The Roaring

by Eric S. Brown

  Wallace was hot. There was no denying that. Glen had crushed on her since he first met her. He knew he wasn’t her type though … if she even had a type. The woman was a walking, breathing death machine. Killing seemed to be what she loved and she was dang good at it based on what he had heard and some of the situations he had seen her walk out of in one piece. He never really knew what to say to her and the fact that she was sharp enough to know how he felt about her didn’t make things any easier.

  To kill time more than anything, he monitored the VTOL’s comm. and sensors. He nearly fell out of his chair when he spotted the dots approaching their location on the radar screen. Glen stared at them in disbelief with his jaw hanging open until he was able to shake himself and get it together. Then, he leaped up and went running through the VTOL towards its rear doorway that opened into the jungle beyond.

  Wallace heard the heavy footfalls of his boots on the plane’s metal floor as he approached her where she stood guard on the plane’s lowered ramp and spun to face him, weapon in hand, before he was even close to reaching her position. Glen was thankful that she recognized him in the shadows of the plane’s rear hold as he ran because otherwise, he would have been dead.

  “Hey!” he shouted as he skidded to a halt near Wallace. “We’ve got company inbound!”

  Her features twisted into an expression of confusion as Glen pointed out of the plane towards the distant night sky. They both heard the approaching helicopters before they saw them as they came swooping in over the trees at the edge of the clearing. There were two of them. Both of them were transports. They flew by slowly above the VTOL, as if checking it out as they went past.

  “Frag me,” Wallace spat. “Looks like we’ve got some competition to deal with.”

  “What?” Glen blurted out.

  “I’ll bet you my entire paycheck for this gig that those belong to another merc unit,” Wallace told him. “Somebody’s hired them to come get the Braxton Corporation’s device just like Braxton hired us.”

  “What do we do?” Glen asked.

  “We’ve got two choices,” Wallace explained. “We can try to hold here and protect the Hopper or …”

  “We can’t leave her,” Glen said. “She’s our only means of getting home.”

  “Or …” Wallace said again, “we can bug out and try to find the others in the jungle.”

  Glen felt sick. “Those two birds look like they’re variants of the NH90. Between them, they could be carrying as many as over forty people.”

  “Right.” Wallace’s voice was harsh. “So you tell me, are you staying or going because personally I think staying would be suicide.”

  The copters had swung around in the air and were on approach to land in the clearing near the VTOL. Glen watched them coming in.

  “I … I …” Glen stammered, torn between not wanting to leave the VTOL and not wanting to possibly be killed by the other merc unit or worse, tortured for information. It wasn’t like this gig was on the books. It might not be truly military in nature, but it was a black op. all the same. They were in the middle of nowhere, and he knew whoever was onboard those copters could do whatever they wanted to him and leave his body to rot without anyone ever knowing what had happened out here.

  “See you on the other side then,” Wallace said to him. “It was nice knowing you.”

  She grabbed up her pack of gear, slinging it onto her shoulder, and rifle in hand, sprinted for the trees. Glen watched her go, frozen in place by his fear, until she had vanished into the shadows of the night.

  Glen didn’t need the VTOL’s sensor array to tell him that the two helicopters had touched down by now. He could hear the shouts of men drawing closer to the VTOL as they spread out around the birds they had ridden in securing the area. Snapping out of it, Glen ran to the nearest crate of gear in the VTOL’s hold and grabbed up a rifle out of it. Heather’s squad always brought extra weapons and ammo on any job they were hired to do. Glen struggled to get the weapon loaded with his trembling hands. When the magazine finally clicked home, he looked up to find the barrels of several Ak-47s aimed at him. Glen swallowed hard and dropped his M-16. It clanged to the floor at his feet as he realized someone was shouting for him to get his hands in the air above his head.

  ****

  Wallace watched the troops rushing up the ramp into the rear of the VTOL. She wanted to help the pilot but at the same time knew when she was out-gunned. Her count put the number of the other merc unit at over two dozen, not counting the pilots there were surely still aboard the helicopters, shutting them down. She had been ordered to protect both the VTOL and Glen, but dying in a pointless attempt to do so didn’t benefit anyone. The soldiers of the other merc unit were sloppy. They were the kind of troops that relied on numbers and firepower to get the job done. She had already escaped their initial sweep of the area. Two of them had come right by her and not noticed her ducked in the brush around the edge of the clearing. Wallace knew she should head on into the jungle and try to locate Heather and the others before they returned and walked straight into an ambush. She wasn’t ready to do that yet though so she waited.

  The attention of the other merc unit was fixed almost solely on the VTOL. When one of the soldiers assigned to securing the area wandered a tad too close her position again, Wallace sprang from her cover, dragging the man into the brush with her. The soldier struggled against the hold she had about his neck until he saw the tip of her knife approaching the corner of his eye.

  “Quiet or you’re dead,” Wallace whispered to him. The man stopped fighting her and went limp in her arms.

  “Smart move,” Wallace assured him. “Now, who are you working for?”

  “Nica,” the man told her so quietly she was barely able to understand him. “The corporation hired us to take out a squad of mercs hired by the Braxton Corp and to bring back some device they were sent to retrieve.”

  “How many of you are there?” Wallace pressed him, keeping her knife’s tip touching the lower eyelid of his right side.

  “Thirty-four, counting the colonel and the pilots,” the man rasped.

  Without warning, Wallace shifted her knife and slit the man’s throat. She kept a tight hold on him, one hand covering his mouth as he kicked against her and thrashed about as he bled out. Wallace was worried that his death throes would attract the attention of the closest of the other mercs in his unit but luck saved her again. At that exact moment, Glen was being led out of the VTOL and a tall, thickly built man who had the look of an officer was yelling orders at them.

  Wallace gently and quietly laid the man whose throat she had slashed on the ground next to where she crouched and backed away, deeper into the jungle. When she was sure that she was out of the line of sight of those in the clearing, Wallace broke into a full-out sprint. Her breath came in ragged gasps as she pushed her body to its limit, pouring on all the speed that she could. Based on what she had seen of the other mercs, it would take them some time to get organized enough to send anyone into the jungle after her and the others. The odds were that they would torture whatever info they could get out of Glen first before they made such a move anyway. Wallace figured she would have a solid lead on them by the time they did start moving. A plan formed in her mind as she ran. These new mercs were amateurs compared to her squad, and that gave her an edge she couldn’t resist exploiting. Wallace was smiling despite it all as she slowed her pace and got ready to set things in motion her way.

  ****

  “Well, well, well … What do we have here?” Colonel Lee laughed as his men flung a man who had to be the pilot of the VTOL at his feet. “Identify yourself, trooper. I won’t ask again.”

  Glen looked up at the man in horror. He had heard the colonel’s name from his troopers as he had been dragged out of the VTOL. Pain coursed through him from where his shoulder had taken the weight of his body as he was tossed from the VTOL’s ramp. Gritting his teeth, he did his best to answer as quickly as he could because he knew the type of man
this colonel was. The colonel wouldn’t hesitate to put a bullet into his skull and be done with him. The only reason he was alive at all was because the colonel must want confirmation on what he was up against out here.

  “My name is Glen,” he said, raising his hands to show his empty palms in a gesture of submission. “I’m just a pilot.”

  The colonel snorted. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  “What … What do you want to know?” Glen stammered.

  One of the colonel’s heavy boots lashed out, kicking him squarely in the center of his chest. The impact sent Glen sprawling over onto the ground. The blow knocked the air from his lungs and Glen gasped trying to be able to breathe again.

  “I am waiting,” the colonel warned.

  “Look, man,” Glen blurted out, finding more courage than he had thought he was capable of. “I’m just a pilot hired by the Braxton Corp to bring a bunch of mercs out here. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, just please stop hurting me.”

  The colonel’s laughter was cold and cruel. “That’s a good start,” the colonel said. “I’ve been told that Braxton hired Heather Drake’s squad. Is that true?”

  Glen nodded frantically. “I think so. They called their leader Heather anyway.”

  “Holy crap, boss,” one of the colonel’s men, who was likely his second-in-command, exclaimed from where he stood next to the colonel. “Those guys are the best of the best.”

  “Shut up,” the colonel growled at the man. “We can handle them. I bet there aren’t that many of them … right?”

  The colonel’s angry eyes had fallen on him again as Glen clutched an arm over his aching chest. He could see that the colonel wanted him to confirm his statement.

  “Yeah,” Glen said. “There were only a few of them and some guy that Braxton sent with them.”

  “A few?” the colonel prompted, drawing his pistol and taking a step closer to Glen.

  “Six,” Glen answered. “There were six of them.”

  “And the man from Braxton?” the colonel asked.

  Glen nodded. “Seven counting him.”

  The colonel aimed the barrel of his pistol at Glen’s forehead. “And where are they now?”

  “They took off into the jungle when we landed,” Glen answered as fast as he could. “I haven’t seen or heard anything from them since then. I was supposed to wait here until they came back.”

  Colonel Lee smiled at him. “My thanks for making this easy.”

  Glen heard the crack of the pistol as the colonel squeezed its trigger and saw the flash from the weapon’s barrel as it fired. There the briefest moment of pain as the bullet broke the skin of his forehead and tore through the bone of his skull. Gore sprayed from the back of his head as the bullet exited his body and it slumped over onto the ground.

  The man next to the colonel started for Glen’s body.

  “Leave him,” Colonel Lee ordered. “I want another sweep of the area around this clearing carried out at once. Heather’s too good at what she does to have left this idiot out here alone.”

  “Yes, sir!” the soldier shouted and ran to carry out the order he had been given.

  Colonel Lee turned to the soldiers still standing on the VTOL’s ramp. “Search the plane again too. Make sure it’s clear and bring me anything that might provide us with a clue as to which direction Heather and her flunkies might have headed out in.”

  ****

  The sun was up as Heather and her squad started back on the long trek through the jungle for where the VTOL awaited them. The jungle was alive around them. Snakes slithered around in the trees, insects skittered about everywhere, mosquitos buzzed through the air, and the calls of strange bugs and animals rang out in the distance. The humidity hadn’t improved with the damn. Sweat slicked Heather’s skin beneath her clothes and seeped through them even as they damply clung to her. It would only get worse as the day wore on.

  Flagston had traded places with Walker and Roger, taking up point as the other two brought up the squad’s rear. Heather kept close to Nicholson and the precious container he carried which held the device they had been sent to retrieve. Nicholson was right about the container not dampening the device’s EM field enough to allow their long-range comms to work. The short-range ones of their helmets that were doubly hardened against the interference seemed to be okay, but Heather didn’t fully trust them despite the fact that they had been working before the team secured the device. Nicholson wasn’t happy about being the one to carry the device. It kept him from having a rifle ready like the other members of the squad and left him more vulnerable should they come under attack.

  Heather regretted the loss of Nelson to the tribesmen but was happy that none of them had suffered more than minor injuries at worst. Danger was part of the gig, but anytime every member of her squad could get the job done and walk out alive was a personal victory for her. Of course, they weren’t out of the jungle yet, but she had faith that they would make it just fine and that the worst was over. She had been certain that the tribesmen would make another go at them. So far though, there was no sign of the cannibals. Maybe, just maybe, their luck would hold.

  “Hey, boss,” Nicholson called to her. “You wanna take a turn carrying this thing?”

  Heather chuckled. “I think it’s in the best hands it can be in, Nicholson,” she replied.

  Flagston came to a stop ahead of them. The little man’s back was straight as he stared on into the jungle along the path they were taking. It was a clear sign that something was up. Heather paused where she was as Flagston signed to her that several tribesmen were close by.

  Nicholson’s eyes went wide. He had seen Flagston’s signal too. The tech looked like he wanted to toss the device aside and unsling his weapon from his shoulder. Heather pitied him, but there was nothing for it. Nicholson had to know that she and the others would do their best to keep him alive and in one piece no matter what went down in the next couple of minutes.

  “Steady,” she whispered to Nicholson. “We got this.”

  Flagston signaled that the tribesmen were holding their position and then added that there were seven of them. The number bothered Heather more than them not advancing on the squad. Their number was too small on its own to be another party by itself sent to engage them. Odds were the tribesmen up ahead were either scouts for a larger group or just a random encounter that hadn’t been planned by anyone.

  Seconds ticked by like hours as Heather waited for Flagston to signal that the tribesmen had moved on. If they didn’t move soon, she knew they would be forced to go through them one way or another. After five minutes had dragged by, Heather signaled Roger and Walker to join Flagston at the squad’s sharp end. The two men moved as quietly as they could, creeping passed her and Nicholson. She could see Walker attaching a silencer to the barrel of his rifle. Smart move, she thought. She could see that her second-in-command planned to take out the tribesmen without drawing more of the natives down on them. It was a good plan except that there were seven of the tribesmen. As talented a killer as Walker was, not even he could take out seven men without them noticing they were being fired upon. Still, his first shots would reduce the amount of noise that would be made as he cut loose in their wake to finish the others. She saw him give her a questioning glance as if to see what she thought of his plan. Heather nodded.

  Walker got into position near Flagston. The little man saw what he was up to and gave him room to get it done. Walker jerked up the rifle, bracing it against his shoulder as he took aim. The tribesmen dropped one by one as he opened fire on them. Several rose up shouts as he cut them to shreds, but at least the thunderous booming of his gunfire was muffled.

  “Clear,” Walker said aloud in a normal voice.

  “Uh, guys,” Nicholson called from behind them all. “We got movement!”

  Dozens of the tribesmen came tearing through the jungle at the squad’s rear. Nicholson threw himself flat, shielding the container he carried as the weapons of the o
ther squad members start blasting. Heather’s rifle bucked in his hands as let loose on full-auto. Roger’s automatic shotgun emptied its magazine in a series of booms that made Heather wince. Walker’s rifle slung to his side held to him by its strap as he drew his pistol and joined the battle. A stream of rounds from Flagston’s P-90 cut a path of gore along the front of one of the tribesmen from the man’s groin to his throat, sending him flying backward. Those hit by Roger’s fire lost limbs or had entire sections of their upper bodies blown to bits. Heather swept her rifle back and forth hosing the approaching natives. In seconds, over half of the tribesmen were dead or dying with the rest scattering into the trees.

  “Hold your fire!” Heather ordered. “Let them go!”

  It pained her to do, but conserving ammo would go a lot further towards keeping them alive in the long run than a few more kills in the here and now. They still had a lot of ground left between them and the VTOL. And, there was no guarantee that these were the last of the tribal warriors they were going to run into.

  The jungle fell silent. Well, as quiet as it got at any rate. The battle was over. Again, they had made it through without losing a single member of the squad. Heather allowed herself a smile at that.