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wasn’t sure if he had enough time to get them back on before moving out.
    Seeing him stalling Shaw took it upon himself to make up Owyn’s mind. “Quit pissing around and get the hell out, Carter,” he shouted. “We’ve got some serious fucking heat on us out here.”
    Bullets were flying in all directions around the compound. The gunfire wasn’t focused, just random shots intended to root out the infiltrators. Owyn reached down and broke off the leg sections of his exoskeleton, complete with boosters, then checked his flanks before making his way across no man’s land to rendezvous with his teammate. He didn’t anticipate needing his visor or getting into a firefight and needing armour, but thrusters always came in handy.
    “You’d better have planted that charge, Carter,” Shaw warned as he gave a hand to help Owyn up onto the roof.
    “It’s planted. Chill out, big guy,” Owyn replied as he started strapping on his thrusters.
    “Don’t try me, Carter. How long?”
    “You never give it a break, do you?”
    “Time, Carter!” Shaw demanded. His patience was wearing particularly thin today it seemed.
    Owyn plucked his timer from his belt. “Six minutes twelve,” he said.
    “Six twelve – you hear that, Sullivan?”
    “I heard it, Shaw. That doesn’t make a difference. I can’t land inside the base. The LZ’s too hot.”
    “Where else do you expect us to go? We’re walled in, for fuck’s sake,” Shaw growled. He’d have had blood running from his ears if he’d attempted to make his fury any clearer.
    “You two head out the east side. Ambrose and O’Brien are on the way west. Work it out.” Sully disabled his comms.
    “Work it out,” Shaw grumbled under his breath. “What does he expect us to do?”
    “To get moving.” Owyn’s reply was blunt. “I’d rather not be anywhere near here when that bomb goes off.” He marched onwards, forcing Shaw to plod along after him.
    They stayed up high, cautious of catching the eyes of snipers and rooftop patrols. Progress was slow. The ground was littered with soldiers, and all but one or two building tops were occupied at any one time, meaning that Owyn and Shaw were constantly being driven in circles without moving much closer to the eastern watchtower. With the timer having now ticked below four minutes, Owyn stopped and assessed their surroundings.
    “What the hell are you doing?” Shaw asked in a harsh whisper.
    Owyn ignored him. He pointed towards one of the towering light poles that were dotted around the walls casting a glow upon the compound. A temporary base like this usually relied on half a dozen generators at most, and those generators didn’t react much better to a sudden burst of high current than a human heart.
    “So what? I can’t take them all out so what use will that do us.”
    Owyn sighed. Shaw really wasn’t presenting a good case for his own intellect. “Just shoot it, dumbass.”
    Shaw huffed a disgruntled sigh but nonetheless complied. He lay down with his rifle, aimed, and pulled sharply on the trigger. Shattered glass clattered to the ground as the pulse from the bullet overloaded one of the generators causing several floodlights to burst all at once, plunging the eastern side of the base into complete blackness.
    “Let’s move,” Owyn ordered.
    He jumped down and into the maze of alleyways that weaved their way from one end of the base to the other. They cut left then right, ducking through the blind side of a group of soldiers. Another pair caught sight of them, but a quick shot from Owyn followed up by another from Shaw muted their cries for help before they could even drag the air into their lungs.
    The still smouldering ruins of the eastern watchtower were only a few seconds away, although reaching them meant crossing through the open. Owyn held up to give Shaw time to catch up to him. There were too many men for them to avoid detection. Some soldiers were rummaging through the wreckage in search of