ARISEN, Book Eleven - Deathmatch (34 page)

As Armour skidded to a halt, and Parlett ran into her, she could see what looked like an open electrics closet up ahead – with sparks flying and spilling out of it. She drew her side arm and pressed herself up against the bulkhead. As they crept forward, a goggle-covered head poked around the side of the hatch. Seeming unperturbed, the man calmly raised a cut-down assault riffle from where it hung on a sling, and aimed it at them.

But before he could fire, Parlett yanked Armour, and himself, out of the line of fire and away down a cross passageway. Turning to face him, she saw him giving her pretty much the same
What the fuck?
look she had for him.

“Maybe let’s take a different route,” Parlett said.

“Roger that.”

But she also carefully made a mental note of what they had seen, and where they had seen it. At some point, she was going to have to report it to command.

But for now – she ran.

* * *

In CIC, suddenly confusion reigned rather than chaos. An ensign holding two different phones shook his head at Campbell, who leaned over his station and glared at him like he’d just taken a dump on her deck. “Negative, ma’am,” he said. “No one’s responding.”

They were less than two minutes into the process of contacting and coordinating with all stations when their shipboard phone lines went dead – all at once.

“Motherfuckers,” Campbell said. This one she hadn’t seen coming. “Nothing? Not even the bridge – thirty feet over our goddamned heads?”

He shook his head again, perhaps afraid to speak.

Campbell pulled her lips over her teeth, straightened up, kicked the man’s station, and stalked off in the opposite direction.

Jesus fucking Christ
, she thought.
We’re trapped in our own heads down here…

She stopped stalking, put her hand on her pistol, and tried to consider options. They were now totally cut off, buried down in their bank vault, safe there – but unable to run the fight, or even affect events. Unable even figure out what the hell was going on.

And that wasn’t good enough.

Being safe wasn’t what going to war was about.

Being safe was bullshit.

Active Shooter

JFK - Bridge

If CIC had been overtaken by confusion, the bridge was now utter madness. And it was a charnel house. Even as the antennas and radar dishes plummeted toward the deck, passing in front of the screens on all sides, the bridge crew inside were faced with an inconceivable situation – an active shooter in a confined space. A shooter who had taken them utterly by surprise.

And who now showed absolutely no fear of injury or death.

Many of the officers on the bridge wore side arms, having gotten into the habit after the battle, and after sparring with the Russian warship. And many of them even got them out and into this fight. But, as much as they shot, somehow none of it seemed to have any effect.

Maybe they hadn’t put in the range time. Maybe they were too panicked to hit a moving target, even in close quarters. Or maybe this really was some kind of invulnerable, vengeful demon – walking among them without fear, and mercilessly culling the living.

The reality of course was that the invading blond “sailor” was wearing a Kevlar vest under his uniform blouse, sufficient to stop 9mm rounds, and fully protecting his vital organs. And hits to non-vital parts of his body simply appeared to be of little interest to him. Now he walked very quickly, but equally calmly, through the aisles between stations, firing and reloading, firing and reloading, killing men and officers were they cowered – or else raising his weapon, pivoting and snap-firing, dropping men and women who popped from cover to fire on him. And with equal efficiency and ruthlessness, he dropped others who broke from cover and tried to escape.

Down they all went.

He was exactly like the Terminator in that police station. And no one could understand how.

Some managed to flee when he faced away, more stayed at their posts, many sought and utilized cover. But one by one, seemingly regardless of strategy, everyone was going down.

And this ice cold son of a bitch never so much as ducked.

And this, his evident invulnerability, his total fearlessness, panicked the survivors more than anything else, and made their shooting even more inaccurate, their attempts to flee more urgent. It was surprise, speed, and violence of action taken to its apotheosis. It wasn’t violence of action so much as purity of viciousness.

It was sheer brutality.

After little more than a minute, the commander of the whole strike group was down on the deck unmoving, the NSF security guard lay on his back with staring dead eyes – and at least a dozen other crew lay dead or wounded on the deck or draped over their stations.

As this angel of death dropped out another magazine, and took one off a dead officer to reload, a hidden radio went, his clear earpiece speaking to him. He paused shooting, and spoke into his cuff in response.

“I had to go – things kicked off early. But don’t worry. I will hold the bridge by the time you get here.”

He dropped the slide of his pistol forward again.

And he resumed the cull.

* * *

Gulping for air, throat constricted, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes, Emily ran down the passageway away from the Team Room, willowy limbs pumping and flapping. Her ears rang terribly and white spots swam in front of her eyes, despite the fact that she had stuck her fingers in her ears and squeezed her eyes shut.

She’d even managed to dive for cover behind a crate as she threw the flashbang. And good thing because, whatever Hollywood thinks, flashbang grenades are
grenades
– and extremely dangerous in close quarters. This fact hit home for Emily when she climbed back to her feet and realized it must have exploded in the face of the invader pointing his rifle at her – because he lay face down on the deck, unmoving, in a pool of blood spreading out from his head.

The second man couldn’t see her, or hear for that matter, and just flailed around the room. Emily had juked around him, grabbed the mission profile binder and keycard from the desk, and legged it out the hatch.

Now, as she reached the MARSOC weapons and stores room, she found it already filled up with a shitload of Marines, including Lovell. Most of them were tooled up already, some still just in fatigues, but all of them hyper-energized and moving a million miles an hour. Those who hadn’t been on-call for the QRF now strapped on body armor and tactical vests, grabbed at weapons, and loaded and charged them, while everyone overfilled pouches with mags and grenades.

Lovell actually only noticed Emily from the strong odor of ammonium nitrate, and looked up to see her standing in the open hatchway. He stopped what he was doing, pulled her inside, and closed the hatch. He knew exactly who she was, and was about to ask what the hell she was doing here, when she cut him off.

“There are two of them in the Team Room,” she said, her voice too loud. “One’s down.”

Lovell said, “Slow down. How is one down?”

“Flashbang,” she said. “I threw it in his face.”

This caused a couple of the burly spec-ops Marines, bulging with weapons and armor, to look over at the 105-pound girl, their eyes squinting and mouths opened.

“Damn, dude,” one of them said.

* * *

Nearly a hundred feet above them, up in Primary Flight Control (Pri-Fly), at the very top level of the island, everyone on shift could hear muted gunshots banging away from down below them on the bridge. There were six people in there, including the Air Boss, his assistant (the mini-Boss), and four other air traffic control and flight ops personnel. Right now only three of them were doing their jobs. The other three were pointing handguns at the hatch, wondering like hell who was going to come through it – and when.

It wasn’t really their job to provide security for this station. They were supposed to have NSF and Marines for that shit. But none of those guys were answering their phones. And, so far, none were coming to the rescue.

But the three of them still running flight ops had their own set of problems, as was evident by the tight-lipped grimace on the Air Boss. He was looking at a radar display showing an incoming aircraft. Not only was it just a few minutes out – it was also fairly low on fuel, and had absolutely nowhere else to land.

“Fucking timing,” the Air Boss muttered.

“Roger that,” said the mini-Boss. “But what the hell are we going to do with this aircraft?”

The plane in question was the Beechcraft King Air sent by Jameson back at CentCom – and which was intended to take Dr. Park and his proto-vaccine back to Britain, there to save the day, and the world. Basically, it was the most important aircraft on Earth.

The Air Boss exhaled loudly and looked to the one other controller at an actual station. “Did you try CIC again?”

“I keep trying. Still nothing. Nothing from any station.”

The mini-Boss said, “We could put it in a holding pattern. And hope things down here get better?”

The Boss shook his head. “What if things get worse? And then it’s out of fuel – and we’re out of options.” He looked out the screens, down on to the flight deck, where a variety of personnel ran in what looked like random directions. It looked like chaos. And he flashed back to having to land their Greyhound in the middle of the mutiny and outbreak.

This wasn’t as bad as that – yet.

“We’ve got no choice,” he finally said. “We’ve got to recover this aircraft. That bird is everything right now, and we’ve got to get it down. Send the deck crew out – now.”

* * *

While filling a huge insertion ruck with ammo and explosives, Lovell handed out team assignments. But as there were exactly eight healthy and operational Marines left on this boat, or possibly in the world, they were going to be spread fatally thin, however they approached this fight.

Maneuvering a frame charge into his pack, Lovell said, “Okay, ideally we’d need to secure the flight deck, reactor control room, and reactor compartment – plus the ordnance magazine and ship’s armory. But we have no idea how many we’re facing. So the priority has probably got to be the island – bridge, CIC, and Pri-Fly.”

Another Marine said, “I heard the bridge has been taken.”

“Well, take it back – if you can. But don’t be all motarded and get everyone killed doing it. Because we’re pretty much
it
– there’s no one to spare, and no reinforcements coming. You’ll have to make the call on the scene. Oh – take some SRAWs in case you do assault.” He pointed to a rack of missiles, short-range assault weapons.

“Wait – where the hell are you going?”

Lovell cinched up the bag and looked up. “The hospital.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. That’s where Dr. Park is. Everyone else on this boat is non-essential personnel.” Squinting in thought, Lovell then leaned the ruck against a bulkhead, maneuvered to the back of the compartment and grabbed one of their CRRCs – combat rubber raiding craft, basically a boat and a motor in a bag – and dragged it over to the feet of a burly Marine.

“Patrick, you’re with me,” Lovell said.

Sergeant Patrick had survived the fight with Spetsnaz in the South African warehouse, and had swept the perimeter for Zulus together with Lovell. And they’d been through the shit together many times before that. Patrick grimaced as he felt the enormous weight of the thing, but got it slung around on his back, and still managed to hold his weapon.

He and Lovell were halfway out the hatch when someone said, “Hey, wait – who guards the weapons room?” Lovell knew it was a good question. They couldn’t afford to have their weapons and ammo cache captured. It would make for a short fight. Then again, they also couldn’t spare anyone to hang out and play defense.

“I’ll do it.”

Everyone looked down, to where Emily sat on an ammo crate, raising her thin hand.

“Seriously?” someone asked.

Lovell only hesitated a second. “She defended the Team Room, dropped one of them – and secured these.” He nodded to the mission binder and keycard. “Plus we’re out of people.”

As the Marines began filing out, someone strapped body armor on her, getting it cinched as tight as he could, then handed her a pistol, and got her sat down behind hard cover. She nodded. “Don’t worry about me. I’ll just sit right here until Fick comes back.”

“Fine,” the Marine said. “Shoot anyone who comes through that door who isn’t a Marine.”

“I may shoot anyone who isn’t Fick.”

“Probably smart. It would just piss Fick off. Go for it.”

Pounds Equal Pain

12,000 Feet Over the Nugal River Valley

“New tasking, Thunderchild.”

Ah,
Hailey thought.
NOW he needs me down in the fight.

“Go ahead, Cadaver.”

“If that ground convoy reaches the river, the game is over. And we fail the Apocalypse – forever. Best case, they take Patient Zero and go. Worst case, they reinforce this Spetsnaz force, kill all of us – then take Patient Zero. That convoy CANNOT make it to the river.”

“Copy that, Cadaver.”

“How are you fixed for ground munitions?”

“Times two AGM-169 Damnation ground-attack missiles. And two-two-zero rounds of twenty-five-mil HEIAP.”

“Okay, Thunderchild. This might work.”

Hailey could almost hear Handon smile across the radio. The AGM-169 Damnation had been developed specifically to replace the Hellfire – previously the most lethal and powerful air-to-ground missile in existence – and to outdo the Brimstone missile being developed for Britain’s Royal Air Force.

“Can you destroy or at least stop that convoy – without getting shot down doing it?”

Hailey sighed into the cocoon of her helmet, of her cockpit – of her sky. She figured that would sort of come down to whether the enemy had SAMs, and what kind. And there was only one way to find out.

“Does it even matter?” She was pretty sure she already knew the answer to that one.