Valkyrie Rising (Warrior's Wings Book Two) (28 page)

That said, even the tough, alloyed barrel of his weapon would warp if he tried that enough times. As it stood, he could probably rock and roll another mag through it, but that would be it until he could cool it down.

If I could get down to that creek, I could do a quick job of cooling it off.

Crow considered that option for about a second but quickly tossed it out. He had a bunch of killer aliens looking to do him in, and the creek lay right smack in the center of a long stretch of no man’s land.

He froze, shaken from his ponderings as he heard a soft sound above him, and some dirt fell from the overhang to sprinkle across his helm.

They’re closer than I thought.
He pressed himself tighter into the dirt packed along the side of the gully, almost literally keeping one eye on the far bank and one on the shaking dirt above him. 
Nothing on thermal, but I doubt they can spoof something a little more old school.

Shifting his rifle over to his left hand, he kept the muzzle of the assault weapon aimed at the far bank, looking for any hint of motion with the weapon keyed over to automatic operation. If his armor or the weapon itself detected motion, it’d put a round in it. His right hand slid down to his thigh, drawing the molecular-edged blade from its sheath there.

The edge glowed slightly as he had his armor send out a series of ultrasonic pulses. Used by bats, cetaceans, and a few other species on Earth, sound echolocation was pretty hard to spoof as a general rule, unless you were to use active countermeasures. He didn’t detect any of those so decided to take his chances.

The sonic density of the area around him was quickly mapped, and Crow spotted what had to be the bugger knocking dirt in his face. Not quite directly above him, but obviously close enough to peer over the edge in search of his position.

Too close. Bad mistake, sucker.

*****

Sentinel Roark inched slowly around the edge of the cover the enemy soldier had pressed himself into, leery of exposing himself to whatever void-spawned beast the enemy wielded as a weapon. He’d thought gravetic bolters were ugly ways to die, but while he didn’t think the enemy had actually hit any of his fellow Sentinels on the other side with his little fire breathing trick, that slice of the inferno was insanity defined.

He repressed a growl as he looked over the edge but couldn’t find any sign of the target and lifted his hand up with a waggle to signal the others. They started to move forward, flanking his position as Roark moved a little closer to try and see over the edge.

He was caught literally flatfooted as an armored hand burst up
through
the packed dirt, blade in its grip, and stabbed him through the ankle. He didn’t even have time to yell before the hand wrenched back down, filleting his ankle with a clean cut right through the heel, which left him pouring life fluid over the soil and falling to his side, as his foot no longer supported him.

The pain didn’t really strike him, however, so he rolled clear while snarling to his comrades. “He’s there! Right there! Kill him!”

*****

That
may not have been the best course of action.
Crow scrambled as the dirt rained down on his position, covering him as he tried to run while simultaneously remaining glued to the embankment. 
Was really satisfying though.

Another series of blasts from the enemy weapons destroyed part of his cover, forcing him to move quickly to stay out of sight as best he could.

Ok, Mom was right. I really need to learn to delay satisfaction.

A glimpse of motion from his right caused Crow to drop to the ground as a shot from across the gully tore through the position he’d been at. He rolled onto his side, leveled his rifle, and fired a three-round burst that again ignited the very air itself as it passed. They hammered into the far side, tearing up more of the ground, but he was pretty sure that he’d missed hitting anything important.

Bet they put their damned heads down again.

When another round of slammers blew his cover to fine, wet particles, Crow again found himself scrambling along the side of the gully, hoping that something changed in a hurry.

*****

Sorilla skidded to a stop a short distance from her target, sliding in behind a thick tree and risking a glance out and around it. The aliens had set a perimeter, but from the look of the destruction she was seeing, it had been pretty badly stressed by Crow’s little concerto earlier. In the grayish dawn’s light, she could see forms moving around in an attempt to get a better angle on him.

Nothing on thermal, and their visual camo is sophisticated…but nothing active. Interesting.
Sorilla had almost expected to see adaptive camouflage making her job a lot harder, but this group was using what looked like an advanced fractal derivative, similar to old military digicam.

Once again, a lot of what she was seeing just didn’t quite add up with what she expected to see. Advanced military weapons, obvious military training and tactics this time, and yet they seemed almost underequipped for the job. The only reason her armor didn’t have advanced, adaptive camouflage was because those systems were still a little too delicate to use on anything intended to survive orbital reentry…and it would be costly as hell to replace a suit of armor every time someone had to do a drop.

Of course, they’ve been tearing all holy hell out of the regulars stationed here over the past couple months, so “underequipped” could be a relative term,
she admitted privately as she dropped to her belly and crawled into position. 
Still, every time I learn more about these people, more things don’t make sense. One thing for sure, however, these guys aren’t rent-a-cops. They’re the real deal.

Reaching her chosen shooting position, Sorilla unslung her rifle and pushed it out ahead of her until it was settled in position and she’d only have to set her hand on the grip to bring it into play. Next, she unclipped her two remaining anti-personnel grenades and set them by her right hand.

By her calculations, Washington should be in position shortly, so she’d have the honor of kicking off the next party.

She loaded a message into her pulse system, set it to send when she fired the first shot, and then shouldered her rifle and started picking out targets with motion tracking systems and straight up visual spectrum spotting. It wasn’t quite what they used to call “eyeball Mark I.” Hell, even her eyeball wasn’t Mark I anymore, but it was as close as she got in armor, which was pretty old school as far as it went.

A moment later, she started cursing.

Almost immediately after she’d halo one in her armor, she’d lose it in the background noise of the jungle. Whatever they used to spoof her thermal gear was also pretty effective at preventing her computers from keeping track of them when they moved around.

Going to have to do this really old school. One shot, one kill. Damn.

She’d gotten lazy, too used to letting her processors do the heavy lifting. Sighing, Sorilla settled in and picked her first target while trying to keep the others in her mind’s eye as the clock started to wind down.

Ton should be in position right…about…now.

Her finger gently stroked the trigger, and her rifle pulsed once against her shoulder as the round was sent out just under the speed of sound.

She was already moving before the round impacted, her rifle swinging to the next target. She steadied on it for a second then lightly stroked the trigger a second time. By the third target, they were reacting, twisting and taking cover. Sorilla took her shot quickly but was pretty sure that the target went to ground too quickly.

She grabbed one of the grenades and tossed it overhand into the brush that seemed to be where most of them ducked for cover.

That should set this party in motion. Go, Ton, go.

*****

Kriss threw himself to the ground when the whine-zip echoed in his ear, punctuated by a wet slap and a sharp bang. He rolled to see Sirk lying on his back a short distance away, clutching at the left side of his chest.

“Sirk! Status?”

“Hit, but operable.”

Kriss was both surprised and not by the answer. Lucians were notoriously difficult to injure seriously, but the enemy had already shown themselves to have weapons that were up to the task. From the lack of sound, this one had tuned their weapon down for stealth purposes.

“Does anyone know where the shot–?” He was cut off from asking by another whine-zip that catapulted yet another of his men to the ground. “Breaker blast it all, take cover!”

For once he almost wished he’d had a couple of the Ross Ells’ trinkets along; they were good at locating things invisible to damned near anyone else. It went against Sentinel preference to war that way, however, and there wasn’t a single Sentinel who would trust the Ross Ell not to drop a dimensional singularity point on their position. The species was cold in a way that even the Lucians had no taste for.

“Circle left, kill that one we have trapped before we’re caught between their forces!”

Kriss shielded his face as an explosive went off nearby then glared at those around him. “Well, move!”

They scattered, leaving Kriss to glare at the jungle from his position for a long moment before he finally smiled slowly, showing sharp teeth.

Well, now, this little group is getting more interesting by the moment. They have Sentinels of their own.

*****

Washington was moving before the sound of the second shot detonating reached him. He, too, was having the same issues Sorilla had run into but didn’t have time to worry about it too much. He told his armor to ignore thermal and focus on motion detection and pattern recognition. The best he could do would be to pick out profiles from the background as they moved, but honestly, he was better at doing that than his armor computer was.

Like Crow before him, Washington blew all the safeties off his rifle and went full power as he rolled in. Crow had done a good enough job keeping the heads down on one side of the gully, so he focused on the other.

His assault rifle roared like the wrath of an angry god, the shockwave of the hypersonic rounds second only to the gouts of flame as they ignited the air in their passage. He hammered the untouched side of the gully, well away from Crow’s position, not taking time to aim so much as just generally lay waste to the jungle there and forcing anything around to grab some cover.

“Move!” he yelled as he burst into the gully, grabbing Crow out of the dirt he’d been half buried in and swinging him up to his feet. He propelled his junior officer in the direction of Sorilla’s cover then followed as they both bolted full speed to clear the trap Crow had blundered into.

They were about to clear the gully when a figure loomed up ahead of them, and Washington could see the alien weapon bearing down on them. He was bringing his rifle around but knew it would be too late, when a sound like a bee passing his ear filled his hearing, followed by a wet slap, and the grey figure went down in a crumpled heap with half his head missing.

God bless snipers,
he thought grimly as he pushed Crow along,
but only when they’re on my side.

The broke for the jungle as the world erupted into hellfire and damnation behind them, thowing Washington into Crow just as they reached the jungle. The two operators slammed into the ground, rolling into a copse of trees, and came to a rest as the war raged on over their heads.

The two snipers previously in question were perched a good deal closer than men of their chosen profession generally prefer to be located relative to the battle, but the density of the jungle made the choice of site location for them.

“Computer can’t track them,” Korman said.

“Hmm.”

“Old school?”

“Mm.”

“You snipe, I spot,” Korman continued, barely noticing that his companion was communicating in single syllable grunts as he lowered his own weapon and started focusing on his armor HUD.

“Three o’clock, against the burnt stump. Enemy combatant,” Korman stated, using the center of the gully as their twelve o’clock. He also sent the haloed target to Mackenzie’s HUD, but the Scott had already fired his shot by the time it appeared.

Mackenzie’s magnetic rails pulsed once, sending its deadly payload along at supersonic speeds. He was riding the upper level of what the book claimed the rifle was capable of, not pushing its capabilities but not worrying about stealth either. The crack of the round breaking the sound barrier rolled all through the jungle along its path, until it finally tore into the figure at the end of its flight and dropped him where he stood.

“Nine o’clock, beneath the burning bush. Enemy combatant.”

The rifle beside him pulsed, another rolling crack of thunder sent through the jungle.

*****

When the first shot came in from beyond the current engagement range, Kriss decided enough was enough. He sent the withdrawal order, calling back his men as he ordered those to the rear to cover the retreat.

His bolter was joined by others, hammering the jungle with gravetic blasts to force their enemy to put their heads down as the Lucians pulled back.

“We are withdrawing?”

Kriss didn’t bother to dignify the incredulous tone with a glance in the direction of the shocked Sentinel.

“We were not expecting a force of this capability, Sirk. They’re skilled, they have discipline, and they are well-equipped,” he countered, backing away as he waved two more to recover their injured. “These are Sentinels. Show them respect, or they will kill you.”

“Sentinels? We’ve been slaughtering these for…”

“Not
these
,” Kriss corrected the man, backhanding him hard enough to put him back a couple paces. “Now, do not argue with me in battle. Another word and I will kill you myself.”

The recalcitrant Sentinel shut up, falling back by rote as his bolter joined the others. They were pulling their forces out of the fight, battered but mostly operational. The enemy used light- to medium-level personal weapons, aside from the ones that apparently breathed fire. Luckily, those seemed a bit difficult to control, so they hadn’t suffered any direct strikes in those attacks.