Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4) (28 page)

Assuming he was alive in the morning.

He caught glimpses of the fighting as he crossed Waterbury Avenue, the muzzle flash of the electromagnetic
cannon on the battle tank making a distinctive sight as the ablated material of the round ignited from the air friction.

He landed low, sliding feet first under cover along a grassy strip between two buildings, narrowly avoiding wrapping himself around a tree in the process. He rolled clear, remaining prone as he crawled up to the tree he’d narrowly missed, and braced his weapon against it.

“I’m in first position.”

Short signal bursts, four of them, told him that the others heard him and were moving into their own positions even as he spoke. Eric poked his head out a bit, eyes flitting around, but he couldn’t see the beasts that he knew were out there. Despite being linked into the Guard’s IFF signals system, Eric found that he couldn’t get a location lock from them, as their system simply wasn’t calibrated, nor advanced enough, to keep a virtual lock on the enemy.

Irritating. Use your thermals, damn it
.

Radar lock would be useless, he knew, but the tanks were fully capable of getting a thermal lock on a target and communicating it over the network. Why they weren’t doing so, Eric had no clue. He back-doored into their network and added an order to their queue, using his Confederate authorization codes.

The tank’s computers authorized the signal in seconds and Eric was well satisfied to see red splotches appear on his HUD a moment later. The signal lock left a little to be desired—it seemed that the heat from the alien drones was enough to spoof the precise lock just a bit—but it was close enough for his needs.

“Got the enemy on my HUD, confirm,” he said, getting to his knees.

“Confirmed. Have one in my sights, matches computer signal,” Siobhan said softly over the network.

One of the signals sharpened distinctly, her instrumentation added to the Guard’s. Eric checked the line of sight on the enemy positions and made his move, sprinting and bounding across Halsey Street, and then jumping up and clambering to the roof of the building there. Climbing in armor was a slightly surreal experience that felt almost like watching a movie more than exerting actual effort, the energy snap released from the armor’s arms and legs causing him to almost literally fly up the side of the building.

On the roof, Eric rolled to a stop and then quick crawled to the edge so he could look out over Zerega Avenue and get a better idea of the situation. The Guard’s tanks were firing on automatic, but they weren’t hitting much of what they were aiming at, which was making things decidedly uncomfortable for him in his current position. It was only a matter of time before one of those DPU shells took out the building he was lying on, and he’d rather not be sitting there when it happened.

“Fire team, are you in position?”

They weren’t. He could see that on his HUD, but Eric figured it would light a fire under Granger. The SWAT commander didn’t strike him as the sort to take any dig at his professional skills lightly.

“Negative,” Granger answered, his tone dark. Eric imagined he could hear teeth gritting. “One minute.”

If he gets them in place in one minute, I’ll owe the man a drink,
Eric thought wryly as he glanced at the array of blue signals on the overlay map he was looking through.

Reading a Heads Up Display while paying attention to what was in front of you was something of an art form, one that Eric had mastered many years past. The system operated on an augmented reality foundation, and it let him see
“through” the buildings around him to where the men and women were arraying themselves.

He was surprised when Granger actually made the minute deadline by three seconds, and made a mental note to find the man a drink when it was all over, even if he had to loot a liquor store.

“In position.”

“Good work. Targets locked?”

“We have two from here, say again, read three tangos, but we can only see two.”

“Roger. I have number three.”

“Roger. Targets locked.”

“Engage when ready,” Eric said, as he got to one knee and extended the Priminae gravity weapon ahead of him.

“Roger that. Engaging enemy targets in three . . .”

Major Curran was cursing up a storm, trying like hell to keep his voice low enough so it wasn’t picked up by his microphone and knowing that he was failing miserably. The alien . . .
things
moved like something out of a horror movie, and at the range they were fighting there was just no chance for the battle tank’s guns to lock on.

Screw time. Just give me range, Lord, all I ask for is range!

From two miles out, he
knew
he could pot these bastards like shooting skeet on a Sunday afternoon. From less than two hundred yards it was like trying to hit greased lightning. Curran twisted around, looking behind him in more than a little desperation.

“Back off! Get us some fighting room!”

“Major, we’ve got the rest of the platoon right behind us!”

“Everyone back up!” he ordered over the network. “If we stay in knife range they’re going to slice us to ribbons!”

The hydrogen turbines whined as the electromagnetic tracks bit into the asphalt, the remaining tanks in the platoon backing off as quickly as they dared. As they did the gunners kept firing, though slower now as they were wary of running completely dry of munitions.

“Riley, Evans, we’re about out of rounds. Lead tanks will split at the next intersection. You two fire as the range clears,” Curran ordered. “We’ll try and get them in a pincer if they chase us, or open some real range between us if they don’t.”

The next two tanks in his column acknowledged the order as they all got under way.

A flicker of motion in the corner of his eye caught Curran’s attention. He glanced to the left and up to see several figures appear on the rooftop just behind his tanks. His first instinct was to initiate counter-sniper contingencies, but he stopped himself short when he realized that he wasn’t fighting humans this time around.

Who the hell are these people?

They were forming a firing line, heavy assault weapons aimed down at the streets he was backing like hell to get out of, and just then Curran realized that he didn’t really care. He saw their plan and his hands were working on his command board before he even thought about what he was doing.

“All tanks,” he ordered, “new maneuvering orders coming through. Execute immediately.”

He didn’t have time for anything fancy, so he settled for altering the last set of instructions just enough. Instead of the two lead tanks peeling off at the intersection completely, they’d angle in, plant their backs to the walls of the buildings, and get ready to fight.

It wasn’t the best position as it cut down their chances of withdrawal if things went south, but it would increase their firing arcs significantly.

At the same time the rest of the tanks in the platoon would spread out, cannon to cannon across Zerega. It was cramped conditions, but if they were about to get serious fire support from above, the least his platoon could do was give it their fighting all.

Twenty electromagnetic assault weapons erupted from the rooftops, reasonably in sync, as the aliens followed the retreating tanks deeper into the makeshift killbox. Unlike the tanks, the men with the assault weapons were operating effectively at their optimal range, and the sudden rain of high-velocity steel slammed into the Drasin like an impenetrable wall. The creatures faltered briefly, caught between pursuing their opponents, engaging the new targets, or going for cover.

The tanks rejoined the fight in that instant of hesitation, five EM cannons roaring on pure auto fire. Anything that survived the initial barrage from the rooftops stood no chance at all against the follow-up from the streets. Less than ten seconds later the guns fell silent and an unreal quiet settled across the scene, right alongside the dust that was slowly drifting to the street.

Curran looked around slowly. “Is that all of them? Keep your eyes open, everyone.”

The quiet was deafening after the nearly constant barrage of sonic booms, almost disorienting, and Curran imagined that he could feel the pressure in the area drop from everyone holding their breath and scanning the carnage. A flicker of motion was his only warning before an ear-splitting boom roared from the rooftop ahead of him and he jumped in his seat as the flailing
body of another alien fell eight stories to the ground, destroying two parked import cars in an explosion of plastic and metal.

On that same rooftop he spotted a figure walk up to the edge and, after glancing down, step off into midair.

The man freefell eighty feet, planting his boots hard into the roof of another plastic import car and landing in a explosion of debris like his defeated foe. The armored man stepped out of the wreckage, calmly walking out into the intersection and looking over at Curran’s tank. He tapped his helmet twice, then held up three fingers.

Curran instantly switched over to channel three.

“Major Curran, I presume?”

“I am, and you are?”

“Captain Eric Weston, Confederate Black Navy.”

Curran’s eyes widened as he took that in. He’d heard of the man, of course, everyone had, but what the hell was he doing running around New York in Special Operations infantry armor? For that matter, Curran involuntarily glanced to the east where he had seen the
Odyssey
go down. What was he doing
alive?

“Pardon my saying so, Captain, but you’re a long way from the Black.”

The captain snorted, sounding amused. “Tell me about it, Major. It was one hell of a fall. That said, we don’t have time to swap stories. We’re moving deeper into the city. The Drasin have engaged another armored platoon on Pelham. Can you provide cover for my supply train?”

Curran considered the request quickly and nodded. “Can do, Captain. We’re heading that way as well. It’s going to take us a while, though, with all the vehicles clogging up the roads.”

“Understood. We may have a partial solution to that. My force will move on ahead. You follow as you can. My supply train will catch up shortly.”

“Roger that. Uh, Captain, our IFF board doesn’t have access to your systems . . .”