White Sands Read Online Free PDF Page B

location, but the blowing smoke made it nearly impossible to see.
    “Jeff! David! Where are you?” he shouted again.
    Then the tiniest of voices.
    “Over here.”
    Michael squinted into the wind, covering his mouth with his handkerchief.
    There. Not five feet away were two small bodies lying in the sand. He rushed over to them and dropped down on his mechanical leg. Itwas then he saw the flesh hanging off his robotic joints. The skin around his ankle was seared black. He was either in shock or the artificial nerves had been severed.
    “Guys!” he shouted, pulling away from the gory sight.
    “Dad,” David cried.
    “Are you okay? Does anything hurt?” Michael asked the boys as he searched David’s small body for injuries.
    “I’m fine,” Jeff said. As a gust of wind cleared the smoke, Michael saw Jeff sit up and brush the sand off his jeans. The kid didn’t have a scratch on him.
    Michael turned back to David who continued to whimper. He too looked free of any major injuries. Michael took a deep breath through his handkerchief and dropped on his butt.
    “Dad, your leg,” Jeff cried out.
    “I’ll be okay. It doesn’t hurt much.”
    David stopped crying when he saw the mechanical parts inside his father’s leg. “Cool,” he sniffled. “You’re, like, Ironman.”
    Michael tried to grin, but another surge of pain jolted his body. His leg had taken the brunt of the shrapnel, but his back had been cooked by the flames. The back of his shirt was stuck to his burnt skin.
    He needed to get the boys back to the base before he went into shock. A wave of chills shook his body. He remembered the sensation from the moments after his leg had first been destroyed, before it had been replaced with mechanical parts. He’d never forget glancing down at his ruined muscles and ligaments, hanging from his bones like shredded meat.
    Michael shook the thought away. He needed to concentrate and get his kids to safety. “Can you guys help me up?” he asked, attempting to stand. Jeff rushed over and grabbed him under the armpit.
    “Thanks, bud,” Michael said in a soft voice. He didn’t want to scare the boys any more than they already had been. He needed them to be strong. Especially if he lost consciousness.
    Michael scanned the wreckage for his pickup. He took a careful step over a twisted piece of metal and caught a glimpse of the flipped truck resting under the smoldering wing of one of the X90s. Even worse,somewhere beneath the scrap metal was his pack.
    He scouted the best route through the debris. The landscape was peppered with black craters from where the jets had crashed, and the sand was covered in sheets of ash. Thick plumes of smoke swept across the terrain, further reducing his visibility.
    “Boys,” he finally said. “I need you to listen very carefully. I need my pack. And in order to get it, I’m going to have to leave you both here.”
    “Dad, no,” David blurted.
    Michael put his hand on David’s shoulder. “It’s okay bud, I’ll be right back.” He glanced over at Jeff and winked at the older boy. “Don’t move,” he said firmly.
    A few heartbeats later, Michael was navigating the minefield of warped metal. His injured leg creaked as he walked. The clicking sounds of his mechanical joints were no longer a figment of his imagination. This time, they were real.
    By the time he got to the truck, a cloud of stars was racing across his vision. He blinked them away and scanned the wreckage for his pack. Without morphine, he could feel himself going into shock. And this was not the place he wanted to pass out. Gunpowder, jet fuel, and God knows what else the X90s were carrying meant the entire site could explode at any time. He didn’t want to be around when that happened.
    Dropping to a knee he reached into his back pocket and removed a pair of gloves. He grimaced when the scorched skin on his back stretched further. A swift current of pain raced up his spine and was followed by a wave of