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A lurch of Paul’s stomach told him their pilot saw the danger. The man yanked the Cherokee up. The pilot was a twitchy boy with fantastic reflexes, a punk who flew as if the helicopter was a bucking bronco. The action saved their lives.

A hot concussion of force struck Paul’s face then—the aftereffects of the missile’s warhead. It let him know how close he’d come to dying and breaking his promise.

What the—?

Leaning out of the bay door, feeling the restraints press against his chest, Paul saw the spinning piece of shrapnel flash underneath them. Sparks showered and Paul felt a jarring vibration as the rotating shrapnel knifed the helicopter’s undercarriage. He expected a beehive-pod to burst open or them to ignite in flames. Instead, the ex-helo blade ricocheted away, heading for the ground.

Paul exhaled, only then realizing he’d been holding his breath. That had been too close. The pilots flew in close formation and far too low to the ground. Platform-launched missiles weren’t supposed to have time for lock-on.

“Amigo!” Romo shouted. “You’ll get your head blown off leaning out like that.”

Paul pulled himself back into the helo, glancing at his best friend and the others piled in here like metallic gorillas. Before he could respond to his friend, a voice crackled in his ear-link. The pilot gave them a warning.

Many of the suited gorillas shifted positions. Some leaned forward. Paul leaned back, resting his head against a cushion. He curled his fingers under the seat, hanging on tight. A second later, the machine’s tri-jets ignited. The Cherokee leapt forward like a cougar jumping off a rock. The helicopter nosed downward as it raced like a NASCAR maniac.

“The pilot’s crazy!” Romo shouted.

The damp Oklahoma ground with its gopher holes and yellow prairie flowers flashed past them outside. The surface was fifty feet away. That was bad enough. The pilot lurched left, went hard right and the tri-jets screamed with noise. The Cherokee hauled butt over enemy territory. They still had twenty, maybe twenty-five miles to go.

For a second, Paul witnessed the muzzle flashes of surprised Chinese soldiers firing up out of their trenches. A different man tucked his shlong away, zipped up his pants and dove for his rifle. To the left, another missile lofted after them.

Would the missile chase the Cherokees? Maybe. He knew their pilot or one of the others deployed chaff. Computers certainly tracked the missile with radar, using fifty-calibers or beehive flechettes to try to knock it down.

With these sorts of things—the mission—the wait to get into action drove a man crazy with anxiety.

Kavanagh knew the Chinese 34th Mechanized Division belonged to the enemy’s final reserve. According to the briefing officer twenty minutes ago, the 34th had received orders to counterattack the leading American formations.

“Ten minutes to drop,” the colonel said over the battle-net.

“Roger,” Paul vocalized into his throat microphone. His stomach did a flip. It would squeeze now until he jumped. No matter how many times he fought, he had to go through the ritual of fear. What? Did he want to live forever?

Yeah I do. Forever and ever and ever. I’m going to kiss you again, baby.

He grinned, and several commandos glancing his way, tough hombres each one, paled and looked elsewhere.

Paul released the bottom of his seat and picked up his headgear. It was heavy and bulky, just like a knight’s pot helm back in the Middle Ages. He fit the helmet over his head and locked it onto the battlesuit. Chinning a lever, he opened the visor, listening to tiny gears whine.

“ETA, five minutes,” the colonel said.

The landscape looked the same: flat with flowers. Paul licked his lips and closed the visor. Immediately, he could hear himself breathe.

He closed his eyes tight and opened them wide.

Flat with flowers, and filled with death. Oklahoma had it alclass="underline" rifles, grenades, flamethrowers, mortars, artillery, infantry fighting vehicles, tanks, laser-cannons, drones, UAVs, fighters, bombers and EMP missiles. The only thing missing were nuclear warheads, and who knew? Maybe they would rain down, too.

“ETA, one minute,” the colonel radioed.

With a gloved hand, Paul unhooked his buckles and forced himself to stand. His gut shriveled and he blinked several times. This was the first battle where he wore a jetpack into the fight.

With a sigh, Paul flipped on the Chinese generator and listened to it purr. The thing vibrated against his back. Using his throttle hand, he revved the engine.

With a lurching step, Paul brought himself to the open bay door. Using his free hand, he grabbed a handhold and leaned out, feeling the wind push his body. He looked ahead and saw Chinese vehicles in the prairie. They’d circled like old-time pioneers used to against Comanche raiders. That must be the divisional HQ, a mobile group and their chosen target. In the distance, a dust cloud billowed. Those would be tri-turreted tanks, maybe several dozen of them churning up dirt.

“Enemy rockets coming!” the colonel shouted into Paul’s ear. “Start your drops.”

Paul almost vocalized his objections. The pilot was supposed to take them up first, give them some maneuvering, some flying room. There were too many enemy vehicles nearby, and he saw Chinese soldiers running to a firing line. Most of them held weapons.

He saw rockets and missiles zooming in the air for them, a deadly flock launched from mobile platforms: trucks and jeeps mostly. Counter-fire blazed as Cherokee chainguns and beehive flechettes filled the air with metal.

“Today I take scalps,” Romo said.

It was hard to force his fingers loose of the handhold. Paul did it anyway as he leaned out of the bay door. He’d already folded open the jetpack’s flying arm. He rested his right elbow on it and grasped the maneuverable joystick throttle. The thing was tricky to work right. Then Paul found himself falling, with the ground rushing up to greet him.

He revved the engine to get it ready. At the same time, he violently kicked his legs to the right. Jetpack flying took strong abs to do correctly. He aligned the nozzles just so and opened the throttle wide. If the engine didn’t kick in precisely now— It did, and it hurled him forward so he rushed over the nearing ground. He had seconds to gain vertical lift. He should be out of range of the Cherokee’s spinning blades by now. Violently, he swung his legs again. G forces slammed against him and forced his head low. He lifted, though. He went up and up, and he saved his life by doing it then.

Other commandos lacked his gifts. A black-clad trooper plowed against prairie dirt, throwing up flowers and grass divots. The soldier tumbled and his arms and legs flopped wildly. The impact must have snapped the man’s spine. He became a broken doll, another mindless statistic in a savage war for global supremacy.

The knot in Paul’s gut loosed at that precise instant. The fear vanished and anger pulled his lips back. Paul’s college teammates of many years ago would have recognized the look as he sprinted to tackle a running back.

The colonel barked orders through their headphones. Then the talk didn’t matter anymore. Explosions and wild concussions made everything confusion. Chinese trunks flipped as Cherokee missiles slammed home. Impacted helicopters rained metal parts and dead men, and followed the junk to crash onto the prairie. There must have been enemy jets up there. Or maybe the Chinese HQ people had better antiair hardware than the SOCOM experts had realized.

It became a balls-up, maybe a complete disaster. Nothing went right.

Paul no longer cared or even consciously thought about much of anything. Cheri had seen the look before. Once, in their garage, she had put her hands to her mouth at the crazy number of wasps boiling around a monster nest. Paul had taken three quick steps and pressed his finger on a Raid nozzle, spraying until foam covered every inch of moving mass.