The Detachment

Treven and Larison shouting, “There is a bomb in the school! This is not a joke and it is not a drill! Everyone needs to evacuate now and scatter to at least one hundred yards! Move! Move!”
    “Come on, baby,” I heard Dox say. “Where are you? Come to Dox.”
    I sucked in a deep breath and blew it out, readying myself to charge the truck. I counted one, two—
    I heard three soft cracks, then a gunshot. I tore around the side of the granary and straight for the truck.
    There was no need. Kanezaki was on his feet, to the left of the truck, the HK up at chin level and angled to the ground, smoke drifting up from the muzzle of the suppressor. I dropped down and looked under the chassis of the truck. There was a prone body on the other side.
    “Is he dead?” I called out.
    “I think so.” He sounded like he was in shock.
    “Well, fucking make sure!”
    I heard another soft crack. Then, “He’s dead.”
    Dox, in my ear: “Goddamn it, I am taking fire.”
    He said it so calmly it took me a minute to understand what it meant. “Someone’s shooting at you?”
    Treven and Larison were still shouting. Sounded like pandemonium inside the school.
    “Yeah,” Dox said, “it’s that cop. He must have seen me. Good eyes. He’d need a hell of a lucky shot to hit me from there, but still I’d be grateful if someone could knock him down or something. I’d prefer not to shoot a police officer. Treven, Larison?”
    “I’m on it,” Larison said.
    “Thank you,” Dox said. “Still no sign of the drone. Kids are all running out of the school, though. Nice work there.”
    A few seconds went by. I heard a sound—half thud, half crunch—and Dox said, “Thank you, Mister Larison! Ooh, that had to hurt.”
    “What happened?” I said.
    “Clubbed the cop,” Larison said. “Took his gun.”
    I heard him say, “Here, I’m sorry about that, sir. We’re from the government, we’re not here to hurt anyone. The school’s under attack and you need to run away from it before the bomb blows up, do you understand? Just run with the kids, they need you.”
    “I see it,” Dox said. “Going pretty fast. Gonna have to lead it some.”
    Kanezaki and I ran to the drone controls. “You all right?” I said.
    “He hit me in the vest. Knocked me down. I’m okay.”
    Gillmor, on his back, his legs folded under him, his eyes staring and sightless, was still holding the controls. We looked at the screen. I could see the school through the drone’s camera. The drone was heading right for it.
    I heard a soft crack. The image on the screen shuddered, then stabilized. “Hit it, but not on the nose,” Dox said. I heard a series of additional cracks. The screen image shuddered violently, but stabilized again.
    “The hell’s that thing made of?” Dox said. “I just put sixteen rounds in it. All right, switching magazines.”
    “Larison, Treven, get the fuck out of there,” I said. “You’ve done all you can. There’s no more time. Go!”
    The school was at the center of the screen and rapidly expanding. I thought the drone couldn’t be more than a few seconds from impact.
    “All right, sweetheart,” I heard Dox say. “Come here. Come take what I’ve got for you.”
    There was a methodical drumbeat of cracks. The image of the school shuddered. It shook. It stabilized, filling the whole screen—
    And then the camera veered and began to spin wildly.
    “All right!” Dox said, jubilation creeping into his normally supercalm sniper tone. “Score one for the home team.”
    The sky flashed past on the screen, then the ground, then everything was moving so fast I couldn’t make out any features at all. A moment later, the screen went dark.
    “Where did it go down?” I said.
    “Not the school,” Dox said. “The parking lot, though. Hot damn, that was close. Nobody hurt, I don’t think.”
    “Did the warheads detonate?”
    “No, sir. Gillmor must have had them set to blow on nose-first impact.”
    “Treven, Larison, you all right?”
    “Fine,” Larison said. “Walking away southeast.”
    I heard sirens in the background. “Same,” Treven said. “Could use a pickup. Feeling a little conspicuous at the moment.”
    “Go to the bug-out,” I said. “Dox, you especially. That cop is going to report sniper fire coming from your position. We’ll rendezvous in twenty minutes. Or less, the way Kanezaki drives.”
    I expected Treven and Larison would be able to ghost away just fine in the tumult outside the