Unexpected Encounter 12
06 Apr 2016Rebecca Hail
The red hot hull of the strike leading Anaconda shot out of the glowing cloud, while it's pilot ignited the forwards thrusters to brake the massive ship down to attack speed. Four more Condas in a widespread delta formation flew to the left and the right behind their leader. Four more wings of five Condas appeared left and right of the original wing. Behind them a gigantic sixth wing consisting of hundreds of smaller ships.The pilot dragged both his flight sticks back, while he pushed the throttle on both sticks with his thumbs to the maximum. The rotors revved, then they pointed themselves against the flight. Kenneth, Rebecca and the soldier were pressed against the doorframe and had trouble holding onto something. As the helicopter layed into a narrow, steep downwards turn, Rebecca lost her grip and slid, only held by the safety line, towards the side door. She reached out and grabbed a strut when the pilot pulled up the heli a few meters above the roofs of the city and steered it towards the skyline with full speed.
"What are you doing? Our order is to retreat!", Kenneth shouted over the howling rotors.
"You've never seen a federal bombardement, have you?" answered the soldier who was still busy with pulling himself on the passenger seats of the aircraft, while Rebecca was still struggling with not falling out of the helicopter. The soldier grabbed her safety line and pulled her onto a seat, then he put the safety gear around her upper body.
"Well, they're dropping bombs onto things, aren't they?" Kenneth answered while he fussed around with his own safety gear.
"It's a bit more than that. Those big ships carry twenty 20-ton airburst charges. Those things explode over the roofs and the airpressure kills everything unprotected in a large area. Perfect to smoke out densely built areas. Those small shi ..." His sentence was disrupted when the pilot dropped the heli into the street canyon of the main road. They flew with an insane speed past the buildings and over street crossings.
"I think I'm getting sick." Rebecca mumbled with a pale face.
"If you're going to barf, aim for the door and not for me. Well, those small ships have the actual bombs on board. And they just aim for everything not being reduced to rubble behind the big ships."
"And why exactly are we flying into enemy territory? What's with enemy AAs?"
"We wouldn't make it if we try to slip beneath the bombs. The airburst charges would wipe us out and the AAs have far bigger problems than a little attack chopper cruising through their territory."
"And what's with our troops in the districts? Are they going to bomb their own troops?"
"We aren't THEIR troops. We're just some backward colonial army, and that's how the federal high command views us. Wouldn't be the first time, they sacrifice a few hundred thousand of us to get their way."
"They're dropping their stuff! Hold onto something!" the pilot screamed through the com of the heli.
The blast hit the heli like a giant fist and the pilot couldn't avoid to brush past one of the buildings alongside the road.
The impact left the slender aircraft spinning. Rubble flew through the air. Cracks appeared on the windshield and the amount of screaming warning signals in the cockpit tripled.
Then the impact on the ground. Rebecca closed her eyes and heard the deafening noise of something shattering as the heli tilted to the side. When she opened them again she saw through her blurry vision that the double rotor on the other side dug into the asphalt of the street and then tore itself to pieces scattering fragments all over the place. Kenneth had several lacerations in the face and his uniform was cut in many places. The other soldier had a huge fragment sticking in his leg and screamed bloody murder. As she looked down, she saw a maybe 2 centimetres long fragment sticking in the chestplate of her armor. With her knife she cut her safety gear, then the gear of the wounded soldier. She took a look into the cockpit and saw that the upper half of the pilots head was gone. His body was still fixed in the pilot seat but blood from his head was spread over what was left of the windshield and the controls.
She stumbled out of the wreck and puked onto the street. When she looked up again she saw how Kenneth dragged the wounded soldier out of the wreck. She ran over and took a closer look at the wound.
"He's going to bleed out if we can't stop the bleeding fast."
"We don't have the ressources to do that. Almost everything went flying when we hit that building."
Another bomb exploded several kilometres away but the blast was strong enough to send a duststorm through the streets.
"We need to take shelter. Fast!" she screamed towards Kenneth over the sound of the explosion.
He hesitated then he answered. "There might be something 200 metres down the street. But we never reach it in time. We have to carry him."
"Please don't let me die here. Not like this." the soldier wailed out.
Rebecca didn't need to see his face through the full helmet to tell that he was crying. She stood up.
"We're leaving him behind. Get your stuff ready."
"You can't just decide that we're leaving him behind! I won't leave a wounded man behind." Kenneth answered in a harsh tone.
She drew her pistol, took aim and shot two times. Blood splattered across Kenneths face and his expression changed into unbelieving. He looked at the dead soldier with the two bullet holes in his head and his expression changed again. Into absolute rage this time.
"ARE YOU F*CKING INSANE?!" he shouted at her. "Are you now shooting your own comrades?!"
"No. I want to survive. He was a unnecessary burden and I disposed of him. He would have died anyway."
"You're a . You're doing anything to survive, even if you sacrifice the last shred of your own humanity."
"At least you know now where the nickname came from."