Earthfall (22 page)

Automatic gunfire ripped through the advancing survivors, dropping two of them. The rest shrieked and fled, forgetting all about Andrews as more bullets slapped at their heels. Several more stumbled and fell to the ground, writhing in agony from leg wounds. Andrews looked to his left and saw Rachel standing in the bleachers, a smoking assault rifle against her shoulder. The survivors nearest her shoved and jostled each other as they struggled to flee from the madwoman with the rifle. Rachel ignored them and leapt into the pit. Picking her way around the stakes, she raced over to Andrews and threw her arms around him.

“Thank God,” she whispered into his ear. “Thank God, thank God …”

Andrews hugged her back. “Good to see you again, babe.”

Mulligan loped up a moment later. He spared Spencer’s body a quick glance, then pulled Andrews and Rachel apart. “Listen, this is touching and all that, but you’d better move your butts before you wind up giving the rest of us the celestial eyeball!”

He pushed them toward the side of the arena, where Laird waited, clutching his assault rifle nervously. He helped them climb into the bleachers while Mulligan stood guard behind them. As Andrews clambered up the side of the rink, he noticed a small group of people sticking to the shadows across the pit from them. They did not flee.

“Mulligan, see those guys across the arena?”

“Got them, Captain. So long as they stay there, I’ll let them live.” When the Andrewses were clear, Mulligan turned and pulled himself onto the bleachers. Once he had joined them, he grabbed Rachel’s arm. “You were supposed to hold the hallway for us!”

“I decided to save my husband, instead. Have a problem with that, asshole?” Rachel shot back.

“Save this for later,” Andrews snapped. He took the assault rifle from Rachel and looked at Mulligan and Laird. “We need to get the hell out of here.”

“We sure do,” Mulligan said. “We wired this place with demolitions—the sooner we can clear it, the sooner I can set off the charges and add some more confusion to the mix. We don’t want to be around here when that happens.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Laird said. “Let’s go!” He led the group back to the hallway, which was secured by Kelly and Leona. Down the corridor, several figures loomed in the flickering shadows cast by the torchlight. Andrews slowed when he noticed them, but Mulligan pushed him roughly from behind.

“Go on, I’ve got them!” the NCO snapped. “Laird, get them moving. Go for Four, it’s closer. I’ll hold these fuckers back for a bit, then I’ll catch up with you. If I don’t show in ten minutes, resume the mission!”

Laird looked back at Mulligan with narrowed eyes. “You’re saying we should
leave
you, Sarmajor?”

“I’m saying you should finish what we started.”

“We’ll hold station for you as long as we can, Mulligan,” Andrews said. “Don’t screw around, just buy us enough time to get to the rigs.”

“You can count on that, Captain.” Mulligan raised his rifle to his shoulder. “Now shake a leg!”

Andrews nodded, and he pushed Rachel ahead of him as he and the rest followed Laird into the inky darkness of the hallway.

“Mike, here,” Kelly said as she fell in behind him. She handed him a pair of night vision goggles, which he immediately powered up and slipped on over his head. He adjusted the monocle slightly, then shot her a quick thumbs-up. He could see perfectly, thanks to the light-intensifying technology of the NVGs. From behind them, Mulligan’s assault rifle cracked out three rapid shots. Andrews didn’t look back. The hulking senior NCO had their back, and he could take care of himself.

***

Mulligan watched as the group of survivors at the end of the corridor slowly picked their way toward him. He wasn’t concerned about them just yet, since they were still a good distance away, but he had to question their intelligence. Who tried to sneak up on a guy holding an assault rifle, especially when their concealment was virtually nonexistent? He decided to illustrate their folly by firing three shots at the individual in the lead—two more than absolutely necessary, but he wanted to send a strong message that couldn’t be misinterpreted. He was rewarded by two of the survivors going down. One of them lay still; the second one, who had been behind the first, writhed and screamed in agony on the floor.

“That’ll learn ya,” he said to himself as he reached into a cargo pocket on his uniform trousers. He pulled out the remote detonator that would trigger the charges at the other side of the arena and armed the device with a flick of his thumb. All he had to do now was press the trigger, and—

He lurched as something struck his M416, sending pieces of metal flying through the air. A second object slapped him in the chest an instant later, and yet another exploded against the concrete wall beside his head, pelting him with small pieces of shrapnel that cut open his face. He heard three reports from a firearm, then a fourth. Something went
snap!
as it blasted right past his head. Mulligan stumbled away and fell to his knees, thankful for the kneepads he wore. At his age, busting a kneecap would be bad news, though not as bad as being shot. He rolled away from the wall—and the hallway—and brought his rifle around. Sure enough, another group of survivors was closing in on him from the opposite side of the corridor, and one of them held a captured M416A3. Mulligan made to shoot the rifleman, but his own rifle was inoperative; he was disgusted to find that a chunk of the upper receiver had been damaged, right where the bolt carrier group was located. The result was that his assault rifle had been converted into a rather expensive club.

Motherfuck!

The makeshift rifleman opened fire again as he quickly advanced, grinning as he squeezed off round after round. The man had Mulligan dead to rights, and the only thing that saved Mulligan from being killed was the man’s decision to fire while moving. As such, his aim was atrocious, and bullets pocked the concrete floor all around Mulligan as he frantically backpedaled. At the same time, he was being driven away from his escape route.

With no other choice available to him, he pressed the trigger on the detonator he still had in his right hand. He was rewarded with a tremendous thunderclap that seemed to blossom into existence right behind him; a heartbeat later, whirling shrapnel flew through the air as several torches were extinguished by the ensuing shockwave. He watched as several pieces of lethal debris slashed through the group of survivors. The gunman trying to kill Mulligan was almost beheaded by a spinning piece of metal that ricocheted off the corridor’s concrete wall and buried itself in his neck. Plunged into inky darkness, Mulligan heard the creaks and groans of overstressed superstructure fill the air, loud enough for his ringing ears to register. The charges he and Choi had placed had done their job. The roof of the civic center was giving way, slowly collapsing. Great pieces of metal and thick, twisted girders fell behind him, striking the floor and the bleachers with thunderous impacts that kicked up a huge cloud of dust. Mulligan snapped his NVGs over his eyes and struggled to his feet, bolting for the hallway, weaving his way past falling debris. He had almost made it when something large and heavy struck him in the head, driving him to the floor and knocking the NVGs off his face.

Blackness engulfed him.

M
uted sounds of
thunder caught up to the SCEV crew as they sprinted down the dark hallway, preceding the surprisingly strong shockwave that tore at them an instant later, carrying with it a great cloud of dust. Andrews grabbed Rachel’s arm, supporting her as she stumbled and gasped in shock at the sudden rumble of the explosions. But the cacophony didn’t abate; it intensified, and Andrews felt the floor tremble beneath his feet.

“Keep moving!” he shouted, his voice barely audible above the raging din. “Don’t stop, the place is imploding!” But the light was failing, leaving the hallway in absolute darkness; their night vision goggles had nothing left to intensify. He was rewarded with vision a moment later as Laird switched on a flashlight, its harsh LED glow so powerful through the goggles that had it not been for the thick dust flooding into the passage, it might have overwhelmed the NVGs entirely.

“Follow me!” Laird shouted, as fragments of concrete began to fall from the ceiling. “Hurry, hurry!”

The team followed Laird as he set off down the hallway, wading through dust that only grew thicker with each passing second. The darkened passageway trembled and shook as the structure behind them collapsed upon itself. Andrews wondered about Mulligan’s fate. He heard Laird trying to raise the sergeant major over the radio, but there was no response.

Finally, they left the choking clouds of dust behind, though the occasional sound of falling rubble followed them, echoing down the hallway. Andrews sneezed, his nostrils clogged with filth—he could taste it in the back of his mouth. Laird turned right and descended a wide flight of steps.

“This way,” he said, voice pitched low.

“Where are we headed?” Andrews asked.

“There’s a train station down below. It’s open to the street, thanks to an earthquake or something. We can get out through there and go back to Five.”

“What about Four?” Andrews asked.

“It’s here, in a parking garage. It’s a closer reach, but the thing is, the parking garage is locked by a big steel gate.”

Andrews considered that. “Can we blast through it?”

“What, you mean with a missile?” Each SCEV was armed with AGM-114R Hellfire missiles that were packed with two hundred pounds of high-explosive. Originally intended as anti-tank weapons, chances were high that they would make quick work of the garage door. Laird nodded. “Oh, hell yeah.”

“Let’s go there, then,” Andrews said. “We can’t be leaving one of the rigs here, not if there’s a chance we can get it out.”

Laird hesitated, then nodded. “All right. We’ll need to pull around the block to get my rig, though.”

“Not a problem,” Andrews said. “We’re not going to leave any equipment behind if we can avoid it.”

They descended down the next flight of stairs, moving as quickly as they could.

***

The garage was two floors below the arena level, and it looked mostly undamaged. With high ceilings and several different entrances—all of them closed by sliding moat doors, Andrews noticed—it was obvious this level of the parking structure had been intended for freight to be moved in and out. The carcasses of scavenged cars and big tractor trailer rigs lay about, stripped of anything useful. It was pitch-black inside, so Laird left his flashlight on, providing more than enough light for the team to see by with their night vision goggles. As they picked their way through the garage, Andrews saw SCEV Four sitting in a clear area on the far side of the parking structure. The rig was hooked up to a stout-looking tow motor by thick, rusted chains. He wondered how long it would take to free it.

“Looks pretty quiet here,” Choi said, holding his assault rifle ready just in case. Even though he kept his voice pitched low, it still resounded with sibilant echoes inside the parking garage. Andrews motioned for him to be silent, then pointed at the rig, ensuring everyone saw the motion. He took the lead, jogging through the gloom toward the waiting SCEV.

Just as the group closed on the rig, Andrews heard a flurry of movement off to his right. Choi shouted a warning as a metal spear sailed through the air. It flew benignly past Andrews and struck Leona in the right thigh. She went down with a startled yelp, and the spear made a metallic clink as it struck the cement floor beside her. Choi fired at a car, cracking off five rounds in rapid succession. Through the NVGs, Andrews saw sparks fly as the bullets tore through sheet metal. Figures crouching behind the vehicle shrank back, fading into the gloom as they scurried between the rotting husks of long-abandoned semi-trucks.

“I’ve got her!” Laird said, stopping Andrews as he reached down for Leona. “You go get the rig open!” Behind them, Kelly fired a burst on full automatic at another motley group of survivors as they charged toward the SCEV crew. They fled beneath the gunfire, though none of them fell. Andrews was about to snap at her to stop wasting ammunition, then thought better of it. A few bursts of full automatic gunfire was a good deterrent to keep the goblins at bay.

Then more shapes loomed around the SCEV. A
lot
more.

“Oh,
fuck,
” he said.

“What is it?” Rachel asked.

Andrews didn’t answer. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her down behind a nearby car that had been so severely stripped that it provided a questionable amount of cover. More gunfire sounded behind them. Laird appeared, half-carrying Leona. The spear was gone, but she had a hand clamped over the wound in her thigh, and her face was set in a rictus of agony beneath her night vision goggles.

“Problem?” Laird asked.

“Dude, we’ve got a substantial blocking force between us and the rig—yeah, that’s a problem,” Andrews said.

“You’re kidding!” Laird looked over the car and saw the group arrayed in front of the SCEV. They maintained a degree of tactical spacing, which meant they had had some training. Andrews peered around the car’s dilapidated bumper, and he saw several members of the group break off. They were going to try to flank them.