Hail Warning

Rond Point Port — Aboard the Hail Proton

From the video feed streamed from Seagulls’ cameras, the crew on the Hail Proton witnessed the entire event. Everyone in the room was stunned into silence. It was one thing to know the missile guidance system had been altered so it would return to the coordinates from where it was fired. It was another thing to watch real time and on high-definition monitors. The results were sobering. Any of the young crew on the ship who thought that this was some sort of unconventional video game saw firsthand the lethal results.

The crew watched as a sole survivor emerged from the water. The black man slowly walked up and looked at the crater left from the missile strike. He then lifted his face skyward and closed his eyes.

“Where are Kara and Kornev?” Hail asked.

A cloud of sand and smoke hung in the air as if it was its own ecosystem. There was almost no wind and there was nothing to dissipate the haze.

“From Seagulls’ position over the water, I can’t see anything past the explosion,” Wilson said.

Hail told Starling, “Take a look around with Turtles, and see if you can spot Kara and Kornev.”

“Roger that,” the girl said, and she panned, using Turtles’ head, the beach from the far right to the far left. When the camera had fully examined the area toward the compound, Starling said with excitement, “Got ‘em. They are climbing up the deck stairs.” The pilot zoomed the drone’s camera providing the crew a clear shot of Kara and Kornev running up the stairs.

“Diambu’s double is gone,” Wilson announced.

“What do you mean he’s gone?” Hail asked.

Wilson responded, “I mean I saw him standing on the beach a moment ago, and now I don’t see him.”

Hail asked Starling, “Can you get a fix on him?”

Starling twisted her joystick to her right in a clockwise motion, and the head of Turtles began to pan back toward the beach. By the time the slow-moving drone’s head had made the transition, the man they knew as Diambu’s double was already within twenty yards of Turtles’ position.

The entire crew saw the image of the man running toward them — toward their turtle drone next to the path.

A flurry of objectives, intentions, and options passed through Hail’s mind. Each of the varying issues competed for his immediate attention. Hail didn’t know who this person was, so he didn’t know if he was dangerous. He didn’t know why the man was running toward the house. But when it came down to it, Kara’s life, as well as the success of the mission, were of more importance than this man, regardless of who he was. At the very least, this unknown double was neck deep into Diambu’s operation.

“Arm Turtles,” Hail called out.

“No time,” Starling said. Just as she pressed the icon to arm the C-4 explosive, the man had already run past their deadly turtle and was ten yards up the trail.

“Hit it!” Hail yelled.

Starling pressed the DESTRUCT icon and the image being displayed from Turtles flashed white and then went black.

By this time, Wilson had gained altitude with Seagulls and had flown through the smoky cloud in time to see the blast down below. But the destruction didn’t stop there. The ground-shaking explosion caused one of the nearby land mines to detonate which caused the next land mine to detonate. In a cascading symphony of ruin, one land mine after another began to explode. It sounded like a demonic drum corps. Through Seagulls’ audio, Hail thought it sounded like someone had lit off a wad of giant firecrackers. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM. The explosions continued. Branches, sand, shells and rock were blasted into the air surrounding the perimeter of the compound.

“Damn,” Hail yelled.

“You got that right,” Captain Nichols agreed. “Renner told you they had dug their mines too close together.”

“Renner is a smart guy,” Hail said.

Seagulls’ head swung around and was now pointing at the compound below. Kara and Kornev could no longer be seen, and Hail guessed that they had made it inside the house. But lower in the frame, they saw Diambu’s double still alive and running, almost reaching the base of the stairs.

Hail told Nichols, “We need to get Foo Fighters and Foreigner in the air.”

Nichols gave the order.