“Inbound,” the pilot replied. “Shall I knock on the door, sir?”
The odds that this was their target were high…but it wasn’t a guarantee. Opening the trip with armor-piercing missiles could cause all kinds of trouble.
On the other hand, the Nueva Portugal Guardia had over a thousand people who were going to die if Roslyn didn’t find answers very, very quickly.
“Knock away, Lieutenant,” Roslyn ordered. “Make a road.”
She brought up a feed from the shuttle’s lead cameras running on her helmet heads-up display. The HUD had the outline of the underground complex highlighted on it—and the armored and concealed door blinked in red as Herbert dropped the shuttle’s targeting system on it.
“This is Huntress shuttle seven,” the Lieutenant announced on the Navy tactical channel. “Rifle One. I repeat, Rifle One.”
A single air-to-ground missile blazed away from the shuttle, accelerating at speeds no spacecraft carrying a human could match, and slammed into the highlighted door at several times the speed of sound.
Armored or not, the missile warhead shredded the access point. It had been designed to rise out of the ground and uncover a ramp down into the underground complex—and now only the ramp remained, covered in debris as Herbert brought the shuttle down into the hole she’d just created.
“We’re down,” she reported. “Access is clear. Good luck, Marines.”
There was no way Roslyn was going to lead the charge out of the shuttle. Even if she’d been so foolish as to try, the Marines wouldn’t let her.
But she was still the Mage in the team, and that meant she was in the middle, following two three-Marine fire teams out into the now-uncovered tunnel. Powerful shoulder-mounted lights from the exosuits lit up the cavern, showing a ramp descending into the ground toward the casino.
“Negative contacts, negative contacts,” Knight reported crisply on the tac channel. “Moving forward.”
“Don’t go too far,” Roslyn admonished. “You may want to protect me, Corporal, but I can protect you as well.”
“Never stray too far from the Mage, right,” the Marine replied with a chuckle. “Sending drones ahead; scanning for life signs.”
The drones that Knight threw into the air were bigger than the ones they’d investigated Killough’s apartment with, pigeon-sized robots with enough wingspan to keep airborne without rotors or jets.
“Move up, move up,” Mooren ordered. “Stick with the Commander but keep moving. Something is down here, and if it’s our target, we’re expecting Augments and we’re expecting them fast.”
The Marines moved. Roslyn moved with them, keeping a mental eye on Killough as the spy brought up the rear. Like her, he was only armed with a standard stungun. Unlike her, he wasn’t a Mage capable of handling almost any threat unarmed.
“Drones have contacts,” Knight snapped. “Multiple drones down, but we have contacts moving up the tunnel. They’re bringing vehicles with them as cover—what scans I have suggest the vehicles are armed.”
“Hold position,” Roslyn ordered. “Covering.”
Her hands flared out in front of her, palms forward, as she wove power through the air ahead of the Marine squad. Air concentrated and stopped moving, forming a solid barrier that could resist incoming fire.
She managed it just in time, as three ordinary-looking vans appeared out of the darkness at speed. The drivers knew what they were doing, twisting the vehicles in a synchronized maneuver that blocked the entire tunnel—and allowed the van’s side panels to swing open, revealing tripod-mounted penetrator rifles.
The high-powered weapons fired discarding-sabot tungsten penetrators, designed to go through the heavy armor Roslyn’s Marines were wearing. Trapped in the tunnel without cover, the three automatic weapons could have easily mowed down Mooren’s entire squad in seconds.
Instead, the tungsten darts hit Roslyn’s magical barrier and stopped dead. Dozens of rounds hung in the air for a few moments before they clattered to the ground, but the heavy rifles kept firing until their magazines ran dry.
“Nix!” Mooren barked, the Marine Sergeant lifting the automatic grenade launcher she’d kept for herself.
“Clear,” Roslyn replied, measuring her timing carefully. She wasn’t as good at this part as a proper Marine Combat Mage would be, but she knew the theory.
The launcher made a sharp triple cough, firing a burst of gas grenades down the tunnel, and Roslyn opened a hole in her barrier for the weapons to pass. A second triple cough followed, Mooren sending that burst over the vehicles into the approaching hostiles behind them.
The gun teams in the vans hadn’t been expecting the gas. A follow-up round of penetrators started—and then trailed off as the neutralization solution took effect and the defenders fell unconscious.
“Move up,” Mooren barked. “Hostiles are unarmored; stunguns first.”
Roslyn was tempted to argue—the penetrator rifles could have easily wiped out the entire squad in seconds, and the defenders were not playing nice. It was the Marine’s call, though. Roslyn wasn’t going to micromanage her escort.
The vans were modified civilian vehicles and were easily moved aside by the powered muscles of the exosuits. With the pathway cleared, it became obvious that Mooren’s Nix grenades had been the right call.
“Andrews, hold your team with K and secure the prisoners,” Mooren ordered.
Corporal Natal Andrews led the fire team at the lead with Killough, who apparently was being referred to by initial to pretend some level of discretion. They gestured for their Marines to fall in around them and began shuffling through the storage compartments on their armor for cuffs.
“Everybody’s down,” the Sergeant continued after a moment. “Watch for a second wave; teams one, two, three, keep moving with me and the Commander.”
Nine Marines moved forward with Roslyn as they carefully stepped around the unconscious defenders.
“No Augments,” Mooren murmured on a private channel to Roslyn. “Regular mooks, mixed weaponry, no body armor, no gas masks. They had the vans with the rifles, but I wonder if those were meant for Marines or the Guardia’s armored cars.”
“What are you thinking, Sergeant?” Roslyn asked, glancing over at the unconscious bodies. The woman closest to her was wearing standard worker coveralls without markings.
“I don’t think this is our target, sir,” the Marine admitted. “On the other
