Lieutenant Kelly Jade pulled the slide back on her M9 Berretta, inserted a magazine, clipped the slide shut, flicked on the safety. She placed some spare clips into the ammunition pouch on her belt and moved on to prepping the rest of her equipment in an automated, ritualistic fashion. Captain Miller steered their army transport vehicle towards an airstrip just outside the Arizona border. They had barely spoken a word since departing Las Vegas and Kelly relucted to even turn the radio on; Miller was a purely mission-oriented man and never wasted words with idle chatter. Kelly saw much of herself in the captain, though she sometimes wondered if their similarities were a result of his training. No, Kelly decided, conjuring up memories from before the army, adrenaline-fueled exploits, gritty fights and long wild evenings. There were two versions of Kelly Jade and she felt as though she hadn’t seen the other in a long, long while.
“There are road checkpoints all over the demilitarised zone,” Miller explained, his voice carried over by the intercom.
There were now small aircraft rolling by as their vehicle approached one of the main hangars. Since the blackout and this whole cyber-terrorist mess people took to preferring smaller, less detectable aircraft, especially for military operations. The rule of thumb seemed to be that if you weren’t confident that your technology was good enough you shouldn’t rely on it at all. That’s why the CIA had called Kelly in, a good old fashioned soldier.
“We inserted a number teams over land but the cult caught wind of it right away,” Miller went on. “We suspect that standard chartered flights are being monitored just as closely. The safest way to get you in quietly is a HALO.”
Inside the enormous hangar was an A400M Atlas military transport carrier being fuelled and prepped for take-off. Kelly felt like an ant standing in front of this massive aircraft, capable of carrying a 37 tonne payload and reaching an altitude of 29,000 feet. She only hoped that whoever was watching from out there would miss it.
Captain Miller killed the engine on their vehicle and collected his things. As he went to board the plane he looked at Kelly apologetically.
“I am sorry, by the way. I know how you are about flying.”
“You say jump, sir,” Kelly said dismissively. She grabbed her pack and slung it over her shoulder.
Miller responded with a curt nod, which Kelly knew to be a gesture of praise. They settled down in the cargo bay with the flight crew and listened to the roaring hum of the engines. The ramp of the cargo bay ground to a close. Inertia, as the plane cruised onto the runway. Kelly tapped her foot and cleaned her sidearm, dreading the uncomfortable jolt as the plane launched into the sky.
Kelly immersed herself in the silence of a pair of noise-cancelling headphones and watched a tiny blip glide across the map on her tablet. Every now and then she glanced at the numbers ticking over on her altitude meter—15,000 feet, 16,000 feet. She read the mission docket again and again.
After a while a voice clicked over her intercom. “Twenty-two thousand feet.” They were high over the Arizona desert, over the middle of nothing, really. Later the voice reported: “ETA ten minutes.”
One of the crew leaned over Kelly and said, “All geared up?” as they proceeded to check her equipment, tugging at each of her straps and buckles. He gave a thumbs up.
Kelly took deep breaths. When the back of the A400M grinded open, a swirl of freezing air filled the cargo bay. Kelly wore thermal wind-resistant clothing but still flexed her fingers and tried to remember that frostbite was a proper risk when falling at this altitude. She slipped on her helmet and attached the oxygen mask to her face. Captain Miller sat across from her, but in the crimson light reflecting from his mask she could barely see his face. In the middle of the night the door of the cargo bay opened up to a black nothingness and Kelly was about to jump right into it. She moved into position. Somewhere far on the dark horizon a solid wall of light marked one of the development zones. Kelly would be heading in the opposite direction.
“ETA thirty seconds,” said the intercom voice.
The icy wind lashed at Kelly and Miller as they stared at the red light on the wall.
The light flicked green.
“Green light. Go. Go. Go.”
And then Kelly was falling. The first few seconds of freefall were unsteady, spinning and tumbling, but as Kelly evened out, spread her arms and legs, a tranquil weightlessness came over her. Noisy muffled wind rushed over her helmet. Pockets of light emerged in the pitch dark valley below. The ground directly underneath her was invisible, but the altitude metre on her wrist read 10,000 feet. 5,000 feet. And at 3,000 feet she yanked her parachute open, felt the tug as she exited freefall. Dunstan was down there somewhere, he was supposed to deploy a beacon to guide her and Miller towards the rendezvous. Kelly pulled on the right parachute cord and spun in clockwise circle.
“Big Bird this is Bravo zero-one, I’m having trouble locating my guidance beacon. Over,” Kelly transmitted.
“Confirm Big Bird,” said Miller “We’re missing our guidance beacon, over.”
“We read you, zero-one, we’ve got a technical glitch on our end, satellite tracking malfunctioned. Suspect foul play. Over.”
Kelly had no choice but to spend the five minutes it would take to float down heading in a direct spiral. Not far from her, a discreet white flash indicated that Miller was doing the same. As Kelly neared the two hundred metre mark she scanned the ground for an ambush force and considered drawing her sidearm upon landing.
“Stay frosty,” Miller warned her.
“Zero-one we have a fix on Bravo team about three miles east of your position. Scans indicate no potential hostiles in the vicinity. You’re in the clear. Over.”
Kelly skidded over hard rocky ground and did her best to avoid landing in a bunch of cactuses.
“Roger that, Big Bird. Touch down successful, moving to rendezvous with Bravo. Over.”
She recovered her parachute and met up with Captain Miller. Despite getting the all-clear from on-high Kelly still traversed the dry freezing desert with her Berretta drawn and her night vision on. Someone had tampered with their navigation systems, for whatever reasons, and it put Kelly on edge. She wasn’t leaving anything to chance.
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