Wings of steele 4 dark c.., p.11
Wings of Steele 4: Dark Cover, page 11
“We are already in deep trouble, mon'ami. We have, how you say; jumped from the skillet into the fire...”
“Frying pan,” corrected Dan.
“Excusez-moi?”
“Never mind,” waved Dan, adjusting his carbine's sight, watching the first truck.
■ ■ ■
Lieutenant JG, Nera Margareth switched her sensors over to magnetic as they skimmed over the desert, looking down out the side of the cockpit perspex from her Cyclone. “Not much down there but sand...”
Commander Dar Sloane adjusted the sensor sweep spread on the Zulu's sensor magnapod hanging from the ship's belly. “You're supposed to be watching the sky, Lieutenant,” he admonished.
Lieutenant Torn Dado, caught movement well inside his sensor sweep, “White Two, I've got two flights of four, ten o'clock. They're coming off the deck, climbing to our altitude...” A schematic appeared in another screen as the targeting computer locked on to the lead craft and researched Earth's military database for a definition of the target. “First group of four identified as Dassault Mirage F1s...” He selected the lead aircraft of the second flight, “Second flight identified as Saeqeh-80 Thunderbolts... Wait, hold on. We've got another flight lifting off...” He adjusted his targeting computer, “Third flight identified as Northrop F-5 Tiger IIs. Looks like they've got a little of everything...”
Dar Sloane dropped the Zulu lower, the shuttle following him down, separating his search and rescue flight from the four Cyclone fighters. “You know what to do, White Leader, keep them away from us...”
“I know my job, Commander,” she snapped.
■ ■ ■
“This is Colonel Kabir ali Kahn of the Royal Iranian Air Force, you have entered sovereign Iranian airspace. Leave our airspace immediately, or you will be shot down!” Equipped with both MICA AAM and MICA Magic IR AAM missiles, the Colonel called up his Mirage F1's weapon stores, selecting the superior infra-red imaging MICA Magic. But he would have to wait until they got within the missile's 50-mile range to fire. The Colonel had no idea what his target was, it defied his computer's attempts at identification, throwing an unidentified warning on the radar screen.
Despite his repeated efforts at radio contact, his commands went unanswered and the enemy craft did not deviate from their flight path; part of the group dropping below the other, defying his final commands. Blaming the accumulated results, or lack thereof on the aircraft, the Colonel cursed its computer system, electronics, radio, the French builders who created it and the ground crew who maintained it in a lengthy diatribe of Arabic furor. Nudging the throttle forward, he ignited his afterburners, keying his mic, “Enough! They have been warned. No more talk. The infidels must die for their cursed insolence. Allahu akbar.”
“Allahu akbar,” came the response in his helmet.
■ ■ ■
Ensign Fidos leaned left and visually scanned the desert passing below his Dragonfly shuttle, “I see a lot of nothing down there...” He glanced up in the mirror mounted to the canopy rib at his EWO in the rear seat, “Do you see anything Jarosh?”
The electronics officer shook his head inside his helmet, “Lots of sand... Woah! Launch! We have a launch!” Warning lights flashed, alarms chirped and Flight Officer Jarosh tracked a missile on-screen coming up from the surface of the desert. “Break right!” he grunted as Fidos instinctively threw the shuttle in a right-hand corkscrew. He initiated countermeasures and ports on the Dragonfly's hull popped self-propelled decoys into the atmosphere, blinding and confusing the Iranian Sayyad-2 SAM. “Second launch!” called Jarosh, triggering a second volley of self-propelled decoys which left the shuttle's hull as Fidos threw the Dragonfly around, sincerely hoping everyone in back was securely strapped into their seats.
“Rescue Two to Zulu One..! Rescue Two to Zulu One!”
“Keep your shirt on, Rescue Two,” grunted Dar Sloane, nosing the Zulu over and bumping the throttle. A snarling sandstorm followed the Zulu across the desert as the chin turret's gun pipper settled on the target, the twin argon pulse lasers coming to life with a squeeze of his finger, intense slashes of purple lancing toward the target, the guns producing a unique alternating sound; zink-zunk, zink-zunk, zink-zunk,...
A third Sayyad-2 was leaving the launcher as the Zulu's argon lasers cut through the launch vehicle and missile rack, a fierce fireball cratering the desert and glassing the sand around it, lifting the Zulu on a heat and concussion wave as it passed through its center. A river of fire, smoke and debris followed the alien craft as it exited the far side of the maelstrom, its shields shrugging it off, letting it rain down on the desert below.
A winding dry desert wadi erupted in anti-aircraft fire, from a ZU-23-2 nestled in low brush, its twin barrels pumping out 23mm rounds at a combined 800 rounds per minute. Dar Sloane jinked the Zulu as they flashed past, rounds splashing on the shields, clattering on the armor.
“Projectiles decelerated. No damage skipper.”
“Somebody kill that thing,” Dar ordered calmly.
“Got it boss...” The gunner in the stern turret tracked the AA gun as it retreated in his targeting reticule. A short squeeze and it disappeared in a flash, white-hot parts flung outward, its own rounds cooking off, smoky little bursts flowering in midair like fireworks.
Dar cranked on the antigravity as another ZU-23-2 appeared on his threat assessment screen, his HUD marking its location on a hill off the nose of the Zulu. The stream of 23mm rounds passed underneath the hull, deflected away by the shields before he punched the throttle. Hard. Thundering over the gun at Mach 10, it blew apart from the compression, flattening the crew and crushing the equipment truck, sending it rolling across the desert rocks like a crumpled tin can. “Talk to me Fidos...”
■ ■ ■
Ensign Torn Dado's threat indicator squawked as infra-red painted his Cyclone, “I've got a picture taker...” He reached forward and lifted the safety covers, flipping the toggles, arming his weapons, the Cyclone's gun generators spinning up momentarily to top off the charge for its strontium laser auto-cannons. The active targeting screen automatically identified the target who had electronically engaged his Cyclone. “Lead Mirage F1... they're one-hundred miles and closing.”
“You've got the lead, Tornado?” asked Nera Margareth. “Good. That's the guy who keeps running his mouth... OK, lock them up boys and girls, random targets; shake them up.” She blinked at her targeting screen, choosing the lead Saeqeh-80 Thunderbolt of the second flight. With her index finger hovering over the trigger and her other hand on the throttle, she broke into a wry little smile, her feline fangs showing, “Straight through on my command... Fire!” She squeezed the trigger and magenta streaks slashed across the sky, her strontium laser auto-cannons thrumming a short burst from under the chin of her fighter. “Boost!”
■ ■ ■
Colonel Kabir ali Kahn saw the first bolt of hot magenta pass his cockpit on the right, and in an infinitesimally short nano-second, his mind registered stunned amazement, curiosity, fear, loathing, and finally, recognition of the danger that was so overwhelmingly alien to him he attempted to evade in panic. His core so flooded with adrenalin, time slowed, and with horror he actually saw the second bolt coming as it tore through his left wing, shearing it off like a hot knife through butter. His reflex was to reach for the ejection handle to evacuate his stricken aircraft but his hand had barely released the flight stick when the third bolt passed over the cockpit shearing off the tail, the fourth punching through the F1's nose, passing through the cockpit and exiting out through the engine, instantly incinerating him and turning his multimillion-dollar fighter into flaming, molten confetti as it exploded at Mach 1, an oblong fireball splashing angrily across the sky.
The Colonel's wing man, Lieutenant Fadel Mohammed, saw the four-round burst of magenta light incinerate his flight leader's fighter and out of his peripheral vision, the fourth aircraft in his formation came apart in the blink of an eye, disappearing in ribbons of fire, smoke and pieces fluttering lazily Earthward. He was not about to wait for the hand of the devil to strike him from the sky, forcing the nose of his Mirage F1 down with a grunt, hammering the throttle to the far stop, pulling his aircraft into as tight a turn as he could maintain consciousness through. He headed out across the desert in the opposite direction. “Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar. Allahu akbar...” he chattered, panic overriding all of his other senses.
■ ■ ■
“Hammerhead right, in three... two... one... Execute,” commanded Nera Margareth.
Along with the other members of White Flight, Ensign Torn Dado pulled his throttle back past the zero mark, firing breaking thrusters, simultaneously rotating the antigravity collective to maintain altitude and kicking the right rudder pedal hard, his Cyclone sliding flatly in a right-hand arc, driven by maneuvering thrusters, the nose coming smartly around, facing back the way he had come.
Overshooting the Iranian flights by ten miles at about Mach 6, White Flight accelerated again to pursue the flights that had panicked into wholesale retreat, having lost five fighters on the first pass to an enemy they were unprepared to meet.
Nera Margareth looked out and down at the five pillars of smoke reaching into the sky, the pale desert scorched where the remains of the fighters had hit the surface. “Back it down, the rest of them are running...”
Torn Dado's voice cut in on her comm, “Were letting them go?”
“As much as I'd like to chase them all down, Tornado, it's not what we're here for,” she countered. Nera adjusted her comm frequency, “White Flight to Zulu One – Status?”
■ ■ ■
Perhaps; suck my dick you dirty fucking goat-humpers, was not the desired answer when the Iranians demanded surrender. But in Dan Murphy's defense, he wasn't current on proper protocol when dealing with hostile foreign forces. Screw it! He'd never been terribly fond of political correctness anyway.
Thunderclaps and the crashing rumble of sonic booms rolled across the desert, mixed with sharp explosions, marked by fire in the distant sky, angry, dirty black ribbons drifting against the blue, and columns of smoke rising from the ground. Dan would have liked to take a better look, but he was too busy trying to not get shot, ducking behind the ridge as AK-47 fire rippled across the sand on the other side of the berm that concealed him. “Dooobyyy!”
“Sorry, Dan!” came Dooby's voice somewhere from his left, “I can't shoot and work on this thing... and shooting is more critical at this juncture!”
“So who's telling you not to shoot? Can you fix that piece of junk or not?!”
“I don't have a lot of hope for it, no.”
“That's just great,” grumbled Dan through clenched teeth. He peered over the top of the ridge through his carbine's sights, “I forgot my own advice...”
“What's that?” asked Janine Luack, crouched at his side.
“Never volunteer.” He squeezed off two shots at the lead truck parked in the center of the divided highway, the carbine whistling. Crimson streaks punched through the fender and into the engine, fire blowing out underneath the front of the truck on the other side with a muffled boom. “Hmmph,” he grunted, “ I was hoping for more than...” The troop truck lifted off the ground in a cloud of dust and flying parts, the heavy whump reaching him a moment later, as the flaming hulk thudded back to the ground heavily, the sound of protesting metal as it crushed itself against the ground delayed by the distance. “Well that's a little better,” he mumbled, ducking back down, AK-47 rounds sailing over him with a snapping zing. “Keep moving around, people! “ shouted Dan, rolling to his right and pushing Janine Luack ahead of him.
“They're coming in through the main entrance!” called Ivan, picking targets carefully, squeezing off single shots from the pulse carbine. He ducked back to cover as return fire swung in his direction.
12.7mm machine gun rounds passed through the ridge of the berm just a few feet from Dooby, the crest disappearing in clouds of sand and rock as they chewed through his cover, sending him rolling down the slope to safety, scrambling in Dan's direction. “What the hellion was that?”
“A Dushka,” yelled Ivan. “Russian made DshKM; Degtyaryov-Shpagina. A heavy machine gun. He's on the back of one of the technicals...”
“Can you hit it?”
“Not from this angle...” the Russian ventured a look over the top of his cover, “Avi, can you hit it?”
“No,” shouted the Israeli. “But I can see the tanks moving back, that's not good...”
Dan raised an eyebrow, “Why?”
“They are moving back for a firing solution on our position!”
There was a low whistle which made them all shrink reflexively; the top of a ridge forward of their position exploding in a giant geyser of sand and fire, shaking the ground underneath them, a cloud of dust and sand carried by the stale desert breeze raining down on them.
Indicating the direction the fire came from, the Frenchman motioned over the ridge to the East, “I think our troubles, they get worse...”
“More tanks!” shouted Avi.
“Tanks on both sides..? Where the hell are all these things coming from?” growled Dan.
Myomerr motioned toward the center of the maze, “The troops are pulling back!”
“Then let's give them a little parting gift,” commented Dooby, opening the soft bag he'd been carrying around from the Dragonfly, retrieving a small glass cylinder about five inches long with metal ends, a shimmering blue-green substance swirling inside.
“What's that?” asked Dan, sliding up next to him, hoping for a grenade or something equally as devastating.
“A liquid bio-plasma system fuse,” he said, seeing disappointment in Dan's face. “Inert unless you expose it to atmosphere...” he smiled wryly, whacking the metal end on a rock. He checked the glass cylinder, shaking his head before striking it again. Satisfied with the crack he had created in the tube he cocked his arm back and threw it in the direction of the entrance like a quarterback throwing for the end zone. “They're under pressure,” he grunted, ducking down, pulling on Dan's sleeve to get him below the ridge.
A dull whump that could be felt to the core, accompanied an intense blue flash reaching out in a sphere, incinerated everything it touched; turning sand to glass, men to ash and metal to slag. Dan peered over the crest of the berm watching a lone survivor drag himself across the smoking sand, nearly naked, his legs gone below mid-thigh, meat cauterized with his bare femurs protruding from blackened stumps, most of his clothing flash-ignited off his body.
“Good. God...”
“They're attempting to flank around the outside..!” snarled Myomerr.
A chorus of blasts split the air, a stereo of low whistles screaming in from the left and right, prompting the group to retreat as far to the bottom between the ridges as they could get, the high explosive rounds from the tanks shaking the earth, sizable craters appearing in the outer berms on both sides of the maze.
Dan scrambled back to the top, followed by Dooby and Janine Luack, “Is everybody OK?”
“They're trying to breach the walls,” called Ivan, “if they do, we are finished.”
Closest to the outer wall of the maze on the right flank, the Frenchman, covered in dirt and sand, managed to claw his way to the top of his berm, staggering along its ridge, his eyes glazed over, blood running from his ears, dragging his carbine loosely by the barrel.
“Phillipe, get down from there!” screamed Janine Luack. “Phillipe! Get down! Phillipe..!”
Dan pulled her down by the arm, “He can't hear us...”
Dropping her carbine, Myomerr sprang up from cover and sprinted across the top of the berm; a blur running along its ridge, AK-47 rounds whizzing past all around her. The Frenchman staggered and stumbled, his body twitching, bullets passing through him before one struck something solid, pitching him backward out of sight.
Myomerr dove after him, sliding with him to the bottom between the berms, eight feet below the top of the ridges. Rising to one knee, she crouched over him looking at the blood splashed across his jumpsuit, trying to access his injuries. “My friend gave her life to save you. You are not allowed to die...” Hearing the roar of the tanks' cannons, she threw herself over the Frenchman and covered her ears with her hands. The concussion of the high explosive rounds on the outside of the maze bounced her bodily off the ground and covered the defenseless pair with nearly a foot of sand and rocks, stunning her into semi-consciousness.
Pressing herself into a kneeling position, it took Myomerr a moment to get her bearings and regain her senses, her ears ringing, her head buzzing. But the hereditary huntress in her had not lost her sense of smell... she knew he was there before he realized what he was seeing.
■ ■ ■
The figure rose out of the sand, its back to the Iranian soldier, a head of hair like a lion's mane, wild platinum and gray striped fur. When the figure turned to look at him, dressed in a dark-gray flight suit of some kind, the Iranian soldier froze, stunned to see a human tigress with bared fangs snarling at him, steely platinum-gray eyes staring through him, unblinking. It didn't immediately register as real in his mind, it was beyond his meager comprehension. Not truly wanting to look away, knowing he shouldn't look away, he hazarded a glance over his shoulder for support from someone, anyone, in his squad. When he looked back, he'd realized his mistake, but it was too late for him. In a low-ready position, he tried to raise the muzzle of his AK-47, but the sling over his shoulder slowed his response and she was almost on him at a full run, arms outstretched, claws extended, teeth bared, emitting a bone-chilling, gut-wrenching snarl. She caught the fore-grip of his rifle, her nails digging into the wood, redirecting the barrel and passed him shoulder-to-shoulder, yanking and turning him around as she ran up the berm perpendicular to the ground, then down, spinning on her feet and using her momentum, swinging him, slamming him face-first into the opposite berm with bone-crushing force. Torn from his grasp, she pulled the rifle behind his back and choked him with the sling, her knee between his shoulder blades for leverage, wrenching the rifle violently, breaking his neck.
