Athena Force: Books 1-6

by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann

  “You betcha, and I would suggest that you work on your Annie Oakley voice for when it’s your turn.”

  “Maybe we should change your call sign to Cowboy or Duke.”

  “Sounds great to me. I’ll happily ditch that other awful one y’all hung on me earlier.”

  “We’ll have a keg party soon to make you Cowboy for real.” Josie vowed to pick up a miniature ten-gallon hat for Wagner’s kid for Christmas to match the one he often wore. She turned to her sensor operator. “How do the sensors look?”

  “Everything is nominal here also,” Zeljak answered, mono-brow lowering with concentration.

  “Roger that, you run through your test cards and let me know if we need to modify the profile.”

  “Yes ma’am, I’ll keep you posted.”

  Josie cross-checked the instruments, then glanced over to see what the sensor operator had found to use for camera calibration. First he locked his infrared on a truck heading up the highway and insured the automatic tracking function was operational. Josie turned back to her own camera view. Horizon level. She scanned her readouts. Everything was still looking good and nary a peep from her cowboy.

  A low whistle from the sensor operator drew her eyes back to his monitors.

  “Holy crap.” Master Sergeant Zeljak waggled his thick dark brow. “Lookee there.”

  Josie’s fingers clenched around the stick. Things were skating along so well. Please Lord, don’t let them go to hell now, especially with her baby-sitter at her back. “Whatcha got, Sergeant?”

  “That SUV.” Zeljak nodded to his screens displaying feedback from cameras that could see for miles. “Parked all by its lonesome alongside that range.”

  Josie frowned. “Nobody drives out there.”

  “Exactly. I can only think of a couple of reasons somebody would go out there all alone on a lunch break.”

  She nodded. “Vandalism.”

  “Or sex.” Diego’s wry voice echoed from over her shoulder.

  Mr. Invisible? Not.

  Josie eyed the high-resolution image, camera zooming nearer to reveal…a very familiar red SUV, the color of Mike Bridges’s vehicle. Camera angles swooped to show…

  A license plate that read 1 Pilot.

  Zeljak pulled back on the angle to encompass the whole vehicle again. “Hey, maybe he had car trouble and is walking for help. We should scan up the road—”

  On cue, the SUV started rocking.

  It was almost funny. Almost. Bridges wasn’t doing anything illegal, but what piss-poor judgment on his part.

  Morel chuckled low behind her. Craig’s laughter blended in from the headset as he rode along.

  A grin twitched at the sensor operator’s face. “You know, I always wondered what he and that civilian employee from the next building over were doing on those long lunch breaks.”

  At least now she didn’t have to worry about whether or not Bridges was hitting on her. He was most definitely otherwise engaged.

  Zeljak glanced back at Diego. “Hope he finishes up in time for General Quincy’s briefing. It would be a shame if we all have to sit through the whole spiel and the boss doesn’t even notice. Maybe we ought to tell Wagner he doesn’t need to rush over from his flight after all—”

  “Sergeant,” Josie interrupted what was fast becoming a situation harmful to Bridges’s credibility. “I believe we should stop. The man’s entitled to his privacy.”

  “Hey, they’re out in the open on government land. They’ve waived any right to privacy. Maybe my wife and I ought to try the back-seat gig more often. God knows there’s not much privacy around my house with five teenagers and all their friends underfoot.” The master sergeant glanced back at Morel. “The boss has some staying power, I’ll give him that.”

  Heat burned her skin from embarrassment and more than a little anger. “Enough. Go look at something else. Anything else. Turn the camera forty degrees south. That’s an order.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He clicked through commands, spun dials. “I hear there’s a nudist colony out there that your reporter passenger got a special sideshow view of the other day. Maybe we should go check out that.”

  Heat clawed up her face again. She outranked the guy, but those old sergeants sure had a way of putting a junior officer in his or her place. “Thank you for the reminder, Sergeant, but we can skip that scenic tour today, as well.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Camera angles swung away, hangar images growing in size on the screens that were scheduled to show desert. Daily, technology on the camera imagery improved. What they could have done with this in the Middle East. Her U-2 flights could have been even more effective, some missions unnecessary altogether. If only her mother’s meticulous research could have been used.

  The urge to succeed charged through Josie stronger than ever, patience harder to find of late. But she couldn’t let the old impulsive Josie overpower her.

  She studied the video footage filling the monitors.

  “Stop!” she ordered, narrowing her eyes to better identify the flicker of movement by the hangar. A person.

  “Close-up, please.”

  The figure turned, as if sensing laser eyes on…her.

  Shannon Conner.

  Crap. Josie shot over her shoulder to Diego. “Call the base police. We’ve got a security breach.”

  Birddog secured his flight-suit zipper. Tab down. Uniform smooth and crisp in spite of a morning spent out in the California desert wind.

  Locking his vehicle, he tucked into the gusts and strode toward the beige building at the Palmdale testing facility. He had important people to see, meetings and briefings to attend. And during every minute he would enjoy the gratification of knowing Josie Lockworth’s version of the Predator stealth project was that much closer to self-destruction.

  The reporter was now well on her way off the base with the information he’d planted for her television exposé. Excitement chugged through him. He was so close, details locked and loaded. Grit-laden air itched along his wired nerves.

  Morel was proving more vigilant than expected in his investigative role. Damn him, he’d been chosen because he was a screwed-up burnout. If Morel began posing too much of a threat with his thoroughness, a few reminders of his past should send the man diving back into a keg of beer.

  And Josie Lockworth?

  He didn’t want to hurt her. Quite the opposite.

  Birddog shoved through the door into the narrow corridor toward the auditorium, exchanging salutes. He scanned the women filing into the rows of seats, wondering if he dared risk taking one of them up on the offers that sometimes came his way.

  He shouldn’t be this damned hungry and unsatisfied, not when he enjoyed regular sex. Except lately sex offered only physical release without satisfaction, as long as the wrong woman writhed beneath him. It was this whole damn project that had him so touchy. He checked his zipper tab again, straightened his flight scarf.

  If he could have her one time, the woman he really wanted, maybe then she would leave his system and stop haunting his thoughts, tainting his every success because it was never enough without that final victory.

  The triumph of possessing her just once.

  Chapter 6

  Josie packed her flight bag, beyond ready to clear this boring mandatory briefing from General Quincy. Two more minutes and she could return to her office, where Diego waited, sorting through her paperwork unsupervised.

  At least she wouldn’t be alone with him. She and Craig needed to write up the quick-look report on the morning flight before he could go home to romance his pregnant wife.

  And before Josie could dig deeper into what Shannon Conner had been doing at Palmdale—again.

  Security police had descended on Shannon, a most satisfying moment even viewed through remote cameras. Too bad it had ended so fast. Shannon had presented an official base pass and wasn’t technically in a restricted area. Since a speedy initial scan of her background hadn’t produced anything suspicious,
they’d escorted her out the front gate, assuming she was nothing more than another scoop-hungry reporter. Not an uncommon occurrence around a government testing facility.

  But someone must have vouched for her. Who? The SPs—security police—weren’t ponying up the info. Josie had sources of her own via her network of Athena friends.

  She snapped her flight bag closed with more force than needed. Making tracks toward the auditorium exit, she nearly slammed into Major Bridges as he slid out of the back row.

  “Lockworth, just who I was looking for. How’d today’s test flight go?”

  Josie didn’t dare risk a look at Craig or Master Sergeant Zeljak behind her, even though she could imagine their barely restrained smiles. She kept her eyes plastered on Bridges’s face, his dark hair ever so slightly mussed as if from a frantic lover’s hands.

  How freaking embarrassing. “You’ll have my quick-look report by the end of business today, sir. But overall, it was an excellent test run with Wagner strapped in, me flying the stick. The propeller modifications performed above expectations. We’ll break for a week while the contractors rewrite the software to optimize the adapted control program, but overall things are moving ahead of schedule. And I can review and update all test data in the interim.”

  Bridges crossed his arms over his chest. “Actually, you’ll be TDY. Thanks to the flu outbreak, we’re short a flyer for the Red Flag war game exercises in Nevada. Your down time makes you the perfect candidate to stand in for a few days. And Morel can weed through the backlog of files while we’re gone.”

  TDY? Now? In the middle of her test? Josie shook off shock and frustration. “TDY to Nellis?”

  “We take off late tomorrow afternoon. Wagner’s following the next day, as well.”

  Unease prickled. “Sir, I’m really swamped here, especially with Morel on my back.” Gulp. Now wasn’t that an image to rock her concentration? “Isn’t there someone else who could go in my place?”

  “Apparently you’re healthier than most of the base. You’re it, Lockworth, or I would have chosen someone else from the start.”

  A good soldier knew when to back down. “I should start packing then.”

  “Who can argue with a free trip to Vegas?”

  She wanted to. Leaving her office unattended with a congressional spy underfoot and Shannon Conner somehow gaining free run of hangars made her itchy. Again, it seemed the fates were conspiring against her.

  Or someone a little more earthly bound.

  What was Bridges thinking, sending her off at such a critical time with a congressional investigation underway? He could tap someone from another base with only minimal extra effort. She didn’t like this one damn bit. Not that she had a choice.

  She would have to use the TDY time to her advantage by packing up her research notes to go through the same words she’d read a hundred times already in an effort to find out who’d sabotaged Zoe Lockworth’s career. And she would damn well rebuild her defenses when it came to Diego Morel and discovering any agendas he might or might not have.

  Josie hurtled through the sky in her T-38, clouds stroking past her clear canopy. Any other time she would enjoy the edgy flying in Red Flag mock war exercises. Right now, she just wanted to get back to her primary mission.

  Gripping the stick, she held steady on her speed. Major Bridges flew beside her in a two-ship of T-38s in the faux war. The small jets were pretending to be enemy red-force cruise missiles. She and Bridges would assume a missile profile and flight path to see how far they could penetrate before blue-force defenses halted them.

  Josie tucked in tighter on Bridges’s wing in fingertip formation. She scanned the horizon with eagle eyes as she knew he was doing in synch, looking for an aggressor squadron F-16 that would act as the launch aircraft for their flight-simulating cruise missiles.

  As in all aviation, this was a contest. A challenge.

  Josie caught a glint off a canopy out the corner of her eye. Ooh-rah. She’d won a round over her boss in sighting the fighter first.

  Victory pulsing, she thumbed her radio on. “Tally ho, Boss. Viper at my two-o’clock about ten miles out.”

  No doubt, Bridges shouted damn at the loss before keying up his radio to acknowledge her transmission.

  “Roger, P.C.” He brought the nose of his T-38 up and began a slight turn to intercept the F-16. “All right, spread formation now and joining on the Viper as briefed.”

  She bumped her throttles and maneuvered abreast of her leader’s aircraft. Screaming through the air, the two T-38s in tandem joined up fifty feet off each wing of the F-16. Josie turned her head toward the “Mother Ship,” awaiting a hand signal indicating they’d been “missile launched.”

  Excitement clenched as she focused, winding tighter, ready to spring. Damn straight she could punt Diego Morel and all the questions he raised right out of her head. She’d only needed a reminder of why she enjoyed her job. Maybe she’d spent too much time in an office, missing the exhilaration without realizing it until something—or somebody—came along and shook her snow globe a little.

  This should be fun. Flat out, ass-kicking fun. No high-tech fancy terrain following or avoidance systems in these modified trainer planes. Just her hands and brain to keep her from smacking into the desert at five hundred knots.

  While she waited for the launch signal, she ran another cross-check of her instruments, read her fuel state just as Bridges’s voice barked through the radio. “P.C., fuel state?”

  “Damn!” He’d beaten her to the mark this time. She keyed up her microphone and reported, “On the curve with twenty-one-hundred pounds.”

  Reaching, she pulled her harness tighter in anticipation of the roller-coaster ride ahead. God, she hoped the radar games didn’t log a shoot down before she lowered to two hundred feet. She wanted this flight. She needed the electrifying release of full out speed and air and edginess. Testing her mettle and winning.

  She trained her eyes on the Viper pilot and squirmed in her seat like a kid ready for recess. “Come on,” she muttered. “Come on. Come on, damn it.”

  The gloved hand of the fighter pilot came up.

  Josie inhaled, held her breath. The pilot’s arm pumped twice, signaling the start of the surrogate missile mission.

  She launched. Speed, adrenaline, all-out thrill punched through her. Starting her anti-G straining maneuver, she rolled inverted, pulling toward the ground. Blood rushed down toward her ass while the G-suit inflated to push the blood back up to her brain.

  Roll out.

  Roll out.

  Training overrode the buzz of increasing dizziness. Two thousand feet. She leveled out above the terrain. The G-suit deflated. Gs diminished. Her breathing regulated back to a normal rhythm. Adrenaline gushed harder and faster than the blood shouting through her veins.

  She milked the aircraft down to the two-hundred-foot en route altitude and played tag with the rocks, kissing each one with the ripples of air jettisoning from her engines. Hell, yeah. Bring it on.

  She glanced north to check Bridges flying a similar path four miles away. No shoot-down yet. Let the fun continue. Josie scanned ahead, behind, searching for blue-force fighters coming to terminate her “cruise missile.”

  All was well so far, exhilaration without any seriously hairy crap to scare a year off her life. With so many planes in the air engaging, evading, attacking, accidents were a constant hazard. Bottom line, they would be more effective in real-life scenarios, saving more lives—especially civilians—long-term.

  Jogging north to avoid a town, she kept her eyes peeled. High and ahead she caught sight of contrails streaking the sky. Mountains peaked ahead, leading her into a winding path. She was so damned low she could read the road signs, a green one looming, lettered, The Extraterrestrial Highway.

  She chuckled. No flying saucers yet.

  The sun blotted. Her aircraft fell into a shadow. “What the hell?”

  Her head snapped up. Through her clear canopy, she looked. Not
a spaceship, but still a huge aircraft fell out of the sky toward her.

  The damn thing was seconds away from landing on top of her plane.

  “Sheee-it,” she spit as she racked the aircraft into a turn. Hard. Harder. As hard as she could take, tearing away. Putting her belly up to the other aircraft blinded her from seeing how close the intruder was to splattering her into nothingness.

  Josie keyed up her radio and yelled, “Knock it off, knock it off, knock it off! Bull’s-eye one-ten at thirty.”

  Red Flag control echoed her knock-it-off call over all frequencies as she rolled her aircraft level and took a long look back at the other aircraft. A dark B-1 Bomber scooted away in the opposite direction with a red-force F-16 climbing. The fighter must have jumped the bomber at high altitude, forcing the bomber into a speed-down to the deck to try and evade.

  Which had landed him right in her flight path.

  Her pulse hammered in her ear, everything inside her shaking harder than the rattling aircraft after the near miss with the Grim Reaper. She shut down her emotions, called on training to assume command of her hands and focused on getting herself back on terra firma.

  “P.C.,” Bridges barked over the headset. “Status report. Over.”

  “All’s cool.” Thank God. “My hydraulics are reading a little low though. I may have overstressed the plane.”

  “Roger that. You need to reroute and land, ASAP.”

  No kidding. But at least she would be landing on her wheels instead of her face. “Copy, Boss, calling in for an emergency landing.”

  Radio calls and clearance passed in a daze as her brain went on autopilot, her body overrevved. Finally her wheels touched down at Nellis AFB, Bridges right on her tail, landing seconds behind her.

  Once she’d parked her plane, unstrapped and removed her helmet, the full extent of what could have happened jolted through her. She’d been in tense situations in test and battle, but never anything that close.

  She hauled herself up and out of the cockpit, deplaning down the ladder hung on the side.