Chapter 16 (Continued) Epson started to reply, but I held up my hand to stop him. I had heard something in the distance, a sound I knew well. He heard it too, and then so did his two men. Coming up the valley from the south, building in strength, was the sound of a high performance jet engine. Actually multiple jet engines. Whining turbines. They suddenly rose in volume and pitch as a long cylindrical object with stubby wings executed a tight turn around the side of a mountain just south of us. It was quickly followed by another, then two more. I didn’t wait to see how many were following, just turned and hauled ass as fast as I could towards a deep ditch by the side of the road. I dove in headfirst, landing in a foot of mud. I turned and faced towards the village just as someone landed on top of my legs and someone else splashed into the water in front of me. I shrank into the smallest ball that I could, opened my mouth and put my hands over my ears just as the first missile impacted. The shockwave bounced me off the ground. I fell back down just as the ground rose up to meet me again, and I tried hard to keep my head and face out of the mud. Each one was followed by another, a second behind it. Each warhead was half a ton of High Explosive, but my ringing ears also barely heard the crackle and pop of submunitions mixed in, a hundred and sixty six grenade sized bomblets for each missile. It seemed to go on forever, but probably lasted no more than a minute. Right before it stopped, something red hot zipped across my shoulder. I could taste blood in my mouth and my ears were ringing so bad I couldn’t hear anything. I tried to roll over, but my arms and legs felt like jelly. I threw up into the mud just as someone grabbed me by the strap on the back of my body armor and hauled me up out of the mud. I sat there as Brit leaned into my face, her mouth moving. I couldn’t hear anything. I shook my head and tried to stand up. The sun had gone dark, crowded out by brick dust and smoke. I choked and Red handed me a bottle of water as Brit ran her hands over me, checking for wounds. I swished some around in my mouth and spit it out, and managed to keep from throwing up again as she tied a field dressing around my shoulder. Shrapnel ad scored a groove across the muscle, and it hurt like hell. “CHECK ON EPSON!” I told Ziv, not even hearing myself, and he jumped down into the ditch, flipping over a body. Ziv shook his head, then went onto another figure moving slowly, and helped him sit up. It was Epson, blood welling form a nasty cut on his forehead. He shrugged off Ziv and stood, looking back at the town. I turned and looked myself. Closest to us was the body of Captain Houseman. He had been shredded by a bomblet, and a pool of blood was growing around what was left of him. That meant that Master Sergeant Rodriguez was dead in the ditch. Further on a blazing fire rampaged through what was left of the town, which was nothing. Not a single building was intact, and most were shattered into piles of rubble. I couldn’t see past the first half of the town because of the smoke and dust. Well, shit. My hearing was slowly coming back, and the dust was choking me. It was time to move. I waved my hand in a circle and pointed up the road, back west. Then I pointed to Ziv and Epson. The burly Serbian nodded and grappled Epson, who had started to move towards the town. Brit broke a med kit and jabbed a needle into the protesting Epson. His eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed in Ziv’s arms, who promptly slung him over his back in a firemans’ carry and started jogging up the road. Red and Hart each grabbed one of my arms and helped me start moving after him. Someone, somewhere, had talked. Some trader passing through had heard something from another traveler, and he had told it to one of the Homeland Security goons who were showing their face more and more often in cleared areas. We just got a taste of what Acting President Taylor meant for the rest of the country.
Posted on: Tue, 25 Nov 2014 03:37:17 +0000
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