Chapter 56 - Descent on the Sierra Nevadas
The transport doors hissed open as the aircraft hovered low over the jagged, snow-dusted peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains. The freezing night air rushed into the cabin with the roar of twin turbofan engines, whipping our hair and rattling our tactical gear. Below us, the mirror-like surface of Lake Tahoe reflected the distant, chaotic muzzle flashes erupting around the perimeter of our cedar safehouse.
"Ten seconds to drop zone!" Ethan yelled over the wind, securing his parachute harness and checking his carbine's optic.
"Remember, speed and silence!" I shouted back, locking my helmet strap into place. "We don't engage unless cornered. Our primary objective is securing the house and getting our data before Krovos breaches the vault!"
The green jump light flashed on.
We leaped out into the freezing void one by one, plunging downward through the swirling clouds before deploying our canopies in a tight, coordinated formation. We drifted silently through the dark pine canopy, landing with soft thuds on the needle-strewn earth fifty yards behind the safehouse.
The scene around our home was devastating. The automated security dome, which had once pulsed a steady, peaceful blue, was shattered and dark, its housing smoking from an EMP strike. The front deck was littered with spent brass and the bodies of automated defense drones we had deployed years prior.
"They've breached the outer foyer," Ethan whispered, crouching behind a massive boulder as a pair of Meridian operatives patrolled past our position with night-vision goggles humming.
"Wait for my signal," I whispered, drawing my combat knife.
May you like
As the operatives passed within striking distance, Ethan and I moved in tandem. Quick, silent, and lethal. Two muffled thuds later, the guards slumped quietly into the snow.
We dragged their bodies into the brush and slipped through the shattered side window into the kitchen of the safehouse.
