Sword and Shield: Volume #2 Preview!

"The world thinks that the end of Amalgam and Mithril brought an end to the threat of Black Technology." A grizzled voice echoed in the briefing room in the Kremlin, cigar smoke filled the dimly lit room as the thick set man leaned back and took a long pull on his smoldering cigar.

Comrade General Stochkin, Premier of the Soviet Union, and the single hardest liner to hold the post since Stalin himself glanced back at the map, which filled the table. "Do you anticipate foreign protest that could actually do anything to our position?"

The Soviet Minister of Foreign Affairs shook his head. Slowly Stochkin glanced around the group and chuckled darkly. "We shall see what this new toys are capable of."

Sabine reached down and smiled when she found the operating manual hidden underneath the seat. Flipping it open, she skimmed the first instructions and froze, recognizing most of it.

Project 1059 - Testarossa-Zostoya 100(m)

She swallowed. It was an Amalgam design... Painted in soviet colors, with instruments in cryllic and... A smile slowly spread across her lips as she glanced back at the cockpit and whispered to herself, "A Lambda Driver."

"Shit, well… Do it!" Sousuke shut the cockpit hatch and dropped back into the seat before clutching the engraved rifle he'd ordered for his father. "Shinji, Kaname, Kyoko? Are you buckled in tight?"

Kaname glanced over at him as he began to buckle into the four point harness. The black kevlar helmet she wore looked almost like an oversized softball helmet atop her head. She looked down at the kevlar vest and swallowed.

"I'm ready, what's going on Sagara?" Shinji yelled from his spot on the seat, clutching a professional camera in his hands.

"Just hang on!" Sousuke said as he glanced back at Kaname. "Kaname? Are you ready?"

Her lips twitched into a smirk and then she tightened the belts and pushed back into the seat. "I'm fine Sousuke."

Sousuke let out a sigh and slammed back onto the seat before tightening his harness once again leaning back against the seat. "Not a problem." He muttered under his breath.

"All right, passengers tighten your belts and strap yourselves in, we've got four soviets heading our way and we're not going to be their dinner today!" The pilot's voice called out and suddenly the fuselage banked forward. The helicopter dove, its rotors slicing through the air as it charged toward the ground.

Kyoko shrieked and grabbed hold of Shinji. Kaname just glared at Sousuke. They could hear a barrage of warning alarms echoing from the cockpit as the ground rose up through the windows until they were just mere meters above the poppy fields and jagged rock of the mountaintops.

"Sagara, what's going on?" Shinji shouted as the helicopter rocked.

"The soviets have planes along our route." Sousuke said. "We are following the ground to avoid them."

"Soviet planes?" Kyoko said quietly.

"Like usual." Kaname murmured before rolling her eyes.

Then the helicopter jumped again. Farzen glanced over at the two of them. "Are you always like this?"

"Yes." Kaname said. "He is." Sousuke glanced at her and saw her gaze meet his. "But I wouldn't have him any other way."

Farzen snorted at the two of them and shook his head as another alarm began to blare.

Christian Amanpour stared at the man dressed in the pressed blue suit. Her mouth hung open slightly. This was the CEO of GeoTron Electronics, the company that manufacture the United States Electronic Camouflage System, the M6 and XM9 Arm Slaves, and dozens of other cutting edge technologies.

"You have never heard of Psytechnic devices?" He smiled faintly. "Black Technology?"

She shook her head.

"You know the inventor for the first muscle package attributed it to his daughter random musings upon a piece of paper? He produced a bit of lined paper covered in equations in the tiny, cramped hand of his four-year old daughter." He said with a smile.

"I'd say he was a bit of a mad genius... no prodigy is that smart." Christian Amanpour said quietly.

The CEO smiled. "Normally I would agree with you..." He leaned forward. "Mrs. Amanpour, I was that designer, and my eighteen year old daughter is the woman that designed the M9 Gernsback."

Amanpour's eyes were wide. "She?"

"Yes Christian... now, ask yourself what that eighteen year old Japanese girl could do that brought the Delta Force to her front door?"

"Pusk!" The leader called out as he pulled the trigger and the two 500 kg bombs tumbled from the Su-25 Frogfoot as it pulled up from the bombing run. The bombs spun as they fell mixing the binary agents contained within their shell, turning the harmless chemicals into a lethal nerve agent.

At twenty meters, the bombs exploded spraying an acid green cloud over the rooftops of Fayzabad. Behind him, the rest of the squadron moved to their targets, releasing the bombs. They could not see the people running in the streets as they sped over their targets, barely a hundred meters above the ground.

Within minutes, a silent cloud of death descended on the Afghan City. The war in Afghanistan had just heated up.