A fireball rose skyward from the trees to their left, rapidly dissipating in the starry night sky. She maneuvered the helicopter out of the turn and picked up some altitude to give herself a little more space above the trees. When the fuel explosion burned out, the forest instantly darkened, once again rendering her blind. She swung her goggles back into place over her face and readjusted to the green-scale view.

“Thanks for the assist, OVERWATCH,” said Marnie. “Scratch one hostile helicopter.”

“For the record, that was all Gupta. I’m just kicking back driving a boat.”

“Hat tip to Anish,” said Marnie.

“What happened to the whole drinks-are-on-me thing?”

“You don’t even drink, Anish,” said Rich.

“I know. Just want to feel like part of the team.”

“You are part of—” started Rich.

“Drinks are on me, Anish,” she said before glancing over her shoulder. “Did we lose anyone?”

She was only half kidding. Marnie had given them a few seconds of warning before banking hard left, but a sudden, unannounced turn like that could throw someone out of the helicopter, if the maneuver caught them off guard and off balance.

“I still count three of us,” said Rich. “Good try, though.”

“Don’t tempt me,” said Marnie.

Her night vision goggles flared again, and she knocked them away from her face. “Dammit!”

“Jesus. Look at that,” said Devin.

Marnie peered through her door’s window, catching a glimpse of a broken, burning helicopter fuselage through the dense tree cover. The ground around the helicopter flickered from hundreds of little fires created by the explosions.

“I guess that solves our second helicopter problem,” said Rich.

“Bummer. I was looking forward to machine-gunning it out of the sky. Mike would have approved of that,” said Alex.

“He would have, but I have something else in mind,” said Rich. “Marnie. I need you to fly us over the center of camp.”

“Shouldn’t we get the hell out of here?” she asked. “We’re almost over the lake to the north of the conservation area.”

“We need to do more than just take pictures and give them a helicopter to clean up,” said Rich.

“If this is about avenging Mike, forget it,” said Marnie. “We’ve pushed our luck far enough tonight. They might have a heavy-caliber machine gun set up on one of those roofs.”

“Drone surveillance didn’t show anything like that,” said Rich. “Trust me on this, Marnie. We need to draw some serious attention to this place. Get people asking questions.”

“They heard that explosion all the way in Branson,” said Marnie. “Not to mention the gun battle that probably woke everyone for miles.”