"Listen."
An
engine. Specifically, an aircraft engine. I recognized it as some sort of helo;
no telling if it was a friend or a foe.
I handed another charge to
Annie. "Let's hurry this up, then. Start on another support."
Although
she didn't have much experience with explosives, Annie set to the task while I
guided her verbally. We couldn't stop for anything; before long, someone would
be on top of this room, and by that time we needed to be long gone.
"Jim." Annie spoke
during one of our silent periods, still working.
"What?" I wasn't
particularly listening, still busy.
"If we don't make it
outta here..."
I shook my head, interrupting
her. "Don't say it, Annie. We will make
it."
"I know, but if we
don't..."
Just then, the handle to the
door shook, sending me into immediate guard, abandoning my charge to swing my
sidearm into play. "Keep working," I growled, drawing a heavy bead on
the door. From where I crouched, I had partial concealment from a tower
support, but not much else.
"...Can I say one feckin'
thing?" Annie asked, irritated.
"No." I listened
hard, counting seconds. It took me a few moments to put the picture together,
and I instinctively jumped out from behind cover and scuttled left to shield
her.
Had I stayed where I was, the
explosion would've blinded me with debris, which would've decapitated Annie.
Large chunks of shrapnel buried themselves in my armored vest, level with her
face. I crouched down, raising my weapon to fire at whoever would be first
through the door.
In this military, it pays to
be observant. My finger tightened just slightly before recognizing my target: a
Force soldier, an operator to be exact. This operator was followed quickly by
another of the same persuasion, and they cleared the door with weapons raised.
Just like us, they took a moment to ID their targets, not firing but not
letting down their guard. These were our
people. The darker, more streamlined battle rigs were a dead giveaway.
At about the time that Annie
pulled her shotgun up, we were against four total, and we were in a standoff.
There wasn't much to say to say to each other; weapons make enough of a
statement. It was anyone's guess who'd make first contact.
One of them eventually did. A
tall one with a scraped-down red cross emblem on the helmet lowered their rifle and lifted off said headgear, revealing a glowing mane of red hair
and a sarcastic grin.
"Mother of God," I
gasped.
"Close enough," she
replied. "You're gettin' rusty, Razor."
Tension was replaced by
recognition, followed by relief. Not only were they operators, but the rest of
the 56th SOS--our squad. I watched as
they all revealed their identities: "Mother of God" was actually
Staff Sergeant Sharon Tally, my best bud; the one who'd been first in--and
therefore first to get in my sights--was PFC Celia Riker, whose presence there
was an actual surprise; next to Riker was Sergeant Melvin Andrews, certified
squadron destroyer, a human tank who wielded his squad automatic weapon like a
toy; last through the door was an unidentified sun-kissed blonde, who looked at
everyone present with amusement. She sure was no Sandra Temple--more on her
later--but I wasn't in a position to choose staffing.
I looked at Annie, who was as
surprised as I was. So much, in fact, that she let a long string of expletives
and action-verbs escape from her mouth before lowering her scattergun.
"Ooh, I like her,"
said the blonde, revealing a thick Australian accent. "Can we keep
her?"
"Sure, just don't feed
her after midnight,” said Sharon,
strolling over to one of the charges and scrutinizing it, tilting her head.
"This looks fun. What were you two doin' with these?"
"We have orders to knock
down this tower. Revelators have been using it for most of their secure
traffic," I answered.
She turned back toward me.
"Knocking down a ten-terawatt super-tower? I don't think Temple would approve. Anyway, we have orders to secure it for the
engineers. For similar reasons as the Revs."
"Engineers, nothing. The
Revs have hard-coded the system. Even if we could unlock it, HQ doesn't want it
falling back into the wrong hands."
Riker snickered. "Sounds
like command intelligence at its best. Nobody knows if they're coming or
going."
Just to hurry us along,
another turbine engine hummed somewhere outside. Annie and I exchanged looks of
anxiety. "Tell me that's more of the good guys," I said.
Sharon shook her head.
"Haven't called for them yet."
I checked my weapon.
"Better do it, then. Tell them we might have a hot LZ. We were expecting company
before you all arrived."
The question of just what to
do was answered then. Riker, the demo expert, helped set the last of the
charges with precision, and soon we were ready to rock. Our equipped hosts put
their helmets back on, but turned on their external speakers so we could communicate.
"Let's get moving,"
I ordered, making sure I had everything with me.
The blonde elbowed me.
"Oy... I don't recall you tellin' us who you are, mate." She said
this with a suspicious look toward Sharon,
as though to signal who was actually in charge.
"Captain Richards," I told her, doing my best not to add
"mate".
"Oh, that Captain Richards. Sergeant Matthews, at your service."
I wasn't sure what she meant,
but what the hell. "Feel like taking point, Sergeant?"
She nodded, looking toward
Annie. "Trade off with me, love. That scattergun is just the ticket."
Annie begrudgingly handed over
her weapon, taking Matthews’ well-worn assault rifle. Matthews smiled
appreciatively and humped her way down the hall, leading the way out.
It felt odd to be part of the
group again, to rejoin the pack. As we all made our way out of the facility, I
could see where I had fallen out of the natural order of moving as a team; both
me and Annie had been separated from them for a solid four months, at least.
Luckily it didn’t take long for us to re-acclimate to tactics, and we made it
back through the antenna complex without any problems.
Problems waited for us just
outside the door we’d blasted open. As soon as Matthews stepped past the
threshold, she found herself in a melee with a few Revelator troopers who’d
stacked themselves up outside. She smashed the butt of the shotgun into the face
of the nearest soldier, then fell on her butt to put a shell right between his legs. We all joined in and quickly dispatched them all, myself delivering
a skull-crushing blow to the face of one before firing two shots from my
ZK-mini at point blank. I was more than happy to relieve him of his weapon, a
Soviet Groza-14, 9x39 millimeter. The b******s were still packing some nice hardware,
despite our efforts.
As we stood outside to survey
the scene for a few moments, it appeared that we had the upper hand. However,
the sudden appearance of two large transport helos in the Revelator color
scheme--white and blue--changed any previous notions of using the rappeling line
to escape down the side of the mountain.
While Tally chanted over her
radio about a hot LZ, I whacked Andrews on the shoulder. “Can you pop ‘em from
here, Beefy?”
He held his tri-barrel in one
hand and surveyed the two choppers. They were hovering at around three-hundred
meters, well within effective range of his weapon. He could knock one down with
a lucky hit.
“Sorry,
buddy,” he finally admitted in a rare display of combat restraint, “Mona just
can’t do it from here.” He patted his firearm sympathetically.
I took a look at my new Groza,
but I knew it wouldn't do the job. If the choppers had decent armor, I’d still
be better off with spitwads. “Rockets? Grenades? Anyone?” I asked.
Heads shook collectively. We
needed a new plan, fast.
“Jim,
maintenance hatch!” Annie pointed up at the looming tower.
I knew that she had a bat-s**t
crazy idea, but I was open to it. “We climb,” I said in agreement. It was
better than standing down here and having it out with the combat helos. They'd
easily chop us to pieces with vulcan cannons.
“I’ll
lay down cover for you two,” Andrews volunteered. “Go ahead and I’ll follow.”
“They
don’t pay you to be a hero.” I reminded him.
Andrews shot me his trademark
smug grin, tugging Mona’s charging handle and checking the action. “Of course
they don’t. They pay me to…”
“MOVE!”
Sharon cut our exchange short, shoving all of us inside like a human bulldozer.
She wasn’t a second too soon
with interrupting his “be a badass” speech. A ‘Lil Bird had come back to
support its larger brothers and was making a strafing run with miniguns. The
ground where we’d all been standing exploded, 20-mil slugs burying themselves
in the dirt.
As we scrambled back into the
complex, Andrews kicked over a couple of long metal tables and set up his
perimeter. “I’ll be right behind you!” he yelled.
There was nothing else to do
but head back to the central control room, where our charges still waited to be
set off. The maintenance hatch was a cinch; an overhead panel held shut with a
padlock, which was quickly dismissed by a couple of shotgun rounds. Matthews
did the honors of popping the hatch open and clearing it.
“Good
up here,” she said, dropping back down the ladder. “Now, who’s crazy enough to
be first in?”
Sharon answered
without a word, clambering up the ladder like all the fires of hell were about
to come down the hall after us. We all exchanged shrugs before following, Annie
first, followed by Matthews, Riker, and myself.
Beyond
the maintenance hatch, the ladder continued upward in an enclosed conduit about
two hundred meters in height, thick cabling and wires running up the sides. At
the top was yet another hatch, which probably led to the outdoor sections of
the tower and some serious s**t.
At least, that’s all I could
make out from my point of view; despite the gargantuan construction of the
super-tower, space inside was limited, and looking up didn’t afford me much
more than the ultimate voyeur’s angle of Riker’s a*s. Her rifle pointed straight
down at my head as a reminder to the dangers of leering.
While we climbed, Matthews
decided to offer some moral support in her own dry, seasoned fashion. It was
enjoyable for the most part. She homed right in on the fact that neither I, nor
Annie had taken proper care of ourselves in months. “I’m not one to make
light,” she said to Annie, who was climbing above her, “but you’re a might bit
swampy, mate.”
“Shut
it, ya,” Annie replied, making me chuckle. “’Yer not spring fresh ‘yerself. Ya
can't even smell me through that damn helmet.”
“Speak for yourself, love. No
worries, but ja’need to fight a war in a skirt? The airflow's killin' me!”
The battle of accents was cut
short by the howling of gunfire below us. I looked down to see Andrews cranking
away on full auto with his SAW. We were already fifty meters above him.
“Andrews!”
I yelled, “Come on! Get up here!”
It occurred to me that Andrews
couldn’t hear me over the report of his weapon, but he had the right idea. He
ceased fire after a few seconds and began to climb after us like a mountain
lion up a tree. Before I knew it, he was right beneath me, bellowing: “Climb faster!
Faster, d****t!”
It was the first time I’d
heard ‘ol Beefy sound threatened by anything. I couldn’t see what, though.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t in the mood to face it, even with his SAW.
Our pace became frantic, and I
was thankful that we were all solid-footed; if Sharon or Annie lost it, we’d
all be coming down rather fast. I began to experience an almost sweet smell,
accompanied by a thin veil of green smoke that made my throat immediately dry
out, along with my eyes.
Below me, Andrews was still
hollering. “Go! GO! Come on!”
It occurred to me what the big
deal was. Someone below had deployed C-5 gas, a neurotoxin-based chemical that
affected the respiratory system. Dryness of tear ducts and sinuses was only a
mild side-effect; long-term and more effective side effects were complete
dryness of lung tissue and hemorrhaging. Anyone not wearing a breather--Annie
and me--would be coughing up blood in a matter of minutes.
Cursing my lack of such
crucial equipment, I did what I could to add to Andrews’ trendy melody of
“hurry”, my dry throat barely crackling out the words.
We finally reached the next
hatch, which thankfully wasn’t locked. Light flooded down on us, along with
wind, which would help to thin out the gas and give us a fighting chance. The
next section of tower was completely open-air, girders with more wiring running
upward. It gave us a nice panoramic view of what was unfolding outside.
A few of our own ‘Lil Birds
had shown up, engaging in a heated aerial dogfight with the identical enemy
craft, chasing each other in multiple directions. One of the larger carriers
had taken a direct hit to an engine and was careening down the side of the
mountain in an effort to ditch out.
Below us the assault force had
drawn out of the tower station, taking potshots at our pilots who were far too
fast and occupied to care about what was happening on the ground. I was
concerned that some of the shooters may have had their druthers and would try to pick
us off from our exposed positions, but for the moment we were safe and still
climbing.
The ascent seemed to take an
eternity, and by the time we reached the tower’s central mooring ring, my head
was swimming. It was a combination of the height and the C-5 gas exposure that
was cutting off my breathing; every gasp I took was becoming excruciating.
I barely made it to the
mooring ring when I was grabbed by both arms. Tally and Matthews had me, and
they deposited me onto the heavily pitching, bobbing surface of the ring, right
next to Annie, who was coughing so hard that blood sprayed from her lips. It
took me a moment to realize that I was bleeding from the nose. I tried to take
a relieving breath of air that wouldn’t come; my lungs just wouldn’t open
anymore. Before my dry eyes, stars appeared as capillaries in my brain began to burst.
Asphyxia ain’t pretty. I forgot the name of
the old colonel who’d told me that in my first days of being an officer. Just
the same, the line repeated itself in my head as I tried in vain to draw in one
last breath.
In the moments before I lost
consciousness, I felt my senses heighten for a brief moment; I could hear
Sharon yelling into her radio; I could sense and hear Andrews as he stood near
me, letting off an explosive volley from the SAW; I felt a tiny hand gripping
mine as hard as it could.
Annie’s hand. I gripped it
back, holding it to my chest, where my heart tried as hard as it could to pump
blood to my body. A look at her showed that she was still holding on; her
training as a pilot favored her in this scenario. Her eyes were completely
bloodshot, crimson red, and I knew that mine were too.
Some
people try to romanticize it, but the furthest thing on my mind was regret as
we stared each other in the face, about to fade into the unknown. Annie and I
had always been on strange terms with each other so to speak, but the last
thing I could possibly think of was the plural: Us.
With an exhale that I didn’t know I
had, I drifted from consciousness.
Blessed
slumber was very short-lived, my journey to whatever lay beyond cut short. Like
many times before, Sharon Tally ripped me from the void and back into life with
her blood, sweat and tears. Not that she was the type to admit the last part.
I awoke on the floor of a
large transport chopper, a Valkyrie, which at the time seemed like a very
fitting name. Above me, Sharon was squeezing the actuator control for a
respirator unit, tweaking the settings as she saw me come back to life before
her eyes. She administered a shot to my arm with an air injector, putting both
hands to use. I could see from the empty chambers on top that she’d used a good
three vials to force my lungs back into operation.
As though we’d been
teleported, Annie still lay next to me on the floor, no longer holding my hand
with a death grip. She was breathing on her own; no need for a respirator. In
fact, the lack of attention toward her led me to believe that she hadn’t blacked
out at all. Damned pilots! It wasn’t fair.
The respirator made
communication impossible, as there was a large tube running from the unit down
through my trachea. I tried to remove it, but Sharon shook her head. In my
delirium, I could hear her talking to me over the blast of the helo engines.
“Keep it in there!”
My mind began to race as
oxygen flowed through my veins once again, and I reached into my vest. I wasn’t
going to come all this way and fail the mission; the detonator was still in my
pocket.
Out the open bay door of the
helo, the super-tower still stood defiantly. In another time, I would’ve loved
to have snapped a photo of what was to come. Instead, I simply pressed the
button and waited.
Thirty seconds counted down,
and radio calls blasted forth over the Valkyrie's radio to clear the area. Here
came the big show, courtesy of Annie and me.
An ear-cracking explosion
echoed across the canyons, followed by a deep roar as the facility underneath
collapsed to dust. The tower pitched over, snapping its guy wires with
explosive snaps and ceremoniously tumbling down the side of the mountain.
Mission
accomplished.
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