Day of Wrath (Taking Shield Book 5) by Anna Butler

Author:Anna Butler [Butler, Anna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Glass Hat Press
Published: 2018-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

Flynn tightened his grip on Bennet’s hand. “Well, I wasn’t expecting it to end like this.”

Bennet didn’t get the chance to respond. A Hornet screamed so low overhead that the smack of displaced air almost blew Flynn off his feet. A second followed it, launching a missile at the temple portico. When Flynn poked his head around the edge of the statue he was using as cover to see how the Hornets had done, the drones that had been firing lasers down the processional way had simply vanished. Before his eyes, the portico came down around their remains in a roiling, boiling thunderhead of stone, heat and dust.

Beautiful. Purely beautiful.

Flynn blew out a long, silent breath. His shoulders, aching from being held so stiffly, slumped into a more comfortable stance. “And maybe it won’t.”

“Thank the gods for some air support.” Bennet squeezed his hand and released it. “Time for a tactical retreat, before those buggers find another way up.”

“You mean, run away.” Flynn had been giving his parked Hornet wistful glances for at least the last five minutes.

“As fast as we can.” Bennet grinned at him.

Bennet’s eyes were shining. It would be so easy to kiss him, but hardly the time and place. Flynn grinned back instead, then wheeled around and started off the race. His legs were wobbly for a step or two, knees shaky, but he made them keep on going until they remembered what they were supposed to do and he could build up some speed. Shit, but this was not the weather to be sprinting around a desert. Within a few paces, he was sweating under his jacket and breathing harder than he should be. Bennet wasn’t doing much better from the sound of him.

The commander—Supreme Commander now, Flynn supposed, given the old one was dead under the temple—came through on the comlink as they dashed out through the shade of the massive pylon gate and onto the flat pavement beyond. His message was short and sweet: We’re out. Get moving. Watch those ground defences. No arguing with any of that. The Hornets were ready, canopies popped open from when they arrived, and it was the work of a moment to scramble up the access ladder and drop into his seat. Which was bloody hot, baked out there under that sun. He slammed the canopy down and locked it into place, taking a second to check the air-tight seals.

While his Hornet was capable of going straight up, using a bit of forward speed and a short take-off run certainly gave the old girl some aerodynamic lift, and additional help from the vectored thrust nozzles on the engines got her airborne fast. He was already at a couple of hundred feet when the Hornet shot over the tops of the mastabas, cursing the g-forces that slammed him back into his chair. Gravity, as Flynn remarked to Bennet over the comlink when he got his breath back, was a much over-rated phenomenon. No complaints, though. He was glad to get away from Thorn, despite it being the place of his birth.

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