Arisen, Book Five - EXODUS

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  While he did this, Ali looked up at the hovering Seahawk, mainly just out of the perpetual sniper’s habit of always observing everything. She could still see the pilot calmly holding the stick; then, a bit behind him, the door gunner, watchful and stalwart behind his minigun, helmet, and face shield, sticking slightly out of the gunner’s hatch. Finally, behind that, there was the crew chief in the full-size door, monitoring the line, and waiting to pull people in as they were winched up.

  And then something else caught Ali’s eye – something so unlikely and unexpected that it took her a second to clock it, and longer to work out what she was seeing. She squinted through the wind, rain, and lashing spray, her awesome visual acuity competing with the terrible conditions. It was something in the front landing gear, on the port side, the side facing them.

  The Seahawk had three sets of fixed, non-retractable landing gear – basically fat rubber tires on shock-absorbing struts – two under the main part of the fuselage, and one under the tail boom. Each of the two forward wheels was mounted on two separate struts, one of which rose straight up into an oval hole in the helo’s body, the other pointing forward and up at a 45-degree angle, and attaching into a cowling that protruded off the fuselage.

  These two struts basically formed a V, with the fuselage sealing the top.

  Something was wedged in there, right in that V.

  And Ali didn’t like the look of it, not at all.

  Not least because it was directly below, and no more than two or three feet from, the door gunner – and his open gun hatch.

  As Ali watched, not yet reacting, even if there had been any obvious way to react, the wedged-in ball of meat began to wriggle; and then to uncoil itself, stretching out into something that looked not entirely unlike a human body – but from the sternum up only. And then a grasping arm extended out from this ball of meat.

  It reached straight up toward the barrel of the minigun sticking out the hatch.

  * * *

  Petty Officer Second Class Bruce Detrick stared out toward the horizon, his eyes protected from the wind and spray by the face shield of his helmet. Other than gripping the butterfly handles of his minigun, and being alert, there wasn’t much for him to do here. The other crew chief was responsible for winching up the rescue swimmer, and their little fishies, back into the Seahawk.

  In any case, a water rescue was a hell of a lot less dodgy than the ostensible “resupply” operation to the carrier had been. Detrick for one called that a goddamn close air support and combat op, when they were landing in front of friendly lines and right in the middle of a mob of rampaging Zulus.

  It had been Detrick’s minigun, and that alone, which had stood between the crew of Firehawk Two and rampaging death. Theirs was a hell of a bird, and more than a hell of a crew, and Detrick hadn’t been about to let them all go down then and there. Still, it had been a close-run thing.

  And he’d only just now stopped trembling from the rush of adrenaline, and the close proximity to so many dead. He liked to think he enjoyed the rush of combat – none of which they’d seen any of since the beginning of this mission and their long journey back to America. But in the past, even when inserting or extracting Marines under fire, he’d generally been shooting at Zulus a little more than ten fucking meters away.

  So, in his heart, he was relieved when they were called away for this water rescue. This at least was a straightforward mission, and well within their capabilities. Detrick saw the rescue strop follow the swimmer in, who would be wrapping up their first fishie now. He drummed the fingers of his right hand on the minigun handle.

  And then he saw something he wouldn’t have expected to – not in a thousand missions, not if the ZA went on for a million years.

  He saw an arm.

  The Seahawk was holding a hover, over the ocean, at four meters up if it was an inch.

  And still here came this arm. And it was followed by another arm.

  The two arms pulled up a head and a torso – right over the top of his fucking minigun.

  And Petty Officer Detrick freaked out so badly that, pushing and stumbling away from his station, he fell out the other open door behind him. The elastic safety strap clipped into his harness jerked him to a stop ten feet above the water. There he swung in open air, feet kicking, hyperventilating, sea spray lashing his helpless body. He only barely understood what had just happened. But he knew enough to be terrified about what was going on in the cabin above him.

  The other crew chief, focused like a hawk on managing the line and the winch, never saw it. He only heard Detrick shout as he stumbled out the door into open air – and then turned and rushed behind him, peering out over the edge. And there was fucking Detrick, hanging in open air like a goddamned circus performer. And he for God’s sake had to reel him back in.

  But then he heard an inhuman shriek behind him. Spinning around again, he saw half a zombie – a Foxtrot, in fact, now energized by the nearness of prey, shrieking and rapidly hand-over-handing itself across the deck toward him. And now he stumbled backward and fell out the starboard-side door right behind Detrick.

  He was a larger and heavier man, and his own safety strap, when it went taut, jerked the whole airframe – and the combined weight of the two of them hanging there caused the whole helo to list to the right side.

  Cursing aloud, the co-pilot twisted at the waist, and tried to see what in God’s name was happening back there. When he didn’t get an answer on ICS, he shouted: “What the fuck is going on?”

  The half a Foxtrot locked on to the sound of his voice.

  And then when it energetically dragged itself through the narrow crawlspace into the cockpit… there was absolutely nowhere for the pilot or co-pilot to escape to. Both clawed at their side arms – which neither had imagined ever having to use inside the helo in their worst nightmares – but both were too slow on the draw.

  * * *

  Ali actually saw, not only the two crew chiefs hanging by their safety harnesses, but a heavy gout of blood splash across the cockpit glass – from the inside.

  Oh, shit. That can’t be good…

  And then, with no other preamble, the whole 64-foot, 18,000-pound flying machine tilted away, radically, to its right – also pulling on the nylon line attached to the rescue strop, which had just been secured around Park. Its engines shrieked at the sudden strain, and the slack in the line was taken up in two seconds.

  Reacting instantly, Ali looped her left arm between the strop and Park’s body and dug in, as she drew her knife from her boot sheath with her other hand. No sooner had she done that than both she and Park took off, skating across the surface of the water, dragged by the lurching, screaming, and evidently now unpiloted helo.

  They were only pulled a few meters before Ali slashed out at the nylon line, severing it in a single stroke. The two of them sank back down into the water, both looking back toward Emily and the Navy swimmer. “Come on!” Ali shouted at Park, beginning to stroke back toward the others, fighting the waves on the water and the punishing spray, while tuning out the shrieking engines and the shouts of the others, continuing to operate inside the maelstrom.

  Park kept his shit together enough to swim along behind her.

  They’d only just covered the distance back to the others when the roaring and shrieking of the Seahawk grew in volume behind them again – rose to greater noise and violence than even before, when it had been nearly on top of them. Ali twisted her neck – and saw that whatever horror show was happening inside that cockpit, it had now caused the the enormous helicopter to reverse its initial lurch. Its first out-of-control maneuver had taken it maybe fifty meters away from them, to its right. But now it was tilted at least as radically on to its left side.

  And it was coming right at them.

  Rotors first.

  It was actually in the process of going over on its side, and it was going to splash in, hard – perhaps not precisely on top of the two men and two women in the water. But way too cl
ose. And the spinning blades were on a course to run right over them.

  Trying to breathe around all the vapor in the air, her mind running at light speed, Ali reversed her knife into an overhand grip and flashed it out again – this time puncturing Park’s life vest. With a second stab, she ruined Emily’s, and then finally her own. “Big breath!” she shouted, as the shrieking, whining monstrosity of the Seahawk and its screaming rotors came blasting toward them. “Now dive! Deep!” She feared she was going to have to grab one or both of them, but they both took huge lungfuls of air, and both dove hard, with Ali following right behind.

  Survival is a universal instinct, and a hell of a motivator, and all they’d needed was the right plan. Miraculously – or, ordinarily, for her – Ali had come up with it.

  And now they all stroked and dove for their lives, swimming for the bottom of the ocean.

  Only Ali knew that the dead were waiting for them down there, too.

  The Replacements

  The USS Michael Murphy

  Captain Abrams stood outside on a starboard-side gangway, only a short walk from his bridge. He was near the stern, because that was the side of the Murphy that was turned to the Kennedy. Soon – or at least he damn well hoped soon – the destroyer was going to get to play its part pulling the carrier off that sandbar. And reversing their engines was unlikely to cut it – they were going to need all the power they had in their four 27,000-horsepower gas turbines to have a chance. So away they faced.

  But that moment hadn’t come yet. And Abrams and the Murphy were under orders to maintain this position, which made it harder for them to support the carrier. This was frustrating. Abrams knew if they had full freedom of maneuver, they could be giving it to that tsunami of dead much harder and deeper.

  With that thought, he heard another salvo of missiles launch with a mighty whoosh, this time from the fore cells, and saw them streak overhead with dazzling light and noise. The targeting had to be careful; and, in any case, the Kennedy was too closely engaged for blunt instruments like surface-to-air missiles to save them. Still, the guided-missile destroyer could slow and degrade the hundreds of thousands of Zulus making for the flat-top before they got in close.

  Right now, Abrams was out on deck to peer into a small color video monitor inside a hard plastic case, displaying the video feed from their Raven drone, which he could of course have done anywhere. But he generally felt like he had a better handle on what the hell was actually going on when he was out on deck and there was some chance of seeing and hearing things with his own eyes and ears.

  That was as opposed to, basically, playing a high-tech, high-stakes video game – which all his young enlisted men and officers seemed extremely comfortable doing. Abrams had played a few video games himself growing up. But his responsibilities were too grave to allow himself to fall into thinking of war in such detached terms. None of the lives of the 291 officers and men under his command could be cheaply spent; and, once spent, could never be replaced. There were no extra lives or power-ups. The dead stayed dead.

  Or they used to, anyway.

  Right now, with the assistance of a tech/drone pilot, Abrams was watching a disturbingly close-up view of the crew of the Kennedy battling for their lives on their own flight deck. And, the way the battle was playing out, it was obviously only the heavy weapons of the Murphy that were keeping them alive and on their feet. The last time Abrams had been out here on deck, it had been to scream at their Phalanx CIWS and Bushmaster gun crews. Fear had been an effective motivator, and the guns had gotten back up and mostly stayed up.

  But Abrams knew nothing lasts forever. Every single belt of 30mm and 50-cal had been meticulously rounded up from every cranny on board. But they’d been burning through it for a long time now. Abrams had more missiles in the cells. But those were strategic, not tactical, weapons. He would continue to order more strikes on the dead out in the shallows, and perhaps even on the base of the pyramid of dead climbing, and not so slowly surrounding, the carrier. But only the tactical weapons could sweep their bow clear.

  And now the dreaded word came.

  “Captain!” A runner had been sent to find him. “Stern See-whiz reports they’re two mikes from being black on ammo. A little more for the Bushmaster, but not much.”

  Abrams nodded, dashed back into his Bridge, and picked up the dedicated phone. “This is 112 Actual. Our support weapons are two mikes from going down. Repeat, two mikes left.”

  The response came in slightly broken and distorted. Abrams could hear the raging battle in the background – somebody had left a porthole or hatch open on the Kennedy’s bridge. Or maybe they hadn’t. “112, repeat your last, over!”

  “We are two mikes from black on ammo! Two mikes! Our guns are going down!”

  When Abrams clicked off, he reflected that he was still waiting for the order to start tugging. He stepped outside, to where he had a clear view of that enormous anchor chain – two anchor chains, actually – that had been secured to their own wildcat spool on the deck. It was like a symbolic lifeline, or umbilical cord, from the smaller ship to the bigger one. And for that reason it made Abrams happy.

  Today, they’d been allowed to do their job – to protect the flat-top.

  And, God willing, before the day was done, they would be instrumental in securing the carrier’s salvation. And that was a good day’s work. Not to mention the least they could for those men and women battling for their lives.

  Abrams went back inside.

  He didn’t particularly want to hear those guns going down.

  * * *

  “Say again!” Coulson shouted into his chin mic, one hand pressed against the side of his helmet. “Still negative copy, say again, say again!” He was too close to the front lines for playing general, but it was dangerous letting himself get much farther away from them. The roar and general tumult were atrocious. But at least the rain had stopped for the moment.

  Handon was there with him, planning the next stage of the battle. As the acting ground commanders of the two elite forces that led the dwindling militia, these two were the top of the command food-chain – excepting only Drake and Campbell up in the island. And they were smart enough to let Coulson and Handon run their own damned battle.

  “Copy that!” Coulson finally said, nodding. “We are executing Dunkirk now, repeat Dunkirk is go! Sparta Actual out!” Handon could see Coulson twiddle his radio channel, without needing to look at it, back to the squad net he used to run his own team. At least local comms were good. Coulson grabbed the back of Handon’s neck and shouted at his face. “We are ten mikes from both guns on the Murphy going down! For good! And when that happens, we’re going to lose this flight deck. Ten mikes!”

  Handon nodded. He knew it had always been inevitable. He looked over at the starboard deck edge, just off of which the one remaining Seahawk and its door gunner were still blasting away at the pile of dead climbing up to the hole. That was damned helpful, but it couldn’t linger forever, and its ammo would almost certainly go before that.

  “Okay!” Handon said. “What’s the play? What’s Dunkirk?”

  “We’re gonna be relieved! The reserve force comes up from below – to defend the hole only! Half will go down in it, half positioned up top! And then we fall back to the island! And we defend that as long as we can, then button up inside!”

  “Roger that!” Handon said – but then cocked his head. “Wait a second! We’re giving up the flight deck? How do you plan to recover the flight of UK engineers?!”

  Coulson shrugged. “Beats the shit out of me! I just work here! Maybe they’re gonna parachute in?”

  Handon mentally cursed the fog of war. It was always there. Or maybe it was his own fault for coming late to the fight. “Okay – what’s your plan for breaking contact?” This was almost a bigger concern, or at least a more immediate one. They were so closely engaged, Handon wasn’t sure how they were going have the time or space to retreat.

  Coulson read his look. �
�Don’t worry, D-boy!” Handon also didn’t know how the Marine guessed his former unit of service, but people in the spec-ops community tended to sense such things. “The up-top half of the reserve is gonna take our place in the line on the right flank! Then—” But Coulson cut himself off.

  The fire from the destroyer, strafing the ramparts, had abruptly stopped.

  Handon checked his watch. “That was not ten mikes…”

  “No,” Coulson agreed, looking off in wonder. “But… this is it.” Handon took his meaning. They were into the endgame now. Everyone knew it. And it didn’t look like ending well.

  Out across the foredeck, an entire ravening army of darkness began pouring over the ramparts and spilling across the front of the ship. It was as bad as the first two breakthroughs put together. It was worse. It was like the expeditionary force of all the warriors of Greece coming at them across the Trojan Beach.

  And no reserve force was anywhere in sight.

  Not only were they not going to be able to break contact, retreat, and button up – but they were all going to die.

  Right here and now.

  * * *

  “I’m wondering if this was all a stupid idea. You ever think we were crazy to believe we could save this ship? Maybe we should have just evacuated to the destroyer, while we still had the chance.”

  The speaker of these words was Marine Corporal Raible. And he spoke them in a hushed whisper, huddled in a dark corner of the carrier’s cavernous and echoing hangar deck. Normally, pre-ZA, this deck had served as the carrier’s garage for aircraft. At 120 feet wide, 25 feet high, and a full 710 feet long – more than two-thirds the length of the entire ship – it was the largest room most of the sailors and Marines had ever been in, with the possible exception of the Superdome. Under normal operation, the hangar deck could hold more than seventy aircraft, as well as spare jet engines, fuel tanks, and other heavy equipment.

  But, under the new administration of the ZA, nearly three-fourths of it had been turned into an enormous organic farm, complete with giant rows of planter beds, UV lights, and an irrigation system, all of it held in place by miles of scaffolding. Raible had always thought this was weird. And now he thought it wasn’t doing them a damned bit of good.