Or would we fly right into a waiting attack?

  CHAPTER 36

  The course Bill and Keep decided on for our approach to the processing plant carried us past the facility and around to the north, where Keep said he hoped to spot the illegal mines he insisted were hidden in the hills. Looking down on the seemingly endless landscape of rocky brown terrain from a few thousand feet, I could easily see how Exotic Mining Group could run such a large-scale operation without getting caught.

  With so many ridges, crevices, and bluffs, and absolutely no one living on the land for miles it wouldn’t take much to tuck a mine here or there, moving equipment and transferring the day’s plunder under the cover of night. With modern GPS and lidar, the trucks carrying the output wouldn’t even need their headlights. They'd be able to maneuver in pitch black and probably didn’t even need to wait for it to get completely dark.

  But it was getting dark, closing in on six-thirty by the time Bill brought Smaug back around toward the south. Over thirty minutes had passed from the time we left the EMG offices, giving the office manager, Mia, or anyone else in the company ample time to try to contact the plant to tell them we were coming. We had already lost that race, and it seemed to me like we hadn’t even tried to win.

  “This was a bad idea,” I said, still unhappy with the approach.

  “Is it?” Keep asked, eyes fixed on the landscape. He didn’t look away to talk to me. “What makes you say that?”

  “They’re going to know we’re coming by now. Guaranteed.”

  “I completely agree.”

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “I hate it when you get all vague and shifty,” I complained. “They have at least one archon in Colette Dellacqua. Maybe another in her father. Aren’t you afraid she might just rip us out of the sky?”

  “Nope.” He glanced at me and smirked.

  “Okay, I know you’d rather not elaborate for me, but maybe you want to allow the volunteers to give you informed consent.”

  “It’s not hard to figure out,” Keep said. “I’m sure Sherlock would have filled you in already if he were here.” He held up his wrist, the sleeve wrapped around it. “What’s the opposite of push?”

  “Pull,” I answered with a shrug.

  “There you go.”

  “How can you counter an action with an opposite action?” I asked, starting to catch on. “You’d have to know what the action is and the amount of effort to use.”

  “I never told you I could make you an archon in a day, kid. Remember what I said about push?”

  “It’s the hello world of sigiltech,” I said.

  “Bingo. You might feel like big shit because you can push like a hurricane, but what you know today is like the first snowflake on the tip of the iceberg. Even I only know maybe ten percent of what was lost. With experience, you’ll have a better feel for how to counter action for action. But in most cases it’s easier to just take out the actor in order to stop their activity. Capiche?”

  “Yeah, I get it,” I replied. “So you aren’t worried because you think you’re a better archon than Colette.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Then how do you know you can counter her attack? Or whatever they might do since they know we’re coming? They could have Stinger missiles for all we know.”

  “Not worried,” Keep insisted.

  “I am,” Nick said.

  “Don’t be,” Keep replied.

  “Why not?”

  He sighed, still keeping his attention outside. “Have a little faith in your Gandalf. Bill, do you see what I see?”

  “I do,” Bill replied. “I’ve got it on infrared.”

  “Got what?” I asked.

  “Dump truck,” he answered.

  I leaned over in my seat to look out one of the windows. It wasn’t totally black outside, and wouldn’t be with the sliver of moon shining down. But I still didn’t see a dump truck. “Where?” I asked.

  “This side of the aircraft,” Keep said. “Moving south about two klicks ahead of us. It hasn’t reacted to the sound of the helicopter, which suggests the driver is pretty confident we can’t see him.”

  “I can’t see him,” I agreed.

  “Don’t look for the truck,” Keep suggested. “Look for the dust trail. Also difficult to see at night, but not impossible if you’re trying hard enough.”

  “I see it,” Nick said a moment later. “The truck is camouflaged, right? Desert pattern.”

  “Good eyes, Nickie,” Keep replied.

  “Seriously?” I said, staring out the window. “I don’t see anything.”

  Keep whispered softly, his sleeve beginning to glow. “Bill, bring us in, and get us over the top.” He finally looked away from the window to address the rest of us. “They can’t rip the helicopter from the sky if the helicopter isn’t there,” he said. “Get ready.”

  “Get ready for what?” Nick asked.

  “We’re dropping onto that truck,” he answered. “We’ll ride it back to the facility. They’ll never know what hit ‘em. Badabing badaboom.”

  “Wow, that’s a great plan,” I said. “Except for the part where we’ll probably die trying to rope down to a moving target. Even if we don’t, the driver will see us and stop the truck.”

  “Numero uno,” Keep said. “The truck doesn’t have a driver. It’s autonomous. Second, come here, I want to show you something.”

  I removed my safety restraints and grabbed my rifle, sidling up to Keep. “What is it?”

  “We’re in position,” Bill announced.

  “Distra,” Keep muttered. The helicopter’s side door slid open in response to the command.

  He didn’t bother using the sleeve as he grabbed my arm and threw me from the chopper.

  I flailed in the air and shouted as I fell, getting a glimpse of the large mining truck below, its trailer filled high with sludge and rock. I dropped toward the back of the vehicle, quickly realizing I was off target and would crash to the earth a few feet behind the truck. Not that it mattered. Any fall from this height was fatal.

  I surprised myself by managing not to panic. I didn’t know whether that was because I had already accepted death or because I subconsciously trusted Keep more than my front brain realized. Either way, my descent slowed suddenly as I was caught as though with a parachute. A gust of air shoved me forward over the back of the truck before vanishing and letting me fall only a couple of feet. I landed face-first in the dirt, rolling over to both watch the others come down and to flip off Keep, not that I could see him in the darkness.

  Nick landed next, screaming the whole way and practically kissing the dirt when he hit. Having seen us come down safely, George dropped like a badass Marine, landing silently and in a crouch.

  Keep jumped last, showing off with graceful ease, moving as though he were walking down a flight of stairs to the truck. “Bill, get out of sight,” he said when he reached the last step. “But stick close.”

  “Wilco,” Bill said. “Just holler when you need me. I’ll come running.”

  “Copy that,” Keep replied.

  The Black Hawk peeled off, heading east over the landscape.

  I got to my feet, glaring at Keep. “You threw me out of a helicopter.”

  “So?”

  “You could have just told me what you were going to do before you did it, instead of scaring the hell out of me.”

  “You don’t look scared to me, Bennie. You aren’t even breathing that hard. Drama queen.”

  “I was scared,” Nick said, chest heaving.

  “It seems to me that we have an understanding, you and I,” Keep continued, ignoring Nick. “You trusted me to catch you.”

  “I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

  “And yet you still trusted me, even after I tossed you out without warning. That’s progress, kid.”

  I stared at him, dumbstruck. “If you say so.”

  “Bottom line, we’ve gotten our trojan horse into the lion’s den, and you know I’ve got your back. I trust you’ll have mine in return.”

  “Right now, I’m more tempted to stick a knife in it.” He raised an eyebrow, and I smiled. “Yeah, I’ve got your back. All your backs.”

  “Same here,” George said.

  “Me too,” Nick added breathlessly. “Let’s go Team Hondo.”

  “We are not Team Hondo,” I said.

  George laughed. “We are now.”

  CHAPTER 37

  Being large and autonomous, the truck wasn’t fast as it picked its way along an already worn path through the rocky wilderness to the processing facility. It didn’t need to be fast, since it also couldn’t get tired or bored. Three of us sat in the front corner as the truck rumbled down the hill created by the dumping of the excavated material, riding it out in relative quiet.

  Keep stood close, using his sleeve to move some of the rock around, physically picking up smaller pieces and examining them. Every once in a while, he crumbled some of it and let the contents sift through his fingers, brushing what was left in his palm with his opposite hand while shaking his head.

  Lights from the plant came into view within half an hour, the hum of generators and other equipment rising out of the evening quiet. I stood near the edge of the truck’s huge bed and looked over the empty cabin, staring at a barely illuminated maze of piping, catwalks, and stairwells that looked more like what I had always imagined an oceanbound oil rig to look. A few large tanks sat inside the scaffolding, along with a primary metal and concrete structure easily large enough to house all kinds of machinery and equipment, and more importantly, my starfighter.

  Before now, I had never seen or thought much about how mines processed material or what that might look like. Even so, I was pretty sure standard facilities didn’t have as many people dressed in dark armor and helmets and carrying rifles as this one seemed to possess.

  They were distributed across the patchwork of outer access paths, keeping watch over the area, no doubt deployed because of a phone call from the main Exotic Mining Group office. Barely visible from the distance, they shifted back and forth along the catwalks, pausing at the ends before reversing course. Black Humvees surrounded the perimeter of the facility, four that I could see clearly on our side, likely filled with additional guards.

  I ducked down, away from the top of the truck bed, where I was checking our progress when a narrow spotlight flashed on, pointing directly at us. “Shit. Keep, we’re almost there.”

  He didn’t look at me, his gaze fixed on both of his open palms. Resting in them, a decent-sized chunk of a matte black material that reminded me of coal. It also reminded me of the band around his wrist.

  “Is that?” I asked, crossing over to him.

  “Yes,” he confirmed without looking at me. “I was wrong. They did find it. For hemolytic catalysts, at least.”

  “Then why haven’t they made more sigiltech stuff? Why were they trapped here before they captured Flippy?”

  He glanced at me now. “I don’t know, kid. This raises more questions than it ans…” He went silent as a rumble sounded in the distance, not as loud as a nearby thunderclap, but heavier and deeper.

  “What the hell?” George said from his seated position.

  Keep’s eyes narrowed, his confusion obvious. At least until the ground started shaking, rattling the truck and us with it.

  “Shockwave,” he said. “Dollars to donuts, they just imploded their mines.”

  The shaking subsided a few seconds later, the wave rattling the processing facility and then fading away as it rolled outward through the ground.

  “Why would they do that?” I asked.

  “Because we’re on to them. Even if they kill us tonight, we attracted a lot of unwanted attention to Exotic Mining Group. Better to cave in the mines. They can always come back later.”

  “Will they?” I asked. “Or are they preparing to leave for good? If they put Flippy’s sigils on one of these trucks, they could bus out tons of catalyst.”

  Keep’s eyes met mine, and for a moment I saw fear in them. “That would be bad. Very bad. We can’t let that happen.”

  “We won’t,” I said. “We’re here.”

  Keep seemed surprised. “Already?” He moved forward to look over the truck’s cab, careful to stay hidden. The spotlight had already turned off, making us harder to see. “Chief, do you copy?”

  “I read you,” Bill replied.

  “We’re at the plant. Move in close enough that they can see you, far enough away they can’t hit you. Sweep the perimeter and then back off.”

  “Copy that.”

  Keep removed his helmet, headphones, and goggles. “Team Hondo, when the truck stops, it’s go time.”

  “What’s the objective?” George asked.

  “Recover Flippy’s catalyst. Blow the hell out of everything else. Badabing bada-BOOM!”

  We laughed in response to the statement, relieving a bit of the tension building among us. Even though I wasn’t afraid to die, the impending danger caused my heart to pound, palms becoming slick with sweat that I wiped on my flight suit.

  The thwip of the Black Hawk’s blades became audible a moment later, quickly gaining volume as the chopper moved in on the plant. Peering past the truck cab, I watched the guards rush to that side of the facility, point and start shouting to one another. The spotlight returned, swinging toward the helicopter and bringing it into view.

  Bill guided the helicopter away from the facility when the light hit him, running perpendicular to the building, the defenders paying him too much attention to notice us. They kept the spotlight on the aircraft, and a few of the guards at the top level of the facility’s exterior launched long-distance energy blasts at the chopper, missing by a lot.

  The truck rumbled through the gates of a tall chain-link fence topped with barbed wire, entering the facility proper. It veered off slightly, turning toward a section at the end of the plant where the sediment could be dumped onto a conveyor belt.

  I assumed that would be our stop.

  “Get ready,” I said, unslinging my rifle. George and Nick stood up to do the same.

  Bill guided the Black Hawk around the perimeter as Keep had ordered, the guards’ aim so poor he figured he could move in closer. The truck slowed to a stop, groaning as it settled in place.

  “Here goes nothing,” I said, scaling the front of the bed onto the cab and crouching low as George and Nick climbed up after me. George fired the first shot, sending an energy bolt across the darkness and into a guard on a catwalk thirty feet away. The guard's shot went wide when he was hit, and he collapsed before he could shoot again.

  Even better, the other guards were so busy hunting the Black Hawk, they didn’t notice us.

  I led Team Hondo down the ladder to the ground as the truck’s huge bed began rising, changing pitch so it could dump its contents onto the heavy belt. The machinery activated, the belt groaning as it gained speed, carrying the sediment, including the raw catalyst element, to the top of the belt. I didn’t know what would happen to it once it got there. My best guess was that the smaller material would be sifted out, the larger sent along on a second belt for further sorting. Maybe manual. But who knew. Or cared. That wasn’t why we were here.

  “How do we get in?” I asked, looking for an entrance to the building past the scaffolding.

  “The main doors will be more heavily guarded,” Keep said. “There should be access up there.” He pointed to the middle of the maze.

  “Of course,” I replied. “I should have known.”

  “Follow me,” George said, breaking for a stairwell leading up into the catwalks. We stuck close behind him, hitting the steps and climbing to the first level. Clear. We kept going, making it to the second. George had just put his foot on the level three riser when a smaller spotlight slammed into us, originating from one of the hummers outside the fence.

  “Shit,” Nick said. “We’ve been made.”

  Keep’s sleeve lit up just ahead of a sudden barrage of rifle fire from the guards inside the Humvees, nearly a dozen weapons firing on us at once. The bolts vanished before reaching us, passing into Keep’s defensive vortex and saving us from a world of hurt.

  Fresh bolts flashed toward us from the far side of the stairs, more from overhead. One of them hit George’s helmet, scoring the surface but not breaking through. Nick turned and opened fire, his ten minutes of training on the weapon leading to a majority of misses. I could totally relate, flashing back quickly to my first encounter with Sedaya’s goons in Head Case’s hangar.

  George made up for his lack of precision. One blast hit the attacker in the chest, the next in the helmet. He collapsed onto the deck, two more taking his place.

  I activated the ring, using the only focus word I had. “Distra.” I imagined the power backhanding the two guards, knocking them off the catwalk. They flew backward, slamming hard into the structure before falling to the deck. Too much energy as usual, but it had done what I intended.

  “Go up,” Keep hissed, sweat beading his forehead as he kept the more distant shooters at bay. I heard the other Humvees starting up and moving in, soon to add to the plant’s defenses.

  George fired on the guards who had hit him, ducking to the side as more blasts rained down. Nick backed him up, sending a wild barrage into the vicinity of the shooters that forced them to retreat. The stairwell momentarily open, I took the lead, climbing quickly. More enemies appeared at our backs, moving up from level one and toward them on level two.

  “Keep going,” Keep yelled, turning back toward the incoming guards. His expert use of sigiltech bowled over the group on the steps, sending them tumbling to the bottom, all of them landing in a single, tangled heap. Swinging to face the second bunch, he charged them, his hand glowing with energy.

  “Keep!” I shouted, watching him move away.

  “Go!” he shouted back. “I’ll meet you inside.”

  George shoved me forward, knocking me out of the way of an energy blast. He returned fire, needing a handful of rounds to slice through a guard's helmet and take out one more bad guy.