Going Dark Read Online Free PDF Page B

and shoot again.
    This time, when the wind carries away the cloud of smoke and ice splinters, I see a body wearing white camo and a dead sister, just like the soldier Roman dropped.
    I glance at the map. “You got another target for me?”
    “Roman, cover it!” Kanoa barks.
    Bam! My vision goes bright white as something kicks me in the side of my helmet, hard enough that despite the weight of my pack and my rig, I go briefly airborne,dropping back a second later to land on my side. I want to curl up to reduce my exposure. I want to crawl for shelter—but I know I’ll be dead if I do. “Target,” I growl at Kanoa. The only chance I have is to lay down enough return fire to keep the shooter from shooting me again.
    I roll back to my belly, returning to shooting position—but I’m not fast enough. A rifle speaks, fiercely loud even muffled by my helmet. Three slow shots. To my astonishment, none of them hit me.
    “Target!” I scream at Kanoa.
    “Negative. Nothing left. Roman’s cleared the eastern field.”
    I shift focus from my visor’s display to the wider terrain. Roman is standing below on the ice, looking up at me as she cradles her HITR in her arms. The three shots I heard were hers. “Your head okay, Shelley?” she asks.
    Fuck if I know.
    I check the map. It’s been updated with the locations of four bodies, three of them on the eastern side of the platform, one to the west where Logan and Tran are still dueling with two live mercs. I want to get over there, help them finish things, but not until this side is fully secure. “Roman, I need you to make sure those dead mercs don’t do a zombie. Fadul—”
    Boom!
    I look up, startled by the sound of an explosion on the platform. The distant bleat of a fire alarm follows. The alarm and the muted roar of the wind are the only sounds I hear, because the shooting to the west has stopped.
    I scan the squad icons—no changes. No one else is hit. “Logan—”
    I want to ask him for his status, but a new sound intrudes: one of the surviving mercs, shouting, pleading for backup. My helmet audio boosts the volume of his panicked voiceso that each word is clear: “Glover! Glover, where the fuck are you? Get out here! Get out here or we’re dead!”
    Vincent Glover. It’s a name familiar from the mission briefing. “Glover’s the CO,” I remind the squad. “Watch for movement on the platform, because he’s going to be bringing out the big guns.”
    “Don’t think so,” Fadul counters. “Looks like we got no heroes on deck today. Motherfuckers are rolling back the canvas hangar on the landing pad. They’re bugging out.”
    I can’t see the landing pad from my position. It’s hidden behind the platform’s massive superstructure. But Fadul is wide east. I look through her helmet cam to see the wind tent sliding open on motorized tracks, folds of loose canvas shivering in the gale as the hemispherical struts collapse on each other. The tent’s retreat reveals a midsize civilian helicopter that my overlay identifies as an Agusta Westland. The blades are loose and starting to spin up.
    “It’s not just the pilot pulling out,” Fadul says. “I make out at least one, maybe two in the backseat. Fucking Vincent Glover is abandoning his soldiers.”
    I can hardly believe it. Mercenaries work for the money, but they’re still loyal to one another—or I used to think so. But I abandon the question of mercenary ethics when my skullnet icon lights up, indicating sudden and significant interference in my headspace. Not that I need the hint. An awareness comes over me, a certainty that I need to prevent that helicopter from leaving. I don’t want to destroy it, but I need to know what’s on board.
    “Fadul, can you hit the pilot?”
    “Pilot’s a civilian,” Kanoa reminds me. “Passengers might be civilians too.”
    “Out of my range anyway,” Fadul adds. “And I’d be shooting across the wind.”
    I’m closer than Fadul, I’d be shooting down