The X11 Deep Space/Atmospheric Civilian Freighter was not in any way designed to do the things it was currently doing. The steep angle of reentry was making it hard to keep the ship on a smooth and steady glide path. It was not helping that the many modifications done to the ship had weakened its superstructure. Every third bulkhead beam had been removed to allow for more cargo and personnel. With every pitch, yaw and roll the ship made sounds that would give its occupants reason to fear, if they had had any fear left to give that is.
Kelly Beck looked through the armored Plexiglas of her combat helmet at the cargo monitors screen. The ship was fully pressurized, but she and her copilot were suited up just in case they took a round and the ships hull decompressed. She scanned the faces of the brave men and women and even though the ship sounded like a psychotic symphony tuning up for a delusional performance, she saw no fear in them. Fear for them, she knew would come later. Once they landed, if they landed.
".....Aerobraking maneuvers complete, shutting off artificial gravity field.....bow shock wave pressure nominal, heat shielding green lit.....dropping past 8k.... Left 30 to vector 266, declination 20, squeal 25." The voice of her copilot sounded like it was in her own head. Her hands automatically adjusting to the directions he was passing out. "Picking up the LZ transponder out 120km ..correct left 17, vector 256 up 12 squeal -2....time to scrape the rooftops."
"Copy that" A small red light turned green above her head indicating they had good pressure equalization with the planet atmosphere. She corrected her course and put the ship into a less shallow dive. "Your stick." She let go of the controls once she sensed her copilot had taken hold of his set. She quickly in one swift move, released the locks between her helmet and pressure suit and lifted the helmet up over her head and locked it into place along the bulkhead directly behind her. "My stick." She returned her hands to the controls and saw her copilot repeat the sequence she had just finished.
"Passing 6000 meters dropping at 120 per second." Any other copilot would probably be crapping his flight suit right about now, but they both had long ago gotten comfortable with flying this freighter like a VHF. "You ready Beck?"
"Let the show begin" she said and smiled, and the hit button opening the hatch that separated the cockpit from the rest of ship. She hit another button and put a feed from the cockpit to the monitors in the cargo bay for her passengers to see. It was her favorite part of the run. Her copilots imitation of a flight attendant was priceless.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of my self and pilot Kelly Beck, we thank you for flying Resistance Space Lines, we hope you have enjoyed your flight with us and that you book our company for all your clandestine incursion needs." They both smiled at the camera and laughter could be heard throughout the ship, breaking the tense moment. "We are coming up on the thrill ride portion of our flight and ask that all passengers secure any loose items and those with weak stomachs grab hold the vomit bags provided to you at the beginning of your flight with us." His tone changed and the seriousness returned to his voice. "Commencing combat decent in 5 seconds...touch down in 30, all passengers HOLD FAST".
She angled the ship into a 90 degree dive rolling over to the left, corkscrewing the ship all the way down to the deck, launching counter flares along the way. The scanners where clean, but there could be an automated missile battery about. "500...350...275...Artificial gravity field inversion activated....". She pulled up hard on the controls and pushed the engines for every bit of power they could produce. The Ship leveled itself out. "..Artificial gravity field disengaged....75....50...easy on the speed" She backed off the throttle and transfed power from forward thrust to the vertical thrust chambers, and concentrated on keeping the ship between the buildings. The LZ was deep inside an abandoned industrial complex in Sector 12 of the southern hemisphere of planet Leeds.
Her copilot deployed the low-gain antenna, tuned in the K-band communicator and hit the transmit button. "Alpha 12 ...Alpha 12...LRV-z21 authentication Charlie Bravo Niner Niner Deuce.....we are on approach..."
"LRV -z21 we copy and confirm Charlie Bravo Niner Niner Deuce...Opening the doors..you are cleared to land." A voice came over the communication speakers.
Up ahead of her, she could see the large doors of an old textile warehouse open up in the center. It was always a tight squeeze, more like parking a garbage truck in a china shop, than flying a ship. She brought the ship gently up to the doors just as they opened all the way, and eased the ship past them. Almost before they were past the entrance, the ground crew was already closing them behind her. She spun the ship around gently between the blast plates set up to keep the ships thrust exhaust from causing to much havoc inside the makeshift hanger, and set the ship pointing back towards the now closed doors.
"Gear down...cutting power to vertical..." her copilot Langston Bishop was now reaching for the lock on his harness and releasing himself from his seat. The ship gently touched down inside the large warehouse.
"Touchdown....opening rear hatches...." He got up out of his seat and exited the cockpit to supervise the offload off troops and ammo and the loading of the wounded. She spent the next few seconds turning off dials and buttons. "Lets go Ladies and Gents..you know the drill....off load to the left, they will be loading wounded from the right..good luck and good hunting boys and girls.
"Talk to me Bishop." She was needing to know whether to spool the engines all the way down or keep them warmed up for a quick exit.
"Dunno nothin yet Beck...good bit of wounded to load up and we are evacuating some medical personnel as well...Keep them warm I would say. People seem to be in a hurry around here for some reason and I rather burn fuel that be five minutes to late in getting out of here."
Out the left side cockpit window she could see Langston checking over the ship and stopping to talk to group of fighters who had lined up to unload ammo and supplies from the ship by fire bucket brigade. "Yea...copy that, Ill keep them warmed up." She looked at the monitors and could see the right side cargo hold filling up with wounded fighters and medical personnel. The disparaging scenes of blood and broken bodies, had no effect on her anymore. This was her 18th incursion and it never got any easier to deal with. The worst part was washing out the ships hold at the end of the run. At some point she had decided that it was just better not to feel anything. Not to get emotional about the suffering and loss of life she was a witness and unwilling participant to. The only sensation she did feel was hard for her to describe. She disliked it and at the same time it was the only thing keeping her going, keeping her warm on the inside. It was a hatred dipped in evil wrapped in a nice package of seething vengeance against anything Gallic.
B-squad consisted of 7 people. They stood in a semi circle off to the side of the freighter they had just exited. They were checking their own and each others gear, packs and body armor to make sure everything was where it should be.
"What the hell was that last bit of flying about?" Mike Smiley, the squads heavy gunner was wondering who he should thank for the fresh vomit he was cleaning off his combat boots, the pilot for being a show off or the owner of the barf for not holding onto his bag with both hands.
"She did it on purpose." Elaine Dunn, was the squads radio and sensor operator. This was her third time in. She was missing half her right ear and two fingers on her right hand, compliments of a Gallic frag grenade. She kept talking as she finished field checking her pulse rifle.
"Damn Gaylicks have been air droppin AMB´s (automated missile battery) on to roof tops at night.... bastards been real sneaky about it....they don't fire up and target till they get a hard seismic signal of a freighter passing near by..." She looked down the center rail of her weapon and checked the sights. " hell.by the time you know it is there...its already crawled halfway up your Kiester without the courtesy of a reach-a-round." She released the safety bolt, and exposed the chamber and checked it for any debris. "That pilot...she is one cool customer...staying as high as she could till she was right on top of the LZ...then barrel rolling in...using the micro gravity generator to work like an inertial buffer....nice trick to have in kit bag set and no one ended up like soup on the floor." She slammed a power mag into the receiver of her rifle. "Yall needs to buy her a round if ya ever see her again."
A large comm speaker combat taped high up on a concrete pillar came to life. "Attention all personnel....Gallic missiles tracked as incoming....Evacuate to the supply tunnels ASAP...This is not a drill...Gallic missiles tracked as incoming...transport Z-21 you are to depart immediately." Around the large warehouse, people started moving more frantically than they had been. Scurrying into holes in the floors and getting the last of the supplies to safety. B-Squad stood there for a second, not reacting, out of not being sure what hole to evacuate to. Three feet to the left of them a metal plate slid across the floor. A bearded man popped his head out and yelled at the group of seven. "Are ya Deaf....get the hell in here or you will all be frog crap in 90 seconds." The Squad moved as one group, dropped down into the hole and slid the metal plate back into place. "This way you knuckle scrapers."
They followed the bearded man through a short tunnel and down a set of stairs laser cut into the ground. At the bottom they reached a large room with another set of stairs. "Keep moving down till you reach access tunnel B..you will know it when you see it...should be full of people right about now, follow it about 10 clicks and you will get to our main staging bunker for this area....good luck and good hunting." Before anyone could say anything the man headed back up the stairs they had just descended. "You heard the man lets move fast." Luke Fister, B-Squads leader seemed to finally come to life.
"Glad you showed up to the party Fister." Elaine Dunn threw a playful jab at her squad leader as she passed him on her way down.
"Stow it and keep moving, Elaine. My condition is part your fault." Referring to the rounds and rounds of drinks they had had the night before. He followed the last member of his team down the dimly lit stairs.
"Attention all personnel...Gallic Missiles tracked as inbound. All personnel evacuate to the access tunnels..." In the warehouse the message continued to play from the speaker. Kelly Beck was busy setting things up for a quick take off.
"Where you at Bishop? Could use a hand right about now..." She watched as the doors to the hanger started to open up. She reached above her head and unlocked her helmet from its perch, donned it and locked the rings into place.
"I'm on board....Closing rear hatches now" Langston Bishop could see that there were less than half a dozen people left in the large warehouse, and they were all running for the tunnels. No one would be sticking around to close the doors either. He watched the rear hatch seal light turn from red to green. "Spool it up and get us moving Beck" He turned his attention to his new set of passengers. "Ladies and Gentlemen...you have 20 seconds to lock yourselves in...lets go people." As he was making his way forward, he could feel the ship start to accelerate . "Command has a hand to hand data packet we need to get to the Admiralty." Langston said as he reached the cockpit and started locking himself into his chair
"Yea well lets worry first about trying to get the hell out of here in one piece." Beck was twisting around trying to and see if they had cleared the hanger doors. Langston finished locking his helmet into place. He twisted around and looked out to his right. "Clear..." he said.
"Copy ..my side clear now...full power to vertical thrust." she responded.
"Reading two missiles ..13k to our six..."
She threw all the power she had into forward thrust after just a few seconds, choosing speed and distance over elevation. "Get ready to launch countermeasures...we are still to low to out run any thing coming at us from the roof tops.."
"Roger that......missiles tracking to the LZ...impact in 15 seconds..."
"Any sign of where they came from...you reading any frogs flying?" Beck was worried about the things she could not see. They usually tried to sneak out, use a minimal about of thrust and power to defeat Gallic sensors. Today they were letting the whole neighborhood know they were moving out.
"Negative no contacts...just the two Spikes....10 seconds to impact.I hope everyone made it far enough underground." Langston felt the pocket of his flight suit, making sure he had the data packet given to him by Command.
The Resistance had been using old tunnels, abandoned subways and sewer lines, anything underground, to move around safely. Then someone came up with the idea of using mining lasers to develop a large system of interlinking tunnels and bases.
The Resistance had been working on a plan to plant a large amount of explosives under Gallic HQ's, communications hubs, supply depots and explode them all at once. The information he had in his breast pocket contained schematics, equipment request and supplies needed. It was to be a hand to hand message, transmitting the information by any type of encryption would be to much risk to take.
"How far away from the LZ are we.." Beck worried now about the type of missiles they could be facing and if they were out of the blast radius yet.
"3.5K..altitude 200 meters. far enough enough away even if they use a Tactical...we will know here in a second...." Langston turned the center console monitor to the rear ship board camera. He could see the large warehouse in the distance getting smaller and then an explosion... "Impact...ah....reading only one explosion."
The ships missile lock warning systems activated, and the ship began churning out countermeasure flares automatically behind it.
"ah..hell..." Beck knew what was coming next. She pulled up hard on the controls, knowing she would have to out fly or out distance the missile behind her. She set the ship into a 65 degree climb. She suspected the missile had to be almost out of fuel and that it would use more of it climbing than flying in a straight line. "All Passengers brace for possible impact..."
"Missile is still tracking us..2.2k on our plane and closing..." Langston knew the chances of out running it were slim to none. He looked at the monitor and a large smoke plume of in the distance behind the ship.
"How bad did they get hit?" She was more concerned about the type of ordinance used, than casualties at the moment.
"Warehouse is gone, not much of an explosion though, non nuke.... anyone in the tunnels should be fine...I got nothing on the scanners other than the one chasing us." Langston reached over and flipped the switch on the countermeasures from auto to manual. "Setting CMs to manual...15 left in the hold."
"Roger...set up two mines with a 2 and a 3 second air burst fuse...let me know when the missile has a steady flight path behind us." She knew it was last ditch, but better to have an ace up your sleeve instead of your pants around your ankles. She increase her climb till the ship was completely vertical to the planet surface.
"Copy that...two mines...set for 2 and 3 second ABF.....missile tracking steady 1.7k behind us....impact in 10 seconds at current speeds.......impact in 8 seconds at current speeds."
"Don't make me do the math Bishop...you drop those hot puppies when you feel its right for ya."
"Copy...Impact in 6....dropping red one set for 3.....and ...dropping red two set for 2 ..."
There was nothing to do but hold on. Beck stared straight ahead as if trying to will the ship out of the planets atmosphere and into the relative safety of space. Langston had his eyes glued to the monitor and its rear camera. For them both, those two seconds were eternal.
