A Time for Patriots

“Get out of here, Macomber — this isn’t for you,” Chastain snapped. Whack backed up a step; Chastain was going to order him out, but one look at Whack’s dark scowl made him decide to just turn and ignore him.

“I’ll go in the second CID,” Charlie said. “Randolph and I have been working together all this time — it’s best to keep us together.” Jason thought about it for a moment, then nodded.

“Second, I don’t want you to engage with them,” Chastain said to Charlie. “What I’m asking is: Can the robots provide you with enough protection from machine-gun fire to allow you to get in there and drag the wreckage away from the compound so those terrorists can’t take all of it?”

Charlie thought for a few moments, studying the frozen Sparrowhawk images. “What kind of guns are those, Whack?” she asked.

“They look like M60 machine guns,” he said after studying the screen for a few moments. “I see a couple others that might be M16s, but bigger. AR-18s on a bipod, maybe.”

“Well, Turlock?” Chastain urged.

Charlie turned to Savoy, a look of concern on her face. “The CIDs can take 5.56- and 7.62-millimeter fire at all ranges, even full auto,” she said directly to Savoy. “They can’t hurt you, but you will feel them. It can get really distracting, even disorientating, like bugs or bats flying around your head. You need to—”

“I can do it, Charlie,” Savoy said. “Let’s go.”

“If it’s a heavier caliber, like a fifty-cal or twenty-millimeter, at close range with sustained automatic fire, it could damage a muscle joint or sensor, especially in the head,” Charlie went on. “If they use heavier weapons — and your sensors will alert you to the weapon size, direction of fire, and range — you’ll have to protect your forward sensor with your forearms. Try not to use just your hands, because the armor’s not as tough. If you feel heavy automatic fire on you, you have to move right away so you don’t get sustained impacts on one section of armor. The robot’s sensors will tell you if you’re taking damaging fire… sheesh, we’ve hardly talked about the sensors and helmet warning and malfunction readouts—”

“I understand them pretty well,” Savoy said. “I’m ready.”

“We haven’t talked at all

about a helicopter insertion.” She turned to Chastain. “We can’t do this, Chastain. He’s not ready.”

“I am ready,” Savoy repeated.

“Is he ready or not, Turlock?” Chastain growled.

Charlie looked at Savoy with concern, but nodded. “I’ll be right beside you,” she said. “The best thing to do if you get pinned down by several nests is to run away.”

“Got it, Charlie,” Savoy said. “Let’s go.”

Charlie looked at him carefully once more, then nodded at Chastain. “Let’s go.”

While Charlie and Savoy mounted inside their CIDs, an Army National Guard UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter was flown over to the hangar. The UH-60 was a long-range medevac model with an external fuel tank on a short pylon on each side mounted above the entry doors, plus protective skids surrounding the landing-gear tires. With the helicopter hovering, Charlie showed Savoy the exact place to hold on to the pylon. “You can fend yourself away from the landing gear,” she radioed to him, “but don’t squeeze the pylon, because you’ll snap it right off. Grab onto this cross-member on the pylon, circle your fingers around it, and keep your fingers closed. Don’t squeeze.”

Minutes later, they were airborne — and the moment they lifted off, Charlie heard a loud CH — CHUNK! on the other side of the helicopter. “Randolph? You okay?”

“I might have grabbed the pylon a little too hard,” he admitted.

“You copy that, pilot?” Charlie radioed. “You might lose the left fuel tank.”

“They’re both empty,” the pilot radioed back.

“Roger,” Charlie said. “If you feel it coming loose, Randolph, just let it bounce off your back.” She hesitated for a moment, then added, “And if you fall… well, have a nice ride down. You should be okay when you hit.”

“ ‘Should be’?”

It was a short flight to the Knight compound. From a hundred feet aboveground and two miles away, Charlie could easily see the Sparrowhawk’s crash site through her telescopic imaging infrared sensors. The residents had several pickup trucks surrounding the crash, with headlights helping workers pull pieces of wreckage free and throw them into the trucks. “Base, looks like they’ve just about got the whole thing — we’re too late,” Charlie said. “There’s four pickups around the crash site full of debris, and it looks like they’re loaded up and getting ready to head back. I recommend we—”

At that instant Charlie saw a long, thin flash of yellow fire winking from a few dozen yards west, followed by another several yards north. “Ground fire!” she shouted. “We’re taking heavy machine-gun fire! Pilot, break right !” The Black Hawk swung hard to the right at sixty degrees of bank…

… and as it did, the entire left pylon snapped from the sudden g-loads and broke free, disappearing into the darkness.