Page 52 of Kai
“I’m supposed to be smart,” she murmured crossly.
“Youaresmart, but you don’t have to know everything all the time. When you aim for constant perfection, all you see are your imperfections.”
She winced as if she’d just swallowed a bite of old, slimy salmon. Then she murmured, “You may have a point.”
I did have a point. If there was one thing that jolted meout of my Zen and pissed me off, it was how hard Cece was on herself.
“So,” she said, her gaze trailing the boat. “What do we do now?”
“We trust that our first layer of defense will hold, and our tech will keep the catamaran safe.” I didn’t tell her the BB shield was a prototype. Or how much I hated prototypes, theories,andhypotheses.
The drone flew high in the sky. Cece and I rolled beneath the rocks and crammed into a crevice. I threw a dirt-colored net over us. The drone buzzed by. It was a fast pass. Nobody expected to find anyone up here. I waited until the sound died down to scramble out.
The drone descended the west side of the cliff and flew over the lagoon. So much for nobody knowing where the cove was.
“What’s going on?” Cece wrangled herself out of the crack, knelt next to me, and shaking the dust off her hands, looked down on the cove.
“The shit’s getting hot.” I took a knee, shouldered the RPG, and shielded behind the rock outcrop, aimed it at the fast boat.
“Are you going to blow them out of the water?” Cece asked, her voice faint.
“I may not have a choice.”
The drone hovered in circles over the cove. And hovered some more. The damn thing tested my patience. The NWO would have several backup boats in the water and at the marinas across the channel. If the mercs lost contact or registered an explosion, I’d have precious time to get Cece andSerenityout of the cove and make a run for my backup position.
Not my dream scenario.
“The drone can’t detect the catamaran,” Cece whispered.“But what happens if it crashes against it?”
Shitastrophe, that’s what would happen.
“I won’t compromise our only means of transportation,” I said instead.
Her wide eyes followed the path of the drone. Her heartbeat drummed hard at the base of her neck. I registered an uptick in my pulse, too. The drone went lower still. It flew from one end of the cove to the other in a straight north to south line, skimming just a few feet over the water. I worked my breath and kept my aim steady on the fast boat. As the drone approachedSerenity’smooring, I calculated the distance to contact.
“Thirty feet.” A visual and thermal shield was an excellent deterrent, but if the drone hit the catamaran, we’d be outed. “Twenty feet.” Sweat dripped down my neck and drenched my back. “Ten feet.” My finger tightened over the trigger.
War had arrived at the cove.
Chapter Eighteen
Kai
The drone was only six feet away fromSerenitywhen it changed course, gained altitude, and sweeping dangerously close to the mast, soared above the reef. It made a last pass high over the cove, and minutes later, landed on the merc’s boat.
Talk about a close call.
I released a silent exhale. We’d been lucky, and once I returned stateside, I’d be able to report that BB’s cloaking technology had held its own. The mercs had come close to findingSerenity, and yet, they hadn’t.
“My nerves are shot.” Cece slumped against the rocks. “Why the hell are you smirking like a wolf?”
“We’ve achieved a tactical advantage,” I said as the motors roared to life and the merc’s boat sped toward the south end of the island. “Those fuckers down there? They think they’ve cleared the grid assigned to them.”
She rolled a hand in the air. “And?”
“They’re not coming back, at least not right away.” I wiped the sweat from my face. “You’re safe for now.”
For the next half hour, we remained on the ridge, surveilling the speeding watercraft until it rounded the point and made a beeline for the channel. As the sun became a golden orb and dropped toward the horizon, the craft disappeared from view.
