- infie
Recap: (Sunday)
511 withdrew his Glock from it's hiding place at the small of his back and took steady, unflinching aim. 494 moved to stand wearily beside him, one hand on his friend's shoulder for balance. "Tick, tick, asshole. Tick, tick, tick." He stopped.
511 squeezed the trigger.
494 stepped away from 511, turning back toward the tank on unsteady legs that threatened to buckle. 511 twitched as if to help him, but 494 shot him a look that made him raise his hands and step back.
"Colonel. 529 is going to need assistance quickly. We're going to need an extraction right away." 494 spoke to the air, knowing that Lydecker could hear him. 529 rather suddenly collapsed, straight down, as though the floor had dropped from under him. 511 was at his side an instant, with 494 a limping step behind. 494 grabbed 511's hand just before he touched 529's huddled form. "Don't touch him! He's infected." 511 backed away, giving 494 room to drop painfully to 529's side. He touched 529's hot forehead, and his fingers came away tinged with blood. "Colonel. It's progressing quickly." 494 looked up and met 511's worried gaze. "Where's the nearest airstrip?"
511 pursed his lips, dark eyes distant. "There's a Russian enclave less than 20 klicks from here. I ...ah... borrowed some of their more mobile pieces of equipment. It's where I was headed when I stumbled over my friend here." he gestured at the tank. "They had a strip. Nothing paved, though. To get paved we'd have to head back to Bukhara."
"We'll take the Russians."
"They might be a little annoyed about my aquisition of the tank, you know."
"I know." 494's face was expressionless, but his eyes were worried. "We need to get 529 back as soon as possible. We'll have to handle the Russians."
511 nodded crisply. 494's eyes slid back to 529. "Colonel." he said. "Send something fast."
Ashkovich's cell phone rang again. 511 scooped it up, clicked it open. "Go, Base." He smirked.
[I'm sending an extract to a base 18 klicks northeast of your position.] Lydecker didn't sound amused. [A Canadian XFF-887 will be setting down in one hour. Be there on time.] He hung up.
"Bye, Colonel." 511 spoke to the air.
"Check and see if there's a tarp or something like that loaded on Eddie here." 494 closed his eyes briefly, then raked a hand through sweat-soaked hair. "And pass me out the medkit, will ya?"
511 nodded and leaped up to the chassis. "Eddie?" His voice was muffled as he opened the aux hatch to see if the soldiers had been carrying a tarp.
"Eddie the Eagle. Try and keep up, 511." 494's vision darkened, and he shook it off.
511's head popped back up from behind the hatch. "My tank is NOT a boy. She's beautiful." he declared indignantly.
"Edwina, then."
"Fine." 511 rummaged for a moment, then closed the hatch and dropped down beside 494. He handed him the medkit. "I found a tent. Heavy canvas."
"Good." 494 cracked open the medkit and started pulling out gauze and bandages. "You got a knife?" 511 nodded silently and handed it over. "All right. Roll the tent out flat on the ground." He hiked up his burnous and looked at the two new bullet wounds in his left leg. "Shit." The one in his calf looked like a through and through, but the one in his thigh had lodged inside. "We don't have time for this."
511 finished unrolling the tent and came to look. "No kidding." He opened the bottle of alcohol and poured it over the wounds, ignoring 494's indignant hiss. He grabbed the gauze and some four by four bandages and started wrapping the leg quickly. "You can get it taken care of properly when we get back." He took out an antibiotic ampoule and stabbed it into 494's leg.
"Failed the bedside manner section of Field Med 201, I see." 494's mouth compressed. "Gimme the morphine." 511 handed it over, and was surprised when 494 turned to 529 and jabbed three ampoules deep into his leg. 494 turned back and caught 511's raised eyebrow. "He's not going to want to be awake for this, any more than I did." he said softly.
"What's the tent for?"
"I'll need you to put 529 in the tank. Since you can't actually touch him..." 494 broke off. He bound 529's shoulder as fast as possible, noting that at least the bullet went straight through and the blood had slowed to a trickle. Finishing up with the bandages, he rolled 529 more quickly than gently onto the tent. 511 nodded again, wrapping him in the canvas and lifting him easily onto the chassis before sliding him bonelessly through the hatch.
494 rose stiffly and began shuffling along the cold storage cabinets, opening the doors as he went. "Hey, does Eddie have any incendiaries?" he called over his shoulder. 511 hung himeself upside-down through the hatch to look at the targetting readout.
"Yeah!" he called back, voice muffled. "Six incendiary. And... uh... four phosphorous."
494 blinked and chewed his lip. "That might do it." He ignored 511's wide-eyed look at his response and opened the doors on the last two cabinets, pushing aside one of the dead guards to do it. He made his way back to the tank where 511 waited for him impatiently. His pace was somewhat slower than a crawl. 511 looked at his wrist pointedly and drummed his fingers on Edwina's steel skin.
"Do you mind, 494? We are a little pressed for time."
494 shot him a murderous glare. "Fuck off." But he did hobble faster, gritting his teeth.
511 jumped energetically down from the chassis and made a cradle of his hands. 494 balanced on his bad leg long enough to plant his good foot in 511's hands, then landed heavily on top of the chassis. He dropped through the hatch and into the gunner's seat with a ragged noise, then checked on 529. He was completely out, the morphine doing its job. 494 stroked 529's hair back from his face, then turned to the targetting computer, all business. A few keystrokes later and the incendiaries were ready to go. 511 slid into the driver's seat. He winced, lifted himself a moment, and came up with Ashkovich's Nokia. He looked at it a moment, then shrugged, flipped it out of the tank and slammed the hatch closed. He turned to 494. "What do you say we get out of here?" he asked softly.
"I'd say 'about fucking time'."
511 eased the tank out of the hole in the wall, backing her away for about 400 yards before 494 indicated they should stop. He lined up the hole in the wall carefully, precisely aiming the crosshairs at the exact centre of the tank-shaped hole. He twitched the joystick ever... so... slightly...
"Will you just blow the fucking place up already?"
494 gave 511 a superior glare, and pulled the trigger, holding it down to initiate the automatic fire function. Edwina shuddered as the shells left the barrel, and an instant later the whole world shook as they began finding their target. A furnace of fiery heat blasted out of the hole in the cliff, but 494 continued to fire. Shell after shell added their fury to the cauldron, and still 494 sent in more. Finally, 511 looked over at his fixed, savage expression, and gently tapped his knuckles. 494 blinked, and eased down.
511 looked up at the scanner, and nodded at the flames. "Sterilized."
"As it should be." 494's lips thinned, then he turned to 529 to check on him again. "Let's go, 511. We've only got thirty minutes left, and we don't wanna keep the Russians and Canadians waiting. Hockey might break out."
511 turned his head and looked at him levelly. "I'll put twenty on the Canadians." he said.
511 stopped Edwina behind the last set of outcroppings before the Russian airfield. "OK." he said. "We're here. Now what?"
"We're going to have to get closer than this." 494 squinted, ignoring the 'Well, Duh' look that 511 shot him. He gestured towards the airstrip vaguely. "We'll need to be close when the XFF-887 gets here. You're going to have to drive right up to their doorstep."
"We're in a stolen tank."
"They might not know that. Christ, it's not like these things come with a big, neon, 'Stolen' sign on them. Come on! Just, you know, be casual. Look like you're supposed to be here." 494 paused. "Stop peeking at them from behind a big hill! All the other tanks are gonna laugh at Eddie if they see her hiding out like this."
"Ed-WINA!" 511 glared, but kicked the tank back into gear and started moving. "She's going to get upset if you keep calling her Eddie. And you do not want Edwina upset with you."
494 rolled his eyes. "Just drive the bus."
They reached the edge of the airfield without incident, but as they prepared to trundle across to the landing strip, a jeep suddenly veered towards them, with a wildly gesticulating soldier standing in the passenger seat. The jeep slid to a halt directly in their path, and the soldier jumped out and ran up to the side of the tank. 511 stopped before crushing the jeep and looked at his watch.
"Two minutes to go."
494 bit his lip. "Shit." He was so tired. "We need a distraction. Before they send more folks out here to investigate."
511 laughed and turned the tank towards the flight tower. "I'm pretty sure our ride isn't planning on asking for clearance." 494 sighted on the tower and pulled the trigger.
The tower exploded in a bright fireball of destruction, raining wood and glass on the nearby buildings. 511 used the advantage of the soldiers' shock to bring the machine guns to bear. He waggled them meaningfully, and the Russian beside the tank broke and ran back the other way. The driver of the jeep joined him. An instant later, they heard the supersonic scream of the incoming jet.
494 reached behind his seat and came up with an old, faithful weapon, the AK-47. "I'll go out first. You take 529, stuff him in the plane, and get in. I'll cover your back. 511 opened his mouth to argue, but 494 drew his hand across his throat in the Manticore sign for 'Shut it.' "No argument. Go."
511 reached across 494 and grabbed 529 by the tent cover, heaving him across 494's lap. He popped the hatch, then hunkered down to let 494 climb over him. "You know," he said conversationally. "I'm sure we could have thought of a way of doing this that wouldn't have required each person to climb over both other people at least once."
"I'm too tired to think." 494 scrubbed a hand across his eyes and realized that it was true. He was feeling foggy. {Shit. Not good.}
"Then it's a good thing I know something about this soldiering deal myself then." 511's words were light, but his tone was steely. 494 gave him a reluctant grin.
"Fine. Go first."
With a flashing grin, 511 disappeared out the hatch. A second later he was back and hauled 529 up onto the chassis, before reappearing and extending his arm down into the tank. 494 took the help without complaint, and 511 lifted him out easily. The jet screamed overhead again, and 511 gave it a glare.
"Get the fuck down here, already!"
The jet came around again, on approach this time, and 511 nodded in satisfaction. "Nice to see someone around here can take orders." They climbed down, and dragged 529 to the ground.
Unfortunately, it appeared that the Russian contingent had also seen the Canadian pilot's latest flyby. A flood of irritated soldiers was flowing out of the various buildings dotting the landscape, and most of them had weapons.
"511."
The word was enough. 511 sprang back into the tank and started it moving, machine guns swiveling to target the oncoming soldiers, and to put the tank between the soldiers and the wounded transgenics. The jet touched down behind them, and 494 struggled to lift 529 up onto his shoulder. With a massive heave, he succeeded, and started to stagger towards the slowing jet. His vision blackened, but he concentrated only on placing one trembling foot in front of the other. It felt like forever passed before he felt the pilot race up and pull 529 off his shoulder. 494 blinked, and slowly, too slowly, the darkness receeded. The pilot wrapped both arms around 529's bundled body and started dragging him back towards the plane, where the canopy stood open, the three empty passenger seats beckoning invitingly.
Edwina's guns chattered again, and 494 turned, pulling the AK around to a firing position. He pinged a shot off of the tank, and it immediately stopped and turned to face them. He heard a blurt of shock from the pilot as the turret swiveled to aim at them, then the hatch flipped back and 511 vaulted out, hitting the ground already sprinting. 494 dropped to one knee with a groan of pain, levelling the AK-47. 511 has already reached them when the first Russian soldier broached the barrier of the tank, and 494 fired, sending the soldier tumbling to the ground. 511 picked up 529 and raced up the side of the aircraft effortlessly, dumping him into the rearmost seat and fastening the five point harness at the four available points before jamming the helmet on his head in a blur of speed. He dropped back to the ground without bothering to use the handholds, ignoring the pilot's gaping jaw. 494 continued to fire in short bursts, taking down the soldiers as they came around the edge.
511 tapped the pilot on the shoulder and pointed insistently at the jet. She nodded, still looking shocked, and climbed into the front seat. 511 moved to 494's side and helped him up. The pause in the supressing fire gave the Russians the break they had been waiting for, and one of the soldiers made it into the tank. 511 made a cradle of his hands, and 494 planted his good foot between them, launching himself to scramble untidily into the seat in front of 529. The tank's turret moved minutely, and 494 braced himself for the shell to come as 511 swarmed up the side of the plane.
"Go go go gogogo!" he shouted at the pilot, jamming his helmet onto his head and activating the mike. The canopy slid down as the jet began to move. 494 could just make out 511 frantically fastening his own harness as the canopy closed and the plane rocketed forward. He turned his head, just in time to see Edwina go up in a huge fireball. Dimly he became aware of 511's voice in his ear.
"... so I rigged her to blow when they tried to fire."
"Oh, Habib. Eddie looks unhappy with you."
"Yeah, what can I say? My relationships never last." 511 paused. "Except for you. You I can't seem to get rid of."
494 laughed weakly, then the pilot punched the throttle and he was pushed back into his seat. The pressure built against his chest and he felt himself greying out again. This time he leaned his head back and let it come.