Clint beamed.
Jess sighed. “The way to his heart is through a hydraulic tube c’mon.” She touched Dev’s sleeve. “They’re waiting for us in debrief.”
They walked along the marked floor, as techs and support people swarmed around them, and the other three carriers who had just come in. The rest of the crews had already gone down the tunnel, so Jess wasted no more time and turned off the rocky floor into a tall, scan equipped deep blue hallway.
She felt the tickle as she passed through, and saw Dev blink a little. “You feel that?”
Dev looked at her. “Yes. The scan, you mean?”
“Yeah.” Jess nodded. “That’s all security. You have to be coded to go through. If you’re not, you get enough of a blast to take you out when you’re inside. Some places, like central command, you get more than that.”
“Oh.”
“I”ll show you the grid when we get back to quarters. We’re coded everywhere, but not everyone is. Good to know if you’re walking with someone outside ops.”
“I see.”
Jess led the way towards a closed automatic door, and put her hand on the pad outside it. “Drake, J, and NM-Dev-1 for debrief.”
The pad glowed, then the door opened, and they went in. “Gotta show you the rec, and your rad area too.” Jess commented, as they went through another door and into a larger room, this one half full of people. “But we’ll get a drink first.”
Dev was content to follow along, listening to Jess’s ramblings. She considered them, cautiously optimistic that they seemed to be trending towards a tendency to let her stay, at least for a little while.
She recognized Stephen Bock in the room, and the four agents they’d gone with, and four people she didn’t know, along with the man with the gun, Bain. She stopped as Jess did, and she watched Jess spread her arms out as they all started making noises at her.
Very strange. But Jess looked pleased, so she supposed it was all right. She followed Jess over to two open chairs and they sat down next to each other. She looked over at the man wit the gun, surprised to find him smiling at her.
She smiled back.
“Well.” Bain leaned back. “Welcome back, you four.” He looked at the four people Dev didin’t know. “None the worse for wear I see.”
“Was a little tough sir.” Sandy Tucker responded. “Me and Roger tried to make our own diversion with our boat, but they didn’t buy it. We thought we were going to have to try and climb out when all of a sudden they all took off.”
‘Right.” Jason said. “By the time we crested over the ridge just east of them, Jess, the guards all hauled ass and it was easy peasy getting to them and getting out. They didn’t even leave a comms watch.” He glanced at Dev then back at Jess. “What the hell did you do to draw them off?”
‘We can roll the flight recorder.” Jess said. “Faster that way than for me to tell it.” She eyed Sandy. “I guess you know I blew your boat up.”
Sandy nodded. “Jase said.” She looked at the tall, very muscular man next to her. “Mike figured that might happen. We didn’t really have any way of broadcasting it wasn’t rigged, or that you’d believe it if we did.”
The tall man grunted. “Fuckers. They knew we were coming , Jess.” He looked across the table. “We came in polar, and we just cleared Gibralter and they were on us. Chased us to the ridge and we got under cover – blasted the ones who had the guts to come at us, but we were stuck there.”
“Saw you on scan.” Jason said. “It was a bad plan to start with.”
Both Mike and Sandy looked uncomfortable. “Well, you made your view clear.” Mike said, stiffly.
Bain had been watching and listening, and now he cleared his throat. “He was right.” He said, in a mild tone. “It was a damn fool idea, and now we had to put three teams at risk just to get us back to square one.”
Mike looked sullenly at him.
“What about you?” Sandy suddenly asked, looking at Jess. “I thought you were out. Didn’t you stand on your pride about that?” She pointed at Dev. “Now you’re here? It’s here? What’s the deal?”
Bain cleared his throat again. “Agent Drake was thoughtful enough to agree to my request that she remain with us.” He said. “I’m quite gratified. “ He looked at Jess. “And how is the experiment going, Agent Drake?”
Jess remained expressionless. “I’ll let the flight recorder speak for itself.” She remarked. “But I’ll be more than glad to continue with it.” She folded her hands on the table. “I like the results so far.”
Dev’s ears perked. That sounded like a positive thing, since she strongly suspected she was the experiment in question.
“Hmm. Indeed.” Bain’s eyes twinkled a little. “Then by all means, let’s see this recorder.” He nodded at Stephen, who was sitting in silence, just watching everyone. “Mr. Bock. Please proceed.”
Stephen got up and went to the console, triggering the big display in the back of the room. The panels slid open, and he adjusted the room lights, then keyed in the recording that Dev had sent from the carrier. “Here we go, sir.”
He sat down as the scene recorder rolled, presenting a view from all the carrier’s sensors overlayed to produce an almost three dimensional presentation. One one corner was a mission clock, and on the other a base readout of the carrier’s systems.
They heard Dev’s voice quietly asking for flight access, then the recorder started forward.
“Go to time lock 1140 loc if you want to see the other carrier blown out.” Jess said. “And 1150 loc if you want to see the exciting stuff.”
Bock looked at Bain, who nodded. He got up and keyed in the change, and suddenly the carrier was accelerating towards the hulk of Gibralter and the defender’s beacons flared.
It didn’t really take that long. Dev was a little surprised at how fast it all went once it started. When she’d been doing it, it seemed a lot longer. She relived the dives and rolls, nodding a little as the carrier wove it’s way through the enemy, rolling over and over as it darted between defenders and through arcs of fire.
“Holy shit.” Sandy said, after a few minutes utter silence.
Jess sat back in her seat and smiled. She could see Bain’s face, and even his craggy old eyes were wide and astonished, as they blasted past Gibralter and she laid a line of fire inside their control center. Then they were past, and she could feel her heart start accelerating as she relived their one team attack on the heavily defended science center.
“Oh my go… whoa!” Jason yelped, as the carrier dove for the waves.
Diving, diving, the alarms going off, redlining the carrier with all that evident on the screen as they pulled out and into that damn rolling wave at the very last minute, the enemy behind them splashing into the water unable to stop.
Wild.
Then she sat back, remembering the incredible pull of gravity on her body and the ache still in her arms as she kept firing, all the way up the escarpment and over the top into the clouds in one long, screaming, rumbling run that ended in gray silence and the bleeting of overworked systems.
“Holy shit.” Sandy said, again.
“That’s about it.” Jess said, in as normal a voice as she could muster. “The rest you know.”
The lights came up a little as Stephen cut the replay off, and they all turned around and stared at the two women seated at the end of the table.
Even Bain, his customary dismissive, offhand façade dropped like a rock off the cliff, his jaw hanging slightly open.
Jess smiled briefly. “Can we get the one by ones done? I owe my pilot here a drink.” She jerked her head in Dev’s direction. “And as a matter of fact, I think you all do too.”
Dev was absolutely not sure what response would be appropriate, so she decided not to have any at all. She remained silent, her hands folded on the table, a mild look on her face as the rest of the group stared at her.