Enemy One (Epic Book 5) (54 page)

“Is that thing waterproof?” asked Lilan.

“Yes! The sprinklers were on when we left
Cairo
.”

Yelling through the noise, Jayden said, “You and those dumb sprinklers!”

Boris’s voice was frantic as he looked at the kit’s screen. “This was not me! Someone else has entered the system from outside. They are taking over facility controls!”

“Who?” Valentin asked.

From the veil of flashing yellow light and sprinkler spray behind them, weapons fire emerged. David and Boris were struck before either man could react—the former in his left leg and the latter in the left shoulder, the metal plating of their slayer armor flying off as both men were cut down, howling in pain as they collapsed to the floor. As Boris fell, his hacker’s kit flew from his hands, sliding down the hall in the direction of the gunfire.

Without sparing a moment to think, Jayden dove toward the kit, snatching it from the floor as Valentin unloaded down the hall with his assault rifle. The Texan scrambled back to cover with the kit just as another round of weapons fire emerged, missing the five men as they took to the two corners of the intersection.

Valentin yelled in his comm,
“We have attackers from the east! They are inside the building!”

*
      
*
      
*

The
Pariah
had just gone over the mountainside when the message from Valentin came through. Slapping his hand on the dashboard, Scott yelled to Travis next to him, “We’ve got to go! We’ve to go!”

“I’m
going
!” snapped the pilot back angrily. A moment later, he pointed to the facility. “Look! There’s a V2 dusting off from the back of the building. They must’ve dropped someone off back there.”

Another voice crackled through the comm—Becan’s. “Sir! I see yeh comin’ over the field now! Can we get a quick evac?”

Everything was spiraling out of control. Rescue Tom, extract the infiltration team, evacuate Becan and William. Scott’s head was spinning. “How dire is your situation?”

“We’re abou’ to get reefed!”

As they came over the battlefield, Scott could see what the Irishman was referring to. He and William were taking shelter in the dish of one of the satellites, with EDEN forces rapidly closing in. If they didn’t get extracted immediately, they weren’t going to make it. The same applied to Tom on the other side of the battlefield.
This is out of control.
“Pick ’em up, Travis, fast!” Returning to the comm, he radioed Becan. “We’re coming down to get you—be ready to hop on!”

“Umm, captain?” said Travis, pointing off into the distance. When Scott followed the pilot’s indication, he saw three V2s coming around in attack formation. “We’re about to get some serious company.”

There was no way the
Pariah
was going to hold off three Mark-2 Vultures. The V2s were faster, more heavily armed, and well…not a run-down piece of machinery like the
Pariah
. This was about to get ugly.

“We’re not gonna get to them in time,” Travis said, his tone dour.

“Get to them in time,” Scott said steadily.

Shaking his head, Travis said, “We’re about ten seconds away from them opening fire.”

“Then drop her like a brick.” Bolting out of the copilot’s chair, Scott dashed through the troop bay, snagging onto support rails to keep himself upright while the
Pariah
came down. As soon as he was at the rear bay door, he slapped the button. Creakily and as the transport whipped around, the rear door opened.

Before the door was even halfway down, Becan and William leapt toward it, grabbing at the edge of the bay door as the
Pariah
hovered. That was all the time they could be given. “Go, Travis! Go, go,
go
!”

Screaming in pain, William pulled himself up and into the transport as the Irishman scrambled up beside him, then helped the injured demolitionist in. The
Pariah
rocketed before the rear door could even be lifted, as all three men—Scott, Becan, and William—grabbed hold of the support rails as momentum threatened to blast them through the air. Reaching out frantically, Scott slapped around the bay door mechanism, finally hitting it just as the transport shot upward. Against the force of a rapidly-increasing wind, the door began to lift.

“Bollocks!”
Becan said, tearing off his helmet and collapsing before shooting a desperate look back to William. “Will! Are yeh okay?”

The Southerner was bleeding badly—Scott could see it pouring out of his armor. “Will, get out of that armor!” he yelled. “Becan, patch him up.”

Becan’s eyes shot wide open. “Yeh want
me
to patch him up?”

“Last I checked, Sveta wasn’t in the ship—patch him up!”

Growling loudly, Becan stumbled William’s way as the demolitionist tore off his sentry armor.

Fighting against speed and sharp turns in mid-air, Scott made his way against all odds back into the cockpit. Slamming into the copilot’s chair and strapping in, he looked at the pilot’s radar. “What we got?” In tune with Scott’s question, streaks of orange flew past the
Pariah
’s cockpit. The stinging sounds of bullets hitting the hull reverberated as Travis desperately turned the stick to the side.

What could they do? What could they possibly do? They were not going to outrun or outgun these three V2s. The only way they were going to get out of this would be to have an ace up their sleeve—but what?

It came to Scott in that instant. “Travis, loop around and buzz the battlefield!”

Behind his flight helmet, the pilot blinked.
“What?”

“Buzz the battlefield!” The whole while they talked, bullets flew past, some striking the hull even as Travis brought it rapidly around. “Buzz the satellites as closely as you can, on William’s side!” Looking back into the troop bay, Scott cried out, “Get ready with that detonator!”

Travis seemed to get the plan, quickly snapping the stick back in the other direction and weaving the
Pariah
around in a tight loop, the three V2s hot on their tail. As more bullets struck the ship, several of the
Pariah
’s console indicators flashed. “What’s that?”

“Damage!”

I knew
that
, you idiot!

Slamming the throttle forward as the battlefield came into view, Travis sent the
Pariah
screaming ahead at maximum speed. It wasn’t enough to lose the approaching Vultures, but losing them wasn’t the plan. The
Pariah
would take some damage, but in the end, if it could just stay in one piece, they could strike back in the only way they could: fire and fury. Looking back again, Scott yelled to Becan, “Do you have that detonator?”

“Wha?” Becan answered. “I’m patchin’ up Will!”

“Take care of Will later, get that detonator ready
now
!”

Becan was exasperated. “Bleedin’ hell!” Scrambling for the detonator, he snatched it up with a single hand. “Got the detonator!”

“Get ready!” The
Pariah
was passing by the first set of satellites. The Vultures were behind them and gaining fast.
They don’t know what we’re doing here—they don’t know we’re going to blow the place to smithereens. They’ll never know this is coming.
His plan was simple: lead them into the blast radius, then light the three V2s up, all at once. It was their only hope. As the transport was about to zip past the final row of satellites on the near side, Scott yelled, “Detonate, now!” He looked at Travis. “Make a beeline for Tom!”

The
Pariah
soared past the satellites. The Vultures fired behind them.

Becan pressed the button.

The rows of satellites exploded like mini nukes, each one erupting in rapid sequence with so much force, they could feel it in the
Pariah
even as they left the satellites behind. Behind them, the three Vultures were engulfed. “Tom, now!” Scott said.

“On it!” Travis replied. The
Pariah
hit the brakes as the EDEN soldiers on the battlefield scattered, some knocked backward by the explosions, some in sheer panic. Descending near the satellite by Tom and Donald’s body, Scott once again left the copilot’s seat to scramble to the back.

*
      
*
      
*

ON THE BATTLEFIELD below, Logan, Chiumbo, and Marty were blindsided by the blasts. Even with some distance to the satellites that detonated, the three men were blown backward by the shock waves, their weapons flying from their hands as they landed backward in the dirt, meters away. Groaning in pain, Logan rolled onto his stomach. Through the roar of continuous eruptions from the satellite dishes, he heard Minh shout over their Vulture’s comm.

“I am going down! Repeat, I am going down!”

Turning their collective heads up, Logan, Marty, and Chiumbo watched as the three Vultures that’d been caught in the blast streaked overhead, each one heading for fiery crash landings. From the Vulture at point—Minh’s—the explosive plume of an ejection from the cockpit could be seen. Minh’s seat and harness rocketed skyward as the V2 flew toward a crash landing.

“What in da hell was
dat
?” Marty asked, looking wide-eyed at Chiumbo, who was dirt-covered and coughing.

Logan’s focus shifted to the
Pariah
, which was coming down by another dish on their side of the battlefield. The Australian’s face was struck by dread. “Whatever it was, I think it’s about to happen again!”

The two Vectors behind him followed his gaze, catching sight of the
Pariah
picking up the lone operative and dead body from behind the satellite.

“Run!” said Logan, scrambling to his feet and taking off in the other direction, Chiumbo and Marty right there behind him.

*
      
*
      
*

“UP! UP!” SAID SCOTT, slamming the rear bay door button as soon as Donald’s body was dragged on board. Without a moment’s hesitation, Travis brought the nose of the
Pariah
up again. Scott looked at Tom, who didn’t need to be told a thing—the soldier’s finger was already on the detonator’s trigger. With rapid acceleration, the
Pariah
cleared the row of satellites.

*
      
*
      
*

LOGAN’S FEET WERE moving as quickly as his legs could make them, moving away from both the satellites and the facility. He wasn’t even concerned with the direction he was heading or if it made tactical sense. All that mattered right now was sheer distance.

“Hey!” Marty hollered from behind him. “If we’re gonna run, we need to run toward da—”

The Cajun never had time to finish the statement. Just as had taken place on the other side of the battlefield, the row of satellite dishes exploded, the force of the blast once again sending the three soldiers—and every EDEN operative around them—soaring through the air as the shockwave slammed into them. As they crashed onto the ground a second time, the men groaned in aching pain.

Dust and debris were falling everywhere, some smaller pieces hitting the dirt around them while larger pieces that could have killed them crashed into the ground near the burning dishes.
Hami Station
could no longer be seen through the smoke and dust. Coughing as he staggered to his feet, Chiumbo called out to the interior team through his comm. “Pablo, Sasha, come in!”

*
      
*
      
*

The inside of
Hami Station
was chaos. The firefight between the two Vectors, who’d entered from the rear of the building, and the outlaws in the intersection slammed to a halt with the first round of explosives, which shook the very foundation of the facility. Both men had heard Minh’s comm call, though neither had seen the Vector pilot eject. By the time the second explosion registered, they were backtracking rapidly out of the building, their pursuit of the outlaws halted by the urgent drive to survive. The way
Hami Station
was groaning, it sounded like the entire building was on the verge of collapse.

“What is going on out there?” asked Sasha as he and Pablo dashed out of the rear door and looked around. Debris littered the ground in every direction as waves of billowing smoke rolled past them, darkening the sky as if a violent storm was on the horizon.

Chiumbo’s voice wheezed over the comm, “The satellites have been detonated.”

“We are seeing that now,” said Sasha, coughing alongside Pablo as they ducked back to the door frame of the building simply to get out of the smoke. “This entire building may come down.”

“Do you have the outlaws?”

Frowning, the Russian scout answered, “Negative, lieutenant. They are inside the facility.”

*
      
*
      
*

Crawling to their feet, Chiumbo, Logan, and Marty peered through the fog of war for their weapons, the surviving EDEN soldiers doing the same. Each man withdrew his handgun. Spitting sand out of his mouth, Chiumbo said to Sasha through the comm, “They cannot be allowed to escape! There are only two ways into this building. Stand post at the rear and we will press forward toward the—” The Mwera lieutenant’s words were cut off by the sudden thrust of Vulture engines. Looking skyward through the dust, the three men beheld a lone transport lowering at the front of the building, its nose—barely discernable through the smoke—pointed in their direction. The burst of vertical landing thrusters resounded. “They are landing at the front of the building!” Chiumbo hollered as he, Logan, Marty, and the soldiers around them scampered to their feet to move forward. In the next second that followed, the spinning sound of a nose-mounted cannon emerged.

“Everyone move!”
shouted Logan. As the remnant of the frontal assault team sprinted out of the line of fire, the
Pariah
’s front cannon erupted with firepower.

*
      
*
      
*