Hase let go of Helmut’s hands and wiggled his shoulders free, then after a little more work, he was able to pull the rest of his body free. Helmut had brought his rifle up again and was turned away from the hole, covering the area around them. Heaven scoped them and could see that Hase was ok and went back to covering his area. He then came up with an idea and looked up at the hill’s top. He got Helmut’s attention and hand signaled his intentions. Helmut relayed the message to Hase, and then signaled back their understanding. After Heaven received their message, he turned and rushed up the small rise.
When he reached the summit he stopped and went down to one knee, brought his rifle up and scanned the base of the hill. At first, what he saw brought his hopes up. The scene looked good for their side. Most of the Ridder convoy was on fire and many of their troops seemed to be down. But when he raised his scope and looked out to the northern horizon, his blood turned cold. First, he saw a line of low flying A 10 Warthog ground attack fighters headed their way and secondly, coming into the valley, led by five M-1 Abrahams tanks, was a larger, more dangerous convoy. Heaven reached down and changed the channel on his radio to the command channel.
“Dan, this is Heaven come in. Over,” he shouted into his throat mike.
“Heaven, I can barely hear you. We are dealing with some issues of our own right now. Over,” he shouted over what sounded like the chattering of automatic machine gun fire.
Heaven smiled over Dan’s response. He surely was becoming a leader. “Understood, Dan, but the problems we face just got all new kinds of bad. Enemy air cover just showed up and a new convoy led by tanks and uninvited guests are coming to the party. Over.”
Heaven made a sour face when he heard a string of curse words that sounded odd, coming from Dan. “Where do you want us Dan? Over,” he broke in on the ranting.
There was a pregnant pause as Heaven waited for a response. “Not much you can do right now. Hunker down and observe. Last ETA for the AC 130 was twenty minutes, so we need to hold out at least that long. Over.”
“Roger, we will observe and report. For now, we are going to move our little party from our current position. Over,” Heaven reported in.
“Gotcha, see you on the flip-side, Heaven. Keep your head down. Coffee is on you, if we survive. Over and out.”
Heaven actually had a surprise in his pack down in the facility. He had found some nice vacuumed coffee somewhere along the line, and thought he and Dan could sit back on some early morning and enjoy their favorite life-giving juice. Heaven carefully moved off of his hilltop and made his way back to where he had left Hase and Helmut, finding them hunkered down near the top of the ramp. He relayed the sight he had seen from his hilltop and the orders from Dan. Just then the Warthogs flew over their position, and Helmut silently agreed with a description of the powerful planes. He read in a book somewhere that the enemy referred to the planes as the Devil’s Cross, due to its shape when seen from below. A set of objects fell from their wings, as well as large tongues of flames leaping out of their noses, reaching to the facility.
The objects that fell, tumbled downward until they hit the opposite side of the ramp that Hase, Helmut, and Heaven were currently guarding, exploding in a bright white, rocking the hill top and throwing rocks and debris into the air. Heaven hadn’t hesitated, he had grabbed Hase by his bicep and shoved him back into his hole, then he had thrown Helmut on top. Next, Heaven had covered the two with his own body, making sure to keep his neck covered with his gloved hands. The entire ground around them heaved upward and then rocked back down. They were showered in debris, and buried under a small avalanche of the hillside as it let loose from the explosions.
Chapter 8
Brian, was sure they would be overrun any minute now. He shouldered his rifle and moved toward the door using small precise steps. He turned and met Dan’s eyes and read the tension there. Brian smiled and threw him a smile and a thumbs up. When he reached the door, he put his body behind the frame to hide his silhouette. He quickly popped his head around the corner and memorized as much as he could see, then brought his head back in and dropped to his knees. In case someone had seen him and was targeting where his head had just been, he slid back quickly and then duck-walked back to the formation. Brian crept up to Dan and Kuppers. “Looks like Harry, Howser and Hunter are engaging the mortars and the convoy. As of now we can rest, but it won’t be a long one. The Ridder forces we pushed back are preparing for another run at us.”
Kuppers rubbed at his face with his left hand and looked toward the door. “Alright, we have two options. One, we move up and fortify our position near the door. Two, we move back further toward the stairs and prepare to pull back into the main facility. What do you guys think?”
They swiveled their heads toward Dan. But he didn’t seem to have an answer for them. Brian’s face hardened as he thought about their options. “I don’t like either. But the Ridder forces out there are not going to make the same mistake twice. I expect they are going to toss in some pretty nasty stuff and then pour as much fire as they can in here, before rushing in and destroying us. I say we move back toward the stairs. That way, we can move deeper inside and button up the facility.”
“I agree,” Kuppers growled. He looked toward the door outside and then back down the hall. “All right Brian, get these men and women moving. Dan and I will stay here to cover your withdrawal.”
Brian wasted no time and led the defensive force down the hallway and toward the stairway. Kuppers looked toward Dan and signaled for him to move out. As Dan was about to get to his feet so he could move down the hallway, the room rocked from an explosion and the pressure from it rolled Dan across the floor and knocked him into a wall, expelling all of the air from his lungs. Kuppers, who had been closer to the entrance jumped over a table and kicked it onto its side. He was rolled across the floor and into a chair, smashing his face against it and breaking his nose. He shook his head groaning and looked down at the ground, watching the blood pool into a small puddle. He reached up and explored his face, finding his broken nose when his fingers slid across the crooked nub. He reached into his pack removed a pad of gauze and wrapped it around his nose. He knew what he had to do, but wasn’t excited about it. Using his thumb and pointer finger, he grabbed his nose and forced it back into its proper position and pinched hard, trying to get the blood to slow down. He was wasting time and he knew it, but if he couldn’t breathe, he wasn’t going to be able to move fast enough to get down the hallway and link up with his squad.
He looked around the table and found Dan curled up in a ball, unmoving. Kuppers leapt over the table and at a dead run, reached down and grabbed Dan’s handle at the back of his armor, pulling him on his back down the hallway. The walls around them seemed to come alive with hornets buzzing and striking into the walls. Kuppers knew they weren’t wasps, they were rounds being fired at them from the entrance. Instead of hunching down and firing back, he opened his stride up and pulled with all of his strength till they reached the doors to the stairway. The Sasquatch, Brian, was there in a flash manhandling Dan into his arms. Kuppers let go and brought his weapon to bear, waiting for Ridder to come around the corner.
Brian stood Dan up and after a quick check over, figured Dan had just had the breath knocked out of him and his bell rung from the explosion. Brian propped him against a wall, so he could gain his breath, and forced Dan’s rifle into his hands. He slid over to Kuppers’ side and waved two more men up to stand with them. The two new-comers took knees slightly to Brian and Kuppers’ right, covering Dan as he slowly regained his breath and stopped seeing double. All five held their ground as the rest of the squad moved into the stairway. Brian, like the soldier he’d always been, stood stock still, using his eyes to scan the hallway for shadows or movement. He strained to hear Ridder, but all was silent and the rounds had stopped firing into the facility. Deep down, he knew the silence wouldn’t last. He felt rather then saw Dan step up beside him.
“You feeling better Bo
ss?” Brian asked through the side of his mouth, trying not to make too much noise.
“Head hurts but I am alive. What’s going on?” he asked in a soft voice.
“They hit us with a rocket I think, or a couple of them. The concussive blast kicked you guys like a temperamental Giant. Kuppers dragged you down the hallway and back to us. I think we are about to get over-run any second. Be ready to retreat downstairs,” Brian informed.
A small ball rolled around the bend in the hallway and came to a stop against Kuppers steel-toed boot. He didn’t hesitate and kicked it, like he was playing for Manchester United and they were in the playoffs. The ball hit the corner of the hallway and disappeared around the corner. The light and sound was tremendous even to them as they were sheltered by the hallway. Brian and Kuppers didn’t wait and took off running toward the enemy. As they rounded the corner their rifles opened up. Dan motioned for the other two to stay and rounded the corner to help Brian as his radio went off. Heaven was warning him of something. But he was so busy firing on the thirty men in the hallway, he didn’t have time to fully understand all being said. Dan shouted back he was busy, and then when Heaven came back he understood more. He grabbed Brian’s arm and pulled slightly. Brian looked back and gave him a look asking ‘what’s up?’.
Dan screamed Warthogs up at Brian. To his credit, Brian grabbed Kuppers off of his feet and took off running, with Dan covering them and walking backwards. When around the corner, Brian pointed to the stairs and the other two men left behind started running down. Brian tossed Kuppers at the stairs and just had to hope he would land on his feet. The building rocked and Brian picked Dan up, held him like a football and dove for the stairs. They tumbled down the first set rolling over and over and landed hard onto the landing. Brian, again with his fast thinking, wrapped his arms tighter around Dan and rolled them both down the next set of steps, just as the building started to fall down on itself. Metal, dirt, and stone fell onto the landing stairway and hallway, quickly burying the stairway under tons of debris.
Chapter 9
High overhead the facility, a C-130 flew into the area, but this was no normal looking cargo plane, this C-130 had a bite to it, armed with a single 25 mm GAU-12 Equalizer, which is a five-barrel rotary gun that can spew out 4000 rounds a minute. A Bofors 40 mm autocannon, which fired its 40×364 mm rounds at a shocking 300 rounds per minute. Last but most powerful, it carried a 105 mm M102 cannon, which could lob its thirty-three-pound shell to a distance of seven miles. It could rain metal death down on a convoy or dug in troops. Three small sleek looking jet fighters known as F-16 Eagles kept a protective ring around the flying monster, making sure that if any other fighter tried to enter the battle, it would be handled quickly and effectively. General Richards was not leaving anything to chance. He had only three of these aircraft and so, he ordered a flight of four F-22 Raptors out of a base in southern Nevada to fly north, and back up the F-16s if needed. At this moment, they flew lazy circles in the air a hundred miles south of the facility.
Captain Ricky Fleet of the Queen’s Royal Air Force, happened to be in America during the fall, training on the AC-130, his air wing was stationed at Lakenheath near Suffolk, in England. Sitting left seat in the cockpit and tilting over on his left wing, he sought to get a better view of the battle being waged on the ground beneath him. He brought the plane back level and set his course to bring them back around for their first shot. He looked over to his copilot. She had her head down making notes on a checklist she had on her thigh. She was on loan from the Romanian Air Force. Lieutenant Alina Lonescu was also training on the same aircraft. They had been given this mission the night before. The AC-130 that had originally been tasked for this mission had mechanical problems and could not continue the mission. So Ricky and Alina’s bird had been called up for action. Their aircraft was not as sophisticated as the first, but their maintenance crew and weapons crew had worked all night to prepare for this flight.
Two last minute crew changes had been made minutes before take-off, the original fire control officer and loadmaster for the M102 cannon were deemed too sick to fly and were replaced with a new loadmaster, Technical Sergeant Randy Lanier and as for a new fire control officer, they’d scrounged up an old grizzled trainer Lieutenant Michael Allen, or as most of the men called him, M.C. The rest of the crew tried to ignore the fact that they had new people, but then again they were used to the military making changes. Their pilot and copilot were not even their own countrymen. They kept their heads down and did their job, though. The avionics and weapon systems were so easy to use they could track almost all combatants on the ground. M.C worked on classifying his targets and marking them, he had to designate which weapons platform to use on which targets.
“Captain, we are ready back here, targets are loaded in the system and marked. Whenever you are ready, release is a go. Over.” M.C. called over the plane’s intercom.
The Captain enjoyed flying this plane. Even though it was slow, he could maneuver this thing like it was a kite. He looked over to Alina again. “Lonescu, everything good to go?” he called over across cockpit.
She rolled her neck around her shoulders and cracked her knuckles. “Whenever you are ready Captain, we are good to go.” Her accent was thick, but she had worked so hard at her English, that Ricky had no problems understanding her.
Before he concentrated on the job at hand, Ricky took that moment to lock eyes with Alina. They’d, had an intense but short affair while working together. He had grown in love with her, but through a mutual agreement, they’d promised that while working, they would keep their relationship in the background, and stay professional. She sighed and looked deeply into his eyes and reached over with her left hand and squeezed his right bicep.
“Okay my love. Let us do our job. Those men and women down there need us. Afterwards, we can discuss this,” she said.
He gave her that killer smile that made her knees go weak, and then concentrated on the mission at hand. They worked in tandem, bringing the plane up onto its left pylon. She radioed back to the crew, giving Ricky the ability to fly the plane with no distractions.
“Crew, you have weapons release. Give our friends some help down there. Over,” she called out.
M.C. gave his wicked little smile and imagined the damage he was about to deliver. He positioned his first shot from the M102 on one of the tanks in the convoy. “Shot out!” he called out to the crew, and pulled the trigger on his joystick. Within seconds, his video screen showed the hit in stunning detail. After the debris finished falling to the ground, M.C. could not even determine it had been a tank anymore. He lined up his next shot as the rest of the crew let loose with their own deadly fire. The other teams could fire much longer and affect more of a designated area, but the M-102 could only fire three shots a minute, but when it did, it could utterly destroy anything it targeted. M.C. continued to target the tanks and then moved on, looking for more armored vehicles.
On the ground the AC-130’s fire was devastating. It chewed up the ground and destroyed the vehicles easily. Captain Fleet kept the plane on its left side and flew in a slow, large circle, giving the crew in the back time to target and destroy the convoy and enemy troops on the ground. He witnessed a flash out of the corner of his eye and watched as a smoke trail appeared coming at them. Ricky, flipped the plane back level and pushed his throttles up.
“Incoming SAM, crew prepare for impact,” he shouted into his headset.
Alina reached over and hit the flare chaff release. Behind the AC-130, bright burning flares, that imitated individual suns, burst out of the rear and sides of the aircraft, trying to attract the SAM away from the aircraft. Alina helped Ricky pull up and out of the course they had been sitting on. They gained altitude slowly and worked hard to keep from stalling, and falling from the sky.
One of the F-16 pilots saw the SAM and broke formation, arming his cluster bombs on his wings and switching to a ground attack mode. Once lined up, he activated his cannon and hopefull
y, scaring the men on the ground, keeping them from pointing that SAM at him. When his HUD showed him his target, he flipped the release switch and could feel the three bombs fall from his wings. His plane, now lighter without the bombs’ weight, accelerated and rocketed up and away as the bombs found their target and exploded. They released smaller bombs which peppered the ground exploding themselves and destroying anything within thirty yards of the blast. When he pulled up, he heard someone yell at him to snap to port. He did so and fed more power to his engine. A streak blew by his canopy and he was amazed. Someone else down there had had another SAM. He rocketed up and out of the area dumping fuel into his afterburners and accelerating fast out of the SAM range. The other two Eagles in his flight team stayed with the AC-130, afraid of an air attack.
With the AC-130 quiet and appearing to fly away Ridder regrouped quickly and rushed the facility. Knowing that if they got close to it, the deadly fire from above would go away, not wanting to hit their own people. The Eagle that had been fired upon, rocketed around the valley, trying to draw fire and find other portable SAM launchers. But with the speed he was flying, the ground seemed like a blur, and if he popped his speed brakes to slow down, he would make an easy target. No other SAMs reached out to him so he pulled upward and called for one of the other Eagles to drop their cluster bombs on the rushing troops and vehicles, before they could reach the facility. He found the AC-130 and joined in on formation as one of the others peeled away, dropping toward the valley floor.
Zombie Theorem (Book 3): The End Game Page 23