“Send it wide!” Abby punched the left pedal, doing one of her favorite Chinook tricks—making twenty tons of helo spin about its vertical axis without banking. Because she had twin rotors, she could fly the nose and tail in different directions. Which meant she could send the nose left and the tail right until she was on a new course, twisting around the fuselage center point of the cargo hook. And, this close to the ground, she could do it while diving for the dirt without having to worry about catching her long thirty-foot blades while in a steep bank.
She twisted so sharply that she passed behind the Little Bird off her port side. Behind and below. If she’d been low before, now she was hugging the terrain. Sorry, buddy. The Little Bird was there to protect her, and she had a bad feeling about what lay close ahead.
Or… She’d just messed up royally by departing her designated route in a direction that was backward-some. It was definitely abrading the time window second by second, but that was the least of her worries at the moment.
“Check the CCA view,” she ordered Ethan. She couldn’t afford to look away from the obstacles flashing by.
“Identified twelve hostiles.”
“Twelve?” Was every Night Stalker in the entire regiment aloft tonight?
“They’re—shit. They’re small.”
Drones! If she ingested even one of those into an engine, they’d be down in the dirt. Except Chinook helos had one major drawback. If the drive train broke, they couldn’t autorotate down to a tricky landing. Instead, Chinooks tended to shred at altitude and rain down on the ground in several thousand tiny pieces.
She checked her display again—nothing. The drones weren’t stealth or the CCA wouldn’t have seen them.
Diving low and outside had saved her…but from what?
Drones were such a threat that she couldn’t believe Colonel Beale would put them in her path. Not even Trisha O’Malley would do that.
She keyed the radio. “Little Bird. Turn to heading two-six-zero. Climb to thirty meters. What are you seeing due north?”
Abby only had to wait seconds for the report. “The CCA. Otherwise, clear skies.”
The Air Force collaborative combat aircraft wasn’t collaborating; the Air Force had programmed it to give a false report of a drone swarm.
She slammed the controls over to swing back to course and climbed back to the hundred-foot cap.
Then she had an idea and hit the radio again. “Put a simulated round through that damn CCA’s little brain.”
Ethan reported six seconds later. “CCA has suffered a hundred percent simulated destruction.”
8
“She’s a wild one.” Derek joked to Sam, the master sergeant crew chief.
Abby’s first sudden maneuver had caught them all by surprise. With no banking, they hadn’t been driven deeper into their seats. Instead, the bird had twisted sideways, tossing the unwary against hard surfaces. He and Sam had been standing near the center of the aircraft, so they were only dropped to the deck when their feet had gone sideways without them—instead of slamming up against hard objects.
The only real injury was that Hot Rod, who’d been lounging in his normal driver’s seat in the DAGOR, lost a hold of his muscle-car magazine. Between the abrupt twists, turns, and air currents—with its pages flapping like a bird’s—the magazine disappeared out the open Minigun window. It was wide and tall enough for a crew chief to swing the big gun where it was needed, but it had slipped by.
Everyone adapted fast; the second hard swing elicited no more than grimaces excepting a steady stream of curses from Hot Rod.
“Major Roberts says she’s the Number One Chinook pilot, after him, of course.”
“Tall Texan, white cowboy hat?”
Sam nodded.
“Shit. Next time you see him, tell him that Derek still says thanks. Hauled my team’s ass out of Ecuador when no one should have been able to. So, what’s Abby’s story?”
Sam’s smile said that it wasn’t his smoothest play, but he did swing up his helmet’s microphone to switch it off. “Nobody climbs that hill.”
“What? Why not?”
Sam shook his head. “Scares ’em off. Seen plenty try. Too smart for ’em. They bounce off like a hard wall.”
“Plays for the other team?”
