Hanging in There

Limerick was suddenly without his armor or weapon, standing in an empty, quiet passageway. He was in the MSST offices on Zion. No, this couldn't actually be it, they were destroyed almost three years ago. He felt numb. Creaks, groans, and scars he'd accumulated over the intervening time were no longer there. He noticed that all the artificial lights were dark, but everything was lit from behind by some invisible source. He shivered a little as he tasted the mix of salt and sand in the air. He knew this feeling.

"Am I dead?" No response.

His boots made no sound as he walked down the gleaming tile floors of the passageway. All the office doors were blacked out, their labels invisible and their locks dark. The first thing he noticed was the personnel board, which should have shown portraits of the CO, XO, CSC, and all the boat team leaders. Instead, all the spaces were empty, and the only portrait there was his own, in the Assistant Team Leader slot for Boat Three. It was the first time he'd really seen what he looked like in almost three years, and it disconcerted him slightly. The three-quarter smile, the slight twinkle in his green eyes, the gleaming, intricate uniform, all things that had been representative of someone who thought the galaxy was full of potential and was excited to unlock it. That was ever so long ago, though, and he was convinced that none of those things would ever come back.

Besides, wasn't he dead?

He backed away from the personnel board and continued toward the quarterdeck. The quarterdeck had a foyer behind it that branched off into the different office spaces for the MSST. The GCC, CAMF, and Coast Guard flags hung motionless at the back, and to their left was an unusually-overflowing In Memoriam wall. He realized that it now held the portraits of every person on the team, now all dead after the Battle of Zion. He slowly walked toward it, taking in the memories of everyone he knew and lost, and the guilt that he was the only one left. It was then he noticed the empty space at the very end of the bottom row. An open box sat on the floor underneath the space.

It was his own portrait. He slowly picked it up out of the box. It was the same picture as the one on the personnel board, except with a caption engraved in gold.

Timothy J. Limerick, Jr.
LTJG, CAMF-C (KIA)
2230.05.27-2258.10.12

As he read it, he began to hear an almost-imperceptible chatter of static coming from his right, where nothing but yellow light came from the quarterdeck windows. He began to feel his body again, aches coming from nowhere in his back, abdomen, and right leg, especially his right leg. The taste of copper appeared in his mouth.

He realized suddenly that he wasn't dead, but that he had a choice. He could put his picture up on the Wall, and join his teammates in eternity, or he could walk out right now and go back to fighting where he might just have a chance to avenge all these portraits. The chatter of static was getting louder.

He tapped his portrait and placed it gently back in the box, then stood up and ran his hands across the Wall.

"Not today, guys."

He turned to his right, entering the quarterdeck, which was flooded with the featureless yellow light pouring from the windows. The door slid open noiselessly. He squinted against the intense light and the increasing intensity of his feelings.

He had made his choice.

He walked through the door, where he was immediately catapulted into a whirlwind of noise, light, and pain until he was suddenly back in his body.

Dionisio, Redlands, New Queen Maud Land
2258.10.12, 17.29

It took a few moments for him to realize that he was actually upside down, hanging by a cable wrapped tightly and painfully around his right leg. Static hummed inside his helmet. The pain hammered into him, from his back, his abdomen, his leg, everywhere, gradually forcing him into a semi-aware state and his eyes could see again. The blue glow from his HUD mixed with a trail of blood that had ran up his face and collected along the light projector. He let out a long groan and took a look around.

He was inside a building, suspended upside down about six meters from the floor. He could hear crackling fire and smelled smoke, coupled with the amount of damage to his surroundings, he remembered that his dropship had been shot down and crashed into the building. His gear was mostly intact, he couldn't feel any paraffin leaking from the plates, but his chest rig was partially ripped off. All his grenades, his datapad, and his stim kit were gone, but his extra magazines and pistol were still there. Looking down, he could see that his sniper rifle was lying on the floor, covered in dust and shattered concrete, but it looked like it was still in one piece. From all the static, he could tell his COM was at least somewhat functional, so he tried it.

"Umpire, this is Hammer Two-Two, come in, over."

Static.

"Any Hammer callsign, this is Hammer Two-Two, come in, over."

He waited a little longer this time. Still nothing. He coughed. That hurt.

"Any friendly callsign, this is Hammer Two-Two, come in! Over."

Still nothing. He took a long, ragged sigh. It looked like he was alone. He muted his earpiece to end the static. His attention now turned to his leg, around which what looked like a thick electrical or networking cable was wrapped from ankle to thigh. There were parts of it that disappeared underneath his trousers, and parts that were smeared with his blood. He leaned his upper body forward to try to unravel it, but pain shot through his leg and body and he fell back cursing. Okay, that didn't work. He felt for his knife, feeling the handle still sticking from under his right shoulderboard. Even pulling it out somewhat gently hurt. He drew a ragged breath.

Five, four, three, two. . .one!

He reached up with all his might and sliced at the closest length of cable that wasn't attached to his leg, missing it with the first swing and nicking it with the second before the pain made his eyes water. He was now swinging like a pendulum across the room, trying to blink out the dizziness and focus. But just as he willed himself to reach back up and take another swipe at it, the cable creaked, snapped, and he fell the two meters to the ground. He barely had time to tuck his head into his chest before he slammed into the ground with a crunch. His knife found its way underneath his thigh plate, causing him to gasp in pain. His head rolled left and right and his vision darkened as he fought to stay conscious. The taste of copper returned to his mouth and blood sprinkled from it as he exhaled painfully. He put his right glove strap in his mouth to keep from screaming, then slowly pulled the knife out of his leg. He couldn't tell if the wound was that serious or not, but didn't see the gush of blood characteristic of a fatal femoral wound, so that was fine for now.

It was some time before he was finally able to roll over. His rifle was next to his head, and he pulled it toward him. It still felt solid, nothing rattled or gave any notion that it was broken. He found the pistol grip with his other hand and began a tedious crawl to the edge of the floor, where the building's facade had been ripped out by the impact of the dropship. Nothing on the street below except fire and a sea of shattered concrete and glass. Satisfied he was reasonably safe for now, he began crawling toward the far wall of the room, where a doorway and a partially-collapsed portion of the ceiling made a halfway-decent shelter and concealment. His attention now again turned to his leg, which was bleeding quite a bit from several areas, although he was most concerned from where he had stabbed himself. He very gingerly cut off the left sleeve of his jacket from the elbow down, fashioning it into a part-tourniquet, part-dressing that would suffice for now. He gently worked it around his leg and into a knot. Gritting his teeth, he yanked the knot tight, only to black out again almost immediately from the pain.

He didn't hallucinate this time, or at least he didn't think he did. He felt somewhat ashamed of himself, after all, he had survived SEAL training, two years with a SEAL team, the MSST, the fall of Zion, the liberation of Zion, and nearly every battle that TF LIGHTNING ROD had gotten itself into so far, and here he was getting his ass kicked by a cable. . .and his own knife! He took a ragged deep breath and tried to banish the feeling. There were much more important things to think about right now.

Something--either the wreck of the dropship or the building itself--groaned, coaxing dust from the ceiling that spattered on his shoulders and helmet. He knew he couldn't stay here forever, but his mobility was compromised. He turned his COM back on and tried it again.

"Umpire, this is Hammer Two-Two, come in, over."

There was more static, but this time he could hear parts of words and distinct patterns. . .somebody was trying to talk to him.

"Umpire, Hammer Two-Two, be advised, you came in broken and unreadable, say again your last? Over."

The static clattered and clicked, drowning out everything except one word: ". . .over."

"Umpire, say again, over."

"Ha. . .two-two. . .Umpire. . .difficult to read. . .location, status. . ."

His heart started to beat a little faster. He calmed himself. "Roger, Umpire, my bird has gone down in a building in the northeast quadrant of the city. Status of combat team and aircrew are unknown, am wounded and trying to remain invisible. Request medevac on my location, over."

There was some beeping, some clicks, then: "Roger. . .your locator beacon, stay put and alert...will come to you, over."

Well, that was good news. "Roger, Umpire. . .Hammer Two-Two out."

So, he was being rescued, but he had no idea how long that could take. And what if they got shot down? He would definitely be way up shit creek without a paddle. But again, he calmed himself and tried to clear his mind. His ration pack had gone away with wherever his datapad and stim pack had, so he had no food for now. He sighed and pulled his sniper rifle over his knees and wiped the dust off it. If there was ever anything in the CAMF that could be considered perfect, it would be this rifle. On paper, it was essentially a semi-automatic-only conversion of the M11 10mm rifle re-chambered for the .358 Magnum antipersonnel cartridge, but in reality, it was far better than that. The sixty-six-centimeter barrel allowed it to hit a needle in a haystack over and over at two thousand meters, and many good snipers had easily made shots at over 3500 meters. And with the suppressor combined with the manual-bolt firing mode, one could hear a pin drop while it fired. He had heard of a bet going on between the competition shooters and the SEAL trainers to see who could make a shot at over four thousand meters.

His thoughts were interrupted by voices and footsteps. The footfalls were heavy, and the voices were the odd, almost-mechanical mix of English and German the Aryan shock troopers spoke in. Uh-oh. He tightened his grip on the rifle and thumbed the safety off. Depending on how many there were, he could probably hold his own against even a decent trooper squad, especially one that probably wasn't expecting him to be there. But at the same time, he knew they would probably have heartbeat sensors and they had to be looking for survivors. He inched himself toward the doorway, which was probably the darkest part of the room, and aimed his rifle at the entrance.
The voices and footsteps got closer, closer, closer. . .until a single Aryan trooper entered the room Limerick was in. He briefly swept the room with the muzzle of his rifle, then relaxed. Judging by the rank insignia on his black uniform, he wasn't very high-ranking, maybe a corporal or a sergeant. He whispered something outside the door in German, then three more entered the room. Two of them carried the enormous automatic grenade launcher and an ammo can. It was a machine-gun crew. Limerick kept his weapon traimed on them. He could start trying to drop them one by one, but all of them had submachine guns and it would be easy for them to simply turn around and douse the room with fire and he wouldn't stand a chance.

Suddenly, his COM clicked three times. The rescue team was close, and they wanted a status update. Limerick clicked back twice, then four times in rapid succession, signalling that he was still alive, but there were four hostiles in the room. The COM clicked back once, then twice rapidly. Hold on.

He barely had time to think about anything before there was a loud thump on the same level as Limerick and the Aryan gun crew were. They set their weapon down where they were and rushed out to meet whatever new threat was there. It wasn't long before he heard the distinct clatter of suppressed weapons and the thump of bodies hitting the floor. The CAMF footsteps he now heard were much quieter and more urgent. He saw a silenced pistol attached to an arm poke through the door, followed by the huge man the arm was attached to. Limerick almost breathed a sigh of relief, then he saw the fourth Aryan trooper lunge from the shadows with a bayonet.

Without thinking, Limerick snapped the rifle to his shoulder and sighted in, which was probably unnecessary as there was no way he could miss with this rifle if he was in the same room as the target. He aligned the reticle with the trooper's chest and squeezed the trigger. The bolt snapped back and the recoil dissipated into his shoulder. Instantly, the trooper was spun round 180 degrees and dropped to the floor dead. Limerick's rescuer looked back at the now-dead trooper, then back to the source of the fire. Limerick sat there, the silencer on his rifle pouring smoke.

"Nice of you to show up."