Again the head shake.
“Any reason not to try?”
“How do you feel about pain?”
“Hey, I’m Delta.”
Sam laughed and thumped him on the shoulder. “Good luck, bro. You’re gonna need it.” Then he swung down his mike and headed along the cargo bay toward the other crew chiefs.
Derek watched to see if he was filling them in then voting whether to toss him out at altitude; no one glanced his way.
He squeezed along the side of the DAGOR and sat in the passenger seat. Hot Rod sat in the driver’s seat, still griping about his lost magazine. No help there. After the two hard maneuvers, with no sign of a third, most of the others were doing what Spec Ops warriors did best while waiting for the action to start—sleeping.
Derek was bolt-wide awake. By brute force, he shifted his thinking. Based on what he’d already seen tonight, what battle scenario had command cooked up for him? Would they be dumped into the back forty at Fort Campbell the way the other half of his team had been dumped at Bragg’s Range 37? At the other extreme, were they going to meet planes that would ship them all overseas tonight? That was unlikely as most of the big lifters—C-17s and C-5s capable of carting around multiple helos—were back at Fort Bragg.
That meant a ground action at Fort Campbell. What was Abby Rose like in real life, away from her helo?
Shit! Back exactly where he’d started.
9
All the way back to Fort Campbell, Abby felt even more edge-of-seat than usual from an NOE flight, which she hadn’t thought was possible. Waiting for the hammer to drop, on top of the strains of such advanced flying, had left her wiped out—but the hammer never fell. Not a peep from her radar and not a single word from Overwatch.
No new attack. No last second reroute. No surprise aircraft.
The second after it declared itself dead, the CCA had disappeared to parts unknown. Not that she was paranoid about what the Air Farce was up to, but she made sure to maintain an aerial dance with her sole remaining Little Bird—despite the added layer of complexity—in case the damn thing returned. It didn’t.
For a lack of any other instructions, she cleared her flight with the tower and landed once more at Fort Campbell, wheels down to the second in her slot. By the time she and Ethan had run the Shutdown checklist and she’d pulled her helmet and scrubbed a bit of life back into her scalp, Trisha O’Malley was standing front and center outside her windscreen.
Colonel Beale’s second-in-command was grinning like the evil red-headed demon she was. Pleasant, jovial, pretty, and utterly ruthless. Her breath blowing dragon’s steam in the predawn chill only added to the image.
“Looks like the debriefing is starting early,” Ethan kept his tone steady. Steadier than she felt anyway.
When someone pulled open her right-hand door, she almost tumbled out on top of him. MICH helmet with NVGs tipped back, sidearm in the middle of his vest for a quick draw, rifle over his shoulder—Derek Kylie. Now in the low glow of the field lights, she could see that unlike many D-boys who wore their beards past scraggly and into horrific, his was neatly trimmed. His lean face matched the rest of him, and she’d take his smile to mean that she hadn’t scared him off completely.
Too exhausted to notice more, she climbed down from her high seat and circled to face Trisha. They traded salutes. Then she looked over her shoulder. Not at Derek, but up at the sky. She’d been on the ground for over ninety seconds. The next Chinook in the flight should be landing by now but she spotted no running lights. No noise except the fuel truck approaching to top up her tanks and the light rumble of the DAGOR unloading down Charlene One’s rear ramp.
Trisha answered the question that Abby’s thoughts weren’t yet organized enough to ask. “Half didn’t meet the time limits, especially on the unplanned load up and load outs.”
Abby would have to remember to tell her crew chiefs they’d done good.
“The rest fell for the trap.”
Abby turned back to Trisha. Her brain was slow shifting out of her own tactical situation into the whole flight’s. “They decided that the drones projected by the CCA were real and got out of the air?”
Trisha nodded, her smile huge. “We have Chinook and Delta teams scattered all over farm fields from here to Bragg. The CCA worked the line from the rear the moment that you folks dropped off half of the D-boy and Ranger teams.”
“How many?” How many would be counted among the dead or captured.
“One successfully deployed to Fort Campbell.”
Abby looked around the tarmac, but hers was the only helo here. “Who else?”
Trisha pointed at her. “You spoiled my fun. Of those not disqualified for being too late, everyone else failed the CCA test. They either let the CCA integrate with their systems, so that the false drone readings appeared on their own equipment as well, or they trusted the CCA’s equipment over their own and dove for a safe landing. Only one person shot the Air Force bird.” Again the finger pointed at her chest.
Someone held up a hand for a high-five and she slapped it. Then she turned to see Derek grinning down at her. A single horse-hand taller than her own five-five, he looked as pleased as if he’d been the one flying.
“So, was it me or the CCA that you trusted less?” he asked.
