Soldiers of Fortune Read Free Page A

piping the ship's sensor feed directly into his visual cortex via his neural implant. The effect was astonishing, if a little disorienting; he was able to look down through the hull of the ship and view the landscape as if he were riding in his seat out in the open. Due to the heavy fog, he had chosen long-wave infrared with a false-color overlay so he could penetrate the misty blanket and view the ground as they rushed over it. This was quite necessary as he was flying with their active sensors offline; no radar, lidar, or tachyon bursts to navigate with lest they be detected. He pushed on over the heavily wooded hills, continuing his northerly course as the Phoenix's vertical stabilizers occasionally broke through the low-lying clouds like dual shark fins.
     
                  "I'm going to set her down in that clearing we spotted from orbit; the basin that was twelve klicks from the house," Jason announced as he slowed even further and let the ship coast in on the momentum it already had.
     
                  "Copy that," Kage said. "Doc, better ping our contact and let them know tonight is the night and we're already inbound."
     
                  "Right you are," Doc answered, turning towards the console he was sitting at and entering the commands to activate the ship's com array. The crew fell silent once again as the seconds counted down and the tension ticked up. Without warning, Jason cycled the landing gear and brought the nose up, flaring the ship to slow it without needing to apply any retro-thrust. He allowed the Phoenix to settle into a steady hover on her grav emitters over a large, depressed field that he could see through his enhanced sight, but was otherwise completely obscured by the fog and night. He began to incrementally scale back the power being fed to the grav emitters and let the ship slowly sink through the fog until only the tips of the vertical stabilizers were showing as it touched down.
     
                  "Launch the twins," Jason said as he placed the engines in *STANDBY* and leveled out the landing gear. "I need eyes on target before I risk rolling in there." At his command, two panels slid back on the forward part of the hull on either side of the backbone and, with two loud pops, a pair of sleek, autonomous probes launched themselves into the air and zipped off quietly into the night. They were semi-intelligent, but not self-aware. They would hold pattern over the target and provide the team with real-time visual intel as they approached. Once the “twins” were gone, a deathly silence descended over the small valley. "Kage, you have the hot seat. Doc, Twingo; stay up here and monitor things. Also, shut the grav drive down completely. I don't think we were detected coming in, but better safe than sorry."
     
                  "You can count on it, Captain," Twingo said. Kage moved around and hopped into the vacated pilot seat as Jason left the bridge to join the rest of the ground team in the ship's armory. He quickly descended the stairs from the upper command deck and broke into a jog through the galley/common area. Walking down another short flight of stairs and through the engineering bay he found Crusher and Lucky in the armory nearly ready to depart. Actually, Crusher was still mulling over which assortment of weapons he wanted to take while Lucky, whose weapons were integrated into his very body, stood watching and giving helpful suggestions.
     
                  "Just make sure you grab a stunner as well, Crusher," Jason said by way of greeting as he made his way over to his own bench and started stripping off his gray, utilitarian uniform that Omega Force had adopted as their standard attire while shipboard.
     
                  "You know, it would be easier if..."
     
                  "No killing. Remember last time? We need to get in and out without being identified, that means not leaving