by Andy Remic
Nothing out of place.
Nothing wrong...
Someth—
His gaze returned to the Comanche.
And he could hear it. A distant voice: like a scream, in passion, in anger, determined but pinned down, restricted, forced into silence against its furious force of will—
Something’s wr—
Carter frowned. The whole world seemed to slow. The Comanche’s blurred rotors whirled at a snail’s pace, thrum thrum thruuuuum. Carter reached for his Browning and it seemed that his hand took an age to reach the heavy weapon as his head was turning towards Natasha and his lips formed the words, ‘Let’s ... go…’
There was a distant crack.
Carter’s eyes caught the muzzle flash.
Something’s wrong.
A hole appeared in the Comanche’s cockpit canopy and Langan was punched backwards, flipping slowly across the inside of the helicopter, a huge splatter of blood mushrooming up against the smoked glass. Carter’s Browning appeared instantly in his hand and he cursed the slowness and clumsiness of his own actions, cursed the sluggishness of the world around him and within him as his mouth opened to scream the words and both Jessica and Natasha turned, their movements painfully slow, to gaze in confusion up at the helicopter, the whirling rotors, the slumped figure in the darkened depths of the imprisoning and suddenly insect-like machine—
Carter dropped to one knee, shifting and dropping his stance, the Browning bucking in his hand: one bullet; two bullets; three bullets - and then he saw the shadowy figures detach themselves from the trees and come racing low with incredible speed across the grass and they were the Nex and a cold terror clamped Carter’s heart as the world slammed back into focus and reality—
‘What—’
‘Oh, my.’
‘Get in the fucking ‘copter!’ Carter screamed, firing the rest of the mag at the charging wall of Nex. They were dressed in identical dark grey body-hugging garments; they carried sub-machine guns but did not return fire; they were one of the most menacing, most terrifying things Carter had ever seen and his jaw clamped tightly shut—
Natasha was climbing, glancing back over her shoulder at the charging Nex. Then her gaze transferred down to Carter who grabbed Jessica and pushed her towards the Comanche, under the whining rush of the rotors that lashed the trees into frantic swaying with the power of those terrific reined-in engines ...
Carter ejected the magazine. Slotted another into the weapon and sighted on a dark, masked face. The Browning barked in his hand and the figure pitched under the boots of another Nex. Carter’s mouth was dry.
Fuck me, he thought.
There are hundreds of them ...
Far, far more than in Africa ...
They swarmed from all around now; like insects -dark-eyed and lethal. As if on some unspoken command their weapons lifted, muzzles swivelling towards the group—
‘Fuck ...’
Carter threw an HPG and watched Nex corpses thrown in different directions, limbs torn from carcasses, blood spewing from pulped flesh ...
What the hell are they? screamed his brain. ‘Get up there!’ he yelled. He fired several more rounds, the Browning a dark comrade in his fist, an extension of his body.
The Nex, their sub-machine guns pointing, still did not fire. Carter’s gaze darted up towards Natasha as—
Jessica reached up to the handholds. Carter turned, swiftly—
There came another distant crack.
Carter felt a hiss of heat beside his face and a blow against his back and turned to grab Jessica’s arms - which suddenly draped loosely around his neck as she bounced from the DPM panels of the Comanche and fell against him. Her eyes were wide, confused and innocent as her gaze met Carter’s stunned stare and her arms fell away from his shoulders. He grabbed her, his Browning forgotten, he held her waist and supported her sudden dead weight and gazed into those deep intelligent frightened eyes—
Eyes that held a million questions ...
Why?
Why me?
Why now?
What is happening?
What is happening to me?
Jessica opened her mouth to speak, to ask him. A gush of red poured from her lips with a convulsion of her broken body, spilling down her dark jumper to stain Carter’s battered jacket. She shivered, head flopping back now and shaking, curls soaked in blood. She tried to speak, but more blood flowed out from her mouth and across her cheek, a thick red river flowing into her eyes and down across her ears. She sighed, a bubbling of crimson spittle and exhaled air—
And then Jessica was dead.
‘Come on!’ screamed Natasha.
His gaze lifted and met the screaming panic-filled face of Natasha, her eyes wide, her tongue moistening fear-dry lips.
‘Carter! They’re—’
He whirled. The Nex were only feet away, arms outstretched, a swarm heaving to encompass and overthrow him. There was a heavy boom as the Browning kicked in his fist and then lifted, planting a second bullet in the closest Nex’s face—
And then Carter was moving, leaping, the Browning lacking and blasting in his fist as the Nex went down with hot metal scything faces and throats and drilling eyes from their sockets. Gloved hands reached out for Carter as he grappled his way to the handholds leading to the Comanche’s cockpit, but his boots lashed back and connected with heavy cracks. He gripped the bottom handhold and hauled himself up onto the helicopter. Natasha was above him and confusion gripped him as she was suddenly punched from the Comanche’s fuselage - a sudden violent lurching as blood splashed in a spray from her body and she spun above his head under the impact of bullets. Carter could not understand and the sounds of madness and attack washed over him and all noise was white noise and he reached up, fingers brushing Natasha’s fingers as she fell but he was not fast enough and could not reach her and she toppled down into the mass of Nex and they closed over her body like a swarm and she disappeared from sight—
‘No,’ he said softly.
Carter’s head snapped up from his red-stained hands. His gaze was filled with ice death, his lips a narrow line, his face a cold smash of silver against the darkness of the night.
And he realised.
Realised the horrible truth.
He was alone.
The Browning kicked in his blood-smeared hand; he swayed to one side on the handholds, movements mechanical, his body running on adrenalin and reflex. A line of bullets cut craters across the battle-scarred fuselage’s alloy. The Browning kicked again and now it was Carter’s only friend, only true friend, the only comrade he had left.
The bullet hit a Nex between the eyes.
Carter watched coolly as the light in them fled, as the Nex died.
More hands reached for him.
He kicked out, Browning pumping, his heart cold and emotionless. The dead man’s click flicked on a switch in his brain. He reached up to the rim of the cockpit, slammed it upwards and leaped up dragging down the smoked glass. His hand slammed down on the controls; the rotors, still spinning, powered up with a roar of the twin LHTecs as Carter slammed down latches and watched the Nex swarm like dark grey bees around and over the Comanche—
And below him Natasha was lost.
He grabbed the control column. Flicked the power on and lifted the Comanche with a scream of engines, a shudder of the aircraft as the nose dipped and he shot up and out over the car park, MiniGun howling with a lethal stutter that punched down and merged Nex with the shredded grass and trees, pulped them into oblivion as Carter’s cold detached stare watched their bodies and limbs and organs disintegrate under the awesome monstrosity of the war machine.
The Comanche banked, the concrete highway falling away below.
‘Is Jessica dead?’ hissed Natasha.
Carter blinked and looked over his shoulder.
But he was alone.
Natasha was gone.
Natasha was dead.
Carter, eyes focused on the night sky beyond,
nodded to himself. He reached down, back, fumbling and shoving at the body of Langan lying prone and broken behind and beneath him. He grappled with the spare HIDSS helmet and settled it over his head. He activated the HIDSS, data flashing across his suddenly enhanced night vision—
‘Whoa ...’ he said softly.
They were waiting for us, he realised.
Had they known about the meet, about the Comanche? Or had they just responded rapidly to the ECube patch?
How fucking far does this betrayal go?
‘All the way,’ whispered Kade. ‘Hey, Carter, we’ve got company. Come on, buddy, let’s taste some fucking blood...’
Carter’s gaze flicked to the scanners.
Three helicopters were coming up fast behind him as he headed out over the Pacific. His eyes narrowed and death sat with him like an old friend. His mouth was no longer dry. Fear was an ally; not fear itself but a love of the fear he would inflict.
Rotors roared as the helicopters approached at speed. The night had fallen, and moonlight glimmered from the rotors, dazzling through the holed cockpit canopy. Carter could see a single eye of silver where the bullet that had smashed Langan’s life from his body had penetrated the aircraft.
And he thought about Jessica.
And he thought about Natasha.
He groaned.
‘Natasha ...’ he whispered in pure agony.
Machine guns roared behind him; rounds clattered against the Comanche and Carter’s mask of pain fell away to be replaced with something that even Kade could not replicate.
Hatred fuelled him now.
Hatred - and a need to kill.
Langan’s words came back to Carter, hot words filled with a passion for his subject: the war machine. ‘We are presently carrying 36 standard 70mm rockets, 18 Stinger air-to-air missiles and 6 Hellfire anti-tank missiles ...’
Carter’s gaze swept the console. He reached forward, flicked switches, heard motors whirring within the Comanche; he glanced at the scanners, then looked quickly left and right. A squat black powerful helicopter had drawn alongside him to the right and he could see the copper eyes of a Nex. He slammed on the air brakes, dropping the Comanche with dipped nose through the skies, then with a roar of engines and a steeply banking turn that rammed his head back against the pilot’s chair the Comanche veered, coming up behind the black helicopter. Carter engaged four Stinger air-to-air missiles -saw the glow from their tails as they detached and watched grimly as they hurtled into the black helicopter. It exploded with a roar and, glowing like the heart of a raging volcano, fell dead and spinning from the skies and smashed into the dark sea below.
Machine guns hammered, dragging Carter’s hypnotised stare back to fresh dangers. Red lights flashed on the scanners and the Comanche fell from the skies, howling like an animal in pain to twist and skim close to the surface of the sea - so close that spray splattered against the cockpit and Carter could almost taste the salt.
He killed the lights.
Missiles plunged into the sea behind him.
‘You want to fuck with me?’ growled Carter. His finger reached out, tracing along the scanner, examining the target and analysis displays. He rammed the helicopter forward, the LHTecs screaming and vibrations pounding through the attack vehicle. The Comanche surged forward, and speed powered through Carter’s brain; waves crashed just below the Comanche and there ...
Against the black waves.
A tanker.
Carter swept low, the Comanche droning, followed by the two remaining helicopters and their Nex pilots. Carter banked the Comanche in low and tight, skimming the waves. The black helicopters followed. Machine guns fired. Bullets rattled against the huge oil tanker.
The Comanche lifted, skimming over the ship’s elevated bridge and the black helicopters followed flying close to each other. The pilots were extremely skilled.
‘Time in,’ said Carter softly.
He flicked several switches and engaged a digital readout. He smiled, a smile that conveyed only a longing for destruction and death.
‘Turn on.’
He hit the air brakes. The LHTecs screamed in response. The two black helicopters veered, one to either side, in reflex response to his insane manoeuvre. Carter hurled the Comanche up into the air, climbing, lifting to ascend like a rocket, reaching for the stars. Carter gazed up into that black glittering expanse as the Comanche rumbled and screamed and vibrated around him and he prayed, prayed to a God he no longer believed in and tears rolled down his cheeks and his teeth ground in anger and hatred. As scanners blazed at him with low-oxygen read-outs he kicked the Comanche around in a tight arc and then dropped from the sky towards the distant tanker far below - his marker - twisting and spinning. The black helicopters were distant targets as Carter allowed the release of a single 70mm rocket... Exhaust plumed as the rocket ploughed into the spinning rotors of the second black helicopter, its cockpit and the Nex pilot and sent the machine crashing into the black sea, which swallowed it whole.
‘Burn out, motherfucker.’
The Comanche spun, twisting, howling, and its rotors skimmed the sea, slicing through the waves as the aircraft cut an arc and spun and climbed once more with the final black helicopter following close behind with machine guns spitting fire and hatred and hatred and hatred ...
They climbed towards the stars.
Wind howled through the hole in the cockpit.
Carter’s tears chilled like crystals of diamond against his freezing skin.
And there, hundreds of metres above the sea, the Comanche levelled out and spun in a slow lazy arc. Carter slowed the speed, until the machine hung, hovering, stationary; his head drooped, eyes looking at nothing but the floor. And then his gaze lifted and he stared into the darkness ahead of him. His teeth clamped.
The last black helicopter came level, perhaps a hundred metres away.
Carter flicked the rocket restraints free.
His eyes narrowed.
‘You want to fuck with me?’ he whispered.
‘Fuck him, Carter, make him taste blood,’ whispered Kade like a bad injection of essence of ghost.
‘I don’t need your help,’ snarled Carter.
Hatred was his master.
The black helicopter’s engines howled; Carter could hear them even over the roar of the Comanche’s LHTecs. Its nose dipped as it powered forward with its machine guns firing and Carter growled and hammered the Comanche on through the dark black bullet hail.
The two war machines hurtled towards one another. In the blink of an eye they had closed at speed, machine guns roaring, tracer bullets spinning lines of fire across the short distance. They veered, the Comanche twisting down and to one side, the black helicopter nearly over the top - but not quite ... A billion glittering crystal fragments shot out in a shimmering display as the Comanche’s armoured rotors smashed the enemy’s cockpit canopy into dust and sliced the Nex pilot cleanly in two.
The Comanche danced sideways, away from its dark and bloody deed.
Globules of blood spun up and out on ice-rimed rotors.
Within the black helicopter, the Nex looked down, mouth open in disbelief. Its body relaxed into two halves, the head and upper torso gesturing insanely in sudden panic as it slid into the footwell. The black helicopter tipped, Nex blood pooling in its interior, and screamed down into the sea. And was gone.
Searchlights from the crawling tanker strobed across the dark waves.
Carter breathed. Slowly.
‘That was fucking nasty,’ said Kade carefully.
‘Fuck you.’
‘Temper, temper.’
At a more sedate pace, the Comanche dropped lower, skimmed the dark waves and shot like a bullet across the watery desert desolation of the empty dark seas.
The Comanche flew on over the Pacific.
Carter glanced down at the corpse with which he was cramped into the cockpit, half seated upon: an unloving intimacy - the flesh was still warm, he could feel it through his own clot
hes. He tried not to think about the destroyed face and the pulp of blood and brains smeared over the inside of the cockpit. The smell made him want to be sick, though it had evaded his awareness in the turmoil of battle. Until now.
‘You’re better off alone, buddy. You know she was the enemy; you know she was bad.’
‘Leave me be, Kade. I can do without your shit.’
‘You need me, buddy.’
‘I’m not your fucking buddy, buddy.’
‘Ooooh, touchy.’
Carter licked at his lips and guided the Comanche low, no particular destination in mind, just needing to fly, to run, to flee, to get away from the Nex and the horror they represented, the death they represented ...
What to do now? he thought. Carter sighed out loud. I’m tired, so tired. Tired of everything.
‘And so we need to think; to plan. Contact Jam - he can help you, Carter; he can kick you out of this brain-fuck childish melancholy - hah, just because the bitch is dead. You need to become strong again, Carter. Jam will help you do that!’
Carter pulled free the ECube. In the insect-head-like HIDSS, a dark visor surveyed the soft blue digits. He scrolled and punched in Jam’s descramble code and waited. The ECube rattled in his hand.
‘Carter?’
‘Jam - I’m in a world of shit!’
‘Carter - you remember our motto?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Remember it.’
The ECube died.
Carter smiled grimly. Remember the Kamus.
Carter thought back.
Kamus-5.
And it sent a cold chill through his soul.
He chewed his lip for a moment.
‘Fuck, I need a cigarette.’
Natasha.
He remembered her pretty face.
A little part of his soul said: No.
But he knew; deep down. They had her; there was no escaping. No fucking escaping.
‘Now isn’t the time to roll over and die,’ snapped Kade.
‘Why not?’ said Carter gently.
‘Because you’re stronger than that. Because we can get through this; all we need is time and a little brotherly solidarity - man, we can work together now that bitch is gone. We can be strong again.’