All were apoplectic that Kate would risk her life this way – on what was basically a suicide mission, and after all they had done and sacrificed to get her out of there safely. Not to mention that she was doing it on behalf of two men who were probably dead already.
Only one man realized they were all treating her like a princess to be rescued – and that Kate was never going to put up with it, any more than they should be doing it in the first place.
“Kate, Bren. If you’re pushing out, stick to the north wall. You’ll not only have some cover but you can do a hell of a lot more to support us from there, rather than just hanging out in this hole with us.”
“Roger that. Moving.”
Lying on his back beside him, Jake gave Brendan an unamused look.
Brendan shrugged. “Either she’s a member of this team, or she isn’t.”
Jake couldn’t argue with that, so he didn’t.
And even in his charged-up emotional state, Jake recognized one thing worth admiring in Brendan’s order: he trusted her now. Completely. After all the hard work and graft Kate had done to become a full and trusted member of this tight-knit team… she had done it now.
She was in – completely.
And now there was a good chance she would go to her death embodying the most important aspect of their bond: you always supported your SF brothers.
And you never left one behind.
* * *
“Okay, fuck all this,” Todd said aloud to no one as he dropped out of the turret, climbed into the driver’s seat, and cranked the engine.
The whole point of keeping the gun trucks under cover was so they wouldn’t be taken out – and could provide the covering fire needed to keep everyone else alive long enough to complete the mission and exfil. But if everyone got killed anyway, there was damned little point in keeping the trucks safe.
True, they also kind of needed the vehicles to drive out of there. But on current trends one would be plenty to carry the survivors.
But those weren’t the real reasons Todd left cover. He did it because if his beloved battle buddy was hanging her unarmored ass out there in the steel wind to try to save the team leaders, the least he could do was brave the fire himself – and support her in his fully-armored monster car-crushing truck, which also had more firepower than a rifle battalion.
Not bothering to turn it around, Todd just put his elbow on the seat back, jammed it in reverse, stomped the gas, and went blasting out of his alley ass-end first. A highly skilled and well-trained tactical driver, he dodged parked vehicles, low sheds, and yawning shell holes, and less than thirty seconds later skidded to a halt one foot to the south-east of Jake and Bren’s hole.
Those two were now completely shielded by the truck from one side.
They had Zack shooting to cover them from the other one.
And Kate was coming online between the buildings on the north wall. In theory, her flexibility of maneuver should provide even better protection for Jake and Brendan as they tried to make it back across open ground to the north gun truck.
Todd yanked the parking brake, climbed into the turret, got on the minigun – then flipped his viewport out on the side and shouted down to his commander and team sergeant.
“Say – how long exactly do you guys plan on keeping me here with my face hanging out? Because I’m about to be real popular.”
He slammed the viewport shut without waiting for an answer.
They got it. Todd was sitting in a massive bullet and RPG magnet.
And it was positioned at the very center of the in-facing ring of fire that was the al-Shabaab Stronghold.
* * *
Kate continued to thread through the maze of structures that abutted the north wall. She was all alone again. And if someone jumped in her six, she was in big trouble. Her only defense was to keep moving – fast.
And even that presented its own dangers, as she realized when she had to hurtle one of those damned tunnel entrances that this place was riddled with. Looking down as she leapt over it, she saw it was several feet deep and had a wooden door visible a few feet further in.
That shit would be a badly turned ankle – at best.
She kept her weapon up, her head on a swivel – and her speed up. She had to get to where she could support Jake and Bren.
Because their seconds were numbered.
* * *
Climbing to their feet in the lee of the truck, one wounded worse than the other, but both having seen better days, Jake and Brendan moved out.
They had their inside arms around each other’s shoulders – and their outside arms holding and firing their rifles from the hip. They didn’t move too badly for a three-legged race team – really, a two-legged team. And because they didn’t pause to look back, they didn’t even know the main reason they were still alive and on their feet was…
Todd’s crowning moment of badass.
He was on that minigun and spinning the weapons ring through 360 degrees – all the way around and then around again. He was engaging targets left right and center, high and low, singlehandedly covering virtually every sector. The massive destructive power of the .50-cal minigun laid waste to what was left of the Stronghold and its defenders. And those it didn’t kill it made consider very carefully the merits of staying down under hard cover.
And to .50-cal rounds, things like concrete blocks did not count as hard cover.
Todd said a silent prayer that Bren and Jake would be under cover themselves by the time he went dry. Because he did not relish trying a reload while sitting out there with his nuts exposed. And those two wouldn’t enjoy their jolly field-day event nearly as much when his covering fire went down.
There was also the fact that Todd had the same problem that got Kwon killed – only worse. Namely, there was no way for anyone in this fight not to know right where he was. He couldn’t fire in every direction at once, and the enemy were still so many that a heavy metal rain of rifle and machine gun rounds was clattering off the turret inches from his face, not to mention all over the rest of the truck. RPGs were coming in and blowing up in the dirt on all sides – and hurled grenades were hitting the truck, bouncing off, and blowing up a few feet away.
The shock of this pummeling was enough to shake Todd – not least since he was already wounded from the earlier RPG blast. Moreover, he knew that in a matter of seconds these guys would have him zeroed. And then his reign of minigun terror was going to come to an abrupt end.
He needed to be gone by then.
Zack was still firing from the north, on an identical minigun. But as enthusiastic as he was, his performance was a little reminder that it was always the violinist, never the violin. All miniguns were not made equal.
Kate was operating, too. Todd had half an eye on her – mainly to keep from inadvertently cutting her in half when he spun by the north side. And he knew her fire was hitting or suppressing guys to his six. She was definitely helping.
And as he traversed by a view of Bren and Jake reaching the north gun truck, he stopped firing and came to rest directly facing Kate. He could see her up an alley between buildings with her back up against the north wall, which was probably an excellent place for it.
She saw him, too.
And now, with Bren and Jake home, he had to make like the shepherd in the rainstorm – and get the flock out of there. But first he keyed his mic.
“You are still dangerous, Maverick. But you can be my wingman anytime.”
He could see her smile even that distance away.
“Bullshit, Iceman – you can be mine.”
Still smiling out loud, Todd started to drop down – when at the last possible second he saw two distinct lines of al-Shabaab guys converging on Kate’s position from either side and from above. They were moving across the parapet and would soon be right over her head.
“Kate! Down!”
His hands flew back to his weapon and he started putting out danger-close minigun fire, barely fifteen feet ove
r Kate’s head. He could see her crouching down and covering up.
And as Todd laid into the guys on the parapet, he belatedly clocked that at least one of them was carrying something that looked like a satchel charge – it went up as Todd cut the man in two, creating a massive explosion at the top of the wall, about ten meters to Kate’s right. But he still had to clear the other side of the parapet, so he traversed over, still firing…
He focused on this task even as he tracked something in peripheral to his three o’clock, low to the ground, and he figured he had a pretty damned good idea what that was. But he was worried not about himself right now, but about his battle buddy, his teammate, his friend, and making sure she got through the next few seconds of this engagement alive…
And he felt more than heard the RPGs whooshing at his back right, and crashing in around him.
He didn’t let up his fire for an instant, but just held target, clearing that parapet, covering Kate, even as he thought:
Well, shit – they’ve got me zeroed now…
* * *
Todd and Brendan stumbled into the cover of the north gun truck and the building that half-housed it. Both were surprised to be alive. Both had heard the ceaseless mayhem erupting behind and all around them. But now they heard a longer, louder, rolling series of explosions and they both turned around to see…
Todd firing his minigun flat out toward the north. His mouth open, he looked like he was shouting through the porthole glass, gripping the handles of the minigun like a man possessed. Like only death would tear him away from his station.
But a hunter-killer RPG team, six guys in total, had walked right up to within fifty feet of his truck from the east. Both Jake and Bren raised their weapons and started shooting, but it was too far, and they were mostly under cover. There was no way to stop them. And now they were taking their time and making it count.
And Todd’s silent shout disappeared as a coordinated volley of RPGs sailed into the truck – front, middle, center, and top, a rippling series of awful explosions that surely had to spell the end of the vehicle, the weapons platform on top of it… and anyone unlucky enough to be inside.
When the explosions finally settled, they could see that the whole front of the turret, the side with the minigun, had been peeled away and destroyed.
Todd was no longer inside it.
No one living could be.
Wall
The Stronghold - North Gun Truck
“Kate,” Jake barked into his radio, as he fast-limped around the vehicle past Brendan, who was pulling security at the front, and toward Baxter, who was doing so at the rear. “Do not go out after him! Todd’s gone. You can’t save him.”
“Copy that.” She was agreeing, but there was a deadness to her voice. She was numb. “I’ve got my own problems right now anyway.”
Jake could hear firing from her position – both over the channel and through the air. He dug into a pouch for his phone with the drone video feed – the first time he’d done so, as all of his operational problems today had been right in his face and he’d been kind of busy shooting. But now when he needed it, all he found was a shattered screen. It had taken a bullet somewhere along the way.
His gaze shot up to the turret of the truck where Zack was reloading the minigun – and he could see the back of a handheld propped up in there. He darted inside, reached up for it, then darted out again. Panning and zooming, he could see Kate hunkered down by the wall, engaged in some kind of small-unit action.
He moved up to Brendan at the front. Every step on his shattered lower leg was an agony. He had to put that to one side. He could hurt later.
“I’m gonna go bring her in.”
Bren glanced down at the taped-up leg, but then nodded. “Go.”
Jake stole one glance at the video to get the tactical picture… then his eyes went wide and his lips parted in silence.
Brendan leaned in to look over his shoulder.
The view was already zoomed in tight on Kate. She was still on her feet, still shooting. She looked okay.
But the wall over her head did not.
From the aerial view, the two commanders could see dead were piled up high on the other side – exactly how high was hard to tell from above. But now they could also see that the wall was buckling – how high up along it they also couldn’t tell. But it had been badly damaged by the explosion on the parapet.
And now it went over, starting at the west and rolling east in a flash.
And a tsunami of writhing dead flowed in through the gap – and crashed over the top of Kate’s head. They could just see her look up and flinch.
And then the dead wave rolled over the top of her, and she disappeared.
* * *
Jake instantly raced out, circling around the side of the building, reaching to the wall, and then maneuvered along it until he could actually see Kate’s last position. And it made totally obvious what had been implied by the video.
The wall had cracked about two-thirds of the way up its height.
And scores of dead, fifty or maybe even a hundred, had flooded over it.
Jake only realized Bren had followed him when he felt the Captain’s hand on his shoulder. He turned and they locked eyes. There was no “She’s gone, Jake” from Brendan. Nobody had to convince anyone of anything. They both knew there was no way she could have survived that. If the weight of the bodies and wall hadn’t crushed her, the dead would have torn her to pieces. And if by some miracle she had survived that… she would be infected now.
There were no other scenarios.
Jake spun as Brendan brought his rifle up and started firing over his shoulder.
Turning, he saw three jihadis running toward them up the alley beside the wall. They must have been the guys Kate had been in a fight with there. And what they were doing now was hauling ass along the wall to the west, away from the tide of dead that had flowed in the broken dyke, and was now lapping at their heels – that was now chasing them.
Seeing Jake and Brendan ahead, they now fired both ahead and behind.
Jake and Bren crouched down, each engaging and dropping one of the running guys. But then Jake spotted something familiar on the third – the drum magazine of a Super Kalashnikov – and he shoved Brendan’s barrel down toward the ground. Raising his own, he took careful aim – on the guy’s lower leg. And he fired.
The giant .50-cal slug took the leg off below the knee.
The man fell to the ground howling.
And he rolled on his back just in time to see the running dead fall on him.
Jake and Bren retreated back to the truck, the screams fading behind them.
When they got back, Brendan was thinking that he had seen Jake be vicious plenty of times. And he had seen a lot of frightening looks on the man’s face.
But he had absolutely never seen him cry.
And it was all now plain as day to him.
About him and Kate.
Nothing Too Bad
Camp Price - The Garage
[Two Days Ago]
The two lay in each other’s arms in the makeshift nest of blankets they always put together in the corner – and then stashed in a spare crate before they left again. Occasionally they got to be together in his hooch, when Kwon was out; or, even more dangerously, in hers when Todd was gone. Kate in particular didn’t like to think about how poor Todd would react if he walked in on them. She was a soldier. But she was also a woman.
And women knew when men had a thing for them. And Todd always had.
She and Jake were both in agreement that this was a terrible idea. And they had both resisted it, for many months, despite the urgent, primal, magnetic attraction between them. For Kate, this affair was both irresponsible and anti-feminist – shacking up with the team sergeant, her day-to-day boss and a man whose every decision impacted her job success.
Not to mention her very survival.
For him, it was an abuse of power, a failure of professionalism an
d judgment – and just one more damned threat to combat effectiveness.
And to the team’s very survival.
But they were doing it anyway.
Eventually the end of the world had led them both to abandon their principles. There was so little pleasure left to them, so few possibilities in life, such a total lack of any kind of future, never mind a bright one. Finally, the craziest thing seemed to be to deny themselves this.
But it absolutely had to be done in secret. Anything else would tear apart the fragile dynamics of their already strained team, and perhaps tilt them away from the precarious survival they had carved out. And it was a tribute to their clandestine skills that they had managed to keep it a secret.
The two listened to each other breathe now while Jake stroked her hair. She never wore it down – even now, even naked. But she did allow herself one indulgence here that she did nowhere else. She allowed herself to be vulnerable.
From a few inches away, she regarded the ridged tissue on his forehead – the gash he had taken in one of the vehicle crashes in their escape from the fall of Camp Lemonnier. It had long ago turned into a sexy scar.
“What’s going to happen to us?” she asked, her cheek pressed into his bare shoulder as she traced the line of it. He had amazing lines, not least in his arms. She meant, but didn’t have to add: if Godane comes for us.
“Nothing too bad,” Jake said.
And he didn’t need to add: Because I won’t let it. That went without saying. Jake was not just her rock. He was everybody’s.
Now he wanted to tell her that he would always protect her – because he was in love with her. And he sensed that she wanted to say that as well. But he also knew why neither of them did. It just seemed out of place here. Out of character for him, as well as for her. And it just didn’t seem to fit in any obvious way into the whole fallen world they inhabited.
Maybe both of them were saying it anyway, without having to.
Tomorrow’s uncertain dangers loomed. But tomorrow also seemed like a long way away. This moment was all they had to live in.
It was all you ever had.
We're Not Going Yet
Arisen : Nemesis Page 39