ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  The 50-cal minigun was dishing it out. It was just taking worse.

  She sensed Zack elevating his aim – and targeting the armor glass of the cockpit. He was too close to miss now. They were both just blasting the hell out of each other from point-blank range. Kate could see that the glass was starting to crack and splinter. And she could also see the pilot behind it. And even inside the bulbous flight helmet, Kate recognized her. It was the same spooky bitch who had flown over the Stronghold, murdering the shit out of all those al-Shabaab guys. And whose face Kate had a righteous shot on – but hadn’t taken.

  The minigun went down, empty again.

  The helo’s autocannon stopped chattering.

  And now two unguided 122mm rockets whooshed out of the pods underneath the stub wings. Kate threw herself face down. The world to her left exploded. When both the explosion and the debris settled, she turned her head and opened her eyes.

  The entire turret on the gun truck was gone.

  Zack was gone.

  * * *

  Kate stayed down on the ground, in the mud and mulch, in part because she felt like she’d live longer there. But mainly because in this moment she felt one inch tall. That fucking stone-cold killer Russian pilot, who Kate had failed to take out when she had the chance, had just killed yet another one of her friends. Zack, who with the others, had risked his life a hundred times in a row to rescue her from that horrid Stronghold dungeon.

  She also knew – and if she didn’t, she knew Jake was going to tell her pretty damned soon – that she had about another three seconds to indulge her grief, her remorse, and her terrible regret. And then she was going to have to start being operational and effective again.

  She was going to have to do her fucking job.

  No matter how bad things got, no matter the despair you felt, no matter the desire to just lie down and die – you never stopped, quit, shut down, or stopped trying. Jake had taught her this.

  Kate took a few rapid steadying breaths, adjusted her grip on her weapon, and low-crawled closer to the edge of the treeline. And she could immediately make out the Black Shark, still hovering dead ahead. It wasn’t firing anymore, but it was still flying, creeping over the near end of the bridge, the start of the forest, and the rutted dirt road that cut through it.

  Coming for them. Anyone who was left.

  Kate felt it deep in her gut. Zack, Predator, and Homer were dead. But this predator, woman and machine, were not going to be content with destroying both vehicles and half the team. She was going to hunt them down from above, until the last of them had fallen.

  Kate pulled her rifle to her shoulder and took a closer look through the scope, and through tears of grief for her fallen friend. Before he went down, Zack had done one hell of an exfoliating job on the Black Shark. Much of its forward-facing airframe and features were all fucked up, at least cosmetically. Though that didn’t seem to be affecting it functionally. But as she panned around, one thing jumped out at her.

  The missiles suspended under the stub wings. One of them was bent at a crazy angle. Moreover, the protective tube that encased it had been partially torn away, presumably by a hosing of .50 BMG rounds. The warhead was now exposed. Kate knew that, unlike in the movies, missiles and bombs usually had things like warhead safeties and thick steel casings and didn’t always go boom when you shot at them.

  But it was something.

  Before she could do anything about it, though, the helo moved, taking that wing out of her sight – and a rumbling, booming voice came over the squad net.

  “Hey, can you guys keep that sonofabitching helo facing your way for the next ten seconds or so?”

  The voice was unmistakable.

  Predator.

  Crowning Moment of Badass

  Somalia – Northwest River Valley

  The Black Shark didn’t look particularly like turning around anyway. Nonetheless the team instantly reacted to Pred’s call for diversionary action – Noise first.

  While still under cover, he dropped and checked the hubcap-sized drum magazine from his AA12 assault shotgun. He’d just reloaded, so inside it were 32 twelve-gauge shells – but they were all double-ought buckshot. He let out a resigned sigh as he reseated it. If he’d had slugs, they might actually have stood a chance of penetrating the weakened armor glass in front of the Black Shark’s cockpit. Buckshot, with about nine pellets in each load, would make a real mess of a human, never mind a Zulu. But it had little penetrating power.

  Though it just might do as a distraction.

  He stepped out to the edge of the treeline, brought the weapon up, its fixed stock tight in to his shoulder, and depressed the trigger. Shotgun blast after blast, five per second, boomed off – and scores of pellets pelted and ricocheted off the face of the Black Shark like horizontal steel rain. It must have been a mesmerizing sight for those inside. Anyway, Noise hoped it was.

  Nonetheless, for the entire 6.4 seconds it took to empty that drum mag, he fully expected to see the autocannon blossom fire and deliver him to his liberation – the mukti, as faithful Sikhs knew it, when he would find a blissful reunification with the creator.

  But when the heavy bolt of the shotgun locked back… he was still standing in this world, at the edge of the road. And the helo was still hovering at the junction of forest and river, over the foot of the bridge, just staring him down.

  Then the right-side window tilted up and open.

  And the pilot actually leaned out and forward – and started spraying at him with a machine pistol.

  Noise exercised the better part of valor and dove back into the woods. When he got there he had a couple of small holes in him.

  But he was still in this world.

  * * *

  Holy shit, Jake thought. He knew the fearsome reputation Sikhs had as warriors. And he had even shared a battlefield or two with the bearded ass-kickers. But he had certainly never seen bravery or badassery like that – man versus attack helo, toe-to-toe.

  As Noise went to ground under the full-auto pop-gun barrage unleashed by, of all people, the pilot of the fucking helicopter, Jake popped from the opposite side of the road, leaned around a tree, and engaged the aircraft, which was still hovering with its landing gear less than ten feet off the deck.

  That dumbass pilot – and, wait, was it a woman? – had just volunteered to give him an open shot at what was, by a very large margin, the most vulnerable part of the aircraft. Perhaps the only vulnerable part of the aircraft.

  Namely her – the pilot.

  His first round crashed into the headrest behind her as she leaned forward. She reacted instantly, turning and engaging Jake. He had to decide whether he was going to be driven under cover or not. Whether to shoot it out nose to nose. He decided he was never going to get a better look than this one. None of them were.

  But as he sighted in again, the window came back down. Dammit. The pilot had evidently had enough of trading rounds – or didn’t like the exchange rate, anyway: her little 9x19mm SMG rounds for Jake’s 12.7x54mm ones. He cursed under his breath – he’d had one shot and he missed – and he now tried to formulate his next move. Whatever the winning tactics were in a man versus Black Shark fight, they had definitely not been taught to him at the Special Forces Q-Course.

  But then, in the next few seconds, he learned where such tactics evidently were taught: at the Unit Operator Training Course. Because he was about to get a masterclass.

  At first all he saw was a man-mountain emerging from the steep bank that led down to the river. He was a broad-shouldered, angry-visaged, vengeful god, rivulets of water still streaming off his massive and massively muscled body. He was running and leaping and powering up the slope, and as all of him finally made it to level ground, he accelerated his enormous bulk even more, faster than should have been possible – straight at the side of the hovering helo.

  And with a mighty shove of his tree-trunk back leg – he leapt through the air and up onto the side of it.

 
* * *

  The bank of the river was covered in thick mud and riddled with tree roots. But, even at 325 pounds, Predator’s power-to-weight ratio was prodigious, so he powered up it like King Kong climbing the Empire State Building – all dominance and rage and unreflective belief in his own indestructibility.

  What Pred really couldn’t understand – as he unclipped his rifle, let it fall in the mud behind him, grabbed two grenades with a single alien-face-sucker-sized hand, and pulled the pins – was how the hell Homer had managed to rescue-swim his ass to safety.

  When the SUV went off the bridge, both of them whirling inside it like socks in a clothes-washer spin cycle gone horribly wrong, picking up speed at 9.8 meters per second per second, and then crashing into the river and going straight to the bottom, it had been Homer who maintained consciousness, while the blackness took Predator. He didn’t know whether it was due to blunt head trauma, G-forces, the spinning, or the impact with the water, and he didn’t care. All he knew was he had blacked out, and would have drowned to death in seconds.

  But that righteous, God-fearing Navy SEAL had somehow hauled his 325-pound ass out of an SUV that was two-thirds buried in the silty river bottom, gotten him to the surface – and then swum both of them to the bank. Both of them in full combat gear.

  And both with their rifles still clipped to them.

  That shit should have been by no means remotely possible. But Homer had somehow done it. Whatever open-water survival magic they taught these dudes at Coronado and Dam Neck, Predator sure wanted some. Anyway, he was damned glad Homer had it.

  He was alive because of it.

  And to repay him, he’d left his ass behind – racing up the bank faster than the SEAL could follow. He knew Homer wouldn’t like it, wouldn’t appreciate the unilateral solo attack. But he didn’t have to like it. Because it was happening.

  When Predator powered over the crest of the bank onto level ground around the base of the bridge, the hovering Black Shark was directly ahead of him, no more than twenty-five feet away. And it was still facing away.

  Awesome, Pred thought. This might even work.

  As he rounded the tail boom and ducked under the left stabilizer, he instantly felt the exhaust from the left-side jet engine warming his river-chilled skin, and then scorching it. But he carried on into it, pushing off and leaping into the air like a Foxtrot – or the zombie of Michael Fucking Jordan, with a forty-eight-inch vertical leap. With his free left hand he reached up and grabbed the left stub wing, using his ridiculous arm and upper-body strength, plus his momentum, to pull himself up and over it, his whole body sliding across its horizontal surface. That wing protruded from the base of the engine, which had two openings in it – exhaust port in the rear, intake port on the front.

  And as Pred slid by, he slam-dunked one of the grenades into the exhaust port, and the other into the intake. And then he slid off the front of the wing. Which took him right by the left side of the cockpit.

  As he flew by, he stuck one finger out and jammed it into the cockpit glass. He didn’t guess they’d miss that. He hit the mud just in front of the helicopter, then tumbled and rolled, coming to rest in a sitting position. He spun around, because he wanted to see this next bit.

  The pilot and gunner were both looking down at him like he had four heads and six penises, all of them on fire.

  The two grenades exploded, shooting flame and metal debris out both sides of the engine, and it screamed like a stricken dinosaur.

  Eyes still wide like saucers, the pilot used the power she had left to back them away from the forest, climb a few dozen feet – like it was the hardest altitude any aircraft ever gained – and then finally disappear, smoking, shrieking, and shaking, over the top of the forest on the far side of the river.

  Pred looked up over his left shoulder when he heard a gravelly voice speaking to him deadpan. “Yeah, I remember the first time I took out an attack helo by myself with grenades.”

  It was Jake. He reached down to help him up.

  Kate and Noise were also walking up, weapons slung, and jaws on their chests. Amazed to be alive. Utterly gobsmacked at how it had happened. Not at all sure they’d just seen what they just saw.

  Noise said, “‘While you are alive, conquer death, and you shall have no regrets in the end.’ Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji. Truly, Predator… you have conquered death.”

  Looking up into Pred’s eyes, Kate had only two words.

  “GodDAMN, dude.”

  Out of Africa

  Northwest Somalia – Jingle Bus

  “Yeah,” Juice said to Handon, both of them plus Henno gathered around Baxter and the glowing mini-GCS at the back of the jingle bus, as it hurtled toward the river, the border, and possibly salvation. “I saw Misha get in the second vehicle this time.”

  “You’re sure?” Handon said.

  “The dude’s the size of Predator. Who else could it be?”

  On the little screen, the Spetsnaz convoy, now reduced to four vehicles, was still blasting across the Somalian wasteland. And everyone on the jingle bus knew that very soon they would be able to see them out the back window, no optics required. Their only hope of stopping it now was Handon’s plan of crashing the Predator right into it.

  “You’ve got to take them from behind,” Handon said.

  Baxter looked up, while Juice spoke for him. “That’ll take time. The drone and convoy are coming right at each other now.”

  “If Misha sees it coming, this guy will find a way to escape. Loop around behind them – as fast as you can.”

  Baxter started to comply. But the others could see he was also gaining altitude. Before they asked, he explained. “The engine on this thing is extremely rackety. If we dive-bomb from higher up, he’ll have less time to react. Plus we’ll go in faster with more energy.”

  “Okay,” Handon said. “Do it.”

  * * *

  “Polkóvnik!” the RTO said. “Urgent transmission from the Akula! Enemy air contact has popped up on their radar buoy!”

  Looking over at Kuznetsov, Misha said, “Think it’s the same dick-fondlers who just hit us?”

  Kuznetsov just shrugged. Probably, but it didn’t matter. He looked back at the RTO. “Position?”

  “Wait – they report it just disappeared from radar again. It’s descending, and has dropped under coverage.”

  “Last range and bearing.”

  “Bearing one-eighty, less than a mile out – and closing.”

  “Shit,” said Kuznetsov. “It’s taking us from behind.”

  “Just like I did with your mother!” Misha roared. “Here, steer, motherfucker.” If Misha had any awareness of the irony of those two sentences said back to back, he didn’t betray it. He engaged the cruise control and let go of the wheel. Kuznetsov hastened to reach over and grab it. They were already way too close to a rollover, pegging the speedometer in an SUV on this terrain.

  Misha twisted at the waist, stuck much of his huge body through the seat gap into the rear, and pulled one of the missile tubes out from behind the RTO. He then opened the sunroof, maneuvered the missile out – it was one of the Grinches, the same advanced man-portable SAM that had taken down an F-35 earlier today – then maneuvered his own torso out. His shoulders only made it through when he twisted them diagonally, and then only barely. He powered up the weapon, popped the sights, and aimed it up and to the rear.

  He realized he could hear the drone’s lawnmower-like buzzing at the same time he spotted it. Both the noise and its characteristic blind-bat visage made it obvious to Misha what they were dealing with – an ancient MQ-1 Predator. It was diving straight down toward them from their rear – and Misha was pretty sure it was coming not at any other vehicle in the convoy but directly at theirs.

  He laughed his gorilla laugh again, “Ha, ha, ha, ha!”, which vibrated down into the truck below over the wind, the engine, the drone, and everything else. Killing was Misha’s favorite pastime.

  But destruction was good fun, t
oo.

  * * *

  “Ah, shit,” Handon said. Everyone watching the GCS screen in the back of the bus deflated. They could all see the human-gorilla hybrid emerge from inside the truck with a missile tube.

  “Abort, abort attack run,” Juice said. “Break off – now.”

  Baxter complied, pulling up and banking away to the right. The convoy disappeared from the screen – but not too soon to see the missile launch with a whoosh of smoke. Baxter tried to go evasive, but the underpowered first-generation flying lawnmower was capable of very little in the way of aerial acrobatics. Hell, it had almost been designed to be disposable.

  Two seconds later, the screen simply went black.

  “How the hell did he know we were coming?” Baxter said, slamming the lid of the GCS, which was no longer needed. That was it. They were all out of aircraft.

  Juice said, “Radar, maybe – on some asset we haven’t seen yet?”

  But Handon had already turned away and stepped down the aisle, to look out the window in back – and he was just in time to see the tail end of the explosion, the smoke cloud, and even some of the larger chunks of falling debris.

  And it was way too close behind them.

  “God, I hate that fucking guy,” Handon said.

  “You and me both, mate.” Henno had stepped up behind him, also to watch the fireworks show. “I have a bad feeling we’re gonna have to slot him before this is over. And we’re going to have to do it up close and personal. Ourselves. No air strikes. Just us. Right to his face.”

  Handon hoped Henno was wrong. But one of the main reasons Henno was a pain in his ass was that he was usually right. Looking forward again, he could see they were descending a gentle slope.

  The last river valley before Djibouti was in sight.

  * * *

  Zack was alive.

  Kate and the others found him collapsed down in the bottom of the ravaged gun truck. He had dropped down there to grab another ammo can – at just the right moment to avoid getting his head, or rather his whole torso, taken off along with the turret.