The Province of Danger (The Transhuman War Book 2) by C.S. Ferguson

Author:C.S. Ferguson [Ferguson, C.S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Theogony Books
Published: 2023-05-22T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

“Vulture, debrief in six minutes.”

Six minutes? That’s barely enough time to get to the briefing room. I won’t be able to check on Williams and Zupe in the medical wing.

While his mind struggled with the need to follow his friends to the med section, his body responded to the years of disciplined order one only finds in a military unit. He turned toward the ops section and hurried to the briefing room. From the hallway outside, he heard only silence. There was none of the usual post-op banter, none of the pressure equalization that would have normally reflected their youthful energy and professional pride. Glancing into the eyes that looked up as he entered, Digger realized no one else had gone to the med section, either, and they all felt the same way he did. They were betraying injured comrades, but were too well-trained, too disciplined, to disobey an order to assemble.

I suppose our debriefing will help the next team going in. And it’s not like we could help out in the infirmary.

When the debriefing team entered, led for the first time in Digger’s career by the SA himself, the researchers stood to attention.

“At ease,” the SA said.

Digger didn’t recognize most of the non-ops who comprised the debrief team. There was a little man of Asian descent who stood out only because he was tiny, for a CARD.

I’ve met children bigger than that guy.

But whoever the others on the debriefing team were, they existed in a long shadow cast by the SA.

“New Australia was an unqualified success,” the short man said, wasting zero time getting straight to the point. “We recovered physical intel in the form of artifact tech and bagged cyborg EPOWs. No interdiction has ever before recovered a viable cyborg. We also seized the entire New Australia facility intact. The intel from this operation will take months to analyze and exploit. The strategic gain is unprecedented.”

Already over? I guess once we left, the bad guys all gave up? Whatever we got there, it wasn’t worth the cost, Digger thought.

The room lights dimmed, and the debriefing non-op called up a bird’s-eye playback of the New Australia operation. Digger’s attention was riveted, beginning with Vulture jumping out. Madcat, now reinforced by the Thors who had dropped in to relieve Vulture, pursued individual cyborgs with renewed vigor. Pioneer tanks, following Hell’s Heart in both procedure and technique, pounded the countryside with a hellfire rain of blood and violence. The effect was devastating. CARD had been a few dozen wasps darting through the battlescape, occasionally stinging; the PEU tanks were a brutal wave of destruction chewing metric tons of soil and life with each bone-shaking explosion.

All six tanks, none of them having suffered any real damage from the cyborgs, joined in rapid-fire salvos, each initiated by their de facto commander, with the others following in a successive cannonade, doing their best to ensure any enemy stupid enough to reveal itself was blasted into bits of flesh and shards of cybernetic

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