Time/Date Error (Damned of the 2/19th-Book Six) - Done

The Motor Pool

...crap..

"That isn't good, Ant," Westlin said, kneeling next to me in her full battle rattle. Her Kevlar vest was open and blood was dripping from her punctured shirt onto the snow.

I shook my head. "No, it ain't," I panted.

It was already bad out here. If that low pressure was too far, anyone without O2 outside was going to get killed. It wasn't as bad as NEO, you wouldn't vomit up your lungs, but the low pressure would lead to all kinds of nasty things. I'd heard of a couple of Ranger guys who got nitrogen poisoning, and we'd all heard about that French Special Forces dude who had suffered an embolism from getting caught out in a severe banding.

It was coming fast, too. Well, fast for weather fronts moving. Probably twenty or thirty miles and hour.

I saw lightning flash in the upthrusting cloud section and swore softly to myself.

...we gotta get out of here before the mountain slaughters us...

"Heads up, Ant," Westlin burbled.

A quick sweep of the terrain in front of me showed that their search party was getting closer, following the disturbed snow from where I had ran through it. The wind was picking up, and everyone needed to get the fuck indoors before we all ended up dead.

Westlin laughed at that thought.

It took a moment for me to get the old M-14 set properly against my shoulder, the padding of the weather gear messing me up slightly. The wooden stock gleamed softly in the moonlight, the oil I'd rubbed into the wood to keep it weatherized sparkling in the moonlight. I'd used rank enamel on the front and rear sight, which made it easier to line up the target at the rear of their little pack.

They had chemlights, were about two hundred yards out, and the lead four had flashlights.

The trigger went back smoothly, the rifle rode up, and dropped back down.

They hadn't noticed that the guy at the back had gone down in a heap. They knew I was shooting at him, but thought I was missing.

Two more shots, two more down, before they realized that I was actually hitting them. That froze them up, as they were already wading mid-thigh deep in snow, so none of them wanted to go down prone. Two were shooting off to my right, two were looking around, but one had his M-16 up to his shoulder and looking in my direction.

He was looking for me so he could return fire effectively.

I showed him where I was by shooting him in the face.

Goddamn it felt good to have a real rifle in my hands. The M-16 had always annoyed the living shit out of me. I'd hunted since I was twelve, could routinely hit a running rabbit with a .22 for a hundred paces out, and was a patient hunter.

With an M-16 I couldn't shoot my own goddamn foot off.

They were down to four of them. Jesus, it was a goddamn slaughter. They were all dumb as hell. It was like hunting turkeys.

...stop waxing philisophical and kill the enemy, you goddamn brain damaged Washington State hill billy sheep fucking donkey licking retard...

Chief Henley's voice snapped me out of my drifting. I was sighted in on another guy who was made shapeless by his cold weather gear.

So I shot him through the stomach.

One let loose with an entire magazine, spraying it off to my right. Another threw his rifle to the side and turned around, slogging through the snow back toward the Chow Hall. The last one ran toward me, but off to my right, and I could hear his screams carrying thinly through the low pressure air.