Valkyrie Burning (Warrior's Wings Book Three) (3 page)

They rolled clear of their nests, coming to their knees as one person, the carbon barrels smoking as dust burned off the super-heated material. Then they leapt away, vanishing into the treeline even before their bullets had finished crossing the divide.

*****

The twenty-five-millimeter rounds fired from the heavy warfare sniper rifles screamed through the air, guidance fins deploying just moments after they had erupted from the barrels while each kinetic kill round looked ahead with its dedicated sensors for its own preprogrammed target.

The swarm adjusted in midflight, turning and spreading out as they flew true to their targets, and they struck almost five seconds before the sound of their launching reached the base, eighteen enemy soldiers falling in silent deaths as forty-two sensor masts, recon probes, and automated weapon turrets were destroyed in the same moment.

Those few that survived calculated the direction the attack had come from automatically, and the command came down instantly from the control center to respond in kind.

Twenty kilometers away, and halfway up a mountain face, twin explosions roared as the Ghoulies’ gravity valves opened up the full force of gravity on two pockets of dirt barely thirty centimeters in diameter. The resulting nuclear inferno lit up the valley from end to end as four armored figures vaulted the perimeter fence and charged into the base.

The sharp crack of the sonic booms echoed around the valley, joined by the rolling thunder of the nuclear fire just seconds later, but by then no one in the base was listening to the far off sounds at all.

*****

Sorilla landed on her tiptoes, her armor powered to full combat levels as the other three members of the team appeared clearly on her HUD, their IFF transponders lighting up as they moved.

“Top, get the prisoners,” Crow called out. “Take Jardiens. Korman, you’re with me.”

Acknowledgment lights blinked off, their names shifting from red to green on the HUD as each of them acknowledged the orders. Sorilla and Jardiens sprinted across the paved deck of the base, the sheer chaos of the assault keeping the Ghoulies so surprised that the team didn’t even have to fire a single shot before they reached the buildings and pressed up close to the cover.

“Got your six, Top,” Jardiens said coolly as they strode along the edge of the wall, heading for the prisoners’ ‘housing.’

Sorilla didn’t respond. She knew he was there, she could even tell what direction he was pointing as they hit the corner and she paused. She pushed her gun around the corner, watching the window appear on her HUD as the rifle camera lit up and gave her a muzzle-eye-view of the situation.

The rifle bucked lightly, twice, firing subsonic rounds into a pair of Ghoulies who’d come charging hard out of the prisoners’ housing, dropping them in their tracks.

“Two up, two down,” Sorilla said softly. “Clear. Move out.”

Then she moved around the corner, Jardiens tight behind her as they sprinted in long loping strides across the open area to the next building, throwing themselves roughly up against the wall.

“Give me a shot of the inside, Jardiens,” Sorilla told the big Canadian as she reached the door.

Like most Ghoulie construction, the passage was shorter than was comfortable for a human, but Sorilla wasn’t quite tall enough to make it a serious problem. She’d have to duck through it, but not by too much, she could tell as she pressed herself by the passageway and waited.

“One sec, Top,” Jardiens said, putting the flat of his left hand up against the wall.

The Ultra-Wide Band (UWB) transceiver in his suit pulsed once, bouncing radio frequency radiation through the building, quickly compiling a three-dimensional view of the interior while other sensors compared that against information filtering in through passive sound and heat sensors. In just under three seconds, a fuzzy map of the interior of the building, complete with probable prisoner and enemy locations, lit up across Sorilla’s HUD.

She pushed off the wall and slammed a powered foot into the metal shod door, blowing the Ghoulie prison door off its hinges and into the interior. She lowered her carbine, stroking off two shots that holed the single guard inside, then flipped the weapon over to HALO mode, held the trigger down, and ducked inside.

“On the floor, now!” she snarled even as her armor was screaming out over Radio Identification Frequencies (RIF) for an immediate report from any implant technology in the room. As an implant responded, a HALO would pop up around the person the implant belonged to, letting her, and her rifle, know he was one of the ‘Angels.’ Blue HALOs erupted into being throughout her HUD as she swept the rifle through the room, the weapon firing on automatic as it detected motion across its path that wasn’t covered by a HALO.

The subsonic rounds tore into the three remaining Ghoulies inside the prison area before they had even finished turning in her direction, dropping them to the ground as the grey ichor that passed for Ghoulie blood spattered the walls behind them. Sorilla stepped to one side as Jardiens appeared on her HUD from behind, letting him sweep into the room.

“Clear,” she said mechanically, looking to where the uniformed prisoners were hugging the ground.

“Clear,” Jardiens repeated, moving forward. “Next room!”

She swung in behind him as he moved to a door farther in, barely glancing at the men and women on the ground now.

“Stay down,” she told them. “We’ll be back.”

*****

Crow hit the wall of what had to be the command bunker just behind Kormon, lightly rapping the Israeli commando on the shoulder, then pointing to the closest hatch in the building. The Shaytet-13 naval commando nodded, his assault carbine to his shoulder as he strode quickly along the curving surface of the wall to the hatch and tested it quickly with one hand.

“Sealed, sir,” Korman growled.

The former SEAL nodded, tapping Korman on the back. “One side.”

Kormon nodded, pivoting out of the way as Crow moved in, his weapon whispering almost silently as he spotted a mobile recon probe floating around the corner of a building. The subsonic rounds from the assault carbine tore through the lightweight armor of the floater, ripping it apart in a flash as they destroyed its energy cell.

It was still fluttering in pieces to the ground as the Israeli moved on, seeking other targets as the nuclear mushrooms rose up in the distance, grey shadows against the almost black sky. Korman spared a second to wonder if Able and Mackenzie had gotten clear before the retaliation, but then shook it off and kept his focus tight on the present.

“Fire in the hole,” Crow said, causing Korman to jerk around, then dart to one side as the SEAL ducked and covered.

The explosion was soft, almost quiet as the shaped charge went off, cutting the armor of the hatch with a plume of superheated gas. The door buckled in noticeably, then suddenly blasted open and out as the plume cut through the sealant and acted like a jet engine on the hatch itself. The smoke hadn’t even started to clear when Kormon ducked through the squat hatch, weapon firing as he moved.

Crow followed him, pushing through the smoke and into the corridor beyond, noting the grey slime on the walls and the four Ghoulies lying splayed out in their dying positions along the length of the hall.

“This way, sir,” Korman said quietly. “Strong EMF right down the hall. Probably command and control.”

“Lead the way, Corporal,” Crow said, stepping over a grey alien corpse. “I’m right behind you.”

The Israeli commando nodded curtly, his carbine sweeping back up to his shoulder as he advanced down the corridor. It wasn’t strictly required to move in that way. The interface between the armor he wore and the weapon he carried would let him accurately aim the rifle from nearly any position; even firing from the hip was fiendishly accurate when combined with the HALO system and the armor’s HUD. For most soldiers, though, especially those who trained through elite counter-terrorist and special warfare units, proper positioning of their weapon was drilled constantly, with or without armor.

They’d all been in situations where the tactical network was buggy, jammed, or just not available for some reason. Proper motions, even when they weren’t required, were the way the men and women of the Special Operations teams stayed alive when their fancy toys broke down.

They had four sealed hatches to clear before they could even look in the direction of the EMF sources, which posed the two Operators with a problem. Working in a warzone without significant backup gave Lieutenant Crow his operational parameters, so he flipped the hatches open as they passed them and tossed a frag in each before sealing it shut and moving on.

The muffled crumps of the grenades going off cleared the rooms as they passed, permanently and terminally.

The final hatch started to open just as Crow closed the fourth one, one of the thick grey limbs appearing from the other side as the grenade went off. The Ghoulie hissed audibly, though how it managed that without a mouth neither Crow nor Korman had the slightest clue. Just as the hatch opened to its widest point, Korman triggered off a three-round burst from the twelve-millimeter carbine, the silent rounds stitching the alien along its squat torso, kicking it back through the door. Korman followed the alien before it even hit the ground, shouldering the hatch open roughly as he swung the rifle in low, seeking targets through the rifle camera as it wrapped around the heavy armored hatch.

Crow heard the weapon chuff softly, air pushed out of the way of the subsonic round as it exited the barrel, and came in low as Korman twisted out of the hatch, his own carbine seeking out motion in the large room they’d found.

The Ghoulies were devils in space, their ships had torn through the human Fleet with such contemptuous ease that it hadn’t even been a contest. Few Ghoulie ships had been lost, even in situations where the aliens were massively outnumbered, but here, on the ground, they were playing out of their element.

The small-scale assault by Operators had thrown the base into confusion. Their responses were aimed outward, at an army that simply did not exist, and now the central command center belonged to Lieutenant Crow.

“Check the valve status!” he snapped, motioning Korman to the equipment as he took in the large, mostly circular room.

There were Ghoulie corpses sprawled over the gear, their greyish blood pooling already into the squat, heavy chairs they preferred. While Crow finished securing the room, closing the hatch and barring it solidly, Kormon shoved one of the bodies out of its chair and sat down in the greyish muck.

“Looks like their fleet controls, L.T.,” the Israeli said, gingerly manipulating some of the controls. “Some of the display is in the UV spectrum, same as their ships…There’s also the same missing pieces, if I’m reading this right.”

“Can you figure it out?”

“It’s like putting a puzzle together with about ten percent of the pieces missing, sir,” Korman said as he worked. “I may not get all the details, but we should have a fair picture.”

“Good man,” Crow said, switching tactical channels. “Top, you still with me?”

*****

Sorilla paused as the lieutenant’s voice came over her tactical channel, then continued back down the ramp that had led up to the upper floors of the building. “Roger, L.T. Puckers are secured, but the Ghoulies are getting wild out in the courtyard.”

She glanced out one of the narrow windows, watching the alien guards rush around, some of them shooting at shadows. They were just waking up, if the Ghoulies slept, and were confused and downright excited. It wouldn’t take too long before one of them thought to check the prison pen, and when that happened, things were going to get interesting.

“Outstanding, Top, and Roger on the wildcats. We have command and control. Stand by for Exodus.”

“Understood, L.T.,” Sorilla replied, coming up behind Jardiens as the big trooper eyed the metal grating holding the captured Fleet squibs in. “Standing by.”

The channel closed and she tapped the Canadian on the shoulder. “Stop screwing around, Canuck. Get them out of there. L.T.’s got CnC, so we’re gonna be moving soon.”

“Right, Top,” Jardiens replied, wrapping his armored hands into the grate. “One get-out-of-jail-free card, coming up.”

The already strong soldier heaved on the grate, the enhanced nano-musculature chains in his armor adding to his own power, and the metal groaned in audible pain as it tore apart rather than pull out of the Ghoulie foundation. Jardiens looked in, his black and faceless helm looking out at the weary squibs from the brambles and branches he had sticking out of every available opening.

“Rise and shine,” he said cheerfully. “It’s another fine day in the army.”

One of the Fleet guys, a full commander from the rank insignia still clinging to his tattered uniform, gave him a sour look. “Figures you army guys would be too dumb to tell day from night.”

Jardiens looked down on the guy, then over at Sorilla. “Can I throw this one back, Top? He looks a bit scrawny.”

Sorilla shook her head, sighing into her helm at the antics. Jardiens was right, though. They all looked pretty damned scrawny. Their uniforms were just hanging off of their bones, and under the tough cloth she had the impression they’d be looking at very little but skin and bones.

“Ghoulies don’t know much about human physiology,” the commander said tiredly as he limped out of the cell. “Not sure if they eat, actually...couldn’t figure out a way to tell them we were starving.”

Sorilla shook her head, her lips tightening under the helm she wore. She had long memories of starvation from her months on Hayden at the start of the war. The people there depended on the orbital aeroponics bays built into their orbital tether’s counterweight, which had been one of the first targets the Ghoulies cut them off from. The rest of the world, despite being a lush jungle world, wasn’t compatible with human bio-chemistry.

Yet even they had looked better than the people in the cells they were popping open.

Sorilla gritted her teeth as they pulled the grating off another cell. “How many did you lose, Commander?”