Page 61 of Echo: Burn
I shift, suppressing while she changes magazines. The movement is smooth, practiced, exactly what her father taught her.
Good girl.
The mercenaries adjust, concentrating fire on my position. Rock explodes in shrapnel. I feel something hot slice across my ribs but don't stop moving. Can't stop. Stopping means dying.
"North approach!" Willa's voice cuts through. "Two tangos moving through the tree line!"
I swing my rifle, acquire targets. Two figures advancing with professional precision, using the trees for cover. They're good. Well-trained. Well-equipped.
Not good enough.
Two suppressed bursts. Both tangos drop. But more are coming. I can hear them moving through the darkness, coordinating, tightening the net.
"We need to fall back to secondary position," I tell Willa. "The cave entrance seventy meters south. You know it?"
"The one you showed me yesterday?"
"That's the one. When I say go, you run. Don't stop. Don't look back. Just run until you're inside and seal the door behind you."
"What about you?"
"I'll be right behind you." Lie. I'll be covering her retreat, which means staying exposed longer than smart. But that's the job. "Ready?"
"Kane...”
"Ready?" Harder this time.
She nods. Trusts me even though she knows I'm not telling her everything.
"Go!"
She runs.
I count to three, then follow, laying down covering fire that keeps the mercenaries' heads down. Muzzle flashes erupt from multiple positions as they realize we're breaking contact. Bullets chase us down the tunnel, sparking off stone, whining past my head close enough to feel the displacement.
Willa reaches the cave entrance first. I'm ten meters behind her, still firing, when I hear the mechanical click that makes my blood freeze.
Grenade.
"Down!" I tackle Willa through the entrance a half-second before the explosion turns the tunnel into a blast furnace. The pressure wave slams into us, driving us deeper into the cave system. My ears ring. Can't hear. Can't think. Just keep moving, dragging Willa with me, putting rock between us and the kill zone.
We collapse thirty meters in, both gasping, both checking for injuries. My ribs are bleeding—the shrapnel cut deeper than I thought—but it's manageable. Willa's got a gash on her forehead, blood streaming down her face, but she's moving, checking her weapon, already scanning for the next threat.
"Odin," she gasps. "Where's...”
The dog materializes from the darkness, unhurt but agitated. He circles once, then positions himself between us and the tunnel entrance.
Still alert. Still detecting chemical signatures.
"They're not done," I tell Willa. "That grenade was meant to flush us out or collapse the entrance. We've got maybe two minutes before they regroup and come after us."
"Then we go deeper. Use the tunnel network to lose them."
"We can't. This isn't connected to Echo Base. It's a dead end—literally. Goes back about a hundred meters, then terminates at a collapse from the original mining operation."
Her eyes widen. "We're trapped."
"We're contained. Different from trapped—we've got options. But they don't know this tunnel's layout. Don't know where the choke points are. And they're about to learn that chasing someone into their home territory is a fatal mistake."
