Task Force (Recon Team Angel #2) - Softcover

Buch 2 von 3: Recon Team Angel series

Falkner, Brian

 
9780449813027: Task Force (Recon Team Angel #2)
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0449813029 ISBN 13: 9780449813027
Verlag: Ember, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

A sci-fi military thriller perfect for kids who love Halo and Call of Duty!
 
They depend on each other. Humanity depends on them.
 
The final invasion is coming. The aliens have massed on the northeastern edge of Russia, waiting to attack as soon as the turbulent waters of the Bering Strait turn to ice. Recon Team Angel must act now.
 
It’s up to them to shepherd a task force upriver and infiltrate the aliens’ stronghold. They must cripple their enemies quickly and quietly. Luckily, Recon Team Angel was made for such missions. The six teens have been modified to look like aliens. They have spent years mastering alien culture so that they can talk, act—even think—like their enemies. But with their target in sight and time running out, can they save humanity and themselves?

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

BRIAN FALKNER, a native New Zealander, now lives in sunny Queensland, Australia. His keen interest in military history inspired the futuristic "history" of theRecon Team Angel books.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1. INVASION FORCE
The army camped on the Chukchi Peninsula in far northeast Russia was the largest assembled in the Bzadian War, poised for the greatest invasion in Earth’s history.
The buildup took several months, but by the end of November 2031, there were 7,000 rotorcraft; 5,000 jet aircraft, including 800 of the formidable and heavily armed “Dragons”; 35 tank battalions; and 60 full infantry divisions. Over a million Bzadian soldiers--complete with artillery and logistical support--occupied the inhospitable and frozen wastelands of the peninsula and waited for winter.
Less than a hundred miles away lay Alaska and the pathway to the Americas. As soon as the turbulent waters of the Bering Strait turned to ice, the invasion of the Americas would begin, and with it the beginning of the end of the human race.
On the other side of the strait, human forces also waited. But after seven years of warfare against the mighty Bzadian Army, Earth’s defenses were little more than a thin crust ready to oppose the invasion.
For the aliens, the invasion could not come soon enough. The massive army was a ravenous beast that needed constant feeding. Over 30,000 tons of food and supplies were being trucked into the peninsula each day. Nearly half of that was fuel. The huge battle tanks would use up a fuel cell in two days, the mighty Dragons in just eight hours.
In the Americas, military commanders did what they could to prepare for the coming holocaust. On December 10, representatives from twelve nations--those that still had any significant military capability--met in the war room of the Pentagon to make what plans they could.
General Elisabeth Iniguez, the commandant of the US Marine Corps and a member of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the instigator of what later came to be called Operation Magnum.
General Iniguez, a fiery redhead, stood up and slammed her hand down on the table. “Invade us? Invade us!” she said. “How about we invade them! Those alien freaks.”
Her plan was an audacious one, never before attempted. An attack in the heart of the Bzadian Empire, in New Bzadia itself (formerly known as Australia). It called for an amphibious task force to sail down the Brisbane River right under the noses of the aliens. The target was the aliens’ fuel-processing plant at Lowood. Without the constant flow of fresh fuel cells, the Bzadian Army would be paralyzed. By the time they could rebuild or repair the plant, the winter would be over and the threat of invasion gone for another year.
The plant was heavily protected by ground-to-air missile batteries, which ruled out an air attack. But an even bigger problem was the Amberley Air Base.
The massive Bzadian air force base located near Ipswich, west of Brisbane, was formerly the largest base of the Royal Australian Air Force and one of only three major air bases in Australia still with its full complement of rotorcraft and fighter jets. All the other bases were operating at lower levels, as their aircraft had been shipped to Russia to support the coming invasion of the Americas. Amberley, and its massed aircraft, had to be taken out of action for the operation to proceed.
General Iniguez knew that everything depended on destroying the air base. If not, then the entire expeditionary force would be wiped out. In her opinion, Operation Magnum was going to be either the biggest triumph of the war or the biggest catastrophe.
As the meeting broke up, General Harry Whitehead, the tall, gray-haired, and soft-spoken supreme commander of ACOG, took Iniguez aside and asked, “Are you sure this can be done?”
Iniguez replied, “I believe so, sir.” She looked closely at him and said, “But we’ll need Angels on our shoulders.”

2. BARRACUDAS

[MISSION DAY 1, DECEMBER 31, 2031]
[1725 hours local time]
[Virginia Class Submarine: USS JP Morgan, Coral Sea off the coast of Queensland, Australia]
“Bring her up to sixty feet.”
“Sixty feet, aye. Pump from number one auxiliary to sea.”
“Very well. Bring her up slowly. Sonar?”
“All clear.”
“Showing sixty feet and steady.”
“Come to two eight five. Slow ahead both.”
“Two eight five, aye. Pump-jets one and two answering slow ahead both.”
“Very well. Angel One, this is First Officer Kavanagh. Please confirm your team is ready to Echo Victor.”
Inside the lockout trunk, Lieutenant Ryan Chisnall made an “okay” sign with his thumb and forefinger. The universal diving sign for “all okay.” It was both a question and an answer, and the five members of his team responded with matching gestures.
“Angel Team confirmed ready for Echo Victor,” Chisnall said.
“Very well. Vent and flood LOT.”
“Lockout trunk venting and flooding, aye.”
Chisnall pressed his full-face mask firmly to his skin as air hissed out of the chamber and cold seawater rose rapidly around him. There was no need; the mask was well secured. It was just habit.
Lights in the chamber began to dim. The shapes of his five Angel Team members faded into the background, then disappeared completely.
He flicked the night-vision switch on the side of his mask and the interior of the chamber took on an unearthly green glow, his teammates now black ghosts silhouetted against it.
The lockout trunk, a staging area built into the submarine, was for US Navy Seals, allowing them to deploy without the submarine needing to surface. It was designed for nine adults, so for six small teenagers it seemed spacious. Plenty of room for a party. But the six teenagers in this room were not here to party.
“Buddy up and check equipment,” Chisnall said as the last of the air hissed out of the chamber. He was now enclosed in a metal box, well below the surface of the ocean, with only his breathing apparatus to save him from a certain, horrible death.
It didn’t concern him. Nothing much concerned him nowadays. Not since Uluru.
He turned around so Private First Class Blake Wilton could check his equipment.
Uluru was the first ever Angel mission, and he had been in charge. They had completed the mission and destroyed the secret alien project hidden inside the giant rock in the Australian desert. But the cost had been great, physically and psychologically.
The bulky shape of Specialist Janos “Monster” Panyoczki moved to the much smaller, willowy form of Sergeant Trianne “Phantom” Price, and his hands began moving over the hoses and knobs of her rebreather kit. She pulled away from him briefly, then relaxed, with a quick glance at Chisnall, and allowed Monster to complete the check.
What is up with those two? he wondered.
Specialist Retha Barnard, a stocky fifteen-year-old German, did the checks with Specialist Dimitri “The Tsar” Nikolaev. Barnard’s check seemed short and perfunctory, but Chisnall knew it was probably more thorough than those of any of the others in the team.
Barnard and the Tsar, the two newest members of the team, didn’t seem to get on particularly well, and Chisnall had buddied them together for that reason. Learning to rely on each other in life-or-death combat situations was a good way to get over petty personal differences.
He had put Monster and Price together for much the same reason. Since Uluru, there had been some kind of tension between them, which both of them denied when he asked about it. But something had changed; Chisnall was sure of it.
A lot of things had changed since Uluru.
Monster had changed. He seemed to have developed a more spiritual side. He was still funny, rude, and rough as guts, but after Uluru he appeared to have started thinking more deeply about things. Most of the...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Ember
Erscheinungsdatum
2014
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0449813029
ISBN 13 
9780449813027
Einband
Taschenbuch
Anzahl der Seiten
416
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
Nicht verfügbar

Weitere beliebte Ausgaben desselben Titels

9780449812990: Task Force (Recon Team Angel #2)

Vorgestellte Ausgabe

ISBN 10:  0449812995 ISBN 13:  9780449812990
Verlag: Random House Books for Young Rea..., 2013
Hardcover