The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Chapter 34: Positioning to Strike

And in doing so, caught sight of Naryan as she stood at the foot of one of the access ramps, looking in his direction. As their eyes met, Lash slowly nodded, a nod Naryan returned with equal deliberation. Then he was turning and striding up the ramp.

"Truk, Ford, take us out. Narcist, you got the countermeasures seat. The rest of you, stow your gear and grab what rest you can," the big vampire tightly directed as he swept his eyes over his team. "Because there won't be any until our enemies are all dead! Wolfpack!"

"Wolfpack!" the team ferally growled.

Nodding in satisfaction, Lash tucked his gear in just outside the corridor leading onto the flight deck. He then stepped in as Truk was getting comfortable in the pilot's seat, Fordricht scanning over the readouts in the co-pilot's chair. To his left Narcist was already calling up satellite imagery of Budapest and the hills to the south of the city that hid Varos Ejzhaka to make sure their egress was trouble free.

"Hunter says skies are clear and we are in the pattern, Wolf," Truk announced, with Fordricht a second or two later: "All systems are in the green and we are ready to fly!"

Lash nodded.

"Get us airborne, Truk. Ford, advise Force Recon to stay tight and in full stealth. Narcist, full power to the jamming suit. I don't want a single listening post to hear us coming. Only the sound of their own screams when we start killing them."

"Copy that, Wolf," Narcist said with a tight nod. "We are ghosts!"

In tight formation, the three Nighthawks ascended through the departure aperture then immediately dropped low to the water to keep their visible profiles as low as possible. Accelerating from there, the powerful gunships streaked over the fjord's dark waters, heading for the heavily guarded entrance. And then they were through, immediately banking to the southeast to lock in on the Hungarian city, two hours' of flight time distant.

Nodding in satisfaction, Lash took a cleansing breath and folded his arms before he turned inward. He would review the battle plan a thousand times before they crossed the North Sea, just as he reviewed it hundreds of thousands of times before he began getting ready a few minutes ago. It wasn't flawless, by any stretch of the imagination. Experience had brutally taught him that flawless fails within seconds of contact.

What it was, was flexible. Which was even better than flawless; if they could adjust their tactics on the fly and still remain on the mission objective, it would compensate for unexpected obstacles, heavier or lighter than expected resistance, and a host of other issues that could pop up as they were making their way to their target. Flexible more often than not equalled victory. And nothing short of victory would satisfy him!

With a flicker of motion, they were over the shoreline, somewhere in Denmark, if he remembered the flight plan correctly. Now the real stealth had to happen. Not only did they need to be wary of vampire listening posts. But now the humans could play a part, and he wasn't thinking White Flame humans. In a Europe stirred into a frenzy by their very public clashes with the Hand and the White Flames over the last few weeks, the normal humans would be on the lookout for unusual activities as well.

"We have active radar sweeps cycling through our flightpath," Fordricht tightly announced.

"Angling our EM sheath to deflect," Narcist reported, her hands dancing over her interface. "Dotted line on your forward monitor is your best path to avoid excessive scans, Truk."

Nodding as he glanced at the monitor in question to see where their Nighthawk was in terms of the dotted line and the radar sweeps, Truk guided their gunship with a deft hand between the detection fields.