The sharp sound of the jet’s warning siren tore through the air as the ramp lifted and locked into place with a hard seal. Everyone sat down and strapped in as the engines turned on with a humming whine Jamie could feel in his bones before it subsided. Minutes later the jet rose into the air with a faint judder, streaking away from the base and into the early evening sky.
They’d reach the target an hour before sunset in that time zone, giving them enough time to get into position and wait. Drone surveillance showed no activity outside the processing plant yet, but that didn’t mean anything about its interior. They’d know more once they landed and Donovan got eyes on the buildings.
Halfway to their destination, the director came on the line, his voice snapping crisply over everyone’s encrypted comms. “Base to Alpha Team, we have confirmed Baudin’s death with the CIA. Be advised there most certainly may be a shapeshifter in play.”
“Copy that,” Jamie replied. “ETA on the Telepathy Warrant?”
“We got assigned a conservative judge and he’s not being very receptive, but we’re working on him. Ovechkina, keep mental tabs on your team’s positions in the field and keep everyone updated of said locations. I don’t want that shapeshifter getting the drop on any of you.”
“Yes, sir,” she said calmly.
“Mission is still a go. I’d like Durand alive, but your lives come first. Shoot to kill if she tries to remove any of you from the field using her teleportation power.”
Jamie frowned. “She’s been positively IDed as a metahuman?”
“The European Alliance Metahuman Security Group denotes her as such. Information wasn’t privy to Interpol.”
Lack of communication between various national security agencies across the world was SOP in this day and age unfortunately. Those deploying metahumans were a little more forthcoming if only because they shared the same sort of problems, just in different countries, and metahumans were scarce enough as it was. No country could really afford to have their next-gen fighting force decimated because they wouldn’t share intel. The United Kingdom’s United Metahuman Guardians were better than most other agencies at reaching out to share intel, but that wasn’t saying much.
“Mission command has hacked the security system they put on the plant and looped it into a continuous feed from a different night. Only eyes we’ll have on you is from the air and your helmet cams, so stay sharp. FBI is on standby within the town limits. I’ll see you back on base,” the director said before signing off.
“You heard the Old Man,” Jamie said to the team at large. “Don’t get dead.”
“Oorah!” everyone except Kyle and Alexei grunted out. Those two merely nodded silent agreement and proceeded to close their eyes to get some last-minute rack time.
Jamie wasn’t going to interfere with their pre-mission habits and delved into his own, which involved going over the mission parameters two more times before one of the pilots signaled they were getting close to the drop point. Everyone moved out of their seats and grabbed their weapons, pulling on their helmets and securing the straps over their chins. Jamie left his HUD on standby for the moment, the shatter-resistant tactical goggles clear of data.
Everyone braced themselves for the landing with long practice, the ramp opening up to reveal the cracked asphalt of the processing plant’s long-abandoned parking lot. Once they got boots on the ground, the ramp closed up and the jet launched itself back into the sky. Their pilots would keep the jet in a hover position high in the sky, ready to extract them when contacted.
Barren land surrounded the processing plant, the fields long since packed down by tens of thousands of cattle in the past, the built-up acid from the cow manure run off having killed the soil in this area. Trees were non-existent, as they were in many areas in this part of the country, with only roads linking hard fought-for communities on the horizon. Gone was the background white noise of a megacity, and in its place was a quiet that only came from an absence of life. No birds sang, no insects buzzed, both species long since disappeared from the prairie here due to the oppressive heat. The green zone of agriculture had moved farther north with the changing climate generations ago.
Alpha Team double-timed it to the rusted gates, weapons held at the ready. A map of the location popped up on everyone’s HUD, positioning dots blinking at a different point for every member of the team.
“Tank, what do you see?” Jamie asked.
“Got no signs of life,” Donovan reported after a long minute of scanning the area with his eyes while switching through different light spectrums. “Place is empty.”
“Copy that. Icarus, get us to the other side.”
“Can do,” Annabelle replied.
The gate was iron, chained shut, the top wrapped in rusted barbed wire that could still do some damage to a human body. Annabelle thrust out her arms, gathering the entire team in her anti-grav power, turning them weightless as she lifted everyone over the gate and deposited them on the other side.
No one needed to be told to get to their positions. The team scattered, breaking up into pairs to infiltrate the storage warehouses while Kyle and Alexei broke into the main section of the plant that offered the best coverage angle for Kyle and his sniper rifle. Everyone was on high alert as they moved in, rifle sights lined up with their eyes as they cased and cleared every area they entered.
Trevor had Jamie’s six as they edged into the first warehouse while Katie and Annabelle checked out the adjacent one. Donovan and Madison patrolled the outside of both, the constant litany of clear echoing over the comms from everyone’s voices.
The warehouses were cavernous empty spaces, whatever storage shelves and meat hook lines they used to have inside their walls long since removed. The environmentals no longer worked and the only thing out of the ordinary they found was a tiny rag doll gathering dust in a far corner.
Jamie crouched down and picked up the toy, gently brushing away the dirt to reveal gleaming black button eyes. Some little girl, long since gone from this place, was probably missing it this very moment—if she was still alive. Jamie had to choke back the rage that suffused him at that thought.
“Warehouses are dead ends if we get trapped in here. No easy way out except through the loading dock doors unless Nova makes a hole for us,” Katie said over the comms.
“I would be totally willing to do that,” Madison replied.
“Last resort,” Jamie said as he placed the rag doll back where he found it. “We don’t know how stable these buildings are. If we bring the roof down, I’d rather we bring it down on them, not us. Tank, Reaper, status?”
“We’ve pinpointed their security cameras in this area. Near 360 degree coverage. Better hope that loop holds,” Donovan reported.
“I have clear LOS on the warehouses from my position. Inferno has eyes on the road,” Kyle said.
“Is empty,” Alexei said.
Jamie turned his back on the empty warehouse and headed for the door with Trevor by his side. “We’ll need to remain outside. Let them unload their victims into the warehouses and keep Durand from entering. Corralling the civilians will keep them out of harm’s way. Bones, you’ll need to shield the warehouses.”
“That’ll tie me up from shielding any of you,” Trevor warned.
“We’ll handle it.”
Sunset was twenty minutes away and they had time to settle into their positions. Drone footage had the semi-trucks forty minutes out and still not deviating course. Alexei was the one to spot them first, reporting the sighting to the team. “Have incoming. Three semis, four SUVs.”
Jamie braced his shoulders against the wall of the abandoned office he and Trevor were holed up in. The one window had been grimy and previously broken, which made it easier to keep an eye out. Right now they both stealthily watched the semi-trucks pull up to the warehouses and back into the loading docks. Two chose the closest warehouse while the third took the next one over, the drivers maneuvering the big vehicles with ease. The four SUVs came
to a stop nearby and discharged their passengers.
“Tank,” Jamie murmured. “Get eyes on the trucks.”
It was thirty seconds before Donovan came on the line. “Full load for each one. Packed in like rats.”
“What the hell do they want these people for?” Katie murmured.
Jamie kept his eyes glued to what was happening by the warehouses. “That’s what we’re here to find out. The second those trucks are empty, we are a go.”
“I got eyes on target,” Kyle said a few seconds later. “Both of them. Shapeshifter is on the field.”
Jamie mentally swore but stayed put. Katie picked up on his tension when she ghosted into the very fringe of his mind, keeping mental tabs on everyone like the director ordered. While they’d had three years to get used to her telepathy, Kyle and Alexei did not appreciate the invasion one bit.
They’re not receptive to me, Katie said into Jamie’s mind.
Then don’t link them. Keep a general touch on their locations, but otherwise, back off. We need them focused, not fighting us.
Katie’s presence faded in his mind and Jamie focused on the field.
“Confirming trucks are half empty,” Donovan murmured over the comms.
That was the signal for everyone to move into position. Jamie and Trevor exited the dusty office on cat-quiet feet, hurrying down the hallway to the fire door they’d left slightly ajar with a stray pipe. They slid out under cover of darkness around the corner and just out of sight of the warehouses.
“Confirming trucks are now fully empty. All civilians are in the warehouses.”
“Alpha Team, move in,” Jamie ordered.
Trevor smacked Jamie on the shoulder before he went careening around the corner, getting eyes on the warehouses and wrapping sturdy telekinetic shields around the squat buildings. He had one wrapped around himself as well, which was the only thing saving him from the gunfire that came his way.
“You guys are fucking crazy,” Kyle muttered over the comms even as a high-angled shot took out one of the men aiming at Trevor.
Annabelle was up high in the sky, hovering over the melee and well out of view until she dropped down onto a warehouse rooftop and flung her power at one of the semi-trucks. She didn’t have the precision Trevor’s telekinesis afforded him, but what she lacked in finesse, she made up in sheer determination. The empty semi-truck rose into the air as if it weighed nothing, see-sawing from end to end before Annabelle unceremoniously dropped it on the closest SUV. The people nearby scattered, screaming at each other in a mix of Spanish and English. One straggler wasn’t so lucky and ended up squashed like a rather large, meaty bug under the cab.
Bright bursts of energy streaked through the air like missiles, courtesy of Madison. She and Katie came around the building when everyone was occupied with Trevor’s mad dash, using the closest semi-truck as their cover. Madison’s energy bombs and Kyle’s suppressive fire served to pin most of the people down, if not outright kill a few. Jamie and Alexei used that brief lull to move in, both of them racing away from the processing plant to the questionable coverage an abandoned SUV could provide them. They slammed against the side of the vehicle together and crouched down beneath a renewed onslaught of gunfire.
Whatever might have bothered Alexei before the mission, the subtle disapproval was gone in the face of a common enemy. “I go,” he growled.
Jamie nodded curtly. “I’ll cover you.”
Before either man could move, Kyle’s voice ripped through the comms in warning. “Grenade!”
Jamie saw the arc of the grenade through the green-tinged night vision of his helmet’s tactical goggles HUD. Without thinking, he hauled Alexei off his feet and to the ground, covering the other man with his own body. They couldn’t outrun it without risking getting shot by the enemy since cover was thin on the ground in their immediate area. Jamie could take a lot of hits now and survive things most people would never walk away from. A grenade going off three meters away from his position wouldn’t be a first.
It never reached them.
A streak of hot energy thrown by Madison cut through the air, hitting the grenade at the apex of its arc. Both exploded in mid-air with a furious eruption, heat and smoke rolling over everyone. Alexei shrugged Jamie off and stood up, squinting through the lingering brightness, before he began to fall. Jamie had a split second to frantically wonder if the other man was hit before he, too, fell, the ground disappearing beneath his feet.
The wrenching sensation of a teleport was as terrible as the last time he’d gone through one. It was as if his entire body was turned inside out for an impossible moment before the world settled itself again, even if his stomach didn’t immediately follow suit. Jamie suddenly found himself, along with his team, in the midst of a compound that looked to be embedded in a mountain, far from the flatlands of Kansas.
A crackling whine heralded the use of an EMP and the sharp, burning sting in Jamie’s ears and left wrist told him their comms and bioware were dead. Which meant so were their helmet cams, subdermal trackers, and any last chance they’d have of the people monitoring the mission finding them. Jamie shoved all of that to the back of his mind and came up swinging.
The nearest rifle aimed his way, its owner looking ready to shoot. Jamie grabbed the barrel and wrenched the weapon out of the other man’s hand, the metal crunching under his fingers. He swung it like a bat, watching it make a dent in the man’s skull, the weapon itself crumpling in his grip. He kept moving, trading punches and kicks he didn’t bother pulling with half a dozen soldiers before the sound of a gun going off had him staggering backward, the body slamming into his familiar from long hours of holding each other through a night of passion.
Jamie went to his knees, Kyle slumping in his arms, the bullet meant for Jamie having found a different target. The ragged wound on the right side of Kyle’s neck was a bloody hole that wouldn’t stop bleeding, no matter how hard Jamie pressed his fingers to the torn flesh. It had somehow found the perfect angle between skin and body armor, coming away with a life and cutting a hole in Jamie’s heart without even touching him.
“Kyle,” Jamie got out around numb lips, staring wide-eyed at the dying man in his arms. “Kyle, no!”
Dazed green eyes blinked up at Jamie slowly, one hand fumbling at a ruined throat. Around them, people barked out orders in Russian that Jamie couldn’t comprehend, not with Kyle bleeding out in his arms. He leaned over Kyle, heedless of the fight around them, pressing his fingers to Kyle in a desperate attempt to stop the bleeding.
“Stay with me,” Jamie choked out, staring down into Kyle’s pale, pale face. “Please, stay with me.”
Then he was being shoved aside, Kyle wrenched from his arms, as Alexei yelled furiously at his dying partner. His words made no difference, neither did the way he tried to stop the bleeding, fingers sinking into that red, gaping wound like Jamie’s had. The only thing that stopped Alexei’s screaming was the electric jolt administered by a too-familiar weapon that rendered him unconscious and sprawled out beside Kyle’s body.
Jamie reached for them but was brought up short by the click of a gun being primed and the cold feel of a muzzle pressed to the base of his skull, just under his helmet. Jamie froze, eyes searching out the remainder of his team, finding them all alive, if in the hands of the enemy. Katie, Annabelle, and Madison were sprawled unconscious on the ground, Trevor’s telekinetic shield the only thing keeping them safe. Soldiers had Donovan at gun point and he wasn’t moving, half his attention on Jamie, the rest on the enemy.
“Drop shields,” the soldier at Jamie’s back barked at them in heavily accented English. “Drop shields or I shoot.”
Jamie felt the peculiar solidity of Trevor’s telekinesis creep around his body. The invisible power became an impenetrable barrier between himself and the threat of a bullet to the brain, but it wouldn’t be enough. They were in foreign territory who knew where in the world with nowhere to run. Trevor could only hold his shields up for so long, and t
heir three heavy hitters were out cold.
Metahuman powers had limits. Those limits meant Katie could read thoughts, but only so many at a time. Trevor could erect shields and move objects with his mind, but flight was out of the question because gravity exerted too much pull for him to break. Limits meant their powers were weapons and only that, not the answer to every problem. They had no easy way out. Jamie trusted in his team that they could find one even with their wings clipped. They’d done it before; they could and would do it again.
“Drop your shields, Bones,” Jamie ordered in a voice that caught painfully in his throat. He wasn’t looking at Trevor—couldn’t, really. All his attention was focused on Kyle’s half-lidded empty green eyes and the puddle of blood soaking into the ground around his head like a gruesome halo, one limp hand curled beneath the wound in his neck.
The pressure hovering over his body faded away, Trevor’s power receding. Jamie heard the meaty sound of something hard hitting a body and contained his flinch. He’d apologize to Trevor later, when they were home and safe and away from this goddamn nightmare.
A woman shoved herself through the armed guards working to secure every member of Alpha Team, snapping out orders in French, and at least this was a language Jamie understood. He forced himself to not think about the blood coating his gloved hands as he wrenched his gaze away from Kyle’s body and watched her approach.
“Durand,” he ground out, anger and something more, something ugly, crawling through his voice.
Marion Durand smiled at him, icy gaze sharp and assessing. “We are down 136 test subjects because of your interference. I suppose the scientists will have to make do with you.”
Jamie didn’t see who fired the neuro-jammer gun, but he sure as hell felt it. The nanotech-driven charge targeted a human body’s CNS with agonizing results, disrupting their nervous system to the point of seizures. For metahumans, it short-circuited their powers for a limited amount of time, disorienting them badly. For Jamie, it felt as if someone took a sledgehammer to his skull over and over again in the span of a few seconds before the pain escalated and the world went black.
In the Wreckage: (M/M Sci-Fi Military Romance) (Metahuman Files Book 1) Page 9