A Time to Die

by Mark Wandrey

  * * *

  General Rose looked up from the orders to his assistant, a young major who’d replaced Tobey Pendleton when he’d retired two years ago. The man shook his head and Rose scowled. The order was in response to his request to sortie in assistance to distressed citizens.

  “Stand down, do not send any units into the field,” the orders read. “Mobilization orders are forthcoming. A national state of emergency is underway.” It was coded and signed by the joint chiefs.

  “Son of a bitch,” Rose grumbled and tossed the dispatch down onto his desk. He had units out on training. While he could send one of them, they weren’t equipped to deal with the situation Tobey had described. He also had no doubt the retired major was on the up-and-up. He’d seen the preliminary reports of losses to the forces sent to Mexico. It was turning into the biggest shit sandwich in history. “Are there any other units in the area?”

  The major glanced at a sheet he carried and shook his head, then stopped. He put a finger on a line then nodded. “Well, there’s this,” he said and put the sheet down.

  “Well jumping Buddha, son, why didn’t you tell me that was available?”

  “Well, it isn’t. That bird was listed as red-lined in Mexico. It went down with the expeditionary forces but had an engine failure. It’s supposed to be in Monterrey.”

  “Well since it’s not a radioactive pile of junk I’d say that report is wrong,” the General proclaimed. “Get the pilot on the horn before he’s too far out of position.”

  “We’ve tried when it approached the border. There’s no reply.”

  “And you were going to report this when, exactly?”

  “Traffic was about to report it to the Pentagon when I saw the dispatch.”

  “Don’t!” Rose barked. “Get a link so I can call them.”

  “But General, they’re not responding to radio calls.”

  “Just get me the fucking radio, son.”

  * * *

  Andrew was not liking the plane very much. It was a slug compared to his nimble fighter, and with one engine down it had terrible flight characteristics. It was also having trouble maintaining flight levels above 12,000 feet. Whenever he climbed over that altitude the craft started to bleed power. Frustrating. He’d normally just have dealt with it, but there were some mountains here and that meant to keep a safety margin he was being forced to fly a circuitous route northward. He was watching his fuel gauges with a wary eye.

  “Spooky, call sign Spooky, this is Hood, over.”

  Andrew looked up from the controls in surprise. He’d heard some calls earlier and figured they were addressed at him. He’d ignored them. There was a landing strip only five miles north of the border he was aiming for. He planned to set the bird down there and pick up the pieces afterwards. With what he’d seen in Mexico, he didn’t care what they did to him anymore. First the road he’d photographed, then the cannibal crazies in Monterrey? Fuck that, everything was out of control.

  But this time, it wasn’t a generic call. He looked along the overhead, above the instruments and found a little plaque. Engraved there was the name “Spooky”, the call sign of the plane. Whoever was calling was from Ft. Hood, and they knew exactly where he was, and what the plane’s name was. Fuck.

  “This is Spooky, Hood, go ahead.”

  Chris, who’d been sitting in the engineer’s seat so he could read off some instruments or flip a switch for Andrew, looked up in surprise. When he realized the pilot was talking on the radio, he got excited. Andrew wished he were as excited. The other man didn’t know that the pilot flying their plane had been a prisoner only a day ago.

  “What’s your mission Spooky? You are out of the chain of command.” The voice was deep, authoritative, and way too direct for Andrew’s liking.

  “Just moving this bird back stateside,” Andrew tried the subtle route. He was going to play the stupid transfer pilot. Why not? “Who’s this?”

  “Lieutenant-General Rose, III Corps Operations Command. Now you, son. And don’t try to tell me you’re just some transfer pilot. That bird was red-lined in Monterrey, and we both know what happened there.” Andrew considered just turning off the radio. “Go radio dead on me and I’ll have an F-18 airborne in ten minutes.”

  Andrews’s plans, half formed at best, were a smoking ruin. What could he do at this point? “This is Lieutenant Andrew Tobin, USAF, General.”

  The radio was quiet for a half a minute. Andrew knew that someone was punching that in on the other end of the radio link and would shortly know his entire story. Was that F-18 being scrambled after all? Or maybe a surface-to-air missile being readied?

  “You’re the one who did that intel flight east of Monterrey, aren’t you?”

  “Yes sir, that was me.”

  “Can I assume something happened on that flight back from Bahrain?”

  “That’s correct sir. The same thing that’s happening down here in Mexico actually, only on an A-380 during a thunderstorm.”

  “You’re one hard to kill SOB, Tobin,” General Rose said.

  “They call me Switchblade, sir.”

  “I’m not surprised. Look, Switchblade, I know what you’re flying, and I know you’re probably just flying it to get the fuck out of the land of burritos and cannibals.”

  “That’s an accurate assessment, General. But I have a dozen civilians aboard that I evacuated out of Mexico as well.”

  “Seems to be going around.”

  “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”

  “Then let me explain. But first, are you still working for us, son?”

  Andrew thought for a long moment before answering. “I’ll do whatever I can, sir.”

  * * *

  Kathy jerked awake at the pair of gunshots from downstairs. Tobey was out of her arms and racing for the stairs up to the captain’s walk as she was getting to the window where the HK-91 was propped. More gunshots rang out just as she reached the window and hefted the big battle rifle. There weren’t dozens out there feeding on the dead from the mines anymore, there were hundreds and hundreds. Some had wandered close enough to the house that their Mexican guests had opened fire. Now all those hundreds of bloody faces were turned up looking at the house. “Here they come!” she yelled to Tobey above.

  “On it,” he replied as she heard him picking up the big machine-gun and settling in on the raising. A second later she jerked as it started yammering a few feet above her head.

  Kathy nodded and shouldered her rifle. It was becoming familiar to her. She pulled the magazine and checked it. About half full. She dropped it into the bag she wore across her body and grabbed a full one from the little table. Five left, plus the partial one in the bag. The magazine went in and seated with a satisfying click. Then she was sighting through the scope and picking her targets once more.

  “It gets easier every time,” she said aloud as she killed a man with a shot through his neck. He fell under the thundering feet of hundreds more. She fell into the same rhythm as before. Fire, recover, verify target down, move to another. They came closer and closer as the machine gun above ground out. The shooting from other windows began to fall off after first one gun, then another ran out of ammo. Over the roar of the gunfire, Kathy began to hear the sound of panicking people. Their voices were rising in intensity and people were pulling at the barricades on the stairs. Above them, the M-240 went suddenly silent.

  “Switching belts!” Tobey yelled as he struggled with the ammo. The gun was so hot the metal action plate he had to work with to feed the belt in was burning his skin. He hissed and made himself ignore the sizzling skin as the first round was caught on the retaining pin. He jerked back the charging handle and let it fly forward. The barrel was glowing red and he felt the heat on his face like a brand fresh from the fireplace.

  No time to worry, he thought, and brought the gun back around and opened fire. The nearest were only a few dozen yards from the house when he heard the new sound. It was a dull roaring, but it seemed to be comi
ng from above and behind him. He didn’t dare stop firing, they were hanging on by the barest of margins. He realized it was only his machinegun and the HK-91 that were still firing.

  “Get them ready to run!” he yelled over the side of the captain’s walk, “Karen!?”

  “Oh my God, look!” she yelled back.

  He stopped firing and looked up, just as the AC-130 opened up.

  * * *

  They’d only been ten minutes flying time from the coordinates General Rose had given Andrew when he decided to do what the general wanted. He’d set the autopilot and slipped past a wide eyed Chris on the way out of the cockpit.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I have talk to someone,” Andrew explained.

  “But… what do I do?”

  “Don’t touch anything.” Andrew swung down the ladder to the crew area and found Wade exactly where he expected him, in the chief’s seat screwing with the controls. He also wasn’t surprised to see the kid had managed to unlock the control and was actually using the joystick.

  When he saw Andrew coming back quickly his eyes got big and he pushed back. “Hey, I didn’t do anything!”

  “I know,” Andrew said, “but I’m going to want you to.”

  “Whoa, wait, what?! Really?”

  “Yes, but I only have about five minutes. So shut the fuck up and listen.” Andrew looked around at some of the others nearby. “I need all of you to follow me, quick!”

  Five minutes later Andrew was scrambling back into the cockpit and praying he hadn’t just made a lethal mistake, for himself or any of those he was protecting.

  “We’ve been going down the whole time!” Chris said, pointing at the controls and out of the cockpit.

  “I know,” Andrew said and dropped into the left hand pilot’s seat. “I need you up here,” he said and hooked a thumb at the right hand pilot’s seat as he grabbed straps and started securing himself.

  “I don’t know how to fly,” Chris complained, but moved anyway. He was supernaturally careful as he climbed over the central console, watching with dread where he put his feet, sure that one minor mistake would send them plunging towards the ground. Andrew was too busy punching in information to the navigation computer to give him much mind. Chris observed how the buckles worked and started buckling in. “Andrew, God, the ground!”

  “Put the headphones on,” Andrew told him, pointing to where they hung on a hook and ignoring the other man’s panic. Chris did as he was told with shaking hands. Now it was much easier to talk over the closed circuit of the plane’s intercom. “Down there are a hundred or so people trapped by a shit ton of those cannibal fucks,” he explained. “We’re going to try and help them. But you have to help me help them.” Chris was shaking his head. “A gun is a gun, Chris, damn it. Look at the screen there.” Chris did. “All we have to do is get in the right place, and wunderkind back there will do the rest.”

  “Video gamer Watts?” Chris asked, and gave a single barking laugh.

  “Yes, him.” Andrew glanced at the controls, touched one and took the controls, pulling back and levelling them off.

  They were only a few thousand feet off the ground now. Below were what looked like ants crawling along the ground. They strung out in lines, following trails, creek beds, or whatever else they found. Chris’s eyes got huge as he realized they weren’t ants, but people. Or what had been people.

  “Oh no,” Chris hissed.

  “Yeah,” Andrew said. He flipped a couple of controls and two previously dead screens came alive before them. Andrew pointed to the screen. We’re going to fly this together—”

  “I said I can’t fly!”

  “God fucking damn it, Chris, we don’t have a choice! The screen is simple, just help me hold the target.”

  Chris looked completely lost for a second then grabbed the controls. “Tell me what to do.”

  Andrew found the house on the forward looking radar and marked it. “Wade, you get that?”

  “Yeah, that the target?” the kid asked.

  “No, absolutely not. Those are the good guys.” Andrew panned the camera and the wave of attackers became clearly visible. The bright twinkle of firing guns was visible from the house. It seemed be glowing even as they watched. The wave moved inexorably towards the house. “There, the advancing group, as close to the house as you think you can manage.” Andrew pulled the yoke back and put them into a steep turn. The plane started to lose altitude so he increased the throttle. The engines spun up, the power increased, and the heat started to climb. “Fuck,” he swore under his breath as he completed the steep turn and leveled out.

  “The icon is high,” Chris said.

  “Bank us,” Andrew said, “turn the wheel until it’s on. I’ll hold our course. Chris nodded and turned the wheel. The plane banked and Andrew used the foot pedals to apply opposite rudder, keeping them on the same trajectory.

  “There!” Chris said, we’re about to pass over them.

  “Wade!” Andrew said into the PA, “NOW!”

  In the back, Wade had an ear-to-ear grin that would take surgery to remove. He followed the instructions, flipping the last safety lever up he snapped the switch under it. “MASTER ARM” light came on, and he squeezed the first two of three triggers. “Die zombie scum!” he screamed, but no one heard it. The cargo bay of the AC-130 turned into the percussion section of Satan’s favorite death metal band.

  “Jumpin Jesus!” Andrew barked as both 20mm chainguns opened up with a sustained “Braaaaaaap” and the 40mm Bofors cannon began yammering, sending a round down range every two seconds. Boom, boom, boom! The recoil was actually displacing their flightpath. He gave it more rudder. “Bank us around,” Andrew screamed over the hellacious cacophony of fire. “Pilon turn!” he helped with the controls, it was almost more than one man could handle, and the reason he wanted Chris to help. More power to the engines, and the first warning light came on. Engine Overheat — #4.

  In the rear Wade giggled as he stroked the trigger like he’d been told. Graphic displays showed his ammo consumption. The 20mm guns held a staggering 20,000 rounds each and in just ten seconds he’d gone through almost 5,000 rounds. The Bofors fired its last round and a pair of ‘volunteers’ that Andrew had drafted grunted as they hefted a five-round clip into the feed rollers. Fire resumed. They both wore headsets, but every time the cannon fired it felt like they were being slapped in the chest by a lightly padded 4x4. The floor of the rear was awash in spent brass, most falling through chutes to rain on the ground below, but some flew around like insane red hot wasps.

  A spent 20mm casing bounced off one man’s face, leaving a clear burn and he fell away screaming. Another moved in right away. They didn’t know who the plane was attacking, but the Air Force officer was confident and that was enough for them.

  The AC-130 pivoted into a tight circle as death rained down below in a rough figure-eight. The computer tracked impact points and Wade moved the joystick using what gimbal the weapons had to hit areas that didn’t show enough red for him. This was the greatest day of his life.

  “Wade,” Andrew yelled, “major concentration, lower right!”

  “Got it,” Wade said and grabbed another control. He pivoted that one’s cross hairs and almost managed to get in the center. “Close enough,” he said and pulled the trigger. The 105mm howitzer roared, shaking the plane like it had been hit itself from cannon fire. “Wahoo!” Wade yelled as the cannon automatically extracted the shell which clattered to the floor leaving a trail of smoke. Another pair of men followed their instructions and wrestled a fresh round into the breach. The yanked the lever and nothing happened.

  “Won’t close!” one of them said into his headphones.

  “Punch it!” Andrew said.

  “WHAT?!”

  “I said punch the fucking round!”

  The man looked down at the head stamp of the round and swallowed. “Oh, what the fuck,” he said, bent over and punched it as hard as he could. “OUCH!” the ro
und moved a bare inch forward and the breech slammed down, almost cutting his hand off. “You could have warned me!” he yelled, “Damn thing almost cut my hand off!”

  “Better get clear,” Andrew warned. The man jerked back, tripping over the spend 105mm casing and went sprawling into a pile of thankfully only warm 20mm casings. “Wade!”

  “Outbound!” Wade yelled and pulled the trigger again. BOOM!

  “Andrew!” Chris screamed for the third time, the first that Andrew heard him.

  “Yeah?”

  “One of the engines is smoking!” Andrew glanced at the board. #4 was well past redline. As he looked a red light started flashing about the engine indicator and an alarm sounded. “Now there’s fire shooting out of it!”

  “Got it,” Andrew said calmly. He cut power to #4, turned off the fuel feed, feathered the prop, and once the RPMs dropped he jerked the fire extinguisher. The black smoke and flames turned to just white smoke. The fire light went out. “Last pass,” he told everyone.

  The AC-130 finished a final turn, wider this time to get more of the stragglers outside of their initial kill box. As he leveled out the turn, he heard the 20mm go silent. They were out of ammo. Andrew tried to gain altitude with only two engines, and failed. At least he could maintain what they had. The other two engines were at 90% throttle and running hot. He sucked his teeth.

  “That was the single greatest experience of my life,” Wade said from the back.

  Chris gave a single laugh, then another. Andrew started laughing too, then the whole plane was full of hysterically laughing people. And then #1 caught fire.

  * * *

  “FUCK YEAH!” Tobey screamed as the AC-130 Specter gunship passed overhead cutting a swath of bloody death through the ranks of the enfermo. He watched as less than a hundred yards away bodies were chopped into hamburger, limbs sent flying, entire figures flew into the sky doing lazy cartwheels as a 40mm cannon shell fell in their midst. The plane did a tight turn, firing all the way, and then the huge 105mm cannon fired, almost right over the house, and at least a hundred of the enfermo were turned into red mist and bone fragments.