Casey grimaced from the pain, and felt her nose and eye socket. It was raw and hurt like a bitch, but the eye orbital wasn’t shattered. “A signal. Something changed, or they…” She spun. “Shit.” She sprinted back to where they had left Aimee, Soong, and Jennifer.
Jennifer was face down on the boggy ground. Casey knelt and flipped her over. Thankfully the woman was breathing and her eyes opened slowly.
“Wha…?”
The others crowded around.
“Easy. You okay?” Casey sat her up, ripping her canteen from her pouch and tipping it into the McMurdo woman’s mouth.
Jennifer nodded. “They came… from the jungle.” She looked up, her mind seeming to clear. “Where are they?” She spun one way and then the other. “Aimee and Soong, they took them.”
Casey gritted her teeth. Hagel jogged back in.
“They’re gone.”
Casey looked up at him. He didn’t have a scratch. Her eyes blazed, but she kept her mouth shut… for now. She turned.
“Rhino!” She turned to the big man, who still looked groggy. “Get your head back in the game. We’re going after them, now.”
“No, we’re not.” Hagel stood his ground, looking down on Casey as she held Jennifer’s shoulder. He shook his head.
“You just made bad decision number one hundred and ten. As far as I’m concerned you’re done.” He leaned his rifle against a trunk. “You fucking walked us right into it.”
Hagel looked up at Rhino, and then to Blake. “They could have mowed us all down. Just as well they decided to pull back, or we’d be food for whatever goddamn thing it is that’s ghosting us down here.”
Casey rose slowly to her feet, feeling her adrenalin start to pump.
Rhino winced. “Hagel, c’mon, man. This is not the time.”
“Not the time to be ambushed.” Hagel snorted. “We’re fucking HAWCs. No one, but no one, gets the jump on us.” He grinned, turning to Rhino. “Unless we have an incompetent leading us.”
“Ah, fuck.” Rhino looked skyward.
“You want to be the daddy now? That it, Hagel?” Casey sneered, but her brow dropped.
“Maybe I should be,” he said evenly.
Before anyone could blink Casey had her Glock pointed between the man’s eyes. “Insubordination in field, only one way to deal with that.”
“Boss.” Rhino grimaced.
“All mouth, just what I thought.” Hagel didn’t blink as he stared back into the gun’s muzzle. “Takes more than a gun to be a leader.” He leaned forward slightly. “Certainly not a job for a coward.” He grinned.
Casey chuckled. “Oh boy.” She stared down at the ground for a moment, before letting her gun drop. She then lifted her rifle from her shoulders and let that drop beside it. Next went her knives. “Time for some education.”
Ben Jackson put one large hand to his head. “Now? You’re gonna do this now?”
Hagel turned back, a grim smile on his face. He started to pull and drop his own weapons. “No weapons, no rank, no report.”
“Just you, me, and your big fucking mouth… that’s gonna be full of broken teeth in about ten seconds,” Casey said, keeping her gaze leveled at the young HAWC. “I’m going to enjoy this, you little freak.”
Casey got into a crouch, and began to circle. Hagel did the same.
“Are you two mad?” Jennifer Hartigan was on her feet. She turned to Rinofsky. “Stop them. Make them stop.”
He shook his head. “Bad blood, got to be sorted.”
Hagel came in fast. He feinted one way, and then threw two flat-handed strikes at Casey’s face. She blocked them both, and returned her own, her fist flicking out, and Hagel just pulling back by fractions. Both swung, dodged, and kicked out, but this was only the prelude, the sizing up, and it soon ended.
They engaged. The two HAWCs came together in an explosion of furious blows. Every part of their body, every hard or sharp edge, was a formidable weapon. Each HAWC warrior was trained to be an ultimate combatant — fearless in attack, and near impervious to pain.
The sound of reinforced knuckles against armor plates was as loud as the punches were hard. Both fighters knew that a full strike of that force to a vulnerable area would be devastating or even lethal. Regardless, neither of them pulled their punches.
The pair broke apart momentarily. Both were now streaming perspiration and blood. They sucked in the humid air of the jungle. Casey’s scar lifted her face into its usual sneer. She knew that both of them were fast, well trained, and could give and take a killer punch. But she felt calm, her heartbeat barely rising over resting normal. She knew she could withstand whatever Hagel dished out. Her heart was like iron, and so was her jaw.
She looked Hagel up and down, assessing him again. He was younger, bigger at just on six two, and weighing in at around 220 pounds. His physique was iron hard through training and a tough Special Forces existence. Casey was four inches shorter and many pounds lighter. But anyone who had seen her stripped down attested to a body that had obviously navigated years of pain. She had bullet holes, a zipper stitching of old scars, burns, and flaring tattoos, all over muscles that bulged without an ounce of fat. Pain was her friend, and fighting was an equation. When facing a skilled opponent, for her it came down to two elements of that equation: who could take the most pain, and who had the most experience. She smiled, because that would be her.
She decided on her next move. Hagel’s reach was longer, so she needed to be behind that reach. To do that meant taking a risk, and she took it. Casey lunged straight at Hagel. He threw his arms up, but then flicked out one fist to lash across her jaw. It connected, hard. A lesser opponent would have been rocked back on their heels, or maybe even felled.
Casey expected it, planned for it, and took the impact on her jaw. As Hagel’s arm continued on its swing, she had what she wanted — she was close to her goal, and under his reach. In a lightening fast strike, she struck out at his throat. Her hand was open, and she caught his larynx between her thumb and forefingers. His windpipe collapsed, the cartilage closing off.
The bigger man coughed and staggered back; only his training kept him focused, as his hands never dropped. But Casey knew now his oxygen was cut off, in seconds, his overstrained body would burn through his reserves, and first his head would begin to pound and then his vision would swim. Once that occurred, no matter how hyper-trained you were, oxygen panic would start to short-circuit the system.
Casey nodded into the man’s eyes, letting him know it was over. Either he surrendered, or she would enjoy putting him down.
Hagel made his choice and came at her, his teeth showing through split lips, his eyes manic and white, framed by slick bloody features. Such was the depths of the man’s hatred for her. He staggered as he came. Casey dodged his clumsy attack, and used his own bodyweight to throw him over one of her legs.
Hagel landed on the ground with Casey immediately on top of him. She started to pound down, blow after blow, her reinforced knuckle plates smashing bone and shredding flesh.
“Enough.” Rhino tried to drag her off, but she wasn’t done. Her bloodlust not yet sated.
The two gunshots were loud in the near tomb silence of the jungle. The bioluminescent light overhead immediately went out.
Casey froze… the seconds ticked by, and then gradually, the bioluminescent creatures on the roof of the massive cave overcame their timidity and started to glow once again. The twilight gloom returned.
Jennifer stood holding Casey’s Glock, the barrel pointed in the air.
Underneath Casey, Hagel gasped like a fish out of water. She quickly reached down and gripped his throat at the area of the compression, squeezed, and then tugged hard, pulling the cartilage back into place. It’d hurt like a bitch, and would swell back up, but at least he’d be able to breathe. Hagel dragged in two huge breaths and then groaned.