by James, Glynn
The one place he wouldn’t be able to cover was back to the east – which is actually where Fick figured the bulk of any Zulus would be coming from. But the Kid could keep the runway clear, covering the team’s six, while the ground shooters faced forward. Perfect.
Fick leaned out and looked over. Nearly directly below, he could see Chuckie the B-17, with Brady and Graybeard defending it, both of them firing slowly but steadily toward the treeline – sure enough, mainly back toward the east. As the airport was nearly on the west coast of the island, this made sense. And it meant Fick’s tactical plan so far was sound. He also noted that their mechanic was out of the plane and on the ground, digging into one of the plane’s wings. He wasn’t sure whether to be reassured or alarmed by this.
As the Kid snapped the rifle’s bipod out, lay down beside it, and slapped in a mag, Fick knelt down and put his hand on his shoulder. “You understand your sector?”
“A-ffirm, Master Gunnery Sergeant. The team’s six – from four o’clock to eight o’clock. Anything that moves in our rear.”
“Outstanding,” Fick said. Another thing that was tactically sound was putting the Kid up here on overwatch. Fick knew Chesney could shoot well – almost nobody makes it into MARSOC without shooting expert in the Marine Rifle Qualification Course. At their level, they could pretty much afford to weed out anybody for anything, because they were only going to accept such a tiny percentage in the end anyway.
But what Fick kept to himself was that he put Chesney up here in large part to keep him safe – and to be used in a role where his inexperience would have less impact. Of course he’d been through the rigorous MARSOC selection process like everyone else – as well as the grueling seven-month individual training course for CSOs (Critical Skills Operators, which was the title all MARSOC Marines officially held.) But, while sniping from an overwatch position was one thing, ground fighting in heavy contact needed nerves that had been burnished to a hard sheen in battle. The Kid would get there in time. But he’d be staying out of the shit for today.
And, this early in the day, there was no telling for sure how shitty things might get down there.
* * *
As the Kid dialed in and started making shots, Fick’s radio went.
“Gunny, it’s Brady.”
“Brady, Fick, go.”
“Yeah, we’ve got an aircraft problem. The mechanic dude needs to talk to you.”
“Copy that. Down in one.” He clicked off and turned to Reyes. “Hey, tie that crazy sumbitch to something. Then you’re with me.” In ten seconds, the Canadian’s bound hands were tied to an exposed length of pipe in the wall, and Fick was bounding down the stairs as Reyes, twelve years his junior, tried to keep up. Fick hit the ground, went out the destroyed door and jogged toward the aircraft through the growing sounds of battle – cracking rifles, rounds snapping by in collapsing air pockets, and aggressive moaning and snorting. Most of the latter was to his rear, coming in from around the tower. He ignored it, and let his men do their jobs.
As he ran, he also remembered a personal rule from back in the old wars, the ones against living people: in a combat zone, never run too fast from one place to another. This was because you had to show your contempt for danger – both to the enemy, and especially to your own men. But, of course, that had been back in the world that was – when there were incoming bullets and bombs to be contemptuous of. Now it mattered much less.
And the dead certainly didn’t give a shit.
Fick trotted up to the hulking bomber, which the pilots had already gotten turned around, so it was now backed up to the tower – and facing down the full stretch of the runway to the east, ready to blast off on a dime, no taxiing required. Less reassuring was that Stan the mechanic had a big panel off the top of one of the wings and down on the ground. Fick could already see it had an ugly-ass bullet hole in it. His nose also wrinkled at the sharp tang of aviation fuel, and he gave the mechanic a look like he’d just been offered a shit sandwich on a plate with turd garnishes.
The mechanic wore dull coveralls beneath a body-armor vest and helmet, and actually held a huge wrench in one hand. He didn’t dance around the topic. “The good news is that this tank is totally empty, so I can spot-weld it without having to drain it, or else blowing up the plane.”
“And the bad news?”
“It’s the engine-number-one wing tank that got hit, and it was nearly full – which means we’ve got over 400 gallons on the ground. That’s from a total of 2780, about 40% of which we burned getting here.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we just lost a quarter of our remaining fuel. With what’s left, we’ll never make it all the way back to the JFK. Kind of close. But, then again, not all that close.”
Fick cursed under his breath – an unusual place for him to do it. “I thought these bomber tanks were self-sealing when they got hit?”
“Yeah, they are,” Stan said. “But how old’s the sealant in there? And it’s a big-ass hole – fifty caliber, sheared right across the front edge of the tank.”
Fick surveyed the damage, and realized it was almost certainly the shot they had taken on their air-show flyby of the tower – the one that almost hit him. Better perhaps if it had. And, anyway, that’s what he got for intentionally trying to draw fire.
“I can strip some tin from the ass of the plane and spot-weld this, no problem.” Stan nodded to a hard case that lay open on the ground, and contained an acetylene hand torch. “But then it’s going to come down to whether there’s any avgas to be had in this place.”
Fick arched his eyebrows. “What does this antique even burn?”
“During the war, they fed it 130/140 avgas. But due to differences in refining, not to mention in measuring octane, it was remarkably similar to today’s 100LL. And given this place obviously serviced small civilian aircraft, that’s what they’ll probably have. If they have anything.”
As the bullets flew, and the dead ran forward, got shot, and hit the ground, Fick thought that he might have preferred a shorter lecture on the history of aviation fuel.
Stan said, “Can you get one of your guys over there scoping out the tanks and pumps, while I patch this hole?” He seemed pretty contemptuous of danger himself. You had to like a guy who could weld under fire.
Fick took a look around and grimaced. They were already holding this place with a skeleton force, and were short-handed enough, without having to staff some half-assed full-service airport gas station. “Yeah, fuck it, I’ve got it,” he finally said. At the moment, the shooter he could most spare was himself. “Reyes, you help strongpoint the plane. And keep the dead off Mr. Goodwrench here.”
“Wait, you may need this.” The mechanic offered Fick a crowbar, but then didn’t let it go when Fick grabbed it. “While you’re over there, we’re also going to need either some long-ass sections of aircraft fuel hose – or a shitload of jerry cans. Because I’m guessing you won’t want to move this aircraft off the tarmac if we can avoid it.”
Fick thought he wasn’t wrong. If they took the plane off the runway, they might not ever get it back on, or at least not by the exact minute they needed to take the hell off. Fick grunted, yanked free the crowbar, and took off east a bit north, just to the left of the tower and toward the small cluster of buildings that squatted in its shadow. The other bad news was that since the fueling station was to their east, making use of it was probably going to mean pushing their perimeter out further in that direction.
Oh, well, we’ll screw that goat when we get to it…
Within thirty seconds, he’d found what looked like a really old pump from a redneck gas station in the middle of nowhere – and not looking any better after two years of neglect. Fick pulled the nozzle – but quickly realized that of course it wouldn’t work without power. While keeping one eye on the treeline, and the edges of the nearby buildings, he located the steel door in the ground that presumably covered the underground tank. It was pretty flush with the tarmac, and
he hefted the crowbar and put it to use. Smart wrench monkey… he thought. With a stab and a heave, one of the doors swung up and out with an angry squeak.
Fick slung his rifle, pulled his pistol and a tactical light, took a last look around, and dropped down inside. Landing beside the bulbous fuel tank, he pivoted, shining the light one direction and the other. It was tight and dark down here. But he seemed to be alone. Quickly he found the single-needle fuel gauge: it claimed to be two-thirds full, with about 2,400 gallons. More than enough to get their asses home – assuming the gauge read true. Fick heard increasing firing up top now, and climbed his ass out of this hole in the ground.
Basically ignoring incoming threats, which his men had under control, or better have, Fick made a beeline for the nearest structure, which was a corrugated tin shed. After breaking the padlock with the crowbar, he yanked open the door and waded in. Then, after knocking a few crates and machine parts out of the way, he found everything he needed: a hand-pump for the fuel tank, four big spools of fueling hose hanging on the wall, and a whole shelf of 5- and 10-gallon jerry cans.
He paused and took a look around outside before exiting again. It looked clear. As he stepped out, a guy in a seriously rumpled pinstripe suit lunged at him from around the corner of the shed. Fick smacked him in the head with the crowbar, knocking him back, then reversed his grip and stabbed him through the mouth with it. When two of the guy’s dead buddies rounded the corner right behind him, Fick dropped the crowbar, brought his rifle up, and fired four times. One of them was a woman in a moldy and tattered skirt suit, her jawbone hanging loose below a wide gaping maw. None of them, come to notice it, looked like fishermen or tourists. Fick leaned over the bodies to take a closer look…
And two hands gripped his shoulders from behind as splintered teeth came down on the shoulder of his assault vest. With the rotten face four inches from his own, the stench was fantastic. Fick let go of his rifle, grabbed the head with both hands, leaned forward, and attempted to flip his attacker over his shoulder.
Only the head came.
But the body did let go, and crumpled to the ground.
Fick tossed the head, far away in any direction, and tried to wipe the foul-smelling gunk off his shoulder. He had to weigh his priorities here: on the one hand, it was clearly getting hairy at this position. Then again, he was no help to anybody if he was dead – and he’d be a positive menace if he got undead. Ducking back into the shed, he found a full fuel can – and rinsed himself off with it. The aviation fuel burned like hell on his exposed skin, and he’d want to stay away from tracer rounds and flare guns for a while. But it was better than turning into a flesh-eating freak and devouring his own Marines.
As he jogged back toward the bomber, a lot more alert this time, he used his radio to hail the Kid up top. “Chesney, Fick, how we looking up there? Say something.”
“We’ve got customers, Gunny. A whole bunch of hungry-looking meat-lovers are coming through the door, from the north, south, and east. And we’re the all-you-can-eat buffet.”
Fick paused to remember the Kid had worked at Pizza Hut before joining the Corps. He also considered that they were now nearly surrounded. And, with a grin, he recalled the famous quote from legendary Marine Chesty Puller in Korea: “We’re surrounded. That simplifies our problem of getting to these people and killing them.” Unfortunately, in this case, the people surrounding them were already dead.
He made it back to the bomber alive. “It’s all there,” he reported, half-breathless, to Stan the mechanic. “Fuel, hand pump, hoses, jerry cans. Now what?”
“Now I go oversee the refueling.” Stan was leaning over the hard case with the torch, and Fick thought he was just getting started with the welding. But it turned out he was already done. “Give me an extra set of hands and twenty minutes, and I’ll top this tank.”
But before Fick could answer him, a huge volume of fire drowned out the whole conversation. Graybeard and Brady had pivoted to their left – where a big knot of flesh-gobbling bastards had appeared from the woods to the north. The two seasoned Marines were lighting this group up, and cutting them down as quickly as they poured in. But this was a whole new flank, and Fick wasn’t sure how they were going to hold it.
He knew in that moment that what he needed was more and better battlespace intel.
And, as always, there was no knowledge like local knowledge.
He turned, craned his neck, and looked back up to the top of the tower.
Maximum Violence, Instantly
Lake Michigan
Well, Handon thought, as the men on the Diablo drew their weapons and the threatened gunfight across the water blasted up instantly to full volume, so much for regarding people’s essential humanity. They’d just have to feel compassion toward these living people after they fucking killed them.
Alpha’s response to the armed conflict was nearly inevitable, and Henno knew it as the old rule for winning pub brawls: don’t bluff, don’t threaten, definitely don’t shove or escalate. But when you know it’s going to kick off, you just turn the knob all the way to the right – the pint glass to the face, the knee to the groin, the headbutt that crushes the nose.
Maximum violence, instantly.
The ones on the lower deck of the Diablo fell first. This was because Predator, flat on the deck and tucked up under his tarp with Juice’s outstanding assault rifle, couldn’t easily elevate his barrel. So he shot low, dropping the first two with headshots, while smoothly tracking from left to right, then settling for center-of-mass hits on the next two. The last guy went down hollering – obviously only wounded, though perhaps mortally.
Handon knew with perfect assurance what Pred would be aiming at. There had been no need to parcel out fields of fire – each man could work it out for himself, confident that the others would reach the same conclusions. So when Handon’s side arm went from holster to hand in a blur too fast to track, his aim went high. His first shot was basically indistinguishable from the draw – all one lightning, perfect, utterly practiced motion. Handon, like most of the rest of them, had been doing quick-draw instinctive snap-fire shooting, both in training and operationally, for the better part of two decades. Now it was all muscle memory, a blur on rails, and his first double-tap nearly took the head off the rightmost guy. The second double-tap, more conservative, was to the chest of the guy next to him.
The range to all his targets was inside of twenty yards, which was nothing to him. For the pirates, it was like being in a toe-to-toe slugging match in the corner of the ring – but with a much more dominant fighter. Or, as a fighter pilot once described close-air combat, “like a knife fight in a phone booth – quick, brutal, and no room for error.” Handon’s heavy .45 ACP rounds had knock-down power like God’s own donkey kick, and the two men in the upper right rocketed out of sight as if physically evicted by God, disappearing down behind the gunwale.
Neither ever managed to raise a weapon.
Everything had already started to go movie slow-mo and razor-vivid for Handon – the classic time dilation and heightened senses of combat. He could see the clogged pores on the nose of the first man he shot, then see every detail as his head split apart like a melon. He could see the fillings in the teeth of the next guy as his mouth went wide, and hear the slow rolling thump as he hit the deck. He could count the individual droplets of blood that arced gracefully through the air.
But he also had another classic symptom of combat: tunnel vision. Everything within a narrow cone directly ahead of him was like 3D HD, but it wasn’t widescreen – everything outside that cone quickly blurred and faded to an indistinct gray. And so Handon only realized something had gone wrong when he looked over and saw the two men on the upper left were still standing.
Henno’s targets – they hadn’t been engaged.
And then Handon sort of retrospectively heard the twang, the thwack, and the grunt, all of which had happened underneath, and simultaneous with, all the shooting. He mentally played back the
tape from the last half second, and then he got it. It was the crossbowman. That guy had never had time to bring his weapon up – not intentionally, at least. But when Predator’s pair of 5.56 rounds to his center of mass pitched him over backward, he’d brought the crossbow along for the ride, swinging it up and over his head. Along the way, his already dead finger convulsed on the trigger.
And it happened with the very worst timing and luck in the world. His bolt, by total random chance, had flown straight and true – directly at Henno. It was more proof that in combat anything can happen. And that being supremely skilled and capable was absolutely no guarantee of anything. Not even survival.
Handon heard the splash now. He twisted at the waist, and saw Henno toppling backward over the side of the boat, a thinly feathered bolt protruding from the upper left of his chest, and crashing into the water behind them.
FUCK…
Something tugged at Handon’s consciousness. Beneath the visceral, primal reaction to one of his people getting hit, there was something he still needed to attend to… Right, it was the two men still standing on the left side of the upper deck. He spun forward again while dropping into a crouch… at the same time as Predator rose up from under his tarp into a crouch… and both of them elevated their weapons and traversed to the left to lock on and engage.
But by now, the two men beside the covered object were already ducking around behind it. Handon tagged one of them across the shoulder as the guy flung himself out of view, and two more of his .45 rounds pinged off the big thing, whatever it was. From the sound of the ricochets, it was definitely something steel under that tarp.