He dialed it all the way up.
He kept his trigger down, spraying twelve rounds every second, fighting the bucking of the medium machine gun with his small body – thinking he definitely wouldn’t want to have to do it with a heavy one. He also gave thanks for the bipod and sandbags steadying this one on the railing in front of him – because his shooting was not only nonstop, it was high-stakes and had to be precise. He was having to shoot within a foot or two of the hurtling figure of the young Para out on the ground below. And the pressure of it was crushing.
He knew he was the only thing keeping Elliot alive.
Moreover, in the last ten minutes he had been witness to heroism and sacrifice like he had never seen, never heard about in all the war stories, never even imagined. The Gurkhas, the Apache pilot, her co-pilot, Baxter and all his other comrades there in the tower – seemingly everyone around him was willing to die for anyone else, at any time. It was an incredibly daunting example to try to live up to. But Liam knew he had to try. Seeing what he’d seen, he now knew he had to stand his post and do his job – no matter the personal cost.
Now he feared only one thing: letting his team down.
But then, even as he focused and bore down and shot nonstop and with all the precision he could manage… suddenly he wasn’t the only thing keeping Elliot alive. He didn’t take his eye from the C2 optical sight any more than he stopped firing – but he could sense as much as see Baxter and Kate back on their feet to his left. Now, along with Charlotte, they were all pouring fire into the hellish scene below.
All four of them were shooting to keep Elliot alive.
* * *
“You crazy maroon-machine son of a bitch,” Jameson said, stopping firing only to reach down and haul Elliot up on the tank with him. He wasn’t sure whether he was more amazed that the Para had made it – or that he’d come at all. “You’re supposed to be saving the damned world – not saving one scuffed-up old bootneck. Who you hate.”
“Yeah, well,” Elliot said around heaving breaths, reloading even as he turned around. “There aren’t a whole hell of a lot of us left. And definitely too few to hold a grudge.”
Jameson finished his own reload, shook his head – and stuck out his hand in the rain. Elliot took it – but not for long.
Taking his hand back, Jameson produced his last two grenades. With those and the MG going, it was conceivable they could make it back alive. Totally unlikely, but conceivable. Anyway, there was nothing else to do but try.
And then the MG went down. Oh, well.
Jameson armed and tossed the grenades out ahead of them. Then he reloaded the MP7 and set it to single-shot – it would be better in tight quarters than his L85.
Finally, they both emptied their rifle mags to the front – and as they reloaded, they heard the MG come back up, and even heard its misses and pass-throughs clanging on the tank below their feet, terrifyingly close – but not as terrifying as the mob of dead down there it was clearing out. And as it started walking fire back toward the walls, clearing a tiny channel as it went…
Jameson and Elliot jumped down into death – but together.
* * *
Liam used the ten seconds the two were up on the tank to get a fresh belt loaded into the MG. He’d done this exactly twice in his training. But, once again, when you had no choice, you not only figured it out. You did so fast.
He got the weapon up just in time to open up and start clearing the two a path back. The good news was the full-auto and belt-fed weapon could clear more ground than the other three shooters up there combined – a lot more.
The bad news, and it was very bad indeed, was that the noise of it was drawing more dead. In fact it was drawing more dead than it was dropping. In the short term, it was helping – clearing out something like a channel for Jameson and Elliot to fight their way back through. But on any longer time horizon – like ten seconds rather than five – it was making things worse. In fact it was dooming them, if they didn’t get back up top in the next few heartbeats. Outside of the channel, the dead were piling up, thronging toward either the two fleshy living people, or else the banging of the MG, or the combination.
And Foxtrots were also leaping over the throng now, approaching fast from both sides.
It was as if Elliot had parted the sea for these two.
But it was a very angry and roiled-up sea.
And when it crashed down again, it was going to be ugly.
* * *
As Elliot fired and ran, ran and fired, he mentally flashed back to that run over open ground in Kent, when he’d been left behind, trapped and cut off behind enemy lines, and made his one attempt to get back to his friends. Back then he’d had to learn to make headshots while running – and learn fast.
Now he figured either he had mastered the skill.
Or else the dead were just so close he couldn’t miss.
The other difference was he wasn’t alone this time. He literally had someone on his elbow – so close he could feel him jostling him. And it was the most comforting sensation he’d ever felt. He and Jameson were both almost certainly about to die. But he wasn’t going to die alone. And at least he would go down trying to save someone. Trying to do the right thing. Maybe not succeeding. But at least trying.
Elliot hadn’t given up.
And if he was about to die, he was so grateful to not be doing it alone that tears fell from the corners of his eyes, even amid all the madness, peril, moaning, shrieking, rifle fire, machine-gun fire, darkness, glare, pelting rain, adrenaline, cortisone, terror, and exhilaration. His heart was so full of love and gratitude there wasn’t room for any hate. A minute ago he’d grudgingly forgiven Jameson. Now he couldn’t imagine what a grudge would even feel like.
And as the sea of dead parted in front of them…
They both slammed into the foot of the guard tower.
They had made it.
In reality, the dead sea had been parting before them the whole way – the four angels above, one with a GPMG, clearing their path and somehow keeping them alive.
But in reality, they hadn’t made it.
Because they were still down there on the seabed.
And as they spun around, the tide was rushing back into the channel and its towering and angry waves breaking over them. There were too many, piled up too high, rammed too tight, and they were way too close. There was no way both of them could get out of there, no way they’d have time to climb the rope. Firing hopelessly into the rushing wall of dead, Elliot shouted, “I’m sorry – we’re not gonna make it!”
“You are, mate!”
Elliot felt a tug and looked down to see Jameson had jammed the hook on the rope into his belt.
“And you’re going to save everyone.”
And then a force like the irresistible arm of God rocketed him off the ground and toward heaven. In almost the same instant, Elliot collided with the pulley, which felt like being hit in the head with a brick. He battled to focus his eyes, even as he battled the hands that grabbed onto him to reel him in and drag him over the railing. Instead he flailed and stuck his torso back over the edge, shouting in rage, despair, and denial.
He caught one tiny winking glimpse of Jameson as the surging wave of dead crashed full over the top of him.
And then he disappeared completely.
In half a second, there wasn’t a trace of him left.
Elliot couldn’t breathe, couldn’t even begin to.
He still fought and flailed as strong arms pulled him in and over the edge, then down onto the deck, where he wheezed and sobbed and tried to scream, still unable to draw breath.
He was somehow still alive.
And Major Jameson was gone.
Bot-Jacked
London – Outside Armoury House
“We need to get inside,” Nicola said, huddling with the other survivors in the shadowed alcove where the giant soldier had put them, and ordered them to stay. “Through that gate.”
Richa
rd, the elderly gentleman who shared leadership duties with her, shook his head calmly. “No, missy. We need to do our part – which right now is doing what we’re told.”
“It’s not safe here,” Nicola hissed, asserting herself.
“Oh, I think it’s pretty safe behind that man.” Richard nodded up at the huge American standing guard in front of the gate. “And the two others.”
At any rate, he knew their group was a lot safer than they’d been in a while. They had survived the rampaging dead on Moorgate, not to mention the rampaging marauders, who were at least as dangerous due to having automatic weapons – and finally reached their destination of Finsbury Square. But once there, they’d found not only were there no evacuation helicopters coming – but the square was the scene of more dead, and worse fighting, than anywhere they’d been. And the soldiers there couldn’t protect them – they were fighting to stay alive, and couldn’t even effectively defend themselves.
It quickly became obvious they had to get off the square.
So when Richard spotted a small group of soldiers exiting at the northwest corner, he figured that was their best bet. Unfortunately, what they followed them into turned out to be another bad fight, just farther up the street. With that raging ahead, and the main battle behind, and bullets snapping and sparking up and down the street all around them, there’d been nothing they could do but hunker down and cover their heads.
Now that the fight up here had not only ended, but ended in victory for the living – along with, inexplicably, a big rolling robot – and their group had a wall to their backs, and armed soldiers between them and the battle, Richard figured they were all right, at least for the moment. The alcove wasn’t big enough to shelter them all, but it was something. And, at any rate, the soldiers risking their lives to guard them represented the only functioning civil authority – the one thing standing between all of them and social collapse, chaos and anarchy, humanity tearing itself to pieces.
So they were damned well going to follow instructions.
And that didn’t change when their position of safety did – when bullets once again started snapping up and down the street, from both sides, and right by their heads. Richard just shoved the others under cover as best he could, taking the position on the very outside.
And covering their bodies with his own.
* * *
As things had gotten worse outside, Pred had stopped pestering Juice. He knew he’d be doing his job inside, as quickly as he could, and he had already given him a time estimate – which had him coming back out any minute now. And Pred needed to focus on his own job out here. Complaining over the radio was both an annoyance and a distraction. Also, he was reminded that Juice had a perfectly good view on what was happening outside, when he heard him on the radio.
“Hey, man, check your nine.”
Pred turned to look. He’d been oriented right, toward the square, as were his last two HIC soldiers – as was Randy the unfriendly robot. There hadn’t been any trouble from the other direction, and Gordy was on guard up there anyway.
But when Pred stepped into the middle of the street and peered up to the end of the block, he could see there were two beefy trucks parked at the edge of the intersection, along with about a half-dozen armed men skulking around them. But there were another half-dozen who were not holding weapons.
And those motherfuckers were trying to boost Gordon up into the back of one of their motherfucking trucks.
Pred blinked and snorted in disbelief. Motherfuckers.
“Hey!” he bellowed down the street. “ASSHOLES!”
They stopped what they were doing and looked up.
And then the assholes started lighting him up.
* * *
Ali sat in the rear of her Apache, not enormously comfortable, dripping wet, sword still wedged between her back and a seat not particularly designed to accommodate it. On the upside, the bird was ready to fly, engines roaring and blades whumping. And the storm seemed to be moving off, rain slackening and lightning walking away to the south.
Of course, that meant it would be hitting CentCom.
She warily eyed the rooftop stairwell, pistol in her lap. The patients and hospital staff trapped up here with her had somewhat gotten their shit together, obeying her orders to stay the hell off her aircraft, as well as to try to barricade the stairs – both instructions intended to save their lives, as well as safeguard Ali’s mission. There wasn’t much up there to barricade with, but they had banded together to press their bodies up against the door. It was something.
It just wasn’t enough.
Ali had just touched her radio to try to get an updated ETA from Homer when she saw the door heave, and the barricaders shoved back, two times. And then their human barrier collapsed and the door flew open – and a whole new pack of goddamned runners flooded out. And just like that the rooftop was back to its previously scheduled carnage fest.
She took a couple of shots from the cockpit, but as before couldn’t do too much, as the fighting, grappling, struggling, and flesh-devouring spread around her aircraft, and to all corners of the rooftop again. Only this time with jet engines and a massive rotor storm raging – she saw one struggling pair get blown right off the roof edge and disappear.
She really wanted to avoid having to get out and clean house again, and so chose to believe she’d see Homer run out that same door in the next two seconds, so they could get the hell out of there. But Homer didn’t appear. Instead, another grappling, wheeling pair slung each other into the airframe just beside and below her open hatch, the human screaming and the dead guy hissing. Exhaling mournfully, Ali stuck her head and pistol out. But even as she took aim…
The living guy shoved the dead guy away – and the air intake of the engine behind sucked the dead man into it.
Ah, shit.
The air intake was shielded, but the Zulu was mostly Jello mold at this point, and just sort of sluiced right around it, disappearing a chunk at a time. The engine belched and flamed out, fire and smoke and meat pudding shooting out the back.
Oh, godDAMMit.
Now Ali had no choice but to exit the aircraft – to defend the single damned working engine on the other side, and that was assuming the airframe even maintained its structural integrity, which she had no choice but to assume. Drawing her sword as she jumped down, she flexed her thighs to catch her weight, and in the same motion rose and with a single slash beheaded a runner who ran at her, then shoved a fat woman in a hospital gown out of her way, circled the airframe, beheaded another runner who ran at her, and hit her radio with her left hand while she held the dripping katana with her right.
“HO-mer…!”
“Copy – en route, two mikes! Heavy contact in stairwell, but we’re fighting our way up.”
Ali didn’t answer, both because she had nothing to add…
And because she needed both hands on her sword.
* * *
“Not your fucking robot,” Pred muttered, mainly to himself, as he returned fire, dropping two of the robot-jackers with his first four shots. What kind of assholes jacked a defenseless robot – defenseless by design, unable to protect itself against the living? This kind of pissed him off.
Also it looked like Juice was right. He was fond of them now.
The bot-jackers couldn’t shoot worth a damn, their incoming rounds landing all over the place, but they also weren’t total idiots – for one thing, they ran for cover when the first two got dropped. But then a couple of the others drove one of the trucks around in front of Gordon, as well as the truck they’d been trying to load it into. Now they could resume bot-napping under the safety of hard cover. Pred didn’t like being unable to defend Gordon, but he also didn’t like leaving the gate to go all the way down to the end of the block.
He took a few shots just to keep those guys awake, while he hit Juice on his radio. “Hey, any chance of a sitrep?”
“Into the armory now. Just gotta find the sims and exfil
.”
“Copy.” Pred spat into the wet street, still not bothering to take cover. It sucked to abandon Gordy. But they were never gonna be able to take the bots out with them anyway, and their mission was all but over now. Best thing was to stay here and reconcile himself to the loss of the bot.
And then…
And then the assholes shot one of the huddling civilians. She was caught out in the crossfire, and was mainly the victim of the marauders’ shitty shooting. Pred belatedly realized the expanded civilian group was sticking way out of that alcove – and it looked like a white-haired old dude in a three-piece suit was on the pointy end, trying to keep the others safe.
When Pred jogged up and over, he found that same old guy trying to stop the bleeding of an oblique abdominal wound on the woman – who was blonde, pretty, and terrified.
And just like that, a switch flipped in his mind.
These huddling figures were no longer obstacles to his mission, potential infiltrators he had to keep out of their target site. These were living human beings. Moreover, these were the exact people he and Juice were running this mission for in the first place. He flashed back to Handon tearing them a new one, back in that clearing in Michigan, explaining this to him, Juice, and Henno – that these were the people they were trying to save, the last of the living. They were the point.
Even more compellingly, Pred knew this wounded woman, losing blood and terrified and in pain, was somebody’s Cali. They were all somebody’s Cali, or else people who had their own Calis to get back home to, and who loved them.
Holding his rifle one-handed, kneeling over the wounded woman, Pred fired five rounds to keep the marauders’ heads down, and with the other pulled out his blowout kit and handed it to the elderly man – who without hesitating got a gauze pad out and pressed down on the woman’s wound. When Pred stopped firing and looked the man in his eyes, they were bright, clear, and calm. Surrounded by an awful lot of wrinkles, but full of life and clarity.
ARISEN, Book Fourteen - ENDGAME Page 33
