Page 45 of Trigger Discipline
Gabriel had them both sitting on the couch, woodenly chewing on power bars. Tommy had given them a damp towel—cleverly not explaining where the clean water had come from—and let them scrub at their faces. Anything to make them feel a little more human.
Victoria was impressive. Not only because Blake had seen her piloting a plane so expertly, but because of her calm. Like Gabriel, she was taking in the situation with cool blue eyes.Under the grime on her face, she had very dainty features with a delicate mouth.
By contrast, Scott looked like a wet cat. Hunched in on himself and scowling at anything that moved. Or didn’t.
Examining the whiteboard propped up against the wall, Victoria raised an eyebrow at what she was reading. Apparently, she could understand Judd’s scribbles.
“All right, Danger Tits,” Judd crossed his arms. “Tell us what you know.”
Scott practically hissed at him but stayed seated beside Victoria. Her eyes narrowed slightly on Judd, mouth twisting in distaste.
“I was deployed from the USS Gerald Ford. We were stationed off the coast of North Carolina when the call came in. Latest intel told us it was possible to get through the barrier during one of its pulses.”
Judd shared a look with Phin but didn’t interrupt.
“As I said, helicopters are too slow to get through the pulses. When the barrier is solid, it’s like granite. Nothing can get through. But they thought if we timed it right, the F-16s could fly in. The problem is the pulses are erratic.”
It sounded an awful lot like Russian Roulette.
“Six of us left the USS Gerald Ford. Three of us made it through.”
The weight of her words settled over the room. The grief was almost suffocating. Victoria watched all five of her squadron die.
“Why?” he heard himself ask.
Victoria turned to him. “The barrier made it impossible to see what was going on inside DC. The shield went up so quickly, they were still busy scrambling to find a chain of command. Scott’s unit was trying to reestablish communications and hold as much of the city as they could. Keep the aliens in Capitol Hill so any survivors could evacuate.”
“But wait,” Blake asked, trying not to get lost in the scopeof the disaster. “How come Gabriel and his team could get through?”
“It wasn’t there when we flew through,” Judd said.
“So it went upafterit had already started attacking the city?”
Victoria nodded. “One second it wasn’t there, and the next it was.”
That didn’t make any sense. Why would they deploy it after they started destroying thecity? The aliens left plenty of time for counterattacks—like Moscow—when they had the opportunity to prevent it?
“Why and when it arrived is a problem someone else can deal with. For now, we need to figure out our next move. Can people get through the barrier?” Gabriel asked.
Victoria shook her head. “Maybe on a pulse. But it’s so fast I don’t think anyone is willing to try.”
Phin swore. “Why didn’t they just drop a nuke on the fucker the second it showed up?”
“Moscow tried before their shield went up,” Victoria answered calmly. The look on her face told everyone how that went.
“Well, radiation would never work.” Tommy said distantly. Blake recognized the look on his face. The same one he had the first time they responded to a multi-casualty incident. Dazed, but not checked out. He was still thinking; he’d just turned off his emotions. It was rare to see on someone like Tommy, who was a therapist's walking dream.
Phin looked up. “Huh?”
Victoria finished for him. “Radiation is rampant in space. Their ship would have to be shielded against it. If the impact of a nuclear bomb didn’t hurt it, the radiation wouldn’t. The radiation would only destroy any biological life in the vicinity.”
“They poisoned their own city,” Tommy whispered, like the Russians could hear them.
Gabriel cleared his throat. “They did what they thought they had to. It didn’t work. We need to figure out what will.”
Judd raised his eyebrows. “We?”
“We’reinsidethe barrier. The only ones who have an idea of what we’re dealing with.”