ARISEN, Book Twelve - Carnage (45 page)

Badger had cleared the field.

The Bottom

Dash 8 – Front Hatch

Despite the chaos in back, there was little but the sound of the rushing wind at the open front hatch. And as Kate perched there once again, everything went away, and the world went silent, even as it was also going dark. Everything had to go away, all the chaos and peril and bloodshed, the years of loss, of suffering and struggle, the lifetime before that spent in training and preparation. Because Kate Dunajski’s next and perhaps final task was going to require perfect focus.

After pointing out the Black Shark dead ahead of them again, the pilot had made it totally clear. If Kate couldn’t clear that thing out of their way, they were all dead.

But she knew she could do it now.

Not least because she was now armed with a much superior weapon, namely Kwan’s – a SCAR Mk 20 Mod 0 Sniper Support Rifle (SSR) – an accurized version of the 7.62mm SCAR-H, with a twenty-inch barrel, precision stock, and Leupold 3-10x optic. It was not only a hell of a lot more accurate than her M4 – but its rounds had three times the mass, and a hell of a lot more power and punch behind them.

She was vaguely aware of the bloodletting going on behind her in the cabin. But she really only knew one thing: if they didn’t take off now, their mission was over – failed, forever. She also had a strong sense this maniac
Top Gun
-wannabe in the cockpit would not be hitting the brakes again.

It was take off now and live – or stay here with the dead forever.

All that existed now was a single soldier with a rifle – facing down a terrifying aerial machine of destruction. And it was this which stood between Kate and everything she loved, everything she had left to her, everything they hoped yet to save.

And it all came down to this one… single… shot.

She swung out that hatch, weapon held left-handed again, but the hell with it. She was going to have to use the Force to make this shot anyway. But as she sighted in through the Leupold scope, she instantly felt better. She could do this.

Something exploded near her face, and a terrible stinging pain ripped through her cheek and neck. When she yanked her eye from the sight, she had no idea what had just happened. But she had just been peppered with fragments of a round impacting the lip of the hatch.

And then she got shot in the chest, which knocked her back in the cabin, saving her life.

She slapped at her radio button.

* * *

Ali had just caught her breath after nearly being machine-gunned to death, and also enjoying, once again, the amusing theme-park attraction that was hanging from the wing of an aircraft accelerating toward take-off. But with the Black Shark’s departure, she had finally managed to pull herself back up top, belly-down on the wing, and started to crawl up onto the fuselage – with a view toward finally getting her ass back in that rear hatch. That’s when Kate came on the channel.

“There is a fucking SNIPER out there, and he has got me seriously zeroed. Has ANYBODY got a look at this guy?”

A round thwacked into the top of the plane six inches from Ali’s nose. Then another, two inches away.

Oh, GodDAMMit
.

Him again.

She quickly lowered herself back down under the cover of the engine and wing, feet scrabbling at the top of the landing gear again. But not before ID’ing the source of the shots.

“Yeah, roger on the fucking sniper,” she said, pausing briefly to adjust the grip that was keeping her on the plane and alive. “I think you’ll find he’s up in that control tower.”

Ali wasn’t sure what she was going to do about this asshole.

But she had better do something, and do it fast.

* * *

Hailey looked over her shoulder to find the Army chick lying on the deck behind the cockpit again. “Hey!” she shouted. “Bullet magnet! What the fuck are you doing?” She stabbed her finger out the front again. The Black Shark was still there, dead ahead and getting closer every second.

Only this time, out beyond it there was no 500-foot overrun, no nice flat beach, no soothing surface of shark-infested gulf behind it. Instead there were three-story buildings. And while this propeller-driven old beast wasn’t the fastest or most powerful aircraft in history, now that it wasn’t limping along with only one engine, it was definitely going to cover the length of the runway faster than it had last time.

Kate tried to nod and wave her understanding, as she stuck her hand under her vest and rubbed the giant welt that had already formed there. She felt like she’d just had all her ribs tenderized with a meat mallet. But the ceramic plate had at least kept the mallet and the ribs separated.

She shook her head to clear it, and looked back up at the open hatch. Sometimes you just had to charge the goddamned machine gun nest, and the bullets be damned. She hefted her weapon, took three quick breaths and got ready to pop and shoot – fast.

Keeping low, she got to the edge of the hatch, rose to her full height, raised her weapon, leaned out, and acquired target. She did spare a quarter-second glance up at the air traffic control tower – way out ahead on the left edge of the runway, but coming up fast. Yeah, that could definitely be where she was taking fire from. But then she sighted in on the Black Shark again.

And instantly felt like she’d been punched in the head. Totally autonomously, she ducked back inside, and when she pulled off her trademark baseball cap, she found two holes in it, about two inches apart. A high-velocity round had just creased her scalp. An inch lower and she would have had her skull cored out.

She’d recognized Ali’s voice on the radio, and now tried to remember when she had last seen her. She hit her radio. “Hey, Delta chick – are you still
outside the aircraft
?”

“Affirmative.”

Jesus Christ
. At least Kate wasn’t the only one with problems. “Well, listen, I don’t mind dying – right here, right now. But this motherfucker is going to kill me before I can take my shot. And if I don’t take out that helo, we’re all dead – right here, right now.”

“CAN you take it out?”

“Affirmative. But not if I’m fucking dead.”

“Okay. Hang tight for a second.”

Kate looked out through the cockpit glass at the shrinking expanse of runway before them. A second they had.

Any more might be a problem.

* * *

Ali settled her mind, and cleared out all the distractions – such as having her ass hanging off an aircraft that was picking up speed, and being responsible for keeping everyone aboard, which was also almost everyone she loved, from dying in the next minute. And then everyone everywhere dying not long after that.

She cleared out all that garbage because she needed her full faculties, and every last iota of her considerable skills, experience, and abilities. And what she knew now was:

Vasily had to die.

This time, she had to put that slippery, tattooed, annoyingly unkillable sonofabitching Spetsnaz sniper in the ground. She couldn’t lose to him again. She couldn’t afford to.

This time, simply, he had to go down.

She just didn’t know how she was going to make it happen. He had an elevated and much superior position, not to mention a stable firing platform. And now, when she peeked over the fuselage of the rattling plane to more specifically locate him, it took him exactly one second to put another round right in front of her face.

She couldn’t afford to give him looks like that.

In her brief viewing, she had seen light glinting off the control tower – and realized the clouds had cleared, way down on the horizon, just enough for the setting sun to peek out and send out a few strong rays at them. Unfortunately, they were also right in her goddamned eyes, as the plane was taking off west now.

Ali clenched her teeth. This guy was everywhere – he effectively had both her
and
Kate pinned down. And he was fucking good – which Ali had known before. But now he seemed to be having his true crowning moment of badass. And he only had to stretch it out another thirty seconds, which was when the plane was going to run into that cock-blocking Black Shark. And then all this was over. Forever.

But at least Ali knew Vasily’s exact position now.

And maybe she didn’t have to give him another look like that. Maybe what she needed was to give him a better one. One he would find irresistible. Then the SF gal down below could make her shot, and the plane would lift off. At that point, Ali would probably fall off it, but the others would be away. And then all her problems would be over, anyway. Plus there might not be time for anything else.

She hit her radio. “Hey, blondie.”

Brief, sullen pause.
“Send it.”

“Get ready to pop and shoot – in three, two, one—”

Ali hauled herself up on the wing, rolled once toward the fuselage, bounced to her feet – and she took off running aft, down the length of the plane.

“I’m up…” she muttered, timing it, “…he sees me…”

She could already feel the air around her filling with lead.

* * *

Vasily rose to his full height when he saw the sniper chick break cover – if that’s what you called it in these extraordinary circumstances. But he didn’t care. He didn’t care if the plane crashed or took off, if the world survived, or burned to the ground from the zombie virus.

He was going to kill this bitch.

But as he tracked and fired, tracked and fired, trying to reconcile the forward motion of the plane with her backward run, his radio went.

“It’s a distraction, you dipshit. And I’m taking fire.”

Nina. Knowing she was right, and feeling the tug of duty, Vasily pivoted left and fired twice at the front hatch. The shooter there disappeared again. He couldn’t tell whether he had scored a kill.

But he didn’t care about killing that one.

* * *

“I’m up… he sees me… I’m down.”

Ali made it to the rear of the plane, and the vertical stabilizer. The area of fuselage back at the tail was probably less than the fabric needed to cut a good suit, and none of it quite horizontal, but Ali was standing on it. More to the point, she was behind the vertical stabilizer, hidden on its right side. This provided concealment from Vasily.

She had her doubts about whether it would provide actual cover, and had to hope he wouldn’t put it to the test by sending some rounds through it.

“A for effort!”
Kate shouted over the radio.
“But he’s still fucking got me zeroed!”

Ali just sighed.

And then she popped around the edge of the stabilizer, sighted in, and took a few of the most interesting shots of her life. Happily, now that they were closer, she could see Vasily leaning out of the tower, aiming forward of her. She didn’t think she hit him, but he did duck back behind a concrete pillar on the observation platform. The glass was blown out on both sides of it, and the back wall inside was visible, only a few feet back. If she could keep his head down, maybe Kate could make her shot.

“Okay, how about now?”

* * *

Ali had indeed gotten Vasily’s fire off her for a few seconds.

Kate realized this as she leaned out once again and sighted in. She had that bent and exposed missile in her sights – easier, now that the helo was a hell of a lot closer.

She fired once. No effect. Again. Nothing.

She couldn’t even tell where her misses were falling.

* * *

Wait a second
, Ali thought.
Why can’t I make Kate’s shot?

Scanning ahead, she found she could see the hovering helo herself. It was partially occluded by the engine, wing, and fuselage, but she could see the top half of the thing, including the engine cowling, the rotors – and the fucking autocannon, which now sparked and bounced, pointing right at her. She hit the deck, such as it was.

The air behind her started exploding.

The fucking Black Shark was firing airburst 30-mil rounds at her. It didn’t have the range right, but this one was definitely in the horseshoes-and-hand-grenades department. It didn’t have to be all that close, and it wouldn’t take much. And she would be done.

That goddamned attack helo, too, had to die.

* * *

Now Kate could see the autocannon on the Black Shark firing, but it wasn’t aimed at her.

“Hey, any chance you can take this thing out,”
Ali said.
“Before it airbursts me off the plane?”

Kate didn’t bother responding. She just kept shooting. But this time she took a deep breath, released half, and steadied her aim. Target reticle floating on the front of the bent missile, she once again felt the motion of the plane around her. As she squeezed the trigger, she said aloud: “Get away from her, you bi—”

But even as she fired, she felt two impacts, and a terrible pain.

Ducking back yet again, she saw that, this time, she had been more than tenderized. She’d been shot through the right forearm. At least she was shooting left-handed – small blessings. But she could see another round had impacted the receiver of the rifle. Now there was no way she could even know for sure that it would fire. She guessed she’d find out in a minute.

Or maybe I won’t
, she thought, looking balefully at the hatch.

She wasn’t sure she could go out there again. It was a death zone. And she could feel it in her bones: this guy had her number – and her name etched on a bullet.

He was going to kill her dead.

* * *

The wicked tapered blade of Badger’s knife now all but tickled Fick’s throat – and the smug sonofabitch was smiling down at him. He obviously thought Fick was dead now – and just hadn’t stopped breathing, so didn’t know it yet.

And his smile said he was enjoying this last part.

Fick held the knife, the hands, and the Russian up and away with all the strength left in his exhausted, cut and bleeding, trembling, forty-two-year-old arms. And it was true his strength was fading fast. Also, while being an inch or two from death was pretty attention-grabbing, still Fick had seen Warchild’s boots pass a foot from his head – walking slowly and unsteadily, but upright. Fick then watched helpless as he stomped Zack and drop-kicked Jake’s head.