an assault on the position when a convergence of warp blasts just tore it to shreds. She grimaced as the opposing gravity fields turned men to little more than wet meat flying in all directions, but kept her peace and just nodded to the Lucians who'd launched the attack before moving onto the next.
"Colonel," Strickland's voice came over her comm, "air support will be on deck in five minutes."
Sorilla mentally hit the confirm toggle, keeping her eyes on the fight and her attention split between the actual fighting and the men arrayed around her on the overhead map she had up on her HUD. She was going to have a damn migraine when it was all over, just from keeping her head wrapped around the competing information streams she was dealing with.
Multitasking was a prerequisite before SOLCOM would even think about giving an operator a full implant suite, but there were limits to what any human could manage without suffering consequences. The mother of all migraines was generally the first, and least, of those.
She swore as a fast-moving icon appeared on her HUD, followed by more.
"Enemy have acquired vehicles. Eyes wide and look for fast movers pursuing the APC," she called. "Kriss, detail your Lucians to eliminate those vehicles!"
"Be advised," Strickland's calm voice came over the team comm, "drop ship has lifted off and is en route for dust-off. Priority has been issued to the APC, our prisoner, and the local asset. Anyone not onboard the APC during dust-off will be picked up later."
Sorilla hit the confirm toggle again, not bothering to respond. That was hardly an unexpected development. She'd been on the receiving end of orders exactly like that all her career. Her team could handle some time playing escape and evade if it came to that.
The Lucians, on the other hand, might be a problem in that regard.
"Kriss," she called out, "pickup is coming. Get your people back to the APC."
The Lucian didn't seem to pay her any attention, but frankly, she didn't have time to worry about him either. She'd given him the warning; if he and his were left behind then they'd have to hack it with everyone else.
*****
Atmospheric turbulence shook the A-334 Saddleback drop ship as the pilot fought the motion of the craft while he reached up to adjust the directional thrusters.
Lieutenant Commander Marcus "Viper" Washington noted the altitude and then flipped a bank of switches off to kill the drop ship's heat shielding. Heavy ceramic plates slid away from the more sensitive instrumentation, as well as the cockpit canopy.
"SOL, Viper."
"Go for SOL, Viper."
Washington examined the instruments, making minute adjustments as he spoke. "Viper One has cleared the atmosphere interface. Heat shields are down. Am proceeding to area of operation."
"Roger, Viper. Realtime updates are being relayed to you now."
He checked down, noting the IFF codes and icons filling the tactical display. "Roger that. I confirm transmission receipt."
"Be advised, there are non-coded friendlies in the area of engagement. Say again, non-coded friendlies are in the area of engagement."
"Oh, fuck off."
Washington glared over his shoulder where his RIO was sitting behind him, killing the comm. "Shut it, Geoff." He turned the comm back on. "Roger, SOL. Intelligence received and understood. Will maintain watch for any non-coded friendlies." He killed the comm, again glaring over his shoulder. "Do not make comments like that over an open line, Geoff. We're being recorded. If you ever want the cowboy's seat, you'll follow protocol."
"Yes, Lieutenant Commander."
"And now that the comms are off," Washington said, taking a breath, "well, fuck us both! How the hell are we supposed to provide close air support with non-coded friendlies in the mix!?"
"Who are we talking about, anyway?" Lieutenant Geoff Molen asked.
Washington checked the intel download as the atmosphere outside thickened enough to really start kicking them around.
"Looks like the Alliance Special Ops guys," he said. "At least we should be able to tell them apart from the shooters, assuming we get in that close."
"I can't believe we're about to lay down fire on humans to save a bunch of Alliance troops," Molen muttered.
"We're not. We're about the lay down fire to save our Special Forces team and help extract an asset and prisoner," Washington growled. "We're going to avoid killing any Alliance soldiers because we'd rather not start the war up again. That's it."
"Yes, sir."
An alarm sounded and Washington turned his focus back as they continued to drop.
"SOL, Viper One. Viper One is dropping past angels ninety," he said, turning the comm back on. "Nosing down, angling toward the AO. We're running hot and clear to the engagement area."
"Roger, Viper One. You are cleared for weapons hot."
Washington flipped the safety-off switch and thumbed it over, lighting up another bank of displays to his right as well as changing his HUD to red.
"Viper One is weapons hot."
The Saddleback shook as the weapon pods opened up, catching the air and altering the already crude aerodynamics of the heavy-duty ground support drop ship. Nose down, reactors burning hot, and weapons winding up, the Saddleback was going to war.
*****
Sorilla landed in a crouch, extending her guns in front of her as she picked out targets and opened fire.
Her team leapfrogged back under the cover she provided, their rifles roaring as they lay down suppressive fire to keep the enemy from regrouping or returning fire with any organized intensity.
"Colonel Aida, Viper One inbound," the voice broke into her comm link on the command channel. "We have a package for you."
"Good to hear, Viper One," Sorilla responded as she leapt back, arcing over ten feet in the air and fifty along the ground to evade a warp pulse that tore apart her previous position. "Standby for priority tasking."
"Standing by."
Sorilla emptied the remains of her magazines into the man who'd fired on her, then started tagging the enemy vehicles.
"Viper One, prioritize enemy mobile vehicles," she said. "When those are neutralized, orbit and provide general cover as possible."
"Roger that. Piece of advice, Colonel?"
"Speak."
"I'd duck if I were you."
"Roger that, Viper One. Bring the heat," Sorilla said, opening up to the general combat channel. "Heads up, boys, close air support is inbound. Unless you want to be hit by friendly fire, you might want to stay closer to the ground."
Everyone hit the confirmation tags, and she hoped that was enough. Close air support was a chancy thing at the best of times, but with as many people mixed up in the mess as they were dealing with now, it would a minor miracle if someone didn't at least catch a stray.
*****
"Angels seventy, boss."
Washington nodded, pushing the throttle forward to keep up their speed as they continued to dig deeper into the ever-thickening atmosphere.
The Saddleback was the latest in a long and distinguished line of close air support craft, and like its predecessors, it was in many ways a gun that someone designed an aircraft around. The hundred-millimeter auto-cannon Washington was currently straddling ran the entire length of the Saddleback, powered by twin reactors and enough capacitors to light up a small city. Five rails and a ten-thousand-round-per-minute feed rate would put ten-centimeter-diameter depleted uranium slugs wrapped around a tungsten core downrange at hypersonic velocity.
There was little that existed that could take that kind of heat and come out unscathed.
"Target acquired," Washington said. "Confirm lock."
"Lock confirmed," Molen responded. "No tagged friendlies in the line of fire."
"Let's hope the untagged ones got the message," Washington said as he cleared the last safety. "Viper One. Guns, guns, guns."
He stroked the firing stud, barely bridging the circuit for an instant, and in that moment the Saddleback rattled around him as the gun loosed just over forty rounds downrange. The rounds hit the air in front of the Saddleback with enough speed that the friction lit the oxygen in the atmosphere on fire. Streaks of fire rained down from the cannon, reaching out into the distance and vanishing into a cloud between him and his target, but Washington was already shifting to the next target.
"Target acquired. Confirm lock."
*****
Sorilla dropped when the alert hit her HUD, trusting everyone else on her team to do them same, but she was far from certain about the Lucians.
"Kriss!" she called over the open air, amplifying her voice. "Get down!"
The cloud cover overhead parted like the hand of God had punched a hole through it, which wasn't a bad description, in Sorilla's opinion. The hundred-millimeter rounds lit straight lines of fire as they slammed into the ground and destroyed anything between them and the ground in the process.
The first burst tore a four-by-four to shreds in midair, the vehicle having been caught after going over a particularly large bump. The strike perforated the vehicle's battery core, which was already operating on a heavy load, the heat and chemical reaction exploding the batteries in some rather impressive fireworks.
Huh, they're using old-style batteries, Sorilla noted idly as she gingerly stuck her head back up to survey the situation.
Another burst parted the clouds, slamming into a second vehicle and turning it into flaming shards. She looked around, making sure to get her implants enough scans to match up with the data she was still getting from the SOL's overhead scans.
The APC was still moving away, now putting some distance between them and the enemy formation...such as it was. The strikes from the Saddleback had scattered the enemy in all directions.
The second the Saddleback signaled the end of the strike, Sorilla was moving even before the shots landed. She charged directly into the lines of fire as they burst through the clouds and tore apart another vehicle, both guns blazing as she charged.
*****
In the back of the transport drop ship, Staff Sergeant Manuel Gutierrez stomped across the bay.
"Get in your racks!" he bellowed. "Every last living one of you better be in your racks before I turn back around!"
He made his way to one end of the bay, pivoting on his heel when he got there and freezing as he noted every single Special Forces man in their rack as he'd ordered...and every single Lucian standing there in the middle of the bay, staring at him.
Gutierrez took a breath, muttering under his breath, reminding himself not to cause an interstellar incident. SOLCOM did not need a new war with the Alliance because he tossed a bunch of Alien pansies off his plane without chutes.
"What in the ever-loving hell are you lot doing?" he demanded finally, glaring at them.
"You do not give orders to Sentinels," one of them growled in rough English.
Gutierrez stared for a moment, just restraining himself from laying into them. Finally he just shrugged and walked over to his own rack and pulled down the restraints.
"You know what? Stand right there," he said, all smiles and pleasantries. "Just a heads up, though, we're about to do a hot retrieval. That means this bird is about to rock and roll, and that floor your standing on is about to be open to the atmosphere. I highly recommend you hang on, cause we're about to have one hell of a ride."
The Lucians exchanged glances, confusion pretty clear in their posture.
"What does this mean?"
"It means, you dumbasses," Gutierrez swore, "that if you don't get in your damn racks, this flight is about lose a bunch of extra weight that is apparently too stupid to be worth the space it's taking up. So rack the fuck up!"
Reluctantly, the Lucians moved over to their side of the drop ship hold and finally got themselves locked into the racks that secured them properly. Gutierrez looked them over, checking that all the telltales were green, then connected to the cockpit comm.
"We're all locked in and ready here."
*****
Caliph acknowledged the staff sergeant's report as she trimmed the drop ship's flight profile and bumped up the throttle just a bit. They were circling the fighting, coming around on the APC from the west as she tried to avoid any ground-to-air potshots from the locals.
"Keep an eye on that Saddleback," Caliph ordered. "We don't want to stray into his line of fire."
"You can say that again," Ensign Gin snorted.
The cannon on a Saddleback was a very real threat to anything short of a starship hull, and while the SOL could laugh off anything the ground support drop ship could dish out, her transport sure as hell couldn't. Getting between it and what it was shooting at was a sure-fire way to ruin your day.
Caliph opened up the comm to the back. "Captain, Staff Sergeant, we're about to open up the doors. Keep your hands inside the vehicle at all times; otherwise you damn sure will lose them. Cheers."
She closed the comm and flipped off the safeties, then triggered the lower bay doors. The drop ship shuddered as the bay opened up, pressure differentials rattling everything as the bay equalized.
"Ping the APC. Get me sub-centimeter location and vector information," she ordered her RIO. "I don't want to bounce that thing around the back. If that happens, we'll be lucky if we only lose men back there."
"Yes, ma'am," Gin answered, "pinging the APC."
Caliph hit the thrusters as she decided on her approach vector, and they were pushed hard back into the seats as the transport drop ship accelerated into the running firefight.
*****
"Dust-off inbound!"
Strickland looked over to where Chavez was sitting. "ETA?"
"Two minutes, sir."
"Roger that," Strickland said, shifting in the command chair of the APC and accessing the team communication channels. "Two minutes to dust-off. I say again to all units, two minutes to dust-off!"
