Free Aneka Jansen 5: The Greatest Heights of Honour by Niall Teasdale Page B

below.
    ‘Time?’ Aneka asked.
    ‘It is ten minutes until the appointed rendezvous time. No sign of the informant.’
    ‘I guess we just have to wait then.’
    ~~~
    Fifteen minutes later they were still waiting and Aneka could tell from the radio traffic that Sharissa was getting restive.
    ‘Core One to Band Two, anything?’ The blonde’s voice was tense. That was unsurprising.
    ‘Nothing, Core. Quiet as the grave.’ That was the man on the south-west approach.
    ‘Band Three?’
    ‘Nothing. All quiet.’
    Aneka frowned. Three was moving as she spoke, shifting from her place on the eastward track to a spot further north.
    ‘Her pulse and breathing are accelerated,’ Al commented.
    ‘Have we got a visual of where she is?’
    ‘Not that specific area.’
    ‘We give it another five minutes,’ Sharissa said, ‘and then we get out of here.’
    ‘I think,’ Aneka said, moving smoothly out from the cleft between the two branches she had occupied for the last two hours, ‘that we’ll go take a look at Miss Three. Drop the tactical, but keep monitoring.’ Her vision shifted to the view through her eyes, or the face of her suit anyway, and she located the descender which would drop her silently to the forest floor by way of a monofilament line.
    Getting around the woods without making noise meant moving slowly, but the trees were not too close together and she had her suit’s camouflage system. And Three was busy prepping some sort of short-barrelled grenade launcher from a Bi-weave bag when Aneka found her. That took her attention away from her surroundings, which was either an indication of bad training, or that the woman was nervous about what she was up to.
    ‘Smoke or gas grenades,’ Al said. ‘Designed to incapacitate rather than kill.’
    ‘Huh.’ Aneka watched as the woman checked her watch and then shifted forward. Something was about to happen.
    ‘Movement on the north side,’ Al said. ‘They are camouflaged, but the passive sensors have too broad a spectral range.’
    ‘Movement!’ Two said. ‘I’ve got a lone figure approaching.’
    ‘Al?’ Aneka asked.
    ‘Sensors on that side are detecting nothing.’ And that meant someone had got to two of Sharissa’s people.
    ‘Three? Anything on your side?’
    ‘Nothing, Core.’ Three lifted to a more upright position and settled her grenade launcher.
    Aneka moved, stepping forward to close range, her arms rising. One hand locked under Three’s chin while the other braced on the back of her skull, and then Aneka was swinging all of her weight around a pivot not designed for that kind of stress. There was a wet crunch and Three went limp.
    ‘It’s a woman,’ Two was saying. Aneka noticed that he had left his position and was moving in toward the clearing.
    ‘The northern team appears to be four individuals with carbines,’ Al said. ‘They will be in firing positions in ten seconds.’
    Aneka bolted for the clearing. ‘Relay the data to Justine. Tell her to get down; the guy on the south side is her problem.’ She pulled her pistols. ‘And pop the smoke.’
    ‘That will reduce the effectiveness of the sensors.’
    ‘More important to blind them.’
    There was a sequence of small detonations ahead of her and suddenly Aneka was running toward a cloud of white smoke which sparkled and showed up as a shifting, solid mass on her infrared overlay. Hot prismatic smoke; it would mask heat signatures, restrict the view in other frequencies, and reduce the effectiveness of laser weapons firing through it. Aneka burst through the cloud to see her three friends lying on the grass. Justine had a pistol in her hand and was facing the south-west side of the clearing. Sharissa was lying half on Truelove, who was looking displeased at the protective posture.
    Not waiting to find out how that potential argument might come out, Aneka swung her pistols around and launched twin firing arcs into the northern side of the clearing. The cloud might make lasers