Fields of Fire (Rise of the Peacemakers Book 2) by Kevin Ikenberry

Author:Kevin Ikenberry [Ikenberry, Kevin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Seventh Seal Press
Published: 2020-05-13T20:00:00+00:00

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CHAPTER NINETEEN

20km SE of Lake Pryce

Snowmass

At the first sign of trouble, Araceli Cignes disengaged the atmospheric sensor inside the auto-parachute deployment system and programmed it to deploy using data from her terrain-following radar. Her technique wasn’t standard operating procedure, but it made the most sense. Storm systems created significant differences in atmospheric pressure. Even on Victoria Bravo where she’d grown up, the occasional summer thunderstorm made her ears pop and gave her headaches until it passed. Atmospheric pressure was no joke. With the wild fluctuations approaching the threshold for system deployment happening over twenty-five thousand feet in the air, it made the most sense to disengage the system completely and tie parachute deployment to the reliable onboard radar system.

She’d always loved studying the weather. Her mother’s passion for the environment carried over through to her schooling. Araceli’s favorite memories were of checking the numerous weather stations around Lovell City and helping her mother learn the Victorian atmosphere and climatic conditions. Meteorologists were a dying breed with the development of learning algorithms on Earth, and exo-meteorology was something only Humans seemed to be really invested in. Nature was nature to most species. It was a series of conditions that had to be dealt with. Humans ultimately dealt with the weather conditions, too, but having a meteorologist to bitch and moan at made them feel better while doing so.

With the explosive wind shear inside the storm, she also recognized deploying her parachutes higher than about a thousand feet or more could be catastrophic. Lower was better.

With a series of taps on the instrument panel, she queued her jump jets and focused on maintaining a stable falling position. Rocking from side to side with the occasional gust of wind threatening to make her tumble made that difficult. Still, she did the best she could, watching the altimeter tick down quickly. Flashes of lightning around the CASPer didn’t distract her once she registered the shock of a bolt of lightning hitting the mech’s external skin, and she was thankful the engineers had figured out a long time ago how to make the CASPer impervious to such strikes. Only engineering didn’t state there couldn’t be problems, so she quickly ran her eyes over the electrical system to make sure none of the buses or circuits had failed. All seemed right with the world.

She smiled.

All things being right with the world had been one of her father’s favorite sayings. During the first battle of Victoria Bravo, both he and her mother had perished fighting with the tanks near the Sentinels under the command of their good friend Colonel Ibson. In some ways, she couldn’t believe they were gone. Everything about her life had changed in the blink of an eye. Now only a few months past her sixteenth birthday, here she was in a CASPer dropping into a combat situation. She knew her parents hadn’t wanted her to become a mercenary, and they were even less receptive to the idea of her serving in the Victoria Forces.

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