She could taste a bitter tang in her mouth as a yellowish cloud drifted up from below. Caroline turned away to see the bright flash of the tripod-mounted .50 firing, stabbing into the night in long bursts.
“Toss one of these over the drop every twenty seconds,” Dwayne said and pushed a cardboard case of CS grenades into her arms. “And hope the prevailing wind doesn’t shift.”
“Yes,” she said with more confidence than she felt.
“Slow count. Pull the ring and underhand it away from you. Ever play softball?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Just like that. I’ll be right back,” Dwayne said as he moved away. “I have to cover Ricky while he switches that barrel out.”
And she was alone again mouthing, “Twenty…nineteen…”
Standing at the head of the broad slope, Hammond fired directly into a mass of skinnies charging toward the mesa top. Jimbo switched to an M4 and was down on one knee adding his suppression to Hammond’s. The skinnies climbed over the bodies of their tribesmen to throw spears and axes and rocks.
Chaz and Dwayne carried the Ma Deuce while Renzi followed with ammo cases. They were dropping back to a prepared position, earthworks of sand and rock closer to the field area. Chaz held the super-heated barrel shroud wrapped in a shirt, but he could still feel the heat even through his combat gloves.
They set the big .50 on its tripod and Renzi dropped the ammo cases to begin fitting their last new barrel into the weapon. The current barrel was burnt nearly smooth, and if it was left in place any longer, it would swell and no longer be able to be removed.
Renzi worked quickly to pull the spent barrel out and fit in a new one. They needed the power of the Ma Deuce to hold back the tide. Every second it sat silent the skinnies grew bolder.
“Fall back!” Dwayne shouted to the others, and he and Chaz offered cover fire. Jimbo sprinted back as Hammond rolled a pair of baseball grenades packed with HE down the slope. The blasts tossed a clutch of skinnies and body parts high into the sky. He turned to run, and a spear point struck his back and drove him stumbling to his hands and knees. The spear was deflected by Hammond’s body armor, but the hammer shot to his kidneys drove the air from his lungs and made each step agony.
Jimbo was almost to the earthworks and read the dismayed expressions on the faces of his brother Rangers. He turned and ran back to where Hammond was trying to rise with a trio of skinnies almost on him, clubs raised to strike. On the run, Jimbo fired his M4 and took two down with multi-taps to their heads and torsos.
The third skinny fell when Jimbo swung for his head with the butt of the rifle. The buttplate punched a hole in the skinny’s temple, and the wound sprayed blood in a shower. Down the slope, the main attack force was recovering from the most recent grenade blasts. They were moving forward in a stumbling phalanx bristling with spear points.
“Off your ass, Lee!” Jimbo hooked a hand under his arm.
“Left leg’s numb,” Hammond growled.
“Your whole sorry hide is gonna be numb if you don’t hustle!”
Together they hobbled to the earthworks under a crisscrossing skein of tracers from Chaz and Dwayne. They dropped flat when the Ma Deuce lit up again. Hammond and Jimbo hugged the ground and felt the concussive wave and flash of heat wash over them from big .50.
“Get your dicks in the dirt!” Dwayne called out between bursts.
The pair crept on their bellies around the earthworks as the .50 hammered at the screaming gang of skinnies behind them. A mob of howling savages drenched red in the blood of their cousins raced to the mesa top and spread out on the flanks. Spears and stones rained down on the Rangers in increasing numbers. It was a steady barrage now with no sign of letting up. More skinnies hauled themselves over the rocks along the ledge and joined a group swinging out to the right to encircle the emplacement.
“Caroline!” Dwayne stood atop the rough earthwork and fired short bursts at skinnies sprinting hard to cut around them. The flanking hunters swarmed into a cloud of yellow vapor billowing before them. They slowed to a convulsing, gasping rabble on hands and knees and rolling on the ground clawing at their own eyes, vomiting convulsively.
Caroline stumbled from the fog with her t-shirt pulled up over her mouth and nose with one hand. She hugged the M4 to her with the other arm and was stumbling blindly. Dwayne rushed out to catch her as she fell to the grass. He grabbed her by an arm and guided her from the cloud of tear gas to the relative shelter of the earthworks.
“Last can for the Ma Deuce!” Chaz called. He was pulling rings from frags and tossing them as fast as caution would allow into the dark around them. Hammond lay propped against a dirt mound and firing a rifle. Jimbo worked the Minimi now. Renzi crouched to transverse the .50 left and right in short disciplined bursts.
Skinnies crowded onto the mesa, absorbing horrific close-range fire and creeping closer over their dead and dying. Some held the bodies of their cousins as shields.
Stones struck all around the Rangers’ position. The edge of the cloud of C-4 was carried closer to them on the wind, and the stinging gas was beginning to infuse their eyes and mouths.
Dwayne’s M4 clicked empty, and he dropped it to pull a Sig Sauer from his waistband and emptied it at the encroaching mass of hooting skinnies. Despite the hammering they were taking, the horde felt the tide shifting their way. They grew bolder and ran straight into the line of fire to pitch spears over the earthworks.
Caroline sank to her knees as her overheated rifle jammed up, an empty round stove-piped in the
