Skinnies were now close enough to fling spears up over the mesa edge to land harmlessly on the rocks behind the Rangers. Stones followed and began to clatter all around them. That meant the kids were here and adding to the barrage. Chaz pulled rings from frag grenades and sent them over the edge in underhanded tosses, one following the other.
“Fire in the hole!” he called a half-second before the grenades went off in a close series of thuds that sent a dense cloud of dust drifting over the mesa. The stones falling around them abated but didn’t stop entirely. Chaz was struck by rocks dropping on him and pulled the case of grenades farther from the ledge.
The attackers weren’t backing down. This wasn’t a feint or recon in force. It was a full-on assault—a forlorn hope. The skinnies had never been in a real set-piece battle much beyond a momentary fracas with a neighboring tribe, over before it got started. They knew fuck-all about reserves or tactics. They were treating this like a hunt, and on a hunt, you went all in every time. This rush was their whole strategy. Bring down the prey or die trying.
Caroline fought down her own fear to ignore the sounds away to her left and keep her eyes focused on the length of rocky ledge Dwayne assigned her. She was watching for climbers. She wondered if he really expected her to guard their flank or was finding a kinder way to keep her away from the fighting and out of harm. She also wondered if all his confidence was just a mask for the harder truth. Maybe they were doomed. Maybe they would die here in this strange place so many ages before their births.
Dense shadows were projected from the rocks and brush each time the flares were launched. The shadows imitated movement and made her jumpy. Jumpier, anyway. The M4 atop her stacked-tote redoubt was supported on a bipod mounted at the end of the barrel. She checked again that the selection lever was set to semi-auto. Her hand was slick with sweat and pained her from clenching her hand on the grip. She willed herself to relax, breathe in through her nose and out through her mouth like at her yoga class.
A flicker along the ledge. A sideways movement of light like a crab scuttling back and forth. It was joined by another. She focused through the NOD scopes to try and determine what she was seeing.
They were hands on the ledge, hands of a climber fluttering for purchase then pulling himself up. A head came level with the ledge and then another. A scowling face, ghostly white, was staring right at her. She jerked the trigger and the M4 bucked back, the shot going high. She stood up and lowered the barrel. More figures rose up over the ledge and crouched on the rocks to look for the source of the sudden noise, to look for her.
She leaned into the rifle and pulled the trigger three more times. Gouts of sand kicked up in front of the growing group of hunched figures.
“Chill out,” she hissed to herself and lined the ring sight up on the lead aborigine who was drawing a flint ax from where it was tucked in a belt tied about his waist. He looked left and right for his attacker. She squeezed slow and even. The round took the aborigine in the thigh and knocked him sprawling. The rest spread out to run out over the mesa top in her general direction. Two of them were running straight for her position. The others were lost to sight either side.
She ignored a spear that whisked past her. She pumped more rounds at the group and another fell back, but the rest moved toward her at a steady pace, mouths working and eyes wide. They had her located and directed their attack to her position.
A hand slammed into her back and knocked her to the ground. The NOD harness flew from her head.
“Stay down!” Dwayne shouted. “Fire in the hole!”
A ping and metallic click followed by a blast that shook the earth under her and warmed the air above her. Dirt rained down on them both. Dwayne’s weight was off her and he stood, firing the M4 on full auto.
“Little help!” he called, and she remembered she was part of this fight, not observing it. She found her rifle and sent round after round into the dark, no idea where the attackers were or if her rounds were finding targets.
Dwayne walked toward the ledge swinging his rifle back and forth and firing deliberate shots. He was moving toward the danger, not away. She ran to catch up with him. Being close to this big man, so calm in the face of the horror springing up all around, was her haven.
Together they walked and fired all the way to the ledge of rock at the lip of the mesa. She was firing blind and hoping to hit or at least scare something, he was choosing his targets and bringing them down as they either attacked or ran away. She saw the bodies of aborigines, some of them children, lying dead as they moved past. She felt nothing. She caused their deaths and felt not the slightest pang of remorse. Perhaps later, she would.
At the ledge, Dwayne drove his heel into the face of a skinny levering himself up onto the rocks. That sent the red-painted figure screaming down into the dark. Caroline walked rounds down the rocks along the edge to discourage other climbers. Dwayne pulled rings on three canister grenades and dropped them over the ledge one after the other.
“Cover your mouth,” he said and ushered her
