21
John checked the last of the weapons. Their armament was all in place. For this exercise they’d dismounted one of the big machine guns. Now they had a rack of four Hellfire tank-killer missiles, a nineteen-rocket pod of Hydra 70s, the Vulcan 30 mm cannon, and a laser where they would normally hang a 20 mm chain gun for cockpit control. It would let them fire harmlessly at friendlies busy playing an unfriendly role.
His and Connie’s Miniguns were locked and not loaded, though spare cans of ammo lay close at hand. Instead, a laser had been mounted in tandem with the six barrels for simulated warfare. For the twentieth time he checked the two observer seats now rigged in the center of the Black Hawk’s cargo bay. Standard combat seats. He’d half expected them to put in airliner seats; thi
