The Ides of Matt 2017 by M. L. Buchman

Author:M. L. Buchman [Buchman, M. L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Buchman Bookworks, Inc.

Chapter One

The Tonopah Test Range Airport tower gave them clearance and they were gone. Control towers didn’t want any return response; they just wanted you out of their airspace. So their helo lifted into the airspace of the Nevada Test and Training Range—the NTTR—and raced away from Tonopah without a word.

“This next part always freaks me out.”

“And you say that every time, Copper.” Vince Jawolski was flying low and fast, piloting their combat search-and-rescue helicopter toward their hold position for tonight’s training exercise.

It was true, she did always say it, but that didn’t make Penny “Copper” Penrose feel one bit less freaked. Not that she was worried about the battle—real or simulated—but rather that there was one in progress and their job was to wait. CSAR aircraft didn’t risk their precious medics until someone actually needed help.

In minutes they were circling five miles and ninety seconds outside the primary battlespace deep in the heart of the NTTR—five thousand square miles of blasted-to-hell desert. It was the perfect place to stretch their Black Hawk’s rotor blades a little bit. “Blue Helm” was a massive exercise to keep skills fresh and shake the bugs out of new tactics—without having someone shooting live rounds at them while they were doing it.

Five helos. That was their concern in tonight’s training scenario, out of the fifty aircraft and fifteen hundred ground troops spread across the Nevada desert.

The two transport birds had already delivered their 75th Rangers elements, to mess with a tank corps from the 10th Mountain, and slipped away.

Two heavy gun platforms—one DAP Hawk and one Little Bird—were circling high above on overwatch.

And one kick-ass CSAR team all set to pull out any injured when the shit—simulated shit—did hit the fan. The six of them had been together for a while and she loved what they could do. But circling out of sight of the battle, there was nothing to see in this ass end of the NTTR except the occasional flight of F-35 jets off to test their mettle in some other section of the exercise. Meanwhile, she was getting tired of having the same night-vision view painted on the inside of her visor as they circled behind a low range of jagged ridges of broken rock.

While she waited for the call, she wondered what David was up to tonight. Was he—

Shit!

She’d been rid of that disaster for two months—splattered across the windscreen like an entire fleet of pulped butterflies—and still her mind went there. Why did she naively keep hoping? Civilian men never understood military women. It was like strong women just didn’t compute in the civvie world; which sucked for her. Strong women didn’t really compute in the military world all that often either. She’d seen too many female soldiers who chose to play the slut role to get attention or the little sister role to avoid it. She wanted to play the herself role—and it wasn’t getting her crap.

Penny sat in her copilot’s seat and tapped her way across the three status screens she was monitoring in a fast rotation.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.