"Release a couple of Sunbursts ..."

Which were folding-fin, high-velocity rocket projectiles fitted with combination phosphorous/smoke warheads in launch tube pods below the Osprey's wings. Their purpose was to blind and confuse, although the rockets could have been capable of massive destruction had their warheads contained explosive charges.

"... then let's hit 'em with the Peacemakers ..."

These being elastomer-cased 40mm bullets containing a liquid core of dimethyl sulfide, a powerful sedative that is instantly absorbed through the skin and mucous membranes. Fired at a rate of 650 rounds per minute from a specially chambered nose-mounted turret gun devised by Sword's less-than-lethal-ordnance technicians, these rounds would disable first through kinetic energy, and second, by rupturing on impact to release their DMSO fill. Again, the nose gun might have easily been converted to take deadly 30mm full-metal-jacket ammunition--but a mandate was a mandate, and the Brazilians had been unyielding in the restrictions imposed upon UpLink's offensive aircraft capabilities.

"... got it?" Graham finished.

"Got it," Winter said.

And reached for his weapons console.

Crouched over a sealed crate in the cargo bay of the DC-3, Manuel worked sweatily at its lid with a crowbar he'd snatched from a tool compartment behind the pilot's cabin. His face dripped with moisture, and he could feel the downwash of the Osprey's rotors through the bay door behind him, blasting sand and pebbles against the back of his head.

One comer of the lid came loose and Manuel shuffled quickly around on his knees to pry at another. He had managed to dash up the freight ramp and shelter himself in the plane as the first rockets from above had discharged their blinding flashes; an instant later the Osprey's machine gun had opened fire. Peering outside, he'd seen his men stagger and fall across the smoke-covered airstrip, but then had noticed they were falling bloodlessly. It had made him remember the robot at the ISS facility, the one he'd taken out with the FAMAS gun. Remember its dizzying lights, and the sound emissions that had sickened him to the stomach. The robot and its armaments had been meant not to kill, but rather to cripple, a weakness that had given Manuel a chance to reduce it to scrap metal. A weakness shared by the strange attack birds besieging the airfield ... or at least by the men in control of them.

Now, as then, Manuel would exploit it.

The second comer of the lid separated, the nails that anchored it to the crate bending as they were torn free. Breathless, panting, the wound on his arm reopened from his exertions and staining his bandages with fresh blots of crimson, Manual flung the crowbar carelessly aside, slipped the fingers of both hands under lid, and then hefted it up with a grunt of exertion.

The lid came off with a splintering crack of wood.