Chapter 183 High-Altitude Parachuting, Deadly Airborne Drop

Chapter 183 High-Altitude Parachuting, Deadly Airborne Drop

Mia watched him, her chewing gum frozen mid-chew for two seconds. "You're starting to sound more and more like a lunatic."

David flicked the blood off his blade and slid the crimson sword back into its sheath. "Is half an hour enough?"

"Summit Enterprises Ltd's global dispatch network isn't dead yet." Mia lowered her head and tapped open her wrist terminal. Flight routes and military identification codes unfolded before her eyes. "Give me twenty-five minutes. I'll run through every high-altitude platform we can touch in the States."

The desert night wind was dry. Behind them, the flames still burned.

Hassan's encrypted line came through, his voice steady. "Boss, there's an experimental-grade high-altitude stealth reconnaissance aircraft on the North American West Coast. Originally registered under Summit Enterprises Ltd's aviation lab. Can reach twenty thousand meters. Pilot and maintenance crew will be in position within seventeen minutes."

Mia raised an eyebrow. "Hear that? Your Middle Eastern handler is more reliable than US headquarters."

David walked toward the landing zone. "Bring the plane over."

Twenty-seven minutes later, beside an abandoned military runway, the black hangar doors slowly opened.

The high-altitude stealth reconnaissance aircraft sat at the end of the light strips—sleek fuselage, matte black all over.

Maintenance personnel stood in two rows. No one wasted words.

The cabin hatch opened. Cold white light spilled out.

Mia slapped the data pad into David's arms. "Temporarily altered the identification protocol. North American airspace monitoring will read this thing as a lost weather platform. Provided they don't figure it out too fast."

David took the data pad and scanned the parameters. "That's enough."

He stepped onto the boarding ladder.

Mia climbed into the cabin after him, turned back, and raised a hand to the crew on the ground. "Gentlemen, remember to pray for me. American taxpayer money ought to fund something worthwhile for once."

The hatch sealed shut. The engine roar deepened. The entire aircraft shot off the runway, nose lifting, piercing straight into the night sky.

Ten minutes later, the city lights below the clouds had all fallen behind.

Twenty minutes later, the fuselage punched through high-altitude turbulence. The darkness of the stratosphere pressed in. Outside the porthole, almost no other colors remained visible.

Inside the cockpit, only the instrument panel's pale glow remained.

Mia sat at the main control station, her fingers flying across the projected keyboard. Flight path locked, heat signature scan, cloud charge density, plasma net phase data—layer after layer refreshed across the screen.

"Wind speed above the target is stable. Thunderstorm cloud layer is close to three thousand meters thick. That floating coffin is buried deep enough." She glanced back at the rear cabin. "You ready back there?"

In the rear cabin, David had already changed into the specialized high-altitude jump suit. He pulled the final locking strap tight. "Get to the point."

Mia projected a set of data in front of him. "That set of access keys from Sawyer—part of it is the fortress's outer defense protocol. I've been picking it apart."

"The plasma defense net isn't a fixed wall. It's a cycling identification layer. It scans contact objects every zero-point-five seconds, determines friend or foe, then decides whether to melt it or let it through." She enlarged the defense layer waveform, her voice dropping a notch.

"All I can do is use that protocol to make the identification program stutter for half a beat."

David studied the waveform. His expression didn't change. "And?"

"Anti-air laser cannons are already on automated alert. The second you break through the cloud layer, they'll see you. Those people won't expect someone to jump from twenty thousand meters. Their first response will be a little slow—but not for long."

Mia paused, eyes locked on him. "Don't push it too far."

David picked up his blade and walked toward the tail of the cabin. "I always know my limits."

"That line is less believable than the bomb in Sawyer's chest," Mia muttered.

The reconnaissance aircraft entered position directly above the target. The tail hatch began to open slowly. Wild wind rushed in instantly, the pressure differential slamming against the metal bulkhead with a resonant hum.

Mia unbuckled her safety harness and hurried to the rear cabin, her pink high ponytail whipping in the wind. She pressed a micro comm chip behind David's ear and patted his shoulder.

"Coordinates locked, babe. Ten thousand meters straight down—Liam's hideout."

David stood at the open tail hatch, looking down at the black sea of clouds. "Once I'm down there, don't move the plane."

Mia smiled. "How touching. Don't worry, I'll watch from up here and count how many pieces they drop on the way down."

David turned his face toward her.

Mia lifted her chin, tone light. "Bring Liam's head back. I want to personally wipe out all his identity files and plaster his ugly mug all over GDC's intranet."

The corner of David's mouth twitched. "Wait for it."

The next second, he leapt straight out of the cabin and plunged into the darkness.

The roaring wind exploded in his ears. The sensation of weightlessness swallowed his body instantly. The airstream hammered against the high-altitude jump suit. The temperature was bone-cutting cold. Frost quickly formed along the edge of his face mask.

Mia stared at the tracking screen, her voice coming through the comm chip. "Posture normal. Descent speed still climbing. Right now you look like a cannonball about to punch through the planet."

David didn't reply. He made micro-adjustments to his body angle, arms tucked in, using telekinetic force to correct his descent trajectory, compressing his entire form into something straighter, faster.

The thunderstorm cloud layer loomed closer. With a dull boom, he plunged inside.

The white vapor cone trailing his high-altitude drop exploded in his wake. The airstream tore violently at his body. Even breathing felt labored.

David forced his body stable, telekinetic force pressing a thin buffer layer around him, bracing against the lateral turbulence.

Mia continued the countdown from above. "Seven thousand meters…"

"Heat signature detected!"

Deep within the cloud layer, a massive shadow slowly emerged—not an ordinary flying platform, but a true floating fortress.

The steel structure hung suspended in the thunder clouds, surrounded by ring-shaped energy bands. Blue plasma arcs traveled continuously along the hull's exterior. The main gun array formed a ring of vicious turret crowns. Towers, platforms, hangar decks, and armament modules stacked layer upon layer.

David's gaze darkened.

Almost simultaneously, the fortress's outer sensor array lit up. Red alerts flashed from multiple turrets at once.

"Intrusion target locked."

"High-altitude free-fall unit. Non-identified signature."

"Anti-air laser array activation."

More than a dozen high-energy lasers blasted out from the fortress's upper gun ports, crossing paths to seal off the descent route. Blue-white beams tore through the rain curtain at terrifying speed.

Mia's voice tightened. "Here they come!"

David's eyes stayed locked forward. Telekinetic force erupted. His descending body wrenched sharply to one side mid-air.

The first laser grazed past his right side, the heat wave scorching the edge of his combat suit red. The second and third beams sliced in immediately after. He twisted his body repeatedly in the weightless state, using telekinetic counterthrust to force course corrections, his entire form carving out dangerous arcs through the air.

Laser after laser missed, burning glowing scorch marks into the clouds behind him.

The fortress fire control system was clearly thrown for half a beat.

A human. Falling from twenty thousand meters. And he could change trajectory mid-air multiple times.

This visual had exceeded standard database parameters.

"Miss confirmed."

"Recalculating."

"Target approaching plasma net."

Mia stared at the screen, words rapid-fire. "Fifty meters! David, defense identification system preheating!"

David gripped the crimson blade with both hands. The sheath auto-released. The dark red blade ignited fully in the lightning.

The Crimson Tear burned hot against his chest. Residual energy absorbed in the armory, the thermal field of the Stardust Sands, the violent fluctuations of the meteor fragments—all of it flowed down his arm and into the blade.

The entire sword's engravings slowly lit up. The blade's edge erupted with blinding red light. Even the surrounding raindrops evaporated into white mist from the heat.

Mia shouted, "Thirty meters!"

Below, the blue plasma net was right in front of him. Sheets of electric arcs danced across the defense layer. That thing could melt heavy alloys—let alone flesh and blood.

"Twenty meters!"

More gun ports on top of the fortress swiveled toward him. External warning lights flashed frantically. The internal command channel erupted into chaos.

"Stop him!"

"Increase net power!"

"This guy's trying to ram the defense net!"

The veins on the back of David's hand bulged as he gripped the blade. The faint red glow in his eyes burned fully open.

"Ten meters!"

Mia slammed down the final string of breach commands, her voice compressed to a thread. "Now!"

David didn't hesitate for half a second. Charging straight at that plasma defense layer, both hands on the blade, carrying the impact of a ten-thousand-meter drop, the meteor energy coursing through his entire body, and telekinetic force compressed to its absolute limit—he brought the blade down in a vicious slash!