ARISEN_Book Thirteen_The Siege

by Michael Stephen Fuchs

  She spotted her Fat Cow where it was still parked on the helipad. She did one last high-speed sweep of the Common looking for threats. She still didn’t see any.

  She angled down toward the helipad.

  And she put her dragon back down on the deck.

  In the Ass

  CentCom – Inner Prison Complex

  Aged and aching but powerful limbs pumping, Fick ran flat-out, sucking wind and cradling his too-small and too-light M4 rifle. After chucking his beloved old-school M16A2 out onto the tarmac at Beaver Island to lighten the load on Chuckie the WW2 bomber, he’d refused to upgrade all the way to the SOF Combat Assault Rifle (SCAR) that MARSOC had standardized on. For one thing, the M4 natively took a bayonet, which he was pretty damned sure was going to come in handy before this was all over. But mainly, he had a reputation to maintain.

  As a hard-ass old curmudgeon.

  Now, stealing a look at the dozen armed figures running behind him, trying to keep up, he prayed that the instant and intuitive judgment about men and warriors he’d developed over all his years of service was still intact. He’d had to select the RMPs for his quick reaction force (QRF) less than an hour after meeting them. So intuition was all he had.

  But it had gotten him this far.

  And now here he was, racing right back into the teeth of the fight, leading a new and untested team. But they’d either perform to his standard, or he’d shoot them himself and pick a new one. The few intelligible radio reports they had indicated the heart of the outbreak, or the worst of it anyway, was centered on the prison canteen. Luckily the QRF had been patrolling inside the walls of the old prison complex already, Fick figuring that’s where the first and worst of it would be, with the horde coming from the north, and wanting to get more familiar with the terrain they’d be fighting in. Now they blasted through inner yards toward the one with the dining facility.

  Straight toward the fight.

  And, no, Fick didn’t give a damn that he was carrying into that fight the same bog-standard weapon used by Baxter the CIA analyst, or Wesley for that matter. He knew he’d still be the most dangerous son-of-a-bitch on any battlefield even if armed with the jawbone of an ass. And hell, he thought, stealing another quick look behind him, at least it wasn’t that bull-pup junk gun those poor sons of bitches are carrying. The British LA85 was widely regarded as perhaps the worst modern infantry rifle in any major military.

  An old joke had it that in heaven the police are British, the lovers are French, the mechanics are German, the chefs are Italian, and the politicians are Swiss – while in Hell the police are German, the lovers are Swiss, the mechanics are French, the chefs are British, and the politicians are Italian. Fick figured the Brits did double duty in Hell as chefs and gunsmiths.

  Seemingly having summoned him by thinking about him, now Fick heard Wesley pop up on his radio – offering to lead men down off the walls to help secure the interior.

  “Negative,” Fick grunted as he rounded the corner of the last long protrusion of prison annex before their destination. “You and your men hold position, and maintain external vigilance, over.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Stand fast, Wes,” Fick said. “This is what the QRF is for.” He kind of wanted to tell the newly minted commander that not collapsing into confusion was job number one in a crisis – and that plans were precisely what you had for when things went to shit. Also that the chief job of a combat leader was not letting sentimentality or the desire to help destroy operational efficiency. But he was pretty much out of breath.

  Plus they were there.

  Fick raised his rifle to his shoulder and started shooting. And he advanced straight into the thick of it, RMPs behind.

  He just had to hope the chefs wouldn’t shoot him in the ass.

  * * *

  US Army Staff Sergeant Kate Dunajski fought her way to consciousness from the deepest and blackest sleep, and the most all-consuming dreams, she had ever known. In the dream, her dead best friend Todd was showing her how to do field repairs on the world – how to get the world running again with only the tools and resources of a bush-camp garage. But Elijah, their dead medic and betrayer, was singing an old warbling Baptist spiritual number, and he kept raising his voice until Kate couldn’t make out what Todd was saying anymore. And as his voice grew inaudible, his face also faded and receded as he ascended up toward heaven…

  Kate sat bolt upright, gasping for air in the nearly dark converted prison cell. It took her a full ten seconds to develop even the faintest fucking idea of where the ever-living hell she was. And this was a woman who had been deployed, displaced, marooned, or otherwise moved around nonstop for nearly four years – three six-month deployments to Afghanistan, two years of ZA in the Horn of Africa, and finally several days of whatever the hell was happening to her now.

  And judging by the warbling siren, and the sounds of gunfire, muted but not all of it far away, whatever was happening wasn’t good. First thing, she stood and took two steps to lean in over Baxter. He was still out cold, sleeping even more like the dead than Kate had been.

  “Wake up,” she said, shaking him. “Game time.”

  He came awake more smoothly, and evidently a lot less disoriented, fairly instantly switched on. Silently, they both got their boots laced up and body armor strapped on. Standing and charging her rifle, Kate said, “Okay, let’s get out there – because fuck rest and recuperation.”

  “Roger that,” Baxter said.

  As they moved out and passed the next billet over, Kate stopped to knock once, then opened the door. Inside, she could see what looked like some of Predator and Juice’s gear. But no Pred or Juice. She guessed they were already out there somewhere making themselves useful.

  She and Baxter had to get in the game.

  * * *

  Biosciences was a large and sprawling warren of labs, white rooms, and fabrication facilities, and not to mention the gigantic warehouse of vaccination kits in the very back. But the labs weren’t all that far inside of it, and the only thing between it and the front entrance was a short corridor leading to an open atrium and reception area, with its single security station.

  Park, disregarding Sarah’s instruction to stay put, stuck his head out into the atrium just in time to see the first runner pack simply blast in through the open double doors, barely fifty feet away, like they were on the guest list and the bouncer knew them by sight. It was as if all the demons of Hell, or just every monster from a very bad dream, were bursting into everyday waking reality and turning it into a nightmare. It was all happening so fast, it was utterly surreal.

  And almost too weird for Park to be frightened – at first.

  But then the runners bowled over the two RMP guards posted there, who had been moving toward the open door to investigate, but who never got a shot off. In two seconds they were flat on their backs, screaming and struggling as flailing dead fell on them like combination famine-and-plague victims, devouring them alive on the spot and at high speed.

  Park only realized Sarah was to his right, behind the security station, when she started rapid-firing her rifle over the top of it, straight into the charging pack as it dispersed into the atrium. When his head darted forward again, he realized several things at once, all with a cold shock of horror – one, much or most of the pack was coming straight at him. Worse, and there could be little doubt about this, they were definitely aware of his presence – locked onto him like homing meat missiles, showing no inclination to pause or flinch until they possessed him. And, possibly worst of all…

  He was totally unarmed.

  There wasn’t even time to shout or look to Sarah – he simply had to turn on his heels and run for his life. As he barreled back into the labs, he could hear shouts of alarm and see flashes of swirling white lab coats as Bio staff and technicians turned and legged it. But dominating his tunnel vision was:

  That crowbar, resting on his station.

  He snatched it up, spun around, a
nd in the same motion brought it with full force into the side of a hissing and half-rotted head already lunging for his neck with bared teeth. The head caved in, spraying crap all over the bioinformatics suite, and Park sidestepped the hurtling body as it crashed into his own office chair, rolling and then collapsing behind him.

  Another runner was right behind it, and the extra second Park had to plan how to deal with it was not his friend. Suddenly it was like facing a big-league pitcher, not knowing whether it was a fastball or a hanging-curve coming – but fearing the fastball. He reset, winding up the crowbar with both hands – but as he tensed to swing, the runner’s head disappeared, Park registering the boom only a fraction of a second later. He didn’t even turn – he didn’t dare – but rather saw Aliyev advancing past him on his right, Benelli autoloading shotgun to his shoulder, sparks leaping out of its barrel as he fired steadily at head height into the faces of the frenzied crowd rushing them from the hallway that led to the atrium.

  “We’ve got hostiles!” Aliyev shouted over the blasts. “Forget about Freeman, we are cutting our losses and pulling out!”

  Park didn’t even have time to be amused, confused, or annoyed by this. Instead his eyes went wide and he almost autonomously pushed Aliyev’s barrel toward the ground – as he saw that one of the figures hurtling through the doorway was Sarah Cameron. But Aliyev was empty anyway, and he started pulling shells from the side-saddle carrier on his stock and jamming them into the loading port as he walked backward. Park didn’t drop the crowbar but instead jammed it in his belt for later use as he saw Sarah already thrusting her M9 pistol into his hand, then spinning around and engaging again.

  The roar of the unsuppressed rifle in her hands, so close to his head and in an enclosed space, was deafening. When he brought the Beretta up, looked for and disengaged the safety, and starting firing, both of them facing forward as they retreated back toward the interior, the little 9mm sounded like a popgun – though it also stung his hand with every discharge. Weirdly, Simon found it had an echo – and when he followed the sound, he was able to make out Lieutenant Colonel Nesbitt, the commander of the Biosciences complex, running down a cross hallway, firing as she ran. But instantly, they were cut off, and she disappeared from view.

  Park also saw unarmed lab staff being taken down – and realized he’d been so focused on firing to protect himself, and maybe Sarah and Oleg, that he was letting them die. He raised the weapon and started tracking runners, trying to make difficult headshots on ones up and moving – and then easier shots on ones who were static and down on the floor, because they already had victims pinned there. When his slide locked back on an empty mag, he found the release and dropped it out, then reached across with his free hand to pull a new one from a pouch on Sarah’s belt. He reloaded and dropped the slide forward, but before he could pick a target, he heard Sarah shouting at him.

  “We can’t stay here! The layout’s all wrong, we can’t defend it. We need a wall to our backs!”

  “Or a fucking door we can close.” This was Aliyev, who Park realized was right behind them, but facing backward, covering their asses, and his comment was punctuated by the distinctive sound of his heavy bolt dropping forward on a fresh shotgun shell. “This is bullshit.”

  Belatedly, still as if in a dream, Park looked around and saw it was true. The lab was a big open area, and it had entrances on practically all sides. Staying here was worse than bullshit – it was death on a stick. He took a breath.

  Speaking of sticks…

  “I need ten seconds!” he shouted. “Cover me!” He spun, clunked the pistol on his station, jammed a USB drive in the machine, and copied the Hargeisa vaccine design over to it – all while Sarah’s and Aliyev’s weapons blasted raucously a few feet behind his head. Also on his station was a capped syringe – filled with the very first fabricated dose of the completed vaccine. He reached for it, but Sarah beat him to it.

  Aliyev saw what the two of them were doing, and shouted over his shoulder: “We can’t leave the cultures here, either!”

  Park yanked the USB key, straightened up, spun to face the opposite side of the lab, and saw the two culturing tables – one with the zombie-killing MZ, the other the human-preserving MZ vaccine. There were still bodies, living, dead, infected, dying, running between it and them. On the upside, both tables had wheels, so they could be rolled out of there.

  “Fuck it,” Park said, snatching up the pistol, putting his head down, and charging. He heard firing ramp up behind him, which probably explained why he reached the opposite side of the room alive, much to his surprise. He yanked both plugs from their sockets, started shoving on one of the tables, and saw Aliyev crash in behind him and start pushing the other. They were quickly moving backward, out of the labs and toward the rear of the complex. It was the only possible direction. Sarah covered them both now. As they reached the hallway that led past the fabrication facility and to the warehouse, Park stopped and shouted at her.

  She had fallen a good thirty feet behind.

  She’d either been shooting really well, or else the runners were getting fed really well, because she now had enough breathing room to lower her weapon, take her left hand from the stock, which Park now saw held that syringe, pop the cap off – and inject herself, stabbing the needle straight in the flesh of her left ass cheek.

  Shit, was all Park could think.

  Well, they had a test subject now.

  Having depressed the plunger all the way, Sarah pulled it out, dropped it, scanned the area, and turned and ran again. Park turned around as well.

  And he resumed shoving that heavy table down the hall.

  Invasion

  CentCom – Guard Tower CP

  “Fick, Ali. How it’s going?”

  “It’s going.”

  Wesley twiddled up the volume on the set radio, desperate not to miss anything. He looked up at the two RMPs in the guard tower with him. This was their CP, and it was his post to command. And evidently his job was to stay put – regardless of what hellishness was going on out beyond its windows and railings, down below. Or what danger his friends were in out there. All he could do was listen to it on the radio. If Handon were there and awake, he would have smiled and told him, Welcome to the joys of command. But he wasn’t. Wes was on his own, and feeling totally helpless.

  Until suddenly he wasn’t.

  Ali said, “’Cause we just got reports of dead in Biosciences.”

  “Ah, shit.”

  Wes could hear Fick breathing like a porn star – and also firing nonstop, behind his transmissions. Neither he nor Ali provided color commentary on what an outbreak in Bio would mean. It was the entire ball game. It was everything.

  Wes hit his radio transmit bar.

  “We’ll take it.”

  There was virtually no delay before Fick answered. “Go. You’re closer. And we’re decisively engaged.”

  So much for plans then.

  * * *

  Ali looked up from the radio at Miller, who hovered over her in the JOC. He shook his head and spoke as if from a deep hole. “I can’t believe we’re having another outbreak…”

  Ali nodded her head at the video display on the next station, where the various CCTV cameras in the complex had finally gotten trained on the areas under attack. They could see multiple packs of runners blasting through CentCom like they owned the place – stopping only when they took down the living, and only long enough to eat them alive.

  “Ma’am!” This was Cpl Jones, from the next bank of stations, wearing a radio headset. “Med wing also reports they’re under attack.”

  Ali looked across at Homer, still standing post behind the closed door to the JOC. A less seasoned operator might have run out there to get in the fight. But Homer was a pro, cool as the sea floor, not even warmed by the heat of the battle raging nearby, or the rising temperature of the increasingly desperate radio reports. But he did glance over his shoulder and lock eyes with Ali, having heard Jones. They both knew Hando
n was in that med wing – and completely helpless.

  Ali also knew that, with both Fick and Wesley committed, and the walls still needing to be manned, it wasn’t immediately clear who was going to go to the med wing and rescue them. “Roger that,” she said to Jones. “Tell them to hold tight for now and stand by.”

  Ali straightened up and looked at Miller.

  “No,” she said, finally responding to his muttered comment from before. “This isn’t an outbreak.”

  An outbreak implied one or two dead, or just infected, getting in, and then infecting everyone else inside. But they could all see the dead were already there – in force.

  Ali exhaled. “This is an invasion.”

  * * *

  There was no one to advise Wesley on how big a force to lead to relieve and defend Bio – versus how many to leave on the walls to defend the rest of CentCom. There was only him, and he had to make the call, so he made it.

  But he and the dozen RMPs he picked had only gotten fifty yards into the Common, after getting down off the walls, when they were piled into from the side by one of the roaming runner packs. It was as if the dead had a QRF, and it hit them full on from out of the dusk, like the running of the bulls in Pamplona, and with too little time to react or fire to protect themselves.

  In seconds, it was a close-quarters fight in the open and near-dark, men shooting, spinning, swinging rifles, yanking pistols, getting tackled and taken to the deck, and the group in nothing like a defensible formation – they’d all been simply running as fast as they could, and Wesley didn’t know about tactical movement yet.

  But he did know enough to instantly move back to the center – he’d been out front, and they’d gotten hit from the rear quarter – and start trying to work out what the hell was going on. He wasn’t sure what he could tell the men that would help them fight, or organize the defense in any way, so he just took measured shots when he could, tried to keep his cool – and fought to maintain awareness of what was going on.