Chapter 26
ALEXA
Before joining the Choir, Storm, our best pilot, tore up her knee chasing a mugger.
She’d caught the guy, then spent a week in hospital having things screwed and sewn back together.
Oh, and bitching heartily. The doctors wouldn’t let her fly jets for a while, so rather than take sick leave, she’d gotten involved with the drone program at Creech Air Force Base.
She didn’t like flying drones, but she was good at it.
From there, she’d been recruited to work on another program involving smaller, sneakier drones.
Officially, it was called Project Firefly.
Unofficially, it was called “How much whacked-out shit can we load onto a MAV?”
My MAV—micro air vehicle—looked like a regular commercial model, but Storm’s buddies had dicked around with it a little.
It didn’t carry the firepower of some of the more fun toys, but it did come with a self-destruct option.
If that kid with the rifle hurt Nolan, I’d get the MAV in close and blow his fucking head off.
On-screen, I caught sight of Juno running through the trees, heading back in my direction.
At least she wasn’t hurt. But where was Nolan?
He must not have seen the dog because he was still pressing forward, toward the two junior psychos.
Dammit, I should have given him my spare comms unit.
With no cell signal, I couldn’t even call and tell him to come back.
The taller kid was fiddling with the rifle’s magazine. From a distance, it looked like a .22 calibre, but even a small round could do significant damage if it hit in the right place. A .22 pistol was Jez’s gun of choice for close-quarters assassination, I knew that much.
Nolan, why’d you have to be a hero? He was closing in on the boys, and I heard him start yelling. Even though I couldn’t make out the words, the sentiment was clear. Get off my land.
The boys looked at each other, but instead of running, the taller one shouldered the rifle. What did he plan to do? Commit cold-blooded murder?
They ducked when I buzzed them with the drone, and technology was clearly still a foreign concept because the short one screamed something about aliens and shook his fist. Aliens?
Even I hadn’t found evidence that they existed yet, although for sure there was some weird shit going on at a military base in Nevada.
“Get ’em!” the smaller kid yelled, and his brother raised the rifle again and took a potshot. Motherfucker. I neatly evaded, then switched to thermal mode and set off the onboard smoke screen. There wasn’t much breeze, and the boys were quickly blanketed in a curtain of white.
“Yee-haw! You got ’em, Wyatt. Them aliens be dead!”
Face-palm.
A touch on the controls, and the drone ascended, giving me a wider view. Nolan had stopped moving, and the boys were dancing around like demented little weirdos, which was probably their normal operating state. No matter, I needed to neutralise them.
My MAV might not have carried deadly toys, but it did have one neat trick.
The others had laughed when they gave it to me—oh, poor Echo, hates the sight of blood, ha-ha, maybe she should carry a water pistol.
But it was the perfect weapon for this moment.
I flew closer to the boys, selected my targets, and watched as Wyatt dropped his rifle and pressed his hands to his ears.
The shorter kid followed suit a second later.
Then they began running. Focused sonic weapons were still somewhat experimental, but I’d be able to report back that this one seemed to work.
As the smoke cleared, I saw that Juno had found her way to Nolan, and he was crouched at her side, hugging her and checking her for damage.
They started back in my direction. Good.
At least I didn’t need to break an ankle traipsing through the forest to find him, so I settled back onto the blanket to wait.
Really, I should have moved the blanket because beneath the flattened grass, the ground was rocky and not particularly comfortable, but it was probably just as bad on the other side of the clearing.
This place needed cushions. Or a patio set.
I was working out the logistics for getting an outdoor couch and coffee table up the hill—an airlift would be easiest if I could talk Storm into piloting—when Nolan reappeared, his hair still damp but now with added twigs.
“Those damn kids,” he bitched. “They’re out of control. Did they hit your drone?”
“Wyatt isn’t that good of a shot. They’re running now.”
“Yeah, I heard them crashing through the brush. If they didn’t hit the drone, what was all the smoke?”
“Lactose, potassium chlorate, and magnesium carbonate, mainly.”
“What?”
“A smoke grenade.”
“A grenade?”
“Would you rather I’d let them keep shooting at you?”
“No, but—”
“Can we eat the cake now?”
“Where did you get a grenade, Alexa?” Nolan ran a hand through his already tousled hair.
“From some black market store on the dark web? Or did it fall off the back of a truck and Jerry just happened to pick it up? Actually, forget it. I don’t want to know the answer.
I need to get down the hill and call Antonella Cranston—the Hayes boys were heading in her direction, and they sounded pretty freaked out.
The last thing we want is for them to start shooting at a horse. ”
I rummaged in my bag again and pulled out a satellite phone. “Here, use this. I think the kid dropped the rifle, though.”
Nolan stared at the device as if it were a gift from an extraterrestrial. Was the Hayes kids’ paranoia contagious?
“It won’t bite,” I promised him. “Or explode, or electrocute you.”
Okay, so that didn’t provide the reassurance I hoped. “Tell me exploding phones aren’t a thing?”
“I could tell you that, but I’d be lying, and you don’t like that either.”
Nolan took one deep breath, and then another.
“Try box breathing,” I suggested. “Chase taught it to me. Breathe in for a count of four, hold for four, breathe out for four, then hold for four again. Keep doing it until the urge to scream subsides.”
“Chase has the patience of a fuckin’ saint,” he muttered.
Yes, that was one of the reasons I’d hired him.
“So are we having cake, or…?”
“After I’ve spoken with Antonella, I need to pay the Hayes family a visit.”
“Is that a good idea? What if I just empty their bank accounts so they can’t buy more ammo?”
Hey, Nolan was actually quite good at the box breathing. Who knew?
Finally, he spoke. “Firstly, folks around here keep cash at home, and secondly, they need money to eat.”
“Maybe they should have thought about that before they started shooting at Juno?”
“Donna Hayes isn’t a bad person. The Hayes men are a waste of time, space, and oxygen, but she shouldn’t have to suffer for their mistakes.”
My eyes rolled all of their own accord. “Fine.”
I’d still be familiarising myself with their finances, just in case.