perfectly flat horizon. Low clouds hovered above it. It looked dangerous, even from here.
Scarecrow peered warily up at the sky, scanning for surveillance aircraft.
Nothing. Only the purple dawn-like sky and some high-altitude clouds, although to the south, around Dragon, the sky did seem to shimmer somewhat.
He saw something.
A tiny object, circling lazily high above him. It wasn’t a surveillance plane; it was too small. It looked like a large Arctic bird, gliding on the thermals.
Schofield swore. He was completely unprepared for a combat mission and he knew it. He was working with untrained civilians just to make up the numbers and he had almost zero surveillance equipment. He wished he had a simple waveguide radar or even just a parabolic dish to scan the immediate airspace. But he didn’t even have that. Right now, all he had were his eyes and they just weren’t good enough.
‘Mother, come on up. Bring Bertie with you. Everyone else, stay in the boats for now.’
He stepped up onto the flat surface of the ice plain, MP-7 submachine gun poised and ready.
A few moments later, Mother joined him. She plonked Bertie on the ground between them and the little robot beeped and spun on his chunky tyres.
Mother stood beside Scarecrow, clasping a menacing Heckler & Koch G36A2 assault rifle in her hands.
Most Force Recon NCOs used the standard-issue M4, but Mother preferred the venerable German assault gun, and hers came with all the optional extras: it had a 100-round C-Mag drum magazine, underslung AG36 grenade launcher with the new anti-tank zinc-tipped incendiary grenades, a Zeiss RSA reflex sight and Oerlikon Contraves LLM01 laser light module. With all the additions, it looked like something out of a science fiction movie.
Scarecrow glanced from his compact MP-7 to her G36. ‘Could you have attached anything else to that thing?’ he asked.
‘Quiet, you,’ she said. ‘Weapons options are like good commanders: you love ’em when you’ve got ’em, and you wish you had ’em when you don’t.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
Mother scanned the area. ‘It’s too quiet here.’
‘Yeah, it is. Bertie, acquire and identify that object up in the sky, please.’
‘ Yes, Captain Schofield .’ Bertie’s optical lens tilted skyward.
As the robot did this, Scarecrow and Mother approached the crashed plane, guns raised.
Standing before the Beriev, Schofield pulled down the thermal-vision scope on his helmet.
He saw the crumpled plane in infra-red, saw the strong residual warmth of its intact wing-mounted engine plus two man-shaped blobs in the cockpit, dim but pulsing.
‘I got two human signatures,’ he said. ‘Looks like they’re still alive in there—’
Suddenly, Schofield’s earpiece crackled to life.
Ironbark Barker’s voice growled: ‘ SEAL team in position off the north-east corner of Dragon Island. Commencing underwater insertion via the old submarine dock .’
Ironbark and his team were going in.
Scarecrow returned his attention to the plane and stepping cautiously forward, arrived at its cracked cockpit windshield. Since the Beriev was rolled on its side, he couldn’t get in via its side doors, so he smashed one of the cockpit windows while Mother covered him, her G36 ready to fire.
Schofield saw two figures slumped in the plane’s flight seats. Still strapped into the pilot’s seat was an older man with a bushy grey moustache and ‘ IVANOV ’ stenciled onto his parka. He groaned as Schofield reached in and touched his carotid artery.
‘This must be the guy who sent out the distress call. He’s alive.’ Schofield pulled out a heat-pack from his first-aid pouch and pressed it against Ivanov’s chest. Ivanov immediately started breathing more deeply.
Mother crawled in and checked the other man, a young Russian private by all appearances. He was pale and pasty-faced, but after a few slaps, he came to with a grunt.
Beside him, Vasily Ivanov regained his senses. He
Scarecrow peered warily up at the sky, scanning for surveillance aircraft.
Nothing. Only the purple dawn-like sky and some high-altitude clouds, although to the south, around Dragon, the sky did seem to shimmer somewhat.
He saw something.
A tiny object, circling lazily high above him. It wasn’t a surveillance plane; it was too small. It looked like a large Arctic bird, gliding on the thermals.
Schofield swore. He was completely unprepared for a combat mission and he knew it. He was working with untrained civilians just to make up the numbers and he had almost zero surveillance equipment. He wished he had a simple waveguide radar or even just a parabolic dish to scan the immediate airspace. But he didn’t even have that. Right now, all he had were his eyes and they just weren’t good enough.
‘Mother, come on up. Bring Bertie with you. Everyone else, stay in the boats for now.’
He stepped up onto the flat surface of the ice plain, MP-7 submachine gun poised and ready.
A few moments later, Mother joined him. She plonked Bertie on the ground between them and the little robot beeped and spun on his chunky tyres.
Mother stood beside Scarecrow, clasping a menacing Heckler & Koch G36A2 assault rifle in her hands.
Most Force Recon NCOs used the standard-issue M4, but Mother preferred the venerable German assault gun, and hers came with all the optional extras: it had a 100-round C-Mag drum magazine, underslung AG36 grenade launcher with the new anti-tank zinc-tipped incendiary grenades, a Zeiss RSA reflex sight and Oerlikon Contraves LLM01 laser light module. With all the additions, it looked like something out of a science fiction movie.
Scarecrow glanced from his compact MP-7 to her G36. ‘Could you have attached anything else to that thing?’ he asked.
‘Quiet, you,’ she said. ‘Weapons options are like good commanders: you love ’em when you’ve got ’em, and you wish you had ’em when you don’t.’
‘I’ll take that as a compliment.’
Mother scanned the area. ‘It’s too quiet here.’
‘Yeah, it is. Bertie, acquire and identify that object up in the sky, please.’
‘ Yes, Captain Schofield .’ Bertie’s optical lens tilted skyward.
As the robot did this, Scarecrow and Mother approached the crashed plane, guns raised.
Standing before the Beriev, Schofield pulled down the thermal-vision scope on his helmet.
He saw the crumpled plane in infra-red, saw the strong residual warmth of its intact wing-mounted engine plus two man-shaped blobs in the cockpit, dim but pulsing.
‘I got two human signatures,’ he said. ‘Looks like they’re still alive in there—’
Suddenly, Schofield’s earpiece crackled to life.
Ironbark Barker’s voice growled: ‘ SEAL team in position off the north-east corner of Dragon Island. Commencing underwater insertion via the old submarine dock .’
Ironbark and his team were going in.
Scarecrow returned his attention to the plane and stepping cautiously forward, arrived at its cracked cockpit windshield. Since the Beriev was rolled on its side, he couldn’t get in via its side doors, so he smashed one of the cockpit windows while Mother covered him, her G36 ready to fire.
Schofield saw two figures slumped in the plane’s flight seats. Still strapped into the pilot’s seat was an older man with a bushy grey moustache and ‘ IVANOV ’ stenciled onto his parka. He groaned as Schofield reached in and touched his carotid artery.
‘This must be the guy who sent out the distress call. He’s alive.’ Schofield pulled out a heat-pack from his first-aid pouch and pressed it against Ivanov’s chest. Ivanov immediately started breathing more deeply.
Mother crawled in and checked the other man, a young Russian private by all appearances. He was pale and pasty-faced, but after a few slaps, he came to with a grunt.
Beside him, Vasily Ivanov regained his senses. He
Similar Books
