It also slung an awful lot of lead down range.
Maybe it will keep these douchecanoes’ heads down, Misha thought.
Just to be sure, he hailed Vasily – who was still back by the water’s edge, up on the base of the destroyed bridge.
“Vasily – anybody pops, shoot them in the face.”
“Got it.”
* * *
Up on his platform, belly down, eye to scope, Vasily slightly wondered about this plan of attack. From a certain point of view – from the point of view of Russia – their job was to protect the mission objective. But of course there was no telling Misha anything. He saw his job as being to conquer – conquer everything. He was also still nursing a grudge about what had happened in the South African warehouse.
And it was never enough for Misha to win, to get out with the prize, to beat his opponents.
No, he had to utterly destroy them.
In the culture of revenge and cruelty in post-Soviet Russia – never mind in Spetsnaz – it was understood that leaving your enemy alive, to come back for you later, was sheer stupidity.
And mercy just didn’t come into it.
Anyway, Vasily knew his job was to kill for Misha. He started scanning the field. Even deep in the bush, eventually one of the Americans was going to show too much skin.
And down he would go.
Or, better yet – she.
* * *
As Handon hunkered down, waiting for the JDAM that would end him, or what was left of his team, suddenly something told him to check his six. It was usually good practice – however good your position, however secure you think your rear is, it always paid to take a quick look behind you from time to time.
And, sure enough, there was an undead Somali ten feet behind him – one whose forehead blossomed as he watched, and that then dropped to the dirt. As it went down, it revealed behind it a dark flash running flat out – but rifle up. It was Ali, sprinting to take Juice’s position on the left flank. And making a headshot at a dead run. And also saving Handon’s ass. That was great – but now he no longer had Ali floating in their rear. And that sector had just become another nexus of threat.
Because the walking dead had arrived.
Probably inevitable, Handon thought, after the grenade-throwing contest and the JDAMs.
But even as he faced forward again, he realized things were even worse than they looked.
Yep – those crazy Russian sons of bitches were assaulting.
The Spetsnaz team was definitely pushing out. Under heavy covering fire, including a chattering MG, they were bashing right into Alpha’s line. Clearly they weren’t waiting for the UCAV to finish them.
They were going to do it themselves.
On the one hand, Handon’s whole tactical objective was to keep the Russians pinned on this side of the river. And Alpha’s positions, which they were about to be pushed back from, or else get overrun, were definitely on this side of the river. Then again, if their entire team was killed in the next few seconds, that would free Spetsnaz to go where the hell they liked.
The firing had now ramped up furiously, and Handon could half-see the enemy surging forward in the center, keeping low and under cover, but moving fast.
Hey diddle diddle, straight up the middle.
Despite the smash-mouth tactics, Handon sensed something beyond brute force, beyond viciousness, beyond even tactical prowess. He sensed a mind on the other side of this battle – one allied to pure will. Someone who was unaccustomed to losing. And who had an unshakeable intention to win, today and every day.
But of course he and Handon couldn’t both win.
And if neither of them were willing to walk away without the prize, then this had become nothing short of a deathmatch. The commanders of the two forces were both fully committed, utterly resolved – and prepared to buy victory with their own lives, or the lives of their men. And one thing you knew about a deathmatch.
Someone was going to die.
Handon ramped up his own fire in response, countering aggression with aggression, dodging among three positions to keep from getting zeroed, as well as to get better, or at least different, looks at the attackers.
That squad machine gun was chewing up the forest in all directions. This was basic infantry fire-and-movement stuff, designed to put Alpha’s heads down so the riflemen could advance. So whatever happened they had to not put their heads down. Because they’d never get them up again – or not until they had powder burns from point-blank execution headshots.
Chatter on the Alpha squad net was minimal – just guys calling out targets and announcing movements. But now Baxter came on, sounding out of breath and panicked. “We’ve gotta pull back – I can’t stay here…”
Handon couldn’t see him, but could imagine him ducked down under cover, unable to shoot, move, or otherwise be effective. And the kid had a point: Spetsnaz had a wall to their backs, and Alpha didn’t. Theoretically, they were free to maneuver.
But Handon knew if one of their team withdrew, the integrity of the formation would crumble. And if they all withdrew, they were done. They wouldn’t get any breathing room – because if they gave these guys an inch, they would be right on them, pushing out and assaulting harder and faster. No, they’d simply lose their covered positions, and be out in the open looking for new cover to the rear, which would get them shot. You couldn’t give shooters of this quality a look at you like that.
Best case, they’d be fighting on the move, suffering the inevitable disorientation of trying to control a dynamic tactical situation, their opponents instantly pressing their advantage.
And looking to finish it – fast, and decisively.
* * *
Running flat out through the forest, Juice shook his head and snorted. He muttered, “Hey, Juice – pull another hack out of your ass and save everybody’s bacon. Sure, no problem, guys. Let me just grab my ankles here…”
Exactly what he’d hoped would not happen was now happening. At least it was a different kind of hack, so maybe Spetsnaz wouldn’t see it coming. But, in any case, he was all out of time and energy for sarcasm. Because he knew this shit was deadly serious.
And he was also out of breath.
He hugged his rifle to his chest and kept his chin tucked as he dodged trees and leapt over stumps and fallen branches, all while sucking deep steady breaths. Right now oxygen was life. He had to reach that crash site, and he needed to do it ten minutes ago. Every second of delay increased the likelihood he’d be too late when he got there.
And all his friends would already be dead.
There was also the problem of navigation. If he got lost in the woods, vectored wrong, took himself in a circle – which happened all the time in the bush – this mission was over. But he didn’t have time to navigate, only to steal quick looks at his compass.
And to keep hauling ass – and sucking air.
He wasn’t going to let everyone on the team die, and the mission fail, because he wasn’t in good enough shape to do a loaded run. He tucked his chin in further, ignored the lactic acid that burned his legs and lungs – and pushed himself harder.
Soon, but not nearly soon enough, a gray shape loomed out of the jungle in front of him.
The Seahawk crash site.
* * *
Handon had to formulate a plan to deal with the Spetsnaz counter-assault, and he had to do it now. He also had to find a way to keep them from being bombed to death on the next pass of the UCAV.
“All Cadaver One call signs,” he said, not taking his eye from his red holo-dot for a second, as silent, deadly, subsonic rounds cut the air over his head and thwacked into wood and dirt on all sides. “On my signal, put up five seconds of covering fire. Then Ali and Baxter check fire and cover up for five seconds, while Henno and I displace to the rear, twenty meters. Stand by!”
It wasn’t the cleverest small-unit infantry trick in the book, but it was what the situation called for, and it addressed two problems at once.
They couldn’t all withdraw and live long. But Handon could trick the enemy into thinking they were withdrawing – when, in fact, their flanks were staying put, and only their middle was retreating, really just sagging. He and Henno, in the center, had the best odds of making it to the rear without getting shot.
Though there were no guarantees.
Then, when the two of them got set under new cover in the middle – and Ali and Baxter popped up from their original positions on the flanks – Spetsnaz would find they’d advanced into an envelopment, and instantly start taking encircling fire.
But the other best part of this plan was: the two lines would then be entwined in an arc, complicating the bombing runs of the UCAV. Then again, this strategy depended on Spetsnaz giving a shit whether they took casualties or not.
Handon hit his mic. “Covering fire – now!” This was part of the subterfuge – by starting with the standard tactic to cover a withdrawal, they hoped to make the enemy think that’s what was happening. After five seconds the four of them had emptied their mags. “Cover up or displace – now!”
Handon rose, turned, and ran for it.
As he ran, his body tensed, waiting for the shot from the rear that would take him.
That risk, this part, was out of his control.
* * *
Misha and the men to either side of him reflexively ducked as the volume of incoming fire ramped up. But a few seconds later it stopped.
“These ass-blasters are withdrawing. I’m going to anally violate them!”
Anchoring the middle of his own line, Misha rose and pounded forward – but he and the men to either side only reached two positions forward when they started taking fire from their flanks. The man to his right went down. Two rounds smacked into Misha’s plate carrier, stinging but not slowing him. And incoming fire from the front started up again – good and hard, right from the center.
For a second, Misha felt like the dog who went for the mailman’s privates – and got smacked in the nose with a rolled-up magazine. His attack had immediately come under enveloping fire. Which meant the Americans hadn’t been retreating at all – but luring him in.
They’d been suckered.
Motherfuckers. But we’ll see who’s the mailman here.
He hit his radio. “RTO! Call that bit-twiddler flying the drone. Tell him to set his bombs for delayed blast for penetration. I want them punching through the canopy – and then ground-level airbursts!” That forest would stop protecting them pretty fast.
Misha chewed his teeth, leaned in – and fought harder.
* * *
And there he is, Handon thought, as he got reset and started shooting again – putting out precise fire as he, and everyone, got down closer to their last mags. And he never even really quite saw him. More like an impression. Bigger than the others – first and fiercest, like a warlord. Leading the charge.
Unfortunately for this asshole, Handon thought, squeezing off rounds slowly as he tracked through his EOTech, he just led the charge into my noose…
Someone had landed some rounds on the guy, probably Handon himself, before he went down under new cover.
Handon had reloaded while hauling ass to the rear, then dove over the next solid cover behind him, a big fallen tree – instantly finding the spot taken by two Zulus, both of them trying to get past it, but unable to figure out how. He’d had to clear the position first. Now he held it, shooting over the top, and hoping the dead tree wasn’t too sodden and decomposed to serve as a bullet backstop.
Once again, he temporarily had the upper hand in this gunfight. And while it was now a three-way battle, the dead were at least neutral, and would as happily chomp a Russian as anyone else.
And time was still on their side.
Just as long as Hailey stopped that goddamned convoy… Suddenly he wondered why he hadn’t heard from her in awhile. He switched channels and hailed her for an update. And then he hailed again, and twice more. Nothing.
He switched channels and tried CIC, and then Pri-Fly, on the Kennedy. No response whatsoever. Radio silence all around. The carrier was probably too far to reach with his team radio. But Hailey was practically right over their heads, and he hadn’t had any commo trouble with her. If she wasn’t responding, then the most likely reason was:
Thunderchild was gone.
The convoy must have had SAMs after all, and instead of her stopping them, they’d taken her out – just as this closer force had taken out Firecrotch earlier. Which meant that big convoy was still coming – for both them and Patient Zero.
Anyway, that’s what Handon had to assume.
And this also meant: there was no one flying up there for them anymore. Hailey was gone. The UCAV belonged to Spetsnaz.
And the only other machine left in the air was…
Nostrovia, Motherfuckers
Nugal River Valley – the Forest
Nina took the Black Shark over the treetops at 175mph, then dropped down like a plummeting roller coaster into the center channel of the valley, straightening out and following the river, roaring by ten feet over its roiling surface.
She banked left, then right, following the river channel at their max cruise speed, dicing with death from the trees to either side, spinning blades trimming their edges. She did this partly because she didn’t want to be too late and miss the fun.
And partly because this was fun.
As they roared over the remains of the bridge, she brought them around to face the south bank, and found she could just make out the backs of the Mirovye Lohi Team 1 shooters inside the treeline.
The trees and thick foliage would be an impediment to Nina raining down death and malice on the heads of the enemy. But not a deal-breaker. She flipped down her helmet monocle and switched to FLIR. The forest couldn’t hide its little creeping creatures from infrared. She started targeting heat signatures in the bush.
“Team One,” she hailed.
“Go ahead.”
“Suggest you break contact and withdraw thirty meters. It will allow me to hit the enemy without risk of hitting you.”
“Stand by… Misha says, and I quote, ‘Fuck you, Siri.’”
Nina shrugged. If Misha was comfortable that close to exploding 30mm rounds – and he clearly was – then she was comfortable, too.
She started triggering off.
* * *
The forest, which up until then had been merely chipping and spitting around Alpha from small-arms fire, or occasionally blowing up from the big JDAM explosions in the treetops, now started exploding continuously, and everywhere.
Within seconds, everyone in Alpha was on the ground and covering up. Baxter in particular went into a fetal ball, trying to burrow into the dirt and escape the HE storm lashing in on them. The 30mm autocannon shells were smaller and less destructive than the JDAMs – but there were a hell of a lot more of them, and they were meaner. These looked to Handon like high-explosive fragmentation tracer rounds, which made them both life-threatening and hope-extinguishing. They streaked into the dim forest on slashes of burning red light and exploded in the trees.
Thank God they were coming in short bursts. Handon knew helo-mounted autocannons typically only held about 500 rounds, and those wouldn’t last long at this rate of fire. He didn’t know whether the Black Shark had been able to rearm after the Stronghold battle, but he sure as hell hoped not.
The forest was providing some protection from the cannon fire. Then again, it was also providing a lot of raw material for shrapnel. Deadly wood chunks and slivers zipped through the air with every impact and airburst, and soon all four of them were getting pelted, smacked, stabbed, and lightly wounded. And the sulfur on the tracers was, despite the dampness of everything, eventually going to set the forest on fire.
Adding insult to injury, the undead wandering through the trees weren’t bothered by the shrapnel in the least. Occasionally, one would take a splinter to the brainstem and go down, or actually get blown apart by an explosion. Still, Han
don, Henno, Baxter, and Ali were having to shoot to the rear and flanks to defend themselves from the approaching dead. But they were so hunkered down behind cover, they couldn’t shoot to the front. They also couldn’t get shot from there. For now.
But Handon knew if they didn’t get back in the fight in the next thirty seconds, Spetsnaz were simply going to walk through their lines and murder them where they lay.
There was just no getting up into the exploding maelstrom the Black Shark, hovering ten feet over the river, was pouring into the forest over the heads of the Russian team. And Handon couldn’t even tell, over the rolling mini-explosions and splintering wood, whether the UCAV might be making another attack run.
With their top cover shot down, Spetsnaz advancing, and both the UCAV and the Black Shark turning their positions into a lethal hellscape, Alpha’s lifespan could probably be measured in seconds. Time not only wasn’t on their side anymore.
Time was coming after them with daggers drawn.
* * *
Handon had never really thought it was going to be easy – just touching down in the Stronghold and taking receipt of Patient Zero. Then again, he had never imagined it would be this hard, either. With breathtaking suddenness, it had turned into a war – with Alpha on the losing end.
A small tree to his right went up in a 30-mil explosion, and Handon ducked his head as shrapnel peppered his assault suit, and the tree fell over on him. When he opened his eyes again, there were two hurtling dead apparitions coming out of the smoke, both of them runners, and both looking more like strips of bacon than people. God knew how they were still on their feet, never mind ambulatory. But they were practically in Handon’s lap by the time he saw them. He yanked his .45 from his vest and triggered off while holding it in tight to his chest with two hands, elbows in at his ribs, until both of the animated meat skewers tumbled down at his feet.
ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch Page 29