Jeff Carlson - Plague Zone

He ducked into the house’s foundation.

“Respond, respond!” the copilot screamed, trying to raise their comrades as Jia yelled into his own transceiver. “This is Short Dragon,” he said. “We are taking fire. The Americans appear to be dug in around our—”

The city beneath them ripped apart. Jia was still looking for the other helicopter when the black ruins shattered, heaved into the air by four explosions. The fires were distorted. Each sunburst was dirty with wreckage. At least one threw the body of a car spiraling up toward him, its hood and tires leaping away. Something banged off their aircraft with a crack like a gunshot and the helicopter lurched.

“We’re hit,” the pilot said calmly.

I was selfish, Jia thought. Uncareful. “Can you fly?” he asked, but the answer was obvious in the accelerating clockwise spin of the helicopter.

“Our tail—” the pilot began.

“Just get us down in one piece,” Jia said before shouting at his radio again. “This is Short Dragon at point two! We’re hit. We’re hit. The Americans appear to have dug in around the target and we’re putting down on the northern—”

Two more explosions painted their glass with light. In the false dawn, Jia saw the fins of a hundred broken walls rising from the ground. Poles. Wires. Was there anywhere safe to land? Seconds later they slammed into the mess. The helicopter bounced, then leaned to one side. “Go, go, go!” the pilot shouted, powering down as Jia and his men leapt out in a swift orderly line. He should have been proud of them, but he couldn’t see past his fury at his own failings.

“Split up,” he said, pointing Lieutenant Wei’s squad toward his left. The two pilots and another man would form up with him. “We’ll circle to either side. Stay on your radio. Be quick. We need to pierce their lines as quickly as possible.”

First he would advise his old base. Would they send reinforcements? How could more troops reach him if there were no more helicopters? Jia’s loyalty was to China and to General Qin, but he recognized the danger in what he must say.

Fifty percent of my strike force is dead.

If his superiors felt that he was losing this fight, they would send Xian heavy bombers over the labs. In fact, Jia wondered if those planes were already in the air.

Kendra looked up at the first explosions. “Go,” she said. “Help them.”

“I’m here to help you,” Deborah replied, floundering at the self-possession in Kendra’s face. My God, she thought. Is it possible she’s been totally coherent all this time?

“I know what to do,” Kendra said. “The marker—”

There was another huge detonation outside and their tent whispered and scratched as debris fell from the ceiling.

“I just need more time,” Kendra said.

“I can help.”

“You have to trust me.”

But I don‘t, Deborah thought. “Kendra—”

“I’m okay. Look at me. I’m okay. I know what to do.”

Deborah stared into the witch’s liquid dark eyes. Then she nodded and grabbed her AK-47 from the desktop, tearing through the sealed flaps of the tent.

The rubble burned. Fires leapt and crawled through the ruins in a dozen places, casting orange light and shadows. Cam waited with his insides crackling in the same way. The fighting had slowed to nothing for thirty minutes as the Chinese felt their way through the treacherous pitted landscape. Every second that passed was in his favor. Twice he heard people crunching in the dunes, but he held his fire. He was less likely to miss if they were point-blank.

Let them come to you, he thought. Let them come.

Suddenly two of Medrano’s bombs went off a hundred yards to Cam’s right. He heard the heavy stutter of an AK-47. Medrano? Another weapon responded. Cam tried to pinpoint either gun’s location, but the fight was too far away.

A third weapon joined the second, an unfamiliar brrp pp pp pp. Were the Chinese carrying submachine guns? Bullets pinged in the rubble. The AK-47 had stopped. Then another bomb tore through one of the standing walls, hurling fire and debris. The submachine guns quit and the AK-47 yammered again, once, twice. Cam realized there were two of the assault rifles. Obruch must have gone to support Medrano. They were holding the line. Cam wanted to help — he wanted to scream and cheer — but he stayed focused on the ruins in front of him, skimming his gaze back and forth through the half-light.

Something moved to his left.

Cam raised his RPG launcher.

Then an object whispered overhead and clanked from a metal surface to his right, bouncing in the wreckage. Maybe there was another impact in front of him. Grenade, he thought. He ducked into his foundation again to protect the RPG with his body. If the vial of nanotech on its nose was broken…

Three explosions bracketed him harmlessly. Cam was untouched by the nearest bang, though the noise slapped into his ear like a pencil. They don’t know where I am, he realized, standing again with the RPG on his shoulder.

Alekseev’s response was more dangerous. He set off another block of C-4. A boxy commuter car flipped out of the wreckage. Fifty feet away, shrapnel punched into Cam’s shoulder and hip. Roughly the same distance from the bomb, the torrent of fire also illuminated a man in a hollow against one of the still-standing walls. The Chinese had used the noise of their grenades to advance. Cam fired but sent his rocket high, shoved off balance by the hot metal in his side. Then the man was obscured by smoke and dust.

Cam flung himself down. Had he seen a second soldier in the dark? Either way, the instinct was correct. Bullets snapped past his position. It was as if the explosions had opened a door. Submachine guns chattered in the haze, stitching through the wreckage. Cam leaned up with his rifle and got a face full of splinters, closing one eye against the pain.

Alekseev’s AK-47 roared on his left. Maybe he took some of the heat off of Cam. The submachine guns didn’t stop, but most of the noise turned away from Cam. Far to his right, he heard guns at Medrano’s position, too.

Cam lifted his rifle again as the firefight tapered off. Without thinking, he hesitated, too. The battle had a life of its own. Every burst of gunfire stimulated more shooting, and each pause did the same. They communicated with friend and enemy in the same way.

“Tíng hu!” Alekseev shouted. “Tng! Ràng w mn tn tn! ”

There was silence.

Ash fell.

Somewhere, a burning wall peeled apart and clattered on the rubble beneath. Cam listened to the dark. Alekseev’s gambit was a risk — trying to engage the Chinese with lies, offering to trade nonexistent hostages for the chance to escape — and Cam wanted to protect his ally. He stood gingerly with his rifle at his shoulder.

Someone called, “W mén zài tng zhe ne.”

“W mén shu l yu n mén de rén!” Alekseev shouted. “W mén yào hé n mén jio huàn t mén q zhong de y gè, rú gu—”

Two grenades detonated on either side of Alekseev, one of them above his head. The Chinese must have held their weapons as the fuses burned down, only throwing the grenades at the last second.

The concussions shredded Alekseev in a twisting white hurricane. Cam screamed and fired. Another weapon chattered back at him. Bullets thunked into the wood and drywall on his left. He hit someone. There was a yell. Then a round slammed through his forearm and spun him backward. He lost his rifle. Get up! he thought.

The Chinese were breaking through.

Deborah reloaded quickly, leaning her bad shoulder against a wall. She’d stayed at the edge of the campus instead of wading into the ruins. It was a decision that allowed her to support Medrano and Obruch, sniping at the muzzle flashes on their flank while keeping the option to run toward Cam and Alekseev or even to retreat to Kendra’s lab.