The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Hot LZ

Her instincts quickly proved her right: as the drone sent a fine mist out around it, glistening beams of invisible light became visible, revealing a lattice of trip sensors scattered all the way down the staircase. But, as Naryan's eyes narrowed, she could see that they weren't so tightly spaced, they left absolutely no space between them. If they moved quickly, they should be able to navigate safely through.

Which, with another series of hand signals, she directed her legionnaires to do. And, moving as quickly as they could, her people began easing their way through the security net.

Thankfully the security drone didn't move onto the landing and look down the staircase. Keeping an eye on the landing, Naryan didn't see it appear at all, the operator apparently satisfied that there wasn't any intruders on the landing. Or confident in the invisible security net's ability to catch whoever got past the landing.

Still, she could feel eyes on the back of her head as she joined her Force Recon legionnaires in negotiating the rest of the staircase. Almost as if she couldn't quite believe they had managed to avoid getting caught by the drone after triggering the alarm above ground.

The staircase jogged to the left, dropped another two flights, then jogged to the right before coming to a halt in front of a massive pair of metal doors equipped with a biometric access panel. Seeing the panel, Naryan couldn't help the grimace that twisted her face into a mask of frustration and disappointment.

Tanner fell back to stand beside her.

"I think we just found the back door, boss," she said in a whisper. "T4 must contain the main base, along with the main entrance. There's dust on the ground here. Nobody's used this staircase in a while."

Naryan nodded as she absorbed that. Maybe they were more successful in their mission than she originally thought. If this was Romanescu's bolt hole out of the base in case it was compromised, then all they needed to do was hold it and he would come to them as soon as Kassidy's main force, bolstered by Darktower's Valkyrie company, came knocking on the front door.

"Okay, we need to hold this door," she said in a low voice. "But if we park both squads here, we'll bottleneck and get in our own way. So I need volunteers."

Every hand immediately shot up.

"Well. Thanks for making it easy," she said with a slight smile before sobering. "Tanner, you and Second Squad cover this door. Galloway, you and First Squad follow me back topside to secure the LZ. The Silver Assault will be breaching the horizon right about now and will be on the ground in a minute. So, if Romanescu's people haven't ..."

Before she could finish, they heard a siren go off on the other side of the door, loud enough to penetrate the cold steel.

"I'd say they've spotted Kassidy's advance," Tanner dryly noted.

"And I would agree," Naryan said before reaching out to give Tanner's shoulder a squeeze. Her second in command gave her a confident nod in reply. Then the Force Recon captain was turning and sprinting up the staircase, Galloway and her First Squad right behind her.

As they darted through the hidden hole and up the staircase, Naryan could hear missile batteries firing, and anti-aircraft guns buzzing as they hurtled up the stairs. Weapon up, the Force Recon captain peeked over the top of the staircase and into the open space beyond. She hissed to find it now filled with the heavily armed security force, busy setting up defensive positions, at least forty troopers. Which, for the moment, weren't paying attention to the staircase.

Seeing so many soldiers defending a seldom-used access point only confirmed Tanner's assertion. This was the backdoor bolt hole Romanescu would use in his attempt to escape before being captured. And, despite it not being used very often, the soldiers in front of her were moving through well-defined set-ups, indicating they had trained often and thoroughly in it. More confirmation.