ARISEN, Book Fourteen - ENDGAME

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  Then again, on his own, with no one covering his back, he was pretty sure he wasn’t getting out of here – he wasn’t even going to last another minute. And he definitely wasn’t going to be able to fight his way all the way down before he too got swarmed and taken down.

  Plan D. He’d have to jump for it.

  He actually knew off the top of his head the statistical odds of surviving a four-story fall were about 50% – dropping to 10% at seven stories. Whatever they were at five stories, he figured they were substantially better than his odds staying in here. On the other hand, he could see the closest window, and wasn’t anything like 100% sure he could even fight his way there. He said the quickest prayer of his life for the soul of Rob, who he knew had made it possible for him to get this far.

  On his own, the game was just about over.

  And then, looking down the long side of the sloping level, he could suddenly see bodies falling, in a wave coming around the far bend of the structure and up the ramp, like a field of wheat falling before a harvester. And suddenly Homer realized he wasn’t on his own at all. Someone was fighting their way up to his position – whirling sword clearing the way.

  Ali.

  Of course it was. Homer just shook his head.

  She had come back for him. Again.

  “Goddammit,” Homer said aloud.

  * * *

  Juice hauled back the bag with the simunitions in it, his right arm straightened out behind him, getting ready to hurl it up over the rear ramp and into the hatch of the descending Chinook. But as he did so, he was reminded for the millionth time that ammo is heavy, and figured he’d give Charlotte another five seconds to get all the way down to twenty feet. The last thing he wanted to do was miss and have their mission objective go down a sewer drain or something.

  As he killed five seconds, squinting into the heavy rotor wash, which was also blowing a lot of rainwater around, he hit his radio to let Pred know what he was doing. And that there was no way in hell he was leaving him. He said:

  “If tonight’s our night to go, one thing I know…”

  He got off the channel to let Pred finish the line.

  “…We’ll need a coin for the ferryman.”

  Message received.

  Juice hauled his arm back again.

  A roar and crash sounded from down the alley – and in almost the same instant, buzzsaw-like minigun fire, always unmistakable, started flecking off and tearing through the helo floating overhead. It would be even more unmistakable to anyone inside, namely the pilot, and Charlotte instantly blasted the engines and pulled up, causing the maw of that open rear hatch to rise and disappear into the greater blackness of the night sky.

  Juice scampered back under cover, fast, as three big trucks blasted into the courtyard from the street, led by a no-shit legit big-ass military armored vehicle – the one with the mounted minigun. Neither of the other two vehicles had mounted weapons, but all of them had armed men, a good twenty of them in total. And at least one or two spotted Juice before he got under cover, which was behind one of those mounted artillery pieces, and the fire of those guys was enough to direct the others on.

  He hunkered down and covered up, trapped and pinned down under murderous and nonstop incoming fire.

  Trapped and pinned down… with the mission objective.

  * * *

  Out in the alleyway, Pred had no choice but to literally dive out of the way of the incoming marauder convoy as it blasted through the open gates, crushing runners underneath its wheels, and roaring up the alley out into the courtyard.

  At first he took cover by scampering behind the little guard house, but then actually had to crawl inside it – because there was a fourth truck, another military vehicle and the last in the train, which stopped between the stone pillars the gates swung from, blocking the entrance. It also had a turret-mounted medium machine gun, and this spun to face back out.

  On the upside, the truck was now serving as an excellent replacement set of gates, blocking the entrance, and its gunner now doing the job of holding the line against the incoming runner packs.

  On the downside, Pred was surrounded. And also trapped.

  Plus cut off from Juice.

  * * *

  As the Husky slid to a halt in the courtyard, the other two trucks fanning out in an arc to either side, Jamie stood in the bed pointing his weapon – but held his fire, even as he watched pretty much everyone in the group lighting up one guy, who was trapped and hiding behind a big cannon. He did this because there was no point in adding to the wild shooting – and because he could see, perhaps alone among them, that the parade ground was ringed with unarmed civilians. All that shooting in there was eventually going to hit some of them.

  The only other one holding his fire was Reg, their ruthless leader – but that wouldn’t be out of humanitarian concerns. No, after lighting up the helicopter, he’d just be conserving ammo. That minigun tore through ammo like there was no tomorrow – which, Jamie figured, there probably wouldn’t be. But they’d all have fun tonight.

  Jamie also didn’t have to ask why Reg had taken them here. Back outside, finding the bodies of the dozen men he’d sent to check out the descending parachutes, hadn’t thrilled the man. Then again, Reg didn’t seem to have any kind of human feelings, so sadness wasn’t a factor. Maybe he wanted revenge on whoever had murdered a third of his group.

  But Reg wasn’t team-focused, either, or loyal to the men who followed him. Mainly, and this Jamie knew in his bones, Reg had wanted those guys’ shit. He figured whoever had committed such resources to defending this place – including the armed robot Reg took out with the minigun – must be doing it for a reason. That they must have some awesome shit inside. And that probably meant weapons.

  And Reg wanted them.

  All he’d said was: “We’re going in.” It was enough.

  He finally shouted at all the trigger-happy arseholes in the group to hold their fire. And now he said what he wanted: he shouted at the lone soldier to come out – to put down his weapons, and give up anything else he was holding.

  And suddenly Jamie realized: guys were falling off the trucks – two, three, four, all crumpling and dropping without a sound, and then the rest of them realized it, too, freaking out and dropping and squeezing their triggers en masse, and Reg did so as well, turning the armored turret to the rear and spinning up the minigun, as it all kicked off again.

  There was another soldier in there with them.

  * * *

  “Dammit, woman,” Homer said, raising his voice above the moaning, hissing, and slapping of heads and bodies hitting the concrete, as he laid about him with his boarding axe.

  As he’d intuited, Ali was fighting her way up the ramp to get to him, whirling with her katana like some kind of human combine, dropping enough dead guys to fill a cemetery, all on her own. Or maybe she wasn’t alone – with her sword it was like there was two of her. Or eight. In fairness, she was advancing with the motion of the mob running upward. But, still, whereas Homer had decided he wasn’t going to last another minute in here on his own, Ali was another story.

  She was a whole other category.

  And now she reached him. And suddenly neither were alone.

  “Come on,” she said.

  Not wasting the breath to ask where, Homer just started moving and covering his sector, swinging his axe in big arcs out to the right, Ali slicing and dicing front and left, the two of them descending half a level in half a minute, until they reached what Homer could now see were two enclosed garages, small vehicle bays, at the bend in the deck. Both were covered by roll-up steel-slat doors secured by padlocks, and Homer opened one of the locks with his axe, then hauled the door halfway up while Ali held the line with powerful razor-sharp swings at neck height, then ducked under the door and inside while Homer covered, setting his back leg and knocking ranks of bodies back with strong shoves of the axe, then rolled underneath Indy-like as Ali pulled the door shut.

 
As he stood up, she hit a light switch on the wall.

  And there they were. Completely trapped.

  But together – and completely happy.

  * * *

  On the upside, as the shitheads in the convoy realized Pred was dropping them Sergeant York style from behind, and started lighting him up, it turned out the little security shack he was in was made of tougher stuff than it appeared.

  Pred had figured that as soon as that minigun tracked on, it would tear through it like bacon, if the high-velocity military rifle rounds didn’t first. But it was made of sterner stuff, big thick stone blocks, and Pred gave another mental salute to the seriousness of the Honourable Infantry Company, and what was a proper military installation – despite looking like a historical attraction in the middle of a financial district.

  But he did have to drop back down inside it after dropping four of the assholes out on those vehicles – because none of them had been the minigunner. That guy was in a turret shielded with full gunner protection, and Pred had no shot on him.

  So he’d taken what he could get.

  Now he needed a new plan.

  * * *

  So did Juice, but he was back in his old situation, with not many more options than before. He’d dropped two more in the distraction of Pred engaging them from behind, but now he was pinned down again. On the upside, it was behind the good old solid-steel gun shield on that artillery piece, which was conveniently facing the marauder’s formation of three vehicles.

  On the downside, he still had the mission objective in there with him, which these assholes seemed to want for whatever reason, and which he could under no circumstances risk losing. And he was also still facing at least fifteen guys, who at any time could fan out and flank his ass, then gun him down. If they got their heads out of their asses long enough to figure out that simple tactical fact.

  Juice pulled his long-suffering Harley “Live to Ride” bandana from his pocket, tossed it out to the left to draw fire, then popped right. He triggered off two rounds, but they just flecked off steel. Still no shot on the minigunner – the only one who mattered.

  That gunner shield was impregnable.

  He ducked down again ahead of heavy incoming.

  So far, he hadn’t had to communicate with Pred – totally in sync as always, they hadn’t needed to coordinate their moves. Now Juice considered coordinating a two-man assault. But it would still be two on fifteen. These guys were obviously asshats, and couldn’t shoot – and an old chestnut said you couldn’t miss fast enough to win a gunfight. And even fifteen of these guys couldn’t miss fast enough to win this gunfight.

  But the minigun could.

  A minigun actually could miss fast enough to win a gunfight.

  They were in a pickle.

  But at least they were in it together.

  * * *

  When the light came on inside the little vehicle bay, Ali saw Homer frowning at the bag of HRIG he had just tossed out of there to her. And he just gave her a What the hell are you doing back here with that? look.

  She shrugged. “Believe it or not, I saw seventeen magpies out there on the street. It’s seventeen for an aborted mission, right? In the nursery rhyme? Didn’t like the sound of that.”

  Homer shook his head and repeated himself: “Dammit, woman. You cannot sacrifice the mission just to save me.”

  Ali sighed. Funny he didn’t see it way back in Chicago.

  But she took a breath, more serious now. “I’m not sacrificing either one. We fight our way back – together.”

  “Come here,” Homer said. “You’re bleeding.”

  Looking down, she saw she had a deep gash on her right thigh. “Huh. I think an exposed piece of rebar bit me.”

  Homer got a self-adhesive gauze pad in there. But then he dug out his handy roll of 100mph tape and started wrapping it around – tight. Ali didn’t have to ask why. The wound was pretty deep, and they were probably going to be on their feet for a while. And they still had to fight their way out of there.

  “How’d you get out of the hospital?” Homer asked, tearing off the end of the tape.

  Ali shrugged. “Had to whack a lot of panicked dipshits with the flat of my sword. Wish now I’d used the edge.”

  When Homer stood up again, Ali saw he had an equally bad gash on his upper arm. “Gimme that,” she said, taking the tape and wrapping the arm wound – not bothering with a bandage. “How’d you get that?”

  Homer looked down at it. “Air ambulance took a bite out of me with a thrown rotor.” Ali handed the tape back. Instead of stowing it, Homer just hooked it on the knife on his vest. His purpose in keeping it there was clear: those were unlikely to be the last wounds that needed wrapping up on this mission.

  The two of them locked eyes, and the look said everything.

  And in that same instant, Ali also knew everything – it all finally made sense to her. Breaking up with Homer, a lifetime ago back on the carrier, had been the hardest and scariest thing she’d ever done – which, given the operational career of a Tier-1 operator, plus two years of ZA, was saying something. But it had felt so bad for the reason that it hadn’t been the right thing to do. It had all been wrong.

  She’d only realized this later, in the hangar in Djibouti – that she could break up with Homer, but she could never stop loving him. And the appropriate way to deal with the fear of losing him was not to push him away, but – as Handon told her – to hold him close and hold him dear. To never be away from him, to always be there to protect him, no matter what.

  To stand or fall with him.

  But the two of them weren’t going to fall.

  Because now Ali also knew that she could sacrifice Homer to the mission, if she had to. But she wasn’t going to sacrifice him, because she didn’t have to. She knew she could do both – save Homer and complete the mission.

  Because she was the fucking superhero. She could do it all.

  Now they would rescue each other.

  “Come on,” she said. “It’s not going to suck itself.”

  Coming to Join You, Brothers

  CentCom – Old Prison Walls

  With only one weapon-mounted light pointed at the floor now, the little security room inside the prison walls was even darker than it had been. But it suited Fick’s mood well enough.

  He stayed where he was, leaning on the piled-up furniture that barricaded the busted outside door. It wasn’t heaving right now, or not heaving so much. But Fick knew this was a dam, and one that was eventually going to burst. The dead very rarely forgot about you, or just went away. This door also opened inward. And the pressure out there in the Common, and up against the old prison walls, was only going to build.

  But maybe good old Master Gunnery Sergeant Fick would have a last few minutes here. A little time to remember. To reflect. To decide what it all meant.

  He thought again of his boyhood, and his mentor back on whatever the hell Marine base that was, who had seemed such a Grand Old Man of the Corps, due to having fought and survived so many storied and terrible battles in Vietnam. Another story he’d told Fick was how, before the worst moments of the Tet Offensive, General Westmoreland had ordered all his officers to write their own obituaries. And Fick remembered this part very clearly. The old leatherneck told the wide-eyed boy that once they’d internalized they were all going to die one day, whether it was today or in fifty years, they found they were able to focus on how they wanted to act while they were still here.

  And on what they wanted to leave behind.

  And what the hell will I leave behind? Fick wondered.

  He’d never married, much less had children – and all his Marines were dead. Then he thought of the unlikely friend he had made, very late in the post-Apocalypse – Emily, the civilian girl Alpha had rescued from the pirates on Lake Michigan, then brought back with them like a homeless puppy.

  At least she’s safe back on the JFK.

  If this place fell, as it looked like it was going to�
� if Britain didn’t make it in the end, then maybe the flattop could be humanity’s new ark. And maybe Em would end up being the new Mitochondrial Eve – the common female ancestor of a reborn and repopulated human race. Humanity could do a hell of a lot worse. Fick wished that for her – wished all good things for her. He only wished he could have done more to save this world for her.

  But maybe he’d done his best.

  The door heaved suddenly and violently, shoving the barricade into Fick’s battered old body. From the manic energy of the banging, he didn’t have to wonder what kind of dead guys were out there slamming into it. He drew his MARSOC CQB .45, stuck it through the crack, and fired eight times.

  “Fuck you, Foxtrot,” he said, without any particular rancor, and then shoved the door closed again. He reloaded the pistol and placed it on the old scuffed-up desk in front of him, then picked up his train of thought.

  Yeah, maybe I’ve done my best.

  And now he would go down the way he always knew he would – fighting. Last sheepdog standing. And last to fall.

  But now, when he finally did go down, he knew he would do so with his conscience at peace at last. For most of the last two years, he had been tormented by guilt over his failure to refuse the MARSOC Lieutenant’s last orders, his willingness to let him stay behind and die. All because of the sin of hubris – of thinking he was more qualified than the young officer to lead the men. Believing that he was more worthy to live on.

  And every day since then, the only way he could think to expiate that sin was to do everything in his power to make its premise more true – to be the best leader he could for his Marines, to try to be worthy of them, to keep them alive if possible, and spend their lives as dearly as possible if not. In the end, he’d failed at that. In the end, he’d watched every one of them go down. But maybe this had all happened exactly the way it had to. Starting that horrible day in Darwin, perhaps an inexorable series of events had played out. Maybe they’d had to play out this way. And maybe that was okay.

  Maybe Fick had played his role, and done his duty.