by J. F. Holmes
Chapter 233
We flew steadily through the clouds, eight of us in two rows of four on either side of the aircraft. We all had full helmets on, oxygen going, and were less than one minute out from go. My heart was pounding in my chest; thankfully the flight so far had been smooth. The main parachute, a smaller reserve, in addition to my heavy thermal over wear and weapons bag, weighed close to a hundred pounds, and when the Jump Master told us to stand up, I had to grunt with effort. I turned and gave Brit a hand up. The back ramp came down, letting in a roaring dragon of thin, bitterly cold air.
Shuffling over towards the ramp, we formed in two lines, holding onto the side of the aircraft. MSG Berezuk held up two fingers. Twenty seconds. Then he dropped one. Ten seconds. I started an ungainly shuffle up to the spot where the ramp met the fuselage. Even as I did, hellishly bright light flared out beneath the aircraft and an ugly, wailing siren sound could be heard in the cabin. A split second flash, like a shutter bulb going off, accompanied by a loud BANG and the C-130 tilted crazily, spilling us all onto the floor. Berezuk fell off the ramp, dangling out in the air by his safety strap. I grabbed Brit and we all tumbled towards the edge of the ramp, clawing desperately for the open night sky. The plane shifted again with a howling roar from the remaining engines, and we were thrown out into the brightly lit clouds.
I spread my arms to stabilize my fall, taking a second to roll on my back, then facedown again. In that quick roll, I saw the plane plunging to the cloud deck, flames blazing out of the stump of a wing, still dispensing flares to ward off missiles. Berezuk hung out in the air from his tether, scrabbling to get back in, even as another missile detonated directly outside the fuselage. The entire plane exploded with a horrendous BOOM and a wash of heat, scattering flaming debris that disappeared into the clouds.
When I reached twelve, I pulled my ripcord, and tightened myself up against the shock I knew was coming. I looked up to see the dark grey shape of my main chute against the sky, checking for twisted risers and uninflated panels. Good to go. Then I looked around, to see who was with me, watching chutes on either side. I counted five, six, including me. I steered to fall in behind the lowest chute, who had become our de-facto leader, and we formed a column, drifting more forward than down in the bitter cold air.
The next thirty minutes passed like eternity as I wondered whether Brit was riding one of the chutes, or was dead on the ground. I couldn’t make out individual figures in the darkness, just the tiny blinking red strobe on the man at the bottom of our column. He would set the rate of descent and make course corrections, based on his GPS. After a while, the sweat that I had broken out in when the plane was hit started to grow chill, and my hands, encased in heavy gloves, started to freeze and cramp. I was grateful when, drifting lower and lower, the air started to warm up, and at ten thousand feet, I took off my helmet, breathing deeply. Another ten minutes, and the glow of city lights started to filter up through the clouds. We slipped left and right, aiming for our LZ, and the clouds grew wispier. Suddenly, the building roof that was our LZ loomed out of the darkness, and I was startled into full alertness.
The man in front of me hit the edge of the roof and immediately rolled, spilling the air from his chute. I hit the graveled roof with a hard THUMP, barely missing an air conditioning unit that we hadn’t seen on the satellite photos. The next man down kicked me in the head as he almost landed on top of me, and then the rest followed. I heard a muttered, “SHIT,” from the last parachutist, as he missed the far edge of the roof and went over the side.
The first person down had actually been Brit, owing to her lighter weight getting her thrown off the ramp first. The one who had gone over the edge of the building hung there silently, and we rushed to pull him back up. The soldier, an NCO named Gualaine, was dead, his head lolling back and forth on a broken neck. His teammates wrapped his body in his chute as we all shed our heavy thermal protection and donned Night Vision Goggles.
“Who are you missing?” I asked Millburn when he had done a head count. Just as I asked, one more chute came in out of the darkness and made a perfect landing in the center of the roof. Ziv struggled with the harness for a second, and then walked over to us. So that made us six, with one dead and one missing.
“Corporal O’Brien. Our SAW gunner.”
“Can’t be helped. Hopefully he’ll be waiting for you at the team room, pissed off he missed the fun. Let’s move out.”
We had picked this building because it was unlit, and probably unoccupied. The nearest rebel position was more than five hundred meters away, and our target building was a thousand meters past that. Beneath our coveralls, we all wore Air Force uniforms, except for Ziv, who had kept his motley mercenary camouflage. The plan was that once the diversionary attacks started, we could just walk up to the target building and confirm that the President was staying there.
Two of the Rangers set up a spotting scope and a Barrett .50 caliber sniper rifle, and started checking out targets between us and the objective, taking notes on a pad of the range to different landmarks and dialing the scope in based on the humidity and wind direction. The rest of us clambered down a rope ladder to the ground, but I took a second to give Brit a quick kiss. “Glad you came, beautiful.”
She kissed me back, whispered, “That’s what she said!” and disappeared down the ladder. I followed her, and the four of us, myself, Brit, Ziv and Staff Sergeant Millburn, attempted to walk as nonchalantly as we could towards the target building. Even as we started, alarms sounded and a low rumble of gunfire echoed from the north and east. Like everyone else on the base, we broke into a run.
Chapter 234
Sometimes, being obvious can be the best course of action. Were wore the same uniforms and carried the same weapons as the rebels, and there was mass confusion. In the best of times, traitors weren’t exactly made up of the most well trained troops, and the Air Force especially had suffered in the Apocalypse. They tended more towards technical people than fighting men, hence the mercenaries. Many of them, knowing that their bid for power had failed, had been quietly deserting for the last day. Even some of the regular Air Force personnel had taken the amnesty offered by General Scarletti, so it was no surprise that we were able to move quickly towards the target building, stopping within a hundred meters. We stepped back into the darkness and had a quick conference.
“OK, we’re here,” said Brit. “Now what?”
I pondered that. “I dunno. Never thought that far.”
Brit laughed at the look on Sergeant Millburn’s face. “What?” she said. “This is how he usually does shit. Makes it up as he goes along. It’s what keeps us alive.”
“Ziv,” I said. “Go get us someone.” He grunted and stepped out around the corner and clothes lined someone running past, sticking out his arm and knocking them down. He grabbed the figure and dragged him back behind the wall by their boot, struggling. The man stopped when he saw three gun barrels pointed at him.
“Get up.” Ziv didn’t give the man a chance, lifting him up bodily by the shoulders and wrapping a thick arm around his neck.
“Not so much, Ziv,” I said, as the man started to choke. He set him back down on his feet, and the man gasped for breath. Ziv pulled out his pistol and stuck the fat suppressor behind the mercenary’s (for that was what our captive was) ear.
“Is that you, Johnston?” growled Ziv, and the man went white with fear.
“Zivcovic? What the hell? I thought you were dead.”
I squatted down to face the man and asked, “The President. Where is he?” Ziv ground the pistol barrel into his skull, and the man winced.
“Fuck man, right over there. In the base Headquarters. Basement.”
“Are you bullshitting me? Where were you going?”
Ziv let the pistol up a bit, and the man started babbling. “No, I ain’t bullshitting you. I’m getting the fuck outta here. Everything has turned to shit and them Air Force weenies done fucked it all up.”
“Ok, Ziv tie him
…” The suppressor coughed once, and the man’s head snapped forward, followed by the rest of his body, as if his bones were made of jelly.
“Ziv, what the FUCK!” I said, wiping blood droplets off my face.
“You are a kind hearted man, Nick. Sometimes too kind. If we tied him up, someone would find him. He would talk. Now, he does not talk.”
“Obviously,” I muttered. “OK, time to get moving.” Behind me I heard Millburn keying up the radio he carried in his pack. “STEAK STEAK STEAK,” he called, and I didn’t hear the reply, but he stopped transmitting and put the handmike back. Over the hills, about twenty miles away, three dozen Delta Force operators would be climbing onto the skids of six Little Bird Special Operations choppers, even as the rotors spun up. If we had located him in another building, some other code word would have been used, like CHICKEN. Each building had a code word. Coming up dry was POTATO.
We started to move down the back side of the building, intent on getting a clear space to take a shot at the Patriot Radar unit. It sat parked on a slight knoll on the far side of the runway, and we carried two AT-4 rockets. I was tempted to go back to where we had left the Rangers and just use the Barrett to punch some holes in it, but I wanted it truly destroyed. The base lights suddenly went out and we were plunged into darkness. Perfect.
I dropped my NODs down over my eye and scanned the airfield. The radar was about fifty meters to the right of the HQ building, and still about two hundred meters from us. A bit far for an AT-4 shot, so I motioned for Millburn to move closer. He started to move around the corner, ready to rush to the next building, when he crashed into another figure coming around the opposite way. Both men fell to the ground, and immediately started to engage in a vicious hand to hand struggle.
Another man came around the corner, and was hurled backwards as a round from the big .50 sniper rifle punched into his chest, shattering his ceramic plate and exiting out his back. Millburn and the man he was struggling with locked into a classical combatives wrestling match, each trying to gain a lock on the other. I raised my rifle to shoot just as a glowing green spark flickered around the corners, attached to a cylindrical object. Brit kicked it as hard as she could, and it sailed ten feet before detonating.
I turned my head away just as the stun grenade went off with a deafening CRACK and a flash that wiped my vision out. My ears rang, and for a few seconds I was helpless. I dropped to the ground as fast as I could, and felt the BOOM of Brit’s shotgun. She had been directly behind me, followed by Ziv, and anyone standing in front of her was a target as she emptied her weapon blindly.
It took a bit for my vision to return, and I couldn’t hear shit. If I had been looking directly at the grenade when it went off, I would have been blinded for a lot longer. In front of me were the bodies of Sergeant Millburn and his attacker, both still locked in a death grip, knives buried in each other’s guts. Behind them were two others, cut down by Brit’s shotgun as they rounded the corner, stunned themselves by their own grenade. Ziv knelt, looking around the corner, his AK lifting and dropping as he took aimed shots that I couldn’t hear. Even as I watched, the concrete above his head shattered as a round hit it, causing him to duck back. Brit was slamming rounds back in her magazine.
I reached down and wrestled the AT-4 off of Millburn’s pack, slid the safety cover off the trigger, popped up the sight, and ran out between the buildings, into a full on firefight between Ziv and a couple of Security Forces. I felt rounds zip around me, and one tugged its way through my harness. The pucker factor made my hands shake as I took a knee, sighted in on the radar, and fired.
The rocket popped out of the tube with a whoosh and sped across the runway, slamming into the dirt with a roar that I didn’t hear, and a BANG that I felt through the ground. I dropped the tube and ran back behind the building as Ziv let loose with a full magazine. Just before I made it to safety, a hammer hit me in the ass, spinning me around.
Even as I stumbled, Brit was helping me up, screaming at me. I still couldn’t hear her. I reached down and grabbed the second AT-4 off Ziv’s pack, turned and ran back out into the fire fight.
The second rocket detonated directly on the radar unit, shattering it and setting it on fire. The two airmen who had been firing at Ziv weren’t moving, but a Humvee tore up the runway, gunner in the turret firing madly at me with a machine gun, probably a 240. The Humvee’s grill exploded with another shot from our sniper team, and I turned to get back behind the protection of the building. As I did, my injured leg collapsed underneath me and I fell to the ground, bullets churning up the grass beside me. I knew the next burst would be directly into my torso, and I tried crawling towards the safety of the building.
Ziv jumped out, cursing at me in Serbian, and lifted me bodily onto his shoulder, firing at the truck with his rifle, one handed. We got back behind the building and he dumped me on the ground, causing me to yell in pain. The bullet wound was screaming at me now and a blackness started to creep up around my vision. I shook my head to clear it as Brit rolled me over and started to examine the wound.
“RADIO!” I gasped as she cut at my pants with medical scissors. She hastily started to apply a pressure dressing, and I felt Ziv shove the handmike into my hand. I keyed it and yelled, "BEANS BEANS BEANS,” into it, feeling instantly foolish. Who the hell came up with these code words?
“Roger, BEANS. Stand by for extract,” came back instantly over the radio. At that moment, a Hellfire missile came rocketing in and over our heads, presumably to smash the Humvee still out on the runway. More rockets reached out, destroying buildings and vehicles. We hunkered down as pieces of shrapnel and concrete sailed through the night.
Our Ranger sniper team showed up thirty seconds later, and we lit off the infrared strobe as the first Little Birds flew overhead to discharge their cargo of assault troops. One spun and came right back to us, dropping to the ground like a rock. Ziv again picked me up and threw me onto the skid mounted seat, causing me to howl in pain and almost black out, but he took a second to snap my harness to the aircraft, gave Brit a hard kiss on the lips, and stepped back.
“Aren’t you coming with us?” I yelled over the roar of the rotor blades.
Ziv actually smiled, something I had only seen once before, and said, “There is much gold somewhere on this base. It will make Diana very happy to see it.” He gave me a sloppy salute, and ran off into the night. Brit sat down beside me, wiping her mouth with a look of disgust on her face, and we lifted and spun, racing eastward.
I took a second to look behind. The airfield was lit now by the fires of the burning radar unit, and to the north and west, tracers arched back and forth in desperate battle. I could feel the hot blood soaking the bandage on my ass, and it burned like hell.
“ARE YOU HAPPY NOW?” I yelled over the rotor wash.
She leaned in and yelled back, “WITH WHAT?”
“I FINALLY GOT SHOT INSTEAD OF YOU!”
In answer she leaned over and kissed me on the mouth. The moon looked down on chaos and war, but I leaned into her and held onto to my future.
THE END
You got jokes?
I walked slowly around the perimeter of the farm, watching the cleared fields for any hint of the undead. My rifle was beaded with dew from the fog that rose off the river, and I felt a chill in my bones. Twenty two hundred, time for me to switch out guard duty.
Normally, we relied on the fence to hold up anything long enough for someone to come out and pop it. The dogs had been barking, though, catching a scent on the wind, and I had decided to run a regular patrol all night. It had been years since the last big horde had been eliminated from this portion of the Upper Hudson River Valley, and I trusted the river to keep things off our island. Still, though, there were zombies, and things worse than zombies. A random night of patrolling couldn’t hurt, and a full October moon illuminated the fog.
“There’s nothing out here. Let’s go, Rocket,” I said to my mutt of a dog, and he took off running for the front
door in a silent rush. I started to follow, knowing that our farm hand, Joe, was getting ready to come relieve me. There were few lights shining in the house. Candles were expensive, gasoline or diesel even more so. Brit had gone to bed an hour ago, and I was tired, the stump where my prosthetic was mounted aching in the damp. Bed sounded good.
Halfway there, though, I stopped. In the moonlight, I saw a shadow silhouetted against a window, INSIDE the house. A horrible, shambling shadow, with the hunched shoulders of a zombie. Holy Crap! INSIDE THE HOUSE!
I started to raise my rifle, but the figure moved away from the window. Brit and the kids were inside, and that thing was in there with them! I slung my rifle across my back and drew the mace I carried on my belt. It was about a foot long, and topped with a round, studded steel ball, designed for smashing skulls and crushing brains in close combat.
The front door opened with a quiet screeeeeech and I cursed myself for not oiling the hinges like Brit had been on me to do. Rocket followed, tongue lolling in his stupid grin. What the hell was wrong with him? Usually around a Z he was all business. Stupid dog.
I crept quietly towards the noises I heard in the kitchen. Whatever undead was in here, I would hopefully be able to sneak up on it. The passage to the kitchen was open and in the moonlight, I could see the back of a ragged female figure, hunched over the counter. I raised the mace high in the air, and the figure turned …
Brit howled at the top of her lungs, and she lunged at me. Her face was covered in blood, and her eyes were red. I stumbled, swinging the mace wildly and then dropping it. Rocket barked furiously, running around Brit’s legs, and she raised her hands like claws. I back stepped and fumbled wildly for my pistol.
“TRICK OR TREAT!” she said, and burst out laughing.
“You … are …such … an… asshole!” I managed to gasp out, after laughing hysterically for a full minute. “You made me … almost … piss myself!”