One Firefly down.
The gunner flipped the off switch, and the guns lined up behind her along the left side of the plane stopped firing. The barge slowly settled underneath the dark water of the Tennessee River. The gunner glanced up at the metal plating between two of her screens. As World War II fighter pilots had chalked up kills on the side of their plane, there were little images of various targets taken out by the gunship over the years: technicals (armed pickup trucks), roadside bombers, buildings where terrorists were meeting, and so forth.
She’d have to get the image of a barge.
Burns swung the rifle down as the Snake came roaring in. He fired a sustained burst at the cockpit.
Futile, because the cockpit was armored and he knew that, but Burns let loose more out of irritation that Nada was breaking Protocol and he was missing the chance to shoot Roland.
The Snake came to a hover and thick ropes came tumbling down. Burns aimed at them, but then he was blinded as the halogen searchlight in the nose of the Snake came on.
He fired anyway under the theory that sometimes the big sky little bullet theory worked in favor of the bullet.
Moms was first to touch boots to the ground, Nada a split second behind her. They both let go of the fast rope and began firing toward the Rift as they moved forward, “breaking” the ambush. All they could see was the Rift, its light overloading their night vision goggles. And tracers flashing by from someone firing at them.
Mac and Roland touched down next, followed by Doc.
That’s when six deer came charging in from the side. One buck hit Moms, sending her tumbling. Nada avoided getting tagged and fired a burst into the side of the doe that went by him, slowing it slightly.
“Deer!” Nada yelled over the net.
“No shit,” Mac said as he fired a 40-mm grenade at a Firefly-possessed deer charging at him. Fortuitously, and unfortunately as it turned out, Roland had modified the grenades so that they armed upon leaving the barrel, rather than the normal safe distance of around fifteen meters. The round hit the deer in the chest about four meters from Mac and exploded on contact.
Pieces of venison flew everywhere and Mac was blown backward by the blast.
Roland was standing in front of Doc, unable to fire in the confusion and the blackout of his night vision goggles.
A cluster fuck.
Burns knew when it was time to make an exit. He tossed a couple of flash-bangs to add to the confusion, averting his eyes and cupping his hands over his ears as they went off. Then he ran to the trees and cut to the right, heading for the car.
The flash-bangs didn’t help the situation for the Nightstalkers.
Moms and Nada were back-to-back, having ripped off their night vision goggles. But the grenades wiped out what little vision they had left with their bright flash, and the thunderous explosion stunned them. Mac was on his back, half conscious.
Doc had been protected somewhat by Roland’s bulk. He grabbed Roland’s shoulder. “Come on!”
He led Roland forward toward the Rift, but Roland paused, switching out the machine gun for the flamer, and torched the remains of the deer that Mac had blasted. A golden sparkle rose up and dissipated.
Two Fireflies down.
“You okay?” Roland yelled to Mac.
Mac lifted a hand and gave an unenthusiastic thumbs-up.
Roland moved forward to stick with Doc, who was setting up his laptop short of the Rift, next to the laptop Burns had left behind.
“Eagle, what do you have?” Moms asked over the net.
“Someone is escaping through the forest to your south. Got lots of heat signatures. Yours, deer, others. It’s a mess.”
“Doc?” Moms asked, trying to get some vision back.
“The Fireflies are through,” Doc said. “I’m going to shut the Rift.”
“Spooky, do you have a human moving in the forest to our south?”
On board Spectre, the gunner trained her infrared and thermal sights on Moms’s location. “Roger. I’ve got your team and one more, south of your location, moving toward the road. Also what looks like some deer.”
Burns paused and looked up. Of course, with the thick trees all around him, he couldn’t see anything, but he felt the electronic fingers from above, coursing over his body, like an enemy’s caress, seeking him, finding him, fixing him.
Burns closed his eyes and stood still for a moment. His entire body took on a golden sheen. Then he continued on his way.
“Target gone,” the gunner announced. “It just disappeared.”
“Fire up the deer,” Moms said. “Can you take them out without hitting us?”
“Danger close,” the gunner said, “but roger. Smoking the deer.”
The young woman leaned forward, hand light on the joystick, and began the delicate surgery of blasting the deer scattered among the team members, selectively using incredibly short bursts of 25 mm, a couple chugs of 40 mm, and an occasional 105-mm shell when there was a sufficient safety margin.
It took her twenty-two seconds to blast the remaining five deer.
When she was done, she was sure she could find a deer image pretty easily online. But whether to put them up was the question. Bambi? Really?
Moms had some vision back. She could make out Doc by the Rift and the laptop that had opened it. Roland was flaming what remained of the deer Spectre had blown to bits, destroying the Fireflies.
A small success in a lost battle.
“Keep a count on Fireflies you’ve gotten, Roland.”
“Always.”
She went to the Support net. “All elements, back off, back off. Return to FOB.”
The last thing she wanted was for a Firefly to get into Spooky or one of the Apaches or any of the firepower she had on hand. She headed toward Doc to make sure he was doing what he was supposed to be doing.
The Rift snapped out of existence as Doc shut it.
But it was too late.
Burns was loose; the rest of the Fireflies were free.
How many, they had no idea.
Moms switched frequencies once more. “Ms. Jones, we’ve lost containment.”
CHAPTER 10
Neeley walked in the door to the interrogation room, which doubled as Dr. Golden’s “counseling” room in the Cellar, expecting to see the good doctor sitting on the other side of the table.
Instead, she was surprised to see Hannah waiting, two cups of coffee on the desk. Hannah stood as Neeley came in, offering one cup across the table.
“No hug?” Neeley asked as she reached out and accepted the coffee.
Hannah grinned. “We’re not the hugging type.” She sat down and Neeley followed suit.
“We’re not, aren’t we? Or should that be ‘are we’?” Neeley shrugged. “Grammar was never my strength.”
“You have plenty of other skills to make up for it,” Hannah said.
“Practical ones,” Neeley said. “In a certain world.”
“You had me worried,” Hannah said.
“By dying?”
“Among other things.”
“Where’s Dr. Golden?” Neeley nodded toward the window. “Observing?”
“Yes.”
Neeley sighed. “Charting my childhood trauma?”
Hannah laughed. “We all lived it.” She put down her coffee and leaned forward, palms flat on the table. “Are you done? Do you want to stop?”
It was Neeley’s turn to laugh. “Blunt, aren’t we? I never should have started. Gant wouldn’t have wanted me to. But I didn’t have much choice, did I?”