Sky Dancer
an excerpt

“Boom! We’ve got a lock here needs your expertise!” The tall, bulky man pushed past his captain and shoved a small, narrow charge into the keyhole.
“Everybody down!” Boom yelled over the helmet intercom. Everybody dropped instantly. When Boom, the explosives expert, said get down, you obeyed as quickly as you could. He was good with exploding things, which had led to Trevor Highton becoming known to all and sundry as Boom.

The dust cleared and Bandit, the captain, rolled through the door, raising his gun. Three hostiles guarding the objective – a codebook. He took one, Spider, the second to enter, took another, before both nailed the final simultaneously. Boom ran in and snatched up the codebook.

“All right, mission object retrieved. One minute before the Banger goes, everybody out!” The Banger was a huge, immensely powerful bomb that would level the building and remove all trace of their mission. It was vital that the people who owned the base remained unaware that the EU now held their codes. Bandit ran out the room, out the building gun first – there could still be hostiles in the area – and rapidly fastened on his wasp, Burnt Bridges. Boom, Spider, and the third member of the team, Diamond, did likewise The last member never came on missions. He was their airship pilot and was waiting in the air ten miles away to avoid radar detection.

“Ray, this is Bandit, mission successful. ETA five minutes.”

“Roger. Sunshine’s looking forward to seeing you again.” Bandit lapsed into silence. There was no need for a response. The whole team were used to Ray’s slightly unusual manner. He treated Sunshine, their airship, as though it were a sentient being. This often led to strange statements, although he also held other unusual beliefs. On the common channel, Bandit could hear the others talking, but he zoned out. The hit had been against a strange religion, Lunella. He’d had run-ins with the cult before, and his parents had tried to force their belief in it upon him. Bandit had resisted it determinedly.
He heard the hollow bang as the building exploded behind them, but he did not turn and look. He trusted Boom to have thoroughly destroyed the hideout. Besides, he did not want to see he place any more than he had to. In his mind, it always would be a graveyard.

He landed first on Sunshine, landed perfectly, before moving quickly out the way and unfastening himself from Burnt Bridges, the craft everyone always called Burning Bridges. They didn’t understand.

Bandit was on the small side, and, at 27, young to be in charge of an elite unit such as Killer Bee. He was thin but fast and wiry, with a strength that belied his diminutive stature. He habitually wore long-sleeved clothing, and his sort black hair stuck up in tufts when he removed his helmet. His eyes were thought to be grey, but no one was entirely sure – he had never been seen without his reflective goggles that looked a little like sunglasses with a thick black band. It was rumoured that they had been given him by the
Commander In Chief of the EU Armed Forces. The same man, it was said, had given him his nickname of Bandit. Nobody was quite sure. Bandit tended to keep to himself though he was a nice enough man, thoughtful even.

Spider, the newest member of the group, found him a mystery, and an intriguing one at that. Nobody, it seemed, knew all that much about him. In fact, she didn’t even know his real name. He was the total opposite of Boom. Indeed it would’ve been difficult to find a more open solder in all of the EUAF than Boom. There was nothing particularly deep about the explosives expert and mechanical genius – he tended to think and speak at roughly the same time – but Spider knew everyone would miss him if he went.

Diamond was the serious thinker of the group, and also a hardened veteran who’d been in the EUAF, flying wasps, for nearly 30 years. He liked to talk and debate, and had found a kindred spirit when Jessica Black, aka Spider, joined the group. They also discovered after about two weeks that they were related – shared a bunch of cousins. All of the team came from England, though while Spider was from the north, Ray, Bang and Diamond were all from the south. Bandit, whenever asked, would smile slightly and say that as he had no intention whatsoever to return to his childhood home, or even remotely near there, his home was Sunshine and his family was the team.