Hannah followed suit and then chambered a round into the M-4 she’d carried since her previous mission to the facility with Grady. She had a quick moment of panic. She hadn’t fired the weapon in probably six or seven months. What if it jammed or…?
“Stop it,” she mumbled under her breath. She’d cleaned the weapon thoroughly. It would do fine. Even though nobody could hear her over the roar of the engines, Hannah was still annoyed at herself. She’d spent way too long alone with nobody to talk to except herself. Now that she was back amongst humans, they were gonna think she was a weirdo for talking to herself. Actually, she thought she was a weirdo for doing it, so she couldn’t imagine how others might react.
“You got that on safe?” one of the soldiers across from her asked, breaking her self-reprimand.
She stared hard at him. Of course, my weapon is on safe, asshole, she thought. Most of the guys around her had noticed her suppressed M-4 while they waited to board the plane. She’d heard their whispers of derision. They thought she was a typical headquarters douchebag who got all the Gucci gear without knowing what the hell to do with it except look cool. They didn’t know her story, but it still pissed her off that they automatically assumed that she wasn’t a warfighter simply because she was a girl.
“Fuck you,” she said aloud, directing it at the guy specifically, but all of them in general.
“What?”
“I said fuck you, dickbag,” she shouted to be heard. “I know what the fuck I’m doing. I’m not some fairy princess who—”
Sergeant Pollard put a restraining hand on the soldier and shouted something that she couldn’t make out. It was a bit longer than the NCO telling him to shut the fuck up, and when he was done, the soldier who’d asked her if she knew what she was doing looked at her differently.
“Sorry, ma’am,” he called out before busying himself with his own weapon.
“I don’t need you defending me,” she said when Pollard glanced at her. “I can take care of my own damn self.”
“I know, ma’am. I heard your story in that briefing with the general. You don’t gotta convince me that you can handle a weapon.” He pointed at the muzzle of her weapon. “Wish we had suppressors. If we have to start shooting, it’ll bring anything within a ten mile radius right to us.”
Hannah hadn’t considered that. She’d been in special operations units almost her entire career, so she’d taken for granted that everyone had suppressors. “Why don’t you guys have them?”
He shrugged. “Special use only. There are only a couple hundred of them back at Bliss. They don’t want to risk losing them if this mission goes tits up— Ah, I mean, if the mission goes bad.”
“Tits up is okay,” she replied with a smile. “I’m an Army girl, remember, Sergeant? A little bit of cursing doesn’t offend me.”
“Got it, ma’am.”
The interior lighting switched from green to red. One minute. Hannah leaned back against the cargo netting along the fuselage. Depending on the condition of the landing strip, it might be a bumpy landing. The wheels touched down and almost immediately, she was thrown forward as the pilots applied the brakes. She’d been in the room with the planners when they found the facility on satellite. The landing strip was estimated to be about 3,500 feet long, which is 500 more feet than the C-130’s tactical insertion minimum requirement. Still, it was cutting it close with the impenetrable jungle waiting at the end of the runway.
The taxi lasted several tense seconds as the back ramp began to open before they stopped. Bright daylight flooded into the cargo area, temporarily blinding everyone. Hannah shielded her eyes against the brightness. Almost immediately, the temperature in the plane skyrocketed as the Southern Hemisphere summer weather overtook the aircraft’s environmental control system’s capacity. The scent of damp, lush jungle with an undertone of decay filled the airplane, threatening to overwhelm the regular smells of the C-130’s fuel and the soldiers’ body odor.
Outside the plane, the world passed by in an ever-increasing view as the ramp continued to descend. On one side, jungle leaves and vines flashed by, on the other, they passed by shipping containers and the low, gray cinder block building that had haunted her nightmares. All that distance that she’d endured, the days of endless travel to make it back to the States, and here she was, right back where she’d started. It had all been for nothing.
The crushing feeling of defeat threatened to overwhelm her as the aircraft finally braked to a complete halt. The crew chief lowered the ramp the rest of the way and soldiers surged to their feet around her. Hannah tried to do the same, but the harness restrained her. She struggled to unclip herself as bodies brushed past her legs and backpacks obstructed her view. It was hardly the glorious impression of a seasoned warfighter that she’d tried to project.
Hannah had to wait for an opening in the line of soldiers before she could join the shuffling march toward the open end of the plane. When she finally broke free of the aircraft’s confines, she took several quick, deep breaths. She was okay. She would be okay.
“Hey, you okay?”
She turned to see one of the soldiers who’d come off the plane last with her. “Um, yeah. Just—”
“Clear the flight line!” the crew chief shouted from the back of the ramp. “We’re turning
