I Own the Dawn

Chapter 2

2

“When did the desert get so frickin’ cold?” Kee cinched down the cuffs of her flight suit to cut any chance of airflow up her arms. Slick, fingerless gloves helped, but she had to huff on her fingertips to make sure they had feeling. Two hours cruising in the dark and all she had to show for it was a chill halfway to frostbite. She tapped her rifle case for the third time where she’d secured it against the bulkhead. Felt good to have it near her, though on a DAP Hawk the chances of using it were close to—

A low laugh on the headset in her helmet, a notch louder than the turbine whine and rotor thud that was part of a Hawk ride. She’d guess Staff Sergeant Big Bad John Wallace, her fellow crew chief. One serious piece of particularly large black dude with a deep boomer of a voice to match.

“At this altitude, we often experience a sixty-to-seventy-degree temperature swing day to night,” Captain Stevenson said. Okay, she didn’t have their laughs sorted out yet. He didn’t act put out by her earlier screwup so she did her best to stop kicking herself over it.

“Oh, really? Do tell, Professor, sir.” She’d tagged him with it and he hadn’t argued. He had started answering to it with those perfect manners of his.

“With the low moisture and thin air—”

“Less chatter.” That was Queen Hoity—though Kee’d been smart enough to keep that tag to herself—sounding all put out. Clearly someone she’d rather have in Kee’s seat had left the Black Hawk. Well, tough. Sergeant Kee Smith nursed the copilot-side gun now, right behind Professor Stevenson III’s seat, and they wouldn’t be prying her out anytime soon.

“And Smith?”

“Yes, ma’am?” She turned to look over her shoulder between the pilots’ seats. Beale was looking straight at her with the night-vision goggles focused on her like the glowing green eyes of a ghoul. NVGs looked alien no matter how often you saw them.

“Show some goddamn respect unless you want to walk home.” Major Beale’s voice was far chillier than the high-altitude desert air.

Kee felt as if she’d been kicked, again. Disrespecting a captain. Twice. What had she been thinking?

“Yes, ma’am. Sorry, sir.” And she focused back outside over her gun. How could she have been so stupid. Captain Stevenson had seemed so… pleasant? Easy going? But this was the Army and Major Beale had made it clear exactly how she ran her helo. This wasn’t any old forward infantry squad who didn’t care how you acted as long as you shot straight. She wasn’t in the regular Army now, she was in Special Operations Forces and had to keep reminding herself to act it.

Kee desperately sought something else to concentrate on other than her current failings, but not a damn thing was happening out there.

The slip of a girl moved quickly between one rock and the next. Twice the helicopter had passed near. As her parents had taught her, she’d never looked at them, never tried to see. Instead, she hid behind a rock, shifting to make sure she stayed hidden from view. “Flying Death could see in the dark,” her parents had told her. Now they were dead, leaving a hole in her chest that was bigger than her heart, and she had to remember the lessons for herself without reminding.

She swallowed hard against an aching throat. She hadn’t found water since last night. But she hadn’t found food in four days. Her stomach was past growling. It simply hurt all the time.

Once the helicopter moved away, she edged forward again and peered around the rock. Men had driven a pickup truck up here, high into the mountains, driven close by her. They had then parked it and walked away, hiding themselves out of sight. She watched for a long time, but no one moved near the truck. Maybe, just maybe, they had left food or water there.

It was close enough to reach in a quick dash. She could get there, grab any food, and get away with no one the wiser.

Still in a squat, she raised to her toes, her bare feet aching against the cold rock.

Before she ran, she listened one last time.

The helicopter was returning. She eased back, resting her heels on the hard stone with a shiver. Again she must wait. Before they were gunned down, her parents had taught her how to wait.

She was very good at it.

Kee rubbed her eyes. Hours of night patrol and nothing to show for it. Tonight’s briefing included line patrol of a no-fly zone. She hadn’t latched into rumor central yet, but she’d bet something was going down elsewhere on the line. Real common to have a legman out to watch for a flanking maneuver. We push in one place, bad guys squeeze out in the other place.

Bet they pulled line watch a lot in this bird. Major Muscle being protective of his wife with his assignments and all. Kee’d have to wait for the stray bad guy instead of the main action. Once she nailed a few, maybe Major Muscle would transfer her somewhere real.

Over chow before the preflight briefing she’d confirmed that Major Mark Henderson and Major Emily Beale had recently tied the golden noose around their throats, stateside. Some big deal. Big John had said the President served as best man. When she’d asked president of what, he’d clammed up and given her a look like she was dumber than stupid.

Well screw him, too. Two months ago she’d been scratching her way through house-tall blackberry bushes on a ten-day training mission in the Washington State rain forest.

“Light up two o’clock low.” Kee snapped it out before her mind consciously registered the sudden movement, then a bright splash of green streaked across her night vision. If she hadn’t had the night-vision binoculars flipped down into position, she might not have seen anything at all before they were all dead.

She toggled off the safety. Her gun spun up and she had the spot tracked as the helo slammed down and sideways. The streak of green light, hot across her night vision, shot past where they’d been moments earlier. RPG. Nasty piece of hardware. Rocket-propelled grenade, cost less than her sidearm and excelled at taking out forty-million-dollar helos. If they’d been fifty meters closer or she’d been a half-second slower, they’d be hurting.

The harness that kept her strapped to her seat jerked against her shoulder and crotch as the captain stood the Hawk on her nose. The Professor was better than Kee’d guessed. Queen Hoity was probably watching the instruments and crapping her pants. Sure, Beale was the legend, but Kee couldn’t picture Major Hoity as a hard-ass pilot.

Archie wasn’t running, he was dropping right down on their heads. A bit of that hidden steel coming out. Nice.

Kee considered letting the pilot know she had the target, had picked out a car-shaped heat signature clear in her night-vision gear to track as reference, forty yards from the firing point she’d first spotted. But you were supposed to have the target you called without telling anyone. It was her job to have it wired. She did, so she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t have a line on the shooter yet.

It wouldn’t take much to slip the helo around so that Big John had the target instead of her, but the captain wasn’t going there. Decent.

“Jeep?” Queen Hoity, not the Prof. Only conversation gonna happen at this point had to do with the target, not Mr. Bad Guy’s choice of ride.

“It’s…” Damn, which way was north? “…at ten o’clock. In the rocks beside the road. Two rotors out.” About a hundred and change feet. You learned that pilots wanted all distances in the size of their rotor-blade sweep. Gave them comfort they weren’t about to hit anything.

Jeep? Kee spared a glance. Squared-off hood, the green glow of the infrared heat signature was well spread; there half an hour, less than two. Beale knew her heat signatures at least. That was something.

“I don’t see it. Bury them on my mark. Two…one…” Kee never heard the “mark” as she unleashed the Minigun on the point she’d picked out in the dark. Quick one-second bursts to save ammo, a hundred rounds of flying death in each volley tore at the rocks. The tracers lit the area enough that she could see where they must be hiding, a narrow crevice among the boulders.

The Professor swung the Hawk farther around, opening the target up for her. A searing flash somewhere down by Kee’s feet announced a rocket was away.

Two seconds later all hell broke loose as the Jeep disintegrated in a huge plume. Way more flash than just their own rocket and the target’s gas tank. Mr. Baddies had more explosives aboard the vehicle.

Kee slapped the night vision aside as the Jeep’s gasoline tank set off a secondary plume, bathing the area in blinding light. She could feel the heat blast on her face as they practically flew through the rising flames.

There, visible now that they’d come around, three men down and bloody, and a fourth with a launcher. Reloaded and headed back onto his shoulder.

She opened up and laid in hard. In the first second, the only man still standing was pinned to a boulder by her fire¸ the RPG launcher flailing out of control as the bullets tore him apart. Three seconds later she nailed something that didn’t appreciate it and their hideout disappeared in the glare of another explosion.

Archie slammed the Hawk over and circled the other way.

“Check it, John.” Ms. Hoity again.

For a second Kee felt the fighting heat rise. She didn’t need checking. She’d nailed the bastards. Then she remembered. Fresh eyes. Not blinded by rocket launches and muzzle glare.

One circle at hard g’s, jamming her down into her seat. It blew the breath out of her. Though the Black Hawk laid so far over onto its right side that even aiming low, Kee could only see night sky. So, she’d watch the night sky for unfriendlies until landscape came back into view. Nothing up there but a couple stars. Moments ago the mountain night was covered with sheets of glittering stars. Yup, her own vision would be shot for another thirty seconds at least. Good call having the other crew chief check it out.

“Looks clean.” John called out. Damn straight. She’d done good.

With a hard snap the helicopter leveled out and pummeled away from the site nose down.

“Hang on.” That was definitely Big John.

Hang on. She didn’t have any choice, harnessed in and hands clamped on the gun. So what the—

Her gut slammed one way as her body slammed the other. If her eyes could have bugged out of her head, they would have. Despite the warning, no way two years of training flights had prepared her for that move. And those trainers were brutal. The Professor had serious moxie. And the souped-up MH-60M packed a punch.

Turned around hard, the Hawk tipped nose down and roared back the way they’d come.

She flipped the night-vision binoculars down in front of her visor. Leaning out her side shooting window, Kee scanned for any other nasties. If the Professor was seriously good, he’d fly exactly over the burning Jeep so that the flames didn’t zap his gunners’ night vision.

Give him another point. Kee caught only a bit of side glow from the fire. There, she could see where she’d set off the secondary explosion by nailing the shooters. Four bodies, maybe five, buncha pieces, hard to tell. Fifty feet, there lay…

“A single perp, plus one rotor, curled up, not spread-eagled.” A spread-eagled stance, whether standing or prone, would indicate someone trying to steady themselves if directing a weapon. Curled up meant hurt or scared.

Usually.

The Hawk twisted on its tail again and slammed downward. Five feet up, the Hawk’s blades roared as they dug in and the wheels touched perfectly.

Kee slid open the cargo bay door.

Whoever was curled up was damn small. A kid? Gone fetal, wearing the white broadcloth of a poor villager, and less than five feet away.

“Grab him.”

Kee slapped her harness release, snapped a three-meter monkey line to her vest so that she couldn’t get left behind, and jumped out. She snagged the kid as he tried to crawl away. Must weigh about ten ounces. She slid her hands down the body, chest rounded beneath the thin, cotton wrap. Girl not boy, and not as young as her size implied. No hidden hardware, hands empty, a hard grab found no weapon clenched between her legs and confirmed the gender. The girl batted at Kee’s hands like moth wings.

Kee tossed her aboard and dove in behind as the Professor hammered the Hawk upward.

Only when she was securing their prisoner at the back of the bay did her brain register what her eyes had seen while she’d squatted over the girl.

The Professor leaning out his door, his FN SCAR carbine covering her, his NVGs down and bathing his face in a green glow. Above him, their backup team, a standard K Hawk, slewed into place with a hard hammer of blades, double-checking the area from on high.

If the captain was watching her, that meant Beale was piloting, had been piloting. So, the woman did know how to fly. To really fly. And the Professor? He hadn’t looked like an uptown wimp, but rather a guardian angel hovering over her.

As she clawed back to her post against the helo’s climb and harnessed in, she decided it made perfect sense that an angel in her world had the glowing eyes of night vision and stood ready to unleash hellfire from his hands.

Not too shabby, Professor.