Whiskey Delta – Chapter 33

“The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.”

-Winston Churchill

Fire before them, fire behind them, Braun thought. And which one would take them before the day was over, he wondered. They would be beating a hasty retreat through the one to the south, but that was assuming they secured their objective and weren’t consumed by the fire to the north, the one which was rising to meet them now.

Twenty meters forward into the bush now, and Mance was still a ghost. Another twenty in any direction now, and there was nothing but burning underbrush. Small flames triggered by thermal charges, sucking in air and threatening to climb the stalks of the nearby trees. Though thick, the orange light was growing, slipping between the cracks in the foliage. Soon enough, the sun would not be the thing lighting the forest floor.

They stopped. Unless Mance had run sideways the second Dezba’s shots went off, there was no way he had made it outside the flaming horseshoe they had created. The flames were well above head height already, and everyone knew that the Whiskeys had a visceral fear of fire. What’s more, even Mance couldn’t have moved fast enough to get outside the blast radius.

Unless he was caught in the blast radius, Braun realized. If that were the case, he would be in serious danger of being burnt to a crisp.

“Fuck me,” he whispered to himself, and slammed his visor shut. Keying the comm, he called on Dezba to do some hazardous duty.

“Sarge, much as I hate this, we’re gonna have to go in there.”

“Sir, are you sure? These suits haven’t’ been heat tested past a certain point.”

“I know!” he replied. “And you’re going to have to shut down your climate control and stick to recirc, can’t risk any outside heat getting in.”

“Sir… with that kind of heat and no AC, we’ll cook inside these suits.”

“Dammit! We’re out of options! Mance is in there somewhere and we gotta find him before every trace of him burns up, including the antibodies he carries!”

Dezba lowered his head, but then nodded and reached to the suits control pad on his left arm. He shuts down his suits environmental controls and gave Braun the thumbs up. Braun did the same, and aimed his weapon directly into the flames.

Braun took a deep breath and tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his side. Perhaps that was one thing he could look forward to once they immersed themselves in the flame, a little relief from his broken bones. It was said that one source of agony could quickly make you forget about another… or so he hoped.

They inched forward and pushed through a small cropping of huckleberry. The fire was just beyond them now, not more than ten meters ahead. Already, their visors were beginning to fog a little from the recirculation of the suits air, the dehumidifiers struggling to keep up. And they weren’t even in the thick of it yet. How stupid it seemed, and how unavoidable.

At the end of every desperate ploy, there was always the next, it seemed. What did it say about him that he was constantly the one to be making them? And for that matter, was that the reason why Dezba constantly found himself next to him? He always believed that Dezba was the right kind of crazy, except when he wasn’t. If they were going to take Mance down and make it out, he would need to access that for the both of them. Otherwise, they were right fucked!

Five meters, the flames were a vertical wall, the flames rolling like the waves of a waterfall, but moving ever upwards. Braun looked at Dezba, saw him bracing just as he was. Shoulders back, rifle forward, feet poised apart about a shoulders-width. Any second now, they would have press forward, and they were understandably hesitant. Dezba nodded that he was ready. Braun returned it. His rids were still aching like hell!

He set his left foot forward…

*                    *                    *

“Stryker team, this is alpha? Say again, over.”

Whitman pressed the comm and grunted his frustration. “I say again, the chopper is coming back!”

The rotors were just visible over the tree tops. Whitman couldn’t see the loadout, but it was fair to say it was carrying a good complement of Hydra rockets. They made a real dent when it came to the Whiskey hoards and were far more versatile than anti-tank missiles. That was a bit of a relief, as any of those would make life very difficult for them as soon as their wheels went up!

“We’re engaged and waiting on the LT and Sarge to return. I’ve got no authorization to fire on a friendly.”

“Wait, he’s not even there?!” Whitman demanded.

“Negative. They’ve pursued Pappa Zulu into the bush and are off the squad frequency.”

Whitman let go of the comm and let out a profound “Shit!” He keyed it again. “Well get on the horn with him, we need authorization in case this bird aint exactly friendly.”

There was a sound of popping in the background when Saunders came back. “We’re engaged, hes’ engaged. Look to your own sector and just stay under cover.” Another burst of gunfire. “The LT will be back!”

Whitman let go and cursed again. Kobayashi was monitoring the line and didn’t look too enthused either. “What the fuck is going on over there?”

“Everybody’s tied down,” he replied with a shrug. “They can’t move to help us, we can’t move to help them. Guess we just keep our heads down and pray he doesn’t find us.”

“Right…” Whitman looked to the rear cabin door. Inside, Beaumont and his men were all sitting, waiting, and doing their best to keep it together. The sound of the rotors wasn’t doing them much good either. At some point, it must have reminded them of the last chopper ride they took. But as long as it wasn’t the cracking sound of repeating gunfire or the blood-curdling roar of Whiskeys, them seemed to do okay with it.

Which was good too, because he knew Kobayashi was checking on them. The spike in his pocket was at the ready just in case.

The bird was circling a few hundred meters away, doing its best to keep moving. Clearly, the pilot had been spooked by that missile and didn’t want to hover in any one place for too long. And yet, all Whitman could think about was those damn rockets, not to mention the chain gun it had slung underneath. Thirty millimeter slugs, packed with high-explosives and shooting at a rate of several hundred per minute. The damn thing was made out light armored vehicles. And their Stryker was nothing if not a lightly armored vehicle! Hell, they even designated it as such!

Fuck! This must be how the Whiskeys feel, he thought, and it kind of pissed him off. He never imagined he’d be on the wrong end of all that artillery. And maybe it was just pep pills, but the sight of it was making him mighty nervous too.

He back at their vehicle, considered the obvious and decided to run it Kobayashi.

“What do you suppose the odds are that we could take that thing down… you know, with the M151?”

Kobayashi looked at the gun on top of their vehicle. His head did the bobbing motion that indicated he was calculating it out.

“As far as punching holes in him, she can do it. Only problem is maintaining accuracy long enough. Turrets not designed for shooting down aircraft, too much lateral and horizontal corrections to be made. Plus, we start shooting at him, he starts shooting at us.”

Whitman nodded. “Right, we start shooting, he knows for sure we’re hostile and starts loosing all the shit he’s carrying on us.”

Kobayashi nodded back. “We blow that and our cover, the only two things working for us right now.”

And that’s how it was. The thought of jumping in the vehicle and driving into the woods had crossed his mind too. But in that scenario, assuming they didn’t immediately slam the Stryker into a tree and get stuck, they were likely to get spotted very quickly and shot at too. Why the hell did this all need to happen now, especially when he’d popped just one too many pills? Did the bottle say on the side, ‘may cause irreperable fuck ups to happen’?

He began to curl his left hand into a fist, trying to squeeze out the antsy that was getting to him. There was nothing they could do about their situation, short of waiting. But what he wanted more than anything was to quell what the pills were doing to him. Everything else would be so much easier to deal with if he weren’t so fucked right now!

“What you were saying earlier… you wouldn’t happen to have any Kush on ya, would ya?”

Kobayashi laughed nervously. “I wish.”

*                    *                    *

Braun waved his hand into the flickering mess. To his fore, the flames were beginning to recede around the stalks of the thin trees, but there were plenty of fires beyond that. What’s more, the smoke and haze was filling all the spaces in between. When they dissipated, he only got a few quick seconds of visibility before they closed in again. And on top of all that, he could feel the pinch of the heat coming through his Kevlar. Still, if Mance was anywhere on the forest floor beneath, he’d have seen him.

“Any sign?” he called to Dezba.

“Zero contact!”

Braun waved his weapon into the mass and tried spotting through the scope. Same problem there. Too much heat, too much light. And that was when the haze of smoke was so dense it was impenetrable. And any further in and they’d start heating up much faster. But the floor in front of them was clear.

“‘I’m going in deeper!”

“Sir, wait!” called Dezba. Braun stopped and waited for him to say something more. Nothing came.

“What is it, Sergeant?”

“Listen, sir.”

Braun wanted to reply that that was a bit of an issue right now. With his visor down, it was hard to hear anything outside his suit, and he wasn’t exactly in a position to raise it right now. But he couldn’t. Braun was still holding the damn transmit button down, making it impossible for him to reply.

But then he caught something. A faint noise coming through the helmet.

Loud, pained, and hollow sounding. He couldn’t tell if what he was hearing was the roar of wind, or the roar of a dozen voices.

“Hold,” he ordered. Braun began to scan to his left. Dezba inched up beside him and began scanning to the left. They could see now, to their backs they had a few feet of fire rising. They were within the horseshoe now, though it was closing to form a circle now.

Inside a burning ring. How appropriate.

Braun could it better now. It was rising and coming closer.

“Sir? What is that?”

“I don’t know…” he said, aiming his weapon into what he suspected was the heart of it. “Hold steady…”

And then another sound came. Braun looked down at his stock just for a second. Long enough that he didn’t see the form emerging out of the fire.

“Sarge!” he yelled, and squeezed off a shot. He was hit hard, his ribs screaming in pain again. A second later he was down, the flaming mass on top of him. Many more pushed through moved on Dezba too. He couldn’t see if they brought him down. All he saw was the blackened mass staring down into his visor.

“Sarge!” he yelled again, into his helmet. Hands descended onto his face and began throwing his head left and right. He could just make out the white patches in the face that was staring into his. The same cracked teeth, and a very angry set of eyes…