Chapter 107 - The Siege of the Surface
I didn't hesitate. I dropped to my knees beside console three, tearing open the heavy floor hatch. Beneath a web of fiber-optic cabling lay a heavy industrial switch housed inside a locked steel box. I slammed the obsidian signet ring into the central socket and twisted it clockwise ninety degrees.
The bedrock groaned.
Deep within the mountain, massive subterranean pneumatic lifters fired with a deafening hydraulic roar.
On the surface monitors, we watched through hardened perimeter cameras as the charred landscape shifted. Sections of the scorched hillside opened like the petals of an iron flower. Hidden beneath false boulders and carbonized tree trunks, three twin-barreled automated 30mm CIWS autocannons rose into the driving rain, their targeting radomes spinning up to maximum velocity in seconds.
"Air defense online," Victoria shouted over the mechanical din. "Target lock established on all three incoming hostiles!"
Through the thermal feeds, the three unmarked attack helicopters broke through the rain squall over the eastern valley, their nose-mounted rotary cannons already spinning up to saturate the landing zone.
"Fire," I ordered.
The mountain erupted.
The vibration traveled straight down through thirty feet of solid rock into the soles of our boots. The twin CIWS batteries roared in unison, spitting a blinding stream of high-explosive tungsten rounds into the gray sky at four thousand rounds per minute.
The lead helicopter didn't even have time to fire its flares. The stream of 30mm rounds intercepted it mid-air, tearing through the rotor mast and engine housing. The aircraft disintegrated into a fireball of sheared aluminum and burning jet fuel, spiraling violently down into the timberline where it detonated in an earth-shattering shockwave.
The other two gunships banked violently, diving toward the tree canopy to break radar lock, deploying thick swarms of infrared countermeasures. One of them managed to loose a pair of missiles toward the crest.
The twin rockets streaked down, slamming into the exposed surface foundation directly above our heads.
The underground bunker rocked violently. Ceiling tiles shattered, dropping showers of dust and pulverized plaster across the consoles. The lighting flickered red, switching instantly to backup battery power as alarms blared in shrill, rhythmic pulses.
"Structural integrity holding at ninety-two percent," Victoria reported, wiping blood from a minor cut on her forehead where falling debris had clipped her. "Julian, the second chopper just dropped four tactical sticks into the southern ravine! They’ve got boots on the ground!"
I watched the thermal monitors. Dozens of glowing heat signatures were moving rapidly up the slope through the burning wreckage of the woods. These weren't street muscle or corporate security; they moved in tight, professional tactical wedges, armed with suppressed carbines and anti-armor breaching charges.
They were heading straight for the well house.
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"They know the auxiliary entrance," I said, racking the charging handle of an assault rifle from the weapons rack. "They aren't trying to bomb us out anymore. They're coming down."
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