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"One more," a voice said over her TEAMCOM. "Ten o'clock. Coming in fast."
She saw the new threat gliding toward them.
That was defmatly Kurt's voice. His last words had haunted Kelly's dreams for years. She remembered him tumbling into the black of space. "/'// be okay. I'll be o—"
She started to reply, but then realized he wasn't talking to her.
"Team Saber," Kurt continued, "move and draw fire. LOTUS mines out of range."
Green acknowledgment lights winked on her display, lights that been reserved exclusively for the Spartans of Blue Team.
Kelly had the fastest reflexes of any Spartan, a fact she was keenly proud of, and she practiced every day with twitch-response drills and Zen "no-thought" fire practice to keep them razor honed. But her physical reflexes weren't the only things that were lightning fast.
In a flash, several facts correlated in her brain.
Those drones had shields, but they didn't operate continuously. The antitank mines had caught the one with its shields down.
The drone had, however, seen her, anticipated her rifle fire, and countered. That meant either it had purposely activated shields or they were automatically triggered by motion or radar.
So she had, possibly, a way to take them out. It'd be risky but she wasn't going to stand by while Kurt's vulnerable team drew its fire and got roasted for their trouble.
"Hold your fire," she said over TEAMCOM.
With four pumping strides that gouged deeply into the jungle
loam she accelerated to her top speed of sixty-two kilometers per hour.
Kelly angled away from the drone, toward a tree just to its right.
She jumped, hit the trunk three meters up—pushed off, flipped, propelling herself through the air straight at the hovering machine.
No shields to stop her.
She grabbed the port and starboard booms and swung both legs onto the bottom spar.
Its central metal eye fixed her and heated to white-hot intensity.
She let go and braced as best as she could on the slippery bottom boom, balled her hands into fists, and then hit the thing as hard as she could—impacting the eye dead center. Her shields flared as it repelled the intense heat.
The sphere dented and spun backward.
The drone spun as well from the momentum, and Kelly scrambled to regain purchase.
She drew back once more, and before the thing could recover and blast her—she again struck a hammer blow.
A crack appeared in the sphere's metal skin. Inside was a ball of blue-white heat. The metal edges of the sphere curled away from this breach, melting, bubbling.
Kelly crouched and leapt, diverting all power to her shields.
The air ignited a dazzling white. Her heads-up display flared with static. Kelly tumbled end over end, enveloped in fire and smoke—hit a tree, bounced, and fell to the jungle floor.
She blinked and saw nothing but the red glare of flames. The jungle canopy was on fire; a shower of burning leaves rained down. Her vision cleared and she saw a blur of three figures approaching in active camouflage armor.