Nathan Jones - Determination

Carl.

The two heavy missile launchers had been on the floor, and as the truck flipped both had come down on his friend. He might also have slammed the side of his head against the window, judging by the dark streak across the glass.

Lewis couldn’t bear to look for more than that brief moment to confirm what had happened. He’d seen plenty of terrible sights since the Gulf burned, but the sight of a close friend suffering something like that was its own kind of terrible. With his eyes closed he reached over and felt for Carl’s arm. No pulse. He sucked in a horrified breath, suddenly grateful for the headache making it impossible to focus on anything but what he had to do.

Get out. The easier way would be through the passenger window, past Carl. He could only bear to do it in the dark, gently moving his friend and the missile launchers out of the way and then squeezing past them. It took longer than he would’ve liked, with legs that felt like lead and a head that felt like a cracked walnut.

With everything so screwed up, he was almost surprised when the window rolled down with only a bit more effort than usual. The popping noises grew louder, and his dazed mind eventually identified them as gunfire.

Some of his people were alive out there.

The branches began snapping in as soon as the window rolled down enough to let them, and Lewis winced away until he was finished. Then he covered his face with his arms and pushed himself against the tangle, fighting to get free.

It seemed to take forever, and the branches scratched at his head and the backs of his hands until he abruptly popped out the window and half slid, half fell onto cool mud. He was on the stream bank, the gunfire going on somewhere above him.

Lewis couldn’t open his eyes in the blinding daylight at first. When he finally could it was only a slit, and he had to content himself with scanning the area around him one sliver at a time. The empty stream bed, a few lines of bootprints moving away towards a nearby copse. The sound of gunfire was coming from there.

He thumbed his mic, but the radio seemed to be dead. He tried turning it on, but it already was. Maybe his dad or Carl’s radio still worked. He needed to get them out of there anyway, in case the blockheads decided to launch another grenade and finish what they’d started. Or the fuel in the truck might catch fire, although he thought diesel didn’t burn very easily. He didn’t think it’d explode, either, although he wasn’t willing to take that chance.

With some effort he began clawing at the mud to turn himself back around, dragging his face through it as an alternative to lifting his head. The truck looked surprisingly intact in spite of being upside down, at least as far as he could see, but he didn’t have much hope for the M2 that’d been mounted on top of it.

Which didn’t matter. His dad. Carl. Gritting his teeth, Lewis moved one agonizing inch after another, determined to get to the window and get the people inside out. It was only a few feet.

He only made it one before passing out again.

The next time Lewis woke up was because of his head being jounced around painfully left to right. His body was swaying, tightly restricted from shoulders to toes. He opened his eyes to the sight of green canvas, making a narrow canyon up to a painfully bright sun shining down directly overhead.

He was being carried in a makeshift stretcher. Tarp from the truck’s back cover? He tried to speak and it came out as a croak. The coughing that followed made his head feel like a nail was being pounded into his forehead, but then his voice came out clearer. “Hello?”

Travis Marsh’s voice came from overhead. “Good to hear you talking, Lewis. You were looking pretty bad when we found you. Just rest easy, we’ve got you.”

Under the circumstances there weren’t many choices besides resting easy. “Did you get my dad?”

To his relief it was his dad himself who answered, somewhere beyond his feet. “I’m here, son. Got a busted leg so they’re giving me the same full service treatment.”

Travis spoke up again. “And it’s not easy, considering we almost don’t have enough people in good enough shape to carry those with broken bones or who’re otherwise injured. For example, I’m doing my best to manhandle this thing one-armed because my wrist is fractured.”

Lewis tried to look above his head. All he saw was Travis’s back. But there were no sounds of gunfire now. “What’s the situation? Are the blockheads still out there? Is Catherine sending help?”

“Yes and yes,” his dad replied grimly. “Jane and a couple dozen defenders are on their way fast, and we think the enemy is bugging out.”

“Yeah,” Travis agreed. “We had a pretty intense firefight with them, although it didn’t last too long. They hit the truck with another grenade after we managed to get you and your dad out, but that seemed to be the last of what they had. After that we were well enough dug in that they must’ve figured they wouldn’t be able to take us out before help arrived, so from one minute to the next they vanished. Martin and a couple others followed to make sure they don’t come back, and so far they haven’t radioed in.”

Lewis’s head was swimming, and it was hard to pick out one in every two words from what the man was saying. But he fought to focus. Stay conscious. “It was those commandos from yesterday, the guys with the camo bandannas.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” Martin said. There was the sound of spitting. “Maybe it was personal, for you hitting them, I don’t know. We’re guessing they snuck into the canyon, then had the blockheads in the valley gather up like they were attacking to lure us down in the truck. Your dad says you saw them just in time to turn us off the road before we got blown up. Guess this outcome is slightly better.”

His canvas stretcher abruptly bounced, Travis and another voice cursing above him, then something hit the back of his head. A strangled cry of pain tore free of his throat, then the spinning in his head spiraled down to unconsciousness again.

The next time he woke up he was lying on something soft, and the familiar sight of the inside of his tent greeted his opening eyes.

As well as Terry leaning over him, face tight as he wrapped a bandage around Lewis’s head, just above his vision. Behind Terry, crouched in the doorway, Jane watched everything with sharp eyes. He’d never seen her look so frightened, and in his confused state that made him frightened too.

He started to sit up, and Terry immediately pushed him back down. “Whoa, easy. You just don’t want to stay under, do you? At least don’t make us tie you up.”

“I need to stay awake,” he mumbled. “Concussion, right?”

Terry shook his head. “Staying awake isn’t an agreed upon necessity anymore. The general consensus these days is that concussed patients need sleep to recover, but should be awakened every couple hours to make sure they can be without trouble.”

Lewis closed his eyes, and that felt a bit better. “And if I can’t?”

His friend hesitated. “Then you’d probably need help I can’t give you,” he admitted. “We’ll just have to pray for the best.” Behind him Jane made a wounded sound.

Terry’s prodding along the top of his head hit something tender, and Lewis sucked in a breath as the pain in his head spiked so sharply he almost threw up. “Great.”

His friend patted his shoulder. “You should be fine. I don’t see anything that really worries me. Just focus on getting some rest.”

He wasn’t really in a position to argue that, even if he’d wanted to. “How bad?” he mumbled, opening his eyes again.

There was a somewhat uneasy pause. “Your head?” his friend asked carefully, looking back at Jane. “I just, um, explained to y—”