The final hike to their position overlooking the valley and cave entrance went by quickly for Tiger One. They were already on a spur connecting to the valley’s main ridgeline, and after some careful observation of their distant overwatch site, they practically sprinted the distance, managing seven miles in less than two hours.
Several hundred yards away they stopped for more observation before creeping slowly across the remaining distance, all the while scanning for signs of a lookout post. Finally, once they were sure they were alone, they belly-crawled onto the crest of the ridge overlooking the valley.
Kayla could not make out the doorway that would lead them inside, and her suit’s communication issues kept her from seeing any of the team’s navigation data. Fortunately, Masey was able to dump an extract onto a datacard which Kayla slotted into her helmet. The relevant positions lit up yellow on the vizor’s heads up displays. A small icon appeared on the far side of the valley, and Kayla scanned the area carefully, looking for anything unusual.
“Tiger Three, be advised, I see an OP close to your overwatch position,” Gucci called over the radio, as she peered intently through her rifle’s powerful scope. “Counting three targets with small arms.”
Kayla tensed—the enemy really was out there watching for them. Suddenly, the imminence of combat became so much more real. As she stared into the valley, she saw another group of men down amongst the boulders, armed with rifles, and patrolling near a fissure in the rock. The only entrance, according to her display, to their objective.
“Night-vision, short range radios,” Gucci announced softly as she studied their enemy. “Not incredibly well equipped.”
“See any of those mutated drones?” Masey asked.
“Zero. They’re probably holding them back inside.”
“Maybe they aren’t that easy to control?”
“Possible,” Gucci said, curtly.
Nobody wanted to make any assumptions.
Another enemy position was located, and Urtiga began to get frustrated. Every second lost meant less time under the precious cover of darkness for the Rangers. The men might have night-vision, but it would be inferior to Valkyrie’s more sophisticated devices, giving them the advantage.
Finally, the Raiders were comfortable they had accounted for all the enemy soldiers in the valley, and all the teams managed to settle into their positions.
“All call-signs, Tiger passes ‘Guardian’,” Urtiga announced to the radio—the signal to commence the assault.
Masey grabbed Kayla’s arm. “Time to get your game face on, rookie.”
Thandi’s tense reverie was shattered when speakers in her helmet, and in the dropship, blared “Guardian, Guardian, Guardian!”
Rangers stowed their headphones or other distractions. Lieutenant Akane, followed closely by Sergeant Reyes, bounded up the ramp and took their seats, plugging into the dropship’s internal comms, while the engines whined with power. The ramp doors closed, and Thandi felt the sensation of movement. The hangar bay vanished from the portholes, replaced with starry blackness.
As she scanned the faces of her platoon, Thandi saw only calm focus. When Reyes caught her eye, the sergeant winked. Her face barely hid an expression of pure joy.
A violent jolt shook the vessel as the engines fired a de-orbit burn, and the Titan dropships began descending to the limits of Caldera’s atmosphere.
“Ten minutes!” came the callout, and Thandi was crushed into her seat by a sickening jolt of deceleration as the Titans levelled out on their final approach paths.
Once the rollercoaster was over, her mind switched focus to the possibilities that might unfold. The Titan dropship was an airborne bus, and enemy anti-aircraft fire could swat them out of the sky with ease as they sat, strapped helplessly into their doomed cage. Thandi found herself praying that the intel people were right when they said the Helvet soldiers would only have access to small arms.
When the ‘one minute’ call came, the Rangers dropped their helmet’s face plates and racked rifle bolts, chambering rounds. At ‘thirty seconds’, seat harnesses were unclipped, and they all stood up facing the exit ramp. Thandi couldn’t make sense of the ship’s tumultuous movements—she just tried to stay upright, grabbing one of the ceiling straps for stability.
Then the ramp lowered, and she followed her squad as they stormed out into the green world beyond.
She ran ten paces before dropping to the dirt, checking she could see her squad mates before aiming her weapon into the distance and scanning for targets. The dropships climbed back up into the night with a whine that seemed eerily quiet from outside the aircraft, leaving nearly a hundred and fifty Rangers alone on the landing zone.
At first, they waited, watching the mountain side for movement. Thandi listened keenly to the night’s total silence. She briefly wondered if she would see Kayla on top of a mountain somewhere, before reminding herself not to be stupid.
Before long, her headset, linked to the platoon’s short-range radio circuit, broke the silence.
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“First platoon—move out!” Lieutenant Akane ordered, and the Rangers got to their feet.
They had landed on a wide, shallow slope below the target valley and would have to hike their way up as quickly as possible. This, Thandi understood, had been done deliberately to provoke the attention of the defenders. The plan was to draw them into a battle in the more defensible mid-section of the valley, away from the base itself, so that the Tiger teams could descend behind the enemy force and fight their way inside.
So Thandi and her fellow Rangers were bait, and probably would not be shooting first. She tried not to dwell on this unhappy thought as they began their climb up the slope ahead.
Up on the ridgeline, the Tiger teams watched through rifle scopes as the now alert enemy soldiers radioed in their reports. Now, all they could do was wait.
“Come out and play bad guys,” Gucci muttered softly.
Kayla did not have a scope and could not see what was happening very well. Instead, she focused on the team’s immediate perimeter, trying to ignore the feeling of utter helplessness she felt as her best friend marched towards an ambush.
“Madam,” Reed announced as he raced into Rayker’s office. “Observation Post One has just communicated the presence of a large enemy force landing below the valley.”
Rayker sniffed. “Of course. The chances of a meteor landing right on top of us at this particular moment are absurd. We should probably assume they used some form of geophonic mapping to locate the tunnels and get at least a general idea of their structure.”
She cocked her head, and her expression changed to bemusement. “That’s a little bit more creative than I expected for a Central Committee led operation.”
Reed gave her a look of annoyed impatience. He had no interest in the deeper politics of the League.
“How many?” Rayker asked.
“More than a hundred soldiers, advancing straight towards the valley entrance.”
“Insufficient. Our drones should tear them to pieces—though some prisoners will be useful. However… hmm.” She pondered for a moment. “Possibly an attempt to draw us out. Regardless, they will be completely outmatched by our force.”
“The ‘meteor’ indicates an orbital weapon system—”
Rayker waved a dismissive hand. “Not relevant. A meteor impact can be ignored by Caldera’s satellites, but prolonged bombardment would draw immediate attention. The League can’t be seen to be conducting a full-scale invasion or there would be an international crisis of epic proportions.
Reed did not relax. “We should anticipate some kind of air support,” he insisted.
“I agree. Send out the drones, and make sure they stay in range of the observation posts. But hold the missiles back for now. We will wait to see what other surprises our enemy has in store.”
“Yes, Madam.”
“Keep the rest of your men inside the base, and if there is a second attack, execute the plan as discussed.”
“Of course, Madam.” Not for the first time, Reed found himself grateful for Rayker’s ingenuity in the area of deception.
“And those additional tunnels are prepared?”
“Laying the charges now.”
“Good. If your men perform as they should, the enemy won’t realize what they are walking into.”
Reed went down to the large assembly caverns, where hundreds of drones sat or paced listlessly, minds floating in a blissful state of euphoria brought on by internal endorphin secretions. It made them easily manageable for the dozen or so Special Forces soldiers who had had to guard them for the past few months.
After Reed relayed their orders, the men sprayed a command drone with an alert pheromone, sending it to wander through the ranks of the collective horde. The chemical triggered arousal in their hormonal structure, draining the endorphins away and forcing them to focus as norepinephrine flooded their minds. As the now awakened drones watched, the soldiers activated scented guide candles and led them out of the caverns in single file.
This job completed, Reed took a handful of men and descended on the scientists’ quarters.
“Emergency situation!” he yelled. “Get to your quarters and lock the doors.”
Weslan hesitated. “I left something in the lab—can I just—”
“Now, Weslan!” Reed cut him off, shoving him toward his room.
The Rangers had been hiking for at least an hour, and Thandi was already exhausted. They had been climbing quickly, only stopping for quick breaks to drink water. Huge boulders littered the valley slope, making the going tough as Rangers scrambled for hand and footholds, or hauled each other up high ledges. Thandi wondered what it would take to make one of the hundred-ton rocks tip over.
The scramble was made even more difficult with night vision, as her eyes struggled to make sense of the confused green imagery, while at the same time watching the shadows for any sign of movement. It was a mentally demanding exercise, and she couldn’t imagine how she could be useful once the battle started.
When the squad approached a steeper part of the valley, Kes ordered them to stop.
“Listen up girls,” she said. “If they hit us, it will probably be at the top of this rise. Heads on swivels, got it?”
They nodded their acknowledgement, and Thandi heard blood rushing through her ears. Other squad leaders had arrived at the same conclusion, and the advance began to slow. As they leaned into the steeper climb, Thandi began glancing up at every step, causing her to stumble over a rock. Just then, a radio call came out over the net.
“They’re coming for us. More than a hundred, right over the crest—get ready.”
The Rangers as a group dropped into cover and aimed their rifles at the distant rocks.
Once she felt more secure in the team’s position, Kayla had slow crawled into a better spot to see the valley. She watched with dread as a teeming mass of monstrous creatures passed below them, moving fast, and heading straight for the Rangers.
Kayla felt horror prickle across her skin as she thought about the innocent men and women these drones had once been, who the Rangers of the task force were going to have to kill.
She cut the thought off with anger. Rayker was the one who had killed them. Everything that happened next was her doing.
She heard Urtiga describe what they were seeing on the radio, followed by another command. “Weapons free.”
Kayla almost jumped out of her skin as Gucci’s high-powered rifle coughed—the first loud noise the team had made since their arrival. Down in the valley, five Helvet commandos dropped dead immediately as other hidden snipers also fired. The rifle next to her was the only one she heard, however, even after Urtiga confirmed that the other Observation Posts had been neutralized. Kayla hadn’t even seen the muzzle flashes from the distant Tiger teams.
The swarm of drones continued on their path, oblivious to what transpired behind them.
“Fast and loud, huh?” Urtiga said. “Rayker must be feeling overconfident. Fortunately for the Rangers.”
“Or maybe they can’t do subtle,” Masey suggested.
Urtiga shrugged. “We’ll see. Okay, Chicas, prepare to move. As soon as the Rangers open up, we’re heading down to that doorway.”
“What happens if the creatures realize we’re behind them?” Kayla asked with horrified fascination.
“Well, there’s only thirty of us, all spread out, so they’ll probably kill us without difficulty.”
“Oh.” Kayla looked down, ashamed of the stupid question.
Urtiga went to make one last radio call. “Raven, this is Tiger, enemy observation teams neutralized. Airspace over the objective is open for business. Give ‘em hell, ‘Mira—out.”