Precipice: V Plague Book 9 (11 page)

As I turned
towards the cockpit I came face to face with one of the pilots who was working
his way into the troop compartment.  He had a pistol in hand, but it
wasn’t aimed yet.  I fired a burst into his chest and dashed forward,
yanking the corpse out of my way and sticking the muzzle of the rifle into the
cockpit.

The other
pilot was still seated and strapped in and was trying to raise his
weapon.  I smashed the barrel of the rifle into the side of his helmeted
head to get his attention, reaching forward and grabbing the Makarov pistol out
of his hand.  Taking a moment, I looked through the windscreen.

We were
sitting on the tarmac at an airport or airbase, probably Mountain Home, and a
couple of hundred yards away a Gulf-stream G-IV jet sat with the door open and
air stairs lowered.  Half a dozen men in Russian Air Force uniforms stood
around and another Mi-24 sat on the asphalt in the distance.

“In the air
and destroy both of those aircraft,” I said to the pilot, punctuating my order
by pressing the muzzle of the rifle to the back of his neck.

It was still
hot from when I killed the co-pilot and a moment after he yelped in pain I
caught a whiff of seared human flesh.

“Now!” 
I shouted, banging the muzzle against his helmet again.

He nodded
and reached forward to take the controls.  A moment later we lifted
straight up in the air and I braced myself against any attempts to suddenly
tilt the helicopter and send me sprawling.  We got to about two hundred
feet of altitude and just hung there, hovering.

“Shoot!” 
I yelled with another reminder of the weapon pointed at his head.

He mumbled something
in Russian then reached to his side and disengaged a safety.  I took my
attention off him long enough to make sure there weren’t any other aircraft on
the ground, then watched as he squeezed a trigger built into the control
stick. 

There was a
roar, the Hind shuddering slightly, then a missile impacted the Gulf-stream. 
The explosion shook the big helicopter, but the pilot held us steady.  He
was moving slowly, delaying switching aim to the helo.  I reached out and
ripped the helmet off his head and laid the barrel of the rifle along his
temple so he could plainly see the muzzle.  He gulped, trying to tilt his
head away but I held the weapon tightly against him. 

“Fire or
die,” I growled at him.

He adjusted
position, said something else I didn’t understand and pulled the trigger. 
It took the missile nearly a full second to reach the parked aircraft, and then
it erupted into a massive ball of fire.

I was
panting, trying to catch my breath as some of the adrenaline in my system bled
off.  Where did I want the pilot to take me?  It couldn’t be far
because I was certain the AWACS was tracking us.  Had to be somewhere
close and somewhere I could hide.

Before I
could give any instructions, strong arms wrapped around me and pinned my upper
arms against my body, jerking backwards away from the cockpit.  Grushkin
was awake.  I don’t remember having my finger on the rifle’s trigger but I
must have because I pulled it as I was attacked.   

The AKM was
on full auto and my finger reflexively held the trigger down, emptying the
magazine into the cockpit.  Maybe I killed the pilot, or maybe I just
damaged the aircraft’s controls to the point that it could no longer stay in
the air.  Regardless, a moment later the deck dropped away from my feet as
we plummeted to the tarmac below.

We hit the
ground hard.  Nowhere near as hard as the Osprey had when I’d been in that
crash in Oklahoma, but hard nonetheless.  Grushkin and I had both gone
airborne during the first moment of the fall out of the sky, then fallen back
to the gore covered deck a few seconds before the impact with the tarmac.

I was
stunned.  Aware of sights and sounds around me, but more like how you’re
aware of something in a dream rather than a waking state.  I could hear
the Hind’s engine running, apparently still throttled up to flight speed. 
Then the whole aircraft tilted several degrees to the side and there was the
horrible sound of a rotor blade disintegrating from striking pavement.

Still unable
to make my body start responding, I lay there and realized that we’d come down
hard on the landing gear, then one side had failed and let the belly of the
helo fall at an angle onto the ground.  The engine continued to bellow out
its power, but without the resistance of a rotor it quickly rose in pitch
before automatic safeties kicked in and shut it down.

The whole
machine groaned as the sounds from the motor died.  I told myself to start
moving several times, the connection from my brain apparently interrupted by
the shock of the crash.  I had a couple of bad moments when the thought
that I was paralyzed from the neck down went through my mind, then mercifully
my body began slowly responding.  I knew I was in shock, or very close to
it, as I forced myself upright.

Taking
several deep breaths, I looked around as I continued to struggle to get my
brain and muscles working together again.  I was sitting in the middle of
the troop compartment and there were bodies strewn and piled all around
me.  Grushkin lay a few feet away with a nasty gash on the side of his
head.  I couldn’t tell if he was dead or alive, and somehow my scrambled
synapses never decided that it would be a good idea to check.

Looking down
I held my hands out to the side and surveyed myself.  I was covered in
blood.  Not bloodstained; blood covered.  There’s a difference. 
When you flap your hand and drops of blood fly off your fingertips, you are
blood covered.  I may have sat there for only a few seconds, or it could
have been minutes before I realized I needed to get moving.

If there
were more Russians in the immediate area, it was probably already too
late.  Even if there were troops and aircraft that had been miles away,
they had almost assuredly been alerted to the destruction of the two parked
aircraft and crash of the Colonel’s helo and were on their way by now.

Forcing
myself onto my hands and knees I crawled across the deck and began taking
weapons and ammunition off the bodies.  Halfway through rearming myself I
remembered my weapons.  When I’d surrendered I had taken them off and
placed them on the ground.  While I was being searched and restrained I’d
noticed one of the soldiers collecting them and taking them to the helo. 
They had to be somewhere on board and I’d much rather stick with weapons I was intimately
familiar with.

It only took
a few moments of searching to find the locker under the bench seat where they
had been stowed.  I was starting to think more clearly and the body was
responding faster so I was quickly rearmed, my vest loaded down with spare
magazines.  Scooting to the side door, which was uphill now, I released
the latch and pushed it open.  Pausing before climbing out I turned my
head and looked at Grushkin.

He was still
immobile on the Hind’s deck.  The gash in his head was bleeding freely,
the way head wounds tend to do.  So he was alive.  The blood coming
out of the wound answered that question.  Corpses don’t bleed. 
There’s no heart beating to create blood pressure, which is what pushes the
blood out.

Drawing my pistol,
I pointed it at his head, clicked the safety off with my thumb and moved my
finger onto the trigger.  I probably needed half a pound of pressure to
complete the travel and fire a round into his skull when I paused.  I’ve
killed a lot of men, but I’ve never killed an unconscious and helpless
one. 

I hesitated,
surprised that I was having such an internal struggle.  The first time you
take a life it’s nothing like you thought it was going to be.  The
emotions don’t really hit you for an hour or two, or maybe even a day. 
The second time you know what to expect.  The thirtieth or fortieth, or
one hundredth – hell I’ve lost count.  Despite what most people would
think, you tend to reflect on what you’re about to do if it’s not in the heat
of battle.

What the
fuck is wrong with you, John?  This is a goddamn enemy who has invaded
your country and was taking you to Russia to be executed.  If you don’t
put him down he’s just going to keep coming after you, twice as hard because
now it’s personal.  I had let the muzzle of the pistol drift off target
while I was sitting there mulling things over.  Snapping myself back to
reality I started to reacquire my target as a female infected screamed at me.

Whipping my
head and weapon around I came face to face with a young female who was already
half way through the open door.  I pulled the trigger, shooting her in the
face, and cursed as her body dropped clear of the aircraft and I could see half
a dozen more females sprinting directly at me.

Holstering
the pistol, I brought the rifle up and began picking them off.  But as
fast as I could put them down, more were appearing from around the corner of a
large hangar.  I was keeping them back, but if I stopped fighting for one
moment they’d gain more ground.  One thing I’d learned about infected was
that it’s much easier to keep them back than it is to beat them back once they
get too close.

Forgetting
about Grushkin, I moved forward and swung a leg over the lip of the door. 
For a moment I sat there, half in and half out of the downed aircraft, picking
off the runners.  My magazine ran dry and I did a quick change before
swinging my other leg up and out and dropping to the ground. 

As little
time as that had taken, I gave up nearly ten yards of open space.  Firing,
I moved sideways to the nose of the Hind, keeping my back pressed against the
armored exterior so I wouldn’t be the recipient of a surprise rear
attack.  Reaching the front, I glanced around and wasn’t happy with my
situation. 

The helo had
come down on a runway.  That meant there weren’t any places to hide or
take refuge other than the row of hangars to my front, and that’s where the
infected were coming from.  For what it’s worth I had guessed right about
where we were.  A large sign was attached to the face of a massive hangar
that welcomed me to Mountain Home Air Force Base.  It was the home of
something that I didn’t have time to read as I had to turn my attention back to
the charging females.

Another
empty magazine and I was starting to worry about running out of ammo. 
There was no time to verify, but I was pretty sure I only had another 150
rounds on my vest.  I’d already burned through 60 in less than two minutes
and probably half of the magazine I’d just put in.  The volume of infected
didn’t seem to be slowing, rather staying the same or possibly even getting
heavier.  I needed to do something while I still had enough bullets to
fight or I was going to be royally screwed.

I spared
half a second to look around the nose of the helicopter, but there was nothing
other than flat, open tarmac leading to a twelve-foot fence with flat grassland
beyond.  There was no doubt that I couldn’t outrun a sprinting female, and
even supposing I made it to the fence, they’d be on me before I could scale it
and clear the coil of razor wire at the top.

Turning back
to my front I resumed targeting the females, dismayed when males began
appearing.  A clock was ticking in my head, screaming at me.  I had
limited ammo and a seemingly unlimited supply of targets.  There were
almost certainly more Russians on the way.  Nothing about this gave me a
warm fuzzy.

Traversing
the rifle across the latest wave of infected that were charging my position I
noted the gaping maw of the large hangar.  The sun was down and it was
dusk, not completely dark out here on the tarmac, but pitch black inside the
massive building, which had east facing doors.  There was some light from
the two burning aircraft that I’d forced the pilot to destroy, but it didn’t
penetrate into the darkness of the structure.

Swapping
mags, I realized I had two options open to me.  Climb back in the crashed
helicopter and close the door, or fight my way into the hangar in hopes there
was a vehicle of some sort inside.  The Hind would become my coffin. 
The infected would never leave, but long before I died of wounds suffered in
the fight, or best case scenario I expired from dehydration, there would be
more Russians who would show up in force.  They’d clear out the infected
and check inside the helo, find me, and either shoot me on the spot or put my
ass on a plane to Moscow if they realized who I was.

Making up my
mind I took the first step towards the hangar.  It was a long way off and
I had to get there before I ran out of ammo.  Females were coming fast and
there were too many of them for me to be able to lower the rifle and fight with
my Kukri and knife.  I had no choice other than to keep firing as I pushed
directly into the teeth of the assault.

I kept
moving, not realizing that I was steadily dripping blood onto the
pavement.  The hot, coppery smell was exciting the infected and they were trying
hard to get to the source.  Two grenades bought me some open space for a couple
of moments, saving a few rounds, but not many.  I would shoot every female
within fifty yards then move as far forward I could, as fast as I could, then
I’d have to repeat the process.

It seemed to
be taking forever, and I kept expecting at any moment to hear the sound of
approaching rotors.  But combat has a way of dilating time, making every
action and event seem to last longer than it actually does.  By now I
didn’t have the slightest idea how long I’d been fighting, but all that
mattered was getting to that hangar as quickly as I could.

More
grenades and I gained another twenty yards, then back to firing my rifle. 
Push forward as I shot females, then I was finally within thirty yards of the
giant door.  It was even larger than I’d originally thought, the hangar
definitely capable of holding very large aircraft.  That meant the door
probably weighed several thousand pounds and the only way to move it was if the
electric drive motors were working.  I seriously doubted the power was on.

Once I made
it into the hangar, if it was empty I was dead.  With no way to close the
door I could only hold the infected back until I ran out of ammo.  Once
that happened they would flood in and I’d kill a few with my blades, then I’d
be overwhelmed, taken to the ground and eaten alive. 

“That won’t
happen,” I said to myself.  There was still a pistol with ammo on my thigh
and before I’d let the infected get close enough to turn me into dinner I’d
stick the barrel in my mouth.  Not that I wanted to die, but fuck me if I
was going to go out being alive and aware that I was some infected bitch’s
evening meal.

I finally
reached the hangar door.  Dangerously low on ammo I was still firing at a
ferocious rate, but couldn’t back off for a moment.  The flashlight
attached to my rifle’s rail was on, but I didn’t have even a moment to shine it
around the hangar.  Waiting, I timed it until a larger group of females
were charging and used my final grenade.  It detonated in their midst,
shredding bodies and buying me a few seconds until the ones behind them were
dangerously close.

Spinning, I
shined the light into the darkness, heart dropping when I didn’t see anything
other than smooth concrete.  In those few heartbeats I resolved myself to
the circumstances, steeling myself to use the pistol when I fired my last round
from the rifle.  At least I’d bought Katie and Rachel’s freedom. 
That mattered more to me than what I was about to have to do.

Backing ten
yards into the hangar I resumed firing on the sprinting females.  They
were bunched up and I hardly needed to adjust my aim to clean out groups. 
Males that had been bumping along the front wall were now reaching the opening,
turning blindly into the cavernous building and zeroing in on the sound of my
suppressed rifle.

I changed
magazines and took half a second to confirm that I only had one more. 
Sixty rounds left. 

“Fifty-nine,”
I said to myself as I shot a female.

Then there
was short pause before I had another running target.  I shot the bitch and
looked, not immediately seeing another.  A handful of males were in the
hangar now, but I wasn’t going to waste rifle ammo on them if I could help
it.  Close to five seconds went by then two females came into view and I
shot them.  Then five seconds and a single female.  Then nearly ten
seconds before the next.

I shot her
and with hope surging drew my Kukri and waded in to thin out the males. 
Keeping an eye on the open tarmac I stepped forward and met them with brute
force rather than trying to dance around their perimeter.  I was just too
damn tired.  Probably blood loss, I realized with a start.

All the
males went down quickly and I moved deeper into the stygian darkness of the
hangar and turned off the light.  I would rely on the night vision scope,
which had a much better range than the flashlight.  Besides, if I got
really lucky, maybe any more females wouldn’t zero in on me.