There wasn’t much that she could do. Sending in another squad was insane, despite every instinct telling her to attack. Letting these fucks escape after losing so many of her teammates was likewise out of the equation. Her equally pissed off surviving fighters were angry when she pulled them back under cover. The hunting fever raged through them all.
Sophie could tell she didn’t have much time. Her tenuous hold on authority was at stake here. If she didn’t think of something quick, her people would either commit collective suicide through charging in there or simply give up and walk away from the whole damn thing.
One of the soldiers snarled. “Kampbell! Let’s breach the building. We still have one Humvee handy.”
Before she could say anything, the FEDEX plane’s turbofans whined to life. Without warning, the rear guard in the warehouse laid down hellish suppressive fire in every direction. One of her people 200 yards away returned fire from behind the corner of a CONEX shipping container. The enemy casually shot through the aluminum siding and silenced him permanently.
The Battle Hawks that were standing off suddenly came back with a vengeance. They hadn’t been idle. Instead, they’d taken their time and carefully acquired targets. Luckily, they focused their rockets first against the confused but massing local police forces at the gate. The militia fighters had a brief window of opportunity.
Sophie slid her helmet back and wiped some of the sweat off. This scorching pavement in the desert baked her mind. What was left of her platoon begged her for a plan without saying a word. What the hell could they do? She was seconds away from ordering a retreat when something changed the equation.
“The ramp’s down! They’re leaving!”
Sure enough, the plane crept slowly along the tarmac towards the airfield. Several SF troops from the warehouse sprinted to catch up. The helicopters overhead went wild, expending the last of their impressive ammo load in burning everything within 500 yards. Now or never.
“Jamal! Let’s go! I’ll drive the Humvee; you gun. Everyone else, cover us!”
Jamal didn’t have a clue what Sophie had planned. Not that it mattered. Her desperate confidence was all he needed. Her team stepped up and did a hell of a job keeping the enemy occupied. Some militia fighter dropped a Delta operator covering his running buddies from the back ramp with a hip shot. They even put a few holes into one of the whirly birds. Didn’t crash it, but wounded the copilot/gunner, limiting its effectiveness. The smoke clouds from all the burning vehicles and buildings hindered the target acquisition of the other two choppers.
In all this confusion, Sophie floored her Humvee to catch the fleeing plane. Less than a hundred yards away, she attracted the full attention of the rear guards. They slowly raised the ramp and picked up speed as their last guy jumped aboard. Four more soldiers kneeled on the rising slope and blazed away exclusively at Sophie’s Humvee. She thanked God and her not-cheap paymasters for splurging on the armored windshield.
Still, even that tough bulletproof glass had limits. One tight three round shot group after another smashed the clear armor a foot in front of her face. She could barely see through the kaleidoscope of cracks. Only a matter of time before something got through. The right front tire was already flat and black smoke billowed from under the hood. The engine knocked terribly. 100 yards to go…they weren’t going to make it.
“Jamal, get up there and suppressive them! Don’t worry about the nukes.”
Her gunner unhesitatingly popped his head out of the turret. Insane or not, Sophie had a plan. About 15 rounds rattled off before he stopped; likely a jam. All of the enemy’s shooters threw themselves prone. One wouldn’t get up again…the guy that had been raising the ramp.
“Great job, Jamal! Keep it up!” Out the corner of her eye, she caught him resting on the hammock-like strap serving as a gunner’s seat for long hauls. She reached over and slapped his knee hard. “Quit fucking off and get on that gun!”
Her slap dropped his body back into the cabin. His face made a squishing sound rather than a thud when it struck the radio mount. Several enemy rounds had already split it open. She didn’t cry or scream, just gritted her teeth, dropped into the lowest gear and hit the ramp ahead. When it was obvious she’d breached the plane, she didn’t hit the brakes.
Instead, she hit the gas.
Her war whoop could be heard even over the grinding and screeching as the Humvee’s 190 horsepower engine shoved her nearly 20 feet into the cargo bay before the dying truck finally gave up the ghost. Her mad driving knocked over two pallets of nuclear bombs and crushed at least one Special Forces operator. Instead of diving out the door, she did the last thing they expected. She lobbed fragmentation grenades out from inside the turret. One to the rear and one to the front.
Then she reached up, with one hand, and blindly fired the remainder of the M240’s belt in the general direction of the flight cabin and passenger seating area. She’d hoped to distract them, maybe disable the plane. She had no way to know she just killed or seriously wounded seven people up there in that packed compartment. As busy as Sophie was, she didn’t notice the taxing plane pick up speed but also gently curve to the right…away from the runway.
Somebody opened the right side passenger door. She gave him three rounds to the neck and face as a hello. Only after his body crumpled did Sophie dismount. With the armored door shielding her back, she stood on the corpse she just made to get a better view. Six more hostiles were behind her. Well, back there, but not in good shape. Fragmentation grenades, while not terribly powerful in the open, are impressive in confined spaces. Every one of those shooters squirming back to their feet had a shrapnel injury and often bleeding ears. They weren’t exactly in top form.
Sophie didn’t worry about the why or how as she calmly finished them off with aimed pairs. She ducked back into the Humvee to reload when someone opened the door from the other side. Shit. There were just too many of them for her to give full 360° security. She leapt forward and gave the stone-faced Delta guy a banshee scream as her final resistance. Instead of a muzzle flash, the whole roof of the plane came apart.
The cargo bay lights went out as an ear-splitting screech filled her head. God’s fist punched the Humvee and somehow flipped her face down and butt up into the backseat floorboard. It took a few moments for her brain to pull itself mostly together again. Something had ripped the open armored doors on both sides straight off. Nearly the first two feet of the Humvee’s roof was pealed open like a sardine can. Some massive yellow crane stuck in its place.
Sophie’s helmet was nowhere to be found. The girl popped her bare, pony-tailed head out of the hole and took a peek into hell. All the shooters that were next to or in front of her were now gone. Well, not a hundred percent true. She could see an arm or leg sticking out of the rubble here and there. Both fuel-packed wings were still intact, but the plane’s upper fuselage looked like some giant took an ice cream scoop to it. The miracle of her survival would haunt her for years.
A few SF fellows also survived, for a while. Sophie’s quick responding team took out some before she stopped them. “Keep one or two alive. I’m sure the Guard’s intelligence guys could learn a lot from them.”
Even the choppers above were running. Their fighter escort had finally been finished off. Rebel interceptors from all over Nevada now prowled the area, looking for payback. None of the Battle Hawks would make it back to base.
More friendly Guard troops arrived within minutes to police up the damaged, but non-leaking nukes. In all the excitement, Sophie had completely forgotten about them. She hugged her surviving militia fighters, then straddled one nuke and flipped a bird in the direction the helicopters flew off.