ARISEN, Book Fourteen - ENDGAME

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  “All night,” Ali said, beginning what was obviously going to be a battle with the controls. “Since he picked us up.”

  “What’s happening?” Aliyev stuck his head into the cockpit. It was hard to miss when helicopter engines shut down.

  “We’re going down,” Ali said.

  “Inside the compound? Or out?”

  “Yeah,” Ali said. “Definitely one or the other.”

  “It kind of makes a difference!”

  “Hey, you’re the dipshit who took off without checking your fuel state.”

  “You’re bleeding,” Homer said, twisting around in his seat. There was blood dripping from Aliyev’s ear, and Homer turned his head to find a nasty scalp wound, then gave him a gauze pad to press against it.

  “Thanks,” Aliyev said, then looked back over at Ali. “Hey, I’m very sorry about the fuel. I suggest you engage someone more detail-oriented to save your asses next time.”

  “Hey,” Homer said, “You should go strap yourself in.”

  Ali already had them auto-rotating, and was milking their altitude and airspeed for everything they were worth. But they were also flying low – she’d never spent the fuel to gain any more altitude than necessary – and the tops of the CentCom walls were coming up fast. At eye level.

  “Not gonna make it,” she said, veering them off.

  As she did, something crashed into the fuselage with a bang – then something else. Then one into the cockpit glass, spiderwebbing it before falling away. A body.

  “Foxtrots,” Ali said. “Hang on.”

  And then there was pinging and zipping through the cabin – and a bright red tracer streaking in one side and out the other made it clear what all that was. This was always the problem with coming into friendly lines from the direction of the enemy.

  As Ali tried to take them down while keeping the top of the helicopter pointing upward – not easy to do while banking away from those solid stone walls, with zero power, in a Foxtrot and bullet blizzard – she hit her radio. “Yeah, all CentCom call signs, if you could kindly refrain from lighting us the fuck up, that would be great.”

  The ground raced at them – or rather the dead did.

  The airframe smashed, shuddered, and screamed.

  And then the world started spinning around them.

  Finally… blackness.

  * * *

  Pretty much only Handon and Fick stood their ground, the others in the center of the line clearing the hell out as a medium-lift helicopter came out of the rain and darkness right at their faces. They didn’t even hear it coming, the whine of its spinning blades sounding only as it appeared, with no engine noise, but it banked around at the last instant and headed back out into no-man’s land – for the last few seconds of its flight.

  It went in hard, rolling over and tumbling, blades and tail boom snapping off, pushing crowds of dead ahead of it – until it finally smashed into one of the parked armored vehicles behind the meat wall, which in turn barreled forward, smushing into the wall and half-disappearing before coming to a stop. This hardly mattered, as dead were already coming over and around the wall like it wasn’t even there.

  “USOC guys forgot their parking brake,” Fick said.

  Handon ignored this. “Those my people?”

  “Yeah,” Fick said. “That’ll be Ali and Homer.” He’d heard Ali’s ice-blooded last transmission.

  They could both see no one was emerging from that helo. If anyone had even survived the crash, they wouldn’t dare venture out – it was already being swarmed with dead. The occupants were being buried, alive or otherwise. The crash site was out at the very edge of no-man’s land – but also pretty starkly and painfully visible in the wall-mounted spotlights, which made some deep shadows out at that distance, but left no doubt about what was happening.

  “I need you,” Handon said, turning and launching himself back down the dirt ramp. Not hesitating, and keeping additional jokes to himself, Fick raced to follow. On the ground, Handon covered the distance to the Panther and hurled two ammo cans up on the roof, while Fick followed suit with the other two.

  “Drive,” Handon said, powering his big body up onto the hood, then the roof, then dropping down inside the turret.

  Already climbing into the driver’s seat, Fick didn’t have to ask where. He fired up the engine, jammed it in gear, spun the tires in the mud, and lurched forward to the foot of the dirt ramp. Then he cut the wheel, jammed it in reverse, and started backing up it – laying on the horn the whole way. He couldn’t really see whether the defenders up there got out of the way, but he didn’t really care. What he cared about was not driving the truck through the ramparts and off the top of the wall.

  He slowed and braked as the back tires hit the walkway – and the rear bumper just kissed the rampart. He already heard the whine of the minigun spinning up, and climbed out just in time to see Handon cleaning house out at the crash site – delivering a minigun precision masterclass.

  But Fick knew love, caring about your guys, was a powerful enabler of skill, along with everything else. When he got to the edge and looked out, he found Handon drawing a cut-out of the big helo airframe, as well as shooting inches over the top of it – or rather the side of it, which was facing up – enough dakka to clear the dead completely off, and all in seconds.

  But more of them would also be back in seconds.

  He’d at least just bought Ali and Homer a little time.

  Fick put his hand to his earpiece, touched his PTT button, said, “Copy that,” switched channels – and just listened for a few seconds. Then he turned around and squinted back down into the Common – in the direction of Bio. He turned back and looked up at Handon, who was changing out ammo cans.

  “Hey,” he said. “We’ve got a problem.”

  * * *

  Sarah was prepared to race into whatever breach had been made in Bio by herself – but she didn’t have to. On the way, she ran into both of the UK reservists, who were also running the direction everyone else was running away from. This not only impressed her, it calmed her. Policing had taught her it was usually not a great idea to go running off by yourself.

  Teammates were good.

  Their path took them back by the fabrication rooms, so she paused long enough to stick her head in the door and shout at Park, then his RMP, who were two feet away from each other. “Stay inside! Stay with him! Don’t open this!” She slammed the door closed and took off again, running first behind the two soldiers, then overtaking them.

  They kept passing panicked living people, and no dead, which in a way was creepier – they had no way of knowing how bad it was, and as usual the build-up to the fight was more stressful than the fight itself. But finally they raced through the doors of the warehouse, down the long aisle, and toward the back end of it – and found there were no more fleeing living. Instead there was just one down on the deck – being eaten.

  The two soldiers stopped running and fired, dropping the two dead eating him, neither of which ever got up, so their type and speed remained unknown. Sarah ran past the bodies to where she could see upright ones coming in – and could also see the breach. A big section of the relatively flimsy plastic wall had been torn open, then down. The hole might have started small, but it was big now, and Sarah opened up, firing into the crowd lurching through it from out of the wet night.

  More fire from the soldiers joined hers, all three of them pouring it in, and in a few seconds all the dead they could see were down. But that hole was still wide open. She took a look around for something they might use to barricade it – but there was nothing. Only vaccine kits, which were too light, plus presumably too precious.

  “Come on,” she said – pushing out exactly two inches past the gap, right in its center, but no farther. The two Brits stepped up on either side. Together, they were big enough to fill the hole. The good news was there weren’t as many dead here, on the back side of the complex. The majority were drawn to all the living and shootin
g people out front, or else the prison.

  The bad news was the three of them were living people.

  And they were also the barricade – a meat barricade.

  So there was no question more dead would be coming. In fact, they already were. Both soldiers had started shooting again – and Sarah was going to have to join them in the next few seconds. But she used those seconds to take stock.

  She took a deep breath. She felt adrenalized, she felt afraid, she certainly felt worried about their tactical situation – the three of them couldn’t possibly hold off the thousands of dead that were out there, not once they locked on. But at the same time, she also felt at peace. Because she was finally getting it right – doing the one thing that was expected of her, and should have been all along: protecting Simon Park and his work.

  She was doing her duty.

  She finally had her focus in the right place, on one thing.

  And then a voice spoke in her ear.

  Handon.

  * * *

  Following the line of Fick’s finger, burning the precious seconds he’d bought Ali and Homer, Handon brought the dripping ELCAN 3.2x scope on the rifle to his eye – and instantly made out the scene: a hole in the back of the big white Bio building, with three shooters blocking it. The magnification was just good enough to make out faces.

  And the one in the middle was totally unmistakable.

  He took his eye from his scope to see Fick forcibly pulling a team radio off whoever was standing closest, twisting the channel selector, and handing it up to him. Handon slipped the radio into a pouch and got the headset on.

  “Cameron, this is Handon, you copy?”

  Only the shortest delay followed, but it was a breathless one. “Jesus. Shane. Yes yes, copy. Where are you?”

  “Look up. Center of the north walls.” He doubted she could actually see him at this distance in the dark. But he could see her face well enough through his scope – and in fact she was looking right in his direction. And her look said she felt him looking back at her. He could also see her raising her rifle to defend herself – and, panning his own scope around, he could see dead converging on her position.

  Fick spoke from below. “Hey, Handon, that’s a big problem. We lose Bio, we lose the vaccine stocks, plus the MZ.” He paused and shook his head. “I was afraid that might happen – that they’d tear through the thin skin of that damned thing. But there was nothing I could do about it, so just had to hope for the best.” He snorted, indicating that had worked out about as well as it usually did.

  Handon lowered his weapon and turned to the front. The battle raged on both sides of them – Gurkhas and tankers right around them, Royal Marines and operators beyond to either side, all of them firing down over the ramparts into the faces of the dead, fighting furiously to keep them from reaching the top of the walls. But Handon had to block that out, his gaze and focus farther out – where dead were swarming the helo crash site again. He had no idea whether the cabin was secure, but he knew Ali and Homer were inside it, and he knew they were alive. He took a breath, gripped the minigun firmly, aimed carefully, and spent the second ammo can clearing the airframe of dead once again. As he tossed the empty can and maneuvered the third one in, he responded to Fick:

  “No – it’s an opportunity. That’s how we get the simunitions and HRIG back inside of there.” Turning around again, he could see Fick surveying the scene – and seeing the same thing he had. The front entrance to the Bio complex was defended by 150 soldiers – but it was also ringed in with a good couple thousand dead. Whereas the breach in the rear was only defended by three – but while it was under threat, the mass of dead there was a whole lot thinner. You could move through it. It was even possible to see a path from a gate in the prison walls to that spot.

  “Huh,” Fick said. “That might actually work.”

  Raising his rifle again, Handon got a close-up view of Sarah and the two soldiers closely engaged now, by at least two dozen dead. He could literally see her fighting for her life. And then he could hear her.

  “Handon, Cameron. We can’t hold here, not with only three of us. We’re going to have to retreat back inside – and then seal off this side of the complex.”

  Handon’s face was devoid of expression when he answered. “Negative, negative. Sarah, I need you to hold that breach. Repeat, hold in place there.”

  When she came back, her voice was breathless with both exertion and creeping panic. “Then come reinforce us! We need more bodies, or we’re not going to last here long.”

  From high up in the truck turret at the center of the line, Handon turned in all directions, scanning the battlespace and tactical situation. As far as he could see to the left and right, men and women were fully engaged, fighting balls out to keep the dead from the walls – from coming over into the prison itself, their last stronghold. Ten feet away, a Gurkha loader calmly slotted a new belt into a Browning .50 MG, while the gunner hacked at hands grabbing onto the ramparts with his kukuri knife. Down in the yard behind them, Fick’s QRF were doing their job capably – but had already divided into three groups, each chasing down a live Foxtrot that had leapt over and was still a serious threat to their rear. Even as he watched, he saw another one soar over the top and down again.

  Finally he looked out across the floodlit no-man’s land.

  And out there in that downed helo was the HRIG – the linchpin, as Fick had explained it, of their million-to-one last-ditch strategy to get anyone out of this alive.

  And also out there were Ali and Homer. Who perhaps meant more to him than everyone else alive put together.

  And no one to go out and get them – no one but him.

  Correction – no one but him and Fick.

  Sarah’s voice spoke in his ear again. “Handon, we need some help. If you come down here with a dozen men, we can make it. Even just you alone might make the difference. Handon, how copy?”

  And he could see her face very clearly before him.

  Then he heard a voice from the distant past.

  * * *

  “Akuma is KIA. And I’m hit. I don’t know if I can walk.”

  Master Sergeant Handon stared into the darkness, hearing Draugur’s words, but disbelieving. He had to do something, but didn’t know what. He didn’t know what the answer was. Then he felt a hand on his arm, and heard a voice from inches away.

  “Sarge, good news – we’ve got fast-movers inbound, one mike out.”

  “What?” He turned to see their JTAC at his elbow, juggling three radios as usual. Prior to now, he’d reported nothing was flying in their AO, and no air support could get to them in time.

  “Two F-16s. Only thing I could get, and those a damned miracle. Also they’ve only got JDAMs, thousand-pounders.” He paused, his face twisted with pain. “Look, we take out that compound, we can break contact and get the hell out of here – we can complete the mission.”

  Handon stared at the bearded JTAC, still frozen. He had two men still in that compound. But one was already dead, one badly wounded and immobile, and neither were probably ever getting out of there. And the rest of his team was still alive – with their mission still on the line. There was only one possible call to make now.

  “Do it,” he said.

  “Felon Five-Six, Dusty Two-Two – you are CLEARED HOT on compound. I have release authorization. Repeat, you are CLEARED HOT.”

  Handon faced forward and watched with unblinking eyes as the entire complex of walls and buildings disappeared in rippling, tumbling, rising plumes of fire and smoke.

  And along with it… his two men – young Unit operators on their first deployment. And him on his first as team leader – as their commander.

  He had just thrown their lives away like they were sand.

  By sending them in there to clear that compound, he’d gotten them ambushed and shot. But that was nothing, really – terrible but not unexpected, a price that sometimes had to be paid. No, the unforgivable thing was: their deaths were
for nothing – absolutely nothing. They’d had to blow up the whole building anyway. Handon hadn’t spent their lives.

  He’d squandered them.

  It was a decision that would haunt every second of the rest of his operational career.

  And every second of his life.

  * * *

  Without even being aware of it, Handon found he had gotten the third can of ammo loaded into the minigun.

  He spun up the whining death-hum of the electric Gatling gun and started clearing the downed Puma one more time. Perhaps because the helo was no longer moving or making any noise, perhaps because none of Handon’s rounds were hitting the airframe, there were fewer dead swarming it than before. This time he was able to clear a small area around it, as well. But even as he fired with perfect precision across the storm of death breaking on the sea wall in front of his rain-dripping face… his mind was four thousand miles away.

  On the banks of a peaceful creek in a Michigan forest.

  Just down a half-overgrown trail from Sarah’s cabin.

  He didn’t have time to turn again to look at her face now. But he could picture it with perfect clarity anyway, the way it had looked in the first hour they had met. How it had felt to sit in silence, breathing, feeling electricity pouring out into the moment between them, the air swollen and raging with it.

  Never having expected to feel anything like that again.

  His mind warped and time-traveled again, this time back to Ft. Bragg, long before the fall, and his wife, before they divorced… and the children they’d wanted to have, but had never been able to conceive. Then forward again, and much closer, to the med wing here, when he’d woken up from that coma with Sarah sitting by his side… telling him the news of what was growing inside of her.

  Handon’s child.

  And then the scene in the ward flashed black – and when it lit again, the figure sitting in the chair was Henno. And he spoke in that menacing voice Handon would also be able to hear with absolute clarity, for however long he lived.