Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 54
“We have one engine out and another about to fail,” Dahl announced. Her voice was cool and matter-of-fact, but Idina could see the tension and intense focus in the older woman’s face.
“Well, put us down before it does,” Idina said. Her head was still swimming with the impact against the headrest and the sudden onslaught of chaotic noise and motion.
“That is the idea,” Dahl said. “What happened just now?”
Idina brought up her surveillance feed again, but the screen only showed an error message: FEED OFFLINE. Every sensor in the gyrofoil’s chin pod flashed a yellow or red status. She cursed and closed the screen once more, then looked outside to get her bearings. A cloud of smoke and dust was rising into the night sky to their left, covering a three-block area and diffusing the lights from the nearby buildings. Idina could hear debris bouncing off the top of the gyrofoil like scattered hail.
“Bomb, bomb, bomb,” she sent to the platoon. “All units, report your status. Check in, everyone.”
One by one, the patrol units returned their status messages through the data network: green, green, yellow, green, yellow.
No red, she thought. Don’t come up red.
When all the teams had reported in, she breathed a sigh of relief. No red status messages. Several injuries, but no dead. Whatever trap had just sprung, it had mostly spared her troopers. But her people hadn’t been the only ones on the scene. The QRF squad had been inside the building. She tapped over to their channel with dread.
“QRF Actual, Yellow One Niner,” Idina sent. “Report your status.”
The channel remained silent.
“QRF Actual, come in,” she tried again. “Any QRF team members, check in.”
For a few long moments, there was nothing but static on the comms. Then one of her troopers chimed in on the all-platoon channel. He sounded as dazed and shaken as she felt.
“One Niner, this is Yellow Two. They’re gone, Colors. The building’s gone. And the one next to it. Went up right in front of us. Nothing but a pile of rubble left.”
“Gods-damn it.” Idina gritted her teeth and banged her helmet against the headrest of her seat. She took a deep breath to collect herself and tapped over to the JSP emergency channel.
“Alliance units, this is Yellow One Niner in charge of Sector Five. We have a major high-order explosives incident at location grid Delta One Three. Our QRF squad is down. There are civilian casualties. Requesting assistance from all available alert forces in the AO. I repeat, send all available alert forces in the AO.”
Next to her, Dahl sent her own emergency message to the Gretian police network, speaking calmly but forcefully while piloting the stricken gyrofoil to a landing spot on an intersection below. Idina looked around with renewed concern. If the explosion was part of an ambush, her lightly armed troops would be easy pickings, especially if the attackers were equipped like the people who had killed her squad three months ago. Her light scout armor suddenly felt woefully inadequate.
“All units, watch your surroundings and stay alert. This may just be the opening bell. And stay clear of the site until we have backup with explosives sniffers behind us. The bastards may have planted secondaries to catch first responders. I repeat, do not approach the site,” she told her troops on the platoon channel.
“Colors, there are QRF people in there,” one of her squad leaders replied. She checked the broadcast ID.
“Corporal Bandhari, you will follow protocol. Stay the hells away unless you see someone crawling out of the rubble right in front of you. That’s a fucking order. Acknowledge.”
It took a moment for Bandhari to respond, and when he did, she could practically hear his teeth grind.
“Affirmative, Color Sergeant.”
Go ahead and hate me for that, Idina thought. At least you’ll be alive to hate.
Dahl steered the gyrofoil around a building corner and descended onto the intersection beyond. When they were just a few meters above the ground, the craft lurched again and dropped forward and to the right. Dahl tried to correct the veer, but they were too low, and the remaining engines of the gyrofoil didn’t have the power left to pull them out of the drop. They hit the ground at an angle with a resounding crash. Idina lost sight of the world outside as the automated crash system filled the cabin with flame-retardant kinetic foam. She felt the craft skid across the road surface and spin to a grinding stop.
“Are you all right?” Dahl asked. Her voice sounded muffled through the layer of hardened foam that now separated them.
“As far as I can tell,” Idina replied. “You?”
“The same. Pull the red lever above your door. We need to get out of here.”
Idina looked for the lever, which was partially covered in dried foam. She grabbed it and yanked it down, and the door on her side of the gyrofoil fell out of its frame, accompanied by the dull cracks of emergency charges. She released her seat harness and hoisted herself out of the craft while Dahl did the same on the other side. They had come to rest with the right side of the gyrofoil’s nose against a building. Idina took cover between the vehicle and the nearest wall and drew her sidearm from its holster. The tactical screen projection on her helmet visor kept resetting itself, so she shut off her data monocle and opened her helmet. The warm night air smelled like dust and artillery propellant.
They did it again, she thought. Binary explosives. They were waiting for us all along. The whole thing was a setup from the start.
Dahl came around the back of the gyrofoil,