On Silver Wings Read Online Free PDF Page A

caused the clothing to shift colors to a light tan and khaki combination that was more suited to the jungle heat.

    “I’m impressed,” the nurse admitted, half smiling.

    Sorilla smiled briefly, then frowned and looked over at her nurse. “What happened here?”

    Tara fell silent for another moment, her eyes falling as she considered the question. “It happened a few months ago... no warning at all. Several buildings around the main colony site... well, I don’t know really. Some of us think they exploded, but I was there. There was no smoke, no fire... Just dust and debris flying...”

    Same as what hit us,
Sorilla thought, her expression pensive.

    “They landed just after that... we couldn’t see them, but they ripped through the colony center like... monsters,” Tara went on, stammering and stuttering as she remembered the night of ghosts and horror, “Things would be normal, then suddenly it would get cold and there would be this sudden quiet... and then, blood and dying... people were panicking, talk of ghosts and demons... it was...”

    Tara closed her eyes and shook her head slightly, unwilling to say more for a moment.

    Active camouflage units,
Sorilla filled in mentally, trying to determine the nature of the weapons in use from the nurse’s descriptions.
White noise generators, maybe environmental power converters as well. Never seen any that were portable like that before, though.

    “We abandoned the colony within hours... ran into the jungle. They chased us, but it’s a big jungle...”

    “And your people know it well.” Sorilla said without question.

    “Of course,” Tara shrugged, “The main colony site had been there for almost a hundred and ten years. This is our world.”

    That basically told the whole story, as far as Sorilla was concerned. Her units were generally deployed solely to Earth, given that most of the war fighting in the known systems happened there. Terrorist groups, religious fundamentalists, and ‘freedom fighters’ in the Middle East, Africa, South America, and Asia kept her and her peers well trained and occupied.

    And the various assignments she’d had into those areas had taught her one thing. You don’t chase the locals into their backyard, not without a secure firebase and lots of backup. Once the colonists made it into the jungle, they were playing on their home field, not the enemies. Within the city, those advantages were easy enough to negate.

    Sensors could pick people out among buildings, pre-planning could outline strategies, contingencies, and all sorts of nastiness for the colonists within the static environment of the colony. In the living jungle, however, those advantages were out the window. Local fauna and flora would scramble and degrade even the most advanced sensors to ranges of little use, turning the attackers’ advantage against them and returning the home court to the defenders.

    Sorilla consulted the intel that had been preloaded into her implants before the mission automatically, calling up the location of the main colony site. “Your central site is about a hundred kilometers due south of here.”

    It hadn’t really been a question, but the nurse answered anyway.

    “That’s right.”

    “I’m going to need a local guide. Just one,” the soldier said as she laced up a pair of shin high combat boots and straightened up.

    The movement of standing straight made her dizzy, and Sorilla closed her eyes for a moment, wavering in place.

    “Oh no, you are not ready for any treks through the jungle!” The nurse objected, her soft voice growing sharp and commanding.

    “Doesn’t matter,” She replied, wincing as she pushed she feeling down. “Concussions take time to heal... we’re out of that. I’ll need that guide.”

    Tara frowned, grimacing herself, but only sighed aloud. “You’ll need to talk to Samuel.”

    “Then let’s do that, shall we?”

    *****

    She got her guide, despite the protests of Tara, a man named