by James Harden
To Hell and back.
I walked out of the hospital feeling like I’d been kicked in the guts. I went to Gordon for reassurance but instead I was even more on edge than I was before.
Would they really order in airstrikes? Would they really nuke the place?
There’s no way, right?
And what the hell did he mean by ‘people in charge’? If the military weren’t in charge, then who the hell was?
I got back to the barracks, looking forward to a hot shower and some hot food. But as soon as I’d finished writing in my journal Drake and I were pulled aside. Initially I thought we were going to be reprimanded for the incidents at the outer-perimeter. For our hesitation the day before, for almost disobeying a direct order.
For Franco.
But instead we had been chosen for another operation.
A chopper had crashed in the middle of the unofficial immigration center. Right in the middle of the slum. The pilot and co-pilot had survived the crash. But they had suffered some serious injuries and they were possibly surrounded.
“Surrounded by who?” I asked.
“We can’t confirm but it’s possible, actually it’s more than likely there are infected people in that section,” the commanding officer said. “And the refugees are now starting to riot. They are getting hostile. We fear they may attempt to take the pilots as hostage and start making demands for their lives.”
I shook my head. The refugees were getting desperate. Violent. I can’t say I blame them. People will only be oppressed for so long until they fight back. No matter what the situation is.
Fortunately for us the riots had broken out on the opposite side of the slum to where the chopper had crashed.
This gave us some time.
But if the riots moved the pilots would be in big trouble.
We needed to provide protection for the pilots until the medical chopper arrived. We would act as a deterrent in case anyone got too close or got any wild ideas. I can’t say that I was thrilled about the assignment. It would’ve been nice to have had more support. But that wasn’t possible.
And we couldn’t pick them up in any land based vehicles because the area where they had crashed was inaccessible to cars. The laneways and walkways between the shanties were too narrow for a car, let alone a Humvee to pass through in that area.
“Why can’t we move them to a suitable location, get them into an ambulance and get them out?” I asked.
“No. We can’t move the co-pilot. He has a suspected spinal injury. You have to wait there for the medivac.”
And that was it. We couldn’t get them out in a chopper at the moment and we couldn’t drive in there and get them out. We were it. The last hope.
The only hope.
We had to wait it out with them until the medical chopper was available.
I couldn’t believe it. I initially thought we had sent way too many soldiers down here. But now we had no one left. We were stretched to capacity.
I wondered what the hell was going on out in the 50,000 square miles of the military testing site. What the hell were they doing out there? Were there more immigration centers? Were there more towns under quarantine?
I suddenly wanted reinforcements.
We were driven into the slum as far as we could go, until the laneways became too narrow for the Humvee to drive through. It took us about ten minutes to reach this point. Again, the size of the shanty town took my breath away. It was an endless sprawl of shacks, and makeshift huts. In the far north-west corner of the slum we could see black smoke rising into the sky.
That was where the riots had broken out.
The Humvee pulled up in one of the wider laneways. “Last stop,” the driver said. “Good luck.”
We would have to walk the rest of the way.
Amazingly, there didn’t seem to be many people in this area. Maybe they were all over at the riots. Maybe they were all hiding indoors. Too scared to come out.
We were a few ‘streets’ away from where the chopper had gone down. The driver of the Humvee performed an awkward U-turn and sped away. We were on our own now until the medical chopper arrived. Hopefully that wouldn’t be too long.
We set off at a jog and made our way as quickly as possible through the slum.
Drake pointed down a small side street. “Should be down here.”
We moved down the side street, carefully checking around each corner and through each flimsy doorway.
No people. No one at all.
We came out into another main street. I guess it was more of a walkway really. The chopper was a mangled wreck. It was lying on its side, the rotor blades crumpled up. It had crushed a few of the shacks in the area as well.
We found the pilots inside. The head pilot had a compound fracture in his leg. The co-pilot was lying on his back in the cabin area. He was unconscious.
There was another person as well. A refugee. He was lying across the front windshield of the cockpit. He had a giant hole in his chest. And his head.
“Thank God you guys made it,” the pilot said. “He’s in bad shape,” he said motioning with his head towards the co-pilot.
“What the hell happened here?” Drake asked.
“Engine failure. We came down hard. Luckily the area seems to be deserted. Otherwise this could’ve been a lot worse.”
“Who the hell is that?” I asked referring to the guy sprawled across the cockpit windshield.
“Don’t know. He tried to attack us. He charged us. He was screaming. Tried to break through the windshield. I had to take him out.”
The guy’s face was frozen in a look of pain and anguish. His mouth was open, like he was killed mid-scream. His teeth were exposed. There was a bullet hole in his chest and another one just above his right eyebrow. It was so small you could barely see the entry point. The exit wound on the other hand was a different matter entirely. It was the size of a man’s fist. Must’ve been shot with a hollow point, I thought.
“You better check him out first,” the pilot said. “He’s been out for a while now. And I’d love some pain killers. My leg is killing me. Wait, where is your equipment? Where’s the medivac? Which one of you...”
“We’re not doctors,” Drake said, cutting him off.
“What?”
“We’re not doctors.”
“But they said the medivac was on its way.”
“Well yeah, technically the medivac is on its way. But they’re tied up at the moment. We’re here to provide support until they show up.”
“Fantastic,” the pilot said through clenched teeth. He put his hands over his head and took several deep breaths, closing his eyes.
The bone sticking out of his leg was covered in blood. He must’ve been in an extreme amount of pain. I felt bad that we didn’t think to bring any morphine with us.
“Look, they’ll be here within a few minutes,” Drake said. “We’ll be out in no time.”
“I hope for his sake you’re right,” the pilot said. “I’m not sure how badly he is busted up. He’s been out cold for a while now. I haven’t been able to check up on him. I can’t put any pressure on my leg.”
Drake moved over to the co-pilot and checked his pulse. “Strong heartbeat. Nice and steady.”
“So why did they send you guys anyways?” the pilot asked.
“Just as a precaution. Make sure none of the people here tried to hurt you or take you hostage or anything. We’re pretty lucky that this area seems to be empty at the moment.”
“Yeah. When we did our fly over it looked like there was town meeting on the other side of the slum.”
“Town meeting?”
“Yeah, that’s what it looked like from the air. Of course, that’s not what it was. It was the riots.”
“The refugees are angry,” I said. “They’re fed up. Everything that’s going on. The virus. The testing. It’s pushed them over the edge.”
“Yeah, that’s an understatement,” the pilot agreed. “Hey, can you check up there?” he
said pointing to an overhead storage compartment. “There might be a first aid kit in there. Might have some pain killers.”
Drake retrieved the first aid kit from the storage container. He opened it up and found some morphine.
Drake prepared a shot and injected it into the arm of the pilot. A few minutes later he was asleep.
“What now?” I asked.
“We need to get to a vantage point,” Drake answered. “So we can see what’s going on. We need to be able to see people coming from a distance. It’s no good being down here on the ground floor. We can’t see a damn thing.”
The chopper had crashed into a heavy duty shipping container. The massive container had been converted into a home. By the looks of it, I’m guessing more than one family lived in it.
“Up there.” Drake said. “We’ll have a good view of the surrounding area.”
We positioned ourselves on top of the container. From our vantage point we could see the entire slum. At the very far end we could see a few wisps of black smoke floating up into the air.
The riots.
Thankfully they were still a fair way off. At least a few miles.
Drake and I settled in. He was up one end and I was down the other. We got into position and prepared ourselves to play the waiting game.
Before we left base, they stressed to us that it was important we monitor this section and the surrounding lane ways with the utmost vigilance.
We had to hold this position. If at any point we became overrun, we were to radio for back up, immediately.
So once again we played the waiting game. Drake called up command a couple of times to see what the ETA was on the evac. But the medical chopper was still out at an isolated area of the military testing site.
We had to wait it out.
And wait.
And wait some more.
The sun set and the stars came out. The night sky was stunning. Out here, where there are barely any lights, and no electricity, the stars look amazing. Endless. You can actually see the spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy.
I’ve seen so many shooting stars streaking across the night sky, I’ve lost count.
Drake has climbed down and checked on the pilots a couple of times.
Apparently they’re in bad shape. The Pilot is shivering. He had gone into shock. Can’t blame him. He had freakin bone sticking out of his leg. I feel sick just thinking about it. The co-pilot was still unconscious.
Luckily it’s been ridiculously quiet for the whole afternoon. And so far into the night.
I mean, it’s quiet enough so I can write all this down. So yeah it’s quiet.
Drake tells me I look like shit. Tells me to get some rest. I begin to argue but he tells me he knows that I haven’t been sleeping. He tells me to get a few hours. He’s got a bad feeling we’re going to be here all night. He said he’ll wake me if he needs me.
Again, I begin to protest. But he’s right. If I don’t get some sleep soon, I’m going to crash and burn.
So I’m going to sleep on top of a shipping container, in a shanty town in the middle of the Australian outback. Never thought I’d write those words.
Never thought I’d get to sleep in the desert, watching the stars go by. Watching the galaxy go by.
