I get up to my knees. The pain is horrible in my neck. I place my hand to the rear of it, and discover my drug distributor is dangling freely about from its cord that is inserted into my spine. “Isaac, I remember!”
He looks at me in agony and confusion. “I can’t stand! Help! Get us out of here!”
His right foot has been blown apart and the shin badly gored. “Hold on.” I grab snow and rub it against his foot while wrapping a bandage around it. Oh shit, Zero. I drag Isaac to the rear of the carrier. I hear a distinct crack of the rifle she uses. I crawl out and quickly grab the target finder, and see her running my direction away from the front of the ambush.
“God!” Isaac cradles his shredded foot. “Get us out of here man!”
Helicopters appear, zipping about firing missiles at the tree lines.
Maybe.
I peek out and aim the target finder at Zero. She pauses taking a quick shot that zips pass by my hands and knocks down a marine behind me. She then kneels to aim better. I pull the trigger and a spherical beacon flies out near her.
A barrage of missiles fired by a nearby Kiowa little bird redirects itself towards the beacon, and smacks against the snow around her into a bright explosion.
I drop the target finder and pick Isaac up, placing him onto my shoulders, and move for the landing choppers. Blue streaks of Herculean missile fire come crashing down against the convoy. Chunks of trees disintegrate and fly apart into burnt branches and splinters as vehicles and humans are ripped apart.
“I remember everything Isaac! You’re my brother!”
He is weeping deliriously now. “I’m sorry Peter. I left you when you needed me—” he screams.
“Isaac!” We are getting closer to the rescue helicopters. Jets zoom over the frozen forest firing back at Herculean vessels and rebel locations. Hellfire missiles explode against the front of the convoy from descending gunships. I buckle under Isaac’s weight as my leg gives out. I roll off to the side behind a demolished carrier. Isaac is left out in the open. I look over at my thigh—fuck—it’s been hit. I move out for Isaac, but snow flies up around me along shrapnel shards that cut my arms. I retreat back.
“Get out here traitor!” says Herus.
Isaac holds his lower torso where he’s been hit. He wrestles about trying to move. I look around for a gun. To my side is a horribly burned marine, scorched black and stuck into place against the exploded carrier he must have tried to escape. In his grasp is a XM. I grab onto it, his leathery fingers break off as I pull and it burns my hands.
“Fuck!” I pile snow over it hoping it will cool it off.
“Peter!” says Isaac, terrified. “Where’d you go?”
I look over at Isaac from the cover I sit behind, a red burst erupts from his shoulder as he screams louder.
HERUS!
“I’ll kill your rebel bastard friends!” says Herus.
I peek out; Herus stumbles towards me passing marines as he reloads his revolver.
I bring out my XM and aim.
“Don’t shoot me!” says a young kid, cowering in the snow before my rifle and wearing pajamas.
What the hell?
I close my eyes and turn away. I peek back out again but am greeted by Herus’ knee. I fall sideways, my nose broken and its blood splattering the snow. I look back up, in my blurry vision is the kid standing over me—then I feel the steel barrel of the revolver resting against my head. I kick out.
The world is quite, and my earlobe rings in the worst fucking pain I’ve had. I grab them to try and stop the ringing while I rise to my knees. Herus is on his back trying to reach for his revolver he dropped. I grab my XM behind me and collapse on top of Herus with it. The world is still soundless as Herus’ face spits at me with rage. I push the rifle up against his chin, lean to the side to doge the barrel tip, and fire.
I feel the warmth of his exploding face coat mine.
I look about from the ground over Herus’ limp arm as my ears ring. Marines fall from the crossfire and others attempt to find cover to fire back. Most of them run my direction and pass me to reach the landing choppers. I look to the side at Isaac. His body is fighting a seizure, his right arm frisking the air desperately at me. I drag myself towards him.
His mouth moves, making the motions of screaming and talking, but still all I hear is the ringing. I rub more snow on his wounds. I rip his medical pouch off and fumble giving him morphine. I watch my useless hands shake violently before me, repeatedly dropping the syringe into the snow. I grab a passing marine tackling him, and aim the syringe at him then point at Isaac. He crawls over and shoots him in the upper chest. He moves to the side to try and help me raise him next, but he falls over, a gaping hole in his neck squirting blood everywhere. He grabs his neck to try and stop the bleeding, and his other hand grabs tightly on Isaac’s face for support. I try to make him let go. Isaac tussles from the pain, the veins on his forehead about to pop, his wounds gushing more blood as the marine’s grip intensifies. I punch the man in the neck, he lets go of Isaac as he hacks blood onto his own visor.
I am so sorry.
I lift Isaac up around my shoulders, and move with the fleeing marines again.
The sound of chaos starts to come back to my ears.
“I’m sorry Peter, I love you! I love you as my own brother!”
“Hold in there! Okay? We’re gonna make it.”
I fall to my knees from an explosion nearby that causes a horrible sting in my thigh from where I was hit. I glance at it to see the muscle is ripped more. I rise with all my strength swallowing the pain. I have to get us there.
Isaac continues crying. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry! God I am sorry! Please. Please! I love you Peter.” I feel him place something inside my thigh pocket.
“Isaac stay in there, we’re gonna make it! Stay with me, okay!” I am meters away from a chopper. The side gunner lays down suppressive fire and waves me on frantically.
I reach the hull, and slide Isaac onto it as I hop on.
The chopper starts to rise into the air.
“He’s dead!’ says the gunner. “Get him off to make room.’
What? I look at Isaac. His face stuck into a motion of terror as his wounds leak blood onto the hull. “No! He’s fucking fine!”
The helicopter rises as marines attempt to hurry to it. Most of them are shot down by rebel fire, and the rest jump into the air crying for us to land back down.
“Get him off now!” says the gunner. His spent bullet shells bounce off Isaac’s body.
My face is against Isaac’s cheek. “Why? We are leaving anyway.”
He drops the turret and kicks Isaac off the hull before I can react. I lean over, my hands clenching the metal edge as I watch his body fall to the ground on top of the jumping marines. All I remember of him is his terror struck dead face.
The horror of death defeating life.
NO! The horror!
I fall back against the hull. I look at my blue frozen hands, still caring his blood on their fingertips. My heart as numb as them.
Isaac, please, please come back.
XXX
“I’m sorry,” says the gunner. “I had to. I don’t think the General wanted to freight the dead.”
“What?”
“Right behind you, Private,” says a voice. I look up to see Jack, sitting in the corner of the hull. His cowboy hat against his chest, and his hands moving along its edge trying to straighten a crease.
The events of the ambush drifts away from the physical as the rescue helicopters fly us away from the scene, but it remains ever present in my head, in the metaphysical in all of our heads. The hull is covered in blood and gore, dirty snow, and vomit from the other marines that hurdle among themselves, lost—Isaac!