The Overlord Protocol by Mark Walden

Author:Mark Walden [Walden, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Suspense, (¯`'•.¸//(*_*)\\¸.•'´¯)
ISBN: 9781405664226
Publisher: Galaxy Plus
Published: 2007-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

‘I hope that you learn as quickly as I’ve been told,’ Raven said as she snapped the final clips in place on Otto’s chute harness.

Otto didn’t reply; he was too busy staring at Raven’s Blackbox as screen after screen of text and diagrams flicked past. Learning wasn’t really the word for what he was doing; absorbing would probably be a better way of putting it. He was fairly certain that this was not the way that anyone was supposed to train for their first HALO jump, but they didn’t have any other option.

Raven checked the display on the jump control unit, confirmed that it was functioning correctly, then glanced at her watch.

‘One minute,’ she said matter of factly and pulled two helmets out of the equipment crates. She silently offered a prayer of thanks that whoever had loaded the Shroud had followed standard operating procedure and packed back-ups of everything they needed; normally it was in case of equipment failure but in this case it might just save their lives.

Otto didn’t say anything. He just increased the speed at which the pages of the HALO training manual were flicking past on the Blackbox’s display. He was nearly through it and he just had to hope that he now knew enough to survive the next few minutes.

‘OK, done,’ Otto said after a couple more seconds, tossing the Blackbox on to one of the seats and taking a deep breath.

‘If by some miracle you get down there in one piece, stay put. I’ll find you,’ Raven said tersely. She jammed the helmet on to Otto’s head, plugged in the cable from the jump control unit and snapped the visor shut. The helmet absorbed any sound from the Shroud, and all he could hear was the gentle hiss of the oxygen that the jump rig was feeding to his helmet. Otto watched as the helmet’s head-up display flickered into life, displaying streams of coordinates and velocities. He might have known how the system worked now on an intellectual level but he also knew that there was a world of difference between having memorised the entire training manual and actual practical experience.

Raven put on her own helmet and slapped the switch on the wall that would depressurise the compartment, equalising the differential between the pressure inside the doomed aircraft and the high-altitude atmosphere outside. Otto had no exact measure of how long they had until the explosive charges hidden around the Shroud detonated, but he knew they could only have seconds left.

A green light came on above the switch that Raven had pressed and she gave Otto a thumbs-up before hitting the control to lower the cargo ramp. There was no roar of escaping air as the ramp lowered this time, but the noise of the Shroud’s engines grew suddenly louder. Raven gestured urgently for Otto to move forward on to the ramp and he tried very hard not to think about the fact that he was about to throw himself out of an aircraft, 25,000 feet above the ground.

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