Beyond The Limit by Lindsay McKenna

thundering of horse hooves. Bandits? Taliban? She wasn’t sure, but quickly threw on a coat over her silk pajama top. Within a minute, she was dressed and running down the hall of her trailer, radio in hand. She left the lights off for safety.
    â€œBarnes! Report!” she snapped, unlocking the door with shaking hands.
    The sky was clear, the stars so close Cali felt as if she could reach out and touch them. Dawn, a thin purple line, was just outlining the jagged hills to the east. After leaping off the stairs, she ran around the corner of her trailer toward the commotion.
    More gunfire. A geyser of dirt spewed up in front of her, and Cali lunged for the ground. Heart thudding heavily, she watched as dust rose around her. She could barely make out a group of riders about a quarter of a mile away. Barnes and his team were firing repeatedly, with cool precision.
    â€œBandits,” Barnes growled into the radio.
    â€œRoger. Under control?” Cali scrambled from of the dirt and sprinted toward the men flattened on the earth ahead of her.
    â€œRoger,” he answered. “Wounded two, I think. They’re hightailin’ it now. Fun’s over.”
    Grimacing, Cali raced up as the men slowly got off their bellies to their feet. The three of them had state-of-the-art night goggles and infrared night scopes on their rifles. Cali couldn’t see so well, but she could hear the thundering beat of horses retreating to the south. She gasped for breath, hand pressed to her chest. It felt as if her heart was going to explode with the fear and shock. Cali hadn’t expected an attack.
    Glancing down at the luminous dials on her watch, she saw it was 0400. Daylight would come soon. Breathing hard, her heart still pounding, she halted in front of Barnes, who was coolly dropping an empty magazine and slamming a new one into his rifle.
    â€œEveryone okay?” Cali demanded, her voice husky with adrenaline.
    â€œYes, ma’am,” he said, pushing the night goggles to the top of his head. “Everyone’s fine. No wounds.”
    Cali heard the thud of heavy footsteps behind her. Twisting, she saw Major Trayhern barreling out of the darkness. He had a pistol in hand, and unlike her, he’d had the smarts to put on his flak jacket.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” he demanded, sliding to a halt in front of the group.
    â€œBandits, Major,” Barnes drawled. “They were just snooping around and testing us. They probably wanted to see if we had security out here.” Chuckling darkly, he looked at his comrades—Bobby Mills, who was thirty years old, and Gabe Willis, a year younger. Both had served with him in the Corps and were sniper trained. “I think we shocked the shit out of ’em,” Barnes said, laughing softly.
    â€œWe saw them approaching from the south,” Mills told Pete and Cali. “We waited until they got close enough for us to put bullets in front of their horses.”
    â€œYeah, there were about fifteen of ’em,” Gabe said, his soft Kentucky drawl belying his tension.
    â€œAny casualties?” Pete demanded, looking to the south. The darkness had swallowed up the bandits. The plain was quiet once more, and it was colder than hell out here, almost freezing, he realized. Worriedly, he looked at Cali, whose face was etched by shadows in the grayish light. Her hair was mussed, her eyes narrowed and her mouth set. Noticing she wore a quilted jacket, he asked, “You got your flak vest on under that thing?”
    â€œNo, I don’t. I forgot to have it hanging on the back of a chair near my bed. Next time,” she told him brusquely. Even in starlight, Cali could see Pete’s reaction. Did she see concern burning in those slitted eyes? Or anger? She wasn’t sure about anything except the adrenaline making her heart hammer.
    â€œYou could have been hurt,” he said, his voice heavy with warning. “You know better, Ms.