I Own the Dawn: The Night Stalkers Read Free

slender. If you gave Kee a .50cal machine gun to cart around with a case of ammo, you’d be getting somewhere. But if you gave a little FN SCAR carbine to Ms. Major Beale, could she even pick it up?
    Major and Major. Her brain went click, loud enough to be audible. Major Chunk-o-Muscle had smiled at the sky when this bird had swung into view. He had the shackle of gold on his left hand to match Beale’s sparkler. Married her way to the top. Hey, whatever worked. Didn’t mean she wanted to fly with the little Miss Hoity Girl. She’d never make her mark if they always kept her in the shadow of SOAR’s only other woman.
    But, damn, a berth on a DAP Hawk. Even with a girl pilot, she’d be aboard some serious hardware.
    “Having trouble, Keiko Smith?”
    “Don’t call me that shit.”
    “What shit?” The curse sounded prissy coming out of that perfect face.
    “Keiko. My mama may have named me after a stupid killer whale, but that don’t make it my name. Name’s Kee.”
    “Not unless you’re fifteen years old. No one knew Keiko the Whale’s name until he starred in the movie Free Willy in the mid-nineties. She named you in Japanese. It means blessed child. A—”
    “Don’t give a shit. And I’m not Japanese. I’m American.” Maybe half Japanese, or part Chinese or whatever, and half who-knew, for sure her mother didn’t. Two days in transit, Kee really needed sleep. She wanted on this chopper so bad it hurt right down to her aching butt. Maybe the cute copilot she’d met earlier, Archibald something the flippin’ Third, really flew the missions. Could Beale be a fake legend?
    “Doesn’t matter. The name is Kee. And how is it you know my name?”
    The silence landed on her as oppressive as the heat. Fort Campbell, Kentucky, could be hot, but she was dyin’ here. The heat off the bird burned into her brain. The first day in heat was always tough. The first day in heat and going on forty-eight hours with no shut-eye, that rated plain old harsh.
    Only when a hand landed on her shoulder, hard, did she realize she was weaving. Soldiers didn’t weave. She blinked her eyes several times to clear the fog and shrugged off the steadying hand even though it belonged to a major.
    “Name’s Kee, ma’am. Kee Smith.” A name she’d taken the day she joined the Army, the day she’d reinvented herself. She staggered away, stumbled on her duffel and dragged it onto her shoulder. The rifle case, usually so light in her hands, weighed a ton.
    Beaten. Again. She’d set her hopes so high. Five years of busting butt and she’d made it. SOAR. The 160th. She’d toughed it out. Survived. Faced down every man jerk on the way up who said women couldn’t make the grade. Every crap sergeant who thought a woman only had one use in the world and then tried to demonstrate what that was.
    First they hated you for being a woman, then for not giving out, and finally, most of all, for when you whupped their ass in public. Then this. SOAR had five battalions, and she’d ended up here. Even if Kee had the heart to climb over another obstacle, knowing that Major Muscle backed up his wife meant she never could. The Army’d stuck it up her backside but good this time.
    “Sergeant Kee Smith!” Major Beale’s voice snapped through the burning heat.
    Kee stumbled to a halt, head hanging down and she couldn’t drag it up. Right. As stick-in-the-mud as her hubby. She’d offered no “sir.” No frickin’ kowtow to the high master. She’d be cleaning out latrines until she died, a skill she already had too much undeserved practice in.
    She managed to turn but didn’t speak. If they were going to burn her down, she’d take it standing. Head up, shoulders back, and, screw Ms. Perfect Size Two, chest out.
    Major Prissy-Butt Emily Beale of Hoity-Toity Land still stood in front of her bird. A couple of armorers in their red vests were reloading the rocket pod. A fuel truck hovered nearby, waiting for the ordnance crew to clear.
    Her