Earthfall (Book 2): Earthfall 2 [The Mission Continues]

by Knight, Stephen

  “What the fuck are you—”

  Her voice was drowned out by the SCEV’s surviving AMWs discharging. The angle wasn’t the best, and the foliage was just dense enough to prevent them from fully taking flight and hurtling upward to meet the first of the inbound Hellfires. Just the same, the weapon exploded in a blossoming flower of fire and ballistic darts that hurtled through the air at almost twice the speed of sound. The field of coverage was enough to shred the front of the incoming Hellfire, destroying its seeker head and more importantly the primer charge that would detonate the missile’s payload. The missile still struck the SCEV but skipped off with a hiss, trailing fire as it hurtled off into the forest while breaking up. One of the bodies that lay atop the vehicle burst into flame from the missile’s exhaust plume, its clothes combusting almost instantly.

  The next two missiles slammed into the rig thirty seconds apart. The first explosion blasted out the rig’s viewports and blast baffles as two hundred pounds of high explosive defeated the vehicle’s topside armor and penetrated into the interior. The rig rocked on its suspension as rivets popped and composite seals ruptured. Smoke billowed from its interior where superheated plasma destroyed the vehicle’s internal components. The fighters from Sherwood screamed in pain and terror as the sound and fury of the blast rolled over them, and even Mulligan was taken aback by the ferocity of the detonation. Then the second missile struck, and the SCEV exploded apart like a piñata. Heavy fragments of machinery whirled through the air trailing smoke and fire, and if Mulligan hadn’t already been prone, the explosion’s shock wave would have thrown him twenty feet downrange. The commotion left him momentarily addled, and he found that all he could do was watch the great column of thick, black smoke rise from the remains of the rig and spiral upward into the sky. One of the SCEV’s flaming tires descended from the heavens and crashed down forty feet from him, bouncing and spinning as it whirled away through the mud and wet brush.

  Get back in the game!

  Mulligan hauled himself to his feet as he heard Andrews’s voice in his ears. “Four, this is Andrews! Target destroyed! Target destroyed! Over!”

  Mulligan looked at the carnage before him. The SCEV was a total write-off; there was nothing salvageable left, and what little remained was burning. In the grass a few yards to his right was an entire Hellfire missile, its long, tapered form dented and pitted, its glass seeker head destroyed. Not far from that was the tattered remains of a sleeping bag, alongside the seat from the rig’s toilet. Fiery pieces of debris slowly fell from the sky, trailing wisps of smoke. Paper, insulation, fabric. Wreckage was strewn everywhere, even in the trees. And fighters from Sherwood were down. Many of them writhed and screamed, but others—too many others—lay absolutely still. They had either been hit by the rig’s minis or they had been killed by shrapnel when the rig blew up.

  “Four, Mulligan. Say your status. Over.”

  There was a pause, but when KC’s voice came over the radio, it was backed up by the buzz of firing miniguns. “Outside of Sherwood doing what you told me to do, Sarmajor. I guess we can use the radios now?”

  “Roger. Rig safe?”

  “For now, don’t know how long that’ll last. Sherwood’s under attack. Wall’s been breached ... they’re holding the bad guys off, but there are a lot of them. Over.”

  “Do not become decisively engaged,” Andrews said. “If it’s too hot, get the hell out of there. Sherwood’s going to have to stand on its own for a while, we can’t lose that rig. I have a mission for you if you’re up for it. If not, execute the plan we discussed earlier. Over.”

  “Send it,” KC responded. Mulligan liked the sound of KC’s voice over the radio. She sounded busy as hell, but she wasn’t scared. She was soldiering, and he felt something akin to a glimmer of pride pass through him.

  “Need you to get to the top of the bluff,” Andrews said. “You should be able to see where from the smoke rising from it. That’s where SCEV Five is burning. Over.”

  “Roger, but why? Over.”

  “Lieutenant Jordello was still alive when we left her. She’s been badly burned. We need to get her a burn kit from the rig. Think you can do that? You can use the radar and a UAV for nav assistance, just follow the trail Five left on its way up. Over.”

  “Roger, will do that,” KC replied.

  “Winters, Mulligan. Jordello’s in very bad shape. Treat her, but don’t move her yet. There are a couple of shooters from Sherwood up there with her—make sure they know you’re friendly before you open the rig. Good copy?”

  “Good copy, Sarmajor. Leaving now. Four out.”

  Someone picked his way through the brush, and Mulligan stepped back and raised his rifle. Sean looked at him with narrowed eyes, bleeding from several gashes on his dark face. Mulligan lowered his weapon immediately.

  “Get these people out of here,” Mulligan said. “Load them on the trucks and get them someplace where you can treat them.”

  “What about you?” Amanda asked, rising from where Mulligan had pushed her. Her uniform was muddy and wet.

  Andrews pushed toward them, his rifle tucked in. He glanced at Amanda and Sean before looking at Mulligan. “The sarmajor and I have some people to kill,” he said. There was a coldness in his voice which Mulligan had never heard before. The captain was all in now, just as he’d always been, but now he wanted something a little extra. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

  “Hooah,” he said, before setting out to walk across the debris field before them.

  ***

  It wasn’t hard to find their trail. Mulligan grimaced. He’d hoped he’d been wrong, that Fox and anyone left of his crew hadn’t been able to bail before the SCEV was destroyed. But the signs were all there. They’d hauled ass as quickly as they could, and during the missile attack had managed to slip away into the forest. The terrain was a bit rocky and there were a million places where they could hide. Mulligan had no idea how the enemy was outfitted, but he was certain they were at least armed. If they had helmets and armor, then the game was going to be an even draw at best. Mulligan studied the trail they had left behind. He figured there were at least three of them.

  Andrews pointed at the ground. “Check it, Sarmajor. Blood.”

  Mulligan looked where Andrews indicated. Sure enough, there were a couple of droplets of blood. He looked in the direction he felt the enemy had traveled. At periodic intervals, he saw more blood glistening in the sunlight. Someone was hurt.

  “It should slow him down a bit,” Andrews continued.

  Mulligan grunted. “Only if the blood is his. Otherwise, don’t count on it.”

  “You want to get some backup from Sean or Amanda?”

  Mulligan shook his head. “This is our problem, sir. Let them deal with their wounded, and then let them get back to Sherwood. Those people might need all the help they can get.” The sounds of combat continued to roar in the distance. Explosions, small-arms fire, chattering machine guns. It all sounded tinny and far off, but Mulligan knew Master Guns and Buchek would give Fox’s forces hell for as long as they could. He turned his head from side to side, using the millimeter wave radar to scan the terrain. The radar didn’t reveal much, but the landscape was a bit complex. Fox was smart enough to use it to his advantage, and wouldn’t expose himself to either visual or electronic surveillance.

  “Four, this is Mulligan.”

  “Send it, Sarmajor.”

  “Your radar active?”

  “Roger. Looking for that route up the bluff.”

  “Do us a favor, switch to air search mode for a bit. Let us know if any drones are over Sherwood.”

  “Uh, sure. Stand by.”

  Andrews looked over at Mulligan, confused. “Sarmajor?”

  “You have those default access codes Laird brought out?”

  “Access—oh, you mean for the drones Fox stole from California? I do, actually.” Andrews slung his rifle and reached for his tablet. When he pulled it out of its padded pouch on his belt, Mulli
gan saw the tough plastic glass was cracked. Andrews grunted and powered the unit up. He looked up and nodded. “Still works.”

  “Sarmajor, there is a UAV over Sherwood at twelve thousand,” KC reported over the radio. “You want it? I can try and see if I can chop it over to you if you give me a few minutes.”

  “Negative—continue with your mission. The captain is working on that.”

  Andrews was already tapping away at his tablet. “You don’t think Fox would alter the access codes?”

  “Why would he? Hell, he probably didn’t even think about it. We certainly didn’t.” Mulligan continued scanning the area, turning a full three hundred sixty degrees. They were about three hundred yards from the engagement area now, but he could still hear the troops from Sherwood cleaning up and evacuating their wounded. In the distance, he heard the cackle of a diesel engine. One of their trucks was moving up, probably to take on the casualties. He wondered briefly if Fox would make a play for one of them, but even if he had three or four shooters with him, the opportunity would be a distant one. Both trucks had machine guns on pintle mounts, and there were still a good twelve to twenty fighters left. Amanda and Sean would cut his ass down the second he exposed himself.

  Andrews kept working the tablet, stabbing at its cracked display with his fingers. He shook his head and sighed in frustration. “I don’t know, Mulligan. Maybe he did change the codes.”

  “Keep trying, sir. If not, we’ll either have to go after Fox the old-fashioned way, or we’ll have to wait for Winters to be able to swing hers over to us.”

  Andrews nodded, tapping away on his device. He snorted suddenly. “Got it!”

  “Can you change the code?” Mulligan asked. “Just in case. Doesn’t have to be something complex, just change it so he can’t clip it back if he has a tablet too.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Will do. Unit’s batteries are pretty low, around twenty-two percent. It’s been running up there for hours. We’ll have maybe, ah, about ten, twelve minutes of station time after it gets here.”

  “That’ll do,” Mulligan said. “How long?”

  “Seven minutes. Bringing it over now. Working on that code change.”

  “Hooah.”

  Andrews worked with his tablet for a minute or so, then looked up with a hard smile. “And that’s been done. New six-digit code.”

  “What is it?” Mulligan asked. He didn’t really need to know, but they had a few minutes to kill until the drone arrived on station.

  “Five-seven-two-zero-two-five,” Andrews said.

  Mulligan nodded slowly and turned away from him. May seventh, 2025.

  Leona’s birthday.

  The drone arrived slightly early. Andrews dropped it down a few thousand feet and bumped the radar out of standby. It began pulsing immediately, and Mulligan watched from the corner of his eye as Andrews studied the tablet’s display. He stood up and turned it toward Mulligan suddenly.

  “There. About one mile out. Three people, with one lagging behind.”

  Mulligan looked at the display for a moment. Three people in what seemed to be uniforms. They carried weapons and some rucks, but that was about it. Mulligan considered the shapes he saw moving on the screen. “That’s not Fox falling back ... the dude’s too big. Fox is in the lead, with the other individual in trail.” He took note of the UAV’s remaining charge. About eight minutes left. They’d never be able to catch up to Fox before then, but they’d be able to run him to ground.

  “Come on, Sarmajor.” Andrews tightened the straps of his rucksack. “Let’s roll.”

  Mulligan took off at an aggressive pace, his long legs consuming the distance between him and Fox. Andrews managed to keep up. Most of the time.

  ***

  They came across the body of the third man about ten minutes after Andrews programmed the drone to fly away and land somewhere downrange, where Fox wouldn’t be able to hear its rotors. The man was dressed in the standard issue multicam utilities, and he had died from blood loss. Apparently climbing around the sloping terrain had worsened his injuries, and he’d finally just bled out. Fox and his remaining accomplice hadn’t bothered to stop to help. They’d just let him drop and die. That was fine by Mulligan.

  “Should be just over that next rise,” Andrews said, pushing forward, his rifle at ready.

  “Take it easy, sir,” Mulligan cautioned.

  “Not going to go crazy, Sarmajor.” Andrews was breathing hard, and sweat poured down his face behind his visor. “But I’ll be damned if those pricks are going to get away.”

  “They’re not going to get away. Stay with me, Captain. We’ve got this—”

  Two silhouettes popped up on the ridge they were approaching. Andrews was slightly ahead of Mulligan, and he started to shout as he raised his rifle. Shots rang out, and Andrews grunted as his head snapped back. He fell to the deck just like that, his rifle falling out of his hands. He’d taken a round right in the head. Mulligan felt a shout—no, a full-on scream—erupt from his mouth as he snapped up his rifle and drilled one of the shooters twice in the face. It was a woman, and her profile disintegrated as two 7.62-millimeter rounds did their work, sending bloody, fragmented bone whirling across the blue sky. Something struck him in the chest as he swung to his right, where Fox was crouched, hammering away with his rifle. Mulligan was hit again, but his armor turned away the smaller 5.56-millimeter bullets—Fox was shooting at the center of his mass. Mulligan got off one shot as he stumbled backward, and he heard Fox grunt as his heavier round actually made a clunking sound when it struck the chicken plate in the smaller man’s vest. Fox kept firing as he fell back, and Mulligan’s rifle jerked in his arms. A bullet had slammed into the upper receiver, right next to the ejection port, ripping the top of the weapon partially off its pins. Mulligan would never be able to reseat the upper receiver in time. The rifle was a write-off.

  He cast it aside and charged up the remainder of the slope, going for his sidearm. Fox steadied himself and released a snarl of his own, exposing his cracked, broken teeth. The burn scars on his face seemed to shine in the sunlight, as if they were still somehow radioactive. He fired three more times, and Mulligan stumbled when he felt a hard hit across his belly, then a sharp burn as a bullet tore through his side. The last shot missed him entirely, skipping off rock behind him as it tore off into the sky. But by then Mulligan was almost on top of Fox, and his pistol was coming up.

  Fox released a long, crazed howl as he hurled himself into Mulligan. He tackled him like a linebacker, wrapping one arm around Mulligan’s gun hand and forcing the weapon away from him as he shouldered into Mulligan’s waist and drove him backward. Mulligan’s feet tangled up and he went over on his back, landing on his rucksack and sliding down the incline. Fox held on and managed to hit the mag release on the pistol’s side. It popped right out of the magazine well and clattered across the rock-strewn hillside. Fox punched Mulligan in the face, then put his finger over the trigger. The pistol fired harmlessly into the sky, and then its slide snapped back into the locked position.

  Fox punched Mulligan in the face again, a triplet of blows that rained down on him so fast that Mulligan was shocked. Fox continued snarling like a wild animal, raining blows with an astonishing ferocity. Mulligan twisted around beneath him, but Fox locked his legs around Mulligan’s chest and continued throwing punches. Mulligan snapped his head forward, and Fox shouted as his fist slammed into Mulligan’s helmet. Mulligan felt him lean back a bit then, and he lashed out with his left hand with all the strength he had. He knocked Fox off him, then tried to roll to his feet. His heavy rucksack slowed him down, making him clumsy and graceless. Mulligan grunted as he tried to shrug out of the straps, the bullet wound in his side making itself known now with bursts of white-hot pain that coruscated through his torso with every breath. As he flailed to his feet, Mulligan saw Andrews lying nearby, his rifle trapped beneath his body. His eyes were closed, and there was an ugly divot in his helmet.

  Oh Rachel ... I did it to you again.<
br />
  He had just gotten one foot beneath him when Fox crashed into him from behind, pushing Mulligan’s face into the hard earth. The visor shattered, and Mulligan felt a sting as shards of plastic gouged into his cheeks. Fox grabbed the rim of Mulligan’s helmet and yanked it to one side. Mulligan lurched in the same direction, otherwise Fox would snap his neck. As he moved, he lashed out with his left arm, trying to sweep Fox’s legs out from under him. Fox stepped over the strike with a laugh.

  “You’re a big motherfucker, Gandhi,” he said, “but you always relied on your size when it came to the close-in work. No one would want to get close to you because you’re such a bruiser, but you’re slow as shit.” He then kicked Mulligan in the face so hard that he saw stars. Time seemed to expand, then dilate, then expand again. When he snapped back into the then and there, Fox had him pinned once again, knees on his shoulders. Mulligan bucked against him, but Fox pressed his left hand against the brim of Mulligan’s helmet. He wasn’t going anywhere, and every move caused exquisite agony to explode in his side.

  “What, hurt a bit?” Fox asked. “You got shot, man. I guess that does kind of get your attention, right?”

  Mulligan snarled, a raw, ugly sound. Fox smiled brilliantly as he crouched over him, his eyes blazing with murderous madness. Mulligan redoubled his efforts, but not much changed. He couldn’t swing on Fox, and he just didn’t have the strength left to lift him off his chest. He tried to knee him in the back, but lifting his legs up invoked so much pain that he almost passed out.

  What the fuck, not going out like this—

  “You get off easy, Gandhi,” Fox said. “Dying is easy now. Just lie back and let me do the work.” He held up his right hand. He held a small blade, and its sharp edge glittered in the daylight. “I like to use this. Because it’s so little, no one’s really afraid of it until that first bite. Then they pretty much shit themselves. Remember the old saying? ‘Don’t sweat the little things’? Well, this little thing here will have the sweat rolling off your balls.” Fox canted his head to one side, and his beard parted as he smiled. “If it helps, this is what took down your little bitch with the tight ass.”