by Lee Stephen
It didn’t matter that Scott knew he wasn’t the mission—to see the Pariah again was like seeing a savior. As the cannon fired on, he crawled as fast as he could toward the balcony. Esther met him halfway.
“What were you doing?” Scott asked her over the noise.
“Saving you!” Grabbing him by the shoulder, she lifted him to his feet when the Pariah stopped firing. The transport whipped around violently, skidding in the air. Inside the open rear bay, the abled operatives waited with weapons aimed.
Scott blinked as he saw them. They had to be bluffing. There was no way they’d actually open fire with him and Esther right there in the thick of—
The barrels of their E-35s and M-19s flashed orange. The crack of Jayden’s sniper rifle cut through the engine noise. All at once, Scott and Esther were enveloped—but not touched—by suppression fire. Still, the words flew out of Scott’s mouth. “What in the hell are they doing?”
“Saving us!” Esther answered. “Lend a little trust to your trusty team!” Escorting him to the ramp, she grabbed him by the shoulder. “Now listen to me, Scott James Remington. I didn’t leap out of that sodding plane for you to fall to your death, so make that bloody jump!”
He intended to—pain be damned. Inhaling sharply, Scott charged for the rail. His leg throbbed in the kind of way that said, stop what you’re doing right now, but he pressed on. Leaping atop the rail, Scott propelled himself with everything he had in him toward the troop bay. Mid-leap, he made the mistake of looking down.
He could see the police cars beneath the Vulture. He could see their pulsing red and blue lights. He could even see the minuscule people, like specks amid the model of a city street. In that split second, panic hit him. He felt himself falling to his death.
Then, he felt hands.
Just as Scott reached—barely—the lip of the ramp, Javon and William grabbed him and yanked him aboard in a way that was so forceful, he felt powerless to even brace for it. He was thrust into the waiting mob. Everyone immediately shifted their focus from him to Esther. Scott did the same.
Esther landed cleanly on the ramp, where the protective grasps of Javon and William yanked her aboard. The saturated scout slid next to Scott as the crew continued to pepper the twelfth-floor apartment. Slowly, the rear bay door lifted.
There was no hesitation from Travis. The ramp had barely made it halfway up when he yanked the stick sideways, sending the transport swinging around and then soaring forward. Everyone who wasn’t holding on was flung against the door, just as it sealed.
Unclamping his helmet, Scott pulled it off and tossed it to the side. His heart was pounding, and he was breathing like a man outrunning his fate. Looking up, he saw that he was face-to-face with Esther. Through dripping lashes, a grin stretched across her face. Reaching for her, Scott grabbed her by the back of her head and pulled her to him so that their foreheads came to rest. Running his fingers through her wet hair, he closed his eyes. “Thank you,” he said, still gasping for breath. “Thank you.”
Her own eyes closed, she clutched him around the neck. “Do not ever do that again.” Despite the words, she huffed out a laugh. “Okay?”
“I promise.”
“Mean it.”
Laughing, Scott said, “I sodding mean it.” His eyes opened. When he caught sight of the Texan watching them, he halfway rolled his eyes. “All right, all right,” he said in Jayden’s direction before pulling away from Esther. The scout’s arms slid from his neck. “Go back to your boyfriend.”
Esther’s smile widened briefly. Offering Scott a parting wink, she turned to the Texan. “Oh, lay off it!” she said, shoving him. “We were having a bloody moment.”
Scott pushed himself up from his seat as David stepped forward. “Hey! You all right?” the older man asked.
“I am…” For a moment, he was at a loss for words. “I’m alive.” But for how long? Remembering the significance of their situation, Scott looked up at the cockpit. “Are we still tracking Superwolves?”
“Yeah,” Travis answered, “and they’re coming in hot.” Clicking on the cabin speakers, the pilot addressed the crew as a whole. “Everyone strap in and hold on!”
David tapped Scott on the side. He nodded toward the pilot. “He was gonna leave both of y’all before we made him turn around.”
“And he’d have been right to,” Scott said, looking his friend and mentor squarely in the eyes. “I wasn’t the mission. Travis did what I ordered him to do.”
“Well, you’re gonna have to explain that to everybody else, then—because right now, half the troop bay is about ready to throw him out the back door.”
The older man’s seriousness was evident. Order or not, Travis’s leaving Scott behind was something that’d affected the team. It was time to make something clear. “Navarro!” His volume was intentionally bellowing. Scott wanted everybody to hear this. As the troop bay turned their focus to Scott, so did Travis, who looked like he was bracing to be chewed out. Not this time. “What you did was exactly what needed to be done. If I order you to leave, don’t let them change your mind again.” His focus shifted from the pilot to the onlookers. They all needed to hear this. “What we’re after is more important than any one of us.”
Esther’s eyes remained on Scott, the British scout’s face stoic.
“Don’t second-guess anyone who follows an order,” Scott said, face stern as the Fourteenth listened. “That’s an order. Understood?” Though their voices were low, a small chorus of yes, sirs and da, captains came to him.
The whole while Scott spoke, Natalie looked at him curiously. In that moment, she was almost indistinguishable from the crew. She was as attuned as all the rest of them.
Drawing in a breath, Scott grabbed hold of the sides of his harness. The Fourteenth was two Superwolves away from escaping Krasnoyarsk. If they could pull it off, Northern Forge awaited. Everything rested in Travis’s hands.
It was time for the Pariah to fly.
2
Saturday, March 17th, 0012 NE
1047 hours
Krasnoyarsk, Russia
SCOTT COULD FEEL the Pariah’s velocity. They had flown this fast before—the Fourteenth was no stranger to emergency flights—but this was letting off an altogether different energy. Briefly, he surveyed his crew. Everyone was strapped into their harnesses. Though no one spoke, everyone looked alarmed.
In the cockpit, Travis and Tiffany talked back and forth. Neither’s voice was raised, neither sounded worked up. They were discussing treetops, angles, and fuel ranges. It was all business like Scott had never heard from the cockpit of the Pariah before. Somehow, that made it more alarming. He could feel his blood pressure soaring. He wished someone’s voice would rise—that someone would shout. This quiet was unbearable.
“Veck!” said Travis.
Scott was wrong—the quiet was better.
“All right, we need to do something here,” Travis said, the pilot’s voice downright quivering.
Tiffany was equally panicked. “Is there some place to land?”
“That’s not exactly an option!”
“Well, we’d better come up with new options, fast!”
Scott needed to know what was going on. “Talk to me, Travis!” The command was ignored as the two pilots continued to feverishly chatter. “Talk to me, Travis!”
A second later, Travis got on the comm. His voice was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane. “Everyone, get ready for some turbulence.”
Removing his safety harness, Scott stood up and leaned into the cockpit, his eyes searching out the radar screen. When he saw it, his stomach fell. Plainly identifiable, the pair of blips that were the EDEN Superwolves were straight behind the Pariah—and gaining rapidly. Veck was right.
They have to know Natalie is in here—they have to want to keep us alive for her. They wouldn’t just knowingly shoot down a Vulture with a hostage on board. “It wouldn’t make sense for them to kill us, right?”
“Tracking us is killi
ng us,” Travis answered. “What do you think’s going to happen if EDEN suddenly has a live feed of our position?”
EDEN would follow them until they ran out of fuel. They’d simply wait for the Pariah to land then assault them on the ground. They’d be facing a dozen units—a hundred units, all raining down on their position. They wouldn’t stand a chance. And that was if these Superwolves didn’t just blow them out of the sky. “What are our options, Trav?”
Scott could hear Travis swallowing. “Sir, I don’t think we have any.”
There had to be options. There were always options!
“I think this might be it,” said Travis.
Tiffany drew in a breath. “Give me the stick.”
Blinking, Travis looked at her. “What?”
“Give me the stick,” she said again, facing him.
“Why in the hell would I give you the stick? What are you going to do that’s any different from me?” From the Pariah’s cockpit, a piercing alarm resonated. “Holy veck, they have missile lock!”
This was it. The Superwolves were going to fire on them. They didn’t care that Natalie was inside. They were going to do the same thing they did with Falcon Platoon.
“I don’t have time to argue, just give me the stick, Travis!” Tiffany screamed.
From her harness, Catalina shouted desperately, “Give her the stick!”
Scott listened to the exchange as it went back and forth, increasing with vehemence every passing second as the missile lock tone continued.
“Everyone, brace!” Travis said through the Pariah’s speakers. “I think we’re about to get hit!”
“Travis, if you want to survive, give me the vecking stick now!”
Tiffany screamed with total conviction Scott’s decision was made. “Travis, give her the stick!”
“Sir, there’s—”
“That’s an order!” he said again as he strapped back into his harness.
Travis reached forward, his fingers flicking up the plastic cover for flight control transfer. He flipped the switch. “The stick is yours.”
The Valley Girl’s hand snatched the joystick on her side of the cockpit, and she yanked it backward with full force. The Pariah’s nose swung upward as its rear thrusters burst with fury. Every operative in the back was thrown toward the rear door, their harnesses the only things holding them at bay. In the pilot’s seat, Travis was slammed back into his chair cushion, his eyes widening as he watched the Pariah’s view go vertical. “What are you doing?”
The Pariah leaned backward, twisting with forward momentum until it was at the height of inversion. Rolling the Vulture around in a textbook Immelmann maneuver—a vertical rolling turn—Tiffany sent it screaming straight for the Superwolves. “Fighting.”
“You’re—you’re what?”
Tiffany’s eyes darted to the Pariah’s cannon readout, which displayed an ammunition capacity of thirty-one percent. In that same instant, the tone of the missile lock alarm shifted.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!” Travis screamed.
“What the hell is that?” Scott asked.
Travis was hysterical. “They’re firing! They’re firing! We’re dead!”
With one hand on the joystick and the other on weapons, Tiffany watched the four tiny streaks approaching from the distance. The blonde’s eyes narrowed.
“What are you doing?” Travis asked. “Why aren’t you doing anything?”
“I need them to get closer.”
Travis blinked. “You need them to get—wait, the missiles?”
Slamming the joystick down, the Pariah rolled into a high-angle dive. The troop bay occupants collectively gasped as inertia tried to fling them to the ceiling. Despite the force of the dive, their harnesses held.
Staring steadily at the fast-approaching earth, Tiffany said, “We’re closing the gap, taking away the missiles’ ability to correct fast enough to avoid hitting the ground. It’s one of the ways Couriers avoid getting hit.” As the missiles drew within strike distance, diving down to intercept the Pariah as it neared the ground, Tiffany pushed the throttle to full blast. The Pariah’s engines erupted, their thrust pinning the two pilots into their chairs. Leveling off just before impact, Tiffany squeaked the Pariah beneath the downward-soaring missiles. They collided into the ground behind the transport, exploding in a series of four fiery plumes.
Yanking the stick back up, Tiffany sent the Pariah screaming back to the Superwolves’ altitude. The gap between the Superwolves and the Pariah was closing rapidly. Only seconds before the aircrafts would have merged, Tiffany jerked the stick to the left just before the leftmost Superwolf pulled the same maneuver. As their trajectories crossed, Tiffany tapped the trigger, sending a burst of nose-mounted cannon fire right into the center of the Superwolf’s hull. The Superwolf zipped past the Pariah and out of view behind it. She pulled the stick again, swinging the Vulture around to pursue.
Beside her, Travis was going nuts. “How did you do that? How’d you know he was going to do that?”
“Because it was exactly what he was supposed to do!” As the Pariah leveled off, the Superwolf she’d shot could be seen spinning toward the earth in smoky twirls. “He was going for an outer circle flow relative to his wingman, it’s basic. I just cut him off.”
“But how do you know that?”
Her blond strands soaked with sweat, she glared at her counterpart. “Because I’m a fighter pilot.”
Travis blinked right back at her. The pilot had no words.
The other Superwolf completed its turn first; the advanced tactical fighter was beading straight for the Vulture. “Hold on!” Tiffany screamed over the speakers, dropping the Pariah’s nose and spiraling the aircraft downward just as the Superwolf opened fire. Bullets peppered the Pariah’s underbelly as it fell into a downward defensive scissor.
Scott was on the verge of puking, and by the look of it, so was everyone else. Their bodies slamming back and forth like harnessed ragdolls, they stared at one another wide-eyed as the Vulture entered full-fledged dogfight mode.
“Follow me!” Tiffany screamed at the Superwolf. The moment the EDEN fighter began its downward turn, Tiffany hit the brakes and swung the Pariah’s nose out of its scissor. Overshooting the slower aircraft, the Superwolf came out of its first turn right in front of the Vulture. For a second time, Tiffany turned to pursue, kicking the thrusters into full speed as the Superwolf straightened out—moving out of firing range within half a second. Turning on the comm, Tiffany addressed the EDEN pilot on his own channel. “Hey, thruster-jockey, you’re getting whipped by a girl!”
“What are you doing?” Travis asked.
“Taunting him.”
The other pilot shook his head. “But why?”
Seconds after the insult went through, the Superwolf looped back. “To draw him back in.” Leveling the Pariah off at low altitude, Tiffany once again sent the Vulture screaming forward—the Superwolf in hot pursuit.
“Why in the world would you want to draw him back in?”
“Our only choices are to outrun or outgun!” answered the blonde. “That first option ain’t happening.”
From the troop bay, Boris’s voice cut through the noise as he hollered toward the cockpit. “How close in can you bring him?”
“What?” yelled Tiffany back to him.
“I said, how close can you—” The technician’s voice was cut off as Tiffany pulled an evasive maneuver. The Superwolf was firing its cannons behind them.
As soon as the Pariah leveled off, Scott, between Boris and the cockpit, said to the pilots, “He asked how close you can bring him in!” He then glared at Boris. “But I’d guess pretty vecking close!”
“I can bring him in close! Why?” asked Tiffany.
“I used Antipov’s kit to hack into Cairo’s systems! Maybe I can use it to hack into the Superwolf, too.” Unstrapping his harness, Boris scrambled across the troop bay, where the bag with his technician’s kit from Antipov was sliding around.
“Please don’t move crazy—” Boris was flung across the troop bay as Tiffany bucked the nose upward, hitting the brakes again and rolling the Vulture to the right.
“Hold on!” she shouted.
It was far too late for that. Boris was careening off walls, flailing his arms wildly as the sound of gunfire zipped past the Pariah. The Vulture went almost vertical, and the next thing everyone in the troop bay saw, Boris’s back was slamming against the closed rear bay door. When the ship leveled off again, Boris fell upside down on his head. The technician groaned as he wobbled to his feet.
Streaks of orange flew past the cockpit. Gripping the airbrake again, Tiffany drew in a breath.
“What are you about to do?” asked Travis warily.
Engaging the airbrake again, Tiffany dipped the Pariah’s nose down. The Vulture’s forward thrusters killed, its rear thrusters bursting with full force. In a span of a few seconds, the Pariah had gone from full-speed ahead to bucking backward like a wild bronco—a maneuver the lightweight Superwolf was incapable of matching. In the same instant that the fighter went streaking past the Pariah, Boris flew headlong into the cockpit, technician’s kit in hand as he slammed into the cockpit glass.
“You okay?” Tiffany asked. The discombobulated technician held a thumbs up. Igniting the forward thrusters again, the blonde fired off a wild blast of nose-mounted cannon fire, the Pariah’s bullets zipping into the distance nowhere near the Superwolf. Seconds later, the agile fighter had once again streaked out of range. She looked at Boris. “Whatever crazy thing you want to try, you’ve got about twenty seconds to try it! What do we need to do to make this work?”
The sweating technician was already activating the kit. “Get close, stay close, and make him talk to you.”
“Talk to me? Why?” Kit in hand, Boris looked around frantically for a place to secure himself. After a moment of him standing around awkwardly, Tiffany yelled at Travis, “Go sit in the back! I need Boris up here.”
