ONSET (Book 4): Stay of Execution by Stewart Glynn

Author:Stewart, Glynn [Stewart, Glynn]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Superhero | Urban Fantasy
Publisher: Faolan's Pen Publishing Inc.
Published: 2018-01-16T05:00:00+00:00

25

“Hey, cargo!”

Michael O’Brien appreciated the necessity of secrecy and the convenience of the military transport plane carrying him. He was still about ready to kill the copilot, whose name he had quite determinedly not learned after the man’s insistence on calling him cargo.

“Yes?” he growled.

“Coming up on the drop point. You better check the canisters on those pontoons!”

Michael sighed. If Savida had warned him that he was being dropped over water with compressed-air-fired self-inflating pontoons to keep him and the cargo afloat, he might have told the doctor where to stuff it.

As it was, by the time he’d realized that part of the plan, the big military transport had been in the air. Now he was committed to riding an air-dropped pallet of thaumaturgically-enhanced drugs and fragile auto-injectors down onto the Great Lakes.

In the dark.

Riley’s people had better be there.

He checked the canisters on the pontoons and the release valves on the parachute as well. This was a terrible plan.

“Drop in ten!” the Air Force man barked, hitting a lever to open the back of the plane. “Thanks for flying USAF, cargo. Have a nice drop!”

The big grunt kicked the pallet, a solid impact that sent the cargo—and one Michael O’Brien—sliding down the deck of the suddenly angled aircraft and out into the open air.

If Michael spent most of the slide and the ensuing free-fall drop cursing the airman’s parentage and family history, well, no one would ever hear him.

His harness held. He checked the air canisters again as cold air whipped around him and he counted out the seconds in the back of his mind. He reached out for the rip cord that would manually activate the parachute…but this wasn’t a setup that was designed to have a human onboard.

The parachutes fired with a bang that hurt his ears even over the howling wind of the drop, massive white mushrooms blasting past him to fill the air above him as he sighed in relief. As the hurtling descent jerked to a slower pace, he carefully positioned himself to see the shore and the water beneath him.

There were no visible boats on the water. Or was that a boat? He wasn’t sure…

How high up was he?!

The truth was somewhere between his expectations and his fears, and the cargo slammed into the water with a surprisingly gentle landing, the self-inflating pontoons hissing to life to keep the crates of expensive equipment dry. They were now bouncing on the mostly calm surface of Lake Michigan as Michael looked around for the lights that would mean someone was coming to get him.

Hopefully, the Air Force crew hadn’t screwed up their timing and someone was coming to get him. It was going to be a cold night if he had to spend it out on the lake.

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