Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80829 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 404(@200wpm)___ 323(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Leo reached him. “Cutting it a little close, sir.”
“Happens.” Elias headed for the familiar black SUV. The back hatch rose as he approached, and he began stripping his armor and tossing it into the plastic-lined vehicle. “What is it?”
Leo kept his voice low. “We had a fatal event.”
He’d figured that. “Where?”
“Elmwood Gate. The assault team is presumed dead. We lost nine of twelve miners, including a K9 and handler, four of the escorts, a scout, and a DeBRA.”
Elias stopped for a moment. Twenty-eight people. Good people. He’d approved the line up himself. It was a solid team that should’ve been more than adequate for the low orange gate. He’d personally trained them, he’d gone into breaches with them, and now they were dead. Half of them under the age of thirty. He’d sent kids to their deaths again.
This wasn’t a fatal event, this was a catastrophe. What the hell went wrong over there?
Leo’s face was carefully neutral. “The DeBRA is—"
“Adaline Moore.” The best DeBRA in the Eastern US died in their gate dive.
“Yes, sir. I’ve got the mining foreman, the surviving miners, and London under lockdown.”
“London made it out?”
The crisp line of Leo’s jaw got sharper. “Yes, sir.”
“Hmm.”
“I’ve reported to the DDC,” Leo continued. “Cora Ward owes me a favor, so she will sit on it for as long as she can, but sooner or later this will get out and when it does, both the Hermetic Alliance and the Guardian Guild will scream bloody murder. The Guardians, in particular, have been vocal about our share of the gates.”
Adaline Moore had been in high demand. DeBRAs of her caliber were rare and monopolized by the DDC. Elias liked to know who he was working with, so he kept tabs on the assessors. Adaline was divorced, with an absentee ex-husband, two children, and a cat, and her life revolved around work and family. The very definition of a noncombatant. Her children were now orphans.
Leo was right, the fallout from this would hit them like a hammer, but the political mess and the PR nightmare weren’t important right now. He would deal with that later. “What does London say happened?”
“Humanoid combatants. Highest red level.”
“What kind of humanoids?” They had come across humanoid combatants in the breaches, but the word humanoid was used loosely, as in anything that was bipedal and somewhat human in shape.
A slight edge slipped into Leo’s voice. “He doesn’t know. He’s never seen anything like them before.”
Perfect.
“His entire crew and the DeBRA are dead, and he doesn’t know. Did he see the DeBRA die?”
“He says he did. The mining foreman backs up his story.”
The foreman made it out, too. “What about the other two miners?”
“They aren’t saying much. One didn’t see anything, and the other is keeping his mouth shut.”
Elias deposited the last bit of gear into the SUV and slapped it shut. The vehicle rocked. His control got away from him a hair.
Leo got behind the wheel, Elias climbed into the passenger seat, and they drove out, past the police barricade and the onlookers onto I-205, heading north, toward the airport, where the guild jet waited.
“From what London described, we will need the primary team,” Leo said. “Kovalenko is on loan to Texas’ Lone Star Guild and Krista is on vacation in the Caribbean. Jackson is in Japan.”
And they would have to wait for Jackson because they would need their best healer. When it came to Talents, quality far outpaced quantity. Jackson was a top-tier healer, capable of near miracles. In the breach, where split seconds mattered, he was irreplaceable. Sending in five mid-tier healers wouldn’t have the same impact. No, they needed Jackson. Both for his heals and his forensic capabilities. They needed to know how their people died.
“Jackson has the longest travel but should make it within forty-eight hours. The real problem is the tank,” Leo said. “Both Karen and Amir are inside gates right now, and both have gone in less than twenty-four hours ago. We can substitute Geneva, but she lacks experience…”
“No need,” Elias said. “I’ll take them in myself. Tell Krista I authorized triple rates. We can swing by Dallas and pick up Kovalenko. We have twenty-eight people in that breach. We must recover the bodies so their families will have something to bury.”
If there was anything to recover. With the kind of delay they were facing, they could get there and find only bones stripped bare. Dead people became meat, and meat didn’t last long in a breach. He would shower and sleep on the plane. The office would have to wait.
“Are we pulling them to HQ or straight to Elmwood?” Leo asked.
“Straight to Elmwood. Nobody goes into that gate until I get there.”
“Understood.”
Elias looked at the city soaking in the dreary rain of the Pacific Northwest outside the window and glanced back at his XO. “Was London injured?”