Powerful searchlights and long necklaces of tracer fire began exploring the night sky, searching for the meat-things that had been so audacious as to invade Chimeran airspace. The Sabre Jets were long gone, having fled south, before the stinks could scramble their fighters.
Which was nice for the jet jockeys, but not for Purvis, who was still in the area.
The solution, such as it was, consisted of switching to level flight while fleeing south at little more than rooftop level. A very dangerous process indeed, especially at night, but one calculated to keep the Chimeran fighters off his ass. Because they were so fast that they couldn’t ride the VTOL’s six, and being unable to get under the ship’s belly, they were unlikely to nail Purvis with their cannons.
So it was their heat-seeking missiles he feared the most, and the only defense against them was to fire white-hot flares to port and starboard as the Party Girl ran for its life.
Meanwhile, back at the insertion point, Richards was busy sorting everyone out.
This was his fifth drop into Chicago. That made him an Ace in the parlance of his Intel peers. How many more such missions was he entitled to before his number came up? Six? Seven? Or five and out?
There was no way to know.
But given that Hale and his men were Sentinels, and he wasn’t, Richards knew he was the most vulnerable man on the team. An irony that he did his best to ignore as his subordinates went about creating a defensive perimeter and waited to see who would arrive first. Freedom First—or a heavily armed Chimeran response team.
It was a question made all the more urgent by the fact that they had been dropped into the center of a major intersection. It was too dark to see his surroundings clearly, but thanks to the photos he’d memorized, Richards knew that partially burned-out buildings surrounded him on three sides, with an elevated train station on the fourth. Any or all of them might provide protective cover, but if the Freedom First guide arrived after the team cleared the street, he might assume they had been compromised, and leave without them.
Then they would be shit out of luck.
So Richards was forced to settle for a wheel formation, with all the Sentinels facing out as precious seconds ticked away. The guide was late—five minutes late—and Richards was getting ready to retreat to the train station. He considered his alternatives. Should he leave a radio where the guide could find it? That might work, but if a Chimeran patrol happened by, it would signal the team’s presence as well.
Suddenly a manhole cover popped up out of its metal collar, fell over, and hit the street with a clang. Richards yelled “Don’t shoot!” and not a moment too soon as Corporal Vedka and Private Oshi swiveled toward the noise, ready to fire.
“Eyes front!” Hale ordered, lest the men in his sector take their eyes off the perimeter. He turned to see Richards kneel next to the dimly seen guide and exchange a few brief sentences. Then the group was on the move.
In keeping with pre-established protocols, the Sentinels armed with scope-mounted Fareyes, M5A2s, and Rossmore shotguns descended into the depths first, leaving those with Bellocks, rocket launchers, and the team’s single minigun to provide security until they, too, were ordered below.
That was when Hale dropped into the hole, felt for the rungs with his feet, and passed the M5A2 down to Private Tanner. The biggest man on the team and the proud owner of the minigun.
The cast iron lid made a harsh grating sound as Hale pulled it over, pushed the chunk of metal up, and then lowered it into place. At that point the team could lay claim to a clean insertion. An accomplishment that boosted their chances of success from damned unlikely to the realm of the barely possible.
As Hale lowered himself into what appeared to be a storm drain, the first things he noticed were the dank, fetid air and the harsh glow of a flare which had been inserted into a crack in one of the brick walls. He hit bottom, and a layer of black sediment squished under his boots as Tanner returned his weapon.
The scene that greeted him was surreal, to say the least. The Sentinels were lined up with their backs to a wall as a young woman inspected them. Except that “inspected” wasn’t the right word, since what she was really doing was looking each man over prior to sniffing him the same way that a friendly dog might have.
She had rough-cut blond hair, a pug nose, and was dressed in a leather jacket, tight-fitting jeans, and lace-up boots.
“They call her Spook,” Richards explained as she moved from Cooper to Samson. “She has an extremely acute sense of smell—and that can be quite useful down here. By memorizing what each man smells like, she’ll be able to sort them out in total darkness, if need be.”
“I see,” Hale said as the vetting process continued. “Is that why people call her Spook?”
“No,” Richards replied, “that has to do with her tattoos.”
That was when Hale noticed the tattoos on Spook’s face, neck, and hands. At first he had thought they were a trick of the light from the flickering flare. Most if not all of them were symbols which seemed to have religious or occult value, including variations on pentagrams, crosses, triangles, sigils, moons, and at least one ankh, located at the very center of her forehead. “So they’re for more than decoration?” he inquired.
Richards nodded as Spook subjected an embarrassed Private Perez to her strange form of scrutiny.
“Yeah. Spook believes that those symbols protect her from Chimeran energy projectiles, and maybe they do. You’ll notice that she isn’t wearing any body armor, yet there isn’t a scratch on her. And that’s saying something, here in Chicago!” The strange young woman completed her inspection of the men and turned to approach the officers.
“Stand by,” Richards said. “It’s your turn.”
Hale stood his ground. Spook had very direct green eyes, and they registered surprise as she examined him. She was pretty, even with the facial tattoos, and exuded a strong animal magnetism. “You have stink eyes,” she said artlessly. “And I can smell the virus on you. The others have it, too. But not as strong.”
Hale didn’t know what to say, so he was silent as Spook began to sniff his right arm. She followed the limb all the way up to his shoulder, where she paused for a moment, before licking his neck. That was something new, and slightly erotic, as Hale had the opportunity to smell her. Rather than the soapy fragrance he had come to associate with Cassie, Spook exuded a musky scent which was appealing, but in a different way. “You taste like they do,” Spook said as she pulled back. “You’re changing. Did you know that?”
Hale shrugged. “I’ve been immunized. That amounts to a change.”
Spook stared at him thoughtfully, as if deciding whether to say more, then turned to Richards.
“The station is two miles away,” she said. “The first mile and a half will be very dangerous.”
“We’ll be ready,” Richards assured her. “Lead the way.”
So Spook led the way, followed by Richards, Kawecki, Henning, Vedka, Oshi, Perez, Obo, Cooper, Samson, Dana, Tanner, and Hale.
The order of march had been determined by the type of threats they were likely to encounter, the sort of weapon that each Sentinel was carrying, and the need to place an officer at each end of the column.
The going was fairly easy at first, because the ceiling of the main tunnel was at least eight feet high, and it was wide enough for three men to walk abreast. Not that Richards or Hale would permit such a thing. Their challenge was to keep the Sentinels spaced out so that a single explosion couldn’t kill more than one or two men.