to make the drop to the ground, followed by Magda, his former counter-terrorism surveillance expert, and the big German, Weber.
The environment was tropical and made him remember the swamps of the southern states or the jungles of South America where he spent time in both leisure and employment.
“Jesus,” cursed Weber, “it is hotter than the hells here.” Magda smiled at the big German’s discomfort but seemed not to show that the weather affected her. She had spent her career staying still and silent, invisible even, in worse conditions than she now experienced. Hendricks took a knee and removed his tactical gear to strip down to a tan T-shirt before replacing the heavy equipment, then took up his weapon again as the others followed suit.
“Annie,” he said onto his radio, “ETA for the others?”
Annie responded after a second with, “Second pod inbound, ETA sixteen minutes and eighteen seconds.”
Hendricks thought, calculating that they wanted to be clear of their pod by a hundred meters at least before the rest of his team landed. Turning slightly and nodding to Magda before switching back to his field of fire, he saw his peripheral vision blur with her movement. She slung her weapon behind her, the same as they all carried, and dug into a hard case to unfold the wings of a drone. It powered up instantly and shot skyward on a pre-programmed path to settle at a hundred feet above them, before the tablet that she powered up gave her real-time information.
“Tree line,” she said after staring hard at the screen for a few beats, “raised outcrop one hundred fifteen meters north by northwest,” before gaining it visually and pointing the way. Hendricks nodded to her, then to Weber who rose to his feet and set off, weapon scanning left and right as he went. Hendricks allowed Magda to fall in behind him, weapon still slung and eyes darting between their environment and the readout, then fell in as what he called their tail-end Charlie.
Reaching the raised hump covered in what looked a lot like palm trees, they settled into an all-round defense and waited the remaining six minutes plus for the arrival of the others. A curious whistling sound reached them first, as the heavy foliage prevented much upward vision, and that whistling registered as a heavy object hissing toward the earth under the guidance of three canopies and the bursts of compressed air fired out of the thruster ports to steer it. They watched in awe as the pod slowed and settled directly adjacent to their own, for the three ’chutes hanging limp to retract into their compartments, then waited another minute for the top hatch of that second pod to pop.
“Pod two, Hendricks,” the staunch Brit said confidently into the radio.
“Two, Stevens, we’re in one piece. You all good?” came the reply.
“All good,” Hendricks responded, not bothering to keep the relief out of his words. That was one of the reasons they gelled so well, as every other member of the team felt as though they were under the command of their favorite uncle. “Shirtsleeves only,” Hendricks explained before adopting a mocking German accent. “Veber says it is hotter zan ze hells here,” he finished with an appalling impression of their biggest team mate.
They watched from their outcrop as the remaining four members of Sierra climbed out and dropped to the ground, then jogged back over to them. Hands were clasped, nods were exchanged, and Annie hailed the entire net to address them.
“Readings from your drone indicate no movement or life signs in this area. Are you in agreement that I begin to launch the remaining pods to this location?” she asked. Hendricks looked around his team, non-verbally checking for any concerns or objections to be raised and meeting nods from everyone.
“Yes, Annie,” he said, “please bring everyone else down.”
Chapter 19
BUMP IN THE NIGHT
The pods came steadily, each one being released every half hour as the station passed them in orbit high above, and landed consistently throughout the daylight hours so as to allow the ground team to get at least some sleep.
Stevens and Geiger complained loudly that they had slept long enough, but Hendricks wouldn’t allow an overly ambitious haste to jeopardize the operation. Annie kept the ground team in regular contact with the others still aboard and landed the pods expertly.
Within twenty-four hours of the first space-based survivors touching down, the ring of pods was close to completion. They planned to set up their basic shelters inside the