Free Backlash: Prequel to The Wildblood Series by S. A. Hoag

left arm and she went down, trying to roll away from her attacker.  She caught a glimpse of Green, disarmed and putting up a fight against two of them.  The good news was that he was a hand-to-hand combat trainer; the bad news was that he was already injured.
    “This one's a girl,” the Nomad brandishing a pipe at her announced.
    “Then don't damage her, you idiot,” one of the pair yelled back.
    Shan took the opportunity to draw her sidearm.  As the Nomad turned to her, she shot him, a double-tap to the center of the chest.  The force flung him back and she came up, drawing on the closest of the other intruders.  Green was struggling with him and in her line-of-fire.
    Wade stepped out of the trees before she could fire on them and took both Nomads in the space of two heartbeats; head shot, heart shot.  “Clear,” he called out.
    She checked the Nomad, making sure he was dead.  Without a doubt.  “Clear,” she said.
    “Nomads, due south,” Green warned, getting to his feet.
    “My car is a half mile, up on the access road,” Wade motioned back the way he'd come.
    “I'm taking point,” Shan volunteered. 
    “We're not running from them,” Wade said.  “We're leading them right out where we can pick them off.  Round up a couple and interrogate them.”  When Wade said 'interrogate', he meant it.  Up until now, he'd kept Shan away from some of the harsher aspects of life in Security.  She wasn't stupid, knowing how aggressive intruders and their own felons were dealt with.  Tonight, she'd see some of those things first-hand.
    When they made it back to the blacktop, Wade pointed out where he wanted them to wait, for a few minutes anyway.  Green stopped him, “You saw what happened?”
    “We discussed this when she started out on the road and when the Blackout was called.  She's Team Three, she'll be fine.”
    Green was skeptical.  “What if she'd been alone when they caught up?  What happens when she's alone, out here, and runs across more people, more men, like these?”
    Wade took the time, a precious few moments, to consider what to say.  “What I can tell you, is that she's not in as much danger as you think from random Nomads.”
    “Convince me,” Green persisted.  He'd been more afraid for her than himself, for a few moments before she opened fire. 
    Rubbing his eyes, it was obvious to Wade his Scout had picked up her second, consciously or not.  He'd suspected it earlier and this confirmed it.  “You understand what happens when we see ghosts.   It's not exactly the same, but it's close.  We have a built-in defense mechanism.  We can project a thought, an idea, on to others.  It's a reflex reaction to a threat.”
    “You know she can do this?”
    “I do,” Wade said.  “We can't do it at will.  If she'd have been alone tonight, one of the possibilities is that she'd have killed that first Nomad while the other two thought they were looking at a fireball over Missouri Breaks.  Something like that.  There's no knowing what exactly.  She very well could have taken out the three of them without that particular Gen En reflex involved.”
    “It gives her a few extra seconds to defend herself.”
    “Yes.  The point is, it happens.  This is one of those things we don't speak of.”
    “Why are you telling me?” Green wondered.
    “You're going to be her second.  When we don't have a firefight about to blow up all around us, we can get the details of that on the table.  Right now, cover her, cover me, try to keep up.  I'm tired of having Nomads destroying our posts and shooting at us.”
    “Hey,” Shan popped up from the trunk of Wade's car.  “We got big guns.”  She helped herself to an AK-47 and a pocketful of clips.
    Wade just shook his head.  “We need at least one of them alive, two or three would be better.  Try to remember that when they come through the trees.  Kneecaps, Officer Allen, aim for kneecaps.”  They moved to defensive positions,