ARISEN, Book Fourteen - ENDGAME

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  And then it was on him.

  Okay, Homer thought, dropping his rifle and quick-drawing a syringe of MZ from his vest. Now the hard part.

  Flailing limbs raced at his face along with a gnashing mouth full of bared teeth, all of them at once, like a really mean boxer determined to throw every single punch in one combo, all before the opening bell finished ringing. Homer got his left hand up to defend, counting on the suit to protect his arm, while he looked for an opening for the syringe in his right. His instinct was to go for the neck, but quickly decided the chest would be good enough. This was like being in a slap fight with a hundred mean schoolgirls, and the damn thing was simply overwhelming the limited defense of his left arm.

  He was out of time and space.

  Seeing his opening, he rammed the syringe home under the former woman’s left breast – right between the fourth and fifth ribs and into the heart, which seemed like a good result. But even as his hand was flashing forward, he heard Baxter shouting at him, and as the stab went home, a hurtling body smashed into him from the right. It was a runner, and it was already dead from a headshot, but it didn’t matter – it had been a big guy and its weight and momentum took both Homer and his Foxtrot victim over and down, hard.

  All before he could depress the damned plunger.

  When he bounced off the ground, he had half a destroyed runner on top of him, all of a very angry flailing Foxtrot…

  And a full but useless syringe.

  The needle had broken off inside that cold dead heart.

  * * *

  Kate’s sector was still just on the near side of totally out of control, so she was able to pivot and aim down at Homer where he lay on the ground under those bodies.

  And she had to decide in an instant.

  That Foxtrot was still, theoretically, their mission, totally invaluable. But it was also going absolutely apeshit on top of Homer. He’d be killed or at the very least infected if that went on any longer – not least since he wasn’t even defending himself, but instead trying to get one of his last two syringes clear of his vest. But the manic violence of the flailing body was making even that impossible.

  Kate decided – she didn’t think it was going to happen.

  And she knew there were other Foxtrots out there. She knew because she could hear them shrieking – and see them leaping in the peripheral vision of her NVGs.

  She fired twice, knowing she might hit Homer, or splash him with equally lethal gunk. But she didn’t think she had a choice.

  The Foxtrot went limp.

  As she spun forward to resume defending them, she could just see Homer scramble out from under it at high speed.

  And all three of them resumed retreating up the hill.

  A swing and a miss. Two pitches remained.

  * * *

  From her sniper OP, Ali saw only the white beam of a visible light flash out in the dark beyond the meat hill. She intuited that was Homer trying to draw the dead.

  When it blinked out again, she had nothing. She wasn’t visual with the team, she couldn’t hear any firing, suppressed or otherwise, and they weren’t sending any radio traffic, either to her or to one another. And she sure as hell wasn’t going to jump into their ears for no reason – or no reason other than to make herself feel better. She was also too far away to hear the noises of the dead on the other side of the meat wall. Until suddenly she wasn’t – and the unmistakable shrieking of a Foxtrot carried faintly on the night air through the muffling rain.

  Well, Ali thought, hope Homer finds what he’s looking for.

  And then there was radio traffic – a single word.

  “Homer!” It was Baxter’s voice.

  And the ambient noise behind it sounded bad – very bad.

  For the first time, Ali wished they had involved command and the JOC after all. They could have gotten some aerial video, ISR from a helo or drone, and she at least would have known what the hell was going on. Then again, she knew that would have helped very little.

  What was killing her was being unable to do anything.

  Being unable to protect Homer.

  * * *

  Homer didn’t really want to start shooting again – he wanted to be sticking and infecting – but he had no choice. Having made it back to his feet alive, now he had to stay on them long enough to get another Foxtrot there, or get himself out to one, and that meant knocking down an awful lot of Zulus and Romeos.

  On the upside, Kate and Baxter were both also still on their feet, effective, and not panicking, despite all the chaos and peril. All three were backing slowly up the meat hill again, shooting and reloading nonstop, as Homer scanned th—

  And there it was. Another Foxtrot incoming.

  He was slightly tempted to be all heroic and fight his way out to it through the mob, but that would be both stupid and unnecessary. It was going to reach him in three-quarters of a second anyway – exactly long enough to drop his rifle and get another syringe out. It wasn’t, however, long enough to get the damned cap off, so he had to do that while once again defending and wrestling with a guy who was not so much meth-head as meth-addicted electro-shock victim and Exorcist walk-on – the guy and all his jagged nails and teeth were absolutely everywhere at once.

  Homer got the cap flipped off and brought the syringe around, aiming for some softer flesh this time, but the creature saw the arm, grabbed it with both hands – and with physical strength that truly astonished him, brought it to his mouth and bit down. It didn’t tear the material of the suit, but Homer needed his damned arm back and hauled on it for all he was worth, while bashing the Foxtrot in the face with his free hand. The bashing had no effect, but the arm came free – fast and hard.

  And the hand and syringe flew directly at his eye.

  For better and worse, that eye was behind an NVG barrel. The syringe smashed into it – and fell to pieces in his hand, the liquid MZ dripping down his arm. He knew this stuff was infectious and dangerous, but that wasn’t his real problem.

  It was that he now had exactly one syringe left.

  Either Kate or Baxter shot the Foxtrot that was inches away and coming straight back in to eat his face. That was probably a good call. There were others out there, and nearby. There were actually more than he’d ever seen in one place before – the ZA was getting Foxtrot-heavy. And Homer needed two seconds here, mainly to get the last syringe out and the cap off – but also just to catch a breath and reset.

  The hard part turned out to be even harder than it looked.

  * * *

  Baxter gave up on trying to hang on to his empty MP7 mags. Not only was he probably never going to find any more 4.7mm rounds to reload them with. He was also unlikely to be alive later to look for any, and time spent slotting the empties back in his pouches wasn’t going to improve those odds.

  So he just kept shooting, nonstop.

  They were halfway back up the meat hill now – and also in a ring of death, the unrelenting onslaught of the dead coming at them from both sides as well as the front. They were outnumbered basically infinity to one, which definitely made their flanks a little vulnerable.

  Worse, Baxter knew from Homer’s briefing that the mission had another parameter, one that meant they were out of room to retreat: they couldn’t lead the riled-up dead back up over the meat hill and back to CentCom. On the other hand, their primary tasking, infecting the goddamned dead, was also in the no-fail category, so Baxter didn’t know how to balance the two priorities – and he had no one to mentor him right now.

  All three of them were much too closely engaged to exchange any radio traffic. They were just staying alive.

  Correction, Baxter thought. Kate and I are staying alive, and keeping Homer alive. He’s getting the job done.

  He knew this because the SEAL didn’t even have his rifle up. He was wielding only a syringe – not much with which to face down what seemed like the entire ZA. But, then again, it was in theory what was going to defeat the whole ZA. But only if H
omer got to use it. They were inches and seconds from total victory – but also from utter defeat.

  And now Baxter saw Homer do something extraordinary: he advanced out into the horde. He did at least draw his side-arm with his left hand, a neat trick, and use it to start making headshots on ones between him and his target: yet another Foxtrot, which was jammed up a couple of ranks back, trying to fight its way through the logjam of Zulus and runners.

  Baxter did a fast reload and poured in fire. He was shooting way too close to Homer, much closer than he’d be comfortable with in any other circumstances, but this was it – their last hope in hand, Homer was walking into the mouth of death, and Baxter and Kate battled to keep those jaws open for the couple of seconds he needed to ram that syringe down its throat.

  To kill death itself.

  And just like that, he had done it. Baxter could clearly see Homer’s right arm swing out in a right hook – his left still firing the pistol nonstop, but off to one side, then the other – and the syringe plunge all the way into the neck of the Foxtrot.

  And then the plunger depressed. It was done.

  Two more Foxtrots leapt out of the mob.

  And they tackled both Homer and his infection victim.

  * * *

  Kate saw Homer go down in a pile of Foxtrots.

  She advanced, tightening up both the team’s formation and her shot groupings, dropping enough of the incidental players around them that she could at least make out Homer and the three scrabbling bodies in what was now a tiny clearing, halfway up the hill, a few feet in front of the advancing mob.

  She could see Baxter advancing from the other side.

  Like him, she’d seen Homer jam that final syringe home. But now she didn’t know if there was any way to save him.

  He’d gotten it done.

  But he may have just sacrificed himself in the process.

  * * *

  Baxter knew Homer wasn’t dead until he was dead – no team guy, certainly no Tier-1 guy, ever was. Two other Team SIX SEALs, Dugan and Maximum Bob, had taught him that. More importantly, they’d taught him that Homer wasn’t gone until everyone protecting him was. And this was a lesson Baxter would take to his grave.

  Even if that grave was in this exact spot.

  He kept advancing and shooting. He could see the three Foxtrots scrabbling and whirling and grabbing and biting while Homer tried to fend them off, but the slide was locked back on his SIG, and he was battling to get a knife clear with his other hand. All four bodies were rolling and whirling.

  One of them was very obviously Homer.

  And one of them was the infected Foxtrot. But it was a hell of a lot less obvious, among the three, which one it was.

  There! Baxter spotted a faint logo on the shirt of one of them. He’d definitely seen the front of the one Homer injected, and that logo hadn’t been there. He tried a headshot, merely took an ear off, adjusted, and fired again. The frenzied figure collapsed and fell to the side, as the three remaining figures kept wrestling.

  The two remaining Foxtrots had the upper hand in the fight, biting and slashing ferociously at arms, legs, and chest. This wasn’t great for Homer, who was beneath them, but it did mean Baxter had a good look at both of the dead guys, particularly as he was no more than ten feet away now.

  Trouble was…

  He still couldn’t fucking well tell them apart.

  And now they had Homer pinned – and he had his bent arms up defending his vulnerable face and neck. But one of them, or both, were going to get a mouth or claw in there, probably in the next second or two. And then Homer would be dead – from infection, if not from bleeding out due to a severed carotid artery.

  Baxter panned from dead head to dead head, time dilating.

  He suddenly wondered why he was still on his feet himself, and realized it was because of Kate. She was singlehandedly keeping the horde off all three of them now. Somehow. And that definitely wasn’t going to last. Even in dilated time.

  He panned from the second head to the first again, holding the bright green dot of his IR laser in the center of it.

  His finger twitched on his trigger, curling tightly around it.

  And then he had one of the most horrifying realizations of his young life. He understood now, with perfect clarity, what his duty required: letting Homer die.

  He couldn’t risk destroying the infected Foxtrot.

  And he simply didn’t know which one was which.

  “Baxter!” It was Kate’s voice, in his ear and across the air.

  He didn’t even have time to look up.

  The body of a runner smashed into him. Both of his hands, all ten fingers, reflexively convulsed.

  The MP7 discharged.

  Baxter hit the ground, the air knocked from his lungs, and shoved the body off him, finding it had already been destroyed by Kate. He bounced to his feet and rushed forward, where he could see Homer doing the same – pushing a body off him. It was the one Baxter had just accidentally shot in the head. And as it rolled away and to the side, Baxter could see with perfect and horrible clarity…

  It had a syringe sticking out the side of its neck.

  It dropped to the dirt, motionless.

  Baxter had just killed their only chance at killing death.

  He found he couldn’t breathe, or move.

  And he knew there was no way he could make this right.

  Zulu Wrangling

  CentCom – Old Prison Walls, West Gate

  Along with the garrison on the walls, Fick had also put his QRF on fifty percent watch, for whatever the duration of this lull turned out to be. Now six of the men on his team were on liberty back in the RMP barracks, getting some rack, or trying to. The remaining six on duty met him at one of the gateways from the prison to the larger Common.

  “Report,” Fick said, not stopping, but leading them straight out into the great black space ahead of them.

  “It’s probably nothing,” the RMP sergeant said. “Reports of suspicious movement around one of the warehouses, out on the southeast edge of the Common.”

  “Lead the way,” Fick said, despite still leading the way.

  One of the Lance Corporals caught up and handed him a travel mug full of coffee. Fick took a deep gulp and smiled. It was hot and milky. He fucking loved coffee.

  He had his guys well-trained at this point.

  * * *

  Baxter stood frozen in shock and horror.

  He’d just accidentally killed the one dead guy who could kill every other dead guy in the entire world.

  And it happened because he’d moronically had his finger curled around his trigger. Fucking trigger discipline, he thought, nearly numb. It was just about the first military or firearms concept anyone had ever taught him.

  And he’d fucked it up.

  Then again, if he stood frozen where he was for about one more second, that would be the last second he’d ever have to feel horrified about what he’d done. He could already see Homer bouncing to his feet, out from under the infected and destroyed second Foxtrot. He’d also taken out the third, Baxter didn’t even know how.

  “Time to go, guys,” Homer said over the channel, firing his pistol – he must have gotten it reloaded somewhere in there – and unslinging the satchel charge from over his shoulder with the other. He pulled the igniter cord and tossed it way out and down into the crowd of dead below them, beyond the foot of the meat hill. But only about thirty feet away. “Be in defilade in six seconds.”

  Baxter still couldn’t will his limbs to move.

  He wasn’t sure he wanted to move.

  He looked down toward where the satchel charge lay.

  He looked up and behind him – Kate was already hauling ass back up the hill. And then, for no reason he could work out, she stopped, turned, and looked back at him.

  But of course Baxter immediately knew why she stopped.

  Because she hadn’t seen him beside her.

  And then she reversed course and hau
led ass back toward him – firing over and around him as she ran. The overpressure pummeled his eardrums as she simultaneously fired over his shoulder with her right hand and grabbed his vest with her left, reversing her momentum and hauling on him for everything she was worth, pulling them both up the hill.

  “On your feet, soldier!” she growled in her best Linda Hamilton. This almost made him laugh, despite everything.

  Kate couldn’t physically drag him out of there. But she wasn’t going to have to. Because it was obvious to Baxter she wasn’t leaving without him. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to let her die there. He squared up and started running. Looking up at the crest of the hill, he could see Homer turned around and firing his rifle again to cover them.

  That was probably the only reason the two of them were still on their feet. Neither slowed as they reached the crest of the meat hill, physically running into Homer, all three of them falling and sliding down the back side even as the crushing hammer-blow of the satchel charge erupted behind them.

  But they were in defilade – meat defilade – albeit just barely.

  And the force of the blast must have destroyed or at least knocked down all the dead following them up the hill – probably all the dead for fifty meters in every direction. Still numb, Baxter watched as Homer armed the four flashbang grenades one at a time and hurled them high over the top of the meat wall – two to the left and two right. Even as he did so, he was radioing back to Ali in a normal speaking voice.

  Baxter only heard, or needed to hear, the first part of it.

  “Irene, Super Six Two, no joy, repeat—” This was drowned out by the flashbangs going off. Baxter couldn’t see them behind the hill, but he could sure as hell hear them – and they were so bright they flashed off the bottoms of the low clouds, like distant lightning strikes.

  Then Homer put one finger to his lips, helped the other two up, and got them moving back toward the front gate of the prison. When they reached it, Baxter spared a last look over his shoulder. They hadn’t been followed. Or he couldn’t see any following them, anyway. He guessed the satchel charge must have destroyed all or most of the ones already locked onto them. And the flashbangs distracted any others back in the opposite direction.