"Into the trees, now!" Nayla gave an urgent order.
Nobody paused. They grabbed their weapons and clambered up the enormous trunk of the closest tree, which was covered in tangled creepers and moss. Nayla climbed as smoothly as a fish swimming through water, tying a rope close to the top and lowering it to help her friends. Typically overburdened, Kieran arrived last and slowly. In addition to his personal equipment, his pack included a case of extra ammunition for each weapon, three days' worth of rations, a hydrator, a backup inflatable tent, and Kyara's remote signaling equipment.
"How long until they reach us?" Breathing heavily from the climb, Nora asked Nayla.
"The primary force? "Give or take two hours," Nayla calculated.
"What?!" Still panting and holding his neck where Nayla's jagged claws had sucked blood during her panicked wake-up call, Kieran screamed. He sounded clearly annoyed. "We could have been halfway back to Kyara by then!" Nayla seized his arm tightly as he began to descend.
Sharply, she clarified, "I said the main body will be here in two hours," "Scout patrols have already been sent out. I advise you to stay put unless you want to try to outrun a Myrmidon recon tank.
After hesitating, Kieran gave in to her reasoning. To make a makeshift hammock big enough for all five, he and Nayla worked together to unfold the backup tent and fasten it securely between two high, sturdy branches with sturdy cords. One by one, they climbed inside, carefully hiding its underside with foliage, and prepared to wait in silence until the search parties passed below.
A few minutes later, Nayla hissed angrily, "Kieran, get your arm out of my ribs before I rip it off,"
In response, Kieran said, "As soon as I get out from under here, it'll be my pleasure," but the bodies pressing against him muffled his voice. Since he was the biggest, he had climbed into the hammock first, followed by the others.
The rotation was supposed to continue with the watch schedule, but Yan dozed off during his shift. Nobody knew exactly what had happened overnight when they woke up the following morning, much later than their customary 0500 reveille, blinking in the 0943 sunlight that was filtered through the canopy. But nobody held Yan responsible for allowing them to sleep; it was obvious that they had needed the rest.
As soon as Luna cautiously looked over the edge of the hammock, the generally positive atmosphere vanished.
She uttered the word "shit," loud enough for Nayla's perceptive ears to hear.
"What is it?" Quietly, Nayla inquired.
Luna drew herself back into the hammock's relative hiding place. "Those soldiers below decided to make camp right here," she said somberly. "They're apparently waiting to see if we're foolish enough to return to our original campsite."
Looking down, they could see small cook-fires lit and a large number of soldiers milling about right beneath their tree. There were a number of large tanks and mortar positions in the area. Beneath them, apparently unaffected, was the Colossus tank Yan had commandeered.
"Damn," muttered Kieran. This made their extraction much more difficult.
"Well, there's always one reliable solution to Core Army problems," Yan thought as he loaded a new grenade magazine and cocked his OICW.
By saying, "Don't even think about it," Nora cut him off right away. "We can eliminate them, but it must be done precisely. Do you still have Kyara's remote control, Kieran? In agreement, Kieran gave his backpack a pat. "All right, huddle close. I have a strategy.
"Does it involve kicking copious amounts of ass?" With hope, Yan inquired.
Nora's lips formed a rapacious smile. "Oh, yes."
As Nora laid out her plan, the next hour flew by. Three sets of rappelling equipment were expertly anchored high in the tree by Nayla. Kieran ran diagnostics on his remote transmitter unit after carefully unpacking and assembling it.
"Ready yet, Kieran?" For the fourth time, Nora asked, starting to suspect he liked keeping them waiting.
"No."
"How about now?"
He had just established the last internal link. "Yes," he said.
"Okay," ordered Nora. "Bring her in."
Kieran pressed a button on the joystick remote. Kyara's control panels came to life, hidden in the jungle, kilometers away. With a gentle push of one of the three throttle levers on the base of the joystick, the ship rose silently from the earth. Above the transmitter, a holographic three-dimensional display appeared, offering vital telemetry readouts and a crisp, live visual feed from the ship's external cameras. Using their current coordinates, Kieran activated the ship's autopilot and left the transit to Kyara. Although he was still unable to see the ship, the holographic display showed it speeding precisely at 200 KPH in their direction.
Kieran loaded a custom program that told the ship to perform a low flyby right next to their tree and lower its main boarding ramp during the final approach. The distance to arrival was rapidly counted down by a tiny meter at the top of the holographic display. Kieran pulled out his shotgun and made sure a round was chambered as he quickly disassembled the transmitter and put it back in his pack. He looked at his wrist chrono's countdown timer. He lifted a clenched fist at the thirty-second mark.
A number of things happened at the same time.
In their devastating opening volley, Kieran and Yan killed twelve men and silenced two mortar emplacements as they threw every grenade and bullet they could find at the gullible soldiers and mortar crews immediately below. Nora, Nayla, and Luna all rappelled down the tree trunk at the same time, landing silently on top of the parked Colossus tank. Four seconds after they clambered through the open hatch, the tank's formidable engine roared to life. Luna quickly rotated the main turret, firing the PACs at any other heavy tanks in sight in a sequential manner. As Nayla operated the anti-personnel guns, lethal streams of tracer fire were sprayed throughout the surrounding area. Panicked soldiers were scattered in front of Nora as she drove the tank like a demon and crashed crazily through the brush away from the tree.
Just as planned, Kyara swooped low next to the tree, ramp spread wide. Yan and Kieran ran with their equipment on board. Kieran leaped onto the bridge, threw himself into the pilot's seat, and instantly activated the heavy armor plating of the ship. When Yan arrived at his tactical position, he immediately engaged Kyara's retractable miniguns on her chin, causing them to follow and shoot any movement on the ground. After that, he manually targeted the ship's laser turrets, giving the destruction of any enemy tanks that were still stationary top priority.
To maximize the effectiveness of the turret fire, Kieran piloted Kyara low and slow over the chaotic battlefield. A few enemy Colossus tanks were starting to move, and most of the remaining soldiers had arranged a defense by this point. Yan was cautious not to aim at these mobile threats for fear of striking the friendly tank, but they were alert for any barrels that might be aimed at them. The enemy force, which had started out with about 180 men, had already been whittled down to about 104. Bullets, mortar rounds, and even anti-tank rockets exploded harmlessly against Kyara's thick armor plating, despite the fact that many individual soldiers fired small arms at it. The remaining enemy PACs posed the only real threat, which Yan and Luna were quickly eradicating.
Kieran brought Kyara in for a fast landing as soon as he saw the first suitable clearing. Any soldier who dared to approach was suppressed by Yan's miniguns as they continued their lethal sweep. Driven straight through Kyara's withering covering fire, the stolen Colossus exploded through the treeline and skidded to a stop close to the ramp. As soon as the tank's hatch opened, Yan stopped firing and Kieran lowered the boarding ramp completely. Luna, Nayla, and Nora jumped out of the tank and ran up the ramp as quickly as their weary legs would allow. Nayla stumbled and fell to her knees after taking a stray round high in the back of her leg, but Luna caught her right away and dragged her resolutely the rest of the way inside.
Even before the ramp had completely retracted, Kieran started the liftoff. As Kyara rose, Yan turned the turrets back on, slaying a few more vulnerable soldiers below. Yan simultaneously set off the remote detonator for the charges they had previously planted, destroying the manufacturing facility's vital systems and guaranteeing its irreversible shutdown.
Through the bridge, the others hurried Nayla to the ship's medical facility. The immediate danger had not entirely subsided, so no greetings were exchanged. When they were in low orbit, Kieran pulled back the outer armor plating and Yan pulled the miniguns back into their housings. Using the speed and accuracy she had practiced during her combat medic training, Nora quickly extracted the bullet from Nayla's leg in the infirmary before cleaning and dressing the wound. Kyara quickly left the destroyed base and the corpse-strewn battlefield far behind as she accelerated to escape velocity at 500 KPH.
Nora went back to the bridge and turned on the long-range communications systems after she was safely in orbit. As soon as they cleared the planet, they were to get in touch with the Titan's Might. They were well out of Syltran 4's gravity well in five minutes, and Kieran charted a route back to Celyra Prime, the most sensible place to meet. As Nora created the safe visual connection, all five moved to their designated stations. The connection details were announced by a synthesized voice:
Decrypt sequence 2546.23.89 on Channel SE 195. The connection is secure.
The senior general's well-known face appeared after a brief flicker on the main viewscreen.
"Greetings," he said in a formal manner. "I trust you all extracted safely?"
"Well, we're conversing with you while seated here, so yes. Everything is fine," Nora said, her typical humor returning now that the immediate mission was over.
"Happy to hear that. "You mean the facility was neutralized?"
"Correct," said Kieran.
"Probably not as subtly as you might have preferred, but it's definitely history," Yan said.
"Explain," said the general abruptly.