Task Force Mars - Kevin Dockery [56]
“Douse the fire!” Jackson snapped. Master Chief Ruiz was already on it, carefully pouring a pot of swamp water on the smoldering blaze. The coals immediately vanished, sTeaming momentarily as they went out.
Meanwhile, each SEALS reached for his weapon, and they trained their barrels on the sky. They were a hundred meters from the edge of the swamp, in an area completely covered by trees, but every man was ready to shoot as the roaring of the aircraft drew closer, finally thundering almost directly overhead. Rocky had dropped his steak into the dirt and was holding his M76 Wasp missile launcher up and ready to fire.
Only gradually did Jackson relax as the sounds roared past and faded quickly.
“They’re going to check out the crash site,” the lieutenant concluded immediately, calculating the direction of the flight. “Three, maybe four machines,” he speculated.
“Permission to climb another one of these trees, LT?” Harry Teal asked. “Maybe I can get a look at them.”
“Good idea,” Jackson agreed with a nod.
The corpsman found a sturdy trunk, one of the thickest, which seemed to suggest a crown that might be higher than the surrounding forest, and started up. In a few minutes he disappeared from the view of those on the ground. Jackson paced around, looking up worriedly, listening for any sounds. He heard the roaring of the jet aircraft in the distance and guessed that they were circling the crash site. With a grimace of concern, he heard the noise increasing in volume, as if the planes were coming back their way.
The roar approached to within a few kilometers, then swelled in volume but not in proximity. It was as if the pilot were powering his engines to extreme velocity but staying in one place.
The whoomp of sound penetrated to the forest floor as a powerful, crumping explosion. More than noise, it was a shudder in the planet that carried through the ground, causing it to shake tangibly underfoot. The sounds of the aircraft engine came loudly again, reaching a punishing crescendo before winding down. With a slowing whine, the machinery came to a stop, leaving the forest in silence again.
“What the hell kind of bomb was that?” Falco asked.
“I don’t think it was a bomb,” Jackson said. “Maybe some kind of sonic weapon. I’m guessing they used it to smash a flat place in the jungle so they could land the aircraft—VTOL.”
Vertical takeoff and landing aircraft had been common on Earth for a hundred years, beginning with the helicopters that had performed such valuable service in the Korean War. But the thought of a jet that could fly at the speeds these aircraft had attained and then flatten a landing zone for itself was a little shocking.
They all looked up as Harry Teal came sliding down the tree, dropping the last few meters to the ground.
“Seems like we got visitors, LT,” he reported grimly. “Those things looked more like flying buses than airplanes—big engines, stubby little wings. There were two of them that stopped not too far away. One of ’em blasted something into the trees—I’m sure you heard the noise—and then they all settled down.”
“Damn. They might have put some troops on our trail. How big did you say they were—like buses? What did they look like?”
“Well…” Teal shrugged. “Best guess is that each one could have ten or twelve men aboard. They had lots of windows along the body and a flight deck up front. One of ’em banked as it went past, and I got a glimpse of a dorsal turret, low, with a single-barreled weapon sticking out. They’re basically white with some marks on the side. They had a big green spot, kind of like a bull’s-eye, painted on the fuselage.”
“All right,” Jackson said, thinking, planning, considering options. “We could keep running, but I don’t like our chances. Best guess is that they’re on to our trail and that they’ll come looking for us.”
The LT spoke to Char-Kane. “Are you familiar with these vehicles—I don’t know if you’d call them jetcars or what—that Harry is talking about?”
“I believe so,” she said. “They are not an uncommon transport craft for both military and civilian purposes.