Abby eased up to twenty feet as the balance shifted to neutral and then she set off northeast toward Fort Bragg. Her companion Little Bird had taken on a quick sixty gallons of fuel that should see them to the next stop—if they weren’t shot down on this next leg.
“This far enough forward?” a voice asked from close behind her, deep enough for the sound to carry through her helmet. It wasn’t one of her crew chiefs, which was what she’d meant. Actually, it was better that they stayed by their guns.
“Ethan,” she spoke to her copilot over the intercom. The balance was good; it was time to hand off the second leg to him.
“I have control.”
Once she felt his sure motion through the joined controls, she eased her hands away and flexed them. They ached from fighting the desire to hold on tight over the last two minutes, but a tight hand on the controls had no finesse.
She flipped up her visor and had to twist around to face the voice—almost clipping him with her helmet.
A wiry soldier sat in her jump seat, blocking any view she might have backward down the bird. No, not a soldier. By the MICH helmet, he was a Delta Force operator. The warriors from The Unit, as they styled themselves, weren’t inclined to be big, and he wasn’t. By his outline against the red running light in the cargo bay behind him, that was all she could tell. Unit operators were selected for endurance, speed, incredible marksmanship, and utter fearlessness—and a whole lot of other criteria they weren’t mentioning in public.
Not wishing to blind night-vision-equipped pilots, Fort Rucker, which was fast falling behind anyway, had very little light facing upward. Inside the cockpit might as well be the dark side of the moon except for the dim glow of the night-vision-compatible instrument panels.
Whoever he was, his shadow was close.
4
“A-yuh, that’s far enough forward.” She had a Yankee sarcastic twang and sat short in her seat. Derek hadn’t realized she was female until she spoke—a low, throaty voice but very female. He’d been meaning to just mess with a guy, not practically stick his nose in a woman’s face.
With her visor up, his night-vision goggles let him see her face just fine. She’d have no visibility inside the cockpit, but he could see that her smile quirked to one side when she was being funny. He saw the arched eyebrow telling him he was in dangerous territory. No way to differentiate color through the NVGs, but he’d bet those eyes were light above the wide cheekbones. Nice face. And he liked that the humor reached her voice even while it threatened to prick him with sharp objects.
He found a headset hanging on the back of the pilot’s seat and pulled it on. “Derek Kylie. Thanks for the ride.”
“Abby Rose. Welcome aboard.” She slid down her visor, turning into one of the Night Stalker cyborgs, looking far more machine than woman, and faced forward. “Any idea what’s coming next?”
“Typical,” Derek laughed.
“Typical?” Her tone went arch at his perceived insult to her gender’s abilities. And it tried to go mean, but she didn’t pull it off with that amusing so-very-Yankee accent.
“Typical for a training op.” His big sister had whupped no-underestimating-women into him fair and square. She was the one with Papa’s big build and had followed into his rodeo career just fine. “I didn’t even know we were headed northeast until I saw your departure path. For actual missions, they’re far more inclined to tell us where to go and what to do.”
She sighed. “They are. Or it could be that Okie accent of yours convincing them they didn’t want to tell you.”
“Good ear.”
“Two of them.”
“Yep, I’m just an Okie from Muskogee. Maybe that is why command never tells me shit.”
He could see her fine fingers moving on the cyclic, but it was the copilot who was currently the pilot-in-control. Nothing changed on the displays he could see, so she must be toggling views inside her helmet while they talked. Couldn’t be a Night Stalker pilot without an exceptional ability to multitask. He’d heard plenty of idiots call their pilots, especially those riding the comfortable seats in the big Chinooks designed for long-haul flights, armchair warriors. They’d hauled his ass out of too many hairy places for him to have anything but the utmost respect for them. Only the second time he'd run into a female pilot though, which meant this woman was seriously special.
Derek liked special.
5
“What the hell?” Abby’s gut clenched as several warnings flashed simultaneously inside her visor. Several categories of threat sensors had just freaked out.
A fast-mover jet slicing in from the south, barely above their own flight level.
She called her lone Little Bird escort. “Inbound on our six. Target and prepare to fire.”
“On it.” They were already spun around and flying fast for a head-on with the jet, not that they stood a chance. She could definitely get to like that Little Bird pilot.
A message flashed down from above—but not on the satellite radio. It was local with no apparent point of origin.
“Flight Charlene One, this is Overwatch. The in-bound is a CCA. Do not fire.”
