Light Up the Night Read Online Free PDF

whole pirate cell that they’d chewed up pretty good and an obnoxious SEAL who’d had his ass saved when he was too stupid to do it himself. A good night’s work.
    Trisha followed the amazing scents of burgers and fries and bacon and eggs. Since they flew at night and slept during daylight, it was often the toughest decision of her day. Should she have breakfast because it was now morning, according to most of the planet’s population? Or dinner because it smelled so good and she’d just successfully completed her first fully mission-qualified flight with the Night Stalkers? She went with her nose and had a burger with bacon and a fried egg on it, with a side of hash browns.
    The service guy behind the stainless-steel chow line had handed it over with a smile and a friendly wink. She knew a lot of women who got all stubborn or pissed about being treated differently. She winked back. Hell, Trisha was different. She squared her shoulders while carrying the tray over to the ketchup and mustard pumps. Only the fifth woman to ever qualify for SOAR, she was a woman in a man’s job because she was just that damned good.
    â€œDon’t you ever eat anything green?”
    Trisha looked up at Colonel Gibson, the commander of the six Delta Force operators aboard. He was a fair bit taller than she was: five-ten, making him tall for a D-boy, and greyhound lean. They’d slept together a couple of times when she was still in SOAR training and their assignments had briefly overlapped at Fort Rucker. She could attest that every ounce he carried was pure muscle and that his stamina was astonishing. It had been fun, but it hadn’t taken on anything deeper for either of them, so they’d become friends instead.
    â€œNot if I can help it.” His steel tray included a token banana. “And that yellow thing there doesn’t count.”
    â€œIt’s closer to green than all that red meat you got on yours.”
    â€œNot by much, Michael.”
    She went for milk because a soda would jazz her up too much. Michael went for coffee, in this heat.
    â€œYou’re crazy.”
    He didn’t even ask why she was accusing him of that this time. He just shrugged noncommittally toward a vacant table in the corner of the gray-painted mess hall, and she followed him over. If he were any other man, he’d be working a desk job. After all, the whole of Delta Force was commanded by a colonel, most definitely not a field grunt’s rank.
    Each year he’d receive a set of orders retiring him to Washington. Each year he’d write a simple “No” across the orders and send them back. It felt good to be friends with the most experienced field operative on the planet. She didn’t mind the extra bit of self-validation at the moment, though she’d never admit to it aloud, and only a little bit to herself.
    Instead of screwing up, she’d kicked ass on her first forward mission as pilot-in-command for SOAR. Damn, but that felt good.
    They sat down at the red Formica four-top along the edge of the room. Some of the other crew drifted into the mess and hit the chow line—Roland, Max, and Dennis, Merchant ’s pilot, along with the other two Little Bird copilots.
    She sat down with her back to the room, because she knew that Michael wouldn’t be comfortable without his own back to a wall.
    â€œWhy do they make these rooms so short?”
    Michael took her question seriously and inspected the low-hanging gray ceiling and its impossible nest of strangely labeled pipes zigzagging everywhere, worse than the control wiring inside her chopper. Then he took a bite of his burger, that he’d set up just the same as hers, and chewed as if seriously considering the problem.
    Before she could mount her next attack, for she knew that while he was insanely bright, it always took him a moment to formulate his comebacks, he waved a hand beckoning someone over. Apparently there was some