heard, we found the dogs we were after. There’s a whole lot of them along with one big papa. Looks like they’re headed for Shreveport, but we’re not about to let that happen. Am I right?”
Despite being a mix of races, nationalities, and gender, all of the soldiers responded with an affirmative bark that made them sound like their own breed of pack animal. Their rifles were held in steady hands and their eyes reflected just the right mixture of aggression and anxiety.
“Standard drill,” Adderson continued. “We land and deploy while the others provide air support and reinforcements if necessary. Our mission is to set explosives and try to draw those things close enough to feel the burn. Our specialists left some of their sniper rounds, but there’s not a lot left.”
“Do we have any specialists on this mission, sir?” one of the soldiers asked.
Even though the extent of the Skinners’ knowledge wasn’t commonly known to the IRD rank and file, their contributions had been large enough for their presence to be immediately felt. There were only a handful of Skinners who’d agreed to ride with the IRD on any mission, and only Cole and Paige could be counted on with any consistency. Still, no matter how much a rifleman knew about what Skinners actually did, they were aware that having them along greatly increased their odds of survival. Adderson had plenty of faith in his men, but a morale boost like that was hard to come by. He felt a regretful pang in his gut when he told them, “No specialists this time around, although I was informed by one of them that there’s a pair of fighter jets in the air that may be able to rain some hell down on these things.”
All of the soldiers nodded slowly as their chins dropped.
“That’s no smoke up your ass,” Adderson assured them. “Backup should be on the way, but we don’t need that. This is just a matter of shooting those Class Twos until they can’t move anymore. Drop one, move on to the next. Repeat as necessary.”
“What about the Class One?” another soldier asked.
“Leave it to the air support and explosives. We can only do so much, but it’s a hell of a lot more than those civvies who’ll be watching the show in Shreveport can do.”
The soldier grunted. “And on every other goddamn news station there is.”
“You’re right about that. So instead of letting those fucking dogs rip them to shreds, let’s give those civilians something to watch!”
The soldiers shouted their approval several times, and before they were finished, Adderson was shouting right along with them.
All three helicopters poured on one last burst of speed to get as far ahead of the Half Breeds as possible. Since they were able to get ahead of the creatures at all, Adderson knew the wolves were either conserving their strength or slowing down on purpose to meet them. Either way, he didn’t like it.
For some, hitting the ground running was just a motivational term. For the IRD, it was a means of staying alive for more than three seconds after being dropped into a hot zone. The helicopter barely touched down before the soldiers streamed out. Adderson was first on the ground, and the instant his boots slapped against the dirt he had his assault rifle in hand and was running toward the other two helicopters that hovered about twenty feet above the swaying brown grass. The remaining soldiers piled out behind him.
The Half Breeds were coming. Their paws made impacts that rumbled through the earth. Their panting breaths formed a current that rolled beneath the wind roaring in from the west. The other two helicopters deployed their men using drop lines, which hung from their doors like weighted tails. As those soldiers were unloaded, the pilots only had to pivot in the air to unleash a stream of fire from the mounted machine guns that poked their muzzles through a modified window. When the first Half Breed leapt up to try and grab it, the NH-90 moved away so it could continue firing. As the drop troops disconnected from their lines and raised their weapons, Adderson and his men opened fire.
All of those weapons formed a singular voice that melded with the thumping chopper blades to create a wave of fury that knocked the first batch of Half Breeds off their feet. None of the IRD soldiers wasted a moment in counting their blessings because the next wave was already upon them.
All three helicopters rose up and fanned out, hovering just above the newly adjusted minimum safe distance to avoid unwanted interruption of flight patterns due to Half Breeds clawing at their fuselage. The belt-fed machine guns pumped round after round into the werewolves farthest from the soldiers so as not to incur any friendly fire. Basically, it amounted to pounding the hell out of the same bunch of dogs until they were paste, which left a whole lot of work to be done.
Adderson knew it helped to think along tactical lines when he was in the mix. He considered a battle from afar even as he was wrapped up in it. That made it easier to go on when his men were knocked over by a gnarled shapeshifter that ripped a previously excited face off of its skull. When Half Breed and IRD lines converged, it was a bloody nightmare. HKs and claws all sent blood into the air. Screams and howls, both human and otherwise, filled his ears.
His focus was narrowed even more when one of those bastards singled him out. It was a long, lanky Half Breed with a face that had already been hit by heavy caliber fire to reveal knots of muscles that were white from the strain of keeping its head together while opening a mouth filled with crooked fangs. He fired in controlled bursts, and when that didn’t drop the shaggy fucker, switched to full auto to force it back before it brought him down.
“Grenade out!” a woman behind him shouted. That was followed by the sharp cracking sound of a rifle-mounted launcher sending its explosive round into a target that was hopefully several yards away.
It wasn’t.
The grenade thumped into the chest of a Half Breed directly behind the one that had taken a run at Adderson. It went off, opening a sizable hole in the creature, but not as sizable as it should have been. He was still having a hard time getting used to how tough those things were. It seemed as if all of weaponry he’d come to know like the back of his hand had been dialed down. For the moment, however, that Half Breed was down, the creatures around it were staggered, and he’d been thrown to the ground in the explosion.
Adderson was dazed and his ears were ringing. While his brain struggled to pull his thoughts together, his legs and arms fought to bring him to his feet. Three Half Breeds tore through two of his men like they were made of jelly and then feasted on their meat. He fired until his gun ran dry, reloaded, and fired some more. Grabbing the radio that was linked to the longer range frequencies powered by equipment in the helicopters, he shouted, “This is Hunting Party One to Lodge. Come in!”
After a few seconds of crackling static, a voice from a command center in Wyoming replied, “This is Lodge. Go ahead Hunting Party One.”
“Where’s our goddamn air strike?”
“F-18s are engaging targets outside of New Orleans, Hunting Party.”
“Gimme an ETA! We’re getting ripped apart and a Class One is set to jump on us!”
“Unknown at this time. F-18s are currently—”
“Explosives are out!”
He didn’t know where the advisory had come from, but Adderson rolled onto his belly and covered his head. A moment later there was a deafening thump followed by a blast wave that jammed his nose into the dirt. Something heavy landed beside him, and he looked to see if it was a Half Breed or another soldier caught in the blast. The Full Blood was neither.
Esteban’s fur was smoking from the explosion. Caught somewhere between forms, he kicked four large paws into the air while rolling onto his side. By the time he got there, he had two legs, two arms, and a vaguely human torso. There was nothing even vaguely human, however, about the face that was turned toward the major. “You are their leader,” he snarled.
Adderson responded to that by propping himself up, taking aim and clamping his finger on the trigger. The AK rattled in his hands while spouting a choppy current of lead into the Full Blood. Esteban placed a hand in front of his face while climbing to his feet. Sections of his coat were singed all the way down to rough patches of skin, and when some of Adderson’s rounds hit him there, they barely left a crease. Every other bullet snagged in his fur or thumped uselessly against his body.
Shifting his gaze toward the soldiers that rushed to Adderson’s side, Esteban said, “Watch.”
“Get clear, Major!” a soldier shouted.
Although Adderson was a hell of a long way from clear, he replied, “Hit him, hit him!”
Automatic fire came, followed by the thump of a grenade against Esteban’s body. The explosive bounced away and went off among the Half Breeds. Fortunately for Adderson, Esteban’s body was tough enough to shield him
