By Break of Day (The Night Stalkers) by M. L. Buchman

and opened it.
    There at the workbench, she ate as she prepped the ScanEagle with the instrument packages she wanted. With only seven and a half pounds of useful payload on the RPA, she had to be very selective.
    So, she had to figure out how to put aloft the best package, with no idea of what she needed ahead of time.
    A day-and-night camera, but not the hi-resolution gear because it weighed too much, and imaging radar.
    She was tempted by the radiation and bioweapon sensors, but that would only satisfy her own curiosity about what The Activity might have been hunting.
    The rest of her payload was given over to a high-speed ELINT package. In addition to receiving radio signals from the team, it would gather any Electronic Intelligence on a broad spectrum of frequencies and could even provide limited signal jamming of the “enemy” if necessary.
    When she was done, Kara tucked the ScanEagle back in its crate and locked it. Instead of being three feet square by twenty-five long and weighing nearly two tons when loaded for flight—like the Gray Eagle’s coffin—the ScanEagle’s crate was a foot square by five long and weighed less than her rucksack loaded for a 10K hike. Despite the military having switched over to metric, it was still easier to think in feet than in meters.
    The four of them now stood out in the fading sunset, the first one she’d seen in days. They were on the huge aircraft elevator that moved helicopters between the flight deck and the hangar deck. The steel platform stuck five meters out from the side of the ship and was half again as long. The elevator had been lowered to the hangar deck position.
    No need to go up on the flight deck and expose her little baby to inquiring eyes. It was a funny juxtaposition to launch such a tiny aircraft from such a massive ship.
    “This little beauty is something few folks get to see.” Kara triple-checked that they were the only personnel in the area.
    Justin hovered close behind her, just like Michael and Willard. Kara felt as if she were center stage, rather than standing on the aircraft elevator platform that stuck out the side of the Peleliu.
    Justin had helped her wheel out the ScanEagle’s launching platform. It was a light trailer with a single center rail. It looked much like a heavy-duty crossbow tilted up at the sky.
    She snapped open the case, lifted out the main body, and set it on the rail.
    “As far as I know, there are only three other black box ScanEagles and they’re all in SOAR. I heard hints that there was one more in use by some wildland firefighting outfit. How’s that for a crazy rumor, huh?”
    * * *
    Justin noticed that while Willard laughed, Delta Operator Michael Gibson was even quieter than usual. Wasn’t that interesting? Justin tried to imagine why a wildfire outfit would need what he was looking at and came up blank.
    He’d worked with a normal ScanEagle before. It was as long as a manure shovel and as big around as a horse’s muzzle—and about as lumpy. A pair of delicate, swept-back wings stuck out five feet to either side.
    In three minutes, Kara had the wings pinned on, the little vertical winglets sticking up from the wingtips like exclamation points. The ScanEagle sported a rear propeller with a diameter no longer than his elbow to his fingertips.
    All of that was normal.
    But the body wasn’t thin-sheet aluminum. He rapped a knuckle on it, black composite laminate. And the body was all strange angles. Even the ScanEagles in the 5D were stealth.
    This fascinated Wilson in a way that the inside of the GCS coffin hadn’t.
    And clearly his interest and obvious attention was being soaked up by a Kara eager to teach willing pupils.
    But there was more than that.
    And Justin wasn’t enjoying it much.
    He could see Kara warming up to Wilson.
    And Justin could feel that weird edge that some guys had, the ones who only dated married women…or tried to take a woman as soon as they saw she was with someone else.
    Worse, she