She punched the air between them.

The men grinned fiercely and called out the Seventh Cav’s war cry.

As the troopers began yet another round of equipment checks, Julia performed her own precombat routine. A software aid scanned all her built-in combat systems, most of which were useless now anyway for want of tac-net coverage. She unsheathed her knife. The monobonded carbon blade was a dull gray, but more than razor sharp. Her Sonycam was powered up and loaded with four blank data sticks-again thanks to Rosanna-enough for two days’ continuous filming. Her medikit was an eccentric mix of original 21C supplies, some AT stuff, and some plain old-fashioned ’temp gear-assorted twentieth-century items she’d scavenged here and there.

Apart from a gene shear contraceptive, which of course she couldn’t switch off now-and hadn’t that been a fucked-up decision-her bio-inserts were tapped out. If she took a round in the guts, there’d be no warm flush of anesthetic from her thoracic pips. She’d be screaming for a medic and a shot of morphine, just like the best of them.

“Five minutes.”

Amundson repeated the gesture he’d made before, except this time he held only one hand up. A harsh burning smell reached them, and one of the cavalry troopers, Private Steve Murphy, asked her what the hell was going on.

“Be cool,” she called back. “And learn to love the smell of napalm in the morning.”

When nobody got the reference, she rolled her eyes.

“It’s the air force. They would have come through here and bombed the shit out of the place. That’s what you smell. Toasted Nazis. Mmmmmh. Crispy.”

Gadsden sniggered. Murphy seemed to ponder the point before nodding his approval.

The chopper banked to the right and began to lose altitude as it put on speed.

“Just passed over the release point,” reported the copilot.