Grant, Susan - The Legend of Banzai Maguire

Title: The Legend of Banzai Maguire
Author: Susan Grant
Series: Book 1 of the 2176 series
Pub: Love Spell
Pub Date: April, 2004
ISBN:
Genre:
Time Period:
Setting:
Hero: Ty Armstrong
Heroine: Bree "Banzai" Maguire

Summary:

The year: 2006. The mission: routine. Or so U.S.A.F. pilot Bree "Banzai" Maguire thinks.

Then she's shot down over enemy airspace, captured and put in bio-stasis. When she wakes, everything's changed. It's one hundred and seventy years later--2176--the world is in crisis, and she's a hotly contested prize. Once, Banzai's job was to protect democracy; now a mysterious voice claims she must bring it back.

Two men vie for her heart. Kyber, her captor, the rich, ruthless Emperor Prince of Asia, has all a man could desire. Then there's U.C.E. SEAL commander and would-be rescuer Ty Armstrong. He has all the right moves. With two such choices, Banzai regrets she has but one heart to give for her country.

Excerpt:

     On Bree's HUD, Cam's jet was one of many shapes, whirling in a dizzying video-game battle. With her naked eye, she saw two birds of prey, one guided by mindless, mechanical technology, the other by human hands.
    The missile looked as if it would miss, fooled by countermeasures and some amazing evasive flying. But then it came around, its plume of white vapor sweeping in a graceful arc. Bree stared in horror. "Razor-two, reverse left--reverse left!" Sweat stung her eyes. "Missile in your six, closing fast." Come on, Scarlet, come on.
    The SAM was a half-mile behind. And then a quarter-mile. Dread tightened her throat. "Harder left!"
    Bree jerked, startled as smoke and debris made sudden daytime fireworks. Cam!
    Ah, God. There couldn't be a worse thing to witness than watching your best friend take a direct hit.
    In the seconds that followed, Bree searched the smoky sky, fighting the emotion that if let loose would shatter her concentration. Then she saw it, an open parachute, and it was the most beautiful sight in the world. Even better was the glimpse of Cam's long legs dangling beneath the silk. Her wingman plunged down toward hills bordered by a U-shaped swatch of darker trees, a crescent of green in a vast sea of grey-blue conifers. At the speed of light, Bree committed the sight to memory.
    A warning alarm trilled in her headset. She wrenched her attention back inside. Lights in the cockpit flashed at her. A stoic computer-generated voice urged: "Counter, counter."
    The other missile was locked on her!
    Cam's ejection had sidetracked Bree--for only a few dozen heartbeats. But that distracted fraction of a minute might have been a fatal mistake. She gritted her teeth and hauled back on the control stick to bank away from the threat. Massive forces crammed her into her seat. Not enough. Need more. After what she saw happen to Cam, she knew it'd take every countermeasure, everything in her bag of tricks to escape.
    Bree shoved the stick the opposite way and forward. Her seat belt and shoulder harnesses kept her bottom pressed firmly on the seat cushion, but negative Gs thrust her insides upward, as if she'd just crested the highest hill on the world's biggest rollercoaster. But her tactics weren't working. She'd have to reverse course, fly into the missile, and then hope her angle and speed would be enough to throw it off her tail.
    Her threat warning alarm blared. She flew wildly. Ground became sky and the sky ground. Then, a painfully intense flash of light half blinded her. For one infinitesimal slice of a tick of the clock, Bree thought that the missile had missed, and that she was watching its flamboyant suicidal finale from the front row. But when something unimaginably powerful slammed her jet from underneath and threw her forward into her shoulder harnesses, she knew better.
    The second missile had found its target.

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Comments:

The 2176 series

Book 1: The Legend of Banzai Maguire - Susan Grant
Book 2: Day Of Fire - Kathleen Nance
Book 3: The Shadow Runners - Liz Maverick
Book 4: The Power of Two - Patti O'Shea
Book 5: The Scarlet Empress - Susan Grant