Wings of Steele - Flight of Freedom (Book2) (17 page)

The Chief Petty Officer peered cautiously in through the sliding glass doors, “Three more,” she whispered, testing the sliding glass door. The door didn't budge, “Dammit.” She knocked on the glass and stepped back, flattening herself against the outside wall.

“
I have an angle...” came a whisper.

A face appeared in the glass, barely visible in the darkness. After a moment the door unlatched and slid slowly open, the muzzle of a submachine gun leading out of the opening, “Mooreland?” Hit by a blue-white phase shot, the agent's muscles momentarily seized and the full-auto silenced MP5 fired a burst of rounds that stitched a palm tree on the other side of the deck before he relaxed and fell backward into the house.

“Go, go, go,” the group poured into the house, the two remaining NSA agents firing a hail of 9mm at the intruders on full auto, their rounds sparking on the alien armor, shattering the sliding glass doors and shredding the wall around the doorway. The phase weapons silenced the agents and it was quiet again. “I need a medic; we have a man down...”

“
Copy, Chief, medic's on the way.”

“
Search the house, find the package,” she told the rest of the team as she knelt down next to the wounded Petty Officer. “Medic's coming, hang in there, just stay still.” Using her helmet's mini-light she searched his body armor looking for penetrations. Finding none she checked his broken and bloody arm.

“
Bridge to Chief, have you recovered the package?”

“
We're searching now Skipper...”

“
Step it up Chief, we're attracting a whole bunch of attention out here...” the mic stayed open for a moment, “the forward observer is picking up additional threats moving to your location from the street and it looks like one individual outside the front of the residence...”

The team returned to the kitchen and the Chief had two members cover the front door while the medic attended to the wounded Petty Officer. “Chief to bridge, we cannot locate the package, can you make contact?”

“Stand by Chief...” came the answer through her helmet.

The medic took one look at the Petty Officer's left arm and stuck him with a mini-lancet in his bicep above the damage, “This'll dampen the pain...” She tossed the empty lancet aside, “you having a hard time breathing?” He nodded. “Hmm, yeah,” she slid her fingers underneath the armor above his left breast and could feel the deformity on the back from the hits he took. Popping open a pouch on her bag, she retrieved a small silver cylinder about the size of a Cuban cigar with a mouthpiece on it. “I want you to bite down on the mouthpiece, breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose. Don't take it out, understand?” He nodded and she popped it into his mouth, “good, breathe slow and easy.” The cool, dense, medicated expanding air, opened up his air passages and forced his partially collapsed lung to inflate, allowing him to breathe again. Splinting his arm with a simple inflatable sleeve she was ready to get him out. The medic tapped Layora Cress on the elbow “Chief, I'm gonna get him back to the ramp...”

“He can walk?”

The medic put one foot on the floor between his legs at his crotch, grabbed him by the straps of his armor and stepped back with her other foot, pulling the Petty Officer to his feet, “Yes ma'am, the armor held up - he'll be fine. His arm's in bad shape but I've got it stabilized.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and snatched his phase rifle off the floor before heading out onto the deck, “Medic to 77, two to egress.”

“Copy medic, you've got gawkers on the beach, but no threats...”

The front door of the house exploded open, slamming against the wall, a hail of 9mm submachine gun fire coming in through the doorway, shredding anything in their path, the kitchen furniture splintering and shattering, knocking both of the Chief's men stationed there, on their backs. Lying on the floor, the Chief pulled down her visor and attempted to roll clear of the mayhem. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Truck hustling down the corridor,
”Nooooo..!”

Truck had unslung the light plasma machine gun as he ran and sliding to a stop at the corner of the wall, stuck the muzzle around the corner and squeezed the trigger, letting off a long burst of hot magenta streaks slashing through the doorway, cutting two NSA agents in half, the rest of the burst passing through the grill of the black SUV sitting on the front lawn, blowing out through the back of the vehicle as it erupted into a fireball. The explosion lifted the entire vehicle off the ground and slamming it back down, spread broken parts and debris out in a hundred foot circle. The mangled SUV continued to burn as a column of dense black smoke drifted upward, little smoldering pieces of ash and fabric drifting to the ground all around.

“
Bridge to Chief, Chief can you hear me? What's going on down there...?”

The Chief lifted her visor and watched the members of her team give her an OK sign. “They tried a frontal breach, Skipper; we had no other options...”

“The forward observer reports there are four pulling back, looks like they've had enough. Our package is in a hidden area of the back room of the house, she's coming out...”

“
Copy that Skipper.”

“
Step it up Chief, we've got air and surface craft approaching... guaranteed that little fireworks display is going to garner us some additional attention...”

■ ■ ■

Pulled off a drug interdiction patrol by an urgent call from one of their cutters, the pilot of the US Coast Guard MH60T Sea Hawk was eating up precious fuel by keeping her near her maximum flight speed of 168 mph, to get to the coordinates as fast as the helo could deliver them. A cousin to the military's UH-60A Black Hawk, this model of the Sea Hawk from the Clearwater Station was armed and armored.

Flying about a half a mile off the beach at about six-hundred feet, they followed the coastline down toward Ft. Myers Beach. Anyone walking on the beach below would have heard the familiar, steady,
thump, thump, thump,
of the rotors as the helicopter passed overhead. Cutting across Pine Island they were again over the water as they crossed the Cape Coral Inlet, searching the coastline ahead for what was reported to be a large unknown craft on the shore.

“
There's Punta Rassa point...”

The pilot nodded, “Yep, and I can see the tip of the Ft. Myers beach...”

The street lights glittered in the darkness, mixed in with muted lights from the homes and cars traveling on the main roads looking like little toys. A stream of emergency vehicles coming over the San Carlos Boulevard bridge and heading south along Estero Boulevard, their blue and red lights flashing, reflecting off everything around them, drawing their eyes farther south on the beach where darkness prevailed. A large swatch of the area was without power, totally dark, except for a lone bonfire almost at its center.

“
What the hell is going on down there...?” The pilot eased the throttle and pulled gently on the cyclic, pitching up the nose to slow the helo as they approached. Pushing the cyclic back, the helo felt like it was sliding forward as it returned to a normal attitude. They could see the form of the Coast Guard cutter about a mile offshore to the right, holding station, her lights flickering intermittently. Radio communications with the ship had been broken and spotty but were currently not available at all. The helo crew was glad to see she was not in distress. The black form on the beach appeared longer than the cutter in the water, and from their approach angle, considerably wider. “Is that a beached ship..?”

“
Doesn't look like any ship I've ever seen, Lieutenant...”

“
Yeah, me neither - I was afraid you'd say that,” he glanced over his shoulder, “harness up...”

“
Machine gunner, harnessed...”

“
Fifty gunner, harnessed...”

“
Crew Chief, harnessed...”

“
Crew harnessed,” confirmed the pilot, “copy. Gunners deploy.” The waist door slid open on the starboard side of the Sea Hawk, the machine gunner unpinning the M240 machine gun, swinging it out on its articulated pintle mount. The pilot glanced over at the copilot, “Anything on the FLIR?”

“
Hang on, looking...” The co-pilot rotated the FLIR camera around searching the scene as they approached. “The fire looks like it was a vehicle. I've got bodies on the ground between it and the house to the south of it. I also have one... no, make that two figures at the side of the object... looks like a door or something. We also have what looks to be civilians up the beach and on the edges of the residences...”

“
Idiots, go back in your houses...”

“
Yes sir. And at the top of the street, we have a large group of folks that look to be emergency response personnel... ” He inspected the shape on the shore, “I still can't tell what the hell that thing is though...” He knew. They all knew. But nobody wanted to say it. As if not saying it could prevent it from being true. It would only delay the inevitable realization that they were in way over their heads... no training taught them how to deal with this.

“
I want to keep a little distance, put some light on it.” The pilot had swung wide and they had passed around it on the water side. The pilot pivoted the helo around to make another pass, allowing the gunners to observe as well.

“
Got it... spot is on.” He waved at the dash of fluctuating gauges, “Did you notice the gauges?”

“
Yep, just light up the target.” The co-pilot manipulated the control and the spotlight lit up a large section of the alien ship's hull.

“
Holy fuck...”

“
Yeeeaaah.
.. any chance they just stopped to ask directions...?”

■ ■ ■

F-16s are commonly referred to as Flying Falcons but the pilots who fly them refer to them as Vipers. It had taken a couple minutes to scramble, but once off the ground it had only taken the four F-16Cs of the 93
rd
Fighter Squadron about a minute to climb to ten-thousand feet where they could surpass the speed of sound without severely rattling the windows of every house they passed over. Coming from Homestead Air Force Base at better than Mach 1, the Ft Myers area would be about a ten-minute flight. Looking down there was only darkness as they passed over the Everglades and Big Cypress National Preserve.

The Major checked his watch, “Makos are five minutes to target...” He was truly curious, he'd been out on a UFO hunt twice before and seen nothing, but when the NSA places the call, there was a whole different world of legitimacy to it. Armed with four air-to-air AIM 120 AMRAAMs missiles per bird, the Viper pilots were ready to do business.

“Homestead tower, copy Mako Lead, good hunting.”

With nothing on Radar and no direct communication with anyone in the Ft Myers area, the Viper drivers were going into an unknown situation. Nothing new really, but there were supposed to be other air and sea units in the area and a communications blackout was not a good sign. Speed is life. They would go in hot, access the situation as they exited the target zone, then swing back to engage if necessary.

■ ■ ■

With Nina holding a flashlight, Lisa Spun the three-spoke locking wheel on the inside of the safe room door, unlocking it manually with a gentle clank. “I don't get it,” started Nina, “Batteries seem to be OK,” she emphasized by wiggling the light in her hand, “but all the systems are down.”

“Jack mentioned something about shielding” replied Lisa, heaving on the door without budging it.

“
But the little comm unit you have worked...”

“
I know,” replied Lisa going to the back wall and cranking on the manual wheel to move the door, “that comm unit was made by
them
, its electronics are shielded so it functions,” she panted, cranking away. The heavy door moved slowly, the manual wheel winding the roll-chain under the floor. The cranking got easier the door moving faster, approaching the point where Lisa couldn't keep up with wheel and let it go, stepping back and looking out through the opening, seeing a rather large arm pushing in on the outside of the door. Gus stuck his nose through the opening, snuffling and Lisa drew her Glock, “Who are you?”

“
Name's Truck, I'm from the 77. Captain Steele sent us...” he grunted, pushing harder, “we need to hurry, it's getting really busy out here.”

Lisa holstered her Glock and cranked on the manual wheel as fast as she could, the light from Truck's helmet mini-light illuminating a portion of the room. At about twenty-four inches he stopped, standing back to let them out through the opening. Dressed in jeans, and tomboy clothes, Lisa and Nina dragged out two deployment type military-sized duffel bags they had found in the garage and packed with clothes and personal items. Both of them were wearing their sidearms and extra magazines, ready to fight. Gus followed them closely but seemed indifferent to the big man in armor with the machine gun slung across his chest. Truck bent down and grabbing both bags by the straps, hefted them easily one handed. “OK, let's go...”