“Ten seconds. Lock down.”
Chamberlain tensed, keeping his breathing steady. He locked down his arm, neck, and leg manipulators.
“Stand by.”
The light turned green and Chamberlain barely heard the pilot as an electromagnetic surge ran down the two steel rails, accelerating the line of jumpers out of the plane.
Chamberlain hit the plane’s slipstream and tumbled about for several seconds. They were dropping at four thousand feet, but he immediately realized something was wrong. The plane’s evasive actions had taken them too far to the left and they were partly over the ridgeline.
“Unlock.” Chamberlain ordered his suit as he glanced at his above ground level — AGL — display. Fifteen hundred feet, not four thousand. And he was free-falling. The numbers were winding down swiftly.
Chamberlain spread his arms and legs, trying to get stable. The tumbling slowed as he passed through eight hundred feet. Too low.
“Deploy,” Chamberlain shouted.
A drogue chute popped out of the pack on the top of his back, immediately pulling out the main chute. Chamberlain was jerked backward, even as the AGL indicator went below four hundred feet. The ground was rushing up. Chamberlain’s training took over as he brought his legs together, bending his knees, just as he had in the fields of Fort Benning so many years ago. He rotated his armored arms in front of his helmet.
He hit hard, harder than he ever had. The suit’s micro-motors took most of the impact, but he was on the side of the ridge and instead of coming to a halt, he tumbled downslope.
“Disconnect,” Chamberlain ordered, but it was too late, as he was getting wrapped up in the lines leading to his canopy. His cameras were covered by nylon and he was effectively blinded as he still slid down the side of the ridge. He came to a halt when he crashed into something that sent a jarring splice of pain into his left rib cage.
“Blade,” Chamberlain ordered through gritted teeth. A knife snapped out from its case on top of his left wrist and he sliced through lines and chute, freeing himself. The chute fell away as he got to his feet, automatically scanning the immediate area.
He could see other Nighthawks coming in, dropping their complement of soldiers.
He accessed his tactical display and he knew right away the drop was a disaster. The pilots had reacted to the incoming fire and their evasive maneuvers had spread the battalion across not only the valley but both ridgelines on either side. The battalion frequency was full of calls for medics from soldiers injured on the drop. There were also seven small flashing red dots on tactical.
Seven dead. Seven who had hit the ground too fast. And at least three times that many injured.
Chamberlain watched as platoon and company commanders organized their units and the casualties were tended to. Chamberlain moved into place in the formation, his three-member battalion staff falling into place surrounding him.
“Seven dead,” his adjutant reported. ‘’Twenty six injured, five serious. Med Evacs are in-bound.”
He could hear the reproach in her voice. A high price for a training jump. He went up to her and touched his helmet to hers so that only she would hear what he had to say. “Lieutenant, I ordered that simulated fire on the planes. I wanted to see how we — and the pilots — reacted to the unexpected. And we did not do well. So we will do this again and again until we do react well. Because I can assure you one thing. When we hit the Shadow, whatever is waiting for us is going to be something we can never expect.”
He pulled his head away and went to the Battalion Command Net “Reform.” Then he ordered the Nighthawks to come in and pick them up. “We’re jumping again.”
CHAPTER NINE
Dane could see that Commander Talbot was looking at Earhart strangely — wasn’t every day you met someone you’d read about in history books. Talbot spread his hands wide in invitation. “I’ve been ordered to extend you every courtesy and answer any question you have.”
The question everyone had was what was going on with the dolphin in the tank, but instead of asking it, Dane walked over to the closest free dolphin. Its head was slightly turned and one dark eye returned his gaze. As Talbot was about to say something else, Dane held up a hand, indicating quiet. He stood still for several minutes. Gradually, all work in the lab died down and everyone was watching him but he was unaware. His entire focus was on the creature in the water, which was as still as he was. Earhart was at Dane’s side. Ahana stood in the background, waiting.
“Do you track your dolphins?” Dane finally asked.
Talbot nodded. “They’re all tagged with transponders that are picked up by satellite, and the computer keeps a record of their movements.”
“Can you show me the tracks of all your dolphins in the last twenty-four hours?” Dane asked.
“Don’t you want a briefing first on what we’re doing here?” Talbot seemed a bit put out. Dane imagined that he had briefed others on his project, and it was a great source of pride to him.
“In due time,” Dane said. “There’s something else I need to know first.”
Talbot led them over to a large screen and gave instructions to one of his technicians. A flurry of lines appeared on the screen.
Dane walked up the screen and tapped a spot where all the lines intersected. “Where is this?”
“Coordinates,” Talbot said to the tech.
The man rattled off some numbers that made no sense to Dane, but obviously did to Talbot.
“About three miles from here. There’s a small fault line off the coast. That spot is right on top of the fault line.”
“Take us there,” Dane ordered.
Talbot looked surprised at such a blunt order, but he obliged, and within short order they were back on the surface and onboard a boat heading out to sea.
“It’s getting stronger,” Earhart said.
Dane nodded. “I know. What did you pick up back there?”
“Just a feeling.”
Dane leaned closer to her. “And that feeling was?”
“Hope.”
Dane nodded. “I felt the same thing.”
Ahana looked like she was going to say something, but didn’t. She was opening up a large plastic case that contained some of her monitoring equipment.
The boat slowed and then came to a halt, the helmsman using his engines and rudder to keep them in place against the current. Dane could feel it now — a low-level flow of power through his body, pulsing hypnotically, in a rhythm that Dane found familiar but could not place.
“There’s a gate near here,” he announced even though there was no black wall that normally indicated a gate.
Ahana was looking at her instruments. “I’m not picking up anything.”
“You won’t,” Dane said. ‘The signal is piggy-backed, and the gate is more of a window than a door.”
“What is the signal piggy-backed on?” Ahana asked.
“Give me a second.” Dane sat down on the deck in the lotus position and closed his eyes. He shut down his external senses one by one until there was only the inner world of his brain. He could feel the stream, more a trickle, of power passing through his body.
Dane’s eyes flashed open.
“What is it?” Earhart asked.
Dane pointed up. “It’s coming from there. Not from the ocean. From up there coming down to the ocean.” He kept his hand up, finger extended, and closed his eyes once more. He moved his hand ever so slightly, trying to make his body an antenna for the power. The variances were so slight that it was very difficult. Several times he thought he had the power line locked in, but then be would lose it.