IGNITION

Chapter Five

Heat beat at the American marines as their tiny ship screamed through Earth’s upper atmosphere. Technically a ‘skip’ she was diving just deep enough to both slow them for the right orbit, and cut as much time off their trip as possible. Hadrick gritted his teeth, ‘and there are idiots that do this for a living?’ he asked himself. Trying to take his attention off the heat he went over his last report. Red Brigade had taken both operations control and the tower. By now they were strapped in and waiting to launch. Japanese fighters were orbiting waiting a chance to bring the big bird down as soon as it cleared land. They probably would, his team was just backup just in case the flyboys missed. Ground troops estimated they’d be in control about twelve minutes too late to stop a launch. Wonderful. He wondered for a moment if he’d get haz-pay for this trip.

More than likely he’d get charged as AWOL.