James Rouch - Sky Strike

Including the belt already in the mini-gun, Libby knew they had six thousand rounds of ammunition for the weapon, less the few he’d fired off. Sounding a lot, in fact at maximum rate of fire, which the gun was quite capable of sustaining, it was just sufficient for one minute of action. But at this rate he’d be taking most of them back.

Movement in a far corner of a large field caught his eye. Yes, there it was. A rapidly rotating dish topped a tracked armoured hull, and Libby could see a figure, a man, running fast towards it. Other door gunners had seen the target and several lines of tracer hosed towards the vehicle.

One of the blasts of steel and fire cut across the runner; it could only have been by accident, he wasn’t worth the expenditure of a tenth of the ammunition. His remains were scattered over the meadow like pink chaff as his torso was nearly slashed into quarters.

For a fraction of time three other streams of bullets converged and pieces flew from the radar carrier also, as it was pounded and half-hidden by the smoke and sparks of the multiple impacts.

There were more buildings below them now. The villages had given way to ribbon development. Revell noted the change and took his seat on the bench, wedging himself between Clarence and Andrea.

The sniper attempted to distance himself from the contact, but there was not enough room on the bench. Instead he closed his eyes and part of his mind to try to ignore it.

Dooley sat chewing his lip, but it wasn’t fear that made him distort his stubble-darkened features, or play constantly with the sheathed bayonet at his belt. It was tension, an overpowering surge of adrenalin that would build and build until, at the moment they jumped from the chopper and into action, it would peak and he’d pour his pent-up energies into the battle.

One other person among them exhibited outward signs of his emotions. Boris was sweating. The Russian deserter frequently had to dab at his face with his cuff to wipe away the beads of moisture that formed faster than the cold draught from the open door could evaporate them. He had not said a word to anyone since the final briefing, when they’d learnt their objective, and now the terrors that churned inside him were draining him of colour.

Leaning forward, Revell tapped the Russian on the knee to get his attention. We’ll be down soon. I’m not all that keen on flying myself.’

Shaking his head, Boris stumbled over words he could normally select and speak with impeccable fluency. ‘It is not… not the flying…’ The major’s words sunk in, belatedly, and he hastily corrected himself, grasping at the excuse offered. This time the words came out in a jumbled torrent. ‘Yes… yes it is… the flying. I will feel better… yes better, when we are down. We will be down… soon.’ That last word came very quietly, was lost in the scream of the engines and the beating whirr of the rotor blades. His face fell, like a man who has just announced his own execution. He had to wipe the sweat away again.

Ahead Libby could see the shining silver parallel strips of railway tracks. They crossed one set, then another, and now they were over a built-up area.

The pilot banked them to a new heading and they began the final approach to the drop zone, having to gain height as they did so, to be sure of clearing power lines, chimneys and radio masts.

A scorching wave of compressed air shoved Libby back into the cabin and he had to grab hold of the mini-gun to keep from falling as the helicopter alongside, that had kept them company for so many miles, dissolved inside a huge orange ball of flame as it was hit by a SAM missile.

Only the blazing hulk of the cabin, with one engine still attached, struck the ground as a recognisable piece of debris. The rest of the Black Hawk and its crew fell as a burning rain on to a waterlogged football pitch.

Further along the line another of their number was hit and began to fall, trailing a sheet of flame. Just before it exploded against the base of a giant cooling tower, Libby saw its door gunner jump. On fire from head to foot, he landed close by a line of tracked missile launchers. A dashing field car deliberately swerved to run over the body.

Their pilot was throwing their transport about the sky, at the same time dropping a series of flares, in an attempt to decoy missiles homing by infra-red.

The evasive tactics were giving Libby little chance to use the mini-gun to effect. He managed to put most of a hundred-round burst across the hull front of a quad-barrelled Shilka flak-tank, but had no chance to see what result he achieved.

Another helicopter cut in front of them, and as it did Libby could clearly see the pilot desperately wrestling with the controls, and the terrified expression of a young door gunner; then there were more targets before him, and he wasn’t able to see what sort of landing it made.

Successive curtains of anti-aircraft gunfire sent shells and machine gun calibre bullets smacking into and bouncing off the underside of the reinforced floor. More passed through the arc of the blades, making strange shrieking, zinging noises as they nicked or flattened themselves against the armour rotors.

A lone F-4 appeared from nowhere and unleashed a hail of rockets against a battery of SA-6 missiles and then-radars, parked in a railway goods yard alongside a row of four cooling towers. The whole lot blew apart and the fighter-bomber flew through the smoke of their destruction then climbed and turned for a second run across the front of the depleted line of helicopters.

This time the aircraft used its 20mm gatling cannon to lash a group of gun pits, before dropping a pair of iron bombs that straddled a line of parked trucks loaded with spare missiles. Two of them were tipped over, and another began to burn.

Constant vibration made Libby’s hands tingle as he sent burst after burst at the never-ending series of anti-aircraft positions.

Another Black Hawk plunged to earth, exploding on impact and giving its crew and passengers no chance of escape.

Tracer of every hue zipped past the cabin door, a large green one passing so close that Libby felt he could have put his hand out and touched it. Bullets beat against the chopper’s armoured underside, and ricocheted from its fuselage, making long scars in its camouflage paint scheme.

One mile to go. Libby heard it over his headphones; sandwiched between the constant list of targets the flight crew were feeding him. Not that he had time to search for those the pilots saw, nor did he need to. It seemed that every open space they flew across held its quota of SAM launchers or anti-aircraft guns. It was a concentration of defences the like of which he had never seen before.

A loud bang filled the cabin with deafening noise. Suddenly it was full of smoke and every panel in the fuselage began to shudder violently. Loose fittings bounced and tumbled about the cabin floor, some finding their way out through the doorway. Cline and his stack of bullet-proof vests went different ways. Fumes from the engine’s automatic fire-suppression system flooded down into the cabin through rents in the plates.

The helicopter was yawing from side to side and losing height. An apartment block flashed past on one side, an electricity pylon on the other.

With the shaking becoming still more violent, Revell was forced to hang on to a bracket with one hand, while the other he stretched out to Andrea.

She had lost her grip and was sliding towards the open door. Twisting round she managed to grasp his extended hand, and as she did Dooley also managed to reach her, and between them they hauled her to safety.

Buildings blurred past Libby as he kept his ringer hard down to fire off every round he could before they crashed. There was no aiming, no distinction between military and civilian targets. All he wanted to do was hand out to them, all of them, everything he could, before they got him. They were down very low now, and still with a lot of forward momentum. There was a fire somewhere above his head. An engine, or perhaps a fuel line, was burning, and blow-torch-like feathers of yellow flames kept dipping in through the top of the door to lick at his helmet and visor.