Zen could tell he was getting a kick out of playing pilot. "Hat"s on," he replied.
"Go to ten percent," Danny told him.
Zen looked down at his right hand, then pushed the b.u.t.ton he was holding with his thumb. The microjet engines in the back of the MESSKIT powered to life. They were relatively quiet, making a sound similar to a vacuum cleaner at about fifty paces.
Zen slowly twisted the control, moving the engines carefully to five percent total output, then to seven, and finally to ten. As the number 10 flashed in his visor indicator, his wings tugged him gently off the stool.
"You"re looking good," said Danny. "Let"s go to seventeen."
As he said that, Danny pushed his throttle and held out his arms. He rose abruptly. Zen tried the same thing, but without Danny"s experience, he started moving backward rather than up. He pitched both hands down, as he"d practiced in the gym. This brought him forward abruptly, but he was able to back off into a hover without too much difficulty.
The designers had worked hard to make the unit and its controls as intuitive as possible, but the feel of flying still took some getting used to. Zen slipped his power up two degrees and found that pushing his head forward helped him stay in place as he rose.
His helmet"s visor projected an alt.i.tude reading in the lower right corner, showing that he was 4.112 meters off the ground.
"How"s it feel?" asked Danny.
"Like I"m on an amus.e.m.e.nt park ride."
Danny laughed.
The sensation also reminded Zen of the zero gravity exercises he"d gone through early in the Flighthawk program, when the developers were trying to get a handle on how difficult it would be for someone in a plane maneuvering at high speed to control the Flighthawks. He didn"t feel exactly weightless, but the exoskeleton relieved what would have felt like a great deal of pressure on his shoulder muscles. He thought about this as he and Danny rose to fifty and then a hundred feet, practicing emergency procedures. Zen had a small, BASE-style parachute on his chest, just in case; the chute was designed to deploy quickly at low alt.i.tude if anything went wrong.
Confident that he could handle an emergency, he started putting the MESSKIT through its paces, accelerating across the marked course, then gliding into a circular holding pattern.
"You"re getting pretty good with this," said Danny as they completed a figure eight. "You sure you haven"t flown before?"
"Ha ha."
"How are your arms?"
"They don"t feel bad at all."
"The thing to worry about are cramps," said Danny. "When we were first starting the experiments, Boston cramped up so badly we had to replace him in the program."
Danny was referring to Sergeant Ben "Boston" Rockland, another member of the Whiplash special operations team. Zen got plenty of upper body exercise, and felt confident that whatever strain the MESSKIT was putting on his shoulders was minimal. His real concern was what he would do if he had a bad itch.
"All right, let"s do a few sprints, then see how you are at landing," said Danny.
"Last one to the flag is a rotten egg," said Zen.
He leaned forward and twisted his throttle. The wind rushed pa.s.sed his helmet-but so did Danny. Zen pitched his body down farther, then felt as if he was going to fall into a loop. He backed off, slowing immediately. He looked up, and saw that Danny had already crossed the finish line.
But Danny didn"t have any time to gloat.
"Captain, we have an automated alarm going off on Access Road 2," said one of the security lieutenants, breaking into the frequency. "I have an aerial en route and hope to have a visual in thirty seconds. Maybe a car accident."
An "aerial" was a small UAV, or unmanned aerial vehicle, used for surveillance.
"Go ahead and scramble the response team," said Danny.
"They"re out at Test Area 12, covering a broken leg."
"Call Team 2," said Danny.
"They"re standing by for the fighter exercises. They"re already covering three ranges."
Because of the distances involved, not to mention the danger inherent in the base"s experiments, Dreamland procedures called for a pararescue team to stand by near the range whenever live exercises were being held. The recent deployment and a ramp-up in Dreamland"s research activities had stretched the available personnel, and there were times, such as now, when only two full teams were immediately available.
"Stand by," said Danny.
"Problem?" asked Zen, who"d heard the conversation over the radio.
"Maybe a car accident out on Road 2."
"Why don"t we go check it out?" said Zen.
"Just what I was thinking. But-"
Zen knew what that but meant. He didn"t bother to answer, pushing his head forward and sliding the power reading to 15.
"Major, I really believe you should wait until you"re fully checked out," said Annie from the ground.
"Thank you," Zen replied, as if she"d paid him a compliment.
There were four access roads to Dreamland, but only Road 1, which ran from Nellis Air Base, was paved. The others were hard-packed dirt, or as his wife Breanna liked to say, hard-packed holes with rocks scattered in between. But even though it was about as smooth as a battered washboard, Road 2 was often used by base personnel as a shortcut. Not only was it a few miles shorter than Road 1, but its horrible conditions restricted traffic to those in the know, lowering the wait at the security post where it entered the main road. That could save as much as an hour during the busy times of the day.
Road 2 came off the southeastern end of the base perimeter and ran due south for a mile and half before jogging lazily east. Zen started in that direction, then increased his speed as Danny shot ahead.
"Security Command, this is Freah. I"m on my way via Exo3. Major Stockard is with me. Alert the perimeter system-I don"t feel like being shot down."
Friend or foe identifiers in the gear would prevent the Razor antiair lasers from firing on them, but any uncleared flight over the perimeter fence would elicit an armed response from the robot Ospreys, which would force them to land or simply shoot them down.
The surveillance UAV zipped ahead from the west, dropping into a hover over the road three miles from the perimeter fence. The small aircraft-its rotors would have tucked neatly under the deck of a household lawn mower-was flying about twenty feet below Zen. It looked like a hive supported by a swarm of bees.
"Car is upside down," reported the security supervisor.
"Roger that, I see it on my screen," said Danny. "I have a smart helmet. Have the aerial back off."
"McDaniels and Percival are en route from the guard station. They"re ten minutes away."
"Roger that."
A FORD EXPLORER LAY ON ITS ROOF ABOUT THIRTY YARDS from the side of the road.
"Zen, check your fuel," said Danny as they approached.
"It says ten minutes, plus reserve."
"When you hit reserve, go back."
Of course Danny wanted him to go back, Zen thought-he couldn"t be useful on the ground. "We"ll take it as it comes," he replied. "I"m going to check the area and see if anyone was thrown out."
"Roger that. Good idea."
DANNY WAITED FOR THE UAV TO BACK OFF BEFORE TUCKING his arms into a U-shape and sliding his power down. He settled onto the dusty road about fifteen feet from the spot where the Explorer had gone off. The truck had traveled a good distance before stopping, and the marks in the desert made it look as if it had flipped at least twice.
Dropping to his knees, Danny unlatched the wing a.s.sembly to keep it from getting damaged. Then he hopped up and ran to the wreck.
The front of the SUV was crushed. He could smell gasoline as he got down on his hands and knees to peer inside. The driver was suspended in her seat, wedged against the roof and wheel, a deflated air bag wrapped against her face and torso. He couldn"t tell if she was alive.
The driver"s side window had been smashed, but the metal was so mangled it was impossible to reach her. He went around to the other side. There was a bit more room there, but it was still a very tight squeeze just to get his hand in.
Danny smelled gasoline as he groped with his fingers, trying to reach her neck and get a pulse. He snaked his arm back out, then took off his helmet, hoping he could reach in farther without it. As he started to slide his hand inside the car, he saw the woman move her head.
Alive!
He grabbed his helmet.
"Security Command, this is Danny Freah. I have a very injured woman trapped in the vehicle. Send Team 2 immediately. Order the test ranges closed down."
"Roger that, Captain."
"Give them a sitrep. Tell them to be ready with the Jaws of Life."
"Yeah, roger, roger, Cap. I"m on it."
The Jaws of Life was a special tool that worked like a hydraulic pry bar; in this case, it would be used to pull the squashed door away from the cab so the victim could be extricated. Danny took a step back from the wreck, frustrated that he had to wait, even for a few minutes, and worried that the gasoline he smelled meant there was a dangerous leak.
He could use the exoskeleton to help him open the door. He crouched back down by the vehicle, trying to find a grip.
"What"s going on?" asked Zen, who was hovering above.
"Trying to get her out," grunted Danny.
His first try failed: The mechanical hand gripped the metal of the crushed door so hard that it gave way as he pulled it off.
"Need help?" asked Zen.
"If I can figure out how to open the car without breaking it into pieces, I"ll be fine."
"Maybe I can hold one side," suggested Zen.
"I"m afraid that we"ll end up jostling it too much," said Danny. "Hang on."
He pushed his left arm against the crushed top of the car, and then positioned his right against the door. The smell of gasoline was strong now. The car radio was on-he worried that the slightest spark would set off a fire or explosion.
"One, two, three, push," he told himself aloud, flexing his arms. The sensors in the exoskeleton felt the resistance and ramped up the power to help. It was designed to supply a slow, gradual push-moving too fast under certain circ.u.mstances could pull his body apart.
The crushed car parts moved about eight inches apart before the carbon skeleton began to pull through the metal.
"I think I"m almost there," Danny said, repositioning himself.
WHAT ZEN THOUGHT WAS A BODY TURNED OUT TO BE A TIRE, which had left the SUV as it careened off the road. He turned to the north and did a slow circuit around the wreck, making sure he hadn"t missed anything. The b.u.mper and part of the fender had fallen off, and there was gla.s.s back near the road. A man"s jacket had tumbled out as well.
Hearing Danny talking to himself, Zen came back over the SUV.
"Danny, you need help down there?"
"Think I got it," grunted the captain.
Zen saw the security team"s black SUV driving up the road in the distance, dust spewing behind it. A moment later he heard the heavy beat of an Osprey approaching. He backed off, watching cautiously as the aircraft landed on the other side of the road and disgorged its team of pararescuers. He"d never felt quite so intimidated by the aircraft"s huge rotors before.
BY THE TIME THE PJS REACHED THE TRUCK, DANNY FREAH had pried the vehicle open enough to lean in and examine the driver. She was breathing, with an irregular though strong pulse.
While the PJs went to work stabilizing her body and removing her from the wreck, Danny walked to the back, trying to find the source of the gas leak. The roof of the car, now the closest part to the ground, was soaked with fuel.
He bent down, then heard a groan from inside.
He thought at first that it was the driver. But a second groan sounded more male than female. He stepped back, took out his small LED flashlight, then went back and peered inside. He saw a leg on the back floor.
His stomach turned.
Then the leg moved and Danny jumped back. It took a second before he realized the leg hadn"t been amputated by the crash and that he was seeing someone trapped under the car, his leg sticking out through a rear sunroof.
"We got another back there!" shouted one of the PJs.
"Yeah, I see him!" yelled Danny. "He"s trapped underneath. His leg is moving."
Trying to clear his head from the gas fumes, Danny walked a few feet from the wreck. Watching the PJs set the driver out on a stretcher, he recognized her as one of the women who worked in the all-ranks cafeteria. He knew she had at least one kid at home.
"She"s pretty bad, Captain," said the sergeant in charge of the rescue team, Gabe McMa.n.u.s. "We need to get her over to the med center stat."
"Go," said Danny.
"What about the other guy?"
"We"re going to have to lift the truck to get him. That"ll take a while," said Danny. "We"ll need to hook the Osprey up. Let"s save her first."
McMa.n.u.s nodded. The others had already immobilized the driver and lifted her gently onto a stretcher.
It would take at least ten minutes for another Osprey to arrive, and a good ten if not more after that to secure a chain and lift the truck safely. Twenty minutes wasn"t a lifetime-but it might be to the trapped man.
"Maybe we can jack the truck up with the gear in the Jimmy," McMa.n.u.s said.
"Ground"s kind of loose," said Danny. "I"d worry about it slipping."
"Yeah," agreed the sergeant. "But it might do that when we hook up the Osprey, too. Car looks like it"s kind of perched on some of the rocks there-slip a bit too much and he"s in even worse trouble."