Chapter Twenty Six
Lieutenant Colonel Gaz Membrane's eyes had grown so heavy, her muscles so sore, that she staggered to a halt in the middle of the frozen river, leaned forward, and tanked down air.
Ten seconds, she told herself. Just ten seconds.
The wind had picked up and had been blasting snow in her face. Her cheeks and nose were going numb. She shivered and pulled up the scarf, turned back, squinted at the shoreline she had left behind.
Through veils of snow she made out one Irken ND-II accompanied by two DMOV-3s rumbling on their tank like tracks down toward the river bank. Her little trek on the Ice Saw, but once she'd switched on the beacon, the Irkens had picked it up. Those Imperial Trooper squads probably been tasked with both finding her and performing a reconnaissance mission in the area.
Killing two birds with one stone, unfortunately.
Reflexes took over.
She turned, broke into a run.
The opposite shoreline was impossibly far away. Her legs went back to burning as she imagined a sniper somewhere behind her casually lining up to take his shot,
At least it would end quick.
What was she thinking? She wouldn't give up. Not yet. Not after coming this far. Not after three innocent people had already died!
Screw the pillowcase, the supplies. They dropped into her wake.
She would reach the forest by sheer force of will. They couldn't stop her.
Anticipating a discharge, she veered right, then left, still jogging, her boots nearly slipping on the ice beneath the powdery snow.
She glanced back.
The Irkens were still coming, frozen river now withstanding. The DMOV drivers were testing the ice, while dismounted troops started toward her, ND-II hanging back.
As the snow rose to her shins, her pace slowed, but she swore and kept weaving erratically, kicking forward now. Then suddenly, a crack made her flinch and gasp.
The handheld rail rifle projectile echoed off.
She didn't feel anything. Maybe he'd missed. Or maybe it'd take a second for the pain to come.
Plasma rifles being fired in full auto resounded-
But it was joined by the irregular humming of an engine.
The afternoon sun blinded her for a moment, but out of the glare came an object swooping toward her. For a split second her spirits lifted. They'd sent someone. She'd make it.
Then the object banked slightly, and she got a better look at the fuselage, the symbol, the terrible and familiar outline of a Spittle Runner. Now those engines seemed to pound on her head, made her want to scream.
"Oh yeah?" She cried aloud. "I don't think so."
She kept running on as the Runner came around once more, descending from behind.
As its shadow passed directly overhead, she extended her arm and fired, the rounds ricocheting off its hull.
They would land in front of her, cut her off from the forest.
She fired again, smelled fuel, and thought maybe she had scored a hit.
The Runner slowed to a hover, began to pivot, and Gaz wasn't sure what to do now.
Bank left? Right?
"She's firing at us!" Hollered Sergeant Reilly Scott.
Sergeant Ray Harper didn't need the young superstar to tell him that. But damn, Harper hadn't anticipated this part, where the pilot assumed they were Irkens about to capture her and decided to fire at their already malfunctioning Spittle Runner.
They were still hovering, and Harper ordered the pilot to land, but the Irken shook his head, his antenna waving. "How thick is the ice?"
"It's thick. Land!"
"I don't like this ice. Is just frozen water. I dislike water. We all dislike your filthy water."
"Dez, can you land this thing?"
"Okay, I put down," Said the pilot with disgust. "But if ice breaks, and we go under, your fault!" He leaned forward and spoke rapidly into his microphone.
"Damn it!" Dez jolted forward and switched off his unit.
Harper shoved his pistol into the back of the pilot's head. "Put this bird down!"
Then he called out to Scott, telling him to open the bay door and throw down one of his Velcro patches, the American flag. All their uniform patches and other black insignia could be removed via the Velcro, depending upon the mission and what the lawyers had to say about the operation in a particular nation. Sometimes you had to show the patches, sometimes not.
Scott slid open the door, and as they got even lower he tossed down the patch, then started closing the door, just as she fired again, the round pinging off the jam. Scott cursed and fell back onto the floor.
"Is he hit?" Asked Harper.
"I don't think so," Shouted Gis.
"Look, she's got it," Said Dez. "She sees us! She knows, here she comes!"
Gaz thought she was dreaming as she ran toward the Runner, its gear just setting down on the ice. She clutched the patch in her hand and broke into a full on sprint.
For a moment she doubted the patch, thought maybe the enemy was luring her into the craft, but that was thinking too hard. If there were Irkens on board, they would rather take her by force, not cunning. It would be a matter of ego.
This was her rescue.
The plasma discharge behind her had ceased. Those fools thought their comrades in the Runner had captured the "Human pilot." They had no idea that somehow, some way, Americans had taken control of an enemy Spittle Runner. She almost waved after picking up the patch but thought better of it. The troopers behind her would find that highly suspect.
With the engines now blowing waves of snow into her eyes and clearing a circle around the Runner, Gaz leaned over, ditched the survival kit, and made her last run for it, coming onto the engine swept ice. Just twenty yards now, and her gait grew shaky as her boots found little traction. It was all she could do to remain upright.
Boom, down she went. Took a hard fall. Right on her butt. The impact sent tremors of pain through her back.
Get up!
The Runner's side door opened, and a helmeted, human soldier was waving her on.
She rose.
Plasma bolts began slamming into the side of the Runner. Damn it. The Irkens had figured it out.
Okay, back on her feet now. A few bolts splashing here and there.
Ten yards. Five. That soldier was right there, his face obscured by a dark visor.
Abruptly, the Runner tipped slightly away from her, nose lifting up-
Then she saw what was happening. The ice below had cracked, and the Runner's gear was sinking into the water, chunks of ice already bobbing around it. But the cracks were on the backside of the Runner, so Gaz kept on running.
Just fifteen feet now. Ten. Five.
The soldiers mouth was working: Come on!
Gaz increased her stride.
The soldier leaned out as far as he could, extending his gloved hand.
What was that sound? Oh, no... The ice began to splinter at her feet.
She took three more steps, heard a chorus of cracking sounds, then she began to slip and tried shifting to the right-
Only to find herself atop a small raft of ice that floated freely, her weight driving one side down. Instinctively, she reached out. Nothing to grab on to, no one to help. She began to fall.
Oh, God, no...
The water rushed up her legs, over her chest, and broke over her face, the sensation of a billion fingernails of ice poking every part of her body. Completely underwater now, the shock having robbed her entirely of breath, sh panicked and kicked frantically for the surface.
Only then did the extreme cold hit her.
In truth the water was probably not colder than what she'd experienced during water immersion tests during her training, but combined with the stress of the moment, the stress of the past night, it was liquid death.
Her head hit something hard. More ice. She pushed up, tried to find and opening.
Where was the surface?
She made a fist, punched the ice, looked around, punched again.
Scott had already yanked the quick straps on his boots, toed them off, and had zipped off his combat suit, leaving him with his black LWCWUS (lightweight cold weather undergarment set) and socks.
No way they would let that pilot drown.
Scott would die first.
Fritz had already found a nylon rescue rope, and Scott made a loop in it as the Runner began to rise from the river. The Irken pilot screaming over and over, "Water! Water!"
With the looped rope in one hand, he jumped out, dropping six feet toward the broken ice. Before he even felt the water, he screamed at it like an animal raging against nature.
That's right boys, let em' have it!
Scott sank deep, popped up, and cried out again as the chill seized him in its grasp. He told himself, not so cold, not so cold, as he swam forward, didn't see her, dove under, widened his eyes-
And there she was, her hair almost glowing in the water, just off to his left, a few feet back and struggling to push through the ice, unable to see the opening nearby. He paddled to her, grabbed her waist, and pulled her back with him, kicking as hard as he could.
They burst up, both tanking down air, gasping, the engines whipping over them. "Grab on to my back!"
She wrapped one arm over his right shoulder, tucked the other arm beneath his left, and locked her hands. Smart girl. "I'm ready," She said through intense shivering.
There wasn't time to ascend the rope and climb back into the Runner- not with that incoming fire.
So Scott flashed a thumbs up, seized the loop with both hands, and braced himself.
From the open door, Harper gave the Irken pilot the go ahead, who was more than willing to pull his yoke back and take off as quick as he could, and the rope snapped taut. Scott and the woman were wrenched from the water and swung hard under the Runner.
"Go, go, go!" Harper cried over the intercom.
The Runner's nose pitched down, and they veered off, still drawing fire from the trooper's behind them. One of the DMOV-3s even fired an accelerated plasma bolt from its big gun but missed by a wide margin. The Irkens were at once desperate, embarrassed, and mighty pissed off.
"This is it," Said Dez. "We're on fumes now."
"Just get us to the other side of that forest and put us down there. We have to get them inside."
Harper wished they could turn back for just a moment and launch rockets, but not with Scott and the pilot dangling down below.
"Hang on, buddy, just hang on!" Shouted Tristan, even though the Sergeant below couldn't hear him. They all began shouting, and maybe it made them feel better, Harper wasn't sure, but he joined in and remembered the conversation he'd had with his young assistant: "Just want you to know that I'm giving you a hundred and ten percent. Always, sir," Scott had said.
"We'll see how long it takes for you to create your own shadow. And hope it's a pretty long one."
Yes, indeed Sergeant Reilly Scott had just cast a very long shadow. And Harper would make sure to commend him for that.
Scott's arms were frozen, his hands locked onto the rope. The pilot was tugging hard on his shoulders, and tears were beginning to form in his eyes from all the exertion.
"Don't... Let go..." She whispered in his ear.
She was half dead, but even then she sounded kind of sexy. Leave it to him to be thinking of sex at a time like this...
He closed his eyes.
I am a Marine. This is my job. I will not fail.
But the feeling had escaped from his arms, and the rope began sliding through his fingers.
"He's losing it!" Shouted Harper. "Dez, how much longer!?"
"We're almost there!"
Harper began stripping off his combat suit so he could give it to the pilot, once they had her inside. The suit's life critical layer had a narrow network of tubing that would provide two hundred watts of heating A-SAP. Scott's suit waited for him.
Talk about being hung out to dry. Harper couldn't imagine how those two must be.
The Runner broke past another long stretch of trees, then the engine stuttered like a misfiring lawnmower.
"No choice now," Said Dez.
"Try to put them down easy," Harper said.
"Easy is not possible," Grunted the pilot. "Maybe you pray now. Because we go down hard!"
He wasn't kidding either. The Runner began to drop like a rock as it lost power.
Harper clung to the back of the pilot's seat, watched as Scott, who was one handing the rope now, looking up to the Runner, slammed into a snow bank.
"They're down!" He shouted. "But he's still holding the rope. He's not letting go! Cut it! Cut it!"
Gis immediately unsheathed his Blackhawk Tatang, a thirteen inch long serrated blade he lifted high in the air, then-
Thump! He cut nylon like butter, leaving a deep scar in the Runner's deck.
"They're clear!" Shouted Harper.
"Brace for impact!" Warned the pilot. "Three, two, one!"
(End chapter)