Her Brother's Keeper - eARC (38 page)

Wade shot his team leader a thumbs-up. Marcus nodded, indicated forward with a hand signal, and the team of mercenaries was on the move.

Devree Starlighter’s calm soprano voice crackled in Marcus’ earpiece. “I’m scanning on thermal, can’t see you.”

“There are structures in the way. We came up behind the dome-shaped building. How’s it look?”

“They’re running around like crazy down there,” Markgraf answered. “I’m watching through binos and the drone feed. Dozens of people running around, most of them armed—Lang’s militia. All the noncombatants seem to be hunkering down inside. They’re trying to put the fires out, treating the wounded. I count at least six guards around the target building.”

“You want another volley?” Devree asked.

“Negative,” Marcus said. “Not going to risk killing noncombatants if we don’t have to. Stand by. Cowboy-Six out.”

The team stacked up on Marcus as he peeked around a corner. In order to get to the building Cecil was in, they’d have to cross the main thoroughfare of Lang’s Burg. “Shit,” he snarled quietly.

“Mother-humping skags are everywhere,” Wade agreed. “In the street, on the roof. How you wanna do this?”

“I’m calling in the heavy. War Wagon, this is Cowboy-Six, you copy?”

“Aye,” Halifax said. “You ready for us?”

“Roger. We need to draw the crowd away from the target building.”

“Understood. I’m ready.”

“We’ll cover you,” Devree said.

“I appreciate that, lass,” Halifax said. “The heavy is moving.” Just outside the gates of Lang’s Burg, a large cargo truck donated by the Orlov refugees was waiting. Hidden in its tall cargo bay was Benjamin Halifax in his powered armor suit, crouched down, with the primary engine turned off. The truck was self-piloting, so as not to risk any more people than necessary. Merchant vehicles, delivering goods and services, crisscrossed the wastelands of Zanzibar constantly, and did plenty of business with towns occupied by Lang’s army. An unmanned truck would have raised suspicion, but its approach had been timed to coincide with the attack. The gates to Lang’s Burg were locked down, and no one was paying attention to the lone truck stuck outside.

That is, until Halifax made himself known. Monitoring the feed from the aerial drone, Marcus watched as the hulking powered armor suit pushed itself off the bed of the truck and stood up, tearing through the nylon cover. The truck’s suspension compressed as the armor stepped off and landed on the ground. Stepping around the vehicle, it fired off a pair of high explosive rockets at the main gate.

“I’m coming in,” Halifax said tersely. Marcus acknowledged, watching the massive suit run toward the hole in the gate and use a manipulator claw to make the hole big enough for it to enter through. Once inside, it opened fire with its machine gun, rockets, and plasma gun, and hell came to Lang’s Burg.

“He’s through,” Marcus said to his team. The guards on the target building kept to their posts despite Halifax’s rampage.
Their funeral.
“Wade, Ken, you two pop smoke to cover us. Then we’ll move.”

Wade nodded. He and Tanaka stepped forward, smoke grenades at the ready. It was easy to be sneaky amongst the chaos engulfing the town. Simultaneously, they tossed the grenades into the street ahead, filling the air with even more smoke than there had already been.

Marcus keyed his radio mic. “Overwatch, we’re assaulting the building. Fire at will.”

“Roger,” Devree said. A few seconds later, the militiaman on the roof’s chest burst open as a high explosive, armor piercing round tore through it. His mutilated body tumbled over the edge of the roof and plummeted to the street below.

The two men by the door looked stupidly at the corpse before them. Marcus snapped off a three-round burst, killing the one on the left while Wade fired a single, well-placed 8mm APHE round and dropped the one on the right. “Move, move, move!” Marcus ordered.

Halfway across the street, bullets began snapping through the smoke like angry hornets. “Contact left!” Hondo shouted, taking a knee and bringing up his 8mm machine gun. The heavy weapon roared in the narrow street, sending a stream of bullets in the direction of the incoming fire. Halifax’s heavy armor suit rounded the corner, flanking the position the fire had been coming from. With a brilliant, blue-white
FWASH
, he fired his suit’s plasma gun. Men screamed and metal burned as his weapon found its mark.

Marcus, Wade, and Ken scrambled to the front entrance to the structure, a metal door at street level. It was locked, but Wade was placing a breaching charge even before Marcus told him to. The demolitions expert snapped his head up in surprise when Tanaka fired off a burst from his carbine, but went right back to what he was doing. “Ready!” he said. “Get back!”

* * *

Confused and terrified, Cecil huddled against the wall of the upstairs common room, away from the windows, with Bianca in his arms. Out of nowhere, half of Lang’s Burg had exploded and was on fire. Now there was gunfire coming from right outside, men were shouting, and it was chaos in the streets. Three of the men guarding him had rushed into the building and locked the doors behind him. They were downstairs, clutching their weapons nervously. Cecil was staying up on the fourth floor, where his living quarters were. Gunshots rang out from below. In their near-panic, convinced that someone was trying to get inside, the guards were firing through the walls of the ground level.

Cecil’s handheld vibrated in his pocket.
What?
Keeping an arm around Bianca, who was squeezing him so tightly he could barely breathe, he retrieved his mobile device and tapped the screen. There was one text message from an unknown sender:
They’re coming to take you to your sister. Get ready to move.

Cecil’s eyes went wide. “Bianca!” he said excitedly. “Get—”
BOOM!
Cecil’s ears popped as something exploded downstairs. The whole building shook, showering him with dust.

“Cecil, what happening?” Bianca cried as gunfire echoed through the building.

“Get ready to run, love!” Cecil said, trying to sound courageous. “This is our chance!”

“I don’t undastand!” she said. “Run where?”

“Away from here!” he shouted, standing up. He pulled the terrified woman to her feet. “Come on, this is our only chance! We’ve got to—” Cecil froze, looking down the barrel of a pistol.

“Oh no, rich boy,” a burly militiaman said. “I think you go nowhere.” He held a clunky weapon in his right hand. His left was covering a bleeding wound on his neck. His goggles were cracked. “You gon run? You gon run from Mista Lang?” He raised the weapon to eye level.

“No!” Bianca screamed, pulling away from Cecil. She flung herself at the guard. Cecil tried to stop her, but it was too late. She grabbed the gun, pulled downward, and a shot rang out. In shock, horrified, paralyzed, Cecil watched as Bianca fell, seemingly in slow motion. Her hands moved to cover the wound in her abdomen. She collapsed to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut, blood oozing out of the wound.

The militiaman gazed down at her for a second with a confused look on his face. His dark eyes met Cecil’s, and he raised the gun again. Cecil was frozen, unable to move, staring helplessly at Bianca.

BRRAAP!
A stream of bullets ripped through the guard from the side. He went limp and flopped to the floor, dropping the weapon with a clatter. Before Cecil could even react, a trio of armed men poured into the room, weapons raised, checking all the angles. They were dressed out in brownish-tan mottled camouflage fatigues, armor, helmets, respirators, and smart goggles.

“Clear!” the lead announced.

“Clear,” the other said, checking to the right.

“Clear!” the third man, taller than the other two, agreed. He covered the doorway they’d come in from.

Ignoring the newcomers, Cecil regained control of his body and ran to Bianca. He dropped to his knees and slid to a stop at her side, eyes wide, staring helplessly at the wound. She was still conscious, still alive, and her dark eyes met his. Her lips moved as she tried to speak, but Cecil shushed her. “Don’t talk!” he said. “I’m…I’m going to fix you! “Just—”

“Cecil Blackwood?” one of the camouflaged men asked. Cecil looked up at him, in shock. The man had lowered his weapon, but still struck an imposing figure. “I’m here to take you home.”

Cecil shook his head. “You’ve got to help her!” he shouted, placing his hands on Bianca’s wound. There was so much blood! “Please, she’s going to die!”

“We have to go, now!” the man said, looking around. “Come on!”

“I’m not leaving without her!” Cecil shouted, wondering just how much clout he had with the three armed men who had just killed all of his guards. “Please!”

The man swore aloud, then turned to the shorter of his two teammates. “Ken, help her. Stabilize her for transport. Halifax,” he said, apparently talking into a radio, “Sitrep!”

As the team leader listened to his radio, the man named Ken slung his weapon behind his back and retrieved a medical kit. His face was hidden behind a respirator and goggles, but he sounded reassuring all the same. “Abdominal wound,” he said, stating the obvious. He dug through his kit and retrieved an emergency wound seal. “Missed the spine. If I can stop the bleeding, we can move her. We’ll treat her on the ship.” He ripped open the package the seal came in. “Lift up her shirt.”

Cecil did as he was told, lifting up Bianca’s blood-soaked shirt to expose the wound. Ken wiped off the smeared blood with a sterile cloth, then placed the wound seal over the hole in Bianca’s midsection. She cried out in agony as he pressed it against her, her eyes pleading with Cecil, but it needed to be done. “Hold here,” Ken said, nodding at the seal. “Keep pressure on it. Make sure the seal is good.” As Cecil kept pressure on his lover’s wound, Ken retrieved an auto injector, pulled off the cap, and jammed it into Bianca’s thigh. “This will help with the pain, keep her from going into hypovolemic shock. She won’t be able to walk. Can you carry her?”

“How far?”

“As far as necessary! Can you carry her or not?”

“I can!” Cecil insisted. “I’ll carry her! Thank…thank you.”

“Is she ready to go?” the leader of the trio asked. Ken nodded in reply. “Good. We’ve been here too long. Come on, Mr. Blackwood, it’s time to get the hell out of here.”

“Bloody well don’t have to tell me twice!” Cecil said, grunting as he picked Bianca up in his arms. “Let’s go!”

* * *

“They’re coming out,” Markgraf said, watching the chaos below through his binoculars. Hondo and Halifax were covering the front entrance as the rest of the team came out. Much of the resistance had given up, afraid to tangle with the powered armor.

“Overwatch, Cowboy-Six,” Marcus said over the radio. “Egressing now, package in tow. Cover us until we get to the truck if you can. Relay all to the ship. How copy?”

“Overwatch copies!” Devree said excitedly. “You need to hurry, Cowboy-Six. The drone has spotted a convoy of fourteen vehicles inbound from the south, ETA ten mikes.”

“Understood. Can we get any more fire support from our friends?”

“Negative, they bugged out. They were too exposed where they were. We’re on our—look out!” Devree snapped off a shot at a militiaman who had appeared on a rooftop with a shoulder-fired missile launcher. Even with its recoil stabilization, the powerful rifle bucked against her shoulder with a sound like the cracking of a whip as it sent a fat, armor-piercing slug downrange. The missile-carrier’s head nearly separated from his neck as the round struck his spine, the impact looking like a hot splash on thermal. “He’s down,” she said coldly.

The sniper team had moved since the assault on Lang’s Burg began. Devree had been a law enforcement sharpshooter, not a military scout sniper, but she knew better than to stay in one place for too long. Even with thermoptic camo and suppressed weapons, it was only a matter of time before they were spotted, so it was critical to stay mobile.

She watched Halifax engage a group of militiamen with the plasma weapon on his suit; its report was a white hot flash on thermal and a blue-white streak to the naked eye, a terrifying weapon that sent Lang’s thugs fleeing for their lives.

“That’s right, run along now!” he said, laughing over his suit’s PA system. He followed up with a long burst from the armor’s machine gun, and led the others toward the gate of Lang’s Burg. The team was going to use the large truck the suit had arrived in as an escape vehicle.

Markgraf tapped Devree on the shoulder. “We need to go.” Moving quickly in thermoptic camo could give your position away, so the sniper team had slowly stalked across the rocky hills above Lang’s Burg. They had gone unnoticed so far, but with reinforcements on the way it was only a matter of time before their luck ran out, and the team was headed for the gate. It was definitely time to go.

Driving the point home, an indicator light flashed in Devree’s goggles. “The proximity alarm!” Markgraf said. “Get down! Fire in the hole!” As the sniper team hit the dirt, he mashed the remote initiator.
BOOM!
The explosion echoed and rolled through hills, even over the roar of flames and sporadic gunfire coming from Lang’s Burg. A couple hundred meters behind them, the sniper team had set up proximity warnings and remotely detonated directional fragmentation charges, just in case someone tried to sneak up on them. Their drone was now kilometers away, shadowing the incoming convoy, but the sensors had stopped their attackers from getting the drop on them.

“Come on, Devree,” Markgraf said, “we need to get the hell out of here,
now
!”

She nodded jerkily, face hidden behind smart goggles and respirator mask. The two mercenaries low-crawled down the rocks until some solid cover was between them and Lang’s Burg. Markgraf took a knee, shouldering his boxy 4.5mm caseless assault rifle, and covered Devree while she disassembled the huge antimateriel rifle. She removed the magazine from its well behind the grip, detached the scope, and pulled the barrel out. The whole thing broke down quickly, fitting into a more manageable carry case.

Far below, through more than a kilometer of rugged, rocky terrain, the sniper team had a parked their vehicle and concealed it. The plan was to make to it the vehicle and head straight to the ship, linking up with the others if they were able to catch up with them. It was an inelegant plan, but there weren’t many roads on Zanzibar and few places to hide on the open wastes. Heading directly for the ship was the fastest, easiest, and least-chance-of-going-south plan Marcus could come up with. As he had explained to the team, he wasn’t a fan of elaborate multistep op plans. In his experience, he’d said, they usually went to shit after the first shots were fired.