by James Tarr
“No time like the fucking present,” George growled at him.
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Harris said. “Backblast!” he called out, running into the apartment he’d just vacated. As Harris shouldered the rocket launcher Sarah looked past him through the open doorway. She saw the main gun of the Toad traversing once again, seemingly swinging over to point directly at them.
“Displace!” she screamed, running left, away from the men and around the corner. Ed and George had just turned to run in the opposite direction when the BANGWHOOSH of Harris’s Spike roasted the drywall and filled the air with fresh particles, the sound followed almost immediately by a huge explosion that tossed them to the floor and covered them with debris.
“You can see the difference between the up-armored and the regular Growlers,” Mark told Jason as they waited for the signal, crouched in the dim apartment. He pointed out the windows, the two of them keeping back from the glass and being very careful to stay down and move slowly. The last thing they needed was to get spotted by the Tab forces not quite two hundred yards away.
“Yeah,” Jason said, squinting. The windows on the up-armored Growlers looked like glass boxes clamped to the doors.
“Looks like about half those Growlers aren’t armored,” Mark said. “When the shooting starts you hammer them,” he told the teenager. “As fast as you can, put rounds into the passenger compartment, front seat, back seat, whatever, they’re probably full of troops. Once the action starts the vehicles might take off, or the soldiers may bail out of the vehicles. You shoot, and you just keep shooting,” Mark told him. “How many magazines do you have?”
“Six here,” Jason said, gesturing at his at the mag pouches across his chest, “and at least as many in my pack. Plus the one in the gun.”
Mark nodded approvingly. “Well you just keep shooting until I tell you otherwise, or there’s nothing left to shoot at.”
“What are you going to do about the armored Growlers?”
“The passenger compartments are armored. And the underside, against bombs. But there’s no armor on the sides or front of the engine compartment, and the tires are just tires. They used to be fitted with run-flat tires at the start of the war, but we trashed all of those. You’ve got to park that thing sometime, right? Well, you pour gas on ‘em, run-flats burn just as well as regular tires. Now, maybe only one in four tires on a Growler has that run-flat insert. So I can’t kill the guys in them…but I'm going to kill the shit out of the vehicles.”
When the lady Sergeant fired the first rocket Jason heard the noise more behind him echoing down the hall then he did outside through the glass. Almost immediately Mark began firing his belt-fed SAW, the gun set up on a counter in the middle of the studio apartment. Jason fired a few times, but the red dot of his optic was bouncing around so much he didn’t think he was hitting anything. He backed up to the open doorway of the apartment and braced his left forearm against the door frame. That steadied him greatly and he was able to direct his fire much more accurately at the Growlers on the far side of the freeway.
Between his carbine and Mark’s belt-fed the noise was incredible. He couldn’t tell if his rounds were having any effect at first. He fired about a dozen times at one Growler turned broadside to his position, peppering the front and rear side door windows with bullets. He then swung over two vehicles, to the next unarmored Growler, and began putting rounds through its windshield. Compared to his Marlin lever action the military carbine barely had any recoil. He saw movement inside the vehicle and it started to roll. He directed his fire more carefully toward the driver as the Growler accelerated north up the southbound service drive. His bolt locked back on an empty magazine but the vehicle continued north, still accelerating.
Jason heard an explosion and felt the floor shake under him. When he got a fresh magazine inserted and closed the bolt he looked over to see the hallway filled with people. Then he realized someone had shouted “Displace” over the sound of Mark’s SAW, but it wasn’t until afterward that the words registered on his brain. There was another explosion, this one much closer, and the entire apartment rumbled around them and the hallway was filled with clattering debris.
Set up in the northwest corner apartment Renny fired and worked the bolt. He knew he’d broken the trigger cleanly but he didn't know what kind of deflection the window glass would cause to the bullet, if any. As soon as he worked the bolt he was back focused through his scope, looking at the IMP’s roof gunner. The man was still there and just starting to fire the big fifty-caliber machine gun atop the armored personnel carrier. Renny unfocused his vision enough around his rifle scope to see that the big Hornady bullet had blown a foot-wide hole through both panes of the double window, so he no longer had to worry about glass deflection, at least in that direction.
He settled back behind the gun, got the crosshairs steady on the gunner’s neck, and pulled the trigger once again. He worked the bolt smoothly and was back on the gun almost before it was done recoiling. He saw the soldier was now slumped over the big machine gun, bright red blood everywhere.
Renny swung his rifle over to the first unarmored Growler he saw. The vehicle was facing him but at an angle. Renny fired and the remainder of the window glass in front of him blasted away. Through the scope he saw the window glass had deflected his bullet and it had hit two feet to the left near the edge of the Growler’s windshield. He was back on target in an instant, tried to quiet his body, and stroked the trigger. The big gun bucked and a white spot appeared in the glass right in front of the Growler’s driver.
Renny worked the bolt and swung back to the IMP. There was a Tab atop it trying to wrestle the body of his fallen comrade out from behind the fifty cal. Renny’s shot took him below his armor through his hips and the man fell back atop the big vehicle screaming.
Renny pulled the bolt to the rear, dropped his spent magazine, and grabbed a fresh one. It was only then that he became aware of all of the incoming fire. Tabs had bailed out of the other IMP and several of the Growlers and were firing in his direction. Then there was a massive explosion nearby and shouts to displace. He recognized Ed’s voice.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ed struggled to his hands and knees, hearing the chatter of Mark’s SAW as the man fired short controlled bursts from the nearby apartment. The other members of his squad were firing rapid semi-auto shots, and the noise was tremendous. He looked over his shoulder through the debris-laden air. The apartment where Harris had been standing when he fired the Spike was simply gone.
Even though he knew he should have gotten the hell out of there Ed grabbed his binoculars and quickly scanned the distant intersection. Harris must have hit his mark because the tank which had fired at them was slowly rolling off at an angle. Not only wasn’t the presumed commander visible in the open hatch, both he and the machine gun he’d been firing were simply…gone. The open hatch was both blackened and spattered with something gooey. Ed suppressed a shudder. Both tanks seemed to be out of commission and one of the IMPs was very visibly damaged. The other had two bodies draped over the roof gun. The Growlers were being soundly chewed up by small arms fire. A few seem to be disabled and several had their windows shot out; the remainder were scrambling, some racing north and some south. It seemed the perfect time to get the hell out of Dodge before the enemy regrouped.
“Toads down, IMPs down, let’s get the fuck out of here!” Ed shouted, glancing once more at the gaping wound in the face of the building where an apartment used to be. He saw dark speckles on the walls that might have been Harris. “Go go go!” he yelled down the hall where he could see Early and Sarah. She’d run halfway down the building to get away from the incoming Toad shell. “Grab Quentin,” he shouted at Early and the man gave him a thumbs up. “Let’s go,” Ed told George and Weasel and they ran down the hallway.
Ed saw Jason, braced against the doorway for shooting but looking their direction. Ed grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him down the hallway. “We’re leaving,”
he told the young man. Then he looked into the apartment. “Let’s get while the getting’s good,” he shouted to Mark.
“I heard that.”
George ran to the last apartment. “Time to move,” he told Renny.
The men pounded down the northwest stairwell, guns up, but reached the ground floor without incident. Right outside the stairwell entrance on the north side of the building was a Growler. Weasel checked it—not only were the doors open, but the keys were in the vehicle.
“Can we all fit in?” Ed asked. Just then they all heard a sound, and looked up.
“Motherfucker,” Weasel spat.
“Mark, on me!” George shouted. The grizzled veteran pointed at the remainder of the squad, his face stony. “You stay here.” Then he took off at a run, Mark on his heels.
Early and Sarah ran to Quentin and they went down the stairwell together. Quentin was in the lead, bouncing down the dimly-lit stairs, and as he came around a corner a soldier in camouflage fatigues popped out of the third-floor door and fired a burst at nearly point-blank range. Quentin went down with a yell.
Early, coming around the corner right behind him, fired four rounds from the hip and the soldier flipped backwards through the doorway, his face suddenly gone.
“Oh no, no, no,” Early said, kneeling down beside Quentin. Sarah knelt on the other side of them.
“I’m okay, I’m okay,” Quentin said wheezing, but the spreading red on the concrete floor underneath him told a different story. His skin already looked ashy from blood loss.
“Let’s go, let’s get him up,” Early said, and started to lift him.
Sarah stopped him. “No, I’ve got to bandage this here,” she said, and her tone stopped Early. He held Quentin’s quivering hand as she pulled out a packet of gauze and fought to pack his wound under his armor plates and webgear. The bullet had gone in at an angle by his left shoulder, just missing the edge of his armor. She checked, but there was no exit wound. She grabbed a compress and pressed it down over the packed wound, which was still bleeding heavily.
“Do what you can, darlin’, but we’ve got to move,” Early said softly.
“Leave me,” Quentin said through gritted teeth.
“You shut up, you,” Early told him.
Sarah realized there wasn’t much more she could do, not in a dim stairwell. His body armor would help hold the compress in place, and that would have to do. Together she and Early dragged Quentin to his feet and started moving down the stairs once again, holding the wounded man up by his shoulders. They reached the ground floor and roughly shoved through the exterior door, looking around wildly. They saw a Growler by the far corner of the building and the other members of the squad were between it and the building. Early saw the Growler’s door was open and just from the body language of the men by it, the men he'd fought alongside for so many years, he knew that it was drivable.
“This way,” he told Sarah. “Wounded get to ride in luxury.” They were halfway to the vehicle, struggling to hold up Quentin who seemed to be fading fast, when Early saw his squadmates scatter, most heading back inside. A familiar sound echoed off the parking lot asphalt. He traded a frowning glance with Sarah.
“Kestrel,” she grunted unhappily.
“What happened?” Weasel asked from behind the wheel of the Growler as they arrived.
“He fucking got shot,” Sarah snapped at him.
“Well, get him in the back,” Weasel said, not perturbed at all by being yelled at. He looked out the windshield. There were slopes on both sides of the freeway from the service drives down to the freeway itself and they were wildly overgrown with grass, shrubs, and trees. At ground level the far service drive, and the Tab vehicles there, weren’t visible at all. Which meant the Tabs couldn’t see the Growler he was sitting in, although Weasel was well aware of their drone above his head. He spotted the Kestrel to the west, doing a loop high above the damaged Toads and IMPs. He was torn between driving away—where he’d be sure to be targeted by the helicopter—and running back into the building, cornered once again. A glance at the door showed him the rest of his squad hunkered down in the stairwell, Ed looking as indecisive as he felt.
The interior of the police station smelled like a mildewy barbecue pit. The fire which had roared through it at some point in the past had seriously damaged the building. Most of the interior seem to be shades of grey.
“Where the fuck are the stairs?” Ed said, looking around.
“Over there,” Mark said, pointing.
As they reached the third floor the noise of the Kestrel was briefly loud above them as it made a pass right over the building. As they reached an office on the west side of the former police precinct they saw the Kestrel hovering five hundred feet above the damaged Tab column. It rotated in their direction and immediately fired two rockets. Both men threw themselves to the floor as the rockets headed straight toward them.
The rockets passed over the police station and exploded against the sixth floor of the apartment building they’d just vacated. The Kestrel wasn’t hovering in one place, the pilot didn’t want to make a target of himself or his aircraft, it was moving back and forth, side to side, and doing small circles, almost like an impatient man pacing.
Both men on their knees, Mark looked at George, and then down at the grenade launcher in his hands. “You really think you can hit that bird with that?” he said dubiously.
“I’ve got to try,” George responded. He looked out and saw the far service drive was busy with activity now that the Tabs had air cover. Bodies were being pulled out of vehicles, and the wounded were being treated and placed into the back of one IMP. Several Growlers had laagered up around it.
There was a huge roar like a giant zipper and both men looked to see the Kestrel firing its mini-gun. The thirty-caliber bullets chewed up the apartment building behind them at fifty rounds a second. Every fifth round was a tracer so it looked as if there was a laser beam extending from the helicopter over their heads.
“I wish it was closer,” George admitted.
“I don’t,” Mark shot back.
“I mean so I can hit it,” George growled. He wondered if there was some way to sucker the helicopter in closer to them, but this pilot seemed a bit too cautious for that, he was hammering the apartment building from hundreds of yards away, at least five hundred feet in the air, while keeping the bird more or less constantly moving.
The men didn't know it but what they were looking at was the only functioning Kestrel left in the city, all the others had been successfully destroyed, and the pilot had no wish for his aircraft to join the disabled list.
“Do you have a full belt in there?” George asked.
Mark shook his head. “No, but I can swap it out.” And he proceeded to do just that. “What’s the plan?”
“The plan is none of us are getting away from here alive while that bird’s still in the air. I know it’s hardened against small arms fire but between the four grenades I’ve got and a full two-hundred-round belt from you I’m hoping we can scare it away or damage it enough to put it on the ground. But the longer we take to do it,” he said, pointing out at the Tab’s ground forces, “the better chance they’ll have of getting their act together and coming over here and kicking our ass.”
George grabbed his radio. “Theodore, give us one minute, we’re going to try to down the bird.”
“Copy,” Ed responded.
George stared out at the bobbing and weaving helicopter as Mark fed the SAW a fresh belt. Any one of the four grenades in his launcher was more than powerful enough to down the bird…if he could just hit it. The problem was the rounds were relatively slow, at least compared to bullets, and had very curving trajectories. Hitting a moving target whose distance could only be guessed at would be hard as hell, maybe as much a matter of luck as skill. He eyed the maneuvering aircraft. While it never stopped moving, the pilot seemed to be swooping back and forth in the same pattern. He squinted and tried to do the math in his hea
d—the Kestrel was roughly five hundred feet in the air and maybe two hundred yards out, so what would be the distance to it? After a moment of indecision he adjusted the optic on his grenade launcher for 275 yards. And the flight time would be two, maybe even three seconds. How far would the helicopter move in that amount of time?
“We don’t down it fast, it’s going to eat our lunch,” Mark warned. There was a loud metal slap. “I’m good to go.” He was set up on an overturned desk.
George looked at the big man beside him in his shorts and glorious middle-finger-to-fashion Hawaiian shirt and gave him a nod and a smile. “Then go fast, and don’t suck.” He took a deep breath. “On my go. Burn out that fucking barrel. And don’t forget to lead that bird.” He suddenly looked around, and scrambled backward to a second desk. On his knees behind it he braced the elbow of his support hand atop the desk and aimed out the empty window frame. Much steadier. Still, the distant helicopter looked small as a sparrow.
George picked a spot in the air, took up most of the weight in the trigger, and waited for the right moment. When it came he broke the trigger and the stubby grenade launcher bucked in his hands. Mark let loose with the SAW, the full-auto roar deafening in the small room. George didn’t wait, he found his spot and fired again, and again, and again, while Mark never let up off the trigger.
As he dropped the launcher from his shoulder it seemed to George that he could see his last two grenades arcing through the air, they were so slow, rising up, then dropping toward the distant helicopter. The first two had clearly already missed, and the third one dropped through the air fifty feet from the Kestrel, which abruptly jerked as the pilot reacted to Mark’s incoming fire. The helicopter slid sideways through the air…right into the last grenade, which exploded against the side of the fuselage with a huge flash. The bird went spinning sideways, trailing a thick cloud of smoke, and went down in the middle of the Lodge freeway.