“You’re shitting me,” said Roxy. “Nona? Asked to join our team? You told her to fuck off, right?”
The night before the brief, he’d gotten the four of them together at a dive in Fredericksburg with outdoor seating and broached the subject of taking one more member.
“I agree with Roxy,” said Howie.
Cole looked over at Besson. He shrugged, patting Nutmeg. “Don’t know. Not my circus.”
“It’s a little bit your circus,” pointed out Howie.
Besson shot him a look. “In that case, no. Don’t know her, don’t trust her.”
That was pretty cut and dry. Unanimous rejection. Cole wasn’t surprised. He’d known a lot of people who stuck to themselves, isolated, refused to make friends, and then acted surprised when no one was willing to go out on a limb for them. But no one knew what Nona’s deal was, and even the details of her class and abilities had been squirreled away by Bricker—who had all but confirmed that Cole’s own class was worth shaping the entire training curriculum around getting. So what prompted even more secrecy than an Arquebus Engineer?
How dare a clandestine government organization keep secrets? Who did they think they were?
“I figured as much,” said Cole. “But I told her I’d at least run it by the group. I recommended she join Moriarty’s team for the op if she wants experience, and Moriarty asked me about her, so I’m guessing she already hit him up.”
“He can keep her. Two creeps in a pod,” said Roxy.
Besson dropped a pair of crisp twenties on the table and tugged on Nutmeg’s lead. “I’m out. See you in the AM.”
Roxy looked down at her own plate of half-finished food. “Feels like our food just got here.”
Besson shrugged and headed toward the gate. Tactful not to mention that she’d already eaten two entire appetizers first. Cole took out a couple bills of his own and dropped them. It was a more generous tip than he’d usually give, but seeing as the LF residue bounty had already hit his account, he felt he could get away with it. Besides, he might die in a couple days so what else was he going to use it for? Roxy dropped cash as well, shoveling the rest of her food into her face.
Howie flagged down a waitress and asked for his check before offering a sheepish look to the rest of the table. “I don’t carry cash,” he said. “You guys can get going.”
“See you tomorrow, Howie,” said Cole.
“Come on, Airborne,” said Roxy, tugging his arm toward the parking lot. He laughed and let her pull him along, feeling the pleasant buzz from the couple of beers he’d put down with dinner. Surprisingly, once he followed, Roxy kept holding onto his arm as they walked to her car.
“You good to drive?” he asked. He wasn’t at all surprised when Roxy had whipped out a fake ID. As far as he was concerned, if she was old enough to patch holes in people, she was old enough to drink.
“Yeah, I only had one,” she said. “Let’s get back to the compound.”
The twenty-minute drive passed in a haze of classic rock radio and Roxy chattering about everything and nothing. Cole watched the streetlights pass while he listened to her talk. The DOR guards waved them through as soon as they spotted Roxy, and she drove them to the parking lot behind the billets.
Cole glanced over at the opposite building, where Nona had met him to talk.
“You’d better not be thinking of other women,” said Roxy, jokingly. Somehow she’d gotten ahold of his arm, again.
“Just thinking about tomorrow,” he said. “This is our first time on an actual extraction—there are people there at least as tough as Ram-head, and our primary role is to get their attention.”
“Ah…” said Roxy. She pursed her lips. “I’ve got a trick to take your mind off it. At least for an hour or so,” she said, pulling him toward her own billet. “Just wait out here for a second. I’ll be right back.”
She let herself in and closed the door with a wink. Cole waited, heart racing.
When she opened the door again, she’d swapped her blouse and jeans for a tank top and a pair of gym shorts.
“Oh…” said Cole.
“Oh?” she asked, confused.
Maybe it was the beers talking, but Cole shrugged. “I kinda thought you meant… something else.”
Stolen story; please report.
“Oh… OH!” said Roxy. Her cheeks turned red and she looked away. “Look, Cole. I like you. And I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to. But I just… I don’t know you well enough for that yet, and with everything going on tomorrow, and if it happens I don’t want it to be a one-night thing just because you were drunk and horny, is that ok? Am I rambling? I’m rambling. For tonight, can I just have a gym buddy?”
“Yeah, sure,” said Cole, not sure whether to be relieved or disappointed. “Let me get my shorts.”
* * *
The brief for Vael was scheduled for noon, so Cole spent the morning in the armory, breaking down a few more weapons. Despite what he’d said about Deadlight, he was next on the order list, and Cole didn’t have a good enough reason to bump him. Surprisingly, it wasn’t his main weapon he wanted enhanced. It was a shotgun that he wanted a fire affix added to, which came from the barrel of a smooth-bore rifle. When Cole scanned the weapon after the fact, his minor affix addition to it felt a bit inadequate.
Greater hemorrhaging shotgun of the Sun (1 Arquebus Engineer affix detected: Afterburn)
Increases kinetic energy of each shot by 34%-42%
Bleeding caused by this weapon increased by 17%-21%
17-21% chance of doubling kinetic energy and recoil
Twice per day: Fire a directional blinding burst that disorients or blinds targets in an area ahead of the muzzle.
Shots that damage enemies burst with additional fire damage after three seconds, equal to 5%-7% of the shot’s damage>
Still, extra damage was extra damage.
That done, he helped Jefferson prep the equipment for the operation, pulling together and inventorying packs not just for his own team, but for Moriarty’s team as well—including a pack and soft body armor, he noticed, for Nona Keaton. Moriarty must have given her the green light. He thought he might be able to snoop on her equipment to gain some insight into the woman but Jeff handled her ruck himself. At time minus two hours, they palletized the gear that was now too heavy for the aging armorer to lift alone. They were packed with the anticipation of being carried by super-humans in an LF field, with supplies for at least a week rather than just the three-day excursion to Curahee.
After that, the twins presented him with his new and improved white otherworld rifle, which had been modified with a picatinny rail and an LPVO like the one Jeff had on his AR-10. They’d also threaded the end of his barrel and attached a modern suppressor. The twins were almost as good as having an arquebus engineer. After a few minutes at the LF firing range to zero the new sight, he headed to Lewis Hall for the brief.
Rather than using the conference room, Moriarty elected to run the brief from his analyst workstation in the ops center, having both his team and Cole’s team crowd around the single monitor screen.
“My guys have been to Vael twice already gathering intel and setting the stage with the locals. This is the best chance we’re going to have to grab the kid. Cole, I appreciate you and yours coming in with the backup.”
Nona shot him a glare from the other side of the group, but her eyes went back to the screen so fast Cole couldn’t even be sure he’d seen it.
“Subject for this extract is one Leon Jacobs, teenage African American male, age fourteen,” Moriarty continued. He pulled up a picture. “Remember his face. Also important, remember that he’s 5’1” tall, because most people within six miles of the trenches will be hooded, masked, and gloved up if the wizards are using chem spells.”
“Like, chemical warfare spells?” asked Howie. “They’re over there casting summon mustard gas?”
Moriarty twisted around in his chair. “Yeah, pretty much. Jefferson’s got us set up with chem gear, but the plan is to nab this kid from his carriage before he gets within 20 miles of the front. It’s more likely you’ll be needing it for whatever is being thrown around at the front. Here’s the ingress and exfil.”
With a few keystrokes, he swapped over to an aerial drone map overlaid with annotations. The Vael front was a wide, green land except for a jagged, brown and grey scar cut across the center of the map—where the two forces had dug in and trenched up before proceeding to lob spells and explosives and god knows what at each other, ruining the land. The map had what looked like a corner cut out.
“What’s that?” asked Cole.
“Otherworld beasties don’t take too well to drones,” said Moriarty. “This is what we could get before the wildlife got too riled up and took out the mapping drone.”
“So don’t expect air support on this op,” said Cole. He pointed to the edge near the gap where a black, jagged line cut across the ground. “Is this where the demons are coming in?”
“This is just one of many such fronts,” said Moriarty. “In order to avoid detection, we’ll be coming in sixty miles south in the mountains via L-ATV, and then we’ll drive north cross country and split up. Cole, your team will meet our local contacts at this old watchtower on the Vaelian side of the line. They’ve got a tunnel they use to get close to the forts for recon, and they’ll have a limited force ready to assist. They want this kid gone as much as we want to get him home, so they’re committing some of their best fighters. You’ll know they’re in place if you see a yellow cloth on the south side of the tower. All these charts and notes will be in your mission packets. We’ve put a lot of quiet work in this one. Now it’s time to go loud. Any questions?”
Howie started to raise his hand, but Cole caught his wrist. “Joke later,” he muttered. Howie turned a little red at that but didn’t argue. No one else came up with anything, so everyone started to file down the steps and out of the hall. It was time to get the battle rattle and the otherworld armaments.
“Airborne, a word,” said Moriarty.
Cole stuck behind while the others left.
“Are you ready? Your first field op here as a team lead.”
“I’ve been on an active front before,” said Cole. “I won’t freak out, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Moriarty shook his head. He closed out his workstation and pulled his access card out. “Otherworld is different from what you’ve seen in Syria. When we’re out there, we’re on our own. Coordinating with the locals, taking orders from the Vaelian demons… well, let’s just say some people have a certain reaction to them, is all.”
Like a shoot first, therapy later reaction, Cole figured. But if they could talk and hang banners, then they were already better mannered than his experience with the Kevlesh variety. “I’ll be fine,” he said. He glanced down the steps, just in time to see Nona meet his eyes before sidling out the door. It’s not my team I’m worried about.