Stephenie Meyer owns Twilight. I'm borrowing her characters, dressing them up in MARPAT, and giving them some guns.
Unbeta'd, unedited.
July 5
Deathstalker Terrorist Compound Yard
Somewhere West-Central Somalia, Along the Ethiopian Border
"Well, my friend, this should be interesting."
Flat on the ground, still eying that helo through his scope, Seth just managed to suppress the involuntary flinch. "Fuck, you're a sneaky son of a bitch."
Flashing the younger man a wide row of pearly whites, El'azar low-crawled up to the tall stand of grasses where the Delta pilot had set up shop, flipped up his NVGs, and studied the compound yard over the sights of an aggressive, compact X95 carbine. "I would hope so."
"No wonder you and Cullen are buddies." The lieutenant snorted a laugh, even as he tracked the soldier prowling right outside the helo's cockpit door. A half dozen others milled around the aircraft, scrambling under 203's growled directions. "I think you like this shit."
"Better than being bored," El'azar replied with a loose shrug, but Seth didn't miss the glint in the older man's eye. "But let's not get shot, eh?"
"Good plan, I like it."
The Israeli commander's shoulders shook as he thumbed toward the helo in the center of the yard. "Can you actually fly that thing?"
Making a quick adjustment to his optics, Seth thought for a second. "Probably."
"Your optimism is inspiring, Lieutenant."
"Nah, seriously, shouldn't be hard," the Delta said, squinting when one of the locals slipped behind the tail rotor and disappeared into the dark. "It's basically a wimpy Black Hawk… just, you know, French."
El'azar ducked his head and muffled a laugh. "Americans."
An arrogant brow cocked behind the grease paint, but his lips twitched. "Can you actually hit anything with that MAG?"
The grin El'azar shot him was positively feral. "Probably."
"Then, let's do this shit, yeah?" Glancing up to the western wall, Seth caught the flash of the Marine's muzzle along with its loud, accompanying crack! Instantly, out in the yard, one of the locals' knees buckled and hit the dirt with a strangled moan. He didn't get back up.
"Jazz, you got us?"
"Roger that, Scooby-doo," Jasper answered back, and then spat out a pissed off curse when a return volley peppered his concrete wall. "Just waitin' for a clear line to 203." Seth could almost taste the corporal's annoyance. "That fucker has a most uncanny way of stickin' behind walls and shit."
"Waitin' on your mark."
Reaching into a hip pouch, El'azar produced a compact pistol-grip grenade launcher, slotted it onto the bottom rail of his carbine, and threw a slim locking lever. When he noticed the pilot staring with toddler-like envy, he just grinned again and wagged his shaggy brows. "What? 203 isn't the only one with toys."
"You guys always have good shit."
"What can I say?" El'azar's low baritone came out almost like a purr as he simultaneously loaded an oblong high explosive cartridge into the launcher. "I like to be prepared."
Picking up that same local from before as he scurried back around the tail to 203, the Delta's nose scrunched. "I think you should let me borrow that."
"Fine," the major laughed again. "If you manage to get that bird off the ground and we don't die tonight, you can have it."
"Deal." One corner of Seth's lips curled up into a dark, dangerous smile that reminded El'azar all too well that he wasn't just some baby-faced soldier fresh out of the academy. No, despite his relatively few years and perpetually cheerful disposition, First Lieutenant Seth Clearwater was a force to be reckoned with, just like his Delta captain.
Moments later, Jasper's voice whispered in their earpieces, "Scooby, Lahav, 203 is approaching my line of sight." At once, the two men rose to low crouches. "Be advised, ever since that local came back, those Tangoes all look spooked. Don't know what's goin' on."
"Roger that." Seth looked over to the Israeli, who now observed the soldiers with a disturbing kind of clinical detachment – the kind a hawk might display as he circled rodent prey. "What do you make of that shit?"
El'azar watched 203's eyes progressively widen as the local continued his report. As the man shifted his rifle into a high ready, his grip tightened, turning his knuckles cadaver-white, and then he belted out a frantic order to a pair of European militants positioned at the nose of the helo. "It's either very good… or very, very bad for us."
The lieutenant pinned 203 through his optics, logging those same tells. "You thinkin' someone took out Aro?"
"Perhaps." The major nodded. "Or Walker. He's the martial powerhouse behind this organization. His demise would be catastrophic for them."
Seth spat to the side and said, "Maybe we'll get lucky and it's both."
"Indeed." Checking in with his team's progress one last time, El'azar glanced down at the thin, curved LCD screen strapped to his wrist and tapped the center. When the screen blinked to life, bringing up a dark, night-mode, blue on black schematic of the compound, a tiny red light pulsed in the corner. "In'al deenak!"
"Huh?"
Not answering the younger man, El'azar's forefinger punched the corner of the screen, pulling up a second view – this one another layout of the compound, but with a red beacon faintly and slowly blinking in the middle of the warehouse, dead-center. When Seth started to ask again, El'azar growled out another unintelligible curse and tapped his throat mike. "Tinkerbell, this is Lahav. Do you copy?"
There was a beat of white-noise static before Alice came back. "Go ahead, Lahav."
El'azar pinched the image and then expanded it. He hit the dot itself, bringing up a small, black and white table of coordinates and timestamps. "I am receiving an emergency signal."
"What?" Alice's voice came in like a punch and then in the background, Seth heard her shout a warning to Emmett.
"Emergency beacon," El'azar replied, short and succinct. "One I gave Dr. Swan weeks ago. She or someone else activated it."
"When?"
"Approximately forty-five minutes ago, about the time we blew the gate."
"Fuck!" The Marine shot an order to the pair of Delta snipers, high on the eastern ridge just outside the compound. A pair of deep, resounding thumps answered back, instantly silencing an unchecked machine gunner positioned on the northern wall by the laboratory. Another triplet of thuds followed, taking down another militant somewhere on the other side of one of the buildings. "Eli, can you tell where it's coming from?"
"The warehouse," El'azar said, double tapping the small red dot and pulling up yet another set of values. "Signal is very weak. It has to be coming from below the surface."
"Goddamnit, Blondie, take that motherfucker down!" Alice yelled. Before she could say another word, a double blast from a combat shotgun boomed inside the walls.
El'azar's gaze turned dark. "Tinkerbell, what is your position?"
"Getting ready to breach this fucking lab." A hail of gunfire drowned out the last part of her reply, and then the lieutenant huffed into her mike. "As soon as you're able, send me whoever you can spare. Get me perimeter support and we'll chase that beacon down the rabbit hole."
"Done." El'azar swapped over to Hebrew and sent out a barrage of terse commands to his junior officer. "They're on their way now."
Another pulse of static blared in their earpieces. "Wolf, do you copy?"
Somewhere to the northwest, there was an exchange of small arms fire. "Copy, that Tinkerbell."
"Did you catch that shit? What's your status?"
"Same as you," Jacob said. In the background, Seth caught Paul bellowing something to Jared. "One two five yards directly west. Outside the warehouse and getting ready for insertion."
"Be on the look-out for possible routes down. Inform if you see anything."
"You got it."
Beneath the grease paint, the Delta pilot's features turned grim as he glanced over to the Israeli commander. "You think that beacon's Doc? Or Ghost?"
El'azar spun through a dozen scenarios, none of them good. "I don't know."
High up on the western wall, Jasper stared through his scope, tracking 203 as the man paced back and forth, darting in and out of his sights. Bone-white already, the soldier somehow looked even paler, and between the nervous tick of the man's jaw and the grip on his rifle, Jasper guessed he was about thirty seconds from pissing himself. "Come on, asshole…" the corporal muttered under his breath. "Just a little more to the left."
The soldier paused again, this time right behind one of the tall, steel poles supporting the compound's blazing flood lights. Rocking back and forth, he slowly edged left and then back, and then left again. "Scooby," Jasper whispered as he positioned his reticle right on the outside edge of the steel pole, waiting for the second his target stepped into view. "Get ready to go."
A handful of seconds later, as he snarled something into his headset, 203's shoulder slid across Jasper's center line. As soon as his torso cleared the steel obstruction, the man's whole body jerked, however, as if he could feel the Marine's distant gaze. On instinct, he twisted, whipped his rifle up and to the right, and pointed straight to Jasper's position on the high wall.
As if in slow motion, the two men stared at each other through their scopes. Those nerves vanished, and wearing a vicious sneer, 203's sky blue eyes squinted, right as his finger curled around the front trigger of the undermounted grenade launcher.
"Nope." Jasper grinned a row of blacked out teeth. "Not today, motherfucker."
Jasper's first round screamed across the compound yard. The man flinched at the concussion, just enough that the round missed his chest and blew through his bicep, nearly shearing his arm off at the elbow and sending his rifle flying. Before 203 could spin back around, a second shot followed hot on its heels, nailing him straight through the eye.
The moment 203 hit the ground, Seth and El'azar leaped from behind the tall grasses and bolted across the wide, open yard toward the helo. Right at the mid-way point, a triplet of locals darted out from behind it, running straight for them.
In a fast, nimble move that would have made his sergeant first class proud, Seth abruptly pivoted right, spun on his heel, and reversed back left. Hurdling a stack of small-bore piping, he shot between two of the oncoming soldiers, simultaneously whipping his carbine around and firing a pair of rounds into the closest man's rag-tag armor. The soldier got off a single, wide shot before he crumpled to his knees. The second soldier fell with a round from El'azar's X95, and a pair of deeper thumps from the eastern ridge took out the third.
"Careful, Scoobs!" Embry laughed into his mike. "Captain finds out you can actually run, you'll be stuck on the ground with us!"
Not even bothering to turn, Seth threw up a middle finger right as he launched himself through the open cockpit door.
A beat later, El'azar dove into the cabin, immediately bouncing up and targeting the side-mounted 60-30. "Let's go, let's go!"
Inside the cockpit, a dozen green and yellow indicators instantly flickered to life as Seth began flipping the switches for the fuel and the main generator, cursing as he sorted through the unfamiliar controls. Within moments, just as soon as fuel hit the twin powerplants, barely out of the red zone, the high-pitched whine of the turbines lit off. After a long, tense thirty seconds of warm-up, the rotors finally slanted and began a slow, steady clockwise rotation. Over his shoulder, as the blades picked up speed, the pilot yelled above the noise. "You might wanna hold on, Major. I'm skippin' some shit, so this won't be pretty!"
El'azar just laughed as he loaded a long brass belt into the MAG.
As soon as the RPMs hit the minimum, Seth threw the throttle completely wide, lifted the collective, and began adjusting the pitch of the rotors until he had just enough lift to get off the ground. The aircraft shuddered at the abuse, but slowly, ever so slowly lifted off its wheels. As they rose, sand and debris blew out in a wide halo, blasting the handful of militants who raced toward them.
"Fucking fuck!" Seth grumbled, scrambling to adjust as the nose tipped forward. "Backward-ass system… fucking French!"
Before they were twenty feet off the ground, completely unperturbed by the rough bucking of the helo, El'azar swept the MAG around. Taking aim at the line of soldiers approaching, rifles raised, he sent down a wide, repeating volley of high-powered rounds, taking the men down like dominos. Below the helo, hot spent brass dropped like rain, and the entire yard filled with screams and the stench of smoke and gunpowder.
They settled into a low, slowly rotating hover over the compound yard. As they swung around to move north toward the warehouse and the lab, El'azar picked up the glint of movement along the top of the far southern wall, right by the gate.
"Scooby, we got incoming!" the major shouted, right as two pulses of light blinked.
Twin 40mm rockets shrieked toward them. At the last possible second, Seth yanked the controls, tilting the helo in a dizzying, evasive maneuver that had El'azar grabbing for anything he could find to hold on. The rockets shot past, just missing the rotors, and exploded high above.
"Oh, no, you did not!" Seth growled, swinging the bird around again and simultaneously flipping a pair of switches. In the center LCD, a crosshair appeared over the infrared imaging, where he could see the red on black shapes of a pair of soldiers with RPGs on their shoulders sitting on top of the distant wall. The Delta threw another switch, opening the right axial pod. Not giving them a chance to reload, he hit a button and launched two of the 70mm high explosive rockets straight at the southern wall beneath them.
Back-to-back explosions rocked the entire compound, taking out the gates along with half the entire southern wall.
A hundred yards to the northeast, Rosalie shouldered her Benelli and eased up to the heavy steel door at the front of the laboratory. "Well, that sounded promising," she muttered, swiping a heavy line of sweat off the back of her neck. Something darker came away, staining the suede fingertips of her gloves, evidence of shrapnel she'd not even noticed.
Positioned on the opposite side with his heavier round 240B already up and ready, Emmett snorted. "You think?"
The gunny rolled her bright blue eyes before motioning to their pilot and interim commander. "What's the call?"
Alice frowned and scanned the deep shadows behind them, searching for more of the seemingly endless supply of militants. Three darted from a stack of crates to a thick concrete pillar. Another two disappeared behind a small storage shed. Their movements were jerky, uncoordinated, and worse, unpredictable.
Jazz was on to something, she thought, eying another as he ducked behind a dented steel container. Something had happened a few minutes ago, and where these soldiers had been moving with some kind of loose organization, now there was nothing but chaos.
Within moments of the larger explosions, Alice smiled as she picked up the loud, approaching wop-wop-wop! of Seth's newest acquisition. As the dove gray helo cleared the rows of office buildings and loomed above, gusts of warm wind and debris pummeled the yard. Barely over the noise, she heard El'azar bellowing something to the Delta, and then without warning, as the pilot settled the aircraft into a smooth, low hover, the Israeli commander sent a violent hail of rounds into the shadows beneath the building just south of them.
Men poured out of the small, dark space, bloodied, screaming, and running as fast as their boots would carry them. But out in the open yard with the compound's white lights streaming down, El'azar may as well have been shooting fish in a barrel, and with the helo's firepower and angle, the Israeli took them down far faster than boots on the ground.
"Now that's more like it," Emmett yelled, watching another trio of locals go down. When the bird tilted, the big man grinned and threw the Israeli commander and Delta pilot an enthusiastic thumb's up. "Oo-fuckin'-rah!"
Just as soon as the yard cleared, Seth navigated the helo west toward the warehouse. Almost on cue, static pulsed in Alice's earpiece, followed by a quiet, lightly accented tenor. "Tinkerbell, this is Ra'am. Do you copy?"
"Copy that, Ra'am. What's your position?"
El'azar's slim, dark-eyed, twenty-something lieutenant came back a beat later. "Other side of the northern-most office building, getting ready to join you." He chuffed a laugh. "Just didn't want to get shot by your gunnery sergeant."
Alice's lips mashed at the subtle, approving gleam in the blonde's eyes. "Roger that, come on."
No more than thirty seconds later, six men in dark, olive drab fatigues and heavy armor prowled across the yard in a loose V-formation, carbines up and scanning and moving as silent as death itself. Once they hit the laboratory, in perfect unison, they fanned out and took position on either side of the Marines, just waiting for the go ahead.
"Ben," Alice said, nodding to the Israeli lieutenant who slid in behind her and, who according to the captain, was a damn-near wizard when it came to engineering and demolition. "How's your team?"
"Metzuyanim." Dropping a mean-looking carbine into a low ready, Segen Benjamin Levy – second in command, expert marksman, and explosives specialist – gave her a small, almost mischievous smile. "This is proving an excellent training opportunity."
Emmett buried a laugh in his elbow. "I like him."
Throwing the staff sergeant a flat, unamused glare, Rosalie muttered under her breath, "Surrounded by fucking crazy people."
"Alright," Alice cut in when Emmett would have countered. "Captain entered here." She looked back to Benjamin. "We go in together. Once we've cleared the main area, you and your team will secure and hold the lab." Adjusting her rifle, she motioned to the two Marines. "Blondie, Bear-man, as quickly as possible, we need to locate that route down and see if we can get to that beacon."
Benjamin gave her a quick nod. "Do you have the map with the signal coordinates? Rav Seren Dayan had me transmit it to you directly." Eying the yard and the shadows beyond, he added, "The signal is in real-time and is still active, but you may lose it once you're below the rock layer."
Pulling a thin, palm-sized tablet from her front pouch, Alice tapped the screen, opening the navy on black schematic with the pulsing red dot in its center. "Got it."
The Israeli's chin dipped again. "B'Hatzlacha."
"You, too." Wearing a hard, no-nonsense expression that rivaled her commander's, Alice turned and signaled Rosalie. With a quick check back to the yard and the distant wall, the gunny eased forward in tandem with the staff sergeant on the other side of the door.
"One… Two… Go!"
At once, in a seamless, well-choreographed move they'd perfected over the years, Emmett's big boot kicked in the door. Just as soon as it banged open, he ducked low and shot to the left, targeting the nearest row of black-topped benches. Right on his heels, combat shotgun up and ready, Rosalie went right, followed by Alice and the half dozen Israeli soldiers.
Just like the Deltas' recon photos had shown, Aro's laboratory stood in stark contrast to the rest of the compound. Bright, almost violet light lit every nook and cranny. Parallel rows of pristine, smooth, obsidian benches filled the space, topped with beige and gray boxes that spit out low, resonating hums. LCD screens glowed in shades of green and orange. Deeper inside sat a copy of that clear double-interlock hood from the desert. Recalling all too well the ferocious burn and nausea caused by that godforsaken stolen agent, Emmett scowled at its general direction.
But… the lab was empty – not a single sign of those militants or Aronović.
Without making a sound, sucking in the bright, biting scent of solvents and cleaners, Alice held up her hand. For a few seconds, she stood and studied the empty room, watching and listening for that other shoe to drop. Then, with a quick, wordless command to Rosalie, the gunnery sergeant began slinking her way to far right-hand wall and the narrow pathway between the benches and a head-high set of steel storage cabinets.
On the other side of the room, Emmett copied her movements, taking the route to the left-hand wall. Silent as a church mouse, with the trailing Israelis covering the back, Alice took center.
At the fourth row of long, black benches, Rosalie's fist shot in the air. A shiver skated across her awareness – an oh-so-light tickle that raised the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Slowly, she glanced to the left and then back to toward the wall, lingering on the tall, narrow steel cabinets. Still in a way that few could ever achieve, she listened and after a long, tense moment, she finally caught the faintest hint of air wheezing in and out of a person's lungs. She held up a single finger, signaling the rest of the room.
Back plastered to the adjacent cabinet door, Rosalie reached across to the knob with her left hand and jerked it wide.
"S'il vous plait! Ne tirez pas!"
Cowering at the bottom of the cabinet with his arms tightly wrapped around his body, a too-thin, fifty-something man in a white coat trembled and shook. "Please," he repeated in heavily accented English. "Don't shoot me!"
Taking a step back, Rosalie analyzed the man over the top of her shotgun and cocked a sculpted brow. After a second, seeing no sign of weapon or explosive but instead the heavy scarring of torture and abuse, she eased her weapon down. "Who are you?" she asked. "What are you doing in here?"
"Prisoner. Prisoner like Dr. Swan," the man rushed, stuttering and petrified. When Rosalie didn't respond, he looked up, flinching at the proximity of her shotgun, and licked his lips in nervous agitation. "The man… the man in black – the other American soldier – he told me to hide and wait for his team. This is you, no?"
The gunnery sergeant's expression turned frigid and her voice cracked like a whip. "When was this?"
The man flinched again. "Forty-five minutes, an hour, I do not know." As Alice and Benjamin approached, his eyes flitted back and forth between the three before finally pointing at the arsenal strapped to Rosalie's chest and legs. "He had guns like yours." His throat bobbed. "He asked if I knew where Dr. Swan was kept."
"Which way did he go?" Alice asked, softer when she saw the blackened stubs where his fingers should have been and the plum-black bruises littering the man's sallow complexion. His cheeks caved in when he spoke, and what little hair he had was lank, pointing to untold weeks of malnutrition and starvation.
"They kept her somewhere below." The scientist jabbed a mangled finger toward the back of the lab and to the mouth of a long, dark hallway. "That way there are stairs. I told this to the soldier in black."
Rosalie's eyes shot to Alice's. "What about the other soldiers – the bad ones. Ones with arm bands?"
"No." The man shook his head. "None since the explosions started."
Turning slightly, Alice quickly motioned to Benjamin. As he nodded and answered the Marine's unspoken request, the Israeli's grim expression softened with something like pity. "We have the lab and will care for this one. You go, find Captain Cullen and Dr. Swan."
July 5
Underneath the Deathstalker Terrorist Compound
Somewhere West-Central Somalia, Along the Ethiopian Border
"Jazz was right."
Fighting tears that wouldn't stop falling, Bella gently wiped the rest of the grease paint off the captain's forehead. When she went to refold the rag, red, angry splotches stained the once-white cloth. Beneath them, the cold concrete had turned crimson, too, slick with blood and all the things she didn't want to think about. The cavern looked a slaughterhouse, or something out of a horror movie.
"How's that?" she whispered as her fingertips ghosted down the side of Edward's face, rasping against days-old stubble.
"You can't follow orders for shit."
Sluggish and delirious, Edward's eyes rolled to the left, where he could just make out the body sprawled out an arm's length away.
Half of Walker's skull was missing, blown away by the close-range round fired at the last possible instant, when the man had shifted, ever so slightly, just enough that Bella's bullet skimmed past Edward's ear and into the man's head.
Instead of taking the easier shot he'd ordered her to take – the one that would have guaranteed her safety.
Just like that first day on El'azar's range in the Negev.
Edward coughed a gasping, gurgling laugh, wincing at the spasms that rocked his entire upper body. "I'm so," he coughed again, and this time blood choked his windpipe and his chest seized when he tried to suck in a breath of air. "I'm so pissed off at you… He'd have killed you if you'd missed."
"Later… yell at me later." Hot, fat tears trailed down Bella's chin and dripped to his cheeks, and her dark gaze chased every feature, watching with despair as that warm tan continued to morph into a sickening, bluish gray.
The blood just wouldn't stop spilling, no matter how tightly she wound the bandages, and despite the attempts she'd made to seal the bubbling, sucking wounds on his back, his breathing was increasingly shallow and strained. He'd already lost consciousness once, brought back from the brink only when she'd clamped her mouth to his and forced the air into his lungs.
"Fuck, this is so bad."
"It's okay," Edward said, so softly she could barely make out the words. His hand, slick with his own blood, lifted off his abdomen, just enough to thread his fingers between hers. His skin was clammy and cold to the touch, and when he squeezed her with what little strength he had, his eyelids slid shut. "Don't cry. Everything's going to be fine."
"No! No, no, no!" she yelled, crushing and shaking the hand that held hers. Leaning over, Bella cradled his head against her stomach and pressed her lips to his. "Edward, come on. Don't close your eyes. Don't you dare go to sleep." She shook him again. "You have to stay awake. You have to stay with me."
Another sharp, agonizing breath locked his muscles. "You need to get moving. Find a way up top."
"I'm not leaving you here."
His eyes – bleary, flat, and bloodshot – shot wide and for a long second, they roamed her face with an intensity that made her heart ache. His lips turned up into a small smile that temporarily softened the harsh lines etched by pain. "Bella, listen to me…"
"No, stop it right now," she said, angrily wiping her face. "I'm not leaving you."
"You ha–" The words died on his lips as another wracking cough shook his body. The captain's chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths that came nowhere close to delivering enough oxygen. Moments later, his ribcage sank and he stilled.
"No!"
Sheer, unadulterated panic coursed through Bella's veins and shoved her up on her knees. Frantic, she grabbed his wrist and placed two fingers on his pulse, forcing herself to calm enough that she could hear.
Silence.
Nothing, not even the whisper of a heartbeat.
"Damn you, Edward Cullen!" Bella screamed, threading her fists together and slamming them down on his sternum in the hard, repeating rhythm she'd learned way back in college, never mind the screeching agony in her left that made her want to pass out. "Don't you dare die on me! Don't you leave me alone with these dead people, not after everything we've gone through! Not after we won!" Pinching his nose, she tipped his chin down, fitted her mouth to his, and filled his lungs. "Open your eyes right the fuck now! Do you hear me?"
It felt like an eternity passed like that, an endless repetition of compressions and breaths before he finally – finally – jerked back to life. Sweat rolled down Bella's temples, mingling with tears of fear, frustration, and bitter sadness. Her shoulders ached. Her hand throbbed. But none of that mattered, and the second she saw him staring back up at her, she was the one gasping.
"Let's not do that again," she said as she combed shaking fingers through his hair. "Okay?"
Edward tried to reply, but when his lips wouldn't seem to move, he just gave her a minute dip of his chin
At some point later, without warning, a quiet, foreign noise hit Bella's ears.
The air – still smoky and gray and tasting like grated metal – instantly electrified, pricking every one of her frayed nerves, and when she caught the light rattle of armor and scuff of rubber against stone, her stomach took a sharp, nauseating nosedive.
Steeling her spine, Bella lifted a finger to her lips and laid her bandaged hand on Edward's shoulder when he tried to rise. Slowly, careful not to make a sound, she reached across the concrete to grab the captain's sidearm, and with sharp, shaky movements, eased out from under him and raised the weapon toward the mouth of the stairs.
Almost in slow motion, a matte-black combat shotgun slid around the edge of the opening, followed by that all-too-familiar pattern of beige and brown.
Relief surged through Bella's limbs, so hard and so fast, it made her dizzy. Her knees buckled and she stumbled back down to the concrete.
"Here!" Bella yelled, right as the gunnery sergeant's cutting gaze scanned the open cavern and landed on her. "We're here." Swallowing past the knot in her throat, she choked out a shaky, "You have to help him!"
The next few seconds roared past in a blinding display of motion and speed. Before Bella had even finished, instantly pinpointing his commander on the ground, heedless of whoever might still be in the cavern, Emmett barreled past Rosalie and raced across the open space between them. He slid down on his knees on the other side of the captain and threw down his rifle and pack.
"Captain?" Emmett asked, hands already moving and probing. "Captain, can you hear me?"
Edward's eyes rolled back and his head lolled to the side.
"Fuck," the staff sergeant growled, motioning to Rosalie. "Get me everything. Right now." He jabbed a finger at Walker and glanced over at Alice. "And get that motherfucker's body away from here so I can work."
Emmett turned to their glassy-eyed scientist, who held on to Edward's hand like a lifeline. "Doc, I need you to tell me what happened."
Nodding, Bella swallowed back bile. "Shot to the abdomen, right side. He said it was a… small caliber." Pointing over to Victoria and to the black sidearm nearby, she added, "It didn't exit. I checked and tried to stop the bleeding. When he and Walker fought, it opened up and just wouldn't stop."
She gulped again. "Walker stabbed him multiple times in the back with some kind of awful combat knife. I couldn't get the wounds to stop bubbling. He can't breathe."
"CPR?"
Bella nodded, and tears streaked down her face. And when she said the next part, her hand spasmed around Edward's. "He wanted me to shoot him to take down Walker. I couldn't." Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip hard enough to break skin. "Emmett, please don't let him die."
Emmett grumbled something under his breath before again calling over to the gunnery sergeant who wore a pissed off expression that could light the world on fire. "Blondie, get his legs. I gotta logroll him."
Without a hint of argument, Rosalie fell to her knees beside him, and they gently rolled the captain to his side and cut half of his flight suit away. Once she backed away, Emmett studied the makeshift dressings Bella had attempted – nothing more than thin plastic cards and tape, but enough to suction down and stop the worst of that awful hissing and bubbling.
"Gimme two Bolins," Emmett ordered Rosalie as he ripped off the tape and began carefully cleaning the oozing wounds. They were deep, jagged, vicious, and gurgling, but the Marine didn't even flinch. Right as he finished, the gunny held out a pair of palm-sized opaque discs. Without looking away from his work, he said to Bella, "You did good, Doc. Those cards and tape were fast thinking."
As they rolled him back over, Emmett's gaze finally lifted and circled the cavern, momentarily pausing on the massive ICBMs in the center and then on the bodies littering the floor. His jaw dropped. "Fuck. Me."
"Told you… a long time ago…" Edward rasped. "I like hair."
"Jesus Christ, Edward…" Not wasting a second, Emmett reached into his pack, pulled out another plastic package, and ripped it open. "You got too much pressure in your cavity. I gotta decompress you."
Edward's eyes slid shut as he felt those familiar large but very careful hands probing his ribcage, pinpointing the hollow space between his second and third ribs. For a split second, the years spun backward, and he was once again on the ice-cold floor of that godawful cave in the White Mountains, starving, dehydrated, and a mess of sweat, infections, and blood.
His lips curved into faint smile, remembering that day all-too-well. Repeating the same line he'd given the big man so many years ago, he whispered, "Do your worst, Staff Sergeant."
When the large diameter needle and catheter punched through his skin and into the pleural space, Edward winced, but within seconds, as the captured air vented, the nearly unbearable tension that felt like a cinderblock sitting on his heart and lungs slowly eased off.
Without waiting a beat, Emmett yanked a bag of clear, viscous liquid out of his pack and set up a temporary IV. "Hold this," he said to Rosalie, and then he began wrapping another, higher compression bandage around Edward's middle. "Captain, that round's going to have to stay until we can get back to the carrier. You want ketamine?"
Edward didn't answer, his head once again lolling back into unconsciousness.
"Shit."
Behind them, Alice asked softly, "How much blood has he lost?"
Grimacing, Emmett looked down at the man who'd saved his ass more times than he could count and then over his shoulder to the lieutenant. "I don't know." He shook his head. "At least 40%. We need to get out of here now."
Alice nodded and with a quick command to Rosalie, sprinted back toward the stairs.
"Let's go, Blondie," Emmett said, shrugging on his pack and slinging his rifle across his back. Bending at the waist, he threw Edward's limp arm over his shoulder, and as if he were weightless, the big man rose to his feet, lifting the captain along with him. "I got him. You just balance him and keep him upright. I don't want to fuck those seals up." He turned to Bella, scowling at the bruises that colored her jawline and then even more at the hand wrapped and held tight to her chest. "You okay to move?"
"I'm fine," Bella rushed, scrambling to her feet, incapable of looking away from the captain slumped against Emmett's side. "Don't worry about me. Is he going to–"
From somewhere high in the stairwell, Alice's voice echoed down. "Think I got an out!"
At once they began the halting trek out of the cavern and up the rough-cut stairs, moving just as fast as they could with the unconscious man sagging between the sergeants. As soon as they hit the top, Alice materialized from around a corner at the far end of the dimly lit, angled corridor, cursing into her throat mike.
"Wolf, say again," she snapped, holding her palm over her ear and looking up at the rocky, craggy ceiling straight above them, right where the warehouse and Deltas should be. "I need that fucking exit!"
Static blasted her earpiece and with the interference from the thick rock walls and ceiling, the Delta captain's voice dropped in and out. "Tinkerbell, ware… clear. I say again… house is clear."
"Roger that." Alice motioned them forward, toward a narrow intersection and a dark, fifty-yard passageway that ran directly west. "Relay message to Scooby we need an emergency evac."
Jacob's response came hard and fast, cutting through the static. "Who?"
"Ghost."
"Fuck." Jacob yelled something to Jared or Paul. "West side… Stairs at the far end… We'll pop the door."
Alice's dark gaze slid from the three Marines to Bella, who had the captain's .45 out and ready, as if she'd been a soldier all her life. "B, you're with me. You watch my back. I think the exit point it this way."
Minutes felt like hours as they traversed the long, dark maze of corridors and passageways, doubling back more than once when they hit dead ends. At some point along the way, a harsh, wheezing breath of air broke the silence, and the two sergeants immediately stopped.
"Edward?" Emmett said, lowering the captain just enough to ease some of the pressure. Red seeped through the layers of compression bandages and ran down his bare skin into the waistband of his ripped apart flight suit.
Dark and unfocused, Edward's eyes chased Emmett's movements. "Where is she?"
"Doc's fine, Captain," the staff sergeant said, glancing over to Bella as he repositioned his hold. "You got her out. She's right here."
Edward's eyes slid shut again and he nodded in quiet relief.
On his other side, Rosalie added, "You took 'em all down, too."
A single shake of his head and a harsh, grating laugh came out. Edward's torso convulsed, sending air hissing out of the catheter punched through his side. "Bella… got Walker."
For a moment, the gunnery sergeant just stared at their wide-eyed scientist, who looked like she'd been beaten to hell yet who squared her shoulders and looked at their captain like he'd hung the moon. Like so many weeks ago deep in the Iranian mountains, the two women shared a split second of bone-deep understanding. One side of Rosalie's mouth curled up, recalling the near-perfect headshot that tore Walker's skull wide open. "Fucking right, she did."
As they began moving once more, Emmett muttered to Edward, "Captain, just so you know, I'm gettin' tired of carryin' your scrawny ass out of caves in shitty-ass places… You need to stop that superman shit."
"Noted…" Right before he passed out again, Edward's shoulders shook with weak, wheezy laughter. "I'll do better next time."
.
.
.
Notes:
Regarding military helicopter operation, these machines are complicated. A pre-take-off check can take several minutes (30-45 minutes) and involve literally a hundred-plus different items to check off. In emergency situations, from what I've read, it's possible to go from power-up to lift-off in about 2 minutes, plus/minus. Seth, like Alice, is obviously a badass pilot. ;)
Also, regarding Seth saying the Caracal was backward and grumbling about the French, US helicopter rotors universally spin counterclockwise. French helicopters spin clockwise. Going from one to another would require the pilot to make some adjustments to their usual operation of the controls… kind of like an American having to learn to drive in the UK, but worse.
Arabic (transliterated):
In'al deenak: approximately "damn it" [Note: Arabic curses are commonplace in Israeli military settings]
Hebrew (transliterated):
Ra'am: thunder
Metzuyanim: excellent/outstanding
Segen: literally, deputy; equivalent to first lieutenant
B'Hatzlacha: good luck
French:
S'il vous plait: please
Ne tirez pas: don't shoot
Glossary:
Bolin: Bolin Chest Seals are wound dressings for treating sucking chest wounds caused by gunshots, stab wounds, or other penetrating chest trauma, which often result in a collapsed lung (aka pneumothorax). They are specifically designed to prevent tension pneumothorax (see further below). They're approximately 6" diameter plastic discs with valves in the center and look a lot like a suction cup. They work by allowing air and blood to escape while preventing the re-entry of either into the chest cavity.
Collective: one of the three main "steering" controls in a helicopter. The cyclic is the control that looks like a joystick and is often positioned between the pilot's legs. It moves the helicopter forward, backward, sideways, etc. The collective is a lever on the left-hand side. It kind of looks like an emergency brake in a car. It controls vertical movement and adjusts the pitch of the blades. The third main control is the anti-torque foot pedals, which controls the tail and yaw rate. When taking off or hovering, the pilot must manipulate all three of these, and it takes a good bit of balancing to get enough lift to overcome gravity.
Ketamine: medication used in anesthesia and in battlefield casualty care for moderate to severe pain management. The distinguishing features of ketamine anesthesia are preserved breathing and airway reflexes, stimulated heart function with increased blood pressure, and moderate bronchodilation.
Tension pneumothorax: (which, by the way, was what was happening to Edward) is a severe, life-threatening condition that results when air becomes trapped in the pleural space under positive pressure. The pressure prevents the non-collapsed, remaining lung from expanding properly, causing respiratory distress. The trachea and other structures of the chest can also be pushed away from the pneumothorax, leading to increased difficulty breathing. Additionally, the increased pressure inside the chest can compress the heart and lead to a collapse of the blood vessels. If left untreated, tension pneumothorax can rapidly progress to cardiovascular collapse, which ultimately leads to cardiac arrest. In a field/combat situation, the fastest course of relieving the life-threatening pressure is to puncture the pleural cavity with a large gauge needle/catheter to allow the pressure to escape.
Powerplant / turbine: basically, the engine in a helicopter
RPM: revolutions per minute, basically how fast something is spinning.
X95: or IWI X95, is a lightweight, compact Israeli bullpup (design where action is located behind the trigger rather than in front of it) assault rifle designed and produced by Israel Weapon Industries (IWI) as part of the Tavor rifle family. It's a very flexible weapon, available in a variety of configurations (barrel lengths, grips, etc) and can be chambered for multiple calibers. The X-95 is commonly chambered in either 5.56×45mm NATO or .300 AAC Blackout. The weapon can also accommodate an undermounted the 40 x 46mm GL40 single shot grenade launcher.