I Own the Dawn: The Night Stalkers by M. L. Buchman Read Free Book Online

guys sprinting up and down the bleachers. Delta Force and their support crew, everyone trained even if they weren’t field qualified. Maybe ten actual operators here, hard to tell with D-boys since none of them ever spoke.
    Even Green Berets went quiet whenever a D-boy walked by. A lot of them had applied, but Delta Force was just as picky as SOAR. Maybe even more so, which was hard to imagine.
    Kee watched them sprint up and down one more time before Major Hoity had circled their chopper into their spot of the lineup, just out-of-bounds beside where the goal had stood.
    She locked down her weapon, shut off her comm, and made sure her harness was draped flight-ready. Setting her helmet on the gunner’s seat, she stepped down, landing flat-footed and raising a small cloud of dust.
    She waved off the red, the crewman in the red vest identifying his role on the ordnance squad. “Didn’t get to fire a single lousy shot.”
    He nodded and went to check for himself anyway.
    Too exhausted to even growl, she headed for her tent. The Professor had it right yesterday. Get out of flight gear into civvies first, then food, then rack time. Maybe skip the food.
    The tent set up for women sported four cots, yet she always slept alone. The three women who shared it with her kicked into action during the day, a mechanic, a clerk, and a who-knew. They sacked out while she flew. And Major Hoity slept with Major Muscle. ’Nuff said there. They’d each found a way to get some regular action. More power to ’em. She even envied them a bit.
    She didn’t bother hitting a light, the predawn filtered through the thick canvas enough to navigate. Second on the right was hers. She dropped down onto it to kick off her boots.
    A high squeal launched her back to her feet. She dove and rolled away, coming up with her M9 in one hand and a flashlight from her thigh pouch in the other.
    The kid. Curled up with both arms over her head and one dark eye peeking out, caught wide in the flashlight beam.
    Kee lowered her pistol and reset the safety. She closed her eyes for a long moment, wishing she could erase the fear, the terror on the girl’s face.
    Once she could breathe normally, she holstered her weapon and hit the switch on the camp light hanging from the central tent pole.
    The girl had lowered her arms from protecting her head to hugging her knees, holding herself tightly as if she were going to blow apart in a cloud of dust if she didn’t clamp down hard enough.
    Kee took one more breath to make sure her voice sounded steady.
    “Dilyana. What are you doing here?”
    The girl watched her.
    “Right. No English. Have you—No. Did they—Crap!” She didn’t need this. Not now.
    The girl’s eyes were still bigger than dinner plates in her thin face.
    Kee sighed.
    “Food?” She rubbed her belly. “Hungry?”
    ***
    All Dilyana could see was the black-circle opening at the front of The Kee’s gun. Even though she’d put it away, it still loomed before her, dark and bottomless. Just as it had looked when her parents were shot and she’d been left to walk away.
    The Kee—it must be a title, she was an elder after all—was making motions that seemed familiar. The nice man eating bacon with his metal tools. Her stomach growled loudly the instant she connected The Kee’s motion to food.
    “ Ha !” She nodded her head vigorously, hoping that was the right gesture.
    “Ha?”
    How to tell her such a simple word? Dilyana pretended to eat, though even pretending the metal-tool motion made her feel clumsy. She’d never used them, and she knew she was getting it wrong. But she then patted her stomach, smiled and nodded, and repeated herself, “ Ha !”
    “ Ha. ” The Kee said it simply. “Yes.”
    “Yes?” The sound sat easily on Dilyana’s tongue. It felt right there. “Yes.”
    “ Ha. ”
    Then The Kee pulled off her shirt. Except for a band of cloth over her breasts, all of her skin was exposed from her pants to the top of her