"Tsa'peen told me that the uniltìranyu do not have tawtute bodies," said Maweypay. "Unlike the previous uniltìranyu, they gave up their shells before leaving 'Rrta, having already passed through the Eye of Eywa. In this, they are like both Zhake'soolly and Zhess'ika."
Alìmtaw was not really listening to his cousin, thinking of his joy when he managed to 'catch his first wave'. The only thing he could compare it to was first flight. Though it was only a small wave, he felt the power of the ocean propelling him forward. Alìmtaw snorted – first, he had wanted to paddle out to the point break, to ride the waves breaking there, but Zharr'n had told him he must crawl before he ran.
It was well that she had told him, and that he had heeded her warning. Zharr'n had made the surfing of a wave look effortless, a song of balance between her body, the wave and her spirit. It had been surprisingly difficult to ride even the smallest wave, and he fell off the surfboard many times.
He was grateful that Zharr'n had not laughed at his efforts. Instead she smiled, and told him he was doing well, and then told him of his mistakes.
"She is a healer of the tawtute kind," continued Maweypay, speaking of Tsa'peen.
"What?" asked Alìmtaw, distracted by his musing.
His cousin thumped him on the shoulder. "You're not listening," he chuckled. "Are you dreaming of the lovely Zharr'n?"
"No. Yes. I don't know," said Alìmtaw finally.
"What happened to the boy who swore he would never mate?" teased his cousin.
Alìmtaw shook his head, almost angrily. He was not in the mood for teasing and banter. "You are right that I think of Zharr'n. Her spirit is in conflict."
"Conflict?" queried Maweypay, suddenly looking worried. It was not like his normally light-hearted cousin to be so serious.
Samson Two-One approached Hell's Gate as Alpha Centauri A was dropping below the horizon. Sharon was leaning on the starboard tribarrel, absent-mindedly scuffing the copious amounts of beach sand that had been tracked into the cargo area, thinking it had been a good day. There had not been enough good days in her life.
She shut her eyes for a moment, when suddenly a vision of another chopper ride flashed into her memory. It was not clean white sand filling the floor and sticking to her feet, but a thick red fluid.
Sharon couldn't hear the incoming fire striking the chopper – the noise of the chopper blades and the chatter of her tribarrel were drowning out every other noise – but she could feel the rush of rounds brushing past her skin and plucking at her gear. "Get us the fuck out of here!" she screamed at the pilot, hosing down everything she could see. The grips of the tribarrel were slippery from the brains of the chopper door gunner – she was standing over his headless body. The unlucky bastard had caught a passion-killer on the flight in.
Suddenly, the bird filled with smoke and started to spiral in. Sharon could hear the alarms from the cockpit, even above the noise of the shuddering engines tearing themselves apart. The pilot said calmly over the comms channel, the way flog-offs did when the shit had really hit the fan, "Brace, brace, brace. We're going in." Sharon did not release her grip on the tribarrel, only flexing her knees to take the hard impact.
The chopper didn't quite crash into the ground. The pilot had done a good job, auto rotating the bird in what the flight manual would call a controlled descent into a hard landing.
It still felt like a fucking crash.
Sharon picked herself up from the floor of the bird, and looked around. The smell of jet fuel was rank in her nostrils, and it looked like she was the only person still combat effective – Sharon could hear the pilot screaming in agony. It was time to get out.
A quick glance around the cargo area showed that the seven wounded were still alive. She grabbed the back of Trooper Green's shirt and dragged him out. "Hey Chinkers," he said. "I'm putting in for a compassionate transfer to the Catering Corps."
"Can you still shoot, Boof?" she demanded of her teammate. When he nodded – he only had a chunk of his right calf blown away, she tossed him her assault weapon and ordered, "Kill any ragheads you see."
She took a quick glance around. The pilot had done well – he had crashed the bird on the top of a hill, behind which was a sharp drop to a dry watercourse. There was only one easy axis of approach, so her immediate tactical situation was nominal – or it would have been if she couldn't see fifty plus jihadis moving towards her position – no doubt wanting to prove their manhood by cutting the throats of injured Western infidels.
They had another thing coming – Death was here, and her fucking name was Trooper Sharon Xiùlán 'Chinkers' King of the fucking door kickers, and king of this bloody hill. There weren't going to be any easy pickings on this hilltop.
Sharon dragged the rest of the wounded out, ignoring the stabbing pain in her left foot. It felt like the crash had broken a couple of bones. While she was recovering mags from the wounded, she keyed the helmet command channel. "Velma Actual, this is Roachfucker Eight. Over."
"Roachfucker Eight, reading you five by five. You are authenticated. Over."
"Am located on hilltop at grid reference eight niner six eight zero four zero five. Fifty plus ragheads approaching my position. Seven - no, eight wounded, I am only fully combat effective. Requesting immediate fire support. Over."
"Sorry, Roachfucker Eight. All air support is committed. The closest available is fifteen minutes out. Over."
She almost screamed down the line, "What the fuck am I paying taxes for! I want fucking fire support, now! Over." Flames were starting to lick around the chopper. She dove in and unmounted the port door gun – a GS-221 LMG. There was no point yanking out the tribarrel. There were less than twenty rounds remaining.
"You'll just have to stay alive, Roachfucker Eight. Will advise you when support is two minutes out. Over."
A few seconds later she flopped alongside Green, and shoved the LMG towards him. "Give me back my baby, Boof."
When he passed her assault weapon back, the heads up on her visor came back to life, and started picking up targets. "Tar, mate."
"Looks like the front door of Myers on Boxing Day morning," commented Green mildly, cocking the LMG.
"Lots of bargains for everyone," answered Sharon laconically.
It seemed that the ragheads had geed themselves up, because they started yelling and charging up the hill, spraying bullets from the hip from ancient AKs – still the standard weapon of the freedom fighter after two fucking centuries.
Green opened up with the LMG, firing short bursts at the clumped infantry, while Sharon steadily serviced targets with accurate single shots, leaving untidy lumps of clothing scattered over the lower slopes. The ragheads didn't even get halfway up the hill before they broke and ran back down.
"Hey, Chinkers," commented Green. "I reckon we might live through this."
Sharon replaced her empty magazine and growled back, "Shut the fuck up, Boof. You'll put the mozz on us. There's a fucking mad mullah down there, promising them seventy-two virgins if they get to the top of this shitty hill."
Green chuckled. "You're safe then, Chinkers. I reckon you don't even have the box it came in."
"Too fucking right," she said. "Get ready, here they come again." She frowned. It seemed there were more ragheads than when they started.
The second assault went much the same as the first, but Sharon was right. There had to be over a hundred infantry clustered at the bottom of the hill now. "I don't like it, Boof," she said. "The ragheads are planning something. I want some cross-fire. Shifting right." She scrambled about ten metres to the right and flopped down.
"Velma Actual. Where's my air support? Over." she snarled.
Sharon didn't hear the answer. Suddenly, the hilltop erupted in explosions as mortal shells dropped in, throwing clouds of dust into the air. When they stopped, all Sharon could hear was someone screaming. Whoever it was had a high-pitched girly voice, when she realised it was her. She stopped, and the screaming was replaced by other sounds. But she refused to think about those.
This time the jihadis were already halfway up the hill. She started servicing targets again, but the LMG was silent. "Open up, Boof, you fucking slack-arse!" She shifted to three-shot bursts – the ragheads were closely enough packed that she was almost guaranteed a hit. Sharon glanced to her left when she swapped magazines, and wished she hadn't. Only half of Boof was there – a mortar shell had landed directly on his position.
The fuckers were almost on her. There was no fucking way she was dying on this ground. Sharon rose up, screaming her hatred and fear. Her weapon almost aimed itself, the barrel swinging from side to side as she vaporised the enemy. All too soon her last magazine was empty, and she dropped her weapon.
As her right hand fell down to smoothly draw her side arm, a jihadi screamed in English, "Die, infidel bitch!" He let off an entire mag at her on full auto. Not a single round hit her.
Her answer was a single shot in the middle of his forehead, a great spray of blood and brains splattering his Paki mates behind him.
"Roachfucker Eight, support is thirty seconds out."
The words made no sense to her. She fired like an automaton, just like she had been taught in training. Her left hand dropped down to pull her only spare magazine out of her belt pouch as the empty mag fell out of her pistol. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to slap in the spare, pull the slide back and continue firing, all the while advancing towards the enemy.
When the spare was empty, she dropped and rolled, coming up to her knee with a bloodstained AK in her hands.
The jihadis had had enough. They broke and run from this unkillable Angel of Death, this spawn of Iblis.
Still she did not relent, killing the fleeing enemy without mercy, until she saw a flash of sunlight on metal and glass out of the corner of her eye. Sharon dropped to the ground, while the hillside and valley below exploded with fire and thunder.
Fuck, Sharon hated flashbacks - especially that one. The snorker with bird shit shoulders running her show made her write a detailed after action report, and ever since the memory had been crystal clear. Sharon had changed her team name after the action on the hilltop, insisting that everyone call her by her real name. The next time someone tried to call her by her old team name, she had almost killed the sucker, and nearly got chucked out of the squadrons. The last mate with the right to call her Chinkers was Boof, and he was gone.
Only four of the wounded survived, including the pilot. Five if she counted herself - Sharon had caught a fragment in the arse that she hadn't even felt.
The mortars got the others.
After the chopper settled on to the flightline, Paklowski asked, "Sharon, are you ok?"
"I'm bonzer," she replied. "Couldn't be better!"
Paklowski asked quietly, so the others couldn't hear, "Why are you crying, then?"
Sharon quickly wiped her tears away with one shaking hand. "Fuck off, Linda," she said. "Chicken stranglers don't cry – it's only eye-sweat. Look how fucking hot it is."
Her friend nodded once, not pressing her any further. Paklowski had seen enough cases of soldiers with PTSD to know the symptoms.
"Her spirit is in pain," said Alìmtaw to his cousin. "Zharr'n bears a heavy burden from her past."