“Bombing run is completed, Colonel,” Captain Chase reported to Jaworski. “The Buffs are heading back to base to rearm.”
“They’ll be back. We have another strike package on station, I see.” Jaworski motioned toward the display that showed air operations.
“Yes, sir. Four F-15 Strike Eagles, ready for a low-penetration run once you select the target.”
“McDaniels, any opinion?”
“The numbers from the east are larger, but it looks like the incendiaries might have blunted their advance for the moment,” McDaniels said. “The advance from the north has only had to put up with Little Bird runs while Alcatraz fell back. Let’s drop some iron there. Chase, what’s their ordnance?”
Chase touched a mouse at his workstation and highlighted the icon representing the Strike Eagle flight. A small window opened, filled with specific data regarding the flight. “A mix of standard high-explosive cluster bombs and incendiaries, sir.”
“There’s another flight of four B-52s inbound as well,” Jaworski added. “They’ll be on-station in fourteen minutes, with another flight thirty minutes behind them.”
“A lot can happen in thirty minutes,” McDaniels said.
“So you want the Eagles to hit the northern elements?” Jaworski asked.
“Roger that, especially near the highway. We’ve got all those vehicles sitting out there. Let’s put them to use and make a big bonfire. I’m presuming we don’t have any vehicular traffic inbound?”
“Nothing,” Jaworski said. “Whatever was headed our way has either made it or isn’t going to be showing up.”
“Roger that. Then that would be my choice. Hit the traffic north of the perimeter and set it ablaze.” McDaniels looked at the general situation display. “Zeds still aren’t massing in substantial numbers to our west. We should make another announcement to the civilians outside the east gate and tell them they’ve got to go now. There’s no telling how far the fire will spread, and it could cut them off.”
“Or maybe we should just let them in,” Gartrell blurted. “It would mean a hundred or so fewer zeds to shoot. Think of it that way.”
“I’m not going down that road again. The civilians are not coming into this camp,” Jaworski announced. “I’ve made that clear, and the circumstances have been made clear to the civilians as well. They chose to stay. Now it’s time to pay the piper. But yes, we should make another announcement and give them one last chance to beat feet. Otherwise, they’re zombie chow.”
Bull Haley fidgeted beside McDaniels. “Damn, sir. That’s pretty cold, given that those are the people we’re supposed to protect.”
“Colonel Haley, that’ll be enough. The order stands.” Jaworski glared at the Ranger commander, and Haley glared back, his jaw set. If Jaworski was hoping his rank would intimidate the solid lieutenant colonel, he’d guessed wrong.
“Let’s play nice, gentlemen,” McDaniels said. “We all have to work together to get through this, and an Army/Air Force pissing match isn’t going to make things any easier. But for the record, Colonel Jaworski, you’re going to regret that order when the zeds make it to the perimeter. And I’m talking from experience here, sir.”
“I don’t doubt you, McDaniels. But the order stands. Do you get that?”
“Absolutely, sir. I don’t like it one bit, but I’m not going to disobey it.”
“I’ll make the announcement,” Captain Chase said, cutting through the tension. And as he said that, the sniper fire from the towers suddenly increased.
“Negative on that, Captain. I’ll do it. From the wall.” McDaniels rose and looked across the TOC at Jaworski. “And maybe you should come along, Colonel. Show the troops you support them while they’re carrying out your orders.”
“Colonel McDaniels, you need to remain at your station. We have multiple engagements underway,” Jaworski said, his voice hard. McDaniels wondered what had happened to the mild-mannered Air Force officer he’d met so many weeks ago at the Pentagon. “Our job is here.”
It’s the stress. He’s not a ground troop, and he can’t handle what’s going down.
“Colonel Haley can handle the engagements. He has the chops for it. But you and I need to get out on the line and show our faces, Colonel Jaworski. Certainly you can see the wisdom in that?”
“McDaniels is right, Colonel,” Commander Rawlings said. “You need to connect with the troops now, before things get too hot. Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to hold them when the shit hits the fan.”
Jaworski started to say something, then checked himself. After a moment, he rose to his feet with a heavy sigh and nodded. “All right, Cord. We’ll do it your way. Haley, you have control of the TOC while we’re gone. Rawlings, you have operational control of the external security elements while McDaniels is absent. If there’s something that requires our immediate and personal attention, Captain Chase, you’re the one to notify us. Questions?”
There were none.
Jaworski slipped on his body armor and donned his helmet. Without another word, he picked up an M4 equipped with an M203 grenade launcher under the barrel and marched for the exit. McDaniels kept his gear close at hand at all times, so he needed less than ten seconds to man up and be ready for combat. As he headed for the door after Jaworski, he felt a presence behind him. He looked over his shoulder to find Gartrell hot on his trail.
“What are you up to, Sergeant Major?” McDaniels asked without breaking stride.
“The usual, sir. Providing adult supervision.”
“You probably don’t want to see this, Gartrell.” McDaniels pushed through the door and into the busy camp beyond. Jaworski walked right past the sentries without returning their salutes. McDaniels saluted on their behalf as Gartrell fell into step beside him, carrying his AA-12 at port arms.
“What am I going to see that I haven’t already seen, Colonel?” Gartrell had to raise his voice above the cacophony that raged outside the tactical operations center—the clatter of helicopters and drones flying overhead, the distant roar of jet engines, the thundering of explosions, the whine of generators, the hustle and bustle of soldiers making last-minute preparations for contact with the enemy. Everyone who wasn’t already on the line moved with a purpose. Even the few civilians in that part of the camp were quickly doing whatever tasks they had been assigned.
McDaniels slowed a bit and let Jaworski advance a few steps ahead of them. “Jaworski needs to see this happen. He needs to understand exactly what it is he’s ordering us to do, and he needs to see just how Goddamned hard it’s going to be on the troops.”
“You’re thinking that when he sees the zeds, he’s going to throw open the gate and let those civilians inside?”
McDaniels shrugged. “Maybe. I hope so.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
McDaniels sighed. “Then it’s on his head. He’s the one who has to live with it.”
If Gartrell said anything, it was lost in the roar of the Apaches as they flew past overhead, on their way back to the battle.
5
Forty minutes later, despite the bombardments, the rocket attacks, the chainguns, and the sniper fire, the stenches closed in on SPARTA’s outer perimeter. McDaniels ordered all the external security units back inside the camp, and had the Apaches and Little Bird gunships cover their withdrawal. Inside the TOC, Major Carmody and the Air Force controllers worked the close air support to perfection, and everyone on the eastern wall was awed by yet another B-52 bombing run that was so intense and ferocious that it lit up the night skies.
Fires burned bright and hot in the desert, fueled by oil derricks that had been destroyed in the attacks. In some instances, huge gouts of flame shot a hundred feet into the air, powered by strong jets of natural gas that were released when the oil field machinery failed. And to the north, the F-15s continued their work, cycling in and out, dropping their ordnance on the advancing zeds coming down the highway. The cars and trucks there burned, sending plumes of black, noxious smoke
into the air. McDaniels had to admit the Air Force was definitely moving a hell of a lot of mud in an attempt to kill the zeds. Through his binoculars, he could see thousands of charred, flaming bodies littering the desert. Tens of thousands, even. The incendiary attacks were just that intense. But for every stench that was dropped, ten more took its place. And the bombs didn’t last forever—too quickly, they were expended. The bombers, attack jets, and helicopters couldn’t remain aloft indefinitely. They needed to return to their bases to rearm, refuel, and recrew. Added to that, SPARTA was not the only objective they had to defend. There were still cities to the west that hadn’t yet suffered much and had their infestations under control. They had to be protected as well, which meant SPARTA would have to go for long periods of time where its survival depended on the ingeniousness of its defenses, along with the skill and dedication of the troops protecting it.
Once the air support began to taper off, McDaniels, Jaworski, and Gartrell surveyed the devastated terrain beyond through binoculars. Fires burned everywhere, illuminating a blackened landscape littered with bodies and body parts. McDaniels had never seen anything like it. Thousands of blackened corpses lay motionless in the firelight on the other side of the highway. In the distance, five times that number managed to step out of the flaming morass left by the incendiary attacks. No matter how badly damaged they were, they kept coming, limping, shuffling, crawling, and dragging themselves across the Texas desert. They advanced toward the lights that illuminated the kill zone outside the east gate, which faced the highway, and the remaining civilians begged, screamed, and cried for the guards to let them inside the compound. The group was much smaller, down to only about fifty individuals, most of them families who had no chance at escape. McDaniels had asked Chase to track those civilians who had struck out for the west at the last moment, and the captain had reported that almost all of them had run into roving bands of zombies. Their fate had been sealed days ago.
No matter where they go, the horde catches them, McDaniels thought. Those poor, poor bastards.
The sniper fire was becoming more and more constant, and not just from the eastern and northern observation towers. The towers on the south and west walls were opening up as well. SPARTA was going to be in the middle of a zombie sandwich. McDaniels was primarily concerned with the eastern approach, since the stenches had the most mass there. The advance down from Odessa had been slowed by the F-15E attacks, and setting the column of traffic there ablaze had done at least some good. The majority of the zeds were too stupid to save themselves from being immolated, and according to the SEALs and Special Forces teams that had pulled out of the area, a great many of the shambling grotesqueries simply walked right into the wall of flame, so fixated were they on the distant lights illuminating SPARTA’s kill zones. That prompted McDaniels to order the Ranger’s mortar unit to open fire on the column of stalled traffic to the east. If they could start some fires, then it would buy them some time before the forces guarding SPARTA had to commence engaging the zombies directly.
Thoomp! Thoomp! Thoomp! The one-hundred-twenty-millimeter mortars had a range of over four miles, so reaching out to less than a quarter of their range was no problem. The high-explosive rounds screamed through the night air and slammed into the abandoned traffic on I-385. When they exploded, the mortar rounds went off like great blossoming roses, throwing sparks and shrapnel into the air. Hundreds of yards away from the wall, the civilians at the gate screamed at the sound and fury of the detonations. The mortars did the job. Several vehicles erupted with secondary explosions as their fuel tanks went up, and within minutes, there was a wall of flame that separated the camp from the approaching zombies.
“How long will that hold them back?” Jaworski asked.
“No telling,” McDaniels said. “Maybe hours. Maybe minutes. Maybe not at all. We’ll have to wait and see.” He spoke into his headset microphone. “Hercules Ops, this is Hercules Six. Send the word to the snipers. They’re to engage any target they can see. The mortars and air support aren’t going to be able to kill them all, so the snipers need to cull the herd before they get to the perimeter. Advise them to engage only when they can generate a positive kill. Also, let’s have our attack aviation keep hammering the elements to the north. I want them delayed as long as possible. Good copy on that? Over.”
“Hercules Six, this is Hercules Operations. Roger, good copy. Orders going out now. Over.”
“Roger that, Ops.” Almost immediately after the reply, McDaniels heard rotor beats overhead. He looked up and saw the Apache flight banking away from the camp, heading to the north.
“They might as well start using their Hellfires,” Jaworski said.
“I’m sure they will. I’ll leave it to Masterson to determine how her unit fights. She’s obviously a professional.” McDaniels raised his field glasses to his eyes, but couldn’t see much through the wall of flame the separated the camp’s outer perimeter from the advancing necromorphs. He looked down at the civilians still massed near the front gate, which in itself was a recessed kill zone. It was surrounded by CONEX platforms heavily manned with Ranger elements that would open up on the zeds as soon as they got in range. Before that happened, though, the zombies would have to cross the trenches filled with the current iteration of Napalm B. That was sure to slow them up for some time. He saw only a few dozen civilians left. At the last moment, it seemed at least half of the group had struck out for the west.
“Ops, this is Hercules Six.”
“Hercules Six, this is Hercules Operations. Go ahead. Over.”
“Pass word to Ranger Six. There are civilians moving northbound along the eastern wall. I expect them to hook a left when they reach the end and make tracks for the west. It might be worthwhile if our guys could zero any zeds in their path. Over.”
Bull Haley responded immediately. “Hercules Six, Ranger Six. Word has already been given, and the drawbridge outside Gate Four is down so they can make the crossing. So far, there’s not a lot of zed activity out there, so they might have half a chance. Over.”
“That bridge should be raised,” Jaworski said. “I want this camp sealed.”
“Give ’em a chance, sir,” Gartrell said.
“They’ve had their chances, Sergeant Major.”
Gartrell turned and faced Jaworski directly, his jaw set. McDaniels glared at Gartrell and shook his head. Gartrell didn’t turn away, but he kept his mouth shut.
“Colonel, these are Americans,” McDaniels said to Jaworski. “I get that we have limited provisions and resources, but Gartrell’s right. We need to give these people a chance. How about we open Gate One and let them into the camp, then load them on the next Chinook run and get them out of here?”
“Are you an aviator, Cord?”
“No, sir, I’m not.”
“More weight means more fuel, fuel that we might not be able to get replenished, fuel that we might need in a big way if this camp gets compromised.” Jaworski pointed to the huddled mass of humanity on the other side of the gate. “Would you prefer to fly those people out now and run the risk of not being able to get the scientists and researchers out later? Or another shipment of the drug? What if the other facilities can’t replicate the drug in time, and the rest of the nation is depending on us to get as much out as we possibly can? Are their lives worth those of another four, five hundred thousand?”
McDaniels clenched his teeth and glanced at Gartrell. The sergeant major sighed and turned back to watch the fiery vista outside the wire.
“I see your point, Colonel,” McDaniels said finally.
“Then this subject is closed,” Jaworski said. “We’ll keep the drawbridge outside of Gate Four down long enough for the civilians to get across, but after that, it gets pulled up.”
“You’re going to regret this, sir,” Gartrell said finally. “Believe me, this is something you’ll wish you could do over.”
Jaworski didn’t respond.
McDaniels got back on the radio. “Ranger Six,
this is Hercules Six. Roger, and thanks. Break. Hercules Ops, please make some more announcements over the PA. Tell these folks we’ll keep the approach to the bridge on the other side of the camp open for them, but we’ll have to raise it eventually. Tell them this is their last chance. Over.”
“Roger that, Hercules Six. Six, are we good to continue with the mortars? Over.”
“Hercules Ops, Hercules Six. Roger, shift fires to the east and hit the zeds with some saturation fire. Cease fire after ten minutes, and we’ll do a BDA. Over.” The battle damage assessment would give McDaniels and the others some idea just how effective the mortar barrage had been. If it didn’t provide any meaningful results, then he intended to withhold further fires until the zombies overwhelmed the outer perimeter.
“Hercules Six, this is Hercules Ops. Roger, fire for ten, then cease. That will just about coincide with the next WILD FIRE run. Over.”
“I love it when a plan comes together like that, Ops. Make sure the aviation units know we’ve got another round of mud movers inbound, so they can stay clear of the engagement area. Hercules Six, out.”
“Movement on the highway!” one of the Rangers shouted. “Looks like some stenches are coming through!”
McDaniels raised his binoculars, his movements repeated by Jaworski and Gartrell as the mortar team resumed firing. Even though flames raged ferociously across the shattered vehicles on the highway, the zeds were starting to get through. Most of them were on fire, and they managed only a few steps before they collapsed either from injuries or from sniper fire from the towers. Some of the Rangers opened up as well, firing single shots into the smoldering silhouettes.
“Rangers, cease fire!” McDaniels shouted. “Save your ammo. Let the snipers handle any stenches that make it through the fire!” Into his headset microphone, he said, “Ops, Hercules Six. Make sure all security teams hold their fire. Only snipers are to engage targets outside the wire. Over.”
The Rising Horde, Volume Two (Sequel to The Gathering Dead ) Page 6