I screamed like a little girl. Fortunately the oxygen mask I was wearing really muffled that because I was told that you can hear someone scream during a parachute jump from a long way off. Then I promised myself I would never, ever, EVER again jump out of a perfectly good aircraft if it wasn’t on the ground and not moving. And especially, most definitely, not in the dead of night. At least my comm gear had been turned off at the time.

HALO: High Altitude Low Opening jump. That doesn’t sound all that scary does it? Until you really stop and think about what it means and involves. Then had to do it yourself. The thing was a Special Forces technique for getting teams into important places without attracting a lot of attention — hopefully.

What the act itself involved was kind of like skydiving. But from a very high altitude. At night. Oh, yeah, our parachutes wouldn’t open until the very last second needed to prevent the jumpers from splattering like bugs on a car windshield when they reached the ground. I understood such an approach was almost impossible to detect. But it was NOT fun.

But you know what the worst part of whole things was? I’d volunteered to do it.

But there was an upside to the whole thing. Sort of.

Since I had never even parachuted before this, I found myself harnessed to a Ranger sergeant named Alfonse Ramirez. Who, by the way, was a real hunk who actually seemed to enjoy the stomach wrenching drop.

And people say I’m crazy.

But you know what? It was one of the biggest rushes I’d ever had.

“Oh Hell no. no way,” I shook my head as the simulation finished up and I removed the headset and other contacts on my skin, “am I or my kids going to manage that without a whole lot of training we don’t have time for. Get me those teleporters. If the SOF wants to go in that way, fine. We’ll meet them there.”

Colonel Torrance grinned, and gave me a wink that I just knew was full of mischief I’d never expected the man to show at all. But I’d be damned if I was going go through something like that for real and then expect to be ready for a fight.

The man gave me a long look, shook his head and flatly told me. “That isn’t going to work and you know it. You might be in charge, but it's my job to make sure your people and my people make and survive the jump in one piece so you can do your job once you're on the ground. I insist on having the right to scratch any of your people who don't cut the muster. And if you've got a problem with that, here's the phone, you can call my boss."

My first reaction was to just gut the arrogant bastard, but that one went away really fast. My second was amusement at having a tactic I’d used on unwilling officers myself thrown back at me. My next was a really surprising feeling of actually liking this guy and respecting him for the no nonsense methods he was using while handling unknowns like me and my team members. We were going to do this his way or it wasn’t going to happen. I could not only understand that, I could live with it.

“No need.” I waved the offered phone away and shook my head. “I can see that you’re right and you won’t get any arguments out of me. But I really would like to watch my own team members in their first run through of this simulation if you don’t mind.”

“Little girls like you shouldn’t be that evil.” Torrance glared at me but his grey eyes sparkled.

“Hey, if I got through it, they can.” I shrugged. “Did I pass?”

“Well you didn’t puke, pass out, or panic on the first run through.” He admitted. “Not bad for someone who hasn’t even tried parachuting before. But you have got to lose the girly scream on the way down.”

I couldn’t help it. I just had to laugh at that one.

"You won't be laughing, sunshine, when you find yourself on your back when it comes time for your chute to deploy. Now get with the program or get out of my simulator."

He had a good point, and I got back to the serious business at hand.

I watched my own Gamma team, and others go through the first run through of that same simulation. They all managed to pass the initial test. Oh, Jon-jon and Sean’s screams were a lot more girly than mine had been.

“I think I’m an adrenalin junkie.” I sighed while sitting down after my sixth solo run through of the sim.

“Goes with the territory, Ma’am.” Torrance grinned. “You either can do it or you can’t. Those who can tend to actually like doing it to a point.”

“Whatever.” I waved that aside and sat straight to give him a very serious look. “Am I, and my team, ready to do something like that for real?”

“If I didn’t wash you out during the second or third run throughs,” he said simply, “the rest were just to make sure you were familiarized with the mechanics of the jump well enough not to kill yourselves or someone else. One more run and I think you all would be able to manage.”

“I can live with that.”

“That’s the idea.” He answered simply.

Parasail safely packed and checked by moi. Check.

Reserve chute, ready, and in place. Check.

Altimeter and its connection to the main chute release, connected, and functioning. Check.

Altimeter set to correct altitude for chute release. Check.

Manual bypasses just in case the automatics failed ready and working. Check.

Low light goggles on and functioning. Check. The dimly lit interior of the aircraft we were in appeared bright as a clear day on the beach at the moment.

Jumpsuit tight and on correctly. Seals in place. Check. That was a rather thin, but heavily insulated coverall to make sure that the chameleon cloth ACUs I was wearing didn’t catch the wind of my descent. Which would have been catastrophic. All I had to do was zip it shut once the rest of the checks were complete.

Jump helmet and visor on correctly. Check. My hair was in a tight French braid to keep it from flapping all over the place and didn’t like that at all. I don’t think slapping your hair to make it behave is in any of the manuals I’d read yet. But that's basically what I did with it.

Secure communicator on belt and properly fastened. Check.

Paired nine millimeter pistols strapped safely to my thighs and holsters adequately fastened down. Check.

Additional ammunition safely in sealed pockets in my ACU. Check.

Grenades, two each — smoke, flash bang, frag — at belt and properly secured. Check.

Fanny pack containing emergency first aid and clean water. Check.

K-bar fighting knife in wrist sheath on right side. Check. I’m a lefty, have I ever mentioned that?

The jump master slapped my back to signal that everything was good and I zipped my jumpsuit closed and made sure the zipper was tucked away.

The SOF people, and some of my own team were also checking larger weapons that wouldn’t create a lot of drag on the way down. Submachine guns, blunt, nasty looking combat grade shotguns, and the short barreled, but very accurate M4A1. Those were the successors to the venerable M-16 and were very nasty pieces of ordnance. Still close to the caliber used in the M-16 these weapons fired rounds at a much higher velocity and the rounds were still designed to tumble when they hit a target. I won’t go into the nasty, gory details, but when one of those hit something soft like flesh, muscle, or even bone, the target generally went down and stayed there. The weapon was also equipped with an electronic counter to keep track of rounds fired and rounds remaining. Compact, efficient, and extremely deadly at the ranges we’d be fighting in.

My own weapon other than side arms, the knife and grenades I hoped I wouldn’t need? If you’ve been paying attention to things you’d know this. I was the weapon.

I won’t go into the details of the jump itself. We got the ten minute warning, lined up ass to teakettle into the sticks for the jump, checked the stuff on the person in front of us and waited for the signal. I was giving my gloves a last check as the cabin pressure dropped so when the rear ramp was let down the normal atmospheric pressure maintained up to then didn’t blow us and our equipment all out in a solid mass, and took a deep breath.

“Go!” The forward jumpmaster shouted as the light above the ramp went from red to green. Diving headfirst into nothing isn’t something most people even want to think about. But that’s what we all did and were hitting better than a hundred miles an hour towards the ground that none of us could see within seconds of leaving the aircraft.

My landing was a little rough, but I hadn’t broken or sprained anything. Better, I’d managed to come down a mere 100 yards from the target point. Whether that was good, bad, or indifferent I didn’t know or care at that point. I didn’t have to sneak half a mile or better to reach the spot. That’s all that counted.

Other silent shadows around me were unfastening their chute harnesses and stashing chutes like I was, and I took a few seconds to check the comm and make sure everyone had made it in okay. Those communications were absurdly simple, little blips of static or random seeming electronic noise that would be normal in the area so that no one who wasn’t actively listening for things would notice.

My team and our supporting SOF troops had made it in fine. Once I got out of the jump suit and did a rapid re-check of my equipment I moved as quietly as possible to the insertion point. To find Lulu doing a very quiet happy dance sort of thing in spite of the crouch she was in. The crazy bitch had landed dead on and I just knew she wasn’t going to let any of us forget it in days to come.

Gods save me from computer geeks who found that real stuff could be as much or more exciting that what they find in the virtual world.

Baker and Charlie teams sent their ready signals and I began a slow count to ten. Alpha team, mine, was tasked with taking the data center and its computers along with communications and security systems. That’s why Lulu was with us this trip. Baker team was to secure any prisoners remaining in the holding area, and Charlie team was tasked with blocking access to the rest of the facility from the barracks area and keeping the Syndicate people away from their amory. I didn’t envy them that job at all. There were a LOT of armed troops with at least paramilitary training in those barracks and a daunting number of them had actual military training and combat experience.

Having determined that the insertions were ready, I sent the prearranged signal to Colonel Torrance that would start the diversion some miles to the south and east of us.

Giving my people a nod, I keyed the command to commence the operation.

Sliding down a ventilation shaft and trying to be quiet while you do it is not easy. Even with ropes anchored above to help slow the descent.

Hand signals. Another crash course in how to communicate without letting your enemy hear you. I learned it, and could use them and understand them. Three months or so ago my biggest concern was getting through a day of school without getting stuffed into a trash can or shut up in my locker. Now, I could go back to my old school and DARE those bullying jocks to try anything with me. Without using my powers.

Oh yeah, now I had over a thousand lives hanging on my decisions in a complex of caves and tunnels in southern Arizona. High school toughs? Pffft!.

Click, click click, buzz, click buzz.

Everyone was in position now. God help me, I was the person that was going to start a chain of events that was going to get people killed, probably a lot of them before this was over with, on both sides. Moral issues later. It was time.

I sent the GO command.

My team dropped into the data center through ceiling vents and panels like the mythical Furies working with the baddest ass SO troops in existence.

The guards on site were down before they even realized they were under attack.

I gave the frightened IT types left a glance and told them. “Stay out of the way, answer our questions when we ask them, and you’ll be fine. Screw with us and you’ll be dead.”

No trash cans for these people. If they didn’t cooperate we didn’t have the luxury of letting them get away with it at that point. It was behave or body bags and they knew it.

Oh, maaan, I really hated bullying geeks.

Lulu was at the main console and her fingers were moving faster than a normal person, or a not so normal one like me, could follow. The blissful expression on her so perfectly sculpted face let me know that she was in very intimate contact with the base’s mainframes and was doing her best to get it to roll over and beg for us.

Leon, the corporal who really ran the squad who had started calling themselves my personal bodyguard was going to be awhile forgiving me for not letting him and his squad come with me for this one, but he’d get over it. They weren’t trained for something like this and there had been to time to train them. That was something I'd also made of personal note about changing when there was time.

The SOF people who were trained for things like this unlimbered the weapons they hadn’t already been brandishing and took positions to hold the access points from where we were to the rest of the facility. Fortunately, there weren’t that many.

“Security systems down!” Lulu announced. “Baker and Charlie teams in position and areas are secured.”

I picked up my communicator and gave the full band command. “Go.”

Chopper borne assaults landed and taking surface access points.” My very own computer geek informed us. “Entry points secured, and incursion in progress.”

“Now for the hard part.” I let out a sigh.

The enemy knew they were under attack, and that someone other than them had control of their own internal network. Our job was going to start getting really interesting within minutes.

“One thing to remember, though I shouldn’t have to remind you.” I told the SOF people. “If anyone looking younger than twenty shows up and isn’t trying to get away from someone else, shoot. Don’t bother asking questions, just shoot them. Or let me and my people take care of it. That’s what we’re here for.”

Johnny was listening without physical ears, as telepaths tend to do and stiffened as he pointed to the eastern doors. “There. Emerged coming.”

“Claire, hit the corridor hard as you can.” I told the photokinetic. One of her blasts was like going through a ten megaton flash bang and that could only be to our advantage now. Sam, back up position.”

The electro/Hydro kinetic moved without a word to stand slightly behind and to Claire’s side.

“Trouble from over there.” Jon-jon pointed to another exit. “Can’t read it. So it’s bad.”

“Mine.” I told everyone while moving to stand with the soldiers holding that doorway and doing my best to feel what we’d been warned about then told the regular troops, “Move back, this isn’t something you can fight. But be ready. There is sure to be a follow up on whatever this is.”

“Kelly!” I pointed to the other doorway. “Anything at all moves in there, open fire.”

Kelly Guiterriez nodded with a grin while unslinging her already beloved M4A1 and watched that corridor. Have I mentioned that petite, pretty little Kelly is our gun nut? If it fired a projectile, she could use it and well, with just that important bit of extra oomph. NRA poster child for sure.

Kelly and the squad covering that door opened fire just as a bright flash that should have blinded anyone at all filled another corridor. The one I was watching stayed empty. But someone was there, I felt it.”

Something hit my mind like a brick wall falling on it, followed with hurled mental concrete blocks.

Damn it! A projecting telepath, and a strong one, really strong.

“Give it up little girl.” A smooth, velvety, very masculine voice stroked my mind. “We’ve been watching you sweetheart, so I know how to beat you. Make it easy on yourself and just quit now.”

“If you know me that well.” I grated out mentally and with my voice, “Then you should know that giving up isn’t something I do.”

“He’s got troops coming in.” I managed to let Sergeant Rivera know. “I’ve got the emerged, just keep the troops out.

Alphonse.” I added while talking with him. “The first time, the very first time, I turn away from looking down this corridor, shoot me. Forget the codeword. This guy could steal it and I’d never even know he’d done it.”

“Aye, Ma’am.” He answered. Seals, they never lose the navy, do they?

“Do your best to kill anything, anyone, coming in from this corridor.” I told him. “I’ll take care of the emerged. And if I tell you to fire, whether you see anything or not, do it.”

If I can take care of the guy, I thought regarding the telepath. This one was terrifyingly strong. But there were still things I could do to counter that. If I was lucky the sucker would show himself and get shot.

Did I feel lucky? Dirty Harry would have really been disappointed with me on that one. Anyone waiting for luck to just come help them was an idiot.

So I gave up on the idea that something was going to come out of the blue to help me and started working to make my own luck.

Many thanks to Persephone and Nancy Cole for their input, slapping me when I got something wrong and patience while explaining the details of things like a HALO and current military ordnance. Any mistakes in the previous chapter, this one, and the ones following are all my own.

Maggie

Definition of some terms:
SOF - Special Operations Forces
Stick - Lines paratroops form into in preparation to jump
ACUs - Army Combat Uniform

Though Luce's team is listed as Gamma Team for Center usage, during a combat operation like they're involved in they've been given the Alpha designation because they are basically the lead team during said operation. Apologies for the confusion on that one all.