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across two fields, a bog, and a stile.

CHAPTER 5
MISSING IN ACTION
    Commander Root was sucking on a particularly noxious fungus cigar. Several of the Retrieval Squad had nearly passed out in the shuttle. Even the stench from the manacled troll seemed mild in comparison. Of course, no one said anything, their boss being touchier than a septic boil.
    Foaly, on the other hand, delighted in antagonizing his superior. “None of your rancid stogies in here, Commander!” he brayed, the moment Root made it back to Ops. “The computers don’t like smoke!”
    Root scowled, certain that Foaly was making this up. Nevertheless, the commander was not prepared to risk a computer crash in the middle of an alert, and so doused his cigar in the coffee cup of a passing gremlin.
    “Now, Foaly, what’s this so-called alert? And it better be good this time!”
    The centaur had a tendency to go completely hyper over trivialities. He’d once gone to Defcon Two because his human satellite stations were out.
    “It’s good all right,” Foaly assured him. “Or should I say bad? Very bad.”
    Root felt the ulcer in his gut begin to bubble like a volcano.
    “How bad?”
    Foaly punched up Ireland on the Eurosat. “We lost contact with Captain Short.”
    “Why am I not surprised?” groaned Root, burying his face in his hands.
    “We had her all the way over the Alps.”
    “The Alps? She took a land route?”
    Foaly nodded. “Against regulations, I know. But everyone does it.”
    The commander agreed grudgingly. Who could resist a view like that? As a rookie, he’d been placed on report himself for that exact offense.
    “Okay. Move on. When did we lose her?”
    Foaly opened a viewer window on the screen.
    “This is the feed from Holly’s helmet unit. Here we are over Disneyland Paris. . . .”
    The centaur pressed the fast forward.
    “Now dolphins, blah blah blah. The Irish coastline. Still no worries. Look, her locator comes into shot. Captain Short is scanning for magic hot spots. Site fifty-seven shows up red, so she heads for that one.”
    “Why not Tara?”
    Foaly snorted. “Tara? Every fairy hippie in the northern hemisphere will be dancing around the Lia Fáil at the full moon. There’ll be so many shields on, it’ll look like the whole place is underwater.”
    “Fine,” grunted Root through gritted teeth. “Just get on with it, will you.”
    “All right. Don’t get your ears in a knot.” Foaly skipped several minutes of tape. “Now. Here’s the interesting bit. . . . Nice smooth landing, hangs up the wings. Holly takes off the helmet.”
    “Against regulations,” interjected Root. “LEP officers must never remove—”
    “LEP officers must never remove their headgear above ground, unless said headgear is defective,” completed Foaly. “Yes, Commander, we all know what the handbook says. But are you trying to tell me that you never sneaked a breath of air after a few hours in the sky?”
    “No,” admitted Root. “What are you? Her fairy godmother or something? Get to the important part!”
    Foaly smirked behind his hand. Driving up Root’s blood pressure was one of the few perks of the job. No one else would dare to do it. That was because everybody else was replaceable. Not Foaly. He’d built the system from scratch, and if anyone else even tried to boot it up, a hidden virus would bring it crashing about their pointy ears.
    “The important part. Here we are. Look. Suddenly Holly drops the helmet. It must land lens down, because we lose, picture. We’ve still got sound though, so I’ll bring that up.”
    Foaly boosted the audio signal, filtering out background noise.
    “Not great quality. The mike is in the camera. So that was nose down in the dirt too.”
    “Nice peashooter,” said a voice. Definitely human. Deep too. That usually meant big.
    Root raised an eyebrow. “Peashooter?”
    “Slang for gun.”
    “Oh.” Then the importance of that simple statement struck him. “She drew her