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it, and let out a derisive snicker. “You have to be kidding me. All of this stuff is military gear. How do you expect me to obtain it? Why don’t you ask your own people for this equipment?”

“I did. All of the gear is listed as stolen. I wonder who could have taken it?” said Sheridan as he looked over at Leon.

“I want to be set free. If I get my hands on all of this equipment, I don’t want to spend another day back in jail.”

“Guards, take the prisoner back to his cell!” Cole yelled out.

The door swung open.

“No, wait. I’ll do what you say,” said Leon, his voice filled with panic.

“As you were,” Cole said to the MPs.

Sheridan leaned forward and said, “Now, just to make sure that you live up to your end of the deal, Staff Sergeant Cole and Private Roberts will be going with you. I expect the three of you back here by last light. If you so much as look sideways or give Sergeant Cole any guff, he’s going to make you wish you were back in your cell.”

Leon looked over at Cole. The look in his eyes told Leon that he was not a man you wanted to anger. A cold shiver ran down his spine. “There’s no need for threats. I already told you that I’ll do whatever you say.”

“Great, one last thing, though.”

“What might that be?” Leon asked.

“I’m willing to bet you know more about the tunnels running under the city than anyone else still left alive. So tonight when my colleagues and I head out, you and your two new best friends from the MPs will be coming with us.”

Leon’s face turned white.

“Thanks for your cooperation,” said Sheridan with a smile.

Chapter 27

Colonel Wright pursed his lips as he read and re-read his orders. For a minute, he thought about disobeying them, but he knew better. It would not serve his unit to have him in the stockade. He pressed a button on his desk and spoke into the ship’s speaker system. “Flight Crew Bravo, this is Colonel Wright, please report to my office right away.”

A minute later, there was a knock on the door.

“Please come in,” said Wright.

The doors slid open. Tarina and Wendy stood there wearing their gym clothes and were covered in sweat.

“Ladies, please take a seat,” said Wright as he opened his fridge, grabbed two bottles of cold water, and handed them to the women.

“Thanks,” said the young officers in unison.

“Running?”

“No, sir, we were sparring,” responded Tarina.

“I was about to win when you called, sir,” announced Wendy.

Tarina laughed. “In a pig’s eye you were.”

Wright grinned, sat down and turned his computer console around so the women could see his orders. “Ladies, I’ve been ordered to dispatch a ship to Derra-5 in order to gather real-time intelligence on what is happening on the ground. As you can see, I have been ordered not to go myself. My superiors have deemed this mission as highly dangerous. They do not feel that I should risk going myself. To quote the last line: ‘I have duties and responsibilities to the Corps that preclude me from this assignment.’”

Tarina could tell that the words were like a personal insult thrown in Wright’s face. He had always gone first and shared the risks with his people. To be told to stay back was tearing him up inside. “Sir, what would you like us to do?” asked Tarina.

“Yeah, sir, you’ve got to let us have some fun without adult supervision from time to time,” added Wendy.

If there were two people who could pull it off, Wright knew it was the women sitting across from him. “Okay then, what I need you to do is study everything you can about the capital and pick a landing zone as far away from the enemy as you can. You’re going to have to calculate your jump from here to a location inside Derra-5’s atmosphere. Give yourself time to start your sublight engine or you’ll smash into the ground like a falling rock and be killed on impact.”

Wendy smiled. “Piece of cake. I can have my calculations for your review within the hour, sir.”

Wright continued. “When you land, you’re going to need to gather as much information as you can from the defenders and then get the hell out of there before the enemy gets wise and sends a drone to blast your ship into a million pieces.”

“You can count on us, sir,” Tarina said confidently. If Wendy’s calculations were precise, she knew that she could land her Avenger on a dime if need be.

Wright stood. “I shan’t keep you from your pre-mission calculations. I’ll come join you in one hour’s time. You can back brief me on your plan at that time. Dismissed.”

Tarina and Wendy stood up, turned about, and left Wright’s office.

“Have you ever calculated a jump from space into a planet’s atmosphere before?” Tarina asked Wendy.

She shook her head. “How hard can it be? There has to be a first time for everything. Come on, we’ve got to find us a good map of the city. We don’t want to come out of our jump right into the middle of a skyscraper, now do we?”

Colonel Wright found the women in the hangar bay double-checking Wendy’s calculations. Instead of a computer, Wendy had grabbed a marker pen and written all over the side of a wall so she could see her work from beginning to end. Wright stood behind the women and looked over the math. He was an accomplished pilot, but her calculations left him wondering if he had missed something at the academy.

Wendy stopped what she was doing and looked over at the colonel. “Does this look right, sir?”

“Does it look right to you?” Wright asked Tarina.

“Yeah, it should work, Colonel,” she replied.

“Then it looks right to me,” said Wright. “When do you plan to go?”

“Sir, we want to land at night, so we were planning on commencing our pre-flight checks around 2200 and jumping at 2300 hours’ local time,” explained Tarina. “Ideally, we should be able to get what fleet needs and be out of there in under a couple of hours.”

Wright nodded. Her plan made sense. “I’ve ordered the technicians to ensure that your bird is as full as they can make it with fuel. I’d hate to lose you because you ran out of fuel.”

“We’d hate that too,” replied Wendy.

“Well, it looks like you have it all in hand. I’ll meet you back here in a few hours’ time.” Wright smiled at the women and then left them to get on with their work. A nagging feeling in his stomach told him that if this worked that it was not the last mission that they would be launching to Derra-5. There was only one thing he could do now, and that was to ask his superiors to send the rest of his squadron to him as soon as possible so the risk could be shared by all.

Chapter 28

Sheridan shone his light down a dark and wet tunnel. “All clear,” he reported as he climbed down inside.

“I hate places like this,” said Garcia.

“At least no one is shooting at us,” said Roberts as he helped Tammy down.

“Not yet,” threw in Cole.

“I could have left you all on the bridge, you know,” said Sheridan to his teammates.

“I take it all back,” responded Garcia quickly. The image of the collapsed house resting on top of her head made her shudder.

“Which way?” Sheridan asked Leon.

“Straight ahead and then take the first left. It will take you to a grate that opens near the river,” explained Leon, sounding like he wished he was somewhere other than back in the cold, damp tunnels with a bunch of soldiers. 

Sheridan led off. Cole had returned with everything on their list, from pistols with silencers built into the barrel to ultra-lightweight ceramic knives to fresh sets of liquid body armor. Leon had reluctantly surrendered a vast horde of critical supplies to the Marines. Garcia had managed to round up some warm, but dirty, civilian clothing for everyone to wear. Clean clothes would make them stand out among the refugees camped outside of the capital if they were even there anymore. When they were about fifty meters from the tunnel exit, Sheridan switched off his light plunging the tunnel into darkness. He waited a minute for his eyes to adjust to the dark before edging carefully to the metal grate. The ground under his feet was slick with ice. He reached into a pocket, brought out a small hand-held scanner, and checked the metal bars for explosives. With almost everything else electronic being jammed by the enemy, Sheridan prayed that the scanner would still work. 

The screen read clear. It was safe to proceed . . . he hoped. 

Sheridan looked over at Cole, who stepped forward with a long, narrow metal coil in his gloved hand. After examining the grate for a few seconds, Cole bent the metal into a U-shape. Slowly, he threaded the mechanism through the bars until it was looking above them. On a small screen built into a wristband, Cole studied the ground above the tunnel. It was clear. He pulled in the viewing device, removed the monitor from his wrist, and handed them off to one of the MPs accompanying them.

Sheridan turned around and looked at the senior MP, a sergeant. “Okay, it looks safe out there for now. Wait here for thirty minutes in case we suddenly return. If we don’t, head back the way you came. We’ll be back here at precisely the same time tomorrow evening. If we’re not, wait for one hour in case we’re late and then booby-trap the tunnel as we’re most likely never coming back.”

“Yes, sir,” replied the MP. “What about the prisoner?”

“If you don’t need him, leave him behind next time.”

Cole grabbed ahold of the grate and pushed it open. “Let’s go,” he whispered. As soon as they moved out onto the riverbank, they felt a cold wind bite at their faces. The temperature was well below freezing.

Sheridan quickly got his bearings and pointed off toward a line of fires burning in a wood line a few hundred meters away. With his hands in his pockets and his head down, he walked across the frozen ground trying to look as if he belonged there. He doubted the enemy was patrolling the refugee camp from the sky after the losses to their fleet of drones. However, all it took was one drone to spot them and they would be killed by a missile in seconds. He could smell the smoke from dozens of fires as it hung listlessly in the cold night air.

As they got closer, Sheridan could see a makeshift camp. Using discarded pieces of wood and pieces of destroyed buildings, the people had managed to build a shelter against the bitter winter. 

Cole reached out and grabbed Sheridan’s arm. “Sir, I think we should let Roberts and his dog check out the camp before we all walk in there and find out that it’s unfriendly.”

Sheridan nodded.