Unto The Breach-ARC

by John Ringo

  "Chief, I'm done taking fire and not being able to do anything about it," Kacey snarled.

  D'Allaird, watching the two women carry Gretchen over to the line of bodies by the hangar, nodded.

  "Got just what you need, boss," he said, gesturing to the hangar. "She's tanked and armed. And it's got the 'special' package on it."

  "I'm taking it straight to those fuckers in Guerrmo," Kacey snapped, heading for the hangar.

  "Fuck yeah," Tammie said, starting to follow her to the bird.

  "Alone," Kacey said, holding out a hand. "Chief, load up this bird. The Keldara are getting hammered out there. Tammie, head back as soon as the bird is loaded. Do the drop, do the dust-off. But I'm going this one alone."

  "Kacey, the front position is designed for a gunner," Tammie protested. "Why do you get all the fun?"

  "We've got wounded to pull out and ammo to deliver," Kacey said. "Both birds, captain. Chief, get Valkyrie One in the air. Fast. In the meantime, I'm going to go deliver a message to the Chechens."

  The wounded had been cross-loaded to the Blackhawk which was already in the air. Most of the Keldara in the area, therefore, stopped what they were doing as Tammie and D'Allaird started tugging back the doors to the hangar. Everyone, of course, knew that the other Hind had been armed, and painted. But this was the first time that most of them had seen it.

  As the two Americans pushed the Hind into view the Keldara started clapping and hollering. About half the women present ran forward to help push.

  D'Allaird had been a busy man. Not only were the pylons of the Hind now loaded with two gatling guns and two 57mm rocket launchers, but the front of the bird had been painted in a snarling dragon head. To either side, tusks on the flaming dragon, were two more fixed gatling guns for a total of four of the brutal weapons. Kacey already had the engines warming and as soon as the tail was clear of the hangar bay she started up the rotors.

  "Tiger Base, this is Helo Two, designation Dragon One," Kacey said, plugging in the route she planned to follow on the terrain avoidance system. "Mission change. Combat op to clear defenses along the Guerrmo Pass route."

  There was a pause then Nielson's voice came back over the radio.

  "Keldara Two: Confirm. Good hunting, Dragon One."

  "I'm going to bring them the word of God, Tiger Base," Kacey replied. "These fuckers are going to face the flame."

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  "If we don't get the go word, I swear to God I'm going to make a boo-boo and initiate on my own," J.P. said. "The Hind got seriously dinged on that last flight."

  "I know, sir," First Sergeant Kwan replied. "But until we get the okay..."

  "I do not fucking care," Guerrin said. "DC is playing fucking political games while the Keldara are getting slaughtered over there."

  It was great weather for Rangers and ducks. The rain was pouring down, the wind was howling and it was cold as hell. Black, too. The night was like being inside the gullet of a snake. For a few minutes it there had been some clearing and he got a glimpse of dawn light. Now it was black again. If they got the order to move he could take out those bunkers in no more than thirty minutes. He had the plan in place. All he needed was the go order.

  The distant firing, while muted by the distance and the mountains, was clear. Just the fact that they could hear it was amazing; it meant there was one fuck of a lot of firing going on. What was happening on the other side of the pass wasn't a firefight, it was a fucking battle. According to their latest intel update the Chechens were throwing everyone they had in the area, and even drawing back forces that had been in contact with the Russians, in a bid to destroy the Keldara.

  "Sir, if we move, your career is toast," Kwan pointed out. "And so is mine for not stopping you. We're also out-numbered and out-gunned. So please don't go running right into the fucking bunkers, okay?"

  "I won't, First Sergeant," J.P. replied. "But we are going to have to do..." He paused and cocked his head. "Okay, who in the fuck is playing their iPod too loud?"

  "I dunno," Kwan said. "I hear it, too..." The music was Spanish flamenco guitar, carried on the wind. He wasn't sure what direction it was coming from. Then he realized, just as the tune changed, that it was getting closer. "That's not an..."

  "Holy fuck," Guerrin said as the tune changed to screaming heavy metal guitar. And it was getting louder. Much much louder.

  "Sir!" Serris yelled. "What is that?"

  "Music, Serris," Guerrin replied, sarcastically.

  "I know that, sir," Serris said. "Where's it coming from!" the last was screamed as the guitars and drums muted for a singer entered screaming something about "riding to the fight."

  "That's a..." Kwan started to yell as finally, overwhelmed by the screaming guitars, the "whop-whop" of helicopter blades could be heard.

  The Hind was nearly invisible in the blackness of the night but it was easy enough to follow as the deafening music pealed across the valley. And it was low, the Rangers were pelted by branches thrown from the trees in its rotor wash as it banked up the ridgeline and crested with its belly brushing the treetops.

  Guerrin ducked unnecessarily and then started laughing.

  "I think that Miss Kacey got tired of being shot at," Guerrin yelled. "This I gotta see!"

  * * *

  Kacey keyed the music as she entered the final valley before the pass. The Rangers were occupying the upper portion of the valley and she intended to cross their position as a final checkpoint. That position, at the least, was secure.

  She reached down and cranked the volume all the way up. The speakers were special designs, flush mounted, and enormously powerful. The thunder of the drums rattled her teeth but Islamics tended to hate Western music. Great. Let them hate it as she sent the fuckers to Allah.

  She banked up and to the side as the terrain warning system screamed at her she was too low. Too fucking bad. Low was good. She had at least six inches clearance, what more did the Czech piece of shit want?

  The positions of the bunkers were keyed in on her firing system and as soon as they came in sight the system D'Allaird had installed karated them in her heads up display.

  "Time to face the flame motherfuckers."

  * * *

  "Holy fuck," Serris whispered.

  The Hind had seemed to clip the ridge but as it crossed over them it dropped to skim the scrub between the ridge and the pass entrance. And spotlights on the front came on showing not only the paint job but the heavy ordnance on the bird. It was a deliberate taunt to the gunners in the bunkers, practically asking them to open fire.

  The Hind dropped down to practically ground level and flew straight down through the kill-zone of the three main bunkers as tracers started clawing towards it through the night. Most seemed to be missing but some were sparking off the front of the bird.

  The driver of the Hind, probably Captain Bathlick as the CO had said, didn't seem to give a shit that she was taking fire. She flew hey-diddle-diddle straight up the middle - actually slowing down as the gunners got the range - until the singer screamed something about "through the fire and flames." Then the Hind seemed to explode.

  Rockets began spewing out of both pods as the gatling guns opened fire, sending a quadruple line of tracers that looked like nothing so much as a laser into first one then another bunker.

  The bunkers were wide spaced but the Hind didn't have any problem with that. It was flying in the most bizarre manner Serris had ever seen. It would slide sideways through the air and engage one bunker then pivot at lightning speed and engage the other, pivot again and engage, pivot, engage, still maintaining an almost straight line up the middle of the defended pass. There wasn't any dilly-dallying with "walking the rounds into the position." The thing was just striking back and forth like a snake.

  As the Hind came opposite the interlocking bunkers, all three of which had stopped firing, it pivoted left then one hundred and eighty degrees to the right, flying flat sideways in what looked like an out of control spin, pas
t the second bunker and on to the third. But even though it looked out of control, as each bunker came into its fire cone the rockets and gatling rounds would flash out. It didn't do the maneuver just once but continued through spin after spin, a flaming top in mid-air. The helo looked like a dragon spinning on its axis and flaming in every direction at its enemies. It looked terrifying and glorious, war in all its horror and beauty. And it looked as if it was going to slam into a mountainside at any moment. The pilot had to be puking her guts out and blacking out from G forces.

  Once it was past the now smoking bunkers, though, it straightened out perfectly, went to full power, banked up and over in what was nearly a loop-de-loop and came back.

  There wasn't any fucking around, now. The bird came in from the rear and top, filling the air with rockets and machine-gun bullets. And whereas before it had been spinning in only two dimensions it now was rotating in mid-air, something he hadn't realized helicopters could do. And still hammering rounds into the bunkers.

  It reached the front of the pass again in what looked one hell of a lot like a flip, which just had to be impossible and hovered as the music screamed through the wind and the driving rain. Just...hovered as if waiting for something, as whoever the group doing the music was went through one long ass guitar solo and the Hind balanced against the gale, lights still on, in full view of the smoking and shattered bunkers.

  Finally, it got what it had been waiting for as sporadic fire started to pop up through the rain. But the bird waited, hung in the air, still, until it was clear at least two of the machineguns had, somehow, survived the attack. But the survivors had had to claw them out of the rubble of the bunkers to engage their tormentor. They were out in the open now.

  Suddenly the Hind pivoted in mid-air and swept back around over Serris' position. It circled up and up into the storm, engine red-lined and rotors screaming until even with the lights on it disappeared into the storm. But the screaming guitar was still booming over the gale.

  Then, as the singing started again, it lined up and dropped. Slowly at first then faster and faster it swept down like a bird of prey, like the dragon painted on its smoking brow. It came down like thunder out of the storm, right on top of the machine-gun positions, the only thing still firing the laser-like gatling guns, clawing across both of the guns, tearing the crews apart, ripping into the guns themselves, slaughtering everything and everyone in the area.

  The Hind pulled out in a hover, inches off the ground, and spun in place, fast, as the music crescendoed, laying down a flat fire, scouring the ground of not only the survivor gun crews but every stick every rock, smashing apart the very mountainsides in a tide-wave of fury and vengeance until all four of its guns were expended.

  Then it stopped.

  The music stopped, the lights turned off, the mountains and the rain muted the whop of the blades as the bird clawed its way back into the storm and disappeared. In moments the only sign it had been there were three smoking holes in the mountainside and the shredded remnants of bodies.

  "Holy fuck," Serris repeated. "Remind me never to get that lady pissed at me."

  * * *

  Kacey was trying very hard to not throw up. After seeing Gretchen there wasn't much left anyway.

  She didn't remember much about the last few minutes. The last thing she really clearly remembered was turning on the music. And she sort of vaguely recalled crossing the Ranger position, way too close to the top of the trees.

  She'd apparently expended all her bullets and rockets, used up a fuck load of gas and really stressed the engines; there were warning signs all over her dash. And she sort of recalled something that seemed a hell of a lot like a crash, the world spinning and flame and smoke all around her. But she was still flying.

  There was, however, one hell of a lot of lead in her armored windscreen. Quite a bit of it had gotten through, too. D'Allaird was going to be pissed.

  She really wished she could remember where she'd picked up all that lead.

  "Tiger Base, this is Dragon," she said wearily, watching her fuel state and caution lights carefully and flying well away from the ridges. "Return to base for bullets and gas. Tell the Chief I think this bird is going to require an overhaul as well."

  "Roger, Dragon One." The commo person was one of the Keldara girls by the accent. "Info request from Ranger One: What was the Band? Meaning of code unknown."

  "Uh..." Kacey frowned. "DragonForce, over."

  "Roger, Dragon One. Rangers report target destroyed. Precise words: Fucking vaporized. Tiger Two states: Well done, over."

  "Well ain't that some shit," Kacey muttered trying not to grin. The hell if she was going to let anyone know it was a fluke. "Understood. ETA two zero mikes. Dragon One out."

  Now if the poor bird would just keep flying.

  "Good girl," she murmured. "Good Dragon. Carry me home."

  * * *

  "We're getting ready to load the bird," Chief D'Allaird. "In the Corpse we'd want to take it down for a full rebuild. And you don't have a crewchief."

  "Yeah," Tammie said, looking around at the crowd of Keldara. There wasn't, currently, anything much to do. But it seemed like the whole tribe was gathered at the heliport. At least those that were still here, the women, the oldsters and the kids. Hell, most of the younger women seemed to be gone. Maybe they had been told to stay in the houses or something. "I guess I could ask for volunteers. Fuck of a thing to ask when you've just brought back a dead daughter: Who wants to be next?"

  She walked over to the group and looked around.

  "Uh, does anyone speak English?" she asked.

  "I do," one of the older men said. "I am Father Makanee. You need help."

  "I hate to ask," Tammie said, stepping closer and dropping her voice, "but... I need another crewchief. To replace...Gretchen. All they need to do is kick out the ammo. Oh, and a couple of other things with the casualties."

  "Pick," Father Makanee said, standing up straight. "I will go if you wish. But it should be one of the young ones, yes?" he added with a resigned sigh. "Someone, at least, with better eyesight than I still have. I can barely see you in truth."

  "I don't know," Tammie said. "I guess. But, I mean, after Gretchen..."

  "You think we fear?" Father Makanee said, his voice lowering and a slight smile playing on his lips. "That the Keldara are afraid of death? Afraid of sacrifice? Very well, I will ask."

  He turned from her and backed up so that he faced the whole crowd then said something in a loud voice. He was apparently explaining the situation. He paused and spat out another sentence.

  Apparently that was the call for volunteers. Every single hand went up. From kids that could barely walk to one old guy wearing a tiger skin that looked to be about a hundred.

  "What the fuck have I gotten myself into?" Tammie asked, quietly. "Are these people insane?"

  Apparently she'd spoken loudly enough for Father Makanee to hear. His eyes might not be the greatest but his hearing was apparently fine. He turned around and smiled.

  "Yes, Captain Wilson, we are insane," the old man said. "We are the Tigers of the Mountains and we have the insanity of the warrior. Don't you?"

  "Point," Tammie said. "Well, pick somebody and get her over to the bird. She needs to get briefed in and we don't have much time."

  * * *

  "Tiger One, Tiger One, this is Tiger Two."

  "Go," Mike said. Pavel was back in contact, Oleg was forward and so far things were going... okay. Not great by any stretch, but...okay.

  "Good news and bad news. The bunkers in the pass have been cleared. So the birds will be bringing in heavier loads. Bad news...look at your display."