“Alright!” He shouted, “Let’s move! Double time people! Spotters, keep your eyes peeled! We don’t want to walk into an ambush here! Let’s go!”
“She’s coming down, Stan!”
Marion turned to glare at the man who had a grip on his shoulder, the screaming of the words barely penetrating his sealed helmet despite the fact that they were practically touching. He wrenched his arm from the grip of his friend and turned back to where he was jamming the titanium prybar into the wreckage holding a young uniformed man down.
The arm was on his shoulder again, but this time Marion turned around and shoved the man back, not even able to see who it was through the thick black smoke. His infrared HUD gave him the general shape of the figure, even through the thickest of the lung clogging soot, carbon, and chemical fumes but not the numbers painted on the side of the helmet.
He assumed that it was Joey Smithson, since Joey had been right behind him when they finally busted into the warped side of the chopper’s fuselage, but he couldn’t be sure. Still, even know that it was one of his friends, one of his men, one of his comrades, he shoved the man back and pointed to the door.
He didn’t speak, didn’t bother with the wasted breath. The other man wouldn’t hear him, but he would see the gesture.
Get the hell out.
That was what it said, and then Stanley Marion turned back to his task and put his back into the bar. There was no more grip on his shoulder, no one trying to pull him out, but after a moment passed the figure returned to his side and wordlessly threw his own weight into the effort. Together they grunted and groaned as the bar gave only slowly, while the world around them burned, collapsed, and fell.
When the weight pinning the man down gave, it gave quickly, almost throwing them to the ground as it toppled clear. They had to scramble fast to avoid being the next people pinned by that hardened mass of what was probably once a very expensive electronics system, but they focused on their jobs the instant that threat was past and turned to the man who had not moved as the weight was lifted from him.
He was still alive, the heartbeat sensors in their helmets told them that as they listened in on that very specific low frequency that the human heart would beat at. Alive, but not well in the least. His limbs were crushed in places, his chest didn’t look much better, and without much more time than they had they couldn’t tell if his spine was intact.
Given that, they assumed the worst and treated him appropriately. Folded pieces of plastic, compressed into a package no larger than a tv remote control slid from their pockets and were quickly unfolded and snapped together. These braces were locked around his legs, arms, and neck to keep the body as immobile as possible, then both men took the man by his shoulder and begun to drag him out.
Behind them the thick smoke soon obscured the wreckage of the helicopter as the building around them creaked and groaned dangerously, occasional loud crashes signifying that the structure was collapsing under the strain. The stairs were still intact, and their rescuee’s legs thumped as they took the steps two at a shot.
They broke out into the open, clear of the choking smoke, and the light came back into their world as if someone flipped on a switch. Marion glanced to his side, recognizing the number seven on Joey’s helmet and smiled as they were joined by four others. The other firefighters grabbed their arms, propping them up as they let the heat get to them finally and their legs began to wobble. Two others immediately lifted the fallen man carefully, and they all made their way back to the trucks.
Stanley Marion popped the seals on his clamshell helmet, letting the expensive piece of electronic machinery hit the ground with a bounce as he looked around.
“Did we get everyone! Did anyone see any others in there!”
Men shook their heads, looking around.
“Is everyone out,” Marion called next, trying to do a headcount at a glance. “Are we missing anyone”
The men checked each other, looking for missing faces, and after a moment a voice spoke up.
“Hey.where’s Tom”
Marion looked around, grabbing men and pushing them out of his way. “Tom! Tom! Sing out!”
After a few moments, there was no response.
Marion looked to the burning building, the blood draining from his face, and then he whipped around and slammed his fist into the side of the fire truck.
“Bleedin Hell!” He shouted as the sound of fist on metal rang out, then immediately bent to pick up the open clamshell of his helmet.
“Are you nuts, Mary!” Joey snapped, grabbing his arm as he fitted the helmet back over his head. “You can’t be going back in there!”
He shook loose, snarling as he cleared his hair from the seal, “I’m not leaving anybody in there, Joey!”
“Damn it, Mary, listen to me.!”
The seals clicked shut as Marion flipped up the gasket around his throat and pushed through the yelling crowd, only barely able to hear the roar of their voices as they grabbed at him only to be rebuffed forcefully as he bulled on through.
“Firefighters.”
The man lowered his imager, a bemused look on his face. “What do we do about firefighters”
The second man, over his shoulder, shrugged and lifted his radio to his face. “Don’t know. I’ll call it in.”
“You do that.”
“Rakheen to base.”
The reply crackled back quickly, a little distorted by the powerful jammers they had in place.
“This is base. Go ahead.”
“We have a group of Firefighters in sight, base. Orders”
“What are they doing”
The man with the radio let the device droop a little as he shot the piece of electronics an incredulous look.
“Fighting fires, Base.” He replied, trying to keep his tone from sounding too sarcastic.
There was a brief pause.
“Are their military people present”
The man with the radio looked over to his partner and shrugged questioningly.
“I don’t think so.” The second man said, shrugging back.
“Check.”
“Alright,” the first man said, lifting the imager to his eyes. He scanned the scene again, noting the people present, and began looking closer at the uniforms. After a moment he turned back, “Looks like they’re rescuing soldiers from the crash.”
The second man nodded, lifting the radio again, “Base, the firefighters are rescuing downed soldiers from one of the choppers.”
Another brief pause crackled then, and finally the voice came back.
“Kill them.”
Marion didn’t hear the snap whine that passed only feet from his head, his helmet hiding the evil sound from him, but the others around him did. The firefighters had heard that sound before, normally only in training, the sound of projectiles cutting the air around them after an explosion.
There had been no explosion this time, but the meaty smack that followed the whizzing sound was more shocking in its way. They fell back from their attempts to stop their Captain’s forward motion, some dropping automatically to the ground in instinct as they looked around.
One man didn’t move, not for a long moment. He stood, frozen in shock, a pained look on his face, until finally pitching forward.
Then the moment of paralysis lifted, and men yelled and moved.
“Scott!!”
Three men dove for the fallen man, turning him over quickly, only to fall away in repulsed shock as the flow of blood poured out of the small hole in his uniform. The flame retardant material was also water proofed, so the blood seemed to bead and flow away from the material instead of soaking into it like normal cloth, but it stuck to the bare hands of the men who tried to stem the flow of it from his chest.