by Franks, JK
“Tomahawks inbound, ETA four minutes. Radar contacts, there are more drones on the way. They will be here at the same time.”
“How many armored units still operational?”
“Down to 47 M1s, three-dozen Bradleys, a handful of APCs and just over a dozen LAVs.”
“Well, fuck!” He had moments to come up with a plan that might make all the sacrifices today not be made in vain. If he used everything he had that was capable of anti-aircraft fire on the drones, that might buy enough time to move the APCs in close. Those cruise missiles had to get the job done, though. He would have given anything to have a few bunker busters right then that he could drop on that beacon. He gave the orders. He and 19 other Abrams tanks moved in support of the armored personnel carriers. Almost everything else would be defending them from the attacking drones. This was an all or nothing gambit.
The nimble drones dodged and weaved between the triple-A like kids playing dodgeball. Several were hit on the first pass, but those that got through unleashed hell on the line of defense the general had assembled. The larger drones were firing tank-busters, depleted uranium rounds designed to penetrate multiple layers of armor. While the MQ-9 Reapers carried over a thousand pounds of ammo, that was exhausted in minutes. Each of the Reapers turned, lining up on the convoy.
The remote pilots, all safely back underground in the command bunker, clicked the trigger releasing their other weapon from its mounted hardpoints beneath each wing. Each drone carried a dozen of the AGM-114 Hellfire laser-guided air-to-ground missiles. The ground anti-aircraft got more of them this time, but it was a hollow victory. The drones were empty, the payloads were on the way, and the men below had only seconds to live.
Major General Daly looked at his defensive line being consumed in a rain of aerial bombardment just as four Tomahawk BGM-109 cruise missiles cut through the smoke of the battle at subsonic speeds. The latest generation, these were equipped with the Navy’s JMEWS warhead system. They flew map of the earth until each bunker-busting warhead impacted the site of the beacon seconds later with a combined force similar to a small MOAB. The drone pilots sitting in their flight chairs beneath almost forty feet of rock and concrete were incinerated immediately along with everything else in the command center. The unpiloted drones began circling in high orbit as their automated backup systems took over.
“Hot damn!” the general shouted. “Get those personnel carriers unloaded, I want a gauntlet around the breach in that bunker. Don’t let a single black-shirted bastard get out of there alive.” The ferret had found the rabbit.
His captain gave the order, and the APC stormed ahead toward the now defenseless base. The sound of automatic weapons could be heard as the infantry troops began to unload. Some were likely directed at the infected, but most seemed focused on the steady stream of NSF soldiers scrambling from the rock and debris near the smoldering impact site. “Sir, are we taking prisoners?”
“Of course, we are, but they will have to march and survive on their own. We’ll see how many make it to safety.” Wherever that is, he thought.
His captain looked up at him again. “General, I have one of the Spec Ops team on for you. Name is Krychek, says he has civilians that need help. They are coming out an exit about a mile north.”
“The people brought here for protection,” the general said thinking out loud. He’d been so focused on destroying the base he’d lost sight of the fact it was originally a camp supposedly with the purpose to protect the best and brightest America had to offer. He had no plan to deal with survivors. This was a one-way mission. “Shit…let me talk to him.”
Chapter One Hundred Seven
Two more impacts hit knocking out power in the room. Scott searched around for his fallen weapon but couldn’t feel anything in all the rubble. He felt Skybox pulling him to his feet. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know, I lost her in that last blast.” As the ringing in their ears subsided, they could hear weapons fire in the distance, and closer, the unmistakable sounds of a cave-in. Sky produced a tactical light and shone it around the remains of the office. “No other exits, she must have gone deeper. Guaranteed—she will have a way out.”
Echoing footsteps were heard as they entered the main corridor, but they had no way of knowing which direction. Scott could barely move with the damaged leg, Skybox somehow seemed to be recovering. “She’s that way, Scott.”
Scott nodded, “Go…go get her, I’ll catch up.”
Skybox turned to leave, then swiveled back. “Hey, sorry about all this, I had no idea. I am also sorry for what I am about to do to her. Take care, man.” With that he was gone, his long-loping strides carrying him deeper into the cave system.
Scott saw the butt of the rifle under a pile of rocks. He crawled over and took several minutes freeing it only to discover the magazine clip was damaged. He might have one round in the chamber, but that was all it would fire. He shouldered the weapon and limped down the hall in the direction Skybox had gone. Red emergency LEDs were flickering on now to provide some illumination to the space.
His life was draining out of his body leaving long trails of blood in his wake. He could feel the energy being sapped away. He stopped long enough to rip the tactical belt from his waist and make a tourniquet. It helped staunch the flow of blood but made using the leg nearly impossible. No way he was going to make it. The sound of a gunshot up ahead eclipsed all other sounds.
He tried to rush but fell, then felt arms beneath him, pulling him to his feet, then supporting the weight of that side.
The pair stood in the engineering room. The farthest point away from the smoking crater that had been the command center. The NuScale reactor was going into shutdown mode. The gun in Gia’s hand erupted as Skybox dove for cover. “You sure firing a weapon in a room with a nuclear reactor is a good idea, Doc?”
“It’s probably not recommended, but, you know, we improvise.”
“Radiation might hurt the baby,” he said crawling behind heavier pipes for cover.
She laughed, “Yeah, the baby.”
He heard her working with something and knew it probably wasn’t going to be good. He needed a weapon, any kind of weapon.
“You know, I like you, Michael, you are charming in a brutish sort of way. Scott was right in seeing the good in you—I’ll give him that.”
Sky loosened a retaining nut and released a metal arm for a shut-off valve. “What about Scott, did you ever really care for him?”
Whatever she was working on went silent. She had no snappy comeback.
“Come on, Gia, be honest for once in your fucking life.”
He saw a shadow at the door to the room, and Scott stumbled through the door, gun raised to fire.
“Answer the question Gia!” he said in a weak voice.
“Warning…Warning. Lethal Venting in Two-Minutes. Evacuate the area. Warning…” The robotic voice alert began coming from the reactor control panel. A series of amber lights began flashing throughout the room.
Scott saw the silhouette of Gia bent over the console. He saw his friend ready to charge her with something in his hand. She casually raised the pistol toward the approaching man. He aligned the sights of the sub-compact H&K at her head and squeezed the trigger. The gunshot echoed loudly in the open space. The shot had not come from his rifle, it only clicked on an empty chamber. He watched horrified as her shot found its mark. Skybox’s body hit the floor with a dull thump.
The shadow moved past him in a blur. Gia turned toward the door, but even she wasn’t fast enough. Ghost arced an arm upward, his blade slicing deeply through her arm. She dropped the weapon and went to the floor seething at the man. “Tommy!”
He looked confused, surprised that this person in front of him was suddenly an enemy. His blade was poised to continue the slashing attack, but Gia moved nearly as fast as he did. Scott looked in desperation at the limp form of Skybox and now Tommy battling against his former fiancée. She reached Sky’s body and came up with the me
tal bar making contact with Tommy’s head with a sickening wet sound. Tommy reached up, grabbing at his already tortured skull and faded into the shadows of the room.
“Drop it, Scott.” Gia had regained her weapon and leveled it at his chest.
He tossed the useless rifle away and walked slowly toward her. Unarmed and defenseless, he no longer cared about the end. “It’s over, Levy,” he said refusing to refer to her as Gia again.
She was pressing her injured arm close to her body, the blood staining the white lab coat and dripping from the bottom edge. “You may be right, dear.” She used a toe of her shoe to nudge Skybox. “Definitely over for Michael. Sorry about that. He was just one more failed experiment, though.”
“You have to stop,” he said weakly. “Hasn’t there been enough death already?” He turned slightly at the sounds coming from far down the corridor. He assumed it would be the Army, maybe Krychek and the rest of the team. What he didn’t expect to see in the darkened door was the infected.
“Scott,” she said in a whisper. “Step toward me,” she said menacingly, then again in a much kinder tone. He took a step closer to the woman. His eyes darting from her raised gun to the rabid looking creatures pouring into the room.
“Closer!” she whispered so loud it was nearly a shout. He didn’t move. “The baby,” she pleaded. “They won’t attack you.”
Confused, he turned and focused on her. Her beautiful red hair, perfect features and a heart full of poison. “What do you mean they won’t attack me?”
She reached a hand out and pulled him forcibly close to her. “You have a newer variant of the 1297 treatment much like them. They don’t attack their own kind due to a pheromone they all give off. To them, you are one of them.” He felt the baby bump pressing into his back. Looking down, his shoe was pressed up against the unmoving body of his friend. “Will I become a carrier of the disease? Will our child be like me…or like them?” She didn’t respond.
The infected moved to within a few feet but got no closer. Their smell, like a wet dog, was overwhelming as were the unholy sounds they made. The vacant eyes stared at nothing, but they were excited and smelled prey nearby. “Tommy?” he called out. Her pistol dug into his back.
“Don’t,” she said angrily.
“Tommy, get out of here, get somewhere safe if you can.”
“Stop trying to be the hero, Scott. I’m the one trying to save the world, not you. Sorry you don’t approve of my methods.”
“Levy, your fucking methods are trying to eat us. Also, you need to get over your damn daddy issues.” His hand brushed against a tiny bulge in his pocket. Carefully he reached in. I might not be as defenseless as I thought. “Besides, I wasn’t trying to save the world…I just wanted to save you.” He used his thumb to uncap the vial of neurotoxin he’d taken from the oceanographic lab. His finger ran along the slender needle. This was the choice. Roosevelt was right. Kill Gia and…kill his baby, but give humanity a chance to survive. His hand holding the vial began to shake. He couldn’t do it…wouldn’t do it.
Without warning, Tommy appeared between them and the infected. Unlike Scott, they had no problem going after him. His knives slashed out cutting down three in seconds and quickly moving deeper into the ranks. He felt Gia’s gun move from his back raising in the direction of the blur that was Ghost. Scott closed his eyes to the carnage in front, pulled his hand from his pocket and drove the needle backward deep into the mother of his unborn child.
“Oh, God! What have you done?” She went rigid, then collapsed to the floor holding her stomach. The small ampule of poison still embedded in her side. The gun fell feebly from her hands which were beginning to shake violently. Her throat made a gurgling sound as she grabbed for him.
Through tear-filled eyes, he stepped to the woman he had loved and cradled her. Her face showed the excruciating pain as the toxins attacked her body. She locked eyes with him; he could see the terror as well as a vulnerability that made him wonder how much of Gia she had been. Her mouth tried to form words, but he had to lean his head in close to make it out.
“I did…”
“I do love you, Scott. Always.”
The sounds of automatic weapons came from the corridor. Those infected dying under Tommy’s blade began to diminish as well. He looked down into the dimming eyes of one of the most evil people to have ever existed and realized he, too, felt for her. His brother had been right, he didn’t know women. “I love you, too,” he whispered as the light in her eyes went out for good. His trembling hands closed her eyes then traveled down to her stomach. He rested a hand there for a moment as well.
Chapter One Hundred Eight
Scott raised his hands as the soldiers burst into the engineering room. Leading the way was Nez, the big Ranger who helped pull him to his feet. He looked down at the bodies of Gia and Skybox.
“You okay, Montgomery?”
Scott just shook his head and limped from the room. An Army medic met up with him as he exited the compound into the bright afternoon sun. Minutes later, he was sitting on the rear deck of a personnel carrier, an IV attached to a clear bag of something hanging over his head while the gunshot wound in his thigh was bandaged. The sounds of helicopters were everywhere. Through the trees, he could see the massive double rotor chinooks landing and others taking off.
Krychek walked up, giving a nod, and seconds later, a large white dog was also on the platform leaning against him. “Hey, Solo.”
“Everyone is pulling out, Scott. This whole valley is going to be overrun.” Krychek said.
“To where?”
Krychek looked haggard, “Taking everyone to the coast. All the civilians from here that they can take will be offloaded to the AG. The rest, as well as the guards and scientists, are being handed over to the Navy. The infected are literally everywhere now.” He leaned in, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Sorry about Skybox, sir. We’ll get you out on the next round of choppers.”
Scott started to tell the man not to call him sir but didn’t. He’d just murdered his girlfriend and baby and watched the toughest man he’d ever known die. His mind struggled to hold onto many other thoughts. “What about Tommy? You know…Ghost?” he said weakly looking up at the soldier.
“No sign of him, Scott. We weren’t sure if he even made it inside.” Krychek said.
Ghost had disappeared again. Somehow, he knew this time it would be for good. Scott owed his life to Tommy every much as he did Skybox. He closed his eyes and offered a silent thanks to both.
The last load of civilians heading to the AG lifted off two hours later for the 90-minute ride to the coast. Krychek and Nez sat stoically on the long bench seat of the helicopter. Solo lay curled up against the bulkhead nearby. Scott Montgomery wasn’t on it.
Major General Daly looked at the man leaning against the tree before he left. “Son, I understand you had a lot to do with stopping all this.”
Scott shrugged, not really wanting conversation, much less congratulations, for what he had done. The general seemed unsure how to treat the man but could see the damage and pain etched on Scott’s face. “Hell of a thing,” he said, spitting a stream of black tobacco juice in the dirt. “Lot of good men lost today. Worst battle of my career.” He looked back over the valley full of bodies and the smoking wreckage of military equipment. “Any idea why? Why did they do all this?”
“She wanted to save the world,” Scott said softly.
“Seemed like just the opposite,” the Marine said.
Scott shielded his eyes from the sun and looked up at the man. “It would have worked, her plan. Still might, in fact. She wasn’t saving us from the blackout…she was saving us from what comes next.”
“Eh?” the man said. “What would that be?”
Scott just shook his head. “Y’all took everything from the labs?”
“We did, everything that was undamaged and seemed safe enough to transport,” Daly said.
“Good, they were doing some vital work there. The s
cientists will be able to help. There is a man on the Aquatic Goddess who should have the computer files from all the research going on. If humanity has a chance to survive what comes next, we will have to adapt. Sir, you have what you need to make it happen.”
The general reached out a hand to help Scott up. “Walk up this hill and get on this bird with me, Montgomery. We need good people like you, we will need your help.”
Scott reached up and took the outstretched hand but just shook it. “I’m done, sir, I’ve climbed my last hill.” He gazed out over the smoke-filled horizon a long time before continuing, “There is also a chance I could become a danger to those around me. She…she did something to my genome. Besides, I’ve got something I have to do here as well.” He glanced over at the covered bodies lying on the ground outside the cave entrance.
“A Pyric victory, Son―win the battle but lose the war.
You know as soon as we’re gone, the infected are going to be everywhere. Those sound generators your guys dreamed up are the only thing keeping ‘em away. Batteries on most are starting to get weak already.”
Scott nodded, “Its ok, sir. Please do one thing for me, though.”
Harris Springs, Mississippi
Todd watched in disbelief as another load of evacuees landed and came streaming up the gangplank. Bobby and Angelique were coordinating the incoming crowds as best they could. “Cap?” DeVonte yelled from the entrance. “The infected are getting across.”
“Shit.” It was what they had been fearing. All day the crowds of infected on the far side had been growing. Many had tried to cross and drowned or been eaten by the numerous gators, but some had made it, then more and more. They had to protect the docks and the new arrivals. “Make sure everyone out there has a weapon. Don’t waste ammo but keep them away from the ship. Ask Tahir if he can crank up the volume on the sound generator more.”
