ARISEN, Book Fourteen - ENDGAME

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  * * *

  Biblical chaos on the rooftop now. Virtually everyone was fully engaged – either beating back the tide on the prison side, or fighting Foxtrots everywhere else, in most every corner of their formation. Bodies wrestled in puddles of rainwater and gore, swords and knives swung and stabbed, and for every one they took down, two flew over their lines and into their midst again.

  There was no way to stop them.

  In the eye of the storm, behind the front lines but closer to the civilians huddled in the center, Handon had managed to create a tiny planning area for his tiger team. Arriving shortly after him and Park were Predator and Juice – with four guys in tow: a big strapping Royal Marine colour sergeant; an even bigger guy, with a tricolor flag on his sleeve, and who Handon vaguely recognized from USOC as the KSK guy called Stier; the dark-skinned axe-wielding civilian, also damned big; and finally the leader of the Gurkhas, who he knew from the fight on the walls – and who still only came up to his nipples.

  Handon looked up from Sun and gave Predator a look.

  Predator didn’t back down. “He’s twice as big as he looks.”

  Fair point.

  “Well isn’t this just a fucking Foxtrot festival.” Handon turned to see Fick trotting up to join them, bayonet-fixed rifle in one hand, e-tool in the other.

  “Haven’t you done enough?” Handon asked him.

  Fick grunted. “Hey, you see anyone else here who’s successfully pinned a Foxtrot in a wrestling match?”

  Handon shook his head. Evidently Fick knew what they had in mind. He looked at Juice – and tossed him the rifle Homer had just tossed him. “Security,” he said. Juice nodded. Then Handon assigned the other roles – Park on biowarfare, the four newcomers plus him and Fick on Foxtrot wrangling… but he was only halfway into his mission planning brief when all hell broke loose, the eye of the storm started to collapse – and they were on the verge of losing even their tiny planning area.

  First there was redoubled shouting from the front lines, and when Handon turned and looked, it was obvious there was about to be a breakthrough. Maybe it was no longer having Pred to anchor the center – you can only have one rank of guys on the front line, unless you had Pred, who counted for two or more. Maybe it was going to happen anyway. But now runner packs were tear-assing up the slope and bashing into the line of defenders, who were being knocked back, knocked down, taken out, reinforced – and knocked down again.

  Virtually at the same time Handon registered this, shrieking sounded from over their heads.

  And a Foxtrot came down in their planning circle.

  The tiger team scrambled and fell on it. Handon had gotten the gist of his plan across, so nobody destroyed this one – instead, after five seconds of mad, frantic, violent heaving, wrestling and scrabbling, they stood it up straight, as it writhed and bucked and shrieked right in their faces.

  Stier held one arm locked back in a bar-hammer lock.

  Colley had the other in a regular half-nelson.

  And Sun was down on the deck, wrapped around its ankles and restraining its bucking legs from kicking with, yes, the strength of at least two guys his size.

  No sooner had they done this than Park pushed forward and pressed a vial of HRIG into Stier’s free hand. The German hauled back his arm with the vial in it, paused – and looked to Handon for confirmation.

  “No time like the present,” Handon said.

  Fick grunted. “I think you mean now or never.”

  Handon nodded at Stier.

  But Park put his hand on the giant German’s arm, and shouted, “Remember – five seconds from exposure to kick-off! That thing can’t be up here in five seconds – or we’re all dead!”

  Another Foxtrot shrieked and flew by in the air, its feet bashing Stier in the head, then landed behind them, among the families and civilians. On the other side of them, the front line at roof’s edge buckled and collapsed – and an entire wave of runners broke through, broke free, and started sweeping across the rooftop, bowling over defenders and leaping on them, another pack following right behind it.

  Handon spun, drawing his knife and raising his sword, to defend the tiger team from the incoming wave. Juice was already side-stepping out and firing into it – and Predator charging straight into the mouth of it, bellowing and swinging his bat, Croucher beside and just behind him, alternately stabbing and smashing with his bayonet and rifle butt.

  The four defenders put their heads and shoulders down.

  And the crashing wave broke over them.

  * * *

  Now it was Juice’s turn for a precision shooting masterclass.

  He swung out to the left, taking on that part of the pack coming around their flank – even as he could see Handon, Croucher, and Predator, all of them between big and gigantic, breaking the middle of the wave like the prow of a Viking boat.

  But it was only him on the left.

  Everything grew razor-vivid and slowed to bullet-time speed, individual rain droplets sparkling and hanging in the air or splashing up from the deck, bodies running and leaping and falling and wrestling in every corner of his vision, as Juice side-stepped and advanced, cheek down to stock, both eyes open, moving and shooting with precision that was beyond superhuman – methodically squeezing off all twenty rounds from the sharpshooter rifle at swarming, fast-closing, and erratically moving targets, all while moving fast himself.

  When his bolt locked back five seconds later… there were eighteen destroyed bodies on the ground, each shot exactly once in the face. It was extreme dynamic combat shooting as perfect as any Tier-1 operator anywhere had ever performed. Huh, Juice thought, looking down at the weapon. Maybe Handon had thrown it to him for a reason.

  Wish he’d thrown me more ammo.

  But as he rotated the rifle sideways, he saw: Homer had jungle-taped a second full magazine upside down beside the first one. Good ole 100mph tape. Good old Homer. He pulled the two mags out, flipped them around, and slapped it back in.

  Last one – anywhere.

  * * *

  Fick’s first reaction was to turn into the crashing wave of runners along with the others. He still hadn’t gotten killed today, and didn’t have all damned night. But then that second Foxtrot, the one who kicked the Kraut in the face, tore at the edge of his awareness. He knew it was coming in toward the families behind them. And he knew who was back there guarding them.

  The LT – Wesley. Who would be basically on his own.

  Watching the lynch mob of three huge badasses power forward into the teeth of the runner packs, with Juice firing to cover them, Fick figured they could take care of themselves for a few seconds. No more serious squad of hardmen had ever been assembled.

  And so he turned to the rear.

  He immediately saw it wasn’t one Foxtrot Wes was dealing with on his own, but two. He already had his saber pommel-deep through the mouth of the first one, and was yanking it out as the creature fell at his feet – but the other one, another dead soldier in full battle rattle, was already on him and inside of sword-swinging range before he could reset, so he just gave it a mighty two-arm shove…

  Right back into Fick, who had covered the half-dozen strides there, and was winding up his e-tool as he ran, bringing it around in a wide full-arm swing…

  Edge of the spade blurring straight toward its neck.

  * * *

  But that left no one on the tiger team’s right flank.

  No bearded commando, or precision shooting masterclass.

  No grizzled Marine senior NCO trying to get killed.

  The three men restraining the Foxtrot, plus Park, were exposed on that side. The three giant badasses charging out in front, big as they were, weren’t going to be enough to shield them from the raging sea of dead flooding around them. Not for long.

  Half-dazed by the kick to the face, Stier blinked and shook his head, then looked at the death and peril crashing in on them from all sides, then at the vial in his hand.

  Now or
never.

  He brought his hand around and smashed it into the Foxtrot’s ravening face, broken glass savaging the flesh – and the liquid HRIG splashing full across its eyes, nose, and mouth. Then he put his free hand on its locked arm, turned it toward the roof edge, and shouted at Colley on the other side.

  “We go! Now!”

  And the sweeping runner pack, having broken on the rocks of the three huge men ahead of them, and shot down first to last on the left side, simply poured around the right and smashed full-on into Stier, Colley, the Foxtrot, Sun, and Park, all of them going down and under the rampaging onslaught, the weight of too many bodies to resist or stand up in.

  Stier, in front, bore the brunt of it – and became the focus of the runners’ attention. When he slammed onto his back on the deck, there were instantly three or four on top of him, knocking each other out of the way for the privilege of eating him alive. He got a knife clear and started slashing wildly, but it was like trying to fight a swarm of piranha. He couldn’t get up, and he couldn’t see for the blood pouring in his eyes.

  As the wave hit them, Park tried to turn away and shield the box of HRIG with his body. It didn’t matter. He hit the unyielding, cold, sopping rooftop face-first, hard, knocking his glasses off his face – and the cardboard box came open and the eleven remaining vials scattered, rolling and tumbling, at least some, maybe most, breaking on impact. Half-blind, back and limbs pummeled by tumbling, heaving, tripping bodies… Park instantly spread his arms out.

  Trying to find and gather any intact vials.

  On the other side, Colley went down on his face, the impact hammering the air from his lungs. When he looked up, shielding his head with his arms, he found himself lying directly beside the Foxtrot they’d just been restraining. It was on its stomach, but raised up its bloodied and dripping face – and locked onto the huddling circle of families, children, and Tunnelers behind them. And it started manically fast-crawling toward them.

  Colley shoved bodies off him and raised himself just high enough to launch himself forward.

  He landed on the Foxtrot’s back, pinning it to the deck.

  * * *

  Predator led the charge to re-form the front lines, power-swinging his bat with both hands, the pointy end of a flying wedge, Handon at his right hand, Croucher on the left, both just behind and far enough away to avoid getting turned into home runs.

  Pred bellowed into the storm and charged forward with the irresistible force of a gamma ray, sweeping across the galaxy of the rooftop, destroying everything in his path, as the dead surged and raged, rain lashed down, lightning flashed, and thunder boomed overhead.

  Beside him, Handon was inevitably reminded of Pred’s rampage on the carrier flight deck with that iron pole, which had also been in a raging storm. But he had to keep most of his focus on his own fight – with bladed rather than blunt trauma weapons, for him this was more dance than rampage, spinning and whirling through incoming runners, taking off heads with the wakizashi in his right hand, and poking holes in brainstems with the Vorax knife in an overhand grip in his left, every bit as precise as pistol work, just a lot closer.

  On the left, Croucher grunted and dug down and took off heads with his bayonet to the left, then brought the rifle back to the right and crushed them with the buttstock.

  In seconds the irresistible flying wedge of badass had reached the roof edge and the sundered front line. Even as they got there another runner pack was hurtling up the body slope and over the lip edge, a couple of Foxtrots flying over the top of them like air support, even as Pred swung and hit them out of the air like fastballs. But as the three reached the edge and looked over, they could all see down the slope…

  And there was another runner pack behind this one.

  And another behind that, and another, plus more Foxtrots.

  They covered the slope of dead as far as they could see.

  All the way to the bottom.

  And all the way to the very end.

  * * *

  Even as Colley pinned the Foxtrot to the deck, it went limp.

  It had totally stopped struggling.

  When he rolled it over, he saw its eyes were closed.

  But then it gave a horrendous shudder. Its eyes shot open, wide as a cartoon electro-shock victim, but rheumy, opaque, and inhuman. And then it shrieked right in Colley’s face, inches away, at a volume that drowned out everything, even the chaos swirling around them, and utterly whited out his mind.

  All except for a single thought.

  This thing is kicking off.

  And it can’t be up here in five seconds.

  He had to get it out of there.

  Or they were all dead.

  * * *

  Fick put his full strength into the spade swing at the back of the Foxtrot Wesley had shoved at him, figuring to take its head off.

  Shit – wrong again…

  It was another dead British soldier, and not only had to be wearing its damned helmet, but was wearing it at a jaunty angle, pushed back, and the edge of the shovel caught the bottom edge of it, just above the neck, stopped by the ballistic nylon surface – the force of the collision jarring Fick’s arms and knocking the entrenching tool from his hands, sending it one way, and the helmet another.

  The power of the swing, however, did send the Foxtrot smashing down to the deck nose first, a face-plant of absolutely epic proportions. But Fick didn’t have time to laugh – because being dead, and a Foxtrot, it not only didn’t suffer from the injury, but literally bounced right back up from it. And right back into Fick’s face, shrieking.

  Reacting in the only way possible to keep from having his face eaten, Fick grabbed both sides of its head, by two handfuls of hair, and shoved, even as spittle flew and diseased teeth gnashed inches from his eyeballs. There was no way he could avoid flashing back to that terrible dream he’d had in the bomber, when he’d been in exactly this situation.

  He wondered if biting it first really was a viable strategy.

  * * *

  Homer pushed out a few steps in front of the stairwell.

  This was in part to protect Aliyev, slumped at the base of it.

  But mainly he was just stepping out to meet the storm, head on. Winding up as he advanced, he swung his boarding axe with both hands and his full strength, reversing it on the backswing so he was still using the blade and not the point – he couldn’t afford to get it stuck in a skull or clavicle.

  The sweeping waves of runners overrunning the rooftop had been substantially thinned by the time they got to the back end and the stairwell structure. But there were also only three of them defending this position. Homer could hear Kate’s and Baxter’s M9s popping off rapidly behind him, and sensed their shooting was precise. It had better be – those two might have the last live rounds up there.

  Then again, he thought with a grin, pivoting and swinging, Ali’s probably got another mag squirreled away somewhere.

  He didn’t even look back up at her, though.

  He knew exactly what she was doing – her job, which now consisted of saving the world. His job was to defend her position while she did it. God would take care of the rest.

  God and Ali, both of them on the job.

  And down on Earth, Homer and Ali back to back again.

  Together at the very end.

  * * *

  The bolt of Ali’s Mk 12 locked back.

  But it wasn’t in Ali’s hands – it was in Elliot’s.

  And he had failed. He had missed with every single sim round in the magazine. He hadn’t managed a single headshot on a Foxtrot. As utter chaos and madness engulfed the rooftop below, and the entire world ended around them, the only thing that beguiled him from his despair and feeling of total impotence was the sudden and pointless and inexplicable realization…

  “Wait,” he said, looking across at Ali, his voice affectless. “That was only twenty rounds.”

  “Good news, then,” she said, reaching underneath him, dropping o
ut the empty mag, then slotting in the second one, speaking as if the world wasn’t going into its death throes on every side of them. “Because this one’s definitely got thirty.”

  And it was also the very last one – the last one on Earth.

  Elliot didn’t know how he could face this, didn’t even think he could put his eye back to the scope. And then hellish shrieking erupted from below – cutting through the storm-tossed night and his ravaged senses, even up here, and far above all the other tumult and chaos and peril and death.

  Shrieking like he’d never heard before.

  It rattled what was left of his senses and sanity.

  * * *

  “Sorry, brother,” Predator said. “I know you’d want to make yourself useful.”

  Handon wasn’t the only one who remembered Pred’s flight-deck rampage. And the baseball bat, despite the advantage of being man-portable, just wasn’t going to cut it now.

  Up on the broken front line, staring into wave after wave of dead rushing up at them, Predator found Langmack, his Ranger brother, dead down on the deck. Not surprising he’d had to fall before the line broke. Also unsurprising that he was in full battle rattle – helmet, body armor, the works. When regimental Rangers went out to fight, they didn’t pick and choose their uniform and gear. They were disciplined and squared away.

  So Langmack’s body, when Predator got it up and going, was both heavy and solid. More importantly, it was a hell of a lot longer than the bat. Gripping one boot in each giant hand, even the mighty Predator had to struggle and use every bit of his strength, power, and core stability, to swing the dead Ranger from one side to the other.

  But it was like having Mag the Mighty back on the line.

  He knocked away a half-dozen incoming bodies with each swing – sending some flying twenty yards, knocking others back into those behind them, sending dozens tumbling back down the slope, and not only clearing the center of the line – but clearing a fairly wide area out beyond it.

  It wouldn’t last, perhaps not even a minute.

  But in the time and space Predator singlehandedly created, other surviving defenders dashed forward, led by Handon and Croucher to either side, rushing to re-form the line – all up and down its length. Even as they did, and the last gaps refilled…