Manny scanned the skies as their transport plowed through the tall grass. Wounded soldiers screamed as the vehicle banked and bounced and sent them slamming into each other. He caught sight of a small drone, maybe the size of his torso. It was matte black and an almost perfect oval. The only break in its seamless form was the bulge of a missile pod on its belly. A red light blinked above the weapon. The drone slowed to a stop maybe a hundred feet above them.

There wasn’t time to think. The fixer shoved his journalist, hard, off the back of the transport, and then leapt off himself. He hit the ground with a painful thump that knocked the air out of his lungs and the sense from his mind. For a second the whole world was stars and shock. Manny rolled to a rough stop against what felt like a large rock. Something cracked inside his chest.

And then there was another explosion, this one louder and closer than the last one. The heat hit him like an ocean wave. Manny was vaguely aware of the scent of burning hair. His hair.

He cried out but he couldn’t hear his own screams. Manny’s ears rang like the inside of a church bell. It was several moments before the pain and shock subsided enough for him to open his eyes. He looked down at himself first; his pajamas were scorched and his arms were scraped and bloody from the fall. His backpack was gone. But there were no signs of serious injury. None of his bones seemed broken.

What remained of the transport smoldered half-a-football-field away. He saw a few writhing, burning shapes inside. Manny’s stomach turned.

Reggie.

The pain of the fall had, momentarily, wiped the journalist from his mind. Manny scanned the field and found the other man curled into a fetal ball a dozen or so feet to his left. He ran over, gave the journalist a quick scan and determined Reggie wasn’t seriously injured either. A small sliver of shrapnel had pierced the other man’s bicep. He was just as scraped and bloody as Manny, but also basically intact. Except his eyes didn’t quite focus when Manny looked into them. Maybe a minor head injury?

The journalist said something, a lot of somethings in fact, but Manny’s hearing was all tinnitus. There was no time to talk anyway. He hoisted Reggie up by the armpits, ignored the other man’s pained expression and pulled him along as he beat feet away from the flaming wreckage and the ongoing firefight. Another blast wave rolled over him, this one more distant, and then another, coming from somewhere above them in the sky.