by Marko Kloos
And then the natives have had enough.
The remaining rioters must have changed their minds about the odds, because the forward surge of the crowd suddenly dissipates, and with it all the angry energy that has motivated the leading ranks to charge soldiers in modern battle armor with nothing but ancient small arms and home-made hand grenades. The formerly amorphous mass of people turns into hundreds of individuals scattering in as many different directions, anywhere but toward the muzzles of our rifles.
I take a ragged breath. It feels like I haven’t filled my lungs properly since the shooting started. I look around to see all of my squad mates still standing, weapons at the ready, and scores of bodies on the street before us. There’s a layer of white stuff in front of our position that looks like a dusting of snow on the ground, and it takes me a moment to realize that those are the discarded plastic sabots of our flechette rounds, stripped from the tungsten darts after leaving the barrels.
Ten yards to our right, the grunts from Third Squad come around the corner of the building at a run, with the platoon leader in front. Lieutenant Weaving takes one look around, and flips up the visor on his helmet.
“Holy shit, people. That’s going to look awful on the Network news.”
Sergeant Fallon starts a response on the squad channel, then catches herself, and walks over to Lieutenant Weaving. When she’s in front of him, she flips up her helmet visor as well.
“Something wrong with your TacLink, Lieutenant?”
“Negative,” he replies.
“Well, you may want to get it checked out when we get back, seeing how it failed to show you the five hundred people trying to overrun us.”
Lieutenant Weaving’s posture tenses, but then there’s a sound like a piece of hail hitting a tin roof, and he stumbles sideways and falls over. A sharp crack rolls across the street, the report of a high-powered rifle.
“Sniper,” three or four of us call out at the same time over the squad channel, and everybody ducks for cover. Sergeant Fallon bends over and grabs Lieutenant Weaving by the arm to drag him to safety.
“Little help here,” she says. I leave the relative safety of my concrete pillar, dash over to her position, and grab the lieutenant’s other arm. Together, we drag his limp bulk over to another concrete pillar.
“Ell-tee is down,” Sergeant Fallon toggles into the platoon channel. “Valkyrie Six-One, this is Bravo One-One. Get your ship down in front of the building for a medevac, pronto.”
“Valkyrie Six-One, copy. ETA two minutes,” I hear in response. Valkyrie is the call sign for our drop ship flight, and Six-One is our platoon’s ship.
“Pop me some smoke, and find that sniper,” Sergeant Fallon orders. Priest and Paterson pull smoke grenades out of their harnesses and throw them into the street in front of our position.
The distant rifle cracks again. There’s a puff of concrete dust as it smacks into the pillar in front of us.
“Shoot the fuck back already,” Sergeant Fallon says.
The smoke grenades explode with a muffled pop, covering the area in front of us in thick, white smoke. The sniper is undeterred. He fires again, and the bullet strikes one of the windows behind us with a slap. Finally, someone gets a computer fix on the most likely trajectory of the sniper’s rounds. The TacLink updates everyone’s displays, superimposing a faint target caret over the sniper’s suspected position a few hundred yards down the street, and the two squads around me open up with their rifles.
“Grayson, with me. Sergeant Ellis, mind the shop for a minute. Grayson and I are going to carry the Ell-Tee back to the square and get him onto the bird. The rest of you, cover our asses.”
“Affirmative,” Sergeant Ellis replies. He’s the squad leader of Third Squad, and nominally equal in seniority to Sergeant Fallon at this point, but our squad leader is so high in the company’s pecking order that any NCO lower than the company sergeant usually defers to her.
The lieutenant is out cold. The bullet has torn the partially raised visor from his helmet, and then nailed him in the forehead at an angle. His face is covered in blood, and his forehead looks like someone’s given him a glancing blow with an axe, but he’s still breathing, and the round doesn’t seem to have penetrated the bone. Sergeant Fallon removes his helmet, drops it on the ground next to her, and then holds out her hand.
“Give me a trauma pack, Grayson.”
I reach into the side pocket of my ICU pants and pull out a bandage packet. I pull open the plastic seal, shake out the bandage, and hand it to Sergeant Fallon. She places it on the lieutenant’s forehead. The thermal bandage instantly adheres to his wound, sealing the gash in his head.
“He’ll live to collect his Purple Heart,” Sergeant Fallon pronounces. “Help me get him over to the ship.”
We each grab one of Lieutenant Weaving’s arms to haul up his bulk, which is considerable. He’s a tall guy, a hundred and ninety pounds at least, and the battle armor weighs another thirty pounds on top of that.
“Grab his rifle, too,” the sergeant says. I stoop down to pick up the lieutenant’s M-66. I notice that he still has four full magazine pouches, and my computer informs me that his rifle is still loaded with 250 rounds.
“Valkyrie Six-One, ETA one minute,” I hear over the platoon channel. “Keep your heads low down there.”
We head to the main entrance of the building at an awkward short-step run, with Lieutenant Weaving’s inert mass hanging between us. There are still rioters all over the place, but they’re mostly busy avoiding us, now that we’ve demonstrated that we’re willing to use our live rounds.
Overhead, I hear the engines of the descending drop ship. They’re coming in at high speed, a combat landing with emphasis. As we turn the corner to the main civic plaza, I flinch at the sight of more bodies on the ground, easily twice as many as there are in front of First Squad’s position. Second Squad didn’t hold back.
“Bravo One-One, this is Bravo One-Two. We have three casualties that need to go out on your ship.”
“Copy that, Bravo One-Two. Bring ‘em up, and don’t dawdle,” Sergeant Fallon responds.
The drop ship makes a dramatic entry. It breaks out of the low clouds, banked in a tight final turn. For a moment, a primal fear grips me at the sight of that huge, lethal-looking war machine. Whoever designed the Hornet drop ship didn’t spend a moment considering aesthetics. It’s all angles and facets, bristling with multi-barreled cannons and ordnance pods. It looks like someone’s fever-induced idea of a cross between a hornet and a dragonfly, blown up to massive size and clad in laminate armor.
As I watch, the landing gear of the drop ship extends, and the ship slows down for a vertical touchdown. At the last moment, the pilot turns the Hornet to make the tail and loading ramp face the administration building, and the weapons arrays point in the direction of the threat. I can see the cannon in the nose turret swinging side to side as the gun system automatically scans for targets. Then the main gear touches down, and the Hornet settles in a low crouch. The cargo ramp at the rear opens with a hydraulic whine.
“There’s your ride,” Sergeant Fallon tells the unconscious Lieutenant Weaving.
We carry the lieutenant into the plaza. The tail of the drop ship is a few dozen yards from the building. The crew chief steps out onto the ramp formed by the lower half of the cargo door, and waves us on.
We’re thirty feet from the ramp when the thunder of heavy automatic weapons fire rolls across the plaza. I look around for a threat, thinking that the chin turret of the drop ship is engaging a target. Then I see that the tracers are coming in rather than going out.
“Hit the deck,” Sergeant Fallon shouts, and we do, taking Lieutenant Weaving down to the ground with us.
Ahead of us, there’s a noise like hail on a metal roof as the drop ship starts taking hits.
“Where the fuck is that coming from?” someone shouts over the platoon channel.
“The rooftops,” someone else replies. “They got guns on the r
ooftops, right and center.”
Ahead of us, the drop ship pilot gooses the engines and picks the ship off the ground. The crew chief in the hatch holds on for balance, and then retreats back into his armored ship. I wonder why the chin turret isn’t firing back. The streams of tracers come from the rooftops of two tenement buildings, one on the right side of the plaza, and one at the far side, directly opposite the civic building. Both buildings are standard welfare shoebox stacks, thirty floors high, and I realize that the gun turret of the drop ship can’t deflect that high.
The guns on the rooftops fire in bursts, maybe twenty rounds at a time. Sergeant Fallon and I are in the open, between the relative safety of the building, and that of the armored ship. The hatch of the drop ship is much closer than the concrete overhang of the civic building, but the drop ship is already three feet off the ground, and it doesn’t look like the crew feels like waiting around while their ship is getting sprayed with incoming fire.
“Where the fuck did these people get heavy machine guns?” Sergeant Fallon asks. She pulls a smoke grenade out of her harness and motions for me to do the same. We chuck our grenades out into the plaza, and a few moments later, our position is obscured in thick smoke.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Sergeant Fallon suggests. We seize the still unconscious lieutenant by the arms once more and start our dash back to the building. Behind us, the machine gun rounds keep hitting the armor of the drop ship in a steady staccato.
Suddenly, the pitch of the engines changes, and I can hear right away that something essential just broke. The steady howl of the turbines turns into a tortured shriek. I look over my shoulder and see smoke pouring out of the starboard engine. Another stream of tracers comes down onto the drop ship, which is now fifty feet above the plaza. As they impact the armor, they throw up red and yellow sparks, the tell-tale signature of armor-piercing rounds hitting a hard surface.
“Don’t stop to sight-see, moron,” Sergeant Fallon yells. We finish our dash to the safety of the overhang in front of the building.
Some of the troopers from Second Squad are crouching at the edge of the overhang. They’re aiming their rifles skyward, firing bursts at the source of the tracer rounds raking our drop ship. Whoever set up those machine guns knows the capabilities of a Hornet. The ship is most vulnerable sitting on the ground, and the machine guns are high up on rooftops, out of reach of the Hornet’s chin turret and its rapid-fire cannon. The position of the guns is either incredibly fortuitous, or shrewdly planned. I set down the lieutenant, sling his rifle across my chest armor, and then check the loading status of my own weapon. The grenades in my harness are all non-lethal munitions, nothing that could do more than irritate the enemy machine gun crews. In any case, there’s nothing in my assortment of launcher munitions that can reach all the way up to the roof of a thirty-story building.
“Fuckers know what they’re doing,” Sergeant Fallon says, in a tone that’s almost respectful. We watch as the drop ship swerves to the side and swings its tail around, the pilot doing her best to keep the cockpit and the remaining good engine away from the tracers. She tries to lift her ship out of what is now a concrete shot trap, but with one engine damaged, the Hornet is slow on the ascent. The machine guns keep hammering, and the path of the tracers follows the ship. Both streams converge at the cockpit.
The drop ship is a hundred feet above the plaza when it lurches to the side with alarming suddenness. Then the pilot catches the ship, and she swings the tail around and dips the nose down to gain speed. She’s decided to abandon the vertical takeoff, and get out of the kill zone at low level. Her path takes her right past one of the machine gun nests, and the gun stops firing as the drop ship roars past well below rooftop level. The other gun never ceases its steady stream of bursts, and the tracers from the second machine gun follow the Hornet all the way out of the plaza.
Above, a squad or two from Second Platoon have taken up position on the roof of the civil administration building. I can hear the chatter of their rifles as they engage the machine gun nests on the rooftops. The civil building only has six floors, so the machine guns still have the high ground. After a few moments of getting shot at by the TA troopers on the roof above us, the people manning the heavy machine guns decide to take advantage of their position and return the favor. One of the machine guns, the one on the opposite side of the plaza, starts firing again, and this time, the streams of tracers reach out to our building.
“Bravo One, this is Valkyrie Six-One.”
Our drop ship pilot is calling the lieutenant on the platoon channel. She sounds like she’s talking through clenched teeth.
“Valkyrie Six-One, this is Bravo One-One. The Ell-Tee is down. What’s the word on the ride?” Sergeant Fallon replies.
“Ship’s busted,” the pilot says. “My right seater is dead, and I can’t raise my crew chief on comms. Right engine is shot out, and half the shit in my cockpit is blown away. I’m making for…hold on.”
In the distance, the sound from the Hornet’s remaining engine rises sharply, and then cuts out with an ominous finality.
“Valkyrie Six-One, going down,” the pilot matter-of-factly announces over the platoon channel. She sounds as calm and detached as if she’s telling us about tonight’s dinner options at the chow hall.
We can hear the crash of the ship from half a mile away. There’s no explosion, just a monstrous racket, like someone dropping a giant bag of screws and bolts onto a hard deck. After a few moments, the noise stops.
For a few heartbeats, there is dead silence on the squad and platoon channels. Even the machine guns and rifles overhead have stopped firing.
“Well, fuck,” Sergeant Fallon exclaims. Then she toggles into the platoon channel.
“We have a drop ship down, people. Valkyrie Six-One is down in the PRC.”
Chapter 11
Overhead, the tracers from the heavy machine gun rake the roof, where the Second Platoon grunts have taken up position. We’re not tied into their comms, but I can tell from the yelling and shouting drifting down that things aren’t going so well.
Sergeant Fallon peeks out from underneath the overhang and looks into the night sky, where the tracers from the machine guns reach out to our building like swarms of very angry fireflies.
“Getting our asses kicked by a bunch of welfare rats,” she mutters. Then she toggles the comm switch and talks into her helmet mike. I don’t hear anything on the platoon or squad channels, which means she’s tied into Company.
“Valkyrie Six-Four, this is Bravo One-One. Valkyrie Six-One is down, a three-quarter klick to the east of our position. We have heavy guns on the rooftops, and they’re kicking the shit out of Second Platoon. I suggest you clear off those roof positions, and then see what you can see at the crash site, over.”
She listens to Valkyrie Six-Four’s response, and switches to the platoon channel once more.
“Second Platoon’s bird is making an attack run, people. Keep your heads down.”
Valkyrie Six-Four doesn’t waste any time. The first evidence of their attack run is a streak of cannon fire from above, and the distant roaring of the Hornet’s multi-barreled pod cannons. The rooftop of the building on the other side of the plaza erupts in a shower of sparks as the cannon rounds rake the position of the heavy machine gun. The machine gun falls silent, and a moment later, the drop ship appears overhead, thundering over the plaza nearly at rooftop level as it pulls up from its strafing run. I notice that some of the cannon fire missed the rooftop ledge and hit the apartments directly below. Several windows on the thirtieth floor are blown out, and a few cannon rounds have torn huge holes into the concrete sheets that make up the outer wall of the tenement high rise. Chunks of window plastics and concrete are raining down onto the plaza.
“Bravo One-One, Valkyrie Six-One,” comes the voice of the drop ship pilot over the platoon channel. I can hear cockpit alarms blaring in the background of the transmission.
“I read you, Six-On
e. What’s your status?” Sergeant Fallon replies.
“The ship is fucked. I’m right side up in the middle of the fucking street. Avionics and comms have power, but my chin turret’s out. My crew chief and right seater are dead, I think. I could really use a hand here.”
“Six-One, sit tight. We’re going to come out and fetch you. Keep those hatches sealed. You’re in a shitty neighborhood.”
“Copy that. I’m not going anywhere.”
“We have you on TacLink,” Sergeant Fallon says. “We’ll be there shortly.”
I stare at Sergeant Fallon as she cuts the comm link. She wants to go out there, on foot?
“We’ll leave the Ell-Tee with Third Squad,” she says to me. “Grab his ammo. We’re going to go for a little walk.”
“First Squad, form up on me,” she calls into the squad channel. I remove Lieutenant Weaving’s magazines from their pouches, and fill up the empty pouch on my harness before stuffing the rest of the ammunition into the side pockets of my leg armor.
“Nobody’s ever been in a firefight and complained about having too many bullets with them,” Sergeant Fallon says to me.
“I guess not,” I reply, and close the flap on the magazine pouch with an unsteady hand. The last thing I want to do right now is to go out into the streets of the PRC, away from the rest of the platoon.
The rest of First Squad comes up at a run—Stratton and Hansen in the lead, then Jackson, Priest, Baker, and finally Paterson and Philips.
“What’s the plan, Sarge?” Baker asks as the squad gathers around us.
“Our ride is less than a klick that way,” Sergeant Fallon says, marking the route on our TacLink displays as she speaks. “We have at least one pilot alive, so we’re going to go out there, fetch our crew, and activate the demo charge on the drop ship. We’re not leaving all that ordnance for the locals to pick up.”