Block, spin, throw.
She rammed one into another, made them her puppets. One was back up on his feet. All the rest were down, trying to get back up.
Spin, block…
An explosion sounded outside.
Fuck.
Someone was shooting at them. The chopper shook, banked hard to one side. Sam was thrown face first into the bulkhead. Her head collided with the hard wall. The SEAL fell atop her, got his arm around her neck in a headlock, squeezed to immobilize her.
Shit.
She reached back to crush his balls, hit his body armor instead, tried to kick at his knee but had no leverage on the floor. She got her fingers around his forearm. It was thicker than her calf. Fuck, he was strong. She couldn't pry him off. He squeezed harder, despite her grip. Another SEAL had a rifle aimed at her, was trying to get a clean shot. Fuck.
Her eyes landed on Kade. He was bound and gagged, staring at her with eyes wide.
The knife she'd knocked out of one of their hands was across the chopper. If she could just get her hands on it… Kade was there. She willed it at him, sent him her desire. His feet were on it. He kicked, pushed it towards her.
Sam pulled a hand away from the meaty arm around her neck, got one finger barely on the bottom of the knife's hilt, walked it back towards her. The headlock closed tighter. The one with the rifle almost had a clean shot on her. There. The knife was in her hand. She couldn't think, couldn't see, wasn't sure of her aim. She gripped the knife with both hands, pointed it towards his elbow, stabbed down hard. The SEAL behind her screamed in pain as the graphene tip came in between slabs of armor, severed tendons in his joint. His grip went limp.
Sam rolled free, only to take a vicious kick to her head, another to her gut. Two guns were coming around on her. She couldn't get them both in time.
The armored window of the fuselage door exploded in a shower of glass. Gunshots. Groans. A black-gloved hand appeared, a pistol in it, alive with muzzle flashes. Feng's feral grin followed it in.
"Missile launch! Missile launch!" Bruce Williams exclaimed. "Both RTAF fighters have launched! Close range. Banshees countering."
Becker's eyes bugged out. Nichols gripped the arms of his chair. On screen red dots streaked out from both Rudras. Indian Shiva3 missiles, active radar homing. No lock on the Banshees yet. Was the stealth as good as promised?
Both Banshees fired radar decoys. The missiles acquired locks on them instantly, swerved as the decoys put range between themselves and the choppers. An explosion lit up the night sky, then another.
"Two misses!" Williams called out.
"Get the Banshees into the clouds," Nichols ordered.
"Shots fired inside Banshee One," Jane Kim said.
Nichols looked at the screen showing the interior of Banshee One.
A Confucian Fist? Shu's driver?
Fucking A.
"If Blackbird gets control of that craft…" Becker said.
Nichols nodded. "Activate remote nav on Banshee One. Have the pilot engage the lockout. Controls to us."
Jane Kim nodded. "Roger that."
"Missile launch!" Williams said. "Two more darts in the air!"
Feng pushed through the shattered window, guns roaring, muzzle flashes lighting up the interior of the Banshee. He'd lost his chauffeur's hat, but the suit and gloves and shoes were still perfect.
His bullets punched one SEAL into the bulkhead, slammed another face down against the floor of the chopper. Sam kicked up at the stunned third man, took him in the head, saw his eyes roll into the back of his head.
Another explosion rocked the craft. The pilot banked them hard and fast, almost ninety degrees over. Sam braced herself as her world rotated. Feng stepped lightly onto the new floor. He moved like a dancer, unruffled by the chopper's acrobatics.
Only one SEAL stirred. The man whose elbow Sam had stabbed was crawling on the floor, trying to reach a fallen assault rifle with his left hand. He glanced over, saw Feng and Sam, and froze, his fingers inches from the rifle.
Feng held the man's eyes, shook his head. You don't want to do that.
The SEAL remained absolutely still. Sam turned her head at a noise from the cockpit. The SEAL lunged for the gun. Feng was there, suddenly, his foot slamming into the Navy man's head. The SEAL went limp. Feng shook his head again, picked up the rifle, slung it over his shoulder.
Sam slid into the copilot's seat, her knife pointed at the chopper pilot's face. They were flying in cloud. The pilot had his hands up – empty – in surrender.
"Take us back to the monastery," Sam said.
"I can't," he replied.
"The hell you can't." She gestured with the knife in her hand.
"C&C has the controls," the pilot protested.
"So override 'em. Take control back."
The pilot shook his head. "I punched in the lockout. No way to get the stick back."
Sam frowned. "Why the hell did you do that?"
The pilot shrugged, glanced back at the bodies behind him, at the Chinese man in the dapper suit and black gloves, at the knife in Sam's hands.
"Orders."
Sam shook her head. "That wasn't the smartest thing you've ever done."
She reversed the knife, slammed the hilt of it into his face. The man went limp.
Now… was there really no way to take back control of this thing? It had been a long time since basic flight.
First, swipe the pilot's thumb on the biometrics…
She was studying the controls when they started to move of their own accord. The chopper was turning.
"We have the stick," Jane Kim said. "Bringing them back home."
"RTAF fighters have lost the Banshees," Williams said. "Looks like they can't find us in the clouds. Good cloud cover most of the way home."
Nichols relaxed just a tiny bit. They were a long way from done, but it looked like they might just pull this off.
• • • •
Ahhhhh, Shu thought. There is the hole.
They'd opened it up for her themselves, just on the one helicopter, the one that Feng and Cataranes and Lane were on.
Shu studied the encrypted stream of commands and status data flowing back and forth, compared it to the data she'd gleaned from the Ministry of Defense database. Yes. Now that they'd opened this door for her, she could control this craft.
The directional antenna atop the Opal came alive at her mental command. There.
She reached out, and Banshee One began to turn.
Jane Kim frowned.
"Sir, Banshee One has stopped responding. I'm frozen out. It's starting to turn."
"Did the cockpit take control back?" Had the pilot not entered the lockout code? Had it not worked?