“Roger that. No movement.”
“Okay, Maria, let's hook this thing up and get the hell out of here.” He rotated his upper casing so that she could mount the disabled drone on the rack welded to his back.
“Sure thing, LT.”
He spared a glance at Liz's vidstream. Josè was still in the air, trailing black smoke. Hailie was rolling toward the enemy. “You okay, Josè?”
“Goddamned shrapnel. Losing hydraulic pressure to my left aileron. It's really sluggish.”
“Better get back to the FOB.”
“Damn it. Okay, roger.”
“Hailie, don't engage unless you have to.”
“I got this, LT. They try to launch another SAM, I'm gonna shove a TOW up their ass.”
“Don't worry, Boss,” Liz said. “I got her six.”
His field of view lurched and his gyros whined. His data stream showed a jump in gross weight. “Ready to roll?”
“Wait one,” Maria said. “You're not secured yet.”
“The hell?” Hailie's voice was a high pitched squeal.
Liz shouted, “Fall back, fall back!”
Gardner switched to Liz's vidstream. A wall of dust was closing in on Hailie. It took him a moment to see the technicals, fanned out and bearing down at full speed across the desert. Hailie lurched backward while firing her smooth bore. Tracers lit up Liz's vid as she tried to cover Hailie's retreat.
“Get a move on, Maria.”
“Working on it.”
One of the technicals veered off course and trailed smoke, but the others closed on Hailie fast. Their mounted guns flashed.
“Taking fire! Wait, what's th—”
“Hailie? Hailie!” Gardner flipped to her vidstream and saw static.
“Jesus, LT,” Liz said. “They lit her up with something.”
“Base, get her the hell out of there!”
“Falling back,” Liz said. “I could use some backup.”
He marked a waypoint on the map. “Form up here. Gotta roll, Maria.”
“Almost done.”
“Now!”
“Got it.”
“Move, goddamn it!”
She rolled into his field of view and took off toward the waypoint. A quick check of Kyle's vidstream showed him making a beeline down the hillside. Gardner rolled after Maria, his treads biting deep into the ground with the extra weight. She pulled further ahead of him as his treads struggled to keep him moving. Liz's vid showed desert rolling by at a good clip.
“Base, how is Hailie?”
No response.
“Base, confirm extraction of PFC Miller.”
Liz's vid jolted and pings sounded through her audio. “I've got incoming. If they hit me with that—” A loud ping cut her off.
“Liz!”
Her vid jumped erratically.
“Liz? You there?”
“Wait one, LT.”
He felt his body back at base exhale with relief. “Kyle, you have eyes on her yet?”
“I got this,” Kyle said.
Gardner switched to Kyle's stream. He already had his stabilizers deployed and his vid was zoomed on the driver of one of the technicals. His vid jumped with the slightest recoil and the pickup veered out of the field of view.
“Maria, get eyes on the enemy.”
“I'm waiting for you, LT.”
“Damn it. Just get in position.”
He considered dropping Joel's drone, but only for an instant. Figuring out what the insurgents did to it could save lives.
Maria rounded the hilltop and swiveled her view toward the east. One of the technicals had flipped over, and the others were hanging back. Liz was pulling away from them and nearly at the navpoint.
“Looking good,” he said. “Me and Liz are going to be limping all the way back to the FOB. Make sure the enemy keeps its distance.”
“We got your six, LT,” Maria said.
“Base here. Your relief is wired and ready to go. Prepare for extraction.”
What the hell? “This is no place for trainees,” Gardner said. “I'd rather see this one through personally.”
“Sorry, sir. Orders from the colonel himself. Extraction in three, two—”
“What the hell is he—”
Gardner's sight went black. He reached for his helmet, but the tech swatted his hands away. After a brief eternity, the helmet lifted away and cool air massaged Gardner's scalp. He shut his eyes until they could adjust to the brightness of the Active Combat Room.
Colonel Spencer's gruff voice intruded on his moment of peace. “Nice job out there, Lieutenant.”
Gardner turned his head toward the voice, drawing a not-so-gentle rebuke from the tech disengaging his electrodes. “Where's Hailie? Is she okay?”
“We got some good intel on the attack that—”
“Damn it, is she okay? Sir.”
The colonel gave him a hard look. “She's in the infirmary. The techs pulled the plug at the first EM spike, which probably minimized the brain damage.”
Gardner punched the console in front of him.
“Cool down, Lieutenant.”
He swallowed a few deep breaths. “What the hell did they use on her, sir?”
“That's what we're here to find out, son. Assemble your team for a debriefing in fifteen. Then you can get some rack time while the eggheads try to figure it out.”
Gardner stared at his nearly empty glass of cheap beer. Some light and fluffy synth-hop song played over the crowd noise, which only made his mood darker by comparison. He swiveled on his stool to get a quick look at his squad, surrounding a small table, downing beer. There was no joy in it tonight.
Liz glanced over and caught his eye. Damn. She said something and the whole table turned to look at him. Goddamn it. He turned back to the bar and swallowed the warm remnants in his glass. A hand closed on his shoulder.
“What do you want, Liz?”
“I talked to Hailie's dad this morning. It'll take some time, but they expect her to make a full recovery.”
“But she'll never pilot another drone.”
Liz shook her head. “She'd never get cleared for an EMEG helmet.”
Gardner blew out a breath. “I sent her out there.”
“She knew the risks.”
“No, she didn't. No one expects any risks anymore. Not since, I don't know, Pakistan at least. It's the perfect war; no one gets hurt. A damned video game.”
“It's real enough to the other side.”
“I suppose so.”
“Doesn't it ever bother you?”
He looked up from his empty glass. “What?”
“Getting under a rig and shooting at people. It's just so dispassionate.”
“The Chinese use EMEG drones too.”
“Those aren't Chinese drones we're shooting at. They're Iranians and homegrown insurgents from half the Arabian peninsula.”
Gardner pounded his fist on the bar. “So what the hell do you want? Throw on fifty pounds of gear and march across the desert in person? Take a bullet to the head, or maybe just get your legs blown off?”
“I don't know. No, of course not. It's just funny how we get pissed when they come up with a way to return the favor.”
“All I know is I'll be damned if I let them hurt another one of my people.”
“Don't worry, LT, I'm not going soft on you. Those are my friends over there. I'll do anything I have to do to keep them safe.”
“Good, because I'll be counting on you tomorrow.”
“We're going back in?”
He nodded. “Brass has some intel. Could nip this whole thing right in the bud.”
“They finally figured it out? What is it, some new kind of EMP?”
“They think the enemy is using some sort of microwave beamer. Sends a massive energy burst back along the comm channel.”
“But the drones use frequency hopping, jump from one comm frequency to another. How the hell do they figure out what frequency we'll be on when they fire?”