I rushed to where my second shooting victim was dragging himself behind a tree for cover and made short work of him as well.
No more than fifteen seconds had elapsed from the beginning of the engagement until its end, although the speed of my reflexes seemed to slow everything down and make it seem longer.
I quickly scanned the battlefield. Tessa was just finishing off the last of our mercenary escorts. She had taken out Baga and the first group of three men under cover of darkness, and while the next six had been able to see her coming, it hadn’t helped them. They were all down, and she looked completely unscathed.
A broad grin came over my face, and I felt a rush of triumph. We had done it! And I had even helped.
True, I had been amped up on the ultimate performance enhancers, so didn’t really deserve the trophy, but I was still exhilarated to have bested men who had been marching us to certain death.
Tessa rushed to my position, but instead of embracing me, as I thought she would, she barked orders instead. “Get a tranq gun and hit every last hostile to your right in the neck with a dart. Even those already darted. I’ll tidy up the men to your left. We need to make sure they’re down for the count before we leave here.”
She was right. How many times had I seen just the opposite in TV shows and movies? A psychopathic killer would be chasing a helpless woman through her house, and she’d manage to hit him in the head with a bat, or a pan, or something, and he’d go down, temporarily stunned, his gun flying. And then the woman would continue running, giving him the chance to shake it off, collect his gun, and be in position to take her life.
I always wanted to shout at the screen in frustration when I saw this folly. If you’re able to stun and disable someone hell-bent on killing you, you don’t continue running. You make sure they stay down. Period.
If not for Tessa, I could well have made this same mistake.
As we separated and went to work making sure the widely spread bodies remained out of commission, my enhanced hearing amplified the sound of a number of drones approaching overhead, and a group of soldiers in the distance coming our way—in a hurry.
I groaned in disbelief. We weren’t out of the woods yet—literally or figuratively. The alien must have had additional mercs stationed near her trailer, along with drones that had been beyond the EMP’s reach. Since Tessa’s device was single-use only, we’d have to shoot these from the sky one at a time.
While I was bracing myself for additional battle, three of the drones darted into view and dove down immediately toward Tessa at great speed, ignoring me completely. She was a blur of motion, gunning down two of them before they got close, but the third released a grenade at point-blank range above her. If not for superhuman reaction time and speed, she’d have been vaporized. As it was she managed to sprint away and dive for cover just in time to avoid this fate, but she landed with jarring force, and she remained on the ground, completely still.
Was she alive? Badly injured?
Not even the nanites could prevent panic from hitting me like a sledgehammer. I was desperate to get to her, confirm she was okay, hold her in my arms, and I bolted in her direction like I had been shot from a cannon. But while I was only halfway there another drone swooped down and hovered just above her head, a grenade payload at the ready.
“Jason, halt!” shouted an amplified voice coming through a speaker in the drone, the mercs’ need for quiet now gone after the loud battle and brilliant flares. “One step closer and she dies!”
I slammed on the brakes, still about eight yards away from my destination. Close enough to see that the woman I loved was stunned but still breathing.
“Toss your weapons away and sit cross-legged on the ground!” demanded the voice, with an accent that was distinctly Australian. “Now! She won’t dodge the next grenade! Do it!”
“No!” I shouted defiantly. “You won’t kill her! Michelle needs us alive!”
“She needs you alive,” said the voice. “Not the major. The boss has made it clear that you’re the most important, while she’s the most dangerous. So killing her would be a bonus.”
As the voice spoke, several additional drones arrived and joined the first, hovering at the ready over what appeared to be a barely conscious Tessa Barrett.
I was acutely aware that we would soon be dead no matter what happened here, but also that it might pay to hold on for as long as possible. I wanted to satisfy my curiosity regarding the alien who had set this in motion, yes, but even more so, I believed in the old adage, where there’s life, there’s hope. We were in a secluded forest in the dead of night, but if the pitched battle had attracted attention, we might yet get another opening.
I made a show of tossing several weapons away from me and sitting on the ground. “Okay, I’ve done as you asked. Now leave her alone!”
“Of course. For as long as you cooperate.”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Nick Nicola,” said the voice emanating from a drone. “Captain Nick Nicola. Formerly with Australia’s Second Commando Regiment, and now a gun for hire. Michelle insisted we keep additional men near the trailer. Men Lieutenant Baga was instructed not to mention. I thought she was being insanely paranoid,” he added. “But apparently not.”
Both original flares had long since landed, but the oncoming soldiers had shot additional flares into the night sky to keep the light coming until Captain Nicola and three other reinforcements arrived on site, which they did less than a minute later.
They bound my hands behind my back and tied my ankles together, although the zip ties were configured to give me enough slack to be able to shuffle forward at a reasonable clip.