The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Chapter 20: Extraction

Naryan was fighting the impulse to impatiently pace when her earpiece came alive once more.

"Viper One, Vipers," Lash's voice came on, sounding strong and clear. "Storage area with the liliths secure. Make the call, Viper Two!"

Smiling fiercely even as Narcist pumped her fist in victory, Truk laughing out loud, Ballan sighing with relief, and Absinthe crying softly with the release in tension, Naryan nodded.

"Copy that, Viper One," she almost joyously sent back.

Fordricht was letting his eyes scan over Nighthawk One's instrument panel as he sat in the pilot's seat when the comms came alive.

"Nighthawk One, Two," Tanner's voice said. Instantly the North African Ventru sat up, eyes narrowed.

"Two, One. Go," he said.

"Mission is a go," Tanner tersely indicated. "Roll in on the entrance, Evasive Pattern Delta and on the deck."

"Roger Delta on the deck," Fordricht replied as he had the pilot's seat move him into position. As the steering yoke hit his hands, he was twisting to yell down to the passenger bay.

"Galloway! Morel! We're going in!" Then he was pulling their gunship around and hitting the throttle.

Once again at ten klicks offshore as they waited for the word to deploy, it took a couple of minutes to cover the intervening distance at a mere ten meters off the ocean surface.

"Moving into position to drop our marines," Tanner announced as, on the monitor, Nighthawk Two peeled away from their trailing position.

According to Lash's active transponder, the liliths were being stored close to an underwater access point, likely for ease of protected and hidden transport. Which dovetailed nicely into Tanner's two-pronged assault.

With one squad of Force Recon, and two squads of Spec Ops hitting the front door, the initial plan was to take the enclave's submarine entrance as shown on the map to control the two major access points. However, when a transponder check put their commander right on top of a secondary submarine access, it worked better to tweak the attack plan to take that entrance instead. That way they could more easily exfil the captive liliths without fighting through the heart of the enclave.

Spotting the cluster of warehouses the infil team had marked as the entrance, Fordricht went guns hot then began pulling back from the controls.

"Bring us in nice and tight, One," he tautly instructed the gunship's AI. "You are cleared hot and free to fire on any and all hostile forces detected!"

"Roger, Operator Fordricht," the AI replied. "Sixty seconds to drop!"

The shifter at the enclave's checkpoint frowned as he heard a soft whirring sound from just outside. He glanced over at the rest of the checkpoint team and found them playing on their smartphones or staring off into space, smoking. If they had heard the sound, they were ignoring it.

Grimacing, he grabbed the strap of his assault rifle and slung it over his shoulder. Then he was walking towards the triangular opening to the outside.

Oddly the whirring sound got neither louder or softer as he approached the opening. With his rifle still on his shoulder, he pulled out a pack of cigarettes and extracted one to put into his mouth. He was reaching for his lighter when he finally stepped through the opening and out. Where he immediately came to a stunned stop at what his eyes saw.

It was some kind of ship, held aloft by giant fans as it hovered in place. Details were lost in the gloom, but he could see enough to watch eight figures drop out of the ship's belly on cords. Then he was jerking to the side as a piece of superheated ceramic punched into his forehead, the impact spinning him awkwardly around before he dropped dead, sightless eyes staring up at the night sky filled with stars.