Chronicle 1, Episode 1, Chapter 11

The Interstell Chronicles

Episode 1 - War from Above

Chapter 11

The High Altitude, Low Opening jump, or HALO jump is about as dangerous as playing Russian Roulette. The idea is to jump out of a plane at high altitude and plummet towards the ground before opening your parachute at the last possible moment to break your fall.
It’s main drawback is that as you are traveling so fast towards the ground, you may not be able to open your chute in time, snapping your neck as it opens, if it even opens at all.
Matthew grabbed the edges of the open doorway and he could feel the coldness of the metal even through his padded gloves. He peered over the pack of equipment strapped to his chest as immediately felt nauseated. Below him was a dizzying fall of thousands of feet to lake in China.
He was dressed all in black, with a high altitude suit on. It consisted of a padded jumpsuit with a parachute pack on his back. Attached to the bottom was a small air cylinder attached to his breath-mask. He also sported a helmet, gloves and boots. Equipment packs adorned him in all available spaces. Chest, arms and legs. Attached to his lower back, below the air cylinder was the heavyset pack, containing his broken down combat suit.
Closing his eyes, he stepped out into nothing.
There really is no sensation like falling. Nothing but the wind around you, it gives you a felling that is at once terrifying, yet, exhilarating. Like you can fly, even though you know you are falling.
He opened his arms into a spread eagle to slow his descent and opened his eyes. The view was terrific. AS far as he could see, land stretch out, fading into a blue haze on the distant horizon.
Static crackled in his ear as the small speaker in the helmet chimed out eleven times. Once for each member of the squad dropping with him. One by one they closed together into a group and stretched out their arms, forming a twelve person ring in the sky, like they were stunt divers at an air show.
Then, on a four second continuous buzz from the earpiece, they all let go and angled down towards the ground, head first.
The sensation was as close as you could get to becoming a human bullet. The air tore around Matthew as he plummeted towards the ground, counting up the seconds till he heard the audio alarm in his helmet that signaled the altitude that the chute should be opened.
For additional safety, the chute opened automatically, and slowed his descent so suddenly it was like hitting a reinforced concrete wall at 60 miles per hour.
But within seconds, he was twenty feet above the lake. Crossing his arms over his chest, he pulled the release catch and the parachute detached from his harness and he dropped the rest of the distance into the freezing water.
Kicking his legs furiously, he began to move forward, but inexorably down due to the weight of the gear he carried. He knew he had started a ten second countdown till his life jacket inflated, but in that time he had to get out from under the chute.
When ten seconds arrived, some of the air in his small tank was released into the life vest and he began floating to the surface. The vest was exactingly calibrated to his body weight and his equipment weight so that it would only just put his head above the water level. As his head broke the surface, he watched three more of his fellows drop from the sky. Looking around he saw seven of them already in the water and swimming to group together.
The last one out of the plane had been Commander Finch, and as Matthew began to approach the huddled group of the rest of his squad, he splashed down less than a meter away.
Looking up, Matthew saw the Commanders parachute floating down. A quick furious kick of his arms and legs took him out from under the falling chute, and turning around he watched it hi the water. Another feature designed into the chutes was that the backpack that it was attached to when it was jettisoned went with it, and it contained enough weight to drag the chute under the surface of the water.
Moments later, all twelve members of the squad had gathered close together and were treading water. Lora Leister, the groups communications expert had pulled out her compass and was holding it out to gain the direction of the shore. Within seconds, she used her hand in to signal the direction they should take.
Draining some of the air from his life jacket, he sank back beneath the waves and stopped about three feet under the surface. Around him in the murky and freezing waters, he could just make out the shadows of the others. Lora, being in charge till they reached the shore had turned and began swimming forwards. Matthew followed.

After half an hour of swimming in freezing waters that the suit he was wearing could not quite insulate him from Matthew surfaced. They were about ten minutes from the shore of the lake.
Hamish Todd tapped him on the shoulder to gain his attention. Matthew began to tread water with just his legs, keeping his arms partly out to the side, allowing Hamish free access to the various packs about his body. Within seconds, he had gotten the silenced automatic AR-15 from his waist.
Matthew took hold of the harnesses that had been attached to the stock of the weapon and tied it round his right wrist. Then he began to undo the restraints on Hamish’s AR-15, allowing him to have a weapon ready.
One both had weapons in their hands, they moved to the front of the group. Matthew accepted a pair of Infra Red goggles from the Commander while they readied their own weapons.
Inside a minute, the group was swimming back towards the shore again, weapons clutched in hands, all with IR goggles on now, and muscles beginning to burn with fatigue.
Two minutes from shore, Matthew made out a group of heat signatures moving around. He reached up to his helmet and tapped the microphone switch twice. This simply sent a short click over the short range radios they were all wearing, but it was enough to bring the group to a stop.
Once again Hamish tapped Matthew on the shoulder, but this time he took hold of a strap attached to the equipment harness. Matthew undid the four catches that held most of his packs in place, and swum backwards out of them.
Of all the gear he was carrying before, all he was left with now was the AR-15 in his hand, extra ammunition in a belt, the Alien blade, which he had started calling an A-Sword, down his left thigh, a Browning at his hip and a few extras like a field med. kit, a couple of grenades and his radio and IR goggles.
Considerably lightened, he, along with Steve Parsons and Dirk Jameson began to move towards the shore.
The three came up out of the water in a triangle formation five feet apart from each other. Steve in the center, Dirk on the right, and himself on the left. Matthew held the AR-15 up high to look down the sights. Moving in a slight crouch he made his way scanning to the left, trusting his two fellows that they would notice trouble on their respective paths.
They reached the tree line with no trouble and Dirk double clicked his comm. system. Back out in the water, the rest of them would be moving up to the shore.
Moving along the tree line towards the heat sources they had seen, the crouched down low behind a log that was more rotted wood than tree. The smell of damp vegetation permeated the night, along with a chemical smell.
A whisper from his flank drew Matthew’s attention and he cocked his head to hear better through the helmet. "You smell that Matthew?" Matthew glanced over to his right to Dirk and nodded.
"Benzene" Dirk looked puzzled about this. Benzene was an aromatic liquid hydrocarbon that was obtained from coal or oil. A commodity chemical used primarily in the production of plastics and other chemical products, benzene is also a known human carcinogen and causes various types of leukemia, lymphoma, and blood diseases.
It can also be used as a fuel, but due to the hazardous nature, not worth the risks. In fact, the USA and Great Britain had banned it’s general use for well over 20 years and had introduced strict guidelines on its use, and China had even contributed research data with Great Britain on recent studies, establishing that benzene can cause various hematologic cancers and blood diseases at extraordinarily low doses of a few parts per million years.
Crawling up over the log like a snake, Matthew approached the heat signatures. Voices speaking in rapid Chinese conversed nearby. He crawled right up to the bushes less than twelve feet away. Sitting in a clearing was an old Ford truck. More rust than metal, you could only just make out the original dark red paint work. Two Chinese were conversing in rushed tones as they worked on unloading something that he could not make out from his perspective. Down to his left, he could hear the waters of the lake lapping against a half completed wooden jetty.
Matthew clicked his comm. and whispered into the pickup mounted on the mask he wore. "Lora, see what you make of this!" He then pulled off his mask and held it towards the talking.
Within a moment, Lora’s voice was coming back to him via the helmet’s small earpiece. "They’re speaking mandarin dialect. Voice one, the higher pitched is talking about where to dump some barrels? Voice two is wondering what’s in them."
A third voice then entered the mix from across the clearing, hidden behind the dilapidated truck. Matthew lowered his head to the ground slowly and looked under the truck. Much of the view was obstructed by the uneven ground, but he could just make out a pair of shiny shoes in the paltry light from the trucks only working headlight. "Voice three is telling them the contents is none of their concern. I assume in relation to the barrels."
OK three, that’s enough. They are not our concern. Pull back to the rendezvous point." Matthew replaced his mask and double clicked his comm. to signal his understanding, then began to back away from the group ever so slowly.

Five minutes later, the group had moved on to a clearing in the woodland a short distance from their landing point. Half of the group had disappeared into the trees to act as sentries, while the rest set about sorting their gear out.
Matthew had reclaimed all his gear from Hamish and placed the packs on the ground. Kneeling down in front of them, he picked up the largest and heaviest. Inside was his body glove and armor segments of his combat suit.
Matthew peeled out of the combination sky diving and dry suit he had jumped in and slid into the black body glove that constituted the mountings for his combat armor.
The suit had been improved during his period in hospital, and now sported hardened trauma padding at critical areas like neck, chest, back, waist, arms, knees and ankles. In the old suit, the pads had been kevlar and a thermal matting in layers. The new suit had replaced the Kevlar with flexible pads made up of finely woven Alien Alloy strands, but still had the thermal matting that would help dissipate the heat of a hit, and gave the added advantage of lowering his thermal signature on IR scanners.
Over the body glove went the Alien Alloy armor panels. The only real improvements were that the suit had been re-designed to offered extra movement, while the panels had been thickened to help protect the wearer. It would still not save him from a direct hit by anything rifle sized or larger, but if afforded good protection against grazing hits, friendly fire, natural hazards and excellent protection against bullets, even armor piercing. The most noticeable change was the change in color from the original blue to a matte black.
Added to all this was that the suit now had pockets, straps and pouches to store essential equipment, rather than having to strap it on with an elaborate rig and webbing.
Twin holsters, one on each hip, meant he could carry a MK 2 laser pistol in one, and a Browning in the other. Located behind the Browning on his left hip was the A-Blade he had acquired over in America. It was actually the same blade that the Mutons preferred to carry, but had been machined down in size to allow a Human to wield it easier.
Pockets across his upper legs held medical gear like pain killers, stimulants and battle dressings. A combat knife was tucked into a holster against his right foot, and his feet now had armor protection too, thanks to sturdy boots with interlocking armor panels.
A backpack could be attached to the armor, and came with a quick release mechanism to allow a soldier to drop it in combat to increase dexterity. The helmet had also been improved to incorporate a heads up display that could see the invisible targeting lasers that had been added to all the weapons he carried. Improvements had also been made to improve the visibility to either side, and dampen the sound from the ear jack while still allowing an unimpaired ability to hear the surroundings.
Matthew finished packing his gear onto his suit and buried the rest three feet down with a remote detonator. If the gear was disturbed by anything large, the explosion would be big enough to destroy the gear contained within the hole, unless you had the trigger mechanism that Matthew had placed in a pocket on his lower left leg.
Finally done, he moved his Laser rifle over his shoulder and ran it down his back till it met the guide rail on the side of his pack and had it clicked into place. Picking up his AR-15, he moved quietly out into the trees to relieve Hamish so he could do the same.
Within half an hour, they were ready, so they moved out though the woodland to their rendezvous point, like animals, seemingly completely at home moving though the trees, yet distinctly detached from it.