by Jessy Cruise
"Coming up on the LZ," Skip warned, slowing them even further. "Here's where it really gets tricky."
"Bring it on," Jack said, wiping his own face, watching with intense concentration as the white lines of the parking spots grew larger and larger.
Skip dropped a little further, until they were about six feet above the ground. "We're going to hover now," he said, bleeding off the rest of the speed. The tail swung out a little wider as Jack struggled to keep up with the maneuver. For a moment it seemed they were going to spin wildly but it was only a moment. He pushed down a little more and arrested it and then overcompensated just a little, forcing Skip to counter his move. At last the airspeed stood at zero knots six feet above the ground.
"Good job," Skip said with a little sigh of relief. "We're almost home free. I'm gonna drop us down now. Get ready for the ground effect. As soon as we start to swing, let up on the pedal slowly and I'll give a little push on mine."
"Let's do it," Jack said.
Skip let them drop down a little bit more and, at three feet, they were firmly in the ground effect, where the air from their own rotor was bouncing off the ground and pushing them back upward. The helicopter suddenly didn't need as much power to keep aloft and in order to get them the rest of the way down, Skip pulled back on the collective considerably more than he would have to make the same adjustment at altitude. As such the rear end tried to swing around since the force of torque was equally reduced.
"Ease up, ease up!" Skip barked, feeling the swing.
Jack eased up a little faster than he had been, countering the action. The rear end stabilized.
"Out of sight," Skip said, dropping them the rest of the way down. There was a thump from beneath them as the skids touched semi-gently down on the asphalt. It was almost anti-climatic.
"We did it!" Jack yelled, feeling the wonderful sensation of being back on mother earth. "We're down, Skip! We did it!"
"We're down?" Sherrie asked. She too had felt the thump of landing but was having trouble believing that they were really safe.
"We're down," Skip said, neutralizing the collective and turning the throttle back to idle. The whine of the turbine engine, which had been screaming a moment before as it held the helicopter at a hover, died down to a soft, almost gentle hum. The rotor blades began to slow down. "It wasn't the prettiest landing I've ever participated in, but Goddamn if it didn't feel the best once it was over."
Now that the immediate crisis was over and the adrenaline had a chance to slack off some, Skip's leg began to seriously scream at him for the abuse that had been inflicted upon it. The pain swelled up like a balloon, traveling up and down his body in sickening waves, commanding his attention. He had never imagined that a simple gunshot wound could be so freaking painful. Hadn't he been told once that they were almost painless? What moron had pulled that information out of his ass? Obviously someone who had never been shot in the knee before.
"Are you all right, Skip?" asked Jack, still quite elated at the fact that he was actually alive and not a burned up, smashed up corpse. He didn't like the way that Skip was leaning back in his chair with his eyes squeezed shut.
"I think..." he said, "that you... you better do the shut-down checklist for me. Do you mind?"
"I'm on it," he said worriedly. He gave his mentor one last glance and then began the process of disengaging the rotor and shutting down the engine.
Sherrie meanwhile, jumped out through the missing door on the side and fell to her knees on the wet asphalt. She leaned down and put her lips to the ground, kissing it several times. "Thank you, thank you, thank you," she said, over and over again, presumably to God or Jesus or whatever entity she believed in.
Across the parking lot the door to the community center opened and Paul came out, followed by two of his medical team. They had a wheeled table with them - a makeshift gurney that had been constructed by Steve Kensington a few days before. They reached the helicopter before the blades were even able to stop turning. Paul ripped open the pilot's side door and looked in.
"Hey, Paul," Skip groaned, trying a grin on for size and doing a miserable job at it. "What's the good word?"
"That was some kind of fucked up looking landing," Paul said, his eyes dropping down to the bloody bandage on Skip's knee. He also took note of the blood, now congealing, that had dripped down to the floor.
"Any landing that you walk away from," Skip quoted, "is a good landing. I learned that in flight school. I think they laid that one on us the first day. It's right up there with the old, bold pilots saying."
"Well, it was a good landing then, I'll agree with that," Paul said, "but it don't look like you are going to be walking away from it. How bad is the injury? Give it to me straight."
"It went in below my kneecap and went out just above it," Skip told him. "I saw bone fragments and tendons sticking out of the exit wound. I can't move my leg at all."
"Do you mean you physically can't move it, or do you mean it hurts too much to move it?"
"Both," Skip told him. "It's agony to even try, and it won't move even when I do."
Paul nodded. He reached down and began unlacing Paul's left boot. "I'm going to check and make sure you're still getting blood flow down there," he said. "How's the pain?"
"Horrible," Skip said honestly. "I had a kidney stone once and I thought that was bad." He shook his head. "That felt like a blowjob in comparison to this."
Paul laughed a little, taking the laces all the way off. "You have a way with words, Skip," he said. "You oughtta be a writer. Are we gonna be able to get the wounded to El Dorado Hills?"
"Yes," Skip said immediately. "We'll get them there."
"Are you gonna fly there the same way you landed? With Jack pushing one of your pedals and Sherrie holding your leg up."
"There's no other way," Skip said. "Just shoot me up with some of that morphine to take the edge off of this. We'll make it."
Paul looked up at him. "Shoot you up with morphine before you fly a helicopter? Isn't that just a little unwise?"
"It's the only way," Skip said. "Don't give me enough to put me out. Just give me enough to make it tolerable."
Paul gave him a doubtful look and then began trying to pull Skip's boot off of his foot. The moment he moved the leg in order to accomplish this, Skip screamed as the pain flashed white-hot once again.
"Skip," Paul said softly, "I can't give you enough morphine to make this tolerable. That much will put you out like a light."
Skip panted for a few moments, wiping a fresh sheen of sweat from his face. "Give me what you can," he said. "There's no other way to do it. We have wounded that need to get there, don't we?"
He nodded. "Yes, we do. Lucy and John are both dead - we did everything we could for them but... well, it just wasn't enough. Susan, Lori, and Sandy will need to get there at some point for treatment but they can wait for a while. Sarah, Rhonda, and Megan all have pretty serious wounds however, particularly Megan. They need to get to the doc right away, like within the next twenty minutes."
"Then it's settled," Skip said. "I was the one that went against common sense and got myself shot up. I'm the one that'll just have to deal with the consequences. Give me as much dope as you think I can tolerate and then lets get those casualties loaded up."
"And what if you pass out from the pain while you're in flight?" Paul asked. "Or what if you pass out from the dope? I'm not a doctor, Skip. I'm not an expert at medicating people. That shit could happen. What will you do then?"
"Then we'll crash," Skip said, not mincing words.
Paul looked at him sternly, shaking his head hopelessly. "What a clusterfuck," he said. "Is that really our only choice? What about Jack? Do we have the right to ask him to risk his ass on this screwed up mission? If you crash, you'll be taking him with you."
Both of them looked over at Jack, who was still sitting in the observer's seat, following the conversation. "Well?" Skip asked him. "What do you think, Jase?"
"I'll go no
Micker what," Jack said. "My place is in this chopper. But... maybe there's another answer."
"Another answer?" Paul asked. "What do you mean?"
"No," Skip said immediately before he could even say it.
"I could fly this thing to El Dorado Hills," Jack said, ignoring him.
"Absolutely not," Skip said. "This is not the time to learn to fly. Not with casualties on board."
"Skip..." Jack started.
"I said no," Skip said. "That's final."
"I can do it," Jack said defiantly. "I've been watching you fly this thing for weeks now. You've taught me every system, every control, everything."
"Jack, you can't just jump behind the controls of a helicopter and start flying," Skip told him. "It doesn't work that way, no Micker how much you think you know about it."
"Is that any riskier than flying the damn thing all shot up with morphine, with one foot on the controls and a woman holding the other foot? And there's not even room for Sherrie and the casualties anyway, even if we could talk Sherrie into climbing back in here."
"No," Skip repeated.
"I can do it," Jack said, staring at him. "Skip, I can. I know I can."
"No!"
"I'm not a kid, Goddammit!" Jack yelled, leaning closer to him. "You're sitting there thinking that I'm talking out of my ass because I'm fourteen fucking years old and I don't know any better. I'm not, Skip. I know exactly what I'm saying. It might be a little rough at first, it might take me a few minutes to get the feel of the thing, but if you help me, I can fly this helicopter. I know what I'm saying and I know what the risks are. I wouldn't tell you this if it wasn't true."
"Jack..." Skip started.
"You need to trust me, Skip," Jack told him. "You've always been the one to treat me like I was a man, even when I wasn't acting like one. You treated me that way from the very start, back when I was crying over my mom and dad next to that camper and I really was just a kid. You stood up for me in front of Jessica, in front of the other women in town, in front of everyone. Don't start treating me like a baby now." He leaned even closer, his voice softening. "Let me fly this thing," he said. "If you help me, I can do it. We might crash, but I think we stand a better chance with me doing it than having both of us try to monkey the damn pedals together."
Skip looked at him, at the serious expression on his face, in his eyes. Jack wasn't even old enough to shave yet. He hadn't even reached his full adult height yet. But was he a man? Was he old enough to give a subjective assessment of his own abilities independent of the desires of youth? Was he?
"Skip, I can do it."
Skip let out a breath, letting his head hang down for a minute. He looked back up. "Get this thing refueled and get Steve to put the doors back on," he said. "And then, while Paul is loading up the casualties, you can help me over to the other chair. We take off in fifteen minutes."
Jack could not prevent the grin from spreading across his face. "You got it, Skip," he said, standing up. "We'll lift off in fifteen." He hopped out and began sprinting towards the fuel truck and Steve's shack.
Paul and Skip both watched him go. "Do you really think that's a wise decision?" Paul asked carefully.
"No," Skip said, shaking his head a little. "But he made a very good point. His way is about the safest option that we've got."
Stu was looking at the trench that his forces had just managed to capture. He couldn't help but be impressed by it. "This has got to be the work of our friend Skip," he told Stinson, who was tagging along just behind him. "No bitch would have thought of something like this. Only someone with military experience could have supervised the construction of this thing."
"I suppose," Stinson said almost shortly. He had been through a little too much in the last hour to be concerned about who had built the trench. "They surely pounded the shit out of us from here though."
"Yes," Stu said with a nod. "It all makes sense now. He put trenches at the first line of defense to keep the bitches that are shooting at us safe from fire. He probably hit on the only fucking way there was to keep them from bolting the first time we shot back. Even so, they fled like the wind once we started to close and take some of them out."
"How many did we kill?" Stinson asked.
"Three bodies in the trenches that we took so far," Stu said. "There's also one towards the front that Lima's people hit when they were in that stupid-ass shootout with the group that was running away." He shook his head in disgust. "I still can't believe that he stood there and shot at them when he could have just gone around the other side of the hill and hit them from close range. I'm going to demote his ass for that. Make him a Goddamn private again and put him on point."
Stinson looked at him with unmasked contempt. "I wouldn't be too hard on him," he said. "Sometimes its kind of difficult to make rational decisions when people are shooting at you and killing your men. Especially as tired as we all are."
Stu wasn't buying this. "That's what our job is," he said. "And I expect better decisions than that. First he loses his golden opportunity, and then he gets half of his fucking men shot by that Goddamn chopper. Jesus, what a moron."
Stinson dismissed the subject of Lima, having passed the point where he really gave a shit. "What about the chopper?" he asked instead. "What do you think was up with that weird shit it was doing?" They had all seen the Garden Hill helicopter climb up to altitude and go into a very wide circle around the battle area and the town. After circling for several minutes, it had straightened out and then tried to hover, but had not been able to. For a moment it seemed that the thing was going to spin out of control and come crashing to the ground. But then it had sped back up and began to circle again. Finally, it had slowed up once more, going into a shaky looking hover for a few moments, and then had turned to the south and disappeared from sight.
"I think that one of Lima's guys managed to hit it," Stu said. "Obviously the thing was having some sort of mechanical problem that they were trying to deal with. Maybe the tail got hit or maybe one of the controls is out. Either way, it looked like they were having a lot of trouble keeping the thing under control. They might not have even been able to land it. My guess is that that chopper is out of the fight whether it landed or not, and good fucking riddance. We'll have a much easier time taking that town if they don't have a means of seeing us when we advance or dropping that napalm on us."
"Taking the town?" Stinson asked. "You still think we have a shot at that? I lost twenty-eight men charging this trench. How many did Lima lose?"
Stu shook his head again. "That asshole lost thirty-eight, including the five that the chopper took out. That leaves him with eighteen. Obviously we'll have to combine forces into one large attack."
Stinson did some mental addition - something that wasn't terribly easy considering his fatigue level. "That means we have forty-six men to make an assault," he said once he had the figure. "That's less than I had to take this one trench."
"Don't forget the ten able bodies from my covering platoon," Stu reminded him. "That brings us back up to fifty-six again. That should be more than enough to take the town now that we've cleared the trenches out. The rest should be pretty much a cakewalk, especially considering the fact that they won't have the chopper any more to help direct them."
"You don't think they have any more trenches?" Stinson asked doubtfully.
Stu scoffed at the very notion. "It takes time to build a trench like this," he said. "Especially if your workers are a bunch of bitches. What do you think they did, spent the last month digging fucking trenches on every Goddamn hill around the town?" He shook his head condescendingly. "No, they only could've done this on the first line on the most likely approaches. We just made the mistake of advancing through the easiest area. That's the disadvantage to not having air assets - you can't recon shit like this."
"So we're going forward again?" Stinson asked.
"Of course we are," Stu said forcefully. "There's no other option. And now that that chopper is damaged,
there's a good chance we might be able to capture it and our friend Skip intact. If we're lucky, the chopper will be repairable and we'll be able to use it for ourselves."
"If we're lucky," Stinson echoed, sighing as he said it. "What about the men? They've been through an awful lot. I'm not sure they're... well... motivated to try this again."
"They'll do what the fuck they're told or they'll be shot on the spot," Stu said roughly. "Now let's start shifting everyone over to here. We'll reorganize again and then we'll start to move in ninety minutes from now. And just to show everyone that the worst is over, I will personally lead this assault."
It took Steve about ten minutes to put the doors back on the helicopter - about five minutes faster than it usually took Skip and Jack working together to do it. While he was doing that Jack drove the fuel truck over and filled up the helicopter's tank with fresh jet fuel. Skip continued to sit in the pilot's seat while all of this was going on. His knee was still screaming at him quite loudly but he tried his best to ignore it as he talked on the radio to his field commanders.
"The last look I got of them," he told them on the VHF band, "they were still scattered around pretty good. They were in possession of the two outside trench complexes but the original group near the rear was still back there. You guys mauled them pretty good, probably fifty percent casualties. It'll be at least an hour, maybe more, before they can regroup and try again."
"I copy, Skip," Mick, the commander of the ground forces, replied. "We're all in position now and we're expecting our replacements out here soon. Confirming they're on their way?"
"They just left five minutes ago," Skip assured him. " Christine's squad lost two of their weapons during the final pullback so I only sent out enough to cover every gun. I loaded them up with extra ammo though."
"Good," Mick said. "We should be all right as long as they attack us on somewhat the same path as before. We're pretty well spread out here. It would be nice if we could get you back in the air for us before that happens though. It's not real fun down here not knowing what they're doing."
"We're going to be leaving for a wounded run in just a few minutes," Skip assured him, leaving out the part about how Jack was going to be flying. "With any luck we'll be back within forty-five to an hour. That should get us overhead again before they can make their next attack. If not, you're just going to have to wing it. Do you think you're up for it?"