If it had all gone according to plan, no one would have gotten hurt.
But, of course, things pretty much never went according to plan.
Captain Lincoln Suh shoved the VIP up and over a waist-high wall, then leapt after the man. On the other side, he slammed his back against the aging concrete and dragged the VIP down with him. A moment later, Master Sergeant Wright flew over head-first and barely missed landing on their precious cargo. Incoming fire followed immediately after her, hissed overhead, popped concrete chips and chunks off their meager cover. Wright scrambled back against the wall, sandwiching the VIP between Lincoln and herself.
“Mike,” Lincoln said into his comm channel.
“One sec,” Mike answered, voice cool, steady. Three seconds later the incoming fire stopped. Lincoln hadn’t heard the shot, but he knew Sergeant Mike Pence, the team’s sniper, had done some work. “‘K, one down. Rest fell back to an alley, twenty meters from your position. Marking.”
A bright orange indicator appeared in Lincoln’s view, designating the location. Lincoln nodded to Wright; off his signal, she swiveled, peeked up over the wall, and then brought her weapon up over the top and squeezed off one burst, then another.
“Move!” Wright called, continuing to fire controlled two- or three-round bursts back at their pursuers.
“Moving!” Lincoln answered. He grabbed a handful of the VIP’s jacket, up near the scruff of the man’s neck, and pulled him to his feet.
“This way, this way, this way,” Lincoln said, shepherding the man forward as they bounded across open ground to a stubby, one-story building. When they reached it, Lincoln shoved the VIP up against the wall and then backed against him, covering as much of the man as he could with his own body. They’d had to run the op plain-clothes, so the only protection Lincoln had was the thin vest of armor under his shirt. Not much, but maybe enough to keep the rounds off the VIP at least, if it came to that. And it looked an awful lot like it was coming to that.
Lincoln braced his weapon against the corner of the building, sighted in on the entrance to the alleyway where the hostiles had taken cover. From this angle, he couldn’t fire down the alley, only across the mouth of the entryway. But as long as they didn’t get brave enough to rush out all at once, he probably had enough coverage to keep them suppressed. Probably. The light was still gloomy, an early-dawn grey, but the light-enhancement protocol of Lincoln’s lenses compensated. He could clearly make out one of their pursuers, lying face down in the dusty street, arms limp and trailing by his sides like he’d fallen asleep in the middle of running. Mike’s work.
“Set!” Lincoln called to Wright.
“Ready!” she answered.
“Move!”
“Moving!”
Lincoln opened fire, patternless single shots without rhythm, his rounds chewing bits out of the walls on either side of the alley. Wright sprinted across the gap. As she moved, one of the hostiles dared to lean out of his hiding place, despite Lincoln’s suppressive fire. Lincoln shifted his aim. The hostile squeezed off a burst in the same instant that Lincoln fired three quick rounds, pat-pat-pat. The man fell back, though Lincoln couldn’t tell if he’d hit his target or not. Out of the corner of his eye, Lincoln saw Wright stumble a half-step. Somehow she seemed to recover mid-stride and a few seconds later skidded in low, coming up close alongside Lincoln in a crouch. An instant later, her weapon was up and trained on the alley, spitting deadly rounds in sharp volleys.
“You hit?” Lincoln called down to her. “Are you hit?”
“I’m good! Where’s our ride?”
Lincoln stepped backwards, shoving the VIP further along the wall away from the corner of the building. As soon as he moved, Wright flowed into the vacant space, continuing to suppress the alley.
“Sahil,” Lincoln said through comms, “you got an ETA?”
“Ninety seconds,” came Sahil’s response. “And we don’t wanna hang around for long.” His tone was even flatter than usual, clipped but emotionless. Which meant he was probably driving way too fast, and most likely taking some heat along the way.
“They’re splitting up,” Mike said. “Finding another route.”
“How many?”
“Three staying, five on the move. Check that, six. Six on the move,” he answered. Then added, “Intel nerds only underestimated by half this time. Getting better.”
“It was our intel, Mike!” Wright snapped.
“Oh,” he answered. “Not so hot then.”
Lincoln glanced around, checked the distance to the rally point. Forty meters. Did some quick math. Move too early, and he risked pulling the bad guys along with them to the pickup. Too late, and Sahil would be sitting there exposed, waiting for them to arrive. And if the bad guys moved fast enough, and maybe got a little lucky, it wouldn’t take much for them to pinch Lincoln’s element in. Lincoln never counted on luck, unless it was the bad kind.
“Getting low here, Link,” Wright said over the sound of her gunfire. “What’re we doing?”
Lincoln glanced down, saw the line of slender canisters strapped on Wright’s back, up near her right shoulder. Red, white, white, grey. He grabbed the grey one.
“Smoke out!” he called, as he activated the smoke grenade and tossed it back the way they had come.
“Bad toss!” Wright said. Not a criticism, just informing him that he’d missed his mark. The smoke blossomed out, dense, but too far out to cover their movement.
“Give it a sec,” Lincoln answered, hoping it would have the desired effect. “Mike, you got eyes on the bad guys?”
“Scopes only,” Mike said. “No shot.”
“They moving?”
“Yeah they’re shuffling around… looks like, uh…” he said, breaking off. “They’re splitting up, looping around.”
“Sixty seconds,” Sahil said.
“Twenty seconds, then we go,” said Lincoln.
“Dry,” Wright said. She ducked back, dropped the magazine from her weapon. Lincoln stepped up to the corner, squeezed off four rounds. Just under two seconds later, Wright said “I’m up!” and resumed fire.
“Mike,” Lincoln said. “What’re the bad guys doing?”
“Three of ‘em are still sittin’ there. Other group’s maneuvering on your smoke.”
Good. They took the bait. Hopefully the misdirection would buy them enough time.
Lincoln mentally counted off the remaining seconds.
“Moving to rally!” Lincoln called. He patted Wright’s shoulder, hard. She stood, braced her weapon against the corner of the building, and opened up full-auto on the alleyway. Lincoln spun, took hold of the VIP, and drove the man forward ahead of him. “With me now, with me, we’re almost there.”
Together, they crossed the gap to another building, then down a narrow side street. Behind them, Wright’s weapon went silent. The side street intersected with a wider road, and as Lincoln and his charge approached it, he heard the roar and whine of an engine. Moments later, an old pickup truck flew into view, braking hard and sliding past the side street. Lincoln didn’t even need to look in the cab to know Sahil was behind the hijacked console of the vehicle; he could tell from the driving.
“Up, in the bed, go!” Lincoln told the VIP, practically throwing him up and over the edge, though the man hardly needed any prompting or aid.
As soon as the VIP was over the edge, the truck started rolling forward. Lincoln catapulted into the bed, scrambled over to lay on top of the VIP, shielding the man as much as he could. A few seconds later, another body came flying in and landed full force on Lincoln’s legs.
“Go go go!” Wright called, and as the third word was leaving her mouth, the truck lurched forward. The sudden acceleration sent the three people in the bed sliding backwards, towards the tailgate. The master sergeant tumbled awkwardly into the rear corner, up on her back and shoulders, and let loose with some premium mil-spec cursing while she struggled to right herself.
“Mir, ow!” Lincoln said, as Wright’s elbow dug into his lower hamstring. “My knee!”
“Well, why’s it under me?” she snapped. He kicked his leg up, giving her a boost. She flopped to one side, rolled onto her back, sprawled her legs and fished her feet around for purchase against either side of the truck bed, near the tail gate. That was as stable a base as she was going to get in the vehicle. She kept as low a profile as humanly possible, her weapon laid flat along her body, muzzle pointing back behind them, just high enough to clear the rim of the truck bed. It’d taken her maybe five seconds to go from upside down in the corner to on point, ready for action. In the back of a swerving truck. Watching her move with such efficiency and control, Lincoln was once again struck with just how experienced an operator she was. An absolute pro. He hoped he looked half as cool as she did, though he knew that was unlikely. Particularly since he was perched on top of their precious cargo like some sort of human rucksack.
“Thumper,” Lincoln called over comms, “We’re en route to extract.”
“Roger that,” Thumper answered. “I’m tracking you. Local security commo traffic is picking up pretty heavy. Not sure how much longer I can keep it rerouted.”
Thumper, the team’s resident tech wizard, was set up in a safehouse well outside the target zone, running her mobile surveillance rig and working her magic on all manner of systems in the area.
“Alternate pick up zone still clear?” Lincoln asked.
“For now. Saber One One is on standby, and I’m keeping them apprised. They’ll be there when you are.”
“Mike, status?” Lincoln said.
“Bad guys are scrambling. Looks like you caught ‘em off guard and they’re short a vehicle. You’re gaining time on ‘em.”
“You clear?”
“Clear enough,” he answered.
“All right, pack it up, get back to the house.”
“You got it.”
“Thumper,” Lincoln said. “You got coverage on Mike?”
“Yes sir,” Thumper said. “Two skeeters on his wings, and a Dragonfly on station.”
“Move that ‘fly up close on Mike’s location, cover him on the way out.”
“I’ve got a good route,” Mike said. “Shouldn’t need it.”
“Shouldn’t doesn’t mean you won’t,” Lincoln said. “Thump, move it over.”
“Roger that,” she said. “Mike, handing off Dragonfly control to you now. It’s coming in on shadow.”
Transfer protocol took a little time. Mike answered about ten seconds later. “I confirm Dragonfly hand off. I’ve got it.”
Lincoln tried to run through the final checks in his mind; it was hard to calmly track and calculate all the finer points of a contingency plan while bouncing around in the back of a truck, speeding through too narrow streets after an unexpected gunfight. He trusted Sahil implicitly, but for all of the man’s skill behind the wheel, he couldn’t outdrive the laws of physics. Even though it seemed like that was exactly what he was trying to do.
The truck cornered hard; Lincoln had to splay his hands out quickly to keep from rolling off the VIP. In the sudden movement, one of his spare magazines popped out of its clip on his belt and skidded across the bed of the truck. He wasn’t as low in the truck as he would have liked; his head was about even with the top of the bed. But with a grown man underneath him, it was the best he could do.
“We’re doing fine,” he said to the man he was lying on. “Almost there now. Almost home.”
Lincoln raised his head up enough to get a quick look around, to orient himself and scan for trouble on either side. The streets were narrow, maybe three-quarters the width of what he was used to. Fortunately, this early in the day-cycle traffic was almost nonexistent, and the few cars he saw on the roads were following their ambling, perfectly predictable AI-determined paths. Sahil weaved around them expertly, no doubt leaving their occupants stunned and gaping in his dusty wake.
The buildings blurred in one long, rust-colored smear as the truck sped along. Not that there was much to distinguish one from another anyway, no matter the speed. They were all factory-formed replicas; two stories, boxy, like individual bricks for a titan’s home. Evenly spaced, evenly distributed. A circuit board city.
With no sign of immediate danger, Lincoln shifted position atop the VIP, reached over to recover his lost magazine. And just as he stretched out for it, the upper edge of the truck bed popped sharply in his ear. Burning tendrils stretched across the right side of his face and the back of his neck, as if someone had splashed him with a cup of hot coffee. Lincoln glanced right to find a ragged notch torn out of the truck body, still smoking, right in the spot his head had been just moments before. He stared at it, his mind working to find an explanation and coming up empty.
“Drone!” Wright shouted. Lincoln looked to her, as she swiveled and braced her back against him and the VIP, bringing her weapon to bear. Following her point of aim, Lincoln spotted it now; a dark blur streaking a chaotic pattern in the sky behind them, off the back right corner of the truck. He didn’t know what kind of weaponry the thing had; something mean, judging from the hole it’d left in the side of their vehicle. It was moving too fast. As good as she was, there was no way Wright was going to be able to bring it down with her primary weapon. Not that it stopped her from trying. Her weapon barked disciplined fire.
“Sahil,” Wright called, “we got trouble!”
“I heard!” Sahil said. The truck lurched right, then back left, and then hard right again as he snaked the vehicle between two cars and around a tight turn.
“Thumper–” Lincoln said through the comm channel, but that was as far as he got.
“I know, I know!” she interrupted, intense.
Lincoln heard it this time. The shrill whine, followed by a dull thump just left of the vehicle, as if they’d run over something in the street. Based on the sound and the drone’s rate of fire, he had a pretty good guess at what they were dealing with. Some flavor of queller, probably. Civilian security forces often used them for riot control and crowd dispersal, or as cheap patrolling presence in areas where unrest was likely. They were underslung with a wide-mouthed turret that was something like a cross between a shotgun and a small grenade launcher. The weapon design accepted a variety of munitions: smoke or tear-gas, high-explosive or anti-personnel rounds. If Lincoln was right, that was mild comfort at least. Quick as they were, quellers weren’t built for precision or pursuit, and their targeting mechanisms weren’t usually equipped to handle anything moving as fast as the truck was going.
Even so, there wasn’t anything Lincoln could do, and it was the helplessness that made him fear. The truck was a big target. The drone was gaining ground, and they were utterly exposed from above. If it could get a shot into the middle of the truck bed, at least one of them wouldn’t be making it out alive. Lincoln wrapped his arms around the VIP, crushed the man as small as he could beneath him.
“I can’t breathe!” the man said, starting to raise his head.
“Keep still!” Lincoln commanded. He put a hand on top of the man’s head, forced it down.
Another round came in, the same high-pitched squeal heralding its arrival; this one streaked diagonally over the truck and struck the corner of one of the rust-brown buildings, the shot sailing wide of its intended mark. The subdued whump of the impact was punctuated by a sharp crackling, like a firework explosion, as concrete chips and debris showered the sidewalk.
He shouldn’t have raised his head, but Lincoln couldn’t stop himself from glancing up and back at their pursuer. It was startling how close it was now, close enough that he could make out its single multifaceted bubble of an eye, and its wildly oscillating turret underneath, like a scorpion’s tail curled under its belly. The muzzle twitched and jittered, trying to get a fix on the truck while another round loaded into the chamber. But from that distance, Lincoln didn’t see how it could possibly miss again. Wright fired a burst, and then another, but the way the queller looped and cut through the air at random would have made it a hard target even with a shotgun.
Without warning, the air ripped; that was the impression Lincoln had. A tearing sound, the buzzing of a thousand hornets gone instantly mad, so close and so loud that he thought the atmosphere itself had torn apart. And a moment after, a loud pop, a puff of grey smoke; a dark line streaked low overhead from in front of the truck. The queller rolled over and plummeted to the street, spilling components and sending them skittering across the surface of the road.
“I lost signal on that target,” said Thumper’s voice in Lincoln’s head a few seconds later, through the team’s internal comm channel. “I’m reading you clear. Can you confirm?”
It took a moment for Lincoln’s brain to catch up and realize that Thumper was talking to him. He scanned the sky, then pushed up higher so he could verify that the queller was down. Sure enough, it was disappearing from view, a glittering patch of debris in the street.
“That’s confirmed,” he answered. “We are clear. What’d you do?”
“Nothing,” Thumper said. “I didn’t hit it.”
Lincoln glanced to Wright, but she shook her head and shrugged.
“Well, something killed it,” Lincoln said.
“Hey, don’t mention it, boss,” said Mike. “You know I’m always lookin’ out for you.”
In the sky, something zipped into view from Lincoln’s left. The Dragonfly. It caught up and matched speed with the truck, waggled its wings from side to side. It was a light drone, maybe a quarter the size of the queller, and sleek. Lincoln had used them plenty of times before, but at that moment he was pretty sure that particular one was the most beautiful he’d ever seen.
“You want me to ride shotgun the rest of the way out?” Mike asked.
Dragonflies were pretty good at target selection when they were on shadow, loitering autonomously, but for the bit of flying he’d just done Mike had to have been on manual control – which meant he had holed up somewhere to run it.
“Negative,” Lincoln said. “We’re almost there. And you need to keep moving.”
“You sure?”
“Yes, Mike. Go.”
“I’m gone. Call me if you need me.”
They were only another kilometer and a half or so from the pickup zone, down in the largely abandoned industrial quarter. It struck Lincoln as strange that anywhere in this place would be abandoned, but that seemed to be the way humans operated. Utopian promises rarely survived contact with reality.
A few more hard turns, and the landscape changed abruptly, but not substantially. The two-story buildings were replaced with six-story warehouses; still blocky, still the color of rust. Just larger. The already-narrow road thinned still more into a network of service roads, which Sahil expertly navigated.
“Saber One One, this is Mover,” Sahil said over the full team channel. “We’re ETA thirty seconds.”
“Roger that, Mover,” came the response. “We see you and are on approach. We’ll be waiting for you.”
“Keep your hands inside,” Sahil said. Lincoln didn’t understand the reference until a moment later when, without even slowing, Sahil slipped the truck down an alley with no more than a half-meter of clearance on either side. Only once they were inside the corridor between two buildings did he begin to slow the vehicle.
The alleyway emptied into a flat courtyard. Sure enough, as promised, the craft was just touching down for them, side door open, engines locked to vertical. The flight engineer stood by the door, ready to receive them.
“OK, sir,” Lincoln said to the man he was still lying on, “our ride out is right here. When we stop, we’ll hop out, quick jog, and we’re on the way home. No more shooting. Got it?”
The man nodded.
“You’re doing fine,” Lincoln added, giving the VIP’s shoulder a pair of strong pats.
Sahil rolled the truck up parallel to the transport, maybe twenty meters away. Wright was up and out before they’d even come to a full stop. She dropped to a knee by the back of the truck, weapon raised, providing security. Lincoln waited the extra few seconds for the vehicle to come to an actual halt, and then came up in a crouch. Sahil jumped out at almost the same time, and took position on the opposite end of the truck from Wright, covering those angles. Lincoln scanned the area one last time for any signs of trouble. Seeing none, he patted the VIP on the back.
“OK, here we go,” he said. Lincoln hopped over the edge of the truck bed, and then aided the VIP. But when the man’s feet hit the ground, he nearly collapsed. Lincoln caught him by the arm.
The VIP was panting, his face pale and sheened with sweat.
“Whoa, you OK?” Lincoln asked.
The man grimaced, then nodded. “My leg,” he said.
Lincoln’s gut went cold. He flashed back to the hole in the side of the truck, and for an instant wondered if shrapnel had somehow found its way into the man he was supposed to protect. He glanced down, looked for blood.
“Are you hit?” he asked.
The VIP shook his head. “No, it’s asleep,” he said. “From you sitting on it.”
Lincoln nearly laughed aloud with the sudden wave of relief. He grabbed the man around the waist and hoisted him up.
“All right buddy, I got you,” he said, and with his charge’s arm around his shoulders, together they covered the last few meters to the waiting aircraft. The flight engineer was standing in the back of the transport, a concerned look on his face.
“Wounded?” he called over the sound of the engines.
Lincoln shook his head and waved him off. A few steps later, he and the engineer helped the VIP aboard, who just flopped onto the floor on his back. It wasn’t proper protocol, but they let him lie there anyway. He’d had a rough couple of weeks. Lincoln hopped up and stepped to the far side, making room for the rest of his team.
“He’s all right,” Lincoln said.
“Yeah, but I was asking about you,” the crew chief said, pointing at Lincoln’s face. Lincoln reached up and brushed his fingertips across his cheek. The contact reawakened the pain, a blowtorch wave spilling down the side of his face and neck. When he brought his fingers away, the tips of his gloves were dark and tacky with congealing blood.
“How bad is it?” he asked.
The flight engineer cocked his head, then shook it. “Ain’t pretty. Lucky you didn’t lose an eye.”
“Lucky I didn’t lose my whole head,” Lincoln said. And for some reason, it wasn’t until he said it that he realized just how true it was. If that magazine hadn’t fallen out…
“Be a good story at least,” the flight engineer said. He gave Lincoln’s arm a punch as he turned to help the others in. Lincoln looked out of the aircraft to see Sahil leaning into the cab of the truck, fiddling with something near the floorboard; Wright had moved up next to him to provide cover. Whatever he was doing, he must have just been finishing up, because he turned almost immediately, closed the truck door, backhanded Wright’s shoulder, and jogged over to the waiting craft. Wright held her position for three seconds, then followed.
Sahil leapt up into the cargo hold. Wright came in close behind, and as soon as she’d made it in, the flight engineer motioned to the pilot and said something that Lincoln couldn’t hear. The next instant, the craft leapt off the ground. In the courtyard, the truck pulled around in a wide arc under its resumed AI control, headed towards another service road. As it pulled away, black smoke swelled and roiled out of the cab, and before it disappeared from view Lincoln could make out ghostly tongues of fire rippling along the door frames.
“Hope that wasn’t a rental,” Lincoln said.
“I got the insurance,” Sahil replied as he passed Lincoln. He knelt down next to the VIP, who was still lying on the floor; if they spoke to each other, Lincoln couldn’t make it out. In addition to being their driver and demolitions expert, Sahil was also the team’s medical sergeant, and though Lincoln had given their precious cargo a quick once-over before they’d led him to safety, he knew Sahil wouldn’t relax until he’d checked the man out for himself.
Wright, on the other hand, flopped into one of the jump seats, laid her head back and let out a long breath that gave Lincoln the impression she’d been holding it since the shooting had started.
“Got a little sporty,” Lincoln said.
“Too,” she answered, without a smile. The whole team would have a full debrief as soon as they reunited, to go over what went right and what went wrong with the op, while the details were still fresh in their minds. Lessons learned. Wright never let them miss a session, no matter how bone-tired they all were.
“Thumper, Mike,” Lincoln said over comms, “we’re up and out. What’s your situation?”
“Almost to the safehouse,” Mike answered. “No static.”
“I’m breaking my rig down now,” Thumper said. “NID’s got a car on the way. We’ll be right behind you.”
NID, the National Intelligence Directorate, was often a close civilian companion on the operations that Lincoln’s team ran; so close in fact, they almost always stepped on each other’s toes. But no one was better at getting people in and out of places they shouldn’t be than NID.
“Roger that. Stay on point, keep your heads down,” Lincoln said. “I know I don’t have to say it, but I just have to say it.”
“All good,” Thumper said. “We’ll see you back home.”
Lincoln hated splitting the team up like that, hated it even more that he was leaving the target before two of his people. But sometimes the op called for it, demanded it. He still hated it.
Already the courtyard had shrunk below such that Lincoln could have covered it with the span of his palm. From that altitude, he got a much stronger sense of the flat plain the city was built upon. It stretched out in every direction to meet water on all sides, its surface littered with factory-molded buildings and jutting skeletal structures never completed. A mechanical island.
They’d infiltrated by boat days ago, at night, and though he’d seen plenty of aerial and satellite imagery of the sea-based city, the impression it left when seen in person had far greater impact. The design was more obvious from this height, the pattern more recognizable; an aborted space station, repurposed. It would have been small in its proper home, barely an outpost out there in the Deep. But sitting here in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it seemed plenty big. Lincoln didn’t know the full story of how it’d come to be. He guessed it probably wasn’t a happy one.
The flight engineer pressed a large yellow button on the roof with the palm of his hand, and the side door slid shut and sealed. As it was closing, the aircraft rolled right, turning to the fastest route out to sea. The engines added a hum to their roar as they rotated from vertical to horizontal, the craft gaining airspeed with surprising quickness. The pull of the acceleration almost unbalanced Lincoln, and that prompted him to finally sit down.
“Dagger, this is Saber One One,” the co-pilot said over team comms. “Mover element is secure, precious cargo aboard, all souls accounted for. We’re on our way out.”
“Dagger copies, Saber One One. Fly safe. Hate to lose the cargo in the drink after all this trouble.”
“Roger that, Dagger. They’re in good hands. See you in a bit.”
Sahil patted the VIP’s shoulder a couple of times, and then rolled up into a jump seat nearby. Lincoln made eye contact with Sahil, raised his eyebrows in a request for update. Sahil just nodded. Their VIP was OK.
Lincoln looked down at the man they’d just rescued. Lieutenant Colonel Stewart, a pilot. He was still lying there on the deck of the craft, eyes open, staring up. For a moment, it looked almost like he was going into shock. But then tears spilled from the corners of his eyes, slipping down the sides of his face towards the floor.
“Everything OK, Colonel Stewart?” Lincoln asked.
It was a moment before Stewart responded. When he did, he just said, “I think that is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.”
Lincoln followed the man’s gaze to the roof of the craft. He hadn’t noticed it before, but when he saw it he couldn’t help but smile. There was an American flag hung there, pinned flat against the ceiling.
“I know what you mean, sir,” Lincoln said. “I think the same thing, every time I see it.”
“Thank you,” Stewart said, turning his head to look at Lincoln. “Thank you for coming to get me.”
“Yes sir.”
They were silent for a few moments, and then Stewart propped himself up on an elbow, apparently not quite ready to commit to getting up off the floor after their harrowing escape.
“They knew I was coming,” he said. “And they knew what I was here to do. I don’t know how, but they did. It all happened way too fast. And when I splashed down, I knew I would never get home. I didn’t think anyone knew where I was. I didn’t think anyone could know. How did you find me?”
“It’s our job, sir,” Lincoln said. “That’s what we do.”
“And uh… you mind telling me who you are?”
Lincoln just smiled at the man.
“Are you with… that unit?”
Lincoln chuckled, knowing exactly which unit Stewart meant. The Legend. Lincoln had, in fact, made it all the way through Selection for that very unit, only to get plucked out of it at the last possible moment to serve as team lead for the Outriders instead.
“No sir,” he said. “We’re in Information Support.”
Stewart coughed a laugh, thinking Lincoln was joking. Then he just looked confused. “Wait, seriously?”
Lincoln nodded.
“You’re kidding me,” Stewart said, sitting up. “You guys are an intel outfit?”
“Well,” Lincoln said, smiling again. “Applied intelligence.”
Stewart’s confused expression didn’t change with the answer. Officially, Lincoln’s team was the 519th Applied Intelligence Group, part of the 301st Information Support Brigade. Unofficially, they were the Outriders. Generally speaking, no one had heard of them officially or unofficially. After a moment Stewart seemed to finally realize that was all he was going to get out of Lincoln, and he laid back down and draped his forearm over his eyes.
“Guess I don’t rate quite as high as I thought,” he said, deadpan. Sahil chuckled at that.
“You do all right, sir,” Sahil said. And then added, “For an aviator.”
Stewart cracked a smile through his weariness, and Lincoln knew then the man they’d rescued was good to go. Lincoln glanced around, saw his teammates settling in for the ride home. Sahil had his head tipped back, eyes closed. Master Sergeant Wright was already checking something on a datapad; probably taking notes on all the things that the team could have done better on the op.
Lincoln kissed his fingertips and pressed them to the flag on the ceiling, let them linger there a moment. He’d been all over the world and out beyond it. Somehow, no matter how much he thought he cherished his country, every time he was headed back home those stars and stripes seemed to mean even more than they had before he’d left.
As he relaxed back into his seat as much as the tight quarters would allow, he caught Wright looking at him. If he hadn’t known her so well, he would have thought her expression was flat. But there was a tug at the left corner of her mouth; the barest trace of a smile, and one that hinted at something like approval. Without a word, she let her eyes drop back to the datapad. Lincoln allowed himself a moment to savor the double victory. Not only had they gotten the VIP out safely, he’d actually gained the master sergeant’s unspoken praise for something. As chaotic as things had been on the extraction, winning Wright’s undoubtedly temporary approval was probably the harder of the two. Lincoln smiled to himself, leaned his head back against the side of the aircraft, and let the post-op wave of exhaustion finally roll through him.