The Fate Of Nations: F.I.R.E. Team Alpha: Book One (33 page)

              Another shot from Roth killed the last tower sentry.

              Simultaneously, Nagura and Williams vaulted over the perimeter fences and fought their way to the fire escapes at the sides of the Barracks. Leaping the twenty feet onto the fire escape’s first landing, Williams and Nagura rushed up the metal stairs; passing the twelve floors and reaching the roof in seconds. The first two enemy sharpshooters turned just in time to see blades flashing toward them. William’s sword sliced the one shooter from collarbone to groin, while Nagura stabbed another through the chest with a palm-dagger and cut a twelve inch gash downward through his abdomen. The other two rooftop shooters attempted to turn their weapons on the Alpha operators.

              Nagura threw here self prone on the rooftop as automatic gunfire passed inches overhead. She returned fire with a burst from her machine pistol, her three shot burst striking her attacker three times in the face, blasting away the back of his head and creating jet of blood and pulverized flesh.

              Firing on the run, Williams sent a burst through the chest into the last of the rooftop’s defenders. The micro-explosive rounds all but disintegrating his torso. William then used his word to slice the lock that secured the rooftop door and tossed grenade through the threshold. Both operators then darted through the door and began to fight their way downward.

              The rest of the perimeter guards were converging on the Carter and his assaulters. The first wave was stopped by the line of proximity detonated grenades that Carter and DeFontain had hastily deployed after securing the main gate. Their charge broken, remainder found themselves caught in torrent of overlapping gunfire laid down by Carter and DeFontain on one side and McNamara and Burgett on the other. Precision shots from Roth combined with suppressive automatic gunfire from Sains drove enemy troops away from the front widows and kept them from firing downward on the Alpha members.

              “Brian’s for Prowler,” Sains said into his radio, the need for radio silence being gone. “Harvard and Dancer are in.”

              “Roger that,” Carter responded. “You and Gambler can join us at the gate.”

              “Roger that,” Roth said, “moving there now.”

              Roth and Sains rejoined the team just as McNamara was preparing to blast the building’s main doors with a shoulder fired missile. The building, having gone into automatic lock down mode as soon as Team Alpha had begun their assault, was now protected by four-inch thick steel doors at the main entrance.

              “Gas! Gas! Gas!” Carter shouted in to his radio.

              Each member of the team quickly donned gas masks and assured themselves that their IBOS suits were sealed against chemical agents. As soon everyone had reported ready, McNamara launched his missile.

              Designed to destroy battle tanks, the seventy-millimeter IMS-7 missile rendered the massive steel doors into bits of molten shrapnel; leaving only small shards of twisted metal on the hinges. Before the last pieces of debris had settled, Carter and Burgett had each tossed a drinking glass sized ganister of nerve gas into the smoldering doorway.

              Unable to the see through the dust and smoke from the missiles explosion, the twenty five enemy troops that had gathered in the building lobby to repel Team Alpha’s assault could only hear the metallic clanking of the gas canister as the hit the floor and skidded across it. Carter heard on enemy soldier scream “grenade!” before the sounds of several men choking violently could be heard.

              Carter led the team through the slowly clearing clouds of smoke and dust. They encountered enemy troopers that were convulsing in the last seconds of their lives. White froth forced its way through the doomed men’s lungs and out of their mouths even as their lungs swelled and tried to in vain to expel the invading gas.

              Five minutes later the first floor had been cleared of enemy troops. The nerve gas having dissipated, the operators removed his filter mask and changed used the electro-chromatic skin of their IBOS suits to change their color from black to slate-gray; roughly matching the buildings walls. 

              “Boss, won’t this lockdown mean that the blast doors in the evacuation tunnel are closed now too?” McNamara asked.

              “Negative,” Burgett answered. “The tunnels is connected the Central Command’s security system; not the barracks.”

              “Boss,” Sains interrupted. “I’ve got a read on Mancuso and his body guards. They’re evacuating him through the tunnel, just like you called it. They’re moving down from the tenth floor now. Mancuso’s fat ass is slowing them down. They can’t fight and carry him at the same time.”

              “Right,” Carter said. “Gadget, you’re with me. We’re going after Mancuso. Grumble, you take everyone else and secure the maintenance room. Make damn sure you warn us when you deploy the gas. When that’s done proceed as originally planned.”

              “Boss,” Sains added. “I think one of the bodyguards is psychic.”

              “Can you tell if he’s read any of us?” Carter asked.

              “I don’t think so. I know he wasn’t aware that I scanned him. I didn’t go too deep into his head so he wouldn’t notice I was there in case he could back track me. I can’t say for sure, but I’ll bet that his abilities are active; not passive like mine.”

              “So, he’s a sender, not a receiver,” Carter concluded.

              “Right,” Sains confirmed. “Sorry I can’t tell you more, Boss.”

              “Don’t sweat it,” Carter replied as he moved toward the first floor’s main hallway with Burgett close behind. McNamara led his group toward the basement.

              Together, Carter and Burgett smashed through the locked inner lobby doors with their shoulders and ran toward the buildings opposite end; shooting their way through a dozen enemy troops who had rallied and taken up firing positions in the doorways of the rooms that lined the hallway.

              Reaching the entrance to the stairway that would lead them to the evacuation tunnel; they found it locked. “It’s reinforced,” Carter observed. “We’ll have to blow it.”

              “Right,” Burgett agreed, retrieving the appropriate explosives from a pocket on his combat vest.

              “Harvard from Prowler,” Carter said into his radio.

              William’s reply came quickly. “Go ahead, Prowler”

              “Mancuso and his protection detail are trying egress through the tunnel,” Carter informed Williams. “They should be below you. Close on them and cut off their retreat.”

              “Roger, that,” Williams replied. “Dancer and I are on the eleventh floor now, will advise on contact with Mancuso.”

              “Ready to light the candle, Boss,” Burgett advised Carter.

              Carter took a step back. “Do it.”

              “Firing!” Burgett said as he pressed the button on his remote detonator three times in rapid succession. Four small, directional charges blasted the hinges out of the door and disintegrated the lock. The door fell into the, now open, stairwell.

              “Be alert,” Carter ordered as he led Burgett into the stairwell, “we don’t know what abilities those bodyguards have.”

              The stairway was a spiral, scaffolding-like staircase that descended four hundred feet into a sub basement and ascended to a helicopter landing pad on the barracks’ roof. Gunfire could be heard from above as Williams and Nagura fought their way downward.

              “Let’s move,” Carter said.

                                          [][][]

              At the other end of the building McNamara shot open a door to different stairwell leading to the basement. A squad of First Earth Guardsmen instantly began firing up at them. Team Alpha returned fire; their ultra-powerful weapons driving the enemy troops back; wounding them despite their body armor and pulverizing chucks of the wall.

              “Frag out!” McNamara yelled, as he threw a grenade down the stairs. Sains mimicked his actions half a second later. The explosions filled the stairwell with smoke and dust that the Alpha operators charged into. Most of the enemy troopers had been wounded by the grenade blasts, three had been killed. The surviving enemy troops were killed were they lay. McNamara cautiously approached the stairway’s exit door and began to open it.

              “Down!” Sains shouted, shoving McNamara to the floor.

              Heavy caliber gunfire ripped through the walls and threshold; sending fragments of concrete spraying into the room.  The first few rounds missed McNamara by inches. Instinctively, McNamara flattened himself on the floor. The rest of the volley kept the other Alpha members in the stairwell.

              “All call signs, be advised; we have two mark-23 powered armor suits in the building!” McNamara yelled into his radio as he fired a burst of return fire.

              Sains grabbed McNamara by the ankles and dragged him back into the stairwell. “Are they counter attacking?” McNamara asked, as he got to his feet.”

              Sains reached out with his reached out with is more than human senses. “No, they’re holding their position in the hallway; blocking us off from the maintenance room.”

              “They must have figured out what we were up to when we used those first gas canisters in the lobby,” McNamara concluded. “They probably transferred the power armor here to help protect Mancuso.” McNamara deduced. “Gambler, load the SPM-21 with armor piercers. We’ll lay down cover. Make sure you hit the soft spots.” Roth changed her rifle’s magazine and nodded that she was ready.

              “On three!” McNamara ordered.

              Years of unrelenting training allowing the Alpha operators to fire without to hitting each other in the close quarters. The team dispersed into the corridor, firing controlled bursts of gunfire into and faceplates of the lumbering combat exoskeletons; interfering with the vision of the armors pilots. The Mark-23s sprayed undirected return fire down the hallway with shoulder-mounted, twenty millimeter semi-automatic cannon.              

              The Alpha operators, rolled, jumped and dove under the torrent of cannon rounds as they charged the powered armor suits; their more than human speed and reflexes allowing them to maneuver in a surreal, acrobatic display that would have otherwise been impossible on such closed quarters.

              Alpha’s battle rifles and sub-machine guns could dent the enemy’s armor but not penetrate it. The Mark-23’s were essentially humanoid-shaped tanks that the operator wrapped around himself. Hydraulic motors and micro-gears amplified the user’s strength one hundred times, and its weapons systems could defeat main battle tanks. Their armor, with the exception of more thinly armored areas around the limbs and joints, could repel all but the heaviest weapons.

              While the others pelted the armored troopers with a rain of bullets, Roth took careful aim from the threshold at the end of the corridor. Her first shot struck one of the armored suits in a centimeter wide area of weak armor just below the chin. The diamond tipped, forty-caliber, armor piercing round sliced through the armor and obliterated the pilot’s throat. The armored trooper ceased to move when he dropped to its knees and fell, face forward, onto the floor.

              Roth’s next shot struck the second Mark-23 just below the right knee; spinning sideways and forcing down onto its uninjured knee. Roth fired again. This time, her shot found the thin armor at the side of the neck; just behind the ear. The armored suit seemed to sag and also ceased to move.

              McNamara rushed to the first armored trooper and as he lay face down and fired a burst into the base of the neck at point blank range. At such close range his sub-machinegun round breached the thinner rear armor and produced small, blood-spurting holes in the helmet. Defontain then used her battle rifle to repeat this process on the second armored suit.

                                          [][][]

              Nagura heard McNamara warn of the presence of powered armor, just as one of her palm daggers pierced the soldier’s foot pinning it to the floor. She thrust the other dagger upward, through the chin to impale his brain. Withdrawing both blades, she rolled sideways to avoid a burst of enemy gunfire causing it cut down another enemy soldier. Nagura pounced on a third trooper. Rolling beneath another volley of bullets that he fired, she shattered the soldier’s knee with a dance-like kick and buried one her daggers into his left eye socket to the hilt.

              Nearby, William’s sword severed another enemy soldier’s legs at the knees the cut across his neck in a single, flowing motion. Deflecting another enemy’s muzzle way from his torso with flat of his blade, Williams smashed the heel of his palm onto the soldier’s nose; shattering it and forcing the head violent backward; snapping the neck cleanly as Williams slashed his sword across the midsection, cutting through to the spine. Williams spun to his right, avoiding a gunshot from the enemy squad leader. Before the squad leader could squeeze his trigger again, Williams covered the twenty feet between them in an eye-blink, cut the muzzle from his rifle, and fragmented his jaw with a lightning fast kick to the chin before driving his sword into his enemy’s abdomen with a spinning, backward thrust.