July

Issue 46

It was not going to be a good night.
    
Charles checked and rechecked the straps on his synthetic mage-armor vest.  His hands roamed from his chest to his belt, briefly touching the radio, the extra ammo clips, the stun grenades.  His fingers caressed the magazine of the semi-automatic RD-440 which hung around his neck.  Electric tingles snaked up his arm.  The effects of the inhibium-jacketed bullets?  He shook his head.  Just nerves.
    
The one thing he checked the most were the bands holding his blond hair in a ponytail.  He had wound them tight before boarding the helicopter.  It wouldn’t do for them to snap halfway through the mission.  That would be a disaster, an absolute debacle.
    
His squadmates were lost in their own worlds, their hands performing their own pre-deployment choreography.  They all were ready.  Each of the eight men in the copter had completed dozens of lesser runs before transferring to First Response-Alpha Squad.  This was the ninth mission they had went on together.  Each time set Charles’ nerves on edge.  Too many variables.
    
Too much danger.
    
The overhead whine of the engines changed as the copter came to a hovering stop.  The side doors opened and ropes dropped to the ground.  One by one, the members of FRAS free-rappelled to the ground below.  Immediately the squad turned back to back.  Charles scanned the area in front of him.  All clear so far.
    
FRAS-Lead, Chet, whispered, “Seven, what’s the reading?  Better, worse?  What are we dealing with here?”
    
Seven, a young kid named Thompson, held up the sensor pack.  “Disruption levels have risen from 10 to 45 while we were en route!”
    
The squad shifted.  A spike meant trouble.  Charles’s gaze locked on the closest suppression tower.  Looked like the blasted thing was working but one could never tell.  Obviously something had gone wrong or else FRAS wouldn’t be in the field.
    
“Any idea if it’s a Ker or a Ter?” Lead asked.
    
Seven shook his head.  “No clue.  Levels are fluctuating.  Could be as simple as a few kids hopped up on ley-juice lobbing simple spells.  Sensors can misread that.  But with the theta-levels ... might be a bona fide magicker.”