Out of the Black (Odyssey One, Book 4)

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Authors: Evan Currie
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feeling weak. She really wanted nothing more than to collapse into a nice comfortable chair somewhere where the world made sense again. She licked her lips slowly, deliberately, and looked at him for a long moment.
    “Three-quarters?” she asked, her voice croaking just a tad.
    He nodded.
    “How much more powerful is full?”
    “Don’t know. I thought it was a linear power setting,” he said, “but after that I’m pretty sure it’s logarithmic.”
    “Oh God,” she mumbled. “I need a drink.”
    “I need more ammo,” he said. “I’m running low.”
    She rolled her eyes, remembering what he’d told her the gun fired. “There’s a Tiffany’s down the street.”
    “Cute,” he told her dryly, “but I’ll pass.”
    She snapped her fingers, looking disappointed, “Damn. I was hoping for an excuse to loot the place.”
    “Come on, let’s move. There’s a Guard unit about eight blocks east. I think they’ve got a munitions truck with them.”
    “Right behind you.”

    Third Platoon consisted of five M7s and a recon APC designed to withstand medium to heavy IEDs, but they were moving very cautiously after getting the news about what happened to First Platoon at the south end of the park. That caution had allowed a resupply group to catch up with them while they moved into position.
    The platoon was moving west now, along East 85th and crossing Madison. They’d stopped briefly when the thunderclap of the explosion shook the street and rattled every pane of glass around them, but quickly got under way again when the general’s demand for eyes on scene came through.
    It was spooky, moving through the streets and slamming cars out of the road with the makeshift cowcatchers on the front of the lead tanks. Every now and then they saw a person looking out a window or standing on a street corner to watch them go by, but the city felt empty in a way that it never should.
    New York may be the city that never slept, but right then it felt like the city that was in a coma, and none of the Guardsmen quite knew how to handle that.
    “I see the city Met coming up. The park is right there,” Lieutenant Garibaldi said. “Slow us down and edge us out.”
    “You got it, sir,” the driver, Corporal Tate, said from where he was sitting. “Launch drones, sir?”
    “Good idea. Go ahead.”
    Two whirring aircraft lifted from the back of the tank, leaning forward and racing off to the west. One stayed low, barely flitting over the tops of cars, while the other went high and climbed for some altitude above the buildings.
    Garibaldi watched the mushroom cloud show up on the top drone’s camera and shook his head. “Holy shit. Someone nuked Central Park.”
    “Place had it coming, if you ask me,” Tate told him wryly. “Last time I was there I swear I almost got mugged three times before I got out.”
    “Any of the muggers carry a tactical nuke?”
    “Not that I saw, but I wouldn’t have put it past some of them.” Tate snorted, but he scowled as he noted something. “I think we’re missing something here.”
    “Such as?”
    “The rads, LT,” Tate answered. “I’m getting clean readings.”
    “Huh.” Garibaldi looked over the scans himself. “You’re right.”
    “Some kind of alien super weapon, you think?” Tate asked.
    “I have no idea. Edge us forward some more. I can’t get a satellite signal here and the local control link is breaking up.”
    “Right. I’ll tuck us into the trees just off the transverse there,” Tate offered. “Park her and put the camo on.”
    “Sounds about right. Do it.”
    The lead tank of third platoon rumbled across Fifth Avenue and took a right as they started into the park. Tate guided his hundred-ton behemoth under a copse of trees and let the motor die as he activated the vehicle’s cam-plates to match to local environment. In a few seconds the tank had disappeared, all save the makeshift steel cowcatcher bolted to the front, which seemed to hang out in midair for

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