James Tarr - Dogsoldiers

Both men on their knees, Mark looked at George, and then down at the grenade launcher in his hands. “You really think you can hit that bird with that?” he said dubiously.

“I’ve got to try,” George responded. He looked out and saw the far service drive was busy with activity now that the Tabs had air cover. Bodies were being pulled out of vehicles, and the wounded were being treated and placed into the back of one IMP. Several Growlers had laagered up around it.

There was a huge roar like a giant zipper and both men looked to see the Kestrel firing its mini-gun. The thirty-caliber bullets chewed up the apartment building behind them at fifty rounds a second. Every fifth round was a tracer so it looked as if there was a laser beam extending from the helicopter over their heads.

“I wish it was closer,” George admitted.

“I don’t,” Mark shot back.

“I mean so I can hit it,” George growled. He wondered if there was some way to sucker the helicopter in closer to them, but this pilot seemed a bit too cautious for that, he was hammering the apartment building from hundreds of yards away, at least five hundred feet in the air, while keeping the bird more or less constantly moving.

The men didn’t know it but what they were looking at was the only functioning Kestrel left in the city, all the others had been successfully destroyed, and the pilot had no wish for his aircraft to join the disabled list.

“Do you have a full belt in there?” George asked.

Mark shook his head. “No, but I can swap it out.” And he proceeded to do just that. “What’s the plan?”

“The plan is none of us are getting away from here alive while that bird’s still in the air. I know it’s hardened against small arms fire but between the four grenades I’ve got and a full two-hundred-round belt from you I’m hoping we can scare it away or damage it enough to put it on the ground. But the longer we take to do it,” he said, pointing out at the Tab’s ground forces, “the better chance they’ll have of getting their act together and coming over here and kicking our ass.”

George grabbed his radio. “Theodore, give us one minute, we’re going to try to down the bird.”

“Copy,” Ed responded.

George stared out at the bobbing and weaving helicopter as Mark fed the SAW a fresh belt. Any one of the four grenades in his launcher was more than powerful enough to down the bird… if he could just hit it. The problem was the rounds were relatively slow, at least compared to bullets, and had very curving trajectories. Hitting a moving target whose distance could only be guessed at would be hard as hell, maybe as much a matter of luck as skill. He eyed the maneuvering aircraft. While it never stopped moving, the pilot seemed to be swooping back and forth in the same pattern. He squinted and tried to do the math in his head—the Kestrel was roughly five hundred feet in the air and maybe two hundred yards out, so what would be the distance to it? After a moment of indecision he adjusted the optic on his grenade launcher for 275 yards. And the flight time would be two, maybe even three seconds. How far would the helicopter move in that amount of time?

“We don’t down it fast, it’s going to eat our lunch,” Mark warned. There was a loud metal slap. “I’m good to go.” He was set up on an overturned desk.

George looked at the big man beside him in his shorts and glorious middle-finger-to-fashion Hawaiian shirt and gave him a nod and a smile. “Then go fast, and don’t suck.” He took a deep breath. “On my go. Burn out that fucking barrel. And don’t forget to lead that bird.” He suddenly looked around, and scrambled backward to a second desk. On his knees behind it he braced the elbow of his support hand atop the desk and aimed out the empty window frame. Much steadier. Still, the distant helicopter looked small as a sparrow.

George picked a spot in the air, took up most of the weight in the trigger, and waited for the right moment. When it came he broke the trigger and the stubby grenade launcher bucked in his hands. Mark let loose with the SAW, the full-auto roar deafening in the small room. George didn’t wait, he found his spot and fired again, and again, and again, while Mark never let up off the trigger.

As he dropped the launcher from his shoulder it seemed to George that he could see his last two grenades arcing through the air, they were so slow, rising up, then dropping toward the distant helicopter. The first two had clearly already missed, and the third one dropped through the air fifty feet from the Kestrel, which abruptly jerked as the pilot reacted to Mark’s incoming fire. The helicopter slid sideways through the air… right into the last grenade, which exploded against the side of the fuselage with a huge flash. The bird went spinning sideways, trailing a thick cloud of smoke, and went down in the middle of the Lodge freeway.

“Fuck yeah!” Mark shouted, exultant.

George blinked. He was shocked that it had worked.

Then the Tab who had just finished removing the bodies of his dead comrades from around the fifty-caliber machine gun on the roof of the IMP, jumped behind the gun and opened up on the top floor of the police station.

The massive bullets slammed through the walls in a hail of metal. George made to dive out the open doorway but an impact flipped him sideways and as he spun around and hit the floor he saw Mark falling backward, the air between them filled with flying debris.

Ed had taken a knee just inside the door and was staring out at the Growler as they waited. Sarah was with Quentin in the back seat of the vehicle working on his wound. Her hands were bright red with blood.

Inside the apartment building they couldn’t hear the grenade launcher, but the ripping sound of Mark’s SAW was unmistakable. He got on the trigger and didn’t let up until he’d fired at least a hundred rounds.

George came over the radio. “Bird is down,” he said, coughing, his voice weak. “Go.”

“What’s your ETA?”

“Don’t wait for us,” George responded.

“Fuck that,” Ed said, but not over the radio. He stood up and pushed through the doorway. He started barking orders. “Renny, get in there,” he said, pointing at the front seat of the Growler. “Weasel, you get the fuck out of here. See if you can get Quentin up to the hospital on One Way, then scatter. Early, Jason, on me, we’re getting George and Mark. Nobody fucking gets left behind. Ditch your radios so they can’t track you.”

“See you when I see you,” Weasel said, then slammed the driver’s door. Renny jogged around the back of the Growler and tried to figure out how to fit himself and his big rifle inside the vehicle.

“You hang in there,” Early called out to Quentin, traded a look with Sarah, then shut the back door on them. The Growler took off with a start and headed north through the parking lot.

Ed had ditched his single-shot grenade launcher when he’d given the last of his rounds to George. He felt unburdened and fast on his feet as he ran behind the McDonald’s and through the rear door of the police precinct. “Mark! George!” he called out, but heard no response.

“Gotta be up,” Early said.

Ed nodded and they found the stairs in short order. It made sense that the two men would be on the top floor and as they reached that hallway Ed heard a cough. “Theodore, coming in,” he called out.

“Stay low,” somebody croaked.

They found the two men in an office that appeared to have been fed through a wood chipper. Mark was sitting on the floor, back propped against a wall, a pained look on his face. When Ed started toward him Mark waved him off and pointed to George.

George was on his back on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. His intestines had been blown sideways out of his body and stretched ropily across six feet of floor. But, somehow, he was still alive. Ed knelt down beside him. Behind them Jason’s eyes were wide, his face green. Early’s face was expressionless.