It was a nearly silent group that flew out to the fuel depot, broken only by the occasional radio chatter between the pilots. Briggs remained on the alert for other possible aircraft in the vicinity, but stretching out in all directions from the four helicopters was nothing but clear blue skies. The journey was short, no more than 20 minutes passed before they arrived. The barricades were still holding up, with the zombies remaining minimal in number much like on their previous visits. After the helicopters set down, the lookouts took up positions around all the crafts, and the fueling began. The pilots were communicating amongst themselves over the radios, still watching the skies around them. Everything went off without a hitch until Briggs suddenly felt the hairs on the back of her neck begin to rise. Then she saw them, black spots in the sky to the north, too far off to tell for sure what they were, but close enough to guess that they were approaching helicopters.

"Cowboy, check your one o'clock, do you see what I see?" Briggs spoke over the radio.

"Roger that, looks like we've got company. Do we bring the kids back in?"

"Negative, let's just see what they do for a minute, get an idea what we're dealing with." There was a long pregnant pause as Briggs continued to peer out the windshield of the Stallion, watching the black dots move closer and take on a distinctive shape. "Fuck me Cowboy, are my eyes deceiving me or are those a couple of Little Birds?"

"Shit, I think you're right."

"Briggs, Cowboy," Masters suddenly chimed in, "we've got uninvited guests."

"Roger that Masters. Henry you listening?" Briggs queried.

"Affirmative," his deep bass voice sounded over the headset.

"Signal your crews, let's get the fuck out of here. Take evasive actions. Henry, Masters break left, Cowboy follow me to the right. Nobody take a direct line to the mall, lets see if we can confuse them a little, buy us some time."

The crews rushed back onboard the helicopters, which went airborne before they even sat down, causing them to grasp wildly for anything to keep their balance. Suddenly an explosion went up beneath them, taking out a large section of the barricade. Another followed behind it,the fuel pumps going up in flames this time,causing an explosion big enough to make the helicopters to shudder. In the middle of all this, CJ stumbled to the front of the Stallion and threw himself into the co-pilot's seat, grabbing for the headset. "Briggs what the hell was that?" he asked, fear lending an edge to his voice.

"The explosions or what shot them?" she asked distractedly.

"Both," he replied.

"Rockets, looks like at least one, probably both, of those AH-6 Little Birds are armed with them."

"What the fuck is a Little Bird, and why in hell would they take out the fuel supply?" CJ demanded.

"My guess would be they're under orders to sever our lifelines. Without fuel we can't make any runs for it now can we? A Little Bird is a two seat attack helicopter, nice little piece of equipment for a hit and run job like this, they're quick, maneuverable.." she trailed off as Cowboy's voice came over the radio.

"Hey boss lady, they're splitting up, one for each of our groups."

"I see it, the other two are gonna have to deal with one on their own."

"You gotta plan?"

"Yea, how do you feel about being the bait?"

"About as good as I feel about having a root canal."

" Good. See those skyscrapers up ahead?"

"Roger."

"On my mark break to the right, around the western most buildings, go low try to get him to follow you, do some zigging and zagging then bring him back around to the east."

"What about you? Where are you going to be?"

"I'm gonna make a run for that building on the east side, try and go in for a landing if he takes the bait and goes after you."

"Do I dare ask why?"

"I've got a Barrett M82 here, if I can get a good shot off we might be able to bring him down."

"Damn, I wish we had something better then that."

"I'mthe fucking sniper asshole, so unless you got any better ideas that you want to tell me about, this is what we're going with."

"It's all on you boss lady, just do me a favor and don't fucking miss!"

"Agreed, so break right now!"

The Blackhawk rolled to the right, dropping down between the buildings, followed by the Little Bird. The Stallion rolled to the left, gaining altitude slightly before dropping again and landing roughly atop the building. Scrambling out of her seat Briggs dashed for the back of the helicopter, pawing for the Barrett rifle. She grabbed it and some ammunition before jumping out of the helicopter door, two of her passengers watching in amazement, while Sanchez hurried to follow her. Running to the side of the building she kneeled there and braced the mounted tripod of the rifle on the roof's edge waiting for the helicopters to reappear. In a matter of minutes the Blackhawk climbed in the sky to their left before disappearing from view between the buildings again.

"Dammit Cowboy!" She gritted out between clenched teeth, twisting her body around to take aim again, where the helicopters would presumably come into view again. Finally the Blackhawk darted into open air, the AH-6 following mere seconds later. Briggs squeezed the trigger, the massive 12.7mm rifle roaring off a shot, shattering the bubble front of the Little Bird on the co-pilot's side, killing him instantly. The pilot briefly fought to maintain control giving Briggs time to take aim for a second shot, this time at the rear rotor of the aircraft, nailing it hard. Black smoke began pouring out of the rotor and moments later it ceased to turn. The entire helicopter pitched forward and began to spin as it plummeted towards the street below.

"Nice job Briggsy," Sanchez commented from behind her.

"Let's just hope the others get as lucky. Let's bust some ass and get back to the mall, I want to be outta there tonight."

Together they walked back to the helicopter, Michael and CJ waited just outside the door. "We're getting out here guys, grab your seats," Briggs told them when she reached them, climbing inside after flashing CJ a brief smile, enjoying the adrenaline rush this encounter had left her with. Returning to the pilot's seat, she put the headset back on and slowly took off.

"Let's get back to base Cowboy," she radioed.

"Nice shooting boss lady, never doubted you for a second," he replied, the grin on his face clearly evident in his voice.

They turned course back to the mall, making the rest of the trip in silence. As they approached they saw the other two Blackhawks already sitting on the roof of the mall. Coming in for a landing themselves, Briggs took note of the activity on the roof, the eight who'd been left behind were now scurrying along side with the crews of the helicopters loading supplies.

After landing and shutting down the Stallion's engines, Briggs disembarked after her own crew, heading towards where Masters and Henry stood. "Any trouble losing the other bird?"

"Bugged out, took off back to wherever it came from," Masters replied.

"Shit, they'll probably be heading this way in force soon," Briggs replied. She called the rest of the group over to where they stood and said, "As soon as we finish getting the supplies loaded we're getting out of here, waiting till morning is out of the question now."

"But what's the rush? It'll be dark soon, are we just going to fly all night?" Fran asked.

"Didn't the others tell you that we ran into some company out there?"

"They said you met two other helicopters, so what?" Fran said.

"Did they mention that they were armed and blew the hell out of the fuel depot?" Briggs countered. Judging from Fran's widening eyes she guessed that they'd withheld some of the details from them. "Listen people we're not playing games here. We took down one of the other helicopters, but the other one made it back to wherever they came from. That means they saw which general direction we were heading in, it's just a matter of time before they have search teams out this way. All they have to do is take one look at those things out there and they're gonna know that this is where we're hiding."

Peter placed an arm around Fran, "It's true Fran, we'd be better off leaving now."

"Any other arguments?" Briggs asked, looking around the group. "Good, get the last of these supplies loaded, then we'll load ourselves up and go. I want 6 people per helicopter for now, we'll adjust later if we need to."

"What about Chips?" Nicole called out in a quavering voice.

"The dog is your responsibility, if he runs off at any time, we leave him." Briggs turned on her heal and began loading bags onto the Stallion. Slowly, the others moved to join her finishing up the job. Shortly afterwards, the helicopters were moving into the air over the mall. Some of the passengers on board them all took long last looks at the place that had been their home for so many weeks as the helicopters began heading back towards the east.