Free Ejecta by William C. Dietz

wouldn’t be any additional chances, as the chopper swiveled towards him.
    ***
    “They fired one of the missiles!” Jann said shrilly. “Close with them! Or they will fire again.”
    The police chief was correct, the pilot knew that, and hurried to obey. Because if he could come down practically on top of the two men they wouldn’t have enough room to launch. But it would be close,
very
close, and his heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest as the aircraft surged forward.
    ***
    “Quick,” Guiscard shouted desperately. “
Fire!
”
    Having positioned the launcher on his shoulder, Palmer pulled the trigger, and staggered as the second missile raced away. Two heart-beats later there was a sudden explosion, followed by a massive red-orange fireball, and what sounded like a crack of thunder rolled across the land. “You did it!” Guiscard shouted joyously. “You freaking did it!”
    The engineer was right, and there was nothing Palmer could do but stand there and stare, as pieces of still flaming debris fluttered down out of the sky. “Damn,” Guiscard added. “That was awesome!”
    “Glad you liked it,” Palmer said dryly, as pieces of scorched aluminum clattered onto the bridge deck. “Quick, grab that launcher, and let’s haul ass. I have a feeling that Jann had reinforcements on the way. But, even if he didn’t, we blew the local police chief out of the sky. We might be able to prove that he was crooked, but a lot of the key witnesses are dead, so I wouldn't count on it.”
    ***
    Guiscard hurried to obey. Suddenly the plan to turn the remaining weapons over to the authorities wasn’t so appealing anymore. In fact, other than a fictional story about having found the Mog bogged down in a sand dune, the Chadian wasn’t going to tell anyone anything.
    It took less than five-minutes to throw the launchers into the truck, maneuver the Mog up onto the debris strewn highway, and hit the gas. All without seeing a single vehicle. Something for which Guiscard was extremely grateful.
    ***
    When Amar and his men arrived at the bridge fifteen-minutes later, two civilian vehicles were stopped there, and the wreckage of the EC-135 was plain to see. Which meant that Jann, like his half-brother Naravas, was dead. So the bandits continued on their way. Because Amar had no desire to be part of a police investigation or to do anything other than return to his wife and children. At least he was alive. Thanks be to Allah.

Chapter Four
    Seattle, Washington
    The area surrounding the autopsy table was bathed in the cold glare of overhead lights as the parasite located between the dead man’s shoulder blades began to pulsate. The parasitologist, pathologist, and diener all took a full step backward. “Did you see
that
?” Yano demanded. “It moved!”
    All sorts of thoughts raced through Devlin’s mind as she stared at the fleshy matrix. The scientist’s first inclination was to try and save the specimen since it would theoretically be possible to learn more from a live organism than a dead one. But that might be dangerous since none of them knew how the parasite had been acquired.
    So rather than run the risk Devlin took a step forward, raised the scalpel high, and brought it down in one quick strike. The blade plunged down through the purplish nodule with ease but came to a sudden stop as it made contact with McCracken’s spine. There was an audible pop as droplets of pus-like material sprayed Devlin’s face shield. The pulsations stopped. “Damn,” Charles said, feelingly. “That was disgusting!”
    “Yes,” Devlin agreed soberly. “It is. Let’s cut the organism out of there, section the tissue, and send the samples in for testing. And Charles….”
    “Yes, ma’am?”
    “Once we’re done here I think it would be a good idea to incinerate our scrubs, clean this place, and then clean it again.”
    The diener nodded soberly. “Don’t worry Doctor Devlin, I’ll take care of it.”
    ***
    Having left