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Da
“Fire in the hole!” she yelled, somewhat dramatically.
Da
“Let’s go inside,” said Da
Melissa was thrown against her restraints as the Osprey pitched hard to get on a new course, avoiding the MC-17 swooping in low over the compound. As the black cargo aircraft came in, two large containers trundled down the interior rail system to the rear bay doors. The large rectangular boxes looked like smaller versions of the shipping containers that carried so much freight around the world. Long droguelike parachutes deployed as the boxes left the aircraft, slowing their descent just enough to allow the cushioned bottoms to properly absorb the blow from the fall.
The flat screen at the forward station in the Osprey’s hold received input from the MC-17’s target-drop system; it declared the boxes had hit exactly 13 and 27 centimeters from their “optimum” positions.
“Good enough for government work,” joked the crew chief, watching over Melissa’s shoulder.
As they hit the ground near the larger citadel, the sides of the large crates unfolded, revealing a quartet of TinkerToy-like objects on a platform. These odd contraptions, known to the Whiplash team simply as Bots, could be configured for a variety of tasks. The eight that had just landed were all equipped with M-134 Gatling guns, essentially the same weapons fired by a door gu
As the last bot reached its destination, all eight began to fire, peppering the exterior of the half-dozen buildings with a barrage of gunfire for exactly twenty-two seconds. As the last bullet hit, a dozen small munitions, launched from the “arms” of the Osprey Melissa was riding in, struck their targets, removing the roofs from the buildings.
Melissa jerked up as the crew chief tapped her on the shoulder.
“Be ready to land in zero-five,” said the chief.
She gave him a thumbs-up, then keyed the screen to show the area Da
Da
The team moved through the room quickly, reaching the exterior hallway. The next two rooms were unoccupied—the walls were so thin they could see the heat signatures on their helmet screens—and they reached the hallway in seconds.
“Fire in the hole!” yelled Nolan.
Standing at the head of the stairs, the trooper dropped a frag grenade down. As soon as it exploded, the team descended to the first floor of the two-story building. Nolan stayed on the steps while the rest raced to check the rooms.
The walls were either thicker or insulated, and they could no longer count on their infrared images or MY-PID’s interpretation. They swept each room methodically, hitting them with grenades and then coming in. Each room looked like a classroom, with a small desk and a number of chairs—a finishing school for terror.
When the last room had been cleared without finding anyone, Da
“Flash, what’s your situation?”
“Building cleared. Twelve enemies encountered, twelve down.”
“Move on.”
“Moving.”
“Got all the action over there,” quipped Nolan. “I picked the wrong team.”
Floor cleared, Da
“Used a string to close it,” she told him. “Squeezed past the desk.”
Da
“Drop a grenade,” he told her.
She did.
“Goes down pretty far,” she told him after it exploded. “Then in that direction, to the north.”
“We’ll have to come back and check it,” he told her. “Help me with the desk.”
They turned the desk on its side and slid it over the hole. Then Da
MY-PID had apparently not discerned the tu
“Target the mine shaft opening,” Da
In the meantime, the rest of Da
“Ru
“Keep moving,” barked Da
Nuri ducked as a sudden burst of gunfire bounced through the rocks just to his right. The bullets themselves were well off the mark, but they shattered the nearby rock outcropping, sending a fusillade of chips showering in every direction. Several hit his helmet so hard that he fell down. He had an instant headache—but it was far better than what might have occurred had he not given in to Pierce’s “extremelystrongpersonalrecommendation, sir!” that he don a Marine helmet to go with his Whiplash-issued armored vest.
Shaking the blow off, Nuri rose in time to see the Marines he’d been with pump several grenades into the position behind the flattened bus. One of the grenades hit a small store of ammo. This resulted in a cascade of shrapnel even larger than the one that had engulfed him, but it didn’t stop the Brothers who were several yards behind the position from firing.
The Marines countered with a heavy dose of lead from their M-16A4s. Nuri added some rounds from his own SCAR, then saw two of the enemy soldiers ru
The other tossed a grenade, big and fat, directly at him.
As the rest of his team headed to take down their third and final building, Da
The “spikes”—they had no official name beyond a series of letters and numbers—were a quartet of long metal tubes that were literally rocketed into the ground after being launched from the MC-17. After insertion, a network of small wires shot from the bodies of the spikes, creating a field of electric current—a virtual electric fence, or for the more sci-fi oriented, a force field. Anyone attempting to run through the area protected by the spikes would receive a massive jolt of electricity, roughly the equivalent of three hits from a commercial grade Taser.