Part 31 (2/2)
He wasn't moving. ”Move to your one o'clock. My count, Sherman, move on three.” She paused for not even a whole second. ”One...
two...” She began firing. ”Three! Go! Go go go GO!” At last, Sherman moved. While he ran, a Barracuda swooped in low above Jamie, drawing PIA rifle fire before its autocannon sh.e.l.ls erupted in a fiery line farther up the coulee toward the enemy. Jamie's comlink told her the escapees were boarding the Shark, and amidst a bedlam of voices, she glanced up to see a line of four PIA WZ-12 attack helicopters swinging in from the southeast. They'd be over her head in minutes.
Out of the cacophony she determined that the escapees needed another few minutes to board the Shark transport helo, that the fast-approaching WZ-12s would be able to target the escapees' helo before any of the Barracudas had time to loop around and intervene, and on the other side of the ridge, Rubyfish was firing in three directions and reporting the appearance of yet another three WZ-12s low on the southwest horizon.
Jamie hoped the Barracuda's sh.e.l.ls had taken out the PIA fighters shooting at her moments earlier. Because any remaining PIA were about to get a clear shot at her. She rose from behind the huge boulder that had protected her from enemy fire to stabilize her sniper rifle on it and aim at the lead WZ-12.
Come on, goober, don't let them shoot first. She aimed at the rear rotor housing, pulled the trigger once, twice, again. The helicopter sputtered and tilted violently into the WZ-12 close behind it. The two aircraft arced downward, rotors mangling, pulled inexorably into a mountainside northeast of Prancer X-Ray. Jamie s.h.i.+fted slightly right to aim at the third helo. Four .416-cal rounds later, it bucked, did a high, slow back flip, and exploded as it slammed into the slopes of Mount Landargun to the east.
* 257 *
The fourth WZ-12 sprayed heavy machine-gun fire and autocannon sh.e.l.ls down the coulee toward her. Jamie huddled against the boulder just before a sh.e.l.l detonated somewhere on the other side of it, its blast wave sending up dust and debris and bouncing several large rocks like basketb.a.l.l.s. Somehow the blast wave spared her. From a low crouch, ears ringing, she twisted to follow the helo through the rising smoke of the explosion and emptied the sniper rifle's ammo stack into it-to no avail.
But a Barracuda rocket caught the helo and it skewed into a line of trees well to the west just as a chunk of rock chipped and whined an inch away from Jamie's arm. She tried to swing her weapon toward where she thought a shooter must lurk, but her left arm had gone heavy and numb and her fingers didn't want to move.
f.u.c.k, I've been hit!
Sliding down behind the boulder, she watched swaths of blood spread along her sleeve-and her cammie blouse. Oh, christ, a chest wound. Why am I still conscious? Why am I still alive?
She yanked open her blouse and checked beneath her blood-drenched T-s.h.i.+rt to find several holes. Something small and sleek had plowed through her upper left arm and drilled through both b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
Must've missed the bone...that's why it doesn't hurt so much.
She pulled out strips of quick-bandage from a pouch on her left leg and slapped them across her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and her left bicep, which did hurt.
Come on, goober, gotta focus. At least one PIA near the top of the coulee, more coming through the dip in the ridge. Sherman somewhere out there rampaging for America. Leaves just Prancer-Dog Three and me to keep them from Prancer X-Ray...
And Vargas and Tibay now had to sustain fire in several nearly opposite directions. Jamie found herself wis.h.i.+ng again, wis.h.i.+ng she'd put more people up on the ridge at Prancer-Dog Three.
Wis.h.i.+ng in combat means you f.u.c.ked up. Two mistakes, G.o.ddammit!
On her eyewraps shadowscreen, she found her first mistake, Sherman, still moving toward the bluff. He stopped, and she hoped he'd merely fallen but figured he'd probably been hit, an easy target for the enemy because he wasn't wearing pa.s.sive-identifier cammies. Or maybe he'd been injured by the PIA sh.e.l.l's blast wave.
* 258 *
And finally, like a spark igniting one of those old internal combustion engines, Jamie understood. He'd seen Cavanaugh bloodied and dead in front of him. Cavanaugh was his Arnie. s.h.i.+t. I'm gonna lose him. She faltered then as hope oozed out of her. The escapees were still boarding their helo, still on the ground. And she was helpless. I'm gonna lose them, too.
The kicka.s.s voice out of her past startled her. ”Faster, Gwyn-moron!
This ain't the freaking Magic Kingdom!” She reacted instinctively, scurrying for its own sake, not quite aware of where she was going.
Her left arm burned and pounded and seeped blood. It hung at her side, unwilling to partic.i.p.ate as she clambered to a small, rocky promontory in the middle of the coulee. It was an accidental choice, but a good one: She had an un.o.bstructed view of anyone coming over the dip in the ridge-and anyone coming down the coulee toward Prancer X-Ray had to get by that spot.
”Yes. Here.” Here she might, just might, hold them long enough for the Shark to get everyone aboard and get the h.e.l.l out. As fast as she could, Jamie laid out both weapons, piled several ammo stacks within easy reach, and hunkered into position using her good right arm to position her nearly useless left one.
By the time she got her finger on a trigger, a dozen PIA fighters were coming right at her. She opened fire and they all went down in a few seconds. But plenty more followed close behind them. Worse still, the enemy had already identified her location.
Diving to avoid their fire, she watched the fine, wisping red lines of their bullets' trajectories on her comlink screen and called again for air support. It would be a while coming.
Mistake three: We've underestimated how much they want us and how many people they're willing to sacrifice to get us.
Jamie registered where her comlink screen trajectories indicated the closest PIA fighters were. Right. Gotta go right. So she s.h.i.+fted right, her adrenaline pumping so fiercely that even her left arm did her bidding. Five meters from her earlier position, she swung out from behind the rock formation, sprayed the area before her, and ran toward another outcrop.
Jamie was retreating but taking out her pursuers as she went. Just before she reached the shelter of the second outcrop, a spear of fire * 259 *
impaled her left shoulder near her neck. She staggered, breathless and battling to stay conscious as she fell.
”s.h.i.+t!” she wheezed, trying to keep herself sentient. ”s.h.i.+t!” Then, at last, over the comlink she heard it. The Shark was airborne with twenty-eight undamaged ”packages,” and, escorted by the Barracudas, would be in safe airs.p.a.ce in minutes.
”Prancer Actual,” shouted Vargas, ”PIA above you, at your three on the ledge above you!”
Without something very like a miracle, Jamie knew, the shooter on the ledge would nail her in a few seconds and she'd be dead. She stared up at the firmament's uninterrupted blueness backlighting the trees that clung to the sides of the coulee, inexplicably pleased that she'd die beneath a cloudless sky.
”This is Bravo Overlord.” Embry's voice came from another universe. ”We're sending in the cavalry. ETA fifteen minutes.” Jamie knew she had nowhere near as long as fifteen minutes, and she didn't want to hear Embry's description of what he'd sent to help them. She was so tired, and the sky was so blue, so, so magnificent.
But why hasn't that b.a.s.t.a.r.d up their started shooting yet?
”Prancer Actual, PIA above you,” Vargas shouted again. ”C'mon, LT, get up and go right. Go right. Go go GO!” Jamie found herself on her feet, running, shoved by ”go go go” to the other end of the outcrop ten meters away. Aimed at her from a ledge halfway up the bluff, a spray of shots surrounded her.
Wow. b.a.s.t.a.r.d missed. Gives me... one... more... chance...
Then she heard Embry's voice over her comlink. ”Don't shoot, Prancer Actual, don't shoot. PIA do traj tracking now.” Jamie growled at the thought of him watching her, at the very sound of him. ”f.u.c.ker.” Why the h.e.l.l didn't you give us what I asked for? Then I wouldn't need your pathetic G.o.dd.a.m.n coaching! ”Aah-aagh!” she raged. ”f.u.c.ker!”
A second later she got hit again. She yelped at the pain in her left calf, her vision red-rimmed with fury as she stumbled and fell. But her rage drove her to her feet again and she scuttled limping across the rest of the coulee under fire from two directions. She made it all the way to the base of the bluff, at last protected by a shallow overhang from the PIA shooter on the ledge above.
* 260 *
”Aaahh! Jeee-zus!” Jamie gasped just as a Barracuda swung in low and close to detonate rockets up the coulee while its gunner sprayed rounds at the PIA shooter on the ledge above her.
”Hey hey there, Prancer,” whooped one of the Barracuda crew.
”Got some for ya!”
”Yesss!” Jamie hissed. The Barracuda had delivered her reprieve just in time.
”Prancer Actual,” Vargas called. ”Prancer-Dog Three reports the high road is clear. I say again: The high road is clear. Come on up, Prancer Actual. Join the f.u.c.king party.”
Jamie could see the path to take up the side of the rocky bluff- steep, forbidding even. But doable. Come on, it's doable. She stared at it but didn't move, swooning involuntarily away from the pain.
”Jamie!” another voice shouted, rousing her. ”Jamie!” it demanded again, sounding remarkably like Lynn Hillinger.
”Lynn?” Alert now, Jamie looked around. No, no, she's on the helo... on the helo...
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