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"I JUST WANT TO SAY one more time that I don’t think this is a good idea," said Hutchings, his voice barely audible over the rotors of the antiquated helicopter.
Sliding her heavy backpack and the gear that wasn’t already strapped to her body behind the cargo netting, Hunter climbed in beside him.
"I know, Hutch. That doesn’t change the fact that we’re doing it anyway."
She strapped in as the rest of her team followed suit. There was Hunter and Hutchings, as well as Davey Williams and Alvin Morgan – pilot and co-pilot, respectively – Harley Ransom, the tracker, Douglas Grieve, the sniper, and two former members of the Lothian & Borders Police, Jamie Fairbairn and Jasbir "Jazz" Pradesh. All were decked out in a random assortment of military and civilian garb, some camouflage and some not, but all muted colours, and all wore military-grade body armour and tactical vests. Grieve cradled an older-model Trondheim Arms 32A OSR sniper rifle in his arms while Ransom tested the action on her compound bow. The two were a study in opposites. A veteran of military service with the Commonwealth, Grieve had retired from the army nearly ten years prior at the age of fifty-five, keeping up his skill as a sniper through various shooting competitions. On the polar opposite end of the spectrum was sixteen year old Ransom, the daughter of two Canadian wilderness guides who had passed along the craft to her. When the ril-galas had struck, Ransom had been in Glasgow for the Commonwealth Games, competing in archery. She was the only one of the group Hunter hadn't known—she was just the tracker with the wild red hair—but Ransom had been included at Grieve's insistence as his spotter.
They were an unconventional pair, but had apparently developed an almost father/daughter bond.
"How long we up for?" asked Ransom, trying to hide her nerves.
"Hutch says about two hours," said Hunter. "But it depends on how many ril-galas patrols we have to avoid."
The young girl nodded and went back to studying her bow.
As the helicopter gently lifted into the air, Hunter motioned for everyone to put on their headsets. It was time for the briefing.
"Before I explain our mission, I want to apologize for both the secrecy and the last-minute assignment," she said. "It was all very necessary."
All members of the team were watching and listening intently.
"You can consider this a search and rescue operation. You all know that Graham MacDowall came home last night," she said. "But what he brought with him was information about the Royal Family – that the youngest son of the Queen, Arthur, is not only alive, but is in Scotland, hiding out at Balmoral."
"Is this credible information?" said Grieve.
"MacDowall saw the boy with his own eyes."
"Graham was a football commentator before the invasion," said Pradesh. "He’s got good eyes."
"I’m sure some of you will think this is a fool’s errand," said Hunter. "But our people need a symbol to inspire them in this fight. I don’t expect this kid to be carrying Excalibur, but the heir to the throne of Britain not just surviving, but standing tall on the battlements of Edinburgh Castle? Consider what that could mean to our people. And then consider what it could mean if we were able to broadcast that image to other cities – maybe even around the world."
She let the image sink in for a moment before continuing.
"So we go to Balmoral, we find King Arthur and we evac him back to the castle."
To their credit, not one member of the team – not even Hutchings – pointed out how insane the plan was and how the odds were stacked against a favourable outcome. But then, everyone knew that they were desperate, grasping at straws. How much longer they could realistically hold out against the ril-galas forces was anyone’s guess, but at the rate the human strongholds were falling, Hunter herself gave the Edinburgh Castle garrison four to six months. And that was being generous.
However...
As she’d seen with her own eyes and felt within her own heart and mind when all this had begun, a little inspiration and a little hope instilled at the right moment could drive people to greatness.
It could even inspire a jaded woman with no faith left in humanity, a woman who wanted nothing more than to disappear to the edges of the galaxy, to put her life on the line to protect others. To turn her ship around and not only rejoin the fight, but drive straight into the heart of the ril-galas occupation and reinvent herself as a freedom fighter.
If Radko could see her now, she wasn’t sure if he’d be surprised or if he’d just give her that wry smile and tell her he was glad she’d finally decided what kind of person she wanted to be.
She hoped both she and Radko lived long enough to see each other again. As the first one to treat her as an actual person rather than an asset, she would like to show him the kind of person she’d become.
Though it felt strange to admit it to herself, she hoped he would be proud of her.
The two-hour flight seemed to pass quicker than expected, with the entire team remaining silent but for a few brief whispered conversations. Even their minds were relatively quiet, focusing on their preparation. It was a nice change for Hunter, to be away from all the noisy thoughts of the several hundred people holed up in Edinburgh Castle.
"Hunter," said Morgan, the co-pilot. "Looks like a fire-fight at Balmoral Castle."
Unstrapping herself, Hunter moved forward into the cockpit and followed Morgan’s gaze to the distant castle courtyard. Bursts of light were erupting from two clear lines – the familiar muzzle flash of Commonwealth weapons from the castle itself and the now all-too-familiar bright blooms of ril-galas cannons. There were more humans in the castle than she would have thought, which gave her hope that MacDowall had been right about Arthur.
"Is there a safe place to land?"
"I’m surprised we even made it here without being shot down," said Williams. "The only landing spot I’d call safe is the one we took off from."
"There," said Morgan. "Behind the ril-galas line. They’re not holding any ground, just driving forward to the castle."
"Yeah we can make that work. Better gear up quick and strap in again, Hunter – this landing isn’t going to be a patient one."
"Once we’re off, you guys get airborne again. Keep moving," she said. "We’ll signal when we need you back."
Both pilot and co-pilot nodded and Hunter stepped back to the cargo netting and began handing out the gear.
"Prepare for a hard landing," she said, strapping on her own gear, then taking her seat once more. "We bring back Arthur at any cost. Clear?"
They all nodded.
Suddenly a jolt went through the entire helicopter, accompanied by the sound of shattering glass and tearing metal and a spray of red arced through the cockpit access way. The chopper was a mere six feet off the ground and it dropped like a stone the rest of the distance, hitting the earth with a heavy thud.
Hunter could hear someone screaming and the confused yelling of others and overlaid on top of all that was a cacophony of panicked and terrified thoughts and even worse mental screams of pain and suddenly the chopper lurched onto its side, rotors biting into the ground, kicking up clods of grass and soil. And then the mechanism, stressed beyond all reason, snapped, bursting into flames and Hunter was finally able to focus again. There was something wet dripping down the side of her face as she cut through her restraints with a utility knife, but she had no idea whether it was her blood, someone else’s blood or some kind of fluid from the helicopter itself.
The rest of the team was already climbing out of the side cargo door – which was now facing straight up to the sky – and Hunter joined them, hauling herself out of the wreck and dropping to the ground. She winced at the pain in her ankle as she landed, but she could still put weight on it with only mild pain. It couldn’t be that bad.
Williams was climbing out of the cockpit, covered in blood, but uninjured based on his mobility. Morgan, however, was dead. The image of the co-pilot she saw in Williams’s mind was horrific, his chest blown open to the sternum, his head nothing more than a splattered mass across the back of his chair.
"Morgan...," stuttered Williams. "He’s... Morgan’s dead."
Hunter simply nodded and raised her Caliburn submachine gun to her shoulder. The weapons carried by the squad were an odd amalgam of military, paramilitary and civilian, scavenged from whatever sources they could. The members of the garrison who had been police officers or soldiers had brought in many of the weapons they still used, and Hunter had brought a crate of ATC Castle weapons and ammunition with her. She dropped to one knee and stared down the Caliburn’s iron sights.
"Incoming."
The rest of the team raised their firearms – even Ransom, who had slung her bow over her shoulder in favour of a pistol – as a portion of the ril-galas line turned and began marching toward their downed chopper, manta-like heads bobbing side-to-side.
There was the sudden report of a rifle and one of the ril-galas foot soldiers dropped, unmoving.
Grieve, the sniper, had notched his first kill of the day.
Crouching low and jamming the stock of her Caliburn against her shoulder, Hunter advanced, Hutch to her left and Ransom to her right. Heart pounding in her chest as it always did in such situations, Hunter forced herself to breath steadily, evenly, and forced her mind into sharp focus. What she may have lacked in military training, she made up for in mental discipline—no matter the situation, Hunter could sharpen her focus with pinpoint accuracy, one of the few aspects of her past she could point to and reasonably call a benefit.
Squeezing off a burst from her submachine gun, Hunter caught one of the ril-galas foot soldiers in the arm, its gun pod dropping uselessly to its side. It wasn't what she had been intending—her aim was not the greatest, and their ammunition stores were such that she couldn't justify hours at a shooting range—but as the foot soldier raised its remaining gun pod, swinging it toward Hunter, a trio of shots rang out from her right and slammed into the creature's chest. It dropped heavily to the ground, the ril-galas pilot within dead.
"Hutch," said Hunter, quickly nodding a thanks to Ransom. "Some grenades would be welcome right now."
She didn't need to look at him to tell he was grinning. She could hear it in his voice.
"I think I can make that happen."