leader. What a sense of humor God must have.
“Gear up,” she told them, grabbing the mesh bag that held her own diving equipment. Her weapons and ammo were already sealed in a waterproof pack strapped across her chest—the diving gear had come from the stores of a recreational SCUBA club back in Cleveland. Shannon still wondered just where the hell anyone found to go diving in Ohio.
Not that she was all that excited about diving off Long Island. Impressed as she was by the scenic beauty of the place, she was fairly sure that the surf crashing on the sand of the shore a couple hundred meters away was colder than a taxman’s heart, and she didn’t even want to think what might be swimming in that water. She
“Not too late to back out,” Kristopolis joked as he stepped up behind her. “I’ve always wanted to be a commando.”
“You just make sure you’re not late,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him. “I don’t want to have to take on the whole Protectorate by myself. Remember, if they spot us…”
“I know,” he said, raising a hand to interrupt her. “If I hear any firing or see any sudden troop movement, I’m to attack immediately. Don’t worry—this plan’s so simple not even a dumbass Janitor could screw it up.”
Shannon patted him on the shoulder, smiling proudly. “No matter what happens today, Kristy, you and your troops will never be called ‘dumbass janitors’ again.”
Without another word, she marched off toward the shoreline, with her squad in tow.
Kristopolis watched them until they were over the dunes and out of sight, then turned back to the faces of the fifty men and woman under his command, all looking to him expectantly.
“What are you waiting for?” he yelled, his smile offsetting his words. “An engraved invitation? Everyone in your vehicles and in place! Private Vingh, you have the codes—get your ass over to the security lock on the gate and get ready to deactivate the sensors on my signal. Come on, you miserable bastards, we got ourselves a war to win!”
Shannon fought to keep from hyperventilating as she sucked air through the regulator of her borrowed rebreather unit, blowing out streams of bubbling carbon dioxide into the dark water. Despite her wetsuit, the water of the Long Island Sound felt like liquid nitrogen, and every muscle in her body threatened to cramp up from the bitter cold.
Below her, she could see the sand of the sea floor and the furtive movements of underwater life, some of it disturbingly large, but the night-vision lenses built into her dive mask robbed her of depth perception and she wasn’t sure how close or how large the things were. It seemed as if they’d been slogging through the frigid water for hours, but a quick check of the luminous LCD readout of her dive computer told her it had been less than thirty minutes—which, she figured, put them somewhere just past the control center.
Turning back toward the rest of her group, she held up her hand for a security halt, quickly did a head count, then signalled for a position check. Together, they slowly ascended the ten meters to the gently-rolling surface waves and the swiftly-darkening sky, and Shannon turned 360 degrees searching for the shore. It was difficult due to the rise of the dunes at the beach and the gathering darkness, but Shannon finally spotted the lights of the entrance gate shining into the sky nearly parallel to their position.
She motioned for them to head in, then carefully and quietly let air from her buoyancy control vest to allow herself to sink below the waves—too much movement would trigger the sensors on the shore. Once she was down and swimming inland, she checked her chronometer once more and nodded with satisfaction. They had ten more minutes before Kristopolis shut down the alarms.
“You remember the code, Raj?” Corporal Lee nudged Private Vingh, jostling his hands away from the gate’s security panel. Rajhiv craned his head around and favored his friend with a withering glare.
“Yes, I remember the Goddamned code,” he growled.
“You sure?” Lee shook his head doubtfully, trying to hide his smirk. “I mean, after all, that Klesko guy wouldn’t write it down and that was a couple days ago… anything could happen. What if you forgot?”
“Johnny,” Vingh snapped, “if you don’t leave me the fuck alone, you won’t have to worry about the Goddamned Protectorate, ’cause I’ll kill you myself.”
“Hey you two, quit screwing around.” Lieutenant Kristopolis came out of the trees behind them, taking a knee at the gate controls. “We’re all set. Give me a minute to get back to my vehicle, then punch in the codes and get the hell out of the way.”
“Yes, sir,” Vingh said, but Kristopolis was already sprinting back into the darkness of the woods. The PFC turned back to the gate and an alarmed, blank look passed over his face. He fixed Lee with a terrified stare. “Oh, shit!” he blurted. “I can’t remember the code!”
Corporal Lee laughed. “It’s okay, Raj,” he assured his friend, pulling a slip of paper out of his fatigue pocket. “I was hanging out around the corner when Klesko gave it to you. Here.” He shoved the paper at Vingh. “I wrote it down.”
“Oh, you son of a bitch,” Vingh muttered, punching in the override code.
The chain-link gates swung open with a whine of infrequently-serviced motors, and before they were halfway apart the assault force’s motley train of vehicles was already advancing out of the treeline. Lee and Vingh scrambled out of the way, waiting for the last of the assortment of groundcars, motorcycles and hovercraft to pass through before they hopped into the three-wheel All-Terrain Vehicle parked to the side of the gate and gunned the engine.
“You ready?” Johnny Lee asked, swinging his rifle around so that it pointed out his side of the buggy.
“Brother, I’ve been landscaping public parks for the last two years,” Vingh laughed, spinning the little car around and accelerating through the gate. “Of course I’m not ready!”
Shannon knew that the fight had commenced when the Protectorate hopper exploded.
“Go, go, go!” she snapped, levering herself up from the sand with the butt of her rifle.
The infiltration squad raced across the beach, black-clad ghosts incongruously lit by the pinwheels of fire belching from the enemy machine. Shannon had removed her night-vision goggles when she’d donned a battle helmet for the assault—and the obsolete headgear they’d liberated from the stockpile lacked infrared imaging—but in the light from the blast she could see the enemy scurrying around the compound with all the organization of a rugby scrum. Human and biomech troops rushed to the suddenly stilled black pylons that had been the base’s sonic fence, running to meet the attack from Kristopolis’ diversionary force.
The infiltration team bounded forward, one six-person group moving while the other provided cover in the classic overwatch formation she’d drilled into them over the last few days, but she was too preoccupied to feel much tutorial pride. Her eyes darted about frantically as she led the team through the inactive fence, weaving a path through bits of burning wreckage from the hopper. She had to actively restrain herself from diving to the ground at the explosion of gunfire across the compound as the Protectorate troops opened fire on the assault force.
She tried not to focus on the yawning cargo entrance lest she ignore possible threats from elsewhere, but the light from within the open doors drew her gaze irresistibly. Which was why she was the first one to notice the suit of Protectorate powered armor lumbering up the ramp from the bowels of the base.
“Down!” she yelled, throwing herself into the prone position, her rifle coming to her shoulder.
She was squeezing the trigger even as the armored Russian swung his arm-mounted weapon around, but the 6mm rounds spanged harmlessly off the thick alloy surface of the suit and the gaping bore of the trooper’s recoilless rifle lit up with a crack of thunder. Shannon buried her head under her arms as she felt the hot breath of the shell on her neck, and then something that was more a feeling than a noise picked her up and deposited her two meters farther toward the cargo doors.
The impact drove the breath from her lungs, sending her vision spinning through a kaleidoscope of colors, a persistent ringing in her ears drowning out all other sound. Distantly, she felt hands picking her off the ground, dragging her forward, and she wondered with stunned detachment why the battlesuit’s weapon hadn’t fired again to finish her off. But as her vision cleared, she could see the remains of the heavy, powered armor sprawled just inside the base’s entrance at the end of the downward-sloping ramp. A huge hole was blown through its upper
