by Alex Just
~ Island – pacific ~
As the attack began, splitting everyone off, Julia, Stan and Adrianna lost sight of Tom in their own dive for cover. Emerging from behind a group of trees, Stan thrust two rifles and some ammunition into Julia and Adrianna’s hands. They had belonged to two of their people who hadn’t been so lucky in the first attack.
‘Look out!’ Julia screamed at Stan. He dropped to his knees and turned in one swift movement, his MP5 coughing once and he watched a body topple over. They were exposed to the soldiers where they were at the moment and Stan knew their only chance for survival was too make it over to the nearest barracks. Waving curtly with his hand, he sprinted for the doorway when, without warning, a guard stepped out of the shadow of the door, rifle raised, only to be blown apart. Looking over his shoulder, he saw Adrianna’s hand drop to her side in shock as she realised what she’d just done. They were still too far from the doorway and Stan knew that, so he risked it and chucked a smoke grenade towards the approaching soldiers. He was lucky, as the smoke began to slowly block them from view a huge explosion sent a strip of fire shooting out of the second barrack, which engulfed the oncoming soldiers, incinerating them.
Stan pulled out a frag grenade and tossed it inside. He hunkered down shielding his face from the shockwave. It exploded. Without waiting for the dust to settle they were through the door, inside the building. Basic training took care of the rest, his gun up and staring straight down the barrel he inspected each corner of the destroyed barrack. Part of the roof had caved in, completely burying a large section of the structure and presumably a lot of men. Sudden movement caught his eye to the left and he spun round emptying a clip as he did so. He was too late. Someone had already beaten him to it. Julia had taken the man down as she’d seen him a split second before Stan. Her gun was now aimed directly at Stan and he saw her pull the trigger. He ducked instinctively and when he looked behind him, saw two more guards drop down, shot by Adrianna and Julia.
Shaking himself he sprinted for the heap of rubble and jumped up, ducking out back into the night through the gaping hole. They were safe for the moment. Damn it, he needed a jeep. They began to circle round, hoping to sneak into the fight with enough cover to snipe from. More explosions could be heard shaking the earth around them and the sky was aglow with bright flames. The heat was unbearable. They’d reached the second barrack building, this one barely damaged. He jerked his head towards the roof and motioned for the other two to follow him as he clambered up using a service ladder. Not risking standing up they commando crawled to the edge that looked down onto the base’s centre, from which they had a perfect view of the tower. The sight they were met with was not good. They came in time to witness destructive gunfire from the men in jeeps. He glanced at Julia, who looked puzzled. He turned to Adrianna.
‘Cover me, OK? And try hitting some of those snipers in the tower. I’m going to get our ride.’ He swung himself over the edge of the flat roofed building and let himself hang full body. Then he dropped, crouching to absorb most of the fall. He rolled to the side as gunfire kicked up dust around his feet. Lying flat on his stomach he fired off two well aimed shots, that punctured the tires of one of the jeeps, it skidded out of control and smashed into the base of the tower, causing showers of dust to flake onto the ground. The jeep behind it was a standard SUV and was forced to break sharply to avoid a collision. Airbags burst open and knocked the driver and passenger out with the force. Sprinting crouched down he prayed that Adrianna and the girl were covering him as he made this kamikaze run. He was out of luck. Another jeep rounded the base of the tower and all the guns were trained right on him. He fired and the soldiers who held their own weapons were blasted off the jeeps tray, but the guy sitting behind the swivel gun got lucky and avoided being hit. He aimed at Stan.
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