Molly Bolt had jumped a Huey pilot… wonder how the fuck you're really supposed to fly one of these things P… not that it really matters, just turn the stick over this way and that way… kinda fun
… I could feel the vertigo tug at her as the craft began to buck and cant over. The troops crouched in the open rear were shouting (I heard their thoughts, too, of course). Shit… who's that? I caught a glimpse through Molly's eyes as she glanced over her shoulder. A military pistol was pointed at her. A GI, a young black man, looked at her with strange sad eyes. "Goddamn, Chuck, I'm sorry. I'm really sorry." Shit!!… and then there was a pinwheeling shock of disorientation as Molly jumped away.
I could feel her for long seconds afterward, gasping, waiting to feel the shattering impact of the bullet, before she realized that she was in her own body again.
Captain Hayes was thinking that it was hell to have a fight with your old lady just before a mission. Marge, damn it, they kill people. You understand? They'd carve you up on the street because you looked wrong at them. They're vicious and mean. They're animals. He kept replaying the argument in his head. Marge argued that they were just kids, just kids, and she didn't understand. Shouldn't have told her in the first place. She's just worrying, that's all. Just worried about me.
Hayes was worried too. I could feel it and see it in the quick headflashes between thoughts. He clung to the throbbing, shaking walls of the Huey, staring at the packed troops in the craft's belly. Good men, all. None of them deserve to die, but some will. The bastard kids here will see to that, no matter what Marge says. Hayes cleared his throat; the forming words interfered with his thoughts. "Thirty seconds," he shouted over the din of the rotors.
… can see the place now, flares lighting the place like it's Nam all over again… choppers wheeling around that fucking toy palace like big angry vultures…
"We're landing in jumper territory."… of course they know that, but if I talk, they can't think about what's going to happen… "So make sure you watch your partner."… big fucking ball of of flame, JESUS! was that a Huey?…"Remember that your guns are rigged."… can't see it now, but that was one of ours going down, shit… "So you're the only ones who know the trick."… had better work had better damn work… "You see one of our guys pulling the trigger and nothing's happening, they may-may-have been jumped. So don t shoot 'em; use the tranks." Or just shoot quick anyway… "Policy is fire only when fired on," (… which may get us dead…) "but I want you to do whatever it takes. Don't worry about policy. Stay alive however you gotta do it. Understand?"
His men shouted affirmation back to him.
The Huey jerked (man, those shacks across the way are going up like crazy), dropped. I saw an image of dirt swirling crazily in sudden floodlights.
"Go, GO, GO!" Hayes was shouting, and his people were spilling out the door toward the jumper buildings. Like a ghetto, a slum. Like what I remember of Saigon, just before we left… Hayes was lagging behind, his people already in the buildings as he crossed the open ground in front.
A burst of small arms fire caught him then. He screamed and went down. The horror of what he saw drove out all the words for an instant. I saw the remnants of his body as he did. We both knew, even as the pain hit and the vision started to go.
… let it end, God, just let it end please… can't believe they actually shot me, all that time in Nam and not a scratch… still see my hands all slick and warm… there was so much blood, so much, too much and all mine… cold and black… they always said that there'd be light and voices and family, but there's only blackness… blackness… Marge?…
Video was screaming, an endless sobbing agony. I don't want to see it anymore, I don't want to see it…
But nothing could erase the sight in her mind. She projected it helplessly. In her mind, it overlaid everything, the reality of the mud in which she was sitting, the cold fog that wrapped around her, the ugly chunks of raw meat covered with tattered olive cloth that she very carefully avoided looking at but that kept intruding into her thoughts.
Video cried. She wailed. It did no good. There was no way to block out the scene.
Like a movie stuck in a pathetic, awful loop, Video replayed the scene she'd witnessed:
The sound came first, a loud erratic whine, then as she turned to look, the chopper came careening across the foggy bay. The craft was obviously in trouble, tilted way over and out of control. She thought for a moment it was going to make it, but even as she glimpsed the frightened dark face in the cockpit, one of the rotor blades tore into the earth, and the chopper slammed itself into the Rox. It disintegrated and exploded, transforming itself into a rolling blazing hell that left a trail of burning fuel and scattered broken corpses like gory seeds. Then the entire glowing incandescent ball slammed into the makeshift homes near the docks. They went up like tinder, roaring and throwing sparks.
There was no way to tell the nat screams from those of the jumpers, and the burning bodies all looked alike.
… Eavesdropping on Chickenhawk, I could hear him giving Kien the tale about the Egrets' last shipment of rapture, but every time Kien opened his mouth to reply, strange discordant sounds came out: sirens, explosions, an insistent rhythmic pounding. Kien kept talking through the din, waving his hands as if he were really saying something, only now they weren't in Kien's office at all but out in a field somewhere, and helicopters were circling…
Hell! Those are real choppers! Damn, I've been asleep…
Chickenhawk, in his tower perch high above the Rox, rose cautiously to his feet and looked down at the Rox.
Omigod
The shock seared the images into his mind so that I saw them as well. Thunder roared from the jumper side of the docks. An impossible gout of orange and yellow flame tumbled into the dwellings there. The Rox was the set of a war movie, a night battle scene. Two helicopters had landed near the west wing, another in the front court; more were sweeping in from the bay. Flares dripped in the sky, searchlights tore bright holes in the darkness. Chickenhawk could see muzzle flashes and hear the chattering gunfire.
Choppers were landing on the jumper side of the island too… full-scale assault… makes sense. They'd've been told how the jumpers chewed up the cops. Best tactic would be to hit them fast, hard, and with lots of people… fuck, two more choppers coming in from the east… gotta see Bloat, see what he needs me to do…
Chickenhawk launched himself from his roost, but somebody below must have seen the motion and shot at him, for suddenly his thoughts were panicked and strange,… can't move the wing… falling… oh dear God, it hurts… all the wingbones snapped…
He fell most of the way.
Panic leaked like bitter syrup from Blaise's mind. There are too many of them. I can't control them all. It was a spoken thought, and I knew that he was talking to Durg, for I also sensed that odd emptiness that was the Takisian's mind. Blaise's shields had collapsed. His mind was spewing out glimpses of death, of soldiers firing on soldiers, of jumpers lying on a bloody floor, of Durg (my God, could the man really move like that?) flashing through combat like a well-oiled killing machine. Another troopship was landing by the medical building, more soldiers running crouched toward them. What do we do? What do we do?
Blaise was terrified.
Only a bit of Durg's reply filtered through the clamor in Blaise's mind. "… leave while we can… not safe here any longer" Durg was saying.
"To where?" Blaise replied, but then a thought interrupted his question. The image of a seashell flamed in his mind.
Suddenly I could sense resolution. "Kelly!" he shouted at Durg. "Find the bitch. Now!"