Lieutenant Lisa Petty stared silently at the small area of space between her boots. She heard the voices of her squad around her. They were all very excited. gabbing about what they thought had happened at the base. Others were wondering just what was going on altogether. Lisa herself wished she knew. Part of her wanted to share in the conversation, but she needed to concentrate, needed to focus. Most of all though, she needed to seem like a leader.

They hadn’t been airborne for long, but the noise of the helicopter engine and the sound of its blades were starting to make her feel nauseous. Lisa knew she was a bit prone to air sickness, but she trained enough so that she could handle a nine hour flight if need be. Deep down, she knew that the sickness was due more to her nerves than anything else.

In all her career, Lieutenant Lisa Petty had never been on an actual mission. She had never truly commanded when things really mattered. The fact that this was not a training exercise scared the hell out of her. People always told her that she would fall back on her training, when the time came, but so far, her mind seemed as blank as the gap between her feet. She couldn’t even think of anything to say to her squad.

Someone nudged her slightly.

Lisa looked up. It was the professor guy again. His face served to only impound the fact that this was not a training exercise. She wished he had not begged to come along. Lisa had enough things to worry about without some civilian wandering around.“What is it?” she asked him.“Lieutenant,” his voice sounded shaky. “What exactly are your orders concerning this recovery?”Lisa looked straight-ahead, avoiding eye contact with him. “We’re to secure the area and search for signs of the pilot.”

“Did they say anything about what to do if you find them?”Lisa glanced at him slightly wondering what he was getting at. “If we find the pilot alive, then our orders are to capture if possible, and kill if necessary.”

“What do you think would be deemed necessary?” the doctor leaned closer.

“Look, I just don’t know right now, okay?”Lisa sighed purposefully with annoyance, trying to convey that she didn’t want to talk to him any longer. The Doctor apparently got the message and finally turned away from her.

“Sorry,” he said.

Webber’s nerves were standing on end. He hadn’t even thought about his own safety when he climbed aboard the chopper. The only thing that ran through his mind was that he had to be there. Someone had to be there to step them from killing Barro. He had to be there.

Webber looked at the soldiers around him. Each was dressed in armored camouflage fatigues, and had a rifle leaning against the side of the chopper next to them. They were kids most of them, even the Lieutenant. He could feel the tension within them. They would kill Barro for sure if they found her.

Webber wouldn’t allow her to die like that, not without him first understanding how she managed to succeed with what she did. But more importantly, Webber wanted to know why. For a Split second, he wondered if it was wrong for him to try to save her for those reasons only. He wondered if her life actually meant anything to him at all. Webber the thought out of his head. He wasn’t ready to deal with something like that right

Target ETA eight minutes!" the young Lieutenant shouted next to him. “Let’s be ready okay, people.”

Lisa wondered if she should have stood when she spoke. At any rate, it was too late She looked again at her squad, so eager for their first taste of real action. She envied their confidence, their enthusiasm. Lisa wondered if she really deserved the two bars on her collar. She then looked to the professor. Even he seemed in better shape than she was. Finally, she returned her gaze to the floor, to the small patch of metal between her boots. And she waited for it all to begin.

*********

Captain Lukes kept a tight circle about the burning mass of wreckage some forty meters below him. It wasn’t necessary to circle of course, the aerodyne was completely capable of hovering, but any hostiles on the ground would have a harder time hitting a moving target than a stationary one. He had an array of optics activated in his helmet visor. Low light, UV and even thermograph, although the heat from the wreckage made almost impossible to see anything while using that particular optic.

“Any luck, Redo?” the Major asked him, fixing an armored gauntlet over his right hand.

“A bit hard to tell.” Redo squinted at the images before him. “The terrain is pretty uneven down there. Lots of little hiding places. As for the wreckage, it at least seems tohave stayed together during the impact.”

Eric looked over to Lance, who was now dressed in the same HS-l2 armor as he was. The HS-l2’s were designed to enclose the entire body, like a medieval suit of armor. armor itself was a hard polymer plastic, layered between fihns of kevlar. Underneath the hard plastic were myomer attachments. The myomer served to mold the suit to the wearer’s body and also assist in movement. HS-12 suits were quoted to increase a user’s speed and strength by about fifteen percent. The design was fairly comfortable, with close fitting boots and gauntlets. The shoulder pads were also made a bit oversized to provide added neck and head protection. Just above the biceps, however, a non-standard feature was mounted, a crest depicting an eagle holding a scroll and sword within its talons. And written below it, the acronym C-D-I.

“Hold on,” Redo said. “I got a couple of people down there.”

“Where?” Shade moved towards the cockpit.

“Look at the briefing screen,” Redo pressed a few controls. “I’ll punch it up there.”

Eric stepped back a bit, and looked up towards the large wall-mounted screen in the rear of the cabin. It flickered on and Eric saw a view of the ground below, laced in thermograph. Two or three bodies were crouched down in the darkness.

“This is about twenty-five meters away from the wreckage,” Lukes informed. “Only people I’ve picked up so far.”

“Looks like one of them is already dead,” Lance jerked his head towards the screen.

“What?”

Lance pointed, and circled what looked vaguely like the figure of a person. “It is

almost at ambient temperature. Must be a body.”

“The pilot maybe?”

“They could have ejected and tried to get back to the wreckage,” speculated Lance.

“Ran into someone on the ground and got killed.”

“Sounds iffy.”

“True,” he agreed.

“All right lets roll,” Shade gripped his rifle from off the floor. “We won’t find any

answers by staying up here. Redo, can you put us down near those people?”

“I don’t know. Doesn’t look like much space to land over there.”

“Just drop us then. Ten meters.”

“Ten meters?” the pilot questioned him doubtfully. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah.” Eric then turned to Lance. “You can handle that right?”

Lance shrugged. “In this suit yeah.”

“Alright let’s go.”

Lance Stood up next to him. “Right with you Major.”

Redo Lukes pulled out of his rhythmic circling and headed towards the direction of the heat signatures. He looked over the area again with low light, but couldn’t quite make out where they exactly were. He began to lower the craft, keeping a close eye on his altimeter. He maneuvered a bit more, trying to find a spot that would provide a relatively soft landing for his passengers.

“Okay I’m opening the hatch,” he called behind him.

***