Free Pure Heat by M. L. Buchman

said it, with a voice gone smooth and an extra half octave deeper than his normal speaking voice, she could like that even better than “Flame Witch.” Clearly, Merks Mercer was used to mowing down the ladies.
    The problem was, she could feel it working on her all too well. And she didn’t find herself complaining much.

Chapter 7
    Steve set up the command console at the end of the workbench in the back of the truck. Then he tackled the launcher on the trailer, doing all the boring stuff first. He knew he’d draw a crowd as soon as he unpacked the drone.
    He pulled out the bottom gray case and had the first drone assembled in about fifteen minutes. They’d painted it the black and flame red of MHA, which looked pretty damn cool. He ran a hand over the paint job, so smooth it felt like water. They always said if you were going to do something, why not make it the very best. He’d liked that about SkyHi.
    Fifteen minutes was longer than he really needed by about ten minutes, but he wanted to be dead perfect on this one. Also to make sure his training was really anchored into place in his head when he didn’t have a SkyHi instructor to hawkeye his every move.
    Sure enough, in that fifteen-minute span, his audience grew from the occasional curious passerby to at least half of the base personnel. About twenty stood in a loose circle a dozen paces back from the truck and trailer.
    He assembled the drone directly on the rail of the trailer’s catapult launcher, a narrow steel rail ten feet long that angled up into the sky. The drone’s sleek body was as big around as his thigh and short enough that he could easily touch both the nose and the three-bladed rear propeller at the same time.
    The lower side of the nose was made of clear plastic. From above, he inserted the standard dual-mode camera, normal and infrared light. The camera was little bigger than a high-end digital and included a steerable mount so that he could remain focused on one point for several seconds as he flew by or longer if he circled. Into the mid-bay he snapped the flight control and radio circuit boards, neither much bigger than his open palm.
    While he had the middle open, Steve attached the pair of slender swept-back wings, each as long as the drone itself. Then added the bent wingtips with the catcher hooks so that he could land it. Everything slipped together perfectly.
    Fully assembled, the drone weighed just fifty pounds, including the two gallons of gas that would keep it aloft for the next twenty hours, if needed. Once he fired off the engine, he’d release the motorized catapult. In just seconds she’d be flying along at a sweet ninety miles per hour.
    The console at the end of the bench was already powered up. He flipped on the bird’s electronics. All of the radio links to the main console showed good, so he was ready to go. Fire off the bird, step into the truck, and sit down at the console. Then he’d be flying.
    He tried to scan the crowd surreptitiously.
    Angel was back, along with an older guy he didn’t recognize, maybe the Incident Commander Rick Dobson. Henderson stood with his wife; she cradled a baby and leaned against him.
    â€œKid looks ready to go.” Steve admired the tiny hard hat atop the baby’s head. It was knit of bright yellow yarn, with a tiny pink flame for an emblem on the front of it.
    â€œI think four months is a little young to be fighting fire.” Emily’s voice was dry. Was she humorless or teasing? The woman was damned hard to read.
    â€œNot a bit. Right, Tessa?” Mark leaned down and made a funny face at the kid, who cooed in response. “See, she agrees with me, honey.”
    Emily patted her husband’s cheek, as if in sympathy for being such a charming idiot.
    Cute. The three of them were really cute together. Steve wondered what the angel’s kid would look like when she had one. It was easy to picture her with one, maybe