Blink: Interdiction (Book 4)

15

It didn't take long for Amber to discover how the Haze had got its name.

She materialised in their staging area and just barely stifled a hacking cough as she took in a breath. Even by Ravine's abysmal standards the air here tasted filthy, thick with chemicals, rock dust and the burn of nearby magma. But the taste of the air was nothing compared to the sight when she opened her eyes and looked up.

Appearing in a secluded spot not far from an abandoned seismic monitoring station, she could see the Haze opening out before her, and the entire region shimmered like a mirage. The sheer scalding heat of the ground beneath their feet left a near-permanent blur of fuzzed light as far as she could see. She crunched down on one of the hydration meds and surveyed the scene uneasily. This was not a place made for human habitation, but the wealth of heavy metals beneath those volcanic slopes had meant greed overcame caution.

The entire Blink force had been deployed in the region, scattered through the different settlements and equipped with heavily boosted comm packs to try and cut through the worst of the interference. Four squads had been assigned a town each, while Tundra Squad under Vass's command hung back as a strike force, ready to act as an emergency response fail-safe in case their plan fell through. While the tactic was sound, she also suspected Darien didn't want to risk Vass fouling up what was sure to be a delicate operation.

Every other unit was split between a surveillance team of two and an insertion team of four, whose task would be to get the attention of the local players who might be in the market for new hardware. Amber had hoped to be able to sit in surveillance, but regulations dictated either the squad leader or second officer needed to be on the surveillance team, to coordinate based on wider information. They also needed a tech on that part of the team, and she'd lost her coin flip with Uther over that one.

That, and Niamh's mechanical eye was a striking enough feature to mark her out on Ravine, given the quality of its tech. If you lost an eye on Ravine you would either live with it, or risk much lower grade tech grafts that could come with a whole raft of complications. It stunned her just how far behind the curve most of the planet seemed to be.

A tiny voice in the back of her mind told her that on some level, the rebels might have a point.

She tried not to think about that for the moment – there would be time to debate the overarching morals when the dust settled. Right now she shouldered her carbine and joined the others in trudging up the jagged pathway through the heat-blasted crags that led to the monitoring station that would serve as their base. Like the others, her Blink combat armour was concealed beneath a long, ragged coat embedded with heat absorbing pads, a common garment amongst Ravine civilians. Baggy trousers and thick, studded boots were combined with a set of grimy but functional factory goggles to give her the look of a Ravine native. They'd even gone so far as to touch up their faces with cosmetics to give their skin the drier, cracked look that was characteristic on the planet.

"Damn," she heard Niamh mutter from just behind. "If they want this planet so badly maybe we should just let them have it."

"I'll buy that," Hekket agreed grimly, wiping a film of sweat from his face as he slouched along, face crumpled with discomfort.

Darien turned on them with a wry smile on his face. "I get it, it's hot out here. The faster we're inside the faster you can unload your gear, so let's keep the complaining down to a fever pitch, eh?"

"Easy for you to say!" Idas called from the back of the group. He and Uther brought up the rear, lugging a long rectangular crate between them. Inside was a motley collection of military firearms, explosives, body armour and radios – anything and everything a rebellion might want. Even with the gravity assists built into the plating the crate still weighed as much as a grown man.