Behind me, the rest of the squad rushes across the intersection. Jackson has the crew chief, Philips has the dead Paterson over his shoulder, Priest is carrying the drop ship pilot, and Baker and Hansen are both carrying Stratton’s body. We’re a rifle squad in a combat battalion, with state-of-the-art equipment, and we got reduced to a limping pack of walking wounded—and two dead—in just a few moments of battle, fighting against our own people, in the middle of one of our own cities.
At this range, it’s hard to miss. I center the reticle of my gunsight on the silhouettes ahead of me, and pull the trigger of the rifle methodically. A scrawny guy with a scoped rifle dashes toward the mouth of the alley, and I aim just ahead of him and nail him with a single shot that sends him sprawling across the concrete. A girl passes him and bends down to pick up the rifle he dropped, and as soon as her fingers touch the rifle stock, I shoot her, two rounds right into the middle of her hunched-over silhouette. Sergeant Fallon is firing her rifle from the prone position, adding the contents of her magazine to the carnage.
Just as the squad is across the intersection, I hear gunfire from my left. I turn to locate the source of it when something hits the side of my armor. It’s a rather unspectacular impact, barely enough to make me sway, but there’s a sudden intense pain in my side, and I know that the round has pierced my battle armor. There’s another blow, this one lower than the first. It feels like someone sticking a red-hot needle into my side and driving it home with a hammer. Then I find myself on the ground next to Sergeant Fallon. My lungs feel like all the air has been sucked out of them in an instant. I want to shout a warning, but I can’t work up the breath for anything beyond a groan.
There’s a small group of rioters at the corner of the intersection we just passed a little while ago. One of them is kneeling and aiming a familiar-looking rifle at me. I recognize the twin muzzle arrangement of an M-66, topped with a standard military combination sight. My own rifle is on the ground in front of me. I reach for it, but the whole thing seems to have tripled in weight all of a sudden. The shooter with the M-66 takes aim again, and I know that I won’t be able to lift my own gun before he curls his trigger finger and exerts the nine pounds of pressure necessary to launch another flechette round.
Then I hear a burst of fire from behind me. The shooter falls on his butt with an almost comical look of consternation on his face. For a brief moment, he sits on the street, his legs stretched out in front of him, his rifle still in his hands but aimed at nothing in particular anymore. Then there’s a second burst of fire, and the shooter takes all three rounds in his face. He falls back, still holding on to his rifle. His two comrades dash out of the line of fire and disappear behind the corner of the building.
I look over to the right, and see Corporal Jackson on one knee, her rifle aimed at a spot behind me. I raise myself on my hands and knees, and scoop up my own rifle. The ammo counter on my screen shows 159 rounds remaining. I’ve pulled the trigger almost a hundred times in the last minute or two.
“Grayson, you okay?” Jackson asks over the squad channel.
My left side feels like it has a pair of knives sticking out of it. The pain is so intense that it takes my breath away. I have to force myself to fill my lungs, and every breath makes the pain in my side flare to almost intolerable levels. I try to find the air for a reply, but then I just shake my head.
“Baker, with me,” Jackson says. “Whoever’s left, give us some covering fire.”
Baker and Jackson come dashing back across the intersection. Behind them, Priest and Hansen lean around the corner and start firing their rifles. I want to add my own flechettes to the covering fire, but I don’t have the strength to lift my rifle anymore. Someone grabs me by the harness and starts dragging me across the street. I see Jackson helping Sergeant Fallon to her feet, firing her rifle with one hand as she pulls the sergeant along with her. My computer informs me that I still have a bunch of rounds in my magazine, and it points out the threat vectors to the people down the road who are still standing and shooting at us, but right now, I’m just a passenger, no longer able to take advantage of all that superior technology.
Eventually, my bumpy journey across the intersection stops. I don’t remember having closed my eyes, but I open them now to see Baker bent over me, his visor raised.
“How bad?” he asks. Behind him, Hansen and Priest are still firing their rifles, exchanging rounds with the newly emboldened rioters that have decided to stick around and nail us down. Now that they’ve seen our casualties, there’s blood in the water, and the sharks are circling. Soon, they’ll get reinforcements, and our ammo is almost gone.
I lift up my rifle—barely—and pat the magazine well with one hand to let Baker know there’s still ammo in my weapon. He nods and takes the M-66 out of my hands.
“Priest, here’s another half a mag,” he says over his shoulder.
“About time. I’m just about dry.” Priest takes my rifle and goes back to his spot at the street corner.
Baker checks the damage to my armor. My left side has gone from searing hot to ice cold. I still have to expend most of my energy forcing air into my lungs, and it feels like something important is broken inside. For the first time in my life, I think that I might be dying. I suppose I should feel dread or panic, knowing that I may slip into unconsciousness at any moment and never wake up again, but I’m too tired and too out of it to care.
“You want me to shoot you up, man?”
Baker has a narcotics injector in his hand, and he makes a motion like clicking a ball pen in front of my face. I shake my head—I don’t want to numb myself and lose the ability to suck air into my lungs.
“C2, this is Bravo One-One,” I hear Sergeant Fallon. “We are down for the count here. We have more wounded than we can carry. Hostiles all over the place, and we’re just about out of ammo. Send a ship, or send a recovery detail with body bags. Your call.”
There’s a reply over the platoon channel, but I can’t quite make it out as I am drifting off. It feels like the onset of a really bad flu, that floating feeling you get in your head that makes you all woozy and shaky on your feet as you stumble into the bathroom for some medicine.
I close my eyes, and listen to the battle going on around me. The reports from military rifles are sporadic, single rounds here and there, with the occasional short burst. The gunshots from civilian weaponry are getting more frequent, and it seems like they’re coming from every direction now.
“I’m hit,” someone yells on the squad channel. I’m too out of it to recognize the voice—Baker? Priest?—but there’s nothing I can do, anyway. I barely have the energy to keep breathing.
Then there’s a new sound, a thunderous roar overhead. I smell the stench of burning fuel, and a hot gust blows across my face. I hear what sounds like a giant zipper being undone, and look up to see the welcome silhouette of a Hornet-class drop ship overhead, gun turret blazing as the hulking machine descends in a graceful hover.
I fade out again for a little while. There’s the sensation of floating away from the ground. People are talking right next to my head, but it all sounds like it’s coming through a brick wall, and I don’t even try to make sense of it. I get jostled against a hard surface, and the pain in my side flares up. I squirm, but there are strong hands holding me down, and I feel the pinprick of an injector against my neck.
Then the world turns quiet around me.
Читать дальше