The day after: An apocalyptic morning (162 page)

              "Uh... it might be a better idea," Skip told him, "if you kept everyone inside until after we touch down. You see, I've been wounded as well and Jack, my student, is flying the helicopter at the moment. He's never flown before, including never having landed."

              The pause was almost comically long. Skip could picture Pat down there in the school building mulling that one over, perhaps wondering if he had heard correctly. "I see," Pat finally answered, not asking any further. "We'll keep everyone indoors until you're down."

              "I think it would be for the best," Skip told them. "We should be down shortly."

              Shortly turned out to be almost ten minutes. Jack handled the descent and the slowing aspect of the landing very well, bringing them to less than six hundred feet above the LZ and less than thirty knots of airspeed, but the challenge of the tight turns and lining up with the landing zone proved to be frustratingly hard. He overshot three times and undershot twice before he was able to get them onto the correct angle of attack at the right point in the parking lot. Skip encouraged him gently during this process, never yelling at him, talking almost soothingly the entire time. Finally he got them down to three feet above the parking lot only thirty feet from where he had intended to touch down. He successfully pulled into a shaky hover and then let the skids thump down after a final twist of the tail from the torque.

              "We're down," Skip said, letting out an exhalation of air. "The eagle has landed Goddammit!"

              Jack was able to say nothing for a moment. He was too keyed up. Skip had to remind him to neutralize the controls and throttle down.

              "Keep us idling," Skip told him when he finally did this. "I want to head back to town as soon as they get our people unloaded."

              "You bet," Jack agreed, wiping his sweaty face.

              The moment the rotor slowed down to idle speed, Pat, Renee, and several of the other townspeople came rushing out, pushing their gurney before them. They reached the helicopter and opened up the side door, the others making way for Renee to stick her head in. She didn't even glance at Jack or Skip, didn't acknowledge them in any way. Instead, she began examining her patients, giving them a quick look to determine severity.

              "They all look pretty bad," she said, touching each of them with her hands. "Let me do a quick triage to see who we take out first." She homed right in on Megan, frowning as she shook her a little by the shoulder. When this elicited no response she picked up her arm and felt for a pulse. Another frown resulted and she then felt at the neck.

              "Is she dead?" Jack asked, watching all of this with alarm.

              "Not quite," Renee said. "She has a bradycardic pulse - only about thirty. Her breathing is almost completely absent." She paused for a moment, her face serious. "She won't make it. She's probably already suffered brain damage." She turned to her team. "We'll triage her as a black."

              They nodded solemnly while she began looking at Rhonda.

              "A black?" Jack asked. "What does that mean?"

              "It means there's nothing that can be done for her," she said.

              "But you said she's still alive!" he cried in protest.

              "For the moment," Renee said, her voice a little kinder now. "But if I waste time trying to treat someone who has virtually no chance of recovery, one of these other people, who probably will make it, could die."

              "But..."

              "Jack," Skip said, putting his arm on him. "It's okay. That's the way battlefield medicine works. Let her do her job."

              Jack most definitely didn't like it, but he kept the rest of his opinions to himself.

              Renee decided after examining the other two semi-conscious women that Sarah was the worst of the two. Once this decision was made, her team moved quickly into action, pulling her out of the cramped confines of the helicopter and onto their gurney. Sarah moaned as her body thumped down onto the small bed.

              "Did Paul put in the chest catheter?" Renee asked, examining it.

              "I'm not sure," Skip said. "I would assume so."

              "Tell him he saved her life," she said. "She would've been dead some time ago if not for that." She turned to her team. "Get her into the operating room and have the surgery team prep her. Tell them that I'll be in shortly. As soon as you drop her off, get back out here and get this one."

              "Rhonda," Rhonda croaked, her eyes creaking open. "My name is Rhonda."

              "Right," Renee said absently, not really wanting to know her patient's name. "Rhonda. She'll be next."

              Her team moved off, leaving her and Pat standing there beside the chopper. "And how about you?" Renee asked Skip, looking at the bandage on his knee. "How bad are you?"

              "My knee is pretty much shot - literally," he said. "But I'll be okay for a while. Paul shot me up with some morphine and got my leg nice and stabilized for me."

              "You want us to get you inside?" she asked. "It'll be some time before I get around to..."

              "No," Skip said. "The battle is at a pretty critical phase right now and Jack here is not quite ready to solo. I need to stay here."

              "Can't run the show without you huh?" Pat asked.

              "Maybe they can," he said, "but I would just assume they didn't. Besides, there are other wounded back home that are worse than I am."

              "How many?"

              "Five more," Skip said. "Mostly arm, leg, or shoulder wounds according to Paul. Nothing immediately critical."

              Renee nodded, seeming to feel a little overwhelmed for a moment but then catching herself.

              "How is the battle going?" Pat wanted to know. "Are you winning? Losing?"

              "We're winning," Skip said. "There have been two engagements so far, starting this morning. I've been directing from the air while our forces have been in the trenches they've dug. We've chewed them up pretty bad thanks to the ammo you folks gave us. I'd say we've killed or badly wounded at least a hundred of them, maybe more. They're down to around sixty men."

              "Sixty men out of four hundred?" Pat asked incredulously.

              "Most of that was on the march," Jack said.

              "That's right," Skip said. "They came at us this morning with considerably less than 200. We've shot them, napalmed them, strafed them, and machine gunned them every time they tried to advance." He explained a little bit more about the particulars of the battle, glossing over his own heroic though ill-advised dive upon the attacking troops, concentrating instead upon the bravery displayed by those in the trenches.

              "Simply amazing," Pat said, seemingly in awe. "Remind us never to start a war with you folks."

              "You don't have to worry about that," Skip said. "When this shit is over with I'm hoping we'll be able to retire from the war business."

              "But it's not over yet?" Renee asked.

              "Not yet," Skip said. "They don't have a chance in hell of taking us now but it looked to me like they were gathering for another try anyway when we left."

              "So there might be more wounded?"

              Skip sighed. "There might be," he agreed. "But maybe I'll be able to persuade them of the futility of their actions."

              "How would you do that?" Pat asked.

              "I'll try talking to them," Skip said. "What can it hurt?"

              Rhonda was pulled out of the chopper a few minutes later and whisked inside the building by the medical team. Renee bid Jack and Skip good luck and farewell and then went off to begin the surgery on her patients. In the back of the helicopter Megan's heart had finally wound down to a stop, as had her breathing. She lay there lifeless, her IV's still installed in her arms.

              Pat gave her a sad look and then shook hands with both Jack and Skip, wishing them luck. "We'll see you later," he told them. "Go kick some ass."

              "Thanks, Pat," Skip said. He closed his door and then watched as Pat headed back for the school building. When he was gone he looked over at Jack. "Let's get back," he said. "Same drill as before, lift-off, stabilize in the ground effect, and then go up a thousand feet before you put on forward speed."

              Jack nodded, giving one last glance at the dead body behind him and then throttling up.

              His take-off and ascent was much smoother this time, not quite up to professional standards of course, but not bad either. He raised them up and spun them around to a 90 degree heading before putting on the speed. Soon they were at 5000 feet once again and heading at 110 knots back to Cameron Park. His bank over the airport, bringing them to the return heading of 54 degrees, was also a vast improvement over the first time. He only overshot his compass heading once before putting it right on the dial.

              "You keep this up," Skip said, still feeling the morphine working on him, "and you're gonna put me out of a job."

              "Oh, I think I'll need you around for a few more days at least," Jack said in all seriousness.

              Skip had him ascend even higher as they headed towards the canyon, instructing him to level off at or about 6000 feet. As soon as they were in radio range of the town, Skip keyed up the radio.

              "Skip to Garden Hill, is anyone out there?" he asked.

              An ecstatic sounding Paul answered up first. "You made it!" he said happily. "You actually made it there and back!"

              "We did," Skip agreed, smiling at Jack. "Did you ever have any doubts?"

              "Of course not," Paul replied.

              "Fuckin liar," Jack said good-naturedly.

              "How was the mission?" Paul asked him. "Any problems in El Dorado?"

              "Well," Skip said, "we lost Megan on the way. Rhonda and Sarah are still hanging in there and are with the doctor now. How are things going here?"

              Mick came up on the frequency and handled that one. "No contact yet," he told Skip. "We're all in position and just waiting. We don't have a visual on them and we're not really sure what, if anything, they're doing."

              "Copy," Skip said. "We're gonna head out over the battle area before we land to have a look at what's happening. ETA is about four minutes or so. We'll update you then."

              "We're standing by," Mick said.

              They passed over the canyon still moving at 110 knots. Thirty seconds later the town flashed below them. Skip had Jack slow up as they came up on the battle area. He leaned forward and peered out at the hills, trying to spot the friendlies and the non-friendlies. As he looked, he pulled out the map and unfolded it on his lap.

              "Ten knots," Jack said, struggling a little with the controls but keeping them generally at the assigned altitude and heading.

              "Good lad," Skip said. "Try to pull a hover if you can. Keep your eyes on the instruments while you do it. You have no reason to look outside."

              "Right," Jack said, making the adjustments and bleeding off the rest of his speed.

              Skip spotted the friendly forces right away, finding them exactly where he had left them, spread throughout the trenches just south of the first battle area. It took him a few more seconds to find the enemy but at last he spotted the telltale figures of men among the brown and green landscape. They were a quarter mile to the south of the main concentration of Garden Hill forces, gathered loosely behind a row of hills. It appeared they were massing for an attack.

              Skip compared their current location with the features on his map. He traced routes back and forth for a moment and then came to a decision. He keyed up his radio. "Mick, they're massing for an attack in grid foxtrot 6. It looks like the entire group is there - all that can walk anyway. It appears that they're doing weapons loading right now. A bunch of them are sitting in circles. We need to shift forces to counter them."

              "I copy," Mick said. "Just give the word."

              "You're platoon is fine where they are," he said. "You'll catch the right flank of their advance from your position. Christine, you need to move your people over to trenches 41 and 43. That'll put you on their left flank. You can concentrate heavily over there since we're dealing with a one pronged advance."

              "I copy trenches 41 and 43," Christine said a moment later. "We're moving now. And it's good to hear your voice again."

              "Thanks," Skip said absently. "Paula, you there?"

              "Right here," she answered up.

              "Shift your people over to trenches 38 and 39. That'll put you dead center of their advance if they go the way I'm thinking they will. Once you've all shifted, we're going to land and pick up another egg."