“No.” He turned to Shannon. “Where’s your car?”
“On the road. I heard gunfire, bailed, and ran through the woods.”
Shit. “Okay. Everybody in the pickup truck. We’re getting out of here.” That’s assuming the old piece of shit will still run. It took a lot of rounds. And what if—
“No,” Ethan said.
Cooper and Amy said, at the same time, “What?”
The scientist looked at his wife. “I didn’t have a chance to tell you before. We need to split up.”
“Ethan—”
“They’re coming for me. They don’t care about you.”
Cooper said, “Doc, that’s noble and all, but we don’t have time.”
“This is my fault. My doing.” Ethan turned to him. “You said it yourself. It’s me they want. If we run, will they follow?”
Slowly, Cooper nodded.
“Fine. Get my family out.” The man’s voice was calm. “I’ll stay here.”
“Doc, the guy coming, he’s not here to talk.”
“I don’t care.” Ethan walked to his wife, put an arm around her, and pressed his forehead to hers. He whispered softly. Cooper couldn’t hear him, but he could read her body language, her reluctance—
If he stays, you and Shannon can get his family out. And Soren will kill Ethan.
But what can you do about that? Sorry to be blunt, buddy, but Soren already kicked your ass once. And now your right hand is useless, you can barely stand up, and you’re out of bullets.
What hope do you have against him? How can you beat a man who has no intentions for you to read?
Time to choose, Coop.
—and said, “He’s right.” He turned to Shannon. “Get Amy and the baby out of here. Go out the back, and be careful. Soren will come for us, but there may be more.” When she hesitated, he said, “Shannon. Please. They’re coming.”
She grimaced, then hoisted the submachine gun and turned to Amy. “Let’s go.”
Tears streamed down Amy’s face, and Violet was still screaming. “No, no, you can’t—”
“For your baby.” Shannon put a hand on her arm and pulled. “Come on.” She tugged again, harder, and without taking her eyes off her husband, Amy moved.
“I love you,” Ethan said.
And then they were gone. Cooper could hear them hustle through the next room, then the sound of a door opening.
Okay. Now what?
“You don’t have to stay,” Ethan said. “No point in both of us dying.”
“I told you, Doc. I have children too.” Cooper stalked around the room, looking for a weapon, an idea, a prayer. “Besides. Who said anything about dying? Maybe we’ll win.”
Now if only you believed that.
Sirens screamed as Holly Roge fought the controls. The stick was loose in her hand, the plane unresponsive. Outside the cockpit glass, the world flipped and twisted. Her stomach tightened like she was pulling a full-speed unloaded extension as the nose of the Wyvern dipped down. All the displays were gone, and ground control had vanished.
Her mind conjured a scene from the academy, an instructor explaining modern jet fighters. The thing to remember, he’d said, is that they aren’t airplanes. The wings won’t hold you up. This is a rocket. It doesn’t fly, it blasts, and you and your computer work together to harness that.
Now, with her computer down, with control dead, her rocket was subject to the whims of wind and gravity.
They’d run a thousand simulations, including ones for failed computers, even though that was a practical impossibility. The systems were triple-redundant, and even if the advanced systems glitched, basic control was supposed to—
Out the glass, Leopard Two tipped into a nose-down kite, flipped over, and crashed into Leopard Three.
“No!”
She felt the collision as a wave of heat and a sudden kick, and then ground and sky lost all perspective, her jet completely out of control, sirens screaming, everything dead, and a building ahead of her.
Training took over. Holly crossed her left arm over her chest, tucked her head down, and pulled the eject.
An explosion beneath her, a blast of light and noise, her stomach yanking down to her knees, the wind hitting hard and cold, everything spinning, no horizon line, and then a jerk at her back and the woof and snap of the parachute opening above. She swung in a wide arc, momentarily level with her chute, and then swung back down as nylon caught the air.
Hyperventilating, shivering, she hung in the sky.
There was a crash beneath her, a crumpling and shattering louder than thunder, and she looked down and watched the tail of her Wyvern snap off in a gust of fire as it collided with one of the mirrored buildings, the one she had been heading toward. Flames blew out the side, a rippled shock wave shattering every window.
Breathe. You have to breathe. What’s your situation, pilot?
She concentrated on drawing shivery lungfuls of air and tried to evaluate. Forced herself to be mechanical, not to think or feel, simply to collect data.
Explosions continued in the building below her, gusts of flame shooting out the windows.
On the ground she could see the twisted remnants of Leopard Two and Three strewn for half a mile. She scanned the sky, saw no other parachutes. She’d been friends with both pilots, had gone drinking with Josh and given dating advice to Taylor, and now they were both dead, burned or blown apart.
What about the rest of the troops?
She tore her eyes from the burning planes and looked to the horizon.
While the military forces had been split into three positions, by far the largest was near Tesla, an arc of forty-five thousand troops that spanned two miles.
Two miles where a pitched battle raged.
Smoke rose in billowing towers from a hundred locations. Explosions flickered like distant fireworks, constant and bright, the dull thump of the sounds coming seconds later.
The armored division was at the front, a ragged line of tanks and troop transports half a mile from the city. Tiny toys in the dust. As she watched, flashes of light sparked amidst them, over and over. They were firing.
But at what?
She couldn’t see any enemy forces, no opposing line of armor. So what were they—
As she watched, a tank rocked up on its side, hung for a moment, and then toppled upside down. It took a moment before the sound reached her, a faint punch at this distance.
A troop transport exploded in a fireball, tiny specks riding the edge of the blast, specks she knew were soldiers.
The desert lifted up and consumed a formation of Humvees.
How? Where is the fire coming from?
It could be mines, or—
As she watched, one of the foremost of the tanks spun its barrel in a lazy arc. Light blew from its barrel.
And the tank next to it exploded.
My God. They’re attacking each other.
Somehow the machines have been compromised. Like your Wyvern.
And now they are killing your comrades.
Freezing, lost, Holly Roge hung helpless three thousand feet above a view of hell.
CHAPTER 45
Shannon glanced out the open door at the landscape beyond, a thin swath of gray-green grass leading to a small pond. The same medium-dense forest crawling up low hills. It looked peaceful enough, but that just made her more nervous.