ARISEN, Book Fourteen - ENDGAME

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  Juice’s response said he hadn’t been failing to notice his friend’s humanitarian feelings and activities lately. “Predator. Forget the fifty damned people in the courtyard. Our mission is to save the fifty million outside it.”

  “Yeah, don’t I know it?” Pred paused as a Foxtrot went bouncing and shrieking by out on the street, disappeared – and then came back, like the Foxtrot equivalent of a double-take. Pred dropped it before it got to him, barely, but it took the rest of his mag, so he dropped that, reloaded, raised his rifle even as he saw the next runners coming in – and hit his radio again. “But there’s not just people back there – it’s also the helo, and the mission objective. Take the bag, get on the bird, and get the hell out of here.”

  Pred just had time to spit before he had to resume shooting. But then a breeze touched his face, and he looked up… to see that, not only had the rain let up, but a small section of the heavy cloud cover had blown away. And he could see the night sky through the gap – stars twinkling through mist and gauzy bits of cloud, light from billions of miles away.

  And all at once he felt a strange sense of peace.

  Right here, right now, in this tiny spot upon a mote of dust floating through a vast and empty cosmos… both his soul, and their mission, were completely on the line. But suddenly, miraculously, the two had somehow come into perfect alignment. Safeguarding one would save the other – the same act, staying back to hold this line, would protect those people back in the courtyard… and also ensure the success of their mission.

  And Predator knew that whether he survived this or not was of very little importance. He’d like to see Kate again, not to mention his other brothers and sister in Alpha. But now at least, vaccinated, he knew he would never turn and become a menace to them. That great fear would never come true. And whether he lived another minute, or another fifty years, he would always have their love. And if he did fall now, it would be completing the mission – and completing his journey.

  Nothing was missing. He’d just needed the eyes to see.

  And with a shock, as he fired nonstop at the incoming waves, he realized something else. That he finally forgave himself – for Cali, for her death. For not being there to save her. It wasn’t his fault. And he knew the love he shared with her would also be eternal and undying.

  And, finally, just like that, he felt the truth of it: he had finally found his way through. Back to life. And, as the starlight shone down on his face and the dozens of bodies fell at his feet, he knew Juice was right.

  It was so beautiful here.

  He stood his ground. And he held the line.

  * * *

  On the upside, there was more than enough open space in the Armoury House drilling ground, even for a big Fat Cow – and, more importantly, Charlotte saw she had gotten here in time.

  Rabid One was still alive.

  Well, one of them was, anyway – she could see him waving a light at her from the edge of the HLZ. But he was alone, no second Alpha guy – but also not remotely alone.

  As she dropped down through fifty feet, she hit the lever to lower the rear ramp – but then pulled pitch and slowed her descent. Because she could also see a significant crowd of civilians on the edges of that courtyard. She’d seen desperate civilians close up, very recently, and had zero desire to touch down only to have her aircraft swarmed by these ones – overloaded at best, and damaged or disabled at worst.

  She also still saw only one of the two guys for extraction, and decided she’d like it better if both were there and ready to go – so she could touch and go. Luckily, she found she did have comms with them, now that she was so close.

  “Rabid One, confirm you are two pax at the extract point.”

  “Confirmed, we’re here… ish. Gimme fifteen seconds.”

  Charlotte checked her fuel gauge. Not good. Bad, in fact.

  “Fifteen? No problem. Thirty – no chance. Move your arses.”

  But when she looked down again, she could see the dude on the ground was fucking around with his phone. Or staring down into some type of glowing device.

  Goddammit.

  * * *

  “This is why we build shit,” Juice muttered to himself. Randy was black on ammo, but Gordon was still loaded for bear, so he flipped to it with his controls and camera view. All he had to do was roll that bad boy back a block and post it at the gate.

  And then it would hold the line for them. Like a BAMF.

  And he and Predator could get the hell out of there.

  But when the night-vision video view came up, it was completely whited out, so he flipped to electro-optical and realized it was because of headlights – bright and approaching fast. Then the screen started filling with sparks, metal and cement chips, and smoke. This was totally baffling, but finally Juice realized what it was – Gordy was getting lit up.

  It was taking incoming fire – heavy incoming.

  Juice rapidly set a waypoint twenty feet away on the sidewalk just to get it off the road and out of the way of whatever inexplicable heavily armed traffic was cruising the streets out there – and Gordon almost made it. It was one foot from the curb when the view started vibrating even more violently – and then Gordon started doing tight circles. Juice tried taking manual control, but without success.

  He already knew what this was: a mobility kill. One of Gordy’s treads had been taken out. Now it wasn’t going anywhere.

  Bot down, motherfuckers. Bot down.

  And with it Pred’s relief.

  And Juice’s last hope for getting his friend out of there.

  * * *

  “Welcome to the Hot Gates of Thermopylae, motherfuckers.”

  Pred was now fighting less like a Spartan king and more like a vengeful, righteous, all-powerful god – but the one from the New Testament, not the Old. He was compassionate, battling to protect his people. He’d emptied both his primary and secondary weapons again taking down another incoming wave, with no time to reload before the next one hit, so now he waded out through that one, swinging, stabbing, kicking, shoving, and crushing heads. The good news was he was still seven feet tall and moving a million miles an hour, so most of the invaders were fixating on him rather than running past him, giving him a fair chance to utterly destroy them.

  The bad news was it was getting really messy.

  Good thing I’m immune now, Pred thought, simply picking up a rampaging Foxtrot and hurling it face-first into the stone wall to his left with enough force to entirely eliminate its head. As he turned forward again another flew at his face, teeth first – he caught this one in midair, then alley-ooped it up on top of one of the gates, where it landed impaled on the row of spikes, and kept shrieking and flailing, but now at least out of his way.

  When he cleared this wave, with just enough time to reload – very last rifle mag, and second-to-last pistol mag – he turned to check on Andrew and Miranda, who had been playing safety in his back-field…

  And saw both of them were down on the deck.

  They also both had bodies lying on them – but they weren’t being eaten. They hadn’t gone out that way, instead managing to take out the runners that had taken them down.

  When Pred knelt and checked on them… they were gone.

  * * *

  The careening ambulance straightened out and accelerated on a rare straightaway, a relatively clear stretch of road, and Homer was impressed with the power under the hood of this thing. But they were only two blocks from the parking deck, so Rob started braking hard and fast almost as soon as he’d gunned it.

  As he cut the wheel and the tires screamed, they angled up the ramp and crashed through the barrier into the parking garage, and at the last second Homer caught a glimpse of the blinking lights of the air ambulance coming down toward the same spot from the east. That was good. Less good was that civilians, as always being chased by the dead, were also fleeing inside here. Homer didn’t know whether they saw the incoming helo, or were just trying to get off the street,
but it was likely to be a problem either way.

  They roared into the halogen-lit darkness and started doing right-hand loops up the ramps, level after level, Rob steering with one hand to dodge living people while running down the dead – and somehow hitting his radio with his other hand.

  “Kev! Don’t be late, mate!”

  No response came back, but when the ambulance ramped out onto the top deck, open to the night sky, thirty seconds later, both occupants could instantly see why. The deck was already a charnel house – refugees had already reached it, and the dead had found them. Not a ton, but the struggling pairs and groups were spread out, and there was no clear place for the helo to set down. Rob screeched them to a halt beside one of the low concrete barriers at deck’s edge, and Homer leapt out, not needing to instruct the paramedic to do the same.

  Together they started trying to secure an HLZ, a two-man clearing action, while Rob shouted into his radio at the helo hovering above: “It’s only gonna get worse! You gotta land now!” The two of them got enough space clear, and the brave air ambulance pilot started to flare in – but there was no way for two shooters to hold a two-dimensional space, and running figures started flooding in. Homer wheeled and shot, somehow managing to be on three sides at once, reloaded, wheeled and shot, and was just about to switch to his boarding axe…

  When he saw a Foxtrot burst onto the top deck from the stairwell, go tear-assing across the deck, shriek bloody murder at the helo – and leap through the air at it, smashing face-first into the cockpit glass. It didn’t break through, just cracking and spiderwebbing it before falling back to the deck, but it sure as hell gave the pilot a scare, and the bird dropped a few more feet and lurched to its right – where two civilians grabbed onto its skids on the right side, evidently hoping for an open-air ride the hell out of there, and clinging on for dear life.

  The helo recovered, straightening up and regaining the altitude it had lost – but by then two runners had grabbed onto the dangling feet of the civilians, then a Foxtrot leapt on their backs, and Homer suddenly remembered Ali’s estimate of the weight of that light utility helo when he saw the pilot having to compensate for all the extra weight on one side. The rotors first dipped right, creating not just a hazard but an abattoir, liquefying two or three running figures from the shoulders up, then straightened up, the engines whining to complain about the uneven load.

  And then… the dead won the dead-hang contest, pulling off the living guys clinging to the skids – all of them at once.

  And, with the weight even again, the compensating power of the engines and blades turned to instant catastrophe as the helo flipped on its left side, rotors hitting stone and shattering, blade fragments and razor-sharp stone chips scything the air, Homer and Rob dropping to the deck electrically and covering up, as the fuselage went in after the rotors, crunching and screaming, the whole airframe rolling on its side and smashing into the parked ambulance, knocking it with its high center of gravity over the low stone barrier.

  And following right behind it.

  Truck and helo tumbled over the edge and into the night.

  Homer sighed. Just not our night for rooftop helo extractions.

  City Falls, Lazarus Rises

  CentCom – South Walls

  Fick called it.

  “I’m calling it,” he said to Wes, to his right.

  Wesley only nodded in response. He was at a point where he didn’t have to ask what Fick meant, and he certainly didn’t have to ask why. It wasn’t that the reinforcements of the QRF, and the mortar barrage, had been too late. No, they’d been exactly on time, thanks to Fick.

  They were just too little – way too little.

  The QRF was only another dozen guys – albeit one of them Master Gunnery Sergeant Fick himself – to reinforce the undermanned south walls. And the mortar teams had spent their last rounds, all at once, destroying and beating back the edge of the tide, this brand-new flood from the southwest.

  But it had been a one-time deal.

  And now the dead were already almost up to the level of the south walls again. A couple Foxtrots had already leapt over – there seemed to be fewer of them from this direction, for some reason – and the RMP and conscript defenders were now shooting point-blank to stop the others simply climbing up and over. Moreover, the rate of ascent of the pile could be seen with the naked eye. In another few minutes, they’d be up to the level of the ramparts – and then they’d flood right over. The defenders could stay here, fight, and die. Or they could retreat.

  Either way, the dead were coming over.

  “Okay,” Wesley said. He hit his radio and gave the order.

  Fick planted his feet and resumed shooting, as men started pulling back and racing down off the walls. In a way it was a hard decision, but Fick had always known it was coming. That they would eventually have to fall back to the inner prison complex, which they could still defend. The extended walls were too long to man, and the Common too big to clear, much less hold. It was already starting to be overrun, and there was no way they had the personnel to defend it all.

  The consolidation was going to make it hard, if not impossible, to defend the freestanding Biosciences complex, which it was absolutely critical that they do. But that’s why Fick had the entire London Regiment posted outside its front doors. And there shouldn’t be anyone left in any of the other outbuildings.

  So they were all pulling back – back to the Alamo.

  It was also becoming clear that Fick and Wesley were going to be the last men out. Fick considered ordering him to go, but then remembered Wes outranked him. But he knew what actually would work. “Lead your men out, Lieutenant. Get them to safety.” He could feel Wesley’s eyes on his cheek, but only for a second. Then he was gone.

  But as he kept shooting, Fick realized there was another group that didn’t look like they had any plans to leave – his damned QRF. Those guys he could order out – but decided to let them help hold the line until everyone else was down off the walls. But then he glanced to his left and saw one more.

  Lance Corporal Schmuckatelli.

  He was still standing beside Fick on the wall, firing.

  “Move your ass,” Fick grunted, shoving him. But the man just shrugged him off. He clearly didn’t want to pack it in. Fick glowered, but since he had a second while reloading anyway, he said, “Okay, you remember Dunkirk? This is us saving the expeditionary force so we can defend your goddamned island home later. Got it? Now go!”

  He did.

  * * *

  Shouting, firing, moaning, shrieking – much closer now.

  Living and dead running by, almost beneath his window.

  And now, finally, Handon found he could do it. He could open his eyes – though they opened upon near-darkness. He could both feel and move his body now. And he could even manage to sit up. As he did so, he felt something hard by his side. He picked it up and regarded it in the near dark.

  His good old Mercworx knife. Henno had been right.

  He found a glass of water on the end table and dumped it down. As his senses dialed up, he could better hear the sounds of fighting close by outside, and even see the flashes of tracer rounds and explosions through the window.

  It didn’t sound good.

  But whatever was happening out there, he knew one thing – his people, Alpha team, would be in the thick of it, leading the fight. He got his legs over the edge of the bed and onto the cold tile floor. His right leg still felt like timber, with nothing like full feeling or control. But then he remembered lying in the mud on that riverbank with Misha’s Desert Eagle pointed at his face, being pretty sure he’d never walk on the leg again. So this wasn’t too bad, all things considered. Now he could not only feel it, but could damned well move it. That meant his lumbar artery had been pinched – but not severed.

  And that meant he could walk. But first he had to stand.

  Climbing to his feet, he felt a wave of nausea hit him, but it passed quickly, leaving a feelin
g of heavy grogginess and weakness in its wake. But he could also feel those starting to fade. Or else he was just pushing past them. Either worked.

  Focusing his eyes on a spot a few feet away, he saw his assault suit and tactical belt draped over a chair, boots on the floor beneath. He managed the four steps required to reach them, unsteadily, but staying on his feet. Then, with no more hesitation than it took to take a deep breath, he started strapping everything back on.

  He knew Henno wasn’t really there to judge him. Or maybe he was, for all he knew. But it didn’t matter. Handon was always his own harshest judge. And he also knew that, dead or alive, Henno was right. Handon wasn’t going to let himself go down before this job was done. He was going to see it through – all the way to the end. Stand, fall, win, lose, draw… he was riding this train to the last stop.

  And he intended to do it on his feet.

  He refused to be called home before seeing this through. And when he did go down for good, it wasn’t going to be lying in a damned hospital bed. In a nightie. No, he was still going to make sure it was lying in a pile of his own brass.

  Now, he thought, looking around for the exit.

  Just need to find some brass…

  * * *

  Wesley hurtled through rain and peril once again – this time leading not a small NSF force or tiny shore team, but instead almost 150 men and women, all of them now running not for their lives, but for the chance to live and fight another day.

  Or to fight again in another few minutes.

  There was sporadic firing around and behind him, and Wes could sense more than see dead out in the Common. But none were coming for him personally, so he trusted his people to do any shooting necessary, and focused on his job of leading the troop movement. At the same time, his mind once again started exhibiting the old time-dilation/weird-shit phenomenon that was becoming familiar to him now.

  And he reflected that this really was like Virginia Beach and its pursuing runner packs – just with more rain. Or like Jizan, with a whole lot less fire – and more dead on their way in. He also suddenly appreciated Fick’s forethought in building those dirt ramps up to the backs of the walls. At the time, it had seemed like a lot of work, and a lot of earth to move. But it had allowed the defenders in the south to all disengage and get down – without, as far as Wes knew, any further casualties. This was indeed turning into Dunkirk, in the best sense.