“What is that? What’ve them Goats brought out?” Jack paces from side to side, cycling through each of the available screens in Slim’s workshop. Squinting and scowling, he tries to get a better angle on the strange box the grunts just brought out. “And why the shit won’t these people sit still long enough to get a good view of it?”

“Easy, little man. Remember that these are people who didn’t make it to the siege caves. They’re damn scared of getting pinched.” Slim’s back is to Jack; he inserts a metal rod into a pipe while he speaks over his shoulder. Jack looks over at him. The guy had suddenly gotten very obsessed with something on his workbench not long after showing the basics of how his surveillance array works.

Lyia stands in the main room of Slim’s place, eyeing the door. “You think this thing will hold? I’ve never seen a raid with this many in the horde.”

Slim responds without looking up. “It’ll hold fine, unless the whole horde is specifically gunning for you.” He thumb-points over his shoulder toward Jack. “Looking at the vid, though, I’d say this group’s focused on someone else.”

“Ol’ Wrinkles ain’t gonna go down easy.” Jack peeks around the doorway at Lyia. She’d gotten curious enough to look at what was going on outside through the surveillance monitors, but once she caught sight of the sheer number of grunts hunting through Bule, she got really interested in ensuring that Slim’s door is adequately fortified. Jack gives himself a moment to trace the curves of her body—again. She’s been acting unusually fatalistic in this raid, but he still finds himself envisioning the details of her body hidden beneath her clothes.

Shaking his head to clear his mind, he returns focus to the surveillance screens. “Any chance we could get one of these folks on radio so we can tell ’em where to look?”

“Yeah, that’ll go over great.” Slim turns to Jack and mimes picking up an imaginary radio, putting it to the side of his face. “‘So, I’m spying on you through your playback kneak. Any chance you could take a step to the right so I can see better?’ I’m sure they’d be instantly cooperative.”

Jack feels his shoulders drop. “Yeah. I guess they wouldn’t take too kindly to bein’ told that.” He goes back to studying the images on each screen. “Still, what’s in those boxes?”

Slim puts down the gadgets he was fiddling with and takes a couple long strides over to the bank of monitors. “You said that’s Death out there, right? You gotta figure that the Umbrati tracked him here. With numbers like these, my guess is that they’re looking to catch and conscript him.”

“Still doesn’t tell me what’s in the box.”

“Well, you see any wings on those grunts? The Old Beard’s got air superiority goin’ on. I’m thinking that whatever’s in that box is supposed to help get him out of the sky.”

“Makes sense. What would you use?”

Slim smiles. “I got an idea or two on how I’d do it. But, first, how about you?”

Jack frowns. “I know what you’re doin’. You sure as shit pick a weird time to do a quiz.”

“Humor me. You’re not stepping out there any time soon. May as well test your skills while you wait.”

Jack scratches the side of his face, still scowling. However, he complies. “Hrm. Well, the biggest thing is gettin’ him down. Then ya gotta keep ’em there. Were it me, I’d just try to hit him surface-to-ground.”

“For capture?”

“Shit. Um. Nets? A surface-to-air net launcher.”

Slim strokes the stubble on his chin. “Not bad. Not a bad call at all. But ol’ Death looks pretty agile up there.” He points at one of the screens where someone is looking up at Thegn and Corva gliding across the sky. “Even with your friend hanging off him like that. And you can’t always count on some crazy chick to be there and drag him down like that.”

“Yeah? Then what would you do?”

“Me? It ain’t likely that this is what’s in the box, but I might try some explosive nanodrones. Can’t hardly see ’em. They’d fly up and latch on his wings before they go boom. Blow just enough to get him down without killing him. Then blow the rest once he’s on the ground to keep him there.”

Jack nods approvingly. Gotta give the guy credit. He’s definitely got some slick ideas. He pauses, allowing an idea of his own to slowly coalesce. “How many of them drones you think it’d take?”

“Hard to guess. Dude looks pretty tough. Probably more’n I’ve got on hand.”

“And just how many is that?” Jack’s stupid grin broadens.

“I’ve got a few. What’re you thinkin’, little man?”