Hammond was covering the far right of the retreat path and would put a fright into the vicious little men, keep them backed off so the rest could make the safety of the high ground. Chaz was to stay to his left to form a moving enfilade and keep the back trail brushed clean and skinnies away from the escape route.
A knot of skinnies was moving forward along the narrow lanes between the huts. They were running to break out of the village. Hammond shouldered the big gun and sent a stream of tracers down toward them. He walked rounds right into the congested knot. The group scattered, leaving a few bodies behind. More small clutches were running forward and emerging from the village at different points, testing their hidden tormentor. He worked the Minimi from one bunch to another, but more than a few were making it into the brush at the bottom of the hill and below his line of fire.
They knew from the trajectory of the tracers where he was and were moving up the hillside to flank him. If they got between him and the rest of his fleeing brothers he’d be no good to anyone. Chaz was right when he warned Hammond that these little fuckers didn’t scare easy or scare for long. His situation was deteriorating fast. Hammond crashed through the scrub to scramble up the hill and get his ass farther above the skinnies and closer along the path of Chaz’s line of withdrawal.
As he moved, he could hear muted hooting from the foliage around him. They were letting each other know their positions and would rush him when they determined they had the edge. This is how they hunted. This is how they brought down the monsters they stalked with nothing more than spears and clubs. But Hammond was a new kind of monster.
He plucked an HE grenade from a vest pouch, pulled the ring, and flung it high to his left and downslope. The canister tinked and tonked through pine boughs and went off with a flat, sudden crack. The woods all around went silent. No more hoots and hollers.
That gave the little shitstains something to ponder.
Hammond moved swiftly uphill to a new position to cover the evac trail. As he did, he could hear renewed voices from below calling out, punctuated by the barking of the dog pack. The skinnies gave up all pretenses at stealth now. It was going to be a chase now pure and simple. Run and gun all the way to the evac zone.
Chaz took a knee beside the trail and waved for the others to pass him. The blast of the grenade echoed up to them through the trees. It was a sign that the skinnies had broken cover and were closing on their ass.
Jimbo and Caroline Tauber climbed past him. Dwayne stopped and looked back.
“How long you been back here?” Dwayne said.
“Long enough to double-time to your position,” Chaz said. “We opened up when we saw them getting ready to filet you.” His eyes scanned the dark woods crowding in on either side of the trail.
“How long back in The Now?”
“A fucking long six days.”
“The field will be closed when we get there,” Dwayne said.
“Probably. We hold the mesa until it opens again.”
“You already thought of that?”
“Because you taught me to, Top.” Chaz spared him a glance. “Stick with Jimbo and the lady. I’m waiting on Lee so I can overlap his fire.”
“Don’t stay too long. We’ll need every gun hand up at the exfil point,” Dwayne said and climbed the slope after Caroline and Jimbo.
“Roger that.”
Chaz looked over his sights into the dense shadows between the tree boles. A bloom of light flashed down to his right, followed by staccato pops. The dark closed in again and a second shimmer gleamed from a new position closer to him. Hammond was closing the distance, firing suppression as he moved. The skinnies were close and working closer, climbing the hill to get above Hammond and encircle him.
Glassing the left side of the trail, Chaz could just make out humped figures moving between shadows a hundred yards down the trail. He kept the sights trained on them. A shushing sound came up through the low hanging boughs down the trail, a rippling movement closing fast on him.
He opened up with his rifle as a pack of dogs exploded into view and ran to close the gap between them and their prey. They ran shoulder to shoulder, haunch to haunch up the narrow trail. The bullets pounded into the rushing mass in a long burst. The dogs’ charge collapsed as a half dozen of them tumbled to the trail.
Chaz stood to eject the magazine and slam in a new one. He scanned the hill as he drew back the action and let it slam home with a clack. Canine body parts littered the trail below him in a mess that sent vapor into the cooling night air. The whimpers of the wounded rose from the brush.
“Chaz!” Hammond called from somewhere below and right.
“Yo!” Chaz called back. “Movin’ to your two o’clock!”
“Contact my ten o’clock!”
Tracers ripped through the trees below him, zipping across the trail in arcing trails of glowing white. They tore into the section of the brush where Chaz last saw movement. Hammond was sweeping the trail. Chaz sent some three-round bursts down and to the left just above where he saw figures humping up the hill. He could hear a bunch crashing through the brush below and moving quickly away downhill. They were discouraged for now. But they’d be back up the trail when it got quiet again.
“Make for Little Rock!” Hammond called when the firing died down.
Little Rock was the formation of boulders that formed the designated one-third mark up the trail through the
